The Elizabethan Age
The term 'the Elizabethan Age' is a very vague and flexible one. Strictly speaking, it may be said to be even misleading. Although titles like 'Jac...
The Elizabethan Age
Nomenclature
The term 'the Elizabethan Age' is a very vague and flexible one. Strictly speaking, it may be said to be even misleading. Although titles like 'Jacobean Age' are also frequently used in literary criticism, the general practice is to regard the entire period from 1580 to 1660 as the Elizabethan age in spite of the fact that Queen Elizabeth reigned only during a small part of it. If we were to adhere strictly to historical dates, then the only two writers who are really and completely 'Elizabethan' are Marlowe and Spenser.
Yet in spirit, the work of writers like Milton and Browne is akin to that of the Elizabethans and they are, therefore, referred to as Elizabethan writers. As Saintsbury reminds us, all the seed of the whole period called Elizabethan was sown, and not a little of it had come up, before the Queen's death ; and secondly, the quality of the period 1580-1660 is essentially one and indivisible. This usage has the advantage of keeping both sets of facts in view, and specially of directing attention to the characteristics of the first generation of the period, the generationwhich, as typified by Spenser, ended a little before the last days of Elizabeth's own life closed.
The Renaissance
The most important influence on the Elizabethan age was that of the Renaissance. This was felt in England considerably later than, over the Continent because it, in fact, travelled through Germany, Italy and France to reach this country. Marlowe and Shakespeare wrote when the impact of the Renaissance was at its height and the same is tram of Spenser in so far as poetry is concerned. The most important upset of the Renaissance was the liberation of the human spirit from the binding restraints of the Middle Ages. Wonder and curiosity, which are the essentials of romanticism, were reawakened. There was a been interest in classical literature, to the extent that classical legends became popularly known, and in Shakespeare s plays, even person from lower life often make allusions to them. The Renaissance was humanistic in its trend and this humanism is an important characteristics of the
literature of the day. The Renaissance had its own code of values. One of them was the concept of justly earned glorious fame, and we find that this is the ideal for which the heroes of Elizabethan literature, whether in prose or drama, strive. The most outstanding example of this is, of course, the lust of the Marlovian hero to achieve the impossible. Renaissance writers placed before them the ideal of the complete man. Whereas the renaissance encouraged the love of beauty, a balancing influence was exercised by the Reformation which encouraged the pursuit of virtue and righteousness.
Social and Political Background
By and large, the Elizabethan age was one of peace but it was not the type of peace which produces complacency or causes stagnation. This was caused by the fact that specially during the reign of Elizabeth I, there were constant threats of invasion from abroad. The reason for this was commercial rivalry, specially in exploiting newly discovered colonies, and the main enemy England bad to fear was Spain. English sea-captains were able to blunt the Spanish force by destroying their formidable Armada. Later, there was another factor which tended to produce a feeling of insecurity or, at least, aroused a fear that anarchy might follow the death of the Queen. These fears were, of course to prove completely unjustified. The Elizabethan age was one in which the nation made great economic strides. Trading settlements were founded abroad, including the famous East India Company. Curiously enough, even the Reformation led to great economic competition by encouraging the idea of thrift and by relating worldly prosperity to divine favour. One of the embittering phenomena of the age was the rise of Puritanism, specially in its fanatic and often hypocritical form. Satire at the expense of the Puritans is a recurrent feature of Elizabethan literature.
Elizabethan Prose
The Elizabethan age in literature is famous primarily for its poetry whether dramatic or non-dramatic but its achievement in prose, although less spectacular, is by no means negligible. The age produced many great prose writers, including Bacon at one end and Browne at the other. It is true, however, that no single prose writer of the time holds the same rank in prose that Spenser holds in poetry ; perhaps, indeed, no single writer, not even Dryden, ever has held that rank. For prose, the lower and less intense harmony, is the more varied and indefinitely adjustable instrument. And while it is conceivable that one man--indeed Shakespeare has very nearly done so --should catch up and otter in hint and intimation at least, the whole sum of poetry, no one could do the like in prose. Here, too, the comparative newness of the form had its inevitable effect ; even the period of sheer experiment and exploration was not over when the sixteenth century ended. Very great advances had been made in both, and, above all, the antinomy of prose, the opposition, of the plain and ornate styles which was to dominate the rest of its history, was for the first time clearly posed and definitely worked out on either side. This could not have happened in the earlier period of mere or main translation as regards subject, of tentative accumulation of vocabulary and experimental adaptation of arrangement.
Elizabethan Poetry
Although the drama of the age is predominantly poetic, there was also a considerable amount of non-dramatic poetry, even by dramatists line Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The representative poet of the age, however, is Spenser. His contribution to English poetry cannot be over-estimated. His greatness as a poet does not depend entirely on the high estimation which the writers and readers of the day placed on the Faerie Queene. In fact, so far as Spenser's epic is concerned, it had some detractors also. All the same, it is indisputable that Spenser practically created the diction and prosody of English poetry as both have subsisted in the main to the present day. He did not, of course, finish the creation. Shakespeare had to come, and Milton, at Last, before that was done ; but he did a great deal more than begin it. His versification had to receive not a little extension, and became an infinite process. Spenser is often called the 'poets' poet', and the compliment is not an inappropriate one, for his influence on other poets, both of his own age and of succeeding ages, was considerable. Still, even though Shakespeare's major output was dramatic, the impact of his poetry also was tremendous.
Elizabethan Drama
The Elizabethan age was, and continues to be, the most glorious period which English drama has ever seen. The achievement of the age in this respect was unique, for it was neither in the realm of reconstruction and recovery, nor of orderly extension, but really of innovation and even invention. Three entire centuries have failed to produce any new really fertile cross, or to import, in conditions suitable to the climate, any foreign form capable of standing comparison with that Elizabethan play, which shook itself into shape, a hundred minor hands, besides those of Marlowe and Shakespeare aiding, by the date of the production of Every Man in His Humour; The typical Elizabethan dramatist does not attempt to isolate action or situation merely ; his play is but a piece of the life of the actors--their life is but a piece of larger and ever larger lives. Nothing is superfluous, irrelevant, common, unclean ; everything may and shall go in. The intenser nature of the interests, of tragedy may give to the working of tragic plays a closer unify than that of comic ; the majesty or the pathos of some particular character may dwarf in presentation as in attention the episodes and the interludes ; but the principle is always the same.
Elizabethan Theatre Companies
The first public 'playing-places' in London were the Inns, the first recorded performances being in 1557 at the Boar's Head, Aldgate, and the Saracen's Head, Islington, Permanent theatres were built in areas outside the city jurisdiction, because of the strict City regulations of 1574. The first two public theatres, James Burbage's Theatre, and Henry Laneman's Curtain, were built in the Liberties on the north bank of the Thames in 1576, as was the first private theatre, Richard Farrant's Blackfriars. Till 1608, no adult company normally played in a private theatre, but the King's Men took over the Blackfriars in that year. Of the many children's companies in the Elizabethan and Jacobean period, the two most dominant were the Children of St. Paul's, and the Children of the Chapel Royal. Elizabethan actors sought the patronage of some nobleman as much for prestige as a protection against the harsh laws relating to the theatrical profession. Although a company .adopted the livery of its patron, in other ways it was left to seek its own fortunes. One of the bat-known companies was the Chamberlain-King's Men, to which Shakespeare himself belonged. The leading dramatists were attached more or less permanently to some theatre company and were therefore familiar with the talents of the actors for whom they created roles. The women's parts were, of course, played by boys throughout the Elizabethan Age.
THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE OF DRAMA BEFORE CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
The Greek Drama
In order to fully grasp the rise and content of the English drama, we must peer into the dim past and retrace our steps to the early days of ancient Greece. The beginnings of drama in general get lost in the 'mimes' or crude performances of the Dorian Greeks in honour of Dionysus, the God of Wine, whose name stood for carousal, revelry and merriment.
The addition of dialogue to the dumb mimicry marked an important stage, but it required yet the infusion of action into the dialogue to complete the transformation. This crude drama of the Greeks was a commentary upon the lives and manners, not of human beings, but of the pantheon of gods and other mythological persons: it dealt with things of heaven, not with the problems of mundane existence. But its tone and treatment were generally comic. It was this farcical element that led, by devious and zig-zag paths, to the rise of the famous AthenianComedy. The supernatural theme made room for the human. The ludicrous representation of the heavenly life which they combined to produce an essentially secular mind, but the religious elements were not altogether done away with. The drama, we may say, was brought down from the heavenly heights to suit the earthly needs.
In the days of Aristotle, the Greek drama almost completed its process of growth and received some final touches at the hands of this master-mind. It gathered all those attributes which constitute its distinctive marks. Two characteristics distinguished it mainly, the Chorus and the Unities. The Chorus was a band of singers and dancers who played in concert and sang odes to the God of Wine, and sometimes followed up the music with a lively dialogue. This dialogue came to supplant in the long run, the musical part of the performance. "The lack of scenery and of stage effect was made up for by descriptions and explanations sung by the Chorus and the limitations imposed by the three unities were met in a similar manner. The Chorus served to give a break and relief in the gloomy and often tragic monotony of the Greek drama. The Shakespearean devices of relieving tragedy by a comic element would not have been admissible."
