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EN3010 ENGLISH DRAMA 1576-1642 [BA EXAMINATION 2002]
(The paper used the 3 hour, 3 question format)
1. Examine the dramatic and literary significance of one of the following extracts (A-C):
(A)
Frankford. O, O!
Nicholas. Master, ’sblood, master, master!
Frankford. O me unhappy, I have found them lying
Close in each other’s arms, and fast asleep.
But that I would not damn two precious souls 5
Bought with my Saviour’s blood and send them laden
With all their scarlet sins upon their backs
Unto a fearful judgement, their two lives
Had met upon my rapier.
Nicholas. ’Sblood, master, have you left them sleeping still? Let me go wake them. 10
Frankford. Stay, let me pause awhile.
O God, O God, that it were possible
To undo things done, to call back yesterday;
That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass,
To untell the days, and to redeem these hours; 15
Or that the Sun
Could, rising from the west, draw his coach backward,
Take from the account of time so many minutes,
Till he had all these seasons call’d again,
Those minutes and those actions done in them, 20
Even from her first offence; that I might take her
As spotless as an angel in my arms.
But O! I talk of things impossible,
And cast beyond the moon. God give me patience,
For I will in to wake them. 25
Nicholas. Here’s patience perforce;
He needs must trot afoot that tires his horse.
Enter Wendoll, running over the stage in a night gown, Frankford after him with his sword drawn; the Maid in her smock stays his hand and clasps hold on him. He pauses awhile.
Frankford. I thank thee, maid; thou like the angel’s hand
Hast stay’d me from a bloody sacrifice.
Go, villain, and my wrongs sit on thy soul 30
As heavy as this grief doth upon mine.
When thou record’st my many courtesies
And shalt compare them with thy treacherous heart,
And lay them together, weigh them equally,
’Twill be revenge enough. Go, to thy friend 35
A Judas; pray, pray, lest I live to see
Thee, Judas-like, hang’d on an elder tree.
Enter Anne in her smock, night gown, and night attire.
Anne. O by what word, what title, or what name
Shall I entreat your pardon? Pardon! O
I am as far from hoping such sweet grace 40
As Lucifer from Heaven. To call you husband –
O me most wretched, I have lost that name;
I am no more your wife.
Nicholas. ’Sblood, sir, she swoons.
(B)
Mammon. Where shall I hide me?
Subtle. How! What sight is here!
Close deeds of darkness, that shun the light!
Bring him again. Who is he? What, my son!
O, I have lived too long.
Mammon. Nay, good, dear father,
There was no unchaste purpose.
Subtle Not? And flee me 5
When I come in?
Mammon. That was my error.
Subtle. Error?
Guilt, guilt, my son. Give it the right name. No marvel
If I found check in our great work within,
When such affairs as these were managing!
Mammon. Why, have you so?
Subtle. It has stood still this half hour, 10
And all the rest of our less works gone back.
Where is the instrument of wickedness,
My lewd false drudge?
Mammon. Nay, good sir, blame not him.
Believe me, ’twas against his will, or knowledge.
I saw her by chance.
Subtle. Will you commit more sin, 15
T’excuse a varlet?
Mammon. By my hope, ’tis true, sir.
Subtle. Nay, then I wonder less, if you, for whom
The blessing was prepared, would so tempt heaven,
And lose your fortunes.
Mammon. Why, sir?
Subtle. This’ll retard
The work, a month, at least.
Mammon. Why, if it do, 20
What remedy? But think it not, good father;
Our purposes were honest.
Subtle. As they were,
So the reward will prove. A great crack and noise within
How now! Ay me.
God and all saints be good to us –
[Enter Face]
What’s that?
Face.O sir, we are defeated! All the works 25
Are flown in fumo, every glass is burst.
Furnace and all rent down, as if a bolt
Of thunder had been driven through the house.
Retorts, receivers, pelicans, bolt-heads,
All struck in shivers! Subtle falls down, as in a swoon.
Help, good sir! Alas 30
Coldness and death invades him. Nay, Sir Mammon,
Do the fair offices of a man! You stand
As you were readier to depart than he.
Who’s there?
(The Alchemist)
(C)
Arthur. What say you, Granny?
Peg. Mamilion, ho Mamilion, Mamilion
Arhur. Who’s that you call?
Peg. My friend, my Sweet-heart, my Mamilion.
Witches. You are not mad? 5
Doughty. Ah ha, that’s her devil, her Incubus I warrant; take her off from the rest they’ll
hurt her. Come hither poor old woman. (Ile dandle a witch a little) Thou wilt speak, and
tell the truth, and shalt have favour doubt not. Say art thou not a witch?
Peg. ’Tis folly to dissemble: yie sir, I am one.
Doughty. And that Mamilion which thou call’st upon 10
Is thy familiar devil, is’t not? Nay prithee speak.
Peg. Yes Sir.
Doughty. That’s a good woman, how long hast thou had’s acquaintance, ha?
Peg. A matter of six years, Sir.
Doughty. A pretty matter. What was he like a man? 15
Peg. Yes, when I pleased.
Doughty. And then he lay with thee, did he not sometimes?
Peg. ’Tis folly to dissemble: twice a week he never failed me.
Doughty. Humh – and how? And how a little? Was he a good bedfellow?
Peg. ’Tis folly to speak worse of him than he is. 20
Doughty. I trust me ist. Give the Devil his due.
Peg. He pleased me well sir, like a proper man.
Doughty. There was a sweet coupling.
