SZTE / Institute of English and American Studies

ENGLISH LITERARY HISTORY I. Renaissance English Literature with its Medieval Roots
GYRGY E. SZNYI (geszonyi@freemail.hu; www.staff.u-szeged.hu/~geszonyi) BA Survey Lecture, 2012 Spring. Thursday, 18:1519:45, AudMax

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND LECTURE NOTES This lower level survey course aims at introducing English majors to the literature of the English Renaissance which has Shakespeare as its central figure and popular drama as a leading art form. The course, however, beyond treating Shakespeare's art, reaches out to other genres (lyrical poetry and epics) as well as the institutions of literature and the theoretical thinking about literature and its function. The medieval roots of Renaissance English literature (romances, Chaucer) will also be briefly discussed. TOPICS: Feb 09 01. Introduction English Literature in the Middle Ages. The origins of English Renaissance drama: mysteries, moralities, school drama. Feb 16 02. The concept of the Renaissance, its appearence in England. Feb 23 03. The birth of the professional theatre. Humanist drama, versus popular theatre. The university wits: Lyly, Greene, and Kyd. Mar 01 04. Christopher Marlowe. Mar 08 05. Shakespeare the man; Shakespeare scholarship. Mar 22 06. Typologies of Shakespeare's plays. Shakespeare's histories. Mar 29 07. Shakespeare's comedies and problem plays. Apr 05 08. The Renaissance lyrical tradition: Petrarchism. Sidney and Spenser. Shakespeare's lyrical poetry. Apr 19 09. Shakespeare's tragedies. Apr 26 10. The romance tradition. Spenser's The Faerie Queene. May 03 11. The romance tradition on the late Renaissance stage. Shakespeare's romances.

May 10 12. Jacobean Literature: metaphysical poetry, revenge tragedy, Ben Jonson.

Assignments, grading (%), textbooks: Oral exam. Beside the material of the lectures, each student has to submit a list of six Shakespeare plays from which quotations will be discussed. Further obligatory readings: Poems provided for dowloading. Marlowe: Doctor Faustus One of the following plays: Kyds The Spanish Tragedy; Jonsons Volpone; Websters The Duchess of Malfi.

RECOMMENDED (TEXT)BOOKS (The ones marked by an asterisk are especially useful. Books marked by TIK can be found in the University Library.) Ackroyd, Peter. Tetszs volt clom: Shakespeare lete. Budapest: Partvonal, 2005. TIK *Bergeron, David M. & Geraldo U. de Sousa. Shakespeare. A Study and Research Guide. Lawrence, Ka: University Press of Kansas, 1987. TIK Bevington, David ed. The Necessary Shakespeare. London: Longman, 2002. TIK *Campbell, O.J. & Edward G. Quinn (eds.). The Reader's Encyclopedia of Shakespeare. New York: Crowell, 1966. TIK *Cartelli, Thomas. Repositioning Shakespeare: National Formations, Postcolonial Appropriations. London: Routledge, 1999. TIK Drabble, Margaret (ed.). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1992. TIK Dunton-Downer, Leslie. Shakespeare kziknyv. Budapest: Magyar Knyvklub, 2004. TIK Gher, Istvn. Shakespeare. Budapest: Corvina, 1998. TIK Granville-Barker, Harley (ed.). A Companion to Shakespeare Studies (1934). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. TIK Greenblatt, Stephen. Shakespearean Negotiations. The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. TIK Hamilton, A.C. (ed.). The Spenser Encyclopedia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. TIK Hankiss, Elemr Makkai Lszl. Anglia az jkor kszbn. Budapest: Gondolat, 1965. TIK *Hattaway, Michael. A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. TIK Hawkes, Terence. Shakespeare in the Present. London: Routledge, 2002. TIK Heller gnes. Kizkkent id. Shakespeare a trtnelemfilozfus. Budapest: Osiris, 2000. TIK *Hollander, John Frank Kermode. The Literature of Renaissance England. London / New York: Oxford University Press, 1973 (The Oxford Anthology of English Literature). Includes Marlowe's Doctor Faustus! TIK Katona, Gbor. Beatrictl Laviniig. Komparatisztikai tanulmnyok az olasz s az angol renesznsz irodalomrl. Gdll: Attraktor, 2006 TIK

*Kastan, David S. & Peter Stallybrass (eds.). Staging the Renaissance. Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. London: Routledge, 1991 interpretations of general questions as well as individual plays, including Doctor Faustus! TIK Kinney, Arthur F. ed. A Companion to Renaissance Drama. Oxford: Blackwell, 2002. TIK Martines, Lauro. Society and History in English Renaissance Verse. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. TIK *McEvoy, Sean. Shakespeare: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2000. TIK McLeish, Kenneth. Kalauz Shakespeare drmihoz. Budapest: Akkord, 2003. TIK Medcalf, Stephen. The Context of English Literature: The Later Middle Ages. London: Methuen, 1981. TIK *Mehl, Dieter. Shakespeare's Tragedies: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, 1988. TIK *Meyer, Russell J. The Faerie Queene: Educating the Reader. Boston: Twayne, 1991. TIK *Muir, Kenneth & S. Schoenbaum (eds.). A New Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971 TIK Plffy, Istvn Szilassy Zoltn. English Literature from 1485 to 1660. Budapest: ELTE, 1982. TIK *Rogers, Pat. The Oxford Illustrated History of Englis Literature. London / New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. TIK Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. London: Oxford University Press, 1996 TIK *Shakespeare, William G. Blakemore Evans (ed.). The Riverside Shakespeare. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974 (and later editions). Pay attention to the general introduction as well as the introductions of the individual plays! TIK Sousa, Geraldo U de. Shakespeare's Cross-Cultural Encounters. London. Macmillan, 1999. TIK Southworth, John. Shakespeare the Player: a Life in the Theatre. Stroud: Sutton, 2002. TIK Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queene. Ed. by A. C. Hamilton. London / New York: Longman, 1977. Szkely Gyrgy. Lngzn. Shakespeare kora s kortrsai. Budapest: Eurpa, 2003. TIK Szilassy, Zoltn. Tuzenhatodik s tizenhetedik szzadi angol kltszet s prza. Szeged: JATE, 1976. TIK *Wells, Stanley. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986 TIK Wells, Stanley. Shakespeare. An Illustrated Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978 TIK

I. ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 1. Old English Literature (428-1066)

(1) The beginnings of literacy: Roman Britain Julius Caesar's military expedition in 55 BC ) the exposure of the non-literate Celtic culture to Roman civilization. The blending and continued separation of urban Roman and Celtic country cultures. 43 AD ) Claudius completes the colonization of England. 410-28 ) the collapse of Roman rule in Britain under the Anglo-Saxon invasion. (2) Anglo-Saxon culture (a) Pagan past, continental life as documented by Beowulf *Beowulf: the finest Old English long poem, an epic narrative. The text surives in a 10th century MS, transcribed in West Saxon dialect. Probable time of composition is the 8th century but it refers to the fifth-sixth centuries of the still pagan and mainland Germanic peoples (Danes and Geats). No known author; it was rediscovered and titled Beowulf in 1805, first printing: 1815. Forty sections in accentual verse, Scandinavian and mainland Germanic subject matter about a warrior race (cf. Tacitus' Germania). Allusive narrative, digressions: characteristics of oral poetry for an audience conversant with its own legendary past. All episodes are tragic, preparing the tragedy of Beowulf. Message: the transitoriness of human life and glory. (The author's Christian origin, references to the Old Testament.) A strong sense of doom: people are caught in constant reprisals and counterreprisals.
I. Scyld ..... Hrothgar (a famous king, who builds a palace, Heorot. Grendel, the monster invades the hall, and kidnaps 30 thanes, his tyranny for 12 years. Higelac, king of Geats ..... Beowulf (his nephew) comes with 11 companions and wrestles with Grendel. The monster escapes to his mother's underwater cave, Beowulf dives after him and cuts off the mother's head. II. After the death of Higelac Beowulf succeeds and reigns for 50 years. A dragon devastates the country ) B. kills it but he himself is mortally wounded. His body is burnt on a pyre.

(b) Conversion to Christianity Two missions: 1/ Roman by St. Augustine in the South, and 2/ Irish by St. Columba in the North. Northumbrian culture (late 7th, early 8th centuries): a synthesis of Latin and Celtic culture injected into Anglo-Saxon blood (manuscript illumination, Latin writing,wood and stone carving). Church culture, monastic, predominantly Latin. Monastic patronage: a small town in itself. THE VENERABLE BEDE (673-735), *Ecclesiastical History of England. KING ALFRED THE GREAT (871-99) translations from Latin to Old English (Boethius, Bede). *The Battle of Maldon, a heroic poem about a war between the Vikings and English forces in 991. The English lose, the gloomy tone as well as the alliterative versification follows Beowulf.

2. The Middlee English Period (1066-1475)

(1) Anglo-Norman literature LAYAMON's *Brut (1205). The first English treatment of the Arthurian legends. According to tradition: Aeneas from Troy to Rome, Brutus to Britain. Brutus .... Ambrosius Aurelianus .... King Arthur who freed Britain from the Roman yoke as well as fought against Anglo-Saxon invaders. Layamon's work is different from Beowulf: from epic to romance (adventures, supernatural romantic love, standardized characterization, complicated plot, colloquial style). Romances were replacing the Germanic ideals: the matter of France (Charlemagne, Roland); the matter of Britain (Arthurian legends); the matter of Rome (Troy).
Classical literature and literary theory: the seven liberal arts Grammar / rhetoric / logic / astronomy / arithmetic / geometry / music. Chivalric literature and ideals: virtues cardinal: prudence / fortitudo / temperance / justice; theological: faith / hope / charity.

*Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1350-1400). The best romance: a rare combination of humor and a profoundly Christian view of man's character and destiny. SIR THOMAS MALORY, *Le Morte Darthur (cc. 1471). A prose translation from French, a selection from the mass of Arthurian legends. Gloomy: the reign of Arthur ending in catastrophy, the quest of the Holy Grail: Lancelot fails. (2) Middle English allegory Religious poetry and prose, such as *The Owl and the Nightingale (cc. 1250, an allegorical debate between solemn and joyous life) and William LANGLAND's *Piers the Plaughman (alliterative poem of 3 visions).
The poet sees a high tower (Truth),a deep dungeon (Wrong) and a fair field full of folk (Earth). Different allegorical abstractions ) Bribery, Reason, Conscience ) are confronted. PP guides a pilgrimage in "search of do-well, better, best". (Anticlericalism, at the end PP is identified with Christ.)

(3) GEOFFREY CHAUCER (1343-1400) Diplomat, statesman, poet. Journey to Italy in 1372, influenced by Dante and Boccaccio. Earlier influence: the French chivalric tradition. Troilus and Criseyde (1385); *The Canterbury Tales (begun in 1386).
Following Boccaccio's Decameron. Originally planned a hundred and twenty stories told by pilgrims on their way to and from Canterbury. Chaucer completed twenty two (plus two fragments) and the general prologue. Novelty: fascinating accord between the narrators and their stories. Two fictitious story simultaneously: the pigrim and his/her story. Interchanges, links. The General Prologue: an amazing gallery of medieval characters.

3. The Origins of English Renaissance Drama: Mysteries, Moralities, School Drama

(1) Introduction The paradox of teaching Renaissance English drama: there is Shakespeare who overshadows the whole period but apart from him Elizabethan drama is a glorious product. Aspects of study: (i) the literary and stage traditions and conventions; (ii) the socio-political context of Shakespeares art; (iii) the psychodinamics of author and its audience. (2) The Literary and Stage Traditions (a) Genres a/ Liturgical drama. Earliest information from 975 AD: a rule (=recommendation) to stage the ceremonies for the burial of the cross and the visit to the sepulchre. The Quem queritis trope [verbal/musical elaboration of the liturgy in the form of text and melody added to the Gregorian chant sequentia]. Dialogue among Mary Magdalene and the other Mary [mother of the Apostle Jacob)] and the angel. Other persons: Christ, choir (=souls in Hell). Other semi-dramatic liturgical celebrations: Boy Bishop (elected on December 6, presided over the liturgy on Feast of the Holy Innocents); representation of the Prophets during the Palm Sunday procession. b/ The medieval miracle and morality traditions. The vernacular tradition partly derived from liturgical drama, the Anglo-Norman examples are Adam and Seinte Resurrection which mix vernacular text with Latin liturgical pieces. The coalescence of religious and secular, Christian and pagan traditions produced in the fifteenth century a vernacular religious drama with a strong infusion of humorous and popular elements (Cowley, ix). c/ The mystery cycles. York, Chester and Coventry: processional plays. Dramaturgy and structure of the mysteries: pageant-like wagons stopping at several stations in the streets. The stations ranged from three (Coventry) to fifteen (York) Subject matter: from Creation to the Last Judgement. Fifty or more pageants in York, 24 in Chester. Towneley, N-Town: fixed, place and scaffold performances. Dates: from mid-fifteenth century through the 16th century. Organization: the guilds. It was arranged that each guild could advertise the skills of its trade. Expulsion from Eden (York, Armourers); Noah's Flood (Chester, Water-leaders and Drawers); Second Shepherds' Pageant (Towneley); Herod the Great (Towneley); Crucifixion (Chester, Ironmongers); Harrowing of Hell (Chester, Cooks and Innkeepers); Last Judgement (York, Mercers). Miracle and Saint plays. d/ Morality plays. Scaffold staging. Allegoric, emblematic characters from the moralities, psychological projections, the struggle of good and evil for the soul of Mankind. The Castle of Perseverance, Wisdom, Mankind, *Everyman (God, Messenger, Death, Everyman, Doctor; Fellowship, Kindred, Cousin, Goods, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, Strength, Discretion, Five Wits, Angel, Good Deeds). Continuity of the tradition: Everyman, the Seven DeaDly 3

Sins - Dr. Faustus; Vice - Richard III, Jago; Calculation - Falstaff). The morality does not dramatize biblical persons or episodes, but personifies the good and bad qualities of Everyman and shows them in conflict. The peagant is part of a whole cycle: it presents the phase in the spiritual history of mankind. The morality is complete in itself, it is restricted in scope to the spiritual biography of the microcosm of Man (Cowley, xv).

II. THE CONCEPT OF THE RENAISSANCE, ITS APPEARENCE IN ENGLAND 1. Introduction

(1) Popular view of the Renaissance. The notion of unequal development of civilization in the world. The emergence of Western Culture is often associated with the Renaissance. Up to the MA the cultural and material development of the world was even in different areas.By the 16th century it becomes obvious that Europe leads in the cultural development. Social dynamism, technical versatility, spirit of endeavor. What is the source of the success of the Western civilization? It is still a much debated question but in the hypotheses the concept of the Renaissance is always recurrant. (2) Keywords for the Renaissance (a) SOCIETY medieval, subsistence economy trade, market, towns manufactures, industrialization, urbanization rise of midDle class bourgeoisie turned to aristocracy: noblesse de robe refeudalization. (b) POLITICS decline of the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy Turkish expansion the fall of Byzantium (1453) expansion to the West: great discoveries the rise of national states. (c) CULTURE education: from monastic schools to universities classical revival / humanism the new Renaissance academies printing geographical, scientific discoveries religious polarization, tolerance: the Reformation. (d) WORLD PICTURE the framework of the medieval wp remained: the Great Chain of Being Man's role has changed: from the miserable condition to the dignity of man classical and Christian philosophy: Plato and Aristotle political theories: real politics and idealism (Machiavelli and Castiglione). (e) ARTS new ideal: classical harmony art theories: Plato (inspiration, artistic fury, the artist as creative God); Aristotle (imitation of nature, mimesis, realism).

2. Historiography
15th and 16th century Europeans were very well aware of the significance of the age they lived in. The primary experience: the rebirth of learning and arts after the long period of dark age. BOCCACCIO (d. 1375): [of Dante] Twas he that brought under the rule of due numbers every beauty of the vernacular speech. MATTEO PALMIERI (1406-1474): Thus the noble achievments of our far off ancestors are forgotten, and have become impossible to modern men. [...] It is but in our own day that men dare boast that they see the dawn of better things. 5

GIORGIO VASARI (1511-74): Barbarism, Antiquity, Rebirth. LE ROY: The Excellence of this Age (1575).
The three greatest inventions of the age: (1) printing; (2) the compass; (3) cannon-artillery.

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778): Italy: From Obscurity to Brightness. 19th century philosophy and history took a special interest in the Renaissance. Growth of historical research, movements such as nationalism, liberalism, Romanticism, neoclassicism, Hegelian philosophy, + a tendency toward periodization. JULES MICHELET: History of France, Vol 7: The Renaissance (1855). He saw in medieval civilization the destruction of freedom while in the Renaissance came the discovery of the world and the discovery of man. JAKOB BURCKHARDT: The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860). Stressed the modern spirit of the Italian Renaissance as the craDle of the modern, liberal, European spirit. Burckhardt represents the static view of the Renaissance, too harmonious, too perfect. the systematic description of Renaissance art was worked out by HEINRICH WLFFLIN (Renaissance and Baroque, 1888). His image was also static, based on oppositions between the MA, Renaissance, and the Baroque. The development of medieval studies, and the crisis of liberalism brought about another model of the Renaissance, a more dynamic one. Two tendencies: (a) stretching the Renaissance backwards: WALTER PATER (The Renaissance, 1877) introduced the term proto-Renaissance. (b) extending the MA, proving that many Renaissance featureas are essentially medieval features, too. JOHAN HUIZINGA: The Waning of the MidDle Ages (Medieval elements in our modern political systems, constitutionalism, limitation of public authority by private right; medieval elements in early modern science, technical development on the contrary, crisis in the Italian Renaissance. Economic depression, stagnation of population, excessive taxation. The last few decades in Renaissance research: a tendency toward synthesis, a balanced dynamic model. The Renaissance is not simply a style, it is a cultural period including various, often contradictory tendencies. There is, however, a dominating tendency, which in the Renaissance can be described as a product of the rising bourgeoisie, the urban culture of the later MA [cf. HAUSER, KLANICZAY].

3. Periodization
Always questionable. The English Renaissance is usually located between 1485-1660. These are political dates. They have certain significance but development in cultural life obviously did not change so abruptly, cultural changes can harDly be connected to single dates. E.g. printing. A very important factor in the rise of Renaissance culture was introduced in England in 1475, still before Bosworth, in the midst of the War of the Roses.

(1) The important dates of political periodization (dynastical) 1485 1509 1547 1553 1558 1603 1623 1640 1649 1653 1660 Bosworth, Henry VII, TUDOR ERA Henry VIII Edward VI Mary Elizabeth I James I, STUART ERA Charles I THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION / CIVIL WAR THE COMMONWEALTH (The Rump) Cromwell Charles II, THE RESTORATION

There is a correlation between history and the development of culture. We can say that the Tudors brought a new cultural impact on England or that the Restoration meant such a general change which transformed the taste of the people, changed fashions, etc. Still, the periodization must be flexible, and the study of an individual culture, like the English, cannot be separated from Europen cultural history. We usually talk about cultural history in categories of period styles. Compare the European Renaissance: (2) Main Trends and Periods of the European Renaissance (a) The 14th and 15th centuries humanism (Neoplatonism), dominance of the Latin language. (b) The flourishing Renaissance (late 15th century, early 16th century) the high Renaissance in Italy, the greatest artistic productions (c) The Reformation (mid 16th century) the end of the Italian dominance, the rise of the national states. The great discoveries. (d) The crisis of the Renaissance: Mannerism (from about 1560 to cc. 1640). Refeudalization, intellectual crisis. (e) The new cultural period: the Baroque (from the end of the 16th century in Italy, the first decades of the 17th century elsewhere) Refeudalization, new order and world picture. Religious revival. (3) Peculiarities of the English Renaissance England's insular position resulted in the following consequences: (a) Stronger feeling of nationality and integrity. (b) The renewal affected literature later and more slowly in England than in Italy or France. (c) Renaissance and Reformation appeared almost parallel there was no Renaissance boom of visual arts in England, but even higher in poetry. (d) There was a closest relation between the medieval world picture and the new Renaissance ideas in England - due to the strong national feelings and to the lack of pagan cult of beauty and the Antiquity. Effect: strong popular variations of English Renaissance culture: drama. The end of the English Renaissance: in the Jacobean period tendencies of Mannerism and Baroque also appeared; differences in English and European terminology.

