Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance THE RENAISSANCE 1485-1660 Part II

Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

THE RENAISSANCE

1485-1660

Part II


Succession of the Throne

• Elizabeth I– Henry VIII’s daughter

by his second wife, Anne Boleyn

– Queen from 1558-1603

– Only twenty-five when she came to the throne

– strong national unity and triumphant cultural achievement


Queen Elizabeth I

• Had a sharp intellect and an excellent Renaissance education

• Encouraged literary and artistic developments • Clever diplomat and a shrew, at times even

ruthless, politician• Promoted peace and prosperity by steering a

moderate religious course between Protestant extremism and the yielding to Catholicism


Queen Elizabeth I

• Became an expert in foreign affairs– used her unmarried status to benefit

England

• England’s victory in 1588 over the Spanish Armada (the strongest naval force of the age) marked the culmination of Elizabeth’s authority in a country that had become, in less than a century, one of the most powerful in the world


Elizabethan Literary Achievement

• Sir Philip Sidney – 1554-1586 – Living embodiment of

the ideal Renaissance gentleman

– Known for his political ideas, military prowess, personal charm and literary ability



• Edmund Spenser – 1552-1599 – Saw himself as a

scholar-poet– The Faerie Queene

• dedicated to Queen Elizabeth

• celebrates and assesses the values and achievements of her reign



• Drama– Greatest and most distinctive achievement

of Elizabethan literature– Elizabethan drama grew from a fusion of

native English and classical traditions– The triumph of Elizabethan drama is a result

of the triumph of dramatically spoken English

– Elizabethan stagecraft was rudimentary and sketchy



• Public Theaters

• first public theater erected in Shoreditch, an area just outside the London city limits, in 1576

• Others were soon built in Southwark across the river Thames

– The Globe • Home theater of Shakespeare’s company


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


The Globe


Public Theaters

• All walks of life made up the audiences– Nobility given a special seat right on stage– Sophisticated (i.e. law students) would have

bought a seat under the roofs in the gallery– Less well-off would fill the “pit”

• Would eat, drink, hiss, catcall, and applaud


Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes

• The most striking feature of Elizabethan artistic taste is a delight in elaborate pattern and complicated ornament

– fantastically decorated gowns– intricate designs of Elizabethan buildings

and gardens– in musical forms such as the madrigal– poetic forms like the sonnet or the sestina


Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes:Gowns










Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes:Architecture






Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes:Gardens








Elizabethan World Picture

• Elizabethans viewed the world as a vast, unified, hierarchical order, or “Great Chain of Being,” created by God

• Every existing being or thing was ranked within a category in the chain

– Categories were ranked by the attributes of their members, from the lowest group (all matter and no spirit) to the highest group (all spirit and no matter).

• Inanimate things• Plant and animal kingdoms• Human beings (above animals because the possession of

souls and free will)



• As each group had its place in the chain, so each member had its place within the group

– Animals• Lion highest• Oyster lowest

– Metals• Gold highest• Lead lowest

– Plants • Rose highest



• This perfect order allowed for the doctrine of correspondences

– Gold analogous to the oak (greatest of trees) or to the sun (first among stars)

– The lion could represent a king or queen (head of a nation)

– A rose could represent God

• As a result, Elizabethan writers had a wealth of symbolic relationships, references, and allusions


The Jacobean Era

• James I– 1603-1625 – Cousin of Elizabeth– Already King of

Scotland– Son of Elizabeth’s

former archenemy, Mary, Queen of Scots


The Jacobean Era

• The reign of James I initiated a time of deep religious and political unrest in England

– James I was an intelligent but morose man who possessed none of Elizabeth’s instincts for practical politics

– During James I reign, the first group of English Puritans came to America because they did not feel free to practice their dissenting beliefs in England

– The House of Commons asserted its growing power against the Crown and also gained the support of the people by refusing to vote taxes


The Jacobean Era

• Deep philosophical and intellectual changes were beginning to undermine faith in the older Elizabethan world view

– Copernicus (1473-1543) and Galileo (1564-1642) argued that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe and that there might even be a plurality or infinity of worlds

• These and other scientific investigations called into question the very basis of the divinely ordered, hierarchical universe


The Jacobean Era

• Copernicus– 1473-1543

• Galileo– 1564-1642


Disruption and Change1625-1660

• Charles I – Son of James I– Took over the throne

in 1625– Lasted until 1649



• England was well on its way to civil war– Causes were both political and religious– The Puritan movement had developed into a

powerful enemy of the Anglican establishment

– Charles I tried to crack down on organized religious protest

– He was met with violent opposition



• Civil War (continued)– In Parliament, the lawyers and landlords

who controlled the House of Commons withheld more and more funds from the executive functions of government

