Music of this period became increasingly expressive and refined, and a knowledge and appreciation of music set apart the truly genteel members of the high social classes. In addition, court musicians gradually moved into their own music houses and guilds. Several different instruments became popular during the Elizabethan era, including the lute (a forerunner of the guitar, the viol (predecessor to the violin), viola da gamba (an early type of the cello) and the virginal (an English modification of the clavichord). The new form of secular music was the madrigal which originally came from Italy. The first English musician to compose madrigals was William Byrd. He founded one of the strongest and most famous musical schools, especially in virginal playing.
The Elizabethan era was a period of great advances in world exploration, medicine, and the study of the universe. The period brought great advances in medical science, particularly in the study of human anatomy and and surgical operations. Inventions of the period include the graphite pencil, the modern calendar, wind-powered sawmill, and the thermoscope (primitive thermometer).
In natural philosophy, Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), completed the break from the medieval scholastic method, laid down for the first time the classification of the natural sciences, and prepared the way for modern experimental science. Francis Bacon was a statesman, a philosopher and an essayist. He made a distinguished parliamentary career under Elizabeth I. As a scholar, he wrote mostly in Latin as he believed English would not last. He is also known for his Essays – a collection of brief witty observations on various subjects: reading, education, death, revenge, gardens, etc. The essays are admirably clear and simple and some statements are as memorable as poetry: ‘God Almighty first planted a garden’, ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice’, ‘Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark’. According to some critics (or fanatics?), it was F. Bacon who wrote Shakespear’s plays among other things.
· Entertainments
From the beginning to the end of each year, Elizabethans found ways to keep themselves entertained. They were a creative group of people who pursued leisure activities with great passion. A major part of the Elizabethan lifestyle was connected with feasts and festivals. Every season of the year had special days that drew the people together to celebrate. One of the greater festivals of the year was held at Easter time. The Mayday celebration consisted of the decorating of the maypole and dancing around it. In the summer, bonfires were burned and dances were held to celebrate Midsummer's Eve on June 24. The winter holidays began with Christmas, ran through New Year's Eve and ended on the Twelfth Night, January 5. These holidays included gifts, bonfires, music and jollity.
Dancing was a popular activity and varied according to social class. The upper class favored courtly dances while ordinary people were more likely to do traditional ‘country’ dances.
Sports played a major role in the leisure time of the Elizabethan Age. Some of the indoor games included dice, chess, checkers and a variety of card games. Some of the outdoor sports and games included golf, horse racing, swimming, fishing, hunting, fencing, duelling and cricket. At that time a man was supposed to be skilled at tennis, bowling, archery and hunting. While the upper class enjoyed tennis, common people preferred football. All levels of society enjoyed the sport of hunting. Horses, dogs and hawks were kept and trained for hunting deer, rabbits and other wildlife.
· Elizabethan literature
By the middle of the 16th century, education was spreading among the sons of common citizens. The development of literary competence of the language and advances in education were followed by new printing techniques. Accelerated output of printed books made lyric poetry and prose publicly available.
The Tudors badly needed educated diplomats, statesmen and officials. The new learning implied a systematic schooling in Latin and Greek authors.
English poetry and prose burst into sudden glory in the late 1570s. The greatest literature created during the Elizabethan Period falls into two categories: poetry and drama. Influenced by the Italian sonnets, which had been introduced into the English language by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) during the reign of Henry VIII, English poets began to construct their own variations on the intricate, highly structured poetic form. Influenced by Italian sonnets, English writers of the period began introducing complicated poetic structures in both verse and prose. Writing was a social fashion of this time, a pastime enjoyed by the nobles as well as by men of lower stations.
The other great literary achievement of the Elizabethan Period was the drama, a form which was rooted in centuries of popular folk entertainment and which had been adapted into the religious plays of the Middle Ages.
Elizabethan drama was greatly influenced by Roman authors whose works were translated from Latin into English. Lawyers at the Inns of Court translated the works of Seneca and in their spare time tried to imitate the Roman philosopher. University students translated Roman plays into English and tried to write plays of their own imitating the Roman patterns. The nobility took pleasure in translating Latin poetry: the Earl of Surrey translated Virgil using blank verse. Comedy was developed in the Royal Court itself, in the entertainments given by the Children of St. Paul’s and other choir schools before the Queen. These children, only boys, actred plays written by the first ‘polite’ comic dramatist of the period, John Lyly (1554?-1606). Elizabeth I was a patrom of drama and encouraged its development by frequently attending performances, whether in the Inns of Court, University, or at the royal levels.
