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This document is a study guide for English literature, covering various periods from Chaucer to Shakespeare and beyond. It includes a content table, important dates and events, major literary figures and their works. It also delves into the historical context and literary movements within the periods covered.
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CONTENT TABLE ENGLISH 1. FROM CHAUCER OF SHAKESPEARE 002-095 2. FROM JACOBEAN TO RESTORATION 096-198 3. AUGUSTAN AGE : THE 18TH CENTURY 199-289 4. ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798-1832) 290-371 5. VICTORIAN PERIOD (1837 TO 1901)...
CONTENT TABLE ENGLISH 1. FROM CHAUCER OF SHAKESPEARE 002-095 2. FROM JACOBEAN TO RESTORATION 096-198 3. AUGUSTAN AGE : THE 18TH CENTURY 199-289 4. ROMANTIC PERIOD (1798-1832) 290-371 5. VICTORIAN PERIOD (1837 TO 1901) 372-433 6. ENGLISH IN INDIA 434-447 7. AMERICAN LITERATURE 448-525 8. LITERACY CRITICISM 526-545 9. OTHER NON-BRITISH LITERATURE 546-574 10. LITERARY THEORY AND CRITICISM 575-661 UNIT 1 FROM CHAUCER OF SHAKESPEARE FROM CHAUCER OF SHAKESPEARE Some Important Years with Social, Political and Literary Events 1337 – Conflict between France and England, Hundred Years War Begins. 1346 - Battle of Crecy. 1348 - First out break of plague in England, Black Death. 1377 – Reformation by Wycliffe. 1380 – Lollard movement by Wycliffe. 1381 – Peasant’s Revolt, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion. 1453 – Henry VI went insane and it seemed that Duke of York would be chosen but queen gave birth to a son, so battle for the crown got foundation. 1455 - The first battle in the wars of the Roses beings. 1476 -Caxton started printing press. 1485 -Battle of Bosworth, Victory of Henry VII over Richard III. 1521 -The Pope gives Henry VII, the title “Defender of the Faith”. 1564 -Birth of Shakespeare. 1582 -Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway. 1588 -Spanish Armada defeated. 1592 -Plaque closes theatre for two years. 1599 -First ‘Globe’ theatre opened. 1600 -East India Company founded. 1611 -King James Bible published. 1613 -Globe theatre burned. 1614 -The Globe rebuilt. 1616 -Death of Shakespeare. Major Literary Figures and their Works. John Wycliffe (1320-1384) – Translation of Bible from Latin. John Barbour (1320-1395) – Bruce (1375). William Langland (1330-1386) – Piers the Plowman (1377), A Treatise on the Astrolabe. John Gower (1330-1408) – Confessio Amantis, Speclum Meditantis (1376-78) Vox Calmantis (1374- 81). Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) – The Romaunt of the Roses, The Book of the Duchess (1369- 3 70), Troilus and Criseyde (1385). The Canterbury Tale begins (1387), Anelida and Arcite, The Parliament of Fouls, The House of Fame (incomplete), The Legend of Good Women, Sir Topas. Thomas Occleve (1368-1450) – The Regiment (Governail) of Princes (1411-12), La Mala Regle, A Dialogue with a Friend, The Complaint of Our Lady, Occleve’s Complaint. John Lydgate (1370-1451) – The Fall of Princes (1431), Troy Book, The Temple of Glass, Story of Thebes, London Lickpenny. Regionold Pecock (1390-1461) – The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy (1445), The Book of Faith. James I Stewart of Scotland (1394-1437) – The King’s Quair (1435), Peblis to the Play, Christis Kirk on the Grene. Caxton (1422-1491) – The Ways of Perfect Religion. Thomas Malory – Morte d’ Arthur (1485). John Skelton (1460-1529) – Garlande (1523), Ballad of Scottish King (1513), Why Come Ye not to Court, The Bouge of Court (1500), Magnificence, Book of Colin Clout, The Tunnynge of Elynour Rummynge, Philip Sparrow (1504), Dirge on Edward IV. William Dunbar (1460-1530) – Dance of the Seven Deidlieie Synnis (1507), Lament for the Makaris, Golden Target, Thrissil and Rais, Tidings From the Sessions, Satire on Edinburgh, The Two Mary Women. Gowin Douglas (1474-1522) – The Palice of Honour, King Hart Conscience, Translation of the twelve books of Aenied (1513). Alexander Barclay (1475-1552) – The Ship of Fools, Certayne Ecologes. Stephen Hawes – The Passetyme of Pleasure, A Joyfull Medytacyon, The Example of virtue, The Conversion of Swesrrs. Thomas More (1478-1535) – Utopia Magnifcence (1516) or Kingdom of Nowhere, translated into English (1551), The Life of John Picus, The History of Richard III. David Lyndsay (1490-1555) – The Dreme, The Testament of Squyer Meldrum, Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaitis. Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) – Tottle’s Miscellany (1557). Early of Surrey (1516-47) - Translation of Aeneid II and IV (1557). John Foxe (1516-1587) – Acts and Monuments of these Latter and Perilus Days (1563) or Book of Martyrs. Roger Ascham (1516-1568) – The school Master (1570), Toxophlus (1545). George Gascoigne (1525-1577) – Steel Glass, Supposes, Jocasta. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) – The Shepherds Calender (1579), The Ruins of Time, The Complaints, The Tears of the Muses, Mucopotmos, Mother Habberd’s Tale, The Ruins of the 4 Muses, Amoretti (1595), Epithalamion (1595), Prothalamion (1596), A View of the Present State of Ireland, The Fairie Queene (1590-96), Hymnes in Honour of Love and Beautie (1596), Colin Clout’s Come Home Again (1595), Astrophel. Philip Sidney (1554-1586) – ‘Old’ Arcadia (1577), Astrophel and Stella (1581), Defence of Poesie (1582), ‘New’ Arcadia (1582, 1590), Apologie for Poetrie (1595). George Chapman (1559-1634) – The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596), Busyd Ambois (1604), All Fools (1605), Eastward Hoe (1605), Duke of Byron, Charles Duke of Chabot (1613). Pre University Wits John Lyly (1554-1606) – Women in the Moon, Endymion (1592), Sppho and Phao, Alexander and Compaspe (1584), Misdas, Mother Bombie, Love’s Metamorphosis, Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit (1579), Euphues and His England (1580). Robert Green (1558-1592) – The Mirror of Modesty (1584), Pandosta, Alphonsus, King of Aragon (1587), Arbasto, The Anatomy of Fortune (1584), Frier Bacon and Frier Bongey (1589) Orlando Furioso (1591), Power and Glory, The So High History of James IV (1592), Mamilia, Menaphon, Our Man in Havana, May We Borrow, your Husband, The Triumph of Time (1588), A looking Glass for London and England. George Peele (1558-1598) – The Araygnement of Paris (1584), The Famous Chronicle of King of King Edward I (1593), The Old Wive’s Tale (1594), The love of King David and Fair Bethasabe (1599). Thomas Lodge (1558-1625) – The Wounds of Civil War, Phillis (1593), Rosalynd, Euphnes Golden Legacie (1590), A Defence of Plays. Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) – The Spanish Tragedie (1585, 92), Cordelia (1593). Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) – Tamburlaine the Great (I, II) (1587, 88), The Jew of Malta (1589), Edward II (1591), Hero and Leander (1593), Doctor Fausts (1592), The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of of Catharge (1593), Unfinished. Thomas Nash (1567-1601) – Summer’s Last will and Testament (1592), The Unfortunate Traveller or the life of Jack Wilton (1594), Marlowe’s Dido, The Anatomies of Absurdities, The Terros of the Night. Francis Bacon (1561-1626) – Essays (1597, 1612, 1625), The Advancement of Learning (1605), Novum Organum (1620), The History of Henry VII (1622), Sylva and Sylvarum. Daniel (1562-1619) – Delia (1592), The Complaint of Rosamund, (1592), Civil Wars (1595), Poetical Essays (1599), A Defence of Rhyme’s Triumph (1615). Drayton (1563-1631) – The Harmonie of the Church (1591), The Bttle of Agincourt, Idea, The Shepher’s Garland (1593), England’s Heroical Epistles (1597). The Barons Wars, Poly Olbain 5 (1612), Nymphidea Endimion and Phoebe. Shakespeare (1564-1616) – Crabbed Age and Youth, Venus and Adonis (1593), The Rape of Lucrence (1594), The Passionate Pilgrim (1599), Henry VI (1591-92) Richard III (1593), The Comedy of Errors (1593), Titus Andronicus (1594), The Taming of the Shrew (1594), Love’s Labour Lost (1594), Romeo And Juliet (1594), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1595), King John (1595), Henry IV (1597), Much Ado About Nothing (1598), Henry V (1599), Jolius Caesar (1599), The Merry Wives of Windsor (1600), As you like it (1600), Hamlet (1602), All’a Well that ends well (1602), Measure for Measure (1604), Othello (1604), Macbeth (1605), King Lear (1605), Antony and Cleopatra (1606), Cariolanus (1606), Timon of Athens (1607), Pericles (1608), Cymbeline (1609), The Winter’s Tale (1610), The Tempest (1611) Henry VIII (1613). Thomas Middleton (1570-1627) – The Roaring Girle, or Mall Cutpurse (1611), (in Collaboration with Dekker), Women Beware Women (1622), The Witch, The Spanish Gipsy (1623), The Changling (1624). Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) – Old Fortunatus (1599), The Shoemaker’s Holiday (1599), Satiromastix (1602), The Virgin Martyr (1620), The Virgin Martyr (1620), In Collaboration with Massinger. Ben Jonson (1573-1637) Early Comedies – Everyman in His Humour (1598), Everyman out of his Homour (1599), Cynthia’s Revels (1600), The Poetaster (1601). Middle group of Comedies – Volpone or the the Fox (1605), Epicaene or the Silent Woman (1609), The Alchemist (1610), Bartholomew Fair, The Devil is an Ass. Later Comedies – The Staple of News, Sejanus His Fall, Catiline His Conspiracy (1611). Poems – The Forest (1616), Works (1616), The Underwoods (1640). Some Other Works Sir John Maundevill – The Travels of Sir John Maundevill. Machiavelli – II Principle (The Prince) (1513). Tyndale – Translation of Bible from Greek and Hebrew (1522), New Testament (1525). Tyndale – Translation of Bible from Greek and Hebrow (1522), New Testament (1525). Coverdale – Bible (1535). Thomas North – Dial of Princes (1557), Plutarch’s Lives (1579). Hooker – Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (I-IV) (1593). Campion – Two Books of Ayres (1612). Thomas Dekker – The Guls Horne Booke (1609), Shoe Maker’s Holiday. Raleigh – Armado of the King of Spain, History of the World, Ocean to Scinthia (1592). 6 Davies – Orchestra (1596). Florio – World of Word (1598). Overbury – 21 Prose Portrait added to poem ‘A Wife’ (1615). John Stephens – Satyrical Essays – Character and Others (1615). William Warner – Albion’s England (1586- 1612). Sackville – Induction to the Myrroure for Magistrates (1563). Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton – Gorboduc. John Still – Gammer Gurton’s Needle. Nucholas Udall – Roister Doister. Holinshed – Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577). John Heywood – Four P’s Elyot – Governor Wilson – Rhetorique Castiglione – Courtier George Puttenham – Arts of English Poesre William Webbe – Discourse of English Poetrie Richard Hakluyt – Discoveries of English Nation. The Age of Chaucer The fourteenth century was a period of great political, social, religious and literary activity. Politically it was a period of the Hundred Years’ Was which released and strengthened the feelings of national consciousness and patriotism both in England and France. People began to realize that they were, Englishmen or Frenchmen and the idea of a holy Empire evaporated from their thoughts. The victory at the Battle of Crecy (1346) and of Poitiers (1356) made Englishmen fervent patriots. As these crucial battles were largely won by the English yeomen, middle class sprang up to ascendancy. It gradually grabbed power from the hands of the nobility. Power like a slippery feel slipped from the hands of the nobility. The English Parliament came into prominence. Jusserand says, “From the end of the 14th century an Englishman could already say, as he does to day: My business is not the business of the state, but the business of the state is my business.” The Democratic tendency spread like wild fire in every walk of life. As the trade and commerce expanded and the new towns sprang up, the middle class became repository and a storehouse of power and pelf which hastened the, decline of the old Feudal system. Now a dissatisfied and discontented serf could become a freeman by establishing a legal residence in one of the towns. The great Plague of 1648, which caused disaster, and a heavy loss of human beings, exerted and welded a tremendous influence in exempting laboring classes form the bonds of serfdom. As the plague effaced half the population from the surface of England, it aggravated the peasant problem by reducing the supply of labour. The 7 demand for the products was also reduced to half. The price of labour rose, the price of bread fell. The attempts which were directed to control soaring wages of labour by legislation proved of no avail. They simply added fuel to the fire; they merely fanned the flame of irritation of the labourers, and dissatisfaction among the labourers terribly exploded like a volcano in the bloody Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. This, seething social strife was princiopally due to the contrast between luxury and poverty between the rich people rollingin wealth and the overty between the rich people rolling in wealth and the overtaxed peasantry groveling in the mire of poverty. “This revolt, suppressed by the courage and good judgment of the boy King, Richard II, though barren of any direct and immediate result, exerted a lasting influence on the temper of the lower classes, fostering in them a spirit of independence which made them no longer a negligible quantity in the life of the nation. “This social discontent found expression in the Peasants’ Revolt led by John Ball, whose saying-“When Adam delved and Eve span who was then a gentleman” was the motto of a king of socialism. The age of Chaucer witnessed a rapid growth in trade and commerce. The English people shed off their insularity and became travelers returning with wider interests and a larger horizon. England became commercially important. Small traders and handicrafts grew into power and began to behave like aldermen and well-to-do citizens. In The Prologue Chaucer says about the members of a guild. “Wel semed ech of hem a fair burgeys To sittn in a yeldhalle, on a deys. Enerich for the wisdom that he kan, Was shaply for to been an alderman.” Women were thought inferior to men. Women of lower strata of society were hard worked and doomed to a life of unrelieved drudgery. Most of them were illiterate. The ladies of higher society displayed an excess of delicacy and decorum. The court ladies showed false pity and sentimentality. Women of the upper strata enjoyed pelf and power only by marriage. The only alternative to marriage was a nunnery. To the churchmen women were the source of all evil; to the courtly poets and bards they were adorable creatures. Chaucer’s Squire belongs to the second category- “And born hym weel, as of a litel space., In hope to stonden in his lady grace.” Child marriage was in vogue among the rich and wealthy persons. Richard II himself married the child daughter of the King of France. Dowry was in practice and girls were sometimes sold. In the domain of religion the papacy became a stronghold of profligacy, vices and corruption. As the foreigners-French and Italian-deputed by the Pope to the richest clerical poets of England, spent their income abroad, the national pride was stimulated. When a French Pope, as the last court of appeat in matters of the canons of law, poked his nose in judgements of English courts, it fanned the flame of national hatred and animosity. This antipapal agitation, though purely political of the church. In 1378 Europe saw two rival 8 Popes, each casting slur upon the other. England Supported Urban VI, the Pope of Rome, while France supported Clement VII of Avignon. The direct result of this schism was a crushing blow upon the sanctity of the Papal authority. It weakened the Papacy. Corruption in the church took the place of discipline. The greater prelates heaped up wealth, and lived in a godless and worldly way. Majority of the elergy were ignorant and careless; the mendicant friars were notorious for their greed and profligacy. In this spiritual desert it was natural that there should appear prophets, whether we call them fanatics or reformers; and to some extent at least they were supported by a general discontent. Wycliffe ‘the morning star of the Reformation’ launched Lollard movement to eradicate evil from the church. Poets like Chaucer, Langland and Gower presented naked, deplorable condition of the Papacy and is members. Chaucer’s prologue shows a world in which avarice and deceit are all but universal. Chaucer’s Monk is a worldly person who has deserted his ecclesiastical services. Chaucer’s Friar is a wanton and merry fellow. “He knew the Governes well in every town And everich hostiler and tappestere.” As for the literary activities, the Age of Chaucer witnessed the rise of the English language. The English language was standardized and the East Midland dialect became the language of London and the Universities. The other dialects-Southern, Northumbrian and Kentish- rapidly disappeared from literature. It was the work of Chaucer who made the dialect of London, the standard for future writers and the parent of current modern English. The Canterbury Tales is a landmark in the history of English Literature as well as in the English language. The era witnessed the foundation of an English prose style. Earlier specimens have been experimental or purely imitative. No in the work of Mandeville and Malory, we have prose that is both original and individual. The English tongue in now ripe for a prose style. The age of anonimity, when authors did not give out their names, passed away and the authors of the Age of Chaucer were in favour of revealing their identity. The greater number of books of this period can definitely be ascribe. Inspite of throng of lesser writers, the Age was five outstanding and prominent literary figures. There are the anonymous authors of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Pearl. There are Langland, Gower, Wycliffe and above all Chaucer. Wycliffe, the translator of the Bible, was a versatile and vigorous prose writer. Prose writers like Wycliffe, Mandeville and Malory developed a prose style, In the department of poetry Chaucer, Langland and Gower rendered incalculable and meritorious services. The main literary forms developed in poetry were the allegory, the ballad, descriptive and narrative poems and the metrical romances. New metres like the, Rhyme Royal, Ottava Rima and Heroic Couplet came into fassion. The age of Chaucer is a period of great activity in all walks of life. The Age Resembles not a stagnant pool but a flowing river. This age, with all its vexed and troubled problems, approximates the Modern Age. Kittredge calls the period “a singularly modern time”. R. K. 9 Root in his book The Poetry of Chaucer has beautifully summed up the Age in the following words: “But if the world of fourteenth century England was sadly out of joint, it was far from being stagnant. In its intellectual ferment the age had much the same character as the age of great Elizabeth. There was the same glow of patriotism and national consciousness consequent upon a series of great Elizabeth. There was the same glow of patriotism and national consciousness consequent upon a series of brilliant victories against a foreign foe; there was the same spirit of revolt against a foreign church, and, though the forms of medievalism still survived, there was at work the same leaven of new ideas and of a new conception of life, reinforced by a new interest in the works of classical antiquity, coming over seas from Italy : literature and art was breaking away from the conventional, and under the influence of new models, was drinking again at the fountain- head of nature. Such periods of restlessness and change have often given birth to great creative literature.” Main Poetical Works of Chaucer Main poetical works of Chaucer are broadly divided into three classes corresponding the three periods of his life. French Period (1359-72) – Chaucer was considerably influenced by French masters such as Machaut, Guillaume De Lorris and Jean De Meung. The poems of this period were written under the French influence and exhibit a zest for life and sense of animation for the glories of love and life. Like the French masters of poetry, Chaucer exercised restraint in the expression of his emotion. He tempered his irony with wit and provoked smiles rather than unchecked laughter. This subdued character of his poetry is in conformity with French models. Everything during this period of Chaucer’s workmanship is French. In the words of Legoius, “A Frenchman may enter Chaucer’s country and be conscious of no change of sky or climate”. The main work of this period is The Romaunt of the Rose, a lengthy allegorical poem, written in octosyllabic couplets and directly based upon Le Ramaunt de la Ross of Guillaume de Lorris and Jean De Meung. The poem consists of 7,700 lines. It is a fragment and “Was once entirely ascribed to Chaucer, but recent research, based upon a scrutiny of Chaucerian style, has suggested that only the first part is his work.” The other poems of this period are Dethe of Blanche the Duchesse better known as the Boke of the Duschesse a “Poem of considerable dramatic and emotional power written after the death of Blanche, wife of Chaucer’s Patron-John of Gaunt; Compleynte to Pite, a graceful love poem, the A. B. C. a Prayer to the Virgin, translated from the French of Cistercian monk.” Italian Period (1373-86) – In 1372 Chaucer had been to Italy and came in personal contact with Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Of these great Italian masters Dante exercised the least influence on Chaucer, for like him the English poet could neither soar to Empyrean heights nor scale down to Tartarean depths. Petrarch also had little influence on Chaucer; Boccaccio 10 alone exercised a deep influence on Chaucer’s art during this period. The chief work of the second or Italian period is Troilus and Criseyde, a poem of eight thousand two hundred lines adopted from Boccaccio’s II Filostrato, “the love-smitten one.” The main difference between Boccaccio and Chaucer is that the letter emphasises character rather than passion. Boccaccio’s emphasis was primarily on passion and voluptuousness but Chaucer was specially drawn to the study of character. “Troilus is the perfect lover, so finely drawn that even Shakespeare could only highten the intensity of the rendering by his more powerfully dramatic language. Pandarus, who in the original was a young friend of Troilus, bound by the laws of friendship to advance his friend’s aim, is converted into an older man, the uncle of Criseyde. He is a good-fellow according to his lights, full of a humorous, wordly, cynical wisdom which vents itself in pithy proverbs, but with a totally disillusioned view of the character of women. Criseyde is the boldest reconstruction, and has proved rather a puzzle to Chaucer’s critics. Boccaccio’s heroine is a light skirt whose sole requirement is secrecy. To Chaucer ‘she is the woman in love, with all a woman’s natural weakness.’ the ebb and flow of her feelings from the first visit of Pandarus to her final yielding are described with a subtlety of thought into the working of a woman’s heart such as we do not find again in literature till we come to Richardson’s Clarissa, when another complicating factor enters a puritan upbringing. “The complex characters of Criseyde and Pandarus” says Albert, “reveal a new subtlety of psychological development and indicate Chaucer’s growing insight into human motives.” This work is equally remarkable for its narrative charm, and the rhyme royal stanzas are marked with a note of dexterity and beauty. Of the rime royal stanza, the stanza of seven lines, the poet is now a perfect master; and, if his diction has not acquired its fun suppleness and vaiety of application, its dignity and its facility for the purpose to which it is actually applied leave nothing whatever to be desired. It is one of the weaknesses of Mediaeval poetry, that inspite of charming subject and frequent felicities and imagery, the verse lacks finish, and the phrase does not have concentrated fire or sweetness. But Troilus and Criseyde does not suffer from this besetting blemish of mediaval poetry. The pathos of the poem is touching and moves us to the depth of our heart. In Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer has not only given us a fun and finished romance, but has endowed it with interest of character as well as of incident, and interest of drama as well as of narrative. The Piece is somewhat too long; it has many digressions, and the action is too seldom concentrated and ‘spirited up’-there is too much talk and too little happens. But these were faults so ingrained in mediaeval literature that even Chaucer could not entirely get rid of them: and hardly anyone before him had got rid of them to the same extent. The House of Fame, a poem in octosyllabic couplete, is an allegory of a dreamy type. Here we find an exquisite combination of lofty thought and simple homely language. In a dream the poet is carried by a great eagle from the temple of Venus, in a sandy wilderness, upto 11 the hall of fame. The House of Fame stands on a rock of ice- “Written ful of names Of folk that hudden grete fames.” The poet watches a number of aspirants for fame coming to the throne, some accommodated while others refused to enter the sanctum sanctorum. For the conception of the poem Chaucer was indebted to Ovid, Dante and Virgil, but the splendid workmanship and shining gleams of humour imparted to the poem are Chaucer’s own. There is a verve and raciness in the poem. There is an infusion of the ironic and humorous element infinitely greater in strength in this poem than in any previous work. The entire poem is satirical in content. “Chaucer satirises the capriciousness of Fame. Her house is built upon a rock, not of steel or of glass, but of ice, and half the names that have been given there are thawed away. And this unstable record is shown to be worthless from the start. Crowd, after crowd of suppliants approach the throne of Fame, and their petitions are granted or refused for no reason better than the caprice of the goddess. By her tree good work is forgotten and bad remembered as good, and those who beg oblivion are doomed to remembrance. There is no law in her decisions. Sometimes the wicket are driven away with railing and the good are honoured. The fickleness of fame is the theme. “If Chaucer had written no satire but this, his place in the list would no be low.” The third great work of this period is The Legende of Good Women. Chaucer originally planned to narrate nineteen tales of virtuous women of antiquity remarkable for their chastity, sincerity and devotion to love. He could compose only eight legends. Of these legends the story of This be is perhaps the best. The poem is written in heroic couplet and here Chaucer exhibits great skill and freedom in the use of the heroic couplet which during the eighteenth century was perfected by Alexander Pope. Two other poems of this period that deserve mention are Anelida and Arcite and The Parlement of Foules. The latter has a fine opening, and, in the characterization of the birds, shows Chaucer’s true comic spirit. The English Period (1386-1400) – To the English period extending from 1386 to 1400 belongs Chaucer’s masterpiece and monumental work the Canterbury Tales. For the general ideas and plan of the Tales, Chaucer was indebted to Boccaccio, but the execution and management of the tales is thoroughly English. Twenty nine pilgrim including Chaucer himself meet at the Tabard Inn, in Southwark, with the object of setting out for a pilgrimage to the tomb of Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The twenty nine pilgrims are chosen from all classes of people, of both sexes, and of all ranks. The company includes a night, a Ploughman, a Miller, a Monk, a prioress etc., and as they are depicted in the Prologue to the main work they provide an interesting, alive, and thoroughly diversified company. At the suggestion of the host of the Tabard Inn, each pilgrim is required to narrate two tales on the outward journey, and two on the return. The object is to relieve the tedium of the journey and to 12 provide merriment to the pilgrims. If the plan had succeeded we could have lore than a hundred tales. But Chaucer could finish only twenty and left four in an incomplete state. The individual tales have their own prologues and narrated with raciness and humour. Leaving aside Chaucer’s own Tale of Melibeus and the Parson’s Tale, which narrated in prose, all others are put forth in the heroic couplet. In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer takes to the study of contemporary English society and turns poety with tolerant curiosity and genial humour to the study of men and manners of his times. he makes his group of pilgrims into a full-blooded picture of the society of times, the like of which is not to be found elsewhere. Chaucer presents vividly and realistically the like of the Fourteenth Century in its variegated aspects in the pages of tales and is truly the social chronicler of England in the late Fourteenth Century in its variegated aspects in the pages of tales and is truly the social chronicler of England in the late Fourteenth Century as Froissart is the political and military chronicler of France during the political and military chronicler of France during the same period. “The Canterbury Tales” says Sampson in the Cambridge History of English Literature, “Supply a miniature or even microcosm not only of mediaeval literature, barring the strictly lyrical element, and admitting a part only of the didactic, but enlarged and enriched by additional doses, both of the personal element and of that general criticism of life which, except in Dante, had rarely been present.” Chaucer’s skill in characterisation is equally well pronoun, in the Prologue, and each one of his characters comes to our view in full form exhibiting the peculiarities of his or her class. The tales bring out the poet’s sympathy and gentle humanity and make him truly Shakespearean in his approach. The tales justify the remark of Legouis that, “of all writers of genius, Chaucer is the one with whom it is easiest to have a sense of comradeship”. Chaucer’s genial humour and spirit of comedy are to be seen at their best in these. As the cavalcade pursues its course, a true comedy of life is being enacted. The characters of the piece shout and swear, laugh and weep, pass compliments, and show disagreement, and thereby keep alive the spirit of life. Comedy of action goes through the whole poem and makes it dramatic in character. Chaucer lays the seeds of modern drama and modern novel in these tales, which are rich in dramatic activity and sound in characterisation. “Though all but two are written in verse and abound in exquisite poetical touches, they are stories as well as poems, and Chaucer is to be regarded as our first story-teller well as our first modern poet. The work ends with kindly fare from the poet to his reader. “The title of the last section of the “Canterbury Tales” says “here taketh the makers of this book his love.” Commenting upon the value and significance of Chaucer’s work during the three well- marked periods of his life, Saintsbury remarks, “ The French division is not only very largely secondhand, but is full of obvious, tentative experiments; the author is trying his hand which, as yet, is an uncertain one, on metre, on language, on subject, and though, he often does well, he seldom shows supremacy and self-confidence of mature genius. In the Italian 13 period he has gained very much in these respects. We here a voice we have not heard before and shall not hear again-the voice an individual, if not yet a consummate poet. But his themes are borrowed; he embroiders rather than weaves. In the third or English period all this is over. ‘Here is God’s plenty as Dryden admirably said; and-the poet is the steward of the God of poets, and not the mere interpreter of some other poet. “He has his own choice” of subject, his own grasp of character and his own diction and plot. He is at home.” Chaucer as the Father of English Poetry Chaucer is regarded as the father of English poetry and the first of the great moderns. In those dark days when the light of modernism had not yet been visible on the horizon. Chaucer anticipated the modern taste and the modern mind, and in his poetry introduced qualities far in advance of his time. Though, Chaucer could not, write a drama or a novel as we know it, yet his works contain the seeds both of the modern drama and the novel. If he had lived a few years more, be would certainly have been the first English dramatist and novelist just as he is the first national poet of England. Chaucer made several contributions to English poetry and his debt is so great that it can never be repaid even by the most exalted panegyrics that may be written for him. Chaucer enlarged the scope and range of the poet, introduced minute observation of life around him, gave vivid and clear descriptions of the conditions of his times, excelled in characterisation, humour, pathos, made narration on art and above all gave a new form and shape to English language and versification. As E. Albert says, “All the Chaucerian features help to create this modern atmosphere : the shrewd and placidly humorous observation, the wide humanity, the quick aptness of phrase, the dexterous touch upon the metres, and above all, the fresh and formative spirit-the genius turning dross into gold.” With these remarks let us examine the various features of Chaucer’s poetry and his main contribution to English literature. The First National Poet Chaucer was the first great national poet of England giving full expression to the new hopes and aspirations of the people of his times. He voiced through his poetry that national unity which had been brought about by the fusion of the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons. The growing influence of France was checked and for the first the poet in the natural language of England gave expression to the life, ideals, hopes and aspirations of the people of the 14th century belonging to his country. In his picture of the Canterbury pilgrimage, with the frankness of criticism prevailing among all its members, with the strength of its public opinion, with its power of regulating its own affairs we find, what as yet had nowhere also appeared in modern European literature, the image of an organized ‘nation’. The foundation of Chaucer’s art lies in English life and English character. Chaucer’s Contribution to English Language and Versification 14 Chaucer made notable contribution to the English language and versification. In 1360 English was split in four dialects. Chaucer popularised, reshaped and reformed the East Midland dialect and gave it the form of the standard tongue. He imparted to his native tongue smoothness and suppleness which it had not known since the Norman times and breathed into this dialect a high poetical life. In the sphere of versification, Chaucer made substantial contribution. He cast aside alliteration and doggerel rhyme, and employed three principle meters : the eight syllable line rhyming in couplets as in the Book of the Duchess, the ten-syllable line also rhyming in couplets as The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and the same line arranged in Seven-line stanzas (know as “rhyme royal”) as in Troilus and Criseyde. The heroic couplet he introduced in English verse; the rhyme royal he invented. He had a firm grasp on the true way of wedding the stressed and syllabic systems by accommodating metrical ictus to national accept. In his shorter poems he made, however, endless metrical experiments and showed a mastery of intricate verse forms remarkable even in an age when the French had made verse-writing a matter of almost, gymnastic skill. Chaucer kept the sense of melody. From his very earliest poems his work is almost faultless and as he progressed in skill his music became constantly more varied and flexible. He was an artist in verse effects, who not only wrote with a metrical accuracy, fluency and variety that