History (theatrical genre)

A scene from Shakespare's Henry IV, Part 1, Act II, Scene 4. Falstaff offers a false account of a skirmish between himself and eleven assailants.

History is one of the three main genres in Western theatre alongside tragedy and comedy, although it originated, in its modern form, thousands of years later than the other primary genres.[1] For this reason, it is often treated as a subset of tragedy.[2] A play in this genre is known as a history play and is based on a historical narrative, often set in the medieval or early modern past. History emerged as a distinct genre from tragedy in Renaissance England.[3] The best known examples of the genre are the history plays written by William Shakespeare, whose plays still serve to define the genre. History plays also appear elsewhere in British and Western literature, such as Thomas Heywood's Edward IV, Schiller's Mary Stuart or the Dutch play Gijsbrecht van Aemstel.

  1. ^ Ostovich, Helen, Mary V. Silcox, Graham Roebuck (eds). ‘’Other Voices, Other Views: Expanding the Canon in English Renaissance Studies.’’ Dover: University of Delaware Press, 1999.
  2. ^ Ribner, Irving (Dec 1955). "Marlowe's Edward II and the Tudor History Play". ELH. 22 (4): 243–253. doi:10.2307/2871887. JSTOR 2871887.
  3. ^ Irving Ribner (1965). The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare. ISBN 9780415353144. Retrieved 2014-08-07.

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