Chapter 3
Renaissance I
Shakespeare
Images of Shakespeare
Handsome?
Contents
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A general review of the development of drama
in English history
Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593)
Shakespeare and his plays
Analysis and appreciation of his famous
soliloquey “to be, or not to be” in Hamlet
A general review of the development
of drama in English history
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Cities and towns grew rapidly in the 16th century. And
since there was no other means of entertainment than
visiting lunatics imprisoned in Bedlam, and watching
executions and hangings at Newgate, drama naturally
became the only form of amusement to city-dwellers and
noblemen.
In the 16th century, London became the center of
English drama. The structure of Elizabethan theatre is
worthy of our attention. It was very similar to the classic
theatre in China. The Globe, built in1599, was a circular
wooden structure with a stage like an apron stretching out
in the centre, rain and snow would come in.
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There were no seats and the majority of the audience
would stand around the stage. Around the circular
wall there were “galleries” with seats where wealthy
people went.
The drama had gone through a number of
phases over centuries. There were three periods
in the development of drama:
The religious period: Mysteries and miracles are
cycles of religious plays performed in the Middle
Ages during great Church festivals. (p45)
The moral period: Then the new dramas came on
stage and became more popular. Those were the
morality plays and the interludes. It is impossible to
draw any accurate line between the Moralities and
the Interlude.(p46)
3. The artistic period: This period is a higher
stage in the development of the English drama.
The chief purpose of the true drama is not to
point a moral but to represent human itself as
it is. There were comedies, tragedies, histories
and so on.(p46 – 47)
Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593)
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Contents:
His major plays
The theme of his plays
Characteristics of his dramatic writings
His masterpiece, The Tragical History of
Doctor Faustus
The most preeminent figure among the University
Wits was Christopher Marlowe, who was the
greatest playwright before the rise of Shakespeare.
He was also a great poet who wrote lyric poems
and mythological poems. He was an ardent idealist
and a representative of many of the qualities that
made the greatness of the Renaissance.
 His major plays (Three great plays) (47)
Tamberlaine the great; The Jew of Malta; The Tragical
History of Doctor Faustus’
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The theme of his plays: Each of his important plays
has as a central character a passionate man doomed to
destruction by an inordinate desire for power. ( man’s
self-destruction because of greedy for power)
Characteristics of his dramatic writing:
His dramatic writing emphasizes the Renaissance ideal
of the individual worth;
The heroes in his plays individualists whose ambition
often brings ruin to the world and to themselves;
He gave English tragedy its true meter and diction. It
was Marlowe who first made blank verse the principle
instrument of English drama.
His masterpiece, The Tragical
History of Doctor Faustus
Synopsis
Faustus is born to poor parents in Rhodes, Germany, grows up
and eventually goes to Wittenberg to study divinity. Through
his studies, he does well financially but his thoughts soon turn
away from theology. Instead, he begins to turn toward the
study of magic and necromancy -- the magical art of raising
the dead, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power
and knowledge.
*Its thematic and formal features(p49)
Thematically, the image of Faustus is historically significant
as a “photo” record of the new man, the modern man, the
Renaissance humanist, who steps into modern light with all
the glitter of Reformation and Renaissance. It reflects people’s
quest for knowledge and power during the reformation and
the Renaissance (theme).
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Shakespeare and his plays
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Contents
Life experience
Thoughts and ideas about man and society,
and literature
His literary works: sonnets and plays
Brief analysis of his famous Hamlet, the Prince
of Denmark and the excerpt of Hamlet’s
soliloquey “to be, or not to be” in the play
Life experience
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The most influential writer in all of English literature, William
Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glovemaker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare attended
grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further.
In 1582 he married an older woman, Anne Hathaway, and had
three children with her. Around 1590 he left his family behind
and traveled to London to work as an actor and playwright.
Public and critical success quickly followed, and Shakespeare
eventually became the most popular playwright in England and
part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged the reigns
of Elizabeth I (ruled 1558-1603) and James I (ruled 1603-1625),
and he was a favorite of both monarchs. Shakespeare retired to
Stratford and died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two. At the time of
Shakespeare's death, literary luminaries such as Ben Jonson
hailed his works as timeless.
