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Political and social contexts of the Renaissance in England.
Sixteenth century court culture and court poetry and the Renaissance self-
fashioning.

1.

An overview of the socio-political contexts of the English Renaissance:

England – between the dynastic civil wars (Wars of the Roses, ended in 1485), and the English Civil War
(Charles I beheaded by the decree of the parliament in 1649 followed by a short period of the Protectorate, a
quasi-parliamentary republic) – at first religious and later political conflicts (monarchy vs. the parliament).

a.

the Tudor era: Henry VII (1485-1509, Catholic), Henry VIII (1509-47, earlier fervently

Catholic; in 1534 Act of Supremacy and the beginnings of English Protestantism – the Anglican
church), Edward VI (1547-53, Protestant), Mary I (1553-58, Catholic, "Bloody” Mary);

a.

the Elizabethan era: Elizabeth I (1558-1603, Protestant);

b.

the Stuart era: James I (1603-25), Charles I (1625-49) – conflicted with the Puritans dominant

in the parliament.

2. Political changes and the religious conflicts in Renaissance Europe:

a. Reformation (1517) and Protestantism – new religious movements in Europe. Conflicts between

Catholicism, Protestantism and its emanations (Presbyterianism in Scotland and radical Puritans in
England).

b. Between 1530s and late 1550s: England: fervently Catholic (early H VIII), Protestant (H VIII, E

VI), Catholic (Mary [Bloody Mary]), Protestant (E I) – the impact of these radical changes.

c.

First translation of the Bible into English – William Tyndale (1525-31). Later the 1611 translation
(the so-called King James’ Bible) will set the standard for literary English.

d. Struggle for supremacy in Europe: Spanish colonial supremacy, Catholic France, the religious wars

in the German Empire, papal Rome fighting with the Reformation (Counter-Reformation), the
Ottoman Empire in the East and its conflict with the West.

e.

Further consolidation of the national state. The sense of nationalism strengthened by religious
conflicts.

3. Anthropocentrism and Eurocentrism in the 16th c.:

a.

Changing perspectives on the place of the man in the universe – the Copernican Revolution. More
room for doubting, speculation and experimentation.

b. Increased turn to classical ideas and sources – e.g. in drama the tradition of the so-called revenge

tragedy as derived from the theatre of Seneca. Increased interest with the past (classical and English)
– translations of classical texts , first collections of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.

c.

A new perspective on religion, the questions of cognition, and on the philosophy of science –
beginnings of empiricism and scepticism – Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and his Novum Organum
(1620) – a treatise on logic, propagating the use of inductive reasoning in the pursuit of truth (from
particular evidence to general laws).

d. Geographic discoveries and a different perspective on the world – the beginnings of colonial

expansion.

e.

Early texts presenting new geographical discoveries (e.g. Amadas and Barlowe’s Voyage to Virginia
of 1584 – a Eurocentric perspective, but also a representation of the New World and its inhabitants a
primeval paradise. The myth of a “noble savage”).

4.

Political prose (political fiction): Thomas More (1478-1535) and his Utopia (Latin, 1516; English, 1551)

a.

a lawyer, an intellectual, a civil servant; befriended Erasmus of Rotterdam, assisted Henry VIII with
Defence of the Seven Sacraments (1521, attack on Martin Luther).

b.

Politically engaged: wrote History of King Richard III (1513-18).

c. a man of principles – More as Chancellor to the King was beheaded for not supporting King’s

divorce and break from Rome.

d.

Utopia - within a tradition of texts depicting alternative societies and states, mirrors of reality: Plato,
The Republic, Francis Bacon, New Atlantis (1626), Tommaso Campanella, The City of the Sun

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(1623), Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), Yevgeny
Zamyatin, We (1924), Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932), George Orwell, 1984 (1948),
William Golding, The Lord of the Flies (1954).

e.

Radical social vision in Utopia – comparable to a radical communist system: uniformed clothing,
uniformed society, no property, society as an organism (a utilitarian principle based on usefulness of
every member of the society).

f. Irony and political satire – religious questions, a radical perception of gold and riches, a radical

view on marriages and the equality of women. Not necessarily More’s views - rather a mirror
against which one could look at the then European societies and rulers.

g.

Utopia as formally banned (16th c. political censorship and book burning as common then).

