History of British Literature Periods PDF

Literature Survey 1 Unit 1 History of British Literature: Periods 1660-1789: 1945-present Restoration to The 20th ct. II:...

Literature Survey 1 Unit 1 History of British Literature: Periods 1660-1789: 1945-present Restoration to The 20th ct. II: until 1485: Romanticism, 1837-1901: The The Dark and The "Long" 18th The Victorian Contemporary Middle Ages ct. Age Period 1485-1660: 1789-1837: 1901-1945: The The Romantic The 20th ct I: Renaissance / Period Modernism Early Modern Period Survey Topic The history of British literature and culture of the early modern / “Renaissance” period o Time span between 1485 and 1660 Plus a VERY short outline of pre-medievval / Old English & medieval / Middle English literature Approach Socio-cultural contexts Literary texts: the literary system: poetry, drama, fiction 1) History and literature interact with and shape each other! That’s what makes the study of literature interesting! 2) No sound division: fact :: fiction Problems with the History of Literature 1. “Making History”: How to Define a Historical Period? Like history as such, the history of literature doesn’t exist per se: it is constructed by scholars The dating of each period is contingent: the dates may refer to the reigns of kings and queens, political key events, revolutions, important socio-cultural events, aesthetic movements… 3) Different literary history books list slightly different years or period names to define a hisotircal period 4) The dating of periods called by one and the same name may differ from country to country Example: The Romantic Period  - England: 1789/98 – 1832/7 - USA: 1828-1865 The Periods are named after ▪ Kings & Queens (Elizabethan, Victorian Age) ▪ Political Events (Restoration Period) ▪ Centuries (“Long” Eighteenth Century) ▪ Aesthetic / Philosophical Movements (Romanticism, Renaissance) 2. The Literary Canon: Gender, authorship, social hierarchy, aesthetic judgement The canon: technical term which defines the selection of texts which count as “good” / serious pieces of literature worthy to be studied in an academic context Example: is literature written by social outcasts as relevant for scholarly study as the texts written by Shakespeare? The literary canon doesn’t exist per se – like the history of literature, it is constructed by scholars For centuries the field of scholarship and the literary canon were dominated by men! o Many excellent women writers were excluded from the literary canon: cf. Woolf, A Room of One’s Own 1929 (“Shakespeare’s Sister”) Example 1: Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) First original play written by an Englishwoman Elizabeth Cary, Viscountess Falkland (1585-1639) Gender; female authorship, much of her literary work has been lost Only with the rise of feminist criticism, the play gained broader attention Example 2: Double Falsehood A “badly written” play attributed to the 18th century playwright Lewis Theobald Since its publication there was the rumour that the play may be an adaptation of a lost play co-written by Shakespeare: Cardenio 2010 Double Falsehood entered the Shakespeare canon as it was included into the prestigious Arden Shakespeare edition 5) Many excellent plays of Shakespeare’s Contemporaries were traditionally considered “Minor Elizabethan Drama” e.g. Thomas Kyd, Thomas Sackville etc. Titus Andronicus, Shakespeare’s “First Play” (1594) Owing to the flood of horror (murder, cannibalism, rape, bodily mutilation …) at work in the plot, scholars tried to deny Shakespeare’s authorship and exclude the play from the canon… “a horrible play beyond the dignity and genius of the greatest English playwright ever…” The literary canon is shaped by: Gender (Questionable) Authorship The author’s social prestige / cultural capital Aesthetic judgement / fashion of the day Elitist approaches to culture The Middle Ages 1) Periods of “Medieval” English Literature: Old English / Anglo-Saxon Period: ~450-1066 Middle English Period (1066-1485 2) Feudal Society Church („global“) King Nobles Knights Peasants The king’s power is assisted by the nobility and the high priesthood. Below follows the lower nobility (knights etc.), lower priesthood and the wealthy merchant classes. 6) These classes are fed and financed by the lower classes, the peasants, farmers etc.; they are the biggest social group! 7) Cities were extremely dirty, there was no sanitation, very unhealthy living conditions o Black Death (Plague) 3) The Christian Middle Ages The Roman Catholic Church has: Immense landed property1 (~30% of medieval England) The monopoly of education The monopoly of literacy (e.g. “Clerk” (somebody who officially writes things down) is derived from “Clericus” (somebody who works in a religious institution) 1 Landed property = Grundbesitz  The power to decide which knowledge is right or wrong (i.e. if the world is flat or round; if the sun moves around the earth or vice versa) 4.1) The Old English Period In the “Dark Ages”2 succeeding the Fall of Rome (476), Germanic / Anglo-Saxon tribes seize the power vacuum left by the decline and fall of the Roman Empire Christianization of the “pagan”3 culture of ancient Rome The legendary King Arthur and his table round (~500 A.D.4) Viking invasion (8th / 9th ct.) => Scandinavian influence (Old Norse5 as another Germanic vernacular) King Alfred the Great (871-900) stops the Vikings o Literature and art flourish 1066 Battle of Hastings: Norman conquest by William the Conqueror (“Billy the Conk”); French influence after 1066 The Literary System of the Old English Period Drama did NOT play a big role, literary system was dominated by poetry (especially verse epic) and prose Poetry o Heroic poems such as “The Battle of Maldon” o Elegiac poems (sad, lonely speaker): “The Seafarer”; “The Wanderer” o Anglo-Saxon Verse Epic ▪ Heroic epos (a long story [i.e. “epos”] told in verse): Beowulf, Ca. 700 AD; set in Scandinavia Prose 2 Term for the Early Middle Ages in Western Europe, concept originated 14th century (Petrarch, post-Roman centuries dark compared to the light of classical antiquity) → criticism! Term is pejorative, misleading, inaccurate 3 Paganismus = Heidentum; aus christlicher Sicht der Zustand, nicht zu einer der monotheistischen Religionen zu gehören 4 Anno Domini = n. Chr. 5 Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian: North Germanic language of medieval Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden up to the 14th century, from which the modern Scandinavian languages are derived  o King Alfred commissioned old English translations of Latin works in the field of religion, philosophy, history o Vogue of homilies (religious sermons6) and saints’ lives o Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum7 ▪ Bede = monk who used to write for the church, described Anglo-Saxons as vicious pagan killers and that Christianity shall convert these barbarians) Example of Old English: Ælfric's8 'Life of King Oswald' o 1st sentence: Æfter þan þe Augustinus to Engla lande becom, wæs sum æþele cyning, Oswold gehaten, on Norþhymbra lande, gelyfed swyþe on God. http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/STELLA/briantest/web/readings/old-english/?id=7 4.2) The Middle English Period The Bayeux Tapestry (original in the Normandy) huge banner that shows the battle of Hastings & before and after 1066-1485 1066 Norman Conquest: shift from “Germanic” Anglo-Saxon to French Culture (the Normans come from Normandy in Northern France) o The Norman Conquest involved more than the Battle of Hastings, they had to do a lot of convincing and more conquering of basically the whole island o Taxes were not in form of money, but as whatever was harvested e.g. wheat) Feudal system: King and Nobles! Everyone else were basically slaves Anglo-Saxons were killed and sometimes exiled → replaced by French nobility so o New upper class: French aristocratic court culture Norman-French spoken by elites, English reduced to a vernacular spoken dialect → legal courts, peasants wouldn’t understand the language + literature London becomes the capital and a centre of commerce Foundation of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge Catholic monasteries as centres of culture and education (literacy: clerk → Latin remained the language of the church UNIT 2 Middle English Period: Cultural Change :: Linguistic Change 6 Predigt 7 Kirchengeschichte des englischen Volkes, in Latein verfasstes frühmittelalterliches Geschichtswerk 8 Beiname Grammaticus; bedeutender Gelehrte des angelsächsischen Mönchtums im Frühmittelalter  The country’s new elite spoke French, which was considered the more prestigious language Only from the second half of the 14th century onwards (1350s), Middle English influenced by French emerges as a standard language in its own right in the London region Old English :: words of Germanic origin [+ Scandinavian borrowings from the Vikings such as “sky”: Old Norse] Middle English :: words of “Romanic” or Romance [French derived from Latin] origin