I've been searching for ways of thinking about the speed with which European drama went from morality plays (which I--wrongly?--think primitive; or, maybe more accurately, from the plays of Ancient Greece) to the masterpieces of Marlowe (and Lope?) and then Shakespeare.
What might have been a more expected rate of development? How might we know?
Comparisons will be imperfect for lots of obvious reasons, but I haven't come up with a better way of thinking about this.
Are there other Renaissance accomplishments worth thinking about in this context? I think I mean artistic accomplishments. Am I wrong to think scientific development too different an animal to be helpful here?
The Greeks took longer to go from their first one-actor drama competitions to the masterpieces of Aeschylus and co. that they preserved.
Film has been offered in this thread as a basis for comparison. The development from the first sound feature to Citizen Kane was relatively quick. Silent film might give a stronger analogy--certainly for comparison with the Greeks, in terms of creating a genre out of whole cloth.
Are there other comparisons worth thinking about? Is there a better way than comparison to think about this?
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