137694208 Curs Literatura Engleza Shakespeare

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Lecture no. 5

English Renaissance Drama from 1580 to Shakespeare.

While much Renaissance poetry is of a very high quality, the greatest literary works of the

period are plays. The medieval tradition of Mystery and Miracle plays continued under the reign of

Henry VII. However, after the schism from Rome and the Reformation, Henry VIII put an end to

medieval religious drama. Humanism revived interest in classical drama and the plays of Plautus,

Terence and Seneca, among others, were translated into English, published and widely read. Senecas

tragedies were particularly popular and created a taste for horror and bloodshed.

THOMAS KYD

An example of Senecas influence on English drama can be seen in the works of THOMAS

KYD. His highly popular play about bloody revenge called The Spanish Tragedy (1587) has many

Senecan elements including horror, villains, corruption, intrigue and the supernatural.

The Spanish Tragedie, or Hieronimo is Mad Againepublished by Thomas Kyd around 1586,

supposedly was the most popular play until the end of the 16th

century. Thomas Kyds play

inaugurated on the English stage the revenge tragedy, concentrating upon a fathers revenge for his

murdered son.

The Spanish Tragedy - PLOT

Horatio, son of Hieronimo, the Marshall of Spain, and Lorenzo, nephew of the king,

capture Balthazar, son of the Portuguese envoy, as a prisoner of war.

Balthazar falls in love with Lorenzos sister, Bel-imperia, and for political reasons

Lorenzo encourages the alliance.

The tragic truth is that Horatio and Bel-imperiaare already secret loversand Horatio,

surprised in the company of Bel-imperia by Lorenzo and Balthazar, is wantonly killed by

them.

A most distressed father, Hieronimo,simulates madness in order to be able to avenge

his sons murder. He sets up a play-within-the-playduring which Lorenzo and Balthazar

are vengefully killed.

The play ends in a blood-battle with Hieronimo and Bel-imperia committing suicide.

While tributary to Senecan drama for such things as the ghost and the chorus, Kyds play

establishes later play practicessuch as

feigned madness andthe play-within-a-play.The Flourishing of English Drama in the 16

thCentury

Early English Renaissance playwrights accepted some of the conventions of classical theatre,

but they adapted the form to suit their needs and did not content themselves with simply producing


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poor imitations of classical models. For several reasons English drama flourished under Elizabeth I

and James I:

theatre appealed to all social classes, from the sovereign to the lowest class;plays could be understood by the illiterate, who formed the largest section of the

population;

there had been a strong theatre-going traditionin Britain since the Middle Ages;the theatre was patronised by the Court and the aristocracy;the languageof drama was less artificialthan that of poetry;there was a great number of talented playwrights who produced works of extraordinary

quality;

the prosperity of the Elizabethan period meant that people had both the time and moneytogo to the theatre.

THE PRINCIPLE OF ORDER in the World and in Drama

Drama was strictly linked to the Elizabethan world view which emphasised above all else the

principle of order.

Early Elizabethans believed that:

a hierarchy existed in the natural world which ascended from inanimate objects to animals,

men, angels and eventually God.

Man was the central linkin this chain: his body linked him to the animal world below him

while his soul linked him to the spiritual world above him.

Man was at the centre of the universebecause the moon, the sun, the planets and the stars

all revolved in orbit around the earth.

A number of factors, however, weakened Elizabethan beliefs in the principle of universal

order. The development of modern experimental science, for example, established that the earth

and other planets revolved around the sun, thus displacing man from the centre of creation.

Much Elizabethan drama is concerned with the hierarchical order of the universeand what

may occur if it is broken. For instance, in ShakespearesMacbeth,when the king is killed the natural

order of society is broken, and the result is chaos and tragedy. The loss of orderis also reflected in the

natural world (darkness in daytime, owls killing falcons, horses eating each other) and in the innerworld of the characters (Lady Macbeths insanity). Only at the end of the play, when the rightful king

sits on the throne, is order restored.

The breaking of the laws of order may also result in comedy. In A Midsummer Nights

Dream the disciplined ordered world of Athens is contrasted with the night-time wood, which is a dark

realm of disorder, chaos and confusion.


