The development of drama

Origins
The origins of the theatre in Britain are linked to medieval religious celebrations.
These performances took place in the churches at first, but they moved outside.
So Latin was replaced with English and lay people took the place of monks and priests in these performances.

Reasons for development

Drama became the main form of Elizabethan art. Entertainment was an important part of the communal life of
medieval towns and villages. Public performances were illegal in the City of London, so theatres were built on the
South Bank, which was easily accessible across the Thames.

The structure of Elizabethan theatres

James Burbage (1531-97), built the first permanent theatres, the Theatre (1576) and the Curtain (1577), north of the
walls of the City of London.
Permanent theatres were circular or octagonal.
There were three tiers of galleries, looking down on the stage, and the yard, or pit, where the poorer spectators, the
"groundlings', stood. The stage was technically known as an apron stage. Over the stage the
'shadow protected the players from the rain. In the front of the stage there was a trap door used for devilish
apparitions and disappearances.The actors' tiring house, that is, the place where the actors changed their costumes,
was at the back of the stage. Behind the stage there was an inner stage, which was demanded for several plays: for
Juliet's tomb in Romeo and Juliet or in Hamlet . The Elizabethan stage had no general stage curtain. There were also
an upper stage and a balcony normally used by musicians.

Elizabethan and modern theatres

oser
In the modern theatre actors are separated from the audience. In Shakespeare's time the actor came forward on the
->
apron stage into the
Themidst of his audience. Communication was therefore intimate and direct. The device of the
soliloquy was a natural way for a character to explain his thoughts and intentions.
The plays took place in daylight, usually starting at 2 p.m.
For night scenes a simple candle or torch represented the night world.
The action was continuous. A scene ended when all the actors left the stage .
Women did not act in Shakespeare's time and the female parts were acted by boys (Black Friars).

Sources
The characters and situations were often allegorical types. The ideas of man's place inside an universe and of the
mutability of fortune and the stars were also typical. Thanks to the translations, Italian plays became the sources of
much Elizabethan theatre. Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) is an example to follow for the display of horrors,
unnatural crimes and corruption.
The Elizabethan theatre was also influenced by Greek tragedies, especially by the Latin philosopher Seneca for the
bloody incidents, the revenge, and the conflicting emotions and passions.
Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy (ca 1585) was the typical Senecan revenge play full of ghosts and horror, mixed
with Machiavellian ingredients such as intrigues, lies and villains.
Kyd also added the play within the play, that was used for example in Hamlet (the plot includes the staging of a play
whose audience is composed of the actors).
 Shakespeare dramatist
Dating the plays
Only half of Shakespeare's plays were printed during his lifetime so dating them is not easy Therefore, the works
must be dated by combining three kinds of evidence:
External: is the most valuable kind of evidence and it consists of a clear mention or reference to a particular play.
Internal: when the play includes a reference to an identifiable event.
Stylistic: is the most difficult method of dating. However, the changes in Shakespeare's style are so noticeable that
a play can reasonably be placed in a precise period.
By a combination of the three methods, most plays can be dated.

Evolving scenes
The progress of a Shakespearean play is usually linked to the gradual clarification of things which are left
mysterious at the beginning. Infact Shakespeare sometimes starts with a question to create suspense. There is
also a frequent contrast between scenes with many characters and scenes with few, scenes in public and in private,
those full of action and those devoted to reflection.

Structure
The structure of the play was flexible. Shakespeare did not give great importance to the division between the acts;
sometimes this division was imposed later. In the Elizabethan theatre there was no curtain fall between the acts and
the plays were performed without an interval.
As a rule, in a Shakespearean play a scene is over when all the characters have left the stage.
Soliloquies, introductory passages spoken in a prologue, funeral orations and speeches are some of the
conventions used by Shakespeare.

Stage directions
Most stage directions were added by the editors. Actually, it is the text itself that provides information about the
atmosphere and feeling of a scene. These directions and descriptions are often given indirectly, with a question or a
metaphor. So Shakespeare asked for the active cooperation of the spectator

Characters
Shakespeare took his characters from every social class .
So in his works there are man of royal or aristocratic blood, kings, nobleman but also nurses, rustics and servants.
Another important feature is the importance of family ties: father and/or mother with sons or daughters, brothers
and sisters. These relationships are often in contrasting form, there are conflict between the older and younger
generations.