This hybrid heritage of a Germanic and a more recent Romance / French linguistic tradition can still be observed: Freedom :: liberty Haven :: port Speed :: velocity Holy :: sacred Safe :: secure To ask :: to question To sell :: to vend → Note: the paradoxical status of Classical Latin in English Culture Although England used to be a colon of the Roman Empire, there is not really a direct impact of Latin, which was all but forgotten in the Dark Ages of the Old English / Anglo-Saxon period 8) Middle English was shaped by French: i.e. a vernacular9 / Romance language derived from Latin (indirect impact of Latin) In the early modern period, Latin was rediscovered by the humanist movement 9) The Roman influence is reinforced when the Humanists rediscover the Latin tradition of ancient Rome in the Early Modern / Renaissance period (i.e. 15th / 16th / 17th ct.) o E.g. foreign → “peregrinate” The Literary System of the Middle English Period *Prose *Poetry (mainly narrative poetry such as the verse epic) *(now also) Drama Prose: Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D’Artur (~1470 ; 1st printed in 1485 aka at the end of the Middle English Period) → a compilation of French and English legends about the reign of the old English King Arthur, his table round and the myth of the Holy Grail → these heroic tales belong to the stock inventory of European medieval literature → of great importance for the popular imagination; rewritings and adaptations until the present (The Waste Land, Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, or (also stock inventory) Tristan; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde etc.) Narrative poetry (epic etc.): →Popular songs and ballads (narrative poems) 9 Vernacular: Volksmund; the form of a language that a particular group of speakers (in a region/country/etc.) use naturally; using a language or dialect native to the region or country (as distinct from what is seen as a standard language) i.e. stands for id est (Latin for “that is”)  Layamon, Brut (~1200) o first national epic in English about the foundation of Britain: King Brutus of Troy John Gower (~1330-1408) o Mirour de l’Omme (in Anglo-Norman) o Vox Clamantis (Latin) o Confessio Amantis (English) William Langland (~1330-87) o Piers Plowman : Allegorical quest for a good Christian life + social satire Geoffrey Chaucer (~1343-1400) o The House of Fame, Troilus and Criseyde, The Canterbury Tales, The Legend of Good Women (unfinished) Geoffrey Chaucer (~1343-1400) Rich London merchant family (middle class!) Career at the royal court Diplomatic missions to France and Italy o 1368 Milan? Meeting with Francesco Petrarca maybe?? (famous Italian poet) o 1372/73 Florence (in contrast to medieval England, the Renaissance is already in full swing in Italy, and Florence is one of its hotspots) Gets to know the works of Dante and Bocaccio!!! Middle Ages → Renaissance Italian Renaissance Culture: *late 14th century o Trecento = the 14th century as a period of Italian art, architecture, or literature; Petrarca’s death 1374 English Renaissance Culture: *1510 10) It takes at least 100-150 years until Renaissance culture crosses the Alps and travels to the north French and Italian influence Petrarca (and Dante before him) was the poet who introduced the Italian vernacular rather than Latin as a language suited for literature → Italian enters the literary canon! Chaucer introduced the local idiom of Middle English into a literary field which was then dominated by French (the language spoken by the Norman invaders since 1066) o Becomes the father of (Middle) English literature → Middle English enters the literary canon Boccaccio, Il Decamerone (probably 1348-53) o Framed collection of naughty erotic tales, novellae / structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of young women + men Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales (written in Middle English between ~1387-?) A collection of tales (mainly in verse) held together by the narrative framework of a pilgrimage; some of the tales are decidedly naughty and erotic such as Boccaccio’s Monumental collection of tales mostly told in verse Frame narrative (→ Boccaccio!): a pilgrimage to Canterbury (monastery in the South of England); story-telling contest Pilgrimage: ritual re-enactment of the human soul’s journey to God / quest of God Sacred journey :: worldly reasons  The tales present a critical picture of medieval English society, description of social order, different social classes etc. Apart from the high nobility, the whole spectrum of medieval society comes together Unfinished? No consensus as to whether or not a complete version of the Tales exists + what order Chaucer intended Some of the tales o The general prologue o The Knight’s Tale ▪ First tale, told in verse, Knight is person of highest social standing amongst the pilgrims; however, his manners + clothes are unpretentious ▪ Themes: knighthood, courtly love, ethical dilemmas o The Miller’s Tale ▪ Begins the trend in which succeeding tellers “quite” (one-up) the previous one; to quite = a Middle English term meaning requite or pay back ▪ Story of a carpenter + his wife, two younger men who want to sleep with her Wife starts an affair with Nicholas, Absolon tries to woo her by singing love songs o Plan with Nicholas: Astrology, flood allowing them to flee John’s observation Alisoun fools Absolon (he kisses her butt), revenge + then he burns Nicholas’ butt, John wakes up, thinks it’s the flood and breaks his arm o The Miller’s Tale (PPT. from the course!) ▪ Fabliau = a French tradition; an obscene short narrative such as the ones collected by Boccaccio: Amour Courtois / courtly love: unattainable chaste married woman wooed by a knight vs. worldly love: sex and adultery! ▪ Synopsis: John :: Alisoun & Nicholas :: Absolon Social Satire o Like society in general, the church turns out to be an all-too worldly institution o Rather than the afterlife of their souls, the pilgrims enjoy the here and now vs. medieval world picture: contemptus mundi10 represented by the wheel of fortune and medieval religious drama Medieval/Christian world view The danse macabre: vanity of the here & now (→ the plague / “black death”) o Artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death o Produced as memento mori (to remind ppl. Of the fragility of their lives + how vain the glories of earthly life are) The wheel of fortune o Symbol of the capricious nature of Fate o Fortuna spins the wheel at random, changing the positions of those on the wheel 10 moral disdain for physical existence in anticipation of an afterlife  ▪ Contemptus mundi: flee the here and now with its worldly pleasures to save your soul in the afterlife Medieval Drama: Medieval English Religious Drama → shapes the worldly drama of the Renaissance period Miracle Plays o Staging of biblical miracles, saints & martyrs o 10th / 11th century: staged in church during the liturgical offices on holidays o Gradual secularization: the performance moves out of the church and is filled with highly popular comic elements => source material for the development of early modern comedy Mystery Plays (15th ct.) o The local guilds of craftsmen re-enact Biblical key-episodes in the streets and on the marketplace of their hometown o Like in the case of the miracle plays: religion fused with farce-like entertainment (especially Noah- and Herod-episode) o Dramatized history of the world: Creation → Last Judgement o Fixed stages of movable pageants11 o Well-known mystery cycles: York, Coventry, Townley, Chester o The locals guilds stage biblical key-scenes on wagons placed throughout the city -> the spectators move from stage to stage Example pic in ppt. Noah and the Flood (Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” also plays with the comic potential of Noah’s unruly wife; known from the Mystery Play tradition) Morality Plays o Everyman (i.e. allegorical figure representing Mankind) is seduced by Vice (Satan), falls, repents and is finally saved by God’s mercy o 15th ct.: The Castle of Perseverance, Mankynd o Early 16th ct.: Everyman o Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann staged at the annual Salzburg Festival is a rewriting of the 15th century English morality play The Somonynge of Everman o Medieval morality play: “Theatre in the Round” ▪ Christian morality Play :: similarity to classical amphitheatres Interludes (15th / 16th ct.) 11 Schauspiel, Festzug, Umzug, …  o Secularized follow-up genre of Christian drama: church → royal court o Courtly entertainment between the courses of a banquet etc. (i.e. “inter-lude”) o Ethical humanist debate: what makes a good ruler / politician? o Examples ▪ Heywood, The Play of the Weather (1533), Pikeryng, Horestes (1567) Ruling Dynasties of the Middle English Period The Plantagenets 1154-1399 House of Lancaster 1399-1461 Wars of the Roses 1455-85 House of York 1461-1485 11) Both houses (York + Lancaster) claim to be the legitimate successor of the Plantagenet line + they fight each other o