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The word “renaissance” means “rebirth” in French and was used to denote a phase in the cultural development of Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries. The Middle Ages were followed by a more progressive period due to numerous events. The merchants and the owners of the manufactories appeared as a new class. In the 14th century, for the first time in Europe, in some Italian states there arose a new layer of the society which was called bourgeoisie, that is townsfolk.
Columbus discovered America. Vasco da Gama reached the coast of India making his sea voyage. Magellan went round the earth. The world appeared in a new light.
The Copernican system of astronomy shattered the power of the Catholic Church, and the Protestant Church was set up. Printing was invented in Germany in the 15th century. Schools and universities were established in many European countries. Great men appeared in art, science and literature.
In art and literature the time between the 14th and 17th centuries was called the Renaissance. It was the rebirth of ancient Greek and Roman art and literature. Ancient culture attracted new writers and artists because it was full of joy of life and glorified the beauty of man.
The writers and learned men of the Renaissance turned against feudalism and roused in men a wish to know more about the true nature of things in the world. They were called humanists. Man was placed in the center of life. He was no longer an evil being. He had a right to live, enjoy himself and be happy on earth.
The humanists were greatly interested in sciences, especially in natural science, based on experiment and investigation.
These new ideas first appeared in Italy, then in France and Germany, and shortly afterwards in England and Spain.
The Italian painters and sculptors Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo glorified the beauty of man. The Italian poets Dante, Petrarch and the Italian writer Boccaccio, the French writer Rabelias, the Spanish writer Cervantes, and the English writer Thomas More and the poet William Shakespeare helped people to fight for freedom and better future.
The Renaissance was the greatest cultural revolution that mankind had so far experienced. It was a time which called for giants and produced giants – giants in power, thought, passion, character, in universality and learning. There was hardly any man of importance who had not travelled extensively, who did not speak four or five languages.
Indeed, Leonardo da Vinci was a painter, sculptor, architect, mathematician and engineer. Michelangelo was a sculptor, painter and poet. Machiavelli was a statesman, poet and historian.
The wave of new cultural trends reached England in the 16th century. Many learned men from other countries, for instance the German painter Holbein, and some Italian and French musicians, went to England. In literature England had its own men. One of them was the humanist Thomas More, the first English humanist of the Renaissance.
| Thomas More (1478-1535) |
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Sir Thomas More was born in London and educated at Oxford. He was the first English humanist of the Renaissance. He could write Latin very well. He began life as a lawyer. He was an active-minded man and kept a keen eye on the events of his time. Soon he became the first great writer on social and political subjects in English. The English writings of Thomas More include discussions on political subjects, biographies, poetry.
Thomas More was a Catholic, but fought against the Pope and the king’s absolute power. The priests hated him because of his poetry and discussions on political subjects. Thomas More refused to obey the king as the head of the English Church, therefore he was thrown into the Tower of London and beheaded these as a traitor.
The work by which Thomas More is best remembered today is Utopia which was written in Latin in the year 1516. It has been translated into all European languages.
Utopia (which in Greek means “nowhere”) is the name of a non-existent island. This work is divided into two books.
In the first, the author gives a profound and truthful picture of the people’s sufferings and points out the social evils existing in England at that time. In the second book Thomas More presents his ideal of what future society should be like. It is an ideal republic. Its government is elected. Everybody works. All schooling is free. Man must be healthy and wise but not rich. Utopia described a social system built on communist principles. The word “utopia” has become a byword and is used in modern English to denote an unattainable ideal, usually in social and political matters.
| The development of drama in England |
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During the Renaissance art and literature developed. People liked to sing and act. Drama became a very popular genre of literature. The Renaissance dramas differed greatly from the first plays written in the Middle ages. As in Greece drama in England was in the beginning a religious thing. The clergymen began playing some parts of Christ’s life in the church. The oldest plays in England were the “Mysteries” and “Miracles” which were performed on religious holidays. These were stories about saints and had many choral elements in them.
Gradually ceremonies developed into performances. They passed from the church to the street. At the end of the 14th century the “Mysteries” gave way to the “Morality” plays. The plays were meant to teach people a moral lesson. The characters in them were abstract vices and virtues.
