1. Theatre in context

2. The Middle Ages origins of theatre: myths, rites the Middle Ages: everyday theatre: mimes and minstrels liturgical drama esp. at Easter (also other church festivals) mystery plays: religious theatre for the people from sacred drama to profane (pro fano = ‘before the temple’ from church to marketplace

3. Later medieval developments Miracle Plays: Medieval plays treating the lives of saints, or Bible stories. Morality Plays: Allegorical medieval plays, like Everyman, that depict the eternal struggle between good and evil that transpires in this world, using characters like Vice, Virtue, Wisdom, etc.

4. Commedia dell'arte Italian popular comedy of the 15th to 17th cc. Featured performances improvised from scenarios by a set of stock characters, and repeated from play to play and troupe to troupe. Scenario: in general, the prose description of a play's story. In the commedia dell'arte, the written outlines of plot and characters from which the actors improvised the particular actions of a performance.

5. Masque Spectacular theatrical form, especially of the Renaissance and the Neoclassical periods, usually associated with court theatres or special events. Emphasis was put on costumes and effects, with much music and dancing; amateur actors frequently performed

6. The London scene Bankside: medieval centre of dissipation brothels and bear baiting within the estates of the Bishops of Winchester in 1546 Henry VIII had brothels closed 17th c.: reopened, together with theatres

7. London theatres GLOBE (1598-99) now Park Street. Sign: Hercules +World used only summer: no roof except for stage & galleries winter: Blackfriars Theatre (1578) as private theatre for choir boys to practice; Farrant on ground floor, theatre upstairs Shakespeare: shareholder and player HOPE in Bear Gardens: former bear and bull baiting arena (modelled on Swan + movable stage) later: gardens, public houses, breweries, foundries, dyers' and glassmakers' works

8. ROSE (1586-87, 1 st Bankside playhouse) in Rose Lane: octagonal building of wood and plaster, partly thatched built by Henslowe; played Marlowe's plays; SWAN in Paris Gardens, (flint stones and wooden coloumns) sometimes used for fencing matches

9. 17 th century 1642: Puritans ban theatres - even demolish them - for moral reasons baroque: opera Restoration: she-tragedies with a woman in the leading role even Dryden's All for Love's Anthony: heart torn by feelings which he cannot control or understand male characters: unambiguous heroism: rather unconvincing

10. Heroic drama John Dryden (1631-1700) exponent of the golden mean in art, politics and morality, Poet Laureate from 1668 Heroic couplet (a closed and balanced pair of rhyming iambic pentameters) against blank verse in much English drama works against dramatic illusion Italian and French influence audience face actors, rather than surround them: criticism presented outside the space of audience

11. blank verse vs heroic couplet blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant Shakespeare "As You Like It" II.vll. 139-43 heroic couplet: 2 iambic pentameters

12. Blank verse vs heroic couplet heroic couplet: 2 rhyming iambic pentameters (vs blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter) And since that plenteous autumn now is past, Whose grapes and peaches have indulged your taste, Take in good part, from our poor poet's board, Such rivelled fruits as winter can afford. Dryden, All for Love, “Prologue” http://poemshape.wordpress.com/2009/03/02/what-is- heroic-couplets/

13. Comedy of manners the social habits (manners and mores) of a given society, usually the dominant one at the time, typically the upper classes Often cold caricature, witness to lack of moral standards in society at the time Restoration comedy: 1660 to early 18 th century sexual and marital intrigue (Comedy of manners: term not restricted to drama)

14. Romanticism (mainly in German theatre): need for historical consistency (no precision, though) for imaginative & plausible presentation (realism) mid-19th c. France: return to the tradition of middle class dramas good acting: move with the natural elegance of gentry touring companies disappear

15. New Historicism Interrogate the relationship between history and literature – especially concerning the Renaissance and Romantic period