Comparative Drama Popular Books
Comparative Drama Biography & Facts
Liturgical drama refers to medieval forms of dramatic performance that use stories from the Bible or Christian hagiography. The term was widely disseminated by well-known theater historians like Heinrich Alt (Theater und Kirche, 1846), E.K. Chambers (The Mediaeval Stage, 1903) and Karl Young. Young's two-volume monumental work about the medieval church was especially influential. It was published in 1933 and is still read today, even though his theories have been rejected for more than 40 years. Many college textbooks, among them the popular books by Oscar Brockett, propagated the theory of "liturgical drama" even into the 21st century. Critique Evolution model In his 1955 book on the origins of theater, Benjamin Hunningher refuted the notion that plays developed out of the liturgy. He noted that the church setting of the Mass does not allow for entertainment, and Christian theologians had severely criticized theater artists for centuries. As McCall wrote in 2007:Western Europe was effectively without mainstream drama from the moment that Christianity gained political influence in the fourth century. As early as the second century, the decadence of late Roman drama and the reputed immorality of its practitioners had made the theater one of the professions that had to be abandoned before receiving baptism. Augustine, as is well known, prided himself for having left behind the life of the theater.By using the liturgical drama theory, authors like Young and Chambers had imposed the Darwinian model of evolution on medieval performance culture, argued O.B. Hardison in 1966. In the wake of Hardison's book, the evolutional theories were commonly considered to have been disproven. Critics argued that there is no logical or structural chronological development in the various play texts that have survived from the Middle Ages. Using Darwinian precepts implied that "drama could develop only from a liturgy that was somehow already embryonically 'drama' itself." Yet no one was able to present a demonstrable "evolution" of simpler into more complex forms when it came to comparing liturgies and dramas. By examining factors such as "historiography, etymology, source study, and analysis" of the texts themselves, Clifford Flanagan and, most recently, Michael Norton, have shown that the term liturgical drama is problematic. Flanagan wrote in 1974:[...] it has certainly become evident in the last few years that we are only beginning to understand liturgical drama; there is very much to be done yet, and there are probably surprises in store for us. Unless, however, we ground our efforts in a sympathetic understanding of the nature of the Christian liturgy, we are not likely to get very far. Definition Scholars argued against the over-determined term liturgical drama, calling to mind that just because the Mass often included dramatic exposition, commentary, and counterpoint, that did not make it a drama. There may be liturgy in drama and drama in liturgy, but there are several other options. While narrative structures abound in several part of the Mass and its readings, liturgies may also convey visual impressions, solemn processional entries, complex tableaux or lyrics. Stories are not necessarily part of the classic elements of medieval liturgies, like visitatio sepulchri, Passion plays, Jesus descending the cross, shepherd's plays, sorrows of the Virgin Mary, or Corpus Christi plays. Liturgy and drama are, for today's standards, subcategories of a greater phenomenon which the 21st century terms performance or enactment. The example of Cistercian nuns crowning Marian statues in their monastic enclosure at Wienhausen shows the limits of "liturgical drama". Caroline Bynum has shown that the crowning ceremonies included alternating clothing for Mary, even royal crowns were donated to the statues. The nuns, for their part, dressed and crowned themselves on given occasions in the liturgical year. The example shows clear aspects of performance and liturgy. See also medieval theatre References Bibliography Olivia Robinson and Aurélie Blanc, 'The Huy Nativity from the Seventeenth to the Twenty-First Century: Translation, Play-Back, and Pray-Back', Medieval English Theatre 40 (2019) [1] Benjamin Hunningher, The Origin of the Theater (The Hague, 1955). Michael Norton, Liturgical Drama and the Reimagining of Medieval Theater (Kalamazoo, 2017).. Discover the Comparative Drama popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Comparative Drama books.
Best Seller Comparative Drama Books of 2024
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Farewell, My Lovely
Raymond ChandlerMarlowe's about to give up on a completely routine case when he finds himself in the wrong place at the right time to get caught up in a murder that leads to a ring of jewel thieve...
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A House Divided
Pearl S. BuckA House Divided A man returns to his native China to find upheaval in both his homeland and his family in this novel by a New York Times–bestselling author. "A House Divided...
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Brave New World
Aldous HuxleyBrave New World is a dystopian social science fiction novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose c...
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The Old Man and The Sea
Ernest HemingwayThe Old Man and the Sea is a short novel written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction...
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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of reade...
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The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell HammettSam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treach...
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A Smidgen of Shakespeare
Geoff SpiteriIf the mere mention of Shakespeare fills you with dread, evoking memories of arduous afternoons spent in stuffy classrooms with eccentric English teachers, it is time to reconsider...
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All Quiet On The Western Front
Erich Maria RemarqueOne by one the boys begin to fall… In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, freshfaced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war’. With th...
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The Lost Art of Scripture
Karen ArmstrongA book that shines fresh light on the world's major religions to help us build bridges between faiths and rediscover a creative and spiritual engagement with holy textsfrom the New...
