 And this lecture is titled Western Classical Theory of Drama and we have divided it into two distinct parts. In the first part, we will examine Aristotle's Poetics in which he had tried to present the nature of artistic literary forms and also the laws that govern them at that time. The term poetry in that sense is used to refer to artistic, aesthetic, use of language for expressive purpose. So, we will examine this, these very fundamental concepts and ideas from Aristotle. And in the second part, we will look at three contemporary explorations of Aristotle and Aristotleian positions in a fiction manual, in a drama manual and in a manual devoted to drama and computer science. It is really interesting to note that in a recent study, David Morley, while talking about creative writing today, he started with this statement. He pointed out, creative writing stale begins in Athens with Aristotle 384 to 322 B.C. It originates before that because Aristotle's Poetics is an account of creative practices accepted and used for years and is no more than a fragment of knowledge he gathered for study. And if you recollect, we had started this module with an understanding of performative forms in pre-writing cultures, civilizations and historical stages. It is important to note that Aristotle gives us an understanding of the post-literacy phase in human culture. Here of course, as Morley points out, this is based on work that already had been completed, achieved and in that sense, what it refers to is the pervasive presence of this form in the western culture. We have also noted earlier that performative forms exist in every culture, it is almost co-existent with the human condition. Morley goes on to point out that Aristotle's Poetics is a pedagogical mega-virus and he goes on to point out that his teaching transmitted and mutated itself into later centuries by circuitous geographical roots and several translations through language, space and time. And be interestingly, the first authentic version is in Arabic. He goes on to say, time traveling, the Aristotelian mind made itself felt in the work of many writers and their critics. So, it is this Aristotelian mind that we are interested in exploring, it is a mind I suppose which shows inclination towards mapping the literary territory that has its own limitations and strengths because once literary regimentation occurs, then creativity may slip out. So, that is why the Aristotelian mind is a very important, very powerful presence but at the same time you will realize gradually that Aristotelian ideas have been critiqued but without Aristotelian framework, it is very difficult to talk about many, many aspects of creative writing and the creative literary mind. So, therefore, let us also look at some of the translations that are available. Before I begin to talk about the ideas as such, let us look at the translations, there are just so many of them and let us see what we have here for you. In terms of these translations, we notice that they are nuanced in a sort of different way. For example, we of course do not know how the Arabic translation unfolded but certainly in Boucher's translation of Aristotle's Poetics which was published in 1902, there is definitely primacy of the term poetry and in that sense it is close to Aristotelian traditional framework and the way the terminology was used at that point in time and poetry was the key term that Aristotle seems to have used. However, in a more recent translation by Potts, fiction is the key word and that is quite surprising but in some ways even in the title Potts has used the term fiction in translating Poetics. But I think what we do have to reckon with is the fact that the translator reflects the preoccupations of his or her times and in that sense there are favorite literary forms in different points of time and perhaps it is not a very big surprise if Potts used the term fiction although the term fiction also needs to be examined because it has a kind of fluid presence. But certainly we can keep that in mind because you may read different translations and get different kind of flavor. For example, if you were to compare and contrast Boucher and Potts for the same sort of starting point of Aristotle's Poetics, you will notice that Boucher has a very different way of articulating the main ideas and Potts is more fluid and I think he takes a few liberties also. So let us see by way of this comparison before we come to the ideas and structure of ideas which we will examine in greater detail. But this introduction also gives you a sense of the vocation of the artist as to what does the poet do and also a sense of variety of literary forms that and not only literary forms but literary and performative forms that Aristotle was trying to understand plays and map. So let us look at Boucher's translation first and this is how it reads. I propose to treat of poetry in itself and of its various kinds. So poetry in itself and of its various kinds noting the essential quality of each to inquire into the structure of the plot as requisite to a good poem into the number and nature of the parts of which a poem is composed and similarly into whatever else falls within the same inquiry. So this is what Boucher has pointed out. Now more or less I mean in fact the same part but that has been translated in a very different way. It feels easier to read the second translation. It is closer to our times but I think the certain liberties have been taken here. So Potts for the same part this is what how he translates it. Let us talk of the art of poetry as a whole and its different species with the particular force of each of them how the fables must be put together. Now this is a new idea how the fables must be put together if the poetry must be well formed also what are its elements and their different qualities and all other matters pertaining to the subject. So I think the key difference is that the word essential qualities has not been used by Potts instead he talks about the particular force of each literary form and also how the fables must be put together and if you would notice you will also see that the title of his translation also is distinctly different. This is the title page of the book and this is how the