Drama as a literary genre. Genres of dramatic works. Generic classification of works of art. literature Dramaturgy as a type of literature

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 gave way to 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 for performance on the theatrical stage are called plays (French pi èce).

Dramatic works based on which films are made are scripts.

Both plays and scripts contain author's notes to indicate the time and place of action, indications of the age, appearance of the characters, 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,

– vaudeville,

Drama is a literary work that depicts a serious conflict between characters or between characters 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 real everyday life, the formulation of “perishable” questions of human existence, a deep disclosure of characters, the inner world of characters.

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

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 main character, as a rule, suffers deeply (including from hopelessness), and his fate is unhappy.

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 they also usually 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. Griboyedov.

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

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is a literary dramatic work in which the tragic plot is depicted in a comic form or is a disorderly accumulation 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

Dramatic works (other gr. action), like epic ones, recreate series of events, the actions of people and their relationships. Like the author of an epic work, the playwright is subject to the “law of developing action.” But there is no detailed narrative-descriptive image in the drama.

The actual author's speech here is auxiliary and episodic. These are lists of characters, sometimes accompanied by brief characteristics, indicating the time and place of action; descriptions of the stage situation at the beginning of acts and episodes, as well as comments on individual remarks of the characters and indications of their movements, gestures, facial expressions, intonations (remarks).

All this constitutes the secondary text of a dramatic work. Its main text is a chain of statements by the characters, their remarks and monologues.

Hence some limitations of the artistic possibilities of drama. A writer-playwright uses only part of the visual means that are available to the creator of a novel or epic, short story or story. And the characters of the characters are revealed in drama with less freedom and completeness than in epic. “I perceive drama,” noted T. Mann, “as the art of silhouette and I perceive only the person being told as a three-dimensional, integral, real and plastic image.”

At the same time, playwrights, unlike authors of epic works, are forced to limit themselves to the volume of verbal text that meets the needs of theatrical art. The time of the action depicted in the drama must fit within the strict time frame of the stage.

And the performance in the forms familiar to modern European theater lasts, as is known, no more than three to four hours. And this requires an appropriate size of the dramatic text.

The time of the events reproduced by the playwright during the stage episode is neither compressed nor stretched; characters in the drama exchange remarks without any noticeable time intervals, and their statements, as noted by K.S. Stanislavsky, form a continuous, continuous line.

If with the help of narration the action is captured as something in the past, then the chain of dialogues and monologues in the drama creates the illusion of the present time. Life here speaks as if on its own behalf: between what is depicted and the reader there is no intermediary narrator.

The action is recreated in drama with maximum immediacy. It flows as if before the reader’s eyes. “All narrative forms,” wrote F. Schiller, “transfer the present into the past; everything dramatic makes the past present.”

Drama is oriented towards the demands of the stage. And theater is a public, mass art. The performance directly affects many people, who seem to merge together in responses to what is happening in front of them.

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”: “Drama was born in the square and was a popular entertainment. People, like children, demand entertainment and action. The drama presents him with unusual, strange incidents. People demand strong sensations. Laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination, shaken by dramatic art.”

The dramatic genre of literature is especially closely connected with the sphere of laughter, for the theater strengthened and developed in inextricable connection with mass celebrations, in an atmosphere of play and fun. “The comic genre is universal for antiquity,” noted O. M. Freidenberg.

The same can be said about theater and drama of other countries and eras. T. Mann was right when he called the “comedian instinct” “the fundamental basis of all dramatic skill.”

It is not surprising that drama gravitates towards an outwardly spectacular presentation of what is depicted. Her imagery turns out to be hyperbolic, catchy, theatrically bright. “The theater requires exaggerated broad lines both in voice, recitation, and in gestures,” wrote N. Boileau. And this property of stage art invariably leaves its mark on the behavior of the heroes of dramatic works.

“Like he acted out in the theater,” comments Bubnov (“At the Lower Depths” by Gorky) on the frenzied tirade of the desperate Kleshch, who, by unexpectedly intruding into the general conversation, gave it theatrical effect.

Significant (as a characteristic of the dramatic type of literature) are Tolstoy’s reproaches against W. Shakespeare for the abundance of hyperbole, which allegedly “violates the possibility of artistic impression.” “From the very first words,” he wrote about the tragedy “King Lear,” “one can see the exaggeration: the exaggeration of events, the exaggeration of feelings and the exaggeration of expressions.”

