The Renaissance Period
European Renaissance was the period of time that European become free from the influence of
the church and the imperial monarchal system. They also become developed in different aspects
such as technologies, philosophy, literature and so.
Introduction
Elizabethan theater sometimes called English Renaissance theatre refers to the performance
plays which blossomed during the reign of Elizabeth I of England(1558 -1603).
Some of the theme that dominate English drama were ambition class mobility,avarice and
excessive consumption, love and religion and gender. The theatre was open and plays had to be
performed in a daylight.
Men and women attended plays but often the prosperous women would wear mask to disguise
their identity(Elizabethan era). Even though women did attended theatre and even Queen
Elizabeth herself loved the theatre women who attended theatre were often looked down upon.
Playhouse were therefore used for many winter productions.many of the playhouse were
converted from the old coaching inns or other existing buildings all production were staged in
the comparative warmth of these indoor Elizabethan theater
Italian renaissance
begun around the 14th century, peaked in the 16th century, and faded in the 17th century. It gave
birth to many innovations in style, Acting, Dramatic criticism, Theatre architecture and Scene
design.
The major movements were humanistic. The humanists focused on people rather than gods.
They were preoccupied with describing humanity and human power, and they studied and
imitated Greek and Romans.t The 1st important literary work were not written in Latin, But in the
vernacular everyday language.
The role of printing press
The rise and proliferation of printing presses helped the circulation of new thoughts in learning.
By 1300, Italian humanism had influenced all of Europe. Classic plays including those of
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Plautus, Terrence, Sceneca, Aristophanes, Sophocules, Euripidues and Aeschylos were printed
and read widely. Classical and mythological subjects entered western literature, theatre, and art
through the works of humanists and their accessibility due to the advent of printing press.
Contribution of renaissance to theatre
Neoclassicism in theatre basically referred to the role of writing and staging drama, influencing
the very format of drama, and dramatic criticism, which came into prevalence during the Italian
renaissance. Under the influence of ancient Greek and Roman literature, neoclassicists were
influenced by the works of Greek and Roman critics. Yet the ideas appeared to be based mainly
on the moral of Horace, Whose precepts were relied upon to make requirements for playwright
to abide by writing their plays. Another great influence were Aristotle’s poetics.
Central concepts of neoclassicism
 Verisimilitude /truth seeming / Drama could represent only what could be reasonably
expected in reality.
 Decorum characters were expected to display traits normally held by members of their
class, or suffer ridiculer punishment. All the action on had to be morally acceptable and
any action involving violence was to be avoided.
 Purity of genre There were specific feature for each genre. Tragedy must always involve
nobility, deal with affairs of state, have elevated language, and it must end with disparity.
On the on the other hand the comedy involves only the common people, deal with
domestic affairs uses less elevated language and ended in joy. The genre could never mix.
Styles of theatre
Dramatic texts were divided among commedia dell’arte, tragedy, pastorals, and opera.
Commedia dell’arte
It was comedy of professional actors. Two aspects of commedia dell’arte were improvisation
and stock character. Some of the reasons improvisation was so well done was because actors
would play same characters through their whole lives. This colorful and extremely theatrical
art form is based on the interaction of traditional stock characters in improvised scenarios
that facilitate a comic plot to arrive at a humorous climax. Commedia dell’arte (comedy of
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artists) originated in street and market places of early Italian renaissance, although its root
can be traced as far back as ancient Greek and Roman theatre. Thus Italian street performers
domming to themselves and their physical acrobatic skills, eventually teamed up in troupes
of actors often with a traveling stages to firmly stablish comedia as in its own right by the
mid 15th c. These “commedia troupes “ performed for and were accessible to all. Language
was no barrier, in their skillful nime stereotyped
stock characters trarditional lazzie’s
(signature,stunts,gags and pranks), masks,broad physical gestures, improvised dialogue and
crowning they became widely accepted wherever they traveled.
