ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH DRAMA
INTRODUCTION:
Originally, the term drama came from a Greek word meaning “action” or “to act” or “to do”. William J. Long opines that “Drama is an old story told in the eye, a story put into action by living performers”. Thus, drama is the form of composition designed for performance in the theatre, in which the actors take role for certain characters, perform certain actions and speak certain dialogues.
ORIGIN OF DRAMA:
There is no certain evidence proving the origin of drama. However, it can be traced back to the times after Norman Conquest in 1066. Many historians believe that drama came to England along with those Norman people. It is believed that when the Romans were in England, they established vast amphitheatres for enacting some plays.
LITURGICAL PLAYS:
In England, Latin Church had condemned Roman theatre for many reasons. Thus, drama could not develop until 10th century when the church began to use dramatic elements as part of their services in the certain festivals or ritual. The authorities of the church started using drama for didactic purpose. They used drama to convey some deep philosophical and religious ideas to the common men and women. In short, drama was used as a tool to spread Christianity and religious thoughts. These religious dramas were known as “liturgical” dramas. The oldest existing liturgical drama was “Quem Quarritis”.
In liturgical drama the story is taken from the scriptures. The stories were written by the clergy men and performed by the clergy men using Latin language. However, such plays were not performed in all churches. They were performed only in certain cathedrals and monasteries where there were enough clergy men to perform the plays.
MIRACLE AND MYSTERY PLAYS:
Miracle and Mystery plays evolved from the Liturgical plays. In France, Miracle plays used to represent the life of the saints and Mystery plays used to represent any scene taken from the scripture. Meanwhile in England, there was no distinction between these two. The term Miracle play was used to represent any story taken from the scripture or the bible and the life of the saints.
The earliest recorded Miracle play in England was “Ludus Santa de Katherina’. The author of this play is not known, but the first version was prepared by the French school teacher, Geoffrey from St. Albans. The Miracle play attracted many people and increased its popularity. Initially, these plays were performed inside the churches but by the 13th century, the Miracle play began to be performed outside the church at some public places.
Now the actors were no longer clergy men but the amateur actors who were trained and selected carefully performed on the stage. The plays were performed on moving platforms called pageants. The stage was divided into three parts; hell, earth and heaven. Hell on the left side, earth in the centre and heaven on the right side.
MORALITY PLAYS:
The religious and moral ideas of salvation and damnation became the major themes of plays during the 14th century. These plays were known as Morality plays. These plays were projecting the conflict between vice and virtue, good and bad. In these plays, the characters were allegorically personified such as death, sin, good and bad angel, seven deadly sins, etc. The purpose of this drama was didactic, to give moral lesson to the audience. The morality plays generally ended with the virtue winning against the evil. The examples of morality plays are ‘Everyman’ and ‘The Castle of Perseverance’.
ARTISTIC PLAYS:
The final stage of the evolution of English drama was the artistic period. In this period, the purpose of the play was not to point out a moral but to represent human life as it is. During this period, English drama was influenced by classical drama. The first English comedy was ‘Ralph Roister Doister’ written by Nicholas Udall in 1556. The play was divided into acts and scenes and was written in rhyming couplets. This first comedy had become the model for the new generations of English comedies. The first English tragedy “Gorboduc” was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton in 1562. It was written in blank verse and was divided into acts and scenes. After this era, the English drama developed gradually into regular form of drama which flourished in the hands of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare during the Elizabethan age.
CONCLUSION:
Therefore, we may summarize by saying that English drama gradually developed from the liturgical drama to Miracle, Mystery and Morality plays. But it was during the 16th century that drama reached its height of success and development in the form of pure artistic drama.
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