Ans. The word 'Drama' comes from a Greek word meaning 'thing done'. The word drama is very popular in our country. Drama has a plot, character and dialogue. It is designed for performance on the stage. It is designed for representations by actors who impersonate its different characters. There are different types of drama. Tragedy, comedy, Tragi-comedy, Farce, Melodrama, Masque and one Act play. The religious plays appeared in English soon after the Norman conquest. These sacred plays were known as Miracle plays or Mysteries. In the later Middle Ages developed another kind of dramatic literature, known as Morality plays.
To the public theatre of the sixteenth century came William Shakespeare as actor, playwright and shareholder in theatrical undertakings. His dramas are a great river of life and beauty. English drama reached the highest point in the decade following Elizabeth's death in 1603. The drama of the eighteenth century did not reach the same high level as the nobel. The drama of the early nineteenth century was on the whole deplorable. The prosperous middle class society had no genuine appreciation of drama as an art. The twentieth century showed a talent with which the nineteenth century could not compete. The twentieth century produced a galaxy of distinguished dramatists.
There is a rich tradition of drama in the USA. Many dramatists from Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and South Africa have written plays in English. In India, there has been a long tradition of writing plays in English. R.N. Tagore translated many of his Bengali plays into English himself.
