Lecture Notes, Tuesday, May 27: Shakespeare Background and Contexts

27 May 2008
English 3I06 / The Age of Elizabeth I
Lecture Notes

Shakespeare, All’s Well that Ends Well

Background on Shakespeare
All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts

Background on Shakespeare
Biographical details:
* Years: 1564-1616
* Born to a glovemaker, John Shakespeare, and Mary (Arden) in Stratford, England
* Grammar school education, classical education, Latin texts
* Married at 18 to Anne Hathaway (who was 26 and pregnant with their first daughter, Susanna
* Twins Hamnet and Judith followed (Hamnet d. 1596, age 11)
* 1585-1592 “lost years”
* Moved to London early 1590s (?), where he probably acted with the Queen’s Men, a theatre troup who worked and toured the provinces (plays included Famous Victories of Henry V and King Leir)
* Definitely there in 1592, when someone, probably fellow playwright Robert Greene, wrote a pamphlet that included an attack on Shakespeare:


“for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tyger’s hart wrapped in a Player’s hyde, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and beeing an absolute Iohannes fac totum [Jack-of-all-trades, Master of none], is in his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a countrey. O that I might entreate your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: & let these Apes imitate your past excellence, and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions.” ~Groats Worth of Witte, 1592


* 1590s made the transition to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (founded 1594), as part-owner, actor, and playwright—this troup became The King’s Men when James I took the throne (1603)
* 1613 retires to Stratford
* dies 1616, famously leaving his wife the “second-best bed”

A Few Important Contexts:
* the development of English drama – touring companies through to the establishment of the London theatre with “The Theatre” in Shoreditch, 1576, dismantled 28 December 1598 to build the Globe
* the company system of playwriting
* the status of the actor
* the “all-male” stage
* The Protestant Reformation
* Elizabeth (reg. 1558-1603) and James I (1603-1625)
* Elizabeth inspired some of Shakespeare’s thoughts on beauty. From Twelfth Night 1.5:

'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and whiteNature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on

* Some critics argue James I is reflected in the Duke of Measure for Measure, and was the inspiration for Macbeth (the Scottish play)

Shakespeare Now
* Stephen Greenblatt: “How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?”
* One answer: 1623 folio, collected by John Heminge and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men/ King’s Men*
* Images of Shakespeare from the past: Chandos portrait*, Sanders portrait (???)*
* Shakespearean pop*

Shakespeare in Reverse
* Charles Dickens (letter to William Sandys, June 13, 1847):

“The life of Shakespeare is a fine mystery, and I tremble every day lest something should turn up!”

* Alexander Pope (1725):

“If ever any Author deserved the name of an Original, it was Shakespeare. Homer himself drew not his art so immediately from the fountains of Nature…The Poetry of Shakespeare was Inspiration indeed: he is not so much an Imitator as an Instrument of Nature; and ‘tis not so just to say that he speaks from her as that she speaks thro’ him.”

* John Oldmixon, on the habit of revising Shakespeare: an epilogue he wrote for the end of a performance of Measure for Measure (1700):

The Epilogue
Spoken by Shakespeare’s Ghost
Enough! Your Cruelty Alive I knew,
And must I Dead be Persecuted too?
Injur’d so much of late upon the Stage,
My Ghost can beear no more, but comes to Rage.
My Plays by Scriblers mangl’d I have Seen;
By Lifeless Actors Murder’d on the Scene.

* Charles Gildon, on the failure of Shakespeare to follow the unities (time, place, action) (1694):
[Gildon’s Question:]
Shall we therefore still admire Shakespeare, with these Learned and Ingenious Gentlemen…because he has not come close to the Rules Aristotle drew from the Practice of the Greek Poets…?

[His answer:]
The Vice of the Age it was that perverted many of his Characters in his other Plays. Nor cou’d it be avoided if he would have his Audience sit the Play out, and receivbe that Profit that is the chief end of all Poets.

* Thomas Rymer, from A Short View of Tragedy (1693), on the importance of Shakespeare’s language:

Many, peradventure, of the Tragical Scenes in Shakespeare cry’d up for the Action, might do yet better without words. Words are a sort of heavy baggage, that were better out of the way at the push of Action; especially in his bombast Circumstance, where the Words and Action are seldom akin, generally are inconsistent, at cross purposes, embarrass or destroy each other. Yet to those who take not the words distinctly there may be something in the buz [sic.] and sound that, like a drone to a Bagpipe, may serve to set off the Action.