York symbolized by a white rose, Lancaster by a red one 12) During this civil war, the old high nobility more or less dies out → the actual winner is an outsider: Henry Tudor who becomes King Henry VII in 1485 → this marks the beginning of a new era: the Renaissance, or early modern period Periods of British Literature Old English / Anglo-Saxon Period: ~450-1066 Middle English Period: 1066-1485 The Middle Ages “Modern” British Literature: Early Modern / Renaissance Period: 1485-1660 Restoration to Romanticism: 1660-1789 Romantic Period: 1789-1837 Victorian Period: 1837-1901 Twentieth Century I: 1901-1945 Twentieth Century II: 1945-present “Renaissance” or “Early Modern”? → Renaissance is a slightly problematic term coined by Jules Michelet: Borrowed from the history of art rather than literature From an Italian main focus: Jakob Burckhardt, Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860) Rinascimento: the re-birth of the classical Greco-Roman tradition reconstructed by the humanists “early modern” as a more neutral term Renaissance / Early Modern Period Italian Renaissance Culture: *late 14th century (trecento; name for 14th century Italy in cultural studies/history) English Renaissance Culture: *1510 13) It takes more than 100 years until Renaissance culture crosses the Alps and travels to the north  Early Modern or Renaissance England 1485-1660 The time span from 1485-1660 may be subdivided as follows Early Tudor Age 1485-1557 o Henry VII 1485-1509 o Henry VIII 1509-1547 Tudor o Edward VI 1547-1553 o (Bloody) Mary I 1553-1558 Elizabethan Age 1558-1603 o Elizabeth I Jacobean Age 1603-1625 o James I Stuart Caroline Age 1625-1649 o Charles I Commonwealth Interregnum 1649-1660 o Cromwell Prior to 1485: civil wars! The Wars of the Roses (Lancaster vs. York, two side-lines of the House of Plantagenet whose main line died out when Richard II passed away in 1400 → the members of the high nobility kill each other  In 1485 Henry Tudor (=outsider, didn’t belong to high nobility) unites the conflicting forces and becomes King Henry VII: he fills the power vacuum produced by the Wars of Roses and claims the throne He is the founding father of a new Royal Dynasty: the House of Tudor which rules England until 1603 His son Henry VIII transforms England from a small provincial kingdom into a major European power. The Rise of Tudor England under Henry VIII (1509-1547) Modernizes the army: England becomes a sea power with a brand-new navy The Royal Court: concentration & centralization of power Creates a new political elite of court professionals to administrate a modern state apparatus: the lower nobility or gentry  As he distributes the country’s wealth among this new political class, Henry can rely on absolute loyalty Who proves to be disloyal, becomes imprisoned and killed → a new way of power politics: keeping his subjects in check by monetary reward and fear of death England becomes a modern nation state ruled by the absolute power of the king who rewards and controls the political elite of the gentry, which administrates the state offices o England as a nascent nation state England becomes a modern state managed by professional politicians rather than an illiterate Medieval king and his equally illiterate high nobility The high nobility eliminated itself in the Wars of Roses → rise of the lower nobility / gentry Henry VIII revolutionizes the country’s social stratification => social mobility (change feudal system) The Middle Ages as a static society determined by the Right of Birth → Early Modern Society with A more dynamic social stratification: a certain social mobility via specialist knowledge in the field of politics, literacy etc. Humanist education: nobleman → gentleman (still a culture dominated by men) One becomes a gentleman via learning and education rather than the right of birth Social advancement of educated members of the gentry New school system: public schools (teachers of humanist movement) => education as new key to social mobility Literacy as the Political Key Qualification Monopoly of education: church → secular school system organized by the humanists Whoever was literate enjoyed special social privileges (you could even kill somebody, and weren’t sent to gallows, because the demand for educated people was so high) C.f. The Neck-Verse (1st verse of Psalm 51); to prove that you were literate, you had to read out the first verse of Psalm 51 o Urgent need of literate people (Again) The Rise of Tudor England under Henry VIII - Modernizes army - Creates a new political elite of court professionals to administer a modern state apparatus - England as a nascent nation state How to realize such a shift towards modernity? → three major requirements – you need 1) Money 2) Knowledge 3) Representational system of power politics (as the right of birth has become contingent, you have to display your power in order to make others believe in your authority Money How does Henry get the money needed to build a new army and to enrich (i.e. bribe) the new political elite? The state budget has become exhausted after the pre-1485 civil wars, so how could he get fresh money? 30% of England’s Wealth belongs to the Roman Catholic Church → why? Because of the concept of purgatory 12 as a money-making machine (triggered by the Pope) => invention of a sphere 12 Fegefeuer  between heaven and earth, if you don’t go to heaven immediately (bc. you are holy/have never sinned etc.), but into purgatory where you will suffer immensely - According to the Pope, there is a way to escape purgatory: letter of indulgence (the church sold these letters that claim that you are freed from your sins and can go to heaven directly) - To escape purgatory, wealthy Catholics donated huge sums of money and landed property to the Church: they paid to be delivered of their sins and to get into heaven - This highly profitable deal with Papal indulgences13 is one of the reasons why Martin Luther and other reformers triggered off the Protestant movement in 1517 Henry’s reign coincides with the rise of the protestant movement / reformation discourse on the continent To get the money he needed for his state, Henry VIII claims to follow the example of Luther’s spiritual reformation In 1534 Henry splits from Rome, founds the Church of England (claims himself the head of the Church of England) and dispossesses the Roman Catholic Church Need for money rather than Henry’s marriage policy (6 wives) as the reformatory driving force!! 13 Päpstliche Ablässe   So money ✓ Note! ❖ The Reformation as one of the driving forces of early modern English culture! ❖ The reformation only proved to be successful because Gutenberg had invented the mechanical printing press: fast and cheap reproduction and dissemination of Protestant writings ❖ In 1476, William Caxton sets up the first printing house in England The Printing Press – A Media Revolution! Figure 1: Gutenberg (Mainz) Figure 2: Caxton (London) Prototype : the Wine Press Knowledge… Related to the money question: like the money, the arrival of “new” knowledge goes hand in hand with the dispossession of the Catholic Church Up to the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church controlled the monopoly of knowledge: only the members of the church were educated in monasteries – the country’s nobility could not read or write … Henry VIII creates a new humanist school system available for “everyone”: “public” schools o E.g. the Stratford Public School (maybe insert pics) New Humanist School System Humanism: intellectual movement to propagate literacy and classical philosophical knowledge The new humanist school system breeds a new class of political professionals who can write, read and speak several languages Printing press → books are becoming cheaper Important humanists o Sir Thomas More ▪ becomes the Lord Chancellor of Henry VIII (so the 1st politician of Henry’s state apparatus) ▪ Three years later, he resigned from his office though after Henry’s break with Rome, as he did not agree with him (giving poor health as excus) ▪ Refusal to swear Oath of Supremacy and accept Henry VIII as head of church => executed for high treason in the tower ▪ Before his death he reverted to Catholicism and died as a catholic martyr => church declared him as a saint o Erasmus of Rotterdam Parts of the Humanist Curriculum Latin as a lingua franca14 Cicero, Seneca (classical Latin, political science, philosophy) Rhetoric (→ political debate; argue for a political position) Socrates (ethics), Plato & Neoplatonic philosophy Senecan Tragedy, Comedies of Plautus & Terence Ovid’s Metamorphoses Plutarch’s Parallel Lives (→ history) The Humanist Movement as the intellectual background of the rise of renaissance culture - Renaissance: Italian origin (Rinascimento): rebirth of the ancient (pre-Christian!) Greco- Roman culture - New knowledge, new art inspired by the classical (Roman) tradition, rather than the biblical tradition of the church - New world picture: man as the central focus of the universe - New concept of