UGC NET English Literature by Trueman's.pdf

CBSE Revised Edition : 2019  1 CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE The period from Chaucer to Shakespeare may be divided into three parts: 1. The age o...

CBSE Revised Edition : 2019  1 CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE The period from Chaucer to Shakespeare may be divided into three parts: 1. The age of Chaucer 2. The Post–Chaucer period 3. The Renaissance period In this chapter, we shall discuss the characteristics and literary works of these periods in brief along with the life and works of William Shakespeare. 1.1. THE AGE OF CHAUCER This was the age, when the seeds of modern age were being endropped. Unrest and transition were the common features of this age. Geographical discoveries and the revolt against medieval traditions led towards the process of transition, which dates back to the second half of the fourteenth century. In the religious world, there was a serious outburst of unorthodoxy. Wyclif and his followers were making an organised attack upon the Church. In town and country alike, doctrines were being preached, in which a future age was to familiarize under the name of Protestantism. The Church was not the only medieval institution that was attacked. The working classes were stirring and had begun to display a spirit of independence hitherto unknown. A period of economic discontent was followed by an open revolt – a revolt which marked the downfall of the manorial system. But, there were constructive as well as destructive forces at work. Political and military events were contributing to the growth of a national consciousness, the former in a negative manner by minimising the extent of Papal influence, the latter, more positively, by stimulating the pride of the English people. CHARACTERISTICS OF CHAUCER’S AGE John Wyclif : An Evidence of Chaucer’s Age Among the great contemporaries of Chaucer, few deserve more attention than John Wyclif, for he was one of the first Englishmen to challenge the authority of the Catholic Church; and in doing so, he anticipated Martin Luther, by nearly one hundred and fifty years. Like his famous successor, he came to the conclusion that clerical pretensions had raised a barrier between man and God; and both, by pen and in pulpit, he endeavoured to break it down. Free access to the Bible was what the spiritual life required. 1. Question Mark on Church Supremacy. The prestige of the Church was, in truth, beginning to decline. Politically, intellectually, and spiritually its influence had diminished. Until the reign of John, it was the clergy more than any other class who ensured good government. For, they had held the balance between the despotic inclinations of the King on the one hand and the anarchical tendencies of the nobility on the other. But for reasons, which (1) 2 English Literature Specific we need not discuss here, this patriotic policy had been hindered during the thirteenth century. Then came the birth of Parliament, and the people began to fight their own political battles. 2. Environment Oriented Towards Economy. The fourteenth century opened brightly for Industrial England. There had been no repetition of the anarchy of Stephen’s reign, when so barren was the land that – to use the words of a contemporary writer– “you might as well have tilled the sea”. The material prosperity of the working classes had steadily increased. Both with regard to food and clothing, the English labourer was better off than his fellows on the continent. He had, moreover, another and important reason for self-congratulation, which requires a word or so of explanation, for, one cannot follow the trend of economic events during this period without referring, however briefly, to the curious medieval system of land tenure. 3. Progressive Spirit. A final illustration of the progressive spirit animating society at his time may be found in the growth of national sentiments. What were the conditions which favoured that development? It will perhaps be remembered that in dealing with the psychology of the Teutonic people, a prominent trait was found, i.e., their power of adaptation. Since this pliability enabled them to readily absorb the characteristics of races wholly alien to themselves, it is not surprising that this fusion was still more rapid when different branches of the parent stock encountered one another. 4. The Hundred Years’ War. The accession of Edward III marked the beginning of that struggle with France popularly known as “The Hundred Years’ War”– a title which explains itself. To narrate the causes which occasioned this mighty conflict would be unnecessary, for we are only concerned with historical events in so far as they have some direct bearing on the literature of the period. What does call for notice is the brilliant start which England made. In the very year in which Chaucer was born, there occurred the great sea fight off Sluys. This battle has a twofold interest. It was the first of an almost unbroken series of victories which lasted nearly twenty years and included the familiar name of Crecy and Poitiers; further it was one of the earliest of those naval successes, which in the years to come, Blake and Nelson were to make so typically English. But in the importance of its results, Sluys cannot, of course, compare with Crecy – the battle which Froissart has described in such a vivid and picturesque language. 5. Degradation of Pope’s Status. In the fourteenth century, the Papacy met with a series of misfortunes, of which the English kings were not slow to avail themselves. The temporal overlordship of the Pope was definitely repudiated. Nor was this all. He lost also the important advantage of being able to fill the bishopries with his own nominees. By these and other measures, the Parliaments of Edward III and his successors began that process of separation from Rome, which the work of Henry VIII completed. Such then, briefly, are the main political and social tendencies of the time in which Chaucer and Langland lived and wrote – a transitional age, with the old feudalism slowly losing its pristine vigour and utility, with a great Church, rich in its traditions of intellectual and moral guidance, exhibiting signs of decadence and enfeeblement; yet with no clear ideals as yet, or only dimly lined ideals, as to what form of social reconstruction was to take their place. Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer was the “father of English poetry” and the greatest narrative poet of England. With his emergence the old literative poetry died. The exact date of his birth is uncertain, but most scholars fix it at 1340. Geofferey’s early life was spent in London during his most plastic years, and the Chaucer to Shakespeare 3 impressions of the city and its teeming life were likely to make an ineffaceable impression on his imagination. Chaucer symbolises, as no other writer does, the Middle Ages. He stands in much the same relation to the life of his time, as Pope does to the earlier phases of the eighteenth century, and Tennyson to the Victorian era; and its place in English literature is ever more important than theirs, for he is the first great poet in English; the first to make English composite language a thing compact and vital. Background and the First Phase of Chaucer Chaucer was born in London to a family of wine merchants. He was brought up in a middle class background, which is a crucial aspect of his writing and the times he lived in. The name ‘Chaucer’, itself, shows its stand for chaufe aire (i.e. a “chafe wax”), and suggests a foreign lineage. It is probable that his grandfather was one Robert le Chaucer, collector of wine dues in the Port of London. On his death the widow remarried Richard le Chaucer. His stepson John was a vintner like his stepfather, acting also as King’s butler to Edward III, whenever that monarch crossed the water. John Chaucer married Agnes, niece of Hugo de Compton; and it is probable that Geoffrey Chaucer was their son. In 1357, Chaucer was appointed to the household of Elizabeth, countess of Ulster, and wife of Lionel, third son of Edward III, and from items of her expenditure that have survived, we gather that she provided the youth with red black breeches, and shoes. Two years later he was captured by the French, while on a military expedition to France, and the King paid a ransom for his release. He became subsequently a personal attendant of the King – a “beloved valet,” as he was called, or as we should say today, a gentleman-in-waiting. From this position, he ascended to that of esquire, where he was concerned with helping to entertain the court and any strangers that might come along. In this way his social qualities were sharpened, a characteristic that left ample impression on his later poetry. On Diplomatic Mission. From 1370 to 1378, he went on a diplomatic mission abroad-during the later part of the time to Italy. These journeys, especially the Italian ones, affected in marked fashion, his literary work. During this period, he obtained from the corporation of London a life lease of the Gatehouse at Aldgate, where he lived for a number of years. Later he became the comptroller of customs in the port of London. End of the Journey. We pass now to the last period of Chaucer’s life. His fortunes at this time declined. He lost Court favour in 1386 and became relatively poor. For the next few years, he was however more free to turn to literary work. A slight improvement in his position occurred in 1389 when he was made clerk of the Works: looking after the repairs and alterations at the palace of Westminster, the Tower, and St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. In 1391, however, he was superseded in these activities, and lived on pension for the remaining years of his life. A literary hint sent to Henry IV, titled Complement to his Purse, had facilitated matters in this direction. His great work The Canterbury Tales was written almost entirely during the later years of this period, when he made splendid use of his knowledge of men and affairs. The finest part of the Canterbury Tales is the prologue, the noblest story is probably the Knight Tales. He died in 1400 and was buried in St. Benet’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey. During the last few months of his life he had taken a house in the garden of St. Mary’s, Westminster. In 1868, a stained glass window, symbolising his life and work, was erected by Dean Stanley, over against his grave. Literary Works (1) A prayer to the virgin, A.B.C. which is declared by many to be his first extant poem. (2) He made a translation of the famous ‘Roman de la Rase’. (3) Before 1369 he had struck out a line of graceful and tender sentiment in the Complaint unto Pite. 4 English Literature Specific (4) It was followed by the Book of the Duchess in 1369 – the Duchess being the wife of Chaucer’s patron, John of Gaunt. On returning to England from Italy he wrote Troilus and Criseyde, 1380-83, founded on the Filostrato of Boccaccio. (5) He wrote also The story of Griselda (The Clerk’s Tale). The story of the patient Griselda had fascinated Petrarch, and became immeasurably popular. Indeed it had been seized upon by the ballad writers, in the same way as Guy of Warwick; and the unhappy fortunes of this peasant girl excited the widest interest. Like King Cophetua, Walter, Marquis de Lalune weds a peasant girl whom he had met while on a hunting expedition. The marriage turns out to be an unhappy, one the Marquis treats her with brutality; and ultimately, shorn of her rich clothes, she is sent back to her father. (6) The Legend of Good Women deals with the poet as wishing to make reparation for past errors. He regrets having translated the Romance of the Rose; he upbraids himself for the stigma he has cast on women in his picture of Cressida. So here he vows he will treat honourably of true and good women. His choice of good women is not free from critical exception, as he elects to lead off with Cleopatra, who despite her charms and brilliance can scarcely pose as “a model of all the virtues!’’ Yet, perhaps, he realise this. Anyhow, he adds this whimsical comment: “Now, ere I find a man thus true and stable, And woll for love his death so freely take, I pray God let our hedes never ake.” (7) Some of his works are in English such as The Canterbury Tales, The Miller, The Reeve, The Cook, The Wife of Bath, The Merchant, The Friar, The Nun Priest, and The Pardoner. The Prologue is supposed to have been written in 1388. English Literature and Chaucer According to Emerson. “A great poet, who appears in illiterate times, absorbs into his sphere, all the lights, which are anywhere radiating. Every intellectual jewel, every flower of sentiment, it is his fine office to bring to his people, and he comes to value his memory equally with his invention. He is therefore little solicitous whence have been derived; whether through translation, whether through tradition, whether by travel to distant countries, whether by inspiration; from whatever sources, they are equally welcome to his uncritical audience. But Chaucer is a huge borrower... He steals by this apology– that what he takes has no worth where he finds it, and the greatest where he leaves it. It has come to be practically a sort of rule in literature, that a man, having once shown himself capable of original writing, is entitled therefore to steal from the writings of others at discretion. Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it. A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.” This Emerson’s appeal is a sound criticism. The supreme question after all is, not where does the tap-root of genius draw its nourishment, but what is the culminating expression of that nourishment? What blossom is forthcoming? Genius has an alchemy of its own that can transmute the baser metals, it may steal on occasion, into pure gold. Such was the way of that other splendid borrower, Shakespeare; and Chaucer is less unblushing in his literary thefts than him. The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales place us in the heart of London. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of 24 Tales, mostly inverse, introduced by ‘The General Prologue’. It is the story of a group of thirty people Chaucer to Shakespeare 5 who travel as pilgrims to Canterbury (England). The pilgrims who come from all layers of the society tell stories to each other to kill time while they travel to Canterbury. There is a disquisition on table manners in the Prologue. Each guest brought his own knife, but, for common use there were no forks. At the beginning and at the end of dinner every one washed his hands obviously desirable proceeding. On to the rush-strewn floor the guests flung the bones and scraps of meat. The difficulties presented by gravy were met by the meat– which was served by a carver at a side table – being laid upon thick slices of bread which absorbed the gravy. Every guest had a napkin, and the proper use of the napkin was an elaborate ritual in itself. The picture of the average merchant has a familiar ring about it: “A Marchant was there with a forked berd, In mottelee, and hye on horse he sat; Upon his heed a Flaundryssh bevere hat; His bootes clasped faire and fetisly His resons he spak ful solempnely, Sownynge always th'encress of his wynnyng. This worthy man ful wel his wit bisette; Ther wiste no wight that he was in dette.” The bever hat still survives in the “topper,” and the business instincts of the gentleman express themselves with no radical difference today. Chaucer accepts the current class divisions between “gentles” and “churls.” Neither he nor Langland ignore distinctions of rank; and although rich and poor, cultured and rude jostle one another in the procession, yet he is well aware that some of the Tales might displease the “gentles” among his readers as he offended the “gentles” in the poem. Yet, he adds with the tolerance of the artist: “... I must rehearse, All of their tales, the better and the worse, or else prove false to some of my design.” The Doctor of Physic In Chaucer’s Doctor of Physic, we have an excellent picture of the medieval medicine man, with his herbal remedies and his knowledge of astronomy or what we should call astrology. In common with the physicians of the day, Chaucer indicates that his medical studies had drawn him away from his profession: “His studie was but litel on the Bible”. Chaucer gives a sly dig at him for his fee-loving propensities: “For gold in phisik is a cordial, Therefore he lov’ede gold in special.” The supposed medicinal value of the metal, so common not only in the Middle Ages by a century or so later, is here touched upon. Such was the London in which Chaucer was brought up. The Form of the Canterbury Tales Chaucer was a representative poet. His realism is seen in “The Canterbury Tales” which is represented as a mirror to the life of the age. In the field of literature, Chaucer worked as a social chronicler. Of this work, about 17,000 lines are in verse, with two stories - The Tale of Melibeus and The Parson’s Tale-in prose. The verse consists of rhymed couplets. It forms a compromise between the old and new prosody. He does not care for alliteration or dogged rhyme, and chooses the form of “heroic” verse with rhymed couplets and five accented syllables. 6 English Literature Specific Knight’s Tale In the Knights’ Tale, we have much more than a typical romance; we have a presentment, with rare artistic skill of the finer elements in medieval romance, avoiding, as the author of Gawayne does, many of the vain repetitions and dull meanderings found in so many of them, and the whole clarified and sharpened by that sure sense of character, of which Chaucer alone of his age possessed the secret. We have, in Sir Thopas, the baser and more foolish kind of romances, burlesqued; the coarse, the pungent humour of the Fabliau; and the wrangle with the Summoner jostle with tales of pathos, such as the Clerk’s. Tragedies and Comedies There are tragedies as well as comedies in the tales: some are grave and subdued, others ablaze with colour and merriment; but the thread of honest and kindly laughter runs through them all, serious and gay, alike. What is central in the Knight Tale is a concern with the right ordering of the elements that make up a personal total soul essentially a concern with justice. There is nothing of the dreamer about Chaucer – nothing of the stern moralist and social reformer. Like Shakespeare, he makes it his business, in The Canterbury Tales, to paint life as he sees it, and leaves others to draw the moral. John Gower John Gower was a person of shrewd business instincts, with a large amount of landed property in East Anglia. Some authorities have inclined to prove him as a lawyer, but M.G.C. Macaulay, his most exhaustive biographer, suggests that he made his money as a merchant; judging by the way, in which he speaks of “City”, and the number of merchants with whom he was in personal communication. However that may be, it is clear that about middle life, he is concerned entirely with the management of his estates and the writing of books. His sympathies were aristocratic and conservative, and the Peasants’ Revolt horrified him exceedingly, not, merely as an upholder of law and order, but as a landlord with vested interests. (1) Gower’s Literary Works. His chief works were Speculum Hominis, written in French; the Vox Clamantis, written in Latin; and the Confessio Amantis, written in English. The first is a poem of some 30,000 lines, somewhat in the nature of a morality. The Vices and Virtues are classified, and a picture of society is drawn. For its improvement Gower looks to the intervention of the Blessed Virgin. Historically, the work is of small value, but, as in Langland and Chaucer, there are interesting sidelights of city life. (2) His another work the Vox Clamantis written in Latin was occasioned by the Rising of 1381. It consists of seven books; the first book describing the wilderness in which this medieval Baptist cries. In later books he pictures the common people as having lost their reason and being transformed into wild beasts. Poor Tyler is suggested as an elephantine boar, later on as a jay who has learnt to speak (Way = a jay in A. S.) Throughout the poem, politics and theology are intermingled, the later books dealing with man’s responsibility towards man. The author divides people into three classes: clerk, soldier, and ploughman; he criticises the clergy as freely as Langland does – a significant testimony to the corruption of the Medieval Church. And the satirical touch that wealth and wisdom for them are not synonymous, is worthy of Carlyle. (3) The Confessio Amantis written in English was completed around 1390, and was written in the days when he believed in Richard. Later on, he substitutes the name a Henry IV for Richard II. Chaucer to Shakespeare 7 “This book upon amendement I send unto mine owen lord Which of Lancaster is Henry named:” It is clear, from the drift of the poem, that the writer is opposed to social reform. He uses a number of stories with the definite intention of telling the people what are the rudiments of good morality. In telling the stories he is clear and straightforward, more so than Chaucer, whose delight in humanity causes him to dally with certain sides of his subject. Gower points the moral “to adorn a tale”; and if the result is less satisfying, less rich in dramatic material, than with the author of The Canterbury Tales, yet the poem has merit all its own– like the merit of Pope’s didactic verse. (4) His last writing, his Traite, deals with love and marriage, and consists of a number of ballads, exhibiting many of the qualities shown in his earlier work, with greater power of technique, though, perhaps less imagination in treatment. It was written about 1397, possibly on the occasion of his second marriage, and is addressed to married people. 