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Arts College – Lavana B.A in English

C.C – 112 Semester – II

Syllabus

Unit – 1

What is short story? What are the characteristic of short story?

What is an essay? Discuss the different types of essays.

Unit – 2

The Gentleman’s Gift – R. K. Narayana

The Barber’s Trade Union – Mulk

The Demon Lover – Elizabethan

Unit – 3

The Money Box – Robert

On Superstation – A. G. G.

Beau Tibbs – Oliver Goldsmith

Unit – 4 Epic Sonnet Ballad Ode Elegy Comedy Tragedy Dark Comedy

Autobiographical Satire Novel Problem Play

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A trade union of the barbers

It is said that,

Through our sorrow we become great.

About Chandu

Chandu was a poor barber’s boy. After his father’s death, he served the clients. He could not

continue his studies because he has to look after the family profession. He was born in a low-caste

but his thoughts were very high. He always looked ahead of his place in the society.

Humiliation of Chandu

One day Chandu dressed like a doctor on his daily visit to his clients. When he went to the

Jagirdar, Jagirdar scolded him for defiling his house by carrying a leather bag to his house. The

Shahukar chased him away. Pandit Parmanand abused the village boys for keeping friendship with

Chandu. Chandu was treated worse than a dog.

Creation of a trade union

Chandu was treated like a dog. Chandu got hurt by his abasement. But he did not lose heart.

He thought of a plan to punish the high-caste people.

Chandu stopped serving them. They all moved with their ugly faces. They threatened to call police,

but it hadn’t effect on Chandu.

Chandu started a road-side saloon in partnership with the barbers from Verka. He called a meeting

of the barbers from the region and aroused self-respect to them. He reminded them of their service

and the treatment meted out to them by the landlords. They all decided to stop visiting the houses

of the high-caste people.

This step of the barbers resulted into the establishment of a trade union of the barbers.

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Result of a trade union

Their strike taught a bitter lesson to the orthodox high-caste people. Thus, Chandu

established a trade union of the barbers and taught a vitriolic lesson to the high-caste people.

Thus, Poverty is the cradle of a genius.

XHITESH L. GOSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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1

Beau Tibbs

Introduction

The word Beau Tibbs means a showy man who is careful about his dresses and appearances.

Beau Tibbs is a character of Goldsmith’s book The Citizen of the World. In it, he has been presented

as a poor, foolish and unknown man. But he pretends to be a friend of very great persons. The essay

Beau Tibbs enables us to form some idea about him.

His appearance

We cannot call Beau Tibbs an attractive man. Though he is young, he has no charm. He is

pale thin and sharp.

His dress

His dress is like his appearance. His hat is coked up. He wears a broad black ribbon round his

neck. He wears a buckle studded with glass in his shirt. He wears silk stocking which has grown old

with use. His coat is old and faded.

Acquaintanceship with Man in Black

Beau Tibbs shows that he is very familiar with the man in black. The question which he is

asked proves this thing – My dear Charles, where have you been hiding this half a century?

Hate for Flattery

Flattery is like chewing gum; enjoy it but don’t swallow it.

Though Beau Tibbs is perfect in the art of flattery, he does not like it. The Man in Black

compliments on his fine clothes. And in reply, he says – you know I hate flattery on my soul I do.

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Hate for Great Persons

Beau Tibbs tells that he is friendly with Lord Mudler, Lady Grogram and the Dutehess of

Piccadilly. Yet he says that he hates great persons. He says to Man in Black – I despise the great as

much as you do.

Habit of Forgetting Things

Beau forgets things and that’s a pretty bad habit.

Beau Tibbs makes a show of forgetting things. He wants a loan of crown from the Man in

Black. He promises to return it after a minute or two or so. But then he says – Ask me for it the next

time we meet or it may be twenty to one but I forget to pay you.

Conclusion

We cannot form a good expression of him. He is a liar and a pretender. He tries to get

money from others, by pleasing them with his talks. He neither returns it nor does he think of doing

so.

