(glovemaker), often elected to various public positions. He did not attend church services, for which he paid large fines (it is possible that he was a secret Catholic).

Shakespeare's mother, nee Mary Arden (1537--1608), belonged to one of the oldest Saxon families.

It is believed that Shakespeare studied at the Stratford "grammar school" (English "grammar school"), where he received a serious education: the Stratford teacher of Latin and literature wrote poetry in Latin. Some scholars claim that Shakespeare attended the King Edward VI School in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he studied the works of poets such as Ovid and Plautus, but the school journals have not survived, and now nothing can be said for sure.

Bust of Shakespeare in St. Trinity in Stratford

All surviving signatures of Shakespeare on documents (-) are distinguished by very poor handwriting, on the basis of which some researchers believe that he was seriously ill at that time. Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616. Traditionally, it is assumed that he died on his birthday, but it is not certain that Shakespeare was born on April 23rd.

Shakespeare's autograph on his will

Three days later, Shakespeare's body was buried in St. Trinity. An epitaph is inscribed on his tombstone:

A painted bust of Shakespeare was also erected in the church, next to which there are two more epitaphs - in Latin and in English. The Latin epitaph compares Shakespeare with the wise Pylos king Nestor, Socrates and Virgil.

Shakespeare was survived by a widow, Anne (d. 1623), and both daughters. The last direct descendant of Shakespeare was his granddaughter Elizabeth Barnard (1608-1670), daughter of Susan Shakespeare and Dr. John Hall. Three sons of Judith Shakespeare (married Queenie) died young without issue.

Creation

Shakespeare's literary heritage is divided into two unequal parts: poetic (poems and sonnets) and dramatic. V. G. Belinsky wrote that “it would be too bold and strange to give Shakespeare a decisive advantage over all the poets of mankind, as a poet proper, but as a playwright he is now left without a rival whose name could be put next to his name” .

Dramaturgy

English drama and theater in the time of William Shakespeare

At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth (Elizabeth I of England, 1533-1603), who ascended the throne in 1558, there were no special buildings for showing performances, although then there were already quite a lot of working acting troupes. For these purposes, inns or halls of educational institutions and private houses were used. In 1576, the entrepreneur James Burbage (1530-1597), who began as an actor in the troupe of Leicester's Men, built the first special building for theatrical performances - The Theatre. It was erected outside the city, on the outskirts of Shoreditch (Shoreditch). William Shakespeare was part of Burbage's Chamberlain's Men, which was formed from actors previously belonging to three different companies, from at least 1594. When James Burbage died in 1597, the lease on the land on which The Theater was located expired. While the issue of new premises was being decided, the troupe's performances were held at the nearby Curtain Theater (The Curtain, 1577-1627), founded by Henry Lanman. Meanwhile, The Thearte was dismantled and transported piece by piece to the other side of the river. In early 1599, construction was completed and a new theater opened, which they called The Globe. Burbage's sons Cuthbert and Richard (Cuthbert Burbage and Richard Burbage, 1567-1619), became the owners of half of the building, they offered to share the rest of its value among several shareholders from the troupe. So Shakespeare became one of the co-owners of the Globe. In 1613, during the performance of "Henry VIII", the thatched roof of the theater broke out, and it burned to the ground. A year later, the "second Globe" (The second Globe) was built on the same place, with a tiled roof. At that time, in the English theatrical environment, the creation of new plays often took place on the basis of the use of existing texts, which were altered and supplemented. In his work, William Shakespeare also used this method, improving the materials found in various sources. In the period from 1595 to 1601 there is an active development of his writing career. Shakespeare 's skill brings glory to his works and troupe .

English playwrights, predecessors and contemporaries of William Shakespeare

In the era of Shakespeare, along with the then successful Globe Theater in London, there were several other notable theaters that competed with each other. Theater "Rose" (The Rose, 1587-1605), built by businessman Philip Henslowe (Philipp Henslowe, 1550-1616). The Swan Theater (The Swan, 1595-1632), which was built by the jeweler and merchant Francis Langley (Francis Langley, 1548-1602), the Fortune Theater, whose construction began in 1600, and others. One of the most famous playwrights of Shakespeare's predecessors was the talented poet Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), under whose influence Shakespeare undoubtedly fell at the very beginning of his work, and all of whose plays were then staged at the Rose Theater. He was one of the playwrights - "academics" who had Oxford or Cambridge diplomas, which also included Robert Greene (Robert Greene, 1558-1592), John Lily (John Lyly, 1554-1606), Thomas Nash (Thomas Nashe, 1567-1601 ), George Peele (1556-1596) and Thomas Lodge (Thomas Lodge, 1558-1625). Along with them, other writers, who did not have a university education, worked, whose writings in one way or another influenced Shakespeare's work. This is Thomas Kyd (Thomas Kyd, 1558-1594), who wrote an earlier play about Hamlet, John Day (John Day, 1574-1638?), Henry Porter (Henry Porter, d. 1599), author of the play "Two shrews from Abingdon" (The Two Angry Women of Abingdon), on the basis of which Shakespeare's comedy "The Merry Wives of Windsor" (The Merry Wives of Windsor, 1597-1602) was created.

Theatrical technique in the era of William Shakespeare

Theatrical technique in the era of Shakespeare - Shakespearean theater undoubtedly corresponds to the system of the play, originally staged by groups of itinerant comedians in inns and hotel yards; these hotel yards usually consisted of a building surrounded on the second floor by an open tier-balcony, along which the rooms and entrances to them were located. A wandering troupe, having entered such a courtyard, staged a scene near one of the rectangles of its walls; spectators were seated in the courtyard and on the balcony. The stage was arranged in the form of a wooden platform on the goats, part of which went out to the open courtyard, and the other, the back, remained under the balcony. A curtain fell from the balcony. Thus, three platforms were immediately formed: the front one - in front of the balcony, the back one - under the balcony behind the curtain, and the upper one - the very balcony above the stage. The same principle underlies the transitional form of the English theater of the 16th and early 17th centuries. The first public stationary theater was built in London (or rather outside of London, outside the city limits, since theaters were not allowed within the city) in 1576 by the Burbage acting family. In 1599, the Globe Theater was created, with which most of Shakespeare's work is associated. Shakespeare's theater does not yet know the auditorium, but knows the yard as a reminiscence of hotel yards. Such an open, roofless auditorium was surrounded by a gallery or two galleries. The stage was covered with a roof and represented the same three platforms of the hotel yard. The front part of the stage wedged almost a third into the auditorium - a standing parterre (thus literally carrying out its name "par terre" - on the ground). The democratic part of the audience, which filled the parterre, also surrounded the stage in a dense ring. The more privileged, aristocratic part of the audience settled down - lying and on stools - on the stage itself along its edges. The history of the theater of this time notes the constant hostility and squabble, sometimes even turning into a fight, between these two groups of spectators. The class enmity of the craftsmen and workers against the aristocracy had a rather noisy effect here. In general, that silence, which our auditorium knows, was not in Shakespeare's theater. The back of the stage was separated by a sliding curtain. Intimate scenes were usually performed there (for example, in Desdemona's bedroom), they also played there when it was necessary to quickly transfer the action to another place and show the character in a new position (for example, in Marlo's drama "Tamerlane" there is a note: "the curtain is pulled back, and Zenocrate lies in bed, Tamerlane sitting beside her", or in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale": "Pauline draws back the curtain and reveals Hermione, standing in the form of a statue"). The front platform was the main stage, it was also used for processions, then favorite in the theater, for showing fencing, which was extremely popular at that time (the scene in the last act of Hamlet). Clowns, jugglers, acrobats also performed here, entertaining the audience between the scenes of the main play (there were no intermissions in the Shakespearean theater). Subsequently, during the later literary processing of Shakespearean dramas, some of these clowning interludes and clownish remarks were included in the printed text. Each performance necessarily ended with a "jiga" - a special kind of song with a dance performed by a clown; the scene of gravediggers in Hamlet in Shakespeare's time was a clownery, it was filled with pathos later. In Shakespearean theater there is still no sharp difference between a dramatic actor and an acrobat, a jester. True, this difference is already being developed, it is felt, it is in the making. But the edges have not yet been erased. The link connecting the Shakespearean actor with the buffoon, the histrion, the juggler, the clownish "devil" of the medieval mystery, with the farcical buffoon, has not yet been broken. It is quite understandable why the boilermaker from "The Taming of the Shrew" at the word "comedy" first of all recalls the tricks of the juggler. The upper scene was used when the action had to be depicted by the logic of events above, for example, on the walls of the fortress ("Coriolanus"), on Juliet's balcony ("Romeo and Juliet"). In such cases, the script has a remark "above". For example, such a layout was practiced - the top depicted a fortress wall, and the curtain of the back platform pulled back at the bottom meant at the same time the city gates opening in front of the winner. Such a system of theater also explains the structure of Shakespeare's dramas, which still do not know any division into acts (this division was made after Shakespeare's death, in the edition of 1623), neither exact historicism, nor pictorial realism. The parallelism of plots in one and the same play, so characteristic of Elizabethan playwrights, has recently been explained by the peculiar structure of the stage, open to the audience from three sides. The so-called law of "temporal continuity" dominates this scene. The development of one plot made it possible for the other to continue, as it were, "behind the scenes", which filled the corresponding interval of "theatrical time" between segments of this plot. Built on short active-playing episodes, the action is transferred from place to place with relative speed. This is also reflected in the tradition of mystery scenes. So a new exit of the same person, or even just a few steps along the stage with a corresponding textual explanation, already indicated a new place. For example, in Much Ado About Nothing, Benedict tells the boy: “I have a book on the window in my room, bring it here to the garden” - this means that the action takes place in the garden. Sometimes in the works of Shakespeare, a place or time is indicated not so simply, but by a whole poetic description of it. This is one of his favorite tricks. For example, in “Romeo and Juliet”, in the picture following the scene of a moonlit night, Lorenzo entering says: “A clear smile of a dawning gray-eyed Gloomy is already driving the night and gilding the cloud of the east with stripes of light ...” Or the words of the prologue to the first act of “Henry V”: “ ... Imagine that the plains of the two kingdoms stretch wide here, whose shores, Leaning close so close to each other, Separates the narrow but dangerous Mighty ocean. A few steps Romeo with friends meant that he moved from the street to the house. To designate a place, "titles" were also used - tablets with an inscription. Sometimes the scene depicted several cities at once, and inscriptions with their names were enough to orient the viewer in action. With the end of the scene, the characters left the stage, sometimes even remained - for example, disguised guests walking down the street to the Capulet's house ("Romeo and Juliet") did not leave the stage, and the appearance of lackeys with napkins meant that they had already arrived and are in the chambers of the Capulets. Drama at this time was not seen as "literature". The playwright did not pursue authorship, and it was not always possible. The tradition of anonymous drama came from the Middle Ages through itinerant troupes and continued to operate. So the name of Shakespeare appears under the titles of his plays only in 1593. What the theater playwright wrote, he did not intend for publication, but had in mind exclusively the theater. A significant part of the playwrights of the Elizabethan era was attached to a particular theater and undertook to deliver a repertoire to this theater. The competition of troupes demanded a huge number of plays. For the period from 1558 to 1643, their number in England is estimated at over 2,000 names. Very often the same play is used by a number of troupes, reworking each in its own way, adapting it to the troupe. Anonymous authorship ruled out literary plagiarism, and we could only talk about “pirate” methods of competition, when a play is stolen by ear, according to an approximate recording, etc. And in Shakespeare's work we know a number of plays that were the use of plots from pre-existing dramas. Such, for example, are Hamlet, King Lear and others. The public did not demand the name of the author of the play. This, in turn, led to the fact that the written play was only the "basis" for the performance, the author's text was altered as you like during rehearsals. The performances of the jesters are often denoted by the remark “the jester says”, providing the content of the jester's scene to the theater or improvisations of the jester himself. The author sold his manuscript to the theater and subsequently did not claim any copyright claims or rights to it. The joint and thus very fast work of several authors on one play was very common, for example, some developed a dramatic intrigue, others - a comic part, antics of jesters, still others depicted all kinds of "terrible" effects, which were very popular then, etc. e. By the end of the era, at the beginning of the 17th century, literary drama was already beginning to make its way onto the stage. Alienation between "learned" authors, secular "amateurs" and professional playwrights is becoming less and less. Literary authors (for example, Ben Jonson) begin to work for the theater, theater playwrights, in turn, are increasingly beginning to be published.

