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ca. 450: 597: 871-899: 1066: ca. 1200: Anglo-Saxon conquest Beginning of Anglo-Saxon conversion to Christianity Reign of King Alfred Norman Conquest Beginning of Middle English (ME) literature including Piers Plowman, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 1485: William Caxton prints Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur
The Middle Ages in the English literature includes more than 800 years from the end of the 7th century up to the end of the 15th century. This period is divided into two parts: the earlier centuries are called the Dark Ages while the later centuries are referred to as the Middle Ages and they represent the peak of the European history. English ME includes two different periods of literature, the Old English and the ME. These two periods are divided by the Norman Conquest in 1066.
situations, the unit remained limited in size. The normal organization of the society consisted of a number of bands or groups who shared a sense of community esp. in front of a common enemy such as the Englishmen. The complete union of all Englishmen was achieved only after the Norman Conquest. For the Anglo-Saxons the ideal of kingly behavior was very important. It was the main spiritual force and creative power that formed their history and literature. It was called the heroic ideal. The king who was at the same time a hero tried to do better than anyone else the things that a migratory life like that of the Anglo-Saxons needed. His main duty was to fight, but he also did other difficult affairs. The main characteristics of such a hero-king were skill and courage. This heroic ideal in the oldest form was only proper for a king, but because society was very united, all the other important male members of the society imitated this kind of heroic behavior and bear in mind that in the Germanic society, only males were important and there is nothing mentioned about females . The king was the leader of a group of warriors and a mighty king was able to gain the loyalty of his followers. The heroic ideal had two advantages: first of all it won practical success for the king and another thing which is more important was that it achieved eternal fame for the hero. In cultures like the Germanic culture in which nothing has been mentioned about the life after death, eternal fame was regarded as immortality. Of course the hero was dependent for his fame on the poet who created the heroic poem and a good poet or bard (one who writes a heroic poem) was a valued member of the court. These heroic poems were called "epic". They were not written down, but recited orally so most of them have been lost. Form the Germanic epics the main survivor is Beowulf written in the Old English.
southernmost regions in the island, and about the same time missionaries from all over the Ireland began to deliver Christianity to the northern regions of the kingdom. Within 75 years the island was once more Christian. The first written work in the Old English language is a code of laws created by the King of Ethelbert and this shows the close connection between Christianity and writing. In the following centuries up to the Norman Conquest, England produced many important churchmen. One of the earliest of such persons was Bede (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). In the next generation, Alcuin became the friend of the emperor Charlemange and helped in making the court of this emperor a center of learning. But the greatest development in the English culture was caused by a nonclergy: Alfred the king of the West Saxons who united all the southern kingdoms and beat off Vikings. He translated some works from Latin (the most important of which was Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy). In this period Bede's History was also translated into Old English and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle begun to be written.
and of more possible failure. Romantic love can hardly be found. Men rarely rest and relax: they are always ready to test their courage and their abilities against their fate and destiny. The world of such poetry is a depressing one and it is given a high spiritual excitement by the use of ironic understatement (i.e. actions and things are represented as less than they really are in order to show that they are more than they really are). The dignity and the ancient traditions assigned to such poetry prevent the works from having some humor. Old English poetry represents cruel reality throughout using extraordinary subtlety and intensity.
the role of women in society was recognized in the literature of this period
The life which is represented in the ME literature is shallow and it has little depth but it can easily evoke our sympathy and compassion. It is represented sometimes as a lively and colorful world full of surprises and it attracts our appreciation. It presents accurately the details of life and humor which is the main characteristic of the ME literature can be seen anywhere. The lack of originality in the ME literature which was mentioned before is somehow because of the attempt of many writers both religious and secular (i.e. worldly) to make their works follow the principles of medieval Christianity. The subject of personal salvation, the emphasis on the moral responsibilities of a human being instead of his social or ethical duties is so obvious in the works of this period that you would think the Middle Ages was a period of intellectual and social unchangingness. Between the years 1066 and 1485 England experienced great political and social changes: developments in feudalism, the gradual growth of Parliament, the evolution of cities and the middle class and the increase in foreign trade. But most of the writers did not record these changes in their works except Chaucer and Langland's Piers Plowman. However these changes were very obvious in the daily lives of people. In fact the inevitability of change for the worse is one of the prominent themes of ME literature. This theme is the result of the violent life in the Middle Ages; constant wars against enemies at home or outside the country, the powerful members of the society supplying themselves from the hard works of the poor, the strictness of the laws and the failure to apply them to the powerful members, and the famine and pestilence are the reasons why medieval people expect a change for the worse. But the funny side is that most of the ME literature is concerned with the normality and its less preoccupied with the violence of the period, possibly because people in that time never had saw a life without violence; in other words they had got used to violence and difficulties.
Because almost everyone who knew how to write worked in the church, the secular literature was very limited and by the way, many of this secular literature did not survive because the churchmen did not approve them. Owl and the Nightingale is one of the few works which survived this period. During the last twenty-five years of the 14th century, ME literature suddenly flowered in three great poets: the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight produced the best romance of the period and some of the best religious poetry such as Patience and The Pearl William Langland in Piers Plowman in which he faces the great religious and social issues of the period Geoffrey Chaucer who had the greatest success
This sudden success is partly because of the patrons. But patrons did not always make a poet great. Chaucer's friend, John Gower, was supported by a royal patron but he did not succeed that much as Chaucer did. His works include a work in Latin, a work in Norman French and also Confessio Amantis in English. The 15th century is a period in which popular literary genres flowered; they include lyrics, ballads, dramas (mystery plays, morality plays, etc.).
