Drama (Greek Dsb?mb) is one of the types of literature (along with lyrics, epic, and lyre-epic), which conveys events through the dialogues of characters. Since ancient times, it has existed in folklore or literary form among various peoples; independently of each other, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Indians, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians of America created their own dramatic traditions.

In Greek, the word "drama" reflects a sad, unpleasant event or situation of one specific person.

Drama (gr.drama - action)

• 1) in a broad sense - any plot literary work written in colloquial form and without the author's speech; b.h. intended for performance in the theatre; in the narrow sense - a literary work of this kind, which differs from comedy in the seriousness of the conflict, the depth of experiences;
• 2) any amazing event in life.

Drama types

Tragedy- based on it tragic conflict. The hero finds himself in disharmony with society, conscience and himself. Attempts to break out of the vicious circle lead to the death of the hero. The main pathos of the tragedy is how the protagonist confronts difficulties and tries to deal with failures. Wanting to change the situation, the hero performs actions that further aggravate his situation. Often in a tragedy, the hero himself is to blame for what happens. Nal he is dominated by fate, fate, and it is impossible to resist this. Examples - "Hamlet" (W. Shakespeare), "Boris Godunov" (A.S. Pushkin).

Comedy- the exact opposite of tragedy. Initially it was considered a low genre, since its heroes were representatives of the lower class. The comedy depicts such life situations and characters that cause laughter. Comedy exposes the negative phenomena of reality and the vices of people. For example, "The Government Inspector" (N.V. Gogol). But comedy isn't just about entertaining the audience. In such comedies, there are many ridiculous situations in which, by the will of fate, a positive hero finds himself, as a result of which he is rejected by everyone and remains alone. For example, "Woe from Wit" (A. Griboyedov).

Tragicomedy, a dramatic or stage work, which has the features of both tragedy and comedy, and is built according to its own specific laws.

Throughout almost the entire history of theatrical art, the term did not have strict meaning. Tragicomedy has consistently been considered an intermediate, auxiliary inter-genre education. So, back in the 19th century. encyclopedic Dictionary Brockhaus and Efron defines tragicomedy as "a dramatic work in which a tragic plot is depicted in a comic form, or which is a random jumble of tragic and comic elements." Under the definition of tragicomedy could fall, for example, and the so-called. " high comedy”, dedicated to serious social and moral problems (Woe from the Wit of A. Griboedov), and a satirical comedy that sharply castigates the vices of society (Krechinsky's Wedding or A. Sukhovo-Kobylin's Case). The basis for this was the purely formal presence of both comedic and tragic themes, episodes, characters. Only in the middle of the 20th century. cultural sciences(art studies, theater studies, literary criticism) singled out tragicomedy as a separate genre with its own structure-forming features. At the same time, theoretical studies of the architectonics of a young, but very rapidly developing genre began. drama genre theater

Disputes around the genre of tragicomedy do not subside even today: the centuries-old stereotype of perception of a chaotic combination, the interweaving of the tragic and the comic is too strong. However, the criterion for testing any theory is practice. And it is precisely the numerous paradoxes or failures of theatrical practice, in which tragicomedy stubbornly opposes the usual methods of stage embodiment, that make us look closely at the laws of this mysterious genre.

For example, it was only through the architectonics of tragicomedy that world theatrical directing managed to find the keys to Chekhov's dramaturgy. Late Chekhov plays ("The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", " The Cherry Orchard”, “Ivanov”) for many decades baffled theater researchers and practitioners (the phrase “Chekhov’s riddle” very soon became a truism), causing numerous discussions and no less numerous stage interpretations. At the same time, the failures of Chekhov's productions were commonplace; and rare successes were based, as a rule, on a radical rethinking of the entire structure of the play. So, the first production of The Seagull at the Alexandrinsky Theater failed, despite the brilliant work of V.F. Komissarzhevskaya as Nina; and the production by K.S. Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theater, despite the overwhelming success of the audience, did not arouse much approval from the author himself. The Moscow Art Theater consistently defended the elegiac, sad and even tragic intonation of the performance, replete with the play of halftones, subtle psychological nuances and filigree development of the psychology of the characters. Chekhov, on the other hand, stubbornly defined the genre of his plays as "comedies".

Much later, only after liberating themselves from the charismatic, bewitching magic of Stanislavsky's performances, theater theorists and practitioners were able to understand that Chekhov's characters are actually very funny. All the characters, and not just those who were traditionally considered to be considered in a comic light (Charlotta Ivanovna, Simeonov-Pishchik - in The Cherry Orchard, Medvedenko - in The Seagull, Natasha - in The Three Sisters, Serebryakov - in Uncle Vanya"), but also the main characters of all Chekhov's plays: Ranevskaya, Treplev, Voinitsky, etc. This does not in the least remove the tragedy of their destinies, moreover: the funnier and smaller each hero looks, the more terrible and larger his tragedy.

It gradually became clear that A. Chekhov became the founder of a new genre, in which the tragic and the comic not only exist in an inseparable unity, but mutually condition and sharpen each other. The emphasis on one of the sides (whether comic or tragic) completely destroys the genre structure of his plays, transferring them to a completely different plane.

However, these features of tragicomedy were not immediately clear. The emergence and development in the second half of the 20th century largely contributed to the practical understanding of the principles of tragicomedy. a new theatrical trend - the so-called. theater of the absurd, which considered A.P. Chekhov (E. Ionesco, S. Beckett, H. Pinter, S. Mrozhek, J. Genet, F. Arrabal and others).

It seems that the term "absurdism", despite its firmly occupied place in the classification artistic directions, is not entirely correct - it is not for nothing that most playwrights of this direction resolutely rejected it. This term reveals the philosophical, semantic content of drama without affecting its artistic logic and architectonics. Meanwhile, in artistic principles theater of the absurd more clearly than anywhere else, all the fundamental principles of tragicomedy can be traced.

If in all other theatrical genres (comedy, tragedy, drama) the conflict is built on a clearly defined moral absolute, then in tragicomedy the moral absolute is, as it were, put out of brackets. Here the author not only does not answer the question “is this good or bad”, but also does not raise such a question. Moral problems appear before the viewer or reader in a relativistic light; Simply put, everything is relative here, everything is both good and bad at the same time. Any event, conflict, plot twist cannot be unambiguously interpreted; everything that happens is ambiguous and fundamentally variable. Humor is extremely interesting here: the comic performs not a social sanction (traditional for a satirical comedy: denunciation, ridicule), but a social heuristic function of cognition of reality. Here, the comic is called upon to eliminate the problem, situation, character, present them in an unusual form, consistently and fundamentally destroying the viewer's stereotype of perception and forcing them to a new, non-standard view. Thus, humor in tragicomedy appears as an analysis tool, emphasizing and even absolutizing its cognitive role. Tragicomedy activates the thinking of the audience, provoking consideration of the same problem from a variety of points of view.

In the truly tragicomic works of the theater of the absurd, of course, not only the aesthetic ideas of Chekhov can be traced. Here, the creatively reworked principles of many theatrical trends of the late 19th and early 20th centuries are intricately combined. In particular - English theater paradox (O. Wilde, B. Shaw) - it is no coincidence that E. Ionesco believed that the “paradox theater” should be considered the most accurate definition of his aesthetic direction. Or: the theory of "estrangement" (that is, showing ordinary, familiar phenomena in a strange, unusual perspective) of the German playwright and director B. Brecht, who emphasizes the social research orientation of his theater.

IN theoretical study the architectonics of the tragicomic, an invaluable contribution was made by the outstanding Russian scientist M. Bakhtin. Exploring the serious-laughter genres of antiquity (in particular, “Socratic dialogue” and “Menippean satire”), Bakhtin wrote a lot about “the dialogical nature of truth and human thought about it ... it is a matter of testing the idea, truth, and not about testing a certain human character, individual or socio-typical” (highlighted by M. Bakhtin).

The theoretical and practical development of the problems of tragicomedy made it possible to draw a conclusion that determined its only possibility for an adequate stage embodiment: the main artistic device of the genre is the grotesque (French grotesque, from Italian grotesco - bizarre), i.e., a conscious violation of life forms and proportions; disclosure of the absurd, caricature, base in tragic phenomena; a sudden displacement of the serious, the tragic into the plane of the comic. The grotesque permeates all the structural components of tragicomedy - from the problems and displayed realities to the characters of the characters. Linear logic is fundamentally absent, everything is "shifted", everything does not correspond to each other: the hero - situations; character - action; goal - means; life - being; thoughts - actions; etc. Tragicomic works are not amenable to stage interpretation by means of traditional realistic directing and acting. This, in fact, is the secret of the numerous failures of Chekhov's productions. The characters of the tragicomic heroes are not voluminous and multifaceted, but are discrete, intricately woven from numerous, contradictory, but inseparable components. Without being fully aware of this, it is impossible to understand each of Chekhov's plays (say, in the famous scene from The Three Sisters, when the sweet, thin, sensitive Olga rather angrily ridicules the shy Natasha for a green belt to a pink dress).

Extremely interesting and extremely paradoxical was the development of tragicomedy in Russia. The richest traditions of the Russian realistic theater practically did not anticipate the appearance of A. Chekhov - on the contrary, his plays appeared, as it were, in defiance of all previous history. The Russian theater has always been characterized by a distinct and consistent "educational", educational function; the moral absolute, the ideal, was certainly present, even in those cases (a satirical comedy) when it seemed to be taken out of the play. Chekhov, with his moral relativism and sympathy for all the heroes of his works without exception, for a long time remained the only, "separate" author - in fact, outside theatrical traditions and without followers. Chekhov's motives were, as already mentioned, first taken up and continued abroad by the "absurdists". At the same time, the lively and diverse development of the theory and practice of the theater of the absurd was familiar to most of the theatrical figures in Russia in the 1950s-1970s. predominantly hearsay - the social situation" iron curtain» interfered with international cultural contacts. It would seem that in Russia the development of tragicomedy has come to a standstill, practically froze, leaving only a shadow of memory about itself the mysterious giant phenomenon of Chekhov, the founder of a new genre.