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DRAMATIC HEROES

Elizabethan heroes are no longer the allegorical paragons1 of virtue of Medieval drama.

They are full of passion and doubts and constantly question the world that surrounds them.

THE ACTORS were direct descendants of Medieval street performers. In spite of the

popularity of their performances, a law passed in 1572 still classified actors as vagabonds, thus

putting them at risk of being imprisoned depending on the will of the various authorities. In order to

overcome the problem they worked in companies patronised by a nobleman, whose name the company

took (The Earl of Leicesters Men, The Lord Chamberlains Men). The nobleman gave them a letter of

permission which allowed them to travel around the country and perform without fear of punishment.

Companies generally played in London in the winter and spring and travelled around the

country in summer, when the city was often ravaged by plague. At the time when Shakespeare was

acting there were approximately twenty companies of actorsin London and more than one hundred

provincial troupes. As acting was considered immoral, there were no women in the companies:

female parts were played by boys whose voices had not yet changed.

An average play had a cast of about twenty. The main parts were played by company actors.

Three or four boys were hired for the womens roles, and six or more hired men played the minor roles

or worked as musicians, stage managers, wardrobe keepers, prompters and stage hands. Some actors

doubled for two or more minor parts.

Actors had to havegood memories, strong voices and the ability to sing, dance and fence .

The costumes they wore were very elaborate sixteenth-century creations which did not respect

historical accuracy.

Until the building of permanent playhouses, plays were performed in inns, on a platform

raised in the yard. Guests at the inn watched the performances from the second-storey galleries,

while the common people took their places in front of the stage.

Play performed on a platform in an inn yard

1Paragon= a model or pattern of excellence or of a particular excellence.


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Playhouses were at first built outside the city walls because they were considered to be

centres of corruption. The first playhouse built in London was The Theatre in 1576, followed by

The Rose, The Swan and The Globe (1599). The company to which Shakespeare belonged, The

Lord Chamberlains Men, was one of the few companies that owned its own playhouse. By the end

of Shakespeares career they had two theatres: The Globe and The Blackfriars.

Elizabethan theatres were built with the inn yard model in mind. They were polygonal or

circular three-tiered structures, open to the sun and rain. In the case of The Globe, the open courtyard

and three semi-circular galleries that surrounded it could hold more than 1,500 people. The stage

projected out into the courtyard about five feet above the ground and had two main parts:

the outer stage was a rectangular platform where the main action of the play took

place. It was covered by a thatched roof but had no front or side curtains;

the inner stagestood behind the outer stage and was concealed by a curtain. This stage

was used when a scene took place in a more confined space (for example the tomb scene in Romeo

and Juliet) or when a character was supposed to overhear the action on the main stage. On either side

of the inner stage there was a door through which actors entered and disappeared.

Below the floors of the outer and inner stages was a large cellar called hell.Actors in hell,

who played the parts of ghosts, demons or fairies, would make dramatic appearances through trap

doors onto the main outer stage.

Over the main stage there was a third spacewhich could be used by musicians, represent a

balcony scene or stand for the walls of a city. Above the third level there was a series of pulleys2

which could be used to suspend fairies, angels, ghosts and thunderbolts. Many special effects were

used in the theatre. Death scenes were very gory and realistic and animal organs and blood were often

used to make battle scenes more realistic. The audiences became very involved in the play,

particularly the spectators in the yard, who were very close to the action. Their tickets were cheaper

than the tickets of the spectators sitting in the galleries and they participated by cheering, hissing and

even throwing rotten vegetables.

TASK

Cross out incorrect statements. Elizabethan drama:

had strong links with classical Greek and Latin drama,often featured the themes of corruption, intrigue and revenge.flourished because it was popular with all social classesonly appealed to the higher, educated classes.

2Pulley - a wheel, with a grooved rim for carrying a line, that turns in a frame and serves to

change the direction of or to transmit force, as when one end of the line is pulled to raise a

weight at the other end.


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often included the themes of order and hierarchy.emphasised the centrality of Nature as a guide to human actions.often dealt with the consequences of the disruption of hierarchical order.This is what The Globe theatre looked like.

