Thinking Activity
Age of Chaucer to Elizabeth.
Write in brief about Chaser or Edmund Spenser or Ben Johnson or Francis Bacon or on any one of their works.
Can you differentiate general characteristics of Renaissance literature with that of Reformation/Restoration or Neo-classical or Romantic or Victorian or Modern literature?
Can you differentiate general characteristics of Renaissance literature with that age of Chaser and age of revival of learning?
About Elizabethan Age:-
The Elizabethan Age is often considered as the golden age in English history. Elizabethan Era is associated with the reign of Queen Elizabeth -1(1558-1603). It was the height of the English Renaissance. Queen Elizabeth -1 was the last Tudor monarch who ruled England from 1558 to 1603. Her name is usually applied to the period from the mid-1500's to the early 1600's . During the Elizabethan Age , English writers produced some of the greatest poetry and drama in world literature. It was an age of expansion and exploration.
The Popularity of Poetry:-
The development of poetry is the strongest characteristics of the Elizabethan Age. Poetry influenced frame. Great genius like Sidney ,Spenser ,Marlowe and Shakespeare created the atmosphere of singing music. Poetry found new field of expressing the emotions. At the time, the atmosphere of England was full of song. That is why it is said England bacame the nest of singing birds.
Three chief forms of poetry flourished during the Elizabethan Age. They where,.
- The Lyrics
- The Sonnet
- Narrative Poetry
- The lyrics is a short poem that expresses a poet's personal emotions in a song like style.
- Thomas Campion wrote many beautiful lyrics in his " Books of Airs" (1601 to about 1617).
The Sonnet is a 14 line poem with a certain pattern of rhyme and rhythm. Elizabethan poets wrote two types of sonnets.
- Italian Sonnet
- English Sonnet
The two types differed in the arrangement of the rhymes. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the Sonnet from Italy into English literature in the early 1500's. The Earl of Surrey modified the form into the English Sonnet.
William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser also wrote sonnet sequences. A Sonnet sequence is a group of sonnets based on a singal theme or about one person. Notable sequences Shakespeare's notable sequence is based on an unknown "dark lady".
Narrative poetry tells a story. In addition to sonnets , Shakespeare and Spenser wrote narrative poems . Shakespeare based his Venus and Adonis(1593) on a Roman myth. Spenser borrowed from medieval romances in his unfinished masterpiece, The Faerie Queen(1590).
The temper of this time was lyrical mood. Lyric writers Wyatt and Surrey remained very busy in spreading their influence among the people. Narrative Poetry was also written by Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser and others. Even religions satire and preaching were expressed through lyrics. "Poetry enjoyed it's heyday (peak of success) during the Elizabethan Age. The whole age lived in a state of poetic passion. Songs, Lyrics and Sonnets were produced in plenty ,and England became a nest of singing birds".
In this blog,I attended the first question and I made a blog upon The Biography of Edmund Spenser.
Edmund Spenser:-
Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) was born in East Smithfield, near the Tower of London, and was poor. His education began at "The Merchant Tailors" school in London was continued in Cambridge ,were as a poor sizer and fag for wealthy student ,he earned a scant living. Here in the glorious world that only a poor scholar knows how to crate for himself he read the classics , made acquaintance with the great Italian Poets,and wrote numberless little poems of his own.
His writing highly influential and accomplished , setting the stage for a numbers of leter works. The English essayist Charles Lamp described Spenser as " The Poet's Poet", because his work was technically accomplished and was greatly admired by other writers. Spenser is most famous for writing his unfinished epic , " The Faerie Queen'' .
Early Life and Marriage:-
As with so many people of his day, Spenser's early life is something of a mystery. Unlike some other writers of the time ,Spenser did not come from wealthy. He studied at the Merchant Tailors grammar school,where he received an education in the classics. Between 1569 and 1576 ,Spenser studied at Cambridge University. He also did some menial work for his college since he did not have the funds to pay his way through an undergraduate and a master's degree in the arts.
After graduating, Spenser worked for The Earl of Leicester,performing some diplomatic missions abroad on his behalf. He then returned to London and met follow poet Sir Philiph Sidney. In 1579 , Spenser married a woman named Machabyas Chylde. The marriage lasted until her death,which was probably in 1593 or 1594. After his first wife's death , Spenser married a woman named Elizabeth Boyle,in 1594 and remained married to her , until his own death in 1599.