XHITESH L. GOSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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Character of Chandu

Introduction

Chandu was a poor barber’s boy. He had to serve his client due to death of his father. He

could not continue his studies because he has to carry out his family profession. He was born in low-

caste but he rose to lead his brothers against the high-caste people. Thus, it is said that through our

sorrow we become great.

Good at study

He was an outstanding boy in the school with rich voice and powerful memory. This earned

him scholarship. But as he had to serve his clients, he could not able to study further.

Friendship with Anand

Chandu and Anand were best friends, helped each other. Chandu brought many gifts for

Anand. Anand’s mother did not like her son to be a friend with a barber. But Anand loved Chandu as

a friend.

Love for dresses and the result

Chandu was greatly impressed by the English dress style. He too likes to dress himself like a

doctor. One day he dressed like a doctor and went to Jagirdar. As soon as the Jagirdar saw him with

a leather bag, he rebuked Chandu. Shahukar did not allow him to touch his head.

Leadership

This humiliation brought out Chandu’s inner powers. He thought to teach a bitter lesson to

the orthodox people. Chandu had called a meeting of barbers and encouraged them for self-respect.

Thus, Chandu formed a trade union of barbers. And he taught a lesson to the elders.

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Payback

The barber’s strike changes the look of the orthodox people. Most of them appeared sick

and seedy. Chandu and Anand laughed at them and teased them.

Maker of Modern India

Thus, Chandu proved how we won by uniting. Chandu revolted and freed the society from

the shackles of classism and authority. Thus, Mulk Raj Anand calls Chandu – One of the makers of

Modern India.

XHITESH L. GAUSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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Character of Govind Singh

Govind Singh was a sincere, hard working and duty minded gateman of Englandia. During his

First War, he was in Mesopotamia. He saw actions there. After leaving army, he was appointed as a

gateman at Englandia.

Military Manners

Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.

Govind Singh loved his job. The army had given him a special training of work. He stood stiffly at the

gate in khaki uniform. He was a man of action and spoke very little. But enthusiasm spoke volumes

for his loyalty. His superiors were greatly pleased with his military manners.

Loyalty towards the Duty

Loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

Govind Singh respected the General Manager. He was much impressed by his authority. Whenever

his car stopped at gate, Govind Singh stood up and gave him a military salute. He was on very good

term with the rest of the staff members. When the office hours were over he lifted his stool and put

under the staircase and put his stick across it. Thus –

All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate.

Retirement

Govind Singh served Englandia for twenty five years. Then he felt that his vision was growing dim

and his hearing was becoming weaker. He realizes that sight and hearing were playing tricks on him.

Thus, he approached the manager with a request for retirement and it was readily accepted. He was

given a pension of twelve rupees for his life and he was also rewarded for his sincere service.

Turns to Toy-making

It is said that, Retirement may be an ending, but it is also a new beginning.

After retirement from the office he had no work except sitting at his cousin’s shop and gossip with

the people. Once, a girl came to him with a doll to repair. Govind Singh not only repaired it but made

a new one with his master. He had immense interest. Now he crated a miniature universe. He made

beggars and vendors and many other out of clay. His toys attracted large crowds. Then he made a

clay model of street scene. When he visited the office he carried with him a model of the frontage of

his office with himself at his post and General Manager coming out of it.

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Upset by Registered Envelop

A week later, Singh received a registered letter from his office. This brought out another

characteristic of his personality. Though a retired military man, he was not courageous. He thought

that such letters carried serious matters. He had become so nervous that he would not open the

letter. He went to every one that he knew and kept on asking what the letter contained. But at the

same time, he would not allow them to open the letter as if evil was enveloped inside!

Govind Singh’s madness

Govind Singh had become completely unrealistic and unreasonable. People made fun of him when

he approached with them with his registered letter. Then he was sent to X-Ray Institute. There the

assistant told him that he did not look well and needed rest. Now he was surprised to learn about his

madness.

His Misadventures

After realizing that people looked at him as a madman, Singh decided to enjoy madness. He made a

clay helmet and rushed through the street wearing it. He would look at sky and talk meaninglessly.

