An Era of Peace
The age of Queen Elizabeth comprising the later half of the 16th century is the golden age in the history of the English people. It was an age in which the mind of the people was set free from the trammels of Medievalism, from fear of religious persecution, from fear of poverty and starvation, and from the fear of foreign invasion. It was an era of social, political and religious peace. Men were now free to devote themselves to art and literature. It was also an era of great adventure, travel and discovery which fired the imagination of the people and impelled them to creative activity. It is, therefore, a golden age of literature, an age in which the Renaissance, temporarily arrested by the religious quarrels of the previous era, could come to full flowering.
Religious Compromise
The young Queen had inherited not only the vanity and love of splendour and display of her father but also the political wisdom, sagacity and caution of her grandfather. She followed a wise policy of moderation and compromise. Men's minds were still oppressed with the fear of the religious persecution of the previous reigns. Both protestants and Catholics alike were smarting under the memories of persecution they had undergone. The nation was still divided within itself. The shrewd Queen did not permit herself to be dominated either by the Catholics or the Protestants. She kept the extremists of both the sects under check. Herself a sceptic, she adopted a policy of religious toleration. She followed the golden mean. Full religious freedom was granted to the people. Attempts were made at reconciliation with Pope, and she refused to be drawn into an open quarrel with Spain. But, at the same time, she favoured public worship of the Anglo-Catholic type and The English Bible was adopted. She employed in government service, both Catholics and Protestants, provided they were loyal. Both the extreme Catholics and the Puitans were kept in check. The result of this wise policy was that religious peace prevailed in England and she was saved from those religious wars, which tore France and Germany into pieces at the time. It was Elizabeth who made the Anglican Church a reality. Anglicanism is a kind of compromise between Catholicism and Protestatism. It may be called Anglo Catholicism. This Church was now accepted both by the Protestants and the Catholics.
Social and Political Peace
Elizabeth's wise policy of moderation also resulted in social and political peace. A working compromise was reached with Scotland, the Northern Barons were kept in check, and so peace was established in the traditionally disturbed border area. The Queen continued the wise policy of personal government adopted by her forefathers. Local Country Squires were appointed as Justices of the Peace. As they enjoyed great prestige in the area, justice could be done to the common man. The Queen strengthened their hands so that peace could be restored in the countryside. Normal social life again became possible. The poor and the unemployed were also taken care of. Poor Laws were passed according to which doles were granted to such as were unable to provide for themselves.
The Popularity of the Queen
It was through her wise policies, both at home and abroad, that the Queen endeared herself to all her people. And she fully deserved the adoration that was freely lavished upon her. She was a true child of the Renaissance. She was a fine young woman, cultured and refined, well- versed in humanistic learning, with a dignified presence, a lofty spirit, and a ready wit. She was a good orator, too, one who could easily move the people and win their hearts. The court on which this glamorous Queen presided was one of the most brilliant courts in Europe. The splendour of her court dazzled the eyes of the people, and combined with her wise policies, did much to increase her prestige and popularity. Worship of Elizabeth, the royal virgin, became the order of the day. "Elizabeth and her court became the focus of the English imagination as well as the centre of political life. "Poets paid all sorts of extravagant compliments to her. She was Spenser's Gloriana, Raleigh's Cynthia and Shakespeare's," fair vestal throned by the west." The people worshipped her for they, "rightly saw in her the incarnate spirit of the nation and the age" (Pinto). Not only the English but also foreigners were instinctively moved to pay homage to this glorious queen with,"a keen calculating intellect that baffled the ablest statesmen in Europe" (Pinto).
Upsurge of Patriotism
There was an upsurge of patriotism such as had never been witnessed before. "It sprang from England's growing consciousness of her strength, her pride of prosperity, the spirit of adventure which animated her sons, and caused them always to aspire to the first place, and her faith in her own destiny" (Legouis). Everything, even religion, combind to stimulate and reinforce this patriotism. Protestantism was regarded as a deliverance from foreign yoke. The English considered themselves to be the chosen people of God and, "the living God is only the English God", became the popular belief. England balanced her literary, accounts and was ashamed to realise her poverty as compared both with the ancients and with contemporary Europe. Latest in the field, she decided to be the first. With confidence in her own genius and sure of her own destiny, she moved forward, and with one bound caught up with her rivals. Elizabethan love of letters had its beginning in patriotic pride.
Rise of England as a Naval Powar —Imperialism
Not only in the field of literature, but in every field, patriotism impelled England to claim a pre-eminent place. Spain and portugal had already colonised great tracts of the New World, rich in gold, silver and precicrs stones. They also monopolised the trade with the East, and were growing fabulously rich as a consequence. England did not play any part in the first great Act of the drama of the discovery of the New World. But now she decided to catch up with her rivals and if possible to out distance them. The discovery of the New World had altered the geographical position of England. The Atlantic was fast becoming the great highway of the civilised world and England lay at the centre of it. Her harbours were better suited for the purpose of the Atlantic trade than those of any other country in Europe. English sailors were not slow in recognising this advantage and their, "determination to acquire a share in the wealth and wonders of the new discoveries is one of the capital factors M the life of the Elizabethan period" (Pinto). The result was a great upsurge of maritime activity. The exploits of Hawkins, Forbisher, Raleigh and Drake, fired the imagination of the English and made England at one bound the equal of her rivals in Europe. Piriacy on the high seas — the looting of Spanish ships returning from the New World—became the favourite pastime of English seadogs. The exploits of English sailors, the accounts of their adventure and of the fabuli3us wealth of the East and of her wonderful people, fired the imagination of the people. The defeat of Spanish Armada in 1588, and the loot of Cadiz which followed, made England the supreme naval power in Europe. Great East India Company was founded in 1599 and thus were sown the seeds of British imperialism. By the end of the 16th century, "the nation Vias conscious of the fact that it was playing a heroic and memorable part in the great adventure of exploring the wonders of the New World discovered in the East and the West". (Pinto).