The style and formula of commedia is now surviving well into late 20th century and b eyond
continuing the tradition as an artistic institution where gifted actor create some of the most
memorable historic physical characters the theatre has ever seen. It is from the commedia
world where such character as Arlechinno (Harlequion) Columbina, Pulcinela(Punch),The
Doctor commedia dell’arte was highly popular until the 17th C and has influenced many
playwrights, contemporary movements and theatrical experimentation. In 1560 women were
allowed on stage in Italy.
Tragedy
Aristotle’s poetics was published in 1498 and the playwrights in Italy followed this formula
forth for writers of tragedy. Classical tragedies were translated to the vernacular fo
production in the 16th C. The Aldean press printed seven tragedies of Sophocles, in 1502,
tragedies of Euripidus in 1503 and Aeschylus in 1518. The 1st well known tragedy was
Sophonisha in 1515 by Gian Giorgio. Trissino Orbecche by Gian Battista Giral Dicinthio in
(1541) was the 1st Italian tragedy to be staged.
Pastorals
Signifies works portraying rural life or the bucolic play was another form of drama given
importance by the Italian renaissance writers. Love and satires featured in Italian pastorals
and were admired by an audience of noble, scholars and alights. Aminta was one of works in
the
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Opera
Undoubtedly one of the greatest gifts of renaissance Italy to the world opera had almost an
accidental birth in Florence by 16th C. It drew upon the older tradition of medieval and
renaissance quickly entertainment.
It was a custom to have rather lavish musical
entertainment known as intimacy or intermediate piece between the acts of Italian comedy
with spectacular image effects, lightings, scenery, beautiful custumes , music, Dance, and
allegoric plots. Public opera houses were opened in Florence, Venice, Neples and elsewhere
and French and composers began to write operas in their language.
Theatre Achitecture
During earlier renaissance medieval stages were still used for the performances. Places where
staged either In churches or outdoor. In 1486 Vitruvius de archutectura was printed, during
this time the academies were experimenting and faithfully mimicking the ancient place . The
interpretation of Vitruvius by sebastiano selio was especially noteworthy . According to
serlio Roman’s theatre were built preexisting halls. These theatres would have a semicircular
stadium seating around an Orchestra area reserved for rulers and gusts. The stage would be
raised to the eyelevel of the ruler and all scenic perspectives correspond to the seat of the
ruler. The stage sloped upward to enhance the illusion of perspective distance.
Teatro olympico :- the oldest surviving renaissance theatre showed several Serlio’s principle
in practice. It was built by Olympic academy and was designed by Andrea palladio.
The 1st permanent theatre was the “theatro medici”. The first permanent arch teatro farnes
was built in 1618 designed by Giovanni Battista Aliotti.
Stage Design
The renaissance theatre artists sought to approach reality on stage and perspective scenery
was a result of that thought. It was a technique that represents three dimensional pace on a
flat surface creating an illusion of reality and an impression of distance. Perspective Scenery
applied the newly mastered of linear perspective and brought the craft of illusion to the
Italian Stage. It used mathematical equation and geometrical calculations. based on actual
measurement of objects and spaces to depict depth on stage in a realistic manner.
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Flippo Brunllechi and Giacomo Torelli invented machines using pully and trolley to make
scenic changes during performance. He also created with inventing the principle of linear
perspective in drawing. He was commissioned to build the dome over the cathedral in
Florence, which had been started in 1296. In 1519 the building was still unfinished for no one
could quite figure out how to build the Dome.Brunlleschi solved the problem by inventing a
new type of dome. Rather than hemisphere Brunlleschi’s dome was conical and high.
Renaissance as it spread thought Europe gave rise not just to common as well as specific
styles in theatre , but also gave birth to an array brilliant writersthe world still look upto and
uses as model. Various art forms uch as pantaloons, slapstick films among the other or their
genre to commedia dell’arte.
Spanish Renaissance Theatre
The Golden Age of Spanish Theatre
The Output of the Golden Age of Spanish Theatre – 1500 – 1700 By 1700, 30,000 plays were
written. In quantity and vigor, the Spanish theatre was equal to England’s between 1585 and
1642, But it fails to probe deeply into man’s destiny. A preoccupation with a narrow code of
honor limits it.
