ATTITUDES TOWARD THE DRAMA

IN RENAISSANCE ENGLAND
The Elizabethan and the Jacobean ages are the greatest ages of English drama.
And yet, these were also periods were both poetry and drama were vocally under
attack as morally and politically subversive. There were those who objected to
plays as incitements to vice of all kinds (such as Puritan extremists), and those who
saw plays and playhouses as grounds of civil riots, pestilence and disease. But none
of the two could still extinguish the natural enthusiasm of most Englishmen, in city
and country alike, for “shows” of all kinds, particularly plays. Theatres were closed
for short periods by city officials in case of plague, usual disorder or natural disaster.
And though the Puritans might fulminate sometimes, the drama flourished under
the direct or indirect patronage of the Court, that realized that many dramas were
“virtuous”. Still, the Puritans achieved their goal when Parliament closed the
theatres in 1642 for a period of some 18 years. Even so, surreptitious performances
were given on occasion. We gather some of the catastrophic impact on the theatrical
profession from a little pamphlet called The Actors Remonstrance (1643).
There were other writings that presented the case against plays and players
relating them to street brawls, blaming civil disorder on the existence of
theatres and their professionals as instigators.
Notwithstanding, others took a step forward in a spirited defence of plays
offering an apology for actors and playwrights.
Still other documents (such as letters and testimonies) reflect the low literary
regard in which most contemporary English plays were held by some among
the more serious-minded of society.
Thus, moralists show plays as a microcosm representing all the evils of the world.
“Plays were first invented by the devil”, leading mankind to damnation, “for so often
as they go to those houses where players frequent, they go to Venus’ Palace and
Satan’s Synagogue to worship devils and betray Jesus Christ”. Or, as another
document put it: “Plays comprehend evil and damnable things, wherein is taught
how in our lives and manners we may follow all kind of vice with art”. This is
tantamount to the philistinism in the prudish Victorian society, by which any form
of art was immediately attacked as profitless.
Another contention by the Puritans was related to the regular use of actors to
play all the women’s roles (Cordelia, Bel-Imperia, Titania, Juliet…). This was
radically disapproved of by the Puritans as against the biblical imperative by which
“the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto the man, neither shall the
man put on woman’s raiment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy
God”. Playwrights would, notwithstanding, offer their comic refutation of that
Puritan position.

1
MATCHING ACTIVITIES

1. From the following documents, in your own words, state what is

contended for/against the playhouses, and the theatre “professionals”.
Then match the three excerpts with: 1) an answer to detractors of the
theatre, 2) a Puritan looks at the drama, 3) a letter from the Lord Mayor
of London to the Privy Council.

a) “They are the ordinary places for vagrant persons, masterless men,
thieves, horse-stealers, whoremongers, cozeners, coney-catchers,
contrivers of treason, and other idle and dangerous persons to meet
together and to make their matches to the great displeasure of Almighty
God and the hurt and annoyance of her Majesty's people; which cannot
be prevented nor discovered by the governors of the City for that they
are out of the City's jurisdiction”.
AGAINST. 3) A letter from the Lord Mayor of London to the Privy
Council.

b) “Do they not maintain bawdry, insinuate foolery, and renew the
remembrance of heathen idolatry?”
AGAINST. 2) A puritan looks at the drama.

c) “In plays, all cozenages, all cunning drifte over-gilded with outward
holiness, all stratagems of war, all the cankerworms that breed on the
rust of peace are most lively anatomized: they show the ill-success of
treason, the fall of hasty climbers, the wretched end of usurpers, the
misery of civil dissension, and how just God is evermore in punishing of
murder. And to prove every one of these allegations, could I propound
the circumstances of this play and that play, if I meant to handle this
theme otherwise than obiter (in passing). What should I say more?
(Adapted from Blackmore Evans, G. Elizabethan-Jacobean Drama. A
New Mermaid background book. London, 1987.) Further questions:
What can you summarize as to the conformities, the social and cultural
background? Could you be a theatre professional at the time, how would
you feel about it? Are those pressures represented in the text no longer
felt in our modern societies? What would be the immediate imprint of
such background on the audience at the time?”
FOR. 1) An answer to detractors of the theatre.

2
2. The Elizabethan/Jacobean audience. True or false?
➢ The audience in the days of Elizabeth and James was drawn from all
levels of society. Anyone with the necessary money could, and often did,
attend the theatres in London, included the so-called “private” theatres.
TRUE. Theatres were open to everybody, unless they took place in
Court.
➢ The majority of the clientele of the public playhouses was made up of
tradesmen, yeomen, apprentices, visitors from the country, together
with a generous variety of thieves and prostitutes. TRUE.
➢ The more educated and select patrons attended the “private” theatre.
These were known as the “privileged playgoers”. TRUE.
➢ The population of London by 1576 was 180,000. Of which 15 per cent
belonged to the previous group mention above. TRUE.
➢ The privileged constituted a great diversity of social levels, from the old
nobility and gentry to the upwardly mobile world of business and trade.
TRUE.
➢ 85 per cent of London's population were on bare subsistence level, were
forced to live on long and enforced working hours, had either little time
or money to spend on the theatres except perhaps occasionally on
holidays. TRUE.

3. Match the following excerpts with the following headings: 1) How a

gallant should behave himself in a play-house, 2) the abuse by the
audience and 3) the public making their wishes known.

a) “Marry, let this observation go hand in hand with the rest; or rather like
a country servingman some five yards before them. Present not yourself
on the stage (especially at a new play) until the quaking Prologue hath
rubbing got colour into his cheeks, and is ready to give the trumpets their
cue (for the third sounding, indicating that the play was about to begin)
that he is upon point to enter; for then it is the time, as though you were
one of the properties (stage properties) , or that you dropped out of
hangings, to creep from behind the arras (wall hangings at the rear of the
stage, most often referred to as “curtains”), with your tripos or the three-
footed stool in one hand and a teston (sixpence, the price of a stool, which
allowed him to sit on the stage) mounted between a fore-finger and a
thumb in the other; for, if you should bestow your person upon the vulgar,
when the belly of the house is but half full, your apparel is quite eaten up,
the fashion lot, and the proportion of your body in more danger to be
devoured than if it were served up in the Counter (The Poultry Counter, a
pun for one of London's prisons for debtors) amongst the poultry”.
1) How a gallant should behave himself in a play-house.

3
b) “And unless this were done, and the popular humour satisfied (as
sometimes it so fortuned that the players were refractory) the benches,
the tiles, the laths, the stones, oranges, apples, nuts flew about most
liberally; and, as there were mechanics (low persons of manual
occupations) of all professions, who fell everyone to his own trade and
dissolved a house in an instant and made a ruin of a stately fabric, it was
not then the most mimical (one giving the impression through acting) nor
fighting man... Nothing but noise and tumult fills the house until a cog
take 'um (a device or sudden whim that strikes them), and then the
bawdy-houses, and reform them, and instantly to the Bank'side, where the
poor bears must conclude the riot and fight twenty dogs at a time beside
the butchers, which sometimes fell into the service (in addition to the
butchers who joined in on the baiting of the bear). This performed, and
the horse and Jack-an-Apes for a jig (a dance with dialogues frequently
performed as an afterpiece to a play), they had sport enough that day for
nothing”.
2) The abuse of the audience.

c) “In our assemblies at plays in London, you shall see such heaving, and
shoving, such itching (craving) and shouldering to sit by women: such
care for their garments, that they be not trod on: such eyes to their laps,
that no chips (“motes, specks”) light in them; such pillows to their backs,
that they take no hurt: such masking (pretence) in their ears, I know not
what: such giving them pippons to pass the time; such playing at foot-
saunt (a card game, bawdy implications are obvious) without cards; such
ticking, such toying, (amorous play) such smiling, such winking, and such
manning them home, when the sports are ended, that it is a right (true)
comedy to mark their behaviour, to watch their conceits (tricks) as the
cat for the mouse, and as good as a course at the game (game, pursue the
deer by hounds) itself, to dog them a little, or follow aloof by the print of
their feet, and so discover by slot (mark left by the deer on the soil) where
the deer taketh soil (take refuge in a river or lake, but here meaning the
prostitute's lodging). If this were as well noted as ill seen (the sight of it
being evil), or as openly punished as secretly practised, I have no doubt,
but the cause would be seared (burned with a hot iron) to dry up the
effect, and these pretty rabbits (prostitutes which haunt the theatre for
clients) very cunningly ferreted from their burrows. For they lack
customers all the week...
3) The public making their wishes known.

