UNIT 3 POETRY IN THE
AGE OF RENAISSANCE
3.1 INTRODUCTION
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that deeply
influenced intellectual life in Europe during the beginning of the modern
period. It started in Italy, and later spread to the other parts of Europe by
the sixteenth century. Its effect could be felt in literature, philosophy, art,
music, politics, science, religion as well other domains of intellectual
inquiry. Employing the humanist technique for their study, Renaissance scholars
looked for realism and human emotions in literature.
The Renaissance marks the period of European history from
the end of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Modern world. It symbolizes
a cultural rebirth from the fourteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries.
Early Renaissance, mostly in Italy, is known to bridge the art period during
the fifteenth century, between the Middle Ages and the High Renaissance in
Italy. It is believed that Renaissance actually came of age in Northern Europe
later, in the sixteenth century. A characteristic feature that distinguished
Renaissance art was the evolution of extremely realistic linear viewpoint.
All through the Middle
Ages, poetry evolved in western Europe. Gradually being influenced by movements,
such as, Courtly Love, epic ballads, such as, Beowulf, that included battles and monsters, underwent a kind of
transformation to become romantic adventures, like, the Arthurian legends.
The advent of
the Renaissance, led to the further evolution of literature and poetry. Compositions
now became more personal, with poetry clearly showing itself as a medium for a
writer to express his feelings to his beloved. The mid-sixteenth century
witnessed a pool of literary talent appearing in England under the influence of
art and literature of the Italian Renaissance, a century before.
English
poetry and prose exploded into unexpected splendour during the latter part of
the 1570s. An important shift of taste towards a smooth artistry, which
self-consciously displayed its own grace and sophistication was announced in
the works of Spenser and Sidney. It was accompanied by an upsurge in literary
production that came to fruition in the 1590s and 1600s, two decades of
astonishing productivity by writers of every persuasion and calibre.
Poetry, during
the Renaissance was at its zenith. It flourished and gained dizzying heights
with the introduction of poets like Spenser among others. All forms of writing
were encouraged and poetry now became more bold and expressive.
In this unit,
you will learn about the history of Renaissance and poetry in the age of
Renaissance.
Objectives:
After studying this unit, you should be able
to:
·
understand
the salient features of poetry in the age of Renaissance
·
trace
the history of Renaissance
3.2 HISTORY OF THE
ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
The English Renaissance,
a cultural and artistic movement in England, dated from the late fifteenth and
early sixteenth centuries to the early seventeenth century. Linked with the pan-European Renaissance, it
is generally considered to have begun in Italy in the later part of the fourteenth
century. However, similar to a majority of northern Europe, England witnessed some
of these developments for even more than a century later. It is believed that
the English Renaissance began sometime during 1485 when the Battle of Bosworth
Field concluded the Wars of Roses, inaugurating the Tudor dynasty. Renaissance
style and ideas, however, failed to penetrate England rapidly, and the
Elizabethan era during the second half of the sixteenth century is generally
considered as the height of the English Renaissance.
3.2.1
Literature
England, for very long, possessed a
strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular. It slowly progressed,
with English usage of the printing press becoming more common, by the middle of
the sixteenth century. By the time of Elizabethan literature, the England vigorous
literary culture in both drama and poetry, included poets such as Edmund
Spenser, whose verse epic The Faerie Queene did not become a dominating
influence on English literature in the way that some foreign equivalents did
for their countries. Instead the lyrics of William Shakespeare, Thomas Wyatt
and others, typically circulating in manuscript form for some time before they
were published, and above all the plays of English Renaissance theatre, were
the outstanding legacy of the period.
The English theatre scene, staged
performances for both the court and aristocracy by performing in private. It
performed for a large audience in the theatres. The theatres therefore had the
maximum crowd in Europe, which also included several other dramatists and popular
images, like, Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Elizabeth, who herself was a result of Renaissance humanism, and trained by
Roger Ascham, composed poetry occasionally,
like, On Monsieur’s Departure during decisive times in her lifetime. The
domains of philosophy and intellect, had names like Thomas More and Francis
Bacon. Each of the Tudor monarchs of the sixteenth century was well educated, besides
a majority of the aristocracy. Moreover, Italian literature had a significant following,
and provided the sources for several of Shakespeare’s plays. English thinking witnessed
an advancement and propensity towards modern science with the Baconian Method,
a predecessor of the Scientific Method. The language of the Book of Common
Prayer, first published in 1549, and towards the ending of the period the
Authorized Version (‘King James Version’ to Americans) of the Bible (1611) did
have a long-lasting impact on the English perception.
Comparison
of the English and Italian Renaissance
The English Renaissance differed from the Italian
Renaissance in many ways. The dominating forms of art of the English
Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance did
not have as much significance as the Italian Renaissance. The English period started
much later as compared to the Italian. The Italian Renaissance was believed to
have begun with Dante, Petrarch and Giotto during the initial part of the
fourteenth century, subsequently making a move into Mannerism and the Baroque
by the 1550s or earlier. On the contrary, the English Renaissance may be
believed to have begun, tentatively, during the 1520s, continuing, till 1620.
3.2.1 Criticism
of the idea of the English Renaissance
The idea of naming the period as ‘The Renaissance’ is
believed to have happened in the modern times, gaining immense popularity due
to the historian Jacob Burckhardt during the nineteenth century. The concept of
the Renaissance has been increasingly criticized by several cultural historians.
