THEATRES AND ACTING COMPANIES

• James Burbage in 1576 built the first permanent theatre that were built outside the city because it was considered place of vices.
• Elizabethan players acting on a variety of stage, for example in the halls of noblemen's houses, in one of the Queen's palaces or in any places where they could erect a stage.
• Permanent theatre were circular or octagonal
• There were three levels of galleries that looking down
• Apron stage was so called because it jutted out into the yard
• The players were protected from the rain by the shadow
• The Elizabethan playhouses was small because the stage occupied almost half area.
• The tiring house was the place where the actors changed their costumes
• Inner stage was necessary for several plays, it was behind the stage
• In the final scene the several corpses were carried off or they were concealed within a recess
• The upper stage was hidden by a curtain and up most there was all area used by musicians
• Apparently there was no scenery            they created a simple scenery
• The action was continuous, there was no changed between a scene and other
• There were no women actresses.

DRAMA AS A LITERARY GENRE

ORIGINS

• The Greeks were the first in Europe to stage theatrical performances
• In ancient Greece drama was a collective and ritual phenomenon
• The word "theatre" comes from a Greek word that means "to watch"

TRAGEDY

• The word "tragedy" comes from a Greek words that mean "song of goat"
• Tragedy has a solemn style
• The characters are never common people

THE FEATURES OF A DRAMATIC TEXT

STRUCTURE

• Play consist of a number of act divided into scenes
• Elizabethan tragedies are generally introduced by a prologue spoken by the chorus

Give information about the main character

CHARACTERS

Characters often include:

a hero

a heroine

a villain

DRAMATIC TECHNIQUES

DIALOGUE:

it creates the action

it shows what a characters thinks about another

SOLILOQUY:

Character is alone on the stage

MONOLOGUE:

Are other characters but the speaker ignores them

ASIDES:
short comments made by a characters for the audience

Draw attention of the audience       

STAGE DIRECTIONS:

Interventions of the playwright to give some information                             

LANGUAGE

The normal form of Shakespeare's plays is blank verse

It also used pattern of imagery

They underline the topping of tragedy

CHARACTERISTICS

• Aristotelian unites:    - play couldn't last more

ONE TIME

than 36 hours

- one tragedy should have

ONE ACTION

only one action

- should be set only in one

ONE PLACE

Set

• Catharsis: it's the moment when purification is needed because there is the desperation; when we reach this point started a sort of purification

THE GLOBE

• Built in 1598 on Bank side, London
• It was octagonal
• It was burnt down
• In 1614 was rebuilt and in 1644 was demolished by the Puritans
• In August 1996 the theatre was reopened.

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

LIFE

• He was born in Canterbury in 1564
• He went to Cambridge University
• He was killed in a London tavern

WORKS

• His main works are:  - Tamburlaine the Great

- Doctor Faustus

- The jaw of Malta

- Edward II

- Dido, Queen of Cartage

• Marlowe' s characters are based on real people
• Themes:

. opposition between man and God

. thirst of power                       Marlowe mirror the condition

. strong desire to surpass the church             of renaissance's man

. limitation of knowledge

. extreme ambition

• In "Tamburlaine the Great" and in "Doctor Faustus" we can see the refused of Marlowe      for the orthodoxy aspects of the church.

The protagonist was described as a God            protagonist made a pat whit devil

DOCTOR FAUSTUS

Faustus agrees to give his soul to the devil in return of 24 years of knowledge.

During these years the devil must serve him and give him what he wants; at the end of that period the devil takes Faustus's soul

PROLOGUE

• it starts whit negations, the chorus explain what he won't describe
• Faustus is presented, was described his life, from school age to passage between school and magically
• There was an opposition between Christianity and magic arts 
• He's compared to Icarus

Over come human limits

LAST MONOLOGUE

• Faustus is fright and he repents
• There were many references to the nature
• He wants come back to the Christianity
• The strike of the clock underline the passage of the time
• There was a reference to Pythagoras' metempsychosis and he said that he want to be a beat because they haven't immortal soul
• He deny his knowledge and he promise to burn his book, but devil comes from!

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

• He was born at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564
• He didn't go to University
• He married very young (18)
• In 1584 he went to London

• When theatres were closed for the plague he needed the support of a private patron

Earl of Southampton

• When the theatre reopened he became a shareholder
• First Folio is the volume where there were published 36 of his plays.

SHAKESPEARE'S LONDON

• In 1609 London was the biggest city in Europe       had very fast growth
• Globe was built in 1599 on the south bank of the Thames
• The only way to cross the Thames was the London Bridge:medieval stone bridge

Along this bridge there were

Shops, houses and chapel

• In Southwark there were some wayfarers' inns for example Tebard, descript by Chaucer
• The parish had its weekly markets
• Lord Mayors controlled every section inside the city and he hated plays

From 1580 to 1590 plays were banned

Companies began to move outside the city's walls

• Lord Chamberlain played at the "Theatre"  despite the hostility of Lord Mayor thousands of
• Lord Admiral occupied the "Rose"              people went to the new theatres every day

• 1642: Civil war                      puritans against sovereign

parliamentary royal

Oliver Cromwell                    defeat the King's part and King was killed

Theatres were closed             Puritans period: only period when there wasn't monarchy

1660: restoration,

come back the monarchy and theatres were reopened

SONNETS

• Shakespeare didn't use Petrarchan form, an octave and a sestet, instead he employed 3 quatrains and a final couplet

As an epigram, very strong

• Sonnets can be divided in two sections:       - first addressed to a fair youth

- second addressed to a dark lady

we can say that he's a very modern writer

because he didn't respect the Elizabethan's

schemes

• Main themes: time, death, love, beauty, art

SHALL I COMPARE THEE

• Addressed to a fair youth
• Theme of transience of beauty
• There are many archaism
• In the three quatrains the poet compare the youth to a summer's day and he says that the youth is better because a summer's day is too short, while his beauty can be eternalised whit the sonnet of the poet

In fact in the couplet there was

The eternalization of beauty

• None of the quatrains end with a full stop because the reflection goes on.
• There are the personification of wind, sun and death
• There are the image of art which defeat time

MY MISTRESS' EYES

• Addressed to the dark lady
• The women is descript as a ugly women
• She is compare whit sun, roses, snow. but this elements are better than her
• In the couplet the poet said that his love for this women is true and that he didn't love her only for her beauty
• He used a realistic language
• The poet underline that love and beauty aren't necessarily related