4) SHAKESPEARE

Shakespeare in context

1603 -> Elizabeth I died unmarried and with no heir, Shakespeare starts writing (Hamlet
1600 or 1601, Othello 1604, King Lear 1605, Macbeth 1605-6). the reign of Elizabeth was
successful both commercially and military (1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada), religious
settlement of 1559 imposed the Protestant religion by law -> overall sense of national
confidence but many religious people, both Catholics and Puritans, were doubtful (for
Puritans, the official version of Protestantism with its bishops and some aspects of
Catholic rituals was incompatible with their vision of a more systematic reformation of the
church); also the parliament was starting to display its independence -> what we see in
religion and politics is the growing presence of different voices all demanding their say in
the ruling of the country -> England was an expanding trading nation with a dynamic energy
displayed by the merchant class which was present in religious, political and social life
and threatened disruption. business and politics kept overlapping but the image of
Elizabeth held the country’s conflicting interests together, for example she executed the
Earl of Essex in 1601 after the failure of his attempted rebellion coup (we can see this view
of Elizabeth in Spenser's “the faerie Queene”). however, in the 1590s there were more and
more discontented voices, and there was a sense of the unity of the nation falling apart
with the death of the queen, particularly because there was no heir. her successor was
James VI of Scotland, but since his mother Mary Queen of Scots had been a Catholic there
was the fear of Catholicism being reimposed on the country (he increasingly alienated the
Puritans and was at odds with parliament). in this context Shakespeare writes, his plays
mostly feature rebellious characters who challenge established authority, also concerned
with leadership -> in his plays many monarchs who in unsettled times have established a
degree of stability fail in asserting control (also father figures). Drama is the ideal medium
for a debate about leadership, plots usually build up to conflict and confrontation, the new
Playhouses based in London were close to political life, the new and dynamic forces in
society and business. during Shakespeare's time London's population increased
dramatically -> rapid shifts in society that destabilized accepted structures and raised
doubts about order and government, as well as worries about what might happen following
the death of the queen. But plays also draw attention to the fact that it is an illusion and
how the illusion of order and authority is created.

Shakespeare’s Comedies and Histories

Shakespeare's career in the theatre begins with three plays about Henry VI 1590-92, as
well as a variety of early plays seen as apprentice works (the two gentlemen of Verona,
Titus Andronicus, the comedy of errors, Love’s Labours lost, Romeo and Juliet). 1592-1599
English history plays, Richard III, Richard II, King John, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Henry V,
Julius Caesar (Roman play). 1594-1600, great comedies (a midsummer night's dream, the
merchant of Venice, the merry wives of Windsor, Much Ado about nothing, as you like it,
Twelfth night). Interest in Roman drama prompted by the Renaissance revival of classical
learning and texts, which in turn provided a model that many English writers started to
imitate: A 5-act structure, dramatic rules and established types of plot and character. “The
comedy of errors” was inspired by the works of the Roman comic poet and dramatist
Plautus. for tragedy English writers used the model by the playwright Seneca, which
provided a form for the stage in which dead and dismembered bodies were shown, this
also thanks to the commercial acting companies established in London by 1574 -> “the
Spanish Tragedy” by Kyd (1587), Shows a scene in which the revenge hero, whose son has
been murdered, bites his tongue on stage after killing the murderers. also, Shakespeare's
first tragedy “Titus Andronicus” (1593-4) features rape, mutilation and cannibalism.
Shakespeare's company was becoming a favorite of the queen, for which he wrote “the
merry wives of Windsor”, but we need to consider Shakespeare's position within and
outside the culture of the court -> “Much Ado about nothing” begins with the return from
war of Don Pedro and his men who are to be entertained at Leonato's house. Claudio falls
in love with Hero, Leonato's daughter, and asks Don Pedro to woo her for him. Don John
the villain of the play, tricks Claudio into believing that Hero is unfaithful, whilst the other
characters plot to make Beatrice and Benedick, who seem to despise each other, fall in
love. Claudio deceived by Don John rejects Hero at their wedding ceremony. at the end all
the problems are solved, Claudio and Hero marry as do Beatrice and Benedick -> there is a
gap between public performance and how characters really feel and think: at the wedding
Claudio plays the role required of him until he reveals his disdain for Hero. Just behind the
good humour of the court there is the malevolent villainy of Don John. there is a gap
between the idea of social order shown in the public face and the more complex feelings
and desires that motivate people -> noticeable also in the dark comedy “the merchant of
Venice”: Antonio borrows from Shylock, a Jewish money lender, who accepts as bond, if
the loan is not repaid in three months, a pound of Antonio's flesh, then there is a court case
in which it is successfully argued that the bond mentions only flesh and not blood and
Shylock is defeated and forced to give half his wealth to Antonio and to become a Christian
-> Life in Venice on the surface is polished but below are complicated questions about
relationship between money, law, race, justice and mercy -> the play ends with order
restored but has exposed difficult areas of conflict. there's also the problem of male rule:
in “Much Ado about nothing” society is ruled by men, Claudio relies upon Don Pedro to
woo Hero for him, the woman is like an object, when he is told that Hero is dead Claudio is
ready to marry her cousin even though he has never met her -> celebrates the restoration
of the conventional order at the end but has raised doubts about the assumptions in the
established order, questioning the foundations of social and political life, identifying the
forces that motivate and shape society -> social life is like a performance on a stage in
which people play parts (including gender roles) but this performance is an illusion that
can be easily shattered.

