British poetry in its social and histori

1 Christophe DEN TANDT Professeur Université Libre de Bruxelles GERM-B-205 Histoire littéraire et culturelle des pays anglophones II English Poetry in Its Historical Context Vol II: The Renaissance i 0.1 Online information The web pages listed below contain important practical information about the course (schedule, examination questions, bibliography) • • • • • • http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205general.htm: informations pratiques générales http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205sylllabus.htm: description du cours http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205schedule.htm: calendrier du cours / échéancier http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205biblio.htm: bibliographie http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205exquest.htm exam questions and keywords http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205translist.htm List of poems Documents relevant to the course—the slides presentations used for class lectures, notably— are available on the ULB’s Université Virtuelle web site 0.2 Warning: scope of the present course notes The present course notes cover the historical and theoretical topics discussed during lectures, as well as some important aspects of the close readings developed in class However, for close readings, students are also expected to rely on their own lecture notes 0.3 Bibliographical sources The bibliographical sources on which the present notes are based are listed on the following web page: http://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~cdentand/b205biblio.htm 0.4 Warning: formatting and bibliographical standards: The present course notes are meant to serve as study aids They have therefore been formatted according to typographical standards meant to facilitate your studying process This means notably that, as far as typographical and bibliographical conventions are concerned, the present course notes cannot possibly serve as model for research papers and theses You will find the proper formatting and bibliographical style sheets in the Guidelines for Research Papers and Theses textbook, as well as on the appropriate web sites mentioned in the latter volume ii ENGLISH POETRY IN ITS HISTORICAL CONTEXT VOLUME II THE RENAISSANCE (1453-1660) 96 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.2.1 4.2.2 4.2.3 Chronology: the Renaissance in Europe 96 The general features of the European Renaissance 96 Chronology: the Renaissance in England 107 Major chronological landmarks 107 Cultural sub-periods 107 Tudor and Stuart monarchs 107 4.3 4.3.1.1 4.3.1.2 4.3.2 4.3.2.1 The Early Renaissance (1516-78) 113 More, Wyatt and Surrey 113 CLOSE READING: Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “Whoso List to Hunt” 117 Euphuism 119 The characteristics of Euphuism 120 4.4 4.4.1 4.4.1.1 4.4.1.2 4.4.1.3 4.4.1.4 4.4.2 4.4.2.1 4.4.2.2 4.4.2.3 The High Renaissance (1578-1625) 121 Edmund Spenser (1522-1599) 121 The Faerie Queene 121 Spenser and Malory: 123 Spenser’s love poetry Amoretti and Epithalamion 127 CLOSE READING: Edmund Spenser’s “To His Love” 127 Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) 129 Biography; Arcadia 129 CLOSE READING: Sir Philip Sidney’s “The Bargain” 129 Astrophel and Stella and the Petrarchan tradition 131 4.4.3 4.4.3.1 4.4.3.2 Metrics: The history of the sonnet 131 The Italian legacy 131 The sonnet in England 132 4.4.4 4.4.4.1 4.4.4.2 4.4.4.3 4.4.4.3.1 1593 4.4.4.3.2 1594 4.4.4.3.3 1601 4.4.4.4 4.4.4.4.1 4.4.4.4.2 William Shakespeare (1564-1616) 134 Biographical sources 135 Short biographical outline 135 Shakespeare the lyric poet 137 Venus and Adonis 137 The Rape of Lucrece 138 The Phoenix and the Turtle 139 The Sonnets 139 A collection of love poems that raises many literary historical questions 139 CLOSE READING: Shakespeare’s sonnets 142 4.4.5 Ben Jonson (1573-1637) 150 4.4.6 4.4.6.1 4.4.6.2 4.4.6.2.1 The Metaphysical Poets 152 Metaphysical Poetry as a poetic genre 152 John Donne (1572-1631) 153 John Donne: biography 154 iii 4.4.6.2.2 4.4.6.2.3 The Songs and Sonnets 154 CLOSE READING: John Donne’s “The Canonization” 156 4.5 4.5.1 4.5.2 4.5.2.1 4.5.2.2 4.5.2.3 4.5.2.4 4.5.3 4.5.3.1 4.5.3.1.1 4.5.3.1.2 4.5.3.2 4.5.3.3 4.5.3.3.1 4.5.3.3.2 The Late Renaissance: 1625-1674 164 CHRONOLOGY: Periodization of the late Renaissance 164 Cavaliers and Metaphysicals 164 George Herbert (1593-1633) 164 Richard Crashaw (1612-1649) 165 Henry Vaughan (1622-1678) 166 Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) 166 John Milton (1608-1674) 167 Early poetic career 167 Comus (1634) 167 Lycidas (1637) 168 The political hiatus 168 Milton and the Restoration 169 Paradise Lost (1665) 169 Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes (1671) 171 95 THE RENAISSANCE (1453-1660) 4.0 Chronology: the Renaissance in Europe 1453: Constantinople captured by the Ottomans (beginning of the Renaissance) 1492: Christopher Columbus’ first trip to America 1517: Martin Luther sparks off the Reformation 1534: Henry VIII establishes the Anglican Church History books indicate that the Renaissance in Europe begins in 1453, the year when the Ottomans finally succeeded in their attempts to conquer Constantinople and thus brought an end to the long history of the Eastern Roman Empire This is of course a conventional landmark The Italian Renaissance had started in the fourteenth century already, while the new cultural movement spread slowly northward, to reach our regions and Scandinavia only in the seventeenth century 4.1 The general features of the European Renaissance Figure 1Figure 67: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1485); Renaissance artists often chose subjects borrowed from ancient mythology “Renaissance” means rebirth In the most general terms, what was reborn during the Renaissance is the political and cultural power of Western Europe, which lay dormant during the “dark” centuries of the Middle Ages As far as definitions go, the hypothesis of a general revival of Europe in the 1500s is quite convenient, but is based on a simplistic historical scenario: it erroneously assumes that the cultural backwardness usually associated with the Middle Ages was spread evenly throughout Europe In fact, the Mediterranean regions— Italy, but also Southern France—were never the cultural waste land that the North may have been after the collapse of Rome Likewise, the last centuries of the Middle Ages (1200-1500) 96 in Northwestern Europe were a period of vivid intellectual and artistic activity: since the 13th century, e.g., Paris witnessed the construction of Notre-Dame cathedral and the development of the medieval Sorbonne