However, by the end of the 1960s (and again - practically "out of nowhere") a new bright Russian phenomenon arose - the dramaturgy of A. Vampilov ("Provincial jokes" - "The case with the mezzanine" and "Twenty minutes with an angel", " duck hunting"). It was extremely difficult for Vampilov's plays to make their way onto the stage - for reasons mainly of an ideological nature: the absence of a clearly defined moral absolute (ie, the main feature of the genre) was perceived as a lack of dramaturgy. But, however, when they nevertheless managed to be staged, the performances, as a rule, did not turn out, the history of Chekhov's plays was completely repeated. The directors struggled in search of "positive characters" in Vampil's dramaturgy, tried to find volume and linear logic in the consistently discrete characters of his characters. As a result, stage versions changed Vampilov's plays almost beyond recognition. As the most striking curiosity, one can cite as an example the later (1979) film adaptation of Vampilov's play "Duck Hunt" - "Vacation in September" (staged by V. Melnikov): almost the most terrible character of Vampilov, the Waiter, an evil genius and alter ego of the main hero, by the will of the director and performer G. Bogachev, was transformed into his main moral opponent.

Around the same time (1967), the most repertory playwright in Russia, A. Arbuzov, wrote a strange and amazing play - “My feast for the eyes”, perhaps the only one of all his works that practically did not hit the stage. The reason is the same: "My feast for the eyes" was written in the genre of tragicomedy, and therefore it was extremely difficult to comprehend it. Recall: access to practical and partly theoretical understanding of the genre, which by this time had a serious European history, while difficult for the Soviet theater. In fact, I had to go "by touch", re-mastering the laws of the genre and comprehending their patterns.

Nevertheless, a decade later, by the end of the 1970s, most of the most interesting comedyographic experiences of Soviet playwrights fell on tragicomedy. And, perhaps, this is natural. Tragicomedy at that time acted as a catalyst for social thinking, which made it possible to get away from the straightforward dogmas of both communist ideology and dissidence. This time can be called the time of searching for a path, perspective; and the fundamentally heuristic, cognitive function of tragicomedy came in handy here.

One after another, the tragicomedies of both venerable and very young playwrights appeared: E. Radzinsky (“She is in the absence of love and death”), A. Smirnova (“My dear ones”), L. Petrushevskaya (“Colombina’s Apartment”, “Three Girls in blue"), A. Sokolova ("Faryatiev's Fantasies"), A. Galina ("Eastern Tribune"), A. Arbuzov (" Happy Days unhappy man”, “Tales of the Old Arbat”), M. Roshchina (“Pearl Zinaida”); Gr. Gorina ("Til", "The same Munchausen", "The house that Swift built"); A. Chervinsky (“My happiness”, “Tic-tac-toe”, “Blonde around the corner” - the last of them was made into a film that completely destroyed the harmonious tragicomic structure of the play and turned it into a plain vaudeville). Many of these plays are staged - not always successfully; many are filmed; some are less fortunate. But practically each of these plays was very widely discussed by the theatrical community, though for the most part in terms of problems, but not aesthetic principles genre. And, probably, this is also natural: during the period of the social and ideological crisis, it was precisely the heuristic side of tragicomedy that was most in demand.

But the next period - the mid-1980s-1990s - pushed tragicomedy into the background. The time of political restructuring, social upheavals that brought down the entire habitual life Russians, gave birth to a tragic worldview in them. The most demanded were melodramas that take you to a beautiful fantasy world, giving a short break from the hard reality. Russian theaters in those days also experienced a deep economic crisis.

The last period of Russian history gives rise to hopes for the return of tragicomedy to the live Russian theatrical process - as its full participant. Playwrights L. Petrushevskaya, A. Shipenko, N. Kolyada and many others still work in this genre. Many theater directors demonstrate their passion for this genre - R. Viktyuk, S. Artsibashev, M. Zakharov, G. Kozlov, M. Levitin, E. Nyakroshyus, I. Reichelgauz, V. Fokin, and others whose creative authority in our theater unconditional.

comedy of masks- a kind of Italian folk theater. As a rule, the actor played in masks, which were repeated in other performances. The actors spoke different languages ​​and made fun of the nobles and merchants. Notable authors include Locatelli, Scala; the influence of this genre was experienced by Molière.

Farce- a concept adjacent to the words "intermedia", "fablio". This is a term of carnival, using the terminology of M. Bakhtin, origin. The genre is close to the comedy of masks. It is difficult to establish who wrote and performed these comedies, because their authors were actors without a group or even a crowd of people who gathered in the square. They ridiculed everything and everyone (except the king): merchants, wealthy townspeople, churchmen and monks. Often the visiting commoner, who was unable to navigate the city crowd, also got it. The intelligentsia of that time also got it: students and teachers, if they were suspected of being lazy and generally accidentally going in search of knowledge. Of course, the churchmen were the most ferocious persecutors of street singers and buffoons. Shakespeare, Moliere, Cervantes, K. Goldoni liked this democratic genre, and they used it. Such clowning and buffoonery would have come to court in our time, but the genre has degenerated, the masters did not appear, and the last hello from that distant era, apparently, only clowns in modern circuses perform.

Drama- Combines tragedy and comedy. The rudiments of drama - in primitive poetry, in which the elements of lyrics, epic and drama that emerged later merged in connection with music and mimic movements. Earlier than among other peoples, drama as a special kind of poetry was formed among the Hindus and Greeks.

Greek drama, which develops serious religious and mythological plots (tragedy) and amusing ones drawn from modern life (comedy), reaches high perfection and in the 16th century is a model for European drama, which until then artlessly processed religious and narrative secular plots (mysteries, school dramas and interludes, fastnachtspiel, sottises).

medieval drama- the most richly represented in literary monuments and the most developed form of dramatic creativity of the Western European Middle Ages is the liturgical action and the dramatic genres that grow out of it.

Hence the frequently encountered definition of medieval drama as a whole, as an instrument of Christian propaganda created by the Church for its own purposes, a symbolic expression of Catholic dogma. This concept of medieval (not comic) drama can be found not only in the old literature on the subject, but also in the latest reviews summing up the research.

The liturgical action, according to Stammler (an article in "Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte", 1925-1926), grows out of "the desire to repeat everything again in clear symbols and imprint the saving truths of Christianity in the believing mass." In reality, however, the development of medieval drama appears to be much more complex.

First of all, the history of the liturgical action does not cover all the dramatic production of the Middle Ages. On the one hand, such a peculiar phenomenon as the literary drama (Lesedrama) of the 10th century remains outside it - imitations of Terence Grotsvita of Gandersheim, representing an interesting example of the assimilation by the ruling class - the aristocratic-clerical elite - of the forms of Roman comedy for the tasks of Christian propaganda, however, they did not have a direct impact on the further development of the medieval theater.

On the other hand, the evolution of dialogical forms in medieval literature and the emergence of such works as the dramatized pastoral "Jeu de Robin et Marion" by "the hunchback from Arras" (XIII century) testifies to the "secular" and even "courtly" sources of creativity of bourgeois poetic associations. of that time (puy), who at the same time played a prominent role in the later development of liturgical genres.

Finally, phenomena such as monologic and dialogic fablios, representing the first step towards their later dramatization ("De clerico et puella" (XIII century), "Le garcon et l "Aveugle" (XIII century)], as the latest design of carnival games (Fastnachtspiele ), point to the coexistence with the liturgical action of the buffoon action, the legacy of the "pagan" mime, which had a significant impact on the introduction of the comic element into the liturgical drama and its further development.

True, the dramatic production of this type is represented only in random, rare and relatively late monuments; but the absence of a record is quite natural here, since the buffoon action served mainly social groups that remained outside the boundaries of written culture.

On the other hand, there is hardly any doubt that for its success the church had to take into account the “social order” of these groups, and the significance of this “order” increased as the liturgical action moved away from the altar to the porch, and from the porch passed to the square. In addition, none of the estates of the Middle Ages - and above all the clergy - did not represent a homogeneous, close-knit community of economic interests, a social group: the interests of the estate, the tops of which were feudal lords - the princes of the church (the display of their nationalist tendencies towards independence is, for example, , Ludus de Antechristo), and the lower classes formed one of the main parts of the medieval lumpen proletariat, diverged very far; and their divergence intensified with the disintegration of feudal society, the growth of cities and the development of commercial capital: the interests of the urban clergy were closer to the interests of the city-dweller-merchant than the vagant-cleric.

In this regard, it is significant, for example, as in the "pilgrimage poems" of the Middle Ages - poems glorifying, in order to attract pilgrims, any local religious center - the praise of shrines is often combined with the praise of the city itself, its good roads, its rich shops and courteous merchants. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the development of the liturgical action one can note an ever-increasing reflection of the interests and moods of the third estate, mainly its urban part, and that this development ends at the beginning of the battles of the reformation, the use by the third estate of the heritage of the liturgical drama as a weapon in the fight against the church.

The origins of the liturgical action are indisputably connected with the theatricalization of the church service for purely cult purposes (about the influence here of Eastern mystical actions through the cults of the Eastern churches - Egyptian, Syrian, Greek.

Two points became decisive here: the enrichment of the church service as a spectacle by the creation of specific decorative settings (a manger for Christmas, a coffin for Easter) and the introduction of dialogic forms in the performance of the gospel text (the so-called responsories, distributing the singing of the text between two half-choirs or a priest and a community, and emerging in the 10th century, tropes that paraphrase the text while repeating the same melody).

