Elizabethan England

Elizabeth (1533-1603)

• Became queen 1558

• Creatively handled problems

Acceptance Problems• Ascension confusion/dispute

– Legitimacy

• Personal image (turned liabilities to assets)– Young (25)– Out of power stream during Mary

Tudor's reign – Female– Virgin

• Coronation• Visits to the Lords

– "Good Queen Bess"

Money Problems• Lords support

Elizabeth's visits• Stopped the wars• Promoted industry

and trade• Privateers

Religious Problems• Protestant versus Catholic division• Reaction to undo all of Mary's acts

– Parliament dissolved ties to Catholicism

• Puritan zealousness

French Problems

• England at war with France– Instigated by Mary

Tudor– Elizabeth didn't

worry about pride issue

• Complication: Mary, Queen of Scots married to French king

Scottish Problems

• Independent (since 1314) and resentful Scotland

• Mary Queen of Scots– John Knox’s religious

movement – Husband, French king, dies

and she returns to Scotland– Not well liked in Scotland

(exiled Knox and others)– Married Darnley and had a

son and then Darnley killed– Mary forced to abdicate

(refuge in England)• James VI of Scotland

Spanish Problems

• Rivalry with England

• Philip II interference

• Privateers• Battle with

Spanish Armada (1588)

English Problems

• Vision for the country– Merchants– Seafarers

• Promotion of the Golden Age– Prosperity and

leisure– Arts

• Language• Drama

Shakespeare (1564-1616)

• Born in Stratford-on-Avon

• Married, 2 daughters

• Moved to London• The Chamberlain's

Men

Shakespeare’s Major Plays

1588-93 - The Comedy of Errors1588-92 - Henry VI (three parts)1592-93 - Richard III1592-94 - Titus Andronicus1593-94 - The Taming of the Shrew1593-94 - The Two Gentlemen of Verona1593-94 - "The Rape of Lucrece"1593-1600 - "Sonnets"1588-95 - Love's Labor's Lost1594-96 - Romeo and Juliet1595 - Richard II1594-96 - A Midsummer Night's Dream1590-97 - King John1592 - "Venus and Adonis"1596-97 - The Merchant of Venice1597 - Henry IV (Part I)1597-98 - Henry IV (Part II)1598-1600 - Much Ado About Nothing1598-99 - Henry V

1599 - Julius Caesar1599-1600 - As You Like It1600-02 - Twelfth Night1600-O1 - Hamlet1597-1601 - The Merry Wives of

Windsor1600-O1 - "The Phoenix and the

Turtle"1601-02 - Troilus and Cressida1602-04 - All's Well That Ends Well1603-04 - Othello1604 - Measure for Measure1604-09 - Timon of Athens1605-06 - King Lear1605-06 - Macbeth1606-07 - Antony and Cleopatra1607-09 - Coriolanus1608-09 - Pericles1609-1O - Cymbeline161O-1I - The Winter's Tale161I - The Tempest1612-13 - Henry VIII1613 - The Two Noble Kinsmen

Globe Playhouse, London

Shakespeare

• Wrote 37 plays between 1588 and 1613– About 1.5 per year

• Directed and starred in the plays

• Wrote 154 sonnets

New Words

• Solidified the English language – Dante did the same for Italian– Luther and Goethe did the same for German

• Used nouns as verbs• Over 2000 new words

– critical, aggravate, assassination– monumental, castigate, countless– Obscene, forefathers, frugal, hurry– Majestic, homicide, summit, reliance

• Coined Phrases

"Shakespeare had a huge vocabulary. In the collected editions of his works--the first folio that was published seven years after his death--there are 27,000 different, individual words. In the King James translation of the Bible, which was published twelve years earlier, there are 7,000 words."

--Excerpt from Professor Peter Saccio's course "Shakespeare: The Word and The Action"

“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ‘It’s Greek to me,’ you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is farther to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;…

…if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head), you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or blinking idiot, then – by Jove! it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.”

– Bernard Levin in The History of English by McCrum, et al

Hamlet

• Reality versus Perception– Ghost– Claudius and

mousetrap– His own self

(philosophy major)

Hamlet

• Motivations for action– Obedience– Revenge– Duty

• What is a proper motivation?– Compare Hamlet

versus Nephi

Hamlet

• Death

“Death” in Hamlet

"'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet, to give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost his; ...'tis unmanly grief: it shows a will most incorrect to heaven; a heart unfortified, a mind impatient an understanding simple and unschooled: for what we know must be and is common as any the most vulgar thing to sense...Fie! 'Tis a fault to heaven, a fault against the dead, a fault to nature..."

