Drama content of works. Dramatic genres

Vaudeville ( from French vaudeville from Vau de Vire – title. in Normandy, where this genre originated), one of the genres of dramatic work, a light play with entertaining intrigue, with couplet songs and dances. At first, vaudeville was the name given to verse songs in fairground comedies of the first half of the 18th century. As an independent theatrical genre, it took shape during the years of the Great French Revolution; subsequently, having lost its political relevance, vaudeville became an entertainment genre and became widespread throughout Europe. French classics vaudeville – O.E. Scribe, E. Labiche - retained many of the features of the genre “as a folk work of the French”: playful fun, topical hints. In the second half of the 19th century it was replaced by operetta. In Russia, vaudeville became widespread at the beginning of the 19th century, inheriting an interest in national subjects from the comic opera of the 18th century. Famous are the vaudeville acts of N.I. Khmelnitsky, A.S. Griboyedova, A.A. Shakhovsky, D.T. Lensky. One-act plays by A.P. Chekhov continued the tradition of vaudeville (without verses).

Drama(from Greek drama - literal action) 1) one of the types of literature. It belongs at the same time to literature and theater, being the fundamental basis of the performance, it is also perceived in reading. Intended for collective perception, drama has always gravitated towards the most pressing social problems and in the most striking examples has become popular: its basis is socio-historical contradictions or eternal human antinomies (see Artistic Conflict); 2) One of the main genres of drama as a literary genre, along with tragedy and comedy. Like comedy, it mainly reproduces the private life of people, but its main goal is not to ridicule morals, but to depict the individual in his dramatic relationship with society. Like tragedy, drama tends to recreate acute contradictions; at the same time, its conflicts are not so inescapable and tense and, in principle, allow for the possibility of a successful resolution, and the characters are not so exceptional. As an independent genre, drama emerged in the second half of the 18th century among the enlighteners (bourgeois drama in France and Germany); its interest in the social structure and way of life, the moral ideals of a democratic environment, and the psychology of the average person contributed to the strengthening of realistic principles in European art. As the drama develops, its internal drama thickens, a successful outcome is less common, the hero usually remains at odds with society and himself (“The Thunderstorm”, “Dowry” by A.N. Ostrovsky, plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, Gorky).

Sideshow(from Latin intermedius - located in the middle), a small comic play or scene played between acts of the main play. It arose in the 15th century as an everyday farce skit, part of a mystery play, then a school drama (later tragedy and comedy). In England it was called an interlude (from the Latin inter – between and ludus – game). It became widespread in the West. Europe XVI– XVII centuries (in Spain as an independent genre folk theater), in the Russian theater of the 17th – 18th centuries. The interlude has been preserved as an inserted comic or musical scene in the play.

Comedy ( lat. comoedia, Greek komodia, from komos - cheerful procession and ode - song), a type of drama in which characters, situations and action are presented in funny forms or imbued with the comic. Until classicism, comedy meant a work opposite to tragedy, with an obligatory happy ending; her heroes were, as a rule, from the lower class. Many poets (including N. Boileau) defined comedy as a lower genre. In the literature of the Enlightenment, this relationship was violated by the recognition of the middle genre - the so-called bourgeois drama.

Comedy is aimed primarily at ridiculing the ugly (improper, contrary to a social ideal or norm), the heroes of the comedy are internally bankrupt, incongruous, do not correspond to their position, purpose, and thus are sacrificed to laughter, which debunks them, thereby fulfilling their “ideal” mission . The range of comedy is unusually wide - from political satire to light vaudeville humor. The “honest face” of any comedy is laughter. There are comedy of characters, comedy of situations, everyday comedy, comedy of intrigue, lyrical comedy, satirical comedy.

The most important means of comic effect is speech comedy (alogism, incongruity with the situation, parody, irony, in modern comedy - wit and playing with paradoxes). Aristophanes, the creator of socio-political satirical comedy, is considered the father of comedy.

In Russia, comedy is represented in the works of Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Gogol, Ostrovsky.

Melodrama(from the Greek melos - song, drama - action), 1) genre of drama, a play with acute intrigue, exaggerated emotionality, a sharp contrast between good and evil, and a moral and instructive tendency. Melodrama arose in the 90s of the 18th century in France (plays by J.M. Monvel). In Russia, melodrama appeared in the late 20s of the 19th century (plays by N.V. Kukolnik, N.A. Polevoy).

