English Reinassance

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE 1485−1649 TOPIC 2
Setting the Scene
Renaissance means re−birth. It began in Italy espacially in art, architecture, 15th century. In late 16th England
became the most powerful nation in Europe, new worlds were discovered and new ways of thinking.
Columbus discovered America.
Copernicus and Galileo made discoveries about stars and planets.
Ferdinan Magallanes travelled around the world.
Henry the VIII became the head of the Church of England, churhc and state were together.
Erasmus wrote of man as the central figure of the world, and this humanist concern was the basis of most
Renaissance thought.
Henry VIII´s daughter became the simbol of the golden age. Spain was defeated.
A concern of the shortness of human life began with Elisabeth´s old age.
Renaissance was the begining of the modern world in areas of geography, science, politics, religion, society,
and art.
Writers like Shakespeare made English the modern language we can recognize today.
The most important expresion in literature was THEATRE, and the golden age of English DRAMA.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. (1564−1616)
Of Shak. thirty−seven plays, many of the best known are tragedies. Each is, however, different from all the
others. He was constantly experimenting with different styles, techniques and themes.
History plays
There are many, usually the title is the name of an English king:
Henry IV, V,VI,VIII. Shak. Examines every king as a human being first, very human, strong or weak, clever
or not, good or bad. Some are more than just historical stories, and become tragedies, like HAMLET(which
has became the most famous of all Shak´s Plays),Richard II, III. Shak is concerned for his own nation, and the
human individual who plays the king.
Some kings are heroic like Henry V, but others like Richard II, the most tragically weak, shows his deepest
feelings. Richard is a real man, with worries and concerns, no longer a distant Godlike figure. Shak manages
to create sympathy for his heroes, making them understandable, complex, recognizable characters.
Roman plays
In a similar way he describes the classical history of Ancient Rome in Roman plays, which also combine the
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historical with the tragic: Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.
History and roman plays were written at different times in Shak´s career. He liked to return to different
historical periods at different times but the same historical subjects return in his earllly period, his middle
period, and his late plays. Often he asked questions in his plays which had to do with the political situation in
England at the time but without offending any of the monarcs.
Soliloquies and Structure.
Not all heroes are good men. Richard III is descrived as Machiavellian, someone who tricks and deceives
others. The actor who represents him is alone on stage, he gives his thoughts to the audience.
Sometimes a character will make a big, public speech, like Julius Caesar. But normaly the soliloquy is a
private speech. Shak´s plays were written to be performed, all divided into five sections (acts, or scenes ) but
this only happened about a century after the publication of his First Folio (edition) of his complete plays in
1623.
The tragedies
Shak´s black period (turn of century). Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othelo, King Lear, Macbeth & Timon of
Athens. Revenge, jealoussy, family, ambition, pessimmism, the problem of limits and human failure...
During this time the death of his son Hammet may of influenced his black period when many of his plays
concern fathers and sons.
Romeo and Juliet is the most famous tragedy of love in all literature is one of his earliest tragedies. Many of
these tragedies end in pessemism where life has lost its meaning, but normaly there is some hope for the
future, a new king in Hamlet and Macbeth. King Lear is the most pessimistic. He loses faith for manknid in
plays like Timon of Athens. In his last plays he finds hope again for mankind expressed in the younger
generations who represent the future of the world.
In the tragedies, again and again the characters ask What is a man?. This was in many ways the main question
of the age.
The comedies
Happy ends vs. Hero´s death.
The question of the future harmony of the universe.
The subject of identity: The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night and As you like it.
The role of women: The Taming of the Shrew & The Merry Wives of Winsor.
Love and jealousy: Much Ado About Nothing.
Love and power: A Midsummer Night´s Dream.
The power of money and deception: The Merchat of Venice. (Things never end as they seem)
And other "problem plays": Measure for Measure & All´s Well that Ends Well.
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The world is threatened and shaken but comedies always end happily
Final Plays
Difficulty of clasification, fables, pastoral comedies or problem plays. Different in tone while
thematically similar with respect to Shak´s previous dramas: The Tempest like others it´s about giving
back harmony to the universe.(the last he wrote) & The Winter´s Tale.
Chistopher Marlowe (1564−93)
Biography. (Politics and Drama; Marlowe, the over−reacher; Marlowe and Shakespeare).
Tragedies: Edward II(first homosexual character), Tamburlaine (Theme of power), The Jew of Malta
(Barabas has the first negro servant in English drama), Dido & Dr. Faustus.
Marlowe and the Renaissance; black verse and Dr. Faustus.