He took a stone and broke a street light. Then he stood in the middle of the road and obstructed the

traffic. At last the Accountant of his office told him that his envelop contained a check of rupees one

hundred from the general manager. Therefore, Singh once again became a normal man. But he was

convinced that artistic activities were not meant far a sane man!

XHITESH L. GOSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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1

On Superstition

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Introduction

Mysterious are happenings all around us today. Science tends to claim that all superstitions

are pointless, in some cases, such as the fear of black cats. Therefore, Marx points out that –

If a black cat crosses your path, it is that the animal is going somewhere!

Superstition in England

On Superstition is an interesting essay written by A. G. Gardiner. He says that number 13 is

considered to be ill-omened in England. If a murder takes place in the house with the number 13,

would be mostly noticed. If we examine the record of last hundred murders that have been

committed, we find that they have taken place at No. 6 or No. 7 or any other number. But when it is

committed in No. 13, it is taken as a superstition. There are many streets in London and in other

towns which there is no house numbered 13.

Gardiner says that mostly he travels in London by bus No. 13. He never associates it with

superstition and he gets the most civil treatment from the road. He humorously says that he would

not change the number of the bus if he has the power to do it.

Walk around the Ladder

Conscience without judgment is superstition, and there are certain circumstances when he is

really suspicious. When he finds a ladder against a house side, he walks round it than to under it. But

this does not mean that he pays homage to superstition, it is duty to his family. He walks around the

ladder as an ordinary measure of safety.

Role of Science

Science is the great antidote to the poison of the superstition.

As science revealed the laws of the universe people became less superstitions. It was no

discredit to be superstitions when all the functions of nature were unexplored. A man could not

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understand the sinister forces and therefore he believed the words of oracles. Even Alexander

surrounded himself with fortune tellers and took counsel with them. And such a great man as

Caesar left his fate to omens. Cicero lost his life by trusting to the wisdom of crows.

It is good thing that we are enlightened by science and escape from such superstitions.

But it has been said that –

In spite of science, people are still superstitious.

XHITESH L. GOSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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What is an essay?

A short piece of writing on a particular subjects.

Introduction The essay fills such a large place in modern literature and it is so attractive form of

composition that due attention should be paid to it. Its outlines are so uncertain and it varies so

much in matter, purpose and style that no particular definition can embrace its whole range. When

we go through the essays written by different essayists, we find very little common in them. As there

are no set rules and regulations regarding the compositions of essay, it differs from one writer to

another. This irregularity and looseness of its form gives the writer ample freedom of expressing his

personality.

The essay is a prose art and it has been defined variously by the various writers.

Bacon, the first English essayist defines it as Dispersed meditation.

Dr. Johnson says,

An essay is a loose sally of the mind, and irregular undigested piece, not a regular and

orderly composition.

R. J. Rees says,

In short, the word essay has been used at one time or another for almost anything that is

not fiction or poetry or drama.

For The Shorter Oxford Dictionary an essay is,

A short composition on any particular subject.

Characteristics of Essay The chief characteristics of literary essay which emerge from the above definitions are as under:

1. Brevity:

It is a prose composition, brief or of a moderate length. This brevity or shortness of the essay

does not arise from the superficiality or lacks of knowledge of its author. But it results from

the fact that he has full command over his subject and so he can express himself in a pithy

and condensed style. He possesses an ability of being and saying maximum things with the

minimum words possible.

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2. Incompleteness:

The essay is incomplete; in the scene that the essayist does not say all that is possible to say

on the subject. On the other hand, he writes only those aspects of the subject which he

considered most significant and leaves out the rest. Sometimes subject matter is merely a

peg on which he hangs these reflections. He might shift from one subject to another.

3. Subjectivity:

It is personal in nature R. J. Rees says,

“The first definition by Edmund Gosse is probably the most useful. It includes something

which most people would consider typical of the essay namely its personal nature.”

He takes the readers into confidence and talks to them about his private life.

4. Want to Finish:

It is informal and not systematic form. It lacks finish. It was this characteristic of essay which

Dr. Johnson emphasized when he called it an undigested piece and loose in construction.

There is no logical argument in an essay.

