Elizabethan England: Queen Elizabeth
 Elizabeth I was 25 years old when she became Queen
of England in 1558.
 Her 45-year reign, which ended with her death in 1603,
saw England's emergence as a nation of tremendous
political power and unparalleled cultural achievement.
 Because so much of this English renaissance is directly
attributable to Elizabeth's personal character and
influence (as well as to the unprecedented length of
her reign), it is appropriate that the last half of the
sixteenth century in England is identified as the
Elizabethan Period.
 In both intellect and temperament, Elizabeth was well-suited for
the role of monarch. She was exceptionally well-educated,
having been tutored at her father's court by Roger Ascham, one
of the most outstanding scholars and thinkers of the age. Her
intellectual interests were broad, ranging from history and
science to art, literature, and philosophy, and she was a
remarkably astute political strategist.
 Not only did she return the country to internal political and
religious stability in the wake of "Bloody Mary's" reign, she
directed England's course as it became a powerful force among
European nations. Both Spain and France felt the effects of
England's growing strength and audacity under Elizabeth's rule.
Furthermore, Elizabeth shrewdly perceived that great political
advantage could be gained from her status as an unmarried
monarch, and throughout her reign various political alliances via
marriage were hinted at but never finalized.
 Elizabeth was an enormously popular monarch, one of
western civilization's first true cult figures. The
following of "The Virgin Queen," or "Gloriana," as she
was called, was extensive; according to many
historians, every public appearance became an
occasion for grand spectacle, great pageantry, and
huge crowds.
 Her love of music, drama, and poetry fostered an
atmosphere in which many of England's greatest
writers found encouragement and financial patronage.
 Under Elizabeth's leadership, England experienced the
true cultural reawakening or renaissance of thought,
art, and vision which had begun in Italy a century
earlier.
 The greatest literature created during the Elizabethan
Period falls into two categories: poetry and drama.
 The pursuit of a literary life was viewed as an
admirable and worthy endeavor, and poets shared
their work with each other and at court, vying for the
praise and patronage of the Queen and aristocracy.
The Queen herself wrote both poetry and music.
Elizabethan England: Everyday Life
 Peasant Life
 The average person never traveled farther than half a
day's walk for any reason other than yearly local fairs. All
the necessities of life were available handmade and
homemade in their own village.
 People's wants were few: produce from neighborhood
farms, drink from the village brewer, and firewood from
local forests constituted the needs of daily life.
 These needs were satisfied by barter, since money was
scarce, and they could all be met without the dangers of
travel on unknown roads and among strange
companions.
 The news of the country was orally given by peddlers,
soldiers, and others who found it necessary to travel.
 There was little transfer of property, and generations
lived and died in the same homes and in the same
circumstances.
 Life was an early morning trudge to fields or sheep
meadows, a few pints of ale, some cheese and bread at
midday, and the evening's walk home. (Ale was drunk by
everyone, even children, and regarded as a healthful
beverage.)
 The villages were quiet after sundown, with those who could
afford candles and those who could only afford a single fire
both spending their evening in talk and games.
 Wealthier peasants might while away an evening reading the
Bible, Book of Common Prayer, or some other tome: by
Elizabeth's day it was clear that social mobility and commerce
both required literacy, and perhaps half of the population
could read at least a little.
 Only on Sunday was there a break in the routine. The
townsmen met for church in the morning, with free time for
gossip, games and a few pints of ale after the service was over.
Women worked communally at sewing or spinning while men
bowled, played skittles or ball games, or enjoyed board games
like nine man's morris, the ancient Saxon game known as
hnaef, or draughts (now known as checkers).
 Royal Life
 Mostly one of leisure
 Fox hunting and horseback riding were popular
pastimes
 Writing and needlework were seen as an honorable way
for royalty, especially women, to pass the time
 Leisure Time
 In that time, musical literacy was expected in the upper
class of society. Many Elizabethans made their own
music. The laborers would sing while they worked, and
the townspeople would sing or play music after meals.
The lute, virginal, viola, recorder, bagpipe and the fiddle
were favored instruments of that time.
 Dancing was also a popular activity. The dances were
mostly performed by couples. Dancing varied according
to social class.
 Drama was at the high peak of its cultural achievement ,
for all time, during this period. There were a variety of
plays including action, humor, violence, and plays with
musical interludes.
 The actors creating theater often received rewards,
became respectable and would slowly move up in social
standing.
 The brilliant actors were the Burbages (James, Richard
and Cuthbert), Philip Henstoe and Edward Alleyn.
 The brilliant playwrights included Christopher Marlow,
William Shakespeare, and Ben Johnson.
 The rise, maturity and decline of Elizabethan Theater
coincided with Shakespeare's dramatic career. By the
year of Shakespeare's death, there was a transition from
plays to literature.