The existence of these significant cultural achievements at a time of supposed cultural sterility suggests that the dynamic that led to the flowering of 15th- and 16th-c art developed over a long period of time If we look at the history that precedes the Renaissance from a more flexible chronological and geographical perspective, it is easier for us to explain why at the time of Chaucer (late 1300s), Italy was already experiencing a period of intense cultural revival, and why so many major artists of the time (Chaucer, Wyatt, Surrey) have to be described as “transitional” figures—people balanced in between medieval and Renaissance culture Still, it is undeniable that the 15th and 16th centuries were marked by specific cultural and political events that changed the long-term course of European history, and that allowed historians to define the Renaissance as a distinct historical period: - The rediscovery of Latin and Greek antiquity: In the field of culture, philosophy, and art, what was really revived in the Renaissance was the interest for classical literature and ancient philosophy.1 Not that antiquity was forgotten in medieval literature: we have seen that Chaucer wrote a long poem about the Trojan War; other poems with similar subjects existed in English or in other languages (Le roman d’Alexandre, about Alexander the Great, or also the earliest literary text in Dutch, which was an adaptation of Virgil’s The Aeneid) Yet, the Middle Ages were essentially Christian in outlook, and inevitably deflected the spirit of the Greek and Latin classics to make them conform with Christian orthodoxy In the Renaissance, the knowledge of Latin was secularized: the language was no longer studied exclusively in a religious context Humanist scholars such as Erasmus [fig 68] and Thomas More [see 4.3.1.1] are famous for contributing to this rediscovery of ancient culture and languages Humanism laid the foundation of a Europewide sphere of learning that perpetuated the legacy of medieval universities, though in a secularized mode Figure 68: Erasmus Likewise, the careers of the English dramatists known as the “University Wits” illustrate this secularizing tendency in the field of literature: because of the disappearance of convents in Anglican England, these playwrights could no longer become scholars; therefore, they applied their classical knowledge to literature Classical knowledge became so widespread that Shakespeare, whom the University Wits criticized for knowing “little Latin and less Greek,” certainly had a command of Latin that would impress us today Greek philosophy (Aristotle, Plato) had been reintroduced into Western Europe in the late Middle Ages by the The major objection one may raise against the concept of a European Renaissance is precisely that it privileges a certain form of rational civilization inspired from the principles of Antiquity Against the whole cultural orthodoxy of the Renaissance and of neoclassicism, The Romantics (late 18th-early 19th century) uttered the view that medieval culture proper— even in its darkest, grotesque manifestations—was valuable and admirable in itself 97 intermission of Arab or Jewish scholars settled in Muslim Spain Yet, until the Renaissance, Ancient Greek was not widely studied in the Latinized medieval universities After the 15th century, however, it became a standard subject of university education, and readers had access to the originals of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato, and Aristotle The classical authors that exerted the deepest influence on English poetry were still mostly Latin ones, who for the most part lived around the time of Emperor Augustus in the first century AD: Virgil [The Aeneid (epic) and The Eclogues (pastoral)], Ovid (mythological and erotic poetry), Horace and Juvenal (satires), as well as Seneca (tragedies) The Greek legacy was often channeled through the works of the Latin authors Figure 69: “Renaissance Men”: Pico della Mirandola and Leonardo da Vinci – Humanism and individualism: The Renaissance development of humanism was linked to a spirit of individualism—an attitude that was unknown or even condemned in the Middle Ages The medieval world revolved around village, town, and religious communities Artists remained anonymous In this medieval context, many people felt that eternal life, in the religious sense of the term (the hereafter), was more important than their mortal existence, which often unfolded in rather miserable circumstances anyway (poverty, diseases) On the contrary, the spirit of Renaissance humanism, without breaking with religious principles altogether, fostered a heightened concern for individual human existence here below In that logic, the main threat that bore upon human life was no longer sin, as medieval communities believed, but all the factors that could threaten the life of mortals—time and mortality, in particular Countless Renaissance poems lament the flight of time (Edmund Spenser’s “To His Love,” William Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18,” John Donne’s “The Canonization,” Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”) or advise readers to enjoy the present moment (the “carpe diem” / “seize the day” theme, developed in Robert Herrick “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” and in Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress).” In the field of the arts and sciences, individualism manifested itself in an unquenchable thirst for knowledge: in the 15th century, an Italian humanist, Giovanni Pico Della 98 Mirandola [fig 69] enjoyed the reputation of mastering all the learning available in his own time Pico Della Mirandola is in that sense one of the typical embodiments of what we now call the Renaissance man—i.e someone who excels in many different fields of achievement We have seen that Chaucer already fitted that definition During the Renaissance, Leonardo da Vinci [fig 69] best embodied this ideal: he was both a supremely gifted painter and an inventive engineer The humanists’ elaboration of secular science (as opposed to the medieval scholastic doctrine) led to the formulation of philosophical or scientific disciplines that conflicted with Christian orthodoxy (Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Montaigne, Bacon) In a few cases, however, Renaissance culture drove the cult of individuality so far that people admired—or at least were fascinated with—self-interested, predatory figures such as the coolly calculating prince depicted in Niccolo Machiavelli’s treatise, the ruthless Cesare Borgia [fig 70], the characters in Christopher Marlowe’s tragedies, or the figure of Lucifer in Milton’s Paradise Lost This kind of