translation is presented Aristotle on the art of fiction the Poetics and you know one would feel a bit surprised because fiction now we associate with the novel form. But as I said fiction has been a fluid term and it may be useful at this point to go back to Raymond Williams and see how he has explained the changing destiny of this term in English. This is what Raymond Williams had pointed out in keywords he said that fiction has the interesting double sense of a kind of imaginative literature. So it can replace the term poetry in that sense because it refers to imaginative literature. So it could be poetry and in that sense it is an extension of a general term or can be an extension of a general term and I think that is what Potts has done and this is what we find in many of the manuals subsequently. So the term fiction to go back to Raymond Williams it has the double sense of imaginative literature and of pure sometimes deliberately deceptive invention and these senses have been in the English word from a very early period. The major development of the literary sense from the 18th century so the term dramatic fiction and then works of fiction it was in the 19th century that the term became synonymous with novels. So in some ways for our own purpose and our onward or our future discussions of short story novel etcetera we would have to keep this changing fluid nature of the term fiction in mind and see how each of the author or thinker that we are discussing how that person uses this term. So the Potts translation really quite actively uses the term fiction in his generalized sense as opposed to the generalized sense of the term poetry. Now let us go on to look at the way the structure of the ideas unfolds in Aristotle. I would read this statement from Potts and then I would begin to summarize the ideas as clearly as possible so that you are able to use them later on more critically. After he points out to begin in the proper order at the beginning the making of epics and of tragedies and also comedy and the art of the dithyrem and most flute and liar art all have this in common that they are imitations. Now this is an important part of Aristotelian point of view that the art forms they imitated reality, but I think it would it was not a mechanistic point of view they also he also indicated how it is the artist who you know modifies that a mimatic activity in order to present his or her point of view also. As he says here, but they differ from one another in three aspects the different kinds of medium in which they imitate the different objects they imitate and the different manner in which they imitate. So each one has a very different mode of imitation also we would not go into this because I think we would right away move towards the definition of tragedy and comedy and more drama oriented discussion, but I think it is very important to remember that it has wider ramifications we will not be able to discuss epic or the dithyrem or the flute and liar art at this point in time. According to Aristotel you know the two forms of drama that he identified and in fact he polarized these forms these were tragedy and comedy. Tragedy as you may already know was considered by Aristotel as high art and comedy was considered low art. It is very important to remember that Aristotel was mapping the territory as it existed in his times and the times that he reflects are quite futile and also there is a very strong sense of the social order. There is a strong sense of homogeneity also and therefore tragedy has all the attributes that are associated with the great and mighty characters and people of that time. But interestingly enough it is not an act of eulogy it is an attempt to find the limitations of their destiny their limitations of their human condition. So there are these paradoxical elements on the one hand this sense of finality with which he considered tragedy as high art and comedy as low art. This does reflect the value system of his period but on the other hand it continues to offer us very powerful insights into the failures of the great you know personages or characters or protagonists of that period. So according to Aristotel let us see what he has to say about tragedy. Tragedy that is an art form a kind of drama which is labeled as tragedy is the imitation of an action to show not tell. Now this is again a very important phrase which later on many of the practitioners of creative writing used as a mantra almost. If you remember earlier we had discussed some of the recent studies of creative writing in American academy and we also noticed that this show do not tell was almost a key element of all the teaching work that was done in some of the early phases of American creative writing schools. But this comes from Aristotel in some ways so tragedy which is a form of drama is the imitation of an action to show not tell what may happen given a set of circumstances. So in a way what he is talking about is the fact that a playwright chooses certain situations. So it is not mechanistic blind act of imitation very significant aspects of the life of the character or the protagonist or other characters are chosen because they crystallize some important aspect of that social framework. They also in a sense then reflect the rest of the social framework it does not isolate the protagonist in a very significant way. But it is through action the action that unfold what is chosen are these are actions what the protagonist did. So there is great deal of emphasis on what can be described as the external pattern of behavior. But he goes on to say that it is the function of the poet to relate what may happen what is possible according to the law of probability or necessity. This very clearly shows a very deep sense of the artistic vocation here because the poet and as I said the term poet or the term poetry is used in his generalized sense although it is also true that Greek drama especially high art was constructed in poetic format. But certainly he is also talking about the playwright. So all the literary artists so it is the function of this playwright or the literary artist to also consider the probabilities of certain actions that would unfold. In other words it is an imaginative act it is an