SHAKESPEARE (Paper Code: MAEG2006)
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PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY ( A Central University ) DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION SHAKESPEARE (Paper Code: MAEG2006) MA (English) – II Year DDE – WHERE INNOVATION IS A WAY OF LIFE PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY ( A Central University) DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION MASTER OF ARTS In ENGLISH Second Year Course Code:60 Paper Code: MAEG2006 Shakespeare Master of Arts in English Shakespeare Expert Dr. T. Marx Associate Professor Department of English Pondicherry University Puducherry-605014 All rights are reserved. For Private Circulation only. PONDICHERRY UNIVERSITY ( A Central University) DIRECTORATE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION MASTER OF ARTS in English Shakespeare TABLE OF CONTENTS Title UNIT - I UNIT - II UNIT - III UNIT - IV UNIT - V UNIT I 1. The Great Tragedies What is drama? Drama can be defined in countless ways. However, a definition of drama that incorporates the three key terms-imitative action, stage and audience- is a convincing one. Drama is nothing but a factual/fictitious imitative action that could be enacted on stage before an audience. Drama is one of the earliest genres of literature. Every human being has an inherent impulse either to pretend he/she is someone or something else or to see such a pretention. For instance, in a classroom when the teacher asks the student why was he late to the class, the student pretends that he was late because of a seriously genuine reason. In some cases the teacher also pretends and excuses the student taking his reason for late coming seriously. Students of the entire class were enjoying these pretentions. Quite often in our lives, we enact more dramas than encountering real life situations. That’s why William Shakespeare calls life itself a ‘tale’. Ultimately drama is nothing but a product of the instinctive pleasure in the imitative action. Drama is unique and different from the other literary genres because drama is a community art. Unlike the other literary genres which can be produced by an individual in solitude, drama involves and integrates the entire community. Drama is intended to be performed and not to be read as in the case of other literary genres. Aristotle says that the dramatic poets “represent people in action”. John Marston wrote in 1606, “Dramas are writ to be spoken not read.” Moliere puts it more effectively, “Dramas are made to be played, not to be read.” Marjorie Boulton stresses further by saying that drama is “literature that walks and talks before our eyes.” Origins As every classical and modern critic would invariable agree with, drama is founded in religion. In the West and the East, drama was strongly connected to religion. In the recorded history of world drama, we first hear of drama only in connection with the rustic festivals held in honour of Dionysius, the god of wine, otherwise called the Bacchic festivals of early Greece. Historians who traced the history of drama say that drama was born in Greece around 600 BCE. The Greeks were organizing drama contests as part of the rustic festivals. 1 1.1 Greek Theatre In Greece, theatre activity was much regulated. Tickets for drama were distributed only through a local town council called deme to each citizen whose public record was good. Froma Zeitlin, a prof. of Greek Language and Literature, confirms this by saying, “theatre attendance was thus closely linked to citizenship.” On a single festival day, three plays which are thematically linked together were performed in subsequent order and these plays are called trilogy. Minimal costumes were used and no properties were used in a typical Greek theatre. Masks were used to represent characters. Men were playing the role of women characters. Thespis, the earliest theatre person we hear of, defines theatre as an art of acting a part on stage. Our etymological hunt for the term ‘thespian’ leads us to this famous person. Almost all the Greek plays were performed in large hillside fan shaped theatres called amphi theatres. The first theatre arena in early Greece was Acropolis, a temple ground, beyond which Mount Hymettus made a distant background. It was only this structure of the temple ground with three- sided landscape and a hill/mountain as a backdrop that later formed the idea of the frame for a proscenium stage. The stage was called the skene and the spectators were called theatrons. Of the hundreds of tragedies performed around 400 BCE in Acropolis temple ground which housed nearly 14000 to 20000 people as audience, only less than 35 plays survive. All these surviving tragedies are based on myths. An old man with a gusty voice would use masks and dramatize the whole content of the play on the stage. These performances were bare, stark, simple, and yet