JAMES I (James VI of
Scotland) (ruled 1603 -1625)
The 16 century was the time of flourishing of poetry and drama.
Many imitators of Chaucer appeared after his death in 1400, but few of them are of great interest. More than a century had to pass before any further important English poetry was written. Queen Elizabeth ruled from 1558 to 1603, but the great Elizabethan literary A g e is not considered as beginning until 1579. Before that year two poets wrote works of value.
Sir Thomas W у a 11 (1503 -1542) and the Earl о f S u г г e у (1517 - 1547) are often mentioned together, but there are many differences in their work. Both wrote sonnets, which they learned to do from the Italians; but it was Wyatt who first brought the sonnet to England. Surrey's work is also very important because he wrote the first blank verse (blank verse is verse without rhymes, usually in lines of five iambic feet; i. e. there were 10 syllables to a line and 5 stresses in each line; e. g. :
|
| vice of/ the an / tique world / |
Shakespeare, "As You Like It")
Surrey chose blank verse as the most suitable medium for translating Virgil (Вергилий) (in fact translations in the literature of the 16th century were quite important and numerous). So, if these two poets had not lived, Shakespeare might have not written any sonnets and never written his plays in blank verse.
The sonnet had been accepted for a long time in Italy as the most suitable for a love-poem. The medieval poet Petrarch (Петрарка) (1304 - 1374) had used the sonnet consistently to address his beloved Laura. And in the form of his sonnets Wyatt mainly followed this Italian sonneteer. In this form the 14 lines of the poem rhyme abba abba (8 lines - an octave - октава - or two quatrains - кватрен) + 2огЗ rhymes in the last six lines (a sestet - секстет -or two tercets - терцет) - cde cde or cdc cdc, or any other combination of two or three rhymes. The octave expressed the first half of an idea, the sestet - the second half; the octave posed a question, the sestet gave the answer; the octave expressed a theme, the sestet contradicted it. With the Italians, the rhyme scheme was strict. And this verse-form is easy to manage in Italian, because Italian has many rhyming words. If we choose the Italian word "affetto", other words immediately rush into our heads, all perfect rhymes - "stretto", "letto", "petto", "allegretto", and so on. But the English language is much more limited, has far fewer perfect rhymes. English poets found it hard to stick to the Italian form (or "Petrarchan sonnet"). So, they invented rhyme-combinations of their own, the only strict condition being that it should have 14 lines. This so called "Shakespearean sonnet" rhymes abab cdcd efef gg (3 quatrains +1 couplet -2 lines).
Wyatt left us some good lyrics. Here is part of a lover's prayer to his girl:
And with thou leave me thus That hath loved thee so long In wealth and woe among; And is thy heart so strong As for to leave me thus? Say nay! Say nay!
Surrey's blank verse, which has been mentioned, is fairly good; he keeps it alive by changing the positions of the main beats in the lines. In drama Marlowe's famous "mighty line" is blank verse too and much finer poetry, and Shakespeare improved on it. In the 17th century John Milton made blank verse the regular metre of epic.
Before & during the Elizabethan age, the writing of poetry was part of education of a gentleman, and the books of sonnets & lyrics that appeared contained works by numbers of different writers. A good example of such books is Tottel's "Songs and Sonnets" (1557), which contained 40 poems by Surrey & 96 by Wyatt. There were 135 by other authors. Did these popular sonnets and lyrics express the real feelings, or were they just poetic exercises? Some may be of one sort and some of the other. They differ a good deal. Some contain rather childish ideas, as when a man is murdered by love and his blood reddens the girl's lips. Some are very fine indeed.
One of the best sonnets of the time is by Michael Drayton. It begins like this:
Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part: Nay, I have done; you get no more of me; And I am glad, - yea glad with all my heart That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
The poet who introduced the Elizabethan Age proper was Edmund Spenser. He is the first writer of verse to "sum up" the aspirations & dreams of the Elizabethan age. He loves the English language - unlike such men as Bacon, who have no real confidence in it - and tries to do for it what Homer did for Greek and Virgil for Latin. He wants to write important woks which will speak of the glories of the Elizabethan Age as Virgil's "Aeneid" spoke of the glories of the Rome of Augustus.
In 1579 he produced "The Shepherd's Calendar",a poem in 12 books, one for each month of the year. Spenser was no doubt making experiments in metre & form, examining his own abilities. The poems are unequal, but those for April and November are good. They take the form of discussions between shepherds, and are therefore pastorals - the best pastorals written in English up to that time (a pastoral is something (in this case - poems) concerning the life of shepherds, usually shepherds in an imaginary Golden Age living a simple, healthy and contented life in the open air). There are various subjects: praise to Queen Elizabeth, discussions about religion, the sad death of a girl, and so on. The nation welcomed the book; it was expecting a great literary age, and accepted this work as its beginning.
Spenser's greatest work is "The Faerie Queen" ("К оролева фей") (1589 - 1596). It was planned in 12 books, but he wrote little more than the first six. It tells of the human virtues - love, faith, friendship, and so on - in the form of an allegory, giving to each virtue a special knight or protector, and presenting in Gloriana (the Fairy Queen herself) the glory which comes from the possession of virtue. There are 12 knights representing different virtues, and King Arthur is gentlemanliness. The knights' adventures are the basis for the allegory, but this is not clear. Gloriana is also Queen Elizabeth, to whom Spenser addresses himself, and the whole poem is suffused with genuine devotion to Queen and country. Spenser is at one with both the people of England and the Court of England: he knows the traditions and superstitions of the common folk, he can use their earthy speech (he uses it consistently in "The Shepherd's Calendar"), but he is filled also with the sophistication of the aristocratic, and "The Faerie Queen" is full of noble ideals, patriotism, polite learning, and chivalry. The greatness of the book is not in its thought or in its story. It is in the magic feeling in the air, the wonderful music of the verse, the beauty of the sound. Few people now read the whole thing; perhaps too much sweetness at once is more than the mind & the spirit can bear.
