THE EARLY TUDOR( PAG 82/83)

HENRY VII
After the Wars of the Roses( won by House of Lancaster) the two houses(Lancester and
York) were united by a marriage between Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. From his
marriage Henry VII made a new house, the Tudor rose. Henry VII ruled the country as a
businessman. He began the building of the fleet,because he understood that Great Britain
needed to be strong at sea. Henry VII introduced high taxes and banned nobles from raising
armies. However, he had to face several Yorkist plots against him, often helped by the Kings
of Scotland or the Irish.In 1496 he sponsored John Cabot to explore eastern America and
planted the Tudor flag in Nova Scotia. During his reign Erasmus of Rotterdam brought the
Humanism of the Renaissance to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, while the
scholar Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia (1516), moved England closer to North-
European thought and the origins of Protestantism. Henry VII's foreign policy was very
cautious. He married his son and heir to the Aragonese heiress Catherine and two of his
daughters equally well to the Kings of France and Scotland. When he died in 1509, he left
England economically stable and at peace with France and Scotland.
HENRY VIII
Henry VIII (1509-47) succeeded his father at the age of 18, because his first brother died. In
general the Tudors were very dispotic but at the same time they were loved by the people.
We can define him as a typical rinascimental prince because he loved the art. He married his
brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon. Henry VIII was interested in theology and when Martin
Luther nailed his anti-Catholic theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church in 1517,
Henry wrote an attack on Luther which won him the title of “defender of the faith” from the
pope. Henry also increased the navy from five to about forty ships. However, things changed
when Henry asked the pope to declare his first marriage invalid, as Catherine had given him
a daughter, Mary, but failed to deliver a male heir. The pope refused, so the king broke with
Rome, divorced Catherine and, in 1533, married a pregnant Anne Boleyn, who gave birth to
a girl, Elizabeth. With the Act of Supremacy (1534) Henry was declared “the Supreme Head
of the Church of England”, and it became treason to deny it. Henry's religious revolution was
extended to Wales and Ireland. Temporal and religious powers were thus joined in the figure
of the monarch .Thomas Cromwell, the king's chancellor, suppressed 400 small
monasteries and confiscated their lands and money. Monastic chapels became parish
churches and the land of the monasteries was sold, so the new merchant class had access
to a landed status that had previously been a privilege of the nobility. Anne Boleyn was
imprisoned on charges of treason and executed in 1536. The king then married Jane
Seymour, who gave him a son, Edward but died in childbirth. Henry had three more wives.
The sixth one, Catherine Parr,had great intellectual influence on Prince Edward and
Princess Elizabeth, whose upbringing she supervised.
EDWARD VI
Edward VI (1547-53) was only 9 years old when his father died. He was precocious,
studying history and Protestant theology. During Edward's reign, as a consequence of the
Protestant Reformation, religious services were held in English instead of Latin and the
Book of Common Prayer, mainly prepared by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas
Cranmer, became compulsory with the Act of Uniformity (1549). In 1553 the young king died
because he didn’t have good health. Before dying he had named Lady Jane Grey as his
successor, but after nine days and still uncrowned, she was taken prisoner to the Tower of
London thanks to a Catholic plot, so after him governed his first daughter ( of Catherin)
 MARY I
Mary I (1553-58), Henry VIII's daughter by his first wife, declared herself queen and wanted
to restore Catholicism in England; she was catholic and very despotic. In 1554 she married
Philip II of Spain and this made England an ally of Spain against France.She wanted to
restore catholic and so she began to persecute the protestants, for this persecuted she was
called “Bloody Mary”. In 1558 she fell ill and reluctantly left the throne to her sister Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH I
the king= was the supreme had to church too
the virgin queen
Elizabeth came to the throne at the age of 25,she was clever and determined. Her reign
(1558-1603) is often considered England's golden age. It was an age of stability, religious
toleration and victory at sea. Elisabeth had a great religious problem but she wanted to avoid
any extremus,so she was a bit more tolerant than her father and with this Act of Supremacy
and Uniformity she became the governor of the english church. Church doctrine was
Protestant and culminated in the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglican faith of 1562. A very delicate
question was her marriageability. Elizabeth used marriage as a political weapon, and
received many proposals, but she never said yes or no at this proposal,in this way she
succeeded in keeping France and Spain in good relationship with England, but she became
the virgin queen. When the parliament pressed her to marry and produce an heir, she replied
that she was married to her people and she will rule the country in the name of her people.
SPAIN: the greatest sea power / THE ENGLISH: defeated the Spanish armada and
became the most powerful sea power.
the royal progress.
Elizabeth took regular tours around the country, known as 'royal progresses”, to show her
person and the power of her office. She and her court received hospitality from her richest
subjects, who regarded her visits as a privilege. Several official portraits of the queen were
painted as part of royal propaganda, displaying the symbols of her power and showing her
as a representation of unity and peace.
Danger from Scotland Mary
Mary,Queen of Scots, returned to Edinburgh from France when her husband, the King of
France, died in 560. She was the great-granddaughter of Henry VII and had a claim to the
English throne. She married Stuart Lord Darnley and had a son, James. When her court
forced her to abdicate in favour of her one-year-old son, she went to England hoping to
receive help from her cousin Elizabeth. However, she was arrested and kept prisoner in
Sheffield Castle, where she became the centre of conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth.
Mary was eventually executed for treason in 1587.

