Drama and its genres. Characteristic features of drama as a literary genre

Features of studying dramatic works

1. Drama as a kind of literature. Signs and features of the dramatic kind.

Drama is one of the three types of literature, along with epic and lyric poetry, and belongs simultaneously to two types of art: literature and theater.

Drama denotes one of the dramatic genres. Drama is meant for the stage. The means of creating images are stage means. Main features of the drama: 1 Reproduces events external to the author (closeness to the epic).

2 dialogical.

3 objectivity.

4 masters the action

Dramatic action is a person’s emotionally volitional reactions. Drama imitates action through action rather than story (Aristotle).

5 Drama is characterized by acute conflict situations in which the characters reveal their characters. Drama was formed in ancient Greece, in Athens, in the works of Sophocles, Aristophanes, Aeschylus and others. There was a breakdown in social relations and public consciousness. A form was needed that would quickly master social conflicts. Dramatic works, like epic works, recreate series of events, the actions of people and their relationships. The playwright is subject to the law of developing action. But there is no detailed narrative-descriptive image in the drama. Accordingly, the author’s speech here is auxiliary and episodic. These are lists of characters (sometimes accompanied by a brief description), an indication of the time and place of action, and stage directions. All this is a side text of the dramatic project. The main text is a chain of statements by characters, their remarks, and monologues. Hence some limited possibilities of drama. A writer-playwright uses only part of the visual means that are available for creating a novel, epic, story, story. => the character of the characters is revealed in drama with less freedom and completeness than in epic. But the author of a play has significant advantages over the creators of stories and novels. One moment depicted in the drama is closely adjacent to the next one. The time of the events being reproduced throughout the stage episode is not compressed or stretched. Life here speaks as if on its own behalf: between what is depicted and the reader there is no intermediary narrator. Drama is oriented to the demands of the stage. And theater is a mass art. It is not surprising that drama gravitates toward an externally effective presentation of what is depicted. Her imagery is hyperbolic and catchy. And this property of stage art invariably leaves its mark on the behavior of the characters.

The basis of drama is action. Unlike the epic, where the action is described as having happened in the past, the action in the drama unfolds in the present time, takes place directly before the eyes of the viewer, characterized by activity, continuity, purposefulness, and compactness. In other words, the drama reproduces the action itself performed by the heroes, and does not tell about this action. The action is shown through the conflict that lies at the center of the dramatic work, which determines all the structural elements of the dramatic action (in particular, the composition of the play is subject to the disclosure of the conflict). Inextricably linked with each other, dramatic action and conflict are the main features of drama as a literary genre. The development of action and conflict is manifested in the plot organization of the work. In a classical drama there is no breadth and diversity of plot, as in an epic work. In a dramatic plot, only key, milestone events in the development of action and conflict are concentrated. In dramatic works, the plot is characterized by tension and rapid development, and greater nakedness of the conflict. A dramatic conflict, reflecting specific historical and universal contradictions, revealing the essence of time, social relations, is embodied in the behavior and actions of the characters, and, above all, in dialogues, monologues, and remarks. Dialogue in drama is the main means of developing action and conflict and the main way of depicting characters (the most important functions of dramatic dialogue). (In prose, dialogue is combined with the author's speech.) It reveals the external and internal life of the characters: their views, interests, life position and feelings, experiences, moods. In other words, the word in drama, being capacious, precise, expressive, emotionally rich, a word-action, is capable of conveying the full characteristics of the characters. A form of speech characterization of characters in a drama is also a monologue - the speech of the character addressed to himself or to others, but, unlike dialogue, does not depend on response remarks. In prose, the monologue does not play the most important role, but it predominates in the lyrics. In a drama, a monologue reveals the ideals, beliefs of the characters, their spiritual life, and the complexity of their character.

2. Methods and techniques for working on a dramatic work

At the initial stage of studying a dramatic work, simultaneously with the clarification of the main conflict, students first become acquainted with the characters, with the role they play in the struggle. One can raise the question of their groupings. The path to clarifying the main conflict is also paved by establishing the boundaries of the play - where it began and how it ended, which helps to clarify the overall view of the play.

Great attention is paid to the class's appeal to the time covered by the play. The time of the viewer and the time of action of the play seem to be combined, but days, weeks, even years pass between the phenomena.

For example, the action of "Woe from Wit" covers the time from morning to evening, although in the theater it is compressed to several hours. Two weeks pass between the III and 1U actions of “The Thunderstorm”. Students should be taught that in drama it is not only what happens in the action itself that is important between the actions.

For analysis in the classroom, the teacher must select supporting phenomena that determine the development of the action. We must not forget the explanation of unclear words; and historical and theatrical commentary, pre-select what to read for yourself, and when to turn on the player.

