It was with the fourteenth century that major works of English literature began once again to appear
The fourteenth century also saw the so-called alliterative revival: the two main examples are Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (author unknown) and Pier Plowman by Langland. Both are products of a provincial, perhaps rather conservative culture.
Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century Middle English alliterative romance outlining an adventure of Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table.
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Plot. In the epic poem, Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from a mysterious warrior who is completely green, from his clothes and hair to his beard and skin. The "Green Knight" offers to allow anyone to strike him with his axe if the challenger will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts, and beheads him in one blow, only to have the Green Knight stand up, pick up his head, and remind Gawain to meet him at the appointed time. The story of Gawain's struggle to meet the appointment and his adventures along the way demonstrate the spirit of chivalry and loyalty. The story is one of the oldest Arthurian stories.
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In addition to its complex plot and rich language, the poem's chief interest for literary critics is its sophisticated use of medieval symbolism.
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Everything from the Green Knight, to the beheading game is richly symbolic and steeped in Celtic, Germanic, and other folklore and cultural traditions. The Green Knight, for example, is interpreted by some as a representation of the Green Man of folklore and even allusion to Christ.
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Pier Plowman by William Langland - partly theological allegory, partly social satire. It concerns the narrator's intense quest for the true Christian life, from the perspective of medieval Catholicism. This quest entails a series of dream-visions.
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The poem begins when Will falls asleep and has a vision of a tower set upon a hill and a fortress in a deep valley; between these symbols of heaven and hell is a "fair field full of folk", representing the world of mankind. In the early part of the poem Pier, the humble plowman, appears and offers himself as the narrator's guide to Truth. The latter part of the work, however, is concerned with the narrator's search for Dowel, Dobet and Dobest. Against the indulgencies. For truth and moral.
The Legends about King Arthur
In the 13th – 15th cc. numerous romances in verse of the king Arthur cycle appeared in England and were known in Europe. The legends of King Arthur began with the birth of Arthur, the son of King Uther and the beautiful Princess Igraine.
A legend is sung of when England was young
And knights were brave and bold
The good king had died
And no one could decide
Who was rightful heir to the throne
It seemed that the land would be torn by a war
Or saved by a miracle alone
And that miracle appeared in London town
The sword in the stone.
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“Morte d'Arthur"
The Arthurian bible known as Le Morte Darthur (The Death of Arthur) was written by Sir Thomas Malory in prison. It was printed sixteen years later by William Caxton, in 1485
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Sir Thomas Malory (1405-1471) used to be a knight and took part in the Hundred Years' War and in the War of Roses. After being put in prison for taking part in a military revolt Malory wrote "The Death of Arthur”, a prose collection of versions of the legends of King Arthur.
The original name was “Morte d'Arthur". The title of the book was written in French because most of stories were translated from the French language.
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Malory was trying very hard to shoehorn dozens of previously only semi-connected European legends and folk-tales into one huge, throbbing best-seller.
Originally, Malory divided his work principally into eight tales:
The birth and rise of Arthur: "From the Marriage of King Uther unto King Arthur that Reigned After Him and Did Many Battles"
King Arthur's war against the Romans: "The Noble Tale Between King Arthur and Lucius the Emperor of Rome"
The book of Lancelot: "The Tale of Sir Launcelot Du Lac"
The book of Gareth (brother of Gawain): "The Tale of Sir Gareth"
Tristan and Isolde: "The Book of Sir Tristrams de Lyons"
The Quest for the Holy Grail: “The Noble Tale of the Sangreal”
The affair between Lancelot and Guinevere: "Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere"
The breaking of the Knights of the Round Table and the death of Arthur: "Le Morte D'Arthur"
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Legend says that when Arthur was only three days old Merlin, the magician, took him away and gave the child to a good knight named Sir Ector. Arthur was brought up with Sir Ector's son Kay. When he became a man, Merlin made Arthur the king with the help of the magic Sword, which Arthur managed to take out of the magic stone where it was written:
“The Man who can take this sword out of the stone is the king of Britain”
So Arthur became king and married the beautiful Princess GuineVere. Merlin gave Arthur a Big Round Table and 128 knights. One hundred and twenty-eight knights took their seats at the table, but there were one hundred and fifty places at the table.
One of the legends about King Arthur and his Round Table, "The Grail", tells a thrilling story how Sir Galahad was given the "Seat Perilous" (the place at the Round Table where no knight could sit if he had ever done any bad thing to anyone). If a bad man occupied the "Seat Perilous", he would die. Thus it was empty for a long time. Only Sir Galahad was given that place, and he managed to see the Grail from which Jesus drank on the night before He died.
Later GuineVere cheated Arthur and went away with one of his best knights Lancelot. Malory presents Guinevere in a more negative light than his French predecessors. Guinevere is so contemptible in this book that it is difficult to understand Lancelot's reason for loving her. Malory goes so far as to suggest Guinevere uses charms or enchantments to win Lancelot's love. While Guinevere remains unlikeable throughout this book, Lancelot is a more problematic character. He is a flawed knight, certainly, but the best one Malory gives us.
The catch of Lancelot and Guinevere turns to be a series of bloody duels between the knights ending in the death of the King Arthur.
Arthur has a sword called Excalibur. Before he dies he must return it to the Lady in the Lake, the mysterious half-supernatural creature who had given it to him.
If all human institutions are doomed to fall, few do so with as much heroism, nobility, and love as Arthur's court.
Historical context
The fourteenth century was a difficult period for England because of both the Black Death (bubonic plague) and a long series of wars. The Hundred Years War against France, which lasted from 1337 to 1453, had many ups and downs, but its end result was that England lost all its possessions. The plague probably killed one third of the whole population of Britain.
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The last poet of the Middle Ages and the first English poet who opened the way to English realistic literature, free of the influence of the Church, was Geoffrey Chaucer.
Geoffrey Chaucer about 1343 – 1400
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While living Chauser was famous for his translations from French to English. For example, he translated famous “Roman de la Rose”.
Geoffrey Chaucer is often called the father of English poetry, although, as we know, there were many English poets before him. At the time when the educated people read and spoke only Norman-Saxon, Chaucer wrote in vernacular Middle English.
Chaucer is best loved today for The Canterbury Tales.
THE CANTERBURY TALES
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“The Canterbury Tales” is a narrative poem. It is written in a form of a frame story - a story that includes, or frames, another story or stories. Structurally, the collection bears the influence of The Decameron.
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The Decameron
opens with a description of the Black Death and leads into an introduction of a group of seven young women and three young men who flee from plague-ridden Florence to a villa in the (then) countryside of Fiesole for two weeks. To pass the time, every night, all of the members tell one story each. Although fourteen days pass, two days each week are set aside: one day for chores and one holy day during which no work is done. In this manner, 100 stories are told by the end of the ten days.
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The Canterbury Tales
consists of stories told by some of the thirty pilgrims who set off from the Tabard Inn in Southwark, London, to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in his own cathedral in 1170. The aim was to tell four stories each: two on the way, two on the way back. The teller of the best story would be given a free dinner by the cheerful host of the Tabard. In fact, the collection is incomplete and only twenty-four stories are told (including two by Chaucer)
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“The Canterbury Tales” shows Chaucer’s absolute mastery of storyteller’s art. Perhaps even more impressive than the stories are the storytellers knight, monk, merchant, cook, miller, guildsmen, ploughman etc.. Chaucer’s pilgrims are vividly drawn individuals whose personalities are unique, but whose characters’ traits are universal.
He uses the tales and the descriptions of the characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church.
A MONK there was, one of the finest sort, An outrider; hunting was his sport; A manly man, to be an abbot able. Very many excellent horses had he in stable: And when he rode men might his bridle hear Jingling in the whistling wind as clear, Also, and as loud as does the chapel bell Where this monk was governour of the cell.
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Монах был монастырский ревизор. Наездник страстный, он любил охоту И богомолье – только не работу. И хоть таких монахов и корят, Но превосходный был бы он аббат: Его конюшню вся округа знала, Его уздечка пряжками бренчала, Как колокольчики часовни той, Доход с которой тратил он, как свой. |
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The most important fact is that rhyme has taken the place of Old English alliteration.
Chaucer took his narrative inspiration for his works from several sources but still remained an entirely individual poet, gradually developing his personal style and techniques.
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Language
Chaucer's generation of English-speakers was among the last to pronounce mute e at the end of words
Chaucer’s language had not undergone the Great Vowel Shift: Chaucer's vowels would be pronounced today more like in Italian, Spanish or German.
MEDIEVAL DRAMA
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The first English plays told religious stories and were performed in or near the churches. At first only the priests took part in acting out.
Later as the performances grew more elaborate and space became an important item plays were pushed out into the courtyards of the churches and laymen began to take part in the acting.
Miracle Plays. The subjects of the Miracle Plays are various: the disobedience of Adam and Eve; Noah and the great flood; Abraham and Isaac; events in the life of Christ; and so on. They were acted by people of the town on a kind of stage on wheels called a pageant.
Although the Miracles were serious and religious in intention, English comedy was born in them.
