Trace the growth of drama in England till
the Renaissance
Answers
Drama had been the tool to “spread religion”. In England, the “services of the church” were conducted in “Latin”, so, in order to make the people understand, the church first started using pictures of the characters to explain the stories that are in the “Gospel”. These drawings later got developed into actors performing it and there were no dialogues, only actions.
Later, dialogues were included in these plays and their theme will always be either mystery or miracle. These were also based on “Gospel stories” and the miracle plays whereof the stories of saints which were sometimes “comic or serious”.
The third stage consisted of “Morality and interludes” plays. The “morality plays” had serious genre whereas, “the interludes had comic genre” which were performed mainly to entertain the audience. The other stages consisted of Tragedy stories and Comedy stories. The first tragedy drama was “Gorboduc” “written by “Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton.” The drama got full flowing of artists and dramatist during the period of “Marlowe” and is known as “The University Wits.” It reached its height of glory during “Shakespeare’s Period”.