ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

PREFACE

Bismillahirrohmanirrohim
Praise the writer turn over the presence of God Almighty because thanks to his mercy
and grace, this apprentice report can be resolved properly and timely. There is also the
purpose of this apprentice report is to fulfill the Teaching Apprentice I subject,
entitled “Introduction to Drama”.
The writer realized in the manufacture of this apprentice report is not free from
mistakes. Thus the writer expects suggestions from the readers. In the manufacture of this
apprentice report does not escape motivation from friends who have helped. The writer would
like to thank the friends who have motivated in the manufacture “Introduction to Drama”.
Based on the introduction above, with accompaniment and hope that this simple
inscription acceptable and useful for the readers and listeners. Above all this we say
thousands of thanks infinite, hopefully all the help from all and the motivators get a good
charity given by Allah SWT. Amin-Amin Ya Robbal A’lamin.

Jakarta, 26th September 2015

The writer
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER PAGE .......................................................................................... i
PREFACE ................................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................... iii
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study.............................................................................. 1
1.2 Formulation of Problems......................................................................... 1
1.3 Purposes .................................................................................................. 1

CHAPTER II APPRENTICE PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

2.1 The Origin of Drama..................................................................... 2

2.2 The Beginning...............................................................................

2.3 The Middle Ages

2.4 The Sixteenth Century

2.5 The Restoration

2.6 The Early Eighteenth Century

2.7 The Romantic Period

2.8 High Victorian

2.9 Late Victorian

2.10 Modernism Post War and Post Modern

CHAPTER III CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION

3.1 Conclusion............................................................................................... 11
REFERENCE
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
Drama is a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and perfomenace. Its is
one of the literary genres, which is and imitation of some action. Drama is also a type of a
play written for theater, television, radio and film. In simple words, a drama is a
composition in verse or prose presenting a story pantomime or dialogue. Its contains
conflict of characters, particulary the ones who perform in front of audience on the stage.
The person who writes drama for stage directions as a “dramatist” or “playwright”.

1.2 Formulation of Problems

From that background of study, the writer can formulate some problems as follows:
1. Why is drama as genre of literature?
2. How does the origin of drama?
3. How does the history of drama?

1.3 Purposes
The purposes of this paper are:
1. To identify drama as genre of literature
2. To explain the origin of drama
3. To explain the history of drama
 CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION

1.1 Drama as a Genre of Literature

1.1.1 What is Drama?
Drama is a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and perfomenace. Its is
one of the literary genres, which is and imitation of some action. Drama is also a type of a
play written for theater, television, radio and film. In simple words, a drama is a
composition in verse or prose presenting a story pantomime or dialogue. Its contains
conflict of characters, particulary the ones who perform in front of audience on the stage.
The person who writes drama for stage directions as a “dramatist” or “playwright”.