Tragedy(from the Greek tragodia, lit. goat song), a dramatic genre based on the tragic collision of heroic characters, its tragic outcome, filled with pathos. The tragedy is marked by stern seriousness, depicts reality in the most pointed way, as a clot of internal contradictions, reveals the deepest conflicts of reality in an extremely intense and rich form, acquiring the meaning of an artistic symbol; It is no coincidence that most tragedies are written in verse. Historically, tragedy existed in different manifestations, but the very essence of tragedy, as well as the aesthetic category of the tragic, was given to European literature by ancient Greek tragedy and poetics.

Greek the tragedy arose from religious and cult rituals, was a reproduction, a stage performance of a myth; it introduced the audience to a common reality for the whole people and their historical destinies. Perfect examples of complete, organic works of tragic art were given by Aeschylus and Sophocles; with the unconditional reality of what is happening, it shocks the viewer, causing strong internal conflicts in him and resolving them in the highest harmony (through catharsis).

A new flowering of tragedy occurs in the crisis era of the Late Renaissance and Baroque. Shakespearean tragedy depicts an endless reality, a deep crisis human world. Shakespeare's tragedy does not fit into the framework of a single thing (a conflict or the character of a hero), but embraces everything, like reality itself; the hero's personality is internally open, not fully defined, capable of changes, even sudden shifts.

Examples of the tragedy of classicism are represented by the works of P. Corneille and J. Racine. These are tragedies of high style with respect to three unities; aesthetic perfection appears as a result of the poet’s conscious self-restraint, as a masterfully developed pure formula for the conflict of life.

At the turn of the 18th–19th centuries, F. Schiller creates tragedy, updating the “classical” style. In the era of romanticism, tragedy is “reverse” to the ancient one - the key to substantial content is not the world, but the individual with his soul.

In tragedy, a person’s ability to enter into a struggle with an unsatisfactory starting position is indicated.

Which allows you to show in a short plot the conflicts of society, the feelings and relationships of the characters, to reveal moral issues. Tragedy, comedy and even modern sketches are all varieties of this art, which originated in Ancient Greece.

Drama: a book with a complex character

Translated from Greek, the word "drama" means "to act." Drama (definition in literature) is a work that exposes the conflict between characters. The character of the characters is revealed through actions, and the soul - through dialogues. Works of this genre have a dynamic plot, composed through dialogues characters, less often - monologues or polylogues.

Modern dramaturgy

Today, drama continues to develop, but at the same time it is built according to all the classical laws of the genre.

In today's Russia, drama in literature includes names such as Nikolai Erdman, Mikhail Chusov. As boundaries and conventions blur, lyrical and conflictual themes come to the fore, explored by Wisten Auden, Thomas Bernhard and Martin McDonagh.

Andreev L. Human life. Thought (comparative analysis of the play “Thought” with story of the same name). Ekaterina Ivanovna. (The concept of panpsychism).

Anuj J. Antigone. Medea. Lark. (Woman's Theme)

Arbuzov A.N. Tanya. Tales of Old Arbat.

Aristophanes. Clouds. Lysistrata. (Absolute comedy)

Beckett S. The sound of footsteps. Waiting for Godot. (Stream of Consciousness Drama)

Brecht B. The Threepenny Opera. Mother Courage and her children. (Epic Drama)

Beaumarchais. Marriage of Figaro. (The ideal canon of a classicist play)

Bulgakov M.A. Days of the Turbins. Run. Zoya's apartment.

Volodin A. Five evenings. Elder sister. Lizard.

Vampilov A. Eldest son. Last summer in Chulimsk. Duck hunting.

Goethe I.-G. Faust. (“The Eternal Drama” or the Ideal “Play-to-Read”)

Gogol N.V. Inspector. Marriage. Players. (Mystical symbolism of the phantasm of reality)

Gorin G. A plague on both your houses. The House That Swift Built. (Game reminiscence)

Gorky M. At the bottom. Bourgeois. (Social drama)

Griboyedov A. Woe from the mind. (The ideal canon of classicism)

Euripides. Medea. (Women's theme)

Ibsen H. Ghosts. Dollhouse. Peer Gynt. ("New Drama")

Ionesco E. Bald singer. Rhinoceros. (Anti-play and anti-theater)

Calderon. Worship of the cross. Life is a dream. Steadfast Prince.

Cornel P. Sid. (The tragedy of an ideal hero)

Lermontov M.Yu. Masquerade. (Drama romantic tragedy)

Lope de Vega. Dog in the manger. Sheep source. (Genre polyphonism)

Maeterlinck M. Blind. Miracle of Saint Anthony. Blue bird.

Moliere J.-B. A tradesman among the nobility. Tartuffe. Don Juan. Scapin's tricks.

