Role Of Humanism In Victorian Drama

Late Victorian drama was essentially didactic. Hedrick Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, considerably influenced the attitude of the English dramatists with his realistic plays and naturalism. Thus, romantic ideals and melodramatic elements were replaced with the realism and naturalistic techniques of the contemporary playwrights. Drama, during the period, became a social document focusing particularly on the conditions of the lives of the middle-class and the proletarians of the English society. The popular playwrights such as George Bernard Shaw and John Galsworthy made use of their plays to put forth the burning and unsettled problems of the society with reformist zeal. Galsworthy, a Noble laureate, was a committed playwright with an objective outlook towards the problems confronted by the humanity of his time. He was socially conscious of the evils that thwarted the freedom and dignity of the

The Latin humanus means human or earthy. The word humanitas, during the Middle Ages, was known by scholars as those relating to the practical affairs of secular life (the study of languages and literatures is still sometimes referred to as ‘the humanities’). Since the humanitas drew much of its inspiration and sources from the Roman and Greek classics, the Italian translators and teachers of those writings came to call themselves umanisti, ‘humanists’.
The term ‘humanism’ was first used by a German educationist in 1808 to refer to a course of study based on Latin and Greek authors, a curriculum that had been established by Italian Renaissance humanists. Their curriculum covered moral philosophy, history, literature, rhetoric, and grammar; it has expanded over time to include other subjects as well. Eventually, the word humanism came to indicate a certain perspective, an approach, a mentality, a vision stressing the importance of human experiences, capacities, initiatives, and achievements. (Peltonen,