Prosperity —Zest for Life
As a result of the activity of her sailors — honest trade and piracy — enormous wealth poured into the country in the form of gold and silver, as well as silks, spices, wines and all manner of luxuries. Thus was ushered in an era of prosperity and splendid living. The splendour of the Elizabethan court is well-known: the shoes alone of one of her courtiers, Sir Walter Raleigh, cost as much as 60 thousand pounds. The courtiers of the Queen imitated her own splendour, and the people followed suit. All liked to eat well, dress well and live well and luxuriantly ; The Queen herself was fond of gorgeous shows and pageants, and the people imitated her in this respect too. Freed from religious fears and economic anxieties they gave themselves up to the enjoyment of life. Merry England now became a reality for the first time. A great stimulus was thus given to the development of drama. The Queen had her Children of the Royal Chapel and her troop of professional actors, and her nobles, too, had their own troops of performers.
Wandering troops of actors gave performanes all over the country; the first playhouse 'the Theatre' was founded in 1576, and many others were constructed soon after. The popularity of the Masque — a gorgeous show marked with pageantry, music and dance—bears witness to the common love for colour and spectacle. The Elizabethan zest for life found expression in a host of lyrics. The people were happy and they sang merrily. England was transformed into a nest of singing birds.
Craze for Foreign Travel and Fashions
Italy was the home of the Renaissance. It was the brilliant centre of art and literature and journey to Italy was a craze with the Elizabethans. Alliked to visit Italy and stay there for some time. Thus were imported into the country not only the books of Italy, but also the manners and morals of It. Young gallants, on their return home, affected Italian manners and al I Italian ways of living and dressing. Licentiousness of Italy, her sen-sulusness, often corrupted those who visited her. Hence we find this dual phenomenon: along with the fascination which Italy exercised over the English there is also a criticism of Italianate youngmen. England was already too puritanical and too national to endure this wholesale and indiscriminate importation of Italianism. Satries at the Italianate gentlemen are frequent in Elizabethan literature. As Legouis puts it, "The literature of England was enriched by an immense looting of Italian treasures, and the spoils carried back to the island were there exhibited not only as marvel-ous works of art, but also as objects of reprobation".
Age of Great Thought and Great Action
Thus the reign of Queen Elizabeth is a glorious reign. It is like suarise after a long period of darkness. In the words of Milton, we suddenly see England, "a noble and puissant nation, rousing herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks". It is an age of great thought and great action, an age which appeals to the eye, the imagination and the intellect. It is a great age of intellectual and spiritual liberty, of economic content and political and social peace and stability. In short, it is one of those great periods in the history of mankind when great art and literature flourish and come to flower.
Backwardness of the Age
But there is another side too to the picture. The age was an age of great diversity. It was the age of wisdom, the age of foolishness, the age of Light and Darkness, the age of Reason and of Unreason, the age of Hope as well as of Despair. The conditions of life were fast changing, but much barbarity and backwardness of the Middle Ages still persisted. It was an age of disorder, violence, bloodshed and tavern-brawls. The police was inefficient as is shown by the example of Dogberry and Verges in Much Ado; it was unsafe to go out after nightfall as the streets were dark and deserted and highway robberies of the kind mentioned in Henry IK Part I, were the order of the day. The laws were cruel and brutal, and criminals when apprehended were frequently hanged, drawn and quartered. The brutality of the age is also seen in such brutal sports as bear-baiting and cockfighting which were special favourities of the people and to which there are constant references in the works of Shakespeare.
Ignorance and Superstition
It was an age of ignorance and superstition. Despite the advance of science and learning, the majority of the people still believed in witchcraft and charms and omens of all sorts. Frequent appearance of the Supernatural in the works of Shakespeare is a concession to the popular faith. We have the ghosts in Julius Caeser and Hamlet, witches in Macbeth, and Fairies in Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. Medical science was still rudimentary, and all sorts of fantastic cures were prescribed. Lunatics were still confined within solitary cells and whipped for their own cure. It is in this way that Malvolio is treated in Twelfth Night.
Conclusion
But despite this coarseness, violence, ignorance and brutality, it was an age in which "men lived intensely, thought intensely, and wrote intensely". Hamlet's remark, "What a piece of work is man!" is the very epitome of the Renaissance spirit. They were stirring times, when passions were strong and speculation was rife, when everything conspired to bring out the best that was in men. In short, it was a glorious age in which men of genius, like Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe and Bacon, could make their mark.
1. Elizabethan Poetry (1568-1603)
The poetry of the Elizabethan Era represents the spirit of the Age and is suffused with the spirit of conquest and self-glorification; humanism and vigorous imagination, emotional depth and aerial graces.
1. High Conception of Poetry: Poetry was considered as a dignified and elevated form of literary expression. Sidney says: "Of all science is our poet the Monarch." Poetry was not meant only for enjoyment. Its function was considered to provide profitable enjoyment. Spenser proclaimed that heroes and famous poets are born together. He showed that civilization and poetry go side by side. In particular he insists that "poetry is a divine gift and heavenly instinct not to be gotten by labour and learning, but adorned with both; and poured into the wit by a certain enthusiasm and celestial inspiration." Sublimity was deemed to be the essential quality of a poet. Spenser, Marlowe and Shakespeare had the immense power to exalt and sublimate the readers of poetry.
2. The Spirit of Independence: The poetry of this period is remarkable for the spirit of independence. The poets refused to follow set rules of poetic composition. They did not observe set rules of grammar and prosody. Consequently, new poetic devices and new linguistic modes of expression developed. flexibility and pliability in prosody resulted in good artistic results. Phonetic value of words in lyrics was recognised. New stanza forms were introduced.
3. Varied Poetical Forms: All varieties of poetic forms — lyric, elegy, eclogue, ode, sonnet, madrigal etc. were successfully attempted.
4. Main Divisions of Poetry: The following main divisions of poetry existed during the Elizabethan period:
(a) Love Poetry: The love poetry is characterised by romance, imagination and youthful vigour. Sidney'sAstrophel and Stella, Spenser's Arnoretti, Daniel's Delia, Marlowe's Hero and Leander and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonais are some memorable love poems of this period.
(b) Patriotic Poems: The ardent note of patriotism is the distinctive characteristic of Elizabethan poetry. Warner's Abbion's England, Daniel's Civil Wars of York and Lancaster, D rayton's The Barons War and the Ballad of Agincourt are some remarkable patriotic poems.
(c) Philosophical Poetry: The fire and strength of people, becoming inward, resulted in a graver and more thoughtful national life. The tragedies of Shakespeare represent this aspect of national life. Brooke's poems on Human Learning On Wars, On Monarchy and On Religion have philosophical leanings.
(d) Satirical Poems: It came into existence after the decline of imaginative vigour towards the end of Elizabeth's reign. Donne's Satires and Drummond's Sonnets are some fine examples of this type of poetry.