By transferring the execution of the text to the participants in the spectacular setting (clerics mimicking shepherds at the manger or myrrh-bearing women and the angel at the coffin), the simplest form of the liturgical action was created. Further development the plot of the liturgical action, gradually developing into a religious drama, is achieved primarily by compiling the most easily dramatized episodes of the Gospel.

So in the Christmas action, the episode of the worship of the shepherds is joined by the appearance of midwives (according to the medieval tradition, witnesses of the virginity of the Virgin), the conversation of Mary and Joseph, nursing the baby, the episode of the worship of the Magi (originally presented separately on the feast of baptism - January 6), in its turn enriched with episodes of Herod, the massacre of the babies, the weeping of Rachel (symbolizing orphaned mothers) and the flight to Egypt. In the Paschal action, the episodes of the myrrh-bearing women and the angel are combined with the episode of the run of the apostles Peter and John to the tomb, the episode of Mary Magdalene, the exits of Pilate, the Jews and the guards, and finally with the scenes of the descent into hell and the dramatization of the very act of crucifixion.

The dramatization of the gospel plot is then joined by the dramatization of episodes of the Bible, interpreted by church tradition as a kind of prologue to the gospel scenes (the creation of the world, the rise of Satan and the fall), as well as the dramatization of legendary material, in particular the legends about the coming of the Antichrist.

The further development of religious drama after its separation from the church service is characterized by an increasingly realistic interpretation, the expansion of the comic and satirical elements, and the differentiation of dramatic genres. The realistic interpretation is expressed primarily in the gradual abandonment of the cult Latin, accessible only to clerics, and in the transition to the vernacular (in the first half of the 12th century in France, at the turn of the 12th-13th centuries in Germany); the cult language is limited only to the church hymns introduced into the text, while all the speeches of the characters are conducted in in native language: all the stages of this development are reflected in the surviving texts - purely Latin, Latin folk and purely folk religious dramas.

Further, a realistic interpretation is reflected in the ever richer everyday material introduced into the design of a religious plot: in the French miracles of the XIV century, in the German "Passion" of the XV century, the everyday atmosphere of a modern city dweller is conscientiously transferred to the stage in all its details; the scene, for example, of the crucifixion in the German mysteries repeats with all the details the public execution of the 15th century, St. Joseph in the Old English mysteries, about to flee to Egypt, he grumbles at his wife and, with careful tenderness, puts down "his small instrument" - exact image English artisan.

If the church imposed a ban on too free interpretation of the main characters of the gospel plot, then there were still enough characters and episodes in it that gave place to the comic element. Herod and Pilate, the Jews and the guards, even the shepherds, the apostles (the run of the apostles for distillation at the "Holy Sepulchre") and St. Joseph (the grumbling and squabbling with the Virgin Mary) and, in particular, the devil and his servants represented sufficient material for comics; characteristically (already carried out very early) the introduction of special comic episodes into the plot, as, for example, in the Christmas action of the scene of a fight between the shepherds (Mack's scene in the Woodkirk mystery) or the purchase of peace by the myrrh-bearing women from a crafty merchant in the Easter action (favorite in the German mysteries Kramerszene ). As the religious drama develops, these scenes, developed in the manner of the fablio, acquire an increasing specific weight, finally separating themselves into independent comic plays.

If, as indicated above, the appearance of the first secular plays coincides with the first performances of poets of the third estate (Rütboeuf's dialogues, Adam de la Galle's "jeux"), then the further differentiation of the dramatic genres of the Middle Ages coincides with the beginning of the flourishing of the urban culture of commercial capital.

This assimilation and development by the new class of forms of an alien, already dying culture is observed in almost all areas. literary creativity- for example, the magnificent flourishing of religious lyrics in the same era: in his struggle with the direct enemy - the feudal aristocracy - the city dweller, culturally still too weak, willingly resorts to the most impressing forms of the old, in many respects hostile to chivalry, class culture - clergy culture.

The great religious drama in the 15th century everywhere becomes the property of city organizations - workshops, guilds, etc. organizations (sometimes, as in Paris, created specifically for theatrical productions), which alone could - with the gradual impoverishment of monasteries - pay for expensive performances.

This transition, which finally brings the great religious drama to the city square and transfers the performance of its roles to the townspeople (the roles of the most revered characters - Christ, Mary - were retained for the clergy - or, basically, only directing), introduces new character traits in the design of the drama itself: the complication of decorative and stage design is the attraction to luxury, so typical of the flourishing culture of merchant capital, the heaping up of an infinite number of details, sometimes reminiscent of Baroque art, and finally the use of mass; the number of actors increases to several hundred, and the introduction of mass scenes allows us to achieve hitherto unknown effects.

The realism of interpretation is also growing, the themes often take on a secular character (“The Siege of Orleans”, around 1429, the popularization of courtly themes in the drama - “The Destruction of Troy” by Jacques Millet, 1450--1452).

A small form of religious drama with its brightly everyday coloring, created already outside the church, in the bourgeois poetic associations (puy) of the rich cities of France - the miracle - gives way in the future to the allegorical-didactic morality that originated simultaneously with it, giving (along with the traditional biblical themes) more scope for secular subjects - practical morality, rules of conduct (in "The Condemnation of the Feast", for example, there are personifications not only of diseases, but also of remedies, up to "Bleeding" and "Klystir"), sometimes even purely domestic scenes, and at the same time easily turned into an instrument of political satire and religious struggle.

Other forms of secular drama also have an allegorical-didactic character, reaching their full development in this era and partly standing out from the comic interludes of liturgical dramas, partly continuing a tradition little attested in monuments, but still existing. These are: in France - hundreds - a satirical genre, moving from a parody of a church service to political and social satire, and a farce - from the Latin "farsa" - "stuffing", that is, an interlude of a serious drama - in which the third estate for the first time creates his everyday and social comedy and which continues to exist until the 17th century, influencing the literary comedy of classicism.

A parallel to these genres (as well as to allegorical morality) forms the German Fastnachtspiel, which receives literary form from the Meistersingers of the 15th-16th centuries, including Hans Sachs.

The limit to the development of medieval serious drama was by no means set by the beginning of the Reformation, as is depicted in the old histories of literature. On the contrary, Protestants make a number of attempts to use even the great religious drama for their own purposes (the Protestant German mystery of the doctor Jakob Ruef, the English Protestant mysteries compiled by order of Cromwell John Bale), while allegorical-didactic small genres become a favorite weapon in the kindled struggle.

The limit of the development of medieval drama is imposed by the assimilation by the Renaissance and the Reformation of the forms of ancient tragedy, which are finally strengthened in the drama of classicism. The mystery, subject to a ban on the part of not only Protestant, but also Catholic authorities, is used as a pedagogical tool in the school, descends into the strata of the prosperous peasantry, where it continues to exist until the 19th century; the smaller allegorical-didactic genres, which have an influence (as already mentioned above) on the work of the humanists, turn out to be more persistent.

French playwrights, imitating the Greek ones, strictly adhered to certain provisions that were considered invariable for the aesthetic dignity of the drama, such are: the unity of time and place; the duration of the episode depicted on the stage should not exceed a day; the action must take place in the same place; the drama should develop correctly in 3-5 acts, from the plot (finding out the initial position and characters of the characters) through the middle vicissitudes (changes in positions and relationships) to the denouement (usually a disaster); the number of actors is very limited (usually 3 to 5); these are exclusively the highest representatives of society (kings, queens, princes and princesses) and their closest servants, confidants, who are introduced from the stage for the convenience of dialogue and cues. These are the main features of French classical drama (Corneille, Racine).

The strictness of the requirements of the classical style was already less respected in comedies (Molière, Lope de Vega, Beaumarchais), which gradually moved from conventionality to the depiction of ordinary life (genre). Shakespeare's work, free from classical conventions, opened up new paths for drama. The end of the 18th and the first half of the 19th century were marked by the appearance of romantic and national dramas: Lessing, Schiller, Goethe, Hugo, Kleist, Grabbe.

In the second half of the 19th century, realism prevailed in European drama (Dumas son, Ogier, Sardou, Paleron, Ibsen, Suderman, Schnitzler, Hauptmann, Beyerlein).

In the last quarter of the 19th century, under the influence of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, symbolism began to take hold of the European scene (Hauptmann, Pshebyshevsky, Bar, D'Annunzio, Hoffmannsthal).

Drama in Russia is brought from the West into late XVII century. Independent dramatic literature appears only at the end of the 18th century. Until the first quarter of the 19th century, the classical direction prevailed in drama, both in tragedy and in comedy and comedy opera; best authors: Lomonosov, Knyaznin, Ozerov; I. Lukin's attempt to draw the attention of playwrights to the depiction of Russian life and customs remained in vain: all their plays are lifeless, stilted and alien to Russian reality, except for the famous "Undergrowth" and "Brigadier" by Fonvizin, "Yabeda" by Kapnist and some comedies by I. A. Krylov .

At the beginning of the 19th century, Shakhovskoy, Khmelnitsky, Zagoskin became imitators of light French drama and comedy, and the Dollmaker was a representative of the stilted patriotic drama. Griboyedov's comedy Woe from Wit, later Gogol's Inspector General, Marriage, become the basis of Russian everyday drama. After Gogol, even in vaudeville (D. Lensky, F. Koni, Sollogub, Karatygin), the desire to get closer to life is noticeable.

Ostrovsky gave a number of remarkable historical chronicles and everyday comedies. After him, Russian drama stood on solid ground; the most prominent playwrights: A. Sukhovo-Kobylin, I.S. Turgenev, A. Potekhin, A. Palm, V. Dyachenko, I. Chernyshev, V. Krylov, N.Ya. Solovyov, N. Chaev, gr. A. Tolstoy, c. L. Tolstoy, D. Averkiev, P. Boborykin, Prince Sumbatov, Novezhin, N. Gnedich, Shpazhinsky, Evt. Karpov, V. Tikhonov, I. Shcheglov, Vl. Nemirovich-Danchenko, A. Chekhov, M. Gorky, L. Andreev and others.