– Claudius in Hamlet

“Death” in Hamlet"To be; or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis

nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them? To die, to sleep, no more; and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die; to sleep; to sleep! Perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub; for in that sleep of death what dreams may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause...

– Hamlet

Hamlet

• Death• Nature of mankind

“Nature of Mankind” in

Hamlet

"What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a god! The beauty of the world! The paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

– Hamlet

“Nature of Mankind” in Hamlet

"Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty."

– Hamlet

“Nature of mankind”

in Hamlet"What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be

but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more... Now, whether it be beastial oblivion, or some craven scruple of thinking too precisely on the event, a thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward, I do not know. Why yet I live to say, 'This thing's to do;' sith [since] I have cause, and will, and strength, and means, to do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me... How stand I then, that have a father killed, a mother stained, excitements of my reason and my blood, and let all sleep while to my shame I see the imminent death of twenty thousand men that for a fantasy and trick of fame go to their graves like beds... O from this time forth my thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth."

– Hamlet

Hamlet

• Death• Nature of mankind• Personal

responsibility

"Personal Responsibility"in Hamlet

"Give me your pardon, sir: I have done you wrong; But pardon't as you are a gentleman... Let my disclaiming from a purposed evil free me so far in your most generous thoughts, that I have shot mine arrow o'er the house, and hurt my brother."

– Hamlet

Character Development in

Hamlet"How does Shakespeare create the roundness of

character? By throwing light on new aspects of the person in successive relations. Polonius as a courtier is obsequious, as a royal adviser overconfident, as a father to his daughter callously blind, as a father to his son, endearingly wise. The grand result of this method, this multi-dimensional mapping, is that since Montaigne and Shakespeare, plays, novels, and biographies have filled the western mind with a galaxy of characters whom we know better than ourselves and our neighbors.“

– Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence,

Perennial, 2000, p141.

Personal Responsibility"Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any

unproportioned thought his act. Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel; but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade. Beware of entrance to a quarrel: but, being in, bear 't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice: Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy; rich, not gaudy: for the apparel oft proclaims the man;... neither a borrower or a lender be: for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.“

– Polonius in Hamlet

Ophelia Syndrome

Ophelia Syndrome

• The situation:– Ophelia was listening to advice from three

conflicting sources:• Hamlet (her sweetheart)• Laertes (her brother)• Polonius (her father)

• The problem:– The advice she received was conflicting

• She decided to trust her father

Ophelia SyndromePolonius] asked if she

[Ophelia] believed Hamlet's affections were genuine, to which Ophelia respondd, “I do not know my Lord, what should I think.” Polonius answered, “I'll teach you. Think yourself a baby.”

Ophelia Syndrome

• What happens?– Ophelia obeys her father and

betrays Hamlet– Hamlet breaks off their

relationship– Hamlet mistakenly kills her

father– Hamlet leaves for England– Ophelia goes crazy and commits

suicide

Ophelia Syndrome

The Ophelia Syndrome manifests itself in the university. The Ophelia writes copious notes in every class and memorizes them for examinations...The Ophelia wants to be a parrot, because it feels safe.... But eventually every discipline enters into the unknown, the uncertain, the theoretical, the hypothetical, where teachers can no longer tell students with certainty what they should think...."

– Thomas G. Plummer (BYU Professor in German/Slavic Languages)

Ophelia Syndrome

• Teachers also become accustomed to their role as Polonius– They focus on telling students how to think in

a particular situation– They give exam questions and other

assignments that require memorized answers or are solutions to problems that have exact solutions

Ophelia SyndromeSteps for overcoming the syndrome (for students):1. Seek out and learn from great teachers,

regardless of what they teach.2. Dare to know and trust yourself.3. Learn to live with uncertainty.4. Practice dialectical [looking for alternates]

thinking.5. Foster idle thinking.6. Plan to step out of bounds [in thinking patterns].

– Thomas Plummer (BYU)

In other words, be creative!!

