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2 Dramatic Textpage3-12
2 Dramatic Textpage3-12
Drama is a literary text that depicts action via dialogues of acting characters and
authorial notes (i.e. description of physical action of actors, place and time
circumstances etc.). (Zvodsk 1966, p.4)
One of the specific signs of a dramatic text is its ambiguity from the point of
view of the approach of the audience. While watching a theatre play, we are not mere
spectators but also listeners. Such kind of a dual parallel perception does not appear in
any other art than in the dramatic (theatrical). In front of a picture, building or a statue
we are pure spectators, while watching a poetical or musical piece we are pure listeners.
Drama is a type of an artistic literature that depicts action and conflicts (i.e. actions that
encounter resistance). Unlike a poet who states his emotions naturally, the author of a
theatre play expresses his intentions via acting characters. A novel includes depictions
of nature and ways of life as well as socially psychological conflicts. A drama, on the
other hand, develops the action in the form of dialogues of the characters and notes,
describing the actions and events. Dramatic dialogue is thus a bridge between two
actions, it is a result of one action and cause of another. (Volkentejn 1963, p.3)
Dramatic text is not only a plain dialogue but it is a unique formation with a rhythm,
and phase. (J. Mistrk quoted in Kufnerov, Skoumalov 1994, p.140)
A dramatic piece includes two inseparable and various units, the visible (optical)
and the audible (acoustic). Zich (Zich 1986, p.19) describes a dramatic work as that of
time. It takes place in a real time and accepts its qualities, among all its transience. Each
dramatic piece exists only for a particular time. It starts in a particular moment, it lasts
for a certain time and finally it finishes. According to Zich before and after these time
points the drama does not exist.
Limitation of a real acting time and the intensivity of a dramatic time requires a
different organisation perception than that emerging from an unlimited and extensive
time of a novel. Whereas we live through the novel in a longer period of time, a
dramatic text requires our attention similar to that of the audience. Such perceptional
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concretizing time is indirectly and approximately indicated by a dramatic text. (Luke
1987, p.131)
At each dramatic piece we can furthermore distinguish two basic components. The
characters of a dramatic piece and the scene of a play.
Dramatic text does not include the dramatic and scenic comments (see chapter 2.3) and
it consists of words and structures having independent meaning, as the actors utter them.
Any particular section of a script is uttered by a particular character of the play and that
is why such sections are preceded by the name of the character.
Marking the names of speakers before the rejoinders is essential. Without those the
script would not prove itself to be a proper dramatic text, it would be chaotic and
incomprehensible. (Luke 1987, p.34)
Hereafter, Zvodsk (Zvodsk 1966, p.3) states that a theatrically staged text
differs from a written script. Script of a drama is only a structure that says much about
the depicted characters (mainly their inner world and relationships), about the events,
but it says little about the physical acting of the characters, about their gestures, facial
gestures, their arrangement within the stage etc. A theatre production develops from a
dramaturgically-directorial interpretation of a script and its scenic concretization.
We may notice the most essential difference between the script of a playwright and its
final stage production at comparison of a dramatic character (characterized by
playwrights text) and an acting character (performed by an actor on the basis of the
playwrights script). Characters of a drama are relatively schematic, in comparison with
characters of a novel; thanks to the gaps in characterization the actors are given an
opportunity to interpret the characters artistically and to flesh out their qualities on
stage. Therefore the same dramatic character (e.g. Othello by Shakespeare) may be
interpreted by various actors throughout the centuries; those interpretations differ from
each other and still proceed from the same original script. (Zvodsk 1966, p.3)
Every sentence and utterance included in a dramatic text has two dramatic
functions. First of all, these utterances define the characters and secondly they create the
part of the whole dramatic action. The interaction of dramatic characters is conditioned
by temporal and spatial solidarity. The solidarity changes during the play as the actors
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are entering and leaving the stage. The relationship between dramatic acts may be
defined as a dramatic situation.
According to Zich any dramatic situation is characterized by a number of protagonists
who take place in it.