(e) Originality: The poetical production was not equal to the dramatic but it was of great and original beauty. The passion for poetry was absorbing, and the outcome of it was equal to expectation. The early Italian and classical influences were completely absorbed and the poetry of this period depicts the typical British character and temperament. Edward Albert writes: "The native English genius, having absorbed the lessons of foreign writers, adds to them the youth and ardour of its own spirit. The result is a fullness, freshness and grandeur of style unequalled in any other period of our literature. There are the lyrics and allegories of Spenser; the poems, dramas and lyrics of Shakespeare; and the innumerable miscellanies, poems and plays of other writers. The style is as varied as the poems, but the universal note is the romantic one of power and wonder."
2. Jacobean Poetry (1603-1625)
James I ruled over England during this period and, hence, it is known as Jacobean period. There is something arbitrary in a separation of poetry of the reigns of Elizabeth and James I. The division must be understood to be convenient rather than anything else, a device to assist the chronology of history. Shakespeare, Daniel, Drayton, Chapman and many others wrote as much in the one reign as in the other. But there was a poetic evolution which divides the first two decades of the seventeenth century from the closing years of the sixteenth.
Elizabeth's reign had the glory of youth and growth of national expansion and patriotic faith. The whole of literature was lit up with the victory of Armada. Even the bitterest satires and gloomiest pages had a spontaneity and dash which are near to joy. The poet derived from life, from the things he saw, and from the current ideas, a pleasure perpetually renewed. He was intoxicated with the novelty of his metres and the freshness of his vocabulary. Pessimism existed only for him superficially or momentarily.
In the reign of James I a change was obvious. Life's gaiety was lost. Sadness began to prevail. Human nature turned towards perverseness. Society was vitiated. A harsh cynical realism succeeded. Poetry had grown self-conscious. The earlier ardour and easy enjoyment of colours and words were on the wane. Poets became more moral or religious. While literature acquired more substance, it became less capable of facile, light-hearted joy. Poetry had crept under the shadow of the approaching civil conflicts, of the strengthened and menacing Puritanism.
I
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586)
Born in 1554 Sidney belonged to one of the most distinguished families in England. He studied in Oxford, and spent some time abroad, in Paris, Vienna, and Italy. He then returned to Elizabeth's court where he represented the more elevated political conceptions of the time. He was sent to Germany on a political mission in 1577. He also took keen interest in the development of English power on the sea. In 1583 he accompanied the English army which was sent to help the Dutch Protestants against Spain; and in 1586 he fell in a skirmish at Zutphen.
Sidney was very dear to Queen Elizabeth. She called him one of the jewels of her crown, and at the age of twenty he was "one of the ripest statesmen of the Age". Literature was his favourite avocation.
As a man of letters Sidney is remembered for Arcadia (1590), a prose romance, Apology for Poetry (1580), a collection of literary and critical principles and Astrophel and Stella (1593), a collection of sonnets. Here we are concerned with his contribution to poetry.
Astrophel and Stella: It is a memorable collection of Sidney's sonnets. They reveal Sidney's love for Penelope Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, a love brought to disaster by the intervention of the Queen, with whom he had quarrelled. Sidney himself is Astrophel and Penelope is Stella. These sonnets are the first direct expression of personal feelings and experience in English poetry. He analyses the sequence of his feelings with a vividness and minuteness which assure us of their truth. All that he tells us is the result of exeperience dearly bought:
Desire, desire ! I have too dearly bought
With price of mangled mind thy worthless ware
Too long, too long, asleep thou has me brought,
Who should my mind to higher things prepare.
There is in his sonnets much of the conventional material of the Italian sonneteers. Sidney's sonnets have overfantastic imagery. His lines often drag nervelessly, but there are rare flashes of beauty, fine notes of passion, unforgettable phrases:
Fool! said my Muse, look in thy heart, and write.
Mark the melody in the following line:
Ring out your bells, let mourning sheweth spread,
For love is dead.
The following lines are noticeable for intimacy and familiarity:
My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one to the other given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven.
Commenting on his greatness as a poet, Rickett remarks: "Less brilliant than Marlowe, less witty than Lyly, inferior to Spenser in glamour, and excelled by many a contemporary song-writer in deftness of fancy, he has produced a body of work which for its versatile excellence places him in the foremost rank of his time."
II
EDMUND SPENSER (1552-1599)
The Fairy Queen' as a romantic epic
The Fairy Queen is Spenser's masterpiece. It has been called an epic, a medieval romance, as well as a romantic epic. It has the prominent features both of a romance and an epic. Its hero is Prince Arthur celebrated alike in folklore and legend and having the force of reality for 16th century England. He has national importance. His exploits and adventures are heroic, the treatment of the subject is in the grand style suitable for an epic. The language, too, is dignified and sublime. Homeric similes have been profusely used to exalt the imagination of the readers and enlarge the range of the epic. The judicious use of the supernatural is in the characteristic epic style. The poet does not begin from the beginning but from the middle. The aim, too, is frankly didactic, i.e., to fashion a gentlemen in moral and virtuous discipline. As regards unity, it may not have unity of action, but it certainly has a unity of design and atmosphere. The adventures of the various knights have a common origin and a common end.
Spenser's masterpiece also has many features of a medieval Romance. It is not the tale of a single hero but of a number of separate heroes. These heroes are all fictitious knights. Each of the books has its own hero and deals with his individual exploits and adventures. The scene is laid in a romantic fairyland and the knights set out to perform the biddings of the Fairy Queen. No doubt Prince Arthur makes his appearance in each of the books, but his appearance is transitory and casual and fails to provide the unity of action essential for an epic. He remains a thin shadowy figure which fails to capture the attention and imagination of the readers. In each book he is subordinated to the particular knight of that book. The unity of action is further violated by introducing a number of digressions. The knights undertake the various adventures not for the sake of their country or religion but to win the favour of their lady love. No lands are conquered and no national enemies subdued in the Fairy Queen. No doubt the declared purpose is didactic, but the poet is more interested in colour and painting than in the moral. The moral purpose grows weaker after the first book and then it is entirely forgotten.
