Victorian Drama

Victorian Drama

In the Victorian period were written few works but the ideas during to the twentieth century. Some writers of the twentieth century can be call Victorian dramatists.

The more popular forms were the melodrama and the morality plays.

In the melodrama good always wins on the evil, the characters are stereotyped and everything is schematic.

An innovation of the Victorian period was the Victorian playhouse. 

The space of the Playhouse allowed a more realistic representation and the changes of scene.

The most important writers of this period are Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, first with a social comedies, second for the reality of work and the criticism of Victorian values.

George Bernard Shaw was influenced by Ibsen in which he saw a new face of theatre, an instrument for social and political change. Another characteristic of Shaw is the realistic description of the lower classes. In her lives he write novel, but after failure he dedicated himself to music and dramatic criticism. In her lives supported a women movement.

Always Shaw's drama was preceded by a preface that described the opera and the author's purpose.

One of the major plays of Shaw is Pygmalion. In this play, as the ancient greek myth, there was a woman transformation, in this case from poor lady to Duchess. This play talk about the importance of the language in the society, and the different language of poor classes and nobles. In this story the experiment of transformation failed because the lady became the Lady in the spirit and in the aspect but she don't have money, he remained poor

Oscar wilde is critics with a Victorian values but in a different way respect Shaw infact he used a comic way. He doesn't interest any political and moral aspect of the art, infact he considered her works autonomous. The characteristic of wilde's plays are the eccentric and absurd characters as in the "importance of being Ernest".

A time of war

The 19^th century is important not also for the incredible technological innovation but for the two world war. Beyond the innovation for all people as the automobile, electricity, cinema and radio, there are other innovation for the war, gun, aeroplane, explosives.

World war 1

In the 19^th century there was created alliance that fight in the first world war, the Triple intesa with England, France and Russia, and the triple alliance with Italy, Germany and Austria.

The reason of the first world war are several, the economic conflict between Germany and England, the malcontent of the people in the Austrian empire, generic economic reason, and in the end the murder of the archduke ferdinando. The principal characteristic of the first world war are two, the international character and the mobilisation of masses of people.

The Russian revolution

In the middle of the war there was a important revolution, the Russian revolution of October 1917. The reason of the revolution success are principally the heavy losses receive in the war. The Tsar was forced to abdicate, but the new provisional government was like the Govern of Tsar and continued the conflict versus the Germany.