Methods and techniques for working on drama are varied.

1. “Point of view from the audience”, focus on visual perception. Schoolchildren should imagine themselves mentally seeing the play; for this purpose, it is useful to use fragments of memories of performances.

2. It is important to encourage students to IMAGINE what is happening on stage for this purpose to suggest the situation: “Imagine, you are sitting on stage” (before the start of Act 1 of “The Thunderstorm”).

Answer: the wide expanses of the Trans-Volga region, the expanses of the Volga, which make Kuligin exclaim: the view is extraordinary, the beauty - the soul rejoices!” or “How do you imagine the mayor at the moment when he enters Khlestakov’s room?”

Another technique that encourages students to penetrate the text of the play is the creation of imaginary mise-en-scenes, i.e. Schoolchildren are asked to think about how they would position the characters at a certain moment of the action, to imagine their positions, gestures, and movements.

For example, before the start of Act IV “At the Lower Depths,” Gorky indicates where and in what position each of the characters is at the moment when the curtain opens. But as the action develops, the location of the characters on stage changes; in what cases, why and how does this happen? Map out these scenes."

The core of work on each act is consistent observation of the development of the action, the internal logic of this development in a given act. Students' observation of the development of action should be inseparable from insight into the characters of the characters. This is facilitated by the following questions: “Tikhon and Varvara address Kabanikha as “you,” and Katerina as “you.” Why?

When analyzing drama, the subject of constant attention is speech character, its originality, since the character’s character, his social face, and state of mind are revealed by speech. By listening, for example, to how Katerina talks about her life to her mother, we will be able to judge her. “I lived... like a bird in the wild... everything here seems to have come from captivity.” We understand how good she felt, how she watered the flowers, how fondly she remembers all this. In her speech there are many words and expressions associated with religious ideas and everyday life: temples, praying, angels, she smells of cypress, because she grew up in a patriarchal family, she cannot be anything else.

The way speech sounds plays a big role in who it is addressed to. The speech of the Governor sounds different when he addresses Lyapkin-Tyapkin, Strawberry, or Khlopov.

We must remember that the selection of words and their sound - intonation is directly related to SUBTEXT. To reveal the subtext means to reveal the essence of the play, the relationship between the reasons for the character’s actions and their external manifestation. If students are taught to understand subtext, then we are raising a good reader and viewer.

We should not forget that when analyzing a play, the speech of the characters, as well as the authors’ remarks, the playbill and the remark to it are of great importance (students often miss this when reading). For this purpose, the following tasks are important: give a remark for the actors following the example of Gogol does this in “The Inspector General” or “What does the stage direction say in the second act of “The Thunderstorm” in the scene of Katerina’s farewell to her husband.”

Expressive reading is of great importance when working on a play. In this case, the student moves from the position of a spectator to the position of a performer.

The author and his attitude to what is happening is the main question facing the study of any work. In a dramatic work, the author's position is more hidden than in works of other types. For this purpose, the teacher has to: draw the attention of students to the comments made by the author for the actors and invite them to think about how the writer relates to his characters? Or he suggests answering the question: “How does Ostrovsky force the viewer watching act 3 to justify Katerina?”

In the process of analyzing the observations obtained, the teacher must generalize for this purpose important summative questions, such as: “What have we learned about life county town? How did the city officials appear before us? What is the nature of the measures taken in Gorodnichy? or “What do the characters of Dikoy and Kabanikha have in common, and what are their differences? Why is a conflict between Katerina and the world of Kabanova inevitable?”

At the final lessons, the questions that the students were looking for answers to in the process of analyzing the drama arise in a generalized form.

The final lesson, in fact, begins with work on the last action of the play, when the conflict is resolved and the author-playwright, as it were, sums up. For this purpose, expressive reading by students is of particular importance: this is a test of the depth of their understanding of the characters of the characters.

Reading by role also shows the degree of students' understanding of a dramatic work. A teacher can approach the distribution of roles in different ways. Homework for such a lesson can be a written or oral description of the character whose role the student will play.

At the final classes there are competitions for reciters of individual scenes, stage history of the drama, viewing of the film adaptation, and discussion of it.

Questions of literary theory

In connection with the study of drama, the student must master a number of theoretical and literary concepts. A number of them should be included in the active vocabulary of schoolchildren: act, action, phenomenon, monologue, dialogue, list of characters, remarks. As students penetrate into drama, the vocabulary of schoolchildren is replenished: conflict, plot, exposition, plot, climax, denouement, genres: comedy, drama, tragedy.; play, performance. A performance is not an illustration in a play, but a new work of art created by the theater, interpreting the playwright’s plays in its own way.

