CHAPTER IV THE RENAISSANCE PERIOD (1525 to 1634) FROUDE, J. A. GREEN, J. R. CREIGHTON, M. Historical References History of England. (To be used with caution.) Short History of the English People. Age of Elizabeth. 1879. CREIGHTON, M. Tudors and the Reformation, 1485-1603. RYE, W. B. England as seen by Foreigners in the Days of Elizabeth 1865. and James I. CHURCH, R. W. FROUDE, J. A. FROUDE, J. A. Life of Bacon and Life of Spenser. (E. M. L.) Divorce of Catharine of Aragon. PROTHERO, G. W. (Ed.) Select Statutes and Other Constitutional Documents illustrative of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I. 2d ed. HINDS, A. B. BEESLEY, E. S. Historical The Making of the England of Elizabeth. Queen Elizabeth. 1892. HENRY VIII. died in 1547. The short reigns of his son Edward VI. and his daughter Mary were followed by the long reign of his daughter Elizabeth (1558– Sketch. 1603). The Scotch Stuart, James I., occupied the throne from 1603 to 1625, and his son Charles I. succeeded him. From the literary point of view the culmination of the period lies between the years 1590 and 1610, as Shakespeare's greatest works were produced then. But the preceding years were preparatory, the forces were gathering, and their influence was continued after the death of the preeminent genius who gave them the full est expression. Milton's "Comus" was presented in 1634, and may be regarded as the last great literary production of the age. The later years of the reign of Charles I. may fairly be put in the Puritan age because the Puritan spirit became dominant before the execution of the king and the establishment of the Commonwealth. During this period England became Protestant, and, although historically the working of the Reformation in England seems to have been entirely political and little more than the transference of the authority over the Church machinery from the Pope to the king, it resulted not only in the establishment of ecclesiastical independence, but, by arousing the sense of the individual relation to the Supreme Ruler, it had great power in broadening the scope of intellectual activity and exciting emotional faculties that lie dormant when an official priesthood assumes control of individual conscience. The "New Learning" flourished in the universities, and the establishment of grammar schools increased the opportunities for middleclass education. The multiplication of printed Bibles, and especially the publication of the Authorized Version, made men familiar with the simple yet sublime narrative of the gospels. The destruction of the great Spanish fleet which had so long been preparing to invade England roused patriotism to passionate fervor. Early in this period the monasteries were broken up, and the wealth of the crown and of the great nobles was largely increased by confiscations which in some cases were little better than robbery. The political power of the king, however, was broadened at the expense of that of the nobles. Although there was at times great suffering among the agricultural laborers, far less indeed than they had endured in the latter part of the fourteenth century, the general wealth of the realm doubled during the sixteenth century. The use of glass and of chimneys in the poorer houses became general, and the residences. of the wealthier classes were spacious mansions instead of the castles of feudal times. Agriculture became more productive. The art of shipbuilding was improved, and ships of war were furnished with cannons. Daring maritime expeditions were planned and carried out. In particular Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe and gave a concrete demonstration of the new theory of Copernicus. It is impossible for us to realize the exciting effect of a feat like this, but it is easy to understand that it must have been very great. There seems to have been in England a development of the spirit of the Renaissance and of the Reformation Literary almost simultaneously, so that the literature of Influences. this period is touched at once with a passionate delight in the beautiful and the joyous, and yet evinces a comprehensive and serious view of the world. The spirit of the nation found expression in literary productions full of vigor and of imaginative life. We find among the men of this period,-Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, Drake, Pembroke, Grenville, and many others, a certain similarity to Shakespeare's characters: energy of soul, truthful directness of perception, an overweening interest in life, and a flexibility in assimilating ideas and accepting novel thoughts that is the mark of their time and of no other. Boldness of invention distinguishes some of the literary men like Marlowe as well as the great men of action. The drama rapidly developed from childish pageants into a great art form. A body of lyrical poetry was produced, the freshness and melody of which is delightful. Descriptive, narrative, and reflective poetry was no less copious and hardly less remarkable. It was an age, too, of great translations, in which the spirit of the original was transmuted into English form. Among these are North's Plutarch, Chapman's Homer, and many versions of Italian tales and epics. Translations of the Bible were made, culminating in King James's, or the "Authorized" Version, and the Book of Common Prayer was compiled. The age was fruitful in many ways. We sometimes think that this age is regarded as great because Shakespeare was alive then. He was simply the poet of the age, — a great poet of a great age, but within the dates we have taken, at least fifty other writers, principally dramatists, flourished, all of whom, though in varying degrees, were men of mark, and contributed to give the age its literary character. Behind them lay the great body of Englishmen who constituted "the age" of which its writers are only the exponents or illustrators; from which they draw their incentive to work and their literary inspiration. In the reign of Henry VIII. there lived two young men, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and Thomas Wyatt, lyriSurrey and cal poets who seem like heralds of the ElizaWyatt. bethan age. Surrey, born in 1517, died 1547, was the son of the Duke of Norfolk, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, 1503-1542, the son of Sir Henry Wyatt of Kent, was a man of eminent reputation as a diplomatist and ambassador. These two men are associated as 66 courtly makers," aristocratic poets, and as Puttenham says, "having travelled in Italy, as novices newly crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesey." Surrey and his father were imprisoned in the Tower by Henry VIII. on a charge of treason for having quartered the royal arms as their own on the ground of descent from Edward the Confessor. Surrey, who had indulged in reckless and daring speech, was executed, but the king died before signing the warrant for his father's death. Both Surrey and Wyatt wrote sonnets, and are credited as the introducers of this Italian fourteen-line poem which has become one of the standard forms for amatory and reflective poetry. Wyatt adhered more closely to the Italian model, in which the poem is divided into two parts, the first of eight lines (octave or octette), and the second of six (sextette), and each part makes a grammatical and logical as well as a metrical unit. Surrey modified the Italian form by dividing the poem metrically into three quatrains and a final couplet. This form is commonly known as the Shakespearean, from its use by William Shakespeare in the next generation. Many of Wyatt's sonnets are paraphrases from Petrarch's. Surrey translated parts of the "Eneid" into blank verse, a form also imitated from Italian poetry. The work of both of these men, especially that of Wyatt, is marked by grace, ingenuity, and felicity, and in the love songs of each we catch a note of chivalric gallantry which seems quite modern. The subjoined sonnet by Surrey in the Shakespearean form is strong and simple : : EPITAPH ON HIS SQUIRE THOMAS CLERE Norfolk sprung thee, Lambeth holds thee dead; 1 Wast called. 2 Anne Boleyn. 3 Chose. |