John Donne: a love poet

Link: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=442532152973249&id=404307423462389&__tn__=K-R

Donne was the first English poet to challenge and break the supremacy of Petrarchan tradition. Though at times he adopts the Petrarchan devices, yet his imagery and rhythm, texture and colour of his love poetry is different. There are three distinct strains of his love poetry – Cynical, Platonic and Conjugal love.

Giving an allusion to Donne’s originality as the poet of love, Grierson makes the following observation:

“His genius temperament and learning gave a certain qualities to his love poems … which arrest our attention immediately. His love poems, for instance, do have a power which is at once realistic and distracting.”

Donne’s greatness as a love-poet arises from the fact that this poetry covers a wider range of emotions than that of any previous poet. His poetry is not bookish but is rooted in his personal experiences. Is love experience were wide and varied and so is the emotional range of his love-poetry. He had love affairs with a number of women. Some of them were lasting and permanent, other were only of a short duration.

Donne is quite original in presenting the love situations and moods.

The “experience of love” must produce a “sense of connection” in both the lovers. This “sense of connection” must be based on equal urge and longing on both the sides.

“The room of love” must be shared equally by the two partners.

Donne magnifies the ideal of “Sense of connection” into the physical fulfillment of love.

"My face in thine eyes thine in mime appears"

This aspect of love helps him in the virtual analysis of the experience of love. Donne was a shrewd observer who had first hand knowledge of “love and related affairs. That is why in almost all his poems, he has a deep insight.

His love as expressed in his poetry was based not on conventions but on his own experiences. He experienced all phase of love – platonic, sensuous, serene, cynical, conjugal, illicit, lusty, picturesque and sensual. He could also be grotesque blending thought with passion.

Another peculiar quality of Donne’s love lyrics is its “metaphysical strain”. His poems are sensuous and fantastic. Donne’s metaphysical strain made his reader confused his sincerity.

Donne’s genius temperament and learning gave to his love poems power and fascination. There is a depth and rang of feeling unknown to the majority of Elizabethan poets. Donne’s poetry is startlingly unconventional even when he dallies, half ironically, with the hyperboles of petrarch.

Donne is realistic not an idealistic. He knows the weakness of Flesh, the pleasure of sex, the joy of secret meeting. However he tries to establish a relationship between the body and the soul. Donne is very realistic poet.

Grierson distinguished three distinct strains in it. First there is the cynical strain. Secondly, there is the strain f conjugal love to be noticed in poems like “valediction: forbidding mourning”. Thirdly, there is platonic strain. The platonic strain is to b found in poems like “Twicknam Garden”, “The Funeral”, “The Blossoms”, and “The Primroses”. These poems were probably addressed to the high-born lady friends. Towards them he adopts the helpless pose of flirtations and in high platonic vein boasts that:

Different of sex no more we know
Than our Guardian Anglles doe

In between the cynical realistic strain and the highest spiritual strain, there are a number of poems which show an endless variety of mood and tone. Thus thee are poems in which the tone is harsh, others which are coarse and brutal, still other in which he holds out a making threat to his faithless mistress and still others in which he is in a reflective mood. More often that not, a number of strains and moods are mixed up in the same poem. This makes Donne as a love poet singularly, original, unconventional and realistic.

Whatever may be the tone or mood of a particular poem, it is always an expression of some personal experience and is, therefore, presented with remarkable force, sincerity and seriousness. Each poem deals with a love situation which is intellectually analyzed with the skill of an experienced lawyer.

Hence the difficult nature of his poetry and the charge of obscurity have been brought against him. The difficulty of the readers is further increased by the extreme condensation and destiny of Donne’s poetry.

The fantastic nature of the metaphysical conceits and poetry would become clear even we examine a few examples. In “Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” true lovers now parted are likened to the legs of a compass. The image is elaborated at length. The lovers are spiritually one, just as the head of the compass is one even when the legs are apart. One leg remains fixed and the other moves round it. The lover cannot forget the beloved even when separated from her. The two loves meet together in the end just as the two legs of the compass are together again, as soon as circle has been drawn.

At other times, he uses equally extravagated hyperboles. For example, he mistakes his beloved to an angel, for to imagine her less than an angle would be profanity.

In Donne’s poetry, there is always an “intellectual analysis” of emotion. Like a clever lawyer, Donne gives arguments after arguments in support of his points of view. Thus in “Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” he proves that true lovers need not mourn at the time of parting. In “Canonization” he establishes that lovers are saints of love and in “The Blossome” he argues against the petrarchan love tradition. In all this Donne is a realistic love poet.

Of Studies: Bacon

Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-summary-of-Studies-in-Prose-by-Francis-Bacon

Of Studies is the first essay of the first collection of ten essays of Francis Bacon which was published in 1597. But it was revised for the edition of 1612. More than dozen new sentences were added and some words were also altered. Of Studies is typically Baconian essay with an astonishing terseness, freshness of illustrations, logical analysis, highly Latinized vocabulary, worldly wisdom and Renaissance enlightenment.

Bacon through a syllogistic tripartite statement begins his argument to validate the usefulness and advantage of study in our life. Bacon has the power of compressing into a few words a great body of thought. Thus he puts forward the three basic purposes of studies: “Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability”. He later expands his sentence to bring lucidity and clearness. Studies fill us delight and aesthetic pleasure when we remain private and solitary. While we discourse, our studies add decoration to our speech. Further, the men of study can decide best on the right lines in business and politics. Bacon deprecates too much studies and the scholar’s habit to make his judgment from his reading instead of using his independent views.

Bacon is a consummate artist of Renaissance spirit. Thus he knows the expanse of knowledge and utility of studies. He advocates a scientific enquiry of studies. Through an exquisite metaphor drawn from Botany he compares human mind to a growing plant. As the growing plants need to be pruned and watered and manured for optimum development, the new growing conscience of us are to be tutored, mounded, oriented and devised by studies. But it is experience which ultimately matures our perception and leads us to perfection:

“They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants that need proyning by study”.

