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The Old Drama and the New: An Essay in Re-Valuation
The Old Drama and the New An Essay in ReValuation Author:William Archer The Old Drama and The New is William Archer's thorough criticism of the theatre - a collection of fourteen lectures delivered at King's College on the history and progressions of Western theatres. The lectures are a careful examination of the forces which shaped theatre and the men and women who produced the most lasting plays of their time. L... more »ectures include: The Elizabethan Legend (blank verse, soliloquies and asides, plays of Jonson, Chapman, Middleton and Massinger), The Restoration to the Renaissance (romance and tragedy, the plays of Dryden, Restoration Comedy, Congreve, modern playwrights ? Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, intellectual plays of Galsworthy and Shaw, the evolution of modern drama, and many more. Archer was a Scottish author, critic, and translator. Throughout his life he worked as drama critic on several London newspapers. He influenced the direction of English and American drama through his active interest in the work of the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. He translated Ibsen's Pillars of Society, and largely through his efforts the play was the first Ibsen play to be produced (1880) in London. Archer's writings include Masks of Faces (1888), The Old Drama and the New (1923), and several plays, including the highly successful melodrama The Green Goddess (1923).« less