Examples of topics that you can pursue for your essay

Oedipus and Predestination
Oedipus and His Character’s Transformation
Oedipus and His Tragic Flaw
Everyman and Symbolism
Comparison between Everyman and Dr. Faustus
Julius Caesar and Superstitious
Julius Caesar and Greed
Julius Caesar and the Concept of Hero
Julius Caesar and Loyalty
Role of Women in Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar: Chaos and Loyalty
Brutus and Anthony, the Concept of Loyalty
Analysis of Characters in Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet: True Love or Big Mistake?
Parents Role in Romeo and Juliet
The Transformation of Juliet
Tragic Downfall of Dr Faustus
Gluttony in Dr. Faustus.

blog addresses

Below are the addresses of Drama students' blogs. Feel free to access and drop something positive :).
Drama A
Group 1: candlelight-fantasia.blogspot.com
Group 2: creativeexegesis.blogspot.com
Group 3: phantomofthedrama08.blogspot.com
Group 4: aeonartist.blogspot.com
Group 5: nyeblok.blogspot.com
Group 6: gossipteamo.blogspot.com
Drama B
Group 1: letsmakeadrama2009.blogspot.com
Group2: group2drama.blogspot.com

Anyway, the Department would like you (the students)to link your blog to this site: http://letters.petra.ac.id. I thank you for your cooperation.
Best, Mei.

NEXT WEEK RT

Next week we will have Doctor Faustus and Medea. The Medieval vs The Ancient Greek. Good luck.

Renaissance England

1. 15th C – 17th C
2. It is an era which re – establishing- the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome.
3. It was the beginning of theatre as a professional institution in England. Its building, structure and organization and the entire scene of theatrical activity in Renaissance London symbolized the fundamental tensions of English society as it moved from medieval to the modern world.
4. English drama in this period comprises plays on:
• English history (Shakespeare’s Hendry V; Marlowe’s Edward I);
• On Classical history (Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar; Johnson’s Sejanus);
• Romantic Comedies (Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream);
• City Comedies (Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure)
• Heroic Tragedies (Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi)
• Plays of intrigue and satire (John Marston’s The Malcontent, Thomas Middleton’s The Challenging)
• Tragicomedies (John Fletcher’s The Faithful Shepherdess, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and The Tempest)
5. English theatres were closed in 1642 (because of the Civil War), re-open in 1660 in a different form, indoor theatre performance with painted scenery, using light, stage machinery.
6. SHAKESPEARE was an English poet and playwright . Shakespeare is considered by many to be the greatest writer in the English language, as well as one of the greatest in Western literature, and the world's most excellent dramatist. Shakespeare is believed to have produced most of his work between1586 and 1616, although the exact dates and chronology of the plays attributed to him are often uncertain. He is counted among the very few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy, and his plays combine popular appeal with complex characterization, poetic grandeur and philosophical depth.

The Medieval Theatre and Drama

1. It is raised in The Dark Ages, after the fall of Roman Empire until fifteen to the early sixteenth C before Renaissance.

2. The age of the liturgical or church drama of Western Europe.
3. Acted in Latin and utilizing the whole Church building. With the introduction of the vernacular and the removal of the performance to an area outside the church, the way was open for the growth of national theatre in each country.

4. Liturgical drama: enacted as part of the liturgy of the Catholic Mass.

   ¨ It is an antiphonal performance (back and forth, in dialogue) between monks and boy choristers to accompany liturgy of the Mass.

   ¨ It has a progressive plot, the involvement of specific characters, conflict and resolution.

   Cycle Plays: Illustrating scriptural history and performed by craft guilds on the feast of Corpus Christi.

   ¨ The scenes were taken from the Old Testament and the New Testament events, such as Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, The Annunciation, Herod and the Slaughter of the Innocent.

   Morality drama: enacting the symbolic structure of Christian life; and plays written and performed in schools and universities, sometimes, imitating classical plays

– It emphasized the individual’s struggle with sin. It provided a flexible device for representing psychological and moral conflict. It is also used for describing difficulty of political choice

– The Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, Everyman

Greek Drama

Things that I would like to share about Greek Drama:

Greek Drama

1. Started in Sixth Century BC until Sixth Century AD

2. Greek Theatre is the first great theatrical age in the history of Western civilization.

3. It’s part of religious and cultural heritage.

4. Theatre: Amphitheatre – Theatre of Dionysus
5. The forms of the plays are tragedy and comedy.
6. They have chorus (a masked group of young men who sang and danced as a group) in their tragedy (not necessarily sad ending) or comedy.
7. Tales of God, Demi-Gods or heroes, legendary ancestors of the Greeks ( their war, marriage, life, adulteries and destinies of their children giving the essential elements of conflict between man and God, good and evil, child and parent, duty and inclination)
8. As the spectator, they knew the story already but their interests lay in seeing how the dramatists had chosen to deal with the play, assessing the quality of acting, and the work of the chorus.
9. This group together with other chorus groups also sung unison hymns (dithyramb) and danced to honor Dionysus (God of wine) as part of the City Dionysia prior to the tragedy competition.
10. Structure of Greek Drama:

• Greek drama begins with the Prologue. The Prologue’s purpose is to give background information to situate the conflict.

• Parados ( 1^st Ode) Choral song chanted by the chorus as they enter the area in front of the stage.

• The Odes – follows each scene. Serves to separate one scene from another (since there were no curtains in Greek theaters). Also allowed the chorus’s response to the preceding scene. Parts of the Ode:

Strophe – part of the ode that the chorus chants as it moves from right to left across the stage.

Antistrophe – part of the ode chanted as the chorus moves back across the stage from left to right.

• 1^st scene: Following the Parodos, the first scene presents the conflict of the play.

• Paean (follows scene 5). A hymn in praise of a god

• Exodos, Final scene of the play.

11. No female actors on the stage.

Greek famous playwright

Aeschylus

Tragedy. 80 to 90 plays only 7 complete plays survive and fragments.

The Persians, The Suppliants, Seven against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, The Oresteia (Trilogy: Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, The Eumenides)

Sophocles

Tragedy - complexities of human relationships as opposed to those of Gods and men.

90 plays, 7 survive.

Ajax, Trachiniae, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Electra, Oedipus the King

Euripides

No longer pure tragedy but tragic comedies even melodramas, interested in studying of abnormal states of mind, and he was interested in problems of feminine psychology.

90 plays 18 survive.

Most of these were written and produced during the war with Sparta.

Medea, Alcestis, Heracleidae, Hippolytus, Cyclops, Orestes, Electra, the Trojan Women …

Aristophanes

He wrote Comedy. They are Ephemeral, closely related to the politics and social customs of his own day.

40 plays 11 survive

Lysistrata, Birds, Frogs, Clouds, Acharnians, Knights, Wasps, Peace, Assembly of Women …