The Chorus was as old as the drama itself, but the rules of the Unities began with Aristotle. He observed that good plays must conform to these rules and must observe the three Unities of Time, Place and Action--
(i) The Unity of Time. The duration of the action or story must not exceed 24 hours.
(ii) The Unity of Place. The incidents of the drama must be represented in an unbroken link: the scene should be invariable and should not be so located that the dramatis personae are unable to visit it in the time allotted for the duration of the play.
(iii) The Unity of Action. The main interest or plot of the story should be uninterrupted and its course should not be deflected by side-issues and minor plots or incidents. The unity of action must be smooth and straight; all characters and scenes must directly contribute to it.
In addition to the 'Unities', Aristotle touched upon the form of the drama and divided it into five parts:--
(i) The Exposition. This constitutes the opening of the play; the characters are introduced to the audience and are portrayed in their respective situations which gradually work up to the dramatic action.
(ii) The Rising Action i.e., the development of the dramatic situation from the incidents in the Exposition and the gradual rise of the pitch in the dramatic plot.
(iii) The Crisis or Climax. This is the highest pitch in the drama, the turning point in the plot. It represents the effect of the incidents which have already taken their rise in the Exposition and have passed through the second stage. It marks the culmination of the dramatic action and is followed by a lowering of the tone in the play.
(iv) The Descending or Falling Action, in which the action is toned down to a lower pitch.
(v) The Denouement or Catastrophe or Solution, where the various forces in the dramatic action converge towards the solution of the plot.
The Drama and the Christian Church
The Jongleurs. In its days of decadence, the art of drama fell into the hands of wandering minstrels called Jongleur who travelled from place to place and visited the courts of kings as well as the village greens. Their art consisted in a crude representation of the life and manners of that age, but it did not achieve a height of excellence. It was akin to the rude mimicry and farce of the Indian Bhands.
In the 9th century A.D. or thereabouts, the dramatic stage shifted from the village green to the altar of the church. The churchmen saw in the stage an effective means of the propagation of Christianity and succeeded in substituting a religious theme for the secular art of the Jongleurs. Certain striking episodes in the life of Jesus Christ were cast into a dramatic form--his Birth, Crucifixion, Resurrection and many others--and these were represented on the stage on appropriate occasions. The drama thus became the handmaid of Christianity.
The Altar and the Stage
There was another swing of the pendulum. The church could not keep up the vigour of the art which the Jongleurs had exhibited and there was a return to the village green. The Churchmen tried their best to suppress this secular tendency. The village green or the market square now became the scene of the simple plays, mainly based on Biblical themes, and called the Miracle and Mystery plays. The Elizabethan drama is usually considered to be a development of these. "Miracles" and "Mysteries," and it is more than probable that Shakespeare witnessed the performance of some of these. The Creation of the world, the Fall of Man, the Deluge, the Birth of Christ, and Resurrection were some of the commonest themes of these 'Miracles.'
The Didactic Drama: "Moralities" or Allegorical Plays
The next stage in the growth of the drama was the change from the religious to the didactic theme. The latter half of the 14th century witnessed a strong wave of allegorical influence throughout Europe, and the dramatic art could not but put on the colour and catch the tone of the times. A new type of drama--the Allegorical Plays or the Moralities--came into being. Characters in these plays were not human beings, but abstract qualities like Vice, Virtue, Avarice, Pride, Ignorance, Love, Mercy, Justice, Life, Death etc. The object of the Moralities was wholly didactic: the eternal warfare of evil and good, the struggle of Truth against Falsehood and a dramatic representation of the interaction of human misery and happiness formed the theme of these plays. The Moralities had a happy innovation in the shape of comic element. Satan was represented as a low jocular buffoon who kept the audience in a 'fit of mirth.' The introduction of the seeds of Comedy and the new romantic treatment of the theme were a happy relief to the otherwise serious monotony and dryness of the Moralities. (The Cradle of Security, Hit the Nail on the Head, Second Shepherd's Play were some of the famous Moralities).
The Morality play was a distinct improvement upon the Miracle play. The Miracle Play was purely religious in character while the Morality Play was chiefly concerned with human nature. The latter dealt with morals and the eternal conflict between the forces of good and evil and with the misery that emanates from vice. The theme of the Miracle Play was superhuman, while that of the Moralities was mainly human and earthly. The Miracle Play left no room for originality; its subject-matter was borrowed from the Bible; the rough-and-ready incidents from the Old Testament supplied abundant material so that the dramatic genius of inventing new plots and sub-plots could not be brought to play. The Moralities, on the other hand, gave free rein to the fertile imagination of the playwright. He could invent a new scheme as well as draw upon the old sources. The addition of the comic element proved the way for the Elizabethan comedy, and provided a short spell of mirth and sunshine in the dull and irksome monotony of the Miracles. The Miracle Play, however, had one advantage over the Morality in that the characters who figured in the Miracle Play had distinct individualities, whereas the Morality dealt with abstractions, the personification of abstract qualities.
Interludes and Comedies (Secular Drama)
The importance of the comic element in the Moralities has been emphasised above. It was at first employed to relieve the dreary monotony of the play, but soon it outgrew its function and expanded into a regular dramatic composition. This comic element, or the Interlude as it was often called was the mother of the later Elizabethan comedy. The Interludes were short lively pieces, with characters mostly drawn from real life, though these characters still represented types rather than individuals. But they formed a happy transition from the bare abstractions of the Moralities to the clear-cut individualistic characterisation of the Shakespearean play. The Interludes gave an impetus to the growth of regular drama. They emphasised the element of diversion just for its own sake and offered a contrast to the religious motive of the Miracle Plays or the didactic of the Moralities. The range of subjects grew; the life and manners of the contemporary age came to be reflected truthfully. "Moreover there was now arising the feeling of the need for division on the classical model into regular acts and scenes, and with the Interludes now claiming independent existence, a rough and ready division may be made of Tragedy, Comedy, and plays which are a mixture of both."
English Drama and the Renaissance
At this time, Europe was animated by a new spirit and fresh ideals. The wonderful Renaissance Movement kicked the slumbering continent into energy. The Muses bore the torch of new knowledge to all parts of Europe. This Revival of Learning brought in its train a passionate zeal for the classical literature of Greece and Rome. It had its influence on the English stage too. The "Miracles'', "Mysteries" and the "Moralities" were driven out by a new type of drama which took its rise in Oxford and Cambridge and derived its inspiration from Greece and Rome. English dramas came to be written on the classical model; of these all, Gorboduc was the most striking example. It was based on the tragedies of the illustrious Seneca and it contained all the traits of the Greek drama--the Chorus, the three Unities and the division of the dramatic action into five parts. Many plays belong to this period of infancy of the English stage e.g.
(i) Ralph Roister Doister, a comedy written by Nicholas Udall in 1550-51, but actually published in 1566.
(ii) Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex (1562), tragedy.
(iii) Damon and Pythias, (1564) a tragi-comedy by Richard Edwards, based upon the classical mythology.
The Renaissance, combined with the Reformation, tended to produce the Romantic drama. To this drama, therefore, we should now turn.
The Romantic Drama of the Renaissance or the Elizabethan Age
The Romantic drama was a product of the Elizabethan age. The English dramatists, after a few experiments on the classical model, noted above, altogether discarded the three unities. The classical drama was followed in two ways: (a) a dignified form and (b) a luxuriant expression. The treatment of the English drama grew to be romantic rather than classical. The three unities of time, place and action were not observed, so that an English play of this period could cover an indefinite period of time, the action could "move from place to place" and subsidiary plots or by-plots could exist side by side with the main plot. Thus in King Lear, Othello and some other plays we notice sub-plots running alongwith the main thread of the story.
A word about Shakespeare's immediate predecessors. Of these the following names deserve special mention:--
1. Robert Greene
2. Kyd
3. George Peele
4. John Lyly
5. Christopher Marlowe
John Lyly was noted for his polished and sweet prose, a facile expression, and happy similes and witticisms. Shakespeare drew upon his plays to a very large extent. What Lyly did for prose, Peele did for verse: his verse is balanced and hence tends to be rather monotonous. While Lyly and Peele succeeded in providing the infant romantic drama with a happy form and expression, Greene portrayed human passion and action in a masterly style and introduced a romantic spirit into the English comedy. 'Over his poetry breathes the fresh air of the English meadows.' Marlowe's contribution was still greater. "His genius was essentially of a tragic cast; from his veins the life-blood of passion had flowed into the drama of England and forthwith it lost its timidity and was conscious of strange new force and fire; in his tragedies were first heard upon a public stage, that measure which is the express voice in our poetry of dramatic feeling--the blank verse." Marlowe's art was thus a prelude to the sonorous music of Shakespeare--a music now gushing and roaring like the tumultuous waves of mighty deeps, and now flowing, drooping like the whispering ripples of a moonlit and the tinkling of distant bells at the dead of night. To Shakespeare, therefore, we now turn for "this still sad music of humanity."
