第4章 威廉·莎士比亚
1How is Shakespeare’s literary career usually divided and what are the main achievements of each period?
Key: 1. Shakespeare’s literary career is usually divided into three periods.
In the first period (1590-1600), he created mainly history plays and comedies. Altogether 22 plays were written in this period, of which we should know at least five histories: Richard III (1592), Henry IV, Part I and Part II (1597), Henry V (1598) and Julius Caesar (1599); four comedies: A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream (1595), Much Ado about Nothing(1598), As You Like It (1599) and The Twelfth Night (1600); one problem play: The Merchant of Venice (1596); and one tragedy: Romeo and Juliet (1594).
The second period (1601-1608) is the one of great tragedies, namely Hamlet (1601), Othello (1604), Macbeth (1605) and King Lear (1605).
In the last period (1609-1612), Shakespeare wrote four dramatic romances, of which The Winter’s Tale (1610) and The Tempest (1612) are better known to the world.
2Cite one or two of Shakespeare’s history plays and make some comments.
Key: Among Shakespeare’s history plays, the most significant ones are Henry IV, Part I and Part II, which present the troubled time of the 15th-century England.
Richard II, vain, politically weak and blind, was unable to keep the rebellious lords under control. Henry Ⅳ then usurped the power, murdered Richard in prison and suppressed the rebellion of the feudal lords. Shakespeare is critical to the kings. He does not evade the negative sides of their personalities. But there is one exception, which is Henry IV’s son, Prince Hal, later King Henry V. He is Shakespeare’s ideal of a perfect monarch, who led England in battles against France and won glory in the Hundred Years War. But in Henry IV, during the process of growing up, Prince Hal is shown as a loose young man, mixed himself with problematic people and spent lots of time in taverns with the fat knight John Falstaff. He even gets involved in a highway robbery of his rogue friends. What is more, he is imprisoned for striking the Lord Chief Justice, and as soon as he is released he goes to the Boar’s Head Tavern to seek the company of Falstaff. But when he succeeds to the throne after Henry IV dies, he immediately becomes a capable and wise king, turning his back to the dying Falstaff. Because of this inconsistency in Prince Hal’s characterisation, critics have been arguing about how to evaluate such sudden changes in behaviour, and whether Prince Hal is a hypocrite. Falstaff is one of the most successful dramatic figures created by Shakespeare. Many show sympathy for the rejected fat knight who dies in misery and poverty. However, Henry V is Shakespeare’s ideal king who embodies the patriotism of the English nation at the time. It is Henry V who defeated the French and brought glory to the country. Therefore, one way of explaining this, offered by critics, is as follows: as he is young, Hal must have been fascinated by the riotous life at first, but all the while he is studying the society, learning about the lowly people’s life, and gaining necessary experiences, which provide him with knowledge he needs later as a king. Also Prince Hal is shown with a talent for politics and very brave in battles. Thus, in Henry IV Shakespeare has depicted the growth of a powerful king who possesses all the qualities required by the throne but who has to go through a process of apprenticeship among the people to become finally fit for his royal duties.
3Give an example of the problem plays by Shakespeare and analyse it as well as you can.
Key: The Merchant of Venice is an example of the problem plays by Shakespeare.
(To analyze this play according to the textbook and some more materials from other sources.)
4Tell the story of Hamlet, and discuss why Hamlet delays in taking revenge.
Key: Hamlet is the prince of Denmark and a student at the University of Wittenberg. At the beginning of the play, Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet, has recently died, and his mother, Queen Gertrude, has married the new king, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. Hamlet is melancholy, bitter, cynical and full of hatred for his uncle and disgust at his mother for marrying him. When the ghost of Hamlet’s father appears and claims to have been murdered by Claudius, Hamlet becomes obsessed with avenging his father’s death. Mistakenly, he kills Polonius, father of Ophelia. Ophelia, lover of Hamlet, goes mad because of her father’s death and then is drowned in a stream. This leads to Ophelia’s brother — Laertes’ hatred for Hamlet. In the duel between Laertes and Hamlet, Laertes wounds Hamlet but is himself struck with the same poisoned weapon, which is made by Claudius. Before his death, Hamlet stabs Claudius while the queen has drunk a poisoned cup of wine intended for Hamlet.
