EDUC06018 2022 Drama Studies: An Introduction

Discuss dramatic texts considering historical and socio-cultural contexts from the Elizabethan to the Modern Period.

Identify key genres, periods, trends and forms in dramatic literature.

Demonstrate the relationships between text and society

Evaluate the theatrical event in theory and in practice

This module will be taught using workshops, seminars and experience-based learning strategies.

Continuous assessment project – 60%

The project work engages students in forming an understanding of how dramatic literature is produced and received and understood from the Elizabethan to the Modern Period. Through engaging with each dramatic period, trends, movements and issues the student will focus in on key analytical concepts to examine the relationship between the texts and their historical contexts. The student (as part of a group project) will engage with the process of producing a 'review' of key texts and performance selecting from a particular dramatic period or genre.  

End of term essay – 40%

Students will write an essay critiquing and critically analysing a performance of a dramatic text.

MLA (Modern Language Association) style is used for documentation and referencing in all formal academic submissions.

Repeat requirements will depend on failed components. 

Discuss the historical contexts of drama

There is a survey of the history of dramatic literature with particular emphasis on key periods from the 16th century on, including Renaissance/Elizabethan, Augustan, Romantic, Victorian and Modernist dramatic literature. The student will be able to broadly classify important dramatic developments along with key playwrights writing in different periods. The student will be able to recognise how the dramatic text ‘lives’ in relation to and in tension with historical and cultural contexts.

We will cover the work of theatre playwrights and forms of drama such as Shakespeare, commedia dell'arte, Aphra Behn, Dion Boucicault, Henrik Ibsen, John Millington Synge, Seán O'Casey, Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, Shelagh Delaney, Marina Carr, devised theatre, and musical theatre, with a focus on situating their works in their socio-historical contexts.

Identify Dramatic Trends and Forms

The student will be able to identify key dramatic forms and genres across the periods for the module. The student will be able to understand how classification of dramatic literature is defined and how that which constitutes dramatic form has changed over time. The student will be able to identify the relationship between prevailing ideas in dramatic literature at a given moment in history and the prevalent dramatic forms in the time along with the de-stabilisation of a definite sense of when dramatic trends and forms begin and end. The student will also be able to demonstrate an understanding of the complex relationship between Elizabethan, Romanticism, Victorian and Modernism dramatic literature and its contexts.

Demonstrate the relationships between text and society

The student will explore the complex interactions between the dramatic text and its contexts through the foci of dramatic trends, movements, texts and issues within each period. The student will demonstrate foundational analytical skills to so as to critically engage with dramatic literature and its connection to diverse social, economic, political and cultural aspects of each period.

Evaluate the theatrical event in theory and in practice

The student will be able to analyse and discuss main dramatic forms and genres within a selected period understood within its socio-political and cultural contexts. The student will analyse in detail the key features of the period including trends, contexts, playwrights and audience. The student will be able to demonstrate critical, imaginative and practical engagement with key texts of the moment and to discuss the relationship between ideas of the dramatic text and performance text within across time.