The Praise of Marlowe among the University Wits
Christopher Marlowe, though the youngest of the University Wits and the earliest to die, except for Robert Greene, was the most important among them in the world of drama; he is still regarded as the mighty and wonderful dramatic genius who gave to the English tragic drama a permanent direction and life. He collaborated with some of his fellows and most probably was associated with Shakespeare. "It has been suggested from internal evidence that he was the part-author of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. He perhaps also wrote parts of Henry VI, which Shakespeare revised and completed, and of Edward III." Be that as it may, the four plays, all tragedies, that make Marlowe foremost among the predecessors of Shakespeare are Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, and Edward II.
Marlowe: A Typical Product of the Renaissance
Renaissance, which literally means 're-birth' or 're-awakening' is the name of a Europe-wide movement which closes the trammels and conventions of the medieval age and makes for liberation in all aspects of life and culture.
Though the influence of the spirit of the Renaissance marks all the writers of the latter half of the age of Elizabeth,--in poetry, drama, and prose romances and novels, that can be seen working with particular force on Marlowe and his fellows who together are called the University Wits. Of them again, the writings of Marlowe are the most prominent embodiment of the spirit of the Renaissance. Generally speaking, Marlowe himself is the spirit of Renaissance incarnate. A reckless Bohemian in life, a daring atheist setting not much value on moral worth but all value on the Machiavellian virtue, living a life of imagination rather than of thought, of gaiety full of the zest for life, Marlowe is the typical product of the Renaissance. In the conception of the central characters of his dramas, he is impelled by the Renaissance spirit for unlimited power, unlimited knowledge for the sake of power, unlimited wealth, again, for the sake of power. Aspirations, unbounded desire of love for the pleasures of the senses, infinite longing for beauty rather than for truth--these are the characteristics of the imaginative life which glittered before his eyes in that great age of daring adventures. On the aesthetic side, love of physical beauty mentioned above goes in him hand in hand with love of the beauty of harmony; the high astounding terms of his blank verse, the thrills and echoes of his phrases, the resounding roll of his declamations, the surfeit of mythological allusions--all these run into excess; but the excesses only point to the essential ambition of reaching beyond the narrow and the limited into the infinity of achievement, which is the noblest gift of the Renaissance.
The English Drama before Marlowe
The Origin and Liturgical Plays:
Briefly stated, the drama in England developed from the liturgical play to the miracle play to morality, from the morality play to the interlude, and from that to the "regular' drama of the Elizabethan age. The story of this development is, however, not so simple as it may wrongly appear. There are overlappings, aberrations, and missing links.
As in Greece and many other countries, the drama in England had a religious origin. It sprang from church service as the ancient Greek tragedy had sprung out of the ceremonial worship of Dionysus. As a critic well puts it, the "attitude of religion and drama towards each other has been strikingly varied. Sometimes it has been one of intimate alliance, sometimes of active hostility, but never of indifference." In England the church was, in the beginning, actively hostile to drama and all along during the Dark Ages (the 6th century to the 10th) there is missing any record of dramatic activity. Only in the ninth century there were tropes or additional texts to ecclesiastical music. These tropes sometimes assumed a dialogue form. They were, like church service, couched in Latin. They were later detached from the regular service and presented by themselves on religious festivals such as"Easter and Christmas. By and by they took the form of "liturgical plays" after becoming somewhat more complex. They were dramatisations of the major events of Christ's life, such as the Birth and the Resurrection, and were enacted by priests right in the church. These plays enjoyed a vast popularity. Thus, as Sir Ifor Evans observes, "while at the beginning of the Dark Ages the church attempted to suppress the drama, at the beginning of the Middle Ages something very much like the drama was instituted in the church itself."
The Miracle and Mystery Plays:
The next stage of development comes with miracle and mystery plays. The early liturgical drama assumed the more developed form of the miracle and mystery plays sometimein the fourteenth century, though, of course, there is evidence that the first representation of a miracle play took place in Dunstable as early as 1119. In England the "miracle plays" and "mystery plays" are often considered svnonvmous. but technicallv there is a difference between the two. The miracle plays dealt with the lives of saints (non-scriptural matter), whereas the mystery plays handled incidents from the Bible (scriptural themes). The miracle and mystery plays differ from the early liturgical drama in their slightly more developed sense of drama and better dialogue. They were both written and enacted by ecclesiastics and had for their obvious object the instruction of the people in scripture history. They treated of such themes from the Bible as the Creation, the Flood, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of the Saviour. But they had an element of entertainment too. in the form of crude grotesqueries which may appear to the modern reader as outright profanities.
With the development of the early liturgical play into the miracle and mystery, there were significant changes of locale and players. The place of performance shifted from the inside of the church to the churchyard, and from the churchyard to the market-place, because vast crowds, especially at the time of fairs, had to be accommodated. The clergy could not go to the market-place to perform and in 1210 there was a papal edict forbidding their appearance on the stage. The performance therefore fell in the hands of laymen who were amateurs. With the change of the locale and the performers, the strictly religious nature of the performances underwent a shift towards secularization. It was in the thirteenth century that professionaltroupes took over the job of performing and, consequently, there was a marked improvement in stage techniques and overall performance. There are four "cycles" of miracle plays extant today. These are York, Towneley, Chester, and Coventry cycles. Each of these cycles embraces the main events of biblical history from the Fall of Satan to the Day of Judgement.
The Morality Plays:
The next stage in the secularization of drama comes with the morality plays which developed out of the miracle and mystery plays. The morality play, as David Daiches observes, "has more direct links with Elizabethan drama." The difference between the miracle and mystery plays on the one hand and the morality plays on the other is that whereas the former deal with, as we have pointed out above, biblical events or the lives of saints, the latter have characters of an allegorical or symbolic nature, such as the personifications of various vices and virtues or other abstract qualities like Science, Perseverance, Gluttony, Sloth. Despair and Everyman (symbolising mankind). The personified vices and virtues are generally shown as fighting among themselves for man's soul. The moralities intended to convey moral lessons for the better conduct of human life. The writer of the morality play enjoyed a greater freedom than that of the miracle of mystery play, as he was not bound by a particular chain of events presented by the Bible or popular legend which he had to adhere to. It may be pointed out that personified abstractions had already appeared along with scriptural figures in some miracle plays. The function of the morality play was to detach these abstractions from their religious setting and employ them in a new kind of drama. The best known among the morality play are The Castle of Perseverance and Everyman. In the former, allegory is almost identical with that of the second book of The Faerie Oueene where the castle of Alma is besieged by the Passions. It also reminds one of The Pilgrim's Progress as regards its central significance. Everyman appeared at the end of the fiteenth century and enjoyed vast popularity right till the end of the sixteenth. Its story is given by David Daiches as follows:
"Everyman is summoned by Death to a long journey from which there is no return. Unprepared, and unable to gain a respite, he looks for friends to accompany him, but neither Fellowship nor Goods nor Kindred will go; Good Deeds is willing to act as guide and companion, but Everyman's sins have rendered her too weak to stand. She recommends him to her sister Knowledge, who leads Everyman to Conffession.and after he has done penance Good Deeds grows strong enough to accompany him, together with Strength, Discretion, Five Wits and Beauty. But as the time comes for Everyman to creep into his grave, all the companions except Good Deeds decline to go with him. Knowledge stands by to report the outcome while Everyman enters the grave with Good Deeds. An Angel announces the entry of Everyman's soul into the heavenly sphere, and a 'Doctor' concludes by pointing the moral."
Of all the stock characters employed in the morality plays the most amusing were Vice and the Devil. The former, arrayed in grotesque costume and armed with a wooden sword or dagger, was the prototype of the Fool of Shakespearean drama, and seeriis chiefly to have been employed for belabouring the Devil who appeared generally with horns, a lona beard, and a hairy chest.
Interludes:
The interlude signifies the important transition from symbolism to realism. It appeared towards the end of the fifteenth century but it could not displace the morality which continued enjoying popularity, as we have pointed out above, till the end of the sixteenth century. It dispensed with the allegorical figures of the morality play almost completely and effected a complete break with the religious type of drama, even though retaining some of its didactic character. It was purely secular and fairly realistic, though quite crude and somewhat grotesque. The most notable writer of interludes was John Heywood (14977-1580?) whose interludes are of the nature of light playlets in which, as David Daiches observes, "the emphasis is more on amusement than instruction." In his The Four P's, for instance, he light-heartedly satirises shrews and impatient women. The four P's are a Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pothycary, and a Pedlar who engage themselves in a kind of lying competition in which the most flagrant Her is to be awarded the palm. The Palmer wins the prize by saying that out of half a million women that he has met so far, not one was seen by him to be out of patience! In The Play of Weather Jupiter is presented as listening to the complaints of the people regarding weather, and confused by conflicting opinions and demands he decides to give the mortals all kinds of weather. Most of Heywood's other interludes are farcical playlets which are, however, full of wit and humour and very realistic portrayal of men and manners.