Medieval English
The differences between the OE and the ME regarding the form are: OE has many inflections for different parts of speech while the inflection system is weaker in the ME The vocabulary of the OE is almost entirely Germanic while the ME borrows most of its words from the French The main difficulty of the ME for the modern reader is its spelling system and the fact that it has no standard language but it is composed of many regional dialects, each one of them has its own sound system and writing.
Also any vowel alliterates with any other vowel. In addition to this alliteration, the length of the unstressed syllables and their number and pattern follows complex rules. The majority of the ME poems is either in the form of the stressed rhymed verse or in the alliterative verse. The difference with the Old English in this regard is that in the ME alliterative verse, all four stressed words may alliterate. In a summer season when soft was the sun
Also a line may contain five, six or even more stressed words of which all or only the minimum may alliterate: A fair field full of folk found I therebetween
Like the Old English, any vowel may alliterate with any other vowel. There are two general types of stressed rhymed verse: stressed and unstressed syllables alternate regularly (xXxXxX) two unstressed syllables intervene (xxXxxXxxX) a combination of the two (xxXxXxxXxX)
Rhyme in ME may be between adjacent (next to each other) or alternate lines or in more complex patterns.
Geoffrey Chaucer
(ca. 1343-1400)
The book of the Duchess First journey to Italy; contact with Italian culture Troilus and Criseide Starting Canterbury Tales
Chaucer's Art
Chaucer was all over his life involved with many jobs and occupations. This practical aspect of his life is considered as one of the main reasons as to why he is a great poet. He dealt with all kinds of people, the high and the low. He understands both the high and the low but he remains detached and separated from both and it is this detachment which distinguishes the art of Chaucer from that of his contemporaries. The aristocrats of the medieval society were attributed with all kinds of idealism and Chaucer regards life in terms of the ideals of these aristocrat families. However, he also regards life as a completely practical subject. Chaucer's art was to be involved in and at the same time detached from any situation. This double vision (involving in and detaching from) in the poetry of Chaucer resulted in images with an extraordinary clarity. For example the character of nun in the Canterbury Tales is an example of the human paradox which opposes what people are with what they think they are or what they pretend to be. The element of the portrait of the nun are divided into the critical and the admiring: a poet who is very satiric and critical only captures the critical side and the audience think only about the nun's weaknesses; while a sentimental poet emphasizes on the admirable aspects of her character. However, Chaucer pays attention to both sides and he just expresses the paradox and does not solve it.
Canterbury Tales
The original plan for the Canterbury Tales includes 120 stories, two for each pilgrim to recite on the way to Canterbury and two more stories on the way back. But Chaucer completed only 22 of these stories. The first concepts for writing the Canterbury Tales came to Chaucer's mind in 1386 when he was living in Greenwich. From his house he could see the pilgrim road that led toward the shrine of the English saint, Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Collections of stories which are linked by such techniques were common in the later Middle Ages. John Gower used it in his Confessio Amantis; Boccaccio narrated one hundred tales of his work, Decameron, through ten characters and another Italian
writer, Sercambi, told a series of stories throughout a leader of a group of people riding on the horseback. However, Chaucer's artistic use of this technique was his own invention. In the tales of Gower and Sercambi, only one speaker tells all of the stories; and in Boccaccio, although there are different speakers, there's no logical relationship between any of the speakers and the story they tell, so we can assign each story to any speaker we want. But in the Canterbury Tales there is a beautiful connection between the speaker and his story, so that the speaker grows with the story and the story reveals some facts about the speaker. Chaucer relates two stories at the same timethat of an individual tale and that of the speaker whom the tale is related to. He develops the second story through the interchanges among the pilgrims between two tales when one pilgrim finishes his tale and the other one is beginning to narrate his own. These interchanges sometimes lead to a kind of hostility among the pilgrims. The effect of each tale is enhanced by the hostility of its teller. In addition to such strategies, the personality and mind of the reporter- Chaucer himself- helps in making the meaning of the poem rich and attracting. Some of the characters in the poems are Miller, Friar, Summoner, Wife of Bath, Physician, Reeve, Carpenter and Franklin among others.
Everyman
(ca. 1485) Everyman is the best example of a kind of medieval drama known as the morality play. Morality plays in England were acted by trade groups and they were written by only one person. Their main purpose was a religious one. The difference between the moralities and the mysteries was that the mysteries tried to make Christianity more real to the uneducated by dramatizing important events in the Bible and to show what these events mean to the human being and what a human can learn from them. The morality plays, on the other hand, used allegory to dramatize the moral conflict within every man: the actors of the play are every man and different characteristics of him and the plot includes his reactions to the persuasions or temptations of these qualities. The purpose of the moralities is more didactic and instructive but the common point between moralities and mysteries is that both contain humor. This humor is represented in the Everyman when at the end suddenly all of the hero's friends leave him when he needs their help. Everyman teaches its uncomplicated lesson by the simplicity and directness of its language. The main theme of the poem is that the human being can take with him from this world nothing that he has received (e.g. beauty, strength, friends, etc.), only what he has given (i.e. good deeds). In Everyman, allegory has been used in its most obvious form. Each actor represents a quality within Everyman and his name shows this quality. So the reader has no problem in figuring out that which character symbolizes which quality.