Many critics have thought about the reasons for Hamlet’s delay in taking revenge and they got uncertain answers. Goethe raised the opinion that Hamlet’s delay shows that he is a humanist and a thinker, and that he is slow in action because he thinks profoundly and is very cautious, trying to do the right thing, which explains why he organises players to stage a show in the palace of exactly what the ghost says his brother has done to him, to see how Claudius reacts to it. Goethe’s interpretation has been accepted by many.
In the 20th century, with the new literary theories there appears a Freudian interpretation that sees in Hamlet’s delay an Oedipus complex. Namely, because Hamlet is sad and angry at his mother’s marriage to Claudius so soon, this critic comes to the conclusion that Hamlet harbours an Oedipal love for his mother and a hatred for his own father. So, unconsciously he also wants the death of his father and does not want to kill Claudius who has done something in his behalf.
5Do you think that King Lear is a powerful tragedy and why do you think so?
Key: Yes, I think that King Lear is a powerful tragedy. Because that this play is thematically more universal than Hamlet. This tragedy depicts an aged king who believes in superficial words and is vain enough to judge rashly that the daughter who fails to say flatteries things does not love him. But the price he pays for his mistake is too heavy: he hands the country into the hands of villains, makes a mess of the state affairs which finally brings about war, and in the end he sacrifices his dear daughter’s life and his own. Family relationship between parents and children and old age problem are universal themes. But here they are demonstrated in royal family and thus the mistakes made in one’s old age bring frightening tragic outcomes. Because of the theme’s relevance to every one of us, the katharsis, that is the fear and awe caused by King Lear, is greater than Hamlet. This is perhaps the reason for this tragedy’s long-time popularity everywhere and its powerfulness.
6Choose to analyse one romance by Shakespeare.
Key: The Winter’s Tale is one romance by Shakespeare. It is like a fairy tale telling how an over-suspicious and jealous husband wrongs his innocent wife and his own best friend as lovers, tries to murder his friend, who luckily escapes, and orders to put his queen in prison and leave her newly-born daughter on a desolate shore to die. Seeing his mother’s suffering, the young prince grieves to death and the queen also dies in prison soon. He finally realises his own rash mistakes and is in constant grief. However, the baby girl is saved and brought up by a shepherd. Sixteen years later she meets the son of the wronged friend, and they fall in love. In fact, his wife is not dead. She is hidden by the wife of a faithful lord. So, the play closes at the point when the king is brought before a statue that looks exactly like his dead wife though aged and the statue walks down to acknowledge him. Then all becomes well, the royal family reunites and the young couple gets married.
Like King Lear, this play shows how the wrong behavior of the royal father can bring great disaster to his family. But instead of causing all the good people to suffer and die, here no villains threaten the crown and the jealous king has faithful and kind lords in his court to protect the wronged queen. So the tragedy changes its course half way and all of them live happily ever after.
Quiz
I. Fill in the blanks: (50%)
1_____ broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and established _____.
Key: Henry Ⅷ
the Church of England (the Anglican Church)
2It was _____ and _____ who introduced Italian sonnets into England.
Key: Thomas Wyatt
Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) _____
3Thomas More’s famous line in Utopia that exposes the calamities of the Enclosure Movement is _____ .
Key: sheep devouring men
4Faerie Queene was planned for 12 books, each standing for one moral principle, but only _____ books were finished centering on the following six virtues: _____、_____、_____、_____、_____ and _____.
