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Renaissance & Restoration
Renaissance, as the name suggests, means new birth; to be born again. It’s a very important period in the history of England (politically and socially speaking) but also a very brilliant period for the English literature.
The first thing to notice is that knowledge acquired new importance and that knowledge was no longer restricted to knowledge of religious things.
Important authors: Erasmus, Machiavelli, Thomas More, Martin Luther, Copernicus, etc. They form part of humanism. They reclaimed learning, education and knowledge. They put the human being in the centre of the universe. They studied and broke the classics (Greek and Roman classics) and considered that human beings were good if they were properly educated. They were particularly interested and concerned with the education of governors and rulers.
In the old literature, talking about population and its organisation, we mentioned the Commitatus; in the medieval time, the triangle of population; now in the Renaissance, we have to talk about The Great Chain of Being. The Great Chain of Being was a powerful visual metaphor for a divinely inspired universal hierarchy ranking all forms of higher and lower life; humans are represented by the male alone.
God Angels Kings/Queens Archbishops Dukes/Duchesses Bishops Marquises/Marchionesses Earls/Countesses Viscounts/Viscountesses Barons/Baronesses Abbots/Deacons Knights/Local Officials Ladies-in-Waiting Priests/Monks Squires Pages Messengers Merchants/Shopkeepers Tradesmen Yeomen Farmers Soldiers/Town Watch Household Servants Tennant Farmers Shephards/Herders Beggars Actors Thieves/Pirates Gypsies Animals Birds Worms Plants Rocks
Also, this was a moment in which the European World was expanding and new worlds were being discovered. Here, we have to mention Cristobal Columbus and his travels around the world. Sir Francis Drake (a pirate favoured by Elisabeth I) was a very frightening figure. The English were brilliant stablishing themselves in the east (East India Company: they imported clothes and spices) and at the same time, in the west (stablished the firsts colonies in America; Virginia). They were the most powerful nation in the sea (they defeated the Spanish Armada ).
They had the idea of trying to acquire knowledge from new places but also from the universe. The development of perspective was also developed at this time. All they did was how they decided to better understand the world.
The first king we associate with the renaissance is Henry VIII. He broke with Rome because of personal reasons but also because a generalised feeling against the church and its practises. He was followed by Elisabeth I, who is one of the most important queens in history. We shall see how poets will work in this context of the court. Finally, we are going to speak about James I.
One of the distinguishing features of the period is the coexistence of the printed books with the manuscripts. Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of monasteries, where many manuscripts were transcribed, so they were no longer transcribed there. They were now transcribed in the court, but it took a long time so that there were less copies (monks almost only did that and then people had much more things to do). We could say that manuscripts were mainly used by upper classes at the court in reduced contexts. The dissolution of monasteries implied that the printed books became progressively more important and more and more printed books began to appear. The printed book was intended to a more general audience (thinkers and humanists of course opted to the printed book because that way, the ideas were spread all over Europe). The manuscripts were mainly employed at the court for a much reduced number of readers (mainly noblemen and noblewomen).
When speaking about the literature composed in medieval period, there was a close relationship between the poets and the members of the court. During the Renaissance, there was patronage between artists and influential people (noblemen and noblewomen). The court became a very powerful politically, social and cultural institution.
The court exercised its power providing or censuring artists. The main idea was that the members of the court favoured the work of the artists and intellectuals and in exchange, the artists and intellectuals supported the political decisions of kings and queens. All of this was captured, for example in the dedication of The Faerie Queene to Elisabeth I.
RENAISSANCE THEATRE Authorities had forced the theatre performances to take place outside the city because it was considered unhealthy and dangerous (source of infection), because it caused problems with the traffic, because of riots, etc.
“The Globe”, “The Rose” and “The Swan” were three of the most popular public theatres.
The theatres were only partially roofed, what implied that performances took place when it was good weather. They neither had artificial light so that performances could only take place during daylight (around three o’clock). Performances were announced putting a flag on the
William Shakespeare. He was born in a small town near London and he married a woman eleven years older than him (Anne Hathaway). They soon moved to London and found companies in which he participated as an actor.
One of the problems with this figure is to know how and where obtained the knowledge in order to compose the plays (a vast and wide knowledge). It is considered that he attended the grammar school. He inspired himself by books for write some plays. He wrote many comedies, tragedies and histories (plays). The comedies usually begin with a problematic situation and they recurrently end happily and with the inclusion of one or more weddings/marriages. We could say that they begin with trouble and end with happiness.
He wrote in order to perform, not to publish. A couple of actors that worked for him in the “King’s men” published in 1623 The First Folio , that was a recompilation of plays from three genres: comedies, tragedies and histories.
