Shakespeare's late romances

Last updated
Miranda in The Tempest by John William Waterhouse (1916) Miranda - The Tempest JWW.jpg
Miranda in The Tempest by John William Waterhouse (1916)

The late romances, often simply called the romances, are a grouping of William Shakespeare's last plays, comprising Pericles, Prince of Tyre ; Cymbeline ; The Winter's Tale ; and The Tempest . The Two Noble Kinsmen , of which Shakespeare was co-author, is sometimes also included in the grouping. The term "romances" was first used for these late works in Edward Dowden's Shakspere (1877) [1] . Later writers have generally been content to adopt Dowden's term.

Contents

Shakespeare's plays cannot be precisely dated, but it is generally agreed that these comedies followed a series of tragedies including Othello , King Lear and Macbeth . Shakespeare wrote tragedies because their productions were financially successful, but he returned to comedy towards the end of his career, mixing it with tragic and mystical elements. Shakespeare's late romances were also influenced by the development of tragicomedy and the extreme elaboration of the courtly masque as staged by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. The subjects and style of these plays were also influenced by the preference of the monarch, by Shakespeare's ageing company and by their more upper class audiences.

The romances call for spectacular effects to be shown onstage, including storms at sea, opulent interior and exterior scenery, dream settings and the illusion of time passing. Scholars have argued that the late plays deal with faith and redemption, and are variations on themes of rewarding virtue over vice.

Plays

Shakespeare's late romances are:

Sources: F E Halliday (1964), A L Rowse (1978) and Stanley Wells (1986) [2] [n 1]

The Norton Shakespeare describes Henry VIII (ca. 1612–13) as being characteristic of the late romances, but still considers it one of the histories, [4] as does Rowse. [5]

Labelling and structure

Title page of the First Folio (1623) Title page William Shakespeare's First Folio 1623.jpg
Title page of the First Folio (1623)

The category of Shakespearean romance arises from a desire among critics for the late plays to be recognised as a more complex kind of comedy; the labels of romance and tragicomedy are preferred by the majority of modern critics and editors. [6] In the First Folio of 1623, John Heminges and Henry Condell, its editors, listed The Tempest and The Winter's Tale as comedies, and Cymbeline as a tragedy. Pericles did not appear in it at all. [7] In 1875, when Dowden argued that Shakespeare's late comedies should be called "romances", he did so because they resemble late medieval and early modern "romances", a genre in which stories were set across the immensity of space and time. The romances have grand plot points which are combined with humour, dramatic action and internal struggles. [8] They also feature broader characters, larger spectacles and a different handling of the themes of appearance and reality. [3] The late romances differed from early Shakespearean comedies by relying on grand themes, rather than specific moments. The romances are Shakespearean tragedies that end happily, instead of a moment of danger that moves rapidly to a solution. [9] They also focus on the relationships between father and daughter. [10]

Defining characteristics

The final plays share some common traits:

Tragicomic influence

Shakespeare's romances were also influenced by two major developments in theatre in the early years of the seventeenth century. The first was the innovation of tragicomedy initiated by John Fletcher and developed in the early Beaumont and Fletcher collaborations. Tragicomedies made a pretence at "grave stuff" but invariably provided a happy ending with light entertainment. [16] Shakespeare's romances are more sharply tragicomic than his comedies: threats of death and scenes of suffering are more acute. Encounters with the supernatural are also more direct and emphatic. [17] The other influence was the extreme elaboration of the courtly masque being stage in the same period by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones. [n 2] Key scenes in the late romances are closely related to court masques: They embrace the visual magnificence but also the shallowness of such a display. [18]

History

The popular drama during the Renaissance was subject to external influences, specifically what the ruler wanted to see. Elizabeth I enjoyed watching what the people liked, which were the tragedies. Elizabeth reigned until her death in 1603. James I succeeded her, and he preferred the romances. [19]

Shakespeare's health was impaired, and he died about five years after The Tempest, the last play he wrote by himself. [20] The shift indicates that he was giving up composition. He retired to Stratford following completion of his final play. [21] The scholar Catherine Alexander has suggested that the plays were not specifically autobiographical in respect of Shakespeare's advancing old age, but reflected the fact that the actors themselves were older. The King's Men occupied a second playhouse, the Blackfriars, which had been out of use for several years. The playhouse had been shut down because of objections by local residents, but was reopened during the second half of 1608. In the interim the actors had aged, and Shakespeare adjusted the age of his characters. [22]