Key: six, Chastity
Temperance
Truth
Justice
Friendship
Courtesy
5Philip Sidney’s essay on poetry is called _____ ; John Lyly’s prose romance has a main character _____, whose name is afterward responsible for an expression in the dictionary to represent a style of speech; Thomas Lodge is mainly remembered today for his prose romance _____. Thomas Nashe is believed to have joined Marlowe in writing _____ ; and Robert Greene is connected with Shakespeare for attacking the latter in one of his pamphlets as a(n) _____.
Key: The Defence of Poesy
Euphues, Rosalynde
[The Tragedie of] Dido
Queene of Carthage
upstart
6Christopher Marlowe used _____ to write his plays and two of his important plays are _____ , and _____.
Key: blank verse
any two of the three tragedies: Tamberlaine
the Great
The Jew of Malta
[The Tragical History of] Doctor Faustus
7Francis Bacon’s works are expressions of his thought on _____ , and his prose style is best represented in an essay called _____ .
Key: practical science
“On Study”
8Ben Jonson’s masterpiece is a comedy of humours called _____ , and he was made _____ in 1616.
Key: Volpone
poet laureate
9List any three of Shakespeare’s comedies: _____ ,_____ and _____ .
Key: any three of Shakespeare’s comedies
10The four great tragedies by Shakespeare are _____ 、_____、_____ and _____
Key: Hamlet, King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
11Shakespeare has produced two tetralogies of English history plays, and the most discussed two are _____ , and _____ .
Key: Henry IV Part I
Henry IV Part Ⅱ
12Falstaff was no good companion for _____, who later became _____, a powerful king of England.
Key: Prince Hall
Henry V
13_____ was a Jew and a usurer in _____, and he tried to take revenge on the Christians who despised and ill-treated him.
Key: Shylock
The Merchant of Venice
14Iago is the villain in _____, who set a trap to lead _____ to believe that his wife _____ was unfaithful to him.
Key: Othello
Othello
Desdemona
15_____ is a spirit in the dramatic romance _____ , in which he helped _____, the former duke of _____ to get back the lost power.
Key: Ariel
The Tempest
Prospero
Milan
16Shakespeare wrote _____ sonnets, which can be divided into _____ groups with _____ and sonnets in each group.
Key: 154
two
126
26
17The Shakespearean sonnet rhymes _____, and the last _____ lines are used as a conclusion to sum up the message of the poem.
Key: abab cdcd efef gg
two
II. Mark the following statements as true (T) or false (F): (10%)
1The English Enclosure Movement was a drive to fence up large pieces of land to raise sheep.
Key: T
2The Tudor reign reached its most glorious time under King Henry VIII.
Key: F
3In 1688 the English navy defeated the Spanish Armada on the high seas.
Key: F
4Humanism opposed the Roman Catholic Church and the medieval bondage on people’s minds.
Key: F
5Miracle plays are simple and mostly tell the stories of the Bible.
Key: T
6The university wits were all university graduates and they lived on university campuses.
Key: F
7In Shakespeare’s days all the female roles were performed by boys.
Key: T
8Romeo and Juliet was written in the third period of Shakespeare’s creative career.
Key: F
9The Spenserian stanza contains 8 iambic lines of 5 feet each and one last line of 6 feet.
Key: T
10The Arcadia is a romance in verse by Philip Sidney, which consists of 5 books.
Key: T
III. Explain the following literary terms: (15%)
1the Shakespearean sonnet
Key: the Shakespearian sonnet: a sonnet of 14 iambic pentameter lines divided into a 12-line unit followed by a 2-line conclusion rhyming abab cdcd efef gg
2blank verse
Key: blank verse: unrhymed verse lines of iambic pentameter
3pastoral poem
Key: pastoral poem: a poem of escape into the country pleasures blending the idealisation with a more authentic picture of country life, sometimes with shepherds and shepherdesses as characters
4three unities
Key: three unities: referring to the rules set by Aristotle for tragedy which are observed in Greek tragedies and Neoclassic drama, that is a tragedy must have one single action which takes place within one day and in one place
5allegory
Key: allegory: a figurative narrative or description, conveying a veiled moral meaning, an extended metaphor
Ⅳ.Essay question: (25%)
Choose one essay question from the given two and write an essay of at least 500 words.