Between the acts of the morality and miracle plays there were introduced short plays called “interludes” – light compositions intended to make people laugh. They were performed in the houses of the more intelligent people.
Longer plays in which shepherds and shepherdesses took part were called “Masques”. These dramatic performances with music were very pleasing and were played till the end of the 17th century.
Soon the plays became more complicated. Professional actors travelled from town to town performing in innyards. The first playhouse in London was built in 1576. It was called “The Theatre”. A more famous theatre was “The Globe”, built in 1599. It was like the old innyard open to the sky. Galleries and boxes were placed around the yard. The stage was in the middle of it. There was no scenery. The place of action was written on a placard, e.g., a palace, London, etc. There was no curtain either. The actors stood in the middle of the audience on the stage. Women’s parts were acted by boys or men.
Drama from its very beginning was divided into comedy and tragedy. The first English tragedies and comedies were performed in London in about 1550.
In the 16th century a number of plays were written in imitation of Ancient Roman tragedies and comedies. There was little action on the stage. The chorus summed up the situation and also gave moral observations at the end of each act. Such plays were called classical dramas. The greatest playwrights of the time were men of academic learning, the so-called “University Wits”. They created the national English drama. Their plays were dramas of action. They rejected the three dramatic units, allowing the story to extend over long periods of time, changing the scene as often as necessary. The situations were made natural. The characters were real living human beings. There was a variety of themes and plots in these dramas.
Among the “University Wits” were John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe and others. Each of them contributed something to the development of the drama into the forms in which Shakespeare was to take it up
| Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) |
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Christopher Marlowe was a young dramatist who surpassed all his contemporaries. His father was a shoemaker in Canterbury. Christopher Marlowe studied at Cambridge University and was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance. Almost nothing is known of his life after he left the University. He was killed at a tavern at the age of twenty-nine.
Christopher Marlowe is famous for his four tragedies: Tamburlaine the Great, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Edward II.
Marlowe approached history from a Renaissance point of view. His tragedies show strong men who fight for their own benefit. No enemy can overcome them except death. They are great personalities who challenge men and gods with their strength.
Doctor Faustus is considered to be the best of his works. Marlowe used in it the German legend of a scholar who for the sake of knowledge sold his soul to the devil. Dr Faustus wants to have power over the world: “All the things that move between the quiet poles shall be at my command”. The devil serves him twenty-four years. When Faustus sees the beautiful Helen he wants to het his soul back. It is too late.
Marlowe’s plays taught people to understand a tragedy which was not performed just to show horror and crime on the stage, but to reveal the suffering of man. Marlowe introduced blank verse in his tragedies and pointed out the way to William Shakespeare, the greatest of the Renaissance humanists. In imagination, richness of expression, originality and general poetic and dramatic power he is inferior to Shakespeare alone in the 16th century.
| William Shakespeare (1564-1616) |
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The great poet and dramatist William Shakespeare was a genius formed by the epoch of the Renaissace.
He is often called by his people “Our National Bard” (bard = a singer of songs, a poet), “The Immortal Poet of Nature” (When the English people called Shakespeare “the poet of Nature” they meant “the poet of realism”, but they didn’t know such a word then) and “the Great Unknown”. Indeed very little can be told about his life with certainty, as no biography of Shakespeare was published during his lifetime nor for 93 years after his death.
Yet, patient research by certain scholars has uncovered the biography, but not fully.
William Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of April, 1564. His father, John Shakespeare, was a farmer’s son who came to Stratford in 1551 and became a prosperous tradesman. John Shakespeare was elected alderman and later by the time his eldest children were born he acted as bailiff which meant he had to keep order in the town according to the local laws. John Shakespeare was illiterate; he marked his name by a cross because he was unable to write it.
His mother, Mary Arden, was a farmer’s daughter. John and Mary had eight children, four girls and four boys, but their two eldest daughters died at an early age. The third child was William. William was a boy of a free and open nature, much like his mother who was a woman of a lively disposition. Of Shakespeare’s education we know little, except that for a few years he attended the local grammar school where he learned some Latin, Greek, arithmetic and a few other subjects. His real teachers meanwhile were the men and women around him. Stratford was a charming little town in the very centre of England. Near at hand was the Forest of Arden, the old castles of Warwick and Kenilworth, and the old Roman camps and military roads. The beauty of the place must have influenced powerfully the poet’s imagination.
