Introduction to English Literature Course 2024/2025 PDF

‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ A Course in An Introduction to English Literature...

‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ A Course in An Introduction to English Literature First Year Students 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/ 2025 1  Index Introduction 4 ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Chapter One ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE CHAUCER 11 Chapter Two THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1340-1400) 15 Chapter Three THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 24 Chapter Four THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1558-1625) 27 Chapter 2024/2025 Five 2024/2025 2024/2025 THE AGE OF MILTON (1625-1660) 45 Chapter Six THE AGE OF DRYDEN (1660-1700) 55 Chapter Seven THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1745) 65 Chapter Eight THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1745-1798) 76 Chapter Nine THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH (1798-1832) 99 Chapter Ten THE AGE OF TENNYSON (1832-1887) 118 Chapter Eleven Late Victorian and Edwardian Literature (1880-1920) 144 2  Chapter Twelve Modernism & Literature (1920-1945) 163 Post- War and Post-Modern Literature ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 3 ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ ‫‪Introduction‬‬ ‫‪2024/2025‬‬ ‫‪2024/2025‬‬ ‫‪2024/2025‬‬ ‫‪4‬‬  The Definition of Literature Literature is any collection of any written work, but it is used more narrowly for ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, plays and poems. It includes both print and digital writings. Literature is a method of recording, preserving, and transmitting knowledge and entertainment. It can also have a social, psychological, spiritual, or political role. The term “literature” is sometimes used synonymously with literary fiction, which involves fiction written for a literary merit. Literature, as an art form, can also include works in various non-fiction genres, such as biography, diaries, memoirs, letters and essays. Oral literature is an ancient human tradition and was known all over the world. All along the human history, there were human 2024/2025 efforts to preserve and transmit 2024/2025 2024/2025 arts and knowledge that depended completely or partially on an oral tradition, across various cultures. Oral literature has been early found in ancient Greek literature especially in the form of poetry. Later on, early written literature was discovered in ancient Egypt, ancient China and ancient India. Homer’s epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, are central works of ancient Greek literature. It is generally accepted that the poems were composed at some point around the late eighth or early seventh century BC. Most researchers believe that the poems were originally transmitted orally. From antiquity until the present day, the influence of the Homeric epic on Western civilization has been significant inspiring many of its most famous works of literature, music, art and film. The Homeric epics were the greatest influence on ancient Greek culture and education. Some of the early Greek literary works are most influential. Classical Greek genres included philosophy, poetry, comedies and dramas. Plato (428/ 427or 5  424/423 – 348/ 347 BC) and Aristotle (384 – 322 BC) wrote philosophical texts that are regarded the foundation of Western philosophy. There were a number of influential poets and historians. Although drama was popular in ancient ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Greece, of the hundreds of tragedies written and performed during the classical age, only a limited number of plays by three authors still exist: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The plays of Aristophanes provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, the earliest form of Greek Comedy, and are in fact used to define the genre. It is true that a nation's literature is made up of the works of individual writers. This does not imply neglect of the personal factor. If each writer is to be considered with reference to literature as a whole, one main subject of enquiry must be the nature and value of his particular contribution 2024/2025 to that whole. But it does2024/2025 mean that, together with2024/2025 the personal factor, the great general movement of literature from age to age has to be investigated, and that every writer has to be interpreted in his connection with this general movement. To exhibit the interplay of the personal and the impersonal elements, history must be carefully studied. Since history is properly understood, history of English literature must also include some record of the forces which, period by period, have combined in the transformation of literary standards and tastes. Literature is not produced in a vacuum by men who stand outside all conditions of time and place. The literature of any age is necessarily shaped and coloured by all the elements which entered into the civilisation of that age. So the vital relationship between English literature and English life could not be ignored. 6  A mere list of authors, taken separately, and of their books, does not constitute a history of literature, for literature as a whole grows and changes from generation to generation, and in tracing this growth, ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ history must show the place which each writer occupies in it, and his relations with those who went before, and with those who came after him. A writer of exceptionally powerful personality is certain to stamp his impress upon his age, and amongst those who follow him many will always be found who, whether they are conscious of it or not, reveal his influence in their thought and style. Moreover, the popularity obtained by any writer with a particular kind of work will naturally breed imitations, and what has once been done successfully will for a time be done again and again. In this way "schools" are formed and "movements" 2024/2025 2024/2025 initiated, which2024/2025 last for a while, and then, when tastes presently change, and other "schools" and "movements" arise, disappear. Thus we speak of the "school" of Pope, meaning the whole succession of poets who wrote in the particular style. Such schools and movements always play a large part in the development of literature. It must be remembered, too, that even the most original men, the men who are most completely themselves, have their intellectual ancestry, and are often deeply indebted to others for inspiration and example. We frequently think of Shakespeare as if he stood altogether apart in the literature of his day, but in fact, he took the drama up at the point which it had reached when he began to write for the stage, and followed the lines which his forerunners had laid down. The history of literature, then, must take account of all these things. It must bring out the relationships between writer and writer and group and group; it must 7  trace the rise, growth, and decline of "schools" and "movements"; and whenever any given writer had been specially prominent in their evolution, it must consider the influence he exerted in making literature ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ either by keeping it in the old channels or in directing it into new. Types of Literature Poetry: Poetry has traditionally been distinguished from prose by its greater use of the aesthetic (artistic) qualities of language, including musical devices, and being set in lines and verses rather than paragraphs. Prior to the 19th century, poetry has commonly understood to something set in metrical lines. 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Prose: Prose generally makes far less use of aesthetic qualities of language than poetry. However, developments in modern literature, including free verse and prose poetry have tended to blur the differences. There are verse novels, a type of narrative poetry in which a novel-length narrative is told through the medium of poetry rather than prose. Novel: A novel is a long fictional narrative, usually written in prose. In the beginning, prose narrative did not distinguish between fact and fiction. Then, the term expanded to include marvelous and uncommon incidents and called it “fictitious narrative”, and sometimes included normal human events to represent the state of society. The modern novel emerges late in cultural history- roughly during the eighteenth century. 