Foundations & Overviews

Poetics

Aristotle

The first systematic analysis of drama: plot above character, the unity of action, and catharsis as the point of watching people suffer.

Assumes having read at least one Greek tragedy, ideally Oedipus, since it is the worked example throughout

The Mediaeval Stage

E. K. Chambers

Traces English drama's descent from church liturgy, folk ritual and mumming into secular stagecraft, arguing that professional theatre grew out of communal ceremony rather than literary invention.