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WEEK 1

BBL 3208SHAKESPEARE AND

RENAISSANCE DRAMA

-Overview of History of

Elizabethan Era.

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Main objectives of the course are:

By the end of this course, students are ableto:

1. identify the Elizabethan dramatic

convention (P1);2. conduct detailed research regardingShakespeares plays and hiscontemporaries (A4);

3. manage relevant information fromvarious sources (LL1).

2Week One

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The module used for this course

Week One 4

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ASSESSMENT

ESSAY 1 (10%) - DUE - WEEK 6

MID SEMESTER EXAMINATION - (30%)

ESSAY TWO - (20%) - DUE - WEEK 12

FINAL EXAMINATION - (40%)

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HISTORY OF THE PERIOD

Political Changes

The century and a half following the death of Chaucer(1400-1550) is the most volcanic period of English history.

The land is swept by vast changes, inseparable from the

rapid accumulation of national power; but since power is

the most dangerous of gifts until men have learned tocontrol it, these changes seem at first to have no specific

aim or direction. Henry V, whose unpredictable yet

energetic life, as depicted by Shakespeare, was typical of

the life of his times.

Henry led his army abroad, in the apparently impossible

attempt to gain for himself three things: a French wife, a

French income, and the French crown itself.

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The battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415, and five

years later, by the Treaty of Troyes, Franceacknowledged his right to all his outrageousdemands.

In the long reign of Henry VIII the changes are less

violent, but have more purpose and significance.His age is marked by a steady increase in thenational power at home and abroad, by theentrance of the Reformation, and by the finalseparation of England from all religious bondage.

In previous reigns chivalry and the old feudalsystem had practically been banished; nowmonasticism, the third medival institution with itsmixed evil and good, monasteries and the removal

of abbots from the House of Lords was expected.

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While England during this period was in constantpolitical strife, yet rising slowly to heights of

national greatness was the introduction of the

printing press. Printing was brought to England

by Caxton (c. 1476), and for the first time inhistory it was possible for a book or an idea to

reach the whole nation. Schools and universities

were established in place of the old

monasteries; Greek ideas and Greek culture

came to England in the Renaissance, and man's

spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the

Reformation.

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The great names of the period are

numerous and significant, but literature is

strangely silent. Probably the very turmoilof the age prevented any literary

development, for literature is one of the

arts of peace; it requires quiet and

meditation rather than activity, and the

stirring life of the Renaissance had first to

be lived before it could express itself in the

new literature of the Elizabethan period.

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The term Renaissance, though used by many writers "to

denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the

modern world,"is more correctly applied to the revival of

art resulting from the discovery and imitation of classic

models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and

was so called by its leaders, following the example of

Petrarch, because they held that the study of the

classics, literae humaniores,--i.e. the "more humanwritings," rather than the old theology,--was the best

means of promoting the largest human interests.

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The two greatest books which appeared in England

during this period are undoubtedly Erasmus'sPraise of

Folly(Encomium Moriae) and More's Utopia, the famous

"Kingdom of Nowhere." Both were written in Latin, but

were speedily translated into all European languages.

The Praise of Folly is like a song of victory for the New

Learning, which had driven away vice, ignorance, and

superstition, the three foes of humanity. It was published

in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is

represented as donning cap and bells and mounting aplatform, where the vice and cruelty of kings, the

selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the foolish

standards of education are satirized without mercy.

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More's Utopia, published in 1516, is a powerful andoriginal study of social conditions, unlike anythingwhich had ever appeared in any literature. Morelearns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci'scompanions, of a wonderful Kingdom of Nowhere,

in which all questions of labor, government,society, and religion have been easily settled bysimple justice and common sense.

In this Utopia we find for the first time, as thefoundations of civilized society, the three greatwords, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, which retainedtheir inspiration through all the violence of theFrench Revolution and which are still theunrealized ideal of every free government.

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As he hears of this wonderful country Morewonders why, after fifteen centuries of Christianity,his own land is so little civilized; and as we readthe book to-day we ask ourselves the samequestion. The splendid dream is still far from being

realized; yet it seems as if any nation couldbecome Utopia in a single generation, so simpleand just are the requirements.

Greater than either of these books, in its influenceupon the common people, is Tyndale's translation

of the New Testament (1525), which fixed astandard of good English, and at the same timebrought that standard not only to scholars but tothe homes of the common people.

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Tyndale made his translation from the originalGreek, and later translated parts of the OldTestament from the Hebrew.

Much of Tyndale's work was included inCranmer's Bible, known also as the Great Bible,in 1539, and was read in every parish church inEngland.

It was the foundation for the Authorized Version,which appeared nearly a century later andbecame the standard for the whole English-speaking race.

