Important Correspondence In The Elizabethan World Picture example essay topic

HAUSARBEITThe Elizabethan World Picture and the influence of order and disorder in Shakespeare's 'MACBETH " INDEX. THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE 1. Introduction Page 3 2. The Elizabethan World Picture Page 3 3.

The Cosmos Page 5 4. Hierarchy Page 7 4.1 Vertical Hierarchy Page 7 4.2 Horizontal Hierarchy Page 10 5. Critisicm Page 11 II. SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH 1. Introduction Page 13 2.

The influence of order and disorder Page 13 BIBLIOGRAPHY Page 18 I. THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE 1. INTRODUCTION The topic of this paper is going to be the Elizabethan World Picture and its influences and effects on Shakespeare's tragedy 'Macbeth'. At first I, will concern myself with the general view of the world dominating during the time of the 16th century and the early part of the 17th century. During this time the way the world was generally seen, was close to the Medieval World View but contained mostly alterations and some novelties.

The novelties, like using corresponding planes to express similarities, made the Elizabethan World Picture quite unique. Important to know is, that every creature or thing in the world had a fixed position within an omnipresent order that was divided in hierarchies and that every interference or abuse of this divine order was thought to lead to its breakdown. As the final result of this breakdown, chaos took the place of the former order. This system of order reached from the top of the universe, namely God, down to the lowest creature and also continued in the way the state of the Elizabethans was organized. At the top of the state the King or Queen, the representative of God on earth, ruled over the subjects.

The duty and task of the subjects was to do everything according to their position in the hierarchy to keep the state in order and functioning. This way of seeing the universe and the state as a complex building of order and hierarchies had a strong impact on the writers remarkable for the Elizabethan period, as there were Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spencer, Ben Jonson, Richard Hooker and not to forget William Shakespeare. On Shakespeare's work 'Macbeth' I will later on try to show the effects and influences the Elizabethan thinking. The writings of the authors I just mentioned, assured mainly the Medieval World Picture but also made clearly the new elements that found their way into the thinking during the Tudor regime.

I think that the Elizabethan World Picture is a very interesting way of looking at the world and that it shows a change that has then taken place. The seriousness of the Medieval Age was definitely reduced and the system was loosened in its tightness, but stretched out over the whole universe. Nothing within the universe was inexplicable for the Elizabethans. 2. THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE In this part of my paper I will try to give a rather general view of the world picture of the Elizabethan Age because of the limited size of this paper. A world picture must not be seen as a collection of knowledge and assumptions about how the world is build and how it everything works but rather as a system which serves as a basic concept of understanding the world.

The Elizabethan way of seeing and understanding the world emerged from the Medieval World Picture. Many elements and views of this ordered and more severe world view were taken on, but were simplified a little bit through some novelties in the Elizabethan time. The world picture of the Medieval Age saw the cosmos as a strictly ordered universe arranged in a fixed system of hierarchies. This system of order was reflected, as I said before, in the way the state was ordered and for example in the method of construction ing during this period of time.

Everything had to fit into a scheme and had to be explainable within this order by comparisons with other elements of different levels of the divine order. Nothing, not even the smallest and possibly most insignificant asteroid, was allowed to be missing within this order and everything had to be connectable with each other. The Medieval way of looking at life and at the world was a very mathematical orientated system and could be compared 'with a game where everything is included and every act is conducted under the most complicated system of rules. ' At some point the people started to become tired of this complicated system. For this reason something in the thinking began to move. By which I do not mean to say that before the thinking stood still but the will to modify the general system of the world view was now getting stronger and more lively.

It is important to mention that this system of rules was not changed but was modified and simplified. It was not of importance, if men interpreted parts of the system differently or even forgot parts of it as long as the universe was still seen as a functioning order. 'The present point is that the serious and ceremonious game of the Middle Age has degenerated into a farce. ' The outline of the general Medieval picture of the world survived into the Elizabethan Age but was not retained in its original severe from. One reason that could explain this circumstance, according to Tillyard, was the new or different point of view an educated Elizabethan gained through new book available to him.

'The greatness of the Elizabethan Age was that it contained so much of new without bursting the noble form of the old order. ' The emphasis of the Elizabethan thinking was on an order maintained through hierarchies. This all-embracing order made clear that it was related to the whole universe. The cosmos served as the frame of order, as the building of the order.