man as a worldly being vs. medieval contemptus mundi o Embrace (rather than flee) the world! Medieval vs. renaissance art - Biblical → classical topics - Human body / worldly pleasure = sin → beauty of the here and now - Medieval contemptus mundi & wheel of fortune → seize the world o Francis Bacon, Novum Organum15 14 Lingua franca = a common language serving as a regular means of communication relating to scientific, technological and academic information between different linguistic groups in a multilingual speech community 15 details a new system of logic he believes to be > the old ways; often thought  - Renaissance o The intellectual Eros o Being made in God’s image, mankind becomes the centre of the world / cosmos o God-like beauty and dignity of mankind ▪ Michelangelo David, Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical art etc. New Anthropocentric World Picture The Great Chain of Being (later called the Elizabethan World Picture): Every part of the cosmos is connected with each other via analogy and correspondence o The human and the superhuman world o The macrocosm (world) and the microcosm (man as a little world in itself) o Anthropocentric: man as the hub of the cosmic spheres Man is torn between o The spiritual sphere of the heaven (made in God’s image) and o The animal world of unruly bodily passions (cf. the post-Edenic Fall of Mankind) Shift towards modernity 1) Money ✓ 2) Knowledge ✓ 3) Representational system of power politics? a. The right of birth has become contingent, hence power has to be gained and displayed in public Representation Art (painting and literature) As a means to display / represent power As a means of power politics and political self-promotion / image-propaganda Renaissance Self-Fashioning from More to Shakespeare (Stephen Greenblatt) - This is the main reason for the flourishing of art in the Renaissance period Renaissance Art: power politics – the sword o Symbolizes power, protection, authority etc.; sword is phallic, with the sheath being yonic o The Humanist Power of the Word (insert painting from ppt.) Example: Federico da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino o First self-made man of power o Seized power as a war lord o Picture: fashions himself as scholar and soldier; he fuses the ideas of the 2 previous pictures (Humanist power of the word+ sword)  The Ideal Courtier / Renaissance Gentleman as Soldier and Scholar How to realize such a shift towards modernity? 1) Money ✓ 2) Knowledge ✓ of as turning point medieval thinking :: modern methodical science  3) Representational system: Renaissance art as a means to represent power ✓ Cf. contemporary culture (presidential elections etc.) If you think about it, contemporary culture of presidential elections etc. isn’t so different: You need the external funding of your campaign (money), you have to create a public image (social knowledge), and this image has to be disseminated by the media (art as an early modern medium / representational system) as a means of power politics When talking about art as a means of Renaissance power politics and political self-promotion, we have to differentiate between 1) The pictorial arts (painting (Holbein!), sculpture etc.) and 2) The verbal art (literature) At the royal court of Henry VIII – the political centre of the early modern state – the art of poetry functions as an important means of political self-promotion => Poetry as a means to show your intellect and wit The most popular poetic genre at that time is the sonnet, which was perfected by the Italian founding father of humanism: the tuscany-born Francesco Petrarca (English: Petrarch) - Henry VIII’s courtiers Wyatt & Surrey import the sonnet from Italy to England The Sonnet: Made in Italy Francesco Petrarca, Il Canzoniere (sonnet collection: Latin → native vernacular) o The Petrarchan Sonnet as one of the cultural innovations which boosted the renaissance movement The Standard Situation (Petrarchan Mode) expressed in the Sonnet: a young lover addresses a married woman whose love he cannot achieve Thomas Wyatt And The „Courtly Makers“ of Henry VIII who Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey import the sonnet from Italy to England - Sonnet as medium for courtly communication The English Sonnet 14 lines 3 Quatrains – Volta – Couplet ABAB CDCD EFEF GG Every line in iambic pentameter -‘ / -‘ / -‘ / -‘ / -‘  Example for iambic pentameter from Sonnet 18 Central Challenge / Dilemma: The central challenge a poet faces is that he has to follow a structural design with thematic conventions => overdetermined form of poetry (everything is determined in terms of generic conventions) Determination (Form) vs. Freedom (Content) The artist / court politician shows that he can move with ease through a rigid system where every single syllable seems to be predetermined Flexibility of thought; ability to find uncommon solutions / to solve problems which (allegedly) cannot be solved Sonnet = the most strictly regulated poetic genre - Highly conventionalized versification, structure, motifs, text elements etc. vs. original and often subversive rewriting of these conventions - The poet shows that he can move with ease within a strictly conventionalized prison-house-like generic framework Socio-cultural background of courtly poetry: Poetry as a means of courtly power politics Self-promotion: create a public image of himself Gain access to the king and secure patronage Development of persuasive skills relevant for politics & diplomacy Means to exchange power between the monarch and the artist / politician Some important features: Neo-platonic love: unattainable o Saint-like chaste lady of higher social status The poet as a vassal: political / courtly communication rather than love poetry - The unattainable wooing situation as a ritualized way to approach the king whose patronage is as unattainable as the Petrarchan lady? Important features to express this unattainable love  o Catalogue of beauty: blazon (physical appearance of lady is compared to most precious materials e.g. skin like marble, lips like rubies etc.) o Love as war, storm, illness → lady featured as poet’s enemy o The poet’s disposition → flood of tears, winds of sighs Time & mortality vs. art & the eternal beauty of the platonic idea(l) Sonnet enables poet to freeze time (lady will remain young & beautiful forever in context of the sonnet) Example: Wyatt Sir Thomas Wyatt => rewriting of Petrarchan Sonnet My galley, chargèd with forgetfulness, Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass Galley = ship (pars pro toto for poet) loaded ‘Tween rock and rock; and eke mine en’my, alas, with forgetfulness → poet wants to forget That is my lord, steereth with cruelness; the pain caused by the unattainability of And every owre a thought in readiness, the lady he is desperately in love with As though that death were light in such a case. Third line: lady is referred to as poet’s An endless wind doth tear the sail apace enemy & she navigates the ship with Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness. cruelness → danger of the journey → for A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain, poet being dead would be an act of mercy Hath done the weared cords great hinderance; Wreathèd with error and eke with ignorance. Sea passage is compared to poet’s personal The stars be hid that led me to this pain; disposition Drownèd is Reason that should me comfort, Political Dimension… And I remain despairing of the port. Like the incalculable dangers of a sea- voyage, the life of a politician at Henry’s court is dangerous → especially if one interferes with Henry’s love of women: every woman at court is “unattainable” (→ Petrarchan mode) as she might become henry’s next match (six wives!) Both Wyatt and Surrey lost their lives owing to political intrigues  Next poem: cultural transfer of the Surrey Italian Renaissance to Henry’s England: Henry’s court as a place of learning and FROM Tuscane came my lady‘s worthy race; spiritual perfection… Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat. Unattainable lady = Geraldine (the daughter The western isle whose pleasant shore doth face of Sir Fitzgerald, who Henry appointed Vice- Wild Camber’s cliffs, did give her lively heat. King in Ireland → he begins a rebellion which triggers the Tudor conquest of Ireland Foster’d she was with milk of Irish breast: (starting point of centuries of conflicts Her sire an Earl, her dame of Prince’s blood. between Ireland & England) From tender years, in Britain doth she rest, With Kinges child; where she tasteth costly food. Here it’s not the physical attributes that are described, she becomes an icon of the Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyen: cultural transfer of Renaissance culture Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight. from Italy to England Hampton me taught to wish her first for mine; Western Isle: Ireland, Camber’s Cliffs: Wales And Windsor, alas! Doth chase me from her sight. Geraldine moves to Britain, to