Zich (Zich 1986, p.177) furthermore comments on the scene of a dramatic piece, which
is the space where actors perform. The stage becomes a scene only when the actors act
there during a play. These actors, real people, necessarily belong to the scene. Actors
perform dramatic characters and create together a dramatic action. A scene is thus a
space where a dramatic action is created.
Dialogue is a form of mostly linguistic interaction between to say the least two
participants of a conversation. It represents most of all a naturally present form of a
language expression. While forming a dialogue, a retrogressive dependency is
essential. (Prochzka 1988, p.49)
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this is possible. That is why the translator has to be particularly careful and sensitive
while translating a theatre piece. What looks satisfying on the paper might not
necessarily sound good on the stage and vice versa.
While commenting on the translation of a dramatic dialogue and a dramatic piece Lev
states:
The attitude of the translator towards any play shall be flexible, once concentrating on
accurate formulation of the meaning, the other time concentrating on style and
intonation. As it results from the theatre experience, the texts of theatre plays are often
reduced, not only the whole rejoinders are crossed out but also the sequences (e.g.
clown acts in Shakespeare etc.) or the characters ( Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern in
Hamlet etc.), without changing the play appreciably. The script only represents an
expedient and not the goal of a play. Particular features participate in the creation of
scenic images to a different extent and in specific ways. (Lev 1963, p.111 and 115)
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Modern dialogue better corresponds to a spoken language because of the way it
arranges the thoughts by a folk speaker. Nowadays this art is adapted by a non-
dramatic literature, too. Modern prose has developed the whole range of means such as
half-direct speech, inner monologue, flow of consciousness, but it has also learnt to
think dialogically, i.e. to depict the typical features of less stylised thinking. That is why
it appears the most instantly in a spoken expression. (Lev 1963, p.125)
According to Mukaovsk the stage dialogue includes, except for its active
participants, one more agent, i.e. the audience. It means that all direct participants of the
dialogue are accompanied by another participant, though incommunicative, who is
particularly important as everything that is said in a dramatic dialogue is intended for
the audience, to effect their mind. (Luke 1987, p.70)
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2.2 THE LANGUAGE OF A DRAMATIC CHARACTER
The collection of emotions, volition and reason creates the dramatic character.
Character is a psychological term but from the point of view of aesthetics it represents
the protagonist of any dramatic piece. (Volkentejn 1963, p.48)
In relation to the speaker the rejoinder does not only denote objects, qualities and
actions about which the character is speaking but thanks to them the character describes
himself. (Lev 1963, p.116)
Within the language of a dramatic character Luke (Luke 1987, p.63) distinguishes two
categories:
II/ Sociolect is a set of features of a speech that characterizes the speaker and his
affiliation to a social, professional, generational or regional group. The idiolect of any
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author is formed on the basis of a sociolect, that represents the authors affiliation to a
particular literary movement or style, to a historical genre or the whole period.
Lev (Lev 1963, p.138) suggests that a good dramatist describes his characters
from within, their language expression is controlled by the character and not vice versa.
It would thus not be sensible if a playwright became a collector of language peculiarities
of the characters. His stylisation should arise out of his idea of the qualities of the
character and his development. Each role has its perspective: the character and his
relations to his opponents develop in front of the audiences eyes and some traits of the
character are supposed to be kept secret at the beginning. However, the translator
cognizes the whole development of the story and sometimes unfortunately expounds
this knowledge already in the first scenes.
The particular sections of the part of a dramatic character are not of the same
importance: we can say that even a language characteristics of characters has its
exposition and denouement. It is therefore advantageous to solve the first rejoinders of
the character on stage stylistically for they shall create its image for the audience.
