1 INTRODUCTION
2 SHAKESPEARE AND HIS TIME
2.1 Historical background
2.2 Drama and theatre
2.3 Life of William Shakespeare and chronology of his works
3 MOST REPRESENTATIVE WORKS
3.1 Poetry
A The sonnets
B Venus and Adonis
C The Rape of Lucrece
D Others
3.2 Drama
A Comedies: A Midsummer Night´s Dream. The Merchant of Venice
B Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet. Macbeth
C Historical plays: Henry V. Richard III
3.3 Influence and contribution of Shakespeare´s works on literature
4 CONCLUSION
5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
1 INTRODUCTION
English Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays that evolved out of the mysteries, and the “University drama” that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court came to play roles in the shaping of public theatre.
Companies of players attached to households of leading noblemen and performing seasonally in various locations existed before the reign of Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and morality plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining companies lacking formal patronage by labelling them vagabonds. At court as well, the performance of masques by courtiers and other amateurs, apparently common in the early years of Elizabeth, was replaced by the professional companies with noble patrons, who grew in number and quality during her reign.
The City of London authorities were generally hostile to public performances, but its hostility was overmatched by the Queen’s taste for plays and the Privy Council’s support. Theatres sprang up in suburbs, especially in the liberty of Southwark, accessible across the Thames to city dwellers, but beyond the authority’s control. The companies maintained the pretence that their public performances were mere rehearsals for the frequent performances before the Queen, but while the latter did grant prestige, the former were the real source of the income professional players required.
The growing population of London, the growing wealth of its people, and their fondness for spectacle produced a dramatic literature of remarkable variety, quality, and extent. Although most of the plays written for the Elizabethan stage have been lost, over 600 remain extant.
The men (no women were professional dramatists in this era) who wrote these plays were primarily self-made men from modest backgrounds. Some of them were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, they were known as “university wits”, but many were not, among them William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, now widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s preeminent dramatist. He is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon” (or simply “The Bard”). His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry by the end of the sixteenth century, next he wrote mainly tragedies.
In the following topic, first we will analyze the historical context where Shakespeare´s works are set; then, in the second part of our analysis, we will study the life and works of William Shakespeare with a deep analysis of some of his greatest works.
2 SHAKESPEARE AND HIS TIME
2.1 Historical background
William Shakespeare was born in the reign of Elisabeth I (1533 – 1603), often considered one of the most glorious periods in English history. The last queen of the House of Tudor, her personal fate was unusually bound up with that of the nation and the national Church. Elizabeth was left in no doubt that most of her subjects wished her to repudiate the pope and Spanish influence and to establish a Protestant church suited to the needs of the English people. This desire chimed with her own conscience and the policies of Sir William Cecil, her Secretary of State, and her chief advisors. She also knew that the pope would never recognize her as the legitimate child of Henry VIII and the rightful ruler of England. The parliament of 1559, therefore, legislated for a Protestant church based on the settlement of Edward VI, with the monarch as its head. The House of Commons strongly backed the new proposals, but the bill of supremacy faced opposition in the House of Lords, particularly from the bishops, though Elizabeth was fortunate that many bishoprics were vacant at the time, including the archbishopric of Canterbury .The Protestant peers were consequently able to outvote the bishops and conservative peers.
After various negotiations and changes to the wording, the new Act of Supremacy became law on 8 May 1559. Elizabeth’s title was agreed to be Supreme Governor of the Church of England rather than the more contentious Supreme Head. All public officials were to swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch as the supreme governor or risk disqualification from office; however, the heresy laws were repealed, to avoid a repeat of the persecution of dissenters practiced by Mary. At the same time, a new Act of Uniformity was passed, which made attendance at church and the use of an adapted version of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer compulsory, though the penalties for disobedience were not extreme.
Elisabeth tried to find a peaceful answer to the problems of the Reformation. As a protestant she restored her father’s independent Church of England, but tolerance and compromise won her the loyalty of puritans and Protestants alike, bringing together those parts of English society which were in religious disagreement. She made sure that the Church was under her authority by making it part of the state machine. For thirty years she successfully played off against each other the two great Catholic powers, Spain and France.
. Elizabeth´s court was also the focus of the flowering of English Renaissance. England reached new heights in art, music, and especially in literature, with the beginning of the great age of poetic drama. The last fifteen years of Elizabeth’s reign were darkened by political misfortunes, they were also backlit by the artistic glories of the age of Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe and Shakespeare, by the navigational achievements of Drake and Hawkins, and by the establishment of the first colony in Virginia, named after her. Elisabeth’s reign was the period of the first great achievements in English seamanship. Trade and colonial expansion were the most important foreign policy matters leading to Britain’s colonial empire of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Spanish Armada was defeated by the English navy in 1588, and although this victory did not mean the end of the war against Spain, it was a glorious moment for England, which secured Elizabeth’s authority as a Protestant monarch; it ended with the melancholy of old age and the increasing cynicism of a Court that had grown stale.
2.2 Drama and theatres
In a crude and clumsy form drama had existed long before the 16th century, but in the second half of this century it was transformed into a thing of force and beauty, acquiring most of its modern characteristics. Drama left aside religious matters and the imitation of the classics to become a brad new vigorous genre on its own.
It is curious to find how poor a reputation dramatic art had in the Elizabethan period. Even Shakespeare, who considered carefully the publication of his poems, treated his dramatic scripts with careless contempt. A play was something to be seen, not to be read. This explains to some extent the loose construction of many pieces, as well as the note of violence and coarseness so persistently struck. It was an age when bear-baiting and cock-fighting were favourite sports.
No special buildings were erected in England for dramatic performance until the late 16th century.
The earliest form of regular drama in England was the mystery play, which began as an interpolation in religious rituals in the churches.
During the 15th century these plays were performed at religious festivals in the open air on movable stages or pageants, conveyed from place to place on wagons.
Secular dramas of entertainment, such as the ones we know today, grew up in the 16th century, performed at the courtyards of inns, in the halls of country mansions, in royal palaces, at Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and in the inns of the court of London.
The performers were professional actors usually incorporated in companies attached to noble or royal households. Only men could be actors, since the appearance of women on stage was forbidden, as it was considered indecent. Gradually this attachment became increasingly nominal, and actors required places where they could work independently and permanently. The first playhouse, known as The Theatre, was erected by James Burbage in Shoreditch, outside the city of London, in 1576/77. It was followed by many others, such as The Globe, famous due to its association with Shakespeare, or Drury Lane.
