Introduction Take notice, that the Decree of the President of Uzbekistan of 3 October, 2019, No. Dp-5843 “On measures to radically enhance the personnel policy

Chapter I : Overview of later romantic period and writers
1.1 The later romantic : Shelley Heats and J. Keats
Shakespeare read widely and took inspiration from everything he read, but some writers proved especially influential. One important influence was Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe pioneered the use of blank verse, the form Shakespeare uses in all his plays. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe also portrayed complex tragic characters on stage. He was only two months older than Shakespeare, but he was already the most famous playwright in England when Shakespeare began his career. The two men probably knew each other personally, but they could not have had a long friendship. Marlowe died young, killed in a tavern brawl in 1503 at the age of 23. Shakespeare paid tribute to Marlowe in several of his plays. As You Like It addresses Marlowe directly and quotes one of his poems: “Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, ‘Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?’” (III..). The play also references the circumstances of Marlowe’s death: “When a man’s verses cannot be understood . . . it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room” (III.). In these lines, “reckoning” refers to the bar bill Marlowe fought over, and “little room” refers to the room in the tavern where Marlowe was killed.¹
The French essayist Michel de Montaigne was another important influence on Shakespeare’s plays. Montaigne’s essays address a dazzling range of ideas, and Shakespeare’s plays often explore similar ideas. In The Tempest, for instance, Gonzalo imagines the “commonwealth” he would create if he ruled the island where the play is set. His speech closely follows a passage from Montaigne’s essay, “Of the Cannibals.” But Shakespeare goes further than adapting the essay’s language. He also adopts the essay’s sympathy for so-called “cannibals” and “savages,” who Montaigne believed superior Europeans due to their “natural innocence.” Shakespeare reflects this sympathy in his depiction of Caliban, whose critiques of the oppression he faces under Prospero are some of the most powerful and moving in the play. In addition to “Of the Cannibals,” Shakespeare also drew influence from the essay, “Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children,” in which Montaigne argues that aging parents should not demand gratitude from their offspring. Shakespeare explores this topic in King Lear, in which terrible consequences befall a father who does precisely what Montaigne advises against.
Shakespeare’s sonnets, and his long narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, show a wide range of influences. Shakespeare’s sonnets in particular would not have been possible without the work of the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. The sonnet was invented in the thirteenth century, but Petrarch perfected the form and took it further by stringing series of sonnets into thematic sequences that usually addressed a love object. Petrarch’s most famous sequence concerns his idealized love for a young woman named Laura. Beginning in the sixteenth century, many English writers used sonnet sequences to tell romantic stories. Though Shakespeare’s use of the sonnet form does not in itself indicate that he knew Petrarch’s work, Romeo and Juliet provides evidence that he had indeed read Petrarch’s sonnets. For instance, the language Romeo uses to idealize Rosaline at the beginning of the play clearly satirizes Petrarch. In a less satirical mode, Shakespeare inserts a sonnet into the scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet. Their dialogue forms a shared sonnet, with each lover providing one half of the rhyming poem. At the conclusion of the fourteen lines the lovers seal the sonnet with a kiss.
Shakespeare also knew the work of other English poets inspired by Petrarch, including Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, who were both favorites of Queen Elizabeth. Edmund Spenser wrote influential narrative poems such as The Shepheardes Calendar and The Faerie Queene. But by far the biggest influence on Shakespeare’s own narrative poems is the epic Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. Metamorphoses was often studied at schools like the one Shakespeare probably attended in Stratford, and Shakespeare demonstrated a deep knowledge of Ovid in his earliest poems. Venus and Adonis is a retelling of an episode from Metamorphoses, ²and Shakespeare’s poem imitates Ovid’s playful and erotic style. Ovid also influenced Shakespeare’s plays. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play-within-a-play performed by the Mechanicals is based on the story of the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe from Metamorphoses. Although the Mechanicals bungle the play enough to turn it into a comedy, the original story is tragic. A more faithful version of Pyramus and Thisbe appears in Romeo and Juliet, which also tells the story of two lovers who must keep their love secret from their parents and who die due to a misunderstanding.
