Elizabethan Poetry
Anushua Chatterjee
Elizabethan Age, often regarded as the “golden age” since the mind of the contemporary people were relieved from the social burden of poverty and the fear of foreign invasions; of the fear of religious persecution and the trammels of medieval confinement ; of great sea adventures, travel and discovery which ignited the power of imagination; and the influence of the ‘Renaissance’ of the ancient Greco-Roman culture,mythology and literature unleash the creative faculty to indulge in rich poetic sensibility, and an appetite for the learning of and the expressing in literary pursuits. The Renaissance humanistic spirit was inculcated in the spontaneity of poetic expression to deal with the subtle and deep human emotions, conflict and moral responsibility. This resulted in the popularity of lyrics, sonnets and the narrative poetry that marks the essence of the true Renaissance spirit.
Major poetic figures of the Elizabethan Age
Wyatt and Surrey : The sonnet, invented by Dante and popularized with perfection by Petrarch in Italy, was brought into English poetic practice by two names—- Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, or the Earl of Surrey. While Wyatt adhered and retained strictly both the Petrarchan form and the content of idealized love and deification of the beloved, chiefly manifested through Petrarchan lady love Laura, Surrey modified the form and structurally arranged the fourteen lines into three quatrains and a couplet, a pattern widely known as the English or the Shakespearean form( as it was popularly used by Shakespeare). Despite his structural experimentation, thematically, Surrey kept the vibes of Petrarchan love sonnets intact.
Sidney: It was Philip Sidney who revived the much neglected sonnet form after Wyatt and Surrey with his Astrophel and Stella(1591), a sequence of 108 sonnets and 11 songs on his idealized love for Penelope Devereux and the agony of their separation with her eventual marriage with Lord Rich. The title is derived from the two Greek words, 'aster', meaning star and 'phil' meaning lover, and the Latin word 'stella' means star. Thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is the star that he longs for.
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia , written to amuse his sister the Countess of Pembroke, was known as Old Arcadia in the original version. It is a pastoral prose romance interspersed with verse. Written in a Hellenistic model, it portrays an idealized version of the Shepherd's life and love story, with a political background. The great popularity of the work even for more than a century after its publication is witnessed as Shakespeare's Gloucester subplot in King Lear was borrowed from it. Even in Hamlet and The Winter's Tale, the influence of Arcadia may also be traced. Other texts that bear considerable influence from Sidney's Arcadia are Samuel Daniel's The Queen's Arcadia, John Day's The Isle of Gulls, Beaumont and Fletcher's Cupid's Revenge, and James Shirley's The Arcadia. After Sidney's Pamela ( the daughter of Basilius, the king of Arcadia) in Arcadia, Samuel Richardson named the heroine of his first novel Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded.
“Certain Sonnets” were a group of Twenty seven poems included in the 1598 edition of The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, among which Sidney's best known sonnet is “Leave me, O love which reachest but to dust”, a repudiation of human love in favour of divine.
Spenser: Spenser emerged in his contemporary literary scenario as a New Poet to mark a new beginning in English poetry, and thus, if Chaucer is called the “Father of English Poetry”, Spenser would certainly claim himself to be the “Second Father”. He was also called “poet's poet”, by Charles Lamb.
The Shepherd's Calendar (1579): An allegorical pastoral unfinished epic poem dedicated to Philip Sidney.This poem marks the influence of Greek poet Theocritus, the Roman poet Virgil and the Italian poet Sannazaro and Baptista Spanuoli, popularly known as Mantuan. This poem consists of twelve pastoral poems or eclogues, one for each month of the year. The poem introduces Colin Clout, a folk character originated by John Skelton, and depicts his life as a shepherd through the twelve months of the year. The poem was published under the pseudonym "Immerito” and was ascribed to an"E.K", an intelligent, very subtle, sometimes wrong, and often deeply ironic commentator, who is sometimes assumed to be an alias of Spenser himself. The October eclogue is said to record first the term sarcasm (Sarcasmus).
The Faerie Queene: In his letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, Spenser stated that The Faerie Queene was supposed to be a ‘courtesy book’ that is a textbook of morals and manners “to fashion a gentleman or a noble person in virtuous discipline” couched in the delightful form of a chivalric romance that allegorizes the socio-political aspects of the time.