1.1.2 Why does English Drama Develop Every Era?

1.1.3 What is Drama

Drama as a literary genre is realized in performance, which is why Robert Di Yanni
(quoted in Dukore) describes it as “staged art” (867). As a literary form, it is designed for the
theatre because characters are assigned roles and they act out their roles as the action is
enacted on stage. These characters can be human beings, dead or spiritual beings, animals, or
abstract qualities. Drama is an adaptation, recreation and reflection of reality on stage.
Generally, the word, dramatist is used for any artist who is involved in any dramatic
composition either in writing or in performance.
Drama is different from other genres of literature. It has unique characteristics that
have come about in response to its peculiar nature. Really, it is difficult to separate drama
from performance because during the stage performance of a play, drama brings life
experiences realistically to the audience. It is the most concrete of all genres of literature.
When you are reading a novel, you read a story as told by the novelist. The poem’s message
in most cases is not direct because it is presented in a compact form or in a condensed
language. The playwright does not tell the story instead you get the story as the characters
interact and live out their experiences on stage. In drama, the characters/actors talk to
themselves and react to issues according to the impulse of the moment. Drama is therefore
presented in dialogue.
The dramatic is used for any situation or action which creates a sense of an
abnormality or the unexpected. Sometimes we use it to describe an action that is
demonstrated or exaggerated. For instance, if you are at a bus stop, a well-dressed young girl
passes and cat-walks across the road, her high-healed shoes breaks and she slips, the
immediate reaction will be laughter from almost everybody there. For some people, this is
drama. Although she was walking in an abnormal way and unexpectedly her shoe breaks, her
action could be called dramatic but it is not dramatic action. Again, the action of a teacher
who demonstrates, by injecting life into his teaching as he acts out certain situations, is
dramatic but it is not drama.
What then is drama? Drama is an imitation of life. Drama is different from other
forms of literature because of its unique characteristics. It is read, but basically, it is
composed to be performed, so the ultimate aim of dramatic composition is for it to be
presented on stage before an audience. This implies that it a medium of communication. It
has a message to communicate to the audience. It uses actors to convey this message. This
brings us to the issue of mimesis or imitation. We say that drama is mimetic which means
that it imitates life. You may have heard people say that drama mirrors life. Yes, it is the only
branch of literature which tries to imitate life and presents it realistically to the people. It is
this mimetic impulse of drama that makes it appeal to people. Drama thrives on action.
The term drama is used at the following three (3) different levels:
1. Performance
2. Composition
3. Branch of Literature.
(1) Performance
Drama is used for plays that are acted on stage or screen. These plays are different
from musical performances because they must tell stories which are acted out by actors and
actresses. You remember what we said earlier about imitation or re-enactment and
impersonation. These actors and actresses must be playing roles by imitating other characters.
It means, therefore, that they must assume other people’s personalities by bearing different
names, ages, occupation, nationalities, etc. Finally, they must be conscious of themselves as
actors by trying hard to pretend that they are the characters they are representing.

(2) Composition
Drama is used to describe a dramatic composition which employs language and
pantomime to present a story or series of events intended to be performed. Sometimes,
especially with written compositions, they may not be presented on stage but this does not
stop it from being drama. In as much as a play is enjoyed more when it is performed, you can
still read a play and be entertained by it.

(3) Branch of Literature

Drama is a term used for that branch of literature that covers dramatic composition.
You know already that drama is a literary art. The basic difference between drama and other
forms of literature (prose and poetry) is that drama is presented in dialogue from the
beginning to the end. Any information by the playwright is given in stage- direction. We have
dialogue in prose and poetry but they are interjected in the course of the story.
1.2 Origin of Drama

