|
Classical Unities
The classical unities, Aristotelian unities, or three unities represent a prescriptive theory of dramatic tragedy that was introduced in Italy in the 16th century and was influential for three centuries. The three unities are: #''unity of action'': a tragedy should have one principal action. #''unity of time'': the action in a tragedy should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours. #''unity of place'': a tragedy should exist in a single physical location. History Italy In 1514, author and critic Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478 – 1550) introduced the concept of the unities in his blank-verse tragedy, ''Sofonisba''. Trissino claimed he was following Aristotle. However, Trissino had no access to Aristotle's most significant work on the tragic form, ''Poetics''. Trissino expanded with his own ideas on what he was able to glean from Aristotle's book, ''Rhetoric''. In ''Rhetoric'' Aristotle considers the dramatic elements of action and time, while focusing on audience reception. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tragedy
A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsis, or a "pain [that] awakens pleasure,” for the audience. While many cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, the term ''tragedy'' often refers to a specific Poetic tradition, tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western culture, 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 Classical Athens, Greeks and the Elizabethan era, Elizabethans, in one cultural form; Hellenistic civilization, Hellenes and Christians, in a common activity," as Raymond Williams puts it. Originating in the theatre of ancient Greece ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hernani (drama)
''Hernani'' (full title: ''Hernani, ou l'Honneur Castillan'') is a drama in rhyming alexandrines by the French romantic author Victor Hugo. Title origin The title originates from Hernani, a Spanish town in the Southern Basque Country, where Hugo's mother and her three children stopped on their way to General Hugo's place of residence. History The play was given its premiere on 25 February 1830 by the Comédie-Française in Paris. Today, it is more remembered for the demonstrations which accompanied the first performance and for being the inspiration for Giuseppe Verdi's opera '' Ernani'' than it is for its own merits. Hugo had enlisted the support of fellow Romanticists such as Hector Berlioz and Théophile Gautier to combat the opposition of Classicists who recognised the play as a direct attack on their values. In Edgar Allan Poe's short story " The Masque of the Red Death", ''Hernani'' is used to describe the magnitude and elegance of Prince Prospero's masquerade. Gill ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epic Poetry
In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, and are contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech where the performer has the license to recontextualize the story to a particular audience, often to a younger generation. Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's ''Iliad'' and '' Odyssey''; Virgil's '' Aeneid''; and the anonymous '' Beowulf'' and '' Epic of Gilgamesh''. The genre has inspired the adjective '' epic'' as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics. Etymology The English word ''epic'' comes from Latin , which itself comes from the Ancient Greek adject ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arden Shakespeare
The Arden Shakespeare is a long-running series of scholarly editions of the works of William Shakespeare. It presents fully edited modern-spelling editions of the plays and poems, with lengthy introductions and full commentaries. There have been three distinct series of The Arden Shakespeare over the past century, with the third series commencing in 1995 and concluding in January 2020. The fourth series is scheduled to commence publication in 2026. Arden was the maiden name of Shakespeare's mother, Mary, but the primary reference of the enterprise's title is to the Forest of Arden, in which Shakespeare's ''As You Like It'' is set. First Series The first series was published by Methuen. Its first publication was Edward Dowden's edition of ''Hamlet'', published in 1899. Over the next 25 years, the entire canon of Shakespeare was edited and published. The original editor of The Arden Shakespeare was William James Craig (1899–1906), succeeded by R. H. Case (1909–1944). The t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shakespearean Histories
In the First Folio (1623), the plays of William Shakespeare were in three categories: (i) Shakespearean comedies, comedies, (ii) histories, and (iii) Shakespearean tragedy, tragedies. Besides the history plays of his Renaissance playwright contemporaries, the histories of Shakespeare define the theatrical genre of History (theatrical genre), history plays. The historical plays also are biographies of the List of English monarchs, English kings of the previous four centuries, and include the plays ''King John (play), King John'', ''Edward III (play), Edward III'', and ''Henry VIII (play), Henry VIII'', and a continual sequence of eight plays known as the ''Henriad'', for the protagonist Prince Hal, the future King Henry V of England. The Chronology of Shakespeare's plays indicates that the first tetralogy was written in the early 1590s, and discusses the politics of the Wars of the Roses; the four plays are ''Henry VI, Part 1, Henry VI, parts I'', ''Henry VI, Part 2, II'', and ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Winter's Tale
