Difference between Jacobean Drama and Elizabethan Drama

Difference between Jacobean Drama and Elizabethan Drama

Elizabethan era refers to the era of Queen Elizabeth which was from 1562-1642. The dramas and the dramatic works that were created and performed during this era are known as Elizabethan drama. The Elizabethan era compares several renowned and well known dramatic works by renowned dramatists. The major and significant playwrights of the period were Christopher Marlow (1564-1593), Shakespeare (1564-1616), Peele (1558-1597), Lyly (1554-1606) and Greene (1560-1592). It is entirely unquestionable issue to regard Shakespeare as the greatest dramatist of not just the Elizabethan era but of all the times throughout. But before going to Shakespeare several others features and aspects of the age are to be taken into consideration along with many other significant and contemporary playwrights of the period.

Beginning and the features: In the beginning of the Elizabeth age the drama was in struggling into its maturity unlike the early period in which the drama was scholarly and aristocratic in authority. The dramas of the Elizabethan era were largely dependent upon the remarkable imagination of the dramatists and their great skill of great writing. Thus the dramas of the Elizabethan era had emphasis entirely not just upon the dramas that were appreciated by the public but also were socially acceptable through their language and content. As such the language of the dramatists was very refined and standard backed up by sensation.

        Dramatic Progress:  With the shift of drama from religious to a secular function in society playwrights and poets were among the leading artists of the age. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the popularity and progress of drama kept on increasing throughout the time. Thus the dramatic works of various renowned playwrights viz. William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlow, Robert Greene, John Lyly and Thomas Lodge etc gained very profound fame.

        Comedy of Manner: One of the prominent features of the Elizabeth feature of the Elizabethan drama was ‘Comedy of Manner’. In this the social manners of the contemporary society were highlighted by the playwrights. The characters of the dramas were portrayed as the true representatives of the entire age. The playwrights in this age were concerned with highlighting the follies and vices of the sophisticated society in a very amusing manner; although their description acquired a bit of exaggeration but yet they were successful in conveying their idea thus attracting huge number of crowd audience to the theatre. Ex William Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It, Merchant of Venice etc.

        Dramatic Works: Amongst the renowned dramatic works was Christopher Marlow’s ‘Turbulaine the Great’ (1857), Jew of Malta (1589), and Dr Fantus, Thomas Keate’s ‘The Spanish Tragedy, proving a roaring success became ‘exemplar of the Elizabethan Revenge’ tradition. The incomparable works of Shakespeare including Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello etc, along with George Peele’s ‘The Chronicles of Edward I (1590), Marlow’s ‘Edward II’, ‘The Massacre of Paris’ etc.

     JACOBEAN ERA had its beginning marked by the Elizabethan dramas falling into neglect in around 16^th century. The famous dramatists of the Elizabethan era were taken over by that of Jacobean era. The famous and renowned dramatists of the era were Ben Johnson, John Marsh (1575-1634), Thomas Middleton (1570-162- ), George Champman (1539-1634), Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625).

        Features: The Jacobean dramatists undertook to more realistic way of writing. They enormously enhanced the sensational level of writing within their dramatic work. Consequently the dramatic works of the Jacobean age gained the description and sequences of murder, blood, loot and many such criminal sequences became a casual part of the Jacobean dramatic writings. The Shakespeare contemporaries like Beaumont and Fletcher were amongst the prominent ones to do this in their plays. The standard and the classicism of dramas established in the Elizabethan era started getting a downfall as the primary focus of the dramatists shifted towards producing evil and licentious scheme for their own sake making the character and situation immortal to the extent that the stage became frivolous, bad and improper representation of the dramatic actions, thus making drama of cheap nature and quality.

        Divisions: Unlike the Elizabethan age, the Jacobean era had dramas divided into two classes; one were those dramatists who were of the Elizabethan era and the others were the dramatists of the Jacobean era. They were divided as:

1.    The dramatists of the Old School, comprising of Decker Heywood, Webster, Fletcher, Beaumont, Fletcher.

2.   The Satiric group consisting of Chapman, Johnson, Marston, Middleton and Tourneur.

These groups of satiric play especially Ben Johnson were fond of mocking the old school dramatists. He had lack of sympathy in portrayal of both life and character.

