9 - Introduction: what is drama?

Summary

The difficulty in defining epic arises in part through constant and cavalier application of the term without giving due consideration to form or content. The difficulty in defining lyric arises more from our theoretical clumsiness at grasping this highly elastic and slippery genre. But the difficulty in defining drama arises not from a lack of thought or theoretical dexterity. The problem with defining drama is that there is almost an infinity of things that seem to deserve or at least desire and aspire to the name drama. This problem is in turn compounded by the innumerable theories about what drama is or is not and what it should or should not do. The category of “performance” and “performance studies” is only the latest attempt to circumscribe this ever-expanding theatrical and theoretical universe. Even just limiting ourselves to Hegel's and Wagner's theories of drama still presents us with a daunting task. To make this task more manageable, my solution throughout these final four chapters will be to concentrate on just a few of the most important convergences and divergences between Wagner's and Hegel's dramatic theories. These areas include the use of drama as a civic institution, the roles that tragedy and comedy play within this civic context, and the evolution and eventual de-evolution of drama out of and back into its epic and lyric components.