DRAMA FROM THE MIRACLE PLAYS TO MARLOWE The main glory or English lit.

in the late 16th and early 17th ct was its poetic drama. English drama before the 16th ct is of mainly academic and historical interest, though there are occasional plays which possess charm and liveliness. The ultimate origins: Drama and religious ritual seem to have been bound up with each other in the earlier stages of all civilisations: folk celebrations, ritual miming of such elemental themes as death and resurrection, seasonal festivals with appropriate symbolic actions - these lie in the background of all drama. The English drama begins with the elaboration of the ecclesiastical liturgy in mutually answering dialogues.

1.

The TROPES or dramatic elaborations of part of the liturgy represent the beginnings of medieval drama (eg. Easter Trope - early 10th ct, a Latin dialogue between the 3 Marys and the Angel at the tomb of Christ). Later, the Trope received additions and elaborations with more characters added. The liturgy, biblical story and other varieties of Christian literature contibute to the development of other simple plays with characters from both the Old and the New Testament.

2. The trope thus grew into the PASSION PLAY which developed

in the 13th ct. Passion play was about biblical stories and other Christian literature. The trope thus developed into LITURGICAL DRAMA fully developed in the 12th ct. So far they were in Latin, as the liturgy was, but as they became popular, vernacular elements appeared. As a result it moved completely out of the church, first into the churchyard and then on markets and streets. 3. Once outside the church, the vernacular won over Latin, thus givin way to plays in English, performed in the open and completely divorced from the liturgy, though still religious in the subject matter. These are known as MIRACLE PLAYS and their primary function was to entertain. Miracle plays developed rapidly in the 13th ct. The themes of liturgical drama were extended and included the creation, the Fall, Old Testament.

The establishment of the feast Corpus Christi in 1264, confirmed in 1311, provided a suitable day for the acting of miracle plays. When plays were no longer associated with ecclesiastical ritual, they passed into lay (svjetovni, laiki) hands. The trade guilds took over the sponsoring of the plays. Almost 3 complete cycles of miracle plays survived: 1. The Chester cycle - 25 plays beginning with the Fall of Lucifer and ending with Doomsday. The plays are written in 8-line stanzas. 2. The York plays: 54 plays (48 survived); 4 groups within the cycle: - erudite and didactic in tone - the influence of alliterative revival - elements of realistic humour in the plays dealing with Noah and Shepards - a more powerful dramatic sense, a real feeling for character

3. The Wakefield cycle: 32; theres a note of real poetry, lively

ironic humour, sense of comedy and satire

4.

While the miracle plays were still flourishing, another medieval dramatic form emerged, a form which has more direct links with Elizabethan drama. This is MORALITY PLAY (it differs from the miracle play in that it does not deal with biblical or pseudobiblical story but with personified abstractions of virtues and vices, who struggle for mans soul. The psychomania - the battle of the soul - is a common medieval theme and was bound up with the development of medieval allegory. The theme of 7 deadly sins was a commonplace of medieval literature (the struggle of virtues and vices over mans soul). There are references to morality plays in the 14th century, but the 15th ct, seems to be the period of its full development. Another theme is the Dance od Death (a common medieval motif). THE CASTLE OF PERSEVERANCE (Ca 1425) The earliest complete morality play Contains 34 characters. The theme is the fight btw Mankinds Good Angel an his supporters and the Bad Angel supported by

the 7 deadly sins. The action takes Man (Humanum Genius) from his birth to the Day of Judgement. Mundus (the world) claims the Mans first allegiance (privrenost, vjernost) with Folly and Lust, acting as Mans servants. There is the struggle which in the 1st part ends so that Good Angel rescues Man from the Vices and lodges him in the Castle of Perseverance, which is then besieged by Vices. At first Virtues are victorious, but Covetyse ?(gramzljivost) seduces Man afterward and finally Death comes for him and he has to leave all his worldly goods behind him. Mercy, Peace, Truth and Rightousness dispute over Mans salvation before Gods throne, and the play ends with Gods reminder that King, Kaiser, Knight and Champion, Pope, patriarch and prelate must all answer the great judgement. EVERYMAN The best known and the most appealing of all 15th century morality plays. Everyman is summoned by Death to a long journey from which there is no return. Unprepared, he looks for friends to accompany him, but neither Fellowship nor Kindred will go. Good Deeds is willing to be his companion, but Everymans sins have rendered her too weak to stand. She recommends her sister Knowledge (acknowledgement or recognition of sins) who leads Everyman to Confession, and after he has repented, Good Deeds grows strong enough to accompany him togetherr with Strength, Discretion, Five Wits and Beauty. But, as the time comes to go to grave, they all decline except Good Deeds - so he enters the grave with Good Deeds. An angel announces the entry of Everymans soul into the heavenly sphere, and a Doctor concludes by pointing the moral. The verse form is naive rhymed couplets. It is a Catholic alegorical play on the subject of Holy Dying. Both its Dutch counterpart and Everyman have probably been translated from common latin original. Fundamental issues: Corpus Christi cycle, as the earliest moralities: the conflict between good and evil, the fall of man and redemption through Christ. Everyman is still not a typical morality: most of English moralities are not concerned with death or preparation for it but rather with giving advice for living a better life. In Everyman, unlike The Castle of Perseverance, the

