Masaryk University Faculty of Education Department of English Language and Literature
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Renaissance theatre in England and its comparison with the theatre in the Czech Lands in the Renaissance period Bachelor Thesis Brno 2016 Supervisor: Author: Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. Lucie Pupalová Prohlášení Prohlašuji, že jsem bakalářskou práci vypracovala samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných literárních pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro studenty Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy univerzity a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů. Brno, 25. března 2016 …….………………… Lucie Pupalová Acknowledgement In the first place, I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D. for her valued help, patience and kind advice. Secondly, I would like to thank my parents as well as my dear classmates and friends for motivation and support, namely Magdalena Kyzlinková and Kateřina Zadinová. Abstract This Bachelor thesis focuses on the development of theatre in the period of Renaissance in England and in the Czech Lands as well as on their comparison. The thesis is divided into four main chapters. The first chapter briefly describes the theatre development in Europe prior to the Renaissance period. The following two chapters outline the theatre development of Renaissance theatre in both compared countries. The last chapter provides a comparison of these two theatre developments and seeks for similarities and differences between them. Key words theatre, drama, Renaissance, development, history, England, Czech Lands Anotace Tato bakalářská práce se zabývá vývojem renesančního divadla v Anglii a v Českých zemích a jejich porovnáním. Práce je rozdělena do čtyř hlavních kapitol. První kapitola stručně popisuje historický vývoj divadla v Evropě před obdobím renesance. Následující dvě kapitoly nastiňují historický vývoj divadla za období renesance v obou zemích. Poslední kapitola nabízí porovnání těchto dvou divadelních vývojů a hledá, v čem se podobaly a v čem byly naopak rozdílné. Klíčová slova divadlo, drama, renesance, vývoj, historie, Anglie, České země Table of contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 6 1 Historical Development of European Theatre .................................................................................... 10 1.1 The theatre from the beginnings .................................................................................................. 10 Ancient Greece .............................................................................................................................. 10 Ancient Rome ................................................................................................................................ 11 1.2 Medieval times ............................................................................................................................ 11 2 English Renaissance Theatre .............................................................................................................. 14 2.1 Historical background ................................................................................................................. 14 Tudor rulers ................................................................................................................................... 14 The Stuarts ..................................................................................................................................... 15 2.2 Theatre ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Theatre in schools and culture ....................................................................................................... 16 Elizabethan Theatre ....................................................................................................................... 17 The first public theatre venue in London and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men ................................ 18 The Globe ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Other public theatre venues ........................................................................................................... 20 Private theatres .............................................................................................................................. 21 Companies of actors and the control of theatre ............................................................................. 21 William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) ............................................................................................. 22 Drama and theatre in the era of Stuarts ......................................................................................... 25 2.3 Summary of the England theatre development ........................................................................... 26 3 Czech Theatre in the period of Renaissance ....................................................................................... 27 3.1 Renaissance in the Czech Lands .................................................................................................. 27 Scholastic theatre ........................................................................................................................... 28 The peak of humanistic theatre ...................................................................................................... 29 The overview of the humanistic theatre ........................................................................................ 31 Jesuit Theatre ................................................................................................................................. 32 Culture and theatre during the Habsburg reign ............................................................................. 33 Maximilian II ................................................................................................................................. 34 Rudolf II ........................................................................................................................................ 34 The Battle of White Mountain ....................................................................................................... 35 3.2 Summary of the Czech development ........................................................................................... 35 4 Comparison ........................................................................................................................................ 37 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 41 Works cited............................................................................................................................................ 43 Introduction Theatre has been a popular type of entertainment for countless years and hopefully it will be beloved by people even in the future. When reading about the theatre in the great Renaissance period in England, I realized how little is known about the Renaissance theatre development in my own country’s history. With this thought in mind, I have decided to focus on the theatre development of both countries to see, how similar the theatre development in these two countries was. As mentioned above, this thesis is concerned with the theatre development in the period of Renaissance in two European countries. More specifically, it focuses on the development of the Renaissance theatre in England, a land located on the British Isles and isolated from the European mainland by the English Channel. This shall be compared with the Czech Lands or the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, a country that is in today’s world called the Czech Republic. The work describes and outlines the Renaissance development in both of these countries, aiming to search for similar features or great differences between the theatres in these particular countries. The aim of this thesis is not only to show the comparison but mainly to portray the development in each land. To be able to describe and understand such development properly, it is also necessary to describe the historical background, as mainly the political and religious situation played an enormous role in the theatre development. The historical background reminds the reader of the rulers and the contemporary situation in these particular lands for these should be understood as the prominent factors that had a great impact on the theatre development. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter gives a brief description of the European theatrical development prior to the period of Renaissance. It gives the reader an insight into how the whole theatrical development began and what were the main reasons for it. Then it deals with the theatre in ancient Greece and ancient Rome as those were the most important places of early development. The last part of the chapter gives a brief summary of the theatre progress during medieval times, in order to bring a chronological order to the work. The second and third chapter each concentrate on the Renaissance period in one country. The second chapter deals with England and its development