Archive for September, 2010

Good Angel Versus Evil Angel in Renaissance Era

          Christopher Marlowe’s play “Doctor Faustus” is about an ordinary man who tires of conforming to accept the theological philosophies of God. Hence Faustus has a revelation that deems what he has been studying is no longer of use to him:” Is to dispute well logic’s chiefest end? Affords this art no greater miracle? Then read no more; thou hast attained the end. A greater subject fitteth Faustus’ wit(lines 8-11; pg.251).” This new found subject turns out to be “metaphysics of magicians(line51; pg.252)” which is deemed as heresy during the period in which this play was composed. In the play he’s flipping through a book of magic when two angels appear. Yet one is good and the other is evil. Since Faustus is an ordinary man seeking to obtain “divinity” in the most unrighteous of ways these two angels can be inferred as being a part of his conscience.

           As a result Dr.Faustus attempts to conduct  acts of  necromantic measure by using incantations to summon devious, diabolic and dubious spirits.The first diabolic spirit we are introduced to is Mephistopheles who actually is a devil from the underworld. This devil was sent to earth to  collect Faustus’ soul because he was denouncing the prophecies of heaven: “Is stoutly to abjure the Trinity, And pray devoutly to the prince of hell(lines 52-55; pg. 257).” Faustus thought he appeared because Mephistopheles was sent “To do whatever Faustus shall command(line 38; pg.257).” The first command Faustus makes upon the devil, assuming that he came to serve him was “I charge thee to return and change thy shape. Thou art too ugly to attend on me. Go, an return an old Franciscan friar; That holy shape becomes a devil best (lines 24-27; pg.256).”  Faustus used authoritative  power he thought he had to order the devil around, yet was also making a parody of the theology and philosophy regarding God. This was within respect to what was deemed as good and redeeming when it came to acquiring salvation through repentance because church figures like friars were seem as mediums.

       However within the  scenes of Act Two we see Faustus buying into the ‘priviledged and divine life’  gimmick that Mehisopheles offers so that he can obtain Faustus soul and give it to Lucifer who wants to “expand his kingdom” in hell because “misery wants company.” Regardless of the advice from the Good Angel , Fuastus still provides mutual assent for the devil’s soul catching, transaction by cutting his arm and writing about giving his soul to Lucifer in his own blood.

     Even so we are also reminded of Faustus denouncing God and his will which appears a couple of times up to this point within the play. Faustus believes that religion is arbitrary because humans are all sinners and will be condemned by death so he doesn’t see how individuals like himself will be saved if death is inevitable and considered as a penalty: “Despair in God and trust in Beelzebub” (conveyed within the first 21 lines of Act Two; page 260).

     In spite of that Faustus cannot speak of heaven or God’s creation of it because the devil’s contract states that he shall solely “think on the devil (line 172; pg 268).” Doing otherwise would be considered breaching it and sending himself [Faustus] into the bowels of hell to burn forever. Thus the beginning of this play renders that there is a theme of religious prophecies of God versus necromantic antics of the devil (heresy); what’s Good versus what’s Evil within the Renaissance period. Therefore the Good and Evil Angels are not only a part of Faustus’ conscience but represent two different ideologies regarding the good versus evil theme. Hence the Good Angel expresses the theology of devout believers in God and the Evil Angel represents how  followers of Lucifer deem theology as containing “fruits of lunacy (line 18; pg.260).”

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Arden of Faversham

Arden of Faversham is an anonymously written play based off the real-life murder of Raphael Holinshed. As we previously mentioned in class, this play can be compared to a modern day soap opera with major comedic relief. Throughout the performance, the audience is on edge, watching/reading the many failed attempts of murdering Arden, by his wife Alice, her lover Mosby, as well as the hired hit men Black Will and Shakebag. Though there seems to be an angel keeping Arden safe through most of the play, his guardian fails in the end. After Black Will hold Arden down with a towel, Mosby hit’s him with an iron, then Shakebag and Alice stabs him.

We, the audience, knows that Alice is of highest social status. She’s a descendant of a noble house and also holds highest status in her own home as head of the household. Throughout the play, we see a theme of social status taking precedents. We see Alice is in charge of the home, due to the fact that Michael and Susan take orders from her over Arden. Of course we also see she’s in control, because she murders her own husband, Arden. Mosby is also one of the “new gentlemen,” who was unhappy of the status he was born in. Once a tailor, he continued on to become a steward in the nobleman’s house. This allows him to be wealthier and more prestigious than if he was just a tailor.

I believe this is why Arden, called a cuckold by Mosby, chooses to ignore the fact that Alice are having an affair with him. Arden, unaware of his wife’s plan to murder him, enjoys being apart of the upper status that comes with the marriage of his wife. Greene also wanted to have Arden murdered because the King gave his land to Arden, and without it, Greene has nothing for himself or his family. Which once again comes back to the status theme, because Greene is only a farmer, he has no ownership of the land that was once his.