“No one can make you feel inferior without your

consent.”

– Eleanor Roosevelt (quoted in Charles “Chic” Thompson, What a Great Idea, 1992, 29)

Othello

• Honorable Man Destroyed by a Character Flaw and by an evil subordinate

• Ultimate Tragedy

Other works by Shakespeare

• Macbeth• Romeo and Juliet• Henry V• Julius Caesar• Taming of the

Shrew• Sonnets

Romeo.[To Juliet.] If I profane with my unworthiest handThis holy shrine, the gentle fine is this,--My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

Juliet.Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,Which mannerly devotion shows in this;For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

Romeo.Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

Juliet.Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer. …

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo.O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

Juliet.Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.

Romeo.Then move not while my prayer's effect I take.Thus from my lips, by thine my sin is purg'd.[Kissing her.]

Juliet.Then have my lips the sin that they have took.

Romeo.Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urg'd!Give me my sin again.

Juliet.You kiss by the book.

Sonnet 29When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyesI, all alone, beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least.Yet in these thoughts, myself almost despising,Haply I think on thee, and then my stateLike to the lark at break of day arisingFrom sullen earth sings hymns at Heaven’s gate,

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 18Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 116Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Nor bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark,That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come;Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Shakespeare’s Environment and Motivation

• Earning a Living (Profit)• Love of the Language/Drama• Duty to Friends

King James Version of the Bible

• Helped in defining English language

• Wycliffe version (1378)

• Tyndale version (1526)

• King James version– Translation method

Tyndale's Contributions

Phrases:• The powers that be• My brother's keeper• The salt of the earth• A law unto themselves

Words invented:• Jehovah• Passover• Atonement• Scapegoat

[extracted] The edition of the English New Testament published at Worms in 1526 [by Tyndale] must be regarded as a landmark in the history of the English Bible. Tyndale was influenced by the Luther version of the Bible in both concept and phrasing. Tyndale had to invent many religious words and phrases because no previous religious discussions and writings had been in English but, rather, were in Latin.

– McGrath, In the Beginning, 2002, 73-77

[extracted] Perhaps the most bizarre scheme devised by the English [Catholic] Church to stifle the new Tyndale translation involved a Bishop who met a book merchant in Antwerp and mentioned how anxious he (the Bishop) was to burn as many of Tyndale's New Testaments as possible. The merchant informed the Bishop that, for a price, he would be able to get hold of as many copies as the Bishop liked. The merchant then informed Tyndale of the deal. Tyndale printed an extra run of books which he sold to the merchant and the merchant sold to the Bishop. The deal worked. The Bishop burned the books and Tyndale got the profits so that he could print more books.

– From McGrath, In the Beginning, Anchor, 2002, 84-86.

Hebrew idioms were used in the King James Version

(and just translated literally)

• "to lick the dust" (Psalm 72:9)• "to fall flat on his face" (Numbers 22:31)• "to pour out one's heart" (Psalm 62:8)• "the land of the living" (Job 28:13)• "under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:3)• "sour grapes" (Ezekiel 18:2)• "from time to time" (Ezekiel 4:10)• "pride goes before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18)• "the skin of my teeth" (Job 19:20)• "to stand in awe" (Psalm 4:4)• "to put words in his mouth" (Exodus 4:15)• "to go from strength to strength" (Psalm 84:7)• "like a lamb to the slaughter" (Isaiah 53:7)

Some Variations on Hebrew Idioms

• "rise and shine" (from Isaiah 60:1) • "to see the writing on the wall" (from Daniel

5:5)• "a fly in the ointment" (from Ecclesiastes

10:1)

Some Greek Influences

• "the salt of the earth" (Matthew 5:13)• "a thorn in the flesh" (2 Corinthians 12:7)• "the powers that be" (Romans 13:1)• "and it came to pass" (Mark 1:9 and over 400

others)• "the scales fell from his eyes" (based on Acts

9:18)

Thank You

“Death” in Hamlet

"O that this too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew! Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world! Fie on 't! Ah, fie!"

– Hamlet

Sonnet 12When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves, Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves, Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

The conflict

• Should you think according to how you are taught to think?

Or• Should you think creative

thoughts that are different from what you have been taught?

The conflict in education

• The education system emphasizes learning by authority

• The education system emphasizes logics (linear thinking)

• The education system has killed imagination