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Street theater of the Middle Ages. Medieval European theater

After the fall of the Roman Empire, the ancient theater was forgotten: the early ideologists of Christianity condemned hypocrisy, and not only actors, musicians and "dancers", but all "obsessed with a passion for the theater" were excluded from Christian communities. Medieval theater was actually born anew, from folk rituals and religious holidays - dramatizations of church services. The history of the medieval theater goes through two stages - the stage of the early (from the 5th to the 16th century) and the mature (from the 12th to the middle of the 16th century) Middle Ages. Despite the persecution of the church, the village population, according to ancient customs, celebrated the end of winter, the arrival of spring, the harvest; in games, dances and songs, people expressed their naive faith in gods, personifying the forces of nature. These holidays laid the foundation for future theatrical performances. In Switzerland, guys depicted winter and summer - one in a shirt, the other in a fur coat. In Germany, costumed carnival processions were held in honor of spring. In England, the spring holidays resulted in crowded games, dances, competitions in honor of May, and also in memory of folk hero Robin Hood. Spectacular elements were rich in spring games in Italy and Bulgaria.

These holidays were humor and creativity, the power of the people, but over time they lost their ritual and cult meaning, began to reflect elements of the real life of the village, were associated with the labor activity of the peasants, turned into traditional games, entertainment of a spectacular nature. But these games with their primitive content could not give rise to the theater, they were not enriched with either civic ideas or poetic forms, as was the case in Ancient Greece, moreover, these free games contained memories of a pagan cult and were severely persecuted. christian church. But if the church managed to prevent the free development of the folk theater associated with folklore, then all the same, certain types of rural amusements gave rise to new folk spectacles - the performances of histrions.

Histrions are folk itinerant actors. In France they are called jugglers, in Germany they are called shpilmans, in Poland they are dandies, in Bulgaria they are called cookers, in Russia they are buffoons. Village entertainers who moved to the city become professional entertainers. They finally break away from the village, and the life of a medieval city, noisy fairs, and the hustle and bustle of a city street become the source of their creativity. Their art is initially distinguished by syncretism: each histrion sings, dances, tells stories, plays a musical instrument, and does dozens of other funny things. But gradually there is a stratification of the mass of histrions according to the branches of creativity, according to the audience to which they most often appeal. Now they distinguish: comic buffoons, storytellers, singers, musicians, jugglers. Particularly distinguished are the writers and performers of poems, ballads and dance songs - troubadours "who know how to please nobles." Having grown out of rural ritual games, having absorbed the rebellious mood of the urban lower classes, the art of the histrions was persecuted and persecuted by churchmen and kings, but even they could not resist the temptation to see the fun and cheerful performances of the histrions.

Soon, the histrions united in unions, from which circles of amateur actors were subsequently created. Under their direct influence, a wave of amateur theater in the 14th-15th centuries was expanding. Now the church is powerless in destroying the love of the people for theatrical spectacles. In an effort to make the church service - the liturgy - more effective, the clergy themselves began to use theatrical forms. Arise - liturgical drama to scenes from Scripture. The first liturgical dramas consisted of dramatizations of individual episodes of the Gospel. Costumes, text, movements became more complicated and improved. Performances were held under the vaults of the temple. And a semi-liturgical drama, it was played on the porch or churchyard. Religious drama had several genres such as:

Miracle

Mystery

Morality

Miracle "miracle" - religious and didactic drama, the plot is the presentation of a legend or the life of a saint who committed some serious offense and was saved by the intercession of the Mother of God. Miracles were most widespread in the 14th century. Derived from hymns in honor of the saints and from the reading of their lives in the church. Miracles gave more freedom to creativity and depiction of reality than other types of medieval drama.

Mystery- a medieval drama on biblical themes. It is considered the crowning achievement of medieval theatre, a genre in which the forms of church, folk, secular theaters middle ages. It flourished in the 15th - first half of the 16th centuries. The performances were timed to the fair, to the solemn occasion and opened with a colorful procession of citizens of all ages and classes. Plots were taken from the Bible and the Gospel. Actions went on from morning to evening for several days. Pavilions were built on a wooden platform, each of which had its own events. At one end of the platform was a richly decorated Paradise, at the opposite end - Hell with an open mouth of a dragon, instruments of torture and a huge cauldron for sinners. The scenery in the center was extremely laconic: the inscription over the gate "Nazareth" or a gilded throne was enough to designate a city or a palace. Prophets, beggars, devils led by Lucifer appeared on the stage... In the prologue, the heavenly spheres were depicted, where God the Father sat surrounded by angels and allegorical figures - Wisdom, Mercy, Justice, etc. Then the action moved to the earth and beyond - to Hell, where Satan roasted sinful souls. The righteous came out in white, the sinners - in black, the devils - in red tights, painted with terrible "faces".

Mystery dramaturgy is divided into three cycles:

“Old Testament”, the content of which is the cycles of biblical legends;

"New Testament", telling the story of the birth and resurrection of Christ;

"apostolic", in which the plots of the play were borrowed from the "Lives of the Saints" and partly from the miracles of the saints.

Being a street performance addressed to a mass audience, the mystery play expressed both folk, earthly principles, and a system of religious and church ideas. This internal inconsistency genre led him to decline, and subsequently caused him to be banned by the church.

Morality- independent plays of an instructive nature, the characters of which were not people, but abstract concepts. Parables were played out about the "Prudent and the Unreasonable", about the "Righteous and the Reveler", where the first takes Reason and Faith as his life companions, the second - Disobedience and Debauchery. In these parables, suffering and meekness are rewarded in heaven, while hardness of heart and avarice lead to Hell.

They played morality on the farce stage. There was something like a balcony, where they presented living pictures of the heavenly spheres - angels and the god Sabaoth. Allegorical figures, divided into two camps, appeared from opposite sides, forming symmetrical groups: Faith - with a cross in her hands, Hope - with an anchor, Avarice - with a purse of gold, Delight - with an orange, and Flattery had a fox tail with which she stroked Stupidity.

Morality is a dispute in faces, played out on the stage, a conflict expressed not through action, but through a dispute between characters. Sometimes in scenes that spoke about sins and vices, an element of farce, social satire appeared, the breath of the crowd and the "free spirit of the square" penetrated into them.

So, during the Middle Ages, the theater existed in different forms. On initial stage he became a kind of "bible for the illiterate", retelling biblical stories. Theatrical performances of the Middle Ages became the forerunner of the development of the theater of the Renaissance.

16.Traditions of Latin Literature in the Literature of the Middle Ages. Lyrics of the Vagants. Sources, themes, features of the comic.

In early medieval France, literature in Latin took center stage.

The Latin language, having become a dead language, nevertheless became a connecting thread between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was the language of the church, interstate relations, jurisprudence, science, education, one of the main languages of literature. The maxims of ancient authors were used as material studied in the medieval school.

In medieval literature in Latin, it is customary to distinguish three lines of development: the first (actually medieval, official, ecclesiastical) is represented in clerical literature, the second (associated with the appeal to the ancient heritage) was most clearly manifested in the Carolingian Renaissance, the third (which arose at the junction of Latin learning and folk laughter culture) was reflected in the poetry of the Vagants.

In the later periods of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the creation of works in Latin continued. Among them, one should especially highlight the “History of my disasters” written in Latin by Pierre Abelard.

We are talking about the lyrics of vagants, wandering schoolboys and placeless nomadic monks - a motley crowd that announced medieval Europe with its songs. The very word "vagant" comes from the Latin "vagari" - to wander. Another term is found in the literature - "goliards", derived from "Goliath" (here: the devil

The lyrics of the Vagants were by no means limited to the chanting of tavern revelry and love pleasures, despite all the schoolboy bravado embedded in many verses. The very poets who so recklessly called for discarding the "trash of dusty books", breaking out of the dust of libraries and abandoning the teachings in the name of Venus and Bacchus, were the most educated people of their time, who retained a lively connection with antiquity and grew up on the latest achievements of philosophical thought.

