THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE I (1485 - 1625)

I. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL BACKGROUND

THE EUROPEAN RENAISSANCE
In 1550, the Italian painter Giorgio Vassari spoke of a rinascita referring to the
15th century and the arts in his native Florence. Only in the 19 th century was the
term extended to a larger period. In very broad lines, the Renaissance is a
cultural movement that started in Italy in the (late 13 th ) 14th century and spread
to the rest of Europe up to the 17 th century. Though it did not spread uniformly, or
had the same characteristics in the diversity of the European cultures, the
Renaissance was influenced by a series of political, scientific and cultural
moments and shared certain common features.
a) The Renaissance comes with a shift in political influence and power in
Europe due to some important historical events:

1492: the defeat of Granada and the end of the Reconquista

(achieved by Ferdinand de Castile and Isabella de Aragon) as a
result of which the Arabs are chased out the Iberian Peninsula.
Spains importance in Europe grows, especially since it relies on
the treasures of its colonies.
The Age of the Geographical Discoveries: the Portuguese had
already sailed around the Cape of Good Hope in the 1480s,
opening new routes to the Indies, Columbus starts his voyages in
1492, Magellan rounded the world in 1521. The geographical
discoveries altered the way in which people saw the world and
their own place in the world. The travel and adventure stories
are increasingly popular. People are ready to colonize new words
and to implement new government schemes.
France emerges as a powerful nation after the end of the
Hundred Years War.
Venice, once a great power, is now threatened by an emerging
Ottoman Empire, as well as by the growing power of the Spanish,
the Portuguese and the French.
Papacy returns to Rome in 1378, after a period of 67 years of
residence in Avignon, under the influence of the French kings.
Constantinople falls in 1453, leading to the exodus of a great
number of Greeks who bring with them the writings of the
Ancient world and favor the return to the classical values.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473 - 1543) displaces the GEOCENTRIC
cosmology that placed the Earth at the center of the Universe
and replaces it with a HELIOCENTRIC cosmology, placing the Sun
at the center.
The Religious Reform. 1517: Luthers theses in which he
protested against the practices of the Catholic Church mark the
beginning of the reformation of religion. This Reform highly
influenced the balance of power in Europe, leading to many
challenges to the Popes authority, such as the English break
with Rome, as well as to many religious wars and disputes.
The printing press (1439), invented by the German Johannes
Gutenberg had a tremendous effect on the cultural process, and
was named the Printing Revolution. The passage from the
expensive hand-written and hand-copied manuscripts to the
mass produced and economically affordable printed books
helped spread the ideas and works of the Renaissance and of the
Reformation throughout Europe at a much faster rate, favoring
the exchange of ideas and the circulation of information.
Therefore, the printing press led to a democratization of
knowledge: more people from more different social layers had
access to books and could discuss the ideas presented in them.
The result of the introduction of the printing press was also
visible in the decline of Latin, in the favor of vernacular
languages. The attention to the printed material helped establish

a standard of spelling and grammar of these

vernacular languages.
It is very difficult to quantify exactly what the Renaissance meant in the culture
of the humanity, however, the transformations are tremendous. The Renaissance
emerges out of the religious Middle Age with a new outlook on Man, on art, on
science, on religion, on politics and government practices.

However, there are differences among the various manifestations of the

Renaissance: the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance.
o The Italian Renaissance is more bent towards the development of arts and
literature. It is more serene and more pagan in manifestation, in contrast
with the Christian humanism of the Northern countries, and emphasizes
the freedom of thought and the human dimension of man. The presence of
the rich patrons of art, such as the Medici family in Florence or some of the
Popes of Rome contributed to the flourishing of the arts in Italy. Italian
humanism focused on a
return to the classical texts, being interested in their restoration and
translation. The Italian humanism was shaped more by charismatic and
influential figures and had a patriotic or quasi-nationalistic touch in the
attempt to connect Italian culture to the values of ancient Rome.
o The Northern Renaissance, of the Low Countries, or of Germany and
England developed later than its Italian counterpart, with widespread
influence as late as the 16th century. In comparison to the Italian
humanism, the Northern humanism appears sterner and more serious,
bent more on philosophical meditation and much more interested in
connecting the restoration of the classical texts to the Christian values. Its
relationship to the Religious Reform and its reliance on the new
possibilities offered by the printing press shaped it differently. The printing
press became an important tool in the dissemination of the humanist
ideals across geographical boundaries and class lines as well as in shaping
the form of the texts. Under the Protestant influence, individualism is seen
more as a form of responsibility and social involvement rather than a form
of self-assertion and enjoyment. Erasmian humanism (relying on the ideas
of Erasmus of Rotterdam), for instance, was centered on the reform of
school curricula and methods of teachings, as well as ideas for the reform
of the state and church. Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was one of the
leading figures of the German and Dutch Renaissance. He focused on the
importance of education and on the reformation of the Church. Without
accepting Protestantism, he wanted to make Christianity more appealing
to the masses by vernacular translations of the Bible.
THE
Italian humanism emerged out of the opposition to medieval
scholasticism which
INTRODUCTION the humanists regarded as narrow and sterile because of its
interest in complex
OF NEW
and highly specialized systems of philosophy. Humanism
wanted to replace it to
LEARNING/
a more humane training in literature and rhetoric. Thus, they
focused on the
HUMANISM
restoration and translation of classical texts as well as on a
return to the elegant
Ciceronian Latin (in opposition to the Latin used by the
medieval scholars). The
Italian writers of the 14th century, Dante (1265 - 1321) and
Petrarch (1304 - 1374)
had already rediscovered the classical works of writers
such as Cicero and
Tacitus and had started promoting a type of art / literature and
a model of
thinking that was more in keeping with the classical values.
However, the real
introduction of the study of classical writings is considered to
start with the fall of
Constantinople in 1453, when the Greek refugees brought
with them the
masterpieces of Classical literature and philosophy (Plato,

Homer, Sophocles),
as well as treaties on science and medicine that led to the
development of the
New Learning in Europe.
The great change brought by Humanism to the world
dominated by medieval
thought is the focus on Man rather than on God. If medieval
writings focused on
the superficiality and futility of earthly love and the need to
transcend the earthly
world and seek Gods love, the Humanists focus on the
importance of love on
earth, a change that is visible in the literature of the period.
Under the influence
of the new philosophical and literary writings, of the new
discoveries in science
and medicine, with the challenges to the autonomy of the
Catholic Church, Man
acquires a new awareness of himself, and of his place in the
universe, and focuses
on the possibility of shaping his own destiny. There were,
therefore, higher
expectations of mans capacities. Ideals changed in the sense
that the medieval
saints were replaced by the Renaissance 'courtier',
'gentleman', and 'hero'. The
type of individual often invoked as a model of the
Renaissance type is the
universal man. It opens a new way of looking at culture, life
and scientific
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research. The man (the educated man, the philosopher) has to

be accomplished
in arts, literature, philosophy and science, but, at the same
time, he has to be part
of the social construction, of the political body, attentive
to the political
transformations of his time, to be a reformer and have a critical
spirit.
THE
at the center of
HELIOCENTRIC
it. Copernicus
SYSTEM
the sun at the

The Geocentric model or the Ptolemaic system places the Earth

the Universe and all the other planets and stars revolve around
theory (On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres, 1543) places

center of the universe. The studies of Galileo and Kepler

confirmed what
Copernicus had stated and his ideas could no longer be
silenced. This was not a
simple astronomical discovery, but a revolution in the way people understood
the universe. The idea that the Earth was no longer at the
center of the universe,
but just another planet revolving around the sun also
challenged the idea that the
world was not governed by divine will, but by scientific laws.
Moreover, the
religious explanations of phenomena gradually gave place to
observation and
exploration, to the analysis of physical evidence. The scientific
community began
to alter the previous religious beliefs through a
combination of theory and
practice.

THE RELIGIOUS The religious reform also challenged the relationship of man to
the divinity and
REFORM
of man to the institution of the Church. The Protestant ideology
disregarded the
presence of the Church as the intermediary between the
individual and salvation.
Redemption can be reached only through faith and not through
dispensations
and indulgences given by the Church. The word of God is revealed only through
the Bible. The human beings are innately evil, and only God
can decide what
happens to their souls, so individuals are predestined, even
before birth, either to
heaven or to hell. The reform challenged the influence of the
Catholic Church
and Europe was dominated, from this point onward, by
religious tensions, wars
and persecutions.
II. ENGLISH HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Kings and Queens: The English Renaissance is considered to start with the reign

of Henry VII (1485 - 1509) who put an end to the War of the Roses and introduced
a new system of ruling that strengthened the power of the king by reducing the
authority of the nobility. On the other hand, he encouraged the development of a
middle class: the middle-ranking clergy, lawyers, country gentlemen and minor
landowners. They will play an important role in the subsequent economic
development of England. His reaction to Columbus discoveries was to encourage
English expeditions to North America. Henry VIII (1509 - 1547) was not as thrifty
as his father. From many points of view, he represented the typical Renaissance
ruler: he was a scholar, a poet, a musician and a sportsman. His father had been
unwilling to spend money unnecessarily or to engage in wars, so he had tried to
keep a peaceful relationship to his neighbors. His son was completely different:
wasteful with money, loving glory and power, willing to entertain himself, he was
no longer careful in the relationships with the powerful players of the time: the
Pope, France and Spain. He is most famous for his break with Rome, though he
had defended the Pope against Luther. Actually, his break from Rome was more a
political decision than a religious one, Henry remaining a Catholic in faith, but
refusing the authority of the Pope. He also financed a modern, well-equipped
fleet. Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603) reinstated the Anglican Church after the short but
bloody reign of her Catholic sister Mary, but she tried to avoid as much as she
could religious fanaticism or religious persecutions. She tried to create a powerful
state and she managed to assert this power after the defeat of the previously
invincible Spanish Armada (1588) that insured Englands independence and its
future as a great naval power. She also encouraged the overseas explorations in
the competition with the other great colonial powers: on the one hand she
secretly encouraged sailors like John Hopkins or Francis Drake to attack the
Spanish ships that carried treasures from the colonies and, on the other

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hand, she encouraged people to colonize the new territories in America. Sir
Walter Raleigh was involved in the colonization of Virginia which was named after
Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen.
James I Stuart (1603 - 1625) was received with doubt and distrust by the
Englishmen because he was a foreigner and also the son of Mary Stuart, the
woman who had plotted against Elizabeth and who was eventually beheaded by
the English queen. During James Is reign, the relationship between the
Parliament and the King deteriorated, eventually leading to the Civil War (16421651). The previous monarchs had recognized the power of the people, but
James claimed that his rule by divine right gave him the possibility to ignore the
will of people.
The English Society: England changed rapidly in this period. The population
increased exceedingly beyond the capacity of resources leading to crises, famine
and disease. In addition, the land was cleared for sheep and large areas of
forests were cut for shipbuilding. All these changes brought many problems: the
price of food and of other goods grew alarmingly, bringing many people on the
verge of subsistence. This was enhanced by the fact that many landowners
believed that raising sheep and selling the wool was profitable and so they
fenced off the land that had once belonged to the entire village. Many starving
and impoverished people moved to the towns, increasing the danger of riots. The
towns developed at a very fast rate, especially London, marking the development
of a powerful middle-class, and also a sophistication of manners and new ideas,
especially a focus on individualism that came as a result of the rise of
Protestantism.
The English Renaissance. The English Renaissance was largely based on Northern
(Dutch and German) models. It took roots in England after the Tudors discovered
the usefulness of educated men in importance offices, to replace a rebellious and
disobeying feudal aristocracy. They were also interested in these humanisteducated men to legitimize their rather fragile claim to the throne. The kings
were interested in educating their children according to humanistic values and
the humanistic curriculum was introduced in the universities (Oxford and
Cambridge).
BI. ENGLISH LITERATURE
1. PROSE
PROSE DURING THE TUDOR PERIOD
Thomas More (1478 - 1535) was the most prominent figure of the English
Humanism. He was an Oxford educated lawyer and was introduced to Humanism
by Erasmus. He was, for a while, a highly esteemed courtier, ambassador and
later Lord Chancellor. However, his refusal to accept Henry VIIIs break with Rome
brought about his death, as he was imprisoned and then executed.
Though he left a great number of writings, he is best known for his Utopia
[Greek nowhere], written in Latin (1516) and only later translated in English by
Ralph Robynson (1551).
The text is a dialogue between More and an imaginary traveler, Robert
Hythloday (Hythlodaeus which means speaker of nonsense), who had sailed
with Amerigo Vespucci. The structure of the texts consists of parts, named
"books". Book 1 describes England at the beginning of the 16 th century,
denouncing the corruption in the country, the greediness of the noblemen and
the abuses that they commit, and the poverty of people who are so poor and
desperate that they have to steal in order to eat, the distressing image of the
gallows along the roads of the country and all the wrongs of England, the lack of
education.
Thomas More, Utopia, Book I, On Enclosures

Your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as
I heard say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up, and
swallow down the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour
whole fields, houses, and cities. For look in what parts of the realm doth grow the
finest, and therefore dearest wool, there noble men, and gentlemen, yea and
certain Abbots, holy men no doubt, not contenting themselves with the yearly
revenues and profits, that wee wont to grow to their forefathers and
predecessors of their lands, nor being content that they live in rest and pleasure
nothing profiting, yea much noying the weal public, leave no ground for tillage:
they inclose all into pastures, they throw down houses, they pluck down towns,
and leave nothing standing,

44

but only the church to be made a sheephouse. And as though you lost no small
quantity of ground by forests, chases, lawns, and parks, those good holy men
turn all dwelling places and all glebeland into desolation and wilderness. By one
means therefore or by other, either by hook or crook they must needs depart
away , poor, silly, wretched souls, men, women, husbands, wives, fatherless
children, widows, woful mothers, with their young babes, and their whole
household small in substance and much in number, as husbandry requireth
many hands. Away they trudge, I say, out of their known and accustomed
houses, finding no place to rest in. All their household stuff, which is very little
worth, though it might well abide the sale, yet being suddenly thrust out, they
be constrained to sell it for a thing of nought. And when they have wandered
abroad, till that be spent, what can they then else do but steal, and then justly
pardy be hanged, or else go about a begging. And yet then also they be cast in
prison as vagabonds, because they go about and work not: whom no man will
set a work, though they never so willingly proffer themselves thereto. For one
Shepherd or Herdman is enough to eat up that ground with cattle to the
occupying whereof about husbandry many hands were requisite.