1.2 POST–CHAUCER PERIOD (The period of Renaissance, 1400-1600) Chaucer’s age was followed by the period of Renaissance. Renaissance (“rebirth”) is the name applied to the period of European history, following the Middle Ages; it is commonly said to have begun in Italy in the late fourteenth century and to have continued in western Europe through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this period the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature reached an eminence not exceeded by any civilization in any age. The development came late to England in the sixteenth century, and did not have its flowering until the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. In fact, Milton (1608–1674) is said to be the last great Renaissance poet. Many attempts have been made to define “the Renaissance,” as though one essence underlay the complex features of the culture of numerous countries over several hundred years. It has been described as the birth of the modern world out of the ashes of the dark ages; as the discovery of the world and the discovery of man; as the era of untrammeled individualism in life, thought, religion and art. Recently, some historians, finding that these attributes were present in various people and places in the Middle Ages, and also that many elements long held to be medieval survived into the Renaissance, have denied, that the Renaissance ever existed. It is true that history is a continuous process, and that “periods” are invented not by God but by historians; but the concept of a period is a convenience, if not a necessity, of historical analysis, and one is able to identify, during the span of the Renaissance, a number of events and discoveries which in the course of time altered radically the views, productions, and manner of life of the intellectual classes. All these events may be regarded as putting a strain on the relatively closed and stable world of the great civilization of the later Middle Ages, when most of the essential truths about man, the universe, religion, and philosophy were held to be well known and permanently established. The full impact of many of these Renaissance developments did not make itself felt until the later seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, but the very fact that they occurred in this period indicates the vitality, the audacity, and the restless curiosity of many men of the Renaissance, whether scholars, thinkers, artists, or adventurers. Thomas Hoccleve Thomas Hoccleve (c. 1368–c. 1450), was a personal friend of Chaucer and a clerk in the Exchequer. He was an English verse maker of that period. He wrote on Chaucer, 8 English Literature Specific Simple is my goost, and scars my letterure, Unto your excellence for to write Myn inward love, and yit in aventure Wyl I me putte, thogh I can but lyte. Mi dere maistir – God his soule quyte!– And fadir, Chaucer, fayn wolde han me taght; But I was dul, and lerned lyte or naught. Allas! my worthy worthi honorable, This landes verray tresor and richesse, Deth, by thi deth, hath harme irreparable Unto us doon; hir vengeable duresse Despoiled hath this land of the swetnesse of rethorik; for un-to Tullius Was never man so lyk a-monges us. She myghte han taried hir vengeance a while Til that sum man had egal to the be; Nay, lat be that! sche knew wel that this yle May never man forth brynge lyk to the, And hir office needes do mot she: God bad hir so, I truste as for the beste; O maister, maister, God thi soule reste! John Lydgate John Lydgate (c. 1370-1451) was a monk at the Benedictine Monastery of Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk. Perhaps his most interesting piece of work is his London Lackpenny, an agreeable and lively set of verses describing the woes of a poor man in Westminster Hall and about the London Streets, where he sees much to attract him, but can avail himself of no allurements or purchases for lack of funds. His learning overweighed his muse, and the naive admission of Occleve, “But I was dulle,” might well have been uttered by Lydgate also. He imitated with more labour than skill, Chaucer’s favourite metres, and his treatment of romantic themes but he floundered about disastrously in his cadences, admitting ruefully, “I took none head neither of short nor long.” Possibly, no unfair description of Lydgate would be to call him an accomplished scholar with a fair knack of verse-making, and a fluency that considerably outruns the knack. Stephen Hawes Stephen Hawes. (d. 1523) Post Chaucer scholars such as Occleve, Lydgate, Hawes, affect one all in the same way. Their work had literary merit of a fitful kind, but it was sadly lacking in spontaneity, original impulse, and sincerity. Among these scholars Stephen Hawes was a man of culture with a taste for travel and remarkable memory. He wrote loyal verse to congratulate Henry VII on his accession. He had a gift for phrases which lighten up his prolix muse from time to time, for instance these lines: “Be the day weary, or be the day long, At length it draweth to Evensong.” And an aptitude for allegory, less happy in pleasure-conferring qualities. The French aspects of Chaucer’s genius attracted him chiefly, and he followed the author of the Romaunt of the Rose rather than that of the Canterbury Tales. Chaucer to Shakespeare 9 John Skelton (1460–1529) John Skelton was a Norfolk cleric, a remarkable scholar, and at one time tutor to Henry VIII. He attacked abuses of the day, both in the Church and Court, with an uncompromising rigour worthy of John Knox. When Wolsey was at the height of his power, Skelton did not hesitate to criticise him severely, as in his satire Why Come ye not to Court? There is no advance in beauty of workmanship. In fact, Skelton neglected beauty quite openly, striving for some fresh metrical form of expression to suit his subject matter. But at any rate we are outgrowing the imitative period, for Skelton was an original force, albeit a rough and undisciplined one. Beginning, as most young poets do, in the conventional and imitative vein, he soon broke away, and his later work, despite all its uncouthness, had an individual flavour, refreshing to meet with, after the tameness of his predecessors. He was a moralist, with a message for his generation, that he was determined to make as effective as possible. “For tho’ my rime be ragged, Tattered and jagged, Rudely rain-beaten, Rusty and moth-eaten; If ye take well therewith, It hath in it some pith” His most popular work was the quaint Boke of Philip Sparrow, celebrating the death of the pet bird of Mistress Joan Scrope; his most outspoken was the Hogarthian sketch The Tunning (brewing) of Flynour Rummyng–recounting the brewing and subsequent ritual of a certain broach of ale, by a rural alewife and her friends. He had a liking for brief, jerky metres : e.g. “Mistress Gertrude with womanhood endued.” Scottish Literature in the 14th and 15th Century Scotland had won hardly and desperately, her war of independence, and this fact had served as trumpet call to the imaginative minds of the age. John Barbour John Barbour led the way with his patriotic poem– Bruce (c.1376), a poem recalling, in its noble apostrophe to Freedom, the famous lines of Shelley in the Masque of Anarchy. The rough material of poetry was there, all that was needed was something of the fine culture that had already made its way into England, to fashion and grace it. James I (1394–1437) About this time JAMES I, a cultured and accomplished prince, returned from his years of captivity in England and the influence he exercised on national verse was just what was needed. His own poem, The King’s Quair, was one of no small beauty and power. Imitative, it is true, of Chaucer and of the head. He wrote with power because he loved Lady Jane Beaufort, not because he fancied himself a versifier of Chaucer’ school. Robert Henry Son (1430–1506) Robert Henry Son (1430–1506) was a “school master in Dunformline”. Like his royal predecessor, a faithful admirer of Chaucer Henryson, he showed real first-hand observation of nature and an insight born of no mere literary accomplishment, into the simple and ordinary aspects of lowly life. There was a quaint charm about his description of why he added to Chaucer’s story of Troilus and Cressida. One 10 English Literature Specific winter’s night, he told us, he sat by the fire reading Trioses, and comforting himself with some hot drink. William Dunbar (1465–1530) After Henryson, comes William Dunbar, a poet of striking undisciplined power, and one of the great names in Scottish Literature. He was the Burns of the fifteenth century, with something of that poet’s passion for beauty, native humour, and force of expression. He was not like Burns, moreover, in character: sensual and head-strong. The Dawn of the Renaissance (a) Renaissance in Italy and Germany. There was a stirring of fresh life, a kindling of new desires in Italy and Germany. In each country, the horizon was aglow with promise – a promise that spoke according to the personality of each nation. In Italy, the Renaissance thrills through the senses; in Germany it speaks through the intellect. Thus is it that from the first awakening assumed in Germany a religious character; it merged at once into the Reformation. In Italy it was different: the old ecclesiasticism became paganised. “The Gods descend from Olympus and live once more amongst men”. Pagan influences were needed: though the sudden transition from a starved asceticism to a rich, pulsing life could not be accomplished without moral disasters. Perhaps, no more significant illustration of difference in outlook can be given than in the portal of the Cathedral at Basle had depicted the dead rising from graves and donning hurriedly their garments, so as to appear decently clad at the Last Judgement. After the Renaissance, as Jusserand has reminded us, a naked woman was wrought in bronze upon the tomb of a Pope. All that was beautiful and, through the eyes of the Renaissance, also divine. The human body, so long despised and ill-treated, came into its kingdom and was glorified: “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.” (b) Renaissance in England. It has been pointed out, the fifteenth century dawned upon an England that had outlived the energising idealism of the twelfth century. The vigorous vitality of that era had been paralysed by the wasteful futilities of the Hundred years War with France, and divided counsels at home. Feudalism, that had been a power in Norman times in evolving order and Solidarity out of anarchy and confusion, survived now only as a spent force. No longer did it suit the needs of the nation. The plaint of Langland, the anathema of Wycliff, bear witness to the general unrest and disorganisation. The sterility of English literature after Chaucer testifies to the lowered vitality of the time. Yet once again is the old saying justified that it is darkest before the dawn. But, while Italy was on fire with the new sunrise, it was still for England merely a streak of light upon the horizon. The Medieval Church, in place of welcoming the cleansing changes of a Wyclif, opposed all remedies for curing her of her sick condition. Nor were their kings any more farseeing. Henry IV helped to stiffen the automatic power of the Church by passing the Act that practices should be burned to death. Henry V persecuted the Lollards with relentless vigour. But in vain, did they try to prop up the tottering edifice of medieval thought. They could hold back for a while the oncoming tide; to give fresh life to what was moribund was beyond their power; so England stood: “Between two words, one dead, The other powerless to be born”. Invention of Printing. The invention of the printing press, coupled with the discovery some time before, of a way of transforming linen rags into paper, made the multiplication and circulation of books a very different matter from what it had been in the Middle Ages. Chaucer to Shakespeare 11 Sir Thomas Malory Of Sir Thomas Malory; very little is definitely known. He, an unknown writer, was suddenly made famous by Caxton. He may have belonged to a Worcestershire family of that name who fought with both, Lancaster and York, in the Wars of the Rose, one member of parliament in 1444-5; several families in Yorkshire and also in the Midlands aspire to have him for an ancestor, but no trace of a Thomas can be found who lived about that time. Professor Kitteridge in “Who was Sir Thomson Malory?” traces him to a certain Sir Thomson Malory of Newbold Revell in Warwickshire, who succeeded to the family estates about 1434. John Bale (1495-1563) the historian, in his Account of the lives of Eminent writers of Great Britain, says, he was a Welshman. The one thing certain is, that he wrote the Morte d’Arthur, which comprises twenty-one books compiled from a variety of sources. According to Bale, the first four books are founded on Robert de Borron’s