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Volume :4 Issue : 15 1984
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New Aspects In The Tragedy And Tragicomedy Of Beaumont And Fletcher
Auther : Ali Ahmad Mahmoud
The beginning of the dramatic career of Beaumont and Fletcher councided with rapid social change: a split in the audience between the young intellectuals who preferred to frequent the private theatres, and the lower classes who went to the public ones. up to 1608 the London theatre audience had included a complete cross-section of society ranging from courtiers to servants. After 1608, the dramatic current ran more towards the private theatre, and the blackfriars became the center of the dramatic activities of the king’s men. the blackfriars, an indoor private playhouse, possessed some important features and facilities which favored some new dramatic forms and ingredients different from those of the globe a public theatre which was open to the sky. such new forms and ingredients were readily introduced in Beaumont and fletcher’s plays.
Furthermore, this study explores some striking political and social concerns introduced in the plays, which bear significantly on the contemporary world, of these is the nature of the relationship between king and subject which recalls the contemporary struggle against king James it’s royal prerogative, again there is in the plays a celebration of the active role acquired and performed by woman, and a shift of emphasis from hero to heroine which coincided with the serious interest that was developing outside the drama in the place and role of woman in the Jacobean world, such new aspects must have fascinated the intellectual playgoers at the time.