Next Bacon considers what persons despise studies and what people praise them and what people make practical use of them. The crafty men condemn studies; simple men admire them while the wise men make ultimate use of it. But it should be remembered that the inquisitive mind and keen observation cultivate the real wisdom. Bacon advises his readers to apply studies to ‘weigh and consider’ rather than useless contradictions and grandiloquence.

In The Advancement of Learning Bacon makes systematic classifications of studies and considers different modes to be employed with different kinds of books: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested”.

The books according to its value and utility are to be devised into various modes of articulations. The worthy classical pragmatic sort are to be adorned by expertise reading with diligence while the meaner sort of books or less important books are to be read in summary or by deputy. Again the global span of knowledge is revealed in his analysis of various subjects and their beneficent categories. The scholarly mind of Bacon here makes the subtle observation:

“Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend”.

Studies do not shape a perfect man without the needed conference and writing. “And therefore if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth’ not”. Bacon further tells us that our studies pass into our character (Abeunt studia in mores). Rightly so the constitution of our moral disposition is the outcome of our learning and experience.

Every defect of the mind, Bacon says, may be cured by a proper choice of reading. Bacon here draws a parallel between the physical exercise and intellectual exercise. As different games, sports, exercises beget growth and development, the different branches of studies cures the in capability of logic, wondering of wit, lack of distinguish etc. Bacon emphatically concludes that every defect of the mind may have a special receipt and remedial assurance.

Of Studies contains almost all the techniques of Bacon’s essay writing and the world of his mind. It is full of wisdom, teachings and didacticism. In style, the essay is epigrammatic proverbial form, of balance and force. It is full of warmth and colour, profound wit and knowledge, experience and observation.

John Donne

BY: Niyati Pathank

John Donne was born into a Catholic family in 1572, during a strong anti-Catholic period in England. Donne’s father, also named John, was a prosperous London merchant. His mother, Elizabeth Heywood, was the grand-niece of Catholic martyr Thomas More. Religion would play a tumultuous and passionate role in John’s life. (biography.com)

Mysticism is a term so irresponsibly applied in English that it has become the first duty of those who use it to explain what they mean by it. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1911), after defining a mystic as "one who believes in spiritual apprehension of truths beyond the understanding," adds, "whence mysticism (n.) (often contempt)." Whatever may be the precise force of the remark in brackets, it is unquestionably true that mysticism is often used in a semi-contemptuous way to denote vaguely any kind of occultism or spiritualism, or any specially curious or fantastic views about God and the universe.

The word itself was originally taken over by the Neo-platonists from the Greek mysteries, where the name of μύστης given to the initiate, probably arose from the fact that he was one who was gaining a knowledge of divine things about which he must keep his mouth shut (μύω = close lips or eyes). Hence the association of secrecy or "mystery" which still clings round the word.

Two facts in connection with mysticism are undeniable whatever it may be, and whatever part it is destined to play in the development of thought and of knowledge. In the first place, it is the leading characteristic of some of the greatest thinkers of the world—of the founders of the Eastern religions of Plato and Plotinus, of Eckhart and Bruno, of Spinoza, Goethe, and Hegel. Secondly, no one has ever been a lukewarm, an indifferent, or an unhappy mystic. If a man has this particular temperament, his mysticism is the very centre of his being: it is the flame which feeds his whole life; and he is intensely and supremely happy just so far as he is steeped in it.

Mysticism is, in truth, a temper rather than a doctrine, an atmosphere rather than a system of philosophy. Various mystical thinkers have contributed fresh aspects of Truth as they saw her, for they have caught glimpses of her face at different angles, transfigured by diverse emotions, so that their testimony, and in some respects their views, are dissimilar to the point of contradiction. Wordsworth, for instance, gained his revelation of divinity through Nature, and through Nature alone; whereas to Blake "Nature was a hindrance," and Imagination the only reality. But all alike agree in one respect, in one passionate assertion, and this is that unity underlies diversity. This, their starting-point and their goal, is the basic fact of mysticism, which, in its widest sense, may be described as an attitude of mind founded upon an intuitive or experienced conviction of unity, of oneness, of alikeness in all things. From this source springs all mystical thought, and the mystic, of whatever age or country, would say in the words of Krishna—

There is true knowledge. Learn thou it is this:

To see one changeless Life in all the Lives,

And in the Separate, One Inseparable.

The Bhagavad-Gîtâ, Book 18.

This fundamental belief in unity leads naturally to the further belief that all things about us are but forms or manifestations of the one divine life, and that these phenomena are fleeting and impermanent, although the spirit which informs them is immortal and endures. In other words, it leads to the belief that "the Ideal is the only Real. (Spurgeon, 2004)

Batter my heart, three person'd God; for you

As yet but knocke, breathe, shine, and seeke to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to breake, blowe, burne, and make me new.

John Donne (1572-1631) was the main practitioner of Metaphysical poetry. He made his name as a love poet, his imagery often being passionate and sensuous, but later turned his talents to religious poems, hymns and sermons. In his religious verse he used the same techniques he had developed in his love poetry. In this essay I shall examine two of his religious poems, 'Holy Sonnet (Batter my Heart)', and 'A Hymn to God the Father.'

Religious Poet

The intensity of Donne’s feeling and the inner conflict is reflected in his religious poetry. His religious sonnets and songs are intensely personal and sincere. Donne was a Catholic by birth. He felt humbled and persecuted like other Catholics of his age. Religion, for most of the people, was a matter of accident.

Those who liked antiquity and tradition turned to Rome, those who disliked formality and ritual turned to Geneva. But, religion should be, according to Donne, a matter of deliberate choice, made after careful study and consideration. Many of the principles Rome did not stand his intellectual inquiry. It is difficult to fix the precise date of his conversion. It is, however, Convenient to assume that by 1598, when Donne entered Sir Thomas Egerton’s service, he must have embraced the Church of England. Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, could never have employed a distinguished Catholic for important public duty.