III. THE BIRTH OF PROFESSIONAL THEATER 1. Literary and Stage traditions [cont.]
Humanist drama, versus popular theatre. (1) Popular traditions. Robin Hood play (15th C), belonged to the repertory of the minstrels. Underground theater: secret worship and dancing, maypole feasts, village festivals [QUOT: Stubbes, Anatomy of Abuses, 1583, Bucknell, 185]. Fire and light rituals, [panto]mime, Morris dancing, witchcraft ceremonies. (2) Courtly traditions. Processions, entries, burials, court-pleasures, banquets; survival of chivalric traditions: the tiltyard. Public spectacles: punishment, executions. (3) University tradition, school drama. Interludes: moral, political, pedagogical historical and comic. A mix of these was found in the plays of Plautus and Terence. Interest in Seneca. Didactic aims, stock characters. The moralities became secularized in the 16th century (Skelton's Magnificence) and later fed into the interludes which in turn became plays-within-plays: Pyramus & Thisbe in MND, masque of Juno and Ceres in TEM. Doctrines: three unities, decorum. From Aristotle to Sidney. *Gorboduc, the first English tragedy, to be played before Elizabeth in 1557.
THEME: The rightful succession to the throne when the country is divided, it is easily destroyed. King Gorboduc has two sons: Ferrex and Porrex. Porrex kills his older brother ut of jealousy, in revenge, Queen Viden slains her younger son. The royal couple is murdered by their own subjects, the country submerges in civil war. A combination of Senecan and medieval presentation (good and bad counsellors). Separated movement and language, mime and rhetoric. Each act is preceded by a dumbshow [comparison with Hamlet, QUOT Bucknell, 122-3].

2. The public theaters

The English theatre, ten years before Shakespeare began to work in it, presents an expansive, disorderly picture of an immensly popular activity that ranged from jugglers and strolling players setting up in the market place to the professionals in the great houses, the scholars in their colleges, the lawyers in the inns and the singing boys in the choir-schools (M.M. Reese). (1) The social aspect Theater was not simply an art form, rather a social activity, an expression of the society. Life had a dramatic and theatrical character (Rowse). Visuality, self fashioning dominates courtly life. The debate about the theatres. Early drama and the university wits: Lyly and Kyd. Christopher Marlowe

3. Professionalization
Professionalization was a necessity because of attacks: a/ moral opposition, b/ hygienic arguments (plague). The solution: noble patronage. Leicester's Men (1559 licensed 1572), 8 groups by the 1580s.

(1) The physical structures of the theaters The innyard shape - emblematic meaning. Theatre (1576), Curtain (1577), Rose (1587), Swan (1595), Globe (1599). [ILL Berry, Burgess, Schoen 146] (2) Acting and stage conventions Declamatory tone (Sh ridiculed it in Hamlet), stylized gestures, little scenary, emblematic requisites. More ritualistic atmosphere than in the illusionistic theater (Edward Alleyn in Dr. Faustus).

4. Shakespeare's Predecessors: the University Wits

The first dramatists from Oxford (Lyly) and Cambridge (Greene), sensing the business and good living, came to London and produced plays for the theater. Classical and pastoral topics following school dramas, rivalling with the continuing morality tradition. Their followers, THOMAS KYD, SHAKESPEARE, and BEN JONSON had no university degrees but assimilated that mentality. By the end of the 1580s a sudden rise in literary merit, the first great dramatists: KYD, MARLOWE, SHAKESPEARE. (1) JOHN LYLY (1554-1606) King's School, Canterbury, then Magdalen College, Oxford. From 1576 in London. Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit (1578), Euphues and His England (1580). Twenty-six editions by 1630. In 1584-5 the Earl of Oxford commissioned two court entertainments, one of which was Alexander and Campaspe. Later plays: Gallathea (1588); Midas (1589). Style: artificial, delicate, courtly. He was parodied by Shakespeare in LLL. (2) ROBERT GREENE (1558-92) Educated at Cambridge and also received a degree from Oxford. Travelled in France and Italy. Example of the new literary man who deliberately provided exactly what the public wanted. 35 works in 12 years. Pastoral romances modelled on Sidney (Pandosto, 1588, direct source of Sh's WT). He tried to rival Marlowe (Friar Bacon, 1591) and criticized Sh as an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you [... and] is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country (Greene's Groatsworth of Wit, 1592).

5. THOMAS KYD (1558-94)

A genius of Elizabethan melodrama, a unique development of the Senecan revenge play. The Spanish Tragedy (1585/90) revenge, madness, disregards classical unity, play-withinplay, blank verse. Influenced Sh: Titus Andronicus, Hamlet, Lear.
THEME, CHARACTERS, PLOT: War between Spain and Portugal (pretext). Spirit of Andrea, once Spanish courtier who was loved by Bellimperia, then killed by Balthasar. Spanish King; His brother, Cyprian; Cyprians son, Lorenzo; Cyprian's daughter, Bellimperia. Regent of Portugal; His Son, Balthasar; Don Pedro, the Regent's brother. Hieronimo, Marshall of Spain; Isabella, his wife; Horatio, their son. I: Battle between Spain and Portugal. Andrea is killed by Balthasar who is captured by Lorenzo and Horatio but they canot decide who actually was the winner. In Spain Horatio relates Andrea's death to Bellimperia. She falls in love with Horatio but Balthasar also tries to woo her. The Portugese and the Spanish make friends, Andrea's spirit is disappointed. Vengeance promises hatred and revenge. II: Balthasar is lovesick, Lorenzo tries to feed him with hope. Lorenzo spies on Bellimperia (and Horatio), Balthasar wants to revenge Horatio. The Spanish King and Cyprian want to force Bellimperia to marry Balthasar.

Lorenzo and Balthasar in disguise reveal Bellimperiam and Horatio, and hang the youth in his father's garden. Hieronimo finds the cadaver of Horatio, goes mad. III: The Portugese Regent is informed about Balthasar being alive. Sets out to Spain to ransom him. Hieronimo finds a letter from Bellimperia: she is captive and asks for revenge. Hieronimo tries to find out the truth. Interlude with the servants, treachery is repeated on the lover level, serving the purposes of the higher Sinners. Hieronimo reconstructs the crime, although pretends reconciliation, works on the revenge. IV: Hieronimo and Bellimperia cooperate in revenge. Hieronimo is asked to stage a play to entertain the Portugese Regent in which roles are offered to Lorenzo and Balthasar. Hieronimo plans a multi-language performance, wants to see the fall of Babylon. Isabella commits suicide out of desperation. V:The performance: Hieronimo kills Lorenzo, Bellimperia kills Balthasar. Hieronimo bites out his tongou not to reveal the secret love of Bellimperia and Horatio. Finally he stabs Don Cyprian, too. Andrea is satisfied in his death, Vengeance sends the sinners to Hell. Moralistic ending. COMMENT: A world from which Justice has escaped. The characters are the puppets of Fate and Revenge [Andrea] but Kyd's dramaturgy has modern elements, too: Hieronimo's hesitation and madness provides individual character and might. The dramatic monologue. Lack of Christian ethics: no mercy or forgiveness appear in the play.

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IV. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-93)

A more original genius, very powerful verse (mighty lines), less coherent drama structure. His character: rascal Marlowe vs. gentle Shakespeare (scandalous vs. frivolous; cf. their patrons: Raleigh & Southampton). An intense expression of Renaissance aspirations and conflicts. Eliot suggested that Marlowe is compared with Jonson (a spirit for sarcastic satire). Career: from university wit [Cambridge] to government spy and London theaters (roommate of Kyd). Heretic and homosexual, his timely/untimely death. In a little coherent literary output he dealt with the most characteristic problems of his age. The Marlowian paradox: each of his plays echoed one of the central problems of Renaissance spirit in a form often resembling medieval forms and patterns. (1) Tamburlaine the Great (1587) The quest for power. Pure Machiavellism, victory of imagination over the material world.
Nature that formed us of four elements Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds: Our souls Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, The perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

(2) The Jew of Malta (1591) The quest for wealth. Very popular: 36 performances between 1591-96. The hero, Barabas revenges his properties being confiscated in a terrible way (the two lovers of his daughter kill each other; B. poisons a whole nunnery, murders two priests, gives up the whole island of Malta to the Turks, finally, out of bad luck falls into a cauldron of boiling water). (3) Edward II (1592) Machiavellian politics and homosexual desires. Inapt ruler in the hands of ruthless politicians; a paradox martyrdom. (4) Doctor Faustus (1592) The quest for knowledge. Disappointment in all the sciences, desperate ambitions but seeked in the absolute wrong way: pact with the devil. A mixture of medieval morality patterns (morality characters, emblematic stage, hellmouth); renaissance idealism and sober free thinking and anticlericalism. Problems of philology on a philosophical level. Textual problems: A and B versions, unauthorized quarto editions. Censorship, the politics of the play and of the theaters.

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V. SHAKESPEARE THE MAN; SH-SCHOLARSHIP 1. Introduction

Ben Jonson: a man, not of an age, but for all time X Soul of the Age.