Ostrovsky A.N. Dowryless. Snow Maiden. Forest. Guilty without guilt. Warm heart. (" Extra people Russia" on the stage of the Russian theater)

Pushkin A.S. Boris Godunov. Little tragedies.

Radzinsky E. Theater of the times of Nero and Seneca. Conversations with Socrates.

Racine J. Phaedra. (" Psychological tragedy»)

Rozov V.S. Forever alive. (“Pathos without pathos”)

Pirandello L. Six characters in search of an author. (“Theatricality of the play”)

Sophocles Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. (" golden ratio"dramas)

Stoppard T. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. (The tragedy of the little man)

Sukhovo-Kobylin A.V. Krechinsky's wedding. Case. Death of Tarelkin. (Dramaturgy of Russian cosmism)

Turgenev I.S. A month in the village. Freeloader. (Nuances of psychologism)

Chekhov A.P. Gull. Three sisters. Uncle Ivan. The Cherry Orchard. (Comedy human life)

Shakespeare W. Hamlet. King Lear. Macbeth. A dream in a summer night.

Shaw B. Pygmalion. The house that breaks hearts.

Aeschylus. Persians. Prometheus Chained. ("tragic myth")

V. TOPICS AND QUESTIONS ON THE COURSE “THEORY OF DRAMA”

(indicating personalities)

1. The balance of figurative and expressive principles in drama: the dialectic of “epic” and “lyros” (“musicality” as rhythm and polyphony). Personalities: Hegel, Belinsky, Wagner, Nietzsche.

2. Action as an internal and external form of drama: “imitation of action by action.” Personalities: Aristotle, Brecht.

3. External and internal architectonics of a dramatic work: act-picture-phenomenon; monologue-dialogue-remark-pause.

5. Imaginative and event-based modeling of action in drama. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Chekhov.

6. The nature of dramatic conflict: external and internal conflict.

7. Typology of dramatic conflict.

8. Ways to organize a dramatic conflict along the line: image - idea - character (actor).

9. Conflict and intrigue in plot development plays.

10. Structure-forming and structurally meaningful elements of the plot: “vicissitudes”, “recognition”, “motive of choice” and “motive of decision”.

11. Dramatic character: image – hero – character – character – role – image.

12. Character and deep levels of action development: “motive”, “actant models”, “typical” and “archetypal”.

13. Discourse and character: levels and zones of dramatic expression.

14. Poetics of dramatic composition: structural analysis.

15. The problem of the relationship between the compositional elements of drama and the effective (event-based) analysis of the play.

16. Genre nature of drama: comic and tragic.

17. Evolution of the genre: comedy. Personalities: Aristophanes, Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov.

18. Evolution of the genre: tragedy. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, Calderon, Corneille, Racine, Schiller.

19. Processes of integration in mixed dramatic genres: melodrama, tragicomedy, tragic farce.

20. Evolution of the genre: drama - from “satire” and “naturalistic” to “epic”. Personalities: Diderot, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht.

21. Evolution of the genre: symbolist drama - from “liturgical” to “mystical”. Personalities: Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Andreev.

22. General evolution of the genre: from drama to “anti-drama” of existentialism and absurdity. Personalities: Sartre, Anouilh, Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, Mrozhek.

23. Form, style and stylization in dramatic art: era - direction - author.

24. Text, subtext, context in drama. Personalities: Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Butkevich.

25. “Monodramatic” principle of unfolding action in a classical tragedy. Personalities: Sophocles (“Oedipus the King”), Shakespeare (“Hamlet”), Calderon (“The Steadfast Prince”), Corneille (“Cid”), Racine (“Phaedra”).

26. The free principle of self-developing action in a dramatic work. Personalities: Shakespeare (“King Lear”), Pushkin (“Boris Godunov”).

27. Dramatic character in a comic situation: sitcoms, comedies of errors, comedy of characters. Personalities: Menander, Terence, Shakespeare, Moliere, Gozzi, Goldoni, Beaumarchais.

28. Principles of action development in comedy: tempo-rhythmic organization of the play. Personalities: Shakespeare (“The Taming of the Shrew”), Moliere (“The Tricks of Scapin”), Beaumarchais (“The Marriage of Figaro”).

29. Paradoxes and contradictions in the drama of romanticism (Musset).

thirty. " Fantastic realism"in Russian drama: from the grotesque to the phantasmagoria of "cosmism". Personalities: Gogol (“The Inspector General”), Sukhovo-Kobylin (“The Death of Tarelkin”).

31. Comparative analysis research method of naturalism (Zola, Daudet, Boborykin) and artistic method Russian " natural school"(Gogol, Turgenev, Sukhovo-Kobylin).