Exploring the sea

Elizabeth encouraged her sea captains to explore new lands and look for treasure. Sir
Walter Raleigh sailed to South America to hunt for gold, while Sir John Hawkins brought
African slaves America. Sir Francis Drake, the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world,
combined royal authority for exploration with piracy seizing the gold carried by Spanish
ships.

The defeat of the Spanish Armada

In 1586 Spain was preparing an Armada to invade Britain. Philip II of Spain wanted to bring
England once again under the rule of the Church of Rome. The Spanish Armada set sail in
1588; it was the most serious naval attack on England since the Vikings, with about 130
ships. The English ships, however, were faster and better armed than the Spanish ones.
Therefore they were able to scatter part of the Armada and get close enough to attack with
their cannons. The Armada escaped to the North Sea, damaged and hit by storms.The
Spanish lost a third of their fleet and many men died. The outcome of the failed invasion
confirmed England's supremacy at sea. Elizabeth died in 1603 saying that the Protestant
King of Scotland, James, son of Mary, Queen of Scots, should succeed her. She had
enjoyed her people's love and consent. She had managed to create a popular and majestic
image of a sovereign who appeared as the defender of the nation and the preserver of
peace. She had brought England unity and glory.

RENAISSANCE AND NEW LEARNING(PAG 90)

HUMANISM IN A CHANGING WORLD

Humanism comes from Latin and “new learning” is the english name. In english we
can use both (Humanism-New Learning).This system of beliefs was used to control a
dynamic and changing world. The English Renaissance witnessed the discovery and
exploration of new continents; the old order of ideas was seriously questioned by cultural
influences, such as the theories of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). Copernicus created a
new heliocentric model of the solar system in which the earth no longer held the central
place it had in the Ptolemaic system. The contrast between old and new ideas created a
sense of doubt and ambiguity. There was a new interest in the individual as the maker of his
own destiny, in the ideal of self-development through action and pragmatism. The greatest
influence on the new literature was Humanism. The term derives from the Latin studia
humanitatis, a course of classical studies including grammar, poetry, rhetoric, history and
moral philosophy which aimed at improving man through knowledge. At the beginning of the
16th century the Dutch scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) had emphasised the
importance of studying Greek and Latin for the Christian student. Humanism encouraged
confidence in the power of human reason to interpret man and nature, in the value of
literature as an instrument of reason and in the dignity of modern English as a literary
medium. In fact, English Humanists used English instead of Latin in their writings, improving
its vocabulary and syntax.
 THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
The english renaissance witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents.
This is the central idea of nationality(l’uomo è il creatore del proprio destino)
The English Renaissance developed later than its European equivalents and had its own
distinctive features. If on the one hand the influence of Italy was immense every sphere,
from literature to fashion, on the other hand England tried to get free from this foreign force
that was identified with Rome and the papacy.The first thing to characterise the movement
was its strong Protestant, and in some aspects, Puritan basis, influenced by the
Reformation. The English literature of the period lacked the pagan serenity of the Italian
Renaissance and was less committed to the visual arts. This explains the baroque
exuberance of the powerful speeches of Marlowe's and Shakespeare's plays or in Donne's
poetry.

try= arte della poesia poem=poesia come testo

Petrarch is considered the model of poetry

LOVE is main traditional theme, but Shakespeare introduce other themes in

art,decay,beauty (differenza non nel numero di versi ma nella struttura)

THE SONNET
The golden age of poetry
The Renaissance is considered the golden age of poetry because of the flourishing of songs
and sonnets. The sonnet came from Italy and its invention is attributed to Iacopo da Lentini
in the first half of the 13th century. The form reached its greatest expression with the Italian
poet Petrarch (1304-74), whose Canzoniere (1342-74) became the model for all the
European Renaissance poets.
Petrarchan sonnet
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter with a fixed rhyme scheme. The
Italian or Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave, usually rhyming ABBA ABBA, and a
sestet, which may rhyme CDE CDE or CDC DCD. The octave generally presents an issue or
a situation, while the set contains the solution of the problem or personal reflections. This
kind of sonnet often shows a turning point at the end of the eighth line, and the ninth is
sometimes introduced by words like 'and', 'if, so, but' or 'yetť.
Shakespearean sonnet (three different themes)
The English or Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a couplet, and it
rhymes ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The poet can use the quatrains to present a theme or three
different arguments and draw a conclusion in the final couplet. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)
and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47), introduced the Petrarchan sonnet into
England, mainly translating Petrarch's sonnets into English, but changed the rhyme scheme
into ABBA ABBA CDDC EE. Shakespeare adopted the three independent quatrains followed
by a couplet that sums up the thought with epigrammatic force. The rhyme scheme of the
Shakespearean sonnet became ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Elizabethan sonneteers showed
their ability in the use of conceits. A conceit is an elaborate extended metaphor that
characterises a whole stanza or poem. During the last decades of Elizabeth's reign many
poets started writing sonnets. Most of the sonnet collections were named after a woman; this
typical Petrarchan tradition became popular especially in England because of the veneration
of Queen Elizabeth I, who was variously referred to by poets as 'Cynthia' and “the Faerie
Queene".
Themes and language
The traditional theme of the sonnet is love and desire for a lady who cannot return the poet's
love. The lady is the embodiment of both physical and moral protection. The conflict between
desire and unhappiness caused by the lady's coldness leads the poet to madness and
despair. This psychology of love is expressed through the frequent use of oxymoron, a figure
of speech that combines two contradictory terms. In fact the lover begs for the lady's love yet
does not wish her to surrender; the lady is beautiful desirable but chaste; the lover suffers
yet he does not want the end of suffering, he wants his lady to mourn his absence yet he
does not want her to suffer. Shakespeare introduced other themes like beauty, decay and
art. The popularity of the sonnet declined during the 18th century but was revived by the
Romantic poets, and later also proved suitable to express the 20th-century themes.”