 Elizabethan drama owed its strength and richness to the
fusion of many elements. It was a mirror of the whole
society.
 Sports played a major role in the leisure time of the
Elizabethan Age. Some of the indoor games included
dice, chess, checkers and a variety of card games. The
card games included primero, trump, gleek, new cut
and many others. If the cards and dice were too passive
for the men, wrestling was an alternative for them.
With wrestling, however, came injuries like broken
ribs, internal injuries, broken necks and more.
Elizabethan England: Fashion
 Women
 In the early stages of the Elizabethan era women generally
wore clothes that covered them completely. The bodice or the
top part of the gown was generally tight fitting with square
shoulders. The yoke was usually of a dark color, and there was
often some type of high collar. The collar would extend all the
way to the chin and usually would ruffle at the top.
 Women wanted as small and petite waist as possible, so they
did anything to make their waists small or appear smaller
than the actual size. Women in the Elizabethan days wore
ruffles to show status in society. Sleeves of women's gowns
had a certain appearance of being puffy.
 Men
 The men's style of clothing was also very distinct during
the beginning of this great period. The men wore
embroidered vest-like shirts called jerkins, which had
square shoulders and buttons down the front. The sleeves
were often decorated and loose- fitting all the way to the
wrists. The pants were loose-fitting and extended to about
three to four inches above the knee. They were padded with
horse-hair and slashed in order to show the knitted silk
stockings underneath.
 The shoes of the men were generally made with the finest
of leather. They contained a small leather heel and were
often decorated with slashes. The headgear was either a
small flat hat made of velvet or silk or a tall crown hat that
was covered by fine fabric or feathers. Some of the more
distinguished men wore small capes with big-edged collars.
Elizabethan England: Medicine
D. Pedro: Sigh for the tooth-ache?
Leon: Where is but a humour of a worm?Through all
thy veins shall run
A cold and drowsy humour.
This is undation of mistemper'd humour
Rests by you only to be qualified;
Then pause not; for the present time's so sick,
That present medicine must be minister'd.
 These lines from Shakespeare's Much Ado About
Nothing give a brief glimpse into the world of
Elizabethan medicine.
 One of the most common beliefs during this time
concerned the humours.
 It was believed that four humours or fluids entered into the
composition of a man: blood, phlegm, choler (or yellow
bile), and melancholy ( or black bile).
 According to this belief, the predominance of one humour
over the others determined a person's temperament as
sanguine (cheerful), phlegmatic (indifferent), choleric
(ambitious), or melancholic (sad).
 Furthermore, they believed that too much of any of them
caused disease, and that the cure lay in purging or avoiding
the peccant humour, as by reducing the amount of blood
by cupping or reducing the bile by means of drugs.
 Epidemic diseases became more common in the
sixteenth century. Among them were typhus,
smallpox, diphtheria and measles. Scurvy also
increased in frequency.
 In children there were epidemics of plague, measles,
smallpox, scarlet fever, chicken pox, and diphtheria.
Many children were abandoned, especially infants with
syphilis (it was feared they would pass it on ). Dental
disease sometimes caused death, and congenital and
acquired blindness were also common for the children.
 Elizabethan medical treatments were quite varied.
 For an earache, a common remedy was to put a roasted onion in the
ear. To cure a stye, a person was supposed to rub his eye with the tail
of a black tomcat.
 For mental illness, doctors extended the new technique of
transfusing blood to the treatment of mental patients. When
arterial blood of lambs was injected into the venous system, the
patients seemed to recover. This method was stopped when a
patient died.
 Ambroise Pare, an army physician, discovered the effectiveness
of hygiene on wound healing. One night after treating many
gunshot wounds with boiling oil, he ran out of oil. Many soldiers'
wounds were uncared for, so Pare simply cleaned and dressed
their wounds and went to bed. The next day he awoke to see that
the wounded treated with oil were feverish and in pain, while the
ones cleaned and dressed were sleeping and doing well. Boiling
oil was eventually no longer used on the battlefield.
Shakespeare
 William Shakespeare was born in April of 1564. There
is no specific date of birth because at that time the
only date of importance was the date of baptism,
though infants often were baptized when they were
three days old. Shakespeare's baptismal date was April
26, 1564.
 Shakespeare was born in the village of Stratford-uponAvon in Warwickshire.
 At the time of his birth, the village had a population of
1500 people, and only 200 houses.
 Shakespeare's father, John Shakespeare, came from a
family of yeomen, and he gained many prestigious
positions in the community. Shakespeare's mother,
Mary Arden, came from an ancient family of landed
gentry. The whole family was Anglican.
 The family's financial situation was well off.