Donne’s conversion to Anglicanism greatly influenced his poetry. Grierson calls this conversion, a “reconciliation, an acquiescence in the faith of his country—the established religion of his legal sovereign”. Probably, the Renaissance spirit, leaning towards nationalism, was partly responsible for Donne’s change of faith. But the conversion caused Donne some pangs and heart-searching. Dr. Johnson says: “A convert from Popery to Protestantism gives up so much of what he has held as sacred as anything that he retains; there is so much laceration of mind in such a conversion, that it can hardly be sincere and lasting”. Undoubtedly, Donne felt this laceration of the mind and this conflict between the old and the new faith. “Show me dear Christ thy spouse so bright and clear”. There was also the other conflict in Donne—the conflict between ambition and asceticism, between the prospects of civil service and the claims of a religious life. But after a number of years, Donne continued to retain a soft corner for Catholics.

Main Aspects of Donne’s Religious Poetry

Donne was essentially a religious man, though he moved from one denomination to another. His spirit of rational faith continued throughout his life. The following are the main aspects of Donne’s religious poetry:

(i) Conflict and doubt

As a man of the Renaissance, he could not but question the assumptions and beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church. Being born in a particular religion is one proposition and being convinced of the Tightness of one’s faith, is quite another. As he was sceptical of the religious dogmas of the Catholic Church, he adopted the Anglican faith, but even so his mind was not at peace. He could not reconcile the inner conflicts and as such he prayed for God’s mercy and grace, so that he might be able to build his faith on a sound foundation. In his A Hymn to God the Father, he ultimately arrives at a firm faith. It is perhaps the culmination of his spiritual quest.

(ii) Note of introspection

The metaphysical clement which is so evident in his love poems, finds expression of an inner heart searching. He digs deep within himself in order to measure his sincerity and devotion to God and above all his consciousness of sin and the need of penitence. His fear of death—Donne must have seen many of his friends on their death-beds and their last struggles—makes him repent for his past follies and hence his prayer to God for His mercy and compassion. The Holy Sonets particularly maybe regarded as poems of repentance, and supplications for divine grace. Donne’s intention is not to preach morality or to turn men to virtue. Grierson writes in this connection: “To be didactic is never the first intention of Donne’s religious poems, but rather, to express himself, to analyse and lay bare his own moods of agitation, of aspiration and of humiliation, in the quest of God, and the surrender of his soul to Him. The same erudite and surprising imagery, the same passionate, and reasoning strain, meet us in both”.

(iii) The themes of his religious poetry

Donne found the contemporary world dry and corrupt. He felt that its degeneration would lead to untold human misery. The main theme of his religious poems is the transitoriness of this world, the fleeting nature of physical joys and earthly happiness, the sufferings of the soul imprisoned in the body and the pettiness and insignificance of man. Above all, the shadow of death is all pervasive and this makes him turn to Christ as the Saviour. Even so, his metaphysical craftsmanship treats God as ‘ravisher’ who saves him from the clutches of the Devil. Though Donne regarded the world a vanity of vanities, he could not completely detach himself from the joys of the world and there is a turn from other-worldliness to worldliness. However, we cannot doubt the sincerity of his religious feelings and his earnest prayer to God for deliverance. His moral earnestness is reflected in his consciousness of sin and unworthiness for deserving the grace of Christ He uses the images of Christ as a lover who will woo his soul.

(iv) Parallelism with love poetry

There is a great similarity of thought and treatment between the love poems and holy sonnets, though the theme is different. The spirit behind the two categories of poems is the same. There is the same subtle spirit which analyses the inner experiences like the experiences of love. The same kind of learned and shocking imagery is found in the love poems:

Is the Pacific sea my home? or are

The Eastern riches? Is Jerusalem?

Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltar.

All straits (and none but straits) are ways to them.

Whether where Japhet dwelt, or Ham, or Shem.

Similarly in his treatment of divine love, the poet uses sexual images in holy situations. As for example:

Betray kind husband thy spouse to cur sights,

And let mine amorous soul court thy mild Dove

Who is most true, and pleasing to thee then

When she’s embraced and open to most men.

Critical survey of Donne’s religious poetry

There are two notes in Donne’s religious poems—the Catholic and the Anglican. The Progress of the Soul leans towards Catholicism and it records the doubts and longings of a troubled subtle soul. The following lines show the working of the mind and are full of bold and echoing vowel sounds:

O might those sights and tears return again

Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent.

That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain;

In mine Idolatory what showers of rain

Mine eyes did waste? What griefs my heart did vent?

That sufferance was my sin; now I repent.

Cause I ‘did suffer I must suffer pain.

The Progress of the Soul, though written in 1601 was published after his death, in 1633. Ben Jonson called it “the conceit of Donne’s transformation.” Donne describes his theme in the very first stanza.

I sing the progress of a deathless soul

Whom Fate, which God made, but doth not control

Pla’d in most shapes; all lines before the low

Yok’d us, and when; and since, in this I sing.

He describes the soul of heresy which began in paradise (in the apple) and roamed through souls of Luther, Mahomed and Calvin and is now at rest in England:

The great soul which here among us now

Doth dwell, and moves that hand, and tongue and brow,

Which as the moon the sea moves us.

Donne moves from the aesthetic to the ethical plane of existence. His curiosity about the microcosm and his scepticism find expression here:

There’s nothing simply good, nor all alone,

Of every quality comparison,

The only measure is, and judge, opinion.

The poem was written soon after the inner crisis and his conversion:

For though through many straits and lands I roam,

I launch at Paradise and I sail towards home.

The psychological problem finds its solution in a spiritual reintegration. The Divine Poems include ‘La Corona’ and six holy sonnets on Annunciation, Nativity, Temple Crucifying, Ressurrection and Ascenstion. Donne seeks divine grace to crown his efforts:

But do not with a vile crown of frail bays,

Reward my muses white sincerity,

But what thy thorny crown gain’d, that gives me

A crown of glory, which doth flower always.

The other, group of sonnets also entitled Holy Sonnets contains 19 sacred poems. They belong to the period of doubt and intense inner struggle which preceded Donne’s entry into the Church of England. Here is a mood of melancholy and despair.