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There was a natural tendency for the characters in the play to become recognizably human in their behaviour. However serious the main story might be, neither actors nor audience could resist the temptation to enjoy the possibilities of a situation such as that in which Noah's wife needs a great deal of persuasion to make her go on board the ark.
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Morality Plays. In Morality Plays the characters in these were not people (such as Adam and Eve or Noah); they were virtues (such as Truth) or bad qualities (such as Greed or Revenge) that walked and talked. For this reason we find these plays duller today. The plays presented moral truths in a new and effective way.
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One of the best-known fifteenth-century Moralities is Everyman, which was translated from the Dutch. It is the story of the end of Everyman's life, when Death calls him away from the world. Among the characters are Beauty, Knowledge, Strength, and Good Deeds. When Everyman has to go to face Death, all his friends leave him except Good Deeds.
All medieval stage production was temporary and expected to be removed upon the completion of the performances. Actors, predominantly male, typically wore long, dark robes. Medieval plays featured lively interplay between two distinct areas, the wider spaces in front of the raised staging areas, and the elevated areas themselves (called, respectively, the locus and the platea). Typically too, actors would move between these locations in order to suggest scene changes, rather than remain stationary and have the scene change around them as is typically done in modern theater.
Lecture 2
The Renaissance. Elizabethan Period (15th-16th centuries)
History
The War of Roses (Lancasters – Yorks for the crown, ended in 1485)
The reign of Tudor dynasty
The reign of Elizabeth Tudor – the Elizabethan Age
The defeat of Spanish Armada – the growth of self-consciousness of the English
The dark Middle Ages were followed by a time known in art and literature as the Renaissance. The word "Renaissance" means "rebirth" and this word marked a new step in the cultural development in Europe in the 15th-17th centuries. People got interested in the achievements of classical antiquity (ancient Greece and Rome), they studied the works of the philosophers, artists and writers of the ancient times. The epoch of Humanism came. The main subject of Humanism was a great interest to human feelings, thoughts, human happiness and human life.
Ideas
The Tudors inherited much of the medieval view of the world which consisted of numberless but linked 'degrees' of being, from the four physical elements (air, fire, earth and water) up to the pure intelligence of angels. Also, the whole universe was governed by divine will; Nature was God's instrument, the social hierarchy a product of Nature. Everyone had their natural place in the unity of the whole: both within the family and the state (which, it was believed, should be governed by a single head). At the same time, this order, which was founded on Nature, existed for man's benefit, and man was an integral part of it. His godlike qualities had, unfortunately, been ruined by the Fall (as described in the Bible) and he was constantly troubled by such things as wars and plagues. Nevertheless, provided that he treated this world as preparation for the next, and, with the help of human reason, he kept his body subject to his soul, he had it within his powers to enjoy civilised happiness.
Literature
Renaissance literature in England is in fact full of influences from classical models. Even Shakespeare based the structure of his plays on the five acts prevalent in Ancient Rome. Romeo and Juliet's suicide is an example of classical values rather than those of the Elizabethan church (which would clearly condemn suicide). The literature of the period is full of mythological references to the gods and myths of antiquity.
Of course, English literature developed along its own lines, absorbing classical influences, but also drawing on native tradition and gradually moving away from a rigid classical basis. For English writers the model for their vernacular literature was often the literature of Italy, discovered through translations into French. The major influence on the English literature of the Renaissance was surprisingly not Dante but Petrarch, who established the language of love in Europe.
Love was essentially courtly, and for the upper classes only. In fact, in Renaissance comedy lower class people in love was a stock comic situation designed to make people laugh. Another characteristic of Renaissance literature, which may elude the modern reader, is decorum and elegance. Thus Renaissance literature may sometimes seem artificial to modern eyes.
PROSE
Elizabethan Age was introduced by prose which developed in several very different forms. One kind of style was used at court by ladies. That style was very artificial, but it was necessary for every young lady to know not only French but also Euphuism.
Euphuism was a fashionable manner of speech and writing. The sentences were complicated and long. The style was filled with alliteration and a great number of similes behind which the reader forgot the thought. It took the form of a preciously ornate and sophisticated style that employed a wide range of literary devices such as antitheses, alliterations, repetitions, rhetorical questions and others.
The word "Euphuism" came from John Lyly's novel "Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit" (1578-1580), which started a fashion which spread in conversation as well as in books. Queen Elizabeth herself used it.
Example: “It is virtue, yea virtue, gentlemen, that maketh gentlemen; that maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble, the subject a sovereign, the deformed beautiful, the sick whole, the weak strong, the most miserable most happy. There are two principal and peculiar gifts in the nature of man, knowledge and reason; the one commandeth, and the other obeyeth: these things neither the whirling wheel of fortune can change, neither the deceitful cavillings of worldlings separate, neither sickness abate, neither age abolish.”
The second trend in the development of Elizabethan prose was quite the opposite to Euphuism. Thomas Nash didn't want to write in such a style and invented his own independent novel "The Life of Jacke Wilton", a story about men of bad character.
The narrator, Jack Wilton, describes his adventures as a page during the wars against the French, and his subsequent travels in Italy as page to the Earl of Surrey. In his travels, Jack witnesses numerous atrocities, including battlefields, plague, and rape: at one point he is nearly hanged, and at another, he is on the point of being cut up in a live anatomy demonstration. Jack's narrative climaxes by describing the brutal revenge taken by one Italian on another, who forces him to pray to the devil and then shoots him in the throat: Jack himself escapes and returns to England.
The third kind of prose was created by Francis Bacon, who wrote "Essays", a composition on general subject (1597). The sentences in "Essays" are short and laconic: For example: "All colours will agree in the dark," or "Revenge is a kind of wild justice." Some of the sentences from the "Essays" became famous sayings: "A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
John Lyly
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Lyly, at the age of twenty-five, came from Oxford to London, full of the enthusiasm of Renaissance learning, and evidently determined to fix himself as a new and dazzling star in the literary sky. In this ambition he achieved a remarkable and immediate success, by the publication of a little book entitled 'Euphues and His Anatomie of Wit.'
'Euphues' means 'the well-bred man,' and though there is a slight action, the work is mainly a series of moralizing disquisitions on love, religion, and conduct. Most influential, however, for the time-being, was Lyly's style, which is the most conspicuous English example of the later Renaissance craze, then rampant throughout Western Europe, for refining and beautifying the art of prose expression in a mincingly affected fashion. Witty, clever, and sparkling at all costs, Lyly takes especial pains to balance his sentences and clauses antithetically, phrase against phrase and often word against word, sometimes emphasizing the balance also by an exaggerated use of alliteration and assonance. A representative sentence is this: 'Although there be none so ignorant that doth not know, neither any so impudent that will not confesse, friendship to be the jewell of humaine joye; yet whosoever shall see this amitie grounded upon a little affection, will soone conjecture that it shall be dissolved upon a light occasion.' Others of Lyly's affectations are rhetorical questions, hosts of allusions to classical history, and literature, and an unfailing succession of similes from all the recondite knowledge that he can command.
Lyly also wrote a prose comedy "Campaspe". It is based on the popular song about Cupid, God of Love: "Cupid and my Campaspe played cards for kisses; Cupid paid." Cupid loses one thing after another to Campaspe, and at last he offers his eyes:
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
О Love, has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas! become of me?
Another group of English prose writers were humanists. The most progressive people of the country could not help seeing the growing power of landowners and the injustice caused by it. The rich drove thousands of peasants off their lands and captured those lands, made pastures for sheep. There was no work for the poor. A great number of peasants became homeless and miserable. Wool production became the leading industry, but it served the interests of the rich, because the poor had nothing.
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English humanists dreamed of social changes. The peculiarity of English humanism was that it was both anti-feudal and anti-bourgeois. These ideas were best expressed by the first English humanist, the most progressive representative of the University Wits, Thomas More.
Thomas More (1478-1535)
A great humanist, lawyer, statesman, writer and scholar. He is recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church — Saint Thomas More.
Thomas More was extremely interested in the reasons of the social evil. He wrote articles on social and political subjects, worked in the Parliament as a Lord Chancellor. He was strictly against the Pope's power in England. Later was arrested and beheaded.
UTOPIA
The most famous work of More is “Utopia”.
It was originally written in Latin and printed in 1516 as 'A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, about the best state of a commonwealth and the new island of Utopia’.
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The very name plays on two Greek words eulopos, 'a good place', and oulopos, 'no place'. This name was invented by More and from that time this word became a common noun.
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Book 1 opens with a historical event, a delegation to Bruges in 1515 in which More took part. More is then introduced to the traveller Raphael and enters into conversation with him. It contents criticism and analysis of contemporary European society.
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Book II (which was written first) contains Raphael's description of the happy island state where all things are held in common, gold is despised, there is no private ownership of land and industrial tools, there exists a national system of education, the rule of work for all and a philosophy under which the good of the individual is subordinate to the common good. They know no wars, bellicosity is considered a vice as well as greed, hatred, desire to oppress others.
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The work ends with More's reflections on the story: there are some things in Utopia he cannot agree with and other he would like to see implemented in Europe, although he doubts that they will be. More's approach is naive and imperfect in many ways, but the importance of the book is hard to overestimate. For the first time in history the dream of justice was combined with communal ownership and collective work. No wonder nowadays the book still arises controversial evaluations from critics with different social orientations.
