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1、English dramaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, searchDrama was introduced to England from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose. By the medieval period, the mummers plays had developed, a form of early street theatre associ
2、ated with the Morris dance, concentrating on themes such as Saint George and the Dragon and Robin Hood. These were folk tales re-telling old stories, and the actors travelled from town to town performing these for their audiences in return for money and hospitality. The medieval mystery plays and mo
3、rality plays, which dealt with Christian themes, were performed at religious festivals.Contentshide 1 Renaissance and Elizabethan periods 2 17th and 18th centuries 3 Victorian era and later 4 See also 5 Notes 6 External links edit Renaissance and Elizabethan periodsWilliam Shakespeare, chief figure
4、of the English Renaissance, is here seen in the Chandos portrait.The period known as the English Renaissance, approximately 15001660, saw a flowering of the drama and all the arts. The most famous example of the morality play, Everyman, and the two candidates for the earliest comedy in English Nicho
5、las Udalls Ralph Roister Doister and the anonymous Gammer Gurtons Needle, all belong to the 16th century.During the reign of Elizabeth I in the late 16th and early 17th century, a London-centred culture that was both courtly and popular produced great poetry and drama. Perhaps the most famous playwr
6、ight in the world, William Shakespeare from Stratford-upon-Avon, wrote plays that are still performed in theatres across the world to this day. He was himself an actor and deeply involved in the running of the theatre company that performed his plays. Other important playwrights of this period inclu
7、de Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and John Webster. Various types of plays were popular. Ben Jonson, for example, was often engaged to write courtly masques, ornate plays where the actors wore masks. The three types that seem most often studied today are the histories, the comedies, and the traged
8、ies. Most playwrights tended to specialise in one or another of these, but Shakespeare is remarkable in that he produced all three types. His 38 plays include tragedies such as Hamlet (1603), Othello (1604), and King Lear (1605); comedies such as A Midsummer Nights Dream (159496) and Twelfth Night (
9、1602); and history plays such as Henry IV, part 12. Some have hypothesized that the English Renaissance paved the way for the sudden dominance of drama in English society, arguing that the questioning mode popular during this time was best served by the competing characters in the plays of the Eliza
10、bethan dramatists.edit 17th and 18th centuriesAphra Behn was the first professional English woman playwright.During the Interregnum 16491660, English theatres were kept closed by the Puritans for religious and ideological reasons. When the London theatres opened again with the Restoration of the mon
11、archy in 1660, they flourished under the personal interest and support of Charles II. Wide and socially mixed audiences were attracted by topical writing and by the introduction of the first professional actresses (in Shakespeares time, all female roles had been played by boys). New genres of the Re
12、storation were heroic drama, pathetic drama, and Restoration comedy. Notable heroic tragedies of this period include John Drydens All for Love (1677) and (Aureng-Zebe) (1675), and Thomas Otways Venice Preserved (1682). The Restoration plays that have best retained the interest of producers and audie
13、nces today are the comedies, such as George Ethereges The Man of Mode (1676), William Wycherleys The Country Wife (1676), John Vanbrughs The Relapse (1696), and William Congreves The Way of the World (1700). This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn, author of many comedies
14、 including The Rover (1677). Restoration comedy is famous or notorious for its sexual explicitness, a quality encouraged by Charles II (16601685) personally and by the rakish aristocratic ethos of his court.In the 18th century, the highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy lost favour, to be repla
15、ced by sentimental comedy, domestic tragedy such as George Lillos The London Merchant (1731), and by an overwhelming interest in Italian opera. Popular entertainment became more dominant in this period than ever before. Fair-booth burlesque and musical entertainment, the ancestors of the English mus
16、ic hall, flourished at the expense of legitimate English drama. By the early 19th century, few English dramas were being written, except for closet drama, plays intended to be presented privately rather than on stage.edit Victorian era and laterA change came in the Victorian era with a profusion on the London stage of farces, musical burlesques, extravaganzas and comic operas that competed with Shakespeare
