Good morning and welcome to the course on
history of English language and literature.
We all know that the supreme contribution
of the Elizabethan age was that of the Elizabethan
drama exemplified by Shakespeare which is
why the age, the golden age of Elizabethan
period was also known as the age of Shakespeare.
In today’s session we will be taking a look
at the drama before Shakespeare mapping through
some of the predecessors of drama prop up.
In fact it is very important to note at the
beginning that the Greek and Roman traditions
had a very thriving dramatic tradition in
place but however when it comes to the middle
English period in England we do not see much
of an influence of any of those Greek or Roman
plays taking a part over there. And in fact
the English dramatic tradition which begins
to emerge from the middle English period through
the Elizabethan period, it has got hardly
anything to do with the ancient Classical
drama. In that sense we can even say that
the English dramatic tradition owes very little
to that of the ancient classical tradition.
So some of the predecessors of drama before
Shakespeare could be named as follows like
mystery plays, Miracle plays, Morality plays
and the Interludes. In fact the each of these
kinds of
drama they had a very short short life and
they did not thrive beyond a certain particular
historical period and their content was largely
religious, moral as the as their titles imply
as well. And however its very important to
take a look at these tradition in order to
be able to properly understand how and why
Shakespeare wrote in particular ways and how
Elizabethan drama came to be featured in certain
historical ways.
So moving on we will first take a look at
the mystery plays which had begun to emerge
from the 11th and 12th century which is right
after the Norman conquest. So it is very interesting
that the drama had a past which is as early
as the Norman tradition itself.
The rebirth of drama after the classical traditions
of Greek and Roman plays, it had it had its
rebirth and in fact within the church premises.
It was the church and its liturgy who began
to develop the first forms of drama. This
was in fact primarily conceived as a way to
teach Bible to the illiterate commoners because
Bible was then written and popularised mainly
in Latin and other languages which were not
accessible to the commoners.
So the clergy thought of an innovative way
to reach Bible to the commoners and they thought
of enacting plays, enacting stories from the
Bible which would be of interest to the commoners.
This was also a way to teach them about the
ways of the world and also introduce them
to the various historical and biblical aspects
as well. So these were primarily liturgical
dramas, so as the
name implies the content was primarily from
the Bible and the actors were also pre-dominantly
from the clergy and who were part of the church.
And due to its didatic purpose and due to
this schematic structure it was entirely under
the churchs control. So it is very interestingly
to note that in the beginning church had a
very important role to play in the development
of drama. Just as the way church continued
to control many of the social, political and
economic affairs of those times. The name
Mystery needs a little bit of attention. Mystery
in fact means religious truth it used to mean
religious truth during those times and also
meant secret when it was translated from the
French language.
Latin and French being the dominant languages
of those times, mystery plays seems quite
appropriate a name for them and they were
mostly based on scenes and stories from the
Bible and one interesting aspect in terms
of language is that since they were adaptations
from the Bible for the commoners, the Latin
began to be heavily replaced by the vernacular,
the English which was prevalent during that
time and the venue also its quite an interesting
shift that happens across a period.
The venue was initially outside right outside
the cathedral because these place were staged
for the commoners who came to attend the church
and gradually as the numbers increase and
the popularity increases we find at the venue
shifts to the towns square where more people
can attend and also more kinds of elaborate
arrangements could be made and gradually it
even shift to a form of pageants.
Pageants are very important in the history
of drama because they were more like a travelling
drama company. They used to have these boxes
within huge vehicles which had actors and
plays which also had elaborate arrangements
they used to travel across the town and people
used to gather at different points, different
corners in order to watch the drama which
is being staged. So the venue gradually shifts
from the church towards the toward the towns
centre and the control also gradually we begin
to see that the control of this drama, their
themes, their organization everything begins
to shift from the church to the to the other
areas outside that.
So as time progresses we begin to note that
church no longer supports or facilitates these
dramas. It is the guilds, guilds is the mainly
the group of people, the merchants who come
together who form a certain, they raise the
financer, they take decisions together they
also end up ruling the
towns square in the name of a council. So
the control gradually shifts from the church
towards these these tradesmen guilds.
So we also note that just as these changes
takes place the actors also begin to change.
The clergy are no longer then permitted to
be a part of these acting teams but then others,
commoners the who are the merchants, the peasants
who are part of the guilds they all replace
clergy as actors also. At this context it
is important to remember this Edict of 20
this Edict of 1210 which forbids clergy from
participating any of these dramatic forms
and this is also a moment when we witness
a growing secularisation of the drama.
