Shakespeare’s
World
The Tudors
London
The theatres
Henry VII
ruled 1485 to 1509
• Restores people’s faith
in the monarchy
• A stronger monarch
means a weaker
parliament, and a
watering down of the
influence of the nobles
Henry VIII
Born 1491,
ruled 1509 to 1547
• Established Church of
England:
Act of Supremacy 1534
First English Bible 1539
”Book of Common Prayer” 1584
• …there is also
Reformation in the rest of
Europe
Anne of Cleves
Anne Boleyn Jane Seymour
Katharine of Aragon
His six wives
Catherine Howard
Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Katharine Parr
Henry Princess Princess
VIII Mary Tudor Margaret
Katharine Anne Jane Anne Catherine Katharine Frances James V
of Aragon Boleyn Seymour of Cleves Howard Parr Grey
Mary I Elizabeth I Edward VI Jane Mary
Bloody Mary Grey
Stuart
3 4 1 2 Executed
1587
The Tudors James VI
+I
5
Edward VI
Born 1537,
Ruled 1547 to 1553
Mother:
Jane Seymour
Church of England,
like his father
Lady Jane Grey
Born 1537, ruled for nine days in
July 1553, executed 1554
Protestant
Mary I ”Bloody Mary”
Born 1516,
Ruled 1553 to 1558
Mother:
Katharine of
Aragon Catholic
Born 1516,
Elizabeth I Ruled 1558 to 1603
Protestant +
Church of England
• Encouraged
exploration of
Mother: and trade with
other continents
Anne Boleyn which would lead
later to the
creation of the
British Empire
The Virgin Queen
Armada Portrait
Spanish Armada 1588
James I
Mother:
Mary Stuart of
Scotland +
Queen of France
The Elizabethan World:
• Still Feudalism in rural England
• Urbanisation with merchants and craftsmen
• ”The Poor Law” 1601
• A strong England:
• Defeat of the Spanish Armada 1588 (Sir Francis Drake)
• Leading maritime nation (collapse of Dutch wool market 1550)
• Monopoly on the slave trade
• Colonial expansion US+ India (Sir Walter Raleigh)
• Colonisation of Ireland (Lord Mountjoy 1601)
• Renaissance of art and literature
• Humanism (rebirth of classical learning)
• Reformation: Battles between religions
• Catholics vs. Protestants
• Nature sciences appear
Elizabethan London
• Expansion of London
• The plague
• Sanitary and hygienic
conditions?
• The Thames, The
Tower, Whitehall,
London Bridge,
Southwark
London Bridge at Shakespeare’s time
The theatres:
Reasons why drama flourished under Elizabeth I and
James I:
• Theatre appealed to all social classes, from the
sovereign to the lowest class
• Plays could be understood by the illiterate, who formed
the largest section of the population
• There had been a strong theatre-going tradition in Britain
since the Middle Ages
• The theatre was patronised by the Court and the
Aristocracy
• The language of drama was less artificial than that of
poetry
• There was a great number of talented playwrights who
produced works of extraordinary quality
• The prosperity of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods
meant that people had both the time and money to go to
the theatre
The theatres:
Galleries
’heavens’
Balcony
Doors
Dressing rooms
(’tiring house’)
’hell’
Open courtyard
(for ’groundlings)
theatres ’in the round’
polygonal shape
De Witt sketch
1596
A rectangular stage platform thrust out into
the middle of the open-air yard. This
stage measured roughly 40 feet wide
and 30 feet deep. On this stage, there
was a trap door for use by performers to
enter from beneath the stage; the area
beneath the stage was known as the
'cellarage'. There was a second trap
door in the back of the stage that was
used for the same purpose. Often the
area beneath the stage is also called
'hell', since supernatural beings (such as
the ghost in Hamlet) enter and exit the
stage from this area.
Large columns either side of the stage
supported a roof over the rear portion of
the stage. This ceiling was called the
'heavens', and was probably painted with
images of the sky. A trap door in the
heavens enabled performers to 'fly' or
descend using some form of rope and
harness.
The back wall of the stage consisted of three
doors on the first floor and a balcony on
the second. The doors entered into the
'tiring house' (backstage area) where the
actors dressed and awaited their
entrances. The balcony housed the
musicians and could also be used for
scenes requiring an upper space, such
as the balcony scene in Romeo and
Juliet. In addition, it could be used as the
'Lord's Room', where higher-paying
audience members could pay to be
seated - more to be seen than to see the
play, since they would have been behind
the performers.
Wikipedia.com
• Plays and gambling
• The audience: culture and entertainment
• Dialogue, soliloquy (monologue), comic relief
• Few props, not much scenery: illusions
• Asides: communication with the audience
• Theatre companies with noblemen as patrons
• No Women! –young boys instead
• A new play every two weeks (-a role)
The Elizabethan World Picture:
• Order in the
Universe
• The Great Chain
of Being
• The four elements,
the four tempers
season element humour body fluid location
Spring air sanguine blood heart
Summer fire choleric "yellow bile" liver
Autumn earth melancholic "black bile" spleen
Winter water phlegmatic phlegm (various)