We may divide the development of English drama into four stages:
Drama is inherent in the very ritual of the Church, for the Mass itself is a doctrinal point presented in spectacular form. In order to familiarise men and women with the stories of the Bible, plays known as Miracle Plays were acted from time to time at churches.
Then the play emerged from the church into the marketplace. In the 14th century the different guilds represented plays according to their trade. For instance, the fishermen presented the Flood, the vintners the Marriage at Canaan, etc. Performances were offered on cars or scaffolds in open spaces. The play of Noah gives us some insight into the nature of these plays, which combined rough English humour and didactic purpose. Although the drama had its source in sacred history, the method of telling shows the influence of old English amusements such as the horse-play of the juggler or the quips of the jester.
The Miracle Play gave place first to the Morality Play and later to the Interlude. In the Miracle Play serious and comic elements were mixed, now they are separated: the Morality shows a serious mood accompanied by didactic purpose and characters symbolise abstract qualities (Sin, Grace, Repentance), while the Interlude aimed merely at amusement.
In this stage the beginning of the English Tragedy took place, for just like in Greece Tragedy preceded Comedy. This is the period of the so called English Renaissance, featured by the establishment of the theatre as the most popular form of art and entertainment – everybody went to the theatre, from the nobility to the peasants- and the main consequence of this was the growth of play writers that made this century one of the most prolific of English drama such as John Lily, Robert Green, Thomas Nashe or Christopher Marlowe.
2.3 Life of William Shakespeare and chronology of his works
There is not much records of Shakespeare´s personal life. Rumors arise from time to time that he did not write his plays, but the real author was Christopher Marlowe, Queen Elizabeth or Edward De Vere (1550-1604), whom T.J. Looney identified in 1920 as the author of Shakespeare’s plays. A large body of ‘Oxfordians’ have since built on this claim and the reluctance to believe that a man of humble origins could be such a great author.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small country town. Stratford was famous for its malting. The black plague killed in 1564 one out of seven of the town’s 1,500 inhabitants. Shakespeare was the eldest son of Mary Arden, the daughter of a local landowner, and her husband, John Shakespeare (c. 1530-1601), a glover and wood dealer. John Aubrey (1626-1697) tells in Brief Lives that Shakespeare’s father was a butcher and the young William exercised his father’s trade, “but when he kill’d a Calfe he would do it in a high style, and make a speech.” In 1568 John Shakespeare was made a mayor of Stratford and a justice of peace. His wool business failed in the 1570s, and in 1580 he was fined £40, with other 140 men, for failing to find surety to keep the peace. There is not record that his fine was paid. Later the church commissioners reported of him and eight other men that they had failed to attend church “for fear of process for debt”. The family’s position was restored in the 1590s by earnings of William Shakespeare, and in 1596 he was awarded a coat of arms.
Very little is known about Shakespeare early life, and his later works have inspired a number of interpretations. T.S. Eliot wrote that “I would suggest that none of the plays of Shakespeare has a “meaning,” although it would be equally false to say that a play of Shakespeare is meaningless.” (from Selected Essays, new edition, 1960). Shakespeare is assumed to have been educated at Stratford Grammar School, and he may have spent the years 1580-82 as a teacher for the Roman Catholic Houghton family in Lancashire. When Shakespeare was 15, a woman from a nearby village drowned in the Avon. Her death was ruled accidental but it may have been a suicide. Later in Hamlet Shakespeare left open the question whether Ophelia died accidentally or by her own hand. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married a local girl, Anne Hathaway (died 1623), who was eight years older. Their first child, Susannah, was born within six months, and twins Hamnet and Judith were born in 1585. Hamnet, Shakespeare’s only son, died in 1596, at the age of 11. It has often been suggested, that the lines in King John, beginning with “Grief fills the room of my absent child”, reflects Shakespeare’s grief.
Hamlet was first printed in 1603. It is Shakespeare’s largest drama, based on a lost play known as the Ur-Hamlet. Prince Hamlet, an enigmatic intellectual, mourns both his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage. His father’s ghost appears to him and tells that Claudius, married to Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, poisoned him. Hamlet, fascinated by cruelly witty games, swears revenge. “The time is out of joint; O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!” He arranges an old play whose story has a parallel to that of Claudius. Hamlet’s behaviour is considered mad. He kills the eavesdropping Polonius, the court chamberlain, by thrusting his sword through a curtain. Polonius’s son Laertes returns to Denmark to avenge his father’s death. Polonius’s daughter Ofelia loves Hamlet, but the prince’s sadistically brutal behaviour drives her to madness.
According to a legend, he left Stratford for London to avoid a charge of poaching. After 1582 Shakespeare probably joined as an actor one or several companies of players. By 1584 he emerged as a rising playwright in London, and became soon a central figure in London´s leading theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain´s Company, renamed later as the King´s Men. He wrote many great plays for the group. In 1599 a new theatre, called The Globe, was built.
Shakespeare was known in his day as a very rapid writer, his publishers Heminges and Condell reported, “and what he thought, he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers.” Despite all the praise, some writer’s were not enthusiastic about his plays. Shakespeare wrote also two heroic narrative poems, Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594). His sonnets were written earliest by 1598 and published in 1609. The sonnets refer cryptically to several persons, among them a handsome young man, a woman called the ‘Dark Lady’, and a rival poet. Shakespeare’s name was also on the title page of The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), issued by the publisher William Jaggard. The identity of the brunette, who appreared in Shakespeare’s later poems, has been a mystery. According to one theory, she was the Countess of Pembroke. George Bernard Shaw believed she was one of Elizabeth I’s ladies-in-waiting, Mary Fritton. Some have thought she was the mother of Shakespeare’s supposed illegitimate son, Henry Davenant. Or she might have been Marie Mountjoy, Shakespeare’s London landlady, or the black prostitute Luce Morgan, or Emilia Bassano, the daughter of a court musician and mistress of the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Hunsdon. And there is a theory that the Dark Lady was not a “she” at all, but Shakespeare’s patron Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton.
Romeo and Juliet was based on real lovers who lived in Verona, Italy, and died for each other in the year 1303. At that time the Capulets and Montagues were among the inhabitants of the town. Shakespeare found the tale in Arthur Brooke’s poem ‘The Tragical Historye of Romeus and Juliet’ (1562). The play has inspired other works, such as Berlioz’s dramatic symphony (1839), Tchaikovsky’s fantasy-overture (1869-80), and Prokofiev’s full-length ballet (1938). The Tempest, often considered Shakespeare’s farewell to his theatrical art, has inspired Berlioz, Tchaikovsky, and Jean Sibelius, who wrote music for it in 1926.