the court of Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above; Henry; mention of Hampton Court, Windsor Happy is he that may obtain her love! etc. → places where King Henry dwells with his court → imitation of Italian Wyatt Renaissance culture, Geraldine becomes the embodiment of this process (her Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind, movement from Tuscany to England) But as for me, hélas, I may no more. The vain travail hath wearied me so sore, I am of them that farthest cometh behind. Yet may I by no means my wearied mind Neo-platonic love applied to real life Draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore situation: Wyatt is in love with a courtly Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore, lady, Anne Boleyn, mother of Elizabeth I), Sithens in a net I seek to hold the wind. but King wants her → made Wyatt’s life at court more dangerous than it already Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt, was) As well as I may spend his time in vain. And graven with diamonds in letters plain “hind” = white deer → adored lady; poet There is written, her fair neck round about: features himself as a hunter (courtly activity; he is an unsuccessful hunter, Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am, hind always escapes); And wild for to hold, though I seem tame. Do not touch me, because I belong to Caesar (representing King Henry) → shows that she is unapproachable, noli me tangere is a famous phrase from bible, where Jesus is resurrected Rewriting of a sonnet by Petrarca Petrarca, “Una Candida Cerva” - Includes numerous puns on Laura (unattainable lady from Petrarca’s Il canzoniere)  - Important difference to Wyatt’s poem: Laura is unattainable, because she belongs to God, meaning she will die soon => she is so perfect, that she will move to her original home (with Jesus) after she dies -> Laura is NOT a courtly woman!! - Petrarch’s Laura – a saint who mediates between the poet’s soul and god - “divine love” fused with the neo platonic tradition - Wyatt’s rewriting substitutes the spiritual (idealist) dimension with the political (realist) realities at Henry’s court - Speaker is between two rivers => he has to make a decision on what way to go in lif Prose translation A white doe on the grass appeared to me, with two golden horns, between two rivers, in the shade of a laurel, when the sun was rising in the unripe season. So pleasant-proud was its appearance that I left my work, and, like a miser, in whom the pleasure of hunting the treasure mitigates the inherent vexations, I followed the hind. “Let no one touch me,” she bore written with diamonds and topazes round her lovely neck. “It has pleased Caesar to make me free.” The sun had reached midday when, my eyes weary but not satiated with gazing, I fell into the water, and the hind disappeared. Summary comparative analysis: Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” An English rewriting of Petrarca’s “Una Candida Cerva” (Laura → Anne Boleyn) God → Henry VIII (head of the English Church) A highly original rewriting: topical allusions to Henry and his court rather than Petrarca A trend in early modern England (only way to contribute to the highly formalized / conventionalized genre of the sonnet in an original way); make it different rather than merely imitate Wyatt’s & Surrey’s place in literary history Wyatt & Surrey belong to the first generation of early modern English sonneteers (reign of Henry VIII 1509-1547) Shakespeare, Sidney and Spenser belong to the second generation of early modern English sonneteers – they work during the reign of the second great early modern English monarch: Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) The Literary System in the Early Tudor Age of Henry VIII - Poetry: the sonnet - Drama: not yet really relevant for the secular world - Prose: focus on humanist education of an ideal ethically committed Christian ruler: o Literary genre of utopian fiction: Thomas More, Utopia (1516) o “Mirror for Magistrates”-tradition founded by Erasmus, Institutio Principis Christiani (1516) ▪ Sir Thomas Elyot, The Book of the Governor Thomas More – Utopia: - 1st published in Latin (later on also English versions) - Subdivided into 2 books 1) Satire on England ruled by Henry VIII (England far from the ideal commonwealth)  2) England as an ideal commonwealth (e)u-topos (Greek pun: utopos = no place / eutopos good place; pronounced the same in English)) - Island of Utopia → an ideal England - Capital city: Amaurotum (Greek fogtown → London) - Narrator/speaker: Raphael Hythlodäeus (Greek pun: “truthsayer” / liar → foregrounding of dividing line between fact & fiction of this text) Book 1: Satire on England Passage talking about Enclosures (=land that belongs to nobody i.e. meadows etc. → could be used by poor people e.g. for their sheep etc.) Early capitalist wool trade (capitalists started to enclose/fence in these pieces of land, they also bought lots of sheep → normal/poor people lost everything) “sheep devour men”: Jesus as lamb of god sacrificing his flesh → sheep as Christian symbol of self-sacrifice → harsh contrast to early capitalist society Your sheep […] that commonly are so meek and so little, now, as I hear, they have become so greedy and fierce that they devour men themselves. They devastate and depopulate fields, houses and towns. For in whatever parts of the land sheep yield the finest and thus the most expensive wool, there the nobility and gentry, yes, and even some abbots though otherwise holy men, are not content with the old rents that the land yielded to their predecessors. Living in idleness and luxury without doing society any good no longer satisfies them; they have to do positive evil. For they leave no land free for the plough: they enclose every acre for pasture; they destroy houses and abolish towns, keeping only the churches – and those for sheep-barns […]. Book 2: An ideal state? Social justice (communism), free education, no hard manual labour, no money, free food & housing vs. no private sphere, private property, individual lifestyle: families Influences - More’s Utopia fuses a large spectrum of philosophical and literary traditions o Plato o Lucian (Homer, Virgil) o Ancient and early modern travel accounts Plato’s prototype Plato’s utopian state enfolded in Politeia as a humanist prototype An ideal commonwealth ruled by a philosopher King (but Plato failed at this!) No poets → fiction = telling lies Cf. Utopia, introduction: the fictitious commonwealth (u-topos / no-place) presented as an actual place to be found in the empirical world o Travel account ∞ philosophy The Narrator Raphael Hythlodaeus introduced to “More’s” semifictional persona:   Plato as sailor of the mind Lucian’s Prototype:: Fantastic Journey “A True Story” 2nd century AD Hellenistic World Ancient Greek satirist & philosopher Bizarrely fantastic fiction presented as fact Parody of the epic geography of Homer’s Odyssey (8th ct. BC) and Virgil’s Aeneid (19 BC) Example: discovery of a new world in the belly of a whale More also lots of satire, over the top etc. A Third Prototype: Ancient and Early Modern Travel Accounts Although these texts describe the empirical world, they also include fantastic / fictitious elements i.e. Mandeville, Travels (1356) o Fact ∞ fiction Thomas More Utopia – A Fusion of Various Prototypes - Plato*s philosophical design of an ideal state - Lucian’s fantastic mock-Odyssey-like journey: “fantasy” - Early modern discovery of new continents, islands etc. - Like ancient and early modern travel accounts, More’s Utopia blends fact & fiction o “and for the desire that he [Raphael Hythlodaeus] hadde to see and knowe the farre contreys of the worlde, he joined him selfe in companye with Amerike vespuce,” Thomas More’s Death Sentence He was Henry’s Lord Chancellor (~Prime Minister) Refuses to join the reformed church of England → is sentenced to death o Another example of power politics of Henry VIII Becomes a Catholic (!) Saint → power politics of the Roman Catholic Church Utopian Fiction The early modern period and the vogue of utopian fiction Utopian tradition triggered by the discovery of the world, new world picture, interest in cartography: Columbus, Vasco da Gama, … And also the rise of the modern nation states o How to design and rule an ideal commonwealth (scholars were obsessed with the question how to design + rule an ideal world) Utopian state → cancellation of history  o What is ideal / perfect can neither be improved nor decline, it is thus timeless and not subject to change Idealist utopianism (More) vs. Realist Approach (Machiavelli) - The ideal of a utopian commonwealth ruled by an ethically committed gentleman politician steeled by humanist education is challenged by Machiavelli’s amoral and strictly pragmatic analysis of worldly power in Il Principe (1513/32) → presents politics as they really are (amoral, dirty business) - In order to survive in this dirty business, the ruler has to fuse the subject positions of the lion