During the fourteenth century, plays were revived after the concept was distinguished with the fall of Greece. This came about through the Catholics and their mass. The Catholic mass is something to be performed, although the mass is still around among Catholics today, the performance concept of modern plays was re-born through the evolution of Catholic performances, such as those for Christmas and Easter.
This is the second time religion and storytelling evolved into dramas. What does that tell us about people? People need to tell stories. No other creature can tell a story, at least, not past the story of the snake being in the grass. Stories are a nourishment to the soul. Creativity and right-brained possibilities all blossom from the human mind to create.
Once you have answered the question of why stories, there is still the question of why dramas, why plays? Plays are a performance of your own world that you have created, a depiction of your life experiences, and ideas, and your moral standpoint on life, all compacted for people to watch unfold, get entertainment, and take what they will into their own perspectives. Plays are human curiosity being satisfied so that people can take away what they will. Curiosity is ultimately how humans learn.
During this same period, a rather famous Italian author gives a good example of what I mean. Dante Alighieri, best known for his work The Divine Comedy, produced his book at the same time plays were coming back to light in Rome. Dante, being a Christian himself, infused his religious views into his works.
Dante’s The Divine Comedy is centered on his own journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. The second of the realms Dante traverses is purgatory. Purgatory is part of Catholic belief. If you have not had chance to pay penance for an earthly sin, you go to a place between heaven and hell to correct this so you are perfect to enter the perfect place that is heaven.
The Divine Comedy, purgatory is also the eternal home to many famous philosophers and authors, such as Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, etc. Dante truly admired these people. Dante believed no one could be saved and enter heaven if they did not have Christ in their life. Therefore, perfectly good moral people who came before Christ would enter the first circle of hell, which is a perfectly nice place aside from their punishment, which is simply, they did not achieve, nor will they ever have, an afterlife in heaven.
Dante wrote punishments for every member of every circle in hell, depending on their greatest sin in life. It is quite interesting to look at how Dante condemns people for not having Christ, while also praising them, and even going as far as to write parallels between his look into hell and ancient writings on the Greek afterlife. You can see every thought he has on his religion throughout his writings and form your own opinions on them. Decide what you value and when you take those outlooks into your own life. Every good writer does this and, when it is done clearly enough, we as analyzers can read into it. This is why entertainment has been so clearly valued in society, to fill our curiosities and allow us to learn.
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