[Phil Wood]

Tragic heroes: Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Macbeth
Tragic victims: Ophelia, Cordelia, Desdemona, Lady Macduff

Not great plays for female roles, but then boys played those roles. Of course, there is a historical context.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books...8E6FB11CD72568

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

A related question for Shaun and other Early Modernists: Which Elizabethan plays, other than Shakespeare’s, should I put at the top of my list? I’ve seen, not read, Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” and Webster’s “Duchess of Malfi” and read the anonymous “King Leir,” which Tolstoy thought far superior to Shakespeare’s. None of them excited me as much as my Shakespearean favorites. While I sometimes think the Bard went too far by killing off Cordelia (an old debate, I know), “King Leir” ends happily with everyone still alive and kicking!

(Technically Duchess of Malfi is Jacobean, not Elizabethan, but that's just me being pedantic).

Pedantry aside, I think Christine's list is great. I've read most of them, and would especially recommend Tamburlaine (though both parts -- not just Part I), which feels a bit like Antony and Cleopatra merged with Titus Andronicus. Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is brilliant, if you can stomach actual (not implied) incest among protagonists. Fletcher and Beaumont's A King and No King has a milder version of that theme in a tragicomic context. Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy is very much a precursor to Hamlet, and is very good even if it's impossible not to read it without thinking of all the connections. Massinger's The Renegado is delicious. For comedies, Jonson is somehow underrated. Volpone and The Alchemist are brilliant. I'd also recommend Fletcher's The Island Princess.


There are others, but all of the above (and the ones I know from Christine's list) are all worthwhile.

[Simon Hunt]

Enjoying this discussion very much. Particular faves from BITD when I was sort of an academic:

all of Marlowe (esp Doctor Faustus)
Jonson, Volpone (to start with, but why stop there?)
Webster, Duchess of Malfi (love him in Shakespeare in Love)
Beaumont, Knight of the Burning Pestle (really funny, surprisingly "post-modern" satire of other plays)

[Shaun J. Russell]

It's great to see a lot of love for Marlowe and Jonson on this thread. I very much believe that, had he not been killed so young, Marlowe could have at least had equal stature to Shakespeare in the eyes of literary history. As it stands, his works have more influence than many might suspect. Whenever I read Marlowe, I'm always struck by the feeling of danger in his plays. For most other playwrights, the buildup to an event is crucial -- foreshadowing, plot development that contextualizes the event etc. But in Marlowe, surprising things happen at seemingly random. As a reader, they shock you...so I can only imagine how they would have played out on stage. All of his plays have this quality, though The Jew of Malta is the most extreme. Marlowe's supposed atheism is on full display as Jews, Turks, and Christians are all derided relatively equally. The titular Jew (Barabas) is naturally the focal point and commits the most wickedness (including killing his newly-converted daughter and her fellow nuns in a nunnery), but the schism and anarchy throughout the play is remarkable. I've often felt that Titus Andronicus feels far more like a Marlowe play than a Shakespeare play, and I chalk it up to Marlowe's influence on his colleague and collaborator.

One of my pedagogical hopes is to someday be able to teach The Jew of Malta in tandem with The Merchant of Venice (probably in an upper-level class). The plays are simultaneously extremely similar and extremely different, and exploring those stasis points would be fascinating.

[Roger Slater]

Didn't Shakespeare write Merchant because Jew of Malta was such a commercial success that he wanted to write his own "bad Jew" play? (Though the Jew of Malta was a lot badder than Shylock, of course.)

[N. Matheson]

There was a wave of anti-Semitism in Britain at the time when Queen Elizabeth's court physician, a Jew himself, was accused of trying to assassinate her. I'm not familiar with the details or even if he was actually guilty, but suddenly there was a huge demand for dramas which depicted Jews as scheming and murderous.

[Roger Slater]

As I recall, the Jew of Malta's daughter became a nun, so he poisoned everyone in the nunnery in order to poison his daughter. It's been a long time, so perhaps I'm wrong. But if that's so, Shakespeare's catering to the anti-semitic audience was quite mild in comparison.

[Julie Steiner]

I was curious, so I did a little digging.

Jewish populations have been exposed to persistent and intense persecution throughout history. The Jewish people have endured restrictions in ownership, mobility, agriculture, and industry, leading to increased pressure to accept opportunities edging on dubious legality, with devastating results. One exception has been in the study of medicine and the practice of the art of healing, with strong evidence throughout history that Jewish physicians have been held in high regard.