Romance of Merlin; Book V from Morte d’ Arthur manuscript in Lincoln Cathedral Library ; Book VI from the french Romance of Lancelot; Book VII is not identified; Books VIII-X from the Romance of Tristan by Luce de Gasc; Books XI-XXI are Lancelot, interpolations. Caxton Caxton‘s personality is an interesting one: it may be seen in his various preface. These reflect a kindly and simple nature, with a pleasant admixture of keen humour to take off the flatness. His style was uncertain, for he was not clear, how far to draw upon foreign tongues. But he had a ready instinct for good Saxon prose, and his prose was far more readable and attractive than some of the prose written about this time. One of his pleasantest qualities was the confidential note, which he struck – a note, that was later on to be the distinctive note of the English Essay. At present English prose is still in the experimental state: like, to a lesser extent, the verse. But poetry was to have a glorious career, before English to be reckoned. For nearly fifty years after the death of Caxton, the book trade in English was directed, for the most part, by two men, Jan Wynkyn de Worde (d.1534), and Richard Pynson (d.1530); but the admirable start made by Caxton was scarcely maintained by his successors. Classical learning took a very low place, and until 1543 no Greek book was printed in England. Religious literature of a mediocre kind could be had in abundance, there was a steady market for these, and the contemporary poets like Skelton and Hawes had the gratification of finding some of their work printed. For any advance in the development of English literature we must look, however, not to the printer but to a wealthy nobleman, Lord Berners, who did admirable work as a translator. Fabyan and Hall Robert Fabyan (d. 1513) did useful work as a chronicler of London history, despite his tendency to accept all the fabulous tales of national origin, first made by Geoffrey of Monmouth. Edward Hall (d.1547), is a man of more scholarly attainment. He chronicled the story of the House of Lancaster and York, and carried the story down to 1532. He had an eye for characterisation; and some of his work attracted Shakespeare, who made fairly generous use of it in his plays dealing with Plantagenet England. Henry VII Henry VII had done much to encourage the New Learning. Mention of him usually recalls the memory of shrewd and sagacious statesman, a man with a genius for practicability and cautious common sense. For the rest, he does not impress himself upon us as a figure of the Renaissance. But there were two Henrys: and one of them especially marked in earlier year was a kindly, art-loving student, somewhat reserved perhaps, but with flashes of humour, and an ardent, romantic temperament. 12 English Literature Specific We may recall the delight which Malory’s Legends afforded him; the pleasure it gave him to surround himself with the best scholars of the day; the careful eduction he bestowed upon his children. He lacked the open, genial bearing of his successor; yet his tastes were as fully filled with the New Learning as were those of his son. Assuredly a man of the Renaissance, he wrote lyrics and composed music, was an expert on various instruments himself, and ranged over most subjects in science and philosophy, with an eager interest characteristic of the time. There was nothing of his father’s parsimony about him. Erasmus was made heartily welcome and Holbein invited to stay, the clever foreigner was welcome at court. England at length was coming into line with the Southern nations. Sir Thomas More Among the most remarkable of the time was Sir Thomas More; he was the son of Sir John More, a justice of the King’s Bench, who had his residence in the heart of the City, and it was here, in Milk street, that Thomas was born in 1478. As a child, he attended St. Anthony’s School in Threadneedle Street, at that time considered to be a school of high repute. From here, he followed the useful custom in those days of becoming attached to some great household. Thomas More was particularly fortunate in his parton, Cardinal Morton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who quickly discovered his young retainer’s promise, remarking: “Whoever liveth to try it, shall see this child here waiting at table prove a marvelous man.” At the age of twenty-one, More was a Member of Parliament, and when a proposal was made four years later, by King Henry VII for a subsidy for the marriage portion of his daughter Margaret, who was to be James IV of Scotland, more openly opposed the demand of the King. As his opposition influenced Parliament to the extent of their refusing the subsidy he had at once to bear the wrath of the displeased monarch: “A beardless boy has disappointed the King’s purpose!” Writings of Thomas More. In 1510, Life of Pico of Mirandola, from the incomplete History of Richard III (written in Latin c. 1513), has been called the first book in classical English prose; it is sometimes said to have been based on a Latin work by Archbishop Morton, not extant. Utopia was first printed in 1516 at Louvain; a second edition appeared in 1517. It was then revised by More and printed in 1518. It was also reprinted in Paris and Vienna. It did not appear in English, till translated by Ralph Robison, after More’s death in 1551. More’s other Latin works include epigrams, a translation of Lucian’s dialogues and pamphlets against the Lutherans. Amongst his English controversial works, the most important is the Dyaloge against Lutheranism and Tyndale in five books. He also wrote much English as well as Latin verse. Utopia: or, to give the full title, The Discourses of Raphael Hythloday, of the Best state of a Commonwealth. This satire, on the social and political evils of the age, was written in Latin in two parts. Though printed at Louvain, Basle, Paris, and Vienna, no English edition appeared till Robinson’s translation in 1551. Gilbert Burnet made a better translation in 1684, and Burnet’s is the one used. Erasmus and More More‘s friend Erasmus was a man of equal ability, but quite other in temperament and character. More’s humour is genial, Erasmus is bitterly satirical. Erasmus’ brilliance is clear-cut and cold, More’s is softened with a kindliness of heart. His severities as chancellor, whatever we may think of them, were certainly not the expression of his real nature. The best part of More was seen in his family life at Chelsea, and in the Utopia. His tenderness of heart extended to animals – a trait rare indeed in those Chaucer to Shakespeare 13 times. “God”, says he, “has given them life that they may live.... How can we find more pleasure in seeing a dog run after a hare than in seeing a dog run after another dog?” It is interesting to note both More’s Utopia and Erasmus’ Christian Primer were written about the same time, and embody the ideals of the new learning as applied to social and political life; ideal defined by a modern historian as “the art of living together in civil society and of securing the common weal of the people”. Erasmus had little of More’s fine humanity and delicacy of feeling, but intellectually he was at one with him. He urged the importance of the Golden Rule, and suggested that kings should refrain from entering into any avoidable war. It was best for them to seek the good of their people, not a mere section, but the good of the whole community. A king’s claim to the throne should rest upon the goodwill of the nation, he should tax them as little as possible, and what taxation there is should fall upon the wealthy, not the poorer classes. William Tyndale William Tyndale (born c. 1484), a small, thin, earnest man of extreme pertinacity, was educated at Oxford and Cambridge, and later acted as tutor in a Gloucestershire family. He was an ardent supporter of Luther, and although he did not lack friends in London, found it necessary to go abroad to work at his translation of the New Testament, from Greek into English. This he completed at Hamburg, and the translation was finally printed at Worms, three years after Luther’s translation of the New Testament into German. He was helped in his work by one William Roy, a Minorite educated at Cambridge. Tyndale had no special affection for his collaborator, about whom he remarked dryly: “As long as he had gotten no money, somewhat I could rule him; but as soon as he had gotten his money he became like himself again. Nevertheless, I suffered all things till that was ended which I could not do alone... when that was ended took my leave and bade him farewell for our two lives, and as men say, a day longer.” The translation, coming as it did from one associated so closely with “the arch heretic” Luther, was denounced by Cuthbert Tunstal at St. Paul’s cross, and publicly burnt. More was selected to do battle against Tyndale. He criticised his text, for its avoidance of certain Catholic terms such as grace, confession, and penance. Tyndale defended his exclusion of these words, on the ground, that a false meaning had become attached to them. More frankly admitted, however, that the English ought to have the Bible in their own tongue, and disposed of the argument that some might come to harm that way, by saying that “to keep the whole commodity from any people because of harm that by their own folly and fault may come to some part, were as though an unlicensed surgeon should... cut off a man’s head by the shoulders to keep him from toothache.” Whatever may be thought of Tyndale’s substitution of such words as congregation, elder, knowledge, penance, for church, priest, confession, penance, the rhythmic grace and verbal charm of his version has not been questioned. ‘Bible’ in English The first complete version of the Bible in English was made by Wyclif in 1382, though Wyclif himself was responsible probably only for the Gospels. The introduction of printing signalised the rapid multiplication of summaries of various portions of the Bible, and in 1525, Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament was first issued. To Miles Converdale, however, belongs the privilege of rendering the first complete English Bible in 1535, a Bible based on the Swiss-German version. Tyndale’s translation, however, being freely used so far as it went. Thomas Wyatt Thomas Wyatt was born in 1503, entered St. John’s college, Cambridge, at the age of twelve, and took his degree at fifteen. 14 English Literature Specific He was at one time, like Chaucer, esquire to the King. He travelled to Italy on several occasions, and was the first to introduce the sonnet into England. His friend Surrey praised his handsome appearance where “force and beauty met.” He was an accomplished swordsman, and could bandy words as well as the rapier; a fine linguist, an agreeable musician, a brilliant talker, it is small wonder that he became a favourite with Henry VIII. His letters to his son have the weighty wisdom of Chesterfield’s utterances. Henry Howard Wyatt’s friend and disciple, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was born about 1517. More hot-blooded than his friend, he was continually getting into trouble as a young man, and made several visits to the Fleet Prison. His whole career was a chequered one; in fighting, sonneteering, and roystering. He spent his days, and fell at last a victim to Henry’s arbitrary power, being beheaded, on a pretext of treason, in 1547. He was more dashing and indiscreet than his friend, but equally with him, had an open, ingenuous disposition, charm of manner, and a cultured mind. Henry excelled his friend as a metrist, and showed little of the awkwardness that mars much of Wyatt’s verse. But it must be remembered that if the disciple excelled his master in ease and assurances, the master had the advantage of having opened up the way. In the work of these men, we mark for the first time a more personal note in English poetry, for the great characteristic of medieval verse is its impersonal character. Conventional it still is, and often stiff in expression; but a more individual tone is now imparted to it. Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs! George Gascoigne George Gascoigne (c. 1525-1577) was an interesting figure of the time and had been held responsible for the first English prose comedy. The Supposes (from Ariosto), the first regular verse satire; The Steel Glass, the first prose tale (from Bandello); the first translation from Greek tragedy; Jocasta, the first critical essay, Notes of Instruction. Whether this be correct or not, he was undoubtedly a man of considerable culture, was a well-known figure at Court and in political circles, and was, as befitted a man of breeding and education, a fairly extensive traveller. He was a tolerable metrist and had a nice turn for fantasy, as may be seen by his collection of verse, Flowers, Herbs, and Weeds. His Lullaby of a Lover was a pleasant specimen of original power. Turberville, Googe and Tusser These men were all agreeable verse-writers rather than genuine poets; happy occasionally in their phrasing and fancies, but uninspired and mediocre on the whole. It is best to regard them as indirectly helping the development of English poetry by their translation work. This indirectly served to strengthen and enrich the language, and therefore, gave the original men of the age, better material on which to exercise their craft. “The green that you did wish me wear Aye for your love, And on my helm a branch to bear Not to remove, Was ever you to have in mind Whom Cupid hath my feire assigned. As winter’s force cannot deface This branch his hue, Chaucer to Shakespeare 15 So let no change of love disgrace Your friendship true; Your were mine own, and so be still So shall we live and love our fill. Then I may think myself to be Well recompensed, For wearing of the tree that is So well defenses Against all weather that doth fall When wayward winter spits his gall.” Thomas Sackville Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset was an English statesman, poet and dramatist. He wrote first English drama in blank verse, Gorboduc. His Mirror for Magistrates gave a powerful picture of the underworld where the poet describes his meeting with famous Englishman who had suffered misfortune. This work is not all from Sackville’s pen but the Prologue and design are his, and the Prologue has a Dantesque intensity about it, and a power of allegorising, unequalled save in the pages of Spenser. Sir Philip Sidney Philip Sidney was born on 30th November 1554, in the beautiful historic mansion of Penshurst, in Kent-Sir Henry Sidney, his father, being engaged at this time, in the thankless task of governing Ireland. His mother, Lady Mary Dudley, was a daughter of the duke of Northumberland, the nobleman whose schemes as queen-maker cost him his head, and it was at this tragic period of their family history that Sidney’s life began. After Oxford, Sidney found it an easy matter to enter Queen Elizabeth’s Court, his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, being at the time the Queen’s favourite; and it was he who introduced him to the all- powerful man of the day, Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley. Literary Works of Sidney His literary works occurred between the years 1578 and 1582, though nothing was published till his death. The Arcadia appeared in 1590, in an unfinished state, and appeared again in 1598, complete. About 1580 Apologie for Poetrie was written. In 1591, this work was named Defense of Poesie. The Astrophel and Stella Sonnets appeared in 1593, numbering one hundred and eight, and eleven songs. Less brilliant than Marlowe, less witty than Lyly, inferior to Spenser in glamour, and excelled many others. ‘Arcadia’: Of his Arcadia and its remarkable influence, mention is made elsewhere. Here may be noted the discerning critique – The Defense of Poesie – where he uttered those poignant simple words that go to the roots of all poetry: “I never heard the old story of Percy and Douglas, that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet.” His quick and sensitive imagination, enabled him to pluck out the very soul of song. “It is not riming and versing that maketh a poet, no more than a long gowne maketh an advocate, Who tho’ he pleaded in armour should be an advocate and no soldier.” But his most remarkable literary work was to be found in the series of sonnets, Astrophel and Stella, first published after his death. There was undoubtedly a personal element in these love verses, 16 English Literature Specific Sidney (Astrophel) having been in love with Penelope Devereux (Stella), who afterwards made an unhappy marriage, but allowance must be made for a poet’s fancy, and there is no need to treat them as entirely autobiographical. Some illustrations from his works are given hereunder: But, if some of his work seems more literary in inspiration than original and first hand; if, as compared with Spenser, the lines on occasion drag somewhat nervelessly, there are rare flashes of beauty, fine notes of passion, unforgettable phrases. We recall such lines as: “Fool! said my Muse, look in thy heart and write”; such verses as: “Doubt you, to whom my Muse, these notes intendeth, Which now my breast overcharged to music lendeth, To you, to you! all song of praise is due: Only in you my song begins and endeth; such melodious things as: “Ring out your bells, let mourning shows be spread; For Love is dead”; and the even more familiar: “My true love hath my heart, and I have his.” Sidney and Spenser By some Sidney has been lauded, as co-equal with Spenser, by others as cold and artificial. The open-minded student cannot fail to realise the injustice of both these verdicts. As a many-gifted personality, he was probably second to none; as a poet, he was certainly inferior to Spenser in power of expression and in range. A man of exquisite culture with a delicate palate for all that is fine in literature, he knew precisely what to say, but lacked at times the executive power to say it in the right way. This was largely due to need of experience in writing; and his later verses were greatly superior to his earlier efforts. The Drama and the Earlier Renaissance An articulate story, presented in action, may be termed as drama. Upon English literature, the drama is incomparably the greatest force of the time: it inspired grandest poetry as well as sweetest lyrics; it gave variety, flexibility, and clarity to our prose. It inspired poetry, because the exigencies of the stage demanded word pictures that should conjure up clearly and vividly the scene suggested; because the exigencies of acting demanded the eloquent exhibition of elemental emotions and swift transition of mood; because the exigencies of individualising demanded nice distinction of diction. Philosophic reflection, poignant introspection, joyousness of heart, agony of spirit; all these things clamoured for utterance in the drama. Elizabethan poetry voiced them all. The drama made for intensity of expression; it made also for extensity. The origins of the drama have always been deeply rooted in the religious instincts of mankind. This is true of the Greek, Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, and of the modern Christian drama. The ancient Greek drama never lost its kinship with the religious ceremonies of the people. Dionysus, God of Life and Death, the God of Wine, and of the Fertile Earth, was the father of Greek Comedy and Tragedy. The production of a play was a sacred function that every citizen had a right to attend. The Roman drama was an offshoot of the Greek, but in the days of the late empire it fell into a degraded and corrupt state. Chaucer to Shakespeare 17 So, when Christianity became the state religion, the theatre was heartily frowned upon. But it was as futile to hope to suppress the drama as to suppress laughter and tears, and before long, the Church was found utilising the very tendencies she had endeavoured to crush, so that it is true to say, the “cradle of the drama” in Europe, and more particularly in England, “rested on the altar.” The clergy were obliged to find some method of teaching and explaining to the ignorant masses the doctrinal truths of religion. The services of the Church were in Latin, and even if the Bible had been accessible to the laity, few could read it. Hence, in very early times, the Gospel stories were illustrated by a series of living pictures in which the performers acted the story in dumb show. Mysteries The term Mystery is applied to the stories taken from the Scripture narrative, while Miracles are plays dealing with incidents in the lives of saints and martyrs. The history of the English drama is rooted in lay as well as in religious history. It may be well at this point to sketch the main lines of development, before dealing in greater detail with the early plays that merged gradually into Elizabethan drama. Pausing then, to consider the lines of development shown by the drama from Plantagenet times down to the era of Elizabeth, we find certain distinctive stages, whilst underlying the entire movement is a twofold appeal. Miracle Plays Drama is obviously inherent in the very ritual of the Church, and the Mass itself was a factor in dramatic development. The seasons of the year suggested the subject matter of plays: Christmas, Easter, stories derived from the Bible, called Mysteries, stories from the lives of the Saints, called Miracle Plays. Early in the Middle Ages the clergy celebrated Holy Days– Christmas, Easter, etc.— by playing scenes from the life of Christ. The first positive stage in the development of the drama is marked by the performance of these stories in the church. On the whole, miracle plays proved more popular than mysteries, probably on account of their fresher subject-matter. Each big town had its own cycle of plays– e.g. York, Chester, Coventry. One of the earliest examples of the miracle play has been preserved in an Orleans M S, and concerns St. Nicholas. It is written in Latin, with old French refrains. The Office of the Shepherds was performed on Christmas Eve. A cradle was placed on the alter and beside it an image of the Virgin Mary. A number of the clergy represented the shepherds and entered the church carrying crooks and having with them real sheep and dogs. Some of the shepherds pretend to go to sleep, while others watch their flocks. Suddenly a choir-boy, dressed as an angel, mounts the pulpit and, preceded by blasts from the trumpeters, announces the birth of Christ. Immediately a choir of singers in the clerestory sing “Glory to God in the Highest.” The shepherds proceed up the church to the altar where other priests show them the child and bid them announce his birth to the people. The shepherds adore the Child and his Mother and march through the church singing a hymn of praise. English Comedy and Humour Of more importance at this period, was the development of English comedy, as exemplified by Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1566), and Gammer Gurton’s Needle (1575), plays rich in English humour; the first (the better of the two) showing a keen sense of dramatic movement. 