Essays Here are the various kinds of essays written by the various essayists:

1. The Aphoristic Essays:

Bacon is the chief exponent of this kind of essay. His essays are marked with short sentences.

Examples

o Money is like muck, not, good except it is spread.

o Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age and old men’s nurses.

In this type of essay, the personal element predominates. The essayist narrates his personal

experience, his likes and dislikes, his hopes and disappointments. The famous personal essays

of Lamb are: Dream Children, Old-China, and Imperfect Sympathies etc.

2. The Critical Essay:

The critical essays aim at literary criticism. These types of essays are made popular in England

by Dryden, Pope and Coleridge etc. Coleridge’s Biographia Litereria and the critical essays of

T. S. Eliot are very famous.

3. The Social or Periodical Essay:

This kind of essay aim at social reformation and it first appeared in periodicity. The early part

of the 18th century was full of this kind of essays. Addison and Steele were pioneers in the

field of periodical essays.

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Conclusion Dr. Johnson himself wrote essays. In 1749, he started a periodical named The Rambler. But

the essays of Dr. Johnson are scarcely read now-a-days on account of his heavy and classical style.

24-12-2016

XHitesh Goswami

Arts College Lavana

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What is short story?

A short story is a love affair, While a novel is a marriage.

Lorrie Moore

Short story is a story which is short. The short story is a piece of prose fiction that can be read in

one sitting.

Introduction

Being a form of literature, the short story has to fulfill the requirements. This means a good

short story must satisfy certain requirements of both structure and narration.

At its most prototypical, a short story features a small cast of named characters, and focuses on

a self contained incident with the intent of evoking a “single effect” or mood. In doing so, the short

stories make use of plot, resonance and other dynamic components. The short story is largely distinct

from the novel; authors of both generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques.

In short, a short story is a fully developed theme but significantly shorter than the novel.

Definition of the short story

A short story is simplification to the highest degree.

Short stories have no set length. In the terms of word count, there is no officially demarcation

between an anecdote, a short story and a novel. Like the novel, the short story’s predominant shape

reflects the demands of the available markets for publication, and the evolution of the form seems

closely tied to the evolution of the publishing industry and the submission guidelines of its constituent

houses.

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.

The short story has been considered both on apprenticeship form preceding more lightly works

and crafted forms in its own rights.

A short story is a work of fiction that focuses on one important event in the lives of a small number of

characters and that can usually be read in one sitting.

Characteristics of the short story

Here are the chief characteristics of the short story:

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1) Singleness of Aim and Effect

Shortness of short story lies in its structure. The brevity of a good short story results from the

“singleness of aim” and “singleness of effect.” From among the means available to a short story writer,

he may select either a plot, or sitting or character. To achieve singleness of aim at the beginning of the

story, he should suggest his intention regarding which of these three narratives affects him intents to

produce in the story. To complete this single aim of creating single narrative effect the writer has to be

careful to artistic economy.

2) Art of Narration

Like the novel, the short story requires the same artistic treatment of narration. The following

elements are considered to be essential in the narration of a good short story. The progress of a story

should essentially develop through suspense.

3) Suspense

The element of suspense in a short story can make the readers curious about the further

developments in the plot of the story. By arousing such curiosity, the writer can win the interest of the

reader. To do this, the writer must withhold the information.

4) Conflict

Next important element of the short story is full of conflict. The conflicts may be of various

typical – like Good versus Evil, Men versus Nature or may be Men versus Himself or Society. The writer

sees that the story must be narrated in the following stages.

The first stage is “The Situation.” The situation in the story must be such that conflict

automatically grows out of it.

As the conflict starts, the writer should create “The Generating Circumstance”, which can

contribute to accelerate the conflict. With the generating circumstance, good and evil forces will go into

action.

Such actions lead the conflict to the next stage of “The Climax.”

After the climax, the story should enter in the last stage of “The Denouement.” Where the writer

decides the winner and the sufferer. If good wins, it is a comic story. If good suffers, it is a tragic story.

5) Plot

Plot means the arrangement of incidents in a coherent way. The writer should choose the most striking

incidents which may wrest the attention of the readers. The writer is not supposed to narrate each

incident in detail like a novelist. It is said that –

The short story is like a horse race, it is the beginning and end that matters.