About 1610 Shakespeare returned to his birthplace, where he had a house, called New Place. He lived as a country gentleman, drank beer, and co-wrote with John Fletcher The Two Noble Kinsmen, first published in 1634. A number of Shakespeare’s plays were published during his lifetime, but none of the original dramatic manuscripts have survived. The original Globe burned down in 1613, but was rebuilt next year. Shakespeare’s later plays were also performed at the Blackfriars Theatre, which was run by a seven-man syndicate. Shakespeare was one of its members. Shakespeare’s company used the Globe in the summer and the indoor Blackfrias in the winter. Under the patronage of King James I, the company also performed at court, more often than during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The dramatist John Dennis (1657-1734) claimed, that The Merry Wives of Windsor was written at her command. Macbeth, with its witches and portrayal of the legendary ancestor of the Stuart kings, Banquo, had a special appeal to James. He had also written a book about demonology.
Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. His widow was legally entitled to a third of the estate. Shakespeare also bequeathed his “second-best bed” to his wife – at that time the best bed was the grand prize of a forfeited estate. Anne Hathaway died seven years after her husband. According to a story, she and her daughter wished to be buried in Shakespeare’s grave.
3 MOST REPRESENTATIVE WORKS
His literary activity extends over twenty-four years (from 1588 to 1612). Shakespeare was the author of thirty-seven plays and probably part author of others, and he also wrote a hundred and fifty-four sonnets, longer poems on classical mythological subjects, and many lyrics included in the plays themselves. He was basically a poet who wrote dramatic verse. In the Elizabethan period the vehicle for drama was poetry.
First we will analyse Shakespeare´s contribution to the poetic field, then we will concentrate on his dramatic production.
3.1 Poetry
In the summer of 1592, an episodic outbreak of the plague swept through London. Theatres were among the public gathering places to be shut down. William Shakespeare decided to stay in London rather than follow a theatrical company on tour.
Shakespeare needed a way to earn a wage until the theatres reopened. He also desired to be taken seriously as a writer. Playwrights of the era were considered little more than populist hacks, writing largely disposable entertainment. Shakespeare instead found a way to earn both money and acclaim through the patronage of the third Earl of Southampton, Henry Wriothesley.
Poetry was the art of nobles and gentlemen, and Shakespeare—a rustic interloper without the usual college-educated wit—lucratively introduced himself between1593 and 1594. Venus and Adonis would become Shakespeare’s most widely printed work during his lifetime. The following year, Shakespeare published The Rape of Lucrece. Both were poems calculated to bolster Shakespeare’s reputation and wallet.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is the body of poetry that comprises Shakespeare’s more mysterious and controversial work. If Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece represent Shakespeare’s quest for immortality, his sonnets of the early 1590s represent the passion and introspection behind it.
At some point in the early 1590s, Shakespeare began writing a compilation of sonnets. The first edition of these appeared in print in 1609. However, Frances Meres mentions Shakespeare sharing at least some of them among friends as early as 1598, and two (138 and 144) appear as early versions in the 1599 folio The Passionate Pilgrim. Shakespeare’s seeming ambivalence toward having the sonnets published stands in remarkable contrast to the poetic mastery they demonstrate.
Why sonnets? The sonnet was arguably the most popular bound verse form in England when Shakespeare began writing. Poetry at this time was influenced by the Italian poetry and especially by the poetry of Petrarcha, which was first introduced in England by Sidney. Sidney took the patterns and the subject matters of the Italian masters and combined them with the new Protestant ideology born during the kingdom of Henry the Eighth; the courtly love is the theme par excellence, that is to say, the suffering love on the part of a lover because of the constant rejection of his mistress. Metaphors such as “face like alabaster”, “teeth like pearls”, “hair like gold”, “eyes like the sun”, are recurrent in the Renaissance poetry.
The new generation of poets after Sidney , included Shakespeare, introduced some new elements in their compositions: ties of love and friendship, the passing of time, the loss of beauty and the nature of poetry itself. The form of the sonnet took on a distinctive English style of three distinctively rhymed quatrains capped by a rhymed couplet comprising 14 total lines of verse. This allowed the author to build a rising pattern of complication in a three-act movement, followed by the terse denouement of the final two lines. Conventional subject matter of the Elizabethan sonnet concerned love, beauty, and faith.
Shakespeare as a poet could hardly have ignored the sonnet as a verse form. He appears to have written a sequence of them, dedicated to a “Master W.H.,” and the sequence as a whole appears to follow a loose narrative structure. Of the 154 sonnets, there are three broad divisions:
Sonnets 1-126, which deal with a young, unnamed lord, the “fair youth” of the sonnets
Sonnets 127-152, which deal with the poet’s relationship to a mysterious mistress, the “dark lady” of the sonnets
Sonnets 153-154, which seem to be poetic exercises dedicated to Cupid
The sonnets are poignant musings upon love, beauty, mortality, and the effects of time. They also defy many expected conventions of the traditional sonnet by addressing praises of beauty and worth to the fair youth, or by using the third quatrain as part of the resolution of the poem.
The first edition of 1609 could very well have been an unauthorized printing. The dedication is enigmatic, and the sonnet by that time had waned in popularity. Whether or not Thorpe published the 1609 quarto with Shakespeare’s blessing, the sonnets as they are printed comprise the foundation for all later versions. Points of debate have ensued ever since as to:
– The order of the arrangement
– Whether or not the sonnets are autobiographical
– Whether or not Shakespeare actually intended them to be published
– The identities of W.H., the fair youth, and the dark lady, among others
– The exact nature of the poet’s relationship with those he addresses in the sonnets
Shakespeare dedicates Venus and Adonis as “the first heir of my invention.” In doing so, Shakespeare acknowledges that even he considered his plays as literary works inferior to poetry. The poem, a brief epic, evokes comparisons to Marlowe’s Hero and Leander, to which Venus and Adonis owes at least some debt. Equal parts comic and erotic, the poem is Shakespeare’s take on a story told by Ovid in which Venus falls for the handsome youth Adonis.
Shakespeare, however, makes one crucial twist to Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid’s Venus is an irresistible, tragic goddess whose love Adonis returns. Venus and Adonis portrays the goddess as a comically frustrated seductress who can’t seem to distract Adonis from his love of hunting. Shakespeare also includes elements from Metamorphoses from the tales of Narcissus and Hermaphroditus.
Venus and Adonis is a microcosm of Shakespeare’s writing: taking a classical source and infusing it with both heightened formality and a playful humanity. Of course, the poem’s comic overtones and animal sensuality caused it to lapse into critical disfavour.