The Second Book is the description of the imaginary island of Utopia,

isolated from the rest of the world and self-sufficient. It is a place where private
property does not exist, where the sovereign is chosen by the people and can be
deposed if he becomes a tyrant, where the working day has only 6 hours and so
people are not exploited, where everyone, including women, has the right to
education, where there is religious tolerance, war is despised and the laws are
clear and easy to understand. With the elimination of private property and of
money, the sources of corruptions and of all the social wrongs are eliminated.
There are not many priests, because only the most faithful can have this
function. The old people are honored, whereas the young are respectful and lawabiding. They also despise luxury, and so, they wear uniform clothes and they
take their meals in common, at fixed hours.
This island is not only an imaginary land, but a very improbable scheme.
The uniformity of appearances and behavior does not seem an ideal to be
cherished, the Utopians being rather a mass of docile subjects. There is no sin, so
there is no redemption; there is no competition or conflict, so there is no change
or evolution. They have nothing to wish for, because they seem to have achieved
all the ideals of humanity. On the other hand, Utopians rely on the work of slaves,
of the punished dissidents and of the people in prisons, suggesting that there is
no such thing as total equality.
In time, Morus Utopia has been the subject of various interpretations. One
of them connects Mores text with the newly-discovered continent, America. The
first argument to support this thesis is the fact that Mores interlocutor is a man
who sailed with Vespucci who had published, in 1504, a book entitled Mundus
Novus. In this context, Utopia might be seen as an idealized view of the New
World.
Other debates concerning Thomas Mores text are concerned with the way
in which readers have to see the text, either as a true utopia, in which the writer
expresses the reforms dear to him and Erasmus, or a dystopia, the whole land,
its people and their customs being presented with irony.
Stephen Greenblatt suggests that the work reveals Mores belief in humanist
programmes of public service and reform, but also his equally strong distrust of
human nature and the imperfections that make successful reform virtually
impossible in the real world.
Another important text written by More, but left unfinished, is The History
of King Richard III that follows the general trend of the Tudor historiography of
depicting Richard III as a monster. The text appears as a defense of morality, by
pointing out the image of the cruel, evil and tyrannical ruler, a model not to be
followed. However, these ideas seem to contradict the image of the Renaissance
prince depicted by Machiavelli who does not connect his Prince to moral ideals,
but rather to the requirements of political life. In fact, this text has to be seen as
part of the Tudor propaganda visible in the rewriting of history to suit the
interests of the new dynasty and to legitimize their claim to the throne.

Literary Term: UTOPIA

Thomas Morus is the first to use the term UTOPIA [Gr. Nowhere, no + place], but the idea
of a place where all is well was used in literature before: in the Sumerian poem
Ghilgamesh, in Homers Odyssey, in Platos Republic, in Hesiod, Pindar, Horace. A
Christian version of utopia is presented by St. Augustine. After Morus Utopia, the genre
proliferated in the following centuries.

PROSE DURING THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD

Prose writings thrived in the Elizabethan period in various genres: religious prose,
instructive prose, travel writing, translations, historical writings and satirical
texts.
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John Lyly (1554? - 1606) popularizes a type of literature distinguished through a

type stylistic mannerism known as Euphuism after the name of his character
Euphues (Gr. well-endowed) form
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1579), or Euphues and His England (1580).
Euphuism is an ornately fluid, precious and mazy style of writing, often
alliterative, antithetical and embellished with figures of speech (J. A. Cuddon).
Thus, such texts do not impress through their stories which are rather superficial
and flimsy, but through the elaborate sentence structures, stylistic ornaments,
odd combinations of words, proverbs and similes, examples from classical
writings.
There dwelt in Athens a young gentleman of great patrimony, and of so
comely a personage, that it was doubted whether he were more bound to
Nature for the lineaments of his person, or to Fortune for the increase of
his possessions. But Nature impatient of comparisons, and as it were
disdaining a companion or copartner in her working, added to this
comeliness of his body such a sharp capacity of mind, that not only she
proved Fortune counterfeit, but was half of that opinion that she herself
was only current. This young gallant, of more with than wealth, and yet of
more wealth than wisdom, seeing himself inferior to none in pleasant
conceits, thought himself superior to all in honest conditions, insomuch
that he deemed himself so apt to all things, that he gave himself almost
to nothing, but practicing of those things commonly which are incident to
these sharp wits, fine phrases, smooth quipping, merry taunting, using
jesting without mean, and abusing mirth without measure. (from
Euphus, or the Anatomy of Wit. )

Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586) was the closest example in English literature of a
"Renaissance man." He was noble by birth, well-educated and well-travelled,
trying to fulfill his existence on the political level as well as on the artistic. He
fulfilled several court offices, but, at the same time, he was a man of culture, an
intellectual and an artist. He was well-read in the classics as well as in
contemporary literature and he knew several foreign languages. He was the best
rhetorician of his generation and one of the finest literary technicians, honoring
the literary tradition but being also an innovative and prolific writer. Belonging to
the English nobility, he was also a patron of arts that encouraged artists, writers
and musicians, but most of all poets. In art, he was receptive to the new literary
conventions of the continent and he brought and adapted them to the English
soil. For example, he was among the first to assimilate and bring to England the
teachings of Aristotle's Poetics, the neo-classical criticism of Italy, Hellenistic
romance and Italian poetic style.
Though more famous as a poet, he also addressed other literary genres,
for instance Arcadia (Old Arcadia revisited in New Arcadia, or The Countess of
Pembroke's Arcadia as it was written for the amusement of his sister. It was
begun in 1580 and published posthumously in 1590). This pastoral romance was
based on Sannazaros Arcadia (written, circulating in manuscript and eventually
published in the 1480s) and on Jorge de Montemayor's Diana Enamorada (1559).
It is interspersed with poetry (eclogues) and embodies the ideals of medieval
chivalry whose heroes are gentle, simple, courageous in action and loyal in love.
The main interest is love-intrigue: two shipwrecked princes fall in love with the
two daughters of the King of Arcadia and they assume rustic disguises, one of
them pretending to be a shepherdess which leads to awkward entanglements.
Subordinate subplots are interwoven in the main story.
Sidney prefers the same highly ornate style as Lyly, with an abundance of
details and descriptions, sometimes too conventional, of pastoral or court life. For
a century, Arcadia remained the most cherished literary work among the English
reading public. It was directed at educating the behavior of the aristocrats. The
work, with its mixture of prose and poetry and a profusion of characters was
influenced by Aristotles philosophy, by Italian, French, and Ancient sources, and
by Humanist
Christian humanism.

The Defense of Poesy (or An Apology for Poetry, published posthumously

in 1595) is the first work of literary criticism in English literature; in it, Sidney
borrows the style of the legal debate and argues in favor of the importance of
poetry and of poets in the society. In his view, "poesy" (imaginative writing) has
the highest role in moral education. The poet not only "imitates" reality, but has
the power to create new worlds: "Poetry is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle
termeth it in the word mimesis - that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or
figuring forth - to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture - with this end, to
teach and delight". Thus, the poet is alone in his ability to "create" new worlds
that do not exist in nature: "The lawyer saith what men have determined; the
historian what men have done.
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The grammarian speaketh only of the rules of speech; and the rhetorician and
logician, considering what in nature will soonest persuade, thereon give artificial
rules. . . Only the poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection, lifted up with
the vigor of his own invention, doth grow in effect another nature, in making
things either better than nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as
never were in nature, as the Heroes, Demigods, Cyclops, Chimeras, Furies, and
such like: so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not enclosed within the
narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only within the zodiac of his own
wit."
LITERARY TERMS
Arcadia. Originally a mountainous district in the Peloponnese. For Classical poets Arcadia
was the symbol of rural serenity, the harmony of the legendary Golden Age. Virgil's
Echgaes illustrate an ideal way of pastoral life in Arcadia, where shepherds and
shepherdesses, removed from 'real life', devote themselves to their flocks and their
songs. During the Renaissance the idea was popularly revived by a number of writers,
especially Sannazzaro, who published a series of verses linked by prose called L'Arcadia,
and by Sir Philip Sidney who published a prose romance, also called Arcadiia. Spenser's
pastoral poems also depict this ideal existence. (J.A.Cuddon)
Pastoral ('pertaining to shepherds'). A minor but important mode which, by convention, is
concerned with the lives of shepherds. It is of great antiquity and interpenetrates many
works in Classical and modern European literature. It is doubtful if pastoral ever had much
to do with the daily working-life of shepherds, though it is not too difficult to find
shepherds in Europe (in Montenegro, Albania, Greece and Sardinia, for instance) who
compose poetry, sing songs and while they spend the hours playing the flute. For the
most part pastoral tends to be an idealization of shepherd life, and, by so being, creates
an image of a peaceful and uncorrupted existence; a kind of prelapsarian world.
(J.A.Cuddon)
Eclogue (Gk 'selection') A short poem - or part of a longer one - and often a pastoral in the
form of a dialogue or soliloquy. The term was first applied to Virgil's pastorals or bucolic
Poems. Thereafter it describes the traditional pastoral idyll that Theocritus, and other
Sicilian poets' wrote. The form was revived by Dante, Petrarch and