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMA

Theatre: was called mystery or miracle plays.They were very simple because they
represented religious events.
There were also morality places which were more complex and they were addressed
to lord people. Usually the characters were vices and virtues.(good behaviour era un
argomento più estratto). There is another group. The third king was called interludes
(fine medioevo) at the beginning they were sketched between the acts. Then they
developed into real dramatic form. They mixed serious and comic elements and
introduced the disguise and the interludes became the bridge between the Medieval
theatre and the Elizabethan theaters. The theater was the first permanent theatre but
the most famous permanent theatre was the globe which became famous for
Shakespeare theatre. All the word was a stage, was the slogan of the Globe theatre
playwrights (drammaturghi) borrowed freely from popular sources. plays=opere
teatrali
Also in Seneca we also find ghosts. Together with the soliloquy there was the
monologue. The theatre was across the themes because out of the city there wasn’t
the Puritan.
SOLILOQUY DIVERSO DA MONOLOGUE
in the soliloquy the characters are alone on the stage. In the monologue there are
other characters on the stage but the character who is speaking ignores them.

Origins
The origins of the theatre in Britain are linked to medieval religious celebrations, especially to
commemorate great Christian events. These performances took place in the nave of
churches at first, but soon they moved outside. This meant that Latin was replaced with
English and lay people took the place of monks and priests in these performances, which
became known as 'mystery plays'.
Reasons for development
Drama became the main form of Elizabethan art. The Elizabethan age was characterised by
a wide range of interests and vitality of language. Entertainment was rooted in the communal
life of medieval towns and villages for a mixed public more trained in listening than in
reading. Public performances were illegal in the City of London, so theatres were
increasingly built on the South Bank, which was easily accessible across the Thames. The
newly built theatres soon prospered as commercial enterprises.
The structure of Elizabethan theatres
James Burbage (1531-97), a carpenter by trade, built the first permanent theatres, the
Theatre (1576) and the Curtain (1577), north of the walls of the City of London.
Permanent theatres were circular or octagonal. Within the outer walls there were three tiers
of roofed galleries, looking down on the stage, and the yard, or 'pit”, where the poorer stage,
and the yard, or pit, where the spectators, or groundlings', stood. The stage itself, technically
known as an apron stage, projected into the yard, so that when the theatre was full, the
players were surrounded on three sides. No more than twelve actors could appear on stage
at the same time due to the space restrictions. Over the stage the “shadow” or thatched roof
protected the players from the rain. In the front of the stage there was a trap door used for
devilish apparitions and disappearances, and also for burials. The actors' tiring house, that
is, the place where the actors changed their costumes, was presumably at the back of the
stage. There were two doors for entrances and exits. Behind the stage there was an inner
stage, concealed by a curtain when not in use, which was demanded for several plays: for
Juliet's tomb in Romeo and Juliet , for a hiding place for Claudius and Polonius in Hamlet .
This inner stage was used not only for discoveries, but also for concealments. One major
problem was the staging of the final scene of those tragedies which ended with several
corpses on the stage. Only two methods were available: either the body was carried off or
else it was hidden at the side of the stage, since the Elizabethan stage had no general stage
curtain. There was also an upper stage hidden by a curtain and a balcony normally used by
musicians
Elizabethan and modern theatres
The structure of the stage considerably affected the form of Elizabethan plays. In the modern
theatre actors are separated from the audience by a curtain. Moreover, they act in bright
light before spectators hidden in a darkened auditorium. In Shakespeare's time the actor
came forward on the apron stage into the midst of his audience. Communication was
therefore intimate and direct. The device of the soliloquy was a natural way for a character to
explain his thoughts and intentions. There was no scenery and plays took place in daylight,
usually starting at 2 p.m. The stage relied on conventions using a limited number of props.
For night scenes a simple candle or torch represented the night world. The action was
continuous. A scene ended when all the actors left the stage and a new set of characters
came on. The time and locality were usually mentioned in the dialogue. Women did not act
in Shakespeare's time and the female parts were acted by boys. The Elizabethan acting
company was a permanent fellowship of players, and they worked on the basis of a share
system.
Sources
 Playwrights borrowed freely from popular sources. The characters and situations were often
allegorical types and the plays contained scenes of vivid caricature and realistic comedy.
The ideas of man's place inside an ordered universe and of the mutability of fortune and the
stars were also typical. Thanks to the spread of translations, Italian plays became the
