The Evolution of English Literature: From Medieval Plays to the Renaissance, Resúmenes de Idioma Inglés

¡Descarga The Evolution of English Literature: From Medieval Plays to the Renaissance y más Resúmenes en PDF de Idioma Inglés solo en Docsity! Elizabethan Literature One feels that the literature produced during this period is more universal in its appeal than at any other period. It is difficult to find political allusions in Elizabethan texts. The age of Elizabeth was an age of optimism, of experiment, of constructive achievement. This period, which we call “Elizabethan” does not coincide in scope with the beginning and ending of Elizabeth’s reign. It refers to the end of the second decade of that reign to almost the closing years of her sucessor’s. Prolific time. Themes in fashion: matter connecter to patriotism: such as biographical, historical and geographical works. They were also inspired by the conviction that history repeats itself, and therefore one can extract from history a lot of useful information to apply in the present and future. History was written in verse as well as prose. “Tudor Myth” that the first Tudor was king Arthur resurrected. Actually during the Renaissance, translators translate into English the works of Ancient Greece and Italy. The most popular was Boccaccio, Tasso, Machiavelli… The genre of poetry was omnipresent, the sonnet and the ballad being the most popular forms. The aristocratic form of the sonnet was specially used for love poetry (but except for the sonnets of Shakespeare, Sidney and Spenser, they seemed to communicate not true emotion but a purely artificial one dedicated to a goddess, so many sonnets where full of Dianas, Delias, Corinnas, Auroras, etc.), whereas the popular ballad was used to move the hearts of the multitude telling the exploits and sufferings of famous heroes like Robin Hood or the Earl of Essex. Drama is the crowning achievement of Elizabeth England in the field of literature. PRIMITIVE ENGLISH THEATRE In the 10th century, drama returned to English territory in the form of religious plays, which were performed in churches. Usually stories from the Bible, such plays were first acted by priests, their stage consisting of different platform sets arranged in rows along the side of the nave of the church. One effect of the church setting was to create a close relationship between audience and performer. These early plays were called “offices” or “tropes". They had the function of transmitting the message of the Bible to those believers who did not understand Latin. They were celebrated in liturgical celebrations of the Christian year: Easter, Christmas, and Carnival. These forms evolved from rigid interpretations of the Biblical episodes to more theatrical forms, with added characters and passages→ Secularization Later these plays were moved out of the church into the street, where the platform sets were arranged around an area in which the audience could stand or move from place to place in a prescribed order. The platforms were often elaborate in their decoration and stage machinery. With the shift to the streets, acting was transferred from the priesthood to the amateurs of the guilds or professional players. These new theatrical forms received the name of Mystery plays. The mystery plays were performed in English by secular performers in secular dress and accented by folk music and dance. They consisted of a series of religious scenes, which were first static and later were represented in a moving carriage or pageant (“paso”), which left the church in procession. While the liturgical plays may have influenced the content of the mystery plays, another probable influence in the well-established tradition of processions, dances, mummings, and folk plays, celebrated as Spring and Summer rites. The mystery plays were organized in cycles or chains of scenes from the Old and New Testament, starting with the Creation and finishing with the Final Judgment Day. All the mystery plays were written anonymously, probably by friars (the earliest ones preserved belong to 1370). The mystery play represents one of the most important achievement of Medieval English literature. From the social point of view, they were amazing communal works which involved the whole town for several days. The morality play is an allegorical drama that became popular in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages (15th and 16th centuries). In it the characters personify moral qualities (such as charity or vice) or abstractions (as death or youth), with the purpose of teaching a moral lesson. The action of the morality play centers on the dramatization of the life of man, from birth until death, when he is judged. A famous morality play was Mankind, which tells the story of its hero (Mankind) whose inherent weaknesses are assaulted by such personified diabolic forces as the Seven Deadly Sins but who may choose redemption and obtain the help of the Four Daughters of God (Mercy, Justice, Temperance, and Truth). THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Reformation