Moreover, some critics have even challenged that the ‘English Renaissance’ does
not really have any actual relationship with the creative accomplishments and ambitions
of those northern Italian artists (Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello) directly
associated with the Renaissance. Certainly, literature had already started
prospering in England even 200 years prior to the Shakespearean period, during Geoffrey
Chaucer’s times. Chaucer popularized English language as being a means of
literary writings instead of Latin. This popularizing of the language happened
only after fifty years of Dante starting to use Italian for some serious
poetry. During the same time William Langland, who wrote Piers Plowman
and John Gower were also using English for their literary composition. In spite
of the war years, though, Thomas Malory, who wrote Le Morte D'Arthur,
was a significant figure. Due to this, intellectuals question the coining of
the term the English Renaissance; C. S. Lewis, a professor of Medieval and
Renaissance literature at Oxford and Cambridge, popularly made a remark to a
colleague, that he had ‘discovered’ that nothing called English Renaissance
ever did exist, and that if there actually was one, it had ‘no effect
whatsoever’.
Historians have also started considering the term ‘Renaissance’
to be a needlessly laden term actually implying a decidedly positive ‘rebirth’
from the supposedly more primitive Middle Ages. Some historians have raised the
question ‘a renaissance for whom?’ indicating, for instance, the social
position of woman which had seen a considerable decline during the Renaissance.
Several historians and cultural historians, now prefer to use the term ‘early
modern’ for the period, a term which is known to highlight the period as being one of transition. This usage which resulted
in the formation of the modern world makes neither positive nor negative
connotations.
Other cultural historians have argued that, irrespective of
whether the name ‘renaissance’ is befitting, unquestionably an imaginative blossoming
in England under the Tudor monarchs occurred, that ultimately concluded in
Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
Self-Assessment
Questions
1.
The Renaissance was generally considered to have begun in ___________.
2.
_________ for very long,
possessed a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular.
3.
Each of the Tudor monarchs of
the sixteenth century was well educated. (True/False)
4.
______ popularized English
language as being a means of literary writings instead of Latin. (Tick the
correct option)
(a)
Spenser
(b)
Chaucer
(c)
Sidney
(d)
Shakespeare
3.3 RENAISSANCE: SALIENT FEATURES
The
Renaissance in Europe was, in a way, a stirring from the lengthy slumber of the
Dark Ages. That which was a dormant, even regressing type of society, started
to re-invest in the assurance of material and spiritual benefit. A sincere
belief of humanity progressing in the direction of a noble summit of perfect
living was dearly held. The maturing of the rebirth (Renaissance actually
stands for ‘rebirth’) is still a subject for debate among many intellectuals
and thinkers. The fact that mankind took an astonishing leap ahead following
numerous years of regression can never be a subject of debate. The 14th
– 16th centuries in Europe, saw a purposeful drifting away from the feudal ways
of lifestyle. Landowners from the nobility witnessed their loss of supremacy
over the inferior classes, as growing urban employment invited the inferior
classes to a better and comfortable lifestyle. In Italy, for instance, the educated
population re-discovered the refinement and authority of their traditional,
pagan traditions. Greek and Roman mythologies and philosophies were the inspiring
material that led to a new wave of artistic creation. The adoption of a line of
thought by scholars called ‘humanism’, led to the belief that humanity could
achieve earthly perfection much more than any one could have ever imagined. The
perspective of the period that overwhelmed historians and scholars was, an
optimistic attitude and an undying belief that the quality of life was on its
way to improvement for the first time as far as one could remember. Undoubtedly,
the memories of the Dark Ages and the Black Death were still very fresh in the minds
of the people, which made the masses welcome the assurance of going ahead and
away from the horrifying experience.
It can be
stated here that many threads tied the whole European Renaissance as one, all
through its span of three centuries. The constant ascension of nationalism, along
with the first prospering of democracy, were qualities common to the whole continent.
First the middle class started become more powerful in the cities, even as
trade and commerce became full enterprises in their own right. The dread of
contagion which was an unpleasant memory, and the masses eagerly waiting to move
out of their homes and explore the world, international trade started surging ahead.
Coupled with products and money, notions and concepts also spread across
nations. Fashions in Venice fast became the fashions in Paris and ultimately
London. As far as the British Islands were concerned, the famous practice of
young privileged men ‘touring’ the continent first started during the
Renaissance. The notions that these travellers carried back to their homelands
influenced the culture, government, literature and fashion for several years
thereafter. Till the Renaissance, Britain was considered to be some kind of a wilderness
that lacked culture and polish. Even the English language was scorned. The pre-eminent
English philosopher Thomas More published his Utopia in Latin, with a
vernacular English translation making its appearance for several decades thereafter.
