The value of drama?

First, drama and drama literature should strictly distinguish the two concepts of "drama literature" and "drama", which is the first problem that we should make clear before entering the interpretation of drama literature text. Drama literary text, usually called "script", is a literary text style juxtaposed with poetry, prose and novel, belonging to the category of language art. As a literary text, script has literary aesthetic value that can exist independently of drama performance, and can be published, which is naturally available for readers to read, appreciate and study. Therefore, in the classification concept of western traditional literary genres, "drama literature" has always been regarded as the third largest literary category alongside "lyric literature" and "narrative literature". However, unlike poems, essays and novels for readers only, scripts are, after all, literary "scripts" for theatrical performances. A good script should have dual values, namely literary value and dramatic value. Moreover, the difference between dramatic literature and other literary styles lies in its dramatic value. Script belongs to drama first, and its dramatic value should be the first. Because of the dual value of drama literature text, it also determines that its text composition is inevitably influenced by drama art itself. It must obey the dramatic art, which is the guarantee that it shows its own literary value and also makes itself have dramatic value. From the perspective of text reading, the reading of the script and the judgment of its value must also take into account its dramatic value. Therefore, it is very necessary to have a general understanding of drama art and interpret the script. Second, the basic characteristics of drama drama is a comprehensive art, which is recognized by most people and of course conforms to the basic characteristics of drama art. The performance of a drama is always the result of collective labor: the playwright provides the performance script, that is, the drama literature text; Artists, makeup artists and lighting engineers jointly complete the design of stage scenery and character modeling; Musicians (musicians) complete the creation of drama music and aria; The actors show the whole story through their own physical performances. Here, literature, art, music, dance, performance and other artistic types are integrated with each other, which not only cancels their independence, but also integrates into an independent artistic style through its unique and irreplaceable functions. The synthesis of drama art occurs at two levels: "external synthesis" and "internal synthesis". No matter from the perspective of "external synthesis" or "internal synthesis", what a drama cannot lack is the actors and audience, as well as the space for actors to perform, that is, the stage. Drama is an "event" between actors and audiences through stage space. Its core factor is the performance of actors in the stage space. As an "event" between actors and audiences through the stage space, drama is bound to be strictly limited by time and space. It must complete a dramatic event composed of continuous "actions" in a certain period of time, that is, the plot, and at the same time, it must complete the display of the plot in a limited space, that is, on the stage. Judging from the actual form of the specific text, a novel and a song also have a certain length, so it also contains a relatively clear time period. But in theory, there is no time limit for novels and poems, and if possible, the length can even be extended indefinitely. However, it is impossible for a play to go on endlessly without time limit. It must take into account the patience of the audience and the endurance of the actors, so it must be limited to an artificial and strictly defined length of time from beginning to end. At the same time, although the plots displayed in the play have the same nature as the "stories" described in the novel, that is, they are artistic expressions of some social life events that have been selected, refined and processed, the openness of the artistic space of the novel is generally consistent with the openness of the real life space because it is not limited by time and space. However, drama must always face the contradiction between the infinite opening of living space and the limited closing of performance space. This means that drama can only show what is suitable for intuitive display. To sum up, the characteristics of drama art can be summarized as the comprehensiveness of art, the intuitive performance of actors in the stage space and the resulting time and space constraints. Correspondingly, the dramatic value of dramatic literary texts is also reflected in effectively highlighting the performance of drama and dealing with the relationship between time and space. Third, the characteristics of drama literature texts. There is no doubt that dramatic literary texts regard "language" as their own form of existence. However, compared with poetry, novels, prose and other language art forms, drama literature texts are more restricted. In a sense, the poet writes poetry only for self-entertainment or self-venting, so he can even completely ignore the reader's factors. But playwrights can't do this. When writing a script, a playwright should not only consider the actors' performance and the limitations of the stage, but also consider the audience. He must be able to stimulate and maintain the audience's interest in the theatre. Therefore, generally speaking, a good script must first have strong dramatic situation settings and fierce dramatic conflicts caused by specific dramatic situations, and must include interlocking and rising dramatic actions. In other words, a playwright must be good at fully revealing the contradictions and conflicts between different dramatic characters (roles), between