Studies in English Literature Essay Example for Free

Studies in English Literature EssayHenry V, positioned during the diminutive move from the Theatre to the Globe, can serve as a case study for this kind of economic close reading. It tells a story of continual repositioning, straightforward and bad decisions, business errors, and the drillings of a company that was trying to succeed financi ally but was far from assured of success. From 1598 through 1599, the Chamberlains Men dealt with a series of difficulties. One of these difficulties was related to politics the companys choice of Henry V as a topic, assuming that it would be topical and popular, and the subsequent return of the earl of Essex in defeat. only most of the companys problems were internal and economic. 3 The search for a theatrical home took up most of the companys energy, through the Blackfriars financial fiasco, in the bitter battles with Giles Allen over their lease (which resulted in pulling down the Theatre), and through their commissioning of Peter Stre et to build a new theater in Southwark, the Globe. An other(a) major blow was the dismission of William Kempe from the company. Henry V shows the strains of making a series of accommodations to fit financial and internal crises casting changes, location changes, and changes in topical references.These accommodations can be seen in the prologues, in the accommodations to the casting, in the break from 2 Henry IV, and finally, quite possibly, in the Bad Quarto text of 1600. In 1597, James Burbage died, leaving his sons capital invested in the Blackfriars Theater. He had bought the Blackfriars on 4 February 1595/96. 4 His plans to move the company there had been frustrated by the petition of the inhabitants, including the companys own patron, Lord HunsdonWhereas one Burbage hath lately bought certaine roomes in the equivalent precinct neere adjoyning unto the dwelling houses of the right honourable the Lord Chamberlaine and the Lord of Hunsdon, which romes the said Burbage is now alt ering and meaneth very shortly to convert and turne the same into a comon playhouse, which will engender to be a very salient annoyance and trouble ldots both by reason of the great resort and gathering togeather of all manner of drifter and lewde persons that, under cullor of resorting to the playes, will come thither and worke all manner of mischeefe, and allso to the great pestring and filling up of the same precinct, yf it should please God to send any test of sicknesse as heretofore hath been ldots and besydes, that the same playhouse is so neere the Church that the noyse of the drummes and trumpetts will greatly disturbe and hinder both the ministers and parishioners in tyme of devine service and sermons ldots there hath not at any tyme heretofore been used any comon playh ouse within the same precinct, but that now all players being banished ldots from playing within the Cittie by reason of the great inconveniences and ill rule that followeth them, they now thincke to pla nt them selves in liberties. 5 The petitioners object to the increased traffic, the noise, the nature of the audience (vagrant and lewde persons), and to the possibility of the plague.Perhaps most significant is their statement that the players atomic number 18 banished from the city and now thincke to plant them selves in liberties. It has often been assumed that the freedom sought by the playing companies was primarily political and that the companies were marginalized. 6 Steven Rappaport points out, however, that the liberties were economically attractive to those who wished to block city regulation in order to make more money. 7 The liberties were, therefore, enterprise zones, and as such were equally attractive to theatrical companies seeking economic freedom. In short, the inhabitants of Blackfriars successfully blocked the move. The Chamberlains Men were losing their lease at the Theatre and had nowhere to go. Adams, John Cranford.The Globe Playhouse Its Design and Equipme nt. 2nd ed. New York Barnes Noble, 1961. The years all other theatres of its type had to be closed down, refurbished, or replaced. And until its accidental destruction in 1613 the Globe was the principal theatre, macrocosm or private, in all London, intermeshed exclusively by the guide theatrical company, during that companys strongest years. In short the Globe witnessed indeed it helped materially to create the golden years of Elizabethan drama. If for no other reasons this study of the Globe would be justified. But its chief object is to prepare the way for a fuller understanding of Shakespeares plays.The stage for which he wrote differed radically from our advanced(a) stage, and as a consequence his techniques and conventions were unlike those of Broadway and Hollywood. As Mr. Tyrone Guthrie observed (in The Listener of April 10, 1958) Shakespeare will always have to be butchered so long as his work has to be produced in a sort of theatre for which the plays were not writt en, to which they are positively ill-adapted a sort of theatre designed for effects which are contrasted to Shakespeares purposes, and inimical to the kind of effects he sought. If we are to comprehend his genius as not only the leading dramatist but also the leading theatre craftsman of his age, we must bring more to a study of his plays than the theatrical assumptions and techniques of today.It is important to the study of Shakespeare and his fellow dramatists to understand the design of an Elizabethan public stage and the extent to which that stage was equipped with fixed or alterable scenery, with traps, machines, and properties all helping to enlarge and sustain the scope and force of dramatic illusion. It is essential, for example, to dwell where the audience was placed in relation to any given unit of the multiple stage, and whether the inner stages (where such scenes as the murder of Desdemona or the blinding of Gloucester took place) were aloof and dimly lighted or wer e in full view and well lighted. It revives some of the excitement Shakespearean.