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The Violent Bear It Away
Flannery O'ConnorFirst published in 1960, The Violent Bear It Away is now a landmark in American literature. It is a dark and absorbing example of the Gothic sensibility and bracing satirical voice...
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The Great Gatsby
F. Scott FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. This exemplary novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of reade...
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Tender Is the Night
F. Scott FitzgeraldSet on the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is the tragic romance of the young actress Rosemary Hoyt and the stylish American couple Dick and Nicole Diver. A b...
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Dandelion Wine
Ray BradburyThe summer of '28 was a vintage season for a growing boy. A summer of green apple trees, mowed lawns, and new sneakers. Of halfburnt firecrackers, of gathering dandelions, of Grand...
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Drama and Theatre with Children
Charru SharmaDrama as a processcentred form is a popular and valued methodology used to develop thinking and learning in children, while theatre provides a greater focus on the element of perfo...
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1984
George Orwell1984 by George Orwell Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen EightyFour is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Publis...
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The Sound and The Fury
William FaulknerThe Sound and the Fury is a novel by the American author William Faulkner. It employs several narrative styles, including stream of consciousness. Published in 1929, The Sound and ...
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Wise Blood
Flannery O'ConnorWise Blood, Flannery O’Connor’s astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentiethcentury literature. It is a story of Hazel Motes, a twentytwoyearold caught in an une...
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All Quiet on The Western Front
Erich Maria RemarqueOne by one the boys begin to fall… In 1914 a room full of German schoolboys, freshfaced and idealistic, are goaded by their schoolmaster to troop off to the ‘glorious war’. With t...
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The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee WilliamsNo play in the modern theater has so captured the imagination and heart of the American public as Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie. As Williams's first popular success, it ...
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Of Mice and Men
John SteinbeckAn intimate portrait of two men who cherish the slim bond between them and the dream they share in a world marred by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. Cli...
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The Master and Margarita
Mikhail BulgakovAn audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. The novel's ...
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Interkonfessionelle Aushandlungen im protestantischen Drama
Maximiliane Johanna Antonia GürthDas geistliche Spiel des Mittelalters erfuhr während der Reformationszeit maßgebliche Veränderungen. Dennoch lebten Teile der mittelalterlichen Spieltradition auch in den geistlich...
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The Sun Also Rises
Ernest HemingwayThe quintessential novel of the Lost Generation, The Sun Also Rises (Fiesta) is one of Ernest Hemingway's masterpieces and a classic example of his spare but powerful writing style...
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As I Lay Dying
William FaulknerAs I Lay Dying is Faulkner’s harrowing account of the Bundren family’s odyssey across the Mississippi countryside to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Narrated in turn by each of ...
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The Bell Jar
Sylvia PlathThe Bell Jar chronicles the crackup of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going undermaybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath mast...
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James Stokes, Ed. Lincolnshire. Records of Early English Drama
Comparative DramaJames Stokes, ed. Lincolnshire. Records of Early English Drama. 2 vols. Toronto: Re British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2009. Pp. x + 913 + 4 maps. $425.00. James St...
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Balzacs Cane
Marta L. WilkinsonBalzac’s Cane is an English translation of Delphine de Girardin’s 1836 novella, La Canne de M. de Balzac, which centers around a protagonist named Tancred Dorimont, a brilliant you...
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The Good Shepherd
C.S. ForesterForester’s novel is on a par with Nicholas Monsarrat’s “The Cruel Sea”and D. A. Rayner’s “The Long Haul.” It follows the course of a convoy of freighters and tankers as it encounte...
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Animal Farm
George OrwellAnimal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell, first published in England on 17 August 1945. The book tells the story of a group of farm animals who rebel against their hu...
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The Maltese Falcon
Dashiell HammettSam Spade is hired by the fragrant Miss Wonderley to track down her sister, who has eloped with a louse called Floyd Thursby. But Miss Wonderley is in fact the beautiful and treach...
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The Big Sleep
Raymond ChandlerDown these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man a...
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Fahrenheit 451
Ray BradburyGuy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the ...
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1984
George Orwell1984 Nineteen Eighty Four By George Orwell Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen EightyFour is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuris...
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Lolita
Vladimir NabokovHumbert Humbert scholar, aesthete and romantic has fallen completely and utterly in love with Lolita Haze, his landlady's gumsnapping, silky skinned twelveyearold daughter. Reluc...
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George Orwell Complete Works
George OrwellGeorge Orwell: Complete Works" is an essential compilation for any fan of Orwell's compelling and influential body of work, or indeed for anyone looking to delve into the literary ...
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Return of the Native
Thomas HardyHarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of bestloved, essential classics.Guy Fawkes night, Diggory Venn, a reddleman dyed red from his trade, transports a young woma...
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Gone with the Wind
Margaret MitchellGone with the Wind is a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, first published in 1936. The story is set in Clayton County and Atlanta, both in Georgia, during the American Ci...