 Not much information is known about Shakespeare's
youth, although undoubtedly he was educated in the
local school, where he studied Latin and Greek,
among other subjects, during a school day that often
lasted from dawn to dusk.
 Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway in 1582,
when he was 18; she was 26, eight years his senior. The
exact wedding date is uncertain, but the marriage
certificate was issued on November 27,1582.
 Anne was the daughter of a respected yeoman (free
man; could be a servant in a noble household) farmer.
 William and Anne had their first child, Susanna, in
May of 1583. This was followed by the birth of twins,
Hamnet and Judith, in January of 1585.
 Most historians believe that Shakespeare was not often
around his family in Stratford after that because
historical records show him in London during the
following years.
 We know very little about Shakespeare's life during
two major spans of time, commonly referred to as the
"lost years." The lost years fall into two periods: 1578-82
and 1585-92.
 The first period covers the time after Shakespeare left
grammar school until his marriage to Anne Hathaway
in November of 1582.
 The second period covers the seven years of
Shakespeare's life in which he must have been
perfecting his dramatic skills and collecting sources for
the plots of his plays.
 Shakespeare returned to the theatre in 1594, and
became a leading member of the Lord Chamberlain's
Men, formally known as Lord Strange's Men.
 Shakespeare performed with the Chamberlain's Men
before Elizabeth I on several occasions. As payment for
their performance the actors each received 10 pounds.
 During his time with the Chamberlain's Men
Shakespeare wrote many plays, including Romeo and
Juliet, Richard II, King John, and Love's Labour's Lost.
 During the years Shakespeare performed with the
Chamberlain's Men, before their purchase of the Globe
in 1599, they played primarily at the well-established
theatres like the Swan, the Curtain, and the Theatre.
 Some important events in Shakespeare's personal life also
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take place during this time period. The Shakespeares finally
received a coat of arms 1596
On August 11 of the same year, Shakespeare's son, Hamnet,
died at the age of eleven. Shakespeare no doubt returned to
Stratford for the burial, although we have no documented
proof.
In 1597, Shakespeare purchased the second largest house in
Stratford: New Place.
Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of 52; how he died is
still a mystery.
We do know, however, that in a world where plague,
syphilis, typhus, scurvy, tuberculosis, smallpox, malaria,
dysentery and toothaches shortened a Londoner’s life
expectancy to 35 years, Shakespeare fared quite well,
leading a relatively long and healthy life.
 Throughout his career, Shakespeare coined over
20,000 new words which were added to the English
dictionary.
 Examples of some of the words Shakespeare added to
the English language:
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Advertising
Courtship
Critic
Frugal
Majestic
Moonbeam
Puking
Worthless
The Works of Shakespeare
 While we cannot be certain of the timeline, scholars have
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generally come to a consensus as to the general placing of
his writing in history.
His works can be broken up into comedies, histories,
tragedies, romances, and poems.
First work: A Comedy of Errors – written 1589-1594, first
published 1623
Romeo and Juliet – written 1594, published 1597
Hamlet – written 1600, published 1603
Macbeth – 1606, published 1623
Final work: Henry VIII – written 1613, published 1623
 Many of Shakespeare’s stories would not have been new to the
Elizabethan audience. They were mostly reworking of old tales.
 The story of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for example, where a man
takes revenge for the murder of his father, would not have been a
new story for the Elizabethans.
 Shakespeare's main source for Hamlet was probably the Third
Book of Gesta Danorum (which was also called Historia Danica)
by Saxo Grammaticus. The story was retold by François de
Belleforest in Histoires Tragiques.
 It is also possible that a play reputedly by Thomas Kyd (15581594) called Ur-Hamlet was used. Interestingly, the term "Ur"
means original and due to the total confusion in relation to the
publication of any Elizabethan literature there is a theory that
Ur-Hamlet was actually written by William Shakespeare as a
draft for the final version of Hamlet.
The Globe Theatre
 Built during 1599
 The theater that Cuthbert Burbage built for the
Chamberlain's Men had a total capacity of between
2,000 and 3,000 spectators.
 Because there was no lighting, all performances at the
Globe were conducted, weather permitting, during the
day (probably most often in the mid-afternoon span
between 2 P.M. and 5 P.M.).
 Because most of the Globe and all of its stage was open
air, acoustics were poor and the actors were compelled
by circumstances to shout their lines, stress their
enunciation, and engage in exaggerated theatrical
gestures.
 Productions staged at the Globe were completely
devoid of background scenery. Although costumes and
props were utilized, changes of scene in Shakespeare's
plays were not conducted by stagehands during brief
curtain closings.
 Changes of scene were indicated explicitly or implicitly
in the speeches and narrative situations that
Shakespeare wrote into the text of the plays.
