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Elizabethan Theatre & Drama | Elizabethan Drama Summary & Analysis

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Introduction

The Elizabethan age was the golden age of English drama. Elizabethan Drama is written and performed publicly in England throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It started in 1550 and end in 1620. Elizabeth queen of England inspired all of England’s people with unbounded patriotism. Under her administration, English Literature reached the very highest point of its development.

Predecessor Of Elizabethan Drama

In the Elizabethan age, the scholars of University wits were known as predecessors of Elizabethan drama. The term University wits refer to a group of young dramatist of the Early Elizabethan period, who were associated with the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. They are:

Christopher Marlowe

Thomas Lodge
Thomas Nasche
Rebert Green
George Peel

Themes of Elizabethan Drama

a) Anti – Semitism b) Revenge Tragedy c) Supernatural Elements d) Comedy of Humours

a) Anti- Semitism: – Among the popular themes was Anti-Semitism in Elizabethan society which is reflected in the plays Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta and Wiliam Shakespeare” The Merchant of Venice.

b) Revenge Tragedy: – Revenge was another popular theme Be it a ghost-like in Thomas Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy” or a prince in Shakespeare’s Hamlet The motive of revenge became the main counter-motive in drama, especially tragedies.

c) Supernatural Element: – Another theme that was prominent was the supernatural as the society of the time was highly superstitious with people believing in supernatural forms. Ghosts became the prime moving force in many tragedies.

d) Comedy of humours: – use of psychology was extensive and was founded on the theory of humor inside a human body, namely, blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile Ben Jon’s Every man is his humor is the best example of comedy of humor.

Dramatic Devices in Elizabethan Drama

Asides or private conversations and soliloquies are used to engage with the audience and have become quite popular.

lambic Pentameter with five two-syllable units or ‘feet was the most popular construction of the age Blank verse with iambic pentameter was the most popular construction of the age.

Blank verse with iambic pentameter was also used profusely in Elizabethan plays.

Dramatist of Elizbethan Era

Some of the most important dramatists come from Elizabethan Era, including:

William Shakespeare

Ben johnson.

The first greatest dramatist of the time Queen Elizabethan Era was Christopher Marlowe. Though he lived a short life he wrote some powerful tragedies, which are counted among the great works of the English stage. His first tragedy Tamburlaine is written in Blank Verse with colorful images of power and violence.

Marlowe ‘ Dr. Faustus is based on the well-known story of a man (Faustus) who sold his soul to the devil in order to power and riches in life. In the next play, The Jew of Malta a rich Jew refuses to pay taxes to the governor of Malta so his property is taken from him, and in revenge, he begins a life of Violence. Edward the Second is probably Marlowe’s best play. It is comparable to Shakespeare’s best historical plays.

William Shakespeare is taken as the finest dramatist of all time. He began his career as a play actor and then moved to playwriting. He had great dramatic as well as poetic gifts. His plays look like a living world of people. His characters have both individual and universal qualities.

In the beginning, Shakespeare wrote historical plays. In all his historical plays he provides social commentary. Some of Shakespeare’s historical plays are – Richard The Second, Richard the Third, King Henry the Fourth, Fifth, and sixth.

Shakespeare also wrote a good number of comedies. They are better than his historical plays. Among his famous comedies are – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant Of Venice, Twelfth Night, and As you Like it.

William Shakespeare also wrote tragedies. His four great tragedies are- Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello.

The central character in these tragedies are always great men like – King, Queen, Price, and so on.

Ben Johnson is one of the greatest dramatists of the Elizabethan age. His plays are less beautiful and less attractive than Shakespeare’s. He believes in three unities, which are the unities of place, time, and action. The ancient writer influenced much of Johnson’s Ideas.

Everman in His Humour is his famous play. Johnson wrote approximately 20 plays alone with other playwrights. Among his comedies – Valpone, The Silent Woman, and The Alchemist are world-famous.

So, now we can say that, In the development of English Literature, Elizabethan Drama and their dramatist have played a very important role.

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Elizabethan Theatre and Drama

The simple definition of Elizabethan theatre and drama is that it is drama written during the reign of Elizabeth I, but that is absurdly simplistic: Elizabethan drama is much more than that.

Queen Elizabeth I of England and Ireland reigned from 1558 to 1603, during the time when Europeans were starting to break out of the cultural constraints imposed by the medieval Church. Great thinkers across Europe were courageously directing their eyes away from the face of God and turning them towards the mind, the form and the ideas of human beings in a huge humanistic movement. Instead of just accepting the flat, two dimensional assumptions about life, God, the planet and the universe itself that the Church pedalled, they were challenging those assumptions. This led to a blossoming of new perceptions in every area of human endeavour – art, music, architecture, religion, science, philosophy, theatre and literature. Artists, composers, scientists and writers looked back beyond the darkness of fourteen centuries and took their inspiration from the humanist qualities in Greco-Roman culture.

An Elizabethan theatre – home to Elizabethan drama

The Renaissance flowered right across Europe but had different emphases in the different European cultures – it was religion and philosophy in Germany, for example; art, architecture and sculpture in Italy. And in England, it was Elizabethan theatre drama. All through the Middle Ages English drama had been religious and didactic. When Elizabeth came to the throne most of the plays on offer to the public were Miracle Plays, presenting in crude dialogue stories from the Bible and lives of the saints, and the Moralities, which taught lessons for the guidance of life through the means of allegorical action. They were primarily dramas about God, not about people.

By the time Elizabeth’s reign ended there were over twenty theatres in London , all turning over several plays a week – plays that were secular in their nature, and about people. That represented a complete revolution in theatre, and makes Elizabethan theatre distinct. What changed at that time was that the theatre became a place where people went to see, not dramatised lectures on good behaviour, but a reflection of their own spirit and day-to-day interests. They wanted to laugh and to cry – to be moved, not by divine reflection, but by human beings doing good and bad things just as they did – loving and murdering, stealing, cheating, acting sacrificially, getting into trouble and behaving nobly: in short, being human like themselves.

This new Elizabethan theatre scene attracted writers of great calibre who thought of themselves simply as craftsmen – in the same way as coopers or wheelwrights did, and not ‘great writers,’ as we think of them today. But even so, most of the theatre writers of Elizabethan England have not been equalled during the four centuries since that time. There was a lot of money to be made feeding this huge new appetite for plays, and good playwrights who played their cards well and made good contacts – as Shakespeare did – became rich.

So when we look back at Elizabethan drama from the twenty-first century what do we see? We see, for the first time, stage presentations of the human experience. We see acts of great nobility by flawed heroes – a great theme of Greek tragedy – perfected by Shakespeare in such plays as Hamlet , Macbeth , King Lear etc. We see human beings at their meanest level; we see psychological studies of the human character, such as the psychopathic Iago in Othello ; we see the exploration of the deepest human emotions, such as love in Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra . Although most of the plays of the Elizabethan period have an underlying Christian assumption, because of the culture of the time in which they were written they are essentially humanist – in tune with the Renaissance spirit of the time.

In Elizabethan drama, because it is about people rather than God, we see a lot of humour. Again, modelled on the Greek comedies, the humour is perfected by the likes of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson with their memorable comic characters and their satirical look at their own time, as well as light-hearted social comedies. In Shakespeare’s plays there is humour even in the darkest plays, such as the frequent ‘laugh’ lines in Hamlet . Shakespeare more or less invented a form of drama that mixed all genres, so that his tragedies contain comic elements, his comedies tragic elements, and his histories contain both. In Shakespeare’s case the winds of Renaissance gave him the freedom to reflect all aspects of human beings in his plays, and he wrote plays that have not only lasted for four hundred years but which have very rarely (if at all) been bettered during that time.

Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign playwrights were developing new themes and techniques which led to the distinctive Jacobean theatre with its more crusty, violent plays that focused on the human being’s capacity for selfishness, dramatised in in-depth representations of ambition and its effects.

What do you think of this Elizabethan theatre article – anything to add? Please join in the conversation in the comments below!

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Elizabethan Theatre

Elizabethan Theatre , sometimes called English Renaissance theatre, refers to that style of performance plays which blossomed during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (r. 1558-1603) and which continued under her Stuart successors. Elizabethan theatre witnessed the first professional actors who belonged to touring troupes and who performed plays of blank verse with entertaining non-religious themes.