In their work, the vagantes dealt with the most serious moral, religious and political problems, subjecting the state and the church, the omnipotence of money and the violation of human dignity, dogmatism and inertia to daring attacks. The protest against the existing world order, the resistance to the authority of the Church, equally implied the rejection of the bloodless bookishness from which living life has been evaporated, emasculated, and the joyful acceptance of life illuminated by the light of knowledge. The cult of feeling is inseparable for them from the cult of thought, which subjected all phenomena to mental control, to a strict test of experience.

It is impossible to accept a single proposition on faith without verifying it with the help of reason; faith acquired without the help of mental strength is unworthy free personality. These theses of the Parisian "Master of Science", the great sufferer Peter Abelard, were widely picked up by the Vagantes: they read and copied his writings and distributed them throughout Europe, opposing the Church's "I believe in order to understand" the opposite formula - "I understand in order to believe."

The first collections of schoolboy lyrics that have come down to us are the "Cambridge Manuscript" - "Carmina Cantabrigensia" (XI century) - and "Carmina Burana" from the Benediktbeyern Monastery in Bavaria (XIII century). Both of these songbooks are obviously of German origin, in any case closely connected with Germany. One way or another, the lyrics of the Vagantes belong to the first pages of German poetry: Swabians turned out to be the characters of many Cambridge songs, and the very nickname of one of the creators of "Carmina Burana" is "Archipite of Cologne ", whose "Confession" was a kind of manifesto of nomadic students, evokes the image of a unique Rhine city.

At the same time, the love lyrics of the Vagants partly anticipate, partly merge with the lyrics of the German "singers of love" - minnesingers, and some of the minnesingers were essentially vagants. It is worth recalling, for example, the famous Tannhäuser, whose fast paced life made him an almost legendary figure: participation in the Crusades, Cyprus, Armenia, Antioch, service in Vienna at the court of Frederick II, clash with Pope Urban IV, flight, loud fame and bitter need after he, by his own admission, "ate and mortgaged his estate", since "beautiful women, good wine, delicious dishes and a bathhouse twice a week were very expensive for him.

So, relatively recently, in Stuttgart, the book "Heaven and Hell of Wanderers. Poetry of the Great Vagants of All Times and Peoples" was published, compiled by Martin Lepelman. In his book, Lepelman, along with the vagants proper, included Celtic bards and German skalds, our harp players, as well as Homer, Anacreon, Archiloch, Walter von der Vogelweide, Francois Villon, Cervantes, Saadi, Li Bo - up to Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Ringelnatz. Among the "songs of the vagants" we also find ours, Russian, translated into German: "Seht ueber Mutter Wolga jagen die kuehne Trojka schneebestaubt" - "Here a trio daring rushes along the Mother Volga in winter", "Fuhr einst zum Jahrmarkt ein Kaufmann kuehn" - "A merchant went to the fair", etc. The main signs of poetry " nomadic" Lepelman considers "childish naivete and musicality" and an irresistible craving for wandering, which arose primarily from "a feeling of oppressive tightness, which makes the fetters of settled life unbearable", from a feeling of "boundless contempt for all the restrictions and canons of everyday order"

However, the poetry of the Vagants went far beyond medieval literature: its rhythms, melodies, moods, that "tramp spirit" that our Yesenin wrote about, took root in world poetry, became its integral part.

Any great literature associated with the dream of freedom, inspired by freedom, nurtured by freedom. There has never been a poetry of slavery that would serve prisons, fires and scourges, would sing bondage as the highest virtue, despite all the efforts of writing mercenaries to impersonate poets

Direct evidence of this is provided by the verses and songs of the Vagantes, which continued to terrify the reaction for many centuries. It is no coincidence that in the Benediktbeyern monastery, the manuscript of "Carmina Burana", as forbidden literature, was hidden in a special cache, from where it was removed only in 1806.

The lyrics of the Vagants are exceptionally diverse in content. It covers all sides medieval life and all manifestations human personality. The song calling for participation in a crusade in the name of the liberation of the "Holy Sepulcher" is adjacent to a catchy anti-clerical proclamation against the corruption of the clergy and "simony" - trading in church positions; a frantic appeal to God and a call to repentance - with persistent, repeating from poem to poem, the glorification of "rough" flesh, the cult of wine and gluttony; almost obscene eroticism and cynicism - with purity and sublimity; disgust for bookishness - with the glorification of science and wise university professors. Often things that seem incompatible collide in the same poem: irony turns into pathos, and assertion turns into skepticism, buffoonery is mixed with extraordinary philosophical depth and seriousness, poignant sadness suddenly bursts into a cheerful May song, and, conversely, crying is suddenly resolved by laughter . The poem "Orpheus in Hell", conceived at first as a funny parody of the famous ancient myth and one of the chapters of Ovid's "Metamorphoses", ends with a passionate plea for mercy, and in the "Apocalypse of the Goliard" the pictures of the impending death of the world are neutralized by a farcical ending.

In the XI-XII centuries, schools began to gradually degenerate into universities. In the 12th century in Paris, "in a happy city where students outnumber local residents", the cathedral school, the schools of the abbots of St. Genevieve and St. Victor and many professors who independently taught the "liberal arts" merged into one association - "Universitas magistrorum et scolarum Parisensium". The university was divided into faculties: theological, medical, legal and " artistic", and the rector of the most populous "faculty of artists", where the "seven liberal arts" were studied - grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music - stood at the head of the university: the deans of all other faculties were subordinate to him. University of Paris becomes the theological center of Europe, independent of the secular court and having received the consolidation of its rights from the side of the papacy.

However, the University of Paris soon had serious rivals. Jurisprudence is studied in Montpellier and Bologna, medicine - in Salerno, in the middle of the 13th century Oxford University appears, by the 14th century Cambridge and Prague University are finally organized.

Students from all over the world flock to these universities. European countries, there is a mixture of mores, customs, a mutual exchange of national experience, which was greatly facilitated by Latin - the international language of students

Endowed with the rarest musicality (the vagantes did not read their poems, but sang them), they revel in the “music of consonances”, as if they play rhymes, achieving extraordinary virtuosity in rhyming and, without suspecting it, open to poetry previously unknown techniques of poetic expressiveness. In essence, the Vagantes for the first time filled with new, lively content the ancient Latin meter - "versus quadratus" - an eight-foot trochee, which turned out to be suitable for a solemn ode, and for a playful parody, and for poetic narration ...

The music that accompanied the songs of the Vagantes has almost not come down to us, but this music lies in the text itself. Perhaps, the composer Carl Orff "heard" it better than others, when in 1937, in Germany, he created his cantata - "Carmina Burana", preserving the ancient texts intact in order to express his opinions "through them" and with their help. about a man, about his earnest desire for freedom and joy in a time of darkness, cruelty and violence.
17.Renaissance. General characteristics. Periodization problem.

Revival (Renaissance), a period in the cultural and ideological development of the countries of Western and Central Europe (in Italy XIV - XVI centuries in other countries, the end of the XV - beginning of the XVII centuries), transitional from medieval culture to the culture of modern times.

Brief description of the Renaissance. Revival (Renaissance), a period in the cultural and ideological development of the countries of Western and Central Europe (in Italy XIV - XVI centuries in other countries, the end of the XV - beginning of the XVII centuries), transitional from medieval culture to the culture of modern times.

Distinctive features of the culture of the Renaissance: anti-feudalism at its core, secular, anti-cleric character, humanistic worldview, appeal to the cultural heritage of antiquity, as if "revival" of it (hence the name). The revival arose and most clearly manifested itself in Italy, where already at the turn of the XIII - XIV centuries. its harbingers were the poet Dante, the artist Giotto and others.