4
 THE PLAYHOUSES
Elizabethan-Jacobean London was well supplied with theatres, more so than any
other of the European capitals. Among the public theatres (aka “playhouses”), the
most important were (the dates correspond to the year in which they were built):
The first Globe (1598 – 9), furnished with the
remaining materials of “the Theatre”, the earliest
regular public theatre which was torn down.
The Curtain (1577).
The Rose (1587).
The Swam (1595 – 6).
The Globe (1599, burned down 1613, rebuilt
1614 as ‘the Second Globe’).
The Fortune (1600, burnt down 1621, rebuilt in
a circular form by 1623).
The Red Bull (1605).
The Hope (1614; also used for bear-baiting).

Yet there were also the “private” enclosed theatres, such as:
The first and second Blackfriars (1576 – 84, and 1597 respectively)
The Whitefriars (1606)
The Cockpit or Phoenix (originally built for cock-fighting but converted to a
private theatre in 1616 – 17)
The “song school” near St. Paul's, where the Paul's Boys performed up to
1616.

The main difference

between these two
groups lies in the fact
that while most of the
first were located on
the Southwark (on the
other side of the river
Thames), most of the
second were in the
City or on its
immediate environs.
This is evinced by a peek
at the following map −in
which Westminster is
not contemplated but would appear farther left. The reason why the theatres were
located mostly outside the City wall was to avoid riots and pestilence.

5
 London panorama in 1616 (by Visscher)

Another difference is that the private theatres were mostly rectangular

whereas the public ones were either circular or polygonal (but for the Fortune
which was square).
Watching a production at the Globe nowadays, audiences keep wondering how
accurate is this replica and from where do we gather our knowledge of the physical
characteristics both inside and out. These are drawn from a variety of sources such
as:
▪ Panoramic maps giving us only two bull -and bear- baiting arenas on the
Bankside such as the one above.
▪ Sketches of the interior as this of the Swan by Johannes de Witt, c.1596.
builders' contracts for the Fortune (1600) and the Hope (1613).
▪ Stage directions and dialogue in contemporary plays.
▪ Scattered allusions in legal and other official documents and in the literature
of the period.

A striking feature of J.C. Visscher's splendid

view of London (see illustration above) as
published in four sections is that although its
author is believed to have known little of
London the overall effect of his drawing is still
one of the most accurate early XVII cent views
ever done. Also one that really manages to
convey a sense of place and time. Note the
prominence of old St Paul's - towards the left-
and of London Bridge -towards the right-
where the heads of the traitors were displayed
on its South Gate.
Our knowledge of the interior of these playhouses is infuriatingly incomplete if
not controversial. Particularly in relation to the actual stage itself. In builders'
contracts for the Fortune and the Hope there is no mention made of stage entrance
doors, stage traps, the inner or rear stage (the “discovery space” as it has been
called more recently). Neither of the upper stage, the front part of which was often
referred to as the “tarras”. However, the De Witt's drawing of the Swam (above
right) shows two stage entrances with heavy wooden closed doors, pictures
spectators sitting in “rooms” about the rear back wall of the stage, where the upper

6
stage would be expected, but includes no sign of any inner stage or discovery space.
The drawing is probably misleading so far as most of the playhouses were
concerned. There is ample evidence from many stage directions, drawn from plays
performed in different theatres, both public and “private, that an upper and inner
stage were regular features in most theatres. Characters are thus, again and again,
described as entering “above”, “aloft”, “at a window” or “upon the walls”.
“Discoveries” call for the use of an inner stage and were made by opening the
curtains of painted cloth or “arras”. These covered the space at the rear centre of
the main stage. Once the curtains were opened, the inner stage could be absorbed
into the action on the main stage.
In the public theatres, a third level, above the upper stage, seems to have been
occasionally used. Some critics have argued that in some theatres, the Swam
perhaps, when needed had a removable “pavilion” or tent-like structure that was
used replacing a permanent inner stage. Yes, this remains strongly controversial and
it is almost impossible to precise where it existed at all. In any case, the necessity for
some kinds of inner and upper-stage areas, whether recessed or projecting, is
undeniable.
And so, what do we really know about the most famous of all Elizabethan-
Jacobean theatres, Shakespeare's Globe, both in his first and second version? We
have many exterior views as that in Visscher's panoramic view which zoomed in
looks at follows (see left underneath). This plus a slightly more detailed sketch of
around 1640 by Hollar, is all we have. And still, there is controversy, since the
building labelled “The Globe” in Visscher's is, in all likelihood, the Rose, and that in
Hollar's has recently been considered a reconstruction based on mathematical
computations.

7
 So, in the end we have almost no concrete trustworthy information, other than it
was in a polygonal structure. What is for sure is that the seating-standing capacity
of the public theatres was surprisingly large. The larger houses -such as Swan, Globe,
Fortune and Rose- could attract audiences estimated at something over three
thousand, and the other theatres -Theatre and Curtain- could probably
accommodate around two thousand. The capacity of the “private” houses was,
however, much less and has been variously estimated as between five and six
hundred.

MATCHING ACTIVITIES

1. Reading the coming two excerpts, decide which two of the resources
mentioned above do they refer to. I.e., is this a description of a sketched
interior; is it perhaps part of stage directions? etc.

a. “And the said stage to be in all other proportions contrived and

fashioned like unto the stage of the said playhouse called the Globe, with
convenient windows and lights glazed to the said tiring-house, and the
said frame, stage and staircases to be covered with tile and to have a
sufficient gutter of lead to carry and convey the water from the covering
of the said stage to fall backwards. And also, all the said frame and the
staircases thereof to be sufficiently enclosed without with lath, lime and
hair, and the gentlemen's rooms and two-penny rooms to be sealed with
lath, lime and hair, and all the floors of the said galleries, storeys, and
stage to be boarded with good and sufficient new deal boards of whole
thickness where need shall be. And the said house, and other things
beforementioned, to be made and done, to be in all other contributions,
conveyances, fashions, thing and things effected, finished, and done,
according to the manner and fashion of the said house called the Globe,
saving only that all the principal and main posts of the said frame and
stage forward shall be square and wrought pilaster-wise with carved
proportions called satyrs to be placed and set on the top of every of the
same posts.... “

b. The playhouses are so constructed that they play on a raised platform,

so that everyone has a good view. There are different galleries and
places, however, where the seating is better and more comfortable and
therefore more expensive. For whoever cares to stand below only pays
pone English penny, but if he wishes to sit he enters by another door, and
pays another penny, while if he desires to sit in the most comfortable

8
 seats which are cushioned, where he not only sees everything well, but
can also be seen, then he pays yet another English penny at another
door. And during the performance food and drink are carried round the
audience, so that for what one cares to pay one may also have
refreshment. The actors are most expensively and elaborately costumed
for it is the English usage for eminent lords and knights at their decease
to bequeath and leave almost the best of their clothes to their serving
men, which it is unseemly for the latter to wear, so that they offer them
then for sale for a small sum to the actors. How much time then they
may merrily spend daily at the play everyone knows who has ever seen
them play or act.

2. In the reconstructed cutaway of a playhouse, write the following terms on

their corresponding places.

The pit/the groundlings (one penny admission), stage doors, back stage area (tiring-
house), gentlemen's rooms/Lord's rooms, stage trap, middle gallery (two-pennies
rooms), main entrance, gallery above the stage, dressing rooms

9
3. From what we have gathered about the playhouses, can you name this one?
How? What does the sketch reveal about staging? How (di)similar do you think
it is to the Globe? Would the audience feel more (un)comfortable, why?

4. True or false? Are the following statements true or false, would you say?
1) The proliferation of the public theatre was, ironically, an attempt to control the
plays.