Drama is a literary genre (along with epic and lyric poetry), which involves the creation art world for stage implementation in a play. Like the epic, it reproduces the objective world, that is, people, things, natural phenomena.

CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES

1. Drama is the most ancient type of literature; its main difference from others comes from the same antiquity - syncretism, when different types arts are united in one thing (syncretism of ancient creativity - in the unity of artistic content and magic, mythology, morality).

2. Dramatic works are conventional.

Pushkin said: “Of all types of writings, the most improbable are dramatic ones.”

3. At the heart of drama is conflict, an event enacted by action. The plot is formed by events and people's actions.

4. Specifics of drama as literary kind consists in a special organization of artistic speech: unlike epic, there is no narration in drama and the direct speech of the heroes, their dialogues and monologues acquires paramount importance.

Drama is not only verbal (replicas “to the side”), but also staged, so the speech of the characters (dialogues, monologues) is important. Even in ancient tragedy, choirs played an important role (singing the author’s opinion), and in the classics this role was played by reasoners.

“You cannot be a playwright without having eloquence” (Diderot).

“The characters in a good play should speak in aphorisms. This tradition has been going on for a long time” (M. Gorky).

5. As a rule, a dramatic work involves stage effects and speed of action.

6. Special dramatic character: unusual (conscious intentions, formed thoughts), established character, as opposed to epic.

7. Dramatic works are small in volume.

Bunin remarked about this: “You have to compress thoughts into precise forms. But this is so exciting!”

8. The drama creates the illusion of the complete absence of the author. From the author's speech in the drama, only stage directions remain - brief indications by the author of the place and time of action, facial expressions, intonation, etc.

9. The behavior of the characters is theatrical. They don’t behave like that in life, and they don’t talk like that.

Let us remember the unnaturalness of Sobakevich’s wife: “Feodulia Ivanovna asked to sit down, also saying: “Please!” and making a movement of her head, like actresses representing queens. Then she sat down on the sofa, covered herself with her merino scarf and no longer moved either her eye or her eyebrow, not even a nose."

TRADITIONAL SCHEME OF THE PLOT OF ANY DRAMATIC WORK: EXPOSITION - presentation of the heroes; TIE - collision; ACTION DEVELOPMENT - a set of scenes, development of an idea; CLIMAX - the apogee of the conflict; DENOUNCATION.

The dramatic genre of literature has three main genres: tragedy, comedy and drama in the narrow sense of the word, but it also has such genres as vaudeville, melodrama, and tragicomedy.

Tragedy (Greek tragoidia, lit. - goat song) - “a dramatic genre based on the tragic collision of heroic characters, its tragic outcome and filled with pathos...”

The tragedy depicts reality as a clot of internal contradictions; it reveals the conflicts of reality in an extremely tense form. This is a dramatic work, which is based on an irreconcilable conflict in life, leading to the suffering and death of the hero. Thus, in a collision with the world of crimes, lies and hypocrisy, the bearer of advanced humanistic ideals, the Danish prince Hamlet, the hero of the tragedy of the same name by William Shakespeare, tragically dies. In the struggle waged by tragic heroes, the heroic traits of human character are revealed with great completeness.

The tragedy genre has long story. It arose from religious cult rituals and was a stage performance of a myth. With the advent of the theater, tragedy emerged as an independent genre of dramatic art. The creators of tragedies were ancient Greek playwrights of the 5th century. BC e. Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, who left perfect examples of it. They reflected the tragic clash of the traditions of the tribal system with the new social order. These conflicts were perceived and depicted by playwrights primarily using mythological material. The hero of an ancient tragedy found himself drawn into an insoluble conflict either by the will of an imperious rock (fate) or by the will of the gods. Thus, the hero of Aeschylus’s tragedy “Prometheus Bound” suffers because he violated the will of Zeus when he gave fire to people and taught them crafts. In Sophocles' tragedy "Oedipus the King" the hero is doomed to be a parricide and to marry his own mother. Ancient tragedy usually included five acts and was structured in compliance with the “three unities” - place, time, action. Tragedies were written in verse and were distinguished by lofty speech; its hero was a “lofty hero.”

Comedy, like tragedy, originated in Ancient Greece. The “father” of comedy is considered to be the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes (V-IV centuries BC). In his works, he ridiculed the greed, bloodthirstiness and immorality of the Athenian aristocracy, and advocated for a peaceful patriarchal life (“Horsemen”, “Clouds”, “Lysistrata”, “Frogs”).