Vaudeville- (French Vaudeville> Vau de Vire - the name of the valley in Normandy, where this genre of theatrical art appeared at the beginning of the 15th century) - a type of comedy, usually one-act: an entertaining play with entertaining intrigue and unpretentious everyday plot in which dramatic action is combined with songs, music, dances.

Melodrama(from Greek melos - melody, song and drama - drama). - 1. A musical and dramatic work in which the speech of the characters is accompanied by music, but, unlike the opera, the characters do not sing, but speak. 2. A kind of drama, which is characterized by a sharp, entertaining intrigue, exaggerated pathos and emotional intensity of feelings (“tearfulness”), often tendentious moralization. It was popular in Russia in the 30s and 40s. 19th century (N.V. Kukolnikov, N.A. Polevoy).

Movie genres

Drama

Drama again! exclaimed Zosia. She put on her hat and headed for the exit. Alexander Ivanovich followed her, although he understood that he should not have gone.

Ilf and Petrov, The Golden Calf

Drama- a literary and cinematic genre that appeared in the eighteenth century and almost immediately received universal recognition, is also quite popular in the modern world. It is distinguished by the predominance of scenes from everyday life, close to ordinary reality. It has rapidly become one of the most widespread genres not only in literature, but also in cinema since its appearance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

A bit of drama history

Drama, as we know it now, really appeared in the eighteenth century, but if you move to the theater of ancient Greece for a while, you can find such genres as tragedy and comedy. If we generalize these two directions in terms of meaning, then we would get a drama. Later, in medieval Europe, drama was considered not only as a theatrical production, but also as an independent, neutral genre, intermediate between tragedy and comedy, however, in the course of numerous changes in fashion, interests, and other things, by the eighteenth century, drama completely absorbs most other genres.

What is the deep meaning of Drama?

essence drama consists in the inevitability of a clash of characters of different beliefs on the border of opinions and interests, which, as a rule, differ sharply. And everything would be great, but sometimes excessive pride and self-righteousness can lead to very deplorable consequences for the characters. Meanwhile, unlike the tragedy, the sad ending of the drama is not at all predetermined, which causes additional public interest.

Drama in literature

Drama is, first of all, a kind of literature (together with epic and lyrics), which is based on some kind of action. At the same time, the proximity of the drama to the epic is emphasized: both there and there, an objective reflection of reality occurs through clashes of interests of the characters, struggle, events, actions, and other actions.

But those events that are described in the epic are narrated as something that has already happened, in the drama they are understood as something living, unfolding in the present tense. However, one should not draw conclusions about the superiority of one literary genre over another, they are all unique. Drama, on the other hand, is endowed with characteristics characteristic only of it. artistic means. The playwright, as a rule, relies on the process of action itself, during which the viewer or reader becomes a living witness to what is happening. The heroes of the work characterize themselves with their actions, language, evoking various emotions in the viewer: sympathy and understanding or hatred and indignation, respect or pity.

As for the drama in the theatre, a wide variety of methods are combined here: music, architecture, painting, facial expressions, dancing ... This is all the result of the coordinated efforts of the production team: the playwright, actors, director, production designers, etc. Drama must be take into account specific, only its characteristic features: the construction of the plot, the originality of the characters. The drama is designed for a collective emotional impact, trying to impress the viewer with the severity of conflicts and the ever-increasing tension between the parties.

Drama is usually divided into petty-bourgeois and symbolist.. Meshchanskaya depicts the life of a particular person, the conflict of the production is usually closely related to contradictions within the family or one house. Such dramas were created by famous domestic and foreign classics: Balzac, Ostrovsky, Tolstoy, Dumas and others.

The pioneer of symbolist drama is the Belgian playwright M. Maeterlinck. In essence, this is a drama based on philosophical teachings, an attraction to mysticism, a transition to the realm of illusory perceptions.

In the twentieth century, the genre of drama is supplemented by the techniques of the so-called literature of the absurd, an absurd reality begins to be depicted, the actions and actions of the characters are often illogical.

Drama in cinema

As correctly noted above, starting from the 20th century, cinema began to develop at an accelerated pace, literally in two decades, films became color instead of black and white, instead of the "sticks and ropes" method, the latter began to be used for shooting. Newest technologies. And along with this, the need and popularity of films of various genres is growing, among which drama has a special place.

As a rule, a film belonging to the drama genre contains extraordinary life situations, difficult in moral and psychological terms for the heroes, the ending of which is often unpredictable and can rarely be predicted immediately before the denouement, again, unlike a tragedy. Particular attention in such films is paid not to the creation of colorful special effects and entertainment, but to the feelings and experiences of the characters. This is the most significant difference from comedy: drama is a serious genre that has deep meaning at its core. This seriousness attracts the majority of viewers and arouses interest and a desire to penetrate into all the subtleties of the work (film), however, there are also those who believe that excessive seriousness is inappropriate in the cinema, which is already too much in real life. Drama as a film genre has no clear definition, boundaries and limits. It includes many subgenres, including, for example, a melodrama, where there is less seriousness and more emotions, or a thriller, where there is a heat of passion and constant psychological stress. It is not without reason that "thriller" in translation from English means "to cause awe" and its goal is to create in the viewer a feeling of intense experience, excitement. For lovers of very sharp emotions and sensations, there is another subgenre of drama - "Horrors", which is found mostly only in cinematography. A good horror film is a film that can scare the viewer, evoke a wide variety of emotions and fears in him.

dramatic genres - totality genres that emerged and developed within the drama as literary kind.

Dramas specifically depict, as a rule, the private life of a person and his social conflicts. At the same time, the emphasis is often placed on universal human contradictions embodied in the behavior and actions of specific characters. Drama is a literary work that depicts a serious conflict, a struggle between actors

As a genre of dramaturgy, drama took shape in the middle of the 19th century. This is an intermediate genre between comedy and tragedy.

Types of drama (dramatic genres)

• Tragedy

  Tragedy is a dramatic work in which the protagonist (and sometimes other characters - in side collisions), distinguished by the maximum strength of will, mind and feelings for a person, violates a certain universally binding (from the author's point of view) and invincible law; at the same time, the hero of the tragedy may either not be aware of his guilt at all - or not be aware of it for a long time- acting either according to plans from above (for example, ancient tragedy), or being in the power of blinding passion (for example, Shakespeare). The struggle against an invincible law involves great suffering and inevitably ends in the death of the tragic hero; the struggle with an irresistible law - its reappraisal in the event of an inevitable triumph - causes in us spiritual enlightenment - catharsis.

  The hero of any dramatic work is steadily striving towards his goal: this aspiration, a single action, comes up against the counter-action of the environment. It must not be forgotten that tragedy developed out of a religious cult; the original content of the tragedy is resistance to fate, its convincing and inevitable predestinations, which neither mortals nor gods can bypass. Such, for example, is the construction of Oedipus by Sophocles. In the Christian theater, tragic action is a struggle with God; such, for example, is Calderon's Adoration of the Cross. In some Shakespearean tragedies, for example, in Julius Caesar, ancient fate, fate, is revived in the form of cosmic forces that take a formidable part in the dramatic struggle. In German tragedies, as a rule, a violation of divine law is depicted, German tragedies are religious - and religious in a Christian way. Such is Schiller in most of his tragedies (in "The Robbers" - God very often takes on Jewish features, here the influence of the Bible affects), Kleist, Goebbel and others. The Christian worldview is also felt in Pushkin's tragic sketches, as, for example, in "Feast during plague." "Dramatic guilt" - violation of the norms of a certain way of life; “tragic guilt” is a violation of the absolute law. On the other hand, a tragedy is possible that develops on a social and state level, devoid of religious pathos in the narrow sense of the word; the hero of a tragedy may struggle not with God, but with "historical necessity", etc.

  The hero of a social tragedy encroaches on the basic foundations of social life. The protest of the hero of everyday drama is caused by living conditions; in another environment, he can calm down. In a society where a woman is equal with a man, Ibsen's Nora should show great calm, on the contrary, the hero of a social tragedy - like any tragedy - under any conditions - a rebel. He does not find a place for himself within the framework of sociality. Such, for example, is Shakespeare's Coriolanus; in any environment, his indomitable arrogance should manifest itself. He rebels against the immutable demands of citizenship. There is no tragedy if the hero is not strong enough.

  (That is why Ostrovsky's Thunderstorm is not a tragedy. Katerina is too weak; barely sensing her sin, her tragic religious guilt, she commits suicide; she is unable to fight God).

  The counter-action of other characters in the tragedy should also be maximal; all the main characters in a tragedy must be endowed with extraordinary energy and intellectual acuity. The tragic hero acts without malicious intent - this is the third obligatory sign of tragedy. Oedipus his murder and incest is destined from above; Macbeth carries out the predictions of the witches. The hero of the tragedy is guilty without guilt, doomed. At the same time, he is human, he is capable of deep suffering, he acts in spite of his suffering. The heroes of the tragedy are richly gifted natures who are at the mercy of their passions. The themes of tragedy are mythological. The myth is an effective fundamental principle of human relations, not obscured by everyday stratifications. Historical images tragedy uses as images of folk legend, and not as scientific material. She is interested in history - legend, not history - science. The truth of tragedy is the truth of the passions, not of an exact realistic depiction. Tragedy enlightens our spiritual consciousness; in addition to artistic imagery, it has the pathos of philosophical penetration. The tragedy inevitably ends with the death of the hero. His passion is directed against fate itself and, moreover, indomitable; the death of the hero is the only possible outcome of the tragedy. However, the daring power of the hero arouses in us moments of sympathy, an insane hope for his victory.