The question of periodization

Researchers of Shakespeare's work (Danish literary critic G. Brandes, publisher of the Russian complete works of Shakespeare S. A. Vengerov) at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, based on the chronology of the works, presented his spiritual evolution from a "cheerful mood", faith in the triumph of justice , humanistic ideals at the beginning of the path to disappointment and the destruction of all illusions at the end. However, in recent years there has been an opinion that the conclusion about the personality of the author based on his works is a mistake.

In 1930, the Shakespeare scholar E. K. Chambers proposed a chronology of Shakespeare's work by genre, later it was corrected by J. McManway. There were four periods: the first (1590-1594) - early: chronicles, Renaissance comedies, "tragedy of horror" ("Titus Andronicus"), two poems; the second (1594-1600) - Renaissance comedies, the first mature tragedy ("Romeo and Juliet"), chronicles with elements of tragedy, ancient tragedy ("Julius Caesar"), sonnets; the third (1601-1608) - great tragedies, ancient tragedies, "dark comedies"; the fourth (1609-1613) - fairy tale dramas with a tragic beginning and a happy ending. Some of the Shakespeare scholars, including A. A. Smirnov, combined the first and second periods into one early period.

First period (1590-1594)

The first period is approximately 1590-1594 years.

According to literary methods it can be called a period of imitation: Shakespeare is still completely at the mercy of his predecessors. By mood this period was defined by supporters of the biographical approach to the study of Shakespeare's work as a period of idealistic faith in the best aspects of life: "The young Shakespeare enthusiastically punishes vice in his historical tragedies and enthusiastically sings of high and poetic feelings - friendship, self-sacrifice and especially love" (Vengerov) .

Probably Shakespeare's first plays were the three parts of Henry VI. Holinshed's Chronicles served as the source for this and subsequent historical chronicles. The theme that unites all Shakespearean chronicles is the change in a series of weak and incapable rulers who led the country to civil strife and civil war and the restoration of order with the accession of the Tudor dynasty. Like Marlowe in Edward II, Shakespeare does not simply describe historical events, but explores the motives behind the actions of the characters.

S. A. Vengerov saw the transition to the second period “in absence toy poetry of youth, which is so characteristic of the first period. The heroes are still young, but they have already lived a decent life and the main thing for them in life is pleasure. The portion is piquant, lively, but already the gentle charms of the girls of the Two Veronians, and even more so Juliet, are not in it at all.

At the same time, Shakespeare creates an immortal and most interesting type, which until now had no analogues in world literature - Sir John Falstaff. The success of both parts Henry IV”Not least of all is the merit of this most striking character in the chronicle, who immediately became popular. The character is undoubtedly negative, but with a complex character. A materialist, an egoist, a man without ideals: honor is nothing for him, an observant and insightful skeptic. He denies honors, power and wealth: he needs money only as a means of obtaining food, wine and women. But the essence of the comic, the grain of the image of Falstaff is not only his wit, but also a cheerful laugh at himself and the world around him. His strength is in the knowledge of human nature, everything that binds a person is disgusting to him, he is the personification of the freedom of the spirit and unscrupulousness. A man of the passing era, he is not needed where the state is powerful. Realizing that such a character is out of place in a drama about an ideal ruler, in " Henry V Shakespeare removes it: the audience is simply informed of Falstaff's death. According to tradition, it is believed that at the request of Queen Elizabeth, who wanted to see Falstaff on stage again, Shakespeare resurrected him in " The Merry Wives of Windsor» . But this is only a pale copy of the former Falstaff. He lost his knowledge of the world around him, there is no more healthy irony, laughter at himself. Only a self-satisfied rogue remained.

Much more successful is the attempt to return to the Falstaff type in the final play of the second period - "Twelfth Night". Here, in the person of Sir Toby and his entourage, we have, as it were, a second edition of Sir John, although without his sparkling wit, but with the same infectious good-natured chivalry. It also perfectly fits into the framework of the “Falstaffian” period, for the most part, a rude mockery of women in "The Taming of the Shrew".

Third period (1600-1609)

The third period of his artistic activity, approximately covering 1600-1609 years, supporters of the subjectivist biographical approach to Shakespeare's work call the period of "deep spiritual darkness", considering the appearance of the melancholic character Jacques in comedy as a sign of a changed worldview "As You Like It" and calling him almost the predecessor of Hamlet. However, some researchers believe that Shakespeare, in the image of Jacques, only ridiculed melancholy, and the period of alleged life disappointments (according to supporters of the biographical method) is not actually confirmed by the facts of Shakespeare's biography. The time when the playwright created the greatest tragedies coincides with the flowering of his creative powers, the solution of material difficulties and the achievement of a high position in society.

Around 1600 Shakespeare creates "Hamlet", according to many critics, is his deepest work. Shakespeare kept the plot of the well-known tragedy of revenge, but shifted all his attention to spiritual discord, the inner drama of the protagonist. A new type of hero has been introduced into the traditional revenge drama. Shakespeare was ahead of his time - Hamlet is not the usual tragic hero, carrying out revenge for the sake of Divine justice. Coming to the conclusion that it is impossible to restore harmony with one blow, he experiences the tragedy of alienation from the world and dooms himself to loneliness. According to the definition of L. E. Pinsky, Hamlet is the first "reflective" hero of world literature.

The heroes of Shakespeare's "great tragedies" are outstanding people in whom good and evil are mixed. Faced with the disharmony of the world around them, they make a difficult choice - how to exist in it, they create their own destiny and bear full responsibility for it.

At the same time, Shakespeare creates a drama. In the First Folio of 1623, it is classified as a comedy; there is almost no comic in this serious work about an unjust judge. Its name refers to the teaching of Christ about mercy, in the course of action one of the heroes is in mortal danger, and the ending can be considered conditionally happy. This problematic work does not fit into a specific genre, but exists on the verge of genres: going back to morality, it is directed towards tragicomedy.

• Sonnets dedicated to a friend: 1 -126
• Chanting a friend: 1 -26
• Friendship Trials: 27 -99
• The bitterness of separation: 27 -32
• First disappointment in a friend: 33 -42
• Longing and fears: 43 -55
• Growing alienation and melancholy: 56 -75
• Rivalry and jealousy towards other poets: 76 -96
• "Winter" of separation: 97 -99
• Celebration of Renewed Friendship: 100 -126
• Sonnets dedicated to a swarthy lover: 127 -152
• Conclusion - the joy and beauty of love: 153 -154

Sonnet 126 violates the canon - it has only 12 lines and a different rhyme pattern. Sometimes it is considered a section between two conditional parts of the cycle - sonnets dedicated to friendship (1-126) and addressed to the "dark lady" (127-154). Sonnet 145 written in iambic tetrameter instead of pentameter and differs in style from the others; sometimes it is attributed to the early period and its heroine is identified with Shakespeare's wife Anna Hathaway (whose last name, perhaps as a pun "hate away" is presented in the sonnet).

Dating problems

First publications

It is estimated that half (18) of Shakespeare's plays were published in one way or another during the playwright's lifetime. The most important publication of Shakespeare's heritage is considered to be the folio of 1623 (the so-called "First Folio"), published by Edward Blount and William Jaggard as part of the so-called. "Chester collection"; printers Worrall and Col. This edition included 36 Shakespeare's plays - all except "Pericles" and "Two noble relatives". It is this edition that underlies all research in the field of Shakespeare.

This project was made possible through the efforts of John Heminge and Henry Condell (1556-1630 and Henry Condell, d.1627), friends and colleagues of Shakespeare. The book is preceded by a message to readers on behalf of Heminge and Condell, as well as a poetic dedication to Shakespeare - To the memory of my beloved, the Author - by the playwright Ben Jonson (Benjamin Jonson, 1572-1637), who was at the same time his literary opponent, critic and friend who contributed to the publication of the First Folio, or as it is also called - "The Great Folio" (The Great Folio of 1623).

Compositions

Plays commonly considered Shakespearean

• The Comedy of Errors (g. - first edition, - probable year of first production)
• Titus Andronicus (g. - first edition, authorship is debatable)
• Romeo and Juliet
• A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Merchant of Venice ( r. - first edition, - probable year of writing)
• King Richard III (r. - first edition)
• Measure for Measure (g. - first edition, December 26 - first production)
• King John (r. - first edition of the original text)
• Henry VI (r. - first edition)
• Henry IV (r. - first edition)
• Love's Labour's Lost (g. - first edition)
• As You Like It (writing - - gg., d. - first edition)
• Twelfth Night (writing - not later, d. - first edition)
• Julius Caesar (writing -, g. - first edition)
• Henry V (r. - first edition)
• Much Ado About Nothing (r. - first edition)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (g. - first edition)
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark ( r. - first edition, r. - second edition)
• All's well that ends well (writing - - gg., g. - first edition)
• Othello (creation - no later than the year, first edition - year)
• King Lear (December 26
• Macbeth (creation - c., first edition - c.)
• Anthony and Cleopatra (creation - d., first edition - d.)
• Coriolanus ( r. - year of writing)
• Pericles (g. - first edition)
• Troilus and Cressida ( d. - first publication)
• Tempest (November 1 - first production, city - first edition)
• Cymbeline (writing - g., g. - first edition)
• Winter's Tale (g. - the only surviving edition)
• The Taming of the Shrew ( d. - first publication)
• Two Veronians ( d. - first publication)
• Henry VIII ( r. - first publication)
• Timon of Athens ( d. - first publication)

Apocrypha and lost works

Main article: Apocrypha and Lost Works of William Shakespeare

In a handwriting very similar to Shakespeare's signatures, three pages of a joint, never staged play "Sir Thomas More" are written (uncensored). The orthography of the manuscript coincides with the printed editions of Shakespeare's plays (at that time a common system of English spelling had not yet emerged). Confirmed Shakespeare's authorship and stylistic analysis.

There are also a number of plays and poems attributed to Shakespeare (or creative teams with his participation).

