Misc. on C of L49 Jacobean Tragedy

[Dave Monroe]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Mark Kohut<markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> BUT, one fascinating tidbit....The cultural 'architecture' of Jacobean Tragedy combined
> "Machiavellian cynicism... and the revival of the medieval notion that the world was running down!
> .....and on the verge of dissolution."

>From J.W. Lever, The Tragedy of State: A Study of Jacobean Drama (2nd
ed.  London/New York: Methuen,
1987 [1971]), Ch. I, "Tragedy and State," pp. 1-17 ...

   "It is easy to understand why this play [Lorenzaccio], set in
sixteenth-century Italy by a French writer [de Musset] living in the
revolutionary currents of the eighteen-thirties, should have an
electrifying effect upon Czech audiences in the winter of 1969-70.
However, Lorenzaccio is only one example of an approach to drama which
views immediate issues
as part of a vast continuum and evokes history as an extension of
individual memory.  DeMusset's play bears a generic resemblance to
many Jacobean tragedies, with their court settings, their pervasive
atmosphere of idealism and corruption, their ambivalent finales.  On
the Jacobean stage contemporary issues constantly lurk below the
surface of historical or fictitious settings.... for audiences of the
time, the relevance was sufficiently clear.  Chapman explicitly drew
attention to the parallels between his protagonist Byron and the Earl
of Essex, executed for treason in 1601.  Less direct, but unmistakable
in their tenor, are the recurrent allusions to royal favourites,
scheming politicians, sycophants, and the network of informers and
secret agents through which the contemporary state controlled the
lives of its
nationals....  [Jonson] was cited before the Privy Council in
connection with [Sejanus].  Already in 1597 he had been imprisoned for
his share in the comedy The Isle of Dogs, described as containing
'very seditious and slanderous' matter'; care was taken so that no
trace of this play should survive.... In 1606 Marston was driven to
hide away from London for approximately two years because of his share
in the play Eastward Ho.  Chapman's two-part play Byron led, as a
result of protests by the French ambassador, to the arrest of three of
the actors.  Chapman himself managed to escape, but scenes from The
Tragedy of Byron were cut out and never appeared in print, while most
of Act IV in Byron's Conspiracy has similarly vanished.  Even closet
dramas not intended for public performance, or publication, might
endanger the author.  Fulke Grevile mentions that, following the
advice of his friends, he destroyed his Antony and Cleopatra, written
during the Queen's reign, rather than run the risk of parallels being
found in it to the relationship of Elizabeth and Essex.  It seems to
me a fair surmise that Shakespeare for similar reasons put off the
writing, or at least
the performance, of his own Antony and Cleopatra--the historical
sequel to Julius Caesar--until some five years after Queen Elizabeth's
death.
   "That the theater should be intensely concerned with politics was
inevitable in a time of acute tension...." (pp. 2-3)

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