THE RENAISSANCE IN ENGLAND: SECOND PERIOD. THE PREDECESSORS OF SHAKESPEARE
The most brilliant period English literature ever knew was in the second half of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century; it is usually but inaccurately called the Elizabethan age after Queen Elizabeth 1 who reigned from 1558 to 1603, but it must be remembered that many authors of that time, including Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, wrote their greatest works after her death.
England had become a great world power; the peak of the country's development was reached in 1588, when the Spanish Armada [a'ma:de], an enormous fleet sent by King Philip 2 to conquer England, was defeated. England had established wide commercial contracts, with all non-Catholic nations, including Russia (the ships that routed the Armada were built of timber bought in Russian), and rich trading companies had been organized.
The English people were now a great nations, and the English language, enriched and to a certain extent already standardized, was now, except for the spelling, not unlike Modern English. Chaucer, even in modern spelling can be read only with the help of a glossary; Wyatt and Surrey are rather hard to read for one who is not a specialist; but works of the Elizabethan age, especially those in verse, can still be read as living literature and enjoyed more than anything else written in English.
By that time the principles of Italian and French Renaissance poetry had been completely introduced among the writers. The English, conscious of having become a nation, felt a great interest in their historical past. A result of this was the appearance of "Chronicles" (1587) by Raphael Holinshed and other authors; episodes from this work form the plot of many plays written during the next decades. Many famous poetical and prose works by ancient and contemporary authors were translated. Original prose works also appeared, but the chief medium of the age was verse - lyric, epic, and dramatic.
Now follows an introduction to some of the foremost poets of the period.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586).Poet, scholar, courtier, soldier, he seemed to his contemporaries to embody all the traits of character and personality they admired. He came of a distinguished family. After studying in Oxford, he travelled on the Continent, where he met many important men of his time and witnessed such a cruel event as the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, 1 August 23, 1572. This undoubtedly strengthened his anti-Catholic views. On his return to England he lived the life of the courtier, serving occasionally on diplomatic mission and actively encouraging men of letters, the most prominent of whom was the young Edmund Spenser. He made friends with Giordano Bruno during the great astronomer's stay in England. In 1580 he caused the queen's displeasure by actively opposing her projected marriage to the Duke of Anjou [a:n'zu:]: Sidney was sure that the queen's marriage to a Catholic would harm England; this led to his dismissal from the court.
He retired to the estate of his sister, and there, at her request and for her amusement, wrote a pastoral romance in prose called "Arcaidia [a':keidie]". Its plot is very complicated (Shakespeare used an episode out of it for the story of Glucester and his sons in "King Liar"), some parts of it are of political interest, and Sidney put more serious thought into it than he pretended when he described the book as mere entertainment. Many poems are included in the prose narrative, some of which rank among the best he ever wrote. Some critics consider "Arcadia" the most important original work of English prose fiction written before the 18th century. At about the same time Sidney wrote the outstanding theoretical work, "Apology for Poetry", in which he polemized with the Puritans 1 who denied poetry (and all imaginative literature) the right to exist. Sidney proclaimed the great importance of poetry because of its power to teach and delight at the same time. Sidney's work "Astrophel ['astrefel] and Stella" is the first of the great Elizabethan sonnet cycles; in it he employed the Petrarchan sonnet as modified by Wyatt.
Sidney died a hero. In 1586 he was in the Netherlands with an English expeditionary corps: The English were allies of the Dutch and helped them in their struggle against the Spanish invaders. In the battle Sidney was mortally wounded. Tormented by pain and thirst, he was putting an almost empty bottle to his lips when he saw a common soldier looking longingly at him; Sidney passed the bottle and said, "Thy necessity is greater than mine." Several days later he died, and all England mourned for him.
All the works of Sidney were published some years after his death - at the time it was "not quite the thing" for an author of noble birth to print his poems; it was enough to circulate them in manuscript among chosen friends. (The poems of Wyatt and Surrey were published only in 1557.) Yet Sidney was the author of the most important piece of literary criticism, and of the most important sonnet cycle. His works, when published, had a great influence on all English literature of the time.
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599).There was another category of Renaissance poets, those who could not boast of noble birth: They came from poor families and had to depend on their poetical talent to make a living. Such a poet would usually dedicate a printed work to some noblemen in hope of a financial reward, which was not considered embarrassing at the time.
Among such was the greatest non-dramatic poet of the English Renaissance, Edmund Spenser, whose father was a cloth-maker. The future poet attended the Merchant Taylors' School and later had the luck to go to Cambridge as a "sizar". 2 He acquired some influential friends, and eventually became secretary to the powerful Earl of Leicester's ['leste], one of the Queen Elizabeth's favourites, which brought him into contact with Leicester's nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, to whom Srenser dedicated his "Shepherd's Calendar". This work consist of twelve eclogues, or dialogues, between shepherds (one for each month of the year). Though pretending to represent simple life, it is really a running commentary on contemporary affairs, and at times becomes didactic or satirical. Probably the most important of these is "October", which deals with the problem of poetry in contemporary life and the responsibility of the poet. The work is also interesting for the amazing variety of meter and stanza displayed in it.
