Commecs Perspective Patron Cdr (Retd) Abdul Razaq PN Convener Dr. Uzma Naveed Incharge Rohana Tariq April 2018 Topic: Elizabethan Age Christopher Marlowe Father of English Dramatic Poetry Muhammad Muzaffar Associate Professor The Renaissance Period in English literature is also called Elizabethan Period. The reign of Queen Elizabeth I was from the year of 1558 to 1603. This period is called the golden age of English literature. During this Period the most memorable achievement in English literature was in the field of drama. A little bit before Shakespeare Elizabethan drama was dominated by the “University Wits”, a professional set of literary men. The University Wits is a phrase used to name a group of late 16th century English playwrights who were educated at the universities like Oxford and Cambridge and who became popular secular writers. Prominent members of this group were Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Peele, Lodge and Nash. Of this little constellation, Marlowe was the central sun and all others round him revolved as minor stars. In 1587 Marlowe’s first play Tamburlaine was produced and it took the public by storm on account of its impetuous force , its splendid command of blank verse, and its sensitiveness to beauty. In this play Marlowe dramatised the exploits of the Scythian shepherd, Tamburlaine. Tamburlaine was succeeded by Doctor Faustus, a very famous play by Marlowe in which he gave an old medieval legend a romantic setting. Doctor Faustus is the story of a scholar who sells his soul to the Devil for worldly enjoyment and unlimited power. Doctor Faustus, a well-respected German scholar, grows dissatisfied with the limits of traditional forms of knowledge—logic, medicine, Page | 1 law, and religion—and decides that he wants to learn to practice magic. His friends Valdes and Cornelius instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new career as a magician by summoning up Mephistopheles a devil. Despite Mephistopheles’s warnings about the horrors of hell, Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of Faustus’s soul in exchange for twenty-four years of service from Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles returns to Faustus with word that Lucifer has accepted Faustus’s offer. Faustus again has second thoughts, but Mephistopheles bestows rich gifts on him and gives him a book of spells to learn. Later, Mephistopheles answers all of his questions about the nature of the world, refusing to answer only when Faustus asks him who made the universe. This refusal prompts yet another bout of misgivings in Faustus, but Mephistopheles and Lucifer bring in personifications of the Seven Deadly Sins to prance about in front of Faustus, and he is impressed enough to quiet his doubts. Armed with his new powers and attended by Mephistopheles, Faustus begins to travel and uses his new power on different occasions. As the twenty-four years of his deal with Lucifer come to a close, Faustus begins to dread his impending death. He has Mephistopheles call up Helen of Troy, the famous beauty from the ancient world, and uses her presence to impress a group of scholars. An old man urges Faustus to repent, but Faustus drives him away. Faustus summons Helen again and exclaims rapturously about her beauty. But time is growing short. Faustus tells the scholars about his pact, and they are horror-stricken and resolve to pray for him. On the final night before the expiration of the twenty-four years, Faustus is overcome by fear and remorse. He begs for mercy, but it is too late. At midnight, a host of devils appears and carries his soul off to hell. In the morning, the scholars find Faustus’s limbs and decide to hold a funeral for him. The story of the play is presented in a most fascinating manner. Marlowe’s Faustus is the genuine incarnation of the Renaissance spirit. The Jew of Malta, the third tragedy of Marlowe, is not so fine as Doctor Faustus, though it has glorious opening. His last play, Edward II, is his best from the technical point of view. Though it lacks the force and rhythmic beauty of the earlier plays, it is superior to them on account of its rare skill of construction and admirable characterization. Marlowe’s contribution to the Elizabethan drama is great .He has raised the subject matter of drama to a higher level. He has introduced heroes who are man of great strength and vitality, possessing the Renaissance characteristic of insatiable spirit of adventure. He gives life and reality to the characters, and introduces passion on the stage. He has made the blank verse supple and flexible to suit the drama, and made the work of Shakespeare in this respect easy. He has given the coherence and unity to the drama, which it was formerly lacking. He also gave beauty, dignity and poetic glow to the drama. In fact, he has done the pioneering work on which Shakespeare built the edifice. Thus he has been rightly called “The Father of English Dramatic Poetry”. Page | 2 Shakespearian Tragedy in Elizabethan Era Shaheena Mehboob Associate Professor The Elizabethan Age (1558- 1603) refers to the period of Elizabeth I’s reign and is characterized by vigorous intellectual thinking, an age of adventure and discovery, a time in which new ideas and new experiences were sought after. It was a period of peace between the English Reformation and the battles between Protestants and Catholics. The historians often showed the Elizabethan Age as ‘renaissance’ that inspired national pride through classical ideals. The Elizabethan era was characterized by an innumerable list of wonderful writers which included Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spencer, Sir. Philip Sidney and many more. However, William Shakespeare is probably the most renowned poet and dramatist of the Elizabethan era who has contributed 37 plays and about 152 sonnets to English literature. Drama, under Elizabeth’s reign became a unifying influence drawing people of different social classes together, since watching a play became a common experience and was not exclusively restricted to the upper class. Common people and royalty could enjoy the same performance in each other’s company, in separate seating arrangements. Hamlet –a critical study of Shakespeare’s Tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark has remained the most perplexing as well as the most popular of William Shakespeare’s tragedies. Apart from the matchless artistry of its language, the play’s appeal rests in large measure on the character of Hamlet himself. Called upon to avenge his father’s murder, he is compelled to face the call of duty, morality and ethics that have been human concerns through the ages. In the wake of his father’s death, Hamlet can not stop pondering the meaning of life, and its eventual ending. Many questions emerge in his mind. What happens when you die? If you are murdered, then will you go to heaven? Do kings truly have a free pass to heaven? In Hamlet’s mind the idea of dying is not so bad. It is the uncertainty of the afterlife that frightens Hamlet away from suicide, even though he is obsessed with the notion. To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause—there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, Page | 3 The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay, The insolence of office, and the spurns That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. The play has tantalized the readers and critics with what has become known as the ‘Hamlet mystery’ that of Hamlet’s complex behavior, most notably his indecision and his reluctance to act. Freudian critics have located Hamlet’s motivation in the psychodynamic triad of the father-mother-son relationship. According to this view, Hamlet is disturbed and eventually deranged by his Oedipal jealousy of the uncle who married his mother too soon after his father’s murder. Other critics have taken a more conventional view of the tragedy by identifying Hamlet’s inherent tragic flaw as lack of courage or moral resolution. In this view Hamlet’s indecision is a sign of moral ambivalence that he overcomes too late. In short The tragedy of Hamlet is an agonizing confrontation between the will of a good and intelligent man and the uncongenial role - that of avenger - that fate calls upon him to play.