The Italian Theatre - From Its Beginning to the Close of the Seventeeth Century

By Joseph Spencer Kennard

Book Overview

A history of the Italian Theatre should mean more than a study of important Italian plays. It should reflect the successive phases of the Italian social conscience, and through the succeeding centuries of the national evolution, depict the changing life of the Italian people. Such a theatre presumes to photograph life, not omitting its crudities and cruelties. It will also interpret the national character and portray the historical background. It is also the theatre of psychology, presenting the struggle between the flesh and the spirit, the losing and winning of Mansoul. It is also the 'teatro di poesia', wherein reality is transformed by the poet into drama. More even than all this its stage is the world, since the church, the civilization, the literature of Western Europe, of which the theatre is a part, are all of Italian origin. To compass adequately, within a few hundred printed pages, a subject so vast, so varied, is impossible.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1406720925
• ISBN13: 9781406720921
• Release Date: March 2007
• Publisher: Schauffler Press
• Length: 332 Pages
• Weight: 0.93 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"