The work of the Renaissance figures is imbued with faith in the unlimited possibilities of man, his will and mind, the rejection of Catholic scholasticism and asceticism (humanistic ethics). The pathos of affirming the ideal of a harmonious, liberated creative personality, the beauty and harmony of reality, the appeal to man as the highest principle of being, the feeling of wholeness and harmonious laws of the universe give the art of the Renaissance great ideological significance, a majestic heroic scale.

In architecture, secular structures began to play a leading role - public buildings, palaces, city houses. Using arched galleries, colonnades, vaults, baths, architects (Alberti, Palladio in Italy; Lescaut, Delorme in France, etc.) gave their buildings majestic clarity, harmony and proportionality to man.

Artists (Donatello, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and others in Italy; Jan van Eyck, Brueghel in the Netherlands; Dürer, Niethardt in Germany; Fouquet, Goujon, Clouet in France) consistently mastered the reflection of all the wealth of reality - the transfer volume, space, light, the image of a human figure (including a naked one) and the real environment - an interior, a landscape.

Renaissance literature created such monuments of enduring value as "Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1533 - 1552) by Rabelais, Shakespeare's dramas, the novel "Don Quixote" (1605 - 1615) by Cervantes, etc., organically combining interest in antiquity with appeal to folk culture, the pathos of the comic with the tragedy of being.

Petrarch's sonnets, Boccaccio's short stories, Aristo's heroic poem, philosophical grotesque (Erasmus of Rotterdam's treatise "Praise of Stupidity", 1511), Montaigne's essays - in different genres, individual forms and national variants embodied the ideas of the Renaissance.

In music imbued with a humanistic worldview, vocal and instrumental polyphony develops, new genres of secular music appear - solo song, cantata, oratorio and opera, contributing to the establishment of homophony. During the Renaissance, outstanding scientific discoveries were made in the field of geography, astronomy, and anatomy. The ideas of the Renaissance contributed to the destruction of feudal and religious ideas and in many respects objectively met the needs of the emerging bourgeois society

18. Renaissance in Italy. Personality and work of Dante. "New Life" and traditions of "new sweet style" poetry. The image of Beatrice and the concept of love.

"New sweet style". Florence is becoming one of the centers of European cultural life. The political struggle of the Guelphs (the party of supporters of the power of the Pope) and the Ghibellines (the aristocratic party of supporters of the power of the emperor) did not prevent the flourishing of the city.

At the end of the XIII century. in Florence, the poetry of "loce al piouo" - "a new sweet style" (Guido Gvinicelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri) is taking shape. Based on the traditions of courtly poetry, representatives of this school defend a new understanding of love, transform the image of the Beautiful Lady and the poet in comparison with the poetry of the troubadours: The lady, “who descended from heaven to earth - to reveal a miracle” (Dante), ceases to be perceived as an earthly woman, is likened Mother of God, the love of the poet acquires the features of religious worship, but at the same time becomes more individualized, it is filled with joy. The poets "leoce sii pioyo" (developing new poetic genres, among which are: canzona (poem with stanzas of the same structure), ballata (poem with stanzas of unequal structure), sonnet.

Sonnet. Highest value has a sonnet genre (yaopePo), which played an outstanding role in the poetry of subsequent centuries (up to the present day). The sonnet has a strict form: it has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains (quatrains with rhyming аъаъ аъаъ or аъа аъъа) and two tercetes (three-line rhymes with syy ysy or, with the assumption of the fifth rhyme, ce ce, variant ce сMe). The rules that bind content to this form are no less strict: the topic must be named in the first line, the initial thesis is stated in the first quatrain, the opposite or complementary thought (let's call it “antithesis”) is summed up in two tercetes (“synthesis ”) of the development of the theme in the sonnet. Researchers have established the closeness of the sonnet to the fugue genre, where the musical content. Such a structure makes it possible to high degree concentration of artistic material.

The development of the sonnet according to the philosophical triad "thesis - antithesis - synthesis" raises any chosen topic, even a completely private one, to high level philosophical generalization, transmits through particular art picture peace.

Biography. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) is the first European writer to whom the definition of "great" is rightfully applicable. The outstanding English art critic D. Ruskin called him “ central man peace." F. Engels found the exact wording to define Dante's special place in the culture of Europe: he is "the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of the Modern Age."

Dante was born in Florence and during the reign of the White Guelph party in the city (separated from the Black Guelph party - supporters of Pope Boniface VIII) held prestigious positions. In 1302, when the black Guelphs came to power as a result of treason, Dante, along with other white Guelphs, was expelled from the city. In 1315, the authorities of Florence, fearing the strengthening of the Ghibellines, granted an amnesty to the White Guelphs, under which Dante also fell, but he was forced to refuse to return to his homeland, since for this he had to undergo a humiliating, shameful procedure. Then the city authorities sentenced him and his sons to death. Dante died in a foreign land, in Ravenna, where he is buried.

"New life". By 1292 or the beginning of 1293, the completion of Dante's work on the book "New Life" - a commented poetic cycle and at the same time the first European artistic autobiography. It includes 25 sonnets, 3 canzones, 1 ballata, 2 poetic fragments and a prose text - a biographical and philological commentary on poetry.

Beatrice. The book (in verses and comments on them) tells about Dante's sublime love for Beatrice Portinari, a Florentine who married Simone dei Bardi and died in June 1290, before reaching 25 years old.

Dante talks about the first meeting with Beatrice, when the future poet was nine years old, and the girl was not yet nine. The second significant meeting took place nine years later. The poet admires Beatrice, catches her every glance, hides his love, demonstrating to others that he loves another lady, but thereby displeases Beatrice and is full of remorse. Shortly before the new nine-year term, Beatrice dies, and for the poet this is a universal catastrophe.

In placing the canzone on Beatrice's death in the book, he considers it sacrilegious to comment after it, as after other verses, so he places the commentary before the canzone. The finale contains a promise to glorify Beatrice in verse. Beatrice, under the pen of a poet who develops the traditions of poetry of the “new sweet style”, becomes the image of the most beautiful, noble, virtuous woman, “giving bliss” (this is the translation of her name into Russian). After Dante immortalized the name Beatrice in the Divine Comedy, she became one of the " eternal images» world literature.

The Divine Comedy" as a book about the meaning of life, the earthly and posthumous fate of man, a philosophical and artistic synthesis of the culture of the Middle Ages and the anticipation of the Renaissance. The picture of the world in the Divine Comedy.

Dante tells how he got lost in a dense forest and was almost torn to pieces by three terrible beasts - a lion, a she-wolf and a panther. He is led out of this forest by Virgil, whom Beatrice sent to him. Dense forest- the earthly existence of man, the lion - pride, the she-wolf - greed, the panther - voluptuousness, Virgil - earthly wisdom, Beatrice - heavenly wisdom. Dante's journey through hell symbolizes the process of awakening human consciousness under the influence of earthly wisdom. All sins punishable in hell entail a form of punishment that allegorically depicts the state of mind of people subject to this vice. In purgatory are those sinners who are not condemned to eternal torment and can still be cleansed of the sins they have committed. Having risen from Dante along the ledges of the mountain of purgatory to the earthly paradise, Virgil leaves him, because. further ascent to him as a pagan is not available. Virgil is replaced by Beatrice, who becomes Dante's driver through the heavenly paradise. Dante's love is cleansed of everything earthly, sinful. It becomes a symbol of virtue and religion, and its ultimate goal is the contemplation of God.

This dominance in the compositional and semantic structure poems number 3 goes back to the Christian idea of the trinity and the mystical meaning of the number 3. On this number the whole architectonics of the afterlife is founded"Divine Comedy", thought out by the poet to the smallest detail. The symbolization does not end there: each song ends with the same word "stars"; Christ's name rhymes only with itself; in hell the name of Christ is nowhere mentioned, nor is the name of Mary, and so on.
In his poem Dante reflected the medieval notions of hell and heaven, time and eternity, sin and punishment.

sins for which they are punished in Hell, three categories: promiscuity, violence and lies. The ethical principles on which Dante's Hell is built, as well as his vision of the world and man in general, are alloy Christian theology and pagan ethics based on the Ethics of Aristotle. Dante's views are not original, they were common in an era when the main works of Aristotle were rediscovered and diligently studied.