8  It has acquired a dominant position amongst literary forms, both popularly and critically. Novella: ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ A novella is defined to be too short to be considered as a novel and too long to be a short story. Publishers and literary award societies typically consider a novella to be between 17,000 and 40,000 words. Short Story: A short story could be defined as a brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and usually deals with a few characters. Graphic Novel: Graphic novels and comic books present 2024/2025 2024/2025 stories told in a combination of 2024/2025 artwork, dialogue, and text. Electronic Literature: Electronic literature is a literary genre consisting of works created exclusively on and for digital devices. Nonfiction: Nonfiction can fall within the broad category of literature as “any collection of written work”. Common literary examples of non-fiction include travel literature, biography, autobiography and memoir, journalism, letter, diary, history, economics, scientific writing and technical writings. Drama: Drama is literature intended for performance. The form is combined with music and dance in opera and musical theatre. A plat is a written 9  dramatic work by a playwright that is intended for performance in a theatre, on a stage, it involves chiefly dialogue between characters. In the twentieth century, scripts written for non-stage media have been added ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ to this form including radio, television and film. The term “Drama” in general refers to a play which is neither tragedy nor comedy. The two masks associated with drama represent the traditional generic division between comedy and tragedy. They are symbols of the ancient Greek Muses, Thalia and Melpomene. Thalia was the Muse of comedy (the laughing face), while Melpomene was the Muse of tragedy (the weeping face). Western drama originates in classical Greece. The theatrical culture of the city-state of Athens produced three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Awards: There are numerous awards recognizing achievement and contribution in literature. The Nobel Prize in Literature is one of the six Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, and it is awarded to an author on the basis of their body of work, rather than to, or for a particular work itself. There is a number of other international literary prizes including Pulitzer Prize, Hugo Award, Guardian First Book Award and others. 10  Chapter One ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE CHAUCER (500-1340) ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Among historians of the English language it was formerly the practice to draw a sharp dividing line between what they called "Anglo-Saxon" and that new speech, which they distinguished as "English". The new form of language gradually arose after the Conquest from the union of this Anglo-Saxon with the Norman French brought over by the Conqueror. This dividing line is not recognised by modern writers, who insist that the English of the fourteenth century grew out of the Anglo-Saxon of the fifth by a regular course of evolution, and that nothing occurred at any stage2024/2025 to break its continuity. For this reason, 2024/2025 the term Anglo-Saxon is 2024/2025 now commonly dropped and "Old English" used instead. A corresponding change has naturally taken place in the interpretation of the history of literature. Here, again, the idea of unbroken continuity is emphasised, and as what was once called Anglo-Saxon is regarded as an early form of English speech, so what was once called Anglo-Saxon literature is regarded as an early form of English literature. According to this conception, English literature did not begin, as used to be said, with Chaucer. It began far back with the beginnings of the history of the English people on the continent of Europe, before bands of them had settled in the little island which was presently to become the home of their race. It is true that we can trace the gradual growth of Chaucer's (1340-1399) language by a process of slow unbroken development out of that which Caedmon had used some seven centuries earlier. But there is still one 11  fundamental difference between Chaucer's English and Caedmon's. We have to learn Caedmon's Old English as we learn a foreign language, while though Chaucer's Middle English is full of words and idioms which ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ puzzle us, we rightly feel that it is only an ancient form of the same tongue that we use to-day. Though literature before Chaucer constitutes a special field of study, and that it is only with Chaucer that modern English literature definitely begins. English Literature before the Conquest: A considerable body of Anglo-Saxon poetry has been preserved; including one piece of immense interest, the epic Beowulf. Of the authorship 2024/2025 of this nothing is known, and its history is still a matter 2024/2025 of 2024/2025 controversy. But it is probable that it grew up in the form of ballads among the ancestors of the English in Denmark and South Sweden, that in this form it was brought by invaders to this country, and that it was here fashioned into an epic, perhaps by some Northumbrian poet, about the eighth century. It tells with rude vigour of the mighty achievements of the hero whose name it bears; how, first, he fought and killed the monster Grendel, who for twelve years had wasted the land of the King of the Danes; how, next, he slew Grendel's mother; and how at last, a very old man, he went out to destroy a blazing dragon, receiving as well as giving a mortal wound. Vivid pictures of life in war and peace among our remote forefathers add greatly to the value of a fine old poem. Apart from Beowulf, the most important surviving examples of our oldest English poetry are to be found in the works of Caedmon and Cynewulf, both of whom belong to the north, and to the period immediately following the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, which 12  began at the end of the sixth century. CAEDMON, who died about 680, was a servant attached to the monastery of Whitby in Yorkshire. Anglo-Saxon poetry flourished most in the north; prose developed later ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ in the south but it possess little value as literature. Though hardly more than a translator, King ALFRED (849-901) holds an honourable place as the first to put the colloquial speech to systematic use. Among the works was the Latin Ecclesiastical History of the Venerable BEDE, or Baeda (673-735), who wrote at Jarrow in the kingdom of Northumbria. From the Norman Conquest to Chaucer From the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the thirteenth century English had a severe struggle to maintain 2024/2025 itself as a written language, 2024/2025 2024/2025 and as a consequence, English literature, which for nearly two hundred years before William's landing had shown little sign of life, now for another period of a hundred and fifty years almost ceased to exist. Its revival began in the reign of John, by which time the long-standing hostility between the native population and the invaders had been to a large extent outgrown, and, as the famous incident of Magna Charta shows, the two elements had been welded into a single people. The loss of the French possessions of the English crown tended still further to confirm the growing unity of the nation. In these circumstances English began to assert itself beside the rival tongue, which was already losing ground, and with this English literature assumes a certain historical interest. It now becomes clear how much has been gained in the meantime by the accumulation of fresh materials from various sources. 