Spanish drama flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, like England, but came from different
influences, Catholicism was able to become secure in Spain while religious infighting was
rampant in the rest of Europe:
Ferdinand and Isabella, after 1479, were able to unite much of Spain establish the Inquisition to
hunt down and punish heretics, expel Moors and Jews Catholicism became secure.
Influences of Spanish drama:
Moorish influence: women and honor Christian influence: religious faith and doctrine
Spain was a dominant power by 1550, but after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, its
influence and power declined.
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Spanish Religious Drama
Extensive in the N.E. areas because the Moorish influence was less there. As Moors were
expelled, religious drama expanded. It was similar to much of the rest of Europe till 1550, then
took on distinctive characteristics.
Auto sacramentale – associate with Corpus Christi – the sacraments – combined characteristics
of morality and cycle plays, human mixed with allegorical, drawn from many sources as long as
it illustrated dogma.
Trade guilds were responsible for the productions, but professional troupes took over by the mid1500’s. But they were still religious.
Toured neighboring towns.Usually done on carros, or wagons. First 2, then 4. They were wooden
frames covered with painted canvas. By the 1690’s, they were 16 feet long by 36 feet tall.
Similar to the English pageant wagon staging.
By 1647, fixed platforms were also used.
Performed first in front of churches, then courtyards, then streets; no evidence that they were
ever performed in the church itself.
The autos were forbidden in 1765 – called too carnival in spirit. Some of the farces and dances
elements considered objectionable. Also, having the plays performed by possibly immoral actors
was objectionable. However, the autos were an adjunct for professional acting for 200 years.
Spanish Secular Drama
1470-1550 – Spain and Italy were close, they both had an interest in classical learning; in 1508, a
University was founded, which studied Greek, Latin, Hebrew, classical dramas. Many works
were translated.
Some secular works written, but not widely performed.
By 1454, many actors were paid at Corpus Christi, and by 1550 there were a number of
professional troupes.
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Lope de Rueda (c. 1510-1565), often called the father of Spanish professional theatre (but was
probably just the most successful), toured widely, wrote plays resembling medieval farces. There
were not yet any permanent Spanish theatres.
Juan de la Cueva (1550-1610) – used Spanish history and classical themes as subjects.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) [Don Quixote]– 36 plays about contemporary Spanish life, but
came to be seen as stilted after the plays of de Vega.
By the end of the 16th century – full-length plays, serious or comic, 3 acts (the 5-act form was
never adopted in Spain).
The Two Major Playwrights:
The first was also the most prolific playwright:
Lope Félix de Vega Carpia [known as Lope de Vega] (1562-1635).
Member of the Armada, secretary to noblemen, many love affairs, a priest after 1614.
By 1609 he had written 483 comedies (he claimed) – some estimate 1800 plays. 450 have
survived, some written in a few days. By the end of his life, it was rumored that he wrote 2 plays
per week.
General characteristics of de Vega’s plays:
1. clearly defined actions, arousing suspense, dealing with conflicting claims of love and
honor
2. happy resolved endings
3. characters representing every rank and condition of people
a. female roles among his best
b. extended the simpleton character (gracioso)
4. natural and lively dialog – MANY FORMS USED Spanish equivalent of blank verse.
He was never ranked with Shakespeare never penetrated deeply into human life, the darker side
glossed over.
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de Vega was the most popular playwright of his time, though there were many minor
playwrights.
The second major Spanish playwright was:
Pedro Calderón de la Barca [known as Calderón] (1600-1681)
Challenged de Vega’s preeminence.
Wrote primarily for the court theatres rather than public theatres (many see this shift to court
theatres leading to the decline of Spanish theatre after 1650).
Son of a court official, university-educated, entered the service of a nobleman. Became a priest
after 1651 (**both major playwrights becoming priests later in life—Catholicism, remember,
was strong influence).
Approximately 200 plays, 100 survive, eighty are autos.