The Rape of Lucrece was published the year after Venus and Adonis. Because of their proximity and Shakespeare’s dedication of both works to Southampton, the two poems are often thought of as companion pieces. In fact, it’s believed that Lucrece is the “graver labour” to which Shakespeare refers in the dedication of Venus and Adonis. Written in rhyme royal stanzas, The Rape of Lucrece also borrows from Ovid.
While Shakespeare sticks fairly closely to the narrative of Ovid, in The Rape of Lucrece, he expands significantly on the action through the characterization of both Tarquin and Lucrece. Shakespeare creates as a result a tense drama with both moral and political overtones. The verses are thick with rhetorical flourishes and wordplay. Like its predecessor, The Rape of Lucrece sparked much critical debate over the years, mostly regarding how Lucrece’s language often works against her emotion.
The 1599 volume The Passionate Pilgrim was a collection of twenty poems that the publisher attributed entirely to Shakespeare. Only five works can be traced to Shakespeare: versions of sonnets 138 and 144, and three poems presumably taken from a quarto edition of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Thomas Heywood actually complained about a later reprinting of the work in which his poetry was published but still credited to Shakespeare. Heywood also noted that Shakespeare was unhappy with the publisher, William Jaggard, who “presumed to make so bold with his name.” It seems apparent that Jaggard’s printing was an unauthorized enterprise.
A Lover’s Complaint was printed with Thorpe’s 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Like The Rape of Lucrece, A Lover’s Complaint is written in rhyme royal stanzas but is much shorter, at just over 300 lines. The poem tells the story of a woman seduced by a womanizing young man. In 1601, an untitled poem by Shakespeare appeared in a collection entitled Love’s Martyr. Scholars have given it the title The Phoenix and the Turtle based on the thematic subject of the collection.
Based on computer-aided analysis, a 1612 poem published by Thomas Thorpe as A Funeral Elegy and signed “W.S.” was thought to be attributable to Shakespeare. Further study has pointed toward Jacobean dramatist John Ford, rather than Shakespeare, as the poem’s author.
The most idealistic ones, celebrating love’s mutuality, are addressed to a man by another,
whereas those clearly addressed to a woman revile her morals, speak ill of her appearance, and explore the poets self-disgust at his entanglement with her.
3.2 Drama
Shakespeare´s dramatic production may be organised into three great blocks: comedies, tragedies and historical plays.
A . Comedies and romance: A Midsummer Nigth´s Dream. The Merchant of Venice
Different tendencies and traditions converge in the Elisabethean comedy: the classic Latin comedy, the medieval romance, the medieval tradition of mystery plays and the Italian commedia dell´arte.
With regards to the Latin comedy, authors such as Plaute or Terence are the source of the new drama; issues like the presence of the fate that rules characters lives or supernatural forces or tricks that restore an initial situation are usual in the plays. Another theme is the permanent conflict between society and individual, usually under the form of an oppressive father and the liberal love of a young couple.
Regarding the medieval romances, the conflicts are socialized and the characters are presented as archetypes (villain- hero, princess- father, etc). The theme of love is dealt following the traces of the medieval stories (courtly love, love affairs, temptation, etc.)
Although the religion subjects are left aside, the didactic purpose and social criticism on human nature of old mystery plays still remain.
From la commedia dell´arte the English comedy takes improvisations, great doses of intrigue, double plots and above all the humour resource.
A romantic mood predominates in Much Ado about Nothing or As You Like It, social satire in Love’s Labour Lost, an atmosphere of delicate fantasy and supernatural powers is the scenery in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice, though a comedy in form, offers a certain bitterness in the shape of tragic irony, relieved by the background romance. Other famous comedies are The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All is Well that Ends Well, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest , Twelfth night and A Winter´s Tale.
One of the early comedy plays by Shakespeare was A Midsummer Night´s Dream, and , although it lacks the graver tones of the last comedies, we would like to consider it.
Probably it was composed in 1595 or 1596, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s early comedies but can be distinguished from his other works in this group by describing it specifically as the Bard’s original wedding play. Most scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a light entertainment to accompany a marriage celebration; and while the identity of the historical couple for whom it was meant has never been conclusively established, there is good textual and background evidence available to support this claim. At the same time, unlike the vast majority of his works (including all of his comedies), in concocting this story Shakespeare did not rely directly upon existing plays, narrative poetry, historical chronicles or any other primary source materials, making it a truly original piece. Most critics agree that if a youthful Shakespeare was not at his best in this play, he certainly enjoyed himself in writing it.
The main plot of Midsummer is a complex contraption that involves two sets of couples (Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius) whose romantic cross-purposes are complicated still further by their entrance into the play’s fairyland woods where the King and Queen of the Fairies (Oberon and Titania) preside and the impish folk character of Puck or Robin Goodfellow plies his trade. Less subplot than a brilliant satirical device, another set of characters—Bottom the weaver and his bumptious band of “rude mechanicals”—stumble into the main doings when they go into the same enchanted woods to rehearse a play that is very loosely (and comically) based on the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, their hilarious home-spun piece taking up Act V of Shakespeare’s comedy.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains some wonderfully lyrical expressions of lighter Shakespearean themes, most notably those of love, dreams, and the stuff of both, the creative imagination itself. Indeed, close scrutiny of the text by twentieth-century critics has led to a significant upward revision in the play’s status, one that overlooks the silliness of its story and concentrates upon its unique lyrical qualities. If A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be said to convey a message, it is that the creative imagination is in tune with the supernatural world and is best used to confer the blessings of Nature (writ large) upon mankind and marriage.
Another example of comedy is The Merchant of Venice, richer in form and psychological depth. We will provide the analysis of it in more detail.
Written before 1598, probably in 1596, The Merchant of Venice is one of the greatest comedies by Shakespeare. However, a certain bitter irony, the gothic atmosphere, and its moving exploration of the themes of justice, mercy and revenge make it capable of being read also as a tragedy. The most accurate way of defining it would probably a tragic comedy.
Antonio, the merchant of Venice, and Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, have struck a bargain. Shylock lends Antonio three thousand ducats provided that, if Antonio cannot pay him back in three months’ time, Shylock can claim a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Antonio’s ships are lost at sea, and only the lucky mediation of Antonio’s fiancée, Portia, prevents Shylock from getting his pound of flesh and with it Antonio’s life. At the end of the trial Portia recalls the law by which an alien who goes against the life of a Christian Venetian can be punished and lose both his life and his wealth. What had been suggested all throughout the play is made explicit: Shylock is an outcast, isolated from the gentle Venetian society. He is defeated and in a way almost murdered, since the loss of his goods is as harmful to him as the loss of his life.
Money and wealth are crucial elements in this play.