So this also leads to another kind of drama
called Miracle plays. It is very important
to distinguish between Mystery plays and Miracle
plays at this point because many tend to confuse
one with the other. Mystery plays whereas
we already have noted they were largely based
on stories from the Bible. So in a way that
it enacted the stories exactly as they were
shown in the Bible. Would miracle plays had
a freedom to defer a bit from the Bible and
also introduce the stories of the life of
saints, their biography and how certain how
certain common instances could be related
to the events from the Bible, so on and so
forth.
In that sense it is could be considered as
a little more secular than the Mystery play
though both continue to be played in England
during the same time and the actors of these
were not clergy at all. There were mostly
common people tradesmen and whoever was interested
in acting could
come in and join this. And also until Shakespeare’s
times its a very significant to note that
female actors were not in plays. All the parts
even the ones played by females were taken
by male actors.
So this was more or less a show run entirely
by men and in this Miracle plays through the
lives of saints, through the life of certain
commoners who had got God’s calling, so
on and so forth, we found a story line emerging
which had which was emphasizing God’s will,
this continued to be religious and ritualistic
but it also focused on the practical application
of the stories of the Bible and there is evidence
which shows that these plays were staged,
Miracle plays were staged across almost 40
districts in England during the medieval period.
And these plays were organised, they were
funded, they were taken care of entirely by
trading girls.
There were four major something that we call
we can call as a companies which were promoting
these miracle plays during that period. They
also used to run these plays in a cycle, a
cycle in the sense something which storyline
which would have a full circle like a in the
beginning there would be the creation and
the play would end with the fall of man and
the consequences of it. Or else it would begin
with the life of Christ and would complete
an entire cycle focusing through the events
of his crucification, his resurrection, his
second coming, so on and so forth.
In that sense they used to complete an entire
cycle focusing on the storylines within the
Bible and also connecting it with the practical
application for the commoners. So there were
four different cycles like this The Chester
cycle, The Coventry, The Wakefield and The
York and there is a lot of historical evidence
to prove that they had continued to exist
even during Shakespeare times.
They just said that Shakespeare must have
witnessed at least one of these plays which
was getting staged in Coventry. These names
were in fact after the names of the places
where most of these place were continuing
to get staged. So Shakespeare’s plays when
one begin to read them and analyse them, many
critics and historians have felt that there
is a major influence of these Miracle plays
in the way he began to conceive his theatre,
his idea of stage, so on and so forth.
And some of the other common plays used to
be The Three Maries focusing on the different
characters of Mary from the Bible, The Shepherds
Play which was mostly the nativity scene
which was being put up for the commoners and
also the feast of the Corpus Christy that
continued to have a lot of importance. This
was like one of the major feasts just like
Easter.
So there used to be these different cycles
which were continued to be played for almost
for 12 to 14 days at a stretch. So it began
to be known as collective Mysteries and importantly
all the merchants, the tradesmen everyone
used to take a day off from their work. So
this was mostly a holiday season as well when
Corpus Christy Collective Mysteries began
to be staged. In that sense we do begin to
see that the beginnings of this mass entertainment
and collective entertainment begins from as
early as the 13th century onwards.
And this had began to pave way to another
kind of plays known as a Morality play. This
is in the by the end of the 14th century.
Here we find a very radical shift from the
Biblical stories from the thematic structure
which was mostly concentrating on church so
and so forth. Here the theme and the treatment
was mostly allegorical and later on when we
begin to look at the forms of poetry which
began to emerge in England from the early
Elizabethan period onwards, it would be noted
that allegorical poetry had began to enjoy
a lot of success and fame in Elizabethan England.
So in a way Morality plays and the allegorical
nature of them began to began to lead England
towards a kind of poetry and a kind of genre
that they would begin to enjoy. So this allegory
was very interesting in the sense that these
plays had abstract characters and virtues,
abstract emotions and virtues as real characters,
like faith would be one character, truth,
charity, good deeds, justice, mercy etc, were
personified as characters.
This would also remind us that in the later
centuries to come many of these personifications
of characters have they have their roots in
the early Morality plays and these fine virtues
would also be contrasted against virtues against
vices such as falsehood, covetousness, gluttony
etc. So these positive virtues would be showcased
as the protagonist and the vices as the antagonist
of the play and there was also this character
of the vice V I C E the vice who would also
give a kind of a comic interlude to these
plays.
