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John Donne (1572-1631) received a Catholic education he later rejected in his anti-Jesuit polemic, Essays in Divinity (written in 1614, published posthumously). He became Anglican in 1602 and then a preacher, publishing ten volumes of sermons. He is considered modern and innovative because of his wit, new kind of obscurity, skepticism and rejection of the learning that depends on unaided human sense. Apart from his Songs and Sonnets, his best known works include Elegies and Satires, Juvenalia and two Anniversaries. Donne’s poetry represents a diary of the poet’s intellectual and emotional efforts to define his relationship to three basic points of his existence: Woman, God and Death.

Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) was a bachelor, a man of violent temper and in his later years a powerful controversialist.  His satirical verse and prose belong to the Restoration period. For a long time his reputation was primarily as a patriot, satirist and prose writer, because lyric poetry was then out of fashion.  His collection Miscellaneous Poems was published in 1681. Marvell united the spirit of antique poetry with the “metaphysical” wit and puritan seriousness, achieving a perfect harmony between these seemingly irreconcilable currents.

Two concepts are important for metaphysical poetry. Conceit is a widened metaphor whose elements of comparison and description are taken from science, philosophy, mechanics and alchemy, fields not traditionally related to poetry. Conceits are also constructed with comparisons taken from everyday life, so the intimacy of the created image is in discord with the depth and power of the thought conveyed with that image. The main characteristic of wit is an unexpected combination of opposites whose original conjunction appears as a revelation.

Shakespeare’s Sonnets (written before 1598, published in 1609) contain 154 poems. Sonnets 1-125 are addressed to an unknown man, a blond young aristocrat. In the first 17 sonnets, the poet tries to convince the youth to marry, but later the mood changes and the sonnets become more intimate. The last group of sonnets (126-154) is related to an unknown woman, or the Dark Lady, who is married and physically attractive. One of the main themes of the collection is the passing time, the imminent ephemeris. Sonnets attracted a lot of critical attention because of the belief they were autobiographical.

Venus and Adonis (1593) was Shakespeare’s first published work. It achieved a great success, mostly because of its fashionable eroticism.  This narrative poem is Ovidian (borrowing from the Latin poet’s greatly popular Metamorphoses) and “etiological” because it provides a mythical explanation for the existence of a particular flower, for example. The seeming cause for its creation is thus to account for anemone, said to have grown out of Adonis’ blood after the boar has killed him. Shakespeare uses the version of the myth, presumably inspired by a Titian painting, in which Adonis is reluctant to accept the aggressive and passionate Venus as a lover. Apart from characteristics typical for this type of poetry, such as rhetorical wooing, the use of developed metaphors and decorative digressions, this poem differs from the convention because it is completely turned to realistic descriptions of nature and events.

Other notable Shakespeare poems are Rape of Lucrece and The Phoenix and Turtle.

Philip Sidney (1554-86)

Sidney did not publish anything during his lifetime, and this can be explained by his spezzatura, the aristocratic carelessness for one’s written work, which distinguishes a nobleman from a professional, a mere hired hand.  His most famous works are Astrophel and Stella, a sonnet sequence, Arcadia, a prose romance, the unfinished New Arcadia, and Defence of Poesie, the most distinguished work of Elizabethan criticism and literary theory.

Defence of Poetry was written as an answer to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse, in which the author promoted the puritan view that all arts are morally pernicious. Following Horace, Sidney argues that poetry is designed to instruct and inspire (DULCE ET UTILE). It avoids the generalities of philosophy and insignificant particularities of history, and it can speak without making assertions. Poet, according to Sidney, is not only an imitator, a view promoted by Plato in The Republic, but he also creates second nature.

Edmund Spenser (1552-99)

Spenser was civil servant educated at Oxford, who spent part of his life in Ireland, where he first went with a royal expedition to quell the Irish rebellion. Beside The Faerie Queen, his most famous work, he also composed The Shepherds Calendar, a collection of pastoral dialogues in verse, and Amoretti, a sonnet sequence. Not appreciated as much by the wider public, Spenser is considered the “poet’s poet” because of the elegance of his verse.

The composition of The Fairy Queen was inspired by two famous works of Italian Renaissance, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1516) and Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1580). It is made up of five books.