When Shakespeare was about fourteen years old, his father lost his property and fell into debt and so the boy had to leave school and help his family. On leaving school, William Shakespeare began to learn foreign languages. His father had an Italian in his house who was quite a good scholar. This Italian taught William the Italian language, brushed up his Latin and studied the poetry of many Latin, Greek and Italian authors with him.
William was still a boy when his first poems appeared. Writing poems was very common in Shakespeare’s days. It was called sonnetizing. His future wife Anne Hathaway also expressed her feeling for William in verse. Anne and William met by the river Avon, and she calls him “Sweet Swan of Avon”. In his nineteenth year William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer. They had three children – Susanna, and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. A few years later after his marriage, about the year 1587, Shakespeare left his native town for London.
At this time the drama was gaining rapidly in popularity through the work of the “University Wits”. Shakespeare soon turned to the stage and became first an actor, and then a “play patcher”, because he altered and improved the existing dramas. Thus he gained a practical knowledge of the art of play writing. Soon he began to write plays of his own, first comedies and then historical plays. New plays by William Shakespeare appeared almost every year between 1590 and 1613, in some years one play, more often two.
In 1593 and 1594 he published two long poems – Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. Both poems were dedicated to the young Earl of Southampton, a great admirer of Shakespeare’s plays. Until Shakespeare printed his poems the public had no idea he was a poet. He was known as an actor and a writer of plays. At that time playwrights wrote for a definite theatrical company, and the theatre became the owner of the play. Shakespeare’s plays were very popular. Actors and writers respected him and admired his genius. As his popularity with the people grew, the aristocracy too became interested in his work. When Queen Elizabeth wanted to see a play, she usually ordered a performance at court.
In 1594 Shakespeare became a member of the Lord Chamberlain’s company of actors. He wrote plays for the company and acted in them. His early plays were performed in the playhouses known as The Theatre and The Curtain. When the company built the “Globe” theatre most of his greatest plays were performed there. By that time Shakespeare was acknowledged to be the greatest of English dramatists. His career as a dramatist lasted for nearly twenty one years. His financial position also improved. He was a shareholder of the Globe theatre and he purchased property in Stratford and in London. But the years which brought prosperity also brought sorrows. He lost his only son, his brother and parents.
In spite of prosperity he must have felt lonely among the people surrounding him. In 1612 he returned to Stratford-on-Avon for good. He died on the 23rd of April 1616. He is buried in his native town Stratford-on-Avon. In 1616 a month before his death he wrote his will.
On his tomb there are four lines which are said to have been written by William Shakespeare:
These lines prevented the removal of his remains to Westminster Abbey; only a monument was erected to his memory in Poets’ Corner.
| Shakespeare’s literary work |
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William Shakespeare is one of those rare geniuses of mankind who have become landmarks in the history of world culture. Poet and playwright William Shakespeare was one of the greatest titans of Renaissance.
A phenomenally prolific writer, William Shakespeare wrote 37 plays, 154 sonnets and two narrative poems. Shakespeare’s plays belong to different dramatic genres. They are histories (chronicle plays), tragedies, comedies and tragicomedies.
Shakespeare’s literary work is usually divided into three periods:
1. The first period – from 1590 to 1601 – when he wrote histories, comedies and sonnets.
2. The second period – from 1601 to 1608 – was the period of tragedies.
3. The third period – from 1608 to 1612 – when he wrote mostly tragicomedies.
These three periods are sometimes called optimistic, pessimistic and romantic.
| The first period (1590-1601) |
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Comedies
The first period is marked by youthful optimism, great imagination and extravagance of language. In these years Shakespeare created a brilliant cycle of comedies. They are all written in his playful manner. The cheerful and witty heroes and heroines of comedies come into conflict with unfavorable circumstances and wicked people. But their love and friendship, intellect and faithfulness always take the upper hand.
