Horace Thought On Drama By Eguriase S. M. Okakahttps://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=AW-10904630286AW-10904630286/XrxkCJV-r64YE1703c80gtag('config',-'AW-10904630286')conversionidAW-10904630286

HORACE THOUGHT ON DRAMA BY EGURIASE S.M OKAKA

            Horace was not a student of Aristotle he loved and read his work. Not much is stated of him but his thoughts on drama is worthy of note. Here we shall consider some important tips.

HIS THOUGHT ON DRAMA INCLUDES:

1.     You must be a good student of drama

2.     Artists are not born but they are made

3.     Natural talent must be supported by good education

4.     The ultimate purpose of drama is to give pleasure to life

5.     Drama must teach wisdom and entertain: the wisdom you get from reading the play is the profit while the delight is the entertainment you get

6.     Use people around you to write. Copy from the events around and draw from your own society. It is that a writer should write within the scope of human understanding.

An example of a proper artistic work of a painter or writer bringing out a picture of a character that is impossible to make head or tail of what he is driving at. But you might say, the right thing is to take liberties of almost any kind has always been enjoyed by painters and poets alike. I know that we poets do claim this license and in our turn add it to others, but not to the point of associating what is wild with what is time of painting snakes with birds or lambs with tiger.

Works that begin impressively and with the promise of carrying on in the heroic strain often have one or two purple passages tacked on to catch the eye, giving a description of Diana’s grave and alter, the meandering of a stream through a picturesque countryside,  the River Rhine, or a rainbow. But this is not the right place for things of that kind.  Perhaps, whatever you set your hand to, you must be single-minded about it and keep to the point.

Most of us poets or writers are led astray by their ideas not knowing how to work. That is the right approach to attack our artistic ideas. Like Horace said “I try my hardest to be succinct and merely succeed in being obscure. That is not able to hit the sublime or perfection in writing.

Horace illustrated with the Aemilian gladiatorial schools where there is a craftsman in bronze who will mound fingernails and reproduce wavy hair, but the total effect of his work is unsatisfactory because he cannot put together a complete figure. Now if I set out to write poem, I would no more want to be like him than to have a crooked nose, much though I might be my dark eyes and black hair.

He gave an alternative to writing good poetry or drama:

1.     Choose a subject that is suitable to your ability, you who aspires to be a writer.

2.     Give long thought to what you are capable of understanding.

3.     A writer who chooses a subject within his powers to write will never be at lost for words and his thought will be clear and orderly.

Furthermore, a writer who uses simple and clear words in writing is always able to drive home his point, than a writer who uses abstruse topics. It is not enough that poems should have beauty. If they are to carry the audience with them, they must have charms as well. Just as smiling faces are turned on those who smile, so is sympathy shown with those who weep. If you want to move me to tears, you must first feel grief yourself, whereas, if your speeches are out of harmony with your feelings. I shall either fall asleep or burst laughing.  Pathetic language is appropriate to the face of sorrow and violent language to the face of anger, a sportive diction goes with merry looks, and a serious with a grave looks.

If you introduce an untried subject to the stage or are so bold as to invent a new character, be sure that it remains the same all the way through as it was at the beginning and is entirely consistent to explain further, or to make a picture clearer. Horace said as if you are introducing a new theme and a new character to the stage you should make them consistent in what they do, not falling in and out of character.

THINGS HORACE AND THE PUBLIC LOOK FOR IN A PLAY

            If you want an appreciate hearer who will wait for the curtain and remain in his seat until the player calls out.  

1.     Give us your applause (best)

2.     You must note the behavour of people of different ages and also give the right mind of manners to the characters.

3.     You will not bring on to the stage anything that ought properly to be taking behind the scenes.

4.     If you want your play to be called for and given a second performance. It should not be shorter or longer than five acts.

5.     The chorus should sustain the role and functions of an actor and should not sing anything between the acts that does not contribute to the plot and fit appropriately into it.

6.     Duos ex machine should be introduced unless some entanglement develops which requires such a person to unravel it.

7.     Diction: Language of characters. Horace noted that writers should differentiate their characters very well. Example could be a village person or character should be different from city character in terms of language or diction.

HORACE DUTIES TO THE POET

1.     Horace said he will teach writers their duties and their obligations as writers

2.     He said he will tell them where to find their resources and how to nourish and mound their poetic gift.

3.     He will tell them where their right course and wrong course will led them to.

4.     The foundation and fountainhead of a good composition is a sound understanding.

5.     Poets aim at giving profit or delight to the audience.

6.     Horace finally pointed another point where he likens a poem to a painting. When he said the closer you look at it the more you get impressed by it. This applies to all dramatic work.

Looking at a poem from the mediocre point of view. Horace said that a poem that is not well written is like a sour meal presented before a family or the audience as the case may be. This is applicable to other theatrical works. Horace also agrees with Longinus point of view, when he said: if a writer writes a play or poem he or she should not rush to publish it rather he should keep it for at least nine years. He made one important point that if this work go out or is published, you cannot withdraw it from circulation if there is a mistake found in it, but it will be easier to correct if the work is properly scrutinized.

      There is this question asked by Horace whether a fine poem is a product of nature or of art. But he agrees that he can see the value of it application without a strong natural skill or ability. So it is true that both nature and art requires the help of each other

If you are going to write poetry see to it that you are never put upon by people with the hidden cunning of the fox. And if after two or three attempts of writing a poem, you could not do any better thing, you should get rid of the passage.

Horace made us to understand that we should not defend a weakness rather correct it in order for the person to put more efforts in whatever he is writing. He also said: an honest and sensible man will condemn any lines that are lifeless and will run his pen through anything that are inelegant and will force you to clarify anything that is difficult to understand or draw attention to ambiguities i.e. word that can be understood in more than one way.

Finally, Horace said: to save a man who does not want to be saved is as good as murdering him. Meaning if you teach a man and he refused to learn, leave him to his fate.

By:

Eguriase S. M. Okaka