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Q-1///A Brief History of Drama
The time period from about 1650 to 1920 was ever changing in the world of drama. Neoclassicism sprung up from Greek and Roman models in Europe during the Enlightenment,
Romanticism struck the Globe in the 1800's based on principles like emotion, intuition and
seeking God. During and after the 1800's naturalism and realism began to play major roles in the
area of drama. Naturalists such as August Strindberg and realists such as Henrik Ibsen
demonstrate an entirely different view of what drama is all about.
During the time period known universally as the Enlightenment, an artistic movement came about
in Europe that reflected in many ways the Greek and Roman tradition. Ancient Greeks and
Romans focused their art on harmony, symmetry, and balance, while keeping an equal emphasis
on logic and aesthetic. During the enlightenment there was a major importance placed upon
science, reason and thought. These human, but multifaceted functions are displayed in many neoclassicism plays. Plays such as Racine's Phaedra clearly demonstrate the notion of common sense
and the idea that if you have a problem or cause a problem you will be punished. This play is very
typical of the neo-classics because it is based on the ancient Greek play Hippolyths written by
Euripidies in ancient Greece. Hippolyths is very closely related to its modern version Phaedra. All
neo-classic era plays were in some way based on the French Academy's rules for drama which
involved a concrete moral, no monologues and truth along with few other qualifications. Most
plays that possess some or all of these qualities are from the neo-classicism era. After the 1700's a
new way of thinking developed that didn't involve as much truth or structure. Free flowing
emotionally based romanticism paved the way for drama in the 19th..
The history of theatre charts the development of theatre over the past 2,500 years. While performative
elements are present in every society, it is customary to acknowledge a distinction between theatre as
an art form and entertainment and theatrical or performative elements in other activities. The history of
theatre is primarily concerned with the origin and subsequent development of the theatre as an
autonomous activity. Since classical Athensin the 6th century BCE, vibrant traditions of theatre have
flourished in cultures across the world.[1
Origins
Theatre probably arose as a performance of ritual activities that did not
require initiation on the part of the spectator. This similarity of early
theatre to ritual is negatively attested by Aristotle, who in
his Poetics defined theatre in contrast to the performances of sacred
mysteries: theatre did not require the spectator to fast, drink the kykeon,
or march in a procession; however theatre did resemble the sacred
mysteries in the sense that it brought purification and healing to the
spectator by means of a vision, the theama. The physical location of
such performances was accordingly named theatron.[2]
According to the historians Oscar Brockett and Franklin Hildy, rituals
typically include elements that entertain or give pleasure, such
ascostumes and masks as well as skilled performers. As societies grew
more complex, these spectacular elements began to be acted out under
non-ritualistic conditions. As this occurred, the first steps towards
theatre as an autonomous activity were being taken.[3]
[edit]
Greek theatre
The best-preserved example of a classical Greek theatre, the Theatre of Epidaurus, has a circular orchêstra and probably
gives the best idea of the original shape of the Athenian theatre, though it dates from the 4th century BCE. [4]
Main articles: Theatre of Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek comedy,
andSatyr play
Greek theatre, most developed in Athens, is the root of the Western
tradition;theatre is in origin a Greek word. It was part of a
broader culture of theatricality and performance in classical Greece that
included festivals,religious rituals, politics, law, athletics and
gymnastics, music, poetry, weddings, funerals,
and symposia.[5] Participation in the city-state's many festivals—and
attendance at the City Dionysia as an audience member (or even as a
participant in the theatrical productions) in particular—was an important
part of citizenship.[6] Civic participation also involved the evaluation of
the rhetoric of orators evidenced in performances in the lawcourt or political assembly, both of which were understood as analogous
to the theatre and increasingly came to absorb its dramatic
vocabulary.[7] The theatre of ancient Greece consisted of three types
of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play.[8]
Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type
of dance-drama that formed an important part of the theatrical culture of
the city-state.[9] Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE,
it flowered during the 5th century BCE (from the end of which it began to
spread throughout the Greek world) and continued to be popular until
the beginning of the Hellenistic period.[10] No tragedies from the 6th
century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in
during the 5th century have survived.[11] We have complete
texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.[12] The origins of
tragedy remain obscure, though by the 5th century it
wasinstitutionalised in competitions (agon) held as part of festivities
celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility).[13] As contestants in
the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to
stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogyof plays
(though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or
theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr
play.[14] The performance of tragedies at the City Dionysia may have
begun as early as 534 BCE; official records (didaskaliai) begin from 501
BCE, when the satyr play was introduced.[15] Most Athenian tragedies
dramatise events from Greek mythology, thoughThe Persians—which
stages the Persian response to news of their military defeat at the Battle
of Salamis in 480 BCE—is the notable exception in the surviving
drama.[16] When Aeschylus won first prize for it at the City Dionysia in
472 BCE, he had been writing tragedies for more than 25 years, yet its
tragic treatment of recent history is the earliest example of drama to
survive.[17] More than 130 years later, the philosopher Aristotle analysed
5th-century Athenian tragedy in the oldest surviving work of dramatic
theory—his Poetics(c. 335 BCE). Athenian comedy is conventionally
divided into three periods, "Old Comedy", "Middle Comedy", and "New
Comedy". Old Comedy survives today largely in the form of the eleven
surviving plays of Aristophanes, while Middle Comedy is largely lost
(preserved only in relatively short fragments in authors such
as Athenaeus of Naucratis). New Comedy is known primarily from the
substantial papyrus fragments of plays by Menander. Aristotle defined
comedy as a representation of laughable people that involves some
kind of error or ugliness that does not cause pain or destruction.[18]
[edit]Roman
theatre
Roman theatre at Orange, France
Main article: Theatre of ancient Rome
Western theatre developed and expanded considerably under
the Romans. The Roman historian Livy wrote that the Romans first
experienced theatre in the 4th century BCE, with a performance
by Etruscan actors.[19] Beacham argues that Romans had been familiar
with "pre-theatrical practices" for some time before that recorded
contact.[20] The theatre of ancient Rome was a thriving and diverse art
form, ranging from festival performances of street theatre, nude
dancing, and acrobatics, to the staging of Plautus's broadly appealing
situation comedies, to the high-style, verbally
elaborate tragedies ofSeneca. Although Rome had a native tradition of
performance, theHellenization of Roman culture in the 3rd century BCE
had a profound and energizing effect on Roman theatre and
encouraged the development of Latin literature of the highest quality for
the stage.
Following the expansion of the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE) into
several Greek territories between 270–240 BCE, Rome
encountered Greek drama.[21]From the later years of the republic and by
means of the Roman Empire (27 BCE-476 CE), theatre spread west
across Europe, around the Mediterranean and reached England;
Roman theatre was more varied, extensive and sophisticated than that
of any culture before it.[22] While Greek drama continued to be
performed throughout the Roman period, the year 240 BCE marks the
beginning of regular Roman drama.[23] From the beginning of the
empire, however, interest in full-length drama declined in favour of a
broader variety of theatrical entertainments.[24]
The first important works of Roman literature were
the tragedies and comedies that Livius Andronicus wrote from 240
BCE.[25] Five years later, Gnaeus Naevius also began to write
drama.[25] No plays from either writer have survived. While both
dramatists composed in both genres, Andronicus was most appreciated
for his tragedies and Naevius for his comedies; their successors tended
to specialise in one or the other, which led to a separation of the
subsequent development of each type of drama.[25] By the beginning of
the 2nd century BCE, drama was firmly established in Rome and
a guild of writers (collegium poetarum) had been formed.[26]
The Roman comedies that have survived are all fabula
palliata (comedies based on Greek subjects) and come from two
dramatists:Titus Maccius Plautus (Plautus) and Publius Terentius
Afer (Terence).[27] In re-working the Greek originals, the Roman comic
dramatists abolished the role of the chorus in dividing the drama
into episodes and introduced musical accompaniment to
its dialogue(between one-third of the dialogue in the comedies of
Plautus and two-thirds in those of Terence).[28] The action of all scenes
is set in the exterior location of a street and its complications often
follow from eavesdropping.[28] Plautus, the more popular of the two,
wrote between 205 and 184 BCE and twenty of his comedies survive, of
which his farces are best known; he was admired for the wit of his
dialogue and his use of a variety of poetic meters.[29] All of the six
comedies that Terence wrote between 166 and 160 BCE have survived;
the complexity of his plots, in which he often combined several Greek
originals, was sometimes denounced, but his double-plots enabled a
sophisticated presentation of contrasting human behaviour.[29]
No early Roman tragedy survives, though it was highly regarded in its
day; historians know of three early tragedians—Quintus Ennius,Marcus
Pacuvius and Lucius Accius.[28] From the time of the empire, the work of
two tragedians survives—one is an unknown author, while the other is
the Stoic philosopher Seneca.[30] Nine of Seneca's tragedies survive, all
of which are fabula crepidata (tragedies adapted from Greek originals);
his Phaedra, for example, was based
on Euripides' Hippolytus.[31] Historians do not know who wrote the
only extant example of the fabula praetexta (tragedies based on Roman
subjects), Octavia, but in former times it was mistakenly attributed to
Seneca due to his appearance as a character in the tragedy.[30]
[edit]Transition
and early Medieval theatre, 500–1050
Main article: Medieval theatre
As the Western Roman Empire fell into decay through the 4th and 5th
centuries, the seat of Roman power shifted to Constantinopleand
the Eastern Roman Empire, today called the Byzantine Empire. While
surviving evidence about Byzantine theatre is slight, existing records
show that mime, pantomime, scenes or recitations
from tragedies and comedies, dances, and other entertainments were
very popular. Constantinople had two theatres that were in use as late
as the 5th century CE[32] However, the true importance of the
Byzantines in theatrical history is their preservation of many classical
Greek texts and the compilation of a massive encyclopedia called
the Suda, from which is derived a large amount of contemporary
information on Greek theatre.