inventive act when characters are presented in a play. It is not a direct reflection of what has happened actually in life it is an act of interpretation. So there is that very clear sense of the artistic vocation and also a lot of value associated with this act of artistic interpretation and representation. It is pointed out and now I am shifting to a website which is a teaching website and the reason I refer to this teaching website is to help you you know dip into these websites to read better. But much of the material that we are quoting is free from copyright constraints and therefore I think we are in a good position so far as this material is concerned and quotations from this material. But basically what Aristotle went on to say is related to the medium of tragedy which is drama and not narrative. He also felt that tragedy deals with universal concerns and this I want to explain in terms of what Albert Commune had said while writing Caligula and other plays in that anthology that we discussed I think in the first lecture. He felt that for him the Greek tragedy was the sort of model that he wanted to emulate and that is because he felt that Greek tragedy dealt with human destiny and in his plays Commune wanted to deal with a sense of human destiny. So, there would be a certain sense of magnitude he felt if he followed the Greek model of tragedy and he had also considered this as a limitation all because in his own fiction he was much more experimental. However, I think it rings a bell here because when Aristotle points out that tragedy deals with the universal he is trying to sort of indicate that you know it is the protagonist and the downfall of the protagonist is also linked to certain facets of the of human nature which cut across classes and nations that is how I read it. You know when he talks about the significance of tragedy I think it is this democratic sentiment that is dominant in Aristotle's mind. He also goes on to say therefore tragedy arouses not only pity but also fear because the audience can envision themselves within this cause and effect chain. And this was again a quite deliberate intention of tragedy to evoke pity and terror in the mind and heart of the audience. After this you know Aristotle went on to you know map the structure of tragedy and one of the key elements in Aristotle and also a controversial element is related to the primacy attached to the notion of plot. And many critics have pointed out that may be related to the fact that great Greek tragedy actually also dealt with actions external action what the protagonist did and not so much on the internal life of the characters. But definitely what he had to say about plot continues to evoke many many ideas and also sense of possibility because it gives a kind of weight to artistic activity that you know continues to hold our attention today. So according to him plot is the first principle the most important feature of tragedy. For tragedy is an imitation not of men but of an action and of life and life consists in action its end is a mode of action not a quality. Now character determines men's qualities but it is by their actions that they are happy or the reverse. So this is the controversial you know point of view where character is not given as much importance as plot which means the causal external set of situations which govern the actions of the protagonist and those related to the protagonist. The most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy is parapetia or reversal of the situation and recognition scenes are parts of the plot the strategy is the imitation of an action. Now this again to me is a very very powerful idea where he says that the most powerful elements of emotional interest in tragedy is reversal of the situation. In other words when we look at the structure later on of the plot the Greek plot and later on the Shakespearean plot we notice that it is the sort of changing situation or you know that really is the key element of the power of tragedy that is initially a situation is chosen which crystallizes powerful sense of crisis a kind of crisis that either the protagonist or his society is facing. And then subsequently a point is reached where there is confrontation with these antagonistic forces and the protagonist changes his or her point of view and it is this transformation which then holds the you know key to how the issue is resolved. This element of transformation that is shown within the plot of a tragedy I think that is again an extremely important and vigorous part of artistic activity whether we look at drama fiction or poetry but in drama in particular it has had some very interesting ramifications. Again the sense of plot it is very important because later on you will realize that in many of the manuals of creative writing these ideas are taught and debated and even if you are a writer who wants to retain his or her spontaneity the fact still remains that you would have to sort of distance yourself from your writing in order to see whether what whatever you want to articulate it reaches the reader or not. And also in terms of your own internal process plot is not a mechanistic device it is a way of finding a structure and a core to your own very spontaneous desire to write. So in other words I hope you would not look at this terminology as something that belongs to books in the library I think these are still operative terms and they are being used and explored so stay with this with certain amount of patience because many of these ancient retises they somehow begin to create a distance between the young reader and the book or the young reader and his or her desire to write. So according to Aristotle plot must be a whole with the beginning a middle and an end this should be the sense of completeness and also this should be this unity of action should be structurally contained and poet or playwright must show his or her invention through skillful handling of traditional material. The plot must also have certain magnitude this I have already explained to you that the situation of crisis that is chosen or an experience that holds the attention of the writer is chosen with a sense that it has tremendous value for the author or the playwright. And again plots