THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMA IN ENGLAND

During the Renaissance art and literature developed. People liked to sing and act. Drama became a very popular genre of literature. The Renaissance dramas differed greatly from the first plays written in the Middle Ages. As in Greece drama in England was in its beginning a religious thing. The clergymen began playing some parts of Christ's life in the church. The oldest plays in England were the ‘Mysteries’ and ‘Miracles’ which were performed on religious holidays. These were stories about saints and had many choral elements in them.

Gradually ceremonies developed into performances. They passed from the stage in the church to the stage in the street. At the end of the 14^th century the "Mysteries" gave way to the ‘Morality plays’. The plays were meant to teach people a moral lesson. The characters in them were abstract vices and virtues.

Between the acts of the ‘Morality’ and ‘Miracle plays’ there were introduced short plays called ‘interludes’ — light compositions intended to make people laugh. They were performed in the houses of the more intelligent people.

Longer plays in which shepherds and shepherdesses took part were called ‘Masques’. These dramatic performances with music were very pleasing and were played till the end of the

17^th century.

Soon the plays became complicated. Professional actors travelled from town to town performing in inn yards. The first playhouse in London was built in 1576. It was called "The Theatre". A more famous theatre was ‘The Globe’, built in 1599. It was like the old inn yard open to the sky. Galleries and boxes were placed round the yard. The stage was in the middle of it. There was no scenery. The place of action was written on a placard, e. g., a palace, London, etc. There was no curtain, either. The actors stood in the middle of the audience on the stage. Women's parts were acted by boys or men.

Actors showing a performance outside a country inn

Drama from its very beginning was divided into comedy and tragedy. The first English tragedies and comedies were performed in London in about 1550.

In the 16^th century a number of plays were written in imitation of Ancient Roman tragedies and comedies. There was little action on the stage. The chorus summed up the situation and also gave moral observations at the end of each act. Such plays were called classical dramas. The greatest playwrights of the time were men of academic learning, the so-called "University Wits".

Among the "University Wits" were John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe and others. Each of them contributed something to the development of the drama into the forms in which Shakespeare was to take it up.

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Christopher Marlowe was a young dramatist who surpassed all his contemporaries. His father was a shoemaker in Canterbury. Christopher Marlowe studied at Cambridge University and was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance. Almost nothing is known of his life after he left the University. He was killed at a tavern at the age of twenty-nine.

Christopher Marlowe is famous for his tragedies. He approached history from a Renaissance point of view. His tragedies show strong men who fight for their own benefit. No enemy can overcome them except death. They are great personalities who challenge men and gods with their strength.

‘Doctor Faustus’ is considered to be the best of his works. Marlowe used in it the German legend of a scholar who for the sake of knowledge sold his soul to the devil. Dr. Faustus wants to have power over the world: "All things that move between the quiet poles shall be at my command". The devil serves him twenty-four years. When Faustus sees the beautiful Helen he wants to get his soul back. It is too late.

Marlowe's plays taught people to understand a tragedy which was not performed just to show horror and crime on the stage, but to reveal the suffering of man. Marlowe introduced blank verse in his tragedies and pointed out the way to William Shakespeare, the greatest of the Renaissance humanists. In imagination, richness of expression, originality and general poetic and dramatic power he is inferior to Shakespeare alone in the 16th century.

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 3607