Урок "Поезія Крістофера Марлоу"

The Title of the Lesson: Elizabethan Theatre and Drama. Playwrights and Poets. Christopher Marlowe. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”.

Objectives: to introduce students to the history of drama and theatre in England, the representatives of the period; to introduce them to the poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”; to comprehend reading material; to identify the themes, mood and form of the poem; to discuss in groups and work out the situations we may use poems in; to practice finding and choosing appropriate poems or lines to express various thoughts, ideas or feelings;

Skills: individual research work, information and communications technology (ICT) work skills, collaborative skills, reading for information, critical reading, critical thinking skills;

The Procedure of the Lesson

1. Lead-in.

1. Revision of the preceding material.

Match these dates with the events in history of English literature:

1. 6^th century BC            a) Chaucer completes his “Canterbury Tales”;
2. 10^th century BC          b) The Hundred Years’ War broke out;
3. 1066                            c) Reign of King Henry VIII;
4. 1534                            d) The Plague killed one third of the population of England;
5. 1337                            e) Anglo-Saxons conquered Britain;
6. 1168                            f) the Normans invaded Britain;
7. 1396                            g) Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church;
8. 1516                            h) “Utopia” was written;
9. 1509-1547                   i) the first schools at the town of Oxford were founded;
10. 1348                            j) The first written poem “Beowulf” appeared;

2. Revision of the vocabulary and material of the previous lecture.

The “Don’t Say ‘Uh’” Game. See Lesson 2 for instructions.

Recommended vocabulary for the game: Renaissance, Humanists, scientists of the Golden Age,

Grammar schools, Elizabethan writers and poets, the Catholic Church.

3. Brainstorming pupils’ answers:

Do you like going to theatres? How often do you go there? What theatres in your city can you mention? What of them do you visit most often?

Have you ever heard about “The Globe Theatre”? What do you know about it?

2. Activities and Instructional Procedures.

1. Read the lecture and find words that mean:

a)  expressing someone’s actions aimed to punish someone who has harmed or offended this person;

b)  facts that show clearly that something exists or is true;

c)  large, expensive and impressive;

d)  a yard in a small hotel in the countryside;

e)  attractive or interesting;

f)  the name of the theatrical district in London;

g)  to be designed in a way that is copied from something else;

h)  the name of one of the most famous playhouses in the history of England;

Theatre and Drama

1. There were fine works of poetry and prose in the Elizabethan age, but the greatest heights of literature at that period were reached in drama. An Elizabethan play is a type of English drama written and performed during 1558-1603, which was also the reign of Queen Elizabeth. This sub-classification of drama includes the works of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Dekker, and Francis Beaumont among many others.
   These are some interesting facts about Elizabethan plays:

Elizabethan playwrights are known to combine different genres such as comedy, pastoral, and tragedy, which make the drama even more appealing to the audience.  Elizabethan plays did not use lavish set designs and backgrounds. Instead, the plays focused more on the visual appeal of the costumes. The clothes worn by the actors were commonly grandiose and appealing. They were also bright in colour as it attracts the attention of the audience.

2. Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted English or European history. Shakespeare’s plays about the lives of kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this category, as do Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and George Peele's Famous Chronicle of King Edward the First.

Tragedy was a popular genre. Marlowe's tragedies were exceptionally popular, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of Malta. The audiences particularly liked revenge dramas, such as Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy.

Comedies were common, too. A sub-genre developed in this period was the city comedy, which deals satirically with life in London after the fashion of Roman New Comedy. Examples are Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday and Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside.

3. Theatre was said to be grandiose and extravagant like most part of Elizabethan aristocratic culture. It was mainly divided into open air amphitheater, inn-yards and playhouses.
   A possible root of the inn-yard theatre were the so-called "strolling players" whose performing company moved from one village square or market place to another.

Open air amphitheaters started with James Burbage in 157. Its structure was patterned from Roman and Greek amphitheaters. Inn-yards can house 300 people while amphitheaters housed 3000.

It did not take long before indoor plays were produced. The playhouses appeared. Playhouses allowed for the Elizabethan theater in England to continue during the winter months and in the evenings, using candlelight for lighting. As the stage was far intimate than the open stage, this allowed for more emphasis in the words of the play rather than big, attention-grabbing effects.

4. When the Theatre was pulled down in 1583, the actors including Shakespeare helped the architect to design the new playhouse which was called the Globe. It was built in Maiden Lane near the Thames. The stage didn’t resemble the present day one at all. There were no curtains to open, or close the play. The Globe Playhouse was destroyed during the Great London Fire in 1666 but the district of Maiden Lane is still the heart of the theatrical life in London.

As the public became more demanding and the art of the theatre developed, it became necessary to find new plays. The demand was answered by some university graduates. This group of writers is known as the Academic Dramatists or the “University Wits”. Among them were Thomas Kyd (1557-1595), George Peele (1558-1597), Robert Greene (1560-1592), Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) and Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593).