2) Permanent playhouses were built on the other side of the Thames, or in the
suburbs of London.

3) As in Simon Schama’s documentary, fencing, wrestling, cock-fighting, and bear-

baiting were all forms of entertainment (as brothels and alehouses) found near
the playhouses. This was a world apart from the courts, palaces and colleagues
of the main city.

4) The Globe was perhaps the most iconic of all playhouses. It is very different from
the Rose playhouse.

5) Permanent playhouses ensured more clientele and larger profits. Yet they did
not provide security nor stability to the actors.

6) Public theatres were indoors and roofed.

7) The best known private playhouse, the Blackfriars theatre was once an old
monastery.

10
 8) All playhouses had cushioned seats in some more selected areas.

9) The insides of the public theatres had gallery seats surrounding the raised stage
which jutted out into the yard or pit.

10) The stage had a trapdoor through which demons, witches and other
“underworld creatures” could emerge.

11) The audience closest to the stage stood under the open sky and on the ground
(and were hence called “groundlings”).

12) A trumpeter dressed in red velvet coat played three “soundings” on his
instrument before the play began.

13) All playhouses had an elaborate orchestra with flutes, violins, flutes and even
an early version of banjos.

14) The fact that players occasionally left London is due to the plague. The covered
wagons in which they stored their goods must have been a welcome sight in the
English countryside.

15) The drawing below shows an accurate representation of a private theatre

which allowed all-weather performances the whole year around.

11
 THE SPANISH TRAGEDY
(by Thomas Kyd)
Thomas Kyd, (baptized Nov. 6, 1558, London Eng.; died c. December 1594,
London), English dramatist who, with his The Spanish Tragedy (also known as
Hieronimo, or Jeronimo, after its protagonist), was the initiator of the revenge
tragedy. Besides anticipating the structure and the development of many revenge
plays and their climaxes, Kyd showed an instinctive sense of tragic situation. As
scholars argue, his characterization of Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy prepared
the way form such complex psychological studies as that of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
We know he was the son of a scrivener, and that he was educated in London. But
there is no evidence that he attended the university before he started producing
plays. The Spanish Tragedy was entered in the Stationers’ Register in October 1592,
and the undated first quarto edition almost certainly appeared in that year. The play
was first staged in the 1580s, there are numerous allusions and editions suggesting
that it was still popular in the 1630s. It remained one of the most popular plays of
the age and was often reprinted.
The only other play certainly by Kyd is Cornelia (1594), an essay in Senecan
tragedy, translated from the French of Robert Garnier’s academic Cornélie. He may
also have written an earlier version of Hamlet, known to scholars as the Ur-Hamlet,
and his hand has sometimes been detected in the anonymous Arden of Feversham,
one of the first domestic tragedies, and in a number of other plays.
About 1591 Kyd was sharing lodgings with Christopher Marlowe, and on May 13,
1593, he was arrested and then tortured, being suspected of treasonable activity.
His room had been searched and certain “atheistic” disputations denying the deity
of Jesus Christ found there. He probably averred then and certainly confirmed later,
in a letter, that these papers had belonged to Marlowe. That letter is the source for
almost everything that is known about Kyd’s life. He was dead by Dec. 30, 1594,
when his mother made a formal repudiation of her son’s debt-ridden estate.
That the plot of The Spanish Tragedy is original is proven by the fact that it was
very much imitated over the following decades. The setting is a battle between Spain
and Portugal. The Portuguese prince Balthazar has been taken prisoner. Ransom is
English Renaissance Drama- Session 18th October 2017 now to be paid to his captor,
a gentleman named Horatio, and the peace treaty is to be secured by Balthazar’s
marriage to the Spanish king’s niece Bel-imperia. But Bel-imperia falls in love with
Horatio; enraged by his misalliance, her brother Lorenzo has Horatio murdered and
Bel-imperia temporally imprisoned. Eventually Horatio’s father, Hieronimo,
discovers who killed his son, and he realises that the criminal is too highly placed to
be reached by the law. He is awaiting an opportunity to exact his own revenge when
he is fortunately asked to arrange a court entertainment. He induces Lorenzo and
Balthazar to perform a tragedy with Bel-imperia.

12
 THE REVENGE TRAGEDY: CONVENTIONS
These are the main revenge tragedies as pioneered by Thomas Kyd, who is
the playwright by which English tragedy took form:
➢ The Spanish Tragedy (around 1582).
➢ The Revenger’s Tragedy (1606, by Thomas Middleton).
➢ The White Devil (1612, by John Webster).
➢ ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore (1629, by John Ford).

1) The Spanish Tragedy, an exceptionally successful piece of the macabre, does

not follow the model established by Seneca. Kyd, immediately, tuned in
with the mores, the likes and the interests of the Elizabethan audience.
❖ Seneca: closer to narrative poetry than dramatic rhetoric.
❖ Kyd: made sure that every piece matched the character speaking it and
used the soliloquy to balance with the activity of the scene.

2) There is, still, a whole array of ingredients Kyd borrowed from Seneca,
such as:
➢ Supernatural restless beings (pagan divinities, ghosts and spectres).
➢ Sententious choruses.
➢ Extensive usage of dumb shows (play within a play).
➢ The frequent employ of the soliloquy and the monologue.

3) Extraordinary dramatic impact: there is a heady sequence of horrors

marking its progress by hangings, stabbings in full view of the audience…
❖ Through suspense (masterfully administered).
❖ Visuality wisely achieved (grimness and bloodshed are intensified by
stagecraft).

4) The theme of guilt and retribution, is rather overshadowed by the

mechanics of the play which has a frenzied revenger for a hero.

5) The malevolent or Machiavel figure (a wicked character that breaks all

balance and is the engine of the tragedy). Normally of second rank, this
character aspires to get to the top and he thinks he has a motivation. He will
use any person whatsoever as a vehicle to achieve his end, even against the
life of his own family.

13
6) Revenge tragedies are very meticulously structured through the creation
of different entities (the earthly world vs the supernatural world, the
underworld vs the world on earth…).

7) These tragedies follow the “hermetic” doctrine (they reproduce what is

above and below as mirroring each other.

8) Visual and verbal repetitions are frequent, like the Russian Matryoshka
dolls (one within the other, generates anxiety).

9) The technique of dazzling, of disfiguring the seams, the borderlines between

the two worlds is very much used.

10) Laughter and the grotesque go hand in hand (confusing the audience and
the characters in the play) so that we no longer know whether this is the real
or the dramatic world.

11) The style is rhetorical and elaborated. Alliteration, antithesis, and other
devices are much employed used adding artificiality to the dramatic
discourse. As in Kyd, the aural property of the text is emphasized.

12) Revenge is introduced as the only answer to a corrupt, inefficient

system. Notwithstanding, it was understood by that society that only God
could take revenge. Hence, the pagan world of antiquity is very atmospheric
in these plays.

13) There is a staunch, harsh critique of the legal system of the time, by which
“revenge” should be understood as fragmentation. The desire to break
with social order.

14) All ruling figures are fully inoperant, inefficient, incompetent and
irresponsible in their administration of justice. Responsibility is not easily
assumed.

15) Almost all characters in these plays become avengers at some point in
the action described. The avenger is normally isolated from the other
characters and from the society, simply because of their breaking of the law.

16) Isolation leads them to introspection, which is best expressed through

the soliloquy. Every relation with other character deteriorates to procure
that isolation.

14
17) Avengers normally employ the chicanery, the trick of pretending to be
mad (“Hieronimo is mad again!”), out of their mind, which sometimes seems
to be actually real. And yet, the protagonist may well be out of himself because
of too much suffering.

18) Madness allows these avengers to denounce and to criticise. Madmen

were given freedom of speech at the time, which “normal” people did not
have.

19) The avenger, having achieved revenge, usually dies.

20) The revenge tragedy introduces a new dramatic type: the independent
woman, a breaker of rules, a virginal woman who is normally not wicked but
has a great deal of power to seduce, proving more intelligence that her male
counterparts.

15
THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: STUDY QUESTIONS
1. Write a skeleton plot of this massively successful play, beginning with the
dishonourable death of Don Andrea.