individualism paves the way for the development of a new economic model— capitalism (medieval economics worked on a communitarian basis); in England these new economic practices would reach their maturity in the 18th century Figure 70: Renaissance individualism: Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia Figure 71:The fall of Lucifer by 19th c artist Gustave Doré 99 – Geographical discoveries and colonization: The Renaissance was a time of geographical exploration (the “Age of Discovery”), leading to exponential colonial expansion From the European point of view, the movement outward involved the enlargement of the limits of the known universe [figs 72 and 73] Contrary to stereotypical views of medieval knowledge, learned peopled in the Middle Ages did not believe the Earth to be flat: they followed the tradition of ancient Greek cosmographer Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) [/’tɔlemi/] (2d c AD), who described the Earth as a globe.1 Figure 72: The limits of the known world, from the point of view of medieval Europeans Figure 73: The broader world image of Renaissance Europeans as shown on the Waldseemüller Map (1519), the first map featuring the name "America" Dante Alighieri, in the Divine Comedy (early 14th c.) describes the Earth as a sphere Yet, in quite an unscientific gesture, he locates Hell at the center of the Globe, and Purgatory at the antipodes of Europe 100 Figure 74: The exploration of the African coast Figure 75: The exploration of the Americas 156 Stanza l 1: “For God’s sake”: Metaphysical poetry is famous for its “strong lines,” that is for the fact the poets deliberately avoid the smooth, sweet style of earlier Renaissance poems The first line of “The Canonization” certainly qualifies as a strong line, as the poet violently addresses an unnamed interlocutor This means also that the poem starts in medias res—in the middle of things: we are plunged into an argument that has started some time previously 1.1 “let me love”: This introduces the main theme of Stanza 1, and indeed one of the main themes of the poem: the fact that love might serve as a shelter for people who wish to flee the frantic yet vain pursuits of everyday life 1.2 “chide”: to criticize l “flout”: to mock Note the syntactical inversion: the line should read “[f]lout my five gray hairs, or [my] ruined fortune ll 2-3 “palsy […] gout […] gray haires”: Palsy (paralysis) and gout are diseases typical of old age or of people with unhealthy lifestyles Obviously, the speake/poetr is no longer young Therefore, his full dedication to love may be regarded as folly by censorious people (by his nameless interlocutor, notably) l “ruin’d fortune”: Not only is the speaker/poet (the male lover) rather old, but he is also financially improvident, hence (by traditional standards) not suited for marriage l “state”: = estate, fortune l “With wealth your state, your mind with Arts”: The line is structured according to a chiastic disposition (adverbial of means + direct object // direct object + adverbial of means) and a syntactical inversion If straightened out, the line would read “Improve your estate with wealth [and] your mind with Arts.” Chiastic dispositions and syntactical inversions draw the reader’s (or listener’s) attention to the poet’s craft, to his skill at handling words (cf Sidney’s “The Bargain”) ll 4-6 “With wealth”: The speaker tells his interlocutor to leave him alone and to embark on all the supposedly reasonable pursuits lovers are not interested in: to get reach, to acquire learning, to find a good position in life l “Observe”: = attend to (be a servant to) l “Observe his honour or his grace”: “his honour” and “his grace” are metonymies These two phrases are the proper forms of address when speaking to a judge and a bishop Accordingly, these phrases are linked to the judge and the bishop by a temporal or a causal link Thus, if we decode the metonymies, the line means “attend to (be a servant to) a judge or a bishop.” There is, of course, a hint of irony here, since the line may be read to imply that the judge and the bishop have little honour and grace Again, the speaker advises his interlocutor to all the things he won’t himself 157 ll 7-8: “And the Kings reall, or his stamped face/ Contemplate”: Chiastic disposition and syntactical inversion The line reads “[a]nd contemplate the King’s real [face] or his stamped face.” l “The King’s reall [face]”: The people who have the opportunity to contemplate the king’s real face are courtiers The speaker advises his interlocutor to become one l “his stamped face”: The king’s stamped face appears on coins So, the phrase is a synecdoche whose tenor is coins, money (the stamped face is the synecdoche’s vehicle for the whole coin) The speaker advises his interlocutor to become rich, to contemplate (idolize) money l “what you will, approve”: syntactical inversion: “approve what[ever] you will.” l.9 “let me love”: After having enumerated all the activities he wishes to avoid, the speaker begs his interlocutor to be granted the freedom to love Overall, Stanza establishes a contrast between “the world” (the social world, with its pursuit of wealth and prestige) and love, which will offer a shelter to the saints of love Stanza l 10 “who’s injured by my love”: This is the main theme of Stanza 2: my love hurts nobody If this theme is fairly simple, Donne develops it in quite an elaborate fashion Indeed, in order to prove that his love is harmless, the poet/speaker resorts to parody: Stanza makes fun of some of the clichés of love poetry: it satirizes a few famous Petrarchan conceits l 11 “What merchant ships […] drown’d?”: This line makes fun of the Petrarchan conceit that compares the unfortunate lover’s sighs with stormy winds (a conceit of this type appears in Surrey’s “Oh Happy Dames / Complaint of the Absence of her Lover Being upon the Sea”) In the first place, Donne/the speaker ridicules the conceit by means of hyperbole (exaggeration): we have to imagine sighs so powerful that they cause ships to be shipwrecked Of course, the idea is ridiculous, and the question uttered in line 11 is therefore only a rhetorical question (its answer is necessarily in the negative) Also, the line owes its comic value to the fact that the poet feigns to take literally something (the wrecking of the ship) that, in the Petrarchan tradition, only had a metaphorical value l 12 “Who saies […] ground”: Same technique as in line 11 Here, the poet feigns to believe that his tears can flood somebody’s ground l 13 “forward”: = early 13: “When did my colds […] remove?”: Same technique as in lines 11 and 12 (hyperbole + taking the metaphor literally) The poet suggests that he has to defend