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ELIZABETHAN
THEATRE
Development of the Elizabethan
Theatre
Protestant Reformation
Tudor Pageantry
 Medieval Stagecraft
 Renaissance Learning and Ideas
The Tudors
Victorious in the Wars of the Roses, Henry Tudor defeated Richard III, married Anne of
York, and became Henry VII
HENRY VII ---- Anne of York
Arthur -- Catherine -- HENRY VIII Margaret -- James IV Mary-of Aragon
of Scotland Louis XII
of France
Henry VII
1485-1509
Henry VIII
1509-1547
Edward VI
1547-1553
Lady Jane Grey
1553-1553
Mary I
1553-1558
Elizabeth I
1558-1603
The Protestant Reformation
 In order to marry Anne Boleyn, Henry requested an annulment of
his marriage to Catherine of Aragon from the Pope – he was
refused.
 1531 Parliament recognized Henry VIII as head of the English
Church.
 Edward VI (ruled 1547-53) and Archbishop Cranmer
transformed the Church of England into a thoroughly Protestant
Church: Calvinistic
 Queen Mary (ruled 1553-58) reimposed Catholicism on the
English Church – Bloody Mary
 Elizabeth (ruled 1558-1603) worked out a compromise church
that retained as much as possible from the Catholic church while
putting into place most of the foundational ideas of Protestantism.
 Mystery and Morality plays were outlawed as they taught Roman
Catholic doctrine
1588: Defeat of the Spanish Armada
The disgrace to Spain greatly damaged its prestige
England's star was on the rise.
Elizabeth took the defeat of the Armada as a sign of
divine blessing
English patriotism and devotion to the Queen soared to
its greatest heights, shown in part by a profusion of
literature that included Shakespeare's first plays-patriotic histories of the English monarchy.
Tudor Pageantry
A hybrid dramatic form of literature, ritual, and politics,
Royal entries and aristocratic entertainments -- fashionable
literary forms were turned to the service of national
propaganda
Full of spectacle:
Pageants
music, dance, elaborate
 Parades
staging, fireworks
 Masques
Composed by the bright young men who haunted the court
in hopes of securing political office.
Influence of Medieval Theatre
 Eager audience
 Established tradition of theatre and actors
 MYSTERY AND MORALITY PLAYS:
 Mixing of high seriousness and low comedy
 FOLK PLAYS:
 Pagan remnants: fairies and sprites
 Feast of Fools
 INTERLUDES:
 Humanistic debates
Medieval Concepts of Tragedy
De casibus: tragedies of fortune
Tragedy is less the result of individual action
than a reflection of the inevitable turning of
Fortune's wheel.
Fortune, traditionally female because of the
association of women with the moon and
changeability, has two faces, one benign, one
severe.
Feast of Fools
Held between Christmas and Epiphany, particularly on
New Year's Day
The ruling idea of the feast was the reversal of status.
The celebrations were relics of the ancient ceremonies
of birth and renewal which took place at New Year and
involved a temporary overturning of all values.
The Ass, a widespread feature of the festival, was a
mixture of Celtic, Roman and Christian traditions, for
the Ass is at once a relic of ancient magical cults, a
fertility symbol, a symbol of strength and the epitome
of stupidity.
Renaissance
 Rebirth of Classical knowledge and ideals
 Roman theatre as model
 Humanistic Ideas
 Universities
 Oxford
 Cambridge
 Inns of Court
Influence of Roman Theatre
 5 act structure
 Comedy: Plautus and Terence
 Plots
 Stock characters
Tragedy: Seneca
 Revenge motif
 Irony
 Use of ghosts
 Violent spectacle
Elizabethan Stock Characters
 Senex: old man in authority
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Miles gloriosus: braggart soldier
Shrew: sharp-tongued woman
Clever servant
Machiavel: political schemer
“Calumniator believed” : a liar who is believed
Idiotes: a malcontent
Pedant: in love with the sound of his own
didactic voice
 Fools and clowns
Early Senecan Tragedies
Gorbuduc by Thomas Sackville and
Thomas Norton
The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd
Humanism:
from Morality to Chronicle
It was the aim of the humanists to educate those who
ruled in wise and virtuous government.
How do you teach a king? Very tactfully . . .
The effectiveness of the morality play was attractive to
humanists, who changed the nature of the moral from
religion to political virtue without changing the
techniques of the drama.
 A natural medium for the humanists to use in
educating the king, for plays were frequently
performed at Court.
Chronicle or History Plays
Explore the workings and legitimacy of kingship
What is a good King?
Historical exemplars (Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar)
Often turn into tragedies
University Wits
University-educated playwrights, noted for their erudition
and clever language
George Peele (1556-96)
Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)
Thomas Nashe ( 1567-1601)
Robert Greene (1560-92): best known as first
Shakespearian critic
 John Lyly (1554-1606)
Wrote courtly plays for companies of child actors
Plots framed around elegant debates
Euphuistic language
Christopher
Marlowe
1564-93
MA from Cambridge
 Established blank verse as
dramatic medium:
“Marlowe’s mighty line”
 Overreacher
 Killed in a brawl
Tragedies:
 Tamburlaine
 Dido Queen of
Carthage
 Dr. Faustus
 Edward II
 Massacre at Pari
 Jew of Malta
Ben Jonson
1572-1637
Educated at Westminster School -- no university but
the most learned of playwrights
Important comedies of humor include: Every Man
in His Humor, Volpone, The Alchemist,
Bartholomew Fair
 Wrote and staged court masques with Inigo Jones
 Celebrated poet and conversationalist:
“Sons of Ben”
Jacobean Tragedy
A sense of defeat
A mood of spiritual despair
The theme of insanity, of man pressed beyond the limit of
endurance
Moral confusion ("fair is foul and foul is fair") that
threatens to unbalance even the staunchest of heroes.
