Understanding an extract from a play

Abstract

The third option on many practical crrticism papers, alongside writing about a poem or passage of prose, is writing about an extract from a play. This is what we are going to deal with in the final three chapters of this book. Weare devoting less space to drama than to poetry or prose simply because nearly everything we have said so far also applies to drama: it is essential to get hold of the extract as a whole, it is essential to focus on details in order to build your case, and it is essential to present your case in the form of a coherent essay. II: therefore, we don’t, in these three chapters, spell out every step of how to construct a response, try to see how principles established earlier are just as important here.