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BLOCK - 5
RENAISSANCE IN LITERATURE AND DEVELOPMENT IN SCIENCE
UNIT - 3
UNIVERSITY WITS
OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
1. When was William Shakespeare born?
Ans.23rd April 1564
2. When did William Shakespeare die?
Ans. 23rd April 1616
3. Where was Shakespeare born?
Ans. Stafford on Avon
4. What is the sobriquet name of William Shakespeare?
Ans.bard of Avon
5. How many plays did Shakespeare write?
Ans. 37
6. What type of plays were performed at the English theatre?
Ans. History plays, tragedy, comedy
7. Who called Elizabethan age of England as a noble and puissant nation, rousing
herself, like a strong man after sleep and shaking her invincible locks?
Ans.lyly
8. Who was known for his prose romance Euphues?
Ans.john lyly
1.prepare a note on university wits
Ans.The University Wits is a phrase used to
name a group of late 16th century English
playwrights and pamphleteers who were
educated at the universities of Oxford or
Cambridge, and who became popular secular
writers. George Saintsbury, the literary critic
cum historian, was the one who actually
coined this term to denote the commonalities
among the said people. It doesn't denote theirlifetime or period in an autobiographical
sense. But he observed that the "rising sap"
of dramatic creativity in the 1580's showed
itself in two separate "branches of the national
tree". The prominent members of this group
were Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene,
and Thomas Nashe from Cambridge, and
John Lyly, Thomas Lodge, and George Peele
from Oxford. The drama before Shakespeare
found its full flowering with these dramatists.The members of University Wits have
several features in common. They had stormy
careers. All of them were actively associated
with the theatre. They were usually actors
as well as dramatists. They understood
the requirements of the stage and felt the
pulse of the audience. They often worked
in collaboration with each other. Their store
material was also common. With these
dramatists, English drama reached the highest
point of glory. In many ways they developed
English drama. Christopher Marlowe was
the most famous or shining star among the
university Wits.
2.prepare a flowchart showing shakespears different stages of literary life and main works of each stage
Ans. William Shakespeare is widely considered
as the world's pre-eminent dramatist and
probably the greatest writer in English. He
is often called England's national poet and
the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard").
His surviving works consist of 37 plays, 154
sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several
other poems. His plays have been translated
into even the vernacular languages of every
corner of the world. His plays are performed
more than that of any other playwright in
English literature.
Shakespeare was born and raised in
Stratford-upon-Avon. He was baptised on
April 26, 1564. At the age of 18 he married
Anne Hathaway and had three children:
Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. He
began a successful career in London as an
actor, writer, and part owner of the playing
company the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later
known as the King's Men. Later he left for
Stratford around 1613, where he died three
later, on April 23, 1616.
years
Shakespeare produced most of his known
work between 1590 and 1613. His early plays
were mainly comedies and histories, genres he
raised to the peak of sophistication and artistry
by the end of the 16th century. Next, he wrotemainly tragedies until about 1608, including
Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth,
considered some of the finest examples of
tragedy in the English language.The
scholars have categorised
Shakespeare's writing career into four stages.
The first stage is up to mid-1590s where he
wrote mainly comedies influenced by Roman
and Italian models and history plays in the
popular chronicle tradition. His second stage
began in about 1595 with the tragedy Romeo
and Juliet and ended with the tragedy of Julius
Caesar in 1599. During this time, he wrote
what are considered his greatest comedies and
histories. The third stage, from about 1600
to about 1608 was regarded as his "tragic
period". He wrote mostly tragedies, and from
about 1608 to 1613, the fourth stage consisted
mainly of tragicomedies, also called romances.
It is observed that Richard III and the three
parts of Henry VI, written in the early 1590's
were the first recorded works of Shakespeare.
Even though it was difficult to date, studies
suggest that Titus Andronicus, The Comedy
of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and Two
Gentlemen of Verona were also among his
earliest works. His first histories dramatise
a justification for the origins of the Tudor
dynasty. This, in turn, was influenced by
the works of other Elizabethan dramatists,especially Thomas Kyd and Christopher
Marlowe, by the traditions of medieval drama,
and by the plays of Seneca. Great history
plays that followed this period include Henry
IV Part I and II and Henry V.Shakespeare's early classical and Italianate
comedies, containing tight double plots and
precise comic sequences, give way in the mid-
1590s to the romantic atmosphere of his greatest
comedies. A Midsummer Night's Dream is a
witty mixture of romance, fairy magic, and
comic low-life scenes. Shakespeare's next
comedy, the equally romantic The Merchant
of Venice, contains a portrayal of the vengeful
Jewish moneylender Shylock which reflected
Elizabethan views but may appear prejudiced
to modern audiences. Other great comedies of
the period include Twelfth Night, As You Like
It and Much Ado About Nothing.This period
begins and ends with two tragedies: Romeo
and Juliet, the famous romantic tragedy of
sexually charged adolescence, love, and
death; and Julius Caesar-based on SirThomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's S
of drama. According to Shakespearean scholar
Parallel Lives-which introduced a new kind S
James Shapiro, in Julius Caesar "the various
strands of politics, character, inwardness,
contemporary events, even Shakespeare's
own reflections on the act of writing, began to
infuse each other".
