Survey of English Literature: Renaissance to Restoration
Survey of English Literature: Renaissance to Restoration - Written Exam
Survey of English Literature: Renaissance to Restoration - Written Exam
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Flashcards
Session 3: Theatre and Drama
Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (c. 1588)
- Supernatural activity
- Has done everything, achieved all knowledge a man can receive, realizes limits of man, wants to overcome death, mortality
- Sells soul to devil to become magician, godly nature
- Wants to see Helena (like Göthe’s Faust)
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of illium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss (Doctor Faustus)
--> irregularity of the meter to emphasize, something new, play with meter, Marlowe admired & followed for this,
Shakespear for example.
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Ben Jonson – “To the Memory of my Beloved Master William Shakespeare, and What he Hath left Us” (1623)
- “Thou art a monument without a toumb” means that because of your art you’ll rise up highly
- Jonson’s opinion: Shakespeare you outshine them all, you are for all time. He mentions artists, who Shakespeare outshines.
- Lyly
- Kyd: Author of Spanish tragedy in the 16th century
- Marlowe: with the invention of the blank verse
- Sweet swan –> part of British culture. Jonson relates to the queen
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
- Beginning of Theatre in the Tudor age
- 1585 – 1592 ‘lost years’: Nobody quite knows where he was at that time
- Joins The Lord Chamberlain’s Men
- He was a businessman, an entrepreneur, an actor, theatre shareholder
- The romanticists had a “problem” with that, because he didn’t stay at home and wrote…
- Theatre was quite ambiguous –> the status of actors and their company is ambivalent and rising. They became more and more accepted. They needed a nobleman, who would protect the theatre –> King James himself (best man possible)
- 1616: Shakespeare dies of a fever in April 23th –> 2016 Shakespeare’s memorandum
- The first author, who published their work was Ben Jonson the first. They wanted to share their work.
- Shakespeare had a first volume –> he printed 1200 for 1£ and it shows that he was quite respected during his time too. He dedicated his work to the noblemen which means that he had great respect for them.
- The Status of actors and writers was ambivalent, but becomes better during Shakespeare’s time
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Subgenres: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
Histories: today
- Shakespeare helped to develop the subgenre History play
- Plays, which staged only English history
- The Life and Death of King John (c. 1594 – 6)
- Lancaster-Tetralogy (2nd Tetralogy) –> feels more modern, because Shakespeare wrote it later, but in the timetable happened before.
- York-Tetralogy (1st Tetralogy) with the War of Roses, York vs. Lancaster, Tudors. –> feels less modern because Shakespeare wrote them earlier
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Subgenres: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
Comedies: today
Social order is threatened and has to be restored. Ends often in marriage.
Crossdressing, double identity, mistaken identity as elements of comedy are used to
destroy the social order, express how it’s dealt with and later on the resolution of the chaos
- comedies
- The Comedy of Errors (c. 1594)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595)
- “Problem Plays”
Shakespeare often creates dramatic comedies, and dark moments
- Troilus and Cressida (c. 1602)
- Romances
- The Winter’s Tale (c. 1609)
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Subgenres: Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies
Tragedies
- Early Tragedies
- Titus Andronicus (c. 1592)
- Romeo and Juliet (c. 1595)
- Roman plays
- Julius Caesar (c. 1599)
- Antony and Cleopatra (c. 1606)
- Coriolanus (c. 1608)
- Late Tragedies
- written after 16th century
- Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (c. 1600 / 01)
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Histories
- War of roses (house of Lancaster (white rose I believe) vs. House of York (red rose)
- A sinful action finding its resolution in 185…
- Shakespeare supports the Tudor-state
- An epic action has to be transferred into a dramatic action
- Sound is very important at the time, you go to hear a play, less then see a play
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Prologue of King Harry the V
- Chorus leads the audience in the absence of an elaborate stage set
- Metaphor: if you have a large number of zeros you have nothing, but if you put a 1 in front of the zeros you have a million. And we are the 1 -> audience takes an active part in this. You have to help us too with your imagination. If you use your imagination you inflate the play
- He addresses the problem that there will be various places showed. They have to suppress everything in one hour and “jump” in
- Gently to hear: something in the Early Modern Period. The sound of the play is really important and the voices of the actors too in order to make the play an unforgettable event.