3.3.1 The Printing Press
The one biggest
invention of the Renaissance era happened to be the printing press that started
functioning in around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg. There were basic presses for
a long time; however, it was the design of Gutenberg that led to the
maximization of printing effectiveness, such that the world of arts, letters
and ideas underwent a change that remained forever. Gutenberg’s biggest
invention was a method to fast produce mobile typesets, which meant that new
sheets of text could be set in place and printed with much less effort as
compared to the way it had been earlier. The transformed printing press made
the production of work much faster and cheaper. Undoubtedly, one cannot call it
a coincidence, that literacy rates witnessed a significant increase in the
decades after the invention of the press. The religious turmoil called ‘The
Protestant Reformation’ would have been impossible without the competence to produce
several copies of a document rapidly and with minimum effort. Martin Luther’s popular
‘95 Theses’ spread like wildfire through Continental Europe, due to the new found
comfort of reproduction. More than just an effortless reproduction, printing led
to the change of the entire social economics of reading and learning. Literature
ceased to be a technical, privileged domain. Literature that was easily
accessible had profound effects in making the written word independent. One
more feature of this invention that was ignored, was the way it affected the
action of reading. Earlier, a document was read out loud to a group of people. The
oral tradition involved the memorizing of biblical or humorous stories and then
passing it down. Due to the sudden spurt in printed material, group reading and
the oral tradition were slowly replaced by quiet, individual reading. During
those times, quiet reading was regarded as being some kind of a novelty, with
there being some who even suspected the act. However, the figure of an
individual occupied with the text on a lone voyage of translation is a prototypical
Renaissance image.
3.3.2 Art and Literature
Each nation
in Western Europe witnessed its own manifestation of the Renaissance. In
various nations, even different cities within the same nation, the Renaissance
art and thought manifested themselves uniquely. While in one region,
architecture could be the most obvious venting out for new artistic energies,
in other regions, literature took the most prominent status. At each setting, in
any case, the rebirth of passion and creativity had unquestionably
world-altering effects. Sometime between 1500 – 1660, the English Renaissance came
up some of the major works of literature known to the world. An attitude of
optimism, unlimited potential and the stoic English character all collaborated
to produce literature of the highest order. During the same time, England qualified
from an ignored ‘barbarian’ nation to a seat of commercial power and influence.
This power obviously interpreted into a literature that was bold, sweeping, ground-breaking
and trend-setting. Poets experimented with form, with dramatists reviving and
reinventing the classical traditions of the Greeks and Romans.
The dominating
kinds of English literature during the Renaissance were the poem and the drama.
The several varieties of poetry that one could have found in the 16th century
England, were the lyric, the elegy, the tragedy and the pastoral. Near the conclusion
of the English Renaissance, John Milton wrote his unforgettable epic Paradise
Lost, popularly
regarded as the grandest poem in the language. Conventions played a
major role in the manifestation of specific poetic styles. Anticipations
regarding style, subject matter, tone and also plot details were
well-established for every poetic genre. Even a particular occasion raised the demand
for a specific type of poetry, and such tested and true conventions could be
implicitly comprehended by everybody. Frequently, poetry of the age was meant
to be accompanied by music. However, the common agreement among critics is that,
the main objective of the English Renaissance verse was that of encapsulating
beauty and reality in words. English poetry of the period was flamboyant,
repetitive frequently betraying a subtle wit. An important and unique characteristic
that set the English letters apart from the Continent was the readiness of
intermixing different genres into a kind of a jumbled, experimental affair.
This spoof style is demonstrated in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queen, a lengthy
poem mingling various elements such as romance, tragedy, epic and pastoral into
an entertaining and still unified whole.
English royal
life and the viewpoints of noble patrons influence the direction of arts
profoundly. Enjoying close proximity to the king or queen was much desired, but
was also perilous. According to revelations by literature, courtiers were very clever
and skilful with the way they used language, using innuendos and crafty wit for
protecting their own interests. The verbal duels one would have overheard in
the court naturally found their way into the poetry and drama of the time. The graded
communication style of Shakespeare’s lively characters, for instance, originated
in the court of the English royalty.
Shakespeare
In the domain
of drama, none could match William Shakespeare as far as variety, depth and
exquisite usage of language were concerned. His subject matter controlled the extent,
from classical Greco-Roman stories to contemporary stories of unreciprocated
love. Shakespeare is famous for his capacity of shifting between comedy and
tragedy, from complicated character study to light-hearted farce. Similarly, he
is also extremely esteemed for the beautiful formal structure, demonstrated in
his dramas. This transcends acts and scenes, but engulfs the emotional and
psychological arc of the action in the drama. Shakespeare raised the bar of the
English language to a level of splendor and grandeur more than anyone else.
This usage of the English language such that it brought out its splendor, was
unimaginable by the people and writers of the yesteryears. Particularly, Shakespeare’s sonnets exhibit an
oral pyrotechnics rarely witnessed even today, with images coated one on top of
another in a kind of sensory collage. Extraordinarily, complete details of the dramatist’s
life are not known. His unsure biography has resulted in several conspiracy
theories, even to the point that it has raised questions of him being a single
person. One of the main obstacles in assigning authorship to any work of
literature during those days was that copyright, in the modern sense of the
term, was not prevalent. A writer just did not have the ownership of his or her
own words, an unthinkable state of affairs.
Theatre
The theatre
in Renaissance England constantly underwent an evolution from a village
festival attraction to a bona fide cultural institution. During the Middle
Ages, a troop of vagabond performers used to enact morality dramas, essentially
live-action sermons, to elated provincial masses. The year 1567, saw the
erection of the Red Lion in the suburbs of London, which was one of the first
commercial playhouses. From the very start, the theater met with criticism.
Locals hated the crowd and the noise that the popular houses attracted, and the
pubs and brothels that inevitably cropped up nearby. Several viewed the theatre
as inviting slothfulness, with children leaving their studies and labourers abandoning
work to watch the plays. Some thought that the subject matter was disgusting
and immoral. The Puritans, particularly, aimed their insults directly at the
Elizabethan stage. The immensely conservative subsidiary of Protestantism, the
Puritans were afraid that the cross-dressing and playacting that the theatre
showed would result in sexual corruption among the general public.
