literature and Culture • The TEMPEST

Historical Context
Elizabethan England
A Golden Age Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne
following a tumultuous period in English history. During the
reign of her father, King Henry VIII, thousands of people had
been executed. Warfare had been frequent, and the royal
treasury was drained. The brief reigns of Elizabeth’s half-
brother Edward and half-sister Mary were equally stormy.
Elizabeth, by contrast, proved to be a strong and successful
ruler, frugal with money and popular with her people. Her
long reign (1558–1603) is often seen as a golden age in
English history. The relative stability that Elizabeth created
allowed commerce and culture to thrive.
 Elizabeth I was crowned
The Renaissance Elizabeth ruled toward the end of a at the age of 25. This
flowering of European learning known as the Renaissance painting by the Italian
(REHN uh sahns). The Renaissance began in Florence and artist Federico Zuccaro
other Italian city-states around 1350, and then spread is one of hundreds of
throughout Europe. The word renaissance means “rebirth,” portraits made of the
and the era saw renewed interest in the arts and sciences queen during her reign.
that hearkened back to ancient Greece and Rome. The
cultural pursuit of art and learning had diminished in Western
Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Influenced by
the achievements of the ancients, Renaissance writers and
architects created new forms and designs that emphasized
individual human expression. Painters and sculptors studied
ancient Greek and Roman art to explore a new focus on the
human form. Philosophers and religious reformers challenged
old ideas, as did scientists who strove to unlock the hidden
secrets of the natural world. With new knowledge of the
skies, navigators sailed the globe, expanding trade and
exploring distant lands.

Sixteenth-Century English Monarchs © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

King Edward VI
ruled from
1547 to 1553

1500s
King Henry VIII
ruled from
1509 to 1547

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 essential question: What motivates us to forgive?

The English Renaissance Elizabeth I encouraged commercial

enterprise and the efforts of English navigators, such as Sir Walter
Raleigh, who tried to establish a colony in Virginia, and Sir Francis
Drake, who sailed around the globe. Profiting particularly from the wool
trade, a strong merchant class developed in England, narrowing the gap
between rich and poor. London, with nearly 200,000 people, became
Europe’s largest city. It was a bustling if dirty cultural and political capital
that attracted newcomers from overseas as well as from the English
countryside. In 1588, the English army defeated the Spanish Armada, a
fleet of warships sent by King Philip II of Spain to invade England. The
victory contributed both to Elizabeth’s legend and to the country’s sense
of national pride. It also set England firmly on the path to becoming
ruler of the seas.

Elizabeth’s reign was not only remarkable for its commercial and military Quick insight
successes. On the contrary, her court was a center for musicians and A sonnet, from the
artists, both European and native born. The philosopher Sir Francis Italian for “little song,”
Bacon, who pioneered the informal essay as a literary form, became an is a fourteen-line poem
unofficial member of the queen’s group of advisors. Sir Philip Sidney, a originally developed
popular courtier and diplomat, wrote a series of love sonnets that were in Italy. Sidney’s
much imitated. The poet Edmund Spenser wrote an adventure-packed sonnets ushered in a
epic called The Faerie Queene that he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. The sonnet-writing craze:
greatest Elizabethan literature, however, was written for the stage. The Edmund Spenser,
greatest of these voices were the playwrights Christopher Marlowe, Ben William Shakespeare,
and just about every
Jonson, and—greatest of them all—William Shakespeare.
other Elizabethan poet
produced a sonnet
The Concern for Stability Elizabeth’s father, King Henry VIII, had
sequence, or series.
married six times. He divorced three of his wives and executed two
others, including Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn. Queen Mary,
Elizabeth’s half-sister, infuriated the nation by wedding Phillip II of
Spain, who abandoned her soon afterward. Perhaps because of these
examples, or perhaps because she worried about sharing power,
Elizabeth I never married.
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Queen Mary
ruled from
1553 to 1558

1600
Queen Elizabeth I
ruled from
1558 to 1603

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 literature and Culture • the tempest

Theater in Elizabethan England

London theaters drew crowds that are large
even by today’s standards.
During the Elizabethan era, the religious plays of
the Middle Ages gave way to English tragedies and
comedies modeled on those of ancient Greece and
Rome. Scholars at Oxford and Cambridge universities
studied and translated the ancient plays into English.
The first great Elizabethan playwrights attended those
universities, which is why they are sometimes called
the University Wits. The most prominent of the Wits,
Christopher Marlowe, pioneered the use of blank
verse in drama.
For a time, Elizabethan acting companies still traveled
the countryside as their medieval counterparts had
done. They performed at festivals, inns, and castles.
Gradually, however, the better acting companies
acquired noble patrons, or sponsors, and began
staging private performances in their patrons’
homes. They also gave performances at court, where
elaborate masques—productions featuring singing
and dancing—were especially popular.

