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A Study Guide for "Classicism"
A Study Guide for "Classicism"
A Study Guide for "Classicism"
Ebook42 pages29 minutes

A Study Guide for "Classicism"

By Gale and Cengage

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A Study Guide for "Classicism," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary Movements for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary Movements for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 20, 2016
ISBN9781535820875
A Study Guide for "Classicism"

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    A Study Guide for "Classicism" - Gale

    09

    Classicism

    c. 400 BC

    Movement Origin

    Classicism both as an art style and as the first theory of art was defined by the ancient Greeks, emulated by the Romans, and then continued to appear in various forms across the centuries. Historically, the periods most associated with Classicism are the fifth and fourth centuries BC in Greece with writers such as Aristotle and Sophocles; the first century BC and first century AD in Rome with writers such as Cicero and Vergil; in late seventeenth-century French drama; and in the eighteenth century, especially in France, during a period called the Enlightenment, with such writers as Voltaire and Condorcet. In its varying formulations Classicism affirms the superiority of balance and rationality over impulse and emotion. It aspires to formal precision, affirms order, and eschews ambiguity, flights of imagination, or lack of resolution. Classicism asserts the importance of wholeness and unity; the work of art coheres without extraneous elements or open-ended conclusions.

    Both ancient Greek and ancient Roman writers stressed restraint and restricted scope, reason reflected in theme and structure, and a unity of purpose and design. In his Poetics, for example, Aristotle stressed the unities of time, place, and action. Perhaps basing his theory of drama on Sophocles's plays, Aristotle asserted that the action of a place must occur within 24 hours, with all the events taking place in one location, and each event causing the next event. Following these restrictions would produce a pleasingly cohesive drama. In all, the ancients believed that art was a vehicle for communicating the reason and intelligence that permeate the world and human affairs when people act rationally and according to moral precept.

    Classicism in the twentieth century can be seen in the literary works and critical theory of T. S. Eliot, for example, and in the use of mythology in various works, an instance of which is Eugene O'Neill's 1931 trilogy, Mourning Becomes Electra, which is based on the Oresteia of Aeschylus.

    Representative Authors

    Cicero (106 BC-43 BC)

    Cicero was born January 3, 106 BC to a wealthy family living south of Rome. His extraordinary intellect was recognized while he was a student, and Cicero was sent to Rome to study law under the famous Quintus Mucius Scaevola. As a young man, Cicero also became interested in philosophy, first studying Platonian philosophy and then Stoicism, an austere philosophy adhered

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