HUMSS 1

• The earliest origins of drama are in Athens where ancient hymns called dithyrambs were sung in honor of the god Dionysus.
• Tension creates a problem that needs to be resolved (or unresolved) through drama.
• Tension in drama arises from the conflict between opposing characters, dramatic action, ideas, attitudes, values, emotions, and desires.
• Drama is a composition in prose form that presents a story entirely told in dialogue and action and written with the intention of its eventual performance before an audience.
• Drama has a two-fold nature: literature and theatre.
• In literature, drama is the portrayal of fictional or non-fictional events through the performance of written dialogue.
• Dramas are typically performed on a theater stage or using media such as television, film, or radio.
• A drama is a composition in verse or prose presenting a story in pantomime or dialogue.
• Plays/dramas have the capacity to bring written works to life and reveal the secrets of the plot through conversations and dialogues.
• Genres of drama include tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, farce, and melodrama.
• Tragedy shows the downfall and destruction of a noble or outstanding person, usually due to a tragic flaw.
• Comedy is intended to interest and amuse the audience, with characters overcoming difficulties and finding happiness in the end.
• Tragicomedy is a play that combines serious elements with comedic qualities, arousing thought even with laughter.
• Farce is a play that brings laughter for the sake of laughter, often with exaggerated events and characters.
• Melodrama shows events that follow each other rapidly and are seemingly governed by chance, with characters being victims of fate.
• Dialogue: The words written by the playwright and spoken by the characters in a play.
• Symbolism: The use of specific objects or images to represent abstract ideas.
• Genre: The type of play, such as comedy, tragedy, mystery, or historical play.
• Atmosphere: The interaction between the audience and the mood of a drama performance.
• Convention: Techniques and methods used by the playwright and director to create the desired stylistic effect.
• Figurative Language: Any use of language where the intended meaning differs from the actual literal meaning of the words themselves.
• Music/Rhythm: The rhythm of the actors' voices as they speak.
• Spectacle: The visual elements of a play, such as sets, costumes, and special effects.
• Characters: Individuals in the drama with defined personal qualities and/or histories.
• Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds within close proximity, usually in consecutive words within the same sentence or line.
• Theme: The universal idea or meaning of the play.
• Audience: The group of people who watch the play.
• Creative License: Exaggeration or alteration of objective facts or reality for the purpose of enhancing meaning in a fictional context.
• Plot: What happens in the play, the basic storyline.
• Dramatic Tension: Drives the drama and keeps an audience interested.
• Literary devices in drama are specific, deliberate constructions of language used by an author to convey meaning.
• Literary techniques in drama are specific aspects of literature that can be recognized, identified, interpreted, and analyzed.
• Literary techniques are not necessarily present in every text, unlike literary elements.
• Intertextuality is a sophisticated literary device that makes use of a textual reference within some body of text, which reflects again the text used as a reference.
• Intertextuality provides a way for students to compose their own texts drawn from their knowledge of others.
• Intertextuality raises questions about the nature of authorship and originality as texts may be seen as composed from pre-existing elements rather than created.
• Instead of employing referential phrases from different literary works, intertextuality draws upon the concept, rhetoric, or ideology from other writings to be merged in the new text.
• Intertextuality may be the retelling of an old story, or the rewriting of popular stories in modern context.
• The term 'intertextuality' was derived from the Latin word 'intertexto' meaning 'to mingle while weaving'.
• Intertextuality was first introduced in literary linguistics by Bulgarian-born French semiotician and philosopher Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s.