Source and Structure: The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: at over 36,000 lines and over 4,000 stanzas, it is one of the longest poems in the English language, having immediate source in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered. In a preface to The Faerie Queene, Speser writes a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh, describing his plans for 24 books:12 based on a different knight to exemplify one of the 12 ‘private virtues’ and possibly 12 more centered on King Arthur to display 12 ‘public virtues’. But he only could complete six books. Spenser names Aristotle as his source for these virtues, though the influences of Thomas Aquinas and the traditions of medieval allegory can be observed as well.
Spenser originated, for this poem, a nine line verse stanza, now known as the Spenserian stanza. The first eight lines are in iambic pentameter and the ninth in iambic hexameter, with the rhyming scheme abab bcbcc.
Publication: Books I–III were first published in 1590, then republished in 1596 together with books IV–VI.
Content : The Faerie Queene tells the stories of several knights, each representing a particular virtue, like Holiness (represented by Red Cross Knight in Book I),Temperance (represented by Sir Guyon in Book II), Chastity (represented by Virgin Britomart), Friendship (represented by Cambel and Telamon, in Book IV), Justice (represented by
Sir Artegall in Book V), and Courtesy (represented by Sir Calidare in Book VI) in their quest for Gloriana, the titular faerie Queene. In addition to the six virtues, the Letter to Raleigh suggests that Arthur represents the virtue of Magnificence, which "according to Aristotle and the rest" is "the perfection of all the rest, and containeth in it them all".The poem celebrates, memorializes, and critiques the House of Tudor of which Elizabeth was a part, much as Virgil's Aeneid celebrates Augustus’ Rome. The world of The Faerie Queene is based on English Arthurian legend.
The Faerie Queene was written during the Reformation time of religious and political controversy. After taking the throne following the death of her half-sister Mary, Elizabeth changed the official religion of the nation to Protestantism. Therefore, as a zealous Protestant, Spenser identifies True Religion with English Protestantism and foes of True Religion with Papacy, and Rome's political allies, especially Mary of Scots.
Allusions : Spenser creates "a network of allusions to events, issues, and particular persons in England and Ireland" including that of Mary, Queen of Scots; the Spanish Armada; the English Reformation, and even Queen Elizabeth herself throughout The Faerie Queene. Both the Faerie Queene and Belphoebe serve as two of the many personifications of Queen Elizabeth as also Una, who is the embodiment of Truth and True Church also represents Queen Elizabeth. Her rival, Queen Mary of Scots, is represented by Duessa, an embodiment of false religion, that is, Catholicism. The holy hermit Archimago stands for hypocrisy and the subtle intrigue of Roman Catholics. Being politically allusive, The Faerie Queene was banned in Scotland and this also led to a significant decrease in Elizabeth's support for the poem.
Influence in Popular Culture: The Netflix series The Crown had references of The Faerie Queene as in season 1 episode 10 was entitled "Gloriana".
Quotes from the poem are also used as epigraphs in Troubled Blood by Robert Galbraith, a pen name of J. K. Rowling.
Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595): Amoretti was first published in 1595 in London by William Ponsonby. It was printed as part of a volume entitled Amoretti and Epithalamion. The volume included the sequence of 89 sonnets, along with a series of short poems called Anacreontics and Epithalamion, a public poetic celebration of marriage. While Amoretti is a sequence of 89 sonnets celebrating Spenser's courtship with Elizabeth Boyle, is modelled on Petrarchan love sonnets and corresponds with the scriptural readings prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, Epithalamion celebrates Spenser's marriage with Elizabeth Boyle.
Complaint containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie: It entered into the Stationer's Register in 1590 and includes following poems:
"The Ruins of Time": an elegiac poem, written in rhyme royal. Structurally, it is borrowed from du Bellay's Antiquities de Rome. It combines the medieval Ubi sunt motif, reflecting the death of Earl of Leicester, Philip Sidney, and Sir Francis Walsingham.
"The Teares of the Muses": Written in the rhyming scheme of ababcc, it is a satirical poem that laments the decay of art.
"Virgil's Gnat", an epyllion attributed to Virgil, written in ottava rima.