Spenser invented a special metre for "The Faerie Queen". The verse has 9 lines; of these the last has 6 feet, the others have 5. The rhyme plan is ababbcbcc. This verse, the "Spenserian Stanza", is justly famous and has often been used since (for example by such poets as Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson in the 19th century - the Romantic poets who sought inspiration in the dreamy music of Spenser). Here is an example:
Long thus she traveled through deserts wide,
By which she thought her wand'ring knight should pass.
Yet never show of living wight espied;
Till that at length she found the trodden grass
In which the track of people's footing was,
Under the steep foot of a mountain hoar;
The same she follows, till at last she has
О, mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low. Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'T is not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure. In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Shakespeare's longer poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece" are both on the subject of love. The former of these was probably his first published work. In both poems there is a kind of coldness, as if Shakespeare was only writing them according to the rules, but without much feeling.
As for Shakespeare's sonnets they were written in a comparatively simple form. His sonnets, printed in 1609, were probably written between 1593 and 1600. Shakespeare took the sonnet form farther than the Italians: he used it not solely for description of the loved one, for protestations of passion, and so on, but also for the expression of ideas, while his contemporaries (Sir Philip Sidney, Samuel Daniel, Spenser, Michael Drayton and many other) were content to deal with love in its more conventional aspects.
Christopher Marlowe, the famous dramatist, was also a fine lyric writer. "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (published in 1599) starts like this:
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That hills and valleys, dales and fields Woods or steepy mountain yield.
Sir Walter Raleigh wrote another poem as the girl's answer:
If all the world and love were young And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love.
As the songs & sonnets of the great Elizabethan age passed slowly away, the immense lyrical tide began gradually to lose its force. The age that followed, the Jacobean age, was less fresh - more interested in the mind than in heart or eye. A group of poets known as the Metaphysical (as applied to poetry - showing clever tricks of style and unlikely comparisons) Poets, wrote verse which was generally less beautiful and less musical, and which contained tricks of style & unusual images to attract attention. These poets mixed feelings with reason, and the mixture is strange.
John Donne (1573 - 1631) is the greatest metaphysical poet but it is difficult to find a complete poem by him which is faultless. He wrote many good things, but no perfect poem. His songs & sonnets are probably his finest work, but he is best studied in collections of verse by various pots. He wrote a lot of poor verse which these collections omit.
Donne mostly wrote religious poetry, though it is not his best. In metre Donne often put the main
A damsel spied slow-footing her before, That on her shoulders sad a pot of water bore.
Spenser married Elizabeth Boyle in 1594 when he was over 40. The joy which he felt is expressed in his "Epithalamion" (1595), an almost perfect marriage song. Spenser gains his melodious effect not by compression, as Shakespeare does, using as few words as possible, but by deliberate extension, so that a Spenser poem only yields its music after many lines. Here is a part of the "Epithalamion":
Now all is done; bring home the bride again,
Bring home the triumph of our victory;
Bring home with you the glory of her gain,
With joyance bring her and with jollity.
Never had man more joyful day than this,
Whom heaven would heap with bliss.
Make feast therefore now all this live-long day,
This day for ever to me holy is;
Pour out the wine without restraint or stay,
Pour not by cups, but by the bellyful,
Pour out to all that wull,
And sprinkle all the posts and walls with wine,
That they may sweat, and drunken be withal.
Crown ye god Bacchus with a coronal,
And Hymen also crown with wreaths of vine,
And let the Graces dance unto the rest;
For they can do it best:
The whiles the maidens do their carol sing,
To which the woods shall answer, and their echo ring.
His "Prothalamion" (1596), contains the repeated line, "Sweet Thames run softly till I end my song". Spenser also wrote 88 sonnets which were published in 1595 - with the "Epithalamion" -under the title "Amoretti".
It would seem that all Elizabethan poets learned a great deal from Spenser. He was in love with words, especially their melodious arrangement, and showed his brother - poets - even those who wrote for the stage - how to get the maximum musical effect from the simplest of words.
The Elizabethan age produced a surprising flow of lyrics. Lyric poetry gives expression to the poet's own thoughts and feelings, and for this reason we tend to picture the lyric poet as a rather dreamy unpractical person with his thoughts turned inwards. As a description of the Elizabethan lyric poets, nothing could be further from the truth. We know few details of Spenser's life, but his friend S i r Philip Sidney was a true Elizabethan gentleman of many activities - courtier, statesman, poet, and soldier. It is probably true that this man, accepted as the pattern of nobility in his time, refused a cup of water when he lay dying on the battlefield of Zutphen, saying that it should be given to a wounded soldier lying near to him. Sidney's book of sonnets "Astrophel and Stella" was printed in 1591 after his death.
Most of the poems of another great Elizabethan, Sir Walter Raleigh, soldier, sailor, explorer, courtier, and writer, have been lost, but the short pieces which remain show a real gift for poetic expression.
Some of the best lyrics of the time were in the dramatic works. Characters on the stage were given songs to sing to please the audience and to give some relief when necessary. In Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night", for example, there is a very sweet lyric: beat on words of little importance; yet he had his good qualities. Some of his beginnings, such as "Go and catch a falling star", are fine. He can say effective things in a few words:
I am two fools, I know; For loving and for saying so.
And where Spenser is gentle ("mild", Wordsworth in the 19th century called him), Donne is fiery; where Spenser is smooth, Donne is rough. For a long time Donne's poetry was thought nothing of, and it is only in the 20th century that he has come into his own (though in the 19th century Coleridge and Charles Lamb admired him). Shakespeare himself has some of Donne's qualities - qualities of harshness, toughness, knotty involved lhoughtfulness. In fact, some scholars think that Shakespeare is a "synthesis" of Spenser and Donne - capable of the sweetness of the one and the sourness of the other, sometimes not only in a single play but even in a single speech.