Popular Ballads
Ballads are narrative sons that have been transmitted orally from one generation to the next and their composers are unknown. Ballads are often associated with primitive societies such as the American society in the 18th and 19th centuries. The origins of the popular or folklore ballads are controversial. Some say that they were first composed by the attempts of a group of people and they were used as songs in the ritual dances of the primitive people; but this theory has not been proved and it probably seems wrong. The English ballads were composed during 1200 to 1700 but most of them were printed only after the 18th century. Bishop Thomas Percy was one of the first people who became interested in the ballads and he published some ballads he had found in a manuscript in a book named Reliques of Ancient English Poetry and by this, he encouraged others like Sir Walter Scott to go to the places were these ballads were originally sung and write them down with the original dialect. The common feature of all the popular ballad was their spareness (quality of having no extra parts): they only deal with the climax and they describe that climax with compression and they avoid any comment or anything which is considered extra. This was possibly due to the fact that the ballads were transmitted orally and the human memory could not remember the extra parts easily. The fact that the ballads were originally songs is very important. This affected the verse form (usually a quatrain with four stresses in each line) and made the narrative simpler. Using refrains (verse or phrase that is repeated during a song or poem) caused the reader or hearer to pause which in turn provides suspense. The use of refrains also gives the ballad the quality of a ritual. The subject of most of the best ballads is a tragic event, often a murder or an accidental death and this tragic event usually involves supernatural elements. Lord Randall, Edward, The Wife of Usher's Well, Three Ravens and Sir Patrick Spens are examples of ballads with a tragic plot. However not all the ballads have a tragic ending. For instance, Thomas Rhymer involves a happy ending.
The subject of some ballads is a real historical event. For example, Bonny Earl of Murray and Bonny George Campbell express their sorrow for the political murders of two popular nobles. St. Stevens and King Herod is hardly a ballad. It was probably not transmitted orally because it has some Latin in it and it has not gone through more than one stage of composition so it hasn't been revised.
Malory's book, Morte Darthur has been based on the Arthurian romance. Arthur was a British or Roman-British king who fought against the invasion of Anglo-Saxons and beat them off in the 6th century. But his historical identity is not important. What is important is that he has been a great character around whom the medieval ideal of chivalry and courage has been developed. Chivalry is the quality that controls the actions of the knight adventurer who gets on the back of his horse, searches for the wrongs and tries to make them right. He is usually searching for a lady whom he saves from a monster or other evil knights. The theme of all the works written according to the Arthurian legends can be summarized in the following sentence: "keeping order in a lawless land by the efforts of a person who fights for the right against apparently undefeatable enemies". The Arthurian legend involves many motifs such as the remainders of primitive pagan religious rituals, strict morals of Christianity, an elaborate romantic love, and others. In 13th century the Arthurian legends were given a kind of order in a series of prose narratives that later on formed the basis for writing Morte Darthur. Morte Darthur is an important book for two reasons: firstly because it is the best and most complete narration of the story of Arthur and his knights; secondly because it is one of the greatest pieces of prose in English. Malory was the first English writer who gave so much importance to the prose and made it a very suitable tool for the narration. The characteristics of his prose include naturalness and lack of self-consciousness, simplicity, a harsh realism using naturalistic dialogue and understated characters who express themselves in moments of great emotional conflict with the minimum number of words.
William Caxton
(ca. 1422-1491) William Caxton printed the first book in English (translation of the French work Recueil des Histoires de Trioe or collection of the stories of Troy) and he established the first printing press in England Among his first publications were Chaucer's Canterbury Tales Caxton did not believe so much in the historical validity of Arthur but he encourages the reader to forger his own skepticism to accept or reject the truth of Malory's work In treating the book Morte Darthur, he emphasizes its outstanding qualities and he believes that one can learn pure conduct from them He also believes that the outstanding qualities have all a negative sense like murder, hatred, sin, etc.
The 16th century in England can be seen as the age of the Tudor dynasty. There were three generations of this family: they ruled from 1485 up to 1603. Before the first king of Tudor comes to the throne, the Earl of Richmond who later on became Henry VII defeated Richard III and won the crown. England was the place for the battles between the families of York and Lancaster for more than thirty years. Henry VII was from Lancaster and he married Elizabeth who was the sister of Edward V and the niece of Richard III who as was earlier mentioned belonged to the house of York. The lords and barons of the country could not oppose the power of Henry VII and the church had already shown its alliance with Henry. So the Tudor government had a strong authority, order and practical solutions to problems. By the introduction of the printing industry by William Caxton at the end of the 15th century, more and more people could read English. Printing also made the books cheaper and the number of books was increased and as a result there were more opportunities to read and more motivations to learn to read.
The early years of the Tudor dynasty saw many important changes in trade and the warfare. Henry VII started some commercial contracts with European countries; England which was always famous for its sheep began to manufacture and export cloth. Also many people migrated from the villages to the cities and London became a great market and business began to develop. At the same time the old feudal structure began to weaken because the introduction of firearms caused the armored knights and the English bowmen to be abandoned and forgotten. But these changes did not occurred over one night. Still many writers and common people looked back instead of forward. They saw an uncertain future in front of them which they scared to step into. So they looked back to an idealized past when everything was peaceful and simple. But gradually these ideas changed and made the background for the mentioned changes. The best writers of the time of Henry VII were Scottish, not English. They include William Dunbar, Gavin Douglas and David Lindsay.
Humanism
This movement began with the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 with influences from the new cultural and intellectual movements in Italy. One of the great leaders of this movement was Sir Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII. His masterpiece, Utopia, was written in Latin. It advised all of Europe to reconsider their social institutions and gain economic equality and peace. More in his controversial book, the History of Richard III, strengthened the Tudor dynasty by darkening its predecessor (Richard III and the house of York). Erasmus of Rotterdam, More's friend, had also a great influence in the field of education. According to humanists, education was based upon the classics and the Bible. It was to be liberal and free for everyone and also practical. Its purpose was to prepare able people for the duties of government and for public service as in the church. Elizabeth I herself was a good example of such an educational system. Elizabethan education was based upon the medieval ideas of trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and quadrivium (astronomy, arithmetic, geometry and music). Grammar was Latin grammar and rhetoric referred to the devices used in the classics. The purpose of this system of education was to train students to speak and write good Latin. For this purpose the school teachers used books in different levels of difficulty.
