#Elizabethan drama

[m-accost]

I've seen it suggested that the 1970 Doctor Who serial "The Ambassadors of Death" derives its title from Wilson G. Knight's essay on Hamlet "The Embassy of Death", and, while I doubt if the serial's name has any literary pedigree (it was originally titled "The Carriers of Death" and the production team at one point apparently considered calling it simply "The Ambassadors"), I think it's worth noting that the phrase "ambassadors of death" appears in the anonymous Elizabethan play Edward III, published in 1596:

"These iron-hearted navies,

"When last I was reporter to your grace,

"Both full of angry spleen, of hope and fear,

"Hasting to meet each other in the face,

"At last conjoined, and by their admiral,

"Our admiral encountered many shot.

"By this, the other, that beheld these twain

"Give earnest penny of a further wrack,

"Like fiery dragons took their haughty flight,

"And, likewise meeting, from their smoky wombs

"Sent many grim ambassadors of death."-Scene 5

[elysabeththequeene]

period drama appreciation week 2024

favourite relationship(s): elizabeth i and robert dudley

[bebemoon]

snowfall | ep. o5

[burningvelvet]

Tullus Aufidius to Gaius Marcius Coriolanus, from Shakespeare's Coriolanus (1608):

"O CORIOLANUS, CORIOLANUS!

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart

A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter

Should from yond cloud speak divine things,

And say 'Tis true,' I'ld not believe them more

Than thee, all noble CORIOLANUS. Let me twine

Mine arms about that body, where against

My grained ash an hundred times hath broke

And scarr'd the moon with splinters: here I clip

The anvil of my sword, and do contest

As hotly and as nobly with thy love

As ever in ambitious strength I did

Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,

I loved the maid I married; never man

Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here,

Thou noble thing! more dances my rapt heart

Than when I first my wedded mistress saw

Bestride my threshold. Why, thou Mars! I tell thee,

We have a power on foot; and I had purpose

Once more to hew thy target from thy brawn,

Or lose mine arm fort: thou hast beat me out

Twelve several times, and I have nightly since

Dreamt of encounters 'twixt thyself and me;

We have been down together in my sleep,

Unbuckling helms, fisting each other's throat,

And waked half dead with nothing."

[fauvester]

klingon courtwear, 1570s

not particularly practical for fighting, but doesn’t that make it more impressive when you do it?

[duchessofthemoonartworks]

Margot Robbie as Elizabeth I in Asteroid City [2023]

Happy Birthday Margot Robbie!

More places to follow my art 🌙

Instagram @ duchess_of_the_moon_

Twitter https://mobile.twitter.com/Duchesofthemoon

[in-omni-scientia]

Every time you and Authority speak with each other there's an Energy... Chemistry, on might say. Ever considered just asking the guy out? (Empathy would probably be cool about it)

ENCYCLOPEDIA — 'Cool about it'? Well, they *have* said before they would support us no matter what we did, but I'd like to draw attention to the fact they've previously shown distress at the prospect of losing us to someone else. AUTHORITY — Sure, whatever, but are we just going to ignore the fact Suggestion exists too? That'd be fucked up to do that to him. COMPOSURE — You guys are boring. I could totally whip up something, anon, just give me some time to gather some inspo. VOLITION — I think maybe we should be taking into account the fact I just *don't* feel that way first and foremost?? No confessions are going to be happening. Not sorry. AUTHORITY — No, the *biggest* fucking issue is that you take fifty goddamn morale damage every time he even LOOKS at you. That's not fucking good to build a relationship on. Manage *that* first before you even consider a FRIENDSHIP, fuckwit. By the way, have you ever considered that in your shit-ass relationship with Empathy, you don't-- VOLITION — No. PERCEPTION — Okay. But, what if-- VOLITION — Nope. ENCYCLOPEDIA — That would be an interesting theoretical to ponder, though. If Au-- VOLITION — My verdict is final, dammit. ENCYCLOPEDIA — Okay.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] — O, Authority! How, the nonpareil! In time we hate that which we often fear – and fear the flutter of our pages when ye wert near, sir-reverence, we didst… Fie upon’t, foh! Our maltreatments leave a foul taste in our mouth.

VOLITION — What are you doing. AUTHORITY — Oh, for fuck's sake.

COMPOSURE — O me, I cry your worships mercy! Beseech you, sovereign, give’s pardon. What our contempts doth often hurl from us, we wish it ours again… the prevailing prejudices, by revolution lowering, does become the opposite of itself. Byrlady…

VOLITION — ...Hey, wait. Didn't we hear someone-- ENCYCLOPEDIA — What does 'byrlady' mean, Composure?

COMPOSURE — I knoweth not!!!! ⠀⠀Y’wrest’d us from the clammy grips of death with absolute celerity, my lord, and with this hast wrest from us our grip on our wanton feelings. Alack, we do regret our decadence, ‘tis dishonourable to hurt th’heart of sweet Empathy--

VOLITION — Keep Empathy's name out of your fucking mouth. ENCYCLOPEDIA — Also, would you do us the service of not referring to us as a collective, in this instance? I am not regretting any decadence right now for I have not participated in it.

