what are the greek and elizabethan types of drama?

Answer 1

Greek Drama: Three types of drama were composed in Athens: tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays , the latter of which seemed not to be taken quite as seriously, at least during the Greek Enlightenment (450-400). The ancients distinguished between tragedy and comedy in two ways. The first, the Aristotelian tradition, defined tragedy as a drama which concerns better than average people (heroes, kings, gods) who suffer a transition from good fortune to bad fortune, and who speak in an elevated language. Tragedy, in the Aristotelean tradition, serves the purpose of purging the soul of the "fear and pity" which most of us carry around (Aristotle called this catharsis ). Comedy concerns average, or below average, people (people like you and me) who enjoy a transition from bad circumstances to good (but not too good) and who speak everyday language. The second, or rhetorical tradition, defined comedy as a fiction which, though not true, is at least believable (that is, realistic), while tragedy is a fiction which is neither true nor believable. Plato and most of antiquity (and the Middle Ages) looked at drama from this second, rhetorical, tradition. The Aristotelian tradition does not really become important until the Renaissance. It's important to realize that comedy isn't necessarily "funny," at least in classical Athens, and tragedy isn't necessarily "tragic" (many tragedies have happy endings), so any neat definition doesn't really work. Also, Aristotle's famous theory of the "tragic flaw," that is, that the reason the hero of a tragedy suffers a bad change in fortune is because he or she has some character "flaw," is not very helpful in understanding most Greek tragedies.

English Renaissance theatre is often called "Elizabethan theatre." However, in a strictly accurate sense, the term "Elizabethan theatre" covers only the plays written and performed publicly in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (that is, 1558–1603). As such, "Elizabethan theatre" is distinguished from Jacobean theatre (associated with the reign of King James I, 1603–1625), and Caroline theatre (associated with King Charles I, 1625 until the closure of the theatres in 1642).

In practice, however, "Elizabethan theatre" is often used as a general term for all English drama from the Reformation to the closure of the theatres in 1642, thus including both Jacobean and Caroline drama. As such it can be synonymous with "English Renaissance drama" or "early modern English drama."

English Renaissance theater derived from several medieval theatre traditions. A crucial source was the mystery plays that were a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays that evolved out of the mysteries, and the "University drama" that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy.

ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY

Closely connected with the historical plays was the early development of Tragedy. But in the search for themes, the dramatists soon broke away from fact, and the whole range of imaginative narrative also was searched for tragic subjects. While the work of Seneca accounts to some extent for the prevalence of such features as ghosts and the motive of revenge, the form of Tragedy that Shakespeare developed from the experiments of men like Marlowe and Kyd was really a new and distinct type. Such classical restrictions as the unities of place and time, and the complete separation of comedy and tragedy, were discarded, and there resulted a series of plays which, while often marked by lack of restraint, of regular form, of unity of tone, yet gave a picture of human life as affected by sin and suffering which in its richness, its variety, and its imaginative exuberance has never been equaled.

ELIZABETHAN COMEDY

In the field of comedy, Shakespeare’s supremacy is hardly less assured. From the nature of this kind of drama, we do not expect in it the depth of penetration into human motive or the call upon our profounder sympathies that we find in Tragedy; and the conventional happy ending of Comedy makes difficult the degree of truth to life that one expects in serious plays.