in 1539, or according to some authorities in 1545. He served as a sailor in
a coasting vessel, and afterwards joined Sir John Hawkins in his last
expedition against the Spaniards (1567), losing nearly all he possessed in
that unfortunate enterprise. Having gathered a number of adventurers round
him, he contrived to fit out a vessel in which he made two successful
cruises to the West Indies in 1570 and 1571. Next year, with two small
ships, he again sailed for the Spanish Main, captured the cities of Nombre
de Dios and Vera Cruz, and took a rich booty which he brought safely home.
In 1577 Drake made another expedition to the Spanish Main, having this time
command of five ships. On this the most famous of his voyages Drake passed
the Straits of Magellan, plundered all along the coasts of Chile and Peru,
sacked several ports, and captured a galleon laden with silver, gold, and
jewels, to the value of perhaps L200,000. He then ran north as far as 48deg
N. lat., seeking a passage to the Atlantic, but was compelled to return to
Port San Francisco on account of the cold. He then steered for the
Moluccas, and holding straight across the Indian Ocean doubled the Cape of
Good Hope, and arrived at Plymouth 3rd Nov., 1580, being thus the first of
the English circumnavigators. As there was no war between England and
Spain, the proceedings of Drake had a somewhat dubious character, but the
queen maintained that they were lawful reprisals for the action of the
Spaniards, and showed her favour to Drake by knighting him on board his own
ship. Five years afterwards Drake was again attacking the Spaniards in the
Cape Verde Islands and in the West Indies, and in 1588 particularly
distinguished himself as vice-admiral in the conflict with the Spanish
Armada. In 1593 he represented Plymouth in Parliament. His later
expeditions, that in 1595 against the Spanish West Indies and that to
Panama, were not so successful, and his death, which took place on 28th
Jan., 1596, at sea off Porto Bello, was hastened by
disappointment.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sir J. S. Corbett, _Sir Francis Drake_
(English Men of Action Series), and _Drake and the Tudor Navy_.
DRAKENBERG MOUNTAINS, a range of South Africa forming the western frontier
of Natal, and rising to the height of 11,000 feet, a continuation of the
Quathlamba range.
DRAMA (Gr. _drama_, action, from _dr[=a]n_, to act or do), a form of art
which imitates action by introducing real persons to represent the
fictitious characters, and to carry on the story by means of action and
dialogue.
Man is naturally an imitative animal, and some crude form of drama must
have been in existence in very early times. We can see the origins of drama
in many of the games played by children, where important events such as
war, marriage, and sacrifice are represented in song and dance. In Greece,
the cradle of drama as of everything that is good, there must have been in
prehistoric times war-dances which formed the basis of tragedy, and rough
vintage revel dances which formed the basis of comedy.
_Greek Drama._--The Greek drama was religious in its origin. It arose from
the dithyrambs or songs composed in honour of Dionysus, the god of all
vegetation, though identified most closely with the vine. When vegetation
died in winter, this was considered to be the death of Dionysus; when it
bloomed anew in the spring, this was thought to be the god's resurrection.
The one event was celebrated with gloomy song and dance, and the other with
merry revels and crude indecency. The history of Greek drama is the history
of the decline and fall of the chorus. At first the chorus was the whole
play, and in the _Supplices_ of Aeschylus, the earliest extant tragedy, the
chorus played a predominating part. According to tradition, Thespis (about
535 B.C.) introduced for the first time a masked actor, who carried on a
dialogue with the leader of the chorus. Aeschylus introduced a second
actor, and Sophocles a third. It is thought that there never were more than
three actors, but, of course, duplication of parts was permitted. There
were also frequently mute characters (_k[=o]pha pros[=o]pa_) on the stage.
Dialogue became more important in the later plays of Aeschylus, and chorus
became less important; Sophocles developed his dialogue in masterly style,
though his choruses are among the most beautiful things in all Greek
poetry; in Euripides the choruses, however lovely in themselves, are less
an integral part of the drama than they were in the plays of his
predecessors. In fact the chorus acted as a clog on the freedom of the
dramatist, who wished to develop exciting situations and depict realistic
characters. In comedy the same decline of the chorus is to be found; in the
_Acharnians_, the earliest comedy, the chorus is very prominent; in the
_Plutus_, the last comedy extant, it is comparatively unimportant.
