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CULTURAL BACKGROUND
Renaissance emerged in England after the end of the War of the Roses and the coming to
the throne of Henry VII Tudor (1485)
England was a rather marginal European kingdom; under the Tudors and the early
Stuarts
Lectures will focus, nonetheless, on Renaissance culture in England in the sixteenth
century
The first half of the century revived lyrical poetry through the introduction of the sonnet
(Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard), the rise of the secular drama (the early comedies
and tragedies) and the emergence of refined prose (Sir Thomas Morus)
Renaissance in England
Sixteenth-century English (lyrical and epic) poems revealed a growing interest in court
culture, in general, and in the relationship between European cultural values and
artistic models and the products of the emergent national cultures, in particular.
The themes:
relationships between humanism, and court culture, with particular stress on courtly and
platonic love;
the relationships between humanism, chivalric values and court culture
the role of women in court culture, both women as ornaments of the court and women as
rulers. (Griffiths, 1998)
LYRICAL POETRY
John Skelton (c. 1460-1529). Highly regarded in his day as poet and a laureate of both
Oxford and Cambridge universities, he was praised by Caxton and Erasmus as a leading
luminary of the English literary scene.
Translations and adaptations played a very important part in making the humanistic
literature of Italy widely known
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
Life:
he was also held in high regard as a diplomat, both by his own King and by Emperor
Charles V
He lived a short, life among the aristocrats of Henry VIIIs court, getting often involved
in dangerous political relationships or love affairs.
he was imprisoned under the suspicion of being Anne Boleyns lover, after she became
queen
he became an ambassador to Spain (c. 1537-1540), but he was imprisoned again under
the charge of treason
Work:
None of Wyatts poems had been published in his lifetime, with the exception of a few
poems The Court of Venus.
His first published work was Certain Psalmsv
A significant amount of his literary consists of translations and imitations of sonnets by the
Italian poet Petrarch
He is the first English poet since Chaucer to make use of Italian models, combining the
humanist and the vernacular modes of expression
Thomas Wyatts poems were the first to introduce into the language a new style of
verse in subjectmatter, imagery, and metrical form. They left their mark on English
poetry for the following century
was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of EnglishRenaissance poetry. He was a
first cousin of both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the second and fifth wives of King
Henry VIII
Born in a family of the highest aristocracy, he spent his childhood and early youth in
close connection with the royal families of England and France
he remained essentially a reckless young man, often embarking, together with his friends
(here including Thomas Wyatts son)
he was beheaded, at the age of 30, just one week before the monarchs death.
Work:
was encouraged to study and to translate from the classics and the French poets
he showed technical skill and produced fluent, musical, attractive verse of genuine lyric
quality
Surrey was at his best when exalting male friendship and masculine virtues rather than
the love of women.
was the first English poet to publish blank verse (unrhymediambic pentameter)
was an English poet, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent
figures of the Elizabethan age.
His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence
of Poetry or An Apology for Poetry), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia.
During a 1577 diplomatic visit to Prague, Sidney secretly visited the exiled priest Edmund
Campion.
Arcadia:
Made of five books
The omance focuses on the love and fortune in which the main characters Duke
Basilius, ruler of Arcadia and his wife Gynecia, their daughters Pamela and Philoclea,
and two royal suitors, Pyrocles and Musidorus get entangled
The royal couples attempt to prevent a gloomy prophecy from becoming true by retiring
in a remote village, triggers a series of that several major themes of classical novels.
Sidney originally wrote Arcadia for the amusement of his sister, the Countess of
Pembroke
Astrophel and Stella
The first of the famous English sonnet sequences
reveals to be one of the greatest sonneteers in England, development of a love affair
Astrophel ends the sonnet alone and isolated, empty without Stella's presence
LECTURE 3
DEVELOPMENTS IN LATE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY LYRICAL AND
EPIC POETRY: EDMUND SPENSER AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Has been
His name
The Sonnets
All the 154 sonnets by Shakespeare were published only later by Thomas Thorpe,
apparently without the writers authorization
Shakespeare followed the more idiomatic rhyme scheme of sonnets that Sir Philip
Sydney used in the first great Elizabethan sonnets cycle, Astrophel and Stella
The tone of the sonnets gradually becomes more personal as the lyrical persona explores
the relationship between the poet and his Fair Friend
critics have even suggested that W.H. might have meant William Himself
sonnets 127-152 refer to a brunette, the poets beloved who brings overwhelming passion
into his mature age
one of the sonnets makes reference to his friend taking his beloved away from him
the Dark Lady of the sonnets might have been, Emilia Bassano, the daughter of the
Italian Baptist Bassano, a musician at Elizabeths court
he used both the Italian (Petrarchan) and the English structure in his sonnets
Some sonnets begin with a remembrance of things past; others are commanding in
tone; others introduce general statements to further illustrate them
INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
The Rise of Secular Drama. The First Comedies and Tragedies
Moralities: They began to incorporate more non religious material and reached a point
Interludes: a brief play between the courses of a banquet; a play performed outdoors in
summer
interlude = used indiscriminately for any play maintaining its character of secular
humour.
