Dráma (mint “műnem”) is drama

particular piece of dramatic art is usually called a play -színdarab

artist who writes plays is called a playwright or a dramatist

Comedy: a kind of drama which is intended to entertain the audience, and which ends happily for the characters.
The characters are primarily flat characters

Romantic comedy:
idealised lovers in tangled relationship achieving happiness.
light-hearted and unrealistic.
a beautiful heroine sometimes disguised as a man,
mistaken identities,
union of lovers, wedding. E.g. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1594-96)

Satiric comedy:
it aims to ridicule political practices, philosophical doctrines, or the violators of moral standards
makes fun of human folly, vice and greed.
Characters are often divided into clever tricksters and easily deceived victims.
. E.g. Ben Jonson, Volpone (c.1605).

Comedy of manners:
focuses on the love intrigues of cynical and sophisticated young aristocrats in high society.
It relies on verbal wit in dialogues
challenge social conventions and socially accepted behaviour ,
has elements of slapstick and farce
E.g. William Congreve, The Way of the World (1700).

Farce (bohózat):
to provoke laughter, using exaggerated characters and icomplicated plots, full of absurd situations.
Mistaken identities and situation comedy are often involved
good-natured description of folly.
Unlike satire, it is not meant to hurt the target (?)
. E.g. Brandon Thomas, Charley’s Aunt, There are farcical episodes in some of Shakespeare’s plays (Comedy of
Errors, The Taming of the Shrew).

slapstick (“börleszk”: comic effects of the most physical type, like falling off ladders and throwing cakes, the
French dramatist Feydeau (e.g. A Flea in the Ear, 1907).

commedia dell’arte:
played by travelling professional actors.
plots were usually based on love intrigues; the plays were only sketchily written, there was improvisation,
slapstick, pantomime, vulgar humour, and farce.
stock characters, always wearing the same stylised masks and costumes, and spoke in strong dialect

characters are: Arlecchino (Harlequin), a clown figure, a merry, naïve and somewhat awkward servant figure,
who acts inconsiderately and therefore runs into all kinds of problems;
Brighella, the clever, scheming servant who is usually the driving force of the plot;
Pulcinella, the other clownish figure, the unhappy, cuckolded, physically awkward male figure;
Pantalone, the rich, greedy, tight-fisted and lecherous old merchant, wearing a long, crooked nose, and red
trousers;
Capitano, the bragging soldier - miles gloriosus.
!!!!Moliere

Theory of the Comedy

The comic (a komikum): not a genre or a form, but a quality to be found in all the arts, and also a phenomenon in
real life

(a) “Defect theory”: The source of the comic is a defect or error

(b) “Contrast theory”: The source of the comic is some contrast, incongruity, contradiction,

the laughing person and/or in the relationship between the laughing subject and the object of laughter

(a) “Relief theory” (and “Release theory”): laughter brings us psychic relief or release
(b) “superiority theory”: when we laugh, we always feel a sense of superiority over the object of laughter. power is
involved.
(c) “defamiliarization” theory: We laugh at something when it suddenly appears out of its normal context, from a
strange perspective
any human act(ivity) can appear as comic

Kinds of the comic

humour: the pure comic, laughter without superiority,aggressivity

ridicule (“gúny”): humour that is directed against something or someone

sarcasm: cruel, brutal humour, intended to hurt its target

slapstick (“börleszk”): physical comedy

deadpan humour (“fapofa”): e.g. Buster Keaton’s painted mask

black humour: the source of the humour is an incongruity between a tragic event (death, disease, mutilation, etc)
and the response: we would expect a serious, emotional response, but instead the tragic event is treated in a
light, frivolous way, as if it were funny

Irony

The structure of irony (including verbal, dramatic and cosmic irony): two-levelled (two-tiered);

 lower level: the victims of irony (those who cannot move beyond the surface meaning and cannot/could
not understand the second meaning). The innocence of the victims means their unawareness of the
higher level of irony
 upper level: the ironist and his/her audience: those who see behind the surface meaning and get the
ironical meaning, winking at each other above the victims’ heads. The irony works only if we can at least
imagine victims

Verbal irony: the simplest form, one of the tropes (like metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche): when we say
something but mean the opposite of what we say.
Socratic irony: pretended ignorance

Dramatic irony (not confined to drama!): an ironical situation in which the person who speaks is on the lower
level ( a victim of irony) unaware of the meaning of what s/he does

Tragic irony: a kind of dramatic irony: ironical structure that has tragic consequences, e.g the story of King
Oedipus

General irony: an extension of dramatic irony, we are all victims of an ironical situation: some aspect of human
existence is seen as ironical (e.g. we think we control our fates whereas all our lives are written before we are
born)

Cosmic irony: a further  and the fullest possible  extension of dramatic irony human existence as such is seen
as ironical (e.g. Kurt Vonnegut: The Sirens of Titan)

Romantic irony: an attitude, a world-view, seeing human existence as ironical, and seeing art as the par
excellence ironical human project

Imitations of texts (kinds of intertextuality)

parody: the comic imitation with a critical purpose, making fun of the object of parody (exposing the mannerisms
and clichés of the target)

pastiche: the imitation in a neutral manner, without the intention of ridiculing (e.g. Italo Calvino: If on a Winter’s
Night a Traveller; John Fowles: The French Lieutenant’s Woman)

travesty: the deliberately clumsy imitation. Elevated subject matter handled in a lowly kind of language (e.g. the
performance of the mechanicals in The Midsummer Night’s Dream)

MSND

Puck - Puck is Oberon’s jester, a mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals.

