Drama in literature is ... Drama: examples of works

Drama is a form of literary work that allows us to show in a brief plot the conflicts of society, feelings and relationships of heroes, to reveal moral questions. Tragedy, comedy and even modern sketches - all these are varieties of this art, originated in ancient Greece.

Drama: a book with a complex character

In Greek, the word "drama" means "to act." Drama (definition in literature) is a work exposing the conflict between heroes. The character of the characters is revealed through actions, and the soul through dialogue. The works of this genre have a dynamic plot, compiled through dialogues of actors, less often - monologues or polylogists.

The language of the author is present only as remarks. They carry a technical function, characterizing the characters and describing the scene.

Drama as a kind of literature is compiled according to classical rules.

It consists of several parts, dividing into acts. There are several heroes in it, one developed storyline, which sets the axis to the work. A small number of events occur for the entire work. If the work is created for scenicization, then its volume should not exceed 80 pages. Such a script or a play equals a 3-4 hour action on the stage.

Ancient Literature

Initially, the drama was formed on the basis of the cult of the god of fertility Dionysius, included songs and dances. Actors put on skins, faces - masks and sang praises. There were competitions between tragedians and comedians. Famous playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripilus, Aristophanes - glorified authors of Ancient Greece.

Classical drama includes different genres. The works of literature that relate to this art form are quite numerous: it is a tragedy, a comedy and the drama itself. At the junction formed tragicomedy, so popular in the Russian school.

The development of drama on the example of tragedy

In the literal sense, the word "tragedy" means "a goat song." It was associated with autumn sadness, when the god of winemaking went into hibernation, or died metaphorically. Aeschylus is considered the founder of the tragedy, he improved the form and included in the action of the second actor. Sophocles added a third character. Emotional moves are expressed through mourning, expression of condolence, horror, anger. The choir, with the help of the praises, set the tone.

The tragedy in Ancient Greece consisted of six classical components: myth, the disclosure of characters, relevant and substantial opinion, prosaic and metrical language, music and spectacle. Tragedy captures the soul and gives you the knowledge of suffering.

Unchanged, the tragedy reaches the Renaissance, where it again becomes popular. Shakespeare's heroes are experiencing a new fate. Now social conditions play a greater role than the games of the gods. The famous "King Lear", "Othello", "Hamlet" to this day are a reader for young playwrights and actors.

In the Age of Enlightenment, actors are fighting for ideas. The famous tragedies of Schiller "The Robbers" and "Insidiousness and Love" were not inferior in popularity to the works of Goethe "Egmont" and "Gets von Berlichingen".

Romanticism reveals a conflict, but already between the inner and outer worlds of heroes. Byron, Hugo work in the genre of tragedy.

A great literary family

Drama in literature is first and foremost a great creative category. The original progenitor of the tragedy and comedy today got new members of the family. Modern representatives are melodrama, vaudeville, sketch. Melodrama as a genre of literature divides the characters into "good" and "bad" people: actors have polar moral principles. The conflict occurs between the values of the characters, and in the end there is an unexpected solution. Vaudeville and sketch are combined art forms.

Expressive genres in literature

However, in addition to drama there are other expressive genres of literature. The table will help classify what we will now analyze in some detail.

Novella is a kind of story: a prosaic short work with a sharp plot and a neutral style of narration. There is no psychological overtones and an unexpected ending, as in melodrama.

Ode - an obsolete today, but very popular at the end of the 18th century, a solemn work, which was stated through poetry or poetry laid on music.

Essay - the fact of real life, authentic narration.

The story is an epic genre about the life of a hero or several characters, showing successive episodes from life. More in volume than the story, but less of the novel.

The poem is a story in verse form.

The story is a lesser fellow of the story, where one or several events from the hero's life are mentioned. Actions are not time-consuming, but there are few actors. As a rule, most of the information comes from an invisible narrator. The story and the poem are the most popular genres of literary works.

A novel is a great narrative work, in which there are several plot lines affecting a significant period of life or a person's entire life. Characters are equivalent, the story reveals socially significant tasks and problems.

Epic - a major work on significant national or historical events. Formed in the form of prose or poetry. Often, authors call epics novels, but from the latter it is distinguished by the content of the people's way of life, exposing the way of life of all strata of society and wide geographical and historical coverage.

The ballad is a lyric-epic poem, where the historical line passing through the whole plot is vividly expressed. The ballad differs from the lyric poem with content. In the latter, the author seeks to express his inner feelings, instead of the plot. In addition, the verses are shorter.

A song is an expression of an idea, a feeling, a plot through verses laid on music. It is divided into parts, where the refrain is a refrain, and the developing plot is the couplets.

Folk, historical, lyrical, and heroic songs are known. It is believed that songs and ballads are the most ancient genres of literature.

The table below will help to get a general idea of the types of creative categories of literature.

The form of literature

The Birth of Domestic Drama

The unhurried and measured first quarter of the 19th century was marked by the rapid spread of dramatic literature.