Variety of style
Shakespeare used different levels of speech and action to portray his characters from different angles.
A character may suddenly change from everyday prose to solemn verse. There is sometimes the insertion of
allegorical scenes, songs, music and dances or magical transformations.

Imagery
Shakespeare's language is characterised by rhetorical figures: similes and metaphors, assonance and alliteration.
Some plays have characteristic image motifs; for example, light and dark imagery in Romeo and Juliet, clothes
imagery in Macbeth, and the figures of disease, corruption and death in Hamlet. These image-clusters are
connected to the main themes of the plays and define their tones. Talking about the vocabulary he used obscure
and archaic words, mythological allusions; he invented a a lot of new words. And also the variety in the verse
structure is impressive.
 Romeo and Juliet
A comedy or a tragedy?
Romeo and Juliet is characterised by elements both of comedy and tragedy.
It is a comedy because it begins with the material for a comedy, like the instant attraction of the
young lovers, the masked balls, the comic servants and the superficial life of street fights.
However, this play differs from the conventional comedy . Infact it is also a tragedy for the deaths
of the two protagonists in the last scene , the tragic role played by fate and the fight between two
families that make their relationship difficult.

Plot
First Act. The first act opens in a Verona street. Romeo Montague reveals to his cousin Benvolio
that he is in love with Rosaline, but his love is not returned.
After learning that Rosaline will be at a party at the Capulets' house that evening,
Romeo's friends persuade him to attend in disguise. Romeo meets Juliet there, and they
fall in love at first sight. During the party they discover that their families are enemies.

Second Act. In the Capulets' garden Juliet express her love for him. When he answers her, they
declare their love and their desire to be married. This act ends with the secret wedding of the two
lovers in the chapel by the friendly priest, Friar Laurence.

Third Act. This is the longest act and it can be divided into two parts: that of public events, and the
part devoted to private events. Mercutio, Romeo's friend, is killed by Tybalt, Juliet’s cousin, during
a street fight. In revenge Romeo kills Tybalt and he was banished to Mantua.The act ends with
Romeo and Juliet's wedding night at the Capulets' house.

Fourth Act. To avoid the marriage with Count Paris organised by her father, Juliet takes
a drug given to her by Friar Laurence. This poison makes her appear to be dead on the
morning of her wedding. So Romeo hears that Juliet is dead and decides to return to Verona.

Fifth Act. Romeo arrives at Juliet's tomb and takes some poison , dying as he kisses her lips. At
that moment Juliet wakes up and seeing Romeo dead beside her, she kill herself with his dagger.
Romeo and Juliet will never know the truth about their deaths.
SETTING
Shakespeare chose the Italian city of Verona for this play because Italians were considered violent and
passionate. There were struggles between two families, the Capulets and Montagues, to gain political
control of the city. This is the reason why most of the action happens out-of-doors.

CHARACTERS
In the first act Romeo Montague is presented as a man belonging to the 'courtly love convention' because
of his adoration and respect for a lady who is chaste and impossible. He uses the image of light typical of
this kind of love: when he first sees Juliet, he compares her to the brilliant light of the torches that
illuminate the Capulets' great hall; Juliet is the light in his dark life. For example in the famous balcony
scene Romeo links Juliet to the sunlight, daylight and the light emanating from angels. It is his love for
Juliet which makes him dynamic and courageous: he risks his life to be near her . At the end he kills
himself because he didn’t want to live without Juliet, it proved his loyalty and love for her.
Juliet Capulet is beautiful, rebellious, kind and loving. At the beginning she appears as an obedient child:
she usually does what her parents say. After her first meeting with Romeo she immediately shows
determination and strength in her open confessions of love and desire for him. She is a real woman,
simple and maybe modern. Just like Romeo, she compares their love to light. When she wakes in the
tomb and finds Romeo dead beside her, she kills herself because of her strong love, just as Romeo did.

