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In the first issue (1590- 1600), ten comedies, nine historical dramas and three tragedies were written (during this period, two narrative poems were written, and 154 sonnets were written). This period can be the creation period of comedies and historical plays. Except Henry VIII and Cheryl, all historical plays were written in this period. More than half of comedies also appeared in this period. Although there were a few tragic works in this period, they did not represent the author's main thoughts and creative tendencies in this period. Moreover, the tragic works at this time are consistent with comedies in spirit, such as Romeo and Juliet, which has a cheerful and clear color in both ideological content and dramatic atmosphere. Here, "everything is youth and spring" (see Coleridge's Shakespeare Comments, Volume I).
During this period, Shakespeare was in the prime of life, and the English Renaissance began to reach its climax. His humanistic world outlook had just taken shape and he was happy and optimistic in spirit. This is the heyday of the so-called Elizabethan rule in British history. At home, the emerging bourgeoisie relied on the political power of kingship to achieve the balance between kingship and feudal power, especially the religious reform, bloody legislation and suppression of peasant uprising, which opened the way for the development of capitalism. Abroad, Britain defeated Spain's "Armada" and won the maritime hegemony, which created favorable conditions for the development of capitalism and enhanced the self-confidence of the class. However, the strength of the bourgeoisie itself is not strong enough, and the contradiction with the kingship has not reached a very fierce level. The prosperity of economy and culture has also concealed the sharp opposition between the proletariat and the emerging bourgeoisie and the kingship to some extent. Therefore, during this period, Shakespeare created a lot of comedies with passion, self-confidence and optimistic attitude towards life.
The theme of comedy in this period, like his poems, is about friendship, love and marriage. This is not only different from the ancient Greek comedian aristophanes and others, but also different from the Frenchman Moliere and others in the later 17 and 18 centuries. The former describes the major political struggles and social events at that time, while the latter exposes and criticizes the evils and social atmosphere of capitalism. Shakespeare, on the other hand, praised love and friendship, advocated the liberation of personality, reflected the struggle between old and new ideas and two forces, and expressed his humanistic ideal through a large number of stories about young aristocratic men and women fighting for freedom, love and independent marriage. The closer this period is to the end, the richer the ideological content of the drama, the more prominent the humanistic tendency, and the stronger the artistic skill, such as The Merchant of Venice, Much ado about nothing, Everyone is happy, Twelfth Night and so on. All of them have become Shakespeare's most influential and mature comedies, representing the highest achievement of his comic art, and some comedies in this period also contain more social critical elements, exposing and criticizing the callousness and money relationship exposed by early capitalism to some extent, such as The Merchant of Venice. The comedies of this period also showed a melancholy and sad atmosphere to a certain extent, and the faint melancholy added intriguing charm to the comedies, which already indicated some characteristics of the next period.
Romeo and Juliet, a tragic work created in this period, is a tribute to youth and love, which shows Shakespeare's distinctive humanistic thought and anti-feudal tendency. Juliet, the heroine in the play, can be said to be a female warrior, heroine and heroine in the British ideological liberation movement in the16th century! She is not only beautiful, but also smart and strong-willed. In order to pursue new ideas, new concepts, new living standards and new ways of love, she was brave, witty and tenacious, and resolutely declared war on feudal ethics, old feudal moral concepts and the whole old system. On the night when she met Romeo, she dared to disobey her father's orders, abandon prejudice, disregard family feuds and make a private date with Romeo with a new idea, which shows that she has extraordinary vision and courage. If Juliet listens to her father's advice, she will have endless wealth, at the cost of giving up her ideals, the new standard of living and the new moral concept that she and Romeo pursue together. But this new idea has penetrated into her soul, and she regards it as more important than life. In order to realize their life ideals with Romeo and establish a new life of true freedom, equality, mutual respect and love under the guidance of new ideas, she will go through fire and water and spare no pains. Once she saw that her ideal was completely shattered and Romeo no longer existed, she would fight to the death with the old forces. The death of her and Romeo was like lightning, which cut through the night sky; Like thunder, wake up the sleeping earth! Make more and more young people stand up and join in the great struggle to create a new life and bury the old system. Although the hero died of double suicide, the ideal of love overcame death and got the reconciliation of feudal feud. Romeo and Juliet die a fair death!
