Shakespeare’s plays (1623)

THE FIRST FOLIO

The First Folio is Shakespeare’s first edition of all his

plays which came out in 1623. It contains 38 plays and the title on the frontispiece indicates that Shakespeare’s playsare given according to genre:

1. comedies

2. Historical plays

3. tragedies

THE DRAMA WORKSDuring his career as a dramatist, Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in which he experimented all

the kinds of drama popular at his time:

TRAGEDYHISTORY PLAY

COMEDY (also its variant form called‘ROMANCE’)

Therefore, Shakespeare’s career can be divided into4 phases:

1. The years of apprenticeship

2. The history plays and the love comedies

3. The great tragedies and the dark comedies

4. The romances

THE YEARS OF APPRENTICESHIPIn his first phase of apprenticeship, by the mid 1590s, Shakespeare experimented:

1. History plays or chronicle plays, which talk about events of English history (like Henry VI, Richard III)

2. The Plautine comedy, whosetypical example is The Comedy of Errors, where we findmisanderstandings, mistakenidentities, people lost and thenfound, etc...

3. The tragedy of horror, like TitusAndronicus, which is full of murders and physical violence

4. The character play, such as The Taming of the Shrew, in whichcharacters are fixed types behavingaccording to predetermined ideas of human nature

5. The refined love comedy, likeThe Two Gentlemen of Verona or Love’s Labour’s Lost, whichpresents a highly refined use of the love convetnions of that time.

THE HISTORY PLAYS AND THE LOVE

COMEDIESDuring the second phase of his career, Shakespeare became the most important

playwright and wrote:

HISTORY PLAYS LOVE COMEDIES

- joined together a recent and crucial period of English history (like in Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V)

which espress the struggle for power, love and property and represent the history of a whole nation.

In these history plays, Shakespeare also

- and created one of his immortal figure: Falstaff (in Henry IV)

They are different from the comedies of the earlyyears because they have 3 important innovations:

1. The author plays with language in a lessobvious way

2. The characters are more complex

3. Love conventions are exploited to explore the psychology of love, even its delusions

THE GREAT TRAGEDIES AND THE DARK

COMEDIESAt the beginning of the XVII century, Shakespeare wrote:

TRAGEDIES COMEDIESwhich show Shakespeare’s growing disillusion

They have complex characters, who often must face difficultchoices (for ex., between love and affection or reason and pride), like Brutis (in Julius Ceaser), Othello, King Lear or Mark Antony.

These characters occupy the highest positions in society (kings, queens, princes, commanders), but they’re characterized bycontradictions and frailties.

BrutusOthello King Lear

Which are considered dark comedies, because:

- Love isn’t a sweet and careless emotion anymore, butit’s a complex and a disillusioned experience

- They show ambiguities of feelings as love and friendship and they are in belance between comedy and tragedy

So they can be considered comedies only thanks totheir happy endings.

THE ROMANCESIn his last phase, Shakespeare mainly wrote romantic comedies, in which he

reconciled with human nature

THE WINTER’S TALE THE TEMPEST PERICLES

Even if the protagonist is guilty, the play hasn’t got a tragicconclusion

But, at end of the play, order and harmony are restored

The contrast between the old and the young and their comingtogether is shown thanks to love and understandings of the youngergenerations.

THEME: WOMEN AND LOVE

At the centre of Shakespeare’s tragedies there’s

the strong desire for love and power, acted byShakespeare’s heiroines.

Throughout the play, Juliet’s love for Romeo is driven to defy her entire social world:

her parents and relatives, likes Juliet’s father, who, on hearing that she refuses to marry Count Paris, insults herruthlessness; or like her mther, who doesn’t help Juliet.

her society abd all rules, which deniesher right to love

But, in spite of these obstacles, Juliet has the courage to risk everything for her love, which causes her death

THEME: WOMEN AND POWERShakespeare’s heroines don’t have the typical female behaviour

and poses, but they can be as ambitious and cruel as men

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth becomes a co-protagonist and especially the driving force of the play.

The three witches’ prophecy Macbeth’s ambition are the instruments of her desirefor power

She also says that if she wasn’t a woman, she could commit the king’s murder herself and Macbeth observesastonished at how much more of a man she is compared with himself

THEME: FATHERS VS DAUGHTERSIn Shakespeare’s plays, we can also see the contrast

between fathers and daughter

Indeed, all Shakespeare’s daughter are subject to the will of their fathers or also their husbands

IN THE COMEDIES IN THE TRAGEDIES

The young girls, like Shylock’s daughterJessica in The Merchant of Venice, against to their father’s will, often flee.

Daughters’ reactions can be different:

In Romeo and Juliet, the young girl suffers her father’s insults and, decides to die. instead of escaping and not tomarry Count Paris – her father’s choice as a husband-

In King Lear, instead, Cordelia, who sincerely loves herfather, refuses his role as an oppressive father and openlydefies him, rejecting to recognize her love for him at hiscommand.

THEME: RHETORIC AND POWER

Shakespeare’s heroes use rhetoric, both

in their actions and speeches, becuase is the key...

to love, riches, power, happiness and goodness!

In all of Shakespeare’s plays, in fact, we find that rhetoric is:

- helpful in love and politics, like in Richard III, where the protagonist usesrhetoric to take the throne of England, or in Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo rhetorically wooes her.

- A great instrument for evil , like in Macbeth, where Lady Macbeth pushes herhusband to commit the king’s murder, becuase she wants to become queen, or in Othello, where Iago says Othello that Desdemona is unfaithful to him

- A way to underline character’s psychology, weak points and obsessions, isexpressedin particular in monologues, like Hamlet’s soliloquy, where hecontemplates his fear of acting.

THEME: THE WORLD AS A STAGEIn his comedies and tragedies , Shakespeare offers brilliant plots and characters and also a profound

reflection on a modern and universal theme:

<< Life is a play and the world is its stage>>

This metaphor was common in Reinaissance culture and it became a part of Shakespeare’s plot and characters’ psychology.

In The Merchant of Venice, for istance, Antonio describes the world as << a stage where every man must play a part>>

In Macbeth’s speech after his wife’s death, the metaphor, instead, becomes the instrument of Macbeth’s absolute

pessimism: << a poor player who is given no more than an hourupon the stage and then is heard no more>>.

The metaphor was also reinforced by:- The name of Shakespeare’s theatre: The Globe

- And by the sign posted outside it, where Hercules isrepresented carrying the world on his shoulders and saying: << The actor carries the whole world>>

SHAKESPEARE’S UNIVERSALITYShakespeare’s fame consist in his universality. In fact, he united the Renaissance with the classical times and

the modern world.

Ih his Roman plays (Julius Ceaser, Antony and Cleopatra), he looks into the classical past with a modern sensibility. He also rebuilds the last two centuries of English history, where he describes politics as a struggle for power , that involvesboth winners and losers.

Shakespeare analyzes the meaninglessness of life and the human nature, represented in King Lear and Macbeth’slives as a tragic mistake and horrors.

Here, Shakespeare still uses a traditional dramatic structure: the end as the restoration of order, that implies the death of good and bad characters.Therefore, Hamlet and Othello are considered the first modern tragic heroes, because they’re full of indecisions likemodern man.

His comedies, finally, are more than a comical and ertertaining. In fact, Shakespeare deals with themessuch as love, friendship and human relashionships, with the awareness of wrong and right.

In his comedies, laughter is also mixed withsorrow: for ex., in The Merchant of Venice, Shylock, the Jew, is discriminated; or in The Tempest we can find the metaphor of colonialism