and departure from religious theatre Henry VIII and the promotion of the new humanistic culture Evolution of the primitive dramatic forms towards pre-Elizabethan drama The Interludes: About the end of the fifteenth century a new kind of Morality play appeared. In the earlier Moralities, time was not an object, nor was there need to limit the number of actors, but little by little, as performances began to take place indoors, in the hall of a king or a noble, and as they passed into the hands of professional actors, compression began to be necessary both in time and in the number of personages introduced. The aim of the play, also, became gradually more secular. The result was a modified and shortened Morality known as an Interlude. The meaning of this term is not yet clearly defined. Its primary meaning is that of a play in dialogue between two or more performers, but its secondary meaning, that of a dramatic diversion in the pause or interlude between the parts of a banquet or other entertainment, which has been generally given to it, may still stand. This type of play was often used as a means of asserting Protestantism against Catholicism. Occasionally, it was used as a comic diversion between the more serious parts of a sacred play; or as one of the features of medieval vaudeville in a program of juggling acts, necromancy, and wrestling. Gradually the interlude acquired a courtly character; but it was also employed, during the period of religious strife, as a means of propaganda. It was essentially witty and full of action. The nature of the Moral Interlude and its close connection with the earlier Morality proper is, however, clear. It deals with portions only of a man's life; and the ethical teaching, in some interludes, is mainly limited to warnings against certain sins (especially those of youth) and in others to exhortations to learning and study. Main characteristics of the Interludes: • The language: The resource introduced by Seneca was called stichomya, the dialogue in alternative rhymed lines. Speeches were meant to be declamatory rather than performed. • The characters: they are always moved by violent passion. Seneca is interested in the development of ideas. • The atmosphere of violence and horror, which probably reflected the atmosphere of Nero’s court. • The stoicism, which is Seneca’s philosophical bent. From his philosophy we can extract his attitude versus death and revenge. THE BEGINNING OF PUBLIC THEATRES During the 16th century, the theatre firmly establishes itself in England as a form of entertainment that is liked by all social levels. comedy and tragedy are often combined. In 1567, James Burbage built the first public theatre in London. Before, comedians used to perform in the inn patios, among the coming and going of travellers, servants, grooms and horses. The authorities disliked those public performances and this led the local players to the suburbs, especially to the liberty of Southwark, to which dwellers could access but which remained outside the jurisdiction of the city of London. Under Elisabeth everyone watched the same plays at the playhouses, the court enjoyed the same performances as the commons, but later on, with the development of private theatres, drama became more refined, focusing on the tastes and values of an upper- class audience, as it became a business. Actors: The social position of the actors, with some exceptions, was not a very respected one. The life of the actor was meant to be so exhausting that women were not considered fit for it. Each actor was supposed to play at least four or five different roles in each performance, given the enormous quantity of characters in Elizabethan plays, both tragedies and comedies, in the comparison to the small number of actors each company had. Women were not allowed to perform. Being female actresses forbidden, they were substituted by young boys dressing female costumes and who had a very high voice tone. They were obliged to wear white make up, which had a lead base that made it poisonous. Many of them presented skin diseases and many others directly died. Often the actors were part of the decoration. They played the role of trees or maybe the sun when there was no other way to put it on stage. It also helped giving those elements life, as for example, in the case of personifications. PRIMITIVE ENGLISH COMEDY: LATIN AND ITALIAN INFLUENCES Early Tudor courtiers such as Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, wrote powerful versions of Petrarch's sonnets. Shakespeare's plays were also inspired by the anthologist William Painter, gathered his translations of racy novelle by Boccaccio, Matteo Bandello, and Giraldi Cinthio. Dante has been the most frequently translated Italian writer into English. THE PRIMITIVE ENGLISH TRAGEDY During the years 1551 and 1590, the English stage lived dominated by the influence of the Latin author of tragedies called Seneca. The most important aspects of Seneca’s theatre that were adopted by the English theatre can be summarized in five points: 1. In Seneca’s tragedies the monologues and speeches are very long and the action nearly non-existent. These plays were not written to be performed but to be recited in front of the emperor. 