Shakespeare's "Tragic Period" lasted by
from about 1600 to 1608. He also produced M
the "problem plays" Measure for Measure, me
Troilus and Cressida, and All's Well That Ends lu
Well during this time. Many critics believe that re
Shakespeare's greatest tragedies represent the
peak of his art. The hero of the first, Hamlet,
has probably been more discussed than any
other Shakespearean character, especially for
his famous soliloquy "To be or not to be; that is
the question." Unlike the introverted Hamlet,
whose fatal flaw is hesitation, the heroes of
the tragedies that followed, Othello and King
Lear, are undone by hasty errors of judgement.
Overweening ambition is the cause of the
downfall of the hero of Macbeth. The plots of
Shakespeare's tragedies often hinge on such
fatal errors or flaws, which overturn order and
destroy the hero and those he loves. His last
major tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra and
Coriolanus, contain some of Shakespeare's
finest poetry and were considered his mostsuccessful tragedies by the poet and critic T.
S. Eliot.
The tragicomedies' represents his final
stage and includes Cymbeline, The Winter's
Tale and The Tempest. Some critics have seen
this change in mood as evidence of a more
serene view of life on Shakespeare's part, but
it may merely reflect the theatrical fashion
of the day. Shakespeare is believed to have
collaborated on two further surviving plays,
Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen,
probably with John Fletcher..
Shakespeare's Poems: In 1593 and 1594,
when the theatres were closed because of
plague, Shakespeare published two narrative
poems on erotic themes, Venus and Adonis
and The Rape of Lucrece. In Venus and
Adonis, an innocent Adonis rejects the sexual
advances of Venus; while in The Rape of
Lucrece, the virtuous wife Lucrece is raped
by the lustful Tarquin. Influenced by Ovid's
Metamorphoses, the poems show the guilt and
moral confusion that result from uncontrolled
lust. Both proved popular and were often
reprinted during Shakespeare's lifetime.
Shakespeare's Sonnets: Sonnets were the
last of Shakespeare's non-dramatic works to
be printed (1609). Scholars are not certain
when each of the 154 sonnets was composed,
but evidence suggests that Shakespeare wrote
sonnets throughout his career for a private
readership. Few analysts believe that the
published collection follows Shakespeare's
intended sequence. He seems to have
planned two contrasting series: one about
uncontrollable lust for a married woman of
dark complexion (the "dark lady"), and one
about conflicted love for a fair young man
(the "fair youth"). It remains unclear if these
figures represent real individuals, or if the
authorial "I" who addresses them represents
Shakespeare himself, though Wordsworthbelieved that with the sonnets "Shakespeare s-
unlocked his heart". Critics praise the Sonnets C
as a profound meditation on the nature of love, I
sexual passion, procreation, death, and time.
Shakespeare's Influence: Shakespeare's
work has made a lasting impression on
later theatre and literature. In particular,
he expanded the dramatic potential of
characterisation, plot, language, and genre. It
was true that until Romeo and Juliet, romance
had not been viewed as a worthy topic for
tragedy. Soliloquies were used mainly to
convey information about characters or events
during his time. But Shakespeare used them to
explore characters' minds.
His work heavily influenced later
poetry. The Romantic poets attempted to
revive Shakespearean verse drama, though
with little success. Critic George Steiner
described all English verse dramas from
Coleridge to Tennyson as "feeble variations
on Shakespearean themes." Shakespeare
influenced novelists such as Thomas Hardy,
William Faulkner, and Charles Dickens.
Dickens often quoted Shakespeare, drawing
25 of his titles from Shakespeare's works.
The American novelist Herman Melville'ssoliloquies owe much to Shakespeare; his
Captain Ahab in Moby-Dick is a classic tragic
hero, inspired by King Lear.
Scholars have identified 20,000 pieces of
music linked to Shakespeare's works. These
include two operas by Giuseppe Verdi, Otello
and Falstaff, whose critical standing compares
with that of the source plays. Shakespeare
has also inspired many painters, including
the Romantics and the Pre-Raphaelites. The
Swiss Romantic artist Henry Fuseli, a friend
of William Blake, even translated Macbeth
into German.
The classical psychoanalyst Sigmund
Freud drew on Shakespearean psychology, in
particular that of Hamlet, for his theories of
human nature. In Shakespeare's day, English
grammar and spelling were less standardised
than they are now, and his use of language
helped shape modern English. Samuel Johnson
quoted him more often than any other author
in his A Dictionary of the English Language,
the first serious work of its type. Expressions
such as "with bated breath" (The Merchant of
Venice) and "a foregone conclusion" (Othello)
have found their way into everyday English
speech.
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