From the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of
general disorder that lasted (with a brief period of stability under
theCarolingian Empire in the 9th century) until the 10th century. As
such, most organized theatrical activities disappeared in Western
Europe. While it seems that small nomadic bands traveled around
Europe throughout the period, performing wherever they could find an
audience, there is no evidence that they produced anything but crude
scenes.[33] These performers were denounced by the Churchduring
the Dark Ages as they were viewed as dangerous and pagan.
Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, the first dramatist of the post-classical era.
By the Early Middle Ages, churches in Europe began staging
dramatized versions of particular biblical events on specific days of the
year. These dramatizations were included in order to vivify annual
celebrations.[34] Symbolic objects and actions –
vestments, altars, censers, andpantomime performed by priests –
recalled the events which Christian ritual celebrates. These were
extensive sets of visual signs that could be used to communicate with a
largely illiterate audience. These performances developed into liturgical
dramas, the earliest of which is theWhom do you Seek (QuemQuaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. 925.[34] Liturgical drama was
sung responsively by two groups and did not involve actors
impersonating characters. However, sometime between 965 and
975, Æthelwold of Winchester composed the Regularis Concordia
(Monastic Agreement) which contains a playlet complete with directions
for performance.[35]
Hrosvitha (c.935–973), a canoness in northern Germany, wrote six
plays modeled on Terence's comedies but using religious subjects.
These six plays – Abraham, Callimachus, Dulcitius, Gallicanus,
Paphnutius, and Sapientia – are the first known plays composed by a
female dramatist and the first identifiable Western dramatic works of the
post-classical era.[35] They were first published in 1501 and had
considerable influence on religious and didactic plays of the sixteenth
century. Hrosvitha was followed by Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179),
a Benedictine abbess, who wrote a Latin musical drama called Ordo
Virtutum in 1155.
[edit]High
and late Medieval theatre, 1050–1500
Stage drawing from 15th-century vernacular morality playThe Castle of Perseverance.
Main article: Medieval theatre
As the Viking invasions ceased in the middle of the 11th
century, liturgical drama had spread from Russia to Scandinavia to Italy.
Only in Muslim-occupied Spain were liturgical dramas not presented at
all. Despite the large number of liturgical dramas that have survived
from the period, many churches would have only performed one or two
per year and a larger number never performed any at all.[36]
The Feast of Fools was especially important in the development of
comedy. The festival inverted the status of the lesser clergy and allowed
them to ridicule their superiors and the routine of church life. Sometimes
plays were staged as part of the occasion and a certain amount
of burlesque and comedycrept into these performances. Although comic
episodes had to truly wait until the separation of drama from the liturgy,
the Feast of Fools undoubtedly had a profound effect on the
development of comedy in both religious and secular plays.[37]
Performance of religious plays outside of the church began sometime in
the 12th century through a traditionally accepted process of merging
shorter liturgical dramas into longer plays which were then translated
into vernacularand performed by laymen. The Mystery of Adam (1150)
gives credence to this theory as its detailed stage direction suggest that
it was staged outdoors. A number of other plays from the period survive,
including La Seinte Resurrection (Norman), The Play of the Magi
Kings (Spanish), and Sponsus(French).
The importance of the High Middle Ages in the development of theatre
was theeconomic and political changes that led to the formation
of guilds and the growth of towns. This would lead to significant
changes in the Late Middle Ages. In the British Isles, plays were
produced in some 127 different towns during the Middle Ages. These
vernacular Mystery plays were written in cycles of a large number of
plays: York (48 plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and Unknown (42).
A larger number of plays survive from France and Germany in this
period and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly
every European country in the Late Middle Ages. Many of these plays
contained comedy, devils, villains and clowns.[38]
The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local
population. For example, at Valenciennes in 1547, more than 100 roles
were assigned to 72 actors.[39] Plays were staged on pageant
wagon stages, which were platforms mounted on wheels used to move
scenery. Often providing their own costumes, amateur performers in
England were exclusively male, but other countries had female
performers. The platform stage, which was an unidentified space and
not a specific locale, allowed for abrupt changes in location.
Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400 and
flourished until 1550. The most interesting morality play is The Castle of
Perseverance which depicts mankind's progress from birth to death.
However, the most famous morality play and perhaps best known
medieval drama is Everyman. Everyman receives Death's summons,
struggles to escape and finally resigns himself to necessity. Along the
way, he is deserted by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship – only Good
Deeds goes with him to the grave.
There were also a number of secular performances staged in the Middle
Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood byAdam de la
Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such
as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose
dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these
plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form,
emphasizing sex and bodily excretions.[40] The best known playwright of
farces is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In
England, the The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the
best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in
England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–
1580).
A significant forerunner of the development of Elizabethan drama was
the Chambers of Rhetoric in the Low Countries.[41] These societies were
concerned with poetry, music and drama and held contests to see which
society could compose the best drama in relation to a question posed.
At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to appear
in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII both maintained small
companies of professional actors. Their plays were performed in
the Great Hall of a nobleman's residence, often with a raised platform at
one end for the audience and a "screen" at the other for the actors. Also
important were Mummers' plays, performed during
the Christmas season, and court masques. These masques were
especially popular during the reign of Henry VIII who had a House of
Revels built and an Office of Revels established in 1545.[42]
The end of medieval drama came about due to a number of factors,
including the weakening power of the Catholic Church, theProtestant
Reformation and the banning of religious plays in many
countries. Elizabeth I forbid all religious plays in 1558 and the great
cycle plays had been silenced by the 1580s. Similarly, religious plays
were banned in the Netherlands in 1539, the Papal States in 1547 and
in Paris in 1548. The abandonment of these plays destroyed the
international theatre that had thereto existed and forced each country to
develop its own form of drama. It also allowed dramatists to turn to
secular subjects and the reviving interest in Greek andRoman theatre
provided them with the perfect opportunity.[42]
[edit]Commedia
dell'arte
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The greedy, high-status Pantalonecommedia dell'artemasked character.
Main article: Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte troupes performed lively improvisational playlets
across Europe for centuries. It originated in Italy in the
1560s. Commedia dell'arte was an actor-centred theatre, requiring little
scenery and very few props. Plays did not originate from written drama
but from scenarios called lazzi, which were loose frameworks that
provided the situations, complications, and outcome of the action,
around which the actors would improvise. The plays utilised stock
characters, which could be divided into three groups: the lovers, the
masters, and the servants. The lovers had different names and
characteristics in most plays and often were the children of the master.
The role of master was normally based on one of three
stereotypes: Pantalone, an elderly Venetian merchant; Dottore,
Pantalone's friend or rival, a pedantic doctor or lawyer who acted far
more intelligent than he really was; and Capitano, who was once a lover
character, but evolved into a braggart who boasted of his exploits in
love and war, but was often terrifically unskilled in both. He normally
carried a sword and wore a cape and feathered headdress. The servant
character (called zanni) had only one recurring role:Arlecchino (also
called Harlequin). He was both cunning and ignorant, but an
accomplished dancer and acrobat. He typically carried a wooden stick
with a split in the middle so it made a loud noise when striking
something. This "weapon" gave us the term "slapstick".
A troupe typically consisted of 13 to 14 members. Most actors were paid
by taking a share of the play's profits roughly equivalent to the size of
their role. The style of theatre was in its peak from 1575 to 1650, but
even after that time new scenarios were written and performed. The
Venecian playwright Carlo Goldoni wrote a few scenarios starting in
1734, but since he considered the genre too vulgar, he refined the
topics of his own to be more sophisticated. He also wrote several plays
based on real events, in which he included commedia characters.
[edit]Renaissance
theatre
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A 1596 sketch of a performance in progress on the thrust stage of The Swan, a typical Elizabethan open-roof playhouse.
Main article: English Renaissance theatre
Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions,
such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in
England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. Other
sources include the "morality plays" and the "University drama" that
attempted to recreate Athenian tragedy. The Italian tradition
of Commedia dell'arte, as well as the elaborate masques frequently
presented at court, also contributed to the shaping of public theatre.
Since before the reign of Elizabeth I, companies of players were
attached to households of leading aristocrats and performed seasonally
in various locations. These became the foundation for the professional
players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these
players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and
morality plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining
companies lacking formal patronage by labelling them vagabonds.