One of the biggest
obstacles for artists and writers in the English Renaissance was an
ever-present requirement of extracting a living in some manner from their
craft. Patronage was one way of talented and innovative writers sustaining
themselves. A patron was an independent, rich noble person with a fine taste
for things, who spent money and attention lavishly on artists who catered to their
taste. In certain cases, the patron had poets and playwrights surround him merely
to showoff. On the other hand, there were patrons who profoundly and genuinely
appreciated artistic creation. From the viewpoint of a struggling artist reaping
the profits of such generosity, it anyhow did not matter much. The liberty of
pursuing one’s craft to the maximum surely might have been a boon in the 16th
century England. Original manuscripts that have lived through the onslaughts of
time are witness to the significance of securing the blessings of a rich
patron. Normally, these works are dedicated to the patron who funded its
production. On the other hand, the author may be seeking the favour of a patron,
who has not yet loosened his purse strings. Some accounts even suggest that one
work of literature was reproduced and dedicated to many competent patrons, a type
of wide-net approach that exhibits the business savvy needed of the Renaissance
artists. In many of the cases, writers needed to spend a lot of their time to a
career in some other more profitable field, pursuing their craft only as a kind
of hobby. Little has changed over the four hundred years.
The unlimited
optimistic attitude and humanist spirit of the Renaissance failed to continue. The
mid-17th century, quest for perfection was replaced by profligacy, sarcasm
and a wariness that would smother creativity for a long time. In England,
Puritanism, which itself was a subsidiary of Renaissance philosophy, applied
the brakes on the chase for knowledge and artistic endeavours. One more feature
that led to the conclusion of the English Renaissance was the failure of Queen
Elizabeth to produce an heir. While the entire England adored their Queen, yet
she was actually the conclusion of a line. The power void that she left behind could
be immensely felt. It set the stage for outrageous violence and conspiracy. In
a nation, filled with such political ambiguity, arts unavoidably declined.
5. The Renaissance in Europe was, in a way, a stirring
from the lengthy slumber of the ______ ______.
6. Who invented the printing press?
(Tick the correct option)
(a) Thomas Edison
(b) Isaac Newton
(c) Johannes Gutenberg
(d) Madam Curie
7. Near the conclusion of the English
Renaissance, John Milton wrote his unforgettable epic _________ ________.
3.4 RENAISSANCE POEMS
The Renaissance
saw the flourishing of poetry. Poetry assumed new forms and no longer was it
restricted to the society or the church. It assumed new connotations and poets
could now express their feelings and emotions more freely.
The foundation
for poems was established in the thirty years from 1550— a time which saw a
gradual increase of confidence in the literary competence of the language and incredible
progress in education. It was this that for the first time gave rise to a significant
English readership, eager for literature and having refined tastes. This
development was strengthened by the technological growth and hastened output (chiefly
in pious or technical subjects) of Elizabethan printing. The Stationers’
Company, under whose control the publication of books was, got incorporated in
1557. Moreover, Richard Tottel’s Miscellany
(1557) transformed the association of poet and audience by making lyric
poetry available to the public that till now had witnessed its circulation only
among a courtly coterie. The first noteworthy poet was Spenser who purposely
used print for advertising his talents.
3.4.1 Sir Philip Sidney
The compositions of the likes of poets, such as, Sir
Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser, made Tottel’s contributors to suddenly appear
old-fashioned. Sidney exemplified the new Renaissance ‘universal man’: a
courtier, diplomat, soldier and poet whose Defence of Poesie has the
first account worth consideration of the state of English letters. Sidney’s
treatise defends literature on the basis of its distinctive power of teaching,
but his actual emphasis is on its pleasure, its potential of depicting the
world not in the way it is, but in the way it should be. This aspect of ‘forcibleness
or energia’ he himself exhibited in his sonnet sequence of unreciprocated yearning,
Astrophel and Stella (written 1582, published 1591). Another composition written by him, namely, Arcadia,
in its first version (written c. 1577–80), is an idyllic romance wherein
courtiers in the disguise of Amazons and shepherds are engaged in display of
affection, besides singing delicate experimental verses. The edition that
underwent revision (composed c. 1580 – 84, publish 1590; the final three
books of the first version got included
in 1593), broadly extended but discarded in mid-sentence, included extensive
plots of valour in love and war, philosophical and political discourses,
besides pieces of royal etiquette. Sidney was an amazing and a confident inventor
who pioneered novel forms and stylistic melody, that was seminal for the
generation of his times. He was publicly famous as being a noble champion of an
aggressively Protestant foreign policy. However, Elizabeth did not have time
for unrealistic warmongering and the unsolved conflict in his poetry, such as wish
against self-control, valour against endurance and revolt against compliance,
all reflect his own being uneasy with his circumstances as an ineffective
courtier.
3.4.2
EDMUND SPENSER
Protestantism also appeared to loom large in the
life of Spenser. Spenser was fortunate to enjoy the patronage of the earl of
Leicester. The earl wanted to press forward the militant Protestantism at court
besides his poetic manifesto, The Shepherds Calendar (1579). He clandestinely
appreciated Archbishop Edmund Grindal, whom Elizabeth had suspended for being
sympathetic towards the Puritans. Spenser’s masterwork, The Faerie Queene
(1590 – 96), is an epic of Protestant nationalism in which the villains are unfaithful
or papists, the protagonist being King Arthur while the central moral is
married chastity.
