Concetti Chiave
- English drama evolved to entertain both popular and educated audiences by blending different dramatic styles.
- Early playwrights connected Senecan tragedy with English legends and Aristotelian concepts, influencing later dramatists like Shakespeare.
- The Italian Renaissance introduced Aristotelian theory, Hellenistic tragedies, and Roman drama to English drama.
- English Renaissance Drama uniquely combined Aristotelian definitions of tragedy and comedy with traditional didactic allegory.
- The term "tragedy" originates from the Greek "tragodia," linked to rituals honoring Dionysus with choric songs.
L'evoluzione del dramma inglese
The English playwright, as mentioned above, responded to the dual pressures of popular and educated taste and devised a style of drama that entertained both ideal audience.
From the early Elizabethan playwrights, such as Thomas Sackville and Thomas Kyd, to the later dramatists, such as Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, English drama found a method of connecting Senecan tragedy, with its emphasis on the supernatural and revenge, to English legends and Classical Aristotelian concepts of tragedy and comedy.
Influenze del Rinascimento italiano
The most important aspects of the italian Renaissance to effect English Drama were:
.The study of the dramatic theory of Aristotle.
. The new interest in Hellenistic tragedies.
. The interest in Roman drama and the imitation of Seneca.
With these elements, traditional English dramatic traditions of didatic allegory and morality were mixed.
The development and eventual mixing together of Aristotelian definitions of Tragedy and Comedy epitomize the originality of English Renaissance Drama.
The heyword were taken up by Elizabethan playwrights and developed within an English framework into great tragedies that meant something to all levels of English society.
Origini della tragedia
The word tragedy derived from the Greek word tragodia, that is comnination of tragos and ode and referred to a form of a ritual in honour of the god Dionysus, which was accompanied by a Choric Song.