The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public
performances, but its hostility was overmatched by the Queen's taste for
plays and the Privy Council's support. Theatres sprang up in suburbs,
especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to
city dwellers but beyond the authority's control. The companies
maintained the pretence that their public performances were mere
rehearsals for the frequent performances before the Queen, but while
the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the
income for the professional players.
Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama
changed toward the end of the period. Under Elizabeth, the drama was
a unified expression as far as social class was concerned: the Court
watched the same plays the commoners saw in the public playhouses.
With the development of the private theatres, drama became more
oriented toward the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By
the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were being written
for the public theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated
works of the previous decades.[43]
Puritan opposition to the stage (informed by the arguments of the early
Church Fathers who had written screeds against the decadent and
violent entertainments of the Romans) argued not only that the stage in
general was pagan, but that any play that represented a religious figure
was inherently idolatrous. In 1642, at the outbreak of the English Civil
War, the Protestant authorities banned the performance of all plays
within the city limits of London. A sweeping assault against the alleged
immoralities of the theatre crushed whatever remained in England of the
dramatic tradition.
[edit]Restoration
comedy
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Main article: Restoration comedy
Refinement meets burlesque inRestoration comedy. In this scene fromGeorge Etherege's Love in a Tub (1664), musicians
and well-bred ladies surround a man who is wearing a tub because he has lost his trousers.
English comedies written and performed in the Restoration period from
1660 to 1710 are collectively called "Restoration comedy". After public
stage performances had been banned for 18 years by
the Puritan regime, the re-opening of the theatres in 1660 signalled a
renaissance of English drama. Restoration comedy is notorious for
its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (1660–1685)
personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethosof his court. The socially
diverse audiences included both aristocrats, their servants and hangerson, and a substantial middle-class segment. These playgoers were
attracted to the comedies by up-to-the-minute topical writing, by
crowded and bustling plots, by the introduction of the first professional
actresses, and by the rise of the first celebrity actors. This period saw
the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn.
[edit]Restoration
spectacular
Main article: Restoration spectacular
The Restoration spectacular, or elaborately staged "machine play", hit
the London public stage in the late 17th-century Restoration period,
enthralling audiences with action, music, dance,
moveable scenery, baroque illusionistic painting, gorgeous costumes,
and special effects such as trapdoor tricks, "flying" actors, and fireworks.
These shows have always had a bad reputation as a vulgar and
commercial threat to the witty, "legitimate" Restoration drama; however,
they drew Londoners in unprecedented numbers and left them dazzled
and delighted.
Basically home-grown and with roots in the early 17thcentury court masque, though never ashamed of borrowing ideas and
stage technology from French opera, the spectaculars are sometimes
called "English opera". However, the variety of them is so untidy that
most theatre historians despair of defining them as a genre at
all.[44] Only a handful of works of this period are usually accorded the
term "opera", as the musical dimension of most of them is subordinate
to the visual. It was spectacle and scenery that drew in the crowds, as
shown by many comments in the diary of the theatre-lover Samuel
Pepys.[45] The expense of mounting ever more elaborate scenic
productions drove the two competing theatre companies into a
dangerous spiral of huge expenditure and correspondingly huge losses
or profits. A fiasco such as John Dryden's Albion and Albanius would
leave a company in serious debt, while blockbusters likeThomas
Shadwell's Psyche or Dryden's King Arthur would put it comfortably in
the black for a long time.[46]
[edit]Neoclassical
theatre
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2011)
Further information: Neoclassicism
An 18th-century Neoclassical theatre inOstankino, Moscow
Neoclassicism was the dominant form of theatre in the 18th century. It
demanded decorumand rigorous adherence to the classical unities.
Neoclassical theatre as well as the time period is characterized by its
grandiosity. The costumes and scenery were intricate and elaborate.
The acting is characterized by large gestures and melodrama.
Neoclassical theatre encompasses the Restoration, Augustan, and
Johnstinian Ages. In one sense, the neo-classical age directly follows
the time of the Renaissance.
Theatres of the early 18th century – sexual farces of the Restoration
were superseded by politically satirical comedies, 1737 Parliament
passed the Stage Licensing Act which introduced state censorship of
public performances and limited the number of theatres in London to
just two.
[edit]Nineteenth-century
theatre
Main article: Nineteenth-century theatre
Theatre in the 19th century is divided into two parts: early and late. The
early period was dominated by melodrama and Romanticism.
Beginning in France, melodrama became the most popular theatrical
form. August von Kotzebue's Misanthropy and Repentance (1789) is
often considered the first melodramatic play. The plays of Kotzebue
and René Charles Guilbert de Pixérécourt established melodrama as
the dominant dramatic form of the early 19th century.[47]
In Germany, there was a trend toward historic accuracy
in costumes and settings, a revolution in theatre architecture, and the
introduction of the theatrical form of German Romanticism. Influenced
by trends in 19th-century philosophy and the visual arts, German writers
were increasingly fascinated with their Teutonic past and had a growing
sense of nationalism. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, and other Sturm und
Drang playwrights, inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as
guides to moral behavior.
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton.
In Britain, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron were the most
important dramatists of their time (although Shelley's plays were not
performed until later in the century). In the minor
theatres, burlettaand melodrama were the most popular. Kotzebue's
plays were translated into English and Thomas Holcroft's A Tale of
Mystery was the first of many English melodramas. Pierce
Egan, Douglas William Jerrold, Edward Fitzball, and John Baldwin
Buckstone initiated a trend towards more contemporary and rural stories
in preference to the usual historical or fantastical melodramas. James
Sheridan Knowles and Edward George Bulwer-Lytton established a
"gentlemanly" drama that began to re-establish the former prestige of
the theatre with the aristocracy.[48]
The later period of the 19th century saw the rise of two conflicting types
of drama: realism and non-realism, such as Symbolism and precursors
of Expressionism.
Realism began earlier in the 19th century in Russia than elsewhere in
Europe and took a more uncompromising form.[49] Beginning with the
plays of Ivan Turgenev (who used "domestic detail to reveal inner
turmoil"), Aleksandr Ostrovsky (who was Russia's first professional
playwright), Aleksey Pisemsky (whose A Bitter Fate (1859)
anticipated Naturalism), and Leo Tolstoy (whose The Power of
Darkness (1886) is "one of the most effective of naturalistic plays"), a
tradition of psychological realism in Russia culminated with the
establishment of the Moscow Art Theatre by Konstantin
Stanislavski and Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko.[50]
The most important theatrical force in later 19th-century Germany was
that of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and his Meiningen Ensemble,
under the direction of Ludwig Chronegk. The Ensemble's productions
are often considered the most historically accurate of the 19th century,
although his primary goal was to serve the interests of the playwright.
The Meiningen Ensemble stands at the beginning of the new movement
toward unified production (or what Richard Wagner would call
the Gesamtkunstwerk) and the rise of thedirector (at the expense of
the actor) as the dominant artist in theatre-making.[51]
Richard Wagner's Bayreuth Festival Theatre.
Naturalism, a theatrical movement born out of Charles Darwin's The
Origin of Species (1859) and contemporary political and economic
conditions, found its main proponent in Émile Zola. The realisation of
Zola's ideas was hindered by a lack of capable dramatists writing
naturalist drama. André Antoine emerged in the 1880s with his Théâtre
Libre that was only open to members and therefore was exempt from
censorship. He quickly won the approval of Zola and began to stage
Naturalistic works and other foreign realistic pieces.[52]
Henrik Ibsen, the "father" of realist and modern[citation needed] drama.
In Britain, melodramas, light comedies, operas, Shakespeare and
classic English drama,Victorian burlesque, pantomimes, translations of
French farces and, from the 1860s, French operettas, continued to be
popular. So successful were the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan,
such as H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885), that they
greatly expanded the audience for musical theatre.[53] This, together
with much improved street lighting and transportation in London and
New York led to a late Victorian and Edwardian theatre building boom in
the West End and on Broadway. Later, the work of Henry Arthur
Jones and Arthur Wing Pinero initiated a new direction on the English
stage. While their work paved the way, the development of more
significant drama owes itself most to the playwright Henrik Ibsen.
Ibsen was born in Norway in 1828. He wrote twenty-five plays, the most
famous of which areA Doll's House (1879), Ghosts (1881), The Wild
Duck (1884), and Hedda Gabler (1890). In addition, his
works Rosmersholm (1886) and When We Dead Awaken (1899) evoke
a sense of mysterious forces at work in human destiny, which was the
be a major theme ofsymbolism and the so-called "Theatre of the
Absurd".[citation needed]
After Ibsen, British theatre experienced revitalization with the work
of George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, John Galsworthy, William Butler
Yeats, and Harley Granville Barker. Unlike most of the gloomy and
intensely serious work of their contemporaries, Shaw and Wilde wrote
primarily in the comic form. Edwardian musical comedies were
extremely popular, appealing to the tastes of the middle class in the Gay
Nineties[54] and catering to the public's preference for escapist
entertainment during World War I.
