Life consists of human activity, the highest object of which is man. Art literature are the branches of knowledge, inseparable from life. In them we can discern a deep and lasting human significance. Literature, drama being a part of it, grows directly out of life and brings us into large, close and fresh relations with life. Greater the association the more will be the worth of that literature. It is a sort of vital record of what they have thought and felt about those aspects of it which have the most immediate and enduring interest for all us. It is the fundamental expression of life through the medium of language. This expression is further moulded into various literary forms and drama being the imitation of life with an occasional modification has a significant association.
It is life itself so to say, a reflection true to the everyday life. Drama reflects the great drama of life itself and offers us a true sight of life, true and mirror-like. The colouring of imagination that the artist gives takes its shades from life itself. Our interest in people, their doings and also in our world finds expression in that which recaptures this urge and presents it as it is. The self-expression of the dramatist includes a great deal of our own thoughts and feelings which are again akin to life, so he is not a different character.
"The personality of the dramatist is merged in the depiction of life, and the mirror" says Hudson, "which the artist holds up to the world about him, is of necessity the mirror of his own personality". It may mean the instinct of originality but this originality implies genius not newness. The origin of drama has its ingredients in mimicry, a natural instinct of man. Man tries to enter vividly into the situation, sentiments and progress of other and puts on a semblance of them in his gestures. A child has a great tendency to represent whatever he has seen in his elders or around him and whatever strikes his fancy or whatever he can imagine.Similarly the dramatist has to indulge in the same practices; the field extending from the whole life of universe to a capacity to deposit whatever has chooses. Generally the dramatist has to separate parts of social life, and to present them to it self again in one collectiveness. The central point is life of man.
In the drama we see man measuring his powers with others as intellectuals and moral beings, either friends or foes, influencing each other for the true enjoyment of life, may be the life itself consists of actions. The actions that the dramatist presents are sometimes the renovated pictures of life. here no narration is required to fill the gaps of conversation, rather the living individuals accompanied by appropriate action and gesture and placed in apt circumstances, are to act and speak for life. This act the dramatist present to us. They are to have their assumed ranks in life, age and country-locality from which they are all drawn.
The springboard for drama was religion and through religion it penetrated deep into life. It is to day that in the garden land of religion the sources of dramatic art welled up, dividing into many streams, which widen as they run along, traverse the provinces of life. Many new books, flowing from other springs, fall into the main stream and swell its current. Firstly, it might have taken the Divine life as its subjects as we find in the dialogues of divine forms in Rig Vedas.
Similar is the case with the Greek, Roman and English dramas. The growth of drama is so obvious and natural that in most of the civilized countries of antiquity, the art had been imitated and so great has been the skill that the romantic drama of a very high order like "Shakuntala" could have a lasting effect. How delightful and romantic in its native climate and yet how very much in tune with our day to day life it was! The modernists' psychological approach to life has its seeds in this great creation. Thus we notice that with advent of civilization, drama with the actual life as its model, holds a first place.
There is another aspect of the question too. Drama as well as literature brings us to face with the subtle realities of life. We can feel the hold of virtue and vice of life, realize where the shoe pinches, and thus have scope for amendment. The mirror -like view that it yields cannot be misguiding in its accuracy of the realities of life, though the approach may have the licence to advance or reduce their bulk. The drama is to be generally moral in its tone and its voice, and not leave behind any suggestion that wickedness escapes teaching. It is to create the impression of the triumph of virtue over vice. Instances may be picked from even the Shakespearean plays where Cordelia might suffer for her virtues but the fact remains that these inconsistencies are apart of life itself.
Anyway the point of emphasis is that by bringing before us the virtues and vices of our day to day life, the picture of ours as we are and various aspects of our or other routine, drama makes us conscious of what life is, where man stands and how the whole thing looks like. It might prepare us for reaction and it is of secondary importance and to take its teaching is our option but it does hold a mirror life.
[ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ]
It is life itself so to say, a reflection true to the everyday life. Drama reflects the great drama of life itself and offers us a true sight of life, true and mirror-like. The colouring of imagination that the artist gives takes its shades from life itself. Our interest in people, their doings and also in our world finds expression in that which recaptures this urge and presents it as it is. The self-expression of the dramatist includes a great deal of our own thoughts and feelings which are again akin to life, so he is not a different character.
"The personality of the dramatist is merged in the depiction of life, and the mirror" says Hudson, "which the artist holds up to the world about him, is of necessity the mirror of his own personality". It may mean the instinct of originality but this originality implies genius not newness. The origin of drama has its ingredients in mimicry, a natural instinct of man. Man tries to enter vividly into the situation, sentiments and progress of other and puts on a semblance of them in his gestures. A child has a great tendency to represent whatever he has seen in his elders or around him and whatever strikes his fancy or whatever he can imagine.Similarly the dramatist has to indulge in the same practices; the field extending from the whole life of universe to a capacity to deposit whatever has chooses. Generally the dramatist has to separate parts of social life, and to present them to it self again in one collectiveness. The central point is life of man.
In the drama we see man measuring his powers with others as intellectuals and moral beings, either friends or foes, influencing each other for the true enjoyment of life, may be the life itself consists of actions. The actions that the dramatist presents are sometimes the renovated pictures of life. here no narration is required to fill the gaps of conversation, rather the living individuals accompanied by appropriate action and gesture and placed in apt circumstances, are to act and speak for life. This act the dramatist present to us. They are to have their assumed ranks in life, age and country-locality from which they are all drawn.
The springboard for drama was religion and through religion it penetrated deep into life. It is to day that in the garden land of religion the sources of dramatic art welled up, dividing into many streams, which widen as they run along, traverse the provinces of life. Many new books, flowing from other springs, fall into the main stream and swell its current. Firstly, it might have taken the Divine life as its subjects as we find in the dialogues of divine forms in Rig Vedas.
Similar is the case with the Greek, Roman and English dramas. The growth of drama is so obvious and natural that in most of the civilized countries of antiquity, the art had been imitated and so great has been the skill that the romantic drama of a very high order like "Shakuntala" could have a lasting effect. How delightful and romantic in its native climate and yet how very much in tune with our day to day life it was! The modernists' psychological approach to life has its seeds in this great creation. Thus we notice that with advent of civilization, drama with the actual life as its model, holds a first place.
There is another aspect of the question too. Drama as well as literature brings us to face with the subtle realities of life. We can feel the hold of virtue and vice of life, realize where the shoe pinches, and thus have scope for amendment. The mirror -like view that it yields cannot be misguiding in its accuracy of the realities of life, though the approach may have the licence to advance or reduce their bulk. The drama is to be generally moral in its tone and its voice, and not leave behind any suggestion that wickedness escapes teaching. It is to create the impression of the triumph of virtue over vice. Instances may be picked from even the Shakespearean plays where Cordelia might suffer for her virtues but the fact remains that these inconsistencies are apart of life itself.
Anyway the point of emphasis is that by bringing before us the virtues and vices of our day to day life, the picture of ours as we are and various aspects of our or other routine, drama makes us conscious of what life is, where man stands and how the whole thing looks like. It might prepare us for reaction and it is of secondary importance and to take its teaching is our option but it does hold a mirror life.
[ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ]
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