William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon in England and he died in 1616. His life coincided with the long reign of the last of the Tudor line on the English throne, Elizabeth I, and that of the first Stuart, James I (James VI of Scotland). The first part of this presentation includes a description of political, economic and social reality of the Tudor age. Further on, different kinds of literature of the period are described, starting with poetry and prose and ending with the Elizabethan drama. Finally, Shakespeare’s life and work and the most representative plays are presented in detail
SHAKESPEARE’S TIME
Tudor government was one of strong central authority, in the person of earlier monarchs, especially Henry VIII, and Shakespeare’s contemporary Elizabeth I. Moreover, before Shakespeare was born, great changes had started taking place in England and continued to be relevant during his life. Humanism was present in the writings of Thomas More and the Reformation gradually left a new religious and political system with Elizabeth I becoming the champion of the Protestant cause in Britain. What unified England more than anything else was the papal bull of 1570, excommunicating Elizabeth and relieving her subjects of their loyalty to her. Contrary to the Pope’s intentions, Englishmen rallied to their queen and she became a symbol of Englishness and nationalism. The most famous military achievement of the time was the defeat of the great Spanish Armada in 1588. Elizabeth also successfully overcame the threats to her position from the Stuart dynasty in the person of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots. Mary Stuart represented the interests of Catholics who might wish to recover influence in Britain but was also the mother of James, who was chosen to inherit Elizabeth’s throne. Elizabeth had Mary imprisoned and executed.
Significant changes in economy and society included the beginning of consolidation of land under the ownership of one man in each district, called enclosure. England was manufacturing and exporting huge amounts of cloth and the feudal order began to decline, as knights became obsolete. The standards of living were improving for those who could afford to buy bigger houses with more furniture.
Literature, for the first time since Chaucer, saw a new productive phase start with poets and playwrights like Edmund Spencer with The Faerie Queen, Christopher Marlow with his Dr. Faustus and William Shakespeare. The Elizabethan period represented the height of the English Renaissance and the humanist principles which underlie this historical period are reflected in literature through a great revival of interest in Classical literature and the presence of anthropocentric themes.
The older genres coincided in Shakespeare’s time with the traditional medieval works. The most significant example of medieval drama is known as the morality play. Moralities apparently evolved side by side with the mysteries and in England were, like them, acted by trade guilds, though they were composed individually and not in cycles. They too have a primarily religious purpose, though their method of attaining it is different.
Significant changes in economy and society included the beginning of consolidation of land under the ownership of one man in each district, called enclosure. England was manufacturing and exporting huge amounts of cloth and the feudal order began to decline, as knights became obsolete. The standards of living were improving for those who could afford to buy bigger houses with more furniture.
Literature, for the first time since Chaucer, saw a new productive phase start with poets and playwrights like Edmund Spencer with The Faerie Queen, Christopher Marlow with his Dr. Faustus and William Shakespeare. The Elizabethan period represented the height of the English Renaissance and the humanist principles which underlie this historical period are reflected in literature through a great revival of interest in Classical literature and the presence of anthropocentric themes.
The older genres coincided in Shakespeare’s time with the traditional medieval works. The most significant example of medieval drama is known as the morality play. Moralities apparently evolved side by side with the mysteries and in England were, like them, acted by trade guilds, though they were composed individually and not in cycles. They too have a primarily religious purpose, though their method of attaining it is different.
The mysteries endeavoured to make the Christian religion more real to the unlearned by dramatizing significant events in Biblical history and by showing what these events meant in terms of human experience.
The moralities, on the other hand, employed allegory to dramatize the moral struggle that Christianity envisions as present in every man: the actors are “every man” and the qualities within him, good or bad, and the plot consists of his various reactions to these qualities as they push and pull him one way or another, that is, in Christian terms, toward heaven or hell. The purpose of the morality is more overtly didactic than the mystery, but most of the moralities share with the mysteries a good deal of rough humour.
The development of the drama into a sophisticated art form required another influence: the classics. In the middle of the century we find a schoolmaster, Nicholas Udall, writing a classical comedy in English, based upon the Latin comedies his students had been reading. He called it Ralph Roister Doister. About the same time another comedy, classical in form but English in content, was amusing the students at Cambridge. It was called Grammar Gurton’s Needle. Lively, vivid, native English material put into the regular form of the Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence: this is the fortunate combination that anticipated the comedies of Shakespeare. Ralph Roister Doister contains a classical “miles gloriosus” (cowardly braggart soldier) who is the remote ancestor of Shakespeare’s Sir John Falstaff in Henry IV.
The Latin tragedies of Seneca had a similar influence. They were constructed in five acts and had violent and bloody plots, resounding rhetorical speeches, and ghosts among the cast of characters. Moreover Seneca is full of references to Fortune, a Roman goddess who turned her wheel and brought those who had reached the top down to the bottom.
Poets of the period tried to adopt classical forms to the English language, the sonnet being the most notable example. On the other hand, as the century developed, writing was becoming increasingly secular. It was the last century when mystery plays and morality plays were still popular.