[edit]Twentieth-century
theatre
See also: Twentieth-century theatre, Timeline of twentieth-century
theatre, and Musical theatre
While much 20th-century theatre continued and extended the projects
of realism and Naturalism, there was also a great deal ofexperimental
theatre that rejected those conventions. These experiments form part of
the modernist and postmodernist movements and included forms
of political theatre as well as more aesthetically orientated work.
Examples include: Epic theatre, the Theatre of Cruelty, and the socalled "Theatre of the Absurd".
The term theatre practitioner came to be used to describe someone who
both creates theatrical performances and who produces
atheoretical discourse that informs their practical work.[55] A theatre
practitioner may be a director, a dramatist, an actor, or—
characteristically—often a combination of these traditionally separate
roles. "Theatre practice" describes the collective work that various
theatre practitioners do.[56] It is used to describe
theatre praxis from Konstantin Stanislavski's development of his
'system', throughVsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics, Bertolt
Brecht's epic and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre, down to the present
day, with contemporary theatre practitioners including Augusto Boal with
his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio
Barba's theatre anthropology and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.[57]
Other key figures of 20th-century theatre include: Antonin
Artaud, August Strindberg, Anton Chekhov, Frank Wedekind, Maurice
Maeterlinck, Federico García Lorca, Eugene O'Neill, Luigi
Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Ernst Toller, Vladimir
Mayakovsky, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Jean Genet, Eugène
Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Heiner
Müller, andCaryl Churchill.
A number of aesthetic movements continued or emerged in the 20th
century, including:




Naturalism
Realism
Dadaism
Expressionism



Surrealism and the Theatre of Cruelty
Theatre of the Absurd
Postmodernism
After the great popularity of the British Edwardian musical comedies, the
American musical theatre came to dominate the musical stage,
beginning with the Princess Theatre musicals, followed by the works of
the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern,Rodgers and Hart,
and later Rodgers and Hammerstein.
[edit]African
theatre
[edit]Ancient
Egyptian quasi-theatrical events
The earliest recorded quasi-theatrical event dates back to 2000 BCE
with the "passion plays" of Ancient Egypt. This story of the
godOsiris was performed annually at festivals throughout the civilization.
[edit]Yoruba
theatre
See also: Yoruba literature
In his pioneering study of Yoruba theatre, Joel Adedeji traced its origins
to the masquerade of the Egungun (the "cult of the ancestor").[58] The
traditional ceremony culminates in the essence of the masquerade
where it is deemed that ancestors return to the world of the living to visit
their descendants.[59] In addition to its origin in ritual, Yoruba theatre can
be "traced to the 'theatrogenic' nature of a number of the deities in
the Yoruba pantheon, such as Obatala the arch divinity, Ogun the
divinity of creativeness and Sango the divinity of the storm", whose
reverence is imbued "with drama and theatre and the symbolic overall
relevance in terms of its relative interpretation."[60]
The Aláàrìnjó theatrical tradition sprang from the Egungun masquerade.
The Aláàrìnjó was a troupe of traveling performers whose masked
carried an air of mystique. They created short, satirical scenes that drew
on a number of established stereotypical characters. Their
performances utilised mime, music and acrobatics. The Aláàrìnjó
tradition influenced the Yoruba traveling theatre, which was the most
prevalent and highly developed form of theatre in Nigeria from the
1950s to the 1980s. In the 1990s, the Yoruba traveling theatre moved
into television and film and now gives live performances only rarely.[61]
"Total theatre" also developed in Nigeria in the 1950s. It utilised nonNaturalistic techniques, surrealistic physical imagery, and exercised a
flexibile use of language. Playwrights writing in the mid 1970s made use
of some of these techniques, but articulated them with "a radical
appreciation of the problems of society."[62]
Traditional performance modes have strongly influenced the major
figures in contemporary Nigerian theatre. The work of Hubert
Ogunde(sometimes referred to as the "father of contemporary Yoruban
theatre") was informed by the Aláàrìnjó tradition and Egungun
masquerades.[63] Wole Soyinka, who is "generally recognized as Africa's
greatest living playwright", gives the divinity Ogun a
complexmetaphysical significance in his work.[64] In his essay "The
Fourth Stage" (1973),[65] Soyinka contrasts Yoruba drama with classical
Athenian drama, relating both to the 19th-century German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's analysis of the latter in The Birth of
Tragedy(1872). Ogun, he argues, is "a totality of the Dionysian,
Apollonian and Promethean virtues." [66]
[edit]Asian
theatre
Mani Damodara Chakyar as King Udayana in Bhasa'sSwapnavasavadattam Koodiyattam-the only surviving ancient Sanskrit
theatre.
[edit]Indian
theatre
[edit]Overview of Indian theatre
Main article: Theatre in India
The earliest form of Indian theatre was the Sanskrit theatre.[67] It
emerged sometime between the 2nd century BCE and the 1st century
CE and flourished between the 1st century CE and the 10th, which was
a period of relative peace in the history of India during which hundreds
of plays were written.[68] With the Islamic conquests that began in the
10th and 11th centuries, theatre was discouraged or forbidden
entirely.[69] Later, in an attempt to re-assert indigenous values and
ideas, village theatre was encouraged across the subcontinent,
developing in a large number of regional languages from the 15th to the
19th centuries.[70] Modern Indian theatre developed during the period of
colonial rule under the British Empire, from the mid-19th century until
the mid-20th.[71]
[edit]Sanskrit theatre
Main article: Sanskrit drama
See also: Koodiyattam
The earliest-surviving fragments of Sanskrit drama date from the 1st
century CE.[72] The wealth of archaeological evidence from earlier
periods offers no indication of the existence of a tradition of
theatre.[73] The ancient Vedas (hymns from between 1500 to 1000 BCE
that are among the earliest examples of literature in the world) contain
no hint of it (although a small number are composed in a form
of dialogue) and therituals of the Vedic period do not appear to have
developed into theatre.[73] The Mahābhāṣya by Patañjali contains the
earliest reference to what may have been the seeds of Sanskrit
drama.[74] This treatise on grammar from 140 BCE provides a feasible
date for the beginnings of theatre in India.[74]
The major source of evidence for Sanskrit theatre is A Treatise on
Theatre (Nātyaśāstra), a compendium whose date of composition is
uncertain (estimates range from 200 BCE to 200 CE) and whose
authorship is attributed to Bharata Muni. The Treatise is the most
complete work of dramaturgy in the ancient world. It
addresses acting, dance, music, dramatic
construction, architecture, costuming,make-up, props, the organisation
of companies, the audience, competitions, and offers
a mythological account of the origin of theatre.[74] In doing so, it provides
indications about the nature of actual theatrical practices. Sanskrit
theatre was performed on sacred ground by priests who had been
trained in the necessary skills (dance, music, and recitation) in a
[hereditary process]. Its aim was both to educate and to entertain.
Under the patronage of royal courts, performers belonged to
professional companies that were directed by a stage manager
(sutradhara), who may also have acted.[75] This task was thought of as
being analogous to that of a puppeteer--the literal meaning of
"sutradhara" is "holder of the strings or threads".[74] The performers were
trained rigorously in vocal and physical technique.[76] There were no
prohibitions against female performers; companies were all-male, allfemale, and of mixed gender. Certain sentiments were considered
inappropriate for men to enact, however, and were thought better suited
to women. Some performers played character their own age, while
others played those different to their own (whether younger or older). Of
all the elements of theatre, the Treatise gives most attention to acting
(abhinaya), which consists of two styles: realistic (lokadharmi) and
conventional (natyadharmi), though the major focus is on the latter.[77]
Its drama is regarded as the highest achievement of Sanskrit
literature.[78] It utilised stock characters, such as the hero (nayaka),
heroine (nayika), or clown (vidusaka). Actors may have specialised in a
particular type. Kālidāsa in the 1st century BCE, is arguably considered
to be ancient India's greatest Sanskrit dramatist. Three famous romantic
plays written by Kālidāsa are theMālavikāgnimitram (Mālavikā and
Agnimitra), Vikramuurvashiiya (Pertaining to Vikrama and Urvashi),
and Abhijñānaśākuntala (The Recognition of Shakuntala). The last was
inspired by a story in the Mahabharata and is the most famous. It was
the first to be translated into English and German. Śakuntalā (in English
translation) influenced Goethe's Faust (1808–1832).[78]
The next great Indian dramatist was Bhavabhuti (c. 7th century CE). He
is said to have written the following three plays: MalatiMadhava, Mahaviracharita and Uttar Ramacharita. Among these three,
the last two cover between them the entire epic of Ramayana. The
powerful Indian emperor Harsha (606–648) is credited with having
written three plays: the comedy Ratnavali, Priyadarsika, and
theBuddhist drama Nagananda.
[edit]Rural Indian theatre
This section requires expansion. (May
2011)
[edit]Kathakali
Main article: Kathakali
Kathakali is a highly stylised classical Indian dance-drama noted for the
attractive make-up of characters, elaborate costumes, detailed
gestures, and well-defined body movements presented in tune with the
anchor playback music and complementary percussion. It originated in
the country's present-day state of Kerala during the 17th century[79] and
has developed over the years with improved looks, refined gestures and
added themes besides more ornate singing and precise drumming.