have rarely been surpassed, but also paid constant and delicate heed to the necessities of rhythm and tone colour. Chaucer’s Appeal to the Modern Times Chaucer makes the profoundest and deepest appeal to the readers of the modern times. They recognise in Chaucer not a man of remote antiquity but essentially a modern poet, living in a age with all signs of modernism. The age in which Chaucer lived was essentially at the head of the modern age, for it broke off with the Middle Ages and heralded the birth of the new age of the Renaissance. Chaucer seems to be the exponent and leader of a modern age, and appeals to the modern readers as if he actually belongs, to them. His faithful picture of reality, his wonderful use of a newly formed language, his freshness of outlook, his wide sympathy, his catholicity of temper and his smiling affability appeal us most. Amongst writer’s of genius the one who strikes as soonest as a friend is Chaucer. The contribution of Chaucer and his appeal to the modern is aptly summed up by Emile Legouis in these memorable words: “This Englishman, who breaks through the darkness which shrouded the literature of his country, and who for two centuries remained without a true successor; this docile translator of multifarious or often antiquated works-really opened up a new literary field. A graceful and tender poet, exiled for his sin of humour from the highest regions of poetry, curiosity was certainly stronger in him than faith, and the joys of the senses and of the mind more keen than the rapture of enthusiasm. He leads the group of amused and good natured observers who will accept as a fact the motley fabric f society, 15 without wishing to dye to a uniform colours the many strands that compose it. Doubtless certain colours seemed to him more beautiful than others, but it was on the contrast presented by them all that he founded at once his philosophy of life and the laws of his art.” His Defects – Some critics have found certain flaws in Chaucer’s poetry. Matthew Arnold found Chaucer deficient in sublime ideals and high seriousness. Arnold says, “To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this limitation; he lacks the high seriousness of the great Classics and therefore an important part of their virtues. “Another shortcoming of Chaucer is said to be the lack of true lyricism in his poetry. He is also charged by E. Albert “for a foundness for long speech, as for pedantic digressions on such subjects as dreams and ethical problems, and for long explanations when none are necessary.” Summing-up – Whatever may be the short- comings of Chaucer, as a poet, it cannot be denied that be tendered meritorious service to English literature in a variety of ways. He was a genius born at a time when the lights were yet hazy. But by the alembic of his genius he created something of lasting and permanent value in literature. After Chaucer followed a century of arid barrenness, and the supremacy and greatness of the poet become apparent when we view him in the light of his followers. Geoffery Chaucer is nearer to us than Alexander Pope. This is true not only of the spirit of his times, but also of the man. Chaucer is more like us than Pope; we feel more mental, moral and spiritual kinship with the writer of the Nun’s Priest’s Tale than with the author of the Essay on Man. But, though this is true, we are not to think that, therefore we understand Chaucer more thoroughly. In reality, we comprehend nearly all of Pope, and some of him we don’t like; per contra, we like all of Chaucer that we comprehend yet there are moods and meanings in him hard to fathom. Though the modern readers find some of his meaning obscure, we may be sure that were clear to his contemporaries. We can draw no other concession from the evidence of his firm, compact style, and his unfailing choice of the right word. When Chaucer’s meaning is not plain to us, the fault lies in our ignorance either of his speech and education or of the smaller and more interesting facts of his life and the age. The realism of Chaucer and his pictures of living men and women make an appeal to the modern reader. The greatness of his work lies not only in the pleasure of so sharp and happy-hearted sight of times past, but also in the power it imparts to us to see men and women, our own contemporaries, with a like vision, a like sympathy and amusement, a like intelligence in their individual actuality. Chaucer’s power of exhibiting the universal in the particular is of great interest to the modern readers. Chaucer’s characters are individuals as well as types, above all they appear to be men of our own times. We can recognize them as our kith and kin. In the words of William Blake, “Their traits are universal, their lineaments are of universal human life beyond which 16 Nature never steps. They are all with us today, though some of them have changed their names. The Knight now commands a line regiment, the Squire is in the Guards, the Shipman was a rum runner, while prohibition lasted and is active now in the black market, and the Prioress is the head-mistress of a fashionable girl’s school. The greatest quality which makes Chaucer’s appeal so widespread in our times is his freshness of outlook, his catholicity of temper, his spirit of comradeship, and his optimistic and joyous appreciation of life. Chaucer’s hilarity; good- humoured jest, tolerance and sympathy for all have won for him a wide applause. He was a man of the world, mixing freely with all types of mankind and he used his opportunities to observe the little peculiarities of human nature. He had the seeing eyes, the retentive memory, the judgement to select, the capacity to expound and this quality of Chaucer makes an appeal to the modern readers, and so Chaucer is recognized as the earliest of the moderns. He is the representative poet of England of the later fourteenth century, but he is also, one of England’s representative poets of all times. He was responsive to the touch of the time- spirit, yet he was not limited by it. No more human poet than Chaucer has survived to us. He is of an age, but he is also for all times. While he was true to the life of his time, he was also to those eternal elements in human nature that belong to all times. He is modern, as Homer is modern, in his sympathetic touching of the fundamental chords of human nature. Chaucer’s Place in English Literature Chaucer was fited by both natural genius and the circumstance of his life to become the most technically accomplished, the most widely ranging, and the most universally appealing of medieval English writers, and indeed, one of the most skilful and attractive of English writers of any period. He was the first great English poet, who combined the French and the Italian streams of literature and bought forth a type of poetry unrivalled in its sunny atmosphere and realism. His sunny soul provided him themes with an inexhaustible flow of humour, which tinged all incongruities with sympathy and distinguished him from his bitter contemporary Langland and ‘moral’ Gower. He was one of the finest of literary artists and his services to the English language, metre and diction were immense. He founded alike the English language and literature, each being indispensable to file other. Chaucer alone was to England nearly all that Boccaccio and Froissart, Petrarch and Dante were to Italy about the same period. Chaucer found his country without a literature; he lift it rich in the possession of works, especially The Canterbury Tales, not only rival to this hour the greatest productions of human genius, but has confessedly influenced in a direct and powerful degree the minds of his most illustrious successors. Spenser drank of Chaucer’s ‘well of English’; Shakespeare was delighted to borrow from him, while Milton expressed his heartful desire: To call him who left half told The story of Cambuscan bol. Chaucer is great not only by his, historical positon, but also because of his genius, He is one of the greatest poets of the world. In the Middle Ages, he bad no superior save Dante; and if 17 Dante is more sublime, Chaucer is at least more human. Indeed in this thoroughly human quality of his best work, he yields to Shakespeare alone. That this estimate of Chaucer’s rank is not exaggerated, may be attested by the universal appreciation which he has received for five centuries and more. The fifteenth century was filled with his name. In the age of Elizabeth he had been praised and imitated by Spenser, Sidney, Shakespeare and Fletcher. Milton lauded him, and even in the age of neo-classicism, he was highly appreciated by Dryden and Pope. The nineteenth century has endorsed this Judgement by the mouths of its greatest poets and critics; and it is safe to say that Chaucer’s fame has never stood higher than it is today. To Chaucer’s name eternal trophies raise And load the antique stone with wreaths of bays Father of verse; who in immortal song First taught the Muse to speak the English tongue. Freshness and simplicity of style, gentle humourquaint fun, hearty praise of what is good and true, kindly ridicule of weakness and foibles and earnest denunciation of injustice and oppression are among his most marked characteristics. Development of Poetry in the Age of Chaucer Among the contemporaries of Chaucer, the pride of place is given to John Gower, William Langland and John Barbour of Scotland. In the sphere of poetry these poets left behind a rich harvest of literature and their contribution to English poetry is quite substantial. John Gower (1330-1408) – John Gower, of a Kentish family and a man of some wealth, probably lived mostly in London and was well known at court in his later years. He became blind in 1400, died at the priory of St. Mary Overies Southwark, and was buried in the church (now St. Saviour’s), where he is commemorated by a fine tomb and effigy. He was a friend of Chaucer who called him ‘moral Gover’. His Contribution – Gower occupies an important place in the development of English literature. Though it is Chaucer who played the most important role in this direction, yet Gower’s contribution cannot be ignored. He was an interesting literary figure of the times and was the typical average poet of the century. He was nicknamed as ‘moral Gower’ by Chaucer for his propensity for didacticism. he was a scholar and craftsman of distinction. He was the friend of Chaucer, though as an artist he was inferior to the great master. He wrote extensively, and acquired a kind of false esteem by reason of his quantity. He was primarily interested in nothing and displaying the vices of his generation, and was more of a moralist than a poet. he had a sombre vision and was without a trace of that jay in life and pleasure in observing it which are so vivid in Chaucer. He had certain ideals which he cherished and upheld with the zeal of a moralist. Finding the state of society much below his moral idealism, he fell foul of it and condemned the vices unreservedly. He was a 18 moralist at heart, and remained so throughout his life. Gower wrote three works which are in different languages. These works of Gower are noteworthy for they illustrate the unstable state of contemporary English Literature. His first poem Speculum Meditantis is written in French, the second, Vox Clamantis, is composed in Latin, and the third, Confessio Amantis, is written in English. This diversity in the choice of language shows clearly the opinion of the age-that the English tongue is not as yet obviously the one single instrument of literary expression. Speculum Meditantis consists of an elaborate allegory of the attacks of the seven deadly sins and their offspring upon manking. The poet presents a complete review of the state of the world and its corruptions from the times of Rome to his own times. He vividly pictures the wickedness of London, its dram-shops, its cheating merchants and shopkeepers, its slothful monks and friars, its vulturelike lawyers and its lazy and rebellious labourers. The works is systematically conceived and executed. The tone is one of moral earnestness and the