THE RENAISSANCE MOVEMENT
The word Renaissance (French for 'rebirth', or Rinascimento in Italian), was first used to define the historical age in Italy — and in Europe in general - that followed the Middle Ages and preceded the Reformation, spanning roughly the 14th through the 16th century. The principal features were the revival of learning based on classical sources, the rise of courtly and papal patronage, the development of perspective in painting, and the advancements of science. The word Renaissance is now often used to describe other historical and cultural movements.
Renaissance Self-awareness
By the fifteenth century, writers, artists and architects in Italy were well aware of the transformations that were taking place and were using phrases like modi antichi (in the antique manner) or alle romana et alla antica (in the manner of the Romans and the ancients) to describe their work. As to the term “rebirth,” it seems that Albrecht Dürer in 1523 was the first to use such a term when he used Wiedererwachung (German: re-awakening) to describe Italian art. The term "la rinascita" first appeared, however, in its broad sense in Giorgio Vasari's Vite de' più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (The Lives of the Artists, 1550-68). Vasari divides the age into phases: the first phase contains Cimabue, Giotto and Arnolfo di Cambio; the second phase contains Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Donatello; the third centers on Leonardo da Vinci, culminating with Michelangelo. It was not just the growing awareness of classical antiquity that drove this development, according to Vasari, but also the growing desire to study and imitate nature.
“Renaissance" is a recent term used to describe a cultural and artistic movement in England from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the fourteenth century. This era in English cultural history is sometimes referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era," taking the name of the English Renaissance's most famous author and most important monarch, respectively; however it is worth remembering that these names are rather misleading: Shakespeare was not an especially famous writer in his own time, and the English Renaissance covers a period both before and after Elizabeth's reign.
Poets such as Edmund Spenser and John Milton produced works that demonstrated an increased interest in understanding English Christian beliefs, such as the allegorical representation of the Tudor Dynasty in The Faerie Queen and the retelling of mankind’s fall from paradise in Paradise Lost; playwrights, such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, composed theatrical representations of the English take on life, death, and history. Nearing the end of the Tudor Dynasty, philosophers like Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon published their own ideas about humanity and the aspects of a perfect society, pushing the limits of metacognition at that time.
The key literary figures in the English Renaissance are now generally considered to be the poet Edmund Spenser; the philosopher Francis Bacon; the poets and playwrights Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson; and the poet John Milton. Sir Thomas More is often considered one of the earliest writers of the English Renaissance. Thomas Tallis, Thomas Morley, and William Byrd were the most notable English musicians of the time, and are often seen as being a part of the same artistic movement that inspired the above authors.
The Elizabethan Era is the period associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and is often considered to be a golden age in English history. It was the height of the English Renaissance, and saw the flowering of English literature and poetry. This was also the time during which Elizabethan theatre flourished and William Shakespeare, among others, composed plays that broke away from England's past style of plays. It was an age of expansion and exploration abroad, while at home the Protestant Reformation became entrenched in the national mindset.
The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the contrasts with the periods before and after. It was a brief period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics and the battles between parliament and the monarchy that would engulf the seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan Religious Settlement and parliament was still not strong enough to challenge royal absolutism.
England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. In part because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was largely suspended for most of Elizabeth's reign. England during this period had a centralized, well-organized, and effective government, largely a result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Economically, the country began to benefit greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade.
WHAT IS A TRAGEDY?
In a figurative sense a tragedy (Classical Greek, "song for the goat") is any event with a sad and unfortunate outcome, but the term also applies specifically in Western culture to a form of drama defined by Aristotle characterized by seriousness and dignity and involving a great person who experiences a reversal of fortune (Peripeteia). Aristotle's definition can include a change of fortune from bad to good as in the Eumenides, but he says that the change from good to bad as in Oedipus Rex is preferable because this effects pity and fear within the spectators. According to Aristotle, "the structure of the best tragedy should be not simple but complex and one that represents incidents arousing fear and pity--for that is peculiar to this form of art." This reversal of fortune must be caused by the tragic hero's hamartia, which is often mistranslated as a character flaw, but is more correctly translated as a mistake (since the original Greek etymology traces back to hamartanein," a sporting term that refers to an archer or spear-thrower missing his target”. According to Aristotle, "The change to bad fortune which he undergoes is not due to any moral defect or flaw, but a mistake of some kind." It is also a misconception that this reversal can be brought about by a higher power (e.g. the law, the gods, fate, or society), but if a character’s downfall is brought about by an external cause, Aristotle describes this as a "misadventure" and not a tragedy. Etymology
The word's origin is Greek, contracted from trag(o)-aoidi = "goat song" from tragos = "goat" and aeidein = "to sing". This meaning may have referred to horse or goat costumes worn by actors who played the satyrs, or a goat being presented as a prize at a song contest and in both cases the reference would have been the respect for Dionysos.
Origin
The origins of tragedy in the West are obscure, but the art form certainly developed out of the poetic and religious traditions of ancient Greece. Its roots may be traced more specifically to the dithyrambs, the chants and dances honoring the Greek god Dionysus, later known to the Romans as Bacchus. These drunken ecstatic performances were said to have been created by the satyrs, half-goat beings who surrounded Dionysus in his revelry.
Phrynichus, son of Polyphradmon and pupil of Thespis, was one of the earliest of the Greek tragedians. "The honour of introducing Tragedy in its later acceptation was reserved for a scholar of Thespis in 511 BC, Polyphradmon's son, Phrynichus; he dropped the light and ludicrous cast of the original drama and dismissing Bacchus and the Satyrs formed his plays from the more grave and elevated events recorded in mythology and history of his country." And some of the ancients regarded him as the real founder of tragedy. He gained his first poetical victory in 511 BC. However, P.W. Buckham asserts (quoting August Wilhelm von Schlegel) that Aeschylus was the inventor of tragedy. "Aeschylus is to be considered as the creator of Tragedy: in full panoply she sprung from his head, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter. He clad her with dignity, and gave her an appropriate stage; he was the inventor of scenic pomp, and not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, but appeared himself as an actor. He was the first that expanded the dialogue, and set limits to the lyrical part of tragedy, which, however, still occupies too much space in his pieces."
Later in ancient Greece, the word "tragedy" meant any serious (not comedy) drama, not merely those with a sad ending.
There is some dissent to the dithyrambic origins of tragedy mostly based in the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested.
Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero or heroine, usually through some combination of hubris, fate, and the will of the gods. The tragic hero's powerful wish to achieve some goal inevitably encounters limits, usually those of human frailty (flaws in reason, hubris, society), the gods (through oracles, prophets, fate), or nature. Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he or she must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition (anagnorisis--"knowing again" or "knowing back" or "knowing throughout") about human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods. Aristotle terms this sort of recognition "a change from ignorance to awareness of a bond of love or hate."
Aristotle is very clear in his Poetics that tragedy proceeded from the authors of the Dithyramb.
P.W. Buckham writes that the tragedy of the ancients resembled modern operatic performance, and that the lighter sort of Iambic became Comic poets, the graver became Tragic instead of Heroic.
Greek literature boasts three great writers of tragedy whose works are extant: Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. The largest festival for Greek tragedy was the Dionysia held for five days in March, for which competition prominent playwrights usually submitted three tragedies and one satyr play each. The Roman theater does not appear to have followed the same practice. Seneca adapted Greek stories, such as Phaedra, into Latin plays; however, Senecan tragedy has long been regarded as closet drama, meant to be read rather than played.
A favorite theatrical device of many ancient Greek tragedians was the ekkyklêma, a cart hidden behind the scenery which could be rolled out to display the aftermath of some event which had happened out of sight of the audience. This event was frequently a brutal murder of some sort, an act of violence which could not be effectively portrayed visually, but an action of which the other characters must see the effects in order for it to have meaning and emotional resonance. Another reason that the violence happened off stage was that the theatre was considered a holy place, so to kill someone on stage is to kill them in the real world. A prime example of the use of the ekkyklêma is after the murder of Agamemnon in the first play of Aeschylus' Oresteia, when the king's butchered body is wheeled out in a grand display for all to see. Variations on the ekkyklêma are used in tragedies and other forms to this day, as writers still find it a useful and often powerful device for showing the consequences of extreme human actions. Another such device was a crane, the mechane, which served to hoist a god or goddess on stage when they were supposed to arrive flying. This device gave origin to the phrase "deus ex machina" ("god out of a machine"), that is, the surprise intervention of an unforeseen external factor that changes the outcome of an event. Greek tragedies also sometimes included a chorus composed of singers to advance and fill in detail of the plot.
Nietzsche dedicated his famous early book, The Birth of Tragedy, to a discussion of the origins of Greek tragedy. He traced the evolution of tragedy from early rituals, through the joining of Apollonian and Dionysian forces, until its early "death" in the hands of Socrates. In opposition to Schopenhauer, Nietzsche viewed tragedy as the art form of sensual acceptance of the terrors of reality and rejoicing in these terrors in love of fate (amor fati), and therefore as the antithesis to the Socratic Method, or the belief in the power of reason to unveil any and all of the mysteries of existence. Ironically, Socrates was fond of quoting from tragedies.
Performance
Greek tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentation took the form of a contest between three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days. Each playwright would prepare a trilogy of tragedies, plus an unrelated concluding comic piece called a satyr play. Often, the three plays featured linked stories, but later writers like Euripides may have presented three unrelated plays. Only one complete trilogy has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in the open air, on the side of a hill, and performances of a trilogy and satyr play probably lasted most of the day. Performances were apparently open to all citizens, including women, but evidence is scanty. The theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around 12,000 people (Ley 33-34).
The presentation of the plays probably resembled modern opera more than what we think of as a "play." All of the choral parts were sung (to flute accompaniment) and some of the actors' answers to the chorus were sung as well. The play as a whole was composed in various verse meters. All actors were male and wore masks, which may have had some amplifying capabilities. A Greek chorus danced as well as sang. (The Greek word choros means "a dance in a ring.") No one knows exactly what sorts of steps the chorus performed as it sang. But choral songs in tragedy are often divided into three sections: strophe ("turning, circling"), antistrophe ("counter-turning, counter-circling") and epode ("after-song"). So perhaps the chorus would dance one way around the orchestra ("dancing-floor") while singing the strophe, turn another way during the antistrophe, and then stand still during the epode.
Theories of tragedy
The philosopher Aristotle theorized in his work Poetics that tragedy results in a catharsis (emotional cleansing) of healing for the audience through their experience of these emotions in response to the suffering of the characters in the drama. He considers it superior when a character passes from good fortune to bad rather than the reverse; at the time, the term "tragedy" was not yet fixed solely on stories with unhappy endings.
In Poetics, Aristotle gave the following definition in ancient Greek of the word "tragedy" which means Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete (composed of an introduction, a middle part and an ending), and possesses magnitude; in language made pleasurable, each of its species separated in different parts; performed by actors, not through narration; effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions.
Common usage of tragedy refers to any story with a sad ending, whereas to be an Aristotelian tragedy the story must fit the set of requirements as laid out by Poetics. By this definition social drama cannot be tragic because the hero in it is a victim of circumstance and incidents which depend upon the society in which he lives and not upon the inner compulsions — psychological or religious — which determine his progress towards self-knowledge and death. Exactly what constitutes a "tragedy", however, is a frequently debated matter.
In ancient India, the writer Bharata Muni in his work on dramatic theory Natya Shastra recognized tragedy in the form of several rasas (emotional responses), such as pity, anger, disgust and terror.
G.W.F. Hegel, the German philosopher most famous for his dialectical approach to epistemology and history, also applied such a methodology to his theory of tragedy. In his essay "Hegel's Theory of Tragedy," A.C.Bradley first introduced the English-speaking world to Hegel's theory,which Bradley called the "tragic collision", and contrasted against the Aristotelian notions of the "tragic hero" and his or her "hamartia" in subsequent analyses of the Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy and of Sophocles' Antigone. (Bradley, 114-156). Hegel himself, however, in his seminal "The Phenomenology of Spirit" argues for a more complicated theory of tragedy, with two complementary branches which, though driven by a single dialectical principle, differentiate Greek tragedy from that which follows Shakespeare. His later lectures formulate such a theory of tragedy as a conflict of ethical forces, represented by characters, in ancient Greek tragedy, but Shakespearean tragedy the conflict is rendered as one of subject and object, of individual personality which must manifest self-destructive passions because only such passions are strong enough to defend the individual from a hostile and capricious external world:
"The heroes of ancient classical tragedy encounter situations in which, if they firmly decide in favor of the one ethical pathos that alone suits their finished character, they must necessarily come into conflict with the equally [gleichberechtigt] justified ethical power that confronts them. Modern characters, on the other hand , stand in a wealth of more accidental circumstances, within which one could act this way or that, so that the conflict which is, though occasioned by external preconditions, still essentially grounded in the character. The new individuals, in their passions, obey their own nature...simply because they are what they are. Greek heroes also act in accordance with individuality, but in ancient tragedy such individuality is necessarily... a self-contained ethical pathos...In modern tragedy, however, the character in its peculiarity decides in accordance with subjective desires...such that congruity of character with outward ethical aim no longer constitutes an essential basis of tragic beauty..." (Hegel, ed. Glockner, vol XIV pp567-8).
Hegel's comments on a particular play may better elucidate his theory: "Viewed externally, Hamlet's death may be seen to have been brought about accidentally ...but in Hamlet's soul, we understand that death has lurked from the beginning: the sandbank of finitude cannot suffice his sorrow and tenderness, such grief and nausea at all conditions of life...we feel he is a man whom inner disgust has almost consumed well before death comes upon him from outside."(Hegel, ed. Glockner,XIV,p572)
Nietzsche in Twilight of the Idols, What I Owe to the Ancients, 5: had this to say: "The psychology of the orgiastic as an overflowing feeling of life and strength, where even pain still has the effect of a stimulus, gave me the key to the concept of tragic feeling, which had been misunderstood both by Aristotle and even more by modern pessimists. Tragedy is so far from being a proof of the pessimism (in Schopenhauer's sense) of the Greeks that it may, on the contrary, be considered a decisive rebuttal and counterexample. Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and most painful episodes, the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustible vitality even as it witnesses the destruction of its greatest heroes — that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I guessed to be the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not in order to be liberated from terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a dangerous affect by its vehement discharge — which is how Aristotle understood tragedy — but in order to celebrate oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity — that tragic joy included even joy in destruction"
Renaissance and 17th century tragedy
The classical Greek and Roman tragedy was largely forgotten in Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the beginning of 16th century, and public theater in this period was dominated by mystery plays, morality plays, farces and miracle plays, etc. As early as 1503 however, original language versions of Sophocles, Seneca, Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence and Plautus were all available in Europe and the next forty years would see humanists and poets both translating these classics and adapting them. In the 1540s, the continental university setting (and especially – from 1553 on – the Jesuit colleges) became host to a Neo-Latin theater (in Latin) written by professors. The influence of Seneca was particularly strong in humanist tragedy. His plays – with their ghosts, lyrical passages and rhetorical oratory – brought to many humanist tragedies a concentration on rhetoric and language over dramatic action.
Along with their work as translators and adaptors of plays, the humanists also investigated classical theories of dramatic structure, plot, and characterization. Horace was translated in the 1540s, but had been available throughout the Middle Ages. A complete version of Aristotle's Poetics appeared later (first in 1570 in an Italian version), but his ideas had circulated (in an extremely truncated form) as early as the 13th century in Hermann the German's Latin translation of Averroes' Arabic gloss, and other translations of the Poetics had appeared in the first half of the 16th century; also of importance were the commentaries on Aristotle's poetics by Julius Caesar Scaliger which appeared in the 1560s. The 4th century grammarians Diomedes and Aelius Donatus were also a source of classical theory. The 16th century Italians played a central role in the publishing and interpretation of classical dramatic theory, and their works had a major effect on continental theater. Lodovico Castelvetro's Aristotle-based Art of Poetry (1570) was one of the first enunciations of the "three unities". Italian theater (like the tragedy of Gian Giorgio Trissino) and debates on decorum (like those provoked by Sperone Speroni's play Canace and Giovanni Battista Giraldi's play Orbecche) would also influence the continental tradition.
Humanist writers recommended that tragedy should be in five acts and have three main characters of noble rank; the play should begin in the middle of the action (in medias res), use noble language and not show scenes of horror on the stage. Some writers attempted to link the medieval tradition of morality plays and farces to classical theater, but others rejected this claim and elevated classical tragedy and comedy to a higher dignity. Of greater difficulty for the theorists was the incorporation of Aristotle's notion of "catharsis" or the purgation of emotions with Renaissance theater, which remained profoundly attached to both pleasing the audience and to the rhetorical aim of showing moral examples (exemplum).
The precepts of the "three unities" and theatrical decorum would eventually come to dominate French and Italian tragedy in the 17th century, while English Renaissance tragedy would follow a path far less behoving to classical theory and more open to dramatic action and the portrayal of tragic events on stage.
English Renaissance Tragedy
In the English language, the most famous and most successful tragedies are those of William Shakespeare and his Elizabethan contemporaries. Shakespeare's tragedies include:
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
A contemporary of Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, also wrote examples of tragedy in English, notably:
Tragedy of Dr. Faustus
Tamburlaine
John Webster (1580?-1635?), also wrote famous plays of the genre:
The Duchess of Malfi
The White Devil
Modern development
In modernist literature, the definition of tragedy has become less precise. The most fundamental change has been the rejection of Aristotle's dictum that true tragedy can only depict those with power and high status. Arthur Miller's essay 'Tragedy and the Common Man' exemplifies the modern belief that tragedy may also depict ordinary people in domestic surroundings. British playwright Howard Barker has argued strenuously for the rebirth of tragedy in the contemporary theatre, most notably in his volume Arguments for a Theatre. "You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool," he observes.[10]
A Doll's House (1879) by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, which depicts the breakdown of a middle-class marriage, is an example of a more contemporary tragedy. Like Ibsen's other dramatic works, it has been translated into English and has enjoyed great popularity on the English and American stage.