Another well-known interlude writer was John Rastell whose interlude The Four Elements is of the nature of a Humanist morality play. Various allegorical figures are represented as teaching Humanity science and geography, and "Sensual Appetite" is shown as obstructing the efforts of "Studious Desire." The Four Elements is typical of a class of plays which are quite near the morality but have been classed as interludes. However, strictly speaking, an interlude signifies, in the words of W. H. Hudson, "any short dramatic piece of a satiric rather than of a dkectly religious or ethical character, and in tone and purpose far less serious than the morality proper."
The Beginning of Regular Tragedy:
In between 1530 and 1580 the drama in England underwent a "dramatic" change. With the dawn of the Renaissance in this period English dramatists started looking back to the ancient "Greek and Roman dramatists. It is interesting to note that they were more influenced and impressed by the work of Roman dramatists (who were themselves imitators of the Greek dramatists before them) than that of the Greek. The tragedies of Aeschylus. Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comedies of Aristophanes influenced them less than the tragedies of Seneca and the comedies of Plautus and Terence. The tragedies of Seneca are "closet-tragedies", that is, they are meant to be read only, not to be acted. All of them (some ten in number) have revenge as their leitmotif. Further, they are characterised by excessive bloodshed, long rhetorical speeches, and the inclusion of the Ghost as an inevitable member of the dramatis personae. Instead of the element of fear or terror as in the Greek tragedy, we have a superabundance of horror in Senecan tragedy.
The first English tragedy based evidently,and rather unthinkingly, on the Senecan model was Gorboduc (or, later, Ferrex andPorrex) written by Thomas Sackville (1536-1608) and Thomas Norton (1531-84). It was acted in 1561-62 before Queen Elizabeth at White-hall. We have in it the same excessive bloodshed, the device of narration by some characters, long rhetorical speechification, the revenge motive, and the chorus between the acts which characterised Seneca's tragedies. The plot of the play reminds one of that ofKing Lear. Gorboduc is the king of England who in his lifetime divides his kingdom between his two sons, Ferrex and Porrex. One brother murders the other, and in revenge is killed by his mother. But the people rise and murder both the king and the queen. The nobles assemble and kill the assassins, but then a civil war ensues between the nobles themselves and the whole of the country is ruined. One important feature of Gorboduc is its employment of blank verse which makes it the first English play to use that measure. Further, the play is divided, after the Roman model, into five acts--a practice which became from then onwards universal for tragedy.
Some other Senecan tragedies which followed Gorboduc were Thomas Hughes' The Misfortunes of Arthur (Gray's Inn, 1588), Robert Wilmot's Tragedie ofTancred and Gismund (Inner Temple, 1567-68), and George Gascoigne's Jocasta (Gray's Inn, 1566).
The Beginning of Regular Comedy:
Plautus and Terence influenced English comedy to a lesser extent than Seneca the English tragedy, for the reason that English comedy had a well-rooted native tradition. The first regular English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister written about 1550 by Nicholas Udall, head-master of Eton. It combined well the native comic tradition with the Roman comedy of Plautus and Terence. It is written in rhyming couplets and divided into acts and scenes after the Latin plays. The plot is laid in London, and with some humorous dialogue and a tolerable variety of character, affords a representation of the manners and ideas of the middle classes of the time. The hero of the comedy Ralph Roister is a vainglorious fellow of the nature of Plautus's Miles Gloriasis. He imagines a merchant's wife to be in love with him and is confirmed in his stupid belief by the pranks of Matthew Marrygreek. After many misadventures and follies he comes to his senses and recognises the harsh reality. Broadly speaking, the comedy of the play turns on the same pivot as that of The Merry! Wives of Windsor. The play has the merits of racy dialogue and delightful unfolding of comedy, but its versification lacks the vigour of Hevwood's metre in The Four P 's.
Greatly inferior to Roister Doister is the comedy Gammer Gurton's Needle dated about 1553, and generally ascribed to John Still. It is a crude presentation of low country life. It does not have a well-organised plot, which turns on a single incident-the loss of her needle by the country housewife Gammer Gurton. In search of her needle she disturbs the peace of the entire village. Peace comes back when she discovers her missing needle stuck in the breeches of Hodge, her farm-servant. The whole thing is crudely farcical. There is nothing Plautine about the play except its Latin structure. What recommends the play to us today is, in the words of Ifor Evans, "a rough, native realism."
Conclusion:
From such works as Gorboduc, Ralph Roister Doister, and Gammer Gurton's Needle it is evident how far the drama has advanced from its state of the liturgical play. We find in the progress of the drama, especially comedy, a gradual gravitation towards the realities of the life of the day. What is lacking still is not arresting vitality but literary power and grace. These qualities were to be supplied later by "the University Wits".
The University Wits
Introduction:
The University Wits were a group of well-educated scholars-cum-men of letters who wrote in the closing years of the sixteenth century. All of them were actively associated with the theatre and the plays written by them mark a pronounced stage of development over the drama which existed before them. With their dramatic work they paved the way for the great Shakespeare who was indebted to them in numerous ways. Given below are the names of these University Wits:
(l) JohnLyly
(2) Robert Greene
(3) George Peele
(4) Thomas Lodge
(5) Thomas Nashe
(6) Thomas Kyd
(7) Christopher Marlowe
They were called University Wits because they had training at one or other of the two Universities-Oxford and Cambridge. The only exception, and that a doubtful one, was Thomas Kyd. Apart from academic training (in most cases, an M. A. degree) they had numerous characteristics in common. They were members of learned societies and rather liberal in their views concerning God and morality. They were all reckless Bohemians and had their lives cut short by excessive debauchery or a violent death. Marlowe was killed in a street brawl, perhaps over bought kisses, and Greene, after a career of unfettered self-dissipation, died friendless and penniless and in a very touchingly repentant frame of mind. Further, in their intellectualism they were true embodiments of the impact of the Renaissance on English culture and sensibility. Then, all of them had fairly good relations with one another and were wont freely to lend a hand to one another in the writing or completing of dramatic works.
Their Contribution to the Drama:
Whatever may be said against their reproachable careers as human beings, it will have to be admitted that, to quote Allardyce Nicoll,"they laid.a sure basis for the English theatre." For understanding appropriately the contribution of the University Wits in this respect we should first acquaint ourselves with the state of the English drama before them. Now, when the University Wits started writing there were two fairly distinct traditions of the dramatic art before them. One was the native tradition (especially of. comedy) which was vigorous, no doubt', but devoid of the artistic discipline of he classical Greek and Roman drama. The other was the tradition set by the imitators of ancient Roman drama. Such works as Sackville and Norton's Gorboduc (tragedy) and Ralph Roister Doister (comedy) are instances of this tradition. These plays, though they exhibit ample awareness of the classical form and control, are devoid of the vigour of the purely native plays. Differentiating between the popular and classical tradition, Allardyce Nicoll observes: "The classicists had form but no fire; the popular dramatists had interest, but little sense of form." The function of the University Wits was to combine the form with the fire. They had plenty of "fire" in them, all being reckless hedonists, but they had also the sense of form acquired by them from training in classical learning. While retaining in their dramatic works the vigour of the popular native tradition, they gave them that literary grace and power which offered Shakespeare "a viable and fitting medium for the expression of his genius."
One thing which needs to be amply emphasised is that though the University Wits looked to the classical drama and incorporated its general respect of form in their own productions, they never imitated it slavishly. They retained for themselves sufficient freedom, sometimes even that of violating its well-recognised principles such as the strict separation of the species (comedy and tragedy, for instance), the observance of "the three unities" (those of time, place, and action), and the reporting of the major incidents to the audience through the dialogue of the dramatis personae or the agency of the messenger. What they established upon the English stage was not a pale copy of the ancient Greek or roman drama, but a kind of romantic drama which was to be later adopted by Shakespeare himself. Lyly, Greene, and Peele contributed much towards the establishment of the romantic comedy, and Kyd and Marlowe, Elizabethan tragedy. Besides, Marlowe in his Edward II set an example of the historical play for Shakespeare and others.
Further, the University Wits set about the work of reforming the language of the drama. They made the medium of dramatic utterance extremely pliant and responsive to all the various moods endeavoured to be conveyed through it. Lyly lenfthe language of comedy, especially the prose, a wonderfully sophisticated touch, Peele gave it a rare sweetness, and Greene, considerable geniality and openness. As regards the language of tragedy, Kyd did not do much except .introducing exaggerative bombast (which is not always without vigour), but Marlowe breathed into it that consuming intensity coupled with virtuosic brilliance which thrilled his contemporaries and thrills us even today. Blank verse became Mariowe's "mighty line."
Now let us consider the individual contribution of the various University Wits to the development of English drama.
