The Anglo-Saxon Period the earliest time 1. Chapter II. The Medieval Period th century 1. Social background: the Norman conquest under William, Duke of Normandy, the battle of Hastings in ; the mark of establishment of feudalism 2.
For example, ideas of patience, purity, and truth are symbolized by the persons who are characters in the story. Of paramount importance are the ballads of Robin Hood. The romances had nothing to do with the common people.
They were composed for the noble, of the noble, and in most cases by the poets patronized by the noble. The romance of King Arthur is comparatively the more important for the history of English literature. Chapter III. English Renaissance 15th and 16th century 1. Two features are striking of this movement: thirsting curiosity for the classical literature and the keen interest in the activities of humanity.
He was not of an age, but for all time! Chapter IV. The Period of Revolution and Restoration the 17th century 1. The Period of Enlightenment and Classicism the 18th century 1.
Social background: the age of Enlightenment or the age of Reason, a progressive intellectual movement, to enlighten the whole world with the light of modern philosophical and artistic idea, to celebrate reason, equality and science, call for a reference to order, reason and rules. Another striking characteristic of medieval literature is its general anonymity.
Of the many who wrote the names of but few are recorded, and of the history of these few we have only the most meagre details.
It was because originality was deplored as a fault, and independence of treatment was a heinous offence in their eyes. No literary productions of the Middle Ages are so characteristic, none so perennially attractive as those that treat romantically of heroes and heroines of by-gone days.
These romances are notable for their stories rather than their poetry, and they, like the drama afterwards, furnished the chief mental recreation of time for the great body of the people.
These romances were mostly borrowed from Latin and French sources. From the growth and development of the Bible story, scene by scene, carried to its logical conclusion, this drama— developed to an enormous cycle of sacred history, beginning with the creation of man, his fall and banishment from the Garden of Eden and extending through the more important matters of the Old Testament and life of Christ in the New to the summoning of the quick and the dead on the day of final judgment.
This kind of drama is called the miracle play—sometimes less correctly the mystery play—and it flourished throughout England from the reign of Henry II to that of Elizabeth Another form of drama which flourished during the Middle Ages was the Morality plays.
In these plays the uniform theme is the struggle between the powers of good and evil for the mastery of the soul of man. The personages were abstract virtues, or vices, each acting and speaking in accordance with his name; and the plot was built upon their contrasts and influences on human nature, with the intent to teach right living and uphold religion.
In a word, allegory is the distinguishing mark of the moral plays. In spite of its archaic style, it is a classic work in English literature. This poem, which is a satire on the corrupt religious practices, throws light on the ethical problems of the day. The character assumed by Langland is that of the prophet, denouncing the sins of society and encouraging men to aspire to a higher life. He represents the dissatisfaction of the lower and the more thinking classes of English society, as Chaucer represents the content of the aristocracy and the prosperous middle class.
Although Langland is essentially a satiric poet, he has decided views on political and social questions. The feudal system is his ideal; he desires no change in the institution of his days, and he thinks that all would be well if the different orders of society would do their duty.
Like Dante and Bunyan, he ennobles his satire by arraying it in a garb of allegory; and he is intensely real. Gower represents the English culmination of that courtly medieval poetry which had its rise in France two or three hundred years before.
He is a great stylist, and he proved that English might compete with the other languages which had most distinguished themselves in poetry. Gower is mainly a narrative poet and his most important work is Confession Amantis, which is in the form of conversation between the poet and a divine interpreter.
It is an encyclopaedia of the art of love, and satirises the vanities of the current time. Throughout the collection of stories which forms the major portion of Confession Amantis, Gower presents himself as a moralist.
Though Gower was inferior to Chaucer, it is sufficient that they were certainly fellow pioneers, fellow schoolmasters, in the task of bringing England to literature. Up to their time, the literary production of England had been exceedingly rudimentary and limited. Gower, like Chaucer, performed the function of establishing the form of English as a thoroughly equipped medium of literature.
Chaucer, in fact, made a fresh beginning in English literature. He disregarded altogether the old English tradition. His education as a poet was two-fold. Part of it came from French and Italian literatures, but part of it came from life.