* John Dryden, An Essay of Dramatick Poesie (1668):

To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.


All’s Well: Beginning and Contexts
* Helena’s skill (1.1.18-24)
* Helena’s problem (1.1.84-103)
* Helena’s wit (1.1.111-171)
* The King’s illness (1.1.35)
* Source: Decameron

* Painter’s summary (Palace of Pleasures, 1575):
Giletta a phisician's doughter of Narbon, healed the Frenche Kyng of a fistula, for reward whereof she demaunded Beltramo Counte of Rossiglione to husbande. The Counte beying maried againste his will, for despite fled to Florence and loved an other. Giletta his wife, by pollicie founde meanes to lye with her husbande, in place of his lover, and was begotten with child of two sonnes: which knowen to her husbande, he received her againe, and afterwardes he lived in great honour and felicite.

* Boccaccio, Decameron (Florio’s 1620 translation)
It was noysed abroad by common report, that the King of France was in a very dangerous condition, by reason of a strange swelling on his stomacke, which failing of apt and convenient curing, became a Fistula, afflicting him daily with extraordinary paine and anguish, no Chirurgeon or Physitian being found, that could minister any hope of healing, but rather encreased the greefe, and drove it to more vehement extreamitie, compelling the King, as dispairing utterly of all helpe, to give over any further counsell or advice. Heereof faire Juliet was wondrously joyfull, as hoping that this accident would prove the meanes, not onely of her journey to Paris, but if the disease were no more then she imagined; she could easily cure it, and thereby compasse Count Bertrand to be her husband. Hereupon, quickning up her wits, with remembrance of those rules of Art, which (by long practise and experience) she had learned of her skilfull Father, she compounded certaine hearbes together, such as she knew fitting for that kinde of infirmity, and having reduced her compound into powder, away she rode forthwith to Paris.
Being there arrived, all other serious matters set aside, first shee must needs have a sight of Count Bertrand, as being the onely Saint that caused her pilgrimage. Next she made meanes for her accesse to the King, humbly entreating his Majesty, to vouchsafe her the sight of his Fistula. When the King saw her, her modest lookes did plainely deliver, that she was a faire, comely, and discreete young Gentlewoman; wherefore, he would no longer hide it, but layed it open to her view. When shee had seene and felt it, presently she put the King in comfort; affirming, that she knew her selfe able to cure his Fistula, saying: Sir, if your Highnesse will referre the matter to me, without any perill of life, or any the least paine to your person, I hope (by the helpe of heaven) to make you whole and sound within eight dayes space. The King hearing her words, beganne merrily to smile at her, saying: How is it possible for thee, being a yong Maiden, to do that which the best Physitians in Europe, are not able to performe? I commend thy kindnesse, and will not remaine unthankefull for thy forward willingnesse: but I am fully determined, to use no more counsell, or to make any further triall of Physicke or Chirurgery. Whereto faire Juliet thus replyed: Great King, let not my skill and experience be despised, because I am young, and a Maiden; for my profession is not Physicke, neither do I undertake the ministering thereof, as depending on mine owne knowledge; but by the gracious assistance of heaven, and some rules of skilfull observation, which I learned of reverend Gerard of Narbona who was my worthy Father, and a Physitian of no meane fame, all the while he lived.
At the hearing of these words, the King began somewhat to admire at her gracious carriage, and saide within himselfe. What know I, whether this Virgin is sent to me by the direction of heaven, or no? Why should I disdaine to make proofe of her skill? Her promise is, to cure me in a small times compasse, and without any paine or affliction to me: she shall not come so farre, to returne againe with the losse of he labour, I am resolved to try her cunning, and thereon saide. Faire Virgin, if you cause me to breake my setled determination, and faile of curing me, what can you expect to follow thereon? Whatsoever great King (quoth she) shall please you. Let me be strongly guarded, yet not hindered, when I am to prosecute the businesse: and then if I do not perfectly heale you within eight daies, let a good fire be made, and therein consume my body unto ashes. But if I accomplish the cure, and set your Highnesse free from all further greevance, what recompence then shall remaine to me?
* Context: John of Arderne and the alternative placement of the fistula
* King’s description of his illness, 2.1.132-142
* “backward” (1.1.194-206; 1.2.51-54)