The Elizabethans Era And Shakespeare’s

Era

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Shakespeare’s EraDramatists during Shakespeare’s time wrote for London’s new commercial playhouses. There were two stand of dramatic tradition. The most common forms of popular English theatre were the “Tudore Morality plays”, before Shakespeare’s time. The other stand of dramatic tradition was classical aesthetic theory.

Style :1. The stories acted in a drama included both the wealthy and educated and the poor and illiterate.2. Shakespeare’s verse style, his choice of subjects, and his stage craft all bear the marks of both the Elizabethan as well as the Jacobean period. However, he changed his style according to his audience.3. Shakespeare's writing also feature extensive wordplay in which double extenders and clever nhetsrieal flourishes are repeatedly used. Humor played a vital role in Shakespeare’s plays.

4. Shakespeare’s plays were mainly based on the work of other playwright’s and recycled older stories and his historical material.5. For plays on historical subjects, Shakespeare relied having on two principles texts. Most of the Roman and Greek plays are based on plutareh’s parallel lives.

Tragedies of Shakespeare1. Antony and Cleopatra (1606-1607)The story of Mark Antony, Roman military leader and triumvir, who is madly in love with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. 

2.  Coriolanus  (1607-1608)The last of Shakespeare's great political tragedies, chronicling the life of the mighty warrior Caius Marcius Coriolanus.

3. Hamlet  (1600-1601)Since its first recorded production,  Hamlet  has engrossed playgoers, thrilled readers, and challenged actors more so than any other play in the Western canon. No other single work of fiction has produced more commonly used expressions.  4.  Julius Caesar (1599-1600)Although there were earlier Elizabethan plays on the subject of Julius Caesar and his turbulent rule, Shakespeare's penetrating study of political life in ancient Rome is the only version to recount the demise of Brutus and the other conspirators. 

5. King Lear (1605-1606)The story of King Lear, an aging monarch who decides to divide his kingdom amongst his three daughters, according to which one recites the best declaration of love.

 6.Macbeth (1605-1606)Macbeth  is one of Shakespeare's most stimulating and popular dramas. Renaissance records of Shakespeare's plays in performance are scarce, but a detailed account of an original production of  Macbeth  has survived, thanks to  Dr. Simon Forman.

7. Othello (1604-1605)Othello, a valiant Moorish general in the service of Venice, falls prey to the devious schemes of his false friend, Iago. 

8. Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595)Celebrated for the radiance of its lyric poetry, Romeo and Juliet was tremendously popular from its first performance. The sweet whispers shared by young Tudor lovers throughout the realm were often referred to as "naught but pure Romeo and Juliet." 

 9.Timon of Athens (1607-1608)Written late in Shakespeare's career, Timon of Athens is criticized as an underdeveloped tragedy, likely co-written by George Wilkins or Cyril Tourneur. Read the play and see if you agree. 

10. Titus Andronicus (1593-1594)A sordid tale of revenge and political turmoil, overflowing with bloodshed and unthinkable brutality. The play was not printed with Shakespeare credited as author during his lifetime, and critics are divided between whether it is the product of another dramatist or simply Shakespeare's underdeveloped first attempt at the genre. 

Elizabethan Shakespeare

1. Thomas Kyd’s and Christopher Manlower’s plays were the combination of the old morality drama and classical theory. This resulted in the formation of a new secular form. Shakespeare got inspired by this new style and continued these artistic strategies.

2. He created plays that resonated on an emotional level with audiences.

3. It also broke new grounds and debated the basic elements of what it meant to be human.

Characteristics of Elizabethan drama

During the Elizabethan Drama period, in Shakespearean Drama tragedies were the most focused on. Its three main characteristics were:1. The drama ended in some tremendous disastrous situation which involved the death of the principal character.2. Their endings were not the result of mere accidents, but were brought by some essential traits in the character of the hero who acted wither directly or through its effects on some other persons.3. The drama was presented in very delicate manner. Even after the misfortune of the hero, the people were always satisfied at the endings of the play. The aesthetic emotion in the drama life’s it up.

4. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan tragedies demonstrate his relative independence from classical models.5. In comedy, Shakespeare strayed ever further from classical models. The comedy of Errors, an adaptation Menaechmi, follows the model of new comedy closely. His other Elizabethan comedies are more romantic.