This is evidenced by the hypocritical attitude of monarchs, ecclesiastical rulers, and political leaders, who—whilst proclaiming anti-Jewish rules, preaching anti-Jewish sermons, introducing the Inquisition, establishing ghettos in Germany and Russia, and ordering expulsions from England, Spain, France, and Portugal—continued to retain the services of their trusted Jewish physicians. For example, Friar Roger Bacon (1220–1292), English philosopher and theologian, stated:

Christian physicians were ignorant in comparison with their Jewish colleagues, because they lacked knowledge of the Hebrew and Arabic in which most of the medical works were written.

It was during Friar Bacon’s era, in 1290, that King Edward I of England expelled the Jews; this exile would last 366 years. The libertarian rights of the Magna Carta were not applied to the Jews. The case of the Portuguese physician, Roderigo Lopez, a refugee to England, was therefore an example of “triumph over prejudice” and is the topic of this paper.

Roderigo Lopez was born in 1524 (or 1525) in Crato, Portugal into a converted, or crypto-Jewish, family. He studied Medicine in Coimbra, graduating in 1544, when auto-da-fe (burning at the stake in public) was practiced. Suspected of secretly practicing Judaism, Lopez was driven out of Portugal by the Inquisition. He subsequently ended up in London and changed his name to Ruy Lopez (or Lopes).

The rules of admitting physicians to medical practice in England were such that all, except graduates of Oxford or Cambridge universities, had to pass an assessment by an examining committee. No record confirming this assessment of Lopez has been found; however, it is assumed that it must have been awarded, since in 1567 Dr Lopez was admitted as the first regular physician to practice at St Bartholomew’s hospital and subsequently became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Soon his reputation assured his success amongst the highest classes of society. There is much discussion as to Lopez’s practice of religion: some insist he was a practicing Christian, although others assert he observed Judaism in secret; clearly, his Jewish ethnicity was never in question.

Lopez practiced Galenic medicine and was skilled in diet, purges, and phlebotomies. A contemporary of Lopez, Gabriel Harvey, wrote that Lopez was one of the most learned and expert physicians at the Court, but attributed his success to “Jewish practice.” However, another equally famed contemporary, William Clowes, was deeply impressed by Lopez’s skills, particularly as a surgeon, and his recommendations for diets, purges, and bleeding. Lopez also had an affinity toward prescribing medicinal concoctions, such as “arceus apozema,” which may well have included anise and sumac berries, although the exact recipe is no longer known.

Anise seeds are often prescribed as an aromatic tea and are recognized for their calming effect in respiratory ailments and their potent anti-colic effect in intestinal disorders as well as in dysmenorrhea. Today, anise is recognized to have a variety of beneficial effects and has been widely researched for its antioxidant, analgesic, and anticonvulsant properties, to name a few.

Sumac was used for cooking and in a berry lemonade reputed to help with digestive ailments. Today it too is recognized for its antioxidant properties.

The positive effects of anise and sumac may well have been recognized by Dr Lopez, as he prescribed their use many years before an official description of anise appeared in The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, printed in 1597. Three years after he entered her service, the Queen of England granted Lopez a monopoly for importing sumac and anise to England in 1589.

Dr Lopez enjoyed many years of success in England, and in 1584 he was named Physician-in-Chief to Queen Elizabeth I. However, despite his powerful friends, Lopez also gained powerful enemies, including the Earl of Essex, protector and intimate of the Queen. Perhaps it should not be surprising that Lopez would eventually find himself persecuted. As LeBlanc points out, Lopez achieved an extraordinarily high position at the English Court—a position no “Iberian, suspected Catholic, or suspected Jew should have found in Early Modern England …”

The Earl of Essex was angered by Lopez’s unethical disclosure that the Earl had venereal disease, although it is unclear whether this disclosure was intentional or not. A dramatic sequence of events unfolded, and Dr Lopez was charged with conspiracy to poison the Queen, leading to his trial and conviction. The execution was delayed for some three months by the doubting monarch. Accused of being involved in a “political plot,” Lopez was charged with treason. He was executed in June 1594 in front of a large and jubilant crowd, to shouts of “hang the Jew.” At that time, victims of execution were hanged, drawn, and quartered. Nevertheless, even in death, Lopez proved victorious. Queen Elizabeth apparently doubted his guilt and exercised a rare option to restore most of Lopez’s property to his family.

It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the political intrigue surrounding Lopez’s arrest, trial, and execution; these issues have been debated at great length elsewhere. However, there is strong evidence that anti-Semitism had a role in his fate. During the trial it was recorded that, “Lopez, like a Jew [emphasis added], did utterly with great oaths and execrations deny all …” This record makes the anti-Semitic bias against Lopez quite clear.