THEMES
The power of love. Romeo and Juliet's love is so powerful that it becomes more important to them than
their families, their loyalties, or even their lives.
Passion and violence. The same passion leads to violence. The two families' hate is as strong as the two
lovers' love.
Individual against society. What the lovers want as individuals conflicts with what their families and
society want. Romeo can't just change his name and never have to deal with his family again. The
Capulets, the Montagues and the townspeople do not want to stop fighting just because two teenagers
love each other. It is only the horrible end which gets them to change.
The power of fate. At the beginning of the play, in the prologue, the chorus state that Romeo and Juliet
are 'star-cross'd lovers, meaning that their love will end tragically.

STYLE
In Romeo and Juliet the rhythms are regular; rhymes are common, often used in
'couplets: Occasionally he inserts a sonnet into the dialogue. Imagery is all about oxymora: life and death,
love and hate, dark and light, Montagues and Capulets, peace and fighting, young and old.
 The Merchant of Venice
PLOT
The main plot is a dispute about a financial loan between the Venetian Antonio and the Jewish moneylender Shylock;
the subplot regards the choice of a husband by the rich lady Portia, who lives in Belmont.
First Act. In Venice, the Christian Antonio told his friends that he has invested all his money in foreign trade. His friend
Bassanio is going to travel to Belmont to woo Portia. To protect his rich daughter , before dying, Portias father told her
suitors to choose among three chests, one of gold, one of silver and one of lead. The man who chooses the casket
containing Portias picture will marry her. Bassanio needs money for his courtship, but Antonio can't help him so they
ask Shylock, who agrees to lend him three thousand ducats for three months: but if Bassanio fails to repay him, then
Antonio must give a 'pound of his flesh' to Shylock .
Second Act. Two of Portia's suitors choose the wrong casket: the Prince of Morocco and the Prince of Aragon. At
Shylock's house in Venice his daughter Jessica gives the servant-clown Launcelot a letter for her secret lover, Lorenzo,
in which she promises to elope with him.
Third Act. In Venice Shylock is furious because Jessica has fled his house with his ducats and jewels. In Belmont
Bassanio chooses the right chest and finds a portrait of Portia in it. She agrees to marry him. Meanwhile, Antonio
cannot repay Shylock, and the usurer claims his flesh. Antonio is put in jail in Venice.
Fourth Act. Disguised as a lawyer, Portia offers Shylock a sum of money and tries to persuade him to drop the charge
against Antonio, but Shylock refuses. She then twists the situation round by agreeing to his taking a pound of flesh from
Antonio but no blood. She points out that Shylock is a non-citizen of Venice who has threatened the life of the citizen
Antonio and so is subject to the death penalty. The Duke of Venice, however, said that half of his property will go to the
Venetian he has threatened and the other half to the State. Antonio asks the duke to allow Shylock to keep half of his
wealth if he converts to Christianity and to give the other half to Jessica and Lorenzo.
Fifth Act. Lorenzo and Jessica are in front of Portia's Belmont mansion and comment some of the themes raised in the
play. The play ends on a happy note with a musical accompaniment.

SETTING
The Merchant of Venice takes place in two main locations: the city of Venice and Portia's home at Belmont. Each
setting represents different aspects of the play.
Venice was an autonomous trading town, seen by the English as a symbol of wealth, but it was also associated with
greed.
Jews were forced to wear a red hat to identify themselves and lived in the ghetto. The two views of Venice are
expressed through Shylock, the Jew who symbolises the greedy side, and Antonio, the rich but generous Christian
merchant, who representes the wealth of Venice.
The town had strict laws and was a world dominated by men.
Belmont is a world of ideal love where women have more power than in Venice. The house is the setting for the less
serious scenes of the play and it is where the lovers come together. The play's happy conclusion is at Belmont because
is a place where love reigns, where a man and a woman, a Christian and a Jew are brought together.