However, as the play comes to a close, we see the true meaning of social status. In the long run, it means nothing if you’re morals are non existent. Land, money, and power means nothing when faced with death by execution. In a sort of comedic way, everyone blames the other, and Mosby curses women off all together. However I do feel bad for Susan and Bradshaw. Though they had almost nothing to do with Arden’s murder, they’re sentenced to death as well. Truly making this Elizabethan play a domestic tragedy.

Arden of Faversham

In the play Arden of Faversham, Alice who married to her husband based upon her parents’ order.  Her parents believed their arrangements were the best to her and they were the only persons who had the authority to do so.  Alice was not happy about it just because her marriage was not based upon her own will.  She married to her husband Thomas Arden was solely because her parents wanted her to.  Did she love her husband?  Perhaps she did but not faithfully.  She had an affair with Mosby to show her rebellion to her parents’ decision.  The author’s purpose was to make the other parents aware and warned them what the consequences would be if they did what Alice’s parents did.

In addition, Thomas Arden often insulted Mosby because he was a clothes repairer.  He was in a lower social class while Thomas Arden was in the higher social class.  In this play, Mosby had said repeatedly that he would revenge.  Also, he jealous Thomas Arden because he was in a better position; Arden could have anything he wanted but he could not.  Mosby was hoping that if he could get rid of Arden, he could take over his place and replace him.  He already had the love of his wife, Alice; he was hoping that if he could replace Arden, he could be as wealthy and popular as he was.  However, on page 454, Scene 8, line 59, Alice said, “It is not love that loves to murder love.”  Alice had a conflict within herself:  Alice had feeling with her husband and she did not want to kill Arden; but she did not want to be controlled by her parents because this was not what she wanted.  That’s why she conspired with Mosby and killed her husband.  They neglected human rights and taken away Arden’s freedom to live.  Finally, the legal system did not allow them and they were caught by the government.  Both Mosby and Alice were penalized by the law and executed.

All you need is Love

 “that love conquereth all things but itself, and ladies all hearts but their own”

The last line of the play is (I think )Gallathea’s justification for what happened in the play. We have two girls who are both virgins, dresses up as boys, and they begin flirting with each other. At first, I think that they are unaware that the other is also a girl. However, at some point they realize this truth and continue to flirt with each other. The one thing that stands out for me is that even after they go into the woods to “make much of one another”, Gallathea and Phillida continue to pretend that in a sense one of them is a boy. At this point they should know that they are both girls but they continue with their flirtation. One example of that is when Phillida is taking to Gallathea “I pray thee, sweet boy, flatter me not.” She is still referring to Gallathea as a boy, when I am sure that she knows otherwise.

One explanation of why they continue to refer to each other as boys is because the society does not accept such relationships and they wished that one of them was a boy so they can enjoy each other’s love.  This will support the conclusion of the play, when Venus decides to make one of them a boy and both agree to it. The only two people who are against it are their fathers.

Another explanation that came to mind is that since both of them were a virgin before this. They are unsure of what a male looks like physically. However, this explanation seems less likely because both Gallathea and Phillida know that they are girls. I think at some point they would figure out that  there is a lot of similarity between each other.

However, one can think back to Thomas Laqueur “Making Sex” and remember the one sex model. In that case Gallathea and Phillida are in the category of women and boys, which means that they are all the same. This can explain why Gallathea and Phillida continue with referring to one another as boys. They continue this because girls and boys look the same.  Moreover, the wedding is the symbol of one of them crossing to the right side and becoming a man. “The heat” can be looked as the act or feeling of love that is needed for a women or boy to cross over to the men side.

This brings me back to the last line of the play which one can look as an explanation to everything that happen. Gallathea points out that love can overcome anything, even the possibility of being the same sex. The one thing that it cannot overcome is itself, which means that Gallathea and Phillida cannot deny the love that they feel for each other.  I think that love and ones heart is presented as “the heat” needed to become a man, which at the end makes their love possible.   Diagram

History is Herstory too

As a person well versed in modern science, I often find that I look back at the scientists of centuries past in a very unforgiving manner.  Reading how a woman must be pleasured to conceive (what about rape victims who are impregnated, must they live with the stigma that they enjoyed their rape?), or later that women need not feel pleasure at all so its obviously time  to change our entire social views (these men must have been chauvinists) makes it very hard to feel any sympathy for their ignorance.

Laqueur has a very important point when he says that social views of males and females must depend on more than scientific ‘discoveries,’ whether those discoveries are accurate or not.  Much like when science was used to justify racism,  these men used it to justify sexism.  I took an anthropology class freshman year and my professor, when teaching us about gender roles, repeated this line over and over: “Sex is real, gender is a social construct” and these societies, without any clear sense of the anatomy of the sexes, needed to rely solely on their concept of gender, which they could make and revise as they saw fit to, with half baked scientific discoveries and skewed political movements designed to meet an end beneficial to those in charge rather than garner the truth.

The idea of gender as a construct popped out at me in Gallathea when Phillida responds to being told that she must masquerade as a boy by complaining about the way she must act because of it. There were very different social expectations of a boy that she didn’t want to have to fulfill and I got a silly image in my head of her stomping her foot and whining “But boys have cooties!” during those few lines.

