19/02/2019

Classical Drama

You know this is an introduction to Shakespeare, they call it classical drama. Well in fact
Shakespeare is not really classical drama, classical drama when we compare English drama, But
classical drama usually refers to the Greeks. Anyway, this is an introduction to Shakespeare, the
playwright and actor, but you probably know Shakespeare the poet (you read some sonnets by
Shakespeare). But we will be talking about Shakespeare the poet of course because he contributed
greatly to the English poetry.
So, the general outline of the course (we can find it in the sheet the professor gave us), we have
some readings we have to do by ourselves because we won’t have enough time to talk about that in
class, so we should develop some ideas about the English Renaissance, so when you study the
English Renaissance, of course it's the general core of the Elizabethan age or the age of
Shakespeare, that's the period Shakespeare worked so we must preview some of the ideas and what
happened in terms of literature, art, philosophy, theater, music, and whatever forms of artistic
expression or literary expression that existed, ideas how people lived and so on, and also how the
English language developed ( the English language and during the renaissance). You have also to
relate that to the social order, the social order here means how society was structured, the kind of
classes that existed, the renaissance is the transition from the feudal system, the aristocratic system
to the modern capitalistic one. So, relate that to the social order. So, you need to develop these ideas
since we won’t time to do that in class.
Now related to the English renaissance you should focus on the 3 main points that are in the sheet,
the development of the English language and how it developed from a spoken language to the
language of literature, still until some period in the middle ages the English language was still a
spoken language due to the aristocratic system, languages that were used by the aristocracy were the
French and Latin, and English was the language of the common people, so how that language
started developing to become the language of literature, it is important to look at the development
of the English language in terms of how it became the language of literature and the language of
education and so on. This is all related to the background of Shakespeare of course. Related to the
development of the English language there was a dominant form of expression before and during
the renaissance, it was poetry, poetry as a form of literary expression, you should also look at
English poetry and how it developed, the form, the ideas etc... And when you look at English poetry
at the time of Shakespeare, definitely you should have a look at Shakespeare's contribution to that,
that's the next point. You have also to look at the English theater, before Shakespeare and how was
it like, you have to read a little about it, the theater in the Renaissance.
The next section is Shakespeare's contribution to the English language, literature, and culture. How
Shakespeare, the poet, Shakespeare the actor, Shakespeare the playwright contributed to the English
language, and English literature, and English culture. Because Shakespeare is not sensibly as an actor
and a playwright, but also as expressing the cultural Britain at that time, and also influencing the
English culture later.
So, you look at Shakespeare's contribution to the English language, to the English poetry, and to the
English theater. That is that general 09:28 (Sorry I couldn't understand the word in this part).
And then, you have the last section is the choice of some texts representatives of Shakespeare's
work, the number of classes we have (Around 14 weeks) will not allow to study more than the three
texts that I have selected for you. The first one to start with is a poem, it is not a poem, it comes in
the form of a play that is taught in literature classes as a poem. And it's the speech of a character in
the play by Shakespeare. But the choice of that text gives us an image of how society lived in
the 10:40 (Sorry I couldn't understand the word in this part also).

The second text is act one from a play, a tragedy or called Richard III. It's the first scene, scene 1
and 2, and the name of the play that we have to read fully and also watch as a film, we will see it as
play but in a movie by some professional actors in Britain and we will discuss it as a text, so, we will
see it as performance and as a text.
Now, the objective of the course is not to make you focus on Shakespeare the text as if it were
literature, I want you to understand Shakespeare as a play, you will not be asked to write a
dissertation or an essay on a theme on the play or defend this or that, that is not the objective, the
objective is to see if you can taste the sounds of Shakespeare. Because Shakespeare was not a man of
literature, Shakespeare was a playwright, a poet and then an actor, and in all of playwright, actor, and
poetry, what he wrote was not addressed to the eye to be read as a text, but that was addressed to
the ear to be understood and to be tasted as something you would listen to, so those of us who
spend their time reading about Shakespeare and trying to understand the complex themes, probably
limits their pleasure, you should look at Shakespeare as theater, as actor, and Shakespeare himself
was an actor, he was obsessed with the role of the actors. There is a famous statement that he uses
"suit the word to the act", when you act you suit the word to the act and that is why in the case
of Shakespeare we will need to go to Shakespeare the poet, because Shakespeare the
poet influenced Shakespeare the playwright and actor, because most of the plays that Shakespeare at
the time poetry was still a dominant form of expression, chose a certain metric system and that of
course leads us give you some of the terms and concepts that we have acquired concerning poetry
things that relate the versification (Diameter, trimeter, pentameter...) with the dominant form of
expression that Shakespeare used was the Iambic Pentameter. These things that
concern Shakespeare because if you understand them well and concentrate on those forms, you can
understand the play better, because sometimes you have sentences or words or
verses. Shakespeare 's plays were written in blank verse, so we need to understand the difference
between the rhyme of the verse then the free verse, Basically the difference between the blank verse
and the rhyme verse, because some of the lines verses in Shakespeare's plays were rhyme verse like
the couplet and so.
We will read the scene one and two from Richard III, there is a character who comes as each and
talks to the audience and to himself in a kind of what you call today "the monologue", in the time
of Shakespeare it is called “the soliloquy”, and that soliloquy had a technical function in presenting
the day and the events and linking things. So, I chose Richard III because the lines in the person
in Richard III are good illustrations of the iambic pentameter which is called the (Sorry I couldn’t
hear clearly a word here meters, (e.g. I know that I shall meet my faith) This is modern poetry this is
tetrameter
(e.g. Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York, and all the
clouds that lour'd upon our house) we have an iambic pentameter, unstressed and stressed. When
you study the rhythm, the rhyme, the imagery, etc. They all contribute a message that is addressed
not to readers but to a listening audience, so, when studying Shakespeare, we are not going to study
Shakespeare as literature, we are going to Shakespeare as theater as stage as acting as sounds as
words, the play on the stage. That's why we have to review all those evidences related to the tone,
mood, things related to expression. And in addition to the images like metaphors metonymies.
When we "Now is the winter of our discontent" is common phase repeated in the English language,
they don't complete it, it is the image of the winter and you have discontent and the winter becomes
the summer "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York" and
the play of the words "son" and "sun". And when Shakespeare chose these verses, chose them to be
played or to be heard, not to be read as literature, to be enjoyed and heard by a listening audience.
Remember that Shakespeare was not a novelist but he was a dramatist, so he had an audience in
mind. The audience of a novelist are individual readers, and the audience of a poet is a
collective group of people going to the theater and watching the play and listening. In our class "The
Introduction to Shakespeare" the playwright and actor is not the introduction to a text that we read,
but it is an introduction to a text that we read to understand as spoken, as something oral, and the
professor thinks that the best way to facilitate the understanding of Shakespeare is to seeing him
belonging to the oral tradition not the written one. Shakespeare has become an institution in itself,
we are not talking about Shakespeare as a person and more, but it's possible to see Shakespeare in
the plays, because he acted himself, and when he acted on the plays he always directed the actors, he
always told them what to do, in terms of acting. When Shakespeare wrote his plays, his objective and
his audience was not the reading public, but the people who went to the theater, they appreciated
the theater, and that is why in our reading we need to focus on Shakespeare as performance.

