What is drama of Ideas? Give its main features.

The drama of ideas are concerned with the cultivation and propagation of some concept.

The playwright in this case has an idea or thosis to expound. He concentrates on a particular idea which he setsforth through satire of by direct statement. His turns to this idea again and again for lying emphasis on it. Sometime the dramatist becomes a sort of preacher of reformer only. He becomes more interested in propagating the idea than in giving us a play. He presents a sort of thesis. He writes a social drama of purpose. This drama of ideas was born under the influence of Ibsen. Shaw is great writer of this type of drama. He is an inconoclast or image-breaker. He destroys old conservative ideas and speaks in favour of individual judgement. He often deals with what he calls the life force. Woman to him is not the pursuer but the pursued. The former is passively active and the latter is actively passive. He speaks of the superman also. Galsworthy is another writer of the drama of ideas. He stimulates our thinking. He presents a state of affairs and makes us reflect on it. Thus he brings home some idea while speaking of the solitary confinement. He makes us think of its futilly and harmful nature.

The features of the drama of ideas are given below-

1. In the first instance, it may be remarked that the technique of the drama of ideas is naturalistic. Naturalism is the extreme from of realism. Here the minutest details are painted with fidelity in a photographic manner.

2. Detachment is another requisite of naturalism. It presupposes that the author should not allow his predilections or mental preferences to interfere with his creation. According to A.C. Ward ‘Naturalism is like a steady lamp held up from time to time, in whose light, things will be seen for a space clearly indue proportion, free from the mist of prejudice or partisanship. There is no denying the fact that Galsworthy presents the case of both the parties without any bias or partiality.

3. Humanitarianism is another aspect of the drama of ideas. The playwright has sympathy for the underdogs.

4. In these plays symbolism is used instead of spectacles with a view to heightening the dramatic effect. Symbolism is a form of expression which is somewhat arbitrary but has the sanotion of the convention. This expression in turn is an attempt at apprehending the unseen reality.

5. Another silent feature of the drama of ideas is that the dramatist is concerned with ideas rather than with the story. His art disdains the spectacular. It eschews the stage artificiality. It refuses to make use of the convenient coups of the theatre. It takes little or no account of the romantic paraphernalia of disgulses concealments, monologues, asides, flights of rhetoric. It is simplicity itself. The characters in Galsworthy are the thumbnailed sketches. The dramatist is concerned primarily with the underlying idea of the play.

6. Finally it may be remarked that these is a marked reaction against the drama of ideas though the problems it dealt with are still existent.

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