Within this universal order every phenomenon as well as every material or spiritual being had its defined space. It was of big importance for the Elizabethans to maintain this order and to restore it, if chaos and interferences had taken over. That the World Picture also contained spiritual creatures, like angels, shows its theological foundation. The unity of the universe came from God. He was the origin and therefore the creator of the cosmos.

The unity that prevailed in the universe was intended by God and was confused by the Fall of man. Man was created by God to preserve this divine unity and to rule over the earth and all her creatures. The cosmos was ordered by hierarchies. There was an very important, vertical hierarchy, called the chain of being, about which I will talk in detail later on, and it was divided in many sub hierarchies.

When God created the world out of chaos, he ordered all creatures, from the highest of the angles to the lowest mineral, according to this chain in degrees so that every creature had its own unmistakeable place defined by subordination to the next higher one. The subordination by different sub hierarchies impounded that things ordered by the vertical chain of being could also exist side by side on different corresponding planes. These plans will also be described in detail later on, because they were another importance that distinguished the Elizabethan World Picture from the Medieval one. Besides the dimension of difference the dimension of similarity and analogy gained on in the Elizabethan thinking.

The World Picture of the Elizabethan Age was a frame to enclose different views and knowledge's into one uniform system. This system was supposed to make it possible for every being to understand the world and its order, and to find and fulfill its role within this complex order. This aspect is of extreme importance for the Elizabethan World Picture. Everything and especially everybody had the duty to do justice to their place in this order because if somebody stepped out of the line, the order was thought to be confused and to be converted into disorder.

3. THE COSMOS The cosmology describes the structure of the entire universe, organized from the top, God, to the bottom, the minerals, the inanimate class. This way the connection between the separate ranges of creation with each other und the relationship of this cosmos to its creator, God, can be explained. The Elizabethans imagined the cosmos as a huge sphere that floated within the universe. This cosmos was seen as the place of residence of God and the angels.

This immense sphere that the universe was imagined to be, was not consisting of just one big sphere or layer, but of many spheres of increasing sizes from the inside to the outside. The cosmos can therefore easily be explained by the comparison with an onion. The universe spread out in concentric circles from the core, the earth, to the farthest sphere, inhabited by God. About the concrete number of spheres I found varying specifications during my researches for this essay. According to E.M.W. Tillyard, the Elizabethans thought of the universe of being composed of nine, ten or eleven different spheres. In Ina Schaberts 'Shakespeare Handbuch' the universe is said to have had eight spheres.

The number of eleven spheres as explained by Ulrich Suer baum, sounded convincing to me. The centre of the universe was the earth, which was not seen as a sphere. Around the earth there were seven spheres, which were assigned to the planets, as there are the Moon, the Mercury, the Venus, the Sun, the Mars, the Jupiter and the Saturn. Above the last of these seven spheres arched the eighth, the starry sky with the fixed stars and the signs of the zodiac. The nine th sphere, called the 'Coelum Cristallinum' because of its transparency, mirrored the signs of the zodiac. The 'Primum Mobile', the tenth sphere, was holding together the entire sky and passed the movement, which was directed by God, on to rest of the system.

This movement resulted in the 'Musica Mundana', the music of the spheres. This music was seen as the embodiment of perfect harmony but was to the human ear, due to the Fall, only he arable in inspired moments. Above the 'Primum Mobile' was the utmost zone, the 'Coelum Empyraeum' which was not a sphere any more. This utmost edge of the universe was the place of residence of God and the nine choices of the angels.

Furthermore, the Elizabethans divided the cosmos into two significant parts; that is to say the range below the sphere of the moon, called the sublunary area and everything from the sphere of the moon upwards, which was called the. These two areas differed in the fundamental criterion of mutability and constancy. This division as due to the four elements which were the smallest units, comparable to today's atoms, and so the foundation of the whole universe. These basic four elements were earth, water, air and fire, and the composition of these elements were decisive for the durability of everything. Beneath the sphere of the moon, in the sublunary sphere, everything was subjected to mutability because the elements were not mixed in a perfect way. The mixture used to be perfect, but as many other things, the composition was changed because of the Fall of man.

Now the elements were mixed ill what brought about that everything be neth the moon was transient and doomed. This was the important difference to the 'translunar y' world, where everything was of perfect constancy because of a perfect mixture of the elements. The macrocosm was eternal. But the mutability of the sublunary world did not necessarily mean the decay of the world but was rather seen as a circle. Some things changed to the worse but on the hand this caused changes to the better. The earth was thought of as the heart of the universe by the Elizabethans and therefore their main concern was to work against the mutability and to restore, where not existing, or maintain the divine order.

