Introduction to Literature Past Paper PDF

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 PART THREE Drama Page 78 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 History of English Drama: A short overview Drama comes from Greek words meaning “to do” or “to act.” A drama, or p...

INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 PART THREE Drama Page 78 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 History of English Drama: A short overview Drama comes from Greek words meaning “to do” or “to act.” A drama, or play, is basically a story acted out. And every play—whether it is serious or humorous, ancient or modern—tells its story through characters in situations that imitate human life. In a theatre, under the spell of a fascinating play, we may forget ourselves for a while and enter the lives of the characters. We laugh at their antics or weep over their troubles. We are swept along by their adventures or stirred by their discovery of love. The actors bring the play to life, creating an imaginary world that reflects and helps us understand the real world. Although plays may be created for the cinema, radio, or television, the word play usually refers to a drama performed live by actors on the stage of a theatre. A dramatic performance combines many arts—those of the author, director, actor, stage designer, and others. These artists and their audience must share a special “make believe” frame of mind that allows the play to work its magic. A play’s author is also called a dramatist or playwright (“wright” means “maker”). The playwright’s characters must be vivid, interesting, and, most important, different enough from each other so that their actions somehow create a conflict or predicament. This conflict underlies another important element of a play: its plot—that is, what happens and why. A simple plot is a direct chain of events. A complex plot has an ending different from what the audience expects. A compound plot is made up of two plots working together. The longer sections of a play, called “acts,” are made up in turn of smaller units, or “scenes.” However, many acts or scenes a play contains, its plot structure usually develops in three basic stages. The opening scenes introduce the central situation and characters, also giving the audience a sense of what has happened before the present action. The middle scenes carry the action forward, usually amid trouble or complications. In the final scenes, the conflict or confusion is resolved, and the play comes to an end—though not necessarily a happy one. Plays traditionally have been identified as either tragedies or comedies. The broad difference between the two is that comedies end happily, while tragedies end unhappily—often in the main character’s death. Page 79 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 Why would people write or watch tragedies? Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, offered one answer in his catharsis theory. A tragedy, he said, purges or releases our emotions. Its events arouse pity for the victim, with whom we identify. As the play closes, we are washed clean of these emotions, feeling unburdened and morally improved. A classical tragedy portrays a high or noble person who struggles and falls in a conflict with some superior force—whether it be fate, the gods, or his own “tragic flaw,” a weakness in his own character. A domestic tragedy concerns the lives of ordinary people rather than heroic figures. Comedies likewise take different forms. A romantic comedy is a love story that ends with the main characters, the lovers, united. The secondary characters are comic ones. Farce is comedy at its broadest, featuring rollicking fun and clever silliness. A comedy of manners is subtle, witty, and often mocking, poking fun at the flaws or insincere behaviour of a particular class or circle of people. Sentimental comedy mixes syrupy emotion with its humour. Melodrama has a plot filled with overblown emotion, extreme situations, and menacing threats by a villain, but it also includes comic relief and has a happy ending. It depends upon physical action rather than upon character development. Modern plays are not always easily labelled “comedy” or “tragedy,” however. Many combine elements of both modes. WESTERN DRAMATIC TRADITIONS People of ancient cultures did not have theatre as we know it today, but they did act out stories of hunting, fighting, and natural phenomena. Their magical and religious rituals used dramatic storytelling and symbols—first, to make sense of the mysterious natural forces that dominated their lives and, as societies grew, to establish and maintain social power structures. In ancient Egypt, the crowning of the pharaoh was celebrated by a play telling of his divine birth. CLASSICAL GREECE Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the drama of the Western world. By the 5th century BC dramas were presented at Greek religious festivals twice a year. These grew out of the worship of Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstasy. Choruses of men dressed in goatskins to represent satyrs (beings half-man and half-goat) sang hymns of praise to Dionysus. In fact, the Page 80 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 term tragedy comes from the Greek words tragos (goat) and aeidein (to sing). The Greater Dionysian festival featured three contests for playwrights: one in comedy, one in tragedy, and one in the dithyramb (an elaborate poem sung by a chorus of 50 singers). From the contests came some of the world’s greatest dramatists. Classical Greek playwrights include Aeschylus (525– 456 BC), Sophocles (496–406 BC), Euripides (480–406 BC), Aristophanes (448?