Genres & Forms
Drama (literary kind)
Drama as a literary kind consists of works intended for stage embodiment, in which reality appears through the action and speech of characters, without the extended discourse of a narrator. The word derives from the Greek drama — action. Its principal means are dialogue and monologue, while authorial presence is reduced to stage directions. Drama combines features of the epic (eventfulness) and the lyric (emotional intensity) but exists in the present tense of stage action. Its main genres are tragedy, comedy, drama proper, tragicomedy, melodrama, and vaudeville. European drama arose in ancient Athens (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides) and passed through Shakespeare and Molière. In the Ukrainian tradition it was developed by Ivan Kotliarevsky (Natalka Poltavka), Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Lesia Ukrainka (The Forest Song), and Mykola Kulish (Myna Mazailo).
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Distinction
Two literary kinds, separated by the form of the text's existence. Drama is meant for STAGE embodiment: it reveals conflict through the action and dialogue of characters, without direct authorial speech, and lives in performance, in the present tense of events before an audience. The lyric is the monologue of an inner 'I', centred not on action but on feeling and mood, and lives in the sounding of the poetic word. Drama shows the clash of wills from without; the lyric reveals the soul's state from within.