vignettes of contemporyry life are painted with colour and vigour. This poem is quite representative of the age. It is a sermon against the immorality of the age and covers 30,000 lines. Vox Clamantis, written in Latin, represents Wat Tyler’s rising in 1381. Gower, being a land owner in Kent, felt the full brunt of the disturbance. He wrote from the aristocratic point of view. His interests were all on the side of the landloards. He represented the common people as beasts, oxen, dogs, flies, frogs because of the evil magic of the time. The poem is full of horror and dismay at the social volcano which had opened for a moment threatening to engulf the nation. He considered the ills of society as the outcome of social vices, which needed reform. There is no need to dwell much upon the poetical styl of Gower’s Latin poems. Judged by the medieval standard, Vox Clamantis is fairly good in language and in metre, but it appears that a very large number of couple is and longer passages are borrowed by the author without acknowledgement from other writers, and that lines for which Gower has obtained credit are, in many cases, taken either from Ovid or from some medieval writer of Latin verse, as Alexanddr Neckam, Peter de Riga, Goldfrey of Viterbo, or the author of Speculum Stulorum, passages of six or eight lines being often appropriate in this manner with little or no change “It is certain that Gower could write very fair Latin verse, due allowance being made for medieval licences, but be must be cautious in giving him credit for any particular passage”. Confessio Amantis, written in English in East Midland dialect, is Gower’s most popular work. “The most noteworthy point of Confessio Amantis, as compare with Gower’s former work, is the partial renunciation by the author of his didactic purpose. He does indeed indulge himself in a prologue, in which he reviews the condition of the human race, but at the beginning of the first book, he announces the discovery that his powers are not equal to the task of setting the world right: 19 “It stant nought in my sufficance So grete things to compasse. But I mot lete it overpasse And treten upon other things.” He avows, therefore, that, from this day forth, be intends to change the style of his writings, and to deal with a subject which is of universal interest, namely love. At the same, time, he will not wholly renounce his function of teaching, for love is a matter in which men need very much guidance, but at least, he will treat the subject in such a way as to entertain as well as instruct : the book is to be “Between the tweie, Somewhat of lust, somewhat of lore” Hence, though the form may suggest instruction, yet the mode of treatment is to be popular, that to say, the work is to consist largely of stories. Accordingly, we have in Confessio Amantis more than a hundred stories of varying length and of every kind of origin, told in a simple and pleasing style by one who clearly had a gift for story-telling, though without the dramatic humour which makes Chaucer’s stories unique in the literature of his time. The framework, too, in which these stories like Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and covers forty thousand octosyllabic lines. A lover makes confession to a priest of Venus, a learned old man named Genius, and the stories are narrated by this priest for the purpose of illustrating the seven deadly sins affecting love and lovers. Each story is made to reprove one of the seven deadly sins. “Many of these are so good that for centuries Gower ranked with Chaucer as a prince of poets.” If many of the stories are well told in a plain style, many of the others are not worth the telling. The poet’s reflections are trite and prosaic, and his sense of the appropriate is so erratic that he uses the story of Pyranius and this be to illustrate the vice of ‘contek’ that is hasty passion, as if Pyranius had killed himself in a fit of temper. Worst of all he cannot get out of the tetrameter couplet, even the variety of which it is capable; after a time the tramp of his well-drilled iambics begins to fall on the ear like the sound of all clock striking thirty-three thousand. “The application of the tales is rather force. There may be a tone of monotony here and there, but the work on the whole, is not dull. There are clear bright passages which give to the work its special charm. Gower has a diffuse style of narrative but occasionally he is brisk and competent. The metre is the octosyllabic couplet of great smoothness and fluency. The plan of the work is not ill conceived, but it is carried out without a due regard to proportion in its parts. The unity is very seriously impaired by digressions which seem to have no intimate relation with the subject of the book. The author enters into a discussion on the lawfulness of was in the first four books, and this discussion is hardly necessary for the stories. The account of the discovery of useful arts in the fourth book is too slightly connected with the subject. In the fifth book a casual reference to Greek mythology is make the peg on which to hang a dissertation of twelve hundred lines on the religfions of the world. In this way Gower’s digressions detract the work of the book as a pure narration is 20 simple and clear. In telling a story he is neither tedious nor apt to digress. To find fault with him because he is lacking in humorous appreciation of character’s is to judge him by altogether too high a standard. He is not on a level with Chaucer in this respect, though sometimes he rises superior to Chaucer in arrangement of his incidents and in the steadiness with which be purses the plot of his story. The stories also have poetical qualities. The story of Medea is marked with force and picturesqueness. The tales of Mondus and Paulina are picturesquely told. There is also a certain attractiveness in the setting of these stories. The conversation which connects the stories is distinguished by colloquial ease. The language and versification is the same as that of Chaucer. With regard to versification is the same as that of Chaucer. With regard to versification, the most marked feature of Gower’s works is its great regularity and the extent to which inflectional ending are utilised for metrical purposes. The result of Gower’s syllabic accuracy brings a certain monotony of rhythm, but this is partially removed by the author’s attempt to distribute his passages in such a manner as not to emphasize the rime unduly. He runs on freely from one couplet to another, breaking the couplet more often than not in places where a distinct pause occurs, and especially at the end of a paragraph, so that the couplet arrangement is subordinated distinctly, as it is also by Chaucer, to the continuity of the narrative. Gower, however, is not the equal of Chaucer in the variety of rhythm. He has none of his humour, no share of his dramatic gift, no enchantment, no impulse of creative force, no striking originality. His writing are what Chaucer’s might have been without Chaucer’s genius. “Lacking imagination and humour, Gower bought nothing original into English literature. He had a talent for story-telling, but he used it for didactic rather than for artistic purposes. His octosyllabic couplet becomes intolerable as it jigs though many thousand lines.” Gower, through the purity of English style and the easy fluency of his expression, exercised a distinct influence upon the development of the language and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, he was, on this account, uncritically classed with Chaucer. He is placed with Chaucer as an equal by the author of The King’s Quair by Occleve, by Dunbar, by Skelton and even by Sidney in The Apology for Poesie. But, in fact, though be may fairly be joint with Chaucer as one of the authorities for standard English, his mind was essentially formed in a medieval mould, and, as regards subject and treatment, he looks backwards rather than forwards. The modern note which was struck, by Chaucer is almost entirely absent here. This medievalism, however; in itself has a certain charm, and there are qualities of this kind in Confessio Amantic which are capable still of giving genuine pleasure to the reader, while, at the same time, we are hound to acknowledge the technical finish of the style, both in the French and in the English poems. Gower had a strong feeling for correntness of language and of metre, and at the same time, his utterance is genuinely natural and unaffected. In his way be solved the problem of combining rhetorical artifice 21 within somewhat narrow limits, yet, within those limits, it moves securely. William Langland (1332-1400) – Langland was born probably near Malvern, in Worcestershire, the son of a poor freeman, and in his early life lived in the fields as a shepherd. Later he went to London with his wife and children, getting a hungry living as clerk in the church. His real life meanwhile was that of a seer, a prophet after Isaiah’s own heart; if we may judge by the prophecy which soon found a voice in Piers the Plowman. In 1399, after the success of his great work, Redeless, a proiest against Richard II, but we are not certain of the authorship of the poem, which was left unfinished by the assassination of the King. After 1399 Langland disappears utterly, and the date of his death is unknown. ‘The Vision Concerning Piers the Plowman’ William Langland’s well known work is The Vision Concerning Piers the Plowman. The chief forms of this poem are A-Text, B-Text, C-Text. Of these the first version was written about 1362 and contains the vision about Piers Plowman and the vision of Do-well, Do-well, Do- better and Do-best. The second version B-Text was written about 1377 and includes the fable of the rats and the cat. The C- Text has few hundred lines more than the B-Text. The existence of the various versions thus enlarged and bought up-to-date is an indication of the popularity of the work. The poem, on the whole, consists of eleven visions and has the incoherence and inconsequence of a dream. The Prologue describes how the poet had fallen asleep on a fine morning in May by the side of a barn on Melvern Hills. While he was dreaming he beheld a loft tower, with a dudgeon in a dell beneath is, and between them was a fair field full of folk representing various sections of the community. The tower stands for Heaven and the dungeon is Hell, and the field is the world where all manner of men, mean and rich, live side by side in unholy competition. After The Prologue, the dreamer views Lady Meed (Reward), the sinful lady to whom all the priests and saints pay obedience. She is about to wed Falsehood. Their nation is disturbed by Theology, and they are brought to Westminster before the king. He makes a proposal that she should marry Conscience, but Conscience has no desire to wed Meed. He advises the king to send for Reason, by whose advice he promises to abide. In a second vision Reason makes a long address to the people. The Seven deadly Sins are called forth and reprimanded. They set out to make confession, but on the way Gluttony is tempted into a ale-house where all kinds of people are engaged in drinking. Here the poet gives a vivid and realistic description of low life in London. The sinners then go to seek truth, but no one knows the way until Piers the Plowman offers to be their guide. Meanwhile a dispute ensues between Piers and the Priest and both wax so loud that the dreamer awakes. Up to this Piers stands for the symbol of honest labour hut in the visions of Do-Well, Do Better and Do-Best which follow, he is transfigured in the very figure of Christ himself, 22 whose crucifixion and descent into Hell are described in a language marked with a note of sublimity and grace. Dovils tremble at the approach of Piers and the bars of Hell break asunder. The King of Glory enters in, and proclaims his gospel of love; Mercy and Truth meet each other; righteousness and peace kiss each other. The dreamer awakes and he at heart as he hears the bells ringing in Easter morning. Such is the vision of Piers the Plowman. The style and the method of composition are, in the highest degree, worth of not. The author, it will be observed, sets forth his views, note after the ordinary fashion of allegorists, by bringing together his personifications and using them as mere mouth- pieces, but by involving them in a ripidly moving series of interesting; situations, skilfully devised to cause each to act and speak in a thoroughly characteristic manner. They do not seem to be puppets, moving and speaking as the showman pulls the strings, but persons, endowed each with his own life and moved by the impulses of his own will. Only once or twice does the author interrupt his narration to express his own views or feelings, and never does he allow them to interfere with the skill or sincerity of expression or the dramatis personae. His presentation has, indeed, the clear, undisturbed objectivity of excellent drama, or of life itself. The poem describes a series of remarkable visions that pass before the dreamer, and in their general drift we are reminded of the great allegory of Bunyan. The poem may be considered under the following heads. 