2. Life
Paradox: numerous data to know Sh, tha man but these are too few to understand Sh the artist. Speculations about Sh's identity (the Bacon theory, Marlowe, Southampton, Earl of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth). About 200 published references explicit or implicit to Sh, between 1591 & 1623, however his life before the first stage successes is a mystery. So are obscure the years from 1611 when he retired to Stratford. ANNALS OF SHAKESPEARE'S LIFE 1564 1572 April April 26 Sh is born. Christened in Stratford-upon-Avon Leicester's Men play at Stratford. Sh in grammar school: cathecism, Christian ethics, rhetoric, Latin, Roman history, Plautus, Ovid's Metamorphoses. Leicester's Men play at Stratford. Lord Strange's Men and Essex's Men play at Stratford. Derby's Men play at Stratford. Lord Berkeley's Men play at Stratford. Worcester's Men play at Stratford. Sh married Anne Hathaway. Lord Berkeley's Men play at Stratford. Susanna, Sh's older daughter christened (died 1649, at the age of 66). Sh's twins, Hamnet (died in 1596) and Judith (died in 1662, at the age of 78) christened. Queen Elizabeth's Men, Lord Stafford's Men, Leicester's Men play at Stratford. In this year Sh may have come to London. (The poaching episode is not proved, nor William Beestan's, a contemporary actor's reference that Sh was a school master at that time.) About this time Sh was probably associated with the Lord Admiral's Men in London. First play: 1H6 (1589-90, revised 1594-5). Plague in London. Sh is attacked by Gobert Greene in his Groatsworth of Wit the earliest reference to Sh as dramatist. Sh dedicates Venus and Adonis to the Earl of Southampton. Sh dedicates The Rape of Lucrece to Southampton. Willobie His Avisa referred to Sh as an unsuccessful love-counsellor to H.W. (Henry Wriothsley [Southampton]?). The first literary reference to 12

1576 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1585 1586

Nov 27 May 26 Feb 2

1589 1592-93 1592 1593 1594

1595

1596 1597 1598

Feb 4

1599 1601

Feb 7

1602 1603

May 1 Nov/Dec

1604 1605 1607 1608 1610 1611 1612 1613 June 5 Feb 21

1616

March 25 April 23

Shakespeare: Yet Traquin pluck'd his glistering grape, And Shake-speare paints poor Lucrece's rape. Reopening of the theatres; Edward Alleyn reorganizes the Lord Admiral's Men while the deceased Lord Strange's Men seek the patronage of Lord Hunsdon, and the Lord Chamberlain's Men are established, lead by Burbage and with Shakespeare among them. Sh lives in St. Helen's parish, Bishopsgate, London. Payments to him for two comedy performances at court. (Uncertain tradition: Southampton giving him 1000 for buying his share in the Lord Chamberlain's Men company.) Grant of Arms for John Shakespeare (gentleman). Hamnet Sh dies. Sh buys New Place in Stratford. Sh at Stratford. Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour refers to Sh among the principall Comoedians. Francis Mere's Palladis Tamia lists 12 plays. Sh lives in the Clink on the Surrey Bankside. R2 played at the Globe on the eve of Essex's rebellion. Augustine Phillips actor is questioned (no charges). Death of John Shakespeare. Sh buys land in Old Stratford ( 320). He may have visited Wilton House in connection with the performance of AYLI for James I. Jonson's Sejanus refers to Sh as among the principall Tragoedians. As a member of the King's Men Sh is granted four yards of red cloth for James' procession through London (March 15). Augustine Phillips leaves 30 shillings peace in gold to Sh in his last will. Sh buys land in Stratford. Susanna Sh married to John Hall. Sh's brother, described as an actor, dies. Sh's granddaughter, Elizabeth Hall baptized. Death of Sh's mother. Sh ecomes 1/7th sharer in the second Blackfriars Theatre, London. Sh is believed to have retired in Stratford. Sh defends his Stratford tithes [fldesri jrulk] in the Court of Chancery. Sh witnesses a law suit. Sh is left 5 in the last will of John Combe, fellow actor. He buys Blackfriars Gatehouse. He is payed 44 shillings for furnishing an impreso for Lord Rutland. Sh makes his last will. (Leaves his second best bed to his wife.) Dies (at the age of 52). Buried on April 25. Thirty seven plays, 154 sonnets and the epic poems remained from his pen.

A recurrent epithet about his character: gentle. He remains impersonal in order to penetrate the minds of multitudinous personalities. The most comprehensive soul (DRYDEN). 13

Shakespeare was learned in human nature (FIELDING). Shakespeare, the miriad minded (COLERIDGE). Shakespeare lived the life of Allegory, his works are the comments on it (KEATS).

3. Textological problems
He was not interested in publishing his plays, corrupt and pirated texts. Neither the authentic texts, nor the chronology can be fully reconstructed. (1) Publications (a) The Quartos Without supervision of the author. Possible sources: foul papers first complete draft of the author; fair book authorial or scribal prompt book; playhouse plot paratext with stage directions and properties; play pirates memorial reconstructions; reports of performances. (b) The First Folio (F1) Collected and edited by two fellow actors, sponsored by Edward Blount, well-known London publisher, friend of Marlowe and Shakespeare. Dedicated to the Herbert brothers, Earls of Pembroke (cf. later references to patronage, the Sidneys). (2) Sources Fewer than usually thought. Sh did not know many languages, used probably only English sources. Must have been a quick reader, relying heavily on contemporary popular literature (emblem books, chronicles and histories, popular narratives, contemporary plays). His most important readings: HOLINSHED's Chronicles; PLUTHARCH's Great Lives (Eng. tr. 1579); WILLIAM PAINTER's Palace of Pleasure (greatest contemporary collection of popular stodies All's Well, Rape of Lucrece, Romeo); MACHIAVELLI (perhaps in Kyd's unpublished translation); CASTIGLIONE, The Courtier (Eng. tr. 1561); MONTAIGNE's Essays (Eng. tr. 1603 Hamlet, The Tempest). English authors: CHAUCER, GOWER, SIDNEY, SPENSER, GREENE, MARLOWE.

4. Portraits
His bust in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford. Thought to be a true portrait shows no glimmer or intelligence [ILL, Burgess, 156]. The engraving on the frontispiece of F1, done by Martin Droeshout idealizes Sh. Jonson's remark: the artist in making this likenes to Sh had a strife with Nature to outdo life. We cannot help feeling that nature must have outdone the artist [ILL, Schoenb, 175, 178]. The Chandos and the Flower portraits [ILL, Burgess, 140-41]. Shakespeare memorabilia, cultic items [ILL, Schoenb, 180]. Anthony Burgess: To see his face we need only look in a mirror. He is ourselves, ordinary suffering humanity, fired by moderate ambitions, concerned with money, the victim of desire, all too mortal. We are all Will. Shakespeare is the name of one of our redeemers.

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VI. TYPOLOGIES OF SHAKESPEARE'S PLAYS. SHAKESPEARE'S HISTORIES 1. Periods of Shakespeare's artistic development
(1) Disorder ) Order (real solution): RENAISSANCE PERIOD (1590-1600) a/ histories 1-3H6 R3 TIT JN R2 1H4 2H4 H5 !JC b/ 1590-2 1592-3 1593-4 1594-5 1595 1596-7 1598 1599 1599 comedies COM 1592-4 TAM 1593-4 TGV 1594 LLL 1594-5 !ROM 1595-6 MND 1595-6 MV 1596-7 MWW 1597 ADO 1598-9 AYL 1599 TWN 1601-2

time misordered (2H4.4.2.23)

Things base and vile holding no quantity Love can transpose to form and dignity (MND.1.1.123)

(2) Disorder (no solution): MANNERISTIC PERIOD (1600-1604) c/ problem plays (including dark comedies) HAM 1601 TRO 1601-2 AWW 1602-3 MM 1604
Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery, nothing else holds fashion (TRO.5.2.194)

The time is out of joint; O, curse spite That ever I was born to set it right (HAM.1.5.188)

(3) Disorder ) Quasi Order: MANNERISTIC SYNTHESIS (1604-13) d/ tragedies (moral solution + unavoidable destiny) OTH 1604 LR 1605 MAC 1606 AC 1606-7 COR 1607-8 TIM 1607-8
O ruined piece of nature! This great world / Shall so wear out to nought (LR.4.4.138)

e/ romances (unreal solution) PER 1607-8 CYM 1609-10 WT 1610-11 TEM 1611 H8 1612-3 TNK 1613
The fingers of the powers above do tune The harmony of this place (CYM.5.5.467)

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2. The First Period

Reflects two aspects of the Renaissance in different groups of plays: the histories show the realistic viewpoint which claimed that by rational means an order (political) can be maintained. (Cf. Machiavellism, in Sh's case mixed with moral preoccupations: an apotheosis of the Tudor House optimism.) Similarily, in the comedies the natural order of things is disturbed but by the end order is restored. Dreams come true. The comedies show an almost artificial balance and symmetry of plots and subplots; unity of love, nature, and study: The ladies' eyes are the books, the arts, the academes... (LLL). Three seeming exceptions: (a) Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar They do not look histories at first sight. In the case of the former: stage conventions (Senecan revenge, Kyd's example); in the case of JC: it resembles the histories, only with Roman characters:
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men Domestic fury and fierce civil strife Shall cumber all the parts of Italy; Blood and destruction shall be so in use, And dreadful objects so familiar That mothers shall but smile when they behold Their infants quarter'd with the hands of war. JC 3.1.262-8

There are many such dreadful motives in the histories which paint the dangers of disorder on a political, rather than a private level , political instability. (b) Romeo and Juliet Although a tragedy in its outcome, has strong structural and stylistic kinships with the comedies. Not a grand tragedy, rather a series of bad luck, nothig implies the general rule behind the sad history. The play ends with reconciliation, order is restored. (Probably influenced by the revenge play, it could have had a happy ending, triumphant love.) Histories and comedies show, what THEODORE SPENCER called the optimistic theory Renaissance belief based on the idea of the great chain of being. Theater/stage conventions underlined this, presentation was done with a wide, harmonious spectrum of styles according to the rules of decorum (the one who speaks indecorous is indeed ridiculous [Don Armado in LLL]; later this is not so, cf. Hamlet and Lear).

