Lecture 4. EARLY TUDORDRAMA: KYD, MARLOWE,
- THE MEDIEVAL ORIGINS OF DRAMA
-Despite Christian Hostility (Tertullian, St Augustine) drama develops: homo ludens, homo festivus
-Pagan and Catholic Origins (liturgy)
-Mystery Plays (dramatized episodes of the Bible; e.g. Noah’s Flood); Morality Plays (Everyman; Mankind)
-.A Scheme of Early Tudor Drama
Survival of Moralities and Interludes in a Humanist Context:
Native Tradition
Humanist moralities:
J. Redford: Wit and Science (1530) (allegorical characters!)
Political moralities:
J. Skelton: Magnificence (1533)
J. Bale: King Johan (1548)
Interlude:
John Heywood: The Four PPs
(1545) „lying competion” -
Pedlar: judge; Pardoner: a bawdy tale on his visit to hell where he met his neighbour-woman, an „insufferable shrew” ; Palmer: „I never saw nor knew in mycnscience, / Any woman out of patience.”
Classical Influence:
H. Medwall: Fulgens and Lucrece (1519)
School Drama:
Native tradition:
comedy:W. S.: Gammer's Gurton's Needle
Classical Influence:Comedy: influence of Plautus and Terence
Nic. Udall: Ralph Roister Doister (1566)
Tragedy: Th. Norton - Th. Sackville: Gorboduc (1565)
dumb-show, blank-verse;
Senecan „revenge tragedy”
THOMAS KYD AND CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)
- founder of romantic tragedy
- The Spanish Tragedy
Kyd's innovations: - contemporary story (not mythology)
- psychological aspect (hesitating hero)
- complexity of plot
- stage-effects
- ranting style of verse
Defects: - melodrama
- inferior poetry
Common with Hamlet: revenge / ghost / Horatio / lady: mad
play within play (Soliman and Perseda)
Christopher Marlowe(1564-1592)
Life: - atheism (Baines-notes)
- "School of Night" circle
- political spying for Privy Council
Intellectual climate: MACHIAVELLISM: N. Machiavelli (1469-1527): The Prince (1513); power, ambition,end justifies the means
The Jew of Malta Prologue:
"I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance"
Barabas
Thus trowles our fortune in by land and Sea,
And thus are wee on every side inrich'd:
These are the Blessings promis'd to the Jewes,
And herein was old Abrams happinesse:
What more may Heaven doe for earthly man
Then thus to powre out plenty in their laps,
Ripping the bowels of the earth for them,
Making the Sea their servant, and the winds
To drive their substance with successefull blasts?
Who hateth me but for my happinesse?
Or who is honour'd now but for his wealth?
Rather had I a Jew be hated thus,
Then pittied in a Christian poverty:
For I can see no fruits in all their faith,
But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride?
Which me thinkes fits not their profession.
Happily some haplesse man hath conscience,
And for his conscience lives in beggery.
They say we are a scatter'd Nation:
..
I, wealthier farre then any Christian.
I must confesse we come not to be Kings:
That's not our fault: Alas, our number's few,
And Crownes come either by succession,
Or urg'd by force; and nothing violent,
Oft have I heard tell, can be permanent.
Give us a peacefull rule, make Christians Kings,
That thirst so much for Principality.
I have no charge, nor many children,
But one sole Daughter, whom I hold as deare
As Agamemnon did his Iphigen:
And all I have is hers. But who comes here? (1,1)
Barabas
Thus like the sad presaging Raven that tolls
The sicke mans passeport in her hollow beake,
And in the shadow of the silent night
Doth shake contagion from her sable wings;
Vex'd and tormented runnes poore Barabas
With fatall curses towards these Christians.
The incertaine pleasures of swift-footed time
Have tane their flight, and left me in despaire;
And of my former riches rests no more
But bare remembrance; like a souldiers skarre,
That has no further comfort for his maime.
