MAGISTER OPOSICIONES AL PROFESORADO Inglés - Secundaria SUMMARY TOPIC 44 INTRODUCTION William Shakespeare (1564-1616) has influenced English literature and European drama more than any other single writer. He was an outstanding "jack of all trades": a poet, a playwright, a player, and sharcholder in the company that owned his theatre, the Globe. His first-hand experience of the stage and its audience enabled him to construct his scenes in the most effective way, to rely on his actor's knowledge of intonation and rhythm when writing a speech, and even to adapt the roles of his plays to the specific talents of each member of his group. Apart from his extraordinary theatrical skill, Shakespeare has often been praised for various remarkable qualities, such as: = his astonishing psychological comprehension of the human passions, which accounts for much of his, universality, ~ his unrivalled poetic imagination and sense of structure, - his flexibility, which enabled him to combine successfully all the gifts which wore scattered or isolated in the work of other writers, or make use of the most diverse material. - his variety, the fact that he showed equal aptitudes for the tragic and the comic, the sentimental and the burlesque, lyrical fantasy and character-study.. In spite of the fact that Shakespeare was unique in many respects, he was also a man of his time. His ‘experience was that of a writer at the cultural crossroads of Europe. From about 1580 onwards, European literature explored increasingly the modes of individual expression and characterization associated with modern processes of thought. Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Shakespeare's Hamlet exemplify the dramatic depiction of individual experience in Elizabethan literature. SHAKESPEARE'S BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS William Shakespeare, the third child of John and Mary Shakespeare, was baptised on 26th April 1564. It is generally assumed that he attended the Grammar School at Stratford, which was a good standing and where hhe was probably acquainted with the classics. When William was about 13, town records show that his father’s business began to fail and that he withdrew from all civic activity. It is possible that William had toIngles MAGISTER(@MELC,S.A.) Resumen Tema 44 leave school then. Perhaps he was put to work as either an apprentice or a schoolmaster in the country, but this is not proven. There is clear documentation for the next step in his life: on 23 November 1582, at the age of eighteen, he married the daughter of a neighbouring family, Anne Hathaway, who was eight years older than him. Such carly marriages were socially acceptable when a large dowry was involved, but this was not the case. An entry in the parish register only six months later recording the birth of a girl, Susanna, to the couple seems to explain the haste; and less than two years later, in 1585, Anne had twins, Hamnet -a boy who died young- and Judith, The next seven years in Shakespeare's life are blank and have given rise to much speculation. In 1587 he must have set off to make his fortune in the theatre in London. In 1592 he was attacked by a fellow- dramatist, Greene, for his ongoing success as actor and playwright. In the same year a severe outbreak of plague closed down all the playhouses in London. The players were even unwelcome in the provinces, which they usually toured, probably because such public gatherings could encourage similar outbreaks. Shakespeare now looked for patronage to tide him over until the playhouses should re-open and found it in Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated two long poems and to whom it is possible that he addressed the bulk of his sonnets. In 1594 the companies of actors were re-organized and there are records, which refer to Shakespeare as belonging to the Lord Chamberlain’s Company. This company usually performed at the Theatre, built by James Burbage in 1576. The Theatre was pulled down by Burbage’s sons, Richard and Cuthbert, who used the same materials to build the Globe on Bankside in 1599. Shakespeare became a partner in this new theatre and held a tenth share, which shows that he must have already been suecessfil. Although Shakespeare lived his professional life in London, Stratford remained his home. In 1597 he bought, ‘one of the finest houses in Stratford, New Place, which confirms his commercial success. His family now had its coat-of-arms. By 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I died, Shakespeare had already established his position as the leading poet and dramatist of his time. In the same year, there was a major change in his company as James I brought all the most important acting companies under the patronage of members of the royal family. Thus, the Lord Chamberlain's Company became the King’s Men. Shakespeare perhaps retired to Stratford ca. 1610, but visited London regularly. He seems to have abandoned dramatic composition in the last years of his life, although he continued his relations with actors and poets until the end. He died in Stratford on 23 April 1616.Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A), Resumen Tema 44 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND: SHAKESPEARE’S AGE, We can follow the development of Shakespeare’s work in greater clarity if we view it as a response to, and an expression of, the proud and eventful period in which he lived and for which he constructed the principal monument, To recollect that the year of his birth marked the deaths of both Michelangelo and Calvin is to set him at the zenith of the two great formative movements in the arts and religion that they personify, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The year of his own death also bore witness to Harvey’s first lectures on physiology, heralding a momentous succession of new achievements for scientific method. Putting Shakespeare beside his immediate contemporaries, we may note that he was born in the same year as Galileo and died in the same year as Cervantes. Intellectually speaking the fifteenth century had been marked by Humanism as a fundamental current, whose major exponent in England had been Thomas More. Education -of the Christian prince, of the courtier, of the Christian gentleman—was a prime concem of the English humanists, As long as English politics are concemed, an atmosphere of triumphant euphoria characterized the London to which young Shakespeare came some time before 1590. Elizabeth I ruled over the gradual development of England from a backward state to a country playing a leading role in many fields of life, national or international. The defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was exhilarating news. The country developed incredible vitality and self-confidence. Painters, musicians and poets shone and glittered in this atmosphere. Queen Elizabeth I, who ascended the throne in 1558 and ruled until 1603, was one of the most remarkable political geniuses England has ever produced. Nationalism built around Elizabeth as if she was almost a ‘mythical figure was further rekindled by the desire for commercial profit. Expansionist endeavours can be seen in the period’s travel literature as well as in the crown’s sponsorship of piracy and exploration enterprises overseas. Although not everybody approved of it (the Puritans considered stage plays the work of the devil), the theatre was in the foreffont of the new Renaissance culture of the Court and enjoyed the support of the Queen herself. However, despite the importance of royal and noble support, the theatre in the 1580s and 1590s was not a socially exclusive affair. In fact, it was almost surprisingly popular in tone. Apart from special command performances, plays were staged in the open air, either in places such as inn-yards or beer- gardens, or in the special round buildings, which were beginning to spring up on the south bank of the ‘Thames. These open amphitheatres were known as “public” playhouses, (“The Globe”, “The Rose”, “The Swan’, among others) to distinguish them from the “private houses” or indoor halls (eg. Blackfriars). When Shakespeare arrived in London there were four such “public” playhouses. When he died, there were twelve, and most of them were located outside the city’s boundaries, on the south bank of the River Thames. There is only one surviving drawing showing the interior of one of these theatres, but it has been useful to crities and historians so as to understand the inside layout of these places: a square, sticking-out platform to operate as a stage, a tiring-house at the end of the stage, usually with doors, windows, and second-level galleries (for balcony scenes, for example), and circular tiers of seats (priced differently) set in a circular layout across from the stage.Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A) Resumen Tema 44 Of the dramatists active in London when Shakespeare began his career, presumably in the late 1580s, the majority were university men: John Lyly, Robert Greene, Thomas Nashe, George Pecle, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Lodge. They are often referred to as “university wits”. Of the non-university dramatists the most important was Thomas Kyd. ‘The “university wits” did not bring to the public stage the academic canon of play construction. In fact, they introduced a new richness of poetry, subjects and passions into the popular drama. That made it easier for non-university dramatists to keep pace with the literary manner of their more Icarned colleagues. Nevertheless, as they prided themselves on their formal literary skill and learning, the “university wits” have often been criticized for their excess of academic quality, heavy latinisms, involved images, complex thetoric, and adherence to the rules By beginning as an actor and moving from this humble position on to poetry, Shakespeare was to some extent breaking an established pattern. His early efforts, therefore, drew some sharp attacks from some educated university men. Greene discovered the “enemy” and called him an “ (...) upstart crow, beautified with our feathers (..)”