In Russia, folk comedy has existed for a long time. An outstanding comedian of the Russian Enlightenment was D.N. Fonvizin. His comedy “The Minor” mercilessly ridiculed the “wild lordship” that reigns in the Prostakov family. Wrote comedies I.A. Krylov (“Lesson for Daughters,” “Fashion Shop”), ridiculing the admiration for foreigners.

In the 19th century examples of satirical, social realistic comedy are created by A.S. Griboyedov (“Woe from Wit”), N.V. Gogol (“The Inspector General”), A.N. Ostrovsky (“Profitable place”, “Our people - we will be numbered”, etc.). Continuing the traditions of N. Gogol, A. Sukhovo-Kobylin in his trilogy (“The Wedding of Krechinsky”, “The Affair”, “The Death of Tarelkin”) showed how the bureaucracy “relaxed” the whole of Russia, bringing it troubles comparable to the damage caused by the Tatars. the Mongol yoke and the invasion of Napoleon. Famous are the comedies of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (“The Death of Pazukhin”) and A.N. Tolstoy (“Fruits of Enlightenment”), which in some ways approached tragedy (they contain elements of tragicomedy).

Tragicomedy abandons the moral absolute of comedy and tragedy. The attitude that underlies it is associated with a sense of the relativity of existing life criteria. Overestimation of moral principles leads to uncertainty and even abandonment of them; subjective and objective principles are blurred; a unclear understanding of reality can cause interest in it or complete indifference and even recognition of the illogicality of the world. The tragicomic attitude dominates in them at turning points in history, although the tragicomic principle was already present in the dramaturgy of Euripides (“Alcestis”, “Ion”).

Drama is a play with an acute conflict, which, unlike the tragic, is not so sublime, more mundane, ordinary and one way or another resolvable. The specificity of the drama lies, firstly, in the fact that it is based on modern, and not on ancient material, and secondly, the drama affirms a new hero who has rebelled against his fate and circumstances. The difference between drama and tragedy is the essence of conflict: conflicts tragic plan are insoluble, because their resolution does not depend on the personal will of a person. The tragic hero finds himself in a tragic situation involuntarily, and not because of a mistake he made. Dramatic conflicts, unlike tragic ones, are not insurmountable. They are based on the clash of characters with forces, principles, traditions that oppose them from the outside. If the hero of a drama dies, then his death is largely an act of voluntary decision, and not the result of a tragically hopeless situation. Thus, Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” by A. Ostrovsky, acutely worried that she has violated religious and moral norms, not being able to live in the oppressive environment of the Kabanovs’ house, rushes into the Volga. Such a denouement was not mandatory; The obstacles to the rapprochement between Katerina and Boris cannot be considered insurmountable: the heroine’s rebellion could have ended differently.

Dramatic works are organized by the characters' statements. According to Gorky, “the play requires that each acting unit be characterized in word and deed independently, without prompting from the author” (50, 596). There is no detailed narrative-descriptive image here. The actual author's speech, with the help of which what is depicted is characterized from the outside, is auxiliary and episodic in drama. These are the name of the play, its genre subtitle, an indication of the place and time of action, a list of characters, sometimes

accompanied by their brief summative characteristics, preceding acts and episodes, descriptions of the stage situation, as well as stage directions given in the form of a commentary on individual remarks of the characters. All this constitutes the secondary text of a dramatic work. Basically, his text is a chain of dialogical remarks and monologues of the characters themselves.

Hence the certain limitations of the artistic possibilities of drama. A writer-playwright uses only part of the visual means that are available to the creator of a novel or epic, short story or story. And the characters of the characters are revealed in drama with less freedom and completeness than in epic. “I...perceive drama,” noted T. Mann, “as the art of silhouette and I feel only the person being told as a three-dimensional, integral, real and plastic image.” (69, 386). At the same time, playwrights, unlike authors epic works, are forced to limit themselves to the volume of verbal text that meets the needs of theatrical art. Story time in drama it must fit within the strict framework of stage time. And the performance in forms familiar to European theater lasts, as is known, no more than three to four hours. And this requires an appropriate size of the dramatic text.

At the same time, the author of the play also has significant advantages over the creators of stories and novels. One moment depicted in the drama is closely adjacent to another, neighboring one. The time of the events reproduced by the playwright during the stage episode (see Chapter X) is not compressed or stretched; the characters in the drama exchange remarks without any noticeable time intervals, and their statements, as Stanislavsky noted, form a solid, uninterrupted line. If with the help of narration the action is captured as something in the past, then the chain of dialogues and monologues in the drama creates the illusion of the present time. Life here speaks as if on its own behalf: between what is depicted and the reader there is no intermediary - the narrator. The action of the drama takes place as if before the eyes of the reader. “All narrative forms,” wrote F. Schiller, “transfer the present into the past; everything dramatic makes the past present.” (106, 58).

