Tragedy in Renaissance Literature

Abstract

The Italian Renaissance reinvents modern dramatic theatre. In the second decade of the sixteenth century, tragedy first resurfaces in narrow philological circles. Playwrights and men of learning recover ancient texts and advance new theoretical considerations on a multitude of aspects pertaining to the genre – philological, literary, dramaturgical, architectonic, and more. During this phase, newly produced tragedies often remain private, unpublished texts, read in front of small audiences and rarely represented on stage. They are structured following ancient examples, but written in Italian, and their experimental features reflect current debates on language, verses, and literary genres. The first generation of Renaissance tragic playwrights is connected to the cultural circle of the “Orti Oricellari” in Florence and includes authors such as Giangiorgio Trissino (1478–1550), Giovanni Rucellai (1475–1525), Alessandro Pazzi de’ Medici (1483–1530/31), Luigi Alamanni (1495–1556), and Ludovico Martelli (1500–1527/28). In their productions, they tackle different subjects or events from Roman or medieval history, or they draw from classical plays.

During a second phase, around 1540, a new dramaturgical model with distinctive features emerges from the examples of the past. From Florence and Rome, the epicenter of tragic creation moves to Ferrara, Padua, and Venice. These cities offer Renaissance playwrights, respectively, a court known for its interest in theatre since the late fifteenth century, one of the most renowned universities, and the printing industry’s capital. Playwrights of the era are educated and active philosophers, doctors, and men of letters, often with firsthand experience in theatrical productions, while at the same time contributing erudite texts to the debate about dramatic theory. Because of this background, these plays are, above all, oriented toward political and philosophical topics.

During a third phase, after 1570, tragicomedy and the pastoral genre replace tragedy in princely courts. Dramatic theatre endures within learned circles of academies and among the aristocracy in Venice, but its main subject shifts from politics to romance, albeit maintaining the previous oscillation between pathos and horror.