Bourgeois Tragedy
Further information: Bourgeois tragedy and Augustan dramaBourgeois tragedy (German: Bürgerliches Trauerspiel) is a form that developed in 18th-century Europe. It was a fruit of the Enlightenment and the emergence of the bourgeois class and its ideals. It is characterized by the fact that its protagonists are ordinary citizens. The first true bourgeois tragedy was an English play, George Lillo's The London Merchant; or, the History of George Barnwell, which was first performed in 1731. Usually, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's play Miss Sara Sampson, which was first produced in 1755, is said to be the earliest Bürgerliches Trauerspiel in Germany.
Read more about this topic: Tragedy
Famous quotes containing the words bourgeois and/or tragedy:
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“... you have to have been desperately unhappy before you can play comedy, so that nothing can frighten you any more. And you can’t do tragedy before you know absolute happiness, because having known that, you are safe.”
—Dame Edith Evans (1888–1976)