The story of Roderigo Lopez is initially one of triumph over prejudice, despite the anti-Jewish demonstration at his execution. It has been hypothesized that Lopez was the figure who inspired the character of Shylock in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” which was written not long after the Lopez trial in 1596 and first performed in 1605.

https://imss.org/2018/05/a-note-from...urt-physician/

Another source does not mention the Earl of Sussex, instead mentioning a supposed conspiracy with the Spanish against the life of the Queen:

He was born in Crato, Portugal and raised as a New Christian, but driven away from Portugal by the Portuguese Inquisition and considered a Marrano (a hidden Jew).

He made London his home in 1559 and very successfully resumed his practice as a doctor, soon becoming house physician at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Despite racial prejudice and professional jealousy, he developed a large practice among powerful people including Robert Dudley and Francis Walsingham. Rumour held that his success was less due to his medical skill and more to his skill at flattery and self-promotion. In a 1584 libellous pamphlet attacking Dudley, it was suggested that Lopez distilled poisons for Dudley and other nobleman. In 1586, he reached the pinnacle of his profession and was made physician-in-chief to Queen Elizabeth. Lopez was held in the Queen's favour for, in 1589, she granted him a monopoly on the import of aniseed and sumac into England. His success continued as he neared retirement and he was viewed, at least outwardly, as being a dutiful practicing Protestant.

In October 1593, he was wealthy and generally respected. He owned a house in Holborn and had a son enrolled at Winchester College. However, also in October, a complex conspiracy web against Don Antonio began to come to light. Subsequently, Lopez was accused by Robert Devereux of conspiring with Spanish emissaries to poison the Queen. He was arrested on January 1, 1594, convicted in February, and subsequently executed (hanged, drawn and quartered) on June 7. The Queen herself was uncertain of his guilt (hence the delay in his execution) and he maintained his innocence of treason and his being converted from Judaism to Christianity until his execution. According to William Camden, right before he was hanged he said to the crowd that he loved his Queen as well as he loved Jesus Christ; the crowd laughed at this statement, taking it for a thinly veiled confession, as in their eyes he was still a Jew.

Some historians and literary critics consider Lopez and his trial to have been an influence on William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. "Many Shakespearean scholars believe Dr. Lopez was the prototype for Shylock....", which is believed to have been written between 1594 and 1597, though the play undoubtedly relies more on Christopher Marlowe's ‘The Jew of Malta’.

https://www.jewishwikipedia.info/rodrigolopez.html

It should be noted that Queen Elizabeth was using cosmetic products containing lead, antimony, mercury, and belladonna (deadly nightshade), so she was indeed being poisoned by multiple sources.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

As I recall, the Jew of Malta's daughter became a nun, so he poisoned everyone in the nunnery in order to poison his daughter. It's been a long time, so perhaps I'm wrong. But if that's so, Shakespeare's catering to the anti-semitic audience was quite mild in comparison.

It's been a long time for me, too, but this exemplifies my feeling about the difference between Shakespeare and (what I remember of) his contemporaries. A mass poisoning is a big action, and interesting in the way the actions of bad guys in action films can be interesting, but Shylock's actions and reactions feel more human.

(The humanness of Shylock's actions and reactions, and their coinciding with existing stereotypes about Jews--his focus on money, for instance--also seem more likely than Barabas's action to exacerbate the audience's anti-semetism.)

[Shaun J. Russell]

Right. There's a parallel between JoM and Merchant in that Shylock's daughter (Jessica) abandons him and his faith to be with a Christian man. Shylock mourns this deeply but -- notably -- does not kill her. In JoM, Barabas's daughter (Abigail) is also in love with a Christian man without Barabas knowing it, and it is Barabas himself who talks her into joining the convent (to reclaim gold he'd hidden within), and when he learns that she has converted (which happens after her Christian lover dies, as I recall) he has no compunction with killing her along with all of her sisters. There is zero question in JoM that Barabas is a Villain with a capital V, though it is somewhat amusingly considered a tragedy -- not unlike how Richard III was initially billed. The parallels between Barabas and Richard III are quite stark too, incidentally.

But there's a lot to be learned from how Shakespeare's central Jew is far more humanized than the entertainingly two-dimensional Barabas. I wouldn't call either play expressly anti-semitic, even though I completely understand how they could be seen that way. The bumbling antics of the Turks and Christians in JoM suggest that all faiths were equally contemptible (even if Barabas is the one truly wicked character), while Shylock's nuanced humanness makes it very easy for audiences/readers to see him as a sympathetic character. I've taught Merchant once, and that's how the students saw him -- flawed, but sympathetic. His forced conversion in the last act is the tragic end of a broken man who has lost everything: his daughter, his money, and finally his faith. I don't like to deal much in wanton speculations about Shakespeare's motives and mindsets, but I don't think you can write such beautiful and compelling speeches for a character like Shylock without having legitimate sympathies for his situation. The character's lot is objectively unfair, and if we want to give Shakespeare extreme credit, perhaps he was carefully playing both sides.