TASK

1 Match letters and words.

galleries upper stage open courtyard actors entrances onto the stage

entrance special effects level outer stage hell inner stage

A = ........................... F = ........................................

B = ........................... G = .......................................

C= ............................ H = .......................................

D - ............................ I =........................................

E = ...........................


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Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

Christopher Marlowe was born in 1564, the same year as William Shakespeare, but he was

killed in 1593, aged 29, as a result of a stabbed eye during a brawl in a tavern at Deptford just outside

London. This sordid3incident, allegedly

4arisen as a result of a quarrel about the settlement of the bill,

put an abrupt end to the life of a most promising and brilliant dramatist at the peak of his career. There

are quite a few known facts which point out to a pre-arranged murder by the authorities who wanted a

most inconvenient Marlowe silenced.

QUICK FACTS

Born in Canterbury in as the son of a shoemaker

at the age of 15 he gained a scholarship to the Kings School, Canterbury

although not a noted scholar at Cambridge, Marlowe had already begun there an experiment

in writing poetry and plays, or in translating classical Latin poets in English verse.

Marlowes best plays are:

Tamburlaine the Great(1587-1588),The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus(c. 1589),The Jew of Malta(1590),Edward II (1592) anda lesser known play The Massacre at Paris(date uncertain).Tamburlaine the Great(1587-1588)

The two parts of Tamburlainetell the story of a man who through ruthless fanaticism beats a

blood-covered path to world leadership, trampling mercilessly on all who oppose him. Emperors,

kings and the like, fall beneath his vanquishing armies. The end of part I shows him at the zenith of his

political and military power and married to a most beautiful Egyptian princess, Zenocrate. Though the

bloody conquests continue in part II, the upward path becomes less certain. Zenocrate falls ill and dies,

Tamburlaine in a burst of angry irritation, kills his son Calyphas in cold blood. Following a murderous

attack on the city of Babylon, Tamburlaine orders all copies of the holy books of Islam, including the

Koran, to be burnt. In this irreligious action, the tyrant has gone too far. Suddenly he finds his strength

diminishing. Now there are challenges to his authority which he is too weak to resist. All his former

glory fades and he dies handing over authority to his surviving son.

Against the huge canvas of the world that Marlowe paints for a ruthless ambitious Scythian

shepherd, who paves his way to the thrones of the world with the corpses of kings whom he first

forces to draw his chariot when entering Babylon, Tamburlaine seems like an unstoppable super being.

3Sordid - morally ignoble or base; vile

4allegedly - according to what is or has been supposed


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His relentless ambition, his inhuman cruelty, the bloodshed, violence and suffering that he leaves in

his wake do not make him an admirable character, but ones breath is taken away by his audacity, the

scope and range of his conquests, all of which Marlowe depicts in startling violent action. In the

bloody rise and fall of Tamburlaine, Marlowe set the stage for the portrayal of the Renaissance

hero.

While for example Spenser was celebrating the Christian virtues of holiness, moderation,

courtesy, piety and humility, Marlowe was creating the prototype of the Renaissance egoist, the

audacious villain, a figure as enthralling as Miltons Satan. The audience is both horrified and

strangely attracted by this giant of evil who in his mad drive for wealth and power is loftily consumed

by desperate love for and worship of unattainable beauty. His overthrowing of the rulers of the world

may be interpreted as a revolt of the rebellious Renaissance spirit against the established order. At the

same time, his spectacular rise and tragic fall follow the mediaeval wheel of Fortune theme, within a

typical Fall of Princes tragedy.

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (c. 1589) is also a Fall of Princes tragedy. Like

Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus is full of the spirit of the Renaissance and thrives for knowledge and

power, but it also has a specifically Christian background in the pact with the Devil and its resultant

damnation.

Faustus also retains many elements of the old morality plays; he has a Good Angel to exhort

him to repentance and amendment as well as an Evil Angel to urge him on to damnation; and he is not

irrevocably damned until he has succumbed to the final temptation of despair and given up all hope of

the possibility of his repentance.

