Appunti esame Letteratura inglese - dal Rinascimento al 18° secolo

The Renaissance (1485-1625)

In 1485, Henry VII became king, starting the Tudor dynasty and creating a conservative government, keeping the aristocracy under control. Parliament only had a secondary role during his 24-year reign, being summoned just six times.

Henry VIII (1509-1547)

Henry VIII was a patron of the arts; he devoted himself to poetry, literature, and music. After obtaining a divorce from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, he married Anne Boleyn, who bore him his daughter Elizabeth. Only his third wife bore him the son he wanted, Edward VI. His most outstanding contribution to English history was the breach with Rome and the beginning of the English Reformation. When the Pope refused to grant him a divorce from his first wife, he decided to stop taking orders from him, breaking with Rome, and he declared himself “Supreme Head of the Church.” He established the Church of England, also known as the Anglican Church (Protestant), in 1534 with the Act of Supremacy. In Anglicanism, the Bible was regarded as the only source of revealed truth, and priests could marry and have children.

Edward VI (1547-1553)

Edward VI was only 10 when he came to the throne and ruled just for six years (1547-1553), because he died from tuberculosis. He made Protestant doctrine more accepted. He used some of the confiscated wealth of convents to build some schools. He introduced some reforms with the help of Archbishop Cranmer, who wrote “The Book of Common Prayer” in English to replace the old Latin missal.

Mary Tudor (1553-1558)

Mary Tudor was the daughter of Henry VIII’s first wife. She was a strong Catholic, she re-introduced the Catholic religion in England and was known as “Bloody Mary” because of the way she persecuted Protestants. She married Philip II of Spain, but she never got the son she wanted and left the throne to her half-sister Elizabeth when she died.

Elizabeth I (1558-1603)

Elizabeth I established a secure Church of England by following a wise policy of compromise between the Catholics and the Anglicans. During her reign, a second Act of Supremacy was passed, confirming the independence of the Church of England, and she proclaimed herself Governor. In this period, there were many voyages of discovery, which paved the way for a period of colonization and overseas trade.

James I (1603-1625)

James I was the son of Mary Stuart of Scotland. He united the crowns of England and Scotland proclaiming himself king. He excluded Parliament from government and became an enemy of the Catholics. As a result, there were many attempts on his life, the most famous being the “Gunpowder Plot” of 1605. It was unsuccessful, and many Catholics were executed.

The Renaissance Movement

The Renaissance (“re-birth”) was a cultural movement which started in Italy in the late Middle Ages and spread throughout Europe. Its rise was strictly interwoven with humanism, which involved changes in the concepts of the universe, a new interest in the individual, and a new concern for life after death.

The English Renaissance

The English Renaissance was stalled by the Protestant Reformation and it’s also called the “Elizabethan age” or “Age of Shakespeare.” In this age, poetry and the theatre flourished. Plays became a common form of entertainment. The first theatre was built by the actor James Burbage in 1576, called “The Theatre.” Shakespeare worked there for a company of actors known as “The Chamberlain’s Men.” After a few years, they were forced to move the building to Southwark, with the new name “The Globe.”

Printing and Cultural Transmission

Its diffusion caused the reduction of books’ price and its availability for more readers. Printing and translating were the main factors that increased the transmission of culture. In England, print was introduced by William Caxton, author and translator who had learned it in the Netherlands. Thanks to it, the number of people who could read in England reached 60% of the population in 30 years. Censorship was introduced to control the knowledge of people, since until that moment only the ruling classes had had access to it. The most censored writings were the religious ones, together with those which expressed political dissent or satiric pamphlets.

Theater

The English theater of the 16th century was the most important cultural, literary, and linguistic expression of all Europe, because it involved all the English population. When Shakespeare died, London was the biggest European city. Theater was impeded firstly by London’s mayor, who thought that it attracted crowds that could generate rebellions. The other enemies of theater were moralists and religious people, especially puritans, who thought that it was immoral. Religious people complained that representations which took place during holidays distracted the believers from their devotions. Puritans thought that both the Catholic rites and the theatrical representations were fictions, and they condemned boys’ disguises when they played feminine roles. However, theatrical companies were protected firstly by Elizabeth, then by James. The most famous were “Lord Chamberlain’s Men,” “Queen’s Men,” “Admiral’s Men,” and “King’s Men.”

To get away from the hostility, the first theaters were built in London’s suburbs. The first permanent theater was the “Theatre,” built in 1576 by James Burbage. In the 90s, the theater’s structure was that of a big amphitheater, made of wood and in open air, with a squared stage at its middle, which extended towards an arena, where the audience could just stand. Around the arena, there were three lines of galleries in which richer spectators could sit. The Globe could contain 3000 spectators. The scenography of these first theaters was almost nonexistent, so actors had to use extravagant costumes to create the illusion of fiction. The representation was quick and there were few breaks.

