Arellano University
College of Arts and Sciences
2600 Legarda st. Sampaloc Manila

Library Research

Submitted to:
Mrs. Acibo

Submitted by:
Dalia B. Sabucor

I. Introduction

II. Presentation of Data

III. Conclusion

IV. Insights Gained

V. References

I. Introduction

Drama
Throughout the middle ages, drama and theater only dealt with sacred subjects, such as biblical stories. Profane drama was either unheard of or only performed in burlesque. Classical dramatists were virtually unheard of in the middle ages. All the great dramatists of antiquity, such as the Greek playwrights Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides, and the Roman comedy writers such as Plautus and Terence, were only discovered by humanists in the Renaissance. Although classical drama is more read and studied in the modern period than other classical literature, in the Renaissance it was a distinct last place to epic poetry, lyric poetry, and philosophy. So drama isn't well represented in Renaissance literature.
The first dramatist to imitate classical models in Italy was Giangiorgio Trissino, who was a wealthy humanist with an encyclopedic knowledge. Among other things, he was famous as a Neoplatonic philosopher and poet. He, like many others, attempted to write an epic poem, L'Italia liberata dai Goti (Italy Liberated from the Goths) which, though it's a poem about Justinian's reconquest of Italy, is mainly an encyclopedia of Trissino's knowledge of every possible subject, including mathematics and architecture. He wrote the first Italian tragedy, Sofonisba , in 1514; although it caused a sensation, tragedy never really developed in Italy as it would do in England in the late sixteenth century.
Comedy, though, was a different matter, and the Italians produced some classic literature in the history of comedy. The