The story in brief relates about the ageing German scholar, Dr. Faustus, who, dissatisfied with

sterile philosophy, conjures up Mephistopheles, who accepts to be his obliging servant for twenty-four

years in return for his soul. With renewed youth and endowed with superhuman powers, Dr. Faustus

wanders through the world in a most vainglorious search of limitless knowledge and experience. He

performs incredible deeds, including the summoning of spirits, as is the case of Helen of Troy.

Although at times he seeks repentance, the exhilaration of ever-new learning and good living is too

much for him and his intense ambition and unceasing inquisitive energy drive him fatally on to his

own damnation and perdition. There are moments when his troubled conscience asserts itself and he

questions the validity of his actions but then he goes on living a life of full voluptuousness which

denies him the possibility of final repentance. When after twenty four years the contract expires, a

most repentful Dr. Faustus tries to appeal to Christ and God, but he has forfeited his right to prayer

and godly forgiveness. When the clock strikes twelve, Lucifer bears the soul of Dr. Faustus away to

eternal punishment.

Knowing of the writers reported contempt for the emptiness of religious faith, one might have

expected Marlowe to have caused his protagonist to escape retribution according to the orthodox view


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of good and evil. Indeed, although Marlowe used classical, pagan models, he gave totally orthodox

reasons for Faustuss condemnation. Thus the good characters such as the Good Angel and the Old

Man advocate only what is theologically sound, while the evil characters such as Lucifer,

Mephistopheles and Beelzebub are depicted as fallen angels, ejected from heaven by virtue of their

presumption. But although the whole universe in Doctor Faustusis essentially Christian, within this

religious framework and classic tragic structure is a compelling drama of a man whose mounting

ambition inevitably brings about his hellish fall as he stubbornly rejects repeated advice that his

actions must lead to damnation. Marlowes intensely complex character, heroic and trivial, fearless

and conscience-ridden, ambitious and foolish, may well typify the Renaissance intellectual man whose

personal tragedy was always represented by high aspirations and inevitable failure.

The Jew of Malta(c. 1591) is another Fall of Princes tragedy in which Marlowe resorts to

the figure of Machiavellis treatise on political expediency and cunning to create Barabas, a rich Jew

living in Malta, whose half wealth is confiscated by the Governor of Malta, with which the tribute

demanded by the Turks is going to be paid. Barabas plans cunning and vicious revenge for the theft

but in the process causes the death of his daughter Abigail. He has hidden part of his wealth under the

floor boards, but his house has been taken by the authorities as part of the sequestration of his

possessions. He sends his daughter Abigail to the house, now converted to a nunnery, alleging her

desire to join the order. She gains access and manages to recover the Jews rich possessions. Now

Barabas determines to revenge himself on the Christians. He uses his own daughter to trap the

Governors son and another young man who are both in love with her and has them killed. Dismayed

by her fathers abominable deed, Abigail decides to go to the monastery in earnest. An angry Barabas

sends poisoned food there and all including Abigail dies. Trying to avoid condemnation for the death

of the two young men following Abigails denouncing him before death, Barabas feigns death and

then plots to betray the island to the Turks and then dump them into a boiling cauldron through an

ingenious trap. One of his intended victims springs the trap and sends Barabas to die into the cauldron

of boiling oil.

There is little to admire in Barabas, but his energy, persistence, heartlessness and subtlety

surprise and shock us. There seems to be no villainy or cruelty to which he will not resort if it proves

necessary. His callous indifference to human suffering almost makes Barabas a monster especially

when, after using his daughter as a deceiving instrument of his policy, he cruelly poisons her. Again

we have a satanic character grasping for the world, this time the world of financial wealth.

In a hostile and corrupt Christian community, material possessions alone can confer power and

respect on him as an outsider and a victim of Christianity. Barabas, however, achieves magnitude by

the audacity and might of his ambition. The subject of the play cannot be thought of as that of an evil

Jew against a saintly Christian society, but rather as that of a man responding to the spirit of the times,

ingenuously using current corrupt practices and deceits to his own purposes.

137694208 Curs Literatura Engleza Shakespeare

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