can be simple or complex this we need not worry about at this point but what he has to say about character has really led to a lot of disagreement that character has a second place in importance and I think we will leave this here right now or if you want we can just quickly look at this statement in a perfect tragedy character will support plot that is personal motivation will be intricately connected parts of the cause and effect chain of actions producing pity and fear in the audience. So here I think it sort of redeems that position by sort of suggesting that they would be very close connection between the cause and effect chain of actions and also the characters personal motivation. I think one would have to read specific text in order to see how even for Greek tragedy this works out it may not work out so very completely. In the ideal tragedy claims Aristotle the protagonist will mistakenly bring about his own downfall not because he is sinful or morally weak but because he does not know enough. There are other elements that we will only touch on briefly the other elements of tragedy are related to diction thought song or melody and spectacle but what he has to say about spectacle I do want to mention this quite categorically and I hope it would not be seen as an offensive remark because many of these performance arts festivals that one witnesses they seem like spectacles and this is what Aristotle has to say and I think one needs to heed this spectacle is the last element he points out and it is more dependent on production of spectacular effects by the art of the stage machinist then on the art of the poet. So, it is more like an external device rather than something that comes from the inner vision of the poet something that one can apply to one's own theatre practice and also evaluate if this has relevance. The end of tragedy according to Aristotle is catharsis which means purgation cleansing of the tragic emotions of pity and fear. So, in other words there was this total sense of the performative form and that Aristotle displays right from the point of the playwright to the performance to the language of the performance the script and also the audience reaction. And catharsis is again highly debated concept but the idea is that in the Greek audience definitely this was an operative notion where after watching Greek tragedy the audience felt a deep sense of release a steric release but also in some ways certain kind of spiritual come democratic release in terms of the basic democratic nature of existence. It may be useful to point out that whatever he said about tragedy in terms of his structure by and large he said about comedy but he definitely considered it inferior action and within the dramatic genres he said comedy imitates inferior action and the proper object of comic imitation is however not every sort of fault but the ridiculous which is a species of the ugly and the comic action should also contain a proper beginning middle and end. Right at the outset let me point out that this division of tragedy and comedy was dismissed by modern writers right from Ibsen onwards and you see a different blend of the tragic and the comic later on and therefore we are definitely not recommending this kind of polarization which is almost based on class differences between the notion of tragedy and comedy but what we are looking at are ideas about the creative potential of different forms and now we would also try and see how there are these contemporary interpretations of Aristotle specially in terms of manuals for creative writing I mean this is what we are interested in and so instead of looking at critical assessment or reassessment of Aristotle what we are interested are the manuals so that you can also utilize them in a proper manner for writing practice. So, I suppose you can also begin to see which of the ideas from these are the manuals three manuals are very you know invigorating for you the first study that we have selected is John Gardner's The Art of Fiction which was published in 1984 this book is designed to teach the serious beginning writer the art of fiction again the term fiction here of course it refers to novel it also refers to the short story but in a sense conceptually I think Gardner uses it in a fluid sense and it is it also refers to the imaginative literature and in that sense to fiction to drama poetry and other art forms because those are the examples he has used without looking at the distinctive nature of those forms. The book is divided into two parts part one deals with the general theory of fiction and the required craft and part two deals specifically with writing techniques and exercises and we will introduce them to you later on you know while we discuss the short story in particular so I do want to point out that I think it is the limitation of this book that it quotes number of plays classical modern but not postmodern though but at the same time he does not account for the distinctive nature of those forms and he recommends those plays as if they are meant for only reading. In terms of short story he looks at the whole range bow and fiction also in terms of the novel form he looks at whatever classical examples are available in terms of the short story and then for fiction he goes into modern and postmodern both but the postmodern is missing completely so far so far as drama is concerned. So what he has done is rather interesting because he has problematized Aristotle's theory of energy that is the actual actualization of the potential which exists in character and situation so the sense of the plot and sense of the character with the artistic intent of trying to explore the potential of that situation so he feels that this particular model is totally rejected by artists like Edgar Allan Poe especially Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amanthelado it completely broke away from this sense of very neat structure of a plot with a beginning middle and end and according to him what Edgar Allan Poe did in The Cask of Amanthelado was to actually start with the end with no beginning or middle and what this did was to open up the ground of experimentation or ground for experimentation and he places Kafka's novella the metamorphosis