LATE MIDDLE AGES, OR PRE-RENAISSANCE, OR EARLY RENAISSANCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

(THE 15™ CENTURY)

 

 

The 15 century was the time of flourishing of popular forms in poetry & drama.

 

It was then that the ballad became one of the most popular poetic forms. There were heroic, historical, lyric, humorous ballads, etc. The ballad is that popular kind of verse which flourished mainly on the border between England & Scotland. Ballads were passed down orally, and hence, cannot be assigned to any author or authors. A good deal of this poetry has power & beauty -qualities which seem to come from the conciseness of the technique. There is never a word wasted. A ballad usually tells a simple story, sometimes about war, sometimes about love, sometimes about the world of the supernatural. There is never any lack of art in the telling of the story, and one would willingly trade all the poetry of some mediocre poets for a single ballad like that of "Sir Patrick S p e n s " :

The king sits in Dunfermline town

Drinking the blue-red wine; "O whare will I get a skeely skiper

To sail this new ship o' mine?"

 

0 up and spak an eldern knight,

Sat at the king's right knee; "Sir Patrik Spens is the best sailor That ever sailed the sea."

Some of the best of these ballads may be read in the Oxford Book ofEnglish Verse. Most of them seem to belong to a later age than the 15th century, but that century can certainly claim the finest of all, "The Nut-brown Maid", which is a long dialogue between a man & a woman.

 

 

Wherefore adieu, mine own heart trues

None other rede I can: For I must to the green wood go,

Alone, a banished man.

Alone, he says. She must not follow him, however great her love. He tells her of the perils & hardships of the forest, but she is unmoved: she' loves him so much that she can bear any hardship in his company. He tells her he has another love in the forest, but still she cannot be bent from her purpose, for she will gladly serve this other woman to be near her love. And now the man reveals that he has been only testing her fidelity; he is no banished man, he is a lord of Westmoreland, and he is proud to call such a woman as she has proved herself his lady:

1 will you take, and lady make,

As shortly as I can: Thus you have won an Earles son, And not a banished man.

Yet the most popular ballads were those about Robin Hood. They made up separate cycles (циклы или "своды"): "The Little Geste of Robin Good" ("Малая песнь о деяниях Робина Гуда"), "A Geste ofRobin Hood" ("Деяния Робина Гуда"). These cycles were being published throughout the 15 - 16th centuries. Sometimes they tended to unite separate ballads in one epic work. Besides the cycles many other separate ballads about Robin Hood existed.

One of the examples of a humorous ballad can be the one "Get up and Bar the Door" ("Ступай и дверь закрой").

Popular drama developed in the 15 century, too. There were no permanent playhouses yet. At first the plays (because of their religious contents & messages) were composed & performed by monks, priests in or near churches on some religious occasions. Then professional guilds (профессиональные гильдии) began to stage plays, performing plays on special platforms which could be moved from one place to another. Besides, there appeared strolling (бродячие) actors who travelled from one town to another, performing for money. New theatres began to appear in the courts of the nobles. Drama gained more & more popularity.

The plays were composed by anonymous authors (at least in the 15th a). And they were all mostly with religious contents. There were 4 types of early plays, popular in the 15th century:

1) the Mystery pi ay s or Mysteries (мистерии) were about some events described in the Old & New Testaments (Ветхий и Новый Заветы): the stories of Cain & Abel (Каин и Авель), Noah (Ной), the original sin (первородный грех), the creation of the world, the scene of the Last Supper (Последняя Вечеря), etc.;

2) the Miracle plays or Miracles (миракли) told about the lives & deeds of various saints & apostles (апостолов);

3) the Morality plays or Moralities (моралите) were allegorical plays, didactic & moralizing. They had abstract notions for their characters such as Lie, Truth, Good, Evil, etc.;

4) the Interludes (интерлюдии) were a bit like moralities. Perhaps they were performed during the intervals of some other plays, because the Latin words "inter" and " 1 u d u s " mean "between" and "theatrical performance" - "between the theatrical performance".

