Commedia Dell Arte Research Paper

30. What is a comic opera? Reaction against baroque style. Light in mood and modest in

The focus of this paper will be to compare and contrast the works of two playwrights. The works that will be considered are Molière’s The Would-Be Gentleman and Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro. Both considered comedies, Moliere’s is a short play that tells the tale of Monsieur Jourdain, a tradesman who desires to become a gentleman. Beaumarchais’s play, second in the Figaro trilogy, follows the series of event prior to Figaro’s wedding. Figaro and his companions scheme to ensure that his marriage occurs smoothly. Furthermore, the plays are dated 100 years apart from each other, and they deal with the representation of social hierarchy, social mobility, and gender roles in various ways. With that in mind, they become good sources to compare and contrast the changes in society that occurred within those 100 years. This paper will compare both plays to examine how Molière further endorses the social values and ideas of his time, while Beaumarchais’s presents a shift in attitude towards those values and challenges them.

Fear of cuckoldry is widely known theme in medieval and Renaissance English literature. Fear of cuckoldry was also a widespread fear in English society during those eras. Men often treated their wives as possessions. Once men and women married, divorce was almost impossible, especially since it was almost impossible to prove that one had been cuckolded. If one were cuckolded and one’s wife had another man’s child, one might spend decades taking care of that child and passing on one’s money and belongings to that child without ever knowing that one had been deceived. Unmarried women are seen as their fathers ' property and the play 's two marriages are marked by jealousy and cruelty. Most

The article seems to imply that, in the same way Greek theatre dwarfed any other form of theatre from that period, commedia dell’arte was the domineering theatre form in its time- not, perhaps, to quite the extent that Greek theatre did, but still largely influential throughout Europe. It was around during Jacobean times, and thus will have been known by Shakespeare, he being incredibly infused with the theatre world around London and will have at least heard of commedia dell'arte. Such dramatic troupes as those traditionally associated with commedia dell'arte found their way into many of his plays; Twelfth night, Taming of the shrew, Othello, they all either directly referenced to commedia dell'arte or they held various aspects of it which

George Gascoigne’s The Adventures of Master FJ primarily focuses on the affair between FJ and Dame Ellinor. During his time with Dame Ellinor, FJ establishes himself as a man “bounden to love”; however, this declaration is untrue and proven so when Frances tells that story of Bess, her lover, and her husband. The tale about Bess is meant to bring FJ to full realization that the affair he is having with Ellinor is temporary and built solely on lustful feelings. The circumstantial equivalency between FJ and the lover, as well as Ellinor and Bess, is obvious; however, their emotions towards their respective lovers differ greatly. When Bess is discovered by her husband, she repents and ends her affair and her lover to follow her wishes.

This book described the “ideal renaissance gentleman” through advice given by the courtier. Throughout the book are conversations between the courtiers of the Duke of Urbino, discussing the vision of a perfect court. It is an example of a dialogue, which is a popular renaissance literary structure, composed of drama and conversation. Castiglione’s work had a large impact on the aristocratic idea of the perfect English gentlemen and was thought to be an interpretation of Renaissance court life. The Book of the Courtier was a representation of the ideas and values of Renaissance Humanism, as it emphasized the growth of individual thought and character. This relates to one of the concepts of the Renaissance, “exaltation of human capacities and potential”. The value of the individual is believed to be important in the humanistic way of life. Society was starting to become more concerned with human potential and achievements. Focus was turning away from spiritual matter, and turning towards more worldly matter. This book epitomized the “universal man”, or the “renaissance man”, which is a man that excels in everything. This brings us to an important renaissance term mentioned by Castiglione, known as sprezzatura. Sprezzatura means to preform well, without appearing to have put in much effort or thought about the matter and is mentioned

Toinette and Argan’s brother, Béralde, determine that they must convince the hypochondriac that he is not sick, so she poses as a doctor and tells him that the physicians he has been seeing are all incompetent, while giving him nonsense advice of her own, forcing him to realize not all doctors are as professional as they seem (Molière Act III Scene XIV). Additionally, she proposes that Argan fake his own death, thereby exposing his wife Bèline as a gold digger when she fails to mourn him (Moliére Act III Scene XVIII). Moliére, instead of portraying another stereotypical moron who advances the plot only through coincidence, creates a heroine who actively shapes the events of the narrative through her own intellect.

rom the mid-17th century through early 18th centuries, theatre was revived. Previously, theater had been vested in medieval themes. Liturgical drama, namely morality plays, was common along with other religious plays that seemed to have an air of mystery and was mainly fixated on emotions. However, as a way to refrain from presenting drama in a traditional Roman way, neoclassical ideal was formed in Italy and eventually spread throughout Europe. Dissimilar to previous eras, neoclassicism focused on presenting drama as realistically as possible. Playwrights sought out the truth and believed that the main reasons to produce a play was to not only entertain, but to teach lessons as well. They wanted their characters to not only represent what was typically seen in everyday life, but also to adhere to the social norms and traits of members of their social class. Two major concepts from this time, verisimilitude and decorum, portray this.