The most famous pre-Shakesperian writers of drama were George Peele, Robert Greene (comedies), Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe (tragedies). They belonged to the group known as the ‘ University Wits’.
The University Wits were, as the name suggests, graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, men with learning and talent but no money. Unlike the church clerks of the Middle Ages, they could not make a career in the Church as monasteries had been dissolved by Henry VIII. (The monastery had always been taken for granted as a safe place for a penniless scholar who did not wish to become a priest.) All that suggested itself was novel writing and writing plays for the stage.
Ancient literature taught the playwrights to seek new forms and to bring in new progressive ideas. The new drama represented characters and problems topical of the time. Most plays were written in verse. The second period of the Renaissance in England was characterized by the splendour of its poetry. Highly emotional lyrical poetry became widespread. Blank verse and the Italian sonnet were introduced. A new, English form of verse appeared – the nine-line stanza. The country was often called ‘a nest of singing-birds’.
The three great poetic geniuses of Elizabethan times were Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare. All were typical Renaissance men, trained in the classics, fond of fine living, full of restless energy and ideas. Today the fourth name can be added, John Donne.
· Edmund Spenser
The most prominent poet of the pre-Shakespearean time was Edmund Spenser. He was born in London in 1552 to the family of a free journeyman for a merchant’s company. When Edmund came of age, he went to Cambridge University as a sizar, a student who paid less for his education than others and had to wait on the wealthier students at mealtimes. While at college, he acted in the tragedies of the ancient masters and this inspired him to learn and to write poetry.
Spenser began his literary work at the age of 17. Once, a fellow-student introduced him to the famous Sir Philip Sydney, who encouraged him to write. Sydney himself was the author of an allegorical romance in prose called “Arcadia” which had become very popular as light reading at court. At the age of 23, Spenser took Master’s degree and shortly after graduating from Cambridge fell in love with ‘a fair widow’s daughter’. Although his love was not returned, it inspired him to write his first poem The Shepherd’s Calendar. The publication of the poem made Spenser the first poet of the day. His poetry was so musical and colourful that he was called the poet-painter. Spenser was brought to the notice of the Queen where he was given royal favour and appointed secretary to the new Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.
It was in Ireland that Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, an epic poem describing a 12-day feast honouring the Queen of Fairyland. It was a public poem addressed to Elizabeth I. The poem is a combination of the medieval allegory and the Italian romantic epic, of Christian belief and mythology of King Arthur. Spenser imitated antique verse which was supposed to remind the reader of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, whom Spenser greatly admired.
When Spenser presented ‘his simple song’, as he called it, to the Queen, the success of the poem was tremendous. The Queen rewarded him with a pension of 50 pounds, but his position remained unchanged. Poetry was regarded as a noble pastime, but not a profession. Edmund Spenser had to go back to Ireland. Spenser died in 1599. He will always be remembered and appreciated for the beauty of his verse.
· Christopher Marlowe
One of the first dramatists of the time was Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593). He lived a short life and died at the age of 29. Marlowe was born to the family of a shoemaker and was able to go to Canterbury Grammar School when he was 14. Upon graduating a few years later, he won a scholarship which enabled him to go to Cambridge University. There he got acquainted with Sir Philip Sydney, the leader of the University Wits. Like most of the University Wits, Marlowe had a wild reputation – he was believed to be an atheist, to keep mistresses and to be acquainted with thieves. Yet, this reputation may have been a clever and deliberate disguise: it is possible that he was a secret agent for the Queen’s Government. Marlowe died a young man. He was stabbed to death in a ‘tavern brawl’ under strange circumstances, and his death still remains a mystery. Christopher Marlowe was a great poet and dramatist who might have become as great as Shakespeare had he not been killed so untimely.
Marlowe started his career as an actor at The Curtain, but after he had broken a leg during a performance, he had to give up acting and took to writing plays. He was the first in England to approach history from a political point of view. Marlowe’s reputation as a dramatist rests on four plays: Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine, The Jew of Malta and Edward II.
Marlowe sums up the New Age: the old restrictions of the Church no longer exist, limitations on knowlegde have been destroyed, the world is opening up. Marlowe’s plays convey the spirit of human freedom, enterprise and limitless human power. He was fascinated by power: Tamburlaine is the embodiment of tyrannical power; the Jew of Malta stands for the power of money; Edward II suffers from loss of power and Faustus represents the power which supreme knowledge can give.