Spenser happened to be one of the humanly trained types of public servant. The Calendar,
a proficiently crafted compilation of pastoral eclogues, exhibited his talents
besides announcing his epic aims. The splendid lyric gift, revealed by it was articulated
again in the marital poems Epithalamion (1595) and Prothalamion (1596).
The Faerie Queene saw his accomplishing the the central poem of the
Elizabethan period. Its structure blends the medieval allegory with the Italian
romantic epic; it aimed ‘to fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and
gentle discipline.’ The plan was for twelve books (six reaching completion),
focussing on twelve virtues epitomized in the quests of twelve knights belonging
to the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, an embodiment of Elizabeth herself.
Arthur, in quest of Gloriana’s love, appears in each book and comes to embody
Magnificence, the complete man. Spenser adopted the adorned gallantry of the
Elizabethan court festivals, re-working it through a continuously shifting veil
of allegory. This was done in order to build the knights’ expeditions and affections
into a complicated, multi-levelled depiction of the ethical life. The verse, a
large and slow-moving nine-lined stanza and ancient language repeatedly rise to
an unparalleled sensuousness.
The Faerie Queene which was a poem actually meant for the public and addressed
to the queen, reverberated in political terms the expectation of the Leicester
circle for a government driven by spiritualism and militancy. Spenser was
becoming increasingly disillusioned with the court and with the active life.
This disillusionment could be clearly noticed in the later books of the poem. His
harsh satire Colin Clouts Come Home Again (1591) echoed the vanishing of
such anticipation during the final decade of Elizabeth’s supremacy, the starting
of that significant failure of confidence in the monarchy, both politically and
culturally. In the Mutability Cantos, sad remains of a probable seventh
book (published posthumously in 1609), Spenser left the public world completely,
for the uncertain, eternal consolations.
The teachings
of Sidney and Spenser in promoting melodious softness and elegant sophistication
appear to have influenced the succeeding virtuoso outburst of lyrics and
sonnets. These happened to be amongst the most occupying accomplishments of the
age. This happened in spite of the outburst itself being partially a result of
frustration, because a generation raised to expect office or preferment but faced
with courtly frugality directed its energies in other directions, searching for
patronage. For Sidney’s fellow courtiers, pastoral and love lyrics could even
be a medium of indirectly conveying one’s relationship with the queen, of
proposing or appealing.
3.4.3
OTHER POETS
Almost all Elizabethan poets tried their hands at
the lyric; few, if any, did not succeed in writing one that is yet to be anthologized.
The trend for intermingling prose fiction with lyric interludes, started in the
Arcadia, and was taken forward by Robert Greene and Thomas Lodge (noticeably
in the latter’s Rosalynde [1590], from which Shakespeare is said to have
taken the plot for his play As You Like It [c. 1598–1600]).
Moreover, in the theatres, dramas of all kinds were differentiated by songs;
both famous and courtly. Suitable examples of these can be seen in the plays of
George Peele, Jonson, Thomas Nashe, John Lyly and Thomas Dekker (although all, undoubtedly,
are outdone by the plays of Shakespeare.). The main effect on lyric poetry,
though, happened to be the exceptional opulence of the late Tudor and Jacobean
music—in both the native ritual of significant lute song, symbolized by John
Dowland and Robert Johnson, and the complicated Italian madrigal that had been
recently brought in by William Byrd and Thomas Morley. The chief talent among
lyricists, Thomas Campion, was a composer as well as a poet; his songs (four Books
of Airs, 1601–17) remain unsurpassable for their lucidity, harmony and
rhythmic subtleness. Even the composition of someone who was less talented, for
example, Nicholas Breton, was significant for its implication of profundity and
composure in the least performances. The Elizabethan poetry which was known to
be smooth and apparently spontaneous concealed an intentionall.y prearranged
and laboured artifice that focused on etiquette and metaphorical appropriateness.
Such pieces were not personal but public pieces, meant to be sung and governed
by a Neoplatonic visual, wherein delight was a medium to address the moral
sense that harmonized and attuned the auditor’s mind to the discipline of rationale
and virtue. This gave rise to the necessity for the scope to be deliberately
narrowed down—to the willingly understandable circumstances of pastoral or
Petrarchan hope and despair—making for a certain homogeny of effect, although
an agreeable one. The works of the less talented are well exhibited in the miscellanies
The Phoenix Nest (1593), England’s Helicon (1600) and A
Poetical Rhapsody (1602).
