Origin and Growth of

the British Drama

Dr. Rachana Pandey

Assistant Professor
Department of English
Vasanta College for Women
Rajghat, Varanasi
 The Lesson Plan

I. Origin of British Drama and

Drama till Elizabethan Age

II. Development of English Drama

from Jacobean to Victorian Age

III. Modern Age and Drama

 Origin of Drama
When did theatre begin?
• Ritual played a role in the development of drama in the
ancient times. Ancient societies used ritual to embody their
understanding of the human condition and of the world
around them.
• Ritual had a religious purpose, and instructive purpose
(teaching), it was also a form of entertainment.
• Common elements are found in ritual - music, dance and
elaborate movement, mask and costume.
• 1200 BC in Greece, the "Cult of Dionysis" practiced ritual
celebrations of fertility, which over time altered and became
Spring rituals with theatre at the centre of the celebration.
•Drama as a form of literature began as early as the 6th or the
5th century B. C. Western Dramatic poetry originated in the
ancient Greece, through the celebrations of Dionysiac
(Dionysus is a Greek god) festivals.
 Origin of Drama
When did theatre begin?
• In 500 BC we see the beginnings of Western theatre in
Athens (2,000 years before Shakespeare!) with the spring
festivals - drama competitions featuring plays of Tragedy and
Comedy.
• Ancient Athenians created a theatre culture whose form,
technique and language are used today. Plays written at that
time are still regularly performed today.
•Thespis added an actor to interact with the chorus, and won
the first drama competition in 534 BC, thus are actors to this
day called "thespians".
• Aeschylus is considered the earliest playwright & introduced
the idea of an antagonist.
•Sophocles added the concept of a third actor to the play.
•Euripedes and Aristophanes developed plays with more
realism and dialogue.
•Competitions drew as many as 30,000 spectators. Plays were
performed in the day time (no electric lights!)
 Origin of Drama
•actors wore masks - some say which helped to amplify the
voice and show characters through exaggerated features.
•only men acted.
•Tragedy (literally goat song) told a story intended to teach
religious lessons, and the right and wrong path in life.
•Tragic protagonist is the one who refuses to accept fate,
either out of weakness of strength. examples are: Oedipus
Rex, Agamemnon, Orestes.
•Aristophanes wrote comedy - a type of lampoon of high brow
culture. Comedy relied on satire, topical issues of the day and
made fun of celebrities and public figures.
•The end of Greek times was heralded by the death of
Sophocles, the arrival of the Spartans and times of war.

Source: The ELAC Guide to Ancient Greece

http://www.perspicacity.com/elactheatre/library/pedia/gree
k.htm
 Origin of British Drama

I. Mystery Plays (biblical) and

Corpus Christi Festival

II. Miracle Plays (Saints’ lives and

martyrdom) and Morality Plays
(allegorical drama, characters
personifying moral qualities)
 Drama till Elizabethan Age

• Pre-Shakespearean Drama

Elizabethan to Jacobean Age

• Shakespeare
Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
(till 1901)

• The Jacobean Drama

Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
(till 1901)
• The Caroline Period (1625-49),
Drama and ‘School of Jonson’

• From 1642-1660, theatres were

closed by an act of Parliament in
1642.
Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
(till 1901)
• The Restoration (1600-1700)
– Restoration Tragedy
– Restoration Comedy/Comedy of
Manners
Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
(till 1901)
• The Augustan (1700-1745)

– Theatre Licensing Act (1737) &

the Sentimental Comedy
– The Anti- Sentimental Comedy,
Oliver Goldsmith
Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
(till 1901)

• The Romantic Period (1785-1832)

and Drama !!!
– Political themes and satires
– European authors were translated
into English
– Important plays of the time: William Godwin’s
Faulkener, Shelley’s The Cenci, Charles Lamb’s John
Woodvil, Robert Southey’s Wat Tyler, Elizabeth
Inchbald’s The Massacre, George Watson’s England
Preserved, Wordsworth’s Borderers etc.
 Development of English Drama from
Renaissance to Victorian Period
• The Victorian Period (1832-1901)
– Plays from the Romantic writers like Coleridge,
Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth were staged in this period.
– 4 playwrights: Douglas Jerrold, Tom Taylor, Thomas
William Robertson and Henry Arthur Jones – produced
255 plays during the time
– Tennyson’s Queen Mary and Becket
– Two important theatres – Covent Garden & Drury Lane
were expanded to accommodate 3500 people each
– Arthur Wing Pinero – The Squire, The Second Mrs
Tanqueray, Tom Taylor – Still Waters Run Deep, Masks
and Faces, Douglas Jerrold – The Mutiny at the Nore,
Martha Willis, The Factory Girl , Black-Eyed Susan,
Thomas William Robertson – Society, Henry Arthur
Jones - The Silver King, Saints and Sinners etc.
– Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
 The Modern Period (1901-1945)

• ‘Social Plays’, impact of Henrik Ibsen and Irish

playwrights (G B Shaw, J M Synge, Sean O’
Casey, W B Yeats)
• T. S. Eliot – Revival of Poetic Drama
• Angry Young Men Generation
• Kitchen-sink Drama
• Noel Coward, Christopher Fry, Dylan Thomas,
Terence Rattigan, John Arden
• Women playwrights and Realist Drama
• The Theatre of Absurd
• In-Yer-Face Theatre (Post-modern; relies on
excessive brutality to capture contemporary
reality)
 References

•http://www.unishivaji.ac.in/uploads/distedu/M.%20A.%2
0Part-II%20English%20Paper%205%20Literature%20in%2
0English%20Drama%20all.PDF