DRAMATIC LITERATURE

the texts of plays that can be read, as distinct from being seen and heard in performance. The term dramatic literature implies a contradiction in that literature originally meant something written and drama meant something performed. Most of the problems, and much of the interest, in the study of dramatic literature stem from this contradiction. Even though a play may be appreciated solely for its qualities as writing, greater rewards probably accrue to those who remain alert to the volatility of the play as a whole. In order to appreciate this complexity in drama, however, each of its elementsacting, directing, staging, etc.should be studied, so that its relationship to all the others can be fully understood. It is the purpose of this article to study drama with particular attention to what the playwright sets down. The history of dramatic literature is discussed in the articles theatre, history of; and Islamic arts: Dance and theatre; and in the regional studies East Asian arts: Dance and theatre, South Asian arts: Dance and theatre, Southeast Asian arts: The performing arts, and African arts: Literature and theatre. the texts of plays that can be read, as distinct from being seen and heard in performance. The relations between dramatic texts and the performances for which such writing was intended are neither simple nor regular. In the case of the Greek dramatists of the 5th century BC, the texts now available are a small selection made by later copying and preservation. There is no way of knowing how these relate, precisely, to the compositions made available for the original productions. The problem here, as in many later periods, is the relation between the words written to be spoken or sung by the performers and the many other elements of dramatic compositionin movement, in scene and costume, and occasionally in musicthat the performance would include. Some of these can be inferred from the particular styles of writing, but most have to be studied from other kinds of surviving accounts. In the drama of the English Renaissance, it was at first unusual to publish plays as if they were literary works, but the importance of the dramatic writing of the period eventually established many of the plays as texts. It is again necessary to infer other elements of the full dramatic composition from other kinds of information about theatres, audiences, and acting. In later periods, and especially from the 19th century onward, it became habitual to include in the written text of a play, and especially in its independently published form, details not only of scene and stage movement but also of the appearance of the characters and of the states of mind intended to accompany or to punctuate the spoken words. Some of these later texts of plays resemble, in part, the printed modes of novels or short stories. There is no doubt that the printed texts of plays, in any of these forms, can be read as literature. Many of them are now regarded as being among the great works of literature of the world: The Oresteia, King Lear, Peer Gynt. Yet it is then easy to forget that they are always a particular form of writing, for several voices and for action. It can be reasonably claimed that one gains the essential meanings of a play from the printed text alone, but there are cases when a plain silent reading from the text may miss some significant points. It is possible, for example, to read the Greek plays, especially in translation, without realizing that this or that speech was in fact sung, by a single actor or by the two halves of the chorus. In what are called the soliloquies of Shakespeare it is possible, from the printed text, to suppose that these are forms of private thought, when in fact, within the well understood dramatic conventions of the period, they were spoken aloud, directly or indirectly, to audiences. In many other cases the physical movements and relations that were part of the essential composition may be missed altogether, or only vaguely apprehended, from the apparently self-sufficient text of the words spoken and its minimal stage directions. Most drama is a form of writing for oral and actual performance, and it is in the period when imaginative writing has been taken to be coterminous with literature, and especially with printed literature, that some of its elements have been most persistently misunderstood. The phrase dramatic literature has elements in common with the phrase oral literature, when the condition of silent reading of print has come to seem the normal or even universal condition of the reception and study of imaginative writing. The name for work within these conditionsliteraturewas transferred to these other forms of writing intended primarily for oral communication. The need for understanding the conditions of oral performance is now more widely recognized. At the same time, given this recognition, the texts of the great plays are still read as dramatic literature, with a proper emphasis on the distinguishing features of the dramatic. Additional reading Allardyce Nicoll, World Drama (1949), offers the best survey of the whole field of dramatic literature, but it should be supplemented by John Gassner and Edward Quinn, The Reader's Encyclopaedia of World Drama (1969); and Phyllis Hartnoll, The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 3rd ed. (1967). The classical texts of dramatic theory and criticism may be found in a collection by B.H. Clark, European Theories of the Drama, rev. ed. (1965), which also contains an extensive bibliography. The Natya Shastra of Bharata, the classic source for Indian dramatic theory, was translated by M.M. Ghose in 1951.Books of importance in the development of modern theory on drama are Bernard Beckerman, Dynamics of Drama (1970); E.R. Bentley, The Life of the Drama (1964); Kenneth Burke, A Grammar of Motives (1945); Francis Fergusson, The Idea of a Theatre (1949); S.K. Langer, Feeling and Form (1953); Elder Olson, Tragedy and the Theory of Drama (1961); Ronald Peacock, The Art of Drama (1957); J.L. Styan, The Elements of Drama (1960); and Keir Elam, The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (1980), a technical semiotic approach.The finest study of the classical drama of Greece is probably H.D.F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy, 3rd ed. (1961); and for the medieval drama are recommended Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vol. (1933); Hardin Craig, English Religious Drama of the Middle Ages (1955); and O.B. Hardison, Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (1965). Oriental theatre is surveyed in Faubion Bowers, Japanese Theatre (1952); F.A. Lombard, An Outline History of the Japanese Drama (1928), which should be read in conjunction with Arthur Waley's classic The Noh Plays of Japan (1922); A.C. Scott, The Classical Theatre of China (1957); A.B. Keith, The Sanskrit Drama (1924); with H.W. Wells's comparative studies, The Classical Drama of India (1963), and The Classical Drama of the Orient (1965).M.C. Bradbrook, Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy (1935); and U.M. Ellis-Fermor, Jacobean Drama (1936), are standard surveys of the English Renaissance drama; and for standard Shakespearean criticism the reader should consult A.M. Eastman, A Short History of Shakespearean Criticism (1968). The classic source books for the commedia dell'arte are P.L. Duchartre, La Comdie italienne (Eng. trans., The Italian Comedy, 1929, reprinted 1966); and Allardyce Nicoll, Masks, Mimes and Miracles (1931). On the French classical drama H.C. Lancaster, A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century, 9 vol. (192942), is standard; but Martin Turnell, The Classical Moment (1947), deals more briefly with Corneille, Racine, and Molire. On Restoration comedy J.L. Palmer, The Comedy of Manners (1913); and Bonamy Dobree, Restoration Comedy (1924), remain the best.American drama is surveyed briefly in W.J. Meserve, An Outline History of American Drama (1965); and A.S. Downer, Fifty Years of American Drama, 19001950 (1951). U.M. Ellis-Fermor, The Irish Dramatic Movement, 2nd ed. (1954), is a comprehensive study of the early years at Dublin's Abbey Theatre; and on Western drama after Ibsen the reader should begin by consulting Eric Bentley, The Playwright as Thinker (1946, reprinted 1955); Robert Brustein, The Theatre of Revolt (1964); and J.L. Styan, The Dark Comedy, 2nd ed. (1968), an account of the blending of tragic and comic elements in the post-Ibsen theatre.