13  We see this in the case of the first noteworthy production of the revival, Brut, completed about 1205 by LAYAMON, a parish priest of Worcestershire. This enormous poem of some 30,000 lines contains the ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ legendary history of ancient Britain. But the point of special importance in connection with it is, that it is a paraphrase with additions of a versified chronicle, Brut d'Engleterre, of the Anglo-Norman poet Wace, which in its turn had been based upon the so-called History of Britain (1132) by the romancing Welsh annalist, Geoffrey of Monmouth. In Layamon's poem, then, three streams of influence Celtic, French, and English run together; while, though in versification it follows the Anglo- Saxon principle of alliteration. A little later came Ormulum (about 1215), a series of metrical sermons, in short lines without either rhyme or alliteration, by a Lincolnshire priest named ORM; and a prose treatise, or 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Rule of Anchoresses, (about 1225), prepared by some unknown writer for the guidance of three ladies entering the religious life. A charming dialogue poem, The Owl and the Nightingale (about 1220), in which the two birds discuss their respective merits, is historically interesting, because it discards alliteration and adopts French end-rhymes. This is the only other piece of native thirteenth century literature which calls for mention. The principal productions of the early fourteenth century ROBERT MANNYNG'S Handlyng Synne (Manual of Sins, I303); the prose Remorse of Conscience, (1340) both translated from the French; and the Cursor Mundi (about 1320), a versified account of scripture history together with many legends of the saints belong to religious rather than to general literature. 14  Chapter Two THE AGE OF CHAUCER (1340-1400) ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Geoffrey Chaucer was born in the reign of Edward III; lived through that of Richard II; and died the year after Henry IV ascended the throne. His life thus covers a period of glaring social contrasts and rapid political change. Edward's reign marks the highest development of mediaeval civilisation in England. It was also the midsummer of English chivalry. The spirit of his court was that of the romantic idealism which fills Chaucer's own Knightes Tale, and the story of his successive wars with France. Strong in its newly established unity, England went forth on its career of foreign conquest in a mood of flexible courage, 2024/2025 2024/2025 and every fresh triumph 2024/2025 served to give further stimulus to national ambition and pride. But there was another side to this picture. The king and his nobility led a very gay and elegant life. Trade expanded, and among the commercial classes wealth increased. But the masses of the people were meanwhile sunk in a condition of terrible misery. Epidemic after epidemic ravaged the land, and then in 1348-9 came the awful epidemic called the Black Death, which in a single year swept away more than a third of the entire population, and which reappeared in 1362, 1367, and 1370. Famine followed plague; vagrants and thieves multiplied; tyrannous laws passed to regulate labour only made bad matters worse. The French wars, which had given temporary glory to the arms of Edward, were fraught with disastrous consequences for his successor. Their enormous cost had to be met by heavy burdens of taxation, which were the immediate cause of a general rising of the common folk under Wat Tyler, Jack Straw, and the unfrocked priest, John 15  Ball. Though soon quelled, this was a sign of widespread social unrest. The temper of the England of Chaucer's closing years was therefore very different from that of the England into which he had been born. Among ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ the causes which greatly contributed to the increasing evils of Chaucer's age we must also reckon the corruption of the Church. Of spiritual zeal and energy very little was now left in the country. The greater bishops heaped up wealth, and lived in a godless and worldly way. Chaucer himself took little serious interest in social reform; yet the portraits which he draws for us of the fat, pleasure-loving monk, the merry and malicious friar, and that clever rogue, the pardoner, show that he was alive to the shocking state of things which existed in the religious world of his time. It is at this point that we recognise the importance of the work of John Wyclif (about 1320-84), "the morning star of the 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Reformation." That earnest and intrepid man gave the best of his life to the great task of reviving spiritual Christianity in England, and in the carrying out of his mission, he wrote religious pamphlets, and with the help of his disciples produced a complete English version of the Bible the first translation of the scriptures into any modern tongue. Social unrest and the beginnings of a new religious movement were thus two of the chief active forces in the England of the later fourteenth century. A third influence which did much to change the current of intellectual interests, and thus affected literature very directly, came from the new learning. Thus far, scholarship had been largely the concern of the Church, and men's thoughts and feelings about themselves and the world had been governed almost entirely by theology. Religious ideas and the mediaeval habit of mind were still the controlling elements in Chaucer's period, but their sway was now to some extent broken by the arrival of a fresh and very different spirit. 16  That spirit had arisen in Italy, chiefly from a renewed study of the literature of classical antiquity, and from the consequent awakening of enthusiasm not only for the art, but also for the moral ideas of Greece ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ and Rome. An enormous impetus was thus given to intellectual expansion and to men's efforts to liberate themselves from theological restrictions. The leaders of this great revival were the two celebrated Italian writers, Petrarch (1304-74) and Boccaccio (1313-75), and it was through their work in the main that the influence of humanism (as the new culture came to be called) passed into England, where its effect was soon shown in the quickened sense of beauty, the delight in life, and the free secular spirit which began to appear in English literature. It is here that we mark the rise of the vast and complex movement, which was presently to culminate in the Renaissance, 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Geoffrey Chaucer, who is so much the greatest figure in the English literature of the fourteenth century that he has thrown all his contemporaries completely into the shade, was born about 1340 in London, where his father did a flourishing business as a merchant. We know practically nothing about his childhood, but it is evident from the wide and varied scholarship which characterises his writings that he must have enjoyed the advantages of a liberal education. At seventeen, he received a court appointment as page to the wife of the Duke of Clarence, Edward III.'s third son. In 1359, he was with the English army in France, where he was taken prisoner; but he was soon ransomed, and returned to England. Sometime after this he married, and became valet of the king's chamber. From that time onward he was for many years closely connected with the court. He was often entrusted with diplomatic missions on the continent, two of them being to Italy. 17  He was thus brought into direct touch with Italian culture in the days of the early Renaissance, and may even have met Petrarch and Boccaccio. He makes pointed reference to Petrarch in the prologue to the Clerkes ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Tale. During these years he received many marks of royal favour, and for a time sat in Parliament as knight of the shire of Kent. At Christmas, 1399, he took a long lease of a house at Westminster, which suggests that he still looked forward to many years of life. But he died before the next year was out, and was buried in that part of Westminster Abbey which afterwards came to be known as the Poets' Corner. In studying Chaucer's work it is important to remember that his education as a poet was two-fold. Part of it came from literature; but part of it came from life. He was a thorough student, and in one of his 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 autobiographical passages (in The House of Fame) he tells us how after a long day over his accounts, he would go home at night and there pore over his beloved volumes till he was completely dazed. But he was not a mere bookman, nor was he in the least a visionary. Like Shakespeare and Milton, he was, on the contrary, a man of the world and of affairs. He had travelled much; he had seen life; his business at home and abroad brought him into intimate relations with people of all sorts; and with his quick insight into character and his keen eye for everything dramatic and picturesque and humorous, he was precisely the kind of poet to profit by such varied experiences. There is much that is purely bookish in his writings; but in the best of them we are always aware that he is not merely drawing upon what he has read, but that his genius is being led by his wide and deep knowledge of life itself. 