THE RENAISSANCE (1485-1603)
*The Golden Age of the English Literature
*return to Classical Models
*HUMANISM- concentration on a human word, needs not on a GOD and life after death.
*concentration on Present not future,
*religious movement which spread Christianity all over the Europe.
*Anglican church
POETRY:
a)EPIC POETRY-> Edmund Spenser
- “The Faerie Queen”
*epic allegory
*divided into 6 books
*different allegorical figures appear
representing Christian virtues
*titled Queen-> Elizabeth I
^Book1-> Redcross Knight=Holiness
^Book2->Knight Guyon=Temperance
^Book3->Britoman-> Chastity
^Book4->Triamond&Cambell=Friendship
^Book5->Artegall=Justice
^Book6->Calidore=Courtesy
*many religious symbols
*SPENSERIAN STANZA
b)PASTORAL POETRY->Shakespeare
*mostly about LOVE
*mythology used
^Shakespeare -“Venus and Adonis”
^Christopher Marlowe -“Hero and Leader”
c)SONNET-new in England
*short poem prizing the lady, who was cruel to her lover/admirer
*it consist on 14 lines
*3 kinds:
I. ITALIAN
II.SHAKESPEARIAN(ELIZABETHIAN)
III. SPENSERIAN
^Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard
*brought sonnet from Italy
*they fallowed Petrarch
-“I find no place” Sir Thomas
*presented contrary states: war and peace, having everything and loosing
*the meaning: Love is unrequited, love causes those contrary states
-“Love, that Doth Reign and Live Within My Thought” Henry Howard
*imitation of Petrarch's sonnets
*poet fall in love
*his beloved is unhappy with the way he looks at her
*poet will not leave his love it's better to die, because it will show that his love was eternal
^Sir Philip Sidney-
* he was more orginal
*wrote a collection of sonnets for his bellowed women Penelope
-“Astrophel and Stella”
*First is very clever
*poet wants to please his beloved in original way
*he wants to win her love
*he want to get it by writing a poem in which she will be interested in
*after reading she will know what he feels
*he is angry can't get the idea from other writers
*he is advised to write from the bottom of his heart
^Edmund Spenser
-“Happy ye leaves when as those lily hands”
*love compared to victor, poet=captive
*he wants to please his beloved
*he addresses his verses to her
*he wants to do best because she is an angel, muse
*he is jealous of this papers because they will be touched by his beloved
^William Shakespeare
*composed 151 sonnets which he addressed to his patron- Henry Wriothesley
*there are few about 3 lovers
-Sonnet 18= “Shell I compare thee to a summer's day?”
*sonnet addressed to a man
*starts with comparison of summer day and his friend's beauty
*beauty will not go but nature and plants will day
*the moral poetry is permanent/ immortal
-Sonnet 130 = “My Mistress Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun”
*1st line shows it's not typical,
*woman is not a goodness, not ideal
*poets love is RARE, because she is not like an angel she is natural woman of flesh and bones
*S. rejects the standards of sonnets
-Sonnet 144= “Two lovers I have of Comfort and Despair”
*sonnet of 2 men and woman= trio
*woman- compared to dark angel, dark hair and complexion= Mystery and hot-tempered
*men= good angels
*bad angel wants to take the poet to the hell
*S. doesn't know what the result of Bad angel behavior he needs to wait and see
-Sonnet 146=”Pure soul the centre of my sinful earth”
*Sonnet with moral message
*our attention is directed to the soul not to Trivial goods
*soul=should control sinful body,
*soul is closed in body like in prison, shouldn't be a servant
*is eternal
*body- “fading mansion”
*the body should suffer not the soul
*the soul will be free when the body will die
*Inside-spiritual values, not material goods are important
DRAMA: (golden age in English drama)
#TRAGEDY- came from an ancient Greece and Rome, were inspired by medieval plays, in which the fight between God and Evil is shown.
