Post- modern critical perspectives on jacobean drama

Abstract EN

Critical assessment of Jacobean drama has usually been negative because of its failure to produce consistent characters and the general feeling of irresolution in moral perspective.

However, contrary to the current critical assessments on Jacobean plays in which the inconsistencies, fragmentations, the decentring of man and the ambivalent theatrical responses not only constituted a flaw, it is my contention that the conflicting and contradictory aspect of that drama might be conceived in accordance with post-modern critical theory as vital and dramatically positive features.

In the same way as Shakespeare’s Jacobean phase-Hamlet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra – reveals a greater complexity in characterization, and often an irresolution in conclusions, revealing thereby his dramatic maturity, I would argue that the irresolution and character-complexity which constitute the hallmarks of Jacobean drama, such as The Revenger’s Tragedy, The Atheist Tragedy, The Maid’s Tragedy and The Malcontent, might be examined as representing a developmental and positive trait rather than a detracting component, stating multiple truths in multiple voices .

The recognition in postmodernist critical theory of the prevalence in great literature of aporia, of internal parody, and of unresolved clashes of values, with subtexts undercutting main themes to reflect the final complexity of the human condition, offers an opportunity for reconsidering and revaluating these plays.

My contention is that a subtle distinction should be made between the Shakespearean stage and the non- Shakespearean Jacobean drama.

Whereas the Shakespearean stage could be seen as essentially centripetal-upholding a sense of moral order and the official conception of monarchy dominant at that time, the non- Shakespearean Jacobean drama can be seen as closer to the novel in its mingling of centrifugal and centripetal tendencies.

Viewed from a Bakhtinian critical perspective, Jacobean drama, as will be demonstrated later, stages a multiplicity of diverse heteroglot voices and world views in which in turn state multiple truths for a diverse audience