18  Chaucer's Work in General It is usual and convenient to divide Chaucer's literary career into three periods, which are called his French, his Italian, and his English period, ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ respectively. His genius was nourished, to begin with, on the French poetry and romance which formed the favourite reading of the court and cultivated society during the time of his youth. Naturally he followed the fashion, and his early work was done on French models. Thus, besides translating portions at least of the then popular Roman de la Rose, he wrote, among other quite imitative things, an allegory on the death of Blanche, John of Gaunt's wife, which he called The Boke of the Duchesse (1369), and which is wholly in the manner of the reigning French school. Then, almost certainly as a direct result of his visits to Italy, French influences 2024/2025 disappear, and Italian influences 2024/2025 take their place. In 2024/2025 this second period (1370-84), Chaucer is the disciple of the great Italian masters, for The House of Fame clearly owes much to Dante, while Troylus and Cryseyde, by far his longest single poem, is based upon, and in part translated from, Boccaccio's Filostrato. To the close of this period the unfinished Legende of Good Women may also be referred. Finally, he ceases to be Italian as he had ceased to be French, and becomes English. This does not mean that he no longer draws freely upon French and Italian material. He continues to do this to the end. It simply means that, instead of being merely imitative, he becomes independent, relying upon himself entirely even for the use to which he puts his borrowed themes. To this last period belong, together with sundry minor poems, the Canterbury Tales, in which we have Chaucer's most famous and most characteristic work. 19  The Canterbury Tales These are a collection of stories fitted into a general framework which serves to hold them together. Some of them were certainly written ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ earlier, and before the framework had been thought of ; but we put the Tales as a whole into Chaucer's third period, because it was then that most of them were composed, and that the complete design shaped itself in the poet's mind. That design explains the title. A number of pilgrims on the eve of their departure meet at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, where, as it chances, Chaucer himself is also staying ; and, as he too is bent on the same errand, he is easily persuaded to join the party. Pilgrimages were very popular in the fourteenth century ; they were often undertaken, as here, in companies, partly for the sake of society by the way, and partly because of the dangers 2024/2025 of the roads ; and, it must 2024/2025 be 2024/2025 admitted, their prevailing spirit was anything but severely devotional. Sometimes the pilgrims went, as Chaucer's Wife of Bath had already done, as far afield as Rome and Jerusalem ; but one of the favourite expeditions nearer home was to the shrine of the murdered St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury; and thither these particular pilgrims are bound. The jolly host of the Tabard, Harry Bailly, gives them hearty welcome and a supper of his best good victual and strong drink to match; and, after they are satisfied, he makes this proposal : that to beguile the tedium of the journey each member of the party shall tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back ; that he himself shall be the judge; and that the one who tells the best tale shall be treated by all the rest to a supper on their return to the Tabard Inn. The suggestion is applauded, and these Canterbury Tales are the result. All this is explained in the Prologue, after which Chaucer proceeds to introduce his fellow-pilgrims. Though limited to what we may broadly 20  call the middle classes, the company is still very comprehensive. The military profession is represented by a knight, a squire, and a yeoman; the ecclesiastical, by a prioress, a nun (her secretary), a monk, a friar, a ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ sumnour (summoner of those charged under the authority of the ecclesiastical courts), a pardoner (or seller of pardons), a poor parson, and a Clerk of Oxford, who is a student of divinity. Then we have a lawyer and a physician, and, running down the social scale, a number of miscellaneous characters whom one cannot well classify a franklin (freeholder of land), a merchant, a shipman (sailor), a miller, a cook, a manciple (caterer for colleges), a reeve (land steward), a haberdasher, a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer, a tapycer (tapestry maker) , a ploughman (the poor parson's brother), and a well-to-do west-country cloth-maker named Alison, who, however, is better known as the Wife of Bath. In his 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 descriptions of the most prominent of these people Chaucer's powers are shown at their very highest, and this Prologue is a masterpiece of insight, sureness of touch, fine discrimination, and subtle humour. All the characters are individualised, yet their thoroughly typical quality gives unique value to Chaucer's picture of men and manners in the England of his time. As according to programme each of the pilgrims was to have told four stories, the poet's plan was a very large one. He lived to complete a small portion only, for the work, as we have it, is merely a fragment of twenty- four tales. Yet even as it stands its interest is wonderfully varied, for Chaucer is guided by a sense of dramatic propriety, and so the tales differ in character as widely as do those by whom they are told. Thus, to take extreme examples, we have the chivalrous epic of the Knight and the Clerk's beautiful account of the patient Griselda's wifely devotion 21  balanced in strange contrast by the coarse farcical stories of the Miller and the Reeve. It should be noted that in no case are the tales original in theme. Chaucer ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ takes his raw material from many different sources, and the range of his reading and his quick eye for anything and everything which would serve his purpose wherever he found it, are shown by the fact that he lays all sorts of literature, learned and popular, Latin, French, and Italian, under contribution. But whatever he borrows he makes entirely his own, and he remains one of the most delightful of our story-tellers in verse. His finest work as a narrative poet is the Knightes Tale, which in accordance with the law of dramatic propriety is heroic in subject, chivalrous in sentiment, and romantic in tone. 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 General Characteristics of Chaucer's Poetry Chaucer was not in any sense a poet of the people. He was a court poet, who wrote for cultured readers and a refined society. The great vital issues of the day never inspired his verse. He made his appeal to an audience composed of the favoured few, who wanted to be amused by comedy, or touched by pathos, or moved by romantic sentiment, but who did not wish to be disturbed by painful reminders of plagues, famines, and popular discontent. Thus, though he holds the mirror up to the life of his time, the dark underside of it is nowhere reflected by him. A specially charming feature of his poetry is its fresh out-of-doors atmosphere. His descriptions of the country are often indeed in the conventional manner of his time, and his garden landscape and May flowers are to some extent things of tradition only. But he has a real love of nature and particularly of the spring, and when he writes of these, as 22  in the Prologue and the Knightes Tale, the personal accent is unmistakable. We have already spoken of Chaucer's importance in the history of our ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ language. His fourteenth century (or "Middle") English looks very difficult at first, but only a little time and perseverance are needed to master it, and these will be amply repaid by the pleasure we are sure to find in the felicity of his diction and the melody of his verse. It will be observed that he abandons altogether the Old English irregular lines and alliteration "rim, ram, roff" as he jestingly calls it and adopts the French method of regular metre and end-rimes. Under his influence rime gradually displaced alliteration in English poetry. Other Poets of Chaucer's Age 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Chaucer's chief rival in poetry was JOHN GOWER (1332 ?