English Literature
one for each month of the year. The themes are generally rural life,
nature, love in the fields; and the speakers are shepherds and
shepherdesses. To increase the rustic effect Spenser uses strange forms of
speech and obsolete words, to such an extent that Jonson complained his
works are not English or any other language. Some are melancholy poems on
his lost Rosalind; some are satires on the clergy; one, "The Briar and the
Oak," is an allegory; one flatters Elizabeth, and others are pure fables
touched with the Puritan spirit. They are written in various styles and
meters, and show plainly that Spenser was practicing and preparing himself
for greater work.
Other noteworthy poems are "Mother Hubbard's Tale," a satire on society;
"Astrophel," an elegy on the death of Sidney; _Amoretti_, or sonnets, to
his Elizabeth; the marriage hymn, "Epithalamion," and four "Hymns," on
Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love, and Heavenly Beauty. There are numerous other
poems and collections of poems, but these show the scope of his work and
are best worth reading.
IMPORTANCE OF THE SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR. The publication of this work, in
1579, by an unknown writer who signed himself modestly "Immerito," marks an
important epoch in our literature. We shall appreciate this better if we
remember the long years during which England had been without a great poet.
Chaucer and Spenser are often studied together as poets of the Renaissance
period, and the idea prevails that they were almost contemporary. In fact,
nearly two centuries passed after Chaucer's death,--years of enormous
political and intellectual development,--and not only did Chaucer have no
successor but our language had changed so rapidly that Englishmen had lost
the ability to read his lines correctly.[125]
This first published work of Spenser is noteworthy in at least four
respects: first, it marks the appearance of the first national poet in two
centuries; second, it shows again the variety and melody of English verse,
which had been largely a tradition since Chaucer; third, it was our first
pastoral, the beginning of a long series of English pastoral compositions
modeled on Spenser, and as such exerted a strong influence on subsequent
literature; and fourth, it marks the real beginning of the outburst of
great Elizabethan poetry.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPENSER'S POETRY. The five main qualities of Spenser's
poetry are (1) a perfect melody; (2) a rare sense of beauty; (3) a splendid
imagination, which could gather into one poem heroes, knights, ladies,
dwarfs, demons and dragons, classic mythology, stories of chivalry, and the
thronging ideals of the Renaissance,--all passing in gorgeous procession
across an ever-changing and ever-beautiful landscape; (4) a lofty moral
purity and seriousness; (5) a delicate idealism, which could make all
nature and every common thing beautiful. In contrast with these excellent
qualities the reader will probably note the strange appearance of his lines
due to his fondness for obsolete words, like _eyne_ (eyes) and _shend_
(shame), and his tendency to coin others, like _mercify_, to suit his own
purposes.
It is Spenser's idealism, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody
which have caused him to be known as "the poets' poet." Nearly all our
subsequent singers acknowledge their delight in him and their indebtedness.
Macaulay alone among critics voices a fault which all who are not poets
quickly feel, namely that, with all Spenser's excellences, he is difficult
to read. The modern man loses himself in the confused allegory of the
_Faery Queen_, skips all but the marked passages, and softly closes the
book in gentle weariness. Even the best of his longer poems, while of
exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold
the reader's attention. The movement is languid; there is little dramatic
interest, and only a suggestion of humor. The very melody of his verses
sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss waltz too long continued. We
shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well-chosen
selections from the _Faery Queen_ and the _Shepherd's Calendar_, and a few
of the minor poems which exemplify his wonderful melody.
COMPARISON BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER. At the outset it is well to
remember that, though Spenser regarded Chaucer as his master, two centuries
intervene between them, and that their writings have almost nothing in
common. We shall appreciate this better by a brief comparison between our
first two modern poets.
Chaucer was a combined poet and man of affairs, with the latter
predominating. Though dealing largely with ancient or mediæval material, he
has a curiously modern way of looking at life. Indeed, he is our only
author preceding Shakespeare with whom we feel thoroughly at home. He threw
aside the outgrown metrical romance, which was practically the only form of
narrative in his day, invented the art of story-telling in verse, and
brought it to a degree of perfection which has probably never since been
equaled. Though a student of the classics, he lived wholly in the present,
studied the men and women of his own time, painted them as they were, but
added always a touch of kindly humor or romance to make them more
interesting. So his mission appears to be simply to amuse himself and his
readers. His mastery of various and melodious verse was marvelous and has
never been surpassed in our language; but the English of his day was
changing rapidly, and in a very few years men were unable to appreciate his
art, so that even to Spenser and Dryden, for example, he seemed deficient
in metrical skill. On this account his influence on our literature has been
much less than we should expect from the quality of his work and from his
position as one of the greatest of English poets.
