This presentation is all about drama and its origin and varieties

1. ELIZEBATHAN
DRAMA

2. Moral Period
 MORALITY PLAYS
 Allegorical figures – Life, Death, Love, Vices
 Predecessor - Romance of the Roses
 Spain & Portugal – auto – Calderon & Gil Vicente
 England – ‘dreary kind of performance’
 To enliven the people – devil, vices (predecessor of
clown)
 Vice – torment ‘virtues’ – wooden sword.
 Plays ended with the triumph of virtue.
 Example – EVERYMAN

3.  Date and origin are unknown
 Best known authors – John Skelton –
‘Magnificence’, ‘The Necromancer’
 Sir David Lindsay
 Satirize or abuse Church & State, usage of
allegories.

4. Interludes
 Relief (comic or fight)
 Between the solemn scenes – little fun
 John Heywood – favorite retainer & jester at the court
of Mary – credited for marking Interlude as comedy.
 The Four P’s – Pardoner, a Palmer, a Pedlar, & a
Poticary.
 All plays – prose, irregular construction – add nothing
to literature.
 Purpose – train actors & ‘keep alive the dramatic
spirit’.

5. Artistic period
 Final stage – development of drama
 Represent human life as it is.
 First comedy – Ralph Royster Doyster by Nicolas
Udall– regular plot & divided into acts and scenes.
 Plot – boy widow another man.
 Adaptation of Miles Gloriosus – Plautus
 Gammer Gurton’s Needle – domestic comedy – life of
peasant class – full of fun & humour.
 Authorship – John Still bishop of Bath
William Stevenson.

6.  First tragedy, 1562 – Gorboduc – Thomas
Sackville & Thomas Norton
 First play written in blank verse.
 Plan – classical rule of Seneca (Latin writer)
Very little action on stage
Messenger - announced bloodshed & battle
Chorus (4 old men of Britain) sums up –
few
moral

7. Classical influence
 15th century – inc. the interest in Latin – teachers – enact
the plays.
 Seneca – tragedies – translated into English – 1559-1581
 English playwrights found it slowing down their spirit
 Classic plays – dramatic unities
 Action – little action
 Time and place – must remain the same.
 Period – only few hours.
 Place- same spot (whatever action takes place)
 Characters remained unchanged.

8.  Battles and events were just announced.
 Tragedy Comedy
 English drama – scenes changed rapidly, action
filled the stage.
 Example : Child changed into a man in another
scene.
 Presented life in single place & a single hour.
 Tragedy Comedy

9. Two Schools
 University Wits – classical ideals (Norton & Sackville -
Gorboduc)
 Sidney – Defense of Poesie – upholds classics.
 Lyly, Peele, Greene, Marlowe & many others – supported
English love of action & rejected dramatic unities.
 1574 - royal permit – Lord Liecester’s actors.
 1576 – first playhouse – ‘The Theater’ –James Burbage
in Finsbury Fields – north of London.
 After its success came at least 7 regular theaters & many
inn yards.

10.  Johannes de Witt – Dutch traveler – 1596 –
contemporary drawing of interior of theater.
 Built of stone & wood
 Shape - Round or octagonal
 Without a roof
 When there was no play, it was used for bull or bear
baiting.
 Curtain separating front & rear stage.
 No scenery – gilded (gold plated) sign board was used.
 Female roles were taken by boy actors.

12. Development of English drama
Regular playwrights – Kyd, Nash, Lyly, Peele, Greene &
Marlowe
Choir masters of St. Paul & The Royal, Queen’s chapel
(Richard Edward) First stage managers
School masters – Udall
Translated & adapted Latin plays

13. Shakespeare’s predecessors
 John Lyly – ‘euphuism’
 Court comedies – remarkable for witty dialogues,
unity & artistic finish.
 Thomas Kyd – Spanish Tragedy – drama /
melodrama of passion.
 Most popular of Elizabethan plays
 Robert Greene – romantic comedy – Friar Bacon
and Friar Bungay – awesome scenes of English
country life.

14. Methods
1. These men were actors & dramatists. Knew the stage
as well as the audience.
2. Training began as actors – revised old plays –
independent writers.
3. Worked together – common source of materials.
 Shakespeare - Man who brought perfection, great
genius & a great worker.
 Drama developed gradually & rapidly with many
men being a part of it.

15. THANK YOU