himself against the accusation that his colds could block the coming of an early spring Colds are relevant to the lover’s experience, because lovers in the Renaissance were supposed to suffer cold and hot spells (Cf Romeo in Act I of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet) 158 l 14 “which my veines fill”: syntactical inversion The line reads “When did the heats which fill my veins add one man to the plague Bill?” l 14 “heats”: = fevers l 15 “plaguie Bill”: The plaguie Bill is the official list of persons who died in an epidemic of the plague l 14-15 “When did the heats […] plaguie Bill”: Same satirical technique as in the previous lines: the poet defends himself against the accusation that his fevers, induced by love, could act as a contagious disease that might kill other people Again, a metaphor (the comparison between the passion of love and fever) is ridiculed by being read literally l 16 “still”: = always Hence (l 16-17), “Lawyers always find litigious men” l 17 “which quarrels move”: = which stirs (encourages) conflicts l 18: “Though”: = while ll 16-18: “Soldiers […] love”: The speaker returns to the idea of love’s separate status with regard to the rest of society: soldiers and lawyers seek wars and quarrels in the world, while lovers live in a separate, more peaceful sphere Stanza l 19 “Call us what you will […] love”: = Whatever we are, love has made us so This line introduces a stanza that is made up almost entirely of metaphysical conceits The lovers are going to be compared to several metaphorical vehicles, most of them far-fetched, unexpected, eccentric The very accumulation of metaphors, their rapid succession and their conciseness are typical of the metaphysical style Still, in spite of this apparent eccentricity, the stanza is extremely well structured: it revolves around a central conceit—the comparison between the lovers’ passion and the Phoenix In this way, after having made fun of his predecessors’ Petrarchan language, Donne displays the idiom that, in his eyes, constitutes the proper language of love poetry l 20 “flye”: = a moth The moth is the vehicle of the first metaphysical conceit Why are the lovers comparable to a moth? From what we read below, we understand that like moths, lovers are attracted to flames, to fire—to the flame of passion l 21 “tapers”: = candles Metaphysical conceit: the lovers are comparable to tapers Why? Because tapers burn by consuming their own substance, their own material Lovers too burn (with the fire of passion) and they consume their own substance in so far as they are totally autonomous: as is clearly stated in Stanzas and 2, they live in a separate world l 22 “th’Eagle and the Dove”: Metaphysical conceit The lovers form a unified being (“us”) which accommodates both the Eagle and the Dove The Eagle, a bird of prey, embodies a masculine, predatory principle, while the Dove is gentle and feminine (these are, of course, sexist clichés, but Donne takes them at face value Thus, the lovers mingle masculinity and femininity 159 ll 23-24” “The Phoenix riddle hath more wit/ by us”: = The Phoenix’s riddle/ the enigma of the Phoenix is more meaningful thanks to us l 23 “The Phoenix riddle”: Genitive: the enigma of the Phoenix l 23 “wit”: “[W]it” means spirit, intelligence In the present context, it can be paraphrased as “meaning.” Figure 116: The Phoenix, by Cornelis Troost (18th c.) l 23: “the Phoenix” [fig 109]: Metaphysical conceit This is the central conceit of Stanza (and, possibly, of the whole poem) Its central status is noticeable in the fact that it is mentioned in the central line of Stanza 3, the central stanza of the poem In Greek legend, the Phoenix was a mythical bird which lived in Arabia It was unique: there was no other exemplar of its species Thus, it was also androgynous (male and female) Every 500 years, the Phoenix would incinerate itself and be reborn out of its own ashes, thereby achieving immortality (Similar firebird myths exist in other traditions: China, Egypt …) Why are the lovers comparable to the Phoenix? Because, when united, they form a single androgynous being, and also because their love is forever reborn in fire: it is forever brought back to life in the fire of passion ll 24-25 “we two being one […] both sexes fit”: These lines explicitly state that the lovers are a united, androgynous being (like the Phoenix) l 26 “the same”: = as well l 26 “Wee dye and rise the same”: Like the Phoenix, the lovers die and are reborn The line also contains sexual puns “To die” in Donne’s time was a common euphemism for “to have an orgasm.” Likewise, “rise” may be read as a phallic pun Thus, the phrase suggests that the lovers’ immortality offers the prospect of an eternity of love making 160 l 27 “Mysterious”: The immortality of their love is a mystery The term mystery should in the present context be understood in its religious meaning In a Christian perspective, mysteries are the central, supernatural principles of a religious doctrine (the Christian Trinity, or the Resurrection, for instance) Thus, the lovers’ immortality through passion is the central mystery of the religion of love Structure of Stanza 3: It is probably impossible to understand Stanza on first reading: the meaning becomes clear only when we read the lines comparing the lovers to the Phoenix On second reading, though, one realizes how consistently Donne has organized his sequence of conceits Indeed, everything converges towards the figure of the Phoenix All previous conceits prepare the reader for the revelation of this mystery Indeed, all conceits in the stanza reveal a few features of the lovers’ passion Yet only the Phoenix metaphor displays the full list of features: the legendary bird, and nothing else, is perfectly similar to the lovers’ passion Tenor Vehicles The lovers moth tapers eagle dove Phoenix Grounds fire Yes Yes Yes wings Yes autonomy feminine masculine Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes The table shows that each metaphorical vehicle (moth, tapers …) is comparable to the lovers (the tenor) for a certain number of reasons (the grounds of each metaphor, e.g the association with fire, having wings, autonomy …) Only the Phoenix possesses the full range of characteristics Stanza l 28 “Wee can dye by it, if not live”: The poet seems to take a step back from the bold claims of Stanza While the image of the Phoenix seemed to promise immortality pure and simple to the lovers, here he concedes that they will die In fact, Stanza introduces a different mode of immortality: immortality through poetry (see Spenser’s “To His Love” and Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18”) l 28 “dye”: the sexual pun of Stanza applies here