Book I is based on the Revelation by St. John.  It describes the history of the world from the Fall to the final overthrow of Satan. The main hero is Red Cross, or St. George, patron saint of England, who embodies earthly powers and heavenly providence. At first he is a sinner, who later repents, redeems the parents of Una (Adam and Eve), slays the dragon and harrows hell. In it, the poet explains how universal history justifies the worship of imperial Elizabeth.

Book II represents the Legend of Temperance, and it describes the control of passions by the higher powers of the mind. Guyon, the main protagonist , represents a mix of temperance and continence. Spenser’s temperance is a mix of one of the four Christian virtues (the others are Faith, Hope and Charity) and Aristotelian elements. Guyons’s conflicts are purely internal.

Book III is the Legend of Chastity

Book IV the Legend of Friendship

and Book V is an examination of the nature of Justice with allusions to contemporary affairs.

Phases of the English Renaissance:

1.  Early 1485-1579, in which the initial ideas about humanism and renaissance were soon pushed by the religious reformation.

2. Ripe 1579-1625, after a longer period of literary bareness, abundant literature with typical renaissance features and content appear.

3. Late 1625-1660, in which only some characteristics of the renaissance remain, and which lasts until the restoration of the monarchy.

Rulers of the Tudor Dynasty (1485 – 1603)

1485 Henry VII defeated Richard III on Bosworth Field, and established a new dynasty.

1509 Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church and became the head of the Church of England

1547 Edward VI, a short-lived minor

1553 Mary Tudor reestablished Catholicism in England and persecuted Protestants

1558 Elizabeth I, during whose reign the golden age of English literature began

1603 James I, formerly Scottish king James VI, came to power after Elizabeth’s death.

Humanism

The movement originated in Italy as a renewal of interest in the classical heritage, the study of Greek and Latin languages and the imitation of great models of the antiquity. It was ideologically non-religious, but humanist teachings and ideas undermined the Christian doctrine because they promoted secular values and worldview.  Humanism replaced medieval God-centered convictions with anthropocentrism.  In Thomas More (1478-1535), the most celebrated English humanist, the conflict between the medieval ideal of meditative life (vita contemplativa) and life based on active inquiry (vita activa), which led to the development of science and the rise of individualism and exploitation of lands and people, can be well observed. He spent four years in a monastery and wore the penitent hair shirt all his life, but also founded the dynastic myth on which Henry VIII absolutism was based. Even though he supported the education of women, he believed in their inferiority.  A preacher of religious tolerance, he wrote about stepping on heretics like ants.  In spite of eloquently expressing ideas about religion that would resound long after his death, he sacrificed his life to the ideal of pope’s hegemony. His most famous works are A Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, a polemic about his beliefs, History of King Richard III, in its stance towards the monarch similar to the Shakespeare play, and Utopia, his most famous work, the first description of a perfect imaginary world.

Early Renaissance Poetry

Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) is remembered for adopting certain European features of Renaissance poetry, but his best poems are those with elements of the traditional English verse.

The Petrarchan characteristics of his poetry are its main theme, unrequited love, pleading with the beloved to hear out his complaints, the description of love miseries and the feeling of abandonment.

Non-Petrarchan, “male” features in Wyatt’s poetry include: the realisation of the futility of his love, a demand of a response from the object of his love, and the expression of unwillingness to die of love.

He replaced the 8+6 stanza Italian sonnet and the rhyme scheme abbaabba cdcdcd with his own two quatrains + a couplet stanza sonnet with a rhyme scheme abbaabba cddc ee.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-47) is significant for introducing images from nature in his poetry. He is more reconciled with the unrequited love, and he adopts from Petrarch and his followers a certain strain of mysticism and idealisation.

Surrey further changed Wyatt’s rhyme scheme into abab cdcd efef gg. In contrast to the Italian culmination in the 8^th verse, and a subsequent pause with a quiet ending, called the wave, the pause in Surrey’s sonnets come after every four verses, and a complete reversal takes place at the end.

Wyatt and Surrey are often grouped together because their poetry was published together in a collection entitled Tottel’s Miscellany. If we try to compare the two, while Wyatt’s verses are simple and transparent, Surrey’s are adorned and obscure. Wyatt is a realist and Surrey idealist. Wyatt is perhaps more gifted, but Surrey sounds more modern.