2) Elizabethan Age

Queen Elizabeth I was one of the most remarkable sovereigns England ever produced. She became a symbol of Englishness and nationalism. National consciousness became firmly established. It is wholly appropriate that the second half of the sixteenth century bear her name, the Elizabethan Age.

Elizabethan Aesthetics

The aesthetic principles of the sixteenth century were very different from those of our own day:

• Deliberate intricacy of design, elaborateness of pattern. The word ‘artificial’ did not have any negative meaning. They thought that a thing naturally beautiful could be improved by art.

• Concern with models, conventions, literary tradition. Originality was not seen as involving a revolt against traditions or artistic conventions. They looked to classical (and also continental) writers as models to learn from, emulate, transform, and if possible surpass.

The only major work of literary criticism in sixteenth century England is Sidney’s Defense of Poesy. Highly eclectic, drawing together aesthetic precepts from different traditions. According to Sidney, poet imitates ideal nature, not real, fallen nature. Sidney makes large claims for the didactic role of poetry (‘teach by delighting’ – Horace’s formula). The subject should be suited to the genre and style.

The following principles can also be inferred from Sidney (and from numerous treatises on rhetoric):

• delight in abundance of words, poetic figures, concern with ornament;

- close relationship between poetry and rhetoric;

- the concern with levels of style (high, middle, low)

- the importance of allegory

Elizabethan Poetry

Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552- 99) – the greatest non-dramatic poet of the English Renaissance.

Born in London, educated at Cambridge.

The Shepherdes Calender – a collection of twelve eclogues, titled for the months of the year.

Eclogue – a short pastoral poem. Eclogues celebrate the values and attitudes of the simple rural life. They often criticize the word as it is indirectly, by measuring it up against the idealized pastoral world. In Spenser, it quite often becomes a satirical or didactic comment on contemporary affairs.

Deliberately archaic language.

The Fairie Queene, Spenser’s greatest poem.

By the ‘Faerie Queene’ the poet signifies Glory in the abstract and Elizabeth I in particular. Twelve of her knights, examples of twelve different virtues, undertake an adventure each, on the twelve successive days of the Queen’s annual festival. Prince Arthur, the perfection of all the other virtues, has a vision of the Faerie Queene, and determining to seek her out, is brought into adventures of the several other knights. This is the general scheme given by the author in the introductory letter. The poem itself starts with the adventures of the knights.

The poem can be enjoyed as a fascinating story with multiple meanings. It works on several levels at once:

• in some respects, it is a courtesy book, intended to ‘fashion a gentleman or a noble person’ by exhibiting the qualities such a person should have. Spenser completed six books, each of which exhibits one of such virtues. The poem fulfils the common Elizabethan expectation that poetry should teach by delighting.

• it is also a romantic epic, full of adventures and marvels, with intricate plots and amazing characters.

• The poem is a moral allegory. We are invited to interpret the characters and adventures in terms of particular virtues and vices.

• The poem incorporates historical allegory with persistent allusions to many personages and events in Spenser’s own England.