In Shakespeare’s literature, these genres have specific characteristics:
Comedies : One recurrent feature is that they usually begin with a problematic situation and end in a happy way. They usually have a main plot and a secondary plot. In the main one, the protagonists belong to the upper classes and their servants are usually the protagonists of the secondary plot; people from the lower classes are the ones who carry out the action in the secondary plot. Other feature related with this plays is the use of disguise and this is recurrently used in order to contrast the world of reality and the world of appearances. Songs are quite commonly introduced in comedies and both plots usually involve groups of people (in Shakespeare plays). Tragedies : They usually focus on an individual (we have a main protagonist) that usually belongs to the upper classes. Contrary to comedies, tragedies usually begin in a more or less quiet situation and they end tragically (with deaths, murders, etc.). They have been described as a spectacle of blood although Shakespeare is not very violent (he does not emphasise violence). In the case of Shakespeare, tragedies are also known as the fall of an important man due to adverse fortune. Histories : They have their origin in the medieval morality plays. The main purpose of histories plays is to educate rulers, kings, governors, etc. by offering them historical examples. So they focus on rulers or kings whose behaviours or actions should serve as a didactic purpose. What we find in Shakespeare histories are kings who behave properly and are rewarded and those whose actions or morals are negative or not proper, receive a punishment. Shakespeare was inspired by a series of texts in order to compose his histories, such as Chronicles of England, Scotland & Ireland , by R. Holinshed and The Annals of England , by J. Stow.
Shakespeare is very brilliant at characterisation, he use universal topics (things that were of interest in his time but also now) such as love, friendship, jealousy, revenge or family life. Linguistically speaking he’s also very important and brilliant when using the English language. He did a lot for the evolution of the English language. He even went so far as inventing new words that there were incorporated in the language. The problem is that after Shakespeare not other author of plays could achieve his degree of success. After Shakespeare, we have the Jacobean drama.
In Jacobean drama, we have to know about Ben Jonson and J. Webster. They wrote mainly tragedies but very dark and violent ones that had politics, madness, revenge... So this type of plays was progressively rejected by the puritans who were acquiring more power in England. They treated the worst adjectives of the human condition. Finally, the situation forced that the theatres were closed in 1642.
During Shakespeare lifetime, as well as during the Jacobean drama, there was also another type of dramatic performances that were very popular among the people of the upper classes. They were called masques or masks^1. They become very popular at James I’s court. These masques were a sort of entertainment for the upper classes in which people from the upper classes participated (in private theatres). They were beautifully dressed, they used makeup and they even designed their settings. Noblewomen could also participate in these private, short masques.
Theatres will be reopened in 1660 because came Charles II, that was a French king.
The publication in 1611 of King James’ Bible helped a lot with the spelling. It was a translation of the Bible that King James ordered to translate into English.
POETRY
Tudor poetry was the poetry composed during the reign of Henry VIII.
Wyatt & Surrey were two representative poets of Tudor poetry, mostly influenced by Petrarch. They did sonnets about the topic of love^2.
Sonnets’ structure: Petrarchan : An octave [abba abba] + sestet [cdecde/dcdcdc]
Spenserian: Three quatrains + couplet [abab bcbc cdcd + ee]
Shakespearean: Three quatrains + couplet [abab cdcd efef + gg]
The first sonneteers simply imitate the Italian sonnets. However, during the reign of Elizabeth I, Spencer and Shakespeare improved and adapted these traditional sonnets.
Sir Philip Sidney wrote a sonnet sequence ( Astrophil and Stella ) that was a very long poem composed by several sonnets. It explains the connection between a man (Astrophil) and a woman (Stella). Another great contribution of this man is Arcadia that is a prose romance.
Spencer also wrote sonnet sequences. The most famous one is Amoretti , which is a collection of sonnets in which he describes his own personal love for a woman that later on become his wife and they end on together. He also wrote Epithalamion and Prothalamion.
(^1) É preferible empregar o termo ‘masques’. (^2) There are examples in the interactive work, such as My Galley, Charged with Forgetfulness.
Restoration theatres were roofed and artificially lighted. They represented comedies mainly. They were more luxurious theatres (everyone could sit down) and women could participate (but they were treated as whores).
Jeremy Collier and A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage :
In March 1698, Jeremy Collier published his anti-theatre pamphlet, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage ; in the pamphlet, Collier attacks a number of playwrights: William Wycherley, John Dryden, William Congreve, John Vanbrugh, and Thomas D’Urfey. Collier attacks rather recent, rather popular comedies from the London stage; he accuses the playwrights of profanity, blasphemy, indecency, and undermining public morality through the sympathetic depiction of vice.