As we have already mentioned Donne used the sonnet-form not for love poetry but mostly for passionate religious poetry (despite the title of his volume of love-poems - "Songs and Sonnets"). His "Holy Sonnets" are written in a combination of the Italian form & the Shakespearian. They have arresting openings:
Batter my heart, three-person'd God ...
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
In them we are far from the delicate amorous world of Petrarch and Laura:
And Death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!
Donne had two sides to his character. He started off as "Jack Donne", the soldier, lover, drinker, writer of passionate amorous verses. He ended as Doctor John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, great preacher of sermons. Yet the two extremes were in him all his life. As the passionate lover he was always analytic, thoughtful, trying to dissect and explain his passion almost scientifically. As the divine, he approached God with the passion he had formerly shown to women: he addresses Christ with the fierceness of a lover. Just as his character seems to be made up of opposites, so does his verse. When he is deepest in love with living flesh it is then that he sees the skeleton beneath it. When his passion is most physical he expresses it most intellectually. Even when dying he cannot help comparing his body to a map over which the physicians, like cosmographers, discuss the "North-west passage" to death. He reflects that, in all flat maps, east becomes west, and so the sinking of the sun becomes its rising; thus death is only another term for life: after death comes the resurrection. His poems show a brain that works as hard as an engine. In him, as in Shakespeare, thought goes on all the time, getting mixed up with emotion & sensation, and producing strange & wonderful results. In his work there is a kind of violence of expression that we do not find in Spenser, so that he startles us by beginning a love-poem:
For God's sake hold your tongue and let me love!
Or he will take the strangest images & produce something like this:
Go and catch a falling-star,
Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past dreams are
Or who cleft the devil's foot. Teach me to hear mermaids singing
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
He is impatient of convention & invents many new verse-forms of his own. In his images, the strangerthe comparison is the better he likes it. (“Oh, my America!” he cries to his mistress, “my new-found land!”) He is always startling, always invigorating, and always curiously modern. When we readhim we do not feel that it is the work of a man long dead: with his doudts & confusions & harshness & strange idead he seems to be a product of the Atomic Age. John Dryden, and after Dryden, Doctor Johnson, called him in the 17th century a “metaphysical poet”, meaning a poet who liked ideas as much as feelings, and the name has stuck. After him came a number of other poets who filled their works with strange images, some of them quite fantastic. These follows of Donne will be discussed later.
The dramatist Ben Johnson known as “Rare Ben Johnson”, was a quarrelsome man, but fearless & honest. He has left plays, poems & prose. One of his best lyrics is “To Celia”.
THE RENAISSANCE OR ELIZABETHAN AGE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE (THE END OF THE 15th CENTURY -THE BEGINNING OF THE 17th CENTURY) (THE PROSE)
Speaking of the prose of the 16th century, we can't but mention the various translations from Greek, Latin, Italian and French.
But we shall pay more attention to the original works of that time. And the first writer to mention
here is Thomas More (1480 - 1535). He can be mentioned in connection with Shakespeare, for it
seems that a play on his life - of which fragments have recently come to light - was probably written by
Shakespeare. Thomas More was against Protestantism and as a result he was put into prison and later on
was beheaded. /
More's most imaginative work was written in Latin - "Utopia" / This book marked the first period of English humanist literature of the time-) The second period, which lasted from the middle of the 16 century up to the beginning of the 17th century, saw the flourishing of the English drama (but this topic will be discussed a bit later).
The book is in two parts. It is written in the form of a dialogue between the author and a Portuguese sailor - Raphael Hythloday - who had been to many places in the world. In the 1st part they discuss the situation in various countries. Speaking about England, one of them says that here "sheep devour people". These words allegorically describe the policy of enclosures (политика огораживания общественных земель). Henry VIII was giving more and more lands to his nobles for growing sheep. The nobles turned the lands into pastures. But as a result a lot of peasants were driven away from their lands and began vagabonds. And later on Elizabeth I passed a law, according to which vagabond was regarded as a crime.
In the 2nd part Hythloday makes an account on his visit to an island called Utopia. Actually, More gives an ideal picture of communist society - everyone is equal there, there is no money, no private property, everyone produces as much as he can and gets as much as he needs.
The very name of the book - " u t о p i a " - is translated from the Latin language as " n о w h e г e " . So it is not surprising that the story will tell us about an imaginary island, where everything is nearly perfect. We still use the word "utopia" to describe the paradise that every politician promises, the ideal world which men can build on reason, charity and proper social organization. The book even gave birth to a whole trend in literature - the so called " Utopian literature" ("утопическаялитература"). In literature of this kind the future of our mankind is shown much better that the present. But we have recently come to distrust the vision of a perfect state that is realizable - we have had too many disappointments in the present century. Perhaps, the last of the "utopiographers" was G . H . Wells. And nowadays the genre of " d i s t о p i a " ("антиутопия") is much more popular.
The prose of Francis Bacon is also very important in the literature of the 16th century. His book "Essays" is popular still. The "Essays" first appeared in 1597 and then with additions in 1612 and 1625. The sentences in the earlier essays are short, sharp and effective. The style of the later essays is rather more flowing. Some of the best-known sayings in English come from Bacon's books, and especially from his essays. Here are some of them, with the title of the essay:
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark. ("Death")
All colours will agree in the dark. ("Unity in Religion")
Revenge is a kind of wild justice. ("Revenge")
Why should I be angry with a man for loving himself better than me? ("Revenge")
Children sweeten labours but they make misfortunes more bitter. ("Parents andChildren")
If a man be gracious to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world. ("Goo d n e s s ")
The remedy is worse than the disease. ("Troubles")
Stay a little, that we may make an end the sooner. ("Despatch")
Cure the disease and kill the patient. ("Friendship")
That is the best part of beauty which a picture cannot express. ("Beauty")
Some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few
to be read wholly. ("Studies")
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. ("Ceremonies and
Respects")
Speaking of the 16th century prose we could also mention the names of two great dramatists -John Lу 1 у and Robert Green.
