History of English Language and Literature
Prof. Dr. Merin Simi Raj Department of Humanities
and Social Sciences Indian Institute of Technology,
Madras Module Number 01 Lecture Number 6a
William Shakespeare: An Overview of his Drama
Good morning everyone.
Welcome again to today's session on the course
History of English Language and Literature.
In the previous session we began looking at
the greatest product of Elizabethan times,
William Shakespeare.
When we ended the previous lecture we had
begun looking at the vast corpus of works
that Shakespeare had produced.
So if we try to draw your attention to that
again, this is the kind of
productions that Shakespeare had produced
during his lifetime with 154 sonnets, 11 tragedies,
17 comedies, 10 historical plays and 4 long
poems.
However in today's session we will be
taking a look at the tragedies, comedies and
history plays as it has been generally classified
by critics and historians for a very long
time.
And this is the set of plays that Shakespeare
had produced and he, his plays are generally
now divided into different genres.
And we now also know that for critical convenience,
for historical convenience these classifications
are quite necessary and it also gives a lot
of structure to our discussion.
And this is something
which is part of someone's study on the frequency
of performance of Shakespeare's plays.
This need not surprise us in any way because
he was a man who dominated the London stage
for 25 years and that was quite a feat, not
just during those times but even in terms
of today's standards.
And if
we try to classify Shakespeare's plays the
first set is
in fact his early comedies and they were generally
said to be immature and less original and
there is a lot of dispute about the storylines
that he picked up from here and there - from
Italian comedies, from the earlier romances
so on and so forth.
And they are generally seen as immature because
plot structure is not very profound like the
later ones; but nevertheless they were hugely
successful as well.
And there are these
English histories which display the significance
of the throne and also desire for stable government.
If we remember, when Shakespeare had entered
the dramatic scene in London, Queen Elizabeth
was the reigning monarch and there were lot
of threats to her throne from the Catholic
Church and also
from many of the other descendants of King
Henry the VIII So there was this ongoing tussle
for power, there were different war-lords
who were fighting with each other.
There were also these different neighboring
states who were trying to get into a marital
alliance with Queen Elizabeth.
So a lot of instability had overshadowed Queen
Elizabeth's reign and there was a lot of uncertainty
over political and economic affairs as well.
So this gets reflected in many of
Shakespeare's plays and a general desire for
a more stable, political economy is also seen
in place.
And at later stage we find his mature comedies
in place where his comic genius is displayed.
In fact he was considered, he is still being
considered, as one of the most profound humourist
that the English literature has ever produced.
And his wit was considered quite sophisticated,
though he had included some kind of slapstick
comedy to cater to the groundlings as well.
And there were sombre plays of a later period
which reflected a cynical and
disillusioned attitude to life and also there
was a desire to expose the falsity of romance.
This is in stark contrast to the earlier kinds
of romantic plays where love had
taken a profound form, in forms of theme,
in the forms of plot structure so on and so
forth.
And there is also a stage of great tragedies.
In fact tragedies are considered to be Shakespeare's
foremost and supreme works and we also find
that this is the kind of work in which we
find Shakespeare's art and dramatic technique
reaching its climax.
And here is
a set of plays which are generally designated
as Roman plays, mostly historical in nature
as well.
And here also he expresses a concern for political
security through a discussion of the earlier
rulers of, earlier Roman rulers, of earlier
Roman authorities.
And most of his plays, of the later years,
they display a sense of mellowed maturity
mainly because of the kind of things that
had befallen his life.
In the last session we heard about the many
kinds of misfortunes, personal misfortunes
that had befallen him towards the end of his
life and a lot of deaths which had happened.
So may be this had led him as a person towards
a more mellowed mature personality.
Apart from
this thematic classification, critics generally
divide Shakespeare's plays into four major
periods.
The first phase is from 1588 to 93, second
from 1594 to 1600, third from 1601 to 1608
and phase four from 1608 to 1612.
Here you can also note that politically also
this can
be classified into two, because he lived and
wrote under two different monarchs - Elizabeth
the First and James the First.
A he, in that sense, he can be classified
along with Chaucer because if you remember,
Chaucer was the one who had a rare distinction
of having lived and written under
three different monarchs.
The first two phases were under Queen Elizabeth's
rule and the second two phases could be broadly
classified as being under James First rule.