1Given a general account of the first flowering of Literature in the English Renaissance Period.
2Write an introduction of Shakespeare, his life and his literary achievements.
Key: 2.We know comparatively little about the life of the greatest English author. We know that Shakespeare was born in 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon, and that he died there in 1616. He almost certainly attended the Grammar school in the town, but of this we cannot be sure. We know he was married there in 1582 to Anne Hath away and that he had three children, a boy and two girls. We lost track of what he was doing from1585 to 1592. There are many speculations and versions of his experiences in these years.
However, in 1592, Shakespeare reappeared in a pamphlet written by the playwright Robert Greene. Obviously, by this time Shakespeare had launched himself as a young playwright in London and had also caught the public attention as a rather promising one. He worked with only one company, The Lord Chamberlain’s Company, later known as The King’s Men. He gave them one or two plays a year and later he became a share-holder of the company. He must have shuttled back and forth between Stratford and London. In 1597 he bought one of the largest houses in Stratford, which shows his financial affairs went well.
Shakespeare wrote altogether 37 plays and 154 sonnets. His literary career is usually divided into three periods. In the first period (1590-1600), he created mainly history plays and comedies. The second period (1601-1608) is the one of great tragedies. In the last period (1609-1612), Shakespeare wrote four dramatic romances
Any summing up of Shakespeare’s achievements will be inadequate. However, the following points may be of some help to readers:
1) Shakespeare represented the trend of history in giving voice to the desires and aspirations of the people. After long years of domestic and foreign wars, both the people and the newly risen bourgeoisie were longing for peace under a strong monarch who would unite the whole country. The whole length of the historical period from Richard II to the defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth by Henry VII, was covered by Shakespeare in his plays. So his plays include the whole transitional period of England from medieval time to modern time.
2) Shakespeare’s humanism: Shakespeare in his plays reflects the spirit of his age. The sudden awakening of national glory was inseparable with the sudden discovery of the glory the man found in himself. This humanist outlook prevails in his comedies as well as in his late tragedies. In his early stage, his plays were permeated with optimistic spirit, no matter whether in comedies or tragedies. He had firm belief in the nobility of human nature and in the power of love. People were innocent and were looking at the world with a wonderful eye as if their eyes were
But as the years went on Shakespeare became more mature and his knowledge of human nature grew in depth. The more he knew about human nature, the more he was depressed at the ugliness and baseness of human nature. This pessimistic outlook appears in his tragedies. However, the human dramatist at last overcame spiritual crisis and recovered his faith in human nature and wrote the beautiful romances which ended his career.
3) Shakespeare’s characterization: Shakespeare was most successful in his characterization. In his plays he described a great number of characters, ranging from kings to clowns, rascals, and grave-diggers; from lunatics to ghosts; from lovers to man-haters. Shakespeare’s characters are “round”, in the sense that they have many aspects or dimensions. In his characters, vice and virtue commingle and that is true of the common sense of humanity.
4) Shakespeare’s originality: Shakespeare drew most of his materials from sources that were known to his audience, but his plays are original because he instilled into the old materials a new spirit that gives new life to his plays. The best example is Hamlet, which bears many resemblance to Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.
5) Shakespeare as a great poet: Shakespeare was not only a great dramatist, but also a great poet. Apart from his sonnets and long poems, his dramas are poetry. They are rich in images, conceit, metaphors and symbols. He was well versed in writing lyrical verse as well as poetry of great passion and agony. His style varies with the different moods he expressed. It can by lyrical, poetical, ecstatic, pathetic, cynical, sarcastic, and ironic.
6) Shakespeare as master of the English language: Shakespeare was the master of English language. It is estimated that he had a command of about 15,000 words. Many of his quotations and phrases have been absorbed into the English language. He was especially successful in handling the different meanings of the same word, or words having the same sound but different meanings.