He was not a mere bookman, nor was he in the least a visionary. Like Shakespeare and Milton, he was, on the contrary, a man of the world and of affairs. The most famous and characteristic work of Chaucer is the Canterbury Tales, which is a collection of stories related by the pilgrims on their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury.
The Canterbury Tales is a landmark in the history of English poetry because here Chaucer enriched the English language and metre to such an extent, that now it could be conveniently used for any purpose. Also, by drawing finished and various portraits in verse, he showed the way to the novelists to portray characters. During the first period he imitated French models, particularly the famous and very long poem Le Roman de la Rose of which he made a translation—Romaunt of the Rose.
During this period he also wrote the Book of the Duchess, an elegy, which in its form and nature is like the Romaunt of the Rose; Complaint unto Pity, a shorter poem and ABC, a series of stanzas religious in tone, in which each opens with a letter of the alphabet in order.
In this period he wrote The Parliament of Fowls, which contains very dramatic and satiric dialogues between the assembled birds; Troilus and Criseyde, which narrates the story of the Trojan prince Troilus and his love for a damsel, Creseida; The Story of Griselda, in which is given a pitiful picture of womanhood; and The House of Fame, which is a masterpiece of comic fantasy, with a graver undertone of contemplation of human folly.
In the Legend of Good Woman he employed for the first time the heroic couplet. It was during this period that he wrote The Canterbury Tales, his greatest poetic achievement, which places us in the heart of London. He thus brought back the old classical principle of the direct imitation of nature. The years from to the Renaissance were a period bereft of literature. There were only a few minor poets, the imitators and successors of Chaucer, who are called the English and Scottish Chaucerians who wrote during this period.
The main cause of the decline of literature during this period was that no writer of genius was born during those long years.
They all did little but copy him, and they represent on era of mediocrity in English literature that continues up to the time of the Renaissance. The middle Ages in Europe were followed by the Renaissance. Renaissance means the Revival of Learning, and it denotes in its broadest sense the gradual enlightenment of the human mind after the darkness of the Middle Ages. With the fall of Constantinople in A. The discovery of these classical models resulted in the Revival of Learning in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The flood of Greek literature which the new art of printing carried swiftly to every school in Europe revealed a new world of poetry and philosophy. Along with the Revival of Learning, new discoveries took place in several other fields. Books were printed, and philosophy, science, and art were systematised. The Middle Ages were past, and the old world had become new. Scholars flocked to the universities, as adventurers to the new world of America, and there the old authority received a death blow.
Truth only was authority; to search for truth everywhere, as men sought for new lands and gold and the Fountain of Youth—that was the new spirit, which awoke in Europe with the Revival of Learning. This movement was started in Italy by Dante, Petrarch and Baccaccio in the fourteenth century, and from there it spread to other countries of Europe. In England it became popular during the Elizabethan period. The first in importance was the rediscovery of classical antiquity, and particularly of ancient Greece.
During the medieval period, the tradition-bound Europe had forgotten the liberal tone of old Greek world and its spirit of democracy and human dignity. With the revival of interest in Greek Classical Antiquity, the new spirit of Humanism made its impact on the Western world.
Sir Philip Sidney in his Defence of Poesie accepted and advocated the critical rules of the ancient Greeks. The second important aspect of Humanism was the discovery of the external universe, and its significance for man. But more important than this was that the writers directed their gaze inward, and became deeply interested in the problems of human personality. In the medieval morality plays, the characters are mostly personifications: Friendship, Charity, Sloth, Wickedness and the like.
But now during the Elizabethan period, under the influence of Humanism, the emphasis was laid on the qualities which distinguish one human being from another, and give an individuality and uniqueness. This tendency led to the rise of a new literary form—the Essay, which was used successfully by Bacon. In drama Marlowe probed down into the deep recesses of the human passion. His heroes, Tamburlaine, Dr. Faustus and Barabas, the Jew of Malta, are possessed of uncontrolled ambitions.
Shakespeare, a more consummate artist, carried Humanism to perfection. His genius, fed by the spirit of the Renaissance, enabled him to see life whole, and to present it in all its aspects.
