Beliefs4

=== WHAT IS "THE ELIZABETHAN WORLD PICTURE" AND " THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING?" WHAT WERE COMMON SUPERSTITIONS, FOLKLORE, "OLD WIVES' TALES," AND BELIEFS IN ASTROLOGY IN SHAKESPEARE'S ENGLAND? answer prepared by Kiran K. === Elizabethans were extremely superstitious. Their day to day lives where often filled with superstitious actions, like going around a ladder as apposed to under it, or contacting an astrologist. Many of the same superstitions Elizabethans held are still around today. Astrology played a big part in Elizabethans’ lives. Astrology is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies interpreted as having an influence on human affairs and the natural world. According to A.L. Rowse in // the Elizabethan Renaissance :TheLife of the Society, “To the Elizabethan mind it was unreasonable to suppose that there were no planetary or celestial influences upon me, since so much of the vegetable growth on the earth visibly depended on the sun, while the moon's influence was no less visible in the tides.” People used astrology to predict the future, if they could predict then they could try to change it or control it. Queen Elizabeth even had Dr. Dee, the most famous astrologist of the time, use astrology to pick a good day for her coronation; she wanted her coronation to be on a day that would mean she would have a successful reign. Then when she was dying she had him use astrology to see her possible heirs. Also astrology was important in farming, farmers used it to plan when to plant and when to harvest. As Thomson Gale the author of //Elizabethan England says//, astrology was used for everything, even little things like finding a sack of flour. “Astrology was so much a way of life that it became part of the Language.” //

Elizabethans had many superstitions. Some of their superstitions are still around today. Why do people say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? In the 1560’s it was said because it was thought that the devil could enter your open mouth and by blessing the person it kept the devil out. Superstitious people in the twenty-first century still think a black cat crossing your path is bad luck. Why? Because black is the color associated with evil magic and a cat was associated with a witch, as //Elizabethan-era.org puts it. Two other superstitions still seen today are spilling salt or pepper or walking under a ladder as being bad luck. These superstitions make no sense now but back then they did. Ladders were associated with death, gallows, and executions. There is a simple reason that spilling salt and pepper was bad luck, because they were very expensive! Elizabethans had many superstitions, and many are similar to the ones we have today.

BOOKS:  Gale, Thomson. //Elizabethan England//. Farmington Hills: Thomson Corporation, 2006. 70-72. Print.
 * works cited ** //

Rowse, A.L. //The Elizabethan Renaissance: The Life of the Society//. Chicago: Simon and Schuster, 1971. 260. Print.

WEB: unknown,. "Elizabethan Periond." //Elizabethan Era//. unknown, 3/21/09. Web. 4 Apr 2010. <[|__http://www.elizabethan-era.org__]>.