-1408). The two poets were long friends, and Chaucer's dedication of his Troylus and Cryseyde to the "moral Gower," as he calls him, and Gower's warm reference to Chaucer towards the end of his Confessio Amantis, show their reciprocal esteem; but later on, jealousy and misunderstandings arose between them. Gower was a most industrious and well-meaning writer, and his work is extremely voluminous, learned, and careful ; but he had nothing of Chaucer's vivacity and charm, and for the most part he is hopelessly dull. 23  CHAPTER THREE THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ With Chaucer English literature made a brilliant beginning, but it was only a beginning, and after his death we enter upon a long barren period in its history. In trying to explain the unproductiveness of the fifteenth century we have, of course, to remember that there can never in any circumstances be great books unless men are born who are capable of writing them, and that the dearth of great books for a hundred years and more after Chaucer may therefore simply be the result of a dearth of literary talent. It is perhaps noteworthy that the fifteenth century was not in England an age of great men in any field of activity. But we must also 2024/2025 recognise that even when talent exists it depends upon favourable 2024/2025 2024/2025 conditions for its expression, and in the fifteenth century conditions were the reverse of favourable. Little affected by the labours of Wyclif, religion continued to degenerate, and persecution was employed to stamp out all efforts towards reform. The free movement of thought was thus checked. The country was distracted by political conflicts, which culminated in the thirty years' struggle for power (1455-86) between the Houses of York and Lancaster. In these Wars of the Roses many of the great nobles were killed, and the old order of feudalism severely shaken at its foundations. The low state of education has also to be emphasised. Such mental activity as still was to be found in the universities was wasted in endless and profitless controversies over the dry abstractions of mediaeval philosophy; while outside these centres of learning, and especially among the fast rising middle classes, a mercenary and sordid spirit prevailed, which was hostile to intellectual interests of any kind. In 24  fifteenth century England, therefore, there was little enough to inspire, and much to repress literary genius. We shall indeed see presently that signs of new life became increasingly apparent as the century ran its ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ course. But we may conveniently postpone the consideration of these till we come to deal with the revival of the early sixteenth century. Poetry of the Fifteenth Century The poor quality and general lifelessness of fifteenth century verse is at once suggested by the fact that the greater part of it is imitative. Nearly all the poets tried to walk in Chaucer's footsteps and, with little of his genius, laboured to reproduce his matter and style. Here and there real sympathy of mind and a touch of genuine power gave birth to work having a distinct merit of its own, as in the 2024/2025 beautiful The Flower and2024/2025 2024/2025 the Leaf, a poem long ascribed to Chaucer himself, but now referred to some anonymous writer of his school. But on the whole, like all merely imitative things in art, such productions are of slight permanent value. Of these Chaucerians, who were numerous, the best known are THOMAS OCCLEVE, or HOCCLEVE (1370 ?- 1450 ?), and JOHN LYDGATE (1370 ?- 1451), both of whom were very voluminous. Hoccleve wrote a long poem called The Governail of Princes, in Chaucer's seven-line stanza (riming ababbcc) and in the prologue, in which he tells us much about himself, describes his grief on Chaucer's death and sings his master's praises. Among his minor poems is one entitled Moder of God, which was formerly printed: with Chaucer's own works. Lydgate, a learned Benedictine monk of Bury St. Edmunds, poured outran enormous quantity of verse, his longer productions being the Storie of Thebes (designed as a new Canterbury Tale), the Troy Boke, and the Falles of 25  Princes the last based on a French paraphrase of a Latin work by Boccaccio. The best poetry of the fifteenth century, however, was written in ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Scotland, where, though the influence of Chaucer was very marked, the spirit of originality was far stronger than in the south. There is not much originality, indeed, about The King's Quair, a long poem in which JAMES I. of Scotland (1394-1436) tells of his love for the Lady Jane Beaufort (the Duke, of Somerset's daughter), who afterwards became his wife ; but the genuineness of its personal feeling gives life to its verse. It is written in the Chaucerian seven-line stanza. In WILLIAM DUNBAR (1465-153O ?), the greatest British poet between Chaucer and Spenser, the individual quality is much more apparent. His graceful allegorical poem, The Thistle and the Rose, composed to 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 commemorate the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Margaret, daughter of Henry VII of England, is quite in the manner of Chaucer's early poetry. But in much of his later verse, as in his satirical ballads and in his remarkable Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins, there is a combination of vigour, broad humour, and homely pathos, which belongs wholly to the character of the poet and to his native soil. The true Scottish quality is also, in the dominant in ROBERT HENRYSON (1430 ?-1506 ?), who followed the Chaucerian model in his Testament of Cresseid. The treatment of nature by these Scottish poets in general is especially interesting. Chaucer's May morning and garden landscape had become a convention which his English disciples were content to reproduce. In Scottish poetry, too, the convention reappears, but on the other hand we often find real Scotch scenery painted manifestly by men who, instead of adopting a mere literary fashion, had studied and were trying to depict the nature about them for themselves. 26  CHAPTER FOUR THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1558-1625). ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ The Shakespearean Age means the whole period extending from the accession of Queen Elizabeth in 1558 to the death of King James I. in 1625. These 67 years fall naturally into three divisions the first 21 years of the queen's reign; the 24 years between the publication of Spenser's Shepheardes Calender and her death; and the 22 years of the reign of James I. We may call the first division, the time of preparation, or the springtide of Elizabethan literature; the second, its time of full fruition, or summer; the third, its time of decline, or autumn. Strictly speaking, it is of 2024/2025 course to the first two divisions only that the term Elizabethan 2024/2025 2024/2025 should be applied, while the proper description for the third is Jacobean. But from the point of view of literary development there are good reasons why Elizabethan and Jacobean should alike be included in the general phrase which we use here the Age of Shakespeare. By virtue of its wonderful fertility and of the variety and splendour of its production, this period as a whole ranks as one of the greatest in the records of the world's literature, and its greatness was the result of many co-operating causes. Men who, like Spenser, Bacon and Shakespeare grew from boyhood into youth in the early years of Elizabeth's reign, and reached maturity during the closing decades of the sixteenth century, were fortunate enough to find themselves in a world in which the tides of life were at their highest. Influences were