It was this new interest in human personality, the passion for life, which was responsible for the exquisite lyrical poetry of the Elizabethan Age, dealing with the problems of death, decay, transitoriness of life etc. Another aspect of Humanism was the enhanced sensitiveness to formal beauty, and the cultivation of the aesthetic sense. It showed itself in a new ideal of social conduct, that of the courtier. An Italian diplomat and man of letters, Castiglione, wrote a treatise entitled Il Cortigiano The Courtier where he sketched the pattern of gentlemanly behaviour and manners upon which the conduct of such men as Sir Phillip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh was modelled.
This cult of elegance in prose writing produced the ornate style called Euphuism by Lyly. Though it suffered from exaggeration and pedantry, yet it introduced order and balance in English prose, and gave it pithiness and harmony. Another aspect of Humanism was that men came to be regarded as responsible for their own actions, as Casius says to Brutus in Julius Caesar: The Fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Instead of looking up to some higher authority, as was done in The Middle Ages, during the Renaissance Period guidance was to be found from within. Lyly wrote his romance of Euphues not merely as an exercise in a new kind of prose, but with the serious purpose of inculcating righteousness of living, based on self-control.
Though we do not look for direct moral teaching in Shakespeare, nevertheless, we find underlying his work the same profoundly moral attitude. One of the results of the humanist teaching in the schools and universities had been a great development of the study of Latin drama and the growth of the practice of acting Latin plays by Terence, Plautus and Seneca, and also of contemporary works both in Latin and in English.
These performances were the work of amateur actors, school boys or students of the Universities and the Inns of Court, and were often given in honour of the visits of royal persons or ambassadors. Their significance lies in the fact that they brought the educated classes into touch with a much more highly developed kind of drama, than the older English play.
About the middle of the sixteenth century some academic writers made attempts to write original plays in English on the Latin model. All these plays are monotonous and do not possess much literary merit. Of this little constellations, Marlowe was the central sun, and round him revolved as minor stars, Lyly, Greene, Peele, Lodge and Nash. Lyly The author of Euphues, wrote a number of plays, the best known of them are Compaspe , Sapho and Phao , Endymion , and Midas , These plays are mythological and pastoral and are nearer to the Masque court spectacles intended to satisfy the love of glitter and novelty rather than to the narrative drama of Marlowe.
They are written in prose intermingled with verse. Though the verse is simple and charming prose is marred by exaggeration, a characteristic of Euphuism. George Peele ? Formed, along with Marlowe, Greene and Nash, one of that band of dissolute young men endeavouring to earn a livelihood by literary work. He was an actor as well as writer of plays. He wrote some half dozen plays, which are richer in beauty than any of his group except Marlowe.
The Arraignment of Paris, which contains an elaborate eulogy of Queen Elizabeth, is really a court play of the Masque order. David and Bathsheba contains many beautiful lines. Like Marlowe, Peele was responsible for giving the blank verse musical quality, which later attained perfection in the deft hands of Shakespeare.
Thomas Kyd Achieved great popularity with his first work, The Spanish Tragedy, which was translated in many European languages.
Though he is always violent and extravagant, yet he was responsible for breaking away from the lifeless monotony of Gorboduc. Robert Greene He lived a most dissolute life, and died in distress and debt. His most effective play is Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, which deals partly with the tricks of the Friar, and partly with a simple love story between two men with one maid. Its variety of interest and comic, relief and to the entertainment of the audience.
Greene also achieves distinction by the vigorous humanity of his characterisation. Christopher Marlowe The dramatic work of Lodge and Nash is not of much importance. Of all the members of the group Marlowe is the greatest. Tamburlain was succeeded by The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, in which Marlowe gave an old medieval legend a romantic setting.
The story of the scholar who sells his soul to the Devil for worldly enjoyment and unlimited power, is presented in a most fascinating manner. The Jew of Malta, the third tragedy of Marlowe, is not so fine as Doctor Faustus, though it has a glorious opening. His last play, Edward II, is his best from the technical point of view. Though it lacks the force and rhythmic beauty of the earlier plays, it is superior to them on account of its rare skill of construction and admirable characterisation.
He raised the subject-matter of drama to a higher level. He introduced heroes who were men of great strength and vitality, possessing the Renaissance characteristic of insatiable spirit of adventure. He gave life and reality to the characters, and introduced passion on the stage.