sources of much Elizabethan theatre, together with the influence of Italian Commedia
dell'arte companies which travelled throughout England in the middle of the 16th century.
The English stage owed much also to the works of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) in the
display of horrors, unnatural crimes, vice and corruption. The Elizabethan theatre was also
influenced by Greek tragedies. Moreover, it borrowed from the Latin philosopher and
tragedian Seneca in the division of the play into five acts, in the tragic and bloody incidents,
in the taste for revenge, in making good rhetoric out of conflicting emotions and passions.
Thomas Kyd's very popular The Spanish Tragedy (ca 1585) was the typical Senecan
revenge play full of ghosts and horror, mixed with Machiavellian ingredients such as
intrigues, lies and villains. Kyd also added the 'play within the play' (the plot includes the
staging of a play whose audience is composed of the actors), This device served to verify
the truth of a message concerning the characters of the real play.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Life
Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, two months before William
Shakespeare. Marlowe was a member of a group of intellectuals called “university Wits”.
They made the cultural mid-level of drama and they introduced the blank verse which was a
very huge English verse form because it was the closest to every day speech. Marlow’s
plays have a protagonist with a dominant passion taken to extremes. He studied at the
University of Cambridge. In 1587 he moved to London, where he rapidly established himself
as the most important playwright of the period.He was often involved in duels and was
imprisoned at least twice, accused of murder and atheism. He lived God, and these are
Marlowe's most famous dramatic works, also perhaps(p-aps) his finest and most important.
They are Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus: both are the works of an Elizabethan atheist,
who not necessarily denied the existence of God, but rejected churches and orthodox
beliefs. He lived in an age of Catholic versus Protestant political intrigue and according to
some documents, he was a very important secret agent of the queen. He was fascinated by
extremes, like excessive ambition, unlimited desire and a restless willingness to overcome
human limits. Such are the passions that drive Faustus, the protagonist of his masterpiece,
to sell his soul to Lucifer in exchange for knowledge and power. The truth behind Marlowe's
sudden death in a London tavern in 1593 still remains suspicious and unresolved.
Works
Despite his short, turbulent life, Marlowe wrote significant dramatic masterpieces:
Tamburlaine the Great (1587), Doctor Faustus (1588-89), The Jew of Malta (1590) and
Edward II (1591).
His plays were the first to embody the true spirit of the Renaissance, concentrating on man
as opposed to God.
The most important themes of these works are: the lust for power, the desire to break free
from the restrictions of the Church, the limitations of knowledge and the demands of ruthless
ambition in the face of the prevailing morality. Marlowe's works also represent a departure
from the didactic spirit of the medieval morality plays: these used invented plots and had
characters personifying human vices and virtues, and endowed with the features of the time.
Marlowe's characters no longer personify virtues or vices but are instead enriched by man's
passions and faults.Two of his plays, however, are very directly concerned.

DOCTOR FAUSTUS
Doctor Faustus is the typical renaissance intellectual who looks for the absolute
center of nature. We can associate him to Lucifer because Lucifer rebelled against
God and he fell into hell.
Prometheus stole the fire from gods to give it to humans and he was punished by
Zeus,who sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment. Icarus wanted to escape from
Crete by means of wings that were constructed from fathers and wax. He flew too
close to the sun and the wings melted.
So icarus falls into the sea and drowns. Faustus like them tried to rebel against his
original faith transcending his human nature but he failed and fell. The fall is common
to all these four characters. Faustus is the typical tragic hero. He is aware and proud
of his concrete triumph but he must meet his spiritual fall and eternal damnation

PLOT
In contrast to Tamburlaine the Great, who lives for material power and Barabas in The Jew
of Malta, who looks for money, Doctor Faustus seeks the power that comes from
knowledge.The play is the poetic re-working of the story of a man who sold his soul to the
devil in order to have power in this life. Marlowe's Faustus agrees to give his soul to the
devil's agent, Mephistopheles, in return for twenty-four years of the unlimited power of
knowledge. During these years the devil must serve him and give him what he wants but at
the end of that period the devil takes Faustus's soul to hell.

A MORALITY PLAY?
Though Doctor Faustus is regarded as a morality play, it is different from the medieval
Everyman, the most popular morality play, where Death is a character, God is rigid and
vindictive, and the only life possible to reach eternal salvation is the one leading to death.
Faustus does not believe in predestination and in life after death; according to him, theology
and philosophy are too restrictive. Faustus views his pact with Mephistopheles as the only
means to fulfill his ambitions.