2. The language: The resource introduced by Seneca was called stichomya, the dialogue in alternative rhymed lines. 3. The characters: they are always moved by violent passion. Seneca is interested in the development of ideas. 4. The atmosphere of violence and horror. 5. The stoicism. The plot of the typical revenge tragedy was always similar: A person in power kills another, whose relative feels moved to seek revenge. Seneca also influenced the structure of these plays, which will be invariantly divided in five acts. ANALYSING POETRY Duplets: two-syllable rhythms.This rhythm links words together in order to make them fit inside the pattern established. Types of Meters in Poetry: Iambic: A foot which starts with an unaccented and ends with an accented. Trochaic: It begins with an accented then followed by an unaccented syllable. Dactylic: A foot including an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. Kinds of metrical lines: Monometer= one foot on a line Dimeter= two feet on a line Trimeter= three feet on a line Tetrameter= four feet on a line Pentameter= five feet on a line Hexameter= six feet on a line Heptameter= seven feet on a line Octometer= eight feet on a line Types of Accentual-Syllabic Meter Iambic pentameter: is one of the most popular metrical schemes in English poetry. Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse bears a close resemblance to the rhythms of ordinary speech, giving poetry a natural feel. Shakespeare’s plays are written primarily in blank verse. Ballad: A narrative poem, common in traditional folk poetry and song. Free verse: Verse that does not conform to any fixed meter or rhyme scheme. Types of stanzas Couplet= a two line stanza. Two types of couplets are: • The heroic couplet: rhyming iambic pentameter. • Short couplet: tetrameter. Tercet = a three line stanza. Quatrain = a four line stanza. • Heroic quatrain: iambic pentameter and rhyming ABAB. • The ballad stanza is a variant of the quatrain (most commonly lines of iambic tetrameter alternate with iambic trimester (also called chevy-chase stanza), with rhyme scheme: ABCB or ABAB. Ottava rima: (ABABABCC) Lord Byron in Don Juan. • The Spenserian stanza (used by Edmund Spenser in The Fairy Queen). Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. Sonnet: Petrarchan (octave + sestet) • English or Shakesperean (3 quatrains and 1 couplet, with a rhyme scheme that normally is: abab cdcd efef gg). • Spenserian sonnet: abab bcbc cdcd ee. Types of rhyme: Near rhyme: The words share EITHER the same vowel or consonant sound BUT NOT BOTH. Other sound effects are created by: Enjambment: sentences run on from one line to the next. Image: a word or sequence that refers to any sensory experience. Metaphor: A direct comparison of two unlike things. Metonymy: Ex: Synecdoche is a type of metonymy (a part to refer to the whole. Simile: A comparison of two things. Extended metaphor Implied metaphor Hyperbole Personification DOCTOR FAUSTUS Doctor Faustus was first published in quarto form in 1604. It was written between 1588-1592. From the start, the name of Christopher Marlowe appears in the cover as the author, however, there is historical evidence that points towards a multiple authorship. Sources: • Johann Faust (1488) bragged he had sold his soul to the devil for magical powers. He wandered Germany until his death in 1541. • In 1587 a story about him appeared in Germany. • In 1592 it was translated into English and first performed: THE HISTORIE of the damnable life, and deserued death of Doctor Iohn Faustus. • Printed by Thomas Orwin and translated into English from German by P.F. Gent. Play Structure and Literary Tradition: Modern texts divide the play into five acts; act 5 being the shortest. As in many Elizabethan plays, there is a chorus who does not interact with the other characters but rather provides an introduction and conclusion to the play and gives an introduction to the events that have unfolded at the beginning of some acts. MEDIEVAL ELEMENTS: • Superficial similarities with morality plays Moreover, there is also conflict in the fairy world, but the fairies will deal with it in a more relaxed, playful way. The play fulfils very well the three classical unities of time (day, night, day, night), place (Athenian palace, woods) and action (the theme of love and marriage). The wood as well as the night, represents a magical space, where every transformation and form of insanity is possible. The return to the palace and to daylight brings rationality and puts things in place. Each group –Theseus and Hippolyta, the quartet of lovers, the artisans and the fairies- has its own progressive story and they are all manipulated in clearly symmetrical patterns. It has been greatly admired the way Shakespeare connects the different plot lines using parallelisms. For example, Puck and Bottom are both the jesters of the play, however