The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moliere and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of ...
The importance of ?schylus in the development of the drama is immense. Before him tragedy had consisted of the chorus and one actor; and by introducing a second actor, expanding the dramatic dialogue thus made possible, and reducing the lyrical parts, he practically created Greek tragedy as we understand it. Like other writers of his time, he acted in his own plays, and trained the chorus in their dances and songs; and he did much to give impres ...
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) is revered as one of the great British dramatists, credited not only with memorable works, but the revival of the then-suffering English theatre. Shaw was born in Dublin, Ireland, left mostly to his own devices after his mother ran off to London to pursue a musical career. He educated himself for the most part, and eventually worked for a real estate agent. This experience founded in him a concern for social injus ...
The 17th century dramatist Jean Racine was considered, along with Moliere and Corneille, as one of the three great playwrights of his era. The quality of Racine's poetry has been described as possibly his most important contribution to French literature and his use of the alexandrine poetic line is one of the best examples of such use noted for its harmony, simplicity and elegance. While critics over the centuries have debated the worth of ...
Ben Jonson's career began in 1597 when he held a fixed engagement in the «Admiral's Men», and although he was unsuccessful as an actor, his literary talent was apparent and he began writing original plays for the troupe. Jonson had a knack for absurdity and hypocrisy, a trait that made him immensely popular in the 17th century Renaissance period. It is known that Shakespeare's company produced several of Jonson's plays, Shake ...
William Butler Yeats was born near Dublin in 1865, and was encouraged from a young age to pursue a life in the arts. He attended art school for a short while, but soon found that his talents and interest lay in poetry rather than painting. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, Yeats produced a vast collection of stories, songs, and poetry of Ireland's historical and legendary past. These writings helped secure for Yeats recognitio ...
Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), best remembered as the creator of Peter Pan, was a Scottish author and dramatist whose works have enjoyed frequent revivals in film and on stage. «Quality Street» appeared in 1903, one year before the production of Peter Pan, as Barrie was becoming somewhat of a sensation in the theatrical world. This four-act comedy is an adult fairy tale of sorts, brought to life by Barrie's charming imagination and a ...
Nikolai Vasilievitch Gogol, the Moliere of Russia, was born in the sunny Ukraine in March, 1809, and died in Moscow forty-three years later. The author of Russia's famous national comedy, «The Inspector-General,» Gogol was the first dramatist of his country to write plays on the Western European model, even as his friend Pushkin was the first Russian poet to introduce the Western strain into the literature of his people. In the comedy «Marr ...
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (1732-1799) was an exceptional French writer of prose comedy during the eighteenth century. He is best known for his theatrical works of the three Figaro plays. Beaumarchais had an action-filled career as a watchmaker, musician, secret agent, businessman, diplomat and a financer of revolutions. His literary career was as turbulent as his personal life. After a series of lawsuits in Paris, the accounts of his ...