Although the most important American playwrights - Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller - wrote tragedies, the rarity of tragedy in the American theater may be owing in part to a certain form of idealism, often associated with Americans, that man is captain of his fate, a notion exemplified in the plays of Clyde Fitch and George S. Kaufmann. Arthur Miller, however, was a successful writer of American tragic plays, among them The Crucible, All My Sons and Death of a Salesman.
Contemporary postmodern theater moves the ground for the execution of tragedy from the hamartia (the tragic mistake or error) of the individual tragic hero to the tragic hero's inability to have agency over his own life, without even the free will to make mistakes. The fate decreed from the gods of classical Greek tragedy is replaced by the will of institutions that shape the fate of the individual through policies and practices.
Tragedy often shows the lack of escape of the protagonist, whereby he or she cannot remove themself from the present environment.
WHAT IS A COMEDY?
According to Aristotle (who speculates on the matter in his Poetics), ancient comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in which a company of festive males apparently sang, danced, and cavorted rollickingly around the image of a large phallus. Accurate or not, the linking of the origins of comedy to some sort of phallic ritual or festival of mirth seems both plausible and appropriate, since for most of its history--from Aristophanes to Seinfeld--comedy has involved a high-spirited celebration of human sexuality and the triumph of eros. As a rule, tragedies occur on the battlefield or in a palace's great hall; a more likely setting for comedy is the bedroom or bathroom.
On the other hand, it's not true that a film or literary work must involve sexual humor or even be funny in order to qualify as a comedy. A happy ending is all that's required. In fact, since at least as far back as Aristotle, the basic formula for comedy has had more to do with conventions and expectations of plot and character than with a requirement for lewd jokes or cartoonish pratfalls. In essence: A comedy is a story of the rise in fortune of a sympathetic central character.
THE COMIC HERO
Of course this definition doesn't mean that the main character in a comedy has to be a spotless hero in the classic sense. It only means that she (or he) must display at least the minimal level of personal charm or worth of character it takes to win the audience's basic approval and support. The rise of a completely worthless person or the triumph of an utter villain is not comical; it's the stuff of gothic fable or dark satire. On the other hand, judging from the qualities displayed by many of literature's most popular comic heroes (e.g., Falstaff, Huck Finn) audiences have no trouble at all pulling for a likeable rogue or fun-loving scamp.
Aristotle suggests that comic figures are mainly "average to below average" in terms of moral character, perhaps having in mind the wily servant or witty knave who was already a stock character of ancient comedy. He also suggests that only low or ignoble figures can strike us as ridiculous. However, the most ridiculous characters are often those who, although well-born, are merely pompous or self-important instead of truly noble. Similarly, the most sympathetic comic figures are frequently plucky underdogs, young men or women from humble or disadvantaged backgrounds who prove their real worth--in effect their "natural nobility"--through various tests of character over the course of a story or play.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Traditionally, comedy has to do with the concerns and exploits of ordinary people. The characters of comedy therefore tend to be plain, everyday figures (e.g., lower or middle-income husbands and wives, students and teachers, children and parents, butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers ) instead of the kings, queens, heroes, plutocrats, and heads of state who form the dramatis personae of tragedy. Comic plots, accordingly, tend to be about the kind of problems that ordinary people are typically involved with: winning a new boyfriend (or reclaiming an old one), succeeding at a job, passing an exam, getting the money needed to pay for a medical operation, or simply coping with a bad day. Again, the true hallmark of comedy isn't always laughter. More often, it's the simple satisfaction we feel when we witness deserving people succeed.
TYPES OF COMEDIES
Comedies can be separated into at least three subordinate categories or sub-genres--identified and briefly characterized as follows:
Farce. The identifying features of farce are zaniness, slapstick humor, and hilarious improbability. The characters of farce are typically fantastic or absurd and usually far more ridiculous than those in other forms of comedy. At the same time, farcical plots are often full of wild coincidences and seemingly endless twists and complications. Elaborate comic intrigues involving deception, disguise, and mistaken identity are the rule. Examples of the genre include Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, the "Pink Panther" movies, and the films of the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges.
Romantic Comedy. Perhaps the most popular of all comic forms--both on stage and on screen--is the romantic comedy. In this genre the primary distinguishing feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled. In a typical romantic comedy the two lovers tend to be young, likeable, and apparently meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance (e.g., class differences, parental interference; a previous girlfriend or boyfriend) until, surmounting all obstacles, they are finally wed. A wedding-bells, fairy-tale-style happy ending is practically mandatory. Examples: Much Ado about Nothing, Walt Disney's Cinderella, Guys and Dolls, Sleepless in Seattle.
Satirical Comedy. The subject of satire is human vice and folly. Its characters include con-artists, criminals, tricksters, deceivers, wheeler-dealers, two-timers, hypocrites, and fortune-seekers and the gullible dupes, knaves, goofs, and cuckolds who serve as their all-too-willing victims. Satirical comedies resemble other types of comedy in that they trace the rising fortune of a central character. However, in this case, the central character (like virtually everybody else in the play or story) is likely to be cynical, foolish, or morally corrupt. Examples: Aristophanes's The Birds, Ben Jonson's Volpone. In its most extreme forms satirical comedy spills over into so-called Black comedy--where we're invited to laugh at events that are mortifying or grotesque.
Christopher Marlowe: Doctor Faustus
Author Information
Christopher Marlowe, the son of a shoemaker, was born in Canterbury in February of 1564. He was educated at King’s School, in Canterbury, and at Corpus Christi College, in Cambridge. He earned a B.A. in 1584 and an M.A. in 1587. After receiving his M.A. degree, Marlowe left Cambridge for London. By this time he had completed the first part of Tamburlaine the Great. In London, he got acquainted with other poets and playwrights. He shared a room with Thomas Kyd. The second part of Tamburlaine was soon completed, and both plays were staged successfully.
In 1588 he worked on the poem, “The Massacre of Paris,” and the first part of Doctor Faustus. He enlisted himself as a member of Raleigh’s “School of Night.” Among “the university wits” he was known as a rash and quarrelsome person. In 1589 he was involved in a sword fight, for which he was jailed in the Newgate prison for a short time. In the same year, The Jew of Malta was performed. In 1592, Edward II was performed. This was followed by Doctor Faustus. In the following year, he wrote the incomplete poem, “Hero and Leander,” which was completed by George Chapman. On May 18, 1592, as a result of an accusation by Thomas Kyd and Robert Baines, a warrant was issued for Marlowe’s arrest. On May 30, 1593, he was killed by Ingram Frizer in a Deptford tavern after a quarrel over the bill.
HISTORICAL INFORMATION
The legend of Faust had its origin in Europe in the legends and chapbooks of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It developed around a real person, one Doctor Johann Faust, who gained a reputation as a notorious magician and worker in black magic. He was said to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge. It is the same legend, which was the basis for Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1588) in England. This legend was brought to England by the translation of a German chapbook (a small book of poems, ballads and tales) on the subject. This translation appeared shortly before Marlowe’s play and appears to be its immediate source. Marlowe’s is the first of many dramatic treatments of the story. His version of the Faust tale was very popular in Europe. In 1587 the stories about Faust had been collected as a biographic story entitled Historia Von D. Johann Faustus. The book was published in the same year in English translation in England. Goethe’s Faust is a poetic drama in two parts (1808 & 1832). Goethe’s version of the legend is different from Marlowe’s version. In Goethe’s poem Faust is saved. God’s angels are sent to snatch his soul from the legion of devils, and he is borne off to heaven.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS AS A RENAISSANCE PLAY
Marlowe’s play deals with the ambition of the Renaissance to cultivate an “aspiring mind.” The Renaissance aspiration for infinite knowledge is embodied in Faustus. However, Faustus shows little discrimination in his pursuits. He delights, for example, in the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins, ironically remarking: “O this feeds my soul.” Throughout the twenty-four years, he seeks experience of all kinds in the true Renaissance manner. Finally, instead of freedom, his knowledge brings him despair.
Another quality possessed by the ambitious Renaissance humanist is his desire to reach the highest peaks of life experience. This is manifested in Faustus in his desire to be none other than a god: “A sound magician is a demi-god”.
A third characteristic is the Renaissance worship of beauty for its own sake. Faustus’ address to Helen of Troy makes it evident that he feels something of the Renaissance quest for beauty. In this way Doctor Faustus is seen to be a play preoccupied with Renaissance concerns.
SETTING
Doctor Faustus is set in fifteenth-century Germany, mostly in Faustus’ house at Wittenberg. In Act III, the setting shifts to Rome. Having traveled through France, Germany and Italy, Faustus and Mephistophilis arrive at the Pope’s palace at the Vatican, Rome. Thereafter he goes to the Court of the Emperor Charles V at Innsbruck, Germany. In Act IV, Scene 5, the setting shifts to the Court of the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt, Germany, where Faustus exhibits his magical powers. The final act of the play is set in Faustus’ house at Wittenberg
CONFLICT
Protagonist:
Faustus is the protagonist of the play. He makes the fatal choice of “cursed necromancy” (black magic) in order to gain absolute power for twenty-four years.
Antagonist:
Lucifer, who is assisted by Mephistophilis and the bad angel, receives Faustus’ soul in exchange0for granting him twenty-four years of absolute power.
Climax:
It is reached in the scene in which Faustus agrees to sell his soul to Mephistophilis in exchange for twenty-four years of faithful service.
Outcome:
The outcome of the play is tragic. Faustus has to pay heavily for his rebellion against the fixed laws of heaven and for practicing “more than heavenly power permits.” He is dragged off to hell, and the real tragedy lies in the fact that Faustus does not believe that repentance can save him.
PLOT (Synopsis)
Faustus, a learned scholar of Wittenberg, has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. When the play opens, Faustus is seen in his study examining the various branches of knowledge he has studied in the past: logic, philosophy, medicine, law and theology. Dissatisfied with all these, he turns to the dangerous practice of necromancy, or black magic. With the help of his servant, Wagner, he summons Valdes and Cornelius and requests them to initiate him into the rudiments of magic. Faustus begins his experiments by conjuring up spirits. Mephistophilis appears before him, but Faustus is so shocked by his horrible appearance that he asks him to go away and come back again in the guise of a friar. Faustus then learns that it was not his invocation that produced Mephistophilis, but the curses he heaped on the holy trinity. Faustus asks Mephistophilis to return to the mighty Lucifer and meet him again in his study at midnight to enact the pact.
Faustus is then subject to a spiritual conflict. The two angels arrive. The Good Angel admonishes him to leave the black arts and concentrate on “heaven and heavenly things.” The Bad Angel advises him to “think of honor and of wealth.” Faustus dreams of the power and wealth that will soon be his. Mephistophilis arrives to inform Faustus that Lucifer needs a declaration from him to be signed in blood. Faustus signs a contract by which he agrees to give his soul to Mephistophilis in return for twenty-four years of faithful service. He is, however, upset by several bad omens. To divert Faustus, the three devils (Mephistophilis, Beelzebub and Lucifer) arrange for some entertainment: a parade of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Then Mephistophilis takes Faustus to Rome. In the Pope’s private chamber, both of them play practical jokes on the Pope. At the court of Emperor Charles V, Faustus punishes a skeptical courtier by putting horns on his head. He then produces the apparitions of Alexander the Great and his paramour and that of Darius, King of Persia. At the court of the Duke of Vanholt, Faustus, with the help of Mephistophilis, produces grapes in January.
The twenty-four years allotted to Faustus are now almost over, and Faustus expects the devil to come at midnight to claim him. To entertain his scholar friends, Faustus summons the spirit of Helen of Troy from the underworld. But nothing can save Faustus now. The old man witnesses Faustus’ exclusion from “the grace of heaven.” The Bad Angel warns Faustus to be ready to “taste hell’s pains perpetually.” The Good Angel tells him that “the jaws of hell are open” to receive him. Faustus has only an hour to live. He dreads the moment of damnation. Faustus begs for relief from the eternal torment in store for him and wishes that he were a beast without a soul. The clock strikes twelve. In the midst of thunder and lightning, devils come and carry Faustus away to hell.
THEMES
Major
The major theme of Doctor Faustus is the pride which goes before a fall. Faustus’ sin is not his practice of necromancy, but his denial of God’s power and majesty. His pride is the source of his damnation. All the other sins committed by him are various aspects of the sin of pride. Even his despair in the last scene of the play is another aspect of his pride because it prevents him from asking for God’s forgiveness. Faustus’ despair denies God’s mercy.
Minor
One of the play’s minor Themes is Faustus’ quest for knowledge. He examines all the orthodox branches of knowledge and finds them wanting. He chooses magic, for it promises “a world of profit and delight, /Of power, of honor, of omnipotence.” For twenty- four years, he seeks experience of all kinds. However, finally, his knowledge brings him despair instead of freedom.
Another minor theme of the play is the quest for power. Faustus’ power exists more in his imagination than in fact. When he performs magic, the audience gets the impression that he is a practical joker or a court entertainer. It is true that he plays pranks on the Pope, produces the spirits of Alexander, his paramour, Darius and Helen of Troy. It is also true that he produces grapes out of season for a pregnant duchess. All these performances are far removed from his first confident assertion that “a sound magician is a demi-god.” Faustus’ power is illusory, since at each stage he depends upon Mephistophilis.
MOOD
The predominant mood of the whole play is somber tragedy, in which the protagonist chooses to be on the side of the devil and to embrace the evil generated by the devil. Faustus’ practice of black magic is “more than heavenly power permits” and brings about his “hellish fall.” Throughout the play there are comic interludes that provide a temporary mood of levity.
Doctor Faustus: Character sketch
Faustus is the central character of the play. The attention of the audience is certainly focused upon him. Faustus was born of poor parents in Rhode in Germany. Like so many outstanding men who were humbly born, it was through learning that he was able to rise above his lowly beginnings. He was brought up by relatives who sent him to the university at Wittenberg. There he excelled in the study of divinity and was awarded his doctorate. He was so outstanding in scholarship and in learned argument that he grew proud of himself and his powers.
At the beginning of the play, he is no longer content with the pursuit of knowledge. He has studied all the main branches of learning of his time and is satisfied by none of them. He demands more from logic than the ability it gives one in debate. Medicine has brought him fame and riches but confers upon him only human powers. The study of law is for slaves and leads to nothing significant. Divinity is preferable to all of these but cannot get beyond sin and death. It is magic that promises to open up new worlds of power and to make man into a god.
Aristotle stated that the tragic hero is a predominantly good man, whose undoing is brought about by some error of human frailty, “the stamp of one defect.” The audience sees three such defects in Faustus that lead to his ultimate domination by Mephistophilis: his pride, his restless intellect and his desire to be more than man (to possess the power and the insight of a god.) Any one of these three defects would have been sufficient to ensure his downfall in terms of the theory of tragedy. In his pride, he is guilty of hubris, a quality which in Greek tragedy was certain to arouse the wrath of the gods. His desire to be equated with God is a sin in Christian terms as well. His restless intellect and deep dissatisfaction with the normal life inevitably lead to misfortune. Step by step, Faustus falls into damnation.
In some ways, Faustus’ aspirations are admirable. It was the glory and the ambition of the Renaissance man to have an “aspiring mind.” Faustus, on one level, represents the new man emerging from the womb of the Middle Ages. The authority of the Church, which had limited the thought of the Middle Ages, was lessening. There was a movement of power from the Church to the State, which meant, to a limited extent, the transfer of power to the individual man. The classical spirit was certainly a source of influence for Marlowe and his fellow dramatists. The Greek attitude to their gods was very different from that of the medieval Church. The Greeks encouraged a spirit of inquiry in their thought that was quite foreign to the attitude of the medieval Church.
This is the key to much of the duality of Faustus’ thoughts and attitudes. He looks sometimes backwards to the medieval world, and sometimes forward to the modern world. Above all, he is a Renaissance figure, adventurously surveying a world whose horizons were widening every day as a result of voyages and exploration. Faustus is full of excitement for geographical discovery. The Renaissance men were in love with life and its possibilities. They lived dangerously but wholeheartedly. In other words, they were secular. Fundamentally, Faustus’ choice is that of a Renaissance man, not a medieval man. He sacrifices eternity for twenty-four years of full life in the here and now. That is the basic conflict in the mind of Faustus, a man caught between two worlds.
It is a commonplace for critics to state that Faustus derives little satisfaction from his acquired powers. This is a problem of character; it is also a question of human limitation. Faustus’ desire for knowledge cannot be satisfied fully. In one sense, Faustus is satisfied. Mephistophilis refuses to give him a wife, but he does promise him the possession of any woman he desires. His longings find their realization in Helen of Troy. This represents an important facet of Faustus’ character: his willingness to carry things to an ultimate conclusion. Helen is a spirit raised by the devil, and therefore, one may presume, a spirit of evil. She certainly portends evil for Faustus.
Faustus is given to bouts of despair. Mephistophilis, despite his own rather melancholy disposition, tries to cheer him through a series of “spectacles.” Even Lucifer provides the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins. Faustus is excited by all facets of life. He is determined to live it to the full, but he is unhappy in it. This melancholy and despair may well have influenced his agreement to the compact with Lucifer.
There is, in Faustus, no serious motivation towards good when he speaks of it. The reference is always outside himself. He does not seek a genuine relationship with Christ or with God. He sees Christ’s blood as something separate from his reality. He is concerned, at the end, with the clock and with time, rather than with God. Faustus throughout the play does not accept the limitations imposed upon man by human life, the world and the social order. So, in his last moments, he struggles both to resolve and escape from the idea of eternity, which means for him eternal damnation. He is honest here as elsewhere. He places the blame upon himself and upon Lucifer. In his desire to burn his books, he recognizes that his greed for knowledge and his insatiable curiosity have led to his damnation. The Chorus leaves the audience with a tragic sense of waste. Faustus, who might have been a force for good, remains as a warning to those who desire a power beyond what God is prepared to grant.