He made the blank verse supple and flexible to suit the drama, and thus made the work of Shakespeare in this respect easy. He gave coherence and unity to the drama, which it was formerly lacking. He also gave beauty and dignity and poetic glow to the drama. In fact, he did the pioneering work on which Shakespeare built the grand edifice. As we do not know much about his life, and it is certain that he did not have proper training and education as other dramatists of the period had, his stupendous achievements are an enigma to all scholars up to the present day.
It is still a mystery how a country boy, poor and uneducated, who came to London in search of odd jobs to scrape a living, could reach such heights in dramatic literature. Endowed with a marvellous imaginative and creative mind, he could put new life into old familiar stories and make them glow with deepest thoughts and tenderest feelings.
There is no doubt that Shakespeare was a highly gifted person, but without proper training he could not have scaled such heights. In spite of the meagre material we have got about his life, we can surmise that he must have undergone proper training first as an actor, second as a reviser of old plays, and the last as an independent dramatist.
He worked with other dramatists and learned the secrets of their trade. He must have studied deeply and observed minutely the people he came in contact with.
His dramatic output must, therefore, have been the result of his natural genius as well as of hard work and industry. Besides non—dramatic poetry consisting of two narrative poems, Venice and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and sonnets, Shakespeare wrote 37 plays.
His work as a dramatist extended over some 24 years, beginning about and ending about This work is generally divided into four periods. They show the maturity of his mind and art. This is his peak period characterised by the highest development of his thought and expression. He is more concerned with the darker side of human experience and its destructive passions.
Even in comedies, the tone is grave and there is a greater emphasis on evil. Here the clouds seem to have been lifted and Shakespeare is in a changed mood. Though the tragic passions still play their part as in the third period, the evil is now controlled and conquered by good. The tone of the plays is gracious and tender, and there is a decline in the power of expression and thought. The plays of Shakespeare are so full of contradictory thoughts expressed so convincingly in different contexts, that it is not possible to formulate a system of philosophy out of them.
His style and versification are of the highest order. He was not only the greatest dramatist of the age, but also the first poet of the day, and one of the greatest of all times.
His plays are full of a large number of exquisite songs, and his sonnets glowing with passion and sensitiveness to beauty reach the high water mark of poetic excellence in English literature.
In his plays there is a fine commingling of dramatic and lyric elements. Words and images seem to flow from his brain spontaneously and they are clothed in a style which can be called perfect.
Though Shakespeare belonged to the Elizabethan Age, on account of his universality he belongs to all times. Even after the lapse of three centuries his importance, instead of decreasing, has considerably increased. Every time we read him, we become more conscious of his greatness, like the charm of Cleopatra, Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale Her infinite variety. His plays and poetry are like a great river of life and beauty. Ben Jonson Ben Jonson a contemporary of Shakespeare, and a prominent dramatist of his times, was just the opposite of Shakespeare.
Jonson was a classicist, a moralist, and a reformer of drama. In his comedies he tried to present the true picture of the contemporary society. Unlike Shakespeare who remained hidden behind his works, Jonson impressed upon the audience the excellence of his works and the object of his plays. Jonson was mainly a writer of comedies, and of these the four which attained outstanding success are Volpone; The Silent Woman; The Alchemist; and Bartholomew Fair.
The Alchemist, which is the most perfect in structure, is also the most brilliant realistic Elizabethan comedy. Volpone is a satirical study of avarice on the heroic scale. The Silent Woman, which is written in a lighter mood, approaches the comedy of manners. Ben Jonson wrote two tragic plays. Sejanus and Cataline on the classical model, but they were not successful.
Ben Jonson was a profound classical scholar who wanted to reform the Elizabethan drama, and introduce form and method in it. He resolved to fight against cheap romantic effects, and limit his art within the bounds of reason and common sense. He was an intellectual and satirical writer unlike Shakespeare who was imaginative and sympathetic.
In this way he created a new type of comedy having its own methods, scope and purpose. Though he drew his principles from the ancients, he depicted the contemporary life in his plays in a most realistic manner. In this way Jonson broke from the Romantic tendency of Elizabethan drama.