and the fox → Machiavellian Ruler = lion AND fox utopian tradition is regulated by virtue → Machiavelli coins the term Virtù Virtue = ethical commitment Virtù = amoral power politics: catch occasion / by the forelock You can MANIPULATE the wheel of fortune, focus on here and now rather than after world (vs. medieval contemptus mundi) Another variant of the idealist approach: The Mirror for Magistrates-Tradition - Founded by Erasmus, Institutio Principis Christiani (1516) - Sir Thomas Elyot, The Book of the Governor (1531) - Debate of an ideal ruler (cf. the Utopia genre: debate of an ideal state) o Right of birth → political key qualifications o An ethically committed virtuous ruler steeled in humanist philosophy (vs. Machiavellian virtù) Other Rulers of Early Tudor Period - Edward VI 1547-53 (died at 16) o Henry’s only son - Mary Tudor aka Bloody Mary o Tried to bring the country back to Catholicism via fire and sword 1553-8 o Extremely fanatic catholic who burned Protestants at the stake o Famous account of her cruelties: Foxe, Book of Martyrs (1563) o Catholic Counter-Reformation! The Elizabethan Age (1558-1603) Elizabeth I – The “Faerie Queen”  Periods of English Literature Early Modern / Renaissance England - Middle Ages 1485-1660 o Old English / Anglo-Saxon Period 450-1066 Early Tudor Age 1485-1557 o Middle English Period 1066-1485 Elizabethan Age 1558-1603 - Modern English Literature Jacobean Age 1603-1625 o Early Modern / Renaissance Period 1485-1660 Caroline Age 1625-1649 o Restoration to Romanticism (Long 18th) 1660-1789 Commonwealth I. 1649-1660 o Romantic Period 1789/98-1832/7 o Victorianism 1837-1901 → Two Great Monarchs Represent o Modern Period 1901-1945 the House of Tudor: Henry VIII and o Postmodern 1945-… Elizabeth I Henry VIII: Power politics, the rise of the English nation after the Wars of the Roses Centralization & monopolization of royal power: the royal court Poetry / the sonnet as a means of courtly power politics: Renaissance self-fashioning Elizabeth I: Daughter of Herny VIII & Anne Boleyn (the one Sir Thomas Wyatt was in love with, wrote whoso list to hunt etc.) Reign 1558-1603 → her reign is known as the Elizabethan age; famous for her long rule life expectance v. low + hard bc. single female ruler surrounded by all male courtiers etc. Female ruler in a male-dominated age! o Refuses to marry to keep her power (bc. her power would have been transferred to her husband) Childless → succession? Future crisis! (tudor curse: being unable to continue the line by producing a masculine heir; in Elizabeth’s case: no heir at all) Strong & powerful rule, bringing England to power & prosperity, part of her reign also called Golden Age Self-fashioning / political self-propaganda: Virgin Queen → fills gap left by holy virgin Mary (meaning her power is sanctioned by God => she protects the Catholics) o Fashions herself as the Virgin Queen o Elizabeth also reminds of Diana Diana In Roman religion, goddess of wild & domestic animals and hunting; goddess of the moon o Identified with the Greek goddess Artemis A virginal Goddess Predecessor: the Minoan Goddess Britomartis (Βριτόμαρτις = “sweet virgin”) o Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, primarily worshipped on the island of Crete  The Ceryneian Hind16 (doe with golden horns, female deer, very very big; cf. una candida cerva?) is sacred to Diana Representation of Royal Power – Art (painting and literature) As a means to represent power As a means of power politics and political self-promotion: Renaissance “Self-Fashioning” o Reason for the flourishing of art in the Renaissance period The “Golden Age”: 1588 Armada (Armada = Spanish navy, armed fleet) Spanish (Catholic) Invasion → Armada 1588 (“divine” Intervention: God favours protestant England) Catholic ruler of Spanish empire wants to burn Elizabeth on the stake for embracing the protestant movement and bc. for him it was simply unnatural to see a woman on the throne English navy wins war against the greatest superpower of the early modern world: Spain o Elizabeth’s father had built new ships (they are small, fast, easy to navigate), which are better than the Spanish ships + unexpected storm at the cliffs that caught the Spanish armada off guard (thunderstorm = sign of god’s anger → protestant religion is favoured by God and therefore only right religion) Self-Fashioning: o Elizabeth I on the “Armada Portrait” ▪ Battle scenes in window behind Elizabeth: thunderstorm on the right, English navy sailing victoriously on the left ▪ Beginning of myth of English navy (navy guarantees prosperity of the country): famous song “rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves” ▪ Her right hand rests on the globe (probably on England), showing that England will be a world power) o Ditchley Portrait: Pictorial Art ∞ the Sonnet ▪ Elizabeth standing on the British isles, protecting them Elizabeth’s Self-Fashioning via Literature o Tudor Myth: and old English prophecy by Merlin the Magician from the medieval King Arthur Myth applied to the Tudor Dynasty o Dramatic genre of the history play: Shakespeare’s Pro-Tudor interpretation of History o Edmund Spenser’s Epic: The Fairie Queene ▪ Britomart-Episode: a chaste female knight ▪ Telling name: Britain & Mars + chaste goddess Britomartis / Diana → nationalist mythmaking on grand scale… o Cf. contemporary culture: Anachronistic painting Painting of Britomart 19th (19thct., ct) Britomart represents Queen E. (red hair, dressed as knight = power etc.) 16 Kerynitische Hirschkuh  o Elizabeth The Golden Age with Cate Blanchett The Literary System during Elizabeth’s Reign (1558-16039: Self-Fashioning: Literature Poetry Verse Epic Henry VIII: poetry (the rise of the sonnet) The poets from Henry’s political elite of the court Prose celebrate (i.e. help to legitimate) the new royal dynasty of the House of Tudor in exchange for royal patronage (money, land, monopolies) Drama Elizabeth I: the literary system becomes more differentiated – in addition to the sonnet, new traditions and literary forms emerge Poetry (Elizabeth’s Reign) An Elizabethan Poetry Collection: Tottel, Miscellany (1557): a pirated collection of 1st generation sonnets by Surrey, Wyatt etc. o Tottel’s collection introduces poetic forms imported from the continent and imitated at the royal court (such as the sonnet) to the English general reader In addition to the sonnet, new traditions and literary forms emerge: humanist imitation of classical source material; Poetry: o Petrarchan tradition of the sonnet (unattainable love) continues to flourish in the 1590s: second generation of sonneteers: sonnet cycles!! o Ovidian tradition of erotic (and misogynist) poetry (inspired by Ovid, Metamorphoses) o (Anti-)Pastoral Poetry (→ inspired by Virgil’s Eclogues: a collection of 10 shepherd poems): an idle utopian life of shepherds away from the hustle of the city and everyday chores (idyllic counterworld to how shepherds really lived) Second Generation of Sonneteers: Sonnet Cycles! - Spenser “Amoretti” - Sidney “Astrophil & Stella” - Shakespeare “Sonnets” - The Elizabethan Sonnet boom in the 1590s Sample: Shakespeare’s Sonnets - Written in the 1590s, published in 1609 - Collection of 154 poems - Shakespeare’s originality (he recycles Petrarchan tradition): tradition o Petrarchan → triangular constellation of love o Ageing poet (speaker) – young man – dark lady (complete opposite to Petrarchan lady & early modern ideals; she is not chaste) o Spiritual – bodily love o Gender problem: masculinity, femininity (e.g. woman represented as rather masculine being, and when speaker falls in love with her he loses his masculinity and becomes more and more feminine) - The series of 154 poems may also be read as an epic sequence …  o Analysis: individual poem – the series as a whole: o The aged poet as the speaker (persona) encourages his young friend to marry and have children (“procreation sonnets” 1-17) => the only way to stay young o Friendship and (Neo-Platonic?) love between the old poet and the young man – or homoerotic implications? o The aged poet is under the sexual spell of the “dark lady”: a middle-aged, nymphomaniac & witch-like “femme fatale” - Reflection of all imaginable aspects / facets of love & friendship - Mirror technique of analogy & correspondence (cf. Elizabethan World picture) - There are no absolute truths in the field of love – the truth lies midway, depends on each individual case and cannot be generalized The Petrarchan Catalogue of Beauty (Blazon): - Physical features of lady are compared to most precious things on earth → woman is reduced to her physical worth and to somebody who is possessed by a man The Blazon: Sidney – Astrophil and Stella (9th poem) [Astrophil: Greek star-lover; Stella: Latin star] Queen Virtue’s court, which some call Stella’s face, Prepared by Nature*s choicest furniture, Hath his front built of alabaster pure; Gold is the covering of that stately place. The door, by which, sometimes, comes forth her grace, Red porphyr is, which lock of pearl