6-) English Literature

6-) English Literature 

 

English Renaissance (1500–1660)

The English Renaissance as a part of the Northern Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. Like most of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later — Renaissance style and ideas were slow in penetrating England. Many scholars see the beginnings of the English Renaissance during the reign of Henry VIII and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English

Renaissance.

The influence of the Italian Renaissance can also be found in the poetry of Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542), one of the earliest English Renaissance poets. He was responsible for many innovations in English poetry, and alongside Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517–1547) introduced the sonnet from Italy into England in the early 16th century. After William Caxton introduced the printing press in England in 1476, vernacular literature flourished. The Reformation inspired the production of vernacular liturgy which led to the Book of Common Prayer (1549), a lasting influence on literary language.

Elizabethan period (1558–1603)

Poetry

One of the most important poets of Elizabethan period is Edmund Spenser (1552-1599). He has been addressed “the poets’ poet”. His pastoral poem, The Shepeard’s Calendar (1579) is in 12 books, one for each month of the year. Spenser’s Amoretti, 88 Petrarchan sonnets clebrates his progress of love. The joy of his marriage with Elizabeth Boyle is expressed in his ode Epithalamion. His Prothalamion is written in honour of the double marriage of the daughters of the Earl of Worester. Spenser’s allegorical poem, The Faerie Queene is his greatest achievement.  Spenser invented a special metre for The Faerie Queene. The verse has nine lines and the rhyme plan is ababbcbcc. This verse is known as the ‘Spenserian Stanza’.

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–1599) was one of the most important poets of the Elizabethan period, author of The Faerie Queene (1590 and 1596), an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. Another major figure, Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586), was an English poet, whose works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poetry, and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as those by Thomas Campion (1567–1620), became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. John Donne was another important figure in Elizabethan poetry (see Jacobean poetry below).

After the death of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1400, a century has gone without great literary outputs. This period is known as Barren Age of literature.

Even though there are many differences in their work, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Earl of Surrey are often mentioned together. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Sonnet in England whereas Surrey wrote the first blank verse in English.

Thomas Wyatt followed the Italian poet Petrarch to compose sonnets. In this form, the 14 lines rhyme abbaabba (8) + 2 or 3 rhymes in the last six lines.

The Earl of Surrey’s blank verse is remarkable. Christopher Marlow, Shakespeare, Milton and many other writers made use of it.

Tottel’s Songs and Sonnets (1557) is the first printed anthology of English poetry. It contained 40 poems by Surrey and 96 by Wyatt. There were 135 by other authors. Some of these poems were fine, some childish.

In 1609, a collection of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets was printed. These sonnets were addressed to one “Mr. W.H.”. The most probable explanation of the identity of “W.H.” is that he was William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke.

Other people mentioned in the sonnets are a girl, a rival poet, and a dark-eyed beauty.  Shakespeare’s two long poems, Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece are notable.

Michael Drayton and Sir Walter Raleigh are other important poets of Elizabethan England. Famous Elizabethan dramatist Ben Jonson produced fine poems also.

The University Wits John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, Robert Green, Christopher Marlow, and Thomas Nash also wrote good number of poems. John Lyly is most widely known as the author of prose romance entitled Euphues. The style Lyly used in his Euphues is known as Euphuism. The sentences are long and complicated. It is filled with tricks and alliteration. Large number of similes are brought in.

John Donne’s works add the beauty of Elizabethan literature. He was the chief figure of Metaphysical Poetry. Donne’s poems are noted for its originality and striking images and conceits. Satires, Songs and Sonnets, Elegies, The Flea, A Valediction: forbidding mourning, A Valediction: of weeping etc. are his famous works.

PROSE

Sir Philip Sidney is remembered for his prose romance, Arcadia. His critical essay Apology for Poetry, sonnet collection Astrophel and Stella are elegant.

Ben Jonson’s essays are compiled in The Timber or Discoveries. His essays are aphoristic like those of Bacon. Jonson is considered as the father of English literary criticism.

Many attempts were carried out to translate Bible into English. After the death of John Wycliff, William Tyndale tried on this project. Coverdale carried on the work of Tyndale. The Authorized Version of Bible was published in 1611.