This is my play’s last scene here heavens appoint.

My pilgrimage’s last mile. (Sonnet VI)

Despair behind and death before doth caste

Such terror and my feeble flesh doth waste.

In sonnet II, Christ appears as a lover and Donne as a temple usurped by the Devil.

Myself a temple of thy spirit divine

Why doth the devil then usurp on me…

In Sonnet III, Donne is sincerely repentant for his past sins:

That I might in this holy discontent

Mourn with some fruit, as I have moum’d in vain….

No ease, for long, yet vehement grief hath been

The effect and cause, the punishment and sin.

In Sonnet IV, Donne compares himself to a felon charged with treason, and yet he cannot resist conceits. Christ’s blood, though red, will whiten the souls stained and polluted with sin.

Oh make thyself with holy mourning black

And red with blushing, as them an with sin;

Or wash thee in Christ’s blood, which hath this might

That being red, it dyes red souls to white.

Sonnet V shows Donne’s Renaissance-spirit–his wander-lust:

You which beyond that heaven which was most high

Have found new spheres, and of new lands, can write,

Power new seas in ruined eyes, that so I might

Drown my world with my weeping earnestly.

Donne prays sincerely for pardon for his misdeeds:

Teach me how to repent; for that’s as good

As if thou hadst seal’d my pardon, with thy blood.

The pilgrim-soul is not afraid of death.

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.

In Sonnet XIII, Donne brings forward the argument that because beautiful women have liked him in his youth, so Christ, the Incarnation of Beauty, should be kind to him:

No, no; but as in my idolatry,

I said to all my profane mistresses,

Beauty, of pity, foulness only is

A sign of rigour: so 1 say to thee.

In Sonnet XVII, Donne refers to the death of his wife which has now made him turn his attention to spiritual attainment:

Since she whom I lov’d hath paid her last debt

To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead.

In Sonnet XVIII, Donne expresses his desire to see the true church (England, Rome, Geneva) undivided, because it is indivisible. The bride of Christ is the mistress of the whole world.

Who is most true, and pleasing to thee then

When she is embrac’d and open to most men.

The Hymn to God, written during his serious illness in 1623, is a sincere prayer to God to receive him in His grace:

So, in his purple wrapp’d receive me Lord,

By these his thorns give me his other Crown,

And as to others’ souls I preach’d thy word

Be this my Text my sermon to mine own,

Therefore that he may arise the lord throws down.

The Divine Poems contain a vivid and moving record of a brilliant mind struggling towards God. Truth, is the goal but there are hurdles and temptations in the way. Donne is not afraid of analysing the appalling difficulties of faith. The vacillations, the doubts, of this imperfect but sincere man are reflected in all their passion. Donne’s aim is not didactic or moral; he wishes to lay bare his own moods, his aspirations, his sins, his humiliation in the quest of God. He is the most sincere and introspective Anglican poet of the seventeenth century. He had experienced the intensification of religious feeling mentioned in the holy sonnets. Walton writes: “His aspect was cheerful and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear knowing soul, of a conscience at peace with itself. His melting eye showed that he had a soft heart full of noble compassion, of too brave a soul to offer injuries and too much a Christian not to pardon them in others.” W.B. Yeats, a mystic poet, writes of Donne, “his pedantries and his obscenities, the rock and loam of his Eden, but make us the more certain that one who is but a man like us all has seen God!”

Conclusion

Some critics question use of the metaphysical method in holy sonnets and religious poems. Grierson, however, justifies use of the metaphysical method in these serious poems. He writes: “Here, he recaptures the peculiar charm of his early love verse their best, the unique blend of passionate feelings and rapid subtle thinking, the strange sense that his verse gives of a certain conflict between the passionate thought and the varied and often elaborate pattern into which he moulds its expression, resulting in a strange blend of harshness and constraint with reverberating and penetrating harmony. No poems give more…the sense of conflict of soul, of faith and hope snatched and held desperately….”

Donne’s religious poetry cannot be called mystical poetry. Donne does not forget his self as the mystics do. His is always conscious of his environment, of the world in which he lives and of his passionate friendships. As such his religious poetry lacks the transparent ecstacy found in great religious poetry. Helen White writes in this connection: “There was something in Donne’s imagination that drove it out in those magnificent figures that sweep earth and sky, but whatever emotion such passages arouse in us, Donne was not the man to lose himself. In another world beyond the release of death, he hoped to see his God face to face, and without end. But he was not disposed to anticipate the privileges of that world in this, nor even in general try to do so… The result is that in most of the mystical passages in both his poetry and his prose, the marvellous thrust into the ineffable is followed by a quick pull-back into the world of there-and-now with its lucid sense-detail and its ineluctable common sense.”

Donne’s holy sonnets are deservedly famous and are remarkable. They embody his deeply felt emotions in a language reflecting conscious craftsmanship.

Litearture: Chronology of Elizabethan Age

Litearture: Chronology of Elizabethan Age

Compiled by: Niyati Pathak

INTRODUCTION:-

Historians have divided English literature into periods for convenience. The numbers, dates or the names of the periods sometimes vary. The following list follows the prevalent practice of listing: 450-1066 Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period  (From the invasion of the Celtic England by Germanic tribes to the conquest of England in 1066 by the Norman French)

Anglo Saxon Period- Chronology

 Literature:

Poetry was written in the vernacular – Anglo Saxon – called Old English

Beowulf – the greatest of Germanic epics

Caedmon and Cynewulf wrote on religious and biblical themes 

Alfred the Great translated several books of Latin prose into Old English, and also recorded the important events in England.

1066-1500 Middle English Period

About 1500 – the standard literary language took the form of “modern English” 

1100-1350 – the non-Latin literature was produced in the French dialect (by the invades who were then the ruling class of England)

The important work of this period was Guillaume de Lorris’ and Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose

Later on, the narrative vernacular – middle English – became the literary language especially for religious writings

The secular literature became more popular in the second half of the 14th century. This was the age of Chaucer and John Gower. Remarkable works of this time were William Langland’s great religious and satirical poem Piers Plowmen, and Thomas Malory’s the famous prose romance called Morte d’ Arthur.