makes sure; Whose porches rich (which name of “cheeks” endure) Marble, mixed red and white, do interlace. The windows now, through which this heavenly guest Looks o’er the world, and can find nothing such Which dare claim from those lights the name of “best”, Oft touch they are, that without touch doth touch, [touchstone] Which Cupid’s self, from Beauty’s mind did draw: Of touch they are, and poor I am their straw. - Stella’s face is compared to a palace owned by an aristocrat (weird comparison, self-ironic re- writing of Petrarchan tradition?) - In his description, Sidney singles out each part of Stella’s face in separate praise, but with a twist: for all of this he does under the conceit that Stella is actually a building, namely “Queen Virtue’s court” (1), implying of course that Astrophil sees truth or “virtue” when he gazes upon his lover. Each facial feature is represented as a different part of this building, The Traditional Description of a Lady by Spenser (Amoretti LXXXI) (Petrarchan Catalogue of Beauty / Blazon) Fayre is my love, when her fayre golden heares, With the loose wynd ye waving chance to marke: Fayre when the rose in her red cheekes appears, Or in her eyes the fyre of love does sparke. Fayre when her brest lyke a rich laden barke, With pretious merchandize she forth doth lay: Fayre when that cloud of pryde which oft doth dark Her goodly light with smiles she drives away, But fayrest she, when so she doth display The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight: Throgh which her words so wise do make their way To beare the message of her gentle spright. The rest be works of natures wonderment, But this the worke of harts astonishment. My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (Sonnet 130), Shakespeare Counter-Blazon - reference to material wealth & My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; richness (conventional way of Coral is far more red than her lips' red; representing woman), but then If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; reference to her mouth (she is given If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. voice of her own, becomes I have seen roses damasked, red and white, emancipated in a way) But no such roses see I in her cheeks; - Mocks the conventions of the blazon, And in some perfumes is there more delight meta-poetic poem, describes dark Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. lady?? - One of the best and funniest parodies I love to hear her speak, yet well I know of the Petrarchan sonnet That music hath a far more pleasing sound; - Volta before last couplet I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare As any she belied with false compare. - LG: in his sonnets, Petrarch praises her beauty, her worth, and perfection using an extraordinary variety of metaphors based largely on natural beauties o In Shakespeare’s day, these metaphors had already become cliché, but they were still the accepted technique for writing love poetry → poems tended to make highly idealizing comparisons between nature and the poets’ lover that were, if taken literally, completely ridiculous Ephemeral Life vs. Timeless Art: Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? In first stanza, speaker compares the Thou art more lovely and more temperate: addressee to a summer’s day; summer is Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, always too short and sometimes too hot or And summer’s lease hath all too short a date; too cloudy Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, addressed to the young man (!!) And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; meta-poem: art is eternal, victory over time And every fair from fair sometime declines, Being remembered By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd; Art: means of politics & means to approach But thy eternal summer shall not fade, eternity, overpowers death… Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st; Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade, Art stands per se When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st: “When in eternal..” as long as there are humans, the sonnet will exist → sonnet So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, freezes time and keeps addressee forever So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. young (this reflexion on the function of the - Sonneteer: no longer a courtly maker, but an sonnet makes it a meta-poem) authorial genius (bc. he brings about victory Life – art // time – eternity over time) - Timeless art as the poet’s victory over time (struggle against aging & mortality etc.) - Main person in poem described as forever young Spenser, Amoretti (75) One day I wrote her name upon the strand, ➔ addresses his future wife rather than But came the waves and washed it away: an unattainable Petrarchan damsel Again I wrote it with a second hand, ➔ the lady speaks!! New form of But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. companionate relationship! Dialogue, "Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay, interaction A mortal thing so to immortalize; she gets an independent voice (says For I myself shall like to this decay, that what happened to her name will And eke my name be wiped out likewise." also happen to her, she will die) but she says that with writing this "Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise poem on paper (instead of sand) he To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: overcomes time, and she will live on My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, 4ever) And in the heavens write your glorious name: ➔ End of the sonnet cycle: Where whenas death shall all the world subdue, “Epithalamion” (marriage song) Our love shall live, and later life renew." Sidney, Astrophil & Stella 1 a meta-poetic poem Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, ➔ Writer uses poetry to show That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,— his love (strong factor of Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, persuasion) Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,— ➔ Meta-poetic: “in verse my I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; love to show”, “and others’ Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain, feet” (=metre) Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow ➔ Pleasure + knowledge → Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain. “inventions” (was defined as first step in writing a perfect But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay; speech/poem, using rhetoric Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows; perfectly => “inventio”) And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way. ➔ Last stanza: needs to write Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes, spontaneously, art needs to Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, come naturally (from your "Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write." heart) Poetry during Elizabeth pt. 2: The Ovidian Short Epic: Epyllion - Shakespeare o Venus & Adonis o The Rape of Lucrece - Marlowe o Hero & Leander Poetry during Elizabeth pt. 3: (Anti-)Pastoral Poetry - Fantasies of a careless (!) down-to-earth simple life away from the stressful and complicated world of politics - An imagined (!) paradise-like rural counter-world for city dwellers - Doing nothing: eating, drinking, talking, love-making - Vs. reality: Shepherds earned very little and had a rough life The Pastoral in Literature: - Goes back to ancient Greek poets Hesiod, Theocritus - Most famous Latin example: Virgil’s Eclogues (Eclogue = technical term for shepherd poem) - Concept of the biblical shepherds; Christ as the good Shepherd; Jesus sacrificing himself like lamb - Vs. real life wool trade: enclosures; real-life shepherds: utmost poverty, starvation Pastoral Poetry: Marlowe (1564-93) - “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44675/the-passionate-shepherd-to-his-love (Mock-)Pastoral Poetry: Raleigh - Sir Walter Raleigh: “The Nymph’s reply to the Shepherd” (1600) - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44939/the-nymphs-reply-to-the-shepherd  → meta-poetry; says that Pastorals are only a form of escapism, and don’t represent real life 1.2 The Verse Epic - Includes aspects of poetry and aspects of prose (story) - The Verse Epic (→ Homer, Virgil): an extremely long narrative poem about the foundational myths / making of a nation in elevated language: Spenser, The Fairie Queene Verse Epic: Spenser, The Fairie Queene The Fairie Queene = flattering reference to Elizabeth I A monumental project: 12 books / 6 of them unfinished A national epic: the making of the nascent nation state A conduct book: “[…] to fashion a gentleman” (shows what qualities and virtues a gentleman should have etc.) A sort of encyclopaedia (tries to summarize the knowledge of the time) Allegory: virtues, vices … are personified by characters Chivalric virtues → features heroic knights etc. Example: The Red-Cross Knight (Book