[edit]Modern Indian theatre
Rabindranath Tagore, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1913, is probably India's best-known modern
playwright.[80] His plays are written in Bengali and
include Chitra (Chitrangada, 1892), The King of the Dark
Chamber (Raja, 1910), The Post Office(Dakghar, 1913), and Red
Oleander (Raktakarabi, 1924).[80]
[edit]Chinese
theatre
Main article: Chinese opera
[edit]Shang theatre
There are references to theatrical entertainments in China as early as
1500 BC during the Shang Dynasty; they often involved music, clowning
and acrobatic displays.
[edit]Han and Tang theatre
During the Han Dynasty, shadow puppetry first emerged as a
recognized form of theatre in China. There were two distinct forms of
shadow puppetry, Cantonese southern and Pekingese northern. The
two styles were differentiated by the method of making the puppets and
the positioning of the rods on the puppets, as opposed to the type of
play performed by the puppets. Both styles generally performed plays
depicting great adventure and fantasy, rarely was this very stylized form
of theatre used for political propaganda. Cantonese shadow puppets
were the larger of the two. They were built using thick leather which
created more substantial shadows. Symbolic color was also very
prevalent; a black face represented honesty, a red one bravery. The
rods used to control Cantonese puppets were attached perpendicular to
the puppets' heads. Thus, they were not seen by the audience when the
shadow was created. Pekingese puppets were more delicate and
smaller. They were created out of thin, translucent leather usually taken
from the belly of a donkey. They were painted with vibrant paints, thus
they cast a very colorful shadow. The thin rods which controlled their
movements were attached to a leather collar at the neck of the puppet.
The rods ran parallel to the bodies of the puppet then turned at a ninety
degree angle to connect to the neck. While these rods were visible
when the shadow was cast, they laid outside the shadow of the puppet;
thus they did not interfere with the appearance of the figure. The rods
attached at the necks to facilitate the use of multiple heads with one
body. When the heads were not being used, they were stored in a
muslin book or fabric lined box. The heads were always removed at
night. This was in keeping with the old superstition that if left intact, the
puppets would come to life at night. Some puppeteers went so far as to
store the heads in one book and the bodies in another, to further reduce
the possibility of reanimating puppets. Shadow puppetry is said to have
reached its highest point of artistic development in the 11th century
before becoming a tool of the government.
The Tang Dynasty is sometimes known as 'The Age of 1000
Entertainments'. During this era, Emperor Xuanzong formed an acting
school known as the Children of the Pear Garden to produce a form of
drama that was primarily musical.
[edit]Song and Yuan theatre
Further information: Zaju
In the Sung Dynasty, there were many popular plays
involving acrobatics and music. These developed in the Yuan
Dynasty into a more sophisticated form with a four or five act structure.
Yuan drama spread across China and diversified into numerous
regional forms, the best known of which is Beijing Opera, which is still
popular today.
[edit]Thai
theatre
Further information: Ramakien
In Thailand, it has been a tradition from the Middle Ages to stage plays
based on plots drawn from Indian epics. In particular, the theatrical
version of Thailand's national epic Ramakien, a version of the
Indian Ramayana, remains popular in Thailand even today.
[edit]Khmer
and Malay theatre
In Cambodia, at the ancient capital Angkor Wat, stories from the Indian
epics Ramayana and Mahabharata have been carved on the walls of
temples and palaces. Similar reliefs are found
at Borobudur in Indonesia.
[edit]Japanese
theatre
[edit]Noh
Main article: Noh
During the 14th century, there were small companies of actors in Japan
who performed short, sometimes vulgar comedies. A director of one of
these companies, Kan'ami (1333–1384), had a son, Zeami
Motokiyo (1363–1443) who was considered one of the finest child
actors in Japan. When Kan'ami's company performed for Ashikaga
Yoshimitsu (1358–1408), the Shogun of Japan, he implored Zeami to
have a court education for his arts. After Zeami succeeded his father, he
continued to perform and adapt his style into what is todayNoh. A
mixture of pantomime and vocal acrobatics, this style has fascinated the
Japanese for hundreds of years.
[edit]Bunraku
Main article: Bunraku
Japan, after a long period of civil wars and political disarray, was unified
and at peace primarily due to shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616).
However, alarmed at increasing Christian growth, he cut off contact
from Japan to Europe and China and outlawed Christianity. When
peace did come, a flourish of cultural influence and growing merchant
class demanded its own entertainment. The first form of theatre to
flourish was Ningyō jōruri (commonly referred to as Bunraku). The
founder of and main contributor to Ningyō jōruri,Chikamatsu
Monzaemon (1653–1725), turned his form of theatre into a true art form.
Ningyō jōruri is a highly stylized form of theatre using puppets, today
about 1/3d the size of a human. The men who control the puppets train
their entire lives to become master puppeteers, when they can then
operate the puppet's head and right arm and choose to show their faces
during the performance. The other puppeteers, controlling the less
important limbs of the puppet, cover themselves and their faces in a
black suit, to imply their invisibility. The dialogue is handled by a single
person, who uses varied tones of voice and speaking manners to
simulate different characters. Chikamatsu wrote thousands of plays
during his lifetime, most of which are still used today. They wore masks
instead of elaborate makeup. Masks define their gender, personality,
and moods the actor is in.
[edit]Kabuki
Main article: Kabuki
Kabuki began shortly after Bunraku, legend has it by an actress named
Okuni, who lived around the end of the 16th century. Most of Kabuki's
material came from Nõ and Bunraku, and its erratic dance-type
movements are also an effect of Bunraku. However, Kabuki is less
formal and more distant than Nõ, yet very popular among the Japanese
public. Actors are trained in many varied things including dancing,
singing, pantomime, and even acrobatics. Kabuki was first performed by
young girls, then by young boys, and by the end of the 16th century,
Kabuki companies consisted of all men. The men who portrayed women
on stage were specifically trained to elicit the essence of a woman in
their subtle movements and gestures.
[edit]Butoh
Gyohei Zaitsu performing Butoh
Main article: Butoh
Butoh is the collective name for a diverse range of activities, techniques
and motivations fordance, performance, or movement inspired by
the Ankoku-Butoh (暗黒舞踏 ankoku butō?)movement. It typically
involves playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd
environments, and is traditionally performed in white body makeup with
slow hyper-controlled motion, with or without an audience. There is no
set style, and it may be purely conceptual with no movement at all. Its
origins have been attributed to Japanese dance legends Tatsumi
Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Butoh appeared first in Japan following World
War II and specifically after student riots. The roles of authority were
now subject to challenge and subversion. It also appeared as a reaction
against the contemporary dance scene in Japan, which Hijikata felt was
based on the one hand on imitating the West and on the other on
imitating the Noh. He critiqued the current state of dance as overly
superficial.
[edit]Middle-Eastern
[edit]Medieval
theatre
Islamic theatre
The most popular forms of theatre in the medieval Islamic
world were puppet theatre (which included hand puppets, shadow
plays andmarionette productions) and live passion plays known
as ta'ziya, in which actors re-enact episodes from Muslim history. In
particular,Shia Islamic plays revolved around the shaheed (martyrdom)
of Ali's sons Hasan ibn Ali and Husayn ibn Ali. Secular plays known
asakhraja were recorded in medieval adab literature, though they were
less common than puppetry and ta'ziya theatre.[81]
Q2- write briefly about Shakespeare life………………………………..?
In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three
categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies. This categorisation has become established, although
some critics have argued for other categories such as romances and problem plays. The histories were
those plays based on the lives of English kings. Therefore they can be more accurately called the
"English history plays," a less common designation. Macbeth, set in the mid-11th century during the
reigns of Duncan I of Scotland and Edward the Confessor, was classed as a tragedy, not a history, as
were the plays that depict older historical figures such as Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony and
Cleopatra and the legendary King Lear. These latter plays, however, are often included in modern
studies of Shakespeare's treatment of history.
The source for most of the English history plays, as well as for Macbeth and King Lear, is the well
known Raphael Holinshed'sChronicle of English history. The source for the Roman history plays
is Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Compared Together, in the translation made by
Sir Thomas North in 1579. Shakespeare's history plays focus on only a small part of the characters'
lives, and also frequently omit significant events for dramatic purposes.
[edit]Politics
Shakespeare was living in the reign of Elizabeth I, the last monarch of the house of Tudor, and his
history plays are often regarded as Tudor propaganda because they show the dangers of civil war and
celebrate the founders of the Tudor dynasty. In particular, Richard IIIdepicts the last member of the
rival house of York as an evil monster ("that bottled spider, that foul bunchback'd toad"), a depiction
disputed by many modern historians, while portraying the usurper, Henry VII in glowing terms. Political
bias is also clear in Henry VIII, which ends with an effusive celebration of the birth of Elizabeth.