Collier begins his pamphlet with this conclusion: “[N]othing has gone farther in Debauching the Age than the Stage Poets, and Play-House” (Collier A2). He goes on, in great detail—despite the title—to give his evidence. For Collier, the immorality of the title stems from Restorationcomedy’s lack of poetic justice. With his exhaustively thorough readings—in a sense, pre-close reading close readings—he condemns the characters of Restoration comedies as impious and wicked and he condemned their creators (the playwrights) for failing to punish the playwrights’ wicked “favorites.” As the title suggests, Collier also charges the playwrights with profaneness, supporting his allegations with a number quotations from the plays (i.e. The Provoked Wife , The Relapse , et cetera). However, most of these charges are rather mild (at least according to the standards of most modern readers). Collier is, of course, unable to give examples of blatant blasphemy, for at the time, they were neither allowed on stage nor in print (Cordner 213). However, Collier’s strategy was innovative for his time (not to mention effective). Before A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage , most anti-theatre pamphlets were merely nondescript diatribes (e.g. William Prynne’s Histriomastix (1633)), but with his innovative techniques, Collier comprehensively indicted the entire Restoration stage (Cordner 215).
Therefore, due to its publication, a pamphlet war ensued (for and against Collier’s case), lasting sporadically until about 1726. In 1698, John Dennis, an English critic, wrote a pamphlet entitled: The Usefulness of the Stage. Yet, John Vanbrugh hardly took the attacks on his plays seriously. Therefore, he wrote a jestful retort, A Short Vindication of The Relapse and The Provok'd Wife From Immorality and Prophaneness (1698); in his pamphlet, Vanbrugh accuses Collier of being more upset by the unflattering depictions of clergymen than actual blasphemy (Cordner 217). On the other hand, William Congreve took the attacks on his plays quite seriously and refuted Collier’s allegations in his riposte, Amendments of Mr. Collier's False and Imperfect Citations (1698). Other playwrights preferred to give their reply on the stage (as Thomas D’Urfey did). In his play, Campaigners (1698), D’Urfey incidentally commented on Collier’s strictures imposed on the stage. Collier would later fire back with his Defence of the Short View in 1699 and Edward Filmer would go on to defend Restoration theatre in 1707 with A Defence of Plays.
Yet, by the end of the 17th century, the Restoration comic style had collapsed: the satiric presentation of English life gave way to the sentimental portrait (beginning in 1696 withColley Cibber’s Love's Last Shift ) (Bernbaum 72). A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage only signaled the swelling of public opposition to the real or imposed indecency of the plays staged over the last three decades (Cordner 210). Collier writes in the introduction: “The business of plays is to recommend Vertue, and discountenance Vice” (Collier 1). However, the Restoration playwright rarely saw his/her function within Collier’s strictures; in Congreve’s dedication to The Double-Dealer (1693), he writes, “It is the business of a comic poet to paint the vices and follies of humankind” (Congreve 174). Congreve implies that the purpose of the comic playwright was to portray the vices and follies of society in order to correct them. Collier, instead, preferred his restrictions imposed on comedy (e.g. his rigid Neoclassical notions of dramatic decorum), and in doing so he followed the same twisted moral logic found in the work of other critics who had imposed the law of poetic justice on tragedy (e.g. Thomas Rymer and his A Short View of Tragedy (1693)).
A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage is often credited with turning the tide against the sexually explicit nature of Restoration comedy, but the tide had already begun turning; Collier’s pamphlet was only “swimming” with the “tide” of public opinion (Cordner 210). The truth was that Restoration comedy was over; it had been worn down by external factors, such as: the Glorious Revolution and William and Mary’s bête-noire for theatre. Maybe the most obvious sign of Restoration theatre’s death came with the nolle prosequi (immunity from prosecution for earlier offenses) granted to Collier by William III (for A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage ) (Cordner 210). (Wikipedia)
Theatres were reopened but the quality of the plays was no longer so high. They were mainly
comedies that criticized aristocrazy so it lost popularity and there was much censorship. Future
was no longer in comedy plays.
In poetry , we are mainly going to speak about satires, which criticized what was going on in
England adopting different positions. There were political satires, religious satires and even satires that criticized the societies interested in sciences.
Some people thought that everything could be explained through sciences.
Great satirists were:
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, with A Satire against Reason.
John Dryden with Absalon and Architopel (criticises the monarchy and also Catholics). Alexander Pope with The Rape of the Lock.
In this political and religious context we must emphasise the importance of an author and a
work: John Milton with Paradise Lost , which is a long epic poem written in 12 books. The poem
EXAM QUESTIONS
Describe the type of plays written by William Shakespeare
Explain the main changes in theatre during the Restoration and relating to the
Renaissance.
Describe the evolution of theatre from the medieval period to the renaissance.
Explain the structure and mention some stylistic features of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
OLLO CO TRABALLO DAS INTERACTIVAS!!!
