Defining Drama

Note-Taking for

book 2 of the Aeneid

Defining Drama

A drama is a story written to be performed by actors.

- focuses on characters in conflict

- presents its action through dialogue

Elements of DramaA drama, or play, typically includes several key elements:

- plot: ordered sequence of events that make up the play- characters: people who participate in the action of the play and are portrayed onstage by actors- dialogue: conversation and speeches of the characters (all ancient Greek and Roman plays were written in verse) - stage directions: notes included in the play to describe the sets, costumes, lighting, scenery, sound effects, and props; indicate where the scene takes place, how it should look and sound, and how the actors should move and deliver their lines.

Comedy and Tragedy

Ever since the development of Western drama in ancient Greece, plays have been divided into two broad categories:

Comedy – a play that has a happy ending; often show ordinary characters in conflict with society – conflicts that arise from misunderstandings, deceptions, disapproving parents, or mistaken identities.

Tragedy – a play that shows the downfall or death of the main character, or tragic hero. ** The tragic hero’s downfall is caused by a tragic flaw: a mistake or unwise decision.

Other Types of Drama

History plays – chronicle the struggles of the English monarchy over several generations

Melodrama – features stereotyped characters and exaggerated conflicts

Tragicomedy – combines tragic and comic elements

Modern realistic drama – features ordinary language, realistic characters, and controversial issues

Dramatic Conventions

Dramatic Conventions - Literary devices that break the illusion of reality. In a practice called the suspension of disbelief, the audience agrees to accept these conventions while watching – or reading - a play.Soliloquy: a speech in which a character who is alone onstage reveals private thoughts and feelings to the audience (The character may appear to address the audience directly, but it is understood that the audience is overhearing the character talking or thinking out loud)Aside: a brief remark delivered by a character to express private thoughts while other characters are onstage. (Directed to the audience and presumed to be unheard by other characters)

Who wrote the Aeneid?

Virgil (70–19 BC)

• Unquestionably the greatest Roman poet

• Born near Mantua

• Sensitive to nature and acutely aware of the beauty and wisdom to the natural world

Literary Terms

National epic – tells a story about the founding or development of a nation or culture.

**Virgil’s goal with the Aeneid was to give Rome a national epic that would equal Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey in literary greatness and prove that Rome was as great a civilization as Greece.

Epic hero – the central figure of an epic

• the hero in a national epic usually serves as a model for an entire culture.

• admired for their strength, skill in battle, integrity, and beliefs

Ancient Roman values included:

- devotion to duty

- compassion and mercy for opponents in battle

- honesty and fairness

Vocabularynotions – ideas

perjured – purposely false

guile – trickery

tumult – commotion; confusion

unfettered – unrestrained

blaspheming – irreverent

desecrating – treating as not sacred

portents – signs that suggest what is about to occur