Young aristocrats like Antonio and Portia complain constantly of boredom and attempt to fill their time with meaningless amusements and distractions which never last for too long.
The problem is that their wealthy position has made them avoid the consideration of deeper spiritual questions and Shylock is their scapegoat. Their privileged society relies on money, so they fear and hate Shylock, a man whose philosophy of life is a criticism of their own values. He controls money, and thus he has the power to control and destroy them.
Some critics have suggested that Antonio and Shylock are not so different, both of them are traders in a way. Both Antonio and Shylock are merchants in their own way, hence the ambiguity of the tittle. Shylock accuses Portia of taking his life when depriving him of his wealth and Antonio tells her that, in forgiving his debt, she has given him life.
Even though the play is set in Italy, most of the subjects it deals with are typical of Elizabethan England:
Trade. Merchants at that time were considered a kind of adventurers. Their ships would often explore new territories in search of wealth, and their owners would risk their fortunes in these “adventures”. Commercial expansion was a basic element in the Elizabethan age, and it was thanks to these explorations that the great European empires would arise in the following centuries.
Nobility and generosity. Characters risk their lives and wealth to help their friends, and this makes the reader sympathise with them. Generosity was one of the major Elizabethan virtues, traditionally associated with the extravagant way of life of young aristocrats. However, by the end of the 16th century the inflation of wages and the increased wealth of the middle classes gave way to an important social change, and many young nobles, like Bassanio, failed to adapt to the new economic conditions, falling deeply into debt.
Usury. Money lending had been denounced as sinful by the medieval Church. Jewish usurers were said to have ruined many Elizabethan aristocrats. The truth is that, being condemned by the Church, Christians could not do that job, so it was left for the Jews. The hatred towards a man from a different religion would combine with the hatred towards a man they owed great sums of money to, giving way to the anti-Semitic feeling of the time.
B Tragedies.
Following the patterns of the master Seneca, the English tragedy is based upon these characteristics:
– strong dramatic action achieved by limit situations in which characters are involved, such as dreadful crimes, bloody fights, acts of honour, etc.
– quite rhetoric style in which characters expressed themselves.
– the main theme is to show the greatness of man and the degradation of human soul.
Most of Shakespearean tragedies were written at the height of his creative powers. Through their characters he shows the great complexity of human soul, displaying the wide range of feelings and passions which are found in everyday real life, nowadays the same as they were in the 16th century, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, Othello, the Moor of Venice, King Lear and Macbeth, besides some of the greatest works in all time literature stand as superb studies on human condition. Other famous tragedies are Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet.
We have chosen two of the best known tragedies of Shakespeare as examples of further analysis, first Romeo and Juliet, then Macbeth.
Romeo and Juliet can be plausibly dated to 1595. Shakespeare must have written the play between 1591 and 1596. The earliest date is considered to be too early, because of Shakespeare’s writing style in the play. The later date allows the necessary time for the compilation of the manuscript used to print the first ‘bad’ quarto in early 1597. Romeo and Juliet relates most closely to a group of plays usually dated to the period 1594-1595, Love’s Labour’s Lost, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Richard II.
The tragedy that befalls the main characters, is a direct result of the battle between the two families.” Since Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, Romeo and Juliet are going to die in the end. Some events have to lead to their deaths, and someone makes these events happen. The two families who started it all and cause death of “a pair of star-crossed lovers”. The Capulets and Montagues would be most responsible for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet because if their ancestors didn’t start the fighting, they wouldn’t continue it, nothing terrible like this would have happened.
The story tells us that the whole conflict started a long time ago with really little things, and then grew into huge fights involving many people. No leader of either household ever thought about making peace, they were all too busy to spoil everything for the rival family. Only after the death of their children they realized how wrong they were.
Romeo and Juliet first meet each other at a party at the Capulets’ house. They fall in love with each other at the first sight without knowing that they are from rival families, and when they do learn about it, it is too late. Juliet says: “My only love, sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!” Juliet realizes that it was a mistake to fall in love with Romeo, because he is one of the people she should watch out for. He is her first and only love, but he is an enemy of her family. Luckily for Romeo, Juliet is smart, and such dumb thing as unreasonable hate between their parents wouldn’t stop her from loving Romeo and getting married with him. She is sorry that their families are enemies, though, because everything would be much easier if they weren’t. So this is the first time when the hate between Capulets and Montagues becomes an obstacle to Romeo and Juliet’s happiness.
Only after their children die, do the Montague and Capulet come to their senses. The Prince accuses them of killing Romeo and Juliet: “Capulet, Montague, See what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heavens finds means to kill your joys with love!” The Prince makes them see how wrong they were all that time, that all because of their hate, because they couldn’t let their children love each other, Romeo and Juliet died. After that, Capulet and Montague make peace, but it is too late, nothing they do now will ever bring their children back.
On the other hand Romeo & Juliet are responsible for their own death. If they didn’t kept their romance a secret and told their parents how much they loved each other, their parent might understand them and let them marry. They were too afraid that their parents wouldn’t understand their love.
It is mostly Capulets’ and Montagues’ fault that Romeo and Juliet died. If they didn’t hate each other so much, they would let their children marry, and they would be able to live happily ever after. There was only one person that realized how unreasonable the fighting was and even tried to stop it, and he was Benvolio. Benvolio was a Montague, but the Capulets didn’t have a peacemaker such as Benvolio. They only had Tybalt, whose only goal was to destroy all the Montagues. Capulet and Montague learned about their children’s love when they were already dead. It is still mostly Capulets’ and Montagues’ fault that Romeo and Juliet died, but maybe it was just their fate to die.
In Macbeth Shakespeare dramatised certain events and legends of the history of Scotland in the 11th century recorded in Ralph Holinshed’s Chronicles, from which he borrowed and altered freely. The most probable date for the composition of Macbeth is 1606. Shakespeare belonged to the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, which in 1603 passed under the direct patronage of King James VI, changing its name to The King’s Men. Therefore, it is not highly surprising that Shakespeare chose a subject that would be of interest to the king for several reasons:
The plot was taken from Scottish history, and it dealt with the king’s ancestry. Witchcraft and supernatural events have an important role in the story, and the king was very interested in this subject, having even written Demonology, a treatise about supernatural facts and elements.
The play can be understood as a warning against the disastrous consequences of regicide. Macbeth suffers from remorse, a civil war breaks out and the order is only restored with the usurper’s death and the promise of the rightful heir coming to the throne. References to the gunpowder plot, which had taken place some months before, can be found in the play.