Poetry in the Renaissance period took a new trend. It was the poetry of the new age of discovery, enthusiasm and excitement. Under the impact of the Renaissance, the people of England were infused with freshness and vigour, and these qualities are clearly reflected in poetry of that age. This book which contained the verse of SirThomas Wyatt ? Wyatt and Surrey wrote a number of songs, especially sonnets which adhered to the Petrarcan model, and which was later adopted by Shakespeare.
They also attempted the blank verse which was improved upon by Marlowe and then perfected by Shakespeare. They also experimented a great variety of metres which influenced Spenser.
Thus Wyatt and Surrey stand in the same relation to the glory of Elizabethan poetry dominated by Spenser and Shakespeare, as Thomson and Collins do to Romantic poetry dominated by Wordsworth and Shelley.
Another original writer belonging to the early Elizabethan group of poets who were mostly courtiers, was Thomas Sackville In his Mirror for Magistrates he has given a powerful picture of the underworld where the poet describes his meetings with some famous Englishmen who had been the victims of misfortunes.
Sackville, unlike Wyatt and Surrey, is not a cheerful writer, but he is superior to them in poetic technique. The greatest of these early Elizabethan poets was Sir Philip Sidney He was a many- sided person and a versatile genius—soldier, courtier and poet—and distinguished himself in all these capacities.
Like Dr. Johnson and Byron he stood in symbolic relation to his times. He may be called the ideal Elizabethan, representing in himself the great qualities of that great age in English history and literature.
As a literary figure, Sidney made his mark in prose as well as in poetry. His prose works are Arcadiaand the Apologie for Poetrie With Arcadiabegins a new kind of imaginative writing. Though written in prose it is strewn with love songs and sonnets. The Apologie for Poetrie is first of the series of rare and very useful commentaries which some English poets have written about their art. His greatest work, of course, is in poetry—the sequence of sonnets entitled Astrophel and Stella, in which Sidney celebrated the history of his love for Penelope Devereax, sister of the Earl of Essex,- a love which came to a sad end through the intervention of Queen Elizabeth with whom Sidney had quarrelled.
As an example of lyrical poetry expressing directly in the most sincere manner an intimate and personal experience of love in its deepest passion, this sonnet sequence marks an epoch.
Their greatest merit is their sincerity. Here we find the fruit of experience, dearly bought: Desire; desire; I have too dearly bought With price of mangled mind.
Thy worthless ware. Too long, too long, asleep thou hast me brought, Who should my mind to higher prepare. Besides these personal and sincere touches, sometimes the poet gives a loose reign to his imagination, and gives us fantastic imagery which was a characteristic of Elizabethan poetry. The greatest name in non-dramatic Elizabethan poetry is that of Spenser, who may be called the poet of chivalry and Medieval allegory. The Elizabethan Age was the age of transition, when the time-honoured institutions of chivalry, closely allied to Catholic ritual were being attacked by the zeal of the Protestant reformer and the enthusiasm for latters of the European humanists.
As Spenser was in sympathy with both the old and the new, he tried to reconcile these divergent elements in his greatest poetic work—The Faerie Queene.
Written in the form of an allegory, though on the surface it appears to be dealing with the petty intrigues, corrupt dealings and clever manipulations of politicians in the court of Elizabeth, yet when seen from a higher point of view, it brings before us the glory of the medieval times clothed in an atmosphere of romance.
We forget the harsh realities of life, and lifted into a fairy land where we see the knights performing chivalric deeds for the sake of the honour Queen Gloriana. We meet with shepherds, sylvan nymphs and satyrs, and breathe the air of romance, phantasy and chivalry. Consisting of twelve parts, each devoted to a month of the year, here the poet gives expression to his unfruitful love for a certain unknown Rosalind, through the mouth of shepherds talking and singing.
It also deals with various moral questions and the contemporary religious issues. The same type of conventional pastoral imagery was used by Spenser in Astrophel , an elegy which he wrote on the death of Sidney to whom he had dedicated the Calendar. Four Hymns which are characteried by melodious verse were written by Spenser in honour of love and beauty. His Amoretti, consisting of 88 sonnets, written in the Petrarcan manner which had become very popular in those days under the influence of Italian literature, describes beautifully the progress of his love for Elizabeth Boyle whom he married in His Epithalamion is the most beautiful marriage hymn in the English language.