These books include Sententiae Pueriles for the beginners to Horace, Virgil, Terence and Cicero's De Officiis. Also the teachers might use of the system of double translation (Latin to English and vice versa) in order to develop the skills and rhetorical elegance of the students, but they also knew that the development of a person from childhood to adulthood needed moral teaching and the source of these morals was Latin classics. The most famous humanists are Colet, Elyot and Ascham. By the way, authors had many difficulties in selecting the language of their works. The vernaculars (Languages other than formal language) seemed unstable and new to the educated men and for the person who wanted eternal fame, it's natural that he should worry about the durability and stability of his language. Moreover, humanists had emphasized the value of the classical languages like Latin and Greek. However, many authors who liked their mother tongue criticized this idea. For example, Joachim Du Bellay emphasized that the value of every language is not something hereditary, and it depends on what great works are written in that language.
legitimate son and he could not have one with the divorce which the Church of Rome refused. He named himself the Supreme Head of the English church and required the oaths of loyalty to him in that role. Under Henry's son, Edward VI, the Reformation which had been started because of some political reasons, gained a strong religious and spiritual force. Protestant theologians from the Continent came to England in groups and the Book of Common Prayer was published in 1549 and 1552. The successor of Edward VI was his older sister Mary who was half-Spanish and deeply Catholic. The Protestants either fled to the Continent or were burned due to their heresy. The Reformation could be reversed ideologically, but some of its results like the distribution of monastery lands among people could not.
Nationalism: Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558. She was one of the greatest politicians England had ever produced. By the time of Elizabeth I, England's strength was its middle position in the balance of power in Europe. It could support either sides of the power contest- Spain or France. It could support or not to support the Protestant uprising in the Low Countries. In addition, the queen was unmarried and the general assumption was that she would marry. Her possible marriage was an important factor in European diplomacy. England was united by the time it was too late to marry. What caused England to become even more united was the papal bull of 1570 which expelled Elizabeth from the throne; Englishmen supported their queen and she became the symbol of Englishness and nationalism. The perseverance of her in the face of many threats, her beauty, her wisdom and her divine mission to guide England became articles of faith. England's main weakness was its politico-religious division. The Catholics and the Protestants were the two extremes. Between them were the majority of Englishmen whose main desire was for order and peace in England and for them Elizabeth became the symbol of order. From the point of view of religion Elizabeth satisfied neither Catholics nor Protestants. She forced a kind of religious services, compelled them to attend it and
left their consciences to themselves. The result was nationalistic; Christians looked toward neither Rome nor Geneva as the source of authority, but to Elizabeth. The desire for commercial profit also caused nationalistic feelings flourish into the country. By the end of Edward VI's reign and as Protestantism progressed, many fishing companies lacked work, for the sale of fish depended greatly upon the Catholic belief of eating no meat on Fridays and other fast days. So they became pirates and Elizabeth supported them privately. Also the survival of Elizabeth I for so long provided the opportunity for nationalistic feelings to be established.
Dramatic Literature
The end of the 15th century marks the beginning of modern dramatic literature that should be acknowledged to John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of England under Henry VII. His plays were short and they were called "interludes". Interludes continued to be popular down to Shakespeare's era, but the development of drama into a sophisticated art form required another influence- the classics. The Latin tragedies of Seneca had a similar effect on the English drama. These plays were performed in five acts and had violent and bloody plots. They were full of rhetorical speeches and ghosts could be seen among the characters in the play. Moreover, Seneca is full of references to Fortune, a Roman goddess who turned her wheel and brought those who had reached the top to the bottom. The risky position of men in high status formed the basis for Elizabethan tragedy. The mid-16th century contribution to this type of drama is a collection of verse complaints called The Mirror for Magistrates. A mirror is a warning in the old sense and magistrate is someone in power. The first regular English tragedy was Gorboduc written by two lawyers. The combination of classical form with English content made dramas more mature and artistic. But such dramas must have an audience, a theater and professional actors. The earliest English dramas were acted by clergies in the church. Medieval miracle and mystery play were acted by amateurs, while morality plays and interludes were produced by semi-amateur groups who traveled about. The actors who traveled about did not have a respectable position and they often had dubious characters. So they were often arrested. Some noblemen kept a group of
actors as their servants. They could travel and perform their plays whenever they were not needed by their lords and they were free of any charge. The earliest successful acting groups measuring by their acceptance at court were groups of boys who regularly performed plays at court. The adult actors played in various places- great houses, hall of an Inn, temporary stages, etc. James Burbage in 1576 built the first theater to house their performances. The public theaters had usually an oval shape, with an unroofed yard in the center where some spectators stood, covered seats around the yard and a platform for running the plays, surrounded on three sides by spectators. Plays were performed in the afternoon and they were dependant on the weather. The private theaters were indoors, with artificial lighting and they were patronized by more important audiences. The acting groups filled the roles of their plays from their inner members not from outsiders and they performed different plays in consecutive days, not acting a single play for several days.