• Drama (genre)

  drama appears at the end of the 18th century. This is a play with a modern everyday theme. The difference from melodrama is that drama does not seek to pity. The task is to outline a section of modern life with all the details and show a certain flaw, vice. It can solve in a comedic way. Drama can mix with melodrama.

• crime drama
• existential drama
• drama in verse
• 
  Melodrama

  appeared in France. Melodrama is a play that directly appeals to the emotions of the audience, causing compassion, fear, and hatred of Ypres. Misfortune is usually due to external causes: natural disasters, sudden death, villains acting out of selfish motives. In tragedy, such a villain is bifurcated: he doubts and suffers. In melodrama, a person is whole and involved in a single emotional outburst. Plots are taken from the lives of ordinary people, the ending, as a rule, is prosperous.

  Melodrama is a drama that captivates not so much with the seriousness of the dramatic struggle and the detailed depiction of the life in which this struggle develops, as with the acuteness of the scenic situations. The sharpness of the stage situations arises partly as a result of the complex and spectacular circumstances (dramatic knot) in which melodrama occurs, partly as a result of the ingenuity and resourcefulness of its characters. The heroes of the melodrama are put in an isolated prison cell, sewn into a bag and thrown into the water (A. Dumas), and they still escape. Sometimes they are saved by a happy accident; the authors of melodramas, striving for more and more new effects, sometimes greatly abuse such random turns in the fate of their heroes. The main interest of melodrama is thus purely fabulous. This interest is often heightened in melodramas by sudden "recognitions" (Aristotle's term); many heroes of the melodrama act for a long time under an assumed name, a dramatic struggle is waged between close relatives who have not been aware of this for a long time, etc. Due to the superficial depiction of everyday life, the melodrama develops under the sign of "tragic guilt" (see "Tragedy") . However, the melodrama is far from a tragedy; there is no spiritual deepening in it; the characteristics of melodrama are more sketchy than in any other dramatic work. In the melodrama, there are often villains, noble adventurers, helplessly touching characters (“Two Orphans”), etc.

• hierodrama
• mystery
• Comedy

  Comedy developed from a ritual cult that had a serious and solemn character. Greek wordκω?μος of the same root with the word κω?μη - village. Therefore, it must be assumed that these cheerful songs - comedies - appeared in the village. Indeed, Greek writers have indications that the beginnings of this type of works, called mimes (μι?μος, imitation), arose in the villages. The etymological meaning of this word already indicates the source from which the content for memes was obtained. If tragedy borrowed its content from the tales of Dionysus, gods and heroes, that is, from the world of fantasy, then the mime took this content from everyday life. Memes were sung during festivities dedicated to a certain time of the year and associated with sowing, harvesting, grape harvesting, etc.

  All these everyday songs were improvisations of playful satirical content, with the nature of the topic of the day. The same diharic songs, i.e. with two singers, were known to the Romans under the name of atellan and festan. The content of these songs was changeable, but, despite this changeability, they took on a certain form and made up something whole, which sometimes was part of the Greek tetralogy, consisting of three tragedies about one hero (Aeschylus's Oresteia consisted of the tragedies "Agamemnon", Choephors, Eumenides) and the fourth satirical play. More or less definite form in the VI century. BC In the V century. BC, according to Aristotle, the comedian Chionides was famous, from which only the titles of some plays have survived. Aristophanes is thus. successor of this type of creativity. Although Aristophanes in his comedies ridicules Euripides, his contemporary, he builds his comedies according to the same plan that was developed by Euripides in his tragedies, and even the external construction of comedies is no different from tragedy. In the IV century. BC Menander comes to the fore among the Greeks. . We have already spoken about Plautus, since his comedies imitate the comedies of Menander. In addition to this, let us add that in Plautus the love affair plays an important role. The comedies of Plautus and Terrence lack a chorus; it was more important in Aristophanes than in the tragedy of Euripides and his predecessors. Chorus in their parabases, i.e. deviations from the development of the action, turned to the audience to interpret and understand the meaning of the dialogues of the characters. The next writer after Plautus was Terence. He, just like Plautus, imitates Menander and another Greek writer Apollodorus. Terence's comedies were not intended for the masses, but for a select aristocratic society, therefore he does not have that obscenity and rudeness that we find in abundance in Plautus. The comedies of Terence are notable for their moralizing character. If in Plautus the fathers are fooled by their sons, then in Terentius they are the leaders family life. The seduced girls of Terentius, in contrast to Plautus, marry their seducers. In pseudo-classical comedy, the moralizing element (vice is punished, virtue triumphs) comes from Terentius. In addition, the comedies of this comedian are distinguished by greater thoroughness in depicting the characters than those of Plautus and Menander, as well as by the elegance of the style. During the Renaissance in Italy, a special kind of comedy was developed:

  COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE all'improvviso - a comedy played out by professional Italian actors not according to a written text, but according to a script (Italian Scenario or soggetto) that outlines only milestones in the content of the plot, leaving the actor himself to clothe the role in those words that his stage experience, tact, resourcefulness, inspiration will tell him or education. This kind of game flourished in Italy around the middle of the 16th century. It is difficult to strictly distinguish between impromptu comedy and literary comedy (sostenuta erudita): both genres were in undoubted interaction and differed mainly in performance; a written comedy sometimes turned into a script and vice versa, a literary comedy was written according to the script; There are clear similarities between the two characters. But in the improvised one, even more than in the written one, they froze into definite, fixed types. Such are the greedy, enamored and invariably fooled Pantalone; Dr. Gratiano, sometimes a lawyer, sometimes a physician, a scientist, a pedant who invents incredible etymologies of words (like pedante from pede ante, since the teacher makes the students go forward); captain, a hero in words and a coward in deeds, confident in his irresistibility for any woman; in addition, two types of servants (zanni): one is smart and cunning, a master of all sorts of intrigue (Pedrolino, Brighella, Scapino), the other is the silly Harlequin or even more stupid Medzetin, representatives of involuntary comedy. Somewhat apart from all these comic figures stand the lovers (innamorati). Each of the actors chose some one role for himself and often remained faithful to it all his life; thanks to this, he got used to his role and achieved perfection in it, leaving the imprint of his personality on it. This prevented the masks from finally freezing in immobility. Good actors had a large supply of their own or borrowed concetti, which they kept in mind, in order to use one or the other at the right time, according to circumstances and inspiration. The lovers had at the ready the concetti of supplications, jealousy, reproaches, raptures, etc.; they learned a lot from Petrarch. There were about 10-12 actors in each troupe and, accordingly, the same number of roles in each scenario. Various combinations of these almost unchanged elements create a variety of plots. The intrigue usually boils down to the fact that parents, out of greed or rivalry, prevent young people from loving by choice, but the first Zannt is on the side of the youth and, holding all the threads of intrigue in his hands, removes obstacles to marriage. The form is almost without exception three-act. Scene in C.d. arte, as in literary Italian and ancient Roman comedy, depicts a square with two or three houses of characters overlooking it, and on this amazing square without passers-by all conversations, meetings take place .. In the comedy of masks, there is nothing to look for a rich psychology of passions, in its conditional world has no place for a true reflection of life. Its advantage is in movement. The action develops easily and quickly, without lengthiness, with the help of the usual conditional methods of eavesdropping, dressing up, not recognizing each other in the dark, etc. This is exactly what Molière adopted from the Italians. The time of the highest flowering of the comedy of masks falls on the first half of XVII V.

  By the 19th century, the comedy of characters was becoming more important.

  COMEDY. Comedy depicts a dramatic struggle that excites laughter, causing us to have a negative attitude towards the aspirations, passions of the characters or the methods of their struggle. The analysis of comedy is connected with the analysis of the nature of laughter. According to Bergson, everything is funny human manifestation which, due to its inertia, contradicts social requirements. Ridiculous in a living person is the inertia of a machine, automatism; for life requires "tension" and "elasticity." Another sign of the funny: "The depicted vice should not greatly hurt our feelings, for laughter is incompatible with emotional excitement." Bergson points to the following moments of comedic "automatism" that causes laughter: 1) laugh "treating people like puppets"; 2) amusing mechanization of life, which is reflected in repeated stage positions; 3) the automatism of actors blindly following their idea is ridiculous. However, Bergson loses sight of the fact that any dramatic work, both comedy and tragedy, is formed by a single, integral desire of the main character (or the person leading the intrigue) - and that this desire in its continuous activity acquires the character of automatism. We also find signs indicated by Bergson in tragedy. Not only Figaro treats people like puppets, but also Iago; however, this appeal is not funny, but terrifying. To use Bergson's language, "tension" devoid of "elasticity," flexibility, can be tragic; strong passion is not "elastic". Defining the signs of comedy, it should be noted that the perception of the funny is changeable; What excites one may make another laugh. Then: there are quite a lot of plays where dramatic (tragic) scenes and lines alternate with comedic ones. Such, for example, are Woe from Wit, some of Ostrovsky's plays, etc. These considerations, however, should not interfere with the establishment of the signs of comedy—comedy style. This style is not determined by the goals towards which the clashing, struggling aspirations of the characters are directed: avarice can be depicted in comedic and tragic terms (“The Miser” by Molière and “ Miserly knight» Pushkin). Don Quixote is ridiculous, despite the loftiness of his aspirations. Dramatic wrestling is funny when it doesn't evoke compassion. In other words, comedy characters should not suffer so much that we are offended by it. Bergson rightly points out the incompatibility of laughter with emotional excitement. Comic wrestling should not be violent, pure style comedy should not have terrifying stage situations. As soon as the hero of the comedy begins to suffer, the comedy turns into drama. Since our capacity for compassion is related to our likes and dislikes, we can establish the following relative rule: the more disgusting the hero of a comedy, the more he can suffer without arousing pity in us, without leaving the comedic plan. The very nature of the heroes of comedy is not predisposed to suffering. The comedic hero is distinguished either by extreme resourcefulness, quick resourcefulness, which saves him in the most ambiguous situations - like, for example, Figaro - or by animal stupidity, which saves him from an excessively sharp awareness of his position (for example, Caliban). This category of comedy characters includes all the heroes of everyday satire. Another hallmark of comedy is that the comedic struggle is conducted by means that are awkward, ridiculous, or humiliating—or both ridiculous and humiliating. Comedy wrestling is characterized by: an erroneous assessment of the situation, inept recognition of persons and facts, leading to incredible and lengthy delusions (for example, Khlestakov is mistaken for an auditor), helpless, even stubborn resistance; inept cunning, not reaching the goal - moreover, devoid of any scrupulousness, means of petty deceit, flattery, bribery (for example, the tactics of officials in the "Inspector"); the struggle is pitiful, absurd, humiliating, buffoonish (and not cruel)—such is the pure type of comedic struggle. A strong effect is produced by a mixing remark when it is given by a funny face.