1. As a picture of contemporary life and manners of the fourteenth cenrury. 2. As a satire upon religious abuses and vices of the age. 3. As a work of reform. 4. As an allegory of life. 5. As the last alliterative work in poetry. law with corruption and want of conscience. It is the Justices at Westminster who comfort Meed and assure her that they well, contrive that she may marry whom she wishes. The conduct of the lawyers is abominable. Their conduct is remembered, and they are far worst of all when Truth issues his pardons. The men of law, who had pleaded for Meed had the least pardon, for the Psalmer doth not save such as take gifts, and especially from innocents that know no evitl. Langland’s satire is also directed at the men who make the law-King and Parliament. Langland was no believer in the unlimited and irresponsible power of kings, and he had no faith in the supremacy of Parliament. he used the fable of belling the cat to satirise those who made excessive claims for it. Traders of the time with their covetousness and greed also come for satire at the hands of Langland. The picture of Covetousnes is a keen indictment of their morals. It is guile that enables Covetousness to sell his wares. Drapers adopted tricks. They stretched out ten or twelve yards to thirteen, and their wives adopted similar dishonest practices. 23 Langland did not spare the labourers. The satire in Passus VI and VII is directed against the labouring classes. In sentiment and opinion the author is entirely in harmony with Parliament, seeing in the efforts of the labourers to get higher wages for their work only the unjustifiable demands of wicked, lazy, lawless vagabonds. Langland’s satire the seven deadly sins is fierce and he exposes the methods of gluttony and incidently castigates the drinking habit of the generality of the people of the fourteenth century. Glutton is lured to the alehouse where he drinks in the midst of born companions all addicted to wine. Glutton finds Cis the shoemaker’s wife, Wat the warrener and his wife, Tomkin the tinker and two of his men, Hick and Hodage, and Clarice and a dozen others all indulging in drinking. They begin the sport called the New Fair, a game for promoting drinking. They spend the whole day in laughter, ribaldry and carousing and neglect the daily round of their normal activities. Langland as a satirist did not advocate radical reforms like the social reformers of the age. He was moral at heart and certainly wanted all classes of people to tread on the path of virtue and morality. he urged for the removal of corruption, bribery and earnestly wished that the worship of Meed was stopped. But he is in no sense an innovator. He is a reformer only in the sense of wishing all men to see and fell the duties of the station in life to which they belong, and to do them as God has commanded. The Fifteenth Cenrury : A Barren Period (1400-1515) The period stretching from 1401 to 1515 is a long barren period in English literature. The literature of this period, both poetry and prose, is thin both in quality and quantity. Poetry – The greater part of the poetry is imitative. Chaucer was imitated both in England and Scotland. The English Chaucerians – Thomas Occleeve, Joh, Lydgate, Stephen Hawes and John Skelton – were poor imitators of Chaucer’s poetic art. They contributed nothing to the development of poetry during the fifteenth century. The Scottish Chaucerians – James I, Robert henryson, William Dunbar, Crawin Douglas and Sir David Lyndsay – show some sings of originality and freshness. Even When they imitate Chaucer, they do not imitate his conventional landscape. They write about the Scottish landscape with remarkable touches of originality. The ballad literature became immensely popular in the fifteenth century. It was a poetically barren period, but songs, carols and ballads constitute the finest poetical literature of this period. W. H. Hudson writes, “Often rude in style, but often wonderfully direct and vigorous and full of real feelings, these ballads did much to foster a love of poetry among the English people. These ballads abundantly flourished in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. “Philip Percy collected and published them for the first time in Reliques of Ancient Popular. The interest for ballad was revived during the Romantic period. 24 Prose – The prose works of the first half of the fifteenth century have little originality. Only in the second half of this century a few deserving works appeared in English prose. The development of prose was facilitated by the establishment of the first printing press by Caxton in 1476. Commenting as the development of prose during this period Albert wites : “Due to increased practices there was a growing perception of the beauties of rhythm and cadence and in the purely formal sense, there was the appearance of the prose paragraph. Above all the chief prose styles – the ornate, the middle and the plain – are appearing faintly and perceptibly. With their arrival rapid development of prose is assure.” Reginald Peacock (1390-1491) – Peacock’s two works – Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy and the Book of Faith – are landmarks in the history of English prose. he had clarity, the gift of choosing homely examples and a wealth of words. His style is argumentative. His prose is often rurgged and obscure. He prefers English words to those of Latin origin. As a writer of controversial prose he is a pioneer. Sir John Fortescue (1394-1476) – A lawyer by profession, Fortescue is known for his English works. The Difference between an Absolute and Limited Monarchy and The Government of England. They are remarkable for clear, easy, simple and straightforward style and for the expression of national sentiment. His works are the earliest examples of writing political prose. The Paston Letter – This is the corres- pondence of the Pasten family from 1422-1509, written in simple, clear and straightforward English, these letters present a realistic picture of English life and, hence, are of great literary interest to the students of literature. These letters are an example of writing epistlory prose. William Caston (142-1491) – Caxton was the first to establish printing press in 1476 in England. He printed almost very work of real quality known in his day, including those of Chaucer and Malory. He made twenty four translations from French, Dutch and Latin texts. The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy (1471), The Game and Play of the Chesse (1474), Reynard the Fox, translated from the Dutch, and The Dictes and Saying of Philosophers and his famous works. he reedited Trevisa’s Charonicle in which he “changed the rude and old Enlgish.” Caxton was conscious of his limitations as a literary artist. Rickett writes, “But he has a ready instinct for good saxon prose, and his prose is far more readable and attractive than some of the prose written about this time. One of his pleasantest qualities is the confidential note which he strikes – a note that was later on to be the distinctive note of English essay.” Sir Thomas Malory – Malory’s memorable work Morte D’ Arthur was published by Caxton, who pointed out that it was completed in the reign of King Edward IV in the year 1470. It is a compilation of French romances dealing with different cycles of romances like that of King Arthur and his Round Table. It is a book of chivalry, written with remarkable simplicity. It is the storehouse of those medieval legends which have haunted English imagination. Arnold, Swinburne, Morris and Lord Tennyson were inspired by Morte D’ Arthur. Tennyson’s 25 famous work Idylls of the King was immensely influenced by it. The Beginning of Drama. The British drama began in the fifteenth century. It grew out of Liturgy (a religious ceremony) of the Church. In it arresting episodes from the life of Christ and Gospel stories were illustrated by a series of living pictures in which the performers acted the story in dumb show. In the beginning the plays were written for performance in the Church or Cathedral. The plays were written in Latin or French. Drama, being the only source of recreation, attracted huge crowds on Christmas and Easter, and in course of time the Church was not capacious enough to provide room for the growing number of spectators. Hence, the performances were staged outside the open spaces surrounding the Church itself. The change of place added to the introduction were issued forbidding the clergy to act in the plays. Gradually the plays emerged from the Chrch-compound into the market place. Thus, the secularisation of British drama began. The Mystery and Miracle plays which grew out of the liturgical drama came into being in the fourteenth century. The mysteries dealt with subjects taken from the Bible and Miracles with the representation of a miraculum or wonderful thing in the lives of saints. The actors in these plays were all amateurs. The performance of the mystery plays was assigned to four guilds of different townts – the Chster Cycle of 25 plays, the Conventry of 42, the Wakefield of 31 and the York of 48. Both seriousness and laughter mingle in these plays. Seriousness is represented by the figures of God and his angles, the terrible passion of Christ and his resurrection. The comic element is represented through Noah’s wife and Satan. The Moralities. The moralities were serious plays which dealt with abstractions and allegory. The characters represented certain qualities and types-Sin, Grace, Repentance, Perseverance, Good and Bad angels, and Seven Deadly Sins. Devil held a prominent place in the miracle plays Vice was introduced as the humorous incarnation of evil and was recognised as the fun maker. He is the direct forerunner of the clown of the Elizabethan age. Tragic conflict and a sense of construction and unity of form distinguish them from Mystery plays. They are in rhyme. Moralities mark a distinct advance in the direction of the development of regular tragedy. In Moralities we come across for the first time the tragic soul struggle which became the marked feature of Shakespearean tragedy. Everyman is considered as the best Morality play. Interlude Interlude was a short play that introduced real characters, usually of humble rank. There was absence of allegorical figures in these plays. Humour is the outstanding characteristic of these plays. John Heywood was the gifted writer of many interludes. John Heywood’s The four P’s Johan Johan, Rastell’s A new Interlude and Medwall’s Fulgens and Lucrece and Calesto Melebea are remarkable plays of this type. 26 The Age of Shakespeare (1516-1600) The literary decline that followed Chaucer’s death was due in considerable measure to political causes. After the war of Roses, which dissipated the energy and resources of the country and destroyed the noble families on whose patronage art and literature depended. Henry VII acceded to the throne of England in 1485. It was a period of quiet and recovery. He