Riassunto Theatre of Restoration Bertinetti, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Riassunto Theatre of Restoration Bertinetti e più Schemi e mappe concettuali in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! The Theatre of the Restoration 1.. The re-opening of theaters Theaters in England were closed from 1642 to 1660. The Puritans, protagonists of the revolutionary movement that led to the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of the republican regime of Cromwell, were enemies of the theater because they saw it as a place of perdition. They loved music and singing, however, so the edict of 1642 outlawed theatrical performances but not the musical performances that survived. Despite this, an entire generation of Englishmen grew up without knowing what theatre was. It was then Charles II, when he returned to England in 1660, who regulated theatrical life in London. In particular, only two companies were authorized: Davenant and Killigrew. However, in that year, the surviving theaters were in very poor condition and far away such a building that triumphed throughout Europe. So, within a few years, designed by the best architect of the time Christopher Wren, the two companies had a new theater building: Dorest Garden and Drury Lane. The dimensions were more modest than those of Italian and French theatres, but the sensational novelty was represented by the moving scenes with special technical instruments. Another important novelty was that in the female roles they played actresses and no longer young actors. The audience greatly appreciated the innovation and the appearance of the actresses on the stage should be remembered for the significant effect it had on the construction of the theatrical text, allowing the authors to imagine larger female parts. The king, the courtiers and some authors imported into England a theatrical taste that had formed in the continent. And such taste had a fundamental importance. The central core of the Restoration public was gentlemen, aristocrats, and the wealthy bourgeois, given the high cost of the ticket. However, their presence increased over time, especially after the 'Glorious Revolution' in 1688 that installed William D'Orange on the throne. However, the relationship between the scene and the court was broken because the king was not interested in the theatre but despite this, the established traditions during the reign of Charles II allowed the authors to continue on the path traced by the playwrights of the previous generation. ('Theatre of the Restoration' is a definition that covers theatrical productions from 1660 to 1707). But of course, the break with the theatre of the early seventeenth century was evident because the new and old comedies or tragedies came to life on a scene now changed. 2.. The tragedy and Dryden When the theaters reopened, the Elizabethan tragedy could not be a model for the present. The genre of heroic tragedies was appreciated. The main exponent of the heroic tragedy was John Dryden, a literary poet of great importance and prestige on the cultural restaurant scene. He explained that the tragedy had to be an imitation of a chivalrous poem, quoting the first lines of the Orlando Furioso he states that the topics of the tragedy had to be love and warlike valor. As for the verse, it was right to abandon the Elizabethan Blank Verse and adopt the heroic couplet whose metric rigor guaranteed the tragedy necessary vigor. The recurring theme is the conflict between love and honor, they took place in the Mexico of the Conquistadores in the decadent imperial Rome in the Spain of the Moors or in the India of the Mughal emperors between wars and political conflicts that saw lovers in different fields. Death was not necessary, the traffic lay in the sufferings of the protagonists who were admired by the spectators and applauded the final triumph of good. However, he reevaluated his idea and considered the adoption of Blank Verse your tragic masterpiece was All for love written in Blank Verse. In this work he also decided to imitate Shakespeare, the imitation looks at Antony and Cleopatra where, however, instead of the 37 characters he leaves only 10. All for Love focuses all the attention on the protagonists, in particular on Anthony who struggles between love for cleopatra and his honor as a soldier. 3.. The rebirth of comedy At the reopening of the theatres, the profession of playwright had to be recreated starting from the texts of the old repertoire and the new examples provided by France and Spain. It was the king who suggested that Samuel Tuke adapt a Spanish play that was the first success of the Restoration: The Adventures of Five Hours. So, a subgenre of comedy developed called 'Spanish Plot'. At first it was about adaptations but then, the adaptations from the French were real thefts, especially against Molière. The English authors loved Moliere because he was able to critically draw the societies of his time, but soon began to copy his inventions. However, English playwrights did not have a basis on which to base their criticisms as they only had high society and the court behind them. Subsequently, political comedies characterized by satire against the Puritans began to appear. But the most successful genre during the Restoration years was the 'London Comedy'. This genre is characterized by an attention to uses, characters and habits of worldly life. It’s a very broad category in which we find different types of comedy, from Howard’s elegant one to Congreve’s 'commedy of Manners'. Millamant, but not only. Alongside the dialogues of the main characters, they arouse hilarity even those of secondary characters such as those of the servants, the maid, the dandies and the gentleman. WILLIAM CONGREVE (1670-1729) The author who dominated the comedy scene of the late 17 th century was William Congreve; his talent was recognized immediately since the representation of his first comedy, The Old Bachelor (1693), from which Congreve’s mastery in giving life to perfectly realistic characters who all responded to the comedy of manner’s canons and in writing the most cunning satires immediately stood. Congreve is also remembered for having created a bubbly and supremely elegant dialogue, which accompanied the masterful writing of the characters and their superb language. Congreve, in the final part of his career, also had to face a strong wave of opposition against theatres from the new middle class, who could not afford to go to theatre anymore; this situation was worsened