        Comedy of Humor: Unlike the Elizabethan age the Jacobean age having an entirely identical satirical group had also the comedy of humour. The comedy of humour mainly deals with the oddities of the characters i.e. the odd features and characteristics of the character. It represented and threw a whimsical and shadow over the life of the character. Also the aim of the playwrights is to have in the character, a dominance of humor in their personality. Some prominent examples of Comedy of Humor are Ben Johnson’s ‘Every Man In His Humor’ (1598), ‘The Alchemist’, ‘Every Man Out of His Humor’ (1599).

     Dramatic Works: The great dramatic works of the Jacobean era were Thomas Dekker’s ‘The Shoemaker’s Holiday, Thomas Heywood’s ‘A Woman Killed with Kindness’, John Webster is famous for his two renowned plays ‘The White Devil’ and ‘The Duchess of the Malfi’. Among the other plays the Philaster and the ‘Maid’s Tragedy’ were amongst the prominent ones.

Thus it can be fairly concluded that the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramas hold a considerate differences and distinctions amongst themselves.

ARISTOTLE’S CONCEPT OF COMPLEX PLOT

Aristotle’s concept of plot is entirely based and dependent upon his concept of tragedy. The reason being, his concept of plot is a constituent of his concept over tragedy of which Plot is also one of the five constituent. Thus according to Aristotle tragedy means “Imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude, in a language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the separate kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action not of narrative; through pity and fear affecting the proper catharsis of these emotions.” This concept of tragedy states its six constituents viz. plot, character, thought, diction, melody and spectacle.

        So the term plot, as a constituent of the tragedy refers to a component that determines the meaning of the play. According to Aristotle plot means “the arrangements of the incidents.” i.e. the ways and sequences are presented in the story. Aristotle divided the plots into two categories viz. ‘Simple Plot’ and ‘Complex Plot’. Of this, the simple plot he stated as an action which is continuous and one, is called Simple Plot. Complex Plot on the other hand was given quiet special treatment by Aristotle. According to him the complex plot consists of either ‘Peripeteia’ or ‘the reversal of intention’ and ‘Anagnorisis’ or ‘recognition’ connected with ‘catastrophe’. In order to properly understand complex plot, both of these constituents are to be given due consideration.

        Peripeteia: According to Aristotle, Peripeteia occurs when a character performs an action and this becomes the cause of giving rise to an effect which is contrary of that effect which he intends to produce. In other words, it is the sudden reversal or inversion of desired effect which were supposed and expected to occur. The English form of Peripeteia is Peripety. Aristotle defines Peripeteia as “A change by which actions veers round in its opposite subject always to our rules of probability or necessity.” Example, In Hamlet it occurs when Hamlet draws the sword out of avenge from Claudius against his father’s murder but hesitates seeing him praying and believing that he would go to heaven if he’s killed now.

        The reversal of the situation or the change of fortune form the hero should occur in the manner which is contrary of what has been expected by the audience which is equally surprising but is still a justifiable consequence or the effect of the preceding cause, responsible for undergoing such effect. According to Aristotle Peripeteia along with discovery is more effective when the reversal that occurs in drama is negative. Yet Peripeteia is not confined to only form of being negative. It can be equally positive as negative or vice-versa. Peripeteia consequently leads to anagnorisis or the discovery of the true facts. Soon after Peripeteia a new discovery or revelation (termed as anagnorisis) takes place.

The termed being a Greek one, in its Greek sense also means recognition, not only of a person but also of what that person represented. For instance if the protagonist who faces the situation of Peripeteia is further, revealed of the anagnorisis or the ultimate truth after the truth that he knew turns out to be contrary. Finally it is a perception that results in an insight with the hero, often revealing his relation with the antagonistic character within Aristotelian tragedy. (In Aristotelian tragedy it was the discovery of one’s own identity or true character of someone else’s identity or true nature by tragic hero). Thus Anagnorisis in Aristotle’s words can be concluded as a change from ignorance to knowledge producing love or hate between the persons destined by the poor or proper fortune. Ex. Oedipus, despite his attempt of changing his fate of killing his father and marrying his mother, does the same in ignorance and later on the truth is revealed to him, which turns out to be entirely unexpected. Thus anagnorisis is caused as a result of Peripeteia.

