bbl 3208 week 1
TRANSCRIPT
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WEEK 1
BBL 3208SHAKESPEARE AND
RENAISSANCE DRAMA
-Overview of History of
Elizabethan Era.
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Main objectives of the course are:
By the end of this course, students are ableto:
1. identify the Elizabethan dramatic
convention (P1);2. conduct detailed research regardingShakespeares plays and hiscontemporaries (A4);
3. manage relevant information fromvarious sources (LL1).
2Week One
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The module used for this course
Week One 4
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ASSESSMENT
ESSAY 1 (10%) - DUE - WEEK 6
MID SEMESTER EXAMINATION - (30%)
ESSAY TWO - (20%) - DUE - WEEK 12
FINAL EXAMINATION - (40%)
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HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
Political Changes
The century and a half following the death of Chaucer(1400-1550) is the most volcanic period of English history.
The land is swept by vast changes, inseparable from the
rapid accumulation of national power; but since power is
the most dangerous of gifts until men have learned tocontrol it, these changes seem at first to have no specific
aim or direction. Henry V, whose unpredictable yet
energetic life, as depicted by Shakespeare, was typical of
the life of his times.
Henry led his army abroad, in the apparently impossible
attempt to gain for himself three things: a French wife, a
French income, and the French crown itself.
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The battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415, and five
years later, by the Treaty of Troyes, Franceacknowledged his right to all his outrageousdemands.
In the long reign of Henry VIII the changes are less
violent, but have more purpose and significance.His age is marked by a steady increase in thenational power at home and abroad, by theentrance of the Reformation, and by the finalseparation of England from all religious bondage.
In previous reigns chivalry and the old feudalsystem had practically been banished; nowmonasticism, the third medival institution with itsmixed evil and good, monasteries and the removal
of abbots from the House of Lords was expected.
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While England during this period was in constantpolitical strife, yet rising slowly to heights of
national greatness was the introduction of the
printing press. Printing was brought to England
by Caxton (c. 1476), and for the first time inhistory it was possible for a book or an idea to
reach the whole nation. Schools and universities
were established in place of the old
monasteries; Greek ideas and Greek culture
came to England in the Renaissance, and man's
spiritual freedom was proclaimed in the
Reformation.
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The great names of the period are
numerous and significant, but literature is
strangely silent. Probably the very turmoilof the age prevented any literary
development, for literature is one of the
arts of peace; it requires quiet and
meditation rather than activity, and the
stirring life of the Renaissance had first to
be lived before it could express itself in the
new literature of the Elizabethan period.
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The term Renaissance, though used by many writers "to
denote the whole transition from the Middle Ages to the
modern world,"is more correctly applied to the revival of
art resulting from the discovery and imitation of classic
models in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Humanism applies to the revival of classic literature, and
was so called by its leaders, following the example of
Petrarch, because they held that the study of the
classics, literae humaniores,--i.e. the "more humanwritings," rather than the old theology,--was the best
means of promoting the largest human interests.
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The two greatest books which appeared in England
during this period are undoubtedly Erasmus'sPraise of
Folly(Encomium Moriae) and More's Utopia, the famous
"Kingdom of Nowhere." Both were written in Latin, but
were speedily translated into all European languages.
The Praise of Folly is like a song of victory for the New
Learning, which had driven away vice, ignorance, and
superstition, the three foes of humanity. It was published
in 1511 after the accession of Henry VIII. Folly is
represented as donning cap and bells and mounting aplatform, where the vice and cruelty of kings, the
selfishness and ignorance of the clergy, and the foolish
standards of education are satirized without mercy.
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More's Utopia, published in 1516, is a powerful andoriginal study of social conditions, unlike anythingwhich had ever appeared in any literature. Morelearns from a sailor, one of Amerigo Vespucci'scompanions, of a wonderful Kingdom of Nowhere,
in which all questions of labor, government,society, and religion have been easily settled bysimple justice and common sense.
In this Utopia we find for the first time, as thefoundations of civilized society, the three greatwords, Liberty, Fraternity, Equality, which retainedtheir inspiration through all the violence of theFrench Revolution and which are still theunrealized ideal of every free government.
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As he hears of this wonderful country Morewonders why, after fifteen centuries of Christianity,his own land is so little civilized; and as we readthe book to-day we ask ourselves the samequestion. The splendid dream is still far from being
realized; yet it seems as if any nation couldbecome Utopia in a single generation, so simpleand just are the requirements.
Greater than either of these books, in its influenceupon the common people, is Tyndale's translation
of the New Testament (1525), which fixed astandard of good English, and at the same timebrought that standard not only to scholars but tothe homes of the common people.
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Tyndale made his translation from the originalGreek, and later translated parts of the OldTestament from the Hebrew.
Much of Tyndale's work was included inCranmer's Bible, known also as the Great Bible,in 1539, and was read in every parish church inEngland.
