Part One Introduction

Transcription

1 Part One Introduction The volume is intended as a guide for students of Renaissance poetry and prose, providing sections of close analysis and contextualisation of notable works. The intention is to introduce students to the specialised terminology appropriate to discussion of the literature of the era and which they are expected to develop during the course of their studies. In particular, rhetorical terms are used where appropriate, but always glossed in the footnotes, to familiarise both the vocabulary and usage. Part Three s Epyllia section pays particular attention to this aspect of Renaissance literary expression. The underpinning framework of the volume is drawn from practical teaching experience and represents many of the established canonical authors of the period encountered on English Literature study programmes. These range in time from the early part of the reign of Henry VIII ( ) through the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart monarchs and the period of the Civil War to the Protectorate ( ). One of the primary intentions of this Companion is to demonstrate the widening parameters of the canon by including work that is sometimes not considered high literature, such as the seventeenthcentury marriage guides discussed in the Life Guides, Mother s Advice and Conduct Books chapter of Part Three and the controversial Woman Debate pamphlets of Part Four. By definition, Renaissance

2 Renaissance Poetry and Prose literary studies are fragmentary, consisting of typical, atypical or innovative examples of a genre and so can seem disconnected and impenetrable to the newcomer. Populist texts, such as the marriage guides, Mother s Advice manuals and explorers records of voyages of discovery, can often provide a grounding insight into the era, patching the gaps, and helping to contextualise the more literary works. In selecting material, a further consideration was that of including female authors wherever possible, to be read alongside their male counterparts. Greater numbers of early modern female authors appear in the scholarly anthologies with each new edition; irrevocable evidence that the parameters of the canon are widening. Aemilia Lanyer is now firmly entrenched and is discussed in the Woman Debate chapter of Part Four, but Anne Locke, Anne Bradstreet, Dorothy Leigh, Elizabeth Joscelin and Rachel Speght, all less familiar authors, are also introduced in this volume. It is hoped that a more balanced impression of the individuals who were involved in literary activities and their motives can be achieved by this approach. Part Two: A Cultural Overview provides a backdrop to the literary texts discussed in detail in the following sections. The central place of the classics in the literature of the day, which can be a challenge to the student reader, is identified here as being linked to humanist educational strategies. Sir Thomas More s influential fictional work, Utopia (1516), is then discussed in Part Three within this context. The gender-specific education of children discussed in the Overview reveals patriarchal attitudes, which are interrogated in Aemila Lanyer s Salve Deus (1611) in Part Three and Rachel Speght s refutation in the Woman Debate chapter of Part Four. The theme of travel and international relations, also introduced in the Overview, are further developed in Part Four s New Worlds. Part Two also outlines the religious strife which characterises the period, to be further illustrated in the Religious Works Locke s Psalm paraphrase is discussed in the Religious Verse chapter of Part Three. Bradstreet s poetry is discussed in the New Worlds chapter of Part Four. Leigh and Joscelin s Mother s Advice Books are discussed in the Life Guides, Mother s Advice and Conduct Books chapter of Part Three. Speght s articulate response is discussed in Part Four s Woman Debate chapter. 2

3 Introduction and Controversy chapter of Part Four and in the examples of religious poetry discussed in Part Three. Detailed discussion of works of poetry and prose under six genres is found in Part Three: Texts, Writers and Contexts. The first chapter provides an outline of amatory verse conventions from the era and Sir Thomas Wyatt s importation of the Italian sonnet form to England during the reign of Henry VIII. The fourteenth-century sonnets of Francesco Petrarch which Wyatt introduced to the court had a widereaching influence on European Renaissance love poetry generally. The chapter moves on to illustrate the trajectory of imitation, adaptation and innovation in the sonnets of Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney and, finally, Shakespeare. Despite their originality and concerted efforts to seem so the poems of the later sonneteers nonetheless demonstrate their debt to the inherited Petrarchan conventions, whether this is acknowledged or parodied. Three Elizabethan epyllia are discussed in the following chapter. The form has a close relationship with the sonnet, often parodying the, by this time, tired Italian conventions. The epyllion is sometimes termed minor epic or erotic verse narrative and was often used by aspiring young poets to demonstrate their classical knowledge and literary skills. The wit, humour and risqué content, with occasional homo-erotic allusion, were particularly appealing to urbane university-educated men, who are generally considered its target audience. If the sonnet owes a debt to Petrarch, the epyllion s main benefactor was the Roman poet, Ovid (43B.C. 17A.D.). His Metamorphoses provided over two hundred classical myths, all of which described transformations arising from the complications of love. The work offered Renaissance authors a rich source of inspiration, but his Amores (Loves or Passions) provided stimulation of a more erotic nature, evident in most Elizabethan epyllia. Thomas Lodge s Scylla s Metamorphosis (1589) is based on the myth of Scylla from the Metamorphoses, revealing her punishment by the gods for refusing the love of Glaucus. Shakespeare s Venus and Adonis (1593) offers the most humour of the three epyllia discussed, in its raucous depictions of Venus, the goddess of love, and her determination to seduce the innocent and uninterested youth Adonis. Marlowe s Hero and Leander (published