"Prosopopoeia, or Mother Hubberds Tale": a satire on contemporary affairs in the form of a beast fable.
"Ruins of Rome: by Bellay"
"Muiopotmos, or the Fate of the Butterfly"
"Visions of the Worlds Vanitie"
"The Visions of Bellay"
"The Visions of Petrarch”
Colin Clouts Come Home Again(1595): It has been called the "greatest pastoral eclogue in the English language”, in Petrarchan tradition. The titular Colin Clout was previously the character named in the title of a poem by John Skelton, written before 1523. This poem of Spenser is an allegorical pastoral based on the subject of Spenser's visit to London in 1591 and is written as a lightly veiled account of the trip. He wrote it after his return home to Ireland later that year. He dedicated the poem to Sir Walter Raleigh.
Astrophel, A Pastorall Elegie vpon the Death of the Most Noble and Valorous Knight, Sir Philip Sidney(1595) : Sourced from Ronsard, Ovid and Bion, this poem is an elegy on the premature death of Sidney, at the battle of Zutphen, rhyming as ababcc. This poem is modelled on Bion's lament for Adonis.
Prothalamion(1596): A wedding poem written to celebrate the double wedding of the daughters of the Earl of Worcester, Lady Elizabeth and Lady Catherine Somerset’s marriage to Henry Guilford and William Petre in 1596.
Four Hymns(1596) : The first two written in honour of Love and of Beauty; the latter two in honour of Heavenly Love and of Heavenly Beauty.
Shakespeare: William Shakespeare's 154 sonnets were included in the volume Shakespeare’s Sonnets, published by Thomas Thorpe in 1609 in a Quarto. These sonnets were followed by the long poem 'A Lover's Complaint', which first appeared in that same volume after the sonnets. Shakespearean sonnet is popularly known as the English sonnet as it deviates from the Petrarchan, and followed the model of Earl of Surrey with a few exceptions.
Structurally, the fourteen lines of Shakespearean sonnets are divided into three quatrains and a concluding couplet; the three quatrains put arguments and counter arguments and the couplet sums up the discussions.often the volta or the mood of the sonnet shifts at the end of the third quatrain. The sonnets were usually composed in iambic pentameter with a rhyming scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.
Thematically, Shakespeare broke away from the Petrarchan tradition of the deification of an unattainable lady love and man's corresponding wretchedness before the onslaught of Time. Instead, his poetic mind fabricated “a dark lady” whose complexion is ‘dun’, her breath "reeks", and she is quite unmajestic in her walks. Whereas the Petrarchan model was eulogizing in tone and presents the lovers in a mould of a Deity- devotee, the dark lady in Shakespearean sonnets, presents an adequate receptor for male desire.
Apart from that, Shakespeare introduced the theme of Friendship ( to a certain point of homoeroticism) along with the Petrarchan themes of Time & Love.
Instead of the beloved, the fair youth and his friendship is held in high esteem. He is portrayed as handsome, self-centered, universally admired and much sought after.
In Petrarchan tradition, nature's permanence is juxtaposed with the transience of human life, love and fortune. But Shakespeare glorified his fair youth for his consistent beauty and virtue pointing out the “ nature's changing course”, i. e, in Shakespearean Sonnet human love and virtue is constant.
Among the 154 sonnets, sonnet no. 1-126 are dedicated to “ a fair youth”, sonnet 127-152 to “ a dark lady” and the final two are allegorical in treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little love-god" Cupid. Among the first 126 sonnets, generally known as Fair Youth sonnets, sonnets 1-17 are called the Procreation Sonnets in which the poet urges the fair friend to marry and beget his children and through them immortalize his beauty as well as his virtues. Even in Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee” , the same thought is probably delivered in the expression “ When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st” , though it may also denote the eternal verse that eternize the fair youth.
In Sonnets 133,134 & 144 a tone of betrayal is put forward as the young man is seduced by the Dark Lady, and they maintain a liaison all of which the poet struggles to abide by. But, It concludes with the poet's own act of betrayal, resulting in his independence from the fair youth in sonnet 152.