conflict of good and evil is reduced to minimum. The play tells how Everyman is abandoned by all his gifts until only Good Deeds and Knowledge are left to keep him company on his last jouney. The story is thus about progressive abandonment and increasing isolation, not of conflict btw good and evil. Other morality plays mix comic and serious scenes; in Everyman, the sombreness of tone prevails. Meaning of Everyman: It is completely a product of medieval world; dramatic allegorical presentation of the medieval Catholic doctrine concerning Holy Dying. Holy Dying is a dying that a good Christian makes by giving up his trust in wordly things, clinging to good deeds, by preparing himself through repentance to receive the last sacrament worthily. In return, Gods mercy ensures his salvation. Everyman has had different gifts: 1. the gifts of Fortune (his goods and friends) 2. of grace (knowledge and good deeds) 3. of nature (strength and beauty) He has put his gifts of Fortune before his love of God. Thus abused, these gifts undergo a transformation and desert him first. Characters like Fellowship, Cousin, Goods encourage him in sinful living and bear a strong ressemblance to the vice of the later moral plays. Everyman is not a tragedy bcs Gods strict justice at the end is tempered with his mercy and the soul of Everyman is saved. The Castle of Perseverence gets closer to a tragedy bcs Humanum Genius is narrowly saved after his death - he cries for mercy, which is interpreted by Peace and Mercy as a sign of Repentence - this is a near-tragic morality play. Everyman also cries for mercy like H.G. but he has made sure of receiving it by virtue of his good deeds and penitential (pokajniki) acts.

5.

Towards the end of the 15th century there developed a type of morality play which dealt in the same allegorical way with general moral problesm, though with more pronounced realistic and comic elements; this kind of play is known as INTERLUDE though that name is also given to some much earlier secular moralities. The term interludes dnotes those plays which mark the transition from medieval religious drama to Tudor secular drama.

John Rastells: The Nature of the Four Elements - interlude which might be called a Humanist morality play: various allegorical characters instruct Humanity in the new science and geography. The shift of interest from salvation to education was accompanied by a parallel shift from religion to politics. Allegorical, biblical and historical morality plays existed side by side in the middle of the 16th ct. DEVELOPMENT OF TRAGEDIES There were no tragedies among either the miracle or morality plays. There was nothing that could be called tragedy in English drama before the classical influence made itself felt (the favourite classical writer of tragedies among English Humanists was Seneca - 9 tragedies - sombre treatments of murder, cruelty and lust - translated into Engl. by Jasper Heywood and others in the mid.16th ct.) English attempts to handle classical themes in the english way can be seen in eg. Richar Edwards Damon and Pythias (1571) Sir Philip Sydney in his Defence of Poesie objected to this, and approved only of Senecan tragedy Gorboduc by Sackville and Norton. According to him, other plays are neither tragedies nor comedies, mingling all together the unity of space, time and action on which Renaissance Italian critics had so insisted. GORBODUC by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton (1561) The first three acts were written by Norton, the last two by Sackville. It is a tale of a divided kingdom, civil war and the awful consequence of split authority in a state. It is divided into 5 acts. and constructed on the model of a Senecan tragedies. It follows the classical manner in avoiding violence on the stage (the events are being narrated) and is written in blank verse. Story: Gorboduc, King of Britain, divides his kingdom in his lifetime to his sons, Ferrex and Porrex. The sons argue - the younger kills older because he wants his part. The mother loved the older son more and for revenge kills the younger. The people, moved with the cruelty of this fact rise in rebellion and kill both mother and father. The nobility assembles and destroys the rebels. As the issue of succession to the crown becomes uncertain, the whole

