Elizabethan Drama

• Renaissance drama
• Influence of Seneca, a Roman Philosopher and author of several ‘closet’
dramas (created primarily for reading and not intended to be performed
onstage)
• Seneca’s plays are composed in five acts
• Features: Long rhetorical speeches, blood- curdling plots, horrible
crimes and ghosts
• Gorboduc / Ferrex and Porrex (1562)—first tragedy in English– written
by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton; modelled on Seneca;first play
to be written in Blank verse
• Examples of Senecan revenge tragedy– Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy,
Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, John Webster’s
The Duchess of Malfi etc..
• English comedies carry traces of classical writers like Terence and
Plautus
• First Comedy– Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister (1551)
• Second comedy– Gammer Gurton’s Needle written either by William
Stevenson or John Still
ELIZABETHAN TRAGEDY
• Did not follow classical rules strictly
• Has been called romantic tragedy
• Disregarded unities of place, time and action
• Elaborate subplots were used
• Mixed tragedy and comedy to form tragi-comedy
• Gave importance to action, spectacle and sensation
• Acted violence on stage (classical drama used to report violence earlier)
• Elements of Senecan (revenge) tragedy
UNIVERSITY WITS
• Groups of poets/ playwrights who attended either the Universities of
Oxford or Cambridge
• These poets and playwrights pioneered Elizabethan Drama
• Individual, subjective perception of the world- Renaissance trait
• The term first used by George Saintsbury
• The Oxford School
--John Lyly
--George Peele
--Thomas Lodge
• The Cambridge School
--Robert Greene
--Thomas Nashe
--Christopher Marlowe
• Humanistic education at the universities
• Condemned those who were not university- educated
• Heroic themes
• Violent incidents, emotions
• Protagonists are unconventional non- conformists
John Lyly
• Major prose stylist
• Drew themes from Classical mythology
--Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit; put forth the idea of Euphism(formal,
elaborate, stylized prose with rhetorical questions, long similies and
learned allusions)
--Euphues and His England
--Midas
--Love’s Metamorphosis
--The Women in the Moon (only play in Blank Verse)
George Peele
• The Arraignment of Paris
• The Battle of Alcazar
• Edward 1
• The OldWives’ Tale
• A Farewell to Arms
Thomas Kyd
• The Spanish Tragedy/ Hieronimo is Mad Again
--first proper Revenge tragedy/ Senecan Tragedy
--Intense personal passion, madness as metaphor
--representation of violence, bloodshed, murders, conspiracies, presence of
Ghost etc., play within a play etc.. on stage (Senecan/Revenge tragedy
features)
• Believed to have wrote ‘Ur- Hamlet’
• Wrote Senecan Tragedy, ‘Cornelia’
• Influenced Shakespeare’s Hamlet and John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi
• The Spanish Tragedy
--well constructed play
--passion, fear, pathos depicted
--strong, external action
--dialogue-forceful and capable
--revenge theme on stage
--play within a play- used for the first time
--new type of tragic hero– infused with passion, madness that is
feigned or real
--subtlety of characterization
--Hieronimo brings English Drama to Hamlet
Thomas Lodge
• Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays
• Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie(1590)
• A Fig for Momus (1595)– introduced classical satire and verse epistle
for the first time into English
• Collaborated with Shakespeare in Henry VI, part 2
Robert Greene
• Got degrees from both Oxford as well as Cambridge
• A Groatsworth of Wit (1592)—”an upstart crow beautified with our
feathers…the only Shake-scene in a country”- reference to
Shakespeare by the protagonist of this work
• Imitated Marlovian style
• Friar Bacon and Fraiar Bongay
• James IV
• Alphonsus, King of Aragon
THOMAS NASHE
• Collaborated with Ben Jonson in his ‘Isle of Dogs’, for which they were
executed
• Christ’s tears over Jerusalem
• The Unfortunate Traveller or , The Life of Jack Wilton (1594)
--first picaresque novel in English
--Rogue-hero Jack Wilton’s journey through Italy and Germany as a
page to Earl of Surrey
--strong, personalized narrative of adventure
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
“the first great poet, the father of English tragedy and the creator of Blank
Verse”
• Tamburlaine the Great
• The Jew of Malta(1592)
• Edward II
• Doctor Faustus
• The Tragedy of Dido
• The Massacre at Paris
• Hero and Leander
• Marlovian Hero
--anti- heroes
--humble beginnings, rise to power and wealth
--lust for power followed by tragedy
--Ambivalent, violent, masculine, ruthless, yet winning sympathies
--inner conflicts
--Renaissance spirit(beauty, knowledge, power)
--Hubris (inordinate pride)
--Monomania (single- minded pursuit of a goal
• Marlowe’s Mighty line- Marlowe’s use of Blank Verse
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Born on 23 April 1564 at Stratford- upon Avon, London
• Was called ‘Bard of Avon’
• Ben Jonson: ‘not of an age, but of all ages’
• “Soul of the age!