• The Reign of King Edward III, possibly co-authored with Thomas Kyd (1596).
• Love's Efforts Rewarded (1598) - a play either lost or known by a different title ("All's well that ends well" or "The Taming of the Shrew").
• Cardenio ("Double Lies, or Lovers in Distress") - co-authored with John Fletcher (1613, ed. 1728 by Lewis Theobald). According to the traditional view, the 1728 publication is a forgery, while the text in which Shakespeare contributed is lost. Recently, however, a number of researchers believe that the well-known text "Cardenio" is not a fake and may contain Shakespearean lines.
• Yorkshire Tragedy (n/a, ed. 1619, Jaggard)
• Sir John Oldcastle (n/a, ed. 1619, Jaggard)

fakes

• Vortigern and Rowena - author. William Henry Ireland

"Shakespeare Question"

Shakespeare's life is little known - he shares the fate of the vast majority of other English playwrights of the era, whose personal lives were of little interest to contemporaries. There is a point of view, the so-called anti-Stratfordianism, or non-Stratfordianism, whose supporters deny the authorship of Shakespeare (Shakspere) from Stratford and believe that "William Shakespeare" is a pseudonym under which another person or group of persons was hiding. Doubts about the validity of the traditional view have been known since at least 1848 (and some anti-Stratfordians see hints of this in earlier literature as well). At the same time, there is no unity among non-Stratfordians as to who exactly was the real author of Shakespeare's works. The number of probable candidates proposed by various researchers currently amounts to several dozen.

The Russian writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, in his critical essay "On Shakespeare and Drama", based on a detailed analysis of some of the most popular works of Shakespeare, in particular: "King Lear", "Othello", "Falstaff", "Hamlet", etc. - subjected sharp criticism of Shakespeare's ability as a playwright.

Bernard Shaw criticized the romantic cult of Shakespeare in the 19th century, using the word "bardo-worship" (Eng. bardolatry).

Shakespeare's works in other art forms

During the Renaissance in England, dramatic literature flourished, closely connected with the wide development of theatrical spectacles and performing arts at that time. The Renaissance theater developed in England somewhat differently than in other European countries. Its evolution from the theater of the Middle Ages was here much more gradual and organic than, for example, in Italy or France. Having experienced the influence of both ancient and classicist-humanistic dramaturgy of Europe (primarily Italian), English drama, nevertheless, basically retained its folk character, growing directly from the dramatic genres of the Middle Ages - morality and interludes. Even at its height, the English theater still retained many of the features that strongly connected it with the theater of the medieval city; this can be said both about the structure of the theater itself, which grew up on the basis of the stage traditions of urban craft and guild corporations, and about the dramatic literature created for it, many features of which, for example, a mixture of tragic and comic, dividing a play into many separate episodes, mass scenes, parallel actions, etc., go back to the features of medieval theatrical plays.

The humanistic theater of Italy and France, relying on ancient dramaturgy, sought first of all to free itself from any influence of the church and religious themes. In England, however, the flourishing of humanism coincided with the Reformation, and therefore the theater was originally used here in its traditional medieval form for complex religious and social struggles. Quite early under foreign influence, humanistic "school" and "court" theaters were created in England, but they had a relatively narrow purpose and did not have a decisive influence on the development of a new dramatic style; on the other hand, the national theatrical traditions were so strong here that they had an impact on the classicist tendencies of the humanistic theater. As a result, during the Renaissance in England, there is a kind of synthesis of opposing dramatic trends, which is one of the most important features of the English Renaissance theater and provides it with an outstanding place in world literature.

The described process is explained by the specific conditions of the social development of England in the 16th century. It was not destroyed here, but the form of theater that developed in the medieval city was developed. Experienced by England in the second half of the XVI century. the national upsurge, based on the relative balance of power between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, ensured the existence of the national theater in that synthetic form, which was not known, with the exception of Spain (see ch. 38), the art of other countries during the Renaissance. Throughout the first half of the sixteenth century in the English theater there was a struggle of heterogeneous elements, both their own and those brought in. An extraordinary rise in dramaturgical activity occurred in the second half of the 16th and early 17th centuries. At this time, many public paid theaters appeared in London, which had special buildings and permanent professional troupes of actors (as opposed to medieval "amateur" associations that played wherever they had to and for the whole city). Growing interest in theatrical arts. For these theaters, many outstanding playwrights work with Shakespeare at the head. Since the heyday of English drama falls approximately during the reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603), this dramaturgy is usually called "Elizabethian".

Medieval religious theater in the developed form that it received in England in the 14th-15th centuries continued to exist here throughout the first half of the 16th century, and partly later. Performances of mysteries (called in England "miracles" or "pagents"), despite their prohibition by a parliamentary decree of 1543, were staged until the 90s of the 16th century, however, more and more drowned out by the new theater. One of the best manuscripts of these plays that have come down to us (the so-called Chester cycle) was copied back in the 17th century. Evidence of their popularity among the population is that, having arisen under the shadow of the Catholic Church, the Mysteries survived its fall during the Reformation and managed to adapt to new conditions. However, this is also explained by those realistic elements that gradually accumulated in this theater and already in the 15th century. often turned religious action into everyday paintings of our time. How familiar Shakespeare's impressions of performances of mysteries were, is evident from his remarks about the role of Herod in such performances, made in A Midsummer Night's Dream and in Hamlet's conversation with the actors (act III, scene 2).

In the first half of the XVI century. morality and interludes were especially popular in England. Morality ("moral action", see Ch. 15, § 3) was a particularly convenient form for promoting new, humanistic ideas, and therefore at first they were especially often used by humanists to discuss various ethical, religious, political problems. Allegorism and edification are the main properties of this genre. Bringing on the stage personifications of virtues and vices, moralists created general types of characters, but gradually these types are subject to individualization; historical or everyday figures are mixed in plays with the personifications of the moral qualities of a person or abstract concepts.

Thus, a path is outlined for the development of a new secular drama, including historical drama, from morality.

An example is the works of John Bale (John Bale, 1495-1563), an ardent champion of Protestantism (since 1552, a bishop). Bayle wrote plays on biblical subjects and morality of theological content, but of his dramatic works that have come down to us, the most interesting is the play about "John, King of England" (c. 1548), which is the prototype of the historical "chronicles" that were so widespread later.

In this play, Bayle turned to the historical past of England to resolve contemporary issues of church and public life and did this with the help of those dramatic means that the form of morality provided him. The play gives a highly idealized image of King John the Landless (1199-1216) as a fighter against the papacy; she refers to the strife between the English king and Pope Innocent III, who excommunicated him from the church and declared him deprived of the throne. John's capitulation to the pope resulted in an uprising against the king of the clergy, chivalry and free peasantry, and ended with the signing of John's Magna Carta (1215). Bayle is mainly interested in John's struggle with the pope, and portrays the unpopular English king, contrary to history, as a martyr and victim of the papacy and the Catholic Church. Along with the figure of the king, allegorical images of England appear in the play, which prays to the king for protection against its oppressors - the Catholic clergy, the Rebellion, the Nobility, the Clear, etc. The revolt makes an alliance with Hypocrisy, Power and Usurpation, and in the end all these personifications imperceptibly turn into historical figures: Mutiny - into Stephen Langton, papal candidate for the post of Bishop of Canterbury; Power - in the papal legate, Cardinal Pandolf, who broke the stubbornness of the king; Usurpation - into the papacy itself, etc. Such a mixture in one play of personifications and individual human figures is very typical of English morality, traces of it have long been retained in English drama. So, as early as 1520, a morality was presented at the court of Henry VIII, in which, along with images of the Church, Clear, etc., Luther and the French king also participated.

Hence also comes the tendency to give characters "talkers" that determine their character - a tendency that was constantly revived in literature during periods when its edification and preaching tone intensified. Generalized morality images were popular throughout the 16th century. A hint of the image of Vanity from the morality, obviously quite understandable to contemporaries, we find in King Lear. In other plays by Shakespeare, we still meet with such characters as Time, Chorus, etc.

Another common in the first half of the XVI century. kind of theatrical performances were interludes in England. So they called here not only plays of comic content, but also all sorts of other comic plays with the participation of several characters. Therefore, the line between morality and interludes was often blurred. In the end, interludes began to be called in England small comic plays, the closest in their type to French farces. Interludes of this kind served as the basis for the development of English everyday comedy.

The interludes of John Heywood (1495-1565), written in the 1620s, already have this character. Heywood studied at Oxford and was close to Thomas More, who was introduced to the court of Henry VIII, where he took the position of court musician and poet.

One of Haywood's early interludes, "A Merry Scene Between a Pardoner, a Monk, a Priest, and His Neighbor Pratt" (c. 1520), depicts a confrontation between a mendicant monk who asked for permission to preach a sermon in a church, and his competitor, the pardoner, who tries to shout down the monk, praising the "relics" he has laid out right there, such as the "thumb of the Holy Trinity", etc. A scuffle begins between them, which the priest hardly manages to stop with the help of his neighbor; the monk and pardoner are expelled from the church.

The play "Four Ps" is also full of humor. The title is explained by the fact that four characters act in it, whose classes begin in English with the letter "p": a pilgrim, a seller of indulgences, an apothecary and a peddler. The first three argue among themselves about which of them will come up with the most incredible lie, and the peddler acts as a judge. Everyone is beaten by a pilgrim who claims that he has never seen a single grumpy and eccentric woman.

At the court of Henry VIII, who, following the Italian model, started masquerades and was very fond of theatrical performances, plays were also staged on ancient mythological subjects and attempts were made to imitate Roman comedians. Such imitations, however, especially flourished in schools, law colleges, and the like.

2

With the development of humanism, the influence of samples of ancient drama intensifies. Student performances in Latin in English universities have been organized since the end of the 15th century. (in Cambridge - from 1482, Oxford - from 1486). In the first half of the XVI century. interest in the "school drama" intensified and she increasingly began to use the vernacular instead of Latin, thanks to which she was able to exert some influence on the folk drama.

The favorite models for school plays were the comedies of Plautus and Terence. By 1537, the interlude "Thersites", an imitation of Plautus's "Boastful Warrior", dates back to the beginning of the 40s - the interlude "Jack the Deceiver", partly due to the plot of Plavtov's "Amphitrion". The comedy of Plautus "Menechma" was also translated and remade several times, which later formed the basis of Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors". On the same ancient basis, the director of the famous Eton School near Oxford, Nicholas Udell (Nocolas Udell) created the first "correct" English comedy in five acts "Ralph Royster Doyster" (40s). The main character, Ralph, is a variation of the "boastful warrior" type, but the whole comedy is sustained in English everyday tones.

The vain and stupid bouncer Ralph solicits the hand of a certain rich widow Constance, who, however, is engaged to the merchant Goodluck, who is currently away. Ralph's servant, Matthew Merrigrick, convinces Ralph for fun that Constance is crazy about him, when in fact she doesn't want to hear about him. The greatest comedy is concentrated in the scene where Ralph wants to forcefully break into Constance's house; she, having armed her maids with brooms, spoons, buckets and other kitchen utensils, organizes such a rebuff that Ralph has to retreat. Goodluck returns and sets the date for his wedding with Constance. Out of generosity, the young people invite Ralph to the celebration. He sees in this a recognition of his courage and therefore deigns to appear at the feast.

The play is full of lively and witty observations of the surrounding reality. Its plot is not as primitive as in the interludes of the previous period, and is more complex than in the comedies of Plautus and Terentius. The play's main merit lies in the fact that its comedy is based not on an artificial external motivation for the action, but on Ralph's self-deception, that is, on the peculiarities of his character. On the whole, the comedy is a rather successful attempt to apply ancient comedy technique to English everyday material; the influence of ancient comedy is felt here in the exposition, characterization techniques, division of the play into acts and scenes. At the same time, Ralph Royster Doyster reveals in some places an affinity with English folk drama. Thus, for example, Merrigrick resembles less the "parasite" of ancient comedy than the traditional picaresque figure of the "vice" of medieval comedy, from which the character of the so-called "clown" in the "Elizabethian" drama eventually grew.

Even more English in terms of everyday colors and compositions is John Still's comedy Girton's Gossip's Needle, which appeared around 1556.

