Verse drama and dramatic verse - Wikipedia Verse drama and dramatic verse From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   (Redirected from Verse drama) Jump to navigation Jump to search This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Verse drama and dramatic verse" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Verse drama is any drama written significantly in verse (that is: with line endings) to be performed by an actor before an audience. Although verse drama does not need to be primarily in verse to be considered verse drama, significant portions of the play should be in verse to qualify.[1] For a very long period, verse drama was the dominant form of drama in Europe (and was also important in non-European cultures). Greek tragedy and Racine's plays are written in verse, as is almost all of William Shakespeare's, Ben Jonson's and John Fletcher's drama, and other works like Goethe's Faust and Henrik Ibsen's early plays. In most of Europe, verse drama has remained a prominent art form, while at least popularly, it has been tied almost exclusively to Shakespeare in the English tradition.[2] In the English language, verse has continued, albeit less overtly, but with occasional surges in popularity such as the plays of prominent poets, such as Christopher Fry and T. S. Eliot. In the new millennium, there has been a resurgence in interest in the form of verse drama, particularly those plays in blank verse or iambic pentameter, which endeavor to be in conversation with Shakespeare's writing styles. King Charles III by Mike Bartlett, written in iambic pentameter, played on the West End and Broadway, as well as being filmed with the original cast for the BBC. Likewise, La Bete by David Hirson, which endeavors to recreate Moliere's farces in rhyming couplets, enjoyed several prominent productions on both sides of the Atlantic. David Ives, known best for his short, absurdist work, has turned to "transladaptation" (his word) in his later years: translating and updating French farces, such as The School for Lies and The Metromaniacs, both of which premiered in New York City. With the renewed interest in verse drama, theatre companies are looking for "new Shakespeare" plays to produce. Companies such as Red Bull Theater in New York City (named after the historical theatre of the same name) specializes in producing Ives' "transladaptations" as well as obscure verse plays. Turn to Flesh Productions, a New York City theatre company founded by verse drama specialist, Emily C. A. Snyder, directly develops new verse plays with living playwrights, with a mission to create vibrant roles for women and those underrepresented in classical art. In 2017, the American Shakespeare Center founded Shakespeare's New Contemporaries (SNC), which solicits new plays in conversation with Shakespeare's canon. This was partially in response to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival commissioning "modern English" versions of Shakespeare plays. Contents 1 Dramatic verse 2 Closet drama 3 Dramatic poetry in general 4 See also 5 References 6 Further reading Dramatic verse[edit] Dramatic verse occurs in a dramatic work, such as a play, composed in poetic form. The tradition of dramatic verse extends at least as far back as ancient Greece. The English Renaissance saw the height of dramatic verse in the English-speaking world, with playwrights including Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare developing new techniques, both for dramatic structure and poetic form. Though a few plays, for example A Midsummer Night's Dream, feature extended passages of rhymed verse, the majority of dramatic verse is composed as blank verse; there are also passages of prose. Dramatic verse began to decline in popularity in the nineteenth century, when the prosaic and conversational styles of playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen became more prevalent, and were adapted in English by George Bernard Shaw. Verse drama did have a role in the development of Irish theatre. Closet drama[edit] Main article: Closet drama An important trend from around 1800 was the closet drama: a verse drama intended to be read from the page, rather than performed. Byron and Shelley, as well as a host of lesser figures, devoted much time to the closet drama, in a signal that the verse tragedy was already in a state of obsolescence. That is, while poets of the eighteenth century could write so-so poetic dramas, the public taste for new examples was already moving away by the start of the nineteenth century, and there was little commercial appeal in staging them. Instead, opera would take up verse drama, as something to be sung: it is still the case that a verse libretto can be successful. Verse drama as such, however, in becoming closet drama, became simply a longer poetic form, without the connection to practical theatre and performance. According to Robertson Davies in A Voice From the Attic, closet drama is "Dreariest of literature, most second hand and fusty of experience!" But indeed a great deal of it was written in Victorian times, and afterwards, to the extent that it became a more popular long form at least than the faded epic. Prolific in the form were, for example, Michael Field and Gordon Bottomley. Dramatic poetry in general[edit] Dramatic poetry is any poetry that uses the discourse of the characters involved to tell a story or portray a situation. The major types of dramatic poetry are those already discussed, to be found in plays written for the theatre, and libretti. There are further dramatic verse forms: these include dramatic monologues, such as those written by Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson and Shakespeare. See also[edit] Wikiversity has learning resources about Collaborative_play_writing Epic poetry Lyric poetry Narrative poetry Persona poetry References[edit] ^ "Defining Verse Drama by Hamlet to Hamilton: Exploring Verse Drama • A podcast on Anchor". Anchor. Retrieved 2020-10-08. ^ "Dramaturgy of Form: Performing Verse in Contemporary Theatre". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2020-10-08. Further reading[edit] Denis Donoghue (1959), The Third Voice: Modern British and American Verse Drama Theatre portal Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Verse_drama_and_dramatic_verse&oldid=983023319" Categories: Genres of poetry Drama Hidden categories: Articles needing additional references from October 2009 All articles needing additional references Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Azərbaycanca Deutsch 한국어 Bahasa Indonesia Nederlands 日本語 Svenska Tagalog Türkçe Українська Edit links This page was last edited on 11 October 2020, at 19:52 (UTC). 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