  The strength of Shakespeare in the portrayal of Falstaff is precisely in the combination: a funny joker. Comedy does not move deeply, however, we do not conceive of life without death and suffering; therefore, according to Bergson's subtle remark, the comedy gives the impression of being unreal. Moreover, it needs a convincing everyday coloring, in particular, a well-developed characteristic of the language. Comedy fiction is also distinguished, so to speak, by a rich everyday development: specific details of the legend appear here, so to speak, the life of mythological creatures (for example, the scenes of Caliban in Shakespeare's The Tempest). However, comedy characters are not types like everyday drama types. Since pure style comedy is characterized by unskillful and humiliating struggles, its characters are not types, but caricatures, and the more caricature they are, the brighter the comedy. Laughter is hostile to tears (Boileau). It should also be added that the outcome of the comedy struggle, in view of its non-violent nature, is not significant. The comedic victory of vulgarity, baseness, stupidity - since we ridiculed the winners - touches us a little. The defeat of Chatsky or Neschastvittsev does not cause bitterness in us; laughter in itself is a satisfaction for us. Therefore, in a comedy, an accidental denouement is also acceptable - at least through the intervention of the police. But where defeat threatens someone with real suffering (for example, Figaro and his beloved), such an ending, of course, is unacceptable. How insignificant the denouement in itself is in a comedy is evident from the fact that there are comedies where it can be foreseen in advance. Such are the innumerable comedies in which lovers are prevented from marrying by their cruel and ridiculous relatives; here the marriage denouement is predetermined. We are carried away in comedy by the process of ridicule; however, interest rises if the denouement is difficult to foresee. The denouement is positive, happy.

  Distinguish:
  1) satire, a high-style comedy directed against the vices most dangerous to society,
  2) everyday comedy, ridiculing the characteristic shortcomings of a certain society,
  3) situation comedy, entertaining with amusing stage situations, devoid of serious social significance.

• Vaudeville

  Vaudeville is called a dramatic clash in a comedic way (see comedy). If in comedy dramatic combat is not supposed to be violent, then this applies even more so to vaudeville. Here, usually, a comedic violation of some very insignificant social norm is depicted, for example, the norm of hospitality, good neighborly relations, etc. Due to the insignificance of the violated norm, vaudeville usually comes down to a sharp short collision - sometimes to one scene.

  History of vaudeville. The etymology of this word (vaux-de-Vire, Vir Valley) indicates the initial origin of this type of dramatic creativity (the city of Vire is located in Normandy); later this word was interpreted through distortion voix de ville - a village voice. Vaudeville began to be understood as such works in which the phenomena of life are defined from the point of view of naive village views. The light nature of the content is a hallmark of vaudeville. The creator of vaudeville, who characterizes these works from the point of view of its content, was French poet XV century Le Goux, who was later mixed with another poet Olivier Basselin. Le Goux published a collection of poems, Vaux de vire nouveaux. These light humorous songs in the spirit of Le Goux and Basselin became the property of the broad urban masses in Paris, thanks to the fact that they were sung by wandering singers on the Pont Neuf. In the 18th century, Lesage, Fuselier, and Dorneval, in imitation of these vaudeville songs, began to compose plays of a similar content. The text of the vaudevilles has been accompanied by music since the beginning of the second half of the 18th century. The musical performance of the vaudevilles was facilitated by the fact that the entire text was written in verse (Ablesimov's Melnik). But soon, during the very performance of vaudeville, the artists began to make changes in the text in a prosaic form - improvisations on the current topics of the day. This made it possible for the authors themselves to alternate between verse and prose. Since that time, vaudeville began branching into two types: vaudeville proper and operetta. In vaudeville, spoken language prevails, while in operetta, singing prevails. However, the operetta began to differ in its content from the vaudeville. After this differentiation of vaudeville, what remains behind it is at first a playful depiction of the life of the urban class in general, and then of the middle and petty bureaucracy.
• Farce

  farce is usually called a comedy in which the hero violates social and physical norms public life. Thus, in Aristophanes' Lysistrata, the heroine seeks to force the men to end the war by encouraging the women to deny them lovemaking. Thus, Argan (Moliere's Imaginary Sick) sacrifices the interests of his family to the interests of his imaginary sick stomach. The area of ​​farce is predominantly erotica and digestion. Hence, on the one hand, the extreme danger for the farce - to fall into greasy vulgarity, on the other - the extreme sharpness of the farce, which directly affects our vital organs. In connection with the physical elements of the farce, it is naturally characterized by an abundance of outwardly effective movements, collisions, hugs, and fights. Farce is by nature peripheral, eccentric - it is an eccentric comedy.

  Farce history. Farces developed from domestic scenes introduced as independent interludes into medieval plays of a religious or moralistic nature. Farces maintained the tradition of comic performances from the Greco-Roman stage and gradually developed into the comedy of the new ages, surviving as a special kind of light comedy. The performers of farces in former times were usually amateurs.

Dramaturgy has its advantages over the epic. There is no author's commentary here. This construction gives the illusion of objectivity. The reaction of the viewer is always more emotional than the reaction of the reader. The action is continuous, the pace of perception is dictated by the performance. The main impact of the dramatic kind is emotional. Since ancient times, there has been a concept cathersis - a kind of "purification" of fear and compassion.

A sign of the dramatic kind in general is conflict The on which the action is built. It can be defined as "oppositely directed human wills." In drama, the goal is never achieved calmly. Obstacles can be both material and psychological. The conflict depends not only on the will of the playwright, but also on social reality.

Late 19th century - European new drama . Representatives: Matherlinck, Hauptmann, Chekhov. Their innovation is that external conflict is eliminated in the plays. However, a persistent state of conflict remains.

Drama means "action", the sequence of events depicted depending on the actions of the characters. An action is any change on the scene, incl. and psychological. Action related to conflict

The words in the drama are not like epic ones, here they are part of the action, the image of actions. The word tends to become action. Performative - a special kind of statement in which the word coincides with the deed. ("I declare war", "I curse"). The word in the theater is always directed at someone = a replica. Either itself is a response to someone's speech. Continuous dialogue creates the effect of reality.

In a drama, unlike an epic, it is impossible to convey the thoughts and feelings of the characters on behalf of the author. We learn about them only from monologues and dialogues, or from autocharacteristics, or from the characteristics of other characters.

In the 20th century, drama tends to get closer to the epic. IN " epic theater» Bertolt Brecht at the end of the play - a direct assessment: the moment when the actors take off their masks. Thus, the actor does not merge with the hero. The viewer here should not empathize with the hero (as in a classical drama), but think.

The epic differs from the drama in its plot, work with heroes; epic tends to monologue, drama - to dialogue.

Article by V.E. Khalizeva:

Dramatic works, like epic ones, recreate the series of events, the actions of people and their relationships. The playwright is subject to the "law of developing action", but there is no narrative and descriptive image in the drama. (with the exception of rare cases when there is a prologue in the drama).

The author's speech is auxiliary and episodic. List of actors, sometimes with brief characteristics; designation of time and place of action; description of the stage setting; remarks. All this constitutes side text of a dramatic work. The main text is a chain of characters' statements, consisting of replicas and monologues => a limited set visual means compared to epic.

The time of action in a drama must fit within the strict limits of stage time. The chain of dialogues and monologues gives the illusion of present time. “All narrative forms,” Schiller wrote, “carry the present into the past; all dramatic forms make the past present.

The purpose of the drama, according to Pushkin, is “to act on the multitude, to occupy its curiosity”, and for this purpose to capture the “truth of passions”: “Drama was born on the square and was the entertainment of the people<…>the people demand strong sensations<…>laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination shaken by dramatic art.

The dramatic genre is connected with the sphere of laughter with especially close ties, for the theater is strengthened and developed within the framework of mass festivities in an atmosphere of play and fun.

Drama gravitates toward an outwardly spectacular presentation of what is depicted. Her figurativeness, as a rule, turns out to be hyperbolic, catchy, theatrically bright (for this, for example, Tolstoy reproached Shakespeare?).

In the 19th and 20th centuries, when the desire for worldly authenticity prevailed in literature, the conventions inherent in the drama became less vivid. At the origins of this phenomenon is the so-called "philistine drama", the creators of which were Diderot and Lessing. Works of the largest Russian playwrights of the 19th - 20th centuries. - Ostrovsky, Gorky, Chekhov - are distinguished by the reliability of the recreated life forms. And yet, psychological and verbal hyperbole are preserved in their work.