Gossip Gherton mends peasant Hodge's leather pants: seeing that the cat is sneaking up on milk, she drives it away, but loses the needle. A long search for this needle begins, everyone fusses, accuses neighbors of stealing, conjures the devil. It comes to a fight, until finally the peasant puts on his pants and, sinking into a chair, receives an indication of her whereabouts.

This play, by the way, is interesting because the peasants speak a dialect; the drinking song in the second act is also quite popular.

In the 60s of the XVI century. in England there are already many comedies of various types. Some of them are imitations of antique, others - Italian comedies, in turn often based on antique samples. For example, Gascony's comedy The Changelings is a remake of Ariosto's The Changelings. Sometimes the plots of the plays are taken from Spanish literature; so, "Celestina" is remade into a cheerful English comedy "Calisto and Melibea".

In England, there is also a Renaissance tragedy, the model for which, as in other countries, was mainly the tragedy of Seneca. Translations of these tragedies ("The Trojan Women", "Thieste", "Furious Hercules", etc.) appeared in England between 1560 and 1581 in fairly large numbers. Their influence was not long in coming. In 1561, a play was staged, which is usually considered the first English tragedy - "Gorboduk, or Ferrex and Porrex" by Thomas Norton (the first three acts) and Thomas Sequil (the last two acts).

Its plot is taken from the legendary history of Britain, told in the medieval English chronicle by Geoffrey of Monmouth. King Gorboduk of Britain during his lifetime divides his kingdom between his two sons - Ferrex and Porrex. The younger of them, Porrex, kills the older one in order to take over the whole country. The Queen Mother, who loved Ferrex more, kills his assassin. This causes indignation in the country, an uprising occurs, during which Gorboduk and his wife are killed. Among the lords who remain rulers, strife over the throne begins.

The play is directed against the feudal strife of the Middle Ages. "Gorboduk" undoubtedly owes many features of its construction to the traditions of Seneca: the play is divided into five acts, a chorus appears at the end of each act, and finally, "messengers" are introduced into the tragedy, which announce the events that occurred behind the scenes, in particular, numerous murders. . However, the tragic conflict in this play has an external character, since the tragedy does not arise from the characters of the characters, but is generated by circumstances that lie outside them. Having adopted many features of ancient dramaturgy, the authors of "Gorboduk" could not, however, resist the traditions of medieval folk drama. First of all, it is characteristic that the plot of the play is taken from national, albeit legendary, history, and not from antiquity; further, the action continues after the catastrophe in the third act; finally, each act is preceded by something like an allegorical pantomime in the style of medieval performances.

This play is interesting because it is written in blank verse. This was the first experience of using blank verse in English drama, which soon became a favorite in it.

Following Gorboduk, many other plays appeared, written in the spirit of ancient dramas, primarily by Seneca. Some of them drew their plots from ancient historians, others from medieval writers, but in most of these works the techniques of ancient dramaturgy are combined with the features of medieval drama.

3

Dramaturgy developed much more intensively from the 70s of the 16th century. During this period, there are important changes in the stage conditions and the technical organization of theatrical performances in London. Until that time, there was a court theater here, established since the time of Henry VIII; it was designed for a select aristocratic circle of spectators grouped around the royal family, and outsiders were allowed here only by special invitation. The urban population of the capital had to be content with occasional performances by occasional theatrical troupes of itinerant professional actors who came to London. Most often, their performances were staged in hotel yards adapted for this purpose. However, the city authorities, due to the influence of Puritans hostile to the theater, often opposed the organization of these performances within the city. However, in the third quarter of the XVI century. the interest of the townspeople in theatrical performances of this kind increased so much that it became necessary to create a permanent theater in a building specially built for it. Such theaters really arose in the 70s and since then have steadily increased in number.

In the XVI century. city ​​permanent theaters in London existed in two varieties: public and private; however, the difference between them gradually smoothed out. Private and public theaters differed from each other mainly in the composition of the audience and the characteristics of the acting groups. Private initially served specially invited persons, later they differed in more expensive places and, accordingly, had more wealthy visitors. Mostly "children's troupes" (consisting, for example, of children - choristers of the royal chapel) performed here. Public theaters were distinguished by cheap entrance fees and counted on a motley and motley crowd of spectators; they were not located in the central part of the city (like private theaters), but outside it, on the north or south bank of the Thames. Only professional "adult" acting troupes performed in public theaters, and their stages were often complex. In 1576, the theatrical entrepreneur James Burbage built the first public theater in the riverside part of London, and in the same year the first private theater (the so-called "Blackfrier's") appeared in the central part of the capital. Following the theater of Burbage (simply called "Theater"), numerous theaters arose and succeeded each other ("Curtain", "Rose", "Swan", "Globe", etc.). The theater became one of the favorite entertainments of the townspeople and began to play an increasing socio-political role.

The London theaters of this time, both public and private, had a special arrangement that significantly distinguished them from the current ones. Theatrical buildings, built, apparently, exclusively of wood, had either a round or oval shape, or the shape of polyhedrons. The oval shape was the most common; for example, the Swan Theater had it, about the structure of which we get some idea from the drawing of the Dutchman DeWitt, who visited London around 1596, and from the explanations made in his travel diary. The Globe Theater also had an oval shape, since Shakespeare in the prologue to "Henry V" calls it "a wooden letter O". The bulk of the spectators were seated in a spacious "courtyard" surrounded by walls along which several tiers of galleries ran; in public theaters there was no roof over the stalls. In the galleries, the spectators sat, in contrast to the visitors of the stalls, who watched the performance while standing. One or two lower tiers of galleries were divided into boxes, these were the most expensive seats, intended for privileged spectators.

The most important feature of public theaters was the complex arrangement of the stage. The actors had here not one scene, but several. The main stage was a platform that went deep into the stalls, often tapering towards the end and fenced with low railings. Since this platform did not adjoin walls or boxes on both sides, the spectators standing in the parterre also filled the space that was between the stage and the boxes of the lower tier. There was no curtain that would separate the main stage from the audience, so they could look at it from all sides. However, its rear part was covered with a canopy, sometimes it rose above the level of the main stage and was equipped with a sliding curtain; in addition, there was a third, upper stage in the form of a balcony above the back stage, sometimes formed from the part of the gallery located above the back of the platform. The action proceeded successively on one, then on the other, then on the third of these scenes, and this in many respects determined the special structure of the dramatic works of this period. Although the stage was poor in scenery (especially in public theaters), and the performances were distinguished by a primitive conventionality of staging, the theaters were not completely devoid of setting means. The illusion was strengthened by stage effects performed with the help of some technical devices, as well as onomatopoeia performed behind the scenes (thunder, barking dogs, cock crows, etc.), the music that accompanied the performance, and especially the expressive play of the actors. The stage text itself played a significant role in this regard, containing descriptions of the places in which the action takes place, for example, the beauties of the surrounding nature, or indications of the time when the action takes place. Thanks to the combination of all these techniques, it was possible to achieve various illusions, such as darkness, although the performance was in daylight.

However, the greatest help to the directors in this regard was provided by the theatrical spectator, who reacted vividly and emotionally to the performance, possessing an easily excitable imagination. The variegated, mixed composition of the theater audience in the public theaters of the Elizabethan era also represents their very significant feature. Public theaters were attended by wealthy citizens and the aristocracy, located in the boxes of the galleries of the lower tiers, and sometimes even on the proscenium itself; the upper gallery and stalls were filled with a more democratic audience - everyone who could pay the smallest amount (1-2 pence) for entry. Free access to the theaters caused the diversity of the auditorium and turned them into entertainment of a national character. This circumstance was of great importance for the dramaturgy of this period.

The popularity of the theater among all classes of society should explain the diversity and diversity of the repertoire created for it. This repertoire was created by a group of eminent playwrights who are Shakespeare's immediate predecessors. Most of them worked for theaters of all varieties. In their work, the heterogeneous dramatic currents of the previous period are combined more or less organically and form a remarkable artistic whole, from which Shakespearean theater eventually grows.

In the early 80s, John Lily, the author of the novel Eufues, made his comedies written for the court theater. These comedies ("Woman in the Moon", "Sappho and Phaon", "Endymion", etc.) are dramatic pastorals, saturated with ancient mythology, but they also contain a comic element, enhanced by subtle and witty dialogue in the style characteristic of this writer. For one of the private theaters, Lily also wrote the comedy "Alexander and Campaspe", in which an ancient legend is developed about how Alexander the Great, having commissioned the artist Apelles a portrait of the beautiful captive Campaspe that he liked, generously gave it to Apelles when he found out about their mutual love. In Lily's plays, elegant and flexible prose dialogue has replaced the former speech in verse. Thomas Kidd and Christopher Marlo followed a different path.

Thomas Kyd (Thomas Kyd, 1558-1594) is considered the founder of pathetic, close to melodrama, tragedy - a genre that received the name "bloody" tragedy due to the accumulation of murders and atrocities of all kinds in it. Kid stood far from the court and aristocratic circles, and the police suspected him of freethinking. He was chiefly known for his Spanish Tragedy (c. 1584), which had a long history in London theaters. The construction technique of the "Spanish Tragedy" skillfully combines the techniques of Seneca's tragedies and medieval English drama; here the spirit of the slain appears, accompanied by the allegorical figure of Revenge, who predict future events and at the same time play the role of a chorus summarizing everything that happens before the viewer's eyes. Going back to plays such as "Gorboduk" or "Cambise", "Spanish Tragedy", however, in comparison with them takes a significant step forward: its characters are outlined more clearly and stand in closer connection with the development of the action; it is a tragedy of revenge, raging with violent force in the hearts of offended people.

One of the central figures of this tragedy is the old Spaniard, the courtier Jeronimo, who avenges the death of his son Horatio, who was secretly murdered by the Spaniard Lorenzo and the Portuguese heir Prince Balthazar, who was a prisoner in Spain; once Horatio gave him life on the battlefield. The reason for the murder was Balthazar's love for Horatio's beloved Bellimperia. Hieronimo finds his son's corpse, but does not know the killers. Having received information that they are high-ranking officials, he does not want to believe this for a long time, hesitates, puts off plans for revenge, pretends to be crazy in order to finally ascertain the truth. When the Portuguese king comes to Spain to free his son from captivity, Hieronimo comes up with a subtle revenge on the killers. He arranges a theatrical performance at court, in which he himself, Bellimperia, Lorenzo and Balthazar participate. In the final scene, under the guise of an ongoing spectacle, Hieronimo actually stabs Lorenzo to death, and the girl stabs Balthazar; then they kill themselves, revealing in pathetic monologues the secret of the crime and the revenge it caused.

Thus, like "Gorboduk", "Spanish Tragedy" ends with the death of all the characters, but in "Gorboduk", according to the methods of ancient drama, the murders take place behind the scenes, and in "Spanish Tragedy" everything happens in front of the viewer, as in a medieval drama . In plot situations and technique, Kid's plays have much in common with Shakespeare's Hamlet (the theme of revenge, the appearance of the ghost of the murdered man, feigned madness, a play within a play, etc.). This is all the more interesting because it is Kid who is credited with the play about Hamlet that has not come down to us, which preceded Shakespeare's.

