Drama (25%)

Question 1

What is a “drama”/ “dramatic text”?

Answer 1

• text in written language
• reception not bound to a specific time or place
• each act of reading is unique, but the same text can be
  reread
  -Intended primarily to be performed on stage (script for a
  theatre performance)
• “collective nature of production and reception“

Question 2

Theatre/theatrical performance:

Answer 2

• multimodal (visual and auditory) text
• reception bound to a specific time and place
• unique and transient
  A drama can function as the script for a performance.

Question 3

How is meaning constituted in a theater performance?

Answer 3

1.a dramatic level (interaction between the characters on stage)
2.a theatrical level (communication between the cast and the audience)
3.level of everyday life (social communication about the production and its relation to everyday norms)

Question 4

What is a primary text?

Answer 4

• characters‘ remarks, spoken aloud during performance

Question 5

What is a secondary text?

Answer 5

• stage directions concerning:
• stage set
• characters‘ gestures, facial expressions
• all constituent parts which are not part of the dialogue: e.g.
  demarcation of acts and scenes, information as to which
  character is speaking, title of the play, dedications, preface,
  list of dramatis personae

Question 6

Ways of transmitting information in drama:

Answer 6

a) dialogue
b) stichomythia
c) monologue
d) soliloquy
e) aside
f) messenger report
g) teichoscopy

Question 7

Dialogue:

Answer 7

the exchange of spoken words between two or more characters in a book, play, or other written work

Question 8

Stichomythia (eselsbrücke:sticheleien)

Answer 8

dialogue in which two characters speak alternate lines of verse,

Question 9

Monologue:

Answer 9

when a character in a dramatic work speaks directly to the audience, expressing their inner thoughts

Question 10

Soliloquy:

Answer 10

a long form speech delivered by a single character in a play or a film.
-addresses other characters in the audience

Question 11

Aside:

Answer 11

An aside is when a fictional character breaks away from the events of the story to talk to themselves or directly to the audience. (monological/dialogical/ad spectatores)

Question 12

Messenger report:

Answer 12

It is a report about events, which take place not directly on stage, but in some spatial or temporal distance. On one hand, the messenger’s report is adopted from the older genre “epic”, since events are presented in a narrative way.

Question 13

Teichoscopy:

Answer 13

a theatrical means of communicating occurrences that happen offstage. A figure, commonly subaltern and anonymous, climbs to an elevated position to report what it sees from this vantage point while the leading figure remains below to hear.
-(characters observe and
simultaneously report events which are happening
off-stage)

Question 14

What is the difference between a dramatic text and a performance?

Answer 14

(characters observe and
simultaneously report events which are happening off-stage)

Question 15

What is “internal communication”?

Answer 15

between characters

Question 16

What is “external communication”?

Answer 16

between actors and the audience

Question 17

Mono-dimensional/flat character:

Answer 17

“are constructed around a single idea or quality and are unchanging.”

Question 18

Multi-dimensional/round character:

Answer 18

“include more complex features and usually develop in the course of the action.”

Question 19

Which questions are asked when talking about the individuality of a character?

Answer 19

• How much information does a play provide on a character?
• What degree of individuality is thus granted to a character?

Question 20

The “type”:

Answer 20

focuses on a small, internally consistent collection
of qualities or features which are common to many people.”
(104)
Examples
* physiological types (conditions of the body in comedy of
humours): determined by one of the four humours (black
bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood -> see next two slides).
* psychological types, embodying a particular mode of
human behaviour (e.g. the grouch, the braggart, or the
miser)
* social types: based on a particular profession or social
class (e.g. the courtier, city-dweller, peasant)

Question 21

the “stock character”:

Answer 21

• a subcategory of ‘type’
• They exemplify cultural stereotypes and characteristics
  associated with a specific group of people.
• “Stock characters draw on cultural conventions for their
  behaviour, personality, and manner of speech and are thus
  easily recognizable for the audiences of the same culture”
  (105)
• Example: the miles gloriosus, the braggart soldier, who gloats
  on his deeds (Shakespeare’s Falstaff is based on this type
  but arguably more individualised)

