University_Wits

University Wits P.Das Literature always owes fundamentally to the education system, which itself is the part of the entire social system. Elizabethan drama is no exception to this. The most important curriculum of the Elizabethan education system was Latin and students were asked to bi-lingual translation of the Latin authors. Naturally, English tragedy, at any rate, was not to develop from the miracle play, but from the classical model of Seneca, the most eminent Latin writer of tragedy of the first century AD, and his contemporary writer of comedy, Plautus. From translation, it is only one-step to unlock one’s own creativity. Therefore, the decade of the 1590s, just before Shakespeare started his career, saw a radical transformation in popular drama. A group of some feisty, well- educated men, nearly all of whom were associated with Oxford or Cambridge, chose to write for the public stage, bringing a new form of wit. They are known collectively as the "University Wits," though they did not always work as a group, and indeed wrangled with each other at times. [Their plays have several traits in common: i. They were fond of heroic themes, such as the lives of great figures like Mohammed, Tamburlaine et al. ii. Heroic themes needed heroic treatment: grand speeches, gory elements, and supernatural aspects. iii.The themes were usually tragic in nature, as they earnestly considered comedy a lower form of literature. iv. The most prominent trait of this genre was the general lack of humour.] Lyly: In a series of witty comedies – Compaspe, Endimion --Lyly addressed Elizabeth in delicate adulation, praising by turns the charms of the woman, the chastity of the virgin, and the majesty of the queen.[ To his court comedies may be added the more disinterested mythological pastorals: Galathea, the subject of which is love; Love’s Metamorphosis, a lively satire on women; except The Woman in the Moone, which is in verse , the comedies are written in prose called euphuistic, artificial in structure and language, but refined in manner witty and often graceful beneath their artifice.] Lyly’s plays, with their life and courtly atmosphere, are the first artistic plays, which have come down to us. They paved the way for Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, and even for Midsummer’s Night Dream or As you like it. Peele (1558-97): Peele shows the same taste for fine words in his verse, as does Lyly in his prose. He also flatters Elizabeth in his graceful pastoral The Araygnement of Paris (1581). He used the same ornate manner in his scripture drama The love of David and Fair Bethsabe, with the Tragedy of Absalon, in which he closely followed the Bible record. In his play Edward I he seems to have been one of the first to turn to national history; and he parodied the romantics in The Old Wives’ Tale. As a dramatist, he lacks power, but he is a true poet, although melodious rather than strong. [However, neither to Lyly nor to Peele was due the development of dramatic art, which rapidly revealed its power towards 1586-7 with Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedie, the drama Arden of Feversham by an unknown author, and Marlow’s Tamburlaine, three attempts of great excellence, in very different manners.] Kyd: For the multitudes of playgoers demanded romantic drama and the first playwright to satisfy the demand to the full was Thomas Kyd with his famous Spanish Tragedie of Don Horatio and Bellimperia. Kyd owes much to Seneca. Yet what he borrowed was not the latter’s regularity of structure and conformity to the unities, but his scenes of horror , the ghost of the prologue who narrate the past events, the atrocities, and the soliloquies touched at times with lyricism and grandiloquence. It is a revenge tragedy. No outline can do justice to author’s skill in intertwining passion, pathos, and fear until they reach a climax. Kyd discovered the recipe of melodrama; his success was great and lasting, and produced many followers. Revenge became a favorite subject for dramatists; Hamlet is one of the revenge plays. Probably Kyd himself was the author of a Hamlet (now lost), twelve years older than Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Marlow: about the same time as The Spanish Tragedie, a drama no less violent – though in a very different way –engrossed the multitudes. This was the Tamburlaine of Christopher Marlowe (1564-93). Enchanted by the career of the tartar conqueror Timurlane, who, from a poor shepherd, became the master of Asia, and was probably the goriest butcher known to fame, Marlowe makes him a demi god beyond all paltry rules of ethics. In his next play—Faustus (1588)—Marlowe took for his subject the thirst for knowledge, and the power resulting from it. His Faustus, disgusted with poor results of human science, sells his soul to the devil in order that for twenty-four years he may gratify every desire. Then comes retribution. In a stunning scene Marlowe, the atheist, shaken by his own impudence, describes the intensifying suffering of Faustus as the hour draws near which is to bring him damnation. Marlowe’s later plays The Jew of Malta (1589) and Edward II (1593) also portray men with superhuman thirst and villainy, but unfortunately fail to represent the central control to give them the essential unity and significance. In technique, the stage owes less to Marlowe than to playwrights just mentioned, but it was accelerated by his passion, and ennobled by the influence of his blank verse. Greene: Marlowe’s ‘drumming decasyllabon’ obscured the voice of dramatists—such as Thomas Lodge and Robert Greene – then in favour with the multitude, either muted them or drove them to imitate his boom. Greene imitated or parodied the extravagance of Tamburlaine in his Alphonsus and Orlando Furioso. However, he has neither Marlowe’s strength nor his passion, but he has more elasticity; and he can describe an Arcadia with charm. Whereas Marlowe’s women never seize the mind, Greene’s heroines are the best characters in his plays: the fair Margaret of Fressinfield in Frier Bacon; Ida and Dorothea in James IV – all are vibrant. Dorothea is the prototype of Shakespeare’s Julia, Viola, and Imogen, whose love is great enough for self-sacrifice. Certain scenes in Greene’s romances foreshadow Shakespeare, but only as a first sketch indicate a finished chef-d'oeuvre.* *with this essay, you can answer the following question: Who were the University Wits' Assess the contribution of the University Wits to the development of Elizabethan drama. .…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. For a greater understanding of the English Language and Literature, step in NEW VISTAS, guided by P.Das @9883061489