Portia, the heroine in The Merchant of Venice, has the charming characteristics of many female characters written by Shakespeare, but besides the dignity, kindness and gentleness that women generally possess, she also has her own unique special talents: superhuman wisdom, passionate emotion, firm will and lively personality that makes everyone happy. She is a new perfect woman with humanistic ideals. She is beautiful, knowledgeable, warm and generous, cheerful and lively, full of youthful vitality. She not only stands out in front of a group of courtiers and nobles, but also stands out among humanists like Antonio. "She is full of profound wisdom, pure warmth and quick wit ..." How rich, comfortable and crisp all her thoughts and remarks are, how kind and comforting her words are, and how beautiful all her charms (mostly borrowed from myths) are! Portia is like a goddess, shining in the whole beautiful scenery! The plot of the three boxes in the play contains profound implications, which not only shows the resistance of independent marriage to feudal bondage, but also symbolizes the victory of pure love and noble sentiment over secular concepts. Her main characteristics are wit, intelligence, courage and knowledge. It is her wit that makes a life-and-death lawsuit skillfully save the day, justice is done and evil is defeated.
During this period, the female characters in Shakespeare's works are vivid and beautiful, emitting a brilliant and beautiful unique brilliance. He created one perfect female image after another for us, especially in the description of the moonlit balcony in Act II of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare repeatedly used beautiful words such as sunshine, moonlight and starlight to describe the beauty of youth love, suggesting that the humanistic love ideal will shine in the feudal night. Therefore, although Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, many scenes are lyrical and quick, and the rhythm is bright and cheerful. As Coleridge, a famous English poet in the19th century, said, the script is "full of youth and spring". Therefore, the female images in this period can be described as "lotus flowers with different colors reflected in the sun".
Second,
The second issue (160 1 ~ 1607) is mainly about tragedies, with three Roman plays, five tragedies and three "black comedies" or "problem plays". The Roman plays Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra and Cory Ollanu are historical plays adapted from Plutarch's biographies of Greek and Roman heroes. These four tragedies, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Timon of Athens, mark the author's deep thinking about the times and life, and strive to shape some tragic protagonists in the new era: they woke up from the imprisonment and ignorance of the Middle Ages and developed or improved themselves ambitiously under the dawn of modern times, but they could not overcome the limitations of the times and themselves, and finally found themselves in the same environment and inner hostile forces.
This period is a period of great changes in British society, which is in the alternation of two dynasties. At this time, Elizabeth's so-called "golden age" has become a thing of the past, and various social contradictions have intensified and become extremely acute. Elizabeth's last years were no exception. At that time, the Queen persecuted the Puritans in order to maintain the church in England, which caused the opposition between the Puritans and the dynasty. At the same time, the contradiction between feudal forces and kingship, and the contradiction between the emerging bourgeoisie and kingship and feudal forces are extremely acute. The Stuart dynasty established by newly acceded James I was more violent, reactionary, bossy, corrupt and perverse, which made the alliance between the kingship and the emerging bourgeoisie begin to disintegrate. In addition, due to the enclosure movement in rural areas, the bankruptcy of farmers has been accelerated, and the contradiction between people and kingship has also intensified. Faced with such complicated social contradictions, Shakespeare is more exposed to the cruel reality, and his humanistic ideal has a fierce conflict with this cruel social reality. Therefore, he wrote a series of tragedies full of depression and resentment. During this period, the general theme of his tragedy was to express the contradiction between humanistic ideal and cruel social reality. He often reveals this contradiction through friendship, love, marriage, family and other aspects. , especially through a series of characters to reveal all kinds of social disasters caused by dark and evil forces, showing a wider, deeper and more complex social content. During this period, the style of Shakespeare's plays has also undergone fundamental changes, obviously losing the optimism of the previous period, with a gloomy, angry and painful tone.
O 'filia is one of the main women in Hamlet. She comes from a noble family, naive, pure and docile. Her love with Prince Hamlet also shines with the brilliance of humanistic ideal. O 'filia's own personality weakness is an important factor in her tragedy. She is a gentle and cowardly aristocratic daughter who lacks rich social experience. The dominant thought of her life did not surpass the feudal moral consciousness. Therefore, in the face of the complicated struggle of the imperial court, a woman like her is powerless to cope with it and can only unconsciously become an accomplice of evil forces. In this way, it is not surprising that she followed the advice of her father and brother and refused Hamlet's love, and later became a tool for the king to spy on Hamlet's inner secrets. Mr. Filja was the victim of a court plot. Her love tragedy with Hamlet is an inseparable episode in the whole court struggle. Through her tragic fate, she exposed and accused the pain and misfortune brought by the evil of feudal morality and feudal relationship to the girl's love, and also reflected the setbacks suffered by humanism.