The University Wits, including Marlowe, paved the way to Shakespeare, the greatest of all humanists who marks the highest point of English Renaissance drama.
· John Donne
The Elizabethan Age produced a poet whose works were fully appreciated only in the 20th century, who seems to be the product of the Atomic Age. John Donne (1573-1631) started as ‘Jack Donne’, a soldier, lover, drinker, writer of passionate amorous verses. He ended as Doctor John Donne, bishop, Dean of St. Paul’s, great preacher and one of the most respected men in the country. And yet these two extremes coexisted in him all his life. As a passionate lover, he was always analytic and thoughtful, tryoing to explain his passion almost scientifically. As a priest, he addressed God with the fierceness of a lover. Donne invented many new verse forms of his own.
In his poetry, which reflects his character, extremes meet. When his passion is most physical, he expresses it most intellectually. He is always startling and always curiously modern. It is from his poem For Whom the Bell Tolls that E. Hemingway borrowed the title for his novel.
| DO YOU KNOW THAT | |
| · King Henry VIII introduced family names in Wales. The Welsh used to have their own family names with those of their father and grandfather. From 1535 the Welsh were forced to use the British name model in law courts and on official papers. · King Edward VI (born 1537 – died 1553), the only surviving son on Henry VIII was the protagonist of the Prince in the novel “The Prince and the Pauper” by M. Twain. He reigned only 6 years, 160 days. · Foreign visitors noted that women had greater freedom in England than anywhere else in Europe. Although they had to obey their husbands, theu were not kept hidden in their homes. When a guest – even a stranger – appeared in the house, he was received with a kiss by all, when he left, again he was sent with a kiss. | ? |
LECTURE 5
The Elizabethans created an elaborate system of activities and events to keep themselves entertained. One of the favourite entertainments was watching theatrical performances. Since ancient times there existed two principle stages on which dramatic art developed in Europe. These were the church and the market place. In the 15th century, the plays called moralities, were sometimes acted even in town halls. Church performances of mysteries and miracles were directed by priests and acted by the boys of the choir. Since then, it became a long-time tradition to have only men-actors on the English stage.
At the time of Henry VIII, when Protestants drove actors out of the church, acting became a profession in itself. As soon as people heard the sounds of a trumpet announcing the beginning of a play, they would run in crowds to the inn-court which served as an improvised stage. Indeed, an inn-court was best suited for the purpose, with its large open court surrounded by galleries. In the middle of the yard, actors put up a platform with dressing-rooms at the back. The so-called ‘clean’ public sat in the galleries which later came to be known as ‘boxes’, some even sat on the stage. The poorer spectators stood in front of the stage, in the stalls. To make the audience pay for the entertainment, the actors took advantage of the most thrilling moment in the plot and sent a hat round for a collection.
The development of drama in England was closely connected with the development of the theatre. From the very beginning, the regular drama was divided into comedy and tragedy. Most companies of players had their own playwrights who were also actors. As plays became more complicated, there appeared special playhouses. The first regular 
playhouse in London appeared on the premises of the former Blackfriars Monastery where miracles had been performed even before the Reformation. That playhouse was built in 1576 by the actor James Burbage who called it The Theatre. The Theatre was an Elizabethan playhouse located in Shoreditch, just outside the City of London. The Theatre is considered to have been the first playhouse built in London for the sole purpose of theatrical productions. The Theatre's history includes a number of important acting troupes including the Lord Chamberlain's Men which employed Shakespeare as actor and playwright. After a dispute with the landlord, the theatre was dismantled and the timbers were used in the construction of the Globe Theatre on Bankside.
The design of The Theatre was possibly adapted from the inn-yards that had served as playing spaces for actors. The building was an almost round wooden building with three galleries that surrounded an open yard. The Theatre is said to have cost £700 to construct. It was a considerable sum for the age. Later, there appeared other playhouses – The Rose, The Curtain, The Swan, The Globe. There was a time when there were 9 playhouses in London alone. The playhouses did not belong to any definite company of actors. They traveled from place to place and hired a playhouse for their performances.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Poor Laws provided that paupers, beggars and vagabonds should be sent to prison as tramps. The profession of a travelling actor became dangerous. Theatrical companies had to find patrons among the nobility. With a letter of recommendation from their patron, they got the right to travel and perform. Thus, some actors called themselves ‘The Earl of Leicester’s Servants’, others – ‘The Lord Chamberlain’s Men’. In 1583 the Queen appointed certain actors ‘Grooms of the Chamber’. And though the word ‘groom’ originally meant a man or a boy in charge of horses, now it got a new meaning – that of a provincial actor.
