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Domestic Tragedy
In English drama, a domestic tragedy is a tragedy in which the tragic protagonists are ordinary middle-class or working-class individuals. This subgenre contrasts with classical and Neoclassical tragedy, in which the protagonists are of kingly or aristocratic rank and their downfall is an affair of state as well as a personal matter. These plays were in particular contrast to De casibus tragedy like De casibus virorum illustrium by Giovanni Boccaccio The Ancient Greek theorist Aristotle had argued that tragedy should concern only great individuals with great minds and souls, because their catastrophic downfall would be more emotionally powerful to the audience; only comedy should depict middle-class people. Domestic tragedy breaks with Aristotle's precepts, taking as its subjects merchants or citizens whose lives have less consequence in the wider world. In Britain, the first domestic tragedies were written in the English Renaissance; one of the first was ''Arden of Faversham'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Drama
Drama was introduced to Britain from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose. But England didn't exist until hundreds of years after the Romans left. Medieval period By the medieval period, the mummers' plays had developed, a form of early street theatre associated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. English mystery plays Mystery plays and miracle plays (sometimes distinguished as two different forms, although the terms are often used interchangeably) are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Yorkshire Tragedy
''A Yorkshire Tragedy'' is an early Jacobean era stage play, a domestic tragedy printed in 1608. The play was originally assigned to William Shakespeare, though the modern critical consensus rejects this attribution, favouring Thomas Middleton. Date and text ''A Yorkshire Tragedy'' was entered into the Stationers' Register on 2 May 1608; the entry assigns the play to "Wylliam Shakespere." The play was published soon after, in a quarto issued by bookseller Thomas Pavier, who had published ''Sir John Oldcastle,'' another play of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, in 1600. The play was reprinted in 1619, as part of William Jaggard's False Folio. It was next reprinted in 1664, when Philip Chetwinde included it among the seven plays he added to the second impression of the Shakespeare Third Folio. Form and genre The play is unusual in consisting of only ten scenes. The original printed text of the play identifies it as "ALL'S ONE. OR, One of the foure Plaies in one, called a York-Shire T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragedies (dramas)
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain hatawakens pleasure", for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been multiple and discontinuous, yet the term has often been used to invoke a powerful effect of cultural identity and historical continuity—"the Greeks and the Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. From its origins in the theatre of ancient Greece 2500 years ago, from which there survives only a fraction ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been contrasted with the epic and the lyrical modes ever since Aristotle's '' Poetics'' (c. 335 BC)—the earliest work of dramatic theory. The term "drama" comes from a Greek word meaning "deed" or " act" (Classical Greek: , ''drâma''), which is derived from "I do" (Classical Greek: , ''dráō''). The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. In English (as was the analogous case in many other European languages), the word ''play'' or ''game'' (translating the Anglo-Saxon ''pleġan'' or Latin ''ludus'') was the standard term for dramas until William Shakespeare's time—just as its creator was a ''play-maker'' rather than a ''dramatist'' and the building was a ''play-house'' r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bourgeois Tragedy
Bourgeois tragedy (German: ''Bürgerliches Trauerspiel'') is a form of tragedy that developed in 18th-century Europe. It is a fruit of the enlightenment and the emergence of the bourgeois class and its ideals. It is characterized by the fact that its protagonists are ordinary citizens. In England and France There are a few examples of tragic plays with middle-class protagonists from 17th century England (see domestic tragedy), but only in the 18th century did the general attitude change. The first true bourgeois tragedy was an English play: George Lillo's ''The London Merchant; or, the History of George Barnwell'', which was first performed in 1731. In France, the first ''tragédie bourgeoise'' was ''Sylvie'' by Paul Landois, which came out in 1741. Years later came two plays by Denis Diderot: ''Le fils naturel'' was first staged in 1757 and ''Le père de famille'' in the following year; while these plays were not strictly tragedies, they treat bourgeois lives in a serious mann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Augustan Drama