too: to die / to have an orgasm l 29-30 “And if unfit for tombes […] verse”: If the story [legend] of our love is unfit for big tombs or funerals, it will [nevertheless] be written in poetry.” The poet implies that the story of the lovers might not deserve the honors reserved to supposedly more important people (the people who take part in all the activities of the world) l 31 “no peece of Chronicle”: Same idea as above: the lovers’ story might not be fit for history (Chronicle), but will be fit for poetry l 32: “We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms”: Metaphysical conceit: In this line, sonnets are compared to rooms In the present context, the poem refers to the rooms of a funereal monument (cf “tombes” in l 29)—the place where, metaphorically speaking, the lovers will be buried In this logic, the sonnets (the poems) will be their guarantee of immortality, 161 because they will be the place where the memory of their love is consigned (and where it will be revived) The simile (sonnet = room) is appropriate because fourteen-line sonnets almost have a square shape, evoking a room Similarly, the Italian word “stanza,” designating a typographical unit in a poem, in fact means “room.” ll 33-34 “As well a well-wrought urn […] half-acre tombes”: Syntactical inversion: the straightened out sentence reads: “[a] well-wrought urn becomes [is fitting to] the greatest ashes as well as half-acre tombes.” l 33 “becomes”: = is fitting to, is suitable to l 33 “well wrought”: “wrought” is an alternative form of “worked” as in “to work a material,” i.e to handle a material in order to make an object out of it (cf wrought iron [“du fer forgé”) Thus the phrase means “beautifully fabricated,” “well made.” In the present context, a proper French translation might be “bien ciselée.” l 34 “acre”: a unit of measurement for land areas, equivalent to approximately 4000 square meters A half-acre tomb would of course be huge ll 33-34: “well wrought urn”: Metaphysical conceit: the sonnets, after having been compared to a room (the room of a funereal monument) are now compared to a funereal urn, bearing inscriptions (“well-wrought”) that immortalize the lovers’ memory This famous passage means therefore that sonnets, if they are well written, are perfectly valid funereal monuments, as valid as the huge tombs by which great men seek to perpetuate their own fame The phrase “well-wrought urn” is famous because Cleanth Brooks, one of the leaders of the New Criticism, chose it as title for one of his most famous essays on poetry Brooks implied thereby that Donne’s works best embody the type to tightly written poetry that the New Critics found valuable ll 35-36 “by these hymns […] canoniz’d for love”: The poem moves towards the religious theme announced in the title The sonnets are now compared to hymns—religious songs By reading or singing these hymns, readers will be convinced to regard [“approve”} the two lovers as saints (in the religion of love) Stanza l 37 “And thus invoke us”: Syntactically, this phrase is part of the last sentence of Stanza So, the readers who proclaim the two lovers saints will address the two saints “thus”—that is in the manner described in the rest of Stanza l 37-45: “You”: these lines are written as a prayer—the prayer by which the believers of the religion of love must address the two exemplary lovers “You” therefore refers to the poet and his lady l 38: “Made one anothers hermitage”: Love has turned each lover into the other’s shelter (they are each other’s shelter, now) Stanza thus reiterates the theme of love as a shelter from the world Note that the shelter is now a hermitage, the refuge of a religious ascetic 162 l 39:”peace […] rage”: Peace and rage refer to the ups and downs of love (cf above “colds” and “heats.” ll 40-44: “the whole worlds soule […] epitomize: These lines develop a brilliant, yet complex, metaphysical conceit The poem states that the lovers have extracted the soul of the world [the whole worlds soule (genitive)] and have embedded this soul into the globes (behind the cornea—the “glasses”) of their eyes Why did they this? In order to collect everything that is valuable in the world “Countries, Townes, Courts”—even as they chose to live apart from the world So, by seeking shelter from the world, they lose nothing: their eyes, once they contain the soul of the world, “epitomize” [= represent in miniature] everything that’s worth it Also, as each lover’s eyes contain the whole soul of the world, the lovers, while looking at each other, see the same thing(s) In this way, their eyes are “mirrors,” even though the lovers can still see [spy] through their own eyes: the eyes are both “mirrors” and “spies.” ll 44-45: Beg […] love”: A last instruction for the believers in the religion of love: beg from heaven [“above”], where the two saints now reside, a model [“pattern”] of your love This “pattern” is of course Donne’s poem itself 163 4.5 THE LATE RENAISSANCE: 1625-1674 4.5.1 CHRONOLOGY: Periodization of the late Renaissance The late Renaissance in England covers the period from the death of James I to the Restoration of the Stuarts in 1660, after the collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth In literary terms, it might be more appropriate to extend this period to the death of John Milton (1674), since the great Puritan poet published some of his most important works—Paradise Lost, notably—after 1660, without having for all that any affinity with the neoclassical literature of the Restoration 4.5.2 Cavaliers and Metaphysicals The profile of Donne’s career, as well as the poet’s literary production, indicates that by the turn of the seventeenth century, two styles of poetry became dominant in England—Cavalier and Metaphysical poetry, or, roughly speaking, love lyric and religious verse These modes of writing were not mutually exclusive, since some of the poets practiced them both—Donne, most notably The Cavalier poets owed their name to the fact that they belonged for the most part to the King’s party (James I and Charles I) They were courtiers and aristocrats—and also very often, Catholics Cavalier poets were sometimes called the “sons of Ben,” because their poetry was modelled after Ben Jonson’s verse: they emulated Jonson’s polish and grace, as well as his worship of classical models (Anacreon, Horace, and Catullus1, e.g.) The elegance, wit and lightness of Cavalier poetry may make it sound a little superficial to our 2Oth-century ears The main figures in this group were Robert Herrick (1591-1674), Thomas Carew (1595-1640), Sir John Suckling (1609-1642), (Richard Lovelace (16181657) The Metaphysical poets, as we have already indicated, are the authors who followed