Elizabethan Drama Essays - Guggenheim Fellows, Tamburlaine

Elizabethan Drama Beyond New Historicism: Marlowe's unnatural histories and the melancholy properties of the stage Drew Milne The tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living. [1] There is no document of culture which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free from barbarism, barbarism also taints the process of transmission ... [2] Recent critical discussions of Elizabethan drama, above all of Shakespeare, have centred around `new historicism', a trend consolidated in critical anthologies.[3] New historicism is characterised by an interest in the historicity of texts and the textuality of history, and by affinities with theoretical projects concerned with power, identity and the construction of subject positions. Despite important political differences, new historicism has been linked with what has become known as `cultural materialism'.[4] Many of the political differences stem from the uneasy relation of new historicism, and of cultural materialism, to the Marxist conception of history or historical materialism, differences which this essay seeks to accentuate. Raymond Williams is often claimed as a major precursor of cultural materialism, but interest in institutions, discursive practices and subject positions suggests the different legacy of Althusser's attack on humanism and the influence of Foucault. New historicism, by contrast, shows scant regard for Marxism while being especially indebted to Foucault's version of Nietzsche's will to power and perspectival historicism, despite important critiques of Foucault's work.[5] The Althusserian approach is more overtly committed to the possibility of political change but tends towards a similarly theoreticist, even formalist reduction of history. The possibility of resisting power and the power of ideology marks the decisive conflict in these different assimilations of history to culture. New historicism, lost in proliferating examples of contingent but seemingly inescapable discourses of power, seems at best to expand the archive of wry smiles at the ruses of history and power. As an academic guise in which to rework the glories of the past without pausing too long over the enormity of the history surveyed, the reproduction of literary history now lies in the hands of those who can offer few reasons for continuing to produce the object of critique. Sinfield suggests that, `New historicists, therefore, like their colleagues, are sustaining many of the old routines while knowing, really, that their validity has evaporated.'[6] As such, new historicists could be described as reformists who do not believe in progress. If we are to awake from the nightmare of history, perhaps such historicism should be left alone to dull the air with discoursive moans, as Aeneas puts it in Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage. The persistent naturalisation of suffering in history should be resisted if the process of transmitting historical documents is not to further the process. Herein lies the need to offer estranging perspectives on Elizabethan drama and the intervening historical gulf. One aspect of the difficulty is the continuing investment in naturalising both the language and dramaturgy of Elizabethan drama within a literary tradition dominated by Shakespeare and the Shakespeare industry. This essay seeks to provide an estranging perspective through a reading of new historicist accounts of Marlowe. Focussing on Tamburlaine, I hope to suggest some different approaches with regard to the melancholy dramatisation of history as a scene of unnatural events, by drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin and Franco Moretti.[7] A distinctive and estranging approach to dramatising the enormity of history is evident in the prevalence of violence, murder and arbitrary death in Elizabethan drama itself. This prevalence has long been seen as excessive, a mark of something unnatural in its historical imaginary, without being understood. History in Elizabethan drama is, as title-pages characteristically predict, lamentable. The structure of effects suggested by drama as an occasion for melancholic lamentation helps to contextualise the roles of Tamburlaine, Barabas and Guise in Marlowe's plays, where it seems particularly in-appropriate to reduce their dramatic ambivalence to the need to identify with a central protagonist or autonomous `character'. As David Bevington suggests: `The well-known type of "Lamentable Tragedy, Mixed Full of Pleasant Mirth" ... traces its origins to the view that vicious behavior is at once funny and terrifying as a spectacle, admirable and yet grotesque, amusing but also edifying as a perverse distortion of moral behavior.'[8] Elizabethan drama, par-ticularly Marlowe's, dramatises the contradictions of seeing history as a record of divine providence in which the world is the theatre of divine judgment. The prologue to the first part of Tamburlaine invites audience and reader to `View but his picture in this tragicke glasse, / And then applaud his fortunes if

Take the shot Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers

Take the shot Essays - Free Essays, Term Papers, Research Papers Connor Johnson Mr. Pollard Creative Writing P. 6 11/12/15 Take the shot Pan through a desert, hearing the wind. It picks up the dust and that swirls around the sky. Throughout the panning, you hear the static of a radio comms system, and inaudible talking coming through it. The camera slows and stops as it starts to pan past a pair of old worn combat boots. The camera pans up, slowly revealing a person, with the physique of a man, wearing Middle Eastern civilian clothing lying on the ground. The scarf he wears flaps a bit in the breeze, as well as his brown, unkempt hair. The camera keeps panning up, and you see hes holding a rifle. An American rifle. Anthony Command this is Apollo do you read me HQ Apollo this is command. We hear you loud and clear Anthony Im in position, ready to receive target. HQ Alright were transmitting data to you as we speak Letting out a small chuckle, and shifting his body Anthony Maybe next time can you give me a position a bit closer? Its hot as balls out here and Im tired as fuck. The men at HQ laugh audibly through the comms HQ Well think about it alright? Anthony Sounds good to me HQ Oh hey by the way Maggie called. She made us promise you wed tell you before the mis Anthony Spit it out already man whatd she say. HQ Its a girl and her name is Ashley. Theyre both healthy and fine. Congrats Tony. Anthony Well way to go now all al-Qaeda knows who I am. But thanks it means a lot. Tony flips his hand so the camera can see two names tattooed on his wrist. Maggie and Ashley it reads. Camera pans to the side of his head, as he smiles sadly. His thoughts are brought back by a faint beeping coming from his small computer. He looks down and it shows a young girl picture. Anthony Sir I think you made a mistake. This isnt a target, its a little girl HQ Exactly theyre getting craftier. Weve received Intel that she is going to detonate inside the bazaar. Take her out before she gets there. Anthony Sir, I cant do that. We dont know for a fact that shes carrying weapons, or even that shes with the extremists HQ Apollo this is a direct order, do not disobey Anthony Fuck off Anthony clicks off his comms and the camera zooms forward like hes looking through his scope. Camera strafes back and forth like he is searched, and then quickly focusses in on a small girl skipping along between some houses. About a house back, there are some larger men following. Anthony I have eyes on the target she looks harm Fuckin hell Anthony clicks the comms back on HQ Dont you ever do that again do you he Anthony Will all due respect sir. Shut the hell up. I have eyes on the girl. She looks harmless, but I see some bigger hostiles behind her HQ You will be reprimanded for this soldier, but take the shot. Take the shot now. Anthony You think this is all a game. Just a fucking game. Well theres lives at stake here. People, actual people that you cant just wipe off the map. They arent just dots on a map, they have families. Brothers and sisters. This girl has a mother and a father you know. Do you have kids sir? ` No, I dont, but I dont see how that appl Anthony Shut up dammit. I do have a kid. A girl as a matter of fact. Her name is Ashley HQ I know Anthony Did? I say you could talk? HQ Silence Anthony gets up and starts to take apart his rifle. He pulls out his binoculars and looks down at the girl. She skips to a house and two parents come out and hug her. Anthony Are you seeing this command? You wanted me to kill this girl in front of her house in front of her family, and you dont even say sorry? HQ We can debrief once you get back to base. Anthony I dont think we will. Im done. Im out. HQ Dont think you can leave like this. We wil jail you. What do you thnk your wife wil say. You have a kid tothink about. Anthony Do you think I give a fuck right now? Anthony clicks off the comms, pulls up his scarf pics up his rifle and walks away