Augustan drama can refer to the dramas of Ancient Rome during the reign of Caesar Augustus, but it most commonly refers to the plays of Great Britain in the early 18th century, a subset of 18th-century Augustan literature. King George I referred to himself as "Augustus," and the poets of the era took this reference as apropos, as the literature of Rome during Augustus moved from historical and didactic poetry to the poetry of highly finished and sophisticated epics and satire. In poetry, the early 18th century was an age of satire and public verse, and in prose, it was an age of the developing novel. In drama, by contrast, it was an age in transition between the highly witty and sexually playful Restoration comedy, the pathetic she-tragedy of the turn of the 18th century, and any later plots of middle-class anxiety. The Augustan stage retreated from the Restoration's focus on cuckoldry, marriage for fortune, and a life of leisure. Instead, Augustan drama reflected questions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Steele
Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine ''The Spectator''. Early life Steele was born in Dublin, Ireland, in March 1672 to Richard Steele, a wealthy attorney, and Elinor Symes (''née'' Sheyles); his sister Katherine was born the previous year. He was the grandson of Sir William Steele, Lord Chancellor of Ireland and his first wife Elizabeth Godfrey. His father lived at Mountown House, Monkstown, County Dublin. His mother, of whose family background little is known, was described as a woman of "great beauty and noble spirit". His father died when he was four, and his mother a year later. Steele was largely raised by his uncle and aunt, Henry Gascoigne (secretary to James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde), and Lady Katherine Mildmay. A member of the Protestant gentry, he was educated at Charterhouse School, where he first met Add ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Lillo
George Lillo (3 February 1691 – 4 September 1739) was an English playwright and tragedian. He was also a jeweller in London. He produced his first stage work, ''Silvia, or The Country Burial'', in 1730, and a year later his most famous play, ''The London Merchant''. He wrote at least six more plays before his death in 1739, including '' The Christian Hero'' (1735), '' Fatal Curiosity'' (1737) and ''Marina'' (1738). Life George Lillo was born in Moorfields, or Moorgate, in the City of London.Steffensen, James L."Lillo, George (1691/1693–1739)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004; online edition, May 2008, retrieved 9 December 2011 ("You do not currently have access to this article"Archived site He became a partner in his father's goldsmith's and jewellery business. Early stage works Lillo wrote at least eight plays between 1730 and his death in 1739. His first work in the theatre was the ballad opera '' Sylvia, or The Country Burial'' i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Othello
''Othello'' (full title: ''The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice'') is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare, probably in 1603, set in the contemporary Ottoman–Venetian War (1570–1573) fought for the control of the Island of Cyprus, a possession of the Venetian Republic since 1489. The port city of Famagusta finally fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after a protracted siege. The story revolves around two characters, Othello and Iago. Othello is a Moorish military commander who was serving as a general of the Venetian army in defence of Cyprus against invasion by Ottoman Turks. He has recently married Desdemona, a beautiful and wealthy Venetian lady much younger than himself, against the wishes of her father. Iago is Othello's malevolent ensign, who maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of blind rage. Due to its enduring themes of passion, jealousy, and race, ''Othello'' is still topical and popular and is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Witch Of Edmonton
''The Witch of Edmonton'' is an English Jacobean play, written by William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford in 1621. The play—"probably the most sophisticated treatment of domestic tragedy in the whole of Elizabethan-Jacobean drama"—is based on events that supposedly took place in the parish of Edmonton, then outside London, earlier that year. The play depicts Elizabeth Sawyer, an old woman shunned by her neighbours, who gets revenge by selling her soul to the Devil, who appears to her in the shape of a black dog called Tom. In addition, there are two subplots. One depicts a bigamist who murders his second wife at the devil's prompting, and the other depicts a clownish yokel who befriends the devil-dog. Date and authorship Written and first acted in 1621, the play was not published until 1658. It was entered into the Stationers' Register on 21 May that year; the edition that followed was issued by the bookseller Edward Blackmore. The title page of the first edition attr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Woman Killed With Kindness
A'' Woman Killed with Kindness'' is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the most critical attention among Heywood's works. Along with the anonymous ''Arden of Faversham,'' Heywood's play has been regarded as the apex of Renaissance drama's achievement in the subgenre of bourgeois or domestic tragedy. The play was originally performed by Worcester's Men, the company for which Heywood acted and wrote in the early Jacobean era. The records of Philip Henslowe show that Heywood was paid £6 for the play in February and March 1603. The 1607 quarto was printed by William Jaggard for the bookseller John Hodgets. A second quarto was issued in 1617 by William Jaggard's son Isaac Jaggard. The plot of Heywood's play derives from an Italian novel by Illicini, which was translated into English and published in ''The Palace of Pleasure ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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