3. The Histories
(1) General interest in history Heightened self consciousness + nationalism. In England the struggle with Spain (Drake, Armada). Reflections on English history: RALPH HOLINSHED, Chronicle of England, Scotland and Ireland (2nd ed. 1587). (2) Shakespeare's concerns Two main concepts about rulership: a/ The medieval, patriarchal/feudal, providential kingship. The king's two bodies: his physi16

cal presence and a metaphysical representation of divine rulership. Priority: legitimity. b/ The Machiavellian model of the ruler. Priority: efficiency. (3) The coherence of the history cycles (a) Structure of the cycles KJ (1199-1216) 1H6 (1422-61; 70-71) 2H6 3H6 R3 (1483-85)

R2 (1377-99) 1H4 (1399-1413) 2H4 H5 (1413-22) H8 (1509-47) major tetralogy minor tetralogy (secular morality) 23 years 63 years greater coherence unforgettable characters: Falstaff, Hotspur, Prince Hal. The histories show Sh's growth as a dramatist. In the T1 he never solved the problems of unifying history; H6 the title character is too weak, Sh focused upon a theme: the developing of evils of usurpation and civil strife, but the structure is episodic. JAN KOTT's metaphor: the bloody staircase, the Great Mechanism without individual characters. R3 stands apart as an individual masterpiece: a combination of a morality with bold experiments in psychology (the art of dissimulation, a fascinating and hypnotizing villain). The closure of R3 is like a prelude to a new age of order, peace, creativity in England under the Tudors. T2 shows explicite dramatic achievments: variety of characters, compressed structure, integrated story and character. R2 has a legal title but inept; H4 is efficient but illegitimate; H5 combined both priorities. Prince Hal the developing character. Hotspur and Falstaff, two representatives of disorder (one is excessively militant, the other immorally seeks pleasure). (b) Factual and stage reality The major outlines of English history are kept BUT minor features are freely kept, invented characters are inserted (John's murder of Arthur and the character of Faulconbridge in KJ). Distortions of chronology for dramaturgical purposes (cf. Sh's explanation in the Choruses of H5):
jumping over times Turning th'accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass. (H5 1Chor.23-31)

(c) Important difference between the chronology of the story and the chronology of how Sh wrote the plays: Historical chronology: R2, 1H4, 2H4, H5, 1H6, 2H6, 3H6, R3 Shs order: 1H6, 2H6, 3H6, R3, R2, 1H4, 2H4 (d) Variety in Sh's histories 17

H6 through the three parts shows a growing dicersity; R3 is grand historical melodrama; R2 is like a formal and ceremonial ritual, the most poetic of all the histories; H4 a superb fusion of history and comedy; H8 a stately pageant with ceremonial shows and elements of fantastic romances.

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VII. SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES AND PROBLEM PLAYS 1. Introduction

The group of play commonly called Comedies belong to Shakespeare's first creative period, mostly in the 1590s. They were written parallel with the Histories which raises the question whether we can see any ideological, structural, or stylistic correlations between the two major genres of this period. Already stated hypothesis: the disorderorder paradigme. There are also some problematic points. Some of the comedies, written in a later period, reflect a change in tone and world picture and they can harDly be brought in the same class with the early comedies. We call these plays dark comedies, or problem plays versus the common label for the early comedies which are called romantic. On the other hand, an early tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, shows more kinship with the romantic comedies than with the later, great tragedies. All this warns us to be careful with style and genre categories, we must be always prepared for transitional forms and overlaps. It is also interesting to see how Shakespeare's poetry fits/completes his dramatic career. His two famous epyllions (Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece) were written parallel with his romantic comedies in the early 1590s, however, they already show signs of extremities and cynicism. This may be a reflection on the transition from Renaissance optimism to Mannerism. (A possible sociological explanation: poetry was meant for the selected few, an aristocratic layer, always up to date in matters of culture and ideology, while Shakespeare's theatrical plays were directed to a general public which was always more conservative.) The Sonnets also reflect this transitory nature, they represent a final stage of Petrarchism, a conclusion of disillusionment and disgust.

2. The Comedies
Shakespeare's first period reflects two aspects of Renaissance mentality and world picture in two different groups of plays: the histories show a realistic viewpoint which claimed that by rational means an order (political) can be established. (Machiavellism with moral preoccupations -- apotheosis of the Tudor house -- optimism.) The comedies usually also start with a situation presenting the disturbances of natural order. Lovers are separated by: misapprehension, misconception (COM, LLL); [parental] force (MND/Hermia & Lysander); misappearence (ADO/Hero & Claudio); but finally the natural order is restored, or created dreams come true.

3. Conventions
Latin comedy; Greek (hellenistic romance); commedia dell'arte; English clownery; May games; farce. (1) The Jonsonian and Shakespearean comedy JONSONIAN realistic, satiric, social comedy of humours appetite for money, women, power 19

SHAKESPEAREAN romantic, poetic, cosmic adventures longing for love

(2) Features commonly found in the Shakespearean comedies Optimism, festive endings (=marriage), non-satiric, romantic tone; muting of evil; green world/wood in which traditional values are tested but the restoration of order happens/indicates a return to the urban scene. 1/ Eloquence, the rhetorical element: deriving from the traditions of school-drama, originally, Latin comedy. 2/ The intrigue plot: Roman origins in plotting. Someone managing the intrigue, often a vicked/jealous brother (Don John in ADO, Oliver in AYL). Devices for complications: disguises, mistaken identities, subplots. Double, triple plots, crossing parallel/symmertical themes (COM, TWN, MND). 3/ The satiric element: favourite mood of English Renaissance comedy. Sometimes combined as a subplot with the romantic (major plot). Satire on the side of realism, although naturally towards caricature (LLL, TWN Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio). Satire begins in realism but may go beyond it to the point of distortion (M. DORAN). 4/ The romantic element: origins and patterns: Greek romances, medieval romances. Romance and sentiment vs. comedy. The cosmic element. JONSON: Comedy should show men's actual manners at the present time; observe the laws of decorum; ridicule general vices, not particular persons; improve men's manners while it delights them. Romance: miraculous adventures, monsters, cross-wooing of princes, etc. (MND, AYL). A satiric presentation of these: MWW. 5/ Mixing of tones in English comedy: usually the satiric and the romantic harDly appears in clear form (MWW); often the pastoral mode is added to these. Pastoral: romantic escape, but also elements of social an political criticism (eclogues). With Shakespeare the pastoral is always double-edged. The pastoral dream is one of the things laughed at (LLL, AYL, MND). The laughter, however, is never cynical. The pastoral is only one of his ways of approach to the larger question of nature and art, nature and civilization (M. DORAN). 6/ Love and women: As the major topic is love, this group of plays throws a special light on the status of women. Feminist issues: mysoginy, patriarchism; the submissive and the shrew women. Very complex female characters among the often schematic figures of conventional comedies: Rosalind [AYL], Portia [MV]. (3) Crossdressing One of the major recent issues in connection with the comedies. This theme is connected with character crossdressing and actor crissdressing; with feminist issues as well as with social-historical criticism. (a) Crossdressing as social practice Women crossdressing prostitutes, masterless creatures, subverting the subordinate status of women. Male crossdressing: effeminate features, degrading the dignity of men, dangers of homosexuality. Crossdressing as such: danger of subverting the cosmic order which is based on the fixed gender roles which should not be transgressed. Exception: carnival (as safety valve). [Theories of carnival: MIKHAIL BAHTIN, JAN KOTT, ROBERT WEIMANN.]

20

(b) Character crossdressing on the stage Primarily in the comedies and romances. Most important examples: (i) Viola in TWN. This is crossdressing for security, no gender identity is shaken, however both Orsino and Olivia fall in love with him/her. Viola's ultimate purpose is marriage (to consolidate the cosmic/social/gender hierarchy), it is Olivia who subverts. Her punishment marriage. (ii) Rosalind in AYL. She is similar to Viola, although more active. She uses crossdressing to manipulate fate, although for the same purpose of consolidating order: to get married. Her female identity is emphasized by her faining of blood while in male dress. (iii) The most subversive character is Portia in MV. She assumes male role in order to gain male power. She defeats men in the lawyer's disguise then she assumes power in choosing Bassanio (manipulates the game of the caskets imposed by her father) who remains [financially] powerless by her. Finally Portia decides not to destroy existing order: chooses marriage and dissociates herself from other marginalized characters, such as Shylock. (c) Actor crossdressing. At the end of AYL the boy actor openly jokes on his/her gender role. This practice demonstrates the uncertainties of gender identity and underlines what is already suggested by the character crossdressings, too: gender roles are social constructs rather than essential differences. The question of homosexuality: arguments of the antitheatrical debate (cf. STUBBES above); homoerotic subtexts in the plays (mostly on the level of performance as opposed to the literary text).