country falls to a civil war, anarchy and usurpation - in which many people get killed and the land is desolate and wasted for a long time. Evel begets(raa) evil. Moral: A state in unity can oppose all evil force, but being divided is easily destroyed. Divided reigns make divided hearts - within one land, one single rule is the best. Ferrex, the older, is dissatisfied that the younger got half of the kingdom because by course of law and nature it should all have been his. He does not love his father and considers that Porrex has always envied his honour. He refuses advice from the counsellor to assemble his force for derence, he wants to prepare himself for revenge in secret. Porrex, on his part, also refuses advice from his counsellors. He decides to invade his brothers realm and will pay for his treason and his hate for Ferrex. Gorboduc finds out that Ferrex has prepared for war, but before he had time to do anything, Porrex has already killed Ferrex. Porrex tries to defend himself, but the King banishes him and the Queen kills him. Gorboduc and Queen Videna are killed by their own subjects. The civil war and tumults continue for 50 years. It is the first English tragedy, an attempt to follow the example of Italy and France and to initiate English tragedy in strict conformity to the Senecan model. The subject is taken from the legendary chronicles of Britain. Structure is narrative, not dramatic. Unities of time and space are violated. THEATRES In the meantime, schools, universities, houses of noblemen provided opportunities for more sophisticated or more learned plays. With the progress of the 16th century, drama became more abundant and more various. In 1576, John Burbage had erected the 1st permanent theatre (called simply The Theatre), on a field near Shoreditch. Other permanent theatres soon followed: The Curtain (1577), The Rose (1588), The Swan (1595) and THE GLOBE (1598). These theatres were built by companies of players.

Though costumes were elaborate, scenery was practically nonexistant. It was Platform Stage of the Elizabethans - platform could represent any space; the illusion was to be created only by language and action. There were no acrtesses; boys took womens parts. These were public theatres. In addition, there were private theatres, distinguished by being roofed and by somewhat more complicated interior arrangements. The first private theater was THE BLACKFRIARS, opened in 1576, for the children of the Chapel Royal. They were originally used by child actors. With time they became serious rivals to the adult companies. They presented more sophisticated pieces for a more sophisticated audience. UNIVERSITY WITS The growing popularity and diversity of the drama, its secularisation and the growth of a class of writers and secular scholars combined to produce a new literary phenomenon - the secular professional playwright. The group of writers known as The University of Wits were the 1st to exploit this situation. They turned to playwriting to make their living, and in doing so, they made Elizabethan popular drama more literary and in some respect more dramatic. It could perhaps be claimed that they were the first to associate English drama permanently with literature. The group consists of: John Lily, Robert Greene, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nashe and Christopher Marlowe. JOHN LYLY (1554-1606) He turned to drama after his success with Euphues (a prose romance), adapting his courtly artificial prose to the stage to produce a new kind of court comedy. Most of his plays were written for the Children of St. Pauls, to be performed at the court before the Queen. His prose was balanced and stylized, not so suitable for dramatic dialogue. For his plots he turned to Greek legend (but he used it in a wholly original way). His plays: Sapho and Phao, Midas, The Woman in the Moon (his only play in the blank verse), Mother Bombie etc. His plays are unequal: the subplots are not always effectively tied up with the main story; but there is a delicate imagination, a sense of form, and a new conception of comedy. EUPHUES (1578-1580)

 is a noble young Greek (his name means Gentleman) who

ignores advice and goes from Athens to Naples and then to London where he makes a friend of Philantus, betrays him, is reconciled, lectures him in moral philosophy. It concludes with a passage in praise of England, London, the court and the Queen. It is a dull story of a young Athenian, whom the author places in Naples in the 1st part and brings to England in the 2nd. Lyly pays great compliments to ladies for beauty and modesty and overloads Elizabeth with panegyric (hvalospjev). It is a prose romance in two parts: 1. The Anatomy of Wits (1578) 2. Euphues and his England (1580) The plot of each is but a peg (kvaica) on which to hang discourses, conversaions, letters mainly on the subject of love. Euphues is famous for its peculiar style. It gave name to euphemism. There are multitude of nice sayings. It is the first attempt in England at elegant writing. Its success is due to its elegance - courtly and polished speech, a style devoid of simplicity, becomes the object of admiration for its imagined ingenuity and difficulty. It was criticised and mocked by Shakespeare some 15 years later. The Greek Euphues means well grown, symmetrical, clever, witty - and this is sense in which Lyly applies it to his hero. Robert Greene (1560-1592) He, unlike Lyly, but like Kyd and Marlowe, wrote for the public stage and aimed at popular success rather than court favour. His plays are the 1st English example of the genre which is called by critics romantic comedy, a genre of which Shakespeares Twelft Night and As you like it represent the highest achievements. Thomas Lodge (1558-1625) His most interesting work is his prose romance Rosalynde, the source of Shakespeares As you like it. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) Only complete play of his is Summers Last Will and Testament an allegorical play. His most important work is his picturesque tale The Unfortunate Traveller.