The 15th century poets: “Scottish Chaucerians”

King James I and Robert Henryson occupied chief position.

 15th century was remarkable for popular literature addressed to the upper class. It was the age of excellent songs and of folk ballads, and was the time of the miracle and morality plays.

1500-1600 The Renaissance (Early Modern) Period

1558-1603 Elizabethan Age(it was the manhood of Renaissance)

1603-1625 Jacobean Age

1625-1649 Caroline Age

1649-1660 Commonwealth Period

1600-1785 The Neo-classical Period

1660-1700 Restoration Period

1700-1745 The Augustan Age

1745-1783 The Age Of Sensibility

1785-1830 The Romantic Period

1832-1901 The Victorian Period

1848-1860 The Pre-Raphaelites

1880-1901 Aestheticism and Decadence

1901-1910 The Edwardian Period

1910-1914 The Georgian Period

1914- The Modern Period

1945- Post Modernism

ELIZABETH AGE :-(1558-1603)

Time:-

The period of queen Elizabeth's rule (1558 to 1603) is Elizabethn age. It Is also known as SHAKESPEARERIAN Age because Shakespeare we the dominating figure of this tie,. In the period, ENGLAND  ae a great development in trade marine power and  nationalistic feeling.Drama  witnessed highest growth of its own poetry too was not left behind. This period is a part of whole Renaissance movement.  "We suddenly see ENGLAND  a noble and punishment nation rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep , and shaping her invisible locks" writes W. J. LONG.

The great queen Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, and her reign lasting up to 1603, is golden age in the history of English literature. While the previous age was a Barren age as far as literature is concerned, the age Elizabeth is characterized by abundance of production in every Branch of literature. There was a renaissance of ancient Greek and Roman literature, mythology and culture, and this served as a source of inspiration to the countless writers of the period. There was also an awakening of the human mind to the vastness beauty and wonder of the world As a result of the discovery of America and the voyages of adventure undertaken by the Sailors of England and other countries of Europe. All of literature in the age. This period is generally regarded as the greatest in the history of our literature .It was marked by a strong national spirit, by patriotism, by religious tolerance, by intellectual progress and by unbounded enthusiasm. Such an age, of thought, feeling and vigorous action finds its best expression in the drama and wonderful development of the drama, culminating in shakes-pear, is the most significant characteristic of the Elizabeth an period .Though the age produced some excellent prose works it is essentially an age of poetry and the poetry is remarkable for its variety, its freshness, its youthful and romantic feeling. Both the poetry and the drama were permeated by Italian influence, which was dominant in English literature from Chancre to the Restoration. The literature of this age is often called the literature of Renaissance. Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist, Bacon the greatest prose-writer and essayist and Edmund Spenser is the greatest poet of the age.

QUEEN ELIZABETH I :-

★ BORN,SEPT.07,1533

GREEN WICH-LONDON, ENGLAND

CORONATION: JANUARY 15,1559

REIGN: MARCH 24,1603

 ★DIED:-MARCH 24,1603

   RICHMOND:-LONDON, ENGLAND.

 ★SCIENCE: NAVIGATION

                 CARTOGRAPHY

                 EXPLORING

★COLONIZATION:FIRST ATTEMPTS

                             RONOKE ISLAND(1587)

★ECONOMY:NATION/INTERNATIONAL TRADE

                    NAVAL POWER

                     ROYAL EXCHANGE (1565)

                   TRADING COMPANY (1599)

★RELIGION:CHURCH OF ENGLAND

                   ACT OF SUPREMACY

                   RELIGIOUS

★POLITICS: ANGLO SPANISH WAR (1585-1604)

                 CORNFLICT WITH IRELAND (1594-1603)

★CULTURE: RENAISSANCE

                  THEATRE/ART

CHARACTERISTIC'S FEATURES OF THE AGE :-

Revival of Interest in Greek Literature( The New Classicism):-

The ardent revival in the study of Greek literature brought a dazzling light into many dark places of interest. The new classical influences were a great benefit. They tempered & polished the earlier rudeness of English Literature.

★Abundance of Output

The Elizabethan age was rich in literary productions of all kinds. Singing is impossible when one’s hearts undeclared & at any moment one may be laid prostrate. Not till the accession of Queen Elizabeth, did a better state of things began to be. In the Elizabethan age, pamphlets & treatises were freely written. Sometimes writers indulged in scurrilous abuses which were of personal character. But on the whole, the output of the literature was very wide, & after the lean years of the preceding epoch, the prodigal issue of the Elizabethan age is almost embarrassing.

★The New Romanticism

The romantic quest is, for the remote, the wonderful & the beautiful. All these desires were abundantly fed during the Elizabethan age, which are the first & the greatest romantic epoch (period).  According to Albert, “there was a daring & resolute spirit of adventure in literary as well as the other regions, & most important of these was an un-mistakable buoyancy & freshness in the strong wind of the spirit. It was the ardent youth of English Literature & the achievement was worthy of it.”

★Translations in Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethan age witnessed translation into English of several important foreign books. Many translations were as popular as the original works. Sir Thomas North translated Plutarch’s Lives & John Florio translated Montaigne’s Essais. No less popular were the translations in poetry. E.g. Metamorphoses by Arthur Golding, Aristotle’s Orlando Furioso by Sir John Harrington, Tasso’s Terusalom Liberata by Richard Carew.

★Spirit of Independence

In spite of borrowings from abroad, the authors of this age showed a spirit of independence & creativeness. Shakespeare borrowed freely, but by the alembic of his creative imaginations, he transformed the dross into gold. Spenser introduced the ‘Spenserian Stanza’, & from his works, we got the impression of inventiveness & intrepidity. On the whole, the outlook of the writers during the age was broad & independent.

★Development of Drama

During the Elizabethan Age, drama made a swift & wonderful leap into maturity. The drama reached the splendid perfection in the hands of Shakespeare & Ben Jonson, though in the concluding part of the age, particularly in Jacobean Age, there was a decline of drama standards.