Queen Gertrude is a cowardly female image with weak consciousness and integrity. She didn't know that Claudius was the murderer who poisoned Lao Wang, so she became a "slave of lust" under the condition of "letting evil spirits get carried away". Hamlet scolded his mother for "... the shoes worn at the funeral were not worn out", so he couldn't wait to get into the incestuous bed and "flirt in the filthy pigsty and say love ...". Although Gertrude betrayed her husband, he did not lose his maternal love for Hamlet. The play shows in detail her and Claudius' different attitudes towards Hamlet. In the fourth scene of the third act, she was severely condemned by Hamlet. The sword of language seemed to split her heart, and her answer was clever and beautiful. But under the threat of Laertes, she was the first to defend the traitor king, which was tantamount to betraying her son. When she drank the poisoned wine prepared by the traitor for Hamlet by mistake, she realized how insidious Claudius's plot was! The humiliation of being cheated made her miserable and desperate, but it was too late. Although dissolute, confused, poor and poor Jochud did not collude with traitors to hurt Hamlet out of nature, her cowardice and confusion were one of the important factors that caused Hamlet's tragedy.
Desdemona, the heroine of Othello, has humanistic ideological factors, which are embodied in her bold pursuit of love. She was born in a noble family in Venice, with a noble family, beautiful and talented, gentle and kind. In the communication with Othello, a lowly-born Moor, she learned about Othello's extraordinary life experience, was deeply moved by his noble quality and heroism, and dedicated the girl's love to him, regardless of racial prejudice, breaking through family barriers and ignoring public opinion, boldly pursuing love based on the love of two hearts, and finally happily combining with the person she loved. This requires considerable courage in a feudal society with racial prejudice and harsh family values. Although the love between Desdemona and Othello overcame racial prejudice, it could not escape the historical theme of extreme egoism and the bondage of feudal patriarchal ideology. For the sake of love and freedom of marriage, she dared to break through the stubborn feudal hierarchy and racial prejudice, opposed the authority of feudal parents with practical actions, and even broke off fathers and daughters with Bora Banxiu. But at the same time, she can't completely surpass the old feudal ethics. Specifically, when she understood the relationship between husband and wife (when she was later suspected by Othello), she only thought about the feudal ethical relationship between parents and children, and regarded obedience to her husband as her obligation, which is also the birthright of her wife. The rough treatment of her husband is just helpless!
How sorry we are to see that this "heroine", who was inspired by love and broke through the family cage, has now accepted the position of women being ruled and dominated in the family in the name of love. In her mind, to affirm the hard-won voluntary marriage, it is necessary to maintain her love. To maintain her love, we must unswervingly and resolutely love the person she chooses, give him the whole person and heart, and obey his domination. In this way, a woman's love, for her, is combined with respect and obedience. The brave Desdemona was not afraid to throw her fate into the storm, but in her understanding of the relationship between husband and wife, she failed to completely get rid of the shackles of feudal ethics, and finally regarded obedience and obedience as the highest virtue of housewives, so she failed to tell the truth to her deceived husband and distinguish between right and wrong, and was finally strangled by her relatives.
King Lear is a tragedy with a broad social picture and strong ideals. The script is based on ancient English legends and depicts the tragedies of Lear and Gloucester. Father and son are forced to kill each other, and the works reveal the same motives and purposes of the wicked. Lear asked his daughters to love him and obey him absolutely, so the two daughters flattered him in every way, sweet words, and Gonaril courted him, saying that she loved her father more than her own eyes, more than freedom and life. Reagan got the message, not to be outdone, saying that she regarded filial piety to her father as the greatest happiness and joy in her life. In fact, what they love is not their father, but the power and wealth he has. Once power and wealth are in their hands, they will turn against each other and reveal lost face. Cordelia's answer made Lao Wang unexpectedly not hear a sweet word. She said that of course she loved her father, but she didn't want to exaggerate. "I love you only according to my birthright, no more, no less." Of course, these honest and simple words of the younger daughter can't satisfy the confused father. He wants cordelia to reconsider and choose new words to supplement. Because what he wants is not sincere love, but verbal love! False love!
