THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

England felt the effects of the Renaissance later than much of Europe because it was an island.
The Renaissance is thought to begin with the accession to the throne of the House of Tudor in
the second half of the 15th century. This period meant the decay of feudalism and the rise of the
bourgeoisie and of a new aristocracy, which contributed to the consolidation of royal power.
Politically this meant the end of the War of Roses ( civil war between the House of Lancaster - red
rose - and the House of York - white rose ) and the consolidation of a centralised state.

In the same period was printing introduced, which contributed to the standardization of the
language. The Renaissance also influenced religion. Henry VIII broke away with the Church of Rome
and his daughter, Elizabeth I. made certain that the Church of England was to remain a national
institution.
The great thinkers of the period were the humanists, who upheld advanced ideas and
supported the struggle of the bourgeoisie.

The Renaissance as a cultural movement meant the liberation of thought from medieval
dogmas, a fresh interest in nature and the universe. The progressive minded men were looking for
new forms of expression in art. They studied the literary and artistic works of classical antiquity
because they dreamed of a re - birth of ancient art.
The essence of the Renaissance was the desire to represent real men, a man true to life with all
his thoughts, feelings and passions. Renaissance art strove to present human life in all its complexities,
with its joys and sufferings. Renaissance art glorified earthly life in all its beauty.

Peculiar to the English Renaissance is its national and popular character, its connection
with the masses, its devotion to the past history, to tradition and legends.
The English Renaissance was largely literary and achieved its finest expression in the so-called
Elizabethan drama with its representatives: Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson and especially
William Shakespeare.
Non-dramatic poetry was also extremely rich. The most important poets of the period were
Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney and John Donne and later on John Milton, the author of the excellent
epic "Paradise Lost".
Prose shaped itself more slowly than poetry. Thomas More wrote his "Utopia" in Latin.
Nevertheless English prose developed in writers like Thomas North and Francis Bacon.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 (1564 - 1616 )

The spirit of the Renaissance found its fullest expression in England in the drama. The English
drama of the Renaissance reached its highest peak in the works of William Shakespeare.

Little is known about Shakespeare's life but among the positive facts we know is that he was
born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April, 1564. The exact date of his birth is unknown. It is known
however that he was christened on the 26th of April. In those days it was a custom to christen a child
three days after its birth and so it is generally assumed that Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of
April. This date is all the more favoured because 52 years later, on the 23rd of April, 1616, the
playwright died, thus making it an interesting coincidence, his birth and death having taken place on
the same day. The house in Henley Street is known today as Shakespeare's birthplace.
His father, John Shakespeare, was a prosperous trade-man and later became elderman and
mayor of the town. His mother, Mary Arden, was the descendant of a noble family. They had four
boys and four girls, William was the third child and first son. But all his brothers and sisters either
died in infancy or before him.

Shakespeare studied at the local Grammar School but his father's financial difficulties caused
William's removal from school at an early age, as he had to help his father in his work. Since
Shakespeare did not have a high education, it is often said that his school was nature and the World.

Shakespeare married Ann Hathaway, who was eight years his senior. Their first child, Susanna,
was born six months after the marriage. Then they had the twins Hamnet and Judith.

Two years later Shakespeare left for London. Why he left Stratford is not known. It might
have been a poaching affair ( in which he was said to have been involved ) or he might have had
material difficulties which made him leave his family and try his luck in a new environment.
His first job in London was that of a horse-keeper ( he had to take care of the horses of people
who came to the theatre. Then he was employed as a prompter's attendant. He became an actor for
the Queen's Company and in the meantime he gained early experience as a dramatist by revising and
rewriting plays. Finally he became a well-known playwright and when the building of Globe Theatre
started he was among the shareholders.

The last years of his life he spent in Stratford, where he died in 1616. He was buried in the
Holy Trinity Church at Stafford. There is no name, but there is an inscription on his tombstone:
"Good friend for Jesus' sake forbear
To dig the dust enclosed here;
Blessed be the man who spares these stones
And cursed be he who moves my bones."
In 1741 a monument was erected to his memory in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

There are three periods in Shakespeare's creation, each characterised by a different

outlook.
I. PERIOD His first plays are optimistic. He wrote "serene"comedies
("Love's Labour's Lost", "Comedy of Errors", "All's Well that Ends
1590 - 1600 Well", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Taming of the Shrewd")

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 After the defeat of the Armada he set to write chronicle
or historical plays. ("Richard III", "Richard II", "King John", "Henry VI")
Also in this period he wrote a few tragedies from
among which "Romeo and Juliet" is to be mentioned.