the example of the later John Donne—i.e of Donne’s religious verse Among this group, we have chosen to give of brief survey of George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan and Andrew Marvell’s poetry 4.5.2.1 George Herbert (1593-1633) [fig 117] Born into the aristocracy, the younger brother of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was a well-known statesman and soldier as well as writer, George Herbert was all set for a successful career at court: he was a Cavalier who had attracted the attention and affection of James I, although he was an Anglican rather than a Catholic However, his devout religious faith led him to become a priest, leaving the Court to become rector of Bemerton, Wiltshire His poetry reflects his piety and mystical sense of God’s presence in everything; as in John Donne’ Holy Sonnets, Herbert’s poems often convey religion in the language of secular love poetry He preferred simple, Anacreon is a Greek lyric poet of the 6th century B.C who is supposed to have written many love poems, and is therefore regarded as the originator of “Anacreontic verse;” Horace is very influential Latin poet of the first century B.C.; he is famous for his Odes, his Satires and his Ars Poetica; Cattulus is a close predecessor of Horace; he wrote love poems, elegies and satirical epigrams 164 homely language to grandiose and solemn preaching, and his refreshingly imaginative and unusual associations of images make him a lively and engaging “metaphysical” poet Characteristically, he relied on concrete, vivid images to convey his message without making it flat “doctrine.” His most famous poems are The Temple and The Collar In these works, Herbert dramatises the difficulties of maintaining one’s faith, as well as his dialogue with a gentle, friendly God Another powerful poem addresses Death directly, evoking God’s power over death, and in a poem entitled “The Quip,” Herbert summarises his attitude to life and his rejection of the worldly, material temptations The freshness of his approach injects new sincerity into this appealing religious verse Figure 118: An emblem In stylistic terms, Herbert sometimes drew on the tradition of the hieroglyphic poem—i.e the pattern poem, in which the arrangement of verse represents graphically a key idea of the text In “Eastern Wings,” e.g., the lines are disposed in two wing-shaped stanzas across the page.1 Poems like these are variants of the seventeenth-century genre of the emblem [fig 110], to which another Metaphysical, Henry Vaughan contributed; the full-fledged emblem contains a picture, a motto, and a verse, and its topic is usually religious or moral Yet, Herbert’s hieroglyphic poems are subtler than Vaughan’s emblems, which merely transpose the poetic images into the form of an allegorical picture This is almost identical to Guillaume Appolinaire’s Calligrammes in the early twentieth century, or to Guido Gezelle’s or Stéphane Mallarmé’s experiments with graphically meaningful verse 165 4.5.2.2 Richard Crashaw (1612-1649) Crashaw was a great admirer of Herbert’s poetry; yet, his early conversion to Roman Catholicism oriented his poetry towards different models than Herbert’s Crashaw was especially indebted to the Spanish Mystics and to Marino1, translating some of the latter’s poems Nicknamed “the mystic of the flame,” Crashaw was above all a religious poet and he took metaphysical images to the extreme of “conceit,” producing elaborately wrought artificial and fanciful poems For example, in “The Weeper,” he catalogues every conceit ever listed to refer to a weeping mistress and transfers this secular love idiom into religious and visionary verses Thus, the “weeper” is Mary Magdalen; she has a face like an animated icon, and is compared with “the evening’s eyes,/When they red with weeping are,/ [ ] Sweetness so sad, sadness so sweet.” Further down, Mary Magdalen’s eyes are, with the typically absurd exaggeration of Crashaw, made to become: “two faithful fountains; two walking baths; two weeping motions; Portable and compendious oceans.” 4.5.2.3 Henry Vaughan (1622-1678) Vaughan was a Welshman who began writing under the influence of George Herbert His poems are impregnated with a meditative sense of his native countryside, and his mystic sense of the divinity in Nature (e.g his “Retreat”) furnished important images that looked forward to the Romantics: the waterfall as symbol of life and death, nostalgia for an idealised childhood, etc In a few of his poems, he is truly memorable 4.5.2.4 Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) [fig 119] Andrew Marvell was a supporter of Cromwell and, for a time, assistant to the other great Puritan, John Milton Marvell had two distinct voices, that of the ardent patriot—in e.g “Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland” (1650) where he extravagantly praised Cromwell— and, on the other hand, the sensuously lyrical, passionate or Anacreontic mode of poems such as his powerful “To His Coy Mistress,” which blends the accents of cavalier and metaphysical verse “To His Coy Mistress” is one of the most famous poems in the English language It describes the efforts of lover trying to persuade his reluctant mistress to forsake her virginity In order to convince the young lady, the lover reminds her of the relentless flight of time, which will eventually condemn them to death Giambattista Marino (1569-1625) is a Neapolitan poet, whose best-known work is Adone, a poem about the love of Venus and Adonis The term Marinismo came to denote a flamboyant style, characterized by excessive ornamentation and extravagant imagery 166 Thus, the lover encourages her to seize the day—a typical theme of Renaissance poetry [see Spenser’s “To His Love,” Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18,” or Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins,”] In the memorable refrain of Marvell’s poem, Time is represented as a winged chariot, closing in on the lovers: But at my back, I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near Marvell generally managed to maintain a distinction between his public and private voice Although he did write both prose and poetry for the Puritan cause, in general his poetry reveals an attractive, compassionate celebration of life’s delights His poems are witty and stylish, showing him to be a late “metaphysical” in his vivid mixing of eclectic imagery, intellect and feeling His Puritan beliefs did no cloud or prohibit his love of life and its “temptations.” In particular, one notes his celebration of local places, orchards, gardens and countryside, associating nature with a meditative mood anticipating the introspective poetry of the eighteenth century