Figure 1.--

The Renaissance is probably most associated with stunning developmens in the visual arts, especially Italian and Dutch-Flemish painting. It is also noted for important advances in music, especially the brilliant polyphonic music. Another major achievement during the Renaissance was the birth of modern European drama. The developments in drama are sometimes not given as much prominance as the developments in the visual arts and music, in part because they occurred relatively late in the renaissance and were concentrated in one small country. The great works of Renaissance drama appeared in the late Renaissance, much later than the advances in other arts had begun. We suspect here that both the Reformation and the evolution of national languages were a factor here. Although generally classified by most scholars as the last century of the medieval era, the 14th century is generally seen as the beginning of the Renaissance and the beginning of a modern state of mind. These new attitudes are clearly expressed in the great Renaissance dramas. The great drama of Renaissance Europe is concentrated in two countries--England and Spain. England is by far the most important. There was virtually no professional theatre in 16th-century Germany--only ad lib farces and knock-about comedy performed by schoolboys and town amateurs who had regular non-theatrical jobs. The French were asctive, but produced a rather sterile academic kind of drama based on classical models. The Italians went in for commedia del arte--a kind of street theatre with stock characters that was mostly improvised and didn't have set plots and certainly not written-out scripts.

The Renaissance

Although generally classified by most scholars as the last century of the medieval era, the 14th century is generally seen as the beginning of the Renaissance and the beginning of a modern state of mind. "Renaissance" means "rebirth" in French and describes the cultural and economic changes that occurred in Europe beginning in the 14th century. The precise time is difficlt to set and of course varied accross Europe. The Renaissance began at Firenze around 1300 and gradually spread north. Even so, the indicators that constitute the Renaissance did not reach other areas of Europe, especially northern Europe, for another 1-2 centuries. It was during the Renaissance that Europe emerged from the Feudal System of the Middle Ages. The stagnant Medieval economy began to expand. The Renaissance was not just a period of economic growth. It was an age of intense cultural ferment. Enormous changes began in artistic, social, scientific, and political endevours. Perhaps of greatest importance was that Europeans began to develop a radically different self image as they moved from a God-centered to a more humanistic outlook. The Renaissance is probably most associated with stunning developmens in the visual artse, especially Italian and Dutch-Flemish painting. The Renaissance is also associated with advances in music, especially the brilliant polyphonic music. Another major achievement during the Renaissance was the birth of modern European drama.

Country Trends

The great drama of Renaissance Europe is concentrated in two countries--England and Spain. England is by far the most important. This leads us to wonder why theatrical plays were so much more advanced in England and why boy characters emerged in England and not in other countries. Lope de Vega, of course, was the Spanish Shakespeare, and he wrote hundreds of plays. But they are much more formal and less realistic than Shakespeare's plays, and they don't feature the same kind of comedy as we have exemplified in characters such as Falstaff. Boy characters are very rare and quite insignificant when they do occur. There was virtually no professional theatre in 16th-century Germany--only ad lib farces and knock-about comedy performed by schoolboys and town amateurs who had regular non-theatrical jobs. The French produced a rather sterile academic kind of drama based on classical models, and had almost no boy characters. The Italians went in for commedia del arte--a kind of street theatre with stock characters that was mostly improvised and didn't have set plots and certainly not written-out scripts. The English actors became famous on the continent, and we know that they travelled to Germany and performed English plays (untranslated apparently) for German audiences. But this was an exotic import rather than a native dramatic tradition. Tradition such as it was in Germany involved quite a primative sort of drama. The English theatre was by far the most advanced and sophisticated in all of Western Europe. And the tradition of sophisticated plays being performed by companies of men and boys (for the women's parts) and designed for a cross-section of the middle-class public was almost uniquely an English phenomenon as was the tradition of dramatic blank verse (sometimes intermingled with prose for the lower-class or lower-toned scenes) which developed as the medium of dialogue.

European Languages

Moderm European drama began to appear in the 16th century at about the same time as the Reformation. This was no accident. The Reformation was not just a religious movement. It was also in part a national movement, certainly in Germany where it was a rejection of an Italian-dominasted Caholic church. The nationalist aspect was important in other areas as well, such as Bohemia and England. Not only was control of the national church a factor, but also the use of rising new national languages in churches services and printed Bibles. European drama was a people's art form. Plays, especially in England, were written for the people, not the court, clergy, are educated elite. After translations of the Bible, these plays were one of the first major formal outlets for these new languages. And drama was not only a reflection of these languages, but contributed to their development. Shakespeare along coined an unbelieveable number of expressions still used today by people who are for the most part they are using Shakespearian expressions.

Authors

The first real plays since classical times appear during the Renaissance. And for the most parts the memorable plays were created by playwrites in Tudor Englsnd. Most early European plays after the classical era come out of Tudor England. Shakespeare is of course the best known and most brilliant author. We have begun to assess sevberal Shakesperian plays and eventually hope to look at other Renaissance authors.

Shakespeare

The preminent Renaissance playwrite is of course Shakespeare. The first tetralogy includes three "Henry VI" plays (Parts 1, 2, and 3). If you combine the three parts of "Henry VI" with "Richard III" you have the four plays of the first tetralogy. The four plays of the second tetralogy are "Richard II", the two parts of "Henry IV", and "Henry V." Apart from the eight plays of the two tetralogies (First and Second), there are two additional English history plays, "King John" and "Henry VIII" (the last written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher in collaboration). That makes ten Shakespearean plays on English kings in all.

Other authors

There were other important Englisg playwrites as well as important playwrites in other countroes such as Lupe de Vega in Spain. At some point, we hope to expand our Renaissance drama section beyond Shakespeare to take in the other great dramatists such as Chapman, Dekker, Jonson, Marlowe, Middleton, Webster, and others.

Boy Actors

Interestingly there are quite a few important boy characters in the English plays which is not the case of the plays emerging out of other European countries. Most of the English Renaissance se dramatists created parts for boy actors--not only for the female characters but also for characters who are represented as boys. One of the reasons for the prominence of boys in Renaissance English plays is the music they were required to sing. Many of the boy actors whom Shakespeare and others wrote for came out of the great choir schools in England and were professional trained in music so that they could sing the songs and often accompany them on the lute.

Individual Plays

We are compilibg a of Renaissance plays with boy characters. They seem particularly common in English drama, notavly in Shakespeare's plays. Several of Shakespeare's historical places include boy characters. A wide range of drawings and paintings provide us images of those characters. We are less familiar with the other great Renaissance drama tradition--French plays. We do not yet know of biy characters in French or other European plays, but we will add them here if we learn of any.

Created: 3:30 AM 12/5/2006
Last updated: 3:30 AM 12/5/2006