The Renaissance & Metaphysical Poetry 2nd Year PDF

The Renaissance The name Renaissance (―Rebirth‖) is given to the historical period in Europe that succeeded the Middle Ages. The awakening of a new spirit of intellectual and artistic inquiry, which was the dominant feature of this political, religious, and philosophical phenomenon, was essentially...

The Renaissance The name Renaissance (―Rebirth‖) is given to the historical period in Europe that succeeded the Middle Ages. The awakening of a new spirit of intellectual and artistic inquiry, which was the dominant feature of this political, religious, and philosophical phenomenon, was essentially a revival of the spirit of ancient Greece and Rome; in literature this meant a new interest in and analysis of the great classical writers. Scholars searched for and translated ―lost‖ ancient texts, whose dissemination was much helped by developments in printing in Europe from about 1450. Art and literature in the Renaissance reached a level unattained in any previous period. The age was marked by three principal characteristics: first, the new interest in learning, mirrored by the classical scholars known as humanists and instrumental in providing suitable classical models for the new writers; second, the new form of Christianity, initiated by the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther, which drew men’s attention to the individual and his inner experiences and stimulated a response in Catholic countries summarized by the term Counter-Reformation; third, the voyages of the great explorers that culminated in Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America in 1492 and that had far-reaching consequences on the countries that developed overseas empires, as well as on the imaginations and consciences of the most gifted writers of the day. To these may be added many other factors, such as the developments in science and astronomy and the political condition of Italy in the late 15th century. The new freedom and spirit of inquiry in the Italian city-states had been a factor in encouraging the great precursors of the Renaissance in Italy, Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. The flowering of the Renaissance in France appeared both in the poetry of the poets making up the group known as the Pléiade and in the reflective essays of Michel de Montaigne, while Spain at this time produced its greatest novelist, Miguel de Cervantes. Another figure who stood out above his contemporaries was the Portuguese epic poet Luís Camões, while drama flourished in both Spain and Portugal, being represented at its best by Lope de Vega and Gil Vicente. In England, too, drama dominated the age, a blend of Renaissance learning and native tradition lending extraordinary vitality to works of Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, John Webster, and others, while Shakespeare, England’s greatest dramatic and poetic talent, massively spanned the end of the 16th century and the beginning of the 17th. 1 In the 16th century the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus typified the development of humanism, which embodied the spirit of critical inquiry, regard for classical learning, intolerance of superstition, and high respect for men as God’s most intricate creation. An aspect of the influence of the Protestant Reformation on literature was the number of great translations of the Bible, including an early one by Erasmus, into vernacular languages during this period, setting new standards for prose writing. The impetus of the Renaissance carried well into the 17th century, when John Milton reflected the spirit of Christian humanism. The 17th century Challenging the accepted The 17th century was a period of unceasing disturbance and violent storms, no less in literature than in politics and society. The Renaissance had prepared a receptive environment essential to the dissemination of the ideas of the new science and philosophy. The great question of the century, which confronted serious writers from Donne to Dryden, was Michel de Montaigne’s ―What do I know?‖ or, in expanded terms, the ascertainment of the grounds and relations of knowledge, faith, reason, and authority in religion, metaphysics, ethics, politics, economics, and natural science. The questioning attitude that characterized the period is seen in the works of its great scientists and philosophers: Descartes’s Discourse on Method (1637) and Pascal’s Pensées (written 1657–58) in France; Bacon’s Advancement of Learning (1605) and Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) in England. The importance of these works has lain in their application of a skeptical, rationalist mode of thought not only to scientific problems but to political and theological controversy and general problems of understanding and perception. This fundamental challenge to both thought and language had profound repercussions in man’s picture of himself and was reflected in what T.S. Eliot described as ―the dissociation of sensibility,‖ which Eliot claimed took root in England after the Civil War, whereby, in contrast to the Elizabethan and Jacobean writers who could ―devour any kind of experience,‖ later poets in English could not think and feel in a unified way. Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) portrait by Carl Van Vecht April 3, 1938. Writer, folklorist and anthropologist celebrated African American culture of the rural South. 2 BRITANNICA QUIZ Who Said It? Quotations of Women in Literature Quiz ―It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent—like a carrier-pigeon.‖ Match these quotations to the women writers who said them. Effects of conflict A true picture of the period must also take into account the enormous effect of social and political upheavals during the early and middle parts of the century. In England, where the literary history of the period is usually divided into two parts, the break seems to fall naturally with the outbreak of the Civil War (1642–51), marked by a closure of the theatres in 1642, and a new age beginning with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In France the bitter internecine struggle of the Fronde (1648–53) similarly divided the century and preceded possibly the greatest period of all French literature—the age of Molière, Racine, Boileau, and La Fontaine. In Germany the early part of the century was dominated by the religious and political conflicts of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48) and thereafter by the attempts of German princes to emulate the central power and splendour of Louis XIV’s French court at Versailles. The Netherlands was also involved in the first part of the century in a struggle for independence from Spain (the Eighty Years’ War, 1568–1648) that resulted not only in the achievement of this but also in the ―Golden Age‖ of Dutch poetry—that of Henric Spieghel, Daniël Heinsius, and Gerbrand Bredero. Skip Ad The civil, political, and religious conflicts that dominated the first half of the century were in many ways also the characteristic response of the Counter-Reformation. The pattern of religious conflict was reflected in literary forms and preoccupations. One reaction to this—seen particularly in Italy, Germany, and Spain but also in France and England—was the development of a style in art and literature known as Baroque. This development manifested itself most characteristically in the works of Giambattista Marino in Italy, Luis de Góngora in Spain, and Martin Opitz in Germany. Long regarded by many critics as decadent, Baroque literature is now viewed in a more favourable light and is understood to denote a style the chief characteristics of which are elaboration and ornament, the use of allegory, rhetoric, and daring artifice. 