4

One of the most important and most talented predecessors of Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593). He was the son of a poor shoemaker from Canterbury. With the support of friends and, probably, influential patrons, Marlo was able to enter the University of Cambridge, where he received a bachelor's degree, and later a master's degree. Then he became interested in the theater, probably he himself was an actor for some time, arrived in London around 1587 and devoted himself entirely to creativity, rotating in circles of bohemia writers, where he soon earned a reputation as a dangerous freethinker and atheist. One of the denunciations against Marlo depicts him as the head of an atheistic circle of young writers and ascribes to him very dangerous thoughts at that time: Marlo allegedly did not believe in God, claimed that Christ was more worthy of execution than Barabbas, that the inhabitants of India and other peoples of the ancient world lived and wrote about sixteen thousand years ago, while, according to the Bible, the world created by God has existed for only six thousand years. Marlo's short life is little known. In 1593, he was murdered in a tavern near London under rather mysterious circumstances, which his biographers are now inclined to interpret in the sense that it was a political assassination organized by the London secret police in order to eliminate a dangerous person. The Puritans greeted the news of the death of the young "godless" with deep joy. One of the preachers even saw in this the “finger of God” and said that Marlo “reached such a frenzy that he denied God, his son Jesus Christ, and not only blasphemed in words against the Trinity, but even wrote books about it, in which he argued that that the savior is a deceiver, and Moses is a magician and sorcerer, that the bible is a collection of empty absurd fairy tales, and religion is the invention of politicians.

Title page of The Tragic History of Dr. Faust by Marlo, ed. 1631

In his works, Marlo, of course, could not openly preach such ideas, but in his work, the materialistic and humanistic worldview is still quite clearly revealed. In his youthful impulses and ups and downs of thought, Marlo was one of the brightest spokesmen for the titanism of the Renaissance. Marlo created the heroic tragedy of a strong personality, whose daring thoughts and strong-willed aspirations are the center of dramatic action. Already in the prologue to his first play "Tamerlane the Great" (circa 1587), which was a great success in London, Marlowe promised to give a sublime heroic drama, freed from "clownery" and the clownish wit of rhymed verses. This drama really shows the powerful, titanic image of the famous Central Asian conqueror of the 14th century, subjugating all the action. Tamerlane and consistently portrays his life, from the moment when he was still a simple shepherd, until the hour when he dies the ruler of the entire Eastern world. In the rapidly changing episodes of the play, Tamerlane, endowed with a huge will to power and unshakable faith in his own strength, one by one subjugates the eastern monarchies - Persia, Syria, Turkey, Egypt, Babylon. He appears now on the battlefield, now on a chariot drawn by the rulers he has conquered; he carries the Turkish Sultan Bayazet behind him in an iron cage. In his miraculous rise from obscurity to absolute dominion, he never hesitates or fails. In his image, which is significantly different from the historical personality of Tamerlane, Marlo gives an apology for daring, the strength of strong-willed aspirations, the limitless possibilities of a person who owes everything to himself. This is a glorification of the new man, the hero of the Renaissance.

Tamerlane is not, however, the embodiment of brutal violence, he is not alien to even a special democracy: he frees, for example, captive slaves in Algeria. He is the enemy of the Eastern despotisms and, defeating them, challenges the entire patriarchal way of life that has developed over the centuries, all the legal, social and religious prejudices of the past; in one of the final scenes, Tamerlane, for example, orders the Koran to be brought to the Babylonian temple and solemnly burned in the presence of all the kings he captured. Tamerlane, this formidable and sometimes cruel ruler, also has feelings of generosity, nobility, passionate, all-consuming love; his love for the Egyptian sultan's daughter Zenocrate is depicted in the same heroic and pathetic tones. Tamerlane, finally, is not only a lover of power - he believes in the limitless powers of the mind, and for him, as for people of the Renaissance, power and knowledge are inseparable from each other. "Our spirit, capable of comprehending the miraculous structure of the world and measuring the path of each planet, eternally strives for infinite knowledge," says Tamerlane, marking the way to the central image of Marlo's next play - Faust.

Marlo was the first writer to dramatize the legend of Faust, set forth shortly before in a German folk book. His play "The Tragic History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faust", written probably around 1588-1589, significantly modifies the philosophical and moral meaning of the legend, although in terms of plot it is very close to a folk book. Marlo's Faust is the same titanic nature as Tamerlane: he gives his soul to the devil for knowledge, earthly happiness and power. The agreement with Mephistopheles should make him the "master of the world", give him untold wealth and unlimited power. But Faust wants to use all this not only for narrow personal, egoistic purposes; for example, he intends to found a number of universities, increase the military power of his fatherland, surrounding it with an impenetrable copper wall, conquer neighboring countries: Italy, Africa and Spain, etc. Marlowe’s interpretation of the image of Mephistopheles is no less peculiar: he does not look like medieval devils legends, and there are no comic features in it - much in it with its pathos anticipates the images of Satan in Milton and Byron. Mephistopheles Marlo is a spirit "exhausted from suffering", carrying hell in his heart, and at the same time a rebel against divine forces; he appears to Faust not so much as a result of magic spells, but because Faust, like Satan, blasphemes God and hates Christ.

The central image of Marlo's play "The Jew of Malta" (after 1589) is Barabbas, endowed with the same superhuman features as the characters that preceded him. However, Barabbas is a vindictive villain, money-grubber and predator, all of whose human properties are negative. His thoughts are directed to the acquisition of untold wealth, to the commission of crimes and revenge for the contempt that fell to his lot. By betrayal, betrayal, bribery, he fights with the whole world and dies only having had enough of the blood of his many victims.

The action takes place on the island of Malta. The knights who own the island seized the property of Barabbas in order to pay an indemnity to the Turks, and Barabbas with inexorable persistence takes revenge on the Christians for the violence committed against him. He makes Muslims the instrument of his revenge. Barabbas stirs up the passion of two knights who are infatuated with his daughter. When these knights kill each other in a duel, he does not spare his daughter, who fell in love with one of them, and poisons her, along with all the nuns of the monastery, where she fled from her cruel father.

In the prologue to this play, Machiavelli appears, into whose mouth Marlowe put many of his favorite materialistic and atheistic views, for example, that religion is only a tool for achieving political goals and that "the only sin is ignorance." The play itself shows that greed, greed, selfishness and other vices of the bourgeois world do not depend on religious beliefs and national traits.

Marlo also owns the historical chronicle "Edward II" (1592-1593), which, in its technique and maturity of craftsmanship, approaches the historical chronicles of Shakespeare. In contrast to all previous plays by Marlowe, in "Edward II" there are no titanic characters and superhuman passions; instead of heroic and somewhat generalized images of ambitious people, rulers and strong-willed natures, the play presents ordinary, even weak people who solve problems of power and ethics of behavior in much more everyday ways.

The play depicts the English King Edward II (1307-1327) waging a struggle with powerful lords, and then with his family because of his unworthy favorites - Gaveston and Spencer. Queen Isabella loves her husband, but gradually, because of his abusive attitude towards her, she becomes hardened against him. In alliance with her lover Mortimer, who subjugated her to his influence, she achieves Edward's abdication from the throne, imprisons him, and finally treacherously kills him with the help of a sent assassin. In contrast to Isabella, the weak-willed Edward, who was a toy in the hands of his favorites, becomes a strong and courageous person as a result of the grief he endured. Trials and tribulations have opened his eyes to life and the people around him, and he boldly faces death.

The spontaneous, stormy impulses of Marlowe's early plays in "Edward II" are opposed by a much more complete and deep perception of reality, the former static nature of the characters - their development within the dramatic action and in close dependence on it. "Edward II" - one of the most important works of Marlowe on the way to the establishment of realism in the "Elizabeth" drama.

Marlo had a great influence on the work of Shakespeare and other playwrights of that time. Shakespeare adopted from him not only blank verse (thanks to Marlowe, finally established in the English drama), but also many of the ideological features and stylistic devices of his plays, for example, the type of tragic hero around whom the action is concentrated, the high pathos of characterization, the solution of many ethical and socio-political problems. "Richard III" and "The Merchant of Venice" by Shakespeare are equally indebted to "The Jew of Malta" by Marlowe. In "Richard II" there is also a certain kinship with "Edward II", which, moreover, in many respects anticipates "King Lear" and "Macbeth". The wanderer Lear, like imprisoned Edward, is imbued with the consciousness of the vanity of human life and the illusory nature of power. Lady Macbeth is akin to Queen Isabella, and in Macbeth himself the features of the power-hungry Tamerlane come to life. Thus, Marlowe's influence is not limited to the early period of Shakespeare's work, but also extends to his great tragedies.

5

Another major playwright, who, in part, like Marlowe, who prepared Shakespeare's work, was Robert Greene (1553-1590), who, in addition to the stories already mentioned, left many dramatic works. In The History of the Monk Bacon and the Monk Bengay (1589), Green portrayed the outstanding English scientist of the 13th century. Roger Bacon, a fighter against scholasticism and the founder of the theory of empirical knowledge, who suffered severely for this from the obscurantism of the French monks, to whose order he had the misfortune to belong. But at the time when Greene's play was written, Roger Bacon was completely forgotten, and therefore Greene could only use the folk legend about him, which turned Bacon into a simple sorcerer. This image in Green has nothing to do with the image of the rebellious seeker of truth - Faust in Marlowe.

Bacon's sorceries serve only the amorous purposes of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward I, who wants to use the services of a wizard monk in order to win the heart of his forester's daughter. The courtier, sent to her by the prince as an intermediary, falls in love with her himself. The prince sees their caresses in Bacon's magic mirror, becomes furious, but soon calms down, especially since he himself is already engaged to a French princess.

Thus, the plot about a medieval warlock, which turned into a grandiose philosophical drama under Marlowe's pen, was processed by Green in an almost comedic style, not without, however, lyrical tones.

Green's plays differ from most of the works of his contemporary playwrights by their striking democratism and nationality. Green willingly brings peasants and artisans onto the stage, portraying them in sympathetic or even heroic tones. His dramas stand in stark contrast to the "clownery" of the previous plays, which invariably depict the "muzhik" in a crudely comic way. Particularly curious in this regard is one of his best plays, "George Green, Weckfield Field Watchman" (1592), which arose on the basis of folk ballads about Robin Hood.

It depicts how a wealthy peasant (yeoman) George Green helps King Edward III to suppress the uprising of one of the northern feudal lords, who united for this purpose with the Scots. The king wants to see the person who has done him a favor. Having disguised himself, he goes in search of a peasant and finds him in the company of a cheerful Robin Hood, with whom George Green managed to make friends. The king forgives Robin Hood, and Green wants to be knighted, which, however, he refuses. The play ends with a cheerful feast in which the king, peasants and artisans take part on equal terms.

Many scenes of the play (for example, the scene of Green's duel with Robin Hood, ending with the conclusion of a friendly alliance between them) grew out of folk ballads.

By the last decade of the sixteenth century English drama has reached its full development. A variety of genres, high mastery of technique, rich ideological content characterize the English drama created by Lily, Marlo, Kid, Green, Lodge, Peel and other predecessors of Shakespeare, who were a galaxy of outstanding playwrights. But they were surpassed by the most outstanding of all writers of the English Renaissance - Shakespeare.

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VIII. PRECURSORS

The new dramaturgy, which replaced the theater of the Middle Ages - mysteries, allegorical morality and primitive folk farces, developed gradually.

Back in the thirties of the sixteenth century, Bishop Bayle, an ardent Protestant, wrote a play directed against Catholicism. He illustrated his thoughts with an example from the history of England - the struggle of King John the Landless (reigned from 1199 to 1216) against the Pope. In reality, this king was an insignificant person, but he was dear to the heart of the Protestant bishop because he was at enmity with the pope. Bayle wrote a morality in which personified virtues and vices acted. The central figure of the play was called Virtue. But at the same time it was called King John. Among the gloomy figures personifying vices, the name of one was Illegally Seized Power, she is also the Pope; the name of the other is Incitement to Revolt, she is also the legate of the Pope. Bayle's "King John" is a peculiar play in which the allegories of the old medieval morality were combined with the new historical genre, which later flourished in Shakespeare's historical plays. Bayle's "King John" has been compared by literary historians to a cocoon: it's no longer a caterpillar, but it's also not a butterfly.