Thus it becomes clear that we cannot call the Fairy Queen an epic in the classical style, like those of Homer and Virgil. Nor can we call it a meterical romance of the middle ages. As a matter of fact, Spenser's masterpiece is a romantic epic. It has been modelled after the fashion of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, which, like Spenser's Fairy Queen, shares the characteristics both of the epic and the romance. Spenser had read the Italian author quite early in his career, had been deeply influenced by him, and unconsciously made him his guide and mentor while working at his own romantic epic.
Spenser's Works: Edmund Spenser is a typical representative of his age. His poetry combines the best of both the Renaissance and Reformation. He is rightly called "the poet's poet" because all great poets — Milton, Donne, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, the Pre-Raphaelites and many others have been indebted to him. Rickett remarks: "Spenser is at once the child of the Renaissance and the Reformation. On one side we may regard him with Milton as "the sage and serious Spenser", on the other he is the humanist, alive to the finger-tips with the sensuous beauty of the southern romance." All his poetic works reflect the aforesaid qualities which make him a Titan in non dramatic poetry. His main poetic works are given below:
(1) The Shepherd's Calendar (1579). It is modelled on the artificial pastoral popularised by the Renaissance, and inspired by Theocritus and Virgil's Bucolica. It is a series of pastoral eclogues for every month of the year. He took the same liberties with the pastoral form as did Virgil himself. He made it a vehicle for satire and allegory, for communicating social and political conditions, and for referring to his friends. In it Spenser also refers to his unfortunate love for certain Rosalind.
The Shepherd's Calendar for the first time brings to English poetry the richness, the warm pictorial quality, and sense of amplitude. The poet shows remarkable skill in dealing with various old-time metres in a fresh and masterly way. Spenser freely borrowed words from the old poets of his country and from provincial vocabularies. The style is deliberately archaic because it is in keeping with the rustic characters. Spenser successfully adopted the dialect and alliteration of the Midlands and the North. Moody and Lovett remark about its diction: "But most remarkable among their literary qualities is the diction, which he elaborated for himself with the design of giving a suggestion of antiquity and rusticity to his writing. The curious predilection for obsolete and coined words is but one manifestation of the experimentation in diction by the Age. It is carried so far in The Faerie Queene that Ben Jonson could say of Spenser that he "writ no language".
(2) Miscellaneous Poems. In 1591 Spenser collected his smaller poems, most of which seem to be early work and published them. Among them Mother Hubbard's Tale is a remarkable satire, somewhat in the manner of Chaucer, on society, on the evils of a beggar soldiery, of the church, of the court, and of misgovernment. In it Spenser seems to be a morose judge of society, viewing it pessimistically. Other poems worth mentioning are the Ruins of Time, The Tears of the Muses, The Fate of the Butterfly etc. This collection was entitled Complaints.
In 1595 appeared his most autobiographical poem Collin Clout's Come Home Again. Collin Clout (Spenser) is a shepherd who is visited by another shepherd of the ocean (Sir Walter Raleigh) who is charmed by his music and carries him to the court of Cynthia (Queen Elizabeth). During his stay in the court Collin feels great delight but the discovery of intrigues, jealousies, courtly love and debauchery hidden beneath the sceming decorum and the malignity masked by courtesy, anger and disgust him. He returns to his humble and simple pastoral life.
In 1595, Spenser published his Amoretti, a collection of eighty-eight Petrarchan sonnets, which describe the progress of his love for Elizabeth Boyle, whom he married in 1594. In them the poet records his feelings in a clear and straightforward manner without recoursing to allegory. Spenser's sonnets stand between those of Sidney and Shakespeare. He is the forerunner of the English sonnet. His sonnets are divided into three quatrains with the rhyming scheme a b a b, b c b c, c d c d, and a rhyming couplet (e e). They tell the story of pure love. They show better than anything else that quality, in Spenser, which Coleridge called "maidenliness", or his love for the virginal in woman.
Frankness and candidness characterise these sonnets. In many of them the poet extols his mistress's beauty with a great sensual wealth of detail and colour. He does not conceal the ardour of his desires. In these sonnets is "that curious undertone of melancholy that sounds through most renaissance poetry is blended here delicately with frank and sensitive delight in the beauty and splendour of things."
Epithalamion (1595) exhibits happily the sensuous sweetness and the rapture of love. It is by common consent the noblest wedding hymn in English language. It is a magnificient ode, written in honour of his marriage with Elizabeth Boyle.
Prothalamion (1596) is another marriage hymn. It is also an ode. Astrophel (1596) is an Arcadian elegy on the death of Sir Philip Sidney. This very year he wrote his prose treatise, The View of Ireland.
Four Hymns (1596), written in honour of love and beauty, shows Spenser's wonderful power of melodious verse. Plato's influence is clearly felt on the Hymns. Platonic influence is found in the identification of beauty with God. Spenser saw earthly beauty, and especially the beauty of wornan, which inspires love, as the token and reflection of divine beauty, virtue rendered visible. These hymns show a strong sense of colour and minute details in the word-painting of the bodily charms of maidens. Spenser presents love as the civilizer of mankind.
Edward Albert writes: "Spenser's shorter poems illustrate his lyrical ability, which is moderate in quality. His style is too diffuse and ornate to be intensely passionate; but especially in the codes, he can build up sonorous and commanding measures which by their weight and splendour delight both mind and ear. To a lesser extent, as in Mother Hubbard's Tale, the shorter poems afford him scope for his satirical bent, which can be sharp and censorious." The following lines from the Epithalamion illustrate the graces of Spenser's style:
With trembling steps, and humble reverence,
She cometh in, before the Almighty's view;
Of her, ye Virgins, learn obedience,
When so ye come into those holy places,
To humble your proud faces.
(3) The Faerie Queene. It is the finest and most important of Spenser's works. In the words of S. A. Brooke: "It was the first great ideal poem that England had produced; it places him side by side with Milton, but on a throne built of wholly different material. It has never ceased to make poets, and it will live, as he said in his dedication to the Queen "with the eternity of her fame".
Date of Composition: The Faerie Queene appeared in instalments. The first three books were published in 1589-90, and the second three books appeared in 1596. Two cantos and two odd stanzas of Book VII appeared posthumously in 1609.