18 English Literature Specific The Wakefield Cycle The Wakefield cycle consists of thirty-two plays commencing with the Creation. The usual series of plays follow: Noah; Abraham and Isaac; Jacob and Esau; the Old Testament prophecies of Christ; Pharaoh; The taxing of the world by Caesar Augustus; the Annuciation, Salutation, and Nativity; the Visit of the Wise Men, the flight into Egypt, the Slaughter of the Innocents, the Purification, Jesus among the Doctors, John the Baptist, the Last Supper, three plays on the Passion and the Crucifixion, Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, the Appearance of Christ to the Disciples, the Ascension, Doomsday, the Raising of Lazarus, and the Hanging of Judas. The Chester Plays The Chester Plays show a more serious and didactic purpose than the other cycles. The plays of which there are twenty-five, were acted by the trade companies of the city on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Whitsun week from 1268 to 1577, and again in 1600. The series commences with the Fall of Lucifer, acted by the Tanners, next came the Creation and the Fall. The Creation was rendered more realistic by sending into the crowd as many strange animals as could be obtained, and by sending a flight of pigeons into the air. The Coventry Plays A complete cycle of plays have been preserved, which are said to have been acted at Coventry, on the Festival of Corpus Christi. This, however, rests on uncertain evidence, and if the plays belong to Coventry, it is thought probable they were acted by the Grey Friars of the town and were not connected with the trade guilds. The M.S. dates from the time of Henry VI (c. 1468), and consists of forty-two plays which were, however, not all acted in one year the custom being to perform the first twenty-eight in one year, and the remainder the next year. The Interludes The Interludes of John Heywood stand midway between the moralities and the regular drama, since in the Interlude the allegorical characters have disappeared. The morality was a sermon in disguise; the Interlude aimed at amusement and entertainment. It is possible that Interludes of music, jesting and story-telling, had always to a greater or lesser extent accompanied feasts and banquets, but it was left to John Heywood, in the reign of Henry VIII, to give the Interlude a definite place not only in literature but in the evolution of the drama. Heywood was born in North Mimms in Hertfordshire, he was Roman Catholic and a friend of Sir Thomas More, who obtained for him his position at Court, as a producer of entertainments of the king’s pleasure. This he kept through the reign of Edward VI and Queen Mary. On the death of Queen Mary he is said to have fled from the country. He died in exile sometime between 1577 and 1587. An Interlude by Heywood is The Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, printed in 1533, but which was written before 1521. English Tragedy The first English tragedy was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, and was acted by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple before Elizabeth, on the Banqueting Day of the Grand Christmas festival of the Inner Templars, January 18, 1561. The argument of the play is as follows: “Gorboduc, King of Britain divided his realms in his lifetime to his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The sons fell to dissension. The younger killed the elder. The mother, that more dearly loved the elder, for revenge killed the younger. The people moved with the cruelty of the fact, rose in rebellion, and slew both father and mother. The nobility assembled, and most terribly Chaucer to Shakespeare 19 destroyed the rebels; and afterwards for want of issue of the Prince, whereby the succession of the crown became uncertain they fell to civil war, in which both they and many of their issues were slain, and the land for a long time almost desolate and miserably wasted.” The story is divided into five acts, Norton wrote the first, second, and third, and Sackville the fourth and fifth. The action takes place behind the scenes, and each act ends with a chorus, in mitation of the tragedies of Seneca. It departs from the classical model in the use of dumb show and is written in blank verse—first used by Surrey in translating a part of Virgil’s A Eneid, and now for the time applied to the drama. First Regular English Comedy ‘Ralph Roister Doister’ The first regular English comedy, based on the model of the Latin comedy, was produced in 1541 or earlier. The play is usually attributed to Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Eton from 1534 to 1541. Udall was born in Hampshire in 1506. He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and came under the influence on the teaching of More, Colet, and Erasmus. Udall and a number of other young men were arrested in 1527 by order of Wolsey, for possessing Tyndale’s translation of the New Testaments and Luther’s Tracts. The students saved their lives by making a public recantation. After leaving Oxford, Udall seems to have became a schoolmaster in the North. In 1533 Udall was in London, and shortly afterwards was appointed headmaster of Eton, where he remained until 1541. It was the custom at public schools to act Latin plays on special occasions. The idea seems to have occurred to Udall to substitute an English play for the usual comedy from Plautus of Terence, Hence the production of Ralph Roister Doister. The Towneley Plays These were acted at Woodkirk, near Wakefield, and are sometimes known as the Wakefield Plays, deriving their first title from the fact that the M.S. volume containing the text was discovered in the library of Towneley Hall in Lancashire. Some of the plays may have been acted by the two fairs which were held annually at Woodhirk. Five of the plays are almost identical with plays in the York cycle, and some of them were acted by the trade guilds of Wakefield. The second Shepherd’s play is prefaced by a comic interlude that has been described as the first farce in the English language. The shepherds are out in the fields on Christmas Eve, they begin to grumble at the weather, their heavy taxes: “We are so lamed We are made hand–tamed With these gentlery men”. Of the trials of matrimony : “We silly wed-men dree mickle woe”. SOME FAMOUS DRAMATISTS OF THE AGE John Lyly He was born in 1554. The plays of Lyly were written after the publication of Euphues, and were acted by “the children of Paul’s before her Majesty.” In character, they were mythological or pastoral, and approximated to the Maseque, rather than to the narrative drama of Marlowe. They were written in prose intermingled with verse, and whereas the verse is almost wholly charming, the prose is often marred by the fantastic conceits, that weary the reader of Euphues. Nor had Lyly 20 English Literature Specific that sense of the theatre displayed by many of his contemporaries, who lacked his sense of literary form and polished wit. George Peele George Peele, of Devonshire origin, the son of James Peele, citizen and salter of London, was born about 1558, and as a free scholar, was educated at Christ’s Hospital from 1566-70. In March of the following year, he went to Broadgate Hall, Oxford, and completed his degree in arts in 1579. His works are: The Arraignment of Paris, 1584; Edward I, 1593; The Battle of Alcazar, 1594; The Old Wives’ Tale, 1595 – the only known copies of this are one in the British Museum and one in the library at Bridgewater House; David and Fair Bathsheba, 1599; and an earlier play now lost, entitled The Hunting of Cupid, supposed to have been written about 1591. Among other works may be mentioned Polyhymnia, 1590, a poem in blank verse; The Honour of the Garter, 1593; The Fall of Troy, published with A Farewell to Norris and Drake, 1589 ; and a thumb book 1¼ X 1, with two lines on a page. George Peele left behind him some half dozen plays, richer in poetic beauty than any of his group, save Marlowe. His earliest work is The Arraignment of Paris; his most notable, perhaps, David and Bathsheba. Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (1558-95) was the son of a London notary, and received his education at Merchant Taylor’s School. A dramatist and translator, he achieved great popularity with his first work The Spanish Tragedy, which was translated into German and Dutch, and in which Jonson is supposed by some to have been his collaborator. The record of his life and works is uncertain. Putting aside his translation of Cornelia, The Spanish Tragedy is his only known play; and although its ranting style roused the contempt of Shakespeare, yet there are touches of genuine force behind the extravagances; and even extravagance is better than lifelessness. Robert Greene His plays comprise Orlando Furioso, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, Alphonsus King of Aragon, Looking Glass for London and England (with Lodge), and George-a-Greene, the Pinner of Wakefield. Among his other works the most important are Pandosto, from which Shakespeare took the plot for The Winter’s Tale: Penelope’s Web, and his partly autobiographical Groat’s Worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. Christopher Marlowe We pass to the greatest of the band, to the great protagonist of Elizabethan drama- Christopher Marlowe. Tamburlaine is a Scythian shepherd, obsessed with the idea, that his mission in life is to be “the scourge of God” and a terror to the world till “Immortal Jove says, Cease, Tamburlaine!” He pursues and overcomes the mightiest monarchs of the Eastern world with the bloodthirstiness of a savage beast: captive kings drag his chariot to the field of battle for further conquest, and with their queens imprisoned in cages; at length rashing out their brains, rather than exist for further indignity. Yet, Tamburlaine is possessed of a personal magnetism that cannot be withstood: “Sooner shall the sun fall from his sphere Than Tamburlaine be slain or overcome” says the Persian warrior sent to quell him. Chaucer to Shakespeare 21 Tamburlaine was succeeded by The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, in which the dramatist gives an old medieval legend a glowing Renaissance setting. The story of the alchemist who sells his soul to the Devil never lost its fascination, and in late years Faustus became more of the heartless sensualist than the headstrong magician. It was in this form that Goethe found the story and turned it to his own use. In the ancient legend the Faustus barters his soul in return for some years of gaiety and pleasure. Marlowe’s Fausus desires pleasure also, but incidentally only, it is every form of joy that he would drink of freely. He is a genuine incarnation of the Renaissance spirit, and has nothing of that calculating, introspective nature peculiar to Goethe’s gentleman. ‘Faustus’ was followed by The Jew of Malta, a play rich in fine episodes, and with a glorious opening, but lacking the grip and imaginative appeal of the earlier plays. Edward ll, his last play, is from the technical point of view also his best. Lacking the intensity and rhythmic beauty of the earlier plays, it shows rare skill of construction, while the characterisation is wholly admirable. To some extent no doubt it inspired Shakespeare’s Richard ll, and the abdication scene is obviously modelled on Marlowe’s. Marlowe’s other work for the stage is almost negligible. The Massacre of Paris survives, it is true, in a fragmentary and corrupt condition, but this dramatisation of contemporary French history is strangely lacking in power and interest. The Tragedy of Dido, written in conjunction with Nash and published, bears little impress of Marlowe’s greatness, and is supposed to be an early work, greatly