THE EARLY TUDORS

Henry VII was the first Tudor King of England. His emblem was the combination of the red rose of
Lancaster with the white rose of York.

He introduced high taxes, he had to face Yorkist plots against him, banned nobles from raising their
own armies. Under Henry VII begins the English colonization in eastern America.

He married his son and heir, with the Aragonesa heiress Catherine and two of his daughters with the
king of France and Scotland. When he died, he left England economically stable and in peace.

HENRY VII
He married his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon. He wrote on attack against Luther and his anti-
Catholic theses and was named by the pope “defender of the faith”, besides increased the navy from
five to forty ships.

Catherine was unable to give him a son and the pope refused hid divorce, so Henry broke up with
Rome and married a pregnant Anne Boleyn, from who Elizabeth was born.

He was declared Supreme Head of the Church of England, also in Wales and Scotland temporal and
religious powers joined to the monarch, he confiscated the lands of small monasteries and their
money.

The king had two children Edward and Elizabeth.

EDWARD VI
Edwad became king at 9 years, he studying history and Protestant theology.

Religious services were held in English instead of Latin and the Book of Common Prayer, become
compulsory with the Act of Uniformity.

He died in 1553 and named his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as his successor but, thanks to a catholic plot
she was taken prisoner.

MARY I
She was the daughter of Henry VIII who declared herself queen and wanted to restore Catholicism in
England.

She married Philip II of Spain and made England ally of Spain. When she died left the throne to her
sister Elizabeth.

She was called “Bloody Mary” because she giving to the Protestant Church 300 martyrs.

ELIZABETH
Elizabeth’s reign was considered England’s Golden age because was a period of peaceful, victory and
stability, the rising star of Shakespeare.
Elizabeth was clever and determined, allowed tolerance as regarded ornament in churches and
ceremonies. She received many proposals, but regarded marriage as dangerous because she thought
that a foreign husband would subject England to overseas rule.

For that reason, she was called “Virgin Queen”.

She organized several tours around the courts and those who welcomed her regarded her visit as a
privilege.

Elizabeth encouraged her sea captains to explore new lands and look for treasures.

In 1586 Spain want to invade England. Philip II attacked England with 130 ships but the Spanish were
defeated and last a third of their fleet.

Elizabeth died in 1603 and named Protestant king of Scotland, James, as her heir.

RENAISSANCE AND NEW LEARNING

The Tudors inherited a general concept of order from the medieval view of the world.

They represented the universal order as a chain of being. This chain had two important
characteristics.

 The various ranks in the chain were fixed, there was no mobility from one ring to the next.
 The hierarchy was complete and closed: all forms of life had been created in the beginning.

the position of man was unique.

He shared the body with lower creations and the spirit with higher creations, and therefore he had
the unique function of binding together all the levels of being.

All of creation was bound together, whatever affected one thing affected other elements in the
chain.

There were three parts of the chain corresponding to each other

• macrocosm:

• microcosm

• the body politic

Nature was God’s instrument.

The social hierarchy a product of nature.

Therefore, subordination and unity were the natural rules for the State, which should be subject to
a single head.

Thus, the king or the queen became the symbol of stability and unity.

The English Renaissance witnessed the discovery and exploration of new continents.

There were new theories such as those of Nicolaus Copernicus who created a new heliocentric
model of the solar system in which the earth no longer held the central place.
The greatest influence on the new literature was Humanism, which aimed at improving man through
knowledge.

Humanists used English instead of Latin in their writings, improving its vocabulary and syntax.

THE SONNET
The Renaissance is considered the ‘golden age’ of poetry.

A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter with a fixed rhyme scheme, that was
invented by Jacopo da Lentini in the first half of the 13 th Century.

The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet consists of an octave, that generally presents an issue or a situation,
and a sestet, that contains the solution of the problem or personal reflections.

The English or Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quatrains and a couplet, and it rhymes
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The poet can use the quatrains to present a theme or three different
arguments and draw a conclusion in the final couplet.

Elizabethan sonneteers showed their ability in the use of conceits.

During the last decades of Elizabeth’s reign many poets started writing sonnets.

Most of the sonnet collections were named after a woman.

This typical Petrarchan tradition became popular especially in England because of the veneration of
Queen Elizabeth I, who was variously referred to by poets as ‘Cynthia’ and ‘the Faerie Queene’.

The traditional theme of the sonnet is love and desire for a lady who cannot return the poet’s love.

The lady is the embodiment of both physical and moral perfection.

The conflict between desire and the unhappiness caused by the lady’s coldness leads the poet to
madness and despair.

