Renaissance Drama Notes & Questions

RENAISSANCE DRAMA 1. GENRE TRAGEDY/COMEDY 'The whole doctrine of comedies and tragedies is a perfect imitation of fair, lively painted pictures of the life of every degree of man' (Roger Ascham). How far do any two or more plays of the period aspire to naturalistic mimesis? 'Jacobean plays were no longer simply tragedies or comedies. The interlacing of cruelty in comedy and farce in tragedy saw to that.' "The roots of English Renaissance tragedy are more likely to be found in the native morality play than in Seneca" - SPANISH TRAGEDY? 'And when a man is come to mature years, and that reason in him is confirmed with serious learning and long experience, then shall he, in reading tragedies, execrate and abhor the intolerable life of tyrants, and shall condemn the folly and dotage expressed by poets lascivious' (SIR THOMAS ELYOT) 'Tragedy openeth the greatest wounds and showeth forth the ulcers that are covered with tissue.'(SIDNEY) Consider how tyranny is dramatized in early modern tragedy 'If we present a tragedy, we include the fatal and abortive ends of such as commit notorious murders, which is aggravated and acted with all the art that may be, to terrify men from the like abhorred practices.'(HEYWOOD) How do tragedians (actors AND/OR playwrights) of the period 'aggravate' violence with 'art'? Aside from the characters who populate them, revenge tragedies are distinguished by the convoluted structures of deception and intrigue which constitute their narratives' Ben Jonson said that a tragic writer should aim at 'truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution, fulnesses and frequencie of sentence" Write an essay on at least three plays from the period, based on one or more of the following quotations "You can deceive men, but you cannot deceive worms" (Revenger's Tragedy) "is not the whole world included in myself" (A New Way to Pay Old Debts By Philip Massinger) "We are merely the star' tennis--balls, struck and banded / which way please them" -- John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi-- "Who seem most crafty prove oft times most fooles" - A Maid in Cheapside -- Middleton "Tis time to die, when we are our selves our foes" - The Revenger's Tragedy V.iii.154 'The Spanish Tragedy is in many respects the archetypal Elizabethan play.' Discuss, with reference to at least THREE plays from the period. As the staple interest of the comedies is dirt, so the staple interest of the tragedies is crime" is this fair to comedy and or tragedy? THEMES WHAT IS TRAGEDY / IT'S FUCTION - CATHARSIS? USE OF VIOLENCE - DIFFERENCE TO COMEDY - REFLECTION OF SOCIETY / POLITICS - CRIME / TRAGRESSIONS - CLASSICAL INFLUENCE 2. FEMINISM STUFF "On the stage they were impersonated by boys, on the page they were ventriloquised by men. Only in the writings of such female authors as Aemilia Lanyer or Mary Wroth do we hear the authentic voice of English Renaissance women" "Woman to Man / is either a god or a wolf" The White Devil. Does Jacobean drama present less dualistic views? 3. POLITICS To what extend did either the public and / or private playhouses afford outlets for political opposition "Twas somewhat wittily carried, though we say it" (The Revenger's Tragedy" Does wit overshadow ethics in Jacobean Drama? Do you find anything in the drama of the period to support the claim that it is concerned with 'a questioning of what it means to be human'?  4. STAGECRAFT / THEATRE CONTEXT: How do knowledge of playhouse design and or conventions of stagecraft affect your assessment of one or more dramatists of the period? .To what extent has recent research into the London playhouses changed understanding of the plays performed in them? Plays were performed with a minimum of scenic and mechanical aids, in costumes whose lavishness would surprise us' (Peter Thomson). What do you think were the most significant aspects of the shaping of dramatic work by theatrical conditions? 'Today I go to Blackfriar's Playhouse' (BEN JONSON). How does an understanding of early modem theatres inform your reading of the plays written for them? THEMES: PLAYHOUSE PROPS / DESIGN SHAPING DRAMA - HOW DOES THIS INFORM THE PLAYS? PLAYS 5. THE FUNCTIONS OF DRAMA Discuss the place of didacticism on the early modern stage. Write on the interplay between truth and feigning on the page and or stage in this period. "Then is there left no Mahomet, no God, No fiend, no Fortune ... " (Marlowe) Explore some of the ways in which early modem drama seems to promote transgressive thought and/or behaviour. 'The fundamental unit of dramatic activity, and the ultimate source of dramatic truth is, of course, the human body.' (GARY WALKER) Do you agree with this view of early modem 'dramatic activity'? Dekker's imagination made him one with the outcasts and scum of the earth" The theater was permitted to rehearse the dark side of Elizabethan culture; it was a recreative spot where sedition could wear the face of play, where authors could make assertions as potent as monarchs' (JONA THAN GOLDBERG) THE DUCHESS OF MALFI - WEBSTER (1613/14) -- JACO THE REVENGER'S TRAGEDY - THOMAS MIDDLETON -(1606? - JACO) THE SPANISH TRAGEDY - THOMAS KYD -- 1582--1593 -- ELIZ THE ROARING GIRL - MIDDLETON AND DEKKER 1607--10 JACO THE SHOEMAKERS TRAGEDY: THOMAS DEKKER --1599 -- ELIZ TAMBURLANE - PART 1/11 - MARLOWE - 1587--88? -- ELIZ DR FAUSTUS - MARLOWE - 1594 - 97 (PERFORMED 25 TIMES) - ELIZ, PUBLISHED IN 1604 

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