★Popularity of Poetry

Poetry enjoyed its hey-day during the Elizabethan age. The whole of the age lived in a state of poetic fervour. Songs, lyrics & sonnets were produced in plenty, & England became nest of the singing birds. In versification, there was a marked improvement. Melody & pictorialism were introduced in poetry by Spenser.

★Prose and Novel

For the first time, prose rose to the position of first rate importance. “Even the development of poetical drama between 1579 A.D. -1629 A.D., is hardly more extraordinary than the sudden expansion of English prose & its adaptation to every kind of literary requirement.” The dead weight of the Latin & English prose acquired a tradition & universal application. English Novel made its first proper appearance during this age.

★Elizabethan Prose :-

Elizabethan age was an age of Prose but the prose fiction works were not planned . They were not created but we're imitation or Translations.

The first major writer of Elizabethan Prose fiction was Lyly. His Euphues was published in 1570 and Euphues and his England in 1580. It was the first prose work .The plot is very thin and contains dialogues.and discourses. Every incidents proves to be opportunity for instruction. So his work can be called didactic.

=>The next was Sidney with his Arcadia,which was a romance in pastoral setting.Sidney indulged in fancy with sentiment 'S nd ideal scenes .The style of her  book is very picturesque . It is exavagents  on almost all occasions and is in fact a romance-epic written in prose.

=>The next notable figure is Robert Greene . His presentation to was quite picaresque . He was romantic and his main romances are pandosto , perimedes the Blacksmith and memohon. In his work attractive women characters  are always presen. The passeges of prose are also charming.

Greene was a part of the realism tend too. He showed rogury ( શઠતા) and many forms of rascaldom.

=>Thomas Hashe stands out as a perfect literary show man who with his world can keep the audiance spell-bound.( મંત્ર મુગ્ધ ). Pierce penniless, is an appeal to devil, but in that grab it is as atirical survey of the vices that time . The unfortunate Traveller presents a thrilling record of travels and adventures . This does not necessiate an organised plot, and the material is held together by presences personality of the narrator . It moves at a very steady pace.

=>John Bunyan's THE PILGRIMS PROGRESS is an allegorical story which deals with the Christians pilgrimage from the dit of destruction to the celestial ( સ્વર્ગીય)city.

=>Thomas Delaney produced three works between 1596 and 1600. They are thomas of reading , jack of Newbury and the genetal craft. The first two follow lylys rules. The third one sticks to the fact and narrates the career of simon Eyre, who from a  cobbler's apprentice becomes lord mylor.

◆GENERAL SURWAY :-

 1:- THE  POETIC TRANDS OF  THE AGE :-

Although several kinds of verse form were attempted in this age the epic romance,the pastoral, the verse tale, the gelegd, the sonnet, the lyric, the satire,it is largely an age of the last three. Following close upon the heels of the RENAISSANCE , it availed itself of all that the Freeland Latin classics had to offer but the form of whatever it chose to write is largely it's own . This is important  to hear in mind because in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries  the writers would be more attacked by its form than by its matter.

Ranking nest only to drama , poetry no less popular. For the first time it began to be published in anthropologies . The fashion was set by what has  come to be called , after the name of its printer, tottelsmisacellancy . It was published in 1557 and contained  the songs and sonnets of several authored , of whom Wyatt and Surrey are the chief . It was followed twenty years later by many other collections , of which only england helicon (1600) offered the richest fare: 

Sidney,Spenser,Drayton,lodge,Greene,Peele, Shakespeare, the poems included in these collection were largely songs and sonnets . But between 1593 and 1596 collection of sonnets were published seprately by the authors themselves.

◆The sonnet of the age :-

It was introduced into England by sir thomas Wyatt and henry Howard , dari of Surrey , in the first half of the sixteenth century , but while Wyatt more or less followed the original Italian or petrarchan form, Surrey changed it to three quatrains  in alternate tume and has since come to be fallowing petrarchan,all of whose sonnets celebrate his love for laura, the  writers wrote THIER sonnets in similar sequences addressed to some lady, supposed or real .

Love therefore is thier subject but it is sometimes conventional., And sometimes  real. Where it is the former , the writers follow certain set conversation the lady is always heartless, the lover ever pining for her sake. Where the sonnets are inspired by genuine love, 'with this key 'the poet 'unlocks his heart ' .

A few sonnets , however , were written on other  subjects such as 'sweetest content ,scare chamber ,sleep' and religious matters . Though the sonnet was originally brought over Frome italy ,it was the French practitioner of the form that inspired the english writers more. Of these Ronsard and de sporters were the more largely copied. In general, the language of the sonnets is rich nd the verse musical .Thought word and metre never so happily blended together.

◆The lyrical of the age :-

Borrowed Frome continental sources Greek, Latin,Italian , French, it took roots in the english soil because it created  to the people's growing interest in music. Among the people there were not only distinguished musicians but a regular class of professional singers who performed in streets , taverns , and other places. The lyric therefore soon found it's way into the drama to be similarly sung for the entertainment of the audiance. A sufficiently large number of lyrics written in this age, are of this nature. Sometimes even put in prose pamphlets.

Written and used for this purpose they are not heavy stuff:they express rather the holiday mood of the writer . Thier subjects are varied love , court life, nature, morality,dress,death the same subject may be treated differently by different poets.

They are generally impersonal,saying not what the writer thinks or feels but what is common experience . Even when the lyrics is written in the first person, it is everyman speaking and not the poet, this sometimes makes his treatment of the day than the communication of a genuinely felt experience.

In language and verification no better lyrics have since been written in english literature . As Arnold said of wordsworths nature poems , it seems as through they took writer s pen out of his hand and wrote themselves down on his behalf. They are spontaneous, they are light , they are sweet , and they are much else. While the passion for sonnet writing lasted but a few years, the lyric never went out of favor and was passed on to the next generation.