The first purpose-built permanent theatre was established in London in 1576 and others quickly followed so that drama simply to entertain became a booming industry. Theatres showing plays daily led to permanent acting companies which did not have to tour and so could invest more time and money into wowing their audience of both sexes and all social classes. The most celebrated playwright of the period was William Shakespeare (1564-1616) whose works were performed at the famous Globe Theatre in London and covered such diverse themes as history, romance, revenge, murder, comedy and tragedy.

Elizabeth I & the Arts

The Elizabethan age saw a boom in the arts in general but it was the performance arts that perhaps made the most lasting contribution to English and even world culture . The queen was herself an admirer of plays, performances, and spectacles which were frequently held at her royal residences. Elizabeth carefully managed her image as the Virgin Queen who had sacrificed her personal life to better concentrate on the good of her people. Theatre was, therefore, just one of the media she used to project her own glory and that of her family, the Tudors. The queen actively sponsored artists and playwrights.

Naturally, the Elizabethans did not invent theatre as plays have been performed ever since their invention by the ancient Greeks of the 6th century BCE. Medieval England had witnessed the performance of morality plays and mystery plays, there were even dramas performed by actors during religious ceremonies and holidays. There were also Masques, a type of mime where masked performers sang, danced, and recited poetry, wearing extravagant costumes, and stood before painted scenery. Finally, towns across England had long funded public shows, which involved musicians, acrobats, and jesters, and these continued even as theatre became popular.

The Elizabethan period saw these public performers become a professional body of entertainers. The first professional troupes of actors were sponsored by the queen, nobles, and anyone else who had the money for such entertainments. Plays were performed which, perhaps thanks to the English Reformation , were now entirely free from religious themes and not connected to public holidays or religious festivals. Secular plays presented a new challenge, though, and the influence of popular art on politics and public minds was recognised by Elizabeth, who banned performances of unlicensed plays in 1559. In the 1570s, religious play cycles were also banned. The royal control of theatre continued in 1572 when only nobles were permitted to sponsor professional acting troupes. From 1574 all troupes had to be licensed, too.

The move away from divisive religious topics had led writers to explore other themes, and their imaginations knew no bounds. Historical topics were especially popular with the new playwrights in a period when a sense of English nationalism was developing as never before. This combined with a Humanist interest in Greek and Roman antiquity. Royal patronage of theatre would continue during the reign of Elizabeth's successor, James I of England (r. 1603-1625) who funded three professional actor companies (aka playing companies).

Professional Actors & Theatres

The first professionally licensed troupe of actors belonged to Elizabeth's court favourite Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (l. c. 1532-1588). Called 'Leicester's Men' they gained their license in 1574 and toured the country's stately homes giving performances. Naturally, actors needed a suitable stage on which to impress and so the first purpose-built theatres soon arrived. In 1576 London received its very first purpose-built and permanent playhouse, founded by James Burbage (c. 1530-1597), himself an actor, and simply known as the Theatre (although there were earlier adapted buildings with temporary scaffolding such as the 1567 Red Lion). Located on Holywell Street in Shoreditch, the Theatre was a wooden enclosed building with no roof in the centre, and it welcomed audiences of both courtiers and commoners. The Theatre was such a success that other theatres were built, starting with the Curtain. Burbage opened a second theatre in London, Blackfriars Theatre, by converting a disused Dominican monastery. There was also the Rose (1587) and the Swan (1595) as the theatre business positively boomed and Elizabeth's encouragement of her nobles to stay at court and have residences at the capital guaranteed a ready audience. Other towns soon followed the fashion and acquired theatres, too; early adopters being Bath, Bristol, Norwich, and York. By the time of the Stuart kings, many theatres were offering a performance of a different play every day, typically in the afternoons, to a knowledgeable audience of men and women expecting to see novel entertainment. Even the most popular plays were only performed a handful of times each year as theatres strived to entertain regular theatre-goers.

Further, as theatres developed so actors and playwrights were freed from the obligations and restrictions that sponsorship by nobles brought. It was the Theatre, though, which was to become world-famous, especially after 1599 when it was relocated to the south bank of the River Thames and given a new name: the Globe Theatre.

The Globe Theatre opened for business in 1599 and was owned by Burbage's sons and some members of the professional acting company known as Chamberlains' Men. One of these investors was William Shakespeare, and he and other actors and playwrights shared half of the profits from the theatre while the other half went to pay secondary actors, musicians, costumes, and maintenance costs. Crucially, then, the establishment of theatres meant that previously travelling actors could now form a more solid financial base which allowed them to produce more plays and give them a much higher production value. Theatre companies could boast twelve or more permanent main actors and a number of bit-part players, boys and apprentices. Also on the staff were musicians, writers, artists, and copyists.

The Globe Theatre was made of wood, more or less circular in form, and open to the skies in the centre. Rising to a height of 12 metres (40 ft.) and measuring 24 metres (80 ft.) across, inside were three tiers of seating providing a capacity of around 2,000. The theatre got its name from the globe on its roof, which carried the legend in Latin of Shakespeare's famous line 'All the world's a stage.' The Globe's own stage was rectangular, measured some 12 metres in length and was protected by a thatch roof. Around 12 actors could perform on the stage at any one time. Behind the stage was a gallery which could seat more viewers or be used as an important part of the play (e.g. Juliet's balcony in Romeo and Juliet ). The audience could be surprised by such technical tricks as lowering actors on wires or having them appear or disappear through a trapdoor in the stage floor.

In the second half of the 17th century, some important developments arrived. Women played women parts (previously boys had done this) and large flat painted scenes, often with perspective incorporated into them, were moved on sliding rails on and off stage. Another change was that now plays had extended runs with the same performance being repeated each day, a development that actors with short memories must have greatly welcomed. The pattern of performance plays was set and would remain in place right up to the present day.

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William shakespeare.

William Shakespeare has become one of the most celebrated authors in any language. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, it was not until 1592 that William became known in theatre circles. Two years later he joined Chamberlain's Men and then, as mentioned above, became an important member of the Globe Theatre's permanent staff, a position he held throughout his writing career. William produced on average two plays every year, writing 37 in all. The dating of Shakespeare's works is problematic as none have surviving original manuscripts and so historians have looked to their content and other documentary evidence. The plays are usually divided into four groups and illustrate the broad scope of Elizabethan theatre in general. These categories are: comedies, romances, histories, and tragedies. The works, like many plays of the period, combine wordplay and in-joke references to contemporary politics with tales of love, dark deeds of revenge and murder, historical events, historical fiction, and a big dollop of jingoism.

Shakespeare's first play is usually cited as Henry VI Part I , written around 1589. His most popular plays include A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1596) which revolves around the wedding of the Greek hero Theseus and the Amazon Hippolyte, Henry V (1599) which includes a fictionalised version of that king's rousing speech at the Battle of Agincourt of 1415, Hamlet (c. 1601) which tells the revenge of the Danish prince of that name against his evil uncle, and Macbeth (1606), titled after the Scottish king who descends into madness after embarking on a rampage of murder.

Other Playwrights & Actors

Under the Stuart kings, it became fashionable and profitable to print the scripts of plays, even if they were always originally written with performance in mind. Some 800 play scripts survive from the 16th and 17th century, although this is only a small proportion of those produced at the time. After Shakespeare, the next most celebrated Elizabethan playwright is Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). In 1587 his first play was performed, Tamburlaine the Great . The play was a smash hit and told the epic tale of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire in central Asia (1370-1507). Other successes followed such as The Tragedy of Dido , Queen of Carthage but, like many playwrights and poets of the period, Marlowe was prone to drinking bouts, and it was a brawl in a tavern that ended in his death . As Marlowe also worked as a spy for the government, some have speculated that his death was actually an assassination.

The third great playwright of the period was Ben Jonson (1572-1637). Escaping an early career path as an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson's first play, Isle of Dogs (1597), was successful but got him into trouble with the authorities who regarded it as inciting rebellion. After a short term in prison, Jonson soon found himself back in confinement after he killed an actor in an argument. Out for a second time, Jonson concentrated on what he was good at and wrote a string of hit plays, many of which were performed at the Globe Theatre. Jonson's other works included poetry, masques, and a huge body of literary criticism.

Accomplished actors, of course, made a name for themselves in the new genre. One famous figure was the comic actor Richard Tarlton (d. 1588) who was also a court jester who made Elizabeth I titter until his jokes went too far and ridiculed some of her noble favourites. Multi-talented, Tarlton co-founded the Queen's Men company and wrote many successful plays, his most popular being Seven Deadly Sins (1585). Tarlton's most famous character was a little Chaplinesque: a small man with baggy trousers and carrying a large stick.