within that same frame of reference in order to show how imaginative inventiveness governed these experiments and not just the desire for experimentation but a deep preoccupation with the times. In other words he also points out that the locus of this artistic impulse in Kafka and Edgar Allan Poe comes from the internal situations of the character rather than the sense of external action which is what the Aristotelian model is all about. I thought it may be useful at this point to read a bit from these three examples to show you how they differ in tone and tenor. For example The Cask of Amanthelado it starts with a kind of a monologue where the protagonist he describes and actually this is in flashback so he describes a very unfortunate sort of end to his friendship and also the act of revenge that he decided to take on his friend it's a horrible horrifying story but this is how it starts. The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could and this is the name of the friend Fortunato but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge you who so well know the nature of my soul will not suppose however that I gave utterance to a threat. So it starts with how he actually kills his friend in a very very brutal manner and it's a whole monologue about this failed relationship between the two friends and it purely gives the internal sense of how the protagonist viewed this failed relationship and carried deep humiliation that he suffered in this relationship. So this comes from very internal personal perceptions and has this has no great magnitude of the kind that Aristotle wanted from tragedy at all. The second piece that actually Kafka is so very famous for and there are just many many translations this particular translation it's not the one that Gardner quoted I have a different translation but again here you will see a very different sense of the surreal which comes from the inner feelings of the character and then the plot therefore becomes subsidiary the plot is not energetic that is it does not really propel you from the point of the beginning to a middle and to an end there is no clear cut resolution in this. One morning as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armor hard back and saw as he lifted his head up a little his brown arged abdomen divided up into rigid bow like sections and so on and so forth. So again it is a very surreal piece and it is steeped in the consciousness of this particular character and of course it may have ramifications so far as the external world and is oppressive pressure on the protagonist but there is no clear cut sense of external action here. So in that sense what Gardner has done is to pick up not drama but short stories and he has pointed out that this notion of a forward moving plot doesn't really apply anymore and he goes on to point out that Aristotle's leading of plot is influenced by Greek tragedies such as Sophocles' Edipus the king which starts with an external situation a plague in Thebes and the king's dark history as yet unknown to him and then he also goes on to point out that if plot is no longer important which is the case as he has pointed out from Edgar Allen Poe onwards why should fiction have profluence our sense as we read that we are getting somewhere. So what he is actually doing is to use Aristotelian concept of plot and character but at the same time he is kind of rejecting the importance of a certain kind of plot that Aristotle had recommended but at the same time without Aristotelian reference this argument doesn't go forward because I think it may apply to certain traditional forms or certain forms that still uphold the classical pattern although they are located in the modern period. For example Camus' desire to write Caligula in the way Greek tragedies are written that is also modernist attempt. So it is not to suggest that Aristotelian ideas are completely defunct but it is very important to understand your own consciousness as you write in order to see whether you really have a sense of clarity with which you want to write and develop your plot and character or you want to discover your character. You want to discover it and then gradually let the innate sense of what you have discovered allow that to help you work out the plot which may not be the classical Aristotelian plot. Now in order to again point out how Oedipus is different and Sophocles was Aristotle's favorite playwright let me just read out a few lines from this great play where Oedipus is the protagonist and in the early part the exchanges between him and the priest the action takes place in Thebes in front of the royal palace. The main doors are directly facing the audience. There are altars beside the doors a crowd of citizens carrying branches decorated with laurel garlands and wool and led by the priest has gathered in front of the altars with some people sitting on the altar steps Oedipus enters to the palace doors and this is what he says my children latest generation born from kadmus why are you sitting here with read sticks in supplication to me while the city fills with incense chants and cries of pain and he goes on like this and then the priest and I am only reading parts of it the priest says for our city as you yourself can see is badly shaken she cannot raise her head above the depths of so much surging death disease infects fruit blossoms in our land disease infects our herds of grazing cattle makes women in labor lose their children and deadly pestilence that fiery God swoops down to blast the city emptying the house of kadmus and fills black haze with groans and howls these children and myself now sit here by your home not because we think you are equal to the gods we judge you the first of men in what happens in this life and in our interactions with the gods so in one shot the priest again is very democratic he doesn't think of edipus as the god but he is also sort of interested in finding a solution to the plague and of course the plague becomes linked to the actions of edipus as a person who has failed miserably without knowing that he had broken some very basic social rules so this is how that tragedy unfolds even the tenor of the tragedy also because it is a performative activity is very very different