Oberon - The king of the fairies, wife: Titania,

Titania - The beautiful queen of the fairies,

Lysander - A young man of Athens, in love with Hermia. he cannot marry her openly because Egeus,
her father, wishes her to wed Demetrius

Demetrius - A young man of Athens, in love with Helena.

Hermia - Egeus’s daughter, a young woman of Athens. Hermia is in love with Lysander and is a
childhood friend of Helena.

Helena - A young woman of Athens, in love with Demetrius

Egeus - Hermia’s father, Egeus has given Demetrius permission to marry Hermia, but Hermia, in
love with Lysander, refuses to marry Demetrius.

Theseus - The heroic duke of Athens, engaged to Hippolyta.

Hippolyta - The legendary queen of the Amazons, engaged to Theseus.

Nick Bottom - The overconfident weaver chosen to play Pyramus in the craftsmen’s play for
Theseus’s marriage celebration. Bottom is full of advice and self-confidence but frequently makes silly
mistakes and misuses language.

Peter Quince, Francis Flute, Robin Starveling , Tom Snout Snug -craftsman

Füzet
Malapropism-misuse of long words
Bottom : source of comedy ,clownish figure
-over enthusiastic (wants to play all roles)
-competition of power between him and director
szórakoztatja az embereket,de mikor borral leöntik negatívan nevetnek rajta
greedy and ignorant- reader knows more (but he think he is clever)
speech is funny-catachrisis-misuse of words
using long words like he would be clever
pl: aggravate- misuse of long foreign word,szándékolt jelentéshez képest mást jelent
superiority theory by reader

side plot: another play,tragedy played by the creaftsman- entertaining,comic relief

pyramis & thyse-tragedy,but the way they perform it is funny

Puck-Oberons servant,jestre/trickster,he is not a victim he is a maker of jokes

always smiling-like he wa laughing
seminaked old man,horns,slightly devilish-looks like a szatír,not just an innocent fairy
vulgar

"dramatic irony”-reader knows more than the characters

we can read abbout the fairies magics,but the characters dont realize them int he play

bottoms head is transformed,but he doesnt know it-he gets copnfused when his friends run
away with fear
first he accuses his friends

In this play within a play, Oberon is playwright, and he seeks to "write" a comedy
in which Helena gets her love,Lysander and Hermia stay
together, Titania learns a lesson in wifely obedience, and all conflicts are
resolved through marriage and reconciliation. And just as the laborers' play turns
a tragic drama into a comic farce, so does Oberon's when Puck accidentally puts
the love-potion on the eyes of the wrong Athenian man.
applying the love potion to Lysander instead of Demetrius, thereby causing chaos within the group of
young lovers; he also transforms Bottom’s head
Of the other characters, Helena, the lovesick young woman desperately in love with Demetrius, is
perhaps the most fully drawn. Among the quartet of Athenian lovers, Helena is the one who thinks
most about the nature of love

ACT3 SCENE1
the craftsman modify the play ont he idea of Bottom-noone really die sin their play
Bottoms head is transformed during the rehearlsal
Titania awakes with the potion on her eyes-sees bottom first and fall in love with him
Bottom gets servents by titania

ACT3SCENE2
Oberon is surprised to see the man he ordered Puck to enchant with a different woman. He realizes
that a mistake has been made and says that he and Puck will have to remedy it
The noise of their bickering wakes Demetrius, who sees Helena and immediately falls in love with her.
Demetrius joins Lysander in declaring this love.
. Lysander argues that Demetrius does not really love Helena;
Lysander and Demetrius are ready to fight one another for Helena’s love;
grows furious with Helena and threatens to scratch out her eyes. Helena becomes afraid, saying
that Hermia was always much quicker than she to fight.

Act IV, scene i

lovers asleep
As dawn breaks, Theseus, his attendants, Hippolyta, and Egeus enter to hear the baying of Theseus’s
hounds. They are startled to find the Athenian youths sleeping in the glade

SCENE2
At Quince’s house, the craftsmen sit somberly and worry about their missing friend Bottom.
Bottom bursts triumphantly into the room and asks why everyone looks so sad. The men are
overjoyed to see him, and he declares that he has an amazing story to tell them about his adventure in
the forest. Quince asks to hear it, but Bottom says that there is no time: they must don their costumes
and go straight to the duke’s palace to perform their play. As they leave, Bottom tells them not to eat
onions or garlic before the play, as they must be prepared to “utter sweet breath”

ACT5
They act out a clumsy version of the story, during which the noblemen and women joke among
themselves about the actors’ strange speeches and misapprehensions.