reward and this reward was usually in the form of a gift. The usual reward for the dedication of a pamphlet or a small volume of verse was two to three pounds. The other source of reward was the publisher. In that period there was no copyright so the author beside the money he got by selling his work directly to the publisher, never got anything else. And this reward was usually forty shillings . The writer's troubles were not over when he sold his work to the publisher. He was still responsible for the content of his work and he had to follow the strict rules of printing by authorities. These authorities in the order of importance were: 1. The Privy Council and the Court of Star Chamber (the highest political authority after the queen) 2. The Court of High Commissions (controlling the religious contents of the works) 3. The Stationers' Company (to which the book should be registered) The rules that governed the publication of books in that period were: 1. The number of printers were limited 2. Every book must be printed only in London, university of Oxford and university of Cambridge 3. Everything printed must be approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London or their representatives 4. Everything published in London must be registered in the Stationers' Company
According to the Romantic movement, the works of art are usually unsuccessful attempts at imitating the nature. This idea seemed strange to the Elizabethans. They knew that nature was the basis of all, but there was no reason why the cleverness of man should not be used in harmony with the nature. There was no conflict in the Elizabethan mind between art and nature. So when something naturally beautiful was extended to all aspects of life by art, arrangement or manipulation, there was no great gap between literature and the various crafts. For instance, some Elizabethans had built their houses in the form of the letter E due to their honor to Queen Elizabeth and someone like John Thorpe designed his house like his initials (T). The verse forms used by the Elizabethans range from the very simple four-line ballad stanza through the rather complicated form of the sonnet to the beautiful 18line stanza of Spencer. Earl of Surrey also practiced a form of iambic couplet in which the first line had twelve syllables and the second line fourteen. This verse form was called "poulter's measure". It was the most common verse form in the 60s and 70s. When each line of the poulter's measure is printed as two lines, it's called "short meter". Sonnets are fourteen-line poems in iambic pentameter with complicated rhyme schemes. The most common form is Italian or Petrarchan sonnet which Wyatt and Sidney imitated. It consists of an octave (first eight lines) followed by a sestet (final six lines). Its typical was abba abba cddc ee. English sonnet, introduced by Surrey and practiced by Shakespeare is composed of three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. Spencer preferred a very complicated pattern: abab bcbc cdcd ee. The six-line "Troilus stanza" and the seven-line rhyme royal stanza both practiced by Chaucer were also among the verse forms of the 16th century. Spenser's nine-line stanza called the "Spenserian stanza" adds to the Italian abab bc bc an additional line of twelve syllables or an Alexandrine. The complex scheme Spenser used in his Epithalamion perhaps is the climax of Elizabethan expertise in verse. The eighteen lines of it rhyme ababcc, then we have various combinations in the second six lines and finally three couplets. Lines 6, 11, and 16 are short. They have only six syllables and the last line is an Alexandrine.
ambition to give dignity and power to the theme of love by various rhetorical and stylistic devices in the Petrarchan tradition. 6) Heroic poetry of which Spenser's Faerie Queene is the best example. The classical epics by Homer and Virgil and the romantic Italian epics of Ariosto and Tasso can also be mentioned.
conventional phrases and his poem is original and comes directly from his heart (this sentence is conventional itself, my friend ). Sidney's sonnet cycle has a plot but it does not tell a clear story. Sidney's ability to dramatize, his use of colloquial dialogue and his heightening the situation, make his sonnets extraordinarily fresh and attractive.
Christopher Marlowe
(1564-1593) ca. 1587: ca. 1592-93: Tamburlaine was written, introducing blank verse to the theater Dr. Faustus was produced
Before Marlowe left Cambridge, he wrote his most successful play, Tamburlaine Also before leaving the university of Cambridge, he wrote the tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage, with the help of his Cambridge contemporary, Thomas Nashe
Tamburlaine was followed by a sequel (Tamburlaine, Part II) soon after the production of the first version Tamburlaine narrates the adventures of a 14th-century Scythian shepherd with the same name who conquered much of the world Marlowe uses this character to express the unlimited energy and ambition and to show that one must try hard to reach absolute power He uses a special kind of blank verse in writing Tamburlaine which is suitable to be performed on the stage In the six final years of his life, Marlowe wrote five more plays: a sequel to Tamburlaine, The Massacre at Paris; two of these five were tragedies: The Jew of Malta and Dr. Faustus and one of them was a chronicle history play, Edward II
His verse translations include the Amores of Ovid, the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia and the Hero and Leander In all of Marlowe's major tragedies, Tamburlaine*, The Jew of Malta** and Dr. Faustus***, we see a hero who passionately searches for power- the power of rule*, the power of money** and the power of knowledge***. These ambitions are more than the capacity of human being and as a result each hero is defeated at the end, but the values for which the hero tried so hard are more important than the forces which defeated him
Edmund Spenser
(1552-1599) 1579: 1580: 1590: Publication of The Shepheardes Calender He goes to Ireland where he remains the rest of his life Publication of the first three books of The Faerie Queene
Spenser was a poet who loved physical beauty and always tried to reach to the highest ideals but at the same time he was a purely moral person. However, his morality was not of strict and repressive kind; his morality comes from his understanding of the right action and of the temptations that persuade man as he tries to do such good deeds. Puritanism had a great influence on Spenser in the early years of his career. He always remained a loyal Protestant and he is so much opposed with the Catholic church that it is always represented as a monster or a bad guy in his poems. He is also deeply patriotic and he loves England. As a result, Religion and nationality are two of the most prominent elements of his works. Spenser was also called the "poet's poet" because many later English poets have learned poetry from him. His influence can be seen on poets like Byron, Keats and Tennyson.