A 'SELF-MADE MAN'
 Faustus reflects the ambition and the restlessness of the Renaissance man, who is still
linked to medieval culture but wants to be the maker of his own destiny. He is related both to
'Prometheus's myth' of eternal dissatisfaction, and 'Icarus's myth' of the overreacher, a man
of great culture and ambition who is dissatisfied with his own situation and thus tries to
increase his powers. In the first act Doctor Faustus is presented as an acclaimed and
respected scholar. However, that wasn't enough for Faustus, who wanted to govern nature
and death through the power of necromancy. He challenged God and made a pact with
Lucifer, selling his soul for twenty- four years of service from Mephistopheles. His
punishment was to spend the rest of eternity in hell. The moral of this play is that ambition
and dissatisfaction with what God has given man is a terrible sin that can only lead to
damnation. Faustus acquires the power he wanted, but at the end he can't use it to save
himself from hell. medieval pure reach

TOWARDS SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE

Marlowe's use of the soliloquy in this play is notable; it is a way of showing both sides of
Faustus's character. This is not to say that Marlowe reached Shakespeare's perfection, but
he marked a transition from medieval drama. He improved the dramatic possibilities of blank
verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) and was able to give life to his words. There is great
energy and life in his use of colour and description: Faustus is 'swollen with cunning and
self-conceit, / His waxen wings did mount above his reach (from the 'Prologue')

FAUSTUS’S LAST MONOLOGUE

Is taken from the last act of the tragedy and it is perhaps(p-aps) the most famous and
dramatic episode of the whole work. Faustus realises that the period of his unlimited power
of knowledge has come to an end; now the price of his contract with the devil has to be paid.

● Faustus listens to the clock and it makes him realise that his end is coming and with
this striking Faustus becomes very anxious and these elements are important to
create this atmosfera of anguesce.
● Another stage direction refers to natural elements. Thunder and another stage
direction refer to natural elements.Thunder and lightning are connected with Devils.
● Faustus speaks to nature in particular to the sun to make a perpetual day(per non far
arrivare la notte e quindi mezzanotte).Faustus tries to repent as a possible solution to
avoid eternal damnation but everything is in vain.
● He is a typical tragic hero because he always wears clothing.
● All this monologue is an attempt to repent but Faustus perfectly knows that it is a vain
attempt. The presents of Latin quotation or very learned references can be explained
because Marlow wanted to place an audience with a higher cultural background. In
this two lines is put in evidence is wornes (lines 11 e 12). He also tries to ask the help
of god for his salvation.

THE WATCH STRIKES

Line for 34 to 38 is an invocation to God which puts in evidence Faustu's great despair.
Line 48 back consciousness.
Line 53-54 last hope and invocation to find a possible solution.
Line 58 burns the book is the last attempt he makes for his salvation.
He knew that knowledge was his great passion but it wall came to eternal damnation. He
knows that his least attempt is in vain.
Devil is written with big letters to put in evidence at the end.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespecare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, possibly on 23rd
April, St George's day, the patron saint of England, which Is also said to be the date of his
death. His father was a yeoman, a successful tradesman, grammar school, until he met with
financial difficulties. William was the eldest son and attended the local ,where he acquired a
good knowledge of the English language and of classical authors.
He married Anne Hathaway when he was only 18 and she was 26. They had three children:
Susanna, and the twins Judith and Hamnet.
In 1584 he left Stratford, probably because he had been caught deer-hunting, and went to
London. It was at that time that he first experienced the playhouse.
He was received into one of the acting companies, at first in a very minor role, but his wit
soon distinguished him, if not as a great actor, as an excellent playwright.
In 1593 the London theatres were closed because of the plague, and Shakespeare needed
the support of a private patron.He received this support from a young nobleman,the Earl of
Southampton, to whom he dedicated his poems.
When the theatres re-opened, Shakespeare became a shareholder and the main playwright
of the most successful company of actors in London, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
In 1599 his company built the Globe Theatre, where most of his plays were performed.
Between 1590 and 1596 he wrote historical dramas.
At the same time as the history plays, between 1593 and 1600, he put ten comedies onto
the stage, ranging from farce to romance.
The great tragedies were written between 1595 and 1605 .The latter part of his life was
spent in retirement at Stratford.
He died in 1616, when he was 52 years old, and was buried in the local church.
Seven years after his death some of his friends and fellow actors published an edition of
thirty-six of the plays in one volume - the famous First Folio.

Dating the plays

Only half of Shakespeare's plays were printed during his lifetime, usually some time after
being performed, so dating them is not easy because few records survive.
Therefore, the works must be dated by combining three kinds of evidence:
• External: this is the most valuable kind of evidence and it consists of a clear mention or
reference to a particular play. External evidence seldom gives the date of the first
performance of any play, but it shows that the play was written before a certain date.
• Internal: this kind of evidence is when the play itself includes a reference to an identifiable
event.
Stylistic: this method of dating is the most difficult. However, the changes in Shakespeare's
style are so noticeable that a play can reasonably be placed in a precise period. By a
combination of the three methods, most plays can be dated approximately and placed
roughly in the order of their writing, so that it is possible not only to trace Shakespeare's
development but also to see his plays against the background of his times.