II. PERIOD The second period is that of great tragedies and a few
"dark comedies".A change of tone is to be noticed,
1601 -1608 although this is the most prolific period in his creation.
Melancholy and pessimism creep in Shakespeare's
writings as they reflect the disillusionment of the English
Renaissance humanists. ("Hamlet", "Othello", "Kink Lear"
"Macbeth", "Julius Caesar")

III.PERIOD The plays produced after Shakespeare's retirement to

Stratford are quite different, reminding of the earlier
16o8 - 1613 dramas. The"romance" plays ("Cymbeline", "Tempest",
"The Winter's Tale") show the poet's soul at peace with itself
and with the world.

All in all Shakespeare wrote 36 plays, 154 sonnets and 5 long poems.
His plays may be grouped as:
· historical / chronicle plays
· tragedies
· comedies < serene
< dark
· romances

Shakespeare's dramatic work is the expression of the social and political events of his time, the
age of the English Renaissance. It raises important problems peculiar to the period of transition
from feudalism to capitalism in England. His characters are complex human beings and they
acquire universality by being typical, although they are highly individualised through their speech,
behaviour, ideas.

Shakespeare is a master in handling the dramatic conflict as well as a master of style. This is why
he is the greatest English playwright.

ROMEO AND JULIET

by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The play belongs to Shakespeare's first period of creation. Yet at its first performance it was
by far the best tragedy for the stage that had been produced in the English language up to that time.

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He was 30 when he wrote the play, but he was still a beginner. He worked out his play - theme, plot,
characterisation, incident, poetry - with peculiar care. He was deliberately working out a theme,
which he stated and stressed in the opening chorus: two households in Verona "from ancient
grudge, break to new mutiny" and a "pair of star-cross'd lovers, take their lives" who, with
their death, "bury their parent's strife."

The play is thus intended to illustrate rather the folly of family feuds than the sad story of two
young lovers. Shakespeare grasped the full significance of the sad love tale in all its social and
political implications. The epoch was marked by the rise of the bourgeoisie which contributed to the
consolidation of royal power. Royalty brought political unity to the country in its struggle with
foreign enemies as well as in the struggle against the reactionary forces at home, which wanted to
bring back the old feudal order. In "Romeo and Juliet" Shakespeare condemns feudalism when he
expresses his disapproval of the hatred between the two feudal families. The struggle against
the feudal order is manifested in the striving of Romeo and Juliet to gain the freedom of love.

At the same time there is a secondary theme running through the play and summed up in the
word "star-cross'd". At every critical moment something goes wrong by unlucky accident. The
disaster in the play is caused not so much by some moral issue but by sheer bad luck: the characters
are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Romeo happened to be in the street where Mercutio and
Tybald were quarrelling. When his friend, Mercutio, was killed, he had no alternative but be loyal to
him and revenge his death. We can say that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and this is
why he was banished from Verona. The letter telling Romeo that Juliet's death was not real did not
reach him in due time. He was away in Mantua, that is in the wrong place. Juliet killed herself because
she woke up from her slumber too late. The effect of the potion was over at the wrong time.

Thus "Romeo and Juliet" is not a tragedy in the sense in which we understand the term
"Shakespearean tragedy". The unhappy ending is the result of accident or fate. Although the
lovers have their weaknesses, it is not their fault but their unlucky stars that destroy them. The source
of the tragedy is outside the characters. They are not guilty, yet they cannot do anything to prevent
tragedy from happening

From the central theme - the feud between the two houses - other oppositions derive:
romance and revenge, love and hate, youth and age, day and night. Night is the lover's friend. It is at
night that they meet. It is night that protects them.Yet Juliet does not associate Romeo with night or
darkness but with "day", that is "light". At his turn Romeo also sees Juliet as "light" which is closely
associated with her beauty. When Shakespeare describes the intensity of their love, the dominant
image is light in all forms of manifestations: the sun, the moon, the stars, the fire, the lightening, the
flame.

