Exploring the Elements of Prose, Poetry, and Drama: A Comprehensive Guide
Prose Fiction and Its Structural Elements
1) The Plot
– A change in the original situation as presented at the outset of the narrative – Model: Exposition -> Complication -> Climax or Turning Point -> Resolution – Flashbacks and foreshadowing – Experiments in the plot, linear vs. non-linear plots
2) Characters
– Flat characters vs. round characters – Typification vs. individualization of the character – Modes of presenting the character: telling and showing
3) The Narrative Perspective or Point of View
– Omniscient point of view – through an external narrator who refers to the protagonist in the third person – First-person narration – by the protagonist or by a minor character – Figural narrative situation – through figures acting in the text – Narratorial experiments – 2nd person narration, the narratorial vs. the authorial voice/mixing the narrator and the author (practiced by Philip Roth), unreliable narrator coined by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961) (examples in E.A. Poe, J. Barth, B.E. Ellis), multiple narrators, non-human narrators
Other Narrative Strategies
– Stream-of-consciousness technique
* The writer plays out a stream of free associations, uncontrolled and not preconceived, pertaining to one’s subconsciousness * It shifts the perspective from the external phenomena to the internal (psychic) phenomena of characters
4) The Setting
– It denotes the location, historical period, and social conditions – The importance of setting – the case of gothic fiction
Poetry
– Harder to define than any other genre – Main features: stanzas, verse, rhyme, meter; problems with clear definitions – Precursors of modern poetry – charms and riddles (magical-cultic dimension of the primordial roots of literature)
Narrative Poetry = a narrative in the form of a poem
– The epic, the romance, the ballad
Lyrical Poetry = concerned with one event, impression, idea
– Some most famous subgenres: the elegy, the ode, the sonnet
How is a poem built?
– Lexical-thematic dimension – rhetorical figures, theme, symbols – Visual dimension – stanzas, “concreteness” – Rhythmic-acoustic dimension – rhyme and meter, onomatopoeia
Drama
– Drama combines the verbal with non-verbal; spoken word is combined with the visual and the musical: stage, scenery, shifting of scenes, facial expressions, makeup, gestures, props, lighting
History:
– Ancient times: ancient tragedies and comedies, first performed during festivals in honor of Dionysos; three major writers: Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides – Middle Ages: mystery and miracle plays, incorporated Christian motifs and were performed in front of churches and the yards of inns – Renaissance: history plays, revival of classical tragedy and comedy, the emergence of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – The Puritan times in the XVIIth century; the case of America – Late XVIIth century – comedy of manners, closet drama
Tragedies:
– Aristotle: “tragedy deals with a representation of an action that is heroic and complete; through pity and fear it reflects relief” – The audience is supposed to experience spiritual cleansing = CATHARSIS
Comedies:
– Supposed to entertain the audience; having origins in regeneration cults; often culminate in a wedding
History Plays:
– Portrayed historical events or figures, but had contemporary references; they achieved universal dimension and spoke of human nature, weaknesses, and virtues; the case of censorship* (Shakespeare’s Henry IV or Richard II)
Drama in the Late 19th/20th Century:
– Late 19th century – favoring a realistic representation of life (G.B. Shaw, O. Wilde) – 20th century – the expressionist theatre and the theatre of the absurd (S. Beckett) – they used grotesque, favored the view that reality cannot be truly represented; they were much more abstract, they used parody and were playing with viewers’ expectations concerning plot, the logic, etc.* – Political theatre and social criticism – A. Miller’s “The Crucible”
Other important terms/characteristics relevant to drama:
* Soliloquy and the aside – a special monologue; a character passes on to the audience some information which is not noticed by other characters * Breaking the fourth wall * The three unities – time, space, and action * Acts and scenes * The role of the director (up to the 19th century – very vague duties), the role of an actor (the case of Beckett’s “Catastrophe” (1982); the play as an example of a postmodern play) * The stage and props
– In the ancient times: orchestra, skene, masks, masks, and gender – Elizabethan theatre: less seats (about 2000), octagonal, using floors, balconies, no props – Modern-day: the emergence of proscenium