Man’s fate is already written, but if he enquiries about it, it will be revealed in such a way that it will trick him and lead him to his ruin. This we might gather from the play, as well as the fact that things are not always what they seem to be. The three witches deceive Macbeth using both the truth and his longing for power. Encouraged by their prophecy and the ambition of his wife, Macbeth murders Duncan, his king and friend, and gets the crown for himself. Ambition and conscience fight in his mind all throughout the play until the tragic ending, representing the eternal struggle between good and evil. Macbeth is a bit different from the rest of Shakespeare’s work. It offers a more classical construction, preserving the unity of action (the usurpation of the throne and its consequences) without added subplots.
Lady Macbeth is one of the greatest female characters in the whole of Shakespeare’s work. She is the one who really starts the tragedy persuading Macbeth to commit his evil acts so that the witches’ prophecy comes true and they might become king and queen. She is aware of her husband’s weakness, whose courage and manhood she calls in question, and her strength of will enables her to direct him towards the accomplishment of her objective, that is, to become queen. Most of her appearances take place in the dark, as if she believed that it could hide her crimes, even from herself. At the end, punished by remorse, she goes crazy and dies.
Macbeth has been praised for the lofty imagination it displays and for the vehemence and rapidity of the action. It deals with a variety of themes, among which we may include:
Fate. Macbeth himself is driven along by the violence of his fate. He staggers under the weight of his own purposes and the suggestions of others. The meeting with the tree witches determines his destiny and he can never break their prophecy.
False appearances. All throughout the play fair appearances hide foul realities. This is made clear from the beginning, when the three witches declare: “Fair is foul and foul is fair”.
Nature. in Macbeth the word “nature” usually refers to human nature, and in this sense the whole play deals with Macbeth’s unnaturalness. He kills his king, his friend, a woman and her children. In the end he is destroyed when nature itself seems to become unnatural: trees walk and he has to fight a man “not of woman born”.
Temptation and remorse. Macbeth is tempted to the commission of his crimes by golden opportunities, by the instigation of his wife, and by prophetic warnings. However, his mind is assailed by remorse, and he regrets to have ever seized the crown, he even envies those whom he has murdered for their eternal rest.
Heaven and Hell. In Macbeth both places, especially Hell, seem very close to Earth. Macbeth declares that he would not mind losing his eternal life if this way he becomes a powerful king. As the play advances he becomes more of a cruel and nasty character, and at the end he does not even seem to be affected by his wife’s death.
C Historical plays: Henry V. Richard III
The were very fashionable on Shakespeare´s time. They have a lot of features in common with the tragedies, but they are considered apart because the main theme is the anxious longing and violent struggle for power, when the pride of being English is running high – let´s remember the supremacy of England at this time in Europe -. Historical characters are pictured as real human beings, far from the more common legendary and mythical tone in which they used to be depicted. Shakespeare wrote about English history -covering a period of three centuries, marked by continuous civil wars- in plays such as Richard II , III, Henry IV (part I), V, VI (part I) and in collaboration with John Fletcher Henry VIII..
Henry V and Richard III will be examples for our analysis:
Shakespeare wrote Henry V in 1599 as a sequel to the second part of Henry IV, which finished with the death of the king and the accession of Prince Hal to the throne. It is a kind of dramatised historical chronicle which offers a study on war, kingship and, like most of Shakespeare’s work, on human condition as a whole.
Henry V completes the second tetralogy of Shakespeare’s historical plays. It re-states a problem first dealt with in Richard II: can the spiritual values which elevate human life coexist with the ruthless strength and authority that a ruler needs to govern? Depending on the way we interpret the play two mutually exclusive answers may be found:
Some readers consider the play a patriotic tribute to Henry as an epic leader whose greatness is balanced by his humanity, and who took England to new heights of power and defeated the traditional enemy, France, on its home ground. Henry is a hero suited to the threatening times England endured in the late 16th century, when the play was written.
On the other hand, though, the play is a mordant commentary on politics and war, and Henry appears as a cold-blooded militarist, power-hungry hypocrite who uses religion to justify the horrors of an unnecessary war. This much less heroic view has found its audience mainly in recent times, but the observation that war is a dreadful thing and that it is often conducted for selfish ends is not new, and Shakespeare could easily have found these ideas a suitable material for the play. Henry’s invasion of France and the victory at Agincourt were already legendary peaks of English glory in Shakespeare’s time, and several passages from the play have been standard items of patriotic rhetoric since they first appeared, but nevertheless the morality of war is questioned through the play. At Herfleur Henry describes in detail the fate the town will undergo if its soldiers do not surrender, and the reader is offered a complete vision of the savagery and horrors of war.
In either interpretation we find a powerful dramatic work whose epic quality intends to evoke the grandeur of the ancient world, whether seriously or sarcastically. The use of the chorus, itself a direct reference to the classical drama, places the action in a sort of mythical and legendary context. It also secures the unity of action by offering omitted details of the story.
A close study of Henry’s language shows different levels of oratory.
It is sharp and ironic when addressed to the French, deeply moving and full of tragic emotion when he discovers the conspirators, and it brings a sense of great moments passing into epic legend when he speaks to his army, not as a king, but as an average soldier, the evening before the battle of Agincourt.
In a way, not only the French army, but also the French language is defeated, since when he speaks to the French the nobles he does so in English, and uses the French only in a few moments in his conversation with Katharine.
The large variety of people that populated Henry’s troops is reflected in the different dialects spoken by the soldiers, such as Welsh or Scottish. However, they all feel British. National pride is present all through the play. But the social problems caused by hardened and embittered soldiers returning to civilian life are foretold in Pistol’s words when he declares he will become a thief when he gets back to England.
At the end we are aware of the fact that Henry’s conquests have no future. He predicts great heroism for his son Henry VI, but we know that in his reign England’s French conquests will be lost. This is expressively mentioned in the last chorus, which functions as an epilogue, foretelling England’s future and breaking the epic tone that characterises the rest of the play. Henry V is just a mere interlude in the bloody and tragic tale of England’s disruption by the selfish ambition of feudal aristocrats.
Richard III is the last of the four plays in Shakespeare’s minor tetralogy of English history: it concludes a dramatic chronicle started by Henry VI: Part I and then moving through Henry VI: Part II and Henry VI: Part III. The entire four-play saga was composed early in Shakespeare’s career, most scholars assigning Richard III a composition date of 1591 or 1592. Culminating with the defeat of the evil King Richard III at the battle of Bosworth field in the play’s final act, Richard III is a dramatization of actual historical events that concluded in the year 1485, when the rule of the Plantagenet family over England was replaced by the Tudor monarchy. A full century after these events, Shakespeare’s Elizabethan audiences were certainly familiar with them (as contemporary Americans are of their own Civil War), and they were particularly fascinated with the character of Richard III. Shakespeare’s audiences could readily identify the various political factions and complex family relationships depicted in the play as they proceed from the three parts of Henry VI.