Interpretations of Utopia are many and diverse. It has been seen as a program for an ideal stale, a contemplative vision of the ideal, a satirical look at contemporary European society, and a humanist 'jeu d'esprit'.
Models for More's island state can be found in earlier literature. Plato's Republic is explicitly mentioned, while Plutarch had described an ideal Spartan commonwealth.
After the publication of Utopia, such ideal states appeared in the following books: Tommaso Campanula's La citta delsole ('The City of the Sun', 1602, Bacon's New Atlantis (1627), Swift's Gulliver Travels, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four).
POETRY
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In Elizabethan Age many courtiers became either writers or poets. The writing of poetry was part of the education of a gentleman.
The three great narrative influences on Elizabethan poetry were Virgil, and through him Homer, the Bible and Ovid's Metamorphoses.
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Two common themes in sixteenth-century poetry were:
the relationship between men and women,
and the treachery (вероломство, измена, предательство) and hypocrisy (лживость, лицемерие, притворство, фальшь) of courtly life.
The first printed anthology of English poetry was called “Songes and Sonettes”, or “Tottel's Miscellany” (альманах). It was published by Richard Tottel in 1557. Tottel also published Thomas More's Utopia and another collection of More's writings. “Tottel's Miscellany” contained a lot of good lyrics by Wyatt, Surrey and others.
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It is necessary to mention that the influence of Italian poetry on English writers in the Renaissance was very strong. Two of the most important poets from the mid-sixteenth century – Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517- 1547) – spent much time and energy trying to render the fourteen-line Italian sonnet into English, and, in fact, much of their work is translated or adapted from Petrarch.
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Surrey's work is important because he wrote the first blank verse verse without rhymes in English.
Sir Thomas Wyatt
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Biography
Sir Thomas Wyatt was a popular member of the court of Henry VIII (1509-1547) and was often sent on diplomatic missions overseas. However, he was twice arrested, once in 1536 with the fall of Anne Boleyn, Henry's second queen, and again in 1541 with the fall of his patron, Thomas Cromwell.
Perhaps his first arrest was because he had been Anne's lover before her marriage to the king. Whatever the reasons, he was fortunate to regain the king's favour.
On the second occasion he was charged with treason (обвинен в государственной измене) and imprisoned in the Tower of London.
Literary works
Wyatt's verse, essentially English but much influenced by Italian verse forms, was written to be passed - and sometimes sung - among friends at court.
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It was Wyatt who first brought the sonnet to England.
Wyatt's object was to experiment with the English tongue, to civilise it, to raise its powers to those of its neighbours.
While Wyatt's poetry reflects classical and Italian models, he also admired the work of Chaucer and his vocabulary reflects Chaucer’s.
His best-known poems are those that deal with the trials of romantic love. Others of his poems were scathing, satirical indictments (обвинения) of the hypocrisies and flat-out pandering (открытое сводничество) required of courtiers ambitious to advance at the Tudor court.
The sonnet form was also to have a particularly strong influence on the next generation of poets.
Following the example of French poets some English poets made a group called “Areopagus”. There is no direct evidence that the group was more than an idea found in letters between Spenser and Harvey of 1580, but the proposed group was going to reform English prosody by interpolating Latin and Greek language prosodic notions. The members included Edmund Spenser and Philip Sydney.
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
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Biography
Sir Philip Sidney served a later court, that of Elizabeth I (1558-1603). As well as a poet, he was an aristocratic soldier and statesman. To the Elizabethans he was the ideal courtier, able to excel (отличиться) in all that was regarded as fitting for a nobleman. When he lay mortally wounded after battle in Flanders (aged only thirty-two) he is reputed to have passed a cup of water to a dying soldier with the words: 'Thy need is greater than mine.
Sidney's greatest works were written towards the end of his short life.
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He wrote an eloquent treatise on English poetry, The Defence of Poesy.
His lively prose romance, Arcadia, existed in two radically different versions, Old Arcadia and New Arcadia.
Sidney's sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella.
A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, usually with five beats a line and a definite rhyme scheme.
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'Astrophel' is the Greek for 'star-lover'; 'Stella' the latin for star. For a time, Sidney was engaged to Penelope Devereux - the daughter of the earl of Essex - who eventually had a rather unhappy marriage to Lord Rich. She is sometimes identified as Stella, although she is said to have been rather less virtuous than Stella. In the sequence, Sidney harmonises his personal tone of voice with both myth and narrative.
Edmund Spenser
One of the finest Elizabethan poets was Edmund Spenser, an ambitious and gifted man.
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Spenser's objects:
wanted to write poems in English, which could be compared with the classical epics by Homer and Virgil
He wished to improve the English language and, at the same time, return to its roots in the popular stories and myths of an older tradition.
The result of his objects was The Faerie Queene, an incomplete epic poem. It's an extraordinary combination of the Medieval and the Renaissance, of popular and aristocratic features.
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The structure presupposes that in each of 24 books the Faerie Queen sends the noble knight for good deeds. Each one of 12 first knights exemplified one of 12 "private virtues" and each one of other 12 knights exemplified “public virtues”. Unfortunately, Spenser managed to describe only 6 knights.
As it was published in 1596, the epic presented the following virtues:
Book I: Holiness Святість
Book II: Temperance Помірність
Book III: Chastity Цнотливість
Book IV: Friendship Дружба
Book V: Justice Справедливість
Book VI: Courtesy Куртуазність
In addition to these six virtues, the Letter to Raleigh suggests that Arthur represents the virtue of Magnificence (великолепие), which ("according to Aristotle and the rest") is "the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all"; and that the Faerie Queene herself represents Glory (hence her name, Gloriana). The unfinished seventh book (the Cantos of Mutability), appears to have represented the virtue of "constancy."
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The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English language.
Spenserian stanza presents eight iambic pentameters followed by an alexandrine rhymed 'ababbccbcc'. The Spenserian stanza is suitable only for long narrative poems. It was later employed by Byron, Shelley etc.
Lo I the man, whose Muse whilome did maske, As time her taught, in lowly Shepheards weeds, Am now enforst a far vnfitter taske, For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine Oaten reeds, And sing of Knights and Ladies gentle deeds; Whose prayses hauing slept in silence long, Me, all too meane, the sacred Muse areeds To blazon broad emongst her learned throng: Fierce warres and faithfull loues shall moralize my song. |
Вот я, укрыт одеждой Пастухов – Так Муза проявила власть свою. Теперь я поменять судьбу готов, Сменю на трубы я свирель мою И песнь о духе Рыцарства совью, Пусть слава Рыцарей проснётся вновь, Так Муза мне велит: я воспою И Дам Прекрасных верную любовь, И битвы лютые, и пролитую кровь. |
TELL
Spenser praised Queen Elizabeth in his great poem "The Shepherd's Calendar". This poem is written in twelve books, one for each month of the year. After he got married he devoted to his perfect marriage song "Epithalamion" and 88 Sonnets under the title "Amoretti".
DRAMA
Renaissance drama may safely be regarded as the highest point of English literature during this period, if not all time. The social, political and religious ferment, which went on in the later sixteenth century, had a particularly fruitful effect on the young playwrights.
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Renaissance theatre derived from medieval theatre traditions:
the mystery plays that formed a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the Middle Ages. The mystery plays were complex retellings of legends based on biblical themes, originally performed in Cathedrals, but later becoming more linked to the secular (светский) celebrations that grew up around religious festivals
the morality plays
the "University drama" that attempted to recreate Greek tragedy
The Italian tradition of commedia dell'arte as well as the elaborate masques frequently presented at court also contributed to the shaping of public theatre.
In the sixteenth century 'interludes', or short one-act plays, became fashionable. These were usually performed as part of an evening's entertainment at a rich man's house.
Another kind of play, the Interlude, was common in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The origin of this name is uncertain; perhaps the Interludes were played between the acts of long Moralities; perhaps in the middle of meals; or perhaps the name means a play by two or three performers. They are often funny, and were performed away from churches, in colleges or rich men's houses or gardens. The writers of these early plays are unknown until we come to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
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Companies of players attached to households of leading noblemen and performing seasonally in various locations existed before the reign of Elizabeth I. These became the foundation for the professional players that performed on the Elizabethan stage. The tours of these players gradually replaced the performances of the mystery and morality plays by local players, and a 1572 law eliminated the remaining companies lacking formal patronage by labeling them vagabonds. The performance of masques at court by courtiers and other amateurs came to be replaced by the professional companies with noble patrons, who grew in number and quality during Elizabeth's reign.
The religious and moral themes of medieval drama, under the influence of Renaissance humanism, began to give way to closer attention to ordinary human characters.
Groups of travelling players also staged performances in the courtyards of inns, although the authorities passed a law in 1572, which made these actors punishable for vagrancy. Elizabeth I enjoyed the theatre very much, and under her reign the Queen's Players flourished, despite strong opposition from the rather Puritanical government of the City of London.
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The first permanent theatre was built by James Burbage in Shoreditch, just outside the city walls, and was similar in design to the inn courtyards, which had previously been used.
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The first theatre was a wood building without a roof decorated with flags. There was no curtain, no benches, the stage was covered with straw and branches.