A Shakespearean play:general features

Evolving scenes
The progress of a Shakespearean play is usually linked to the gradual clarification of
things which are left mysterious at the beginning. Themes are hinted at, but their real
meaning becomes apparent much later. Opinions and assumptions are formed, and though
they seem unimportant at the time, they turn out to be decisive after several scenes. There is
also a frequent contrast between scenes with many characters and scenes with few,
scenes in public and in private, those full of action and those devoted to reflection. Major
scenes, with crucial events, are preceded and followed by shorter scenes whose function is
simply to provide information. Shakespeare sometimes leaves some questions open so
that we continue to think about the answer to the puzzle after the play is over.

Structure
Most of the time Shakespeare disregarded the three Aristotelian units of time, place and
action, so that the structure of the play was flexible. Shakespeare did not give great
importance to the division between the acts; sometimes this division was imposed later.
In the Elizabethan theatre there was no curtain fall between the acts and the plays were
performed without an interval. As a rule, in a Shakespearean play a scene is over when all
the characters have left the stage. Soliloquies, asides, introductory passages spoken in a
prologue or by chorus, funeral orations and death-bed speeches are only some of the
conventions used by Shakespeare that were natural on a stage where the contact between
actors and audience was very close.

Stage directions
Most stage directions were added by the editors, especially in the 18t century. Actually, it
is the text itself that provides information about the atmosphere and feeling of a scene, about
the way in which characters enter the stage and leave it. These directions and descriptions
are often given indirectly, hidden in a question or a metaphor. So Shakespeare asked for the
active cooperation of the spectator in making the play come alive in his/her
imagination.

Characters
Shakespeare did not take his characters from one social class only. Hierarchy forms the
background of every play. There is almost always a man of royal or aristocratic blood, a king,
a prince, a duke, a statesman or a nobleman. From the aristocracy the list descends to
nurses, rustics and servants. Another important feature is the importance of family ties:
father and/or mother with sons or daughters, brothers and sisters. These relationships are
often in contrasting form, suggesting conflict between the older and younger generations.
Finally there are symmetrical correspondences: three lords and three ladies, the heads of
two hostile families and their households, two lovers, two princes and two brothers.

Variety of style
Shakespeare used different levels of speech and action to portray his characters from
different angles, close up and at a distance. A character may suddenly change from
everyday prose to solemn verse. There is sometimes the insertion of allegorical scenes,
songs, music and dances, as well as magical ahons.

Imagery
Shakespeare's language is characterised by a wide variety of rhetorical figures: similes
and metaphors once and alliteration, image-clusters - that is, recurreat groupings of
metaphors and similes - often occur. Some plays have characteristic image motifs; for
example, light and dark imagery in Romeo and Juliet, clothes imagery in Macbeth, and the
figures of disease, corruption and death in Hamlet. These image-clusters are connected to
the main themes of the plays and define their tones. Shakespeare's use of vocabulary has
never been surpassed. He used obscure and archaic words, mythological allusions; he
invented a dramatic number of new words. The variety in the verse structure is also
impressive: Shakespeare re-shaped the regular blank-verse line, increasingly using irregular
lines from one play to the next.

The tragedy
The tragedy became a popular type of drama starting with ancient Greece. Its protagonists
were not everyday people and they suffered a fall from a high status, often due to a tragic
flaw Classical tragic plays usually have the following elements
● the prologue, which sets the scene of the story, introduces the characters and the
main themes, in some tragedies, for example in Romeo and Juliet, it is spoken by a
chorus, which in classical Greek drama is a group of actors who comment on the
main action or advise the main characters,
● the Aristotelian unities one time, one action and one place,
● the concept of catharsis la Greek word which means purification I, a process in
which strong emotions are experienced by the audience,
● the heroes/heroines are often kings, princes and warriors
● the hero/heroine falls from a position of power or strength and the play often ends
with his/her death;
● his/her fall may be due to inner weakness (known as tragic flaw-ambition,
weakness, jealousyl, external circumstances (fate) or a combination of these,
which leads him/her to suffering, madness or suicide. In this case the character is
called a tragic hero because he/she experiences his/her own destruction,
● there is generally a villain who is guilty of some action which he must expiate
through death.
Greek tragedies treated a serious subject matter with a solemn style and elevated
language, while English Renaissance tragedies tended to mix tragic with comic.