Increased public interest in theatrical performances created a need for a special place to watch them. In 1576 James Burbage, one of the Earl of Leicester’s players, built a structure to house their performances and called it The Theatre. Among the most famous theatres in London are The Curtain (1588), The Rose (1594) and The Globe (1598), which saw many of Shakespeare’s premieres, and is a typical example of an Elizabethan playhouse. It was round or hexagonal and had such main parts like the stage, a gallery, a pit and a roof. The stage was a platform with a movable curtain and two doors. The gallery included the seats for the aristocracy and the rich. The pit was located just in front of the stage and was used by the lower classes. Only the gallery was covered by the roof. Rich costumes and tapestries and curtains contrasted with simple stage props. Machines were used for descends (ghost appearances, for instance) and traps for the exit of actors. Women were not allowed to act and young males in disguise would usually take their parts. Playhouses were run by entrepreneurs and their activity had to bring profits. This created a special relationship between them and the playwrights (well exemplified in the Oscar-winning film “Shakespeare in love”.
SHAKESPEARE’S LIFE AND WORKS
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon but s a young man left for London, where he became an actor and a professional playwright. He mainly worked for the Globe and the Blackfriars playhouses. He was notable among other things for his use of language, which appealed to all kinds of audiences and which adapted itself to the necessities of such varied plays as the poetic Romeo and Juliet or the linguistically abrupt King Lear. Many of the phrases from his plays became commonly known and used, for example, “To be or not to be”, from Hamlet.
Shakespeare’s work includes a sonnet sequence of 154 poems. The sequence can be divided in two parts: one concerned mainly with a young man and the other dealing with the so-called “dark lady”. The main theme is love, both homosexual and heterosexual, although such topic as war and death are also present. The imagery comes form a wide variety of sources: gardening, navigation, law, and farming.
The phrase “Shakespeare’s language” has come to mean both the state of English around 1600 and Shakespeare’s use of it. The original editions of Shakespeare’s works look very different from present-day orthography. Early editions of Shakespeare spelled the vowel in “band” and “bond” indifferently, and made no distinction between the consonants in words like “Murders” and “Murthers”. Presumably, the spellings represented indistinguishable pronunciations.
The structure of Shakespeare’s Early Modern English is unlike present-day English. Its older features are:
- word order
- the polarity of adjectives and verbs
- transitivity
- Subject-verb concord
- negation and the use of do
- relative pronouns and conjunctions
- verb inflection
- personal pronouns
- strong and weak verbs
Finally, Shakespeare’s vocabulary is sometimes estimated at c. 20,000 words. For it, he drew on Renaissance:
- technical terms,
- derivations,
- compounds,
- archaisms,
- polysemy,
- etymological meanings and
- idioms
Shakespeare is famous for his plays, which he wrote at different periods in his life and which can be classified as belonging to different, chronologically ordered phases (each about five years in duration):
Shakespeare’s work includes a sonnet sequence of 154 poems. The sequence can be divided in two parts: one concerned mainly with a young man and the other dealing with the so-called “dark lady”. The main theme is love, both homosexual and heterosexual, although such topic as war and death are also present. The imagery comes form a wide variety of sources: gardening, navigation, law, and farming.
The phrase “Shakespeare’s language” has come to mean both the state of English around 1600 and Shakespeare’s use of it. The original editions of Shakespeare’s works look very different from present-day orthography. Early editions of Shakespeare spelled the vowel in “band” and “bond” indifferently, and made no distinction between the consonants in words like “Murders” and “Murthers”. Presumably, the spellings represented indistinguishable pronunciations.
The structure of Shakespeare’s Early Modern English is unlike present-day English. Its older features are:
- word order
- the polarity of adjectives and verbs
- transitivity
- Subject-verb concord
- negation and the use of do
- relative pronouns and conjunctions
- verb inflection
- personal pronouns
- strong and weak verbs
Finally, Shakespeare’s vocabulary is sometimes estimated at c. 20,000 words. For it, he drew on Renaissance:
- technical terms,
- derivations,
- compounds,
- archaisms,
- polysemy,
- etymological meanings and
- idioms
Shakespeare is famous for his plays, which he wrote at different periods in his life and which can be classified as belonging to different, chronologically ordered phases (each about five years in duration):
Phase 1 includes a variety of plays such as comedies, history plays and the famous tragedy: Romeo and Juliet. The plays of this period show:
- traditional rhymed lines,
- end stopped blank verse and
- their imagery is not very sophisticated
-
Phase 2 includes comedies; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night; and history plays which are characterised by:
- more flexible syntax and rhythm
- more concentrated imagery
- more forceful characterisation
Phase 3 includes the so-called “problem plays” so called because of the difficulty of interpretation. They include Hamlet and Measure for Measure.
Phase 4 is the period of the great tragedies like Othello, Macbeth and King Lear.
Phase 5 includes reconciliation plays, so named because of the pattern of reconciliation of the opposing elements.
Another possible classification of Shakespeare’s plays is into comedies, tragedies and history plays. In the following paragraphs, representative plays of each of these types are discussed in more detail.
Phase 5 includes reconciliation plays, so named because of the pattern of reconciliation of the opposing elements.