The conception of order was omnipresent and very important in the Elizabethan thinking so that this concept was mainly taken for granted by everyone. Almost all action of the Elizabethans was adjusted to this concept of order. The order, a gift by God, implied the structuring of the world in hierarchies, which were, as said before, connected with each other. There was a strong believe in an eternal cosmic order, but not in an intact world. The cosmic order was perfect and stab il after creation by God, but the Fall brought mutability into this system. This had as result that man was under the influence of mutability and that he and his actions were responsible for keeping everything in order.

The order was and was at Fortuna's mercy. After the Fall, man stood not only for the preferences of the earth but now correspondences to negative attributes arose, e.g. comparison of man with the cruelty of the wolves. The Elizabethans tried hard to keep their world in order because they had a strong fear of the order being messed up and the so resulting chaos and disorder. Chaos did not just mean confusion for them, like we might interpret it today but it meant that the world was thrown out of joint and out of order. This was synonymous to 'cosmic anarchy' and it was thought that nature ceased its function. Chaos or disorder in nature expressed itself, according to the thoughts of the Elizabethans in natural disasters, like earthquakes or storms, in diseases or in wars.

In the next part I will show how the Elizabethan organized the whole cosmos by using vertical as well as horizontal hierarchies. 4. HIERARCHY This part of the paper will be concerned with the hierarchies that the Elizabethans used to structure their cosmos into degrees. These hierarchies helped them to explain fundamental views about the anticipated order within the universe. Two main directions of hierarchies can be distinguished, one horizontal direction, the chain of being mentioned before, and a vertical direction, the corresponding planes. 4.1.

VERTICAL HIERARCHY Like described before, the Elizabethans organized the universe they lived in, after a principle of hierarchical degrees. They imagined this hierarchy as a chain that reached down from God to the lowest of the inanimate objects, the minerals, liquids, or metals. This chain was called the chain of being, because it connected everything existing inside the cosmos. The picture of the chain of being was taken for granted from the Middle Ages until the 18th century. On the basis of the chain of being, every creature and thing had its own, unmistakable place, which was defined by the things which were one step higher and lower in the chain.

The metaphor of a chain served to express the vast variety of God's creation. In addition, this chain offered a opportunity to fit this variety into an order. Every part of creation was compared to a link in the chain and there were absolutely no gaps. The dimension of the chain could not be imagined because its finiteness lays beyond man's imagination. The chain of being divided everything on earth, or better everything within the sublunary sphere of the cosmos into classes which distinguished from each other by attrib utes like movement, memory, touch or hearing. On the lowest level of creation was mere existence, the 'inanimate class'.

Examples for this class are the elements, liquids and metals. Within this class everything was once more divided into a further hierarchy. Water was considered nobler than earth, or gold as nobler than brass. Next there was the ' class'. This class had in addition to existence, life. It contained the plants and was within itself another hierarchy.

The oak was nobler than the bramble. Next there was existence, life and feeling, the 'sensitive class'. This class was divided in three sub-classes. First there were the creatures having touch but no hearing memory or movement, like the shellfish or the parasites on the base of trees.

Secondly, the animals that had touch, memory and movement but no hearing, like for example ants. And finally, there was the group of the higher animals, the beasts, like dogs, lions or birds, that had all these faculties. These three groups of the sensitive class lead up to man, who had in addition to existence, life, feeling, hearing, touch, movement and memory the important faculty of understanding. It was this extraordinary quality that made man something special in the Elizabethan World Picture. Man was the link between the beasts and the celestial creatures, because of the 'total faculties of earthly phenomena' that he sume d up un himself.

Above man there was the group of the purely rational or spiritual creatures, angels. Through their ability of understanding they were linked with man. Within the chain of being there was the possibility of a change because the chain was also being compared to a ladder what can be seen in the 'tendency of man towards God' and in the corresponding planes as I will show later on. Another peculiarity of the chain of being was that every class distinguished itself by remarkable qualities, which implied an importance to every class. As an example the stones can be mentioned. In the chain, they were set below the plants but in the qualities of strength and durability they were above the vegetative class.

Furthermore it is remarkable that every class had its primate. These primates exceed as the top of their class or hierarchy. Good examples are the lion among the beasts, the eagle among the birds or the king among man. This classification is not restricted to only the earthly creatures but was also used spiritual ones. God was seen as the primate of the angels and the Sun as the primate of the planets.