Then, in the thirties of the 16th century, the so-called "school" drama began to develop in England. It is called so because it was created within the walls of universities and schools: the plays were written by professors and teachers, performed by students and schoolchildren. But it can also be called a "school" drama in the sense that the playwrights who created it themselves were still learning how to write plays by studying ancient authors and imitating them. In the thirties of the sixteenth century the first comedy in English, Ralph Royster-Deuster, was written; its author was a well-known teacher at that time, Nicholas Youdl, director of the Eton School. In the fifties, the learned lawyers Sackville and Norton wrote the first tragedy in English - "Gorboduk".

But all this was only "school". Real, full of life dramatic works appeared only when people from universities - "university minds" - began to give their plays to professional actors. This happened in the eighties of the XVI century.

In 1586, two plays appear that deserve special attention. The author of the first is Thomas Kidd (who also wrote the first play about Hamlet, which, unfortunately, has not come down to us).

Kid's play is a typical "tragedy of thunder and blood", as they said then. The title itself is eloquent - "Spanish Tragedy". This is an attempt, still primitive, to depict the power of human feelings. The terrible figure of Revenge appears on the stage, reminiscent of the images of an old morality. Immediately the Spirit of the murdered Andrea comes out, who, complaining about the vile murderers, calls out to his terrible companion. The action begins. The young man Horatio loves the beautiful girl Belimperia, and she loves him. But Belimperia is also loved by Balthazar, the son of the Portuguese king. Balthasar is taken to help the brother of Belimperia - the criminal Lorenzo. On a moonlit night, when young people, sitting in the garden, declare their love to each other, masked killers come on stage and kill Horatio with daggers. On the English stage of that time, they liked to depict murders and other "horrors": an actor was put under a white cloak with a bottle of red vinegar; the dagger pierced the bubble, and red spots appeared on the white cloak. Having stabbed Horatio with daggers, the killers hang his corpse on a tree - apparently, in order to more clearly show the audience the corpse stained with blood. The assassins then forcibly take Belimperia away. Horatio's father, old Jeronimo, runs out to her screams - in one shirt, with a sword in his hands. Seeing the corpse of his son hanging on a tree, he utters a thunderous monologue, calling for revenge ... Everything that happens on the stage is observed by the Revenge and the Spirit of the murdered Andrea, who, rejoicing, awaits revenge, for Horatio's killers are also his killers. But old Jeronimo hesitates: it is not easy to take revenge on the king's son. The unfortunate old man thinks longingly about life. "O world!" he exclaims. "No, not the world, but a collection of crimes!" He compares himself to a lonely traveler who lost his way on a snowy night... Andrea's spirit is seized with anxiety. He turns to Vengeance, but sees that she is sleeping. "Wake up, Revenge!" he exclaims in despair. Revenge is awakening. And then a thought strikes old Jeronimo. To achieve his goal, he plans to put on a play at the court (the reader has already noticed some similarities between this tragedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet; we recall once again that Kid was the author of the first play about Hamlet). In the performance staged by Hieronimo, Belimperia, initiated into his plan, as well as Balthazar and Lorenzo participate. In the course of the play, the characters must kill each other. Old Jeronimo makes it so that instead of "theatrical" murders, real murders occur. The performance ends, but the actors do not get up from the ground. The Spanish king demands an explanation from Jeronimo. Hieronimo refuses to answer and, in confirmation of his refusal, bites off his own tongue and spits it out. Then the king orders to give him a pen so that he writes an explanation. Hieronimo asks with signs to give him a knife to sharpen his pen, and stabs himself with this knife. A jubilant Revenge appears over a pile of bloodied corpses, which suggests that the true retribution is yet to come: it begins in hell.

Everything in this play is theatrical, conditional, melodramatic through and through. The "Spanish Tragedy" by Thomas Kidd is the ancestor of that "romantic" trend in the dramaturgy of the Shakespearean era, which gave rise to such tragedies as, for example, "The White Devil" or "The Duchess of Malfi" by Shakespeare's contemporary - Webster.

In the same year, 1586, a play of a completely different kind was written. Its title is "Arden from the city of Feversham" (This play was at one time attributed to Shakespeare, but without sufficient grounds.) (its author is unknown to us). This is a family drama. It tells how a young woman, Alice Arden, and her lover Moseby killed Alice's husband. The murder itself is depicted with great force, when Alice tries in vain to wash away the stains of blood (this motif was developed with grandiose force by Shakespeare in that famous scene in which Lady Macbeth wanders half asleep, overcome by memories). Everything in this play is vital, realistic. And the plot itself was borrowed by the author from real life. In the epilogue, the author asks the audience to forgive him for the fact that there are no "decorations" in the play. According to the author, "simple truth" is enough for art. This play can be called the ancestor of that trend in the dramaturgy of the Shakespearean era, which strove to depict everyday life, such as Thomas Heywood's wonderful drama "A Woman Killed by Kindness." Shakespeare's work combines both currents - romantic and realistic.

That was the prologue. The real events begin with the appearance on the London stage of the plays of Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe was born, like Shakespeare, in 1564 and was only two months older than him. Marlo's homeland was the ancient city of Canterbury. Christopher Marlo's father owned a shoe shop. The parents sent their son to Cambridge University, hoping to make him a priest. However, after graduating from university, instead of the church altar, Marlo ended up on the stage of the London stage. But he was not destined to become an actor. According to legend, he broke his leg and had to quit acting. Then he took up writing plays. His grandiose epic in two parts and ten acts "Tamerlane the Great" appeared in 1587-1588. In this epic, Marlo tells about the life, wars and death of the famous commander of the XIV century.

"Scythian shepherd", "robber from the Volga" is called Tamerlane in Marlo's play by the eastern kings, whom he overthrows from the throne, capturing their kingdoms. Tamerlane's army, according to Marlo, consists of "simple country boys". Marlo portrays Tamerlane as a muscular giant. This is a man of phenomenal physical strength, indestructible will and elemental temperament. It resembles the mighty figures created by Michelangelo's chisel. The motif of the glorification of earthly life, so typical of the Renaissance, resounds loudly in this grandiose dramatic epic; words are heard from the stage: "I think that heavenly pleasures cannot be compared with royal joy on earth!"

Tamerlane, like Marlo himself, is a passionate freethinker. In one of his stormy thunderous monologues, he says that the goal of man is "forever to rise to infinite knowledge and to be forever in motion, like the restless heavenly spheres." This fabulous hero is full of an excess of strength. He rides onto the stage in a chariot, to which instead of horses the kings he has taken prisoner are harnessed. "Hey you spoiled Asian nags!" he shouts, urging them on with his whip.

Marlo's next play was The Tragic History of Doctor Faust (This play is available in Russian translation: The Tragic History of Doctor Faust. Translation by K. Balmont. Moscow, 1912.). It was the first dramatic adaptation of the famous legend. Marlo's play reflected the human desire to conquer the forces of nature, so characteristic of the Renaissance. Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles in order to "get the golden gifts of knowledge" and "penetrate into the treasury of nature." He dreams of enclosing his hometown with a copper wall and making it inaccessible to the enemy, changing the course of rivers, throwing a bridge over the Atlantic Ocean, filling Gibraltar and connecting Europe and Africa into a single continent ... "How grandiose it all is!" - said Goethe, who used some of the features of Marlo's tragedy for his "Faust".

The grandiose scope of fantasy, the powerful pressure of forces, as if with difficulty, characterize Marlo's work. "Marlo's powerful verse," wrote Ben Jonson. Shakespeare also speaks of Marlo's "powerful saying" (In Shakespeare's comedy "As You Like It" the shepherdess Phoebe says: "Dead shepherd, now I understand your powerful saying - he who loved always loved at first sight." The last phrase is a quote from Marlo's poem "Hero and Leander" "Dead Shepherd" - Marlo (named so by Shakespeare, probably because Marlo was the author of a poem about a shepherd in love).

The Puritans, who created the code of the new bourgeois morality, were indignant at the passionate freethinker who openly preached his views. One after another, denunciations came to the Queen's Privy Council. And even the common people, although Marlowe's plays were a huge success among them, sometimes looked at what was happening on the stage not without superstitious fear. There was even such a rumor in London. Once after the performance of "Faust" it turned out that the actor who played the role of Mephistopheles was ill and did not go to the theater. Who, then, played Mephistopheles that day? The actors rushed into the dressing room, and only then, by the smell of sulfur, did they guess that the devil himself was performing on the London stage that day.

Marlo wrote several more plays (his best play in terms of the liveliness of the human portraits he created is the historical chronicle "King Edward II"). But his amazing talent was not destined to unfold in full force. On May 30, 1593, Christopher Marlowe, in his thirtieth year, was killed in a tavern. The Puritans rejoiced. "The Lord planted this barking dog on the hook of vengeance," wrote one of them.

Many legends have developed around the death of Marlo. Some legends told that Marlo died in a drunken brawl, having quarreled with his killer over a prostitute; others that he fell defending the honor of an innocent girl. These legends were seriously listened to until recently. And only in 1925, the American professor Leslie Hotson managed to find documents in the English archives that shed new light on the circumstances of Marlo's death (Hotson's discoveries are set out in the book: Leslie Hotson. The Death of Cristopher Marlowe, 1925). And it turned out that the murder of Marlo was the work of the Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth; at the murder of Marlo, a certain Field, an agent of the Privy Council, was present (For more details on the murder of Marlo, see my article "Christopher Marlo" ("Literary Critic", 1938, N 5). About Marlo, see also the article by Professor A. K. Dzhivelegov in 1- in the first issue of Volume I "History of English Literature", published by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, M.-L., 1944, and also in the monograph by Prof. N. I. Storozhenko "Shakespeare's Predecessors", vol. 1, St. Petersburg, 1872.) .

Thus died, without fully revealing his creative powers, "the father of English drama" Christopher Marlowe. And just in that year, when his star, burning with a bright, passionate and uneven brilliance, set, the star of William Shakespeare began to rise in the theatrical sky of London. Unlike his predecessors, who were university-educated, "university minds," this new playwright was a mere actor.

We have mentioned only a few of Shakespeare's predecessors. In reality, Shakespeare made extensive use of the entire literary past of his homeland. He borrowed a lot from Chaucer (for example, Shakespeare's poem "Lucretia" with its plot roots takes us to Chaucer's "Legends of Good Women"; the images of Theseus and Hippolyta in the comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream" were probably inspired by "The Knight's Tale" from Chaucer's famous "Canterbury Tales"; Chaucer's poem "Troilus and Cressida" influenced Shakespeare's comedy of the same name, etc.). Shakespeare owed much to Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene, and to other poets of his school. From "Arcadia" by Philip Sidney, Shakespeare borrowed the plot, which he embodied in the image of Gloucester, betrayed by his son Edmund ("King Lear") - Shakespeare also paid tribute to euphuism. Finally, among the predecessors of Shakespeare, one should mention the nameless narrators of English folk ballads (In Soviet times, English folk ballads were translated by S. Marshak, E. Bagritsky, T. Shchepkina-Kupernik and others (see the collection "Ballads and Songs of the English People" compiled by the author of this book) . Detgiz, 1942).). It is in the English folk ballad that the tragic drama of action is born, which is so typical of the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Many thoughts and feelings that have long existed among the people and reflected in folk ballads and songs have found a brilliant artistic embodiment in Shakespeare's work. The roots of this creativity go deep into the folk soil.

