1、Lecture 3,The Elizabethan Age (II),EnglishLiterature,Teaching Objectives and Requirements,1 Help the students know some information about the origins of English drama.,2 Help the students have a good understanding of Shakespeare.,3 Make sure the students have a better understanding of Hamlet (Act 3,
2、 Scene 1, Lines 55-86).,1.1 Four kinds of play,Miracle plays,Morality plays,Interlude,1 A sketch of the history of English drama,True drama,The miracle play had as its subject either a story from the bible, or else the life and martyrdom of a saint. In the usage of some historians, however, “miracle
3、 play” denotes only dramas based on saints lives, and term “mystery play”.,back,Morality plays were dramatized allegories of a representative Christian life in the plot form of a quest for salvation, in which the crucial events are temptations, sinning, and the climactic confrontation with death. Th
4、e usual protagonist represents Mankind, or Everyman; among the other characters are personifications of virtues, vices and Death, as well as angels and demons who contest for the prize of the soul of Mankind.,back,Interlude is a term applied to a variety of short stage entertainments, such as secula
5、r farces and witty dialogues with a religious or political point. In the late fifteen and early sixteenth centuries, these little dramas were performed by bands of professional actors; its believed that they were often put on between the courses of a feast or between the acts of a long play.,back,Tr
6、ue dramaIt had its deep roots in the miracle and morality plays. It represents real life as lived by real people. Here were real people with real names with no abstract personifications, involved in real events that were culled from reality, and replicating human behavior in their daily existence. P
7、lots evolved around intriguing true-to-life stories in some conceivable order, which were normally sequential at first in well-arranged acts and scenes.,1.2 The Elizabethan dramatists who influenced Shakespeare,University Wits,Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593),Robert Greene,John Lyly,Thomas Nashe,Thom
8、as Lodge,Thomas Kyd,George Peele,Christopher Marlowe,one of the first playwrights to use blank verse in English drama,Tamburlaine Tamburlaine, Part II The Massacre at Paris Edward II (served as a model for Shakespeares Richard II and Richard III) The Jew of Malta The Tragical History of Doctor Faust
9、us (masterpiece),Works,A play based on the German legend of a magical aspiring for knowledge and finally meeting his tragic end as a result of selling his soul to the devil. The plays dominant moral is human rather than religious. It celebrates the human passion for knowledge, power and happiness; i
10、t also reveals mans frustration in realizing the high aspirations in a hostile moral order. And the confinement to time is the cruelest fact of mans condition.,forward,Blank verse is unrhymed poetry, typically in iambic pentameter, and, as such, the dominant verse form of English dramatic and narrat
11、ive poetry since the mid-16th century. Blank verse was adopted by Italian Renaissance writers from classical sources; it became the standard form of dramatists. Christopher Marlow used blank verse for dramatic verse.,back,1.3 Ben Johnson,The last great Elizabethan and probably the first poet Laureat
12、e (1616) and the first dictator in English history,Every Man in His Humor (established his reputation as a playwright ),A realistic writer,Remembered today chiefly as a playwright,Calls Shakespeare “the Soul of the Age,” and “Not of an age but for all time”,2 William Shakespeare,Shakespeares literar
13、y career,Shakespeare as a playwright (37 plays: 14 comedies, 12 tragedies, and 11 historical plays),Shakespeare as a poet (154 sonnets, as well as two long poems) (Chang Yaoxin, 51-53),Three major periods of Shakespeares literary life:,1. The first period: 1590 to 1600, 22 plays: 11 comedies, three
14、tragedies and eight historical plays.,2.The second period: 1601 to 1608 ( the period of tragedies), marked by gloom and depression combined with masterly workmanship.,3.The third period: 1609 to 1612 (the period of dramatic romances), full of unrealistic compromises and fantasy.,Henry, Richard,and H
15、enry, and the best comedies he wrote in this period are A Midsummer Nights Dream, The Merchant of Venice; Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It; and Twelfth Night; as well as his first masterpieces in tragedy, Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar, back,In this period he produced his four great traged
16、ies: Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, which represent the climax of his dramatic power. In each of those plays there is an intense moral struggle, a less joyous view of life, and a profound view of philosophy. He touches all the depth of human passion and human tragedy, treachery, lust, jeal
17、ousy, ingratitude, madness of man, etc., back,It is a period of restored serenity and tolerant resignation. He no longer hated the world but accepted it with a smile of resignation. He writes no more historical plays full of bloody horrors; no more tragedies in which the whole world goes crashing do