The worst enemies of actors were Puritans. They formed a religious sect which wanted to purify the Church of England from some forms which the Church had retained from Roman Catholics. Petty bourgeoisie needed a “cheaper Church” and hoped that they would become wealthy through careful and modest living. These principles, though highly moral at first sight, resulted in a furious attack upon the stage. Actors were actually locked out of the city because Puritans considered acting to be a menace to public morality.
The wealthy merchants also attacked the drama because plays and playgoers caused them a lot of trouble: the profits on beer went to the proprietors of the inns, not to the brewers. Also, all sorts of unwelcome people came to the playhouses. It turned out that beggars, bullies, pickpockets, drunkards and thieves were as fond of entertainment as ladies and gentlemen. What is more, during the hot months of the year, the strolling actors spread plague. That is why Town Councils and other administrative bodies quite reasonably wanted to get rid of actors.
Had it not been for the Queen herself and her courtiers, whose way of life provided more time for entertainment, the Corporation of London might have succeeded in prohibiting plays and actors altogether. As it was, the Queen and her court patronized and protected the more r e putable theatrical companies. Even so, the Corporation of London made things hard enough for them, and to avoid some of their difficulties, actors tended more and more to set up their stages not in the City itself, but just outside, where the Lord Mayor had less control.
Towards the end of the 16th century, most of the playhouses were removed from the city proper. A typical playhouse of the time was circular, with three galleries running along the walls. Inside, there was a wooden stage with a roof over it, which was supported by two columns, or pillars. The open yard in front of the stage was cobbled and provided standing room for those paying a penny. The stage itself was high, with a skirt of cloth, hanging down to the ground. There used to be several sets of hangings – in different colours for different plays. Black hangings were used for tragedies; comedies, histories or pastoral plays used red, white or green hangings. At the back of the stage there were two doors which led to the ‘tiring house’ where actors changed costumes, or attired themselves. Actors usually wore expensive clothes which they got as gifts or bought at a low price from their patrons. Today, it is called backstage. The doors were large, so that the scenic properties could be easily carried through. An old playhouse inventory lists trees, thrones, tombs, chariots and other things. Actors usually wore expensive clothes which they got as gifts or bought at a low price from their patrons.
Every playhouse had a flag, and if a performance was expected, the flag was hoisted above the theatre. On the previous day, notices advertising the play would have been put up. Plays were not put on for a run, as they are nowadays. Two or three consecutive performances of the same play would be an exception. There were many revivals of the established favourites, but, needless to say, new plays were always a great attraction, and for these the fee was usually doubled. At the end of the 16th century, there was an entrance fee already.
Theatres or playhouses were usually situated on the southern bank of the Thames. Before and after a play, the Thames boatmen gathered at landings to pick up customers.
The audience entered a playhouse through the main entrance, as a rule, though certain privileged people were admitted through the tiring-house door at the back of the stage. They paid the highest prices to be allowed to sit in the gallery over the stage, or even sometimes – upon the stage itself. According to one contemporary writer, they were often a nuisance, not because they took up too much room, but because by talking and playing cards and showing off their clothes they drew too much attention to themselves. But the ordinary people went in through the main gate and paid a penny which enabled them to go into the yard. It was the cheapest part of the house and the spectators were contemptuously called ‘groundlings’. For another penny, the audience were allowed into the galleries where they either stood or, for a third penny, could sit on a stool. One of the galleries was divided into small compartments that could be used by the wealthy and a ristocrats. The sitting capacity of Shakespeare’s famous theatre, The Globe, was about 2500 people. The audience consisted chiefly of men. Women did sometimes go to public playhouses, suitably escorted, but generally it was not considered to be respectable and proper for them to do so.
Before the beginning of a performance, one of the actors would blow the trumpet three times. At the third sounding, the play would begin. After the performance there came the Jig, which was a jolly dance. A German visitor wrote about the Jig: ‘At the end of the play, two or three actors in men’s clothes and two in women’s clothes performed a dance, as is their custom, wonderfully well together.’ This customary after-piece was usually a rhyming farce on some topical theme. After that, the audience would leave. The boatmen ferried people back to the city
Now let us speak about the greatest of all dramatists of the English Renaissance – William Shakespeare. Various ages have found various things in Shakespeare. The 18th century writers of the Enlightenment saw in him “just observation of general nature”. The Romantic age admired his freedom from literary convention. The later 19th century critics admired the delicate and complicated psychological insight of his characterization. All ages have admired his command of the language. By modern critics he is presented as the writer and philosopher who is deeply concerned with the moral basis of life. The key concepts of his plays are Nature, Order, Truth, Right and Wrong.