(1) John Lyly (1554-1606):
Lyly is better known for his prose romance Euphues than his dramatic productions. It must be remembered that he himself was a courtier and wrote for the discerning courtiers. He had no intention to charm the eyes and ears of the masses or to win their acclamation. His plays are rather of the nature of masques which were very popular with the queen and the court. He gave comedy a touch of sophistication and an intellectual tone lacking in the native comedy which was predominantly of the nature of rough-and-tumble farce. Lyly wrote eight plays in all out of which Compaspe, Endunion, and Gallathea are the best and the best known. And though all the eight are, broadly speaking, comedies, yet they can be roughly divided, afterNicoll, into three groups as follows:
(i) those which are allegorical and mythical in tone;
(ii) those which display realistic features ; and
(iii) those which mark the introduction of more or less historical features.
Lyly's plays are the production of scholarship united to an elegant fancy and a somewhat fantastic wit, but not of a writer capable of moving the passions or of depicting character by subtle and felicitous touches. Broadly speaking, Lyly's achievement is to have synthesised many mutually antagonistic elements which had till then lain unreconciled. His was a Renaissance mind working synthetically on the native material before him. For instance we have frequently in his plays a courtly main plot (in which such characters as kings, queens, princes, princesses, knigh ts, fairies, pagan and Greek and Roman deities figure) supported by a sub-plot setting forth the blunders of villagers. Lyly strangely amalgamates humour and romantic imagination and in this way paves the way for Shakespeare who does likewise in many of his comedies.
In his plays Lyly used a mixture of verse and prose. This mixing of the two is suggestive of his mixing of the world of reality and the world of romance. "The same fusion", observes Nicoll. "is to be discovered in As You Like It". Lyly found a suitable blank verse for comedy as Marlowe did for tragedy. Whereas Marlowe's blank verse is characterized by consuming intensity and mouth-filling bombast, Lyly's is by its lightness of touch suitable for comedy. The prose that Lyly used in his comedies is sometimes mannered after the style of his Euphues; it is full of puns, far-fetched conceits, and verbal pyrotechnics which Shakespeare incorporated in his early comedies uch as Love's Labour Lost and A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Robert Greene (1558-92):
Greene wrote some five plays in all. They are : (i) The Comical History ofAlphonsus King ofAragon
(ii) A Looking Glass for London and England (written jointly with Lodge)
(iii) The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
(iv) The History of Orlando Furioso
(v) The Scottish History of James, the Fourth.
Out of them the most important and interesting is Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. With this play and James IV, Greene contributed substantially towards the establishment of the romantic comedy. He effects two kinds of fusion:
(a) The fusion of various plots and sub-plots; and
(b) the fusion of various moods and worlds in one and the ame play.
In Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, for instance, there are, in the words of Nicoll, "three distinct worlds mingled together-the world of magic, the world of aristocratic life, and the world of the country. These, by his art, Greene has woven together into a single harmony, showing the way to Shakespeare when the latter came to write A Midsummer Night's Dream." As regards characterisation, Nicoll gives Greene the credit of being "the first to draw the Rosalinds and Celias of Elizabethan times." Dorothea, the heroine of his comedy James IV which has romantic love for its theme, is the best known of all the female characters in Elizabethan drama excluding Shakespeare's works. Further, as regards Greene's handling of blank verse which he used as the medium of his comedies, it may be observed that he gave it more flexibility than the imitators of the classical models allowed it.
(3) George Peele (1558-97):
The five plays of Peele extant today are:
(i) The Arraignment of Paris (a pastoral play)
(ii) The Battle of Alcazar (a romantic tragedy)
(iii) The Famous Chronicle of King Edward, the First (a chronicle history)
(iv) The Love of King David and Fair Bathsheba (a kind of mvsterv piav. for it has a biblical theme) '
(v) The Old Wives' Tale (a romantic satire on the current dramatic taste)
The list shows Peele's versatility as a dramatist. However, his plays are not marked by any technical brilliance. What is of interest to us is his excellence as a poet. "Certainly", observes Compton-Rickett, "he shares with Marlowe the honour of informing blank verse with musical ability that, in the later hand of Shakespeare, was to be one of its most important characteristics." But it is Peele's fault that "he allows poetry to enter into scenes from which it ought to be excluded" (Nicoll). For instance, when Absalom in David and Bathsheba finds his own hair about to hang him to death, he bursts into a poetic utterance:
What angry angel sitting in these shades, Hath laid his cruel hands upon my hair . And holds my body thus twixt heaven and earth?
(4) Thomas Lodge (1558-1625) and
(5) Thomas Nashe (1567-1601):
Their dramatic work is inconsiderable. Lodge who was, according to Gosson, "little better than a vagrant, looser than liberty, lighter than vanity itself," was, in Nicoll's words, "the least of the University Wits ",for he "gave practically nothing to the theatre." He has left only one play, The Wounds of Civil War. Both Nashe and he are much more important for their fiction than dramatic art.
(6) Thomas Kyd (1557-97):
His only play The Spanish Tragedy is modelled on Seneca's revenge tragedies which before Kyd had been imitated by some scholars like Sackville and Norton, the writers ofGorboduc. But whereas Gorboduc was rather slavishly and strictly based on Seneca, Kyd is much more flexible in his attempt. Of course there are murders and bloodshed, suicides and horrifying incidents (like the biting off of a man's tongue by himself and the running amuck of a respectable lady), the ghost and many other Senecan features, yet The Spanish Tragedy breaks away from the Senecan tradition on various points. For example, there is much of action on the stage itself (and not reported, as in Seneca). Moreover, though, after Seneca, it has for its leitmotifrevenge (Heironimo's revenge for the murder of his son) yet there is strong external action. The Elizabethan audiences had a craving for watching sensational, even horrifying action. Kyd was obliging enough. Nicoll aptly describes The Spanish Tragedy as "a Senecan play adapted to popular requirements."
Kyd's contribution to English tragedy is twofold. First, he gave a new kind of tragic hero who was neither a royal personage nor a superman but an ordinary person. Secondly, he introduced the element of introspection in the hero. Along with the external conflict in the play, we are conscious of a kind of introspective self-analysis within Heironimo himself. In this; respect Kyd was paving the way for Shakespeare's Hamlet.
Kyd's blank verse was ridiculed for its pomposity and exaggeration even by his contemporaries-who had an ear for high-sounding words. Like Seneca's tragic style, Kyd's also has the element of rhetoric in it. Kyd's extravagance is sometimes annoying but we must remember Compton-Rickett's words that "even extravagance is better than lifelessness."
(7) Christopher Marlowe (1564-93):
He is, in Nicoll's words, "the most talented of pre-Shakespeareans." His plays are:
(i) Tamburlaine, the Great; (ii) Doctor Faustus; (iii) he Jew of Malta; (iv) Edward, the Second; and
(v) Parts of The Massacre at Paris and Dido Queen oj Carthage.
Marlowe's contribution to English tragedy is very vital and manifold. He himself seems to be aware of having scored an advance over the previous drama. In the prologue to his first play he sets his manifesto in these lines :
From jigging veins of rhyming mother wits, And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay, We will lead you to the stately tent of war.
Marlowe promises that his play is going to be different from the conventional plays in both its language and subject. And he, indeed, keeps his promise.
First of all, Marlowe exalted and varied the subject-matter of tragedy. For the Senecan motive of revenge he substituted the more interesting theme of ambition--ambition for power as in Tamburlaine, ambition for infinite knowledge as in Doctor Faustus, and ambition for gold as in The Jew of Malta.
Secondly, he put forward a new kind of the tragic hero. The medieval concept of tragedy was the fall of a great man. See, for instance, the words of the Monk in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
Tragedie is to seyn a certyne storie, As old bokes maken us memorie, Of hym who stood in great prosperitie And is y-fallen out of high degree Into miserie and endeth wretchedly.
Marlowe revived the Aristotelean conception of the tragic hero in so far as he introduced a certain flaw or flaws in his character. His heroes are air supermen whose major flaw is always an over-weening ambition. Their love is the love of the impossible; but with a singular intensity and concentration of purpose, they make headway towards their destination though they perish by forces beyond their control. Thus, there is a dramatic conflict between their ambition and the antagonistic forces of life which stand in its way. But along with this outer conflict, there is, at least in Doctor Faustus, a struggle in the mind of the chief character also. This was something new for English tragedy.
Next, he gave a greater unity to the drama. This he did in Edward II. The rest of his plays are weak in structure, being loose strings of scenes and episodes. But as he matured he acquired a greater technical and constructive skill.
One of Marlowe's chief merits is his reformation of the chronicle plays of his time. They were formless and poor in characterisation. Marlawe humanised the puppets of these plays and introduced motives in them. Also he gave shape and internal development to his plots. He handled the crude historical material judiciously and artistically, selecting some, rejecting some, and modifying some, so as to suit his dramatic purpose. Out of the formlessness of old chronicle Marlowe produced a play which is a genuine tragedy and the model for Shakespeare's RichardII.
