Unit 3 The Renaissance Genre of Literature :Drama/Play a. What is Drama? The word drama comes from the Greek verb dran,

meaning “to perform.” When we speak drama, we mean a story in dialogue performed by actors, on on a stage, before an audience--- in other words, a play. We also use the term drama in a more general sense to refer to the literary genre that encompasses all written plays and to the profession of writing, producing, and performing plays.

b. The Classifications of Drama Tragedy: A type of drama in which the characters

experience reversals of fortune, usu. For the worse. In tragedy catastrophe and suffering await many of the characters, esp. the hero.

Comedy: A type of drama in which the characters experience reversals of fortune, usu. For the better. In comedy things work out happily in the end.

Tragicomedy: a type of play that contains elements of both tragedy and comedy.

Tragic flaw: a weakness or limitation of character result in the fall of tragic hero.

c. Aristotle on Tragedy Aristotle. "Chapter VI". The Poetics.

trans. Leon Golden. in Aristotle's Poetics: A Translation and Commentary for Students of Literature. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice, 1968.

definition of tragedy:  "Tragedy is, then, an imitation of a noble and

complete action, having the proper magnitude; it employs language that has been artistically enhanced by each of the kinds of linguistic adornment, applied separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented in dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves through the representation of pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful incidents"

the definition further explained: "I mean by "language that has been artistically

enhanced," that which is accompanied by rhythm and harmony and song; and by the phrase "each of the kinds of linguistic adornment applied separately in various parts of the play," I mean that some parts are accomplished by meter alone and others, in turn, through song" (11

Genre of Literature: Sonnets/Sonnet a. The Sonnet as a Literary FormThe sonnet originated in Italy around the 15

30's and endured as one of the only forms of lyric poetry with a definitive set of regulations. There are two types of sonnet: the Italian or Petrarchian and the English or Elizabethan. The forms differ in structure, rhyme scheme, and subject matter.

The Elizabethan sonnet was generally divided into three quatrains and a couplet with varying rhyme patterns; abab cdcd efef gg (Shakespeare), abab abab abab cc (Surrey), and abab bcbc cdcd ee (Spenser). The sonnets were generally written in iambic pentameter although other metres were used including blank verse. In terms of thought they might adhere to the quatrain structure with three distinct thoughts combining to form the whole or they might revert to the Italian form of two thoughts in a octave-sestet. Milton's "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont" was even comprised of three sentences that ran over division lines to replicate a paragraph (Bender 2,5).

b. THE SONNET A lyric poem of fourteen lines, following one or

another of several set rhyme-schemes. Critics of the sonnet have recognized varying classifications, but to all essential purposes two types only need be discussed ff the student will understand that each of these two, in turn, has undergone various modifications by experimenters. The two characteristic sonnet types are the Italian (Petrarchan) and the English (Shakespearean). The first, the Italian form, is distinguished by its bipartite division into the octave and the sestet: the octave consisting of a first division of eight lines rhyming

The English (Shakespearean) sonnet, on the other hand, is so different from the Italian (though it grew from that form) as to permit of a separate classification. Instead of the octave and sestet divisions, this sonnet characteristically embodies four divisions: three quatrains (each with a rhyme-scheme of its own) and a rhymed couplet. Thus the typical rhyme-scheme for the English sonnet is

c. Sonnets of William Shakespeare (1). The "Shakespearean" Sonnet (2). Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest: So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

第 18首 14行诗 能不能让我把你比作夏日？ 你可是更加可爱，更加温婉； 狂风会吹落五月里开的好花儿， 夏季租出的日子又未免太短暂： 有时候苍天的巨眼照得太灼热， 他那金彩的脸色也会被遮暗； 每一样美呀， 总会离开美而凋落， 被时机或者自然的代谢所催残； 但是你永久的夏天决不会凋枯， 你永远不会失去你美的 形象； 死神夸不着你在他影子里踯躅， 你将在不朽的诗中与时间同长； 只要人类在呼吸，眼睛看的见， 我这诗就活着，使你的生命绵延。

屠岸 译