Drama

Description

R. S. Gwynn has edited several other books, including Fiction: A Pocket Anthology; Poetry: A Pocket Anthology; Literature: A Pocket Anthology; Inside Literature: Reading, Responding, Writing (with Steven Zani); The Art of the Short Story (with Dana Gioia); andContemporary American Poetry: A Pocket Anthology (with April Lindner). He has also authored five collections of poetry, including No Word of Farewell: Selected Poems, 1970-2000. He has been awarded the Michael Braude Award for verse from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Gwynn is University Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas.

Preface
Introduction

The Play’s the Thing
Origins of Drama
Aristotle on Tragedy
Plot
Characterization
Theme
Diction
Melody
Spectacle
Brief History and Description of Dramatic Conventions

Writing About Drama

DRAMA

Sophocles
Antigone, translated by Robert Fagles
William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will, edited by David Bevington
Henrik Ibsen
An Enemy of the People, adapted by Arthur Miller
Susan Glaspell
Trifles

Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie
Edward Albee
The Sandbox
Athol Fugard
“Master Harold” . . . and the boys

August Wilson
The Piano Lesson
David Ives
Sure Thing
Milcha Sanchez-Scott
The Cuban Swimmer
Yasmina Reza
The God of Carnage, translated by Christopher Hampton

Acknowledgments

Index of Critical Terms

• Brief and affordable! This pocket-sized anthology allows instructors and students to focus on the plays, with a minimum of pedagogical apparatus—at a cost well under that of traditional drama anthologies.
• Chronologically organized and including playwrights from classical Greece to contemporary Broadway, the featured selections reflect the work of the genre’s most distinguished playwrights.  
• An introduction to the genre discusses the origins of drama, the literary elements, and film adaptations of plays.
• An Index of Critical Terms provides a cross-referenced list of literary terms covered in the text.

• Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy The God of Carnage, produced on Broadway with a cast including James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, reflects the robust strength of today’s Broadway and of contemporary comedy.
• Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night brings a classic comedy to this collection for the first time.
• And as always, Drama: A Pocket Anthology offers a diverse and remarkably comprehensive collection of drama at an affordable price and an attractive length.

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A nice alternative to lengthier and more expense anthologies, Drama: A Pocket Anthology is the perfect choice for professors who want to see several books in an Introduction to Drama course. Chronologically organized, changes to the new edition include:

Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy The God of Carnage, produced on Broadway with a cast including James Gandolfini and Jeff Daniels, reflects the robust strength of today’s Broadway and of contemporary comedy.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night brings a classic comedy to this collection for the first time.

The perfect alternative to lengthy drama anthologies, this brief, affordable collection of widely taught and influential plays provides a concise but comprehensive introduction to the study of drama.

 

In keeping with the objectives of the series, Drama: A Pocket Anthology offers a range of widely admired plays, from classical to contemporary, in a quality trade-format book at an affordable price.  The fourth edition features The God of Carnage, a Tony-award winning play by Yazmina Reza, along with a Shakespeare comedy, Twelfth Night, for the first time.

Compact yet complete—and always at a reasonable price!

For more than 60 years, instructors and their students have looked to our series for state-of-the-art scholarship, accessibility, and fair prices.

We’ve created this series with ease of use in mind—the books are conveniently portable and highly readable, with engaging typefaces and interior designs. Concise yet thorough in their coverage of the basics, these titles are ideal for use either by themselves or in combination with other books.

The ideal alternative to longer anthologies, this brief, affordable, and diverse collection of widely taught and influential plays provides a concise yet comprehensive introduction to the study of drama.  This chronologically organized anthology includes playwrights from classical Greece to contemporary Broadway, reflecting the work of the genre’s most distinguished playwrights.

 

Gwynn’s Drama is a terrific and affordable collection of plays…I recommend to students that they keep [this volume] after the class is over to read for pleasure and to use for reference.

Laura Early, University of Louisville

 

The plays in [this] text are a perfect spring board for everything that needs to be covered in the class. It is a text that gets straight to the point of theatre. I appreciate this fact and the fact that it is actually affordable. The students like that.

Elizabeth M. Sloan, Northeast State Community College

 

 

In addition to offering a strong selection of plays, Gwynn…introduces students, in fluent prose, not only to key traditions in drama but also to the working vocabulary they’ll need for the course.

Randy Hendricks, University of West Georgia