representing a simple world, usually criticizes the world and many different evils in it that are usually hidden in a well-made disguise. so these eclogues sometimes gain a didactic or satirical value through criticizing the world. The eclogues all have been commented by someone named "E. K." which is believed to be the pen name of Spenser and divided into three categories-plaintive, recreative and moral. Among the moral eclogues the final eclogue which at the same time is the climax point (October) deals with a very complicated theme- the problems of poetry in the modern life and various duties of the poet in the flow of time and this theme can be generalized to the whole book. From the remaining eleven eclogues, four of them deal with love, one is in praise of Elisa (Queen Elizabeth), one a lament for a maiden, four deal allegorically with matters of religion or conduct and one describes a singing-match. Spenser in writing his pastoral poetry intentionally used an antique language. There are three possible reasons for this. First of all this choice of language could be because of Spenser's honor to the medieval literature and especially Chaucer, because Spencer was somehow in love with Chaucer and he called him Tityrus or the god of shepherds. The other possible reason is that Spenser wanted to give a countryside color to his work because he was writing a pastoral poetry. And the final reason could be that because the Shepheardes calender was somehow an imitation of Virgil's first work, the Eclogues so Spenser deliberately used an archaic language to stay loyal to that work of Virgil. But the interesting point here is that Sir Philip Sidney to whom the book is dedicated did not approve this choice of an archaic language and he said that the archaic frame which Spenser has used for his poetry has not been influenced by the great authors of the past like Virgil, Sannazzaro and Theocritus. The other important point about this work is that it is written in thirteen different meters: three types of couplet, three types of four-line stanza, three types of six-line stanza, an eight, a nine and a ten-line stanza and a sestina (six stanzas of six-lines and a final triplet, all stanzas have the same words at the end of their lines in six different sequences). Among these different meters, some of them were novel, some of them were adapted. Later on in 1595 Spenser published a sequel to some of his eclogues in the shepheardes calender and he named this sequel Colin clouts come home againe. Colin clouts was the protagonist of Spenser's eclogues in his work. The poetic purposes of The Shepheardes Calender are as follows:
1) Recovering a native voice 2) Warning his nation and his Queen of dangers to England and to the English Church from within and without 3) Seeking his own place in the affairs of his country, and a place among men of letters. 4) The defeat of death
Book I: Holiness Book II: Temperance Book III: Chastity Book IV: Friendship Book V: Justice Book VI: Courtesy
Each Book of the Faerie Queene recites the story of a knight and it represents a Christian virtue. The Faerie Queene takes place in a mythical land, but the purpose of Spenser was to relate his work and the imaginary universe in the poem to his own country, England especially in the area of religion. Spenser lived in post-Reformation
England, which had recently replaced Roman Catholicism with Protestantism as the national religion. There were still many Catholics living in England, and, because of this, religious protest was a part of Spenser's life. It was in this kind of atmosphere that Spenser saw a Catholic Church full of corruption. This sentiment is an important background for the battles of The Faerie Queene that often represent the "battles" between London and Rome. The themes of the work can be stated like this: that our native virtue must be augmented or transformed if it is to become true Christian virtue. Spenser has a high regard for the natural qualities of creatures; he shows that the satyrs, the lion, and many human characters have an inborn interest for the good. And he believes that the various evils in our lives can only be defeated by the Christian good. The poem can be read on many different levels, it's an epic allegory, it's religious, heroic, magical, medieval and It is Spenser's blending of such diverse sources with a high-minded allegory that makes the poem unique and remarkable. For example if you read the poem as a romantic narrative, it gives you some chivalric adventures by Redcrosse knight that at the end he kills the dragon and rescues Una's parents and then marries her, but if you read it from a spiritual and allegorical point of view it gives you the story of any individual's struggle for defeating evil, for being good, for salvation, for purifying himself from all the sins.
William Shakespeare
(1564-1616) ca. 1588-92: ca. 1592-98: ca. 1601-09: ca. 1610: Lived in London as an actor and playwright Mainly writes chronicle histories and comedies Writes great tragedies and romantic comedies Retires to Stratford
Venus and Adonis was a mythological-erotic poem which was dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. He also dedicated The Rape of Lucrece to the same person
Francis Meres writes about Shakespeare that he was the best English writer in producing tragedies and comedies for the plays Richard II, Richard III, Henry IV, King John, Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet are his famous tragedies Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Love's Labor's Lost and Love's Labor's Won are considered as his best comedies
All of his best tragedies except for Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus are classified as chronicle history plays, kind of drama based on the history books representing the events in the reigns of different English kings
About the end of the 16th century he wrote his best romantic comedies including As You Like It, Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing In the next decade, he wrote some great tragedies like Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear and Antony and Cleopatra About 1610 he retired to Stratford but he continued to write alone (The Tempest) and with the help of others (Henry VIII). In this period he wrote some romances and tragicomedies like The Tempest, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale
His plays contain different kind of songs: the aubade or morning song, the happy pastoral songs, love songs, ballads and funeral songs. These songs
represent the gifts of Shakespeare in writing lyrics, his humor and his great sensitivity to the country life of Englishmen
Shakespeare's sonnet cycles, different from all the other cycles of his time, tell a story but the details of this story are not clear. There are certain motifs in these cycles: admiring the beauty of a young man and recommending him to marry (and probably become ugly thereafter); praising a lady; sonnets about a love triangle with two men as rivals and a woman; sonnets about the destructive power of time and the unchanging nature of poetry; sonnets about a rival poet; and some sonnets about morality
The vocabulary of his sonnets is often easy to understand but his many uses of metaphor and how properly and richly he makes use of them is his distinguishing feature
The structure of his sonnets reinforces the power of his metaphors. They are divided into two groups: Petrarchan sonnet and English sonnet. In the English sonnet, he uses the first three quatrains to prepare the conclusion at the final couplet; in the Petrarchan sonnet, he lists some items in the octave but in the sestet, he may change the direction and the mood of the poem
Regarding the rhetorical structure of his sonnets, some begin with remembering the memories of the past, some are imperative and others use a proverb, then improve it and add to it
The images he uses in his sonnets come from different sources such as gardening, law, farming, business, astrology, etc. The moods of his sonnets are, beside the sad mood of the Petrarchan sonnets, delightful, proud, shameful, disgusting and fearful Oh, I nearly forgot to write the name of one of his works. It was The Phoenix and The Turtle (sorry for that )
The famous philosophical romantic work of More, Utopia, derives partly from Plato's Republic and as a result it is philosophical and partly from the tales of travelers like Amerigo Vespucci and hence it is romantic
Utopia is one of the great memorials of the Christian humanist awakening (the name of a movement). Pico della Mirandola, Erasmus and More were the most brilliant members of this movement
Utopia was written in Latin Utopia can be classified as a traveler's tale which is told by an experienced mariner who is also a philosopher to a group of skeptical companions as they are sitting in a garden in one of the cities of Holland.
