ENGLISH RENAISSACE

TUDOR and STUART

After the war of the two Roses a new dynasty emerged: the Tudors. The first king was Henry VII, during his reign England saw a period of stability. In 1509 Henry VIII came to the throne: he was a typical Renaissance prince who maintained a magnificent court because he liked music and dancing. He married six time. To marry Anne Boleyn and divorced to Catherine of Aragon, who had given him Mary I, Henry parted from catholic Church with an Act of supremacy in the 1534 and declared himself 'Supreme Head of the Church of England'. Eventually Anna Boleyn after the marriage, gave him a daughter, Elisabeth I, but he was executed. Thomas More, the chancellor of the king, because he continued to object the King's decision of divorce, he was executed, He was a great humanist. With the third wife, Jane Seymour, Henry had a male heir: Edward VI, but he died at the age of sixteen. Mary I was known as 'Bloody Mary' because of her persecution of protestants to restore the Catholic Religion.

In 1558 Elisabeth became queen, she received a very good education and she could speak many different languages. She invited to her court musicians, actors and poets, like Shakespeare. She suppressed several plots against her (Mary Stuart). The reign of Elisabeth coincided with the beginning of the British Empire and she also encouraged the exploration of new lands. Infact Britain was engaged in an empire building race with its most powerful rival, Spain. The naval battle began during her reign. Elisabeth supported Drake pirate against Spain. In the historical battle of 1588, English navy defeated the Spanish and became the greatest naval power in the world.

After the death of Elisabeth I in 1603, James I, Mary Stuart's son, succeeded the English throne: the Tudor dynasty came to the end. After James, Charles I became king. He had absolute power to make law, to rule without the Parliament and reject their law. In this period in England the wealth of the nation ha shifted from nobility to the landed gentry and middle class. Parliament was determinated to control finances and when it refused to give King money, the conflict between the King, supported by the Royalist, and Parliament, supported by the Roundheads composed by middle class, led to civil war in 1642. The Parliament faction was led by Oliver Cromwell, that, after the King was taken prisoner in 1647, took control of London and arrested the member of Parliament loyal to the king. The member that remained voted for Charles I's execution in 1949. Cromwell established a republic "Commonwealth", but actually he was a dictator and made himself Lord Protector until his death in 1658. In 1660 the son of Charles I was invited to return from his exile in France and he became King Charles II; he was a supporter of the art, known at the courts of Versailles. During his reign London was struck by a plague and a great fire.

His son James II (1685) wanted to impose Catholic religion, but England was mainly protestant. In 1688 he was forced to abdicate after a non-violence revolt, the Glorious revolution. Parliament offered the throne to William the Orange, a dutch protestant, with a contract called the BILL of RIGHT in 1689: the monarch couldn't raise the taxes or form an army without the agreement of Parliament.

THE SONNET

Petrarca's sonnet was composed by two quatrains and two tercets, Shakespeare's one was composed by three quatrains and one couplet, so fourteen lines. The final couplet forms a conclusion o what is presented in the quatrains. Iambic pentameter. Elisabeth's sonnet is more dynamic than Petrarca's. the themes is the love for an untouchable woman. The lady is an idealistic figure, come from the Platonic ideas of love and beauty. The poet desires the lady, but at the same time he hopes she will not surrender.

The renaissance drama have as origins the Miracle and mystery plays, but now the man chose his own destiny. Christopher Marlow (1564-1593) is the first great playwright in English. His most famous play is Doctor Faustus, which is an allegory of humanist revolution and a violent tragedy. Shakespeare took inspiration from Marlow's tragedy. The copywriter didn't exist so poet could copy from other text. The importance of Shakespeare drama is that he was able to analyse and study human nature. He managed to reproduce human feeling on the stage and audience mirror themselves in the play.

Actors wasn't considerated good people, they hadn't a good reputation, because they travelled a lot. Woman couldn't act. The performance of travelling players were staged on a movable platforms without scenery. The first permanent playhouse was the Globe theatre, built in London in 1599 on the south Bank of the Thames. It was an open air theatre, without stage curtains and few props. The stage was a rectangular platform with a three gallery of sits. When the theatre was full, the players and audience were very near. This mean that relationship between actors and spectators was more intimate than now. In 1613 the Globe theatre burned.

SHEAKESPEARE

Shakespeare birth is traditionally celebrated on 23 April 1564. he was born in Stratford and his father was a glove-maker, his mother came from a prosperous family. In the 1582 he married Anna Hathaway, eight years older than him, and they had a daughter and a son. Nothing is known for certain about he began his career, but we found him already famous by 1592 in London. He wrote 154 sonnets and 37 plays. He lived during the reign of Elisabeth I and James I, great supporting of art. His patron was the Earl of Southampton and he became a leading member of the theatre company 'The Lord Chamberlain's Men' in 1594 (later renamed the King's Men when James I came to the Throne). He eventually died at the age of 52 years.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

The plot: Bassanio, a noble but poor Venetian, asks hi friend Antonio, a rich merchant, money to be able to court the rich heiress Portia. Antonio is also short of money, because all his wealth are on ships, which are still at sea. But he wants to help his friends he borrow the necessary amount from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, who demands that: if the money is not returned, he may extract one pound of Antonio's flesh. Meanwhile Lorenzo, a close friends of Bassanio, elopes with Jessica, Shylock's daughter. Antonio can no longer pay his debt, because his ships have been lost at sea. Shylock and Antonio go to the court of justice, where Portia is masked as a lawyer. She declares the validity of Shylock's claim, but warms him that he must cut off exactly one pound of flesh, without spilling one drop of blood. Eventually Shylock is forced to ask mercy and become a Christian.

The character of Shylock: he is a dark and menacing presence and he can be considerated the play's villain, but he is also given a tragic sense of pathos: as a Jew he has traditionally been persecuted by European Christian. Shylock justifies his claim by referring to the brutal way the Jews have been treated in past. Shakespeare, however, must please his Christian audience and he turns our sympathies against Shylock by the nature of the penalty he ask: a pound of flesh.