Thoughts and ideas about man and
society, and literature
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His ideas about man and the society
As a humanist of the time, he affirms the importance
of the feudal system in a bid to uphold social order.
He is against unscrupulous machinations, either for
political power or personal gains, against religious
persecution and racial discrimination, against social
inequality and corrupting influence of gold and
money.
His cosmos is highly moral, the salient attributes of
which are its sense of certitude and justice. He praises
virtue and censures vice, and never allows vice have
its way for long.
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He believes in the goodness of human nature
and man’s potential for self-improvement.
On the other hand, there is also a limit to his
sympathy for the downtrodden and to his
antipathy for the ruling class. He fears anarchy,
hates rebellion and despises democracy. Thus he
finds no way to solve the social problems.
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His literary ideas
He has accepted the Renaissance point of view
and holds that literature should be a
combination of beauty, kindness and truth.
This is a general principle of his literary idea.
He also thinks that literature should reflect
nature and reality. This way he is called a
“poet of reality”.
His literary works-plays and sonnets
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His plays
His dramatic career
Generally speaking, his dramatic career is divided into
three periods: the years before 1600 (comical period);
the years from 1600 to 1608 (tragic period); and the
years after 1608 (the period of romances or the
serenity period).(P53)
Classes of his plays
According to dramatic type, Shakespeare’s plays are
usually divided into four classes: comedies, histories,
tragedies and romances
3. The themes of each classes
*The theme of his comedies: in praise of youth, love
and ideal of happiness; in praise of the heroes and
heroines fighting against destiny and mold their own fate
according to their own will. (Four great comedies: A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The
Merry Wives of Windsor, and As You like it)
*The theme of histories: the necessity for national
unity under a mighty and just sovereign.
*The theme of tragedies: analysis of human
wickedness, the human will to evil and the corruption of
man’s heart by evil. (Four great tragedies: Hamlet, Othello,
King Lear and Macbeth):
4. Features of Shakespeare’s plays
*Characterization:
a. Almost all his characters are more than onedimensional. He creates no superman heroes, but
life-like characters.
b. He makes frequent use of comparisons and
contrast by portraying the characters impairs or
setting them against one another.
c. He individualizes his characters by emphasizing
each one’s dominant and unique qualities, such as
the melancholy of Hamlet, the honesty of
Othello, the ambition of Macbeth etc.
d. He has made profound psycho-analytical study
of his characters by revealing the intricate inner
workings of their minds through the full use of
soliloquies.
e. He borrows from existing works but revises
and makes them substantially new and superior.
(p56)
f. One dramatic device that Shakespeare uses in
all his works involves the juxtaposition of the
comic element alongside the serious.(p55)
*The structure
a. Well-organized, with harmony and order misbalanced
at the beginning, social conflicts sharpen in the middle
and harmony and order restored at the end.
b. His plays usually have more than one plot. The major
and the minor plots are woven into an organic whole;
c. The combination of comic and tragic elements and
the subtle use of the dramatic irony make the plots and
structure of Shakespeare’s plays more concrete and
abundant.
Language and Style
a. Shakespeare is a master of the English language, with a
large vocabulary of 16,000 English words.
b. He can write poetry well in different styles and in
different poetic forms, such as sonnets, blank verse,
rhymed couplets and lyrical songs.
c. Shakespeare’s achievements of language and style are the
crystallization of his dramatic art: he uses the speechmode, the question, in Hamlet; the ambiguities and
equivocations in Macbeth; and the exclamations and very
simple but also very basic questions in King Lear, etc.
*As for his four poems, find the information on p52.