The English public theater was the first form of organized entertainment that financed itself through the payment of a ticket (instead of receiving a reward after the spectacle). Due to the success of these theaters, new “private” theaters were built, close and smaller. They could contain less people, who paid a more expensive ticket, but could sit. The Blackfriars is the most famous among these new theaters. It was enlightened by candles (not by the natural light) and music was used to accompany the representations.

Thomas More (1478-1535)

Thomas More was born in London in 1478. He was a lawyer and a philosopher who served as Lord Chancellor for King Henry VIII. While being his Lord Chancellor, he never accepted the King’s position as head of the English church and resigned from Lord Chancellor in opposition against King Henry’s marriage annulment: this led to his execution. The English church declared him a saint in 1935.

Thomas More adopted “non-fiction” as his literary genre. By this term, we mean non-imaginative writings, which are still regarded as literary works because of their documentary importance and stylistic originality. Non-fiction includes several different works: essays, which started to be employed in the 16th century, are texts where the author deals with a topic and tries to persuade the reader to accept his point of view on the matter, and they usually have a structure which leads to argumentation and avoids the usage of imaginary characters or situations, and the used language is different from fictions’ language or everyday speech, being often a specialized and very precise language; diary, which became very popular in the 17th century, is usually written not for publication but to simply record the events of the author’s life. Diaries are surely useful sources to understand the author's personality, but they still can contain omissions; letter; biography.

“Utopia” is the name of his most famous work, published in Latin in 1516 and translated into English in 1551. The title means “non-place” and indicates an island of the New World, where More establishes an ideal state in which properties, money, differences, and war don’t exist. Private wishes are hidden in the name of common interest. This work is inspired by Plato’s “Repubblica” and by the travel stories of the explorations towards new lands. The narrator is Raphael Hythlodaeus, a Portuguese seaman who talks to More about the differences between Utopia and other places. “Utopia” constitutes the first example of critique to the contemporary society that uses an external and rational point of view. Utopia is a too virtuous society to be possible.

Scholars believe that it is possible to reconstruct the history of '‘Utopia’': in 1515 More went to the Netherlands, and during his stay, he became close with Peter Giles, a scholarly gentleman who was a friend of Erasmus from Rotterdam, and had many conversations with him about several topics, from government to discoveries of new lands. We believe that “Utopia” has grown, directly or indirectly, from the topics and ideas generated in those meetings and conversations; in fact, we know that Thomas More, after having left the Netherlands, came back later to visit his friend Peter Giles, and showed him a manuscript, which probably was the first edition of Utopia. The first draft of Utopia was divided into two main books: Book I, which features an introduction, and Book II, which featured the actual discourse on Utopia, while the second draft of Utopia had a different structure. Thomas More did not write Utopia to give a portrait of ideal societies, but to stimulate the reader’s political imagination, and its actual purpose is still discussed and debated. Utopia could have been written to demonstrate that another world is possible, or to generate new models of society, or to motivate readers to participate in social struggles. Book I is an introduction to the discourse itself, being very discursive, while Book II is much more descriptive, and each capitol regards a specific matter, such as laws, war, religion, marriage, and euthanasia.

Passage about Agriculture

Agriculture is a universally known practice. On the island, people wear the same clothes, and the only distinction is the one to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. Every family makes their own clothes. The chief has to control that everyone follows its trade diligently. Then the passage explains how time is divided (work, lectures, sleep, eat). Finally, it states that the magistrates never engage people in unnecessary labour, to allow them time to improve also their minds, because they think happiness of life consists in this.

Passage about Marriage and Slaves

The slaves they have are people who have committed crimes. They have to work all day and they are chained. Another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighboring countries, who offer themselves. If someone is ill and has become a burden for the others, they convince him to die, telling him that he will be in peace with God. Women can marry when they are 18, men when they are 22. To choose their wives, a matron presents them naked to the bride, because they have to be sure that there are no deformities in their bodies. They do not allow polygamy nor divorces, except in case of adultery. The hurt person can marry again, while the adulterer is condemned to slavery. They have no laws or lawyers, because they think it is better that everyone pleads his own cause, and presents it to the judge.

Passage about Religion

There are several sorts of religion, some worship the sun, others the moon and the planets. But most people adore the “Father of All”, and acknowledge that everything comes from him. He is a Supreme Being who they call, in their language, Mithras.

Dystopia

“Dystopia” is a term coined in the 19th century by some British philosophers in opposition to “Utopia”, and it indicates a world in which the contradictions of the society bring to a pessimistic vision of the future. The characteristic elements of this kind of literature are: a hierarchical society where divisions between the upper, middle, and lower classes are unbreakable; the propaganda and the educational system have the purpose of preserving the Caste system.

Examples of dystopian novels: “1984” (Orwell); “Brave New World” (Aldous Huxley); “The Handmaid’s Tale” (Margaret Atwood).

