The Making of The Modern History Play

Virtually every major modern dramatist--Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Yeats, and O'Casey, to name but a few--has written what may be construed as history plays: plays based on a historical personage or event. And since the time of Aeschylus's The Persians, perhaps the first history play of the Western Theatre, critics have grappled with the term "history play," attempting to define it as a distinct dramatic genre. These efforts have not been overly successful, mainly because the historical dramatist must usually balance a society's view of historical fact with the conventions of the contemporary theater. Often the latter, popular theatrical conventions, undermines or alters drastically history as a society perceives it. The history play, then, is frequently poised between the instructive function of history and the somewhat lower function of the popular theater.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Watt, Stephen Myers

• Literature, Modern
• Theater

Identifier

(UMI)AAI8303017

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/69428