whereas Puck is conscious of every joke Bottom sees none. The action reaches a threshold of complication –when the greatest amount of participants are ignorant of the greatest amount of facts. The characters: Theseus, represents rationality and maturity, also in love. Oberon and Titania represent the other side of the coin. They are a little crazy but also more passionate and vibrant. Oberon is benevolent but also a cheater, a jealous husband, somewhat imperfect, and ironically more human and closer to the audience. Oberon and Titania’s warfare has an effect on nature, therefore they are irresponsible rulers. It is interesting to note that the final pairing of the lovers accords with the original choice made by the girls, in which they remain constant. Hermia is spirited and warm-blooded, tender in happy love, a warrior in anger. Helena is much more the lady: very feminine and aware of it. Though she cannot avoid following Demetrius, the pursuit offends her womanhood. She betrays her friend and demeans herself. Both wrongs spring from the same psychological origin, loss of self- confidence as a result of being abandoned by Demetrius. Language: A Midsummer Night's Dream contains different registers and type of language use, which help identify the characters and set the tone for each scene. The three most common types of verse in the play are: iambic pentameter, rhymed verse, and catalectic trochaic tetrameter, which will be described next. There are also passages in prose. ▲ Blank verse or unrhymed iambic pentameter Mainly reserved for the nobles. This is considered a fancy way to talk and it helps separate upper class characters from the commoners of the play. ▲ Rhymed Verse: When the young Athenian lovers (also members of the nobility) speak passionately about love, their lines of poetry tend to rhyme, like in Helena’s soliloquy, when she reflects upon the nature of love. This rhyme pattern is formed using "heroic couplets". Heroic couplets are just rhyming pairs of verse in iambic pentameter. ▲ Catalectic Trochaic Tetrameter (The Fairies). It is an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable (regular rhythmic pattern). When the last syllable of the line is cut off, it is called catalectic trochaic tetrameter. Shakespeare was a big fan of using trochaic verse for supernatural beings like fairies (and the Witches in Macbeth) because it is light and airy. ▲ Prose (the Mechanicals) Ordinary folks like the Mechanicals (craftsmen) usually do not talk in a special rhythm—they just talk. Bombast is boastful or ranting language. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, bombast is used most often by bottom as a humorous indication of his arrogant stupidity and ignorance. He also uses it when he is with the fairy queen Titania by constantly boasting of his qualities. Also adding much comedy to the play is the use of malapropism, which is the misuse of words. The “rude mechanicals” are the main characters who use this. One example of this element of language is the way Quince uses the wrong order of words in the sentences he speaks when introducing their play to the Duke in the final scene. There are many other instances in which both he, Bottom, and the other mechanicals use the wrong words. The use of irony is also a constant throughout the play. It can be both verbal and/or dramatic. Verbal irony is where something is said while the speaker intends another meaning besides the obvious. Examples of this may be seen in scene 5.1 where Theseus and company frequently make fun of the mechanicals’ performance. They state the obvious, while often meaning something deeper that the mechanicals often miss. Dramatic irony is when one scene, event, or line contrasts sharply with another. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, there are many instances of this. The instant change in Demetrius’ attitude towards Helena is ironic – he says he cannot possibly love her, then becomes madly in love with her. Lysander likewise says he could never cease to love Hermia, then falls madly for Helena. In this example, irony is both humorous and tragic. Humorous because for Helena, the sudden change of events is good. Tragic because they are not so great for Hermia. There is also the irony of the audience knowing what is happening throughout, while the characters do not know about the fairies (Puck). When Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, we know who is who, but he does not. And of course, he does not realize his mistake. This is ironic because our knowledge contrasts with his ignorance (along with most of the other characters in the play) to give his actions special meaning to the audience. Again, this use of irony is what makes A Midsummer Night’s Dream both comic and tragic. It is highly comical when confusion reigns, yet it is also sobering and tragic to realize the extreme chaos and randomness everything experiences in the play. Irony then gives deeper meaning to the words and events in this play. It serves to both lighten and make heavier the entire mood of the play.