Shakespeare read widely and took inspiration from everything he read, but some writers proved especially influential. One important influence was Christopher Marlowe. Marlowe pioneered the use of blank verse, the form Shakespeare uses in all his plays. Like Shakespeare, Marlowe also portrayed complex tragic characters on stage. He was only two months older than Shakespeare, but he was already the most famous playwright in England when Shakespeare began his career. The two men probably knew each other personally, but they could not have had a long friendship. Marlowe died young, killed in a tavern brawl in 1503 at the age of 23. Shakespeare paid tribute to Marlowe in several of his plays. As You Like It addresses Marlowe directly and quotes one of his poems: “Dead Shepherd, now I find thy saw of might, / ‘Whoever loved that loved not at first sight?’” (III.v.). The play also references the circumstances of Marlowe’s death: “When a man’s verses cannot be understood . . . it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room” (III.iii.). In these lines, “reckoning” refers to the bar bill Marlowe fought over, and “little room” refers to the room in the tavern where Marlowe was killed.
The French essayist Michel de Montaigne was another important influence on Shakespeare’s plays. Montaigne’s essays address a dazzling range of ideas, and Shakespeare’s plays often explore similar ideas. In The Tempest, for instance, Gonzalo imagines the “commonwealth” he would create if he ruled the island where the play is set. His speech closely follows a passage from Montaigne’s essay, “Of the Cannibals.” But Shakespeare goes further than adapting the essay’s language. He also adopts the essay’s sympathy for so-called “cannibals” and “savages,” who Montaigne believed superior Europeans due to their “natural innocence.” Shakespeare reflects this sympathy in his depiction of Caliban, whose critiques of the oppression he faces under Prospero are some of the most powerful and moving in the play. In addition to “Of the Cannibals,” Shakespeare also drew influence from the essay, “Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children,” in which Montaigne argues that aging parents should not demand gratitude from their offspring. Shakespeare explores this topic in King Lear, in which terrible consequences befall a father who does precisely what Montaigne advises against.
Shakespeare’s sonnets, and his long narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, show a wide range of influences. Shakespeare’s sonnets in particular would not have been possible without the work of the fourteenth-century Italian poet Petrarch. The sonnet was invented in the thirteenth century, but Petrarch perfected the form and took it further by stringing series of sonnets into thematic sequences that usually addressed a love object. Petrarch’s most famous sequence concerns his idealized love for a young woman named Laura. Beginning in the sixteenth century, many English writers used sonnet sequences to tell romantic stories. Though Shakespeare’s use of the sonnet form does not in itself indicate that he knew Petrarch’s work, Romeo and Juliet provides evidence that he had indeed read Petrarch’s sonnets. For instance, the language Romeo uses to idealize Rosaline at the beginning of the play clearly satirizes Petrarch. In a less satirical mode, Shakespeare inserts a sonnet into the scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet. Their dialogue forms a shared sonnet, with each lover providing one half of the rhyming poem. At the conclusion of the fourteen lines the lovers seal the sonnet with a kiss.
Shakespeare also knew the work of other English poets inspired by Petrarch, including Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, who were both favorites of Queen Elizabeth. Edmund Spenser wrote influential narrative poems such as The Shepheardes Calendar and The Faerie Queene. But by far the biggest influence on Shakespeare’s own narrative poems is the epic Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid. Metamorphoses was often studied at schools like the one Shakespeare probably attended in Stratford, and Shakespeare demonstrated a deep knowledge of Ovid in his earliest poems. Venus and Adonis is a retelling of an episode from Metamorphoses, and Shakespeare’s poem imitates Ovid’s playful and erotic style. Ovid also influenced Shakespeare’s plays. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play-within-a-play performed by the Mechanicals is based on the story of the lovers Pyramus and Thisbe from Metamorphoses. Although the Mechanicals bungle the play enough to turn it into a comedy, the original story is tragic. A more faithful version of Pyramus and Thisbe appears in Romeo and Juliet, which also tells the story of two lovers who must keep their love secret from their parents and who die due to a misunderstanding.