The
publication of Astrophel and Stella by Sidney in 1591 led to the generation
of a similarly special trend for the sonnet sequence. Those who mainly imitated
Sidney were Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Edmund Spenser, Fulke Greville, and
Shakespeare. Those who lesser imitated him were Barnabe Barnes, Giles Fletcher
the Elder, Henry Constable, Lodge, Richard Barnfield, among several others. Astrophel
re-created the Petrarchan world of conceited beauty and a hopeless lover in
one, stupendous stroke. In English hands, though, the favoured division of the
sonnet into three quatrains and a couplet lend to Petrarch’s meditative form a
more forensic turn, and invested it with a confrontational curtness and concise
sting. Within the common ground that the series share, there is a lot of
diversity. Only Sidney’s series undertakes to narrate a story, the others being
arranged in a looser manner as diversities, concentrating on a central (generally
fictional) relationship. Delia (1592) by Daniel is articulate and
graceful, stately and high-minded; Ideas Mirror (1594; much revision by
1619) by Drayton witnesses a rising to a powerfully imagined, passionate
intensity; Amoretti (1595) by Spenser witnesses the celebration
of a strangely, satisfied sexual love accomplished inside the marital bond. The
sonnets (publish: 1609) by Shakespeare exhibit an entirely different
world, the principles all topsy-turvy; the heroine not beautiful but dark and unfaithful,
the loved one not within the consideration of sexual possession, since he is
male. The sonnet had the tendency of inclining towards truth or politeness.
Moreover, for a majority of readers its main pleasure would have been metaphorical,
in its persuasive pleading and deliberately displayed artifice. However, the force
of urgent metaphysical issues, dramatic robustness and shifting , and extremely
charged ironies of Shakespeare, witnessed the explosion of the conventional
limits of the form.
Sonnet and lyric symbolized a tradition of verse
within the period that in utmost conventional terms was demarcated as
Elizabethan. However, the picture became complex due to the co-existence of
other poetic forms in which adornment was not trusted or turned to various purposes; Sir
John Davies too made his sonnets into a parody in his Gulling Sonnets (c.
1594) as also by the Jesuit poet, Robert Southwell. A specific reaction to
experiment was the diversity of new possibilities that verse translation made
available, from the incredible Aeneid (1582) by Richard Stanyhurst, in
quantitative hexameter and interspersed with incomprehensible or imaginary
diction. The other version by Sir John Harington of Orlando furioso
(1591) by Ariosto with its Byronic ease and descriptive smoothness, to the blank
verse depiction of Lucan's First Book (published 1600) by Christopher
Marlowe, which in all probability was the best Elizabethan interpretation.
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The genre that gained the maximum from interpretation
was the epyllion, or little epic. This small narrative in verse, generally
involved a mythological subject and took maximum of its material from Ovid,
either his Metamorphoses (English version by Arthur Golding, 1565–67)
or his Heroides (English version by Turberville, 1567). This style
prospered from Lodge’s Scillaes Metamorphosis (1589) to Francis
Beaumont’s Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (1602) being best symbolized by
Hero and Leander (published 1598) by Marlowe and Venus and Adonis
(1593) by Shakespeare. Ovid’s repute as an obscure philosopher had an
enduring impact on Ovid’s Banquet of Sense (1595) by George Chapman
and Endimion and Phoebe (1595) by Drayton, wherein the love of mortals
for goddess became a parable of wisdom. However, Ovid was actually attracted
to a power on the erotic. Moreover, maximum epyllia were known to handle bodily
love with style and compassion, unmitigated by the shine of allegory—an inclination
that culminated with The Metamorphosis of Pigmalion’s Image (1598) by John
Marston, a poetry that stunned gentle emotional responses. Unavoidably, the
shift of attitude influenced style. As for Marlowe, the experience of interpreting
(imprecisely) Amores by Ovid,
signified an achievement for Hero and Leander as far as urbanity and
more importantly, wit was concerned. The epyllion brings with it a suggestion of the
tastes of the subsequent reign, and a likewise shift of taste could be witnessed
among those poets of the 1590s who started modifying the decorated form
towards native plainness or Classical restraint. A shrewd courtier, like
Davies could, in his Orchestra (1596) and Hymns of Astraea
(1599) write confident panegyrics to the now growing-old Elizabeth. However,
in the Eleventh Book of the Ocean to Cynthia, by Sir Walter Raleigh, a form of broken pastoral eclogue, the
queen’s appreciation is underestimated by a vague but articulate sense of despair
and disappointment. For Raleigh, the complimented method appears to be decomposing
weighed down by the humiliation and seclusion at court; his strewn
lyrics—notably The Lie, a disdainful dismissal of the court—frequently
draw their resonance from the resources of the plain style. One more courtier
whose composition exhibits likewise pressures is Greville. His Caelica
(published 1633) starts as a conventional sonnet sequence, slowly abandoning
Neoplatonism for pessimistic reflections on religion and politics. Other
works in his strong and demanding verse include philosophical expositions and
unperformed melodramas (Alaham and Mustapha) with a sombre
Calvinist tone, showing man as a vulnerable being, who inhabits a world of
unresolved contradictions: Oh wearisome condition
of humanity! (Mustapha, chorus) The style that actually set its face against Elizabethan
courtesy was the satire. Satire was associated to the complaint, of which
there were noteworthy examples by Daniel (The Complaint of Rosamond,
1592) and Shakespeare (The Rape of Lucrece, 1594) that are distinguished
and sad laments in supple verse. However, the Elizabethans made a mistake of
holding the term satire to have been derived from the Greek satyros,
a satyr, and so set out to match their manner to their matter and make their
verses roar. Among the writings of the chief satirists, Donne (five satires,
1593–98), Marston (Certain Satires and The Scourge of Villainy,
1598), Joseph Hall (Virgidemiarum, 1597–98), and the denouncing of
vice and folly frequently tip into invective, raillery and mere abuse. The satires of Donne being written in verse is
often times so coarse that it cannot be called verse at all; Hall extended
his apologies for being less harsh, while Marston was himself denounced in the
drama Poetaster (1601) by Jonson as he used immensely tough language. ‘Vex
all the world,’ wrote Marston to himself, ‘so that thyself be pleased’. The
satirists made a new persona famous, the malcontent, who gives up his society
not only superficially but genuinely. Their continued attraction lives in
their self-contradictory pleasure in the world they keep professing to hate
and their being obviously fascinated with the details of life in court and
city. The had enthusiastic followers in Thomas Middleton, Samuel Rowlands, Everard Guilpin and Cyril Tourneur. This flood of satires carried so much scandal that
in 1599 their printing was prohibited. Afterwards the style did survive in
Jonson’s characteristically balanced epigrams and poems of the good life.