We can see a deconstruction of role-playing in history plays that deal with a line of English
monarchs from Richard II to the defeat of Richard III by Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch,
up to 1485, of which the last 30 years were dominated by the Wars of the Roses. Most of
these plays show support to the Tudor dynasty but also identify the dangerous motives of
rebels and show how the present monarchy deals with troublemakers -> “Richard II” deals
with Richard banishing Bolingbroke and then confiscating his lands to help finance a war in
Ireland; Bolingbroke invades England and deposes Richard, ascending the throne as Henry
IV -> this play looks at the past as a way of thinking about the present, at the end of the
16th century there was no direct heir to the throne, many concerns about succession ->
parallels between Richard's performance as king and Elizabeth’s, gap between the
impression and the reality of power -> Elizabeth seems secure but she is growing old and
there's a threat of civil disorder; similarly Richard seems powerful, one word from him
causes the banishment of Bolingbroke, but the truth is that his words don't carry that much
authority -> evident in a later speech by Gaunt where he plays with his name on the idea of
being physically gaunt, undermining the status of words -> any order established through
language is frail, Richard’s stylized and ritualized language gives a sense of a constructed
and therefore fragile nature of this hold on power.
Shakespeare's focus is almost always on political questions, on kings or father figures in
positions of authority, he challenges or mocks the authority -> “Julius Caesar” dramatizes
the assassination of Caesar when he is ruling Rome. Caesar returns to Rome after his
military triumphs, but many are starting to turn against him, even developing a conspiracy
in which Brutus, an old friend, becomes involved, Caesar gets killed. Mark Antony who
wasn't involved swears vengeance for Caesar's death, wins the battle at Philippi and
Brutus kills himself -> contending forces in society and questions of power and resistance,
concerns to the Elizabethans but also to the modern audience, questions about leadership
even more present as Elizabeth grew older -> James I, her successor, couldn't make the
relationship between crown and country that she established work. The central issue in
Julius Caesar is the gap between Caesar's claim to be almost semi-divine and the
challenges to that assumption of authority -> reflection of the anxieties and uncertainties
of the closing years of the Elizabethan period.

Shakespeare’s tragedies
Tragedy has its origins in Greek drama, with Athenian dramatists. The central concept is a
major character being afflicted by some kind of suffering that preserves dignity in the face
of this affliction (Incompatible with Christianity). impressive is the way in which the main
character articulates his sense of the situation he finds himself in. Shakespeare wrote 4
great tragedies (hamlet 1600, Othello 1604, King Lear 1605, Macbeth 1605-6), appearing in
the period before and after the death of Elizabeth, prompted by the political anxieties of
the time, timeless in offering an insightful vision of the human condition.

