I. Students

A. Therese Clementi

B. Margaret Marks

C. Jennifer Livingston

D. Stef Maruszak

E. Mel Ackles

F. Chris Carlson

G. Joy Greenberg

H. Samson Blackwell

II. presentation schedule

III. Norton Renaissance Drama: General introduction [cross reference to SIL]

A. Real estate

1. Building the theatre: Burbage [James the father of Richard]

2. 25K per week attended performances

3. 2-3K in theatre

4. the old globe:

5. http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Journeys/ENGL00/London2/pages/P8100182.html

6. entertainment business[=Hollywood]

7. foreign tourists—Dewitt sketch

8. groundlings and the backsides

9. difference between Sh. and other dramatists

a) concreteness and topicality, non-aristocratic bias—city comedy

10. Everyone knew everyone else; learned from one another

B. Conditions of Production

1. Like TV

2. Banning of theatre; censorship; master of revels—Mr. Tinsley

3. Patronage of royals

4. Henslowe—new play every three weeks; scripts paid for—good place for brilliant but impecunious individuals

5. Many scripts written for specific actors—Ned Alleyn; star performers well known

6. Assumption of recognition of the power of language and bombast and persuasion

7. Humanist language vs. colloquial language—good title; people falling in love with Shakespeare’s verse

C. Major themes

1. Pushy people—the overreacher—sinful presumption—both tragic and comic premise

2. Class, commerce, consumption

a) Poetics of magnificence; conspicuous luxury—SIL—court; prodigality and greed

b) Ethnic rivalries and class structure

c) Impoverished aristocrats and aspiring merchants

d) Struggle as natural—e.g. Tamburlaine on strife

3. Sex, Marriage, Gender

a) Cross-dressed boys, independent females struggling against oppression, shrews, threatening women—Titus, White Devil, Hippolyta

b) Romantic marriage

c) Elizabeth

d) Homosexuality—cross dressing

4. Religion

a) Church as institution; doctrinal shifts; questioning—Catholics, protestants, atheists, Jews, Puritans

D. Performance and print

1. 2-3 K in audience at a time

2. Indoor and Outdoor theatres

3. Jonson’s Folio and Shakespeare’s

IV. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine

A. Introduction to Norton Edition

1. Took London by storm 1587-88

2. Timur Lenk 1336-1405

a) http://www.silk-road.com/artl/timur.shtml

3. Play challenges basic belief systems of Xty and social conventions

a) Like other “overreacher” Marlovian heroes

b) Reflection of world of expanding capitalism and imperialism—geography, adventure, romance, turmoil and war

(1) Cortez and Pisarro

c) Machiavelli—shocked Europe: deceit and intimidation are necessary; ruler must be feared more than loved; cruelty is often necessary; Fortune cant be controlled but often favors the daring risk takers. Individual effort can create a new kingdom.

(1) Transformation of shepherd to king—free enterprise—found in Bible

d) Will to power, confidence, charisma

e) Zenocrate and Theridimas love him in violation of their loyalties and values

f) Zenocrate’s contrary point of view

4. Religion—Tamburlaine, Moses and Machiavellism

a) Tamburlaine as scourge of God represents himself as sanctioned traditional punisher of human sin—[reference to Divine Right--roayalist theory that bad king is God’s punishment]

b) Implicit atheism: Tamburlaine claims Godhood and superiority to gods—his behavior and tactics are like those of God in Bible; cruelty is sane—makes traditional religion uneasy

c) Godlike behavior: siege warfare and the three colors comes from Deuteronomy

5. Reader’s response

a) Tamburlaine’s inwardness: lover and poet—[idea of knight or aristocrat]

b) Thrilled and horrified

B. Shakespeare in Love Chapter 11--33:21 to 35:34 once and then to 35:03

1. Who would you cast as Tamburlaine; who plays Tamburlaine in SIL? Ben Affleck—Ned Alleyn

2. Charisma: beauty and power

3. Power struggle: Shakespeare the author to Pennyman to Ned Alleyn

a) I am Tamburlaine and Faustus and Barrabas the Jew of Malta, and yes, Henry VI

b) Talent vs. money in theatre

c) Ned takes over [A]

(1) Samuel Johnson(1765): "…Mr Dryden mentions a tradition, which might easily reach his time, of a declaration made by Shakespeare, that ‘he was obliged to kill Mercutio in the third act, lest he should have been killed by him.’"

d) Pennyman: I saw Alleyn in Tamburlaine; there's no one like Marlowe

4. View twice at full speed; discuss what happens; then slow down

a) Film vocabulary

(1) http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/courses/Vocabulary.html

