The New Drama

The New Drama

The re-birth
1. The Puritans closed the theaters in 1642.
2. The King granted patents to Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant.
3. English Drama had to begin all over again.
4. The needs of the restoration audiences were different than before, and the physical circumstances of the drama had changed.
5. Davenant took a turn towards lighting, swift changes and music rather than speech.
6. Women player were introduced in the Restoration. This gave more realistic sexual atmosphere to the acting.
Restoration Comedy
1. In this new generation the normal was to go straight to the understanding without getting poetry in the way.
2. Shakespeare seemed to be too complex for that time.
3. New dramatists specialized for the most part in comedy.
4. Main topics were lust, cuckoldry, and intrigue.
5. - The senior Restoration comedian was George Etherege (1634 - 1691)
6. Among the comedians of the age we find John Vanbrugh and William Congreve.
Restoration of Tragedies
1. Congreve, Dryden, and Thomas Otway were some exponents who wrote tragedies in this age.
2. The Restoration period was not an heroic age despite its love of heroic couplets.
3. The characteristic achievement is the witty, immoral comedy of manners.
4. The ascendancy in the drama of the age came from France, and Moliere’s achievement alone is equals all English dramatists altogheter.
5. In 1698 a man called Collier attacked the immorality and profaneness of the English, so there was a general movement to clean up the comedy and it declined further.
Beginnings of Opera
1. At the beginning of the XVIII century opera took much of the protagonist that drama had.
2. New standards in drama started to be less poetical and intelectual.
3. After all, sentimentality holds sway.
4. Drama had become so feeble that it in some way needed a “blood transfusion” and two Irishmen, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Sheridan could revive the spirit of the Restoration comedy.
5. Finally, one of the English answers to the popular Italian opera was The Beggar’s Opera, by John Gay (1685 - 1732).

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	Erstellt von Leonardo Murillo vor fast 4 Jahre