6) Message

Besides the elements of suspense and conflict, every short story must have a message. Message

means the purpose of the story. The writer conveys his message to the readers through the theme.

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7) Characterization

Among all the elements, characterization has the most importance in the short story. Such

characters become symbol of a human experience. The writer must be careful in selection of characters.

The characters of the short story must be believable. This means they must be selected from the real

life. Characters of real life makes the story appears true in every word and act. Characters of screen,

radio or T.V can’t be good for the short story.

8) Setting

Setting is an important feature of the short story. It helps the readers to understand its

characters. By selecting words and rhythmical pattern of sentences the writer can make his character

talk in a particular manner and create the desired atmosphere for the story.

9) Unity

With all these elements, it should be remembered that limited focus and unity must be properly cared.

A short story with such all of these elements can become a memorable short story.

Conclusion

Bernard Bergonzi criticizes that,

The short story is disposed to filter down experience to the prime elements of defeat and alienation.

Short story writers may define their works as a part of the form. They also attempt to resist

categorization by genre and fixed formation.

Thus, Bernard Bergonzi said that,

The modern short story writers are bound to see the world in a certain way.

XHITESH L. GOSWAMI

Arts College Lavana

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Literary Terms

1. Sonnet

A lyrical poem written in a single stanza, which consists of fourteen iambic pentameter lines

linked by an intricate rhyme scheme.

The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet :- The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet falls into two main parts:

- An octave (8 lines) rhyming - a b b a a b b a

- A sestet (6 lines) rhyming - c d e c d e

Petrarch’s sonnets were first imitated in England, both in form and in primary subject matter - A

doting lover's hopes and pains by Sir Thomas Wyatt in the early sixteenth century. The Petrarchan form

was later used by Milton, Wordsworth and other sonneteers who sometimes made it technically easier

in English.

The English sonnet :- The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the sixteenth century also developed a

new form called the English sonnet. This stanza falls into three quatrains and a concluding couplet:

a b a b c d c d e f e f g g

The rhyme pattern of the Petrarchan sonnet has on the whole favored a statement of problem,

situation, or incident in the octave, with a resolution in the sestet. The English form sometimes falls

into a similar division of material and sometimes presents a repetition-with-variation of the statement

in the three quatrains. Here are the concluding quatrain and couplet:

Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath,

When his pulse failing passion speechless lies,

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou mightst him yet recover.

Following Petrarch’s early example, a number of Elizabethan poets wrote a sonnet sequence in

which a series of sonnet are linked together by exploring various aspects of a relationship between

lovers, or by indicating a development in that relationship which constitutes a kind of implicit plot.

George Meredith's Modern Love is a sequence of sixteen-line poems which are sometimes called

Sonnets.

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2. Ode

An ode is a long lyrical poem, serious in subject, elevated in style, and elaborate in its stanzaic

structure. As Norman Maclean has said, the term now calls to mind a lyric which is massive, public in

its proclamation and Pindaric in its classical prototype. The prototype was established by the Greek

poet Pindar, whose odes were modeled on the songs by the chorus in drama.

The regular or Pindaric odes The regular or Pindaric odes in English are a learned imitation of Pindar’s form, with all the

strophes and antistrophes written in one kind of stanza, and all the epodes in another: the typical

construction may be conveniently studied in Thomas Gray’s The Progress of Poesy.

The irregular odes The irregular odes were introduced in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who imitated the Pindaric

style and matter but disregarded the recurrent strophic triad, allowing each stanza to find its own

pattern of varying line lengths, number of lines, and rhyme scheme.

The Horatian odes The Horatian odes were originally modeled on the matter, tone, and form of the odes of the Roman

Horace. In contrast to the passion and visionary boldness of Pindar’s odes, Horatian odes are calm,

meditative, and restrained and they are usually homostrophic – written in a single, repeated stanza

form.

3. Elegy

An elegy is a mournful poem, usually written in remembrance of a lost one for a funeral or as

a lament.