It was the foundation for the Authorized Version,which appeared nearly a century later andbecame the standard for the whole English-speaking race.
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THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)
POLITICAL SUMMARY
In the Age of Elizabeth all doubt seems to vanishfrom English history. After the reigns of Edward
and Mary, with defeat and humiliation abroad
and persecutions and rebellion at home, theaccession of a popular sovereign was like the
sunrise after a long night, and, in Milton's words,
we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant
nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after
sleep, and shaking her invincible locks."
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It is enough therefore, to point out two facts: that
Elizabeth, with all her vanity and inconsistency,
steadily loved England and England's greatness;
and that she inspired all her people with the
unbounded patriotism which exults in
Shakespeare, and with the personal devotion
which finds a voice in the Faery Queen. Underher administration the English national life
progressed by gigantic leaps rather than by slow
historical process, and English literature reached
the very highest point of its development. It ispossible to indicate only a few general
characteristics of this great age which had a
direct bearing upon its literature.
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Characteristics of the Elizabethan Age
The most characteristic feature of the age
was the comparative religious tolerance,which was due largely to the queen'sinfluence. The frightful excesses of the
religious war known as the Thirty Years'War on the Continent found no parallel inEngland. Upon her accession Elizabethfound the whole kingdom divided against
itself; the North was largely Catholic, whilethe southern counties were as stronglyProtestant.
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Scotland had followed the Reformation in its ownintense way, while Ireland remained true to itsold religious traditions, and both countries wereopenly rebellious.
The court, made up of both parties, witnessedthe rival intrigues of those who sought to gainthe royal favor.
It was due partly to the intense absorption ofmen's minds in religious questions that thepreceding century, though an age of advancinglearning, produced scarcely any literature worthyof the name.
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Elizabeth favored both religious parties,and presently the world saw with
amazement Catholics and Protestants
acting together as trusted counselors of agreat sovereign. The defeat of the Spanish
Armada established the Reformation as a
fact in England, and at the same timeunited all Englishmen in a magnificent
national enthusiasm.
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For the first time since the Reformationbegan, the fundamental question of
religious toleration seemed to be settled,
and the mind of man, freed from religious
fears and persecutions, turned with a great
creative impulse to other forms of activity.
It is partly from this new freedom of the
mind that the Age of Elizabeth received itsgreat literary stimulus.
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It was an age of comparative socialcontentment, in strong contrast with thedays of Langland. The rapid increase ofmanufacturing towns gave employment tothousands who had before been idle anddiscontented. Increasing trade broughtenormous wealth to England, and this
wealth was shared to this extent, at least,that for the first time some systematic carefor the needy was attempted.
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Parishes were made responsible fortheir own poor, and the wealthy weretaxed to support them or give thememployment. The increase of wealth,the improvement in living, theopportunities for labor, the new socialcontent--these also are factors which
help to account for the new literaryactivity.
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It is an age of dreams, of adventure, of
unbounded enthusiasm springing from thenew lands of fabulous riches revealed by
English explorers. Drake sails around the
world, shaping the mighty course whichEnglish colonizers shall follow through the
centuries; and presently the young
philosopher Bacon is saying confidently, "Ihave taken all knowledge for my province."
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The mind must search farther than theeye; with new, rich lands opened to thesight, the imagination must create newforms to people the new worlds. Hakluyt's
famous Collection of Voyages,and Purchas, His Pilgrimage, were evenmore stimulating to the Englishimagination than to the English
acquisitiveness.
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While her explorers search the new world
for the Fountain of Youth, her poets are
creating literary works that are young
forever. Marston writes: "Why, man, all
their dripping pans are pure gold. Theprisoners they take are fettered in gold;
and as for rubies and diamonds, they goe
forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by theseashore to hang on their children's
coates."
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This comes nearer to being a description ofShakespeare's poetry than of the Indians inVirginia. Prospero, in The Tempest, with hiscontrol over the mighty powers and harmonies ofnature, is only the literary dream of that science
which had just begun to grapple with the forcesof the universe. Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert,Raleigh, Willoughby, Hawkins,--a score ofexplorers reveal a new earth to men's eyes, and
instantly literature creates a new heaven tomatch it. So dreams and deeds increase side byside, and the dream is ever greater than thedeed. That is the meaning of literature.
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To sum up, the Age of Elizabeth was a time ofintellectual liberty, of growing intelligence and
comfort among all classes, of unbounded
patriotism, and of peace at home and abroad.
For a parallel we must go back to the Age ofPericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or
go forward a little to the magnificent court of
Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine, and Molire
brought the drama in France to the point where
Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Jonson had left it in
England half a century earlier.
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Such an age of great thought and great action,
appealing to the eyes as well as to the
imagination and intellect, finds but one adequate
literary expression; neither poetry nor the story
can express the whole man,--his thought,feeling, action, and the resulting character;
hence in the Age of Elizabeth literature turned
instinctively to the drama and brought it rapidly
to the highest stage of its development.