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  1. Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) He was born in 1898. He was a German poet and playwright. He is known for his anti-Aristotlean epic theatre. Brecht believed in arousing the spectator's capacity for action through his plays and transforming them from spectators to actors. His first play was Baal in 1922. This was followed by Drums in the Night, Jungle of the Cities, Man Equals Man and A Respectable Wedding. His play Mother Courage and Her Children was written against the backdrop of the rise of Hitler. He opposed the Nazi Movement, fled from Germany in 1933 and emigrated to America. In 1940s, he was accused by the House of the Un-American Activities Committee for holding left wing views. He later left America and settled in East Germany. He died in 1956 in East Berlin. Major Works Saint Joan of the Stockyards     The play was written between 1922-1931 and published in 1959. In this version of the story of Joan of Arc, Brecht transforms her into 'Joan Dark', a member o...

Inspired by the changes in the literary and art world in the 20th century, in which numerous new artistic movements like Cubism, Surrealism and Futurism took place. A number of theatrical movements arose which rejected the 19th century realist model, choosing instead to play with the language and elements of dramatic convention which had previously been dominant. All this together formed the drama of the contemporary age. These included the Brechtian Epic theater, Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty and the so called Theatre of the Absurd. These can be understood under the following heads 1. Epic Theatre Epic theatre arose in the early to mid-twentieth century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and most famously, Bertolt Brecht. Epic theatre rejects the core tenants of realism and naturalism, asserting that the purpose of a play, more than entertainment or the imitation of reality, is to pre...

1. Henrik Johan Ibsen (1828–1906) Ibsen was born to Knud Ibsen and Marichen Altenburg, into a well-to-do merchant family, in the small port town of Skien in Telemark county, a city which was noted for shipping timber. At fifteen, Ibsen was forced to leave school. He moved to the small town of Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist and began writing plays. In 1846, when Ibsen was 18, he had a liaison with Else Sophie Jensdatter Birkedalen which produced a son, Hans Jacob Hendrichsen Birkedalen, whose upbringing Ibsen paid for until the boy was fourteen, though Ibsen never saw Hans Jacob. Literary Career and Works His first play, the tragedy Catilina (1850), was published under the pseudonym ‘Brynjolf Bjarme’ when he was only 22, but it was not performed. His first play to be staged, The Burial Mound (1850), received little attention. Still, Ibsen was determined to be a playwright, although the numerous plays he wrote in the following years remained unsuccessful. Ibsen’s main inspir...

The drama which had suffered steep decline during the Victorian Age was revived with great force at the beginning of the 20th century and the course of six decades has witnessed many trends and currents in the 20th century drama. Modern drama, which developed around the turn of the twentieth century, focused on alienation and disconnection. These themes can be seen in some of the most famous plays of playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen, George Bernard Shaw and Eugene O'Neill. Main Characteristics of Modern Drama The important characteristics of Modern Drama are discussed below: 1. Realism :  Realism is the most significant and outstanding quality of the Modern English Drama. The dramatists of the earlier years of the 20th century were interested in naturalism and it was their endeavour to deal with real problems of life in a realistic technique to their plays. It was Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian dramatist who popularised realism in Modern Drama. He dealt with the problems of real life ...

The Victorian era stretches from 1837 to 1901, the period during which Queen Victoria ruled. Most historians of Victorian life and art have not given sustained and serious attention to the drama and the theatrical environment in which it was produced. During this age, the theatre takes the back seat due to other important issues like growth of the industry, labour legislation and political enfranchisement. The drama written during the bulk of the century is generally looked upon as the black sheep of Victorian literature. Indeed, even historians of theatrical art tend to treat the nineteenth-century English theatre with overtones of derision, while most surveys of British drama seem to suggest that the genre underwent a nearly total eclipse between the plays of Sheridan and Shaw. Yet the Victorian theatre was one of the most vitally active in the long history of dramatic art. Particularly after the well-reported attendance of the newly ascended Queen Victoria made it unquestionably res...

 The age of Johnson is also often referred as the age of sensibility which ranged from the middle of the eighteenth century until 1798. Ending the age of Johnson, the Romantic period arrived in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford for just over a year, but lack of funds forced him to leave. He worked as a teacher and then moved to London where he wrote for The Gentleman's Magazine. Literary Career and Works :  Johnson was the most famous poet, critic and playwright and fictional writer. He wielded considerable influence over this era with works that focussed on Neo-classical aesthetics (the study of natural and artistic beauty with an eye toward the great classical writers). Writers of the age of Johnson focussed on qualities of intellect, reason, balance and order. Notable publications of the age of Johnson inc...

Augustan drama can refer to the dramas of ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan (Neo-classical) literature. King George I referred to himself as 'Augustus', and the poets of the era took this reference as apropos, as the literature of Rome during Augustus moved from historical and didactic literature to the literature of highly finished and sophisticated epics and satire. In drama, it was an age in transition between the highly witty and sexually playful Restoration comedy, the pathetic tragedy or she-tragedy of the turn of the 18th century and any later plots of middle-class anxiety. The Augustan stage retreated from the Restoration's focus on cuckoldry, marriage for fortune and a life of leisure. Instead, Augustan drama reflected questions that the mercantile class had about itself and what it meant to be gentry: what it meant to be a good mer...