Of the works of foreign literature, Shakespeare was primarily influenced by the Italian short stories Boccaccio and Bandello, from which Shakespeare borrowed a number of plots for his plays. A collection of Italian and French short stories translated into English under the title "The Hall of Delights" was Shakespeare's reference book. For his "Roman tragedies" ("Julius Caesar", "Coriolanus", "Antony and Cleopatra") Shakespeare took plots from Plutarch's Lives of Famous People, which he read in North's English translation. Among his favorite books were also Ovid's Metamorphoses in an English translation by Golding.

Shakespeare's work has been prepared by many poets, writers and translators.

The new dramaturgy, which replaced the theater of the Middle Ages - mysteries, allegorical morality and primitive folk farces, developed gradually.

Back in the thirties of the sixteenth century, Bishop Bayle, an ardent Protestant, wrote a play directed against Catholicism. He illustrated his thoughts with an example from the history of England - the struggle of King John the Landless (reigned from 1199 to 1216) against the Pope. In reality, this king was an insignificant person, but he was dear to the heart of the Protestant bishop because he was at enmity with the pope. Bayle wrote a morality in which personified virtues and vices acted. The central figure of the play was called Virtue. But at the same time it was called King John. Among the gloomy figures personifying vices, the name of one was Illegally Seized Power, she is also the Pope; the name of the other is Incitement to Revolt, she is also the legate of the Pope. Bayle's "King John" is a kind of play in which the allegories of the old medieval morality were combined with the new historical genre, which later flourished in Shakespeare's historical plays. Bayle's "King John" was compared by literary historians to a cocoon: it is no longer a caterpillar, but not yet a butterfly.

At the same time, in the thirties of the 16th century, the so-called "school" drama began to develop in England. It is called so because it was created within the walls of universities and schools: the plays were written by professors and teachers, performed by students and schoolchildren. But it can also be called a "school" drama in the sense that the playwrights who created it themselves were still learning how to write plays by studying ancient authors and imitating them. In the thirties of the sixteenth century the first comedy in English, Ralph Royster-Deuster, was written; its author was a well-known teacher at that time, Nicholas Youdl, director of the Eton School. In the fifties, the learned lawyers Sackville and Norton wrote the first tragedy in English - Gorboduk.

But all this was only "school". Real, full of life dramatic works appeared only when people from universities - "university minds" - began to give their plays to professional actors. This happened in the eighties of the XVI century.

In 1586, two plays appear that deserve special attention. The author of the first is Thomas Kidd (who also wrote the first play about Hamlet, which, unfortunately, has not come down to us).

Kid's play is a typical "tragedy of thunder and blood", as they said then. The title itself is eloquent - "Spanish Tragedy". This is an attempt, still primitive, to depict the power of human feelings. The terrible figure of Revenge appears on the stage, reminiscent of the images of an old morality. Immediately the Spirit of the murdered Andrea comes out, who, complaining about the vile murderers, calls out to his terrible companion. The action begins. The young man Horatio loves the beautiful girl Belimperia, and she loves him. But Belimperia is also loved by Balthazar, the son of the Portuguese king. Balthasar is taken to help the brother of Belimperia - the criminal Lorenzo. On a moonlit night, when young people, sitting in the garden, declare their love to each other, masked killers come on stage and kill Horatio with daggers. On the English stage of that time, they liked to depict murders and other "horrors": an actor was put a bottle of red vinegar under a white cloak; the dagger pierced the bubble, and red spots appeared on the white cloak. Having stabbed Horatio with daggers, the killers hang his corpse on a tree - apparently, in order to more clearly show the audience the corpse stained with blood. The assassins then forcibly take Belimperia away. Horatio's father, old Jeronimo, runs out to her screams - in one shirt, with a sword in his hands. Seeing the corpse of his son hanging on a tree, he utters a thunderous monologue, calling for revenge ... Everything that happens on the stage is observed by the Revenge and the Spirit of the murdered Andrea, who, rejoicing, awaits revenge, for Horatio's killers are also his killers. But old Jeronimo hesitates: it is not easy to take revenge on the king's son. The unfortunate old man thinks longingly about life. "O world! he exclaims. “No, not the world, but a collection of crimes!” He compares himself to a lonely traveler who lost his way on a snowy night... Andrea's spirit is seized with anxiety. He turns to Vengeance, but sees that she is sleeping. "Wake up, Revenge!" he exclaims in despair. Revenge is awakening. And then a thought strikes old Jeronimo. To achieve his goal, he plans to put on a play at court (the reader has already noticed some similarities between this tragedy and Shakespeare's Hamlet; we recall once again that Kid was the author of the first play about Hamlet). In the performance staged by Hieronimo, Belimperia, initiated into his plan, as well as Balthazar and Lorenzo participate. In the course of the play, the characters must kill each other. Old Jeronimo makes it so that instead of "theatrical" murders, real murders occur. The performance ends, but the actors do not get up from the ground. The Spanish king demands an explanation from Jeronimo. Hieronimo refuses to answer and, in confirmation of his refusal, bites off his own tongue and spits it out. Then the king orders to give him a pen so that he writes an explanation. Hieronimo asks with signs to give him a knife to sharpen his pen, and stabs himself with this knife. A jubilant Revenge appears over a pile of bloody corpses, which suggests that the true retribution is yet to come: it begins in hell.

Everything in this play is theatrical, conditional, melodramatic through and through. Thomas Kidd's "Spanish Tragedy" is the ancestor of that "romantic" trend in the dramaturgy of the Shakespearean era, which gave rise to such tragedies as, for example, "The White Devil" or "The Duchess of Malfi" by Shakespeare's contemporary - Webster.

In the same year, 1586, a play of a completely different kind was written. Its title is "Arden from the city of Feversham" (its author is unknown to us). This is a family drama. It tells how a young woman, Alice Arden, and her lover Moseby killed Alice's husband. The murder itself is depicted with great force, when Alice tries in vain to wash away the stains of blood (this motif was developed with grandiose force by Shakespeare in that famous scene in which Lady Macbeth wanders half asleep, overcome by memories). Everything in this play is vital, realistic. And the plot itself was borrowed by the author from real life. In the epilogue, the author asks the audience to forgive him for the fact that there are no "decorations" in the play. According to the author, “simple truth” is enough for art. This play can be called the ancestor of that trend in the dramaturgy of the Shakespearean era, which strove to depict everyday life, such as Thomas Heywood's wonderful drama "A Woman Killed by Kindness." Shakespeare's work combines both currents - romantic and realistic.

That was the prologue. The real events begin with the appearance on the London stage of the plays of Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe was born, like Shakespeare, in 1564 and was only two months older than him. Marlo's homeland was the ancient city of Canterbury. Christopher Marlo's father owned a shoe shop. The parents sent their son to Cambridge University, hoping to make him a priest. However, after graduating from university, instead of the church altar, Marlo ended up on the stage of the London stage. But he was not destined to become an actor. According to legend, he broke his leg and had to quit acting. Then he took up writing plays. His grandiose epic in two parts and ten acts "Tamerlane the Great" appeared in 1587-1588. In this epic, Marlo tells about the life, wars and death of the famous commander of the XIV century.

“Scythian shepherd”, “robber from the Volga” is called Tamerlane in Marlo’s play by the eastern kings, whom he overthrows from the throne, capturing their kingdoms. Tamerlane's army, according to Marlo, consists of "simple country boys". Marlo portrays Tamerlane as a muscular giant. This is a man of phenomenal physical strength, indestructible will and elemental temperament. It resembles the mighty figures created by Michelangelo's chisel. The motif of the glorification of earthly life, so typical of the Renaissance, resounds loudly in this grandiose dramatic epic; words are heard from the stage: “I think that heavenly pleasures cannot be compared with royal joy on earth!”

Tamerlane, like Marlo himself, is a passionate freethinker. In one of his stormy thunderous monologues, he says that the goal of man is to "eternally rise to infinite knowledge and be forever in motion, like the heavenly spheres that do not know rest." This fabulous hero is full of an excess of strength. He rides onto the stage in a chariot, to which instead of horses the kings he has taken prisoner are harnessed. "Hey you spoiled Asian nags!" he shouts, urging them on with his whip.

Marlo's next play was The Tragic History of Doctor Faust. It was the first dramatic adaptation of the famous legend. Marlo's play reflected the human desire to conquer the forces of nature, so characteristic of the Renaissance. Faust sells his soul to Mephistopheles in order to "get the golden gifts of knowledge" and "penetrate the treasury of nature." He dreams of enclosing his hometown with a copper wall and making it inaccessible to the enemy, changing the course of rivers, throwing a bridge over the Atlantic Ocean, filling Gibraltar and connecting Europe and Africa into a single continent ... "How grandiose it all is!" - remarked Goethe, who used some of the features of Marlo's tragedy for his Faust.

The grandiose scope of fantasy, the powerful pressure of forces, as if with difficulty, characterize Marlo's work. "Marlo's powerful verse," wrote Ben Jonson. Shakespeare also speaks of the "powerful saying" of Marlowe.

The Puritans, who created the code of the new bourgeois morality, were indignant at the passionate freethinker who openly preached his views. One after another, denunciations came to the Queen's Privy Council. And even the common people, although Marlowe's plays were a huge success among them, sometimes looked at what was happening on the stage not without superstitious fear. There was even such a rumor in London. Once, after the performance of Faust, it turned out that the actor who played the role of Mephistopheles was ill and did not go to the theater. Who, then, played Mephistopheles that day? The actors rushed into the dressing room, and only then, by the smell of sulfur, did they guess that the devil himself was performing on the London stage that day.

Marlo wrote several more plays (his best play in terms of the liveliness of the human portraits he created is the historical chronicle "King Edward II"). But his amazing talent was not destined to unfold in full force. On May 30, 1593, Christopher Marlowe, in his thirtieth year, was killed in a tavern. The Puritans rejoiced. “The Lord planted this barking dog on the hook of vengeance,” wrote one of them.

Many legends have developed around the death of Marlo. Some legends told that Marlo died in a drunken brawl, having quarreled with his killer over a prostitute; others that he fell defending the honor of an innocent girl. These legends were seriously listened to until recently. And only in 1925, the American professor Leslie Hotson managed to find documents in the English archives that shed new light on the circumstances of Marlo's death (Hotson's discoveries are set out in the book: Leslie Hotson. The Death of Cristopher Marlowe, 1925). And it turned out that the murder of Marlo was the work of the Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth; at the murder of Marlo, a certain Field was present - an agent of the Privy Council.

Thus died, without fully revealing his creative powers, the "father of English drama" Christopher Marlowe. And just in that year, when his star, burning with a bright, passionate and uneven brilliance, set, the star of William Shakespeare began to rise in the theatrical sky of London. Unlike his predecessors, who were university-educated, "university minds," this new playwright was a mere actor.

