REVISION

1.
• The most famous epic of Anglo-Saxon
period is ………………
• The action takes place in …………..
• The features of ideal warrior are……….
• The epic first existed in an ………..version
• The device to make it easier to remember
the text is called………………
• The most famous genre of medieval
poetry is ……………..
• The best example of it is …………..
• It was written by……………..
• The characteristic feature of this genre
is…………
• The father of medieval poetry poetry is
• His most famous work is……………………
 RENAISSANCE –
ELIZABETHAN ERA
- Renaissance means rebirth from the decadence and corruption of
the Middle Ages and a return to the achievements of classical
antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome)

- Reformation – rebirth as well - the corrupted medieval church was

swept aside and a new Church of England was to recover its purity

- Elizabethan Era - one of the most fascinating periods in the

History of England. The Elizabethan Era is named after the
greatest Queens of England - Queen Elizabeth I. The Elizabethan
Era is not only famous for the Virgin Queen but also for the era
itself - Great Explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake and Walter
Raleigh. The era of the very first Theatres in England - William
Shakespeare, the globe Theatre and Christopher Marlowe!
Elizabethan Fashion
 Christopher Marlowe
• his plays embody the true spirit of the
Renaissance
• concentrating on man as opposed to God
• the main theme is the lust for power, the desire
to surpass the old restrictions of the Church, the
limitations of knowledge, and the demands of
ruthless ambition in the face of prevailing
morality.
• His characters are no longer simple
personifications of virtues and vices, but were
enriched by human passions and human
limitations. In Dr Faustus there is a theme of
ambition, but of intellectual kind
• It retells a story taken
from a medieval legend
about the search for
ultimate knowledge.
• A learned scholar,
Faustus, decides to sell
his soul to the devil in
exchange for 24 years of
absolute power and
knowledge. In the play
there is a motif of black
magic, Christian
elements of the pact with
the devil, metaphorical
suggestions of the Fall of
Man, which suggest the
tradition of the morality
plays.
 UNIVERSITY WITS
• A group of educated men who chose
theatre not church
• Thomas Kyd „The Spanish Tragedy” – the
best example of a revenge tragedy
• Modelled on Seneca
• Murder, revenge, ghost, suicide, madness,
a play within a play
• Senasational elements (stabbing, piercing
of hearts and eyes)
• Seneca a play to read, in Elizabethan
period all the thrilling elements were
shown on stage
 Elizabethan poetry – the
sonnet
• Sir Thomas Wyatt - an ambassador to
France and Italy for King Henry VIII.
• Wyatt’s travels abroad exposed him to
different forms of poetry, which he
adapted for the English language — most
notably, the sonnet. Rumored to be Anne
Boleyn’s lover, he spent a month in the
Tower of London until Boleyn’s execution
for adultery. Many consider his poem
“Whoso List to Hunt” to be about Boleyn.
 sonnetomania
• During the Elizabethan period, poets passed their work
around in aristocratic circles, in what has been described
as a sort of game: each poet's work inspired his readers
to create something comparable or better.
• Wyatt chose the Petrarchan sonnet as his inspiration.
• He introduced the sonnet to England and started a kind
of fashion - sonnetomania
 Petrarch
/ Wyatt
• The Petrarchan sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in which
the first eight lines, the octave, present a problem, which
is resolved by the final six lines, the sestet.
• Wyatt altered the Petrarchan formula, ending the sestet
with two lines, a couplet, that rhyme. As such, he set an
example for later poets, many of whom further altered
the sonnet formula.
• It is a courtly poetry that knows the codes of manners,
Wyatt continues the tradition of an unfulfilled Petrarchan
lover, however, he begins to consider his mistress as
capricious rather than chaste and detached.
 SHAKESPEARE SONNETS
• He wrote 154 sonnets, which fall into 3 groups: the first 126
seem to be addressed to an unnamed young nobleman,
whom the speaker loves very much; the rest of the poems
(except for the last two, which seem generally unconnected to
the rest of the sequence) seem to be addressed to a
mysterious woman, whom the speaker loves, hates, and lusts
for simultaneously.
• The two addressees of the sonnets are usually referred to as
the “young man” and the “dark lady”.
 LOVE TRIANGLE
• In the course of the sequence there are some
subgroups: the poet urges the young man to have
children or he competes with a rival poet for the
young man’s patronage and affection.
• At two points in the sequence, it seems that the
young man and the dark lady are actually lovers
themselves—a state of affairs with which the
speaker is none too happy.
• The relationship between narrator, the young man
and the Dark Lady takes on the nature of an
emotional triangle.
 Against conventions
• Shakespeare both reorders and confound
Petrarchan conventions
• He addresses the sonnets to the man and
the woman
• Questions the beauty formula implied in
the convention of courtly love
 William Shakespeare (1564 –
1616)
• Shakespeare did not publish his plays. Some of
his plays were put together from notes taken in the
theatre or reconstructed from memory by actors.
They are referred to as Bad Quartos (sheets of
folded paper). They are called „Bad” because they
are full of gaps and mistakes.
• Seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his two
friends and actors, decided to publish the first
collection of his plays – „First Folio” – the plays
were divided into „Comedies, Histories and
Tragedies”
William Shakespeare
(1564 – 1616)
• Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of
the greatest dramatists in world literature.
• The universal appeal of his works is based
on
• 1. timeless themes;
• 2. unforgettable characters;
• 3. powerful language
• His ability to engage the audience’s attention
has remained unsurpassed to the present
day
• The relationship between audiences and
performers – very intimate
• Spectators stood close to the performer and
openly expressed opinions; the performer
could address the audience directly while
giving monologues, a confession-like moment
• Shakespeare had a real talent to entertain all
sections of his audience; the more intellectual
members enjoyed the poetic language while
the less educated spectators delighted in the
compelling storyline and humorous intrigues.
Globe Theatre 1599-1642
Globe at Night
Shakespeare's Globe Mini-Doc

