Neoclassical Ideals

The Neoclassical ideals were used for many, many years in the world of the theatre.
Specific in their conventions, the playwrights that followed this convention had to be equally
specific in their own dramas. There are basically five ideals contained in this Neoclassical.
Verisimilitude is the Neoclassical ideal of truth, and it includes three point: the action in
a place must be able to take place in real life, this is Reality; the play itself must teach morals, a
battle between good an devil, where good triumphs, this is Morality; and the idea that the truth
is found in typical and normal traits possessed by all people this is Generality.
Besides the idea of verisimilitude, there are other ideals, or norms, that the
Neoclassical mode prescribes. Comedy and tragedy must be totally separate, not combined
within one play. Characters must be separated by age, sex, profession, and predisposition. (The
play itself has to teach and to please.) And, within the play, there has to be a (unity of time, of
place, and of action.)
France, in the 18th century, was the cultural center of Europe. French drama was the
standard against which all other theatre was measured. Most French dramatists of this time
tried to imitate the work of Racine, but failed due to their own insertion of involved plots and
complex character relations.
Playwrights at this time still basically followed the conventions of the Neoclassical ideal,
but were getting quite restless with these rules. A trend towards more complex plots, involved
character relations, and sudden reversals based on recognitions was begun.
One of the greatest French playwrights, Voltaire saw the French Neoclassical ideal as
restrictive. He favored change, but only produced limited gains in his own works. Voltaire
introduced a little more spectacle on the stage, by bringing ghosts on stage, for example, and
introduced a slight amount of violence shown onstage.
Another French playwright, Diderot, felt the same way about the Neoclassical
ideals as Voltaire did. There needed to be more than just comedy and tragedy, according to
Diderot. He thought domestic tragedies and a comedy of virtues should be added to the French
stage. Diderot also favored using subjects from everyday life as the focus for his plays. Diderot
foreshadowed many coming aspects in realism.
By 1790, French drama had begun to break away from the Neoclassic norms, however
slightly. But no great movement away from Neoclassicism had been made quite yet; that is to
come later with the movement of the Romantics.