Shakespeare introduced other themes like beauty, decay and art.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF DRAMA

The origins of the theatre in Britain are linked to medieval religious celebrations, especially to
commemorate great Christian events.

These performances took place in the nave of churches at first, but soon they moved outside.

Drama became the main form of Elizabethan art.

Entertainment was rooted in the communal life of medieval towns and villages for a mixed public
more trained in listening than in reading.

Permanent theatres were circular or octagonal, within the outer walls there were three tiers of
roofed galleries, looking down on the stage, and the yard, or ‘pit’, where the poorer spectators.

The stage projected into the yard, so that when the theatre was full, the players were surrounded on
three sides. No more than twelve actors could appear. A roof protected the players from the rain. In
the front of the stage there was a trap door used for apparitions and disappearances.
The narrow stage created several problems, so there was a hidden stage used for discoveries and
concealments.

There was also an upper stage hidden by a curtain and a balcony normally used by musicians.

In Shakespeare’s time the actor came forward on the stage into the midst of his audience.
Communication was therefore intimate and direct.

There was no scenery and plays took place in daylight, usually starting at 2 p.m.

For night scenes a simple candle or torch represented the night world. The action was continuous.

A scene ended when all the actors left the stage and a new set of characters came on.

The time and locality were usually mentioned in the dialogue.

Women did not act in Shakespeare’s time and the female parts were acted by boys.

The characters and situations were often allegorical types and the plays contained scenes of vivid
caricature and realistic comedy.

Thanks to the spread of translations, Italian plays became the sources of much Elizabethan theatre,
together with the influence of Italian Commedia dell’arte companies which travelled throughout
England.

The Elizabethan theatre was also influenced by Greek tragedies.

SHAKESPEARE
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1564, possibly on 23 april, St George’s
day.

William was the eldest son and attended the local grammar school and of classical authors.

In 1584 he left Stratford and went to London.

He was accepted into one of the acting companies where he distinguished himself as an excellent
playwright.

In 1593 the London theatres were closed because of the plague, and Shakespeare needed the
support of private patron.

He received this support from a young nobleman, the Earl of Southampton, to whom he dedicated
his poems.

in 1599 his company built the Globe Theatre, where most of his plays were performed.

Between 1590 and 1596 he wrote historical dramas.

The latter part of his life was spent in retirement at Stratford. He died in 1616, when he was 52 years
old, and was buried in the local church.

SONNETS
THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
Shakespeare’s sonnets were published in 1609, although they were probably written in the 1590s.
It is likely they circulated amongst his private friends and were sent to his patron, the Earl of
Southampton.

Shakespeare did not use the Petrarchan form, an octave and a sestet; instead, he employed three
quatrains and a final couplet.

However, the development of the argument in many of his sonnets follows the ‘two-poem’ structure
of the Petrarchan form, since there is a turning point in Thought in the ninth line.

THEMES

In Shakespeare’s sonnets there is also a reversal of the traditional themes of love sonnets.

For instance, the traditional love poems praising women’s worth and beauty are addressed by
Shakespeare to a young man, while those devoted to a woman are negative.

But there were universal themes such as time, death, love, beauty and art.

STYLE
The style of Shakespeare’s sonnets is characterised by rich and vivid descriptive language.

His sonnets often have a dramatic quality through the abrupt beginning, the use of questions or the
pronouns ‘thou’ and ‘thee’, which make the style conversational.

THE FAIR YOUTH, THE DARK LADY AND THE TIME

The sonnets were not necessarily chronological.

They have no title and can be divided into two sections.

The first is addressed to a ‘fair youth’, probably Shakespeare’s young patron, the Earl of
Southampton, and is organised as follows:

• Sonnets I to XVIII: these are devoted to the theme of ‘increase’. The poet encourages the young
man to marry and preserve his virtues and beauty through his children.

• Sonnets XIX to CXXVI: these deal with different topics, among which the poet’s warnings about the
destructive power of time and moral weakness.

The second section, from sonnet CXXVII to the end, is addressed to a ‘dark lady’ or ‘black woman’.
She is physically unattractive, but the poet finds her irresistibly desirable.

The choice of the addressees is a novelty of the Shakespearean sonnets since it completely breaks
with the Petrarchan courting tradition.

A SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY: GENERAL FEATURES

1) Shakespeare’s plays must be dated by combining three kinds of evidence:

 external, which consist of a clear mention to a particular play.

 Internal evidence: which is when the play itself includes a reference to a specific event and
stylistic evidence, when the changes in the Shakespearean plays are notable.
2) The progress of a Shakespearean play is usually linked to the gradual clarification of things which
are left mysterious at the beginning.

