Name: Mala Sharma
Country: India

Year: 2023
Volume: Volume-8, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 5-11

MOST modern verse plays are plays with a serious purpose. Even when the form of comedy has been adopted by the poets, it is often as a mere concession to the tastes of modern audiences who do not seem to feel at case in witnessing scenes of tragic intensity; moreover, these comedies have always had a serious message. But verse, besides its capacity to meet its objective to help us to comprehend and appreciate the profound and the imponderable, has also a lesser function, which is to add point to wit in an epigrammatic statement by its form, to create a tone of light-heartedness by its blithesome jingling rhyme, and to lead us to discard our disbelief at the out-of-the-way, the fantastic, the macabre or the grotesque by its rhythm. And when it comes of a talented versifier, this light verse can be very effective in plays whose main purpose is to provide amusement and entertainment. Such plays are more appreciated by a larger audience as compared to the serious plays because they are neither portentous nor pretentious, and do not make the audience feel uncomfortable by posing disconcerting problems of conduct. Indeed, it might be said that a certain kind of play, witty, light-hearted and meant merely to amuse, gains by being written in verse. Nor can it be a matter for surprise that such plays are commonly written by Irish writers, for these qualities have always distinguished the work of Irish dramatists throughout the history of English drama. One of the ablest writers of plays of this genre is Donagh MacDonagh, the Irish poet.
Keywords : Comic, Verse Drama, Genesis, Plot, Humour, Amusement, Delight, Dialogue, Poetry