In his assessment of Shakespeare's work, L. Tolstoy was wrong, but the idea that the great English playwright was committed to theatrical hyperbole is completely fair. What has been said about “King Lear” can be applied with no less justification to ancient comedies and tragedies, dramatic works of classicism, to the plays of F. Schiller and V. Hugo, etc.

In the 19th-20th centuries, when the desire for everyday authenticity prevailed in literature, the conventions inherent in drama became less obvious, and they were often reduced to a minimum. The origins of this phenomenon are the so-called “philistine drama” of the 18th century, the creators and theorists of which were D. Diderot and G.E. Lessing.

Works of the greatest Russian playwrights of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century - A.N. Ostrovsky, A.P. Chekhov and M. Gorky - they are distinguished by the authenticity of the life forms they recreate. But even when the Playwrights focused on verisimilitude, plot, psychological and actual speech hyperboles were preserved.

Theatrical conventions made themselves felt even in Chekhov’s dramaturgy, which showed the maximum limit of “life-likeness.” Let's take a closer look at the final scene of Three Sisters. One young woman, ten or fifteen minutes ago, broke up with her loved one, probably forever. Another five minutes ago found out about the death of her fiancé. And so they, together with the elder, third sister, sum up the moral and philosophical results of the past, reflecting to the sounds of a military march about the fate of their generation, about the future of humanity.

It is hardly possible to imagine this happening in reality. But we don’t notice the implausibility of the ending of “Three Sisters”, since we are accustomed to the fact that drama significantly changes the forms of people’s life.

The above convinces us of the validity of A. S. Pushkin’s judgment (from his already cited article) that “the very essence of dramatic art excludes verisimilitude”; “When reading a poem or a novel, we can often forget ourselves and believe that the incident described is not fiction, but the truth.

In an ode, in an elegy, we can think that the poet depicted his real feelings, in real circumstances. But where is the credibility in a building divided into two parts, one of which is filled with spectators who have agreed?

The most important role in dramatic works belongs to the conventions of verbal self-disclosure of heroes, whose dialogues and monologues, often filled with aphorisms and maxims, turn out to be much more extensive and effective than those remarks that could be uttered in a similar situation in life.

Conventional remarks are “to the side”, which do not seem to exist for other characters on stage, but are clearly audible to the audience, as well as monologues pronounced by the characters alone, alone with themselves, which are a purely stage technique for bringing out inner speech (there are many such monologues as in ancient tragedies and in modern dramaturgy).

The playwright, setting up a kind of experiment, shows how a person would speak if in the spoken words he expressed his moods with maximum completeness and brightness. And speech in a dramatic work often takes on similarities with artistic, lyrical or oratorical speech: the characters here tend to express themselves like improvisers-poets or masters of public speaking.

Therefore, Hegel was partly right when he viewed drama as a synthesis of the epic principle (eventfulness) and the lyrical principle (speech expression).

Drama has, as it were, two lives in art: theatrical and literary. Constituting the dramatic basis of performances, existing in their composition, a dramatic work is also perceived by the reading public.

But this was not always the case. The emancipation of drama from the stage was carried out gradually - over a number of centuries and was completed relatively recently: in the 18th-19th centuries. World-significant examples of drama (from antiquity to the 17th century) at the time of their creation were practically not recognized as literary works: they existed only as part of the performing arts.

Neither W. Shakespeare nor J.B. Moliere were perceived by their contemporaries as writers. A decisive role in strengthening the idea of drama as a work intended not only for stage production, but also for reading, was played by the “discovery” of Shakespeare as a great dramatic poet in the second half of the 18th century.

In the 19th century (especially in its first half) the literary merits of the drama were often placed above the stage ones. Thus, Goethe believed that “Shakespeare’s works are not for the eyes of the body,” and Griboyedov called his desire to hear the verses of “Woe from Wit” from the stage “childish.”

The so-called Lesedrama (drama for reading), created with a focus primarily on perception in reading, has become widespread. Such are Goethe's Faust, Byron's dramatic works, Pushkin's small tragedies, Turgenev's dramas, about which the author remarked: “My plays, unsatisfactory on stage, may be of some interest in reading.”

There are no fundamental differences between Lesedrama and a play that is intended by the author for stage production. Dramas created for reading are often potentially stage plays. And the theater (including modern) persistently searches and sometimes finds the keys to them, evidence of which is the successful productions of Turgenev’s “A Month in the Country” (primarily the famous pre-revolutionary performance of the Art Theater) and numerous (although not always successful) stage readings Pushkin's small tragedies in the 20th century.