32. Organization of action in symbolist drama. Personalities: Maeterlinck (“Sister Beatrice”), Andreev (“Life of a Man”).

33. Retrospective organization of action in analytical drama. Personalities: Sophocles (“Oedipus the King”), Ibsen (“Ghosts”).

34. Principles of constructing an epic drama (the concept of a double system). Personalities: Brecht (“Mother Courage and her children”).

35. The relationship between theme and idea in intellectual drama. Using the example of the analysis of works of the same name: “Medea” by Euripides and Anouilh; "Antigone" by Sophocles and Anouilh.

37. Principles of interaction between plot and plot in Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.” (Using the example of V.E. Meyerhold’s production of “Woe to Wit.”)

38. Compositional principles in the drama of the absurd. Personalities: Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”), Ionesco (“The Bald Singer”).

39. Myth, fairy tale, reality in Schwartz’s plays. "Dragon", "Ordinary Miracle".

40. Myth, history, reality and personality in Radzinsky’s plays (“Theater of the Times of Nero and Seneca”, “Conversations with Socrates”).

41. Internal conflict as a way of poeticizing heroics and everyday life in Soviet drama. Personalities: Vishnevsky (“Optimistic Tragedy”), Volodin (“Five Evenings”), Vampilov (“Duck Hunt”).

42. Play theater in Gorin’s plays (“The House That Swift Built”, “A Plague on Both Your Houses”, “The Jester Balakirev”).

43. Dramatic transformations " feminine theme"(from the tragedy of Euripides to the plays of Petrushevskaya, Razumovskaya, Sadur).

On the one hand, when working on a drama, the means that are in the writer’s arsenal are used, but, on the other hand, the work should not be literary. The author describes the events so that the person who reads the test can see everything that happens in his imagination. For example, instead of “they sat at the bar for a very long time,” you can write “they drank six beers,” etc.

In drama, what is happening is shown not through internal reflections, but through external action. Moreover, all events take place in the present tense.

Also, certain restrictions are imposed on the volume of the work, because it must be presented on stage within the allotted time (maximum 3-4 hours).

The demands of drama, as a stage art, leave their mark on the behavior, gestures, and words of the characters, which are often exaggerated. What cannot happen in life in a few hours, in a drama it very well can. At the same time, the audience will not be surprised by the convention, the implausibility, because this genre initially allows them to a certain extent.

In times when books were expensive and inaccessible to many, drama (as a public performance) was the leading form of artistic reproduction of life. However, with the development of printing technologies, it lost its primacy epic genres. Nevertheless, even today dramatic works remain in demand among society. The main audience for the drama is, of course, theatergoers and moviegoers. Moreover, the number of the latter exceeds the number of readers.

Depending on the method of production, dramatic works can be in the form of plays and scripts. All dramatic works intended to be performed with theater stage, are called plays (French pi èce). Dramatic works based on which films are made are scripts. Both plays and scripts contain stage directions to indicate the time and place of action, indicate age,

appearance

heroes, etc.

The structure of a play or script follows the structure of a story. Usually parts of a play are designated as an act (action), a phenomenon, an episode, a picture.

Main genres of dramatic works:

– drama,

– tragedy,

– comedy,

– tragicomedy,

- farce,

Drama

– vaudeville, – sketch. Drama is a literary work depicting

serious conflict

between actors or between actors and society. The relationship between the heroes (heroes and society) in works of this genre is always full of drama. As the plot develops, there is an intense struggle both within individual characters and between them. Although the conflict in drama is very serious, it can nevertheless be resolved. This circumstance explains the intrigue and tense anticipation of the audience: will the hero (heroes) succeed in getting out of the situation or not. Drama is characterized by a description of the real Everyday life, posing “perishable” questions of human existence, deep revelation of characters,

inner world

characters.

Tragedy

There are such types of drama as historical, social, philosophical. A type of drama is melodrama. In it, the characters are clearly divided into positive and negative.

Widely known dramas: “Othello” by W. Shakespeare, “The Lower Depths” by M. Gorky, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” by T. Williams. Tragedy (from the Greek tragos ode - “goat song”) is a literary dramatic work based on an irreconcilable conflict in life. Tragedy is characterized by an intense struggle between strong characters and passions, which ends in a catastrophic outcome for the characters (usually death). The conflict of a tragedy is usually very deep, has universal significance and can be symbolic.

The text of the tragedy often sounds pathetic. Many tragedies are written in verse.

Widely known tragedies: “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus, “Romeo and Juliet” by W. Shakespeare, “The Thunderstorm” by A. Ostrovsky.