This sinister tendency came to a climax about 1605 and was
in part a consequence of the anxiety surrounding the death
of Queen Elizabeth I and the accession of James I.
While the Elizabethans affirned life, the Jacobeans were
possessed by death.
Jacobean Dramatists
John Webster (c.1580-c.1632)
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)
Francis Beaumont (c. 1585-1616)
John Fletcher (1579-1625)
Cyril Tourneur (c.1575-1626)
John Ford (1586-c.1639)
Acting Companies
1590 -- 1642: approximately 20 companies of actors in
London (although only 4 or 5 played in town at one
time)
More than a hundred provincial troupes.
Companies usually played in London in the winter and
spring and to travel in the summer when plague ravaged
the city
Members:
Shareholders
Apprentices
Hired men
Boy Actors
No women on the English stage in Shakespeare's day.
The parts of women were acted by child actors--boys
whose voices had not yet changed.
Whole acting companies were created with child
performers: the Children of the Chapel Royal, and the
St. Paul's Boys. The children's companies played
regularly at Court.
The Puritans, who disapproved of the theatre in general,
were particularly scandalized by boys cross-dressing as
women.
Censorship
Largely Puritan leaders of the City of London disapproved
of the theatres.
 The Privy Council was wary of the political comment
often present in topical plays.
Censorship under the direction of the Master of Revels was
strict.
In 1596 the City Corporation ordered the expulsion of
players from London and the closing of the inn-theatres.
 Theatres moved across the River
Types of Plays
Chronicle or History
Plays
Comedies
 Romantic
 Pastoral
 Feast of Fools
 Social
 Humors
Tragedies
 Senecan Revenge
 De casibus -- turn of
Fortune
 Fatal flaw
Romances
 far-away adventures
Any combination of
the above
“The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, hisotry, pastoral,pastoral-comical,
histoircal-pastoral, tragical historical, scene individable or poem unlimited.” -- Hamlet
William Shakespeare
April 23, 1564-April 23, 1616
 Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
 Married Anne Hathaway in 1582 at age of 18
 3 children: Susanna (1583) and Hamnet and Judith
(1585)
 1585-92: “the lost years”
 1595 record of membership in Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
Early Works: prior to 1594
 Poetry:
Venus and Adonis,
The Rape of Lucrece,
sonnets
 Plautine Comedy:
A Comedy of Errors
 Courtly Comedy:
Two Gentlemen of
Verona
 Farcical/problem Comedy:
The Taming of the
Shrew
 History Plays:
Henry VI: 1,2,and 3
Richard III
 Senecan Revenge
Tragedy:
Titus Andronicus
 Romantic Tragedy:
Romeo and Juliet
Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
Originally formed under the patronage of Lord Strange, but
when he died in 1594, the players found a patron in Henry
Carey, the Lord Cahmberlain.
Performed at the Theatre and the Curtain
1599 moved to the newly built Globe. By 1600 they had
emerged as the leading theatrical company in London
1603 became the King's Men under a royal patent from
James I. The company continued successfully until the
Puritans closed the theatres in 1642.
The Globe
Built by the Burbages in
1598 for the Lord
Chamberlain’s Men
 Burned down in 1613
during production of Henry
VIII
 Rebuilt 1614
Blackfriars Theatre
Theatre
Interiors
Sketch of the Swan Theatre
Popular Success: 1595-1600
 Comedies:
 Love’s Labour’s Lost
 A Midsummer’s
Night’s Dream
 Much Ado About
Nothing
 As You Like It
 Twelfth Night
 The Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Histories:
King John
Richard II
Henry IV: 1,2
Henry V
Tragedies:
Julius Caesar
Hamlet
A Darker Vision: 1601-1607
 Problem Plays:
All’s Well That Ends Well
 Measure for Measure
 Troilus and Cressida
 Tragedies:
 Othello
 King Lear
 Macbeth
 Antony and Cleopatra
 Coriolanus
Final Works: 1608-1612
 Tragedy: Timon of Athens
Romances:
Cymbeline
 Pericles
 The Winter’s Tale
 The Tempest
Collaborations with John Fletcher:
Henry VIII
 Two Noble Kinsmen
Shakespeare was buried on April 25, 1616 in Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford, where he had been baptised just over 52 years earlier
Good friend for Jesus sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here!
Blest be the man that spares these stones,
And curst be he that moves my bones
First Folio: 1623
• The first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays.
• Included thirty-six plays, eighteen of which had
never been published before
• The editors of the volume, Shakespeare's fellow
actors John Heminge and Henry Condell, arranged
the plays in three genres: Comedies, Histories, and
Tragedies.