I) - Red-Cross Knight (→ St. George), protagonist of Book I: virtue of holiness - Fights the Monster/Dragon Error (stands for the wrong religious doctrine => Catholicism) - Una (Protestantism; Unified church) vs. Duessa (Catholicism; split church, internal quarrels) - Imprisonment by Duessa and Despair (despair = direct ticket to hell) - Together with King Arthur, Una rescues the Red-Cross Knight Example: Britomart (Book III) - Britomart: a female knight who represents the virtue of chastity (→ Elizabeth I.) - Meets King Arthur - Rescues the Red-Cross Knight (England) - Prophecy from Merlin → a variant of the Tudor Myth 2 Elizabethan Prose Overview - Idealist / Courtly Prose: Christian humanism at home … o Prose Romance & Didactic Romance o Didactic & Educational Treaties o Courtesy Books - Satirical / Popular Prose: Machiavellian corruption abroad … o The early modern Picaresque novel (vs. the modern novel as a genre emerging in the 18th ct.) 2.1 Prose Romance & Didactic Style - Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia (prose romance, 1590)  - John Lyly, Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (“Euphuism” a very artificial “Latinate” style of language: Humanism overdone / brought to an extreme; basically about the art of speaking, how a gentleman should speak) Many figures of speech Very artificial style Hypotactic style (subordinate clauses etc.) Euphues = Greek for graceful, witty Illustrates intellectual fashions and favourite themes of Renaissance society in a highly artificial and mannered style 2.2 Didactic & Educational Treaties - Translating the Bible into English (as an effect of Protestantism): the Geneva Bible (1560) became the canonical version of the bible - John Foxe, Acts & Monuments / Book of Martyrs (1563): protestant interpretation of history (→ prosecution of protestants under rule of Queen Mary / Bloody Mary) - Roger Ascham, The Schoolmaster (1570) o Handbook for future teachers / schoolmasters - Thomas Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (1588); o Travel report - Sir Philip Sidney, Defense of Poesy (1595); theoretical work, literary critical theory, Aristotle Harriot, A Brief and True Report of the Newfound Land of Virginia - Harriot accompanies Elizabeth’s court champion Sir Walter Raleigh on an overseas expedition - Raleigh founds the first English colony: Virginia (→ Virgin Queen): emerging imperialism: tobacco, potato - An account on the raw materials, natives & local customs in the new found land  - Religion & Colonial power politics: talks about illness that came from England, native population dies from it - Stephen Greenblatt wrote an analysis on this text called “Invisible Bullets” (1990) 2.3 Courtesy Books → How Gentlemen should behave etc. Sir Thomas Hoby, The Courtier (1561) - A translation of the European conduct book: Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (1528)  - Setting: Court of Urbino - Structural design: a (neo-)Platonic dialogue - The ideal Renaissance gentleman as uomo universale: soldier & scholar, sprezzatura [→ cd. Sir Philip Sidney: the art of perfect rhetoric; also has to appear natural] = behaving like a gentleman & your wit is something you were gifted with The Renaissance Gentleman as Soldier & Scholar “Above all things it importeth a courtier to be […] skullful and expert in letters and arms […] nible and speedy of body and mind.” – Gabriel Harvey’s entry in his copy of Hoby’s The Courtier - Cf. William Shakespeare, Hamlet Ophelia: O what a noble mind is here o’erthrown! Il Cortegiano, Baldassare The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword, Castiglione (1st ed. 1528) Th’expectancy and rose of the fair state, The glass of fashion and the mould of form, The observed of all observers, quite, quite down! → Sir Philip Sidney was the Iconic Courtier Courtier Poet 2.4 Satirical Prose - The early modern Picaresque novel (vs. modern novel as a genre emerging in the 18th ct.) - Picaresque novel in general o Story of a social underdog’s life o Picaro: *Spanish “mercenary”? o Serial plot, no character development, episodic o The anti-hero’s life-long fight against hunger, starvation o Anon, La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes (1552) - Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton (Picaresque Novel, 1594) o Starving underdog → witty observer Jack Wilton o “Merry old England” under Henry VIII o Henry’s army camp in France, Rotterdam, Wittenberg … o Jack’s grand tour with the “Earl of Surrey” (→ Geraldine Sonnet: fact ∞ fiction); doubling o Venice (Turkish courtesan); Rome (the Pope’s court and his courtesan, the Jewish arch-villain Dr. Zacharie)… ➔ Intertextuality: a text alluding to another text ➔ Early modern intertextuality: taking Surrey’s Geraldine Sonnet as an intertextual foil, Nashe makes fun of Petrarchan love and courtly self-fashioning  ➔ Tottel’s title „Description and praise for his loue Geraldine” ➔ Geraldine: born in Ireland, brought to England by her father, married old widower → sonnet led to the legend that he was her lover ➔ Nashe’s Unfortunate traveller further spread and expanded this legend (has been disproven by modern scholars though) ➔ Earl of Surrey is Jack’s travel partner, they travel to Itay to fulfil the Earl’s pledge to defend the honor of Geraldine in a tournament ➔ Surrey’s grandiloquent praise for Geraldine; shows author’s ability to play with literary history etc.  ➔ Surrey very dramatic, overly poetic and praising Geraldine ➔ Over the top love sonnets A Visit to Geraldine’s House in Florence: ➔ When they arrive in Florence, Surrey is overcome with poetry ➔ Surrey speaks a sonnet in honour of her fair room; Nashe mocks overbearing, lovesick verse of contemporary imitators of Petrarch ➔ The copia of Surrey’s verse gives way to a tournament in which the Earl competes for Geraldine Spontaneous Sonnet on Geraldine’s Room ➔ The copia of Surrey’s verse gives way to a tournament in which the Earl competes for Geraldine ➔ Nashe gives gratuitous (~übermäßig) descriptions of the competitors’ armor and horses in a manner that recalls printed accounts of early modern masques and other festive spectacles ➔ Surrey wins Surrey’s Chivalric Tournament in Honour of Geraldine Venice and Rome: Machiavellianism The Ottoman Prostitute Tabitha (role changer: master – servant) The Pope’s Courtesan (Kurtisane; Prostituierte) : Juliana, saves Jack and his girlfriend from the claws of death  The Jewish Doctor Zacharie, the Pope’s physician (wants to vivisect!! Jack’s corpse in the anatomy theatre) o Cf. University of Bologna: new empirical approach to medicine: anatomy lessons! Anti-semitism o Cf. the case of Elizabeth’s physician Dr. Lopez; Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta ➔ Tabitha the Temptress, ignorant that Jack and Surrey have exchanged identities, plots to kill Jack and entomb his body in the vaults below her house ➔ Tabitha and Flavia later have Jack + Surrey jailed for counterfeiting ➔ danger in women and “foreignness” symbolized here? Orientalism, foreign + female etc. Message: Stay at Home! - Anti-Catholic Propaganda: Italy as the seat of the anti- Christ (i.e. the Pope) and the devil incarnate (i.e. Machiavelli) → “Poison, Papism, Prostitution” Machiavelli intrigues -The nascent nation state England as the positive norm: English national identity formation process Anti-Catholic Propaganda against Italy and Spain: Background o “In Italy, one only learns "the art of atheism, the art of epicurizing, the art of whoring, […] the art of sodomitry." o Papal Excommunication of Elizabeth I o Jesuits infiltrate England from the continent o Plots to assassinate Elizabeth o The Spanish Armada Background I: A Satire (?) on Idealist Humanist Pedagogy: how to educate a Gentleman - Ascham The Schoolmaster (1570): “the Italianate Englishman” warned his fellow Englishmen about the dangers of Italy and its books - Stay at Home! -Making of English identity; nascent nation state - Protestantism: Catholicism Figure 2: The Schoolmaster Background 2: Realist / Disillusioned Approach: Machiavelli - Christian humanist virtue → Machiavellian virtù (“The Prince ») - Seize occasion by the forelock - English humanism demonizes Machiavelli and the Pope as the Anti-Christ / one of the demonic beasts from John’s Apocalypse - Protestant Anti-Papal propaganda Elizabethan Literary System 3: Drama As drama constitutes the most important genre of the early modern period – and as the most important plays emerged during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and her successor James I – this survey is going to present extra sessions on Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama in its own right!! The Early Modern Period after Elizabeth ➔ After Elizabeth’s childless death, a new dynasty emerges: the Stuarts ➔ Whereas Elizabeth was willing to reach a compromise with her subjects as far as power, religion etc. are concerned, the Stuart Kings fail to do so ➔ In the long run, their increasingly absolutistic arrogance leads to civil war…