◆The satire of the age :-

The satire began in middle english poetry and Skelton gave it some form in the fifteenth century . But since it is a roman form which came to england only after the RENAISSANCE , it was in this age that age it began to be written systematically.it is not, however, characteristic of the age as the sonnet and the lyric are.

The satire thrives upon abuses,social or individual as this glorious period left little to desire, the very raw material of purpose also. When, it is modelled upon Juvenal, it is coarse and even abusive; when modelled upon Horace, it shows better taste. It's subject are: the courtier and life,the puritan, the women, the corrupt priests, the Englishman who aped French priya lian fashions. The heroic couplet was preferred to other stanza forms but it lacks the force that it was to acquire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

ELIZABETHAN DRAM:-

This was a golden period of drama . It  ends in Jacobean age. The drama had fine  beginning , glorious Climax an sudden end. No literary can grow and tack shape without peoples interest and encouragement. The english responded well. They saw drama's listened poetry. On the other ide the poets and Dramatists also reflected thier feelings. This prove helpful to each other .

"Whether an author found his pocket empty he knew that his best chance  of filling it promptly was on the stage. Therefore all the authors wrote or tide to write for theatre. There is hardly a poet or novelist of this period to write for theatre. There  is hardly a poet or novelist of this period who did not at some time turn his attention to drama.

EDWARD ALBERT

The Artistic Period of the Drama.

 The artistic is the final stage in the development of the English drama. It represent human life as it is.

◆The First Comedy

 The first true play in English, with a regular plot, divided into acts and scenes, is probably the comedy, “Ralph Royster Doyster.” It was written by Nicholas Udall, master of Eton, and later of Westminster school,The story is that of a conceited fop in love with a widow, who is already engaged to another man. The play is an adaptation of the Miles Gloriosus, a classic comedy by Plautus.

◆The First Tragedy

 Our first tragedy, “Gorboduc,” was written by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, and was acted in 1562, only two years before the birth of Shakespeare. It is the first play to be written in blank verse,:-)The story of “Gorboduc” is taken from the early annals of Britain and recalls the story used by Shakespeare in King Lear. Gorboduc, king of Britain, divides his kingdom between his sons Ferrex and Porrex. The sons quarrel, and Porrex, the younger, slays his brother, who is the queen’s favorite. Videna, the queen, slays Porrex in revenge; the people rebel and slay Videna and Gorboduc; then the nobles kill the rebels, and in turn fall to fighting each other. The line of Brutus being extinct with the death of Gorboduc, the country falls into anarchy, with rebels, nobles, and a Scottish invader all fighting for the right of succession. The curtain falls upon a scene of bloodshed and utter confusion.

~>Christopher Marlowe:-

The first great dramatist of the time was Christopher Marlowe. Though he lived a short life, he wrote some powerful tragedies, which are counted among the great works of English stage. He showed originality both in choice of subject matter and the use of blank verse. His powerful blank verse strengthens the drama and the development of character heightens the sense of tragedy. His first tragedy Tamburlaine the Great is written in blank verse with colorful images of power and violence.

 ◆WORKS :-

★TAMBURLAINE -THE GREAT

★A JEW OF MALTA

★DR. FAUSTUS

★EDWARD II

Doctore Faustus :-

=>Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus is based on the well-known story of a man (Faustus) who sold his soul to the devil in order to power and riches in the life. Faustus is mad for intellectual power. He agrees to give his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles in return for twenty-four years of splendid life. During these years the devil must serve him and give him what he wants. Finally, when Faustus has to face death, he is filled with fear and the end of the play is very tragic.

~>William Shakespeare:-

William Shakespeare is taken as the finest dramatist of all times. He began his career as a play actor and then moved to play writing. He had great dramatic as well as poetic gift. His plays look like a living world of people. His characters have both individual and universal qualities.At the beginning Shakespeare wrote historical plays by improving the works of other writings.

◆HIS TRAGEDIES :- 1- HAMLET ,

                                 2-MACBETH

                                 3 -OTHELLO

                                4-KING LEAR

◆COMEDIES :-

1 -MUCH DO ABOUT NOTHING

2-MID SUMMERS NIGHT DREAM

3- AS YOU LIKE IT

4- TWELFTH NIGHT

In this plays we see universality because he presented unknown dark parts of the nature .Fate also plays it's role in his plays.

UNIVERSITY WITS:-

The term university wits was not used in thier lifetime ,but was coined by george saints bury, a 19th century journalist and author .Saints bury argues the' risingsap'. Of in two separate "branches of the national tree." The university wits is a phrase used to trace of late 18th ce.English playwrights and pamphleteers who were educated at the universities Oxford for Cambridge and who became popular secular writers. It was the earliest stage of the development of drama as a popular means of entertainment in public theaters and playhouses.

◆CHARACTERISTICS:-

Elizabethan group

Historian invent

Attending Oxford or Cambridge

Pioneer of english drama

Rival of Shakespeare

Educated RENAISSANCE writer.

◆MEMBERS OF UNIVERSITY WITS:-

1 JOHN LYLY

2 THOMAS KYD

3 GEORGE PEELE

4 ROBERT GREENE

5 CHRISTOPHER MARLOW

6. THOMAS NASH

7 THOMAS LODGE

In the 1580s, the writings of the University Wits (Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Kyd, and Peele) defined the London theatre. Though grounded in medieval and Jacobean roots, these men produced new dramas and comedies using Marlowe's styling of blank verse. Shakespeare outdid them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with classical sources, enriching the admixture with his imagination and wit.

★CHRISTOPHER MARLOW

Renaissance for developing black verse as avehical for dramatic development.

