The English Renaissance

• Edmund Spenser is buried in 'Poets' Corner', Westminster Abbey, London. It is reported that his funeral was attended by Jonson, Beaumont, Fletcher and Shakespeare. Apparently they all wrote elegies for Spenser which they threw into the grave along with their pens.
• 3.3.2 The Shepherd’s Calendar , 1579
• • • • -- next to his masterpiece -- in 12 books, one for each month -- Shepherds & shepherdesses -- themes: rural life, nature, love in the fields
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'Heare lyes the body of Edmond Spencer the Prince of Poets in his tyme whose Divine Spirrit needs noe othir witnesse then the works which He left behinde him'
• Economy developed • Horizon broadened • Mind freed • “It was an age of dreams, of adventures, of unbounded enthusiasm revealed by English explorers. It not only opened up a new earth to men’s eyes but also encouraged men to create a new heaven in literature to match it. Thus , men’s dreams might be realized either by explorers in their adventures or by writers in their literature.”
III. Poetry in English Renaissance sonnet blank verse
• 3.1 Sonnet --- a lyric of 14 lines in iambic pentameter • 3.1.1 Shakespearean Sonnet / English Sonnet/ Elizabethan Sonnet: 3 quatrains and a terminal couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern: • abab cdcd efef gg • Thomas Wyatt
3.3.3 The Faerie Queene
• --- structure: 12 books, finished 6 • --- purpose: to educate, to turn a young man into a gentleman • --- thoughts: • nationalism • humanism • puritanism • --- language: Spenserian Stanza 42
• 1. Enclosure Movement (15th) • 2. Foreign trade & markets were vastly expanded • --- war with Spain, enormous wealth • --- travel & adventures-- new land– wealth &minds broadened • 3. Religious Reformation • 3.1 Germany Martin Luther • 3.2 Henry VIII & common people • 3.3 Queen Mary (1553-1558) • 3.4 Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) • consequences:
• -- wrote his masterpiece “The Faerie Queene” (1589-96) • -- house burned down in 1598 in a fierce Irish rebellion, fled to London, never recovered from it , heartbroken , died in an inn next year. • -- 1599, buried in Westminster Abbey, Poet’s poet
3.3.4 Spencer’s position
Part II The English Renaissance
(1485-1660)
• • • •
I Historical Background 1485-1558 beginning 1558-1603 blooming 1603-1660
• An epoch of many radical changes:
• In what way are The Canterbury Tales strung together? • --- host of the inn • --- prologues
Байду номын сангаас
• Why has Chaucer been called “the founder of English Realism? • •A. Old English, religious, heroic • •B. Middle English, romance • •C. Chaucer alone, 1st, realistic picture of society
• 3.1.2 Spenserian Sonnet: 3 quatrains and a couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme: • abab bcbc cdcd ee • 3.1.3 Petrarchan Sonnet / Italian Sonnet • Petrarch 1304-1374, Italian poet • abba abba • cde cde/ cdc dcd
• 3.2 Blank verse
• Refers to poems of unrhymed lines, usu. written in iambic pentameter. Unrhymed- rhyme scheme is “blank” • --- Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey introduced it into E. • --- mid-16th c., dominant verse form of E dramatic & narrative poetry: Marlowe \Shakespeare used it in drama; • --- Milton’s “Paradise Lost” • --- continue to prevail in the 19th & 20th: Wordsworth, John Keats, Tennyson, Robert Browning
3.3 Edmund Spenser(1552-1599) 埃德蒙. 斯宾塞
• 3.3.1 life &career • -- born in a minor noble family • -- education: Merchant Taylor’s school, Cambridge, Italian, French, Latin & Greek • -- secretary to Lord Grey in Ireland in 1580- beautiful Irish scenery appears in his poem • -- married Elizabeth Boyle in 1594
II. Features of English Renaissance • -- time: 14th, 15th, 16th • -- two features: • a. thirsting curiosity for the classical literature • b. humanism • -- humanist: Thomas More