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Basic Glossary of Literary Terms
G
Gunpowder Plot: (1605), the conspiracy of English
Roman Catholics to blow up Parliament and King James I, his queen, and his
oldest son on Nov. 5, 1605. The leader of the plot, Robert Catesby, together
with his four co-conspirators-- Thomas Winter, Thomas Percy, John Wright,
and Guy Fawkes--were zealous Roman Catholics angered by James's refusal to
grant more religious toleration to Catholics. They apparently hoped that the
confusion that would follow the murder of the king, his ministers, and the
members of Parliament would provide an opportunity for the English Catholics
to take over the country. In the interim the need for broader support persuaded Catesby
to include more conspirators. One of these, Francis Tresham, warned his Catholic
brother-in-law Lord Monteagle not to attend Parliament on November 5, and
Monteagle alerted the government to the plot. Fawkes was discovered in the
cellar on the night of November 4-5 and under torture revealed the names of
the conspirators. Catesby, Percy, and two others were killed while resisting
arrest, and the rest were tried and executed (Jan. 31, 1606). The plot bitterly intensified Protestant suspicions of Catholics
and led to the rigorous enforcement of the recusancy law, which fined those
who refused to attend Anglican services. In January 1606 Parliament established
November 5 as a day of public thanksgiving. The day, known as Guy Fawkes Day,
is still celebrated with bonfires, fireworks, and the carrying of "guys"
through the streets. genre: A category of text, e.g. poetry, drama,
biography, fiction etc. The Duchess of Malfi is Drama, more specifically
Tragedy (sub-genre). We are entitled to be more specific still and refer to
it as Revenge Tragedy (sub-sub-genre). A French term for a kind, a literary type
or class. The major classical genres were: epic, tragedy, lyric, comedy
and satire, to which would now be added novel and short story. From the Renaissance
and until well on into the 18th century the genres were carefully distinguished,
and writers were expected to follow the rules prescribed for them. A type of literary art: epic, tragedy,
melodrama, satire are literary genres. Globe Theattre: One of the most famous of all
theatres, it was built in 1599, on Bankside in Southwark, in the shape of
a polygon with three storeys. The roof was thatched, with the centre open
to the sky. In 1576 James Burbage (c. 1530-97) had leased land in Shoreditch
on which he had built (of wood) the first building in England specifically
designed for plays. In 1577 it became known as 'The Theatre'. In 1598 the
fabric was removed to the Bankside and set uo as the Globe. At first it was
the home of the Lord Chamberlain's Men (Shakespeare was one of them), after
Queen Elizabeth's death renamed the King's Men. Many of Shakespeare's plays
were performed in it and Shakespeare had a share in the theatre. It was destroyed
by fire in 1613 when a discharge of cannon during a performance of Henry
VIII ignited the thatched roof. Rebuilt on the same site, it reopened
the next year. It was finally demolished in 1644, but a reconstruction of
the theatre was begun in the late 1980s. great chain of being: The phrase summarizes an
idea of considerable antiquity; namely, that all that exists in the created
order is part of natural hierarchy, a scala naturae from the lowest
possible grade up to the ens perfectissimum. It implements the concept
that Nature abhors a vacuum. Greek tragedy: This form of tragedy had a definite
structure which was more or less prescribed. There were four main parts to
a play: Grobianism: The word Grobian derives from the
German Grobheit 'rudeness'. Grobian was an imagery person continually
referred to by 15th and 16th centuries writers in German as a paradigm of
coarseness and rudeness. In his Narrenschiff (1494) Brandt invented
St Grobianus - a figure typical of boorish and uncouth behaviour. Through
this character Brandt was able to satirize contemporary manners. In 1549 Dedekind
wrote Grobianus: De Morum Simplicitate, a poem in Latin elgiacs which
was a burlesque at the expense of the uncivilized social conditions in Germany.
In this work he gave rules for the guidance of boors. This was translated
into German and English and provided Dekker with the idea for his Gull's
Hornbook (1609) which was a satirical attack on the fops and gallants
of the day in the guise of a book of manners or courtesy book. Dedekind's
ironical approach had a good many imitators. This type of literature coincided
with a large number of manuals on good behaviour and greatly increased interest
in urbane conduct. :
In the spring of 1605 the conspirators rented a cellar that extended under
the palace at Westminster. There, Fawkes, who had been fighting in the Spanish
Netherlands, concealed at least 20 barrels of gunpowder. The conspirators
then separated until the meeting of Parliament.