Challenges & Legacy

The new theatre was not without its critics. Puritans , who were ever-more prominent in Elizabethan society from the 1590s, objected to such frivolous entertainments as plays. They considered their subject matter - especially plots with vengeance, murder, and romance - unsuitable for commoners and likely to corrupt their minds, much like some modern critics of violent cinema proclaim. In addition, Puritans thought of theatres as wholly undesirable places where only the idle, immoral, and criminal elements of society gathered.

Local residents were often not happy to have a theatre in their neighbourhood because of the noise and low class-associations with such a venue; this was one of the reasons why the Theatre was moved to become the Globe Theatre. Even some business owners deplored the theatres as their employees went to watch the plays which were usually held during the daytime and so working hours . This concern led to petitions being sent to mayors who then lobbied Members of Parliament to restrict the theatre performances. It also explains why the early theatres were built in city suburbs away from the direct jurisdiction of the mayors. Drama was very cheap (starting at 1 penny a ticket, about $1 today) and very popular, though, and so very difficult to repress even when the Puritans gained prominence in the mid-17th century and temporarily closed all places of public meeting from 1642. In 1660, with the return of the monarchists, theatres opened up again and acting companies were immediately reformed.

Another challenge was public health. When a new wave of the Black Death plague hit London in 1592, all theatres were closed for a year. Many mayors sought to avoid public gatherings and even paid acting companies not to perform if a new outbreak of plague was present. Theatres, being wooden structures, were also susceptible to devastating fires. The Globe Theatre, for example, had to be rebuilt in 1614 when a cannon shot fired during a performance for dramatic effect set fire to the thatch roof.

Despite the threats, Elizabethan theatre seems to have quickly established itself as an important and lasting part of England's popular and literary culture. As early as 1623, for example, 36 of William Shakespeare's plays were collected together in print in the First Folio. More editions would be printed throughout the 17th century and a first properly edited collection was published in 1709. Shakespeare continues to be read across the world, of course, and his works continue to interest modern filmmakers. As fellow author Ben Johnson noted in his preface to First Folio, the star of Elizabethan theatre was "not of an age, but for all time" (Wagner, 275).

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Bibliography

Elton, G.R. England Under the Tudors. Routledge, 2018.
Ferriby, David. The Tudors. Hodder Education, 2015.
Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Morrill, John. The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain. Oxford University Press, 1996.
Phillips, Charles. The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Kings & Queens of Britain. Lorenz Books, 2006.
Wagner, John A. Historical Dictionary of the Elizabethan World. Greenwood, 1999.

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Literary Yog

Elizabethan Drama

Table of Contents

The Development of Drama

Two factors that influenced state of the stage.

The Elizabethan age was a golden period for British drama. This period marked a flourishing era in drama with notable playwrights like Shakespeare and others contributing to its growth. The influence of Italian comedians and Roman tragic dramatists like Plautus, Terence, and Seneca played a crucial role in shaping English comedy and tragedy. This Italian influence fostered the growth of a national English theater. Under the brilliant works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, drama became a leading literary force.

Two major factors contributed to the rise of Elizabethan theater.

First, England was prospering and expanding its power during this time. Victories over the Spanish Armada boosted English patriotism. These achievements fueled a sense of national pride, which also reflected in literary activities, particularly drama.

Secondly, permanent theaters were established during this time, transitioning from nomadic performances. permanent theaters like The Theatre, The Curtain, and The Rose were among the early playhouses, providing a secure platform for playwrights to showcase their creativity. Although the physical staging of the theaters was basic, the English dramatists found motivation and creative freedom to produce their plays regularly.

Shakespeare’s predecessors: (a) comic authors (b) tragic authors — their significance ]

Among Shakespeare’s predecessors, John Lyly, George Peele, Robert Greene, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe were notable playwrights. Lyly, Peele and Greene wrote comedies while Kyd and Marlowe were tragedians who advanced English tragedy. The “University Wits” like Lyly and Marlowe had strong classical learning and brought new life to the English drama.

John Lyly achieved success as a playwright with his prose romance Euphues before writing popular comedies like Campaspe, Gallathea, and Endimion. His comedies drew inspiration from myths and legends, showcasing his inventive situations and vivid dialogues. Though Lyly’s plays lacked strong plotting and characterization, he introduced innovations to English drama in three key ways.

He introduced prose dialogue into original English comedy for the first time, marking a departure from earlier doggerel and contributing to a new world of expression.
He established the “high comedy” genre to cultured audiences that relied more on intellectual wit rather than slapstick or physical comedy and farce.
His Euphuistic prose style brought new sophistication, charm and subtlety to dramatic dialogue, enriching the overall dramatic expression during the Elizabethan era.

George Peele

George Peele was a dramatist who, compared to Lyly and Greene, held a lower position. His notable plays were The Arraignment of Paris, The Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First, The Battle of Alcazar, The Old Wives’ Tale, and The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe.

Like his contemporaries, Peele used history, mythology, and legends as source material. He was not an original innovator in dramatic techniques. His play structures were weak, and he didn’t stand out in plot creation, character portrayal, or versification. However, Peele’s competence in drama shouldn’t be completely disregarded. He had versatility in themes, refined treatment, avoidance of crude humor, captivating imagery, and skillful language. These qualities earned him a respectable place among Elizabethan playwrights, though he can be seen as a contributor rather than a leader in the field.

Robert Greene

Robert Greene was a more successful playwright than Lyly In the Elizabethan era. His well-known plays include The Comical History of Alphonsus, King of Aragon, A Looking Glass for London and England (written with Thomas Lodge), Orlando Furioso, The Scottish History of James the Fourth, and Friar Bacon and Friar Bongay. He is also attributed as the author of George a Green or The Pinner of Wakefield.

Greene took subjects from English history, medieval legends, and foreign tales. Unlike John Lyly who focused on language and rhetoric, Greene had great skill in crafting dramatic characters and situations. Greene’s mastery in drawing characters and crafting dramatic situations surpasses Lyly’s work. Even Shakespeare showed influence from Greene, just as from Lyly.

His plays were meant for the stage and mass appeal, much like the works of Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, and Shakespeare.

Greene made several key contributions to Elizabethan drama.

First, he effectively used romantic settings, which Shakespeare later employed.

Second, he created vibrant, intellectual female characters. He is among the first to portray intellectually vibrant women, a theme that Shakespeare later brilliantly elaborated on with characters like Rosalind, Celia, Viola, Beatrice, and Portia.

Third, Greene’s comedies also pioneered what is now known as the romantic comedy genre, prefiguring Shakespeare’s famous works like “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night.”

Fourth, Greene mixed verse and humorous prose in his comedies, advancing on Lyly’s sole use of prose.

Lastly, Greene’s plays resonate with a strong national spirit, showcasing his attachment to English traditions, traits, and scenes—an affinity he shares with his great successor, Shakespeare.

Thomas Lodge

Thomas Lodge is known primarily for his romances, not his plays. Only two of Lodge’s plays survive – The Wounds of Civil War and A Looking Glass for London and England, the latter believed to be a collaboration with Greene. Neither of Lodge’s plays demonstrate strong dramatic skill or made major innovations to English drama.

Thomas Nashe

Similarly, Thomas Nashe also has very limited achievements as a dramatist. He likely contributed to Christopher Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage and the lost play called The Isle of Dogs. His one known play Summer’s Last Will and Testament is an allegorical satire about the seasons which provides a clear sense of his dramatic skills.

In short, while Peele, Lodge, and Nashe contributed to Elizabethan theater, they did not make major advancements to the era’s drama. In contrast, Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe stand out as the most prominent dramatists preceding Shakespeare. They wrote popular tragedies that paved the way for Shakespeare’s works to surpass them in fame and genius.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was a talented playwright and a University scholar with a short but brilliant career. Christopher Marlowe, a distinct dramatist, left a remarkable mark among pre-Shakespeareans.

Despite his short life, Marlowe’s dramatic achievements were impressive. His plays, Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II showcased history, romance, and magic. Marlowe excelled in combining drama and poetry, skillfully portraying tragic characters’ inner conflicts with passionate and touching poetry. He transformed blank verse, making it musical and dignified, suiting the intensity of his tragedies centered on passion.