powerful. There was nothing new in these plays as the Greek dramas were based on the myths that were already familiar with the people. However, hundreds of people flocked to the theatre and watched these plays for the sheer truth that was demonstrated. Notable dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are considered the great trio of the Greek theatre on whom the very pedestal of Greek drama stands. The essence of drama in its perfect and purest form bloomed in the plays of these tragedians in such an impressive way that even the forthcoming generations can enjoy its fragrance and revel in its beauty. Aeschylus was born in Athens in the year 525 BCE. Several dramatic competitions were held at that time, and people used to participate with zest. The first competition of its kind was held in Athens in 534 BCE and Thespis won the first prize. Aeschylus too strove to participate in such competitions and won a prize. Some of his popular plays include The Supplicants, Seven 2 against Thebes, Prometheus Bound, etc. Aeschylus contributed a lot to the development of theatrical effects and laid the foundation on which Euripides and Sophocles could develop. Aeschylus, who is well known for his famous work Oresteia, introduced the concept of second actor on stage and also expanded the possibilities of a well knit plot. Sophocles, the innovator of the third actor in Greek Drama, is considered the most accessible of the central trio of Greek tragedies. From his Ode to Colonus, critics wildly guess that Sophocles was probably born in 496 BCE at Colonus, near Athens. Of the 118 plays written by Sophocles, only seven plays survive. Being the apex of Greek tragedies, Sophocles left a legacy powerful enough to elevate him as one of the founding fathers of Western drama. Sophocles died in the year 406 BCE. Some of his works include, Oedipus Rex, Ajax, and Women of Trachis, etc. Euripides was the youngest of the three tragedians. Though he was a contemporary of Sophocles, his ways, approaches and techniques were quite different. Some of his plays include Orestes, Electra, Hecuba, Hippolyta, etc. Euripides, known for his magnum opus Medea, created the ultimate form of drama by making the stage far more naturalistic. Aristotle’s Poetics Poetics, the treatise on Drama, was widely considered one of Aristotle’s most demanding and rewarding texts. The precise origins of Poetics are not known. And yet, researchers believe that it would have been written around 330 BCE and was preserved primarily through Aristotle’s students’ notes. Despite its vague beginnings, Poetics continues to be the central document for the study of aesthetics of drama for centuries. Standing in opposition to the theory of art propounded by Plato in Republic, Poetics offers profound returns to the diligent readers of drama. Aristotle holds tragedy in the highest position of all the genres. He regards tragedy as the noblest form of art. In Poetics, Aristotle recognizes six elements of tragedy-plot, character, diction, thought, spectacle and song. Of all these essential ingredients of drama, plot, according to Aristotle, is the soul of tragedy. Aristotle laid down certain precepts to be followed by a tragedian. He insisted on the three unities-unity of action, unity of place and unity of time. According to the three unities, a play should concentrate on a single action, should cover only events not exceeding 24 hours and should not have more than one locale. It is also believed that Aristotle insisted only on two unities and the unity of action was actually appended by renaissance critics. 3 A tragic hero, in Aristotle’s view of drama, is not an eminently ‘good man’ nor is he necessarily a ‘paragon of virtue’. For the fall of a virtuous man can only shock us and will not arouse pity and fear, but sympathy, and hence it is not suitable for tragedy. The fall of a completely villainous character is also not approvable as we can only feel satisfied and happy at his defeat, and tragedy will not serve its fundamental purpose. Therefore, an ideal tragic hero should be a noble man and his fall from eminence to disaster is due to some fault in his own character. Another important trait of the tragic hero is that he should be superior to the average man because he has to put his interests second and live for the greater good of the country. Despite his nobility, the hero should have an excessive pride in his character called hubris. Oedipus is, no doubt, a man of virtues but his arrogance that he would discover the truth and his undying curiosity to ‘know the truth’ are signs of his hubris. Irrespective of whatever the hero does- good or bad- a tragic fall would occur because of his fate, which is what Aristotle calls hamartia. Oedipus has been a messiah of the masses in his kingdom and without a fault of his own, he suffers and falls miserably because of hamartia which means “an error of judgement” or “missing the mark”.