2. Discuss the role of the Chorus (the Ghost and Revenge) in the play. What does
it suggest about fate and human agency?

16
3. Horatio's masque in Act I, scene iv dramatizes the…

4. Is there a character in the play whose behaviour is justifiable? Whose are not?

5. In this play, the state is trying to gain full control of the legal system. How is
it shown?

6. Lorenzo sends a young page to Pedringano's execution with a box. What does
Pedringano think is in this box, and what is actually in it?

7. How does Kyd use rhetoric and imagery to develop Hieronimo as a

character? Is there a change in this rhetoric over the course of the soliloquies,
and if so how does this affect Hieronimo's characterization?

8. In II.ii, 32-38, Bel-Imperia utters the following, telling Horatio how she
intends to love him.
"Let dangers go, they war shall be with me,
But such a war as breaks no bond of peace.
Speak thou fair words, I'll cross them with fair words;
Send thou sweet looks, I'll meet them with sweet looks;
Write loving lines, I'll answer loving lines;
Give me a kiss, I'll countercheck thy kiss:
Be this our warring peace, or peaceful war."
Find examples of the following three rhetorical devices: antithesis (the
contrasting of opposing ideas), parallelism, balance, and oxymoron.

17
 9. What is the climax in Act II.v? What will be the other climax towards the end
of the play, do you think?

10. Another rhetorical device in this remarkable play is that of stichomythia.

Having a look at the passage (I.iv 81-86) what do you think it consists of?
Bel-Imperia: Your prison then belike is your conceit.
Balthazar: Ay, by conceit my freedom is enthralled.
Bel-Imperia: Then with conceit enlarge yourself again.
Balthazar: What if conceit have laid my heart to gage?
Bel-Imperia: Pay that you borrowed and recover it.

11. Identify the main symbols, themes and motives.

CLASS NOTES
SCENE II starts and ends with a soliloquy (a speech in which a character reveals
their innermost dramatic tension and explains himself or herself).
➢ 1st: Hieronimo’s soliloquy. He is asking himself what to do next, whether or
not he should take revenge.
➢ 2nd: Lorenzo’s soliloquy. He is thinking about his next step in his conspiracy.

18
SCENE IV
The aside: a character addresses the audience, not at earshot of another (= not close
to another character who could hear them), so that the audience can remember
what is going on.
Line 38-49: he reminds the audience of his machinations.

SCENE V
Another aside that introduces the whole symbology of the box (there’s nothing
inside of it). This box reminds us of Pandora’s box: it tells us that, from this moment
on, drama is going to be unleashed.
The audience has now more information than the characters do: this is a way of
creating expectation and increasing suspense.
*Questions at the beginning of acts are meant to draw the attention of the audience.

SCENE VI
Comic relief: lines 66 – 68.
Lines 44 – 49 are written in prose to show Pedringano's anxiety (prose in the middle
of verse represents the disorder and disorganization inside his mind when he is
about to be hung).

SCENE VII
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOLILOQUY AND MONOLOGUE
➢ The soliloquy is a dialogue with the character's inner self, it’s terribly
melancholic and tragic. It addresses the character himself.
Example: lines 1 – 18.
➢ The monologue is addressed to the audience, its words do not revert to the
speaker.
Example: lines 32 – 75. He is passing information to the audience, helping
them remember what happened before.

SCENE IX
Bel-Imperia hoped that Horatio could be a tool to revenge Don Andrea, but when he
was killed, she realised that only Hieronimo could carry out that mission from that
moment on.

SCENE X
What vision do we get of Bel-Imperia in this scene?
Line 33: “Explain yourself, I’m still ready to try to understand you” (she still tries to
justify her brother; this shows her humanity and frustration about not knowing
what to put first, her sense of decency or brotherhood).
Lorenzo is trying to manipulate her, but now she is acting like a woman, not like a
child.
How does it relate to that of her letter to Hieronimo?

19
 DOCTOR FAUSTUS
(by Christopher Marlowe)
AN INTRODUCTION: THE RELIGIOUS BACKDROP
A brief summary of the play may go in the following words: a scholar, Dr Faustus
makes a pact with the devil by his agent Mephastophilis and, after a period of 24
years frolicking around the world, is punished by the torments of hell.
Today, we shall, thus, have a look at this play from:
a) The cultural context of early modern religion.
b) The formal, i.e. the dramaturgical context of the development of tragedy
as being significantly different from that of Thomas Kyd’s already studied.

A) CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGION IN DOCTOR FAUSTUS

The play deals, basically, with an early modern philosophical scholar using his
magic to conjure up the devil. He signs a pact in blood with him, offering the devil
his soul; makes fun of the Pope under a kind of invisible cloak, and, eventually
tumbles into the torments of hell. So, it is, a play that has religion at its heart.
Just like today, most people in the XVI century were not theologians -theology
was not the major concern at all- still, people would ponder on both the main ethical
and philosophical issues of religion at the time, such as the nature of free will, the
senses as a vehicle for rational truth, the afterlife.
But this play is the one that shows interest in the religious institutions in
the aftermath of the Reformation, the so-call “church politics”, basically.
Religion in this period is not about individual conscience, religion is all about
politics. Religion in late 16th century England was deeply politicized, so that a free
religious conscience was a kind of alien conscience. Marlowe is basically giving us
the religious stance of this play. Its background. The immediate result is that
modern critics of this play will try to use it as representing a particular
doctrinal agenda (Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran theologies and mindsets, etc.).
Critics may consider Marlowe an inheritor of the philosophies of Aristotle, St.
Agustin or St. Thomas Aquinas. They may also interpret the text as a version of
gnostic, atheist, hermetic or any other of the vast philosophical currents existing, to
sort of appropriate the play and its relevance. They try to impose a kind of reading
of the play.
So, this muddled views make 21st century readers wonder what is the key, what
is the master narrative that would make us understand what is going on in this text.
As a principle we must say that a text open to so multiple critical interpretations
cannot and should not, by definition, be reduced to just one of them. Scholars have
used the term “palimpsest” to refer to this play. Understood as the simultaneous
layering of different sensibilities or different attitudes. I.e. Doctor Faustus is a

20
“palimpsest” in that the text contains, consciously or unconsciously a whole range
of different belief systems. This gives the play a very significative documental value.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
A decade before Marlowe wrote, Henry VIII (reigned 1509-1547) had confused
the religious landscape by abolishing the Pope's authority in England by his laws,
while still keeping the faith of his Cathollic fathers intact. His child Edward VI (was
king 1547-53) established Protestantism as the state religion also abolishing “the
ancient religion”.
Edward's half-sister, Henry VIII's daughter Mary Tudor (queen 1553-8), aka
“Bloody Mary”, attempted to restore Roman Catholicism in England and Ireland
instigating a series of religious persecutions by which she earned her nickname.
Finally, Mary's sister, Elizabeth I (queen 1558-1603) sought to abolish both again
into a milder Protestantism. All this within the expand of less than a hundred years.
All this produced, paradoxically religious pluralism and polarization.
Anyway, there were a majority of people who compromised with and lived in
“agreement” with the Elizabethan feeling. Dr Faustus, thus, lies at a cultural and
theological central moment, where residual Catholicism intersected and combined
with Protestantism. To put it otherwise, the play is set right at the controversies and
debates of the Reformation. Amongst these those questions of the existence or not
of purgatory and of free will. The former, a liminal post-mortem transit land where
the soul stays purifying for some period of time, was a major doctrinal difference
between Catholicism and Protestantism. Under the former it was believed that the
dead entered purgatory to be tortured and cleaned of their sins. How long that took
depended on how sinful they had been. Repentance at the moment of death could
mitigate the sentence of purgatory. So, to a certain extent, the fate of the soul after
death was subject to a certain amount of human agency and free will. You had the
choice of committing fewer sins and the freedom to ask for indulgency through
prayer. Purgatory, therefore was dependant on your attitude in life. The doctrine of
good deeds.
Against this perception, Lutheran and other Protestant sects -we must remember
that Dr Faustus is set in Wittenberg- “Of riper years to Wittenberg he went” (Chorus,
line 13)”- the very place were Luther pinned up his 39 thesis on the door of the
church suggest that salvation is not a matter of good deeds, of good works, but of
fate alone. In the Protestant mindset, heaven or hell, operate according to the grace
of God. There was to be no negotiation, no expiation, no praying of the living to help
minimize the suffering of those in purgatory. So, as in The Spanish Tragedy, that was
what gave them revenge as an alternative response.
The issue of free will in Doctor Faustus is a crucial one. Does, the character damn
himself, because he chooses a path that forks away from God and towards the devil?
Or, perhaps, is he forced irremediably along that path by forces outside of himself?
Is it better or worse to sin intentionally or unintentionally? Does Faustus live in a
Protestant world of human frailty or in a Catholic world of human agency? We must

