Storia dell'Inghilterra: I Tudor e il Teatro elisabettiano, Appunti di Inglese

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THE TUDORS Henry VII (1485-1509) ● he imposed high taxes + banned nobles from raising their armies ● he had to face Yorkist plots ● he sponsored John Cabot to explore eastern America → discovered Nova Scotia ● Erasmus from Rotterdam brought Humanism to Oxford and Cambridge ● Sir Thomas More brought the origins of Protestantism ● he married Arthur to Catherine of Aragon and his daughter to the Kings of france and Scotland ● he left England stable and at peace with France and Scotland Henry VIII (1509-1547) ● he attacked Luther and was called “defender of the faith” by the pope ● he got dispensation and married Catherine of Aragon, with whom he had Mary ○ he asked the pope for divorce, but he refused ● he broke with Rome and married Anne Boleyn, with whom he had Elizabeth ● 1534: Act of of Supremacy → he became the “Supreme Head of the Church of England” ● he deprived the monasteries of their lands to reward the nobles who supported him ● a new social class was born, the gentry ● 1536: Anne Boleyn was executed for treason ● he had 4 more wives → had Edward with Jane Seymour Edward VI (1547-1553) ● he studied history and Protestant theology ● he made protestant doctrine fully accepted ● religious services were held in English ● the Book of Common Prayer was compulsory ● before dying he named Lady Jane Grey as his successor but was killed after 9 days Mary I (1553-1558) ● she wanted to restore Catholicism in England ● she married Philip II of Spain → England ally of France and Spain ● restoration of Catholic rituals and heresy laws ● she had >300 protestants burned at the stake → “Bloody Mary” ● she left an ill-governed reign Elizabeth I (1558-1603) ● golden age → stability, religious toleration and victory at sea ● seen as the defender of the nation and the preserver of peace ● 1559: re-introduced the acts of supremacy and uniformity ● 1569: 39 articles of anglican faith ● allowed religious tolerance ● marriageability was a weapon ⇒ she pretended she wanted to marry a king but in reality didn’t and in the meantime she prepared England to fight both Spain and France ● royal progresses → regular tours around the country (propaganda) ● she encouraged her sea captains to explore new land and look for treasure ○ Sir Walter Raleigh went to South America ○ Sir Francis Drake combined royal authority with piracy seizing the gold carried by Spanish ships ● named James, King of Scotland, as her successor Danger from Scotland Mary, Queen of Scots, returned to England after her husband, the king of France, died. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII and had a claim to the throne. She married Lord Darnley and had a son, James. She went to England and was arrested and kept prisoner. She began to conspire against Elizabeth and was executed for treason in 1587. The defeat of the Spanish Armada ➔ 1586: Spain wanted to invade Britain → Philip II wanted to bring England under the rule of Rome ➔ English ships were faster and better armed ➔ the Spanish escaped to the North Sea → were damaged by a storm ➔ failed invasion ⇒ English supremacy at sea THEATER The origins ● it was related to religious celebrations ● necessity to convey chief events to illiterate people ● it took place in the nave of churches, afterwards they were moved outside ● Latin was replaced by English Miracle Plays ● 13th - 14th century ● episodes of the Bible ● each pageant was a fraction of a complete story ● actors were amateurs → members of the Trade Guilds ○ they belonged to a guild connected with the pageant to be performed ● grouped in 4 cycles ● comic touch → greater realism ● took place with good weather Morality Plays ● characters weren’t from the Bible ● conflict between good and evil ● allegorical form ● characters → personification of human vices and virtues ● psychological interpretation ● invented plots ● clownish characters anticipated the Shakespearean “Fool” Interludes ● short play ● performed by a small company ● comic + serius elements ● actors became professional and formed companies and were under the patronage of important lords Reasons for development ● permanent theaters were built in the South Bank ● were economic enterprises ● the public was more trained in listening than in reading ● most famous theaters → the Swan, the Globe Structure ● were round or octagonal ● 12m high, open to the sky ● 3 tiers of roofed galleries ● pit → poorer spectators stood ● apron stage: rectangular, no curtains, partially covered by a thatched roof, had 2 pillars ● tiring house → where the actors changed their costumes ● inner stage → used for discoveries or concealments ● upper stage → used by musicians and was hidden by a curtain Audience ● they ate and drank ● they could laugh or cry ● they spoke ● had romantic affairs in the galleries ● they enjoyed horror and history plays Actors ● they joined a company ● their shareholding depended on the sum invested to buy props and costumes ● they had 2 weeks to prepare the play ● played different roles in the same performance ● 5-6 boys who played female roles ○ learnt feminine gestures and intonation Sources ● Commedia dell’Arte ● Niccolò Machiavelli ● greek tragedies ● Seneca → division of the play in 5 acts ● Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy → the play within the play EVERYMAN ● it is a morality play ● it was a Dutch play ● it belongs to oral tradition and to a theater of artisans and merchants ● Everyman is a merchant and his sin it that he makes profits ○ honest and quite simple man ● God is harsh and vindictive ○ reflection of authority → denies the middle class to enjoy what they’ve earned ● death is the end of life → punishment ● the dependence on earthly values will lead to solitude ● solitude is the consequence of human vanity ● rhymed couplets Summary Everyman is summoned by Death and finds out that none of his friends will accompany him, only Good Deeds is faithful to him. However, he is not ready to go and asks for more time before appearing before God. He realizes that everything he has loved during his life will not help him on his journey to the grave. EDMUND SPENSER 1552-1599 Life ● he born in London and went to Cambridge ● he was appointed secretary to the Governor of Ireland, where he spent the rest of his life ● he was considered by many as the most accomplished of Elizabethan poets Works ● The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579) ○ archaic pastoral ● The Faerie Queene (1590-96) ○ epic dedicated to Elizabeth ○ used Spenserian Stanza → 9-line stanza in iambic pentameter + final line in iamic hexameter (Alexandrine) ○ rhyme scheme: AB AB BC BC C ● Amoretti (1595) ○ sonnet sequence ○ addressed to Elizabeth Boyle, his wife-to-be ○ happy lover ○ rhyme scheme: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE One day I wrote her name ● the struggle of the poet to immortalize his beloved ● one day her body will decay as much as her name disappeared from the sand ● Spenser answers to his beloved → while less beautiful things are mortal and will decay ● someone as beautiful as she is deserves to live forever → though lasting fame ● her name will live on thanks to his writing ● he will write her name in heaven so after life they will both have a richer life together Ye tradeful merchants ● praises his lady’s beauty ● asks merchants why they look all over the world to buy precious things when the most beautiful thing is in front of them (his lady) ● 12 lines describe her beauty conventionally ● couplet → establishes that her mind is the richest quality that she has ● while everyone can see her beauty, only a few know her well to be acquainted with her mind WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE 1564 - 1616 ● he was born on 23/04/1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon ● he attended a grammar school, where he studied the English language and classical authors ● he married Anne Hathaway and had 3 children ● 1584: left Stratford because he was caught poaching and went to London ● 1593: received support from the Earl of Southampton, a private patron ● he became a shareholder and the main playwright of the Lord’s Chamberlain’s Men (most successful company of actors) ● 1599: he built the Globe Theater ● 1590-1596: he wrote historical dramas ● During the plagues, theatres were closed and he wrote two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece ● 1593-1600: he wrote 10 comedies ● 1595-1605: wrote the great tragedies ● he died in 1616 in Stratford and was buried in the local church ● 1623: his friends published 36 of his plays on one volume, the First Folio SONNETS ● 1592-1598: he wrote 145 sonnets (published in 1609) ● were sent to his patron, the Earl of Southampton ● Shakespeare didn’t indicate any proper order ● “fair youth”, addressed to H.W. ○ sonnets I-XVII → he encourages him to marry and have children in order to preserve his beauty ○ sonnets XVIII-CXXVI → destructive power of time and moral weakness (beauty will defeat death and time) ● “dark lady” ○ physically unattractive ○ he finds her irresistibly desirable ● “rival poet” ○ addresses poems to the young man ○ description of his own unhappiness ● THEMES: time, death, love, beauty, art ● worth and beauty are addressed to a man ● sonnets devoted to a woman are negative and non-conventional ● dramatic → analysis of emotions and behavior (theater’s influence) ● STYLE: rich and vivid descriptions, dramatic quality Shall I compare thee (18) He asks if he should compare his beloved to a summer’s day, but he does not. He says that she is more lovely and temperate. Summer, in fact, tends towards extremes: it’s often too hot and has rough winds. Moreover, summer leads to autumn and it doesn’t last forever. In the final quatrain he says how his beloved differs from summer: his beauty will last forever and never die. His beloved’s beauty won’t perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever (the ability of art to preserve beauty) Analysis ● rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG ● sun is compared to “the hot eye of heaven” ● the young man doesn’t need to have children to preserve his beauty, but art will preserve it ● he speaks directly to his lover (pronoun “he”) ● dramatic → similar to a dialogue ● language is simple and not too heavy ● theme: relationship between art and time ● writing about him will preserve his beauty in time → art Like as the waves (60) He says that minutes replace one another just like the waves on the shore. In the second quatrain he describes a human life comparing it to the sun: at birth it rises over the ocean (nativity), then it crawls toward noon (maturity), then it dies (eclipse). In the third quatrain, time is described as a monster: it kills the flower of youth, it causes wrinkles in the brow of beauty and it mows down everything that stands with his scythe. In the couplet he opposes his verses to time: he says that his poem will stand in future times and it will continue to praise the beauty of his beloved despite the cruelty of time. Analysis ● 1 quatrain → metaphor of the tide (minutes are like waves) ● 2 quatrain → metaphor of the sun during the day (passage of human life) ● 3 quatrain → metaphor of time represented as a monster (devours nature/beauty) ● couplet → his verses will live on despite the cruelty of time (solution to the passing of time) ● poems will remain immortal and enable the young man’s beauty to live forever