Now let's say a few words about each of the types.

 

As it has already been mentioned, the first English plays told religious stories and were performed in or near churches. Many events of religious history were suitable subjects for drama. These early plays, called Miracle or Mystery p 1 а у s , are in for main groups, according to the city where they were performed: Chester, Coventry, York and Wakefield.

 

As it has already been mentioned the Miracles were the plays which told about the lives of saints, apostles, etc. Such a play could be staged in a church on some saint's day and could describe the eveots from his life

 

The subjects of the Mystery plays are various: the disobedience of Adam and Eve; Noah and the Great Flood; Abraham and Isaac; events in the life of Christ; and so on. At first these plays were acted in churches. But gradually Mysteries became more elaborate, demanded more "stage managing" and eventually they turned into complete presentations divorced from the ritual of the Church.

In 1264 Pope Urban instituted the feast of Corpus Christi (Body of Christ). This feast was never observed until 1311, when a Church Council decreed that it should be celebrated with all due ceremony. This day - the longest day of the northern summer - was chosen by the trade-guilds of the towns of England for the presentation of a cycle of plays based on incidents from the Bible, plays which we can call Mysteries or Mystery plays (the term "mystery" means "a craft, skill, trade"). The trade-guilds or craft-guilds were organizations of skilled men, men banded together for the protection of their crafts, for the promotion of their welfare, and for social purposes. This presentation of plays on the feast of Corpus Christi became one of the most important of their social activities.

Each guild would choose an episode from the Bible, and the episode would usually be appropriate to the craft or the trade practiced (so, brick - layers were likely to show the creation of the world, etc.). How appropriate - sometimes amusingly so - can be seen from the following list of plays presented by the Chester guild:

The Fall of Lucifer - by the Tanners.

The Creation [of the world] - by the Drapers.

The Deluge - by the Dyers.

The Three Kings - by the Wine Merchants.

The Last Supper - by the Bakers.

The Passion and Crucifixion of Christ - by the Arrow-makers, the Coopers and Ironmongers.

The Descent into Hell - by the Cooks.

That is just a selection from the total catalogue; the total number of plays amounts to 24. Wakefield guilds presented 33; Coventry - 42; York - 54. The actors and audience needed the long daylight of Corpus Christi to get through such a formidable schedule.

Each guild had its own decorated cart, called a "pageant",a sort of portable stage to be dragged through the town, set up at different spots, and at the end of the long day's acting, dragged back to its shed for another year. The upper part of the pageant was a kind of stage "in the round" - the audience in the street would be able to surround it and see the action from any angle. The plays were presented in strict chronological order - starting with the Fall ofLucifer or the Creation of the World, ending with the Day of Judgement.

These plays were taken very seriously by the guilds, who have left us detailed inventories of dress, make-up and money spent.

Although the Mystery plays were serious and religious in intention, English comedy was born in them. There was a natural tendency for the characters in the play to become recognizably human in their behaviour. However serious the main story might be, neither actors nor audience could resist the temptation to enjoy the possibilities of a funny situation, such as that in which Noah's wife needs a great deal of persuasion to make her go on board the Ark (ковчег). Noah's wife refuses to board the Arc, despite Noah's appeal and warning that the flood is about to commence; she wants to bring her women-friends on board the Arc too. And if Noah refuses to let her do it, she proposes, flood or no flood, to stay with the friends. Noah with his sons manages to get her on board. He sarcastically says: "Welcome, wife, into this boat", to which his wife replies, "And have them that for thy note!" accompanying the words with a slap on his place. Well in such episodes we see the gradual drawing away of the drama from a purely religious content.