The information on the English Renaissance is available, you can have access of it around a lot
references, principles of the English Renaissance that you have already been introduced to some of
the renaissance figures (like Chaucer, Ben Johnson, Francis Bacon, and some others with political
figures like Elizabeth the queen).

We only said now what was the English language like before, the writings in English that existed
before, how it became a literary production, because the English language in which Shakespeare
wrote was the modern English, and Shakespeare wrote mainly in the iambic pentameter. Of course,
we need to reveal the poetic terms, the iambic pentameter means syllables in words made up of two
syllables, (they go like this; One syllable is unstressed and one syllable is stressed) for example we say
"And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried." The ones
that are actually related clearly, and you can see which sound is stressed and which sound is not
stressed4. So, if you see the way the sounds are produced orally, the professor is not talking about
reading the literature, but talking about suiting the words to the eyes. If the words express sadness,
the sadness should be there, and if it expresses Joy, then joy should be there.
When we see "And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house”, now we are listening to Shakespeare
at the time of Shakespeare, what does Shakespeare mean by house, well the literal meaning of house
where we live is not the one meant in the Shakespearean time, because there was a war between two
houses, the House York and the House of Lancaster, two families were fighting for the kingdom.
So, the speaker using the monologue belongs to the House of York. Richard III who will become
King, means his own family, the Family of York. So, here you need also to be aware of Shakespeare
playing on words that we call puns (Pun: when you use a word that plays on two meanings).
The meter is the way we measure sounds, it is the system of sounds and how they are put together in
one verse. And the meter is based on the group of sounds. In the iambic pentameter you have what
is usually called the Iamb: it is a foot that contains two syllables (sounds): one is unstressed and the
other is stressed. And when it is repeated in the same line 5 times it becomes pentameter, PENTA
means five. But you will say but why was the iambic pentameter five times, why was it the dominant
system in poetry and in drama at the time of Shakespeare, in terms of language and modern English,
in terms of the development of the English language, it's been said that you can feel it , there have
been variations and adaptations of the old English, but it is considered modern English, that's why
 Shakespeare was influential, that's when the English language begins its stage of modernity in terms
of a language that even today can be appreciated (5-6 centuries after) and it is still modern. So, it
was in that form for being musical to the ear, easy to remember, and practical, but it is also the
nearest expression/form to the modern English structure. e.g. I went /to the / market / to buy /
some fish. We have it like 2 Syllables/ 2 Syllables / 2 Syllables / 2 Syllables / 2 Syllables.
When we study the English language, poetry, and theater, we will try to understand how that
language became so important, and so practical and suitable for the theater before.
Soliloquy or monologue had this function of introducing characters, relating events. "And all the
clouds that lour'd upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.", when we study these
two scenes, there is a clear idea about the language of Shakespeare, the images, the puns, the
metaphors, the similes and the antitheses, all of these we need to review.
Now we are moving to the text "All the World is a Stage"

Shakespeare was not the first to speak about this notion that the whole world is a stage/play,
actually it existed in other texts.
Walter Raleigh who wrote earlier than Shakespeare, Raleigh had a poem called "On the Life of
Man", in which he was asking <what is our life? A play of passion>.
"All the World is a Stage" is written as a speech in a play but it is taught as a poem, because of its
poetic aspects.
Shakespeare was obsessed with this idea, that life is a stage. The metaphor here is a direct
comparison towards life, it is not saying that life is like a stage but that life itself becomes a stage. So,
if life is a stage, then what are we doing here? We are playing different roles, and that is what
Shakespeare is saying here:
"And all the men and women merely players;" =>antithesis
They have their exits and their entrances; => is a metaphor
The Seven Ages of Man was not the idea of Shakespeare, he used to borrow from many stories and
traditions (like King Lear Written British history, Greek Mythology). The best thing that
Shakespeare did was developing the English language.

"And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail" => the use of the schoolboy creeping like a snail is a
Simile.

The end of the session.