So if this way, if we do chronological survey
of Shakespeare's plays, some of the critics
are also of the opinion that one can unearth
the intellectual and
artistic history of the personality of Shakespeare.
However still there is a lot of debate about
whether his own personality, whether his own
domestic life, whether his own private life
etc get featured in any of his dramas or not.
So keeping that
aside, let's move on to the first phase from
1588 to 1593, this is the time when he had
arrived in London.
And also if you remember, in the previous
session we also noted that by 1592, he is
quite a force to reckon with.
He had risen to such an importance that he
had begun to even merit abuse from one of
the University Wits, Robert Greene.
So this is the stage which could be generally
understood as experimental in nature and we
find him attempting a revision of many old
plays.
In fact the earlier plays, the first, the
three parts of Henry VI, Titus Andronicus
they are all seen as revision of plays which
had already been prevalent in the Elizabethan
times.
And it is at this stage that we find a profound
influence of John
Lyly on him.
And most of his earlier comedies are reflections
of John Lyly's influence on his personality
and as well as his dramatic technique.
And we also
find Marlowe's influence in this early stage,
especially the drama, Richard III.
The play Romeo and Juliet deserves the special
mention at this point because if you remember
the chart which I showed at the outset of
this session which showed the frequency of
plays of Shakespeare's times, it showed that
Romeo and Juliet had topped the chart.
So this is considered as one of his most successful
plays ever.
And this youthful tragedy however is considered
by the critics as having no depth of thought
or characterization and superficial in nature
and seen as immature.
Nevertheless it continues to be staged in
different forms; it has been remade into different
movies and different languages, so in that
sense it
continues to be one of his most popular plays
ever.
And we also find that his, the use of blank
verse in his earliest stage, in the first
stage was a more stiff and it was not free
as it was supposed to be.
And in spite of the many limitations that
Shakespeare's dramatic techniques could have
had; in fact there is hardly any confusion
about the outstanding technical features that
he used in his stage.
And this is what made Shakespeare hugely successful
right from his early times because the people
who were used to a more or less a monotonous
kind of stage techniques were getting used
to many different innovative things when Shakespeare
arrived.
In the second phase
which lasted from 1594 to 1600, this period-is
seen as quite massive and quite profound not
just in terms of quantity but also in terms
of quality.
And this is the time when he produced all
those great comedies with sophisticated humor
and wit and also had staged a number of chronicle
plays.
Some of the plays of this period include Richard
II, King John, The Merchant of Venice, Henry
IV, Henry V, The Taming of the Shrew, The
Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing,
As You Like It, and Twelfth Night.
In fact there is this interesting trivia about
the production of As You like It and Twelfth
Night.
In fact, Shakespeare had this habit of not
naming his plays well in advance.
In fact if you look at the title of, most
of his plays
they, they are not very dramatic.
The title is most often based on the name
of the main character or it could be something
like a Twelfth Night.
In fact on, about the play Twelfth Night,
it was in fact staged on the twelfth night
after Christmas which marked the grand finale
of all Christmas celebrations in Elizabethan
England.
So Shakespeare had a special play which he
wanted to stage on that particular day and
just before the play was going to be staged,
the actors and the others who were part of
it realized that the play was not named.
So they, it seems apparently as the anecdote
goes, apparently they went and asked Shakespeare
how to name it and he said Twelfth Night.
We know that this was the casual way in which
he named most of his plays just like the way
in which he entered the London dramatic scene
in a very casual way, in a rather friendless
way, without having planned anything or structured
anything in terms of education, in terms of
dramatic technique so on and so forth.
We find that his plays were also staged, and
his plays were also named and staged in a
way which was which was quite unconventional
during that time.
But in spite of that we find he was achieving
success in all his work and by this time,
by the time
he reaches the second phase we also find his
work becoming more independent in nature.
And from this time onwards it is very difficult
to trace particular influences or particular
kinds of borrowings he does from different
works.
And this is also the time when he begins to
explore characters in an in-depth analysis
and his humor also takes on a different level
altogether.
It is more penetrative; it is more satirical
though he always takes good care not to offend
the monarch or whoever is in power.
And by this time, his blank verse is no more
stiff.
It's free and flexible as well.