was an able King who established a strong monarchy, restored social and political order, curtailed the powers and privileges of barons and patronised the new rich class. King Henry VIII, who acceded to the throne of England in 1509, ushered England into an era of modernity. During his reign England contributed her part to the spread of the new civilization and new learning. sir Thomas More (1478-1535) was the most attractive figure in his court. He was one of the earliest harbingers of Renaissance in England. During the reign of Henry VIII (1509-47) the court emerged as a great patron of learning, art and literature. The atmosphere of peace and calm which began to prevail after long turmoil and chaos paved the way for extraordinary development of literary activity. commenting on his reign, W.J. Long writes : “His age is marked by a steady increase in the national in the national power at home and abroad, by the entrance of reformation “by a side door”, and a final separation of England from all ecclesiastical bondage in Parliament’s famous Act of Supremacy. In previous reigns, chivalry and old feudal system had practically been banished, now monasticism ………… received its death blow in the wholesale suppression of monasteries and the removal of abbots from the House of Lords. Edward VI ruled from 1547-1553. The Reign of Queen Mary (1553-1558) was married by religious conflicts. She restored Roman Catholicism in England. Creative activity was arrested in her time but in was replenished with much greater vigour in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603). The reign of Elizabeth was an era of both contemplation and action, an era which was illustrious for the unprecedented development of all brandches of literature; an era of inquisitiveness, of new inventions and discoveries, of the acquisition and enlargement of knowledge. During this period England emerged in the words of Milton as “a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks.” Queen Elizabeth loved England ardently and her court was one of the most brilliant courts in Europe. Her moderate policies did much to increase her popularity and prestige. Pinto remarks that people “rightly saw in her the incarnate spirit of the nation and the age.” Even the foreigners saw in her “a keen calculating intellect that bafflect the ablest man in Europe.” She inspired all her people with the unbounded patriotism which exults in Shakespeare’s plays, and with the personal devotion which finds a voice in Faery Queen. Hers was “an age in which men lived intensely, thought intensely and wrote intensely.” 27 The Influence of Renaissance on Literature What is Renaissance? Literally the tern “Renaissance” means “rebirth”. It refers to the rebirth or revival of classical learning, especially Greek, after centuries of comparative neglect. Moody and Lovet remark that it was an intellectual rebirth which “showed itself in the effort of the individual to free himself from the rigid institutions of the Middle Ages, feudalism and the Church, and to assets his right to live, to think and express himself in accordance with a more secular code.” Thus, Renaissance, as Symonds points out “denotes the whole transition from the middle ages to the modern world.” Michelet calls it “the discovery by mankind of himself and of the worlds.” Sichel remarks, “It was a movement, a revival of mans’ power, a reawakening of consciousness and of the universe.” In the words of Tillyard, “Renaissance was the manifestation of new life, an outburst of virtuous floridity after the cramping restraints and withering asceticism of the middle ages.” Renaissance in England The influence of Renaissance reached England at the end of the fifteenth century when when it was almost on the wane in Europe. The age of Shakespeare was the era of Renaissance in England. The revival of classical learning is a factor of great importance in Renaissance. Italy cradled humanism and new knowledge of the world of antiquity. When the Turks captured Constantinople in 143 many Greek scholars betook themselves to Italy with their manuscripts of Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle etc., which contained a humanistic view of life. A new conception of man and human life, known as humanism, became a vibrant force in Italy. Man, said Taine, had opened his eyes and seen. “The human life, so long despised and ill treated, came into its kingdom and was glorified. It began a new worship of beauty, a new worship of knowledge and a new statesmanship. Ali that was beautiful was, through the eyes of Renaissance, also divine. In Italy Petrarch, Boccaccio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Pico della Mirandola etc. were the early exponents of Renaissance which reached England though Italy. Caston’s printing press, established in 1476, rendered remarkable service to the people of England by publishing translations of Greek classics. The classical literature became easily accessible to the people and they came under the influence of Renaissance and humanism. Influence of Renaissance on Literature The influence of Renaissance is immense. W.H. Hudson remarks, “On the development of literature this revival of learning worked in two ways : it did much to emancipate thought from the bondage of medieval theology by restoring the generous spirit and ideals of pagan antiquity, and it presented writers with literary masterpieces which they might take as models for their own efforts.” Influence of Humanism 28 The entire literature of this period is suffused with the spirit of humanism. The conception of man as “the crown of creation” is the key factor in all renaissance literature. Marlowe, Shakespeare, Spenser, Bacon and many poets and dramatists of this period were ardent humanists. F. Boas writes, “For distinguishing note of Renaissance Age, intoxicated by the magnificent possibilities opened to it on every side, was an uncontrollable aspiration after the ideal, a scorn of earthly conditions, a soaring that sought to scale the infinitudes of power, beauty, thought and love. It is this spirit ever one, and the same – that breathes Sir Thomas More’s vision of a perfect society; in Spenser’s pattern of highest, holiest manhood, in Bacon’s clarion call to the conquest of all knowledge, and in the heroic deads and speeches of Sidney, Gilbert and in the heroic deads and speeches of Sidney, Gilbert and Grenville. But nowhere does it find more characteristic vent than in Marlowe’s Tamaburlain.” Influence of the Spirit of Discovery and Adventure The influence of the spirit of discovery and adventure runs through the literature of Elizabethan age and even after that. During Renaissance imagination and action went hand in hand. In Shakespearean England, ocean became the highway of national progress and adventure. Forbisher, Releigh, Drake and Hawkins discovered and conquered new lands and expanded the geographical space of England. We may trace everywhere in Elizabethan literature the impression made by the wonders told by sailors and captains who explored from themselves wrote down the accounts of their adventures. Hakluyt’s Voyages and Discoveries and Purchas’ Pilgrimage were very popular. The voyagers, in the words of Mair, are the makers of “Our modern English prose and some of its noblest passages.” They were poioneers in the field of writing plain, unadorned English prose and the plain and direct telling of a stirring story. The spirit of adventure, caught from the voyagers, got its fullest and finest expression in drama. Walter Raleigh writes : “Without the voyagers, Marlowe is inconceivable.” His imagination in all his plays, especially in Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus is preoccupied with the lust of adventure, and the wealth and power adventure brings. In Shakespeare’s Tempest and Pericles the terror of the storm and shipwreck with all its dramatic poignancy pervades. The Merchant of Venice, Othello, The Twelfth Night and The Tempest testify to the powerful influence of the spirit of discovery and adventure. The influence of voyagers and of discoveries persisted long after the first bloom of Renaissance had flowered and withered. Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and many other works show the influence of the spirit of adventures especially that of purchas’ Pilgrimage”. The Influence of Classical Learning 29 The revival of classical learning influenced the content, style and technique of literature. Plato and Aristotle exercised immense influence on literature. The doctrines of Plato’s Symposium, influenced Spenser’s Hymn to Intellectual Beauty and Republic encouraged new ways of thinking and inspired More’s Utopia and Bacon’s New Atlantis. Mair remarks, “The reading of the ancient awakened new delight in the melody and beauty of language; men became intoxicated with words.” The poets and writers of this period experimented with language and invented new modes of expression. Various poetic genres, writes Legouis, “in which the ancients and the moderns had won distinction – pastorals, epics, comedies, tragedies, lyrics of every king, every kind of prose romances, criticism, history, philosophy” were skilfully and successfully attempted. Influence of the Spirit of Rational and Scientific Quest The Renaissance also fostered the spirit of questioning, of rational and scientific quest of truth. “Make an appeal to the reason of man” became the ideal of many writers. Bacon is the high priest of this attitude. The spirit of rational inquiry is the main characteristic of Bacon’s New Atlantis, The Advancement of Learning, Essays and the plays of Ben Jonson. The Age of Renaissance marks the real beginning of a very high order of literature. The enrichment of English language due to various factors remarkably contributed to the development of literature. The literature of this period is romantic in spirit. Edward Albert remarks : “The romantic quest is for the remote, the wonderful, and the beautiful. All these desires were abundantly fed during the Elizabethan age, which is our first and greatest romantic epoch.” Reformation and Its Influence on Literature Both Renaissance and Reformation began to be effective at about the same time in England. Reformation, a movement which had for its objects the emancipation of conscience from the Chruch, began in Germany. Luther initiated in 1517 when he attacked the power of the Church and the Pope. With the passage of time Reformation produced, but in the long run its ushered into an era of religious liberty and freedom of thought. The struggle for the emancipation of conscience from priestly control had begun in England nearly two centuries before with Wycliff. The spirit, strengthened by the example of German and Swiss reformers, was the moral force behind king Henry VIII’s historic declaration of renouncing the sovereignty of Pope and of declaring himself the head of the English Church in 1534. English became the language of religious offices in place of Latin. The message of Reformation went through the country in the sermons of Latimer (1549) who was the most powerful and effective preacher of the day. His message, written in straightforward, racy, simple and homesfun prose, appealed to Englishmen. During the short reign of Edward VI, English Reformation moved closer to the Protestantism of the continent Edward’s sister Mary vainly tried to re-establish Catholicism in England. After her death Queen Elizabeth sealed and ratified the Protestantism victory. During her glorious 30 reign the authority of the Roman was again replaced by the English Church. A general atmosphere of individualism and self-reliance reinforced the proposition that man was directly responsible to his God, without the mediation of an ecclesiastical hierarchy and that he was entitled to have the Bible in his own tongue. The Reformation was a continental movement. Both Renaissance and Reformation were basically a rejection of authority and tradition in favour of individual initiative and authority. Hudson writes, “While the Renaissance aroused the intellect and the aesthetic faculties, the