His best secular plays came between 1622 and 1640. Two categories:
Cape and sword – capa y espada – revolving around men of minor rank dealing with intrigues
and misunderstandings
Serious – dealing with jealousy and honor.
His most famous play: Life is a Dream (c. 1636).
Philosophical allegory about the human situation and mystery of life.
Spanish influence declined, including theatrical influence, after 1700, and had almost no
influence on the world’s theatre.
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as Renaissance English theatre and Elizabethan theatre,
refers to the theatre of England between 1558 and 1603.
Background
8encompasses the period between 1562—following a performance of Gorboduc, the first English
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play using blank verse, at the Inner Temple during the Christmas season of 1561—the ban on
theatrical plays enacted by the English Parliament in 1642.9
The phrase Elizabethan theatre is sometimes used, improperly, to mean English Renaissance
theatre, although in a strict sense "Elizabethan" only refers to the period of Queen Elizabeth's
reign (1558–1603).9
may be said to encompass Elizabethan theatre from 1562 to 1603, Jacobean theatre from 1603 to
1625, and Caroline theatre from 1625 to 1642.
Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the drama changed towards 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 towards 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.
Sites of dramatic performance9
Grammar schools9
The English grammar schools, placed special emphasis on the trivium: grammar, logic, and
rhetoric. Though rhetorical instruction was intended as preparation for careers in civil service
such as law, the rhetorical canons of memory and delivery, gesture and voice, as well as
exercises from the progymnasmata, such as the prosopopoeia, taught theatrical skills. Students
would typically analyse Latin and Greek texts, write their own compositions, memorise them,
and then perform them in front of their instructor and their peers. Records show that in addition
to this weekly performance, students would perform plays on holidays, and in both Latin and
English.
Choir schools
Choir schools connected with the Elizabethan court included St. George’s Chapel, the Chapel
Royal, and St. Paul’s.These schools performed plays and other court entertainments for the
Queen.Between the 1560s and 1570s these schools had begun to perform for general audiences
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as well. Playing companies of boy actors were derived from choir schools. An earlier example of
a playwright contracted to write for the children's companies is John Lyly, who wrote Gallathea,
Endymion, and Midas for Paul’s Boys. Another example is Ben Jonson, who wrote Cynthia’s
Revels.
Universities
Academic drama stems from late medieval and early modern practices of miracles and morality
plays as well as the Feast of Fools and the election of a Lord of Misrule.The Feast of Fools
includes mummer plays.The universities, particularly Oxford and Cambridge, were attended by
students studying for bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, followed by doctorates in
Law,Medicine, and Theology.In the 1400s, dramas were often restricted to mummer plays with
someone who read out all the parts in Latin. With the rediscovery and redistribution of classical
materials during the English Renaissance, Latin and Greek plays began to be restaged. These
plays were often accompanied by feasts. Queen Elizabeth I viewed dramas during her visits to
Oxford and Cambridge.A well-known play cycle which was written and performed in the
universities was the Parnassus Plays.
Establishment of playhouses10
The first permanent English theatre, the Red Lion, opened in 1567 but it was a short-lived
failure. The first successful theatres, such as The Theatre, opened in 1576. The establishment of
large and profitable public theatres was an essential enabling factor in the success of English
Renaissance drama. Once they were in operation, drama could become a fixed and permanent,
rather than transitory, phenomenon. Their construction was prompted when the Mayor and
Corporation of London first banned plays in 1572 as a measure against the plague, and then
formally expelled all players from the city in 1575. This prompted the construction of permanent
playhouses outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of Halliwell/Holywell in
Shoreditch and later the Clink, and at Newington Butts near the established entertainment district
of St. George's Fields in rural Surrey.The Theatre was constructed in Shoreditch in 1576 by
James Burbage with his brother-in-law John Brayne (the owner of the unsuccessful Red Lion
playhouse of 1567) and the Newington Butts playhouse was set up, probably by Jerome Savage,
some time between 1575 and 1577. The Theatre was rapidly followed by the nearby Curtain
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Theatre (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Globe (1599), the Fortune (1600), and the
Red Bull (1604).