And this prepares him for the third stage
from 1601 to 1608 - and this is the time of
his great tragedies and bitter comedies and
many feel that this is the time when he engages
in a lot of philosophical discussions throughout
his play.
And this is considered as the time when he
also
reached the peak of his career.
And all the supreme masterpieces, the great
tragedies were produced during this time.
And he also had began to show a flair for
exploring the darker side of human experience
and also his plays look at destructive emotions,
sins and weaknesses of men.
So
there is a gradual transformation that we
see in his dramatic career from early mindless
comedies towards a more profound exploration
of life itself.
So these are some of the plays
of his time - Julius Caesar, Hamlet, All's
well that Ends well, Measure for Measure,
Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear,
Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus
and Timon of Athens.
So with this phase four, he in fact you know,
after this we do not find any profound productions
coming from his side.
And his phase
four is fairly uneventful in terms of his
dramatic career.
It's from 1608 to 1612.
And this is his stage of later comedies and
dramatic romances and some of them have even
named these dramatic romances of the later
times as tragic comedies because there is
a mix of both that we find in most of his
plays of the later times; and this, some of
the critics even feel that there is decline
of, steady decline of Shakespeare's dramatic
powers.
It could be due to many reasons.
It could be due to the domestic problems that
he had, the grief of the four deaths that
continuously happened in his family, one does
not really know the reason.
And it is also said that the, the fire which
burnt down the Globe Theatre
during one of his performances of Henry VIII,
may be that also may have shaken him up a
bit emotionally and financially as well.
And this period, especially the final phase
we find that most of his plays were attacked
for careless construction, the characterization
was
quite unsatisfactory.
So we find an expression of these things in
works such as Cymbeline, The Tempest and The
Winter's Tale and towards the end there is
one play that he had left incomplete, Pericles
and another one Henry VIII was completed by
Fletcher, another contemporary of him after
a later point.
In fact Fletcher is the one who takes over
most of the things that Shakespeare was doing
in his company soon after his death.
And what were the significant features of
Shakespeare's drama?
We find that
his work was spread over four phases.
This lasted for about 25 years which is almost
a life career for a successful person.
So we need to compile a few features from
all of these phases together to understand
the, the kind of drama that Shakespeare produced
in general.
And needless to say, it was of an astonishing
variety, range and versatility
And in fact this is based on one of the studies
done on the different kind of deaths that
Shakespeare brought to the stage and this
was found as quite interesting during the
Elizabethan times because they were looking
for any kind of innovation, any kind of difference
so we find that unlike the, unlike most of
the other tragedies which had only one or
two kinds of death, we find him exploring
in a variety of ways even when it comes to
the ending of a person.
So, moving on
we also find that his works were quite free
from dogmatism which was prevalent during
those times especially due to the various
moral forces that operated within the society.
We also find him displaying an objective outlook
towards society
and life in general; perhaps it's the influence
of general Elizabethan spirit or the influence
of Italian humanism.
And his characterization was considered very
lively.
He had
The rare distinction of producing, bringing
characters alive on stage.
In fact, his characters were also considered
as more round and they were never flat.
In fact this is exemplarily shown in the way
he showed the characters of monarchs on stage.
In fact, if we do a survey of many of his
characters who were either Roman rulers or
English kings, we find that they were not
devoid
of any weakness.
In fact his tragedy is based upon this single
flaw that an otherwise flawless perfect character
of heroic nature had.
So in that sense his plays were very interesting
because they did not have larger than life
figures.
The figures were closer to life with real
emotions and real weaknesses.
And he had an excellent command over language.
This goes without saying.
Maybe we will spend another lecture looking
at the ways in which Shakespeare's language
influenced and overturned many linguistic
features.
His vocabulary is said to have been in the
range of 15000 and it is said that Milton
had only half that number to his credit.
And in fact
many of the phrases and many of the words
that we use today, we use it unknowingly that
it is all from Shakespeare's plays.
In fact, even some very common terms as we
can see over here like ‘naked truth’ or
expressions such as ‘love is blind’, ‘for
goodness sake’, ‘a brave new world’,
‘green-eyed monster’ all of those have
been invented and innovated by Shakespeare
in many of his plays.
So the language in fact owes a lot to Shakespeare
and there is a way in which linguistics have
even classified the language
in a different way from Shakespeare's time
onwards.