However, it had an immediate influence on the drama, in helping create the dynamically
cynical voices that people The Revenger's Tragedy (1607) and
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (c. 1599–1601). 3.4.4 Characteristics of Renaissance Poetry A significant style of Renaissance Poetry happened
to be the epic style and sonnets (Shakespeare). Features include the following: Rhyme Intensity in feelings Repetition Meter Meaning and logic Language of vocabulary Iambic pentameter The Renaissance poems existed in several
languages, the most common being in Latin, Italian and Greek. Some have been
interpreted and are in use even today as historical and religious sources.
The poems revolved around religion and heroes. A majority of the Christian
poems spoke about their surviving the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. Poems revolving
around heroes and heroines were extremely popular. Self-Assessment Questions 8. Sidney exemplified
the new Renaissance__________ _________. 9. Spenser was
fortunate to enjoy the patronage of the ___________. 10. The chief talent
among lyricists, Thomas Campion, was neither a composer nor a poet.
(True/False) 3.5 SUMMARY Let
us recapitulate the important concepts discussed in this unit: ·
The Renaissance was a
cultural movement that deeply influenced intellectual life in Europe during
the beginning of the modern period. It started in Italy, and later spread to
the other parts of Europe by the sixteenth century. ·
The advent of the
Renaissance, led to the further evolution of literature and poetry.
Compositions now became more personal, with poetry clearly showing itself as
a medium for a writer to express his feelings to his beloved. ·
England, for very long,
possessed a strong tradition of literature in the English vernacular. It slowly
progressed, with English usage of the printing press becoming more common by
the middle of the sixteenth century. ·
The
Renaissance in Europe was, in a way, a stirring from the lengthy slumber of
the Dark Ages. That which was a dormant, even regressing type of society,
started to re-invest in the assurance of material and spiritual benefit. ·
A
sincere belief of humanity progressing in the direction of a noble summit of perfect
living was dearly held. The maturing of the rebirth (Renaissance actually
stands for ‘rebirth’) is still a subject for debate among many intellectuals
and thinkers. ·
The one
biggest invention of the Renaissance era happened to be the printing press that
started functioning in around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg. There were basic
presses for a long time; however, it was the design of Gutenberg that led to
the maximization of printing effectiveness, such that the world of arts,
letters and ideas underwent a change that remained forever. ·
The
dominating kinds of English literature during the Renaissance were the poem
and the drama. Among the several varieties of poetry that one could have
found in the 16th century England were the lyric, the elegy, the tragedy and
the pastoral. ·
Near
the conclusion of the English Renaissance, John Milton wrote his
unforgettable epic Paradise Lost, popularly regarded as the grandest
poem in the language. ·
In the domain
of drama, none could match William Shakespeare as far as variety, depth and
exquisite usage of language were concerned. His subject matter controlled the
extent, from classical Greco-Roman stories to contemporary stories of
unreciprocated love. ·
The foundation for poems was established in the thirty years from 1550—
a time which saw a gradual increase of confidence in the literary competence
of the language and incredible progress in education. It was this that for
the first time gave rise to a significant English readership, eager for
literature and having refined tastes. ·
The first noteworthy poet was Spenser who purposely used print for
advertising his talents. Sir Philip Sidney, a famous Renaissance poet,
exemplified the new Renaissance ‘universal man’: a courtier, diplomat,
soldier and poet whose Defence of Poesie has the first account worth
consideration of the state of English letters. ·
Sidney’s treatise is seen to defend literature on the basis of its
distinctive power of teaching, but his actual emphasis is on its pleasure,
its potential of depicting the world not in the way it is, but in the way it
should be. He was publicly famous as being a noble champion of an
aggressively Protestant foreign policy. ·
The Faerie Queene by Spenser which was a poem actually meant for the public and
addressed to the queen, reverberated in political terms the expectation of
the Leicester circle for a government driven by spiritualism and militancy.
Spenser was becoming increasingly disillusioned with the court and with the
active life. ·
The trend for intermingling prose fiction with lyric interludes, started
in the Arcadia, and was taken forward by Robert Greene and Thomas
Lodge (noticeably in the latter’s Rosalynde [1590], from which
Shakespeare is said to have taken the plot for his play As You Like It. ·
The epyllion brings with it a suggestion of the tastes of the subsequent
reign, and a likewise shift of taste could be witnessed among those poets of
the 1590s who started modifying the decorated form towards native plainness
or Classical restraint. ·
The Renaissance poems existed
in several languages, the most common being in Latin, Italian and Greek. Some
have been interpreted and are in use even today as historical and religious
sources. The poems revolved around religion and heroes. A majority of the
Christian poems spoke about their surviving the fall of the Holy Roman
Empire. 3.6 GLOSSARY Renaissance: It was a cultural movement deeply influenced intellectual life in
Europe during the beginning of the modern period. Paradise Lost: It was an epic
written by John Milton, towards the end of the English Renaissance. 3.7 TERMINAL QUESTIONS 1.
