SHAKESPEARE: contesto storico, sonetti, opere teatrali, stile, temi e nascita del teatro, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica SHAKESPEARE: contesto storico, sonetti, opere teatrali, stile, temi e nascita del teatro e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! SHAKESPEARE The shakespearean theatre People began to be interested in other topics, not only religious, they began to organize vacant, not professional, actors, who wanted to earn some money, not an acting company. They would organize performances in the yard of inns of courts, buildings where the law was administered or where people could go and sleep for one night. They hoped people could give them some money, so they organized short performances and they started collecting some money, so it got a sort of job, because they expected some money back from work. It was not a very well paid job first, and also actors couldn’t really rely on a regular income, it was not always certain, because yard were in the open air, so during the seasons of heavy rains they couldn’t perform. Actors were considered a sort of criminals, the borderline was very undefined. When they could not earn as actors, they would earn it in other ways. Vagrancy was forbidden. So people were arrested and could be sentenced to death. Being an actor was like a synonymous of being a bandied. They were masterless equal, so they had no connection with any big of the area. People needed a patron to protect them (like Shakespeare), but these people had no one to guarantee for them. The profession was not a very good one, not many people wanted to become actors, even Molier could not be buried, because actors didn’t deserve a religious burial. When the season was good people were interested so they would go and pay. In the mid of XV century miracle, mystery and morality play disappeared. In 1453 Costantinopoli falls, so many books from that area arrived in Europe, and among the many books knowledge was spread around Europe and Seneca was extremely appreciated. In Seneca they found an author who would deal with bloody scenes, murders, killings and people started to represents some of Seneca’s works and to write work similar to Seneca’s with a lot of killings and poisoning. Fake blood was often used on the scene. The stage was organized on barrels and they would put on top some wooden planks to organize the stage. It was something which could be removed quite easily. The success of these events determined the need of something more stable. So in 1476 The Theatre was built in London, the first one, then many others. Shakespeare theatre was called the Globe, he was an actor and a dramatist and a sonneteer. He had a patron and he participated in the construction of his theatre. Outside there was a man, Hercules, holding the globe representing strength. They were wooden theaters, Shakespeare’s was with eight sides, not really circular, the more sides it had the more circular it seemed. The Globe was also called by Shakespeare himself The Wooden O. The Swan had 24 sides so looked more circular. They had no roof, so they were in the open air. There were three galleries for rich people. The stage was injected in the PIT. The audience would stand in the groundling. One event would last something like 2-3 hours. The stage was elevated and there was a sort of trapdoor in order to remove the bodies of some dead characters or to make one spirit appear all of a sudden. There were no curtains to separate the stage from the pit so at the end of every play you could understand the play was over when all the actors left. There was a balcony scene for the actors like Giulietta’s balcony which could be covered by curtains. It’s called the apron stage. The rich people instead of standing they could pay more and sit on the stage but there were no women, who could not be actresses. So female characters were played by young boys. There was no roof, the circular perimeter was covered by a thatched roof, which was polygonal, not perfectly circle because it was wooden. There was no curtain on the stage, only a curtain to hide the back of the stage. Later on was developed an iron curtain, which had to stop flames and fires in case of a fire. Props (properties) are items used and placed on stage. Acting companies bought old, but still beautiful clothes, from the servants of some aristocratic people and patrons. Colors and clothes were important: if they wore purple they were part of the clergy. Many puritans were against performances for two reasons: 1. The counter reform had already taken place and many new religious groups were created denouncing the corruption of the church. The puritan grew stronger and stronger and they were very strict, only religion, the Bible and work. Ambition was not a bad thing because for expected hard work by everybody, who had to work really hard. Nothing else than hard work and the reading of the Bible. In this period there is a rise of literacy, because we’re created schools so that puritan could read the Bible. Anything which is sacred shouldn’t be represented so even