3) Conventions employed by Shakespearean in the plays are, soliloquies, introductory passages

spoken in a prologue and death bed speech.

Themes are hinted at, but their real meaning becomes apparent much later.

Major scenes, with crucial events, are preceded and followed by shorter scenes whose function is
simply to provide information.

4) Shakespeare sometimes leaves some questions open so that we continue to think about the
answer to the puzzle after the play is over.

Shakespeare left indirect information in movements, metaphors and ways of speaking.

5) Shakespeare did not take his characters from one social class only, there is almost always a man of
royal or aristocratic blood.

6) The relationships of the characters are often in contrasting form, suggesting conflict between the
older and younger generations.

7) Shakespeare used different levels of speech and action to portray his characters from different
angles, close up and at a distance.

Finally, there are symmetrical correspondences: the heads of two hostile families.

9) Shakespeare’s use of vocabulary has never been surpassed.

He used obscure and archaic words, mythological allusions; he invented a dramatic number of new
words.

8)Some plays have characteristic image motifs;

for example, light and dark imagery in Romeo and Juliet, these image-clusters are connected to the
main themes of the plays and define their tones.

ROMEO AND JULIET ESERCIZIO N 2 PAG 119

1) Romeo’s friends persuade him to attend in disguise. Romeo meets Juliet there, and they fall in
love at first sight. During the party they discover that their families are professed enemies.

2) The dialogue between the two lovers deals with their love and desire to be married.

3) The secret marriage of the two lovers takes place in the chapel of the priest, Fra Laurence, who
expressed the hope that their marriage could end the quarrel of the families.

4) Mercutio was a friend of Romeo and he was killed by Tybalt, the cousin of Juliet.

5) After his revenge against Tybalt, Romeo is exiled to Mantua.

6) The drug was given to her by Fra Laurence who would have made her look dead on the morning
of the wedding.

7) Romeo arrives at Juliet’s tomb and takes some poison, dying as he kisses her lips.

8) When Juliet wakes up and sees Romeo dead, he commits suicide with his dagger.
SETTINGS ESERCIZIO N 3 PAG 119
1)Shakespeare chose the Italian city of Verona as the setting of this play because Italians were
popularly considered violent and passionate.

The social context of the play arises from the struggles between two families, the Capulets and
Montagues, to gain political control of the city.

2)In the first act Romeo Montague is presented as a belonging to the 'courtly love convention’
because of his intense admiration and respect for a lady who is chaste and ‘impossible’.

It is his love for Juliet which makes him dynamic and courageous.

Capulet is beautiful, rebellious, kind and loving.

Her first meeting with Romeo causes her to move towards maturity, she immediately shows
determination and strength in her open confessions of love and desire for Romeo

3) For Romeo, Juliet, it is the light that frees him from his dark melancholy, Romeo links Juliet to the
sunlight, daylight and the light emanating from angels.

Like Romeo, she compares their love to light, first to point out the speed at which their romance is
moving, but also to suggest that their love is just like lightening, that is, a break in the blackness of
the night sky.

4)

 The power of love: love became more important than even their lives.
 Passion and violence: the same passion leads to violence,
 Individual against society: what the lovers want as individuals' conflicts with what their
families and society want.
 The power of fate: During the play, both lovers have negative feelings about what is going to
happen. The tragic ending results from a pattern which includes the elements of chance and
the more powerful element of incomplete knowledge.

5) The most important stylistic feature are the rhythms that are regular; the rhymes are common,
there a sonnet into dialogue; there are some oxymora.

6) “Romeo and Juliet” is characterised by elements both of comedy and tragedy.

It is a comedy because it begins with the material for a comedy, like the instant attraction of the
young lovers, the masked balls, the comic servants and the superficial life of street fights.

It is a tragedy on account of the tragic role played by chance; the protagonists must fight against
external forces that make their relationship difficult, but, unlike the great tragic heroes, they
experience no inner struggle.