3 If Baroque literature was the characteristic product of Italy and Germany in this period, Metaphysical poetry was the most outstanding feature in English verse of the first half of the century. This term, first applied by Dryden to John Donne and expanded by Dr. Johnson, is now used to denote a range of poets who varied greatly in their individual styles but who possessed certain affinities with Baroque literature, especially in the case of Richard Crashaw. Perhaps the most characteristic of all the disputes of the 17th century was that in which the tendency to continue to develop the Renaissance imitation of the classics came into conflict with the aspirations and discoveries of new thinkers in science and philosophy and new experimenters with literary forms. In France this appeared in a struggle between the Ancients and Moderns, between those who thought that literary style and subject should be modeled on classical Greek and Latin literature and supporters of native tradition. In Spain a similar conflict was expressed in a tendency toward ornament, Latinization, and the classics (culteranismo) and that toward a more concise, profound, and epigrammatic style (conceptismo). This conflict heralded through the Moderns in France and the idea of conceptismo in Spain a style of prose writing suitable to the new age of science and exploration. The Moderns in France were largely, therefore, followers of Descartes. In England a similar tendency was to be found in the work of the Royal Society in encouraging a simple language, a closer, naked, natural way of speaking, suitable for rational discourse, paralleled by the great achievements in prose of John Milton and John Dryden. 4  METAPHYSICAL POETRY Metaphysical poetry is a group of poems that share common characteristics: they are all highly intellectualized, use rather strange imagery, use frequent paradox and contain extremely complicated thought. Literary critic and poet Samuel Johnson first coined the term 'metaphysical poetry' in his book Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179-1781). In the book, Johnson wrote about a group of 17th-century British poets that included John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and Henry Vaughan. He noted how the poets shared many common characteristics, especially ones of wit and elaborate style.  What Does Metaphysical Mean? The word 'meta' means 'after,' so the literal translation of 'metaphysical' is 'after the physical.' Basically, metaphysics deals with questions that can't be explained by science. It questions the nature of reality in a philosophical way. Here are some common metaphysical questions: Does God exist? Is there a difference between the way things appear to us and the way they really are? Essentially, what is the difference between reality and perception? Is everything that happens already predetermined? If so, then is free choice non-existent? Is consciousness limited to the brain? Metaphysics can cover a broad range of topics from religious to consciousness; however, all the questions about metaphysics ponder the nature of reality. And of course, there is no one correct answer to any of these questions. Metaphysics is about exploration and philosophy, not about science and math.  CHARACTERISTICS OF METAPHYSICAL POETRY The group of metaphysical poets that we mentioned earlier is obviously not the only poets or philosophers or writers that deal with metaphysical questions. There are other more specific characteristics that prompted Johnson to place the 17th-century poets together. Perhaps the most common characteristic is that metaphysical poetry contained large doses of wit. In fact, although the poets were examining serious questions about the existence of God or whether a human could possibly perceive the world, the poets were sure to ponder those questions with humor. Metaphysical poetry also sought to shock the reader and wake him or her up from his or her normal existence in order to question the unquestionable. The poetry often mixed ordinary speech with paradoxes and puns. The results were strange, comparing unlikely things, such as lovers to a compass or the soul to a drop of dew. These weird comparisons were called conceits. Metaphysical poetry also explored a few common themes. They all had a religious sentiment. In addition, many of the poems explored the theme of carpe diem (seize the day) and investigated the humanity of life. One great way to analyze metaphysical poetry is to consider how the poems are about both thought and feeling. Think about it. How could you possibly write a poem about the existence of God if you didn't have some emotional reaction to such an enormous, life- altering question? Metaphysical poetry investigates the relation between rational, logical argument on the one hand and intuition or “mysticism” on the other, often depicted with sensuous detail Metaphysical poetry is considered highly ambiguous due to high intellect and knowledge of metaphysical poets. DEVICES USED IN METAPHYSICAL POETRY Metaphysical poets like John Donne use complex, dramatic expressions and a variety of literary devices like extended conceits, paradoxes, and imagery in colloquial and personal language that challenges ideas of morality, traditional love, and carnality; it is intellectually inventive even jarring sometimes because it mixes and links two unlike things to create extended metaphors and anecdotes that is unique in comparison to previous poets of his era particularly Edmund Spenser Metaphysical conceits are of Central importance in metaphysical poetry. A (metaphysical) conceit is usually classified as a subtype of metaphor – an elaborate and strikingly unconventional or supposedly far-fetched metaphor, hyperbole, contradiction, simile, paradox or oxymoron causing a shock to the reader by the obvious dissimilarity, “distance” between or stunning incompatibility of the objects compared. One of the most famous conceits is John Donne's A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, a poem in which Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a geometer's compass.