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English Renaissance Authors 97-2003
English Renaissance Authors 97-2003
FACULTY OF PEDAGOGY
Department: English Language and Literature
Subject: English Literature
MENTOR:
STUDENT:
Prof. Dr. Shahab Yar Khan Naida Merdanović
INTRODUCTION
Humanism and renaissance are two separate concepts, and they should be
distinguished. Humanism is the restoration of humana studia, i.e. the
studies of Latin and Greek language and antic literature, which humanist
rediscover, because in the Middle Ages they were unknown and neglected.
What distinguishes English renaissance from all the others is that the
revision of antic plays had humanist complexion and not the classicist
complexion it had in Italy. Also English drama speaks of the problems of
common people, it is about common issues, like education, political
afiliations and health. It was essentially a massive movement, produced by
common people and performed in public theatres, and it was a realistic
movement not a metaphysical one. And these are the reasons why some
critics call it Genaissance.
CHAPTER I
MARLOWE AND SHAKESPEARE –
THE RISE OF MACHIAVELLISM
Marlowe
English drama will remain indebted to Marlowe because he first displayed
the potentialities of blank verse for dramatic use.
The dinamics of the society was changing, and a lot of these changes
occurred thanks to Niccolo Machiavelli and the ideas elaborated in his
Prince.
Machiavelli changed the way people thought about many things, but most
importantly he accounted much more for the ability of people than for their
origin.
Macbeth
When thinking of Macbeth, most of us think of him as of a murderer and
usurper, but is this the only way to think of Macbeth?
At the beginning of a play we hear of a great hero ‘brave Macbeth’,
‘Bellona’s bridegroom’ and of ‘noble Macbeth’, only to hear of him as of a
‘dead butcher’ at the end of the play. Reasons for Macbeth’s killing the king
are not just the ambition to be the king, but much more serious and patriotic,
than it seems in the first place.
But is the king who is facing a war, a rebellion and an invasion at the same
time, a capable king, and having this in mind, can we think of Macbeth as of a
patriot not the usurper.
Duncan names his son Malcolm as his heir, who is not really a perfect
choice for a king at such critical period for Scotland. Because Malcolm
himself tells us at the beginning of a play about his warrior skills.
The crown in Scotland at that period was not strictly hereditary, so Duncan
could have named Macbeth as his heir, because he was much more capable
than Malcolm.
And we all think of Macbeth as the 21st century audience, and it was
written for 16th century audience, and for them so much blood on the stage
was normal.
Iago
A lot of critics say that the character of Iago is unnatural, because of his
wickidness, but Shakespeare with his incredible insight into human nature,
knew differently. Iago shows augmenting pride in his achievement as a
psychologist, dramatist and aesthete as he contemplates the total ruin of the
war god Othello.
These are the opening lines of Othello, and right at the beginning we have
the reasons which most of the critics name as the reasons why Iago hates
Othello.
According to Victor Kiernan Iago is going through psychological crisis of
a crussader, meaning that Iago is a psychological victim of an unnatural
growth of a Muslim in a Christian Venice.
Large number of the critics blame him for being extremely cruel, but
Edmund is just a Machiavellian and as such he is the product of the society
he lives in. His opinion abut his situation is clearly visible from his
soliloquy:
Thou Nature art my Goddess, to thy Law
My services are bound, wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of Nations, to deprive me?...
(I.ii.l.22-42)
‘In his soliloquy Edmund is addressing the goddess of nature, and she
seems the guardian of powers we all approve: strength of mind, animal
vigour, handsome appearance, instinctive appetite, impatience with
hambug and iconoclastic force’.
But Johnson lacked Elizabethan insight into life as whole, he depicted the
‘humours’ of character, not life in its entirety. Also Johnson relied too
much on learning and detailed realism instead of imagination, and on
classical form rather on classical spirit, the result is that, while Shakespeare
lives, Johnson is but a memory.
But the two main characters in the play, Volpone and Mosca, are not
governed by a single obsession which excludes every other passion. Both
of them seem to transcend mere miserliness. They treat gold not as
something possessed for its own sake, but rather as an instrument used to
purchase other delights, or as symbol of their genious. For them the
essence of man is the exercise of cunning in order to gain wealth.
The reasons why Paradise lost is popular even today, is because its topic is
not fiction but real hell and heaven, it is about absolutes not about regions,
it is the universal epic – epic of human kind, it is the most contemporary
epic and it is written in a language shared and spoken by all mankind.
Readers have objective correlative, what means that they can find
themselves in the epic, because it is the epic about mankind.
Satan
We can analise Satan through his first four speaches in the epic, which
follow their fall from heaven and their waking up, as a defeated party of
the war against God, in hell. If we accept the opinion, that the first few
lines determine the mind of a character, than we can openly say that the
character of Satan is glorious.
His first speech is after he wakes in the lake of fire, and recognises his
second in command Beelzebub, changed after the war. He forgets his
suffering after he sees other suffering, and he takes the role of a leader,
trying to raise their broken spirits.
The Satan acknowledges only a lost battle and not the war, and through the
following lines he not only shows that his ego cannot be won,
determination in his plans to revenge, hate because no one can convince
him that God is good, but also that he will never surrender:
…What though the field be lost?
All is not lost – the unconquerable will.
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield..
(BK.I.l.105-108)
His firm resolution to do nothing but evil, does not make him necessarily
evil, because he does not do evil – for the sake of doing it, but he does it in
order to oppose God, and it is evident from his own words, which also
show that he is not bad in nature but he is forced to be bad. From this is
evident that Milton is not portraying the Biblical Satan, but the Manichean
one, according to Manicheans we cannot distinguish good from bad
because they are complementary.
To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to His high will
Whom we resist.
(BK.I.l.159-162)
When all that is said is taken into account it is no wonder that characters
like Dr. Faustus, Macbeth, Iago, Edmund, Mosca and Satan were put on
the stage. For most of the named characters it can be said that they were
living in moral vacuum, but they were just a new power emerging on the
surface. They faced fierce criticism, because of their daring attitudes
toward the world and everything in it. It would be ridiculous to claim that
they are the first ones who were Machiavellians, but they definitely are the
most prominent. Refusing to follow the established conventions of
behaviour, and believing more in the ability of an individual than in God’s
plan for every creature, they were demonstrating one of the basic humanist
beliefs – that the individual matters more than cosmology. It is important to
notice that this did not lead to ateism but to the belief that religion is more
than the forms and rituals performed.
THANK YOU