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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)

POLITICAL SUMMARY

In the Age of Elizabeth all doubt seems to vanishfrom English history. After the reigns of Edward

and Mary, with defeat and humiliation abroad

and persecutions and rebellion at home, theaccession of a popular sovereign was like the

sunrise after a long night, and, in Milton's words,

we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant

nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after

sleep, and shaking her invincible locks."

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It is enough therefore, to point out two facts: that

Elizabeth, with all her vanity and inconsistency,

steadily loved England and England's greatness;

and that she inspired all her people with the

unbounded patriotism which exults in

Shakespeare, and with the personal devotion

which finds a voice in the Faery Queen. Underher administration the English national life

progressed by gigantic leaps rather than by slow

historical process, and English literature reached

the very highest point of its development. It ispossible to indicate only a few general

characteristics of this great age which had a

direct bearing upon its literature.

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Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age

The most characteristic feature of the age

was the comparative religious tolerance,which was due largely to the queen'sinfluence. The frightful excesses of the

religious war known as the Thirty Years'War on the Continent found no parallel inEngland. Upon her accession Elizabethfound the whole kingdom divided against

itself; the North was largely Catholic, whilethe southern counties were as stronglyProtestant.

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Scotland had followed the Reformation in its ownintense way, while Ireland remained true to itsold religious traditions, and both countries wereopenly rebellious.

The court, made up of both parties, witnessedthe rival intrigues of those who sought to gainthe royal favor.

It was due partly to the intense absorption ofmen's minds in religious questions that thepreceding century, though an age of advancinglearning, produced scarcely any literature worthyof the name.

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Elizabeth favored both religious parties,and presently the world saw with

amazement Catholics and Protestants

acting together as trusted counselors of agreat sovereign. The defeat of the Spanish

Armada established the Reformation as a

fact in England, and at the same timeunited all Englishmen in a magnificent

national enthusiasm.

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For the first time since the Reformationbegan, the fundamental question of

religious toleration seemed to be settled,

and the mind of man, freed from religious

fears and persecutions, turned with a great

creative impulse to other forms of activity.

It is partly from this new freedom of the

mind that the Age of Elizabeth received itsgreat literary stimulus.

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It was an age of comparative socialcontentment, in strong contrast with thedays of Langland. The rapid increase ofmanufacturing towns gave employment tothousands who had before been idle anddiscontented. Increasing trade broughtenormous wealth to England, and this

wealth was shared to this extent, at least,that for the first time some systematic carefor the needy was attempted.

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Parishes were made responsible fortheir own poor, and the wealthy weretaxed to support them or give thememployment. The increase of wealth,the improvement in living, theopportunities for labor, the new socialcontent--these also are factors which

help to account for the new literaryactivity.

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It is an age of dreams, of adventure, of

unbounded enthusiasm springing from thenew lands of fabulous riches revealed by

English explorers. Drake sails around the

world, shaping the mighty course whichEnglish colonizers shall follow through the

centuries; and presently the young

philosopher Bacon is saying confidently, "Ihave taken all knowledge for my province."

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The mind must search farther than theeye; with new, rich lands opened to thesight, the imagination must create newforms to people the new worlds. Hakluyt's

famous Collection of Voyages,and Purchas, His Pilgrimage, were evenmore stimulating to the Englishimagination than to the English

acquisitiveness.

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While her explorers search the new world

for the Fountain of Youth, her poets are

creating literary works that are young

forever. Marston writes: "Why, man, all

their dripping pans are pure gold. Theprisoners they take are fettered in gold;

and as for rubies and diamonds, they goe

forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by theseashore to hang on their children's

coates."

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This comes nearer to being a description ofShakespeare's poetry than of the Indians inVirginia. Prospero, in The Tempest, with hiscontrol over the mighty powers and harmonies ofnature, is only the literary dream of that science

which had just begun to grapple with the forcesof the universe. Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert,Raleigh, Willoughby, Hawkins,--a score ofexplorers reveal a new earth to men's eyes, and

instantly literature creates a new heaven tomatch it. So dreams and deeds increase side byside, and the dream is ever greater than thedeed. That is the meaning of literature.

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To sum up, the Age of Elizabeth was a time ofintellectual liberty, of growing intelligence and

comfort among all classes, of unbounded

patriotism, and of peace at home and abroad.

For a parallel we must go back to the Age ofPericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or

go forward a little to the magnificent court of

Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine, and Molire

brought the drama in France to the point where

Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson had left it in

England half a century earlier.

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Such an age of great thought and great action,

appealing to the eyes as well as to the

imagination and intellect, finds but one adequate

literary expression; neither poetry nor the story

can express the whole man,--his thought,feeling, action, and the resulting character;

hence in the Age of Elizabeth literature turned

instinctively to the drama and brought it rapidly

to the highest stage of its development.