Both Phillida and Gallathea seem to think that acting as a man is very unseemly.  They both obviously think themselves members of the better sex, and I’m fairly certain that both of them would rather let the sea monster do what it will with them than spend eternity as a man.  They both seem to be of the belief that being a certain sex means that you have certain specific behavioral attributes. I get the feeling that their society didn’t have much variation in personalities based on these girls beliefs on what their lives must be until Neptune is sated.

Of course, today we still certainly have specific ways that women act today as opposed to how men act. Stereotypes that dictate that women are more timid, ditsier. But overall I don’t think that my behavior would have to change that much were I to need to impersonate a man, which once again leads me to a rather exasperated view of their society.

The Spanish Tragedy

The last act of “The Spanish Tragedy” really solidified that Kyd was not joking around when he titled his play. (Spoiler alert: most of the cast dies.)  At the very least, the play’s title is modest, as it could be titled “The Very Gruesome Spanish Tragedy.” Revenge is by far the most prevalent and recurring theme in the play. In fact, the character Revenge literally had the last word in the play. As if the content of the last act was not cruel enough, Revenge ends the play by stating that an endless tragedy has just begun (for Don Andrea’s foes).

Looking back at all the death of this final act, I feel that the deaths of Lorenzo and Balthazar were the most expected. After all, Andrea has been sitting on the side of the stage for four Acts waiting to be avenged. Not to mention that Hieronimo has stated that his only reason for living was to get revenge for Horatio’s murder.

The hardest death for me was definitely the suicide of Isabella. I kind of saw it coming as she did seem suicidal to me back in Act Three, Scene Eight, “No, there’s no medicine left for my disease,/ Nor any physic to recure the dead.” It is really sad that in her dying speech she thinks that Hieronimo was going about life as normal, not grieving for Horatio’s death.  I do not really understand why Hieronimo could not tell Isabella of his plans to seek revenge. I think she would encourage him to do so or at least not tell anyone of his plans. Instead she died thinking that no one cared about Horatio’s death. I would also like to mention how she cuts down the tree where Horatio had been hung and burns the roots to make it so nothing could ever grow in its place. She compares the tree’s fate to her own before she takes her own life, “And as I curse this tree from further fruit,/ So shall my womb be cursed for his sake.”  I find it interesting that her grief is so strong that she makes sure that she and the garden are fruitless forever.

Now that I have read the entire play, it is no wonder why the play could be titled “Hieronimo is Mad Again.”  Hieronimo’s grief has certainly gotten the best of him. His grief has probably gotten the worst of him too because dare I say that you must have a certain determination to bite off your own tongue (which is possible, I googled it).  Not to mention that Don Cyprian did nothing to deserve being stabbed by Hieronimo, as Cyprian was kind to Hieronimo throughout the play.  I guess I could understand that grief and vengeance had gotten the best of him, but maybe by today’s standards Hieronimo should have had padded walls (and a mouth guard)?

“The Spanish Tragedy” by Thomas Kyd was a highly popularized play during it’s time period. The play, which created its own genre of plays called “Revenge Tragedies”, was able to remain among the top within it’s category during the time period. Why is it that “The Spanish Tragedy” was able to transcend through the time period with countless audiences watching the play, sometimes numerous times.
 
I asked myself this question when I read the play. The play, although written in the late 16th century, was not hard to follow. Yes, the language and various characters popping in and out did have me lift and eyebrow or two at certain moments, but I easily followed the plot for the most part. The play, thus far, is broken down into two major themes for me: love and revenge. These two themes are among the strongest of emotions. It takes an enormous amount of energy and passion to love someone in the way that Bel-Imperia, and Don Andrea do. Even the familial love between Horatio, Isabella and Hieronimo has a strong presence in the play. At the opposite end of the spectrum, it takes a great amount of hate to plot revenge towards another individual- much like the hatred that Hieronimo has for his son’s murderer. Although “The Spanish Tragedy” exaggerates these emotions in a theatrical way, they are still relatable to the audience and readers.
 
In the opening of “The Spanish Tragedy”, audiences are already given a taste of the deep range of emotions as Don Andrea reflects on his death: “In secret I possessed a worthy dame,…/ Which hight sweet Bel-Imperia by name./ Death’s winter nipped the blossoms of my bliss,/ Forching divorce betwixt my love and me.” Here, audiences are introduced to the tragic love story that will be prominent throughout the play.  There is no obvious hope for Don Andrea and Bel-Imperia since he speaks from his grave. However, the sentiments that he pours to the audience are pure and given the title pages that were reviewed in class, audiences during the 16th century enjoy the dramatics and over exaggeration that we all may not experience in everyday life. In essence, it allows one to live vicariously through another character. Even in the 21st century, audiences can relate to those four centuries ago. We watch action movies to see stunts that can never be performed in real life, or romantic comedies to see couples clumsily meet and fall in love. “The Spanish Tragedy”, despite the sadness, offers a compelling soap opera that allows audiences to feel the same sense of love that Don Andrea has for Bel-Imperia. Or perhaps, they are interested in Don Andrea’s quest for revenge for his murderer. Regardless of precisely why audiences are drawn to the plot, the similarity lies in the feeling of excitement, empathy and action that one gets from living vicariously with the characters.