Untitled Flashcards Set

farce

one of the most popular forms of medieval theatrical activity, ridicules the foibles of everyday human behavior instead of displaying religious drama

• shows imperfect humanity within social order

The Clever Man

Person who is usually displayed as a hero, even if they are a sinner.

Dupes

deserve their fate because they are stupid or gullible.

Sentiment

is almost totally absent.

In Master Pierre Pathelin, what does our hero Pathelin try to do to improve his fortune?

He tries to scam a local cloth merchant of his cloth so his wife could convert it into clothing.

What do we discover about the clothier?

he was running his own scam, charging the cloth more than its worth

Where does the word “farce” come from?

The word farcir, which means to stuff. (ex: comic bits were increasingly stuffed between religious plays in cycle productions to hold audience attention)

Why were churches against farces?

1) It did not convey any religious messages explicitly. 2) The church wanted transgressors punished when imperfections were shown. 3) The church itself was often an entertainment target.

What major changes happened in the Renaissance

1) reintroduction into european society of ancient greek/roman ideas, texts, art during 15-16 century. 2) many thinkers and artists wanted to disasssociate themselves as the “backward” medieval era. 3) a shift in emphasis away from medieval contemplative spiritual devotion

Leonardo da Vinci’s “Virtuvian Man”

reflects a key renaissance idea that human beings were central players in life’s drama. This painting stripped the religious symbols or trappings of earthly power like the idea of adult nudity being sinful instead of celebrated.

humanism

the renaissance focus on the human physical presence in the world rather than the fate of the soul in the next

What did humanism represent a shift to?

Contemplative life to active life.

renaissance man

an individual who, in addition to participating actively in t he affairs of public life, possesses knowledge of and skill in many subject areas (ex: leonardo da vinci, john milton, francis bacon who declared he’s taken all knowledge to be his province)

renaissance humanists

focused on teaching people how to participate in and rule a society

Whereas medieval plays like Abraham and Isaac and Master Pierre Pathelin which were written anonymously, _____________________.

plays (and all forms of art) moving forward in the renaissance became more connected to individual achievement and recognition like it was in ancient Greece.

“Participation and rule over society” was

largely limited to wealthy male elites who were a distinct minority, whereas everyone else was expected to conform passively to a rigid class and gender hierarchy

The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea was

one of the first european books to articulate the perspective of anti-black attitudes, calling them inferior due to their lack of religious knowledge.

The History and Description of Africa

published by Leo Africanus, an african, promoted denigrating images of Africans like Zuraras Chronical did. “worlds first known african racist”

Shakespeare’s “Big Four” tragedies

Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear

Moor

a term from the middle ages used to describe indigenous muslim inhabitants of north africa. in shakespeare term, was more elastic, could also mean someone from other places in the mediteranenan. today could mean anyone african.

blackamoors

The english also called moors _______, a reference to the fact that their skin was a darker color than europeans.

Onyeka Nubia

British historian ______ argues against calling shakespeare’s english a racist society by todays standards, explaining how race wasn’t really a thing.

Alexandre Hardy

playwright who claimed to have written over 600 plays (only 34 survived), and pretty much ignored the “unities” of time, place, action of neoclassical conventions.

“Querelle du Cid” or “The Le Cid quarrel”

the signal evenet in ascendancy of neoclassical ideal in france, after the furor surrounding the play Le Cid by Pierre Corneille, the so called “founder-of french tragedy”

Le Cid by Pierre Corneille

the play (based on a mythic spanish hero) that went astray of the playwriting “rules” neoclassical critics have cherished. (too many events, violating verisimilitude, unity of action, decorum, unity of genre)

Academie Francaise (French Academy)

state instrument for enforcing neoclassical ideals, issued a public rebuke to corneille for le cid. technically had no power except for being able to influence or persuade writers by law to follow its admonitions.

Louis XIV would capture the spirit of absolutionism by stating

“I am the state” / "L'État, c'est moi,".

Of the 719 immortals that have served the Academy Franciase since its inception, _____________

all of six have been women (0.8 of 1%)

Aphra Behn

playwright author of the Restoration comedy, “the Rover”, one of the most successful woman writers of the day.

Anne Bradstreet

poetry writer who illustrated the problem that women writers faced

Jermey Collier’s “A Short View of the Immorally and Profaneness of the English Stage”

influential pamphlet by religious forces, started a public “pamphlet war” that lasted about 20 years, attacking the theater as a singularly iniquitous enterprise.

What did the monarchy and merchant class competitors both agree on?

a lot of money could be made enslaving africans