THOMAS KYD (1558-1594) Known as the founder of what might be called Romantic Tragedy - mingling the themes of love, conspiracy, murder and revenge adopting some of the main elements of Senecan tragedy to melodrama. The Spanish Tragedy (acted 1592) The first of revenge plays which captured Elizabethan and Jacobean imagination. The political background of the play is the victory of Spain over Portugal in 1580, but it does not have much historical veracity (istinitost). The play is a phantasy. Briefly: Lorenzo and Bel-Imperia are son & daughter to Don Cyprian. Hieronimo is marshal of Spain and Horatio is his son. Balthazar is the son of the viceroy of Portugal and he has been taken prisoner by Lorenzo an Horatio for having killed Andrea, Bel-Imperias lover. Lorenzo and Balthazar discover that Bel-Imperia loves Horatio (Andreas best friend) and as Lorenzo wants her to marry Balthazar in order to assemble the two countries, he kills Horatio during the night and hangs him to a tree. Hieronimo, Horatios father, discovers the murderers and plots with B.I. a revenge. For this purpose he engages them to act before the court in a play that suits his revengeful purpose. In the course of the play Lorenzo and Balthazar are killed, Bel-Imperia stabs herself and Hieronimo commits suicide. Chorus: Andreas ghost. Andrea is a Spanish courtier who was in love with Bel-Imperia and died in the battlefield with the Portugese (Balthazar); he wants revenge. Balthazar, the prince of Portugal, is retained at the Spanish court for having killed Andrea. He has been caught by Horatio. BelImperia seeks revenge and falls in love with Horatio but it is rather her urge for revenge than love which make her be with him. She actually loves him as Andreas best friend. Lorenzo wants to make ties btw 2 courts - he wants B.I. to marry Balthazar and his pride is hurt because Horatio and not he himself has caught Balthazar, so he has reasons for hating Horatio. Lorenzo, Balthazar and Serberine (Balthazars servant) kill Horatio and Lorenzo orders Perdericano to kill Serberine. Balthazar imprisons Perdericano bcs he does not know it was Lorenzos idea. Hieronimo (Horatios father) finds the letter Perdericano wrote to Lorenzo, begging him to help him get out of

prison and the letter reveals the whole truth about Horatios murderers. Lorenzo tries to excuse himself to Bel-Imperia. He secluded her so as to keep her away from her fathers fury (supposedly he was angry because she was with Andrea first and now with Horatio), but actually he does not want her to meet Hieronimo and tell him what happened. Hieronimo manages to talk to Bel-Imperia about his revenge plan: pretending hes reconciled with Lorenzo and Balthazar, he makes all 3 of them act in his play about love, death and revenge. But a real and not a fictional revenge takes place. Meanwhile, Isabella, Horatios mother, stabs herself out of grief. In the play - Perseda (B.I.) stabs Soliman (Balthazar) and then herself; the Bashaw (Hieronimo) stabs Erastus (Lorenzo) and the Duke (Lorenzos father) and then himself. Conclusion: chorus - interesting way of soothing the tragical effect - Andrea says he will lead his friends (Hieronimo, Isabella, Horatio, Bel-Imperia) towards sweetness of eternity, while his enemies will be doomed to hell. It was written in blank verse. The speed of action is tremendous: event following an event; it was one of the great successes of the Elizabethan public stage. There is a lot of violence in the play - in this respect the play is not Sencecan. His debt to Seneca: sentences & machinery of a ghost, lust for revenge. Virgils influence - in Kyds account of the underworld. The characters have passions but nothing else. It is a play about a passion for retribution and vengeance shapes the entire action. Revenge is the main theme of the play, with the struggle of human will against evil and destiny. The word mercy does not occur in the play; it is not a christian play - revenge is obligaion, to oneself and to others. There are 4 interlocked revenge schemes: 1. Andrea: being killed by Balthazar in a cowardly and dishonorable fashion, wants revenge. 2. Bel-Imperia: Andreas mistress, wants to revenge Andrea by killing Balthazar and she uses Horatio for that; she falls in love with him 3. Lorenzo: B.I. brother, his pride is wounded by Horatios capturing of Balthazar and by his sisters preferring Horatio

4.

Hieronimo (Horatios father): wants to revenge his son; it is his duty. Though his wrongs are personal, God helps him through human agents.

