DRAM 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Verisimilitude, Melodrama, Chariot Racing
Document Summary
Believe human nature is same in all times and places. Limited regular drama to 2 simpe forms: comedy and tragedy. Comedy: characters from lower or middle classes. Based stories on domestic and/or private affairs. Reality - believable, no fantasy, or supernatural. Battles and death offstage to make more credible. Maining three unities (time, place, and action) Drama should teach moral lessons = morality was part of neoclassical. Establish norms - decorum based on age, rank, sex, profession, predispositions. Neoclassical ideals reversed by early 19th century. Experience as particular and private vs. general/impersonal. Personal rights (versus authoritarian regimes - church, government) Romanticism: truth found in infinite variety of creation, individualistic. Shift from romanticism (late 18th century - early 19th century) to melodrama of 19th century. Latest in inventions (electricity, 1880s and electric motors) Contemporary example: raiders of the lost ark. Treadmills to stage horse or chariot races. Panorama rigged on spool, cloths, painted with continuous scene.
