English Literature of the Elizabethan and Jacobean Age T-1

Syllabus topics (RTMNU)

• The English Renaissance
• The Sonnets and Sonneteers
• The Metaphysical Movement

The English Renaissance

Renaissance means "rebirth". It was the rebirth of interest in the learning of ancient Greece and Rome. It began in Italy in the 14th century and reached England late, in the 16th century. In England it was strongest in the age of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) and continued in the Jacobean age of James I (1603–1625).

Causes

• Fall of Constantinople (1453): Greek scholars fled to Italy with old manuscripts.
• Printing press: William Caxton set up the first press in England in 1476. Books became cheap and common.
• Humanism: scholars like Erasmus, Thomas More and John Colet studied classical texts and put man, not only God, at the centre of thought.
• Geographical discoveries (Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Drake) widened people's imagination.
• Reformation: Henry VIII broke with Rome (1534); people began to think freely about religion.

Main features of the age

• Spirit of adventure and curiosity – "the age of discovery", in land and in the mind.
• National pride and patriotism, especially after the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588).
• Individualism – faith in human power and dignity (see Marlowe's heroes).
• Classical influence – Greek and Latin models, myths and forms.
• Italian influence – the sonnet, pastoral, romance.
• Golden age of drama – Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson; public theatres like the Globe (1599).
• Lyric and sonnet poetry – Wyatt, Surrey, Sidney, Spenser.
• Growth of prose – Bacon's essays, the Authorised Version of the Bible (1611).

The Sonnets and Sonneteers

A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines in iambic pentameter, usually about love. It came from Italy. The Italian master was Petrarch (14th century).

Important sonneteers

• Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) – brought the sonnet to England; translated Petrarch.
• Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c.1517–1547) – created the English (Shakespearean) form; also first used blank verse in English.
• Their poems were printed in Tottel's Miscellany (1557).
• Sir Philip Sidney – Astrophel and Stella (published 1591), the first great English sonnet sequence.
• Edmund Spenser – Amoretti (1595), love sonnets to his future wife.
• William Shakespeare – 154 sonnets (1609), to a "Fair Youth" and a "Dark Lady".

The Metaphysical Movement

The term "metaphysical poets" was used by Dr Samuel Johnson in his Life of Cowley (1779), partly as criticism. The group includes John Donne (leader), George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw and Abraham Cowley.

Features

• Wit and intellect: poetry of the mind as well as the heart.
• Metaphysical conceit: a far-fetched comparison between two very unlike things (e.g. lovers' souls compared to a pair of compasses). Johnson said "heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together".
• Dramatic and conversational openings ("For God's sake hold your tongue, and let me love").
• Use of learning – science, geography, alchemy, theology.
• Argument – the poem often argues like a debate.
• Rough, irregular rhythm instead of smooth music.
• Themes: love (physical and spiritual), death, God and religion.

Likely exam questions

1. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) What is the Renaissance? Discuss its causes and its main features in English literature.
2. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Define the metaphysical movement and explain the chief features of metaphysical poetry with examples.
3. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a short note on the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean sonnet.
4. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a note on Wyatt and Surrey as early sonneteers.
5. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) What is a metaphysical conceit? Give one example.

Syllabus topics (RTMNU)

• Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe

Doctor Faustus – Christopher Marlowe

About the author

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) was the greatest of the "University Wits" and the most important dramatist before Shakespeare. Main plays: Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta, Edward II. Ben Jonson praised his "mighty line" – his powerful blank verse. He was killed in a tavern fight at Deptford in 1593, aged 29.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus was written around 1588–1592. Its source is the German Faustbuch (English translation, "The English Faust Book").

Summary (in our own words)

1. Prologue: The Chorus tells us that Faustus, born of humble parents in Germany, became a famous doctor of divinity at Wittenberg. Swollen with pride, he turned to magic.
2. Rejecting learning: In his study, Faustus rejects logic, medicine, law and divinity as limited. He chooses necromancy (black magic), which promises power and wealth.
3. Good and Evil Angels appear: one asks him to read Scripture, the other urges him on. Valdes and Cornelius teach him magic.
4. The pact: Faustus calls up Mephistophilis. He sells his soul to Lucifer for 24 years of power, with Mephistophilis as his servant. He signs in his own blood; the blood congeals and the words "Homo, fuge" ("Man, fly") appear on his arm – warnings he ignores.
5. Doubts: He thinks of repenting, but Lucifer frightens him and shows him the Seven Deadly Sins as entertainment.
6. Use of power: Instead of great deeds, he plays tricks: he insults the Pope in Rome, conjures Alexander the Great for Emperor Charles V, gives a knight horns, sells a magic horse, and fetches grapes in winter for the Duchess of Vanholt. Comic scenes with Wagner, Robin and Rafe parody his magic.
7. Helen of Troy: Near the end he asks for Helen as his lover and praises her beauty ("Was this the face that launched a thousand ships…"). This joins him more deeply to the devil.
8. The Old Man begs him to repent, but Faustus does not trust in God's mercy.
9. Last hour: In a great final soliloquy he begs time to stop, wishes to hide in the earth or turn into drops of water, and offers to burn his books. At midnight devils carry him to hell. The scholars find his torn limbs. The Chorus warns the audience not to go beyond lawful knowledge.

