Over-elabora with detail. Another instance of this tendency is seen in the early work of William Shakspere. In Elizabethan his Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece, tion thought crowds upon thought, image upon image. It was only with maturity that Shakspere learned to sacrifice adornment for simple strength. Even his sonnets suffer from overcrowding. The meaning must be disentangled. We have seen that the Elizabethan age was constantly looking back for inspiration and guidance to an- Translations tiquity and to foreign lands. It was an age of enthusiastic translation. Books were translated by the score from French, Italian, and Spanish, from Latin and even from Greek. North's Plutarch (the basis of Shakespere's Julius Cæsar) and Chapman's Iliad stand out from the rest. Chapman wrote good plays. His translation of the Iliad is, however, the work for which he is best known. full of minor faults. used to accompany It is often affected. make it hard to song. It was played like the modern guitar. Another form of it was more like the mandolin. It is It is far from literal. Changes in language understand. Yet it remains the one translation that best catches the long roll and thunder of Homer's verse. A striking feature of the days of Shakspere and Spenser is the abundance of minor poetry, especially of songs. Songs were everywhere. It was not only professional poets that wrote Songs them, but all men of refinement and education. The art of song amused the leisure of every one who could pretend to the least skill in it. The courtier carried his lute as naturally as he wore his sword. One reason for this was the general love of music, especially of part-songs. The madrigal was especially popular, whole volumes of these being issued in large numbers. One famous collection, published in 1857, was called Tottel's Miscellany. Some had fantastic titles such as The Paradise of Dainty Delights. Grace is the chief quality of these songs. There is a charming use of short lines, of varied cadence. Those numbered 22, 37, 54, and 57 of the Golden Treasury are good examples. A great number were anonymous. Incidentally, almost every dramatist was a graceful writer of songs, Shakspere, Marlowe, Lodge, and Ben Jonson, for instance. The following madrigal gives an excellent idea of Elizabethan lyrics. Weep you no more, sad fountains; What need you flow so fast? Look how the snowy mountains That now lies sleeping Softly, now softly lies, Sleep is a reconciling, A rest that peace begets; Doth not the sun rise smiling, When fair at eve he sets? A series of sonnets by Sir Philip Sidney, published under the title of Astrophel and Stella, tells the story of the writer's sufferings under his lady's coldness. Sidney This series is full of grace and beauty and less overloaded with thought than Shakspere's. Observe, in the Golden Treasury, Sonnet numbered 58. See also the Sonnet quoted on page 140. Attention has been called, (page 153) to the obscurity of Shakspere's sonnets. Yet no one should grudge the labor of unpacking the riches compressed in them. Shakspere's A Shakspere sonnet must be allowed to "melt Sonnets in the mind." Their passion is repressed, sober, meditative. We do not know whom Shakspere praised as a friend or what woman brought him so bitter a mingling of love and self-reproach. His sonnets may be based upon imagination. They may go straight to the secrets of his inner life. Many of these sonnets are in the Golden Treasury. The following is one of the best known and needs no notes. The poet is lamenting the passing of his own life and thinking of his friend's love. That time of year thou mayst in me behold In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west, In me thou seest the glowing of such fire Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong Study of Elizabethan poets studied the theory of their art. One group of poets, Spenser, Brooke, Sidney, Harvey and Dyer, theorized and experimented, attempting all kinds of imitation of classical meters. Poetry was a study, going back on one side to Chaucer, on another to Horace and Virgil and Theocritus. We must keep in mind, however, that the Elizabethan age, in going to the classics, looked not for rules to insure correctness but for new forms to imitate, new examples to inspire, new games to play. Their age was looking for new outlets. QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW I. What had been the feudal system of "patronage"? Why did it decline? In what respects is the Faerie Queene medieval? Point out oldtime elements in the plan and language of the poem. In what respects is it typical of the period in which it was written? Explain the general plan of the poem, making clear the main allegory. In the extract given or in others, select instances of musical lines, of passages that appeal to you, of beautiful images, of vivid description. Indicate the rhyme system of Spenser's stanza. What is the meter? Write, if you can, a stanza in the same form. Characterize briefly the Shepherd's Calendar and Mother Hubbard's Tale. II. What general fault injures the lyric and narrative poetry of Shakspere's day? Contrast the popularity of graceful songs with conditions prevailing to-day. What evidence that Spenser and his associates gave close attention to the theory and technique of verse? What kind of help and stimulus did antiquity and foreign literature of his own day bring to the English writer of the Renais*sance? By reference to definite writers and works, show that the strength and the weakness of the new age lay in richness of thought and lavishness of creative energy. CHAPTER IV ELIZABETHAN DRAMA ENGLISH drama, we have seen, owed its character to two lines of ancestry. On the one side it came from the native drama, descending through the Mir- Two Lines of acle play and Morality and Interlude to Descent plays that depicted life. On the other side it was descended from the drama of the ancients, partly from the great Greek plays, particularly from the Latin tragedies of Seneca and the comedies of Plautus. The native plays lacked art; the imitations of the ancients lacked life. The perfect play could come only from a joining of the two kinds. In "Elizabethan" drama we see this union perfect. The masterpieces of Greek drama were written by Sophocles and Euripides when Athens was in her prime. No later writer has surpassed, and few have even remotely equalled, their power to embody dramatic passion in stately The English play and the Greek play Greek had developed in different directions. The Drama English play, which began in dramatic singing of portions of the service, had, as soon as it passed out of the church, become realistic imitation of life. The Greek verse. |