An elegy tells the traffic story of an individual, or an individual’s loss, rather than the collective

story of a people, which can be found in epic poetry. An elegy generally combines three stages of loss:

grief, praise of the dead one, and consolation.

In Greek and Roman literature, the elegy was any poem composed in a special elegiac meter;

and in England, until the seventeenth century and even later, the term was often applied to any poem

of solemn meditation. In present critical usage, an elegy is a formal and sustained poem of lament for

the death of a particular person such as Tennyson’s In Memoriam on the death of Arthur Hallam.

Pastoral Elegy An important species of the elegy is the Pastoral elegy, which represents both the mourner and one

he mourns. The Pastoral elegy is typically incredibly moving and in its most classic form, it concerns

itself with simple, country figures. In ordinary Pastoral poems, the shepherd is the poem’s main

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character. In Pastoral elegies, the deceased is often recast as a shepherd, despite what his role may

have been in life. The most notable English Pastoral elegies are:

- Lycidas Lycidas written by John Milton and is a Pastoral elegy that first appeared in a 1638

collection of elegies in English and Latin. Lycidas serves as Milton’s commemoration of his

Cambridge college mate, Edward King, who drowned when his ship sank off the coast of Wales.

In the poem, Milton gives King the name Lycidas. The poet engages intensely with the Pastoral

tradition as he considering the similarities between Milton and King. The balance between

conventional Pastoral imagery and these other elements has created the impression that

Lycidas is one of the most innovative Pastoral elegies.

- Adonais

P. B. Shelley’s Adonais is a Pastoral elegy written by Shelley immediately after hearing

about the death of John Keats. The elegy is 495 lines long. Adonais was composed during the

spring of 1821 and was published in July 1821. Studying the works of many classical Pastoral

elegies himself, Shelley admired Milton’s poetic voice and form in Lycidas. Thus, Shelley

composed Adonais in the tradition of Milton’s Lycidas.

4. Comedy

A comedy is a work in which the materials are selected and managed primarily in order to

interest and amuse us. The characters and their discomfitures engage our delighted attention rather

than our profound concern, we feel confident that no great disaster will occur, and usually the action

turns out happy for the chief characters. The term comedy is customarily applied only to dramas.

Within the broad spectrum of dramatic comedy, the following types are frequently distinguished:

Romantic Comedy Romantic Comedy, as developed by Shakespeare and some of Elizabethan contemporaries, is

concerned with a love affair that involves a beautiful and idealized heroine. The course of this love does

not run smooth, but overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union. Northrop Frye points out that

some of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies involve a movement form the normal world of conflict and

trouble “The Green World” – like the Forest of Arden in As you like it, or the fairy haunted wood in A

mid Summer Night’s Dream, in which the problems and injustices of the ordinary world are magically

dissolved, enemies reconciled and true lovers united.

Satiric Comedy Satiric Comedy attacks the disorders of society by making ridiculous the violators of its

standards of morals or manners. In Volpone and The Alchemist, by Shakespeare’s contemporary Ben

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Johnson, the greed and ingenuity of one or more highly intelligent but rascally swindlers, and the equal

greed but stupid gullibility of their victims, are made grotesquely ludicrous rather than lightly amusing.

Restoration Comedy or the Comedy of Manners The comedy of manners was early exemplified by Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and was

brought to a high polish in Restoration Comedy. This form deals with the relation and intrigues of

gentlemen and ladies living in a published and sophisticated society and relies for comic effect in great

part on the wit and sparkle of the dialogue, a witty conversational give-and-take which constitutes a

kind of verbal fencing match, the ridiculous violation of social conventions by stupid characters such as

jealous husband. Excellent examples are Congreve’s The Way of the World and Wycherley’s The

Country Wife. The comedy of manners lapsed in the early nineteenth century, but was revived by many

skillful practitioners.

The Farce Comedy Farce is a type of comedy designed to provoke the audience to simple, heartly laughter, in the

parlance of the theatre. So it commonly employs highly exaggerated or caricatured characters types

put them into improbable situation and makes free uses of broad verbal humor. In the enduring English

drama, farce is usually an episode in a more complex form of comedy. For example, a knock about

scene in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. Currently farce is employed mainly in single scene of

musical revues and as standard farce in television comedy.

