The commedia dell'artea study in Italian popular comedy . e fear and distrust that must relieve itself inboisterous laughter until it grows so alarminglyconscious that it calls for organization and perhapsopposing warfare. If this point of view is justifiable the commediadellarte will be seen to belong to the class of dramathat has contributed nothing to the spiritual advanceof mankind. Gherardi and his collaborators indeednow and then glimpsed an interesting fresh ideaand tried to make something telling of it, but ingeneral the machinery of the improvised playscrushed the individual innovator
The commedia dell'artea study in Italian popular comedy . e fear and distrust that must relieve itself inboisterous laughter until it grows so alarminglyconscious that it calls for organization and perhapsopposing warfare. If this point of view is justifiable the commediadellarte will be seen to belong to the class of dramathat has contributed nothing to the spiritual advanceof mankind. Gherardi and his collaborators indeednow and then glimpsed an interesting fresh ideaand tried to make something telling of it, but ingeneral the machinery of the improvised playscrushed the individual innovator. If one memberof a troupe were more critical, more intellectuallyalive than the others, he was much more likely tobe drawn into the easy mass judgments and habitsof his fellows than he was to raise his comrades tohis level. So the professional comedy moved along,well in the rear of progress, scattering amusementmore or less questionable on its way, and remarkablechiefly for the brilliance of its technic. What its perfect execution must have done to im-. PUBL THE COMMEDIA DELLaKTE 239 prove dramatic methods is easier to imagine than toestimate very exactly. The spontaneous dialog,even though it was interrupted by set speeches, maywell have helped to break up, by force of example,the ponderous tedium of rhetorical academic at-tempts at play-writing. The need for padding thinplots must have stimulated the invention of stagemachinery, ballets and variety features. Still morethe necessity of the most flexible adaptability amongthe actors must inevitably have brought about animprovement in theatrical training. In such waysas these the professional comedies in their bestperiod attained to a delightfulness that coveredtheir poverty with splendid show, that spurred onMolieres genius and left not even Shakespeareuntouched. APPENDIX A. ScEISTAKIOS. The following is a list of the chief printed andmanuscript collections of scenarios and the principalplays that have been published singly so
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectenglish, bookyear1912