Comedy

Comedy (from the Greek komos ode - “cheerful song”) is a literary dramatic work in which characters, situations and actions are presented comically, using humor and satire. At the same time, the characters can be quite sad or sad.

Usually a comedy presents everything that is ugly and absurd, funny and absurd, and ridicules social or everyday vices.

Comedy is divided into comedy of masks, positions, characters. This genre also includes farce, vaudeville, sideshow, and sketch.

A sitcom (comedy of situations, situational comedy) is a dramatic comedy work in which the source of humor is events and circumstances.

A comedy of characters (comedy of manners) is a dramatic comedy work in which the source of the funny is the inner essence of the characters (morals), funny and ugly one-sidedness, an exaggerated trait or passion (vice, flaw).
A farce is a light comedy, using simple comic techniques and intended for coarse tastes. Usually farce is used in circus shows.

Vaudeville is a light comedy with entertaining intrigue, which contains a large number of dance numbers and songs. In the USA, vaudeville is called a musical. IN modern Russia it is also common to say "musical", meaning vaudeville.

An interlude is a small comic skit that is performed between the actions of the main play or performance.

A sketch (eng. sketch - “sketch, draft, sketch”) is a short comedy work with two or three characters. Usually they resort to presenting sketches on stage and television.

Widely known comedies: “Frogs” by Aristophanes, “The Inspector General” by N. Gogol, “Woe from Wit” by A. Griboedov.

Famous television sketch shows: “Our Russia”, “Town”, “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is a literary dramatic work in which a tragic plot is depicted in comic form or is a disorderly jumble of tragic and comic elements. In tragicomedy, serious episodes are combined with funny ones, sublime characters are shaded by comic characters. The main technique of tragicomedy is the grotesque.

We can say that “tragicomedy is the funny in the tragic” or, conversely, “the tragic in the funny.”

Widely known tragicomedies: “Alcestis” by Euripides, “The Tempest” by W. Shakespeare, “The Cherry Orchard” by A. Chekhov, films “Forrest Gump”, “The Great Dictator”, “That Same Munchasen”.

More detailed information on this topic can be found in the books of A. Nazaikin

Drama is one of the three types of literature (along with epic and lyric poetry). Drama belongs simultaneously to theater and literature: being the fundamental basis of performance, it is also perceived in reading. It was formed on the basis of evolution theatrical performances: The foregrounding of actors combining pantomime with the spoken word marked its emergence as a form of literature. Intended for collective perception, drama has always gravitated towards the most pressing social problems and in the most striking examples has become popular; its basis is socio-historical contradictions or eternal, universal antinomies. It is dominated by drama - a property of the human spirit, awakened by situations when what is cherished and vital for a person remains unfulfilled or is under threat. Most dramas are built on a single external action with its twists and turns (which corresponds to the principle of unity of action, which dates back to Aristotle). Dramatic action associated, as a rule, with direct confrontation between heroes. It is either traced from beginning to end, capturing large periods of time (medieval and oriental drama, for example, “Shakuntala” by Kalidasa), or is taken only at its climax, close to the denouement (ancient tragedies or many dramas of modern times, for example, “Dowry”, 1879, A.N. Ostrovsky).

Principles of drama construction

Classical aesthetics of the 19th century absolutized these principles of drama construction. Considering drama - following Hegel - as a reproduction of volitional impulses (“actions” and “reactions”) colliding with each other, V.G. Belinsky believed that “in drama there should not be a single person who would not be necessary in the mechanism of its course and development" and that "the decision in choosing a path depends on the hero of the drama, and not on the event." However, in the chronicles of W. Shakespeare and in the tragedy “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin, the unity of external action is weakened, and in A.P. Chekhov it is completely absent: here several equal actions unfold simultaneously storylines. Often in a drama, internal action predominates, in which the characters do not so much do something as experience persistent conflict situations and think intensely. Internal action, elements of which are already present in the tragedies “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles and “Hamlet” (1601) by Shakespeare, dominates the drama of the late 19th - mid-20th centuries (G. Ibsen, M. Maeterlinck, Chekhov, M. Gorky, B. Shaw , B. Brecht, modern “intellectual” drama, for example: J. Anouilh). The principle of internal action was polemically proclaimed in Shaw's work "The Quintessence of Ibsenism" (1891).

Basis of composition

The universal basis of the composition of a drama is the division of its text into stage episodes, within which one moment is closely adjacent to another, neighboring one: the depicted, the so-called real time uniquely corresponds to the time of perception, artistic (see).