everywhere at work which tended to expand thought, stir the feelings, widen the imagination, and by nourishing as well as stimulating genius, to give breadth and energy 27  to the literature produced. England now felt the full effect of the revival of learning, which was no longer limited to the scholarly few at the universities and about the court, since innumerable translations carried ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ the treasures of the classics far and wide through that large public. The general atmosphere was charged with the spirit of the new learning. An appetite for literature was thus fostered, and an immense motion given to the sense of beauty and the growing love of everything that made for the enrichment of life. While the Renaissance aroused the intellect and the aesthetic faculties, the Reformation awakened the spiritual nature; the printing press which contributed to the knowledge of the classics and put the English Bible into the hands of the people; and the spread of an interest in religion was inevitably 2024/2025accompanied by a deepening of moral earnestness. The recent 2024/2025 2024/2025 discovery of new worlds beyond the seas, and the thrilling tales brought home by daring explorers quickened popular curiosity and the passion for adventure. England had thrown off the burden of foreign power in the great rupture with Rome; the fierce feuds of Catholic and Protestant, by which it had long been on, were now over; its inharmonious elements had been welded together into a united nation; and in the crisis in which, for the moment, its very existence was endangered by the collision with Spain Englishmen found themselves sinking minor differences to stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of their common country against their common foe. An intense patriotism thus became one of the outstanding features of the age, and showed itself in many ways in a keen interest in England's past, pride in England's greatness, hatred of England's enemies, and extravagant loyalty to England's queen. Such were some of 28  the conditions which combined to create the spirit of Shakespeare's age an age in which "men lived intensely, thought intensely, and wrote intensely." ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Spenser and his Poetry (1552-1599) We may take the publication of Spenser's Shepheardes Calender in 1579 as marking the opening of the "golden age" of Elizabethan literature. EDMUND SPENSER, the greatest/non-dramatic poet of an age which found its most natural literary expression in the drama, was born in London in 1552 and educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and at Cambridge, where he read the classics and Italian literature, and came under the influence of the strong Protestant spirit which then pervaded the university. After a couple of years spent with relatives in Lancashire, 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 he found a place in the household of the Earl of Leicester, with whose nephew, Sir Philip Sidney, he formed an intimate friendship. In 1580 he went to Ireland as secretary to the new Lord Deputy, Lord Grey de Wilton. The remainder of his life, save for brief visits to London, was passed in Ireland, in miserable exile among a lawless people whom he loathed. Again and again disappointed in every effort to secure a position at the court, and, with this, the means of returning to England, he found his only relief in the writing of his Faery Queene. In October, 1598, rebellion broke out in Tyrone, where he was then living; his castle was fired and plundered by an infuriated mob; he and his family barely escaped with their lives. In failing health, and crushed in spirits, he reached London at the end of the year, and on 16th January, 1599, died in an inn at Westminster. While Spenser's fame rests mainly on The Faery Queene, his minor poetry, which is voluminous, would itself have sufficed to assure him the 29  place of pre-eminence among contemporary English poets. His Shepheardes Calender (1579) is a pastoral poem of the artificial kind, which the taste for everything classic which came in with the revival of ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ learning had made popular in all European literatures, and in it Spenser follows the models set by the late Greek poet Theocritus, by Vergil in his Bucolica, and by French and Italian writers of the Renaissance who had imitated these. It is divided into twelve parts, one for each month of the year, and in it under the guise of conventional pastoral imagery that is, of shepherds talking and singing the poet writes of his unfortunate love for a certain mysterious Rosalind, deals with sundry moral questions, and discusses the religious issues of the day from the standpoint of strong Protestantism. Such conventional pastoral imagery was again used in Astrophel (1586), an elegy on the death of Sidney, to whom the Calender 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 had been dedicated. His Foure Hymnes in honour of love and beauty show his wonderful power of melodious verse. His Amoretti, a series of 88 sonnets (such sonnet sequences in Petrarch's manner had gained great vogue in England under the influence of the widespread enthusiasm for Italian literature) describe the progress of his love for Elizabeth Boyle, whom he married in 1594. That event inspired his Epithalamiuin, the finest of all his minor poems and "by common consent, the noblest wedding hymn in- the language." The Faery Queene (The Fairy Queen) Like the Canterbury Tales, The Faery Queene is a fragment, for of the twelve books which Spenser projected, six only were published during his lifetime, and portions of the seventh after his death. Even as it stands, however, it is one of the longest as well as one of the greatest of English poems. According to his own statement, his plan was that, while each of 30  the twelve books should be independent and self-contained, they should none the less be connected as parts of a general comprehensive whole. The Fairy Queen keeping her annual feast for twelve successive days, on ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ each of these days a certain knight at her command undertook a particular adventure, each such adventure furnishing the subject of one book. Meanwhile, Prince Arthur, whom he chose as his central figure, because he was the hero of the greatest British legend-cycle of chivalry, having dreamed of the Fairy Queen, went forth in quest of her, falling in with the various knights who were engaged on their adventures, by the way. This appearance of Arthur at a critical juncture in each of the stories was specially devised as a link between one part and another of the enormous design. Externally 2024/2025 considered, The Faery Queene, like its principal models2024/2025 2024/2025 the Italian romantic epics, is compounded of the traditional materials of chivalry; giants, dragons, dwarfs, wizards, knights of superhuman prowess and courage, and distressed damsels of marvellous beauty, provide its chief characters; enchantments, tournaments, love passages and endless fightings, are the staple of its plot. But Spenser's genius was fed by the Reformation as well as by the love of mediaeval romance and the culture of the Renaissance, and unlike his brilliant Italian master, Ariosto, who wrote only to amuse, his own great work is inspired by a high moral and religious aim. In other words, The Faery Queene is not simply a romance; it is a didactic romance, the poet throughout using his stories as vehicles of the lessons he wished to convey. He carries out his purpose by turning romance into allegory. His twelve knights-errant are types of the twelve cardinal virtues of Aristotle's philosophy, and the adventures of each knight are arranged to body forth symbolically the experiences, conflicts, and temptations of each such virtue in the turmoil 31  of the world, and its ultimate triumph, with the aid of Arthur, the incarnation of Divine Power, over all its foes. The defects of The Faery Queene are very obvious. It suffers from its ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ extreme artificiality. The old machinery of romance seems almost to collapse in places under stress of the new spiritual meanings with which it is loaded. Spenser is on the whole a rather languid storyteller; he has little dramatic power, and rarely rises to the full height of his