Marlowe’s characters were powerful tragic figures, grappling with inner conflict. He advanced the romantic tragedy genre through his focus on human emotion and poetry.

Marlowe and Kyd, along with the University Wits, laid the foundation for English drama’s development and advanced English drama up to Shakespeare’s era.

William Shakespeare

Very little is definitively known about Shakespeare’s personal life and background. There is speculation but few facts regarding his childhood, education, and early career. Scholars divide Shakespeare’s 24 years of literary activity into four periods:

The first period (1588-1595) saw him experimenting with various forms of drama, including history, comedy, and tragedy. His early works are like Henry VI plays, Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost. He was still learning and influenced by predecessors like Marlowe.

The second period (1595-1601) is considered his ‘Comic Period,’. It was characterized by his comedies and historical plays, showcasing a more mature touch. Great comedies like Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night. Also history plays like King John and Henry IV showing his developing skill. The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, and others are known for their wit and charm.

The third period (1601-1608) is considered his ‘Tragic Period,’ featuring his renowned tragedies like Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar.

The fourth period (1608-1612) brought forth a mix of tragedy and romance, with plays dark tragedies like Antony and Cleopatra followed by renewed optimism in romances like Cymbeline and The Tempest.

His sonnets were written earlier but published in 1609.

Marlowe and Shakespeare

Christopher Marlowe was an outstanding dramatist of the Elizabethan era and made significant contributions to English drama. His conception of the tragic hero and use of blank verse influenced Shakespeare. While Marlowe’s contribution is undeniable, Marlowe’s genius was inferior to Shakespeare’s in several key aspects.

Marlowe lacked Shakespeare’s mastery of plot construction – his plays, apart from Edward II, have flawed structures compared to Shakespeare’s tightly-woven dramas. Marlowe’s characterization was also weaker than Shakespeare’s psychologically complex tragic figures like Hamlet and Othello.

Marlowe’s plays lack significant and strong female characters, whereas women are portrayed with depth and nuance in Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s women, like Cordelia and Lady Macbeth, are fully developed and relatable, while Marlowe’s women are often sketchy and overshadowed.

Marlowe’s dramas also focus heavily on the central hero, lacking the secondary characters and comic relief Shakespeare provided through figures like Horatio, Cassio and the Fool.

Marlowe’s plays maintain a serious tone throughout, lacking the comic relief that Shakespeare skillfully weaved into his tragedies. Shakespeare’s plays offer both intense drama and moments of humor, creating a more profound impact. Marlowe’s limitations become apparent in comparison to Shakespeare’s broad range of vision, human understanding, and mastery of characterization.

Had he lived longer, Marlowe may have further developed his talents. Marlowe’s genius is evident, but he does not possess the same breadth and depth as Shakespeare.

Post-Shakespearean Dramatists

After the glorious era of Shakespeare, there were other great dramatists who carried forward the legacy of English drama during the Elizabethan age. While Shakespeare and his predecessors like Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe laid a strong foundation, the figures likes Ben Jonson, George Chapman, Beaumont, Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Heywood, Tourneur, Ford, Shirley, and more continued the dramatic tradition.

Ben Jonson stood out among Shakespeare’s contemporaries. He focused on realistic social comedies, known as the Comedies of Humour. He brought satire and social commentary to the stage. His plays like “Every Man In His Humour”, “Every Man Out of His Humour”, Volpone and The Alchemist introduced a new comic spirit to the stage. His works were characterized by wit and social observation.

George Chapman, a classical scholar, followed a similar classical approach. His plays included both tragedies and comedies. Chapman’s tragedies like “Bussy D’ Ambois” and “The Revenge of Bussy D’ Ambois” were notable for their incorporation of contemporary history and romantic imagination. His comedies like All Fools and “Eastward Hoe” showcased his comic prowess.

Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, often associated together, succeeded Shakespeare with plays like “The Maid’s Tragedy” and “A King and No King.” Their works continued the tradition of Shakespearean drama.

Other playwrights like Marston, Dekker, and Middleton also contributed to the post-Shakespearean theater.

John Marston pioneered sensational, violent tragedies like Antonio and Mellida in the Senecan style. Thomas Dekker was known for simple yet insightful comedies like The Shoemaker’s Holiday.

John Webster is considered one of the greatest post-Shakespearean dramatists, known for his revenge tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi of the Dutchesse of Malfy.” Thomas Dekker brought simplicity and insight into characters with plays like “The Shomaker’s Holiday” and “The Honest Whore.”

Cyril Tourneur’s horror tragedies, “The Atheist’s Tragedie” and “The Revenger’s Tragedie,” marked the end of a significant era in drama. The theater was eventually closed by the Puritans in 1642. Playwrights like Philip Massinger, John Ford, and James Shirley continued the tradition before the closure.

Thomas Middleton excelled in diverse genres – his notable plays included A Fair Quarrel, The Changeling, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside. Cyril Tourneur wrote horror revenge tragedies like The Atheist’s Tragedy.

Among the last generation, Philip Massinger blended comedy and tragedy effectively through plays like A New Way to Pay Old Debts. John Ford’s notable works included “Tis Pity She’s a Whore” and “The Broken Heart.” James Shirley, the last significant figure, continued the tradition with acclaimed works “The Traytor” and comedies such as “Love Tricks” until the theaters closed under Puritan authority in 1642.

The vibrant phase of the English stage concluded with the Puritans’ closure of the theater in 1642. The theater’s doors reopened after the restoration of monarchy in 1660, marking a new chapter in English drama.

The English Revenge Tragedy.

[ Seneca and the nature of his play-immense influence of Senecan plays (a) Early English tragedies (b) Later Elizabethan tragedies-appeal of revenge tragedies]

Seneca, a Roman dramatist during Nero’s reign, had an immense influence on Elizabethan playwrights through his bloody revenge tragedies. His ten surviving plays focused on revenge, murder, supernatural elements, and sensationalism rather than the fate-driven human suffering found in Greek tragedies. While more melodramatic and theatrical than the nuanced Greek tragedies, Senecan plays shaped European drama and laid the foundation for the immensely popular Elizabethan revenge tragedy genre by providing inspiration, plots, and dramatic devices.

What distinguished Senecan tragedy from the classical Greek tradition was the shift in its underlying motive force. Unlike the Greek tragedies that often featured human suffering stemming from a commanding, merciless force known as Fate, Senecan tragedies positioned human actions as the catalyst for tragedy. The core elements of a Senecan tragedy comprised revenge, bloodshed, and a sense of supernatural terror. While these plays may have appeared melodramatic and theatrically intense when compared to the refined poise of classical Greek tragedies, they lacked the cathartic purging effect that the latter offered.

Nevertheless, the impact of Senecan drama on the dramatic literature of various European nations was undeniable. This influence began to manifest in the 16th century in France, and it formally entered the realm of English drama with Gorboduc. Gorboduc, written by Sackville and Norton in 1562, was the first English tragedy and showed Seneca’s influence by closely following his style.

The seeds of Seneca’s influence can be traced to “Gorboduc,” where the play’s theme is profoundly entrenched in concepts of revenge, bloodshed, and the supernatural, all of which reflect the essence of Seneca’s style. In the pursuit of mirroring Senecan aesthetics, authors exploited theatrical devices and aimed to preserve the seriousness and grandiloquence that characterized Seneca’s work. This trend of drawing inspiration from Seneca continued with other early English revenge plays like Thomas Hughes’s The Misfortunes of Arthur, Robert Wilmot’s The Tragedy of Tancred and Gismund, and George Gascoigne’s Jocasta. They clearly demonstrated their debt to Seneca in both subject matter and dramatic techniques. The dominant Senecan style was instrumental in establishing the English revenge tragedy tradition.

However, it was Thomas Kyd’s “The Spanish Tragedy” that solidified Seneca’s triumphant reign on the English stage, even before the emergence of Shakespeare’s masterpieces. This play achieved remarkable popularity and adhered closely to the Senecan tradition of blood-soaked vengeance. The ghostly and vengeful aspects in “The Spanish Tragedy” mirror the supernatural horror found in Seneca’s works. The play encapsulates the essence of Seneca’s influence on the English dramatic scene.

The contagion of the Senecan revenge theme spread further to other playwrights of the time. Christopher Marlowe’s “The Jew of Malta” and Robert Greene’s “The Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Aragon” demonstrated the Senecan influence. Even the genius of Shakespeare was not immune to this impact. “Hamlet,” one of Shakespeare’s most renowned works, distinctly carries the aura of a revenge play. Similarly, themes of blood, revenge, and supernatural horrors resonate in “Julius Caesar” and “Macbeth,” two more Shakespearean tragedies.