4. The Problem Plays

(1) The Changing of Tone The comedies show an almost artificial balance and symmetry of plot and subplots, a unity of love, nature and study:
From women's eyes this doctrine I derive: They are the grounds, the books, the academes... From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire. (LLL 4.3.298-300)

Histories and comedies show what Theodor SPENCER called the optimistic theory: a Renaissance belief based on the idea of the Great Chain of Being. Man is the perfection and the end of all creatures in the world (FLUDD). In the background we find the ideas about the harmony of the microcosm and macrocosm, the correspondences and the importance of degree. Theatrical and social conventions: the audience represented the totality of the society demanding a wide and harmonious spectrum of styles, genres, according to decorum. (The one who speaks indecorous, is ridiculous is the Other, the alien, the outsider (Don Armado in LLL). Later, with the appearence of Mannerist feeling, it will not be so (cf. Hamlet, Lear). In the dark comedies this other will become more and more apparent and more and more threatening. The restoration of order becomes a conventional device but not convincing. Optimism is gone, the feeling of overruling vice and destruction. Aspects of disappointment 21

(cf. the features of Mannerism above): in love and women; in virtues and honesty; in traditions; in the advancement and the privileged status of humankind. (2) The Dark Comedies Written between 1600 and 1605: HAM, TRO, AWW, MM. The latter two are traditional comedies, although lacking the initial light optimism of the early ones; TRO might be treated as a stand along, very unusual play. (a) Measure for Measure
Starts with a universal corruption in Vienna, the Duke decides to flee from the responsibility of indroducing strict measureas himself, so leaves the city in the hands of a corrupt and hypocrite deputy, Angelo. Reintroducing the strict laws, Angelo sentences to death Claudio fornicating with Julia. Claudio's sister, Isabella tries to intervene. Angelo becomes desirous of Isabella but by the help of the Duke is bed-tricked with Mariana, his discarded fiance. The duke sets everything right, however in an unconvincing way.

Problems in the play. The background of the Duke, his 14 year rule lead the city into moral destruction. The background of Angelo (his dishonest behavious to his betrothed was known to the Duke). Healthy life and pure love is missing from Vienna: Julia is miserable, Claudio's love is doubtful; Isabella's chastity is sterile, women roles are short an unimaginative in this play. The peeping actions of the Duke, his pretension of a friar, has people confess, etc. He has little affinity to psychological nuances: forces a nun to deceive somebody, etc. The problematic nature of the bed-trick: only in the problem plays. The enforced marriages at the end: one is promotion, two as mercy, one as punishment, all in relation to the restoration of princely authority. What can one expect from the future? I. GHER's interpretation: the play is an absurd drama, the Duke is a madman who imagines himself to be an altruistic prince but in fact enforces a dictatorial tyranny. (b) All's Well That Ends Well Similar mood and problems to MM. The play starts with an enforced marriage continues as a pretended one and concludes with a tricked-out confirmation; highly questions the better future. Helena loves Bertram who does not return her feelings. Helena is midDle class and is unrealistically supported by the nobility, including the king. The bedtrick: false and humiliating. Even more humiliating is Helena's plot to corner Bertram before the French king: he is charged with unfaithfullness plus murdering his wife. Bertram is a disintegrated wreck when he promises: will love Helena till his death. (c) Troilus and Cressida An utterly pessimistic play, presenting an absurd, utterly corrupt world. Corruption in public and private life. Intertwining of war and love, mutually perverting each other. The Trojans: anachronistic chivalry, decadence. The Greeks: dishonest barbarians. Personal perversion: Helen (whore), Paris (whore keeper), Pandarus (pimp, go-between), Nestor and the Greek commanders (fornicators), Thersites (a dirty cynic). No honesty, cf. how Achilleus murders Hector. Cressida is doomed to become a whore, a traitor of love.
TROILUS] Fools on both sides! O Cressid, false Cressid! Let all untruths stand by thy stained name And they'll seem glorious. (TRO 1.1.95)

(TRO 5.2.75-7)

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ULYSSES] The speciality of rule hath been neglected, Degree being vizarded. The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. When degree is shak'd Which is the ladder to all high designs The enterprise is sick. What discord follows This chaos, when degree is suffocate. (TRO 1.3.75-137) THERSITES] Agamemnon is a fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon, Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and Patroclus is a fool positive. (TRO 2.3.67ff)

(3) Hamlet The dark comedies are framed by two tragedies: HAM and OTH. Hamlet connects to them in being a problem play but points to Othello, to the great tragedies, too. Hamlet as Problem Play: Differences between comedy and tragedy: optimism vs. awe and wonder; it is the poetic transmutation of a sense of human suffering into a sense of human greatness [R.M. FRYE]. A radical shift in tone:
All things that we ordained festival, Turn from their office to black funeral: Our instruments to melancholy bells, Our wedding cheer to a sad burial feast... (RJ 4.5.84-9) How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, Seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on't, ah fie! 'tis an unweeded garden... (Ham 1.2.133-5)

Problems: the principal character is a hesitating intellectual. A general feeling of disappointment, in action, in thinking and in love, too (similar to T&C).
The will is infinite, and the execution is confined; desire is bounDless, the act a slave to limit. (TRO 3.2.85-7) Our wills and fates do so contrary run That our devices still are overthrown.

(HAM 3.2.223-4)

The problematic role of the ghost: arguably wicked, however not simply an engine of character development, such in MAC. Poetic justice is questionable (the ambiguous role of Fortinbras which is not balanced by Hamlet's personal greatness.)

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VIII. THE RENAISSANCE LYRICAL TRADITION:

PETRARCHISM. SIDNEY AND SPENSER. SHAKESPEARE'S LYRICAL POETRY.

1. Introduction: Patrons, Writers, and Publishers

Patronage: a social institution of the first importance. Great nobles and gentry into courtiers. Men, like Sir Walter Ralegh lept from obscurity to great power as a result of their success as courtiers. Gallantry, dancing, good manners; women patrons. [ILL: All the Queen's Men] The great guide: CASTIGLIONE's The Courtier (1528, translated by Sir Thomas Hoby, 1561). It declared: the chief function of the courtier is to give good and honest advice to the prince; to be able to do this he had to be the embodiment of physical, mental, and ethical perfection. Literary patronage: part of the interlocking system of the distribution of grants, offices, and honors exchanged for service and praise. Poetry was only a hobby, social grace, courtly pastime. Much of poetry was still circulated in manuscript. Beside the courts, the two universities and the City of London were also major influences of the literary production. (University wits, The Inns of Court poetry, drama.) London: inhabitants in Chaucer's time 50.000; 93.000/1563; 250.000/1605. Printing presses, booksellers. St. Paul's Churchyard. No copyright: The Stationers' Register.

2. Elizabethan Aesthetics
Inspiration (Platonism) and Imitation (Aristotelianism) Platonism: the quest for beauty and love - the role of the artist (the Platonic furies). Aristotelism: mimesis, the imitation of nature - the artist idealizes. [QUOT: Castiglione]

3. Literary Fashions, Poetic Conventions

One of the most striking changes in English literature appeared in the area of lyrical poetry. While in prose and drama the links with the MidDle Ages remained strong (Malory, Chaucer, mysteries, moralities), in poetry we can speak about a definite Italian influence. This was not simply a literary fashion, came in connection with general taste, and new trends in music and the visual arts. (1) Petrarchism The term originally referred to a literary fashion, now we understand by it a complex cultural mood and lifestyle. The literary medium of Petrarchism was the sonnet, often developed into sonnet sequences, sonnets mixed with songs. The sonnet sequences explored the contrary states of feeling a lover experiences as he desires and idolizes an unattainable lady. Conventional themes: the lady's great beauty, her power over the poet, her cruelty, his sleeplessness, the fire of his love and the ice of her chastity, the pain of absence, the renunciation of love, the eternity and originality of the poems. [A feedback to painting, ILL: Artists of the Tudor court.] The Petrarchan paradox.

24

(2) Chapters from the History of English Renaissance Sonnet (a) SIR THOMAS WYATT (1503-42) and HENRY HOWARD, Earl of Surrey (1517-47) Both were courtiers of Henry VIII, travellers, diplomats, influenced by Italian and French culture. Their poems had not been printed in the poets' lifetime, sonnetteering got forgotten till Tottel's Miscellany (1557). Songs and sonnets, containing the first achievments of English Renaissance lyrics but it gave the text - due to changes in taste and prosody - mostly in corrputed form. 1816: Nott's discovery Wyatt's handwriting. (b) SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-86) Astrophel and Stella - sonnets of unrequited love. Platonism, at the same time ironic. Response to the Petrarchan paradox: acknowledging sensual desires. (c) EDMUND SPENSER (1552-99) Amoretti - sonnets of requited love. The fulfilled idealization takes place in heaven, a strong Christian meaning infused with Platonism. (d) SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616) The mystery of the sonnets. Love and hatred. Dramatic character, several characters. Homosexuality. Mannerist dissolution of harmony and homogenious feelings. Subversion of Petrarchism: the Dark Lady sonnets. (e) LADY MARY WROTH (1587-1651) Pamphilia to Amphilantus (1621) - a total reversal of the traditional love situation. Here a female speaker explores various emotions, conflicts and experiences in love. (f) JOHN DONNE (1572-1631) Holy sonnets - a transformation of the traditional sonnet, used for religious purposes.