The comedies are written in the bright spirit of the Renaissance. The heroes are the creators of their own fate, that is to say they rely on their cleverness to achieve happiness. Shakespeare trusted man’s virtues and believed that virtue could bring happiness to mankind. Shakespeare was optimistic, therefore love of life is the main feature of his comedies, notable for their wit, comic characters and situations, for the smoothly flowing language and harmonious composition. Shakespeare’s comedies were written to take the spectator away from everyday troubles. In them people lived for merriment, pleasure and love.
The best comedies of that period are:
  
Sonnets
The sonnet is a poetical form that appeared in Italy in the 14th century. It was introduced into English literature during the first period of the Renaissance. Shakespeare’s sonnet has 14 lines. It is divided into three stanzas of four lines with a final rhyming couplet.
The sonnets of Shakespeare were published in 1609, but were probably written between 1597-1600. The first 126 are addressed to a man, a certain “W.H.” whose identity remains unknown. He is the author’s friend, and the sonnets are addressed to him. Shakespeare complains of his hard life in which his love for his friend is the only comfort (sonnets 26-29), but his friend often forgets him (sonnet 33).
Beginning with sonnet 127 a new person appears – The Dark Lady. The author and his friend are in love with her. The author both loves her and hates her for making him and his friend suffer (sonnet 133). Thus the sonnets are connected by their common theme – love and friendship. But this is not the only theme of the sonnets. In one of his best sonnets, 66, Shakespeare expresses his indignation with the state of things around him.
All Shakespeare’s sonnets have been translated into Russian by S. Marshak, the well-known poet. S. Marshak was not the first to translate the sonnets into Russian, but if not for Marshak’s translations the sonnets would be known only to a small circle of specialists.
Histories
During the first period Shakespeare wrote histories (chronicles) which are a poetic history of England. Shakespeare gives a broad panorama of England’s life. Scenes of private life alternate with episodes of war and political intrigues. Shakespeare shows the terrible world of feudal relations between people. The histories show the defeat of the feudal lords and the necessity of a strong national state united under the power of the king.
The historical plays (chronicles) are:
It is true that the historical dramas or chronicles, full of tragic events and bloodshed, also belong to the first period, but if we regard them in the order in which they are written, it turns out that they too have a happy end.
Tragedies
Two tragedies Romeo and Juliet (1593) and Julius Caesar (1599) were written during this period too. In spite of its tragic end Romeo and Juliet does not depress the reader, so full of youth and beauty it is, so vivid the colors and so complete the victory of love.
Tragedy belongs to the first two stages of Shakespeare’s literary career.
| The second period (1601-1608) |
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Shakespeare’s dramatic genius was at its highest in the second period of his literary work, when all of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies appeared. In the plays of this period the dramatist reaches his full maturity. He presents great human problems.
hakespeare proves that it is not enough to be clever in order to achieve happiness, that human relations derive from social problems. He shows the social injustice and suffering of man. Something must be done to change the world, the laws of man and his morals. This is particularly stressed in the great tragedies of Hamlet and King Lear.
Shakespeare showed that people had to look for another and more perfect life. Society could achieve progress and happiness only through struggle. He had faith in man’s virtue. In Shakespeare’s tragedies the evil forces are victorous only to a certain point, in the end the good wins,
Shakespeare’s characters are personalities of great depth and unusual intellect. At the same time he has created real, ordinary men. Each tragedy portrays some noble figure caught in a difficult situation. A man’s tragedy is not individual, it is spread to other people as well. In ancient tragedies man was helpless. His life depended on fate. Shakespeare’s man acts in a concrete social and political world. He is the product of the environment and history.
During the second period Shakespeare wrote the following tragedies:
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark – 1602
Troilus and Cressida – 1603
Othello, the Moor of Venice – 1604
King Lear – 1605
Macbeth – 1606
Antony and Cleopatra – 1607
Coriolanus – 1608
Timon of Athens – 1608
He also wrote a few comedies:
All’s Well that Ends Well – 1602
Measure for Measure – 1604
Pericles, Prince of Tyre – 1608.
These have been named the dark comedies and differ from those written during the first period as they have many tragic elements in them.
