English Literature
originate? Have they any historical foundation? What two great elements did
Malory combine in his work? What is the importance of his book to later
English literature? Compare Tennyson's "Idylls of the King" and Malory's
stories with regard to material, expression, and interest. Note the marked
resemblances and differences between the _Morte d'Arthur_ and the
_Nibelungen Lied_.
CHRONOLOGY
===========================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1413. Henry V |
1415. Battle of Agincourt |
1422. Henry VI | 1470. Malory's Morte d' Arthur
1428. Siege of Orleans. Joan of Arc | 1474(c). Caxton, at Bruges,
1453. End of Hundred Year's War | prints the first book in
1455-1485. War of Roses | English, the Recuyell of the
1461. Edward IV | Histories of Troye
1483. Richard III | 1477. First book printed in
| England
1485. Henry VII | 1485. Morte d'Arthur printed
| by Caxton
1492. Columbus discovers America | 1499. Colet, Erasmus, and More
1509. Henry VIII | bring the New Learning to
| Oxford
| 1509. Erasmus's Praise of
| Folly
| 1516. More's Utopia
| 1525. Tydale's New Testament
1534. Act of Supremacy. The | 1530(c). Introduction of the
Reformation accomplished | sonnet and blank verse by
| Wyatt and Surrey
| 1539. The Great Bible
1547. Edward VI |
1553. Mary | 1557. Tottel's Miscellany
1558. Elizabeth |
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* * * * *
CHAPTER VI
THE AGE OF ELIZABETH (1550-1620)
I. HISTORY OF THE PERIOD
POLITICAL SUMMARY. In the Age of Elizabeth all doubt seems to vanish from
English history. After the reigns of Edward and Mary, with defeat and
humiliation abroad and persecutions and rebellion at home, the accession of
a popular sovereign was like the sunrise after a long night, and, in
Milton's words, we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant nation,
rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible
locks." With the queen's character, a strange mingling of frivolity and
strength which reminds one of that iron image with feet of clay, we have
nothing whatever to do. It is the national life that concerns the literary
student, since even a beginner must notice that any great development of
the national life is invariably associated with a development of the
national literature. It is enough for our purpose, therefore, to point out
two facts: that Elizabeth, with all her vanity and inconsistency, steadily
loved England and England's greatness; and that she inspired all her people
with the unbounded patriotism which exults in Shakespeare, and with the
personal devotion which finds a voice in the _Faery Queen_. Under her
administration the English national life progressed by gigantic leaps
rather than by slow historical process, and English literature reached the
very highest point of its development. It is possible to indicate only a
few general characteristics of this great age which had a direct bearing
upon its literature.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. The most characteristic feature of
the age was the comparative religious tolerance, which was due largely to
the queen's influence. The frightful excesses of the religious war known as
the Thirty Years' War on the Continent found no parallel in England. Upon
her accession Elizabeth found the whole kingdom divided against itself; the
North was largely Catholic, while the southern counties were as strongly
Protestant. Scotland had followed the Reformation in its own intense way,
while Ireland remained true to its old religious traditions, and both
countries were openly rebellious. The court, made up of both parties,
witnessed the rival intrigues of those who sought to gain the royal favor.
It was due partly to the intense absorption of men's minds in religious
questions that the preceding century, though an age of advancing learning,
produced scarcely any literature worthy of the name. Elizabeth favored both
religious parties, and presently the world saw with amazement Catholics and
Protestants acting together as trusted counselors of a great sovereign. The
defeat of the Spanish Armada established the Reformation as a fact in
England, and at the same time united all Englishmen in a magnificent
national enthusiasm. For the first time since the Reformation began, the
fundamental question of religious toleration seemed to be settled, and the
mind of man, freed from religious fears and persecutions, turned with a
great creative impulse to other forms of activity. It is partly from this
new freedom of the mind that the Age of Elizabeth received its great
literary stimulus.
2. It was an age of comparative social contentment, in strong contrast with
the days of Langland. The rapid increase of manufacturing towns gave
employment to thousands who had before been idle and discontented.
Increasing trade brought enormous wealth to England, and this wealth was
shared to this extent, at least, that for the first time some systematic
care for the needy was attempted. Parishes were made responsible for their
own poor, and the wealthy were taxed to support them or give them
employment. The increase of wealth, the improvement in living, the
opportunities for labor, the new social content--these also are factors
which help to account for the new literary activity.
