Studying Drama

Studying Drama Opening scenes are crucial to engaging the audience. • What effect does the playwright want this scene to have on the audience? • What purpose does the scene serve in the play as a whole? Presenting characters in drama is quite a bit different from doing so in a novel. • How might a playwright be limited in a way that the novelist is not? • What strategies can a playwright use to convey characters? Always keep in mind the likely or possible effects of the words, the movements and gestures either included by the playwright or implied, and the limitations and possibilities of different types of theaters. Conventions associated with words written and spoken • Dialogue • Monologue • Soliloquy • Verbal irony (double entendre) • Aside Conventions associated with character portrayal • Protagonist vs. antagonist • Anti-hero • Stock character • Eponymous character (i.e. Othello) • Backstory • Flashbacks (analepsis) • Flash forwards (prolepsis) • Deliberately construed entrances and exits • Gestures and repetitive actions (the absence of words) Conventions associated with plot • Freytag’s triangle – exposition, rising action/exciting force/complication, climax, falling action, dénouement • Prologue/epilogue • Curtain lines – delivered at the end of an act or scene • Dramatic irony • Comic relief • Deus ex machina – introduction of an unexpected or improbable event that leads to a solution to some dramatic problem Conventions related to staging and performance • Set • Lighting and sound • Stage business – actions that are incidental to the immediate action • Freeze frame –meaning conveyed through silence and stasis • Breaking of the fourth wall (curtain) – actors acknowledging or speaking to the audience • Moving beyond the script – how the play is to be enacted, and thus many meanings rather than a single meaning. First understand generally what is happening; then think about the ways in which this could be enacted on the stage. Audience vs. reader Approaching a Shakespeare Text Structural pattern of Shakespearean plays: Introduction to characters. Problem(s) emerge and/or confusion occurs. Chain of events. Chaos ensues. Chain of events continues. More chaos and confusion. More events leading to… Climax. In a tragedy, leading to the death of one or more characters. Re-establishment of order. Shakespeare’s tragedies have many of the key features associated with the concept of dramatic tragedy in general. • At the beginning of the play, something occurs that disrupts the normal order of things. • Chaos or disorder in society results. • Extreme emotions are involved. • Social restraint disintegrates. • A climax is reached, usually with the death of the main character (and several others), before order is restored. The purging of emotions that affects the audience at the end of the tragedy is sometimes referred to as catharsis. Structure of a Shakespearean Play • dynamic structure (overt) – the sequence of events which builds up in a “cause-and-effect” fashion to create the plot of the play, and so drives the play forward • symmetric structure (underlying) – consists of various parallels and cross-references or repeated images, symbols, and language that create a network of threads running through the play; for example: o Hamlet - the repeated parallels between Hamlet and Laertes as avenging sons, and Hamlet’s repeated contemplation of death with its associated imagery o King Lear – motif of “blindness” to the truth as well as physical blindness, as presented through Gloucester and Lear Thematic Topics of Shakespeare • conflict – external and internal (protagonist) • appearance vs. reality • order and disorder – causes of breakdown tend to include jealousy, love, hate, and ambition • change – centered on protagonist • love Themes are often developed in one of three ways: 1. Individual character/characters experience some personal difficulties or inner turmoil, perhaps moral or spiritual, that causes some mental conflict 2. The family, society, or the country is affected by turmoil 3. Nature or the universe may be disordered, or supernatural events may be involved Language of Shakespeare • Shakespeare uses language to: o create atmosphere and setting (due to lack of backdrops, set pieces, etc.) o conjure vivid images that are linked to central themes • blank verse – unrhymed iambic pentameter (unstressed, stressed); used by “high” characters, in keeping with their elevated natures • prose – just as carefully structured and organized as verse; used by “low” or comic characters; or used for sub-plots Unfortunately, the above is general and simplistic. The variations of Shakespeare’s use of verse and prose are far more complex. ALWAYS look at the context of the specific episode to determine why Shakespeare has chosen to use the language in the specific form. A Note on Reading Shakespeare (source unknown) Readers who have had no previous experience with Shakespeare’s language may find it initially daunting. They might well ask whether people ever talked the way, for example, Hamlet does in his most famous soliloquy: To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? People did not talk like this in Elizabethan times. Hamlet speaks poetry. Shakespeare might have had him say something like this: “The most important issue one must confront is whether the pain that life inevitably creates should be passively accepted or resisted.” But Shakespeare chose poetry to reveal the depth and complexity of Hamlet’s experience. This heightened language is used to clarify rather than obscure his characters’ thoughts. Shakespeare has Hamlet, as well as many other characters, speak in prose too, but in general his plays are written in poetry. If you keep in mind that Shakespeare’s dialogue is not typically intended to imitate everyday speech, it should be easier to understand that his language is more than simply a vehicle for expressing the action of the play. Here are a few suggestions to enhance your understanding of and pleasure in reading Shakespeare’s plays. 