 

Other plays, in some respects not very different from the Miracles, were the Morality plays. This was a new kind of religious or semi-religious play. The Morality was not a guild play and it did not take as its subject a story from the Bible. Instead, it tried to teach a moral lesson through allegory. The characters in these plays were not people (such as Adam or Eve or Noah), but some abstract personages - good or bad qualities (Truth, Greed, Reven ge, Lie, etc). For this reason we find these plays duller today, but this does not mean that the original audience found them dull. The plays presented moral truths in a new and effective way.

One of the best-known fifteenth-century Moralities is "Everyman", which was translated from the Dutch. It is the story of the end of Everyman's life (Everyman stands for each one of us), when Death calls him away form the world. Everyman calls on certain friends to accompany him to the next world - Beauty, Five-wits, Strength, Discretion - but they will not go with him. So, when Everyman has to go to face D e a t h, all his friends leave him except Knowledge and Good Deeds, who says finely:

Everyman, I will go with thee and be thy guide, In thy most need to be by thy side.

Knowledge and Good Deeds are ready to travel in Everyman's company to his grave. Everyman learns that the pleasures, friends and faculties of this world avail a man nothing when death comes. Only spiritual strength can sustain him at this last hour. This is a simple moral, but it is made extremely forceful by being given dramatic form: the play, in fact, seems to be telling us something that we did not know before. This is always a sign of good art. And "Everyman" is a good art.

Gradually such Morality plays began to be staged by groups of strolling players who travelled form one place to another, from one town to another. They set up their scenes as a modern circus sets up its tents and cages, performing for money. In other words, we can begin to associate morality plays with professional companies.

Another kind of play, the Interlude, was common in the 15 and 16 centuries. The origin of this name is uncertain; perhaps the Interludes were played between the acts of long Moralities, perhaps in the middle of meals, or perhaps the name means a play by two or three performers. They are often funny, and were performed away from churches, in colleges or rich men's houses or gardens. So in the last days of the 15th century we find it rather difficult to distinguish between the Morality play and the Interlude. The main difference seems to lie not in the theme, but in the place and occasion of performance. We now see two dramatic traditions, an aristocratic one and a plebeian or lower class one. We can think of the great lords in their castles, or rich men in their fine houses, watching a kind of a refined "morality play" - the Interlude. We can also think of the common people watching - in the streets and inn-yards; or in the village green - a rather cruder kind of Morality play.

One of the Interludes of that time is "The Four P's". In one part of this play, a prize is offered for the greatest lie; and the prize is won by a man who says that he never saw and never knew any woman out of patience.

The writers of these early plays are unknown until we come to the beginning of the 16th century. JohnHeywood (1497 - 1580) wrote "The Four P's" (printed in 1545) and "The Play ofthe Weather" (1533), in which Jupiter (not the Christian God!), the King of the Gods, asks various people what kind of weather they would prefer to be granted all the time. But the various requests are contradictory - the laundress wants perpetual sun to dry and bleach her linen, the schoolboy wants perpetual winter so he could play with snowballs, the man who runs a water-mill wants nothing but rain and so on. No two people can agree, and so the things are left as they are. Heywood wrote other Interludes and was alive in Shakespeare's time.

 

So we can sum up the raw materials for the appearance of Elizabethan drama: the noble houses have their groups of interlude-players, wearing the livery of their master - these are going to turn into the Elizabethan companies with names like the Lord Admiral's Men, the King's Men, and so on. The wandering players of moralities, playing in inn-yards, are soon to take over these inn-yards as permanent theatres.


THE RENAISSANCE OR ELIZABETHAN AGE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE (THE END OF THE 15th CENTURY -THE BEGINNING OF THE 17™ CENTURY) (THE POETRY)

 

 

Politically the 16th century in England was the time of centralization of royal power. The long period of feudal or internecine (междоусобные) wars came to an end. And in 1485 the War of the White & Red Roses ended with the victory of Henry Tudor over Richard II I. This war was a civil one between the houses of York (the White Rose) and Lancaster (the Red Rose), both of whom claimed the throne. The new king Henry VII tried to put down the resistance of the feudals & to unite the country under his power. And his son Henry VIII and his granddaughter Elizabeth I completed this process of the centralization of royal power. So, by the end of the 16th century an absolute monarchy was established in England. But the reign of these monarchs was full of political intrigues & riots (смута, бунт). This turbulent atmosphere was naturally reflected in the literature of that time.