Draw comparison between the
English and Italian Renaissance. 2.
Write a short note on the
changes brought about by the Renaissance in Europe. 3.
How did the printing press benefit
the people? 4.
What was the biggest obstacle
that the writers and artists during the English Renaissance face? 5.
Write a short note on Faerie Queene. 3.8 ANSWERS Self-Assessment Questions 1.
Italy 2.
England 3.
True 4.
(b) 5.
Dark
Ages 6.
(c) 7. Paradise Lost 8.
universal man 9.
earl of Leicester 10.
False Terminal Questions 1.
The English Renaissance
differed from the Italian Renaissance in many ways. The dominating forms of art
of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the
English Renaissance did not have as much significance as the Italian
Renaissance. The English period started much later as compared to the Italian.
The Italian Renaissance was believed to have begun with Dante, Petrarch and
Giotto during the initial part of the fourteenth century, subsequently making
a move into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. On the
contrary, the English Renaissance may be believed to have begun, tentatively,
during the 1520s, continuing, till 1620. 2.
The English Renaissance
differed from the Italian Renaissance in many ways. The dominating forms of art
of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the
English Renaissance did not have as much significance as the Italian
Renaissance. The English period started much later as compared to the Italian.
The Italian Renaissance was believed to have begun with Dante, Petrarch and
Giotto during the initial part of the fourteenth century, subsequently making
a move into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. On the
contrary, the English Renaissance may be believed to have begun, tentatively,
during the 1520s, continuing, till 1620. 3.
The one
biggest invention of the Renaissance era happened to be the printing press that
started functioning in around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg. There were basic
presses for a long time; however, it was the design of Gutenberg that led to
the maximization of printing effectiveness, such that the world of arts,
letters and ideas underwent a change that remained forever. Gutenberg’s
biggest invention was a method to fast produce mobile typesets, which meant
that new sheets of text could be set in place and printed with much less
effort as compared to the way it had been earlier. The transformed printing
press made the production of work much faster and cheaper. Undoubtedly, one
cannot call it a coincidence, that literacy rates witnessed a significant
increase in the decades after the invention of the press. The religious
turmoil called ‘The Protestant Reformation’ would have been impossible
without the competence to produce several copies of a document rapidly and
with minimum effort. Martin Luther’s popular ‘95 Theses’ spread like wildfire
through Continental Europe, due to the new found comfort of reproduction. More
than just an effortless reproduction, printing led to the change of the entire
social economics of reading and learning. Literature ceased to be a
technical, privileged domain. Literature that was easily accessible had
profound effects in making the written word independent. One more feature of
this invention that was ignored, was the way it affected the action of
reading. Earlier, a document was read out loud to a group of people. The oral
tradition involved the memorizing of biblical or humorous stories and then
passing it down. Due to the sudden spurt in printed material, group reading
and the oral tradition were slowly replaced by quiet, individual reading. During
those times, quiet reading was regarded as being some kind of a novelty, with
there being some who even suspected the act. However, the figure of an
individual occupied with the text on a lone voyage of translation is a
prototypical Renaissance image. 4.
One of
the biggest obstacles for artists and writers in the English Renaissance was an
ever-present requirement of extracting a living in some manner from their
craft. Patronage was one way of talented and innovative writers sustaining
themselves. A patron was an independent, rich noble person with a fine taste
for things, who spent money and attention lavishly on artists who catered to
their taste. In certain cases, the patron had poets and playwrights surround
him merely to showoff. On the other hand, there were patrons who profoundly
and genuinely appreciated artistic creation. From the viewpoint of a struggling
artist reaping the profits of such generosity, it anyhow did not matter much.
The liberty of pursuing one’s craft to the maximum surely might have been a boon
in the 16th century England. Original manuscripts that have lived through the
onslaughts of time are witness to the significance of securing the blessings
of a rich patron. Normally, these works are dedicated to the patron who funded
its production. On the other hand, the author may be seeking the favour of a
patron, who has not yet loosened his purse strings. Some accounts even
suggest that one work of literature was reproduced and dedicated to many
competent patrons, a type of wide-net approach that exhibits the business
savvy needed of the Renaissance artists. In many of the cases, writers needed
to spend a lot of their time to a career in some other more profitable field,
pursuing their craft only as a kind of hobby. Little has changed over the
four hundred years. 5.
The Faerie Queene was a poem by
Spenser, which was
actually meant for the public and addressed to the queen. The plan was for twelve books (six reaching
completion), focussing on twelve virtues epitomized in the quests of twelve
knights belonging to the court of Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, an embodiment of
Elizabeth herself. Arthur, in quest of Gloriana’s love, appears in each book
and comes to embody Magnificence, the complete man. Spenser adopted the
adorned gallantry of the Elizabethan court festivals, re-working it through a
continuously shifting veil of allegory. This was done in order to build the
knights’ expeditions and affections into a complicated, multi-levelled
depiction of the ethical life. The verse, a large and slow-moving nine-lined
stanza and ancient language repeatedly rise to an unparalleled sensuousness. |
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