Last but not the least is Marlowe's establishment of blank verse as an effective and pliant medium of tragic utterance. His blank verse is immensely superior to the blank verse of Gorboduc, the first tragedy which employed this measure. He found it wooden, mechanical, and lifeless and breathed into it a scarifying intensity 'of passion which electrified it into something living^and throbbing with energy. He substituted the end-stopped lines of Gorboduc with run-on lines forming verse paragraphs. True, some element of bombast is perceptible in Marlowe's earlier works, but in Edward II his style becomes quite subdued and answers more readily to the whole gamut of varying moods sought to be conveyed through it. He made blank verse a great dramatic medium acknowledged by all his successors as the metre indispensable for any serious drama. With Marlowe, indeed, begins a new era in the history of-English drama.
Drama up to Shakespeare Viva
Q.1. How will you narrate the birth of Modern Drama?
Ans. Modern drama began in the hands of the Church, and to understand its origin we have to consider why it was that the Church nourished it. In the days of the declining Roman empire the theatre had sunk very low in morals and art, and one of the chief forms of popular amusement consisted of gladiatorial combats, which were cruel and degrading exhibitions of men fighting with beasts. But around the ceremony of the Mass, and in particular around the festivals of Christmas and Easter, the church gradually developed her ritual into elaborate piece of dumb show, to accompany and illustrate the lesson of the day.
Q.2. How did the Churchyard replace the Church?
Ans. As the plays became more and more popular, and as each dramatic tableau became more elaborate, the churchyard replaced the church itself as the theatre. Soon there were too many performers for them to be all clerics, and as the lay people came to take part, so the native language and the humour of the laity insisted on creeping in. At length drama passed out of the hands of the Church altogether.
Q.3. What do you understand about Early English Religious Drama?
Ans. In pre-Conquest English literature there is nothing that we can really call drama. In the later Old English literature we find dialogues, such as one between the Body and the Soul, which indicate a slight dramatic
tendency, but that is all.
Q. 4. What were the various stages in the development of drama up to the Earliest Regular Drama?
Ans. There were four stages in the development of drama up to the Earliest Regular Drama. Firstly, there were Miracle or Mystery Play. Secondly, Morality Plays became popular. Thirdly, the Interludes made further development of the dramatic art. Finally, the Masque played a very important role in the development of Drama.
Q. 5. What is the contribution of the Miracle Play in the development of drama?
Ans. In fact, we cannot imagine that the drama properly developed from them. The Miracle Plays have less dramatic characteristics. They have elementary characterisation, a good deal of vigour, and abundant rough humour, but there is little sense of structure, and the medium is generally doggerel verse. Plot, form, and appropriate expression have yet to be discovered.
Q. 6. What was the contribution made by the Morality Play?
Ans. The Morality play registered a further advance. In such plays virtues and vices were presented on the stage as allegorical creations, often of much liveliness. Abstractionssuch as Justice, Mercy, Gluttony, and Vice were among the commonest characters. An important feature of this class of play is the development of characterization. It is almost crude; but it is often strongly marked and strongly contrasted, with broad farcical elements. The favourite comic character was Vice, whose chief duty was to tease the Devil.
Q. 7. How will you comment upon 'The Masque'?
Ans. The Masque was another dramatic form which developed in England in the time of Henry VIII. The earliest mention of the Masque by name in England is in Hall's Chronicleunder the date 1512, and he speaks of it as Italian in derivation, but a similar thing had almost certainly existed in England earlier under the name of a "disguising".
Q. 8. What were the causes of the birth of the Earliest Regular Drama?
Ans. Despite the healthy and various developments of the drama in the first half of the sixteenth century, neither singly nor in combination was any of the various strains to bring about the birth of the Elizabethan drama. The New Learning was to play the decisive part by leading men back to the Latin classical drama for their models.
Q. 9. What was the influence of the Roman dramatists Plautus and Seneca on the Regular Drama?
Ans. The models on which the new drama was based were Plautus and Seneca. Plautus gave us the earliest comedy and Seneca the earliest tragedy. Neither, however, was to serve for long as more than a source of general inspiration; such classical plays were too academic, and the great popular, romantic Elizabethan drama only arose when the dramatists broke free from these trammels. But nevertheless the influence of Plautus and Seneca was a vital factor in the birth of the English drama; from the study of their works there arose a heightened conception of the dignity and possibilities of drama as an art, and a greater sense, indeed a new sense of dramatic structure of the division into senses and acts.
Q. 10. How do you evaluate the Regular English Tragedy 'Gorboduc'?
Ans. The first regular English tragedy on Senecan lines was Gorboduc, acted first in 1562 by and before the members of the Inner Temple, and written by Sackville and Norton. Thus it resembles the first comedies in being written by scholars on a classical model and for the entertainment of a cultured audience. Gorboduc tells how an early British kind divided his lifetime between his two sons; how one son killed the other who was the mother's favourite; how the mother in revenge killed the murderer; and how the enraged people rose up and killed both father and mother. Thus the theme, in the play's own words, is "Blood asketh blood, and death must death requite," a theme of revenge, of Nemesis, an inexorable fate exacting recompense. It is, in essence, the theme of what is generally known as Senecan tragedy.
Q. 11. Who were the University Wits?
Ans. Some young intellectuals of the age of Elizabeth were associated with Oxfordand Cambridge. They made a glorious contribution to the dramatic art of the age of Elizabeth. They were Shakespeare's predecessors. The chief University Wits were George Peels, Robert Greene, Thomas Nash, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe.
Q. 12. What were the common characteristics of the University Wits?
Ans. Well, sir, these plays had several features in common. Firstly, there was a fondness for heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed, and Tamburlaine. Secondly, heroic themes needed heroic treatment; greatfulness and variety; splendid descriptions; long swelling speeches, the handling of violent incidents and emotions. Thirdly, the style also was heroic. The chief aim was to achieve strong and sounding lines. Finally themes were usually tragic in nature. The dramatists were, as a rule, too much in earnest to give heed to what was considered to be the lower species of comedy.
Q. 13. How will you make the critical appraisal of 'The Spanish Tragedy' of Thomas Kyd?
Ans. The Spanish Tragedy marks a distinct era in the development of English tragedy. This play got immediate reputation. It completely captured the hearts of the late sixteenth century. Its fame is attested to by the allusions and references given in the pamphlets of the time. He was the first exponent of the species of play called The Tragedy of Blood which gave rise to a host of similar plays including Shakespeare's Hamlet. These plays are usually bombastic and tragic, which degenerate into melodrama.
Q. 14. How will you discuss Marlowe's dramatic activity?
Ans. The period of Marlowe's dramatic activity comprises six brief years, from 1587 to 1593. Yet during those six years he wrote six splendid plays all reflecting his essential spirit and nature, all full of power, passion, poetry. Each drama centres round some overmastering passion--wild, intemperate passion that grows and develops till it destroys itself. The lust for empire, lust for lucre, the lust for knowledge, the lust for beauty--these form the backgrounds as well as mainspring of each play. In all those, Marlowe reveals himself as 'the greatest discoverer, the most daring and inspired pioneer, in all our poetic literature, as the writer of genuine tragedy and genuine blank verse, as one who prepared the path and made straight the way for the advent of Shakespeare. In all these are evident qualities of terror and splendour, intensity of purpose and sublimity of note; imaginative daring and lyrical magnificence. In all these is illustrated his individualistic conception of tragedy, the classical Greek conception modified by the Renaissance spirit, the conception which portrays "the struggle between the overweening soul, typically Renaissance in its insatiable ambition, and the limitations which it seeks to overcome."
Q. 15. What are the important works of Christopher Marlowe?
Ans. His chief dramatic works are Tamburlaine the Great, The Second Part of Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, Edward II, Doctor Faustius and Didi, Queen of Carthage.
Q. 16. How will you comment upon 'Dr. Faustus'?
Ans. Doctor Faustus has been praised for its high poetry and its mastery of blank verse. This is, of course, undeniable, but that accounts only in a minor way for the greatness of the play, a greatness that has survived through the shifting centuries. The secret of the significance and appeal of the play, then, must be sought elsewhere. Call it what we may--hidden meaning, symbolism, undying appeal, universal interest--there is an unmistakable something in Doctor Faustus which raises it beyond the level of a melodrama and makes it a play of profound significance and permanent appeal. As long as man forgets not the far-flung horizons of the mind and ceases not to respond to the silver lure of the stars of knowledge sparkling there, as long as man refrains not from sympathising with those who fight heroically against the forces of Nature and Fate and fall in the very act of fighting, so long will Doctor Faustus its significance and appeal to him.
Q. 17. What are the characteristics of Marlowian Tragedy?
Ans. Marlowe's conception of the tragedy is classical Greek conception modified by the spirit of the Renaissance. We have the grand heroic central figure who towers to great heights, who insults Divine Providence, and who falls with a crash. But Marlowe's heroes are no longer demi-gods or men born to high places; the conquering Tamburlaine is of quite humble origin, and Barabas the Jew and Faustus rise to no worldly height.
Q. 18. How far Marlowe's plays were different from the Medieval Theory or Tragedy?
Ans. He deviates from the medieval theory that tragedy invariably represents a falling into misery or adversity from prosperity or happiness. Marlowe conceived of tragedy as concerning itself not merely with a life and death, or a bloody crime, or a reversal of fortune, but with the heroic struggle of a great personality, doomed to inevitable defeat.
