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2021-8-22 published at Business&Finance category

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1.Shakespeare and Genre Dr Tom Rutter t.rutter@sheffield.ac.uk
5.Renaissance classicism Tragedies and Comedies, saith Donatus, […] differ thus […] Comedies begin in trouble, and end in peace; Tragedies begin in calms, and end in tempest. […] The definition of the Comedy, according to the Latins: a discourse consisting of divers institutions, comprehending civil and domestic things, in which is taught, what in our lives and manners is to be followed, what to be avoided […]. Cicero saith, a Comedy is the imitation of life, the glass of custom, and the image of truth, in Athens they had their first original. --Thomas Heywood, An Apology for Actors (1612, spelling modernised) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 5 4th century grammarian Roman orator and statesman, 1st century BCE
6.Sir Philip Sidney (writing 1580s) Comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which he representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one. […] Tragedy […] maketh kings fear to be tyrants, and tyrants manifest their tyrannical humours; […] teacheth the uncertainty of this world, and upon how weak foundations gilden roofs are builded. The Defence of Poesy (pub. 1595) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 6 18th century copy of an original by unknown artist, c. 1578, National Portrait Gallery
7.Sir Philip Sidney (writing 1580s) Our tragedies and comedies […] [observe] rules neither of honest civility nor skilful poetry […]. Where the stage should always represent but one place, and the uttermost time presupposed in it should be, both by Aristotle’s precept and common reason, but one day, there is both many days, and many places, inartificially imagined. 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 7
8.Sir Philip Sidney (writing 1580s) But besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies, nor right comedies, mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion […] 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 8
9.Sir Philip Sidney (writing 1580s) […] so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness is by their mongrel tragicomedy obtained. […] I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragicomedies […]. But if we mark them well, we shall find that they never or very daintily match hornpipes and funerals. 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 9
10.21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 10 Summing up Comedies start badly and end well; tragedies, vice versa Tragedies and comedies have an ethical function Aristotle via Sidney: unities of time and place Generic decorum: right tragedies and right comedies Social aspect: kings versus clowns.
11.21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 11 Dryden on Shakespearean drama the times were ignorant in which they liv’d. Poetry was then, if not in its infancy among us, at least not arriv’d to its vigor and maturity: witness the lameness of their Plots: many of which, especially those which they writ first ... were made up of some ridiculous, incoherent story, which, in one Play many times took up the business of an Age. I suppose I need not name Pericles Prince of Tyre, not the Historical Plays of Shakespear: Besides many of the rest as the Winter’s Tale, Love’s labour lost, Measure for Measure, which were either grounded on impossibilities, or at least, so meanly written, that the Comedy neither caus’d your mirth, nor the serious part your concernment. ‘Defence of the Epilogue’, The Conquest of Granada (1672)
12.The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest: unity of place and time Richard II: verse tragedy (even the gardeners) But The Winter’s Tale: tragic action culminating in death combined with romance plot (after 16-year gap) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 12
13.The Winter’s Tale, 4.4 PERDITA The fairest flowers o’th’ season Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors, Which some call nature’s bastards; of that kind Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not To get slips of them. […] For I have heard it said There is an art which in their piedness shares With great creating nature. 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 13
14.POLIXENES Say there be, Yet nature is made better by no mean But nature makes that mean; so over that art Which you say adds to nature, is an art That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry A gentler scion to the wildest stock, And make conceive a bark of baser kind By bud of nobler race. This is an art Which does mend nature—change it rather—but The art itself is nature. 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 14
15.Self-conscious titles As You Like It Twelfth Night; or, What You Will All’s Well that Ends Well 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 15
16.Problematic endings JAQUES So to your pleasures; I am for other than for dancing measures. DUKE SENIOR Stay, Jaques, stay. JAQUES To see no, pastime, I. What you would have I’ll stay to know at your abandoned cave. (As You Like It, 5.4) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 16
17.FESTE And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges. MALVOLIO I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you! OLIVIA He hath been most notoriously abused. (Twelfth Night, 5.1) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 17
18.Measure for Measure Ethical dimension? ‘what in our lives and manners is to be followed, what to be avoided’ ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.’ (Matt. 7:1-2) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 18
19.Unities of time and place? ANGELO: ‘Answer me tomorrow’ (2.4) but ESCALUS ‘Every letter he hath writ hath disvouched other’ (4.4) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 19
20.‘mingling kings and clowns’ DUKE Sir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you, and pray with you. BARNARDINE Friar, not I. I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets. I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain. (4.3) 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 20
21.‘Comedies begin in trouble, and end in peace’ MARIANA: ‘I hope you will not mock me with a husband’ ANGELO: ‘I crave death more willingly than mercy’ LUCIO: ‘Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging!’ 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 21
22.PROVOST This is another prisoner that I saved, Who should have died when Claudio lost his head, As like almost to Claudio as himself. DUKE If he be like your brother, for his sake Is he pardoned, and for your lovely sake Give me your hand, and say you will be mine. 21/08/2021 © The University of Sheffield 22
23.To DiscoverAndUnderstand.

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