Chapter 5: Neoclassical Ideals

Key Figures in Neoclassical Criticism

• Julius Scaliger: Renowned dramatic critic focused on various scholarly interests, notably botany, zoology, grammar, and literary criticism. Authored Poetics Libri Septem in 1561, a Latin work aiming to standardize literary forms with a didactic critical system that emphasized decorum and verisimilitude.

• Ludovico Castelvetro: A prominent Italian literary critic and trained lawyer, excommunicated by the Inquisition due to a theological controversy. Believed that theatre served to entertain the ignorant majority.

Critical Concepts

• Decorum: Relates to appropriate conduct and behavior in literature, dictated by character traits such as age, profession, sex, and rank.

• Verisimilitude: Refers to the lifelike quality of a work, ensuring that its elements—setting, characters, dialogue, and actions—appear true, plausible, and believable.

Rules of Drama

• Unities of Time, Place, and Action: Critical framework that dictates that plays should be confined to a specific time duration, location, and central plot, avoiding temporal paradoxes, extraneous subplots, and other complex narrative structures.

Types of Criticism

• Descriptive Criticism: Focuses on accurately describing the performance elements and actions to convey what is occurring in a theatrical production.

• Prescriptive Criticism: Provides guidelines and suggestions for theatrical practices, indicating how performances should be executed.

Influence of Classical Thinkers

• Neoclassicists sought to establish rules based on the works of Aristotle and Horace, emphasizing the importance of imitating ancient Greek and Roman theatrical traditions.

Neoclassicism Overview

• This movement represents a revival of classical styles across various artistic domains such as literature, architecture, and music, approached with modern perspectives and motivations.

Opera's Purpose

• The invention of Opera aimed to revive the Greek tragic style, merging musical performance with dramatic storytelling.

Moral and Didactic Considerations

• Didacticism versus "Art for Art's Sake": The debate centers on whether plays should instruct and uplift morally. One perspective advocates for drama as a reflective mirror of society, while another supports the combination of entertainment with moral instruction as the most effective form of drama, as suggested by Horace.