The Barber of Seville | Style
Comedy
In his two earliest plays, Beaumarchais tried to uphold the dramatic theory known as the bourgeois drama, which was an attempt to replace the neoclassical forms of drama with subject matter and method more suited to contemporary times. Bourgeois drama was serious drama written in simple prose that emphasized moral instruction in modern social contexts. However, Beaumarchais’s bourgeois dramas were generally critical failures, and, with The Barber of Seville, Beaumarchais abandoned the bourgeois drama and embraced pure comedy. The essential plot derives from...
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