"A Lover's Complaint”: Structurally it is composed of 47 seven-line stanzas in rhyme royal written in the model of the two-part poetic form, in which the first part expresses the male point of view, and the second part contrasts or complements the first part with the female's point of view. The first part of the quarto, the 154 sonnets, considers frustrated male desire, and the second part, "A Lover's Complaint", expresses the misery of a woman victimized by male desire. This poem begins with a young woman weeping at the edge of a river, into which she throws torn-up letters, rings, and other tokens of love. When she is approached by an old man who asks the reason for her sorrow, she tells him of a former lover who pursued, seduced, and finally abandoned her. She concludes her story by conceding that she would fall for the young man's false charms again.
Long poems/ Narrative poems of Shakespeare
Venus and Adonis(1593) : Structurally, written in stanzas of six lines of iambic pentameter rhyming ABABCC, this poem is a re-telling of the classical myth: Venus, the goddess of love, falls for a young mortal and tries to woo Adonis and forces a rally of kisses upon him, boasts about her charms yet fails to win.At the end Adonis dies after being attacked by a wild boar. His body melts away leaving behind a flower which then Venus wears in her bosom. Shakespeare interprets the myth comically as well as tragically, for Adonis continually resists Venus's desire. The poem is considered an experiment in delicate eroticism and Andrew Sanders considers that the poem contrasts a passive male sexuality with an active female one. This work was modelled after the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphosis. The poem was dedicated to Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.
The Rape of Lucrece (1594) : This long poem, based on both Ovid's Fasti and Livy's History of Rome, and perhaps Chaucer’s The Legend of Good Women but is more serious, and based on history rather than myth. The story is the rape of Lucretia, wife of Collatinus, by Tarquinius Sextus, son of the Roman king Tarquinius Superbus. Devastated and filled with shame, she tells her father and husband about the rape and asks for vengeance and eventually stabs herself to death. The poem comments on the problems of masculine violence and institutionalized attitudes towards feminine chastity.
The Phoenix and Turtle(1601): It is an allegorical poem about the death of ideal love. It’s an allegory about love. It describes a funeral arranged for a Phoenix and a Turtledove, who have both died. The funeral divides the bird community: some birds are invited but others excluded. The poem concludes with a prayer for the dead lovers.
Marlowe:
Hero and Leander : Hero and Leander , an eight-hundred word narrative poem of Marlowe, is a re-telling of the Greek legend of the same name. This story was narrated by both Ovid and the Byzantine poet Musaeus Grammaticus, both of whom Marlowe read, but fundamentally he sourced from Musaeus. This poem often considered as an epyllion, that is, a "little epic", longer than a lyric or an elegy, but concerned with love rather than with traditional epic subjects, deal with the love story between Hero, a priestess of Venus and Leander, her lover, both of whom live in cities on opposite sides of the Hellespont. This poem of Marlowe was completed by George Chapman. This poem was lampooned by Ben Jonson in his comedy Bartholomew Fair. Shakespeare also quoted from this text in his comedy As You Like It.
Passionate Shepherd to His Love : This poem, which appeared in England's Helicon, begins with the remarkable line, “Come live with me and be my love”.
Samuel Daniel:
Samuel Daniel's sonnet sequence Delia (1592) is dedicated to Lady Pembroke, his neighbour.
The Complaint of Rosamond is a long historical poem (epyllion) about Rosamund Clifford, the mistress of King Henry II. First published in Delia and The Complaint of Rosamond (1592) and in a second revised edition in that same year.
The Civil Wars Between the Houses of Lancaster and York is an epic poem on the series of conflicts that have come to be called "The Wars of the Roses", modeled on Lucan's Pharsalia.
Musophilus, or A Defence of All Learning is a long dialogue in verse between a poet Musophilus, the lover of the muses and a courtier Philocosmus, the lover of the world. First published in The Poetical Essays of Samuel Daniel (1599).
Ulysses and the Siren is a short poem debating the attributes of an active life as compared to a contemplative life. First published in the collection Certain Small Poems (1605).
The Tragedy of Philotas, a verse play combining closet drama with elements of the popular stage. First published in Certain Small Poems (1605).
The Queen's Arcadia(1606), a verse play and a tragicomic romance in the style of Italian pastoral drama.