21
keep these questions in mind as we go through the play. For these are questions the
play keeps asking, not answering. Doubting is more important than not doubting.
There is one more important issue to outline in order to understand the play, and
that is the issue of Calvinism. Calvinists –adept to the French theologian John Calvin-
stated that the number who would be saved at the day of judgement -“the elect”-
was already known to God. Nothing could possibly change that. So, what would you
prefer, Protestant predestination or Catholic purgatory? In the former there is
really nothing for us humans to do other than to wait for the revelation of divine
judgement. This posed a delicate question, if the elect were already chosen, what is
the point of living a moral life? Of keeping the Sabbath, of observing the
commandments? Also, sins on earth are going to bring no difference to whatever
finally happens after death. Protestantism seemed so to undo any incentive to
behave well. The first beginning of religion was to keep man in awe, in fear of God.
Religion had thus, a social role in regulating human behaviour. And thus Calvinism
needed to foster good behaviour.
Other issues that are central in this play are, at what point does the play settle
into inevitability? When is it all decided? This is a question valid for any tragedy,
what is the point of no return in the play? When do the ways fork in a way than one
is better than the other? This is fundamental for the notion of forgiveness. What does
Faustus do that makes him impossible for him to escape damnation? Critics have
been eager to pinpoint the moment of Faustus' damnation. Is it the signing of the
pact in his own blood with Mephastophilis? Can Faustus repent? If not, is that
because of free will? Or because he has crossed the line of repentance and done
something irremediable? All these questions are felt stronger when the clock strikes
eleven on the last day of his life, and Faustus recognises, “Now hast thou but one
bare hour to live”. Later, the clock strikes the witchy hour, time speeds up as Faustus,
panic stricken, reviews his position. Then the devils enter enveloped in
thunderclaps. And Faustus says, sc. 13, lines 108-11 A-Text).
“My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe awhile!
Ugly hell, gape not! Come not Lucifer!
I'll burn my books! O Mephastophilis!”

Medieval folklore stories in which humans enter in a pact with the devil usually
end up with the devil been outwitted, i.e. with the human proving cleverer that the
devil. In these story types the devil exits cursing. These cultural fictions devoid the
devil of its power. Not in this play. More modern critics take this play as to mean that
Faustus fate is clearly already sealed from the very beginning, though we see that
that precise moment where that occurs is rather less clear. So, in these
interpretations the play reads like the aria in an opera. But some of the audience
might still expect, as the play progresses, either that Faustus might still be saved
either by divine intervention, or that he might be able to escape the law by his own

22
ingenuity. The play creates real anxiety from the audience as time speeds up, similar
to a student when a deadline comes to be quite close.
Towards the end of the play, we have Faustus mentioned the Almighty God, and
Christ, as if a deus ex machina will ultimately come to set everything right at the very
end. But that never happens.
The clock ticking down towards the completion of time is an element of suspense.
The countdown is stopped but we know it is only emotion substaining and trying to
get out of this destiny.
Dr Faustus draws on the late Medieval play Everyman, who makes his lonely
journey towards death, at the end only accompanied by Knowledge, also an
allegorical figure. But in this play, there is a happy ending. Everyman finds loyal
friends and gains God's mercy.

B) THE NATURE OF THE TEXT AND ITS IMPORTANCE REGARDING THE

EVOLUTION OF THE DRAMATIC FORM.
Probably written between 1588 and 1590, we must remember that its author,
Marlowe was accused of espionage and assassinated, or killed in a fight in 1593. It
was one of the first plays to go on European tour in the first years of the seventeenth
century. In 1602, there was payment done to a couple of playwrights for additions
to Dr Faustus. The amount they received suggest quite substantial additions. In
1604, the play is printed for the first time. It is reprinted in 1609, and in 1611. In
1616, a second version of the play, different in many aspects and longer that its
original appears. Bibliography have insisted on calling the 1604 the A-text, and the
1616 edition the B-text. The problem of this designation is that critics don't usually
give us definite clues as to which of the two versions they prefer. They tend to be
neutral, but we surmised that A is better than B version. The result is that any
account or academic work on Dr Faustus needs to be clear on which version of the
two texts are we talking about (for instance Mermaids de. Goes for A-text). B-text is
taken to be a revision -with addenda- of the earlier A-text, in that it gives us a kind
of commentary on the reception of the earlier version of the play. An update as it
were, both by cutting out things that did not go well, and by amplifying or repeating
with those that might go well. There are two things B-text tells us about on the
evolution of tragedies:
1) The role of comedy.
2) The place of stage effects.

1) THE ROLE OF COMEDY

Both versions of the play have a good deal of comedy. But, from our modern eye,
we find extremely difficult to reconcile the serious matter of hell and damnation
with laughter and with the notion of comedy in the play. The trouble is that the scary
stuff in which Faustus sells his soul and enters the gates of hell is mixed with endless
ridiculous, absurd scenes in which we find the protagonist engaged in no end of
tedious practical jokes. Most modern productions follow this view. The B-text adds

23
more of this material presumably to make the audiences enjoy. Our only
contemporary understanding of such conjunction is that of comic relief. Comedy
theorists distinguish between “laughing at” and “laughing with”. The first is a
relation of power, the second is one of empathy. Those laughing at Faustus might
feel superior because they felt they were very unlikely to share his fate, they had
nothing else to do and they had too much money. Those laughing with Faustus
would share in what we call human frailty.
The central issue is, does the humour in the play undermine its pretensions
towards high seriousness, both from an ethical and dramaturgical point? Taking
things seriously, including necromancy, does Faustus no good after all.

2) THE PLACE OF STAGE EFFECTS

The B-text has, obviously, a more spectacular dramaturge than the A. More
theatrical experience, at the beginning of the XVII cent meant far more interest in
the visual that it previously was. Thus, in the A-text there was theatrical economic.
Audiences wanted increasingly to see stuff, costumes, special effects, stage work of
different kinds... Early XVII cent. productions of this play thus emphasize stuff on the
stage, books, astrolabes, devils, a severed head, for instance, as part of the comedy
being discussed. Even when they show us fighting and death, we all enjoy special
effects regardless of how sophisticated or flamboyant they might be in their later
development.

NOTES ON DOCTOR FAUSTUS

The first recorded performance that we know of is 1594.

SOURCES TO THE PLAY

The play is a quintessential example of Renaissance tragedy. Its topic, the human
drama of the fall of man and his possible redemption, links Doctor Faustus to the
mystery cycles and later English morality plays, which, in one way or another lies
at the heart of all Renaissance English drama. According to the scholastic paradigm
dominant in the West since Thomas Aquinas, devils approach man, visibly or
invisibly, when he attracts them through his impure actions, his inappropriate
words, or his apparent proclivity to sin. Seduced by promises of infernal rewards,
man grows increasingly dependent on his wicked ways. Then, at some personal
crisis, usually as death approaches, he confronts his life's story and according to his
own self-judgement seeks and obtains grace or is eternally punished. Marlowe was
not happy with such a simple outline. To complicate it he drew on a Church Father
he studied at Cambridge to propose that each person is given not one but two
guiding angels. Thus, Marlowe adds scholastic logic and disputation to scholastic
theology, as the Good Angel and Mephastophilis (the Evil Angel) debate the Christian
virtues of obedience, humility, and piety against the heroic values of power, glory
24
and pleasure. This strikes us because the two figures are not what we expect
characters in literary texts to be like. Their names, however, tell us all we need to
know about them, for they represent abstract moral qualities rather than having
individualised personalities.