At the age of 29, he was the most famous and successful playwright of his generation. Educated at Oxford and
Cambridge. His plays have superhuman heroes (best known was Doctor Faustus), whose language has a more
poetic style, influenced by Latin and Greek.
Ben Jonson (1572/3−1637)
Ben Jonson, politics and the theory of humour. Elizabethan & Jacobean periods.
Every Man in His Humour & Every Man Out of his Humour.
Emotion: Volpone and The Alchemist (best known comedies)
His first plays caused controversy because of his political relevance. His characters are moved by jealousy,
moral concern, or false bravery.
He wrote the texts for many masques: Masque of Queens
Inigo Jones introduced the procenium arch for the theatre
Other Dramatists
Thomas Kyd´s The Spanish Tragedy. (Revenge tragedy, code of honour).
John Ford's Tis a Pity She Is a Whore. Tragedy of sexual love between brother & sister. Full of action,
violence, emoti9on and often madness.
Masterpieces of Jacobean tragedy: John Webster's The Duches of Malfi & The White Devil. (women who are
victims of male violence.
Thomas Middleton´s A Mad World. Comedy (city comedies, in London) and tragedy: dark violent and
complex. They explore themes of madness politics and revenge
The taste for violence, corruption, and complex sexual feelings caused a reaction from extremes Protestants,
the Puritans. This was the beginning of the closure of theatres 1642. The golden Age of English Drama ended
in criticism.
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Renaissance poetry:
The sonnet: Petrarchan vs. Elizabethan/English. Structure & rhyme scheme.14 ten syllable lines, the
ryme ababcdcdefefgg called Elizabethan scheme, the words ryme every other line, the last two are called
couplet.
Sonneteers: First writers Sir Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard. Their sonnets were published in Tottel´s
Miscellany, 1557.
William Shakespeare's Sonnets. Time sonnets. (Reading & commentary of sonnet 144). Cover a wide
range of subjects: love and loss, loneliness and change
Sir Philip Sidney: . First major poet: soldier, poet and lover. Astrophel & Stella full idealized love never
managed: love and loss are linked.
Edmund Spenser and the tradition of English poetry: Prince of poets in Elizabethan age, controversial
figure, with new ideas, he tried to flatter his superiors The Faerie Queene he used the Spenserian stanza: nine
lines ababbcbcc
The poetry of Ch. Marlowe and Ben Jonson greatest of the time, in a private form didn´t publish them (16th
& 17th C.)
Metaphysical poetry
The Jacobean age and the poetry of the Seventeenth−century.
John Donne and the Metaphysical conceit the reason why Donne and Herbert are considered Metaphysical
is because the critic Samuel Johnson thought that their poems were to complex and he didn´t like them. They
wrote about religious themes and sensual love poems, full of modern ideas(personal relation with God,
speaking to him). They were educated men . The Canonization & Holy Sonnets.
Other metaphysical poets: George Herbert. He experienced with language and verse forms (Easter
Wings), Henry Vaughan wrote about the welsh countryside, he is a poet of innocence, Thomas Traherne
youthful, celebrates life and eternity, presents fewer questions and problems than other poets.
Andrew Marvell: important in the later metaphysical poets he brings together religious and secular themes.
The Cavalier Poets (late metaphysical) supported by king James I against Puritans. The Puritan Revolution
their poems are simpler, more lyrical, concerned with love, passing of time like: Robert Herrick and Richard
Lovelace who write also about more serious subjects such as the trouble times they live in, freedom.
Elizabethan and Jacobean prose
Prose was important in the Renaissance period because it helped to form the modern English language, and it
gives the earliest examples of many forms of writing which later became very popular, the writing reached a
wide audience through printing in subjects such as travel writing, essays, guidebooks, political pamphlets, etc.
The Authorized Version of the Bible. (King James I). Was a great influence in the English language.
Cony−catching pamphlets. They were very popular, about thieves, cheats, and other characters. It´s comic,
and about the city life in London.
Richard Hakluyt and travel writing about the voyages of explores to new worlds: America & the East. Sir
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Walter Raleigh Discovery of Guiana Imaginary places with a lot of romance. Sidney´s Arcadia (ideal
pastoral place)
Sir Thomas More´s Utopia (means no place) to an imaginary country, with the ideal model of society.
Thomas Nashe´s The Unfortunate Traveller new kinds of fantasy, humour and social comment
Sir Francis Bacon´s New Atlantis and The Advancement of Learning He wrote in the essay form. He
shows his concern for the new way of thinking, new ideas, a larger world, he had a philosophical and religious
way of thinking.
In his fanciful New Atlantis Bacon suggested the formation of scientific academies.
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