The division of drama into episodes is carried out in different ways. In folk medieval and oriental drama, as well as in Shakespeare, in Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, in Brecht’s plays, the place and time of action often change, which gives the image a kind of epic freedom. European drama of the 17th-19th centuries is based, as a rule, on a few and extensive stage episodes that coincide with the acts of the performances, which gives the depiction a flavor of life-like authenticity. The aesthetics of classicism insisted on the most compact mastery of space and time; The “three unities” proclaimed by N. Boileau survived until the 19th century (“Woe from Wit”, A.S. Griboedova).

Drama and character expression

In drama, the characters' statements are crucial., which mark their volitional actions and active self-disclosure, while the narrative (characters’ stories about what happened earlier, messages from messengers, the introduction of the author’s voice into the play) is subordinate, or even completely absent; The words spoken by the characters form a solid, unbroken line in the text. Theatrical-dramatic speech has a dual kind of addressing: the character-actor enters into dialogue with stage partners and monologically appeals to the audience (see). The monologue beginning of speech occurs in drama, firstly, latently, in the form of aside remarks included in the dialogue that do not receive a response (these are the statements of Chekhov’s heroes, marking an outburst of emotions of isolated and lonely people); secondly, in the form of monologues themselves, which reveal the hidden experiences of the characters and thereby enhance the drama of the action, expand the scope of what is depicted, and directly reveal its meaning. Combining dialogic conversationality and monologue rhetoric, speech in drama concentrates the appellative-effective capabilities of language and acquires special artistic energy.

In the historically early stages (from antiquity to F. Schiller and V. Hugo), dialogue, predominantly poetic, relied heavily on monologues (outpourings of the souls of heroes in “scenes of pathos”, statements by messengers, aside remarks, direct appeals to the public), which brought her closer to oratory and lyric poetry. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the tendency of the heroes of traditional poetic drama to “florate until their strength is completely exhausted” (Yu. A. Strindberg) was often perceived in an aloof and ironic manner, as a tribute to routine and falsehood. In the drama of the 19th century, marked by a keen interest in private, family and everyday life, the conversational-dialogical principle dominates (Ostrovsky, Chekhov), monologue rhetoric is reduced to a minimum (Ibsen's later plays). In the 20th century, the monologue was again activated in drama, which addressed the deepest socio-political conflicts of our time (Gorky, V.V. Mayakovsky, Brecht) and the universal antinomies of existence (Anouilh, J.P. Sartre).

Speech in drama

Speech in drama intended to be delivered over a wide space theatrical space, designed for mass effect, potentially sonorous, full-voice, that is, full of theatricality (“without eloquence there is no dramatic writer,” noted D. Diderot). Theater and drama need situations where the hero speaks out to the public (the climax of The Government Inspector, 1836, N.V. Gogol and The Thunderstorm, 1859, A.N. Ostrovsky, pivotal episodes of Mayakovsky’s comedies), as well as theatrical hyperbole: a dramatic character needs more loud and clearly pronounced words than are required by the situations depicted (the journalistically vivid monologue of Andrei alone pushing a baby carriage in the 4th act of “Three Sisters”, 1901, Chekhov). Pushkin (“Of all types of writings, the most improbable works are dramatic ones.” A.S. Pushkin. About tragedy, 1825), E. Zola and L.N. Tolstoy spoke about the attraction of drama to the conventionality of images. The readiness to recklessly indulge in passions, the tendency to make sudden decisions, sharp intellectual reactions, and flamboyant expression of thoughts and feelings are inherent in the heroes of drama much more than in the characters of narrative works. The scene “connects in a small space, in the space of just two hours, all the movements that even a passionate being can often only experience in a long period of life” (Talma F. O performing arts.). The main subject of the playwright’s search is significant and bright, completely filling the consciousness emotional movements, which are predominantly reactions to what is happening at the moment: to a word just spoken, to someone’s movement. Thoughts, feelings and intentions, vague and vague, are reproduced in dramatic speech with less specificity and completeness than in the narrative form. Such limitations of drama are overcome by its stage reproduction: the intonations, gestures and facial expressions of the actors (sometimes recorded by writers in stage directions) capture the shades of the characters’ experiences.