After passing through the nine circles of Hell and the center of the Earth, Dante and his guide Virgil come to the surface at the foot of Mount Purgatory, located in the south. hemisphere, on the opposite edge of the Earth from Jerusalem. Their descent into Hell took them exactly the same amount of time as elapsed between the position of Christ in the tomb and his resurrection, and the opening songs of Purgatory are replete with indications of how the action of the poem echoes the feat of Christ - another example of imitation from Dante, now in habitual form of imitatio Christi.

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The feudalism of Western Europe came to replace the slaveholding of the Roman Empire. New classes arose, serfdom gradually took shape. Now the struggle took place between serfs and feudal lords. Therefore, the theater of the Middle Ages throughout its history reflects the clash between the people and the clergy. The church was practically the most effective tool of the feudal lords and suppressed everything earthly, life-affirming, and preached asceticism and renunciation of worldly pleasures, of an active, fulfilling life. The church fought the theater because it did not accept any human aspirations for carnal, joyful enjoyment of life. In this regard, the history of the theater of that period shows a tense struggle between these two principles. The result of the strengthening of the anti-feudal opposition was the gradual transition of the theater from religious to secular content.

Since at an early stage of feudalism nations were not yet completely formed, the history of the theater of that time cannot be considered separately in each country. This is worth doing, keeping in mind the confrontation between religious and secular life. For example, ritual games, performances by histrions, the first attempts at secular dramaturgy, and farce in the arena belong to one set of medieval theater genres, while liturgical drama, miracles, mysteries, and morality belong to another. These genres quite often intersect, but there is always a clash of two main ideological and stylistic trends in the theater. They feel the struggle of the ideology of the nobility, rallied with the clergy, against the peasantry, from whose midst the urban bourgeois and plebeians later emerged.

There are two periods in the history of the medieval theater: early (from the 5th to the 11th century) and mature (from the 12th to the middle of the 16th century). No matter how hard the clergy tried to destroy the traces of the ancient theater, they did not succeed. The ancient theater survived by adapting to the new way of life of the barbarian tribes. The birth of the medieval theater must be sought in the rural rituals of different peoples, in the everyday life of the peasants. Despite the fact that many peoples have adopted Christianity, their consciousness has not yet been freed from the influence of paganism.

The church persecuted the people for celebrating the end of winter, the arrival of spring, the harvest. In games, songs and dances, people's faith in gods was reflected, which for them personified the forces of nature. These festivities laid the foundation for theatrical performances. For example, in Switzerland, the guys depicted winter and summer, one was in a shirt, and the other was in a fur coat. In Germany, the arrival of spring was celebrated with a carnival procession. In England, the spring festival was a crowded games, songs, dances, sports in honor of May, as well as in honor of the folk hero Robin Hood. The spring festivities in Italy and Bulgaria were very spectacular.

Nevertheless, these games, which had a primitive content and form, could not give rise to the theater. They did not contain those civic ideas and poetic forms that were in ancient Greek festivities. Among other things, these games contained elements of a pagan cult, for which they were constantly persecuted by the church. But if the priests were able to prevent the free development of the folk theater, which was associated with folklore, then some rural festivities became the source of new spectacular performances. These were the actions of the histrions.

Russian folk theater was formed in ancient times, when there was no written language yet. Enlightenment in the face Christian religion gradually ousted the pagan gods and everything connected with them from the field of the spiritual culture of the Russian people. Numerous rituals, folk holidays and pagan rituals formed the basis of dramatic art in Russia.

Ritual dances came from the primitive past, in which a person portrayed animals, as well as scenes of a person hunting for wild animals, while imitating their habits and repeating memorized texts. In the era of developed agriculture, folk festivals and festivities were held after the harvest, in which people specially dressed for this purpose depicted all the actions that accompany the process of planting and growing bread or flax. A special place in people's lives was occupied by holidays and rituals associated with the victory over the enemy, the election of leaders, the funerals of the dead and wedding ceremonies.

The wedding ceremony can already be compared with a performance in its color and saturation with dramatic scenes. The annual folk festival of spring renewal, in which the deity of the plant world first dies and then miraculously resurrects, is always present in Russian folklore, like in many others. European nations. The awakening of nature from winter sleep was identified in the minds of ancient people with the resurrection from the dead of a person who depicted a deity and his violent death, and after certain ritual actions, resurrected and celebrated his return to life. The person who played this role was dressed in special clothes, and multi-colored paints were applied to the face. All ritual actions were accompanied by loud chants, dances, laughter and general jubilation, because it was believed that joy is that magical power that can bring back to life and promote fertility.

The first wandering actors in Rus' were buffoons. True, there were also sedentary buffoons, but they differed little from ordinary people and dressed up only on the days of folk holidays and festivities. In everyday life, these were ordinary farmers, artisans and small traders. Wandering buffoon actors were very popular with the people and had their own special repertoire, which included folk tales, epics, songs and various games. In the works of buffoons, which intensified during the days of popular unrest and the intensification of the national liberation struggle, people's suffering and hopes for a better future, a description of the victories and death of national heroes were expressed.

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abstract, added 03/05/2014

Theatrical performance as one of the ways of worshiping the gods. History and origins ancient Greek theater. Features of the organization of theatrical performances in the V-VI centuries. BC. The technical equipment of the Greek theater, the unity of place, time and action.

term paper, added 08/04/2016

The history of the origin of Greek drama and the first stages of its development. The organization of theatrical performances, the architecture of the theater in Greece, the actors and spectators in the ancient theater. The device of the theater in ancient Rome, features of performances in the imperial era.

term paper, added 09/28/2014

Study of the features of the origin and formation Russian theater. Buffoons are the first representatives of the professional theater. The emergence of school drama and school-church performances. Theater of the era of sentimentalism. modern theater groups.

presentation, added 11/20/2013

The role of theater in the spiritual life of the country. The development of ancient Greek, medieval and Italian professional theater. The origin of the mystery genre. The emergence of opera, ballet, pantomime. Preservation of the ancient traditions of puppet and musical theater in the East.

presentation, added 10/22/2014

The development of various forms of theatrical art in Japan. Features of performances in the theater Noo. Characteristics of the Kabuki theater, which is a synthesis of singing, music, dance and drama. Heroic and love performances of the Kathakali theater.

presentation, added 04/10/2014

The concept and history of development, the distinctive features and characteristics of the theater as an art form. Stage space and time, approaches to its study. The most famous theaters of the world and their activities, the most outstanding performances and relevance.

abstract, added 12/11/2016

The history of the founding and further creative activity of the Ryazan Drama Theater - one of the oldest in Russia. The concept of theater and its development since Kievan Rus and up to our days. Reflection of the advanced ideas of his time in the repertoire of the Ryazan theater.

THEATER OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Since at an early stage of feudalism nations were not yet completely formed, the history of the theater of that time cannot be considered separately in each country. This is worth doing, keeping in mind the confrontation between religious and secular life. For example, ritual games, performances by histrions, the first attempts at secular dramaturgy, and farce in the arena belong to one set of medieval theater genres, while liturgical drama, miracles, mysteries, and morality belong to another. These genres quite often intersect, but always in the theater there is a clash of two main ideological and style directions. They feel the struggle of the ideology of the nobility, rallied with the clergy, against the peasantry, from whose midst the urban bourgeois and plebeians later emerged.

Russian folk theater was formed in ancient times, when there was no written language yet. Enlightenment in the face of the Christian religion gradually ousted the pagan gods and everything connected with them from the field of the spiritual culture of the Russian people. Numerous rituals, folk holidays and pagan rituals formed the basis of dramatic art in Russia.