(2)

b) 26 shots

C. Theatre of Cruelty—

1. bearbating in the Globe;

a) http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Journeys/ENGL00/London2/pages/P8110196.htm

b) spectacle of suffering in tragedy—Killing children macbeth; tearing eyes out Lear; forcing Claudius to drink poison and then stabbing him; Mental torture--Othello;

2. epic is about military deeds; the vita activa—also contemplativa and amoris

3. virtu—virtue and classical values: Iliad and Odyssey—war culture; contra medieval and Christian

4. might makes right—Machiavelli—Moses and Monotheism

a) http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Publications/moses.html

b)

5. Machiavelli vs. Erasmus—Militarism vs. Pacifism

a) http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/Publications/moses.html

b)

D. Aspects of work; bases of comparison-- http://cla.calpoly.edu/~smarx/courses/Paradigm.html

E.

1. Plot

a) Acts 1-3 is about rise and conquest

b) Acts 4-5 is progression of cruelty once in control—the three colors

2. Character

3. Theme

4. Setting

5. Spectacle

6. Language

F. Weaknesses

1. What’s crude?—the singsong operatic rhythm and the operatic recitative formal qualities of the speeches.

2. Artificiality; unnaturalness—death of Agydas in 3.2; encounter with Bajazeth in 3.3

3. Repetition of vaunts

4. Empty scenes: 4:3

5. Crude sadism

G. Strengths

1. sophisticated structure, character and theme

a) 1.2 The opening with Zenocrate, switching to Theridimas, back to Agydas

b) Dynamics of power and persuasion

c) the use of audience—Zenocrate watches what Tam does with Therid. Tam. Uses Zenocrate to persuade Therid.

d) the method by which Tamburlaine is elevated and then succeeds in persuading Theridimas

(1) he goes from shepherd to god—Moses and David

(2) he challenges gods, Zenocrate’s futile invocation of gods

e) the genuineness of their partnership and vision

f) the relation between bombast and sincerity

g) lust for imperial conquest—Ireland—cf. Henry V Spain

(1) going from remote orient, closer to home

(2) Indians in America or Aztecs

h) Emotional intensity: the progression from 4.4 to 5.1

V. Scene summary

A. Act1.scene1

1. Mycetes’ decline

B. *Act1.scene2

1. Tamburlaine’s rise through capture of Zenocrate and Theridimas

C. *Act2.scene1—physical description—the hero, david and moses

1. Cosroe thinks he’ll control Tamb.

D. Act2.scene2

1. Mycetes’ futile strivings

E. Act2.scene3

1. Tamb joins Cosroe—intrigue and deception

F. Act2.scene4

1. Mycetes meets Tam hiding crown

G. *Act2.scene5—joys of crown—passage; celebration of power desired—vs. 4-5, power exerted

1. Cosroe crowned and turned against

H. Act2.scene6

1. Cosroe surprised

I. *Act2.scene7—thirst of reign speech

1. Tamburlaine crowned

J. Act3.scene1

1. Bajazeth the turk—his vaunts

K. Act3.scene2

1. Agydas’ suicide—Tamb’s psychic power

L. *Act3.scene3—blocking here; hieratic—queens take crowns while kings battle

1. Verbal confrontation of Baj and Tam, Zab and Zen

2. The fight—the victory

3. Saving the Christians and defeating Muslims

M. Act4.scene1

1. Sultan of Egypt hears about the three costumes [costuming cf. 1.2]

N. *Act4.scene2

1. The white: Bajazeth forced down as footstool--physical

O. Act4.scene3

1. Sultan marshalling troops

P. *Act4.scene4

1. The red: Bajazeth in the cage during the dinner party; sadism and sick humor; presenting crowns to his marshalls

Q. *Act5.scene1—The black

1. Climactic drama—longest and cruelest and most exalted

2. virgins as suppliants reproach governor who makes excuse [compare this incident with HV siege of Harfleur]

3. Their begging for pity and his refusal

4. T’s soliloquy

a) most brutal act followed by his most exalted speech—on beauty—conquest of himself and of beauty

b) on virtu

5. Bajazeths’ curse ll. 214 ff.

6. Suicidal thoughts—T’s ecstasy vs. their despair

7. B. expresses love and gets her to leave under false pretense to bring him water and then brains himself

8. She comes back and sees him, goes mad and brains herself—vehicle for actress

9. Zenocrate’s lament against Tamburlaine for killing virgins, discovery of Bajazeth and Zabina, sympathy for them and warning—prayer to Jove and Mahomet

10. Her conflictded loyalties; Arabia her fiancee dies happy in her arms

11. Happy ending; her father the Sultan spared, she is crowned; Tam. Makes truce with all the world