However, Shakespeare's celebration of Tudor order is less important in these plays than his
presentation of the spectacular decline of the medieval world. Moreover, some of Shakespeare's
histories—and notably Richard III—point out that this medieval world came to its end when opportunism
and machiavelism infiltrated its politics. By nostalgically evoking the late Middle Ages, these plays
described the political and social evolution that had led to the actual methods of Tudor rule, so that it is
possible to consider history plays as a biased criticism of their own country.
[edit]Interpretations
John F. Danby in Shakespeare’s Doctrine of Nature (1949) examines the response of Shakespeare’s
history plays (in the widest sense) to the vexed question: ‘When is it right to rebel?’, and concludes that
Shakespeare’s thought ran through three stages: (1) In the Wars of the Roses plays, Henry
VI to Richard III, Shakespeare shows a new thrustful godlessness attacking the pious medieval structure
represented by Henry VI. He implies that rebellion against a legitimate and pious king is wrong, and that
only a monster such as Richard of Gloucester would have attempted it. (2) In King John and the Richard
II to Henry V cycle, Shakespeare comes to terms with the Machiavellianism of the times as he saw them
under Elizabeth. In these plays he adopts the official Tudor ideology, by which rebellion, even against a
wrongful usurper, is never justifiable. (3) From Julius Caesar onwards, Shakespeare
justifies tyrannicide, but in order to do so moves away from English history to the camouflage of Roman,
Danish, Scottish or Ancient British history.
Danby argues that Shakespeare’s study of the political machiavel is key to his study of history. Richard
III, the Bastard in King John,Hal and Falstaff are all machiavels, characterised in varying degrees of
frankness by the pursuit of "Commodity" (i.e. advantage, profit, expediency). [1][2] Shakespeare at this
point in his career pretends that the Hal-type machiavel is admirable and the society he represents
historically inevitable. Hotspur and Hal are joint heirs, one medieval, the other modern, of a split
Falconbridge. Danby argues, however, that when Hal rejects Falstaff he is not reforming, as is the
common view,[3] but merely turning from one social level to another, from Appetite to Authority, both of
which are equally part of the corrupt society of the time. Of the two, Danby argues, Falstaff is the
preferable, being, in every sense, the bigger man.[4] In Julius Caesar there is a similar conflict between
rival machiavels: the noble Brutus is a dupe of his machiavellian associates, while Antony’s victorious
“order”, like Hal's, is a negative thing. In Hamlet king-killing becomes a matter of private rather than
public morality—the individual’s struggles with his own conscience and fallibility take centre
stage. Hamlet, like Edgar in King Lear later, has to become a “machiavel of goodness”[5] In Macbeth the
interest is again public, but the public evil flows from Macbeth’s primary rebellion against his own nature.
“The root of the machiavelism lies in a wrong choice. Macbeth is clearly aware of the great frame of
Nature he is violating.”[6]
King Lear, in Danby's view, is Shakespeare’s finest historical allegory. The older medieval society, with
its doting king, falls into error, and is threatened by the new machiavellianism; it is regenerated and
saved by a vision of a new order, embodied in the king’s rejected daughter. By the time he reaches
Edmund, Shakespeare no longer pretends that the Hal-type machiavel is admirable; and in Lear he
condemns the society we think historically inevitable. Against this he holds up the ideal of a
transcendent community and reminds us of the “true needs” of a humanity to which the operations of a
Commodity-driven society perpetually do violence. This “new” thing that Shakespeare discovers is
embodied in Cordelia. The play thus offers an alternative to the feudal-machiavellian polarity, an
alternative foreshadowed in France’s speech (I.1.245–256), in Lear and Gloucester’s prayers (III.4. 28–
36; IV.1.61–66), and in the figure of Cordelia. Cordelia, in the allegorical scheme, is threefold: a person;
an ethical principle (love); and a community. Until that decent society is achieved, we are meant to take
as role-model Edgar, the machiavel of patience, of courage and of "ripeness". After King
LearShakespeare’s view seems to be that private goodness can be permanent only in a decent
society.[7]
[edit]The
"Wars of the Roses" cycle
Henry VI (Jeffrey T. Heyer) and a young Richmond (Ashley Rose Miller) in the West Coast premiere of The Plantaganents:
The Rise of Edward IV, staged by Pacific Repertory Theatre in 1993.
"The War(s) of the Roses" is a phrase used to describe the civil wars in England between the
Lancastrian and Yorkist dynasties. Some of the events of these wars were dramatised by Shakespeare
in the history plays Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; Henry V; Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI,
Part 2; Henry VI, Part 3; and Richard III. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries there have been
numerous stage performances including:
1. The first tetralogy (Henry VI parts 1 to 3 and Richard III) as a cycle;
2. The second tetralogy (Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and Henry V) as a cycle (which has
also been referred to as the Henriad); and
3. The entire eight plays in historical order (the second tetralogy followed by the first tetralogy) as
a cycle. Where this full cycle is performed, as by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1964,
the name The War[s] of the Roses has often been used for the cycle as a whole.
4. A 10-play history cycle, which began with the newly attributed Edward III, the
anonymous Thomas of Woodstock, and then the eight plays from Richard II toRichard III, was
performed by Pacific Repertory Theatre under the title Royal Blood, a phrase used throughout
the works. The entire series, staged over four consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2004, was
directed by PacRep founder and Artistic DirectorStephen Moorer.
The tetralogies have been filmed for television five times, twice as the entire cycle:
1. for the 1960 UK serial An Age of Kings directed by Michael Hayes. Featuring David William as
Richard II, Tom Fleming as Henry IV, Robert Hardy as Henry V, Terry Scully as Henry VI, Paul
Daneman as Richard III, Julian Glover as Edward IV, Mary Morris as Queen Margaret, Judi
Dench as Princess Catherine, Eileen Atkins as Joan la Pucelle, Frank Pettingell as
Falstaff, William Squire as The Chorus and Justice Shallow, and, shortly before he gained
fame as James Bond, Sean Connery as Hotspur.
2. for the 1965 UK serial The Wars of the Roses, based on the RSC's 1964 staging of the Second
Tetralogy, which condensed the Henry VI plays into two plays called Henry VI and Edward IV.
directed by John Barton and Peter Hall; and adapted by Hall. Featuring Ian Holm as Richard
III, David Warner as Henry VI, Peggy Ashcroft as Margaret, Donald Sinden as York, Roy
Dotriceas Edward and Jack Cade, Janet Suzman as Joan and Lady Anne and William
Squire as Buckingham and Suffolk.
3. for a straight-to-video filming, directly from the stage, of the English Shakespeare Company's
"The Wars of the Roses" directed by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington. Featuring
Pennington as Richard II, Henry V, Buckingham, Jack Cade and Suffolk, Andrew Jarvis as
Richard III, Hotspur and the Dauphin, Barry Stanton as Falstaff, The Duke of York and the
Chorus in Henry V, Michael Cronin as Henry IV and the Earl of Warwick, Paul Brennan as
Henry VI and Pistol, and June Watson as Queen Margaret and Mistress Quickly. The
three Henry VI plays are condensed into two plays, bearing the subtitles Henry VI: House of
Lancaster and Henry VI: House of York.
4. First Tetralogy filmed for the BBC Television Shakespeare in 1978 directed by Jane Howell. In
the First Tetralogy, the plays are performed as if by a repertory theater company, with the
same actors appearing in different parts in each play. Featuring Ron Cook as Richard III, Peter
Benson as Henry VI, Brenda Blethyn as Joan, Bernard Hill as York, Julia Foster as
Margaret, Brian Protheroe as Edward, Paul Jesson as Clarence, Mark Wing-Davey as
Warwick, Frank Middlemass as Cardinal Beaufort, Trevor Peacock as Talbot and Jack
Cade, Paul Chapman as Suffolk and Rivers, David Burke as Gloucester and Zoe
Wanamaker as Lady Anne.
5. Second Tetralogy filmed for the BBC Television Shakespeare in 1983 directed by David Giles.
Featuring Derek Jacobi as Richard II, John Gielgud as John of Gaunt, Jon Finch as Henry
IV, Anthony Quayle as Falstaff, David Gwillim as Henry V, Tim Pigott-Smith as
Hotspur, Charles Gray as York, Wendy Hiller as the Duchess of Gloucester, Brenda Bruce as
Mistress Quickly, andMichele Dotrice as Lady Percy.
6. Second Tetralogy filmed as The Hollow Crown for BBC2 in 2012 directed by Rupert
Goold (Richard II), Richard Eyre (Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2) and Thea Sharrock (Henry V).
Featuring Ben Whishaw as Richard II, Patrick Stewart as John of Gaunt, Rory Kinnear as
Henry Bolingbroke (in Richard II) and Jeremy Irons as Henry IV, Tom Hiddleston as Henry
V, Simon Russell Beale as Falstaff, Joe Armstrong as Hotspur, and Julie Walters as Mistress
Quickly.
Many of the plays have also been filmed stand-alone, outside of the cycle at large. Famous examples
include Henry V, directed and starring both Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh, Richard III by Olivier
and Richard Loncraine (starring Ian McKellen) and Henry IV, Part I and Part II combined into Chimes at
Midnight (with some scenes from Henry V, also known as Falstaff) directed by and starringOrson
Welles.