The wedding ceremony can already be compared with a performance in its color and saturation with dramatic scenes. The annual folk festival of spring renewal, in which the deity of the plant world first dies and then miraculously resurrects, is always present in Russian folklore, like in many other European nations. The awakening of nature from winter sleep was identified in the minds of ancient people with the resurrection from the dead of a person who depicted a deity and his violent death, and after certain ritual actions, resurrected and celebrated his return to life. The person who played this role was dressed in special clothes, and multi-colored paints were applied to the face. All ritual actions were accompanied by loud chants, dances, laughter and general jubilation, because it was believed that joy is that magical power that can bring back to life and promote fertility.

The first wandering actors in Rus' were buffoons. True, there were also sedentary buffoons, but they were not much different from ordinary people and dressed up only on the days of folk holidays and festivities. In everyday life, these were ordinary farmers, artisans and small traders. Wandering buffoon actors were very popular with the people and had their own special repertoire, which included folk tales, epics, songs and various games. In the works of buffoons, which intensified during the days of popular unrest and the intensification of the national liberation struggle, people's suffering and hopes for a better future, a description of the victories and death of national heroes were expressed.

Histrions

By the 11th century in Europe, natural economy was replaced by commodity-money, crafts separated from agriculture. Cities grew and developed at a rapid pace. Thus, the transition from the early Middle Ages to developed feudalism gradually took place.

More and more peasants moved to the cities, where they escaped the oppression of the feudal lords. Together with them, village entertainers also moved to the cities. All these yesterday's rural dancers and wits also had a division of labor. Many of them became professional entertainers, i.e. histrions. In France they were called "jugglers", in Germany - "spielmans", in Poland - "dandies", in Bulgaria - "cookers", in Russia - "buffoons".

In the XII century, there were not hundreds of such entertainers, but thousands. They finally broke with the countryside, taking the life of a medieval city, noisy fairs, scenes on city streets as the basis of their work. At first they sang, and danced, and told stories, and played various musical instruments, and did many more tricks. But later, the art of the histrions stratified into creative branches. Buffon comedians, storytellers, singers, jugglers and troubadours appeared who composed and performed poetry, ballads and dance songs.

The art of the histrions was persecuted and banned both by the authorities and by the clergy. But neither bishops nor kings could resist the temptation to see the cheerful and incendiary performances of the histrions.

Subsequently, the histrions began to unite in unions that gave rise to circles of amateur actors. With their direct participation and under their influence, many amateur theaters arose in the 14th-15th centuries. Some of the histrions continued to perform in the palaces of the feudal lords and participate in the mysteries, representing devils in them. Histrions first attempted to portray on the stage human types. They gave impetus to the emergence of farce actors and secular drama, which briefly reigned in France in the thirteenth century.

Liturgical and semi-liturgical drama

Another form of theatrical art of the Middle Ages was church drama. The clergy sought to use the theater for their own propaganda purposes, so they fought against the ancient theater, rural festivities with folk games and histrions.

In this regard, by the 9th century, a theatrical mass arose, a method of reading in the faces of the legend of the burial of Jesus Christ and his resurrection was developed. From such readings was born the liturgical drama of the early period. Over time, it became more complex, the costumes became more diverse, the movements and gestures became better rehearsed. The liturgical dramas were acted out by the priests themselves, so the Latin speech, the melodiousness of church recitation still had little effect on the parishioners. The clergy decided to bring the liturgical drama closer to life and separate it from the mass. This innovation has produced very unexpected results. Elements were introduced into the Christmas and Easter liturgical dramas that changed the religious direction of the genre.

The drama acquired a dynamic development, much simplified and updated. For example, Jesus sometimes spoke in the local dialect, the shepherds also spoke in everyday language. In addition, the costumes of the shepherds changed, long beards and wide-brimmed hats appeared. Along with speech and costumes, the design of the drama also changed, gestures became natural.

The directors of liturgical dramas already had stage experience, so they began to show the parishioners the Ascension of Christ to Heaven and other miracles from the Gospel. By bringing the drama to life and using staged effects, the clergy did not attract, but distracted the flock from the service in the church. Further development of this genre threatened to destroy it. This was the other side of innovation.

The church did not want to abandon theatrical performances, but sought to subjugate the theater. In this regard, liturgical dramas began to be staged not in the temple, but on the porch. Thus, in the middle of the 12th century, a semi-liturgical drama arose. After that, the church theater, despite the power of the clergy, fell under the influence of the mob. She began to dictate her tastes to him, forcing him to give performances not on the days of church holidays, but on the days of fairs. In addition, the church theater was forced to switch to a language understandable to the people.

In order to continue to direct the theater, the priests took care of the selection of everyday stories for productions. Therefore, the topics for the semi-liturgical drama were mainly biblical episodes interpreted at the everyday level. More than others, scenes with devils, the so-called diablerie, were popular with the people, which contradicted the general content of the entire performance. For example, in the well-known drama "Action about Adam", the devils, having met Adam and Eve in hell, staged a merry dance. At the same time, the devils had some psychological traits, and the devil looked like a medieval freethinker.

Gradually, all biblical legends were subjected to poetic processing. Little by little, some technical innovations began to be introduced into the productions, that is, the principle of simultaneous scenery was put into practice. This meant that several locations were shown at the same time, and in addition, the number of tricks increased. But despite all these innovations, the semi-liturgical drama remained closely connected with the church. It was staged on the church porch, the church allocated funds for the production, the clergy made up the repertoire. But the participants in the performance, along with the priests, were also worldly actors. In this form, the church drama existed for quite a long time.

secular dramaturgy

The first mention of this theatrical genre concerns the trouveur, or troubadour, Adam de La Al (1238-1287), who was born in the French town of Arras. This man was fond of poetry, music and everything connected with the theater. Subsequently, La Halle moved to Paris, and then to Italy, to the court of Charles of Anjou. There he became very famous. People knew him as a playwright, musician and poet.

The first play - "The Game in the Gazebo" - La Al wrote while still living in Arras. In 1262, it was staged by members of the theater circle of his hometown. Three lines can be distinguished in the plot of the play: lyrical-everyday, satirical-buffoon and folklore-fantastic.

The first part of the play tells that a young man named Adam is going to go to Paris to study. His father, Master Henri, does not want to let him go, citing the fact that he is sick. The plot of the play is woven into Adam's poetic recollection of his already deceased mother. Gradually, satire is added to the everyday scene, that is, a doctor appears who diagnoses Master Henri - avarice. It turns out that most of the wealthy citizens of Arras have such a disease.

After that, the plot of the play becomes simply fabulous. A bell is heard, announcing the approach of the fairies whom Adam has invited to a farewell dinner. But it turns out that the fairies, with their appearance, are very reminiscent of urban gossips. And again, the fairy tale is replaced by reality: the fairies are replaced by drunkards who go to a general drinking bout in a tavern. This scene shows a monk promoting sacred relics. But a little time passed, the monk became drunk and left the holy things so zealously guarded by him in the tavern. The sound of the bell sounded again, and everyone went to worship the icon of the Virgin Mary.

Such genre diversity of the play suggests that secular dramaturgy was still at the very beginning of its development. This mixed genre was called "pois piles", which meant "crushed peas", or in translation - "a little bit of everything."

In 1285, de La Halle wrote and staged a play in Italy called The Play of Robin and Marion. In this work of the French playwright, the influence of Provencal and Italian lyrics is clearly visible. La Halle also introduced an element of social criticism into this play:

the idyllic pastoral of the shepherd Robin in love and his beloved, the shepherdess Marion, is replaced by the scene of the abduction of the girl. It was stolen by the evil knight Ober. But the terrible scene lasts only a few minutes, because the kidnapper succumbed to the entreaties of the empty woman and let her go.