But did this man of genius really exist? Some critics claim that it was not Shakespeare but another person, or a group of people who wrote the plays attributed to Shakespeare. If he did exist, they say, how did he manage to write 37 plays, 4 poems and 154 sonnets? Why weren’t they all published during his life-time?
One of the possible explanations is that at the time no-one even thought of publishing drama. Each dramatist wrote for his company of actors, and as long as the company had the text, it had the monopoly for staging the play. Publishing it, would have only played into the hands of the rival companies. Yet, 20 plays, several poems and sonnets were published during Shakespeare’s lifetime. After his death, his friends published several other plays in what is known as the ‘First Folio’.
As for the question ‘How was one man able to write so many plays?’ – the answer is fairly simple. Like any other dramatist of the time, Shakespeare mostly did patching and was known as a play-patcher. That is, he took well-known stories and adapted them for the stage. In 1577 Holished published his Chronicles which served as a major source for Shakespeare’s history plays. Two years later, in 1579, there came a publication of North’s translations from Plutarch – that was yet another source for Shakespeare.
What do we actually know about the man called William Shakespeare?
· Childhood and youth
He was born in Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire, in 1564. John Shakespeare, the poet’s father, was engaged in wool industry. He had some pasture land of his own, and also rented a house and land belonging to Robert Arden, whose younger daughter Mary later became his wife. John Shakespeare was elected alderman and by the time their eldest children were born, he acted as bailiff. Some documents of the time indicate that John Shakespeare was illiterate and in documents marked his name with a cross. John and Mary Shakespeare had 8 children – 4 boys and 4 girls. The first two daughters died in infancy. The third child born to them was a son who was named William.
William was a boy of free and open nature, much like his mother, who was a woman of a lively disposition. In his boyhood and youth, William was an inquisitive child: he knew the name of every plant in the woods and in the fields. Later, when he started writing plays, he displayed that knowledge. For example, in Hamlet, when Ophelia goes mad and walks pretending to pick flowers, she mentions the wild flowers that used to grow in Stratford and the neighbourhood. At the age of 7, William was sent to the local Grammar School where the boys were taught ‘the three R’s’: reading, writing and ‘rithmetic. Besides, they learned elementary Latin and Greek. As his contemporary, Ben Johnson, later wrote, ‘Shakespeare knew little Latin and even less Greek’. Ben Johnson had every reason to say so as he himself had gone to the best London school and could freely speak those two languages. On the other hand, William’s teachers were university graduates and gave him the basic knowledge of literature, history and geography which he deepened later.
In Shakespeare’s time, there was much guesswork in the way children were taught to read. Reading was sometimes the same as learning by heart. The first book was called The Horn-Book. The hornbook was a form of ABC book. It consisted of a piece of parchment or paper pasted onto a wooden board and protected by a sheet of horn. The text usually started with a cross in the top left-hand corner. It was followed by an alphabet, vowels, syllables, and the Lord’s prayer. Shakespeare mentions the Hornbook in his play Love’s Labours Lost.
William saw performances produced by travelling actors who came to Stratford. He was still a boy when he began to set and produce plays even though he had to work hard in his father’s business. Probably, it was also the influence of what he had seen when the Queen visited the nearby castle of Kenilworth. The stately ceremonies, the shows and plays were given in her honour, must have been imprinted in his memory. Later he showed both professional travelling actors and amateurs as characters of his plays. Travelling actors come to the Castle in Hamlet and perform a tragedy, as required by Hamlet. In the comedy Midsummer Night’s Dream a group of amateurs are busy preparing a play for the Duke to be performed on his wedding day.
Upon the wide margin of the Bible belonging to Shakespeare, one can see some drafts of play-bills. One of the play-bills announces that a sad play is to take place in Ann Hathaway’s land. Ann Hathaway was the daughter of a farmer in the village of Shottery, a short distance off Stratford. She was 8 years older than William, but they fell in love with each other and got married in 1582. At that time, Shakespeare was already writing poems. Poetry was so popular and common that Ann Hathaway expressed her feelings towards Shakespeare in verse:
