Elizabethan Age is named after the reign of the last Tudor Monarch of England, Queen Elizabeth I who ruled from 1558 to 1603. However, the age is not just limited to the period when Elizabeth ruled. There are certain literary characteristics, which developed during Elizabeth's reign and continued for some years after her death in 1603.
According to WH Hudson, we call Elizabethan all the years from the beginning of the Queen's reign to the period of James I's death in 1625. However, the period of James's reign from 1603 to 1625 is sometimes taken as a different period called the Jacobean period. Elizabeth I's 45 years reign is generally considered to be one of the most glorious and golden periods in English history.
Her reign saw a rise in the concept of nationalism in England and this is reflected in the increased interest that writers had in writing literary and dramatic works in the English language. As a result, Elizabethan England saw a significant growth in cultural developments. The Queen herself was a great patron of arts and her actions, image and court atmosphere led to the flourishing of arts and literature in the period.
During this period, England made significant advances in the realm of navigation and exploration. It began colonisation of the Americans with Walter Raleigh's excursions to the Atlantic shore and establishment of the Roanoke colony. Its most important accomplishment was the circumnavigation of the world by Sir Francis Drake between 1577 and 1580.
LITERATURE OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
Elizabethan England saw a remarkable blossoming of arts and literature. Renaissance humanism, protestant zeal, geographical and scientific discovery all contributed to this upsurge of creative power. Drama was the dominant genre in Elizabethan Age. William Shakespeare was the most significant playwright of the age. Shakespeare's oeuvre includes a wide variety of comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies and sonnets. Owing to the influence he wielded, the age is also sometimes named after him as 'The Age of Shakespeare'.
This age saw the appearance of the first English comedy and the first blank verse tragedy in the 1550-60s. These ultimately gave rise to art forms that remain heavily studied even today. In Ralph Roister Doister, a comic play by Nicholas Udall is generally regarded as the first comedy to be written in the English language around 1553. In 1562, one of the earliest of blank verse plays, Gorboduc, was performed for the Queen. It is considered to be the first English blank verse tragedy.
Elizabethan Age also witnessed the establishment of 'The Theatre' in 1576, the earliest theatre ever built. Following 'The Theatre' closely were theatres such as 'The Rose', 'The Swan' and most popular of all, 'The Globe', created in 1599. Elizabethan drama broke away from religious domination, which was the major focus of medieval mystery and morality plays. Elizabethan drama often used poetical metre (rhythm) for its dialogue, especially the five-foot iambic pentameter (pairs of syllables unstressed followed by stressed).
Apart from drama, Elizabethan age also saw flowering of poetry (the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza) and inspired a wide variety of splendid prose by writers such as Francis Bacon.
The literature of the Elizabethan Age flourished in various forms such as tragedy, comedy, poetry, drama and chronicles etc. These are described below :
Tragedy : Tragedy, branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual. By extension the term may be applied to other literary works, such as the novel.
Although, the word tragedy is often used loosely to describe any sort of disaster or misfortune, it more precisely refers to a work of art that probes with high seriousness of questions concerning the role of man in the universe. The Greeks of Attica, the ancient state whose chief city was Athens, first used the word in the 5th century BCE to describe a specific kind of play, which was presented at festivals in Greece.
Historically, tragedy of a high order has been created in only four periods and locales: Attica, in Greece, in the 5th century BCE; England in the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, from 1558 to 1625; 17th-century France and Europe and America during the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century.
Each period saw the development of a special orientation and emphasis, a characteristic style of theatre. In the modern period, roughly from the middle of the 19th century, tragedy has found some place in few novels.
Imp: First English Tragedy: Gorboduc
- Gorboduc or The Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex is considered to be the first tragedy written in English. It is also believed to be the earliest English tragic play in blank verse. It was written by Thomas Norton (1532-1584) and Thomas Sackville (1536-1608) and was first performed in 1561. Norton wrote the first three acts of Gorboduc while Sackville the last two.
- The story of the play is derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae (1135-38; History of the Kings of Britain), which relates the dispute between Gorboduc's (King of Britain) two sons, Ferrex and Porrex, over the issue of succession.
- The play follows the sophisticated tragic models of Seneca. Significant imitations of Gorboduc include Gascoigne and Kinwelmersh's Jocasta and Gismond of Salerne, written by five gentlemen of the Inner Temple.
Comedy : Comedy is a literary genre and a type of dramatic work that is amusing and satirical in its tone, mostly having a cheerful ending. The motif of this dramatic work is triumph over unpleasant circumstances by creating comic effects, resulting in a happy or successful conclusion.
Thus, the purpose of comedy is to amuse the audience. Comedy has multiple sub-genres depending upon the source of the humour, context in which an author delivers dialogues and delivery methods which include farce, satire and burlesque. Tragedy is opposite to comedy, as tragedy deals with sorrowful and tragic events in a story.
Imp : First English Comedy: Ralph Roister Doister
- Ralph Roister Doister is considered to be the first English comedy. It was written by the English playwright, Nicholas Udall, probably between 1551 and 1553.
- The protagonist of this play, Ralph Roister Doister is a well-to-do, doltish young man, who brags about his bravery, but acts like a coward whenever he is called to action. Ralph's attempts to woo a rich widow Christian Custance, do not attain success. The play shows the influence of the classical playwrights Plautus and Terence.
Poetry : Elizabethan age was a great age of English literature. During this time the writing of poetry was the part of education among the educated people. That is why many books of poetry by different writers appeared during this age.
Drama : Drama was the chief literary glory of the Elizabethan Age. In the beginning, these dramas were not so well-written though the comedies were better than the tragedies. Ralph Roister Doister is taken as the first regular English comedy. It was a kind of farce in rough verse written by Nicholas Udall.
Another comedy was Gammer Gurton's Needle acted at Cambridge University in 1566. Lyly improved the comedy in his prose comedy Campaspe and Endymion. Gorboduc, written by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, was the first regular tragedy. It was very dull and written in poor blank verse. Thomas Kyd improved the tragedy by writing The Spanish Tragedy. It is a tragedy of blood and revenge.
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