Today, readers and audiences may find it exceedingly difficult to follow the overlapping webs of political intrigue, family relationships, and personal vendettas. Fortunately, while a full knowledge of historical context would certainly enhance a modern reading of the text, it is not really necessary. The play, in fact, is dominated by Richard the hunchback Duke of Gloucester, who becomes Richard III through a series of horrible acts, killing off his enemies, his kinsmen, his wife and most of his supporters before reaching the Battle of Bosworth and crying out “My kingdom for a horse.” In a work that is as much melodrama as history, Richard is a pure, self-professed villain of monstrous proportions. His evil drives the plot; and until his final defeat by the Duke of Richmond (who became Henry VII) in the play’s last act, the good forces opposing him are weak, splintered, and ready prey for his schemes.
The main theme of Richard III is the conflict between evil and good, with Richard embodying all that is foul, including the ability to mask evil with a fair face. Although times are still unsettled, it is Richard’s psychopathology, his mad, self-destructive drive for power that moves the play forward. Neither Shakespeare nor Richard himself make any bones about the epicentre of the bloody, horrible events that take place.
The play resolutely avoids demonstrations of physical violence; only Clarence and Richard III die on-stage, while the rest (the two princes, Hastings, Grey, Vaughan, Rivers, Anne, Buckingham, and King Edward) all meet their ends off-stage. Despite the villainous nature of the title character and the grim storyline, Shakespeare infuses the action with comic material, as he does with most of his tragedies. Much of the humour rises from the dichotomy between what we know Richard’s character to be and how Richard tries to appear. The prime example is perhaps the portion of Act III, Scene 1, where Richard is forced to “play nice” with the young and mocking Duke of York. Other examples appear in Richard’s attempts at acting, first in the matter of justifying Hastings’ death and later in his coy response to being offered the crown.
Richard himself also provides some dry remarks in evaluating the situation, as when he plans to marry the Queen Elizabeth’s daughter: “Murder her brothers, then marry her; Uncertain way of gain….” Other examples of humor in this play include Clarence’s ham-fisted and half-hearted murderers, and the Duke of Buckingham’s report on his attempt to persuade the Londoners to accept Richard (“…I bid them that did love their country’s good cry, God save Richard, England’s royal king!” Richard: “And did they so?” Buckingham: “No, so God help me, they spake not a word….”) Puns, a Shakespearean staple, are especially well-represented in the scene where Richard tries to persuade Queen Elizabeth to woo her daughter on his behalf.
3.3 Influence and contribution of Shakespeare´s works on literature
Shakespeare influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens. Dickens often quoted Shakespeare, drawing 25 of his titles from Shakespeare’s works. The American novelist Herman Melville’s soliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his Captain Ahab in Moby Dick is a classic tragic hero, inspired by King Lear. Scholars have identified 20,000 pieces of music linked to Shakespeare’s works. These include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Otello and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares with that of the source plays. Shakespeare has also inspired many painters, including the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend of William Blake, even translated Macbeth into German. The psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of human nature.
Shakespeare has often been praised for his theatrical skill, his unrivalled poetic genius, his astonishing comprehension of human passions and his equal aptitude for the tragic and for the comic. Shakespeare’s work has made a lasting impression on later theatre and literature. In particular, he expanded the dramatic potential of characterization, plot, language, and genre. Until Romeo and Juliet, for example, romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy. Soliloquies had been used mainly to convey information about characters or events; but Shakespeare used them to explore characters’ minds. His work heavily influenced later poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to revive Shakespearean verse drama, though with little success. Critic George Steiner described all English verse dramas from Coleridge to Tennyson as “feeble variations on Shakespearean themes.”
In Shakespeare’s day, English grammar and spelling were less standardized than they are now, and his use of language helped shape modern English. Samuel Johnson quoted him more often than any other author in his A Dictionary of the English Language, the first serious work of its type. Expressions such as “with bated breath” (Merchant of Venice) and “a foregone conclusion” (Othello) have found their way into everyday English speech.
Shakespeare´s analysis on human soul has survived till nowadays and that is one of the reasons for the numerous adaptations of his works into films. Quoting from Orson Welles, Shakespeare would have been a great filmmaker, since his playwrights have inspired directors from the very beginning of the history of cinema. From classic versions which respect the original text of the master in its historical context, such as the ones by Sir Laurence Olivier or Orson Welles (Henry V, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth), to the ones inspired on them such as “Forbidden Planet (based on The Tempest), West Side Story (Romeo and Juliet) or the Japanease epic of Akiro Kurosawa Throne of Blood (Macbeth ); or modern versions which take the original text but set the plays in a modern setting, such as Romeo and Juliet starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Claire Danes or Much Ado About Nothing starring Emma Thomson and Kenneth Brannagh; and films that show the adventures of troupes of actors doing Shakespeare such as the brilliant To Be or Not To Be by Lubritsch, more than a hundred and thirty films have been produced. Some other film adaptations are The Taming of the Shrew, 1929, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 1935, dir. by Max Reinhardt-William Dieterle – Romeo and Juliet, 1935, dir. by George Cukor – Falstraff, 1965, dir. by Orson Welles – , etc. This is the proof of the present validity of Shakespeare´s works.
In conclusion, it is surprising that a writer born in the XVIth century is still the best known of English literature, even if we ask anybody without a wide knowledge on this matter.
4 STUDY GUIDE
English Renaissance theatre derived from several medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in churches but later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays that evolved out of the mysteries, and the “University drama” that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy. The Italian tradition of Commedia dell’arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court came to play roles in the shaping of public theatre.
During the 15th century these plays were performed at religious festivals in the open air on movable stages or pageants, conveyed from place to place on wagons.
Secular dramas of entertainment, such as the ones we know today, grew up in the 16th century, performed at the courtyards of inns, in the halls of country mansions, in royal palaces, at Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and in the inns of the court of London.
The performers were professional actors usually incorporated in companies attached to noble or royal households. Only men could be actors, since the appearance of women on stage was forbidden, as it was considered indecent. Gradually this attachment became increasingly nominal, and actors required places where they could work independently and permanently. The first playhouse, known as The Theatre, was erected by James Burbage in Shoreditch, outside the city of London, in 1576/77. It was followed by many others, such as The Globe, famous due to its association with Shakespeare, or Drury Lane.