John L у 1 у was employed at court. His book "Euphues" started a fashion which spread in books and conversation. This book is a love story, which is used for the purpose of giving Lyly's ideas in various talks and letters. The style of the book is filled with tricks and alliteration; the sentences are long and complicated; and large numbers of similes (художественные, образные сравнения) are brought in. A short example of this style is - "They are commonly soonest believed that are best beloved, and they liked best whom we have loved longest". The reader forgets the thought behind the words, and looks for the machine-like arrangement of the sentences. This kind of style was common in the conversation of ladies of the time, and most of those at court were at one time Lyly's pupils. Queen Elizabeth I herself used this kind of style in conversation. Every girl of good family in those days learned to speak not only French but also Euphuism (то есть разговаривали эвфемизмами - словами, которые заменяют в речи "неприличные" слова. Так, например, вместо "она беременна" нужно было бы сказать "она в положении" и т.д. и т.п.). Even Shakespeare was influenced by this style.
Robert Green 's best prose work is his story "Pandosto", which gave Shakespeare the plot of his play "The Winter's Tale".
THE RENAISSANCE OR ELIZABETHAN AGE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE (THE END OF THE 15™ CENTURY -THE BEGINNING OF THE 17™ CENTURY) (THE DRAMA)
The chief literary glory of the great Elizabethan Age was its drama, but even before it began several plays appeared which showed that a great development had already taken place. Theses early plays were not of very good quality, and in general comedies were better than tragedies.
The first regular English comedy is considered to be the comedy "Ralph Roister Doister" by Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Westminster school. He probably wrote this play for his boys to act. This comedy is in rough verse and contains the sort of humour that may be found among country people.
The first regular English tragedy was " G о r b о d u g " , in blank verse, performed in 1564, The first three acts were written by Thomas Norton, the other two - by Thomas Sackville.lt is very dull, and is about King Gorbodug of England and his family. This man appears in Spenser's "Faerie Queen" as Gorbogud. The blank verse is poor stuff, and nothing is done on the stage except some movements in silence. The story of the play is told.
These are the first examples of English comedies and tragedies. But the real drama of the period starts with the literary work of the dramatists who are often called "University Wits" ("Университетские умы"), as they studied at some Universities (and Shakespeare might be called "a white crow", as he never studied at a university). The group of the "University wits" included these four dramatists as the main representatives:
1) John L у 1 у (Джон Лили);
2) Robert Green (Роберт Грин);
3) Thomas Kyd (Томас Кид);
4) Christopher Marlowe (Кристофер Марло).
John L у 1 у mostly w?rote prose and comedies. His prose comedy "Campaspe" and his allegorical play " E n d i m i о n " are best-known. They were performed in front of Queen Elizabeth I, probably by boy actors. These boys, known as "Children о f P a u 1 ' s ", no doubt caused a lot of fun when they played the parts of great men (such as Alexander the Great, or the philosopher, Diogenes).
The play "Campaspe" contains the charming (and now famous) song:
Cupid and my Campaspe played At cards for kisses: Cupid paid. So Cupid loses one thing after another to Campaspe, and at last he offers his eyes:
At last he set her both his eyes; She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
О Love, has she done this to thee? What shall, alas!, become of me?
Robert Green (1558 - 1592)^mostly wrote pastoral stories (we have already mentioned " P a n d о s t о " (1588) ), со me d i e s, t r a g i с о m e d i e si He often used f о 1 k 1 о re in his plays (that was an innovation in drama). And his plays Influenced-S nakespeare in the last period of his creative work - in such plays as "The Winter's Tale", "Cymbeline", "The Tempest" and others.
Thomas Kyd (1558 - 1594) mostly wrote tragedies. But his tragedies were not like those of Shakespeare. Kyd's tragedies (like all the tragedies of that time) were the so called "bloody tragedies" ("кровавые трагедии"). In such plays blood and death occupies a major place, there is likely to be the theme of vendetta or something like that in a tragedy of blood. And Kyd's most famous tragedy was of this kind - "The Spanish Tragedy". This play is in many ways like Shakespeare's "Hamlet "A ghost appears, demanding revenge; but it appears to the father of a murdered son, not to the son of a murdered father, as in "Hamlet". A girl who is mad, and a man with the name Horatio (as in "Hamlet") also appear in the play.
There is even a belief that Kyd once wrote a play based on the Hamlet story, and that Shakespeare saw it; but this first version of "Hamlet" has never been found.
The first great dramatist of the time was Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) who mainly wrote tragedies, in which the characters were overwhelmed with the desire for power.
His first tragedy "Tamburlaine the Great" ("Тамерлан Великий") (1587 or earlier) is in two parts. It is written in the splendid blank verse that Marlowe brought to the stage. The first part of the tragedy deals with the rise to power of Tamburlaine, a shepherd and a robber. His terrible ambition drives him even onwards to more and more power and cruelty. His armies conquer В a j a z e t, ruler of Turkey, whom Tamburlaine takes from place to place in a cage like a wild animal. In the second part Tamburlaine is pulled to Babylon in a carriage. It is drawn by two kings, whom he curses and whips if they do not go fast enough. He shouts angrily: What! Can ye draw but twenty miles a day?
When the kings get tired, they are taken away to be hanged, and then two spare kings have to pull the carriage. Tamburlaine drives on to Babylon, and on arrival gives orders for all the people there to be drowned. His life is violent in other ways. He cuts an arm to show his son that a wound is unimportant. He shouts for a map. "Give me a map" - he cries - "then let me see how much is left for me to conquer all the world."