The applause, the delight, the wonder of stage”– Ben Jonson
• The First Folio (1623)—compiled by John Heminges and Henry
Condell
--first collected edition of all of Shakespeare’s works; only 36 plays are
included in the First Folio(Pericles not included)
• In total, he wrote;
• 37 plays
• 154 sonnets
• 2 or 4 long poems
Classification
• 1. First period: period of experimentation (1587-95)
• 2. Second period: period of rapid growth. Mastered his art!(1595-
1600)
• 3. Third period: period of gloom and full maturity. Focused on the
problem of evil in the world(1600- 07)
• 4. Fourth period: period of serenity. Creates a new drama form (tragi-
comedy)(1607-1611)
Literary career
• Early period of experimentation
--plays written in Blank Verse
--two long narrative poems: Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece
• Other two poems: The Phoenix and the turtle, A Lover’s Complaint
• Early comedies
--Love’s labour’s lost
--The Two Gentlemen of Verona
--The Comedy of Errors
• Early tragedies
--Titus and Andronicus
--Romeo and Juliet
• English Histories
--Minor tetralogy : Henry VI Parts 1,2, 3 and Richard III
--Major tetralogy: Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1, 2 and Henry V
--King John
--Henry VIII
• Mature Comedies
-- A Midsummer Night’s Dream
--Much Ado About Nothing
--Twelfth Night or What You Will
--The Merchant of Venice
--As You Like It
--All’s Well That Ends Well
--Measure for Measure
--Troilus and Cressida
Features of Shakespearean Comedy
• Romantic element
• Unities of time, place and action – not observed
• Romance and realism(related to real life. Characters and incidents are
from real life)
• Love (romantic comedy mostly ends in ringing marriage bells)
• Heroines in Shakespearean Comedy play leading roles and they often
surpass their male counterparts
• Disguise- dramatic technique employed in Comedies (young boys play
women’s roles. No actresses were there on Elizabethan stage.)
• Presence of Fools (they create humour and laughter and interlink the
main plot with subplots. They provide running commentary on
character and action)
• Humour is the soul of Shakespearean comedy
• Humour arousing thoughtful laughter
• Comedy radiating the spirit of humanity and broad vision of life
• Through his comedies, Shakespeare neither preaches, nor teaches, he
only illuminates
Great Tragedies
• Hamlet
• Othello
• King Lear
• Macbeth
--related concepts: tragic flaw, catharsis
Features of Shakespearean Tragedy
• Tragic hero
-rise and fall of the protagonist, ultimately resulting in his death
-troubled part of hero’s life is depicted; his tale of suffering and
calamity
-tragic heroes are persons of high degree with the noblest of qualities
-his fall from the height of earthly greatness to dust
-powerlessness of man
-that no one can escape the caprice of fate
• Catharsis
-fall of tragic hero arousing the feelings of pity and fear
-thereby purging the spectators of their excessive emotions
-pity is aroused owing to the fall of such a great man from earthly
heights
-fear is aroused from the consciousness that the same fate can befall
on us
-this purification of emotions by arousing the feelings of pity and fear
while witnessing the fall of tragic hero is termed as catharsis
-tragedy elevates, ennobles and exalts us
• Hamartia/tragic flaw
-flaw in the character of the hero that ultimately leads to his downfall and
death
-tragic flaw of Macbeth – vaulting ambition
-tragic flaw of Hamlet- noble inaction
-tragic flaw of King Lear- the incapacity to judge human character
• Importance to character and destiny
• Abnormal conditions of mind (like insanity, hallucination etc.)
• Use of supernatural elements (presence of ghosts, witches, etc.)