Sumptuary laws had something to do with this, and there is a vast
difference between the magnificently apparelled chorus in the _Birds_, and
the chorus in the _Lysistrata_, which represented elderly Athenian men and
women in their everyday costume.
Greek tragedies were usually presented in the form of trilogies, that is,
in sets of three plays all dealing with the same subject. To these was
added, as a rule, a fourth play, known as a satyr-play. The _Cyclops_ of
Euripides is the only example extant of this kind of play. It is not very
amusing, though it contains a certain amount of horse-play and high
spirits. The satyr-play was intended to lighten the gloom of the three
preceding tragedies. We have one complete trilogy preserved--the
magnificent _Oresteia_ of Aeschylus, consisting of the _Agamemnon_,
_Choephoroe_, and _Eumenides_--plays which are bracketed with _Lear_ and
_Othello_ as the highest and most majestic of all tragedies. In later times
the three plays of the trilogy dealt with different subjects. The tragedies
to be performed were carefully selected by some of the Athenian
magistrates, and at the festival prizes were given for the best tragedy, on
the recommendation of a carefully chosen jury. Comedies were presented one
at a time; prizes were offered for the best of them also. Greek tragic
actors wore long flowing robes, and added to their height by means of the
_cothurnus_ or thick-soled boot; it is believed that they wore masks with
some sort of speaking-trumpet in the mouth, so that their words would be
audible to the vast audience which assembled in the theatre, a huge
circular open-air amphitheatre.
Each of the three Greek tragic writers whose work has been preserved is
supreme in his own way. Aeschylus's lyric dramas are among the greatest
writings of all time; the plays of Sophocles are masterpieces of deft
construction, of well-woven plot, and ironic dialogue; and his choruses are
lyrics of the greatest beauty. Aeschylus is more titanic; Sophocles is more
humane. Euripides, the latest of the three, is a great poet and a champion
of the weak, such as women and slaves; moreover, he sees deeply into men's
hearts. He is really the founder of romantic drama, through the Roman
Seneca, who imitated him. Of Greek comic poets we only possess one, but he
is a host in himself. Aristophanes is a Gargantuan mirth-maker; he
bestrides the narrow world like a Colossus. He plays with a master's hand
upon every note in the whole comic gamut. His works, owing to the
conditions of the old comedy, were very frequently political and highly
personal in their tone. The later plays are less so. The _Birds_, _Clouds_,
and _Frogs_ are among the very greatest comic creations; only a little less
great is the _Lysistrata_, where a serious purpose is veiled by intense
indecency. The old comedy, however, was essentially the product of its own
age; it did not invite, or even permit, imitation. The new comedy, of which
Philemon, Menander, and Diphilus were the principal writers, gradually
supplanted it. Their plays were more or less romantic comedies with
carefully constructed plots. They are all lost, but we may gain some idea
of them from Plautus and Terence, and from the fragments which have been
found, some of them fairly recently.
[Illustration: A type of mask worn by the characters in a Roman play after
Terence's time. The audience knew from the mask the particular character
the actor represented.]
_Roman Drama._--Roman drama is not intrinsically good; it is in many
respects a weak imitation of Greek drama, but it has been very much more
important in its influence. Early English, French, and Italian dramatists
all turned to Seneca as a model for tragedy, and to Plautus and Terence as
models for comedy. This was partly due to the fact that though most of them
had small Latin, they had less Greek; but it was partly because the Latin
writers were easier to imitate. Italy had native farces, known as Atellan
Fables, which were not without their influence on the development of
comedy. These plays were broadly farcical, and dealt almost entirely with
country life. The two great Roman comedy writers, Plautus and Terence,
based their work, however, upon the new comedy of Greece, especially upon
the plays of Menander and Diphilus. Plautus is decidedly coarse at times,
and sometimes his fun is too much like that of a fourth-form boy at a
public school, but his work is wholesome and vigorous, and he is a more
creative and virile writer than Terence. Terence's plays are somewhat weak
dramatically, but are written in a style of great beauty. He was a careful
literary craftsman. Seneca, the only Roman tragic writer, had an immense
influence on later dramatists. It is hard to account for this. He based his
work upon Euripides, but he suppressed everything that makes Euripides
tender and human. Senecan tragedy abounded in bloodshed and horrors; the
speeches are full of pompous rant, and their metre is most monotonous. Some
of the choruses are good rhetorical writing, though scarcely great poetry.