The Original Plan and the Plot: Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, The Faerie Queene is a fragment. Spenser projected twelve books, out of which six appeared in his lifetime and the portions of the seventh after his death. Spenser's purpose, as indicated in a letter to Raleigh which introduces the poem, is as follows: "To portray Arthur, before he was king, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve private Moral Virtues, as Aristotle had devised; which is the purpose of the first twelve books: which if I find to be well accepted, I may be perhaps encouraged to frame the other part of Politic Virtues, after that he came to be king." Each of the virtues appears as a knight, fighting his opposing vice, and the poem tells the story of the conflicts. Spenser completed only six books, celebrating Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy. The fragment of the seventh book deals with constancy. The first three books are by far the best. Prince Arthur is the central character in Faerie Queene. He appears at critical moments in the poem. He marries Gloriana, the Queen of the Fairyland in the end. The appearance of Arthur at a critical moment in each of these stories was specially devised as a link between one part and another of the gigantic design. Albert remarks: "The plot is exceedingly elaborate and leisurely; it is crammed with incident and digression, and by the fifth book it is palpably weakening. It is therefore no misfortune (as far as plot is concerned) that only half of the story is finished."
The Faerie Queene as an Allegory
It is one of the most remarkable allegories in the Renaissance poetry. The allegory is clear in the first two books. Afterwards it is troubled with digressions, sub-allegories, genealogies, with anything that Spenser's fancy led him to introduce. Stories are dropped and never taken up again, and the whole tale is so bungled that it loses its narrative interest. But it retains the interest as an exquisite allegory. The Faerie Queene, writes Hudson, "is not simply a romance; it is a didactic romance, the poet throughout using his stories as vehicles of the lessons he wished to convey. He carries out his purpose by turning romance into allegory." Its story has three allegorical strands:
1. The usual characters of the Arthurian and classical romance, such as Arthur, Merlin, Saracens etc. represent cardinal virtues of Aristotle's philosophy. The twelve knights represent twelve virtues. The adventures of each knight are arranged to express symbolically the experiences, conflicts, and temptations of each such virtue in the turmoil of the world, and its ultimate triumph, with the aid of Arthur, the incarnation of its Divine Power, over all its enemies. The symbolical representations are given below:
Book I
The Legend of the Knight of Red Cross
Holiness
Book II
The Legend of Sir Guyon
Temperance
Book III
The Legend of Britomartis
Chastity
Book IV
The Legend of Cambel and Triamond
Friendship
Book V
The Legend of Artegall
Justice
Book VI
The Legend of Sir Calidore
Courtesy
Spenser's meaning or intention is not clear. In Homer or Virgil the first strong lines reveal the subject; in Milton's Paradise Lost the introduction gives us the theme; "but Spenser's great poem—with the exception of a single line in the Prologue, 'Fierce wars and faithful loves shall moralize my song' — gives hardly a hint of what is coming. However, the Faerie Queene is an ethical allegory in which 'the noble powers of the human soul struggling towards union with God, and warring against all the forms of the evil, and these powers become real personages whose lives and battles Spenser tells in verse so musical and so gliding, so delicately wrought, so rich in imaginative ornament, and so inspired with the finer life of beauty', that he has been called 'the poet's poet'. But he is the poet of all men who love poetry."
2. Besides the ethical allegory, the Faerie Queene is also religious llegory. The figures of the narrative are not merely personifications of -Loral and mental qualities, but they also stand for institutions or persons representing or embodying the qualities in question. The story of the Red Rose Knight in the first book, who goes out to rescue the parents of Lady Una from the power of a great dragon who for years has kept them onfined in a brazen castle. As religious allegory it represents the work of True Religion in rescuing Humanity from the power of great dragon, satan, while his friends and enemies whom the knight meets are the forces which aid and the forces which oppose. But Spenser identifies true eligion with Protestantism, and the enemies of True Religion are the enemies of England—the Papacy, Rome's political allies, especially pain and Mary of Scots. So the two lines of allegory run together, and the poem becomes at once the medium of the poet's moral teaching and is reading of contemporary events and movements.
3. Lastly, there is the strongly Elizabethan political-historical element. In the first three books the shadowy Faery Queen sometimes represents the glory of God and sometimes Elizabeth. Britomartis is also Elizabeth. The Red Cross Knight is Sidney, the ideal Englishman. Arthur, who always appears to rescue the oppressed, is Leicester. Una is ometimes religion and sometimes the Protestant Church. Duessa represents Mary Queen of Scots or Catholicism. In the last book Mercilla; Elizabeth; Bourbon is Henry IV of France. Timias is Raleigh, and Blandmour and Paridell are earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland.
The excess of symbols and want of human touch, languidity of narration and abstract characters make the allegory confused, inconsistent and obscure.
Sensuousness and Pictures queness: Spenser does not excel either as an allegorist or as a writer of romance, but he is incomparable as a showman of pageants. He skilfully and picturesquely describes scenes and sights of nature, scenes of bloody fights, characters both human and superhuman, buildings, caves, months of the year and the rivers of England. His consummate descriptive power is seen at its best in the Faerie Queene —a picture-gallery, rarely to be matched in the entire range of Elizabethan literature.
Spenser is a matchless painter in words. His word-pictures are colourful, concrete, vivid and beautiful. Courthope rightly remarks that as we read the Faerie Queene a dreamlike succession of pageants and dissolving views of forests, lakes, knights and ladies, caves and palaces, rises before our mind's eye in a concrete image." He is a great colourist. When Spenser purports to draw a person or a scene from nature, he is aspired by the painter's method. As we read the Faerie Queene, a beautial panorama of fleeting images and pictures rises before our eyes. Ireland provided him with picture of "the little mountain path of trodden grass", where Lady Una meets Abessa. The vivid pictures of the sea are all inspired by intimate personal observation of the stormy Irish sea.
Hence, his pictures are vivid and accurate. Mark the vividity, the accuracy and the sensuous beauty in the following word-picture:
And forth they pass, with pleasure forward led,
Joying to hear the birds' sweet harmony,
Which, therein shrouded from the tempest died,
Seemed in their song to scorn the cruel sky.
Much can they praise the tree so straight and high,
The sayling Pine, the Cedar proud and tall;
The Vine-propp Elme; the poplar never dry;
The builder Oak, sole king of forests all;
The Aspine good for Staves; the Cypress funeral.
Spenser has painted a wonderful gallery of pictures of men and women representing a cross-section of English life. An old man is described in his hoary glory:
An aged sire in long black weedes clad
His feet all bare, his head all hoary grey.
