The Great Chain of Being

• • it's the belief that the universe is an ordered linear sequence.
• • Elizabethan society was rapidly changing, but still had a rigid structure
  • they believed that the universe was governed by a divine will
  • there was a hierarchy with God at the head
  • human society was also based on this structure
  • breaking the law represented a challenge to God's divine order, leading to chaos
  • the order is fixed, beginning with God, all the way through to stones
  • the whole universe was based on this order
  • the human body was said to correspond to a similar hierarchal structure
• Certain Sermons & Homiles:

  • " the goodly order of God... without which.... can continue and endure..."
  • "... where there is no right order, there reigneth all abuse"
• • this vision of a perfect society with all elements in harmonious relationship is purely an ideal
  • society was undergoing significant change
• Keith Wrightson:

  • " each thing had its appointed place"
  • society is presented as an "organism of functionally interdependent, though unequal parts."
  • society was portrayed as it "ought to be, providing a prescription for an ideal harmony in social relations"
• How Shakespeare uses disorder:

  • he creates disorder in his plays to illustrate the order of the accepted
  • his use of disorder for comic effect always ended with re-establishment of societal norm