The 16th century was also the time of Reformation.In many west European countries they arouse the protest against the Roman Catholic Church. And a number of Protestant churches appeared in various countries. The Protestant church in England is known as t h e Anglican Church (or the Church of England). It was Henry VIII who broke with the Pope of Rome & declared himself Head of the Anglican Church. He had both political & personal reasons: on the one hand Henry VHI wanted to do away with the influence of the Pope of Rome & wanted to get more political influence in his own country. Besides Henry VTJI needed money for his wars and having destroyed some Catholic monasteries or churches (as he sometimes did) he could get it together with the lands which had been the monasteries' property. As a result with the help of this money Henry VUJ could acquire more "friends" among the nobles, and so a new class of gentry appeared in the country. On the other hand there was a romantic aspect in all this. But let's tell this story from the very beginning.

 

When Henry VIII was crowned (короновать), the memories of the War of the Roses were still alive in the country as Henry VIIIwas only the second Tudor King. He was quite handsome, gifted & athletic, and he really did a lot for the glory of his country. He built the first English modern Navy, his talents were diverse: he was interested in music, books, hunting, riding, archery, etc. And he liked to do everything in his own way. He also paid a lot of attention to religious questions. To tell the truth, at first he was a true Catholic and by 1521 he even wrote an Anti-Lutheran book (in fact the book was aimed against one of the contemporary protestant movements in Europe!), for which the grateful Pope (Папа Римский) awarded him the title of Defender of the Faith (Защитник Веры). But only 10 years later Henry VDI broke away from the Catholic Church & set up his own Church of England (the Anglican Church). The King made himself the Supreme Head of the new Church & began to close Catholic monasteries. As we have already mentioned there was a romantic reason for this Reformation in England except for the political ones we have already touched upon.

Only a few weeks after his coronation Henry VIII married his brother's widow, a beautiful Spanish Princess, Catherine of Aragon. She was nice & clever & a true friend to her husband, but she failed to give him a son and after 10 years of their marriage England still had no heir! Henry VDI thought that England would be weak if there were no king to follow him and he did not want his country to have civil wars again. This problem had troubled Henry VUJ for many years when he met Anne Boleyn, a lady-in-waiting (фрейлина). Anne was not a beauty & even had six fingers on one of her hands, but the King fell madly in love with her. He asked the Pope to give him a divorce so that he could marry again & explained that Catherine had been his elder brother's wife, who had died very young. He thought it had been a sin to marry his brother's widow & that the absence of sons was his punishment. But the Pope refused to give Henry the divorce & that made the King of England break away from the Catholic Church. Henry VIII also proclaimed M a г у , the daughter he had by this marriage, illegitimate (незаконнорожденный). So, Henry VIII divorced his wife Catherine & married Anne Boleyn, but she did not give him a son either. And when he got tired of her he had her executed. By this second marriage he had another daughter, Elizabeth, whom he also proclaimed illegitimate. Ten days after Anne Boleyn's execution the King married his third wife, Jane Seymour, who did give him a son, but died twelve days later. All in all Henry VIII had six wives. Ann Cleves was the fourth one. But as he grew older the King became suspicious & ruthless. His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, was beheaded in the Tower, and the last one, Catherine Parr, would have followed her, but she was lucky enough to survive the King.

King Henry VIII left three children: Mary by Catherine of Aragon, Elizabeth by Anne Boleyn and Edward, the Prince of Wales, by Jane Seymour. The children's father never thought that one of his children would rule England after him. He couldn't foresee either that his second daughter, Elizabeth, whom he never loved dearly and whom he proclaimed illegitimate, would become Queen Elizabeth I, the greatest monarch England has ever known.