Q3- the plot structure of Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet..
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two young starcrossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most
popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays.
Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypalyoung lovers.
Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based
on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in
1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painterin 1582. Shakespeare borrowed
heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters,
particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first
published in a quarto version in 1597. This text was of poor quality, and later editions corrected it,
bringing it more in line with Shakespeare's original.
Shakespeare's use of dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and
tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the
story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to
different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example,
grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.
Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical and opera. During
the English Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by William Davenant. David Garrick's 18thcentury version also modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent, and Georg
Benda's operatic adaptation omitted much of the action and added a happy ending. Performances in the
19th century, including Charlotte Cushman's, restored the original text, and focused on
greater realism. John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare's text, and used
Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the 20th century the play has been adapted
in versions as diverse as George Cukor's comparatively faithful 1936 production, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968
version, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet.
The play, set in Verona, begins with a street brawl
between Montague andCapulet supporters who are sworn enemies.
The Prince of Verona intervenes and declares that further breach of the
peace will be punishable by death. Later,Count Paris talks to Capulet
about marrying his daughter, but Capulet asks Paris to wait another two
years (then he later orders Juliet to marry Paris) and invites him to
attend a planned Capulet ball. Lady Capulet and Juliet's nurse try to
persuade Juliet to accept Paris's courtship.
Meanwhile, Benvolio talks with his cousin Romeo, Montague's son,
about Romeo's recent depression. Benvolio discovers that it stems from
unrequited infatuation for a girl namedRosaline, one of Capulet's nieces.
Persuaded by Benvolio and Mercutio, Romeo attends the ball at the
Capulet house in hopes of meeting Rosaline. However, Romeo instead
meets and falls in love with Juliet. After the ball, in what is now called
the "balcony scene", Romeo sneaks into the Capulet orchard and
overhears Juliet at her window vowing her love to him in spite of her
family's hatred of the Montagues. Romeo makes himself known to her
and they agree to be married. With the help ofFriar Laurence, who
hopes to reconcile the two families through their children's union, they
are secretly married the next day.
L’ultimo bacio dato a Giulietta da Romeoby Francesco Hayez. Oil on canvas, 1823.
Juliet's cousin Tybalt, incensed that Romeo had sneaked into the
Capulet ball, challenges him to a duel. Romeo, now considering Tybalt
his kinsman, refuses to fight. Mercutio is offended by Tybalt's insolence,
as well as Romeo's "vile submission,"[1] and accepts the duel on
Romeo's behalf. Mercutio is fatally wounded when Romeo attempts to
break up the fight. Grief-stricken and wracked with guilt, Romeo
confronts and slays Tybalt.
Montague argues that Romeo has justly executed Tybalt for the murder
of Mercutio. The Prince, now having lost a kinsman in the warring
families' feud, exiles Romeo from Verona, with threat of execution upon
return. Romeo secretly spends the night in Juliet's chamber, where
they consummate their marriage. Capulet, misinterpreting Juliet's grief,
agrees to marry her to Count Paris and threatens to disown her when
she refuses to become Paris's "joyful bride."[2] When she then pleads for
the marriage to be delayed, her mother rejects her.
Juliet visits Friar Laurence for help, and he offers her a drug that will put
her into a deathlike coma for "two and forty hours."[3] The Friar promises
to send a messenger to inform Romeo of the plan, so that he can rejoin
her when she awakens. On the night before the wedding, she takes the
drug and, when discovered apparently dead, she is laid in the family
crypt.
The messenger, however, does not reach Romeo and, instead, Romeo
learns of Juliet's apparent death from his servant Balthasar.
Heartbroken, Romeo buys poison from anapothecary and goes to the
Capulet crypt. He encounters Paris who has come to mourn Juliet
privately. Believing Romeo to be a vandal, Paris confronts him and, in
the ensuing battle, Romeo kills Paris. Still believing Juliet to be dead, he
drinks the poison. Juliet then awakens and, finding Romeo dead, stabs
herself with his dagger. The feuding families and the Prince meet at the
tomb to find all three dead. Friar Laurence recounts the story of the two
"star-cross'd lovers". The families are reconciled by their children's
deaths and agree to end their violent feud. The play ends with the
Prince's elegy for the lovers: "For never was a story of more woe / Than
this of Juliet and her Romeo."[4]
Q4-The difference between plot and story:
Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one
another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply
by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic
or emotional effect. An intricate, complicated plot is called an imbroglio, but even the simplest
statements of plot may include multiple inferences, as in traditional ballads
In his Poetics, Aristotle considered plot (mythos) the most important element of drama—more important
than character, for example. A plot must have, Aristotle says, a beginning, a middle, and an end, and
the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary or probable. [citation
needed]
Of the utmost importance to Aristotle is the plot's ability to arouse emotion in the psyche of the audience.
In tragedy, the appropriate emotions are fear and pity, emotions which he considers in his Rhetoric.
(Aristotle's work on comedy has not survived.)
Aristotle goes on to consider whether the tragic character suffers (pathos), and whether the tragic
character commits the error with knowledge of what he is doing. He illustrates this with the question of a
tragic character who is about to kill someone in his family.
The worst situation [artistically] is when the personage is with full knowledge on the point of
doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and also (through the absence of suffering)
untragic; hence it is that no one is made to act thus except in some few instances,
e.g., Haemon and Creon in Antigone. Next after this comes the actual perpetration of the deed
meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to be done in ignorance, and
the relationship discovered afterwards, since there is nothing odious in it, and the discovery will
serve to astound us. But the best of all is the last; what we have inCresphontes, for example,
where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes him in time; in Iphigenia, where
sister and brother are in a like position; and in Helle, where the son recognizes his mother,
when on the point of giving her up to her enemy.(Poetics book 14)
A plot is also the sequence of an event that takes in a fictional story.
The story:
Story or Stories may refer to:

Story, a recounting of a sequence of events

Narrative

Story (surname)

Story, or storey, a floor or level of a building

Stories, colloquial, US American expression for soap operas
Q 5- function of the plot of a play :
Type, plot-function, and character
Pedrolino appears in forty-nine of the fifty scenarios of Flaminio Scala's Il teatro delle favole
rappresentative (1611) and in three (undated) pieces of the "Corsini" collection of manuscripts, all of
which give ample evidence of how he was conceived and played. [2] He is obviously a type of what
Robert Storey calls the "social wit", usually incarnated as "the go-between, the willing servant, the wily
slave" who "survives in serving others".[3] In the Scala scenarios, he is invariably cast as the "first" zanni,
a character to be distinguished from the "second" zanni by his or her function in the plot. The Commedia
critic and historian Constant Mic clarifies the distinctions when he notes that the first zanni
instigates confusion quite voluntarily, [but] the second creates disturbance through his blundering. The
second zanni is a perfect dunce; but the first sometimes gives indication of a certain instruction. ... The
first zanni incarnates the dynamic, comic element of the play, the second its static element.[4]
Since his function is "to keep the play moving",[5] Pedrolino seems to betray, in Storey's words,
"a Janus-faced aspect": "He may work cleverly in the interests of the Lovers in one play—Li Quattro finti
spiritati [The Four Fake Spirits], for example—by disguising himself as a magician and making
Pantalone believe that the 'madness' of Isabella and Oratio can be cured only by their coupling together;
then, inGli avvenimenti comici, pastorali e tragici [Comic, Pastoral, and Tragic Events], indulge his
capricious sense of fun by compounding the young persons' misfortunes." [6] So multiform is his
character that his cleverness can often give way to credulity (as when he is tricked into believing that he
was drunk when he learned of his wife's infidelity and so merely imagined the whole affair) and his
calculation can sometimes be routed by grotesque sentimentality (as when he, Arlecchino,
and Burratino share a bowl of macaroni, the three blubbering all the while).[7] "He takes a child-like
delight in practical jokes and pranks," as a modern-day practitioner of the Commedia writes, "but
otherwise his intrigues are on behalf of his master. ... At times, however, the best he can scheme for is
to escape the punishment others have in store for him." [8] Naively volatile, he can be moved to violence
when angry, but, in obedience to the conventions of comedy, his pugnaciousness is usually deflected or
foiled.
