Notes Oct. 25-29

Drama
Chapter 1: The Nature of Drama
Drama is a lot like Prose fiction or poetry. BUT what is unique about it is that it was written to be performed, not read. 

• Present action...
• through actors
• impact is direct and based on the actors' skills
• audience receives all info at once instead of multiple paragraphs- how character looks and moves and speaks
• on stage 
• and before an audience
• spectators' response is affected by other spectators- impact intensified
• Playwrights have tremendous amount of power but are also limited
• practically limited to 1 point of view: the objective, or dramatic
• Soliloquy- characters are presented as speaking to themselves (think out loud)
• Aside- characters turn from people on stage they are conversing with to speak directly to audience- allows audience know what they are really thinking/feeling
• Playwright can command undivided attention since audience only has the play to look at, but since it's confined to a stage that also limits the audience's imagination.
• use mostly humans
• can't quickly change settings constantly 

Drama Terms

• Realistic- drama that attempts in content and in presentation to preserve the illusion of actual everyday life. 
• Non Realistic- drama that departs markedly from fidelity to outward appearances of life. 
• Tragedy- type of drama with events that lead to downfall and suffering of protagonist a person of unusual moral or intellectual stature or outstanding abilities.
• Comedy- type of drama with a usually happy ending, emphasizing human limitation rather than human greatness
• Romantic Comedy- likable and sensible main characters placed in difficulties from which they are rescued at end of play, either attaining their ends or having good fortunes restored. 
• Scornful Comedy- main purpose to expose and ridicule human folly, vanity, or hypocrisy.
• Melodrama- type of drama related to tragedy but featuring sensational incidents, emphasizing plot, relying on cruder conflicts and having happy ending when good triumphs evil.
• Farce- type of drama related to a comedy, but emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action, and coarse wit over characterization and plot.
• Protagonist- main character in story/ play
• Antagonist- any force in story in conflict with protagonist. May be person, aspect of physical or social environment or destructive element in protagonist's own nature.
• Foil characters- a character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits
• Plot- The sequence of incidents or events of which a story of play is composed
• Suspense- That quality in a story or play that makes the reader eager to discover what happens next and how it will end.
• Themes- The central idea or unifying generalization implied or stated by a literary work.
• Didactic- poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach.
• Dramatic Exposition- the presentation through dialogue of information about events that occurred before the action of a play, or that occurs offstage or between the staged actions; this may also refer to the presentation of information about individual characters' backgrounds or the general situation in which the action takes place. 

Chapter 2- Realistic and Non-Realistic Drama

• Drama adds another dimension of possible unreality since written to be performed
• involves certain necessary artificiality 
• audience must imagine there are four walls and actors must adapt to different stages to accommodate members from all sides of the audience.
• dramatic conventions- we have to accept certain departures from reality (room with less than four walls still represents one with four and actors speak language of audience disregarding nationality of their characters)
• other conventions (avoided in working in strictly realistic mode): example: characters reveal inner thoughts
• make possible the revelation of dimensions of reality
• chorus- group of actors speaking in unison (another nonrealistic devise)
• useful for conveying communal or group emotion
• narrator- vehicle for dramatic truth

Plagiarism

• Still plagiarism even if it is an accident.
• plagiarism results in a full or partial loss of credit
• Good paraphrasing:
• condenses
• restructures syntax
• replaces words