In 1599 Burbage’s sons built a new theatre on that place and called it “The Globe”. It contained the stage and there were 1200 seats in it. Though there was no scenery the costumes were a very important part of the performance, usually actors bought old clothes of the nobility.
The structure of the Elizabethan stage had a great influence on form and technique in Elizabethan plays. In contrast to the modern theatre, where there is a curtain separating the actor from his audience and where bright lights focus on the stage whilst the audience remain in darkness, the Elizabethan actor would be on a central stage, which was surrounded by the audience and lit only by daylight, in much closer contact with the spectators. This is one reason why an important device was the soliloquy (монолог), which can seem faintly ridiculous in a modern theatre. It seemed a perfectly natural form of communication between a character and the audience. The proximity of the audience also had an influence on acting technique, since there was no necessity for raising the voice, indeed, subtle distinctions in gesture and expression were more possible.
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The Elizabethan actor would be on a central stage, which was surrounded by the audience and lit only by daylight, in much closer contact with the spectators. This is one reason why an important device was the soliloquy.
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The Elizabethan audience were actually trained listeners: even the common people had very acute listening skills and delighted in wordplay. Scenery and props were also very simple. There was an occasional tree or chair, but much was left to the imagination. There was little time for changes of scenery, and there was no curtain to hide the mechanics of the spectacle, so the action was practically continuous and rapid (plays like Hamlet or King Lear, if performed in uncut versions today may take up to four hours, which was certainly longer than the average groundling's attention span). Thus, the theatre achieved its effects by a direct assault on the emotions and the imagination of the spectators.
The University Wits
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The University Wits were a group of young writers from Oxford or Cambridge who were greatly influenced by the ideas of Italian Humanism. They included Thomas Kyd (1558-94), Robert Greene 1558-92), George Peele (1557-92), Christopher Marlowe and John Lyly (1554-1606).
Much of that we find in classic Shakespearean dramas was prepared before him in the plays written by University Wits.
Robert Greene managed to compile tragic plot development and happy end.
Thomas Kyd was the developer of “revenge drama” full of blood and corpses. The plot is tragic and horrible: the ghost of a murdered son appears to the father. Death is the main character of the play. This play has much in common with “Hamlet”.
The most influential writer of classical tragedies, however, was the Roman playwright Seneca, whose works were translated into English by Jasper Heywood, son of playwright John Heywood, in 1589. Seneca's plays incorporated rhetorical speeches, blood and violence, and often ghosts; components which were to figure prominently in both Elizabethan and Jacobean drama.
The most outstanding playwrights were Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville who together wrote the first real tragedy in blank verse, performed in 1564. Its name was "Gorboduc”.
The tragedies were less popular because they were very dull, there was little action on the stage, and the blank verse was too poor.
Nickolas Udall wrote comedies. In his "Gammer Gurton's Needle" the plot centres on Gammer Gurton who was looking for a needle to mend clothes. There are a lot of quarrels, broken heads and jolly drinking songs in the comedy which was acted at Cambridge University.
The name of Christopher Marlowe is worth mentioning while speaking about real Elizabethan Drama.
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
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Son of a cobbler, the first major Elizabethan dramatist, Christopher Marlowe, was born in Canterbury in 1564. In Cambridge University he established a reputation for free thinking and atheism. Violence and disreputable behavior seem to have characterized his student years. His life, much like the lives of his characters, would be short and violent.
According to university records, Marlowe disappeared frequently during his last years at school, exceeding the number of absences permitted him by statute and putting his degree in jeopardy. Apparently, much of this time was spent in Rheims among the Catholics who were plotting against Queen Elizabeth's protestant regime. Because of his absences and the fact that he refused to take holy orders, the university refused, for a time, to confer his degree, but the authorities intervened, and the degree was eventually granted.
Of Marlowe's career in London, apart from his four great theatrical successes, we know hardly anything; but he evidently knew Thomas Kyd, who shared his unorthodox opinions. Nash criticized his verse, Greene affected to shudder at his atheism; Gabriel Harvey maligned (злословил) his memory.
Marlowe rapidly established himself as the most important playwright of the period.
Tamburlaine was the first notable English play in blank verse. Elizabethan drama had reached the foothills and was beginning its final ascent when Marlowe came onto the scene. All that was needed was a bold leap such as no one had yet dared or been able to make--and Marlowe was determined to make that leap.
While his contemporaries were watching their work performed by church boys, Marlowe saw his dramas staged by full-chested men such as the seven-foot-tall, majestic Edward Alleyn.
The young poet, however, had neither wealth nor position, and the disparity between his dreams and the reality of his situation began to weigh upon him. He grew more and more restless and irritable until even his friends began to lose patience with him.
After pointing out what he considered to be inconsistencies in the Bible, Marlowe fell under suspicion of heresy. His roommate, Thomas Kyd, was tortured into giving evidence against him, but before he could be brought before the Privy Council, the twenty-nine-year-old poet was found dead at Dame Eleanore Bull's tavern in Deptford. There is reason to believe, however, that Marlowe may have been deliberately provoked and murdered in order to prevent his arrest. We really do not know the circumstances of Marlowe's death.
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During his brief life, Marlowe succeeded in writing five dramatic masterpieces: Tamburlaine the Great («Тамерлан»), Doctor Faustus («Доктор Фауст»), The Jew of Malta («Мальтийский еврей»), Edward the Second («Эдуард II») and Dido, Queen of Carthage («Дидона, царица Карфагена»). He also wrote the unfinished Hero and Leander- one of the finest non-dramatic Elizabethan poems.
His plays are often thought to be among the first to embody the true spirit of the Renaissance, concentrating in their humanist fashion on man as opposed to God.
Main themes are
the lust for power
the desire to surpass the old restrictions of the Church, the limitations of knowledge
the demands of ruthless (беспощадный) ambition in the face of prevailing morality.
Marlowe's works also represent a departure from the didactic spirit of the miracle and mystery plays of the 1500s, developing and enhancing the more realistic elements of the sixteenth-century interludes.
Characters were no longer simple personifications of virtues and vices, but were enriched by human passions and human limitations. Perhaps Marlowe's main contribution to English drama, however, was the elaboration of blank verse.
Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” is one of the first literary interpretation of legends about a famous scientist Faust and his search of sense of life.
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Full name: The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus
One of Marlowe’s contemporaries said, "No Elizabethan play outside the Shakespeare canon has raised more controversy than Doctor Faustus. There is no agreement concerning the nature of the text and the date of composition... and the centrality of the Faust legend in the history of the Western world precludes any definitive agreement on the interpretation of the play..."
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Born in 1488, the original Faust wandered through his German homeland until his death in 1541. In 1587, the first story about his life appeared in Germany. It was translated into English in 1592 as The History of the Damnable Life and Deserved Death of Doctor John Faustus.
Exactly dating Renaissance texts can be difficult, but Doctor Faustus poses particular challenges. Scholars believe Marlowe heard or read the story of Johann Faust and composed Doctor Faustus sometime between 1588 and 1592. London's Stationer's Register entered the play into the official records in 1601, but in 1602, at least two other writers were paid for additions to the text. Most critics believe that Marlowe wrote the play's tragic beginning and end, while his collaborators wrote much of the comical middle sections.
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Christopher Marlowe based his play on stories about a scholar and magician, Johann Faust, who allegedly (якобы) sold his soul to the devil to gain magical powers.
Following quite closely the text of popular books, the tragedy of Marlowe talks about the scientist who makes a contract with the Devil. This scientist promises his soul. In exchange devil will faithfully serve him during twenty-four years.
But the popular German book was honest-minded Lutheran horror story on the topic of what happens to practitioners of black magic.
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Here's how it describes the reasons for issuing Faust to hell, «Обратил доктор Фауст все помыслы свои на одно дело: чтобы любить то, что не пристало любить. К этому стремился он день и ночь. Окрылился он как орел, захотел постигнуть все глубины неба и земли. Ибо любопытство, свобода и легкомыслие победили и раззадорили его так, что стал он однажды испытывать некоторые волшебные слова, фигуры, письмена и заклятия, чтобы вызвать тем самым черта».
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Marlowe’s Faustus is theomachist (богоборець) not because he commits forbidden acts, not because he is a necromancer. Marlowe’s Faustus is theomachist because he wants to get a power owned by God alone, against God.
Faust does not agree with his position in the world. He does not want to accept the fact that he is a creature subordinate to God and that he does not possess God’s omnipotence.
Faust wants to achieve the main thing declared by Pico della Mirandola - divinity. Faust is dissatisfied with his knowledge not because there are other kinds of knowledge that are more complete, but because his knowledge does not give him godlike powers.
Faust is not pure atheist – like we understand it nowadays. His atheism can be defined as the refusal to believe not in God but in His goodness.
Faust refuses to believe that one can get from God what he wants. Therefore, Faust turns for help to the devil, and concludes a contract with him for twenty-four years, promising him at the end of this period, his immortal soul.
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In first versions Faust was trying to find a traditional, simple, human immortality in his descendants, he demands a wife from Mephistopheles.
