Literary overview

Poetry
Only well –known poetry is the popular or folk-ballad -> narrative song poem.
- Originally sung or recited
- Passed on from generation to generation without being written down
- Popular ballads are anonymous
- The language is simple; lines are repeated
- Only main facts are given; reader can imagine the rest himself
- Ballad-stanza (popular is Sir Patrick Spense)
- Various subjects

Prose
Only Sir Thomas Malory who collected and retold Arthurian legend in his “Morte D’arthur” (2 main elements: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table/ Quest for the Holy Grail) is from importance, first to appear in print. Printed by William Caxton

Drama
Moralities are allegorical plays which teach a moral lesson. “Everyman” (Main character is summoned by Death,all his friends desert him;only Good Deeds is willing to accompany him). Allegorical implies that the work contains a constant metaphor by personification. Interludes are short amusing plays in between other plays.

The Renaissance 1500-1660
Introduction
After the fall of Constantinople many Greek fled to Italy. New impulse to the study of Greek and Roman classical works. In the next 2 centuries, the ideas of the Renaissance spread over Western Europe. It took longer to spread over England, because of its isolated position, but its rapid speeds was secured after the art of printing (1476) The Renaissance is the rebirth of human thinking in the field of art and culture, inspired by the classics (esp. The Greeks)

Differences Middle ages and Renaissance:
Middle Ages <-> Renaissance
- Collectivism - Individualism
- Theocentrism (god in centre of interest) - Anthropocentrism (man in centre op interest)
- Memento mori (remember that you have to die) - Carpe diem (seize the day)
- Literature for the sake of instruction - Literature for its own sake
- Scholasticsm - Humanism (Erasmus/ Sir Thomas More)

The Early Renaissance 1500-1558
History
When Spain tried to attack Britain, Henry VII saw that they needed sea-power and his interest in ships and guns produced a navy that defeated Spain. Also Henry VII wanted a reformed national church within the catholic framework. The Pope would not accept his ideas and also not recognize Henry’s divorce from Catharine of Aragon. Henry made himself Supreme Head of the Church of England (Anglican Church) in 1533, with Thomas More as chief minister, but he was beheaded when he didn’t look upon Henry as head of church. Daughter Mary Tudor succeeded her father, and wanted to destroy all her father’s work.

Poetry
New form of poetry sonnet ->introduced by Sir Thomas Wyatt based on the Italian Petrarch.

It’s mostly about love and has 14 lines, each line being an iambic pentameter. 2 forms:
- Italian sonnet, an octave (2 quatrains) and a sestet (2 tercets)
- Shakespearean or English sonnet, 3 quatrains – clear break – 1 couplet

Blank verse: unrhymed ten syllable iambic (verse foot consisting of 2 syllables, the first unaccented the second accented) lines

Prose
Only important is that of Sir Thomas More with his book ‘Utopia’ (description of ideal life in a non-existing country, divided into 2 parts. 1st part is a satire on the social and polical conditions in egland. 2nd part gives a description of the imaginary country Utopia where the inhabitants have established a state based on social justice) was based on Plato’s ‘Republic’ was originally written in Latin but later translated in English.

Drama
The effect of the renewed interest in classics is very clear in drama. 3 main types:
- Comedy, light and amusing play with a happy ending
- Tragedies, play in which the hero’s suffering and his eventual death are caused by a fault in the hero’s character
- Histories, theme is a historical event

English dramatists began to give more attention to the form of their plays. 2 forms:
- Classical play: rules are laid down by the Greek author Aristotle
1. The play must have 5 acts
2. The play must observe the rule of the unity of time (24 hours)
3. The play must observe the rule of the unity of place (one locations)
4. The play must observe the rule of the unity of action (one main plot)
5. The characters in the play should be unmixed (either comic or tragic)

- Non-classical play:
1. Any number of acts
2. No unities
3. Mixed characters

The Elizabethan Age 1558-1603 (England’s Golden age)
History
England became powerful under the central government of Queen Elizabeth.
- Political and religious order was finally established
- The English made great discoveries and established colonies in many part of the world
- Spain was defeated, beginning of England’s rise as a great nation-> spirit of nationalism
- Private enterprises gone great and the country achieved unknown prosperity
- England changed from a rural oriented country to a city oriented nation
- Queen Elizabeth I encouraged the growth of arts and sciences

Poetry
Edmund Spenser
Masterpiece: “The faerie Queene” narrative poem in six books. It stand for Queen Elizabeth; he also used other contemporaries as characters. In the Fairie Queene he praises his country and his queen and his Protestant religion. The poem is used as a guide towards noble living, also it shows the Renaissance interest in education as a possibility to raise man to a higher level.

Prose
Translation New Testament by Tyndale
Translation Old Testament by Coverdale

3 prose writers; Sir Philip Sydney, John Lyly, Thomas Nashe.