Thomas Nashe (1567 - 1601), educated at Cambridge, came to London and

became one of the University Wits, a group of university-educated writers who
wrote for the stage and for the press. His writings are satirical, and he attacks
writers who plagiarize classical texts, writes pamphlets, and critical texts against
the reforms (or lack of reforms) in London that would lead to its doom.
The story of the Unfortunate Traveler or the life of Jack Wilton (1594) is a quasipicaresque novel. Set in Italy, the story is in general charming and witty, but
Nashe tends to dwell too much on the violent, perverse side, describing, in
detail, horrors, crimes, plagues, kidnappings, being, as in his other texts, cynical
and sarcastic.
Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) was one of the most brilliant minds of the English
Renaissance, Cambridge educated, philosopher, essayist, scientist and
statesman. He held several offices during Queen Elizabeth and King James I, but
he fell in disgrace and this led him, especially in the later part of his life, to
dedicate his life to his works. His interests were diverse, in the realm of science,
philosophy, religion and law. He is considered to be the father of empiricism,
which implies that knowledge comes only through an inductive method,
emphasizing the role of experience and evidence. His body of works is complex
and varied, among which, the most famous are The Advancement of Learning
(1605, in English), Novum Organonum (1620, in Latin), The New Atlantis (1626,
in English, an unfinished utopian work), Essays (1625, in English).
The New Atlantis (1627) is a utopian novel that reflects Bacon's faith in
reason and in science as he envisions an ideal island, Bensalem, where
"generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour, piety and public spirit"
are the main virtues. This is a secret space, not easily revealed to the eyes of the
travelers: "We of this island of Bensalem (for so they called it in their language)

have this: that by means of our solitary situation, and of the laws of secrecy,
which we have for our travellers, and our rare admission of strangers; we know
well most part of the habitable world, and are ourselves unknown." The center of
the kingdom is Salomon's House, a sort of university that is the very "eye of the
kingdom." It is a place ruled by reason and science, and so, there is no
corruption, lust for power, elections or other wrongs that come with a typical
form of governing. This is a sort of democracy where people are ruled by a
selected number of elite scientists and these "governors" seem more interested
in understanding and controlling nature than man: " "We have dispensatories or
shops of medicines [...],
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We have also divers mechanical arts, which you have not; and stuffs made by
them, as papers, linen, silks, tissues, dainty works of feathers of wonderful lustre,
excellent dyes, and many others [...]; We have also furnaces of great diversities,
and that keep great diversity of heats; fierce and quick, strong and constant, soft
and mild, blown, quiet, dry, moist, and the like [...];We have also perspective
houses, where we make demonstrations of all lights and radiations and of all
colors; and out of things uncolored and transparent we can represent unto you
all several colors, not in rainbows, as it is in gems and prisms, but of themselves
single," all these being "the riches of Salomon's House." Even the offices are
created to help the advancement of knowledge and science, thus, there are the "
merchants of light," those who travel the world and bring the newest discoveries,
the " depredators" who search the books, the ''pioneers" or "miners" who try new
experiments, and so on, together with novices and apprentices. Like in a modern
university system, there is a constant connection among the different cities "
where as it cometh to pass we do publish such new profitable inventions as we
think good." The key sentence of this text and of Bacon's system of beliefs is:
"The end of our foundation is the knowledge of causes, and secret motions of
things; and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all
things possible"
The Essays (or Councils. Civil and Moral) represent a collection of 58
essays inspired by Montaigne and written in time, to be published towards the
end of his life. They are meant as precepts for young people of his time, a series
of observations and meditations on various themes (Of Truth, Of Death, Of
Revenge, Of Studies, Of Parents and Children, Of Marriage and Single Life, Of
Beauty, Of Deformity, etc.) The most remarkable feature of these essays is the
style: in an age that favored verbosity, ornament, even superficiality, Bacon
chooses a simple, straightforward style, expressing abstract ideas through an
appeal to common objects of sight and experience: for instance, Men in great
place are thrice servants, Fortune is like the market, Virtue is like a rich
stone, best plain set,
Praise is the reflection of virtue, He that hath wife and children hath given
hostages to fortune. These essays have become a rich source of memorable
quotes, such as Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that
natural fear in children, is increased with tales, so is the other; (On Death)
Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man's nature runs to, the more
ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but
the revenge of that wrong, putteth the law out of office; (On Revenge) He that
hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments
to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief; (Of Marriage and Single Life)
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to
find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted,
others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some
books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some
few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. (Of Studies)

48

THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE II

2. POETRY
The early Tudor poetry was not very significant with few exceptions. The first
important Renascent poets were Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey. When they
started writing, there was not an English literary tradition. The language was
changing, the unstable social and political conditions of the fifteenth century
were not favorable for the development of literature. In this context, their
contributions are very important for the development of the sonnet tradition in
England.
THOMAS WYATT (1503 - 1542) was the first to introduce the sonnet in English
literature and is widely recognized as a master of verse translations, songs,
sonnets and satires, one of the most technically versatile and original poets of
the Tudor period. (Rachel Falconer). He was a courtier and a diplomat, a poet
and a translator. He lived a great part of his life on the Continent where he
became familiarized with the literary forms that circulated among the upper
classes. In his poetry, he combined the medieval English tradition with
Renaissance poetry, and he was not so careful in adapting these foreign formal
conventions to the peculiarities of the English language. It is considered that he
reflected, in his poetry, the tensions and conflicts of English society passing
through religious and social changes.
His most famous text is an adaptation of a Petrarchan sonnet Who so list to
hunt:
Whoso list to hunt, I know where is
an hind, But as for me, alas, I may
no more.
The vain travail hath wearied me
so sore I am of them that farthest
cometh behind.
Yet may I, by no means, my
wearied mind Draw from the deer,
but as she fleeth afore Fainting I
follow. I leave off therefore, Since
in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of
doubt, As well as I, may spend his
time in vaine. And graven with
diamonds in letters plain There is
written, her fair neck round about,

Noli me tangere, for Caesars I am,

And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.

The deer in the poem seems to be Anne Boleyn whose pursuit he had to
relinquish, because she was now hunted by the King, referred to as Caesar.
The Earl of Surrey (Henry Howard) (1516/17? - 1547) was a prominent member of
the English aristocracy and courtier of Henry VIII. He was a hot-tempered, proud
and adventurous man, a capable military leader and an educated aristocrat,
widely travelled and proficient in several foreign languages. He may have
become acquainted with the Petrarchan sonnet during his travels. He understood
better the problems of adaptation of the Petrarchan sonnet to the requirements
of the English language, in which there are fewer rhymes and he modified the
shape of the sonnet. He introduced the blank verse in his translation of Virgils
Aeneid considering it a more appropriate vehicle for the English language.
Some critics consider that he lacked the talent and inspiration of Wyatt, but he
was definitely a better technician. His cultivated taste for and knowledge of
poetry as well as his desire to experiment made

Surrey extremely influential in the later development of English poetry It is

generally recognized that style is Surrey's predominating poetical virtue, and that
his refinement of poetic diction contributed much to the improvement of English
poetry. The language of poets was archaic when Surrey began to write, but he
discarded the archaic language and the pedantic words of which his immediate
predecessors had been so ridiculously fond words for the most part forcibly reft
from Latin or French
and created a new poetic diction. (Edwin Casady)

49

Literary Term: The SONNET

The sonnet is a poem with fixed form. The name derives from the Italian sonetto
meaning a little sound, or song. It was found in Italy in the 13 th century and was used
by Dante and especially by Petrarch. Traditionally, the sonnet has 14 lines, usually in
iambic pentameter (a line of ten syllables, alternating unstressed syllable with stressed
syllable) with various rhyme patterns. The Petrarchan sonnet comprises an octave (eight
lines) rhyming abbaabba, and a sestet cdecde. As a rule, the octave presents the
problem, the theses, and the sestet resolves it.
(1)
The Italian sonnet (also called the *PETRARCHAN SONNET after the most
influential of the Italian sonneteers) comprises an 8-line 'octave' of two *QUATRAINS,
rhymed abbaabba, followed by a 6-line 'sestet' usually rhymed cdecde or cdcdcd. The
transition from octave to sestet usually coincides with a 'turn' (Italian, volta) in the
argument or mood of the poem. In a variant form used by the English poet John Milton,
however, the 'turn' is delayed to a later position around the tenth line. Some later poets
notably William Wordsworthhave employed this feature of the 'Miltonic sonnet' while
relaxing the rhyme scheme of the octave to abbaacca. The Italian pattern has remained
the most widely used in English and other languages.
(2)
The English sonnet (also called the Shakespearean sonnet after its foremost
practitioner) comprises three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. An
important variant of this is the Spenserian sonnet (introduced by the Elizabethan poet
Edmund Spenser), which links the three quatrains by rhyme, in the sequence
ababbabccdcdee. In either form, the 'turn' comes with the final couplet, which may
sometimes achieve the neatness of an *EPIGRAM.
BLANK VERSE. This was introduced by the Earl of Surrey in the 16 thc. in his translation of
the Aeneid and

The Petrarchan sonnet was the chief source of inspiration for Surrey, five of his
sonnets being actually translations or adaptations of Petrarchs sonnets.
However, he adapted some features to the requirements of the English language
or taste (for instance, nature depictions allude to English not Italian landscapes ).
Surrey chose to modify the organization of the Petrarchan sonnet, by organizing
the 14 lines in three quatrains and a couplet at the end, which gives it an
epigrammatic tone.
Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green
Or where his beams do not dissolve the ice,
In temperate heat where he is felt and seen;
In presence prest of people, mad or wise;
Set me in high or yet in low degree,
In longest night or in the shortest day,
In clearest sky or where clouds thickest be,
In lusty youth or when my hairs are gray.
Set me in heaven, in earth, or else in hell;
In hill, or dale, or in the foaming flood;
Thrall or at large, alive whereso I dwell,
Sick or in health, in evil fame or good:
Hers will I be, and only with this thought
Content myself although my chance be nought.

Though an admirer and follower of Wyatt, Surrey does not imitate him, shaping
his own style: Wyatt stresses resistance, anger and confusion, Surrey glosses
over the rough edges with more regular, sonorous versification, greater attention
to the relationship between self and landscape, and muted expressions of love as
melancholy. (Diana E. Henderson). Though he adapted the Petrarchan sonnet,
he is considered more faithful to it through his more controlled, understated
manner that is closer to
Petrarchan subtleties. He set the tone for the sequent English poets

Tottels Miscellany (1557) (entitled Songs and Sonnets (Written by the Right
Honorable Lord Henry Howard, Late Earl of Surrey, Thomas Wyatt and Others)
but better known as Tottel's Miscellany) is the first anthology of English literature,
compiled by Richard Tottel, a prominent publisher who had already published
several important works of literature, like Thomas More's Utopia, or Surrey's
translation of
50

parts of Virgil's Aeneid, which represents the earliest use of the "blank verse" in
literature. The writings of Wyatt were first printed in this collection of poems,
after his death. Among other contributors there are Surrey, Nicholas Grimald,
Thomas Norton, John Heywood and many anonymous poems. The success of the
anthology was proved by the great number of editions, nine until 1587.
The translations from Petrarch by Wyatt and Surrey signal a change in the
literary cannon and the transition towards Renaissance: "Their prosody and style
thus provided a template for court poetry that was influential during the reign of
Queen Elizabeth." (Curtis Perry) Moreover, the transition from manuscript to
printed text was crucial in the change of literary cannons. These poems had
circulated before only in manuscripts and so, they were confined to a smaller
audience, being closely connected to court. After the publication of the
anthology, these poems had a larger impact and also larger audiences, providing
models for writers and also readers for this type of literature.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554 - 1586) was the first great Elizabethan poet. He was
an aristocrat, educated at Oxford. He was a poet, an adventurer and a soldier.
His prose works include The New Arcadia (1590), and The Defense of
Poesy (1595), the latter considered nowadays one of the first important essays in
literary criticism. His poetic work mainly consists of a cycle of sonnets in
imitation of the Petrarchan sonnet, entitled Astrophel and Stella (1591), drawing
on his unhappy love for Penelope Devereux. For Sidney, poetry is not a form of
superficial entertainment, or an exercise of wit, but a serious form of art, meant
to instruct and move.
The first sonnet of the collection insists on the importance of inspiration in
love poetry and not in the study of others words.
Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to
show, That the dear she might take some
pleasure of my pain,
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might
make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and
pity grace obtain,
I sought fit words to paint the blackest
face of woe: Studying inventions fine, her
wits to entertain,

Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence

would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers
upon my sunburned brain. But words came
halting forth, wanting Invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled stepdame
Study's blows; And others' feet still seemed
but strangers in my way. Thus, great with
child to speak, and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."

