The Core Elements of Drama and Lyric Poetry

The Dramatic Genre

Origins and Key Figures

Drama began as a cult of Dionysus, originating from a song that introduced changes over time, eventually giving rise to the dramatic form. The playwright Aristophanes, in his plays, featured ordinary people, burlesque humor, and colloquial language. His work often relied on stereotypes such as greed, ambition, and deceit.

Theatrical Evolution

In the late sixteenth century, dedicated theaters were built. A prominent style was the Italian-style theater, similar to venues like the Teatro Colón or the Gran Rex.

Dramatic Species and Core Concepts

The main dramatic species are:

• Tragedy
• Comedy
• Tragicomedy or Drama: This form features ordinary people in tragic situations.

Key dramatic concepts include:

• Anagnorisis: An essential moment of recognition or discovery by a character.
• Catharsis: The emotional release or purification experienced by the audience, stemming from a character's confrontation with conflict.
• Vicissitudes: A change in fortune that can, but does not always, occur after anagnorisis.

Dramatic Structure

Internal Structure

The internal progression of a play consists of:

• Introduction: Establishes the characters, conflict, and setting.
• Rising Action: The development of the conflict, leading to the climax.
• Resolution: The outcome that follows the climax.

External Structure

The work is externally divided into:

• Acts
• Scenes
• Frames

The classical Three Greek Unities dictated that a play should have a single main action, occur in a single physical location, and take place within one solar cycle (24 hours).

Text and Performance

Drama is dominated by a predominantly dialogic sequence, as the works are written to be represented on stage.

• The Dramatic Text: This is the written script, which includes speeches (such as monologues) and didascalia (stage directions).
• The Theatrical Performance: This is the staging of the text, involving the author's work, the venue, a stage director, actors, music, makeup, lighting, costumes, and more.

Philosophical Theater

This form of theater often explores existential themes. It incorporates music, scenery, and a more technical style of acting. It also marked the beginning of the appearance of female characters on stage.

The Lyric Genre

The lyric genre is the poetic form that expresses the feelings, imagination, and thoughts of the author. It reflects what the poet feels in their inner world, inspired by their own emotions and those of others. It includes lyric poetry and prose poetry. Verse is the most common expressive medium for poetry.

It is called the lyric genre because, in ancient times, these poems were recited accompanied by a lyre, a stringed musical instrument.

Classifications of Lyrical Forms

• Poetry: An artistic expression of beauty through words; the art of composing poems.
• Ballad: A poetic composition divided into equal stanzas, which often recounts melancholy events, legends, or traditional tales from the past.
• Couplet: A metrical combination of two lines, often forming a stanza.
• Ode: A lyric poem, often quite long, divided into stanzas and typically addressing a particular subject.
• Romance: A Spanish verse composition with assonant rhyme in the even-numbered lines, while the odd-numbered lines do not rhyme.
• Eclogue: A poetic composition featuring peaceful pastoral dialogue about country life.
• Sonnet: A poem of 14 lines, typically structured as two stanzas of four lines (quatrains) and two stanzas of three lines (tercets). The most widely used meter in Spanish and Italian traditions is the hendecasyllable, a verse of 11 syllables.
• Song: A composition in verse that is meant to be sung; the music to which this composition is set.