Seneca's influence pervades all our early tragedy; it is clearly seen in
_Gorboduc_ and in Jonson's _Sejanus_ and _Catiline_; even Shakespeare is
not without traces of it. As the Roman Empire declined so did the Roman
stage; finally nothing was performed save pantomime, in the proper sense of
the word, where everything was done in dumb-show. This appeared to content
the populace of the Roman Empire, even as the cinema seems to satisfy the
citizens of a later and perhaps greater empire.
_Mediaeval Drama._--There is no drama between the death of Seneca and the
Renaissance, unless we except the six curious 'comedies' of the nun
Hrosvitha of Gandersheim (born about A.D. 935). These plays are based upon
Terence, though they do not follow their model closely. They are, of
course, written in Latin. They have some vivid dramatic touches, and
frequent felicities of expression. They were probably intended for
recitation, not for representation on the stage. They must be regarded as
an isolated phenomenon. The Church for long discouraged drama, but ended by
adapting it to its own purposes. As in Greece, therefore, drama originated
in England from religion. The priests impressed certain events in sacred
history upon the minds of their congregation by means of dramatic
performances which at first took place actually in the church. Thus the
removal of the stone from the mouth of the sepulchre and the discovery of
the empty tomb was performed at Easter, and the finding of the Babe in the
manger by the three Magi was represented at Epiphany. It is easy to
understand how performances of this sort arose from the singing of suitable
anthems on festival days. The Oberammergau passion-play is a somewhat
sophisticated representative of these liturgical plays; it cannot be called
a survival, as it only dates back to 1633. These mystery-plays, so called
because they were produced by the trade-guilds (Lat. _ministerium_, a
trade), were eventually brought out into the market-place on wagons, and
were moved round to various 'stations' in the town, different plays being
performed at each station. A distinction is sometimes made between mystery-
and miracle-plays, the former being defined as dealing with gospel events
only, while the latter deal with incidents derived from the legends of the
saints. Several collections of these plays survive--the Wakefield, Chester,
and Coventry plays. They are written in a lively fashion, and are often
naively humorous, the most sacred Bible characters being introduced along
with English yokels and crudely comic persons. The next development of the
drama was the morality play or allegory; the well-known _Everyman_ is the
most finished specimen of this kind of play which we possess. Here
personifications of Virtues and Vices formed the dramatis personae; the
Devil was usually included in the cast. Moralities were in ways less crude
than mysteries, as they consisted of an allegory worked out by means of a
more or less continuous plot, while mysteries consisted merely of a series
of isolated scenes. The interlude is another early species of drama; it
marks a still further advance. Interludes were both farcical and
theological in their subjects, and played an important part in the
controversies at the time of the Reformation. John Heywood (1497-1580) is
the most important writer of interludes, the controversial plays of John
Bale (1495-1563) serving to link the interlude to the regular drama, which
began gradually to spring up.
[Illustration: Elizabethan Drama
Interior of the Swan Theatre in 1596. From a sketch made by a Dutchman who
visited England at the time.]
_Elizabethan Drama._--The first English comedy, _Ralph Roister Doister_,
appeared in 1551. It is by Nicolas Udall, and is based upon the _Miles
Gloriosus_ of Plautus. _Gammer Gurton's Needle_, a more native production,
thought to have been by John Still, who was master of St. John's College,
Cambridge, and Bishop of Bath and Wells, appeared about 1566. Drama now
improved rapidly, and was soon to attain perfection in Shakespeare.
Marlowe, Kyd, Greene, Lyly, Nash, Lodge, and Peele all helped to prepare
the way. The greatest of these is Marlowe, who died at the age of
twenty-nine, leaving behind him the great plays _Tamburlaine_ (1588),
_Faustus_, and _Edward II_. In his development of blank verse he
contributed greatly to the success of the drama. The earliest tragedy,
_Gorboduc_ (1562), is incredibly stiff and wooden in its versification.
