ERLINDA AMALIYAH PUTRI

2021-A / 218820300101
ENGLISH LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA

DEFINITION OF DRAMA
 The term drama is used at the following three different levels :
1. Performance is defined as action that are performed for audiences.
Performance elements include acting, speaking, and non verbal expression.
2. Composition is the physical arrangement of actor; characters in a ground
plan. The director helps arrange actors in a series of still shots a full stage
production would require several hundred that allows an audience to sense
and feel basic forces.
3. Branch of Literature, has only three specific and main branches that is poetry,
prose, and drama.
- Poetry is characterized by a greater focus on language and rhythm and
less of a focus on narrative. Poetry is often far more abstract than prose
and has more emphasis on the aesthetic qualities of the language.
- Prose is typically presented in the form of novels, novellas or short
stories. This type of literature is characterized by ordinary syntax
contained in complete sentences, as opposed to poetry, which often
features rhythmic structure contained in separate lines rather than
sentences.
- Drama is literature represented through performance. Though written in
text, it’s intended to be performed by actors on the stage. Due to its
performance-based nature, drama is more reliant on dialogue than other
forms of literature.

 Imitation means the act of copying somebody or something. It is an act of

copying the ways somebody talks and behaves, especially to entertain. In
literature, imitation is used to describe a realistic portrayal of life, a reproduction
of natural objects and actions.
 Impersonation means imitating the mannerisms of another person. personation.
acting, performing, playacting, playing the performance of a part or role in a
drama.
 Re-presentation is to give or show something again. In drama, the artist may
have been inspired by a particular action and decides to re-produce it or re-
represent it on stage.
 Re-enactment is the action of performing a new version of an old event, usually
in a theatrical performance.
THE FUNCTION OF DRAMA
 To entertain, the drama is the way of entertainment for our society.
 To inform, improve our sense of aesthetics and our ability to understand people
and life situations.
 To educate, as a learning for our life so that to have a purpose.

ELEMENTS OF DRAMA
 Imitation means the act of copying somebody or something. It is an act of
copying the ways somebody talks and behaves, especially to entertain. In
literature, imitation is used to describe a realistic portrayal of life, a reproduction
of natural objects and actions.
 Plot, this is what happens in the play. Plot refers to the action; the basic storyline
of the play.
 Action, the action is presented in concrete form as the actors present the story to
the audience for entertainment and education.
 Dialogue, Dialogue is the conversation of two or more people as represented in
writing, especially play, novels, short stories, and narrative poems (Morner and
Rausch, 1998:55). Dialogue is important in forwarding the action, developing the
characters, and intensifying a sense of reality and immediacy.

DRAMATIC TECHNIQUE
 Characterization is the act of changing voice, body language, movement, gesture
when in role.
 Other dramatic technique
- Planting that is used to present the action of the play. It is the use of
certain props to give more information about some characters, the
environment or situations.
- Deus ex machina in Latin means “a god from the machine” it describes the
technique used by some playwrights to end their plays with a god who
was lowered to the stage by a mechanical apparatus and, by his judgment
and commands, solved the problems of the human characters.
- Play-within-play is a play that is created in another play. Usually, it is a
complete play with a beginning, middle and an end. It has its own theme
which in many cases is related to the theme of the main play. It is created
for a particular purpose.
- Setting is the location of a play. It is the time and place when and where
the action of the play takes place. Setting is very important in a play
because it helps us to appreciate the background of the play.
DRAMATIC CONVENSION
 Prologue a preface or introduction to a literary work. In a dramatic work, the
term describes a speech, often in verse, addressed to the audience by one or
more of the actors at the opening of a play.
 Epilogue is the conclusion or final part that serves typically to round out or
complete the design of the work.
 An interlude in a play is a short piece of entertainment that is presented.
between the acts or major scenes in a play.
 Aside is a dramatic convention in which a character speaks to himself or makes a
comment in the presence of another character. However, that other character is
not expected to hear the comment but the audience hears it.
 Soliloquy, a solo speech by an actor that gives an insight into what they are
thinking.
 Dramatic illusion because what is presented is not reality but an illusion of
reality. Dramatic illusion involves a willing suspension of disbelief.
 The fourth wall refers to the fourth wall of the room that is pulled down for the
audience to watch the play.
 Chorus/narrator, the use of chorus is a dramatic convention that was adopted by
playwrights, especially in the Classical Age, to comment on the events of the play.
 Structure especially in written a play, is a dramatic convention on the
organization of the play. Most classical plays are presented in acts and scenes.
 The three unities Classical plays are expected to treat one serious action but later
in the sixteenth centuries, dramatic critics in Italy and France added to
Aristotle’s recommendation of unity of action, two other unites to constitute the
rules of drama known as “the three unites.” It became a dramatic convention
then. They contended that for the dramatist to achieve an illusion of reality, the
action presented in a play should “approximate” the actual conditions of life
being represented in the play.

DRAMATIC GENRES
 Tragedy, they are used to describe personal misfortunes that do not concern the
rest of the society. Tragedy is the most esteemed of all the dramatic genres. It has
attracted many definitions and rules, from the days of Aristotle, who is the first
person to write on the circumstances of and what tragedy should be, to the
present day.
 Comedy to describe something that is funny in our everyday lives. These include
a joke, or a fantastic story that is full of nonsense, or an absurd appearance that
makes us giggle, smile or laugh. Comedy is not inherent in things or people but
the way things/people are perceived. Comedy is a deliberate presentation of
events/experiences drawn from real life but not the same with real life. We
should therefore not expect dramatic comedy to be the same as real life.
 Tragy-comedy is a serious play that ends on a sad note, while comedy ends
happily. In traditional tragedy, playwrights are not allowed to bring in any comic
action.
 Melodrama is coined from melo (music) and dran (drama). It is, therefore, a play
that utilizes music extensively. But the utilization of music is not the only factor
in melodrama, what really makes it melodrama is its portrayal of the protagonist
and the antagonist.