The word drama comes from the Greek verb “dran” which means ‘to act’ or to
perform. Many scholars trace the origin of drama to wordless actions like ritual dances and
mimes performed by dancers, masked players or priests during traditional festivals or
ceremonies. One account traces the origin to ritual. In the traditional society or in the
primordial times, sometimes, the seasons did not come as expected when this happened, men
felt that they had offended the gods, so they devised means of appeasing these gods. That act
of appeasing the gods is what we refer to as ritual. This ritual, as expected, involved a
ceremony in which the priest played an important role at a designated location, mostly
shrines. The priest would normally wear a social dress for the occasion. That role, the dress
(costume), and the utterance or incantations are regarded as dramatic elements. Drama could
therefore emerge from this. So, if it is presented for entertainment and there is an element of
impersonation, imitation of an action, and re-enactment of an action, it is drama. Another
account traces the origin to man’s desire for entertainment. Here during festivals or other
ceremonies, they recreate the feats of some legendary or mythical heroes to entertain the
people. Scholars are divided on the origin of drama. Some trace the origin of Greece but other
insist that drama in its definitive form of pattern evolved from Egypt which is regarded as one
of the cradles of civilization in the world. The latter group argues that it was borrowed by
western merchants who developed and documented it, and who now trace the origin to
Greece. However, the account of tracing the origin of drama to Greece is more plausible. The
evaluation is clearer and well documented.
Apparently, Greek drama evolved from religious festivals (ritual) that were celebrated
to ensure the fertility of the land and the well being of its people. These festivals were
connected with the worship of the god Dionysius, a native god who like the vegetation dies
and was reborn each year. The festival involved singing and dancing by a chorus of fifty men.
The choral song, known as Dithyramb, was sang in honour of the god. The men danced
around the altar of Dionysius in circular dancing place called orchestra. Sometimes a story
about the god was improved by the leader of chorus, though remaining part of the chorus.
Sometimes he dresses like a character from mythology. At this stage, individual actors were
not involved in the performances. The dramatist, Thepsis, is believed to have been the first
person to introduce the individual actor and the element of impersonation in the 6th century
B.C. During a particular performance, he stood out from the chorus and instead of singing in
the honour of the god, he sang as the god. He performed between the dance of the chorus and
he conversed at times with the leader of the chorus. Thus drama was literally born. Thepsis,
therefore appeared as the first actor, and when he broke away from the chorus, he added the
dramatic potential of impersonation. It is impersonation, because, instead of describing the
god, Dionysius, or his actions, he pretended to be the god. Thus the performance changed
from poetry performance to drama. Aeschylus added the second actor and this gave drama a
new thrust forward because the additional actor enable the dramatist to show in action a
dramatic conflict rather than talk about it. Sophocles’ addition of the third actor further
enlarged the scope of the dramatist and provided him with the means of complicating his plot
and devising more complex structural arrangement of his action.
It is important to note here that speech is not of essence in drama because it could be
presented without words or without the accompaniment of music/dance. The important
feature of drama is communication. It induces a personal communication and an immediate
experience between the actor and the audience. This makes drama a concrete art and the
message is immediate and direct. It is concrete because you can see the actors performing and
presenting a life-like story which affects you positively or negatively and you re-act
immediately. Accordingly, drama exists in both oral and literary traditions. In this course, we
will concentrate more on the literary tradition, i.e. the written drama. The text is called a play
and the writer is called a playwright. However, we will make reference to drama as
performance on stage from time to time because it is difficult to separate the two in the study
of dramatic literature.
1.3 History of Drama
1.3.1 Classical Greek drama
Western drama originates in classical Greece. The theatrical culture of the city-
state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. Their
origins remain obscure, though by the 5th century BC they were institutionalized
in competitions held as part of festivities celebrating the god Dionysus. Historians know the
names of many ancient Greek dramatists, not least Thespis, who is credited with the
innovation of an actor ("hypokrites") who speaks (rather than sings) and impersonates
a character (rather than speaking in his own person), while interacting with the chorus and its
leader ("coryphaeus"), who were a traditional part of the performance of non-dramatic poetry
(dithyrambic, lyric and epic).
Only a small fraction of the work of five dramatists, however, has survived to this
day: we have a small number of complete texts by the
tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the comic writersAristophanes and, from
the late 4th century, Menander. Aeschylus' historical tragedy The Persians is the oldest
surviving drama, although when it won first prize at the City Dionysia competition in 472
BC, he had been writing plays for more than 25 years. The competition ("agon") for tragedies
may have begun as early as 534 BC; official records ("didaskaliai") begin from 501 BC,
when the satyr play was introduced. Tragic dramatists were required to present a tetralogy of
plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which
usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play (though exceptions were made, as with
Euripides' Alcestis in 438 BC). Comedy was officially recognized with a prize in the
competition from 487 to 486 BC.
 Five comic dramatists competed at the City Dionysia (though during
the Peloponnesian War this may have been reduced to three), each offering a single
comedy. Ancient Greek comedy is traditionally divided between "old comedy" (5th century
BC), "middle comedy" (4th century BC) and "new comedy" (late 4th century to 2nd BC).
1.3.2 Classical Roman drama
Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BC) into several Greek
territories between 270–240 BC, Rome encountered Greek drama. From the later years of the
republic and by means of the Roman Empire (27 BC-476 AD), theatre spread west across
Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England;Roman theatre was more varied,
extensive and sophisticated than that of any culture before it.
While Greek drama continued to be performed throughout the Roman period, the year
240 BC marks the beginning of regular Roman drama. From the beginning of the empire,
however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a broader variety of theatrical
entertainments. The first important works of Roman literature were
the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240 BC. Five years
later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write drama. No plays from either writer have survived.
While both dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated for his
tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended to specialise in one or the
other, which led to a separation of the subsequent development of each type of drama.
By the beginning of the 2nd century BC, drama was firmly established in Rome and
a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed. The Roman comedies that have
survived are all fabula palliata(comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two
dramatists: Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius Afer (Terence). In re-
working the Greek originals, the Roman comic dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in
dividing the drama into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to
its dialogue (between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of Plautus and two-thirds in
those of Terence). The action of all scenes is set in the exterior location of a street and its
complications often follow from eavesdropping.
Plautus, the more popular of the two, wrote between 205 and 184 BC and twenty of
his comedies survive, of which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his
dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters. All of the six comedies that Terence wrote
between 166 and 160 BC have survived; the complexity of his plots, in which he often
combined several Greek originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a
sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour. No early Roman tragedy survives,
though it was highly regarded in its day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus
Ennius,Marcus Pacuvius and Lucius Accius.
From the time of the empire, the work of two tragedians survives—one is an unknown
author, while the other is the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all
of which are fabula crepidata(tragedies adapted from Greek originals); his Phaedra, for
example, was based on Euripides' Hippolytus. Historians do not know who wrote the
only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman subjects), Octavia,
but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to Seneca due to his appearance as
acharacter in the tragedy.