From the Theatre to the Globe England’s first

public theater opened in 1576. Known simply as the
Theatre, it was built by the actor James Burbage,
whose company would later attract the young William
Shakespeare. Since the performance of plays was
banned in London proper, Burbage built the Theatre
just outside the city walls. When its lease expired,
Richard Burbage, who took charge of the company
after his father’s death, decided to move operations
to Southwark (SUHTH uhrk), just south across the
River Thames (tehmz) from London. He built a new
© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
theater, called the Globe, which opened in 1599.
Shakespeare’s first play to be performed there was
probably The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.

Theater Structure England’s first theaters were

two- to three-story structures with a central space
open to the sky. The open space was surrounded by
enclosed seating in two or three tiers, or galleries, that
faced inward. On the ground floor, a stage projected
into an area called the pit. Audience members called

 This illustration shows how the Globe

might have looked as the audience arrived
for a performance.

504
 essential question: What motivates us to forgive?

groundlings paid a small fee to stand in the pit and watch the play. Wealthier
audience members, including aristocrats, occupied the more expensive
sheltered gallery seats. Since artificial light was not used, performances
generally took place in the afternoon. Audiences were boisterous, cheering
and booing loudly. Most theaters could hold up to 3,000 people and drew
the largest crowds on holidays.

Theater Stagecraft The portion of the building behind the stage was
Quick insight
used to mount the production. This area included dressing rooms, storage
The upper stage could
rooms, and waiting areas from which actors could enter and exit the stage.
be used for particular
The second-level gallery directly above the stage served as a performance
scenes, or to stage
space. There was no scenery; instead, settings were communicated through a scene with actors
dialogue. Special effects were very simple—smoke might accompany a battle on two levels. It was
scene, for example. Actors playing members of the nobility or royalty wore also the seating area
elegant clothes. These were not really costumes as we think of them today, for musicians, an
but simply the same types of clothing worn by high-ranking Elizabethans. important part of many
Since acting was not considered proper for women, female roles were productions. Several
played by boys of about eleven or twelve, before their voices changed. Given of Shakespeare’s plays,
the constraints of the era’s stagecraft, the productions were unrealistic by particularly the comedies,
modern standards. However, they were also fast paced, colorful, and highly contain songs.
entertaining.

The Blackfriars In 1609, Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men, began

staging plays at an indoor theater called the Blackfriars. They still used
the Globe during the summer months. The Blackfriars was one of the
first English theaters to include artificial lighting, which enabled nighttime
performances. Designed to appeal to wealthy patrons only, the Blackfriars
did not have inexpensive seats or a space set aside for groundlings. Indoor
theaters of this sort, attracting a fashionable crowd, would become the norm
in centuries to come.

Shakespeare’s Globe,
a reconstruction of the
original theater, was
completed in 1997 near
the site of the original
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building. The modern

convenience of artificial
lighting allows for
nighttime performances,
such as the one shown in
this photo.

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 literature and Culture • The TEMPEST

William Shakespeare
Unlike other famed writers of his time, William Shakespeare
(1564–1616) was neither a lofty aristocrat nor a university scholar.
Nevertheless, he is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the
English language.
“What’s Past Is Prologue” Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon,
a market town on the Avon River about seventy-five miles northwest of
London. His father, John, was a successful glove maker who served for a time
as town mayor. His mother, born Mary Arden, was the daughter of a wealthy
farmer who owned the land on which John Shakespeare’s father lived.
Although the records have been lost, it is believed that Shakespeare attended
the Stratford Grammar School, where he would have studied logic, history,
Latin grammar, some Greek, and works by the Roman poets Ovid, Horace,
and Virgil and Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence. When he left school,
he would thus have had a solid foundation in classical literature.

“All the World’s a Stage” In 1582, when he was eighteen, Shakespeare

married a woman named Anne Hathaway, who was twenty-six. The couple
had a daughter, Susanna, in 1583 and twins, Judith and Hamnet, two
years later. No one knows what Shakespeare did for the next several
years, but in the early 1590s his name began to appear in the world
of the London theater. Working first as an actor, Shakespeare soon
began writing plays. By 1594, he was part owner and principal
playwright of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the acting company run by
the Burbages. As the leading actor in most of Shakespeare’s plays,
Richard Burbage was also becoming famous. Soon he decided
to move the company to the new theater district in Southwark.
There, Burbage oversaw the construction of the Globe theater,
which was larger than the company’s old home in London.
With bigger audiences, profits increased for Burbage,
Shakespeare, and all the other co-owners.
The Lord Chamberlain’s Men was named for its sponsors,
first Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, and then his son
George. Both men served in the high government
post of Lord Chamberlain. After Queen Elizabeth I © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

died in 1603, her successor, James I, became

the company’s patron. In his honor, the company
changed its name to the King’s Men.

“Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow” In 1609, the

King’s Men began to perform year-round, using
the Globe theater in summer and the Blackfriars
during the colder months. Profits increased even
more, and about a year later Shakespeare was able
to retire. He returned to his childhood home of
Stratford, where he bought the second-largest house
in town, invested in land, and continued to write.
Shakespeare died in 1616, leaving the bulk of his
estate to his elder daughter, Susanna, and a smaller
sum to Judith. (Hamnet had died in 1596.)

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