Conclusively, both these factors or concepts of peripety and anagnorisis being the major components of a complex plot hence declaring it a complex situation which progresses in a very complicated manner and further turns out to be contrary and inverse of as it should have been in actual as of peripeteia. Thus consequently the anagnorisis occurs which reveals the true fact (after the inversion of the situation) which was unknown and in  its stead something else was known; now after the other thing has turned out wrong the actual truth is revealed or disclosed later and thus forming or making the plot very complex. Now at last after the actual situation turns out to be contrary or distinct of previous situation truth has also to be revealed which is done through anagnorisis. Thus consequently making the plot complicated and complex. Thus, this is the concept of the complex plot in respect of Aristotle’s concept of the complex plot.

Derivation and Inflection

DERIVATION

Derivation is the process of formation of a new word from that of some existing words as the base or the root of this newly formed words. The process involved in the formation of the new word is addition of morpheme in the form of an affix (either prefix or suffix or both sometimes).The addition of the word or the affix takes place to the words of one lexical category (part of speech) and changes the words of some distinct and different category. For instance, the suffix ‘ly’, changes or transforms an adjective ‘true’ into an adverb ‘truly’ or ‘able’ as a suffix changes the word ‘presume’ to ‘presumable’; so on and so forth.

            Derivation has some characteristics, discussed under:

Ø Derivation on its occurrence brings about a great change in the meaning compared to the original or the root word.

Ø It often results in the grammatical change or the change of grammatical category of the word.

Ø Derivation is not an obligatory process.

Ø It although results in the idiosyncratic meaning of the transformed word.

Some examples are discussed below:

Ø Kind becomes the root word of Kindness.

Ø Joyful for the word Joy

English Derivative Pattern and their Suffixes:-

Noun to Verb: ‘fy’: glory-glorify

Verb to Noun(agent): ‘er: write- writer

Verb to Noun(abstract): ‘ance’: deliver-deliverance

Noun to Adjective :’al’: creation-creational

Adjective to Noun:- ‘ness’: Slow-Slowness

Verb to Adjective: ‘able’-drink-drinkable

Adjective to Verb: ‘ise’: Modern-modernise

Adjective to Adjective:- ‘ish’- black-blackish

Adjective to Adverb:- ‘ly’- person-personally

            However derivation is not necessary to undertake a change of form but rather the same word can be used for two purposes viz. Telephone as noun and to Telephone where it’s used as a verb. Also derivation resulting in a noun may be called Nominalization, involving the use an affix (Happy-happiness, employ-employee)

INFLECTION

Inflection in general refers to the nuance or the variety of same word. It is the grammatical variant of the same word which results in the change of  the form of a word purposed to express a grammatical function or attribute such as tense, person, gender, case etc by means of adding one or two affixes; or the modification of the same word to express different grammatical categories viz. gender, tense etc. In English inflection is indicated in nouns (girl, girls, girls‘), third person singular present tense ( i, you, we, they buy; he buys), past tense (we walked, we walk), aspect ( i have called, I am calling) and degree:-comparatives (big, bigger, biggest). Also some inflection, changes occur as in, sing, sang, sung or goose, geese. Unlike derivation inflection doesn’t change the lexical or grammatical category of the word. In terms of their position, they occur outside the derivational affixes and affect the information such as number, gender or aspect. Inflective words are highly productive in nature as they result in the formation or generation of the words of the same type and further lead to the creation of the forms that are fully grounded and able to be integrated into discourse.

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Theory of Impersonality

Theory of impersonality refers to the concept of impersonal relationship between a man as a poet and as a general man. According to the renderer of this concept T.S.Eliot, a poet should have two distinct personalities and he as a poet should uphold no any relation with that of his personal self while composing his poetry. That is to say the poet entirely disregards the autobiographical nature of the poetry as was prevalent in the romantic age. Eliot says that while composing poetry a poet shouldn’t have a personal self or being which is backed up by several personal experiences or backgrounds and whilst composing poetry he shouldn’t be even slightly influenced by any of his personal, historical experiences that may lay even a minimal impact over his poetic composition. The personal experiences are not to be associated with the theme of the poetic composition but rather to be kept identical and separate from it. As of this reason he even regards two constituents of composing the poetry; the personal elements, i.e. the feelings and emotions of the poet and the other one being ‘the impersonal element’ which is the ‘tradition’ or the accumulated knowledge, information and wisdom acquired from the past by the poet. These two elements fuse together to form a new thing, which is called poem.