On the one hand, this is certainly related to the interest in the theater, where a whole galaxy of gifted artists and writers appears. On the other hand - during this period there is a fashion for home reading and literary living rooms. The tragedies of Kryukovsky, Ozerov, Plavilschikov, Viskagov, Gruzintsev, Glinka, and Zotov are popular. Great success is enjoyed by Marfa Posadnitsa, or Conquest of Novagorod Ivanov.

Confrontation of classics and identity

Critic PA Katenin tried to defend the classical form of the genre, which translated Corneille and Racine. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, drama in literature was a copy of French plays. The notion of "false-classical tragedy" appears, Kotzebue's works fall under attack. The core of the critical attacks is the "Dramatic Bulletin", issued by Linguistic since 1808. One of the most prolific playwrights of the time was Shakhovsky. Out of his pen came more than 100 plays. He was famous for comedies, in which the internal weakness of the play, according to critical comments of experts, was overlapped by the shine of the situation and sham effects.

New genres of drama in literature

Vodevil for the Russian mentality was composed for the first time by Khmelnitsky. He was primarily a talented translator. So, his frank imitations of the French drama became famous: "Air locks", "Govorun", "Indecisive".

Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit" is the first Russian book of customs, which was brilliantly made in the style and style of French plays. This work, released in 1831, and today is a great success.

English literature also had a great influence on the formation of Russian drama. For example, still Belinsky noticed that Shakespeare's Boris Godunov turned out to be Pushkin's. Pushkin seemed to freely change portraits of the heroes of the king of the tragedy. But Russian characters do not act under the banner of passion, but under the yoke of drama rock.

Examples of Lermontov's works, insolvent in the artistic sense, but interesting as a material about the poet's worldview, allow us to penetrate into the inner world of a genius stylist. Gogol's "Inspector-General" is a drama bomb that brought to the general ridicule the problems of bureaucracy. After the success of Gogol in Russia there is a fashion for a Russian character, and not a transferable copy of European literature.

Drama in literature is also the works of Turgenev, who worked on this genre in the late 40's and early 50's. His plays "The parasite", "Breakfast at the head", "Bachelor", "Provincial" still enter the theater repertoire.

The characters are becoming more and more natural in the works of the middle of the XIX century. For example, the character of Pisemsky from "Bitter Destiny" is a village peasant in full size and without embellishment. Comedy author "Baal", "Enlightened Time", "Financial Genius" did not last long on the stage.

Russian Shakespeare

Drama in Russian literature would not exist in its form without the name of Ostrovsky. This author was able not only to win people's love, for 40 years Ostrovsky delivered about 50 plays, but also to instill the taste of the audience for good and complex works. Dobrolyubov called the work of Alexander Nikolayevich "plays of life." All texts are sustained, like a classical drama. The definition in the literature of Ostrovsky's plays is universal dramas. The author tries not only to show the situation, but also looks for the roots of the problem in the characters' characters, the environment.

He managed to present to the public not just heroes, but psychological types, in which it is so easy to see themselves. The gifted playwright wrote flashing comedies ("The Wedding of Balzaminov"), chilling tragedies ("Thunderstorm"), made spectators cry, be amazed, empathize. His work is a treasury of Russian speech.

Drama as a kind of literature in Russia, as an original school of followers of Ostrovsky appears already during the life of the master. The bright imitators of his talent were Potekhin, Dyachenko, Krylov, Soloviev, Chernyshev, Vladykin, Chaev, Lvov and Antropov. All of them were outstanding dramatists of the second half of the XIX century. They were masters of theatrical technique, scenic action.

The next stage in the development of dramatic writing is the industrial plot. The most interesting representatives of the newest drama are Potekhin, Shpazhinsky, Tarnovsky, Sumbatov, A. Suvorin, Karpov.

L. Tolstoy used drama as a tool for informing the masses, releasing "The Power of Darkness" and "The Fruits of Enlightenment".
In the sixties a genre of historical chronicles appeared as a drama. Examples of works by Ostrovsky "Minin-Sukhoruk", "Voevoda", "Vasilisa Melentievna" are the brightest examples of this rare genre. The trilogy of Count A. Tolstoy, "The Death of John the Terrible," "King Theodore Ioannovich" and "Tsar Boris", as well as the chronicles of Chaev ("Tsar Vasily Shuisky") differ in these virtues. A perplexing drama is inherent in Averkin's works: "Mamayev's massacre", "Comedy about the Russian nobleman Frol Skobeev", "Kashira antiquity".

Contemporary drama

Today, drama continues to evolve, but it is built around all the classical laws of the genre.

In today's Russia, dramas in literature are such names as Edvard Radzinsky, Nikolai Erdman, Mikhail Chusov. As borders and conventions are erased, the lyrical and conflict topics come to the forefront, which affect Wisten Oden, Thomas Bernhard and Martin McDonagh.