DOCTOR FAUSTUS AS A MORALITY PLAY
Doctor Faustus has many features of a morality play: the conflict between good and evil, the creation of Good and Bad Angels, the Old Man as Good Counsel, the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins and the appearance of Faustus’ enemies to ambush and kill him.
The conflict between Good and Evil was a recurring theme in the medieval morality plays. From this point of view, Marlowe’s play is a dramatization of the medieval morality play, Everyman. Doctor Faustus becomes a morality play in which heaven struggles for the soul of a Renaissance Everyman, namely Doctor Faustus.
The Good Angel and the Bad Angel are characters derived from the medieval morality plays like The Castle of Perseverance. They are sometimes regarded as an externalization of the thoughts of Faustus. This is a twentieth-century view. The Angels are independent absolutes, one wholly good and one wholly evil. They appear in Doctor Faustus like allegorical figures of a morality play. They reflect the possibility of both damnation and redemption being open to Faustus. A close examination shows that the Evil Angel declines in importance as the play advances. The angles work by suggestion, as allegorical characters in morality plays do.
The audience also observes the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins in Doctor Faustus. This is another feature borrowed by Marlowe from the tradition of the morality play. In Marlowe’s play, to divert Faustus’ attention from Christ, his savior, Lucifer, comes with his attendant devils to rebuke him for invoking Christ and then presents the pageant of the Seven Deadly Sins as a diversion.
Benvolio’s attempts to ambush and take revenge on Faustus are also a device taken from the medieval morality play. Faustus loses his head, only for it to be revealed as a false one. This theatrical device was originally used in the medieval morality play, Mankind. Similarly, Faustus’ attempt to strike Dick, Robin and the others dumb in the Vanholt show scene is also derived from the medieval morality play. Doctor Faustus has many features of the morality play of the Middle Ages.
The Alchemist
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Benjamin Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. The play's clever fulfillment of the classical unities and vivid depiction of human folly have made it one of the few Renaissance plays (excepting of course the works of Shakespeare) with a continual life on stage.
BACKGROUND
The Alchemist premiered 34 years after the first permanent public theater (The Theatre) opened in London; it is, then a product of the first maturity of commercial drama in London. Only one of the University wits who had transformed drama in the Elizabethan period remained alive (this was Thomas Lodge); in the other direction, the last great playwright to flourish before the Interregnum, James Shirley, was already a teenager. The theaters had survived the challenge mounted by the city and religious authorities; plays were a regular feature of life at court and for a great number of Londoners.
The venue for which Jonson apparently wrote his play reflects this newly solid acceptance of theater as a fact of city life. In 1597, the Lord Chamberlain's Men had been denied permission to use the theater in Blackfriars as a winter playhouse because of objections from the neighborhood's influential residents. Some time between 1608 and 1610, the company, now the King's Men, reassumed control of the playhouse, this time without objections. Their delayed premiere on this stage within the city walls, along with royal patronage, marks the ascendance of this company in the London play-world. The Alchemist was among the first plays chosen for performance at the theater.
Jonson's play reflects this new confidence. In it, he applies his classical conception of drama to a setting in contemporary London for the first time, with invigorating results. The classical elements, most notably the relation between Lovewit and Face, are fully modernized; likewise, the depiction of Jacobean London is given order and direction by the classical understanding of comedy as a means to expose vice and foolishness to ridicule. The play is believed to be the first time the word "dildo" appeared in print. Lovewit, finding his house a mess upon his return, says that Doll has "writ o' the walls" with one.
PLOT
With his master Lovewit resting in the country to avoid an outbreak of plague in London, a clever servant named Face develops a scheme to make money and amuse himself. He gives access to the house to Subtle, a charlatan, and a prostitute named Doll Common. Subtle disguises himself as an alchemist, with Face as his servant; Doll disguises herself as a zealous Puritan. Together, the three of them gull and cheat an assortment of foolish clients. These include Sir Epicure Mammon, a wealthy sensualist looking for the philosopher's stone; two greedy Puritans, Tribulation Wholesome and Ananais, who hope to counterfeit Dutch money; Drugger, a "tobacco man" hoping to marry the wealthy widow Dame Pliant; Dapper, an incredibly suave, fashionable, good-looking 17th century gentleman, and other minor figures looking for a short-cut to success in gambling or in business.
The play takes place over the course of one day in the house of Face's master. The three rogues are forced to increasingly frenetic maneuvers first to manage all of their simultaneous scams, and then to fend off the suspicious Kastril, Dame Pliant's brother. At last, Lovewit returns; quickly perceiving what Face has done in his absence, he devises a scheme of his own to allow all to end well. Doll and Subtle escape unpunished but empty-handed; Mammon's goods are restored to him, but the Puritans' are not. The smaller victims either flee or are driven from the stage. Lovewit himself pledges troth to Dame Pliant, with Kastril's approval. Face is restored without punishment to his original place as Jeremy, Lovewit's butler.
STAGE HISTORY
Internal references indicate that the play was written for performance at Blackfriars; ironically, given its initial scenario, plague forced the company to tour, and The Alchemist premiered at Oxford in 1610, with performance in London later that year. Its success may be indicated by its performance at court in 1613 and again in 1623. Evidence of a more ambiguous kind is presented by the case of Thomas Tomkis's Albumazar, performed for King James at Cambridge in 1615. A tradition apparently originating with Dryden held that Jonson had been influenced by Tomkis's academic comedy. Dryden may have mentioned Jonson to increase interest in a somewhat obscure play he was then reviving; he may also have been confused about the dates.
The play continued onstage as a droll during the Commonwealth period; after the Restoration, it belonged to the repertory of the King's Men of Thomas Killigrew, who appear to have performed it with some frequency during their first years in operation. The play is not known to have been performed between 1675 and 1709, but the frequency of performance after 1709 suggests that it probably was. Indeed, the play was frequently performed during the eighteenth century; both Colley Cibber and David Garrick were notable successes in the role of Drugger, for whom a small number of new material, including farces and monologues, in the latter half of the century.
After this period of flourishing, the play fell into desuetude, along with nearly all non-Shakespearean Renaissance drama, until the beginning of the twentieth century. William Poel's Elizabethan Stage Society produced the play in 1899. This opening was followed a generation later by productions at Malvern in 1932, with Ralph Richardson as Face, and at the Old Vic in 1947. In the latter production, Alec Guinness played Drugger, alongside Richardson as Face. In 1962, Tyrone Guthrie produced a modernized version at the Old Vic, with Leo McKern as Subtle and Charles Gray as Mammon. Trevor Nunn's 1977 production with the Royal Shakespeare Company featured Sir Ian McKellen as Face, in a version adapted by Peter Barnes. The original was played at the Royal National Theatre, with Alex Jennings and Simon Russell Beale in the central roles, from September to November 2006.
BENJAMIN JONSON-a brief biography
Benjamin Jonson (c. June 11, 1572 – August 6, 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A good friend of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his plays Volpone and The Alchemist and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.
EARLY LIFE
Although he was born in Westminster, London, Jonson claimed his family was of Scottish Border country descent, and this claim may be supported by the fact that his coat of arms bears three spindles or rhombi, a device shared by a Borders family, the Johnstones of Annandale. His father died a month before Ben's birth, and his mother remarried two years later, to a master bricklayer. Jonson attended school in St. Martin's Lane, and was later sent to Westminster School, where one of his teachers was William Camden. Jonson remained friendly with Camden, whose broad scholarship evidently influenced his own style, until the latter's death in 1623. On leaving, Jonson was once thought to have gone on to the University of Cambridge; Jonson himself said that he did not go to university, but was put to a trade immediately: a legend recorded by Fuller indicates that he worked on a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. He soon had enough of the trade, probably bricklaying, and spent some time in the Low Countries as a volunteer with the regiments of Francis Vere. Jonson reports that while in the Netherlands, he killed an opponent in single combat and stripped him of his weapons. Since the war was otherwise languishing during his service, this fight appears to have been the extent of his combat experience. Ben Jonson married some time before 1594, to a woman he described to Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest." His wife has not been decisively identified, but she is sometimes identified as the Ann Lewis who married a Benjamin Jonson at St Magnus-the-Martyr, near London Bridge. The registers of St. Martin's Church state that his eldest daughter Mary died in November, 1593, when she was only six months old. His eldest son Benjamin died of the plague ten years later (Jonson's epitaph to him On My First Sonne was written shortly after), and a second Benjamin died in 1635. For five years somewhere in this period, Jonson lived separate from his wife, enjoying instead the hospitality of Lord Aubigny.
In 1597, following the suppression of The Isle of Dogs (co-written with Thomas Nashe), Jonson was briefly jailed in Marshalsea Prison, but Nashe was able to escape to the country. A year later, Jonson was again briefly imprisoned, this time in Newgate Prison, for killing another man, an actor Gabriel Spenser, in a duel on 22 September 1598 in Hogsden Fields,[1] (today part of Hoxton). While in prison, Jonson was visited by a Roman Catholic priest and converted to Catholicism. Tried on a charge of manslaughter, Jonson pleaded guilty but was subsequently released by benefit of clergy (a legal ploy through which he gained leniency by reciting a brief bible verse in Latin), forfeiting his "goods and chattels" and being branded on his left thumb.
BEN JONSON'S ASCENDANCE
Jonson flourished as a dramatist during the first decade or so of James's reign; by 1616, he had produced all the plays on which his reputation as a dramatist depends. These include the tragedy of Catiline (acted and printed 1611), which achieved only limited success, and the comedies Volpone, (acted 1605 and printed in 1607), Epicoene, or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair (1614) and The Devil is an Ass (1616). The Alchemist and Volpone appear to have been successful at once. Of Epicoene, Jonson told Drummond of a satirical verse which reported that the play's subtitle was appropriate, since its audience had refused to applaud the play (i.e., remained silent). Yet Epicoene, along with Bartholomew Fair and (to a lesser extent) The Devil is an Ass have in modern times achieved a certain degree of recognition.
In 1618, Ben Jonson set out for his ancestral Scotland on foot. He spent over a year there, and the best-remembered hospitality which he enjoyed was that of the Scottish poet, Drummond of Hawthornden. Drummond undertook to record as much of Jonson's conversation as he could in his diary, and thus recorded aspects of Jonson's personality that would otherwise have been less clearly seen. Jonson delivers his opinions, in Drummond's terse reporting, in an expansive and even magisterial mood. In the postscript added by Drummond, he is described as "a great lover and praiser of himself, a contemner and scorner of others".
While in Scotland, he was made an honorary citizen of Edinburgh. On returning to England, he was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Oxford University.
DECLINE AND DEATH
The 1620s begin a lengthy and slow decline for Jonson. He was still well-known; from this time dates the prominence of the Sons of Ben or the "Tribe of Ben", those younger poets such as Robert Herrick, Richard Lovelace, and Sir John Suckling who took their bearing in verse from Jonson. However, a series of setbacks drained his strength and damaged his reputation.
Jonson returned to writing regular plays in the 1620s, but these are not considered among his best. They are of significant interest for the study of the culture of Charles I's England. The Staple of News, for example, offers a remarkable look at the earliest stage of English journalism. The lukewarm reception given that play was, however, nothing compared to the dismal failure of The New Inn; the cold reception given this play prompted Jonson to write a poem condemning his audience (the Ode to Myself), which in turn prompted Thomas Carew, one of the "Tribe of Ben," to respond in a poem that asks Jonson to recognize his own decline (MacLean, 88).
The burning of his library in 1623 was a severe blow, as his Execration upon Vulcan shows. In 1628 he became city chronologer of London, succeeding Thomas Middleton; he accepted the salary but did little work for the office. He had suffered a debilitating stroke that year and this position eventually became a sinecure. In his last years he relied heavily for an income on his great friend and patron, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle.
The principal factor in Jonson's partial eclipse was, however, the death of James and the accession of King Charles I in 1625. Justly or not, Jonson felt neglected by the new court. A decisive quarrel with Jones harmed his career as a writer of court masques, although he continued to entertain the court on an irregular basis. For his part, Charles displayed a certain degree of care for the great poet of his father's day: he increased Jonson's annual pension to £100 and included a tierce of wine.
Despite the strokes that he suffered in the 1620s, Jonson continued to write. At his death in 1637 he seems to have been working on another play, The Sad Shepherd. Though only two acts are extant, this represents a remarkable new direction for Jonson: a move into pastoral drama.
Jonson is buried in Westminster Abbey, with the inscription, "O Rare Ben Jonson," laid in the slab over his grave. It has been suggested that this could be read "Orare Ben Jonson" (pray for Ben Jonson), which would indicate a deathbed return to Catholicism. The fact that he was buried in an upright grave is an indication of his reduced circumstances at the time of his death.
RELATIONSHIP WITH SHAKESPEARE
There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare, some of which may be true. Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar, and the setting of The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reports Jonson saying that Shakespeare "wanted art." Whether Drummond is viewed as accurate or not, the comments fit well with Jonson's well-known theories about literature.
Finally, there are questionable or borderline attributions. Jonson may have had a hand in Rollo, Duke of Normandy, or The Bloody Brother, a play in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators.The comedy The Widow was printed in 1652 as the work of Thomas Middleton, Fletcher and Jonson, though scholars have been intensely skeptical about Jonson's presence in the play. A few attributions of anonymous plays, like The London Prodigal, have been ventured by individual researchers, but have met with cool responses.
LOOK BACK IN ANGER
Look Back in Anger (1956) is a John Osborne play and 1958 movie about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man (Jimmy Porter), his upper-middle-class, impassive wife (Alison), and her snooty best friend (Helena Charles). Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace.
It was originally produced at London's Royal Court Theatre, with the press release calling the author an angry young man, a phrase which came to represent a new movement in 1950s British theatre. The play opened on 8 May 1956 and legend has it that audiences gasped at the sight of an ironing board on a London stage. Some critics accused Jimmy Porter of self-pity and the play of being callow and verbose, but the reviews reveal how much has changed: on BBC radio's The Critics, Ivor Brown began his tirade by describing the play's setting - a one-room flat in the Midlands - as 'unspeakably dirty and squalid. It is difficult to believe that a colonel's daughter, brought up with some standards, would have stayed in this sty for a day'. He went on to fume: 'I felt angry because it wasted my time'. It seems that critics such as the Daily Mail's Cecil Wilson - who felt that 'Mary Ure's beauty was frittered away on the part of a wife who, judging by the time she spends ironing, seems to have taken on the nation's laundry' - weren't terribly experienced at ironing. After all, Alison (played by Ure, who later became the second Mrs Osborne) ironed only during act one; in act two she made lunch. The critic who saw past this old-fashioned enmity was Kenneth Tynan who wrote 'I could not love anyone who did not wish to see Look Back in Anger'.
'I've an idea,' says Jimmy at one point. 'Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings and that we're actually alive. Just for a while. What do you say?' Such remarks, said Kenneth Tynan's review, make the play 'a minor miracle'. All the qualities are there, qualities one had despaired of ever seeing on the stage - the drift towards anarchy, the instinctive leftishness, the automatic rejection of 'official' attitudes, the surrealist sense of humour (Jimmy describes a pansy friend as 'a female Emily Bronte'), the casual promiscuity, the sense of lacking a crusade worth fighting for and, underlying all these, the determination that no one who does shall go unmourned'. Alan Sillitoe, author of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner wrote that Osborne 'didn't contribute to British theatre, he set off a landmine and blew most of it up'.
Look Back in Anger was a strongly autobiographical piece based on Osborne's unhappy marriage to Pamela Lane and their life in cramped accommodation in Derby. While Osborne aspired towards a career in theatre, Lane was of a more practical and materialistic persuasion, not taking Osborne's ambitions seriously while cuckolding him with a local dentist. It also contains much of Osborne's earlier life, the wrenching speech of seeing a loved one die is a replay of the death of Thomas, Osborne's father. What it is best remembered for though, is Jimmy's tirades against the mediocrity of middle-class English life, personified by his hated mother Nellie Beatrice. Madeline, the lost love Jimmy pines for, is based on Stella Linden, an older rep-company actress who first encouraged Osborne to write.
Osborne began a relationship with one of the play's stars, Mary Ure and divorced his wife to marry Ms. Ure in 1957. The following year, the production moved to Broadway under producer David Merrick and director Tony Richardson. Starring Alan Bates, Vivienne Drummond, and Mary Ure, it would receive three Tony Award nominations including for Best Play and "Best Dramatic Actress" for Ms. Ure.
In 1958, the play was adapted for film and like the play was directed by Tony Richardson, seen as one of the new wave of British film directors who, like the "Angry Young Men," focused on working class themes. The movie version featured Richard Burton in one of his first starring roles, with Claire Bloom as Helena and Mary Ure reprising her stage role as Alison. The screenplay was written by Nigel Kneale. The film was nominated for both BAFTA and Golden Globe awards, although many critics felt Burton aged 33 was too old for the role of Jimmy Porter.
PLAY SYNOPSIS
Act 1 opens on a dismal Sunday afternoon in Jimmy and Alison's cramped attic in the English Midlands. Jimmy and Cliff are attempting to read the Sunday papers (plus the radical weekly, "price ninepence, obtainable at any bookstall" as Jimmy snaps, claiming it from Cliff. This is a reference to the New Statesman, and in the context of the period would have instantly signalled the pair's political preference to the audience). Alison is attempting to do the week's ironing and is only half listening as Jimmy and Cliff engage in the expository dialogue.
We learn that there's a huge social gulf between Jimmy and Alison. Her family is upper-middle class military, perhaps verging on upper, while Jimmy is decidedly working-class. He had to campaign hard against her family's disapproval to win her. "Alison's mummy and I took one look at each other, and from then on the age of chivalry was dead", is one of the play's linguistic gems. We also learn that the sole family income is derived from a sweet stall in the local market — an enterprise that is surely well beneath Jimmy's education, let alone Alison's "station in life".
As Act 1 progresses, Jimmy becomes more and more vituperative, transferring his contempt for Alison's family onto her personally, calling her "pusillanimous" and generally belittling her to Cliff. It's possible to play this scene as though Jimmy thinks it's all a joke, but most actors opt for playing it as though he really is excoriating her. The tirade ends with some physical horseplay, resulting in the ironing board overturning and Alison's arm getting a burn. Jimmy stomps off to play his trumpet off stage.