Audiences
Around 1580, when both the Theater and the Curtain were full on summer days, the total theater
capacity of London was about 5000 spectators. With the building of new theater facilities and the
formation of new companies, London's total theater capacity exceeded 10,000 after 1610. Ticket
prices in general varied during this time period. The cost of admission was based on where in the
theatre a person wished to be situated, or based on what a person could afford. 11If people
wanted a better view of the stage or to be more separate from the crowd, they would pay more
for their entrance. Due to inflation that occurred during this time period, admission increased in
some theaters from a penny to a sixpence or even higher. Commercial theaters were largely
located just outside the boundaries of the City of London, since City authorities tended to be
wary of the adult playing companies, but plays were performed by touring companies all over
England. English companies even toured and performed English plays abroad, especially in
Germany and in Denmark. The upper class spectators would pay to sit in the galleries often using
cushions for comfort. Rich nobles could watch the play from a chair set on the side of the Globe
stage itself, so an audience viewing a play may often have to ignore the fact that there is a noble
man sitting right on the stage11
Performances
Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess ran for nine straight performances in August 1624 before
it was closed by the authorities; but this was due to the political content of the play and was a
unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable phenomenon. The 1592 season of Lord Strange's Men
at the Rose Theatre was far more representative: between 19 February and 23 June the company
played six days a week, minus Good Friday and two other days. They performed 23 different
plays, some only once, and their most popular play of the season, The First Part of Hieronimo,
based on Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, 15 times. They never played the same play two days in a
row, and rarely the same play twice in a week. The workload on the actors, especially the leading
performers like Richard Burbage or Edward Alleyn, must have been tremendous. One distinctive
feature of the companies was that they included only males. Female parts were played by
adolescent boy players in women's costume. Some companies were composed entirely of boy
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players. Performances in the public theatres (like the Globe) took place in the afternoon with no
artificial lighting, but when, in the course of a play, the light began to fade, candles were lit. In
the enclosed private theatres (like the Blackfriars) artificial lighting was used throughout. Plays
contained little to no scenery as the scenery was described by the actors or indicated by costume
through the course of the play. In the Elizabethan era, research has been conclusive about how
many actors and troupes there were in the 16th century, but little research delves into the roles of
the actors on the English renaissance stage. The first point is that during the Elizabethan era,
women were not allowed to act on stage. The actors were all male; in fact, most were boys. For
plays written that had male and female parts, the female parts were played by the youngest boy
players12
There are two acting styles implemented. Formal and natural. Formal acting is objective and
traditional, natural acting attempts to create an illusion for the audience by remaining in
character and imitating the fictional circumstances. The formal actor symbolizes while the
natural actor interprets. The natural actor impersonates while the formal actor represents the role.
Natural and formal are opposites of each other, where natural acting is subjective. Overall, the
use of these acting styles and the doubled roles dramatic device made Elizabethan plays very
popular.12
Costumes scenery
Elizabethan scenery was quite distant from that of the Italian Renaissance.the Elizabethan did not
use painted perspective scenery in public or private theater and the Elizabethan stage space didn't
represent a specific locale. The episodic nature of English drama required an ability to suggest
rapid scene change.
One of the main uses of costume during the Elizabethan era was to make up for the lack of
scenery, set, and props on stage. It created a visual effect for the audience, and it was an integral
part of the overall performance. Since the main visual appeal on stage were the costumes, they
were often bright in colour and visually entrancing. Colours symbolized social hierarchy, and
costumes were made to reflect that. For example, if a character was royalty, their costume would
include purple. The colours, as well as the different fabrics of the costumes, allowed the audience
to know the status of each character when they first appeared on stage. Costumes were collected
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in inventory. Costumes themselves were expensive, so usually players wore contemporary
clothing regardless of the time period of the play. The most expensive pieces were given to
higher class characters because costuming was used to identify social status on stage. The fabrics
within a playhouse would indicate the wealth of the company itself. The fabrics used the most
were: velvet, satin, silk, cloth-of-gold, lace, and ermine.For less significant characters; actors
would use their own clothes. Actors also left clothes in their will for following actors to use.