Peg. Only his flesh felt cold.
Arthur. He wanted his great fires about him that he has at home. 25
Doughty. Peace. And did he wear good clothes?
Peg. Gentleman-like, but black points and all.
Doughty. Aye, very like his points were black enough. But come, we’ll trifle w’yee no longer.
Now shall you all to the Justices, and let them take order with you till the ’Sizes, and then let
Law take his course, and Vivat Rex. Mr. Generous I am sorry for your cause of sorrow, we shall
not have your company? 30
Generous. No, Sir, my prayers for her soul’s recovery
Shall not be wanting to her, but mine eyes
Must never see her more.
Robin. Mal, adieu sweet Mal, ride your next journey with the company you
have there. 35
Mal Well, rogue, I may live to ride in a coach before I come to the gallows yet.
Robin And Mistress, the horse that stays for you rides better with a halter than your jingling
bridle. Exeunt Generous and Robin.
(The Late Lancashire Witches)
(END OF QUESTION ONE)
2. ‘The underlying cause of witchcraft is the desire for power.’ Discuss the desire for power as depicted in any of the plays of witchcraft and magic.
3. ‘The figure of the witch is a sign of disorder – in the body, the family, and the body politic – the causes of which are rooted in female insubordination’ (Comensoli). Discuss.
4. We represent as much
As they have done, before Law’s hand did touch
Upon their guilt
(Epilogue, The Late Lancashire Witches)
Do the plays concerning witchcraft represent only the case for the prosecution?
5. ‘Elizabeth Sawyer is not an agent of supernatural powers but an individual confronting an entrenched social code that relegates old and poverty-ridden spinsters to the devil’s company.’ Is it really possible to understand these plays without primary reference to the supernatural?
6. Thou art a soldier,
Followest the great Duke, feedest his victories,
As witches do their serviceable spirits,
Even with thy prodigal blood.
(The White Devil)
Either: a) Write an essay on the relationship between the witch and his/her familiar as it is depicted in witchcraft plays of the period.
Or b) Examine some of the uses other dramatists in the period made of witchcraft as a metaphor.
7. ‘They love to do everything in a ridiculous and unseemly manner. For they turn their backs toward the Demons when they go to worship them . . . and in other such ways they behave in a manner opposite to that of other men’ (Nicholas Rémy). Discuss the way in which the witchcraft plays represent inversions of normality.
8. ‘That railing Hecate’, ‘fell banning hag’ (I Henry VI: descriptions of Joan of Arc). Discuss the role of cursing in the witchcraft plays.
9. ‘The diversity we see in Shakespeare’s plays on magic and witchcraft reflects the diversity of the witchcraft plays in the period.’ Examine this imputed ‘diversity’ as it applies to Shakespeare’s representations of practitioners of magic.
10. ‘The Elizabethan audience’s fundamental model for character change was religious conversion, the sudden descent of grace. A modern audience expects a slower process’ (Saccio). Discuss the representation of character change in two or more plays of the period in the light of this remark.
11. ‘The surviving domestic tragedies are all preoccupied with the dissolution of the contemporary household’ (Comensoli). Discuss.
12. ‘It is fairly obvious that domestic tragedies catered for appetites which are served today by the more sensational Sunday papers. The title pages repeatedly strike a note of prurient censoriousness which is immediately recognisable’ (Nuttall). Is this a fair assessment?
13. Look for no glorious state, our Muse is bent
Upon a barren subject, a bare scene.
(Prologue: A Woman Killed with Kindness)
Why did the writers of domestic tragedies offer such apologies, and what compensation did they offer their audiences?
F Either: a) ‘Jonson seems to have thought of the good audience as a kind of jury, assembled to render a verdict on a work of art’ (Barish). Discuss.
Or: b) ‘The aspiration of the Renaissance as a whole to control and remake the world is imaged as a great swindle’ (Kernan). Discuss the plays of Jonson in the light of this remark.
Or: c) ‘The positive standard, the ethical humanism and solid sense to which [Jonson] is always appealing, remains for the most part in the background, and every effort to incarnate it is a failure’ (Barish). Do you agree?
15. A politician is the devil’s quilted anvil
He fashions all sins on him, and the blows
Are never heard.
(The Duchess of Malfi)
Write an essay on Webster’s statesmen and the accomplices they use.
16. Lisa Jardine considers that central to Webster’s achievement was his development of ‘a consistent and believable female heroic persona’.
Either: a) Discuss this claim.
Or: b) Do any other dramatists of the period succeed in creating such characters?
17. ‘Ironic comedy [exhibits] a tendency to ridicule and scold an audience assumed to be hankering after sentiment, solemnity, and approved moral standards’ (Frye). Discuss at least two examples of such ironic comedy.
18. ‘The genuinely comic is always subversive.’ Discuss, with close reference to at least two comedies of the period.
19. Peter Whitehorne, dedicating his translation of Machiavelli’s The Art of War to Elizabeth I, writes of the English as being, like the Ancient Greeks, ‘occupied about trifling matters, taking pleasure in reciting of comedies, and such other vain things, altogether neglecting martial feats’. How did anti-theatrical sentiments impact upon Elizabethan and/or Jacobean drama? (You may if you wish confine your answer to the work of a single dramatist.)
20. In 1589 the Elizabethan Privy Council instructed the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Mayor of London and the Master of the Revels to inspect all theatre texts for censorship of all ‘matters of divinity and state’ they might contain. Discuss examples of the ways in which the dramatists were able to get past such censorship.