            The emotions and feelings however uphold an inferior or lower place to thought and feelings and according to Eliot poetry instead of being an expression of emotions is rather an escape from the personal emotions. The primary reason being, if the emotion that the poet uses, which is moreover his personal emotion, to write his poetry and if he’s intermingling them with his poetry then he is making his work rather more personal than general. Moreover the personal experiences that he has are resultants of some emotions that he had previously experienced as a distinct man than a poet; these emotions are since his own and so are his words that he uses in expressing those emotions of his. These words however since considers his personal emotions may or may not concern the readers.

A poetic composition by a poet, in general, is done for the masses or the readers to read for masses to read for and not for his own personal sake to attain an emotional balance by giving words to his contained unexpressed emotions. His emotions are, on the other hand, not necessary to be the same as that of the readers and thus the poet stands a very low chance of sympathy or empathy through it, which according to Eliot is highly likely and thus becomes the basis of his rejection of same personality or being working as a poet and himself instead of keeping both the personalities estranged as far as practicable. Also, the composition based on own personal feelings mightn’t yield enough readers to the poetry thus consequently harming and hampering the person’s status as a poet. Thus Eliot propounded this theory to distinguish both the personalities to make poems more artistic than emotional works.   

Ganesh's Life at Fuente Grove

GANESH’S LIFE AT FUENTE GROVE

Ganesh Ramsumair’s life at Fuente Grove starts with the house received by him from his father-in-law Ramlogan in dowry. He has high expectations from the house along with the entire place and it would bring him great things ahead. So does happens with Ganesh that despite of a bad start at the place it was only through this place that Ganesh gains the entire name and fame and yields not only for himself but the entire place, a remarkable reform and positive changes in the following ways.

          Ganesh’s life at Fuente Grove gets a bad and unexpected start. The house he receives in dowry is much smaller than his expectation along with the poor road and water conditions to go on with in that place. Beharry is his only friend there from whom Ganesh takes the books for reading. In order to make income Ganesh tries the same thing of being masseur but presence of many masseurs and his way of treating patients gradually makes him deprived of the patients. Later Ganesh begins more and more reading by ordering free books and purchasing from Beharry. He plans for writing books but couldn’t do it. Nothing seems to be going correct for him but Leela’s leaving him and Beharry’s persuasion makes him write a book named ‘A Hundred Question and Answers on the Hindu Religion’ by Ganesh Ramsumair, B.A. Things at first seem to be going good for him but lack of sale of his books leaves him in despair once again.

          Owing to his current failure Ganesh is advised to be a pundit and is gives respective books by The Great Belcher belonging previously to his uncle. Gradually Ganesh shifts back to his masseur work and begin gaining enormous popularity not just because of curing a boy but also charging no fixed sum. Things grow better when he takes up Ramlogan’s earning opportunity by coaxingly buying his taxis, charging too much money from Fuente Grove’s Ganesh’s customers thus making more profit; also his ‘Question and Answers’ become successful. Owing to his fames both Beharry and even entire Fuente Grove’s condition is improved.

          Another changing course at Fuente Grove takes when a jealous man Narayan’s articles criticising and competing Ganesh starts coming up. Initially Ganesh ignores them but on being pursued by Beharry and The Great Belcher he decides taking up action against him thus in turn opening his way towards politics. He publishes his own newspaper somewhat against Narayan and even opens his own Hindu League against Narayan’s Hindu Association and by proposing his aim of uniting all Hindus along with his reputation as masseur earns him many favours. He gradually forces down Narayan to back off. At last at Fuente Grove Ganesh fights the cleanest election. Thus he leaves his career as a masseur. He wins the election with clear majority. After the election Ganesh becomes Member of Legislative Council and decides leaving Fuente Grove to Port of Spain, giving great and remarkable developments to entire Fuente Grove.

THAT LONG SILENCE AS A FEMININE TEXT

That long silence by Shashi Deshpande is undoubtedly a remarkable example of a feminist novel. Through the novel not just the pauper condition of novel’s female character but rather the true facet most of the Hindu women’s life has been highlighted. It can primarily be noticed by the fact of novelist’s choosing to write as Jaya, not just to evoke a feeling of sympathy and empathy but also to clearly present the hardships that a woman faces.  Many more instances make an integral part of the novel to present the feminist aspect of the novel to regard this as a feminist novel and Jaya’s character too plays a vital role in serving this purpose.