Spenser as a Poet and Writer:-
Although Edmund Spenser,poet and Scholar, he began writing verse during or shortly after his Cambridge years,he did not publish his first volume of work until 1579 or 1580. It was a series of twelve poems collectively titled "The Shepherd's Calendar" through which Spenser explored pastoralism and satire. He was inspired by writers like Virgil ,whose work he greatly admired.
The Shepherd's Calendar,as well as many of his later works, dealt with satirical social commentary and his concern for the stability and maintenance of the Church of England following the relatively recent English protestant reformation.
Spenser was famous for his technical grasp of English in his poetry as well as his use of satire and his flattery of the monarchy and the court in many of his works.
In 1580, Spenser became the secretary of Arthur Lord Gray,lord deputy of Ireland ,and he spent the next several years living and working in Ireland with his family. He was respected in politics and his works also did well,allowing him to reach a broader audience because of his public-facing role.
About his works :-
There are numerous other poems and collection of poems, ,but his notable works are like.,
- The Faerie Queen
- The Shepherd's Calendar
- Amoretti
- A View Of The Present State of Ireland
- Epithalamion
- Astrophel
- Mother Hubbard's Tale
1). The Faerie Queen :-
This is the most important work of Spenser. The original plan was of twenty-four books,which includes adventure of triumph of a knight who represents a moral virtue.
In all the books, a knight is fighting his opposing vice,and the poem tells the story of the conflict,it also represents life as the struggle between good and evil. Spenser completed only six books Celebrating, Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy. There is also a seventh Fragment, Constancy.
In totle he published six books:-
First Publication. Virtue
Book-1 " The Red Cross Knight Holiness
Book-2 "The Good Sir Guyon Temperance
Book-3 "The Legend of Britomart. Chastity.
Second publication. Virtue.
Book-4 The Swore of Low Degree. Friendship
Book-5 The Adventure of Sir Artegall. Justice.
Book-6 Knight of Courtesy. Courtesy.
2). The Shepherd's Calendar:-
The Shepherd's Calendar is one of his masterpiece. Shepherd's Calendar is the best known of Spenser's poems. Though, as his first work,it is below many others in melody. It consists of twelve pastoral poems,for each month of the year. The themes are generally rural life,nature,love in the field.
3). Amoretti :-
It's a sonnet cycle, The cycle goes over the love to his girlfriend and eventual his wife. The work contains eighty-nine sonnets. It is underappreciated work because of the great success of " The Faerie Queen". But this is also a high skilled work of Edmund Spenser. The sonnets are based on petrarch. That was a great model at that time. But it isn't a reproduction of petrarch poetry.
Spenser gives his own twisted at petrarch style. Normally the lover complaints that he mis his dream women etc, but Edmund takes the complaints to adolescence level.
Sonnet no.75 :-
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
"Vain man," said she, "that dost in vain assay,
A mortal thing so to immortalize;
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
"Not so," (quod I) "let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew."
- In this poem ,Spenser describes the immortality of love. Through this poem, Spenser say that everyone will die one day,time will destroy everything but love will never die,because love is immortal. He will immortalise his love and his beloved's name in his verse.
- We can also understand the immortality of literature. Literature will live forever and ever.
- In this poem, Spenser has used many poetic devices and themes like love, immortality and death in this sonnet.
- Rhyme scheme of this poem is abab ,bcbc, cdcd, ee.
4) . A View Of The Present State Of Ireland (1598) :-
In 1580,he became queen's deputy in Ireland. After sixteen years of residence he wrote his "View Of The State Of Ireland" , which is his only prose work.
5). Mother Hubbard's Tale:-
It's A satire on society.The was full of intrigues and he explained his own uncomfortable position in this work.
6). Epithalamion
This work mainly describes "Love ,Beauti, Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty".
7). Astrophel and Stella (1595) :-
Astrophel: A Pastoral Elegy upon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney is a poem by the English poet Edmund Spenser. It is Spenser's tribute to the memory of Sir Philip Sidney, who had died in 1586.
Characteristics of Spenser's Poetry :-
There are five main characteristics of Spenser's Poetry. That are.,
- Perfect melody
- A rare sense of beauty
- A Splendid Imagination, which could dragons, Classic mythology, Stories of chivalry and the thronging ideals of the Renaissance all passing in gorgeous procession across an ever- changing and ever-beautiful landscape.
- A lofty moral,Purity and Seriousness
- A delicate idealism ,which could make all nature and every common thing beautiful.
Death :-
He may have died of an illness brought on by stress after he and his family had to flee an uprising in Ireland in 1595. He returned to London and was only around 46 or 47 when he died.
Words :-1762
Good work. 👌
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