Themes

• Thirst for unlimited knowledge and power – the Renaissance spirit.
• Sin, damnation and repentance – Faustus can repent till the end, but despair and pride stop him.
• Conflict between medieval and Renaissance values – faith vs. human ambition.
• Misuse of power – great promises, small achievements (tricks and shows).

Faustus as a tragic hero

• A great scholar with a noble mind – he wins our sympathy.
• Tragic flaw: pride and over-reaching ambition (Greek hubris).
• Inner conflict shown through the Good and Evil Angels.
• His fall causes pity and fear (Aristotle's catharsis), especially in the last soliloquy.

Dramatic features

• Mixes the old Morality play (Good/Evil Angels, Seven Deadly Sins, Old Man) with Renaissance tragedy.
• Chorus – in the classical manner.
• Comic scenes parody the main plot.
• Blank verse – Marlowe's "mighty line".

Mephistophilis

He is a sad, honest devil. He openly tells Faustus "Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it" – hell is being separated from God. Yet he serves Lucifer faithfully and keeps Faustus from repenting.

Likely exam questions

1. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Discuss Doctor Faustus as a tragedy of a Renaissance man.
2. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Give the summary of Doctor Faustus and examine the role of the Good and Evil Angels and the Old Man.
3. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a note on the final soliloquy of Faustus.
4. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a character sketch of Mephistophilis.
5. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a note on the comic scenes in Doctor Faustus.

Syllabus topics (RTMNU)

• Henry Howard – Alas So All Things Now (Do Hold Their Peace)
• Thomas Wyatt – They Flee from Me
• Philip Sidney – Loving in Truth and Fain in Verse
• Spenser – One Day I Wrote Her Name
• John Donne – A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
• George Herbert – The Pulley
• Andrew Marvell – To His Coy Mistress

Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) – "Alas! So All Things Now Do Hold Their Peace"

A sonnet adapted from Petrarch. It is night. Heaven, earth, birds, beasts and even the winds and sea are calm and at rest. Only the poet is not at peace. His love brings him both joy and pain, again and again, so his sorrow has no end. Theme: contrast between peaceful nature and the restless lover. Form: English sonnet with a final couplet. Device: contrast (antithesis), catalogue of nature images.

Thomas Wyatt – "They Flee from Me"

A lyric in rhyme royal (7-line stanzas). The speaker remembers women who once came gently to him, like tame wild creatures (deer or birds) taking bread from his hand. Now they "flee" and seek new partners. He remembers one special night when a lady, in a thin gown, kissed him and asked "dear heart, how like you this?" Now she has left him "through my gentleness". He ends bitterly asking what she deserves. Themes: changing fortune in love, betrayal, the unsafe life of the Tudor court. Devices: extended animal image, irony, dramatic memory, rough natural rhythm.

Philip Sidney – "Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse"

This is Sonnet 1 of Astrophel and Stella. The lover wants to show his love in verse so that Stella may read it, pity him and then love him. He studies other poets' books for fine words, but the words do not come; imitation fails. At last his Muse tells him: "Fool, look in thy heart and write." Theme: true poetry comes from sincere feeling, not from copying. Form: written in hexameters (12-syllable lines) – unusual for a sonnet. Device: climax (gradation: pleasure → reading → knowledge → pity → grace).

Edmund Spenser – "One Day I Wrote Her Name upon the Strand"

Amoretti, Sonnet 75. The poet writes his beloved's name on the beach; the waves wash it away. He writes again; the tide again wipes it. The lady says he is vain to try to make a mortal thing immortal; she too will die. The poet answers that her virtues will live in his verse and their names will be written in heaven; their love will live even after death. Theme: poetry gives immortality; love conquers death. Form: Spenserian sonnet (abab bcbc cdcd ee). Devices: dialogue, symbolism (sand and waves = time and death).

John Donne – "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

Written (as Izaak Walton said) for Donne's wife when he went abroad in 1611. The speaker asks his wife not to weep at parting. Good men die so quietly that friends cannot tell the moment; so their parting should be quiet. Ordinary "sublunary" lovers, whose love is only physical, fear separation. Their love is refined and of the mind, so it does not depend on eyes, lips and hands. Their two souls are one; parting only stretches them "like gold to airy thinness beat". If they are two, they are like the two legs of a compass: she is the fixed foot at the centre; he moves around, and her firmness makes his circle perfect and brings him back. Theme: spiritual love is stronger than distance. Devices: famous compass conceit, gold-beating image, argument, 9 quatrains (abab).