– Charles responded by trying to rule without the support of Parliament



• Civil War (continued)– His strategy did not work

• Parliament had grown too strong• Parliament determined to call the king and his

supporters to account– Executed Charles’ two biggest supporters– Charles left London and established his army

at Nottingham– By August of 1642, England was in the throes

of open civil war



• The king’s supporters (rich, carefree, long-haired, reckless, young; called “Cavaliers”) were no match for the Parliamentary forces (grimly determined Puritans who wore their hair cropped off; called “Roundheads”)



• Oliver Cromwell – 1599-1658 – Commander of the

Parliamentary forces– Molded his men into a

fearless and disciplined New Model Army

– known as “Ironsides”– fought fiercely because it

saw itself as the agent of God’s vengeance and punishment



• By 1649, the royalist forces had been defeated and King Charles was a prisoner

– Charles was tried as an enemy of the English people

– On January 30, 1649, he was beheaded



• Eventually, Cromwell took the power of the government into his own hand and established what he called the Protectorate (1653-1658)

– Basically a military dictatorship– Cromwell died in 1658



• Charles II– By 1660, the English

people had had enough of harsh Puritan rule

– Brought back Charles II• Charles I’s eldest son• Exiled in Paris• Ruled from 1660-

1685



• Charles II’s return called the “Restoration” of the monarchy

– New Parliament was elected– England returned to the form of government

it had known before the war



• Effects of the Civil War and Cromwell’s Protectorate

– Parliament had a new sense of its importance in directing the affairs of the country

– The old authoritarian and hierarchical pattern of Elizabethan and Jacobean England was reconstituted along looser, more tolerant lines



• Effects of the Civil War and Cromwell’s Protectorate (continued)

– England had more than ever before become a country of multiplicity and diversity regarding politics and religion

– The Anglican Church and the monarchy had been restored to prominence

• but no longer dominated English life as they had done before the Civil War


Literature in a Century of Change

• Drama– The early decades of the seventeenth

century saw a continuation of the boundless creativity of the Elizabethan stage

– In much Jacobean drama, a darker and more disturbing image of life appears

• themes of violence, madness, and corruption come to the fore


Literature in a Century of Change

• The Theaters– Closed in 1642 at the beginning of the Civil

War– Cromwell, with his Puritan belief in the

sinfulness of such public entertainment, kept them closed during the Protectorate

– With the return of Charles II in 1660, drama flourished again, but in new modes strongly influenced by the French theater


Famous Playwrights

• Ben Jonson– The greatest

Jacobean after Shakespeare

– Famous Plays• Volpone• The Alchemist


Poetry

• The poetry of the seventeenth century can be described as the expression of two main styles or approaches

– Metaphysical Poets

– Classical and Conservative Style


Poetry

• Metaphysical Poets– Used extended, highly intellectualized images often

drawn from scholastic philosophy or metaphysics– Also referred to as the School of Donne, after John

Donne, the most significant metaphysical poet– The metaphysical poem is more argumentative in

tone– Its meter is usually varied, irregular, even

deliberately rough and harsh– It often depends on conceits

• Extended metaphors


Poetry

• John Donne– 1572-1631– Most significant

metaphysical poet


Poetry

• Classical and Conservative Style– This poetry subjected experience to the

discipline and restraint of reason, of classical form, of meticulous craftsmanship

– Ben Jonson was the chief practitioner of this style

• His immediate followers are referred to as the School of Jonson or, referring more specifically to the group of young poets who took up Jonson’s neoclassical standards, as the “Sons of Ben” or the “Tribe of Ben”


Poetry

• These writers were called the Cavalier Poets

– Robert Herrick (1591-1674)– John Suckling (1609-1642)– Richard Lovelace (1618-1657)

• Suckling and Lovelace’s poems display an effortless, aristocratic nonchalance

• The entire Jonsonian tradition, including its Cavalier segment, provided the main basis for post-Restoration poetry in the age of John Dryden and Alexander Pope.


Poetry

• Robert Herrick – 1591-1674


Poetry

• John Suckling – 1609-1642


Poetry

• Richard Lovelace – 1618-1657


Prose

• In the seventeenth century, English prose really came into its own

– Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)– John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes (1555-

1626)• As an age of intense religious controversy, the

seventeenth century produced a number of great preachers

• Their prose reflects the fact that their sermons were meant to be dazzling public performances, intellectually impressive and emotionally gripping


The Bible

• The translation of the Bible organized and sponsored by James I and known as the Authorized or King James Version (1611)

• Until the end of the nineteenth century, most fine prose in English was to some degree indebted to it


John Milton

• 1608-1674 • Wrote some of the

finest sonnets, the finest pastoral elegy (Lycidas), and the most successful epic poem (Paradise Lost) in all of English literature

• Milton traditionally marks the end of the English Renaissance

Documents

Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance THE RENAISSANCE 1485-1660 Part II