3. It is an age of dreams, of adventure, of unbounded enthusiasm springing
from the new lands of fabulous riches revealed by English explorers. Drake
sails around the world, shaping the mighty course which English colonizers
shall follow through the centuries; and presently the young philosopher
Bacon is saying confidently, "I have taken all knowledge for my province."
The mind must search farther than the eye; with new, rich lands opened to
the sight, the imagination must create new forms to people the new worlds.
Hakluyt's famous _Collection of Voyages_, and _Purchas, His Pilgrimage_,
were even more stimulating to the English imagination than to the English
acquisitiveness. While her explorers search the new world for the Fountain
of Youth, her poets are creating literary works that are young forever.
Marston writes:[114] "Why, man, all their dripping pans are pure gold. The
prisoners they take are fettered in gold; and as for rubies and diamonds,
they goe forth on holydayes and gather 'hem by the seashore to hang on
their children's coates." This comes nearer to being a description of
Shakespeare's poetry than of the Indians in Virginia. Prospero, in _The
Tempest_, with his control over the mighty powers and harmonies of nature,
is only the literary dream of that science which had just begun to grapple
with the forces of the universe. Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh,
Willoughby, Hawkins,--a score of explorers reveal a new earth to men's
eyes, and instantly literature creates a new heaven to match it. So dreams
and deeds increase side by side, and the dream is ever greater than the
deed. That is the meaning of literature.
4. To sum up, the Age of Elizabeth was a time of intellectual liberty, of
growing intelligence and comfort among all classes, of unbounded
patriotism, and of peace at home and abroad. For a parallel we must go back
to the Age of Pericles in Athens, or of Augustus in Rome, or go forward a
little to the magnificent court of Louis XIV, when Corneille, Racine, and
Molière brought the drama in France to the point where Marlowe,
Shakespeare, and Jonson had left it in England half a century earlier. Such
an age of great thought and great action, appealing to the eyes as well as
to the imagination and intellect, finds but one adequate literary
expression; neither poetry nor the story can express the whole man,--his
thought, feeling, action, and the resulting character; hence in the Age of
Elizabeth literature turned instinctively to the drama and brought it
rapidly to the highest stage of its development.
II. THE NON-DRAMATIC POETS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE
EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)
_(Cuddie)_
"Piers, I have pipéd erst so long with pain
That all mine oaten reeds been rent and wore,
And my poor Muse hath spent her sparéd store,
Yet little good hath got, and much less gain.
Such pleasaunce makes the grasshopper so poor,
And ligge so layd[115] when winter doth her strain.
The dapper ditties that I wont devise,
To feed youth's fancy, and the flocking fry
Delghten much--what I the bet forthy?
They han the pleasure, I a slender prize:
I beat the bush, the birds to them do fly:
What good thereof to Cuddie can arise?
(_Piers_)
Cuddie, the praise is better than the price,
The glory eke much greater than the gain:..."
_Shepherd's Calendar_, October
In these words, with their sorrowful suggestion of Deor, Spenser reveals
his own heart, unconsciously perhaps, as no biographer could possibly do.
His life and work seem to center about three great influences, summed up in
three names: Cambridge, where he grew acquainted with the classics and the
Italian poets; London, where he experienced the glamour and the
disappointment of court life; and Ireland, which steeped him in the beauty
and imagery of old Celtic poetry and first gave him leisure to write his
masterpiece.
LIFE. Of Spenser's early life and parentage we know little, except that he
was born in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, and was poor. His
education began at the Merchant Tailors' School in London and was continued
in Cambridge, where as a poor sizar and fag for wealthy students he earned
a scant living. Here in the glorious world that only a poor scholar knows
how to create for himself he read the classics, made acquaintance with the
great Italian poets, and wrote numberless little poems of his own. Though
Chaucer was his beloved master, his ambition was not to rival the
_Canterbury Tales_, but rather to express the dream of English chivalry,
much as Ariosto had done for Italy in _Orlando Furioso_.
After leaving Cambridge (1576) Spenser went to the north of England, on
some unknown work or quest. Here his chief occupation was to fall in love
and to record his melancholy over the lost Rosalind in the _Shepherd's
Calendar_. Upon his friend Harvey's advice he came to London, bringing his
poems; and here he met Leicester, then at the height of royal favor, and
the latter took him to live at Leicester House. Here he finished the
_Shepherd's Calendar_, and here he met Sidney and all the queen's
favorites. The court was full of intrigues, lying and flattery, and
Spenser's opinion of his own uncomfortable position is best expressed in a
few lines from "Mother Hubbard's Tale":
Full little knowest thou, that has not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide:
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
* * * * *
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;