The dramatic genre of literature recreates the action with

maximum spontaneity. Drama does not allow summary characteristics of events and actions that would replace their detail. And it is, as Yu. Olesha noted, “a test of rigor and at the same time the flight of talent, a sense of form and everything special and amazing that makes up talent.” (71, 252). Bunin expressed a similar thought about drama: “We have to compress thoughts into precise forms. But it’s so exciting.”

FORMS OF BEHAVIOR OF CHARACTERS

Characters in drama reveal themselves in behavior (primarily in spoken words) more clearly than characters in epic works. And this is natural. Firstly, the dramatic form encourages the characters to “talk a lot.” Secondly, the words of the characters in the drama are oriented towards the wide space of the stage and auditorium, so that the speech is perceived as addressed directly to the audience and potentially loud. “The theater requires... exaggerated broad lines both in voice, recitation and gestures” (98, 679), wrote N. Boileau. And D. Diderot noted that “you cannot be a playwright without having eloquence” (52, 604).

The behavior of the characters in the drama is marked by activity, flashiness, and effectiveness. It is, in other words, theatrical. Theatricality is speech and gestures carried out with the expectation of a public, mass effect. It is the antipode of the intimacy and inexpressiveness of the forms of action. Behavior filled with theatricality becomes the most important subject of depiction in drama. Dramatic action often involves active participation wide range people. Such are many scenes of Shakespeare’s plays (especially the final ones), the climax of Gogol’s “The Government Inspector” and Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm,” and the pivotal episodes of Vishnevsky’s “Optimistic Tragedy.” The viewer is especially strongly influenced by episodes where there is an audience on stage: depictions of meetings, rallies, mass performances, etc. Stage episodes that show a few people, if their behavior is open, not inhibited, and impressive, also leave a vivid impression. “Like he acted out in the theater,” comments Bubnov (“At the Lower Depths” by Gorky) on the frenzied tirade of the desperate Kleshch about the truth, which, with an unexpected and sharp intrusion into the general conversation, gave it its own theatrical character.

At the same time, playwrights (especially supporters

realistic art) feel the need to go beyond theatricality: to recreate human behavior in all its richness and diversity, capturing private, home, intimate life, where people express themselves in word and gesture sparingly and unpretentiously. At the same time, the speech of the characters, which according to the logic of what is being depicted should not be spectacular and bright, is presented in dramas and performances as lengthy, full-voiced, and hyperbolically expressive. This reflects a certain limitation of the possibilities of drama: playwrights (like actors on stage) are forced to elevate the “non-theatrical in life” to the rank of “theatrical in art.”

In a broad sense, any work of art is conditional, that is, it is not identical to real life. At the same time, the term convention (in the narrow sense) denotes ways of reproducing life, in which the inconsistency and even the contrast between the forms depicted and the forms of reality itself are emphasized. In this respect, artistic conventions are opposed to “plausibility” or “life-likeness.” “Everything should be essentially vital, not necessarily everything should be life-like,” wrote Fadeev. “Among many forms there may also be a conditional form.” (96, 662) (i.e. “non-life-like.” - V. X.).

In dramatic works, where the behavior of the characters is theatricalized, conventions are especially widely used. The inevitable departure of drama from life-likeness has been spoken about more than once. Thus, Pushkin argued that “of all types of writings, the most implausible writings are dramatic ones.” (79, 266), and Zola called drama and theater “the citadel of everything conventional” (61, 350).

Characters in dramas often speak out not because they need it in the course of the action, but because the author needs to explain something to readers and viewers, to make a certain impression on them. Thus, additional characters are sometimes introduced into dramatic works, who either themselves narrate what is not shown on stage (messengers in ancient plays), or, becoming interlocutors of the main characters, encourage them to talk about what happened (choirs and their luminaries in ancient tragedies ; confidantes and servants in comedies of antiquity, Renaissance, classicism). In so-called epic dramas, actor-characters from time to time address the audience, “step out of character” and, as if from the outside, report on what is happening.

A tribute to convention is, further, the saturation of speech in drama with maxims, aphorisms, and reasoning about what is happening. The monologues pronounced by the heroes alone are also conventional. Such monologues are not actual speech acts, but a purely stage technique of bringing internal speech out into the open; There are many of them both in ancient tragedies and in the drama of modern times. Even more conventional are the “to the side” lines, which seem to not exist for the other characters on stage, but are clearly audible to the audience.