Edmund Spenser (1552 - 1599) was the opposite of Sidney, in the sense
that he was not of noble birth, but he received a good education at Cambridge.
He held the position of secretary to the lord-deputy in Ireland. Among his works,
the most famous are: The Shepherds Calendar (1597),
Amoretti (1595), Epithalamion (1595), The Faerie Queene (1596 unfinished).
The Shepherd's Calendar was praised by Sidney in his Defense of Poesy
being, and is, alongside Sidney's Arcadia, one of the best examples of the
pastoral in Renaissance literature. It is not merely a succession of poems that
praises love, but an allegorical construction of greater complexity: "Spenser
would have confined himself to a rendering of the traditional idea of pastoral love
adapted to the changes of the different seasons; but, as a matter of fact, the
unity of the design lies solely in an allegorical calendar, treated ethically, in
agreement with the physical characteristics of the different months. The idea of
love is presented prominently only in four of the eclogues, viz. those for January,
March, June and December: of the rest, four, those for February, May, July and

September, deal with matters relating to morality or religion; two are

complimentary or elegiac, those for April and November; one, that for August,
describes a singing match pure and simple; and one, that for October, is devoted
to a lament for the neglect of poetry." (The Cambridge History of English
Literature)
The Faerie Queene, the most famous of his projects, intended to be
structured in twelve books, out of which only six were published, was supposed
to be a national epic glorifying Queen Elizabeth, named in the poem Gloriana,
the Faerie Queene. It is connected to the King Arthur cycle and with the

51

virtue of chivalry, but it also draws on the famous Italian epics such as Ariosto's
Orlando Furioso or Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered.
Allegory is the dominant mode, as the knights sent by the Queene to save
humanity from evil represent virtues fighting against vices. Thus, the Redcross
Knight (representing the Christian) fights Error while Britomart is the female
warrior representing Chastity. The Evil is represented by characters such as
Duessa (falsehood), or Archimago. This allegory is supposed to transmit the
image of a powerful, united, virtuous and Protestant nation and Glorianas
knights are supposed to be victorious over the evil.
3. ELIZABETHAN DRAMA
The first part of the sixteenth century was still dominated by the medieval
Mysteries and Moralities that survived till Shakespeares time. A new type of play
appears: the Interludes, which were shorter plays, played, at the beginning,
between the acts of the Morality Plays, or between the courses in the feasts. The
dividing lines between the genres are not very clear, some Interludes being very
similar to Moralities, allegorical and didactical, others being humorous and
farcical. It is considered that they form the link between the medieval plays and
Elizabethan drama. These interludes gained in importance, and they started
being played in colleges, at the court or in the noblemens houses, sometimes
even in the countryside. University dramas, plays written and played in colleges,
had an important role in the appropriation of the classical drama style and
patterns, especially in the case of tragedies.
Some names of playwrights composing in the period are known: John
Heywood (1470? - 1580) with his farcical interlude The Four Ps involving four
characters: a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Pothecary and a Pedlar competing to tell a lie;
Nicholas Udall (1504 - 1556), headmaster at Eaton and writer of the first English
comedy: Ralph Roister Doister, influenced by the Roman comedies written by
Plautus or Terence, and thus drawing on the Miles Gloriosus comic typology.
Ralph Roister Doister is the ancestor of Shakespeares Falstaff and the plot is a
model for Shakespeares The Merry Wives of Windsor, whereas his servant,
Matthew Meerygreek will be recalled by Ben Johnsons Mosca inVolpone. If this
play is highly indebted to the classical comedies, Gammer Gurtons Needle
(presumably composed at the middle of the 16 th century) recalls a typical English,
low-class scene, and is centered on the loss of a needle, found after five acts
when one of the characters sits on it. It is not an imitation of Roman plays, either
in content or in structure, and it involves typically English character, while the
language that they use is the rustic, unpolished English.
The first English tragedy presented to the public who had been familiarized
to classical tragedies in translation was Gorboduc (or Ferrex and Porrex) (1561)
by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton. It is also the first play written in blankverse. The Senecan influence is visible in structure, style and the penchant for
bloodshed, an influence to be continued by Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe
and William Shakespeare. The plot, set in a mythical old English kingdom, is a
source of inspiration for Shakespeares King Lear and it presents the tragic
effects of divided authority, exploring the results of a kings decision to split his
kingdom between his two sons. John Bale's Kynge Johann c. 1538 is the first
known historical play and it deals with the reign of King John. It was later used as
a source by Shakespeare in his King John, but Bale operates a major change from
the historical sources, by making John a champion of Protestantism in his fight
against the Pope of Rome, a representation that Shakespeare does not use in his
own text.
In the second half of the sixteenth century, the theatre becomes a
professional type of business, in the sense that professional players gradually
replace the guilds and their performances. In fact, there was a strong tide
against disorganized players, and the laws of 1572 eliminated the companies

that had no patron considering the actors mere vagrants and consequently,
punished by law. Thus, the first theaters appeared. In 1576, the carpenter and
player John Burbage built the first theatre, named the Theatre outside the city
walls. The business was so profitable, that it was soon followed by others, such
as the Swan, the Rose, the Blackfriars, the Globe, especially in the suburbs, since
the authorities of
London were against theatrical productions, in spite of the Queens liking of such
performances.
The Elizabethan theatre was usually made of timber increasing the danger,
was usually round or polygonal. It had three tiers of roofed galleries in the middle
of which there was a roofless opening or a pit. In this yard, there was a stage,
raised from the ground, with its own roof and a curtain that, when
52

drawn, revealed an inner stage. There were was also an upper stage, at the
back, for musicians or for certain scenes of the play. There was little scenery,
only very few objects, and so the audience was supposed to supply the lack of
detail with their imagination. In general, the lines of the play offered the
background. The roles of women were played by young men or boys.
The University Wits were a group of writers educated in Oxford or
Cambridge, who were interested in adapting the classical models to the English
language and to the English interests. Some of these writers were John Lyly,
Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe.
The result of the changes worked upon the classical model, the Elizabethan
drama emerged as a fusion between classical and traditional elements, such as
the disappearance of the unity of time, place and action or of the chorus, and the
combination, in the same play, of tragic and comic elements, probably under the
influence of interludes. The Aristotelian catharsis gives place to the moral fight
between good and evil, whereas the fate that dominated the Greek tragedy was
gradually replaced by personal choices.
1. Thomas Kyd (1558 - 1594) is one of the most important dramatists
before Shakespeare and is considered to be the author of the very successful
play The Spanish Tragedy, one of the earliest revenge tragedies in English
literature, fashioned on Senecan influences. Many of the elements drawn from
Senecas tragedies and included by Kyd in his complicated plot will be later used
by Shakespeare in Hamlet: the ghost, the character who pretends to be mad, the
play-within-a-play, the bloodshed that satisfied the bloodthirsty Elizabethan
audiences, only that there is a reversal of roles: in Kyds play it is the father who
revenges the death of the son.
Kyds play had a brilliant career in its time, staged continuously for a
decade after its composition and published in ten editions within the first twenty
years. It is important not because it remains as one of the most influential plays
of period, but mostly because it invents the Renaissance tragic subject or
reinvents classical tragedy for the Renaissance and more because it frees later
tragedians from the generic limitations and epistemological determinism of
classic, Aristotelian tragedy; it advances the genre, that is, precisely by rejecting
its most basic rules and assumptions about the mimetic function of drama
(Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Tragedy).
2.Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) was the most famous of this group of
writers. He was born in Canterbury and educated at Cambridge. After he
graduated, he came to London where he became a famous writer, also joining a
group of young writers led by Sir Walter Raleigh. Maybe it was his professed
atheism or the freedom with which he expressed his opinions, maybe it was his
dissolute life, he definitely drew an unwanted attention upon himself which led to
his mysterious death.
Marlowe is the one who refined the blank-verse drama (unrhymed iambic
pentameter) and brought it to maturity. This type of verse had been used before
only in the tragedy Gorboduc, but it was Marlowe who brought it to perfection,
shifting the stress, breaking the lines with rhythmic pauses and matching the
verse to his subject so that his text should not remain rigid, but flow with
flexibility and elegance, for which it was called by Ben Johnson Marlowes
mighty line.
Works:
Plays: Tamburlaine the Great two parts (1586-7), Dr. Faustus (1588-9), the Jew
of Malta (1590), Edward II (1591), Dido, Queen of Carthage (1593), The Massacre
of Paris (1593), The Passionate Shepherd (1599).
Poetry: Hero and Leander (unfinished. Completed by Chapman) and translations
from Ovid and Lucan

His plays are dominated by characters larger-than-life, controlled by thirst

for power, knowledge, or great wealth, ready to overstep the limits imposed by
their (social) position or humanity. Their final tragedy comes from their sense of
solitude stemming from the understanding that unlimited power is unattainable.
This is the reason why most of his characters are one-dimensional, dominating
the play and the other characters that are subdued to them. An exception is
Edward II, where there is a clear improvement in the study of the human nature
and a more skilful treatment of stage action.

53

Tamburlaine the Great is a tragedy in two parts, the second part being
written as a result of the success of the first part. The two plays (five acts each)
describe the rise and fall of Tamburlaine the
Great, the scourge of God (denomination familiar to the Elizabethans through
the association with
Attila the Hun), his rise from poor Scythian shepherd to conqueror of the world. If
the first part ends with the triumph of the conqueror, the second part depicts his
downfall, especially after the death of his beloved wife Zenocrate, when his thirst
for power is transformed into madness and obsession.
The play is dominated by cruelty and violence, these being the methods
through which Tamburlaine achieves his success: he puts his opponent, Bajazet,
and his wife into a cage, taking them from one place to the other, he massacres
the people of Babylon and Damascus, he uses a carriage drawn by kings whom
he whips and curses. The cruelty extends to his own family, as Tamburlaine kills
his own son, when the latter refuses to fight.
Tamburlaine is the embodiment of excessive ambition unlimited by any
exterior force, either from the Gods or from the society. He is not punished by
anyone else, but by his own inability to handle his excessive nature, his
successes and the loss of the person he loves, and his megalomania turns into
dementia, seeking, now, war against the gods:
Tamb. What daring god torments my body thus,
And seeks to conquer mighty Tamburlaine?
Shall sickness prove me now to be a man,
That have been term'd the terror of the world?
Techelles and the rest, come, take your swords,
And threaten him whose hand afflicts my soul:
Come, let us march against the powers of heaven.
And set black streamers in the firmament,
To signify the slaughter of the gods.
Ah, friends, what shall I do? I cannot stand.
Come, carry me to war against the gods,
That thus envy the health of Tamburlaine. (Part II, V, 3)

The Massacre at Paris and The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta
can be named
Machiavellian tragedies because they rely on the periods view of Machiavellis
famous work as advocating treachery, amorality, cunningness and manipulation
as the most successful means for achieving political power. Many counterMachiavelli works appeared in the Renaissance, some of them warning about the
dangers of following such an example, one of which being the wave of
assassinations occurring on St. Bartholomews Day in France, which form the
subject of Marlowes play The Massacre at Paris. This play, therefore, relies on
the slaughter of the Huguenots in 1572, focusing on a scheming Duke of Guise.
The play, probably pieced together from the memories of the actor playing the
Duke, is a patchwork of speeches and confusions out of which the portrait of the
Duke of Guise, the mind behind the massacre of thousands of Protestants,
emerges as the most coherent and complex. This atrocious events had a great
impact in the mind of the Elizabethans, haunted by fears of Catholic treason and
scheming. There are three unifying elements in all this maze of intrigues,
poisoning, stabbing and bloodshed: a) insistence on the Catholic conspiracy
against Protestantism; b) the events are centered on the overwhelming figure of
a tyrannical personality; c) the inhuman effects of the self-defined Extraordinary
Man, ambitious and mocking of his adversaries and victims.
The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta supposedly follows Tamburlaine the
Great. There is the same display of excess, of cruelty, of hatred, but, where
Tamburlaine had his grandeur, Barabas, the Jew has the Machiavellian skill in
following his interests disregarding the others, or morality, or faith. In fact, the
play opens with a prologue told by a character names Machevill. His words set
the theme of the play: no one can be trusted and personal profits turn everyone

into a traitor. Religion, which seems to stand at the basis of the play is, in fact,
only a political instrument and righteousness is only a mask that hides hypocrisy
and the image of the Jew is not that of the hated other, but a mirror directed
towards ourselves.
MACHEVILL. Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead,
Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps;
And, now the Guise is dead, is come from France,
To view this land, and frolic with his friends.

54

To some perhaps my name is odious;

But such as love me guard me from
their tongues, And let them know that
I am Machiavel,
And weigh not men, and therefore not
mens words. Admired I am of those that
hate me most.
Though some speak openly against
my books, Yet will they read me and
thereby attain
To Peter's chair; and when they cast
me off, Are poisoned by my
climbing followers.

I count religion but a childish toy.

[]
I come not, I,
To read a lecture here in
Britanie, But to present
the tragedy of a Jew

Who smiles to see how full his bags are

crammed, Which money was not got
without my means.
I crave but this. Grace him as he
deserves, And let him not be
entertained the worse Because he
favours me. (Prologue)

The Jew of Malta, by the name of Barabas, a name with clear Biblical
resonances for the Elizabethan public, refuses to pay the taxes and the governor
takes his house to be turned into a convent, where his own daughter will remain,
as a Christian convert, and confiscates his money. The play becomes a long trial
of revenges and violence: poisoning his own daughter, helping the Turks in their
attack of Malta and then planning to kill them. Barabas dies falling into his own
trap, and he is boiled alive in oil.
Barabas justifies his hatred of the Christians and Muslims alike on account
of their religious differences, however, his true motivation is his love of money
and of gold, the only reason that moves him and prompts his actions:
Give me the Merchants of the
Indian Mynes, That trade in mettal of the
purest mould;
The wealthy Moore, that in the
Easterne rockes Without controule
can picke his riches up,
And in his house heape pearle like
pibble-stones, Receive them free, and
sell them by the weight; Bags of fiery
Opals, Saphires, Amatists,
Jacints, hard Topas, grasse-greene
Emeraulds, Beauteous Rubyes,
sparkling Diamonds,

[]And thus me thinkes should men of

judgement frame Their meanes of traffique
from the vulgar trade,
And as their wealth increaseth, so
inclose Infinite riches in a little
roome. (I, 1)

If in Tamburlaine the Great there the lust for power is dominant, and in
The Jew of Malta, the lust for riches is of crucial importance, in The Tragical
History of Dr. Faustus there is an excess of a different kind: knowledge and
power, stemming from the belief that knowledge is power. The play is based on a
very popular German text about a Dr. Faustus and it loosely follows the idea of
the original text: Dr. Faustus is an erudite thirsty for knowledge and absolute
power. For centuries, critics have tried to decide whether the play is a form of
criticism to Christian perspectives on hell and heaven or it finally conforms to
them; if, in other words, Dr. Faustus is a tragic hero or a misguided sinner. This is

a tragedy shaped according to the allegorical tradition, Dr. Faustus functioning as

a distorted representation of the protagonist of Morality Plays, making a bridge
between the medieval dramatic tradition and the later developments of the
Renaissance stage. Certain elements of the morality drama are present in
Marlowes text, such as the Good and Evil Angels and the Seven Deadly Sins,
whereas the comic subplot of the Tudor stage tradition is represented here by the
manner in which the servants (Wagner, Robin and Ralph) unconsciously parody
the actions of the master.
From the very beginning, Faustus, though apparently an accomplished
scholar, is dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by his human capabilities and so
he turns his back to God and becomes his
55

own god as he signs a contract with the devil, Mephistopheles, in return for
twenty-four years of splendid life.
Faust. Had I as many souls as there be stars,
I'd give them all for Mephistophilis:
By him I'll be great Emperour of the world,
And make a bridge through the moving air,
To pass the Ocean with a band of men.
I'll join the hills that band the Africk shore
And make that land continent to Spain,
And both contributory to my crown:
The Emperour shall not live but by my leave,
Nor any Potentate of Germany;
Now that I have obtain'd what I desire,
I'll live in speculation of this Art,
Til Mephistophilis return again.

