Sign Up Now
Get instant access to over 1 million+ study documents
OR
Already registered? click here to login
By creating your account, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and student honor code.
Evidently these sorts of scenes were meant to silence the bored, common nut-crackers.
The text is not overtly ideological in its content, although many plays were: "In a period when journalism ran riot and the power of Parliament could not suppress hostile news-books and pamphlets, it was not necessary for royalists to restrict their attacks upon the party in control to allegorical plays and the oblique allusions of the drama. Nevertheless, the drama proved a useful medium for the expression of royalist ideals and for attacks upon the weaknesses of the Puritans as seen through Cavalier eyes" (Wright 86). Plays became more literate and verbal in nature, and were geared to a higher class of audience. Mayne praised his contemporary Ben Jonson for his realism, and the stage became increasingly detailed and realistic, especially after female actors were allowed (Gurr 148). The Puritans did not silence the stage, but they did change it, and "The City Match" was written during a critical juncture between two very different styles and eras of British drama.
It is the play's arch style and its humorous and indulgent attitude towards drunkenness, religious irreverence, and other attitudes anathema to the Puritans mark it as a Cavalier-supporting play. Mayne may have professed to feel guilty writing a piece of "tinsel," but he did not see this as harmful either, as did the Puritans. However, changes in political circumstances as a result of the Commonwealth changed the British stage forever. During the Commonwealth, more and more people began to read plays, and plays like Mayne's
...
Works Cited
Covington, Sarah. "John Foxe and His World." Renaissance Quarterly. 56. 4. (Winter, 2003): 1293-1295. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-4338%28200324%2956%3A4%3C1293%3AJFAHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Jasper Mayne." The Classic Encyclopedia. 6 Oct 2007. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jasper_Mayne
Wright, Louis B. "The Reading of Plays during the Puritan Revolution." The Huntington
Library Bulletin. No.6. 73-108. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1935-0708%28193411%290%3A6%3C73%3ATROPDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-a
Works Cited
Covington, Sarah. "John Foxe and His World." Renaissance Quarterly. 56. 4. (Winter, 2003): 1293-1295. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0034-4338%28200324%2956%3A4%3C1293%3AJFAHW%3E2.0.CO%3B2-N
Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
Jasper Mayne." The Classic Encyclopedia. 6 Oct 2007. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Jasper_Mayne
Wright, Louis B. "The Reading of Plays during the Puritan Revolution." The Huntington
Library Bulletin. No.6. 73-108. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1935-0708%28193411%290%3A6%3C73%3ATROPDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-a
Elizabethan Theater Elizabethan theatre is a general concept embodying the plays written and performed openly in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I from 1558 to 1603. The term can be applied more generally to also incorporate theatre of Elizabeth's immediate successors, James I and Charles I, till the end of public theatres in 1642 on the inception of Civil War. (Elizabethan theatre: Wikipedia) During the end of 16th century
A hut on top of the 'Tiring House' was there for apparatus and machines. Flag above the hut was there to indicate concert day. Musicians' veranda was beneath the hut at the third level and spectators would have to sit on 2nd level. (the Elizabethan Theatre: Introduction to Theatre Online Course) The performance sites are also original. First managed in suitable public places like inn courtyards, in the fashion of
Theatre was not only popular for itself, then, but also for the opportunities it afforded the audience for social interaction and establishing hierarchy and dominance in a world where such social, economic, and political identities were in a state of massive flux. From base to cultured, rich to poor, art to ostentation, it is the various contradictions inherent to Elizabethan theatre that made it such a popular form of entertainment
Elizabethan Theater Theater in the Elizabethan Age The Elizabethan period in England was dominated by intrigue at court (which was a constant) and the willpower of Elizabeth herself, but the various people formed a strata that looked more similar to today than most would guess. Throughout recent history, going back a thousand years or so, society is simplistically divided into three groups: wealthy, merchants/artisans, poor. These three can be further delineated, but
In the second transition the Hamlet could have murdered Claudius while he was pleading guilty in front of God. Had Hamlet resorted to revenge at this stage then Claudius would have reached heaven since he had admitted while the father of Hamlet was in purgatory since he did not find the scope to admit. This led Hamlet to arrive at the conclusion of not killing Claudius at this moment
He exemplifies the expansion of the middle class and commercialism during the era. The book is a kind of inventive biography -- little is known for certain of Shakespeare's life but Greenblatt uses the skeleton of Shakespeare's plays to fill in details of common concerns of many figures of the period. Long, William J. "The Elizabethan Age: 1550 -- 1620." From Outlines of English and American Literature. April 4, 2009. http://www.djmcadam.com/elizabethan-age.html This