Theatre Flashcards
When was Stephen Gosson’s anti-theatrical treatise ‘Schoole of Abuse’ published?
1579
To whom is the opening epistle addressed in Stephen Gosson’s ‘The Schoole of Abuse’?
Philip Sidney
What do poets do to society, in Gosson’s view?
They ‘disperse their poison through all the world’
What does Gosson say of poets and cooks?
‘I may well liken… Poets to Cooks: the pleasures of the one wins the body from labor, and conquers the sense; the allurement of the other draws the mind from virtue, and confounds wit.’
What does Gosson say of poetic fantasies in poetry and theatre?
‘Poetic fantasies draw [Princes] to the school of their own abuses’
What does Gosson say theatres do to people?
They ‘effeminate the mind, as pricks unto vice, than procure amendment of manners, as spurs to virtue.’
How does Gosson end his ‘Schoole of Abuses’?
‘Let us but shut up our ears to Poets, Pipers and Players, pull our feet back from resort to Theatres’
What shows an intersection between genre and class dynamics in Beaumont’s ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’?
A player says ‘it will show ill-favoredly to have a grocer’s prentice to court a king’s daughter.’
When was ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ first a) performed, and b) published?
a) 1607, b) 1613
When was Thomas Dekker’s ‘Old Fortunatus’ first a) performed, and b) published?
a) 1599, b) 1600
How does the prologue to ‘Old Fortunatus’ address theatrical limitations?
‘for this small circumference must stand / For the imagined surface of much land’
Who does Fortunatus talk to in his first scene?
His acted ‘Echo’
What does Shadow say about clothes and appearances in ‘Old Fortunatus’?
‘for apparel is but the shadow of a man. Shadow is the substance of his apparel.’
What does Gosson say about the threat of semblances?
‘The shadow of a knave hurts an honest man… the shew of Theatres a simple gazer.’
How does Gosson end his ‘Schoole of Abuses’?
‘Let us but shut up our ears to Poets, Pipers and Players, pull our feet back from resort to Theatres’
When was ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ a) first performed, and b) published?
a) 1607, b) 1613
What does a player say in ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ about genre and class dynamics?
‘It’ll show ill-favoredly to show a grocer’s prentice to court a king’s daughter.’
When was ‘Old Fortunatus’ first a) performed, and published?
a) 1596, b) 1600
What does the prologue of ‘Old Fortunatus’ say about the weakness of theatre?
‘for this small circumference must stand / For the imagined surface of much land’
Who does Fortunatus speak to in the first scene?
His acted ‘Echo’
What does Shadow say about semblance in ‘Old Fortunatus’?
‘for apparel is but the shadow of a man. But Shadow is the substance of his apparel’
What does Andelocia say about the (il)logic of theatre in ‘Old Fortunatus’?
‘we’ll feed ourselves with paradoxes’
What does Jonas Barish say about change from an antitheatrical perspective?
‘the actor, his trade founded on change, becomes a lively image of the fallen man’
What does ‘Old Fortunatus’’s prologue say about the active viewer?
‘Your gracious eye / Gives life to Fortunatus’s history’
What is ‘Old Fortunatus’ believed to be based on?
‘Fortunatus’ by Thomas Combe
When was Bartholomew Fair first performed?
1616
What does the Stagekeeper complain about in the induction?
The playwright ‘has ne’er a sword and buckler-man in his fair’
What does the preface to ‘Knight of the Burning Pestle’ hope for?
A ‘sequel’ to ‘revenge [Beaumont’s] quarrel, and challenge the world either of fond and merely literal interpretation or illiterate misprecision’
What does the scrivener say in the contract about judgement?
‘It shall be lawful for any man to judge his six pennyworth’
What does the scrivener’s contract say about romance and realism?
‘no person here is… to look back to the sword and buckler age of Smithfield, but content himself with the present’
What does the scrivener’s contract say, implying the death of the author?
‘the author having departed with his right’
What does the scrivener’s contract warn against, in terms of audience judgement?
‘censure by contagion’
What is an element of danger in theatrical spectacle, according to Barish?
‘spectator complicity’
What is Faustus called which associates playwrights with magicians?
‘conjurer laureate’
What does Thomas Nashe say about plays’ merits in ‘Pierce Penniless’?
‘what can be a sharper reproof to these effeminate days of ours?’
What does Gosson say about the financial element of poets, pipers, and players?
They ‘privily encroach upon every man’s purse’
What is ‘The Knight of the Burning Pestle’ meant to be called originally?
‘The London Merchant’
What was a consequence of permanent playhouses, according to Bruster?
‘a relatively haphazard, mobile enterprise [drama] now began to claim a permanent status’
When and what was the first playhouse built in London?
1567, the Red Lion
When was ‘Doctor Faustus’ first performed?
1592
What does Vertue address to Queen Elizabeth at the end of ‘Old Fortunatus’?
‘I am a Shadow, at your feet I fall’
What quote at the end of ‘Old Fortunatus’ links the queen’s grace with theatrical authenticity?
‘dread Nymph it lies / In you to make us substances’
What does Stephen Gosson say about Queen Elizabeth’s manner of rule in ‘The Schoole of Abuse’
‘breaking her foes with the bent of her brow, ruling her subjects with shaking her hand’
What does Gosson complain about, with regard to the theatre’s relationship with Royal authority?
‘How often hath her Majesty… sett down the limits of apparel to every degree’
When was Dekker’s ‘Magnificent Entertainment’ for James I performed?
1604
What does the description of ‘Magnificent Entertainment’ say about social class?
‘The multitude is now to be our audience, whose heads would miserably run-a-wool-gathering, if we do but offer to break them with hard words.’