• Conflict is the soul of tragedy
• There is no poetic justice in Shakespeare’s tragedy (ie, it is true to life. Evil
is destroyed root and branch at the end, but at the cost of the good.)
Roman Plays
• Julius Ceaser
• Antony and Cleopatra
• Coriolanus

TRAGI-COMEDIES
• Cymbeline
• Pericles
• The Winter’s Tale
• The Tempest
Features of tragi-comedy
• Mixture of good and bad, sorrow and joy, tears and smiles, pessimism and
optimism, separation and union- finally lighted with a ray of hope
• They are neither comedies or tragedies
• Tragic incidents would be there but it ends happily
• Otherwise called Dramatic Romances
• They are “full of gentle and loving calm of one who has known sin and
sorrow and fate but has risen above them with peaceful victory”
• Serenity, recognition of human frailty, deep sense of the need of
repentance and duty of forgiveness, unending optimism are some features
• Romantic atmosphere and supernaturalism
• Women characters are portrayed with charity and kindness
• Songs, Music and Dance
Shakespeare’s Historical plays
• Victory in Spanish Armada during Elizabethan age infusing the spirit
of patriotism, nationalism and integration
• Historical plays chronologically delineates 1200- 1550 periods
• Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3
• Richard II, Richard III, King John
• Henry IV, parts 1, 2
• Henry V
• Henry VIII
• Sources of Shakespeare Historical plays
- Old Chronicles of Hall, Stowe and Holinshed
- Cared for dramatic and imaginative truth more than historical facts
Sonnets
• 154 sonnets
• Mostly published between 1592-98
• First published by Thomas Thorpe in quarto form (1609)
• First 126 sonnets addressed to W. H. (could be Henry Wriothesley,
Earl of Southampton or William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke)
• Next 26 sonnets addressed to Dark Lady (could be Mary Fitton or
Emilia Lanier)
• Last two sonnets are about Cupid
• 3 quatrains and a couplet
• Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg
• Themes : love, broken trust of friend, loss of love, forgiveness etc..
• Mention of a rival poet is there; most probably it is George Chapman
• Depart from Petrarchan conventions
• Subvert conventional gender roles
• Not idealized, but a complex and troubled view of love
Ben Jonson(1572-1637)
• Actor and playwright with Lord Admiral’s Company in 1597
• Imprisoned for writing the satirical play ‘The Isle of Dogs’(1597)
• Wrote masques for private performances in King James’ court
• Everyman in His Humour (1598)- Belonged to the genre of ‘Comedy of
Humours’
• Buried in Westminster Abbey with the epitaph “O rare Ben Jonson!”
Comedy of Humours
• Technique of Characterization
• Individual is marked by one characteristic distortion or eccentricity
based on 4 humours:
-- Blood– Sanguine (social and pleasure seeking)
--Phlegm—Phlegmatic (relaxed and quiet)
--Choler(yellow bile)—Choleric (ambitious and leader-like)
--Melancholy (black bile)--meloncholic—(introverted and thoughtful)
• Pioneered realism (“to hold a mirror up to nature”)and neoclassicism
• Familiar world of everyday experience, themes, characters, language
from real life taken
• Vivid representation of London life; depravity and moral failings of
London
• Neoclassical in spirit and aim at reforming, instructing society and
individuals
• Chief function of literature is to instruct
• ridicule the vices of the city
Important works
• Cynthia’s Revels (1600)
--satirizes the humours of the court
• The Poetaster (1600)
--result of a quarrel with his contemporaries– levelled at the false
standards of the poets of the age
• Volpone or The Fox (1605)
-keen and merciless analysis of a man governed by an overwhelming love
of money for its own sake
• Epicene or The Silent Woman (1609)
• The Alchemist (1610)
• Bartholomew Fair (1614)
• Two tragedies : Sejanus(1603) and Cataline (1611)
• Masques were performed in favour of James I and Queen Anne
--The Satyr
--Masque of Blackness
--The Masque of Queens
Features of Ben Jonson’s Comedies
• Realism
• Exclusion of tragic and comic elements
 Other lesser known dramatists
• John Webster- The Duchess of Malfi
• Philip Massinger: A New way to pay Old Debts
• John Ford: The Broken Heart
• Beaumont and Fletcher: Philaster , A King and no King

• For your info: for Elizabethan prose (Sir Francis Bacon and Authorised
version of Bible) and Elizabethan Theatre, kindly refer your text