At the end of this period of time, however, he is frightful and would like to change
the deal he made.
Faust. Ah, Faustus.
Now hast thou but one bare hour
to live, And then thou must be
damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres
of heaven, That time may cease, and
midnight never come; Fair Nature's
eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural
day, That Faustus may repent and
save his soul!

[]
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis,
were that true, This soul should fly
from me, and I be chang'd Unto
some brutish beast! all beasts are
happy, For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in
elements; But mine must live still
to be plagu'd in hell. Curs'd be the
parents that engender'd me! No,
Faustus, curse thyself, curse
Lucifer That hath depriv'd thee of
the joys of heaven
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body,
turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee
quick to hell!

[The clock strikes twelve.

[Thunder and lightning.

O soul, be chang'd into little

water-drops, And fall into the
ocean, ne'er be found!
Enter Devils.
My God, my God, look not so fierce
on me! Adders and serpents, let me
breathe a while! Ugly hell, gape not!
come not, Lucifer!

I'll burn my books!--Ah, Mephistophilis!

[Exeunt Devils with

Faustus.]

In this case, just as in the others, Faustus is doomed by his own choices
and desires. His own nature and his excessive desires lead to dissolution and
downfall and hell, as it is explained by Mephistopheles, represented by the
psychological, inner torment, and not as an outer manifestation of physical
torture.
The Troublesome Reign and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second is
one of the first historical plays in English literature (not counting Kynge Johann
by John Bale) and depicts the reign of
56

King Edward II (1284 - 1327), considered by many one of the most disastrous
reigns in English history, marked by political instability, incompetence and
military defeats. There were also rumors of the kings homosexuality that
weakened the image of the ruler. However, even if nothing could be proved
regarding the real nature of the relationship between the king and his favorite,
Piers Gaveston, it was Christopher Marlowe the one who insisted on the sexual
aspects of the relationship. Edward II was imprisoned by his wife and forced to
abdicate in favor of his son, Edward III, and believed to be murdered.
Marlowe used Raphael Holinsheds chronicle in depicting the character of
Edward II, but, in comparison to the other plays, he managed to create a more
complex and believable character, being, at the same time, cruel and vengeful,
as well as poetic and kind. His cruelty comes from the fact that he prefers to put
his pleasures above everything and he uses his kingly prerogatives to nurture his
desires:
Edward
Well Mortimer, Ill make thee rue these words,
Beseemes it thee to contradict thy king?
Frownst thou thereat , aspiring Lancaster,
The sworde shall plane the furrowes of thy browes,
And hew these knees that now are growne so stiffe .
I will have Gaveston, and you shall know,
What danger tis to stand against your king.

Though having a short life and career, Christopher Marlowe's contribution

to the development of Elizabethan theatre is of crucial importance, not only on
the thematic and character-construction level, but also on the stylistic level. He
was a master of dramatic creation and he was bold in shaping his characters and
his stories in such a way that they raise uneasy questions. Through his
characters, he questions power and authority, religion, loyalty, morality.

57

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(April 23, 1564 April 23, 1616)
1. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: LIFE AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS
The life of William Shakespeare has been, in time, subject to various
biographies, each trying to shed light on the many ambiguities and lack of
information regarding his life and his whereabouts. Much of the knowledge on
Shakespeare comes from general inferences on cultural and social aspects. For
instance, a general appreciation of schooling and the school systems in his time
(the organization of the grammar schools, such as the one William Shakespeare
attended in Stratford) provides useful information on the level of education a
man of his social background could have received, especially since many of his
rival writers were University educated (the University wits). The controversy
regarding his religion is another mystery, many biographers and critics trying to
see beyond the apparent lack of interest in religion in Shakespeares plays or in
his fathers absence from Church and guess a covert Catholicism in their attitude.
Nothing is, actually, certain, and much of his life is still subject to speculation and
debate. Moreover, there are no constant records on his life. For instance, his
marriage and the baptism of his three children appear in the written documents
of the time. There are also documents that mention his father, John Shakespeare,
his mother, the wife and the children out of which inferences about
Shakespeares life were made. Likewise, some known facts in his life are
considered to lie at the basis of various of his works, such as the death of his own
son, Hamnet, in 1596, which is considered to have influenced the writing of
Hamlet. However, there are periods in which Shakespeares traces are lost. Such
a period is the one that follows the baptism of his children. Filling in the missing
information, biographers speculate that he joined various companies of players.
This period is known to Shakespeares biographers as the lost years. Other
conjectures were made. For example, a player by the name of William Shakeshaft
appears in the will of a Catholic Lancashire landowner, but there is no certainty
that this is Shakespeare.
His name appears in 1592, in a pamphlet written by Robert Greene, who
calls him the only Shake-scene in a country. We do not know what Shakespeare
actually did to offend Greene, but he seems to have upset the group of educated,
university wits, by arrogating to himself airs to which he is not entitled by birth
or by education and he emerged from the group of players to try his hand as a
playwright. (R. Shaughnessy) Greenes misquotation from a line of Henry VI,
Part 3, suggests that
Shakespeares early plays had already begun to circulate and were played by
companies, and consequently, it is widely believed that Shakespeare started
writing for theater companies in the 1590s and he had been a player prior to
this.
From this moment until the final years of his return to Stratford (from 1610
till the end of his life), his life will be closely connected to the London companies
of players and theatres.
After 1594, William Shakespeare appears as a partner in the theater
company known as Chamberlains Men, whose success seems to have relied
on the work of one playwright, actor and sharer, William Shakespeare. Prior to
this, Shakespeare may have been involved with Lord Stranges Men and his
plays (some of which are believed to be written in collaboration), were staged at
Henslowes Rose. His plays were performed at the Globe, the Curtain, the
Blackfriars as well as at the Court. He appears to have gained enough from his
writings, since he bought the largest house in Stratford, in 1597
Many of Shakespeares early plays are mentioned by Francis Meres in his
compendium of commentaries and quotations entitled Palladis Tamia (1598), a
valuable source, nowadays, for dating his plays. Meres probably saw the plays on
stage, or read them in manuscripts.
2. SHAKESPEARES WORKS: CHRONOLOGY AND PUBLICATION

2.1. PLAYED OR PRINTED MATERIALS IN ELIZABETHAN THEATRE.

Concepts like copyright, the authors ownership over the work or other
such modern ways of relating to the printed text did not exist in Shakespeares
time. The plays were produced for the stage, and out of the 3,000 plays known
by their titles from various sources, only 500 survived in manuscripts.
In general, the playwrights manuscript, with additions and deletions, marginal
comments and revisions, was passed to a professional scribe who copied it into
separate parts for the players. A copy of the play was submitted to the Master of
the Revels, heading the Revels Office and responsible for the festivities
58

or, later, for the censorship of the stage productions. For example, the deposition
scene (IV, 1) in Shakespeares Richard II was censored and therefore not included
in the first two quartos, whereas a satire written by Nashe and Johnson (The Isle
of Dogs) was suppressed and the authors imprisoned. After the Master of the
Revels approval, the play was entered in the Stationers Registry (a record of all
works projected for publication).
The plays were not the property of their creators, but of the theater
companies, and could, at any time, be subjected to alterations, amendments and
revisions, as part of the daily repertoire of the company or in case they were
required for Court performances. Public taste, ceremonial occasion, popularity
and success could have become occasions for alterations of the play. Moreover,
these plays were intended for performance not for a reading public and if such a
play could make its way in print, it would have been subjected to more
alterations and revisions by the editors and the printers.
2.2.
THE PUBLICATION OF SHAKESPEARES PLAYS
While talking about the publication of Shakespeares plays, the terms
quarto and folio appear. These terms refer to the format of the published book:
quarto meaning that each leaf is folded twice, making 4 leaves (8 pages),
whereas folio refers to a large-format book, made of 14 by 20 leaves, folded
once, to make 2 leaves (4 pages).
Shakespeares printed versions have raised numerous debates among
scholars and biographers.
The majority of the quarto and folio versions seem to be too long to be
performance versions. Among them, some of the quartos seem to be closer to
performance, but they are often regarded as less reliable since they are
considered to have been fraudulently obtained, pirated, transcribed from
memory, abbreviated, etc.
These quarto versions are the first printed materials of Shakespeares
plays, but they are sometimes called the bad quartos due to the reasons
mentioned above. Anyway, during Shakespeares life, nineteen plays circulated
in print, in little quarto books, some pirated materials, others containing
improved variants. In 1623, two fellow actors published a folio edition of 36 plays
entitled Comedies, Tragedies and Histories. Without the 1623 Folio, much of
Shakespeares works would have been lost, and the remainder rather unreliable.
Another problem acknowledged today is the fact that Shakespeare
collaborated with other writers in the writing of some of his plays, which led to
the enlargement of the Shakespearean canon by including the plays that are not
solely Shakespearean.
2.3. SHAKESPEARES WORKS: GENRES, PERIODS AND CHRONOLOGY
William Shakespeares body of works consists of poetry and plays.
2.3.1.POEMS:
Out of the body of poems, the ones published and acknowledged as his
during his lifetime were two longer Ovidian romances: Venus and Adonis and The
Rape of Lucrece and the Sonnets.
Actually, the first published work by Shakespeare was Venus and Adonis,
entered in the
Stationers Register in April 1593 and in circulation by summer. It was followed
by the 1594 quarto of Lucrece, these two texts being, for a long time, the most
popular of Shakespeares works, fact demonstrated by the series of reprints of
the poems.
Some critics consider that the creation and publication of the poems might
have been caused by the financial dependence of the writer on a patron. Thus,
both Venus and Adonis and Lucrece are dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, the third
Earl of Southampton, a fashionable, charismatic and well-connected courtier.
The Sonnets were published in 1609 by Thomas Thorpe as Shake-Speares
Sonnets. Never Before Imprinted. However, it is very likely that these sonnets
might have circulated in manuscript form, as it was the fashion to courtly

sonneteering. The dedication to the sonnets is more mysterious, and conjectures

have been made regarding the dedicatee for the book of sonnets.
A third narrative poem, A Lover's Complaint, in which a young woman
laments her seduction by a persuasive suitor, was printed in the first edition of
the Sonnets in 1609

59

2.3.2. ORDER OF COMPOSITION OF THE PLAYS AND POEMS

Compiled from the Oxford Shakespeare, ed. S. Wells and G. Taylor (1988).
The dates of the early plays are conjectural.
1590-1
1590-1
1591
1592
1592
1592
1592-3
1592-3
1593-4

Two Gentlemen of Verona

(Cei doi tineri din Verona)
The Taming of the Shrew
(Imblanzirea scorpiei)
2 Henry VI
3 Henry VI
1 Henry VI
Titus Andronicus
Richard III
Venus and Adonis
The Rape of Lucrece

1599
15991600
1600-1
1601
1602
1603
1603-4
1604-5

(Necinstirea Lucretiei)
1594
1594-5
1595
1595
1595
1596
1596-7
1596-7
1597-8
1597-8
1598
1598-9