And his play in fact was written with a mix
of prose and verse, verse we already noted
it was mostly in blank verse.
There was a free and secular expression of
blank verse.
And prose was used as a vehicle for serious
tragedies and also for comic scenes and this
mixture had a very important purpose to serve
as well.
If he had written his entire play in verse,
he would not have been able to cater to a
larger set of audience.
But verse was mostly seen as courtly, it was
seen as scholarly, and it needed some
kind of a merit to even understand and appreciate.
But prose was the language of the common man.
So his plays were structured in such a way
that it could cater to the interests of both
the commoners as well as the people of learned
and scholarly background.
And there is a lot of debate about the way
his women characters have been portrayed.
For
some time there was this general appreciation
of Shakespeare's characterization of women
that he had strong and un-conventional characters
and it was not the typical dependent weak
women of Elizabethan drama.
And he is also said to have questioned certain
types of stereotypes, though not always, there
are different debates especially in the contemporary
feminist studies we do find that many studies
have begun to look at the patriarchal side
of the Bard and critiquing the ways in which
he had been talking about gender, he had been
representing women so on and so forth.
But at the same time, there are characters
such as Lady Macbeth who were not portrayed
in drama or any kind of literary art until
then.
And he did
engage in, though in minor ways with issues
of patriarchy, women's role in marriage, women's
intellect and abilities, so on and so forth.
And some detailed discussion we would also
find in plays such as As you Like it and Twelfth
Night, however keeping these various debates
and controversies apart he is said to have
been explored human emotions
and human lives in many varied ways and many
myriad ways than the others, the others of
his times could do.
And some of the critics of Shakespeare's plays
include that they were hasty productions.
Because as we noted in the earlier session,
he was quite often in a hurry to stage the
plays.
He did not even have time to write down the
script or name them properly and execute them
but they were hasty productions because the
plays were so much in demand and he wanted
to make use of this popularity while it was
still there.
And the plays were in fact immensely designed
for stage, which is why the positive side
of this being his plays are even now adapted
into different kinds of movies;
it is possible to adapt Shakespeare's plays
in different kinds of stages.
It is primarily because Shakespeare designed
his plays for the stage.
He was not concerned of the literary nuances
but he was more concerned about how the play
would appear when it was staged over there.
And though, may be this was the reflection
of his anxiety for success, but we do find
that
we find 
that the theatrical effect continues to be
of supreme nature.
And he always included some scenes to cater
to the groundlings.
The groundlings were the ones who had to pay
just a penny to watch the drama and they had
to be, they were not given particular seats.
They had to sit on the ground and watch the
play.
So he was catering to the groundlings as well
because they ensured that the drama was hugely
popular.
So he had always included some bawdy scenes,
some comic slapstick scenes to cater to their
interest and also bring drama closer to their
own lives.
And about the originality of Shakespeare's
play, there are lot of debates and
controversies and even authorship studies
about the same.
And some feel that especially the earlier
historians and critics like Hudson, they are
of the opinion that ‘he took no trouble
to be original’ and that he borrowed freely
from older plays and other sources without
acknowledging them in any way.
But this is not, this is not a view shared
by all the critics and all the historians
and Pat Rogers is of the opinion that ‘he
owed less than usual to his sources and he
transmuted what he found into entirely new
substances’.
So apart from these varied ways what stands
as a true testimony to his craft and his technique
is that he continues to be celebrated even
after centuries.
He is perhaps the most widely read and most
widely known literary artist and his plays
are perhaps the most staged worldwide even
in the contemporary.
And it is usually said about him that he was
the one
who took a lot of pleasure in breaking theatrical
illusions.
In fact, his famous phrase from one of his
plays, ‘all the world’s a stage’ is
an expression and reflection of this belief
that he had.
This also reminds us that we need to take
a closer look at Elizabethan theater to understand
how theater was
not just an artistic construct but it was
also a social construct and the political
construct of the times.
So in the next session we will be looking,
taking a detailed look at how Elizabethan
theater was being framed, the physical structure
of it, how it contributed to the revenue of
the
times and how it became an important symbol
of Elizabethan times and later on the English
times in general.
So with this we wind up today's lecture.
Thank you for listening and see you in the
next class.