Spenser was unendingly enthralled by the human body, especially the woman body, which has been voluptuously and colourfully picturised in description after description. How life-like, solid and detailed, majestic and decorative, colourful and sensuous are the following pictures:
Her neck and breast, were ever open bare:
That ay thereof her babes might suck their fill.
Queen Lucifera is
A maiden Queen, that shone as Titans say
In glistening gold, and peerless precious stone.
Spenser's pictures of the knights, of the scenes of fighting, knightly encounters and bloodshed are equally concrete, detailed, impressive and colourful. According to Rickett this poem "reveals a sober, chaste, and sensitive spirit; one keenly alive to sensuous beauty, but kept from grossness and coarseness of some of his brilliant contemporaries by a mind of singular refinement; and beauty is for him the supermost value in life. Small wonder that Keats was fired by his verse, for certainly his famous phrase, 'A thing of beauty is a joy for ever' is entirely Spenserian in sentiment."
Style and Versification: Spenser's contribution to poetic style, diction and versification is memorable. Renwick points out: "He treated the English language as if it belonged to him and to it." He coined new words, imported many from France and Italy, and saved many obsolete words from oblivion. Spenser evolved a true poetic style which the succeeding generations of English poets used. He is truly the poet maker, who inspired others to achieve greatness in the field. Renwick says that "Shakespeare himself might not have achieved so much, if Spenser had not lived and laboured." J. R. Lowell writes about his contribution: "But no man contributed so much to the transformation of style and language as Spenser; for not only did he deliberately endeavour at reform, but by the charm of his diction, the novel harmonies of his verse, his ideal method of treatment, and the splendour of his fancy, he made the new manner popular and fruitful." His rich and voluptuous style was followed by almost all his successors. The Faerie Queene stands unrivalled in English "for beauty long and richly wrought, for subtle and sustained melody, for graphic word-pictures, and for depth and magical colour of atmosphere." Milton, Keats and Tennyson follow in his footsteps, and his influence is still powerful.
Spenser is peerless in adroitly developing the vowel-music and fine poetic cadences. The graphical power and the melodic beauty of his poetry is unsurpassable.
The introduction of Spenserian stanza, which has been admired by countless critics and imitated by all poets since its introduction, is his most remarkable contribution. This is a nine-line stanza, running a b a b b c b c c, the last line being what is called an Alexandrine, or line of six iambic feet, instead of five. The genesis of this stanza is uncertain, but it is probable that Spenser evolved it by simply adding the Alexandrine to Chaucer's eight line stave (a b a b b c b c) of The Monk's Tale. Albert writes: "The complicated rhymes of the stanza suit the interwoven harmonies of the style, and the long line at the end acts either as a dignified conclusion or as a longer and stronger link with the succeeding stanza. The alliteration, vowel-music, and cadence are cunningly fashioned, adroitly developed, and sumptuously appropriate."
Spenser is great because of the extraordinary smoothness and melody of his verse and the richness of his language— a golden diction which he drew from every source — new words, old words, obsolete words.
The Faerie Queene as a Romantic Epic
Spenser's genius, says Rickett, "is epic, not lyric; he is a story teller, not a singer. He has something of Homer's ancient simplicity, though not the poignancy. His masterpiece, The Faerie Queene, is not a medieval romance but a romantic epic. It combines the prominent features of both a romance and an epic. It is not an epic in the classical style, like those of Homer and Virgil. Spenser was influenced by Aristo's Orlanda Furioso, which like the Faerie Queene shares the characteristics of both the romance and the epic.
Its hero, Prince Arthur, was a celebrated figure in folklore and legend, and has the force of reality for sixteenth century England. His exploits and adventures are heroic. He is an ideal person who always appears to rescue the oppressed. Spenser's imagination in the Faerie Queene is expansive and he filled up the measure of his narrative with everything that caught his fancy — historical events and personages under allegorical masks, beautiful ladies, chivalrous knights, giants, monsters, dragons, sirens, enchanters and countless adventures.
The treatment of the subject is in the grand style suitable for an epic. The language is dignified and sublime. Moody and Lovett write: "Spenser had the great gift of the poet, the power to create the illusion of a different world, a world of magic where the imagination and senses are satisfied. With all his morality, Spenser shared in the rich sensuous life which the Renaissance had thrown open to men...... Altogether, Spenser has the resources of the whole world of sensation at command, and he never fails to heighten them with the illusion of his art. Of the colour, the savour, the music of life, his poem is full—only the colour is brighter, the taste sweeter, the music grander than any which mortal senses know." The similes are primal and direct. A wounded hero falls
………….as an aged tree,
High growing on the top of rocky clift.
The judicious use of the supernatural is in the characteristic of epic style. Its aim is didactic, i.e., to fashion a man in moral and virtuous discipline. It does not have unity of action, but it certainly has a unity of design and atmosphere.
The Faerie Queene has many features of a medieval romance. Although Prince Arthur casually appears in each book, he fails to provide the unity of action essential for an epic. Each of the books has its own hero and deals with his individual exploits and adventures. It has no unity of action, worthy of an epic. The scene is laid in a romantic fairyland. Rickett remarks: "Sensitive to every phase of imagination and beauty, there is always a dreamy atmopshere about his verse."
The Faerie Queene is a romantic epic, the very first of its kind in English poetry. S. A. Brooke points out that it has a number of elements which have been commingled together in it for the first time. To quote him: "In its ideal whole, the poem represents the new love of chivalry, of classical learning, the delight in mystic theories of love and religion, in allegorical schemes, in splendid spectacles and pageants, in wild adventure; the love of England, the hatred of Spain, the strange worship of the Queen, even Spenser's own new love. It takes up and uses the popular legends of fairies, dwarfs, and giants, all the recovered romance and machinery of the Italian epics, and mingles them up with the wild scenery of Ireland, with the savages and wonders of the New World. Almost the whole spirit of Renaissance under Elizabeth, except its coarser and baser elements, is in its pages. Of anything impure, or ugly, or violent, there is no trace."
Spenser, the Child of Renaissance and Reformation
Rickett writes: "Spenser is at once the child of the Renaissance and the Reformation. On one side we may regard him with Milton as "the sage and serious Spenser", on the other he is the Humanist, alive to the fingertips with the sensuous beauty of Southern Romance." Hudson also remarks that his poetry "is steeped in the humanism of the classics and Italian literature, and it everywhere testifies to the strenuous idealism and moral earnestness of Protestantism." The following characteristics of Renaissance are found in Spenser's poetry:
1. Spirit of adventure and love for active life.
2. Sensuousness and love of beauty.
3. Influence of Classical Learning: Spenser, a true child of Renaissance, is thoroughly imbued with the classical spirit and his acquaintance with the classical writers is perfect. He was influenced by Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Ariosto and Tasso. It was Plato who taught
Spenser to view the beauty of the physical world as a symbol of divine beauty. According to this philosophy, "All that is fair is by nature Good."