John Skelton (1460-1529)

Skelton was a poet of Henry VIII’s court, located between Middle Age and Renaissance. He didn’t absorb the cultural news imported from Italy, but he was conservative about culture and the study of Latin.

His masterpiece is “The Bowge of Courte” (1499), directed against the vices and dangers of court life. His “open satires” are written in an irregular verse, short and rhymed, whose sound was familiar to the reader of the medieval satire.

“The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe”, the lament of Jane Scroop, a schoolgirl, for her dead bird, was inspired by Catullus. Skelton also wrote three plays, only one of which survives. “Magnificence” is one of the best examples of the morality play. It deals with the same topic as his satires: the evils of ambition. He wrote different satires against the excessive power detained by the cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the most known being “Speak Parrot” and “Why Come Ye Not to Court?”. His “open satires” are written in an irregular verse, short and rhymed. In “Collyn Clout” the author himself gives us a definition of his verse: thorny and roughly rhymed, but still provided with some kind of depth.

After his death, his successor did not know how to interpret his works, so his technique was not continued by anyone.

Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

Wyatt was the first English poet who imported the Italian and Latin lyric in England. He was born in Kent and studied at St. John’s College in Cambridge. He was a member of Henry VIII’s court, but spent most of his life abroad. He was imprisoned twice in the Tower of London: the first time charged with adultery because he was Anne Boleyn’s lover; the second time accused with treason. He was forgiven both times.

A lot of his poetry is made of translations of “Rime sparse” by Petrarch. From Italian poetry, he imported the formal discipline of which the English medieval verse lacked, helping its separation from music. He also linearized the rounded schema of Petrarch’s poetry: from the meditation about the unhappiness of a love that does not have an object, to the direct dialogue with a present woman. In his translation of Petrarch’s “Una candida cerva”, the famous “Whoso List to Hunt”, love is interlaced with power: the poet can’t be near his lover (cerva) because it belongs to someone more powerful than him (in this case, the animal belonged to Ceasar). It is thought that the doe represents Anne Boleyn, with whom the poet had a relationship before she got married with the king (that in the poem is represented by Ceasar).

His most important poem “They Flee from Me” is dedicated to the court’s politics. Here, Wyatt complains about the law which changes the relationships between people based on the place they occupy in the court’s hierarchy. In his letter to his friend John Poins, he talks about his desire to escape from the court’s pressure, and to find the peace of the soul and the philosophical truth. But he knows that the court is the only place in which it is possible to find and exhaust the desire of love and power.

Surrey (1517-1547)

Henry Howard, Earl (conte) of Surrey, was the first to recognize Wyatt’s credit for having renewed the English verse through the Italian model, and he continued his work translating other Petrarch’s sonnets. Surrey was raised with the illegitimate son of Henry VIII, the duke of Richmond.

In 1537, he was imprisoned for a court discussion; he wrote the poem “Prisoned in Windsor, He Recounteth His Pleasure There Passed” talking about his childhood, spent with the duke in the same place where he is now being kept. Ten years later, Surrey was decapitated with the charge of treason. Surrey established the definitive form of the English sonnet: three quatrains and a final couplet, with the rhyme “abab cdcd efef gg”. Moreover, he invented the famous “blank verse”, the unrhymed iambic pentameter, in his translation of the second and the fourth books of Virgil’s “Aeneid”. It was then used by Milton, Marlowe, Donne and Keats. The intention of this verse is to produce a formal rhythmical pattern that creates a musical effect, so that it captures the attention of the reader (Types of blank verse: Iamb, Trochee, Anapest, Dactyl).

His poems, together with Wyatt’s poems and the ones of other authors, were never published during their lives, because they were mostly known in court, but after their deaths, they were collected in “Tottel’s Miscellany”, named after Richard Tottel, the printer who collected them. His purpose was to honor the English language, showing that it can compete with Latin and Italian. Thanks to this book, Renaissance’s poetry was spread throughout Europe and outside of the courts.

Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

Sidney, after his death, became the symbol of the Elizabethan court. He was influenced by the Italian and Latin tradition. Published in 1595, the “Defence of Poetry” is the most influent discussion on poetry written in England, whose aim is convincing the reader about the nobility of poetry based on its ancient past. Sidney states that poetry teaches through pleasure, and he thinks that the poet is a “maker” who gives birth to a rich world that can move the reader’s mind.

The “Arcadia” is Sidney's most ambitious work. It is a romance that combines pastoral elements with a mood derived from the Hellenistic model of Heliodorus. As published in the sixteenth century, the narrative follows the Greek model: stories are nested within each other, and different storylines are intertwined. The work enjoyed great popularity for more than a century after its publication. “Arcadia” exists in two significantly different versions. Sidney wrote an early version (the “Old Arcadia”) which is narrated in a straightforward, sequential manner (plot: the king Basilius hides in a safe place, Arcadia, scared of what is to come).