In late versions he returns to classical imagery and seeks immortality in the eternal glory of ancient heroes. Now he wishes to surpass most of Achilles - the man whose death at Troy promised him immortal fame. But here Faust meets unexpected turn of events. Kiss of Helen, which had to bring him immortality, takes away his soul. Helen is not the guarantee of immortality, but a succubus, demon, copulating with men, and more able to kill than to give immortality.
The conclusion is that Marlowe is the forerunner of XIX century romantic philosophy.
Performing the play
A theatrical company named the Earl of Nottingham's Men (commonly known as the Admiral's Men) performed the play twenty-four times. Thomas Busshell published the play in 1604, though John Wright published a different version in 1609. Editors generally combine parts of these and other versions of the text to create the play as it is widely read today.
Contemporary theatre records indicate that in early performances, Faustus may have worn the cloak of a scholar, decorated with a cross, while the devil Mephistopheles appeared in the costume of a dragon. It has been said that performances of the play were so terrifying that during the 17th century audiences believed that the devil actually appeared among them.
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Christopher Marlowe's contribution to the drama, however, was complete. He had returned high poetry to its rightful place on the stage and left us characters as fiery and passionate as their creator, preparing the way for a poet even greater than himself - William Shakespeare.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
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Shakespear authorship question
Some people may think that we know too little about Shakespeare from Stratford. In fact we know about him more than about all actors, artists and writers of the Renaissance. We know that his family was not intelligent. Nobody has ever seen a line written in his hand. Only six signatures are saved but they are very different even due to their transcribing. No portrait is defined as 100% genuine. No document attests that he received an education. No personal letters or literary manuscripts certainly written by Shakespeare of Stratford survive. None of his contemporary has ever left any note that he, for example, saw Shakespeare today or spoke with him yesterday. We may read his testament – he describes everything he owned, even spoons and knife, but there isn’t any word about books or manuscripts.
And however, due to the creative works, the author of them is a person of enormous intellect, whose lexicon was of 20 000 words (while lexicon of the Bible edition of that time is only 5000 words, the lexicon of a modern English student is nearly 4000 words). In the plays there are passages written in French, Italian, Greek. Only students of prestigious universities could get such knowledge of antiquity, rhetoric, music, medicine. Such divergence between Shakespare-person and Shakespeare-writer gives the reason to doubt whether it was the same person and whether such a person really existed. This is the famous “Shakespearean authorship question”.
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The Shakespeare authorship question is the argument that someone other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the works attributed to him. Anti-Stratfordians say that Shakespeare of Stratford was a front to shield the identity of the real author or authors, who for some reason did not want or could not accept public credit. Shakespeare's biography, particularly his humble origins and obscure life, seemed incompatible with his poetic eminence and his reputation for genius,[5] arousing suspicion that Shakespeare might not have written the works attributed to him
Stratfordians respond that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship. There are no supporting evidence for any candidates to be the authors of Shakespearean plays.
Among candidates who were nominated for the authorship there are Francis Bacon, Lord Ratland, Ben Johnson, Christopher Marlowe.
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Biography
William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon on 23rd of April in 1564. His father was a glover, and a prominent figure in local affairs. Each theatre troop attending the city had to perform first for their family, so young Shakespeare from the very childhood was brought up in the atmosphere of theatre. He was educated at the local grammar school, but he never went to university. When he was 18 he married Anne Hathaway, who was 8 years older than him and he had three children. It is possible, but not certain, that Shakespeare worked as country schoolmaster in this period.
It is supposed that his marriage was unhappy and he left his family about four years after his marriage, and came up to London to seek to better the family fortunes. London had grown prosperous under the reign of Elizabeth and at this time the group of "University Wits" were in possession of the stage.
Tradition says that this greatest of English-speaking playwrights made his first contact with the theater as a sort of handy man of all work. One of his tasks, according to legend, was, with the assistance of several boy helpers, to hold the horses of the wealthy patrons who attended the theater. But somewhere, somehow, during those early years in London, Shakespeare gained a foothold, first probably as an actor and then perhaps as an adaptor and hack writer.
In London Shakespeare found a patron, the Earl of Southampton, a rich young nobleman to whom he dedicated the poems Venus and Adonis (1593) and Lucrece (1594).
By the early 1590's Shakespeare was firmly established in the theater. In 1599 the family was granted a coat of arms and thereafter the playwright was entitled to sign himself, "William Shakespeare, Gent." At the same time his financial status was improving. He bought a large house in Stratford and frequently after that acquired other property both in Stratford and London.
Shakespeare was a shareholder of The Globe theatre in which most of his plays were staged. Shakespeare himself managed to play only as a minor actor, for example he had the role of the Ghost, the dead King, in Hamlet. In 1610 Shakespeare retired to Stratford where he died in 1616. His grave is considered to be a sacred place and the person who will bother Shakespeare’s remains will be cursed.
Creative works
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He wrote 37 plays, none of which were published in authorized editions during his lifetime. A First Folio edition was published in 1623, after Shakespeare's death, but it did not print the plays in the order in which they were written.
Phase 1
1590-1591 Henry VI Parts 2 and 3
1591-1592 Henry VI Part I
1592-1593 Richard III
The Comedy of Errors
1593-1594 Titus Andronicus
The Taming of the Shrew
1594-1595 Two Gentlemen of Verona
Love's Labour's Lost
Romeo and Juliet
These plays were characterised by: a variety of different modes (histories, different types of comedies and tragedies); end-stopped blank verse (where the line ends at the end of a sentence or at a strongly marked pause); quite a lot of rhymed lines; no great complexity of imagery.
Phase 2
1595-1596 Richard II
A Midsummer Night's Dream
1596-1597 King John
The Merchant of Venice
1597-1598 Henry IV Parts 1 and 2
1598-1599 Much Ado about Nothing
Henry V
1599-1600 Julius Caesar
The Merry Wives of Windsor
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
This phase is noted for: its more mature style with mort flexible syntax and rhythm; more concentrated imagery; more forceful characterisation; mixture of comedies and 'history' plays.
Phase 3
1600-1601 Hamlet
1601-1602 Troilus and Cressida
1602-1603 All's Well that Ends Well
1604-1605 Measure for Measure
The so-called 'problem' plays (a term used by late nineteenth-century critics who found it difficult to detect Shakespeare's intentions); difficult to interpret; sombre in tone.
Phase 4
1604-1605 Othello
1605-1606 Macbeth
King Lear
1606-1607 Antony and Cleopatra
1607-1608 Coriolanus
Timon of Athens
The great tragedies, showing a mode of thought quite unlike Greek tragedy or earlier English tragedy; a fully developed style.
Phase 5
1608-1609 Pericles
1609-1610 Cymbeline
1610-1611 The Winter's Tale
1611-1612 The Tempest
The romances or 'reconciliation' plays; little of the partial realism of the tragedies; tragedy transformed into reconciliation of the opposing elements.
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Shakespeare's Sonnets
Shakespeare, with masterful wordplay and magical images, transformed the sonnet into a highly expressive means of conveying disillusioned passion.
William Shakespeare left 154 sonnets. They were written in 1590's, and published in 1609.
Shakespearean sonnet has 14 lines, but it is divided into three stanzas of four lines with a final rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme of the sonnet is: ababcdcdefefgg. The only exceptions are Sonnets 99, 126, and 145.
The first 17 sonnets, traditionally called the procreation sonnets, are ostensibly written to a young man urging him to marry and have children in order to immortalise his beauty by passing it to the next generation. Other sonnets express the speaker's love for a young man; brood upon loneliness, death, and the transience of life; seem to criticise the young man for preferring a rival poet; express ambiguous feelings for the speaker's mistress; and pun on the poet's name. The final two sonnets are allegorical treatments of Greek epigrams referring to the "little Love-god" Cupid.
The subjects of the sonnets are usually referred to as the Fair Youth, the Rival Poet, and the Dark Lady.
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Some scholars claim that the speaker expresses admiration for the Fair Youth's beauty, and later has an affair with the Dark Lady, while others claim a homosexual attraction or relationship between the speaker of the sonnets and the Fair Youth.
"Fair Youth" refers to the unnamed young man to whom sonnets 1-126 are addressed. Some commentators, noting the romantic and loving language used in this sequence of sonnets, have suggested a homosexual relationship between them; others have read this relationship as platonic love, or the love of a father for his son.
The Dark Lady sequence (sonnets 127–152), distinguishes itself from the Fair Youth sequence by being overtly sexual in its passion.
The Rival Poet's identity has always remained a mystery; among the varied candidates are Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, or, an amalgamation of several contemporaries.
Tragedies
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Shakespeare's plays were popular not only with aristocrats, intellectuals and monarchs but also with ordinary people.
Although their plots were often drawn from British and European history - sometimes they were reworkings of earlier plays - they were essentially of their time. How is it then that a playwright who was very much an Elizabethan has had such a powerful appeal to subsequent generations and is still popular today? The answer normally given is that DICTATE
Shakespeare understood human affairs in their essential aspects and explored them in a way which was both individual and universal at one and the same time.
Many have linked his plays to Aristotle's precept about tragedy: that the protagonist must be an admirable but flawed (дефектный) character, with the audience able to understand and sympathize with the character. Certainly, all of Shakespeare's tragic protagonists are capable of both good and evil.