Purpose of drama

The purpose of drama, according to Pushkin, is “to act on the multitude, to engage their curiosity” and for this purpose to capture the “truth of passions”: “Laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination, shaken by dramatic art” (A.S. Pushkin. About folk drama and the drama “Marfa Posadnitsa”, 1830). Drama is especially closely connected with the sphere of laughter, for the theater strengthened and developed within the framework mass celebrations, in an atmosphere of play and fun: “the comedic instinct” is “the fundamental basis of all dramatic skill” (Mann T.). In previous eras - from antiquity to the 19th century - the main properties of drama corresponded to general literary and general artistic trends. The transformative (idealizing or grotesque) principle in art dominated over the reproducing one, and what was depicted noticeably deviated from the forms of real life, so that drama not only successfully competed with epic kind, but was also perceived as the “crown of poetry” (Belinsky). In the 19th and 20th centuries, the desire of art for life-likeness and naturalness, responding to the predominance of the novel and the decline in the role of drama (especially in the West in the first half of the 19th century), at the same time radically modified its structure: under the influence of the experience of novelists, the traditional conventions and hyperbolism of the dramatic image began to be reduced to a minimum (Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Gorky with their desire for everyday and psychological authenticity of images). However new drama retains elements of "implausibility". Even in Chekhov's realistic plays, some of the characters' statements are conventionally poetic.

Although in figurative system drama always dominates speech characteristic, its text is focused on spectacular expressiveness and takes into account the possibilities of stage technology. Hence the most important requirement for drama is its scenic quality (ultimately determined by acute conflict). However, there are dramas intended only for reading. These are many plays from the countries of the East, where the heyday of drama and theater sometimes did not coincide, the Spanish drama-novel “Celestine” (late 15th century), in the literature of the 19th century - the tragedies of J. Byron, “Faust” (1808-31) by I.V. .Goethe. Pushkin’s emphasis on stage performance in “Boris Godunov” and especially in small tragedies is problematic. Theater of the 20th century, successfully mastering almost any genre and generic forms literature, erases the former boundary between drama proper and drama for reading.

On the stage

When staged on stage, drama (like other literary works) is not simply performed, but translated by actors and the director into the language of the theater: based on literary text intonation and gesture drawings of roles are developed, scenery, sound effects and mise-en-scène are created. The stage “completion” of a drama, in which its meaning is enriched and significantly modified, has an important artistic and cultural function. Thanks to him, semantic re-emphasis of literature is carried out, which inevitably accompany its life in the minds of the public. The range of stage interpretations of drama, as modern experience convinces, is very wide. When creating an updated actual stage text, both illustrativeness, literalism in reading the drama and reducing the performance to the role of its “interlinear”, as well as arbitrary, modernizing reshaping of a previously created work - its transformation into a reason for the director to express his own dramatic aspirations - are undesirable. Respectful and careful attitude of actors and director to the content concept, features of the genre and style dramatic work, as well as its text, becomes an imperative when referring to the classics.

As a kind of literature

Drama as a type of literature includes many genres. Throughout the history of drama there is tragedy and comedy; The Middle Ages were characterized by liturgical drama, mystery plays, miracle plays, morality plays, and school drama. In the 18th century, drama emerged as a genre that later prevailed in world drama (see). Melodramas, farces, and vaudevilles are also common. IN modern drama tragicomedies and tragic farces, which predominate in the theater of the absurd, acquired an important role.

The origins of European drama are the works of the ancient Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the comedian Aristophanes. Focusing on the forms of mass celebrations that had ritual and cult origins, following the traditions of choral lyrics and oratory, they created an original drama in which the characters communicated not only with each other, but also with the choir, which expressed the mood of the author and the audience. Ancient Roman drama is represented by Plautus, Terence, Seneca. Ancient drama was entrusted with the role of a public educator; It is characterized by philosophy, the grandeur of tragic images, and the brightness of carnival-satirical play in comedy. The theory of drama (primarily the tragic genre) since the time of Aristotle has appeared in European culture at the same time as a theory of verbal art in general, which testified to the special significance of the dramatic type of literature.

In the East

The heyday of drama in the East dates back to a later time: in India - from the middle of the 1st millennium AD (Kalidasa, Bhasa, Shudraka); Ancient Indian drama was widely based on epic plots, Vedas motifs and song and lyrical forms. The largest playwrights of Japan are Zeami (early 15th century), in whose work drama first received complete literary form(yokyoku genre), and Monzaemon Chikamatsu (late 17th - early 18th century). In the 13th and 14th centuries, secular drama took shape in China.

European drama of modern times

European drama of the New Age, based on principles ancient art(mainly in tragedies), at the same time inherited the traditions of medieval folk theater, mainly comedic and farcical. Its “golden age” is English and Spanish Renaissance and Baroque drama. Titanism and the duality of the Renaissance personality, its freedom from the gods and at the same time dependence on passions and the power of money, the integrity and inconsistency of the historical flow were embodied in Shakespeare in a truly folk dramatic form, synthesizing the tragic and comic. , real and fantastic, possessing compositional freedom, plot versatility, combining subtle intelligence and poetry with rough farce. Calderon de la Barca embodied the ideas of the Baroque: the duality of the world (the antinomy of the earthly and the spiritual), the inevitability of suffering on earth and the stoic self-liberation of man. The drama of French classicism also became a classic; the tragedies of P. Corneille and J. Racine psychologically deeply developed the conflict of personal feelings and duty to the nation and state. Molière's “High Comedy” combined the traditions of folk spectacle with the principles of classicism, and satire on social vices with folk cheerfulness.