The King's Men were allowed to change their name from the Lord Chamberlain's Men in 1603, when James I came to the throne. They would put on as many as two new plays a week. Many plays had only a few performances, and there was no director: actors were expected to know fairly standard blocking patterns. [23] Audiences at the Blackfriars were generally upper class, as the cost of admission was so high that the lower classes were unlikely to attend many performances. [24] Because of the sophistication of the audience, the romances leaned more toward aesthetics and culture. [25]

Performances

Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Irving's elaborate 1896 production of Cymbeline Irving-terry-cymbeline-1896.jpg
Henry Irving and Ellen Terry in Irving's elaborate 1896 production of Cymbeline

The romances create challenges for directors, as they require spectacular effects to be shown onstage. [26] For Pericles, in 1854, Samuel Phelps created the effect of a storm by using rowers manning oars to carry Pericles from one location to another while a panorama moved behind them to create the illusion of travel. [27] Cymbeline often offers two different directions for staging: grand and simple. In the spring of 1896, Henry Irving staged the play at the Lyceum Theatre, London with elaborate Celtic sets for Cymbeline's palace gardens and interior rooms, a Roman banqueting hall for Posthumus's visit to Rome, a handsomely decorated bedchamber for Imogen, and a spectacular dream setting for the descent of Jupiter. Ben Greet at The Old Vic in 1918, on the other hand, chose a simple, Elizabethan approach. [28] The Winter's Tale poses the challenges of time passing and a bear pursuing Antigonus off stage. In 1976, Trevor Nunn and John Barton cast John Nettles as both Time and the bear. At Stratford-upon-Avon in 1986, Terry Hands used a bearskin rug, which rose off the ground to chase Antigonus off. [29]

The Tempest opens with a scene inspired by the shipwreck of Sea Venture in 1609. [30] This scene has allowed for different stagings, from William Charles Macready in 1842 at Covent Garden featuring a huge sea vessel, fully rigged and manned, to Robert Falls's production at the Goodman Theatre in 1987, where the scene was set on a cruiseship, with tourist passengers in deck chairs or playing shuffleboard until disaster struck. [31]

Criticism

Because of the shift in style, as well as Shakespeare's physical state, there has been much debate about why the late plays were written as they were. Dowden created a biographical view that suggested that Shakespeare was suffering from depression when he wrote his tragedies, and had worked his way out of it to create the romances. Sir Edmund Chambers suggested that he suffered a breakdown while writing Timon of Athens, and the romances reflect a kind of psychological convalescence. Clifford Leech viewed the romances as infected with a kind of fantastical puritanism that came from Shakespeare's personal revulsion from sex. D G James believed that Shakespeare ran out of poetic energy as he got older. [3] Raphael Lyne comments that it is impossible to show that Shakespeare managed his career to this extent, and there is no pressing need to consider these works as anything other than coincidentally "late". [32] There is a belief among some scholars that the late plays deal with faith and redemption, and are variations on themes of rewarding virtue over vice. [33]

G. Wilson Knight was among those critics to argue that the late romances embody, together with the high tragedies or even above them, Shakespeare's greatest achievement. Harold Bloom says of The Winter's Tale that in it Shakespeare returns to his full talent and genius with full force.

Film adaptations

A film version of Cymbeline was released in 2014, starring Milla Jovovich, Ethan Hawke, Penn Badgley, John Leguizamo and Ed Harris.

The Tempest has been adapted most often. A silent film version was made in 1908. [34] Later adaptations include, Yellow Sky (1948) – set in the wild west, with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; Forbidden Planet (1956) – a science fiction classic set in outer space; Derek Jarman's 1979 version relocated to a crumbling mansion off the Scottish coast; [34] Tempest (1982) – set on a Greek isle, with John Cassavetes, Molly Ringwald, Gena Rowlands and Susan Sarandon; Prospero's Books (1991) starring John Gielgud – which is not so much an adaptation as a reading of the play, combining film, dance, opera, and animation; [34] and a 2010 version with Prospero recast as Prospera, played by Helen Mirren. [34]

See also

Notes, references and sources

Notes

  1. See also Hallett Smith on the "many links between this and the previous plays..." [3]
  2. See: The Masque of Blackness; The Masque of Queens.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Shakespeare</span> English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shakespearean tragedy</span> Tragedies written by William Shakespeare

Shakespearean tragedy is the designation given to most tragedies written by playwright William Shakespeare. Many of his history plays share the qualifiers of a Shakespearean tragedy, but because they are based on real figures throughout the history of England, they were classified as "histories" in the First Folio. The Roman tragedies—Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Coriolanus—are also based on historical figures, but because their sources were foreign and ancient, they are almost always classified as tragedies rather than histories. Shakespeare's romances were written late in his career and published originally as either tragedy or comedy. They share some elements of tragedy, insofar as they feature a high-status central character, but they end happily like Shakespearean comedies. Almost three centuries after Shakespeare's death, the scholar F. S. Boas also coined a fifth category, the "problem play," for plays that do not fit neatly into a single classification because of their subject matter, setting, or ending. Scholars continue to disagree on how to categorize some Shakespearean plays.