The comedy
Classical comedy began in ancient Greece with the aim of amusing and entertaining
the audience The comedy has maintained some foxed features through the centuries
● it generally deals with ordinary characters set in everyday situations in an
amusing way
● it usually begins with misfortunes, classical comedy begins and ends with happy
resolution;
● the playwright is generally the mouthpiece of the vices and follies of the society
he/she belongs to,
● specific sets of comic characters are developed: they do not evolve in the course
of the play and their names sometimes reveal their nature;
● the plot is mainly based on love and relies on witty dialogue and deliberate
misunderstandings, plays on words and disguise.
 SONNETS
Chaucer is the father of english literature, because he wrote for the first time in English. In
this way the English (the language) was enriched with words. Take importance of English
language if all the poets don’t use Latin, The English is enriched and it is more complete
Shakespeare wrote a lot of things,including the sonnets.

english sonnet= shakespeare sonnet italia sonnet= petrach sonnet

THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

Shakespeare's sonnets were published in 1609, although they were probably written in the
1590s. It is likely they circulated amongst his private friends and were sent to his patron, the
Earl of Southampton, before a collection was published in the 1609 Quarto. The collection
includes 154 sonnets in deca syllables. Shakespeare did not use the Petrarchan form, an
octave and a sestet; instead, he employed three quatrains and a final couplet . However, the
development of the in many of his sonnets follows the 'two-poem structure of the Petrarchan
form, since there is a turning point in thought in the ninth line. Sometimes the turning point
appears at the beginning of the couplet
THE 'FAIR YOUTH', THE 'DARK LADY AND TIME
The sonnets were not necessarily chronological, as there is good reason to believe from
their style, method and content. They have no title and can be divided into two sections. The
first is addressed to a 'fair youth', probably Shakespeare's young patron, the Earl of
Southampton, and is organised as follows: Sonnets I to XVIII: these are devoted to the
theme of 'increase! The poet encourages the young man to marry and preserve his virtues
and beauty through his children.
-Sonnets XIX to CXXVI: these deal with different topics, among which the poet's warnings
about the destructive power of time and moral weakness. It is quite interesting to notice that
'time' is no longer a theme, but an active antagonist and that the celebration of the beloved
conveys a meditation on art and immortality. Within this group of sonnets, LXXVIII to LXXXVI
are concerned with a 'rival poet' who has addressed poems to the young man. The second
section, from sonnet CXXVII to the end, is addressed to a 'dark lady' or black woman. She is
physically unattractive, but the poet finds her irresistibly desirable. The choice of the
addressees is a novelty of the Shakespearean sonnets since it completely breaks with the
Petrarchan courting tradition.
THEMES
The immortality of art is one of the most important themes of Shakespeare, also friendship is
important.

In Shakespeare's sonnets there is also a reversal of the traditional themes of love sonnets.
For instance, the traditional love poems praising women's worth and beauty are addressed
by Shakespeare to a young man, while those devoted to a woman are negative and non-
conventional. The woman doesn't correspond to the love of the poet, we suppose she is a
woman who he loves. The description of the woman is very innovative,because he describes
her like she is. She can have dark hair, he wan’t to introduce this new view of women. He
directs the sonnet to someone and this makes it different from Petrarche’s one. The
situations suggested in the sonnets are means to explore universal themes such as time
,death, love, beauty and art. They are also unique in their analysis of emotions and
behaviour: Shakespeare's experience as a dramatist had made him more conscious of the
complexity and range of human feelings.
STYLE
The style of Shakespeare's sonnets is characterised by rich and vivid descriptive language;
the absence of classical references gives the impression that Shakespeare's speech is
immediate. His sonnets often have a dramatic quality through the abrupt beginning, the use
of questions or the pronouns 'thou' and 'thee”, which make the style conversational.

ROMEO AND JULIET

PLOT
In the city of Verona, the longstanding quarrel between the Montague and Capulet families
breaks into violence.
First Act. The first act covers one whole day and it opens in a Verona street. Romeo
Montague reveals to his cousin Benvolio that he is in love with Rosaline, but that his love is
not returned. After learning that Rosaline will be at a party at the Capulet's house that
evening, Romeo's friends persuade him to attend in disguise.Romeo meets Juliet there, and
they fall in love at first sight. During the party they discover that their families are professed
enemies.
Second Act. From the Capulets' garden Romeo overhears. When he answers her, they
declare their love and their desire to be married. This act ends with the secret wedding of
the two lovers in the chapel by the friendly priest, Friar Laurence, who has expressed the
hope that their marriage may end the families' quarrel.
Third Act. This is the longest act and it can be divided into two parts: that of public events,
full of action and movement, and the part devoted to private events. Mercutio, Romeo's
friend, is killed by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin, during a street fight. In revenge Romeo kills Tybalt
and is banished from Verona to Mantua. The act ends with Romeo and Juliet's wedding
night at the Capulets' house.
Fourth Act. To avoid the marriage with Count Paris arranged by her father, Juliet takes a
drug given to her by Friar Laurence. This potion makes her appear to be dead on the
morning of her wedding. The friar sends a messenger to Mantua, but, before he arrives,
Romeo hears that Juliet is dead and decides to return to Verona.
Fifth Act. Romeo arrives at Juliet's tomb and takes some poison,dying as he kisses her lips.
At that moment Juliet wakes from the trance and seeing Romeo dead beside her, she stabs
herself with his dagger. Unlike most Shakespearean heroes, Romeo and Juliet will never
know the truth about their deaths.