5.  Christopher Marlowe was an Elizabethan playwright and poet who is best remembered for his tragedies. He attended The King's School, Canterbury and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge on a scholarship and received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1584. In 1587, the university hesitated to award him his master's degree because of a rumour that he had converted to Roman Catholicism and intended to go to the English college at Rheims to prepare for the priesthood. However, his degree was awarded on schedule when the Privy Council commended him for his "faithful dealing" and "good service" to the Queen. There has been speculation that Marlowe and William Shakespeare was one and the same person, but no conclusive evidence has been found. Among the other rumors surrounding Marlowe's life include: serving as a spy for the Queen of England, atheism, and homosexuality.

2. Reading Comprehension.

Which of the paragraphs mentions:  

1. the characteristic features of Elizabethan drama;
2. the names of the most known playwrights;
3. genres of the plays of the epoch;
4. the way the first theatres were called;
5. the names of popular tragedies;
6. a group of the first professional playwrights;
7. the name of the University Marlowe graduated;
8. the way the first plays were set;
9. the name of the district known as the theatre centre in London;
10. the year the Globe theatre was destroyed;

There may be more than one paragraph for one item. Tell some words about each of the items.

3. Group Work. Interactive Assignment.

Divide into 5 groups according to the paragraphs in the text. Each group is to work out at least 3 special questions to the contents of their part and ask the class to answer them. The pupils exchange the questions to reproduce as much as they can from the lecture. The teacher may put it as the score game – the groups get a score for each correct answer. The pupils put down all the questions they ask each other into their notebooks.

4. Introducing the Pupils to Christopher Marlowe’s Poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love”.

Who do you think the speaker in the poem is? Whom does he address his pleads to? What places does he often mention in his speech?

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love, 
And we will all the pleasures prove 
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, 
Woods or steepy mountain yields. 

And we will sit upon the rocks, 
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, 
By shallow rivers to whose falls 
Melodious birds sing madrigals. 

And I will make thee beds of roses 
And a thousand fragrant posies, 
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle 
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; 

A gown made of the finest wool 
Which from our pretty lambs we pull; 
Fair lined slippers for the cold, 
With buckles of the purest gold; 

A belt of straw and ivy buds, 
With coral clasps and amber studs: 
And if these pleasures may thee move, 
Come live with me and be my love. 

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing 
For thy delight each May morning: 
If these delights thy mind may move, 
Then live with me and be my love.

5. Introducing the Pupils to the Poem Form.

Teachers Comments: Pastoral poems depict an imaginary and ideal life in the country, sometimes filled with shepherds, shepherdesses, and nymphs. One of the most famous pastoral poems of the Renaissance is Christopher Marlowe’s (1564–1593) The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. Sir Walter Raleigh’s (1554–1618) answer to this poem, The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, takes the same form as Marlowe’s poem, but mocks its romantic subject matter.

6. Reading Comprehension.

1. Answer the questions and prove your thoughts with the lines from the poem:

What pastoral settings are mentioned in the first stanza?

What time of year does the shepherd speak about? How does it influence the mood of the poem?

How does the shepherd imagine his life with his beloved? What assumption about the lifestyle of the couple can the reader make from stanzas 3-5? 

2. Classify the words into categories:

7. Brainstorming.

The teacher introduces students to the idea that poems can be useful to recite – the whole poem or part of it – in real life situations and asks them to brainstorm what some of those situations may be, for example:

• When faced with bad news or difficult times

• At a wedding, funeral, or other life-cycle event

• As a toast or grace before meals

• In a romantic relationship or during a marriage proposal

• During a speech or other effort to move an audience, whether it be voters, colleagues, teammates, or others you wish to lead.

8. Analyzing. Group Work Assignment.

Discuss in groups and share your ideas about:

1. In which situations can we use this poem?
2. What themes are covered in the poem?
3. What is the role of nature in the description of the speaker’s view of the ideal life with his beloved?

3. Follow-up.

Read the list of some more situations in addition to those you brainstormed in which the lines from poems may be used:

• to console;                  - to encourage;
• to taunt;                       - to flatter;                  - to make an impact on a listener;

Share your ideas about what situation you’d like to choose and justify your choice by briefly imagining a moment. A few sentences will do.

Homework: 1) Internet Hunt Task. Find two or three lines or the passage or the poem appropriate to the situation you’ve chosen. Be ready to present it to the class; 2) learn Marlowe’s poem by heart; 3) Read the lecture, be ready to answer the questions the pupils put down in their notebooks (II.3) about it.

The Keys:Activity II.1. a) revenge b) evidence c) lavish d) inn-yard e) appealing f) Maiden Lane g) patterned h) the Globe Theatre