It would be wrong, of course, to “assign” theatrical hyperbole to the dramatic genre of literature alone. Similar phenomena are characteristic of classical epics and adventure novels, but if we talk about the classics of the 19th century. - for the works of Dostoevsky. However, it is in drama that the convention of verbal self-disclosure of characters becomes the leading artistic trend. The author of the drama, setting up a kind of experiment, shows how a person would speak if in the spoken words he expressed his moods with maximum completeness and brightness. Naturally, dramatic dialogues and monologues turn out to be much more extensive and effective than those remarks that could be uttered in a similar situation in life. As a result, speech in drama often takes on similarities with artistic, lyrical or oratorical speech: the heroes of dramatic works tend to speak like improvisers - poets or sophisticated speakers. Therefore, Hegel was partly right when he viewed drama as a synthesis of the epic principle (eventfulness) and the lyrical principle (speech expression).

From antiquity to the era of romanticism - from Aeschylus and Sophocles to Schiller and Hugo - dramatic works in the overwhelming majority of cases gravitated toward dramatic and demonstrative theatricalization. L. Tolstoy reproached Shakespeare for the abundance of hyperbole, which allegedly “violates the possibility of artistic impression.” From the very first words,” he wrote about the tragedy “King Lear,” “one can see the exaggeration: exaggeration of events, exaggeration of feelings and exaggeration of expressions.” (89, 252). In his assessment of Shakespeare's work, L. Tolstoy was wrong, but the idea that the great English playwright was committed to theatrical hyperbole is completely fair. What has been said about “King Lear” can with no less justification be attributed to ancient comedies and tragedies.

days, dramatic works of classicism, Schiller's tragedies, etc.

In the 19th-20th centuries, when the desire for everyday authenticity prevailed in literature artistic paintings, the conventions inherent in drama began to be reduced to a minimum. The origins of this phenomenon are the so-called “philistine drama” of the 18th century, the creators and theorists of which were Diderot and Lessing. Works of the greatest Russian playwrights of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century - A. Ostrovsky, Chekhov and Gorky - are distinguished by the authenticity of the life forms recreated. But even when playwrights focused on the verisimilitude of what was being depicted, plot, psychological and actual speech hyperboles were preserved. Even in Chekhov’s dramaturgy, which showed the maximum limit of “life-likeness,” theatrical conventions made themselves felt. Let's take a closer look at the final scene of Three Sisters. One young woman, ten or fifteen minutes ago, broke up with her loved one, probably forever. Another five minutes ago found out about the death of her fiancé. And so they, together with the elder, third sister, sum up the moral and philosophical results of what happened, reflecting to the sounds of a military march about the fate of their generation, about the future of humanity. It is hardly possible to imagine this happening in reality. But we don’t notice the implausibility of the ending of “Three Sisters”, since we are accustomed to the fact that drama significantly changes the forms of people’s life activities.

Specifics of the drama. Drama occupies a special position in the literary system, since it is both a full-fledged literary genre and a phenomenon that naturally belongs to the theater. Drama as a genre has specific content, the essence of which was the awareness of the contradictions of reality, and above all its social contradictions through the relationships of people and their individual destinies 6.91. Unlike epic, in drama we see imitation of action through action, not story 4. 30. According to the precise and figurative definition of V. G. Belinsky, drama represents the accomplished event as if it were taking place in the present time, before the eyes of the reader or viewer 1.52. The specific features of drama as a genre are the absence of a narrator and a sharp weakening of the descriptive element.

The basis of drama is visible action, and this affects the special relationship between the movement of events and the speeches of the characters.

The statements of the characters and the arrangement and relationship of parts are the most important ways of revealing the author’s thoughts. In relation to them, other ways of expressing author's position the list of characters, stage directions, and instructions for directors and actors play a subordinate role. The most important content category in drama is conflict. Of course, conflicts exist in the epic; they can also be present in lyrical work, but their role and meaning in the epic and lyrical plot are different than in drama.

The choice of conflicts and their arrangement into a system largely determine the uniqueness of the writer’s position; dramatic clashes are an essential way of identifying the life programs of characters and self-disclosure of their characters. The conflict largely determines the direction and rhythm of the plot movement in the play. The content of conflicts, as well as the methods of their implementation in a dramatic work, can be of a different nature.

Traditionally, drama conflicts are divided into tragic, comic and dramatic according to their content, emotional severity and coloring. The first two types are distinguished in accordance with the two main genre forms of drama; they originally accompany tragedy and comedy, reflecting the most significant aspects of life conflicts. The third one arose at a rather late stage of dramaturgy, and its understanding is associated with the theory of drama developed by Lessing, Hamburg dramaturgy and Diderot's Paradox about the actor. Of course, conflict, with all its meaningful ambiguity and diversity of functions, is not the only component that determines the specificity of drama as a genre. No less important are the methods of plot organization and dramatic narration, the relationship speech characteristics heroes and construction of action, etc. However, we deliberately focus on the category of conflict.