And in fact one of the critics have described
this Morality plays as allegorical stories
where characters battle for the control of
the soul. This also reminds us briefly about
Marlow’s Doctor Faustes about which we would
be discussing a couple of sessions later when
we do Elizabethan drama. And these morality
plays significantly they layed the foundation
of characterization in drama especially in
the Elizabethan drama and the English drama
that followed afterwards and these were mostly
about moral behaviour as the title would imply
but ironically as time progressed they were
not entirely about morality
In fact there was a lot of immorality which
was getting celebrated within the plot structure
of these Morality plays. Because of this since
the earlier times of plays the Mystery plays
and the Miracle plays were overly didactic,
overly moralistic. Commoners in fact begin
to enjoy the kind of immorality which was
getting celebrated in a subtle way within
these Morality plays. This also had led to
a lot of immense popularity for these Morality
plays because they always gave a different
kind of entertainment to the English public
from the 14th century onwards.
And one of the most celebrate and most common
of this Morality plays is the one which is
named as Everyman, the authorship is disputed
its best left at being anonymous. This was
in 1490 towards the end of the 15th century,
in fact Everyman continues to be staged in
minor ways even in the contemporary that also
talks about the, the universality and relevance
of the play Everyman from the 15th century
and this the plot structure was mainly about
the was about to contest between the virtues
and the vices and it also had a subtle humour
in it because there is this character whose
called as Everyman who can be almost every
man as the title implies and
death comes to him and gives him an invitation
to reach God and then Everyman is very reluctant
to leave Earth and leave along with death
to reach God.
So he is looking for a companion to accompany
him to God. So he goes along meeting various
people his relatives, his friends and goes
on asking them whether they would be interested
in joining him in this journey towards God
and almost everyone says no. In fact there
are a couple of comic interventions in between,
there is this cousin that Everyman goes to
and asks him if would like to accompany him
on this journey to meet God and the cousins
says I would have loved to except for this
tiny toe problem that I have got, so it was
all a hugely entertaining for the common people
and they even hear keeping him tuned with
the tradition of Morality plays.
All the characters and names such as good
deeds, justice, vice, gluttony, charity, truth,
faith etc. So Everyman approaches all of these
characters who are also his relatives and
friends and towards the end we find good deed
is the only character who decides to accompany
him on his way to reaching God. So this also
has an implied moral and it also had a continued
relevance in te sense that when one is when
the time comes for anyone to meet God through
death it is only perhaps the good deeds which
would accompany him.
So this kind of intervention through the Morality
plays it had a lot of philosophical undertones,
it also tried in a very different way other
than the Miracle and the Morality plays to
bring in a theological discussion among the
commoners and also led them to ask questions
about life in general, about the reality of
death about the abstractions of life after
death, so on and so forth.
And amidst all these things lot of things
happen in the in terms of the social and historical
background . In the previous lectures we have
also recollected how plague continued to attack,
how the fortunes of England go up and down
because of the interference of the church,
because of the growing corruption, because
of the cosmopolitanism that is gradually setting
in, because of the mass migration from the
rural hinterlands to the city of London.
All of these things are happening in the background
and by the mid 15th century, we find that
for a brief period the church outlaws all
kinds of performances because the church found
it increasingly difficult to deal with the
criticisms that were coming through these
plays and also that commoners were getting
quite so much interested in all these things
that they also knew how to engage with Biblical
concepts and Biblical stories from a critical
angle as well.
So due to this and due to the various others
reasons and since with the Morality play,
the play also had moved far away from the
church settings and also from the theological
themes, the church outlaws the performances
and the theatres were then built outside the
city walls and for a brief period this was
also to contain the spread of the plague which
was becoming quite a quite a prevalent thing
during that time.
And then by mid-16th century there is again
a revival and we find that the interludes
become more common during this period. So
by this time England had left behind the Miracle
plays, the Mystery plays and the interludes
were could be considered as a higher and advanced
kind of Morality plays. This was in fact structured
in such a way that this had real characters,
no more abstract notions or abstract virtues.
This had real characters and the play used
to be very short, there was always a sense
of humour which was woven into this as well.
So we find a radical shift from abstract qualities
to individuals and most of these individuals
were also real, so much so that the commoners
could even relate to the characters were being
represented on stage. They could be from the
court, they could be one of the council members,
they could be one of the tradesmen that they
knew around the corner.
So it had a very different kind of appeal
to the common commoners then. In this interludes
we also see the beginning of social satire
as well and we also find a complete absence
of allegorical figures over there. There is
a sense of very real representations coming
in so things are no longer subtle because
but they are on the contrary right on one’s
face and we also find radical shift from morality
to that of comedy.
This is also the time when the foundations
of the subtle England humour are being laid
in medieval England. And one of the most prominent
writers, playwrights of this time was John
Heywood. John Heywood was a court musician.
He was also one of the prominent entertainers
at Henry VIII’s court. Henry VIII if you
remember is the king who broke away from Roman
catholic church and had his own church of
England and John Heywood’s play, the Four
P’s was immensely popular during the mid-16th
century.
It continued to have a lasting appeal even
in the Elizabethan later Elizabethan period.