The old truth remains in force: the most important, main purpose of drama is the stage. “Only during stage performance,” noted A. N. Ostrovsky, “the author’s dramatic invention receives a completely finished form and produces exactly that moral action, the achievement of which the author set himself the goal.”

The creation of a performance based on a dramatic work is associated with its creative completion: the actors create intonational and plastic drawings of the roles they play, the artist designs the stage space, the director develops the mise-en-scène. In this regard, the concept of the play changes somewhat (more attention is paid to some of its aspects, less attention to others), and is often specified and enriched: the stage production introduces new semantic shades into the drama.

At the same time, the principle of faithful reading of literature is of paramount importance for the theater. The director and actors are called upon to convey the staged work to the audience as fully as possible. Fidelity of stage reading occurs when the director and actors deeply comprehend a dramatic work in its main content, genre, and style features.

Stage productions (as well as film adaptations) are legitimate only in cases where there is agreement (even relative) of the director and actors with the range of ideas of the writer-playwright, when stage performers are carefully attentive to the meaning of the work staged, to the features of its genre, the features of its style and to the text itself.

In the classical aesthetics of the 18th-19th centuries, in particular in Hegel and Belinsky, drama (primarily the genre of tragedy) was considered as the highest form of literary creativity: as the “crown of poetry.”

A whole series of artistic eras actually showed themselves primarily in dramatic art. Aeschylus and Sophocles during the heyday of ancient culture, Moliere, Racine and Corneille at the time of classicism had no equal among the authors of epic works.

Goethe's work is significant in this regard. All literary genres were accessible to the great German writer, and he crowned his life in art with the creation of a dramatic work - the immortal Faust.

In past centuries (until the 18th century), drama not only successfully competed with epic, but also often became the leading form of artistic reproduction of life in space and time.

This is due to a number of reasons. Firstly, theatrical art played a huge role, accessible (unlike handwritten and printed books) to the widest strata of society. Secondly, the properties of dramatic works (depiction of characters with clearly defined features, reproduction of human passions, attraction to pathos and the grotesque) in “pre-realistic” eras fully corresponded to general literary and general artistic trends.

And although in the XIX-XX centuries. The socio-psychological novel, a genre of epic literature, has moved to the forefront of literature; dramatic works still have a place of honor.

V.E. Khalizev Theory of literature. 1999

Tragedy(from gr. Tragos - goat and ode - song) - one of the types of drama, which is based on the irreconcilable conflict of an unusual personality with insurmountable external circumstances. Usually the hero dies (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's Hamlet). The tragedy originated in ancient Greece, the name comes from a folk performance in honor of the god of wine, Dionysus. Dances, songs and stories about his suffering were performed, at the end of which a goat was sacrificed.

Comedy(from the gr. comoidia. Comos - cheerful crowd and ode - song) - a type of dramatic arbitrariness that depicts the comic in the social life, behavior and character of people. There is a comedy of situations (intrigue) and a comedy of characters.

Drama - a type of dramaturgy intermediate between tragedy and comedy (“The Thunderstorm” by A. Ostrovsky, “Stolen Happiness” by I. Franko). Dramas mainly depict the private life of a person and his acute conflict with society. At the same time, the emphasis is often placed on universal human contradictions, embodied in the behavior and actions of specific characters.

Mystery(from the gr. mysterion - sacrament, religious service, ritual) - a genre of mass religious theater of the late Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries), widespread in the countries of Western Nvrotta.

Sideshow(from Latin intermedius - that which is in the middle) - a small comic play or sketch that was performed between the actions of the main drama. In modern pop art it exists as an independent genre.

Vaudeville(from the French vaudeville) a light comic play in which dramatic action is combined with music and dancing.

Melodrama - a play with acute intrigue, exaggerated emotionality and a moral and didactic tendency. Typical for melodrama is a “happy ending”, the triumph of good characters. The genre of melodrama was popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, but later acquired a negative reputation.

Farce(from Latin farcio I begin, I fill) is a Western European folk comedy of the 14th - 16th centuries, which originated from funny ritual games and interludes. Farce is characterized by the main features of popular ideas: mass participation, satirical orientation, and rude humor. In modern times, this genre has entered the repertoire of small theaters.

