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How will you define a ‘closet drama’?

Closet drama is used for such plays which are more poetic and didactive than being dramatic. This trend was more popular among great romantic poets. They were essentially poetic in their temperament, still they started their career with writing plays which were more poems than plays. So the stage managers were not ready to stage them in their theatre. They had nothing to attract the audience and their failure was almost certain because they were nothing but simply long speeches. This tendency seems to have started with the romantic poets when Shelley tried his hand to writing a few plays. He was a thinker and possessed philosophic bent of mind and so his plays also are full of the same characteristics. Almost all his poetic qualifies can be easily perceived in these few dramatic works. Consequently all these plays were confined to reading and not presentation. This quality of lack of presentation on the stage and to be studied in the closed drawing rooms created the term closet drama, which is frequently applied to such plays.

P.B. Shelley’s The Cenci written in 1819 is first to method as the remarkable work of this type. The critics term it an incomplete version of a story. It is a tragedy but the real tragic element is missing and it creates an impression of frestration because the horrible scene are introduced in a very large number. It has been composed in the horror tradition of the later Shakespearean age. We can say that it is essentially a tragedy of pathos; dealing with a family affair. It is marked with deep passion and high tragedy. There is no doubt that as a tragedy, it is the most effective work. Shelley has complete control on his lyrical enthusiam. In atmospherey it is like a Greek tragedy than a romantic play. It shows a fascination of crime and heroic innocence. It is a fine example of meditative art. Some critics think that this tragedy brought Shelley in line with the English dramatists and reveals his dramatic genius but some like Grierson say that it fails to be a great tragedy because he has not seriously made any dramatic effort. Premetheus Unbound is a famous lyrical drama, full of pure poetry. It shows the glory of love and beauty of nature. There is poet’s think for freedom. It is full of a series of sweet lyrics without much dramatic action. It was brought to the mind of Shelley by a drama Aeschylus. In comparison to this play his Hellas is a shorter lyric drama. It was the outcome of Greek revolution. There are deep emotional touches. But all these plays were meant only to be read so they can be safely termed as closet drama.

It flourished during the Victorian age in the hands of Tennyson, Browning and Swinburne. All of them were essentially poets but they began their literary career as dramatists which could not be staged. Tennyson wrote seven plays and none of them was recognised as presentable on the stage. His first dramatic work was Queen Mary and afterwards he produced a series of dramas, both historic and romantic. This is a historical in blank verse dealing with a conflict. Harold is more powerful than this play. It is full of pathetic scenes where the king is tortured by a villain. His Beckett is considered to be the best of his poetic plays which deals with the quarrel between Henry II and Thomas Beckett. The main and the sub plot are closely linked and there is love and romance. The other plays like The Cup and The Falcon are inferior works. The theme for, The Cup has been borrowed from Plutarch, Browning’s genius was also dramatic but he did not have much sense of stage though he had the supreme gift as a dramatist which later made him the best writter of dramatic monologues. Some of his dramatic works are very admirable. His Colombe’s Birthday is a great dramatic romance and it is free from traditional difficulties of Browning’s works, A Soul’s Tragedy is thoroughly dramatic in conception. A Blot in the Scutchen is not very outstanding in its spirit and emotions. But his plays certainly failed on the stage and they are real only in the drawing rooms because they lack action. The Return of the Druses is a tragedy in blank verse full of passionate love. Arnold wrote only one play Merope. It has been composed in the convention of the tragedy by Sophocles.