Sir Francis Bacon is a versatile genius of Elizabethan England. He is considered as the father of English essays. His Essays first appeared in 1597, the second edition in 1612 and the third edition in 1625. Besides essays, he wrote The Advancement of Learning, New Atlantis and History of Henry VII.

Bacon’s popular essays are Of Truth, Of Friendship, Of Love, Of Travel, Of Parents and Children, Of Marriage and Single Life, Of Anger, Of Revenge, Of Death, etc.

Drama

The English dramas have gone through great transformation in Elizabethan period. The chief literary glory of the Elizabethan age was its drama. The first regular English comedy was Ralph Roister Doister written by Nicholas Udall. Another comedy Gammar Gurton’s Needle is about the loss and the finding of a needle with which the old woman Gammar Gurton mends clothes. Among the earliest Elizabethan plays are Gorboduc (1561) by Sackville and Norton, and Thomas Kyd's (1558–1594) The Spanish Tragedy (1592)..

The first English tragedy was Gorboduc, in blank verse. The first three acts of Gorboduc writtern by Thomas Norton and the other two by Thomas Sackville. Gorboduc is notable especially as the first verse drama in English to employ blank verse, and for the way it developed elements, from the earlier morality plays and Senecan tragedy, in the direction which would be followed by later playwrights. The Spanish Tragedy is an Elizabethan tragedy written by Thomas Kyd between 1582 and 1592, which was popular and influential in its time, and established a new genre in English literature theatre, the revenge play

The University Wits contributed hugely for the growth of Elizabethan drama. The University Wits were young men associated with Oxford and Cambridge. They were fond of heroic themes. The most notable figures are Christopher Marlow, Thomas Kyd, Thomas Nash, Thomas Lodge, Robert Greene, and George Peele.

Christopher Marlow was the greatest of pre-Shakespearean dramatist. Marlow wrote only tragedies. His most famous works are  Edward II, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, The Massacre at Paris, and Doctor Faustus. Marlow popularized the blank verse. Ben Jonson called it “the mighty line of Marlow”.

Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy is a Senecan play. It resembles Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Its horrific plot gave the play a great and lasting popularity.

Poet and playwright William Shakespeare (1564–1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and one of the world's greatest dramatists. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In the nineteenth century Sir Walter Scott's historical romances inspired a generation of painters, composers, and writers throughout Europe.

The greatest literary figure of English, William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on April 26, 1564. He did odd jobs and left to London for a career. In London, he wrote plays for Lord Chamberlain’s company.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare wrote plays in a variety of genres, including histories (such as Richard III and Henry IV), tragedies (such as Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth) comedies (such as Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night) and the late romances, or tragicomedies. Shakespeare's career continues in the Jacobean period.

Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont.

Shakespeare’s plays can be classified as the following

1.The Early Comedies: in these immature plays the plots are not original. The characters are less finished and the style lacks the genius of Shakespeare. They are full of wit and word play. Of this type are The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

2.The English Histories: These plays show a rapid maturing of Shakespeare’s technique. His characterization has improved. The plays in this group are Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V.

3. The Mature Comedies: The jovial good humour of Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night, the urban worldywise comedy of Touchstone in As You Like It, and the comic scenes in The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing etc. are full of vitality. They contain many comic situations.

4.The  Sombre Plays: In this group are All’s Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Trolius and Cressida. These plays show a cynical attitude to life and are realistic in plot.

5. The Great Tragedies: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and King Lear are the climax of Shakespeare’s art. These plays stand supreme in intensity of emotion, depth of psychological insight, and power of style.

6. The Roman Plays: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus etc. follow the great tragic period. Unlike Marlow, Shakespeare is relaxed in the intensity of tragedy.

7. The Last Plays: The notable last plays of Shakespeare are Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.

The immense power and variety of Shakespeare’s work have led to the idea that one man cannot have written it all; yet it must be true that one man did. Thus Shakespeare remains as the greatest English dramatist even after four centuries of his death.

Other dramatist who flourished during the Elizabethan period is Ben Jonson. He introduced the “comedy of humours’’, which portrays the individual as dominated by one marked characteristic. He is best known for his Every Man  in his Humour. Other important plays of Jonson are Every Man out of his Humour, Volpone or the Fox, and The Alchemist,

John Webster’s The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi are important Elizabethan dramas. Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Heywood, Beaumont and Fletcher etc. are other noted Elizabethan playwrights. 