CHARACTERS
In Elizabethan England, Jews were often portrayed as villains, mocked or marginalised.
In creating the character of Shylock, Shakespeare certainly drew on anti-Semitic prejudice but at the same time he
included elements that radically unsettle that prejudice.
Shylock is a complex character and Shakespeare emphasised his humanity by showing that his hate for the Christians
is born from the abuse he suffered in a Christian society which considers him as an outsider, not a citizen. Readers and
audiences feel compassion rather than contempt. On the other hand, Shylock has a lack of mercy for Antonio and so
the audience can’t see him in a positive light.
The play at first humanises Shylock by giving him a daughter, who deserts him; a wife who is dead; a friend he trusts; a
'sacred nation' and a 'tribe' he belongs to; and a society that despises him. At the end Shylock's enforced conversion
finalises his exclusion, isolating him from his community, the tribe that has represented his cultural and social location.
Apparently, the main difference between the Christian characters and Shvlock is that these Christians consider human
relationships more valuable than business ones, whereas Shylock is only interested in money. Merchants like Antonio
lend money free of interest, and risk their wealth and reputation for those they love, whereas Shylock's greed seems to
be stronger than his love for his daughter.
However, Shylock's insistence that he should have a pound of flesh rather than any amount of money shows that his
resentment is much stronger than his greed.
The Christian characters also present an ambiguous picture. Bassanio wants to marry Portia first of all because he is in
debt. Christians such as Antonio hate Jews simply because they are Jews. So while the Christian characters may talk
more about mercy, love and charity, they do not always show these qualities in their behaviour.
Themes
Love and hate. The play explores various types of love. The love of a friend is shown by Antonio and Bassanio who
would give their own life one for the other. Portia is strongly linked to her father's will, while Jessica is less tied to her
father Shylock. Romantic love brings together people from different backgrounds, like Lorenzo and Jessica, or with
different motivations, like Portia and Bassanio.The play also deals with love for money and possessions, as in
Shylock's case, and is full of hatred. Christians and Jews hate each other at all levels of society.
Mercy, justice and revenge. The relationship between mercy and justice is seen from two different points of view.
There is a Christian idea of mercy from the New Testament which says to 'turn the other cheek rather than look for
revenge. Shylock's view of justice, which can be derived from the Old Testament, is the complete opposite: it is 'an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Shylock thinks that Christians in reality want revenge as much as he does .
Appearance and reality. Some of the characters are involved in disguises and deceptions.
Jessica dresses up as a boy in order to elope with Lorenzo; Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as the lawver
and his assistant to attend the trial. Linked to the idea of appearance and reality is the idea of value and worth.
Shylock treats the loss of Jessica as equivalent to the loss of his money. All that glisters is not gold, while the lead
casket, which has the least monetary value, contains the greatest prize.
 Hamlet
PLOT
First Act. Hamlet's father, the King of Denmark, has been dead for only two months, but his mother, Queen
Gertrude, has married her brother-in-law, Claudius, who has now become king. A ghost, who seemed the late King
of Denmark, has appeared at the castle of Elsinore, armed for a possible attack from Fortinbras, Prince of Norway.
Hamlet and his friend Horatio met at night to see the ghost and he appeared. He tells Hamlet he was murdered by
Claudius, with a poison in his ear while he was sleeping. He asks Hamlet to avenge him, but to leave his mother's
punishment to heaven.
Second Act. Hamlet pretends that he is mad so that he can do his plans more easily.
Polonius, the king's counsellor, thinks Hamlet's madness is caused by his love for his daughter Ophelia. Hamlet
arranges for a troupe of actors to perform The Murder of Gonzago, a play whose story is similar to the one revealed
by the ghost.
Third Act. The play is presented: King Claudius rises and goes away. Hamlet goes to his mother's bedroom and,
during an argument with her, kills Polonius, who was behind a curtain to overhear their conversation. The king
decides to send Hamlet to England to get rid of him
Fourth Act. Hamlet is sent to England to be killed. Ophelia goes mad and drowns herself.
Her brother Laertes wants revenge for his father's murder and the king, after receiving the news that Hamlet has
escaped, plots his death in a duel with Laertes.
Fifth Act. The duel follows. To make sure Hamlet dies, the king prepares a poisoned drink and also puts poison on
the tip of Laertes's sword. Hamlet refuses to drink the wine, which his mother then drinks instead.
Laertes wounds Hamlet with the poisoned tip of his sword, then the swords are exchanged and Hamlet wounds
Laertes. The queen dies, Laertes falls and denounces the king, who is stabbed by Hamlet. Both the king and
Laertes die. Hamlet asks Horatio to tell his story, recommending that Fortinbras be elected King of Denmark. Then
he too dies. Fortinbras takes possession of the kingdom after having given military honours to Hamlet.