Q. 19. How will you differentiate between the tragic art of Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe?
Ans. There is a large element of the universal in Shakespeare. Marlowe has it in a very limited measure. Shakespeare's knowledge of human nature and his portrayal of human character are immeasurably subtler and profounder than those of Marlowe. Taking into account the mingled strands of good and bad that go to fashion the fabric of human life, Shakespeare always presents the ultimate triumph of the inexorable Moral Will, whereas Marlowe exhibits a hunger and thirst for unrighteousness. A calm-eyed moral vision fills everything that Shakespeare has written with the charm of artistry and the grace of charity. Such a thing is not there in Marlowe's production. There is a much difference between root and flower, and flower and fruit. But the difference is not negative and contradictory. Marlowe and Shakespeare represent the Prologue and Epilogue of English Drama in the Renaissance age.
Q. 20. Do you agree with the statement that "Had there been no Marlowe, there would have been no Shakespeare"?
Ans. Marlowe and Shakespeare were born in the same year. Unfortunately, Marlowe expired early and his dramatic art is not in bulk. But in his short span of life Marlowe wrote his masterpieces while Shakespeare was quite silent. Thus Shakespeare had the advantage of having Marlowe's work before him for guidance and inspiration. Shakespeare served as a sort of apprentice to Marlowe although some critics feel that this statement has been exaggerated. But this fact is authentic, according to my views. Shakespeare modelled his Richard II on Marlowe's Edward II. He had taken hints for his Merchant of Venice from The Jew of Malta. Moreover, Shakespeare learnt the secret of wielding blank verse successfully as a vehicle of dramatic expression from the material innovations of Marlowe. Thus he has been considered as the Young Apollo of the age, as the Morning Star of song, as the Young Titan of the stage, as the Muses' darling and as the master of the Mighty line.
Q. 21. What was the influence of Seneca on pre-Shakespearean drama?
Ans. English tragedy did not develop from the miracle play but from the classical models of Seneca. Being the Latin dramatist, born in the first century, writing for a sophisticated, aristocratic audience, he had produced tragedies notable for the horrors which filled them. The chief characteristics of his works are their exaggerated character-drawing, their violently rhetorical language coupled with emotional hyperboles and a wealth of epigram. He became so popular in Cambridge that all his plays were translated by 1581.
Q. 22. Summarise the evolution of the English drama up to the days of Shakespeare.
Ans. The first stage of Shakespearean "drama was concerned with the Church. It represented events of sacred history and lives of saints. These were called Miracles and Mystery Plays. The next stage into the development of the drama was the Moralities. Side by side with the Moralities, there sprang up another kind of dramatic composition known as the Interludes. In the third the Reformation hastened the change from the Morality play to the modern drama. The first regular drama was written by Nicholas Udall. The final stage was the contribution of the University Wits who were Greene. Kyd, Peele, Lyly and Marlowe.
Q. 23. What do you know about the Romantic Drama?
Ans. The English dramatists after a few experiments on the classical model began completely to disregard the three unities. The only influence of the classical drama can be seen now in the dignified form and the mode of expression--the two characteristics which are found in the dramas of Shakespeare in their highest excellence.
Marlowe's Contribution to English Drama
Tragedy before Marlow: Swinburne's remarks, "Before him there was neither genuine blank verse nor a genuine tragedy in our language. After his arrival the way was paved for Shakespeare." With the advent of Marlowe, Miracle and Morality plays vanished. He brought Drama out of the old rut of street presentation and made it a perfect art and a thing of beauty. After the Reformation, the Mystery and Morality plays were disliked by the public at large until the advent of University Wits the greatest of whom was Marlowe.
It was in the fifteenth century that tragedy came to English dramatic field. This was due to the Revival of Learning in Europe commonly referred to as the Renaissance and the translation of great Italian tragedies. Italian Renaissance exercised a vital influence on the development of English Drama. The first English tragedy was Gorboduc (1565) by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. In style and treatment of theme Seneca was very much their model. Although this tragedy showed some innovation, yet most of the Senecan qualities such as long speeches, ghosts, gruesome murders and talks and talks were very much there. The tragedies that followed Seneca had the same qualities and properties. It required the mighty efforts of a genius to free the Elizabethan Drama from the worst features of the Senecan tragedies and it was Christopher Marlowe who has achieved this foundation for the realm of English Dramatic Literature. There are umpteen characteristic of Marlovian tragedies. In discussing Marlowe, we can point out how he formulated the English Drama and especially Tragedy which was improved upon and perfected by a genius like Shakespeare who owes Marlowe for all his greatness and grandeur. Because had there been no Marlowe, there would have been no Shakespeare. It is also due to Marlowe that English Drama for the first time was bestirred with the vigorous poetry and passion. He has rightly been called the Morning Star of English Drama.
Marlow's Great Tragic Heroes: The first great thing done by Marlowe was to break awayfrom the medieval conception of Tragedy. The Medieval Drama was a game of the princes and imperial classes - the kings and Queens and their rise an fall. But it was left to Marlowe to evolve and create the real tragic hero. All of his tragic heroes are of humble parentage, Tamburlaine, Barabas in the Jew of Malta and Faustus, but they are endowed with great tragic and heroic qualities. His tragedy is a tragedy of one man - his rise and fall, his fate and actions and finally his death for his own failings and incapacities. All the other characters fade into insignificance besides the towering personality and the glory and grandeur of the tragic hero. Even various incidents revolve round the hero. His heroes are men fired with indomitable passion and inordinate ambition. His Tamburlaine is in full-flooded pursuit of military and political power, his Faustus sells his soul to the Devil to attain ultimate power through knowledge and gain the deity and His Jew of Malta discards all sense of human values with his blind aspirations. What Marlowe depicts and dramatizes is that all his mighty and towering heroes with all their sky-high designs and aspirations ultimately fall into failure and doom exhibiting their tragic and doomed end. Herein lies the greatness of Marlowe.
Working of a passion: We have previously studied that Marlowe's heroes are dominated by the inordinate desires and passions. These passions take the form of wealth, spirit of learning, high power. Through these, Marlowe imparts vehemence, fire and force in the drama. But in this way, we may trace the distinct influence of Machiavelli on Marlowe. Marlowe must have read his famous book, The Prince and derived this idea of ambition and spirit from him. Marlowe discarded the old concept of tragedy as decent from greatness to misery and supplanted it greatness by the greatness of individual worth. His heroes truly reflect the new Spirit of Learning because he himself was the product of Renaissance.
The Inner Conflict: Another great achievement of Marlowe was to introduce the element of conflict in the tragic hero especially in Dr. Faustus and Edward II. The conflict may be on the physical or spiritual plane. The spiritual and moral conflict takes place in the heart of man and this is of much greater significance and much more poignant than the former. And a great tragedy most powerfully reveals the emotional conflict or moral agony of the mighty hero. In the realm of England's dramatic literature, Dr. Faustus may be reckoned the first spiritual tragedy or the tragedy of the soul. In this epoch-making drama, true and deep moral agonies and painful spiritual conflict has been superbly laid bare before us by Marlowe. Like the old Greek heroes, Marlovian Heroes are not helpless puppets in the hands of Fate and they are never destined by gods. They have free thinking of religion and carve their way themselves. The tragic end they meet is caused by the tragic flaw in their personalities and they achieve this end through their actions. This is the greatest contribution of Marlowe to the English Drama.
Moral Conception: It was Marlowe who first discarded the medieval conception of tragedy as it was distinctly a moral one. In old Morality Plays, the purpose was to simply inculcate a moral lesson by showing the fall of the hero. There is no such thing in Marlovian plays. The main interest centers on the sky-touching personality of the heroes with their tremendous efforts to attain the limit and their rise and fall in their struggle.
Blank Verse: Another great achievement of Marlowe was to introduce a new type of blankverse in his tragedies. A new spirit of poetry was breathed into the artificial and monotonous verse of the old days. In fact, the whole of Elizabethan Drama was enliven by a new poetic grandeur.
Seriousness and Concentration: Another notable characteristic of Marlowe's work is seriousness and concentration on the theme and there is complete lack of humor. According to many critics, the clownish scenes and the other absurdities were interpolated by the later authors. There are also no women characters in Marlowe's works, this is also a typical quality of his. The episodes of Helen in Dr. Faustus and other female figures in other plays are only shadows or figure-heads. Most of these features may also be regarded as the drawbacks, however; it was Marlowe's distinct way of writing which is typical of him. Or perhaps, for these reasons, he couldn't reach the towering high plane of fame as did Shakespeare. But we must remember that he was a pioneer and path-finder. He was the Columbus of a new literary World in England. It is due to Marlowe that we have Shakespeare whom we know and read, but had Marlowe not written such these works, there would have been Shakespeare, but no the one we know today. Shakespeare, without him, would have been only another writer.