^Christopher Marlowe-The father of English Tragedies :
*he established BLACK VERSE in tragedies- unrhymed but regular
-“The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus”
*the character is a scholar who strive to get lots of knowledge=power
*to achieve this he signs a Pact with Mephistopheles: his life is longed by 24 years and Mephisto will help him in return, Faustus gives his soul to devil
*F- is a tragic hero- when the end comes he doesn't know he did good or not
*he knows he is sinner
*he can be seen as a great Renaissance hero, one who wanted to reach beyond the limitation of man
-“Tamburlaine the Great”
*historical figure a ruler in the far east
*hero- complex, strong character, ruthless ruler
*on the other hand tender lover
^Thomas Kyd “The Spanish Tragedy”
*introduced some ideas later used by Shakespeare
*plot is complex
*young man Andrea is murdered and his ghost comes to earth for revenge which succeed
*play inside play, staged by the protagonists
*3 ppl are killed in the stage audience taught it's a play
^William Shakespeare as a dramatist
*wrote 36 plays
*used different sources- Ancient- Plutarch etc, contemporary, English dramatists- John Lily
-“Romeo and Juliet”
-“Julius Caesar”- historical figure, S concentrated on the relationship with Brutus
-“Hamlet”- ideas taken from Thomas Kyd, ghost, a play in a play
-“Othello”
-“King Lear”
*most pathetic
*characters presents extremes of good and evil
*king lear and his 3 daughters
-“Macbeth” the shortest
“Anthony and Cleopatra” classical theme, tragic love, n o happy ending
#COMEDY- developed from morality plays- some elements of humor started to rise->
INTERLUDE- a play in which comic elements are more important “The Four p's”, mostly stupid->
COMEDY
^JOHN LILY- from the “University Wits”
*composed HIGH COMEDIES addressed to sophisticated readers
*composed comedies in Prose:
-“Alexander and Compaspe ”
^William Shakespeare- comedies:
-“The Comedy of Errors” the earliest
#FARCE- is a crude kind of comedy, based on silly situations, has a intricate plot
-“The Taminng of the Shrew” farce
*artistically uneven play,
*good humor, comical effects
-“The gentlemen from Verona”
*romantic comedy
*typical comical situations are used: dressing up, unexpected solutions of the action
-“Love's Labour's Lost”
*country comedy, witty,
-“A Midsummer Night's Dream”
*country comedy with some historical elements”
*elements of fantasy and fairy tale
-The Merchant of Venice”
*presents 2 outstanding figures: man and fame
*protagonist is a Jew->Shylock, woman->rich Porcia
^Shakespeare's chronicle history plays:
*connected with English history
*century marked by struggle
*characters presented as typical man of the renaissance
*characters: active energetic, ready to take risk, even to commit crimes to reach aims
*torn by inner conflicts
*admirers of art
*lovers of women
-“Henry VI”
-“Richard III”
PROSE:
^Sir THOMAS MORE-“ Morus”
*politician and lawyer
-“UTOPIA” written in Latin- international language of scholars, later translated
*the idea of it was based on two classical works:”The Republic” and “Mennipus”
*Utopia was presented in very realistic way,
*an island- ideal state, in which citizens enjoy democracy, the authorities are elected, on top there is Prince elected by Senate, perfectly ordered country
*in the island there is no privet property everything belongs to everybody
*people are equal, religious tolerance - very important idea in Contemporary Europe
*Utopians relies on reason, are practical
~The poet knew that ideas of Utopia will be difficult to introduce it in Europe, that's why he titled his work->Utopia-> ou+Topos= place which doesn't exist.
^JOHN LILY-member of University of Wits
-“EUPHEUS” love romance in prose
*2 parts:
1st “The Anatomy of Wit”
2nd “Eupheus and his England”
*plot: involves 3io of lovers (Eupheus, Philautus and Lucilla)
*E is a Greek from Athens, he arrives in Naples where he meets Lucilla, they fall in love
*L. is already engaged to a P.
*It was not a plot what interested readers, it was STYLE:
*Lily introduced his style-> EUPHANISTIC STYLE, some characteristic, stylistic devices:
~3 rhetorical figures- ISOCOLON-phrases equal in length, PARISON-phrases identical in structures, PAROMOION-phrases alike in sound
~3 Kinds of Stylistic Ornaments:
EXEMPLA-taken from the bible illustrate the features of characters, SENTENTIAE-proverbs, SIMILIA-comparison between behavior of protagonists to nature. Lily drew from nature to illustrate the moral attitude of his characters, the result is odd.
*this style was very Artificial, but it played a positive role because it enriched English prose, which still barren in artistic.
^THOMAS NASHE- also member of the “university of Wits”
-“The Unfortunate Traveler or the Life of The Jack Wilton”
#First PICARESQUE STORY in English literature
~the first story of this kind was composed in Spanish= “Lazarillo de Tormesn”
*characteristic features of that kind this kind:
*it's a loosely organized story told by former rascal, who wander through space and social milieu, making his living by his wits, intelligence, cleverness etc.
*A loosely organized story means that such relates adventures without any casual relation. Those adventures connected one with another only because they happen to the same hero from the beginning to the end
*in such stories there is no plot
*hero is usually an ORPHAN and must rely on himself, he must outwit others to survive in a brutal and cruel world
*The hero in Nashe's story= JACK WILTON
*he doesn't know much about place called Touray in the beginning of the story, this place was besieged by English troops
*he is among soldiers and civilians
*he plays tricks on that people
*he returns to England and find a master- Henry Howard- real man one of the renaissance poets
*both go for a trip around Europe= they experience adventures
*in Florence they separate
*Jack's most exiting journey takes place in Rome
THE RENAISSANCE (1485-1603)
1.POETRY:
a)EPIC POETRY
- “The Faerie Queen”
b)PASTORAL POETRY
c)SONNET
-Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard
2.DRAMA:
a)TRAGEDY
Christopher Marlowe
-“The Tragic History of Doctor Faustus”
b)COMEDY
JOHN LILY
3.PROSE:
Sir THOMAS MORE
-“UTOPIA”
JOHN LILY
-“EUPHEUS”
THOMAS NASHE
PICARESQUE STORY:
-“The Unfortunate Traveler or the Life of The Jack Wilton”