. From the first half dozen plays onwards, Shakespeare was recognized as a great dramatist, Later on, in the astounding period of just ten years (1590-1600), he wrote twenty remarkable plays. He began to change the style of entertainment, as his dramas needed no opening comedies or dances and masques at the end; they ‘were complete and splendid in themselves. By 1603, when Queen Elizabeth I died, Shakespeare was already the leading poet and dramatist of his time. ‘Chance and death and his own genius worked together to bring about this supremacy. Greene died in 1592, almost immediately after denouncing him. Marlowe, his greatest rival, was killed in a tavern brawl in 1593, Kyd’s death occurred in 1594. Lodge abandoned play-writing for medicine; Lyly withdrew from connection with the stage of the Court; Peele became more and more dissipated and stopped writing; Nashe concentrated on satirical pamphlets and novels. At least until 1598, no important writer was Shakespeare's rival. ‘The most important of Shakespeare's fellow-dramatists at the tum of the century were Thomas Dekker, George Chapman, John Marston, Thomas Heywood and Ben Jonson, The years 1608-9 saw the rise of new indoor theatres which charged higher prices and catered for a more exclusive clientele than the old open-air playhouses. They were much more profitable and Shakespeare soon adapted to them. He invested in them and wrote for them, as can be most notably detected in The Tempest, with its shimmering and sophisticated magic. Shakespeare's powers as a dramatist have been demonstrated beyond all doubt by the steady success of his plays in performance. However, in his time his works were classed with those of his contemporaries on aIngles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A) Resumen Tema 44 kind of equality with them. His incomparable superiority was realized by Jonson, his rival, the young Milton and the poets Suckling and D’Avenant, but it ook nearly a century for his true importance to be recognized. OUTLINE OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORK Non dramatic Poetry Early in his literary career, Shakespeare was attracted by poetry and never ceased to be fascinated by the poetic possibilities of image, conceit, metaphor and symbol. In 1593, he published "Venus and Adonis", with a clear invitation for support in its dedication to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton. Together with Marlowe's "Hero and Leander", it created a vogue for mythological verse narrative, It has been basically considered a literary exercise in conventional forms. "The Rape of Lucrece" appeared the following year and its much warmer and more personal dedication to the same Earl suggests that Shakespeare had met with favourable response. The poem solemnly recounts the tragedy of the chaste Lucrece who was ravished by Tarquin and ended up committing suicide. It is a competent poet, but little more. Shakespeare's sonnets have evoked much admiration, speculation and commentary. The writing of lyric verse in this form was fashionable in Elizabethan England, and though the dates of Shakespeare's sonnets are not definitely known they were most probably written between 1593 and 1599. They were first published as a collection by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. In these sonnets Shakespeare broke with the pattern established by Sidney in addressing most of the love poems to a young male instead of a mistress and in broadening the cast to include four participants (he added a mistress and a second poet who became the rival of the sonneteer not only in the literary sphere but also for the loved one's affection). Although he was not the creator of the sonnet-form which bears his name (it had been first used by Wyatt), the use he made of the final couplet was entirely his own and it gave his poems exquisite balance and structural integrity. The sonnet form imposes on language a distinctive economy and intensity and in the best of these sonnets Shakespeare developed these qualities to a degree only comparable with his mature plays. Besides, Shakespeare explored fresh subjects. The most important of these dealt with the relationship of individual experience -especially the ties of love and friendship- with time. Drama General characteristics Shakespeare’s work may well have seemed less striking in its individuality than the creations of Marlowe’s ‘meteoric genius. Although his work developed more slowly, Shakespeare showed a consistent and, for his, time, unique interest in the implications of dramatic illusion, In no period of his career did he confine himself to any one genre. He began by experimenting in various styles and kinds of play, largely creating his 5Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A) Resumen Tema 44 ‘own forms in the process of writing. From first to last, each play by Shakespeare represents not only a development from the previous dramatic tradition, but also a new beginning. These creative experiments were carried out on a great variety of material and favoured Shakespeare's dual pre-eminence in the disparate spheres of tragedy and comedy. At times he interwove the two in such a way that he enriched the effectiveness of each, We should also bear in mind the fact that Elizabethan theatre was not a theatre of action or of illusion, but of language, The weirdly mixed audiences of the Globe, the Rose, the Swan and the rest went there to laugh, or cry or cheer - but mostly just to listen to the poetry, Although Shakespeare was remarkably conservative in his views (he supported the need for a clearly defined class order and insisted on the Christian basic tenets of charity, love and mercy), as regards language he had a liberal, innovative attitude towards borrowing foreign words, He used very new words indeed and in some cases the first occurrence of certain words in English appears in his work. This may account —to a large extent-- for the