A SUBVERSIVE PLAY?
What is at stake in this play is a man's soul, all human souls, but also the very
institution of Elizabeth I's Established Church, which is what the scholastic Faustus
is citing. Marlowe's play, thus, challenges part of the backbone of Elizabethan culture
by interrogating two of its fundamental institutions, the church and the
university. For, besides questioning the basis of faith, Doctor Faustus also questions
the purpose of education. The following lines are designed to help you guide you
through a proper understanding of the play, for its reading is challenging.
The first issue of importance is how far do we read the texts and take them on
trust in relation with his author? Scholars read Marlowe's plays as statements the
playwright's own radical beliefs. Still, there is an obvious problem arising from this
approach. We simply don't know whether those hostile accounts of his opinions are
accurate or, very probably, compromised by writers' own motives and
circumstances.

GERMAN SOURCES
We know that Marlowe based the story of his play on The History of Damnable Life
and Deserved Death of Doctor Faustus (1592), an English translation of a German
book (known as Faustbuch) about an actual historical figure who gained notoriety
in early sixteenth-century Germany by meddling with the occult. This story rapidly
became the stuff of legend, and has, like most legends, been subject to a series of
retellings, amongst which Goethe's two-part play Faustus (1808; 1832), Thomas
Man 's novel Doctor Faustus (1948), etc.

CONCERNING THE PLAY

Why was Marlowe so attracted to a story about a man who rebelled so flagrantly
against the Christian God?
What kind of non-comformist artist was Marlowe? We shall return to this
question later, for now let us get started and focus on the reading of this
extraordinary play.

Verse and pattern

Let us have a look at the opening lines of Doctor Faustus.
Not marching now in fields of... is over turned (Prologue, Chorus I- lines 1-4)
How many syllables are there in these lines?
Reading the lines aloud we hear that for the most part every other syllable carries
a particularly marked accent. For instance:
“Not march-ing now -in fields -of Tra-simene”

25
 Do the same with
“Where Mars- did mate- the Car-thagi-nia
Nor sport-ing in -the -dal-liance- of love
In courts-of kings-where state- is-o-verturned...”

What happens with the second line?

Does it fit comfortably into the overall pattern?
Which is the pattern then? Is it regular? How is this metre called in poetry,
remember? Why is it so common in English, would you say? Are the lines rhymed or
unrhymed? What kind of verse is it then? Marlowe was much admired by his
contemporaries for his mastery with this kind of verse in his plays.

This allegorical way of creating characterisation is typical of morality plays, which

you will remember as religious dramas that enact the conflict between good and evil
embodied in supernatural figures (Mephastophilis) or personified abstractions (the
Seven Deadly Sins, Good and Evil Angels).

What was primarily the aim of the morality play?

What kind of lessons do they offer to its audience? How does Marlowe's use of
Chorus do it?

MYTHS FROM ANTIQUITY

In Greek tragedy the Chorus was a group of voices, of people, whereas in
Elizabethan drama it is one person. Though prevalent in England during the late
Middle Ages, morality plays were still popular in Marlowe's time. This raises
questions about the genre of the play.

Is it essentially a 16th century morality play warning his audience of the dreadful
consequences of practising black magic? Or, does it, in its attitude to the story tell a
more complex idea?
Does Doctor Faustus encourage us to respond to the central character?
Let's answer these questions by looking at the Prologue/ Chorus, lines 1-27.
Write a summary of it in no more than four/five sentences.
What main points would you say the Chorus is making here?
The Chorus kicks off by giving us a brief bio account of the protagonist.

Is the picture of Faustus a mixed one? How?

What is the attitude of the Chorus in relation to Faustus' actions?
Does he still point to some merit or greatness on the part of the protagonist?

26
 In the last eight lines of the Prologue (21-27), the tone of the speech changes,
why? What does the contemporary “swollen head” tell us about that new tone?
Does “swollen” (l. 20) have a figurative or a literal meaning? To put it otherwise
does it provide an instance of simile or metaphor?

Can you find any allusion to ancient Greek myths? What do you make of the
expression “the over-reacher”? (“mount above is reach” in the play).
Is there an intriguing twist on that myth

Have a look of this amazing painting by Pieter Brueghel entitled, “Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus, 1555, which hangs in the Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts in
Brussels.
Take a few minutes to compare Brueghel’s treatment of the myth with that of
Marlowe’s Chorus in the play.

What happens to the language when the Chorus starts to talk about Faustus’s
study of magic? (Chorus I, lines 24-28).
In those lines, look for a word that means “overfull” or “stuffed” in contemporary
English and, another word that would be synonymous to “eat too much”, “gorge
oneself”.
Why is the Chorus referring to eating, specifically to gluttony, to immoderate
appetite? Is it a metaphorical use? If so, which would be its tenor? In other words,
what is that brings our protagonist into conflict with the Christian God?

In Scene I we are introduced to Faustus, and we see him in his study. Faustus
delivers his first speech of the play. How does the staging of the text emphasize
Faustus’ position as an eminent scholar?
Are these lines (Scene I, 1-64) a soliloquy, why?

27
 Do these lines establish a strong relationship between the character and the
audience? Do we gain Access to the character’s mind at work?

In line 1, “Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin…” Faustus addresses himself in
the third person creating the impression that he is talking to himself. Why?
Which are the four main academic disciplines he has so far studied, which he now
dismisses as an intellectual cul-de-sac?
Line 23 reads, “Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.” What does he lament
while contemplating all his remarkable academic achievements?
Lines 58 and 59 are quite striking. Which desire does inflect Faustus’s speech?
In Scene 3, lines 1-61, Faustus tells Mephastophilis that he is not afraid of
damnation, why? What does he believe in then?
How likely do you think it is that a 16th century humanist would have so explicitly
challenged the Christian doctrine?
Does Faustus represent the secular aspirations of the Renaissance? How?
Is Marlowe advising us not to overstate the secular values of Renaissance
England, do you think?
What is the opposition we get between the Chorus’s view and that of Faustus’s
claim in these scenes? What is the conflict? What side do you think the play
encourages us to take?
Have another look at Faustus speech lines 80-101, in which he imagines the
power that magic will bring him. What is it he wants to achieve with this power?
What kind of motives and desires do you think he expresses in these lines?
Identify in Faustus speech, a line which voices antipathy to an Elizabethan hate-
figure. Which country was England in military conflict with at the time? Who was
the Prince of Parma? What plan was there in the 1580s in which Parma was closely
involved?
l. 96 “And reign sole King of all our provinces”.
Who is this line referred to?
What does Parma represent?

SOME COMIC SCENES

The play keeps drawing on the many weaknesses of its protagonists. Can you
mention one or two so far?
From what we have seen about Renaissance drama, what would comic scenes
reinforce?
What happens in Scene 3? How is this conference described?
Scan read Sc. 4 looking for a comic scene. Which would this be? Which is the
device procuring the comic effect?

Further on, in lines 9-11, the clown provides another joke. Coming directly after
Faustus has conjured up Mephastophilis, what absurdity does the joke underline?
What is the main function of these two comic scenes? What do they comment

28
on? What does Marlowe achieve by juxtaposing these serious and comical actions?
What does they tell us about Faustus’ aims?

FAUSTUS AND GOD

In Sc. 3, line 25, after a devil enters, Faustus says, “Go and return an old
Franciscan friar” What is the significance of him asking the devil to return in the
likeness of a friar, do you think? Notice that Mephastophilis obeys (“disguised as a
friar”).

Sc. 5 opens with a soliloquy (lines 1-14). How would you describe Faustus mood?
Jot down any points you think are important about the way the language helps to
create this mood.
Does Faustus’ voice here sound more or less confident than in the first soliloquy?
If less, how does his discourse show his uncertainty?

Clarify the significance of line 3, “What boots it then to think of God or heaven?”
What is that of the imperatives in the next lines? Is Faustus trying to backtrack,
do you think?
Which of the two angels seems to get the upper hand briefly?