<i>Cymbeline</i> Play by William Shakespeare

Cymbeline, also known as The Tragedie of Cymbeline or Cymbeline, King of Britain, is a play by William Shakespeare set in Ancient Britain and based on legends that formed part of the Matter of Britain concerning the early historical Celtic British King Cunobeline. Although it is listed as a tragedy in the First Folio, modern critics often classify Cymbeline as a romance or even a comedy. Like Othello and The Winter's Tale, it deals with the themes of innocence and jealousy. While the precise date of composition remains unknown, the play was certainly produced as early as 1611.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Masque</span> Courtly entertainment with music and dance

The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment that flourished in 16th- and early 17th-century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio. A masque involved music, dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which the architectural framing and costumes might be designed by a renowned architect, to present a deferential allegory flattering to the patron. Professional actors and musicians were hired for the speaking and singing parts. Masquers who did not speak or sing were often courtiers: the English queen Anne of Denmark frequently danced with her ladies in masques between 1603 and 1611, and Henry VIII and Charles I of England performed in the masques at their courts. In the tradition of masque, Louis XIV of France danced in ballets at Versailles with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tragicomedy</span> Genre of drama and literature

Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending. Tragicomedy, as its name implies, invokes the intended response of both the tragedy and the comedy in the audience, the former being a genre based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis and the latter being a genre intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">English drama</span> Dramatic plays in England

Drama was introduced to Britain from Europe by the Romans, and auditoriums were constructed across the country for this purpose.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shakespearean comedy</span> William Shakespeares comedic plays

In the First Folio, the plays of William Shakespeare were grouped into three categories: comedies, histories, and tragedies; and modern scholars recognise a fourth category, romance, to describe the specific types of comedy that appear in Shakespeare's later works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chronology of Shakespeare's plays</span> Possible order of composition of Shakespeares plays

This article presents a possible chronological listing of the composition of the plays of William Shakespeare.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Fletcher (playwright)</span> English playwright (1579–1625)

John Fletcher was an English playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; during his lifetime and in the Stuart Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's. Fletcher collaborated in writing plays, chiefly with Francis Beaumont or Philip Massinger, but also with Shakespeare and others. Although his reputation has subsequently declined, he remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration.

<i>Complete Works of Shakespeare</i> All plays and poems by William Shakespeare in one book

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is the standard name given to any volume containing all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare. Some editions include several works that were not completely of Shakespeare's authorship, such as The Two Noble Kinsmen, which was a collaboration with John Fletcher; Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the first two acts of which were likely written by George Wilkins; or Edward III, whose authorship is disputed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Bevington</span> American literary scholar (1931–2019)

David Martin Bevington was an American literary scholar. He was the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Humanities and in English Language & Literature, Comparative Literature, and the college at the University of Chicago, where he taught since 1967, as well as chair of Theatre and Performance Studies. "One of the most learned and devoted of Shakespeareans," so called by Harold Bloom, he specialized in British drama of the Renaissance, and edited and introduced the complete works of William Shakespeare in both the 29-volume, Bantam Classics paperback editions and the single-volume Longman edition. After accomplishing this feat, Bevington was often cited as the only living scholar to have personally edited Shakespeare's complete corpus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabethan literature</span>

Elizabethan literature refers to bodies of work produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), and is one of the most splendid ages of English literature. In addition to drama and the theatre, it saw a flowering of poetry, with new forms like the sonnet, the Spenserian stanza, and dramatic blank verse, as well as prose, including historical chronicles, pamphlets, and the first English novels. Major writers include William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Richard Hooker, Ben Jonson, Philip Sidney and Thomas Kyd.

<i>Tales from Shakespeare</i> 1807 childrens book by Charles and Mary Lamb

Tales from Shakespeare is an English children's book written by the siblings Charles and Mary Lamb in 1807, intended "for the use of young persons" while retaining as much Shakespearean language as possible. Mary Lamb was responsible for retelling the comedies and Charles the tragedies. They omitted the more complex historical tales, including all Roman plays, and modified those they chose to retell in a manner sensitive to the needs of young children, but without resorting to actual censoring. However, subplots and sexual references were removed. They wrote the preface together.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shakespeare's plays</span> Plays written by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare's plays are a canon of approximately 39 dramatic works written by English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare. The exact number of plays as well as their classifications as tragedy, history, comedy, or otherwise is a matter of scholarly debate. Shakespeare's plays are widely regarded as being among the greatest in the English language and are continually performed around the world. The plays have been translated into every major living language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dumbshow</span> Form of English pantomime

Dumbshow, also dumb show or dumb-show, is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English as "gestures used to convey a meaning or message without speech; mime." In the theatre the word refers to a piece of dramatic mime in general, or more particularly a piece of action given in mime within a play "to summarise, supplement, or comment on the main action".