Shakespearean Tragedy
Introduction:
Shakespeare wrote a number of tragedies, the greatest among which are Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and Hamlet. Can the tragic experience as conveyed by Shakespeare in his tragedies be conceptualized into an intellectually coherent system? To generalize, said Blake, was to be a fool. Moreover, Shakespeare himself, as A. C. Bradley observes, had only "a sense for tragedy", not a "philosophy" of it. Nevertheless, we certainly can arrive at a few factors which are shared, more or less, by all the great tragedies of Shakespeare. We can, as Bradley says, be able "to descend on certain well-built principles which underlie almost every Shakespearean tragedy." Let us examine what these common factors are.
The Story of One Man:
A Shakespearean tragedy is invariably built around one pivotal figure-the hero, who stands as a colossus beside the many other characters of the play. It must be remembered that a Shakespearean tragedy does bring before us a very large number of dramatis personae. Their number is indeed much larger than that of the characters in an ancient Greek tragedy, excluding, of course, the chorus: however the stage-lights always remain focussed on the hero. Other characters also experience ups and downs of fortune like the hero, but their careersremain in the background. It is only in the love tragedies, Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra, that some importance is given to the heroine also : her name is also a part of the title of the tragedy. Elsewhere she is just one of the numerous "minor" characters. In none of his tragedies does Shakespeare pre-eminently concern himself with more than two persons. Forces of the overruling fates, gods, or whatever extra-terrestrial powers that be. Shakespearean tragedy is much less fatalistic in conception. It does not echo the idea expressed in the following well-known lines:
As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods: They kill us for their sport.
Shakespearean tragic hero is good, but he is not perfect. Nor is he a superman like a Marlovian hero. Nor still is he a villain. His character is a mixed fabric, but with strains of good much more numerous than those of evil. There is in him a certain flaw of character (which Aristotle termed hamartid) which provides the ground for the calamity which eventually overwhelms him. All his goodness of character is of no avail. His action which issues from his slightly flawed character is what results in suffering and death. But for this flaw of character the tragedy would have been averted. Bradley observes: "Lear's tragedy is the tragedy of dotage and shortsightedness, Othello's that of credulity, Hamlet's that of indecision, Macbeth's that of ambition, Antony's that of neglect of duty and so on." If Hamlet were there in place of Macbeth, and vice versa, both of them could have averted the catastrophe. In short, the dictum "character is destiny" is fairly true of Shakespearean tragedy.
Contributing Factors:
But apart from the fatal flaw some other factors beyond the ken and power of the tragic hero are also responsible for the catastrophe. They are mainly two:--
(i) the supernatural; and (ii) chance happenings.
These extraneous factors do exert some influence on the hero's destiny, even though basically it is his own character which is to blame. The supernatural beings, such as the ghost in Hamlet and the three witches in Macbeth, prompt the hero in each case to do what will be harmful for'him. To quote Bradley, the supernatural "though it does not contribute to the action directly, yet has an intensifying effect on the thoughts and emotions of the hero." In the words of Moulton, "it has no power except to accentuate what already exists." The witches, for instance, do not .compel Macbeth to murder Duncan in order to seize the throne. They only exploit that ambition which is already a part of his character. They only precipitate the doom by drawing out that flawed part of the hero's personality which holds within it the seed of tragedy. In the ancient Greek tragedy we meet with gods and goddesses who actively participate in human affairs and turn the tide against one man or another. In other words, the downfall of the hero depends completely, or in a major part, on the malignance of the supernatural forces. But in Shakespeare the supernatural forces stand aloof from the arena of human activity. They are spectators, though they may at times precipitate the doom which mainly arises from the action of the hero issuing directly from his personal character.
The same is true of the numerous chance happenings. In Romeo and Juliet it is by chance that the hero does not get the Friar's message about the potion, and the heroine does not awake from her long sleep a little earlier. In King Lear it was by chance that Edgar could not reach the prison earlier than the hanging of Cordelia. It was by sheer accident in Othello that Desdemona dropped her handkerchief at a crucial moment. In Hamlet it was a chance that Hamlet's ship was attacked by the pirates so that he was back in Denmark. So the element of chance is there in Shakespearean tragedy, but it is not so strong as to overshadow the responsibility of the hero in bringing about his own doom. Shakespeare uses it quite judiciously. "Neither does he employ it," to quote Bradley "too frequently to be credible, not too rarely to be altogether unnatural."
The Conflict in Shakespearean Tragedy:
The conflict in Shakespearean tragedy is the essence of the whole drama. It may be justly said : "No conflict, no drama," This conflict is of two kinds, both of which generally go on simultaneously.. They are:
(i) the external conflict, in which the hero and his party are pitted against their antagonists;
(ii) the internal conflict which goes on in the mind and soul of the hero. This conflict is between attitudes, loyalties, conceptions or passions. Antony's mind is torn between the opposite-pulls of love and duty; Macbeth's between those of ambition and duty; and so on.
The hero ultimately gives way under the strain of these conflicts. He suffers both externally and internally. The progress of Shakespeare as a tragedy writer is characterised by his gradual shifting of the site of the tragic conflict from without to within. In Romeo and Juliet and Richard II the conflict is almost entirely external. In Macbeth, Hamlet, and Lear it is both external and internal. In Othello it is predominantly internal. In Coriolanus it is almost completely internal. It is in his internalization of the tragic conflict that Shakespeare registered a big advance over his contemporaries and immediate predecessors
Against the envy of less happier lands, This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings.
Henry V's words before Harfieur are of the same nature;
And you good Yeomen, Whose limbs were made in England, show us here The mettle of your pasture : let us swear That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not: For there is none of you so mean and base, That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
Such passages as these would have certainly increased the patriotic fervour of the audience. These history plays were, thus, not only a product of the patriotic spirit; they were also calculated to infuse patriotic spirit into others. They made a special plea for national unity by showing that foreign aggression was always helped whenever there was internal dissension in the country.
Now those her princes are come home again, Come the three corners of the world in arms, 'And we shall shock them. Naught shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true.
(from King John)
A "Mirror for Kings":
If Shakespeare is moved by patriotic impulses it does not mean that he represents each and every English king as a hero of impeccable character. In fact, as Dowden suggests, Shakespeare's kings can be divided into two classes. King John, Richard II, and Henry VI embody the weakness of English Kings, whereas Henry IV, Henry V and Richard II are studies of kingly strength. Among themselves these weak and strong kings constitute practical studies of king and kingship. Dowden sums up the point well: "John is the royal criminal, weak in his criminality. Henry VI is the royal saint, weak in his saintliness. The feebleness of Richard II cannot be characterised in a word, he is a graceful sentimental monarch. Richard III, in the other group, is a royal criminal strong in his crime. Henry IV, the usurping Bolingbroke, is strong by a fine craft in dealing with events, by resolution and policy, by equal caution and daring. The strength of Henry V is that of plain heroic magnitude thoroughly sound and substantial, founded upon the eternal verities. Here, then we may recognize the one dominant subject of the histories, viz. how a man may fail and how a man may succeed yi attaining a practical mastery of the -world. "Shakespeare's history plays are thus, to borrow the words of Schlegel, a "Mirror for Kings"'. This "Mirror' wii! enable anv English kins to discover his real identity and to correct himself in those respects in which he finds himself lacking in comparison with the past English kings who figure in these plays. Though in an evidently different manner, Shakespeare instructs the English king as Machiavelli had done in his work The Prince. And what can be wiser and more incontrovertible than lesson of history?
Their Lesson:
Shakespeare's history plays are in a class apart from his tragedies and comedies, though sometimes there appears to be a link between them. In Shakespeare's own times tragedies and history plays were often confused together, but it is clear that the latter, unlike the former, do not fathom the final problems of life and death and the nature of evil. Meredith said that life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel. But Shakespeare's history plays deal neither with much thought, nor with feelings; their study is action or the absence of it, and the consequences which flow therefrom. Dowden observes in this connexion: "The characters in the historical plays are conceived chiefly with reference to action. The world represented in these plays is not so much the world of feeling or thoughts, as the limited world of the practicable...The histories, like the tragedies, are for the reader a school of discipline; but the issues with which they deal are not the infinite issues of life and the feeling which they leave us is that of a wholesome, mundane pity and terror, or a sane and strong mundane satisfaction. " The lessons of Richard II can easily be perceived to be : "Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap. " Sometimes such a lesson as "The sins of fathers shall be visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations" is obvious. Mainly however, the histories emphasise the evil consequences of crime, folly, error, and inaction on the part of the king which plunge the country into ruin. Shakespeare's obvious hero among the English kings is Henry V who is distinguished alike by his valour as by his moral equipoise. His is the philosophy of action-righteous and meaningful action-which leads to prosperity for himself and for his nation.
Essays on Kingly Prerogatives:
Shakespeare's history plays are, broadly speaking, so many essays on kingly prerogatives. The king is vested with near divine privileges, but he is also saddled with an onerous responsibility which he is called upon to perform for indicating himself. All along, from King John to Henry VIII, we find kingship fraught with temptations, dangers, and insecurity (the, insecurity of life also). Sometimes this kingship is euologised to the extent reminiscent of the doctrine of the Divine Rights of Kings which envisaged a king to be the deputy of God on earth.