opportunities. But, on the other hand, his merits are very many and very striking. He has a wonderful sense of beauty. He has splendid pictorial power. His work is filled with a noble moral spirit; while the quality of pure essential poetry that quality which defies analysis, but can never be missed by any sympathetic reader is to be felt on almost every page. It is this which 2024/2025 enables us to understand why Spenser has been called 2024/2025 2024/2025 "the poet's poet," he exercised such a stimulating influence on the literature of the eighteenth century romantic revival. It should be noted that he was not only the greatest non-dramatic poet of his epoch; he was also the most completely representative. All the co- operating forces which made Elizabethan England what it was entered into the texture of his poem, which more than any other single work of the time represents the combination of the spirit of the Renaissance with the spirit of the Reformation. Other Poets from 1579 to 1625. The minor poets of the Age of Shakespeare were very numerous. It is, however, necessary that we should learn something about the different kinds of poetry which were then written, and about a few of the men who helped to swell the chorus of Elizabethan song. 32  A special type of lyric which enjoyed great vogue was the sonnet, which on its introduction from Italy by Wyatt and Surrey, at once established itself among the recognised forms of English poetry. The Italian plan of ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ writing sonnets in sequences was, as we have seen, also adopted by many poets. One such sequence the Amoretti of Spenser, and to this we may now add, by way of further illustration, SIDNEY'S Astrophel and Stella, DANIEL'S Delia, DRAYTON'S Idea, and the Sonnets of SHAKESPEARE. All these are love poems, which in the Italian manner trace the movements and fluctuations of passion, but while in some cases the experiences and sentiments are real, in others they are merely feigned. We have spoken of the Jacobean division of the Age of Shakespeare as the period of decline. By this we mean that the Elizabethan inspiration was now 2024/2025 waning, that its subject matter was2024/2025 getting exhausted, and that a 2024/2025 tendency to imitation was setting in among the rising generation. Meanwhile, a new kind of poetry was beginning with JOHN DONNE (1573-1631), whose work belongs essentially to the time of James, though he was thirty years old when Elizabeth died. The Elizabethan Romantic Drama The quarter-century was a period of great confusion in the English drama. On the one hand, there were scholars who cherished the ambition of naturalising the "classic" species of play who believed that the only sure way to a really artistic drama lay through the faithful imitation of ancient models. On the other hand, the writers and actors who provided for the amusement of the varied unscholarly public, knowing that their patrons cared little for the finer details of art, and much for exciting plots and vigorous action, all of them very simple, in a type of play which rested upon entirely different ideas of construction. In 33  the end, the national taste triumphed, and just before Shakespeare began his career as a playwright the "romantic" form of drama was definitely established. ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ We must be sure that we understand, at least in a general way, the difference between the so-called "classic" and "romantic" types of play. The classic drama comes under three heads: (1) it adhered rigorously to unity of subject and tone, and as a result, it kept the spheres of tragedy and comedy entirely separate. A tragedy had to be a tragedy from first to last; it had to maintain the proper tragic pitch and avoid all suggestion of familiarity, and no humorous episode was permitted in it; a comedy had to be a comedy from first to last, and no tragic element was allowed to enter into its composition; (2) there was little or no dramatic action, the incidents 2024/2025composing the plot taking place 2024/2025off the stage, and being 2024/2025 reported to the audience in dialogue and set narrative; (3) in theory, at all events, the three unities of time, place, and action controlled the construction, by which we mean, in the briefest possible statement (a) that the entire story of a play had to be confined to a single day, (b) and to a single scene, and (c) that it was to be one single story only, without subplots or minor episodes of any kind. For the romantic, or Shakespearean, drama (1) makes free use of variety in theme and tone, often blending tragic end, comic incidents and characters in the same piece; (2) while it, of course, employs both action and narrative in carrying on a plot, it is essentially a drama of action, nearly everything that happens being represented on the stage; and (3) it repudiates the three unities (a) allowing the story, on occasion, to extend over months and even years; (b) changing the scene as often as is necessary, sometimes from one town or country to another; and (c) 34  employing subplots and minor episodes in connection with its central subject. Shakespeare's Predecessors. It will be seen that special ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ importance attaches historically to the work of those playwrights who, coming just before Shakespeare, prepared the way for him by ensuring the triumph of that free and flexible form of drama which he was afterwards to make his own. In a loose sense, they constitute a group, and they are commonly known by the name of "the university wits." As this implies, they were all men of academic training, and had thus been brought into personal touch with the new learning, and had absorbed its spirit, at one or other of the two great institutions of scholarship. Arranged roughly in order of time, they are: 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 JOHN LYLY; THOMAS KYD; GEORGE PEELE; THOMAS LODGE; ROBERT GREENE; CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593); and THOMAS NASH (1576-1601). MARLOWE'S historical importance is even greater. A man of fiery imagination and immense though ill-regulated powers, who lived a wild life, and was killed in a young age. He was by nature far more of a lyric poet than a dramatist; yet his Tamburlaine the Great, Dr. Faustus, The Jew of Malta, and Edward II., despite the pretentiousness and extravagance by which they are frequently stained, give him the place of pre-eminence among our pre-Shakespearean playwrights. Shakespeare's Life (1564- 1616) WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE was born on or about the 23rd April, 1564, at Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. He was the son of a prosperous tradesman of the town. Though there is no actual record of the fact, it is 35  practically certain that, like other Stratford boys of his class, he went to the local Grammar School, an excellent institution of its kind, where he was taught Latin and arithmetic. While he never became a learned man, ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ his few years at school thus gave him a sound education as far as it went. Financial misfortunes presently overtook his father, and when he was about fourteen, he was taken from school that he might help the family by earning money on his own account. Of the nature of his employment, however, we know nothing. At the age of nineteen, he married Anne Hathaway, a woman eight years older. This marriage was hasty and ill- advised, and appears to have been unhappy. Three children were born to him: Susannah, and the twins, Judith and Hamnet. Tradition says that meanwhile he fell into bad company, and that a deer-stealing escapade in the woods of Charlecote Hall obliged him to fly from home. There may or 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 may not be truth in this story we cannot tell. It is certain that a few years after his marriage roughly, about 1587 he left his native town to seek his fortunes in London. At this time the drama was gaining rapidly in popularity through the work of the University Wits. Shakespeare soon turned to the stage, and became first an actor, and then (though without ceasing to be an actor) a playwright. He remained in London upwards of twenty years after this, working hard, producing on an average a couple of plays a year, and growing steadily in fame and wealth. He became