William Shakespeare. The periods of Shakespeare’s creative activity.Shakespeare’s sonnets.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER (ДЖОФФРИЧОСЕР) (1340 -1400)

Geoffrey Chaucer was the greatest writer of the 14^th cent. He held a number of positions at the English king’s court and several times visited Italy and France on diplomatic missions. In Italy he got acquainted with works of Dante, Petrarch and Baccacio. What they wrote was full of new, optimistic ideas and love of life and had a great influence on his future works, the most important of which was the Canterbury Tales. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories in verse told by people of different social standing. It is the story of a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England) in search for wisdom and spiritual experience. The pilgrims, who come from all layers of society, tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury.

If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. The pilgrims competed, who’s story is the best, but we don’t know who won.

 He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.

Chaucer contributed to the formation of the English literature lang. his works were written in the London dialect. He showed life as it was; as a great artist and humanist he gave an equally masterly description of Good and Evil. The great writer believed in Man and was full of hope for the future.

3) Literature of the Renaissance. (The end of the 15^th- the beginning of the 17 th). Thomas More. Christopher Marlowe. Thomas Wyatt. Philip Sidney. Edmund Spencer. Howard Surrey.

In the 15^th – 16^th cent-s capitalist relations began to develop in Europe. The former townspeople became the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie fought against feudalism because it held back the development of capitalism. The decay of feudalism and the development of capitalism relations was followed by great rise in the cultural life of Europe. The epoch was characterized by a thirst for knowledge and the discoveries, by a powerful development of individuality. Universities stopped being citadels of religious learning and turned into centers of humanist studies. There was a revival interest in the ancient culture of Greece and Rome (‘renaissance’ is the French for ‘re-birth’). The study of the works of ancient philosophers, writers and artists helped the people to widen their outlook, to know the world and man’s nature.

The progressive ideology of the R was humanism. Human life, the happiness of people and belief in man’s abilities became the main subjects in fine arts and literature. The works of humanists proclaims equality of people regadless of their social origin, race and religion. Humanism did away with the dark scholastic teaching of the middle ages. The development of the new social order presented great possibilities for man’s creative powers/ that’s why the humanist’s outlook was marked with bright optimism, with belief in man’s great abilities and his high mission. It was opposed to medieval ideology and especially that of the Catholic Church. People with the progressive outlook contributed to the development of the world’s art, culture and science. The R produced such great men as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Cervantes, and Shakespeare.

In the 16^th cent capitalism began to develop in England as well as in other European countries. Wool production became the leading manufacture in England. Landowners drove thousands of peasants off their lands. There was no work for peasants and many of them began homeless beggars. Lust for riches was typical of them to become the bourgeoisie. The most progressive people of the country could not help seeing the growing power of money and the injustice it caused. English humanists dreamed of social changes that would do away with the vices of society and establish equality among people. English humanism was directed against the ignorance and oppression of the feudal lords, against the greed and self-interest of the bourgeoisie.

These ideas were best expressed by the 1^st English humanist Thomas More (1478 – 1535) in his book ‘Utopia’/ More’s Utopia marked the 1^st period of English humanist literature. The 2^nd period which lasted from the middle of the 16^th cent up to the beginning of the 17^th cent saw the flourishing of the English drama. The theatre became a favorite amusement of people, especially in towns. At the end of the cent there were about 10 theatres in London. The theatre performed the plays written by the English playwrights of the period were John Lyly, Robert Green and others. The most outstanding dramatist of the time and of all times was William Shakespeare. 

William Shakespeare. The periods of Shakespeare’s creative activity.Shakespeare’s sonnets.

William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616).

William was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's dramatist. He is an author of 2 poems, 37 plays, 154 sonnets.His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. He lived there until he was 21. By that time he was married and had 3 children. At 21 he left his native town for London where he joined a theatrical company and worked as an actor and playwright.

In the late 1590s a new theatre called the Globe was built and Sh became one of its owners. It was in the globe that most of Sh’s plays were staged at that time. His creative work is usually divided into 3 periods: 1) 1590-1600. The period was marked by the optimism so characteristic of all humanist literature. It is best reflected in his comedies (As you like it, twelfth night, the comedy of errors and others). The comedies describes the adventures of young men and women, their friendship and love, their search for happiness. The comedies are usually based on some misunderstanding that creates comic situations. Sh never moralizes in his comedies. He laughs with people, but not at them. His comedies are filled with humanist love for people and the belief in the nobility and kindness of human nature. The historical chronicles form another group of plays written by Sh in the 1^st period (Richard III, king Henry IV and others). Historical chronicles are plays written on subjects taken from history. Sh’s chronicles cover a period of more than 300 years. The main subject of the chronicles are history and the development of the country.Romeo and Juliet, also written in the 1590s, show a change in the playwright’s outlook, which become more pessimistic. 2) 1601-1608 (Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth). The tragedies reflect the deep contradictions of life, injustice and tyranny existing in society. They show people who perish in the struggle against Evil. The tragedies, like the chronicles, are also based on real events, but there is a considerable difference between the 2 genres. The playwright raised great problems of good and evil in both. But in the chronicles they are mostly linked with political themes. In the tragedies which are cantered round the life of one man, Sh touched on the moral problems of universal significance – honesty, cruelty, love, kindness, vanity. That’s why they are of great interest to every new generation 3) 1609-1612 (The Tempest, the winter’s tale) this period differ from everything Sh wrote before. He still touches upon most important social& moral problems, but now suggests Utopia solutions to them. He introduces romantic & fantastic elements, which have a decisive role in his plays.

SONNETS the sonnet is a poem consisting of 14 lines divided into 2 quartrains and 2 tercets (Italian s) or into 3 q and final couplet (English s). Thousands of sonnet were written and published during 1590s. in those years the poets considered Love to be the only suitable theme for the sonnet. Shwrote a cycle of 154 s. he introduced new contents into the traditional form of 14 lines. His s are real dramas in miniature because they are no less deep in thought ad feeling than his plays are. They are all built on contrast which reflects the struggle of conflicting emotions in the poet’s soul. All his sonnets are full of feeling, of philosophical meditations on life.