As noted, methods of literary depiction are often mixed within individual types and genres. This mixture is of two kinds: in some cases there is a kind of inclusion, when the main generic characteristics are preserved; in others, the generic principles are balanced, and the work cannot be attributed to either epic, clergy, or drama, as a result of which they are called adjacent or mixed formations. Most often, epic and lyric are mixed.

Ballad(from Provence ballar - to dance) - a small poetic work with a sharp dramatic plot of love, legendary-historical, heroic-patriotic or fairy-tale content. The depiction of events is combined in it with a pronounced authorial feeling, the epic is combined with lyrics. The genre became widespread in the era of romanticism (V. Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, T. Shevchenko, etc.).

Lyric epic poem- a poetic work in which, according to V. Mayakovsky, the poet talks about time and himself (poems by V. Mayakovsky, A. Tvardovsky, S. Yesenin, etc.).

Dramatic poem- a work written in dialogical form, but not intended for production on stage. Examples of this genre: “Faust” by Goethe, “Cain” by Byron, “In the Catacombs” by L. Ukrainka, etc.

All this constitutes a secondary text of a dramatic work. Its main text is a chain of statements by the characters, their remarks and monologues.

And the performance in the forms familiar to modern European theater lasts, as is known, no more than three to four hours. And this requires an appropriate size of the dramatic text.

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”: “Drama was born in the square and was popular entertainment. People, like children, demand entertainment and action. The drama presents him with unusual, strange incidents. People demand strong sensations. Laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination, shaken by dramatic art.”

The same can be said about theater and drama of other countries and eras. T. Mann was right when he called the “comedian instinct” “the fundamental basis of all dramatic skill.”

Works of the greatest Russian playwrights of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century - A.N. Ostrovsky, A.P. Chekhov and M. Gorky - are distinguished by the authenticity of the life forms recreated. But even when the Playwrights focused on verisimilitude, plot, psychological and actual speech hyperboles were preserved.

Therefore, Hegel was partly right when he viewed drama as a synthesis of the epic principle (eventfulness) and the lyrical principle (speech expression).

Goethe's work is significant in this regard. All literary genres were accessible to the great German writer, and he crowned his life in art with the creation of a dramatic work - the immortal “Faust”.

In past centuries (until the 18th century), drama not only successfully competed with epic, but also often became the leading form of artistic reproduction of life in space and time.

And although in the XIX-XX centuries. The socio-psychological novel, a genre of epic literature, has moved to the forefront of literature; dramatic works still have a place of honor.

V.E. Khalizev Theory of literature. 1999

Greek drama - action) is a type of literature that depicts life through events, actions, clashes of heroes, i.e. through the phenomena that make up the external world.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓

DRAMA

Greek drama - action).- 1. One of the main. childbirth artist literature (along with lyrics and epic), covering works usually intended for performance on stage; is divided into genre varieties: tragedy, comedy, drama in the narrow sense, melodrama, farce. Text of dramatic works. consists of dialogues and monologues of characters embodying certain human characters, manifested in actions and speeches. The essence of drama is to reveal the contradictions of reality, which are embodied in the conflicts that determine the development of the action of the work, and in the internal contradictions inherent in the personality of the characters. The subjects, forms, and styles of painting have changed throughout cultural history. Initially, the subject of the image was myths, in which the spiritual experience of mankind was generalized (D. East, Ancient Greece, religious D. European Middle Ages). The turning point in drama came with the turn to real history, state and everyday conflicts (the history of the Renaissance, the dramaturgy of Shakespeare, Lope de Vega, Corneille, Racine, etc.); D.'s plots began to reflect majestic and heroic events and characters. In the 18th century under the influence of the aesthetics of the Enlightenment, D. acted as heroes already before

directors of the rising bourgeois class (Diderot, Lessing). Realism of educational D. romance of the first half of the 19th century. they contrast legendary and historical subjects, extraordinary heroes, and intense passions. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Symbolism revives mythological subjects in D., and naturalism turns to the darkest sides of everyday life. D. in socialist art, striving for a comprehensive coverage of reality, follows the traditions of realism of the previous period, often complementing realism with revolutionary romance. 2. A type of play in which the conflict does not receive a tragic, deadly outcome, but the action does not acquire a purely comic character. This genre of drama, intermediate between tragedy and comedy, became especially widespread in the second half of the 19th and 20th centuries. A striking example of this type of play is the dramaturgy of A.P. Chekhov.

Excellent definition

Incomplete definition ↓