Another theme in the play is that of identity. The lovers never forget their families or who
they are. They can never forget their identities while they are alive. The famous "balcony scene" is
very relevant to the theme of identity. Juliet was brought up in the belief that the family name and title
were realities never to be questioned. Yet she questions the validity of this idea. She voices the
opinions of the progressive minded people of the period, the ideas of the humanists when she asks:
"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

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 The play is a good picture of Elizabethan family life with the parents completely dominant
and unsentimental. Both the old Capulets and the old Montagues are typical representatives of their
class. They have wasted most of their lives in hatred and do not realize their error until their children
are sacrificed. After this, the old men reconcile and all sadly withdraw.

The death of young creatures is always moving and pathetic but it is seldom tragic (except for
their parents) because tragedy requires maturity in the tragic victims, which neither Romeo nor
Juliet posses. So "Romeo and Juliet" lacks the qualities of deep tragedy.

ROMEO AND JULIET

PLACE: Verona
TIME: Shakespeare compresses the action to an interval of 120 hours
( 5 days: the lovers meet on Sunday, are wedded on Monday, part on Tuesday,
and are reunited through death on Thursday night.)
PLOT:
The houses of Montague and Capulet are at feud. Romeo falls in love with Juliet the moment
he sees her at the ball. Juliet returns his feelings. They are wedded in secret by Friar Laurence. The
same day Mercutio is killed by Tybald. Romeo cannot ignore the conflict and kills Tybald in a duel, for
which he is banished from Verona.
Meanwhile the Capulets plan to marry Juliet to count Paris. In her distress Juliet consults the
Friar, who gives her a potion. Juliet drinks it and looks as if dead and is taken to he family vault.
The plan was that when she woke up the Friar would be there to help her flee Verona.
The Friar sends a letter to Romeo in which he tells about the plan, but Romeo does not get
the letter. Yet he hears about Juliet's death and comes back to Verona.
Paris and Romeo both come to Juliet's tomb to mourn her. Romeo kills Paris and kills himself
by drinking poison. The Friar comes and restores Juliet to life. She awakens to find her lover dead.
The Friar leaves. Juliet stabs herself with Romeo's dagger and dies.
When the Capulets and the Montagues hear the news of their children's death, they swear to
put an end to their feud.

HAMLET
by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The play belongs to Shakespeare's second period of creation. His outlook is darkened by the
more and more repulsive surrounding reality, which brought about the general crisis of English
Humanism. He becomes the severe censor of his age, dwelling on the most ardent problems of human
life. He deals with the events of his time but he presents them in a different garb. The reason for this
may be found in the fact that Shakespeare's spectators were brought up in the tradition of medieval

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oral literature: legends, epics, tales. That is why the playwrights of the time preferred subjects taken
from legends and tales.
There was another reason, too. It was dangerous to speak about reality in a direct manner.
So, the action of many Shakespearean plays does not take place in the England of the playwright's
time but the characters created by him, their thoughts, their feelings, their attitude towards life,
towards their relationships all belong to the time when Shakespeare lived.

The action in "Hamlet" is supposed to take place in Denmark in the Middle Ages. But it is
not difficult to see that the Danish Court is in fact any aristocratic court of Shakespeare's day. The
head of the castle thinks of nothing but feasting and drinking. His nephew goes to university on the
Continent, where he becomes acquainted with humanism. When he comes back home he sees things
differently and thinks he is a stranger at home. His friend is a typical "university wit" of the time, very
much interested in classical culture. When he sees the ghost for the first time, it reminds him of the
miraculous events that were supposed to have taken place in Rome just before Caesar's death.
All these characters and events set in the social background of the 16th century England are
proofs that "Hamlet" is a typical product of the English Renaissance.