Marlowe made of blank verse an instrument that would sound any note of
pathos or sublimity. In the plays of Shakespeare (1564-1616) drama reached
its greatest height. In comedy, tragedy, history, in handling dramatic
situations, and in liquid perfection of verse, he is supreme. Like the very
greatest masters, he founded no school, and his contemporaries owe little
to him. While they are all put in the shade by his myriad-minded genius,
they are all partakers with him in the glory of their age, and are all
great in themselves. Jonson (1573-1637) is one of the most important, as he
to some extent founded a school and exercised considerable influence over
later writers. He was a scholarly and laborious playwright, who
over-elaborated some of his work, but who was a masterly adept at
constructing a play, and a vigorous realist. Chapman (1559-1634), Dekker
(1570-1641), and Marston (1575-1634) were all good workmanlike dramatists.
Beaumont and Fletcher produced between them a great body of work, some of
inferior quality, but all of great power. In some respects their work is
less unlike that of Shakespeare than the work of other Elizabethans.
Middleton, Webster, Tourneur, Thomas Heywood, and Massinger are all
excellent in their way, Massinger in particular being a master of
stage-craft. Shirley and Ford conclude the list of the great Jacobean
dramatists. The Puritans caused the theatres to be closed in 1642.
_Spanish and French Drama._--Meanwhile a similar outburst of dramatic
activity was taking place on the Continent. In Spain, Lope de Vega
(1562-1634) wrote a prodigious quantity of plays, and wrote them with much
brilliance. Calderon wrote some beautiful plays, several of which have been
translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Cervantes, though much better known as a
novelist, wrote many good plays. The Spanish school directly inspired
Corneille (1606-1684) to write his play _Le Cid_, and so begin the great
age of classical French tragedy. Racine (1639-1700) is the other great
name. French classical drama, though somewhat fettered by its observance of
laws that were wrongly considered essential, is extremely dignified and
beautiful. In Moli[`e]re (1622-73) France possesses the greatest of all
writers of society comedies. He is as supreme in his kingdom as Shakespeare
is in his empire. He borrowed from his predecessors with all the licence of
genius, but he payed usurious interest on his borrowings.
_Restoration Drama._--When the theatres were reopened after the
Restoration, many dramatists began to write. Restoration comedy was largely
based on Moli[`e]re, who was brutalized by Wycherley, and adapted but not
improved by Congreve. Congreve was, however, a master of sparkling
dialogue, and in one play, _The Way of the World_, he has shown himself not
unworthy of comparison with his master. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are the other
two important writers of comedies; all their comedies are more or less
disfigured by cynicism and immorality, the reaction after the Puritan
restraint. Restoration tragedy is much less important than Restoration
comedy. Otway, Lee, and Southerne are its chief exponents.
_Eighteenth Century Drama._--Some of these dramatists bring us into the
eighteenth century, which was not on the whole prolific in good plays.
Fielding wrote many amusing farces, but all were more or less hack-work. At
a later period Foote, Cumberland, and the two Colmans wrote good acting
plays, which have not lived. The two plays of Goldsmith and several of the
plays of Sheridan still hold the stage. Sheridan owed much to the
Restoration dramatists, especially Vanbrugh, but as he improved his
originals in many respects, and made them much more presentable in decent
society, he is entitled to most of the reputation he long enjoyed.
In France, Marivaux (1678-1763) wrote sentimental comedies, while
Beaumarchais, whose own life was more exciting and varied than most plays,
wrote comedies with brilliant plots. In Italy, Maffei, Goldoni, and Alfieri
are notable dramatists; the last named wrote propaganda in the disguise of
tragedy. In Germany, Lessing by precept and example inaugurated the
'romantic movement'; Schiller and Goethe are the two greatest names
associated with the stage. _Wallenstein_ in particular is a good
chronicle-play, while _Faust_ is considered one of the greatest of all
German plays.
_Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Drama._--Victor Hugo led the Romantic
movement in France, and wrote many great plays, such as _Hernani_ and _Ruy
Blas_. De Musset wrote his plays, which he called _proverbes_, under the
same influence, and later followers of this school are Rostand and the
Belgian M. Maurice Maeterlinck. The French dramatists Augier, Scribe, and
Sardou had an overwhelming influence on the English stage, not altogether
for its good. English drama was at a low ebb in the middle of the
nineteenth century. Lytton's plays, though sometimes performed still, are
extremely theatrical. Boucicault, who made a great success by dramatizing
'the pathos of Paddy', is not a great writer. H. J. Byron was an inveterate
punster and writer of burlesques of no value. One of his plays, _Our Boys_,
was acted for many years. Robertson is the most outstanding author of what
is known as 'the cup and saucer' school of comedy. His plays are very much
acting plays; they are not literature, and are quite removed from real
life. Gilbert was a man of great gifts, but though some of his farces and
comedies are good, he was not a master of drama as he was of _libretti_
writing. He did little to improve the drama of his day. Sir A. W. Pinero
began his career as a dramatist under the aegis of Robertson, but continued
it under that of Ibsen. Ibsen (1828-1906) exercised a not altogether
wholesome influence upon English drama for a considerable time. His plays
are extremely well-constructed, and he refused to tolerate many
conventions, such as asides and soliloquies. In many of his plays he
adopted the retrospective method, where the plot consists not so much in
anything being done as in the gradual discovery of what has been done long
before the rise of the curtain. Sophocles had done this most skilfully in
_Oedipus Tyrannus_, but Ibsen carried the method to perfection in _The Wild
Duck_ and _Rosmersholm_. All Ibsen's plays are more or less unpleasant, and
he did not make many of his characters sympathetic. Pinero, after writing
several farces, wrote _The Second Mrs. Tanqueray_ (1893), a masterpiece
after the style of Ibsen. _His House in Order_ is a cleverly constructed
example of the retrospective method. H. A. Jones (born 1851) has written
many excellent and extremely powerful plays, of which the best known are
_The Liars_ and _The Case of Rebellious Susan_. G. Bernard Shaw (born
1856), who combines some of the qualities of a Greek sophist with some of
the foibles of a modern Irishman, has written some amusing plays, though
others have been spoilt by his tendency to turn them into propaganda.
Galsworthy has written plays of great earnestness; in some he has neglected
the Aristotelian maxim that every play must have a beginning, a middle, and
an end. Sir James Barrie has accumulated a large fortune by means of his
plays, and in one at least, _Peter Pan_, he has made a bid for immortality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--S. H. Butcher, _Aristotle's_ _Theory of Poetry and Fine
Art_; A. E. Haigh, _The Attic Theatre_; E. K. Chambers, _The Mediaeval
Stage_; A. W. Pollard, _English Miracle Plays_; F. S. Boas, _Shakespeare
and his Predecessors_; A. C. Bradley, _Shakespearean Tragedy_; Sir W.
Raleigh, _Shakespeare_ (English Men of Letters Series); Sir A. W. Ward,
_History of English Dramatic Literature_; K. Mantzius, _History of
Theatrical Art_; A. S. Rappoport, _The English Drama_ (Temple Primers);
T. H. Dickinson, _The Contemporary Drama of England_; F. Bruneti[`e]re,
_Les ['E]poques du th['e][^a]tre francais 1636-1850_; A. Filon, _The Modern
French Drama_; A. d'Ancona, _Origini del teatro italiano_; G. H. Lewes,
_The Spanish Drama_.
DRAMMEN, or DRAM, a seaport of Norway, in a valley on both sides of the
Drammen, at its mouth in the Drammenfiord, 25 miles S.S.W. of Christiania.
It has manufactures of leather, soap, ropes, sail-cloth, earthenware, and
tobacco; and is the second port in the kingdom for the export of timber.
DRAPER, John William, American chemist and physiologist, born at Liverpool
1811, died 1882. He went to America in 1833, and was successively professor
of physical science in Hampden-Sidney College, Virginia, and of natural
history, chemistry, and physiology in the University of New York. He made
many contributions to scientific literature, and devoted much attention to
the chemical action of light, in connection with which he effected some
discoveries. Among his chief works is his _History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe_ (2 vols., 1863). His son, Henry Draper (born 1837,
died 1882), chemist and astronomer, made some valuable researches on the
spectra of the heavenly bodies.
DRAUGHTS, a game resembling chess played on a board divided into sixty-four
checkered squares. Each of the two players is provided with twelve pieces
or 'men' placed on every alternate square at each end of the board. The men
are moved forward diagonally to the right or left one square at a time, the
object of each player being to capture all his opponent's men, or to hem
them in so that they cannot move. A piece can be captured only when the
square on the diagonal line behind it is unoccupied. When a player succeeds
in moving a piece to the farther end of the board (the crown-head), that
piece becomes a king, and has the power of moving or capturing diagonally
backwards or forwards. When it so happens that neither of the players has
sufficient advantage in force or position to enable him to win, the game is
drawn. _Checkers_ is the common American name of the game.