1.3.3 Medieval
In the Middle Ages, drama in the vernacular languages of Europe may have emerged
from religious enactments of the liturgy. Mystery plays were presented on the porch of the
cathedrals or by strolling players onfeast days. Miracle and mystery plays, along
with moralities and interludes, later evolved into more elaborate forms of drama, such as was
seen on the Elizabethan stages.
1.3.4 Elizabethan and Jacobean
One of the great flowerings of drama in England occurred in the 16th and 17th
centuries. Many of these plays were written in verse, particularly iambic pentameter. In
addition to Shakespeare, such authors asChristopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Ben
Jonson were prominent playwrights during this period. As in the medieval period, historical
plays celebrated the lives of past kings, enhancing the image of the Tudormonarchy. Authors
of this period drew some of their storylines from Greek mythology and Roman mythologyor
from the plays of eminent Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence.
1.3.5 Modern and Postmodern
The pivotal and innovative contributions of the 19th-century Norwegian
dramatist Henrik Ibsen and the20th-century German theatre practitioner Bertolt
Brecht dominate modern drama; each inspired a tradition of imitators, which include many of
the greatest playwrights of the modern era. The works of both playwrights are, in their
different ways, both modernist and realist, incorporating formal experimentation, meta-
theatricality, andsocial critique. In terms of the traditional theoretical discourse of genre,
Ibsen's work has been described as the culmination of "liberal tragedy", while Brecht's has
been aligned with an historicised comedy.

CHAPTER III
CONCLUSION
3.1 CONCLUSION
Drama is an imitation of an action. It is a branch of literature which is both literary art
and representational art. As a literary art, it deals with fiction or an imagery story that is
presented through characters and dialogue. However, it is a special kind of fiction because it
is designed to be acted our rather than narrated. When we read a novel or short story, we
understand and appreciate the story, through the narrator or author but in drama the
characters live out the story for us. The playwright does not comment or explain anything.
So, drama gives us a direct presentation of life experiences. That is why we say that it is a
representational art. Drama, therefore, uses language in the form of gesture or dialogue to
present or to re-present an action. Characters are used to present the story. These characters
are called actors.

REFERENCE
Dukore, B. F. (1974). Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greek to Grotowsky. New York: Holt
Reinhart and Winston.

Scholes, R. and C. H. Klaus (1971). Elements of Drama. New York: Oxford University Press.