The Four P’s in fact signifies a Peddler,
a Palmer, a Pardoner and a Potycary, people
from different walks of life and this the
plot of the play was about a lying match between
all of these four people. So this had a lot
of humour built into it lot of satire built
into it. It is said that the commoners could
even identify who these four real characters
were. So in that sense it also enjoyed immense
popularity during this time.
So with these sort of settings we find English
drama achieving a foundational stage from
the 16th century onwards and in the 16th century
especially from the 1550s onwards we find
a renewed interest in pagan antiquity. If
you remember at the beginning we noted that
the Miracle plays and the Morality plays had
very little do with the ancient classical
traditions. They had moved away from the Roman
and Greek plays and they had their own standards,
their own kinds of stages so on and so forth.
By mid-1550s there is a revival in pagan antiquity
and this is also the time when renaissance
is running high in Europe and also in England.
So because of these reasons, the comedy of
Plautus
and Terence, the tragedies of Seneca, all
of these have a huge influence in shaping
English drama from the 16th century. At the
same time, very important to note that they
also had a lot of native elements, in the
sense Elizabethan stage becomes a very native
kind of thing a native structure which the
play rights within Britain had begun within
England had begun to conceive and begun to
popularise.
So from the 16th century onwards through the
age of Shakespeare through the age of Elizabeth
we see that there are these classical influences
coming in but also a native tradition begins
to be forged. So we will also see in detail
in one of the latest sessions about how the
Elizabethan drama, how the English drama was
different from that of the classical dramas
of the ancient times and there were also lot
of Latin imitations which were getting enacted
in the universities of that period.
As you remember from the previous sessions,
the universities centres of Oxford and Cambridge
`had by now become the centres of intellectual
excellence and many of these universities
began to encourage the staging of plays in
Latin by imitating from the earlier stalwarts
from Greek and Latin. And this is the time
when English comedy begins to emerge in this
in its full being. Nicholas Udall who was
also the headmaster of Eton one of the most
famous ancient public schools in Britain,
his comedy Ralph Roister Doister this was
published in stage then published in 1551.
This was considered as the first real English
comedy from the 16th century and this continues
there are a lot of disputes about whether
this qualifies itself as the first comedy
or not but in literary history it continues
to hold the distinction of being the first
real English comedy. There was also another
comic play which was hugely popular during
those times its called Gammer Gurton’s Needle
in 1575. Apart from the humour that it had
this play was also important for the latter
periods for the latter historians and for
the critics because it showed a glimpses of
English life of English 16th century English
life through the play.
And tragedy was also quite significant and
important during this time. We also find different
genres getting formed in terms of their keeping
in tune with the dramatic traditions. The
Thomas Sackville and Norton together had produced
this tragedy called Gorboduc in 1562. This
was also in a blank verse which had a continuing
impact on the way English drama was getting
framed.
And at this point it is important to note
that the classical antiquities had excelled
itself in the presentation of tragedies and
when Sackville and Norton had their first
tragedy Goboduc, this had classical elements
in it but they had also broken away significantly
from the classical theme.
So there was a lot of ways in which the English
drama was trying to project itself as distinct
as more native and freer from foreign influences
but at the same time a servile imitation of
classical models continued to exists at least
for a while because there were a lot of poor
imitations of works from Greek and Roman history.
There were also people who had merely translated
the works from the classical antiquities and
tried to pass it on as an original work.
And there were also history which began to
historical place which began to dominate this
time. There were in fact more dramatize form
of the early chronicles. They featured the
lives of kings, the lives of great warriors,
the lives of knight, so on and so forth. And
these kinds of plays in fact combined comic
and tragic elements. Some of these we would
be seeing in a later session, these kind of
combination of tragedy and comedy was very
important because in the classical sense a
play could either be entirely tragic or it
could be entirely based on comedy.
But this the history plays gave a new forum
where the Elizabethan where the English dramatists
and English playwrights could experiment by
bringing in the elements of comedy and tragedy
within a single play. With this we begin to
see that a proper foundation is laid for the
Elizabethan drama, the stage is being set
for great stalwarts like Shakespeare and others
to emerge from the Elizabethan period onwards.
So in the next session we would begin to take
a look at how this foundational elements were
very significant in shaping the kind of drama
that Elizabethan England began to witness,
this this influence was exemplified not just
in this structure and theme of drama but also
in the way the idea of the theatre began to
be conceived, the way theatre begins to be
commercialized, so on and so forth.
So we look forward to the next session where
we will be talking in a greater detail about
what exactly paved the way towards the emergence
of Elizabethan drama as exemplified in the
age of Shakespeare. Thank you for listening
and this is all we have for today.