altered and added to, by his collaborator. A great portion of Henry VI is from Marlowe’s pen, and more happily reminiscent. But the outstanding work, putting aside the four plays above discussed, is the fragmentary Hero and Leander, a poem of singular freshness and beauty. The Prose and Earlier Renaissance The English Novel. The eager, inquisitive spirit that flamed up at the Renaissance could not exhaust itself entirely in the expansion of English poetry, or even in the creation of the romantic drama; for in achieving this it realised also the compelling interest of everyday actualities. The favourite story-teller of Chaucer’s time had been the Minstrel. It was he, who first familiarised the common folk with the legends of Arthur and his Knights, of Charlemagne, with such verse tales as Gawain and the Green Knight, and the popular Guy of Warwick. Needless to say, the art of story-telling in the minstrels’ hands was of a rough and crude kind. They broadened and coarsened the Arthurian Romances to suit the taste of their primitive-minded hearers; but in doing so, introduced a contemporary note, interlarding their tales with ridicule of the decadent medieval church, and thus giving that flavour or actuality, which paved the way for the Novel of Elizabeth’s time. While they were doing this, our first great realistic poet, Chaucer, was helping with finer artistry to create a distaste for the high-falutin medieval romance. He effected this directly in Troilus and Cressida, an ancient romance treated as a genuine character study; indirectly in his epic of contemporary life, The Canterbury Tales. Here, then, in Chaucer’s time is the first stage in the development of the novels from the old romance that had its inspiration in the songs of the minstrel. William Painter’s Collection. There was no more popular book than William Painter’s collection of Italian stories. He was the Clerk of the Ordnance in the Tower, and his translation not merely inspired the Romantic drama but interested English reader in Italian fiction specifically, and the art form of the Novel generally. Thus he paved the way, for the English novel as well as providing a background for the English drama. Painter’s volume had been ransacked to furnish the playhouses of London. Shakespeare borrowed from him generously in Romeo and Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice; and Beaumont and Fletcher themselves only less liberally of his stories. 22 English Literature Specific The Elizabethan Prose Writers The Elizabethan prose writers, who distinguished themselves in prose fiction, were John Lyly, Robert Greene, Thomas Lodge, Sir Philip Sidney, and Thomas Nash. (1) John Lyly (1554-1606). John Lyly was the pioneer of the English novel, the first stylist in prose, and the most popular writer of his age. A young Kentish man, with slender financial resources and very few friends, he had the good fortune to attract the attention of Lord Burghley, who become his patron. In 1579, Lyly published the first part of his famous fiction, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, which was received with general delight and approbation. In the structure of his work, Lyly was Spanish, but there was much more moralising in Lyly, than in Guevara, and more sentiment. That, no doubt, was another reason for his popularity. From Lyly to the present day, the most popular writers of fiction had always been sentimental and didactic. There were witty turns of speech in Lyly worth remembering: “It is a blind goose that cometh to the fox’s sermon.” “Thou must halt cunningly to beguile a cripple.” “The best charm for an aching tooth is to pull it out and the best remedy for love is to wear it out” Sayings like these recall the modern apothems of George Eliot. The style is marked by the constant use of antithesis and alliteration, which at times becomes mannered to a wearisome extent, but often gives agreeable force and pungency to the matter:... Where salt doth grow nothing else can breed. Where friendship is built no offence can harbour.” A defect in Lyly’s prose style was his excessive fondness for classical authorities– a fondness that overburdened his prose with a torrent of allusions, comical rather than impressive. Fickleness and constancy, when mentioned, brought with them interminable lists of mythological ladies and gentlemen remarkable for these characteristics. He was not content with an illustration: an allusion with him was synonymous with cataloguing. (2) Robert Greene (1558-1592). Robert Greene, who succeeded Lyly, if less brilliant, attains a greater simplicity in his later writings. He was a happy-go-lucky Bohemian, who had no patron, and lived on his wits. His first novel was poor and imitative, but in Pandosto (1580), from which Shakespeare took his Winter’s Tale, he showed real originality. The most considerable factor made by Greene to the development of the novel is found in his pamphlets rather than in his conventional fiction, for here he writes from personal knowledge of the “underworld” of his day. Especially vivid is his Life and Death of Ned Browne, a notorious cut-purse, wherein he anticipates the “low life” scenes of Defoe and Smollett. (3) Thomas Lodge (1558-1625). Another writer of fiction to be noted is Thomas Lodge, the studious friend of Greene. He travelled much in the earlier years of his life, and while journeying he wrote several romances; one entitled Rosalynde (1590), which inspired Shakespeare’s As you Like it. Lodge also derived from Lyly, but not in the same way as did Greene. Lodge had travelled, as did many young men of that time, over distant seas, looking for opportunities abroad rather than at home to advance him. These did not come, but during the long journeys by sea he wrote several romances; one entitled Rosalynde being of special interest to us, for from it Shakespeare, with a quick eye for a good story evolved the plot of As you like it. Far removed were his prefaces from the simpering, deprecating prefaces of Lyly. He had his own little way with critics. If they did not like his books, let them hold their peace, otherwise he will throw them overboard to feed cods. This was swashbuckling with a vengeance. Chaucer to Shakespeare 23 (4) Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586). Sidney’s contribution to English literature on French influences more considerably affected Sidney than his predecessors. Perhaps he was of all of them the least touched by the magic of Italy, though he was a great admirer of Spanish literature. For example, we are taking here Pamela’s prayer from Sidney’s “Arcadia”. “Kneeling down, even where she stood, she thus said: O All-seeing Light, and eternal Life of all things, to whom nothing is either so great, that it may resist, or so small that it is contemned; look upon my misery with thine eye of mercy, and let thine infinite power vouchsafe to limit out some proportion of deliverance unto mee, as to thee shall seem most convenient. Let not injuries, O Lord, triumph over me; and let my faults by thy hand bee corrected and make not mine unjust Enemy the ministers of thy Justice. But yet, my God, if, in thy wisdom, this be the aptest chastisement for my inexcusable folly; if this low bondage be fittest for my over-high desires; if the pride of my enough humble heart, be thus to be broken, O Lord, I yeeled unto thy will, and joyfully embrace what sorrow thou wilt have me suffer. Only thus much let me crave of thee... let calamity be the exercise, but not the overthrow of my virtue; let their power prevail, but not prevaile to destruction: let my greatness be their prey :let my pains be the sweetnesse of their revenge: let them, if so it seem good unto thee, vexe me with more and more punishment. But, O Lord, let never their wickednesse have such a hand, but that I may carry a pure minde in a pure body. And pausing, a while: And, O most gracious Lord, said shee, what ever become of me, preserve the vertuous Musidorus.” (5) Thomas Dekker (1572-1632): Dekker, whose dramatic work had already been noticed, also essayed fiction. But although he had shown some measure of Nash’s gaiety and shrewdness of observation in the “Picaresque” stories which he essayed, it was as a dramatist and writer of prose, other than fiction, that he was most entitled to remembrance. With the close of the Elizabethan period, the first period of the English novel came to an end. During the next century, French romance, of the extravagant and artificial order, came into fashion for the class who cared about fiction. (6) Thomas Nashe (1567-1601) was an English Elizabethan pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the son of the minister William Nashe and his wife Margaret (née Witchingham). While staying in the household of Archbishop John Whitgift at Croydon, in October 1592 he wrote an entertainment called Summer’s Last Will and Testament, a “show”, with some resemblance to a masque. In brief, the plot described the death of Summer, who, feeling himself to be dying, reviewed the performance of his former servants and eventually passed the crown on to Autumn. The play was published in 1600. Nashe is widely remembered for three short poems, all drawn from this play and frequently reprinted in anthologies of Elizabethan verse: “Adieu, farewell, earth’s bliss,” “Fair summer droops” and “Autumn hath all the summer’s fruitful treasure.” Nashe may also have contributed to Henry VI, Part 1, the play later published under Shakespeare’s name as the first part of the Henry VI trilogy. Many scholars believe that Shakespeare himself, who was just starting out as a writer, only contributed some scenes to the play. Gary Taylor believes that Nashe was the principal author of the first act. Nashe subsequently promoted the play in his pamphlet Pierce Penniless. In 1593 Nashe published Christ’s Tears Over Jerusalem, a pamphlet dedicated to Lady Elizabeth Carey. Despite the work’s apparently devotional nature, it contained satirical material which gave offence to the London civic authorities and Nashe was briefly imprisoned in Newgate. The intervention of Lady Elizabeth’s husband Sir George Carey gained his release. In 1597 Nashe co-wrote the play The Isle of Dogs with Ben Jonson. The work caused a major controversy for its “seditious” content. The play was suppressed and never published. He was alive in 1599, when his last known work, Nashes Lenten Stuffe, was published, and dead by 1601, when he was memorialised in a Latin verse in Affaniae by Charles Fitzgeoffrey. 