Transcript ELIZABETHAN THEATRE

ELIZABETHAN
THEATRE
Development of the
Elizabethan Theatre
Medieval Stagecraft
Protestant Reformation
Tudor Pageantry
Renaissance Learning and Ideas
Influence of Medieval Theatre
 Eager audience
 Established tradition of theatre and
actors
 MYSTERY AND MORALITY
PLAYS:
 Mixing of high seriousness and
low comedy
 FOLK PLAYS:
 Pagan remnants: fairies and
sprites
 Feast of Fools
 INTERLUDES:
 Humanistic debates
The Tudors
Victorious in the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor defeated
Richard III, married Anne of York, and became Henry VII
HENRY VII ---- Anne of York
Arthur -- Catherine -- HENRY VIII Margaret -- James IV Mary-of Aragon
of Scotland
Louis XII
of France
Henry VII
1485-1509
Henry VIII
1509-1547
Edward VI
1547-1553
Lady Jane Grey
1553-1553
Mary I
1553-1558
Elizabeth I
1558-1603
The Protestant
Reformation
 Henry VIII wanted a male heir.
In order to marry Anne Boleyn,
Henry requested an annulment
of his marriage to Catherine of
Aragon from the Pope – he was
refused.
1531 Parliament recognized
Henry VIII as head of the
English Church.
The Catholic Restoration
 Queen Mary (ruled
1553-58) reimposed
Catholicism on the
English Church
 Protestant persecution
Bloody Mary
The Protestant Reformation
Elizabeth (ruled 15581603) worked out a
compromise church that
retained as much as
possible from the Catholic
church while putting into
place most of the
foundational ideas of
Protestantism.
Mystery and Morality
plays were outlawed as
they taught Roman
Catholic doctrine
1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada
 The disgrace to Spain greatly damaged its prestige
 England's star was on the rise.
 Elizabeth took the defeat of the Armada as a sign of divine
blessing
 English patriotism and devotion to the Queen soared to its
greatest heights, shown in part by a profusion of literature
that included Shakespeare's first plays--patriotic histories of
the English monarchy.
Tudor Pageantry
A hybrid dramatic form of
literature, ritual, and politics,
Royal entries and aristocratic
entertainments -- fashionable
literary forms were turned to the
service of national propaganda
Pageants
Full of spectacle:
 Parades music, dance, elaborate
 Masques staging, fireworks
Composed by the bright young men
who haunted the court in hopes of
securing political office.
Renaissance
 Rebirth of Classical knowledge and ideals
 Roman theatre as model
 Humanistic Ideas
 Universities
 Oxford
 Cambridge
 Inns of Court
Influence of Roman Theatre
 5 act structure
 Comedy: Plautus and
Terence
 Plots
 Stock characters
Tragedy: Seneca
 Revenge motif
 Irony
 Use of ghosts
 Violent spectacle
Humanism:
from Morality to Chronicle
It was the aim of the humanists to educate those
who ruled in wise and virtuous government.
How do you teach a king? Very tactfully . . .
The effectiveness of the morality play was attractive
to humanists, who changed the nature of the moral
from religion to political virtue without changing
the techniques of the drama.
 Theatre was a natural medium for the humanists to
use in educating the king, for plays were frequently
performed at Court.
Chronicle or History Plays
Explore the workings and legitimacy of kingship
What is a good King?
Historical exemplars (Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar)
Often turn into tragedies
University Wits
University-educated playwrights, noted for their
learning and clever language
George Peele (1556-96)
Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)
Thomas Nashe ( 1567-1601)
Robert Greene (1560-92): best known
as first Shakespearian critic
 John Lyly (1554-1606)
MA from Cambridge
Established blank
verse as dramatic
medium: “Marlowe’s
mighty line”
Overreacher
Tragedies:
 Tamburlaine
 Dido Queen of
Carthage
 Dr. Faustus
 Edward II
 Massacre at Paris
 Jew of Malta
 Killed in a brawl
Christopher
Marlowe
1564-93
Ben Jonson
1572-1637
Educated at
Westminster School -no university but the
most learned of
playwrights
Important comedies of
humor include: Every
Man in His Humor,
Volpone, The Alchemist,
Bartholomew Fair
 Wrote and staged court
masques with Inigo
Jones
 Celebrated poet and
conversationalist:
“Sons of Ben”
Acting Companies
1590 -- 1642: approximately 20 companies of actors in
London (although only 4 or 5 played in town at one
time)
More than a hundred provincial troupes.
Companies usually played in London in the winter
and spring and to travel in the summer when
plague ravaged the city
Members:
Shareholders
Apprentices
Hired men
Censorship
 Largely Puritan leaders
of the City of London
disapproved of the
theatres.
 The Privy Council was
wary of the political
comment often present
in topical plays.
 Censorship under the
direction of the Master
of Revels was strict.
 In 1596 the City
Corporation ordered
the expulsion of players
from London and the
closing of the inntheatres.
 Theatres moved across
the River
Types of Plays
Chronicle or History
Plays
Comedies
 Romantic
 Pastoral
 Feast of Fools
 Social
 Humors
Tragedies
 Senecan Revenge
 De casibus -- turn of
Fortune
 Fatal flaw
Romances
 far-away adventures
Any combination of the
above
“The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history,
pastoral,pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical historical,
scene individable or poem unlimited.” -- Hamlet
Elizabethan Stock Characters
 Senex: old man in authority
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Miles gloriosus: braggart soldier
Shrew: sharp-tongued woman
Clever servant
Machiavel: political schemer
“Calumniator believed” : a liar who is believed
Idiotes: a malcontent
Parasite: a “moocher”
Pedant: in love with the sound of his
own didactic voice
 Young Lovers
 Fools and clowns
William Shakespeare
April 23, 1564-April 23, 1616
 Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
 Married Anne Hathaway in 1582
at age of 18
 3 children: Susanna (1583) and
Hamnet and Judith (1585)
 1585-92: “the lost years”
 1595 record of membership in
Lord Chamberlain’s Men
Early Works: prior to 1594
 History Plays:
Henry VI: 1,2,and 3
Richard III
 Poetry: Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, sonnets
 Plautine Comedy:
A Comedy of Errors
 Courtly Comedy:
Two Gentlemen of Verona
 Farcical/problem Comedy:
The Taming of the Shrew
 Senecan Revenge Tragedy:
Titus Andronicus
 Romantic Tragedy:
Romeo and Juliet
Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
Originally formed under the patronage of Lord Strange,
but when he died in 1594, the players found a patron in
Henry Carey, the Lord Chamberlain.
Performed at the Theatre and the Curtain
1599 moved to the newly built Globe. By 1600 they had
emerged as the leading theatrical company in London
1603 became the King's Men under a royal patent from
James I. The company continued successfully until the
Puritans closed the theatres in 1642.
The Globe
 Built by the Burbages in 1598
for the Lord Chamberlain’s
Men
 Burned down in 1613 during
production of Henry VIII
 Rebuilt 1614
The New Globe: opened 1997
Popular Success: 1595-1600
 Comedies:
Love’s Labour’s Lost
 A Midsummer’s
Night’s Dream
 Much Ado About
Nothing
 As You Like It
 Twelfth Night
 The Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Histories:
King John
Richard II
Henry IV:
1,2
Henry V
Tragedies:
Julius
Caesar
Hamlet
A Darker Vision: 1601-1607
 Problem Plays:
All’s Well That Ends Well
 Measure for Measure
 Troilus and Cressida
 Tragedies:
 Othello
 King Lear
 Macbeth
 Antony and Cleopatra
 Coriolanus
Final Works: 1608-1612
 Tragedy: Timon of Athens
 Romances:
Cymbeline
 Pericles
 The Winter’s Tale
 The Tempest
 Collaborations with John Fletcher:
 Henry VIII
 Two Noble Kinsmen
Shakespeare was buried on April 25, 1616 in Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford, where he had been baptised just over 52 years earlier
Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones
First Folio: 1623
The first collected edition of
Shakespeare's plays.
Included thirty-six plays,
eighteen of which had never
been published before
The editors of the volume,
Shakespeare's fellow actors
John Heminge and Henry
Condell, arranged the plays in
three genres: Comedies,
Histories, and Tragedies.