dramatic characters and the environment, or between the inner desires and ideas of dramatic characters, thus forming a series of powerful actions and counter-actions, thus pushing the plot to a climax. There is no drama conflict, so there is no movement, so it can't be used for performance, and it can't attract the audience. Dramatic literary text is of course also a language art work. However, compared with other literary texts, especially novels, dramatic literary texts are very different, because what constitutes the main body of the script is the imitation of the language of dramatic characters. As the existing form of the script, there are only two languages, namely, the character language and the stage description that must be enclosed in brackets. The language in the novel mainly undertakes the narrative function, and the narrator's language and the characters' language are combined to complete the narrative of the story. In the script, although the stage deixis in brackets can also be descriptive, it cannot be regarded as the language of the narrator in the novel, because it does not undertake the narrative of the story, but only prompts and explains the actions of the dramatic characters at the moment in the stage scene or drama performance. Moreover, in general, they must also be indicative, not a kind of "telling". The language of drama characters, namely dialogue, monologue, narration and lyrics, which constitute the main body of drama text, has become a speech act to show the character and promote the development of the plot, and it is itself the main component of drama behavior. This makes the language of drama characters have two equally important functions: first, it must be able to fully express the will, intention or will of the characters, reveal the contradictions and conflicts between the characters, and the desires and ideas hidden in the hearts of the characters, that is, it must undertake its function of promoting the development of the plot. The setting of drama situation, the unfolding of drama conflict, the display of drama plot, etc. The script is completed by the actions of the characters and the language (lines) of the characters that reflect their actions. Only the language with sufficient actions can promote the development of the plot and can be regarded as a dramatic action or an integral part of a dramatic action. Secondly, the language of drama characters must be able to fully show the character, that is, to assume the function of showing the character and shaping the character image. It is impossible for a script to portray a character by other artistic means like a novel text. It is the main or even the only means of the script to shape the characters by expressing their language. The above discussion of drama art and specific scripts related to drama art can provide us with a general way to interpret drama texts. Like the interpretation of other types of literary texts, the interpretation of dramatic literary texts is of course carried out at the linguistic level. What we should pay special attention to is that everything contained in the script depends on and can only be expressed through the characters' language, so a playwright can't explain the characters' behaviors and events with the help of a narrator like a novelist, and hint at how readers must understand them. Therefore, relatively speaking, in script reading, readers need to exert their language sense and artistic reasoning ability to feel, experience and understand more. For example, we should be able to accurately grasp the relationship between characters through their language and observe their psychology and wishes in specific situations. We must be able to grasp the characters' actions in dramatic conflicts and conflicts through the characters' language. At the same time, of course, more importantly. We must also be able to understand the characters accurately through the taste of their language. Different from the interpretation of literary texts such as poems, novels and essays, scripts have dual values of literature and drama, so it is necessary to establish readers' "sense of stage" when interpreting scripts. The so-called "sense of stage" means that the audio-visual image of the stage performance can be constructed by grasping the language and movements of the characters in the play and combining the stage instructions. In the final analysis, a good script should be a "script" that can be performed in a drama. When a playwright writes a play, just as he must consider the audience, he must also consider the stage. The playwright's "sense of stage" will affect his handling of drama scenes, including stage division and the use of drama skills, and will also affect his tempering of characters' language. Therefore, it is of great significance to establish readers' corresponding "sense of stage" for in-depth understanding of the plot, characters and playwrights' artistic originality. At least, this "sense of stage" can effectively help us to make a more accurate judgment on the artistic effect of the play and the dramatic value of the script. At the end of this overview, there is one more thing to explain. The problems discussed here only involve some outstanding features of drama art, drama literature text and drama literature text interpretation, rather than a comprehensive theoretical discussion on these issues. Today, with the development of drama, there are many schools and varieties of drama, and there are countless experimental explorations on the expressive skills of drama art. Like other types of literary texts, drama literary texts present a complex landscape. It is neither possible nor our goal to conduct a comprehensive discussion on the related issues of drama and drama literature texts within a limited space. Further understanding and research on these problems can only be completed in our further study.