Alison and Cliff play a tender scene, during which she confides that she's accidentally pregnant and can't quite bring herself to tell Jimmy. Cliff urges her to tell him. When Jimmy returns, Alison announces that her actress friend Helena Charles is coming to stay, and it's entirely obvious that Jimmy despises Helena even more than Alison. He flies into a total rage, and conflict is inevitable.
Act 2 opens on another Sunday afternoon, with Helena and Alison making lunch. In a two-handed scene, Alison gives a clue as to why she decided to take Jimmy on -- her own minor rebellion against her upbringing plus her admiration of Jimmy's campaigns against the dereliction of English post-war, post-atom-bomb life. She describes Jimmy to Helena as a "knight in shining armour". Helena says, firmly, "You've got to fight him".
Jimmy enters, and the tirade continues. If his Act 1 material could be played as a joke, there's no doubt about the intentional viciousness of his attacks on Helena. When the women put on hats and declare that they're going to church, Jimmy's sense of betrayal peaks. When he leaves to take an urgent phone call, Helena announces that she's forced the issue. She's sent a telegram to Alison's parents asking them to come and "rescue" her. Alison is stunned but agrees that she will go.
After a scene break, we see Alison's father, Colonel Redfern, who has come to collect her to take her back to her family home. The playwright allows the Colonel to come across as quite a sympathetic character, albeit totally out of touch with the modern world (as he himself admits). "You're hurt because everything's changed," Alison tells him, "and Jimmy's hurt because everything's stayed the same."
Helena arrives to say goodbye, intending to leave very soon herself. Alison is surprised that Helena is staying on for another day, but she leaves, giving Helena a note for Jimmy. Almost immediately, Jimmy bursts in. His contempt at finding a "goodbye" note makes him turn on Helena again, warning her to keep out of his way until she leaves. Helena tells him that Alison is expecting a baby, and Jimmy admits grudgingly that he's taken aback. However, his tirade continues. They first come to physical blows, and then as the Act 2 curtain falls, Jimmy and Helena are kissing passionately and falling on the bed.
The final act opens as a deliberate replay of Act 1, but this time with Helena at the ironing-board wearing Jimmy's Act 1 red shirt. Months have passed. Jimmy is notably more pleasant to Helena than he was to Alison in Act 1. She actually laughs at his jokes, and the three of them get into a Music Hall comedy routine that obviously isn't improvised. Cliff announces that he's decided to strike out on his own. As Jimmy leaves the room to get ready for a final night out for the three of them, he opens the door to find Alison, looking like death. Instead of caring for her he snaps over his shoulder "Friend of yours to see you" and abruptly leaves.
After a scene break, Alison explains to Helena that she lost the baby -- one of Jimmy's cruellest speeches in Act 2 expressed the wish that Alison would conceive a child and lose it -- the two women reconcile but Helena realises that what she's done is immoral and she in turn decides to leave. She summons Jimmy to hear her decision and he lets her go with a sarcastic farewell.
The play ends with a major surprise -- a highly sentimental reconciliation between Jimmy and Alison. They revive an old game they used to play, pretending to be bears and squirrels, and we are left to assume that they live, if not happily, at least in a state of truce in the class warfare, ever after.
LOOK BACK IN ANGER
Written in seventeen days in a deckchair on Morecambe pier where he was performing in a creaky rep show Look Back in Anger was largely autobiographical, based on his time living, and rowing, with Pamela Lane in cramped accommodation in Derby while she cuckolded him with a local dentist. In his autobiography, Osborne writes: "The speed with which it had been returned was not surprising, but its aggressive dispatch did give me a kind of relief. It was like being grasped at the upper arm by a testy policeman and told to move on". Finally it was sent to the newly-formed English Stage Company at London's Royal Court Theatre. In 1993, a year before his death, Osborne wrote that the opening night was "an occasion I only partly remember, but certainly with more accuracy than those who subsequently claimed to have been present and, if they are to be believed, would have filled the theatre several times over". During production, the married Osborne began a relationship with Mary Ure, and would divorce his wife, Pamela Lane, to marry her in 1957. In 1958 a film version was released with Richard Burton and Mary Ure in the leading roles. The play turned Osborne from a struggling playwright into a wealthy and famous angry young man and won him the Evening Standard Drama Award as the most promising playwright of the year.
In 1971, Osborne turned in his most famous acting appearance, lending Cyril Kinnear a sense of civil menace in Get Carter. A Sense of Detachment, appeared in 1972. In 1978 he appeared as an actor in Tomorrow Never Comes and in 1980 in Flash Gordon.
In the last decade of his life, he published two volumes of autobiography, A Better Class of Person (1981) and Almost a Gentleman (1991).
He also collected various newspaper and magazine writings together in 1994 under the title Damn You, England. His last play was Déjà Vu (1991), a sequel to Look Back in Anger.
Osborne's work transformed British theatre. He helped to make it artistically respected again, throwing off the formal constraints of the former generation, and turning our attention once more to language, theatrical rhetoric, and emotional intensity. He saw theatre as a weapon with which ordinary people could break down the class barriers and that he had a 'beholden duty to kick against the pricks'. He wanted his plays to be a reminder of real pleasures and real pains. Osborne did change the world of theatre, influencing playwrights such as Edward Albee and Mike Leigh, however work of his authenticity and originality would remain the exception rather than the rule. However this did not surprise Osborne, nobody understood the tackiness of the theatre better than the man who had played Hamlet on Hayling Island. He was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain.
JOHN OSBORNE (Brief Biography)
John James Osborne (December 12, 1929 – December 24, 1994) was an eminent English playwright. He was born in London, the son of Thomas, a copywriter and Nellie Beatrice, a Cockney barmaid. Thomas died in 1941, leaving the devastated young boy an insurance settlement which he used to finance a private education at Belmont College, Devon.
After school, Osborne went home to his mother in London and briefly tried trade journalism. A job tutoring a touring company of junior actors introduced him to the theatre. He soon became involved as a stage manager and acting, joining Anthony Creighton's provincial touring company. Osborne tried his hand at writing plays, co-writing his first, The Devil Inside Him, with his mentor Stella Linden, who then directed it at the Theatre Royal, Huddersfield in 1950. Around this time he also married Pamela Lane. His second play Personal Enemy was written with Anthony Creighton (with whom he also wrote Epitaph for George Dillon staged at the Royal Court in 1958) and staged in regional theatres before he submitted Look Back in Anger.
WOMEN
Osborne remained angry until the end of his life. Women evidently found his anger attractive - he had more than his fair share of lovers in addition to wives, and he was not kind to them. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that in relationships he was an out-and-out cad. In his own autobiography he details some of the brazen subterfuges he created in order to commit adultery with Penelope Gilliatt before they were married. Jill Bennett's suicide is generally believed to have been a result of Osborne's rejection of her.
In his 2006 biography, John Heilpern describes at length a vacation in Valbonne, France, in 1961, that Osborne shared with Tony Richardson, a distraught George Devine, and others. Osborne's vexations with women extended to an extremely cruel relationship with his daughter Nolan, born from his marriage with Penelope Gilliatt. His vicious abuse of his teenaged daughter culminated with him casting her out of his house when she was aged seventeen. They never spoke again.
He was married five times:
1) Pamela Lane
2) Mary Ure
3) Penelope Gilliatt
4) Jill Bennett
5) Helen Dawson
DEATH
He died from complications from his diabetes at the age of 65 in the UK. He is buried at Clun in Shropshire alongside his last wife, Helen, who died in 2004.
WAITING FOR GODOT
SAMUEL BECKETT
Samuel Barclay Beckett was born on April 12, 1906 (Good Friday), in Foxrock, Ireland. He was the second son of his parents, Mary and William Beckett. At the age of five, he began attending kindergarten. A year later, he began studying languages and learned to play the piano. As a youth, he participated in many sports and also began writing. In 1920, he began publishing stories in a school newspaper. Eventually, he attended Trinity College in Dublin, studying literature.
After securing his B.A. degree in 1927, he took up a two-year fellowship at L'Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris. He befriended the writer James Joyce there. His fiction and criticism was published in Transition. In 1930, he won his first prize in a poetry contest. That same year he translated the "Anna Livia Phirabelle" section of Joyce's Work in Progress into French with Alfred Peron. The next year, with George Pelorson, he wrote Le kid. It was a parody based on Corneille's Cid. He was attacked by the Trinity College newspaper for this piece of work. During this time, he was working as an Assistant in French in the Trinity College. In December 1931, he took his M.A. degree, and a month later resigned from the college. After returning to Paris from Germany in March 1932, he began writing on Dream of Fair to Midding Women. Simultaneously, he translated surrealist poems into English. He returned to Foxrock and a few months later his father died. His brother assumed control of his father's firm.
In 1934, he published More Pricks Than Kicks, a work which was later banned. He also began working on Murphy. Four years later, he travelled to Paris and renewed his friendship with his long time friend Joyce. He wrote his first poems in French. He somehow never appreciated the Nazi oppression of Jewish intellectuals. During the Second World War, he joined the resistance network. He fled to the free areas of France and survived mainly by doing agricultural work. He wrote Watt during this period. After a visit to Ireland in 1945, it became difficult for him to return to France.
He joined The Red Cross to help war-affected people and worked as an interpreter and storekeeper in a field hospital. Eventually he made it back to France and lived through what many call his most creative period, in which he wrote such works as Waiting for Godot and Endgame. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970.
HISTORICAL / SOCIAL BACKGROUND
Waiting for Godot premiered in 1953 at the Theatre de Babylone in Paris. The early twentieth century had been overshadowed by two World Wars that brought about uncertainties, despair, and new challenges to the all of mankind. The poignancy and calamities of the wars found sharp reflections in the writings of the day. The global conflict and the nuclear destruction stamped a lasting impact on the minds of the writers. A pessimistic outlook laced with sadism and tangible violence, as a rich dividend of the aftermath of wars, provided both contour and content to the writings. The search for meaning had begun. With the future still hazy, writers began to search and research the new meaning of existence in a drastically changed world. A spirit of restlessness with a mixture of sardonic bitterness became an inherent feature of the writings. The writers were torn between a wrecked past and an unpredictable future. Their experiences and memories were neither lively and worth recollecting nor peaceful and worth treasuring. Hence, the mental conflict, distress, loneliness, and anxiety that they went through found an overt and dominant expression in their writings.
LITERARY BACKGROUND
Waiting for Godot was a unique outburst on the literary world. It made no claim to have a place in conventional drama; rather, it carried a "fascination" of its own, authenticated by the undercurrent of resentment in accepting the illogical and unreasonable norms of the society.
It was first written in French and called En attendant Godot. The author himself translated the play into English in 1954. The uniqueness of the play compelled the audiences to flock to the theaters for a spectacularly continuous four hundred performances. At the time, there were two distinct opinions about the play; some called it a hoax and others called it a masterpiece. Nevertheless, Waiting for Godot has claimed its place in literary history as a masterpiece that changed the face of twentieth century drama.
LITERATURE OF THE ABSURD
Literature of the Absurd is a term most often used to class together works by such artists as Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionescoe, Jean Genet, Edward Albee and Harold Pinter. The reason these men formed this rather notoriously elite group of playwrights is rather obvious when one studies each playwright's style and subject. Though none necessarily imitate each other, all share a same subjugation of plot, character, and theme. That is, there is no particular attention spent developing a recognizable plot, no detailed characterization, and no readily definable theme. This bizarre rejection of any recognizable pattern or development gave birth to the term Literature of the Absurd.
Literature of the Absurd followed closely on the heels of two of the twentieth century's most recognizable literary styles: modernism and post-modernism. Modernism was a term widely used to signify the post World War I writings that questioned the traditional modes of religion, morality and also traditional ways of conceiving one's own existence. A prominent feature of modernism was its avant-garde contributors. A small group of writers and artists created a new form of style and expression and concentrated on hitherto neglected or forbidden matters. They were seen as free-spirited and unconventional, shocking and on the edge. Simultaneously, another artistic movement called surrealism was launched in France. Surrealism was a revolt against restrains, promoting free creativity violating norms and control over artistic expression and process. It was a revolutionary movement in all arts including literature. Post-modernism belonged to the post World War II phase. The implacable unrest due to destruction, totalitarianism and devastation in the name of progress became apparent in literature that became more and more separated from conventional art.
Literature of the Absurd was simply a later development of these innovative writing styles. It focused sharply on the irrationality and absurdity of the world. The writers exhibited an unreserved contempt and scorn for hypocrisy in the world. It was an intellectual reproduction of reality, rather than a physical or even practical one. The psychology of the work mirrored the helplessness and emptiness of human life as its creators saw it.
Samuel Beckett, the eminent and influential writer of this mode, wrote enormously in French and later translated his works into English. His plays depict the irrationalism of life in a grotesquely comic and non-consequential fashion with the element of "metaphysical alienation and tragic anguish."
SETTING
Beckett's own script notes can best describe the setting of "Waiting for Godot": "A country road. A tree". There is an otherworldly alienation in this sparse setting. It could be anywhere, in any country of the world. No visible horizon exists; no markers of civilization are present. The setting is constant; the only change occurs between Act I and Act II, when the barren tree of Act I gives birth to five or six leaves in Act II.
LIST OF CHARACTERS
Estragon (Gogo)
A tramp with a sore foot. He wears boots and a bowler hat. He is obsessed with his needs, his health and his hunger.
Vladimir (Didi)
Estragon's companion. He is a philosopher, overly concerned with the state of his life. When Estragon appears consumed by physical suffering, Vladimir is preoccupied with metaphysical suffering - the cruelty of life, the injustices of the world. Like Estragon, he wears slightly oversized boots and a bowler hat.
A Messenger Boy
He is sent by Godot to tell the tramps he will not arrive today. The messenger boy periodically reveals bits of information about the mysterious Godot.
Godot
An unseen person for whom Vladimir and Estragon are waiting. All that is known about Godot is that he has goatherds and shepherds and a long white beard. He does nothing all day, and has asked the tramps to meet him by the tree on Saturday. He never appears.
CONFLICT
Protagonist
Vladimir is a somewhat philosophical tramp, spending a lot of time thinking about the state of his life in general. He is usually committed to waiting for Godot, and constantly reminds Estragon that they must wait rather than kill themselves or move on. He likes to talk about the past, and has vague recollections about Bible stories which he periodically shares; he enjoys good conversation and becomes frustrated with Estragon when he does not keep up with him. At times, he displays some pride, such as when he does not want Estragon to beg a bone from Pozzo. Estragon looks to him for intellectual guidance. Together, the two tramps become the central focus of the play; despite their absurd bantering and burlesque appearance, they seem at the mercy of the universe, and as such are almost sympathetic characters who just want a better life.
At the most superficial level, the two tramps can be called the protagonists in the play. However, they represent the whole of mankind. They correlate actions of the other characters to the general concerns of mankind. Even though it is not definite, there are implications that Vladimir knows more about Godot and is the one to remind Estragon of their destiny-that is, that they must wait for Godot.
Antagonist
Pozzo is a wealthy man, commanding attention. He treats his servant, Lucky, with contempt and heaps abuses on him. Pozzo represents the adverse, absurd circumstances of life. He also represents the master, the controlling being. He is thus a sort of antagonist in the play. At times, God or fate, or whatever master of the universe exists, might also be an antagonist, bearing down on the two tramps and making their lives unbearable.
Climax
There is no real climax in the play. Act I happens, followed by a parallel and nearly identical Act II. Life goes on for the two characters, and there is no indication that the third day will be any different than the first two. The absurdist point is that nothing really changes. The circular structure of the play lends itself well to this eternal stasis.
Outcome
The outcome of the play is yet to be determined. There is every indication that had Beckett chosen to write Act III, it would have been very similar to Acts I and II. This unusual structure is an integral part of Beckett's theme.
SHORT PLOT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
Two tramps named Estragon and Vladimir meet on the road, beside a tree. They are very happy to see each other, having been separated for an unspecified amount of time. Estragon has a sore foot and is having trouble taking his boot off. He tells Vladimir that he was beaten the previous evening.
The two men remember that they are supposed to wait under a tree on a Saturday for a man named Godot. It appears they do not remember the man named Godot very well, but they think he was going to give them an answer. They cannot remember the question. While they are waiting, Estragon falls asleep. Vladimir, suddenly feeling lonely, wakes Estragon. Tired of doing nothing, they begin talking about the tree and the wait, then settle on discussing their sorry condition. They are homeless and penniless, traveling from one place to another. They contemplate suicide by hanging. They nibble carrots and turnips for food. Most of the time, they simply wait for Godot.
After a while, Pozzo and Lucky join them. Lucky carries a heavy bag and is led by his master, Pozzo, with a rope. Pozzo sits on a stool, relaxes a little and enjoys some chicken and wine. He is abusive to his servant by demanding things and being rude. Eventually Lucky dozes off to sleep, but is awakened by jerks on the rope from his master.
A hungry Estragon is eager to gnaw the chicken bones thrown on the ground by Pozzo. Pozzo explains that he has long desired that his slave would go away, but he never does. The master tells the tramps that Lucky is pitiful and old, and he would like to get rid of him soon. On hearing all this, Lucky cries. Estragon tries to comfort him, but is rewarded by a hard kick in the leg from Lucky. At this point, Pozzo instructs his slave to dance and think and otherwise amuse the tramps. Lucky's entertainment consists of dancing, which is more like an awkward shuffling motion, and thinking, which is a long and jumbled exercise in rambling. To shut him up, Vladimir takes away his hat. Eventually, the master and slave leave the tramps, and they continue their wait for Godot.
A little later, a young bog brings in a message that Godot might see them the next day, at the same hour and at the same place. Meanwhile, night falls and the tramps decide to leave and come back the next day. Instead, they remain. The act ends.