The Senecan revenge motif echoed through the works of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and immediate successors. This motif became especially prominent in the works of Chapman, Marston, Webster, Tourneur, Kyd, and, of course, Shakespeare. Chapman’s “The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois,” “The Conspiracie and Tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron,” and “The Tragedie of Chabot, Admirall of France” showcased theatrical plots brimming with suspense and horror. While Chapman’s treatment lacked the subtlety of Shakespeare, it delivered the revenge theme with robustness and tragic intensity.

Marston’s “Antonio and Mellida” and “Antonio’s Revenge” brought forth better-executed revenge plays with dramatic and extravagant elements. Henry Chettle’s “The Tragedy of Hoffman or A Revenge for a Father” highlighted the tragic downfall resulting from a fatal flaw, a theme deeply rooted in Senecan notions.

Fletcher and Massinger’s “The Knight of Malta” and Fletcher’s “The Maides Tragedy” exemplified the revenge play’s popularity. This trend continued with other plays like “Cupid’s Revenge” and “The Bloody Brother,” attributed to Massinger, Fletcher, Jonson, and Field, collectively showcasing the wide influence of Seneca’s revenge theme.

However, John Webster and Cyril Tourneur took the Senecan revenge tradition to even greater heights. Webster’s two major tragedies The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi were founded on horror and revenge, with the latter being an archetypal revenge play. Tourneur’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and The Atheist’s Tragedy were two other fine examples of the melodramatic yet gripping Elizabethan revenge drama. The gloomy atmosphere, suspense, bloody vengeance, and insight into the dark recesses of the human psyche gave these plays great dramatic power and resonance for Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences.

In conclusion, while crude and theatrical compared to Greek tragedies, Seneca’s sensational revenge dramas exerted an enduring influence on Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The Senecan revenge motif possessed a natural allure for the common audience. His legacy lived on through the immense popularity of bloody revenge tragedies filled with ghosts, madness, and gore, which spoke vividly to audiences of the time. The revenge tradition dominated the English stage and reached its apogee in Shakespeare and other major dramatists despite its exaggerated melodrama.

Key Points of growth of English Drama:

(9) ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

(a) GROWTH OF DRAMA

Mystery and Miracle Plays

Moralities and Interludes

Pre-Shakespeareans

Shakespeare

Post Shakespeareans

Decline of Tragedy

The zenith of English drama was undoubtedly reached during the reign of Shakespeare, whose contributions spanned across all realms of the dramatic arts—comedy, tragi-comedy, and tragedy. His unmatched mastery in plot construction, character portrayal, dialogue, and universal appeal solidified his place as the epitome of British theater.

However, after reaching its peak with Shakespeare, British drama began to decline in the early 17th century. This decline is seen in tragedies, comedies, and tragicomedies. The plays lacked Shakespeare’s harmonious plots, vivid characterization, natural dialogue, and universal appeal.

The aftermath of Shakespeare witnessed a faltering of dramatic potency and a perceptible touch of decay. These signs of decadence pervade every genre of dramatic literature—tragedy, comedy, and tragi-comedy.

The decay is most noticeable in post-Shakespearean tragedies. Shakespeare’s innovative creativity gave rise to immortal poetic tragedies by revisiting themes of revenge, blood, ambition, and lust. However, those who followed in his footsteps failed to attain the same command over the tragic muse. Even the eminent Ben Jonson, despite his brilliance, couldn’t match Shakespeare’s tragic art. His plays “Sejanus, his Fall” and “Catiline, his Conspiracy” appear overly laborious and mechanistic, falling short of true greatness. Heywood’s “A Woman Killed With Kindness” substitutes sentimentality for high tragic themes, diluting the quality of tragic art.

Beaumont and Fletcher’s “The Maides Tragedy” and “A King and No King” transport audiences to distant and unfamiliar realms, lacking balance and displaying excessive emotions. Webster, with “The Tragedy of the Duchesse of Malfy” and “The White Devil,” captures echoes of Shakespearean themes but with plot development characterized by strange coincidences and forced effects. While his characters resemble Shakespeare’s, they lack the same majesty and universality. Chapman and Tourneur lacked dramatic skill and realism. Chapman’s tragedies, including “Bussy D’Ambois” and “The Revenge of Bussy D’Ambois,” are original but fail to deliver good stage plays. Chapman’s poetry outshines his drama, leaving his tragedies obscured and monotonous.

Tourneur’s “The Atheist’s Tragedie” and “The Revenger’s Tragedie” present an unnatural and pitiless world that shuns normalcy. Middleton’s “The Changeling” aims to emulate Shakespearean tragedy but falls short of capturing its unique universality. Massinger’s “The Roman Actor” focuses on crime and violence, sometimes deviating from reality with excessive sentimentality.

Ford’s plays like “Love’s Sacrifice,” “The Broken Heart,” and “Tis Pity She’s a Whore” evoke horror and pain, laden with scenes of cruelty but poorly contrived. Shirley’s “The Traitor” and “The Cardinal” demonstrate tragic power, yet their melodrama, rhetorical bombast, and poetic sensibility miss the true essence of great tragedy. Ford and Shirley relied too much on sensationalism, violence, and melodrama. Their tragedies did not match the depth of Shakespeare’s.

In the comedy arena, the post-Shakespearean landscape sees the decline of the comic spirit that once resonated with Shakespearean joy, warmth, and brightness. Instead, decadent comedy embraces coarseness, gross humor, vulgarity, eccentricity, and sentimentality in the name of realism. Ben Jonson’s mighty comedic works, like “Every Man in His Humour” and “The Alchemist,” demonstrate mastery, but their narrow conception of life lacks the broadness and naturalness of Shakespeare’s comedies.

Marston’s satirical talent, seen in plays like “The Dutch Courtezan,” is marred by coarseness and unrestrained speeches. “Eastward Hoe,” attributed to Jonson, Chapman, and Marston, excels as a comedy of manners but lacks the depth and brilliance of Shakespearean high comedies. Dekker’s comedies exhibit gentleness and good temper but miss the unity and comprehensiveness of Shakespeare’s works. Fletcher’s plays lean towards sentimentality, Middleton’s and Massinger’s works delve into satire, while missing the true spirit of comedy.

Tragi-comedy

Tragi-comedy gained popularity in the post-Shakespearean era due to a decline in seriousness. Although it originated with Shakespeare, post-Shakespearean tragi-comedies often lack the depth, characterisation, and craftsmanship of his great works. Beaumont and Fletcher, who catered to the popularity of tragi-comedies, sometimes delved into absurdity with plays like “Philaster.” These plays borrowed from Shakespeare without achieving his versatility, often indulging in fanciful and improbable scenarios.

The decline of drama

The decay of English drama after Shakespeare is evident in several ways.

Firstly, the broad range of themes that Shakespeare explored, involving all of humanity, gets limited to certain subjects that are temporary, local, and incomplete in significance.

Second, the balance between romance and realism is lost. The delicate balance that Shakespeare struck between romantic elements and realistic portrayal is replaced by an inadequate focus on either dry societal realities or exaggerated romantic aspects.

Thirdly, the carefully woven plots that Shakespeare masterfully connected together are now substituted with plots that lack coherence and often consist of scenes designed for theatrical impact rather than meaningful connection.

Fourthly, the remarkable characters that Shakespeare brought to life, including heroes, heroines, villains, and clowns, are replaced by less impressive characters like verbose young individuals, pitiable women, menacing wrongdoers, and uninspiring comic figures.

Finally, dramatic poetry declines sharply in quality. The vigorous Shakespearean blank verse loses its resonance, becoming flaccid. The rhetorical richness of Shakespeare’s language, with its inventive metaphors and wordplay, is rarely matched by his successors. The poetic language that used to be as sharp as a musical and resonant instrument loses its edge.

Overall, English drama underwent a noticeable decay in its language, characterization, plotting, themes, and artistic balance after reaching its zenith with Shakespeare.

I'm a PhD research scholar & MPhil degree holder from DU, Assam and also a budding blogger. I have cracked CBSE NET (July 2018), NE-SLET (July 2018), and UGC-NTA-NET (June 2019).

