Elizabethan Age and its Characteristics | Elizabethan Age and Drama | Elizabethan Age and Drama in English Literature PDF | History of English Literature

Elizabethan Age and Drama| Elizabethan Age and Drama Notes Pdf | Elizabethan Age and Drama Notes | Elizabethan Age Characteristics | History of English Literature

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#Lecture No. 06

Topic: Elizabethan Age and Drama

English Literature and Linguistics notes

 

The greatest age in the history of English literature. Yes, you heard it right—I am talking about the great Elizabethan age, also known as:

·         The Golden Age of England

·         The Renaissance

·         The Shakespearean Age

·         The first great age of drama and the second great age of poetry

Elizabethan age was remarkable for its religious tolerance, strong national spirit, patriotism, social content, intellectual progress, and unbounded enthusiasm. Incredible thoughts, feelings, and vigorous actions were the pillars of this age. It shows an extraordinary development of drama. Equally, it is an age of poetry. The Elizabethan period was a time of glory and triumph in the life and literature of the English people.

RELIGION IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND

The two major religions in Elizabethan England were Catholic and Protestant.

 The chief literary glory of the Elizabethan age was its drama. The first regular English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister, written by Nicholas Udall. Another comedy, Gammar Gurton’s Needle, is about the loss and the finding of a needle with which the old woman Gammar Gurton mends clothes.

 

The first English tragedy was Gorboduc, in blank verse. The first three acts of Gorboduc writtern by Thomas Norton and the other two by Thomas Sackville.

 

The University Wits contributed hugely to the growth of Elizabethan drama. The University Wits were young men associated with Oxford and Cambridge. They were fond of heroic themes. The most notable figures are Christopher Marlow, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, and George Peele.

 

        KINDS OF ELIZABETHAN PLAYS

·  As the Church had fostered Elizabethan dramas, there were also some religious rituals and teaching were educated through these dramas.

·   In order to make the public aware of the Biblical stories, stories from the Bible were used in dramas called Mystery plays.

·         The stories taken from the lives of the Saints were called Miracle plays.

·         After time, these plays were exhibited at marketplaces in cars or at open places of the town.

·         Characters were dressed according to the role in the play.

·    Miracle plays became more popular than Mystery plays most probably because of 

    their newer and fresher subject matter.

·         Later mystery and morality plays gave place to the Morality and Interludes.

·         In mystery and morality plays, there were serious kinds of subjects.

·         But morality took the serious subjects and interludes took a lighter side of things.

·        The morality plays were highly didactic in nature having abstractions and allegories. And the

           subjects of the plays were sin, grace, repentance, etc.

·         The interludes were for amusing and entertaining purposes.

·         Morality plays got famous in the sixteenth century.

·         Next, English tragedies were introduced inspired by the Classical model of Seneca.

·         Gorboduc was an important tragedy play of that time.

·         And later, comedies were developed.

CHARACTERISTICS

    ⏺Plays of that era were particularly influenced with classical comedies and        tragedies.

 ·        Many writers imitated Seneca because of the revival of classical knowledge in the previous Renaissance period.

·      Elizabethan dramas were very simple because there was no Particular taste of the audience.

·       Like Hamlet and Doctor Faustus, there was a tragic hero in the tragedies. The hero's downfall

         caused by some fatal flaw in character and audience sympathy used to be totally                 with him.

·       Comedies of the Elizabethan comedies just like Shakespearean comedies used to     have happy

         endings and marriages and reunions after complicated plots.

·       Histories of that time were of bitter endings just like in Julius Caesar.

·      Romances of that era included comedies and tragedies including love factors.

·      Elizabethan drama's themes were supernatural, revenge, humours, disguise, etc.

·    There were dominating themes of anti-Semitism in these dramas because at that time, Jews were thought to aliens and morally corrupt just like mentioned in The Merchant of Venice's character Shylock.

 

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