Utopia is divided into two books: in the first one which is written in dialogues, the corruption of the European civilization is criticized; in the second book, one of the travelers named Hythloday describes the institutions and organizations of Utopia; these descriptions ironically refer to the real world
The world of Utopia is not represented as a fanciful and dreamlike world. The world comes out of the serious thoughts of More about the social problems of his time. he felt that the social ideals he so much admired and praised were not real in practice
The central idea in his mind was the idea of community of property. According to this idea, as long as private property is abolished or is not allowed, no fundamental change and reform in society happens. In order to support this idea, More defends it in the role of one of the characters in the dialog against the main speaker, Hythloday
The main social problems of the 17th century can be stated with their solutions at that time: 1. In the religious context, the problem was that "how long and how far should the Reformation of the Protestant church be done?" the solution was that "as far as each individual religious group wanted" 2. In the political context, the issue was that "how much power should the king have independent of the parliament?" the answer was that "almost none"
conspiracy plotted to blow up the English Parliament and to kill King James I of England on November 5th 1605 name given to the Americas during the time when they were first being explored and colonized by Europeans 3 the republican period of government in Britain between the execution of Charles I in 1649 and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 4 the English government from 1653 to 1659 5 period of time between the end of one king's rule and the beginning of the next, time when a country has no ruler or official government
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lecture given by a clergyman for the purpose of religious instruction dramatic and musical production (especially of the 16th and 17th centuries) for the entertainment of English aristocrats
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soon became the main rival of the court. Another rival was the Parliament. The writer did not only wrote for the court and the court was just one of the sources of writing. Those writers who were conservative went toward the court and those innovative ones went toward the City of London and the members of Parliament went toward any of these two according to the dominant situation. And the church which, before the Puritan Revolt, was the dominant power in the context of religion, after the Revolt, became just one of the several religious communities. The Puritan factions which were members of the English church before the Revolt, announced their independence and began their development, each one of them interpreting the biblical texts by its own method, following their own moral principles. New money from different enterprises and companies attracted new men to itself. These men were respectable people but they were not interested in the courtly behaviors or intellectualism. The kind of literature which they liked most was not that much moralistic and not that much about hell or heaven. It was more serious than the literature of the Restoration period. Publishers who were aware of these issues, tried to make their products suitable for this new group of men. Soon the writers put aside the tradition of writing for honor and they realized that in order to gain money from these men they should aim their works at this new market. Another change was that the courtly patrons were replaced by the booksellers so that the writers could much more easily achieve financial success. There were also a couple of intellectual and spiritual changes after the Revolt. Before the Revolt, the Elizabethan monarchy and the church were thought to be hereditary and all agreed that because the common people are imperfect, there should a supreme ruler who knows everything, whose reason can not be challenged by anyone and who can suppress his or her emotions. But gradually people showed that they are less imperfect and they need less strict discipline from the side of the monarch. Another change was that people could more freely express their views about different political, social and religious matters without being that much worried that something bad would happen to them and a strict belief in these matters were not necessary. Because of these changes the English society changed from a hierarchical society to a society based on the ideas of multiplicity, difference and toleration.
Literary Cross-Currents
None of the high literature of the 17th century (except for the works of Milton) was written by the Puritans. Many of the Puritans rejected the secular and worldly issues. They rejected literature because of the same reason that they rejected music and statues. They believed that all these were temptations from the physical world and they would contaminate the pure spiritual energies of a faithful man. As a result, the sense of deep disgust, of ancient traditions being challenged by the Puritans can be seen in the works of the early 17th century. Two of the contrasting literary schools of the 17th century were "metaphysical poetry" and "Cavalier poetry". Metaphysical poets (Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan, Cowley, Cleveland) with the leadership of John Donne tried to extend and improve the traditional love lyrics. In the poems of these poets, there is often a sense of pressure and violent. On the other hand, the Cavalier poets (Jonson and his followers Carew, Suckling, Waller, Davenant) tried to compress their poems and to give them a high and elevated ending and a sense of domination by using explicit and clear intellectual content. Also one of the most prominent poets of the period was John Milton who gained fame with the help of John Dryden. The difference between Milton and Dryden was that the heroic couplets of Dryden had less instructional value than the blank verse of Milton; their sentence-units were shorter and one of the main parts of the couplets was their logical arguments. Dryden was for the most part a poet of statement; Milton was more a poet of suggestion. But their common point is that both built new forms of verse. During the twenty years that the Puritans ruled the kingdom, most of the theaters were closed and nearly nothing was written for the stage. During this period, the revival of the English plays came from the works of Sir William Davenant. The prominent mood of the plays was sad and dark as can be seen in the works of tragic writers such as Webster, Ford and Middleton. But beside these dark plays, some tragicomic, romantic comedy and pastoral fantasies were produced.
Sonnets: they always dealt with erotic and sexual issues and they were often connected together in the form of a sonnet cycle to tell a story. Donne introduced religious themes to the sonnets (by his Songs and Sonnets); Milton's sonnets are often deal with political issues
Allegory: mostly used by Spenser esp. in his Faerie Queene but later on turned to the grotesque and comic themes by the works of Dryden and finally disappeared
Masque and Madrigal: the first one was a courtly form and the other one a popular genre, but both of them were rejected because the Puritans believed that they are aimless, physical and worldly. Madrigals which were kinds of folk songs were believed by the Puritans to make men happy instead of making them guilty and for this reason they were rejected
Blank verse: it was replaced by the rhymed couplets and other rhymed forms Literary forms which were born include:
Ode: they were irregular forms imitated from the works of the Greek poet Pindar. Jonson in the Ode on Cary and Morison and Abraham Cowley in his Pindarique Odes and also Dryden, and later on Gray and Wordsworth helped this form grow
Oratorio and Opera: Dryden introduced Oratorio from Italy when he set his odes to music. Opera was also imported from Italy via France. These two forms replaced the abandoned masques and madrigals.