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IX. SHAKESPEARE'S GREAT TRAGEDIES 1. Tragic Backgrounds

Between 1604 and 1608 Shakespeare developed a new genre: the great tragedy. A precursor of these plays is HAM; then follow the greatest ones: OTH (1604), LEAR (1605-6), MAC (1606-6), A&C (1606-7); the group is completed by two less famous ones: COR and TIM (1607-8). The tragedies seem to show a kind of relief in Sh's great pessimism developed in his early Manneristic period. To understand the Shakespearean tragedy we have to count with the following factors: medieval and Renaissance conventions of tragedy; the Aristotelian concept; Shakespeare's own inventions. (1) Medieval and Renaissance Concepts of Tragedy (a) Fortune's Wheel and the Fall of Princes The medieval concept of Fortune's wheel, the turning of one's fortune. A general sense of life's difficulties: if an old man should set forth the tragedy of his life, from the day of his birth till his departure to the grave, a man would wonder that the body could suffer, and heart could bear, so painful a pilgrimage (a contemporary of Shakespeare, quoted by R.M. FRYE). Tragedy had for so long been closely associated with the Fall of Princes theme: main characters had to be of noble, princely stature (classical decorum). (b) Senecan Influences: Rhetoric and Violence Shakespeare knew little if anything about Greek tragedy, the main influence came from Latin drama. Seneca: witchcraft, ghosts, treason, tyranny, revenge, brutality. Senecan speeches: philosophical elevation but not integrally related to the dramatic whole. The direct Senecan influence characterizes the early Sh, however it can still be felt in HAM:
HORATIO ] let me speak to th' yet unknowing world How these things came about. So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgements, casual slaughters, Of deaths put on by cunning and forc'd cause... (HAM 5.2.379-83)

(c) Violence and Abjection: Animal Baiting and the Theater In Elizabethan show business there were other than Senecan models of violence for the stage. Public executions as well as animal baiting reflected the brutal taste of Elizabethan public. Sh's tragic heroes sometimes feel as if tied to a stake and baited by enemies:
we are at the stake And bay'd about with many enemies. They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly, But, bear-like, I must fight the course. (JC 4.1.48ff)

(MAC 5.7.1f)

Cf. the general atmosphere of LEAR which is closest to the bear-baiting arenas. The representation of cruelty has interesting, theoretical implications: the theory of the abject. For postmodern theories the body has become one of the major concerns of literary analyses, 26

together with abjection, the display of culturally marginalized heterogenious themes and images: the repulsive, disgusting, violent, and perverted. According to JULIA KRISTEVA, the subject is constructed in the symbolic use of the language, however it feeds back to a presymbolic, semiotic state, which is normally under taboo and pose a threat to the subject (by subverting symbolic fixation and thus the identity of the subject). The abject is important in the arts, it has a relation to the sacred through sacrifice. In primitive societies the central action of ritual is the sacrifice, where the violence of psychic processes is displaced onto a representable body, a circulated sign which becomes the point of reference for the maintainance of social identity (KRISTEVAKISS). In dramatic art this primary presentation is lost in the gap of mimesis, however, the abject can feed back to it by creating a metadrama. The most direct representation of the abject on the stage is the corps and thus it has pre-symbolic, semiotic significance. (2) The Aristotelian Concept of Tragedy Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of certain magnitude; ... through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions (from the Poetics). HAMARTIA: vice, weakness, mistake; error of judgement, miscalculation (missing the target). HYBRIS: overweening pride; the hero forgets that he is a fallible man - later he is humbled for this. TRAGIC IRONY: A difference in the depth of understanding of the audience and the hero. PERIPETEIA: reversal. ANAGNORISIS: recognition (Macbeth; the archetype: Adam & Eve). CATHARSIS: purgation. The chaos of real life seems, for a few moments in drama, to be ordered; the action, the subsequent sufferings and the whole cosmos seem, somehow related. The summary of tragic man: Action, activity involves danger. Man, whatever his nobility, has within the seeds of his own destruction. Tragedies dramatize the imperfectibility of man.

2. Shakespeare's Tragedies
In Sh's tragedies the medieval sense of tragedy (Fall of Princes) is fused with the Aristotelian concept of error of judgement, miscalculation. LILY CAMPBELL's theory: Sh's tragic heroes are slaves of passion (Hamlet/grief, Othello/jealousy, Anthony/lust, Lear/wrath, Macbeth/fear, Timon/excess). (a) Elevation of the tragic hero Common features of Sh's great tragic heroes: 1/ strength of character; 2/ are fully aware of every assault upon them and of all that they must endure; 3/ the tragic hero is endowed with a power of expression equal to his power to endure. The tragic heroes are giant on the earth. They are never young: 30 years old Hamlet, midDle aged Anthony/Macbeth/Othello, old Lear. (b) Intensifying factors Life is chaos. Madness. Heroes are progressively isolated. The pressure of time. 27

The vulnerability of the tragic hero: the greatness of tragic heroes is such that they could meet virtually every challenge except the challenge which they have to face. Invulnerable to almost every assault, but not the one challenge he must in fact face. From this curcumstance arises the chaos and confusion of inner torment which the protagonist endures. From this arises our sense of the terrifying vulnerability of even the greatest men (R.M. FRYE). (c) Indecorum, the role of laughter Sh's invention. The gravediggers' scene in HAM, the porter-scene in MAC. (d) The Effect of Tragedy Magnification of the action, its significance:
Not in the legions Of horrid hell can come a devil more dam'd In evils to top Macbeth. never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

(MAC 4.3.55-7)

(ROM 5.3.309f)

The oldest men hath borne most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. (LEAR 5.3.32ff).

The threatening chaos is significant for the individual as well as for the society. HUGH BLAIR's 18th-century definition: tragedy is the combat of strong passions, set before us in all their violence, producing deep disasters, often irregularly conducted, abounding in action, and filling the spectators in grief. What is missing from this definition: interaction of character and plot; rhetorical and poetical powers; it nevertheless indicates the very important factor of audience participation: grief and understanding.

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X. THE ROMANCE TRADITION.

SPENSER'S THE FAERIE QUEENE

1. Introduction
The Elizabethan Age. Great nationalistic expansion, commercial growth, and religious controversy. Patronage, the cult of the Virgin Queen; great development of arts (music, drama, lyric poetry; epic poetry, and the beginnings of criticism; miniature painting, architecture). "The Golden Age of English Literature". Towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, and especially with James I's rule, a reaction was beginning to set in, expressed through a growing cynicism, a classical dissatisfaction with the unbounded enthusiasm of the 16th century, a tendency toward melancholy and decadence.

2. An Outline of Elizabethan Epic Poetry and Prose

(1) Works 1/ A synthesis of European pastoralism and the national mythology: JOHN LYLY: Euphues (1578); Euphues and his England (1580) PHILIP SIDNEY: Arcadia (1579-83) EDMUND SPENSER: The Faerie Queene (1590-6) 2/ Classical mythology, popular prose: GOLDING's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565-7) NORTH's translation of Plutarch's Lives (1579) HARRINGTON's translation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso (1591) CHAPMAN's translation of Homer's Iliad (1598) 3/ Purely mythological-allegorical shorter epics (eroticism, Mannerism): CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE: Hero and Leander (1593) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: Venus and Adonis (1593); The Rape of Lucrece (1594) GEORGE CHAPMAN: Hero and Leander (1598) 4/ Popular prose, picaresque novel: THOMAS NASHE: The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) ROBERT GREENE: Cony-Catching Pamphlets (1591-2) THOMAS DELONAY: The Gentle Craft (1598) (2) Implications in connection with the literary life as a social phenomenon: 1/ the Penhurst-Wilton circle (Sidney, Spenser): more aristocratic, nationalistic, religionphilosophy oriented, always loyal to the state and Queen. 2/ the Southampton circle (Marlowe, Shakespeare): cosmopolitan, indifferent in matters of religion (usually Catholic), not very firm loyalty. 3/ the university wits: universities, big town-life, London. 29

3. The Elizabethan Synthesis

The top achievment of Elizabethan literature was doubtlessly drama (strong, popular element), while in the great epic poetry the aristocratic spirit became manifested. (1) JOHN LYLY (1554-1606) University wit, dramatist, prose romances. (a) *Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit (1578) A novel with a significant moral aim to teach young gentlemen how to live decently.
PLOT: Euphues, Athenian (Oxford) noble goes to Naples (London) and becomes flattered by the joyful and vivid life in the city. Gets under the influence of an immoral friend, Philautus, and looses his virtues, finally seduces Ph's girlfriend, Lucella. Wants to marry her, but the fickle lady prefers an unworthy suitor. Finally Euphues leaves Naples disgusted and goes back to his books to Athens.

Success: four editions in 18 months, 26 editions to 1630. Sequel (Euphues and His England): Lyly glorifies England, the landscapes, the people. "There is no beauty but in England." "The living God is only the English God." Style: a combination of fashionable Continental romances and nationalism. Overdecorated, ornamented, sophisticated style. Rhetorical figures: 1/ balanced antithesis (Man proposes, God disposes); 2/ repeated rhythms; 3/ alliterations: "Let my rude birth excuse my bold request."

(2) PHILIP SIDNEY (a) *Arcadia (1580-6) Philological problems: the work exists in 3 different versions. Sidney's "old" and "new" versions + his sister's [the Countess of Pembroke's] compilation. The work is a mixture of pastoral and chivalrous romance; the former element dominated the old version while in the new the latter became emphasized.
PLOT: takes place in ideal Arcadia where the order and harmony got disturbed by King Basilius' haste reaction to a dangerous sounding prophecy. Basileus Queen Gynecia Pamela, Philoclea (shepheardesses) Musidorus (shepheard), Pyrocles (his woman) Happy ending: double marriage.

Sidney's aim was not only to entertain. He was more ambitious, and he succeeded to reflect the spirit of the age most adequately. "The Elizabethans found gathered in it what a whole generation wanted to say. There is everything in it: prose and verse, pastoral and romance, stories, ethical discussions, moral guidance. The book's message: discipline of mind and heart, control of passion and desire. Arcadia is no remote, romantic kingdom; in a way it is an idealised England. [...] The book has an overwhelming sense of visual beauty; there is complete harmony of atmosphere throughout it." (ROWSE, 2:64).

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(3) EDMUND SPENSER (1552-99) Life and career: midDle class origin - Merchant Taylors' School - Cambridge - friendship with Sidney - Areopagus - lived within the network of patronage system (Leicester, Raleigh) fervent Protestant, still an admirer of classical culture and the national heritage [cf. Milton!]. (a) *The Shepheardes Calender (1579) Brought him literary fame; an important milestone in English literary history. Eclogues the pastoral tradition (changes of seasons - analogy of life). Main character: Colin Clout. From 1580 he lived in Ireland, but in 1589 Walter Raleigh invited him to court to present The Faerie Queene to Queen Elizabeth. The first 3 books of FQ were published in 1590, later he added 3 more books and parts of the seventh. (b) *The Faerie Queene (1590-6) SUMMARY: the adventures of 12 knights each an example of a different virtue as they undertake different quests for their queen. Two documents refer to the intentions of the work: 1/ LODOVICK BRISKETT: A Discourse of Cilvil Life (1589). A dialogue which reproduces an inspired discussion between humanists in a country place near Dublin. Briskett wants Spenser to address the group on the topic how the knowledge of moral philosophy improves man, to which Spenser replies that: "I have undertaken a work which is in heroical verse under the title of The FQ, to represent all the moral virtues, assigning to every virtue a knight to be the patron and defender of the same." 2/ SPENSER's own dedicatory letter to Walter Raleigh. In this introductory letter Spenser refers to a threefold aim of his artistic program: a/ Continued allegory or dark conceit. b/ Ethical didactic motif: "to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. c/ To praise Queen Elizabeth as a monarch and as a woman. STRUCTURAL SCHEME: Complicated plot, numerological, astrological connotations serve to portrait and to celebrate the messianic leader, Elizabeth.