The characters have mistaken notions about what their actions are leading them towards - DRAMATIC IRONY Hieronimo, distracted by the death of his son Horatio, plans his revenge with a mixture of madness and cunning - this blending of real and feigned madness has been used by Shakespeare in HAMLET. Shakespeare knew it as a popular theatrical piece and took many devices from it. The Spanish Tragedy has many characteristics of Elizabethan tragic devices: the revenge theme the play within a play the madness real and feigned the machiavellian master of malicious ploting (begins with Lorenzo and culminates in Iago) The Spanish Tragedy was the first popular tragedy on the English stage. English tragedy had not yet started to use blank verse, eloquent and musical enough, nor had it yet turned to the themes that came truly from the Elizabethan imagination. In the hands of Marlowe, it advanced toward the achievement of these 2 goals. CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1563-1593) The most striking personality and dramatist among the University Wits. He stormed his way into popular favour with Tambourline the Great (1587) in a blank verse; use of exotic places (which Shakespeare and Milton were to use later on). Theme: Restless desire of mankind for power that ceases only in death. The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus (1586-1589) Next Marlowes play. A drama in a blank verse and prose. It is probably the first dramatization of the medieval legend of a man who sold his soul to the Devil, and who became identified with a Dr. Faustus, a necromancer of the 16th ct. The legend appeared in the Volksbuch published at Frankfurt in 1587, and was translated into English. The Faustus myth reaches more profoundly into tragic aspects of human situation. He symbolizes

the story of the Fall of Man, through eating of the tree of knowledge. It is full of the spirit of Renaissance ambition and virtue, but there is also a specifically Christian background. He retains elements from morality plays (Good and Evil Angels). Tamburlaine and Faustus (in fact all Marlowes heroes) are lonely souls. The subject is the thirst for ultimate knowledge and power resulting from it. Story: Faustus is disgusted with the poor results of human science. He is torn between the good and bad angel. Valdes and Cornelius try to persuade him to give up theology and to dedicate himself to necromantic skills. He yearns for power and sells his soul to the devil in order that for 24 years he may satisfy every desire. With Lucifer, Belzebub and Mephistophelis he enters the 7 deadly sins (Pride, Lechery, Gluttony - lakomostm prodrljivost, avarice pohlepa, krtost, envy, sloth - lijenost and wrath - bijes). But he obtains no answer to the great questions that haunt him. For the vain pleasure of 24 years he loses eternal joy and felicity. Marlowes real difficulty comes when he has to illustrate the kind of knowledge Faustus gained - he could not illustrate superhuman knowledge and power in concrete dramatic scenes. Then comes retribution - in an overwhelming scene Marlowe describes the deepening agony of Faustus as the hour of his damnation comes nearer. Lucifer comes to take him to hell and Faustus is horrified by the eternity of hell. But as he has a good angel to exhort him (nagovarati) to repentance and amendment, as well as a bad angel, to urge him on the damnation, he is not irrevocably damned until he fails in his final temptation of despair - he gives up all hope, all possibility of repentance. Suspense is maintained by the possibility of his repentance. Despair is the final sin, that is why he is damned. The fate of Faustus described in moral and spiritual terms - his inner struggle. He is aware of the horror of his state but is unable to repent. He has a consistency of character. The function of knowledge is control rather than mere insight. He sells his soul in exchange of forbidden knowledge. He is led to self-destruction by implication of his virtues. Faustus is full of Renaissance spirit - homocentrism, ambition and virtue. The Jew of Malta (1592)

A drama in blank verse. Romantic presentation of a Machiavellian man, full of greed and cunning, who will stop at nothing to attain his ends. Story: The grand Seignor of Turkey having demanded the tribute to Malta, the governer of Malta. Ferenze, decides that it shall be paid by the Jews of the island. Barabas, a rich Jew who resists the edicts, has all his wealth confiscated and his house turned into a nunnery. In his revenge he indulges in an orgy of slaughter. With the aid of his slave Ithamore he kills Fernezes son Lodowick and Mathias, who is in love with his (Barabas) daughter Abigail. Abigail decides to become a nun. Therefore she becomes christian and Barabas cant forgive her that. He poisons the whole nunnery (enski samostan), kills 2 priests, gets together with the Turks against Ferenze and finally gets killed in one of his own traps. Religios question in a play: his hatred for the Christians. Jews are shown as greedy and cruel. Edward II (1593), a historical drama in a blank verse. The study of weakness. Shakespeares Richard II has many similarities with this play.