London and Elizabethan
Theater
Drama terms
• Tragedy: A drama which recounts an
important series of events in the life of a
person of significance: events resulting in
unhappy catastrophe; the whole is treated
with great dignity and seriousness.
• Aristotle’s purpose of tragedy: To
arouse emotions of pity and fear and thus
to produce in the audience a catharsis of
these emotions.
Drama terms
• Catharsis: (Aristotle calls it “proper
purgation”) Spectator’s emotional conflicts
are temporarily resolved and his inner
agitations stilled by opportunity to expend
fear and pity on a tragic hero.
Drama terms
• Foil: contrast; anything (a character, for
example) that serves by contrast to set
another character off, i.e. a villian figure
making the hero look better by
comparison.
• Tragic irony: That form of dramatic irony
in which a character in a tragedy uses
words which mean one thing to him and
another to those better acquainted with his
real situation, especially when he is about
to become a victim of Fate.
Drama terms
• Paradox: Stylistic device used for dramatic
impact (“fair is foul, and foul is fair”); a statement
which while seemingly contradictory or absurd
may actually be well-founded or true.
• Parody: A composition burlesquing or imitating
another, usually serious, piece of work.
Designed to ridicule in nonsensical fashion one
or to criticize, by brilliant treatment, an original
piece of work.
Drama terms
• soliloquy: A speech of character in a play
delivered while the speaker is alone and
calculated to inform the audience or
reader of what is passing in the
character’s mind. “If it were done.” “Is this
a dagger.”
Drama terms
• Tragic Pattern in Hamlet:
The object of the pattern is to gain the greatest possible response
from the audience so that it may share fully in the tragic emotions of
pity or sympathy, and fear or horror. These responses are gained
first through our fellow-feeling for the sufferings of others, then
through our deepest convictions as to right and wrong, our beliefs as
to religion and the supernatural, and our repugnance at ugliness and
discord. You will see as we define it, the means by which the
pattern provides for the desired response.
•
The tragic hero must be a man great and admirable in
both his powers and his opportunities. He should be a person so
placed in society that his actions involve the well-being of all of its
members.
Drama terms
•
•
Tragic pattern in Hamlet (cont.):
The plot of the play should show him working to achieve some goal very
dear to him. This action will involve him in choices. His downfall must be
the result of a web of circumstances spun out of these choices which set off
a train of events he did not or could not foresee, and which cannot be
halted. He is thus caught. The hostility of his destiny may be a result of
circumstances, of the activities of his enemies, or (and this is usual) some
supernatural force hostile to him personally or to all humanity such as
malevolent fate, the gods, Satan, or the supernatural force reflecting his
own inner conflicts. When it is too late to escape, the victim comes to
realize what has happened to him, and dies finally, bitter, burnt-out, and
desperate. The audience generally is acquainted with more of the action
than the hero, and thus sees his evil destiny at work long before he does.
This sets up an ironical tension, and is a powerful instrument for gaining the
sympathy of the audience. The hero’s death at the end often not only
releases him from life’s burden, but also releases the hero’s society from
the disorder his downfall had caused.
Elizabethan theater
• No theaters in the early 16th century
• Groups of actors got together and
performed in innyards; traveled around in
London or throughout the countryside
• The government discovered that illegal
activities were going on within the crowds
• In the mid-1500’s, the government decided
that inns and actors needed licenses
Elizabethan theater
• Began building theaters across the River
Thames (outside of London) to escape taxes
• The area was known for the “seedy” practices of
bear/bull baiting, prostitution, etc.
• 1576: The first theater built called (aptly) “The
Theater
• Richard Burbage headed the Earl of Leicester’s
men
Elizabethan theater
• 1599: The Globe theater
• “The Bear Garden”: bear and bull-baiting
• By 1591 the theaters were closed every
Thursday by law to strengthen the popularity of
bull and bear-baiting
• Master of the Revels: fellow in charge of the
theaters;
– the Queen or government officials could close the
theaters for any purpose
– The theaters were closed during the plague
Bull Baiting
• Bull baiting was a contest in which trained bulldogs
attacked tethered bulls. The bull, with a rope tied
around the root of his horns, would be fastened to a
stake with an iron ring in it, situated in the center of
the ring. The rope was about 15 feet long, so that the
animal was confined to a space of 30 feet diameter.
The owners of the dogs stood around this circle,
each holding their dog by its ears, and when the
sport began, one of the dogs would loosed. The bull
was baited for about an hour. Bull-Baiting and BearBaiting was extremely similar, except that BullBaiting was more common in England due to the
scarcity and cost of bears.
Bear Baiting
•
•
Bull baiting was a contest in which the bear was chained to a stake by one hind leg or by
the neck and worried by dogs. The whipping of a blinded bear was another variation of
bear-baiting. Queen Elizabeth attended a famous baiting which was described by an
Elizabethan chronicler called Robert Laneham as follows:
"... it was a sport very pleasant to see, to see the bear, with his pink eyes, tearing after his
enemies approach; the nimbleness and wait of the dog to take his advantage and the force
and experience of the bear again to avoid his assaults: if he were bitten in one place how
he would pinch in another to get free; that if he were taken once, then by what shift with
biting, with clawing, with roaring, with tossing and tumbling he would work and wind
himself from them; and when he was loose to shake his ears twice or thrice with the blood
and the slaver hanging about his physiognomy."
Inside the theater
Balcony or
roof used for
seating,
musicians, or
“indoor”
scenes
Theater
only 86 feet
long, but
would fit up
to 2,300
people
Common folks
or
“groundlings”
stood around
the stage and
interacted with
the cast; had
no shelter from
weather or use
of restroom
facilities
Elizabethan theater
• Theater companies had little scenery or
special effects
• Words were vital to visualize the setting
• Actors were interactive with the audience
Credits
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http://ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/images/Bullfight.JPG
bull baiting
http://www.sedgleymanor.com/graphics/bull_baiting.jpg
bull baiting 2
http://imagesource.allposters.com/images/pic/BRGPOD/
109528~Bear-Baiting-Posters.jpg
bear baiting
http://www.fhaugsburg.de/~harsch/anglica/Chronology/16thC/Shakes
peare/sha_glo3.jpg
The swan