religious play were not admitted. Drama is evil. When religious performances were abandoned the puritans didn’t want people to stop working and go to the theatre. Anything performed on stage was fake for them and so not good, against god. Second, many people in London would go to the theatre for enjoyment so even poor people apprentices would stop work and go. 2. Plus, the spread of bubonic plague was a big problem because people wold meet. Elizabeth loved dramas and would go tour on progress, which were trips around the country to supervise. Many aristocratic people were happy to have her at their castle. The puritans were part of the middle class and they would make English economy be good and stronger than before. In London there were a lot of theatres. The Globe was built in 1599, and not all of them were inside of towns because the puritans said it was dangerous for the league so they were built in the backside, outside of the city, so it took time to go to the theatre, cross the Thames. So many working days were lost to go to theaters. There were flags: black flags for tragedies and red ones for historical play/ history and white for comedies. Each comedy would do thirty performances per year. There was not much written text, but actors had to improvise. The actors only knew about the plot and then had to improvise. They knew only their parts, so that the plots were not spelled to other companies. There were pirated editions of the same play, because the other companies would send someone to write the words of the performances but it was sort of a bastard of the same thing, not the true and best one, but written by someone from another acting company. Shakespeare was a shareholder of the theaters he acted so was the author and actor and the owner of his works, published in small pieces of paper, in 1623 there was the first edition on a big piece of paper, The First In folio, not folded in four. Acting companies were made of about twenty actors, not many, so there was doubling, exploited by Shakespeare : the practice to give one actor more than one role, so that the same actor would have roles with something in common. This is a big limit, because the two characters couldn’t be on that stage at the same time, so Shakespeare was very good at devising the scene in such a way that it was not strange to see two characters at the same time, very thing is very natural. Plus, women could not be actresses so very often we have scenes where men are dressed and disguised as women: cross-dressing, which was mainly in comedy and romances. It was used in order to justify the presence of feminine roles, but in Shakespeare’s works there are not many women. Very often you have men disguised as women, but more often women as men (Portia in the Merchant of Venice, which is a tragic comedy) For instanced Kyd Merlows tragedies stack to the classic-Greek division of comedy and tragedy, when Shakespeare started to write he wrote tragic comedies and also histories, which are historical plays. In tragic comedies he should insert some something nice to relax the atmosphere and entertain the audience. The Aristotelian unity of time, space and action was important too. The time is often historical, Shakespeare would mix sources and come up with something excellent. The places are not so many, often castles. Places don’t vary a lot, there were not great changes. At the beginning for action there was only one plot, then he added a secondary plot. To entail: comportare We have public theaters and also little private theaters in mansions, the third type was the blackfriar which was a convent where there where children, who were used to perform with their young voices. Because of the apron stage the way of acting changed all of a sudden. The actors were now completely surrounded by the audience, so they could just whisper and everyone would hear. It was not necessary to scream. Monologues started to be performed and soliloquies too. -In 1558 she fell ill and died Elizabeth I -England’s golden age -In 1559 she consolidated the Reformation by re-introducting the act of supremacy -Church doctrine= Protestant= 39 articles of Anglican faith of 1562 -She ruled and died as a virgin= virgin queen -She took regular tours around the country= 'royal progresses' -She got Mary Stuart executed in 1587 -She encouraged her sea captains to explore new lands (ex. Walter Raleigh) -In 1586 she defeated the invincible armada, sent by Philip II of Spain -Elizabeth died in 1603 saying that James Stuart should succeed her The chain of being -Medieval view of the world that represents the universal order -Hierarchy= God as spirit, spirituals beings ora angels, human beings, animals, plants, inanimate world -Men=share the body with the lower creations and the spirit with the higher ones -Parts of the chain: Macrocosm (nature and skies) Microcosm (human body as a map of the universe) The body politic (kingdom) The English Renaissance -It develops later that it’s European equivalents -The influence of Italy is immense James I -He wrote treaties in English and Latin but believed