The greatness of Spenser as a poet rests on his artistic excellence. Though his poetry is surcharged with noble ideas and lofty ideals, he occupies an honoured place in the front rank of English poets as the poet of beauty, music and harmony, through which he brought about a reconciliation between the medieval and the modern world.
There is no harsh note in all his poetry. He composed his poems in the spirit of a great painter, a great musician. Above all, he was the poet of imagination, who, by means of his art, gave an enduring to the offsprings of his imagination. As a metrist his greatest contribution to English poetry is the Spenserian stanza which is admirably suited to descriptive or reflective poetry. The Elizabethan period was also the period of the origin of modern English prose. During the reign of Elizabeth prose began to be used as a vehicle of various forms of amusement and information, and its popularity increased on account of the increased facility provided by the printing press.
Books on history, travel, adventures, and translations of Italian stories appeared in a large number. Though there were a large number of prose-writers, there were only two-Sidney and Lyly who were conscious of their art, and who made solid contributions to the English prose style when it was in its infancy. The Elizabethan people were intoxicated with the use of the English language which was being enriched by borrowings from ancient authors.
They took delight in the use of flowery words and graceful ,grandiloquent phrases. With the new wave of patriotism and national prestige the English language which had been previously eclipsed by Latin, and relegated to a lower position, now came to its own, and it was fully exploited. The Elizabethans loved decorative modes of expression and flowery style.
The first author who wrote prose in the manner that the Elizabethans wanted, was Lyly, whose Euphues, popularized a highly artificial and decorative style. It was read and copied by everybody. The style of Euphues has three main characteristics.
In the first place, the structure of the sentence is based on antithesis and alliteration. In other words, it consists of two equal parts which are similar in sound but with a different sense.
The second characteristic of this style is that no fact is stated without reference to some classical authority. For example, when the author makes a mention of friendship, he quotes the friendship that existed between David and Jonathan. Besides these classical allusions, there is also an abundance of allusion to natural history, mostly of a fabulous kind, which is its third characteristic.
In it there is also criticism of contemporary society, especially its extravagant fashions. Though Puritanic in tone, it inculcates, on the whole, a liberal and humane outlook. The story related in Arcadia in the midst of pastoral surrounding where everything is possible, is long enough to cover twenty modern novels, but its main attraction lies in its style which is highly poetical and exhaustive.
One word is used again and again in different senses until its all meanings are exhausted. It is also full of pathetic fallacy which means establishing the connection between the appearance of nature with the mood of the artist. On the whole, Arcadiagoes one degree beyond Euphues in the direction of Sfreedom and poetry. Two other important writers who, among others, influenced Elizabethan prose were: Malory and Hakluyt. Malory wrote a great prose romance Morte de Arthur dealing with the romantic treasures of the Middle Ages.
It was by virtue of the simple directness of the language, that it proved an admirable model to the prose story-tellers of the Renaissance England. The writer was conscious of only that he had something to tell that was worth telling. The Literature of the Seventeenth Century may be divided into two periods—The Puritan Age or the Age of Milton , which is further divided into the Jacobean and Caroline periods after the names of the ruled James I and Charles I, who rules from to and to respectively; and the Restoration Period or the Age of Dryden The Seventeenth Century was marked by the decline of the Renaissance spirit, and the writers either imitated the great masters of Elizabethan period or followed new paths.
We no longer find great imaginative writers of the stature of Shakespeare, Spenser and Sidney. There is a marked change in temperament which may be called essentially modern. Though during the Elizabethan period, the new spirit of the Renaissance had broken away with the medieval times, and started a new modern development, in fact it was in the seventeenth century that this task of breaking away with the past was completely accomplished, and the modern spirit, in the fullest sense of the term, came into being.
This spirit may be defined as the spirit of observation and of preoccupation with details, and a systematic analysis of facts, feelings and ideas. In other words, it was the spirit of science popularized by such great men as Newton, Bacon and Descartes. In the field of literature this spirit manifested itself in the form of criticism, which in England is the creation of the Seventeenth Century. During the Sixteenth Century England expanded in all directions; in the Seventeenth Century people took stock of what had been acquired.