- Henry V was filmed in UK 1989. So there was still an interest in the history in more modern times. Also the series The Tudors represents this assumption.
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
How to turn it into a tragedy
- Henry the V is really a successful king and it’s hard for
- 1415 war in France
- They won because they’re having better weapon than the France people
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Henry V – Movie (UK 1989)
- At the end he dictates his demands on the French King. He also wants to have the French king’s daughter.
Session 4 – Shakespeare I
Comedies
- Stage and dramatize threats to social order, how they are handled, and how the social order is recreated/restored (happens often through marriage, dances)
Example for comedy
William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, or What You Will
- Here’s a crossdressing plot
- Duke loves Olivia, she is not interested.mistaken identity as comedy. Confusion as Viola dressed as man, Olivia falls in love, Viola has a twin brother, Viola falls in love with duke, duke likes boy (Viola) as well.Taken to the point of disaster, everybody wants Viola. In the end solution with Sebastian (twin brother), pops up, social order restored
- Everyone can have his desire after all, artificial and overexaggerated though, comedy
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Writer:
Isabella Whitney fl. 1566 – 1573
Anne Clifford 1590 – 1676
Margaret Cavendish 1623? – 1673
Mary Rowlandson 1637 - 1711
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Critical Foundation
By Virginia Woolf – “A room of One’s own”
In the age of Shakespeare it would have been impossible for a woman to write any plays. But what if Shakespeare had a sister? Which is talented and gifted in writing plays? What if she committed suicide one day because she was not able to express her nature her true being as a poet, because of the fact that she is trapped in a woman’s body?
- Wolf was the first woman to ask, whether there were woman in literature.
- didn’t find any –> they haven’t been edited at the time
- people later just assumed that there were no women in renaissance literature (not true, just gotta look for it!)
- innovations: start looking for woman, new method to address literature
- Example Margaret By’s inscription in Shakespeare First Folio (1923): “margit by is my name and
With my peen I wright this same
And if my peen had been better
I sholld”
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Women Writing 1550 – 1700
Isabella Whitney
- first book survived in just only one copy, what does that say?
- 4 poems, 2 authors, 2 of Whitney
- She engaged with a vernacular genre
- Her 2 poems are about Courtly Love
- To her inconstant Louer
- she uses resource to take position to put in a letter to her inconstant Louer. Taken story of an abandoned woman, relocates it in new culture.
- There’s a link she sets up as an abandoned woman. She takes the feeling of being dumped and puts it in the Bourgeoise middling culture
- Last will and testament
- Not complicated
- She applies to Ovid. She works with Ovid
- To her inconstant Louer
- Isabella wrote her last will and testament
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Lady Anne Clifford
- Inheritance, memory, and monument
- She wrote diaries about her life.
- Several works about her: “Anne Clifford as Writer and Patron of the Arts”, The Diary of Lady Anne Clifford 1616 – 1619
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
How do we investigate women’s participation in literature culture in 16th & 17th Century?
- If you press on something small, it kind of gets bigger and changes the perspective on the whole bigger world.
- Petrarch has been translated to vernacular writing is very important.
- Courtly love: there’s a presentation of power –>
- Vernacularizing
- On the one hand people began to look for women on the other hand people began to interact with them
- Critic went on to rationalize what the women do. They were using this culture and worked within it. They didn’t necessarily identify with the mistress that was been
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Virginia Woolf
- Went to look for women in the 16th and 17th . Because they hadn’t been edited in her period
Guest Lecture – Women Writing 1500 – 1700
Ovid Meroider
- He was the doggy end of the renaissance
- He wrote this thing the heroines. It’s about a bunch of moaning women…
- They’re based on legal rhetoric.
