Renaissance in Italy Italian Literature Author:John Addington Symonds Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER XI. THE DRAMA. First attempts at Secular Drama—The Orfeo and TimoneGenera. Character of Italian Plays—Court Pageants and Comedies borrowed from the... more » Latin—Conditions under which a National Drama is formed —Their absence in Italy—Lack of Tragic Genius—Eminently Tragic Material in Italian History—The Use made of this by English Playwrights—The Ballad and the Drama—The Humanistic Bias in Italy —Parallels between Greek and Italian Life—II Lasca's Critique of the Latinising Playwrights—The Sofonisba of Trissino—Rucellai's Ros- ntuntfa—Sperone's Canace—Giraldi's Orbecche—Dolce's Marianna— Transcripts from the Greek Tragedians and Seneca—General Character of Italian Tragedies—Sources of their Failure—Influence of Plautus and Terence over Comedy—Latin Comedies acted at Florence, Rome, Ferrara—Translations of Latin Comedies—Manner of Representation at Court—Want of Permanent Theatres—Bibbiena's Cg/tt"- f —- - - dra—Leo X. and Comedy at Rome—(Ariosto's Treatment of his Latin Models—The Cassaria, Suppoaiti, Lena, Negromante, Scolastica— Qualities of Ariosto's Comedies—Machiavelli's Plays—The Commedia in Prosa—Fra Alberigo and Margherita—The Clizia—Its Humour— The Mandragola—Its sinister Philosophy—Conditions under which it was Composed—Aretino disengages Comedy from Latin Rules— His Point of View—The Cortegiana, Marescaleo, Talanta—Italy had innumerable Comedies, but no great Comic Art—General Character of the Commedia Erudila—Its fixed Personages—Gelli, Firenzuola, Cecchi, Ambra, II Lasca—The Farsa—Conclusion on the Moral Aspects of Italian Comedy. Contemporaneously with the Romantic Epic, the Drama began to be a work of studied art in Italy. Boiardo by his Timone and PoHziano by his Orfeo gave the earliest specimens at Ferrara and Mantua of secular plays written in t...« less