Their work is characterized by idealized views of society, meant to umprove the manners and morals of the court circles.

Their work is characterized by idealized views of society, meant to umprove the manners and morals of the court circles.

Drama
Drama is the most important form of literature in Renaissanc England.

Christopher Marlowe: Scholar-dramatist. “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus”n-classical

Ben Jonson: dramatist, poet and critic. He rebelled against the romantic drama and followed the classical model. His characeters were ordinary people whose features were humorous. “Volpone of the Fox”

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
Life
He didn’t have university education, and married Ann Hathaway when we was 18. They got 3 children. In 1592 he joined a company of actors, The Lords Chamberlain’s Men, and later was part-owner of the Globe Theatre. Shakespeare’s play s are non-classical but do have 5 acts.

Literary career
- 1st period: period of apprenticeship. The comedies are much influenced by Lyly’s artificiality and to show off his knowledge by French and Latin Tags. Examples: Love’s Labour’s Lost, Richard II, Richard III.
- 2nd period: period of the great romantic comedies and historical plays. His characterization and construction has developed. Examples: Romea and Juliet, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry IV, Henry V.
- 3rd period: Period of the great tragedies. Here he confronts us with man’ complete nature; his greatness and weakness. The theme of ‘order vs. chaos’ reoccurs. Examples: Macbeth, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello the Moor of Venice.
- 4th period: period of maturity. Charaxterized by reconciliation (verzoening) and forgiveness. Examples: The Tempest, A Winter’s Tale, Cymbeline.

Sonnets
The first sonnets centre upon a young man, the poet’s friend and patron.

The last deal with ‘The Dark Lady’ shakespeare’s mistress

Next to his plays and sonnets he also wrote some narrative poems: Venus and Adonis

Notes
Sources: old chronicles, legendary tales, translations from Latin works.

To make it impossible for another company to copy the play, the actors had to learn their part by heart and then tore apart the plays. It is unknown is Shakespeare wrote all the plays himself; may be the actors helped. In praise of Shakespeare:
- His universality; he has written tragedies, comedies, historical plays, narrative verse and sonnets
- Profound insight into the psychology of man; his characters are real men and women in whose natures good or evil are blended.
- His characters are so well thought about, that the very language is typical of the character.
- Enormous dramatic tension

The Elizabethan Playhouse
Puritans
Till 1576 plays had been performed in: the great halls of universities, noblemens’t houses, at Queen’s court and in the yards of inns. But in 1576 the first playhouse was built in London. Puritans considered those actors as Sabbath-Breakers and saw the theatres as centers of immorality. Not until the Restoration did any actress appear on the stage, because acting was seen as an improper occupation.

Design
Was inspired by the great halls and the 16th century inns, they were built around a yard so that the guest rooms opening on the balconies looked upon the yard. The better seats were in these galleries around the yard, and the most distinguished visitors sat on the stage itself. The common people stood in the yard, making fun of the players who played the fool.

Stage properties
There was no curtain to conceal the stage nor a painted scenery. On a board the audience found the necessary information. A throne meant a room in a palace. An altar indicated a church. Artificial trees meant a wood. A king in a full armour a battle field.

Performances were only given in summer by daylight, announced by a flag on the roof of the playhouse. Three flourishes of a trumpet indicated the start of a performance.

The Late Renaissance 1603- 1660
History
Political, religious and intellectual struggle in Britain.

Puritans opposed King Charles -> who believed in ‘The Divine Right of Kings’

Tudor idea of absolute government: Kings were responsible only to God and not to any parliament. Puritans demanded Parliamentary Government, and so a clash between the King and Parliament followed -> Civil war.

The Armies of the Puritan General Oliver Cromwell- defeated the royalists and the Cavalier at the Battle of Naseby. The King was beheaded. England became a Commonwealth. The Restoration of 1660 brought King Charles II to the throne.

Puritans believed that real happiness only existed in heaven-> theatres and drinking-houses were closed by the Puritans.

Poetry
Rational thinking began to make its influence in literature.

John Donne’s poetry mixed emotion and logical reasoning. ‘A hymn to God the Father’

John Milton:
- 1st period: L’allegro and Il Pensonro; 2 parallel poems, in which he contrasted a day spent in social pleasure with one spent in study and meditation.
- 2nd period: mainly prose-pamphlets on political and religious matters, and a number of sonnets.
- 3rd period: he composed his greatest poetry Paradise Lost the famous blank verse epic about the fall of Man.

Prose
English translation of the Bible “King James Bible” still used in Anglican churches.

The Restoration Period 1660-1700
History
It starts in 1660 because then Charles II returned from his exile in France as a king, restoring the reign of the Stuarts over England. He introduced the French spirit of frivolity and pleasure. The theatres were reopened. In the 17th century we notice the rise of the Dutch power and the decline of the English, both wanting the command of the sea and total control of the trade-market. The English navy was destroyed during the Second Dutch war.