a shareholder in two of the leading theatres of the time, the Globe and the Blackfriars, and purchased property in Stratford and London. Shakespeare's health had broken down completely, and he died on the 23rd April of that year. Shakespeare's biography proves conclusively that, like Chaucer, he was no dreamer, but a practical man of affairs. He reached London poor and 36  friendless; he left it rich and respected; and his fortunes were the work of his own hand. Much light is thus thrown not only upon his personal character, but also upon his writings, in which great powers of creative ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ imagination are combined with, and supported by, a wonderful feeling for reality, sound commonsense, and a large and varied familiarity with the world. Of the learning which is shown in his plays, and about which so much has been written, it is enough here to say that it is not the learning of the trained and accurate scholar of a Bacon or a Ben Jonson; but rather the wide varied knowledge of many things, which was naturally accumulated by an extraordinarily mind during years of contact with men and books at a time when all social intercourse and all literature were alike saturated with the classicism of the Renaissance. 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 Shakespeare's Works Shakespeare's non-dramatic poetry consists of two narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, in both of which the classicism of the age is very marked, and a sequence of 154 sonnets, the first 126 addressed to a man, the remainder addressed or referring to a woman. These sonnets have given rise to endless discussion, and everything about them remains obscure. They indicate a record of a passionate history of disastrous love and broken friendship, but we cannot even be sure whether they deal with real or with imaginary things. The commonly accepted canon of Shakespeare's dramatic work comprises 37 plays, though the authenticity of several of these is doubtful, and in some cases at least it is clear that his part in the dramas attributed to him was limited to the retouching of older material. His activity as a writer for the stage extended over some 24 years, beginning 37  about 1588 and ending about 1612; and we may therefore say, in general terms, that 12 years of it belonged to the sixteenth and 12 to the seventeenth century. Shakespeare critics have agreed to subdivide these ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ 24 years into four periods, and by arranging the plays within these periods as nearly as possible in their order of production, we are able to follow the evolution of his genius and art, and the remarkable changes which came over his thought and style. (i) 1588-93: Period of early and, to a large extent, experimental work. Shakespeare's apprenticeship begins with the revision of old plays, such as the three parts of Henry VI. and Titus Andronicus. To this period belong his first comedies, in which the influence of Lyly is pronounced Love's Labour's Lost, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, and 2024/2025 A Midsummer-Night's Dream; his first effort in chronicle drama, 2024/2025 2024/2025 distinctly reminiscent of Marlowe, Richard III.; and a single very youthful tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. The work of this period as a whole is extremely slight in texture; the treatment of life in it is superficial ; there is little depth of thought or characterisation ; and the art is markedly immature. The prominence of rime in the dialogue, the stiffness of the blank verse, and the constant use of puns, conceits, and other affectations, are among its outstanding technical features. (ii) 1594-1600: Period of the great comedies and chronicle plays. The works of this period are: Richard II., King John, The Merchant of Venice, Henry IV., Parts I. and II., Henry V., The Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. Shakespeare now leaves behind him the influence of his early masters, his work becomes independent, and reveals immense development in power and technique. It is far more massive in quality, 38  the knowledge of the world and of the motives and passions of men which it everywhere exhibits is infinitely more profound. The characterisation and the humour have become deep and penetrative, ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ and there is a great growth in the weight of thought. Shakespeare has also outgrown, or is fast outgrowing, the immaturities of his former style. The youthful crudeness, extravagance, and strain are disappearing; rime is largely abandoned for prose and blank verse, and the blank verse itself has lost its stiffness, and is free and flexible. (iii) 1601-1608: Period of the great tragedies, and of the dull or bitter comedies. In this period all Shakespeare's powers his dramatic power, his intellectual power, and his power of expression are at their highest. This is the time of his supreme masterpieces. But what perhaps is most striking is the extraordinary change which 2024/2025 2024/2025has now occurred in2024/2025 the entire spirit of his work. His attention is pre-occupied, to the total exclusion of all other things, with the darker side of human experience, and his plays are made out of those destructive passions which shake the foundations of the moral order and bring ruin upon innocent and guilty alike. The sins and weaknesses of men form the staple of his plots, and even when he writes what are theoretically distinguished as comedies, the emphasis is still thrown on evil and the tone is either grave or fierce. The plays of this period are: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, All's Well that Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and Cressida, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and Timon of Athens. (iv) 1608-12: Period of the later comedies or Dramatic Romances. Again we note a sudden and singular change in the temper of Shakespeare's work. It is as if the heavy clouds which had long hung over the fictitious world of his imagination now roll away, and the sky grows 39  clear towards sunset. In these last plays the groundwork is still furnished by tragic passion, but the evil is no longer permitted to have its way, but is controlled and conquered by the good. A very tender and ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ gracious tone prevails in them throughout. At the same time they show very fully the decline of Shakespeare's dramatic powers. They are often careless in construction and unsatisfactory in characterisation, while in style and versification they will not bear comparison with the work of the preceding ten years. Three plays entirely Shakespeare's belong to this period Cymbeline, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. To these we have to add two which are only partly his Pericles and Henry VIII. Characteristics of Shakespeare's Works Taken as a whole, Shakespeare's plays constitute the greatest single 2024/2025 2024/2025 2024/2025 body of work which any writer has contributed to our literature. Perhaps their most outstanding feature is their astonishing variety. His genius took in innumerable aspects of both tragedy and comedy; he was supreme, not only as a dramatist, but also as a poet to whom the worlds of high imagination and delicate fancy were alike open. Broad as he was, he was essentially a man of his time, and while his plays are remarkable for their general truth to what is permanent in human nature, still his interpretation of human nature is that of an age in many respects very different from our own. He wrote hurriedly, and signs of hasty and ill-considered production are often apparent. Designing his plays expressly for the stage, and anxious to secure their success under the actual conditions of stage representation, he was willing at times to sacrifice consistency of character and the finer demands of art to the achievement of a telling theatrical effect. 40  Ben Jonson Shakespeare's age was marked by tremendous dramatic activity, and the list of his contemporaries in the chronicles of the stage is a very long one. ‫ﻧﻴﺮﻩ ﻋﺰﺕ ﻣﺤﻤﺪ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺤﻰ ﺍﻟﺼﻴﻔﻰ‬ Among these, the most important is his friend BEN JONSON, not only because he was the greatest of them in the power and volume of his genius, but also because the aims and principles of his work were