and the great Romantics such as Wordsworth.1 In Upon Appleton House, for example, he names and celebrates in detail the local flora and fauna, portraying himself as the poet and “easy philosopher/ (who) Among the birds and trees confer(s),” and for whom life and the whole of creation is distilled “to a green thought in a green shade.” This is close to the mood of Shakespeare’s “Romances” (his last plays, e.g The Winter’s Tale.) 4.5.3 John Milton (1608-1674) [fig.120] John Milton is the last great figure of the English Renaissance; the date of his death might well serve as the closing landmark for the whole period Still, no historical division is ever neat or convenient, and we should point out that Milton created his greatest epics—Paradise Lost (1665) and Paradise Regained (1667)—at a time when neoclassicism was already the dominant style Milton had little in common with the literature that was fashionable in his old age, however; both in his thematics and style, he remained a man of the Renaissance, whose sensibility was shaped around the years of John Donne’s death Whenever literary historians refer to Milton, the most common words used to describe him reflect the epic scale of his work: he is said to be “larger The apparently puzzling continuity between Marvell and the preromantics—or even the Romantics proper—becomes less surprising if we take into account that the “preromantic” style was practiced from the very beginning of neoclassicism, even during the Restoration— i.e by the end of Marvell’s life (see below, periodization of preromanticism) 167 than life,” “great,” “a giant.” He usually treated epic themes with correspondingly amplified and rich language With Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, he tackled the largest of subjects: Man’s Creation, the Fall from Grace, and the coming of Christ Milton was born in London in 1608 into a prosperous Puritan family; his father was a scrivener and respected musician, and Milton was free of financial worries to devote himself to his writing For a long period, he served the Puritan cause and its leader Cromwell, for whom he worked as secretary He was well-educated, first at St Paul’s school, London, then at Cambridge University where he studied for a career in the Church Instead of taking orders, however, he devoted himself to writing 4.5.3.1 Early poetic career After writing some impressive poetry while still a student at Cambridge, Milton wrote his early masterpieces, L’Allegro and Il Penseroso (c 1631) [= the cheerful man and the contemplative man, respectively] during his stay at his father’s house in Horton, near London These companion pieces together show the two sides of Milton’s character, a man who is the perfect product of the Renaissance, scholarly, with exquisite taste, and culturally refined 4.5.3.1.1 Comus (1634) Comus is a masque; it shows Milton’s familiarity with the Jonsonian tradition, but its moralizing treatment reveals Milton’s Puritan sensibility The story is an allegory on the ideal of Chastity: a girl and her brothers are lost at night in a forest and become separated Comus, son of Bacchus and Circe1, finds the girl and takes her to his evil abode where he keeps many creatures that he has made bestial through his corrupting sorcery The girl resists Comus’ attempts at seducing her: she is a model of purity and virtue Finally, she is rescued by her brothers and a guardian spirit Formally, Comus reveals Milton to be a man of his time, with all the fashionable features of the masque genre: dancing, elaborate disguise and costumes, as well as scenery and music However, he interweaves Puritan morals that announce the interests to which his life and works were devoted 4.5.3.1.2 Lycidas (1637) This is a pastoral elegy2 written to commemorate the death of a college mate Its lyricism, learning and music make it a typically Renaissance poem; yet, the Puritan voice of Milton breaks through to attack the corruption of the clergy In 1638, Milton left Horton to tour the Continent While in Florence, he met the important literary artists of his time, but he cut short his stay because of increasingly alarming reports of civil unrest in England, where the Puritans were clashing head on with the Royalists and Church Comus’s parents represent all that Milton, the Puritan, rejected: Bacchus is the Latin name for Dionysos, the Greek god of wine, dissolution, and desire; Circe is the character in Homer’s Odyssey who stirs up the sensuality of Ulysse’s companions and later changes them into pigs—in short, a dangerous female An elegy is a poem that mourns the passing of someone or something; the pastoral is the poetic genre that presents shepherds conversing in a rural setting, and that celebrates the virtues of country life; Virgil’s Eclogues are the outstanding classical model for the pastoral genre 168 4.5.3.2 The political hiatus For 15 years (1640-1655), Milton abandoned poetry—and, specifically, his plans to write an epic based on Arthurian legends—and devoted his efforts to propaganda work for Cromwell and the Puritan cause Milton acted as the Lord Protector’s private secretary During this period, he wrote a few polemic sonnets and one moving sonnet on the death of his second wife, but mainly devoted himself to pamphlets including: The Reason of Church Government (1642) where he argues in favor of the separation of Church and State (Puritans distrusted a centralized church since their movement was made up of many different congregations) Aeropagitica (1645): An impressive defense of the freedom of printing and of the freedom of opinion, which testifies to the more progressive side of the Puritan movement Of the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649): a justification of the execution of Charles I (definitely a political work) The Defence of the English People (1651): a defence of the new republic, Cromwell’s Puritan Commonwealth The Second Defence of the English People (1654): A new pamphlet justifying regicide Milton’s eyesight had been deteriorating; in 1650 he became blind in one eye, and in 1652 he lost his sight altogether His tireless work as secretary to Cromwell may well have hastened his problem Anti-republicans suggested that Milton’s blindness represented God’s punishment for his association with, and defence of those who had beheaded the “annointed King” of England The Second Defence contains an elevated vindication of his own conduct and of the actions of the Puritan “People” of England 4.5.3.3 Milton and the Restoration For Milton, the Restoration of the monarchy meant the end of his political career; he was first arrested, then released, after which he started writing again This was to be the period of his