The next act begins in exactly the same fashion: the two tramps meet on the road after a separation. Nothing has changed except that the bare tree has sprouted five or six leaves. Vladimir is singing a song about a dog that has been beaten. Estragon reveals that he has been beaten as well, again. They resume their wait, though Estragon seems to have forgotten the events of the day before. Vladimir tries to remind him of his wounded leg and the unruly slave who kicked him. Estragon's only memory is a vague one about the bone he was given to chew.
Bored with waiting, Vladimir spots Lucky's hat, and the tramps begin playing with it. For sometime, they initiate Pozzo and his slave. Still bored, they discuss suicide again, call each other names, and wait for Godot. After some time, Pozzo and Lucky re- appear. This time, however, Pozzo is blind and being led by Lucky. They are still bound by a rope, though this one is even shorter. Pozzo falls to the ground and cannot get up. In the process of helping him, Estragon and Vladimir also fall to the ground. The scene deteriorates into a burlesque, with characters trying to get up but only managing to become even more entangled. Finally they are able to get up. Pozzo claims never to have met them before and shocks them by claiming that Lucky is mute. He becomes insulted and departs, stumbling away with Lucky.
The sun sets and the moon rises. A messenger boy enters, claiming not to be the same boy as from the day before. His message, however, is the same. Godot will not come today, but will try to come tomorrow. He leaves and the two men again contemplate suicide. This time, they actually attempt it, but the suspender cords they try to use breaks and Estragon ends up with his pants around his ankles. They decide to come back the next day with a rope, and if Godot does not arrive, they will hang themselves. They decide to move on, but as in the previous act, they stay where they are and the act ends.
MOOD
The play opens on a totally surreal note, with a tramp trying to pull off his boot on a lonely road under a leafless tree. There is no horizon, no sign of civilization. For a moment, this scene might even be considered comic. Eventually, however, the action unfolds and a mood of despair and futility settles over the stage. The surreal feeling never changes, it is merely added to by a host of other feelings. Characters are beaten, cursed, wounded-all without any sign of relief. The few moments of comedy are dampened by an overwhelming sense of tragedy and gloom. In the end, the eternal hopelessness of life permeates every aspect of both acts of the play.
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
The plot of Waiting for Godot has been called both parallel and circular. There are two acts, each made up of four identical sections. These sections can best be described as the following: Estragon and Vladimir alone Pozzo and Lucky arrive and depart Messenger arrives and departs Estragon and Vladimir alone. Since this structural pattern is repeated in Act I and Act II without variation, Waiting for Godot is perfectly parallel. On the other hand, the fact that Act II ends exactly the same as Act I suggests that nothing will change, and the next Act (if there was to be one) would proceed in exactly the same fashion. In this regard, the structure is circular.
THEME ANALYSIS
One of the complexities of Literature of the Absurd is that it is often difficult to define a theme, since the very absurdity of the work is focused (usually) on man's inability to make sense of things. Given that, however, there are some discernible threads of theme in Waiting for Godot. First, the human condition is a dismal and distressful state. The derelict man struggles to live or rather exist, in a hostile and uncaring world. A sense of stagnancy and bareness captivates man, and whenever he tries to assert himself, he is curbed. In Beckett's words, human life is the endurance and tolerance to "the boredom of living" "replaced by the suffering of being." These phrases speak volumes of a philosophy born out of the harsh human realities.
Vladimir and Estragon are blissfully and painfully oblivious to their own condition. They go about repeating their actions every day unmindful of the monotony and captivity. They also do not activate their mind to question or brood over their own actions and the motives underlying their actions. The "compressed vacuum" in their lives is constantly disregarded.
The idea that God or fate or some Supreme Being with control toys with the lives of men is startlingly clear. Every moment of every day, mankind waits for some sign from God that his suffering will end. And every day, God does not arrive.
The parallel between God and Godot is not simply verbal (in the spelling and pronunciation of names), but also in the references to long white beards, shepherds, and supremacy. Godot has saving power; Godot has all the answers to questions that have not been asked. Godot is selective in his punishments and rewards, as God was with Cain and Abel. In connection with this theme is the virtual impossibility of man's ever having an understanding of or relationship with God. It seems impossible.
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS The plot of Waiting for Godot has been called both parallel and circular. There are two acts, each made up of four identical sections. These sections can best be described as the following:
Estragon and Vladimir alone Pozzo and Lucky arrive and depart Messenger arrives and departs Estragon and Vladimir alone
Since this structural pattern is repeated in Act I and Act II without variation, Waiting for Godot is perfectly parallel. On the other hand, the fact that Act II ends exactly the same as Act I suggests that nothing will change, and the next Act (if there was to be one) would proceed in exactly the same fashion. In this regard, the structure is circular.
PYGMALION
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) was born on the 26th of July, 1856 in Dublin. His father, George Carr Shaw, son of a failed Dublin stockbroker, had been a civil servant and retired on a pension of £60 before Bernard was born. He became a corn merchant but was unsuccessful in this venture. Shaw's mother, Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw, the daughter of an Irish landowner, was considerably younger than her husband. The Shaws were Protestants and Bernard was baptized in the Church of England in Ireland. Bernard went to a series of schools starting with the Wesleyan Connexional School and ending his fifteenth year at the Dublin English Scientific and Commercial Day School. He claimed to hate all the schools he attended.
G. B. Shaw had an unhappy childhood. By the time Shaw was fifteen his parents' marriage had broken up. His mother deserted her husband and went off to England along with her two daughters. Shaw's father appears to have been a weak and ineffectual man, prone to drowning his sorrow in alcohol. Shaw left school and worked as a clerk and cashier for a firm of land agents for nearly four and a half years. During this period Shaw read voraciously and frequented the theatre. He saw every new play and was especially interested in Shakespeare. His deep and profound knowledge of Shakespeare may be traced to these early theatre visits. Shaw also loved music. His father played the trombone and his mother was an excellent singer. His elder sister, Lucy, was an opera singer.
In 1876 following the tragic death of his sister Agnes from consumption (at the age of nineteen), Shaw left Ireland and joined his mother and Lucy in London with the intention of becoming a musician or a painter. Shaw was an acutely shy young man and took considerable time to adjust to the liberal London atmosphere. He undertook a variety of odd jobs in his early years in London. He wrote a series of articles as a music critic under the name of Lee in a weekly paper The Hornet, from November 1876 to July 1878. He also worked for a couple of years in the Edison and Bell Telephone Company and left in 1880 when the company was absorbed by another. He then gave up as he puts it, "working for his living" and decided to establish himself as a writer. During these years Shaw was financially dependent on his mother. Shaw was candid enough about this decision and remarked, "I did not throw myself into the struggle for life: I threw my mother into it." Shaw started writing articles on various subjects but they were rejected by the magazines and newspapers he sent them to. He then decided to become a novelist and wrote a novel but could not find a publisher for it. During 1880 to 1883 he wrote four more novels which were also rejected.
During these early years of his stay in London, Shaw became interested in socialism. He was immensely influenced by the alarming rise in unemployment and general social distress. Shaw became a socialist in 1882 and joined the Fabian Society in 1884. The Fabians aimed to bring about a gradual change from capitalism to socialism and were a powerful influence on British political thought. Shaw served on The Executive Committee of the Fabian Society for many years. In 1884 Shaw attended a lecture delivered by Henry George. Here it was proposed that national revenue should be collected by a single tax on land rather than by numerous taxes on several things. This lecture proved to be a turning point in Shaw's life and shaped his political thought.
Shaw obtained work as a journalist with the help of the drama critic and Ibsen translator, William Archer, with whom he shared an interest in Ibsen. Shaw wrote as a music critic under the name of "Corno di Bassetto" in The Star (1888-90), an evening paper of London. Shaw also wrote as a drama critic for The Saturday Review (1895-98), a weekly periodical. His insightful articles on the contemporary theatre scene are collected in Our Theatre in the Nineties. It is in three volumes and was published in 1932.
Shaw's first published works were novels, Cashel Byron's Profession (1886) and An Unsocial Socialist (1887). His career as a novelist came to an end even though he returned to the form many times, for example, in the socio-political parable, The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God (1932).
At one point during their association, William Archer suggested to Shaw that they collaborate in writing a play. Although this never occurred, their discussions on Ibsen resulted in Shaw's The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891). This was the first English book on Ibsen whose work had only recently been translated. While this book was undoubtedly a proclamation of Ibsen's genius it was also a manifesto for Shaw's own later dramatic work. Both Ibsen and Shaw shared a concern for the welfare of common people and critiqued social mores of the day in their plays. Shaw thus initiated his own unique brand of the play of "ideas." He had made an attempt to write a play with William Archer in 1885 but had abandoned the project midway. He now completed it and the play The Widowers' Houses was performed in London on December 9th, 1892 at the Royalty Theatre.
Shaw went on to write serious plays of "ideas" like Mrs. Warren's Profession (1893). Another such play was The Philanderer (1893 and produced in 1905) which dealt with the subject of women and marriage. Mrs. Warren's Profession was denied performance by the Examiner of Plays who considered it immoral.
Shaw's next play Arms and the Man (1894) a bitter attack on the romanticism of war enjoyed great popularity. This was followed by Candida (1897), The Devil's Disciple (1897) The Man of Destiny (1897), You Never Can Tell (1899) and Captain Brassbound's Conversion (1900).
Shaw's plays acquired popularity during the seasons organized by Harley Granville-Barker and J.E. Vedrenne at the Royal Court Theatre in 1904-1907. John Bulls' Other Island (1904) was the first play to become popular. This was followed by How He Lied to Her Husband (1904) an anti-romantic treatment of the familiar triangular situation of husband, wife and lover. Shaw's first great play was Man and Superman (1905). He called the play "a comedy and a philosophy." Shaw's next play Major Barbara was also produced in 1905 and dealt as Shaw states in the preface with "the tragi-comic irony of the conflict between real life and the romantic imagination." The Doctor's Dilemma (1906) contained an expose of the medical profession. Although it is subtitled a "tragedy", it deals with its subject in a light-hearted manner.
The first decade of this century was Shaw's golden period as a dramatist. Caesar and Cleopatra, written in 1898, was performed in 1907. It was Shaw's interpretation of history in contemporary terms. This was followed by Getting Married (1908) which is a single conversation from the beginning to the end. The Shewing - up of Blanco Posnet (1909), a one-act "religious tract in dramatic form" was censored for blasphemy. Misalliance (1910) is a long debate about the relationship between parents and children. Fanny's First Play (1911) is in Shaw's own terms a "potboiler." Androcles and the Lion (1911-12) depicts Shaw's religious views and his belief that a religious aim is essential for human existence. Pygmalion followed in 1913 and is one of Shaw's most popular plays.
It must be mentioned that Shaw contributed four of his most serious and intellectual plays to the new theatre movement of the 1920s: Heartbreak House (1920), Back to Methuselah (1922), Saint Joan (1923) and The Apple Cart (1929). Heartbreak House is subtitled "A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes" and the main theme is Shaw's condemnation of the "cultured, leisured Europe before the War."
Shaw was anti-Darwinian. In Darwin's scheme of things, the fittest of the species survive while the weak are killed by the strong. Shaw believed instead that the fittest survive by use of their superior intelligence and will power. Shaw's social, political and religious opinions cannot only be gleaned from the Prefaces to his plays which were collected in a single volume in 1934, but also in his provocative works like Common Sense about the War (1914), How to Settle the Irish Question (1917), The Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism (1928), and Everybody's Political What's What (1944).
Shaw's later plays include Too True to be Good (1932), TheMillionairess (1936) and In Good King Charles's Golden Days (1939).
Although he was averse to writing for film, he did agree to prepare a script for the filming of Pygmalion which was completed in 1938 and had a successful reception. A musical version of Pygmalion called My Fair Lady was produced in New Haven, Connecticut in 1956, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews. It was later made into the well-known film by the same name that won an Academy Award for Best Picture in 1964.
Shaw died at the age of ninety-five in the year 1950. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925, which he first refused and afterwards accepted.
Pygmalion is a comic play (1913) by George Bernard Shaw about a professor, Henry Higgins, who teaches a young cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, how to speak in an upper-class way. She becomes a success in society and falls in love with Higgins. The play was made into a successful musical comedy and film called My Fair Lady. Shaw took his title from an ancient Greek story about Pygmalion, an artist who falls in love with a statue he has created. The philologist Henry Sweet (1845–1912) is thought to be the model for Higgins.
Pygmalion: Pygmalion is the main character of a famous Greek myth. He is a sculptor who disdaining real women, falls in love with a statue of a women that he has sculpted. He asks Venus to give life to his statue, she grants his wish, and the statue becomes the woman, Galatea. The two fall instantly in love in the romantic conclusion of the myth. The title, Pygmalion, is only mentioned once in Shaw’s play, at the very end. Shaw says that Eliza never loved Higgins; that his Galatea never loved her creator, Pygmalion.
MOOD
Pygmalion is a refreshing mixture of comedy and satire. Shaw wrote in the foreword to the Complete Plays, "If I make you laugh at yourself, remember that my business as a classic writer of comedies is 'to chasten morals with ridicule'; and if I sometimes make you feel like a fool, remember that I have by the same action cured you of your folly." As comedy the play is vibrant and joyful. The dialogues sparkle with wit and humor. However this comic spirit is leavened with a relentless scrutiny of the emotions and motives of the characters. Shaw saw the theatre as a medium of improving social conditions and his prime goal was to make the people aware of their failings as well as society's. However, the severity of his judgment is mitigated by the fact that nearly everyone is found guilty.
THEMES ANALYSIS
Major Theme
In Pygmalion, Shaw presents the classic theme of drama - the complexity inherent in human relationships. The play's major thematic concern is of course, romantic, as suggested by the title itself. In the Pygmalion narrative as told by Ovid in Metamorphoses, Pygmalion is described as having a repulsion for women and he thus decides to remain single. Ovid explains that Pygmalion's disgust for women is due to the behavior of the propoetides, women of Amathus, who were the first women to become prostitutes. Yet Pygmalion longs for a feminine ideal and is inspired to sculpt an extremely beautiful woman in ivory and name it Galatea. Upon finishing his marvelous piece of sculpture, he clothes the state with colorful garments and adorns it with jewelry. However the beauty of the statue is not realized since it is lifeless. Pygmalion then prays to the Gods and Venus breathes life into Galatea. The once lifeless statue now comes alive and falls in love with its creator. Pygmalion's desire for a maiden beyond the imperfection of mortal women is fulfilled and he marries Galatea.
In Shaw's play, Higgins' transforms a common flower girl into a graceful lady, like the sculptor Pygmalion in the Ovidian legend carved a beautiful statue out of shapeless ivory. Higgins effects this amazing transformation by teaching Eliza to speak correctly and beautifully. This cultural crash-course is simply a scientific experiment for Higgins and he is astonished to find that against his will Eliza has fallen in love with him. As a scientist, Higgins focuses upon his task (of passing of Eliza as a duchess) with absolute concentration and objectivity. He is amazed to find that he cannot control all the variables of his experiment since nobody can control the human heart. Higgins realizes that he should not have ignored the humanity of his subject. However, the union between the two is out of question since they hold divergently opposed views about life. Higgins stands for the principle of rationality and the intellect while Eliza represents natural warmth and affection of the heart.
The conflict between the two provides the comedy of the play. Higgins simply cannot regard others in human terms. He sees them as only the means to achieve his end. He tells Eliza that he does not care for her as an individual person but because she is a part of the human species. As he tells her, "I care for life, for humanity; and you are a part of it that has come my way." Eliza cannot seek consolation in such impersonal generalities. Higgins's declaration that he has grown accustomed to her voice and face does not impress Eliza, who prefers Freddy's simple-minded proclamation of devotion to Higgins' profound indifference. Shaw himself favors Eliza's union with Freddy since as he writes in the sequel to the play, "Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion; his relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable".
Pygmalion may also be read as a modern-day Cinderella story. The miserably poor, dirty and ill treated but exquisitely beautiful maid who is magically raised to a high level in society is common to both Shaw's play and the popular fairy tale. The other necessary ingredients - a step-mother, a golden coach, the midnight hour when the maiden is confronted with reality, slippers, a scintillating ball and a desperately lonely gentleman - are inseparable details of Shaw's plot as well. However like the Ovidian legend Shaw manipulates the fairy tale narrative to serve his own unique ends. Consequently the chronology of the incidents is changed and even the ingredients are modified. For instance, Eliza's stepmother is rather harmless, the slippers are thrown at the good fairy and the scintillating ball only serves to shatter Eliza's romantic illusions. The golden coach is the cab that Eliza hires in Act One from the money that Higgins had thrown off-handedly into her basket. Throwing the slippers at Higgins symbolizes her break from a life of servitude and her absolute rejection of Cinderella's romantic notions. More significant is the emphasis on the midnight hour of self-actualization than on the ball scene since the focus is on Eliza's capacity to adjust to the harsh conditions of the real world. And finally, contrary to the popular fairy-tale's ending, Shaw does not offer any certainty of a blissful married life.
(CINDERELLA a traditional story about a young girl called Cinderella who has to work very hard for her stepmother (= the woman who married her father after her mother died) and her two ugly older sisters. One day the sisters go to a ball (= a grand event at which people dance) at the royal palace, and Cinderella wishes she could go too. Suddenly her fairy godmother appears and says, ‘You shall go to the ball!’ She uses her magic powers to produce a wonderful dress and glass slippers (= shoes) for Cinderella, and makes a coach and horses for her from a pumpkin and four white mice. But she warns Cinderella that she must leave the ball at midnight. Cinderella is so beautiful that the prince dances with her all the time, but at midnight she suddenly runs from the palace, leaving one of her glass slippers behind. The prince sends his servants all over the country to find her by trying the slipper on every young woman’s foot. When at last they find Cinderella the prince marries her. The story of Cinderella is a favourite one for British pantomimes. The Ugly Sisters are played by men dressed as women. The prince is called Prince Charming, and Cinderella (or ‘Cinders’) has a male friend called Buttons who works with her and secretly loves her. The word Cinderella is also used to refer to things that have not been given enough attention in the past)
Minor Theme
Pygmalion also lends itself to an allegorical interpretation. Critics have tended to stereotype Shaw as a modern playwright who investigates the "play of ideas." This has resulted in a gross neglect of the allegorical framework and moral content that bears heavily on his plays. Eliza can be seen as a morality character as she struggles to achieve spiritual salvation. The play charts Eliza's spiritual journey from illusion to reality, or from the darkness of ignorance to the light of self-awareness. She struggles against the varied temptations on her long and arduous quest and finally achieves self-awareness as a human being. She acquires enough independence of spirit, strength of character and maturity of thought to stand up to Higgins and criticize his way of life.
