Wednesday, 23 January 2019

Introduction to Moliere


FIRST RESOURCE

https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/introduction-to-moliere/


Molière


SECOND RESOURCE
The Neoclassical Form and Ideals
https://timetourclassicaltheatre.weebly.com/study-guide-french-neoclassical-theatre.html

     Neoclassicism was a movement involving all forms of art (theatre, literature, and architecture) in which the artist drew upon Classic Greek and Roman models as examples of perfection. Neoclassical theatre observed a strict adherence to the unity of time, place, and action and also placed importance on decorum and verisimilitude (true to life) in playwriting. During the 16th and 17th centuries civil wars and unrest interrupted the development of French theatre. It was not until the mid 17th century that stability returned and French theatre was able to progress. Most French theatre during the 16th century was tied to its medieval heritage of mystery and morality plays but the humanist movement and the access to ancient writers such as Seneca, Euripides, and Aristophanes enabled French theatre to progress. Neoclassical theatre became associated with grandiosity; costumes, scenery and stages were altered to fit with these new ideals. Cardinal Richelieu, Louix XIII’s Prime Minister advocated the adoption of proscenium stages and attempted to establish some standards for French literature, many of his ideas came from Italy. The French neoclassicists recognized only two genres of drama, tragedy and comedy and the two forms could never be mixed. Verisimilitude in play-writing meant that the supernatural was forbidden on stage and the goal of drama was to teach. Neoclassical productions often had special effects and sound effects with elaborate staging. At the end of the 16th century various forms of performance from Italy were also shown on the stages of France including Commedia dell’arte and pastorals.

THIRD RESOURCE NORTHERN STATE UNIVERSITY 
http://www3.northern.edu/wild/th100/CHAPT13C.HTM

E-mail questions and comments to Larry Wild at wildl@northern.edu.
Last updated: November 3, 2011
Copyright © 1995-2011 by Larry Wild, Northern State University, Aberdeen, SD 57401

Poems inspired by paintings - Musée des Beaux Arts, W.H. Auden


Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1558); Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium

Musée des Beaux Arts, W.H. Auden 

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.


Click below here for this wonderful linking of poetry and visual art:


https://fisunguner.com/listed-poems-inspired-by-paintings/