Modern Drama Slides

Modern Drama
Dr. Enaam Mujallid

Modern Drama
Main Points
 Historical Background to the Modern Age
 Modern Literary terms and Drama
 Modern European Dramatists
 Close reading of 3 Modern Plays

I. Historical Background to the
Modern Age
Modern Age (20th century)
 Brief historical overview

 What is meant by the “Modern” Age?
 How was life before ?
 What has made it a different Age?
The 1900s
Time of massive change and revolutions
 Political Life
 Economic Life
 Social Life
 Cultural Life
 Religious Life
 Scientific theories, Inventions &Famous
Historical Figures
Political Life & Influences
Political Movements, turmoil and Ideologies
 Nazism
 Fascism
 World War I & II
 Collapse of the British Empire and loss of its
dominant position in world politics
Significant Events of the Modern Period
1914 – 1918 World War I

The U.S. enters World War I to “make the world safe for democracy.”
8.7 million people died for reasons many people could not understand
1939 – World War II begins.
1942 - a research and development project to build the atomic bomb.
1945 - Allied troops liberate German concentration camps,

the U.S. drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan
surrenders, World War II ends.
Economic Life
Major influential economic systems and crisis:
 Communism
 Capitalism
 Socialism
 Great Depression & economic problems
 American Dream
Social Life
Major changes in social life:
 Struggle for women’s rights

 Rise of the Middle and working class
 Education and free schooling
1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment gave women the right to vote.
Spiritual Life
It was a time of decline and disappointments due to

many factors:
 Loss of Faith
 Loss of Hope
 Existentialism
Scientific theories, Inventions &Famous
Figures
 Revolutionary thoughts and change
 Transportation / Communication / TV. & film
making / atomic bomb /
 Albert Einstein
 Sigmund Freud
 Charles Darwin
Modern period
The artistic innovations of Modernism are viewed as a
response to dramatic historical, cultural, and economic
events.
II. Modern Literary Terms and
Drama
 A. Modern Literary Terms

 B. Modern Drama
Modernism
• “Make it new!”
• “Make it different!”
• “Make it difficult!”
The events that took place during these tumultuous times had a deep and
wide-ranging impact on aesthetic sensibility.
Artists felt that traditional art forms could no longer express the modern
psychological state of dislocation, alienation, anxiety.
Literary Modernism’s most significant feature is:
Experimentation
Style Subject Matter
The phrase “make it new,” attributed to Ezra Pound, became a rallying cry
for writers who participated in this cultural movement
The Style of Literary Modernism.
Modernism’s literary forms are innovative and, often, challenging.
Writers were willing to disrupt traditional notions of order, sequence, and unity.
They risked a certain amount of incoherence for the sake of experimentation.
Instead of predictable rhymes and forms, Modern literature is sometimes

chaotic, as if to mirror the randomness of modern life and to challenge the
reader’s notion of order. Modern Writers revealed their experimentation with
style
In conclusion, Modernism was a massive movement that included a broad
range of authors, styles, and themes.
It was a revolt against the conservative values of the literary traditions.
Modernism underscored the abstract, unconventional, largely uncertain ethic

brought on by rapidly changing technology and dramatic cultural shifts.
.
The Subject Matter of Literary Modernism (e.g)
Alienation
Identity
issues of women
Despair and hope
appearance vs. Reality

 Modernism
 Realism
 Expressionism
 Naturalism
 Symbolism
 Existentialism
 Feminism
 Epic theatre
 Theatre of the Absurd
 Problem play ( plays of ideas)
 Well- made Plays
B. Modern Drama and change
 Traditional plays vs. Modern plays
(form) (content)
Division / types Themes and subjects
language / dialogue
characters / tragic hero
plot / action
Modern drama and theatre with their
experimentation in form and subject matter
reveal a remarkable break and exploration from
the previous literary traditions and genres
III. Pioneer Modern Dramatists and their
influence
 Henrik Ibsen
 August Strindberg
 Anton Chekov
 Bertolt Brecht
 Luigi Pirandello
 G.B. Shaw
 Samuel Beckett
 Arthur Miller
Henrik Ibsen
August Strindberg
• A Dream Play
• To Damascus
Anton Chekov
• The Three Sisters

• The Cherry Orchard
• The Seagull
Bertolt Brecht
• Mother Courage and her Children

Luigi Pirandello
• Six Characters in Search of an Author

G.B. Shaw
• Pygmalion
• Arms and the Man
• Candida
Samuel Beckett
• Waiting for Godot

• Happy Days
Arthur Miller
• All My Sons
• Death of a Salesman
IV. Reading some
Samples of Modern
Plays
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
The End
Dr. Enaam Mujallid

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Modern Drama

Dr. Enaam Mujallid

 Modern Literary terms and Drama

 Modern European Dramatists

 Close reading of 3 Modern Plays

 Brief historical overview

1914 – 1918 World War I

1942 - a research and development project to build the atomic bomb.

1945 - Allied troops liberate German concentration camps,

 Great Depression & economic problems

Major changes in social life:

 Struggle for women’s rights

It was a time of decline and disappointments due to

 A. Modern Literary Terms

Style Subject Matter

Instead of predictable rhymes and forms, Modern literature is sometimes

It was a revolt against the conservative values of the literary traditions.

Modernism underscored the abstract, unconventional, largely uncertain ethic

Despair and hope

appearance vs. Reality

• The Three Sisters

• Mother Courage and her Children

• Six Characters in Search of an Author

• Waiting for Godot

Dr. Enaam Mujallid

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