–385? BC), and Menander (342–291 BC). THE MIDDLE AGES During the Middle Ages (from about ad 500 to about ad 1500), life centred on the cathedral. To teach an uneducated and illiterate people the Bible stories, priests introduced small playlets into their church services. Because so few of the common people understood Latin, everyday language was typically used in the plays instead. Performances were moved to the cathedral steps and churchyard. Here began the elaborate mystery plays, which told stories from the Bible in dramatic form. Later, miracle plays portrayed the lives of the saints. Next to come were the morality plays, in which characters personified moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth) and in which moral lessons were taught. THE RENAISSANCE The Elizabethan Age in England showered the world with a burst of brilliant playwrights. Dramatists wrote in an enormous range of genres, mixing humour with passion, shifting between verse and prose and back, and testing and extending the English language. The early Elizabethan Christopher Marlowe (1564–93) is best remembered for Doctor Faustus, in which Faustus sells his soul to the devil in exchange for years of power on Earth. John Webster (1580?–1625?) excelled at creating scenes of horror and of pathos, his two great tragedies being The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is the acknowledged master of Western drama not only for his own age but for all time. His plays, though often based on borrowed stories, are excellently plotted, filled with wonderful characters and extraordinary language. Above all, his genius penetrates and speaks to the human heart and mind. Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar are among his famous tragedies. He also wrote famous comedies such as The Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest. Page 81 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 THE MODERN PERIOD The end of the 19th century marked the beginning of modern drama, with a naturalistic treatment of both subject matter and style. Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) is one of the greatest of modern playwrights. He put his characters into challenging social and personal situations and then examined their actions and attitudes with intense psychological scrutiny. His “problem plays,” including such works as A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and Hedda Gabler, often have sombre conclusions. Oscar Wilde (1856–1900), the wittiest man of his day, wrote one play that has remained alive, the polished, superficial, but still delightful The Importance of Being Earnest. The long lifetime of one of the greatest of modern playwrights spanned this era. George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) excelled in the world of ideas. He could make a host of contrary notions acceptable by the brilliance of his presentation. His galaxy is large. Candida, The Devil’s Disciple, Caesar and Cleopatra, Man and Superman, Major Barbara, The Doctor’s Dilemma, Androcles and the Lion, Pygmalion (and its musical version, My Fair Lady), The Apple Cart, and Saint Joan are some of his witty and thought-provoking plays. Shaw’s lengthy prefaces to his dramas help to explain and enhance the ideas in the plays. Sir James M. Barrie (1860–1937) combined sentiment with skilful playmaking in Peter Pan and What Every Woman Knows. John Galsworthy (1867–1933) was for a time England’s leading tragic dramatist. His Justice is a harsh condemnation of law untempered by mercy. W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) wrote drama as well as fiction. His best plays are The Circle and The Constant Wife. The Irish Renaissance in literature aimed to revive the old Celtic language and stories. The genius of this group was John Millington Synge (1871–1909). He wrote only seven plays during his short life and career. But in collecting in his works the flights of fancy and colourful, earthy sayings of the Irish peasants, he created a new dramatic mode of expression, spoken in English but given vitality by Irish rhythms, ways of thought, and imagery. The greatest Russian playwright was Anton Chekhov (1860–1904). In such plays as The Sea Gull, The Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters, and Uncle Vanya, he set his characters against a Page 82 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 background of changing times. The tragedy is that the characters cannot change too. Their only solution is to live as best they can. Chekhov’s plays, though realistic in style, achieve a poetic quality in the portrayal of their characters. The ground-breaking work of German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) pushed past the limits of conventional Western drama. Brecht avoided theatrical illusion in favour of techniques—such as dialogue and songs delivered directly to the audience—designed to remind the audience they were in a theatre watching an account of events, rather than to encourage them to “lose themselves” in the action and characters. He wanted theatre to teach and to promote a critical detachment in the audience that made them think and question. Around 1920 American drama emerged as a major literary form, owing largely to the plays of Eugene O’Neill (1888–1953). O’Neill chiefly wrote modern tragedies, experimenting with a variety of techniques. The Iceman Cometh and Long Day’s Journey into Night are powerfully pessimistic dramas, using realism and the language of ordinary people. Characters in the marathon psychological drama Strange Interlude speak often in soliloquies and in asides to the audience that reveal their deepest thoughts. Mourning Becomes Electra, set in Civil War New England, uses Greek forms and themes to rework the classical Greek tragedy Oresteia. In the 1940s and 1950s two major dramatists dominated the American stage: Arthur Miller (1915–2005) and Tennessee Williams (1911–83). Death of a Salesman, the tragedy of an ordinary man destroyed by false values, is Miller’s masterpiece. Two of Williams’ finest psychological dramas, The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, illustrate his intensely expressive Southern vision. He created exquisitely drawn characters, particularly women, whose dreams and illusions are dashed by harsh reality. The