<i>The Oxford Shakespeare</i> Editions of William Shakespeares works produced by Oxford University Press

The Oxford Shakespeare is the range of editions of William Shakespeare's works produced by Oxford University Press. The Oxford Shakespeare is produced under the general editorship of Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor.

<i>Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare</i> 1907 book by E. Nesbit

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare is a 1907 collection published by E. Nesbit with the intention of entertaining young readers and retelling William Shakespeare's plays in a way they could be easily understood by younger readers. She also included a brief Shakespeare biography, a pronunciation guide to some of the more difficult names and a list of famous quotations, arranged by subject. Some editions are entitled Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.

Women in Shakespeare is a topic within the especially general discussion of Shakespeare's dramatic and poetic works. Main characters such as Dark Lady of the sonnets have elicited a substantial amount of criticism, which received added impetus during the second-wave feminism of the 1960s. A considerable number of book-length studies and academic articles investigate the topic, and several moons of Uranus are named after women in Shakespeare.

<i>The Tempest</i> Play by William Shakespeare

The Tempest is a play by William Shakespeare, probably written in 1610–1611, and thought to be one of the last plays that he wrote alone. After the first scene, which takes place on a ship at sea during a tempest, the rest of the story is set on a remote island, where Prospero, a complex and contradictory character, lives with his daughter Miranda, and his two servants: Caliban, a savage monster figure, and Ariel, an airy spirit. The play contains music and songs that evoke the spirit of enchantment on the island. It explores many themes, including magic, betrayal, revenge, and family. In Act IV, a wedding masque serves as a play-within-a-play, and contributes spectacle, allegory, and elevated language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia Shakespeare</span> 20th/21st-century American theatre company

Georgia Shakespeare was a professional, not-for-profit theatre company located in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States on the campus of Oglethorpe University from 1985-2014. Georgia Shakespeare produced three plays annually, primarily between June and November. Twelve educational programs were developed in the history of Georgia Shakespeare. These programs included "The High School Tour", a "High School Acting Competition", "Camp Shakespeare", a "High School Conservatory", a "No Fear Shakespeare" training program for educators, after school residencies, school tours, student matinees, classes for professionals, and in-school workshops. At its peak, it welcomed 60,000 patrons annually to its performances.

References

  1. Dowden, pp. 54-56
  2. Halliday, pp. 419, 507–508; Wells, p. xx; and Rowse, Volume III, pp. 670, 724, 796, 860
  3. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Hallett "Shakespeare's Romances" Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 27, No. 3, Shakespeare (May 1964), pp. 279–287 (subscription required)
  4. Greenblatt, page ?
  5. Rowse, Volume II, pp. 600–605
  6. Thorne, p. 2
  7. "The Brotherton First Folio Digital Resource", University of Leeds, retrieved 9 December 2014
  8. Lyne, pp. 6 and 99
  9. Bevington, p. 191
  10. Lyne, p. 81
  11. 1 2 Bieman, p. 1;
  12. Bieman, p. 4
  13. Rowse, Volume III, p. 11
  14. Rowse, Volume III, pp. 784, 896–897
  15. Schmidgall, p. 180
  16. Adams, p. 414
  17. Lyne, p. 4
  18. Lyne, pp. 43–44
  19. Adams, pp. 411–412
  20. Adams, p. 422
  21. Adams, p. 429
  22. Alexander, p. 8
  23. Bevington, pp. 17–20
  24. Hildy and Brockett, p. 126
  25. Thorne, p. 14
  26. Bevington, pp. 212
  27. Bevington, p. 195
  28. Bevington, pp. 200–201
  29. Bevington, pp. 205–206
  30. Alexander, p. xiv; and Rowse, Volume III, p. 860
  31. Bevington, p. 215
  32. Lyne, p. ?
  33. Semon, Kenneth J. "Review: Time, Tide, and Tempest: A Study of Shakespeare's Romances", Modern Language Quarterly, December 1974 35(4), pp. 423–426 (subscription required)
  34. 1 2 3 4 "The Tempest On Screen", British Film Institute, retrieved 9 December 2014

Sources

Further reading