The most important role in dramatic works belongs to the conventions of speech self-disclosure of characters, dialogues and monologues. Conditional replicas "to the side" , which, as it were, for other characters who are not on the stage, but are clearly audible to the viewer, as well as monologues uttered by the characters in solitude, which are a purely stage technique for bringing out inner speech. Speech in a dramatic work often takes on a resemblance to artistic, lyrical or oratorical speech. Therefore, Hegel is partly right, considering drama as a synthesis of the epic beginning (eventfulness) and the lyric (speech expression).

Drama has, as it were, two lives in art: theatrical and literary. But a dramatic work was by no means always perceived by the reading public. The emancipation of the drama from the stage was carried out gradually, over a number of centuries, and ended quite recently: in the 18th - 19th centuries. World-wide significant samples of drama (from antiquity to the 18th century) at the time of their creation were practically not recognized as literary works: they existed only as part of performing arts. Neither Shakespeare nor Molière were perceived by contemporaries as writers. The "discovery" in the 18th century of Shakespeare as a great dramatic poet played a decisive role in the purpose of the drama not only for staging, but also for reading. In the 19th century, the literary merits of a play were sometimes placed above those of the stage. The so-called Lesedrama (reading drama) became widespread. Such are Goethe's Faust, Byron's dramatic works, Pushkin's little tragedies. Dramas created for reading are often potentially stage dramas.

The creation of a performance based on a dramatic work is associated with its creative merits: the actors create intonation-plastic drawings roles performed, the artist designs the stage space, the director develops the mise-en-scenes. In this regard, the concept of the play changes somewhat, is often concretized and generalized: the stage production introduces new semantic shades into the drama. At the same time, the principle of faithful reading of literature is of paramount importance for the theater. The director and actors are called upon to convey the staged work to the viewer with the maximum possible completeness. Fidelity of stage reading takes place where actors deeply comprehend a literary work in its main content, genre, style features and match it as people of their era with their own views and tastes.

In the classical aesthetics of the 18th - 19th centuries, in particular in Hegel, Belinsky, drama (especially tragedy) is considered as higher form literary creativity: as the "crown of poetry". A whole series of epochs has indeed imprinted itself chiefly in the dramatic art. Aeschylus and Sophocles in the period of slave-owning democracy, Molière, Corneille and Racine in the time of classicism.

Until the 18th century, drama not only successfully competed with the epic, but often became the leading form of reproducing life in space and time. Causes:

And although in the 19th - 20th century the socio-psychological novel - the genre of epic literature, came to the fore, dramatic works still have a place of honor.

The main genre forms are comedy, tragedy and, in fact,
drama.

From antiquity to the second half of the 18th century, there was
only two dramatic genres - comedy and tragedy. After 18
century, a civil (petty-bourgeois) drama appears. i.e. appeared
already the genre of drama. Drama is both a literary genre and a genre.
In the 19th century, comedy and tragedy, as ancient genres, die. Drama
with elements of comedy - comedy, with elements of tragedy -
tragedy. Drama with elements of drama - melodrama.
Historically, the most significant were two dramatic
genre: tragedy and comedy.
ragedia (literally - "goat song") - a genre based on
irreconcilable conflict, which, as a rule, is inevitable
character. Most often, the tragedy ends with the death of heroes, although
the death of heroes in itself is not yet a determinant
tragedy. Not every tragedy ends in death (for example,
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles). On the other hand, the death of heroes can
to be in drama, and even in comedy.
The development of the tragedy genre proceeded unevenly. Tragedy blossomed in
Ancient Greece and was considered the highest form of art. Aristotle
wrote that it is tragedy that allows one to achieve catharsis -
noble cleansing through shock and empathy. Then
the genre of tragedy for a long time loses its position.
A new heyday comes in an era Late Renaissance, Where
W. Shakespeare was the most striking master of tragedy. In the era of Classicism, tragedy is again recognized as the highest genre,
the highest, requiring its own canon, including
style. Then the decline comes again, a tragedy in the classical
form fades into the background, giving way to drama, although many
dramas took the tragic pathos and with certain reservations
can be considered tragedies of modern times (for example, "Thunderstorm"
A. N. Ostrovsky, "The Power of Darkness" by L. N. Tolstoy, etc.).
Attempts to stylize the "classic" tragedy to serious
did not lead to success. True, this cannot be said about cinema,
where in many cases the tragic canon gives rise to genuine
masterpieces. But this is beyond the scope of literature.
omedia (lit. "song at the feast of Dionysus") - characterized
humorous or satirical approach to
reality, with a specific conflict. In comedy
the conflict is not irreconcilable and most often
resolved successfully. The element of humor allows you to smooth out
contradictions. Aristotle defined comedy as "the imitation
worse people, but not in all their depravity, but in a ridiculous way.
With modern eyes, this definition is somewhat naive;
not necessarily in "worst" people. Often comedy does not wear
revealing character.
Like tragedy, comedy has its ups and downs. Born in
Ancient Greece, it was very popular in Antiquity, then
almost completely forgotten. Comedy received a new birth in
Renaissance, then Classicism. Unlike tragedy,
comedy is very popular today.
Distinguish between comedy of positions and comedy of characters. Difference
concerns the source of the comic - in the first case, funny and
ridiculous situations in which the characters find themselves (classical
model - mistakes, misrecognition, confusion with twins, etc.), in the second - the characters themselves are ridiculous and absurd. Often these two types
comedies are synthesized, for example, in N. V. Gogol's The Inspector General, where
the situation of non-recognition emphasizes the comic nature of the characters.
Modern comedy has its own genre modifications,
for example, farce (deliberate, pointed comedy with
accentuation of comic elements) and vaudeville (light genre,
usually with an unpretentious, funny plot).
The comedy genre has found its embodiment in cinema,
The term "comedy film" is well known. Let us note that,
say, the genre of "movie tragedy" would sound strange. This is just
confirms the fact that classic tragedy Today
stepped into the shadows.
True, history shows that such fluctuations were
repeatedly and at some point, the tragedy can return
positions lost today.
Drama as a literary genre has spread much
later - only in the literature of the XVIII-XIX centuries, gradually replacing
tragedy. The drama is characterized by sharp conflict, but it
less unconditional and global than a tragic conflict. How
as a rule, in the center of the drama are private problems of a person’s attitude
and society. The drama turned out to be very consonant with the era of realism, so
as allowed greater lifelikeness. dramatic plot like
usually closer to reality "here and now" than the plot
tragic.
In Russian literature, examples of dramas were created by A. N. Ostrovsky,
A. P. Chekhov, A. M. Gorky and other prominent writers.
Over the two hundred years of its development, however, drama has mastered other
far from realistic ways of depicting
In fact, today there are a lot of options for drama.
Possible symbolist drama(usually its occurrence is associated with the name of M. Maeterlinck), absurdist drama (bright
whose representative was, for example, F. Dürrenmatt), etc.
Drama is the leading genre in theater today.
repertoire, competing in this with comedy.
Thus, in modern scientific literature, the term
"drama" has two meanings. It's not very good, but it is. IN
the first meaning of drama is a kind of literature, it is in
opposition to lyrics and epic. In a narrower sense, drama is
a genre within a genus, the opposition to it is tragedy and comedy.

Dramatic literature is characterized by its suitability for stage interpretation. Its main feature is its purpose for theatrical performance. Hence the impossibility of complete isolation in the study of a dramatic work from the study of the conditions of its theatrical realization, as well as the constant dependence of its forms on the forms of stage production.

The staging of the performance is made up of the play of the actors and the stage environment (decoration) surrounding them. The game of artists is composed of speeches and movements.

We divide speech on stage into monologue and dialog. A monologue is an actor's speech in the absence of other characters, i.e. the speech is not addressed to anyone. However, in stage practice, a developed and coherent speech is also called a monologue, even if it is pronounced in the presence of other persons and is addressed to someone. Such monologues contain spiritual outpourings, narrations, sententious sermons, etc.

Dialogue is a verbal exchange between two players. The content of the dialogue - questions and answers, disputes, etc. While reversed monologue (i.e., delivered in the presence of other characters) is always somewhat distracted from the personality of the listener and is usually addressed not to one, but to several listeners, the dialogue refers to the direct collision of two interlocutors.

The notion of dialogue extends to the cross-talk of three or more persons, which is typical of new drama. In the old drama, pure dialogue was predominantly cultivated - a conversation of precisely two persons.

Separate brief speeches of the interlocutors that make up the dialogue are called replicas. A developed replica already borders on a monologue, since uninterrupted speech already presupposes a passive listener, only a listener, and the structure of speech approaches a monologue, i.e. one in which the topic of speech develops independently, and not from crossing motives put forward by interlocutors, participants in the dialogue.

Speeches are accompanied by a game, i.e. movements. Any utterance of a speech is accompanied by facial expressions, i.e. famous game facial muscles, in harmony with the emotional content of the spoken. Facial expressions are accompanied by facial gestures, i.e. movements of the hands, head, whole body, in accordance with the same emotional moments of speech.

This expressive facial expression can sometimes be the equivalent (replacement) of speech. Thus, certain movements of the head and hands can express affirmation, negation, agreement, disagreement, emotional movements, etc. without any words. A whole stage performance can be built on one facial expression (pantomime). In cinema, mimicry is the basis of the thematic composition in the so-called "psychological dramas".

But along with such expressive movements, the performance of artists can reproduce everyday actions. The character on the stage eats, drinks, fights, kills, dies, steals, etc. Here we no longer have an expressive, but a thematic play, and each such stage act is already an independent motive, woven into the plot of the stage performance along with the speeches of the characters.