After 1550: Plays were performed at Court, in the halls of the noblemen, at the Inns of Court and
in colleges, generally but not exclusively by professional actors.
Influences: folk plays, moralities and interludes
E.g. Nicholas Udall (headmaster of Eaton and Westminster School) : a selection of phrases
from Terence, Flowers of Latin Speaking Selected and Gathered out of Terence, used as a text
book of style by schoolboys in Tudor times; the first English comedy Ralph Roister Doister
Ralph Roister Doister
written in in short rhymed doggerel inspired by the comedies of Plautus and Terence (the five act
division and observing the unities of time, place and action)
main characters: widow Christian Custance; her fianc, the merchant Gawin Goodluck; Ralph
Roister Doister, a well-to-do braggart; Matthew Merrygreek, his companion
Humour derives from: the social satire addressed at the avarice of the middle classes,
Gammer Gurtons Needle
the second English comedy in
classical in form (five classical acts, observing unities of time, space and action)
action laid in the English countryside
characters typical of the villages of the late feudal times
originality: present the genuine local colour of an English village in the sixteenth century.
This combination of lively, vivid native English material put into the regular form of the Latin
comedies of Plautus and Terence
The first tragedies were modelled on Seneca features of the Senecan tragedy: five acts, violent
and bloody plots, rhetorical speeches and the presence of ghosts among the characters
Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex is often termed the first true English tragedy. It was presented
at the Christmas feast of the Inner Temple where young men studied law
authors: two young lawyers, Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton;
inspired by a legendary tale of ancient Britain derived from Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia
Regum Britanniae;
main characters: king Gorboduc; his sons, Ferrex and Porrex; queen Videna.
The play voices the popular aspirations for unity and order
the play was perceived as a hint to Queen Elizabeth I:
it certainly recommends that the Queen settle the succession, perhaps by marriage, perhaps by
announcing her heir
Senecan elements: five acts, each ending with a chorus of five old Britons, the scenes of horror
and violence
The most important innovation: the blank verse here employed in drama for the first time.
Kynge Johan:
The first chronicle play
historical events at the heart of the play: King John as the champion of the English/ versus/ the
Roman Catholic Church;
morality play elements: the presence of allegorical characters
The Theatre was built at Shoreditch in the northern outskirts of London, by the Earl of
Leicesters Men who were led by James Burbage, a carpenter turned actor.
The Theatre was followed the next year by The Curtain
Structure and Design of Public/ Outdoor Theatres
Public theatres were polygonal - hexagonal outside and round inside
The rear stage was covered by a roof which they called Heavens
Immediately above the inner stage, there was the stage gallery
The Players
Elizabethan theatre, demanded that an actor be able to play numerous roles and make it
obvious to the audience by changes in his acting style
All of the actors in an Elizabethan theatre company were male
There were laws in England against women acting
One woman - Mary Frith - was arrested in the Jacobean period for singing and playing
instruments on stage during a performance of a play about her life
Costumes, Scenery and Effects
Elizabethan costuming seems to have been a strange combination of what was modern
dress, and costumes
Extensive make-up was almost certainly used, particularly for the boys playing female
parts and with dark make-up on the face and hands for actors playing blackamoors or
Turks
The Elizabethans did not use fixed scenery or painted backdrops of the sort that became
popular in the Victorian period
A number of other simple special effects were used. Real cannons and pistols
One thing that Elizabethan theatres almost completely lacked was lighting effects
Performance Techniques
Performances ran continuously without any sort of interval or act breaks
We do not even know how long Elizabethan plays usually ran
Occasionally music may have been played between Acts or certain scenes
The law expected plays to last between two and two and a half hours, but some plays such as Hamlet did not
Another aspect of Elizabethan performance was the use of clowns or fools.
Shakespeare complains in Hamlet about the fact that the fool often spoke a great deal that
was not included in his script
Specific Aspects of Elizabethan Performances:
bear-baiting: Three bears in ascending size are set upon by an English hound in a fight to
the death.
fencing: this civilized sport also took place before plays.
dumb-shows/processions: Dumb shows appeared at the end of each act to summarize the
events of the following act.