ElizabethanDrama.org

Making elizabethan plays understandable and fun to read, this website is dedicated to rescuing and presenting for the first time ever easy-to-read, fully annotated elizabethan plays. my hope is that some of you will be inspired to try to read some of these great plays..

From the moment Christopher Marlowe electrified audiences in 1586 with his monumental drama Tamburlaine the Great to the closing of the London theaters in 1642 (thanks to a wave of Puritanism sweeping England), London theater-goers were treated to a seemingly never-ending succession of brilliant tragedies, histories and comedies written by some of England’s most famous dramatists, including John Lyly , George Peele , Robert Greene , Philip Massinger and John Ford , as well as that other well-known poet, William Shakespeare.

Indeed, though most people only think of Shakespeare when they think of Elizabethan drama, Shakespeare wrote only 37 plays (a couple in collaboration) that we know of; happily, more than 600 plays from this era survive. This means that, for those who savor the potential exquisiteness of the English language, our ancient dramas can be the source of a lifetime worth of reading enjoyment.

What’s So Good About This Website?

The plays on this site, however, have been edited and annotated for the modern audience. The annotations provide not only meanings for archaic words, but also paraphrases and commentary on characters and situations, explanations of mythical allusions, and fascinating notes on historical and cultural references, all with the goal of making the plays UNDERSTANDABLE and SATISFYING to read, and to make you as knowledgeable as any patron who sat in the theater in the late 16th and early 17th century.

The plays on Elizabethandrama.org contain several unique features:

(1) Our plays are the only ones in the world where the annotations appear next to the lines they are interpreting, allowing for a smooth and enjoyable reading experience. The annotations for plays on other websites, if you can find them, are identified by icons which you must constantly click if you wish to see the commentary. Footnotes for plays in books must be searched at the bottom of the page. Either way, the reading of the lines is disrupted, and frankly makes reading the plays a chore.

(2) We have begun the process of providing script vers ions of each of our plays. Our goal is to provide accessible, free scripts of the greatest plays of the Elizabethan era and beyond, in the hopes that these plays will be produced and performed more often than ever before – well, at least since the 17th century! All the scripts contain line numbers.

Additionally, directors and performers can read the annotated versions of the plays even as they are preparing production, so that they will have greater insight to their characters than any actors or actresses have had for over three centuries!

(3) The plays on this website are available for free .

Defining Elizabethan Drama

Technically, the “Elizabethan era” lasted only so long as Queen Elizabeth I reigned over England, which was from 1558 to 1603; however, for purposes of this website, Elizabethan Drama also includes the plays written after 1603, during the reigns of both James I (reigned 1603-1625) and Charles I (reigned 1625-1649), all the way to the closing of the theaters in 1642. It may be more accurate to refer to this literature as English Tudor and Renaissance drama, but I do not think any harm will result from considering it all by the name that comes to most people’s minds when they think about the plays of this era.

Reading ancient literature has been my hobby for two decades. Reading Elizabethan drama has been my hobby for the last 15 years. I spent several years creating (for my own use) a fully annotated set of most of Shakespeare’s plays, creating a master copy in which I incorporated the notes, glosses and annotations of the plays from multiple sources. I have also read through and taken notes on over 250 plays of the period, spending as much time absorbing the information contained in the footnotes as reading the text of the plays themselves. From this background grew a desire to share my passion and acquired skill in interpreting these plays with anyone interested enough to seek out them out on the internet. It was in 2016 that this project was conceived, and ElizabethanDrama.org was born.

Other Resources for Plays of the Era

It is surprising how few websites there are which present modern, readable versions of Elizabethan drama (outside of Shakespeare’s plays, of course). Even fewer websites – only three (other than this one) – offer annotated plays for their readers. My goal is to fill that gap with as many annotated plays as possible during my lifetime.

The three websites containing annotated Elizabethan plays are as follows:

Thirteen of Shakespeare’s plays can be found at shakespeare-navigators.com , edited by Philip Weller (who unfortunately passed away in 2021) . I believe this is the only site other than ours in which the annotations appear next to the lines. An additional feature of Mr. Weller’s site is that many of the footnotes link to illustrations.
Many of Thomas Middleton’s plays can be viewed online, thanks to the work of Chris Cleary, at tech.org/~cleary/middhome.html .
The full collection of edited and annotated plays of Richard Brome is available at Richard Brome Online .
You can find a number of carefully edited and annotated plays by the great Restoration playwright John Dryden at DivineDotComedy.org , which is managed by 21st century Renaissance man Jacob Rabinowitz. Jacob’s site provides literary treats of all sorts, including his own translation of Dante’s Purgatorio and Paradiso .

Many of you will be interested to learn more about meter and rhythm in Elizabethan poetry. You are strongly recommended to visit a website which focuses extensively on the intricacies of meter: versemeter.wordpress.com . The blog is written by Mr. Keir Fabian, a true specialist, and a friend to this website.

study guides
lesson plans
homework help

Elizabethan Drama Discussion Questions

(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)

Research the various aspects of Elizabethan costume. If you were a nobleman or noblewoman of the time, how would your costume be different than those of the lower classes? What are some of the elements of your dress that would indicate your social status?

What do you think a typical day was like for members of an Elizabethan acting troupe? What were some of the difficulties they might encounter in trying to prepare for a performance?

Elizabethan Drama gives some clues into the remedies, medicines and herbs used to cure ailments during that time period. What were some of these treatments? Do we still use any of them today?

(read more)

(approx. 1 page at 400 words per page)

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Literature Of The Elizabethan Age – Tragedy, Poetry, Comedy, And Drama

“Drama during the Elizabethan to Jacobean period was marked by key features such as a notable degree of religious tolerance, societal satisfaction, intellectual freedom, unwavering patriotism, and domestic and international peace. This era captivated the imagination and intellect, leading literature to naturally gravitate towards theatrical expression.”

Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethan Age is named after Queen Elizabeth I, the last Tudor Monarch of England, who ruled from 1558 to 1603.
It extends beyond Elizabeth’s reign, with literary characteristics continuing for some years after her death in 1603.
According to WH Hudson, the Elizabethan Age spans from the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign to the death of James I in 1625, though the period from 1603 to 1625 is sometimes considered the Jacobean period.
Elizabeth I’s 45-year reign is often regarded as one of the most glorious periods in English history.
Nationalism in England rose during Elizabeth’s reign, influencing writers to focus on English-language literary and dramatic works.
The period witnessed significant cultural development, partly attributed to Queen Elizabeth’s patronage of the arts and the flourishing court atmosphere.
England achieved notable advancements in navigation and exploration during this era, including Walter Raleigh’s excursions to the Atlantic shore and the establishment of the Roanoke colony.
Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation of the world between 1577 and 1580 was a significant achievement of the Elizabethan Age.

Literature Of The Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethan era in England witnessed a remarkable surge in artistic and literary expression, fueled by Renaissance humanism, Protestant fervour, and discoveries in geography and science. The dominant literary genre during this period was drama, with William Shakespeare emerging as its most influential playwright. Often referred to as the ‘Age of Shakespeare,’ his extensive body of work includes a diverse range of comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, and sonnets.

In the 1550-60s, the Elizabethan Age saw the emergence of the first English comedy, exemplified by Nicholas Udall’s “Ralph Roister Doister” (circa 1553), and the first blank verse tragedy, showcased in the 1562 play “Gorboduc.” This groundbreaking period laid the foundation for enduring art forms that continue to be studied today.

The establishment of “The Theatre” in 1576 marked the inception of the earliest known theafter, followed closely by others like “The Rose,” “The Swan,” and the highly popular “The Globe,” built in 1599. Elizabethan drama departed from the religious themes predominant in medieval mystery and morality plays. Instead, it embraced poetical meter, notably the five-foot iambic pentameter, for its dialogue.

Beyond drama, the Elizabethan Age also witnessed a flourishing of poetry, including the sonnet and the Spenserian stanza, along with inspiring prose by writers like Francis Bacon. The literary landscape of the era encompassed various forms such as tragedy, comedy, poetry, drama, and chronicles, each contributing to the rich tapestry of Elizabethan literature.