Introduction

Elizabethan Drama refers to the plays which were produced during the reign of queen Elizabeth in England.1. The opening of several good sized play

houses was responsible for this increased patronage . the largest and most famous of which was the globe theatre (1599), home to many of Shakespeare's work.

2. the most popular types of Elizabethan plays were histories of England’s rulers.

Essential Facts

1.Before the age of Elizabethan drama, plays were mainly based on religious themes. However, Elizabethan dramas were based on secular issues.2.Tragedies of the time were focused on creativity a sense of both terror of pity in the audience. Shakespeare was the master of tragedy(Hamlet, Othello).3.Learning about the “heroic past” of their counting was important to England’s play goers. Christopher Marlowe preceded Shakespeare with the historical play Edward ii, but the Burt of course wrote many histories too. Including Richard iii and Henry v.

4. Perhaps for the first time, English patrons during the Elizabethan period could go to the theatre for a good laugh. Again, though Shakespeare was the most popular, other successful playwrights such as Ben Johnson enjoyed poking fun of society and its institution.5. One of the appeals for Elizabethan playgoers was the theatre’s bawdiness. Sexual innuendo and sexual situations were features of many plays

The Elizabethan Period1. The wise guidance and prosperity of Elizabeth had risen the enthusiasm of the nation to its highest pitch. London in particular overflowed with vigorous life. The special stimulus of the intense kind came from the struggle with Spain.2. It had been a generation of piratical depredation by the English sea dogs against the Spanish settlements in America. Then King Phillip exasperated beyond all patience and urged on by a bigol’s Zeal for the Catholic Church. He prepares the great Am Anmada which crushes the insolence, independence and religion of England.3. The great literary period starts with the publications of Spenser’s ‘shepherd’s calendar’ In 1579.

Characteristics of Elizabethan literature

1. The period has the great variety of almost unlimited creation force; it includes works of many kinds in both verse and prose and ranges in spirit from the loftiest platonic idealism on the most delightful romance to the level of very repulsive realism.2. It was mainly dominated, however, by the spirit of romance.3. It was full also of the spirit of dramatic action, as believed an age whose nestles enterprise was eagerly extending itself to every quarter of the globe.4. In style it after exhibits romantic luxuriance, whose sometimes takes the poem of elaborate affections of which the favorite ‘conceit’ is only the most apparent.

5. It continued to be largely influenced by the literature of Italy, and it a less degree by those of France and Spain.

6. The literary spirit was all persuasive, and the authors were man of almost every class, from distinguished courtiers, elike Ralegh and Sidney, is the company of hack writers, who starved in garnets and hung about the outskirts of the bustling taverns.

7. It was in part a period of experimentation, when the proper material and limits of literary forms were being determined, oftentimes by means of false starts and grand wise failures. In particular, many efforts were made to give prolonged poetical treatment to many subjects essentially prosaic, for example to systems of theological on scientific thought on to the geography of all England.

Prose Fiction

1. A series of collection of short tales appeared first which is chiefly translated from Italian authors, to which tales the Italian name ‘novella’ (novel) was applied.2. Most tales are crud or amateurish and have historical interest though as a class they furnished the plots for many Elizabethan dramas including several of Shakespeare’s.3. Most important collection was painter’s ‘Palou of pleasure’ in 1566.4. Earliest and original English prose fiction were first began by John Lyly.

5. John Lyly’s remarkable success- ‘Euphues and his An atomic of Wit.’

6. Lyly’s style is the most conspicuous English example of the later renaissance craze.

7. Lyly-(1). He takes special pains to balance his sentences and clauses antithetically, phrase against phrase and often word, sometimes emphasizing the balance also by an exaggerated use of alliteration and assonance.(ii) Other affectation are rhetorical questions, hosts of allusions to classical history and literature and success on of similes from all recondite knowledge.

8. In literature the imitation of ‘Euphues’ which flourished for a while gave way to a series of romances inaugurated by the ‘Arcadia’ of sin Philip Sidney.

9. The pastoral is the most artificial literary form in modern fiction.

10. Greek Theocritus gives genuine expression to the life of actual civilian shepherds.

11. Sidney’s followers were some of the better hack writers of the time, who were also among the minor dramatists and poets, especially Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge.

12. Last of 16th century, came a series of realistic stories depicting more or less farcical spirit, the life of the poorer clauses.