Oh thou that with a fiery piller led'st
The sonnes of Israel through the dismall shades,
Light Abrahams off-spring; and direct the hand
Of Abigall this night; or let the day
Turne to eternall darkenesse after this:
No sleepe can fasten on my watchfull eyes,
Nor quiet enter my distemper'd thoughts,
Till I have answer of my Abigall.
Barabas and Ithamore
Barabas
Hast thou no Trade? then listen to my words,
And I will teach thee that shall sticke by thee:
First be thou voyd of these affections,
Compassion, love, vaine hope, and hartlesse feare,
Be mov'd at nothing, see thou pitty none,
But to thy selfe smile when the Christians moane.
Ithimore
Oh brave, master, I worship your nose for this.
Barabas
As for my selfe, I walke abroad a nights
And kill sicke people groaning under walls:
Sometimes I goe about and poyson wells;
And now and then, to cherish Christian theeves,
I am content to lose some of my Crownes;
That I may, walking in my Gallery,
See 'em goe pinion'd along by my dove.
Being young I studied Physicke, and began
To practice first upon the Italian;
There I enrich'd the Priests with burials,
And alwayes kept the Sexton's armes in ure
With digging graves and ringing dead mens keels:
And after that I was an Engineere,
And in the warres 'twixt France and Germanie,
Under presence of helping Charles the fifth,
Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.
Then after that was I an Usurer,
And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting,
And tricks belonging unto Brokery,
I fill'd the Jailes with Bankrouts in a yeare,
And with young Orphans planted Hospitals,
And every Moone made some or other mad,
And now and then one hang himselfe for griefe,
Pinning upon his breast a long great Scrowle
How I with interest tormented him.
But marke how I am blest for plaguing them,
I have as much coyne as will buy the Towne.
But tell me now, How hast thou spent thy time?
Ithimore
Faith, Master,
In setting christian villages on fire,
Chaining of Eunuches, binding gally-slaves.
One time I was an Hostler in an Inne,
And in the night time secretly would I steale
To travellers Chambers, and there cut their throats:
Once at Jerusalem, where the pilgrims kneel'd,
I strowed powder on the Marble stones,
And therewithall their knees would ranckle, so
That I have laugh'd agood to see the cripples
Goe limping home to Christendome on stilts. (2,3)
T
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, prod. 1588, publ. 1604
- historical Faustus: Georg (chiromancer)
- Volksbuch, Frankfurt 1587, English transl. 1592
- Intellectual climate of the drama: 1. Neoplatonic magic; 2. Free-thinking atheism; 3. Orthodox Calvinism
- Balance of MORALITY and RENAISSANCE features
- 4 dimensions of the play: 1. morality play,2. homiletic tragedy; 3. heroic dimensions; 4 psychology
- Aesthetic merits and faults
Faustus’ last monologue (Why is he a tragic hero?)
Faust.Ah, Faustus.
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damn'd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damn'd.
O, I'll leap up to my God! Who pulls me down?
See, see, where Christ's blood streams in the firmament!
One drop would save my soul, half a drop: ah, my Christ!--
Ah, rend not my heart for naming of my Christ!
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!
Where is it now? 'tis gone: and see, where God
Stretcheth out his arm, and bends his ireful brows!
ountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of God! No, no!
Then will I headlong run into the earth: Earth, gape!
O, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reign'd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring clouds,
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths,
So that my soul may but ascend to heaven![The clock strikes ..
Ah, half the hour is past! 'twill all be past anon.
O God,
If thou wilt not have mercy on my soul,
Yet for Christ's sake, whose blood hath ransom'd me,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be sav'd.
O, no end is limited to damned souls!
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
Ah, Pythagoras' metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be chang'd
Unto some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagu'd in hell.
Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath depriv'd thee of the joys of heaven
[The clock strikes twelve.
O, it strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
[Thunder and lightning.
O soul, be chang'd into little water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!
EnterDevils.
My God, my God, look not so fierce on me!
Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!
Ugly hell, gape not! come not, Lucifer!
I'll burn my books!--Ah, Mephistophilis!
xeunt Devils with Faustus.
EnterChorus.
Chor.Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practise more than heavenly power permits.
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