        As the title “That Long Silence” itself suggests, Jaya as a traditional woman has been presented as the embodiment of tolerance and gusty sufferer. She is presented as a woman who always keeps on complying with all the traditional norms and regulations she’s bound to follow and moreover keeps on looking after her family. But despite all these facts, she’s expected more and more without anyone to ponder of what she wishes for. She is torn between the likings and disliking and love and hate where she is least entitled to pursue any free action and rather has to remain submissive to her husband who rather uses her as someone or something of his own benefit. Despite all her efforts she is complained by her husband Mohan who in his fear and disgust of being suspended and facing social humiliation for his fraud respectively of being a changed woman; thus showing the feminist hardships. While at the same time Jaya still remains a love impoverish receiving no love from him; which further displays Jaya’s affinity to a deprived.

        Novelist, as a psychological solution to these feminist hardships shows Jaya’s change of character to an egotistic person who in response to all sufferings chooses to become a novelist, while still being love deprived throughout. The elements of pester, humiliation and disgust takes her past the traditional boundaries. This aspect of Jaya’s character presents her modern feminine awakening. She writes under the pseudonym of Suhasini and is further reproached by her husband for the same. Another aspect of Jaya’s feminine character is shown through her stinted and un-intact psyche after transforming into and egotist. Despite being a strong woman she couldn’t cope up with the change and is in the state of remorse; a time when she’s a weak modern woman, weaker than the traditional woman of the Hindu society. Also her refusal of Kamat’s love and retaining her name as Suhasini (given by Mohan) shows another strong aspect of her feminine character where despite all her emptiness and hollowness she remains loyal and honest to her husband and relation.

        Henceforth it can fairly be concluded through the minute and facet full representation of a woman’s condition not just in particular but in general makes the novel a remarkable example of a feminist novel.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SPENSERIAN STANZA AND OTTAVA RIMA

SPENSERIAN STANZA: 

It is a form of stanza or the collection of verse which was the innovation of  Edmund Spenser. It is a fixed verse form and this form was created by him for his epic poem Faerie Queen. This stanza form consists of nine lines of which eight are composed in Iambic Pentameter and the last and the longest line, the Iambic Hexameter is popularly also known as the Alexandrine. The rhyme scheme of these lines are a-b-a-b-b-c-b-c-c and these lines have a rhyme scheme which are recurring in nature, as,

----------------a

----------------b

----------------a

----------------b

----------------b

----------------c

----------------b

----------------c

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This form gained downfall and short of use in the 17th century but resurged with the Pilgrimage of Byron's Child Harold. Example of spenserian stanza are as under,

And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft,

A trickling streame from high rocke tumbling downe

And ever-drizling raine vpon the loft,

Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne

Of swarming Bees, did cast him in a swowne:

No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,

As still are wont t’annoy the wallèd towne,

Might there be heard; but carelese Quiet lyes,

Wrapt in eternal silence farre from enemyes.

Spenserian stanza is usually co-related with the other form of stanza named Ottava Rima and moreover Ottava Rima is even regarded as the source of inspiration for the creation of the Spenserian Stanza. The obvious reason being, some trifling similarities between both these forms. But moreover these stanza forms are uphold considerate differences amidst them. But before going further the primary need is to understand more about the form Ottava Rima.

OTTAVA RIMA: It is the stanza form of Italian origin which was created by Giovanni Boccaccio. It is composed of eleven syllables of eight lines with a distinctive rhyme scheme of: 

 a-b-a-b-a-b-c-c. This form came to be popular in the mock heroic works whereas it was earlier used for the poems of long heroic themed poems. It consists of eight Iambic lines of which three are alternate and the one is double rhyme.

Comparison: Both these stanza forms have little bit similarities and various differences which not just makes them similar but at the same time identical.

Differences: The considerate difference amidst both these forms is, unlike Spenserian Stanza, Ottava Rima is the imitation of "Sicilian Strambotto" which means each stanza is complete within itself and doesn't require other stanza to complete its meaning. Spenserian and Ottava rima being the stanzas of nine and eight lines respectively, have also the distinguished rhyme scheme as compared to the Spenserian Stanza. Also Spenserian Stanza had its prominent use in English countries, whereas Ottava Rima is in Italy and it was quiet late when its use began by English poets.

Similarities: Both these forms have a recurring pattern which maintains continuity in them. MOreover the poetic pattern of these forms is slow and gradual. More or less, both these forms use Iambic meters in their poetic construction.

Conclusion: Thus the comparative study of both these forms clearly shows their identical significance as the forms of poetry and further clarifies the  distance features and qualities that they individually posses proving their distinctive importance as the form of poetic composition.