Shaw proclaims in the preface to Pygmalion that his prime objective in writing the play is to create an awareness about the importance of phonetics in society. Throughout the play, Shaw points out the use of language as a means of dividing society into classes. Shaw gleefully claims in the preface, "It (the play) is so intensely and deliberately didactic, and its subject is esteemed so dry, that I delight in throwing it at the head of wiseacres who repeat the parrot cry that art should never be didactic. It goes to prove my contention that art should never be anything else." However Shaw is obviously ignoring the entertaining content of the play by this insistence on didacticism. Phonetics is only a minor concern in the play. While the play does indeed create awareness about the importance of phonetics in society, it does this imaginatively. Shaw focuses our attention on the human implications of Higgins' project rather than on the nitty-gritty of phonetics itself. The readers are interested in Eliza's phonetic lessons only because it exposes the shallowness of class distinctions. The prime message of the play is to assert the importance of individual worth. If a common flower girl can be passed off as a duchess in merely six months, then the only qualities that distinguish a duchess are her wealth and hereditary reputation.
Shaw thus points out that gentility is simply a matter of education and environment and that a lady is only a flower girl with six months' training in phonetics and a gentleman is only a dustman with money. This point is proved by the dual transformations of Eliza and Alfred Doolittle.
Another prominent theme is the exploration of the Victorian concept of the "undeserving poor" through the character of Alfred Doolittle. The Victorians designated the class who refused to practice thrift and squandered their money on drinking sprees and other mindless forms of entertainment as the "undeserving poor." In the Victorian Age the poor were not rightfully entitled to charity and had to prove that they morally deserved charity. Shaw attacks this hypocritical moral code through Doolittle, who defines middle class morality as "an excuse for never giving me anything." The prime objection against charity to the poor was the belief that it would pauperize them, i.e. habituate them to living off charity like paupers. Doolittle subverts this bourgeoisie moral code to suggest that living off unearned income is also pauperizing. Thus in effect Shaw attacks the middle class virtues of prudent savings.
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
Pygmalion is a primarily Shavian reworking of Ovid's Metamorphoses with undertones of Cinderella. Romance and satire dominate both the play's plot as well as style. Shaw takes a strong central situation--the transformation of a common flower girl into a lady--and surrounds it with superficial trimmings. There is technical innovation in the plot structure since Shaw, under the influence of Ibsen, replaces the stock Victorian formula of exposition, situation and unraveling with exposition, situation and discussion. The plot thus has three distinct stages of development.
In the first stage Professor Henry Higgins, who is an expert in phonetics, transforms a common flower girl into an artificial replica of a lady by teaching her how to speak correctly. Prior to this Eliza's life has been miserable. As a poor flower girl she coaxes money out of prospective customers and is thrilled when she suddenly receives a handful of coins that Higgins throws into her basket. She lacks the capacity to express her feelings articulately and an indiscriminate sound of vowels "Ah - ah - ow - ow - oo" serves to connote a multitude of emotions ranging from pain, wonder, and fear to delight. However she is not entirely depraved and is at least self-reliant enough to earn her own livelihood by selling flowers. In Act Two Eliza arrives at Higgins' laboratory at Wimpole Street and haughtily demands that Higgins teach her to speak correctly so that she can become a lady in a flower shop. This desire for financial security and social respectability constitutes a step forward in her larger quest for self- realization. For Higgins Eliza is simply a phonetic experiment, a view that dehumanizes her and results in the creation of an artificial automaton-like replica of a lady.
In the second stage of the play the audience encounters an Eliza who has become an artificial duchess. She is no longer a flower girl but is not quite a lady. During Mrs. Higgins' at-home she proceeds to deliver Lisson Grove gossip with an upper class accent. She is nothing more than a live doll and there is an element of crudity in her parrot-like conversation. The mask of gentility that she wears only partially hides her low class background. Shaw demonstrates here that having fine clothes and the right accent are not enough to make a lady. The fact that the Eynsford-Hills fail to see through her façade implies that they too do not possess true gentility. By the time that Eliza returns after her triumphant society appearance at the Ambassador's ball, she no longer exhibits this element of crudity. She has benefited from Higgins's lessons in achieving social poise and has acquired the ability to articulate her thoughts and feelings. She has begun to think for herself and is capable of manipulating any situation to her advantage.
The play enters into the third phase of development in Act Four. Eliza now encounters the great moment of truth and reality of her situation. Her education has created in her an intense dissatisfaction with the old way of life and she is not exactly pleased about the avenues open to her as a lady. She realizes that her social acquisitions do not enable her to fulfill her aspirations or even earn a living. She becomes aware of the wide disparity between her desires and the inadequacy of the means for fulfilling them. She repudiates Higgins' suggestion that she could marry a wealthy husband and wryly comments that earlier "I sold flowers, I didn't sell myself" while now that she has been made a lady she isn't fit to sell anything. She has thrown away her mask and reveals a newfound maturity. She throws Higgins' slippers at him and thereby breaks free from a life of subjugation and dependence. Critics feel that at this point the play enters into a period of calm and the main impetus of the action dissipates. Eliza's society appearance has been a tremendous success and after the climatic encounter between Higgins and Eliza in Act Four the dramatic tension disappears. Eliza runs away to Mrs.Higgins and the only issue left is the resolution of her relationship with Higgins. The readers have to agree that the main impetus of the action has disappeared since all the preceding acts had been gearing up for the crucial moment of Eliza's test. Now Alfred Doolittle's strategic second appearance performs a resuscitating act for the play in its dying stage. Doolittle's transformation from a dustman to a gentleman also provides an ironic comment on Eliza's metamorphosis.
After this brief spirit of energy the action returns to the issue at hand - the relationship between Eliza and Higgins. Eliza has developed into a self-sufficient woman and has become a perfect match for Higgins. She has garnered the requisite strength of character and maturity of thought to face life courageously. Gentility has become an integral aspect of her personality. No longer afraid of Higgins, she treats him as an equal. She negates his role in her transformation and insists that it was the Colonel's generosity and courteous behavior, which truly made her a lady. She rejects Higgins' proposal that he, she and Pickering live together like old bachelor friends and astounds him by announcing that she will marry Freddy instead and support him by offering herself as an assistant to Nepommuck. Higgins, although hurt at Eliza's suggestion of assisting the detestable Nepommuck, is nevertheless happy that Eliza is no longer a whining helpless creature but a tower of strength and a woman at last. The play concludes on an uncertain note and the readers do not know whether she might indeed marry Higgins. This reflects Shaw's inherent distaste for finality. In the majority of his plays the issues and conflicts they deal with are never quite resolved and the audience is left wondering about what will happen after the curtain falls.
However Shaw realizing the importance of an ending does provide a resolution in the epilogue. The drama lies neither in the conflict, nor in the discussion or the exposition. The conflict itself arises over the issue of the resolution of the problem. Unless there is a resolution, there is no drama, for the action remains incomplete. Action always has to be completed either comically or tragically. Hence in the epilogue, Shaw resolves the issue by making Eliza marry Freddy Hill. It was typical of Shaw to have provided such an anti-romantic conclusion to the play. Many commentators accuse Shaw of deliberately twisting the natural end of Pygmalion merely to make the play unromantic. But critics would do well to remember that the actual point of ending is not the issue of Eliza's marriage but her achievement of liberty. While throughout the play Higgins boasts of having transformed a common flower girl into a duchess, after Eliza's climactic assertion of independence from his domination he remarks, "I said I'd make a woman of you; and I have." In this perspective the original ambiguous ending seems preferable to the neat resolution given in the epilogue.
SUMMARY
One rainy evening in London, two gentlewomen, a mother and daughter, begin conversing with a poor flower girl while waiting for a taxi under the shelter of a portico crowded with people. Their conversation begins when Freddy, the son who is looking for the taxi, carelessly bumps into the flower girl. She attempts to get the mother to buy the flowers her son has damaged, and is successful. She then tries to sell her flowers to another gentleman, when someone in the crowd warns her that a man is taking notes on what she has been saying. She becomes hysterical, believing the man wrongly suspects her of prostitution, but it is discovered that he is merely a phonetician taking down her accent in phonetic script. He demonstrates that he can tell where any man in England was born just by hearing his accent. The gentleman the flower girl originally propositioned introduces himself to the phonetician as Colonel Pickering, an expert in Indian dialects. The notetaker reveals himself to be Henry Higgins, author of the Universal Grammar and professional language tutor. They part together for dinner, after Higgins throws a generous handful of coins to the miserable flower girl.
The next morning, Higgins is showing Pickering his laboratory when the flower girl arrives at his house. She announces that she want to take English lessons in order to speak well enough to work in a shop. The two phoneticians are shocked but amused by her proposition, and Pickering bets Higgins that he cannot transform the flower girl, Eliza, into a convincing duchess in six months. Higgins decides to take the bet and persuades the ruffled Eliza to agree to it. While Mrs. Pearce, Higgins's house servant, takes Eliza to her room and gives her a bath, Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle, arrives. Higgins guesses that Doolittle has come to blackmail him in some way, and tells Doolittle to take his daughter back. Doolittle does not want his daughter back; he just wants a little money. Higgins suggests that it is immoral to pay for a person, and Doolittle replies saying middle class morality is only an excuse to never give money to the poor. Higgins is amused and gives him some money. Eliza begins her lessons the next day, and she is tutored in the language and manners of a gentlewoman for the next six months.
Eliza's first public test takes place at Higgins's mother's house. Eliza has been instructed only to speak about health and the weather, but Higgins is nervous and in a bad humor. He succeeds in insulting the guests and worrying his mother before Eliza even arrives.
The guests happen to be the same gentlewoman, who bought a flower from Eliza during the rainstorm, and her daughter and son. Eliza makes quite a good impression, as her pronunciation and dress are perfect; however, when she tells an off-color story about her family Higgins realizes that she has a lot more to learn. Freddy, the son, is taken with Eliza's beauty and her peculiar ways. Clara, the daughter, is eager to master Eliza's shocking manners, which Higgins explains are in vogue. When all the company leaves, Higgins and Pickering gush over how fun their project with Eliza has been. Mrs. Higgins warns them that they must consider what to do with Eliza when the game is over.
At the end of the six-month period, Higgins and Pickering take Eliza to an Embassy ball. The Ambassador's wife is impressed with Eliza's perfect speech and all the guests marvel at her beauty; however, her crowning success is determined when a translator and former linguistic student of Higgins announces to the Ambassador that Eliza is a Hungarian princess.
Later that evening back in Higgins's study, Pickering congratulates Higgins on his success. Higgins complains that it was a boring task that he will not repeat. Eliza is insulted, and feels that her efforts are unappreciated. She is silent but then in a fit of desperation throws Higgins's slippers at him. He is insulted and says she has nothing to complain about. She says she is leaving and gives him back a ring he previously gave to her. He leaves the room angrily, and she gets her things together and leaves the house. She meets Freddy in the street and they embrace impulsively. She decides to go to Mrs. Higgins in the morning to ask for her advice on what to do.
The next morning, Higgins arrives at his mother's house in a panic. He has reported Eliza missing to the police, and seeks his mother's advice. Before she can tell him that Eliza is in the house, Mr. Doolittle arrives dressed in a wedding suit. He accuses Higgins of ruining his happiness. Doolittle has inherited three thousand pounds a year from an American philanthropist who was told by Higgins that Doolittle was the most original moralist in England. Doolittle laments the new responsibilities he must take on as a member of the middle class, including marrying his girlfriend, but says he cannot resist accepting the money. Eliza comes down and reconciles with Higgins, and they all accompany Doolittle to the wedding. Later, Eliza marries Freddy and opens a florist shop with Pickering's financial assistance.
ENDING
Despite the intense central relationship between Eliza and Henry, the original play ends with her leaving to marry the eager young Freddy Eynsford-Hill. Shaw, annoyed by the tendency of audiences, actors, and even directors to seek 'romantic' re-interpretations of his ending, later wrote an essay for inclusion with subsequent editions, in which he explained precisely why it was impossible for the story to end with Higgins and Eliza getting married.
Subsequent adaptations have all changed this ending. Despite his previous insistence that the original ending remain intact, Shaw provided a more ambiguous end to the 1938 film: instead of marrying Freddy, Eliza apparently reconciles with Henry in the final scene, leaving open the possibility of their marriage. The musical version My Fair Lady and its 1964 film have similarly happy endings.
MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
T.S. ELIOT
Thomas Sterns Eliot is considered one of the most controversial and influential literary personalities of the twentieth century. Eliot was born to a wealthy and respectable family of merchants in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 26, 1888. His grandfather, the Reverend William Greenleaf Eliot, established the first Unitarian Church in St. Louis. He was also a founder of Washington University and became its Chancellor in 1872. T.S. Eliot's father, Henry W. Eliot, was the president of the Hydraulic Press Brick Company. Eliot's mother was a woman of intellectual and literary interests. It is not surprising that Eliot's youth was filled with education, religion, and family closeness.
Eliot entered Harvard University in 1906 and graduated in three years. He received his Master's Degree in his fourth year at Harvard. While in school, he began his literary career by writing poems for the undergraduate literary magazine, "The Harvard Advocate." He also became the editor of the publication. During his undergraduate years, Eliot was deeply interested in literature, religion, and philosophy; he read extensively, especially the literature of the French poets. After graduation, he continued his study of philosophy and French literature. He attended the Sorbonne in Paris and Oxford in England. Although he wrote a dissertation for his Ph.D., he never received the degree.
After completing his studies, Eliot began to write. His first efforts were largely poetic. His early volumes of poetry include "Prufrock and Other Observations" (1917) and "Power" (1919). He started his own magazine, "The Criterion," which was published in London. His famous poem, " The Waste Land" first appeared in this magazine. Written in postwar disillusionment, "The Waste Land" portrayed Eliot's beginning search for his own religious faith. In 1925, he published another volume of poems entitled "The Hollow Man." In 1927, Eliot declared that he was a Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature, and a monarchist in politics.
From 1930 until 1960, Eliot produced a variety of literature. He produced two major poems, "Ash Wednesday" (1930) and "Four Quartets" (1943). The latter one is considered as his masterpiece. His "Selected Essays" was published in 1932. In 1934, he wrote "The Rock" and in 1935, he wrote "Murder in the Cathedral"; both are religious dramas. "The Family Reunion" (1939), "The Cocktail Party" (1959), "The Confidential Clerk" (1955) and "The Elder Statesman" (1959) are his other well-known plays. His essays like "Tradition and Individual Talent" brought him repute as a literary critic.
In 1927, T.S. Eliot became a British citizen. In 1932, he was appointed as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. In 1948, Eliot was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died in 1965. Today, Eliot is one of the eminent poets of the English language.
NOTE
Murder in the Cathedral was written for a ritualistic presentation. Hence, the reader does not find elaborate treatment of these components of the plot. The whole play has an economy of scenes and action. It has the effect of unity of action on a single theme of how martyrdom takes place.
SETTING
The play is set in two locations, the Cathedral of Canterbury and the Archbishop's hall, as they existed in medieval England. The play opens at the point of Becket's arrival in Canterbury, at Christmas time, after seven years of sojourn in France.
MOOD
The mood of the play is totally serious and somber, with a constant undercurrent of impending tragedy throughout.
THEMES
Major Theme
The major theme shows that it is a sin to seek Martyrdom. A martyr is born, per the will of God. A true martyr never wishes to be a martyr or acts to become one, but gives up his life to God with total surrender of his will. Thomas Becket becomes aware that the sole purpose of his life is to be God's servant. However, to serve God in order to gain the glory of martyrdom is an act against the will of God, a sinful act. Becket refuses to try and become a martyr. As he is attacked, he does not resist, nor is he excited; he simply accepts the murder. In this state of true acceptance of God's will lies his greatness. In becoming a martyr, Becket inspires his followers with strength and courage.
Minor Theme
Life is filled with temptations: the temptation of the luxurious/materialistic life, the temptation of subduing and using others, and the ultimate temptation of power. In his earlier life, Becket admits he was not always able to overcome temptation. But he has fully repented and put pride aside. Now in seeking to do only the will of God, he finds great strength. In truth, overcoming temptation always takes strength of faith and character, but the rewards of heaven are higher than the rewards of earth.
MAJOR CHARACTERS
Thomas Becket
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the protagonist of the play. His character is basically drawn from historical sources during the later part of twelfth century. Becket was close to King Henry II, but differences in their attitudes toward power drew them apart.
Henry II
The king who is never presented on stage, but whose invisible presence towers over the entire proceedings of the play. He is omnipresent.
CONFLICT
The conflict exists between the King and the Pope; that is between temporal power and spiritual power. Although the King of England and the Pope never appear on the stage, their forces clash throughout the play.
Protagonist
The protagonist is Thomas Becket, who represents the church and who resists Temptation.
Antagonist
The antagonist is the state (or King Henry II) whose casual remark that the priest should be taken out of his way brings about the death and ultimate martyrdom of Thomas Becket.
Climax
In the course of the play, the climax of the action occurs with the temptation by the four tempters who offer Becket various items ranging from money to unlimited power. Becket resists them all.
The play really opens at the true point of climax when the whole city of Canterbury is rejoicing, but the peasant women of the Chorus have a strange intuition of death. The tension is accompanied by a feeling that death is unavoidable, and it is almost accepted by the Chorus and the priests. What is left is only the ritual of killing and the prayer thereafter.