On the one hand, analysis of this aspect allows, based on the generic specifics of the drama, to reveal the depth of the artistic content of the work and take into account the peculiarities of the author’s attitude towards the world. On the other hand, it is the consideration of the conflict that can become the leading direction in school analysis dramatic work, since high school students are characterized by an interest in effective clashes of beliefs and characters, through which the problems of the struggle between good and evil are revealed. Through the study of conflict, it is possible to lead schoolchildren to comprehend the motives behind the words and actions of the heroes, to identify the originality of author's intention, moral position writer. To identify the role of this category in creating the eventual and ideological tension of the drama, in expressing the social and ethical programs of the characters, in recreating their psychology is the task of this section.

Drama depicts a person only in action, in the process of which he reveals all sides of his personality.

Dramaticism was emphasized by V.G. Belinsky, noting the peculiarities of drama: it consists not in one conversation, but in the living action of those talking to each other 1.127. In works of the dramatic genre, unlike epic and lyrical genres, there are no author's descriptions, narration, or digressions.

The author's speech appears only in stage directions. The reader or viewer learns everything that happens to the heroes of the drama from the heroes themselves. The playwright, therefore, does not talk about the lives of his heroes, but shows them in action. Due to the fact that the heroes of dramatic works manifest themselves only in action, their speech has a number of features; it is directly related to their actions, it is more dynamic and expressive than the speech of epic heroes works.

Intonation, pause, tone, i.e., all those features of speech that become concrete on stage, are also of great importance in dramatic works. The playwright, as a rule, depicts only those events that are necessary to reveal the characters' characters and, therefore, to justify the developing struggle between actors. Everyone else life facts, which are not directly related to what is depicted and slow down the development of the action, are excluded.

Everything shown in a play, tragedy, comedy or drama is tied by the playwright, as Gogol aptly put it, into one large common knot. Hence the concentration of events depicted and minor characters around the main characters. The plot of the drama is characterized by tension and rapid development.

This feature of the plot of dramatic works distinguishes it from the plot of epic works, although both plots are built on the common elements of plot, climax and denouement. The difference between drama and epic and lyric poetry is also expressed in the fact that works of the dramatic genre are written for the theater and receive their final completion only on the stage. In turn, the theater influences them, subordinating them to some extent to its laws. Dramatic works are divided, for example, into actions, phenomena or scenes, the change of which involves a change of scenery and costumes.

In approximately three or four acts of the play, that is, during the three or four hours occupied by the performance, the playwright must show the emergence of the conflict, its development and completion. These requirements for playwrights oblige them to choose such phenomena and life events in which the characters of the people depicted are especially clearly manifested. While working on a play, the playwright sees not only his hero, but also his performer. This is evidenced by numerous statements of writers.

Regarding the performance of the roles of Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky, N.V. Gogol wrote when creating these two little officials, I imagined in. their skin Shchepkin and Ryazantsov 4.71 We find the same thoughts in A.P. Chekhov. During the period the Art Theater was working on the play Cherry Orchard Chekhov reported to K. S. Stanislavsky When I wrote Lopakhin, I thought that this was your role 12.46. There is another dependence of a dramatic work on the theater.

It manifests itself in the fact that the reader connects the play with the stage in his imagination. When reading plays, images of certain supposed or actual performers of the roles arise. If theater, in the words of A.V. Lunacharsky, is a form, the content of which is determined by drama, then the actors, in turn, help the playwright complete the images with their performance. The scene to some extent replaces the author's descriptions. Drama lives only on stage, wrote N.V. Gogol, M.P. Pogodin. Without it, it is like a soul without a body 2.82. Theater creates a much greater illusion of life than any other art. Everything that happens on stage is perceived by the audience especially acutely and directly.

This is the enormous educational power of drama, distinguishing it from other types of poetry. The originality of drama, its difference from epic and lyric poetry, gives reason to raise the question of some features in the relationship of methods and techniques used in the analysis of dramatic works in secondary school. 1.2.

End of work -

This topic belongs to the section:

Studying drama at school using the example of the play by A.N. Ostrovsky "Thunderstorm"

The lack of author's characteristics, portrait and other components of the image characteristic of prose complicates the perception of drama by students. Therefore, it is necessary to look for such techniques and forms of work that, on the one hand... The uniqueness of drama, its difference from epic and lyric poetry give grounds to raise the question of some features in the relationship...

