Návrat na detail prednášky / Stiahnuť prednášku / Univerzita Komenského / Pedagogická fakulta / AN-Staršia aglická literatúra

English Reneissance + Thomas Kyd & Christopher Marlove (6._english_reneissance-thomas_kyd_&_christopher_marlowe.doc)

English Reneissance

Thomas Kyd and Christopher Marlowe

1. Cultural an artistic movement
2. Early 16th century to the early 17th century
3. The „the age of Shakespeare“ or „the Elizabethan era“
4. Influenced by classical antiquity
5. Influenced by Italians

Major figures

1. philosopher: Francis Bacon
2. poets: Edmund Spenser, John Milton, Sir Thomas More
3. playwrights: Christopher Marlowe (first used blank verse—nonrhyming lines of iambic pentameter) , William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Thomas Kyd

Christopher Marlowe

1. dramatist, poet, and translator
2. was born to a shoemaker in Canterbury
3. attended The King’s School in Canterbury and Corpus Christi College in Camridge
4. received bachelor of arts degree in 1584
5. in 1587 the university hesitated to award him his master's degree because he had converted to Roman Catholism
6. in 1587 the Privy Council ordered Cambridge University to award Marlowe his MA

The Marlowe Legend

1. Marlowe has been regarded as a spy, a hooligan, a heretic, and a homosexual
2. also regarded as a "magician", "duellist", "tobacco-user", "counterfeiter", and “rakehell".
3. has been marked as a government spy
4. later he was arrested and murdered
5. The murder was in 1925 specified as an assassination

Literary works

1. poetry:

                Translation of Lucan's Pharsalia

                Translation of Ovid's         Elegies (1580s)

                The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

                Hero and Leander

1. plays:

                Dido, Queen of Carthage with Thomas Nashe

                Tamburlaine, part 1 (c.1587)

                Tamburlaine, part 2 (c.1587)

                The Jew of Malta (c.1589)

                Doctor Faustus (c.1589, or, c.1593)

                Edward II (c.1592)

                The Massacre at Paris (c.1593)

The Jew of Malta

1. probably written in 1589 or 1590
2. the first recorded performance was in 1592
3. the title character, Barabas the Jew, is a complex character likely to provoke mixed reactions in an audience
4. the plot is an original story of religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge
5. is considered to have been a major influence on Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice

A Jew Merchant named Barabas is waiting for the news about the return of his ships from the east. His ships savely docked in Malta and Barabas must go to meet governor. Like many other Jews he must give half of his estate to government to pay tribute to the Turks. Barabas protests and the governor Ferneze confiscates all his wealth and turns his house into a convent. Abigail, Jew’s daughter, pretends to convert to Christianity instead to enter the convent. Barabas meets Lodowick and use him for revenge on Ferneze. While planing this he buys a slave named Ithamore. Barabas tells his daughter to get engaged to Lodowick. Lodowick and Abigale’s lover Mathias kill each other in the duel. Bellamira, a prostitute, and her pimp Pilia-Borza decide that they will steal some of Barabas’s gold. Ithamore falls in love with Bellamira. Abigail decices to enter the convent and Barabas decides to poison some rice and sends it to the nuns. Abigail, close to death, confesses her father’s role in Mathias’s and Lodowick’s deaths to Dominican friar Jacomo. Barabas realizes this and pretends that he wants to convert to Christianity and gives all his money to monastery he joins. The slave confesses his master’s crime to Bellamira. She and her pimp confess Brabas’s crimes to governor and after that Bellamira, Pilia-Borza and Ithamore die. Barabas fakes his own death and escapes to find Calymath, turk’s leader. Barabas tells him how best to storm the town. After capturing of Malta, Barabas is made governor. Fearing for his own life and security of his office, Barabas sends for Ferneze. Barabas tells him that he will free the Malta from Turkish rule and kill Calymath in exchange for a large amount of money. Ferneze agrees and Barabas invites Calymath to a feast at his home. During the feast Barabas dies in a cauldron that was prepared for Calymath.

1. Themes: religious hypocrcrisy (Barabas convert from one church to another without self-reproach to gain more Money or estate. Also Abigail convert instead of enter convent), revenge and retribution (revenge is the main problem of the play, Barabas wants to revenge on Ferneze because he took his estate)
2. Motifs: cheat and makebelieve (Barabas lies during all the play he uses other characters to gain more and more Money and estate, he pretends that he converted and later also his own death to make his plano f making Money easier), biblical allusion
3. Symbols: gold and money (gold and money are the most important thing in Barabas’s life and he is able to do everything to make more money, Abigail sales his fathers’s gold and also Bellamira and her pimp want to steal Barabas’s gold to make some money)

Doctor Faustus

1. probably written in 1592
2. the idea (of an individual selling his or her soul to the devil for knowledge) is an old motif in Christian folklore
3. later versions include the long and famous poem Faust by the nineteenth-century Romantic writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
4. the phrase “Faustian bargain” has entered the English lexicon, referring to any deal made for a short-term gain with great costs in the long run

Doctor Faustus, a well-respected German scholar decides that he wants to learn to practice magic. His friends instruct him in the black arts, and he begins his new career as a magician by summoning up Mephastophilis, a devil. Faustus tells the devil to return to his master, Lucifer, with an offer of Faustus’s soul in exchange for thwenty-four years of service from Mephastophilis. Lucifer has accepted Faustus’s offer. Armed with his new powers Faustus begins to travel. He travels through the courts of Europe where he plays tricks. As the twenty-four years of his deal with Lucifer come to a close, Faustus begins to be affraid of his death. On the final night before the expiration, Faustus is overcome by fear. He begs for mercy but it is too late. At midnight, a host of devils appears and carries his soul off to hell. In the morning, the scholars find Faustus’s limbs and decide to hold a funeral for him.