Theatre of the Absurd is a term of convenience created to describe various mid-century dramatists whose themes and techniques grew largely out of those introduced by Brecht and Sartre. Included were figures as various as Irish-born French playwright Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot, 1953), France’s Eugène Ionesco (The Bald Soprano, 1950; Rhinoceros, 1959), England’s Harold Pinter (The Caretaker, 1960; Old Times, 1971), and American Edward Albee (The Zoo Story, 1959; Tiny Alice, 1964). Absurdist plays have little recognizable plot or action, emphasizing the “absurd” situation of living in a meaningless world. Page 83 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 What was presented thus far is an overview of drama and its history with the names of famous plays and playwrights from the beginning of the history of drama in Greek to modern time. For this introductory course, you are going to study Act 1-Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s tragedy Julius Caesar. The summary of the scene is given and is followed by the text of Scene 1. In the Guide To Julius Caesar, you can read more about Shakespeare and his history play Julius Caesar, and study the commentary that may help you understand Shakespeare’s play and characters in more detail. Happy reading! Page 84 of 90 INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 Julius Caesar Act I Scene i Page 85 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 Julius Caesar has achieved a victory over Pompey, but not everyone celebrates this new leader. Characters Flavius Carpenter Marullus Cobbler Commoners Scene Summary Two representatives of the Roman government, Marullus and Flavius, confront a crowd of commoners and demand to know why they are celebrating. A witty cobbler and a carpenter explain that they are celebrating the recent military victory of Julius Caesar over a rival in the Roman government, Pompey. Flavius chastises the commoners for their fickle loyalty, and he and Marullus decide to tear down decorations that were put up to celebrate Caesar’s victory. ACT 1. SCENE 1. Rome. A street. Enter FLAVIUS, MARULLUS, and certain Commoners FLAVIUS Hence! home, you idle creatures get you home: Is this a holiday? what! know you not, Being mechanical, you ought not walk Upon a labouring day without the sign Of your profession? Speak, what trade art thou? First Commoner Why, sir, a carpenter. Page 86 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 MARULLUS Where is thy leather apron and thy rule? What dost thou with thy best apparel on? You, sir, what trade are you? Second Commoner Truly, sir, in respect of a fine workman, I am but, as you would say, a cobbler. MARULLUS But what trade art thou? answer me directly. Second Commoner A trade, sir, that, I hope, I may use with a safe conscience; which is, indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles. MARULLUS What trade, thou knave? thou naughty knave, what trade? Second Commoner Nay, I beseech you, sir, be not out with me: yet, if you be out, sir, I can mend you. MARULLUS What meanest thou by that? mend me, thou saucy fellow! Second Commoner Why, sir, cobble you. FLAVIUS Thou art a cobbler, art thou? Second Commoner Page 87 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 Truly, sir, all that I live by is with the awl: I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters, but with awl. I am, indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes; when they are in great danger, I recover them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather have gone upon my handiwork. FLAVIUS But wherefore art not in thy shop today? Why dost thou lead these men about the streets? Second Commoner Truly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But, indeed, sir, we make holiday, to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph. MARULLUS Wherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home? What tributaries follow him to Rome, To grace in captive bonds his chariot-wheels? You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things! O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome, Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft Have you climb’d up to walls and battlements, To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops, Your infants in your arms, and there have sat The livelong day, with patient expectation, To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome: And when you saw his chariot but appear, Have you not made an universal shout, That Tiber trembled underneath her banks, Page 88 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 To hear the replication of your sounds Made in her concave shores? And do you now put on your best attire? And do you now cull out a holiday? And do you now strew flowers in his way That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood? Be gone! Run to your houses, fall upon your knees, Pray to the gods to intermit the plague That needs must light on this ingratitude. FLAVIUS Go, go, good countrymen, and, for this fault, Assemble all the poor men of your sort; Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears Into the channel, till the lowest stream Do kiss the most exalted shores of all. Exeunt all the Commoners See whether their basest metal be not moved; They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness. Go you down that way towards the Capitol; This way will I disrobe the images, If you do find them deck’d with ceremonies. MARULLUS May we do so? You know it is the feast of Lupercal. Page 89 of 90  INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE / ENGL145 FLAVIUS It is no matter; let no images Be hung with Caesar’s trophies. I’ll about, And drive away the vulgar from the streets: So do you too, where you perceive them thick. These growing feathers pluck’d from Caesar’s wing Will make him fly an ordinary pitch, Who else would soar above the view of men And keep us all in servile fearfulness. Exeunt Page 90 of 90