They also analysed, classified and systematised it. For the first time the writers began using the English language as a vehicle for storing and conveying facts. One very important and significant feature of this new spirit of observation and analysis was the popularisation of the art of biography which was unknown during the Sixteenth Century. Thus whereas we have no recorded information about the life of such an eminent dramatist as Shakespeare, in the seventeenth century many authors like Fuller and Aubrey laboriously collected and chronicled the smallest facts about the great men of their own day, or of the immediate past.
All these new literary developments were meant to meet the growing demand for analysis of the feelings and the intimate thoughts and sensations of real men and women. In drama the portrayal of the foibles of the fashionable contemporary society took a prominent place. In satire, it were not the common faults of the people which were ridiculed, but actual men belonging to opposite political and religious groups. The readers who also had become critical demanded facts from the authors, so that they might judge and take sides in controversial matters.
The Seventeenth Century upto was dominated by Puritanism and it may be called the Puritan Age or the Age of Milton who was the noblest representative of the Puritan spirit. Broadly speaking, the Puritan movement in literature may be considered as the second and greater Renaissance, marked by the rebirth of the moral nature of man which followed the intellectual awakening of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Though the Renaissance brought with it culture, it was mostly sensuous and pagan, and it needed some sort of moral sobriety and profundity which were contributed by the Puritan movement. Moreover, during the Renaissance period despotism was still the order of the day, and in politics and religion unscrupulousness and fanaticism were rampant.
The Puritan movement stood for liberty of the people from the shackles of the despotic ruler as well as the introduction of morality and high ideals in politics. Thus it had two objects—personal righteousness and civil and religious liberty.
In other words, it aimed at making men honest and free. Moreover, though they were profoundly religious, they did not form a separate religious sect. It would be a grave travesty of facts if we call Milton and Cromwell, who fought for liberty of the people against the tyrannical rule of Charles I, as narrow-minded fanatics. They were the real champions of liberty and stood for toleration. The name Puritan was at first given to those who advocated certain changes in the form of worship of the reformed English Church under Elizabeth.
As in Homer, each Anglo-Saxon king had his Gleeman scop or minstrel, who sang to his household and to the guests in hall. The songs might be new, of his own making, or lays handed down from of old. We shall see that the longer Anglo-Saxon poems, before Christianity came in, were stories about fabulous heroes; or real kings of times past, concerning whom many fables were told.
Most of these tales, or "myths," were not true; they were mere ancient "fairy stories," in which sometimes real but half-forgotten warriors and princes play their parts. The traditions, however, were looked on as being true, and the listeners to the gleemen thought that they were learning history as well as being amused.
Meanwhile any man might make and sing verses for his own pleasure, about his own deeds and his own fancies, sorrows, and loves. There was no lack of old legends of times before the English invasion of Britain, or of legends quite fabulous about gods and heroes. The Anglo-Saxons, too, knew forms of these legends; and mention the heroes of them in their poetry. Thus there is no reason why the Anglo-Saxons should not have produced poems as magnificent as those of the early Greeks, except that they, like all other peoples, had not the genius of the Greeks for poetry, and for the arts; and had not their musical language, and glorious forms of verse.
They were a rough country folk, and for long did not, like the Greeks, live in towns. But even if they had possessed more genius than they did, much of their old literature would probably have been lost when they became Christians; and when the clergy, who had, most to do with writing, generally devoted themselves only to verses on Biblical or other Christian subjects, or to prose sermons; and to learned books in Latin. While plenty of Anglo-Saxon Christian poetry survives, of poetry derived from the heathen times of the Anglo-Saxons there is comparatively little, and much of it has been more or less re-written, and affected by later changes and additions, in early Christian times.
The fragments of old poetry enable us to understand the poetic genius of our remote ancestors as it was before they had wholly adopted Christianity, or come under Latin, French, and Norman influences. From the descendants of the Britons whom they had conquered, or who survived as their Welsh neighbours, they seem, at this time, to have borrowed little or nothing in the way of song or story. Women of History Various.
The History of the Peloponnesian War Thucydides. Personal Memoirs of U.
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