The Comedy of Errors

Love's Labour's Lost
(Zadarnicele chinuri ale dragostei)
Richard II
Romeo and Juliet
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(Visul unei nopti de vara)
King John
The Merchant of Venice
(Negutatorul din Venetia)
1 Henry IV
The Merry Wives of Windsor
(Nevestele vesele din Windsor)
2 Henry IV
Much Ado About Nothing
(Mult zgomot pentru nimic)
Henry V

1605
1605-6
1606
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1613
1613-14

Julius Caesar
As You Like It
(Cum va place)
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
(A douasprezecea noapte)
Troilus and Cressida
Measure for Measure
(Masura pentru masura)
Othello
Alls Well That Ends Well
(Totu-i bine cand se termina cu
bine)
Timon of Athens (Timon din
Atena)
King Lear
Macbeth
Antony and Cleopatra
Pericles
Coriolanus
The Winters Tale
(Poveste de iarna)
Cymbeline
The Tempest
(Furtuna)
Henry VIII
Two Noble Kinsmen
(Doi veri de stirpe-aleasa)

The paternity of Shakespeares plays is a matter of modern debate, the

fact that many of them were written in collaboration being, nowadays, a widely
accepted reality. The 1623 folio contains plays previously (during Shakespeares
life) published and new plays. The editors of the folio chose not to include the
narrative poems and the sonnets, as well as two plays written in collaboration
(Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen), as well as two plays that are now lost
(Loves Labours Won and Cardenio). There are also other plays with controversial
paternity, partially attributed to Shakespeare, like Sir Thomas More, or Edward III
but usually not included in the collections of plays.
There are various classifications of Shakespeares plays, according to the
period in which they were written, or according to the genre in which they can be
included, but all those classifications may raise problems at a certain point.
3. PERIODIZATION
I. 1589 1600: the period of Sonnets, Poems, most of the Historical Plays,
Comedies.
II. 16001608: the period of the Great Tragedies, and of the Dark
Comedies/Problem Plays
III. 1608 1613: the period of the Romances
4. GENRES
The first folio classifies the plays into comedies, tragedies and histories,
but this classification is no longer accepted nowadays by critics. Modern criticism
uses terms that did not appear in the folio classification, such as tragicomedy,

problem play or romance. Even the various critics do not agree on the use of
terms. For comedies, for instance, various terms are used, such as romantic
comedies, festive comedies, dark comedies. There are also plays that are
hard to include in any genre, some call them problem plays, others use the
term of mixed-genre plays.
60

Broadly speaking, the plays can be included in the four genres accepted by
the 1997 Riverside edition (Comedies, Tragedies, Histories and Romances)
4.1.

COMEDIES

All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors ,
Love's Labours Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Merchant of
Venice, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing,
Taming of the Shrew , Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona.

In very broad lines, the convention of the comedy includes happy-endings,

cross-dressing or mistaken identity, thwarted love, marital and romantic
misunderstandings. The sources of
Shakespeares comedies are varied as well the occasions for which they were
composed. Plays such as
The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona are based on the
Italian romantic comedies, whereas The Comedy of Errors has a clear Roman
source (a play by Plautus). A Midsummer Nights Dream, As You Like It, or Much
Ado about Nothing are called festive comedies and they have various sources
and plots and subplots, making them more complicated than the early comedies.
The problem of clearly including the comedies in the different subgenres
comes from the fact that Shakespeare exploited several comic traditions, such as
the Roman tradition, the Italianate stories and the English festivity tradition. The
Roman tradition draws on the Greek comedy (Aristophanes, Menander) and the
largest corpus of Roman comedies comes from the Latin writers Plautus and
Terence and the conventions they used are to be found in Shakespeares own
comedies. Another famous source of inspiration for the English writers, visible
since the Middle Ages, with Chaucer, for instance, is the interest in the Italianate
stories. Shakespeares Italianate stories (set in Italy and whose plot is indebted to
Italian novelle) do not comprise only comedies, but also tragedies, romances or
problem plays. The most famous Italianate stories include five comedies and two
tragedies: The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The
Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, All's Well That Ends Well, Romeo
and Juliet and Othello. But, we cannot overlook other plays such as the Roman
stories of Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Titus Andronicus and Coriolanus,
or The
Winters Tale beginning and ending in Sicily, Twelfth Night and Measure for
Measure based on Italian stories, as well as many others coming from the Italian
theatre or containing characters typical of Italian literature, all these suggesting
the great influence of Italian literature on English works. The third source of
influence for Shakespeares comedies comes from the English festivity tradition,
drawing on the fixed and movable feasts established by the Church as well as the
popular beliefs and folklore traditions established over the centuries. The year
was divided into two halves: the winter and the sacred half, and the summer with
its agrarian feasts and local celebrations. Shakespeare gives a great importance
to popular festivity and holidays in plays such as A Midsummer Nights Dream or
in As You Like It.
4.2.
HISTORIES.
The histories or historical plays include those plays that are founded on
the English history and are connected to the reign or figure of a king, to be
distinguished from the Roman tragedies, exploiting episodes from the history of
Rome. The date of the composition of the plays does not follow the chronology of
the kings reigns. The historical plays can be divided into two tetralogies (a
tetralogy is a set of four works). The first tetralogy includes the trilogy Henry VI
and the play Richard III and is connected to the events of the War of the Roses.
The second tetralogy, including Richard II the two parts of Henry IV and Henry V
are connected to the fall of the Angevins and the Hundred Years War.
Beside these plays, the histories also include the early play King John and the
late play Henry VIII. Even in this group of plays there are definition

problems. The general characteristics of the

histories, centered on the figure of a king, involve conspiracy, fighting, plotting, a
large number of characters and a decisive on-stage battle. However, the plays
Richard II and Richard III though adhering to these general characteristics are
closer to the conventions of the tragedy and their quarto titles are: The Tragedy
of King Richard II and The Tragedy of King Richard III.
4.3.

TRAGEDIES

Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra,
Titus
Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens.

61

The convention of the tragedy, implies a single heroic male character (the
tragic hero), a tragic flaw either a dreadful dilemma or a wrong decision,
conspiracy, fight and bloodshed, sometimes madness and many deaths at the
end. Similarly, the stormy atmosphere, with its unnatural manifestations (strange
animal behavior, eclipses, earthquakes, supernatural phenomena) reinforce the
confusion, the instability and disintegration of the world, stemming from the
belief that the human and the natural are in a close and harmonious connection.
The tragedy becomes an exploration of evil and suffering centered on the
character of an exceptional individual. Aristotles writings are considered basic
for the understanding of the tragedy, though, it is often argued that Shakespeare
was more indebted to the Senecan tradition of bloodshed and tyranny than to
the Greek tragedy.
However, it is very difficult to draw an exact pattern of the Shakespearean
tragedy, since the playwright does not adhere to a unique tragic model,
developing complex plots, sometimes, as in the case of King Lear, subplots that
parallel the main plot. The death of the hero at the end of the play is not, as
expected, a unifying principle, since Julius Caesar dies in the middle of the play,
and is not the main character at all, whereas the death of Macbeth does not
produce the sense of loss we normally expect from the fall of a great man. Timon
of Athens, though reflecting the disintegration of the hero, stops before the
death of the tragic hero. There are comic parts in this supposedly serious, severe
and dark plays, as it is the case in Hamlet, or in Romeo and Juliet.
Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth are usually deemed the great
tragedies, being among the most studied and most read works in world
literature; they are considered, in a simplifying scheme, the peak of
Shakespeares creation.
Titus Andronicus, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra can
be included in a different category: the Roman plays. This name comes from the
fact that their plot is connected to the history of Ancient Rome, though Titus
Andronicus is not based, like the other three, on real history, but on a fictional
plot. Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra can be included in a
group named tragedies of love, though Romeo and Juliet fits the group of
tragedies with greater difficulty, since the theme of love, during Shakespeares
time, pertained to romance and not to tragedy, the latter being most often
connected to the fall of the great political men, a convention respected by the
other two "love" tragedies. Actually, Romeo and Juliet, belonging to the first
period of creation, has more in common with A Midsummer Nights Dream than
with the great tragedies, being considered A Midsummer gone wrong. Moreover,
it defies the fatalistic view of tragedy, replacing the will of Fate with the
hazardous, the accidental, bad luck and misfortune.
4.4.

ROMANCES
Cymbeline, Pericles, The Tempest, The Winters Tale

These four plays were written towards the end of his career and are
considered the most experimental theatrical ventures. Initially, The Tempest and
The Winters Tale were included in the group of comedies, Cymbeline was
considered to be a tragedy and Pericles was not part of the first folio edition at
all. The fact that they all end in happy reunions and promised marriages would
include them, at least formally, in the genre of the comedy, but the ending is not
sufficient in clearly classifying them as such.
The convention of the Shakespearean romance usually includes natural
disasters, remarkable adventures, unlikely coincidences, conflict between
generations or within families, unforeseen conclusions in which forgiveness and
reconciliation are achieved against all odds. Usually, it is the role of the children,
by falling in love, to amend the errors of their parents and bring harmony to the
world.
The name of this genre comes from the medieval romance, with its stories
of love and chivalry, of fantasy and adventure. Shakespeare used these
conventions as a pretext to reflect upon the way art and the imagination operate

in the understanding of the world. It provides the context to show not only how
the world is, but how the world could be (Sean McEvoy).
4.5.
PROBLEM PLAYS, PROBLEM COMEDIES, MIXED-GENRE PLAYS
There are critics who use further genre classifications, since some of the
plays are difficult to classify. In a 1931 book, William W. Lawrence used the term
problem comedy, to include the plays
Alls Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida and
Cymbeline. Out of these,
62

Alls Well has traditionally been included in the group of comedies, whereas
Cymbeline is nowadays considered a romance. His definitions insist on the
seriousness of the plots that contradict the definitions of comedy, while the
happy-endings thwart them from the group of tragedies.
He argues that comedies such as All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for
Measure, and Troilus and Cressida are sometimes called problem comedies,
because of the fact that, though they adhere to the rules of the comedy, the
treatment of the theme is more serious and realistic:
They are concerned, not with the pleasant and fantastic aspects of life, but with
painful experiences and with the darker complexities of human nature. Instead
of gay pictures of cheerful scenes, to be accepted with a smile and a jest, we are
frequently offered unpleasant and sometimes even repulsive episodes, and
characters whose conduct gives rise to sustained questioning of action and
motive. (W.
Lawrence)

This term of problem play, he further argues, is useful to apply to the

productions that cannot be considered tragedies, but that are too serious and
analytic to be included in the conception of comedy.
Other classifications of the problem plays put in one group Alls Well,
Measure for Measure,
Troilus and Cressida and Hamlet.
All these dramas introduce us into highly artificial societies, whose civilization is
ripe unto rottenness. Amidst such media abnormal conditions of brain and
emotion are generated, and intricate cases of conscience demand a solution by
unprecedented methods. Thus throughout these plays we move along dim
untrodden paths, and at the close our feeling is neither of simple joy nor pain;
we are excited, fascinated, perplexed, for the issues raised preclude a
completely satisfactory outcome, even when, as in All's Well and Measure for
Measure, the complications are outwardly adjusted in the fifth act. In Troilus and
Cressida and Hamlet no such partial settlement of difficulties takes place, and
we are left to interpret their enigmas as best we may. Dramas so singular in
theme and temper cannot be strictly called comedies or tragedies. We may
therefore borrow a convenient phrase from the theatre of to-day and class them
together as Shakspeare's problem-plays. (F.S.Boas, Shakespeare and His
Predecessors, 1896)

Sean McEvoy, while finding for the other plays mentioned above a place in
either comedies, tragedies or romances, keeps Troilus and Cressida and Measure
for Measure apart, including them in a separate category he calls mixed-genre
(or genre-defying) plays, considering that, in these plays, Shakespeare fits
elements from different genres. Another term used for these plays is that of
tragicomedy, describing the mixture of tragic and comic elements. However, it
is believed that these plays reveal more of the negative aspects, of the worries
and conflict of Shakespeares world than the other plays. They appear to cast
doubt and undermine the ideals and beliefs of the traditional English society
(Sean McEvoy).