 

When Henry VIII died in 1547, his only son Edward became king. Edward VI was only 9 years old, so his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, and then the Duke of Northumberland ruled the country in his name. The boy king Edward VI is memorable for opening new grammar schools (they replaced the monastery schools which his father had closed). Unfortunately his reign was short. This kind & clever boy had never been in good health and after having had first measles and then smallpox he soon died. In the 19th century an American writer Mark Twain would take this boy king as a protagonist of his novel "The Prince and the Pauper" ("Принц и нищий").

 

Everybody knew that Edward's sister Mary was next in line to the throne. It was clear that if she succeeded, the Roman Catholic religion would be established again in England, because Mary was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, a true Catholic. This possibility troubled the minds of those who showed themselves good Protestants during the reign of Edward VI. They also liked the new religion very much as they got a lot of money from the former Catholic monasteries' lands. So, it was very important for them to have a Protestant monarch inherit the throne. And a group of nobles tried to Jfcit Lady Jane Grey,a Protestant, on the English throne. But Jane was Queen for only nine days. Mary succeeded in entering London & took control of the kingdom. Ordinary people helped Mary because they were angered by the greed of the Protestant nobles.

 

However, Mary's reign was terrible for England. M a г у I was unwise in her policy, her beliefs & her private life. For political, religious & family reasons she chose to marry King Philip of S p a i n . It was her first big mistake. The common people of England disliked the marriage as they did not want a foreigner to control the country. After much debate Parliament agreed to this marriage, but they only accepted Philip as King of England only for Mary's lifetime. Very soon Магу I made a second mistake. She made an attempt to bring England back to the Catholic Church. When she met with resistance the Queen began burning the Protestants. Many Protestants had to leave the country to avoid the risk of being arrested or executed. The prisons were crowded with the chief Protestants. The Queen also had her cousin, ex-queen Lady Jane Grey, executed when Jane refused to become Catholic. Mary also had plans to do the same with her sister Elizabeth, who could become an obvious leader for a Protestant revolt. But her husband Philip, however, disliked the idea of killing a Princess. Mary's third & final mistake became fatal for England. The Queen's husband was at war with France & asked England for help. England did not want to be involved in the war between Spain & France just for the sake of Philip, but it so happened that at that very time the King of France was going to attack the English coast. So war was declared and the Queen was able to help her husband. The English were defeated, however, and the losses they had were great. Mary never recovered from that blow. In the end the people of England got so angry with her that only the fact that Mary I herself was dying prevented a popular rebellion (народное восстание). In England this queen was called Bloody Mary and as Bloody Mary she will be remembered with horror.

So, Elizabeth became the Queen of England - Elizabeth I - though when she was born in September 7, 1533, no one had any idea that she would become the queen of England only 25 years later Her birth was a big disappointment to her father, Henry VTII, who had turned his world upside down, divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon and broke with the Pope of Rome so that he could marry again. Frankly speaking, it was not only the passion for Anne Boleyn that caused all this (though winning Anne became a kind of obsession with Henry). His real passion was for a son who would secure the Tudor line on the English throne & save England from disputes about succession (наследование престола) that might cause the repeat of the chaotic time of the War of the Roses of the previous century. Elizabeth was not 3 years old when her mother, Anne Boleyn, was executed (so much was the King disappointed by her failure to give him a son). Soon after the execution Henry VET! proclaimed the girl illegitimate. Life at the court of her father influenced the young Lady Princess' world-view greatly. Her father married four more times and had one more of his wives executed. They say that after this second execution Elizabeth (she was about 8 then) declared "I'll never marry". And she stayed true to her promise. During the reign of her elder sister Mary I Elizabeth's life was in danger. Mary was a Catholic monarch in a Protestant country and the very existence of a protestant heir to the throne, as Elizabeth was, was a constant worry to Bloody Marry, who was justly hated by her people. Thus Elizabeth was firstly imprisoned in the Tower then at Woodstock, but Mary never got courage to have her half-sister beheaded.