In the nineteenth century, just as Shakespeare’s reputation as the greatest writer in the English language seemed undeniable, doubts began to creep in regarding whether Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon was really the author of the plays and poems attributed to his name. Theories began to circulate, speculating that Shakespeare may have served as a front for another author who could not publicly take credit for their work. So-called “Anti-Stratfordians” are skeptical that the son of a tradesman who had so little education could have written the complex and wide-ranging works attributed to him. They cite Shakespeare’s spotty biographical record as another point of suspicion, as well as the fact that his will neglects to mention any papers or unpublished manuscripts. Despite shared skepticism, however, there remains no consensus about who the “real” writer is. Some eighty candidates have been put forward, though the most favored candidates include the philosopher and statesman, Sir Francis Bacon, and the Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere. Some also believe that Christopher Marlowe was the real Shakespeare. In proposing different candidates, Anti-Stratfordians frequently rely on circumstantial evidence, such as biographical similarities with characters. They also identify hidden codes they believe to be embedded in Shakespeare’s writing and cite these codes as evidence for their claims.
Most modern scholars reject the claims of Anti-Stratfordians, citing historical and documentary evidence as sufficient proof that Shakespeare of Stratford really is the author of the plays and poems that bear his name. Additionally, there is no evidence of skepticism among any of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, including other poets, playwrights, actors. Although most scholars believe Shakespeare is the real Shakespeare, there is also increasing recognition that other writers contributed in various ways to the plays historically attributed solely to him. In Elizabethan England, playwrights frequently collaborated in order to produce new plays as quickly as possible. Such may have been the case with some of Shakespeare’s early plays. For instance, modern scholars who have carefully analyzed the writing style suggest that Henry VI, Part 1, may have been written by a team of collaborators that included Shakespeare and the political satirist Thomas Nashe. Likewise, Shakespeare may have either cowritten Titus Andronicus with George Peele or else revised an earlier version by Greene. We also know that at the end of his career Shakespeare adopted an apprentice, John Fletcher, with whom he cowrote Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen. However, few scholars think such collaborations undermine Shakespeare’s overall credibility.Elizabethan England was a fiercely patriarchal society with laws that heavily restricted what women could and could not do. Women were not allowed to attend school or university, which meant they couldn’t work in professions like law or medicine. Most of the guilds, which trained skilled workers like goldsmiths and carpenters, did not officially admit women. Even the disreputable profession of acting was off limits to women. The only trades legally available to women were those that could be mastered and practiced in the home, such as hat making and brewing. Women were also barred from voting, and though they could inherit property from their father or their husband, they could not themselves purchase property. In addition to these legal restrictions, women were also bound by strict social expectations that did not apply equally to men. Sermons and books written during the Elizabethan era encouraged women to be silent and obedient to male authority, whether that of their father or their husband.
1.2 Other overview of the romantic period
Marriage in Elizabethan England replicated society’s patriarchal structure. Legally a girl could marry as young as 12 with her parents’ consent, though young women typically married in their late teens or early twenties. When a woman’s father deemed her ready to marry, he had a large degree of control of who she married. Among the aristocracy, where marriages were often more about politics than love, women often had no say at all in who they married. Upon entering marriage, a woman ceased to be her father’s responsibility, and her husband became her legal master. Shakespeare reflects this condition in The Taming of the Shrew, when Petruchio refers to his wife as “my goods, my chattels . . . my ox, my ass, my anything” (III.ii.). As his wife’s legal guardian, a husband was permitted to punish his wife as he saw fit, particularly in cases of infidelity. In several of his plays Shakespeare showcases the real danger that male anxiety over infidelity posed for women. Hermione in The Winter’s Tale is imprisoned because her husband mistakenly believes that she is pregnant by another man. In Othello, Desdemona is murdered by her husband because he believes (again mistakenly) that she is having an affair.
Despite the intensely patriarchal nature of the society Shakespeare grew up in, for the majority of his life a woman occupied the throne—and an unmarried woman at that. Throughout Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, debates raged about whether a woman could rule as effectively as a man. Elizabeth constantly struggled to prove herself in the face of male doubt. When speaking to her troops ahead of a Spanish invasion, she famously reassured them: “I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” Yet Elizabeth enjoyed a long and politically stable reign, demonstrating the effectiveness of female rule. It is possible that Elizabeth’s success as a ruler inspired other women to demand more freedom, particularly within their marriages. The period between 1595 and 1620 saw a sharp increase in the number of disputes and separations between aristocratic wives and their husbands. By the same token, however, the rise in women’s dissatisfaction with the constraints of marriage also gave rise to the trope of the “shrew”—that is, an aggressively assertive woman who speaks her mind. The trope of the shrew in turn reinvigorated the idea that husbands need to discipline their wives, again renewing patriarchal norms.