Dances, folk games, singing begin again, in which there is salty peasant humor. The daily life of the people, their sober view of the world around them, when the charm of a kiss of lovers is sung along with the taste and smell of food prepared for a wedding feast, as well as the folk dialect that is heard in poetic stanzas - all this gives a special charm and charm to this play. In addition, the author included in the play 28 folk songs, which perfectly showed the proximity of the work of La Alya to folk games.

In the work of the French troubadour, a folk-poetic beginning was very organically combined with a satirical one. These were the beginnings of the future theater of the Renaissance. And yet, the work of Adam de La Alya did not find successors. The cheerfulness, free-thinking and folk humor present in his plays were suppressed by church strictness and the prose of city life.

In reality, life was shown only in farces, where everything was presented in a satirical light. The characters of farces were fair barkers, charlatan doctors, cynical guides of blind people, etc. The farce reached its peak in the 15th century, in the 13th century any comedic stream was extinguished by the Miracle Theater, which staged plays mainly on religious subjects.

Miracle

The word "miracle" in Latin means "miracle". And in fact, all the events that take place in such productions end happily thanks to the intervention of higher powers. Over time, although the religious background was preserved in these plays, plots began to appear more and more often, showing the arbitrariness of the feudal lords and base passions that owned noble and powerful people.

The following miracles can serve as an example. In 1200, the play "The Game of St. Nicholas" was created. According to the plot of the work, one of the Christians is captured by the pagans. Only Divine Providence saves him from this misfortune, that is, Saint Nicholas intervenes in his fate. historical setting of that time is shown in the miracle only in passing, without details.

But in the play "Miracle about Robert the Devil", created in 1380, the author gave a general picture of the bloody century of the Hundred Years War of 1337-1453, and also painted a portrait of a cruel feudal lord. The play begins with the Duke of Normandy scolding his son Robert for debauchery and unreasonable cruelty. To this, Robert, with an impudent grin, declares that he likes such a life and henceforth he will continue to rob, kill and whore. After a quarrel with his father, Robert and his gang ransacked the farmer's house. When the latter began to complain about this, Robert answered him: "Say thanks that we have not killed you yet." Then Robert and his friends ravaged the monastery.

The barons came to the Duke of Normandy with a complaint against his son. They said that Robert destroys and ravages their castles, rapes their wives and daughters, kills servants. The duke sent two of his entourage to Robert to reassure his son. But Robert did not speak to them. He ordered each of them to gouge out the right eye and send the unfortunate ones back to their father.

On the example of only one Robert in the miracle, the real situation of that time is shown: anarchy, robberies, arbitrariness, violence. But the miracles described after the cruelties are completely unrealistic and are generated by a naive desire for moralization.

Robert's mother tells him that she for a long time was barren. Since she really wanted to have a child, she turned to the devil with a request, because neither God nor all the saints could help her. Soon her son Robert was born, who is a product of the devil. According to the mother, this is the reason for such cruel behavior of her son.

The play goes on to describe how Robert's repentance took place. In order to beg forgiveness from God, he visited the Pope, a holy hermit, and also constantly offered prayers to the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary took pity on him and ordered him to pretend to be crazy and live with the king in a doghouse, eating leftovers.

Robert the Devil resigned himself to such a life and showed amazing fortitude. As a reward for this, God gave him the opportunity to distinguish himself in battle on the battlefield. The play ends just fabulous. In the crazy ragamuffin who ate from the same bowl with the dogs, everyone recognized the brave knight who won two battles. As a result, Robert married the princess and received forgiveness from God.

Time is to blame for the emergence of such a controversial genre as miracle. The whole 15th century full of wars, popular unrest and massacres, explains in full further development Miracle. On the one hand, during the uprisings, the peasants took up axes and pitchforks, and on the other, they fell into a pious state. Because of this, elements of criticism appeared in all the plays, along with a religious feeling.

Miracles had yet another contradiction that was destroying this genre from within. The works showed real everyday scenes. For example, in the Miracle "The Game of St. Nicholas" they occupied almost half of the text. The plots of many plays were built on scenes from the life of the city ("Miracle about Gibourg"), the life of the monastery ("The Saved Abbess"), the life of the castle ("Miracle about Bertha with Big Legs"). These plays show interesting and intelligible simple people close to the masses in their spirit.

The ideological immaturity of urban creativity of that time is to blame for the fact that the miracle was a dual genre. The further development of the medieval theater gave impetus to the creation of a new, more universal genre - mystery plays.

Mystery

IN XV-XVI centuries the time has come for the rapid development of cities. Social contradictions intensified in society. The townspeople have almost got rid of feudal dependence, but have not yet fallen under the power of an absolute monarchy. This time was the heyday of the mystery theater. Mystery became a reflection of the prosperity of the medieval city, the development of its culture. This genre arose from ancient mimic mysteries, i.e., city processions in honor of religious holidays or the solemn entry of kings. From such holidays, the square mystery gradually took shape, which took as a basis the experience of the medieval theater, both in terms of literature and stage.

The staging of the mysteries was carried out not by churchmen, but by city workshops and municipalities. The authors of the mysteries were playwrights of a new type: theologians, doctors, lawyers, etc. Mystery became an amateur art in the arena, despite the fact that the productions were directed by the bourgeoisie and the clergy. Hundreds of people usually took part in the performances. In this regard, folk (worldly) elements were introduced into religious subjects. The Mystery existed in Europe, especially in France, for almost 200 years. This fact vividly illustrates the struggle between religious and secular principles.

Mystery dramaturgy can be divided into three periods: "Old Testament", using the cycles of biblical legends; "New Testament", which tells about the birth and resurrection of Christ; "apostolic", borrowing plots for plays from the "Lives of the Saints" and miracles about saints.

The most famous mystery of the early period is the "Mystery Old Testament”, consisting of 50,000 poems and 242 characters. It had 28 separate episodes, and the main characters were God, angels, Lucifer, Adam and Eve.

The play tells about the creation of the world, Lucifer's rebellion against God (this is an allusion to disobedient feudal lords) and biblical miracles. Biblical miracles were very effectively performed on the stage: the creation of light and darkness, firmament and sky, animals and plants, as well as the creation of man, his fall into sin and expulsion from paradise.

Many mysteries dedicated to Christ were created, but the most famous of them is considered the "Mystery of the Passion". This work was divided into 4 parts in accordance with the four days of performance. The image of Christ is permeated with pathos and religiosity. In addition, there are dramatic characters in the play: the Mother of God mourning Jesus and the sinner Judas.

In other mysteries, the existing two elements are joined by a third - carnival-satirical, the main representatives of which were devils. Gradually, the authors of the mysteries fell under the influence and tastes of the crowd. Thus, purely fairground heroes began to be introduced into biblical stories: charlatans-doctors, loud barkers, obstinate wives, etc. Clear disrespect for religion began to be seen in mystery episodes, i.e., everyday interpretation of biblical motives arose. For example, Noah is represented by an experienced sailor, and his wife is a grumpy woman. Gradually there was more criticism. For example, in one of the mysteries of the 15th century, Joseph and Mary are depicted as poor beggars, and in another work, a simple farmer exclaims: “He who does not work, he does not eat!” Nevertheless, it was difficult for elements of social protest to take root, and even more so to penetrate into the theater of that time, which was subordinated to the privileged strata of the urban population.

And yet the desire for a real depiction of life was embodied. After the siege of Orleans took place in 1429, the play "The Mystery of the Siege of Orleans" was created. The characters of this work were not God and the devil, but English invaders and French patriots. Patriotism and love for France are embodied in the main character of the play, the national heroine of France, Joan of Arc.

The "Mystery of the Siege of Orleans" clearly shows the desire of the artists of the amateur city theater to show historical facts from the life of the country, to create a folk drama based on contemporary events, with elements of heroism and patriotism. But real facts adjusted to a religious concept, forced to serve the church, singing the omnipotence of Divine Providence. Thus, the mystery lost part of its artistic merit. In

The emergence of the mystery genre allowed the medieval theater to significantly expand its thematic range. The staging of this type of play made it possible to accumulate good stage experience, which was later used in other genres of medieval theater.

