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

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

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:
Marlowes 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.

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
Chamberlains 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
Chamberlains 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 Chamberlains
Men
Burned down in 1613 during
production of Henry VIII
Rebuilt 1614

Blackfriars Theatre

Theatre
Interiors

Sketch of the Swan Thea

Popular Success: 1595-1600

Comedies:
Loves Labours Lost
A Midsummers
Nights 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:
Alls 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 Winters 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.