18、wn with the hero; and no more comedies filled with sprightly wit. However, he finds life once more worth living, and the world beautiful, enchanting, and fantastically attractive. (The Tempest),Chief achievements and characteristics of Shakespeares drama,1) The progressive significance of his themes
19、,2) His successful character portrayal,3) His master-hand in constructing plays,4) The ingenuity of his poetry,5) His mastery of English language,Shakespeares themes,Through his plays, he touched almost every aspects of human life, of human pleasures and human tragedies. Shakespeare paints in his dr
20、amas a faithful panorama of the decline of old feudal nobility and the rise of the Tudor monarchy, which represented the interests of the English bourgeoisie. Moreover, he is perhaps the perfect expression of Renaissance humanism.,back,Shakespeares character portrayal,In his 37 dramas, Shakespeare c
21、reated a large group of lifelike characters who live and struggle, suffer and rejoicerepresenting all the complexities and implications of real life. He wrote about his own people and for his own people.,back,Shakespeares play construction,Shakespeare is a master-hand for every form of dramacomedy,
22、tragedy, and historical plays. Moreover, his tragedies may have comic elements, and his comedies include sardonic commentaries on human frailty. He is skillful at recreations. The plots of Shakespeares plays are well-arranged according to the requirement of the theme and content. The action is devel
23、oped freely, without being hindered by the rules of the classical unities (action, place and time).,back,Shakespeares Poetry,In his creation of dramas, he succeeded in combing the two sides of his talentShakespeare the poet and Shakespeare the dramatistinto one and produced the most remarkable poeti
24、c dramas in England or perhaps in the whole world. The lines in his plays are not mere decorations but all have their own values. They serve as a vehicle of utterance to all the possible sentiments of his characters.,back,Shakespeares Language,Shakespeares command of vocabulary was the largest among
25、 the Elizabethan dramatists. He used more than 16000 different words and enriched the English language with his own coinage. Under his hand, words glow with life. He uses the English language the greatest freedom and ease, so that all the speeches fit all the characters that use them.,Hamlet,1) The
26、story of Hamlet,2) Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1, Lines 55-86),3) The character of Hamlet,4) The theme of Hamlet,The character of Hamlet,Hamlet is Prince of Denmark and he is a man of Renaissance with humanists ideala soldier, scholar, courtier, the glass of fashion and the mold of form. When he first appe
27、ars in the play, he is in the state of depression, because, first he found the evil and corruption in his country: the world to him is “an un-weeded garden, the time is out of joint. O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right!”,Secondly, he, from the ghost, knows the real cause of his fath
28、ers death. Therefore, the most important problem he is facing now is to avenging his fathers death. But the situation he is in is very dangerous in which he had to fight against that stronghold of feudalism with his uncle on the top. So he feigned madness. Here we can say he is a little resourceful
29、himself.,Besides this, he is a melancholy, hesitant, reasonable and philosophical man as well as a great moralizer, and a slow avenger of his fathers death. At other times he did have chance to act but he remains puzzled, undecided, and skeptical, dallies with his purposes, till the occasion is lost
30、, and finds out some pretense to relapse into indolence and thoughtfulness again. For this reason he refuses to kill the king when he is at his prayers.,He also disgusts at evil things, such as his uncles drunkenness, his loathing of his mothers sensuality, his astonishment and horror at her shallow
31、ness, his contempt for everything pretentious or false. He is far from a perfect humanist, and he is a man himself.,back,It expresses the sharp contradiction between the rising bourgeoisie and the feudal power through a bloody revenge. It also shows that England was no longer a merry England as it w
32、as before. Its a country full of disturbances, social evils. It also praises Hamlets struggle against his evil uncle.,The theme of Hamlet,back,A sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines with rhyme arranged according to definite scheme. It was introduced by Thomas Wyatt into England. Shakespearean son
33、net: the English sonnet, having 14 lines with three quatrains and one couplet that make an effective and unifying climax to the whole. It has a consistent rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. Discussion of Sonnet 18,Reflection Questions and Assignments,1 Do you notice any hints or clues about chivalry in Hamlet? 2 What is the central importance of Hamlets most famous soliloquy: “To be, or not to be”? 3 Pre-read Chapter 5 in the textbook A Survey of English Literature. 4 Read Paradise lost (Excerpt) in the book Selected Readings, and answer the questions in the Selected Readings.,Thank you!,