The play was well received, but the violence of the language and of the action, and the terrible cruelty, are serious faults. Yet Marlowe's "mighty line" fills the heart and satisfies the sense of beauty. It is usually powerful and effective, and it is not used only to describe violence. Marlowe discovered the splendid power of the sound of proper names:
Is it not brave to be a king, T e с h e 11 e s ,
Usumcasane and Theridamas?
Is it not passing brave to be a king.
And ride in triumph through Persepolis?
"The Jew ofMalta" ("Мальтийский еврей") (1589?) is again often violent. In this tragedy the governor of Malta taxes the Jews there, but Barabas,a rich Jew, refuses to pay. His money and house therefore are taken from him and in revenge he begins a life full of violence. He poisons his own daughter, Abigail, and causes the death of her lover too. He helps the Turks when they attack Malta, and so they make him governor. But he decides to kill all the Turkish officers. He arranges that the floor of a big room can be made to fall suddenly, and then invites them to a meal in it. He hopes thus to destroy them while they are eating, but an enemy makes his secret known, and he himself is thrown down below the floor into a vessel of boiling water.
The language of "The Jew of Malta" is not always so fierce; sometimes the beauty of sound and rhythm (and again of proper names) is very fine:
I hope my ships
I sent for Egypt and the bordering isles
Are gotten up by Nilus wandering banks;
Mine argosies from Alexandria
Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail,
Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore
To Malta through our Mediterranean Sea.
The softness of the last line suggests very well the quiet movement of a sailing ship in the old days. "Dr. Faustus" was probably acted in 1588. The play is based on the well-known story of a man (Faustus), who sold his soul to the devil so as to have power and riches in this life. Marlowe's Faustus agrees to give his soul to the devil (Mephistopheles)in return for 24 years of splendid life. During these years the devil must serve him and give him what he wants. The end of the play, when death is near and Faustus is filled with fear, is a highlight of terrible description.
One of the things that Faustus orders the devil to do for him is to bring back from the dead the beautiful Helen of Troy, the cause of the Trojan war. When Faustus sees her, his delight escapes from his lips in these words:
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. (Kisses her.)
Her lips suck forth my soul; see where it flies!
Come, Helen, come! Give me my soul again...
O, thou art fairer than the evening air,
Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.
Marlowe's "Edward the Second" (1593), perhaps his best play, deals with English history. It is possible that this play helped Shakespeare with the writing of parts of his "Henry VI" and other early plays. Certainly Marlowe's writing set an example for other dramatists in the great Elizabethan Age in two important ways: the use of powerful blank verse lines to strengthen the drama, and the development of characters to heighten the sense of tragedy. When Shakespeare added to these his own mastery of plot and his human sympathy, the drama reached its greatest heights.
Marlowe was killed in a quarrel at a Thames-side inn before he was 30 years of age. If he had lived longer, he would probably have written other splendid plays. Shakespeare certainly thought so.
Let's sum up the main new features which the "University Wits" brought into drama. Marlowe's writing distinguished itself by the following:
1) the introduction on the stage his superb blank verse, his "mighty line";
2) the theme of his tragedies - the obsession with the desire for power (жажда власти);
3)the development of characters.
L у i у in his turn complicated drama by introducing several subject lines (parallel subject lines; Green used folklore in his plays; К у d wrote political tragedies.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616)
So we may say that the "University Wits" lay the foundation for the literary work of the greatest writer of the Elizabethan period - William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616).
On April 26, 1564, William, the eldest son of John Shakespeare, glover alderman and later bailiff (i.e. mayor), and of Mary (nee A r d e n ) was Christened at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. William was almost certainly educated at the local grammar school, where he studied Latin authors and dramatists, grammar, rhetoric, and logic.
1582 - in November William Shakespeare married Anna Hathaway;
1583 - a daughter Susanna was born;
1585 - twins, Judith and H a m n e t were born;
1585- 1592 - the lost years. Nothing definite is known of his career, there are many popular
legends, but a schoolmaster in the country or a player in a gentleman's household are two plausible suggestions;
1592 - Shakespeare's growing reputation as an actor and playwright provoked the jealous comments of upstart crow, and in his own conceit the only Shake - scene in a country, from other dramatist Green; but a second dramatist by way of amends praised his integrity, his facetious grace in writing, and his excellence in the quality he professes,
1593 - 1594 - poems "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece"
dedicated to the Earl of Southampton;
1595 - a leading member of the newly formed Lord Chamberlain's Players;
1596 - death of his son H a m n e t;
1597 - purchased New Place, one of the largest houses in Stratford; living in Bishopsgate in London;
1599 - moved to Southwark near the Globe Theatre which he and his
company had recently erected;
1602 - extensive purchases of property and land in Stratford;
1602 - 1604 - lodged with Mountjoy,a Huguenot refugee and a maker of headdresses, in
Cripplegate, London. Helped to arrange a marriage between Mary Mountjoy and Stephen Belott,her father's apprentice;
1603 - his company became the King's Majesty's Players under royal
patronage;
1607 - his daughter Susanna married Dr. John Hall;
1608 - birth of Shakespeare's granddaughter Elizabeth Hall; 1610 - Shakespeare possibly returned to live in Stratford;
1613 - purchase of the Gatehouse in Blackfriars. Burning of the Globe
Theatre during the premiere of " H e n г у VIII";
1616 - marriage of his daughter Judith to Thomas Quiney in Lent for
which they were excommunicated;
March 25, 1616 - Shakespeare altered the draft of his will presumably to give Judith more
security in view of her husband's unreliability and his pre-marital misconduct with another woman. His will also revealed his strong attachment to his Stratford friends, and above all his desire to arrange for the establishment of his descendants;
April 23, 1616 - death of Shakespeare;
1623 - publication of the First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays collected
by his fellow actors Heminge and С о n d e 11 to preserve the memory of so worthy a friend.