Question 22

Authorial characterisation:

Answer 22

conveyed primarily through the secondary text
▸ can be found in stage directions, telling names, and
the preface of a play, as well as in the character
constellations, and the creation of correspondences
and contrasts among the dramatis personae

Question 23

Figural characterisation:

Answer 23

▸ conveyed primarily through the primary text and verbal aspects in performance
▸ based on speech, gestures, appearance, and actions

Question 24

Explicit authorial characterisation:

Answer 24

• (evaluative) “description
  of […] figures in the
  secondary text” (Pfister
  194)
• telling names ”such as Mr
  Pinchwife, Lady Wishfort, Mrs
  Loveit and Sir Wilfull Witwoud”
  (Pfister 194)

Question 25

Implicit authorial characterisation:

Answer 25

• correspondences and
  contrasts between
  characters
• interpretive names (“is
  plausible in realist terms”
  (Pfister 194))

Question 26

Explicit figural characterisation:

Answer 26

• self-characterisation (“figure
  explicitly articulates the way it sees itself”,
  Pfister 185)
• characterisation through other
  characters’ descriptions and
  comments (“outside commentary”,
  Pfister 185)

Question 27

Implicit figural characterisation:

Answer 27

• physical appearance, gestures
  and facial expressions
• behaviour
• voice quality
• style, register, dialect, etc.
• only partially verbal: clothing,
  properties, interiors

Question 28

What is the classical form of the tragedy (Aristotle)?

Answer 28

1. Introduction (exposition)
2. Development of the conflict (rising action)
3. Climax and beginning of the protagonist‘s tragic
   descent
4. Moment and delay (falling action)
5. Catastrophe (or: dénouement)

Question 29

Plot structure: Closed form

Answer 29

logically built plot structure with clear resolution
▸ respects the three Aristotelian unities
* unity of action (beginning, middle, end)
* unity of time
* unity of place

Question 30

Plot-structure: Open form

Answer 30

loose connection between acts/scenes
▸ no clear-cut causalities
▸ ambivalent ending

Question 31

Plot-structure of Top Girls:

Answer 31

• “ambiguous, partially non-linear,
  or non-chronological structure”
  (Bush, 40)
• Neglects the three unities:
  Ø no unity of action
  Ø no unity of time
  Ø no unity of place
• Loose connection between acts
• Open ending

Question 32

Absolute drama:

Answer 32

• does not employ a level of fictional
  mediation; a play that makes no use
  of narrator figures, chorus
  characters, story-internal stage
  managers, or any other ‘epic’ elements
• The audience witnesses the action of
  the play as if it happened ‘absolutely’,
  i.e., as if it existed independently of
  either author, or narrator, or, in fact,
  the spectators themselves.
• Ex.: Shakespeare, Hamlet, and many
  others
• For Pfister, this is the prototypical form
  of drama.

Question 33

Epic drama:

Answer 33

• makes use of ‘epic devices’ [see
  previous slide], mainly a narrator or
  teller figure.
• It is ‘epic’ in the sense that, just like
  in prose fiction, there is a visible
  and/or audible narrator figure
  whose presence creates a distinct
  level of communication [see
  intermediate level on previous slide]
  complete with addressee, setting,
  and time line.
• Ex.: Shakespeare, Pericles (Gower
  is a heterodiegetic narrator
• Ex.: Shaffer, Amadeus (Salieri is a
  homodiegetic narrator)

Question 34

Character constellation:

Answer 34

sum total of a play’s characters
relationships of contrast and correspondence
prominence/importance for plot:
* main vs. secondary characters
social groups and semantic spaces:
* gender, age, class, race
function in play:
* protagonist vs. antagonist
* confidant, foil