DRAMA ( t from Gk. SpilAa. from Spar (Iran. to act). A form of literary art designed for the direct representation of human actions and characters, through their impersonation by actors before an audience. Though many modern plays have been written in prose, the drama is histori cally classified as a department of poetry, side by side with the epic and the lyric. The former of these describes in the narrative form; the latter is the detached expression of individual emotion. Both of these elements may enter into the drama in it subordinate way. brit in dramatic poetry the facts of a story are 'actually developed upon the stage in the interchange Of speed' and action. It is the action, too, which distinguishes the drama from simple dialogue. in which the persons are mere mouthpieces for the expression of ideas. The drama brings into play every emo tion which can be objectively expressed. whether by word or gesture or play of feature, or What t he modern playwright describes as 'business.' The illusion of reality is heightened by the efforts of the scene-painter and the stage-manager, which, however, belong to the technical side of dramatic art. Fee TIIEATIIE.
The division of a play into acts and scenes. however (see ACT ), is a usage originating in the subject matter of the drama itself, though the invention of the drop-curtain and scene-shifting accessories make it seem to some extent an affair of ni(Thanical adaptation. The several nets mark different stages in the development of the theme, successively introducing the elmracters and ele ments of the plot, -hoeing the complications led to its climax, and finally solving its problem by the 'catastrophe.' The natural changes of background commonly coincide with the changes of acts. The succession of scenes (sub divisions of acts) usually depends. in a classical play, upon the entrance or exit of important characters.
The same double consideration underlies the famous doctrine of the 'unities,' which are in part a formulation of the inevitable restrictions of the stage. They are traced to some of Aristotle's
remarks on tragedy, in his Poetics. but they were most definitely accepted as conventions of the theatre by the classical French Racine and his successors. The 'dramatic unities' are three: of place, of time, and of action. The first precludes any extensive change of scene. The second requires that all the events of the play must occur within the space of one day. Unity of action demands that all the incidents of the play shall converge upon the development of a single plot. (If these three rules, modern criticism, with I.essing and the French romanticists. and accord ing to Shakespeare's practice, is generally agreed in regarding the last as the only one which is fun damental; the others are due primarily to acci dental conditions which no longer prevail. rpon the ((reek stage, the model for the classicists, sine• there was no curtain and very little possi bility for change of scene, unity of place was practically inevitable. though even this was not maintained without exception. l'nity of time was rendered almost equally necessary by the habitual presence of the chorus throughout the play. which be an evident absurdity if the plot were carried a cross long intervals of time; the same world generally he true if the same chorus were to appear suceessively in different places. \\*hat is called unity of aetion, however, is simply an application of the principle which demands unity of impression in the work of any art. Only when subordinate to this last 'unity' do those of time and place demand consideration upon the modern though it is tut loubtedl? true tI at realism of impression is aided it the imagination is not with wide gaps in either time or place.
file .plestion 14 unity is often practically in ‘olved in the creation of a double plot. the ,ec ondary or under plot being concerned with the Of subsidiary characters in the play. This, by way of contrast and relief. may really .true the effectiveness of the main action.