Amadeus dramatic vs historical truth
The play “Amadeus” by Peter Shaffer was not written in order to be a biography of the great composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, much more than this, Peter Shaffer wrote it as a story, rather than a history. In his story he was free to insert fiction to make the play more interesting to a wide audience, as well as to fulfill his purposes. However, musicologists and historians have written several articles claiming that Peter Shaffer “trashed this immortal”. What none of them can see is that in “Amadeus” there are situations that are plausible while others are “fictional ornament”. In this paper I will make an attempt to point what is fiction or untruth. The center of the play lies on the character of Antonio Salieri and his obsessive jealously of Mozart. To convey this plot, it was necessary that Salieri had motives enough dislike Mozart. So it was necessary to build a character that was extremely competent but with no talent at all to contrast with a genius who behaved badly. With this, Salieri would have reasons to be jealous. As his first attempt to convey his plot, Salieri is shown as a musical hack as we can see in this extract: “Bewildered, MOZART does so (halts and listens), becoming aware of SALIERI playing his March
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Mozart Amadeus, Furthermore Salieri, Italy France, Amadeus Shaffer, Peter Shaffer, Figaro Cosi, Antonio Salieri, Composer Salieri, March Welcome, Salieri Mozart, convey plot, peter shaffer, convey plot salieri, killed mozart, salieri saying, mozart post, inside court, heard salieri, court composer, heard salieri saying, plot salieri, portrait mozart,
Approximate Word count = 1273
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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