In his tales of the Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio created a comedic image of early Renaissance urban life. It would be easy to dismiss these tales entirely from the historical record, but, even though they may be fiction, these tales were fabricated from the world that Boccaccio knew. If the author drew the details of his stories from the reality around him, should it not be possible to use these details to reconstruct an image of Boccaccio’s world? This is especially useful in discerning the role of people who are systematically excluded from positions of authority which give their words and actions a greater likelihood of being preserved for historical record.

The history of theatre in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries is one of the increasing commercialization of the art, accompanied by technological innovations, the introduction of serious critical review, expansion of the subject matters portrayed to include ordinary people, and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting. Theatre, which had been dominated by the church for centuries, and then by the tastes of monarchs for more than 200 years, became accessible to merchants, industrialists, and the less privileged and then the masses.

The Middle Ages are rarely considered a time of blossoming comedy, but the comic mystery cycle, known as Mistero Buffo, brought a bit of frivolous light to the Dark Ages. As explained in Dario Fo’s analysis of these plays, jongleurs played a precarious position in society: improving morale of the masses by mocking the rich and ordained, yet keeping out from under the footsteps of those lampooned. This was no more popular than during the feast of fools, where the working-class gathered to enjoy the jongleurs’ performances and release frustrations about the class system, while masking it with a religious moral. Often performed at this event was the Mistero Buffo (Fo, 1-14), which similarly juxtaposed relevant satire and biblical passages through stock characters, Aristotelian values of comedy, and an underlying breakdown of degree and religion.

Opera buffas break the stereotype that other operas had set. The plots follow common folk rather than heroes and noblemen. They incorporated comedy as an essential element to the plot and connotation of the opera. At first, intellectuals hated this. They believed it broke tradition and made opera look impractical. As time went on, critics and general audiences began to accept opera buffas. There was a lot more depth to comic operas than some would believe. I aim to look at the opera buffa and how the emergence of this sub genre may or may not have contributed to the opera genre. I specifically look at three different sources to that contribute towards opera buffa; The Culture of Opera Buffa in Mozart’s Vienna: A Poetics Entertainment written by Mary Hunter, Francesco Izzo’s Comedy Between Two Revolutions: Opera Buffa and the Risorgimento, 1831-1848, and finally an article by Caryl Clark titled Reading and Listening: Viennese Frauenzimmer Journals and the Sociocultural Context of Mozartean Opera Buffa. By looking into these three specific sources, audiences can fully understand opera buffas and what kind of ideologies they represent.

Commedia dell’arte was established during the sixteenth century at a time when theatre flourished in Italy. Despite such a rich time for the arts, a divide in the church as well as

Can time and historical events affect the categorization of a literary piece? William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a play that is difficult to classify in a specific genre. It is often referred to as one of his problem plays. This means that it does not easily fall into a single category. Most literary sources categorize The Merchant of Venice as a comedy because it fits the description by having a happy ending. There are those, however, that discuss the dark side of the play and insist that the play could also be classified as a tragedy. Due to the plays’ complexity and the events of history, it can be argued that

In his different comedies, he satirized manners in a pure and simple manner and people were highly spell-bound by it. Love was the background of all his works, in ‘The Old Bachelor,’ ‘The Double Dealer,’ ‘Love for Love.’ ‘The Way of The World,’ love had been treated with perfect delicacy, courtly sophistication and artificiality. According to Leigh Hunt, we came across in him heartless lords and ladies who used to say witty things to one another, and were always buzzing in some maze of intrigue. Congreve laid more stress on brilliance and the virtues of style than on the depth of life. He was also saved from oblivion by the sheer strength of style. BonamyDobree further quoted Meredith : “He hits the mean of a fine style and a natural in dialogue. He is at once precise and voluble … In this he is a classic, and is worthy of treading a measure with Moliere.” Thus, the world of Congreve had its limited framework in spite of the treatmentof love. “In this solid frame-work, which offers nothing exceptional, psychological raillery and dialogue are displayed with incomparable brilliance.” His presentation became personal idealistic and realistic for example, the characters of Millamant and Mirabell combined heart, mind and all sensibilities. “The exact and restrained skill of a master tones down the radiance of these figures, who came very near to their realm of romantic fancy, without actually entering