Abstract
The interrelatedness of drama and poetry introduces one of the most exceptionally robust examples of trans-genre literature. It is further characterized by a deep-rooted tradition that dates back to ancient Greek and Roman drama, as well as a sense of circumstantial and ad hoc necessity-driven, age-oriented adaptability. The present paper assumes that this well-established sensitive relation of poetry and drama rests upon some circumstantial time-specific cultural forces or motivators that impact the ebb and flow, the expansion-contraction movements which are directly related to the temporal necessities and requirements of the textual and contextual poetic discourse. To this end, and to verify the accuracy of these assumptions, the paper limits itself to some representative examples from the oeuvres of two representative poets of the dramatic poetic tradition in modern American and Arabic poetry, namely Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) and Yousif al-Sayegh (1933-2006).
Highlights
The interrelatedness of drama and poetry presents an exceptionally robust example of trans-genre literature. It is further characterized by a deep-rooted tradition that dates back to ancient Greek and Roman drama, as well as a sense of circumstantial and ad hoc necessity-driven, age-oriented adaptability
This relation of drama and poetry, traditional and historical, is modernist and responsive to the requirements of the immediate era. This is evident in a series of turning points and landmarks witnessed by dramatic poetry in its very long journey as it has developed since the times of ancient amphitheaters in Greece and Rome, through the English medieval miracle and morality plays; Chaucer‘s dramatic narrative poems; the Elizabethan golden age of poetic drama; Dryden‘s neo-classical revival of the Roman version of poetic tragedies; Robert Browning‘s epoch-making dramatic monologue of the Victorian Age; to the serious modernist experimentations on dramatizing poetic forms, subjects and techniques at the hands of Eliot and others
There is a common misconception in the interchangeable use of ―dramatic poetry‖ and ―poetic drama‖: each is clearly distinct and independent of the other, as shown in the main noun and the modifier that precedes it
Summary
The interrelatedness of drama and poetry presents an exceptionally robust example of trans-genre literature. Koch employs dramatic elements in his poems to defy this common trend of personal confessional and autobiographical lyricism, and resorts to some sense of objectivity in dealing with his poetic subjects He is largely concerned with the process of creative writing per se, and this makes most of his poems meta-poetic and self-reflexive, and in this regard, he expresses his views on the functionality of elements of drama in the context of poetry. Though the occasion of the poem is lyrical — the lament over the death of the late poet, though it is narrated from a personal viewpoint, and though it heavily relies on real incidents, what makes it an outstanding dramatic poem is the way Koch combines all elements to make the poem a piece of drama, with a naturally flowing dialogue, with literary and cultural allusions typical of the intelligentsia, such as the references to James Joyce and his Finnegans Wake and to the cartoonist Walt Kelly and his Pogo. The poet follows the boy‘s future years, touching upon a very sensitive psychological issue, which is the impact of such harmful and shameful acts on the life of the child who has managed to make a future, yet still feels wounded in his pride because of his mother‘sfooling around‘: Later the mother‘s breasts popped open
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