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Brief analysis of his play, Hamlet,
the Prince of Denmark
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Contents
Introduction
Synopsis
The particularity of the theme
Reasons of Hamlet’s delay or his
Procrastination of his revenge action
Introduction
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Hamlet is without question the most famous play in the English
language. Probably written in 1601 or 1602, the tragedy is a
milestone in Shakespeare's dramatic development; according to
most critics, the playwright achieved artistic maturity in this work
through his brilliant depiction of the hero's struggle with two
opposing forces: moral integrity and the need to avenge his
father's murder. Shakespeare's focus on this conflict was a
revolutionary departure from contemporary revenge tragedies
which tended to graphically dramatize violent acts on stage in
that it emphasized the hero's dilemma rather than the depiction
of bloody deeds.
Synopsis
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Hamlet is the prince of Denmark. His father died when
he studied abroad. Then, Claudius, his uncle becomes
king, and marries his mother, Gertrude. Young Hamlet
doubts that Claudius killed his father to become king of
Denmark. And later Hamlet himself sees his father’s
ghost appearing at midnight. The ghost tells Hamlet
privately that Claudius had indeed murdered him by
pouring poison in his ear. Hamlet is enraged and plots
of how to revenge his father's death.
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In his anger, Hamlet seems to act like a madman. King Claudius,
his wife Gertrude, and his advisor Polonius send Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet and figure out why he is acting
mad. Hamlet even treats Polonius' daughter Ophelia, his lover,
rudely. Claudius, fearing Hamlet may try to kill him, sends Hamlet
to England. Before leaving, however, Hamlet convinces an acting
company to reenact King Hamlet's death before Claudius, in the
hopes of causing Claudius to break down and admit to murdering
King Hamlet. Hamlet's mother tries to reason with Hamlet after
the play, while Polonius spied on them from behind a curtain.
Hamlet hears Polonius, and kills him through the curtain, thinking
the person is Claudius. When finding out the truth, Hamlet
regrets the death, yet Claudius still sends him to England,
accompanied by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with orders from
Claudius that the English kill Hamlet as soon as her arrives. En
route to England, Hamlet finds the orders and changes them to
order Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed, though Hamlet is
kidnapped by pirates one day later.
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After Hamlet leaves, Laertes returns from France, enraged over
Polonius' death. Ophelia’s utter madness with her father’s death and
eventual death in a stream further anger Laertes. So when the
pirates return Hamlet to Claudius (for a ransom), and Claudius tries
one last attempt to eliminate Hamlet: he arranges a sword duel
between Laertes and Hamlet. The trick, however, is that the tip of
Laertes' sword is poisoned. As a backup precaution, Claudius
poisons the victory cup in case Hamlet wins. During the fight, the
poisoned drink is offered to Hamlet, he declines, and instead his
mother drinks it (to the objection of Claudius). Laertes, losing to
Hamlet, illegally scratches him with the poisoned sword to ensure
Hamlet's death. Hamlet (unknowingly), then switches swords with
Laertes, and cuts and poisons him. The queen dies, screaming that
she has been poisoned and Laertes, dying, admits of Claudius'
treachery. Weakening, Hamlet fatally stabs Claudius, Laertes dies, and
Hamlet begins his death speech. Fortinbras, the prince of Norway,
arrives from conquest of England, and Hamlet's last dying wish is
that Fortinbras become the new King of Denmark, as happens.
The particularity of the theme
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Hamlet’s tragedy is a tragedy of humanists.
The original theme is just the revenge and violence or the
blood-and-thunder originally, with interrelated themes of love,
faithlessness and ambition.
But Shakespeare injects the thrilling Renaissance spirit into
the story. He turns a one-dimensional stereotyped plot into one
in which Hamlet is transfigured into a multifaceted Renaissance
idealist. This way, the theme assumes a much graver magnitude
than one of mere blood and violence. The corrupt and criminal
Danish court versus Prince Hamlet becomes in the hands of
Shakespeare, a metaphor for, or a mirror reflection of the
real world of Shakespeare’s England in confrontation with
Renaissance humanism.
Reasons of Hamlet’s delay or his
Procrastination of his revenge action: (P59-60)
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Hamlet has the doubts about the ghost and his truth.