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As one of the most influential Shakespearean critics of the 19th century, A. C. Bradley argues," the playwright always insists on the operation of the doctrine of free will; the (anti) hero is always able to back out, to redeem himself (искупить свои грехи, восстановиться). But, the author dictates, they must move unheedingly to their doom.
We know Shakespeare to be an "expert" of the human souls and feelings. That's why each of his plays, especially tragedies, is the evidence of his love of Man. He creates characters of great depth and unusual intellect. Othello's weak point is his crazy jealousy. Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, are too greedy and unfair. King Lear's weakness is his belief in flattery. The story of pure and tragic love of Romeo and Juliet is known all over the world. We see a philosopher in Hamlet. But Hamlet's weakness is hesitation, inability to act; he is only a thinker. He is not a fighter, he is a humanist and a philosopher.
Lecture 3 (на самостійне опрацювання)
The Seventeenth Century Literature
Jacobean literature
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Soul of the Age!
The applause! delight! the wonder of our stage!
My Shakespeare, rise!
wrote Benjamin Jonson about his famous teacher.
Ben Jonson
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After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist Ben Jonson was the leading literary figure of the Jacobean era (The reign of James I).
It was Ben Jonson, an actor of Shakespeare's Company and his close friend, who published Shakespeare's plays in 1623. Jonson was not only an actor, he was also a dramatist. He wrote more than twenty plays, some of them were staged at "The Globe".
However, Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages rather than to the Tudor Era: his characters embody the theory of humours.
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According to this contemporary medical theory, behavioral differences result from a prevalence of one of the body's four "humours" (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) over the other three; these humours correspond with the four elements of the universe: air, water, fire, and earth.
Болезней он предсказывал исход, ‑
Выздоровления иль смерти сроки.
Прекрасно знал болезней он истоки:
Горяч иль холоден, мокр или сух
Больного нрав, а значит, и недуг.
(From “The Canterbury Tales”))
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This theory leads Jonson to creating types, or clichés.
Ben Jonson was a talented producer of masques which were the real performances with different plots and typicalcharacters, dancing and music.
The King James Bible
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The King James Bible, one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. It represents the culmination of a tradition of Bible translation into English. It became the standard Bible of the Church of England, and some consider it one of the greatest literary works of all time.
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This project was headed by James I himself, who supervised the work of forty-seven scholars. Although many other translations into English have been made, some of which are widely considered more accurate, many aesthetically prefer the King James Bible, whose meter is made to mimic the original Hebrew verse.
The metaphysical poets
Besides Shakespeare, whose figure towers over the early 17th century, the major poets of the early 17th century included John Donne and the other Metaphysical poets. Influenced by continental Baroque, and taking as his subject matter both Christian mysticism and eroticism, metaphysical poetry uses unconventional or "unpoetic" figures to reach surprise effects.
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The Metaphysical Poets were a succession of poets who wrote at the beginning of the 17th century.
Representatives: John Donne, Richard Crawshaw, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell, and Henry Vaughan. These poets were not formally affiliated; most of them did not even know or read each other.
Characteristic features of metaphysical poetry:
intense feeling combined with ingenious(своеобразный, хитроумный) thought;
poetry stresses the intellectual over the emotional;
elaborate (замысловатый), witty images;
interest in mathematics, science and geography;
prevailing interest in the soul;
direct, colloquial expressions, rhythms of ordinary speech (even in sonnets and lyrics);
use of argument, paradoxes, irony;
elaborate and unusual conceits.
A conceit (кончетто) is a comparison in which the subject is likened to something that would never normally be associated with. For example, Donne likens his and his beloved's souls to the legs of a compass. The woman who is home, waiting, being the centre, the farther point being her lover sailing away from her. But the larger the distance, the more the hands of the compass lean to each other: separation makes love grow fonder.
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T.S. Eliot, 1921 wrote about Metaphysical poets: (They) were ... engaged in the task of trying to find the verbal equivalent for states of feeling.
John Donne
As a young man, John Donne was something of a courtier and an adventurer. Donne’s reputation has changed over time. He was very popular during his own lifetime, but after his death his writings went out of favor. The interest in his works revived in the 20 century. Now Donne occupies a major position in literature. Modern critics place him with William Shakespeare.
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His works include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic poems and love poems.
His poetry is noted for:
strong and sensual style;
inventiveness of metaphors, especially as compared to that of his contemporaries;
abrupt (резкий, отрывистый) openings;
various paradoxes, ironies, dislocations;
frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms;
tense syntax
All these features were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques.
Two main topics:
immense knowledge of British society (met with sharp criticism)
idea of true religion (which was something that he spent a lot of time considering and theorising about).
Donne's metaphysical poetry is characterized by an unusual degree of intellectualism. Even in his love poems, Donne will base his images and figures of speech on material drawn from law, medieval theology and philosophy, natural science, medicine, astronomy.
Moreover, Donne's poems are frequently structured like ingenious, subtle arguments.
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The religious influence was all-pervasive in Renaissance and Restoration literature.
In the holy sonnet Batter my heart three personed God Donne describes the image of God ravishing (обладать) the poet as a Petrarchan lover might ravish a lady.
Note that there is nothing blasphemous in this image.
Batter my heart, three-personed God…
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, But am betrothed unto your enemy. Divorce me, untie or break that knot again; Take me to you, imprison me, for I, Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, Nor even chaste, expect you ravish me. |
Бог триединый, сердце мне разбей! … Люблю Тебя – и Ты меня люби: Ведь я с врагом насильно обручен… Порви оковы, узел разруби, Возьми меня, да буду заточен! Лишь в рабстве – я свободу обрету, Насильем – возврати мне чистоту!.. |
Donne asks God to 'batter' his heart to make it 'admit' Him. Unfortunately, although he loves God, he is 'betrothed' to God's enemy, the Devil. In his struggle towards goodness, he seems to tell God that he can only belong to Him if He 'imprisons' him and 'ravishes' him.
Baroque poetry
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Apart from the metaphysical poetry of Donne, the 17th century is also celebrated for its Baroque poetry.
Many of these poets have an overtly Catholic sensibility and wrote poetry for the Catholic counter-Reformation in order to establish a feeling of supremacy and mysticism that would ideally persuade newly emerging Protestant groups back toward Catholicism.
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The Baroque style is lofty (возвышенный) epic, and religious.
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Historical context
1603-1625: James I. Ruled over whole British Isles.
Literature of this period known as Jacobean.
1625-1649: Charles I. Limited intellectual ability. Court of taste and refinement. War against France (1627-1629). Parliament dissolved (1629). Charles I executed (1649).
1649-1660: No king. Republic. War against Holland (1652-1654).
The English Civil War (1642-1651) – the reason: unpopular political decisions of Charles I (War between Royalists (the Supporters of the King) and the Puritans (Protestants who felt that the English Church had too many Catholic trappings))
1649 – Commonwealth (Republic of Oliver Cromwell)
1660 – Restoration (Charles II, the son of Charles I)
The Civil War
Reasons:
The urban middle class (the businessmen and merchants) were attracted to the austerity (аскетизм, суровость) of the Puritan movement.
The economic interests of the Crown were closely linked to the Anglican Church.
There was a suspicion that since Charles I's wife was a Catholic, the court was a centre of Catholicism, and the Puritans saw themselves as the protectors of true religious belief.
Charles I tried to raise taxes for government without the consent of Parliament; MPs wanted to have control over how taxes were spent.
Since the fifteenth century, Parliamentary power was more with the House of Commons (which had a Puritan majority) than with the House of Lords (which mainly supported the Crown).
Charles I burst into the House of Commons with several hundred men and tried to arrest its leaders, but they had already escaped.
The south and east of England were more developed economically and supported the Parliamentary movement; the north and west (including Wales) were poorer, more conservative, and supported the king.
PURITANS
The following notes describe the Puritan movement at its most fanatical.
dressed very simply
wanted to purify the Church of England of all Roman Catholic influence
closed the theatres
rejected any spiritual authority except that of the Bible, which was thought to be the pure word of God
said that the voice of God spoke in each person's conscience and no priest could come between
considered all images and ritual to be superstition
banned organs in churches
Many Puritans often took pleasure in sport and in the arts. Cromwell loved hunting and music.
Under James I Puritans were often put in prison and killed.
Some Puritans decided to leave England to find freedom in a new land. These 'Pilgrim Fathers', as they were called, sailed from Plymouth in 1620 in a ship called the Mayflower and started a new life in America.
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REPUBLIC
From 1649-1660 England was a semi-democratic republic. Until 1653 it was under the rule of the House of Commons, many of whose members had been removed when they had opposed the trial of Charles I. From then until 1658, Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector of the Realm in place of a king and rather like a modern president.
As a result of England's military strength and the confirmation of the power of the middle classes, England's international prestige increased.
As a body, though, Parliament was too awkward an institution to carry out policy and Cromwell failed to rule adequately. On his death in 1658 Oliver Cromwell was succeeded by his son Richard. The country, however, decided that if it was to live under a hereditary protectorship it might as well be a king. Charles II was brought back from exile and the monarchy restored. Nevertheless, Parliament remained strong.