The play is very successful in characterization, especially the portrayal of negative characters. Gonaril and Reagan are both insidious and treacherous images of evil women who violate humanitarian principles, but they have different characteristics and personalities. Gonaril is wily and wily, and he is the chief culprit in playing politics and tricks. Although Reagan was wild and vicious, he was clumsy and vulgar than Goneril, and he was a little panicked and hesitant in the face of major events, so he was not as sophisticated as Goneril. Once Gonaril did evil, he "would rather get rid of all possible threats quickly than always be afraid of being assassinated." A vivid "I would rather lose this world than let it lose me!" " "careerist, schemer. They can't be suppressed by the fire of lust in their hearts, but at the same time they fall in love with Edmund, Gloucester's illegitimate child. Edmund is a sinister villain, and his two sisters are tarred with the same brush. He hooked up with King Lear's two daughters, and was naturally dominated by his inner ambitions and desires. So there is no real love between them, which leads to jealousy and intrigue between Goneril and Reagan. In the end, Reagan was poisoned by his sister, and Gonaril committed suicide because the murder of her husband was revealed. Their tragic ending expresses the author's deep hatred for this villain who violates humanitarian principles.
Cordelia, on the other hand, is a character who is fully praised and admired by the author, which embodies the words, deeds and opinions of humanism on harmonious relationship between people, sincere and selfless love and seeking truth from facts; This paper expounds the author's views on human dignity, personality and ethics. She wants to be a filial daughter, but she thinks she should be a virtuous wife, so she should give half her love to her future husband. Such unpretentious words show her deepest and sincere love for her father. But such true love was regarded as unfilial and disrespectful by the fatuous father, and Cordelia was completely out of favor. She was deprived of the right to inherit the throne, lost all her land and property, and even the relationship between father and daughter was cut off by Lear rashly! Faced with such an unfortunate life experience, Cordelia did not hate her father, but as always, she buried her love for him in her heart, said goodbye to her father in tears and set off for France. When she learned that Hou Li, who had fallen from power and influence, was brutally persecuted and abused by two heartless sisters, she was furious and led an army to put down the rebellion. Near Dover, I saw my crazy father, who seemed to wake up like a fan. Cordelia was heartbroken. Here, the author warmly praises the true love, sincerity, rationality, justice and kindness advocated by humanists. The affirmation of Cordelia is precisely the propaganda and advocacy of humanistic principles. However, Cordelia, who entrusted the embodiment of the author's humanistic ideal, was captured and eventually killed because of the failure of resistance, and Cordelia became an unfortunate victim of the times. The tragedy of King Lear illustrates the contradiction between authority and the true love, sincerity and justice that humanists hope, and shows the disillusionment of the author's humanistic ideal.
Lady Macbeth in Macbeth's plays is a more ruthless and greedy woman than her husband, who has the same ambition, and even her queen desire is stronger than Macbeth's king desire. Her will and courage surpass her husband's, and her calm and cruel character is beyond Macbeth's reach. She claimed that "I have breast-fed children and know how much my mother loves her breast-fed children;" But when he looks at my face and smiles, I will take my nipple off his soft mouth and smash his head ... "She stimulated her husband's ambition, but she was afraid that he would not make up his mind and repeatedly encouraged him to change the" milk smell of human feelings ". Since "I want it", it should not be "I don't want it", "a man should have backbone" Even snapped insults at him and participated in the murder of King Duncan. Like the three witches, she played the role of temptation and guidance. When the dust of the throne settled and the plot succeeded, her heart as a woman could not support the weight of too much blood debt, and she was condemned by her conscience, so that she went crazy and finally died in sigh, anxiety, sleepwalking, insanity and infinite pain. It shows that Lady Macbeth is a cruel and heartless evil woman.
The tragedies of these characters profoundly reveal all kinds of social ugliness and bourgeois egoism that began to appear in primitive accumulation of capital period, and show the irreconcilable contradiction between humanistic ideal and cruel reality, which has a high degree of generalization significance. Shakespeare's plays during this period turned out to be all kinds of cowardly, ugly and despicable negative images such as evil wives, adulterers and little women, which profoundly reflected Shakespeare's extreme disgust and disgust for women, lamenting that the beauty of the past "had no choice but to consume" and could not conceal her inner sadness and despair, making people feel awkward to read!