''The Winter's Tale'' is a play by William Shakespeare originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, many modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics consider it to be one of Shakespeare's "Shakespearean problem play, problem plays" because the first three acts are filled with intense psychological drama, while the last two acts are comic and supply a happy ending. The play has been intermittently popular, having been revived in productions and adaptations by some of the leading theatre practitioners in Shakespeare's plays#Performance history, Shakespearean performance history. In the mid-18th century, after a long interval without major performances, David Garrick premiered his adaptation ''Florizel and Perdita'' (first performed in 1753 and published in 1756). ''The Winter's Tale'' was revived again in the 19th century, when the fourth "pastoral" act was widely popular. In the seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan era, Elizabethan age. His works include a sonnet sequence, ''Astrophil and Stella'', a treatise, ''An Apology for Poetry, The Defence of Poesy'' (also known as ''The Defence of Poesie'' or ''An Apology for Poetrie'') and a Pastoral#Pastoral romances, pastoral romance, ''The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia''. He died fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands, age 31, and his funeral procession in London was one of the most lavish ever seen. Biography Early life Born at Penshurst Place, Kent, England, Kent, of an aristocratic family, he was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford. He was the eldest son of Henry Sidney, Sir Henry Sidney and Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney, Lady Mary Dudley. His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and the sister of Robert Du ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Apology For Poetry
''An Apology for Poetry'' (or ''The Defence of Poesy'') is a work of literary criticism by Elizabethan poetry, Elizabethan poet Philip Sidney. It was written in approximately 1580 and first published in 1595, after his death. It is generally believed that he was at least partly motivated by Stephen Gosson, a former playwright who dedicated his attack on the English stage, ''The School of Abuse'', to Sidney in 1579, but Sidney primarily addresses more general objections to poetry, such as those of Plato. In his essay, Sidney integrates a number of classical and Italian precepts on fiction. The essence of his defense is that poetry, by combining the liveliness of history with the ethical focus of philosophy, is more effective than either history or philosophy in rousing its readers to virtue. The work also offers important comments on Edmund Spenser and the English Renaissance theatre, Elizabethan stage. Sidney states that there "have been three general kinds" of poetry: (i) "the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tempest
''The Tempest'' is a Shakespeare's plays, play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a magician, lives with his daughter Miranda (The Tempest), Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel (The Tempest), Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including Magic (supernatural), magic, betrayal, revenge, forgiveness and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language. Although ''The Tempest'' is listed in the First Folio as the first of Shakespeare's comedies, it deals with both tragic and comic themes, and modern criticism has created a category of Shakespeare's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irene (play)
''Irene'' is a Neoclassical tragedy written between 1726 and 1749 by Samuel Johnson. It has the distinction of being the work Johnson considered his greatest failure. Since his death, the critical consensus has been that he was right to think so. ''Irene'' was Johnson's only play, and was first performed on 6 February 1749 in a production by his friend and former pupil David Garrick. The play was a commercial success and earned Johnson more money than anything else he had written up to that point. It was never revived during his lifetime, and there is no subsequent evidence of any other full-scale productions of ''Irene'' anywhere until 1999. Background Johnson began writing ''Irene'' around 1726 when he first began to work in his father's bookshop. While in the bookshop he befriended Gilbert Walmesley, the Registrar of the Ecclesiastical Court of Lichfield. Johnson would discuss ''Irene'' with Walmesley, and read him some of the early drafts. At one point, Walmesley told J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson ( – 13 December 1784), often called Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, sermonist, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. The ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' calls him "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, he attended Pembroke College, Oxford, until lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London and began writing for ''The Gentleman's Magazine''. Early works include '' Life of Mr Richard Savage'', the poems ''London'' and '' The Vanity of Human Wishes'' and the play '' Irene''. After nine years of effort, Johnson's '' A Dictionary of the English Language'' appeared in 1755, and was acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". Later work included essays, an annotated '' The Plays of William Shakespeare'', and the apologue '' The Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cato, A Tragedy
''Cato, a Tragedy'' is a play written by Joseph Addison in 1712 and first performed on 14 April 1713. It is based on the events of the last days of Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (better known as Cato the Younger) (95–46 BC), a Stoic whose deeds, rhetoric and resistance to the tyranny of Julius Caesar made him an icon of republicanism, virtue, and liberty. Addison's play deals with many themes such as individual liberty versus government tyranny, republicanism versus monarchism, logic versus emotion, and Cato's personal struggle to hold to his beliefs in the face of death. The play has a prologue written by Alexander Pope and an epilogue by Samuel Garth. Premiering at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane the original cast featured Barton Booth as Cato, Theophilus Keene as Lucius, John Mills as Sempronius, Robert Wilks as Juba, Colley Cibber as Syphax, George Powell as Portius, Lacy Ryan as Marcus, John Bowman as Decius, Anne Oldfield as Marcia and Mary Porter as Lucia. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