5. Social changes in 16th c. Europe:

a. Urban development and the development of commerce.
b. The printing press (William Caxton in England, 1476) - its use in political and religious

pamphleteering.

c. Further development of theatrical forms – chief urban mass entertainment.

d.

Later unification and cultural standardization of the English language – the role of King James’
Bible, 1611.

e. Self-fashioning and transformation of the upper classes – even greater role of grand courts (royal

and aristocratic) in the promotion and sponsoring the arts, a new social ideal of an elegant and
sophisticated courtier.

f.

Baldassare Castiglione, Il Cortegiano, 1528, (English translation by Thomas Hoby as The Book of
the Courtier in 1561)

g.

a political ideal of an effective if cynical prince (Niccolo Machiavelli, Il Principe, 1532, popular,
though forbidden in Elizabethan England).

6.

Castiglione’s (Hoby’s) The Book of the Courtier and Sprezzatura [nonchalance, effortlessness], a 16thc.
synonym of aristocratic “coolness”: “A certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever
one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.” Also: “a form of
defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a
mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance.”

a. late medieval tradition of courtesy books and manuals of noble behaviour.
b. imitative of Plato (on the ideal republic), Cicero (on the ideal orator),
c. desire for originality, social shining and “standing out” – court fashions changing very quickly.
d. the nature of graceful behaviour, the art of shining in society; studied by lawyers and merchants who

wished to appear well-bred

e. essence of humour; best language to speak and write; the qualities of an ideal court lady, the relation

between the courtier and his prince, the definition of honourable love.

f.

discusses the problem of creative imitation, raises problems (does a courtier need to be of noble
birth? Is his primary occupation warfare?), leaving them deliberately unresolved.

g. 16th c. readers appear to have read the book as a treatise on the art of shining in society.

7. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) and his Defense of Poesie (i.e. all forms of “creative writing” / belles lettres;
i.e. "poesie"/"poetry" = "literature”)

a. a prose essay written in 1580 (probably during the Queen’s temporary displeasure with Sidney) -

methodical examination of the art of poetry (the first work like this to appear in English).

b. It begins with a discussion of the essential nature of poetry, discusses its relation to philosophy and

history and deals with the principles that should be observed in tragedy and comedy.

c. Sidney’s accusation of science (philosophers – false moralists; historians – preoccupied with uncertain

past)

d. Poetry is supreme: leads to perfection, through imagination it incites in people desire to be taught and to

act.

From Sir Philip Sidney’s

Defense of Poesy

(ca. 1580, printed 1595):

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The main argument was to defend poetry (literature/creative writing) against the accusations of scientists,
philosophers and historians.
Sidney claimed that they were accusing it of lying, of proliferating (spreading) falsehood, untrue ideas and
stirring in people dangerous and false emotions (cf. Plato’s Republic and his wish to expel poets from the
ideal state).

Why do we wish to learn and look for knowledge?
On learning: "This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling of judgment, and enlarging of
conceit, which commonly we call learning, under what name soever it come forth or to what immediate
end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate
souls, made worse by their clay lodgings, can be capable of."

Poetry’s (Literature’s) power to inspire people:
[No one is as wise as to compare the philosopher in moving with the poet.] And that moving is of a higher
degree than teaching, it may by this appear, that it is well nigh both the cause and the effect of teaching;
for who will be taught, if he be not moved with desire to be taught?

Poetry (Literature/Stories) leads people to virtue (being better):
Now therein of all sciences … is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but giveth so
sweet a prospect into the way as will entice any man to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey
should lie through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you
may long to pass further. He beginneth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margin with
interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness. But he cometh to you with words set in delightful
proportion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of music; and with a tale,
forsooth, he cometh unto you, with a tale which holdeth children from play, and old men from the
chimney-corner, and, pretending no more, doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue.

8.