but Gardner clubs all of this together in order to locate the spirit and notion of plot and character in terms of a crucial artistic activity so I think one can still learn a lot from Gardner's exercises which we will take up later on I think the most redeeming part of Gardner's manual for me is this statement here he says fiction is a kind of play governed by moment by moment authentication born out of the dream-like quality of the writer's imagination in other words he realizes that there are very few rules that govern the artistic process but at the same time you know this play does require certain structure certain structure in order to become an act of communication the second book that we are interested in evaluating or briefly responding to is the art of dramatic writing and its subtitle is its basis in the creative interpretation of human motives written by Agri published in 1946 this particular book is considered a path breaking manual for teaching playwriting I have been looking for playwriting manuals and I was really quite dissatisfied till I chanced on this book as I said I have been looking for material for this course and for you in this video course so I have been looking at many recent studies and some of the forgotten old gems also this particular study is not a forgotten study but at the same time one gets the impression that it has not really received due attention in terms of creative writing practice in the West where they all you know they choose fiction centric books most of the time but this does form the basis this manual does form the basis for writing for television in fact there is a chapter devoted to television in this book but also later on for cinema studies this book has been used and also for teaching fiction but without actually accounting for the actual original ideas that is my impression as a briefly refer to only chapter 6 later on we will discuss many other ideas from this book and this is interestingly enough title plot or character so this book deals with playwriting and Aristotle also while talking about tragedy and comedies with drama where you show and don't tell but here again the question looms large plot or character which and he points out very clearly that Aristotle made a basic error in pointing out that character is subsidiary to action and also he pointed out that perhaps one could look at this notion of character in terms of its significance while looking at a quotation from William Archer but before that I think very clearly I think this study is based on modernist sense of individualism also and the sort of new sense of the self that the modern period allowed for human beings to explore there are lots of complicated reasons here but he points out that Aristotle made this basic error and also he places another idea about character by way of his open-ended quality by quoting Archer he says to reproduce character can neither be acquired nor regulated by theoretical considerations and at the same time the Aristotelian viewpoint regarding the structure and spirit of writing is explored not only in this manuals but in many other important manuals so character remains a much more dominant idea because actually the individual is up against lot of adverse and new fast changing situations and right from the modern times onwards the character becomes a very very gripping aspect of literary creativity finally we would end this session with reference to Brinda Laurel's computers as theatre and it is more by way of giving an assignment to our science and technology students I myself can't claim that I understand computers so well but what Laurel has again done is to build on Aristotle's analysis of the form and structure of drama and its relevance for human computer interaction especially with reference to designing games and she says when we look toward what is known about the nature of interaction why not turn to those who manage it best to those from the world of drama of stage of the theatre and she goes on to use another study of Aristotelian plot structure from Freitag the German novelist and playwright who developed this very structural approach to Aristotle by working out this pattern on Horace actually with Aristotle promoted the three act division of a play whereas Freitag talks about the five act division but definitely this structural approach we right now don't want to really go into it very much but it talks about the incentive moment the complication rising action the climax crisis reversal and then the denouement or falling action and the end or resolution of a play so it gives the totality of this artistic upheaval and also the you know sense of how in creative acts we try to capture the amorphous problematic and open-ended quality of life and temporarily through these activities we are able to give a sense of clarity and therefore I think what we would do is to also point out that Laurel doesn't stay with only the Freitag model she goes on to recognize that contemporary versions of Freitag's triangle are more irregular and jagged reflecting the differing patterns of complication and resolution and finally what we feel is this desire to problematize this interface issue whether drama can be clubbed with video games because drama is other centric as 6u has pointed out and it has plurality presence participation potential for transformation whereas as a sort of non-expert of computer science and computer internet related activities I feel that the video games and virtual reality is person centric and may perform a limited cathartic or transformatory function this is to provoke discussion and I hope you would undertake subsequent exercises and examine the ideas that we have presented before you and bring some clarity to our own understanding which may be a traditionalist print oriented understanding and so drama may be relevant for the interface between humans and computers I would like to find that out and if I my students respond to this idea and this study I will report back their findings to you or they will come and speak to you themselves so that's how we would like to end this session do enjoy it think about it and dip into some of the work if you can by reading one or two books in greater detail thank you very much.