SETTING
The story of Hamlet is set in the late Middle Ages (14th and 15 centuries) in and around the royal castle in Elsinore,
a city in Denmark.
Like England, Denmark was a Protestant country, so Hamlet studies in Wittenberg, Germany, where Martin Luther
started the Protestant Reformation, and he is sceptical of the ghost, who claims to be his father's spirit wandering in
purgatory. As a matter of fact, Protestants rejected the notion of purgatory as mere superstition.
Shakespeare's choice of Denmark may be due also to the development of the plot. For example, the subplot deals
with a possible war against Norway. This sense of menace from another country increases the tension of the first
scenes and sets the mood of the play.

THE CHARACTER OF HAMLET

Hamlet is the most talkative of all Shakespeare's characters. The French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan thinks that
the real psychological dimension of the play lies not in Hamlet's behaviour but in his language. In his famous essay,
he holds that the most striking characteristic of Hamlet's language is its ambiguity. Everything he says is conveyed
through metaphor, simile and, above all, wordplay. His words have a hidden meaning; they have, therefore,
enormous affinities with the language of the unconscious.
Hamlet knows himself the ambiguous nature of his own speeches. He spends much of the play complaining about
the fact that he has to play roles that he does not believe in.
He is the [non]-revenger in a revenge play, the [non]-heir to the throne, the non]-lover of the heroine, the [non]-son
to the [non]-father.
The shock Hamlet receives on the death of his father and re-marriage of his mother is the cause of his
melancholy. The world changes its colour, life its meaning. Hamlet sees a contagious disease which spreads
from man to the kingdom, from the kingdom to the universe.
THEMES In the Elizabethan age, the Church , the State and people’s morals did not accept
The main themes are: the revenge; they consider it sinful but enjoyed seeing it in the plays
-the revenge (all the revenge tragedies derived from the Greeks , Seneca. There are bloody scenes, supernatural
creatures like ghosts)
-the relationships between father and son, mother and son, and Hamlet and his friends;
-love relationships;
-madness;
-youth and age;
-action and inaction;
-the corruption linked to power;
- the existence of God and a life after death;
-the meaning of the theatre itself.
Hamlet is a play of life and death and of man's ambiguous relationship with both.
It is also about melancholy and doubt.
A major question for man is the relation between 'appearance and reality.
Another important theme is 'honour and honourable action. The theme of honour makes it clear that any action to
correct a wrong should be reasoned, not emotional. Justice is accomplished through the various deaths and the
ascent of Fortinbras to the throne.

STRUCTURE
In the third act there is a play-within-the-play which, paradoxically, is the only true thing in the play, since it is wanted
by Hamlet to expose his father's murderer. Furthermore, it is a most interesting expedient because it turns the actors
into an audience: there is a real audience, then there is an audience on the stage composed of the play's actors, who
watch a play, The Murder of Gonzago, dealing with the background to the tragedy.
 WATIES AND COLONIZERS

The tempest uses all the techniques of the theatre: dramatic actions , special effects , music , magic and monsters.
Prospero, like the playwright, controls everything creating illusions, his powers depends on Ariel’s help that can be seen like
the power of imagination.
Plot
First Act. The play begins with a tempest near an island. Alonso, King of Naples, his son Ferdinand, Antonio, Duke
of Milan, and their court are shipwrecked and magically they are on the island. This has all been organised by
Prospero, a magician who lives on the island with his daughter Miranda. Years before Prospero
had been unfairly exiled from his dukedom of Milan by his brother Antonio and had reached this island, where
lives the witch Sycorax. She lived there with her son Caliban, and Ariel, a gentle spirit of the air whom Sycorax
confined.
When he arrived on the island, Prospero released Ariel, who became his agent, and used Caliban as a servant.
Second Act. King Alonso is in despair because he thinks his son has drowned. Ferdinand, however, has survived
and he is in another part of the island, moved by Ariel's singing. He meets Miranda and
fall in love with her.
Third Act. Caliban meets Trinculo, the king's jester, with Stephano, the royal butler, and they plan to kill Prospero.
Ariel hears them and told the plan to Prospero.
Fourth Act. Miranda and Ferdinand entertain each other while Prospero completes his plans of reward and
punishment.
Fifth Act. The play ends in an atmosphere of general reconciliation: Miranda and Ferdinand got married, Prospero
forgives his brother and returns to Milan to take possession of his lost dukedom. Caliban is left alone on the island
and Ariel is released.
 Paradise Lost
John Milton: England's epic genius
John Milton was born in London in 1608. After an MA from Cambridge, he learnt Latin, Greek, and Italian. During his
life he published some poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (1632); and sonnets. In 1637 Milton began a European
tour and he visited Galileo, near Florence.
When back to England, his sympathies were with Cromwell infact he supported the new Commonwealth and he
became Secretary for Foreign Languages in Cromwell's Council of State. In 1642 he married Mary Powell, who
found the intellectual stature of her husband too much for her and she returned home. This personal experience
caused the poet to justify divorce in a series of works , like Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
In 1651 Milton became blind, but blindness helped to stimulate his verbal richness. After the Restoration of Charles
II in 1660, he was arrested as a defender of the Commonwealth, but was soon released. He wrote three poems
during these years: Paradise Lost (1667), his masterpiece, Paradise Regained (1671), and Samson Agonistes
(1671). He died in London in 1674.