16th and early 17th century (up to the Civil War) courts as a social system of the upper classes.
Literature as a political and economic tool:

a. Very practical applications of a seemingly “unpractical” medium: Literature – life (often survival at

court) – art (of survival and of social shining).

b. 16th c. literature as an art of ornate (elaborate) communication – steeped in symbolic meanings.
c. How to reach the top/get to the court? Via an access to the monarch, via family prestige, or via

personal charm.

d. Recipients of royal favour much courted – highly influential (brokering suits of others): benefits for

others as a way of demonstrating/maintaining prestige.

e. Coteries – shifting and overlapping networks of patronages.
f. The sex life at the court and its social role: the system of personal intimacy: some offices granting

special access to the monarch (e.g. the office of the Groom of the Stoole)

g. Personal charm of utmost importance - such relationships invited sexual intimacies and sexual

exploitation.

h. Erotic or sexual undertones in the poetry of the time as parables of the courtly instability.

9. Sonnet as a dominant 16th c. poetic form.

•

Originated in Italy (Petrarch/Francesco Petrarca – the most famous sonneteer): sonneto ‘a little song’;

•

14 lines of 10 syllables in the English sonnet (11 syllables in Italian). The 10 syllables typically are in
iambic pentameter (5 pairs of unsstressed and stressed syllables);

•

Petrarchan sonnet introduced to England by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542);

•

Petrarchan rhyming scheme of a sonnet: a b b a a b b a c d c d c d (the rhymes in the last sic lines could
vary);

•

composed of an octave (8 lines) or two quatrains (4 lines) and a sestet (six lines);

•

Typically a volta (turn) between the octave and the sestet;

•

The English sonnet: Henry Howard Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) introduces a changed rhyming
scheme: a b a b c d c d e f e f g g (the last two lines form a couplet);

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•

Ingenuous conceit (a surprising idea) is going to be used later in the 16th c. and in 17th c. sonnets.

The development of the sonnet in England: the difference between Wyatt’s and Shakespeare’s sonnets (colours
highlight different rhyming schemes).

"My galley charged with forgetfulness…”
Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

My galley charged with

forgetfulness

Through sharp seas in winter nights doth

pass

'Twene rock and rock; and eke mine enemy,

alas

That is my lord, steerth with

cruelness

And every oar a thought in

readiness

As though that death were light in such

a case

;

An endless wind doth tear the sail

apace

Of forced sighs and trusty

fearfulness

A rain of tears, a cloud of dark

disdain

Hath done the wearied cords great

hindrance

Wreathed with error and eke with

ignorance

.

The stars be hid that led me to this

pain

,

Drowned is reason that should me

comfort

,

And I remain despairing of the

port.

Sonnet CXXXVIII
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

When my love swears that she is made of

truth

,

I do believe her, though I know she

lies

,

That she might think me some untutor’d

youth

,

Unlearned in the world’s false

subtleties

.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me

young

,

Although she knows my days are past the

best

,

Simply I credit her false-speaking

tongue

;

On both sides thus is simple truth

suppress’d

.

But wherefore says she not she is

unjust

?

And wherefore say not I that I am

old

?

O, love’s best habit is in seeming

trust

,

And age in love loves not to have years

told

.

Therefore I lie with her, and she with

me

,

And in our faults by lies we flattered

be

.

1594-1609

10. The most noteworthy Tudor and Elizabethan sonneteers/poets:

TUDOR
Sir Thomas WYATT (1503-1542) – individual sonnets published posthumously in Tottel’s
Miscellany/Songs and Sonnets (1557).

Henry HOWARD Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) – the first to use the blank verse (unrhymed verse) in
his translation of Virgil’s Aeneid, translations of Psalms and individual sonnets published posthumously
in Tottel’s Miscellany/Songs and Sonnets (1557).

ELIZABETHAN
Sir Philip SIDNEY (1554-1586) – Astrophil and Stella (108 love sonnets), The Countess of Pembroke
Arcadia (romance in prose presenting pastoral idyll close to nature), translation of Psalms, The Defense
of Poesy (prose treatise defending literature against the accusations of falsity and emotionality).

Edmund SPENSER (1552-1599) – Amoretti (love sonnets dedicated to wife), The Shepherd’s
Calendar (pastoral poem inspired by Virgil, 12 months of the year in the life of Colin Clout as a
shepherd), Epithalamion (another pastoral poem of the type praising the bride, a pre-nuptial poem), The
Faerie Queene (giant allegorical epic poem providing extended apotheosis of Queen Elizabeth, England
and virtues; very complex stanzaic and rhyming schemes).
Spenser is considered one of the greatest English poets.

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