Shakespeare's canon - literary heritage - consists of 2 long poems, several short ones, 154 sonnets and 37 plays. There is a tradition to divide his work into three periods:
1) 1590 - 1600 - the period was marked by Shakespeare's optimism and cheerfulness which
are best felt and revealed in his 9 comedies of this period. In this decade he also wrote most of his historical chronicles and s о n n e t s ; the romantic drama "The Merchant of Venice" and the two early tragedies "Romeo and Juliet" and "Julius Caesar" were also written in the 1590s and they show the playwright's outlook which becomes more pessimistic;
2) 1601 - 1608 - Shakespeare's gradual loss of optimism, because he began to realize how
deep and insoluble were life conflicts and contradictions. His great tragedies were created in this period: "Hamlet", "King Lear", "Macbeth" and "Othello";
3) 1609 - 1612 - in this period Shakespeare seeks the solutions to life problems and sometimes he
proposes rather improbable, Utopian ways and situations with romantic and fantastic elements. These plays are known as romantic dramas: "The Winter'sTale", "The Tempest", " С у m b e 1 i n e " , etc.
SONNETS
It is still unclear to whom Shakespeare dedicated his sonnets. There are many versions. This " W . H " might have been his friend, his beloved, the collector of his sonnets, etc.
The traditional form of a love song was filled by Shakespeare with such a wealth of feelings, emotions, thoughts that his sonnets surpassed all the numerous creations of his predecessors and contemporaries.
Shakespeare's sonnets treat love in a manner different from the other sonneteers'. He never idealized his beloved, spoke realistically, described her as a common, earthy woman (sonnets 130, 143).
The reader also learns about her character which is far from ideal: she is unfaithful, cruel, even dishonest (sonnet 144). It is quite difficult to translate Shakespeare's sonnets as the epithets might have different meanings. So, Shakespeare very often uses the word "fair", describing his friend and opposing this quality to the woman. Well, in this case we may draw the following juxtapositions, based on the diversity of the meaning of the word:
MAN WOMAN
"fair" means: "unfair", "a woman coloured ill" means:
just unjust
honest dishonest
blonde dark-haired
with fair complexion swarthy, etc.
So, each translator of Shakespeare's sonnets usually chooses one juxtaposition, though there might be many of them.
Due to the fact that the woman in Shakespeare's sonnets is "unfair", "coloured ill", she is often called "the dark lady of the sonnets" (though actually Shakespeare never called her a lady. She could have been either a common woman - Shakespeare's inn-keeper or somebody else - or a noble one - sometimes they say that this could have been Elizabeth I herself)
Alongside with love friendship occupies a lot of space in Shakespeare's sonnets, too. It is considered that 100 or even more sonnets are dedicated to his male friend and only about 30 of them - to his female beloved. But it is also very difficult to say for sure whether the person in the sonnet is a woman or a man. Shakespeare often speaks like that - "My love said", "My friend said" etc. So we cannot say whether this "love" or "friend" is male or female. We may only guess.
Shakespeare's friendship is always represented as more reliable than love (sonnets 133, 134) -the woman is called "a worser spirit ... coloured ill", while the man is "a better angel". This attitude towards love and friendship is also seen in his plays: for example, Ophelia's betrayal of H a m 1 e t, the betrayal of Hamlet's mother, but the devoted friendship of Horatio, etc. Some sonnets speak of the eternal love triangle, when the author's beloved betrays him with his friend. And this causes a lot of suffering to the author. At the same time he usually never accuses his friend, but puts the blame onto the woman.
Shakespeare's sonnets also deal with some important social problems, they give a glimpse of the situation in the country, show his attitude and uneasiness about it (sonnet 66). Sometimes these sonnets are somehow consonant (созвучны) with the ideas from Shakespeare's future plays. (For example, sonnet 127 - "Othello" , sonnet 66- Hamlet's soliloquy "2b or not 2b"). In sonnet 66 the author gives the picture of the imperfect society full of lie, injustice, hypocrisy, etc in every detail.
The theme of mortality runs through his sonnets, too (sonnets 11, 12, 65, 73, 146). On the one hand the author says: "Nothing can withstand the Scythe of Time". But on the other hand he says that we can perpetuate our beauty and ourselves through our children (in the first 20 sonnets the author tries to persuade his friend or his beloved to reproduce his/her beauty in his/her children) and through art, literature (".. .облик милый спасут, быть может, чёрные чернила...").
The language and imagery of Shakespeare's sonnets are very bright. They range from very elevated to rather p г о s a i с . He often makes use of some very earthy, common situations, often connected with some folk elements (like in sonnet 143). In his sonnet 76 Shakespeare expresses his literary credo, saying that he might be blamed for his simple language which has no extremely new features, odd comparisons, etc. But at the same time he says that the sun above us is also very common, but it does not reduce its importance.
Speaking about Shakespeare's language in sonnets we can't but mention the following characteristic features in them: the author often resorts to bright contrasts, juxtapositions, antitheses. Besides, there are quite many aphorisms in Shakespeare's sonnets.
COMEDIES
Nine of them were written in his early period:
- "The Comedy of Errors" ("Комедия ошибок")(1592);
"The Taming of the Shrew" ("Укрощение строптивой") (1593) (Elizabeth Taylor played in a film based on this comedy);
- "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" ("Два веронца"); "Love's Labour's Lost" ("Бесплодные усилия любви"); "A Midsummer Night's Dream" ("Сон в летнюю ночь"); "Much Ado About Nothing" ("Много шума из ничего"); "The Merry Wives of Windsor "("Виндзорские кумушки "); "As You Like It" ("Как вам это понравиться");
- "Twelfth Night; Or, What You Will" ("Двенадцатая ночь, или Что вам угодно").