In 1580 Spenser became secretary to Lord Grey, the cruel Lord Deputy of Ireland, and lived in that country, except for two brief visits to England, until shortly before his death. In Ireland he became the owner of an estate, where he lived in comparative obscurity. When Sir Walter Raleigh was in Ireland, he heard the first part of Spenser's major work, the allegorical poem "The Faerie Queene", 1 and was so impressed that he persuaded Spenser to go to London and supervise its publication. In 1590 the first three books of the poem were printed with a dedication to Queen Elizabeth, for which Spenser received a pension from her. In 1594 Spenser married the lady whom he commemorated in his sonnet cycle "Amoretty". In 1598 the great Irish rebellion broke out, during which Spenser castle was burnt. Shortly after this, Spenser, a poor and broken man, came to London with his wife and children, and soon died in a cheap lodging-house.
Spenser is sometimes called " the poet's poet" because so many later English poets learned the art of versification from his works. He is famous as an experimenter in verse forms, many of which became traditional in England. He created a sonnet from of his own, the Spenserian sonnet:
One day I wrote her name upon the strand beach
But came the waves and washed 2 it away;
Again I wrote it with a second hand, for the second time
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost it vain assay try
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay, like this
And eke my name be wiped out likewise." also; shall be
"Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise said
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall 'enternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name,
Where, 'whenas Death shall all the world subdue, when
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
("Amoretty" Sonnet. Modernized spelling)
Spenser gave English verse a melodiousness and harmony unknown before him; compared to his poems, the works of, say, Wyatt or Surrey seem clumsy and even crude.
But Spenser was not only a "musician in poetry", but a ""painter" as well. In his huge poem "The Faerie Queene"(only six books out of the planned twelve were completed), it is not the story about the adventures of the knights that attracts us, but the passages that describe nature, or picturesque allegorical scenes. Here, for example, is a procession of the seasons:
So forth issued the seasons of the year:
First, lusty al scenes. Here, for example, is a procession of the seasons:
So forth issued the seasons of the year:
First, lusty Spring, all dight in leaves of flowers dressed
That freshly budded and new blooms did bear
(In which a thousand birds had built their bowers, nests
That sweetly sung, to call forth paramours): mates
And in his hand a javelin he did light spear
And on his head (as fit for warlike stoures) conflicts
A gilt engraved morion he did wear; a kind of helmet
That, as some did him love, so others did him fear.
Then came the jolly Summer, being dight
In a thick silken cassock coloured green, a long robe
That was unlined all, to be more light:
And on his head a garland well beseen
He wore from which, as he had chauffed been, heated
The sweat did drop; and in his hand he bore
A bow and shaft, as he in forest green arrows
Had hunted late the leopard or the boar,
And now would bathe his limbs, with labour heated sore. very much
Then came the Autumn, all in yellow clad,
As so he joyed in his plenteous store, plentiful
Laden with fruits that made him laugh, full glad
That he had banished hunger, which to-fore before
Had by the belly oft him pinched sore.
Upon his head a wreath, that was enrolled
With ears of corn of every sort, he bore:
And in his hand a sickle he did hold,
To reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold. yielded
Lastly came Winter, clothed all in frieze, rough woolen cloth
Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill,
Whil'st on his hoary beard his breath did freeze, snow-white
And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill mouth
As from a limbeck did adown distill. vessel; down
In his right hand a tipped staff he held, stick
With which his feeble steps he stayed still;
For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; age
That scarce his loosed limbs he able was to wield. to use
("The Faerie Queene", Book 7, 1 Canto 7, Stanzas 18-21.
Modernized spelling)
Some of the rhymes in the extract are imperfect, in that they are rather visual (for the eye), than audial (for the ear). The reason is as follows. In medieval English the spelling and the pronunciation of the words, as a rule, coincided; later, when the language began to change, some words that were spelled alike began to be pronounced quite differently, but rhyming such words (for instance, "love" and "move") has remained a tradition in English versification.
The stanza of "The Faerie Queene" was constructed by Spenser and is called the Spenserian stanza after him. It is a nine-line stanza, the last line is in six-foot iambics, while the others are in five-foot iambics. Its rhyming scheme is ababbcbb . Many other poets used it: Burns ("The Cotter's Saturday Night"), Byron ("Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"), Shelley ("The Revolt of Islam ['izla:m]", "Adonais"), Keats ("The Eve of St. Agnes", "The Cap and Bells").