[edit]Pellesini
Pedrolino first appears among the records of the Commedia in 1576, when his interpreter Giovanni
Pellesini (c. 1526-1616) turns up in Florence, apparently leading his own troupe called Pedrolino.[9] A
member of some of the most illustrious companies of the 16th and 17th centuries—
the Confidenti, Uniti, Fideli, Gelosi, and Accessi[10]—Pellesini was obviously "a much sought-after and
highly paid guest star".[11] His status is underscored by the fact that Pedrolino figures so prominently in
Scala's scenarios, since, as K.M. Lea convincingly argues, Scala, in compiling them, drew upon the
"chief actors of his day ... without regard to the composition of a company at any particular
period."[12] Pedrolino—and Pellesini—were, we must conclude, among the brightest luminaries of the
early Commedia dell'Arte. Unfortunately, Pellesini performed too long to preserve the luster: when, in
1613-14, he appeared—at the age of 87—among the Duke of Mantua's company at the court theater of
the Louvre, the French poet Malherbe was not amused, complaining that "gay spirits and sharp wits are
needed [in the theater], and one hardly finds these in bodies as old as theirs."[13]
Q 6- define the following literary terms:
Drama – story – plot – plot structure –
theme – climax- soliloquy;
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance.[1] The term comes from a Greekword
"dran" meaning "action" (Classical Greek: δρᾶμα, drama), which is derived from "to do" or "to act"
(Classical Greek: δράω, draō). The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on
astage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a collective form of
reception. The structure of dramatic texts, unlike other forms of literature, is directly influenced by this
collaborative production and collective reception.[2] The early modern tragedy Hamlet (1601)
byShakespeare and the classical Athenian tragedy Oedipus the King (c. 429 BCE) by Sophocles are
among the masterpieces of the art of drama.[3] A modern example is Long Day's Journey into
Nightby Eugene O’Neill (1956).[4

Story, a recounting of a sequence of events

Narrative
Plot is a literary term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one
another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply
by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic
or emotional effect. An intricate, complicated plot is called an imbroglio, but even the simplest
statements of plot may include multiple inferences, as in traditional
In his Poetics, Aristotle considered plot (mythos) the most important element of drama—more important
than character, for example. A plot must have, Aristotle says, a beginning, a middle, and an end, and
the events of the plot must causally relate to one another as being either necessary or probable. [citation
needed]
Of the utmost importance to Aristotle is the plot's ability to arouse emotion in the psyche of the audience.
In tragedy, the appropriate emotions are fear and pity, emotions which he considers in his Rhetoric.
(Aristotle's work on comedy has not survived.)
Aristotle goes on to consider whether the tragic character suffers (pathos), and whether the tragic
character commits the error with knowledge of what he is doing. He illustrates this with the question of a
tragic character who is about to kill someone in his family.
The worst situation [artistically] is when the personage is with full knowledge on the point of
doing the deed, and leaves it undone. It is odious and also (through the absence of suffering)
untragic; hence it is that no one is made to act thus except in some few instances,
e.g., Haemon and Creon in Antigone. Next after this comes the actual perpetration of the deed
meditated. A better situation than that, however, is for the deed to be done in ignorance, and
the relationship discovered afterwards, since there is nothing odious in it, and the discovery will
serve to astound us. But the best of all is the last; what we have inCresphontes, for example,
where Merope, on the point of slaying her son, recognizes him in time; in Iphigenia, where
sister and brother are in a like position; and in Helle, where the son recognizes his mother,
when on the point of giving her up to her enemy.(Poetics book 14)
A plot is also the sequence of an event that takes in a fictional story.
Climax
Climax
The point of climax is the turning point of the story, where the main character makes the single big
decision that defines the outcome of their story and who they are as a person. The dramatic phase that
Freytag called the "climax" is the third of the five phases, which occupies the middle of the story, and
that contains the point of climax. Thus "the climax" may refer to the point of climax or to the third phase
of the drama.
The beginning of this phase is marked by the protagonist finally having cleared away the preliminary
barriers and being ready to engage with the adversary. Usually, entering this phase, both the
protagonist and the antagonist have a plan to win against the other. Now for the first time we see them
going against one another in direct, or nearly direct, conflict.
This struggle results with neither character completely winning, nor losing, against the other. Usually,
each character's plan is partially successful, and partially foiled by their adversary. What is unique about
this central struggle between the two characters is that the protagonist makes a decision which shows
us one's moral quality, and ultimately determines one's fate. In a tragedy, the protagonist here makes a
"bad" decision, which is one's miscalculation and the appearance of one's tragic flaw.
The climax often contains much of the action in a story, for example, a defining battle.
A soliloquy (from Latin: "talking by oneself") is a device
often used in drama when a character speaks to himself, relating
thoughts and feelings, thereby also sharing them with the audience. Other characters, however, are not
aware of what is being said.[1][2] A soliloquy is distinct from a monologue or an aside: a monologue is a
speech where one character addresses other characters; an aside is a (usually short) comment by one
character towards the audience.
Soliloquies were frequently used in dramas but went out of fashion when drama shifted towards realism
in the late 18th century.
[edit]Soliloquies
in Shakespeare
The plays of William Shakespeare feature many soliloquies, the most famous being the "To be or not to
be" speech in Hamlet. InRichard III and Othello, the respective villains use soliloquies to entrap the
audience as they do the characters on stage. Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow"
speech and Juliet's "O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" are other famous examples of
Shakespearean soliloquies. (Juliet's speech is overheard by Romeo, but because she believes herself
to be alone, her speech is still considered a soliloquy.)
Q 7/ what were Christopher Marlow's contributions to the English drama?
Of the dramas attributed to Marlowe Dido, Queen of Carthage is
believed to have been his first, and performed by the Children of the
Chapel, a company of boy actors, between 1587 and 1593. The play
was first published in 1594; the title page attributes the play to Marlowe
and Thomas Nashe.
Marlowe's first play performed on the regular stage in London, in 1587,
was Tamburlaine the Great, about the conqueror Timur, who rises from
shepherd to warrior. It is among the first English plays in blank
verse,[8] and, with Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, generally is
considered the beginning of the mature phase of the Elizabethan
theatre. Tamburlaine was a success, and was followed
with Tamburlaine the Great, Part II.
The two parts of Tamburlaine were published in 1590; all Marlowe's
other works were published posthumously. The sequence of the writing
of his other four plays is unknown; all deal with controversial themes.


The Jew of Malta, about a Maltese Jew's barbarous revenge
against the city authorities, has a prologue delivered by a character
representing Machiavelli. It was probably written in 1589 or 1590,
and was first performed in 1592. It was a success, and remained
popular for the next fifty years. The play was entered in
the Stationers' Register on 17 May 1594, but the earliest surviving
printed edition is from 1633.
Edward the Second is an English history play about the
deposition of King Edward II by his barons and the Queen, who
resent the undue influence the king's favourites have in court and
state affairs. The play was entered into the Stationers' Register on 6
July 1593, five weeks after Marlowe's death. The full title of the
earliest extant edition, of 1594, is "The Troublesome Reign and


Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England, with the
Tragical Fall of Proud Mortimer."
The Massacre at Paris is a short and luridly written work, the only
surviving text of which was probably a reconstruction from
memory of the original performance text,[9] portraying the events of
the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, which English
Protestants invoked as the blackest example of Catholic treachery. It
features the silent "English Agent", whom subsequent tradition has
identified with Marlowe himself and his connections to the secret
service.[10] The Massacre at Paris is considered his most dangerous
play, as agitators in London seized on its theme to advocate the
murders of refugees from the low countries and, indeed, it
warns Elizabeth I of this possibility in its last scene.[11][12]
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus,
based on the German Faustbuch, was the first dramatised version of
the Faust legend of a scholar's dealing with the devil. While versions
of "The Devil's Pact" can be traced back to the 4th century, Marlowe
deviates significantly by having his hero unable to "burn his books"
or repent to a merciful God in order to have his contract annulled at
the end of the play. Marlowe's protagonist is instead torn apart by
demons and dragged off screaming to hell. Dr Faustus is a textual
problem for scholars as it was highly edited (and possibly censored)
and rewritten after Marlowe's death. Two versions of the play exist:
the 1604 quarto, also known as the A text, and the 1616 quarto or B
text. Scholars have disagreed which text is more representative of
Marlowe's original, and some editions are based on a combination of
the two. The latest scholarly consensus (as of the late 20th century)
holds the A text is more representative because it contains irregular
character names and idiosyncratic spelling, which are believed to
reflect a text based on the author's handwritten manuscript, or "foul
papers".
Marlowe's plays were enormously successful, thanks in part, no doubt,
to the imposing stage presence of Edward Alleyn. Alleyn was unusually
tall for the time, and the haughty roles of Tamburlaine, Faustus, and
Barabas were probably written especially for him. Marlowe's plays were
the foundation of the repertoire of Alleyn's company, the Admiral's Men,
throughout the 1590s.
Marlowe also wrote the poem Hero and Leander (published with a
continuation by George Chapman in 1598), the popular lyric "The
Passionate Shepherd to His Love", and translations
of Ovid's Amores and the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia. In 1599, his
translation ofOvid was banned and copies publicly burned as part
of Archbishop Whitgift's crackdown on offensive material.
[edit]
As Shakespeare
Main articles: Marlovian theory and Shakespeare authorship question
Given the murky inconsistencies concerning the account of Marlowe's death, a theory has arisen
centred on the notion that Marlowe may have faked his death and then continued to write under the
assumed name of William Shakespeare. However, orthodox academic consensus rejects alternative
candidates for authorship, including Marlowe.[54] On the other hand, in August 1819 an anonymous
writer in The Monthly Review asked, "Can Christopher Marlowe be a nom de guerre assumed for a time
by Shakespeare