chronicle play

noun

1. a drama based on historical material, usually consisting of a series of short episodes or scenes arranged chronologically.

chronicle play

noun

1. a drama based on a historical subject

Word History and Origins

Origin of chronicle play¹

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

The recorder had featured in his incidental music for the 1970 BBC radio production of John Ford's chronicle play Perkin Warbeck, and Dodgson remembered vividly the dynamic playing of David Munrow in the sessions.

From The Guardian

The English chronicle play had evidently not yet made any stir at court; but many of the classical plays were drawn from Livy.

From Project Gutenberg

This type has, to be sure, permitted many variations,—revenge tragedy, chronicle play, tragicomedy, domestic tragedy, sentimental tragedy, heroic play, or the closet tragedy of the romanticists—but every one of these species has had its connections with others, and in every period the tragedies of varying kinds have been related not only to one another but to those that have gone before.

From Project Gutenberg

It presents a combination of chronicle play with Marlowesque protagonist and a Kydian apparatus of revenge.

From Project Gutenberg

It animated Marlowe no less than Drake, and the author of the least successful chronicle play as well as admiral or counselor.

From Project Gutenberg