Masters would also leave clothes for servants in their will, but servants weren't allowed to wear
fancy clothing, instead, they sold the clothes back to theatre companies.In the Tudor and
Elizabethan eras, there were laws stating that certain classes could only wear clothing fitting of
their status in society.
Playwrights
Playwrights dealt with the natural limitation on their productivity by combining into teams of
two, three, four, and even five to generate play texts. The majority of plays written in this era
were collaborations, and the solo artists who generally eschewed collaborative efforts, like
Jonson and Shakespeare, were the exceptions to the rule. Dividing the work, of course, meant
dividing the income; but the arrangement seems to have functioned well enough to have made it
worthwhile. Of the 70-plus known works in the canon of Thomas Dekker, roughly 50 are
collaborations. In a single year (1598) Dekker worked on 16 collaborations for impresario Philip
Henslowe, and earned £30, or a little under 12 shillings per week—roughly twice as much as the
average artisan's income of 1s. per day.At the end of his career, Thomas Heywood would
famously claim to have had "an entire hand, or at least a main finger" in the authorship of some
220 plays. A solo artist usually needed months to write a play (though Jonson is said to have
done Volpone in five weeks); Henslowe's Diary indicates that a team of four or five writers
could produce a play in as little as two weeks. Admittedly, though, the Diary also shows that
teams of Henslowe's house dramatists—Anthony Munday, Robert Wilson, Richard Hathwaye,
Henry Chettle, and the others, even including a young John Webster—could start a project, and
accept advances on it, yet fail to produce anything stageworthy.
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Genre
Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted English or European
history.Shakespeare's plays about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to
this category, as do Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and George Peele's Famous Chronicle of
King Edward the First. History plays also dealt with more recent events, like A Larum for
London which dramatizes the sack of Antwerp in 1576. A better known play, Peele's The Battle
of Alcazar (1591), depicts the battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578.Tragedy was a very popular
genre. Marlowe's tragedies were exceptionally successful, such asbDr. Faustus and The Jew of
Malta. The audiences particularly liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish
Tragedy. The four tragedies considered to be Shakespeare's greatest (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear,
and Macbeth) were composed during this period. Comedies were common, too. A subgenre
developed in this period was the city comedy, which deals satirically with life in London after
the fashion of Roman New Comedy. Examples are Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday
and Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.Though marginalised, the older genres
like pastoral (The Faithful Shepherdess, 1608), and even the morality play (Four Plays in One,
ca. 1608–13) could exert influences. After about 1610, the new hybrid subgenre of the
tragicomedy enjoyed an efflorescence, as did the masque throughout the reigns of the first two
Stuart kings, James I and Charles
The end of English Renaissance theatre
The rising Puritan movement was hostile toward theatre, as they felt that "entertainment" was
sinful. Politically, playwrights and actors were clients of the monarchy and aristocracy, and most
supported the Royalist cause. The Act purports the ban to be temporary ("...while these sad
causes and set Times of Humiliation do continue, Public Stage Plays shall cease and be forborn")
but does not assign a time limit to it.Even after 1642, during the English Civil War and the
ensuing Interregnum (English Commonwealth), some English Renaissance theatre continued.
For example, short comical plays called Drolls were allowed by the authorities, while full-length
plays were banned. The theatre buildings were not closed but rather were used for purposes other
than staging plays.The performance of plays remained banned for most of the next eighteen
years, becoming allowed again after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The theatres began
performing many of the plays of the previous era, though often in adapted forms. New genres of
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Restoration comedy and spectacle soon evolved, giving English theatre of the later seventeenth
century its distinctive character.