Performances of mysteries on city streets and squares were made out with the help of different scenery. Three options were used: mobile, when carts passed by the audience, from which mysterious episodes were shown; ring, when the action took place on a high circular platform divided into compartments and at the same time below, on the ground, in the center of the circle outlined by this platform (spectators stood at the pillars of the platform); gazebo. In the latter version, pavilions were built on a rectangular platform or simply on the square, representing the emperor’s palace, city gates, heaven, hell, purgatory, etc. If it was not clear from the appearance of the pavilion what it depicts, then an explanatory inscription was hung on it.

During that period, the decorative arts were practically in their infancy, and the art of stage effects was well developed. Since the mysteries were full of religious miracles, it was necessary to demonstrate them visually, because the naturalness of the image was a prerequisite for the popular spectacle. For example, red-hot tongs were brought onto the stage and a brand was burned on the body of sinners. The murder that took place in the course of the mystery was accompanied by pools of blood. Actors hid bullish blisters with red liquid under their clothes, pierced the blisters with a knife, and the person was covered in blood. A remark in the play could give an indication: “Two soldiers forcefully kneel and make a substitution,” that is, they had to deftly replace a person with a doll, which was immediately beheaded. When the actors portrayed scenes in which the righteous were laid on hot coals, thrown into a pit with wild animals, stabbed with knives or crucified on a cross, this affected the audience much more than any sermon. And the more violent the scene, the more powerful the impact.

In all the works of that period, the religious and realistic elements of the depiction of life not only coexisted together, but also fought against each other. Theatrical costume was dominated by everyday components. For example, Herod walks around the stage in Turkish attire with a saber at his side; Roman legionnaires are dressed in modern soldier uniforms. The fact that the actors portraying biblical heroes put on everyday costumes showed the struggle of mutually exclusive principles. She also left her mark on the game of actors who presented their heroes in a pathetic and grotesque form. The jester and the demon were the most beloved folk characters. They introduced into the mysteries a stream of folk humor and everyday life, which gave the play even more dynamism. Quite often, these characters did not have a pre-written text, but improvised in the course of the mystery. Therefore, in the texts of the mysteries, attacks against the church, feudal lords and the rich were most often not recorded. And if such texts were written down in the script of the play, they were greatly smoothed out. Such texts cannot give the modern viewer an idea of how sharply critical certain mysteries were.

In addition to the actors, ordinary townspeople took part in the productions of mysteries. Members of various city workshops were engaged in separate episodes. People willingly took part in this, since the mystery gave the opportunity for representatives of each profession to express themselves in their entirety. For example, the scene of the Flood was played by sailors and fishermen, the episode with Noah's Ark was played by shipbuilders, the expulsion from paradise was played by gunsmiths.

The staging of the mystery spectacle was directed by a man who was called the "master of the games." The Mysteries not only developed the taste of the people for the theatre, but helped to improve theatrical technique and gave impetus to the development of certain elements of the Renaissance drama.

In 1548, the mysteries, especially widespread in France, were forbidden to be shown to the general public. This was done due to the fact that the comedic lines present in the mysteries became too critical. The reason for the ban also lies in the fact that the mysteries did not receive support from the new, most progressive sections of society. Humanist people did not accept plays with biblical stories, and the areal form and criticism of the clergy and authorities gave rise to church prohibitions.

Later, when the royal power forbade all urban liberties and guild unions, the mystery theater lost ground.

Morality

In the 16th century, a reform movement arose in Europe, or the Reformation. It had an anti-feudal character and affirmed the principle of so-called personal communion with God, that is, the principle of personal virtue. The burghers made morality a weapon both against the feudal lords and against the people. The desire of the bourgeois to give their worldview more holiness and gave impetus to the creation of another genre of medieval theater - morality.

There are no church plots in morality plays, since moralization is the only goal of such productions. The main characters of the morality theater are allegorical heroes, each of which personifies human vices and virtues, forces of nature and church dogmas. The characters do not have an individual character, in their hands even real things turn into symbols. For example, Hope went on stage with an anchor in her hands, Selfishness constantly looked in the mirror, etc. Conflicts between the characters arose because of the struggle between two principles: good and evil, spirit and body. The clashes of the characters were displayed in the form of an opposition of two figures, which represented the good and evil principles that have an influence on a person.

As a rule, the main idea of morality was this: reasonable people follow the path of virtue, and the unreasonable become victims of vice.

In 1436, the French morality The Prudent and the Unreasonable was created. The play showed that the Prudent trusts Reason, and the Fool adheres to Disobedience. On the way to eternal bliss, the Prudent met Almsgiving, Fasting, Prayer, Chastity, Abstinence, Obedience, Diligence and Patience. But the Foolish on the same path is accompanied by Poverty, Despair, Theft and a Bad End. allegorical heroes end their lives in completely different ways: one in heaven and the other in hell.

The actors who participate in this performance act as orators, explaining their attitude to certain phenomena. The style of acting in morality was restrained. This made the task much easier for the actor, because it was not necessary to transform into an image. The character was understandable to the viewer by certain details of the theatrical costume. Another feature of morality was poetic speech, which received much attention.

The playwrights working in this genre were early humanists, some professors of medieval schools. In the Netherlands, the writing and staging of morality was done by people fighting against Spanish dominance. Their works contained many different political allusions. For such performances, the authors and actors were constantly persecuted by the authorities.

As the genre of morality developed, it gradually freed itself from strict ascetic morality. The impact of new social forces gave impetus to the display of realistic scenes in morality. The contradictions present in this genre indicated that theatrical productions were becoming more and more close to real life. Some plays even contained elements of social criticism.

In 1442, the play "Trade, Craft, Shepherd" was written. It describes the complaints of each of the characters that life has become difficult. Here Time appears, dressed first in a red dress, which meant Rebellion. After that, Time comes out in full armor and personifies the War. It then appears wearing bandages and a cloak hanging in tatters. The characters ask him the question: "Who painted you like that?" To this Time replies: By the body, you have heard What sort of people have become.

Plays that were far from politics, opposed to vices, were directed against the morality of temperance. In 1507, the morality “The Condemnation of Feasts” was created, in which the characters-ladies Delicacy, Gluttony, Outfits and characters-cavaliers Pew-for-your-health and Pew-mutually were introduced. These heroes at the end of the play die in the fight against Apoplexy, Paralysis and other ailments.

Despite the fact that in this play human passions and feasts were shown in a critical light, their depiction as a cheerful masquerade spectacle destroyed the very idea of \u200b\u200bcondemning any kind of excess. Morality turned into a perky, picturesque scene with a life-affirming attitude.

The allegorical genre, to which morality should be attributed, introduced structural clarity into medieval dramaturgy, the theater was supposed to show mostly typical images.

Farce

From the time of its inception until the second half of the 15th century, the farce was vulgar, plebeian. And only then, having gone through a long, hidden path of development, did it stand out as an independent genre.

The name "farce" comes from the Latin word farsa, which means "stuffing". This name arose because during the show of the mysteries, farces were inserted into their texts. According to theater critics, the origins of farce are much further. It originated from the performances of histrions and carnival carnival games. Histrions gave him the direction of the theme, and carnivals - the essence of the game and mass character. In the mystery play, the farce was further developed and stood out as a separate genre.

From the beginning of its origin, the farce aimed to criticize and ridicule the feudal lords, the burghers and the nobility in general. Such social criticism was instrumental in the birth of farce as a theatrical genre. In a special type, one can single out farcical performances in which parodies of the church and its dogmas were created.

