7 ELEMENTS of the most important DRAMATIC TEXT

The dramatic text It is typical of the dramatic genre, that is, theatrical. We are facing a literary genre that is based on action and on the representation of the text by the hand of actors and actresses who give life to the story that is told. In this lesson from a TEACHER we want to analyze what are the main elements of the dramatic text so that, thus, you can know what characteristics it has and what are the different types of theater texts that we can meet. We started!

But before we begin to list the elements of the dramatic text, it is important that we know what is dramatic text. As its name suggests, we are faced with the type of text typical of the drama, the literary genre that focuses on narrating a conflict experienced by one or more characters and that is represented orally and physically on a stage.

Therefore, dramatic text is the type of text that tells the protagonist's conflict to an audience who attends to see the function. This text has been written with the intention of being represented on a stage and, therefore, has its own characteristics such as the use of

dialogues, annotations for the actors or the division of the parts of the text in scenes and in acts.

The dramatic texts are the basis that will create the theatrical work, it is the story on which this artistic expression that is represented is built Live.

The origin of the dramatic text

The origin of the theater it dates back to Ancient Greece. Were performed celebrations in honor of the god Dionysus, a type of celebration in which they sang, danced and wore colorful clothes and choreography. Over time, these works were incorporating text and, each time, the poets became more interested in them, thus providing a more literary and profound touch to the works.

Aristotle fixed the appearance of the theater in its Poeticsincorporating the dramatic genre as one of the three great literary genres of the moment (together with narrative and lyric).

The Roman Empire adopted these literary forms and, therefore, when it expanded throughout Europe, the theater also spread to all corners. This made, during the Middle Ages, the church made this literary form its own, since it was a direct means of reaching the people to spread the divine word; that's how liturgical dramas appeared.

But it was in the sixteenth century that the theater began to adopt the most modern form thanks to the Elizabethan theater in the United Kingdom with Shakespeare and the Spanish Golden Age theater with Lope de Vega as the maximum artistic regenerator.

We have already commented above that one of the elements of the dramatic text is the theatrical speech. And it is typical of the theater to give the voice to the character and let him express himself and communicate with his own words. In the narrative, the narrator of the play is the one who usually speaks for the characters and explains their feelings and their sensations; in the lyric, it is the author's "poetic self" that tells us about his impressions. On the other hand, in the theatrical text, it is the characters themselves who are in charge of explaining what is happening.

To make this possible, three different techniques of theatrical speech are employed. They are as follows:

• Dialogue. It is when a character dialogues with another, that is, he talks with another character and they exchange points of view, opinions, feelings, and so on.
• Monologue. In the theater there are also monologues, thoughts aloud that we hear in the mouth of the character and that show us the psyche and the deepest thoughts of the protagonist.
• Apart. These are comments that the character himself makes "apart" from the work and the plot to freely express what he thinks. They would be like the thoughts of him out loud and they make a parenthesis in the time of the play because the characters cannot hear it. It is often used as a humorous resource and this thought is directed directly to the public, breaking the fourth wall.