24 English Literature Specific Non-fictious Prose During the fifteenth century, Latin was the vehicle of prose, and works of importance were almost entirely written in that tongue. There names alone stand out before the time of Caxton, as makers of English -Reginald Pecock, Sir John Fortescue, and the Paston Family. Reginald Pecock Pecock’s personality is a remarkable one. He was a Welshman by birth, and an Oxonian by training. Having taken orders, he soon distinguished himself as an opponent of Lollardy. His zeal brought, in his wake numerous foes, and as the most effective attack against an enemy was the change of heresy, this heresy hunter was charged himself by his political foes of heretical tendencies. He escaped death by recantation, of errors he had never held, and died finally in imprisonment. One of his offences was that he wrote in English, another that he urged the use of reason in confuting arguments. This is the line he adopted in the Repressor, but his learning excited both jealousy and suspicion; and the one argument in strong favour was to suppress by merely citing adverse authorities. That Pecock abjured at this time, was sufficient to damn him, in an age when the faintest show of tolerance towards a heretic, even if it took the innocent form of quietly pointing out his errors and trying to dissuade him by the method of what Arnold called “sweet reasonableness”. THE STYLE OF THE PROSE Roger Ascham Roger Ascham is known as a distinguished writer, a fine classical scholar, and an entertaining correspondent. He was born at Kirby Wiske, near Thirsk in Yorkshire, in the year 1515, and died in 1568. He became a student of St. John’s College, Cambridge, in 1530 and soon obtained his fellowship, notwithstanding his well known sympathy with the Reformed doctrines. Later, he was appointed University Reader in Greek, and in 1546, University Orator. Amongst “past-times” for gentlemen, he gives cock fighting an important place, but Ascham’s chief interests were music, writing and archery. His first work to attract attention, Toxophilus–devoted to archery, one of his favourite recreations– he published in 1545, and dedicated it to Henry VIII. In 1548, his reputation gained for him the position of tutor, to the Lady Elizabeth at Cheshunt. The years 1550–53 were lived on the Continent, chiefly at Augsburg; he was then secretary to Sir Richard Morysin or Morison, who held the post of ambassador to Charles V. When he returned to England, he obtained the Latin secretaryship to Queen Mary. This prominent post, being given to a Protestant, has occasioned great surprise. His extreme care and tact helped him to escape suffering in any way for his opinions. On the accession of Elizabeth, who was once his pupil, he remained at Court and became the Queen’s tutor, as well as secretary. These posts were held by Ascham until the end of his life. Ascham, a sturdy old scholar of the more formal type, was a Puritan in his taste, and opposed to the new taste for romance, by an undoubted pioneer of good, direct English prose. In an age so saturated with rhetoric and ornate conceits, it is a great tribute to Ascham that he should have achieved a prose at once simple and straightforward, yet never bald nor unmusical. Literary Works 1. Toxophilus, published 1545 2. Schoolmaster, published 1570, after his death. 3. Report of Germany 4. Two hundred and ninety-five letters, Latin and English, partly official and partly personal. Chaucer to Shakespeare 25 Professor Saintsbury calls his prose “a gocart to habituate the infant limbs of English prose to orderly movement.” It is no unfair description. Sidney and Prose Sir Philip Sidney brought forward the prose another stage. Considering him here as a stylist, he put aside the elaborate affectations of Lyly, and while not free from mannerism, struck a happy comparison between the straightforward simplicity of Ascham and the lightly-coloured complexity of euphuism. His prose at its best is both simple and melodious, strong and sweet, and he achieves for prose much what Spenser did for verse. “The poet both not only show the way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie thro’ a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass further.” Hooker The aim of Hooker was to give us a prose that should be at once simple and impressive. Sidney had combined simplicity with cadence. Hooker gave to the cadence a finer and more sustained rhythm. In point of time he is the forerunner of Lyly, but he certainly carried prose style to a higher stage of development, and if less powerful an influence in his day than either Lyly or Sidney, exerted in the long run a more potent one. Theological literature very rarely lends itself to literary excellences. For a few modern theologians can it be said that they had the art of saying well what they had to say. But Hooker will be remembered not merely as that first vernacular defender of the English Church, but as a writer of fine, eloquent prose. Sir Walter Raleigh Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the most versatile, brilliant, and daring spirits of his time, whose achievements give a colour to the period in which he lived, was born near Budleigh Salterton in 1552. His father had married the widow of Otho Gilbert, thus Walter Raleigh was the half– brother of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the explorer, who took possession of Newfoundland, oldest British colony, in 1583. Remarkable, as was Raleigh’s physical activity, no less restless was his mind. When imprisonment gave enforced leisure to the one, the other part of him went a-roving. He was a verse-writer of distinction – does not Gabriel Harvey speak of his “fine and sweet invention”? And wrote a fine sonnet that was appended to the first edition of the Faerie Queene and many poems signed “Ignoto,” published in England’s Helicon. As to his prose, perhaps his most notable achievement was the History of the World, a serious, discursive review of the past and present very popular for its treatment of Biblical history and early times, but disliked by James, “for being too saucy in censuring Princes.” It is rich in fine passages of eloquent prose and is also an interesting piece of self-revelation. Its chief defect, an entire lack of humour, is felt at times, but is largely counterbalanced by the picture it presents of a restless, adventurous and ambitious spirit, with a rich sense of the fullness of life and a tragic appreciation of its ironies. “Even such is time that takes on trust Our Youth, our joys, our all we have, And pays us but with rust and dust.” Literary Works 1. Fight about the Islet of the Azores, appeared in 1591. 26 English Literature Specific 2. A Discovery of the Empire of Guiana, 1596. 3. History of the world, written during his imprisonment, 1612. 4. Verses found in his Bible in the Gatehouse in Westminster, 1618. 5. Cynthia, lost until part of it was published by Dr. Hannah in 1885. 6. The Pilgrimage, supposed to be written in 1603. 7. Poems on Sir Philip Sidney, 1591, without his signature. 8. The Lie first appeared in print in 1608. 9. Nymph’s Reply, the Prerogatives of Parliaments, The Cabinet Council, published by Milton in 1658. 10. The Discoveries. “ Perfect piece of writing.” 11. Advice to his son. William Webbe The Rules to be Observed in Scottish Poetry (1585), by James the First, is a book of not much importance, but William Webbe’s Discourse of English Poesie (1586) is of greater value. Webbe was an enthusiastic admirer of Spenser– “the mightiest English poet that ever lived.” With the poetry of Chaucer’s age however, he is not closely acquainted, and in his excursion into the poetry of the past, he displays no particular acumen. Webbe’s value lies less in his argumentative disquisition than in his power of appreciation. He has a natural taste for fine verse, and it is on the appreciative side of criticism, not the judicial, that he claims recognition. Earlier Renaissance Michelet summed up the Renaissance in “the discovery of the world and the discovery of man”. With the latter aspect, the culture, and art of the movement are necessarily concerned. The richly veined humanity of the Italian Renaissance sufficiently emphasized this side: on the other, the revolution wrought in astronomy and the art of navigation introduced a new world as dazzling and surprising in its vast possibilities as the imaginative world opened by Michael Angelo and Shakespeare. The Call of the Sea The sense of curiosity and the craving for adventure and so long restricted to the tortuous word- spinning and crusading zeal of the Middle Ages, received a tremendous stimulus that soon found expression in maritime discovery and commercial enterprise. The adventurous sea-man was to open up not merely new countries but a new literature. Yet, the Call of the Sea was no new note in our literature; the white surf thunders grimly through Beowulf, and carries its desolating grandeur throughout the whole of Saxon poetry. After the Norman conquest when the English were becoming more civilised, and the seaman adventure was merged into the bartering merchant, the Call of the Sea is lost in other cries, and even Chaucer’s Shipman fails to carry conviction. But with the Renaissance, once again we can hear the roar of the ocean and can taste the salt brine. The adventurous spirit in English literature, hitherto, had been practically confined to that extra- ordinary mixture of outrageous fable and genuine travel entitled the Travels of Sir John Mandeville; that had sufficed during the late Middle Ages to satisfy the craving for wonders beyond narrow seas. It really mattered very little that there was “no such person” – indeed it took several ventures to find that out, so distinct is its impress of a genial, curious, broad–minded personality revealed in this mosaic of many Chaucer to Shakespeare 27 men’s wanderings, for its enormous popularity testified not merely to the love of the marvellous but to the passion for knowledge about the other countries, which is characteristically English. The serious recording of voyagers, however, was a thing not begotten in England. It came, as might be expected, from Spain and Italy. Peter Martyr of Aughina catechised the navigators of the time. Literary improvements of the period are given below : 1. One of the earliest names in the new literature of the sea is that of Richard Eden, an industrious compiler of Spanish achievements, with the laudable object of inspiring his country to go on and do likewise. He further published a book on the Art of Navigation, 1581. In his style, he is clear and unpretentious, and as an interpreter of maritime discovery, he is worthy of a place of honour. 2. Meanwhile, in 1553, Sir Hugh Willoughby had perished in his voyage to the North– East, an account of which was written in Latin by Clement Adams and translated later by Hakluyt. 3. After this came the remarkable voyages of Sir JOHN HAWKINS in 1562,1564, 1567. On the third occasion, he wrote an account of his experiences in a brisk and forcible style, made nonetheless attractive by the occasional vein of philosophic meditation. 4. In 1576 George Gascoigne wrote a preface to a Discourse of a Discoverie, for a new passage to Cathay, attributed to Sir Humphrey Gilbert. The tract was written primarily to convince Gilbert’s brother who looked upon the project as a wild and foolish thing. 5. In Marlowe, we find it perhaps at its height. Marlowe’s restless imagination and insatiable curiosity seized hungrily on the stuff of travel for his plays, and did not Stow declare that Drake was “as famous in Europe and America as Tamburlaine was in Asia and Africa.” 6. There is the spirit of Hawkins and of Drake in Tamburlaine and Faust; it is hard to imagine The Tempest and Pericles of Shakespeare, with their vivid descriptions, without the sea chronicler of the time, or the stirring speeches of Othello, with no Hakluyt to give colour and substance to the romantic visions of the poet. Throughout this great era of drama and of poetry, the Call of Sea persists; and from Spenser’s Faerie Queen to the New Atlantis of Bacon, and the Paradise Lost of Milton, we may trace its spell. With the decline of the Renaissance, it dies down as a stimulus to our literature; and the matter-of-fact, common-sense attitude of the eighteenth century found its plenary inspiration elsewhere. Nonetheless, the spirit of adventure had its own triumph even in that age, and the stirring exploits that had stirred into flame the genius of Marlowe, descended on that brilliant, home-loving journalist, Defoe. So, a literature that started with Tamburlaine ended with Robinson Crusoe. HEIGHTS OF THE RENAISSANCE “An over-faint quietness”, wrote Sir Philip Sidney in 1581, “should see