The ideas and conflicts of the Enlightenment were reflected in the dramas of G. Lessing, Diderot, P. Beaumarchais, C. Goldoni; in the genre of bourgeois drama, the universality of the norms of classicism was questioned, and the democratization of drama and its language took place. At the beginning of the 19th century, the most meaningful dramaturgy was created by the romantics (G. Kleist, Byron, P. Shelley, V. Hugo). The pathos of individual freedom and protest against bourgeoisism were conveyed through striking events, legendary or historical, and were clothed in monologues filled with lyricism.

The new rise of Western European drama dates back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Ibsen, G. Hauptmann, Strindberg, Shaw focus on acute social and moral conflicts. In the 20th century, the traditions of drama of this era were inherited by R. Rolland, J. Priestley, S. O'Casey, Y. O'Neill, L. Pirandello, K. Chapek, A. Miller, E. de Filippo, F. Dürrenmatt, E. .Albee, T.Williams. Prominent place in foreign art occupied by the so-called intellectual drama associated with existentialism (Sartre, Anouilh); in the second half of the 20th century, the drama of the absurd developed (E. Ionesco, S. Beckett, G. Pinter, etc.). Acute socio-political conflicts of the 1920s-40s were reflected in Brecht's work; his theater is emphatically rationalistic, intellectually intense, openly conventional, oratory and rally.

Russian drama

Status high classics Russian drama has gained since the 1820-30s(Griboyedov, Pushkin, Gogol). Ostrovsky's multi-genre dramaturgy with its cross-cutting conflict human dignity and the power of money, with the foregrounding of a way of life marked by despotism, with its sympathy and respect for “ little man” and the predominance of “life-like” forms became decisive in the formation of the national repertoire of the 19th century. Psychological dramas full of sober realism were created by Leo Tolstoy. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, drama underwent a radical shift in Chekhov's work, which, having comprehended emotional drama intelligentsia of his time, clothed deep drama in the form of mournful and ironic lyricism. Replies and episodes of his plays are connected associatively, according to the principle of “counterpoint”, states of mind The heroes are revealed against the background of the ordinary course of life with the help of subtext, developed by Chekhov in parallel with the symbolist Maeterlinck, who was interested in the “secrets of the spirit” and the hidden “tragedy of everyday life.”

The origins of Russian drama of the Soviet period are the works of Gorky, continued by historical and revolutionary plays (N.F. Pogodin, B.A. Lavrenev, V.V. Vishnevsky, K.A. Trenev). Vivid examples of satirical drama were created by Mayakovsky, M.A. Bulgakov, N.R. Erdman. The genre of fairy tale play, combining light lyricism, heroism and satire, was developed by E.L. Shvarts. Social and psychological drama is represented by the works of A.N. Afinogenov, L.M. Leonov, A.E. Korneychuk, A.N. Arbuzov, and later - V.S. Rozov, A.M. Volodin. L.G.Zorina, R.Ibragimbekova, I.P.Drutse, L.S.Petrushevskaya, V.I.Slavkina, A.M.Galina. The production theme formed the basis of social sharp plays I.M. Dvoretsky and A.I. Gelman. A kind of “drama of morals”, combining socio-psychological analysis with a grotesque vaudeville style, was created by A.V. Vampilov. Over the past decade, the plays of N.V. Kolyada have been successful. Drama of the 20th century sometimes includes a lyrical beginning (the lyrical dramas of Maeterlinck and A.A. Blok) or a narrative one (Brecht called his plays “epic”). The use of narrative fragments and active editing of stage episodes often gives the work of playwrights a documentary flavor. And at the same time, it is in these dramas that the illusion of the authenticity of what is depicted is openly destroyed and tribute is paid to the demonstration of convention (direct appeals of the characters to the public; reproduction on stage of the hero’s memories or dreams; song and lyrical fragments intruding into the action). In the mid-20th century, a docudrama circulated, reproducing real events, historical documents, memoir literature (“Dear Liar”, 1963, J. Kilty, “The Sixth of July”, 1962, and “Revolutionary Study”, 1978, M.F. Shatrova).

The word drama comes from Greek drama, which means action.