We have mentioned only a few of Shakespeare's predecessors. In reality, Shakespeare made extensive use of the entire literary past of his homeland. He borrowed a lot from Chaucer (for example, Shakespeare's poem "Lucretia" with its plot roots takes us to Chaucer's "Legends of Good Women"; the images of Theseus and Hippolyta in the comedy "A Midsummer Night's Dream" were probably inspired by "The Knight's Tale" from Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's poem Troilus and Cressida influenced Shakespeare's comedy of the same name, etc.). Shakespeare owed much to Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene, and to other poets of his school. From "Arcadia" by Philip Sidney, Shakespeare borrowed the plot, which he embodied in the image of Gloucester, betrayed by his son Edmund ("King Lear") - Shakespeare also paid tribute to euphuism. Finally, among the predecessors of Shakespeare, the nameless narrators of English folk ballads should be mentioned. It is in the English folk ballad that the tragic drama of action is born, which is so typical of the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Many thoughts and feelings that have long existed among the people and reflected in folk ballads and songs have found a brilliant artistic embodiment in Shakespeare's work. The roots of this creativity go deep into the folk soil.

Of the works of foreign literature, Shakespeare was primarily influenced by the Italian short stories Boccaccio and Bandello, from which Shakespeare borrowed a number of plots for his plays. A collection of Italian and French short stories translated into English, entitled The Hall of Delights, was Shakespeare's handbook. For his "Roman tragedies" ("Julius Caesar", "Coriolanus", "Antony and Cleopatra") Shakespeare took plots from Plutarch's Lives of Famous People, which he read in North's English translation. Among his favorite books were also Ovid's Metamorphoses in an English translation by Golding.

Shakespeare's work has been prepared by many poets, writers and translators.

WORKSHOP 1 Topic: “English theater of the Adrazhennia era. Creativity of W. Shakespeare” 1. Agile characteristics of the development of the English theater art of the Adragen era. 2. Creativity W. Shakespeare. Periyadyzatsyya creative playwright (aptymystychny, tragic, romantic). 3. Shakespeare's dramas are the most daring and daring art of all. Pastanov's plays of Shakespeare on the stage of European theatres. 4. Shakespeare's phenomenon in the real theatrical skill. Trying ab aўtarstvo creatў. 5. Theater "Globe": history and present. Pabudova scenes, stage equipment, acting masters.

Theater of the Renaissance. English theater

The theater of the English Renaissance was born and developed on the market square, which determined its national British flavor and democracy. The most popular genres on the areal stages were morality and farces. During the reign of Elizabeth Tudor, the mysteries were banned. From the beginning of the 16th century, English theatrical art approached a new stage - the beginning of the development of humanistic drama, which began to take shape against the background of the political struggle between the royal power and the Catholic Church.

Sharp criticism and propaganda of the new humanistic ideology sounded from the stage, dressed in the clothes of habitual interludes and morality. In the play by the humanist John Rastell "Interlude on the Nature of the Four Elements" (1519), in addition to the figures traditional for morality, there are the following characters: Thirst for Knowledge, Lady Nature, Experience, and as an opposition to them - the devil Ignorance and the harlot Thirst for pleasure. The irreconcilable struggle of these characters in the play ends with the victory of enlightenment over obscurantism and ignorance.

John Bale - a prominent figure in the English Reformation and a famous writer, author of the play "King John". By adding social themes to the morality, he laid the foundation for dramaturgy in the genre of historical chronicle.

The new theater was born out of a medieval farce. The court poet, musician and organizer of colorful spectacles, John Gaywood, developed the farce by writing satirical interludes. In them, he ridiculed the fraud of monks and sellers of indulgences, the intrigues of the clergy, greedy for profit, the cunning tricks of the priests, who covered their sins with ostentatious piety. In addition to the main character - a rogue - and negative characters - churchmen - simple-minded and good-natured commoners participated in short everyday scenes. The satirical interludes of the early 16th century became the link between medieval farcical theater and the emerging dramatic theater.

The introduction of the English people to Italian culture and art contributed to the active perception and popularization of ancient culture and the achievements of ancient civilization. The intensive study of the Latin language and the work of Seneca and Plautus led to translations of ancient tragedies and comedies into English. Performances based on these translations became very popular among the aristocratic and university environment.

At the same time, the aristocrats and the enlightened public admired the sonnets of Petrarch and the poems of Ariosto. The novels of Boccaccio and Bandello were known in a raznochin society. At the royal court, masquerades were introduced as entertaining entertainment events, at which scenes from Italian pastorals were played out.

The first examples of national comedy and tragedy appeared on the stage in the middle of the 16th century. Nicholas Udol, the author of the first English comedy, Ralph Royster Doyster (c. 1551), was an educated court organizer of entertainment and tried to teach people "good rules of life" through his works.

The Gorboduk play (1562) by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sequile was first performed at the court of Queen Elizabeth and is considered the first English tragedy. It clearly shows the imitation of the Roman tragedy: the division of the play into 5 acts, choral singing and monologues of messengers, bloody crimes, but the plot is based on a historical fact from medieval history. The moral of the tragedy was in the allegorical pantomime and interludes that the actors performed between acts, explaining unexpected plot twists.

After farcical mysteries and primitive farces, on the basis of ancient and Italian dramaturgy, a new English dramaturgy was born, in which there was a compositional basis, proportionality of parts, logic in the development of action and characters.

The playwrights of the new generation almost all had a university education and came from a democratic environment. Having united in a creative group called "University Minds", in their works they tried to synthesize the high humanistic culture of aristocrats and folk wisdom with its folklore.

W. Shakespeare's predecessor - the famous English playwright John Lily (c. 1554-1606) - was a court poet. In his most interesting comedy "Alexander and Campaspe" (1584), written according to the story of the Greek historian Pliny, he showed the generosity of Alexander the Great, who, seeing the love of his friend, the artist Apelles, for the captive Campaspe, yielded to her friend. Thus, in the struggle between duty and feeling, duty won. The idealized image of Alexander in the play is opposed by the skeptical figure of the philosopher Diogenes, whose folk wisdom and common sense triumph over the self-confidence and arrogance of the monarch and his entourage.

John Lily laid the foundation for the so-called romantic comedy. He introduced the lyrical element into dramatic action, giving prose speech a bright poetic flavor. He pointed the way for the future fusion of the two genres of comedy - romantic and farcical.

The true ancestor of the English Renaissance drama was Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), a well-known playwright, author of works of philosophical and atheistic content. The son of a shoemaker, who achieved the degree of Master of Science by his perseverance, he was distinguished by courage and freethinking. K. Marlo preferred the work of an actor in a theater troupe to the career of a priest that opened before him after graduating from the university in Cambridge. His first dramatic work, Tamerlane the Great, was full of atheistic ideas. This monumental work was written in two parts over the course of two years (part I in 1587 and part II in 1588). "Tamerlane the Great" is a dramatized biography of the famous Eastern conqueror of the late XIV century, Timur. Marlo gave his hero the strength and appearance of a legendary hero. And, what is especially important, he made the noble feudal lord, who Timur really was, a “low-born shepherd”, who only by the power of his will, energy and mind rose above the legitimate rulers.

The play by K. Marlo "The tragic story of Doctor Faust" (1588) reveals the other side of human life. The rejection of ascetic principles and unconditional submission to the highest authority for the sake of a thirst for knowledge and the joy of life are clothed by him in the image of the atheist Dr. Faust. The drama of the liberated consciousness of Dr. Faust and the loneliness that followed it leads him to repentance, while highlighting the enormous energy of the struggle for freedom of thought.

The last tragedy of K. Marlo "Edward II", written on the material of historical chronicles, became the basis of English drama, which W. Shakespeare successfully developed in his works.

Simultaneously with the plays of K. Marlowe, plays by other playwrights from the University Minds group were staged on the stage: Thomas Kyd - "The Spanish Tragedy" (1587) and Robert Greene - "Monk Bacon and Monk Bongay", "James IV" and "George Green , Weckfield field watchman "(1592).

The creative community of playwrights from the University Minds group preceded a new stage in the development of national drama - the birth of Renaissance tragedy and comedy. Gradually, the image of a new hero emerged - bold and courageous, devoted to the humanistic ideal.

At the end of the 16th century, the English folk theater gathered huge crowds of people for their performances, absorbing all the revolutionary ideas and imitating the brave heroes who defended their human dignity in the struggle. The number of theatrical troupes steadily increased, the performances from hotel yards and city squares moved to theaters specially built for this purpose.

In 1576, in London, James Burbage built the first theater, which was called “The Theater”. It was followed by the construction of several theater buildings at once: "Curtain", "Blackfriars", "Rose" and "Swan". Despite the fact that the city council of commons by its order forbade theatrical performances in London itself in 1576, the theaters were located on the south bank of the Thames, in an area that was beyond the power of the council of commons.

Actors of London theaters for the most part, not counting the well-known, who enjoyed the patronage of the nobles, were low-income and disenfranchised people. The royal decree equated artists with homeless vagabonds and provided for the punishment of troupes that did not have wealthy patrons. Despite the tough attitude towards theaters on the part of the authorities, their popularity increased from year to year and their number increased.

The form of organization of theater troupes at that time was of two types: a share partnership of actors with self-government and a private enterprise headed by an entrepreneur who owned props and bought the rights to stage a play from playwrights. A private entrepreneur could hire any troupe, placing the actors in bondage to his whims.

The quantitative composition of the troupe was no more than 10-14 people, who in the repertoire of the theater had to play several roles. The female roles were played by pretty young men, achieving a reliable performance with plasticity of movements and lyricism of the voice. The general manner of acting by the actors was going through a stage of transition from epic style and sublime pathos to a restrained form of internal drama. The leading actors of the tragic genre in the era of W. Shakespeare were Richard Burbage and Edward Alleyn.

William Shakespeare was born on April 23, 1564 in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon (English Stratford-upon-Avon). His father, John Shakespeare, was a glove maker, and in 1568 he was elected mayor of the city. His mother, Mary Shakespeare of the Arden family, belonged to one of the oldest English families. It is believed that Shakespeare studied at the Stratford "grammar school", where he studied the Latin language, the basics of Greek and received knowledge of ancient mythology, history and literature, reflected in his work. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, from whom a daughter Susanna and twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Between 1579 and 1588 it is customary to call it "lost years", because. there is no exact information about what Shakespeare did. Around 1587, Shakespeare left his family and moved to London, where he took up theatrical activities.

We find the first mention of Shakespeare as a writer in 1592 in the dying pamphlet of the playwright Robert Greene "For a penny of a mind bought for a million remorse", where Greene spoke of him as a dangerous competitor ("upstart", "crow flaunting in our feathers). In 1594, Shakespeare was listed as one of the shareholders of Richard Burbage's troupe "Servants of the Lord Chamberlain" (Chamberlain's Men), and in 1599 Shakespeare became one of the co-owners of the new Globe Theatre. By this time, Shakespeare becomes a fairly wealthy man, buys the second largest house in Stratford, receives the right to a family coat of arms and the noble title of a gentleman. For many years, Shakespeare was engaged in usury, and in 1605 he became a farmer of church tithes. In 1612 Shakespeare left London and returned to his native Stratford. On March 25, 1616, a will was drawn up by a notary and on April 23, 1616, on his birthday, Shakespeare dies.

The paucity of biographical information and many inexplicable facts gave rise to a fairly large number of people nominated for the role of the author of Shakespeare's works. Until now, there are many hypotheses (first put forward at the end of the 18th century) that Shakespeare's plays were written by a completely different person. For more than two centuries of the existence of these versions, a variety of applicants have been put forward for the "role" of the author of these plays - from Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe to the pirate Francis Drake and Queen Elizabeth. There were versions that a whole team of authors was hiding under the name of Shakespeare. At the moment, there are already 77 candidates for authorship. However, whoever he is - and in numerous disputes about the personality of the great playwright and poet, the point will not be put soon, perhaps never - the creations of the genius of the Renaissance today still inspire directors and actors around the world.

The entire career of Shakespeare - the period from 1590 to 1612. usually divided into three or four periods.