What Spenser borrows from the ancients suffers a sea change in his hands. From Homer he borrows the description of the voyage to the Bower of Bliss, but Spenser adds a new interpretation to this voyage of which Homer had no idea in the Odyssey. There is much that Spenser borrows from Virgil. In his poetry there are Virgilian phrases. Tasso's Armida suggests to Spenser the description of Acrasia and her bower. He modelled the Faerie Queene on Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, from which it differs radically in its strong moral element.
Spenser embodies the Greek philosophical thought in the Faerie Queene and the Four Hymns. He draws from Aristotle the plan of the Faerie Queene. The underlying idea of the Faerie Queene to "fashion a gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline" is derived from Aristotle.
Classical mythology was admired and was put to literary use in Renaissance. Spenser is thoroughly conversant with the classical mythology and profusely uses classical stories, myths and symbols in the Faerie Queene.
4. Humanism: Spenser is a typical Renaissance humanist. He aims at presenting an idealised picture of man and human life. He writes as the idealist, describing men not as they are but as he thinks they should be. He has no humour, and his mission is not to amuse but to reform. As a humanist, Spenser aims at inculcating moral virtues. His ardent zeal for moral earnestness is expressed in the opening lines of Canto V of the first book of the Faerie Queene:
The noble heart that harbours virtuous thought
And is with child of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought,
The eternal brood of glory excellent.
5. Imagination: As the true representative of Renaissance, Spenser is endowed with expansive imagination, which enables him to create a world of dreams, fancies and illusions. Rickett writes about his imagination: "His is a rich ornate imagination; yet it rarely becomes turbid and oppressive. It lacks Marlowe's thrill, it certainly lacks his violence. It is a thing of prismatic colouring, refracting the white light of common day in delicate rainbow hues."
In Spenser's poetry the Renaissance element has been well fused with the Reformation element. The following characteristics of Reformation are present in his poetry:
1. Christian Morality: He represents both Renaissance humanism and Christian humanism. He represents true Christian virtues — faith, hope and charity in his Faerie Queene and the other twelve virtues that he seeks to embody in King Arthur also have the true Christian colouring.
2. Protestantism: Spenser was a devout Protestant. The first book of the Faerie Queene allegorises the struggle between the Protestant Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Queen Elizabeth, represented as Lady Una, is the embodiment of truth, simplicity, innocence and humility. She stands for the Protestant Church of England. Her rival, Mary Queen of Scots, is the symbol of falsehood and stands for the Catholic Church. Spenser exposes various evils and corruptions of the Roman Catholic Church through her deceitful character. In this conflict the Protestant Church comes out victorious, and the Catholic Church is defeated.
The Renaissance and the Reformation elements are delicately balanced in his poetry and it is difficult to say which of the two predominates.
Spenser's Contribution to English Poetry or Spenser as the Poets' Poet or Spenser's Influence on English Poetry
Spenser's contribution to the development of English poetry is so great that almost all real poets right from Renaissance to our own day have been immensely influenced by him. No other poet has inspired and guided so many poets as Spenser. So Charles Lamb called him "the poets' poet". Spenser is the fountainhead of all those poetic excellencies and beauties which have fascinated all subsequent poets, who have expressed their indebtedness to him and called him their master and guide.
Milton, Browne, the two Fletchers and Moore were his professed disciples. Cowley tells us that he became a poet while reading the Faerie Queene when a boy. Shakespeare, whose language was enriched by Spenser's brilliant example, paid him a glowing tribute in the Passionate Pilgrim:
Spenser to me, whose deep conceit, is such,
As passing all conceit, needs no defence,
Thou lov'st hear the sweet melodious sound
That Phoebus' lute, the queen of music makes.
Dryden freely acknowledged that Spenser had been his master in English, and adds that "no man was ever born with a greater genius or more knowledge to sup fort it." Pope says: "There is something in Spenser that pleases one as strongly in one's old age as it did in one's youth." Thompson referred to him as "my master Spenser". Collins, Gray and Akenside show his influence. Wordsworth praises Spenser as the embodiment of nobility, purity and sweetness:
The gentle Bard,
Chosen by the Muse for their Page of State,
Sweet Spenser, moving, through his clouded heaven
With the moon's beauty and moon's soft pace
I called him brother, Englishman, and friend.
Byron, Shelley and Keats are his worthy disciples. The pre-Raphaelites were inspired by Spenser's word-painting and picturesque descriptions. His influence continues uninterrupted even to this day. Spenser rightly deserves the envious titles as the "poets' poet" and "the second father of English poetry".
Spenser is the "poets' poet" not only for the reasons mentioned above, but for the reason that he is a poet for poets and scholars. He was a great scholar of ancient classical literature of Greece and Rome, as well as of the literature of his own age. Plato, Aristotle, Ariosto, Virgil, Homer and classical mythology immensely influenced him. His poetry is suffused with classical influences. One who really wants to enjoy Spenser's poetry will have to acquaint oneself with the classical mythology and classical literature, pastoral tradition of Greece and Rome, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and the cross-currents of the age of the Renaissance and Reformation. But it is the narrow sense in which he has been regarded as the "Poets' Poet". Indeed, Spenser is the poet of all men who love poetry and are endowed with a poetical temperament.
Spenser is the "poets' poet" and the "second father of English poetry" because it was he, and not Chaucer, who gave to the poets not only of his own age but of all ages, a high and noble conception of their calling. He had a very high sense of the vocation of the poet and believed the poet to be the chosen agent of God. Like Plato, Horace and Ovid he believed that the poet was a creator like God and so shared some of his immortality. Spenser emphatically wrote:
For deeds done die however never alone.
And thoughts men done as themselves decay;
But wise words taught in numbers for to runne,
Recorded by the Muse lives for Aye,
Ne with storming showers be washt away.
No bitter breathing windes with harmful blast.
Nor age, nor envy shall them ever waste.