Guest Lecture – Made in Birmingham: Shakespeare …
George Dowson
- George Dowson
- Replacement statue, that was more accepted by the people. This is in the central city square.
- Particular progressive vision of culture
- It’s explicitly inspired by Shakespeare.
- Towards other three sources of life. Dowson’s political activity.
Dowson Shakespearean
- Unity of culture and life. It should be a manifestation of the life.
- Religion politics
- Everything connects in life.
- In Shakespeare is so much life, that’s why it became for Birmingham so important. Dowson did teach but only at the Birmingham institute.
- Creative elaborative creation of culture. There is no wealth but life (john raskin)
- Dowson did all in his power to bring that industrial modern life to Birmingham.
- Dowson wanted a beauty society for Birmingham. He said that the building is essential for the well-being of the people who lived in it.
- The memorial library has a collection that extenses 19th century. It is accessible for everyone who is a Birmingham-citizen
- Shakespeare idea
- Give me life! Give everybody life.
- Every man and woman should be able oto
- Civic gospel
- Shakespeare wrote the modern life
- There’s a higher toleration which takes to a higher position (dawson)
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Ben Jonson, “To Penshurst”
It’s an argument: it is not as grand as other houses, but house of great culture, food, everything that everybody needs. It has wonderful qualities, surrounding landscape as well. Even the fish would love to be eaten.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Ben Jonson (1572 – 1637)
- Son of a bricklayer, degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. Court poet with royal pension, problematic figure as satirist and Catholic, passionate nature, classical learning
- Court masques, in collaboration with scene designer Inigo Jones
- Comedies
Every Man in His Humour (1598)
Volpone (1606)
Epicene (1609)
The Alchemist (1610)
Bartholomew Fair (1614)
Works (published in 1616)
Country House poem “To Penshurst” –> Poet praises one of these big Houses
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Ben Jonson, Volpone, or The Fox (1606)
The Argument, an Acrostic poem
V olpone, childless, rich feigns sick, despairs
O ffers his state to hopes of several heirs,
L ies languishing; his parasite receives
P resents of all, assures, deludes, then weaves
O ther cross‐plots, which ope themselves, are told.
N ew tricks for safety are sought; they thrive ‐ when, bold,
E ach tempts th’other again, and all are sold.
- Volpone someone who is in love with his money
- Johnson: here starises London and its society, which everybody has to fight. Trust no one, compared to “To Penshurst” very different.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Barroque set design
Set design by Inigo Jones for Flormène, 1635
Illusionist stage 3D, a lot of things on stage, while Elizabethan stages would be quite rare. Lavish displays in front of spectator’s eyes.
- a lot of money spent on dresses and masques
- Shakespeare for his first half of his works was also part of this more Baroque style, with his tragedies etc.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Early Stuarts
The Stuarts liked theatre and plays therefore the actors and writers had gained a higher rank in society. Theatre in general raises and develops. But this stopped, when the Puritans took over. They shut theatres down.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Early Stuarts
James (1566 – 1625)
- Was first King of Scotland in 1567 as James VI and then became 1603 King of England as James I.
- It was Elizabeth’s decision that he will take the throne but still it was a difficult transition
- 1611 he created the King James Bible. His religion was protestant
- 1612 Conflicts with judges and Parliament because of political absolutism
- Tensions were rising since 1603 because he spent a lot of money in comparison to Elizabeth.