As I have mentioned before, the Elizabethans strongly believed in angels, and therefore angels were an important component of their world picture. The Elizabethans connected angels with the upper reaches of the physical universe. They thought of God as being domiciled beyond the bounds of the fixed stars in the colum attended by the host of angels. Angels were believed to be able to inhabit and visit to whole range of the universe. The Elizabethans thought of angels as intermediate between God and man and that their nature was purely intellectual. Man and angels were connected by the understanding and the free will, that they had in common.

They differed in the fact that the angels' will never conflicted with God's will and that they comprehended God immediately and unmistakably. God created angels as his messengers and as man's guardians. As angels were of spiritual nature they did not have a body, like man. Whenever they wished to appear and to face man, they had to take their shape out of ether, because ether was the only element that was equivalent to the angels in purity.

An important difference between the sublunary sphere and the macrocosm above was air. Below the moon, air was thick and dirty. The farther the distance from earth was and the closer to heaven, the atmosphere became purer and more brilliant and therefore air was known as ether in the macrocosm. Ether was considered the fifth element and the substance of all creation from the moon upwards. In the Elizabethan World Picture man had a central position within the universe and was therefore of paramount interest in the chain of being. Due to man's body, he was seen as the highest of the earthly creatures and due to his soul he was the lowest of the spiritual creatures.

'His double nature had the unique function of binding together all creation, of bridging the greatest cosmic chasm, that between matter and spirit. ' God created man as the last and most complete creature, according to his example. Man mirrored God's creation. He was a model of the universe, the macrocosm, in small and therefore was called 'microcosm'. There was a direct correspondence assumed between man and the cosmos. The human body composed itself, just like everything be neth the sphere of the moon, out of the four elements earth, water, air and fire.

For this reason man was also subjected to transitoriness. I am going to describe an outline of the human constitution. By eating, man picked up four elements, that composed the food. The elements were decomposed in the liver and converted into four liquid substances, the humours, which were to the human body what the elements were to the earth. The liver was seen as lord of the lowest of the three parts of the body.

Each humour had its own counterpart among the elements and contained the characteristics of the respective elements. The first humour, melancholy, was earth-like, cold and dry, phlegm was watery, cold and moist, blood was airy, hot and moist and finally the last humour choler was fiery, hot and dry. Just like the composition of the four elements was decisive for the durability and lastingness, the domination of one of the humours in man's constitution was influencing the temperament. The dominance of one humour gave man his distinctive mark.

The humours were regarded as the life-giving moisture of the body. Out of the four humours the 'vital heat', an energy that was thought to keep to body working, was generated. 'The vital heat is mediated to the body through three kinds of spirit, which are the executive of the microcosm. ' First there were the 'natural spirits', which were connected with the side of man and were under domination of the liver.

Then there were the 'vital spirits', which were of higher quality. They were created inside the heart by transforming the natural spirits with the help of heat and air. The vital spirits carried life and heat through the body via the arteries. The heart was the king of the middle part of the body.

It was the seat of the passions and therefore corresponded to the sensitive portions of man's nature. The vital spirits, at least some of them, were carried to the brain and were transformed into 'animal spirits'. These spirits were the executive agents of the brain and they took possession of both the body and the soul. The brain ruled the top part of the human body and was the seat of the rational and immortal part of man. Of the body's three parts, the brain was the king of the top part.

Here in the brain, the higher faculties, the peculiarity of man, were seated. The brain was again divided into a triple hierarchy. The lowest part of the brain contained the five senses. The middle part again consisted out of three parts.

First there was the 'common sense', which worked on the things passed on by the five senses. The second component of the middle part was the fancy. The last part was the all-important memory. This middle part of the brain made the material a viable for the highest part to work on.

This highest part of the brain was the quality that exceed man and contributed to the outstanding position of man in creation. It contained the supreme human faculty, reason. This faculty was it that distinguished man from the beasts and on the other hand connected him with God and the angels. The reason of man was once more divided into two parts, the understanding, or wit and the will. The ethics of the Elizabethans were based on these two faculties. Furthermore, the Elizabethans saw a close relation between the ability of understanding and the Fall of man.

'The natural thirst for knowledge and wisdom survives, but the soul's instruments had been impaired and often shirk to the labour by which knowledge is obtained. ' Although man was connected with the angels and God by understanding, his understanding operated differently. In contrast to the angels, who were understanding intuitively, man learned to understand by the painful use of the discursive reason. Angels had perfected their understanding and had all the knowledge that they were able to hold. Man began in total ignorance but in the end he may have rivaled the angels in knowledge because he constantly learned. The main feature that made man stand out in the Elizabethan World Picture and that distinguished him from as well the angels as the beasts, was his capacity for learning.