THE BALCONY SCENE (TRADUZIONE)

GIULIETTA: Il tuo nome soltanto m'è nemico; ma tu saresti tu, sempre Romeo per me,
quand'anche non fosti un Montecchi.
Che è infatti Montecchi?... Non è una mano, né un piede, né un braccio, né una faccia, né
nessun'altra parte che possa dirsi appartenere a un uomo.
Ah, perché tu non porti un altro nome! Ma poi, che cos'è un nome?... Forse che quella che
chiamiamo rosa cesserebbe d'avere il suo profumo se la chiamassimo con altro nome?
Così s'anche Romeo non si dovesse più chiamar Romeo, chi può dire che non conserverebbe
la cara perfezione ch'è la sua?
Rinuncia dunque, Romeo, al tuo nome, che non è parte della tua persona, e in cambio
prenditi tutta la mia.
ROMEO: Io ti prendo in parola! D'ora in avanti tu chiamami "Amore", ed io sarò per te non
più Romeo, perché m'avrai così ribattezzato.
GIULIETTA: Oh, qual uomo sei tu, che protetto dal buio della notte, vieni a inciampar così sui
miei pensieri?
ROMEO: Dirtelo con un nome, non saprei; il mio nome, cara santa, è odioso a me perché è
nemico a te. Lo straccerei, se lo portassi scritto.
GIULIETTA: Sai che la notte copre la mia faccia della sua nera maschera, l'avresti vista
arrossare, se no, per ciò che m'hai sentito dir poc'anzi.
Ah, vorrei tanto mantener la forma, rinnegar quel che ho detto!
Ma addio ormai inutili riguardi! Tu m'ami?... So che mi risponderai "Sì", ed io ti prenderò
sulla parola; ma non giurare, no, perché se giuri, potresti poi dimostrarti spergiuro.
Agli spergiuri degli amanti - dicono - ride anche Giove.
O gentile Romeo, se m'ami, dimmelo con lealtà; se credi ch'io mi sia lasciata vincere troppo
presto, farò lo sguardo truce e, incattivita, ti respingerò, perché tu sia costretto a
supplicarmi...
Ma no, non lo farei, per nulla al mondo!
In verità, leggiadro mio Montecchi, io di te sono tanto innamorata, da farti pur giudicar
leggerezza il mio comportamento; però credimi, mio gentil cavaliere, che, alla prova, io
saprò dimostrarmi più fedele di quelle che di me sono più esperte nell'arte di apparire più
ritrose.
E più ritrosa - devo confessarlo - sarei stata, se tu, subitamente, prima ch'io stessa me ne
fossi accorta, non m'avessi sorpresa a confessar l'ardente mia passione a me stessa.
Perdonami perciò, e non voler chiamare leggerezza la mia condiscendenza, come t'avrà
potuto suggerire il buio della notte.

ESERCIZIO N 2 PAG 124

3)

 (from 23 to 25 lines) Thou knowers 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.
 (from 26 to 27 lines) I cannot deny what I said
 (40 lines) Perhaps I should have been more discrete
 (43 and 44 lines) Do not think because I'm giving in to you, that my feelings are only
superficial.

ESERCIZIO N 8 PAG 124

2. Juliet's reflection upon the language shakes the medieval code because she tries to separate the
name from the thing.

EROS AND THANATOS (TRADUZIONE)

OTELLO: È la causa, è la causa, anima mia;
ma a voi non la dirò, caste stelle.
È la causa; ma non verserò il suo sangue
né scalfirò la sua pelle più bianca
della neve e liscia come alabastro sepolcrale.
Pure deve morire, o tradirà altri uomini.
Prima spegni una luce, e poi quell'altra;
se spengo questa fiaccola, e mi pento,
posso ripristinare la sua luce;
ma una volta spenta la tua luce,
o modello compiuto della perfezione di natura,
non so dove si trovi il fuoco prometeico
che la riaccenda. Quand'ho svelto la rosa
non posso più ridarle il suo rigoglio;
appassisce per forza. L'odorerò sullo stelo.
(La bacia.)
O alito balsamico, che quasi induci
la Giustizia a spezzare la sua spada!
Un altro; un altro. Resta così nella morte,
e io ti ucciderò, e ancora ti amerò.
Ancora un bacio, e sia l'ultimo bacio.
Mai dolcezza fu così fatale. Piango,
sì, ma lacrime crudeli; è una pena celestiale,
colpisce l'oggetto del suo amore. Si ridesta...

DESDEMONA: Chi c'è? Otello?

OTELLO: Sì, Desdemona.
DESDEMONA: Venite a letto, mio signore?
OTELLO: Hai detto le preghiere questa sera, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA: Sì, mio signore.
OTELLO: Se ti sovviene d'una qualche colpa che ancora non abbia ricevuto la grazia del
perdono, invocalo subito.
DESDEMONA: Che intendete dire, mio signore?
OTELLO: Fallo, e in fretta, io starò discosto.
Non voglio uccidere la tua anima impreparata, no - Dio ne guardi - non la tua anima.
DESDEMONA: Parlate di uccidere?
OTELLO: Sì, di uccidere.
DESDEMONA: Allora il cielo abbia pietà di me!
OTELLO: Amen, con tutto il cuore!
DESDEMONA: Se dite così, spero che non mi ucciderete.
OTELLO: Uhm!
DESDEMONA: Eppure ho paura, perché quando roteate gli occhi a questo modo, siete
esiziale. Non so perché dovrei aver paura, essendo senza colpa, ma ho paura.
OTELLO: Pensa ai tuoi peccati.
DESDEMONA: L'amore che ho per voi.
OTELLO: E per quello morrai.
DESDEMONA: È una morte innaturale quella data per amore.
Ah, perché vi mordete così il labbro?
Una collera sanguinaria vi scuote tutto; sono neri presagi. Eppure spero, spero che non siano
per me.
OTELLO: Taci e non muoverti!