Tragedy is a type of drama that deals with serious and sorrowful events involving a heroic individual, often approached with a dignified style.
The term can also be used for serious literary works like novels.
Despite the common use of “tragedy” for any disaster, it specifically refers to artistic works that seriously explore questions about humanity’s role in the universe.
The ancient Greeks in Attica, particularly in the 5th century BCE, were the first to use the term to describe a particular kind of play presented at festivals in Greece.
Tragedy of a high order has been historically created in four specific periods and places.
These include Attica in Greece (5th century BCE), England during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I (1558-1625), 17th-century France and Europe, and America during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Each historical period led to the development of a distinct style and emphasis, shaping the orientation of tragic theatre.
In the modern era, roughly from the mid-19th century, tragedy has also found expression in a few novels.

First English Tragedy: Gorboduc

Gorboduc, also known as ‘The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex,’ is considered the very first tragedy written in English.
It’s also thought to be the earliest English tragic play in a style called blank verse.
The play was written by Thomas Norton (1532-1584) and Thomas Sackville (1536-1608).
It had its first performance in 1561, with Norton handling the first three acts and Sackville contributing the last two.
The storyline of Gorboduc is based on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historie Regum Britanniae (1135-38), which tells the story of a conflict between Gorboduc’s two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, regarding who should inherit the throne.
The play follows the sophisticated tragic style inspired by Seneca, an ancient Roman playwright.
Other works imitated Gorboduc, such as Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh’s Jocasta and Gismond of Salem, created by five gentlemen of the Inner Temple.
Comedy is a type of literature and drama that aims to be funny and satirical, typically ending on a cheerful note.
The main theme involves overcoming difficulties through humor, leading to a happy or successful conclusion.
The primary goal of comedy is to entertain the audience, making them laugh and enjoy the performance.
Comedy includes various sub-genres based on where the humor comes from, the context of dialogues, and how they are delivered.
Examples of comedic styles include farce, satire, and burlesque.
In contrast to comedy, tragedy focuses on sad and tragic events in a story, presenting a different emotional experience for the audience.

First English Comedy: Ralph Roister Doister

Ralph Roister Doister is recognized as the first English comedy, written by Nicholas Udall, a playwright from England, probably between 1551 and 1553.
The play revolves around the character Ralph Roister Doister, a wealthy but foolish young man.
Despite boasting about his bravery, he behaves like a coward when faced with action.
Ralph’s attempts to court a wealthy widow named Christian Custance do not go well, forming a central plot element in the comedy.
The play reflects the influence of classical playwrights Plautus and Terence in its comedic style and structure.
The Elizabethan age marked a significant era in English literature, particularly for poetry.
Poetry became an integral part of education among the educated class during this period, leading to the emergence of numerous poetry books by various writers.
The Elizabethan Age was renowned for its remarkable contributions to literature, with drama taking center stage.
Initially, the quality of these dramas was not consistently high, though comedies tended to fare better than tragedies.
Ralph Roister Doister is acknowledged as the first official English comedy, characterized as a rough verse farce, and crafted by Nicholas Udall.
Another notable comedy, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle,” was performed at Cambridge University in 1566, contributing to the evolution of comedic works.
John Lyly further refined comedy with prose works like “Compaspe” and “Endymion.”
“Gorboduc,” written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, is regarded as the first regular tragedy, even though it was criticized for its dullness and poor use of blank verse.
Thomas Kyd played a pivotal role in improving tragedy with his work, “The Spanish Tragedy,” characterized by themes of blood and revenge.

Final Words

I hope that you found this article about Elizabethan age’s literature helpful. You can also check our our other articles like Romanticism In English Literature – All Important Romantic Writers or Characteristics Of The Romantic Period In English Literature .

Theatres in London and the provinces

Professional playwrights.

The early histories
The early comedies
The tragedies
Shakespeare’s later works
Other Jacobean dramatists
The last Renaissance dramatists
Donne’s influence
Jonson and the Cavalier poets
Continued influence of Spenser
Effect of religion and science on early Stuart prose
Prose styles
The defeated republicans
Writings of the Nonconformists
Writings of the royalists
Chroniclers
The court wits
Drama by Dryden and others
Thomson, Prior, and Gay
Shaftesbury and others
Other novelists
Johnson’s poetry and prose
The nature of Romanticism
Blake, Wordsworth, and Coleridge
Other poets of the early Romantic period
The later Romantics: Shelley, Keats, and Byron
Other poets of the later period
The novel: from the Gothic novel to Austen and Scott
Discursive prose
Thackeray, Gaskell, and others
The Brontës
Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Arnold and Clough
Early Victorian nonfiction prose
The Victorian theater
Victorian literary comedy
The Edwardians
Anglo-American Modernism: Pound, Lewis, Lawrence, and Eliot
Celtic Modernism: Yeats, Joyce, Jones, and MacDiarmid
The literature of World War I and the interwar period
The literature of World War II (1939–45)
The 21st century

Elizabethan and early Stuart drama

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Theater and society

In the Elizabethan and early Stuart period, the theater was the focal point of the age. Public life was shot through with theatricality—monarchs ruled with ostentatious pageantry, rank and status were defined in a rigid code of dress—while on the stages the tensions and contradictions working to change the nation were embodied and played out. More than any other form, the drama addressed itself to the total experience of its society. Playgoing was inexpensive, and the playhouse yards were thronged with apprentices, fishwives, laborers, and the like, but the same play that was performed to citizen spectators in the afternoon would often be restaged at court by night. The drama’s power to activate complex, multiple perspectives on a single issue or event resides in its sensitivity to the competing prejudices and sympathies of this diverse audience.

Moreover, the theater was fully responsive to the developing technical sophistication of nondramatic literature . In the hands of Shakespeare, the blank verse employed for translation by the earl of Surrey in the first half of the 16th century became a medium infinitely mobile between extremes of formality and intimacy, while prose encompassed both the control of Hooker and the immediacy of Nashe. This was above all a spoken drama, glorying in the theatrical energies of language. And the stage was able to attract the most technically accomplished writers of its day because it offered, uniquely, a literary career with some realistic prospect of financial return. The decisive event was the opening of the Theatre , considered the first purpose-built London playhouse, in 1576, and during the next 70 years some 20 theaters more are known to have operated. The quantity and diversity of plays they commissioned are little short of astonishing.

The London theaters were a meeting ground of humanism and popular taste. They inherited, on the one hand, a tradition of humanistic drama current at court, the universities, and the Inns of Court (collegiate institutions responsible for legal education). This tradition involved the revival of Classical plays and attempts to adapt Latin conventions to English, particularly to reproduce the type of tragedy, with its choruses, ghosts, and sententiously formal verse, associated with Seneca (10 tragedies by Seneca in English translation appeared in 1581). A fine example of the type is Gorboduc (1561), by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, a tragedy based on British chronicle history that draws for Elizabeth’s benefit a grave political moral about irresponsible government. It is also the earliest known English play in blank verse. On the other hand, all the professional companies performing in London continued also to tour in the provinces, and the stage was never allowed to lose contact with its roots in country show, pastime, and festival. The simple moral scheme that pitted virtues against vices in the mid-Tudor interlude was never entirely submerged in more sophisticated drama, and the Vice, the tricksy villain of the morality play , survives, in infinitely more amusing and terrifying form, in Shakespeare’s Richard III (c. 1592–94). Another survival was the clown or the fool, apt at any moment to step beyond the play’s illusion and share jokes directly with the spectators. The intermingling of traditions is clear in two farces, Nicholas Udall ’s Ralph Roister Doister (1553) and the anonymous Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1559), in which academic pastiche is overlaid with country game; and what the popular tradition did for tragedy is indicated in Thomas Preston’s Cambises, King of Persia (c. 1560), a blood-and-thunder tyrant play with plenty of energetic spectacle and comedy.

A third tradition was that of revelry and masques, practiced at the princely courts across Europe and preserved in England in the witty and impudent productions of the schoolboy troupes of choristers who sometimes played in London alongside the professionals. An early play related to this kind is the first English prose comedy, Gascoigne’s Supposes (1566), translated from a reveling play in Italian. Courtly revel reached its apogee in England in the ruinously expensive court masques staged for James I and Charles I , magnificent displays of song, dance, and changing scenery performed before a tiny aristocratic audience and glorifying the king. The principal masque writer was Ben Jonson , the scene designer Inigo Jones .