Reformation awakened the spiritual nature; the some printing press which diffused the knowledge of the classics put the English Bible into the hands of the people, and the spread of an interest in religion was inevitable accompanied by a deepening of moral earnestness.” Reformation may be briefly explained as the religious movement arising out of the revolt of Martin Luther against Pope’s supremacy; and the consequent establishment of a new reformed Church founded upon scriptural authority. The consequences produced by conjunction of the Renaissance and Reformation resulted in the growth of a new spirit of rationalism, repudiation of Pan- European Papal authority, the growth and development of English language, and ultimately the growth and development of Puritanism. The Reformation influenced contemporary literature. The Authorised Version of the Bible (161) and William Tyndale’s Translation of the New Testament (1527), the two important works embodying the spirit of English Reformation, left imperishable mark on the evolution of English language and literature. These works also exercised great influence on the development of English prose style. Moody and Lovett remark, “The Reformation, and the controversies, religious and political, which grew out of it gave occasion for what we should call journalism, in the form of pamphlets, serious and satirical, in both prose and verse.” The great English witers of this period – Spenser, Jonson, Milton and Bunyan – are the true children of both Renaissance and Reformation. Poetry The poetry of this period, which mirrors the spirit of the Age, is conspicuous for the spirit of conquest and self-glorification, humanism, vigorous imagination, originality, emotional depth, passionate intensity, subli-mity, vividity and variety. Sir Thomas Wytt (1503-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of Survey (1516- 47) Wyath and Surrey, widely travelled in Italy, brought to England the Italian and classical influence. They are the first harbingers of Renaissance and first modern poets in England. The book that contains their poems is Songs and Sonnets, known as Tottle’s Miscellanty (1557). Wyatt brought to English poetry grace, harmony and nobility. He attempted a great variety 31 of metrical forms – songs, sonnets, madrigals and elegies. He first of all introduced sonnet in England. He strictly followed the petrarchan form of sonnet. Wyatt also introduced personal or autobiographical note in his poetry. His lyrics are noticeable for rare simplicity, spontaneity, melody of the medieval minstrels and the courtly grace and refinement of a man of learning and culture. He also introduced into English the Italian terza Rima dn Ottava Rima. Surrey is a disciple of Wyatt rather than an independent poetical force. He modified the sonnet form and made it typically English. The Petrarchan from is more impressive, the modified English form the more expressive. Shakespeare followed the English form of sonner, introduced by Surrey. He was the first, in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil’s Aenied, to use the ten- syllabled, unrhymed verse, which is now known as blank verse. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) – Sidney, the most celebrated literary figure before Spenser and Shakespeare, is remembered for Arcadia (1590), a prose romance, Apology for Poetry (1580) and Astrophel and Stella (1593), a collection of sonnets. The sonnets, numbering about 108, are the first poetic expression of personal feeling and experiences in English. His sonnets owe much to Petrarch and Ronsard in time and style. Sidney has produced a body of poetry which for its versatile excellence places him in the foremost rank of his time. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) – Edmund Spenser, a typical representative of his age, has been hailed by Charles Lamb as “the poets’ poet” because all great poets of England have been indebted to him. “Spenser”, Rickett remarks, “is at one the child of Renaissance and Reformation. On one side we may regard him with Milton as “the sage and serious Spenser,” on the other, he is the humanist, alive to the finger tips with sensuous beauty of Southern romance.” Spenser’s main works are The Shepherd’ Calendar (1579), a pastoral romance; amoretti, a collection of eighty-eight Petarch sonnets; Epithalmian (1595), a magnificent ode coomemorating his marriage with Elizabeth Boyle, Astrophel (1596), an elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney; Four Humns (1576), glorifying love and honour; and his magnum opus Faerie Queen (1589- 1609). Spenser’s poetry is characterised by sensuousness and picturesqueness. He is a matchless painter in words. His contribution to poetic style, diction and versification is memorable. He evolved a poetic style which the succeeding generations of English poets used. The introduction of Spenserian stanza, which has been adroitly used by almost all poets, is his most remarkable contribution to poetry. He is great because of the extraordinary smoothness and melody of his verse, the richness of his language, a golden diction which he drew from every source – new words, old words and obsolete words. Spenser is “the poet’s” in the real sense. All great poets have been influenced by him. Renwick says, “Shakespeare himself might not have achieved so much, if Spenser had not lived and laboured.” Dryden acknowledge that Spenser had been his master in English. 32 Thompson referred to him as “my master Spenser.” Wordsworth praises him as the embodiment of nobility, purity and sweetness. Byron, Shelly and Keats are his worthy followers. The pre-Raphaelites were inspired by his word painting and picturesque descriptions. Spenser’s Faerie Queen as an Epic Spenser’s magnum opus The Faerie Queen is a romantic epic in the classical style, like those of Homer and Virgil. Its hero, Prince Arthur, was a celebrated figure in folklore and legend, and has a semblance of reality for 16th century England. His adventures and exploits are heroic. He is an ideal person who always appears to rescue the oppressed. Although Prince Arthur casually appears in each book, he fails to provide the unity of action essential for an epic. Each of the books has its own hero and deals with his individual exploits and adventure. It lacks in unity of action worthy of an epic. Spenser’s imagination in Faerie Queen is expansive and he filled up the measure of his narrative with everything that caught his fancy- historical events ladies, chivalrous knights, giants, monsters, dragons, sirens, chivalrous knights, giants, monsters, dragons, sirens, enchanters and countless adventures. The scene is laid in a romantic fairyland. Ricket remarks : “Sensitive to every phase of imaginian and beauty, there is always a dreamy almosters about his verse.” The treatment of the subject is in grand style suitable for an epic. The language is dignified. The similes are primal and divers. A wounded hero falls. …….as an aged tree. High growing on the top of rocky clift. Songs and Lyrics in Shakespeare’s Age The Age of Shakespeare was the golden age of songs and lyrics. Various factors contributed to the unique development of lyric poetry during this period. The feeling of stability, peace and contentment enabled poets to compose songs and lyrics full of buoyancy and zest for life. The Elizabethans lyrical impulse “seeks expression in a great variety of poetical forms. The lyric proper appears now under the pastoral conventions now as sonnet sequences, now in various composite literary forms, such as formal ode and epithalamium, and again as pur song-lyric of the Elizabethan song books, in madrigal, ode and catch, that altogether delightful and exquisite outbursts of bird-like music, exotic and Italianate, and, yet to modern years, at same time, so freshly English and native.” The Elizabethan songs and lyrics were on a variety of themes. There were love songs, religious songs, patriotic songs, was songs, fantastic songs and philosophical songs. They were composed in every mood grave, romantic, fantastic, sentimental, meditative, mocking and cynical. “Merry England was a nest of singing birds.” Plays and prose romances were full of songs and lyrics. Love is the main theme of Elizabethan lyrical poetry. It is fanciful love, love that laughs and 33 entreats and sighs. pastoral element – many time rapture, joys of countryside, shepherd’s feasts, and shepherds’ love characterise most of the songs and lyrics of this period. Sir Philip Sidney, who wrote many beautiful songs, contributed the qualities of loftiness, sensuousness, picturesqueness, and superb musicality to lyrical poetry. Some of his finest songs – “To you, to you all songs of praise are due.” “Only joy! now here you are” and “Ring out your bell” and many others - are characterised by depth of passion, beauty, romance and fancifulness. He inserted songs in the Shepherds’ Calendar. Marlowe’s genius was lyrical. His famous song “Come live with me and be my love” is one of the finest songs in English lyrical poetry poetry of the 16th century. Shakespeare’s plays. His songs are characterised by originality, spontaneity, depth and intensity of feelings, freshness, vigour and youthfulness flight of imagination wedded to realism as in Amien’s song “under the greenwood” in As You Like It and Autolycus’ song “under the greenwood” in As You Like It and Autolycus’ song in The Winter’s Tale. Some of his songs express the poignant feelings of love, as “Tell me where is fancy bread,” sung by Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice, “sigh no more ladies” in Much Ado About Nothing and “Take’ O take those lips away” in Measure for Measure. These lare interesting songs of passion. Commenting on Shakespeare’s songs S. A. Brooke writes, Shakespeare songs excels the others in their gay rejoicing, their firm reality, their exquisite ease, and “when in the plays, gain a new beauty from their fitness to their dramatic place.” The plays of Shakespeare’s contemporary dramatists are also decorated with songs. Thomas Dekkar, Beaumont and Fletcher, and Ben Jonson included many lovely songs in their plays. Lyly’s songs are remembered for their delicate melody, flawless diction, and light and refined note. Green’s songs are full of national feelings, pastoral and Renaissance fancies. Peele’s lyrics survive for their melody and cadence. Nash’s songs are now rollicking and open, and again musically melancholy. Lodge’s songs are more are fresh, copious and are imbued with a fine artistic feeling. Thomas Campion (1567-1620) deserves praise for his attractive lyrics and songs. He was stirred to rapture by sacred and profance love alike. His well- known collections of songs are A Book Ayres (1601), songs of Mourning (1613) and Two Books of Ayres (1612). His songs and lyrics are characterised by the deft use of sweet and apt phrases, musical quality of a high order and a mastery of complicated metrs. He could express fantastic ideas with great ease, spontaneity and felicity, for example. There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies blow; A heavenly paradise is that place Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow. Samuel Daniel (1562-1619) has to his credit a sonnet series called Delia (1592), a romance 34 entitled The Complaint of Rosamund (1592), a long historical poem The Civil Was (1595) and a large number of masques. Dryton wrote lyrics, verse tales and pastorals, such as The Man in the Moon and Nymphidia. He simplified English language by removing eccentricities and arbitrary inventions. Purity of his poetic style is admirable. A number of poetic miscellanies, consisting of short lyrics and songs by various poets appeared. Some famous anthologies are Totell’s Miscellany (1537), The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576), The Passionate Pilgrim (1599) and England’s Helicom (1600). These collections contain countless songs and lyrics, composed by poets who names now awaken no response. The Elizabethan lyric is light and airy. It is an expression of the holiday mood of its author. It expresses a fine “blendi