o The University Wits
were young playwrights, who moulded the medieval forms of drama into the pattern of
their classical education
the play of human passion and action was expressed for the first time with true dramatic
effect
o John Lyly
Life:
closely connected with the aristocratic circles
born in Kent, brought up in Canterbury
studies: Kings School; MA at the University of Oxford
He sought promotion at the court
Three times an MP
retired in Yorkshire at the Mexborough house of his wife Beatrice Browne
o Work:
the novel (prose romance) Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit and its sequel Euphues and
His England are the most fashionable writer for a decade
o Plays:
comedies based on the theme of courtly love, set against a classical background, with one
exception (Mother Bombie)
Gallathea (1592);
Midas (1592) ;
Mother Bombie (1594) a farcical comedy of manners set against the background of the
English countryside
Features:
most of them written in prose for childrens companies
devices introduced: girls disguised as boys; the ethereal fairies; exquisite effects of song
and music.
o George Peele
Life:
BA and MA in Oxford;
living a dissolute life in London, which is why he was turned out of his fathers
o Work:
pageants (spectacular processions/ plays presenting tableaux and including songs, dances
and dramatic scenes very close to the masque);
occasional or miscellaneous verse: The Honour of the Garter and Polyhymnia (1590);
plays: Edward I (1593); The Old Wives Tale and the first two scenes of Act II in
Shakespeares Titus Andronicus
Robert Greene
Life:
BA and MA in Oxford
travelling abroad, visiting France, Germany, Poland and Denmark;
Work:
the first professional reference to Shakespeare in A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a
Million of Repentance
passages from Henry VI, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona
imitating Christopher Marlowe in his dramatic productions
plays: The History of Orlando Furioso,Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, The Scottish
History of James the Fourth
o The University Wits: Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)
Life.
Born in London in a prosperous middle-class family, Thomas Kyd attended the Merchant
Taylors School
After graduating, he did not attend either Cambridge or Oxford like his fellow University
Wits
But his success as a playwright would not spare him persecution by the Queens secret
agents, who searched his house
The Queens agents allegedly found a pamphlet which they deemed atheistic.
Kyd ended up in prison, being tortured, he was eventually released, but soon dies in utter
poverty.
Works. All his plays were published anonymously. Among them, the most successful
was The Spanish Tragedy: or, Hieronimo Is Mad Again
THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: OR, HIERONIMO IS MAD AGAIN
Ben Jonson alludes to The Spanish Tragedy as being "five and twenty or thirty years" old
is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd
established a new genre in English theatre, the revenge play or revenge tragedy
Its plot contains several violent murders
the play-within-a-play used to trap a murderer and a ghost intent on vengeance, appear in
Shakespeare's Hamlet.too
After having appeared as a grandly tragic figure of sweeping visions and immense
ambitions at the beginning of the play, Faustus actually reveals in the middle scenes his
petty nature and is swallowed up in mediocrity.
Only in the final scene, the knowledge of his impending doom restores his earlier gift of
powerful rhetoric
He becomes once again a tragic hero, a great man
Mephostophilis: one of the first in a long tradition of literary devils, which includes
figures like John Miltons Satan in Paradise Lost and Johann von Goethes
Mephistopheles in the nineteenth-century poem Faust.
He appears as an agent of Faustuss damnation, but also an ambivalent creature
Both Faustus and Mephostophilis can be looked upon as kindred spirits, two overly proud
spirits doomed to Hell.
Major themes:
sin, redemption and damnation
divided nature of man
power as a corrupting influence
the conflict between medieval and Renaissance values
THE JEW OF MALTA
Its central character, Barabas, is a figure of unredeemed evil
The Jew of Malta foregrounds themes of racial tension, religious conflict, and political
intrigue, all of which connect, more or less explicitly, with aspects of life in sixteenthcentury England
the play reflects the reaction to Machiavellianism in Elizabethan England.
reference should be made to the fact that, by the time Marlowe was writing his play,
England was experiencing a late wakening
The play opens with a Prologue narrated by Machiavel, a caricature of Machiavelli
When Machiavel recommends Barabas to us as one whose money was not got without
my means, we are led to expect a gloating villain
Act I opens by revealing the wealthy Jewish merchant Barabas in his counting house,
waiting for news about the return of his ships from the east
Barabas finds out that, under the threat of invasion, the Maltese government must pay
tribute to the Turks
The end of Act I anticipates the subsequent emergence of a love triangle
two young Christian gentlemen are in love with Abigail, Don Mathias and Lodowick, and
the latter happens to be the governors son.
Act II. Abigail manages to find her fathers treasure
While viewing the slaves, Barabas meets Fernezes son, Lodowick, who seems to take
great interest in Abigail
Barabas is pleased to find out that his slave Ithamore hates Christians
Though aware of his daughters affection for Mathias, Barabas carries on with his
Machiavellian machinations
Act III. Having spied on Barabas and discovered that he has still got gold, the courtesan
Bellamira and her pimp Pilia-Borza plan to use Ithamore
Act IV, while Barabas and Ithamore delight in the nuns deaths, Jacomo and Barnardine
approach them with the intention of confronting Barabas