The performance is supplemented by scenery, props, props, i.e. dead phenomena participating in actions. Things can play their role here (props in the exact sense of the word), room furnishings, furniture, individual items necessary for the game (weapons, etc.), and so on. Along with these objects, the so-called "effects" are introduced into the performance - visual effects, for example, light ones: dawn, lighting and extinction of the lamp, sunrise, moonlight, etc .; auditory effects: thunder, the sound of rain, calls, gunshots, any noise in general, playing instruments, etc. It is also possible to imagine olfactory effects, which, however, are used very rarely in theatrical practice, such as burning incense when depicting a church service, and so on.

A literary work adapted to be reproduced in this way is a dramatic work.

The text of a dramatic work is divided into two parts - the speeches of the characters, which are given in full, as they should be delivered, and remarks, which give instructions to the director of the performance - the director, what stage means should be used in the implementation of the performance.

In remarks, one should distinguish between indications of the scenery and furnishings and playful remarks indicating the actions, gestures and facial expressions of individual characters.

The text of speeches is the only verbal and artistic part of a dramatic work. Remarks have the service role of communicating the artistic intent to the actors and the director, and therefore are usually presented in simple, ordinary prose language. In rare cases, we see the use of artistic style in remarks in order to increase the emotional persuasiveness of directions.

A work written in the form of speeches of characters and remarks is a work of "dramatic form". This also applies to those works that resort to this form without any consideration for stage interpretation ("Undivine Comedy", fragments from "Gypsies").

It should be said that in general the dramatic form does not yet indicate the possibility of stage interpretation. The dramatic form is resorted to very often without regard to the performance; on the other hand, almost every dramatic work intended for the stage is printed by the author for reading. But the conditions of reading and the conditions of the performance are completely different. In reading, we receive no additional guidance from the acting, the director's interpretation, and the concretization of the action except through very imperfect and meager remarks.

On the other hand, in reading through the eyes of a dramatic text, we are not bound by the tempo of the performance, which determines the greater or lesser tension in the development of the action.

This difference between reading and performance in general predetermines the essential difference between a text intended for the stage and a text intended for play. From this it is clear why, among experienced playwrights-writers, we usually come across the fact of the existence of a special stage and special literary edition. The stage version is usually distinguished by abbreviations, and sometimes by a special layout of the verbal material. Stage editing is a collision of literature with the stage, of the author with the director. Directors usually introduce a number of changes in literary text for the benefit of the show.

The study of stage versions, their specific construction, etc. belongs to the history and theory of the theater. Here we are interested in stage elements only in so far as they determine the structure of the dramatic text.

The interests of the scene require the dissection of the material. in large parts dramatic work are acts (or actions). An act is a part performed on the stage continuously, in a continuous connection between speeches and acting. Acts are separated from each other by breaks in the performance - intermissions.

The division into acts is the result of various causes. First, the act is a unit applied to the psychological limit of the spectator's untiring attention. An act lasting about 30-40 minutes approximately satisfies this condition. Then - the technical necessity for a break in the performance to change the scenery, dressing the artists requires an intermission that determines the articulation. Along with these mechanical reasons, there are considerations of a thematic order. Each act gives some finished thematic unit of the work, has an internal thematic isolation.

It should be noted that sometimes in the course of the performance, a change of scenery (lowering the curtain) within the act is required. These parts are called "pictures" or "scenes". There is no exact, fundamental boundary between “pictures” and “act”, and the difference between them is purely technical (usually the intermission between the pictures is short and the audience does not leave their seats).

Within the act, division occurs according to the exits and departures of the characters. The part of the act, when the characters on the stage do not change, is called a phenomenon (sometimes a "scene". The latter term has a dual meaning, sometimes coinciding with the term "phenomenon", sometimes with the term "picture". Since this word has, moreover, its own independent meaning, it is best avoided in these particular applications).

Phenomena are directly divided into replicas.

The peculiarity of the plot development of a dramatic work is that the action takes place in front of the audience, i.e. The most crucial moments of the plot develop with complete completeness, and in their development the author is constrained by place and time. Both of them approximately coincide with the place and action of the performance, i.e. it is assumed that the characters within the act or picture do not go beyond the area, equal area scenes, and the action takes as much time as the execution of the act takes.

Only intermissions provide the opportunity to change the place and suggest the passage of an indefinite period of time. At the same time, almost everything should happen before the eyes of the viewer, and as little as possible should be reported in speeches about what is happening outside the scene. All these rules are approximate, i.e. the conditional stage area may be assumed to be much wider than it actually is, the time of the performance may not exactly coincide with the time flowing in the plot (thus, there will be nothing special if the clock on the stage strikes the clock every quarter of an hour), exactly just as much can only be told by the characters on the stage. But all these deviations from the dramatic principle (“stage conventions”) are limited by the theatrical tradition and, in an unnecessary violation of the illusion, can destroy the theatrical effect.

In addition, the theme of the plot develops almost exclusively in speeches, which is why there is a complex system of dramatic motivation for dialogue introduced to justify the illusion that such a dialogue is necessary on stage.

The dramatic texture completely excludes the possibility of an abstract narrative, which significantly narrows the range of topics developed in the drama, and gives a specific character to the introduced motives (every motive should be the subject of conversation).

The limited time of the performance (2-3 hours) does not make it possible to introduce long chains of events: by cramming in a large number of successive events, the author would “bring down” the pace of the performance, preventing each event from developing with more or less natural slowness. On the other hand, a single plot line would slow down the pace and weaken the interest.

To fill the scene with action, a parallel or several parallel plot threads are introduced, or, in other words, several parallel intrigues. As long as the next twists and turns are being “prepared” within one plot thread, the action is filled with events from another line of intrigue. Thus, instead of a consistent development of motives, dramatic texture often resorts to the parallel conduct of a complex plot.

The presence on the stage of living persons with their speeches makes us pay attention to their individual role. For dramatic literature characteristic is the concern for concretization of the spiritual image of the hero, "deployment of character." In tradition acting 19th century this "typicality", i.e. the consistent motivation of the speeches and actions of the character by some distinct and prominent character was considered a sign that ensures the success of the play on the stage.

Everything said is fair, understandable, in relation to far from all dramatic works. Generally speaking, the development of dramatic technique must go hand in hand with the development of stage style.

At the present moment, we are experiencing a crisis in dramatic art that is difficult for dramatic literature. Theatrical techniques quickly replace one another. Directing is progressing, revolutionizing the staging system. We have gone through a period of enthusiasm for productions “on cloth”, “destruction of the ramp”, now there is a passion for the constructivism of scenery and the eccentricity of the game (instead of the not so long ago obsolete lyrical recitative of Maeterlinck's style). But the dramaturgy is not keeping up with the director. Not so long ago, Ibsen, Chekhov, Maeterlinck went hand in hand with the reform of the stage, the director could hardly keep up with the author. Now the author has lagged behind the director. We have a new stage and do not have a new dramaturgy.

Classifying dramatic genres, one could first divide works into verse and prose, but in drama this feature is not decisive. The methods of composition are approximately the same for both verse and prose drama, since the rhythmic form of speech affects only the structure of individual replicas, rarely dialogue, and has little effect on the plot and plot structure - except in the sense that it affects the pace of the performance. It should be reckoned with the fact that modern drama developed from verse drama, and the gradual transition from verse to prose forms contributed to the unity of the compositional texture.

At the initial moment of modern drama (XVII century - French classicism), drama was divided into tragedy and comedy. The hallmarks of the tragedy were historical heroes(mainly the heroes of Greece and Rome, especially the heroes Trojan War), "high" themes, "tragic" (i.e., unfortunate - usually the death of heroes) denouement. A feature of the texture was the advantage of a monologue, which, in verse speech, created a special style of theatrical recitation. The game in the broadest sense of the word was completely absent.

Tragedy was opposed by comedy, which chose contemporary theme, "low" (i.e., exciting laughter) episodes, a happy denouement (typically - a wedding). In comedy, dialogue prevailed, and therefore the general mood of the game, the "teamwork" of the troupe, and not only the high qualities of individual interpreters, as in tragedy, were important. In addition, the comedy had a rich game canvas that required big movement characters.

In the XVIII century. the number of genres is increasing. Along with strict theatrical genres, lower, "fair" genres are being promoted: Italian buffoonery comedy, vaudeville, parody, etc. These genres are the origins of modern farce; grotesque, operettas, miniatures. Comedy breaks apart, singling out "drama" from itself, i.e. a play with modern everyday themes, but without the specific “comic” of the situation (“petty-bourgeois tragedy” or “tearful comedy”). By the end of the century, acquaintance with Shakespearean dramaturgy had an impact on the texture of the tragedy.

Romanticism early XIX V. introduces into tragedy the techniques developed in comedy (the presence of a game, the greater complexity of the characters, the predominance of dialogue, a freer verse that required reduced recitation), turns to the study and imitation of Shakespeare and the Spanish theater, destroys the canon of tragedy, which proclaimed three theatrical unities (the unity of place, i.e. the immutability of the scenery, the unity of time - or the rule of 24 hours - requiring that plot time did not exceed a day, and the unity of action is a very empty rule, which each author interpreted in his own way).

Drama decisively supplants other genres in the 19th century, harmonizing with the evolution of the psychological and everyday novel. The heir of tragedy are historical chronicles(like the "Trilogy" by Alexei Tolstoy or Ostrovsky's chronicles). At the beginning of the century, melodrama was very popular (like Ducange's still-renewed play "30 Years or the Life of a Player"). In the 70s and 80s, attempts were made to create a special genre of dramatic fairy tales or extravaganzas - situational plays (see Ostrovsky's The Snow Maiden).

In general, for the XIX century. characterized by a mixture of dramatic genres and the destruction of solid boundaries between them. In parallel with this, there is a slow but steady decline in stage technology. Only now we seem to be standing on the threshold of a new flowering of stage art, for artistic interest in the theater is on the rise.

Tomashevsky B.V. Theory of Literature. Poetics - M., 1999