belief that, apart from the Elizabethan translator Philemon Holland, Shakespeare had the largest vocabulary on any English writer. In his plays, Shakespeare used a distinctively dramatic poetry, i.c., verse which in addition to its wide- ranging imagery and connotative force, exploits also the dramatic context in which itis spoken. Yet, as he catered not only for the courtiers but also for ordinary people who were not familiar with rarefied verse- forms, Shakespeare produced a dramatic verse which was easily assimilated by the ear and comprehensible and natural in movement. Most of it is blank verse (a sequence of unrhymed iambic pentameters) and, unlike Marlowe's figures, Shakespeare’s characters hardly seem to be speaking in metre. Shakespeare was recorded as witty and light-hearted. This light - heartedness appears in his earlier comedies, but from ca. 1598, his plays became gradually more serious. In the early years of the 17th century, either on account of personal factors or national events, there was a bitterly tragic tone to his plays. Finally, his last plays reflect a stress on the theme of forgiveness, the recurrence of reconciliation. Main works. Of the 37 plays generally attributed to Shakespeare (1564-1616) all except Pericles were printed in the First Folio! of 1623 under the supervision of Heming and Condell, two of Shakespeare's fellow actors. This collection printed plays like: "As applied to books, a folio is one for which the paper has been folded once, and therefore of the largest size, The expression she first folio commonly refers tothe first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays (1623); there were three other folio editions of Shakespeare's plays in the 17th century. ‘The 1623 volume was edited by two fellow actors of the Lord Chamberlain's Company of Players - Heming and Conde and contains a preface by them and prefatory poems, notably one by Ben Jonson. Following the poems there is a list of the principal actors in all these plays; the list includes Shakespeare himself, Richard Burbage, Nathaniel Field, and of course the editors. The edition opens with the print ofa rather inferior engraved portatt ofthe poet by Martin Droesbout ‘Thirty-six plays are included (all but Pericles). Eighteen of the plays bad already been published in small quarto editions 6Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A), Resumen Tema 44 ~Macheth -Antony and Cleopatra -Coriolanus -The Tempest for the first time and also provided important alternate texts for works which had appeared before in quarto” form: -Hamlet (1603 and 1604) Othello (1622). ‘The qualitative distinctions formerly drawn by editors of Shakespeare between quarto and folio have recently been called into question, and the plays are increasingly perceived as essentially dynamic texts intended for theatrical performance. We will now study three of Shakespeare’s main works: Richard III, Hamlet and Othello. Richard I The earliest works attributed to him may be the three plays on the reign of Henry VI. These and particularly Richard ITT were popular successes for Shakespeare's company at their regular venue, the Theatre. ‘The earliest works can be seen as attempts to discover how to build up a history play. They show Shakespeare turning to English history through the chronicles of Edward Hall and Raphael! Holinshed and ead into the more accomplished play of this initial historical tetralogy, Richard ill, in which the hhunchbacked Yorkist usurper emerges as a fearsome challenger to both the legitimate powers of state and to ‘our sympathies. Richard Gloucester is the first of Shakespeare’s tragic figures to emerge from the conventions of contemporary melodrama with a genuine force of personality. Richard promises to set the murderous Machiavelli to school. And his superb plotting and his triumph against the odds underline a measure of his intellect, The audience is always privy to Richard’s schemes, as he evinees a pathological need almost to confide in us. His soliloquies and asides never convey the impression of true intimacy, but reflect a melodramatic and histrionic concept of stage-character derived from the Vice of the medieval morality play’. (Gome of them close to the folio version and some differing substantially), and the romaindee were being published for the first time. The plays are undated, and grouped into Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies; some have divisions into acts and scenes, and some are without them . *A term used in publishing to designate a size of volume, made by folding the standard paper twice instead of only once. ‘The quarto editions of Shakespeare's plays are those published in his lifetime, as distinct from the Folio collected editions after his death, 18 of his plays appear in separate quarto editions. A term used by modem critics to distinguish plays expounding points of moral doctrine, extant from the 1Sth century, from other kinds of contemporary vernacular drama which commemorate the events of Christian history. The plots of morality plays are allegorical narratives of one kind or another, the human protagonist tend not to be individualized or given a historical identity.Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A) Resumen Tema 44 Tn Act I we have a study of Richard’s own definition of his own character. The general effect of his opening, definition is remarkably concise and pointed. Richard’s state of mind is conveyed primarily through a series of sharp visual touches and through the sustained contrast, implying contempt and repudiation. In this way, by making envy the vehicle for a criticism felt not to be altogether unjustified, the speaker is humanized, transformed from the abstract incarnation of a traditional vice exploited for melodramatic effects into something like a person. Hamlet Itis Shakespeare's longest play and the most often quoted work of English literature. Its instant fame has not diminished in 400 years, even if its hero has recently been scrutinized more critically. After all, Hamlet caused five people to die. Hamlet controls our sympathies as it is through his eyes that we see the action, which is notably varied and spectacular. This was noted by Shakespeare himself: ‘So shall you hear Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, Of accidental judgments, casual staughters; Of deaths put on by cunning and fore'd cause, And, in this upshot, purposes mistook Fallin on th’ inventor's heads. (WV. ii) Hamlet’s Ocdipal fears and filial dilemmas have struck a particular chord in post-Freudian audiences. If Hamlet thrives on its famous soul-searching soliloquies it is also the case that their measured intellectual tone at times belies the pressing intensity of the character’s emotions, which is why too often Hamlet has been read as a play about a young man who could not make up his mind. Actually, Hamlet is the first tragic hero on the European stage since the Hellenic tragedies. The sheer scale of destruction in Hamlet, as well as its use of the inset playlet, reflects its indebtedness to earlier revenge dramas*. There is even a sense in which Hamlet is the only revenge tragedy of its period. It is the only play in which a real conflict arises directly out of the imposition of the task of revenge upon its hero, “A kind of tragedy which was particularly popular during and just after the lifetime of Shakespeare. The plot of such plays was commonly the murder by a person in power of a near relative, wife, or hushand of the central character, who is then face with the problem of how, or sometimes whether, to carry out revenge against a murderer who, because of his social importance, is out of reach of ordinary justice.Ingles MAGISTER(@MELCS.A.) Resumen Tema 44 Othello. It follows Hamlet in the sequence of Shakespeare's tragedies and is another masterpiece in the tradition of the revenge tragedy. It was based on an Italian tale in Hecatommithi by Giraldi Cinthio. The full ttle of the play is Othello, the Moor of Venice: the extended title emphasizes Othello’s position as commander of Venetian forces against the Turks, and it isa clue to the understanding of his tragedy. Othello is highly valued by the Venetians for his military prowess, but he is not a member of Venetian society; he is first and last a soldier, a member of a military community, trusting and trusted by his brother officers. Consequently, itis as astonishing to him when Desdemona, a conventional Venetian aristocratic girl, leaves her home to marry him, as itis outrageous to her indignant father, Brabantio. Venice urgently needs Othello to defend Cyprus against the Turks, so that Brabantio is forced to accept the match; however he wams Othello that a girl who has behaved so unpredictably once may prove as unreliable a wife as she has been a daughter. Othello is in rapture; his bliss is the greater for its incredibitity, so that he naively imagines himself transported into a heaven on earth. But his junior officer, Iago, has motives of resentment against him; the ‘most concrete of these is that the Florentine, Cassio, has been promoted over his head. Moreover, he is himself a cynic who has a low opinion of human nature and of the scope for genuine happiness. Partly as a double revenge against Othello and against Cassio, partly as a cynical game the object of which is to bring Othello down to his own level of reality, he contrives first to disgrace Cassio temporarily, and then to insinuate into Othello’s mind the suspicion, mounting by degrees to certainty, that Cassio and Desdemona are conducting a secret love affair. In Othello's mind the circumstances make this affair more than plausible: he has the habit of trusting Iago as his confidential officer, Desdemona has come to him out of a foreign society; Cassio is the sort of man who would have been considered an eligible husband for her. Until their ‘marriage, Othello had a single-minded dedication to his military vocation; the marriage has enriched this dedication, since it was Desdemona's admiration for him as a soldier that attracted her to him; he now finds that his jealousy has divided his single-mindedness and is destroying his integrity. Accordingly he murders her, in the belief that heavenly justice is on his side. Desdemona, however, has been presented as one of the most innocent of all Shakespeare's heroines, for whom adultery is unimaginable, and her innocent goodness has won the heart of her lady companion, Emilia, who is Iago’s wife. Emilia, who has been ignorant of lago’s plot but has unintentionally assisted him in it, realizes his guilt and publicly exposes him; Othello, restored to his dignity, makes a final speech of self-assessment, and kills himself, ‘missing lines.