in witchcraft -He believed that the monarch was the representative of God on earth -He ordered the building of the queen’s house at Greenwich as a gift to his wife Anne Gunpowder plot -In 1604 he held a conference at Somerset house to sign a peace treaty with Spain -Catholics are excluded from Hampton Court= a group of them led by Guy Fawkes organised a Gunpowder plot to blow up the parliament on 5th November 1605 -Plotters were executed -In 1620 the pilgrim fathers left England for America on the Mayflower Charles I -James’s son (1625-1649)=very fond of art -1628=Petition of Right = The king could not imprisonment without trial, or impose taxes without the consent of the Commons -1635= tax on coastal towns for their defence -1640s= The Short Parliament doesn’t want to give him money for his campaign in Scotland —> a new parliament was elected= Long parliament= Eat a reflected the change in wealth that are taken place in the Tudor period with a shift from the mid evil church and the landed aristocracy to a rising middle-class of small landowners, city merchants and professions -1642= The king entered the House of Commons to arrest its five most extremes MPs (members of Parliament) -The king raises an army of Royalists and declared war THE SONNET The Petrarchan sonnet -Invented in the first half of the 13th century by Iacopo da Lentini -An octave (representing an issue/situation) rhyming ABBA ABBA and a sestet (containing the solution of the problem) rhyming CDE CDE or CDC CDC The Shakespearean sonnet -Introduced by sir Wyatt and sir Howard -Three quatrains (to present a theme) and a couplet (as a conclusion), rhyming ABBA ABBA CDDC EE -Shakespeare changed the rhyme scheme into ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, the final couplet summed up the thought with epigrammatic force -Elizabeth sonneteers showed their abilities in the use of conceits (elaborated extended metaphor that characterises a whole stanza/poem) -The queen was often referred to by poets as ‘Cynthia’ or ‘the Faerie Queene’ Themes and language -Love and desire for a lady who cannot return the poet’s love -Lady=representation of physical and moral perfection -The poet is led to madness and despair -The psychology of love is expressed through the use of oxymorons -Shakespeare introduced other themes like beauty, decay and art THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMA Origins+Reasons -Origins linked to medieval religious celebrations (to commemorate great Christian events) -These performances took place in the nave of churches at first, but soon they moved outside -Latin was replaced with English and lay people took the place of monks and priests in these performances -Drama=Elizabethan art -The Elizabethan age was characterised by a wide range of interests and vitality of language -Entertainment was rooted in the communal life of medieval towns and villages -Public performances were illegal in the City of London, so theatres were increasingly built on the South Bank, easily accessible across the Thames The structure of Elizabethan theatres -lames Burbage (1531-97) built the first permanent theatres, the Theatre (1576) and the Curtain (1577), north of the walls of London. -Permanent theatres were circular or octagonal -Three tiers of roofed galleries, looking down on the stage, and the yard, or pit'; where the poorer spectators, or 'groundlings', stood -The stage itself, technically known as an 'apron stage’=actors were surrounded on three sides. -Thatched roof+trap door+tiring house (place where the actors get changed) in the back of the stage -Behind the stage there was an inner stage -No curtain BUT upper stage hidden by a curtain+ balcony Elizabethan and modern theatres -Intimate and direct communication -Soliloquy is frequently used to express thoughts and intensions -no scenery+ plays took place in the daylight -For night scenes a simple candle or torch represented the night world -The action was continuous -Time and locality were usually mentioned in the dialogue -Women did not act Sources -Playwrights borrowed freely from popular sources= the characters and situations were often allegorical types and the plays contained scenes of vivid caricature and realistic comedy -Italian plays are one of the sources= Commedia dell’arte travelled throughout England in the 16th century -Horrors, unnatural crimes, vice and corruption are taken from Machiavelli -Blood scenes and incidents are takes from Seneca WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE Biography -Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564 (possibly on the 23rd, St. George’s day—>also said to be the date of his death in 1616) -His father was a yeoman (successful tradesman) -William was the eldest and he attended grammar school -He married Anne Hathaway when he was 18, she was 26 [they had Susanna+ Judith and Hamnet (twins)] -He went to London in 1584 (caught deer-hunting?) -In 1593 the London theatres were closed because of the plague= William needed a private patron -He received support from a young nobleman, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated his poems -Between 1590 and 1596 he wrote historical plays -In 1599 his company built the Globe Theatre -Between 1593 and 1600 he put 10 comedies onto the stage -The great tragedies were written between 1595 and 1605 -Seven years after his death, in 1623, his fellow actors published the First Folio, an edition of his 36 plays in one volume WILLIAM’S SONNETS The shakespearean sonnet -Published in 1609, probably written in the 1590s -154 sonnets in decasyllables -Three quatrains+ final couplet (turning point in the ninth line) Fair Youth, Dark Lady, and Time -Not necessarily put in a chronological order+ they have no title -Sections: 1) Addressed to a 'Fair Youth’, probably Shakespeare’s patron—> organised in= 1. Sonnets I to XVIII devoted to the theme of increase. William encourages the young man to marry and preserve his beauty through his children 2. Sonnets XIX to CXXVI deal with different topics= destructive power of time and moral weakness (time as an active antagonist) 3. Sonnets LXXVIII and LXXXVI are concerned with a rival poet 2) Section from sonnet CXXVII to the end bis addressed to the Dark lady= physically unattractive but irresistibly desirable -Shakespeare breaks it with the Petrarchan courting tradition Themes -The traditional love poems praising women’s worth beauty are addressed by Shakespeare to a young man -Poems addressed to a woman are negative and non-conventional -Death, love, beauty, art -Analysis of emotions and behaviours= consciousness of the complexity of human feelings -Belmont= world of ideal love where women seem to have more power than in Venice + it is alive with music and it is an idyllic place Characters -Jews were portrayed as villains and they were marginalised -Shylock= he is a complex character who shows humanity by looking for vengeance+ he is an outsider + due to his disgrace, the audience pities him -Antonio= he is worse than he seems + he doesn’t stop mistreating shylock throughout the play -Bassanio= he woos Portia to have her money but in the end he actually falls for her —> he still is not a good example in the beginning, given that he squandered everything he had Themes -Love and hate= in this play we can see the love of a friend (ex. Antonio e Bassanio), the love of a family (ex. Portia’s actions are linked to her father’s will), romantic love (ex. Jessica and Lorenzo, Portia and Bassanio…)+ the love for money and possessions and the hatred that comes from that -Mercy, justice, revenge= mercy is presented as an ideal (Portia’s speech)+ it is also presented inside of its relationship with justice, from different points of view (Chriastians and jews)+ revenge (Shylock) -Appearance and reality= disguises and deceptions+ idea of the value and worth (the whole plot is about money, debts and punishment) MACBETH Plot -First act=the attempted invasion of Scotland (helped by the traitor Thane of Cowdor) has failed thanks to Macbeth’s courage+ Macbeth and his friend Banquo meet three witches greet Macbeth as “Thane of Cowdor” and they say he will become king of Scotland—> Macbeth plans to kill Duncan -Second act= Macbeth murders Duncan and the king’s servants are blamed+ Malcom and Donalbain (the king’s sons) leave Scotland= Macbeth is on the throne but Banquo and Macduff are suspicious -Third act=Macbeth does not feel safe because the prophecy says that the crown will fall to Banquo’s son—> he decides to kill Banco and his son Fleance—> Fleance escapes and Banquo’s ghost hunts Macbeth -Fourth act=the three witch warn Macbeth to beware of Macduff—> Macbeth murders Macduff's wife and their children -Fifth act= Lady Macbeth’s madness (she walks in her sleep)+ Malcom is marching into Scotland+ Macduff kills Macbeth and the play ends with Macduff holding Macbeth’s head and proclaiming Malcom king of Scotland Setting -It is the only play set in Scotland in the 11th century -Fog and thunderstorm in the beginning -Macbeth's castle in Inverness and then the palace in Dunisnane -Contrast between the ideas of natural and unnatural, fairness and foulness, security and danger Characters -Three witches= supernatural characters who have malicious intentions and prophetic powers -Macbeth=highly respected soldier who becomes a tragic hero throughout the play + at the end of the play he is alone because of his ambition and his decisions—> his death is the consequence of his own actions+ he is aware of everything he is doing and he experiences terrors, but he does not compromise= gradual de-humanisation -Lady Macbeth=great strength of will+ she tries to help her husband but in the end madness overwhelms her and she dies Themes -It is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy but the psychological analysis is complex = Macbeth is both hero and villain -Regicide= act against nature that brings chaos, blood and catastrophe -Reversal of values=“Fair is foul and foul is fair” -False appearances -Time= chain of images of growth Style -Striking use of imagery -Duncan is the symbol of social harmony, order, justice and honesty -On the night of the murder the earth