A Funeral Poem Upon the Death of the Noble Earl of Devonshire ,a valedictory poem upon the death of Charles Blount, Baron Mountjoy, who was created the Earl of Devonshire in 1603 and died in 1606. The poem was published, on its own, in the year of Blount's death. A revised version was included in Certain Small Works (1607).
Michael Drayton :
Drayton’s first work was a verse paraphrase of parts of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, The Harmony of the Church(1591).
His next work Ida, the Shepherd's Garland (1593) was written in pastoral form, consisting of nine eclogues.
His Ideas Mirror is a collection of love sonnets on historical backdrop.
His Endymon and Phoebe is an erotic epyllion.
His historical poems include Matilda (1594) Robert, Duke of Normandy(1596), Mortimeriados (1596).
England’s Historical Epistles, a collection of verse letters by lovers is considered his finest work and earned him the title ‘our English Ovid’ as this was written in imitation of Ovid's Heroides.
His Poly-Olbion(1622), one of the longest poems in English, is a varied topographical and historical celebration of England’s glories.
Thomas Sackville : He is the author of two significant works, “The Mirror of Magistrates” and “Induction”. Both are composed in the rhyme royal stanza, are melancholy and elegiac in spirit and archaic in language. “The Mirror of Magistrates” is a powerful picture of the underworld where the poet describes his meeting with famous English men who had suffered misfortune. “Induction” is written in seven line stanzas (ababbcc) which Chaucer had used with ease and grace.
Important Sonneteers and their collections:
Fulke Greville's Caecila(1638)
Samuel Daniel's Delia(1592)
Henry Constable’s Diana(1592)
Thomas Lodge's Philis(1593)
Barnaby Bernes’ Pethenophe and Perthenophil (1593)
Giles Fletcher’s Licia (1593)
Important collection of poems
Tottel's Miscellany: First published by Richard Tottel in 1557, this was the first printed anthology of English poetry. The first edition of 1557 appeared with Songs and Sonnets of Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyatt and others, consisting of 271 poems, featuring forty poems by Surrey, ninety-six poems by Wyatt, forty poems by Grimald, and ninety-five poems written by unknown authors. Shakespeare uses some of its verses in his plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and Hamlet, also quotted from it in his The Rape of Lucrece.
A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) is a collection by Clement Robinson and Diverse Others, of thirty-two ballads, some are alluded to or sung in plays of the period, such as Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night and Eastward Ho (1605), co-written by Marston, Chapman and Jonson.
A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions was published in 1578, over twenty years after Tottel’s Miscellany. Like Handful, A Gorgeous Gallery is a collection of ballads. It was alluded by Thomas Nashe, writing of Italy in The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) and Thomas Dekker in Satirio-mastix (1602).
The Paradise of Dainty Devices(1576): Paradise of Dainty Devices is the most popular of the Tudor miscellanies, going into at least nine editions over thirty years following its first publication in 1576. The Paradise of Dainty Devices derives from a miscellany compiled by Richard Edwards, poet, dramatist, and music master of the Children of the Chapel. The collection is predominantly of moral poems, philosophical and religious, and therefore, typically given proverbial titles, such as ‘No pleasure without some pain’ and ‘Who minds to bring his ship to happy shore, Must care to know the laws of wisdom lore’.
England's Helicon: This is an anthology of Elizabethan pastoral poems, compiled by John Flaskett, and first published in 1600. Some of the important poetic contributors include Michael Drayton, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, Anthony Munday, George Peele, Walter Raleigh, Henry Constable, William Shakespeare, Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser. This anthology contains the famous poem of Marlowe, 'Come live with me and be my love'.
Poetical Rhapsody: It was compiled by Francis Davison. The volume is dedicated to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. This miscellany honours and extends like England's Helicon, Sidney’s poetic tradition. The collection includes a number of poems by Francis Davison and his brother Walter, which are placed alongside those of Sir Philip Sidney, Mary Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, and so represent the Davison brothers as the poetic heirs and guardians of this literary tradition.
References :
Daiches, David., A Critical History of English Literature, Supernova Publishers, pp. 165-207
Verse Miscellanies Online
http://versemiscellaniesonline.bodleian.ox.ac.uk › ...
England's Helicon (1600) - Verse Miscellanies OOnline
Britannica
https://www.britannica.com › Edmu...
Edmund Spenser | English Poet & Renaissance Figure
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