The first generation of professional playwrights in England has become known collectively as the university wits . Their nickname identifies their social pretensions, but their drama was primarily middle class, patriotic, and romantic . Their preferred subjects were historical or pseudo-historical, mixed with clowning, music, and love interest. At times, plot virtually evaporated; George Peele ’s Old Wives’ Tale (c. 1595) and Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament (1600) are simply popular shows, charming medleys of comic turns, spectacle, and song. Peele was a civic poet, and his serious plays are bold and pageantlike; The Arraignment of Paris (1584) is a pastoral entertainment, designed to compliment Elizabeth. Greene ’s speciality was comical histories, interweaving a serious plot set among kings with comic action involving clowns. In his Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1594) and James IV (1598), the antics of vulgar characters complement but also criticize the follies of their betters. Only Lyly, writing for the choristers, endeavored to achieve a courtly refinement. His Gallathea (1584) and Endimion (1591) are fantastic comedies in which courtiers, nymphs, and goddesses make rarefied love in intricate, artificial patterns, the very stuff of courtly dreaming.

Outshining all these is Christopher Marlowe , who alone realized the tragic potential inherent in the popular style, with its bombast and extravagance. His heroes are men of towering ambition who speak blank verse of unprecedented (and occasionally monotonous) elevation, their “high astounding terms” embodying the challenge that they pose to the orthodox values of the societies they disrupt. In Tamburlaine the Great (two parts, published 1590) and Edward II (c. 1591; published 1594), traditional political orders are overwhelmed by conquerors and politicians who ignore the boasted legitimacy of weak kings; The Jew of Malta (c. 1589; published 1633) studies the man of business whose financial acumen and trickery give him unrestrained power; The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus (c. 1593; published 1604) depicts the overthrow of a man whose learning shows scant regard for God. The main focus of all these plays is on the uselessness of society’s moral and religious sanctions against pragmatic , amoral will. They patently address themselves to the anxieties of an age being transformed by new forces in politics, commerce, and science; indeed, the sinister , ironic prologue to The Jew of Malta is spoken by Machiavelli. In his own time Marlowe was damned as atheist, homosexual, and libertine, and his plays remain disturbing because his verse makes theatrical presence into the expression of power, enlisting the spectators’ sympathies on the side of his gigantic villain-heroes. His plays thus present the spectator with dilemmas that can be neither resolved nor ignored, and they articulate exactly the divided consciousness of their time. There is a similar effect in The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1591) by Marlowe’s friend Thomas Kyd , an early revenge tragedy in which the hero seeks justice for the loss of his son but, in an unjust world, can achieve it only by taking the law into his own hands. Kyd’s use of Senecan conventions (notably a ghost impatient for revenge) in a Christian setting expresses a genuine conflict of values, making the hero’s success at once triumphant and horrifying.

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Introduction to Elizabethan Drama

Elizabethan Drama, often known as early modern English drama, refers back to the plays produced by the University Wits between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642. It includes the plays of Robert Green, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe, and many others followed the monumental work of William Shakespeare.

English Renaissance Drama is usually known as “Elizabethan Drama.” However, the term “Elizabethan Drama” adequately covers only the plays written and performed publicly in England throughout the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603).

Renaissance theatre derived from some medieval theatre traditions, such as the mystery plays that formed part of religious festivals in England and different parts of Europe. The mystery plays have been complicated retellings of legends based mostly on biblical themes, initially performed in church buildings however later becoming more linked to the secular celebrations that grew up around religious festivals. Other sources include the morality plays and the “university drama” that tried to recreate Greek tragedy.

Under Elizabeth, the drama was a unified expression so far as social class was involved. With the development of private theatres, drama grew to become more oriented towards the tastes and values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign of Charles I, few new plays were written for the general public theatres, which sustained themselves on the collected works of the previous decades.

Read About: Contribution of Elizabethan Poetry in Elizabethan Age

In addition to the religious mystery plays on pageant wagons and circular stages resembling modern “theatres in the round,” dramatic entertainment was carried out within the great halls of royal and noble houses. Plays were also provided by traveling bands of actors on portable stages set up at fairs and different crowd-gathering events.

The first permanent theatre in England was located in Middlesex, simply outside the walls of London. As it was known, the theatre was created by James Burbage, father of Richard Burbage, the well-known actor. There is little direct information about the appearance of The Theatre. It was dismantled in 1598, and its timbers had been carried to the Bankside, south of London, across the Thames River.

The age of Shakespeare—and Marlowe, Kyd, Chapman, Ben Jonson, and several different dramatists—extends roughly from 1590 to 1625. During this era, London most likely had more theatre houses in ratio to its population than at any other time. Excluding informal theatre spaces resembling the great halls of the aristocracy and such organizations as the Inns of Court (where England’s lawyers had been trained), there were seven open-air theatres and four indoor theatres.

The outdoor theatres relied on natural light. They used few stage props and no stage sets in the modern sense of the term. These seeming limitations inspired many probably the most brilliant features of Elizabethan drama. The lack of stage sets allowed the dramatists to create rapid, extraordinarily fluid actions. Scenes succeeded one another without interruption, considerably within the manner of twentieth-century movies. The lack of stage sets forced the Elizabethan dramatists to create what is perhaps known as a theatre of the imagination.

Genres of the Elizabethan Drama

Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted English or European history. Shakespeare’s plays concerning the lives of kings, akin to Richard III and Henry V, belong to this class, as do Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II and George Peele’s Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First. Many history plays dealt with more current events, like A Larum for London, which dramatizes the Sack of Antwerp in 1576.

The tragedy was a well-liked genre. Marlowe’s tragedies have been exceptionally well-liked, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. The audiences notably liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

Comedies have been widespread, too. A sub-genre developed during this period was the city comedy, which deals satirically with life in London after the style of Roman New Comedy. Examples are Thomas Dekker’s The Shoemaker’s Holiday and Thomas Middleton’s A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

Why were Theatres Closed in Elizabethan Age?

The rising Puritan movement was hostile towards theatre, as they felt that “entertainment” was sinful. Politically, playwrights and actors had been clients of the monarchy and aristocracy, and most supported the Royalist cause. The Puritan faction, long highly effective in London, gained control of the city early within the English Civil War, and on September 2, 1642, ordered the closure of the London theatres. The theatres remained closed for many the next eighteen years, re-opening after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The re-opened theatres carried out lots of the plays of the earlier era, although usually in adapted forms; new genres of Restoration comedy and spectacle soon evolved, giving English theatre of the later seventeenth century its distinctive character.

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Book contents

Frontmatter
Preface to the second edition
PART ONE THE THEATRE
PART TWO THE DRAMATISTS
6 CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
7 CYRIL TOURNEUR
8 JOHN WEBSTER
9 THOMAS MIDDLETON
10 CHARACTER, IDENTITY AND THE PERFORMER'S ART IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA
Outline of related studies 1935–78

10 - CHARACTER, IDENTITY AND THE PERFORMER'S ART IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010

Modern theatre accepts a strong convention of one man, one rôle, that, through the actor's projection, prompts both actor and audience to identify with the part; the convention derives from the Elizabethan tragic hero as a complex, yet ultimately unfathomable being.

In craft plays of the fourteenth century, the Mercers' Jesus, the Grocers' Jesus and the Butchers' Jesus would be represented by different men. They might be competitive.

In the next century, morality plays raised different problems, for another sense of identity showed many aspects of one man. Pictorial designs of the soul emerging from the body at death as a small naked figure may have encouraged the author of The Castle of Perseverance to keep a small boy concealed on-stage for nearly eleven hundred lines. Everyman meets figures of his own Good Deeds, Strength, Beauty and Five Wits, as well as his Kindred and Cousin. The total action aimed at an inner state of reprobation to be converted into a state of grace, and this was the object of the performance. Eternity focussed in one man. In The Conflict of Conscience (1581) Philologus meets Satan, Horror, Avarice, etc.

These diversified or distributed characters appear in mid-Tudor secular historical moralities in another form; in Bale's King Johan (1533), Sedition doubles with Simon of Swinstead, the poisoner; and so with other rôles.

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CHARACTER, IDENTITY AND THE PERFORMER'S ART IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA
M. C. Bradbrook , University of Cambridge and Girton College, Cambridge
Book: Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy
Online publication: 08 January 2010
Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620362.011

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Elizabethan Theatre & Drama | Elizabethan Drama Summary & Analysis

Introduction

Predecessor Of Elizabethan Drama

Christopher Marlowe

Themes of Elizabethan Drama

Dramatic Devices in Elizabethan Drama

Dramatist of Elizbethan Era

William Shakespeare

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10 - CHARACTER, IDENTITY AND THE PERFORMER'S ART IN ELIZABETHAN DRAMA

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