63

William Shakespeare
THE COMEDY
1. COMEDIES: DEFINITIONS AND TRAITS
Comedy could be simply defined as a dramatic presentation that makes us
laugh. (Sean McEvoy 125). Though it is rather difficult to have a simple and
straightforward definition of comedy, since laughter is not confined only to
comedy, some laughable scenes being present in tragedies, as well, there are,
however, sets of characters, themes or conventions that correspond to the
publics expectations of a comedy. Moreover, the "funny" or amusing element is
not the defining feature of comedy: "comedy was described by the ancient
Greeks, notably Aristotle, as art that concerns humans as social beings
interacting with others, as opposed to considering them as private individuals"
(K. Kuiper). By contrast to tragedy, comedy insist on the human being as part of
the community, integrated in it and adhering to its values; therefore, through
laughter, credited with therapeutic functions, the comic character is brought
back into conformity with a society whose conventions he abandoned.
1.1. Origins and History
The beginnings of comedy are located in Ancient Greece, the name comedy
coming from the Greek komos meaning revels, merrymaking and its origins are
rooted in the rituals for the Greek god
Dionysus. On stage, comedy seems to have started with the works of the Greek
playwrights Aristophanes and Menander, and their comic conventions where
taken up by the Roman authors Plautus and Terence and then transmitted to the
Renaissance writers. Therefore, many of the comic conventions and characters
have remained from the classical tradition.
There are no great comedies left from the period of the Middle Ages, but
comedy survived in the development of the farce and in the Interludes in the
Mystery Plays. The Renaissance, coming with its revival of classical literature,
became interested in the plays of the Roman comic playwrights, and they were
present on the English stage either in the form of translations, or in that of
adaptations like
Nicholas Udalls Ralph Roister Doister or the anonymous Gammer Gurtons
Needle (the middle of the 16th century).
1.2. Definitions and Traits
In defining comedy, many critics start from the distinction between comedy and
tragedy, seeing them as opposing genres. Thus, Aristotle says that comedy deals
with ordinary characters in everyday situation, opposing it to tragedy that
depicts noble characters (kings, princes, and noblemen) in extraordinary
situations. Due to these distinctions, it is common that comedy should be
involved with the private life of people, while tragedy should deal with state
affairs, influenced by the destiny of kings and princes. Euanthius, a Greek
rhetorician commented that:
Of the many differences between tragedy and comedy, the foremost are these: in
comedy the fortunes of men are middle-class, the dangers are slight, and the ends
of the action are happy; but in tragedy everything is the opposite the characters
are great men, the fears are intense, and the ends disastrous. In comedy the
beginning is troubled, the end tranquil; in tragedy events follow the reverse order.
And in tragedy the kind of life is shown that is to be shunned; while in comedy the
kind is shown that is to be sought after. Finally in comedy the story is always
fictitious; while tragedy often has a basis in historical truth. (in J. A. Cuddon,
Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms)

To sum up, there is a set of conventions that can be taken into

consideration when talking about comedies, despite the rather numerous
problematic aspects that make this genre so difficult to define. First, comedies
deal with private lives and private affairs in opposition to the tragic conflict that
resonates through the entire political body. Whatever may happen in a comedy, it

does not have relevance beyond the private life of its characters and will not
affect the entire political system, causing its downfall and destruction, as it is the
case in tragedy. That is the reason why, in general, the characters in comedies
pertain rather to the lower classes, since they are more likely to become subject
to comic, or ridiculous attitudes. Tragedy is about human isolation, comedy is
about human integration (Terry Eagleton). A comedy may start in misfortune, but
it will end in communal joy and reconciliation. If the style of the tragedy is lofty,
the style of the comedy is humble, negligent.
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The comedy also deals with certain stock characters and typical actions.
Generally, it is considered that love is one of the major comic actions, usually,
thwarted love that leads to a series of misfortunes and misunderstandings which
eventually have a happy ending.
In his analysis of the literary genres, Northrop Frye tries to point out some
of the elements characteristic to comedy. He locates the center of the comedy in
the young generation, as it usually deals with youthful love that has to overstep
a series of obstacles created by those in the older generations (mainly parents).
At the end of a comedy, though, the triumph belongs to the young, and is
celebrated by a sort of festivity, most commonly, a wedding. The comedy,
according to Fryes analysis, has the tendency to include as many people as
possible in the final, reconciliating festivity, and it sometimes contains a ritual of
exclusion of the undesirable one, the individual whose actions destroy the
harmony of the world (as in the case of Shakespeares Merchant of Venice).
The comedy usually tries to impose a better version of the society, that is
why, in many plays, the opening is marked by a cruel, or unnatural, or absurd law
or deal, as in the case of the cruel law of killing the Syracusians in The Comedy
of Errors, or the deal with Shylock, in The Merchant of Venice. In order to set the
world right, the protagonist(s) need to pass through a series of obstacles, or
tests, sometimes to undertake a journey after which he/she/they can safely
return home, to a renewed world.
2. SHAKESPEARES COMEDIES
The inclusion of Shakespeares plays into strict categories has been a challenge
for critics over the centuries. The 1623 Folio classification of plays into comedies,
tragedies and histories is not very helpful, and part of this initial classifications
has subsequently been challenged and rethought. These difficulties arise, on the
one hand, from the lack of a large body of theoretical writings on literary forms.
In this case, Shakespeare did not rely on a solid theoretical body, but on stage
traditions, such as the ancient comedy, Greek and Roman, medieval forms and
Renaissance, especially Italian, conventions. Another reason for such difficulties
in defining Shakespearean comedy might lie in the playwrights refusal to be
limited by fixed forms and conventions, continually challenging any limitations,
improving on the existing forms and even altering his own vision in the course of
time, from the first plays toward the end of his career and mixing up genres,
including comic elements in his tragedies, serious events in his comedies, happyendings in histories. The difficulties to include certain plays into various literary
forms have led to several attempts at different classifications and subdivisions.
For instance,
Shakespearean comedies have, in turn, been classed into early comedies and
late comedies, other were named festive comedies. Some other terms were
introduced to deal with the more problematic comedies, such as romance,
problem play or tragicomedy. In the end, one must acknowledge the
individuality of each play taken separately as well as its importance into a wider
understanding of
Shakespeares work in general.
2.1. COMIC TRADITIONS
Shakespeares comedies are not indebted to a single source, this is the reason
why it is rather difficult to classify them. The three main sources for his creation
of comedies are: the classical plays, especially the Classical tradition; the Italian
stories; and the English festive tradition.
A. The Classical tradition draws on the plays of the Roman writers Plautus and
Terence who, in their turn, are indebted to the Greek writers Aristophanes and
Menander. Some of the conventions employed by these classical writers are to
be found in Shakespeares plays, as well. Shakespeare was clearly influenced by
the language and style of the Roman comedies that included music and songs.
Moreover, this focus on music and musicality is seen in the composition of the
text, with the variation of line-length and measure, alliteration and rhymes.
Likewise, similar to the Roman plays, Shakespeare intensively uses puns, word-

play, and draws comic effect from the use of neologisms or dialect.
According to classical models, Shakespeares plays are focused on the
opposition between appearance and reality, as well as on ambiguous identities,
cross-dressing, twins, exchanges of identity. There elements are intensified by
overheard conversations and eavesdropping. Two sets of twins who exchange
places, without one knowing about the existence of the other are present in The
Comedy of Errors, a play clearly drawn from Plautus Manaechmi, as well as in
Twelfths Night. Cross-dressing is a widely employed convention in
Shakespeare from the first play and many women dress as young men for
different reasons: Julia (Two Gentlemen of Verona), Rosalinde (As You Like It),
Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Viola
65

(Twelfths Night), even, briefly, Helena (Alls Well That Ends Well). Staged
conversations to make lovers confess their love, overheard discussions and
eavesdropping that could led even to disaster form the basis of Much Ado about
Nothing.
Shakespeare also largely used the classical convention of plot doubling
(several couples of lovers), repetition, contrast and counterpoint, all these
successfully solved in the end by multiple weddings. Thus, there is often the
theme of friendship that resists or does not resist the test of love in
Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Two Noble Kinsmen,
faithful friends in As You Like It (Rosalind and Celia) and The Merchant of Venice
(Antonio and Bassanio) or merry groups in Loves Labours Lost, Much Ado about
Nothing.
B.
The Italian(ate) stories had been very popular in England long before
Shakespeares times, since the Middle Ages, though, to call them Italian is often
a misnomer, because many had come from more distant sources (classical
stories, Indian tales) through Italian channels. Without the pressure of copyright,
writers and playwrights of the time had no urge to invent new stories and could
freely use and adapt old material to their own texts. The sources used were
various and diverse, but the most common were the complete novelle collection
of Boccaccio, Bandello and Giraldi, the chivalric romance cycles
(such as Ariostos Orlando Furioso), translated by John Harrington in 1591. All of
these narratives were outgrowths of longer traditions, with roots in the classics
Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, Heliodorus, Achilles Tatius and in folktales from as far
away as India, transmitted in the Gesta Romanorum, hagiographies, and various
other forms. (Louise George Clubb, The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeares
Comedies, CCSC)
As far as the theatre tradition was concerned, many plays circulated in
print or were played at different European courts. The Italian comedy had already
disseminated a variety of forms: farces, satires, romantic courtship plays of
revelation, pastoral plays. Professional companies that would be called
commedia dellarte were touring Europe, especially France and Spain and
Shakespeare may have had access to printed plays or accounts of such plays
from the Italians in London. To pinpoint exactly the Italianate influence in each
and every play is a difficult task. But we can mention the fact that many are set
in Italy, and are drawn from Italian sources, from the classical writers to
Renaissance writers.
C.
The third very rich source of inspiration for Shakespeares plays, employed
not only in comedies, but also in histories and tragedies is the English popular
tradition. This source is extremely varied drawing on popular festivities during
the year as well as court festivities. Jeanette Dillon (CCSC) notes that the use of
the festive tradition becomes a subtle and effective means of generic
subversion and reconstruction especially when it is employed in histories and
tragedies, such as Richard III, Hamlet or King Lear.
Popular festivities as well as Court festivities were a large source of
influence for Shakespeare. The year was divided into two halves, the winter
festivities that were mostly connected to religious ceremonies, and
corresponding to many Court forms of entertainment such as the revels of winter,
the twelve days of Christmas or the garter ceremony. During the summer, the
festivities connected to agricultural cycles abounded. These had pagan
influences and were closer to nature rituals. During the summer, the Court toured
the provinces and this was the occasion for various city and country festivals.
Added to these, there were the occasional feasts and celebrations, such as royal
weddings, baptisms or funerals.
Of great influence for Shakespeare were the green world and popular
festivities:
Pagan, ritualized vision of a traditional green world with its hunting rites and
grounds, chance or sporting games, and its utopian or topsy-turvy scenarios. The
green world was regarded as a place of escape from the constraints of the law and
from everyday life, a place of change (of gender or of identity or both) and deep
interior transformation where the contact with nature and old custom provided a

form of content and fulfillment, pagan, ritualized vision of a traditional green world
with its hunting rites and grounds, chance or sporting games, and its utopian or
topsy-turvy scenarios. The green world was regarded as a place of escape from the
constraints of the law and from everyday life, a place of change (of gender or of
identity or both) and deep interior transformation where the contact with nature
and old custom provided a form of content and fulfillment. (Jeanette Dillon, CCSC)

The forest is seen as an alternative to a corrupted and treacherous world, a

place were the society can be regenerated, and where the banished can find a place
of hiding and salvation till the world is regenerated, as it is a clear case in A
Midsummer Nights Dream and As You Like It. The function of

66

the festive element is to trigger and emotional release and create an

atmosphere of joyful liberation in the face of an archaic moral order or tyranny.
(CCSC)
DUKE SENIOR
Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life
more sweet Than that of painted
pomp? Are not these woods More free
from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons' difference, as the
icy fang And churlish chiding of
the winter's wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon

my body, Even till I shrink with cold,
I smile and say 'This is no flattery:
these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me
what I am.' Sweet are the
uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and
venomous, Wears yet a precious
jewel in his head; And this our life
exempt from public haunt

Finds tongues in trees, books in the

running brooks, Sermons in stones and
good in every thing.
I would not change it. (As You Like It, II, 1)

2.2. CONVENTIONS, THEMES, CHARACTERS

According to the Classic tradition, the main theme of a comedy is love.
Shakespeares comedies usually involve love issues, lovers won and lost, change
of identities, attempts to avoid unjust marriages. Love, therefore, triggers the
process of growing up of the young into adulthood, and their breaking up with
the authority of their parents or that of the elders. This is the reason why John
McEvoy considers that one common theme in Shakespeares comedies is the
JOURNEY, the passage of the young woman or man from innocence/ virginity to
marriage. Therefore, the comedies often involve a series of obstacles that the
young lovers need to cross before becoming united with the loved ones. Portia
(The Merchant of Venice) needs to pass through a strange ritual imposed by her
father through which the one she is supposed to marry has to choose from three
caskets. Similarly, Hermia (A Midsummer Nights Dream) is forced, by her father,
to marry Demetrius, and so she decides to run into the woods with her lover,
Lysander.
The comedy, therefore, starts with trouble, misfortune, sometimes unjust
and cruel laws, threats of punishment, even threats of death. The Comedy of
Errors begins with the unjust law of punishing Syracusians by death, and the
entire play, centered on two sets of twins that are supposed to meet, but only
manage to get into more trouble, becomes even more pressing, since the time
lost by them brings their father closer to death. In The Merchant of Venice, the
threat of the strange deal between Shylock and Antonio looms over the play. In
As You Like It the real Dukes place is usurped by his brother who, in the end, is
rumored to have gathered an army against him, whereas, in the double plot, a
older brother plans to kill his younger brother. The same threat of betrayal and
murder is sensed in Much Ado About Nothing, where Don John plots against his
brother Don Pedro, prince of Aragon and he manages to convince Claudio and
the Duke that Claudios lover, Hero, had been unfaithful. All these complications

caused by Don Johns plotting may easily lead to tragedy, since Hero is slandered
and rejected and her friends devise a plot similar to that in Romeo and Juliet.
Therefore, there may be a direct obstacle against the love of the young (like a
parent), or a more serious plot, touching politics and state affairs. This is the
point, actually, that unites comedies to tragedies, and, at any moment, the
comedy may turn into a tragedy, the final reconciliation, the exposure, the
betterment or the repentance of the culprit making the difference between happy
endings and destructions. So, the main theme of comedies is, quite often, the
challenge of authority, usually that represented by parents whose choice of
spouses is different from the love of the young ones, but it is sometimes doubled
by political plots that make the situation more serious.
67