Like Chaucer, Spenser was a busy man of affairs, but in him the poet and
the scholar always predominates. He writes as the idealist, describing men
not as they are but as he thinks they should be; he has no humor, and his
mission is not to amuse but to reform. Like Chaucer he studies the classics
and contemporary French and Italian writers; but instead of adapting his
material to present-day conditions, he makes poetry, as in his Eclogues for
instance, more artificial even than his foreign models. Where Chaucer looks
about him and describes life as he sees it, Spenser always looks backward
for his inspiration; he lives dreamily in the past, in a realm of purely
imaginary emotions and adventures. His first quality is imagination, not
observation, and he is the first of our poets to create a world of dreams,
fancies, and illusions. His second quality is a wonderful sensitiveness to
beauty, which shows itself not only in his subject-matter but also in the
manner of his poetry. Like Chaucer, he is an almost perfect workman; but in
reading Chaucer we think chiefly of his natural characters or his ideas,
while in reading Spenser we think of the beauty of expression. The
exquisite Spenserian stanza and the rich melody of Spenser's verse have
made him the model of all our modern poets.
MINOR POETS
Though Spenser is the one great non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan Age, a
multitude of minor poets demand attention of the student who would
understand the tremendous literary activity of the period. One needs only
to read _The Paradyse of Daynty Devises_ (1576), or _A Gorgeous Gallery of
Gallant Inventions_ (1578), or any other of the miscellaneous collections
to find hundreds of songs, many of them of exquisite workmanship, by poets
whose names now awaken no response. A glance is enough to assure one that
over all England "the sweet spirit of song had arisen, like the first
chirping of birds after a storm." Nearly two hundred poets are recorded in
the short period from 1558 to 1625, and many of them were prolific writers.
In a work like this, we can hardly do more than mention a few of the best
known writers, and spend a moment at least with the works that suggest
Marlowe's description of "infinite riches in a little room." The reader
will note for himself the interesting union of action and thought in these
men, so characteristic of the Elizabethan Age; for most of them were
engaged chiefly in business or war or politics, and literature was to them
a pleasant recreation rather than an absorbing profession.
THOMAS SACKVILLE (1536-1608). Sir Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Lord
High Treasurer of England, is generally classed with Wyatt and Surrey among
the predecessors of the Elizabethan Age. In imitation of Dante's _Inferno_,
Sackville formed the design of a great poem called _The Mirror for
Magistrates_. Under guidance of an allegorical personage called Sorrow, he
meets the spirits of all the important actors in English history. The idea
was to follow Lydgate's _Fall of Princes_ and let each character tell his
own story; so that the poem would be a mirror in which present rulers might
see themselves and read this warning: "Who reckless rules right soon may
hope to rue." Sackville finished only the "Induction" and the "Complaint of
the Duke of Buckingham." These are written in the rime royal, and are
marked by strong poetic feeling and expression. Unfortunately Sackville
turned from poetry to politics, and the poem was carried on by two inferior
poets, William Baldwin and George Ferrers.
Sackville wrote also, in connection with Thomas Norton, the first English
tragedy, _Ferrex and Porrex_, called also _Gorboduc_, which will be
considered in the following section on the Rise of the Drama.
PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586). Sidney, the ideal gentleman, the Sir Calidore of
Spenser's "Legend of Courtesy," is vastly more interesting as a man than as
a writer, and the student is recommended to read his biography rather than
his books. His life expresses, better than any single literary work, the
two ideals of the age,--personal honor and national greatness.
As a writer he is known by three principal works, all published after his
death, showing how little importance he attached to his own writing, even
while he was encouraging Spenser. The _Arcadia_ is a pastoral romance,
interspersed with eclogues, in which shepherds and shepherdesses sing of
the delights of rural life. Though the work was taken up idly as a summer's
pastime, it became immensely popular and was imitated by a hundred poets.
The _Apologie for Poetrie_ (1595), generally called the _Defense of
Poesie_, appeared in answer to a pamphlet by Stephen Gosson called _The
School of Abuse_ (1579), in which the poetry of the age and its unbridled
pleasure were denounced with Puritan thoroughness and conviction. The
_Apologie_ is one of the first critical essays in English; and though its
style now seems labored and unnatural,--the pernicious result of Euphues
and his school,--it is still one of the best expressions of the place and
meaning of poetry in any language. _Astrophel and Stella_ is a collection
of songs and sonnets addressed to Lady Penelope Devereux, to whom Sidney
had once been betrothed. They abound in exquisite lines and passages,
containing more poetic feeling and expression than the songs of any other
minor writer of the age.
GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559?-1634). Chapman spent his long, quiet life among the
dramatists, and wrote chiefly for the stage. His plays, which were for the
most part merely poems in dialogue, fell far below the high dramatic
standard of his time and are now almost unread. His most famous work is the
metrical translation of the _Iliad_ (1611) and of the _Odyssey_ (1614).
Chapman's _Homer_, though lacking the simplicity and dignity of the
original, has a force and rapidity of movement which makes it superior in
many respects to Pope's more familiar translation. Chapman is remembered