What is the importance of drama in English literature?

What is the importance of drama in English literature?

 

The word ‘’drama’’ is derived from the Greek word ‘’Drau’’ which means ‘’to show’’ or’’ to draw’’. It is defined as:

‘’An exciting emotional and unexpected series of events or set of circumstances.’’

Drama is the best genre to express human feelings. It is a literary composition involving conflict, action, and atmosphere designed to be acted by players on the stage before the audience. It is an old methodology of teaching and preaching ideas. There are two kinds of drama

• Open drama
• close drama

Open drama:

open drama is a type of drama that is written to perform on the stage for a purpose.

Close drama:

Close drama is a type of drama that is written to enjoy for reading. With time, it has become a very powerful medium of almost all issues of psychological, emotional, moral, intellectual, and social problems.

examples of drama:









Importance of drama in education:

drama has great importance in education. Thus, we can say that drama makes learning more realistic and meaningful. Teaching drama in the classroom requires considerable skills. It motivates the learner to express and think of new ideas by acting variety of roles. The people better learn the social norms and various behavior of language through it. ‘’Fernandez’’ has stated that:

‘’drama encourages students to exercise their sensitivity and imagination.’’



5 elements of drama in literature

There are some important elements of drama that teachers will teach the student:

• Plot
• Characterization
• Setting
• Themes
• Dialogues

Plot:

 Plot means the logical arrangements of events and incidents in a logical sequence. Aristotle calls it:



‘’The life and soul of tragedy.’'

What is the importance of drama in English literature?




There are two kinds of plot

• Main plot
• Subplot 

A playwright should not indulge himself in many subplots. A good plot is that which gives birth to conflict and then arise certain condition. The end of the play is the result of those conflicts which appeared at the beginning .
2. Characterization:


It involves those characters who are taking part in a drama there are two types of characters:

• Flat characters
• Round characters

In flat characters, characters remain unchanged from beginning to end. It means that they cannot bring any twist and turn in the play, whereas round characters are dynamic and are the cause of rising and falling in the play. the characters must be appropriate to the situation.

3.Setting:

The playwright must give a vivid description of the setting of the play. The playwright has three main ways of his setting;

• First, the dressing, dialogues, and behavior of the characters show the setting.
• Second, we learn about setting from the sets produced by the set designer.
• Third, the performance tells us about the setting of the play.

4.Themes:

Choice of the theme is a trial of the expertise of the dramatist. The most community used themes are;

• Love
• Hatred
• Revenge
• Lust

For tragedy, some controversial or spiritual issue is chosen as a central theme. The drama teacher must give the concept of theme to the students.

5.Dialogues:

The dramatist conveys his thought and ideas through the dialogues of the characters. Dialogues deal directly with characterization. The dialogues must be suitable to the situation. While teaching drama the teacher must guide the students to get meanings through dialogues.



Famous drama in English literature:

there are many famous dramas in English literature which are as follows;

• Shakespeare's Hamlet
• Sophocles' Oedipus Rex
• Arthur Millers' Death of a Salesman
• Eugene O'Neill's long day's journey into Night

6 Forms of drama in literature:

The study of drama should be stated with the introduction of the forms of drama. The most important forms of drama are as under:

• Tragedy
• Comedy
• Melodrama
• Farce
• Masquerade

tragic-comedy

1. Tragedy:

Tragedy is a major form of drama. which deals with serious aspects of life. Its present man is blundering blindly towards an unhappy end. It has a well-knit plot and theme.

To the Greek, it meant:

‘’ the destruction of some noble person through fate. ‘’

2. Comedy:

Comedy deals with a light aspect of life and aims at evoking air laughter. In it, through fortune may be unkind for a while, all comes right in the end comedy maybe classical or romantic.

3. Melodrama:

Melodrama is a sensational dramatic piece with crud appeal to emotions unusually happy ending. It pays little attention to human values and its object is to give a thrill instead of a laugh.

4. Farce:

When comedy involves ridiculous or hilarious complications without human values, it becomes a farce. Farce aims to create boisterous laughter by the use of absurd characters, situations, and dialogues.

5. Masquerade:

These were the plays in which the authors wear masks and did much singing and dancing. They were usually allegorical and mythical. Rhymed verses were used in them.

6. Tragic-comedy:

It is a half tragedy and half comedy. Both the comic and the tragic elements are mingled harmoniously in it. It is a play with a double ending. For example,

‘’the ending is happy for some characters and unhappy for others.’’

Final thought:

At the end of the topic, we can say that teaching drama requires a proficient teacher. These teachers should be encouraged to write their own stories and enact them. One of the greatest advantages to be gained from the use of drama is that students become more confident in their use of English by experiencing the language in operation.