Honour Triumphant and a Line of Life Two Tracts By John Fordge, the Dramatist, Unknown to the Editors of His Works, and Now First Reprinted from the Original Copies Published in 1606 and 1620

About the Book

Theatre has been an important part of British and Irish culture, dating back to the Roman occupation. Medieval mystery plays and morality plays were performed at religious festivals. The reign of Elizabeth I the flowering of drama was personified by William Shakespeare. Puritans banned drama during the Interregnum of 1642–1660, but London theatres opened again with the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, and flourished thereafter. In the 18th century, highbrow and provocative Restoration comedy was replaced by sentimental comedy, and domestic tragedy (George Lillo’s The London Merchant, 1731), and a fascination with Italian opera. The Romanticism period (1798-1836) saw melodramas, light comedies, operas, pantomimes, translations of French farces, and Victorian burlesque. Drama was revived again in the late 19th century with plays on the London stage by the Irishmen George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde and the Norwegian Henrik Ibsen. JM Synge and Noel Coward contributed in the 20th century.

Also in this Book

The family saga chronicles the lives of a family, or several related or interconnected families, over an extended period of time. This may be in a novel or a sequences of novels with a serious theme, and is set against the background of historical events, changes of social circumstances, or the rise and fall of fortunes. The typical family saga follows a family through several generations in a series of novels.

And in this Book

Christian drama was traditionally focused on the liturgical Mystery Play, which was performed in European churches in the Medieval period, and the Morality Play, which developed in the 15th and 16th centuries, was an allegory, in which the protagonists met personifications of various moral attributes, with a view to encouraging audiences to live the virtuous life. In the 17th century the Church viewed theatre was being wicked, and sought to suppress it. During the 20th century churc