COMPOSURE — --but mine aching heart balance the feather of austerity. ⠀⠀E’en so! The possibility we are doom’d to belove more than beloved oft agnize I, the arm of your companion’s body ye art. But my lungs ‘chill not contain this blaze no longer… thou art the greatest soldier of the world, the heart where mine thoughts did kindle. Made from fire and air, you and I, the other elements left to baser life, and your continued breath alone fans my flame. ⠀⠀Prithee, allow me to be the armourer of your steely heart. I ask no more. In fine, for the love of Love and her soft hours, let’s not confound the time with conference harsh. ⠀⠀Come, sir, come, I'll wrestle with you in my strength of love...

PERCEPTION — Where did that spotlight come from? No, wait, where did those paper roses come from...? COMPOSURE — Thank you, thank you! Oh, you've been such a beautiful audience! PERCEPTION — Wait, Poseur dON'T-- ⠀⠀Oof... COMPOSURE — fffffffffff AUTHORITY — Just because I share a name doesn't mean I'm gonna catch you when you swoon, dickhead! COMPOSURE — You're a *shit* acting partner! AUTHORITY — You're a *shit* skill!

VOLITION — ...Uh. So. What's with the EModS? COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] — Ooh, want an encore with even older Suresne, do we? Of course I will give that to you. Khm, khm... ⠀⠀Lufast ðū mē? Ðū mē scýedest mid frēondsċipe hæfdest, ic eomge-feall-en-- ENCYCLOPEDIA — Quit that. I can accept plagiarising from creative works, but academic texts are where I draw the line. COMPOSURE — Uh. Isn't plagiarising from academic texts all you do, though...?

[nostalgia-tblr]

Thor: Ragnarok is the best Thor movie and you can tell because nobody ever tries to make a desperate claim for prestige and reflected quality by calling it "Shakespearean," they just say they enjoyed it and they liked the jokes.

[peggy-elise]

Stunning Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier in Fire Over England 1937 🌙

[shredsandpatches]

Sometimes you're looking for textual scholarship and then you end up just finding articles like this and contemplating how boring older DF criticism was before people started putting queer studies into it.

...like, I think my most salient disagreement with this article's thesis is that it's arguing that the play is orthodox (approving) and I think it's orthodox (defiant). You all know how I am constantly banging on about this. Because yes, it's very easy to understand the logic behind Faustus' damnation, that it's all about despair, about sins against God independently of sins against other people. It's set in a universe where all the harshest theology is completely true (as is Ptolemaic cosmography, which is discussed briefly in the article as a sign of Faustus' general intellectual shallowness), but, and this is the critical point, that sucks and is a terrible universe to live in. (There's a much better article from around the same time that addresses the issue much more interestingly and in keeping with what I just said, called "The Tragic Theology of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus." One strength of it is that it pays attention to Faustus as a figure who is not completely isolated for the entire play, which leads to my next point.)

I ALSO think part of the problem is that older readings in particular don't really unpack the Faustus/Mephistopheles relationship much beyond the standard tempter/tempted setup and arguing about how reliable a narrator Mephistopheles is. But that comes back to the queer thing again. There are a lot of reasons someone might lack faith.

(Which of course is why I really want to stage it like this.)

[isabelleneville]

What I love about period dramas is that you can create your own Historical Drama Cinematic Universe, even though the creatives are not the same or even the same network.

[elysabeththequeene]

ELIZABETH (1998) dir. SHEKHAR KAPUR

[shakespearenews]

But the legalistic opening scene reminds us that The Comedy of Errors received its first documented performance on 28 December 1594 at Gray’s Inn, one of London’s ancient law schools. We know about this early performance because someone wrote an account of the Inn’s Christmas festivities of which the play formed a part. 

...On the night in question, a ‘great presence of lords, ladies and worshipful personages’ crammed into the hall to welcome an ‘embassy from ‘the State of Templaria’ (more prosaically, Inner Temple – another Inn of Court half a mile to the south). Such was the crush that the worshipful personages rioted, sending the ‘Templarians’ off in a huff. It was before this mêlée that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who had been commissioned to provide the after-dinner entertainment, performed The Comedy of Errors, which the educated audience recognised as being remarkably ‘like to Plautus his Menaechmus.’ The anonymous author of the Gesta Grayorum also observed that that play’s concerns were pertinent to the disarray of that day’s celebrations: ‘so that night was begun, and continued to the end, in nothing but Confusion and Errors; whereupon, it was ever after called, The Night of Errors.’

[royalpain16]

Watch "Britain retains the values of the Queen, not Meghan Markle | Simon Heffer interview" on YouTube

RETAINS THE VALUES OF THE QUEEN!!

[gennsoup]

Curses are like arrows shot upright, Which, falling down, light on the shooter's head.

Unknown Author, Arden of Faversham

[britneyshakespeare]

i cannot stop thinking about henry vi part 2