High Comedy A distinction is frequently made between high and low comedy. High comedy, as described by

George Meredith in a classic essay on The idea of Comedy, evokes thoughtful laughter from spectators

who remain emotionally detached from the action. Meredith finds its highest form within the comedy

of manners, in the wit combats between such intelligent, sophisticated, highly verbal and well-matched

lovers as Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about nothing.

Low comedy, at the other extreme, makes little or no intellectual appeal, but undertakes to arouse

laughter by jokes. Therefore, it is one of the common components of farce.

5. Tragedy

The term is broadly applied to literary, and especially to dramatic, representations of serious

and important actions. Detailed discussions of the tragic form properly begin with Aristotle’s classic

analysis in the poetic. Aristotle based his theory on induction from the only examples available to him,

the tragedies of Greek dramatists. In the subsequent two thousand years and more, many new and

artistically effective types of serious plots have been developed.

Aristotle defined tragedy as the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having

magnitude, complete in itself. In the poetic language, incorporating incidents arousing pity and fear,

wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such as emotions. Aristotle in the first place sets out to

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account for the undeniable fact that many tragic representations of suffering and defeat leave an

audience feeling not depressed but relieved.

Accordingly, Aristotle says that the tragic hero will most effectively evoke both our pity and our

terror if he is neither thoroughly good nor thoroughly evil but a mixture of both; and also that the

tragic effect will be stronger if the hero is better than we are, in the sense that he is of higher moral

worth.

Senecan Tragedy Senecan tragedy was written to be recited, rather than acted; but to English playwrights these

tragedies had been intended which provided the model for a fully developed five-act play with a

complex plot and a formal style of dialogue. Senecan drama, in the Elizabethan age, had two main lines

of development. One of these consisted of academic tragedies, written in close imitation of the

Senecan models, including the use of a chorus. The other and most important development was

written for the popular stages, and is called the Revenge Tragedy or Tragedy of Blood. This type of play

derived from Seneca’s favorite materials of revenge, murder, ghosts, mutilation and carnage. The

Elizabethan writers had then acted out on stage to satisfy the audience’s appetite for violence and

horror.

Domestic Tragedy Until the close of the seventeenth century almost all tragedies were written in verse whose

fate affected the fortune of a state. A few minor Elizabethan tragedies, such as A Yorkshire Tragedy,

had as the chief character, a man of the lower class, but it remained for eighteenth century writers to

popularize the Domestic Tragedy, which was written in prose.

A term sometimes applied to the typical protagonist in modern serious plays, to signify his

discrepancy from the heroes of traditional tragedies, is the anti-hero: a man who is petty or passive. T.

S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral is a poetic drama which incorporates elements from two early forms,

the medieval miracle play and the medieval morality play.

6. Dark Comedy

Dark Comedy also known as the Black Comedy is a comic style that makes light of themes

that are generally considered serious.

Dark comedy corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor. Dark comedy is often

controversial due to its subject matter.

The term dark comedy was coined by the surrealist theorist Andre Breton in 1935 while

interpreting the writings of Jonathan Swift. Breton’s preference was to identify some of Swift’s writings

as a subgenre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from skepticism, often relying topics such

as death.

The purpose of Dark comedy is to make light of serious subject matter, thus provoking

discomfort and serious thought as well as amusement in their audience.

Nighty night, Getting on, Human Remains, Jam are the examples of the dark comedy.

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7. Problem Play

Problem play is a fairly recent dramatic type which was popularized by the great Norwegian

playwright, Henry Ibsen. In problem plays, the situation of the protagonist is so rendered as to indicate

that it represents a contemporary sociological problem; often the dramatist manages to indicate that

he favors a solution to the problem which is at odds with prevailing opinion.

Discussion Play

One subtype of the problem play is the Discussion Play, in which the social issue is not

incorporated into a plot, but expounded, in the dramatic give and take of a sustained debate among

the characters. See Shaw’s Getting Married and Man and Superman.