1. CW Introduction to Renaissance Drama Sunday, 18 November 2018
Learning Outcomes
To develop knowledge of the history behind medieval drama and the concerns and characteristics of medieval plays

2. Skull breaker!
When you get passed the skull, introduce yourself to the rest of the group
Let us know a big question you have about life in general... Students in the past have asked things like:
Why is it I can remember what I was wearing three years ago on September 4th but now can’t remember a single quote from my set texts?
Can my god and his/her god exist at the same time?
How will I know when I’m really in love?

4. When we think about death, should we really be thinking about life?

5. The two plays....
Hamlet (1601)
The Duchess of Malfi (1623)

6. – the reign of Elizabeth Preceded by Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary, Queen of Scots – the reign of King James Followed by Charles I and Cromwell’s Commonwealth

7. Disease, death and decay
Average life expectancy: 30 years old
Frequent plague and disease, high infant death rate
Human butchery commonplace and suffering made public a key part of justice
‘Memento mori’ – everything must die

8. When we think about death, should we really be thinking about life?

9. End of Medieval certainty?
Feudal world – religion used as a means of control
Focus on the unseen, the spiritual, the after-life
Human beings at the centre of a fixed and stable cosmos
Hierarchical, fixed social order
Disputes settled by personal combat
Removal of Catholicism; monarch the head of the Church
Science disproving long held beliefs and discover of ‘new worlds’
Emergence of humanism – the belief that man was the pinnacle of creation and efforts should be directed towards perfecting the worldly, physical life, rather than the unseen or spiritual
Disputes settled by diplomacy and scheming

10. The Renaissance – 1400s to end of 1600s
Re-birth and interest in the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome.
Questioning of existing beliefs
Revival and review of thought and opinions about the universe.
Leonardo Da Vinci ‘Vetruvian Man’ (1490)

11. The Early-Modern period - 1400s to mid 1700s
An alternative to ‘Renaissance’ as this implies restoring or looking back
‘seeds of a new modern world’
Signs of modernity: complexity, scepticism, doubt
Misgivings about supernatural beliefs; the divine and secular; stability of social order
Growth of early capitalism, foreign markets, exploration, colonialism and exploitation

12. Key words scepticism humanism divine justice mortality uncertainty
introspection
Renaissance
feudal
Early Modern
transitional
secular

13. ‘Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best, but a salvatory of green mummy
‘Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best, but a salvatory of green mummy. What’s this flesh? A little cruded milk, fantastical puff paste; our bodies are weaker than those paper prisons boys use to keep flies in – more contemptible, since ours is to preserve earth worms. Didst thou ever see a lark in a cage? Such is the soul in the body; the world is like her little turf of grass, and the heaven o’er our heads like her looking-glass, only gives as a miserable knowledge of the small compass of our prison.’ (The Duchess of Malfi, 4.2)

14. I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that his goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is man - How noble in reason; how infinite in faculties; 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, 2.2)

15. Starting close reading...
What is the extract about? What key ideas are being expressed? (summarise/ clarify/ condense the ideas)
Consider aspects of language – how does the language help to express the concerns of the speaker? (e.g. Vocabulary, imagery, listing, punctuation, word play, rhythm etc.)
What BIG QUESTIONS are being asked in both of these extracts? Are they similar? Different?
Can you make any links between these extracts and the contextual aspects discussed today?

16. Your turn…
Write your own short speech which asks some metaphysical questions about what it means to be human…

17. ‘as soon as we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.’ (King Lear) What has intrigued you most today? What question would you like answering now?