last and greatest poems In 1663, he married a woman thirty years his junior and employed an amanuensis (someone who writes from dictation) to write out the lines he had spent the night composing by heart 4.5.3.3.1 Paradise Lost (1665): Paradise Lost was finished in 1665 It presents the synthesis of the conflicting tendencies in Milton that we have noted above: Renaissance humanism and Puritanism In Paradise Lost, these are magnificently merged: though the poem is explicitly presented as an attempt to “justify the ways of God to men,”1 Milton rejects the narrow Calvinistic conception of man as “a sinner in the hands of an angry God.” Instead, Milton asserts the freedom of mankind to choose between right and wrong and celebrates Man’s creation and his tragic fall Paradise Lost, Book 169 The plot of Paradise Lost revolves around Satan’s rebellion against God Satan, the first of the Archangels, resents the elevation of the Son of God to the preferential position at God’s “right hand.” So, he stirs up a rebellion of the angels He is (predictably) defeated and hurled into Hell To replace the loss in Heaven, God creates the world of Man, who has to prove worthy before gaining access to Heavenly Paradise Satan seeks revenge by visiting the inhabitants of the Earth, slipping into the Garden of Eden, seducing Eve and causing Man’s fall from innocence Adam and Eve are turned out of the Earthly paradise with a Promise that their race will eventually be restored The central figure of this religious epic is undoubtedly Satan, the devil The meaning of this character has been interpreted in different ways The interpretation developed by the Romantic poet William Blake (see below) in his poem Milton is based on the contention that “Milton was of the devil’s party without knowing it.” Thus, Milton’s sympathies would have supported Satan, not God—an idea that appeals to our post-Freudian sensibilities, always receptive to hidden motives and paradoxical behavior In this reading, Satan is undeniably a tragic hero The passages in the poem describing Heaven, God, his Son and the Angels are great poetry, but Satan remains the dramatic focus of the whole story; his sense of loss and suffering is conveyed in memorable lines Milton’s involvement with the politics of his time may have given him some sympathy for Satan’s rebellious side and for his passionate will in revolt against Authority There was indeed some ambiguity in Milton’s attitude to politics: in personal terms, he was not a figure of absolute rebellion, since he faithfully supported a form of established power—the Commonwealth; yet, this government was instored in an uprising against the royalist regime; it was condemned as insurrectional by most European countries, and Milton spent a lot of energy in defending it against accusations of illegitimacy and rebellious violence Thus, some readers have suggested that Milton closely identified with Satan, the fallen anti-hero, who could serve as an alter ego for the fiery advocates of the revolutionary Puritan cause Figure 121: Milton's Satan by Gustave Doré (19th c.) Brian Vickers, on the contrary, argues that the spirit of Paradise Lost is fully in keeping with the tenets of orthodox Christianity Vickers disagrees with the critical attitude that turns Milton’s Satan into a hero To him, “Paradise Lost is an epic without a hero”1—in fact an inverted epic In this perspective, the problem faced by Milton is how to write an epic poem whose hero—or at least protagonist—is thoroughly evil and unworthy of the least sympathy Indeed, by the very narrative conventions of the genre, Satan will be the focus of interest for Oxford History, pp.199-200 170 the readers, who might be tempted to empathize with him The answer to this narrative problem, Vickers argues, is to be found in Milton’s language and techniques of characterization, which conspire to make Satan look not only morally repulsive, but also ridiculous and ineffectual For instance, the fallen angels are notorious for making long rebellious speeches, but their “rhetoric is feeble and empty, a manipulation of words with no power over deeds.” (Oxford History, 200) Their lines are full of logical fallacies that deflate (undermine) the power of epic oratory In describing Satan’s campaign against God, Milton also uses twisted—deliberately inappropriate—epic similes (epic comparisons): for example, Satan’s huge spear ends up serving as a walking stick; also, his journey towards earth is pictured by means of burlesque details Through this technique of debunking (caricaturing), the devil is implicitly measured unfavorably against the great epic heroes, of whom he is the ridiculous shadow The genre of Paradise Lost, Vickers concludes, anticipates the mockheroic poems of 18th-century writers like Alexander Pope Whatever your preferences among these readings of Paradise Lost, it is interesting to underline that the difference between Blake’s interpretation and Vickers’s more orthodox approach involves very dissimilar choices in tone and voice: we can feel Blake’s Satan should utter his lines in full rebellious rage; Vickers’s antihero, on the other hand, would have a precarious control over his own speeches, which are pervaded with the author’s ironical intentions 4.5.3.3.2 Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes (1671) This was written as a sequel to Paradise Lost, relating the final victory of Christ over Satan The 19th-century poet William Wordsworth called it the most perfect of Milton’s work, but it lacks the great tragic impetus and interest of its predecessor In was published in 1671, together with Milton’s final masterpiece: Samson Agonistes (= the wrestler, the athlete) Along with Shakespeare, Milton remains one of the most influential poets in the whole of English literary history Like Shakespeare, Milton combined the qualities of all his contemporaries put together, making him both an epitome of the Renaissance and a representative of a distinctive Puritan voice, while at the same time encompassing the heritage of many centuries of Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Germanic poetry This is a problem screenwriters face in detective movies or thrillers: the villains are often more attractive than the heroes The mechanics of cinematic suspense often reinforce this transferral of empathy: for instance, if we follow one of the villains while he or she is about to perpetrate an evil deed, and if the character’s action is interrupted by a threatening noise, we will probably be frightened—for ourselves, but also for the protagonist that we should normally execrate This is close to John Donne’s use of far-fetched conceits in order to parody Petrarchan imagery