In his comedies Shakespeare never mocked at people, none of his comedies are satires. They are all full of light-hearted humour and wit. In one of his plays Shakespeare says:
Better a witty fool than a foolish wit (the words of a gesture - шута).
Some of the author's plays (Shakespeare called them comedies) verge on the tragic. So they should rather be called tragicomedies or romantic dramas (they are such as "Measure for Measure" - "Мера за меру", "All's Well That Ends Well" - "Bc6 хорошо, что хорошо кончается", "The Merchant of Venice" -"Венецианский купец", etc.).
HISTORICAL CHRONICLES
Nine out of ten of them were written in the first period:
- "KingHenryVI" (part 2) ( " Г e н p и x VI" ) (1590);
- "King Henry VI" (part 3) ( " Г e н p их VI") (1590);
- "King Henry VI" (part 1)("Генрих VI")(1591);
- "The Tragedy of King Richard III" ("Ричард III")(1592);
- "The Tragedy of King Richard II" ("Ричард П")(1595);
- "The Life and Death of King John" ("Король Д жо н " ) (1596);
- "King Henry IV" (part 1) ( " Г e н p их IV") (1597);
- "King Henry IV" (раЛ2)("Генрих IV") (1597);
- "The Life ofKing Henry V" ("Генрих V") (1598). The tenth chronicle "Henry VIII" appeared only in 1605.
The chronicles covered the period of more than 300 years and deal with the most crucial and dramatic moments of English history.
Shakespeare borrowed the plots for his chronicles from the book called "The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland "by R. Holinshed (published in 1577). By means of depicting the life of the country under the reign of this or that king Shakespeare tried to show the main tendencies and political forces of the time. Like all humanists Shakespeare condemned the feudal internecine wars and considered centralized monarchy an ideal political order, because it stopped the bloodshed and promoted the economy and trade in the country.
Shakespeare was interested in history, as it helped to understand the present and foretell the future. The necessity of a strong royal power was the basic idea of all his history plays. But on the other hand he posed the moral problem of what kind of kings had the right to power. He created a gallery of royal characters. Some of them are usurpers who resorted to violence in order to seize the throne and thus created a precedent (so we may say they gave the right to dethrone themselves one day, as they did not take the throne by right. And their supporters considered it their right to dethrone such a usurper if he failed to comply with their demands.) We could remember the moral from the Bible: Violence begets violence. Some of the kings portrayed by Shakespeare were weak-willed, influenced by their courtiers, and were bad politicians. According to Shakespeare such kings have no right to power. In "Henry IV" we come across such a usurper, a weak-willed king is Richard II. Henry V is portrayed by the dramatist as the ideal of a monarch.
"Richard III" is the most staged historical chronicle nowadays. This play completes the tetralogy, the first three parts of which were the three parts of " H e n г у VI". The tetralogy tells about the 40 year long war of the White and Red Roses (between two branches of the Royal family - the branch of York and the branch of Lancaster). In the play we see the defeat of the branch of Yorks to which Richard III belonged, and the beginning of the Tudor m о n a г с h у . In the centre of the play is Richard of Gloucester, who after the death of King Edward IV does his beast to remove all the rivals and to come to power. He orders to kill his own brother Clarence, he murders two little nephews, he does away with many of his supporters, he compels Ann - the widow of one of his opponents - to marry him, and does many other mean crimes. On the eve of the decisive battle with his enemies he sees the ghosts of all those whom he has murdered. And the ghosts foretell his defeat. The next day he is killed by Henry, Earl of Richmond -the first Tudor king in the future, Henry VII.
The play opens with Richard's words:
Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by the sun of York.
(The first line will be used by Steinbeck for the title of his novel in the 20th century - "The Winter of Our Discontent" - "Зима тревоги нашей").
By "the sun of York" Richard means the dying king Edward and his words speak for his hypocrisy, because this deformed man (изуродованный, калека - был горбатым) is looking forward the king's death and is ready to remove anyone who will stay on his way to the throne. Through his deformity he has his inferiority complex, which he tries to compensate by being ruthless to others. Richard III is an ambitious and blood-thirsty, bald and treacherous, subtle (хитрый, тонкий) and hypocritical politician. But he is also brave, purposeful. And we may say that he is a balanced man (цельная натура), as a result he does not have any qualms (укоры совести) about killing other people.
In a word Shakespeare created one of the most villainous (злодейский) characters in old literature. A lot of famous actors played this part (it is a kind of honour, as the personage is the incarnation of evil). In Shakespeare's time the best "Richard III" was Richard В u г b a g e , in our times - the world famous English actor Laurence Oliver.
TRAGEDIES
Most of them were written in the second period of his literary work:
- "Hamlet; Prince of Denmark" ( " Г а м л ет " ) (1601);
- "Othello, the Moor of Venice" ("Отелло")(1604);
- "KingLear" ("Король Лир") (1605);
"Macbeth" , which is considered to be the best tragedy ("Макбет") (1605).
But the tragic outlook which marked the years of the 2nd period could be already felt at the end of the 1st period in Shakespeare's early tragedies "Romeo and Juliet" ("Ромео и Джульетта") and "Julius Caesar" and the romantic drama "The Merchant of Venice" which were written in the 1590s, and in some others.
The main difference between the genres of a historical chronicle and a tragedy is the following: a historical chronicle tells of the political problems which were topical at this or that time (but can be of little significance to us now), the personages are real political figures that existed at that time. Besides the writer cannot alter the destinies of the personages, though he sometimes can distort them (so Richard III was not that bad, as Shakespeare showed him).
In tragedies the author gives himself more freedom, he can create the destinies for the characters as the characters are fictitious (вымышленные); tragedies raise some eternal problems of universal importance.