ESERCIZIO N 8 PAG 147

2. A. calm

C. controlled

3. Yes, it is

4. the senses involved are the touch, associated with the image of alabaster.

The sight which is the general sense in the text because he sees Desdemona and the sense of smell,
whose associated images in the rose.

ESERCIZIO N 9 PAG 147

EROS

Mercy, loves

THANATOS
Kill, dead, sorrow, killing

The image which connotes the transition from Eros to Thanatos is the Promethan heat

OTHELLO PLOT
Otello, a dark-skinned Moor from the Venetian army, secretly marries Desdemona. Her father
accuses the doge of having seduced her with magic, but the dark-haired is recognized as innocent,
and leaves to fight the Turks in Cyprus.

Othello wins the Turks and his wife Desdemona has seen him on the island. Here is also his bishop
Jago.

Jago secretly hates Othello, of whom he suspects he is the lover of his wife Emilia, and Cassio, who
has been appointed lieutenant in his place.

Jago causes Cassio to get drunk, to be suspended from his task; therefore, Othello insinuates the
doubt that Cassius is Desdemona's lover. As conclusive proof, he reveals that the young man
possessed a handkerchief that the dark-haired man had given to his wife. In fact, he himself hatched
the deception.

Othello, mad with jealousy, suffocates his wife on the double bed. Emilia, Jago's wife, arrives and
reveals her husband's deceptions. The latter kills her and Othello, desperate, stabs himself, dying on
the body of his beloved Desdemona.

DATE, SOURCE AND SETTING

Othello is based on a story about jealousy by the Italian writer G.B. Giraldi Cinzio.

However, while the Italian Othello is a man without dignity, Shakespeare’s tragic hero has great
qualities both as a man and as a leader. Venice was chosen by Shakespeare as the setting of his
tragedy, which is full of passion, jealousy and sexual tension.

Italians were considered to be wicked, murderous and immoral so playwrights used to set their plays
in Italy when they wanted to portray immorality.

CHARACTERS
The characters are complex, they react unpredictably to the events represented and are influenced
by them, changing not only their own ideas,

but also, your own way of being.

Othello:

Valiant dark general, madly in love with the beautiful Desdemona. Unfortunately, his trust in his
standard bearer leads him to jealousy and then to madness, fearing the betrayal of his wife.

All these feelings lead to the murder of his bride and, in the meantime, discovered the truth, in
suicide.

Desdemona:
Beautiful young Venetian woman, attracted by the adventures and charm of the mysterious Othello,
runs away from home to marry him.

Of a basically pure soul, she is unjustly accused of treason by her husband and is later killed by him.

He does not oppose the will of the Moro and for his sake accepts his fate, albeit with great
desperation.

Jago:

He is the standard bearer of Othello, secretly in love with Desdemona and envious of Cassio.

To obtain revenge, he devises a diabolical plan that leads to the death of numerous people, while he
remains the only one alive to pay the consequences.

Cassius:

He is Othello's lieutenant.

Loyal and sincere, he tries to gain the affection and trust of the latter and his wife.

He too is unjustly accused of treason and at the same time loses honor and life, due to the perfidious
words of a man.

THEMES
Othello’s intense jealousy is one of the main themes of the tragedy.

Othello and Jago are two opposite poles: their meeting and contrast create the tragedy.

The former longs for Desdemona in a pure way, the latter morbidly; degrading Desdemona is a
means to destroy the object of Othello’s desire.

In this way Iago accomplishes his revenge on Othello.

STYLE
Othello is the most perfectly constructed of all Shakespeare’s tragedies, and may be best used to
illustrate the four different kinds of dramatic speech: lyric poetry, rhyme, blank verse and prose.

All are used in the play to create mood and atmosphere.

The contrast between Jago and Othello is underlined by the use of two different styles of language.

Othello uses poetry with an elevated tone while the prose of Iago contrasts with Othello’s sonorous
poetry: his ‘voice’ is intellectual, controlled, cynical and brutal.