• [Link]
v=m3VGa6Fp3zI
• [Link]
v=b9uDK3xsLYk
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
GDAŃSKI TEATR
SZEKSPIROWSKI
 variety of themes &
unforgettable characters
• Hamlet – a complex and sensitive idealist who is
paralised by indecision;
• King Lear – a proud misguided father who loses
his mind when he understands his mistake
• Othello – a naive victim of his enemy’s envy
• Macbeth – a soldier who is transformed into
murderer by ambition
• Lady Macbeth – a scheming ambitious wife who
realises too late the horror of what she has done
• Richard III – a liar and manipulator
 Mastery of language
• The highly poetic quality of the language is a
feature of all Shakespeare’s plays
• Scenery non existent – so Shakespere had to
conjure up settings, moods and atmosphere
with his words
• Many lines are so memorable that they have
become everyday sayings:
• All Well That Ends Well; neither a borrower nor
a lender be; All that glitters is not gold; In my
mind's eye
 The Comedies
- Date from early period;
- Mostly on themes relationg to love;
- Techniques used: mistaken identity,
disguise,cross-dressing, word – play
and wit;
- They pave their way
for the great tragedies to come;
Examples:
Much Ado about Nothing,
Comedy of Errors,
Taming of the Shrew
The Histories
 The Histories
• He drew the material on chronicles, transforming
historical events creatively to suit the political climate of
the epoch
• Themes of rebellion and kingship
• Favourably disposed towards the authority of monarchy
• The main examples: Richard II; Richard III; Henry V – a
story about kings before Tudor dynasty
• They present king as divine institution
• Express a need to have a strong monarch to establish
order in the state
• Play on patriotic and nationalistic feelings
 The Tragedies
- Maturity – Hamlet; Othello;
King Lear; Macbeth
- Bitter and dissillusioned
outlook
- Emphasis on tragic heroes – a
conspicuous person of high
degree whose fall leads to death
and suffering
- The tragic flaw – jealousy,
ambition, revenge
- The whole world seemed to be
at work to execute the destiny
- The comic relief
2008 Grzegorz Jarzyna
2013 - "Macbeth" with James McAvoy and Claire
Foy at the Trafalgar Studios, London
2015 Michael Fassbender's Modern, War-
Weary Macbeth
Romeo and Juliet
• Coriolanus
• [Link]
v=bsYrGIQnmxo
• Shakespeare in Love
• [Link]
v=zqRccjKub2A
 THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
Metaphysical poetry