Outcome
The play ends in tragedy with the murder of Thomas Becket; thus, the protagonist (Becket) is overcome by the antagonist (the state).
PLOT (Synopsis)
The play can be said to begin at the climax, for the tension and fear imposed by the state have reached the people at the lowest level. At the beginning of the play, there is a sense of doom that hangs heavy in the air. Everyone fears that Becket's return will result in tragedy, clearly foreshadowing the end of the play from the very beginning.
The plot centers on the changed friendship between King Henry II and Thomas Becket. Henry has raised Becket to the post of Chancellor and later makes him the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Chancellor's position is that of the first subject in the Kingdom, controlling the ecclesiastical patronage of the King. The post of Archbishop is the highest religious head, next to the Pope. After becoming the Archbishop, Becket stops supporting the radical changes the King wants to introduce in England. Becket opposes the King's thirst for power, as he tries to raise the standard of the Crown higher than that of the Pope. Before the play begins, Becket has undergone a transformation and has started living a very pious life, giving up all the enjoyment he previously shared with the King. When disputes develop between the two, Becket flees to France.
With this background, the play begins with the news of Becket's return to England after seven long years in France. The people of Canterbury are overjoyed to have him back, and their welcome to him, though a small one, is astonishing. England is eagerly waiting for their beloved religious head that has always strongly supported and guided the poor peasants and countrymen. As the people are busy meeting and welcoming the Archbishop, the three priests have an apprehension that Becket is not fully reconciled with the King. Both of them are proud and strong personalities; as a result, they may not be able to renew their old tie of friendship. The priests worry that the homecoming may cost Becket his life.
The women of Canterbury represent the simple folk of the town. They have lived a hard life, and they know that it is their fate to suffer and struggle whether the King rules or the barons' rule. During the seven years of Becket's exile, their lives have been even more painful. Now since Becket is back home, they are happy; but they feel a curious sense of doom. They gather outside the cathedral and await Becket. They are asked to put on cheerful faces as Becket arrives. When Becket arrives, the priests greet him and apologize for their simple welcome. Becket informs them that his letters have been interrupted by spies and that his assassins have been waiting for an opportunity to kill him, like hungry hawks.
The tempters enter the stage and suggest if Becket pleases the King on his terms, he can become happy and prosperous. The temptations include a life full of fun and feasting; Chancellorship and the status of the post; joining hands with barons to overthrow the tyrannous King; and finally, dying at the hands of the assassins and becoming a martyr. Becket faces each tempter. The first temptation has no effect on him because he is no longer fascinated by feasting and good times. The second temptation of Chancellorship is also a weak one, for Becket is already a Keeper of "the Keys of heaven and hell." He is the supreme power in England and, hence, Chancellorship cannot lure him. The third temptation of overthrowing the King for the sake of the Normans is also brushed aside. Becket says that he will not act like a wolf and betray the King. The last temptation is sudden and unexpected. By allowing the King's assassins to kill him, he can acquire the glory of martyrdom. Becket soon realizes that even the desire of martyrdom if filled with sinful pride and will lead him to damnation. He refuses to commit the sin of cherishing the desire.
When all the tempters are sent away, it is clear that Thomas Becket is in grave danger. The tempters comment that he is an obstinate, blind man, bent on destroying himself. As Becket wins over these temptations, tension and fear take over the priests and the women of the chorus. They sense death at the door of the cathedral. Becket is calm and takes stock of his past life. He remembers how he followed worldly pleasures and accompanied the King in all his enjoyment and ambition. He regrets that in the past he had not become more of a servant of God. Now, he is willing to totally surrender to the will of God.
After this realization, Becket delivers a sermon in the cathedral of Canterbury on Christmas morning, 1170. He explains to the people the mystery of Christmas day. He tells them to rejoice in the birth of Christ because the Son of God was born to offer his blood to absolve humankind from sin. He also tells his listeners to mourn their sinful ways; then Christ will give them courage and strength to endure all suffering.
Becket closes his sermon with a discussion of Martyrdom. He says that Martyrdom does not come as an accident; it comes by God's will and design. A true martyr, who is always to be respected, is one who has given up even the wish for glory of martyrdom. Christ was the ultimate Martyr. Becket closes by saying that this is his last sermon and appeals to the people to remember his words.
After the sermon, the priests are busy carrying banners of St. Stephen, St. John the Apostle, and the Holy Innocents. The four knights enter and inquire about Becket, using abusive, rude language. They accuse Becket of being a traitor to the King, which Becket denies. Becket insists that any charge they make must be in public, so that he can refute them in public. The knights accuse Becket of denying the legality of the coronation of young Prince Henry. Becket replies that he wished three crowns to the prince and that he had no role to play in the episode. The knights demand that Becket absolve the bishops that the Pope had suspended. Becket replies that the suspension was ordered by the Pope, and he can do nothing about it. The Knights then say that Becket should leave the country along with his men. Becket says that he has lived away from his people in Canterbury for seven years, without giving them any hope or guidance, and now he will never forsake them again. He emphasizes that he will bow down to the judgment of the Pope and not the King of England. At this, the knights tell Becket that he is endangering his life, but he does not heed the threat. The knights leave in a furious state, and the chorus of women sing.
The song of the chorus describes the shadow of death all over the world that creates fear and anxiety. Thomas tries to pacify them. The priests request Becket to hurry to the altar and be safe there. They bolt the church doors. The chorus of women and priests are horrified at the idea of the killers coming and attacking the Archbishop. Becket orders them to open the doors, for he does not want to convert the church into a fortress. The knights enter again, calling him a traitor and, while Becket prays, he is killed. The women of the chorus are stunned. They feel as if the whole world is overtaken by evil and will never be clean again. After killing the Archbishop, the knights address the audience. William de Traci states that they have killed Becket not out of their personal enmity but for the good of their country. The second knight, Sir High de Morville, informs the group that Becket has been killed because he did not support the King's idea of uniting the power of the church and the state under the central government. Becket has been insistent that the church is higher than the crown. The last knight claims Becket is responsible for his own murder. He tries to explain his reasoning. Before becoming Archbishop, Becket has done a lot for his country, giving it unity, stability, tranquillity, and justice. When he becomes the Archbishop, he acquires a sense of superiority over the crown and becomes "a monster of egotism." He purposely avoids the knights' questions, argues against them, keeps the church door unlocked, and almost invites them to kill him. Hence, this knight deems Becket's death to be the suicide of a mentally unstable person. All the knights, however, admit that Becket was a great man, and they had no personal dispute with him. The knights leave after giving this brief explanation of their act of murder.
In the end, the grief-stricken priests and the chorus of women lament the death of Becket. They feel that they are all sinners and responsible for the blood of the martyrs. They pray to Jesus to have mercy on them and appeal to "blessed Thomas" to pray for them as well.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
SETTING
The action is first set in Medieval Athens, where Theseus is referred to by the medieval title of "Duke" and not as King. His forthcoming marriage with Hippolyta sets the merry mood of the play. Later the action shifts to the woods nearby Athens, which is inhabited by fairies and their King Oberon and Queen Titania. It is an appropriate setting for a play where fairies and mortals jostle with each other like in a dream.
MOOD
The prevailing mood of this comedy is light and romantic. Throughout the play, there is love, humor, music, song, and dance. The presence of the fairies and a general atmosphere of fantasy add to the charm and light-hearted nature of the play.
CHARACTER LIST
Characters are drawn from three different worlds: the Athenian Gentry, the Craftsmen of Athens, and the Fairy World.
Theseus
The Duke of Athens, who is admired by the people. He is a noble warrior; after defeating Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons, he decides to marry her. Their wedding is to take place in four days.
Hippolyta
The queen of the Amazons. She was defeated by Theseus and is now betrothed to him.
Hermia
The daughter of Egeus who is in love with Lysander. She refuses to marry Demetrius, the youth chosen by her father; as a result, she faces the death penalty, per an ancient Athenian law.
Lysander
The Athenian youth who is in love with and marries Hermia.
Demetrius
The man chosen by Egeus to marry his daughter, Hermia. He had been in love with Helena, but has now shifted his attention to Hermia. In the end gives up his claim on Hermia and marries Helena.
Helena
Hermia's friend, who was once loved by Demetrius. In spite of his desertion of her, she continues to love him and is married to him at the end of the play.
Egeus
The father of Hermia. He is an obstinate old man who insists that his daughter should either marry Demetrius or face death. He finally relents and allows Hermia to marry Lysander.
Philostrate
The master of ceremonies in Duke Theseus' court.
Oberon
The King of the fairies. In his attempt to teach Titania a lesson, he causes the confusion that contributes a great deal to the dramatic action of the play.
Titania
The fairy queen who has quarreled with Oberon over a changeling boy. She is put under a magic spell by Oberon and falls in love with Nick Bottom.
CONFLICT
In this play, Shakespeare has woven together three different worlds to create a most colorful tapestry of words. In these different worlds there are different conflicting interests, but they do not hurt or harm. The play is basically a romantic comedy of situation, where incidents are more important than individuals.
Protagonist
The protagonist is true love, as represented by three couples: Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, and Hippolyta and Theseus. The whole play centers around the central idea of lovers finding one another and being free to marry.
Antagonist
The antagonist is the group of forces that conspire to prevent the true lovers from being joined in matrimony. As stated in Act I, the course of true love never runs smoothly. Egeus opposes the love between Hermia and Lysander and goes to the extent of demanding Hermia's death if she does not marry Demetrius. He, therefore, also drives a wedge between Helena and Demetrius. The fairies, through their mixed-up magic, also confuse Lysander and Demetrius, who both are made to fall in love with Helena, a fact that causes Hermia to be jealous and angry.
Climax
The climax in A Midsummer Night's Dream occurs when Puck, the fairy, removes the spell from Lysander, allowing true love to run its normal course. Hermia and Lysander are united; accepting that he cannot have Hermia, Demetrius reasserts his love for Helena. Egeus has no choice but to accept Lysander and agrees that he can marry Hermia. Theseus invites the two couples to marry at the same time he marries Hippolyta.
Outcome
The play ends in comedy, for true love prevails, and three couples are happily united.
SHORT PLOT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is betrothed to Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. As they are discussing their marriage, which is just four days away, Egeus, an Athenian, comes to Theseus with a complaint that his daughter Hermia has refused to marry Demetrius, an Athenian youth chosen by him. He insists that Hermia be put to death, per the law prevailing in Athens. Theseus wants to give Hermia four days time to either agree to marry Demetrius or face death.
Hermia is in love with Lysander and does not want to marry Demetrius, who has been unfaithful to Helena. The lovers decide to leave Athens and go to Lysander's aunt, who lives seven leagues from Athens, where Athenian law cannot be enforced. They decide to meet the following night in the woods outside Athens. They reveal their plan to the heart-broken Helena in an attempt to console her. Helena decides to inform Demetrius about this plan, for she is certain that he will reward her for the information. She expects that Demetrius will pursue the lovers and decides to follow him to the woods.
The woods outside Athens is a favorite haunt of a band of fairies headed by Oberon and Titania. They have of late fought over a changeling boy who is in the care of Titania. Oberon demands that Titania give the boy to his page. Titania refuses and Oberon decides to teach her a lesson. He sends Puck, his attendant, to fetch the flower, called love-in-idleness, which has a magical quality. If the juice of the flower is squeezed over the eyes of a person who is asleep, it makes the person fall in love with the object he/she first sees on waking up. He decides to cast this spell over Titania.
As he is waiting for Puck to return with the flower, Helena and Demetrius enter the scene. All Helena's pleas are ignored by Demetrius, who is in pursuit of Hermia. Oberon feels sorry for Helena and decides to help her. When Puck arrives, he tells him to go in search of an Athenian youth with a lady and anoints his eyes with the juice of the flower. Oberon himself goes to Titania with the flower.
Puck mistakes Lysander and Hermia for Demetrius and Helena and squeezes the juice on Lysander's eyes. Meanwhile, Helena comes that way. Seeing Lysander, she calls out to him. Lysander wakes up, sees Helena, and falls in love with her. Helena thinks that he is teasing her and runs away from him, but Lysander pursues her.
In another part of the woods, the workmen from Athens have gathered to rehearse a play that they plan to present in honor of their Duke to celebrate his wedding. Puck sees them and decides to play a trick on them. He places an ass's head on Nick Bottom's shoulders. When his friends see Bottom transformed, they are scared and run away. Bottom feels that they are all trying to play a prank on him. To show them that he is not afraid, he starts "surging." The noise wakes up Titania, who is under the spell of love-in-idleness. She sees Nick Bottom and falls in love with him.
Oberon notices Demetrius still professing love to Hermia and realizes that Puck has made a mistake. Hermia spurns Demetrius and goes in search of Lysander. Demetrius, exhausted, falls asleep. Oberon orders Puck to bring Helena there and squeezes the juice of the flower on the eyes of Demetrius. Puck brings Helena to the scene, followed by Lysander. Demetrius wakes up and falls for Helena. Thus, both men are in love with the same girl, and Helena believes that they are both playing a cruel joke on her. Hermia arrives on the scene too. She is shocked to see the change in Lysander. Demetrius and Lysander decide to settle the matter by fighting a duel and move into the woods. They are followed by Helena and Hermia, quarreling with each other.
Oberon chides Puck for the mix-up and instructs him to cause a fog and lead the lovers into each other's path. When they fall asleep, Oberon tells Puck to squeeze an antidote on Lysander's eyes. Oberon goes to Titania and succeeds in making her give up the boy, because she is now in love with Nick Bottom. Then he removes the spell from her.
Puck manages to separate Lysander and Demetrius as they are preparing for the duel. Through the fog he leads them to the same spot. When they fall asleep, he removes the spell from Lysander.
Theseus and Hippolyta lead their people to the woods to begin the wedding festivities. They find Helena, Demetrius, Hermia, and Lysander fast asleep. When they wake up, Demetrius gives up his claim on Hermia and professes his love for Helena. Lysander is restored to Hermia. Theseus is quite happy with this turn of events and announces that all the weddings will be solemnized on the same day.
Puck has removed the ass's head from Nick Bottom, and he has returned to his friends. On the wedding night, he and his friends present the interlude, "The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe," much to the merriment of the company. Theseus and others retire for the night, and the scene is taken over again by the fairies with their songs and dance.
PLOT STRUCTURE ANALYSIS
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare has strung together three different stories, each one complete in itself, yet complemented by the other. First is the story of the Athenian nobility, which at first focuses on the forthcoming marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta who have fallen deeply in love after fighting each other in war. Next comes the story of Hermia and Lysander, who are determined to marry in spite of the protests of Egeus, Hermia's father. He is determined that his daughter will marry Demetrius. Demetrius, however, is a fickle man who has recently been in love with Helena, Hermia's good friend; therefore, the Helena/Demetrius story gets involved with the Hermia/Lysander story. Theseus is made aware of both of the love stories, because Egeus goes to him to request that the Duke enforce an ancient Athenian law that will put Hermia to death for refusing to obey her father.
The craftsmen's story, the second one in the plot, is introduced to the play and related back to the gentry because these men have been asked to put on a play as an entertainment during the marriage festivities. When Bottom "disappears", there is a great fear that the interlude cannot go one. Fortunately for the group, he reappears just in time to put on the play.
The third story in the plot centers on the world of the fairies. They wander in and out of the first two stories, interacting with both the humans of the gentry and the humans of the working class. They cast spells on Lysander and Demetrius, both noblemen, and manipulate whom the men will love. Additionally, Titania falls in love with Bottom, a craftsman actor, after she wakes from her magical spell. All three of the worlds come together in the woods, where the fairies dwell, when the gentry gathers, and where the craftsmen rehearse. This sameness of setting for all the groups helps to unify the plot.
Like all other romantic comedies by Shakespeare, the world of A Midsummer Night's Dream is a fantasy world of romance, love, humor, music, dance, song, and poetry. It exudes a dream-like quality and almost all the characters speak about having had a "strange or rare vision;" the dream becomes the unifying image of the entire plot and is even carried through to the title. As a stage production, the play has all the characteristics of a pageant; in fact, some critics have concluded that it may have been intended to be a masque presented at the wedding of an English noble.
THEMES ANALSYSIS
The major theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream is love in its various forms. The play opens with Theseus professing his love for Hippolyta. The days when they both fought as enemies are over, and now they are under the overpowering spell of love, both eagerly awaiting their marriage. Theseus declares, "Hippolyta I wooed thee with my sword / And won thy love doing thee injuries." Now, however, Theseus and Hippolyta have conquered hatred and enmity and have surrendered themselves to the purer emotions of love and passion.
The love of Hermia and Lysander is the idealistic love, born out of clear understanding, respect, and emotion. They are so deeply committed to one another that they are willing to put up a fight against anyone who opposes their love, be he an unwilling and obstinate father or a ruler of the city-state. When no one will grant them permission to marry, they take matters into their own hands, deciding to run away to a place where Athenian law cannot forbid them to marry.
Demetrius is the typical inconstant lover. He has been in love with Helena but then dotes on Hermia. Before the end of the play, and with the help of the fairies, he abandons Hermia and again loves Helena. In contrast to him, Helena is the constant lover who suffers but still continues to love. In spite of desertion and the ensuing cruelties she suffers, she remains faithful to Demetrius and feels she has won a jewel of a man when he proposes to her near the end of the play.
Additionally, there is the humorous love caused by magic spells, which makes people fall in love with the most unlikely partners. Titania, the fairy queen, falls in love with Bottom, a commoner dressed in an ass's head. Lysander falls in love with Helena, the best friend of Hermia, his true love. Demetrius falls in love with Helena--again - after previously deserting her for Hermia.
In the end, all the love described in the play turns out well. Titania is released from her spell and she allows Bottom to return to Athens in time for the interlude. The other three couples are happily united in matrimony. Only the interlude, the play within a play, has an element of tragic love, but even this ends in tragic mirth and lamentable comedy, which causes merriment and laughter rather than heartbreak and tears.