We may divide the development of English drama into four stages: Drama is inherent in the very ritual of the Church, for the Mass itself is a doctrinal point presented in spectacular form. In order to familiarise men and women with the stories of the Bible, plays known as Miracle Plays were acted from time to time at churches. Then the play emerged from the church into the marketplace. In the 14th century the different guilds represented plays according to their trade. For instance, the fishermen presented the Flood, the vintners the Marriage at Canaan, etc. Performances were offered on cars or scaffolds in open spaces. The play of Noah gives us some insight into the nature of these plays, which combined rough English humour and didactic purpose. Although the drama had its source in sacred history, the method of telling shows the influence of old English amusements such as the horse-play of the juggler or the quips of the jester. The Miracle Play gave place first to the Morality Play and later to the Interlude. In the Miracle Play serious and comic elements were mixed, now they are separated: the Morality shows a serious mood accompanied by didactic purpose and characters symbolise abstract qualities (Sin, Grace, Repentance), while the Interlude aimed merely at amusement. In this stage the beginning of the English Tragedy took place, for just like in Greece Tragedy preceded Comedy. This is the period of the so called English Renaissance, featured by the establishment of the theatre as the most popular form of art and entertainment – everybody went to the theatre, from the nobility to the peasants- and the main consequence of this was the growth of play writers that made this century one of the most prolific of English drama such as John Lily, Robert Green, Thomas Nashe or Christopher Marlowe.
William Shakespeare was an English poet, dramatist, and actor, considered by many to be the greatest dramatist of all time. Some of Shakespeare’s plays, such as Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, are among the most famous literary works of the world. However, his early works did not match the artistic quality of Marlowe’s dramas.
Shakespeare was an excellent poet and his work Venus and Adonis would become Shakespeare’s most widely printed work during his lifetime. The following year, Shakespeare published The Rape of Lucrece. Both were poems calculated to bolster Shakespeare’s reputation and wallet.
However if these two works represent Shakespeare’s quest for immortality, his sonnets of the early 1590s represent the passion and introspection behind it.
The sonnet was arguably the most popular bound verse form in England when Shakespeare began writing. Poetry at this time was influenced by the Italian poetry and especially by the poetry of Petrarcha, which was first introduced in England by Sidney. Sidney took the patterns and the subject matters of the Italian masters and combined them with the new Protestant ideology born during the kingdom of Henry the Eighth; the courtly love is the theme par excellence, that is to say, the suffering love on the part of a lover because of the constant rejection of his mistress.
The new generation of poets after Sidney , included Shakespeare, introduced some new elements in their compositions: ties of love and friendship, the passing of time, the loss of beauty and the nature of poetry itself. The form of the sonnet took on a distinctive English style of three distinctively rhymed quatrains capped by a rhymed couplet comprising 14 total lines of verse. This allowed the author to build a rising pattern of complication in a three-act movement, followed by the terse denouement of the final two lines. Conventional subject matter of the Elizabethan sonnet concerned love, beauty, and faith.
The sonnets are poignant musings upon love, beauty, mortality, and the effects of time. They also defy many expected conventions of the traditional sonnet by addressing praises of beauty and worth to the fair youth, or by using the third quatrain as part of the resolution of the poem.
On the other hand we may divide the dramatic production of Shakespeare into three great blocks: comedies, tragedies and historical plays.
Different tendencies and traditions converge in the Elizabethan comedy: the classic Latin comedy, the medieval romance, the medieval tradition of mystery plays and the Italian commedia dell´arte.
With regards to the Latin comedy, authors such as Plaute or Terence are the source of the new drama; issues like the presence of the fate that rules characters lives or supernatural forces or tricks that restore an initial situation are usual in the plays. Another theme is the permanent conflict between society and individual, usually under the form of an oppressive father and the liberal love of a young couple.
Regarding the medieval romances, the conflicts are socialized and the characters are presented as archetypes (villain- hero, princess- father, etc). The theme of love is dealt following the traces of the medieval stories (courtly love, love affairs, temptation, etc.)
Although the religion subjects are left aside, the didactic purpose and social criticism on human nature of old mystery plays still remain.
From la commedia dell´arte the English comedy takes improvisations, great doses of intrigue, double plots and above all the humour resource.
A romantic mood predominates in Much Ado about Nothing or As You Like It, social satire in Love’s Labour Lost, an atmosphere of delicate fantasy and supernatural powers is the scenery in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Merchant of Venice, though a comedy in form, offers a certain bitterness in the shape of tragic irony, relieved by the background romance. Other famous comedies are The Comedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, The Merry Wives of Windsor, All is Well that Ends Well, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest , Twelfth night and A Winter´s Tale.
Following the patterns of the master Seneca, the English tragedy is based upon these characteristics:
– strong dramatic action achieved by limit situations in which characters are involved, such as dreadful crimes, bloody fights, acts of honour, etc.
– quite rhetoric style in which characters expressed themselves.
– the main theme is to show the greatness of man and the degradation of human soul.
Most of Shakespearean tragedies were written at the height of his creative powers. Through their characters he shows the great complexity of human soul, displaying the wide range of feelings and passions which are found in everyday real life, nowadays the same as they were in the 16th century, Hamlet, prince of Denmark, Othello, the Moor of Venice, King Lear and Macbeth, besides some of the greatest works in all time literature stand as superb studies on human condition. Other famous tragedies are Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Pericles, Julius Caesar, Anthony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet.
Historical plays were very fashionable on Shakespeare´s time. They have a lot of features in common with the tragedies, but they are considered apart because the main theme is the anxious longing and violent struggle for power, when the pride of being English is running high – let´s remember the supremacy of England at this time in Europe -. Historical characters are pictured as real human beings, far from the more common legendary and mythical tone in which they used to be depicted. Shakespeare wrote about English history -covering a period of three centuries, marked by continuous civil wars- in plays such as Richard II , III, Henry IV (part I), V, VI (part I) and in collaboration with John Fletcher Henry VIII..
5 BIBLIOGRAPHY
– How Shakespeare Spent the Day by Ivor Brown, Oxford (1964)
– Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare, ed. by Geoffrey Bullough, Oxford University Press (1957-1966)
– Outlines of the Life of William Shakespeare by J.O. Halliwell-Phillips, Cambriadge (1887)
– Shakespeare by Anthony Burgess, U.P.A (1970)
– Shakespeare’s England by Walter Raleigh, Longman (1916)
– Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, Longman (1999)
– The Elizabethan Stage by E.K. Chambers, Oxford (1924)
– William Shakespeare: A Documentary Life by S. Scoenbaum (1975)
– William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems by E.K. Chambers (1930)
– William Shakespeare: His Life and Work by Anthony Holden (1999)