Wrestling with his conscience and feeling such an urge to repent, why doesn’t he
before signing his pact with Lucifer? Does he see his own damnation as unavoidable?
What does the repetition of the word “despair” (lines 4 and 5) emphasize?

How many syllables are there in lines 2 and 10? What is their effect?

Reading these lines, do you muster/think Faustus believes God loves him?
Why does Faustus feel so strongly that he is damned when he still has not signed
the pact with the devil in his own blood?

What does this scene stress about the Calvinist theology?

Why cannot Faustus bring himself to believe that God loves him and has granted
him salvation?

29
 QUESTIONS FOR GUIDED READING
Scene 7: What famous figure in Italy do Mephastophilis and Faustus go to
visit? What spell does Mephastophilis cast on Faustus to allow him some
slapstick fun while he is there? What do Faustus and his companion steal from
the Pope? How might this be symbolic?
1. The Pope.
2. He makes him invisible.
3. A goblet. Because it is where the blood of Christ is drunk from.

Scene 8: Why does Marlowe have Rafe and Robin indirectly stealing wine
rather than jewels or money? Why is Mephastophilis so upset by Rafe and
Robin's summoning? What does Mephastophilis do to Rafe and Robin and the
Vinter as punishment?
1. Anti-Catholic satire.
2. Because they have summoned him for nothing, for fun. Also, they are slaves,
they should not have the power to conjure him up (they do because they stole
a book from Faustus).
3. He transforms them into an ape and a dog.

Scene 9: When Faustus goes before the Holy Roman Emperor in Germany,
the Emperor wants Faustus to raise up famous spirits of the dead for
conversation. Faustus cannot do that, so what does he do instead? What does
this limitation in Faustus's magic suggest symbolically or allegorically? What
do Faustus and Mephastophilis do to the rude knight at the emperor's court?
1. He conjures up spirits who resemble them, because he cannot bring their
deceased bodies to life again (only Christ himself can do that; this shows that
he sold his soul to the Devil for nothing, that he is still human and has been
cheated in a way).
2. They put a pair of stag horns on his head (symbolic: his wife is cheating on
him, he is a cuckold).

Scene 11: What trivial task does Faustus appoint to Mephastophilis when
he visits the Duke's pregnant wife? To bring her a dish of grapes.

Scene 12: When Mephastophilis threatens to arrest Faustus' soul for

treason and rend it, to whom does Faustus appeal for mercy? Why is this
ironic? To Lucifer. Because you usually appeal to God for mercy, not Lucifer.

Scene 13: What large object dominates the stage during the last scene? Why
does this object's relentless motion cause so much despair in Faustus? What
happens to Faustus at the end of the play, perhaps a bit predictably?
1. A clock. It represents a countdown, it makes him realize that his damnation
is impending.
2. He dies and he is taken by the demons.

30
 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Faustus' character changes and develops as the play goes on. To what extent
is he in control of his own destiny? To no extent. He is doomed.

2. Can Doctor Faustus be seen as a morality play? How might this affect the
reader or the audience’s understanding of the play's possible meanings?
Yes. For example, the appearance of the 7 Deadly Sins. Different readings: agnostic,
Anglican, Christian… It raises questions that force the reader to stop and think, it’s a
very open text that allows different layers of meanings and readings. The text
provokes everybody.

3. What do you think are the main religious and theological aspects of the
play and how are they dramatised?
Different vices are represented in the play. Different dogmas (believes) offer
different approaches to them. The sins of the flesh are not deadly for some churches,
but they are for others.

4. Discuss the character of Mephastophilis. Should we conceive him as an

individual or as a mere representative of evil?
Ambiguity - Mixed character: friend of Faustus, but constantly reminds him of
damnation. He has a very human presence but is also a representative of evil.

5. Do the comic scenes in Doctor Faustus detract from the seriousness of the
play or do they contribute to our understanding of the main action?
Comic relief makes the next dramatic moment more intense.

6. How does Marlowe's use of language, blank verse, imagery and metre
contribute to the meaning of the play?
Images: references to nature, antiquity, pagan world… Broken verse in some parts
of the play.

7. Does Marlowe represent Faustus as having the capacity to repent after

having signed away his soul?
Ambivalence. He raises a lot of questions, but he doesn’t answer them (some
questions are too big for humans to answer).

31
 A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
(by William Shakespeare)
SHAKESPEARE: THE SWEET SWAM OF AVON
A portrait of Shakespeare in the First Folio of his famous
text was lovingly assembled by his fellow-actors after his
death in 1623.
No face is as familiar as this. How would you define it?
(the prominent oval brow, reflexive eyes, grizzly bear…). In
Shakespeare in love we get quite another vision of the Bard.
How similar/dissimilar is it from that of the FF? That is to
say, besides the “rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear” (quote from
Romeo and Juliet), which was applied to the author himself.
Shakespeare keeps being an elusive figure, surely one of the most ones in the
whole of literature. Too many have been the attempts by critics to reconstruct the
man from his portraits rather than from his works. The amount of volumes
dedicated to him is as daunting as the interpretative manifold versions of his great
dramas. Judge for example the extraordinary version of Macbeth by Kurosawa in his
truly impressive Throne of Blood (1957), as put side by side with the sobriety and
great textual rendering in Sir Laurence Olivier’s production of Richard III just two
years earlier (1955). The first one is more visual, the second one is more respectful
with the original text (which is the most important aspect in Shakespeare’s plays).
So many are the interpretations and renderings that even writers like Anthony
Burgess have reconstructed Shakespeare’s love life in his novel Nothing like the sun.
In 1984, Orwell had in mind to make his protagonist Winston Smith awake with
the word ‘Shakespeare' on his lips. This word conjured misty images of a long-lost,
better life; one that Newspeak and Big Brother sought to expunge from living
memory.
How come? It is all mostly due to Shakespeare’s universality as quoted from
Jonson in his preface to the First Folio of 1623, ‘He was not of an age, but for all time.’
Yet also to his enormous capacity to instruct, expose, enrich and enliven, but more
importantly, to evoke Truth. Currently, in everyday life, truth is often elusive.
Shakespeare is, in fact, the most popular dramatist and poet the Western world
has ever produced. Between 2 and 4 billion copies of his works have been sold and
his plays have been published and produced in more than 75 languages. His stories
transcend time and culture.
Marchette Chute had this to say: “Shakespeare told every kind of story, comedy,
tragedy, history, melodrama, adventure, love stories and fairytales -and each of
them so well that they have become immortal”.

32
 Every composer or artist you care to mention has produced work inspired by
Shakespeare’s plays. E.g. Mendelssohn’s Overture to a Midsummer’s Night Dream, the
opera Othello by Rossini, or Verdi’s Falstaff (based on The Merry Wives of Windsor).
In his stunning capacity to represent human frailty, comic and drama, no wonder
then that one may reach for the Bard to arm oneself against the latest assault on
Truth in our societies, for Shakespeare’s characters alert us to the propensities of
human nature. His insight into character is most illuminating. E.g. he strips away
hypocrisy and illusion exposing the underlying truth  Feste's words to Orsino in
Twelfth Night II.iv): Orsini may fool himself, but not the clear-sighted clown.
And yet after all that universal interest and perplexing it comes as really ironic
that Shakespearian the man continues to be basically elusive. Who was the man
encapsulated in his enigmatic name, William Shakespeare?
We know he was baptized (not born) 26 th April 1564, we assumed that he came
to this world a few days ahead, since given the high level of mortality among
children, a new born would be baptized within days. Scholars talk of April 23 rd1654
as the day, carried by a patriotic sentiment willing to make it coincide with Saint
George. And the same can be surmised about the date of his passing which has been
made to coincide with that of Cervantes. We know for sure that he was the third son
of a glove-maker in Stratford-on-Avon. It is also doubted whether he studied at the
grammar school in Stratford, for there are no records. And it seems quite probable
that he sort of abandoned his studies as a result of his father’s business taking a bad
turn. Part of the studies in that school versed on the study, translation and perhaps
performance, of the New Latin comedy –Plautus’ work above all-, so it is feasible to
say it was there he first knew, and partly, learnt about the theatre. What he did
between that soft age of his until his late teens remains a mystery no critic nor
Shakespeare scholar has been able to disentangle. John Aubrey, a contemporary,
mentions that master Shakespeare had been “master in the countryside” in his
youth. There are, notwithstanding, some proven fact, he married Anne Hathaway
rather promptly. Anne was eight years her senior. Their first daughter being
baptized on May 26th, 1583, led critics to establish November 1582 as the date of
the marriage. Twins wold come a couple of years later, Hamnet and Judith. How did
he manage to raise that family before he came himself the most celebrated
playwright?

