ELIZABETHAN DRAMA
Introduction to Literature
(Autumn 2019)

Birth of Drama in Europe
•Ancient Greece (6th cent. BC)
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\The-Mystery-of-Modern-Acoustic-in-Ancient-Gree
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Greek Drama
•Tragedy
–Aeschilus, Sophocles, Eurepides
•Comedy
–Aristophanes
•Satyric play
–Sophocles, Eurepides
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•Aristotle’s Poetics (Περὶ ποιητικῆς, 335 BC)
–– first treatise on dramatic (and literary) theory
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Roman Drama (3rd cent. BC)
•Tragedy
–Seneca
(4 BC-AD 65)
•Comedy
–Plautus
(254-184 BC)
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Mediaeval Drama (9th cent. AD)
•Celebration of principal
Christian feasts
•Biblical material –
re-enacting popular stories
of Christian myth
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\Medieval_church_(1).jpg

Mediaeval Drama
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Innocent III (1198–1216)

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•A mistery play from the York cycle (mid-14th century, recontruction)
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•Village Fair by Pieter Breughel the Younger (1632)

Early-modern English Drama
Henry VIII (1509–1547)
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Elizabethan Drama
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•Elizabeth I (1558–1603)
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Elizabethan Drama
•The Vagabonds Act of 1572:
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•…all fencers, bear-wards, common players of interludes, and minstrels wandering abroad (other than
players of interludes belonging to any baron of this realm, or any other honourable personage of
greater degree to be authorised to play, under the hand or seal of arms of such baron or personage)
shall be taken, adjudged, and deemed as rogues-vagabonds…

Elizabethan Drama
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•Thomas Middleton: A Game at Chess (1624)
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Elizabethan Drama
•From the letter of Sir Eward Conway, 12/8/1624:
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Elizabethan Drama
•1576–77:
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•The Theatre was built – the first permanent theatre house built in England for the sole purpose of
theatrical productions.
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•Later followed by the Curtain (1577), the Newington Butts (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan
(1596), the Fortune (1600), the Hope (1614), and others.

Elizabethan Drama
•1598–99:
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•The first Globe theatre was built – the first early-modern English theatre co-owned by an acting
company.
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•The original share-holders were: Richard Burbage (25%), Cuthbert Burbage (25%), William
Shakespeare (12.5%), John Heminges (12.5%), Augustine Philips (12.5%), and Thomas Pope (12.5%).

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•Johannes de Witt: The Swan Theatre
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\swan-theatre.jpg

Elizabethan Drama
•From A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
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•Quince. Pat, pat; and here's a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot
shall be our stage, this hawthorn-brake our tiring-house; and we will do it in action as we will do
it before the duke.
•(Act 3, Scene 1)

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•The Globe Theatre (1599): A Reconstruction
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•Shakespeare‘s Globe Theatre, London (1997)
Image result for the globe theatre

The Globe Theatre, Prague (1999-2005)
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The Blackfriars Theatre (1608): A Reconstruction
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•Titus Andronicus in the Longleat MS (c. 1594)
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\titus1.jpg

Elizabethan Drama
•1603:
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•Queen Elizabeth dies. The Elizabethan period becomes Jacobean (after King James I) until 1625 and,
later on, Caroline (after King Charles I) until 1642.
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•2 September 1642:
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•The play-houses in London are closed, marking the end of the Elizabethan drama. Since 1660, we
speak of the Restoration drama.
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Elizabethan Drama
•Number of plays staged between the 1560s and 1642:
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•Circa 3,000.
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•Number of surviving plays of the period:
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•Circa 230 (=7.5%).
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Elizabethan Drama
•From Hamlet:
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•Polonius. The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral,
pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral,
scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the
law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.
•(Act 2, Scene 2)

•From Palladis Tamia (by Francis Meres, 1598):
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File:Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury Francis Meres Love labours won excerpt 1598.jpg

Early Modern Dramatists
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•Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\marlowe.jpg

Early Modern Dramatists
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•Dr. Faustus in his study
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Early Modern Dramatists
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•Ben Jonson (1572–1637)
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\benjonson-tl.jpg

Early Modern Dramatists
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•Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare Playing Chess
by Karel van Mander (1604)
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Image result for shakespeare jonson chess

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H:\alzbetini_prednaska\first-folio-list-of-plays.jpg


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•The so-called First Folio
•of Shakespeare‘s Works (1623)
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Shakespearovy zdroje
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\Hamlet\Hamlet_Q2_Frontispiece_1605.jpg
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Shakespeare‘s Sources

Shakespearovy zdroje
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\prednaska_eva\Romeo_and_Juliet_Q1_Title_Page.jpg
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\prednaska_eva\Arthur_Brooke_Tragicall_His.jpg
Shakespeare‘s Sources

Shakespearovy zdroje
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\prednaska_eva\shrew image.jpg
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Shakespeare‘s Sources

Shakespearovy zdroje
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Shakespeare‘s Sources
Image result for king lear title page Image result for king leir title page

Shakespeare “Upstart Crow”
•Robert Greene on William Shakespeare:
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•[T]rust them not: for there is an vpstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tygers
hart wrapt in a Players hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best
of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a
countrey.
•(Groats-worth of Wit, 1592)

Shakespeare “Upstart Crow”
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Early-modern English Actors
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•Edward Alleyn (1566–1626)
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Early-modern English Actors
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•Richard Burbage (1567–1619)
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C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\RichardBurbage.jpg

Early-modern English Actors
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•Will Kempe (died 1603)
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Early-modern English Actors
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•Robert Armin (c. 1563-1615)
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•       Shakespeare’s F1 (c. 30x38 cm)                   Q1 of Hamlet (c. 24x30 cm)
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\shakespeare_f1.jpg
C:\Users\Filip\Downloads\alzbetinske_drama_prednaska\Hamlet_Q1_Frontispiece_1603.jpg

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[Q]uestion whether we ought  to ouercome our selues  and our passions  by extreame patience or die
seeking  desperat reuenge.
(The Meisei First Folio)

Hamlet‘s Skull
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Shakespeare’s Language
•Words:
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•Abstemious, antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, excellent,
eventful, barefaced, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, indistinguishable, well-read, zany…
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•Phrases:
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•Vanish into thin air, play fast and loose, the milk of human kindness, remembrance of things past,
cold comfort, salad days, flesh and blood, the wish is father to the thought, be cruel to be kind,
blinking idiot, it’s Greek to me…

Shakespeare on Screen
Image result for shakespeare in love
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