Satire: this form became popular by the end of the 17th century. The duty of the satirist was to divert the reader and to insult the antagonist at the same time.
Burlesque: this form was introduced with the help of France. After the problems caused by the Puritans, ridicule and mockery became fashionable
John Donne
(1572-1631) Late 1601 or early 1602: 1615: 1633: Secret marriage to Ann More Taking holy orders in the church First publication of Songs and Sonnets
He wrote an essay about the lawfulness of suicide called Biathanatos He helped Thomas Morton in writing anti-Catholic arguments, Pseudo-Martyr and Ignatius his Conclave He wrote a pair of long poems, The Anniversaries, and dedicated them to Sir Robert Drury He became a great preacher in the church of England because of his metaphorical style, his rude knowledge and his dramatic cleverness The poetry of Donne differs greatly with his contemporaries. The majority of the Elizabethan poems are decorative and they have a sweet and pleasant meter. Donne's poetry, on the other hand, is full of conceits and intellectual difficulties. He abandons most of the traditional images in his poetry. For example, in his love poems there is no bleeding heart or something like this
A poet who uses conceit shows how genius he is and also it shows how deeply he can see into the world. Donne's conceits continually change from the personal conceits to the cosmic and philosophical ones
The rhythm of his poems is colloquial and he uses many different rhythms. He likes to twist metrical patterns and the grammar of his poem in order to twist his ideas. In the satires, he twists the rhythm too much that the meaning could be distorted but in his lyrics, he always maintains the rhythm
Donne and his followers are known as the metaphysical poets Donne was known outside the court as a preacher. There are two kinds of preachers: those who stand in front of us as representatives of God and explain
His Word to us and those who stand in front of God and explain our problems to Him. Donne belonged to the second group. He was not interested in persuading people to have fixed and strict religious beliefs and to list the rules of morality. He presented religious ideas through using elements of drama in Christianity- sin, guilt, repentance, faith, etc.- and he was the leading actor of this drama
His private prayers were published in Devotions upon Emergent Occasions in 1624
Ben Jonson
(1572-1637) 1598: 1610: 1616: 1618: He published his first play Every Man in his Humor The Alchemist Jonson was appointed as poet laureate 8 Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue
The first great play of Jonson was Every Man in his Humor in which Shakespeare had the leading role. It was also the first "comedy of humor" in which the great passions of human being (his humors) are reduced in importance by using satire
Jonson's classical tragedy Sejanus was not popular because it had a dark mood, was static and without excitement and had an old language His two satiric comedies, Volpone and The Alchemist had become very successful on the stage Jonson published a collection of his works entitled "The Works of Benjamin Jonson" The majority of Jonson's poetry can be classified into five categories:
1. Poems of festive ceremonies or festivals which praise the qualities of a good life (e.g. To Penshurst, On Inviting a Friend to Supper) 2. Elegies and Epitaphs 9 which are brief, simple, direct and impersonal poems such as those poems that can be found on a gravestone 3. Compliments and Tributes that praise friendship 4. Plays and Masques often accompanied with music
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official poet of the royal household who was formerly expected to write poems and songs for royal events inscriptions on a gravestone in the memory of a dead person
5. Epigrams in imitation of the Roman poet Martial with sexual, funny and evil themes
Andrew Marvell
(1621-1678) Marvell's poems have a playful, casual and witty tone. They are always light regarding their metrical feet and exact regarding their diction and vocabulary. They display depth and intellectual hardness in unexpected places; their texture is very rich and you can find the best of these qualities if you read To His Coy Mistress. The poem at first looks like an usual carpe diem poem with slight, monotonous rhythm and semi-serious mood and it recommends the lady to enjoy the present. But soon after the rhythm becomes deep and hollow and Marvell through complimenting a pretty lady expresses matters like eternity and death. Marvell also balances his feelings in the poem so in the first paragraph he talks about eternity and in the next about death. (sorry if the sentences are vague and meaningless; I tried my best to make it clearer)
John Milton
(1608-1674) 1637: 1640-60: 1651: 1667: Lycidas The pamphlet wars He becomes blind Paradise Lost
The life of John Milton can be divided into three periods: 1. Period of youthful education and apprenticeship which reaches its climax by writing Lycidas and by traveling abroad 2. Period of prose and controversy when he rarely wrote any poem and was mainly concerned with social and political issues 3. Period of his return to literature as a mature and experienced person when he publishes his three great poems Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes
His literary career can also be divided into three parts: 1. He began his work by publishing anti-prelatical (against bishop or other high members of the church) essays, against the bishops who were controlling the church. 2. Then after his first wife left him, from 1643-45, he published a series of essays advocating that right for getting divorce be given if there is incompatibility between wife and husband 3. After the execution of Charles I, he published a series of disputations and arguments in Latin against the European critics of the regime. In this essays, he defends the actions of Parliament in executing Charles
In the writings of Milton, the influence of two prominent intellectual and social movements can be seen: 1. The Renaissance: it created the rich and complex texture of Milton's style, its multiple references to the classical works and its many uses of decorative images 2. The Reformation: the Christian figures and themes in his works comes directly from this movement
Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679)
He is considered as the second great philosopher of the 17th century after Francis Bacon He as a philosopher had planned to write one book about physical bodies, one about human nature and one on the state He is most famous for writing Leviathan Leviathan insults the Puritans by its frank language and secular tone and it also insults Royalists (supporters of the monarch) because it makes no distinction between a legal king and an illegal dictator
He was fond of materialism and this was a cause of his scandal all over the court
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