6. the Tudors and Jacobethan England

6. The Tudors and Jacobethan England History Literature Click here for a Tudor timeline. The royal website includes a history of the Tudor Monarchs [and those prior and post this period]. Art This site will guide you to short articles on the Kings and Queens of the Tudor Music Dynasty. Another general guide to Tudor times can be found here. Architecture Click here for a fuller account of Elizabeth. One of the principle events of the reign of Elizabeth was the defeat of the Spanish Armada (here's the BBC Armada site). Elizabeth's famous (and short) speech before the battle can be found here. England's power grew mightily in this period, which is reflected in the lives and achievements of contemporary 'heroes' such as Sir Francis Drake, fearless fighter against the Spanish who circumnavigated the globe, and Sir Walter Raleigh (nowadays pronounced Rawley), one of those who established the first British colonies across the Atlantic (and who spelt his name in over 40 different ways...). Raleigh is generally 'credited' with the commercial introduction of tobacco into England .about 1778, and possibly of the potato. On a lighter note, information on Elizabethan costume is available here (including such items as farthingales and bumrolls). Literature Drama and the theatre The Elizabethan age is the golden age of English drama, for which the establishment of permanent theatres is not least responsible. As performances left the inn-yards and noble houses for permanent sites in London, the demand for drama increased enormously. While some of the smaller theatres were indoors, it is the purpose-built round/square/polygonal buildings such as The Theatre (the first, built in 1576), the Curtain (late 1570s?), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595), the Fortune (1600) and of course the Globe (1599) that are most characteristic of the period. Although not the first, Shakespeare's Globe, built with materials from the demolished Theatre which moved to avoid a rent increase, was the most famous, and has now been reconstructed near its old site in Southwark. The first play performed at the Globe in 1599 was Julius Caesar. [For a scholarly article on the Elizabethan stage and acting conditions, plus much else, click here.] Of the many, many dramatists of the period, this survey course concentrates on the following: Christopher Marlowe: this link will take you to an attractive Luminarium site with many details. A shorter account of his life and relevance is given here – he perfected blank verse (see below - poetry) with his ‘mighty line’, as Jonson called it. Marlowe was also a fine poet, and here you can read his delightful short poem "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love". William Shakespeare: As you read Macbeth in some detail, you should have more general knowledge of such points as his main types of play with some examples and the development of his language and his view of the world from romantic comedies and tragedies through the great tragedies and 'dark' comedies to the philosophical plays and tales. The topic of our greatest dramatist is inexhaustible - clicking on his name will take you to a whole Shakespeare library with many further links. Mr William Shakespeare and the Internet has an attractive page with a wide range of links. There is also a website for the Royal Shakespeare Company. Ben Jonson (please note the spelling!): another Luminarium site with links to the works, life etc. of this younger contemporary and friend of Shakespeare. In contradistinction to the latter, however, he sought to follow the classical precepts of the Unities, and his characters tend to illustrate the medieval theory of the four humours. His tragedies are rarely played nowadays, but his comedies The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair and especially Volpone are still current on the stage. John Webster: writing during the Jacobean period. Little is known about the author, but The Duchess of Malfi [text etc.] is still frequently acted, The White Devil less so. Both are revenge tragedies, an extremely popular genre at the time (with Hamlet the subtlest and most outstanding). Webster's dramas are full of mental and physical cruelty but the dramatic poetry is fine. Poetry [Concentrate on Spenser, Shakespeare and Donne] Sir Thomas Wyatt, who lived at the time of Henry VIII, is credited among other things with introducing the sonnet into English literature in its Petrarchan form, while a contemporary, the Earl of Surrey, developed the Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet form. Even more important, Surrey developed blank verse to translate Virgil's Aeneid. This verse form (decasyllabic and with its basis in iambic pentameters) was to dominate English drama in the Jacobethan period (=Elizabethan/Jacobean) as well as being used by such as Milton (below). The poet most admired in