Third,
The main works of the third issue (1608 ~ 16 13) are four tragicomedy or legendary dramas, Prince Ricci of Tyre, cymbeline, Winter Story and The Tempest. Most of these works are about separation, reunion, framing and revenge. Although we still adhere to the ideal of humanism and expose the dark reality, the solution of contradictions mainly depends on magic, fantasy, coincidence and accidental events, and ends with preaching forgiveness, tolerance, compromise and reconciliation. The comedies at this time are very different from the previous two periods, and these works are full of myths and legends. Therefore, this period can be called the comedy creation period of myths and legends. Shakespeare's transformation from realistic writing methods to myths and legends has its realistic social reasons. During this period, the strength of the bourgeoisie grew day by day, but the feudal monarchy became more reactionary and decadent, and various social contradictions became more acute and fierce. The distance between humanists' social ideal and social reality is getting bigger and bigger, which is difficult to bridge. Although Shakespeare still insisted on humanistic ideals during this period, he could not find a way out in reality. He had to resort to fantasy, hoping to have supernatural magical power to mediate contradictions in reality. Therefore, his comedies often set some illusory scenes, tortuous and bizarre plots and legendary characters, and often adopt unrealistic methods to solve contradictions and problems. Therefore, the style of drama creation has returned to the fresh and optimistic road, permeated with Shakespeare's lofty and distant ideological tendency. Nevertheless, he is not entirely a legendary figure. His works reflect some social realities to a certain extent through the joys and sorrows of the drama characters, and play a critical role in society. Moreover, these works are skillful in artistic skills. As belinsky said, "I seem to have had a horrible and sweet dream."
Miranda, the heroine of The Tempest, pinned her hopes for revival on Shakespeare after her humanistic ideal spirit was disillusioned. She is beautiful and pure. She lived on the island with her father since she was a child and was not polluted by the noise of the world. Her young heart is full of the purest and purest love for this world. When she met many people for the first time, she exclaimed, "It's amazing, how many beautiful people there are here, and how beautiful human beings are!" Ah, there are so many outstanding people in the novel world! " She compared people to temples. "If evil spirits occupy such a beautiful house, good virtues will certainly strive for it." How beautiful and naive her heart is. She thinks that "moral action is more valuable than hateful action" and tries to "influence everything with love", but she does not agree with her father Prospero's philosophy of violent revenge. Miranda sighed when she saw that her father used magic to make the ship of King Allonzot of Naples jolt up and down in lightning and heavy rain. I look at those who suffer, and I suffer as much as they do! ""If I were a strong God, I would let the sea sink underground to prevent it from engulfing this good ship and the people it carries. "Reflects her pure and kind heart.
Miranda also has great love and compassion. Growing up, she had never seen a human except the ugly monster Kaileban. She fell in love with handsome Philip at first sight. "This is the third person I have seen in my life; And he was the first person I sighed for him ... "Prospero decided to test the love of young people. He accused Philip of being a spy, but Miranda didn't believe his father. "If so, my desire for love is extremely humble; I don't want to see a better person. " She begged her father not to "torture" Philip, thinking that he was kind and not terrible, and even willing to be his guarantor. When Philip was punished for moving heavy wood, she blamed her father for it and loved him tenderly and comforted him. In a series of hardships, two young people have a sincere, pure and flawless love. At the end of the play, Philip and Miranda go to Naples to attend the wedding, and everything will be fine. Prospero and Antonio reunited; Allonzot and Philip meet again; Ai Lier is free again, and everything is happy. This is an enviable happy ending.
As the last work of Shakespeare, The Tempest has made great artistic achievements. The author's brilliant ideas, magnificent scenery descriptions, vivid images and poetic language have been praised by people. Belinsky, a famous Russian critic, once praised all kinds of characters created in the play, especially Miranda's "like a shadow, shining in the transparent thin air at night, in the crimson curtains of the morning glow and on the colorful clouds formed by the flowers", which has high aesthetic value. Miranda's image can be described as "deja vu". She has many similarities with the youthful, energetic, beautiful and charming images such as Juliet and Portia in Shakespeare's early works, but there are also more differences. Miranda's beauty and purity seem to be perfect "only in the sky", which is hard to see on earth. She is already a "lost swallow who once danced and looked down on the earth forever". Miranda, as an ideal figure in the legend, just left us with a daydream concept.