Renaissance theatre french
16th-century French theatre followed the same patterns of evolution as the other literary genres
of the period. For the first decades of the century, public theatre remained largely tied to its long
medieval heritage of mystery plays, morality plays, farces, and soties, although the miracle play
was no longer in vogue. Public performances were tightly controlled by a guild system. The
guild "les Confrères de la Passion" had exclusive rights to theatrical productions of mystery
plays in Paris; in 1548, fear of violence or blasphemy resulting from the growing religious rift in
France forced the Paris Parliament to prohibit performances of the mysteries in the capital,
although they continued to be performed in other places. Another guild, the "Enfants SansSouci" was in charge of farces and soties, as too the "Clercs de la Basoche" who also performed
morality plays. Like the "Confrères de la Passion", "la Basoche" came under political scrutiny
(plays had to be authorized by a review board; masks or characters depicting living persons were
not permitted), and they were finally suppressed in 1582. By the end of the century, only the
"Confrères de la Passion" remained with exclusive control over public theatrical productions in
Paris, and they rented out their theatre at the Hôtel de Bourgogne to theatrical troupes for a high
price. In 1597,[1] they abandoned this privilege.
Alongside the numerous writers of these traditional works (such as the farce writers Pierre
Gringore, Nicolas de La Chesnaye and André de la Vigne), Marguerite de Navarre also wrote a
number of plays close to the traditional mystery and morality play.
As early as 1503 however, original language versions of Sophocles, Seneca, Euripides,
Aristophanes, Terence and Plautus were all available in Europe and the next forty years would
see humanists and poets both translating these classics and adapting them. In the 1540s, the
French university setting (and especially — from 1553 on — the Jesuit colleges) became host to
a Neo-Latin theatre (in Latin) written by professors such as George Buchanan and Marc Antoine
Muret which would leave a profound mark on the members of La Pléiade. From 1550 on, one
finds humanist theatre written in French. Prominent figures such as Catherine de' Medici
provided financial support for many humanist plays; in 1554, for example, she commissioned a
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translation of Gian Giorgio Trissino’s La Sofonisba, which was the first tragedy to appear in the
French language.[2]
The influence of Seneca was particularly strong in humanist tragedy. His plays — which were
essentially chamber plays meant to be read for their lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory —
brought to many humanist tragedies a concentration on rhetoric and language over dramatic
action.
Humanist tragedy took two distinct directions:
Biblecal tragedy:
plots taken from the bible — although close in inspiration to the medieval mystery plays, the
humanist biblical tragedy reconceived the biblical characters along classical lines, suppressing
both comic elements and the presence of God on the stage. The plots often had clear parallels to
contemporary political and religious matters and one finds both Protestant and Catholic
playwrights.
Ancient tragedy: plots taken from mythology or history — they often had clear parallels to
contemporary political and religious matters
During the height of the civil wars (1570–1580), a third category of militant theatre appeared:
Contemporary tragedy: plots taken from recent events
Along with their work as translators and adaptors of plays, the humanists also investigated
classical theories of dramatic structure, plot, and characterization. Horace was translated in the
1540s, but had been available throughout the Middle Ages. A complete version of Aristotle's
Poetics appeared later (first in 1570 in an Italian version), but his ideas had circulated (in an
extremely truncated form) as early as the 13th century in Hermann the German's Latin translation
of Averroes' Arabic gloss, and other translations of the Poetic
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Summary
Renaissance in Italy was between the 13th – 17thC.Commedia dell’arte, tragedy, comedy,
pastorals, and opera were the important genres of theatre. Neoclassicism, commedia dell arte,
and Italian staging and Architecture are considered as the greatest contribution of Italy’s
renaissance. It was Italian renaissance that brought proscenium stage and perspective scenery
One of the reason Elizabethan theater was so successful was that it was enjoyed by Queen...the
theatre was very successful because it held attractions for a wide variety of people.to the rich it
offered a chance to show off their wealth to make contacts. Englad began growth of the art in
tudor times,Elizabethan encouraged this through her patronage of the theatre music and art.
Before Elizabeth's reign, drama mainly focused on religious plays that were performed in public
and greek and Rome dramas performed in Oxford and Cambridge university.
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