In this atmosphere of overpowering love, there is not much room for the development of minor Themes. The sub-plot of the craftsmen deals somewhat with the "fall" of Bottom. Though his pride is temporarily punished, his story does not have a serious moralistic tone. Bottom is really just a light-hearted diversion, and his short fall from grace is passed off, even by him, as a strange dream. This thought leads to the other minor theme, that life is sometimes like a dream and dreams are sometimes very life-like. Throughout the play, entitled as a dream, the characters wander in and out of both real and fantasy worlds.
HAMLET
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare is usually considered the greatest dramatist and finest poet the world has ever known. No other writer's plays and poetry have been produced so many times or in so many countries or translated into so many languages. One of the major reasons for Shakespeare's popularity is the variety of rich characters that he successfully creates, from drunkards and paid murderers to princes and kings and from inane fools and court jesters to wise and noble generals. Each character springs vividly to life upon the stage and, as they speak their beautiful verse or prose, the characters remind the viewers of their own personalities, traits, and flaws. Shakespeare also made his characters very realistic. The dramatist had an amazing knowledge of a wide variety of subjects, and his well-developed characters reflect this knowledge, whether it be about military science, the graces of royalty, seamanship, history, the Bible, music, or sports.
In Shakespeare's time, few biographies were written, and none of the literary men of the Elizabethan Age was considered important enough to merit a book about his life. The first portfolio of his works, collected as a memorial to Shakespeare by members of his own acting company, was not published until 1623, seven years after his death. His first biography was written one hundred years later. As a result, many of the facts of Shakespeare's life are unknown. It is known that he was born in Stratford-on-Avon in England, sometime in early 1564, for his Baptism is recorded on April 26 of that year. His mother Mary had eight children, with William being the third. His father, John Shakespeare, was a fairly prosperous glovemaker and trader who owned several houses in Stratford and became the town's mayor when Shakespeare was a boy. The young Shakespeare probably studied in the local grammar school and hunted and played sports in the open fields behind his home.
The next definite information about William Shakespeare is that the young man, at age 18, married Anne Hathaway, who was 26, on November 28, 1582. In 1583, it is recorded that Anne gave birth to their oldest child, Susanna, and that twins, Hamnet and Judith, were born to the couple in 1585. By 1592, the family was living in London, where Shakespeare was busy acting in plays and writing his own dramas. From 1592 to 1594, the plague kept most London theaters closed, so the dramatist turned to writing poetry during this period, and his poems, which were actually published unlike his plays, became popular with the masses and contributed to his good reputation as a writer. From 1594 to the end of his career, Shakespeare belonged to the same theatrical company, known first as Lord Chamberlain's Men and then as the King's Company. It is also known that he was both a leader and stockholder in this acting organization, which became the most prosperous group in London, and that he was meeting with both financial success and critical acclaim.
In 1954, Shakespeare was popular enough as an actor to perform before Queen Elizabeth. By 1596, he owned considerable property in London and bought one of the finest houses in Stratford, known as New Place, in 1597. A year later, in 1598, he bought ten percent of the stock in the Globe Theatre, where his plays were produced. In 1608, he and his colleagues also purchased The Blackfriars Theatre, where they began to hold productions during the winter, returning to the Globe during the summer months. Throughout the rest of his life, Shakespeare continued to purchase land, homes, and businesses. He obviously was a busy man between handling his business ventures, performing on the stage, and writing or collaborating on the thirty-seven plays that are credited to him.
Shakespeare's most productive years were from 1594 to 1608, the period in which he wrote all of his great tragedies, such as Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Romeo and Juliet. During these fourteen years, he furnished his acting company with approximately two plays annually. After 1608, it appears he went into semi-retirement, spending more time in Stratford and creating only five plays before his death on April 23, 1616. He was buried before the altar in the Stratford Church, where his body still lies today. Many literary students and visitors make a pilgrimage to this shrine each year in order to honor William Shakespeare, still recognized after 400 years as the world's greatest poet and dramatist.
LITERARY/HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Probably written in 1601 or 1602, Hamlet is probably one of Shakespeare's most studied and popular plays. Loosely based on Danish history, the play most likely has its origins in Histoires Tragiques, written by Belle-Forest in 1570; much of Belle-Forest's information is drawn from the Historica Danica, written by Saxo Grammaticus in 1208. In Belle-Forest's version of Hamlet, it is a known fact that Claudius, the King's brother, murders him and takes the throne. Claudius then tries to find reason to have Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, put to death in order to ensure his retention of the throne. Realizing her error in marrying Claudius, Hamlet's mother begs forgiveness from her son and acts with him to seek vengeance on Claudius. During a banquet, Hamlet sets fire to the dining hall and beheads his uncle, the guilty King of Denmark. Hamlet is then crowned King.
As usual, Shakespeare has researched information about his main character and then changed him into the dramatic personage that he becomes. Although the Shakespearean version of Hamlet has similarities to the Belle-Forest version, there are also obvious differences, including the introduction of the Ghost to heighten dramatic interest and the death of Hamlet at the end of the play to heighten the tragedy. The end results of Shakespeare's changes are the creation of a powerful and memorable protagonist and a dramatically effective play.
MOOD
An atmosphere of evil darkness pervades the play right from the beginning, for "something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Hamlet feels that he is living in a world of deceit and corruption where no one can be trusted. For that matter, reality is not even certain. The imagery of disease, corruption, and decay contributes to the mood of darkness and evil. The aura of tragedy is present from the beginning to the end of the play; the only slight respite in the dark mood comes in the Gravediggers' scene, but even the comedy of this scene is morbid.
PLOT (Structure)
The basic structure of the plot of Hamlet is remarkably simple; a wrong occurs and the hero seeks revenge to make it right. In the process, everyone is destroyed. Shakespeare develops the plot of his "revenge" tragedy in classical form. Act I is largely expository in nature, introducing the main characters and the conflict. Acts II, III, and IV contain the rising action of the plot as the conflict develops, largely in Hamlet's mind. Act V contains the climax, a short period of falling action, and the denouement, or conclusion, in which Fortinbras takes control of Denmark to bring order to the country once again.
The genre of "revenge tragedy" or "tragedy of blood" was immensely popular among English Elizabethan dramatists. In typical revenge tragedies, such as Hamlet, the plot arises largely out of a situation for which the hero is not responsible. Additionally, even though the hero may have a tragic flaw that contributes to his downfall, he is usually undone by circumstances over which he has no control. Accordingly in Hamlet, the crime that calls for vengeance has already been committed before the play begins. The real cause of the tragedy is the evil and intolerable situation surrounding Claudius' murder of Hamlet's father, the King. As Hamlet tries to find a way to avenge his father's death, murder, madness, and ghosts are all brought to the front of the stage, creating interest and tension in the audience.
The plot of the play is not complex. It progresses in a linear fashion, with all events happening in chronological order. There are a few flashbacks, as when Hamlet recounts the events that happened on the ship some time after they occurred, but they are easily followed and understood. The play-within-a-play even functions as a flashback as it reveals how Claudius has murdered the late King Hamlet. There are also many foreshadowings to indicate what will happen later in the play; for example, the stabbing of Polonius foreshadows the stabbing of Claudius and the victorious return of Fortinbras foreshadows his ascension to the Danish throne.
The climax of the plot is a masterfully written conclusion to a tense drama dominated by internal and external conflict. All of Act V is filled with dramatic irony, as many of the characters, as well as the audience, know that Laertes' sword is unscathed and bears a poison tip; also they are aware that the wine for Hamlet to drink has been poisoned by Claudius. Only Hamlet and his naïve mother seem to be unawa re of the tragedy that is to unfold. The entire scene is made more tense by the fact that Hamlet at first seems to winning the conflict -- making the first two strikes, remaining untouched by Laertes' foil, and refusing to drink the poisoned wine. In presenting a recovered Hamlet, now acting with determination and control, Shakespeare hints that tragedy may be avoided. Unfortunately, the tragic hero has procrastinated too long, and the rotten state of Denmark seems to have affected everyone. As a result all must die; Hamlet is stabbed by the poisoned sword, Laertes is killed by Hamlet, Gertrude drinks the poisoned wine and dies, and Claudius finally gets his just rewards when Hamlet drives the poisoned sword into his flesh and forces him to drink from the poisoned wine. Fortunately, Horatio is left behind to explain the villainy of Claudius and the innocence of Hamlet; additionally, a savior, in the person of Fortinbras, is left to restore order to the corrupt state of Denmark.
SETTING
The play is set at Elsinore, the royal court of the King of Denmark. The play begins in the open battlements of the castle on a bitterly cold night, then shifts inside the castle to the formality and conventions of the court. A total of two scenes take place on the battlements; the rest occur in various locations inside the royal court, except for a brief scene at the cemetery.
CHARACTERS (Major Characters)
Hamlet
The Prince of Denmark. Hamlet is the central character and protagonist of the play. His father, the King, has recently died, and his mother has remarried within weeks of his death, causing Hamlet great unhappiness. The ghost of his father tells him that he was murdered and that his uncle, the new King, is responsible. Hamlet becomes fixed on vengeance for his father and feigns insanity as a means of executing his plot.
Claudius
The present King of Denmark and Hamlet's uncle. He succeeds to the throne by murdering his brother and incestuously marrying his sister-in-law. He is devious and manipulative, except for one moment of fearful regret.
Gertrude
Hamlet's mother and the foolish, weak-willed Queen of Denmark. She is accidentally killed in the finale by drinking poisoned wine that Claudius intended for Hamlet.
Ophelia
Polonius' daughter. She loves Hamlet but is forbidden to see him at the request of her father. Later, when her father commands her to receive Hamlet, she is rejected. Hamlet's "madness" and her father's death are unbearable to her, and she has a breakdown. She drowns in the creek in what is probably a suicide.
Polonius
Ophelia's father and the Lord Chamberlain of Elsinore. He has an annoying habit of spying and eavesdropping. He is a pompous and wordy fool who is accidentally killed by Hamlet when he is mistaken for King Claudius.
Minor Characters
Horatio
Hamlet's loyal friend and confidante. He is a scholar and philosopher, as well as the first character to speak to the Ghost. He is the only person on whom Hamlet can rely in times of adversity. At the end of the play, Hamlet gives him the responsibility to "report me and my cause aright /To the unsatisfied."
Laertes
The hot-headed son of Polonius and brother of Ophelia. He is a man of action and represents a distinct contrast to Hamlet. He orders Ophelia not to reciprocate Hamlet's love. Near the end of the play, he challenges Hamlet to a duel to avenge the deaths of his father and sister. He willingly conspires with Claudius and uses a poisoned foil to ensure Hamlet's death. In the end, he confesses all to Hamlet before both men die.
Fortinbras
Prince of Norway. He is an aggressive leader who longs to recover the lands and power lost by his father in a past battle with Denmark. Eventually, he is asked by Hamlet to rule Denmark in the aftermath of the tragedy.
The Ghost of Hamlet's Father
An apparition that reveals how Claudius treacherously murdered him by pouring poison in his ear.
CONFLICT
Protagonist
The protagonist of the play is Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. When the play opens, Hamlet has been summoned from the University at Wittenberg on account of the sudden death of his father, who supposedly died from snakebite. He returns to find that his mother has already wed his father's brother. The hasty marriage and sudden death cause Hamlet a considerable degree of unhappiness. His trouble is intensified when the Ghost of his dead father tells him his death was not accidental; instead it was a murder carefully perpetrated by his own brother Claudius, the new King of Denmark. The Ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his death. Hamlet struggles with the duty left to him, unsure of how to proceed. In the end, he does exact vengeance, but at the cost of his own life and the lives of those dearest to him.
Antagonist
Claudius is Hamlet's antagonist and the villain of the play. He begins his evil deeds by murdering his own brother (Hamlet's father), then marrying his widowed wife (Hamlet's mother). Hamlet learns from the ghost of his father that Claudius is the murderer; as a result, he spends the entire play trying to gain his revenge against Claudius. When Claudius realizes that Hamlet has begun to suspect him, he arranges to have the Prince killed. When his first plan fails, he creates several back-up plans with the assistance of Laertes, a hasty and impulsive young man whose sister Ophelia has been in love with Hamlet. Though his plot succeeds in killing Hamlet, he also dies in the final moments of the play. Hamlet stabs him, then forces him to drink poisoned wine.
Climax
The climax of the play is the Hamlet-Laertes duel. Claudius has fixed the outcome of the duel in such a way that Hamlet will perish no matter what. But there are also several events related to the duel. Queen Gertrude accidentally drinks some poison intended for Hamlet and dies. Hamlet, wounded by Laertes' poisoned sword, stabs his opponent. Before he dies, Laertes tells Hamlet about the evil plots of Claudius and the poison now coursing through Hamlet's veins. He tells the wounded prince his death is very near. Before he dies, Hamlet stabs Claudius and forces him to drink poison. When the Prince of Norway enters, the dying Hamlet makes him ruler over Denmark.
Outcome
The play ends in tragedy for Hamlet, for he is overcome by Claudius, his antagonist, and dies; at least, however, he does get his revenge against Claudius, stabbing the king. Fortunately, Denmark is at least spared. Hamlet's friend Horatio acts as a witness to all that has transpired. He absolves Hamlet of guilt in the bloody tragedy and reveals to all the treachery of the King. Fortinbras, the Prince of Norway, prepares a military burial for Hamlet and assumes control of the country, restoring order.
SHORT PLOT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
The King of Denmark is killed by an apparent snakebite while sleeping in the garden. His brother Claudius assumes the throne and marries the widowed Queen, Gertrude, within weeks of the King's death. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark and the dead King's son, mourns for his father and anguishes over his mother's hasty remarriage, considering it as unnatural as incest.
The play opens outside the castle grounds, where three guards have been witnessing the appearance of a Ghost who looks like the dead King. They ask the Prince and his friend Horatio to come see the Ghost. Prince Hamlet speaks to the apparition, who claims to be the spirit of his dead father. In a private conversation, the Ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius, in fact, murdered him. The Ghost asks Hamlet to avenge his murder. Hamlet takes his responsibility to seek vengeance for his father very seriously, perhaps too seriously.
Hamlet is in love with Ophelia, the daughter of Polonius (the Lord Chamberlain); however, the father commands Ophelia to reject Hamlet's advances. Polonius and his son Laertes believe Hamlet will never marry Ophelia since her rank is beneath his. Although Ophelia is very much in love with Hamlet, she is an obedient child; as a result, she complies with her father's commands. Satisfied that his sister is now safe, Laertes goes off to France in pursuit of a good time. Ophelia and her father are left to look after one another. When Hamlet feigns madness in order to observe the new King and his mother, Polonius tells the King that Hamlet's madness is because of unrequited love for Ophelia. He orders Ophelia to return Hamlet's advances to test this theory. Hamlet spurns Ophelia, however, breaking her heart.
The King begins to suspect that Hamlet knows about the murder, but Hamlet is hesitant and full of anxiety over how to proceed. When at last he moves to punish Claudius, he accidentally kills Polonius. Ophelia, on hearing the news of her father's death, loses her mind and drowns in the river. Claudius, now more fearful than ever that Hamlet will eventually expose him, makes arrangements for Hamlet to die. Hamlet, however, escapes Claudius' plans and returns to Elsinore to exact revenge.
Laertes, now seeking revenge against Hamlet on behalf of his father and sister, challenges Hamlet to a duel. Secretly, he has conspired with Claudius to make sure Hamlet dies in the battle. The sword he uses is poisoned, as is Hamlet's drink. During the duel, the Queen accidentally drinks the poisoned cup and dies. Hamlet and Laertes are both seriously wounded. Before dying, Laertes confesses all to Hamlet, telling him the details of Claudius' plot against him, including the fact that he will die shortly from the poison. Hamlet kills Claudius, then implores his friend Horatio to tell the world the truth about the tragedy. Horatio lives to clear Hamlet's name, and the Prince of Norway comes to restore order to Denmark.
THEMES
The Theme of Vengeance
The main theme in Hamlet is one of vengeance and family honor. Initially Fortinbras is the representation of vengeance. Hamlet's father, the late King, has defeated Fortinbras' father in battle. As a result, young Fortinbras aspires to recover the lands and power lost by his father as a way of honoring and avenging him. Though he eventually finds another means of vengeance, his example is duly felt. Hamlet does not act as quickly as Fortinbras; his own indecision and fear paralyze him. Eventually his revenge occurs, but at great cost to all. The irony is that Hamlet, by fulfilling his revenge, has destroyed the family whose honor he sought to avenge. His mother and he both perish, as well as the woman who would have willingly borne his children. Laertes is the third son to avenge a father, but he, too, causes great destruction. He allows his base emotions to rule him, and he becomes a cohort of the evil Claudius. Rather than approach vengeance as a task to be carried out in the most acceptable fashion, Hamlet and Laertes fix themselves on murder as the only means of revenge. Unfortunately, this decision ultimately destroys them both.
Appearance vs. Reality
Shakespeare also examines his favorite theme of the discrepancy between appearance and reality. The dilemma of what is "real" is established at the very beginning of the play. The dead King appears to have been bitten by a snake. In reality, he has been poisoned. The Ghost appears as an apparition from the depths of hell; in truth, he is the medium of reality, revealing the facts to Hamlet. Since Hamlet doubts the veracity of the Ghost's revelation, he decides to put on the appearance of being mad; in the process he really drives Ophelia mad, causing her death. At times it also seems that Hamlet's appearance of madness has become a reality. The duel scene also presents an appearance vs. reality. The duel appears to be an innocent competition between two rivals; in reality, it is a deadly match that causes the death of the four main characters. The most obvious, and perhaps the most clever, symbol of "Appearance vs. Reality" is the play-within-a-play. The actors, representing mythical figures, appear onstage and act out the events that have happened in reality. Hamlet carefully orchestrates this appearance so that he can gauge the degree of reality by Claudius' reaction. In summary, the theme of appearance vs. reality is so well developed that everything in the play must be questioned, for nothing appears certain.
Rishi Kumar Nagar
MA English and Sanskrit, MPhil (UK) MJMC, PGDTE
No comments:
Post a Comment