- He thought that the king should have more power, more freedom – compared to the Tudors – that’s why he was in conflict with the judges of common law.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Early Stuarts
Charles (1600 – 1649)
- 1625 King of England as Charles I
- He had a Catholic marriage to Henrietta Maria of France –> caused more tension
- He also was in conflict with Parliament over divine right of Kings
- He was executed in 1649
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Early Stuarts
City comedy (1600)
- All around 1600 – 1620 , there’s a conflict between puritans & theatre people and Stuarts
- Satirical genre criticizing London citizens
- Background in earlier dramatic forms:
- Italian Commedia dell’arte
- One of the believes (through this city comedy) that the body expresses/represents the mind and the temper of the person
- Physical theatre: grotesque bodies, farting,
- Classical Latin comedy of Plautus and Terence
- Italian Commedia dell’arte
- It’s an improvised satire based on scenari and stock characters
- Scenari are plot elements
- such as several suitors wooing a lady or
- two young lover defying their elders
- stock characters are highly rememberable characters:
- Dottore Graziano (learned doctor)
- Pantalone (old grumpy citizen). Recognizable, figure of fun, used to criticize citizens
- Cabpitano (braggart) soldier figure, strutting around and bragging about his masculinity etc.
- Zanni (Arlecchino and Brighella or Pulcinella -> servants) stupid but can also be witty
- Columbina (young lady; with servant)
- Sometimes we recognize and find them in English comedy, Shakespeare (but he didn’t do much city comedy…)
- The city comedy is a good source, when you’re interested in London during that time. A background of Early Modern London should be available that’s why plays are a bit difficult to understand. That’s why it’s maybe less successful, because it deals with the problems of that time.
- Scenari are plot elements
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Roaring Girle or Moll Cut-Purse – Example of city comedy
- Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627), a son of builder, Londoner and successful dramatist
Thomas Dekker (1572 – 1632), Strongly protestant dramatist and author of prose pam-phlets
- The authors are both productive collaborators who also wrote civic pageants (entertainments on the streets) and who were involved with the lawyers of the Inns of Court.
- The specialty is that it’s about a woman (a crossdresser and criminal) that actually existed –> Mary Frith (1584 – 159*)
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
The Consistory of London Correction Book, January 27 1611
Mary was a petty criminal. She was appearing in man’s apparel and was also appearing on stage! She drank, cursed and wasn’t ashamed of dressing like a man.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Excerpt of the Roaring Girl
- It’s one example of city comedy
- Moll (Mary..) says: “How dare you try to seduce me? I will put up a fight.”
- Usually you have powerless women who fall for you and in the end their prospect for the future is no longer given… the helpless women are in an economically dependency?
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
To the comic play-readers, venery and laughter
Thomas Middleton gives us an idea of what we can expect in the plays.
- There used to be those bombastic plays, dresses etc. in the old days –> we are not doing that anymore
- Leaner, more modern plays, a bit of sex here, gotta look for it though (cross dressing), entertainment
- Dramatists more and more print out their work and others begin to respond to the works of others and it used to be those bombastic play but not anymore
- There was a popular controversy around women, who wrote, took part or produced writing.
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
Jacobean Tragedy
The Jacobean plays were grim satires of contemporary society and contained a great deal realism. Jacobean plays were particularly violent, cynical, pessimistic and frequently dealt with the theme of society's moral corruption.
- Examples
- The Changeling (1622) by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
- Middleton’s Changeling (UK 1998), Dir. Marcus Thompson
Session 5 – The Stuarts and Jacobean Drama
John Webster (c. 1578 – c. 1634)
- Best known writer of Jacobean Tragedy
- Son of wealthy coachmaker
- Merchant Taylors School
- Legal training at Middle Temple
- Dramatist and citizen
- Not related to court
- The White Devil (c. 1612), The Devil’s Law Case (1619)
- The Duchess of Malif (c. 1614)
- Italian setting again
- Striking special effects (typical for Jacobean tragedy)
- Bosola is the so-called “malcontent” always complaining. After betraying her, takes revenge at duchess
- Duchess falls in love with Antonio her steward(?) (who is catholic which has also a connotation to evil)
- Antonio is able to escape with one child, but the duchess and her two younger children are killed. In order to drive her out of her mind, her brother (Ferdinand) shows her wax figures of Antonio and her children.