At the age of 25 Elizabeth became the Queen of England to the great delight of her people. As far as her personality was concerned, she inherited very little from both her father& mother. She had Henry's red hair, his intelligence, his physical energy, but not his ability to take quick decisions, his cold cruelty and his disregard of everything except his personal advantage & pleasure. She had her mother's charm, but not her irresponsibility. But Elizabeth's destiny and all her actions were based on the fact that she was the daughter of Henry VUI and Anne Boleyn - of the father who had been a great king & national leader, and the mother who represented a real Protestant, the revolutionary movement of the century.

As a monarch Elizabeth inherited a very troublesome country. That is why the age of Elizabeth is remembered as one of a great development. During her reign there was a religious compromise in the country (though the Church of England dominated) and certainly she played a great part in it herself. Besides, it was under Elizabeth that England finally freed itself from the threat of the Spanish Armada. She also suppressed the rebellion in Ireland. That contributed to the growth of English prestige at home & abroad. In fact this Elizabethan Age is often called the Golden Age of England. It was the time of English Renaissance. Thanks to printing, the interest to art & literature spread far beyond the court. There was a wonderful harvest of art, music, poetry & most importantly of theatre. In Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) England produced its greatest genius. Arts were greatly encouraged by the Queen herself.

The threat to the glorious reign was presented by England's weak neighbour - Scotland. For all true Catholics Elizabeth was still illegitimate and there was a "better" heir to the Tudor throne -Mary Stuart the Queen of Scotland, a Catholic. She was a granddaughter of H e n г у VII by his daughter Margaret. The relationship of the two sisters kept people's attention for over 400 years and the sisters had often been contrasted. Mary represented Medieval ages with their courtship & admiration for beauty. She was emotional, charming & obstinate. Elizabeth was a woman of a new Renaissance age cautious and wise. But the greatest difference between them was that Elizabeth was Queen of England and Mary was Queen of Scotland - Elizabeth was the queen of a prosperous & powerful kingdom, and Mary was the queen of a poor, weak and lawless one. Elizabeth had loyal advisers and Mary's advisors were traitors. But they also had a lot in common, as both were cultured, intelligent & brave. As soon as Mary I of England died Mary Stuart claimed that she was the only lawful heir to the throne. However in the meantime the two queens became friendlier to each other and Mary Stuart married an English nobleman Lord Darnley. The choice was made for her by Elizabeth. The marriage proved to be a bitter disappointment and in February 1567 Darnley was found murdered. Mary was suspected to have ordered the murder and was put into prison. She had to flee to England as a penniless refugee and seek her royal cousin's protection. The shelter she was given turned out to be another prison where Mary spent 19 years. This long imprisonment did not prevent Mary from constant plotting against the Queen of England. Mary was also proved to be guilty of having killed her husband, Lord Darnley. Elizabeth was reluctant to have a monarch executed, but Mary's presence was a constant cause of Catholic riots & plots.

In the end Mary Stuart was executed on February 7, 1587 aged 44. Elizabeth pretended she had not known about this and accused her counselors of disloyalty. In March, 1603 Elizabeth died. She had never married and was childless. At the end when she could no longer speak, she made a sign that James, the son of Mary Stuart should succeed her. (The story of the relationships of the two sisters is wonderfully described in Stephen Zweig's (Стефан Цвейг) novel "Mary Stuart").

There is something more to say about Elizabeth I. Her position of a monarch does not explain the devotion which she inspired in her nation. There should be some other reason why people worshipped her & even sent to the block (эшафот) by her orders called out "God save the Queen!", and why most historians for 400 years have tried to pay more attention to her successes than to her faults. There must be something that won them over and that we can not easily understand today - her charm, her courage, her charisma (притягательная сила, харизма) and her magic.