Speaking about Shakespeare's tragedies, we may say that he introduced a new concept of the tragic. Before him the tragedy was understood as a blood play (mostly it was a play of revenge). Shakespeare's tragedies also have this motif of revenge but it does not play the principle role in the plot. All his tragedies are usually based on the insoluble conflict between the protagonist (главный герой) and some antagonistic force, which can be embodied
in о n e person,
in a group of people or
in society at large.
(Here we should remember that the literary term "protagonist" means "the main character". So the protagonist can be both a positive character and a negative one. But if we say "the main hero" like in Russian "главный герой", the personage must be a positive one. So, Richard HI is the protagonist of the play, the main character or the main personage of the play, but we cannot say that he is the main hero of the play.)
The mentioned above conflict between the protagonist and some antagonistic forces is the so called "external conflict" ("внешний конфликт").
But Shakespeare's innovation lies in the fact that he added the so called "internal conflict" ("внутренний конфликт"). When we deal with this type of conflict, there will be no external antagonists, and the conflict will be within the soul of the protagonist (as in case with Hamlet): his hesitations, spiritual sufferings and torments, self-reproach, doubts, etc. This inner discord (разлад) is the result of the external conflict. And it is no less interesting for the reader or spectator to follow the character's feelings and thoughts than to observe the change of events in the play (as the external conflicts are usually solved through some events).
Speaking of Shakespeare's tragedies we should mention that many of them have subtitles (like"Hamlet, Prince of Denmark", etc.).
"Hamlet" is usually called the tragedy of mind (трагедия ума), "King Lear" - the tragedy of false grandeur (трагедия ложного величия), "Macbeth" - the tragedy of ambition. And "Othello" is usually called the tragedy of deceived faith (not of jealousy!): Othello was a naive and sincere person, believed in people and J a g о knew about this. Not having been promoted (though he was white) and hating good people in general, J a g о belied Desdemona. For Othello who was a balanced person (цельная натура), Desdemona was an absolute virtue (as he was balanced, he was a maximalist - we would say that for such people there are only white and black colours and no grey colour). For him she was beautiful, kind, loving, tender, sincere, etc. But when J a g о tells his lie, Othello turns this absolute plus into absolute minus: Desdemona is not kind but hypocritical, she is not loving but treacherous, she is not sincere but cunning, etc. And Othello considers it his moral duty to clear the world of such a bad person, of such an evil. And even in this case he is merciful enough, as he lets her pray before she dies (so that she could reach the Heavens, not the hell if she is still not guilty). In the end, having known the truth, he punishes himself for having killed a good, virtuous person. So we may say that there is no jealousy here, or at least it plays a far minor role.
BENJAMIN JONSON (1573 - 1637)
A great dramatist who followed Shakespeare but was far below him was Benjamin Jonson (we have already mentioned this name when we spoke of the poetry of the period - "Rare Ben Jonson"). His work more learned and less inspired than Shakespeare's and the ancient classics had a great influence on him.
His best known play is "Every Man In His Humour" ("Всяк в своём нраве") (1598). A "humour" meant at that time not something funny, but some peculiar feature of a person, his chief strong feeling or a special foolishness (то есть его нрав). And only afterwards, when such "humours" became the subjects in comedies and people laughed at them, the word "humour" began to mean something funny - as we understand it now. And the chief weakness of Jonson as a dramatist is that his personages are not very human but just like "walking humours" (i. e. if the character's main feature is jealousy, this and only this feature will be shown best of all. But people are much more complicated actually!).
In this play К i t e 1 у , a merchant, has a pretty wife. And his humour is his jealousy. He suspects a young man, К n о w e 11, of having ideas about his beautiful wife. Knowell's father also has his humour - it is anxiety about his son's behaviour. В о b a d i 11, a cowardly soldier, is one of the best-drawn personages in this play.
Jonson wrote about 20 plays alone and others with other playwrights. Some of them were staged at the Globe Theatre.
Jonson was also one of the best producers of masques at this or any other time. These masques were dramatic entertainments with dancing and music, which were more important than the story and the characters.
As a person Jonson was rude and proud. He said, in effect, - "Here is my play. It's good. If you don't like it, that's your fault." He scorned much of the other dramatic work of the time, but not Shakespeare's. Of him Jonson said:
Soul of the Age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room.
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still, while thy book doth live,
And we have wits to read, and praise to give.
Jonson can be considered the first English writer who introduced the elements of the coming (in the 17th century) classicism(классицизм),ashedid not work out the theory of classicism but used its ideas in his plays. Jonson believed in the unities of place, time and action (the principles of classicism - единство места, времени, действия). That is to say, he thought that the scenes of a play ought to be in one place, or at least not too far from each other. If the audience had to travel a few hundred miles between one scene and the next, he thought it unreasonable. The unity of time meant that the events of a play ought not to spread over more than 24 hours (and most of his plays followed this rule). The unity of action meant that nothing outside the main story should be allowed into the play. He crossed out a fine speech in the original "Every Man In His Humour" because it was in praise of poetry and did not suit the rest of the action.
Among his other plays are "Every Man Out Of His Humour" ("Всяк не в своём нраве") (1599), "Volpone, or the Fox" ("Вольпоне") (1605), "The Bartholomew Fair" ("Варфоломеевская ярмарка")(1614).
In "The Bartholomew Fair" the England of that time is allegorically shown as the fair, where everything can be sold. So this fair (and England respectively) is a symbol of lie, deceit and other vices of the bourgeois society. Later on, in the 19th century, this idea will be reflected in the novel "Vanity Fair" by W. M. Thackeray.
Ben Jonson as a dramatist is a kind of link between the realism of the Renaissance and the classicism of the 1 7 *h с e n t u г у . He is considered to be the creator of the comedy of morals/humours (комедия нравов). The satirical literary work of Ben Jonson, his theory of "humour" influenced the English writers of other periods: Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett in the 18th century, Charles Dickens and W. M. Thackaray in the 19th century.