4 4 Renaissance Poetry and Prose 1598) takes as its source a tragic Greek myth of lovers parted by a dangerous stretch of water. Marlowe s narratorial presence creates much of the humour through asides and comments on the protagonists naivety. An uncomprehending Leander, for example, is pursued by the god Neptune in a sensuous homo-erotic encounter and, although determined to bed Hero, he is not sure what is to be done once they arrive there. The following chapter, Pastoral to Epic, introduces the classical theories of literary hierarchy which were adopted in the era. This socalled Virgilian path traces a poet s development from the humble pastoral to the elevated form of the epic. Spenser s Shepheard s Calendar (1579) combines both classical Arcadian epic features, such as the praise of rustic activities, with the Mantuan moral influence of the fifteenth century. In the early twentieth century, Marvell s Garden poems were often regarded as Nature poems in praise of rustic retreat, but reveal similarly austere undercurrents. Spenser s impressive epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590 6), despite its misleading title, is a consciously patriotic endeavour, which deals with serious political and religious issues allegorically. It is modelled on the Arthurian chivalrous romance and is an interesting read on this level. Its elaborate and intertwined plots introduce a range of colourful characters and gripping adventures. The extensive dramatis personae include battling knights in dastardly plots, an evil enchanter, an evaporating giant, a monster which is half serpent and half woman and a powerful dragon. The final text discussed in this chapter is Milton s powerful and more sombre Paradise Lost (1667, 1674). His patriotic intention was to create a great work of literature for the glorification of the nation, with the pious aim of justify[ing] the ways of God to man. The work takes as its theme the biblical account of the creation of mankind and its fall from Eden. Despite this religious endeavour, however, the impressive revolt of Lucifer and, in particular, the engaging character of Satan, led William Blake to declare that Milton was unwittingly of the Devil s camp. Religious works, whether translations or paraphrases, were often the vehicles which enabled Renaissance women to enter into print. Paradise Lost originally appeared in 1667 as ten books. Milton introduced new material and reorganised these to create a twelve-book epic in the classical format in 1674.

5 Introduction Although both female writers discussed in the chapter on Religious Verse published Psalm paraphrases, their motivation and circumstances were markedly different. Anne Locke was from an affluent merchant background and wrote her Meditation on Psalm 51 during her time spent as a religious exile during the reign of the Catholic Mary I (1553 8). A penitential sequence marked by its extreme Calvinism, it was published within a volume of sermon translations. By contrast, the Countess of Pembroke s metrical Psalms, written during Elizabeth I s reign and established state Protestantism, are overtly elaborate and literary. While Locke intended to provide a pious framework for an austere programme of self-reckoning, Mary Sidney Herbert s Psalms were admired by esteemed contemporary poets for their extraordinary control and dexterity. George Herbert s religious poetry demonstrates a similar interest in elaborate form and experimentation, while John Donne s devotional sonnets unite many aspects of the work of the writers discussed earlier in this chapter. His abstract concepts and metaphysical conceits reveal an acute intellect interest in poetic expression, particularly the impossibility of capturing thought and emotion in language. The intense personal struggle of the individual with his own religious uncertainty echoes the frantic despair of the speaker of Anne Locke s Meditation. The following chapter is concerned with humanist prose and rhetoric. Humanism was the catalyst which enabled the great literary works now considered representative of the era. Humanist scholars rediscovered and re-translated lost classical works, encouraging their intensive study in extensive educational programmes. The modes of linguistic study and habits of thought it engendered moulded the minds of generations, creating a shared repository of classical knowledge. Sir Thomas More was the most prominent of the early English humanists, and his fictional commonwealth, Utopia, is in the classical tradition in its reflection on ideal systems of government. The intense humanist interest in expression and the power of language is exemplified in the various published Defences of poetry, grammars and dictionaries, and especially the self- The term humanism was originally associated with the formal university study of the humanities. See Part Two: A Cultural Overview for further discussion. 5