“Hamlet” -> Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, has married Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, just a
month after the death of her husband; he claimed the throne ignoring the rights of his
nephew. Hamlet discovers that his father was murdered by Claudius and after a great deal
of procrastination he kills Claudius; he is then himself killed by Polonius’s son, Laertes,
who unlike Hamlet isn't passive and immediately seeks revenge for the death of his father
and indirectly the death of his sister Ophelia -> questions of succession and political
intrigue at court, dealing with a moral dilemma, introspective, troubled and thoughtful
main character. Also larger themes -> corrupt political situation at court, Hamlet as an
individual has to make decisions and choices about his participation in the political
process rather than acting in accordance with family loyalties following the dictates of
religion. The burden is placed directly on the individual in an unprecedented way, the very
notion of the individual changes for the first time -> shift from a worldview where everyone
knows their place in a scheme of things to a worldview where people are not defined in
advance -> new emphasis on the interiority and unknown qualities of human beings as
opposed to their known social position, Hamlet himself pretends to be mad to put into
doubt any fixed conceptions about the differences between reason and madness, opening
a new interior world which questions the old certainties of understanding especially
through his soliloquies, characterised by streams of images which help create a sense of
chaos and of a speaker confounded by uncertainties, pain, anger and grief.

“King Lear” like “Hamlet” deals with a disrupted succession to the throne -> The king
decides to abdicate in favour of his daughters leading to a conflict between Goneril and
Regan, Lear having banned their youngest sister Cordelia for her refusal to flatter him. she
returns with an army to rescue her mad father who has been driven out of doors by the
sisters, but they both are taken prisoner. Cordelia is hanged and Lear dies over her body.
There's a parallel plot which sees the illegitimate Edmund deceive his father Gloucester
into banishing his legitimate son Edgar, Edmund then betrays Gloucester who is punished
by blinding for helping the mad Lear and then dies of a broken heart though reunited with
Edgar -> characters acting as symbols of goodness and evil, elements in common with
both myth and parable, the mad Lear and the blind Gloucester come to self-knowledge
through suffering, the vicious cruelty of Goneril and Regan leads to their destruction, but
this does nothing to change the world or solve the problems of injustice and poverty that
the play raises. the play is set in a past Pagan world of storms, unnamed gods and dark
landscapes, but the concern with the division of the Kingdom and the disastrous
consequences of Lear’s decision to abdicate his responsibilities echo the fears and
anxieties of Elizabethan time. We are in a moment of transition in the constitutional history
of the country, in 1605 there was the Gunpowder Plot in which Guy Fawkes conspired to
blow up the House of Commons, England had joined with Scotland in 1603, concern with
the gap between the idea of the king as a semi-divine figure and the reality of his mortality,
fears that the Kingdom will fall apart but also questions of any pretence of kings to be
above ordinary mortals -> James I distanced himself from the people to assert his divine
right to rule -> the play captures the contradictions of monarchy and politics. Lear Seems
to belong to an older order, conforming to an established set of convictions, but those who
oppose to Lear and Gloucester are people of a new kind with new ideas, disdaining
traditional loyalties in favour of personal advantage -> kind of premonition of the English
Civil War of 1642-60, the play recognises an inevitable conflict between those representing
the established order and characters who represent new impulses, the world changes and
the traditional ruling structures don't know how to cope with the new, Shakespeare
recognises this moment of deep cultural change, also in the way he uses language and
especially the word “nothing” both in the negative state to which Lear is reduced and the
positive value of Cordelia's love.

“Othello” on the other hand is a social outsider who achieved his position by his
resourcefulness as a soldier, he is also an African Moorish in Venice. he secretly marries
Desdemona, but her father arrests him and puts him on trial for stealing his daughter. the
couple are freed, and Othello is sent to Cyprus as general in chief to protect the island
against the threat of the Turks. Iago deceives Othello into believing Desdemona is having
an affair with his Lieutenant Cassio, so a jealous Othello strangles her before discovering
the truth and then he kills himself. the reason for Iago's actions was that Cassio had been
promoted over him, so he was angered by the conventions of hierarchy, favour and
preference, but this new situation in which an old set of rules still remains creates a
frightening situation in which the most extreme antisocial feelings (like Iago's racism, his
brutal devaluing of women and love and his twisted feelings of desire) rule. Symbols of the
storm and the threat of the Turkish invasion represent a world that is changing and
expanding with the old safe zones disappearing and new destructive forces released.