Within the frame of stagy language and colloquiality of a dramatic text informal
features of a language are unfortunately used to such an extent, that they distort the
artistic and social intention of the author. The dialogue of a dramatic work is not only a
reproduction of a real conversation that has once happened somewhere, but it is an
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artistic stylisation that originates in the synopsis of authors experience. It has been
created as a result of conscious creative procedure and except for its original function of
understanding it fulfils many other functions acoustically-aesthetic, creation of
characters etc. In a dramatic piece not only dialogues appear but also rejoinders that are
uttered with no expectation of answer, monologues, conversations with imaginary
characters etc. Authors dialogue is consciously often not colloquial, noble, with long
sentences and literary stylistics that almost never appear in a real extract of
conversation. In a small formatively limited field of a dialogue the author characterizes
place, time, intellectual character of the protagonists and that is why he sensitively
chooses means of language characterization and creates a strictly structured text. And he
does so even in case he intentionally wants to describe the character via colloquial
language. Which means the colloquiality of a dramatic text is an artistic colloquiality
that uses several consciously applied means, also the informal ones, that are dialectical,
slangy, archaistic, poetic neologisms and conscious disruption of norms.
While creating a translational dramatic text, one has to bear in mind the norm of
transferring all features of the original version via adequate form into the translation.
The stagy language is reduced to a small amount of rather obligatory technically-
methodical instructions that intend to facilitate the pronunciation of hardly
pronounceable clusters of phonemes (if it is not the case of authors intention), to
improve the communicativeness with the spectator or listener considering the rules of
acoustics and demands of technique of reproduction or the aim to avert undesirable
comicality in an improper place. (Ferenk 1982, p.82)
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drama stands in a point of intersection of three relational moments: towards the depicted
reality (mimetic principle), towards the receiver (pragmatic principle) and towards the
author (expressive principle).
The secondary text affects any text that is presented to the readers as an integral
work. Such inner language of a text is the most noticeable in the form of notes
(annotations, references) that may be even longer than the primary text itself. The
secondary text is to be distinguished via the main graphic means such as its composition
on a special page, font, or brackets. It represents one of extrinsic specialities and
dissimilarities between a dramatic, epic or lyrical texts. Prevalently, the secondary text
penetrates the main text and that is why some readers get easily distracted or
discouraged from further reading. The secondary text of a drama is a set of information
that help the readers (or the audience) to understand the dramatic piece as a complex
structure. Such information may or may not be arranged in an aesthetic way although
they may also assume an aesthetic function.
A dramatic text, on the contrary from epic or lyrical texts, distinguishes by a
prominent two layer structure which is visible even in passages where the role of the
secondary text is diminished. The secondary text of a dramatic work varies in content
and extent. Every component that influences the reception of the dramatic text by
readers and its stage realization without being primarily intended for an acoustic or
visual realization comes under the secondary text of a drama.
Each part of the secondary dramatic text may be emphasized and transposed to the
main text in a consequential stage adaptation. If a dramatic author is able not only to
create a dramatic situation via direct speech but also to project it on stage via the
secondary dramatic text, as we expect - especially in modern theatre, the secondary text
may yet bear crucial meanings.
As Luke (Luke 1987, p.26) adds, in the broad sense of the word, the secondary
text of a drama includes the name of the author, the title and subtitle of the play and
usually also the marking of the genre. Such introductory information set the horizon of
readers expectations, depending on his experience, personal appreciation and taste.
The list of dramatic characters represents another component of the secondary dramatic
text, having the highest informational value of all. It is the first noticeable extrinsic
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identification feature of any dramatic text. Unlike in Shakespeares plays where we may
not find the list of characters, the modern tendency leads to mentioning the basic
information - social status, relationships and age.
Various theatre houses often rearrange the set of introducotry information. They append
the name of the translator to the playwrights, change the title of the play, omit or
change the subtitle, they create a list of characters that was not originally present in the
play, shorten or change the description of the characters, etc.
Another essential feature to deal with within a dramatic piece is its subject:
Finally, any dramatic piece cannot do without a dramatic action. The dramatic
action can be fulfilled via monologues, dialogues or in a non-verbal way, via physical
acting. Volkentejn is among others dealing with the moments of interruption of a
dramatic action:
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