Baroque
Drama
Defining Characteristics
- The Baroque period took place during 1575 - 1725.
- Baroque drama was popular in France, Spain, and England.
- Baroque plays were influenced by religion, music, poetry, art, and dance.
- Plays were made up of three parts: set-up, conflict, and resolution.
- Common themes of plays: drama, comedy, and tragedy.
- Most of the dramatic plays were about love, dignity, and jealousy.
- What made Baroque plays so pro-founding were its incorporation of architecture, paintings, and musical aspects of opera, that created a multimedia theatrical experience for its entire audience.
Where did the Baroque Drama movement originate from?
Significant Artists of Baroque Drama
William Shakespeare
(1564 - 1616)
William Shakespeare was an English playwright and poet whose major works included Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Macbeth.
John Dryden
(1631 - 1700)
John Dryden was a n English playwright and poet who wrote heroic drama, tragedies, and comedies such The Tempest, or the Enchanted Island, Oedipus, and The Hind and the Panther.
Jean Racine
(1639 - 1699)
Jean Racine was a French dramatist,who was the leading tragedian of 17th century France, whose plays include Phedre, Esther, and Athalie.
How Society Was Involved
Relevant Time Frame
1600 - Galileo identifies gravity
1603 - Monteverdi: Fourth Book of Madrigals; Shakespeare - Othello
1604 - Rembrandt, painter, born
1606 - Jamestown, 1st American colony founded
1607 - Monteverdi: Orfeo; Quebec founded by Champlain; John Smith elected president of the Jamestown colony
1608 - Galileo uses telescope to study stars;Henry Hudson explores Hudson river
1609 - Orlando Gibbons: Fantazies of Three Parts, first example of engraved music in England; Shakespear: The Tempest
1612- Orlando Gibbons: First Set of Madrigals and Motets; The Globe Theatre burns down
1613 - William Shakespeare, playwright, died; White settlers introduce small pox, many indians die
1616 - 30 years war begins
1618 - First slaves brought to America
1619 - Galileo invents the telescope
1625 - Orlando Gibbons dies; Fork 1st introduced to American dining
1632 - Monteverdi takes holy orders; Taj Mahal built
1634 - Harvard College extablished, 1st college in the colonies
1636 - Pequot War
1637 - Dietrich Buxtehude, composer, born; First opera house (Vienna); Pascal invents an adding machine; Sir Isaac Newton, born
1646 - End of Thirty Years War
1648 - Aria and recitative become two distinct entities in opera
1650 - The overture as musical form emerges in two types, Italian and French; Beginning of modern harmony; development of modulation
1652 - First opera house in Vienna; Minuet comes into fashion in French court
1655- Johann Denner, invents the clarinet; Bartolommeo Cristofori, inventor of pianoforte, was born; Edmund Halley, Halley's comet, born
1656 - Opening of first London opera house
1659 - Henry Purcell, composer, born
1660 - Alessandro Scarlatti, composer, born; Louis XIV builds Versailles Palace
1661- Newton demonstrates the nature of light
1665 - The great London fire destroys 2/3 of London
1666 - Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
1668 - Francois Couperin, composer, born; Hundson's Bay Company founded, competes with French fur traders
1671 - Paris Opera opened with Robert Cambert's opera Pomone; 1st formal Thanksgiving Day
1676 - Antonio Vivaldi, composer, born
1680 - Stradivari makes his earliest known cello
1681 - Female professional dancers appear for the first time at Paris opera; Thimble is patented
1685 - JS Bach, born; George F. Handel, born
1689 - Henry Purcell: Dido and Aeneas opera; Witch hunts in Salem, MA: 19 die
1692 - Champagne invented by Dom Perignon
1693 - Voltaire, French philosopher, born, (sculpture of him, Thinker)
1694 - Russia's Peter the Great imposed a tax on beards
1700 - Stradivarius violins built (1700-1737); Benjamin Franklin, born; Charles Perrault, aka. Mother Goose, died
1703 - 1st ogan built in the colonies, Philadelphia
1704 - J.S. Bach writes his first cantata: Denn Du wirst meine Seele
1705 - Handel: Almira, opera staged in Hamburg; Scotland and England join to become Great Britain
1709 - Invention of the pianoforte - Bartolomeo Cristofori; Typewriter patented
1715 - Vaudevilles, popular musical comedies, appear in Paris; 1st lighthouse in US (Boston Harbor)
1717 - Handel's Water Music first performed on the Thames; Blackbeard, English pirate, killed off Virginia coast
1720 - Handel: Harpsichord suite no 5 ( with the "Harmonius Blacksmith"); John Hanson, 1st US President under the Articles of Confederation
1721- J.S. Bach: The Brandenburg Concertos
1722 - J.S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Kalvier, vol 1
1725 - Bach: Notenbuch for Anna Magdalena Bach; J.J. Fux: Gradus ad Parnassum, Treatise on counterpoint; Isaac Newton, died
1727 - Catherine the Great, Russia, born
1729 - J.S. Bach: St. Matthew Passion; Soler, Spanish composer, born; George Washingon, born; First stagecoach route
1732 - Joseph Haydn, composer, born; John Hancock, first signer of the Declaration of Independence, born
1737 - Antonio Stradivari, violin maker, died; Invention of the Franklin stove
1741 - Handel: The Messiah, oratorio; Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President, born
1744 - J.S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Klavierpart 2; Count Volta, invented electric battery
1745 - Johann von Goethe, poet, born
1750 - J. S. Bach, composer, dies
References
Kemper, N. (2014, May 24). Baroque Era. Retrieved from Prezi: https://prezi.com/ez8rh0xa0o5n/baroque-era/
Norman, Larry. (2001). The Theatrical Baroque: European Plays, Painting and Poetry, 1575 - 1725. Retrieved from Fathom Archive: http://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/2/10701023/
Wikispaces. (2016). Baroque Drama. Retrieved from Wikispaces: https://thebaroqueera.wikispaces.com/Baroque+Drama