“Macbeth” -> anarchic, violent situation. Manipulated by his wife and tempted by the
prophecies of the witches that he shall be king, Macbeth murders the king of Scotland,
Duncan, and then to be safe he gives orders to kill the noble Banquo and his son and
Macduff's family. Duncan's son, Malcolm, escapes the slaughter and with the help of
Macduff, overthrows Macbeth's tyrannical rule and kills him. the plot is short and brutal,
the established order is broken, Macbeth's manliness and ambition put to test by his wife,
a line of succession is also broken, and the old traditional structures are replaced by new,
ambitious, self-regarding people. There's also the gender issue: the world would be
manageable if everyone kept to their assigned role, but there is a woman who steps out of
line unleashing violent forces and causing a catastrophe.

In all four of the major tragedies there is a sense of a collapsing established order, of
unrest as James I became king, fears of the breakdown of order, sense of society changing,
more complex world running out of control, also in the expression of tragic heroes that
echo our own impression of a complicated society and articulate a bewildering sense of
complexity and chaos.

Shakespeare’s Late Plays

After Macbeth -> Antony and Cleopatra (1606-7), Timon of Athens (1607), Pericles (1608),
Coriolanus (1608), Cymbeline (1610), the Winter's Tale (1610-11), and The Tempest (1611),
Henry VII and The Two Noble Kinsmen (both 1612-13). On one hand a group of plays about
ancient Rome and on the other a group of romances -> Shakespeare takes a step back
both from his own time and from the tragic plays to adopt a different perspective on the
problem of change. with the Roman plays he examines the reasons why the world's
greatest civilization and empire collapsed and disappeared and with the romances there is
a shift to the remote world of fairy tale, where everything seems possible.

Antony and Cleopatra -> the action shifts rapidly between Rome and Egypt. Mark Antony is
co-ruler of Rome but has fallen in love with Cleopatra queen of Egypt and Caesar's former
mistress. he abandoned his wife and Rome and crowns himself and Cleopatra joint rulers
of the eastern part of the Roman Empire. Octavius, Caesar's nephew, defeats them in a
sea battle. Antony blames Cleopatra, then thinking she is dead he commits suicide but
first he discovers that she is alive and dies in her arms, then Cleopatra kills herself with the
bite of a snake -> battle between passion and duty, questions of leadership and power,
Antony strays from his responsibilities because of passion. language here is important ->
Antony says that love is much more noble than Rome which can be destroyed, it can melt
into the river Tiber and dissolve and the empire collapse like a building. Cleopatra is
referred to as his space, something greater than Rome. great use of shifts of images and
language that gives expression to the complex themes at the heart of the play, especially
the use of metaphors to present the dilemma of the characters (Antony's defiance of Rome
through suggestions of violence to underline the dangerous path he is taking) and also a
society in ferment, everything will be affected not just the lovers. there is always a sense of
a play as a play, attention paid to staging, also in the way Cleopatra displays herself to the
world, kind of a public face that is being presented that makes life coherent and
manageable, but we are aware of the gap between the ordered performance we see on
stage and life's lack of order.

At the end of his career Shakespeare returns to comedy -> “The Tempest”, Prospero the
Duke of Milan has been deposed by his brother and now lives on an island with his
daughter Miranda, served by a spirit Ariel and a monster Caliban. his brother Antonio is
drawn by fate near the island and Prospero conjures up a storm to lead Antonio and his
party on the island. then the son of the king of Naples Ferdinand falls in love with Miranda,
and their engagement masque is disrupted by Caliban's plot to kill Prospero. Ariel
persuades Prospero to forgive both Caliban and Antonio and he gives up his magic and
returns as Duke to Milan. the play has an emphasis on spectacle: we arrange life into
patterns but by doing so we become even more aware of the randomness of it -> comedy
more than tragedy allows us to see the chaos of life that we shield from. issues about
construction and excesses of power, society starting to define itself in terms of its identity
as a trading nation and a colonial power, deep movements of change of his time,
complexity of the modern world with its new impulses and priorities.