In this period there was a kind of theatrical performance, which was very popular, the so-
called "blood and thunder tragedy" It was popular because it was felt as relevant to the English
society of the time.
The plot of such a play is the murder of a close relative of the main character and whose
ghost appears to the main hero and asks for revenge. The murderer is usually a person who, by his
social importance, is out of the reach of ordinary justice. The main character is then faced with the
problem of whether or not to seek revenge. Revenge personally carried out is viewed from several
points of view: the family of the avenger sees it as a duty, the church sees it as a sin, the state sees
it as a crime.
The main character has to consider all these aspects but he usually decides in favour of
personal action, believing himself the instrument of divine justice. This is the main character's chief
error: he thinks he is God and tries to transcend his human condition and this is why his hubris is
punished in the end. [Hubris = arrogant pride of the ancient hero who tries to do things beyond the
power of human being, a fact that angers the gods. They punish the hero in the end to show mortals
that their supremacy is not to be questioned. Probably the most widely known example of hubris is
Prometheus.]

The literary inspiration for this kind of drama came from the plays of Seneca and in English
literature it first occurred in "The Spanish Tragedy" by Thomas Kyd, which was the father of all
"Revenge Plays". "Hamlet" may be indebted to Kyd's play as it has affinities with it. But "Hamlet",
although it strictly follows the pattern of the revenge plays which gave a peculiar delight for the
Elizabethan playgoers, is more than just a "revenge tragedy."
These revenge plays have lots of features in common. There is a complicated intrigue, a
close relative has to take revenge, there are sensational happenings, as well as supernatural ones
(ghosts appear on the stage ), there is a "play within a play" that helps to solve the mystery of
murder. The characters suffer or pretend to suffer from madness, they are fond of philosophising and
justifying their actions and most of them die at the end.
The Elizabethan drama is characterised by antithesis and the characters are torn between
conflicting passions. Hamlet is torn between morality and cowardice. The source of his tragedy is
inside his character. It is his ideas that cause his tragedy. He cannot change, so there is nothing he

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can do to prevent tragedy from happening. Hamlet, as a principal thinking character, is the
embodiment of the highest ideals of humanism.
Thus the play, besides being a revenge tragedy, is usually considered a play of problems.
Shakespeare used Hamlet as a vessel into which he poured his thoughts on all kinds of matters that
have very little to do with the action of the play. Some of the most famous speeches are comments on
general problems (such as suicide, man and the Universe, fate, flattery, sincerity), yet the essential
philosophical problems are centered round the antonymic pairs "to be - to seem" (reality and
appearance).
All these are Shakespeare's own thoughts at a time when he and every thinking man of his
generation were passing through a period of profound disillusion and pessimism.

HAMLET

PLACE: Elsinore Castle in Denmark

TIME: around the year 1200
PLOT: is symmetrical and admirably worked out.
Shakespeare had a great advantage: the story was an old favourite. There was no need to start
with explanations. Instead, he could open his play with creating atmosphere: dark scene on the
battlements of Elsinore Castle, in Denmark, around the year 1200.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, returns home to find his mother, Gertrude, married to his father's
brother, Claudius, only after two months after her husband's, King Hamlet's, death. Prince Hamlet
keenly feels the dishonour to his father's memory and falls into deep melancholy.
To Hamlet's horror, his father's ghost appears to him and reveals to him that he has been
murdered and demands revenge. But Hamlet is not sure the Ghost is really his father's, so he is moved
but irresolute. First he pretends to be mad. Then, when a group of actors comes to the castle, he
thinks of a trick in order to test his step-father's guilt. He organizes a play within a play in which a
king is murdered in the way described by the ghost. Claudius gives himself away by walking out
before the end of the play. The Ghost was right, but now Hamlet has another problem: should he
punish murder by another murder?
On the same evening, in mistake for Claudius, Hamlet kills Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain,
Ophelia's father. Ophelia, who is in love with Hamlet, becomes so desperate because of her father's
death, after having been rejected by Hamlet, that she drowns herself. Now it is Laertes's turn
(Polonius's son and Ophelia's brother) to take revenge.
Claudius banishes Hamlet to England, intending to have him murdered there. On the way
Hamlet discovers the plot and returns to Denmark. Claudius arranges a duel between Hamlet and
Laertes, in which Laertes's rapier is poisoned. During the duel the Queen drinks the poisoned wine by
mistake and dies. Hamlet, though wounded and poisoned, exchanges weapons with Laertes and kills
him. Hamlet also stabs Claudius and he himself dies in the arms of his friend, who stays alive to be
able to tell Hamlet's story.
The murder has been revenged.

