Dostlar ve Hizipler Üzerine: Shakespeare’in Tarih Oyunları

Geç Elizabeth Dönemi’nde hizipçilik, özellikle erkekler arası dostluk kavramını karmaşık hale getirmiştir. Kraliyet hazinesinin azalması, hazine gelirlerinin dağıtımındaki gelişigüzellik ve tabandan gelen baskılar, hami ve himaye altında olanlar ile dostlar arasındaki sağlıklı ilişkileri daha da sorunsallaştırmıştır. Yatay ve dikey toplumsal ilişkiler, teatral üsluplarla yürütülürdü; belli bir toplumsal rolü icra edip, kendine ait gerçek düşünceleri olabildiğince mahrem bırakarak. Hile ve takiye, özellikle itibarı hedef alan hizipçiliğin sözlü ve sözsüz araçlarına karşı hayatta kalabilmek için gereklilerdi. Fakat bu, gerçekliğin ve toplumsal davranışların algısını sorunsallaştırmaktaydı. Dostluk, dürüstlükle ilgili olmalıydı. Ancak bu dürüstlük, öz ve biçim arasında ayırt edilebilir bir çizgisi olmayan Geç Elizabeth Dönemi teatral davranışların genel yapısında mevcut değildi. Bundan dolayı basılı ve basılı olmayan nasihatnameler, dostların davranışlarını iyice çözümlemek ve bunları kendi çıkarları için kullanmak için insanları teşvik ediyorlardı. Destek ve nasihat verebilecek dostların seçiminde dikkatli olunmalıydı. Ayrıca iki taraflı oynayanları ve dalkavukları geri çevirirken de dikkatli olunmalıydı. Söylemle eylemi birleştirmedeki sorunlar, ittifaklar arası geçişlere, iki taraflı oynamalara ve nasihat ile dalkavukluğu ayırt edememeye yol açıyordu. Shakespeare’in Elizabeth Dönemi tarih oyunlarında, vakayınamelerde bulunabilen Kral John dönemi, Yüzyıl Savaşları ve Güller Savaşı birbiriyle çatışan ve Elizabeth Dönemi’nin olgularına uyarlanan dostluk kavramları sunmuşlardır. Gerek izlenen gerekse okunan bu oyunlar, dostluğun özden çok biçimsel bir eylem olduğu algısını pekiştirmişlerdir. Bundan dolayı bu çalışma Geç Elizabeth Dönemi’ndeki dostluk kavramlarını inceleyip, hizipçiliğin bu kavramları nasıl sorunsallaştırdığını örneklendirecektir.

Anahtar Kelimeler:

Dostluk, Elizabeth Dönemi, Shakespeare, hizipçilik, tarih oyunları

Von Freunden und Fraktionen: Die Historiendramen von Shakespeare

In the Late Elizabethan Period, factionalism complicated the notion of, especially, male friendship. The scarcity of financial resources of the royal patronage, the arbitrary distribution of favours, and bottom-up pressures of patronees further problematized a healthy relationship among patrons and patronees and among friends. The horizontal and vertical social relations were to be conducted within theatricality; by performing a certain social role, while keeping one’s real ideas as confidential as possible. Deception and hypocrisy were necessary in order to survive verbal and non-verbal means of factionalism, which targeted, especially one’s reputation. This, however, problematized the perception of the reality of social behaviour. Friendship should be about sincerity. Yet, that sincerity was usually nonexistent in the overall pattern of Late Elizabethan theatrical behaviour that lacked demarcated lines between essence and appearance in a clear-cut way. Published or unpublished examples of advice literature, therefore, urged a thorough analysis of the behaviours of friends to instrumentalise them in utilitarian ways. One ought to be careful in choosing friends, who should both give support and provide advice. One should also be careful in rejecting double-dealers and flatterers. The problems to meet practice and theory led to many shifts of allegiance, double-dealings, and the lack to differentiate between advice and flattery. In Shakespeare’s Elizabethan history plays, the reign of King John, the Hundred Years War, and the Wars of the Roses found in chronicles provided several conflicting sets of values about the notions of friendships that were adapted to contemporary phenomena in the Post-Armada Period. Whether seen as plays or read in quarto versions, the plays reinforced the perception of friendship as performance liable to be a matter of appearance rather than essence. Therefore, this article will analyse the notions of friendships in the Late Elizabethan Period in Shakespeare’s history plays and illustrate how factionalism problematized those notions.

Keywords:

Shakespeare, Friendship, factionalism, Elizabethan Period, history plays,

PDF

___

Aristotle (2000). The Nicomachean Ethics. Roger Crisp (trans.). Cambridge: CUP.
Bacon, F. (1597). Eſſayes: Religiouss Meditations: Places of Perſwaſion and Diſſwaſion. London: Hooper.
Bacon, F. (1604). His Apologie, in Certaine imputations concerning the late Earle of Eſſex. London: Felix Norton.
Barker, R. (2003). Tragical-Comical-Historical Hotspur. Shakespeare Quarterly, 54 (3), 288-307.
Bayne, R. (1916). Religion. Sidney Lee and C. T. Onions (Eds.), in Shakespeare’s England: An Account of the Life and Manners of His Age (Vol. 1, ss. 48-78). Oxford: Clarendon.
Black, J. B. (1959). The Reign of Elizabeth: 1558-1603. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon.
Blatherwick, S. (1997). “The Archeological Evaluation of the Globe Playhouse.” J. R. Mulryne and Margaret Shewring (Eds.), in Shakespeare’s Globe Rebuilt (ss. 67-80). Cambridge: CUP.
Boyer, A. D. (2003). Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP.
Byrne, M. St. C. (1961). Elizabethan Life in Town and Country. London: Methuen.
Canino, C. G. (2007). Shakespeare and the Nobility: The Negotiation of Lineage. Cambridge: CUP.
Castiglione, B. (1577). The Covrtyer. Thomas Hoby (trans.). London: Denham.
Cecil, W.. (1618). Certaine Preceptes or Driections. Edinburgh: Hart.
Cicero (1927). De Amicitia. William A. Falconer (trans.), in De Senectute, De Amicitia, De Divinatione (ss. 108-211). Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Deiter, K. (2008). The Tower of London in English Renaissance Drama: Icon of Opposition. New York and London: Routledge.
Fletcher, A. J. (1985). Honour, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan and Stuart England. Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (Eds.), in Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (ss. 92-115). Cambridge: CUP.
Gajda, A. (2012). The Earl of Essex and Late Elizabethan Political Culture. Oxford: OUP.
Gurr, A. (1987). Playgoing in Shakespeare’s London. Cambridge: CUP.
Guy, J. (1995). The Elizabethan Establishment and the Ecclesiastical Polity. John Guy (Ed.), in The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (ss. 126-149). Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Guy, J. (2001). The Tudor Age: (1485-1603). Kenneth O. Morgan (Ed.), in The Oxford History of Britain (ss. 257-326). Oxford and New York: OUP.
Hall, E. (1548). The Vnion of the Two Noble and Illuſtre Famelies of Lancastre & Yorke beeyng long in Continual Diſcension for the Croune of this Noble Realme. London: n. p.
Hammer, P. E. J. (1999). The Polarisation of Elizabethan Politics: The Political Career of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, 1585-1597. Cambridge: CUP.
Harrison, G. B. (1974a). An Elizabethan Journal: Being a Record of Those Things Most Talked About During the Years 1591-4. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.
Harrison, G. B. (1974b). A Second Journal: Being a Record of Those Things Most Talked About During the Years 1595-8. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.
Harrison, G. B. (1974c). A Last Journal: Being a Record of Those Things Most Talked About During the Years 1599-1603. London: Routledge and Keagan Paul.
Hurstfield, J. (1973). Freedom, Corruption and Government in Elizabethan England. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
James, M. E. (1986). Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England. Cambridge: CUP.
Kastan, D. S. (1993). Is There a Class in this (Shakespearean) Text? Renaissance Drama, 24, 101-121.
Levy, F. (1995). The Theatre and the Court in the 1590s. John Guy (Ed.), in The Reign of Elizabeth I: Court and Culture in the Last Decade (ss. 274-300). Cambridge and New York: CUP.
Loades, D. M. (1974). Politics and the Nation 1450-1660: Obedience, Resistance and Public Order. London: Fontana and Collins.
Loades, D. M. ( 1992). The Tudor Court. Bangor: Headstart History.
Low, J. (2000). ‘Those Proud Titles Thou Hast Won’: Sovereignty, Power, and Combat in Shakespeare’s Second Tetralogy. Comparative Drama, 34 (3), 269-290.
MacIsaac, W. J. (1971). The Three Cousins in Richard II. Shakespeare Quarterly, 22 (2), 137-146.
Mack, P. (2002). Elizabethan Rhetoric: Theory and Practice. Cambridge: CUP.
Manley, L. (2002). From Strange’s Men to Pembroke’s Men: 2 Henry VI and The First Part of the Contention. Shakespeare Quarterly, 54 (3), 253-287.
McCoy, R. C. (1989). The Rites of Knighthood: The Literature and Politics of Elizabethan Chivalry. Berkeley, CA: U of California P.
Montrose, L. (1996). The Purpose of Playing: Shakespeare and the Cultural Politics of the Elizabethan Theatre. Chicago: U of Chicago P.
Ribner, I. (1957). The English History Play in the Age of Shakespeare. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.
Seneca (1925). IX. On Philosophy and Friendship. Richard M. Gummere (trans.), in Seneca Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales (ss. 43-57). Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Shakespeare, W. (2002). Henry IV: Part 1. David Scott Kastan (Ed.). London: Arden.
Shakespeare, W. (1967). Henry IV: Part 2. A. R. Humphreys (Ed.). London: Methuen.
Shakespeare, W. (1995). Henry V. T. W. Craik (Ed.). London: Arden.
Shakespeare, W. (2000). Henry VI: Part 1. Edward Burns (Ed.). London: Arden.
Shakespeare, W. (2001). Henry VI: Part 3. John D. Cox and Eric Rasmussen (Eds.). London: Arden.
Shakespeare, W. (1967). King John. Ed. E. A. J. Honigmann. London: Methuen.
Shakespeare, W. (2002). Richard II. Ed. Charles R. Forker. London: Arden.
Shakespeare, W. (2000). Richard III. Ed. Anthony Hammond. London: Arden.
Siegel, P. N. (1964). Shakespeare and the Neo-Chivalric Cult of Honor. Centennial Review, 8, 39-70.
Simon, J. (1979). Education and Society in Tudor England. Cambridge: CUP.
Slotkin, J. E. (2007). Honeyed Toads: Sinister Aesthetics in Shakespeare’s Richard III. Journal of Early Modern Cultural Studies, 7 (1), 5-32.
Stone, L. (1979). The Crisis of the Aristocracy: 1558-1641. Oxford: OUP.
Watson, C. B. (1960). Shakespeare and the Renaissance Concept of Honor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.
Williams, P. (1995). The Later Tudors: England 1547-1603. Oxford: Clarendon.