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Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre: An Introduction (2)

Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre: An Introduction (2). Modern Reconstruction of the Globe. Prologue to Henry V (1).

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Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre: An Introduction (2)

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  1. Elizabethan and Jacobean Theatre: An Introduction (2)

  2. Modern Reconstruction of the Globe

  3. Prologue to Henry V (1) • Chorus O for a Muse of fire, that would ascendthe brightest heaven of invention,A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,leas’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fireCrouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,the flat unraised spirits that hath dar’don this unworthy scaffold to bring forthSo great an object. Can this cockpit holdthe vasty field of France? Or may we cramWithin this wooden O the very casquesThat did affright the air at Agincourt?

  4. Prologue to Henry V (2) • O, pardon! Since a crooked figure mayAttest in little place a million;And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,On our imaginary forces work.Suppose within the girdle of these wallsAre now confin’d two mighty monarchies,Whose high upreared and abutting frontsThe perilous narrow ocean parts asunder.Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:Into a thousand parts divide one man,And make imaginary puissance;Think, when we talk of horses, that you see themPrinting their prouds hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth;

  5. The power of the audience • For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kingsCarry them here and there, jumping o’er times,Turning th’ accomplishment of many years Into an hour-glass; for the which supply,Admit me Chorus to this history;Who, prologue-like, your humble patience prayGently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

  6. (Richard II, V.ii.23-36) • York As in a theatre the eyes of menAfter a well-grac’d actor leaves the stageAre idly bent on him that enters next,thinking his prattle to be tedious;Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyesDid scowl on gentle Richard; no man cried ‘God save him!’No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home;But dust was thrown upon his sacread head;Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,His face still combating with tears ans smiles,the badges of his grief and patience,that had not God, for some strong purpose, steel’d The hearts of men, they must perforce have melted,And barbarism itself have pitied him.

  7. The theatrical metaphor • If a man shoulde saye well, he could not better tearme the Citie of London that time, than a stage wherein was shewed the wonderful spectacle of a noble hearted Princesse toward her most loving People and the People’s exceeding comfort in beholding so worthy a soverign, and hearing so Prince like a voice, which could not but have set the enemie on fyre, since the verture is in the enemie always commended, much more could not but enflame her naturall, obedient, and most loving people, whose weale leaneth onely uppon her Grace and her Government. (The Quenes Maiesties Passage through the Citie of London)

  8. Kings, Queens and Theatre Elizabeth I (1586): “We princes are set upon stages in the sight and view of all the world.” James I: “A King is as one set on a skaffold, whose smallest actions and gestures al[l] the people gazingly doe behold.” (The Basilicon Doron of James VI, ed. James Craigie [Edinburg and London: Blackwood and Sons, 1944], p. 162.

  9. Against theatre • I am persuaded that Satan hath not a more speedie way and fitter schoole to work and teach his desire, to bring men and women into his snare of concupiscence and filthie lustes of wicked whoredome, than those places and playes, and theaters are; And therefore necessarie that those places and Players should be forbidden and dissolved and put down by authoritie, as the Brothell houses and Stewes are (John Northbrooke, Treatise wherein Dicing, Dauncing, Vaine Playes or Enterludes … are reproved, 1577)

  10. Against theatre (2) • The refuse sort of evill disposed & ungodly people about this Cytie have opportunitiy hearby to assemble together & to make their matches for all their lewd & ungodly practices; [playhouses] being also the ordinary places for all maisterless men & vagabond persons that haunt the high waies, to meet together & to recreate themselves (“The Remembrancia,” in Dramatic Records of the City of London, ed. E.K.Chambers [London: The Malone Society, 1907], 1:1, p.68)

  11. Theatre and gender roles • “What safegarde of chastitie can there be, where woman is desired with so many eyes, where so many faces look upon hir, and again she uppon so manye/ She must needes fire some, and hirself also fired againe, and she be not a Stone (John Northbrooke) • “Our apparell was given us as a signe distinctive to discern between sex and sex, and therefore one to weare the Apparel of another sex, is to participate with the same, and to adulterate the veritie of his own Kinde” (Philip Stubbes, The Anatomie of Abuses, 1583)

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