Plot
Paradise Lost tells the biblical story of Adam and Eve ( Theme 2), with God, and Lucifer (Satan), who is thrown out
of Heaven to corrupt humankind. Satan, the most beautiful of the angels, is hurled into Hell with his followers, as a
consequence of his defeat in the war in Heaven.

A religious epic poem

Milton chose the epic genre for his masterpiece because of the greatness of his subject and he followed the typical
epic conventions . In fact Paradise Lost opens with a statement of the theme of the epic, as do all epics of tradition.
This epic takes place in the universe: in Heaven, Hell and Eden; there God, Satan, Christ, Man and many fallen
angels meet and they seem the several warriors and heroes created by Homer. The typical character of the epic
hero was altered by Milton: no longer a warrior like Achilles, seeking glory but a more philosophical hero who must
learn to control himself to found an empire. The style is elevated and complex with Latin syntax and difficult
vocabulary.

The universe of Paradise Lost

Although Milton was familiar with Copernican cosmology, which establishes the Sun and not the Earth as the centre
of the universe, he based his universe on the more traditional Ptolemaic system. In Milton's Heaven, God sits on his
throne surrounded by the nine orders of angels; the tenth one, who revolted , has been hurled down into Hell, which
is below Chaos. Out of Chaos, God created the Earth, fixed in the centre of the universe, and around it the spheres.

Satan as an epic hero

Satan has many of the characteristics of the epic hero: leadership, initiative, courage which refuses to accept
defeat, a willingness to undertake the desperate enterprise to escape from Hell and attack God's creation, Man.
Milton put a great deal of his own soul into this character: as he was aggressive against the political authority of the
king and the religious authority of the Church of England, his sympathy was for Satan, the rebel.

Milton's Satan and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Milton created a powerful and sympathetic portrait of Satan. This view influenced writers like the novelist Mary
Shelley. Frankenstein's monster is compared to the Satan of Paradise Lost. Like Satan, the monster was created to
be beautiful. However like Satan, the monster becomes a perversion of beauty. He is cast away from his creator's
presence just as Satan is cast out of Heaven. They differ in a key aspect: Satan fell with companions however the
monster fell alone; neither he nor Satan directly attacks their creator: Satan attacks God's creation, man, and the
monster attacks Dr Frankenstein's friends and family members.

Satan: an instrument in Dante and Milton

John Milton's version of Hell in Paradise Lost appeared three hundred years after Dante's image of his Inferno. The
two works were inspired by different artistic visions, culture and religion; however both authors were religious and
divine inspiration was in their works. They had contrasting ideas as regards Satan's physical appearance: the most
notable difference is that Dante's Satan becomes a means of punishment while Milton's is a symbol of God's eternal
justice.
Dante's Satan is a mythic monster, and he describes him as a creature whit three heads.
Satan was in the lowest circle of Hell, the City of Dis in the centre of the earth and is bound in ice for eternity.
Milton's Satan takes several forms: he is first presented as a fallen angel in the Hell ( T38); later in the poem, in the
ninth book, he had a degeneration, taking the classic form of a snake.
Dante shares this serpentine interpretation of evil. Milton also takes Dante's colours for his Satan, making the
serpent's eyes red and his neck yellow.