John Milton and His Time

John Milton (1608- 1674) was born in London and educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge. After leaving university, he studied at home. Milton was a great poet, polemic, pamphleteer, theologian, and parliamentarian. In 1643, Milton married a woman much younger than himself. She left Milton and did not return for two years. This unfortunate incident led Milton to write two strong pamphlets on divorce. The greatest of all his political writings is Areopagitica, a notable and impassioned plea for the liberty of the press.

Milton’s early poems include On Shakespeare, and On Arriving at the Age of Twenty-three. L’Allegro(the happy man and Il Penseroso (the sad man) two long narrative poems.  Comus is a masque written by Milton when he was at Cambridge.

His pastoral elegy Lycidas is on his friend, Edward King who drowned to death on a voyage to Ireland. Milton’s one of the sonnets deals with the theme of his blindness.

Milton is remembered for his greatest epic poem Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost contained twelve books and published in 1677. Milton composed it in blank verse. Paradise Lost covers the rebellion of Satan(Lucifer) in heaven and his expulsion. Paradise Lost contains hundreds of remarkable lines. Milton coined many words in this poem.

Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes are other two major poems of Milton.

Milton occupies a central position in English literature. He was a great Puritan and supported Oliver Cromwell in the Civil War. He wrote many pamphlet in support of parliament.

LYRIC POETS DURING MILTON’S PERIOD (THE CAVALIER POETS)

Milton’s period produced immense lyric poetry. These lyrical poets dealt chiefly with love and war.

Richard Lovelace’s Lucasta contains the best of his shorter pieces. His best known lyrics, such as To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, going in the Wars, are simple and sincere.

Sir John Suckling was a famous wit at court. His poems are generous and witty. His famous poem is  Ballad upon a Wedding.

Robert Herrick wrote some fresh and passionate lyrics. Among his best known shorter poems are To Althea, To Julia, and Cherry Ripe.

Philip Massinger and John Ford produced some notable in this period.

Many prose writers flourished during Milton’s age. Sir Thomas Browne is the best prose writer of the period. His ReligioMedici is a curious mixture of religious faith and scientific skepticism. Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors is another important work.

Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan, Thomas Fuller’s The History of the Holy War are other important prose works during this period. Izaac Walton’s biography of John Donne is a very famous work of Milton’s period. His Compleat Angler discusses the art of river fishing.

Jacobean period (1603–1625)

Drama

In the early 17th century Shakespeare wrote the so-called "problem plays", as well as a number of his best known tragedies, including Macbeth and King Lear. In his final period, Shakespeare turned to romance or tragicomedy and completed three more major plays, including The Tempest. Less bleak than the tragedies, these four plays are graver in tone than the comedies of the 1590s, but they end with reconciliation and the forgiveness of potentially tragic errors

After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson (1572–1637) was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era. Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages and his characters embody the theory of humours, which was based on contemporary medical theory.[57] Jonson's comedies include Volpone (1605 or 1606) and Bartholomew Fair (1614). Others who followed Jonson's style include Beaumont and Fletcher, who wrote the popular comedy, The Knight of the Burning Pestle (probably 1607–08), a satire of the rising middle class.

Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the revenge play, which was popularized in the Elizabethan era by Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), and then further developed later by John Webster (?1578–?1632), The White Devil (1612) and The Duchess of Malfi (1613). Other revenge tragedies include The Changeling written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.[59]

Poetry

George Chapman (c. 1559 – c. 1634) is remembered chiefly for his famous translation in 1616 of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into English verse.[60] This was the first ever complete translations of either poem into the English language. The translation had a profound influence on English literature and inspired John Keats's famous sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816).

Shakespeare popularized the English sonnet, which made significant changes to Petrarch's model. A collection of 154 by sonnets, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality, were first published in a 1609 quarto.

Besides Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, the major poets of the early 17th century included the Metaphysical poets: John Donne (1572–1631), George Herbert (1593–1633), Henry Vaughan, Andrew Marvell, and Richard Crashaw.[61] Their style was characterized by wit and metaphysical conceits, that is far-fetched or unusual similes or metaphors.

Prose

The most important prose work of the early 17th century was the King James Bible. This, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. This represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English that began with the work of William Tyndale, and it became the standard Bible of the Church of England.