Johnson characterised Marlow's usage of blank verse "mighty light"

Cambridge graduate

Short career aa allah weight

★DOCTOR FAUSTUS

★A JEW OF MALTA

★TAMBURLAINE

★ROBERT GREENE

First negative critic of Shakespeare

Wrote prose romances and pamphlets

Friar bacon and friar binigay

A grats -worth of write, bought with a million of repentance (Attack on Shakespeare)

Plays

★THE CHEMICAL HISTORY OF ALPHONSUS AND ENGLAND

★FRIAR BACON AND FRIAR BUNGAY

★THE HISTORY OF ORLANDO FURIOSO

★ THE SCOTTISH FOR A ROMANTIC SETTING

★THOMAS NASH

★UNFORTUNATE TRAVELLER

★THE TERRORS OF THE NIGHT

★SUMMERS LAST, WILL AND TESTAMENT

★THE ISLE OF DOGS

★THE ANATOMY OF ABSURDITY

★HAVE WITH YOU TO SAFFRON WLDEN

Political last will and Testament (written for  child actores)

★THE ISLE O DEGS

(the unfortunate Traveller)

(Prose narrative)

★JOHN LYLY

Lylys greatest service to drama consists in his writing plays in prose.

Lylys sparkling dialogues gave Shakespeare an excellent  modl to follow. Sought to raise the bar on sophisticated prose .The result of over elaboration was a comically elegant style  open to parody

=>BEST PLAYS

 ★ALEXANDER AND CAMPASE

★MIDAS

★ENIMION

★SAPHO AND PHAO

●ENDIMINATIO (debates the nature of love)

●EUPHUS,OR THE ANATOMY OF WIT (Popular prose romance )

★THOMAS LODGE

Not much of a dramatist more of a collaborator

★SPANIAH TRAGEDY

★HOUSEHOLDERS PHILOSOPHY

A looking glance for london and england .

(Collaborated with robert Greene )

★ROSALYNDE (Source or Shakespeare 'S AS YOU LIKE IT)

★GEORGE PEELE

Commercial dell'Arte influenced his comedies utilized  several sub plots in parady of original plot. The arraignment of paris (court drama,flattery of the queen), Old wives 'tale (room -com-pay-withi-a-play)

◆PLAYS

★THE ARAYGEMENT OF PARIS

★THE FAMOUS CHROICLE OF KING EDWARD

★THE OLD WIVES TALE

★THE LOVE OF KING DACID AND BATHSHEBA

  

★THOMAS KYD

Pretty obscureguy but we think we at least know about the Spanish tragedy usage of semacam devices -irony ,heroic violence, rhetorical soliloquies, etc.

★THE SPANISH TRAGEDY (most popular paly of 16th century )

★THE WITTY WAY

★THE HEROIC THEME

 Great figures in fiction and history

Ornate description s

Long rhetorical speeches

★BLANCK VERSE

-Medium for heroic style

-Allowed for the implementation of strong text.

-IMAGES OF VIOLANCE AND EMOTION

-Lack of humour

->LYLY  being the only exception

●THUS WE SEE THE TRANSFOMARION OF POPULAR DRAMA

 ★ This are some of the activities during Elizabethan era

★SPANISH ARMADA :-

  ● In 1588, Philip II of Spain sent this fleet to fetch his soldiers in the Netherlands and then invade England. Although it was supposed invincible, the Armada was defeated by the English navy.

 ●Spain (ruled by Philip ii)and England (ruled by Elizabeth I ) initially got on well. Philip ii was keen to mary Elizabeth. There was friendship between the two countries . However this friendship very quickly turned to tension and rivalry. Eventually war broke out. In July 1588, Philip ii sent a huge Armada of 130 ship's and 30,000 men. Philip had been married to Mary Tudor (Elizabeth's sister ). In 1559. He wanted all countries to be Catholic.

●Thus, the 1559 Elizabethan religious settlement angered him greatly . Spain had colonies in the  new world . Some english sailors such as sir Francis Drake had been robbing spanish treasure ship's from the new world (1570-80s). Elizabeth encouraged this ! Spain was willing stir up trouble for Elizabeth whether possible . Offering money and and troop to help. Elizabeth s decision to sign the death warrant of the Catholic mary queen of Scots in 1587. Enormously angered Philip. He clearly saw this as terrible. France was a traditional enemy of both England and spain -both countries had united against france in the past.In 1562 civil war broke out in France ,meaning she was no longer a threat to either country for over 30 years. In 1572 Elizabeth secretly help the duch rebel against Philip ii she knew a rebellion in the Netherlands would keep spanish for the first time England and spanish was actually fighting fighting each other . In many 1588 a massive invasion fleet or or 'armada'sailed from the port of Lisbon. It was  made up of 130 ship's fitted with 2,500guns. They carried 30,000 soldiers and sailors. This great war fleet was bound for England.

●The Armada is famous because at that time England was a small nation with a little navy and they were facing the greatest power in the world (spain).They defeated spain. It marked the beginning of England's mastery of the seas. The great history of the english navy began, as did serious English exploration and colonization . The Spanish monarch, Philip ii, was angry that queen  Elizabeth had not punished sir Francis Drake and other english seadogs for plundering spanish ship's. Philip was a devout Catholic. He felt it was his duty to invade and conquer England in order to convert the country back to the church of rome. The two fleets met in the english channel . There were many more spanish ship's than the english ship's but the english ship's were smaller and easy to manoeuvre. This would turn out to be a great advantage for the english . On 6 august 1588. The spanish Armada ancoured at Calais. The english filled eight ship's with flammable material and set fire to them. They sent in fire ship's to panic the Spaniards and scatter the armadas formation . The armadas formation,the famous crescent,had proved extremely successful in previous campaign as it allowed all ship's to fire their heavy guns simultaneously. The spanish panicked and fled to the poem sea, straight into the gunfire of the waiting english. In the open sea, the Armada wasn't in formation , so the spanish ship's were easy targets fir the english artillery .

●An important reason why the english were able to defeat the armadas was that the wind blew the spanish ship's northwards. Strong winds and terrible rain forced many ship's onto rocks near Ireland . The english celebrated their victory with medal saying 'GOD BLEW AND THEY WERE SCATTERED'.

◆Work sited :- 

http://thinking-literature.blogspot.in/2017/10/important-mcqs-on-elizabethan-literature.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/elizabeth/section9.rhtml

http://epicworldhistory.blogspot.in/2012/05/spanish-armada.html