ROMANTISM THEATRE OR

MELODRAMA
Eve Parent
5th Period
 WHAT IS IT?

“A dramatic form which uses exaggerated

plot elements and characters (often
stereotypes or archetypal in nature) in
order to appeal to the emotions of the
audience” (Eckersley)
 The American Revolution

• Democracy!
• Separated the American colonies from England
• Men have freedom to act on their own consequences (Wilson
and Goldfarb)
• Independence!

HISTORY French Revolution

FROM 1800- • Restoration of the Catholic religion

• Nature was something to honor
• Revolted against the king’s absolute power and the corrupt
1880 aristocracy with increasing violence
• Nationalism encourages interest in medieval studies

Industrial Revolution

• Growing middle class

• Trading and manufacturing are major sources of wealth
• More people in cites
• More elaborate special effects
 THEORETICAL CONTEXT

• Romantism rejected classism

• Emphasized restraint and Classical rules
of harmony and form

• Did not fully reject the Enlightenment

interest in reason and social change
• Placed more emphasis on personal
experience and irrational/emotional
desires and beliefs

• Occurred between classism and realism An Example of Classical Theatre:

Jacques-Louis David, Oath of the
• Part of a larger literary movement
Horatii, 1784
 HISTORICAL FIGURES AND ARTISTS

François-René de Germaine de Staël

Napoleon Bonaparte
Chateaubriand
French Author
Emperor of the French from 1804-1814 French author
Exiled by Napoleon
Champion of the restoration of the Catholic
religion Wandered to Germany and became acquainted
with Goethe and Schiller
Formed the basis of picturesque and ideal
descriptions
 PLAYWRIGHTS

Johann Wolfgang
Victor Hugo Friedrich Schiller
von Goethe
Faust parts I and II Hernani William Tell (1804)
Clavigo Cromwell The Thirty Years War
Egmon
Stella
 JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
• German playwright and early participant in Sturm und
drang movement
• “Storm and Stress”
• Plays characterized by sprawling action, long and
arduous (Wilson and Goldfarb)
• Wrote Faust over 57 years
• Took no pride in his literary accomplishments
• Emotive, far-reaching, prophetic, and formal
• Merged science and art
• Believed his work as a philosopher and scientist would
be his true legacy (“Johann Wolfgang von Goethe”)
 VICTOR HUGO
• French playwright, and author
• Associated with social liberty, and the freedom of
the artist
• Broke from the conventional 18th-century rules
of French versification
• Presented himself as the poet born of the
ideological currents that shaped Romanticism
• Embodied the Romantic image of martyrdom
when he went into exile in 1851
"EVERY MAN WHO WRITES, WRITES A BOOK; THIS
BOOK IS HIMSELF. WHETHER HE KNOWS IT OR NOT,
WHETHER HE WISHES IT OR NOT, IT IS TRUE. FROM
EVERY BODY OF WORK, WHATEVER IT MAY BE,
WRETCHED OR ILLUSTRIOUS, THERE EMERGES A
PERSONA, THAT OF THE WRITER. IT IS HIS
PUNISHMENT, IF HE IS PETTY; IT IS HIS REWARD, IF
HE IS GREAT"
-Victor Hugo
 Second-to-last scene of
Cyrano de Bergerac at
Théâtre de la Porte
Saint-Martin, Paris, The Octoroon,
dec.1897 Act IV, at The
Winter Garden
Theatre, 1859.

Sara Bernhardt as Faust, 2004,

Doña Sol in Hernandi ROH London
 MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS
OF ROMANTICISM
• Emotions and instinct more important than reason
Abiding trust in nature’s goodness • Glorification of “The Natural Man” – the primitive and untutored personality
• Primitivism – the simple and unsophisticated life was best

Equality of people • Social and economic classes disparaged

• Detail is the pathway to truth

A premium on detail • Particular, specific, and unique
• All creation was unified
• Must always be sought, but we will probably never find it
Ultimate truth • Artists become seen as misunderstood geniuses
• struggle for truth
• The role of art was to lead people
Art served an exalted purpose • To perceive the underlying unity of all existence and thus to eliminate conflict
• Both artist and critic were necessarily subjective and personal
Subjectivity • Focus on artist and audience
• “Democratization" of art – one’s feeling are as good as anyone else’s
 FOCUS AND IMPACT