All great poets right from the Renaissance to this day have followed Spenser's conception of poetry with undeviating fidelity. He gave to England and her poets, "pride and confidence, the fervour of conviction and faith." He was the poet who inspired others to become poets and to devote to their vocation the best that was in them.
Spenser set out to endow England with poetry, great in kind, in style, in thought and to show to the world that "Modern England was capable of poetry as great as that of any other age and that she had her share of poetic power, of art and learning." Before him Chaucer had written poetry of a high order, but in spite of his memorable contribution to English poetry, it could not stand at par with the poetry of great European writers. Spenser thoroughly studied the classical literature and imitated excellencies in his own inimitable way, and in the end surpassed the classical poets. It was a difficult task. He did not abandon the native tradition of romance and the poetic art of Chaucer. He had to begin with the foundations, make language and style and verse anew, to reconcile the native speech and the native taste with the style and forms of classical and foreign art, to control the violent spirit of the new age and direct it into the channels of art. Spenser successfully performed the task of reorienting English poetry and of placing it on a level with European poetry. Spenser has been called the "poets' poet" for rendering their memorable service to English poetry, for making English poetry stand at par with European poetry. The publication of his very first work The Shepherd's Calendar in 1579 made Spenser the "poets' poet". "It marks," writes W. J. Long, "the appearance of the first national poet in two centuries; second, it shows again the variety and melody of English verse, which had been largely a tradition since Chaucer; third, it was our first pastoral, the beginning of a long series of English pastoral compositions modelled on Spenser, and as such exerted a strong influence on subsequent literature; and fourth, it marks the real beginning of the outburst of great Elizabethan poetry."
The following characteristics of Spenser's poetry have also inspired and directed subsequent English poets:
1. Rare sense of sensuousness and beauty.
2. A splendid imagination. W. J. Long remarks, "His first quality is imagination, not observation, and he is the first of our poets to create a world of dreams, fancies and illusions."
3. Lofty moral purity and seriousness, and a delicate idealism.
4. Style, versification and perfect melody. Long remarks: "Like Chaucer, he is an almost perfect workman, but in reading Chaucer we think chiefly of his natural characters or his ideas, while in reading Spenser we think of the beauty of expression. The exquisite Spenserian stanza and the rich melody of Spenser's verse have made him the model of all our modern poets."
Indeed, it is Spenser's lofty idealism and a high sense of moral purity, his love of beauty, and his exquisite melody which have caused him to be known as the "poets' poet". Nearly all subsequent poets in England acknowledge their delight in him and their indebtedness. Dowden calls him "the Raphael of poets"
Spenser's Limitations
Macaulay, first of all, pointed out that Spenser is difficult to read. The modern reader "loses himself in the confused allegory of the Faerie Queene, skips all but the marked passages, and softly closes the book in gentle weariness. Even the best of his longer poems, while of exquisite workmanship and delightfully melodious, generally fail to hold the reader's attention. The movement is languid, there is little dramatic interest, and only a suggestion of humour. The very melody of his verses sometimes grows monotonous, like a Strauss Waltz too long continued. We shall best appreciate Spenser by reading at first only a few well chosen selections from the Faerie Queene and the Shepherd's Calendar, and a few minor poems which exemplify his wonderful melody." (W. J. Long)
The use of obsolete words, like eyne (eyes) and shend (shame), and his tendency to coin others, like mercify, to suit his own purposes; also make his poetry difficult to read.
2
THE liontions POETRY
The poetry of the Age of Shakespeare was influenced by Italian voluptuousness and sensuality. A whole body of erotic poetry grew up during this age. A franker and more unrestrained abandonment to sensuous feeling marks such poems as Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and Marlowe's Hero and Leander, which was completed by Chapman. In these long poems the tide of Italianate eroticism reaches its height.
1. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1594) and George Chapman (15591634). The Hero and Leander was left incomplete due to Marlowe's untimely death. It was completed by George Chapman. Marlowe took the story from Musaeus, a fifteenth century grammarian; but he transformed it and made it entirely his own by the power of his unique imagination. It is remarkable for felicity of diction and versification. Epigrammatic lines as "whoever loved that loved not at first sight" and "It is not in our power to love and hate" are scattered all over the poem. The poets show great skill in effectively using words and images. The profuse use of imagery, the richness of decoration and purple patches cloy the readers. The voluptuous details of female loveliness make the poet "a demoralised Spenser". The narration is smooth and flawless. Praising it Swinburne writes that the poem "stands out alone among all the wide and wild poetic wealth of its teeming and turbulent age...." Boas comments: "The Renaissance spirit is there in its very quintessence, it leaps and glows in every line. Its frank paganism, its intoxication of delight in the loneliness of earthly things, the bodies of men and women, its ardour of desire, the desire that wakens at first sight and that presses forward impetuously to possession— all these find here matchless utterance."
Besides completing Hero and Leander, Chapman also translated Iliad (1611) and Odyssey (1613), and composed some sonnets. In him the fulness and splendour of Elizabethan poetry, which had reached their height in Spenser, tend to elaboration, conceit and obscurity.
2. William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Shakespeare, the greatest dramatist, also composed sonnets, which will be discussed later on, and two narrative poems- Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594). Venus and Adonis is dedicated to the Earl of Southampton. It is based on a Greek legend and shows the influence of Ovid. The story is well known. Venus falls in love with a handsome youth, Adonis, who cares only for hunting and rejects her. He is killed by a wild boar and is transformed into a stone. Shakespeare's poem retains no traces of mythology and a powerful instinct impels him towards reality. His goddess, Venus, is a woman skilled at love making and ravaged by passion. In Adonis we find a young sports loving man, annoyed and fretted by the enticements of a beautiful amorous courtesan whose sensuality is unbounded.
These realistic passions are expressed through equally realistic pictures and episodes. It is remarkable for Venus' lascivious gestures. Shakespeare gives evidence in its stanzas of astonishing linguistic wealth and skill. Rickett writes: "Burdened as the poem is with the excessive heats of youth and over-luxuriant fancy, there are insignia of sweet and melodious poetry about it."
The Rape of Lucrece is a contrast to the previous poem. Having painted the attempts of an amorous woman; Shakespeare proceeded to represent the rape of a chaste wife, Lucrece, by a wretched debauchee, Tarquin. It is noticeable for "its finer restraint and more exalted imagery, none could deny the excursion into literature of a fresh and original force."
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