• John Donne and his followers wrote what would

later be called metaphysical poetry.
• The Metaphysicals were more intellectual than
Elizabethan poets. Their poems are analytical
and usually follow a logical order of
development.
• The first thing we notice is the striking imagery
used,
• the distinguishing mark of a poem is a conceit.
 conceits
• It is an elaborate metaphor that makes a
comparison between two significantly different
things. The comparison may seem far fetched at
first but when examined it gains clarity and
persuasion.
• the metaphysicals’ conceits were intended to
shock or surprise by their unexpected nature –
the reader’s initial sense of the unlikeness of the
things compared was to give way to the
realization of the likeness the poet discovers.
The conceit was often prolonged over several
lines, or even through the entire poem.
 The most celebrated example is the
comparison of two lovers to a pair of
compasses:

• If they be two, they

are two so
• As stiff twin
compasses are two,
• Thy soul, the fixt foot,
makes no show
• To move, but doth, if
th’other doe
• In the poem the two lovers are compared to the
two feet of the instrument (illustration above), they
are two separate identities, however, they are one
in love, united in spirit, they cannot function
without each other, if one foot (the lover) moves
(goes away), the beloved (the fixt foot) leans
forward, which suggests a strong bond between
them even if they are far away. Moreover, the
instrument is used to draw circles, which is in itself
a symbol of eternity. The love between the lovers
is eternal and lasts forever.
• Another characteristic feature is that John
Donne used metaphors based upon the
terminology of logic, law, alchemy,
medicine, mathematics, geometry,
gardening, upon the whole area of
knowledge, but all the comparisons were
used with playfulness and lightness.
 hieroglyphic poems
• Some of the metaphysical poems have unusual shape and the
poems are called hieroglyphic poems because the visual form of the
poem is as important as the verbal communication because the
shape corresponds with the meaning. Look at the example below,
when you turn the page you will see the shape of wings. The
meaning of the poem refers to the power of religion and Christ to
help people who fell (lines go down) to rise (lines go up) and the
pattern is repeated in the second stanza. At Easter Christians have
a chance to be united with God (which is up in the sky) so they
metaphorically need wings of their faith.
 Easter wings

LORD, who createdst man in wealth and store,

Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
5

With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
1
Then shall the fall further the flight in me. 0

My tender age in sorrow did beginne:

And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
1
Most thinne. 5

With thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day thy victorie:
For, if I imp my wing on thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.
 John Milton – Paradise Lost
• It is a fruit of his ambition to create a great epic poem as
spacious and as universal as the major epics of ancient
Greece and Rome.
• Milton selected as his subject the fall of man- that is the
story in which Satan tempts Adam and Eve to commit
the original sin (eating the forbidden fruit) and they fall
from God’s grace and are exiled from paradise.
• Milton wanted to “to justify the ways of god to men.”
• Milton wanted also his readers to focus on the individual
– on Adam – and his particular relationship with god, for
religion as an individual act was extremely important to
Milton the Puritan.
• Paradise Lost opens with a vision of Hell, a
place of fire and perpetual torment.
• The figure of Satan is impressive and powerful
and has about him the traces of his ruined
greatness. There is something thrilling when he
summons up his defeated powers, collects
together the scattered legions of the lost angels
and addresses them with such words:
• “Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.”