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 SONNETS
by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The first period of Shakespeare's literary activity is marked by the "Sonnets" published in
1609 but written probably between 1595 and 1599.
There are 154 sonnets and they centre on such themes as love, the flight of time, the
immortality of art.
Out of Shakespeare's sonnets, numbers 1-126 are addressed to a man and the reminder to a
woman. There has been much speculation about the dedication, in which a Mr. W. H. is mentioned as
the "only begetter". If "begetter" means "inspirer", the initials might be those of HENRY
WRIOTHESLEY, Earl of Southampton (who initiated Shakespeare in Italian painting and music) or
of WILLIAM HERBERT, Earl of Pembroke. As to the identity of the"dark lady", she might have
been MARY FITTON, a Maid of Honour at Court.
Critics disagree about whether the sonnets are autobiographical or simply "literary exercises"
without a personal theme. Anyway some of the themes were later dramatised in the plays.
Shakespeare's greatest merit lies in the introduction of a new pattern for the
sonnet.
A sonnet is a short, lyric poem of 14 lines in one verse or stanza. The rhythmic
pattern is known as iambic pentameter (each line consists of a pattern of 5 units or "feet",
each of 2 syllables).
The sonnet form was first introduced into England in the 16th century. It originated in Italy
and one variation of the form is called after the Italian poet, Petrarcha.
The 3 most widely recognised forms of the sonnet are:
1. the Italian (Petrarchan)
2. the Spenserian
3. the English (Shakespearean)
The Petrarchan sonnet is recognisable by the rhyme scheme abba abba in the first eight
lines (octave) and cdc cdc (or cde cde) in the last six lines (sestet).
The rhyme scheme in the Spenserian sonnets is abab bcbc cdcd ee.
In the Shakespearean sonnet it is abab cdcd efef gg

The English sonnet is simpler in form, allowing greater freedom of choice in the rhyme
scheme.

2
The subject matter of a sonnet is greatly affected by the pattern of the rhyme scheme: the
Petrarchan form consists of a statement or question followed by a resolution.

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 the Shakespearean form can repeat a problem or idea with variations in the
first 12 lines and then conclude with a summarising couplet. Thus the last two lines are
different from the others in point of both form and content: their position is different - there is
an indentation (i.e. they are more to the right) and the rhyme is differently patterned and it is used
in these lines only. The effect of these two formal features is to separate these lines from the rest of
the sonnet and draw attention to the theme. As concerns content the couplet (last two lines) is the
essence of the sonnet,
its conclusion, often a memorable one.
In his sonnets Shakespeare exalts friendship, which is presented as nobler than love.

In Sonnets 26 - 29 he complains of his sad fate, while love for his friend is his only comfort.
He parts with his friend (Sonnet 44) and many sufferings follow, until in Sonnet 127 the "dark
Lady" appears. In later sonnets the feeling of friendship is contrasted with the tormenting feelings
caused by the "dark Lady".

In Sonnet 116 the theme is love seen from a general point of view, the language is
abstract and the tone is optimistic. It is built on two antitheses: love as opposed to personal
change and love as opposed to time."Love's not Time's fool" in the poet's opinion. True love cannot
be put an end to since it doesn't disappear when one of the lovers finds somebody new. True love is
not shaken by the tempests of life and does not change in time but it lasts to "the edge of doom".
Shakespeare concludes by saying that if he is wrong about this, it means that he "never writ" and "no
man ever loved."
particular point o
In Sonnet 91 the theme is love, too but seen from a particular point of view. The poet
addresses somebody in particular when saying "thy love." The language is mainly concrete. The
poet enumerates different things people usually take pride in: their origin or wealth, animals they own,
garments they wear, the skills or body-force they have. But for the poet the love of the person he
addresses to means more than any of these, it's "richer than wealth" and having the beloved person
will make him proud in front of all the people. The tone of the sonnet suddenly becomes pessimistic.
In the last two lines Shakespeare expresses his fear that the beloved person might take away
everything by leaving him alone and thus making him "most wretched".

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