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ELIZABETHAN DRAMA, BLANK VERSE, UNIVERSITY WITS, theatres, companies, Life…

- - - - Earl of Leicester's Men
      - Lord Chamberlain's Men
      - Lord Admiral's Men
      - Acting was considered immoral, so the female roles were played by cross-dressed boy actors whose voices had not changed yet
  - - - followed by:
        
        The Curtain 1577
        
        The Rose 1587
        
        The Swan 1595
        
        The Globe 1599
        
        The Hope 1613
        
        APRON STAGE (GREMBIULE) It was a protruding stage that involved the audience
        
        End of 16th century private theatres also built in London. They were roofed, smaller, more expensive and ment for selected audience with more sophisticated plays. Ex: The Blackfriars 1576
    - - it was round or octagonal
        
        unroofed opened the sun and rain
        
        it included covered galleries for the richest surrounded by a yard open to the sky meant for the poor
        
        stage was a large wooden platform divided into
        a) forestage / outer main stage
        b) Inner stage or rear stage which could be curtained off
        c) an Upper stage with a thatched roof supported by columns on the main stage
        d) a Trap door opening on the floor of the outer stage
        
        Outer stage : where the main action of the play took place
        Inner stage: used when a scene took place in a more confined space (tomb scene in Romeo and Juliet)
        Trapdoor also called hell where actors who played ghosts, demons or fairies made dramatic appearances
    - - essential scenography
        
        no artificial light but daylight
        
        use of a few symbolic stage objects
        
        scenic language
        
        elaborate costumes
        
        special effects (death scenes animal blood)
- - - - short play dealing with Dido and her love for Aeneas
    - - Tragedy concerning the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre, which took place in Paris in 1572
    - - unfinished epic poem relating the love relationship between the 2 legendary title figures
  - - - Story of a German magician who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for power and knowledge. Opens with a prologue spoken by chorus which explains that it's not about the classical tragic themes of battle, love and heroic deeds but the story of Faustus a German scholar of low origins who becomes dissatisfied with the limits of traditional forms of knowledge, such as logic, medicine, law and religion and decides to devote himself to magic. He summons up Mephistophilis and makes a deal to surrender his soul to the Devil Lucifer, in exchange for twenty-four years of supernatural knowledge, power and pleasure. During this time Mephistopheles will be his servant and do anything he asks him to do. On the final night, before theexpiration of his "contract", Faustus is overcome by fear and remorse and begs for mercy in vain. Ad midnight a host of devils appears and carries his soul off to hell. The morning after scholars find his limbs and decide to hold a funeral for him
        
        based on a collection of German stories called The Faustbuch which he read in English translation
        
        LAST SCENE ANALYSIS
        Comprehension It's 11 o'clock and at midnight Faustus must give his soul to the devil and face eternal damnation. The bad Angel shows him what is happening in hell: damned souls are tossed by the Furies on burning forks while their bodies boil in lead (piombo), gluttony fed with small pieces of flaming fire. Faustus asks the planets to stand still, he wishes time would stop and midnight never come, he believes that a drop of Christ's blood will save him, also he wants to be hidden by mountains protecting him from the wrath of God. God isn't seen as a loving and merciful God but as one of justice and punishment. Christ is seen as the real saviour. He asks a compromise to God, to live for a while in hell, 100 or even 1000 years but then at last be saved. He wish that Pythagora's theory of methempsicosis were true because his soul wouldn't be damned forever but could at least fly to some brutish beast and serch for redemption. He wants his body to turn to air and his soul to be changed into water drops so he can easily escape from Lucifer.
        
        Analysis the senses that appeals the description of hell by the Bad Angel are above all the touch and the taste: for example the heat given by the bodies burning in lead or the ever-burning chair and the souls fed with pieces of flaming fire. Faustus uses short sentences, exclamations and questions throughout his speech "Ah my Christ, I'll leap up to my God!" They serve the purpose to add drama to his speech. Often Faustus addresses himself or refers to himself in the third person and this suggests that he is in a state of confusion and desperation.
        The striking of the clock is mentioned 3 times, so it creates more suspence, after eleven o' clock the clock strikes more often and this indicates that time seems to be passing by too quickly for Faustus.
        According to Christian doctrine a sinner can save his soul if he confesses his sin and makes an act of sincere contrition. Faustus pleas for mercy, however, remain unanswered ...he asks for mercy just because he is afraid of eternal damnation and not because he is sorry for what he has done.
    - - main scenes written in BLANK VERSE and comic scenes written in prose
        
        divided into 5 acts
        
        a chorus provides the introduction and conclusion to the play
        
        BLANK VERSE
        
        unrhymed iambic pentameter in which unstressed syllables are followed by stressed syllables. It most closely resembles the natural rhythm English speech and most frequently used verse form in English literature. First used in drama by Marlowe
    - - the play explores the ambition for unlimited knowledge, a ruling passion and the main character comes to symbolise the fall of man who yields to Satan's last temptation for having eaten of the tree of knowledge. The play well fits the intellectual world of the Elizabethan age as it represents the freedom of humanist new learning from the limits imposed by religion and morality
- - - - 1st : Fulgens and Lucres by Henry Medwall based on a Latin tale by the Italian humanist Buonaccorso and shows a romantic plot dealing with the wooing of Lucretia, daughter of Roman senator Fulgentius, by 2 suitors + comic subplot about the wooing of Lucretia's maid
      - John Heywood first English playwright to give the interlude an independent dramatic form. His best play The play called the Four PP contest in lying among a palmer, a pardoner, an apothecary and a pedlar, with the palmer eventually winning
  - - - -Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville Gorboduc, or Ferrex and Porrex revenge play in blank verse revolving around a quarrel between 2 brothers for the division of the kingdom
- - - - Features
        
        Best example of Senecan tragedy, with themes such as love, conspiracy, murder bloodthirsty, revenge and ghosts and typically English elements such as madness, Machiavellian villain, violent actions, the play-within-the-play device and rhetorical blank verse
      - Plot
        
        ghost of Andrea, a Spanish nobleman killed in the battle by the Portuguese Prince Balthazar, is reassured by Proserpine in Hades that his murder will be revenge. The it revolves around the story of Hieronimo, marshal of Spain, and his purpose to revenge the death of his son Horatio, killed by Balthazar's conspiracy. After the death of everybody he kills himself.(basically stabs himself to death)
- - - - The Arraignment of Paris mythological story of the judgement of Paris and the golden apple. Played by the Children of the Chapel Royal before Elizabeth I as a hommage to the Queen
      - The Old Wives Tale best-known play and first English work to satirize the romantic dramas popular at that time. Story of 3 fellows lost in the woods and are told fairy tales by their hostess. I protagonisti t: it mixes romance and folklore and the theatrical device of the play-within-the-play
  - - - The honorable history of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay double-plot structure, story of the negromancer Bacon's natural powers and the love story between the Earl of Lincoln andebeautiful Margaret, inspired by MARLOWE Doctor Faustus.