- The center of the play is the duchess. She is a good character who has been killed, who didn't deserve to die and everyone around her is totally corrupt.
- The widows in London had somehow money, which was not very liked to be seen in the Londoner Society. The characters of widows is often seen as: dangerous, powerful, she already had sex –> not virgin anymore, and money
- Pageant Monuments of Honour (1624) and, with William Rowley, A Cure for a Cuckold (1624-5)
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Poem of the Day: Sir Philip Sidney, “Loving in Truth”
- Linked to the sonnet tradition
- Linked to the Tudors. Sidney looked back towards the Tudors
- Looking back at the Petrarchan tradition but change it in a way.
- It’s assumed that this sonnet is a statement of his love to Penelope (who he is not married to!)
- Part of his rhetoric is anti-rhetorical.
- Looking at other tradition’s invention as the child of nature, that they somehow escape him, when he reads old stuff
- Tradition was not going to give me what I need to
- Don’t look at Tradition but…
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 86)
- Courtier, soldier, poet
- Strongly and militantly protestant
- Travel on the continent, diplomatic missions; he was dismissed from court in 1580 because of intervention in Elizabeth I’s marriage negotiations
- His sister made a huge Sidney cult
- He was a companion to Prince Edward.
His parents
- Sir Henry Sidney
- Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney
The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney
- He was styled as a generous man, who even gave away his water battle to a foot soldier
- Believes: death is as important as life! His funeral was lavish and even bankrupt his family
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Five Parts of Ciceronian Rhetoric (Cicero 106 – 43 BC)
Rhetoric: the art of persuasion, is a way to convince people to do the right thing, important to Sidney
- Inventio: collection of arguments
- Dispositio: ordering of arguments
- Elocutio: putting the matter into words, including embellishments and rhetorical
- Memoria memorizing the speech
- Actio performance; delivering the speech
Speech – types
- Genus indiciale judicial speech
- Genus deliberativum political speech, counselling
- Genus demonstrativum speech of praise (laudatio, but also vituperation) lording or praising someone
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Sir Philip Sidney Astrophil and Stella (37)
- I am gonna give you a riddle here
- Wordplay with rich, turn a word around and use it in all possible ways. Sidney plays with the name of Penelope, who then was married to a guy called Rich
- It’s a variation of Petrarchan tradition
- Kalokagatia (gr. Kalos kai agatos) means beautiful and good
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Defense of Poesie (c. 1579)
- This defense shows how important he took rhetorical traditions
- Argument: because of the delight we can go to the goodness.
- That’s the task of the poet: to teach and to delight in order to lead to more goodness.
- Poet is seen as a moral compass (for the early modern period). Teaching moral virtue as one of the most important goals (goodness and moral of the mind teaching)
- Argues that poet is highest teacher, poetry as best and noblest form of teaching and guiding to virtue
- Ultimate goal is moral education and to make English a more sophisticated language (Italian already is that) –> thought of English being a bit “retarded”
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Epic romance
Debate: to what extend Mary Sidney Herbert had an influence on
Part of the monument of Sidney’s life and groth is …
Frame story
- King of Arcadia, who has withdrawn to the woods with his wife and family
- Prince falls in love with King’s daughter and therefore disguises himself as an Amazon to meet her.
- Both the king and his wife fall in love with Amazon
- Wilde animals can be read allegorically as the fierce desire of Zelmane (Amazone) and Philoclea for each other
- Philoclea is running away so Zelmane is able to see what’s under the dress (grotesque)
- Playing with the chivalric and Petrarchan tradition and courtly desire. In a way it’s a monument to the chivalric time…
Session 6 – The Sidneys
Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1562 – 1621)
- Marriage to Henry Herbert raises her into nobility.
- Patronage is highly important
- Wilton becomes seat of learning and culture through her patronage
- Her husband was really supportive. She could do whatever she wanted.