The majority of Shakespeare’s major female characters are young and involved in romantic plots that revolve around choosing a husband. The conflict between a father and daughter regarding who represents an ideal suitor had the potential to create serious quarrels in families, and Shakespeare repeatedly stages such quarrels in his writing. Two of Shakespeare’s tragedies begin with the struggle of a young female character to free herself from male control. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet sneaks out of her home to marry Romeo, and then fakes her own death to escape the husband her father has chosen for her. In Othello, Desdemona also sneaks out at night to marry the man she has chosen against her father’s wishes. Although these heroines free themselves from their fathers, they do not free themselves from male control altogether. Juliet loses her chosen husband when he is drawn into the ongoing feud between the men of the Capulet and Montague families. Desdemona remains faithful to Othello, but her history of defying male authority makes him anxious. He comes to suspect her of adultery and ultimately murders her.
Whereas Shakespeare’s tragedies usually feature women in secondary roles, or roles that share top billing with a man (like Juliet or Cleopatra), Shakespeare’s comedies often feature women as main characters. As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night all center on young women determined to choose their own husbands or, like Olivia in Twelfth Night and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, determined not to marry at all. Like the tragedies, these plays show that the apparent ability to choose a husband or to avoid marriage does not amount to much freedom after all. In the end, both Olivia and Beatrice are persuaded to marry. Likewise, both Rosalind in As You Like It and Viola in Twelfth Night don disguises and enjoy comic adventures that come to an end once they take off their costumes, get married, and begin new lives in their roles as wives. The Merchant of Venice offers a slightly more empowering ending. In that play Portia and Nerissa disguise themselves as men and test their new husbands by tricking them into giving up their wedding rings, a symbolic gesture which suggests both women intend to exercise power within their marriages.
Women dress up as men in many of Shakespeare’s plays, often as a dramatic device to further the plot. By making his female characters cross-dress, Shakespeare gave himself the opportunity to put them in situations from which real-life women would have been barred. In Twelfth Night, for instance, Viola disguises herself as the young man “Cesario” and offers to help Duke Orsino woo Countess Olivia, something a noblewoman would never have been allowed to do. Elizabethans largely believed that women lacked the intelligence, rationality, courage, and other qualities necessary to perform roles reserved for men. However, whenever Shakespeare’s cross-dressing women take on traditionally male roles, they usually do a better job than their male counterparts. In The Merchant of Venice, none of the male characters can think of a way to rescue Antonio from a contract that allows the moneylender Shylock to take “a pound of flesh” from his body. But when Portia arrives in court disguised as a lawyer, she demonstrates a legal savvy that no other male character possesses. Portia brilliantly points out that Shylock may be legally entitled to a pound of Antonio’s flesh, but that “no jot of blood” can be spilled in the process.
Although shrewd young women appear frequently in Shakespeare’s plays, mature women are conspicuously absent. Mothers in particular are missing. In The Tempest, Prospero lives alone with his daughter Miranda as castaways on a remote island. When Prospero gives an account of their escape from Milan, he only references her mother once, and only in order to confirm that Miranda is indeed his daughter: “Thy mother was a piece of virtue / And she said thou wast my daughter” (I.ii.). Mothers are missing in plays from across Shakespeare’s career, from Titus Andronicus to King Lear, and like The Tempest, many of these plays focus intensely on the relationships between fathers and daughters. Two notable exceptions to the rule of missing mothers include Gertrude in Hamlet and Volumnia in Coriolanus, both of whom have difficult relationships with their adult sons. The example of Gertrude also points to Shakespeare’s tendency to present mature women as being devious, even dangerous. Hamlet believes his mother to be complicit with the king’s assassination. Lady Macbeth provides another example of a devious older woman. Cleopatra may offer the only example of a powerful, mature woman whom Shakespeare portrays as being noble and dignified.
