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Liceo E.Majorana
Scientifico scienze applicate
Classe 3M
•Italian plays become the sources of much Elizabethan theatre
•Influence of Italian "commedia dell'arte" companies.
The building of permanent playhouses in London was a break with the past.
Towards the and of 16th century, several theatres were built:
The playhouse:
•were round or octagonal in shape
•were 12 metres high
•had a diameter of 25 metres
•had a rectangular stage
The some basic structure consisted:
•A stage partially covered by a thatched roof supported by two pillars and projected into a central area.
The structure included:
•Three tiers of galliers around the stage with the actor's dressing room at the back
The "box-offices" offered a wide range of prices:
Everyone in the world is an actor.
The motto is "Totus mundus agit histrionem" = "the whole world's a playhouse"
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/about-us/virtual-tour
The origins of drama lie in classical Greece where it was a collective and ritual phenomenon. It lie in the solemn chorus accompanying the sacrifices to propitiate fecundity in nature.
Drama implies a real moment of comunication from author to audience through the actors, and it depends on the immediate response of the public.
In Shakespeare
In Greek and Latin
classical tragedies
The language is vivid and intense.
Shakespeare produced most of his works between 1589 and 1613.
His early plays were primarily comedies and histories.
Until about 1608, he wrote mainly tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth.
In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) as The Winter's Tale.
Only half of Shakespeare's plays were printed during his lifetime.
In order to date Shakespeare's plays, experts used a combination of 3 methods:
•EXTERNAL EVIDENCE
•INTERNAL EVIDENCE
•STYLISTIC EVIDENCE
The first striking feature of Shakespear's plays is the variety of interpretations they allow.
Shakerspeare's characters come from different social classes.
There are kings, princes, but also the lower classes are present.
At the beginning or during a scene, the reader finds stage directions.
An active co-operation of the reader is necessary to make the play alive.
Directions and descriptions are given indirectly, hidden in a question o a metaphor.
Shakespeare enables the reader to see the action both on the stage and in the distance.
The play in given an unusual dimention of height and depth.
The play is extended beyond reality into a universal perspective.
Shakespeare doesn't give great significance to the division between the acts.
In the Elizabethan theatre there was no curtain fall between the acts and plays were performed without an interval.
In a Shakespearean play a scene is over when oll the charaters have left the stage.
Different styles are used to portray the characters from different point of view. Symbolic and realistic actions are present in the same play and often Shakespeare used songs, music and magical transformations.
The language is characterised by multiple linguistic levels and an impressive variety in the verse structure.
The plot is discovered progressively.
At the beginning, everything is mysterious and the real meaning becomes clear later.
Shakespeare doesn’t consider important the three unities of time, place and action. In some plays certain aspects are not clearly explained so that the reader continue to think about it over and over.
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's best-known tragedies. It's the most famous love story of all times.
There are several film versions.
The first two acts are a love comedy:
It is a comedy--> the istant attraction of the young lovers;
the masked balls;
the comic servants;
the surface life of street fights
It is a tragedy--> the tragic role of chance leading up to the deaths of the two lovers
intense adoration of a chaste woman
JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.
ROMEO O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night. [...]
ROMEO [To JULIET] If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
JULIET: ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy. Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face. O, be some other name Belonging to a man. What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name; And for thy name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself.
ROMEO: I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized; Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET: What man art thou, that, thus bescreened in night, So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO: By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am. My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself Because it is an enemy to thee. Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET: Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face; Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I dwell on form (–fain, fain deny What I have spoke; but farewell compliment! Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say “Ay;” And I will take thy word. Yet, if thou swear’st, Thou mayst prove false. At lovers’ perjuries, They say Jove laughs. O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully. Or if thou thinkest I am too quickly won, I’ll frown and be perverse and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo, but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, And therefore thou mayst think my havior light; But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange. I should have been more strange, I must confess, But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ware, My true love passion. Therefore pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered.
JULIET What's here? a cup, closed in my true love's hand?
Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end:
O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop
To help me after? I will kiss thy lips;
Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,
To make die with a restorative.
[Kisses him]
Thy lips are warm![...]
Yea, noise? then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!
[Snatching ROMEO's dagger]
This is thy sheath;
[Stabs herself]
there rust, and let me die.
[Falls on ROMEO's body, and dies]
ROMEO Ah, dear Juliet,
Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe
That unsubstantial death is amorous,
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps
Thee here in dark to be his paramour?
For fear of that, I still will stay with thee;
And never from this palace of dim night
Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!
Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death![...]Here's to my love!
[Drinks]
O true apothecary!
Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.
[Dies] [...]
HAMLET (16019, Act III, Scene I
"Here is Hamlet's most famous soliloquy on life and death. Only a few minutes have passed since the audience heard Hamlet's plan to prove the King's guilt by means of a play to be performed by actors who have come to Elsinore. Shortly before Hamlet enters, the King and his chancellor Polonius hide to spy on him. What will Hamlet reveal?"
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
HAMLET To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,