6 6 Renaissance Poetry and Prose help manuals of writing skills and oration. Sidney s Defence of Poesy (pub. 1595) explores the role of the poet and poetry in society, basing its argument on biblical and classical examples. Thomas Wilson s Arte of Rhetorique (1553) and George Puttenham s The Arte of English Poesie (1589) serve an egalitarian aim as handbooks of practical assistance, but are also nationalistic works which aim to promote the creation of high literature in the vernacular tongue. The final chapter of Part Three is concerned with the genre known generally as Conduct Books. These were handbooks to guide the reader through most aspects of life; spiritual, moral, medical, social and commercial. Their popularity can be attributed to a number of converging factors, including a rapidly changing society, lack of traditional support through familial fragmentation due to migration to the cities, a more literate populace and the wider availability of cheap printed books. Sir Thomas Hoby s The Book of the Courtier (1561) was a translation of an earlier Italian work considered to be the definitive guide to the profession. William Whately s A Bride-Bush (1617) and William Gouge s Of Domesticall Duties (1622) are both concerned with household governance, but are effectively marriage guides written from an extremely patriarchal perspective, while Mother s Advice Books were intended to provide maternal guidance in the event of the mother s death. Dorothy Leigh s Mother s Blessing (1616), for example, was written for her two young sons, although it was published to popular acclaim. Elizabeth Joscelin s A Mother s Legacy to her unborne childe (1624) has a more poignant provenance in that it was written secretly by a young woman convinced that she would die in childbirth. It was discovered by her husband upon her death, occurring nine days after the birth of her first child. The four areas considered in Part Four: Critical Theories and Debates are central to an understanding of the Renaissance world view and inform the close analysis of the texts which appear in the previous section. The first chapter discusses perceptions of and the tensions between the city, court and country. Although city life, especially life at court, was uniformly considered to be hazardous to moral, physical and spiritual health, to those who aspired to self-advancement it was a

7 Introduction magnet representing ease, wealth and recognition. By contrast, in literary works and the popular imagination the country was often idealised; associated with the simple life, honest work and absence of corruption. This ideological dichotomy was foregrounded as divisions appeared between supporters of the king and parliament in the seventeenth century, antipathies and divergent loyalties eventually escalating into wholescale conflict with the onset of the Civil War. The Woman Debate chapter discusses cultural representation of women s perceived inferiority from their classical and biblical origins to the implications for women s everyday lives. Defences of women and the infamous querelle des femmes pamphlets are discussed, including Aemilia Lanyer s proto-feminist Salve Deus (1611), Joseph Swetnam s uncompromising Arraignment of Lewde, idle, forward, and unconstant women (1615) and Rachel Speght s polemical response, A Mouzell for Melastomus of Despite their articulate arguments and protofeminist intentions, however, the female-authored responses are perhaps unsurprisingly predicated on the same values as those of their male contemporaries, demonstrating the power of the prevailing ideology. The third chapter in this section considers some of the implications of Renaissance exploration and expansionist policies, whether on the literary imagination or in terms of colonisation and trade in newly discovered assets. The accounts of discoveries recorded in navigators journals included sensational lands and inhabitants, such as the Blemmyae, supposed inhabitants of Guyana, who managed without heads and wore their features on their torsos. Behind the hazardous voyages, into literally uncharted oceans, was the intention to claim land for monarch and nation, the hope of saving heathen souls for a Christian God, and dreams of unimaginable wealth. The final chapter of Part Four traces some of the most significant reforms and religious controversies of the era. Martin Luther s call for an end to corruptive practices within the Catholic Church is identified as the catalyst from which the Protestant Church eventually developed. Calls for reform percolated throughout Europe, including England, French: literally Quarrel about Women but more appropriately, Woman Debate. Arraignment: Trial. 7

8 Renaissance Poetry and Prose generating heated and complex theological debate. This chapter traces the course of English state religion from Henry VIII s establishment of the Church of England, through the various permutations of Protestantism and the brief re-establishment of Catholicism during the reign of Mary I (1553 8). Part Five introduces a chronology of important literary and cultural events, ranging from Columbus s 1492 voyage to the New World through to the death of Andrew Marvell in Including all of the texts discussed in the volume, it is intended to illustrate their historical and cultural contexts, providing useful cross-references. The Further Reading section revisits some texts referenced in the various chapters and introduces further works, providing helpful annotations. There are also some URLs of reputable electronic resources, such as the Spenser Home Page, which is based at the University of Cambridge, and hosts the Spenser Journal and the Spenser Society. Throughout the volume there are also references to Early English Books Online. This valuable resource is an electronic database to which organisations such as universities and colleges subscribe on behalf of their students. It enables users to search for and read original publications from the era, including any illustrations, preliminary letters, introductions or disclaimers, and is an important resource for students of this fascinatingly rich era of English literature. June Waudby 8