THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE BEFORE SHAKESPEARE Lecture 8 Трякина Светлана Анатольевна, ГОУ СОШ 1232, г. Москва

The Foundations of the Glorious English Drama of the Renaissance. Besides fine works of poetry and prose in the Elizabethan age, dramatic art also flourished and reached the greatest height.

The Middle Ages knew 3 main types of performances: 1. Between the episodes of these plays, comic scenes were usually acted, they had almost no relation to the story. They were called interludes. The Mystery plays (dramatic episodes from the Bible ) The Miracle plays (episodes from the lives of saints) The Morality plays (allegorical performances, where virtues and vices struggled for the human soul) RELIGIOUS DRAMA

2. There was also another type of performance in English cities- the pageants- pantomimes reenacting episodes from the history of that particular city.

3. England of the 16 th century also knew plays staged by university students. They were plays by Roman dramatists: Seneca, Plautus and Terence. They were acted in Latin.

Later on, original English plays written in imitation of these authors, began to appear.

The First Theatres In the middle of the 16 th century there were companies of strolling actors, who performed in town squares, inn-yard and manor-houses. But in 1572 Queen Elizabeth I issued a decree against vagabonds, so many of these companies enlisted as servants of some peer and began to settle down.

In 1576 the company of the Earl Leicesters Men built the first playhouse and called it The Theatre, using the Greek word for the first time in England. It was open to the sky, there was a sheltered gallery on three sides, the stage was a large raised platform, it came out into the audience. Thus, theatres began to be established, and their popularity kept growing. They gave public performances and were also invited to the court.

THE DRAMATISTS – PREDECESSORS OF SHAKESPEARE As the public became more demanding and the art of theatre developed, old plays were considered too primitive. They did not deal sufficiently with the problems of the time. The necessity for new plays became obvious.

THE UNIVERSITY WITS ( the Academic Dramatists) Some university graduates answered the demands of the time. They belonged to the middle class or gentry. Actually, they were the first professional authors in England who earned their living by writing. Among them were Thomas Kyd, George Peele, John Lyly, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe.

Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd set the standard for the revenge tragedies. He was the author of a pre-Shakespearean play on the subject of Hamlet ( it is lost now).

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe was the author of the first picaresque novel in English literature. ( This genre originates from Spanish literature.) He was also a co-author of several plays.

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593) was two months older than W.Shakespeare. He was a true genius among the University Wits. In 1580 he went to Cambridge on a scholarship. While a student he went to the Continent on a secret mission ( to establish contacts with French protestants). Marlowes literary activity lasted only for a few years. He was killed in a quarrel before he was thirty.

- tragedies (Dido, Queen of Carthage, Tamburlaine, The Massacre of Paris, The Jew of MaltaThe Tragic History of Dr. Faustus); -a chronicle history play Edward II; -Poems Hero and Leander, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love; -translations of Roman poets. He created an immortal place for himself in English drama and poetry. Marlowe was the author of

English theatre at the end of the 16 th century Towards the end of the 16 th century life in England changed greatly: the primary accumulated capital was to be put into circulation; absolute monarchy became an obstacle to social development. The Renaissance giants were needed no more. The ideology of humanism faced a crisis because new trends of thought, which were hostile to humanism, appeared. As a result, pessimistic and even morbid tragedies appeared. Their authors were John Webster and John Ford.

Aristocratic views were reflected in the works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. Their plays are always amusing, masterfully constructed, written in easy-flowing verse, and have interesting and very complicated plots, but in terms of treating human nature they are superficial and even shallow. They gave birth to a new genre, the tragicomedy, which is not a mixture of tragic and comic elements, but a play with a tragic conflict and a happy ending.

Ben Jonson ( ) He had a great influence on Enlish national literature. He was born in London and studied at Westminster School. He was one of the most educated people of his time and received honorary degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. He started his career as an actor, and very soon became a prominent dramatist. He gained the friendship of William Shakespeare and the great philosopher Francis Bacon.

Ben Jonson is the author of the best English satirical comedies. His comic manner of depicting characters influenced the whole of English literature. Among his best works are: Volpone, or the Fox,The Silent Woman The Alchemist. From 1605 Ben Jonson started writing masques- expensive spectacles, involving music, song and dance, in which nobility and even royalty would take part. He was also a fine lyrical poet.

The Masque

Источники: 1. Кукурян И.Л. An Outline of English Literature М.,изд-во МГУ, Иллюстрации: html livelib.ru Fastpage.nam/medievamoralityplay middle-ages- printable aspx/ aspx/ id=6794&name the mask-of-the- four-seasons