Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama The Elizabethan Era Queen
Shakespeare and Elizabethan Drama
The Elizabethan Era • Queen Elizabeth I reigned in England from 1558 to 1603 • Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn • Reign followed that of Catholic Mary I “Bloody Mary” • Last monarch of the Tudor dynasty • Height of the English Renaissance (also called the “Early Modern” period) • Period of internal stability in England, particularly due to the temporary resolution of religious conflict with the Elizabethan Settlement, which largely succeeded in accommodating both Catholic and Protestant interests within the Anglican church
Performances, Playhouses, Players • The first permanent public playhouse, the Theatre, opened in London in 1576, following the failure of the 1567 Red Lion • Globe Theater built in 1599, held about 3000 people • Women did not act on English stage until after the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 • Women usually played by boys; this could also limit the number of women a playwright would want to include in a play • The law required that groups of players be sponsored by aristocratic patrons • In 1598, the Privy Council (the queen’s executive committee) established the Lord Admiral’s Men and the Lord Chamberlain’s men as the only two adult companies licensed to play in London • If a monarch wanted to see a play, it would be performed at court; Shakespeare’s plays were often performed at court by the Lord Chamberlain’s men
The Nature of the Stage • New plays in constant demand • Elizabethan stage practices were learned from Medieval dramas, which were usually religiouslythemed. • Groundlings: for a penny, ordinary people could stand in the “pit” at the Globe to watch the performance • Bear baiting, cock fights and tournaments were being held in the same space that the original theatre was performed • Theatres in London were not on the “better” side of the River Thames • Surrounded by brothels, pubs and gaming houses
Who was Shakespeare? • Surprising scarcity of details regarding facts of Shakespeare’s life, leading to arguments that “Shakespeare” was not the actual author of the plays (although this is almost certainly false) • Probably born on or near April 23 rd, 1564; died on April 23 rd, 1616 • Writing in late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries • Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, likely educated at the King’s New School in Stratford • Married Anne Hathaway at age 18 in 1582 • A professional dramatist writing for the public theater • Probably began his career as an actor before becoming a playwright
More about Shakespeare • His patron, Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, may have been the “fair youth” addressed in Shakespeare’s sonnets (but no real proof) • His plays were acted by various companies until 1594, when he joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men • Construction of the Globe Theater began in late 1597, theater typically associated with Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men
Shakespeare’s Plays • The Shakespeare canon as generally recognized has 37 plays and a number of poems, most notably the sonnets • Comedies: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, etc. • Tragedies: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, etc. • History Plays: The Henrys, The Richards (e. g. Henry V, Richard II, etc. ) • Romance: The Winter’s Tale, The Tempest, Cymbeline • Mixed Modes: Twelfth Night? Shakespeare often deviated from classical conventions
Folio? Quarto? WTF? The Physical Texts, Textual Instability • A quarto is a book made from printer’s sheets folded twice to form four leaves or eight pages • Shakespeare’s plays were published in quartos during his own time, and are often highly inaccurate (may have been created by actors’ recollection of their lines) • A folio is a book made by folding a printer’s sheet once only, to form two folios or four pages (would have been more expensive) • Folios are editions of Shakespeare’s plays published after his death • The First Folio appeared in 1623; there were three others in 1632, 1663, and 1685
Wherefore art thou? Navigating Shakespeare’s Language • Early Modern English (not “old English”) • English language in transition from older, medieval forms to patterns and diction more like the ones we use • Writing before regularized spelling: Shackspere, Shaxper, Shagspere, Shaxberd • “The Bard”: known for the poetic nature of his writing • Rhyme: Use of rhyme for certain effects, such as heightening emotional effect, poking fun at speaker, often to close off a scene or episode with a rhymed couplet • Rhythm: Often wrote in blank verse, meaning iambic pentameter (an iamb is a unit of sound with two beats, the first unstressed, the second stressed, e. g. , da-DA) (pentameter means the line consists of five of these units)
More on Shakespeare’s Language • Prose: Spoken by Lower classes, comic relief, aristocrats speaking informally • Blank verse: Spoken by more serious or elevated characters • Puns and Wordplay: Shakespeare often uses words or phrases with double meanings that may or may not be familiar to us now (read your footnotes!). For example, homophones and homonyms: when a single sound calls more than one meaning to mind (son/sun) • Manipulations of syntax: for example, direct objects may open a sentence when we would normally expect a subject: “Sense sure you have, / Else could you not have motion” (Hamlet to his mother). • “You” and “thou”: you is plural or formal; “thou” is informal, familiar
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