The process and the ability of learning was seen as 'one of the great human prerogatives. ' For this reasons, man was the most important link in the chain of being and of major importance for the Elizabethan World Picture. 4.2 HORIZONTAL HIERARCHY The part of the world picture that I dealt with so far was of a vertical structure. This vertical hierarchy was illustrated by the chain of being. Next to the dimension of difference, expressed through this chain of being, the analogy is another important point in the Elizabethan order. Hierarchy and analogy are complementary principles.

Every creature was not only defined because of its differences to the creature below or above in the chain, but also because the degree of relationship with other links in creation. Earlier I said, that the chain of being was also a ladder. This metaphor shows that hierarchy was strongly connected with analogy. Although things were distinguished by differences, the symbol of the ladder implied that certain things, though different in some ways, were on an equal level due to similarities.

Every component of the chain or ladder, even the lowest one, was of importance for the whole order. If one link would have been missing, the chain would not have been fully existent. Every creature mirrored the attributes of a lower creation in a purer form. Like the vertical hierarchy was made clear by the image of the chain of being, the horizontal hierarchy was illustrated by 'corresponding planes', which can be imagined as a multitude of planes, which were ordered one on top of the other according to the divine order. These planes were connected by an immense net of correspondences. This way things were not only described by differences but also by resemblances with each other.

This search for correspondences was a great part of the Elizabethan striving for unity. This hierarchy, directed in two directions, impounded that nothing within nature or the cosmos was superfluous and had a place to where it belonged. There was no waste. The primates mentioned before, are a good example to illustrate how the vertical and horizon al hierarchy were interconnected. They were the link from their own class, on top of which they stand, with the next higher class within the chain of being. At the same time, the primate were connected among each other.

The king, highest of man, wa directly connected with God and with the Sun, ruler of the heaven. The view of the correspondences, which was during the Middle Ages rather cool, intellectual and almost a mathematical treatment, shifted in the Elizabethan Age. The correspondences served to follow the Elizabethan desire for putting everything into an order and to bring the vast variety of real life more or less into a fixed pattern. This makes clear the Elizabethan trend away from the mathematical accuracy of the Middle Ages. 'Equivalences shaded of into resemblances. ' One very important correspondence in the Elizabethan World Picture was the analogy between the cosmos and the state.

Society and state mirrored the order predominant within the universe. At the top of the cosmic hierarchy stood God, within the human hierarchy the king took this position. Therefore the king was the deputy of God in the sublunary sphere of the cosmos. The actions of the king were not allowed to be arbitrary but had to be according to God's justice. By that the king took on a responsibility, at least in certain limits, that 'his' part of the cosmos was 'in order'. Thus the Elizabethan World Picture had a very monarchist character and under pined the position of the king / queen.

To keep the state in order the whole society had to, according to the hierarchy, submit to the king. A popular metaphor for describing the perfect state was the comparison with a colony of bees. At its top there is the queen and the nation is organized according to its duties. Just like in a colony of bees there was peace, unity and order as long as everything was in correspondence with the cosmic harmony and the divine laws. If the harmony was violated, for example through discord, civil war or a revolt, everything got out of order and control. The community that the king / queen was the head of, was called 'body politic'.

The term body politic expresses the concrete image of an exact parallel between the human body and the state. The idea of the state as a body was one of the most important concepts of analogy. The body was thought to work correctly only if every organ submitted to the whole organism. In this connection the proportion between the functions of every particular organ again played an important role.

Only the correct proportion met the requirements for the whole body to function perfectly. In the same way it was with the state. Only if the subjects, the people, worked together in the right proportion, only then peace and order within the state is possible. 5. CRITICISM The Elizabethan World Picture was close to the one of the Middle Ages. It became obvious to all the scholars that its scientific assumptions were not durable.

The belief in a compatibility of science and theology into one common system also disappeared in course of the next generations. Nevertheless the Elizabethan World Picture fascinates in its symmetry and its unity. It was the last generally accepted universal explanation of the world. Nowadays, we, who are putting together our world picture out of many different small pictures of the sciences, sometimes lack the ability for some comparability. Refered to the Elizabethan time, the world picture was already out-of-date and hard to hold up, al least in in some points of its documentary of nature. Everything had its order and had to fitted together.

This system was fairly simple and easy to understand for everybody. It showed an astonishing flexibility in uniting the whole cosmos into one system of order. This flexibility also allowed to fit some.