But there are also the cases in which the lovers themselves set obstacles
in the path of their own love, refusing the feeling, being reluctant to reveal their
love or mocking love altogether. Love changes people, they become
metamorphosed or translated, they forget who they are and start behaving
in ways that are unnatural to their nature. Sometimes, they are charmed into
loving the wrong lover: thus,
Proteus, previously in love with Julia, falls in love with his friends beloved Silvia,
just by witnessing their love. Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius (A
Midsummer Nights Dream) are bewitched into deserting the loved one and
loving somebody else, just as Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, is charmed to fall
in love with the weaver Bottom, bewitched to have the head of an ass. Some fall
in love with the wrong person while being loved by somebody else: Silvius loves
Phoebe who falls in love with Ganymede/ Rosalind in As You Like It and Olivia falls
in love with Cesario/Viola (Twelfth Night). Love, therefore, is capable to transform
the ordinary reality and make life seem like a fantasy.
Hip. 'Tis strange, my Theseus,
that these lovers speak of.
The. More strange than true. I
never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy
toys. Lovers and madmen have such
seething brains, Such shaping
fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever
comprehends. The lunatic, the
lover, and the poet,

Are of imagination all compact:

One sees more devils than vast hell
can hold, That is, the madman; the
lover, all as frantic; Sees Helen's
beauty in a brow of Egypt:

The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from
earth to heaven; And, as imagination bodies
forth
The forms of things unknown, the
poet's pen Turns them to shapes,
and gives to airy nothing A local
habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong
imagination, That, if it would but
apprehend some joy, It
comprehends some bringer of
that joy; Or in the night,
imagining some fear, How easy
is a bush suppos'd a bear!
Hip. But all the story of the night
told over, And all their minds
transfigur'd so together, More
witnesseth than fancy's images,

And grows to something of great constancy,

But, howsoever, strange and admirable. (A Midsummer Nights Dream, Act V,
scene 1).
Pro. He after honour hunts, I after
love: He leaves his friends to
dignify them more; I leave myself,

my friends and all, for love. Thou,

Julia, thou hast metamorphos'd
me; Made me neglect my
studies, lose my time, War with
good counsel, set the world at
nought;
Made wit with musing weak, heart sick with
thought. (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I, scene 1)
Val. Why, how know you that I am in love?
Speed. Marry, by these special marks: first,

68

you have learned, like Sir Proteus, to

wreathe your arms, like a malecontent;
to relish a love-song, like a robinredbreast; to walk alone, like one that
had the pestilence; to sigh, like a
schoolboy that had lost his A B C; to
weep, like a young wench that had
buried her grandam; to fast, like one
that takes diet; to watch, like one that
fears robbing; to speak puling, like a
beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont,
when you laughed, to crow like a cock;
when you walked, to walk like one of
the lions; when you fasted, it was
presently after dinner; when you

looked sadly, it was for want of

money; and now you are
metamorphosed with a mistress,
that, when I look on you, I can hardly
think you my master.
Val. Are all these things perceived
in me? Speed. They are all
perceived
without
ye.
Val.
Without me? they cannot.

Speed. Without you? nay, that's certain;

for, without you were so simple, none
else would: but you are so without these
follies, that these follies are within you
and shine through you
like the water in an urinal, that not an
eye that sees you but is a physician to
comment on your

malady. (The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, scene 1)

In Shakespeares comedies, lovers are often separated, deserted,

mistreated; they have to pass through obstacles, interdictions and misfortunes.
Therefore, they often run away (the lovers in A Midsummer Nights Dream,
Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona), are banished (Rosalind in As You Like
It), pretend to be dead to win again the heart of their lovers (Much Ado about
Nothing), are tricked (Don Johns plan against Hero and Claudio in Much Ado
about Nothing) or ill-treated (Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew).
These obstacles, problems and misfortunes often require for the lovers to
change their identities: Valentine becomes the leader of a group of criminals
(The Two Gentlemen of Verona), the men in love with Bianca try to devise a plan
to enter her house as teachers and trick her father (The Taming of the Shrew),
women change their identities or disguise themselves as men (Portia and Jessica
in The Merchant of Venice, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rosalind in As
You Like It, or Viola in Twelfth Night). These changes often create further
complications, as other women fall in love with the women who disguised
themselves as men (Phoebe falls in love with Rosalind/Ganymede in As You Like
It, and Olivia is more interested in Viola / Cesario than in Duke Orsino who loves
her, in Twelfth Night). In this switch of identities, objects become tokens of love
or further complicate the situations. There is often an exchange of love letters,
but sometimes, the letters do not directly reach their destinations, there are rings
or necklaces to be given as tokens of love.
These plots often involve journeys (journeys across the sea, into the
woods, from one place/ town to the other) at the end of which, the young lovers

emerge more experienced. Moreover, at the end of the journey something

happens to make their love socially acceptable, some sort of repentance,
recognition, revealed tokens of love and identities and usually, the comedies end
in (multiple) marriage(s).
Though there are numerous similarities among the comedies, they are
very distinct the one from the other, the same conventions being used to
different end effects and the sources being not only used, but transformed by
Shakespeare to reach further comic effects, on the one hand, but also open the
way to meditation and debate. Loves Labours Lost, for instance, is considered
one of the most courtly and cerebral comedies written by Shakespeare. It begins
with the formation of a sort of
69

aristocratic, male community (the King of Navarre and his followers: Longaville,
Dumaine and Berowne) and they try to dismiss everything connected to
sentimentality and love in favor of study and self-improvement. The presence of
Don Adriano de Armado is not only to be read as having comic effects, but
extending, with his linguistic extravagance, the aristocratic community of
academicians.
FERDINAND [Reads a letter written by Don Armado] 'So it is, besieged
with sable-coloured melancholy, I did commend the black-oppressing
humour
to the most wholesome physic of thy
health-giving air; and, as I am a
gentleman, betook myself to walk. The
time when. About the sixth hour; when
beasts most graze, birds best peck, and
men sit down to that nourishment which
is called supper: so much
for the time when. Now for the ground
which; which, I mean, I walked upon: it is ycleped thy park. Then for the place where;
where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene
and preposterous event, that draweth from
my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink,
which here thou viewest, beholdest,
surveyest, or seest;
but to the place where; it standeth northnorth-east and by east from the west
corner of thy curious-knotted garden:
there did I see that low-spirited

swain, that base minnow of thy mirth,' (Loves Labours Lost, I, 1)

Their efforts are thwarted by the fact that they fall in love with the
Princess of France and her three followers: Rosaline, Maria and Katherine. The
ladies, however, plan to trick their lovers, and they switch their identities among
themselves by wearing masks. Unlike other comedies, though, this does not end
in marriage, despite the final revelation of tricks and true identities. The death of
the King of France casts a gloomy shadow over their love and the ladies ask for a
year both to mourn for the death of the king and force their lovers to spend that
period of time in hermitage for having broken their initial vow.
Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Nights Dream can be seen as a sort of
"festive" comedies, connected to the festivities during the year. A Midsummer
Nights Dream recalls the pagan festivities that are usually associated with the
summer solstice. These practices, involving superstitions and magic, are
connected to rituals of fertility, courtship and love. The plot is complex, working
on several levels. The frame is created by the wedding of Theseus with
Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. Within that frame, several plots are
presented and intertwined. Firstly, there is the plot of the four Athenian lovers:
Helena forced by her father and by Theseus to marry Demetrius, while she is in
love with Lysander, decides to run away into the forest, followed by her friend
Helena who loves Demetrius, but is despised by him. Things are complicated by
Puck who, instead of following Oberons orders and help the lovers, makes a
mistake and charms Lysander, instead of Demetrius, to fall in love with Helena, to
the despair of Hermia. The magic realm in the play is represented by Oberon,
King of the Fairies and Titania, Queen of the Fairies, who are fighting over an
orphan desired by both as a page. Puck, the mischievous spirit, charms Titania,
under Oberons orders, to fall in love with the first creature she sees. Thus, a
third plot is intertwined, represented by a group of people who want to present a
play for the royal wedding. One of them, Bottom, is charmed to wear a head of
an ass, being the first person Titania sees and falls in love with. At the end of the
play, charms are reversed, and the Athenian lovers as well as Bottom return to
the city reunited and believing that what happened in the woods had been a
midsummer nights dream. At the end, after hearing the tedious play of the

guildsmen, the couples are married, blessed by the fairies, who are reconciled
and reunited as well. However, upon their return to the city, the wonders of the
forest are dismissed in a rational disbelief and dismissal of the irrational, the
woods being seen as a space that eludes the authority of reason, a space of
confusion, deception and madness, the authority of the father (Egeus) and of the
King.
Twelfth Night, unlike A Midsummer Nights Dream, does not make a direct
reference to any festivities, however, the title refers to the Court winter revels,
especially the twelve days of Christmas, ending with the Epiphany (the Twelfth
Night). The reference to Twelfth Night invokes the climactic moment of the
festive season, a work-free period of licensed misrule given over to music,
dancing, feasting and drinking in which, in imagination, at least, masters and
servants may trade places, exchanges
70

of identity, disguise and cross-dressing become temporarily permissible, and in

which scapegoats are targeted. (R. Shaughnessy). The play is set in the
imaginary dukedom of Illyria, and its beginning is marked by sadness and
melancholy: Olivia mourns the death of her brother just as Viola mourns the
presumed death of her own brother lost in a shipwreck. After confused identities,
separated twins or switched lovers and confusion, harmony and unity are
restored and couples are formed. A secondary plot, in keeping with the festive
time of the Twelfth Night, is centered on the serious and killjoy steward Malvolio,
who becomes the target of a cruel prank devised by Sir Toby and his merry
friends exposing
Malvolios secret love for Olivia, his ambition and hypocrisy.
As You Like It is another very complicated play that intertwines the love
plots with the very serious and dangerous political schemes. The space is divided
again between the city and the woods, the city being a place of treason and
danger, represented by both the banishment of the rightful duke and
Olivers plan to get rid of his younger brother. The woods, the hiding place of the
Duke, become, at least temporarily, a safe harbour for runaways, a place of ease
and tranquility, but also of love confusion and switched identities. At the end of
the play, the several levels are united by multiple marriages, from the upper
layer: the Dukes daughter Rosalinde and Orlando, his brother, Oliver, and the
Dukes niece
Celia, thus solving the political, as well as the family conflict, to the lower: the
shepherd Silvius and Phoebe, as well as Touchstone and Audrey. The danger
posed by the usurper is miraculously solved off-stage and the Duke finally
returns to his rightful position and to his court.
These comedies also allow for meditations upon theatre and life. Starting
with The Taming of the Shrew, which is actually presented as a play performed in
front of a simpleton Sly on whom a Lord plays a trick, many other plays display
comments on theatre. In A Midsummer Nights Dream, for instance, there is the
unsuccessful play of the guildsmen that, besides causing the audiences to laugh,
points out, through the exaggerated care of the plays creators, the dangers
posed by authority. The players are very cautious with their act, especially
Pyramus killing himself and the roar of the lion which may frighten the ladies
causing a severe punishment (That would hang us, every mothers son (I, 2)).
Though there is an exaggerated fear of punishment, the players concerns reveal
the uneasiness of authority regarding theatrical performance. In As You Like It,
Jaques gives voice to one of the most famous meditations on life in
Shakespeares plays
DUKE SENIOR
Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
This wide and universal theatre
Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
Wherein we play in.
JAQUES
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

71

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. (As You Like It, II, 7 )

In conclusion, Shakespeares comedies, though drawing on the existing comic

traditions, deal with more serious issues and defying the convention to which
they belong.