Maslenitsa performances and folk games became the impetus for the emergence of the so-called stupid corporations. They included minor judicial officials, schoolchildren, seminarians, etc. In the 15th century, such societies spread throughout Europe. In Paris, there were 4 large "stupid corporations" that regularly staged farcical screenings. In such viewings, plays were staged that ridiculed the speeches of bishops, the verbiage of judges, the ceremonial, with great pomp, entries of kings into the city.

The secular and ecclesiastical authorities reacted to these attacks by persecuting the participants in farces: they were expelled from cities, imprisoned, etc. In addition to parodies, satirical scenes-soti (sotie - “stupidity”) were played out in farces. In this genre, there were no longer everyday characters, but jesters, fools (for example, a vain fool-soldier, a fool-deceiver, a bribe-taking clerk). The experience of morality allegories found its embodiment in hundreds. The genre of honeycomb reached its greatest flourishing at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. Even the French king Louis XII used the popular theater of farce in the fight against Pope Julius II. Satirical scenes were fraught with danger not only for the church, but also for the secular authorities, because they ridiculed both wealth and the nobility. All this gave Francis I a reason to ban farce and soti performances.

Since the performances of the hundred were conditionally masquerade in nature, this genre did not have that full-blooded nationality, mass character, freethinking and everyday specific characters. Therefore, in the 16th century, the more effective and buffoonish farce became the dominant genre. His realism was manifested in the fact that it contained human characters, which, however, were given somewhat more schematically.

Practically all farcical plots are based on purely everyday stories, i.e., the farce is completely real in all its content and artistry. The skits ridicule marauding soldiers, pardon-selling monks, arrogant nobles, and greedy merchants. The seemingly uncomplicated farce "About the Miller", which has a funny content, actually contains an evil folk grin. The play tells about a dull-witted miller who is fooled by a young miller's wife and a priest. In the farce, character traits are accurately noticed, showing the public satirical life-truthful material.

But the authors of farces ridicule not only priests, nobles and officials. The peasants do not stand aside either. The real hero of the farce is the rogue city dweller who, with the help of dexterity, wit and ingenuity, defeats judges, merchants and all kinds of simpletons. A number of farces were written about such a hero in the middle of the 15th century (about the lawyer Patlen).

The plays tell about all kinds of adventures of the hero and show a whole series of very colorful characters: a pedantic judge, a stupid merchant, a self-serving monk, a stingy furrier, a close-minded shepherd who actually wraps Patlen himself around his finger. Farces about Patlen colorfully tell about the life and customs of the medieval city. At times they reach the highest degree of comedy for that time.

The character in this series of farces (as well as dozens of others in various farces) was a real hero, and all his antics were supposed to arouse the sympathy of the audience. After all, his tricks put the mighty of this world in a stupid position and showed the advantage of the mind, energy and dexterity of the common people. But the direct task of the farcical theater was still not this, but denial, the satirical background of many aspects of feudal society. The positive side of the farce was developed primitively and degenerated into the affirmation of a narrow, petty-bourgeois ideal.

This shows the immaturity of the people, which was influenced by bourgeois ideology. But still the farce was considered folk theater, progressive and democratic. The main principle of acting art for farcers (farce actors) was characterization, sometimes brought to a parody caricature, and dynamism, expressing the cheerfulness of the performers themselves.

Farces were staged by amateur societies. The most famous comic associations in France were the circle of judicial clerks "Bazosh" and the society "Carefree guys", which experienced their highest heyday at the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century. These societies supplied cadres of semi-professional actors for theaters. To our great regret, we cannot name a single name, because they have not been preserved in historical documents. One single name is well known - the first and most famous actor of the medieval theater, the Frenchman Jean de l'Espina, nicknamed Pontale. He received this nickname by the name of the Parisian bridge, on which he arranged his stage. Later, Pontale joined the Carefree Guys corporation and became its main organizer, as well as the best performer of farces and morality.

Many testimonies of contemporaries about his resourcefulness and magnificent improvisational gift have been preserved. They cited such a case. In his role, Pontale was a hunchback and had a hump on his back. He went up to the hunchbacked cardinal, leaned against his back and said: "But mountain and mountain can come together." They also told an anecdote about how Pontale beat a drum in his booth and this prevented the priest of a neighboring church from celebrating mass. An angry priest came to the booth and cut the skin on the drum with a knife. Then Pontale put a holey drum on his head and went to church. Because of the laughter that stood in the temple, the priest was forced to stop the service.

Pontale's satirical poems were very popular, in which hatred of nobles and priests was clearly visible. Great indignation is heard in such lines: And now the nobleman is a villain! He thunders and destroys people more ruthlessly than plague and pestilence.

So many people knew about Pontale's comic talent and his fame was so great that the famous F. Rabelais, author of Gargantua and Pantagruel, considered him the greatest master of laughter. The personal success of this actor indicated that a new professional period in the development of the theater was approaching.

The monarchical government was increasingly dissatisfied with the city's freethinking. In this regard, the fate of gay comic amateur corporations was the most deplorable. At the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th century, the largest farser corporations ceased to exist.

The farce, although it was always persecuted, had a great influence on the further development of the theater of Western Europe. For example, in Italy the commedia dell'arte developed from farce; in Spain - the work of the "father of the Spanish theater" Lope de Rueda; in England, John Heywood wrote his works in the style of a farce; in Germany, Hans Sachs; in France, farcical traditions nourished the work of the comedy genius Molière. So it was the farce that became the link between the old and the new theatre.

The medieval theater tried very hard to overcome the influence of the church, but it did not succeed. This was one of the reasons for his decline, moral death, if you like. Although no significant works of art were created in the medieval theater, the entire course of its development showed that the strength of the resistance of the vital principle to the religious one constantly increased. Medieval theater paved the way for the emergence of powerful realistic theatrical art of the Renaissance.

Theater is the most ancient view art. It is almost impossible to establish a specific time period of its occurrence. Digging deep into the centuries, you understand that the theater in one form or another has always existed and accompanied a person at all stages of the development of society and social culture. In general, it is impossible not to agree with the ancient statement that the whole world is a theater, and the people in it are actors who. having played their role, they disappear behind the scenes.

The emergence and further development of theatrical art took place in parallel in almost all ancient cultures. And in almost every case, the stage action owed its origin to religious and mystical rituals, with the exception of Ancient Rome. With the help of such rites, the ancient man tried to communicate with the gods in the hope of getting their favor.

Medieval theater - a spectacle for the people

Over the centuries of its existence, the theater has undergone a huge number of global transformations. But, in the end, he became the "progenitor" of many modern species art through technological progress. It can be said with full confidence that the art of acting in front of an audience combines simplicity and at the same time incredible complexity.

The European theater owes its origin to the ancient Greek stage art, which was entirely devoted to the glorification of the god Dionysius. On holidays, real competitions were held in honor of this deity between playwrights, who demonstrated their skills to each other. It is worth noting that a modern theater cannot boast of the same number of audiences. Ancient stage performances gathered an audience of ten thousand people. The theater was the most beloved, and sometimes the only way to have fun. Basically, all the performances were spectacular, grandiose and solemn.

In the ancient theater, all roles were played exclusively by men, who, for female roles they simply changed into appropriate outfits, used wigs and other props. In addition to the actors, there was a choir on the stage, whose task was to explain the actions and additional accompaniment.

In the Middle Ages, the theater was still very popular and in demand. We can say that his social position has not changed much. Theatrical medieval action was divided into two branches. The first is the square theater, which owed its existence to wandering acting troupes that traveled around the cities and gathered crowds of people in city markets and squares. These performances were mainly attended by troubadours and jugglers. Performances in the squares ridiculed the feudal lords, church representatives and other noble unscrupulous people. It is not surprising that this type of medieval theatrical art was not to the taste of the “powerful ones”. Therefore, this occupation was considered shameful and sinful.

As for the second type of theater, representatives of the church and noble individuals were more favorable to it. Mysteries are a kind of interpretation of gospel stories on stage. Such performances were organized in the church most often during the celebration of Easter.

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