 The stage of the Globe was a level platform about 43 feet in width
some 27 or 28 feet deep that was raised about five feet off the
ground.
 The stage was fitted with a number of mechanisms (trap doors in
its floor for instance), and distinct sections (e.g., a sub-stage
space toward its back lip for parallel action) that were creatively
utilized by Shakespeare in his stage directions.
 It was surrounded on three sides by the "pit" in which "onepenny" spectators stood and, at a setback, by an amphitheater
three stories high, each having a gallery and seating for "twopenny" theatergoers. While the galleries of the two-penny
section may have been partially covered, the stage and the pit
were open air.
 On the fourth side of the stage was an adjacent "tiring" house,
where costumes changes were made. It was capped by a small
turret structure, from which a flag and a trumpeter would
announce the day's performances.
 The original structure of the Globe Theatre stood until 29
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June, 1613, when its thatched roof was set ablaze by a
cannon fired in a performance of Henry VIII and the Globe
burned to the ground.
By this time, Shakespeare was in semi-retirement at
Stratford-on-Avon where he would die three years later at
the age of fifty-two.
The Globe was reconstructed in 1614, with tiles replacing
flammable straw on its partial roof.
In 1642, however, a quarter-century after Shakespeare's
death, a new, Puritanical and decidedly anti-theater regime
assumed power in England and closed down all of the
country's theaters.
Two years later, Cromwell's round heads tore down the
Globe, leveled the site and constructed tenement housing
upon it.
 http://virtual.clemson.edu/caah/shakespr/VRGLOBE/
VRGlobe.php
Classical Tragedy
 Only four artists can truly be called tragic artists in the
entire history of human letters
 Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides (wrote during the
“Golden Age of Athens” – 461-380 BC)
 Shakespeare – 1591-1603 AD
 Only a poet can write tragedy because tragedy is PAIN
TRANSMUTED INTO EXAULTATION BY THE
ALCHEMY OF POETRY
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There is an intensity of emotion because of the compact
connotation and imagery that poets are force d to employ.
 Classical tragedy can best be defined as the agony and
often death of a soul made great by its capacity to
suffer whilst still maintaining its human dignity
 In Shakespeare such a soul always dies at the end of the
play; in the Greeks, death of the main character may or
may not occur.
 Tragedy has been intensely produced in only two great
periods of history, both short: the Athens of Pericles
(fewer than 80 years), and Elizabethan England (about
10 years)
 Battle of Marathon – 490 BC
 20 miles outside of Athens
During this battle, the Athenian army,
with superior training, equipment, and
leadership, defeated an invading Persian
army of more than twice the Greek
numbers
 In ancient warfare, the number of men
on each side would usually determine
who would win
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The unprecedented Greek victory was nothing
short of miraculous
It saved the city and all its inhabitants from
death (men and male children) and slavery
(women and female children)
When the city heard the news (from the first
“marathoner”), despair and anguish changed
to joy and exhaultation
The Persians lost 6400 men and 7 ships while
the Greeks lost only 192 men.
 The Defeat of the Spanish Armada – 1588
 In the English Channel
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“Armada” is the name applied to the great Spanish invasion
fleet that was defeated by the English
The English were so outnumbered and their ships were so
small that all hope seemed lost
However, English superior tactics saved them
 Tactics in sea warfare to this point involved fighting at close
range, with ships lying alongside each other, allowing marines
and infantry to board the enemy decks
 The English guns, though lighter, were longer ranged, and Sir
Francis Drake refused to play the “game”
 He kept his ships too far away to be boarded and pounded the
Armada into helpless hulks
 The Spanish lost well over half their ships and were forced to
withdraw
The victory not only saved England from
an invasion, it also opened the way for
the colonial expansion of England,
Holland, and France, by breaking the
hold of the Spanish-Portuguese Empire
 As with the Greeks, the reaction of the
people changed from anguish and
hopeless despair to joy and wonder at
their salvation
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Bibliography
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 http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/schools/springfield/eliz/elizabethanengland.h
tml
 http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=elizabethan&gbv=2
 http://shakespeare.about.com/od/studentresources/f/faqshowhedied.htmhttp
://shakespeare.about.com/od/studentresources/f/faqshowhedied.htm
 http://shakespeare.about.com/od/faqshakespeareslife/f/vocabshk.htm
 http://www.william-shakespeare.info/shakespeare-play-hamlet.htm
 http://shakespeare.about.com/library/weekly/aa042400a.htm
 http://www.bardweb.net/plays/timeline.html
 http://www.enotes.com/william-shakespeare/shakespeares-globe-theater/
 Mabillard, Amanda. "William Shakespeare of Stratford." Shakespeare Online.
20 Aug. 2000. (October 21, 2008) < http://www.shakespeareonline.com/biography >.