Another possible classification of Shakespeare’s plays is into comedies, tragedies and history plays. In the following paragraphs, representative plays of each of these types are discussed in more detail.
SHAKESPEARE’S REPRESENTATIVE WORKS
Midsummer Night’s Dream – A comedy
This comedy is based on medieval tales (e.g. Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale”). Set in a wood near Athens, the play tells three love stories, transformed in a magical way by means of enchantments. Apart from the lovers, other characters include the artisans and the fairies. The principal theme is love and marriage, and more specifically, the three phases of love:
- renewal after a breach – Oberon and Titania
- an adult love – Theseus and Hippolita
- youthful love – quartet of lovers
Foes and obstacles of love give the play a romantic atmosphere and contribute to the comic aspect, too. The lyrical aspect of the play is attained by means of poetry and music. Different verse is used to define the characters of different groups and the changes of verse within a group have a dramatic effect (e.g. lovers using prose instead of verse).
Hamlet – A tragedy
It is based on an earlier play, written probably by Thomas Kyd. The play tells the tale of the Danish Royal family, marked by the murder of Hamlet’s father by his own brother, who then marries Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet feigns madness to avenge his father’s death. Despite the foreign setting, the play has predominantly English features: Elizabethan language, clothes, and Ophelia’s description of Hamlet as a courtier, scholar, and soldier as well as English songs of the period.
The central theme of the play is revenge in general. There is Hamlet’s revenge and Laertes’ determination to avenge his father’s death at Hamlet’s hands. The minor themes are the disastrous effect of regicide upon the State, corruption (e.g. Claudius’ murder or his brother, Queen’s remarriage and the incestuous quality of the relationship) and death.
As far as the form of the play is concerned, there is a parallelism of opposite concepts through the play, expressed by means of contrasts: action alternates with scenes of inactivity, while Hamlet’s reflective revenge contrasts with Laertes’ spontaneous behaviour.
Henry IV – A history play
This history play consists of two parts which are quite distinct and normally performed separately. It is based on an old chronicle play which Shakespeare converted into a masterpiece of social history. The plot covers the historical facts relating to the life and death of the English king Henry IV, including battles against invading Scots, uprisings of local usurpers and the King’s troubles with his son, Prince Hal. Prince Hal dominates the stage as one of the main themes is education of the prince. Falstaff, a comic character, acts as a second father of the murdered king.
This comedy is based on medieval tales (e.g. Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale”). Set in a wood near Athens, the play tells three love stories, transformed in a magical way by means of enchantments. Apart from the lovers, other characters include the artisans and the fairies. The principal theme is love and marriage, and more specifically, the three phases of love:
- renewal after a breach – Oberon and Titania
- an adult love – Theseus and Hippolita
- youthful love – quartet of lovers
Foes and obstacles of love give the play a romantic atmosphere and contribute to the comic aspect, too. The lyrical aspect of the play is attained by means of poetry and music. Different verse is used to define the characters of different groups and the changes of verse within a group have a dramatic effect (e.g. lovers using prose instead of verse).
Hamlet – A tragedy
It is based on an earlier play, written probably by Thomas Kyd. The play tells the tale of the Danish Royal family, marked by the murder of Hamlet’s father by his own brother, who then marries Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet feigns madness to avenge his father’s death. Despite the foreign setting, the play has predominantly English features: Elizabethan language, clothes, and Ophelia’s description of Hamlet as a courtier, scholar, and soldier as well as English songs of the period.
The central theme of the play is revenge in general. There is Hamlet’s revenge and Laertes’ determination to avenge his father’s death at Hamlet’s hands. The minor themes are the disastrous effect of regicide upon the State, corruption (e.g. Claudius’ murder or his brother, Queen’s remarriage and the incestuous quality of the relationship) and death.
As far as the form of the play is concerned, there is a parallelism of opposite concepts through the play, expressed by means of contrasts: action alternates with scenes of inactivity, while Hamlet’s reflective revenge contrasts with Laertes’ spontaneous behaviour.
Henry IV – A history play
This history play consists of two parts which are quite distinct and normally performed separately. It is based on an old chronicle play which Shakespeare converted into a masterpiece of social history. The plot covers the historical facts relating to the life and death of the English king Henry IV, including battles against invading Scots, uprisings of local usurpers and the King’s troubles with his son, Prince Hal. Prince Hal dominates the stage as one of the main themes is education of the prince. Falstaff, a comic character, acts as a second father of the murdered king.
As far as the form is concerned there are three levels of action: high, political and immoral (demonstrated by the rebel Hotspur). Each level has its appropriate language. Additionally, juxtaposition of different moral and social level in both parts gives the play its rich and brilliant character.
CONCLUSION
Shakespeare lived in a period, which was full of conflicts and violent events. People’s lives started showing improvement but were by no means devoid of extreme harshness and difficulties. The dominant figure of the monarch in the person of Elizabeth I influenced not only courtly affairs but the life of the common man too. Shakespeare was able to unify the atmosphere of this period with more transcendental themes and moods. Additionally, he presented it in the form which was attractive for all kinds of his contemporaries, from the lowest to the most distinguished ones and which still earns him the title of the greatest playwright in history.
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