BOOKS (1596 VERSION) (1) The Knight of the Red Cross (2) Sir Guyon (3) Britomart (4) Campbell & Triamond

VIRTUE

SOURCE OF VIRTUE Christian Aristotelian Christian Aristotelian

ASTROLOGICAL REFERENCE Sun Mars Moon Mercury

HOLINESS TEMPERANCE CHASTITY FRIENDSHIP

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(5) Sir Artegall (6) Sir Calidore (7) The Mutability Cantos

JUSTICE COURTESY CONSTANCY

Aristotelian Christian Christian

Saturn Venus Jupiter

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS: Gloriana (Elizabeth), the queen of Faerie Land (never appears, but unites the books); Prince Arthur - in quest of Gloriana, represents perfection. MOTIVIC DIVERSITY - THE UNITY OF THE WORK: the ideals of harmony and order are not always manifest in the details, rather in the whole composition. The episodes often bring up motives which complement each other, showing the positive and negative sides of a feature.
EXAMPLES OF HARMONY I,x New Jerusalem (a vision of Protestantism) II,ix Castle of Alma III,vi Garden of Adonis. Stanza 431: "Right in the midDle of that Paradise..." EXAMPLES OF DISCORD I,iv-vii Castle of Lucifera and Orgoglio (Pride and Catholicism) II,xii The Bower of Bliss; vii Mammon (excess) III,ix-x Castle of Malbecco Malbecco [bad goat]; Helenore [Helen the whore] A parody of marriage (the spilling of wine) a sacrament profane. IV,vii Lust of ears; v Belt of Florimell a touchstone for love V,vii Giant of Equality (everything is levelled anarchy) VI,x Cannibals, murders, slavery civilisation versus barbarism

IV,x Scudamore at the Temple of Venus idealised love consummated in marriage V,vii Britomart at Isis Church dreams of marriage to Artegall - dynastic concord VI,x Mount Acidale Graces, dancing

ALLEGORY: the key to Spenser's work. The FQ should not be looked at as a story with characters possible to interpret according to psychological rules. The subject of each book is not a iography or psychological analysis, or the exploration of archetypes, but a virtue. Behind every character, every relationship, every action (battle, love, rescue) there is an instructive meaning (RELIGIOUS, ETHICAL, POLITICAL, SOCIAL) taken from various sources. SOURCES: (a) medieval legends & romances; (b) Italian romantic epic - Ariosto; (c) Italian Christian epic - Tasso; (d) Elizabethan pastoral epic - Sidney; (e) Chaucer.
SUMMARY: "Epic narrative, chivalric quest, the whole range of allegorical poetry, pastoral idyll, emblem, interlude, masque. It gathers up all the principal elements of the Elizabethan cultural inheritance: the wealth of the Greek and Roman philosophy, poetry, and myth, mediated through the classical Renaissance; the treasure of the Christian tradition, mediated through the Reformation; the inheritance of medieval chivalry and romance - all these things the FQ assembles and in measure coordinates." (WOODHOUSE in HAMILTON)

4. The Erotic Epyllion of the 1590s

Their appearance shows a change in general taste. In the harmonious balance of Renais32

sance "instruct and delight" the latter becomes stronger. The moral teaching remains just a pretext. Nationalism is also significant, the main point is on the aesthetical virtuosity while the contents are rather divergent from the normal. A new cult of Ovid. (1) MARLOWE: *Hero and Leander A parody of the original classical story - beside the charm and tragic sense there is also a strong feeling of eroticism, and also irony. The love of the two young people is described ironically while one of the main points is an episode when Neptune, catching sight of Leander swimming across the see to Hero, falls in love with the young man and tries to rape him. "Splendor is the only word for Marlowe's poetry. A brilliant jewelled quality, infused with intellectual light, of finished artistry." (ROWSE, 2:71). (2) SHAKESPEARE: *Venus and Adonis As if an answer to Marlowe's epyllion, in the same tone. (Theories about their rivalry for Southampton.) The story is about Venus falling in love with Adonis, who is disinterested in love, rather effeminate, howevr goes on hunting instead! At the end he is killed by a boar, Venus is left mourning and dissatisfied. This whole trend can be interpreted as antecendents of English Mannerism, the first signes of broken harmony.

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XI. SHAKESPEARE'S ROMANCES 1. Contexts

About 1608 one more change in Sh's tone (related to a change of career and possibly world view, too). Reasons for this change: (a) A change of literary and stage conventions The formerly homogenous public divided: the rise of the private theaters, aristocratic public started frequenting those. In 1608 the Globe bought the Blackfriars (private theater) and Sh had to adapt to the taste of the new, selected audience. That audience was composed of courtiers and other members of the gentry who did not go to the theater expecting profound revelations of character but looked for excitement, surprise and wonder (Sh Encyclopedia). The aristocratic public was accostumed to a sophisticated symbolism (The Courtier), this explains the increase of magic in the later plays. Sh had strong rivals in this genre: BEAUMONT & FLETCHER, he felt compelled trying his pen in this form, too. The result is a special, mythic, ritualistic genre. (b) Shakespeare's attitude to Renaissance ideas The romances are pieces of escapism; after the tragic account of the Renaissance ideals (in the tragedies) these notions are transposed in a dreamworld. In spite of the happy endings resignation remains (Prospero breaking his magic wand). (c) A political argument The differences between the Elizabethan and the Jacobean Age. Symbolic, charismatic power versus real politics. James' son, Prince Henry tried to revive the Elizabethan spirit Sh's romances would be a response to this revival which ended with the prince's death in 1612. Sh did not write any more plays after that, on the other hand, H8 can be easily involved in this explanation.

2. The Last Plays

General characteristics of the so called romances: melancholic tone tragic events dissolved in a happy ending romantic complications of the plots (lost children & wives, pretended/assumed deaths) happy ending, reconciliation often achieved by deus ex machina devices. The romances PER, CYM, WT, TEM are full of artificial arrangements. (a) The Winter's Tale Text: F1, date: 1611 [S. Forman ref.], source: a novel by R. Greene [1588, 1607].
King of Bohemia, POLIXENES King of Sicili, LEONTES His wife, HERMIONE Children: FLORIZEL PERDITA Leontes gets jealous, breaks with Polixenes, orders his daughter to leave on an uninhibited seashore. Hermione dies until the king remorses and gets morose. Happy ending: the daughter is brought up by shepherds, meets and marries Polixenes' son, the two friends make peace, finally Hermione, who pretends to be a statue, comes back to life.

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(b) Pericles A very complicated play with seemingly failed construction and characterization. Unity of action: takes place in six far away places during several decades.
Antiochia (Antiochus and his daughter), Tyrus (Pericles, Helicanus), Tarsus (Cleon, Dionyza), Pentapolis (Simonides, Thaisa, Lychordia), Mitylene (Marina, Lysimachus, Bawd, Boult), Ephesus (Cerimon, Diana, Thaisa) + Gower and the dumbshowes.

Extreme plot and conflicts, a total lack of psychological characterization: incest; riddle for life (cf. MV, Turandot); chivalric tournaments; several shipwrecks; catastrophes (famine, storms and earthquake); giving birth on a ship in tempest; death and burial on ship; childmurder by a friend; pirates; a 14 year old girld forced to become a prostitute all this is fused into happiness and reconciliation by the end. The key to the understanding of the play: emblematic symbolism. Fixed meanings, ritualistic audience response. Emblematic themes: (i) Dichotomy of reality and appearance
Fair glass of light, I lov'd you, and could still, Were not this glorious casket stor'd with ill. You're a fair viol, and your sense the strings [...] But being play'd upon before your time, Hell only danceth at so harsh a chime. like serpents are, who though they feed On sweetest flowers, yet they poison breed. (PER 1.1.76f)

(1.1.81-5)

(1.1.132f)

(ii) Constancy (iii) Life: see tempest shipwreck harbouring (pilot). (iv) Time: real and metaphoric, destroying and restoring; occasio,opportunitas, veritas filia temporis. (c) The Tempest Sh's last play clearly shows the above characteristics, in a particularly disciplined and condensed form. It is a play-within-the-play: outside real politics (Prospero the deposed duke of Milan) inside dream, justification, atonement and reconciliation. The presence of the Great Chain of Being. The role of magic (white, as opposed to Faustus' black art). The role of art (the epilogue of the play!). A brave new world.

3. The Significance of Shakespeare's Art

The peak point of a tradition which was essentially Renaissance and English: dismissed the rues of classical unity; followed the medieval, linear pattern of drama-building; in spite of his realism he employed a strongly traditional emblematic symbolism (the theater of the world); fusing heroic and comic into a coherent, esthetical unity he served a wide, universal public. Sh's art seems to be an unexhaustable reservoir of new interpretations (new historicist, psychoanalitical, feminist readings). Sh closed an epoch. His greatest follower, BEN JONSON introduced something completely different: adopted the classical rules as propagated by Philip Sidney. While Jonson highly praised Sh, what he had done was but a criticism of Shakespeare. 35

XII. JACOBEAN LITERATURE:

METAPHYSICAL POETRY, REVENGE TRAGEDY, BEN JONSON

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