If you need additional material on this topic, or you did not find what you were looking for, we recommend using the search in our database of works:

What will we do with the received material:

If this material was useful to you, you can save it to your page on social networks:

By identifying the theory of dramaturgy for ourselves, we seem to find ourselves in a universe that operates according to laws that surprise us with their beauty and mathematical accuracy. Dramaturgy is based on the main law, the essence of which is harmonious unity. Drama, like any work of art, must be a holistic artistic image.

Dramaturgy is the theory and art of constructing dramatic works.

What other meanings is this word used in? What are its basics? What is dramaturgy in literature?

Definition of the concept

There are several meanings of this concept.

• Firstly, dramaturgy is the plot-compositional basis (plot-figurative concept) of an independent cinematic or theatrical work. Their basic principles are historically changeable. Such phrases as the dramaturgy of a film or performance are known.

• drama theory. It was interpreted not as an action that had already occurred, but as one in progress.
• And thirdly, dramaturgy is a collection of works of a particular era, a people or a writer.

Action is a known change in a certain period of time. A change in dramaturgy corresponds to a change in fate. In comedy it is joyful, in tragedy it is sad. The time period may vary. It can span a few hours (as in French classical drama) or span many years (as in William Shakespeare).

Stages of dramaturgy

• The exposition introduces the reader, listener or viewer into the action. Here the first acquaintance with the characters takes place. This section reveals the nationality of people, this or that era and other points. The action can begin quickly and actively. Or maybe, on the contrary, gradually.
• The beginning. The name speaks for itself. A key element of dramaturgy. The emergence of conflict or the introduction of characters to each other.
• Development of actions and images. Gradual tension.
• The climax can be bright and impressive. The highest point of the work. Here there is an emotional outburst, intensity of passions, dynamics of the plot or relationships between the characters.
• Denouement. Ends the action. It can be gradual or, conversely, instantaneous. It can abruptly end the action or become the finale. This is the conclusion of the essay.

Secrets of mastery

To comprehend the secrets of literary or stagecraft, you should know the basics of drama. First of all, it is form as a means of expressing content. Also, in any form of art there is always an image. Often this is an imaginary version of reality, depicted through notes, canvas, words, plastic, etc. When creating an image, the author must take into account that the main participant will be the viewer, reader or listener (depending on the type of art). The next most important element in drama is action. It implies the presence of contradiction, and it necessarily contains conflict and drama.

The basis of drama is the suppression of free will, the highest point being violent death. Old age and the inevitability of death are also dramatic. Natural disasters become dramatic when people die.

The author's work on a work begins when a theme arises. The idea solves the problem of the chosen topic. It is never static or open. If it stops developing, it dies. Conflict represents the highest level of manifestation of dramatic contradictions. For its implementation, a plot is needed. The chain of events is organized into a plot, which details the conflict through the specification of the plot. There is also such an event chain as intrigue.

Drama of the second half of the 20th century

Modern dramaturgy is not just a certain period of historical time, but a whole vital process. It involves playwrights of entire generations and diverse creative movements. Representatives such as Arbuzov, Vampilov, Rozov and Shvarts are innovators of the genre of socio-psychological drama. Modern drama does not stand still; it is constantly updated, developing and moving. Among the huge number of styles and genres that have covered the theater from the late 50s of the 20th century until our time, the socio-psychological play clearly predominates. Many of them had deep philosophical overtones.

For several decades, modern drama has been trying to overcome established cliches and be closer to the real life of the hero in solving his problems.

What is dramaturgy in literature?

Dramaturgy is a special type in literature that has a dialogical form and is intended to be embodied on stage. Essentially, this is the life of the characters on stage. In the play they come to life and reproduce real life with all the ensuing conflicts and contradictions.

Necessary moments for a written work to come to life on stage and evoke certain emotions in the audience:

• The art of dramaturgy and directing should be inextricably linked with inspiration.
• The director must be able to read dramatic works correctly, check their composition, and take into account the form.
• Understanding the logic of the entire process. Each subsequent action should flow smoothly from the previous one.
• The director has a method of artistic technique.
• Work for results with the entire creative team. The performance must be carefully thought out, ideologically rich and clearly organized.

Dramatic works

There are a huge number of them. Some of them should be listed as an example:

• "Othello", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Romeo and Juliet" by Shakespeare.
• "Thunderstorm" by Ostrovsky.
• "The Inspector General" by Gogol.

Thus, dramaturgy is the theory and art of constructing dramatic works. It is also a plot-compositional basis, a body of works and a theory of drama. There are stages of dramaturgy. beginning, development, climax and resolution. To understand the secrets of drama, you need to know its basics.