George Herbert – "The Pulley"

When God made man, He poured on him all His blessings – strength, beauty, wisdom, honour, pleasure – but kept back one: rest. If man had rest too, he would love the gifts and forget the Giver. So man should keep all the gifts but stay "restless", so that if goodness does not lead him, weariness may "toss him to My breast". Theme: restlessness draws man to God. Title: a pulley lifts a weight upward; restlessness lifts man up to God. Devices: conceit, pun on "rest" (repose / remainder), dramatic monologue of God.

Andrew Marvell – "To His Coy Mistress"

A carpe diem ("seize the day") poem in three parts like an argument:

1. If – If we had endless time, your shyness ("coyness") would be no crime. I would praise you for ages, from the Ganges to the Humber.
2. But – But "Time's wingèd chariot" is hurrying near; in the grave beauty and love end.
3. Therefore – So let us enjoy love now, while we are young; if we cannot stop the sun, we can make him run.

Devices: hyperbole, syllogism (logical argument), irony, personification of Time, octosyllabic couplets.

Likely exam questions

1. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Critically appreciate Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" as a metaphysical poem.
2. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Discuss the theme of love and time in the poems of Spenser and Marvell prescribed for you.
3. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Explain the title of George Herbert's "The Pulley".
4. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) What advice does the Muse give the poet in Sidney's "Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse"?
5. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Write a short note on the theme of Wyatt's "They Flee from Me".

Syllabus topics (RTMNU)

• Essays by Francis Bacon: 1. Of Studies
• 2. Of Revenge
• 3. Of Love
• 4. Of Discourse

Francis Bacon – the essayist

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) – philosopher, lawyer and statesman (Lord Chancellor under James I). He is called the "Father of the English Essay". His Essays came out in 1597 (10 essays), 1612 and 1625 (58 essays). Other works: The Advancement of Learning (1605), Novum Organum (1620).

Features of Bacon's style

• Brevity and compactness – "infinite riches in a little room".
• Aphorisms – short wise sayings that are easy to remember.
• Worldly wisdom / practical outlook – advice on how to succeed in life (utilitarian).
• Use of Latin quotations, classical examples and balanced sentences.
• Impersonal and objective tone, unlike Montaigne's personal essays.

Of Studies

Bacon says studies serve three purposes: "for delight, for ornament, and for ability" – pleasure in private, good conversation, and better judgement in business. Too much study is laziness; using it only for show is affectation. Studies "perfect nature, and are perfected by experience". Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, wise men use them. Read not to argue or to believe blindly, but "to weigh and consider". Famous lines: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man." Each subject cures a defect of the mind: histories make men wise, poets witty, mathematics subtle, logic and rhetoric able to argue.

Of Revenge

Bacon calls revenge "a kind of wild justice"; law should weed it out. By taking revenge a man is equal to his enemy; by forgiving, he is superior – "it is a prince's part to pardon". The past cannot be changed, so wise men think of the present and future. Most wrongs are done out of self-love, so why be angry? The most bearable revenge is for wrongs the law cannot punish. He gives examples from history (Julius Caesar, Pertinax, Henry III of France) and says a man who studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. Public revenges (for the state) are often fortunate; private revenges are not.

Of Love

Love is more suitable for the stage than for real life. On the stage it brings comedies and tragedies; in life it brings mischief. Great men (except Mark Antony and Appius Claudius) kept away from mad love, so love and great work do not go together. Love makes men exaggerate and flatter. It is the child of folly. It enters the mind most when a man is weak – in great prosperity or great misery. Bacon praises nuptial love (married love), which "maketh mankind", and friendly love which "perfecteth" it; but "wanton love corrupteth and embaseth it". Tone: practical, distrustful of romantic passion.

Of Discourse

The essay is about good conversation. Some people want praise for wit rather than for judgement. A good speaker should lead the talk, change the subject when needed and mix serious matter with jest, and asking questions with telling. Avoid jokes on religion, state matters, great persons and anyone's misfortune. Ask questions – you will learn much and please the other person. Do not speak too much of yourself. "Discretion of speech is more than eloquence." Speaking to the point is better than long speech; but too much brevity is also bad.

Likely exam questions

1. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) Discuss Bacon as an essayist with reference to the essays prescribed for you.
2. (Long, Long answer (about 16 marks)) What are Bacon's views on studies and on revenge? Explain with examples from the essays.
3. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Why does Bacon call revenge "a kind of wild justice"?
4. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) What does Bacon say about love in "Of Love"?
5. (Short, Short note (about 4 marks)) Give any four rules of good conversation from "Of Discourse".