• Acting • Audience
• Exaggerated emotions and instinct • Open to the middle-class
• Unrealistic acting, drama, and direction • Appeal to emotions rather than intellect
• Melodramas use stock characters (e.g., • Theaters expanded by putting on lavish
the villain, the damsel in distress) spectacles for the public
• Plots use extraordinary coincidences • Seeing becomes more important than
and unanticipated encounters. hearing
 CONVENTIONS
• Special effects focused on the supernatural and the mysterious
• Emphasize unrealistic aspects and forces outside one’s control
• Audiences, especially those in the gods, were loud and vocal
• Backdrops were carefully and realistically painted
• Illusion of reality, with many details, and was to be historically and geographically accurate
• Gas lights
• Increased illumination, had better control of intensity, but still had wavering flames
• Many special effects William Tell by
• Flying Friedrich Schiller
• Trap doors
• Water pump systems
• Moving panoramas to give the illusion of travel
• Treadmills by the late 1800 (allowed for horses and chariot races, etc.)
• Volcanic eruptions
• Fires
 MODERN EXAMPLES
• Dramatized Historical Fiction such as Reign
• Attention to detail
• Exaggerated emotions

• The Importance of Being Earnest

• Exaggerated relationships between characters
• Heightened reality

• Batman Forever (1995)

• Melodrama
• Stock portrayal of heroes and villains
 WORK CITED
• Bernhardt, Sarah. “Memories of My Life : Being My Personal, Professional, and Social Recollections as Woman and Artist.” Internet Archive, 1907,
archive.org/stream/memoriesofmylife00bern/memoriesofmylife00bern#page/402/mode/1up.

• “Books by Schiller, Friedrich (Sorted by Popularity).” Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/289.

• David, Jacques-Louis. Oath of the Horatii, Web Gallery of Art, 1774.

• Eckersley, Mark. “Melodrama.” A Matter of Style, 7 Oct. 2014, http://theatrestyles.blogspot.com/2014/10/melodrama.html.

• Grosset, and Dunlap. “Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.” TheatreHistory.com, 2002, www.theatrehistory.com/german/goethe013.html.

• “Highlights From ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’” Playbill, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNCliKCN9gY&feature=youtu.be.

• “The Hazlitt Society.” The Hazlitt Society, 22 Mar. 2011, www.ucl.ac.uk/hazlitt-society.

• “The Importance of Being Earnest.” The Old Globe, https://www.theoldglobe.org/pdp/17-18-season/the-importance-of-being-earnest/#?startDate=2019-10-

01&?endDate=2019-10-31.

• “Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, https://poets.org/poet/johann-wolfgang-von-goethe.

• Last-but-One Scene of Cyrano De Bergerac at Théâtre De La Porte Saint-Martin. L'illustration, 1898.

• Mathers, Paul. “William Tell, by Friedrich Schiller.” Paulus Torchus, 22 June 2013, ticklemebrahms.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/william-tell-by-friedrich- schiller/.

• “The Nineteenth Century to the Present: Romanticism and Melodrama, 1800–1880.” The Norton Anthology of Drama,
https://wwnorton.com/college/english/nadrama/content/review/shorthistory/19c-present/romanticism.aspx.

• The Octoroon, Act IV, 1859. Templeman Library, 1859.

• “The Rise of Romanticism.” The Rise of Romanticism, 2002, www.theatrehistory.com/french/romanticism001.html.

• Schwartz, Robert. “The Romantic Victor Marie Hugo.” The France of Victor Hugo,
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/jkr/hugo.html?x=151&y=187.

• “Victor Hugo.” Edited by Alfred Bates, TheatreHistory.com, 2002, www.theatrehistory.com/french/hugo001.html.

• Wilson, and Goldfarb. “Romanticism.” Northern Virginia Community College, 3 Nov. 2004, novaonline.nvcc.edu/eli/spd130et/romanticism.htm

• “2014, ROH London, Faust.” Simon Keenly Side, http://www.simonkeenlyside.info/index.php/performances/performances-opera/faust-gounod-valentin- or-wagner/2014-

roh-london-faust/.