(There is the play to reenact the scene of his father’s
death)
The social and religious education he has received
explains Why he does not kill Claudius when the man
kneels and prays and makes himself a vulnerable prey.
There is Hamlet’s intense mental battle: his revenge
may serve no useful purpose as it can not bring his
dead father back to life nor save his mother’s honor;
What about his country and his people? Should they
suffer this misery?
The young man suffers from Freudian Oedipus
complex.
The analysis and appreciation of Hamlet’s famous
soliloquy “to be, or not to be”
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Understanding “to be, or not to be”
The form of words guarantees that Hamlet’s question
will be interpreted on a general level: the line uses one
of the most basic verbs in the language. The verb is
then phrased in the infinitive, “to be”, rather than
attaching it to any specific noun or pronoun (not even
Hamlet’s own “I”). Balancing it on the other side of
“or” is the simplest possible opposition, the same verb
with a one syllable prefix: “not”. He is thinking seriously
about the existentialist condition of man. No images
here.
A sudden flood of images
Shakespeare then has Hamlet produce sudden flood of images. The
“slings and arrows” of fortune, the “arms” to be employed against a
“sea of troubles”, the “heartaches”, and “the natural shocks”(his
father’s death, his uncle’s murder crime, his mother’s betrayal, his
friend’s unfaithfulness), the “whips and scorns” of time (evils and
injustice), the “undiscovered country” of the afterlife.
 Comparison: sleep vs. death (figure of speech: metaphor)
1. death ------ a peaceful sleep (no terrible dreams)
2. death ----- a dreadful sleep ( still nightmares haunt)
He says that "sleep" will end his heartache. But then he says that if
he "dreams", he'll have nightmares. He's using sleep/dreams as an
analogy for death and the afterlife.
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What Hamlet is musing on
the pain of life, which he sees as inevitable (the sea of
troubles - the slings and arrows - the heart-ache - the
thousand natural shocks)
the fear of the uncertainty of death and of possible
damnation of suicide.
What Hamlet's dilemma is between life and death
Although he is dissatisfied with life and lists its many
torments, he is unsure what death may bring (the dread
of something after death). He can't be sure what death
has in store; it may be sleep but in perchance to dream,
and it is perhaps an experience worse than life.
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What Death is for Hamlet:
Death is called “the undiscover'd country” from
which no traveler returns. In saying that Hamlet is
acknowledging that, not only does each living person
discover death for themselves, as no one can return
from it to describe it, but also that suicide is a one-way
ticket. If you get the judgment call wrong, there's no
way back.
What the implication of soliloquy is (in religious
sense):
The whole speech is tinged with the Christian
prohibition of suicide, although it isn't mentioned
explicitly. The dread of something after death would
have been well understood by a Tudor audience to
mean the fires of Hell.
The implied conclusion by Hamlet:
The speech is a subtle and profound examining of
what is more crudely expressed in the phrase out of
the frying pan into the fire. - in essence 'life is bad,
but death might be worse'.
Here, Hamlet sparks an internal philosophical
debate on the advantages and disadvantages of
existence and whether it is one's right to end his or
her own life.
 The language of the soliloquy: (the last four
lines of paragraph on P61)
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Assignments
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Written work
Tell Shakespeare’s literary ideas.
What are Shakespeare’s four great tragidies and four great
comedies?
What is particular of the theme in Shakespeare’s Hamlet?
Why does Hamlet keeps delaying his revenge action?
Answer the following questions by understanding Hamlet’s
soliloquey:
What is Hamlet musing on?
What is Hamlet’s dilema between life and death?
What is Death for Hamlet?
What is the implied conclusion made by Hamlet in this
soliloquey?
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Topics for disscussion
How did English drama develop? (stages and forms of
plays)
What are the themes reflected in Christopher
Marlowe’s major works?
Why are Marlowe’s dramatic writings important?
What are striking in Shakespeare’s characterization?
Why is Shakespeare called a humanist?
In Christian sense, what does the soliloquey imply?
Oral Work
Out loud Hamlet’s soliloquey by role-playing Hamlet
Thunder storms