romanticism & realism · romanticism in literature victor hugo – les miserables, hernani when...
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Romanticism & Realism
8th Grade Drama Lab
Theater History Unit
The Restoration offered theater to which exclusive group?
The Upper Class
The rest of the world was starving for theater
Romanticism Foundations
Romanticism Themes
Romanticism is built on themes
Major themes –– truth – beauty– love
– freedom– nature – adventure – exotic
locations
Big Theme: Good Vs. Evil
� Romantic writers saw everything as black or white.
� Characters were either good or evil. (Heroes vs. Villains, etc.)
� What are some modern day examples??
Art Examples
The Market Cart
By Thomas Gainsborough
What themes are represented here?
Art Examples
The Executions of the Third of May 1808.
Painted in 1814 by Francisco Goya
How about here?
Romanticism in Literature
Alexander Dumas –The Three Musketeers
Romanticism in Literature
Victor Hugo – Les Miserables, HernaniWhen Hernani was first performed, it was so different from “classical”theater that people rioted in the streets!
Melodrama
�Melodrama is a form of Romanticism
� It uses music to manipulate the audience's emotional response and to denote character types
Melodrama Characters & Plot
Used common stock characters:– the hero, the villain, the heroine (damsel
in distress), an aged parent, and a comic man in crazy plot
General Plot:–sensational plot featuring themes of love and murder
Melodrama is like . . .
�Modern Soap Operas– Overacting– Unrealistic– Crazy conflicts in the plot
Realism
�First signs of Realism began in the 1850s
� It began as a reaction to the extreme fakeness of Romanticism
Beginnings
�Began in France
�First playwrights:– Alexandre Dumas– Emile Augier
Henrik Ibsen
Known as “The Father of Realism”
Shocked audiences because he questioned accepted social behavior.
Plays: A Doll’s House (1879) & The Wild Duck (1884)
George Bernard Shaw
� Irish/English� Wrote Comedies� Used realism to
promote social ideas and discussion.
� Plays: Major Barbara(1905) & Pygmalion (1912)
Anton Chekhov
� Most famous Russian realist
� Moscow Art Theater was world known
� Plays: The Three Sisters (1901) & The Cherry Orchard (1904)
Other Locations & People
� Germany – Gerhart Hauptman
� England – John Galsworthy, Oscar Wilde, James M. Barrie
� Russia – Nikolai Gogol & Ivan Turgenev
Konstantin Stanislavski
� Co-founder of Moscow Art Theater
� Director & Acting coach
� Created “System” of acting still used today