trembles=the macrocosm of nature mirrors the chaos of the social microcosm HAMLET Plot -First act= Hamlet and his friend Horatio arrange a night meeting with hamlet’s father, who claims he was killed by his brother Claudius (now king with Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother) -Second act= Hamlet pretends to be mad but Ophelia’s father, polonius, thinks he is mad due to his love for Ophelia -Third act= Hamlet kills Polonius during a fight and Claudius sends him to England to get rid of him -Fourth act= Ophelia gets mad and drowns herself, her brother, Laertes, looks for revenge against Hamlet -Fifth act=Gertrude died poisoned by some wine Hamlet was supposed to drink, Laertes denounces the king and they both die, Hamlet dies too Setting -Set in the late middle ages, royal castle in Elsinore (Denmark)= protestant country The character of Hamlet -Most talkative shakespearean character+ his language is characterised by ambiguity= everything is conveyed through metaphor, simile and wordplay—> his words have hidden meanings -He complains throughout the play because he has to play a part he does not believe in -The shock he receives on the death of his father and her mother's re-marriage is the cause of his melancholy Themes -Revenge tragedy+ relationship between father and son, mother and son, hamlet and his friends+ love relationships+ madness+ youth and age+ action and inaction+ the corruption linked to power+ the existence of god and life after death+ the meaning of theatre itself -Play of life and death -Division between appearance and reality -Honour and honourable actions Structure -In the third act there is a play within the play which is the only true thing in the play since it was wanted by hamlet to expose his father’s murder OTHELLO Plot -First act=Othello has secretly married the daughter of a nobleman, Desdemóna and he sets out with her to Cyprus -Second act=Iago tells the audience his plan to separate Othello and Desdemona -Third act=Iago manages to convince Othello that desdemona is actually in love with Cassio and he finds a way to “prove" her unfaithfulness -Fourt act=Othello gets jealous and kills his wife -Fifth act=Othello strangles Desdemona in her bed and he stabs himself when he understands he has been tricked+ Cassio becomes the governor of Cyprus -Only Shakespearean tragedy that starts and finishes during the night Date, source, setting -Written between 1602 and 1604 -Italy= Othello is full of passion, jealousy and the play is full of sexual tension -Othello is a moor, a black man Characters -At the beginning of the play Othello is the champions honesty and he behaves as a perfect christian+ he is a linear character who believes in a world made of values—> he starts to act insanely after this harmony is broken -Iago is a black soul, a villain and he is cruel= at the end he is a real loser -Desdemona is presented as a simple object of desire and jealousy+ she is sincere and confident+ she is presented from two different points of view= Iago’s (vulgar) and Othello’s (praise) Themes -Jelousy= Othello’s jealousy is one of the main themes -Blackness vs whiteness= positive and negative forces THE TEMPEST Plot -First act= tempest near an enchanted island+ Alonso, king of Naples, Ferdinand, Antonio, Duke of Milan and their court are shipwrecked and they end up on that island, where they meet Prospero, a magician, and his daughter Miranda+ Prospero used to be the duke of Milan but his brother Antonio plotted against him—>when he arrived on that island he overcame Sycorax (the with who lived on the island), he enslaved Caliban (Sycorax’s son), and he freed Ariel (a supernatural spirit) -Second act= King Alonso is in despair because he thinks hi son, Ferdinand, has drowned+ Ferdinand meets miranda and falls for her -Third act= Ferdinand is tested by prospero while Caliban, Trinculo and Stephano plot against him —> Ariel reports their plan to prospero -Fourth act= Ferdinand and Miranda entertain each other while prospero plans his revenge -Fifth act= Miranda and Ferdinand get married, Prospero forgives his brother and comes back to milan+ Ariel is released Setting -A ship at sea and an island and the action takes place within three hours -The island makes it theatrical and it makes it the ideal stage for a series of magical occurrences that involve in exotic, strange, and invisible characters Characters -The symbols of prospero’s power as a magician are his books, source of his supernatural knowledge+ his robe and his wand -Ariel is a spirit of the air who is very fast, invisible, and able to change it’s appearance -Caliban is the only native of the island, he is Sycorax’s son and he is evil+ he tried to rape Miranda and prospero enslaved him for that+ he is associated with darkness -Miranda is the symbol of purity and female perfection Themes -Last period of n Shakespeare’s work and it is characterised by serenity in human relationships -It proves that good can come form evil= there is no tragic ending -Forgiveness= it all ends in peace -The element of magic+ representation of theatrical illusion