Drama and the Elizabethan world view
By: Magnus Hjorth Jørgensen 3.M

The Great Chain of Being:
During Shakespeare’s time “the great chain of being” dominated people’s perception of the world and how things was connected. Back then Christians thought that every single living thing and object had a specific rank after its importance. God was of course the most important character represented in “the great chain of being” as he is the creator of the world and Christianity is a monotheistic religion in which there only is one God. After God comes angels and then Humans.
Wild animals are after humans, followed by domestic animals. Plants are next, followed by minerals and stones. Within each of these categories are things listen and categorised even further. Under Humans you have the king on top, as the king is considered appointed by God and therefore is closer to God than other humans. After the king you have other royalties, followed by priests and nobles, and then comes commoners. Under animals you also have a hierarchy within as a subcategory. The lion is the animal ranked the highest, and the worm the lowest.
Under plants the oak tree is considered the most important one. Under this period of time in history, if there was to occur a disturbance, in which for example a commoner would obtain a higher rank or perhaps there was a bad king at the time, people believed that nature would try to sort things out and restore peace and calmness from the chaos. People thought that things were meant to stay in their category and should not be able to change where they belonged.
The History of Drama
During the eleventh and twelfth century most of the commoners were illiterate, meaning they could not read and therefore was unable to study the words of the bible and learn about Christianity. The clerics and church leaders came up with a solution to let the commoners learn about the word of God, without reading it. They presented acts from the bible in front of the church, in the beginning they only show cased acts that presented the mystery works of God, these plays was called “Mystery plays” and was a huge success. The common Englishman could now learn about Christianity without having to learn how to read and study the bible.
The plays quickly developed and soon after the acts had to me moved into the town square, since it was such a success and more people wanted to watch. The people responsible for the plays created what’s called a “pageant” which is a two story tall cart that the actors would perform the plays on. These pageants would drive around the square followed by other pageants where the plays would continue. Each pageant had costumes and props on the first floor, which was covered and on the second floor the play was being acted out. The plays evolved over the years and by the end of the 14th century the plays had moved away from bible plays and now performed what is called “Morality plays”. These plays had characters such as: truth, good deed, faith and charity, while their counterparts also got a role: falsehood, convergences, worldly flesh and the Devil.
People loved these plays, but the church banned them, since they had moved away from reciting bible stories. The plays moved out of town and into big open fields, much like the old Greek dramas. In these sceneries where the actors were no longer restricted by the church, young writers developed, such as William Shakespeare.
The English Dramatic Tradition
Before plays became popular in England it was mostly singing, playing music, doing acrobatics or reciting interesting stories, that was considered the prime options of entertainment. When plays became popular they were mostly history plays, which depicted historic moments in English or European history. Tragedies and comedies, inspired from the old Greece were also immensely popular. These plays and other like them was performed in massive outdoor fields or the streets, or so called inn-yards or wherever there was room, but in 1576 the first profitable theatre opened in London and was simply called the theatre. It was still open in the middle, so the audience was not protected from the weather. Because of lack of artificial lighting the performances was always during the day, at precisely 2 o’clock. And torches were often used to symbolize night time.
Theatre became very popular to the commoners, but also noblemen were present at plays, they also had to option to bring the actors home and get a performance in their own home.
Othello as Tragedy – and what is tragedy?
Othello is not what is considered a classical tragedy. Classic tragedies are the tales such as: Hamlet or Macbeth, in which the repercussions of the characters choices and actions influences the whole country of Denmark and Scotland respectively. In the tale of Othello there are no repercussions for Cyprus, the tragedy is only within the characters involved. Othello is also different in the fact that our main character is a black man and the topics in which the story dwells are focused around that and the consequences that gives. The thing we learn from watching/reading Othello and whom we feel bad for have changed with time. Back when the play was new and racism wasn’t that much of a focus in society, we felt bad for the women instead. Whereas now our emotional focus is now more focused on Othello and how he has to live with the racisms he experiences. Back in the 16th and 17th century, those topics would not have created massive debates about society and how racism is wrong. Our criticism has also changed throughout the years. Our ways of reading the plays have changed to a way in which we focus more on complex interactions and the language that is used. This way of reading plays are called “New Criticism” What new Criticism does not cover, are the social contexts in which the plays are written and therefore this method is at times criticised.