The Elizabethan Theatre before Shakespeare

1. THE ELIZABETHAN THEATRE BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

Lecture 8
Трякина Светлана Анатольевна,
ГОУ СОШ №1232, г. Москва

2. The Foundations of the Glorious English Drama of the Renaissance.

Besides fine works of poetry and prose in the
Elizabethan age, dramatic art also flourished
and reached the greatest height.

3. The Middle Ages knew 3 main types of performances:

1.
RELIGIOUS
The Mystery plays
(dramatic episodes from
the Bible )
DRAMA
The Miracle plays
(episodes from the
lives of saints)
The Morality plays
(allegorical performances, where
virtues and vices struggled for
the human soul)
Between the episodes of these plays, comic scenes
were usually acted, they had almost no relation
to the story. They were called interludes.

4.

5. 2. There was also another type of performance in English cities- the pageants- pantomimes reenacting episodes from the history

2.
There was also another type of
performance in English citiesthe pageants- pantomimes
reenacting episodes from the history
of that particular city.

6. 3. England of the 16th century also knew plays staged by university students. They were plays by Roman dramatists: Seneca,

Plautus and Terence.
They were acted in Latin.

7. Later on, original English plays written in imitation of these authors, began to appear.

8. The First Theatres

In the middle of the 16th
century there were
companies of strolling
actors, who performed in
town squares, inn-yard
and manor-houses.
But in 1572 Queen
Elizabeth I issued a
decree against
vagabonds, so many of
these companies enlisted
as servants of some peer
and began to settle down.

9. In 1576 the company of the Earl Leicester’s Men built the first playhouse and called it “The Theatre”, using the Greek word for

the first time in England.
It was open to the sky, there
was a sheltered gallery on
three sides, the stage was
a large raised platform, it
came out into the
audience.
Thus, theatres began to be
established, and their
popularity kept growing.
They gave public
performances and were
also invited to the court.

10. THE DRAMATISTS – PREDECESSORS OF SHAKESPEARE

As the public became more demanding and the
art of theatre developed, old plays were
considered too primitive. They did not deal
sufficiently with the problems of the time. The
necessity for new plays became obvious.

11. “THE UNIVERSITY WITS” ( the Academic Dramatists)

Some university graduates answered the
demands of the time. They belonged to the
middle class or gentry. Actually, they were the
first professional authors in England who
earned their living by writing.
Among them were Thomas Kyd, George Peele,
John Lyly, Robert Greene, Christopher
Marlowe and Thomas Nashe.

12. Thomas Kyd

Thomas Kyd set the
standard for the
“revenge” tragedies.
He was the author of a
pre-Shakespearean play
on the subject of
“Hamlet” ( it is lost
now).

13. Thomas Nashe

Thomas Nashe was the
author of the first
picaresque novel in
English literature.
( This genre originates
from Spanish
literature.)
He was also a co-author of
several plays.

14. Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe (1564 –
1593) was two months
older than W.Shakespeare.
He was a true genius among
the University Wits. In 1580
he went to Cambridge on a
scholarship. While a student
he went to the Continent on
a secret mission ( to
establish contacts with
French protestants).
Marlowe’s literary activity
lasted only for a few years.
He was killed in a quarrel
before he was thirty.

15. Marlowe was the author of

- tragedies (“Dido, Queen of Carthage”,
“Tamburlaine”, “The Massacre of Paris”, “The
Jew of Malta””The Tragic History of Dr.
Faustus”);
- a chronicle history play “ Edward II”;
- Poems “Hero and Leander”, “The Passionate
Shepherd to His Love”;
- translations of Roman poets.
He created an immortal place for himself in
English drama and poetry.

16. English theatre at the end of the 16th century Towards the end of the 16th century life in England changed greatly: the primary

accumulated capital was
to be put into circulation; absolute monarchy became
an obstacle to social development.
The Renaissance giants were needed no more.
The ideology of humanism faced a crisis because new
trends of thought, which were hostile to humanism,
appeared. As a result, pessimistic and even morbid
tragedies appeared.
Their authors were John Webster and John Ford.

17. Aristocratic views were reflected in the works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher.

They gave birth to a new
genre, the tragicomedy, which
is not a mixture of tragic and
comic elements, but a play
with a tragic conflict and a
happy ending.
Their plays are always amusing,
masterfully constructed, written
in easy-flowing verse, and have
interesting and very complicated
plots, but in terms of treating
human nature they are superficial
and even shallow.

18. Ben Jonson (1573-1637)

He had a great influence on
Enlish national literature.
He was born in London and
studied at Westminster
School. He was one of the
most educated people of his
time and received honorary
degrees from Oxford and
Cambridge. He started his
career as an actor, and very
soon became a prominent
dramatist. He gained the
friendship of William
Shakespeare and the great
philosopher Francis Bacon.

19. Ben Jonson is the author of the best English satirical comedies.

His comic manner of depicting characters
influenced the whole of English literature.
Among his best works are: “Volpone, or the
Fox”,”The Silent Woman” “The Alchemist”.
From 1605 Ben Jonson started writing masquesexpensive spectacles, involving music, song and
dance, in which nobility and even royalty
would take part.
He was also a fine lyrical poet.

20. The Masque

21. Источники:

1. Кукурян И.Л. “An Outline of English Literature” М.,изд-во МГУ, 1997
2.Иллюстрации:
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