   
     
| The third period (1608-1612). Shakespeare’s contribution to the world literature |
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During the third period of his literary career Shakespeare wrote the following plays:
Cymberline – 1610
The Winter’s Tale – 1610
The Tempest – 1611
Henry VIII – 1613
These plays are called romantic dramas. There are no great problems and strong conflicts in them. Shakespeare has entered into the beautiful world of fantasy and allegory. Still, all the plays are masterfully written, and they express his belief in the future happiness of mankind.
Nature occupies an important place in Shakespeare’s works. His own attitude to its changes as the author himself changes. In the early comedies his heroes find happiness and peace of mind in nature, in the tragedies nature turns against them, and in the romantic dramas one feels that man can conquer nature.
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To sum we can say that during his lifetime Shakespeare created a variety of plays and characters. The ideas set out by the Renaissance, the struggle for happiness and freedom are expressed by him in the most realistic forms. Shakespeare’s plays have become so popular in the world because of his great humanistic ideas and his realistic characters. Shakespeare did not idealize the people he portrayed. He painted them as they were in his time. He created characters of great depth and unusual intellect. We see a philosopher in Hamlet, a learned man in Horatio, a cunning diplomat in Claudius.
Many scholars have studied Shakespeare. These are the central themes Shakespeare dealt with in his plays:
1. The idea of freedom for peoples. This is felt in his tragedies and historical plays.
2. Humanism. The love for mankind is seen in every play.
3. Freedom for the individual.
4. The idea of patriotism.
5. National unity under one strong king. (The last two themes are stressed in King Lear.)
6. Social relations between people.
7. The masses as a political force.
8. The themes of love and friendship which are developed in his sonnets as well as in his plays.
9. The struggle against cruel medieval blood-feuds (in Romeo and Juliet).
Shakespeare achieved great skill in speech individualization of his characters through the choice of words, and the use of folklore – popular songs, ballads and sayings. That is why the plays are written in the living language of the epoch.
There are some phrases that have become part of the everyday language of Englishmen. They have become sayings:
Shakespeare’s ideas of love, freedom, humanism and national unity are still very popular. Shakespeare is far from us only in time. When he speaks in his plays, we feel that he speaks for us and to us. His plays are staged by all the world’s theatres. Fourteen operas were composed on the theme of Romeo and Juliet. Verdi, Rossini, Berlioz wrote operas on Othello and Macbeth. There are many symphonic works – Tchaikovsky’s Tempest, Liszt’s Hamlet. The whole world knows Prokofiev’s beautiful ballet music to Romeo and Juliet. Shostokovich composed beautiful music to the sonnets. Almost all Shakespeare’s comedies and tragedies have appeared in the cinema. One of the best productions is Hamlet.
Questions on the topic 3 “English Literature of the XVI-XVII centuries"
1. Describe briefly the situation in England in the 16th century.
2. Explain the essence of Renaissance, name its greatest representatives and speak on their contribution to people.
3. What does Thomas More’s Utopia tell about?
4. Enumerate the genres of drama, shortly describe each of them.
5. Who were “The University Wits” and what differs them from the previous playwrights?
6. Describe the contribution of Christopher Marlowe to literature.
7. What made William Shakespeare a renowned genius of literature all over the world?
8. Into what periods is Shakespeare’s literary work usually divided?
9. What are the characteristics of William Shakespeare’s comedies?
10. In what other genres did Shakespeare work during the first period of his work? Enumerate the most well-known works.
11. What makes Shakespeare’s tragedies so significant in the world literature?
12. Speak about Hamlet as the most famous Shakespeare’s play.
13. What differs Shakespeare’s romantic dramas from his previous works?
14. Speak on the contribution of William Shakespeare to the world literature.
ДОМАШНЕЕ ЗАДАНИЕ:
Семинар 4. Выбрать один из пунктов и подготовить доклад по следующим вопросам. Приветствуется наличие компьютерной презентации:
1. Renaissance in English Literature (3 periods).
2. Introduction and Development of the English Sonnet
3. Sonnet writers: Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser.
4. W. Shakespeare. Life and Literary Work.
5. Shakespearean Drama. Peculiarities.
Выполнить тест по ссылке https://bspu.by/moodle/mod/lti/view.php?id=275327
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