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Drama   Listen
noun
Drama  n.  
1.
A composition, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action, and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave or humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending toward some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage. "A divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon."
2.
A series of real events invested with a dramatic unity and interest. "The drama of war." "Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last." "The drama and contrivances of God's providence."
3.
Dramatic composition and the literature pertaining to or illustrating it; dramatic literature. Note: The principal species of the drama are tragedy and comedy; inferior species are tragi-comedy, melodrama, operas, burlettas, and farces.
The romantic drama, the kind of drama whose aim is to present a tale or history in scenes, and whose plays (like those of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and others) are stories told in dialogue by actors on the stage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Drama" Quotes from Famous Books



... the millionaire Single-Taxer, had consented to endow me at fifteen dollars a week, for six months. I had informed Baxter, in one of my many letters to him—for we had developed an intimate correspondence—that I had a unique fairy drama in mind, but could not write it because of the harassment of my struggle for bread and life.... I had laid aside for the present ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... afforded me that night for studying the three leading characters in the remarkable drama I saw unfolding before me. A task was assigned me by the captain which took me from the house, and I missed the next scene—the arrival of the coroner. But I repaid myself for this loss in a way I thought justified by the importance of my own theory and the evident necessity ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green

... and seeing more or less, and have performed necessary and valuable service. They have described the life behind the front, the life in towns, camps, prisons, hospitals and given the news—the rough general outlines—of the swiftly changing drama. Very few have seen any fighting, properly speaking, and although bits of their work here and there deserve to become part of the permanent history of the war, they themselves would be the last to suggest that they have ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... position behind a low rock over which he could easily see and shoot when necessary. He imagined Jim Lash in a similar position at the far end of the valley blocking the outlet. Gale had grown accustomed to danger and the hard and fierce feelings peculiar to it. But the coming drama was so peculiarly different in promise from all he had experienced, that he waited the moment of action with thrilling intensity. In him stirred long, brooding wrath at these border raiders—affection for Belding, and keen desire to avenge the outrages he had suffered—warm admiration ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... his contemporaries and successors, Jacopo Pitti, Guicciardini, Segni, Varchi, Vettori, what a circle of illustrious names! And what a story it is which these masters tell us! The great and memorable drama of the last decades of the Florentine republic is here unfolded. The voluminous record of the collapse of the highest and most original life which the world could then show may appear to one but as a collection of curiosities, may awaken ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... feeling sort of like the famous sparrow who'd gotten trapped for three hours in a badminton game at Forest Hills, I built a strong highball, and poured it down while my halluscene set was warming up. I needed the highball as well as the relaxation, because I knew that the "Drama" being presented was the hundred and umpty-umpth remake of "Tarzan of the Apes" and for ninety solid minutes I would be swinging through trees without benefit of alcohol. Tarzan, you'll remember, did not learn to smoke and drink until ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith

... is accomplished for us. True, we have something to do. The seed will not grow if it be not planted; but all our skill and cunning can not make it spring up and blossom, and bear fruit in perfection. Neither can man work out events after a plan of his own. He is made, in the grand drama of this world, to work out the designs of the Almighty. We must accept this or accept nothing. In this light how futile are the intemperate ravings of one class, the unreasonable complaints of another, the cunning plots of a third. We see ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... consisting of an elegant and extensive collection of books in every branch of learning, &c., many of the scarcest editions of the Old English Poets, Novels, and Romances; also a most singular assemblage of Theatrical Writers, including the rarest productions of the English Drama." Sold by auction by T. and J. Egerton, April 23rd, 1787, 8vo. The volume is neatly printed, and the books in the collection are arranged in alphabetical order under their respective departments. We will now fill up a little of the aforementioned strong outline of the picture of Wright's ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson

... the 26th June and the 12th September, when the last act in this great international drama was played, can be described in a few pages. One of the most important incidents was the occupation by the English of the heights of Levis, whence the fortress was bombarded with an effectiveness that surprised ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot

... of Flashman's wrath, however, were still smouldering, and burst out every now and then in sly blows and taunts, and they both felt that they hadn't quite done with him yet. It wasn't long, however, before the last act of that drama came, and with it the end of bullying for Tom and East at Rugby. They now often stole out into the hall at nights, incited thereto partly by the hope of finding Diggs there and having a talk with him, partly by the excitement of doing something which was against rules; for, sad to say, ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... was not so well walled off, however, but that the life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, did not make their way in. To prove this, we will confine ourselves to recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, which, however, bears no reference in itself ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... looked down upon them, and higher, star upon star. Dead, indifferent things they were, chance accessories to this drama. They awaited the touch of sterner forces than those of man ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... past bedtime even for the aristocratic precincts of New York. Yet there was going on behind that brilliantly lighted window a one-man drama strangely and ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... a startling and portentous figure in the drama of the Nation, the most powerful parliamentary leader in American history, not ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon

... a century, which began when a foreign rule was forced upon the people of the Cape of Good Hope, hastens to an end; we are approaching the last act in that great drama which is so momentous for all South Africa; we have reached a stage when it will be decided whether the sacrifices which both our fathers and we ourselves have made in the cause of freedom have been offered in vain, whether the blood of our race, with which every part of South Africa has been, ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz

... Blake, as he and Joe got the final pictures of this drama—a drama that had come so near being a tragedy. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton

... some extent, and Greek tragedy in a very special degree, moves in its course of development from Religion to Entertainment, from a Service to a Performance, the Agamemnon seems to stand at a critical point where the balance of the two elements is near perfection. The drama has come fully to life, but the religion has not yet faded to a formality. The Agamemnon is not, like Aeschylus' Suppliant Women, a statue half-hewn out of the rock. It is a real play, showing clash of character and situation, suspense and movement, psychological depth and subtlety. ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus

... wise, nay, just, To strike with men a balance: to forgive, If not forget, their evil for their good's sake."—Saul, A Drama. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... been equal to my intention, it might have been a real contribution to fiction, and far as I know it to fall short of the first deep blow of feeling in which it was conceived, it is, I think, new to the novel, though it holds a notable place in the drama—it would be presumptuous to say where—unnecessary, also, as I have made ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... standard. Hazlitt, on the other hand, has praised it overmuch, and perhaps "monstered" some of its "nothings." That it has power is proved by its effects on literature. It did not, we believe, create many robbers, but it created a large robber school in the drama and the novel; for instance, Schiller's "Robbers," Ainsworth's "Rookwood," and "Jack Shepherd," and Bulwer's "Paul Clifford," and "Eugene Aram," not to speak of the innumerable French tales and plays of a similar kind. The intention of these generally is not, perhaps, ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... theatre is, I venture to state, of a far superior order, both as to drama and as to morality. It is not a mere lantern-hall, close and stuffy, with twopenny and fourpenny seats (half-price to children, and tea provided free at matinee performances), but a white-and-gold Picturedrome, catering to an exclusive class ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 18, 1914 • Various

... slowly to dance the death of her husband. Then Ruth came, and they wept together, and lamented, then Naomi came to comfort them. It was all done in dumb show, the women danced their emotion in gesture and motion. The little drama went on for ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence

... neighbors. They preserve also the characteristic popular record of the early migrations which brought these peoples to Palestine, where they crystalized into the different nations that figure in the drama of Israel's history. The permanent and universal value of these stories lies, however, in the great moral principles which they vividly and effectively illustrate. The prophetic portrait of Abraham was an inspiring example to hold up before a race. The characteristics ...
— The Making of a Nation - The Beginnings of Israel's History • Charles Foster Kent and Jeremiah Whipple Jenks

... or marriage with one of the gang, were the chief incidents of this inquitous project, and it was in the Cabaret de la Liberte that lots were thrown as to which among the herd of miscreants should be the favoured one to play the chief role in the sinister drama. ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... difficult as possible. Had the scholar been a great discoverer in science, a great master in philosophical thought, a great interpreter in literature—then we might all take off our hats: but this hero was a grammarian. He spent his life not on Greek drama or Greek philosophy, but on Greek Grammar. He is dead: his pupils carry his body up the mountain, as the native disciples of Stevenson carried their beloved Tusitala to the summit of the island peak. These students are not weeping; they sing and shout as they march, for they are carrying ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... hastily. It does not appear, however, that they would have gained anything had they remained, because the astute Lord Cholme had provided a press-agent. This gentleman, we heard long afterwards, was in Savannah superintending the first rehearsals of a gigantic film-drama depicting the Conquest of the Atlantic. On hearing of his principal's arrival on a steamer he took the next train north, and from the moment he reached Mr. Francis Lord's hotel on Fifth Avenue, ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... is a pitiful and poignant story, rich in real drama and arresting by its fidelity to ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux

... The beginnings of opera—music-drama—are unknown; but Sulpitius, an Italian, declared that opera was heard in Italy as early as 1490. The Greeks, of course, accompanied their tragedies with music long before that time, but that would not imply "opera" as we understand it. However, modern opera is doubtless ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

... be utter folly, and it was hard to admit that Fogg was such a fool. Sir Francis consented, however, to remain to the end of this terrible drama. The guide led them to the rear of the glade, where they were able to observe the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... at the time this drama begins it would have been captious of her to have complained of anything were it not that life is so ordered that it has sorrow for shadow. The shadow on this human rose was ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... in the case of the Soul of Man—that wondrous something which has been built up by the Absolute after aeons and aeons of time, and which is destined to play an important part in the great Cosmic Drama which it has pleased the Absolute to think into existence. Drawing its Life from the Universal Life, it has the roots of its being still further back in the Absolute itself, as we shall see in the next lesson. Great and wonderful is it all, and our minds are but illy fitted ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... production of the drama, however, was attended with more difficulty than he had anticipated. He had the usual prejudices to overcome, particular singers to conciliate, alterations to make, and repeated rehearsals to superintend, before he could inspire the performers with the proper ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various

... up the stairs to the gallery. The floor was still stained with the pool of blood. Senor Zurro, the only witness to the drama, was telling the story ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja

... 'heaven's glorious torch.' The poem is tricked out almost beyond recognition. Beowulf assumes the 'grand manner,' and paces 'the Grendel's hold' like one of the strutting emperors of Dryden's elaborate drama. ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker

... with ridicule if possible. It made his words peculiarly dignified and impressive, and I listened with an increasing uneasiness as to the sort of help the doctor would look to me for later. It seemed as though I were a spectator of some drama of mystery in which any moment I might be ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... not all prose is fiction, yet the distinction must be emphasized. A photoplay is to the program of a moving-picture theatre just what a short-story is to the contents of a popular magazine—it supplies the story-telling or drama element. A few years ago the managers of certain theatres used so to arrange their programs that for four or five days out of every week the pictures they showed would consist entirely of photoplays. On such days their programs corresponded exactly to the contents-page of an all-fiction magazine—being ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

... the French army secure still of final victory. Possibly they thought that, hemmed in between the two great rivers, the army of Edward would be so well caught in a trap that they need not bestir themselves to consummate the final scene of the drama. At any rate, Philip remained inactive, save that his army was rapidly augmenting from all sides; whilst the English finished their bridge and marched northward, only opposed by a large body of troops sent out from Amiens to meet them, over which ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green

... technique will hang. Why did Lord Arthur Fluffinose enter? The obvious answer, that the firm which is mentioned in the programme as supplying his trousers would be annoyed if he didn't, is not enough; nor is it enough to say that the whole plot of the piece hinges on him, and that without him the drama would languish. What the critic wants to know is why Lord Arthur chose that very moment to come in—the very moment when Lady Larkspur was left alone in the oak-beamed hall of Larkspur Towers. Was it only a coincidence? And if the young dramatist answers callously, "Yes," it ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, June 10, 1914 • Various

... its imperfections on its head. Once more the organization and the corporations emulated Davy Crockett's coon and begged him not to shoot, for they would come down. The amended bill was passed and became law. But there was an epilogue to this little drama. The corporations proceeded to attack the constitutionality of the law on the ground of the very amendment for which they had so clamorously pleaded. But they failed. The Supreme Court of the United States, after Roosevelt had become ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... summarized the world-drama. We were all pacific to the point of stupidity—little saints, in fact. No one in France spoke any longer of revenge, nobody wished it, nobody thought of as much as getting ready for war. We had all of us in our hearts ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse

... Jean de Gruyere, in his French campaigns and in his long captivity in Spain, Othon de Grandson was later doubly related to Count Rodolphe, as brother-in-law of his first wife Marguerite d'Alamandi, and as nephew of his second countess, Marguerite de Grandson. The tragic hero of an unjust drama of prosecution which divided in opposing camps the nobles of Romand Switzerland, Othon de Grandson was falsely accused of complicity in the poisoning of Count Amedee VII of Savoy, and although declared innocent by ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... music to Goethe's drama "Egmont" given entire at the Philharmonic Concerts, Boston, with readings from the drama ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee

... league of sand, An avenue by ocean spanned; The narrow beach of straggling tents, A mile of stately monuments; Your standard, lo! a flag unfurled, Whose clinging folds clasp half the world,— This is your drama, built on facts, With ...
— East and West - Poems • Bret Harte

... long wait at the window was tragically rewarded, and she became an unhappy actor in Canaan's drama of that day. Other ladies attended at other windows, or near their front doors, throughout the afternoon: the families of the three patriarchs awaiting their return, as the time drew on, with something ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... Such couples are frequent in the history of crime. Eyraud and Bompard, Mr. and Mrs. Manning, Burke and Hare, the Peltzer brothers, Barre and Lebiez, are instances of those collaborations in crime which find their counterpart in history, literature, drama and business. Antoninus and Aurelius, Ferdinand and Isabella, the De Goncourt brothers, Besant and Rice, Gilbert and Sullivan, Swan and Edgar leap to ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving

... with things that affect the lives of others, since what touches the fortunes of others is but a part of that complex web of destiny and environment in which our own lives are enmeshed. In the story it is not so true as in the drama that, for the going out of our sympathies toward the hero or the heroine, there should be other contrasting characters; but a story gains color and movement from having a variety of individualities. ...
— The Writing of the Short Story • Lewis Worthington Smith

... pretended that any single figure is of extraordinary merit, but amongst them they tell their story with excellent effect. Two, those of St. Joseph and St. Anna (?), that doubtless were once more important factors in the drama, are now so much in corners near the window that they ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... a long purse is synonymous with high position—a theory dear to the heart of the "yellow" press and eagerly fostered in the preposterous social functions of screen drama. It is true that Best Society is comparatively rich; it is true that the hostess of great wealth, who constantly and lavishly entertains, will shine, at least to the readers of the press, more brilliantly than her less affluent sister. Yet the latter, through ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... lacking in feeling, and impulses of sympathy and mercy until now had deterred him from the execution of his legal duties. Since, however, it was Lucy Webster who had rung up the curtain on the drama in which an important part had been assigned him, there was no need for him to postpone longer the playing of his role. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... Master Will. In truth, you've given me a description for my own feelings. Once more I repeat to you, Lennox, that 'tis a fine audience. I see here much British and Dutch wealth, and people whose lives have been a continuous drama." ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler

... given usually in theatres or amphitheatres, so arranged that they could open and present as it were two separate stages. But after the spectacle in the gardens of Caesar the usual method was omitted; for in this case the problem was to let the greatest number of people look at a slave who, in the drama, is devoured by a bear. In the theatres the role of the bear is played by an actor sewed up in a skin, but this time the representation was to be real. This was a new idea of Tigellinus. At first Caesar refused to come, but changed his mind at persuasion ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... stage scenes. I'm a scene painter. Just now I'm gathering material for the staging of a Roman drama with a setting in Roman Provence. Barreze is to produce it at the Odeon. It's my ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... known of the John Hatton who wrote "Duke St." He was earlier by nearly a century than John Liphot Hatton of Liverpool (born in 1809), who wrote the opera of "Pascal Bruno," the cantata of "Robin Hood" and the sacred drama of "Hezekiah." The biographical index of the Evangelical Hymnal says of John Hatton, the author of "Duke St.": "John, of Warrington; afterwards of St. Helens, then resident in Duke St. in the township of ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth

... them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless eye of ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... heads, a hand raised in appeal or command. Instinctively he knew its owner and spurred his horse into the throng, sending the people flying in all directions. There was a small clear space immediately before the door which enabled him to see the two chief actors in the drama long before ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace

... (!) my inferiority to this immortal mind. I have availed myself of the only alternative left, when I recognized the impossibility of rivalling this protagonist among the dramatis personae of the great Drama of English Fiction, and have done something of which he speaks very tenderly and delicately somewhere in his prolific writings, one's "best." He says, "one man's best is as good as another man's," ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... in the Cevennes, and to extirpate heresy encouraged every form of cruelty; yet when we look at the men who adorned it, the reign of Louis XIV. was one of the most illustrious in letters and the arts in the history of France: Corneille, Racine, and Moliere eminent in the drama, La Fontaine and Boileau in poetry, Bossuet in oratory, Bruyere and Rochefoucauld in morals, Pascal in philosophy, Saint-Simon and Retz in history, and Poussin, Lorraine, Lebrun, Perault, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... willow-tree, Haward, while encouraging her to speak of her long past, her sylvan childhood, her dream memories, had somewhat sternly checked every expression of gratitude for the part which he himself had played or was playing, in the drama of her life. Walking in the minister's orchard, sitting in the garden or upon the terrace of Fair View house, drifting on the sunset river, he waved that aside, and went on to teach her another lesson. The teaching was exquisite; but when the lesson ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... muse to market, poetry, apart from the drama, had no direct commercial value, or one too small to be ranked as a motive for publication. None the less, the age loved distinction and appreciated wit, and to be known as a poet whose verses "numbered good intellects" was to ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell

... out" was the ordinary campaign slogan of an opposition party, and calumny formed the staple of its argument. Of course no party could establish exclusive proprietorship to such tactics, and whichever party might be in power in a particular locality was cast for the villain's part in the political drama. But as changes of party control took place, experience taught that the only practical result was to introduce new players into the same old game. Such experience spread among the people a despairing feeling that American politics were hopelessly ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford

... away from so ignoble a mode of life, rather strove to immerse him in degrading pleasures, so as to keep him out of business matters; without suspecting it, he was hurrying on the denouement of the terrible drama that was being acted behind the scenes at Castel Nuovo. Robert's widow, Dona Sancha of Aragon, the good and sainted lady whom our readers may possibly have forgotten, as her family had done, seeing that God's anger was hanging over her ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... The drama continued. He saw it all in the distance, going on somewhere; he did not know where, but it seemed far away inside him. He was Clara's white heavy arms, her throat, her moving bosom. That seemed ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence

... actors should receive impartial judgment at the hands of the public, with such just censure or applause as may be due to their conduct. In the tremendous operations of the war now raging around us, minor events may escape present attention; but no part of the great and bloody drama can fail to be of importance to the future student of this momentous period in ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various

... representation of the real, making it nor an instrument for creating something life-like, but a more and more intimate echo or emanation of his own spirit. In studying his writings we shall see how they flow from his dominating emotion of love for his fellow-men; and the drama of his life, displayed against the background of the time, will in turn throw light on that emotion. His benevolence took many forms—none perfect, some admirable, some ridiculous. It was too universal. He never had a clear enough perception of the real qualities of real men and women; ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow

... morning to the same hall; where I sometimes sat in the chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes walked up and down over the black floor. Sometimes I acted within myself a whole drama, during one of these perambulations; sometimes walked deliberately through the whole epic of a tale; sometimes ventured to sing a song, though with a shrinking fear of I knew not what. I was astonished at the beauty of my ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... comes from Philadelphia, and is of old English, Quaker, Colonial stock. His professional debut was made in London, in 1891, with the Royal English Opera Company, as the Duc De Longueville, in the beautiful Opera Comique, The Basoche, by Messager. The following year he appeared in Wagnerian Music Drama at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, performing the part of Kurwenal, in Tristan and Isolde, without rehearsal. His adaptability to music in English, French, Italian and German, caused him to be at once accepted as a member ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... cat on Sunday, or join the ringers of the church bells? "Instance, instance," we cry impatiently. And so the story remains half a shadow. The poem is dramatic, yet, like so much of Browning's work, it is not pure drama coming from profound sympathy with a spirit other than the writer's own; it is only hybrid drama, in which the dramatis persona thinks and moves and acts under the necessity of expounding certain ideas of the poet. Browning's puppets are ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... to the same thing. I am an inveterate vaudeville-goer, for the simple reason that I find better acting in the vaudeville, and better drama, on the whole, than you ever get, or you generally get, on your legitimate stage. I don't know why it is so very legitimate. I have no doubt but the vaudeville, or continuous variety performance, is ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman, and stayed the life of the German priest? God, God, and God alone; and as surely as these were raised up by God, inspired by God, was Abraham Lincoln; and a thousand years hence, no drama, no tragedy, no epic poem, will be filled with greater wonder, or be followed by mankind with deeper feeling, than that which tells the story ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham

... may have been laudable, but her methods of trying to satisfy these ambitions were not such as to either gain for her the "solar warmth" which she sought to win, or gain for her the friendship of the nations of the civilized world. The drama which Germany directed moved swiftly ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller

... the vision: Of victim and the torturing bird, Of black vindictiveness and suffering Will, Rived forever, yet for aye supreme,— Heroizes the deed and soul And wreaks on canvas and in drama ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock

... to produce those circumstances. There are periods of course in which the arts, or some one particular art, progress. One generation may excel the last; through several generations an art may seem to be rushing to its consummation. This happened with Greek sculpture and the Greek drama in the sixth and fifth centuries; with architecture and all kindred arts in western Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and at the same time with many arts in China. It happened with painting and sculpture in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, ...
— Progress and History • Various

... busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be[23]. There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... conquest have nothing more brilliantly daring and dramatic than the drama played in Mexico by Cortes. As a dazzling picture of Mexico and the Montezumas it ...
— Janet of the Dunes • Harriet T. Comstock

... Lagors was the next character in the drama whose past the detective made it his business to expose. Lagors, it has been said, was the nephew of Madame Fauvel. To his surprise, Lecoq discovered, by inquiries in her native place, that the banker's wife had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... conjunctions of the stars at birth. But they are often not, and depend on the liking of the father for a family god, a mythological hero, a patron or a celebrated ancestor in the case of the boy. In that of the girl the favourite deity or a character in the most recent fable or drama the father has ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell

... took off his cap to the female panther. The playwright noticed this, but was too much interested in himself and the hope of securing a capitalist to care. In sketching out his comedy he was blind to any other possibilities of drama, and so did not see Peter's eagerness to get rid of him. He was even pleased when, after a few compliments, Rolls junior said: "Look here, you'd better leave me to think over what you've told me. I fix things in my memory that way. And maybe when I've got it ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson

... attempted. Some scenes translated with considerable elegance in the metre of the original were published by Archbishop Trench in 1856; but these comprised only a portion of the graver division of the drama. The present version of the entire play has been made with the advantages which the author's long experience in the study and interpretation of Calderon has enabled him to apply to this master-piece of the great ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... duties. Mr. Barton was good, but commonplace; so was Janie; and Mrs. Barton was quite conscious that there was nothing poetical or striking in her own appearance. But Miss Lisle, with her "great, grave griefful air," was fit to take a leading part in poem or drama, and here was a man worthy to play hero passing her on the staircase of a dingy lodging-house! Mrs. Barton built up a romance in a moment, and was quite impatient to bid Judith farewell, that she might work out the details as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... last event reminds me of a well-beloved character in our cape days—one, too, that was destined to play an important part in our little drama. ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston

... somebody—not the public, but a manager—wants one. We will say that Mr. and Mrs. Whoosis, the eminent ballroom dancers, have decided that they require a different sphere for the exhibition of their talents. They do not demand a drama. They commission somebody to write them a musical comedy. Some poor, misguided creature is wheedled into signing a contract: and, from that moment, ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... characterized The Scarlet Letter as "a drama of the spirit." It is a story such as only one who had brooded deeply on the problem of evil could write. Hawthorne was a "solitary brooder upon life." Every one who knew him testified to this impression. When William Dean Howells, a young man ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... lucid than I seem to myself to be—more lucid, anyhow, than Mr. Sutro, who has threatened to damage an excellent scheme by defiance of the first law of drama, even of farce, namely, that the audience should be permitted to know what the author is after. Nor, again—though of course he was not asking to be taken seriously—was he very particular about the probability of some of his characters. Doris, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various

... his manuscript and began to write feverishly. Then in a moment he paused. The Panama campfire, beside which he had written his first play, that was running in New York now, rose in a vision. Was it any wonder that the managers had jumped at the chance to produce the first drama from the country's newly acquired jungle? The lines had been rife with the struggle and intrigue of the great canal cutting. It really was a ripping play he told himself with a smile—and this other? He looked at it a moment in a ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess

... creative history, and from Ammon to the effect that the author of it evidently takes the position of a beholder of creation, the learned German concludes his general statement by remarking, that the scenes of the chapter are prophetic tableaux, each containing a leading phase of the drama of creation. "Before the eye of the seer," he says, "scene after scene is unfolded, until at length, in the seven of them, the course of creation, in its main momenta, has been fully represented." The revelation has every characteristic of prophecy by vision,—prophecy by eye-witnessing; ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller

... built upon the differences about the succession, that rose between Alexander's captains after his decease; he has borrowed many thoughts, and translated whole speeches from Seneca, Virgil, &c. In this play his lordship seems to mistake the very essence of the drama, which consists in action, for there is scarce one action performed in view of the audience, but several persons are introduced upon the stage, who relate atchievements done by themselves and others: ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber

... nation then heaved throughout, went through every man and woman, and tried what manner of spirits they were of. What a preparation was this for that period of our literature in which man, the great actor of the drama of life, was about to appear on the stage! It was to be expected that the drama should then start into life, and that human character should speak from the stage with a depth of life never known before; but who could ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... constantly returning to her object, "the poisons of the Borgias, the Medicis, the Renes, the Ruggieris, and later, probably, that of Baron de Trenck, whose story has been so misused by modern drama and romance"— ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... off the instinctive dread that had seized him on the threshold of the great silent house. He forgot his fears and hopes—hopes of being promoted usher! He was absorbed by this cruel domestic drama revealed to him in the inscription. A scion of one of the greatest families of France, a pupil of the Abbe Bordier, attacked by phthisis in the midst of his now profitless studies and leaving school, not to enjoy life and taste the glorious ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... novels and poems. Browning was much in her mind. She saw herself as the heroine of psychological drama. How interesting! How thrilling! During her life at Northampton, she had dreamed of such things, with no expectation of their ever befalling her. Truly, she was fortune's favourite. Destiny had raised her to the sphere ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... she is now occupied, and you may soon expect at least twenty pages from her indefatigable pen. I am going to see Board. There is an ancient story of a man who once gave life and spirit to marble (you may read it in the form of a drama in Rousseau). Why may not this be done again? The sale of Richmond Hill goes on, and will, I believe, be completed within eight days. The price and the terms are agreed; some little under works ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... hear Emett and Jones express regret over the death of the doe justified in some degree my own feelings, and I thought it was not so much the death, but the lingering and terrible manner of it, and especially how vividly it connoted the wild-life drama of the plateau. The tragedy we had all but interrupted occurred every night, perhaps often in the day and likely at different points at the same time. Emett told how he had found fourteen piles of bleached bones and dried hair in the thickets of less than a mile ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey

... and recognized judgment of the respected elders here assembled will find very agreeable and entertaining. One is entitled 'The Election of the Gobernadorcillo,' being a comedy in prose in five acts, written by one who is here present. The other is in nine acts for two nights and is a fantastical drama of a satirical nature, entitled 'Mariang Makiling,' [69] written by one of the best poets of the province. Seeing that the discussion of preparations for the fiesta has been postponed and fearing that there would not be time enough left, we have secretly ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal

... feel their influence on her; we see their spirit mingling with hers. As we run our eye over the crowded stage, we see the dim outline of the rock from which she was hewn, we feel the spirit which was hers, and we hail it again as it drives her forth to play her part in the great drama of the last three years ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren

... stirred by a tumultuous wave of passionate emotion. The memory of those earlier days of his return came back to him with all their poignant longings. He felt again the same tearing at the heart-strings, the same strange, unnerving tenderness. The great world's drama, in which he knew that he, too, would surely continue to play his part, seemed like a thing far off, the concern of another race of men. Every fibre of his being seemed attuned to the magic and the music of one wild hope. Yet when there came what he had listened for so long, the hope seemed ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the Earl of Oxford, by our author, in French, with a Latin ode. Never was more innocent bribery proffered to a minister! He composed what he calls Stricturae Pindaricae on the "Mughouses," then political clubs;[26] celebrates English authors in the same odes, and inserts a political Latin drama, called "Pallas Anglicana." Maevius and Bavius were never more indefatigable! The author's intellect gradually discovers its confusion amidst the loud cries of ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli

... of this play does not differ with his countrymen generally, as to the nature and requirements of a Drama. He has learnt from our Great Masters that it should exhibit human beings engaged in some earnest struggle, certain outward aspects of which may possibly be a spectacle for the amusement of idlers, but which in itself is for the study and the sympathy of those who ...
— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... soul rapt in the vision his music had painted. Peter had lived that scene again and again, but how could Beth know unless he had made her see it? There was something strange—uncanny—in Beth's vision of the great drama of Peter's life. And yet she had seen. Even now ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs

... of plays being written without being acted, and of tragedies being made the occasion of expressing political opinions, we may be pretty sure that the drama is in its nonage. An interesting proof of the same tendency is to be found in the first book of the Ars Amatoria of Ovid, though it belongs to the age of Augustus. In this book Ovid describes the various resorts in the city where the youth may look out for ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... of having dejeuner at once, so that he might the sooner start upon a ramble through Lourdes. First of all, however, he wished to go up to his room, and Pierre following him, they encountered quite a drama on their way. The door of the room occupied by the Vignerons was wide open, and little Gustave could be seen lying on the sofa which served as his bed. He was livid; a moment previously he had suddenly fainted, and this had made the father and mother imagine that the end had ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Richmond are thus described by Folkstone Williams:[50] "The Queen strove to entertain her Royal husband with masques, notwithstanding that he had seen many fair and rich beyond the seas; and Nicholas Udall, the stern schoolmaster, was ordered to furnish the drama. An idea of these performances may be gathered from the properties of a masque of patrons of gallies like Venetian senators with galley-slaves for their torch-bearers, represented at Court in Christmas of the first and second ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson

... only seen the first act of the drama. The curtain was to rise again, and a new character was to appear on the stage. The champion of the Union, in complete armor, was about to enter the lists. When the Merrimack steamed out defiantly on Sunday morning, the Monitor was there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... it was unique. To no one else in the world could such a thing have happened, least of all to the other two. Each took it characteristically, according to his or her individual nature —Judy, with a sense of Romance called deathless; Tim, with a taste for Poetic Drama, a dash of the supernatural in it; and Maria, with a magnificent inactivity that ruled the world by waiting for things to happen, then claiming them as her own. Her masterly instinct for repose ran no risk of failure from ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood

... strange element and, like flying-fish, revealed to a wondering world their composite structures. Thus we find Berlioz painting with his instrumentation; Franz Liszt, Tschaikowsky, and Richard Strauss filling their symphonic poems with drama and poetry, and Richard Wagner inventing an art which he believed to embrace the seven arts. And there is Ibsen, who used the dramatic form as a vehicle for his anarchistic ideas; and Nietzsche, who was such a poet that he was able to sing a mad philosophy into life; and Rossetti, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... them even better than The Three Bears, perhaps because they can identify themselves more easily with the hero, who is a most winning, clever individual, though a Pig. The children know nothing of the standards of the Greek drama, but they recognize a good thing; and when the actors in their story are great in interest and in liveliness, they respond with a corresponding appreciation. The dramatic element in The Three Pigs is strong and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready

... hitherto, the energy of growth in any people may be almost directly measured by their passion for imitative art; namely, for sculpture, or for the drama, which is living and speaking sculpture, or, as in Greece, for both; and in national as in actual childhood, it is not merely the making, but the making-believe; not merely the acting for the sake of the scene, but acting for the sake of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... prosperous City financiers, celebrities of the drama and of the operatic stage, luminaries of the law, diplomats, and rich retired traders who had shed the "tradesman" and blossomed into "gentleman," jostled one another in the rooms and on the stairs. It is surprising how people will rush ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux

... accompanied by several friends, and made a careful examination of her person. At that time, Friday morning at six o'clock, the blood was flowing freely from all the stigmata. In a few moments the sacrament would be brought to her, and then the second act of the drama would begin. The scene that followed can be best described in ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond

... a journey which resembled the progress of a sovereign, he reached Paris on the twelfth of February. He was at once surrounded by the homage of all that was most illustrious in literature and science, while the theatre, grateful for his contributions to the drama, vied with the Academy. But there were two characters on whom the patriarch, as he was fondly called, lavished a homage of his own. He had already addressed to Turgot a most remarkable epistle in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various



Words linked to "Drama" :   tragic, stage direction, closet drama, genre, mystery play, musical drama, dramatise, night terror, unlikeable, dramatic work, drama critic, likeable, theater of the absurd, playlet, act, Passion play, episode, tragicomic, black humour, dramatic, satyr play, literary genre, emotionalism, black humor, miracle play, emotionality



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