Literary processes
Literature of Commonwealth
DICTATE
Everything in literature has changed under the rule of Cromwell.
Satire became a popular mode. In one definition, the aim of satire is "to make men laugh themselves out of their follies and vices" and this anticipated the explosion of satire in the eighteenth century.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680) produced ‘Hudibras’, a satirical treatment of figures and attitudes from the time of the Civil War.
Instead of poetry the political prose came into being.
Political literature: leaflets and pamphlets. Leaflets reported the events, and pamphlets explained the events to the population. Journalism came to start. First newspapers appeared.
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BiographIES
Although biographies had been written in Latin in the Middle Ages to glorify the lives of the saints and to justify secular rulers, it wasn't until the Renaissance, with its emphasis on the human, that biography in England became more detailed, more anecdotal and more prepared to be critical.
In 1579, Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Parallel Lives (first century ad) was published. It contained the biographies of the great men of Greece and Rome, illustrating their moral character through a series of anecdotes. It later encouraged, in the seventeenth century, the biographer to see himself as an artist.
In the eighteenth century, with the growth of a scientific and historical interest in many kinds of people, biographies were to become common and influence the development of the novel. (For example, Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) and Gulliver's Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) are both fiction disguised as autobiography.)
Izaak Walton was the first Englishman to write biographical portraits in the modern sense.
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Biographies
in the Middle Ages – lives of saints (hagiography);
Renaissance – emphasis on the human, more detailed (Thomas North);
17th c. – encouraged by Renaissance, biographer is a writer, an artist (Izaak Walton – biography of John Donne);
18th c. – biographies became common and influenced the development of novels (Swift’s Gulliver's Travels and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe are both fiction disguised as autobiography).
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The two most important poets of Oliver Cromwell's England were Andrew Marvell and John Milton, with both producing works praising the new government.
Despite their republican beliefs they escaped punishment upon the Restoration of Charles II, after which Milton wrote some of his greatest poetical works (with any possible political message hidden under allegory).
John Milton
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The greatest of all publicists during the Puritan Revolution was John Milton. His works and pamphlets gave theoretical foundation to the struggle of the bourgeoisie against the monarchy. Milton became the main ideologist of that time.
In 1641 John Milton abandoned poetry in favour of prose propaganda for the Parliamentary and Puritan causes.
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In 1643 however he married the daughter of a Royalist family and was almost immediately abandoned by her. This led to the first of his pamphlets in favour of divorce.
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Woman must be an intellectual companion and comrade, rather than as merely a housekeeper and childbearer. These ideas were expressed in "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce".
In 1644, in Areopagitica, he appeals for freedom of expression.
The death of his first wife didn't upset Milton much. Since 1646 he had been working on his "History of Britain".
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In 1649 he was appointed Latin Secretary to the Commonwealth and was expected to correspond with foreign governments. He held the post, despite his increasing blindness, until the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, at which time he was only asked to pay a small fine for having worked for the Parliamentary cause.
Almost alone Milton raised his voice against the restoration of Monarchy. He spoke out in a published letter. Then he wrote an open letter to a new Parliament.
He was then left in peace to produce his most major poetry: Paradise Lost: started in 1658 and finished in 1663; Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, published together in 1671.
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Milton's main poetic influence was Spenser.
Until the twentieth century, Milton’s impressive verse was so admired that he was considered second only to Shakespeare.
In the twentieth century, T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) felt Milton was 'withered by book-learning' and wrote English 'like a dead language'. However, Milton still has many admirers, who claim that his verse is not only powerful but subtle and suggestive.
Andrew Marvell
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Andrew Marvell was an English metaphysical poet, Parliamentarian, and the son of a Church of England clergyman (also named Andrew Marvell). As a metaphysical poet, he is associated with John Donne and George Herbert. He was a colleague and friend of John Milton.
Marvell's first poems were written in Latin and Greek and published when he was still at Cambridge.
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In his poems Marwell lamented (сокрушался) a visitation of the plague and celebrated the birth of a child to King Charles I.
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He only belatedly became sympathetic to the successive regimes during the Interregnum after Charles I's execution, which took place 30 January 1649.
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His Horatian Ode, a political poem dated to early 1650, responds with sorrow to the regicide (цареубийца) even as it praises Oliver Cromwell's return from Ireland.
Marvell also wrote anonymous prose satires criticizing the monarchy and Catholicism, defending Puritans, and denouncing (осуждать) censorship.
the Cavalier Poets
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The Cavalier Poets, such as Thomas Carew, Sir John Suckling and Richard Lovelace, were supporters of Charles I.
Influenced by Ben Jonson and, to a lesser extent, by John Donne, their verse is characterised by short firm lines, lively diction and graceful wit.
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Lovelace’s most quoted excerpts are from the last stanza of To Althea
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage (убежище отшельника)
Тюрьма – не стен высоких ряд
Не клетка – средь решеток;
Отшельник тот среди оград,
Чей дух невинен, кроток
and the end of To Lucasta:
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov'd I not Honour more.
Я потому тебя Люблю,
Что дорога мне Честь.
Restoration literature
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It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester's Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim's Progress.
Drama
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Theatres in the times of Puritans
The theater grew out of the tradition of enacting religious dramas. By the time of the Puritans, it was heavily secular, most of the material had nothing to do with religion. Theaters were seen in the same light as public houses, worldly music and dancing. They were magnets for vice, drunkenness, gambling, and prostitution. And they were fun. All this made them distractions from the pursuit of a higher, moral society pursued by the Puritans.
In 1648 the Puritans order that all playhouses and theatres are to be pulled down, all players to be seized and whipped, and anyone caught attending a play to be fined five shillings.
Restoration drama
After Restoratuon the theatres opened again. The public consisted mainly of the court and the wealthy.
The actors themselves were fashionably dressed. Women were allowed to play in the performances. They appeared on the stage in their modern clothes.
The stage itself changed the shape: a "picture-frame" form replaced the stage that came forward towards where the audience was.
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The plots of the plays centred around love and money. Everything and everybody protested against strict rules of Puritanism. Unlike Ben Jonson's moral plays, Restoration Comedies were cynical.
The general interest in drama in the second half of the 17th century corresponded to the national desire for stability after the Revolution and to the pleasure of upper and middle classes (the court, the wealthy and the fashionable) in seeing their image on the stage. The leading position in literature undoubtedly belonged to the comedy of manners.
The comedy of manners is a genre of play which satirizes the manners and affectations of a social class, often represented by stock characters, such as the miles gloriosus (boastful soldier) in ancient times, the fop (foolish man over-concerned with his appearance and clothes) and the rake (heartless womanizer) during the Restoration, or an old person pretending to be young. The plot of the comedy, often concerned with scandal, is generally less important than its witty dialogue.
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The comedies of Moliere influenced the English comedies of manners materially, but certain native tendencies and directions were more important.
The social mode of life, where gallantry, wit, and artificiality were dominant, provided the chief materials of Restoration comedy. Indeed, the gay couplets in these plays and the game of love have been successfully developed.
Restoration comedies — unlike the classically-spirited but rather dull tragedies of the time — were high-spirited and cynical, often farcical.
Their aim, according to Dryden, was that 'Gentlemen will be entertained with the follies of each other'.
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The masterpieces of the genre were the plays of William Wycherley (The Country Wife) and William Congreve (The Way of the World).
In the late 18th century Oliver Goldsmith (She Stoops to Conquer, 1773) and Richard Brinsley Sheridan (The School for Scandal, 1777) revived the form.
The comedies by William Wycherley and William Congreve are based on outward brilliancy of the dialogue, wit and cynicism subtle intrigue of the plot.
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The Country Wife (Провинциалка)
The Country Wife, the third of William Wycherley's four plays, is a true comedy of manners, free from disillusion and pessimism of his other plays.
Mr Horner, a witty courtier, is the ideal gentleman of the social mode. He finds a safe way of courting every woman he chooses by announcing his false impotency.
Unsuspected he enjoys the favours of Lady Fidget. Her husband is so convinced of Horner's impotency that he laughs himself sick in one room while Lady Fidget and Horner close the door in the next room to 'examine china'.
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The play is based on several plays by Molière, with added features that 1670s London audiences demanded: colloquial prose dialogue, complicated plot tangle, and many sex jokes.
The play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time.
The Way of the World (Так поступают все)
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The Way of the World was deservedly famous though the public only mildly approved it.
The play is based around the two lovers Mirabell and Millamant.
In order for the two to get married and receive Millamant's full dowry, Mirabell must receive the blessing of Millamant's aunt, Lady Wishfort. Unfortunately, she is a very bitter lady, who despises Mirabell and wants her own nephew, Sir Wilful, to wed Millamant.
The brilliance and the cruelty of the play are overwhelming, and few readers will deny that The Way of the World is the ultimate in the Restoration comedy of manners. The importance lies in the brilliance, the sparkle of the dialogue, the ridicule of false wit and the exhibition of true wit.
John Dryden
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John Dryden introduced Classicism into the Restoration drama. The aesthetic principles of Classicism such as the unity of time and place are found in his poetic works and plays.
John Dryden was first known in the Civil War period as the author of Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Cromwell (1659).