Shakespeare's day was Edmund Spenser, well dealt with as usual at this Luminarium site. Have a look, for instance, at the first verse of "Prothalamion" with its complaint at his neglect by those who might have been his patrons (he was poor) and his reference to "silver-streaming Thames" (though he was probably upriver of the main sewers such as the Fleet river!), or sonnet 75 with a theme found also in Shakespeare's sonnets (below), or a verse or two of the First Canto of The Faerie Queene. This is generally reckoned the second greatest epic poem in English after Milton's Paradise Lost (below), if such statements are meaningful. The 9 lines are decasyllabic (=10 syllables) with the exception of the last, which is an alexandrine (12 syllables, the length of French classical verse). This is usually called the Spenserian stanza, and was later used by Keats, for instance. Shakespeare himself was of course a poet not only in his poetic dramas and the songs often found there, but in a few longer poems and notably in his sonnets, whose mysteries have engaged scholars for years. Largely rediscovered in this century, not least due to the influence of T.S.Eliot, is John Donne. The Victorian Golden Treasury, an anthology by F.T. Palgrave, contained not a poem by Donne, for instance. His poetry often begins in a startling, even violent, way and is argumentative, using strange ideas or 'conceits' but persuading us of their appropriateness. See for instance "The Sun Rising" and "The Flea". This type of poetry was later referred to as 'metaphysical' by the classical poet Dryden (not intended as praise) and the term was popularised by Dr Johnson in the eighteenth century. Donne and his followers have been especially favoured in our century by the Modernist movement in poetry and by the New Critics because of their use of irony, ambiguity and other structural devices. Links to some other poets not taken up here, such as Sydney, can be found at this site, though there were many more of interest. Art Pictorial art outside the churches and religious houses is in 16th and 17th c. England very largely the history of the portrait. The first artists in England of great significance were mainly imported from the Continent, with Hans Holbein the Younger the greatest early example. While his portraits of notables and merchants showed their trade or learning with various portrayed objects - see "The Ambassadors", for instance, two French ambassadors to Henry's court (there is a detailed account of the meaning of the painting and its symbols here) - his royal portraits were very iconic in style without background details. Note his linear style - every last detail is painted, such as the individual hairs in a fur collar or the pattern of a robe. Among Holbein's specialities was the portrait miniature (the snapshot of the time to be carried around and shown to friends etc). His greatest successor in the time of Elizabeth was an Englishman, Nicholas Hilliard. His "Young Man Among Roses" is thought to have been a portrait of Elizabeth's favourite the Earl of Essex, later executed for rebellion. He seems entangled by eglantine roses – the Queen’s rose – and is wearing black and white clothing which were her colours, worn in honour of the Queen. The tree is a symbol of steadfastness. Some other portraits can be found here, including (an enlargeable) Elizabeth. Music Music in England was especially flourishing under the Tudor monarchs, and the 16th c. was a golden age of English music. Henry VIII was himself an accomplished musician with an extensive collection of instruments, and a number of his songs have been preserved. His dissolution of the monasteries broke up their rich musical life, but patronage passed to the court and the nobility. An outstanding composer of Henry's time (mainly of church music) was Thomas Tallis. Under Elizabeth the madrigal, songs for several voices or parts ( a form of Italian origin), reached perfection under practitioners such as Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Morley, who wrote music to Shakespeare's songs [here you will find a synthesized version of "Now is the Month of Maying"], the great William Byrd [examples of his music], and many more. Salon and parlour music became popular, and wealthier households had a set of viols or a virginal. Lutes could be bought at the barbers' shops. John Dowland (1563-1626) was the lute virtuoso of his time who also worked in Germany and Denmark [a selection of his music including dance music such as "Lachrymae"]. Architecture Here is a brief guide to Tudor architecture with some examples at the Wikipedia site. Elizabethan Architecture was a further development with more foreign and Renaissance influence. The medieval house had been built up round its great hall which was high to allow smoke from the centrally placed fire to find its way out under the roof.

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