A Comedy or a tragedy?
Romeo and Juliet is characterised by elements both of comedy and tragedy.
 • It is a comedy because it begins with the material for a comedy, like the instant attraction
of the young lovers, the masked balls, the comic servants and the superficial life of street
fights. However, this play differs from the conventional comedy because in the end
knowledge is not for everybody, but only for the two protagonists and, even then, not
completely. Speed is the medium of fate': in the last scene time triumphs because less than
a minute's hesitation would have saved the lives of Romeo and Juliet.
• It is a tragedy on account of the tragic role played by chance; the protagonists must fight
against external forces that make their relationship difficult, but, unlike the great tragic
heroes, they experience no inner struggle.

When Shakespeare introduces romeo It seems to embody courtly love. Light is a very
symbolic element. Knowledge is an important element because It doesn't arrive in time.
knowledge is incomplete because the characters don't know what they should've known. For
some critics this play Is a comedy because at the end there Is the triumph of love according
to them the tragic end of the two young lovers gives them the possibility to live their love
forever. This tragic end underlines the great quality of love which Is beings ever lasting
eternal.

SETTING
Shakespeare chose the Italian city of Verona as the setting of this play because Italians
were popularly considered violent and passionate, characteristics which easily charmed
the English at that time. The social context of the play arises from the struggles between two
families, the Capulets and Montagues, to gain political control of the city. This is the reason
why most of the action happens out-of-doors, from the Capulets' orchard where Romeo
and Juliet first profess their love in the famous balcony scene, to the streets where Mercutio
and Tybalt are killed, to the Capulets' tomb where the lovers die.

CHARACTERS
In the first act Romeo Montague is presented as a man belonging to the 'courtly love
convention' because of his intense adoration and respect for a lady who is chaste and
'impossible He uses the image of light typical of this kind of love when he first sees Juliet, he
compares her to the brilliant light of the torches that illuminate the Capulets' great hall: Juliet
is the light that frees him from his dark melancholy. Even in the famous balcony scene
Romeo links Juliet to the sunlight, daylight and the light emanating from angels, O, speak
again, bright angel It is his love for Juliet which makes him dynamic and courageous: he
risks his life at the Capulets' house to be near her and later breaks a banishment order
risking death, to see her again. At the end he commits suicide rather than live without Juliet,
which is the ultimate proof of his loyalty and love for her. Juliet Capulet is beautiful,
rebellious, kind and loving At the beginning she appears as an obedient child: she usually
does what her parents say. Her first meeting with Romeo causes her to move towards
maturity. She immediately shows determination and strength in her open confessions of love
and desire for Romeo. She belongs to no characterisation, classification or idealisation: she
is a real woman. Just like Romeo, she compares their love to light, first to point out the
speed at which their romance is moving. but also to suggest that their love is just like
lightning, that is, a break in the blackness of the night sky. When she wakes in the tomb and
finds Romeo dead beside her, she does not kill herself because of her weakness as a
woman, but rather because of her strong love, just as Romeo did. Juliet's suicide, in fact,
needs more determination than Romeo's because while he swallows poison, she kills herself
with a dagger.

THEMES
The power of love. Romeo and Juliet's love is so powerful that it becomes more important
to them than their families, their loyalties, or even their lives.
Passion and violence. The same passion leads to violence, from Tybalt's death to the
lovers' suicides. The two families' hate is as strong as the two lovers' love.
Individual against society. What the lovers want as individuals conflicts with what their
families and society want. Romeo can't just change his name and never have to deal with
his family again. The Capulets, the Montagues and the townspeople do not want to stop
feuding just because two teenagers love each other. It is only the final horrible tragedy which
gets them to change.
The power of fate. At the beginning of the play, in the prologue, the chorus state that
Romeo and Juliet are 'star-cross'd lovers, meaning that their love will end tragically. During
the play, both lovers have negative feelings about what is going to happen. The tragic
ending results from a pattern which includes the elements of chance and the more powerful
element of incomplete knowledge.

STYLE
In Romeo and Juliet traits of Shakespeare's immature style are to be seen. His rhythms are
regular; rhymes are common, often used in couplets. Occasionally he even inserts a sonnet
into the dialogue. Imagery is all about oxymora: life and death, love and hate, dark and light,
Montagues and Capulets, peace and fighting, young and old.

The prologue
Romeo and Juliet begins with a 'Prologue' spoken by the Chorus. The private emotional
experience of lovers is explored both in isolation and also in relation to their social context. In
addition, the ideas of love, destiny and death are introduced.
THE PROLOGUE [Enter CHORUS.]
CHORUS Two households' both alike' in dignity (In fair Verona, where we lay our scene)
From ancient grudge' break to new mutiny Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life, Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows Doth
with their death bury their parents' strife".
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love
And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's end, nought could
remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
THE BALCONY SCENE
This is the famous 'balcony scene' from Romeo and Juliet, where the two lovers declare their
love to each other. While Romeo praises Juliet's beauty with neo-platonic images in the style
of the courtly tradition, Juliet's declaration is quite different.
Romeo embodies the courtly love, so he uses all the devices of courtly love. Juliet is a real
woman. First to speak is Juliet who tells that Romeo's name is her enemy. Juliet is more
concrete than Romeo because she wants to put in evidence that what is important is not to
apparence or the name.