Dryden easily changed his political views. After the Restoration of the Stuarts he wrote a number of political satires in defence of monarchy and soon became the court poet.
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In the genre of the drama Dryden followed the best examples of the French classical tragedy and the English Renaissance drama of Ben Jonson. His characters were artificial in their passions, the dialogue was bombastic and unreal, the action was noisy and contusing.
His comedies were better understood and appreciated: The Wild Gallant (1663), Secret Love, or the Maiden Queen (1667), Don Sebastian (1690).
Restoration Prose
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An important prose writer embodying the true spirit of Puritanism was John Bunyan, whose The Pilgrim's Progress, a forceful allegory of Man's quest for salvation, is one of the greatest works of religious literature of all time.
The Pilgrim’s Progress
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The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come (Движение Пилигрима из этого мира в грядущий мир) is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature.
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It has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.
The text is divided into two parts, each reading as a continuous narrative with no chapter divisions.
The first part shows Christian, an everyman character, the protagonist of the allegory, which centers itself in his journey from his hometown, the "City of Destruction" ("this world"), to the "Celestial City" ("that which is to come": Heaven).
Christian is weighed down by a great burden, the knowledge of his sin. He meets Evangelist who directs him to go to a "shining light".
Obstinate (Упрямый) and Pliable (Уступчивый) go after Christian to bring him back, but Christian refuses.
On his way to the Wicket Gate (Тесные Врата), Christian is diverted by Mr. Worldly Wiseman (Мирской мудрец) who advices him to change the way.
Atop the Hill of Difficulty (Горы Затруднения), Christian makes his first stop for the night at the House Beautiful (Украшенный Чертог).
As night falls Christian enters the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Just outside the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Долина Смертной Тени) he meets Faithful (Верный) who accompanies him to Vanity Fair, where both are arrested. Faithful is executed. Hopeful (Уповающий), a resident of Vanity, takes Faithful's place.
In the morning they are captured by Giant Despair (Великан Отчания), who takes them to his Doubting Castle, where they are imprisoned, beaten and starved. The giant wants them to commit suicide, but they endure until Christian realizes that a key he has, called Promise, will open all the doors and gates of Doubting Castle. Using the key, they escape.
On Mount Clear they are able to see the Celestial City.
Christian and Hopeful make it through the dangerous Enchanted Ground (Очарованная страна) where they ready themselves to cross the River of Death. Christian has a rough time of it, but Hopeful helps him over; and they are welcomed into the Celestial City.
The Second Part of The Pilgrim's Progress presents the pilgrimage of Christian's wife, Christiana; their sons; and the maiden, Mercy. They visit the same stopping places that Christian visited. The passage of years in this second pilgrimage better allegorizes the journey of the Christian life. By using heroines, Bunyan, in the Second Part, illustrates the idea that women as well as men can be brave pilgrims.
Paradise Lost
Milton dictated his poem to his daughter because of his blindness. It was planned in ten books, but it was written in twelve. The poem is written in blank verse with a rich range of vocabulary and classical allusion.
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Paradise Lost, a long poem in twelve books, written to 'justify the ways of God to men'. It concerns both the Fall of the Angels and the Fall of Man (the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden).
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The plot centres round Adam and Eve, Satan and his rebel-angels, God, three guardian angels: Raphael, Gabriel and Michael. The background is the whole Universe, including Heaven and Hell.
God personifies Monarchy.
Milton's Adam and Eve are full of energy. They love each other and are ready to meet whatever the earth has in store for them. God banishes them from Paradise to the newly created world where they are to face a life of grief and woe. Anyway Milton's sympathies are with them.
The revolutionary spirit is shown in Satan who revolts against God, and is driven away from Heaven with the rebel-angels. They fall into Hell where "No light, but rather darkness visible, ... and rest can never dwell, hope never comes".
Though banished from Heaven, Satan is glad to have got freedom.
"Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."
In fact, Satan is often considered the real hero of Paradise Lost.
N
ot
only does Satan and his vast army of
fallen angels fall for nine days, but
once they arrive in Hell they lie
stunned for another nine days. During these
nine days God sends Jesus
to create another world in the body of Chaos – this is the universe
of Man, and it includes our earth
and all the stars above us – in short, what scientists
refer to when they speak of the universe. Once,
Satan has recovered from his
fall he begins plotting his revenge against God. Having heard that
God had decided to
create a new being (Man),
Satan decides to destroy
this new creation. He
therefore flies from Hell up
through Chaos to the newly
created universe of Man. Here,
he plans the corruption of newly
created Man. His venture is a success, or at least
it will be a success until the Second Coming.
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
Thus when Milton says that Paradise Lost will tell of things "unattempted yet in prose or rhyme" we can see that he was telling the truth.
It should be noted, then, that in Paradise Lost Milton was not only justifying God's ways to humans in general; he was justifying His ways to the English people between 1640 and 1660. That is, he was telling them why they had failed to establish the good society by deposing the king, and why they had welcomed back the monarchy. Like Adam and Eve, they had failed through their own weaknesses, their own lack of faith, their own passions and greed,their own sin. God was not to blame for humanity's expulsion from Eden, nor was He to blame for the trials and corruption that befell England during the time of the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. The failure of the Puritan revolution was tantamount, for Milton, to the people's failure to govern themselves according to the will of God, rather than of a royal despot. England had had the opportunity to become an instrument of God's plan, but ultimately failed to realize itself as the New Israel. Paradise Lost was more than a work of art. Indeed, it was a moral and political treatise, a poetic explanation for the course that English history had taken.
The second great epic poem "Paradise Regained'" was published in 1671. It is devoted to the description of Christ's temptations in the desert. Much in this book is taken from Milton's youthful ambitions.
Though more famous as a poet, John Milton also excelled in the production of prose pamphlets, such as Areopagitica, a passionate defence of the freedom of the press, and On Education, which set out his views on (and experience of) the education of young people.
Milton died in 1674, leaving all his property to the wife who spoke with warm affection of her talented husband.
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After the Restoration, the scientific revolution, which was taking place in society in general, contributed to the forging of a new, clear prose style, which was to be seen both in the works of the rationalist philosophers John Locke (1632-1704) and Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and in a new genre: the diary.
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This genre gives intriguing insights into the daily life of the time in the hands of its two greatest exponents: John Evelyn (1620-1706) and Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) whose diaries were published in the nineteenth century.
The diarists gave the start to the Age of Enlightenment in English Literature.
Lecture 4
The Eighteenth Century Literature. Enlightenment
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Historical Context
1688 - the royal power is under the control of Parliament: the compromise between the royal power and the bourgeois middle class - "The Glorious Revolution"
Debates inside the Parliament: landowners ("Tories") and merchants and nobles ("Whigs")1707: The Acts of Union created the Kingdom of Great Britain (England and Scotland, previously only common monarchs). Queen Anne became the new Queen and the Parliament of Great Britain was created. This is the beginning of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
British colonial expansion
London - a great trading metropolis, administrative, political and legal centre of England
The government becomes the ruling government all over the British Isles and develops contacts outside Britain
Independence of the USA (1776). British-American wars.
Enlightenment – characteristic of the period
The main characteristic of the literature of this period may be summed up in the phrase “From the head, not the heart”. If the literature from the past had been passionate and seen from the point of view of the imagination, the Restoration and the Enlightenment brought about a period governed by reason.
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The 18th century in particular is the AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT (or “Augustan Age”, “Neoclassicism” or “Age of Reason”), a period dominated by a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility.
Scientific rationalism, exemplified by the scientific method, was the hallmark of everything related to the Enlightenment. Following close on the heels of the Renaissance, Enlightenment thinkers believed that the advances of science and industry heralded a new age of egalitarianism and progress for humankind.
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More goods were being produced for less money, people were traveling more, and the chances for the upwardly mobile to actually change their station in life were significantly improving.
At the same time, many voices were expressing sharp criticism of some time-honored cultural institutions. Many intellectuals of the Enlightenment practiced a variety of Deism, which is a rejection of organized, doctrinal religion in favor of a more personal and spiritual kind of faith.
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For the first time in recorded Western history citizens had little to fear in making their opinions known. Criticism was the order of the day, and argumentation was the new mode of conversation.
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Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton are progenitors of the Enlightenment.
In the later phase of the English Renaissance, Bacon composed philosophical treatises which would form the basis of the modern scientific method.
Isaac Newton was a pure scientist in the modern sense. He was a firm believer in the importance of data, and had no philosophical qualms regarding the reliability of the senses.
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However, the mode of inquiry which both Bacon and Newton pioneered became much more influential than the Church’s teachings. The Enlightenment would see these ideas applied to every segment of life.
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The Enlightenment was, at its center, a celebration of ideas – ideas about what the human mind was capable of, and what could be achieved through intellectual action and scientific methodology.
Many of the new, enlightened ideas were political in nature.
Citizens began to see themselves on the same level as their leaders.
Experimentation with elected, consensual leadership began in earnest. The belief was that the combined rationality of the people would elect the best possible representatives.
The Enlightenment was believed to be the realization of the tools and strategies necessary to achieve that potential. The Renaissance was the seed, while the Enlightenment was the blossom.