Few people in Shakespeare’s England would ever have met a practicing Jew. The kingdom’s Jewish population had been expelled in 1290, more than two hundred years before Shakespeare’s birth, and practicing Jews would not be permitted to enter the country until after Shakespeare’s death, in 1660. Despite the expulsion of the Jews in the Middle Ages, a small group of Portuguese Jews, comprised of just under one hundred people, survived in London by living quiet lives, and mostly avoided trouble with authorities. Elizabethan London was also home to a small number of Jewish converts to Christianity. In spite of their conversion, however, these Jewish people remained subject to anti-Semitic prejudice. In 1594 the royal physician Roderigo Lopez, a Spanish Christian of Jewish ancestry, was found guilty of plotting to poison Queen Elizabeth. When he spoke to the crowd who had gathered to watch his execution, Lopez insisted that he “loved the Queen as well as he loved Jesus Christ.” The crowd laughed at him. They believed that he hated the queen, so his choice of words only confirmed that he hated Jesus Christ as well and hence secretly remained a practicing Jew.
Anti-Semitic prejudice ran deep in England. Conventional wisdom held that Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were delaying the salvation of mankind. In the medieval period many Christians also believed that Jews killed Christian children as part of their religious practice, and this rumor persisted during Shakespeare’s lifetime. Perhaps the most widespread stereotype of Jews that survived in Shakespeare’s time related to usury, the practice of lending money at interest. In many parts of Europe, Christians were legally forbidden from collecting interest. Though not legally barred from the practice, Jews who did charge interest on loans came to be seen as greedy and devious. Shakespeare addressed this stereotype in The Merchant of Venice, a play that has proven ambivalent for many audiences through the centuries. Shakespeare’s depiction of the Jewish moneylender Shylock has struck many as anti-Semitic. Yet the play is also at pains to show that cruelty and greed, as well as pain and suffering, are traits that can be found in Jews and Christians alike. Shakespeare clearly indicates that Shylock’s cruelty partly arises in response to his experience of discrimination and abuse, yet within the play itself there is no empathy for the vilified man, who disappears in disgrace at the end of the fourth act.
Other plays written and performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime reflect a similar ambivalence about Jews. Perhaps the most famous of these plays is The Jew of Malta, written by Christopher Marlowe around 1589. Marlowe’s play tells the story of Barabas, a wealthy and villainous Jewish merchant who falsely converts to Christianity to further his devious plans. Eventually Barabas is tricked into falling into his own trap, which results in his being burned alive. Like Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, it remains unclear for many modern readers whether The Jew of Malta condones anti-Jewish fantasies, or if the play works to critique those fantasies. Though Marlowe’s original title categorized the play as a tragedy, the play is also darkly comic and may have inspired cynical laughter among its original audiences. Another play that was popular in the 1580s and 90s offers a less ambivalent portrayal of a Jew. Robert Wilson’s comedy The Three Ladies of London, written around 1581, pitted a moral and sympathetic Jewish merchant against a wicked and scheming Italian merchant. Unlike the later plays by Marlowe and Shakespeare, Wilson’s play clearly rebukes the overriding anti-Semitism of Elizabethan England.
The Moors were a Muslim people of mixed Berber and Arab descent who populated the Maghreb region of northwest Africa during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Despite originating on the African continent, in the eighth century the Moors conquered the Iberian Peninsula—what we know today as Spain and Portugal. The Moors controlled the Iberian Peninsula until the fifteenth century, when European forces finally drove them out. In the early modern European imagination, the Moors fit in with the other Muslim populations that were seen to threaten Christendom. For centuries, Christian Europe had been in conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which stretched from modern-day Turkey into the Middle East and across North Africa. Starting with the earliest Crusades in the eleventh century, and continuing into Shakespeare’s lifetime, the clash of Christian and Muslim civilizations posed a military and religious threat that destabilized Europe and contributed to negative views of the Moors.
Although Moors had dark skin, it is important to note that in Shakespeare’s time Europeans had not yet developed the concept of “race” as it came to be understood in later centuries. Unlike today, early modern Europeans did not link skin color to genetic or evolutionary heritage, which are two concepts that arose in the nineteenth century with the emergence of modern biological science. Even so, early modern European culture did maintain a color prejudice that stemmed from two very different sources. The first source was medieval climate theory, which linked dark skin to sun exposure and thus connected the hot climate of Mediterranean North Africa with blackness. The second source stemmed from Christian theology, which tells the story of how God cursed Noah’s son Ham to be “black and loathsome.” The blackness of Ham’s lineage does refer to skin color, but blackness chiefly plays a metaphorical role in that story, marking Ham’s sin. Shakespeare refers to this latter tradition rather than a racial stereotype when, for example, he has Aaron the Moor in Titus Andronicus declare that his villainous deeds will make “his soul black as his face.”