33
 SOME NOTES ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
TEXTUAL NOTES, COMPOSITION AND POETIC STYLE
The first edition was published in 1600. The play was entered in the Stationer’s
Register in the name of Thomas Fisher. Since this First Quarto (Q1) was registered
in the regular way, it is reasonable to suppose that the publication was authorised
by Shakespeare’s company.
Q2 claimed to be printed in 1600, but was actually printed in 1619 by William
Jaggard, subsequently the printer, and joint publisher with Edward Blount, of the
first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, the First Folio (F), in 1623.
Taken together to topicality, together with the style or styles of the play point to
1595 or 1596 for the date when it was composed. Topicalities are, however, weak
evidence although the new edition of Spenser’s Epithalamion published in 1595,
matches the theme of our play and offers more than a parallel. For instance, in a
stanza Spenser exorcises the terrors of the night. Just before the fairies enter to bless
the bride-beds, Puck’s descriptions of nocturnal ghosts and damned spirits bear a
general resemblance to Spenser. Like Puck, Spenser includes the screech owl and
refers to “hobgoblins” (creatures that are supposed to be taken to be wicked, but
actually aren’t). But the subject is a familiar topos. (higher notion of
symbology/motive). Also, in Shakespeare’s play, the Moon reigns queen of fertility
no less than of virginity; in Epithalamion we have the word-play “fair”, such as we
have from Helena about Hermia. In Titania’s great speech on the foul weather and
dislocation of the seasons we get an echo of the memorable foul weather
experienced in 1594 from March onward (according to Stowe’s accounts) which
produced a miserable summer, and made grain rise to an exorbitant price. But much
of Titania’s is of literary origin, as borrowed from Seneca and Ovid, mostly, and thus
need not be expected to fill the historical facts.
Regarding style and its diversities as a ground on which to base the composition
this proves equally fallacious, for the subject matter of the play is likely to inspire a
soaring style. Even though Walter de la Mare asserted that the style of the young
lovers, compared with the lyrical poetry of the play, was much inferior in skill and
merit. Still this argument is subject to objections.

CLASS NOTES ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

- SCENE I ACT I  Line 136: Stichomythia (usually linked to parallelism).
- Young love vs. mature love. Topsy turvey.
- There is always one situation mirroring another situation: parallelism,
doubles.
- Pace and rhyme (unusual in Shakespeare), musicality, lyrical value (e.g.
alliteration).

34
 - SIGNIFICANCE OF…
A) THE WOOD:
▪ A witchy place where your soul can be corrupted, where you can let
yourself go (Protestant vision after the Reformation).
▪ It is not so dangerous in Shakespeare’s play, the Fairies are not evil
creatures (pre-Reformation vision).
B) NAMES OF THE FAIRIES:
▪ Mustardseed: mustard is one of the fastest-growing plants.
▪ Moth: searching for light
- Almost every character falls asleep during the play and wakes up in a kind
of dreamy consciousness.
- ACT III SCENE II:
PUCK: They willfully themselves exile from light
And must for aye consort with black-brow'd night.
OBERON: But we are spirits of another sort.

STUDY QUESTIONS
3 plot lines are interwoven in the play, which are these? (4, really)
- Theseus and Hyppolita.
- Lysander, Demetrius, Helen and Hermia.
- Oberon and Titania.
- Pyramus, Thisby and the rest of the amateur actors (play within the play:
reality/dream? Sometimes we lose track of reality).

What are Titania and Oberon quarrelling about in the play?

Jealousy. Titania and the little boy (changeling).

Who marries whom?

Theseus and Hyppolita, Demetrius and Helen, Lysander and Hermia.

Is the play more about sex than marriage? How?

Titania takes Bottom to her bed. Hermia tells Lysander to go sleep far from her.

Parallel structures converge in the play. Things that are pretty much the same are
coupled together. EXAMPLES?

Why do nearly all characters fall asleep in A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

Sleep is a moment of vulnerability and disconnection from reality, so by using it,
it is easier to introduce the world of the Fairies. It raises a question: what is reality?
Is what happens only a dream or something real?

https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/dream-illusion-and-doubling-in-a-midsummer-nights-dream

35
FINAL TEST. 3 PARTS:
1) SHORT QUESTIONS (answered in a few words/a sentence, only enumerate/mention)
about the BACKDROP (= background) to the plays (historical references, being able to
place the play in a particular period) and PLAYWRIGHTS. EXAMPLES:
- Spanish Armada, Philip II of Spain moving the Court to Lisbon?: THE SPANISH
TRAGEDY (the historical context is very obvious and present).
- The Reformation, Protestantism, Lutheranism (the 12th thesis)?: DOCTOR FAUSTUS
(the setting is also pretty clear, but less obvious, not so many historical references;
he could have set the play in any place around Europe/Britain, but the action is set
in Germany as a deliberate choice [Lutheranism]).
- Renaissance English and Celtic mythology, relationship between pagan world and
Christianity?: A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM. Shakespeare was a Catholic like his
father (whitewasher in the Church, as shown in Simon Schama’s documentary), one
of his ancestors was involved in Gunpowder’s Plot. The play is set in Athens
(deliberately chosen): mythology, Mediterranean culture, philosophy...

2) TEXT COMMENTARY (choose 1 out of 2 OPTIONS): identify the text (which play is it
from, how do you now [evidence]), which will be really meaningful and significative.
Provide any comment which is pertinent to the understanding of the play, from an
objective (use of allegory and alliteration, parallelism, stychomythia…) or subjective
point of view.
RETHORICAL DEVICES: CHIASM, alliteration, the notion of rhyme (some characters
use or resort into prose, why?). FOCUS on that part of the text, do not go beyond it,
there is no need to associate. Do not tell the story or what will happen after it: only
write about what is going on IN THAT MOMENT.
PRACTICE: go back to place and identify important passages.

3) ASSOCIATIONAL AND RELATIONAL PART: ESSAY AT LENGTH (1 and a half page) on

ONE TOPIC of your choice out of 4 OPTIONS. Associating ideas (example of a ‘topic
essay’: “Enumerate the main characteristics of the revenge tragedy”; example of a
‘relational essay’: “Visions of love/hatred in the 3 plays: how is love represented?”).
A. ESSAY TOPIC: “LOVE”.
- THE SPANISH TRAGEDY: Hieronimo-Horatio (filial, real love), Bel-Imperia-Horatio (false
love, pretended, meant to achieve something [revenge]).
- DOCTOR FAUSTUS: ‘absence’ of love; love from God, love for your soul (inwardly). The Good
Angel loves Doctor Faustus and tries to protect him, but he does not pay attention to him.
B. ESSAY TOPIC: “The use of the SOLILOQUY” (definition, difference with aside and
monologue, examples from the different plays).
The monologue is better organised, the soliloquy has more dramatic tension, it is more
dramatic. Example of a soliloquy: Titania in AMND, when her and Oberon are reflecting on
jealousy and infidelity. If someone is overhearing/eavesdropping, it can still be qualified as
a soliloquy (because the one carrying out the soliloquy is not aware of that).
C. ESSAY TOPIC: “STAGECRAFT”
Amateur actors represented in A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM, they make a private
representation for Hippolyta and Theseus’ wedding. AMND also was a play which was
conceived to be played in a wedding. Richard Balmish in THE MALCONTENT: real
professional actor. Mystery and morality plays: first, clergymen; then, guilders; after that,
professional actors.

36