1. Keep track of characters by referring to the dramatis personae (characters) listed and briefly described at the beginning of each play. 2. Remember that poetic language deserves to be read slowly and carefully. A difficult passage can sometimes be better understood if it’s read aloud. Don’t worry if every line isn’t absolutely clear to you. 3. Pay attention to the annotations, which explain unfamiliar words, phrases, and allusions in the text. These can be distracting, but they are sometimes necessary to determine the basic meaning of a passage. 4. As you read each scene, try to imagine how it would be played on stage. 5. If you find the reading especially difficult, try listening to a recording of the play. Allowing professional actors to do the reading aloud for you can enrich your imaginative reconstruction of the action and characters. Hearing a play can help you with subsequent readings of it. 6. After reading the play, view a film or recorded performance. It is important to view the performance after your reading, though, so that your own mental re-creation of the play is not short-circuited by a director’s production. And finally, to quote Hamlet, “Be not too tame…let your own discretion be your tutor.” Read Shakespeare’s work as best you can; it warrants such careful attention not because the language and characters are difficult to understand but because they offer so much to enjoy. Othello, in particular Recurring words: 1. chaste 2. unnatural 3. magic/witchcraft 4. beasts/animal imagery 5. soul 6. heaven/heavenly 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. Hell damn(ed)/damnation faith Moor handkerchief honest/honesty 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. whore/strumpet love hate monster devil jealous/jealousy Notice who uses the word most and pay attention to how various characters use it. Record anything you notice. Come to some conclusions about the cumulative effect of the word and what theme its repetition develops. Iago’s Use of Bestial Imagery Throughout the play, Iago uses animal imagery for very specific reasons. Be aware of this as you read, perhaps even making a visual notation within the text. Be prepared to discuss this in class. Historical Context The Moorish Ambassador and the Banishment of Africans One of the large questions facing Shakespeare scholars was that of Elizabethan attitudes toward Moors and others of different races. It is difficult to determine how many English people had actually even ever seen someone with a different color skin than their own. It is known that in 1596, Queen Elizabeth I ordered the banishment of ten "blackamoors" from her country. Shortly after this, English prisoners being held in Spain and Portugal were traded for "blackamoors." Thus, while there were evidently people of color in England at the time, it seems likely they were exceedingly rare. In 1600, in an odd turn of events, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud Anoun, the Moorish ambassador of Elizabeth I, came to England with his entourage. In a series of letters between Elizabeth and the king of the Barbary Coast, the two colluded for ways the North Africans and the English could work together against the Spanish. After a year or so of this fruitless negotiation as well as the frustration of the Englishman whose house had been commandeered as an embassy, the ambassador and his entourage left England. In the same year of 1601, Elizabeth ordered further expulsion of "blackamoors." It seems likely that the two events were related; it also seems likely that Shakespeare would have been aware of the Moorish ambassador's presence in London. How much of his play was influenced by these events is debatable, however. Trade and Exploration The Elizabethan and Jacobean ages were times of great exploration and trade. Like the Venetians of Othello, Elizabethans were merchants and traders, eager to open new avenues for raw goods and materials. Sometimes these goods also included traffic in human beings; from 1562 through 1568, Sir John Hawkes and others began slave trading from Africa to the West Indies. This disturbing practice continued unabated throughout the sixteenth century, and by 1600, an estimated 900,000 Africans bad been transported to the Americas as slaves. In the 1580s, English gentlemen such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh financed colonies in Newfoundland and Roanoke Island in an attempt to make a permanent presence on the North American mainland. In 1607, the Jamestown colony was founded in Virginia. In 1600, Elizabeth also chartered the British East India Company for trade in the Eastern Hemisphere in an attempt to expand the British spice trade. Ultimately, the English conquered the whole of the Indian subcontinent through their ongoing mercantile expansion. Shakespeare's interest in these explorations shows up clearly in the character of Othello as well as in plays such as The Tempest. The fascination with new frontiers and with new landscapes is also evident in the popularity of travel literature. For example, The History and Description of Africa, by Leo Africanus, was published in 1600. Thus, the seeds of empire and colonialism were sown during the sixteenth century; their harvest would be the globe-spanning British Empire of the nineteenth century.