Letteratura inglese 1

BEFORE SHAKESPEARE

- Geoffrey Chaucer: great reformer of English Verse (2° part of 15th century) Riforma sillabico-tonica: based on syllabus

and stress. He Introduces the syllabus by giving attention on them into the English poetic tradition, through:

French poetry (primary verse: hexameter, dodecasillabo).Italian poetry (endecasillabo). English prosody obtains a new

hybrid measure: syllabes + accents (stress)(confusion but also a great liberty).

- Sit Thomas Wyatt (1500) court poet (diplomatic service) from ‘Ancore e Vele’ text about him. he transalated the

Petrarchian sonnet into English and written new one. Wyatt changes the sonnet structure from Petrarchan sonnet to

‘English sonnet’

-Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (first half of 16th century).He introduced the Blank verse (endecasillabo sciolto) into

english versification. he translated the II and IV book of Eneide with the blank verse elaborated from Marlowe which was

a refined form as a perfect instrument for the theatre and English epic.

-Sir Philip of Sydney, courtier, soldier, poet and prose writer (half 16th century)

sonnet sequence: Astrophil and Stella (celebrating woman who is the object and the star) (1591 posthumous) it started

the ‘sonnet fashion’ in England.

SIDNEY, SONNET 1, VERSION A.

ASTROPHIL AND STELLA.

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

dear she might take some pleasure of my pain,

That

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know;

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;

Oft turning to see if thence would flow _da li, dalle poesie degli altri.

others’ leaves,

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay; _zoppicanti. _Supporto, bastone.

Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows; _matrigna

And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, _doglie.

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite, _lazy, pigra. _anger

“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write.”

-the 1’ quatrain is subordinate. All the verses are hold by “that” in the third verse.

-the first verse is made of 12 syllables, iambic hexameter. It starts with a trochee and goes on as a iamb. It is the same

for the whole quatrain. Here we found the idea of passing from one state to the other and getting where he wants to.

-2’ quatrain: first verse is a iambic hexameter that doesn’t start with a trochee; the second verse starts with a trochee and

goes on as a iamb. The last verse is a iambic hexameter.

-the second quatrain is the principle sentence.

-there are three version of the sonnet: A, B and C.

TRADUZIONE ITALIANA

Amando sinceramente e desiderando mostrare il mio amore in versi, in modo che lei (stella) possa trarre un qualche

piacere dal mio dolore, (in modo che) il piacere possa spingerla a leggere, e la lettura possa spingerla a conoscere, e la

conoscenza possa ottenere pietà per me e la pietà (possa) ottenere la grazia.

Cercai le parole adatte per dipingere (con le parole) il volto più nero del dolore studiando le belle invenzioni (espressioni

adatte) per intrattenere il suo ingegno (la sua mente) girando spesso le pagine di altri, per vedere se da lì fluirebbero

alcune nuove e fruttifere idee sul mio riarso, bruciato dal sole (leggo letteratura altrui per vedere se da lì mi possa venire

ispirazione poetica) ma le parole vengono fuori zoppicanti (debolmente), perché gli mancava il supporto della fantasia .

L’immaginazione, la natura del bambino, fuggì ai colpi dello studio, sua matrigna, e gli scritti (piedi) degli altri

sembravano solo estranei nel mio cammino.

Così, mentre incita (col desiderio) di parlare, ed incapace con i dolori del parto, mordendo la mia disobbediente penna,

picchiandomi per dispetto, “stupido” la mia musa disse “guarda nel tuo cuore e scrivi”.

JOHN DONNE, HOLY SONNETS, SONNET 14

BATTER MY HEART, THREE PERSONED GOD

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; _finora

That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurped town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end. _senza successo

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue. _prigioniera

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betrothed unto your enemy:

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

-TRADUZIONE: sfonda il mio cuore, o dio trino! Poiché tu fino a questo momento non hai fatto nulla più che bussare,

sussurrare, risplendere e cercare di rimediare. Rovesciami, affinché io possa rialzarmi e stare in piedi, e volgi la tua forza

a spezzarmi, travolgermi, bruciarmi e rendermi nuovo.

Io, come una città che è stata usurpata, e che spetta a qualcun altro, fatica a far entrare te, ed oh, io fatico a non finire.

La ragione, il tuo vivere dentro di me, mi dovrebbe difendere, tuttavia è stata fatta prigioniera e si dimostra debole e

falsa.

Eppure io ti amo con tutto il cuore, e volentieri vorrei essere amato, tuttavia sono promesso sposo al tuo nemico (il

diavolo) : compi il mio divorzio! Scegli, oppure spezza quel nodo, una seconda volta! Portami a te! Imprigionami, a meno

che tu (dio) non mi renda schiavo, non sarò mai libero e non sarò mai puro se tu non mi violenti (entri in me

violentemente). Lezione 10 13 marzo 2018

The final couplet is stressed by the rhyme and the strong chiasmus that it contains. In this way, the verses are detached

by the rest of the sonnet, yet still bonded to it by the enjambment. The lyrical I here is very characterised, it speaks

directly to god, and with a specific tone: he’s giving him orders while sort of reproving him. Though he’s not passive,

since the sonnet can be considered as a prayer, of course he still knows that it’s god who can make him new and good

for salvation. He’s asking god to use his grace, the symbol of holiness and salvation. The outlook is thus protestant,

since the author is trusting completely god and the lyrical I is useless and powerless to get himself out of sin.

Lezione 14 22 marzo 2018

Metaphysical Poets

It was a group of poets that developed between XVI and XVII centuries but didn’t follow a proper “metaphysical school”.

It was more of a mocking title created by contemporaries to group all the similar poets together. John Donne may be

considered the first but there were others, who probably knew each other but never came together to form a real

movement. Some of them were just imitators of Donne, while others just shared some of his features but kept an

independent style, such as Herbert, Crashaw or Marvell. They all have in common a deep philosophical view of life: for

example, both Donne and Herbert became clergymen, since you had to be educated to be one. They used complex

metaphors directed to an equally educated public but could also be very direct (as for example in Batter my heart). They

merged ordinary and refined, intellect and emotions.

At their time, they were called “metaphysical” meaning abstruse, something that goes beyond comprehension but in a

negative way, not in a religious sense, as modern interpretation may suggest.

The first one to use this title was poet and literary critic, one of the firsts ever, John Dryden. He became the theorist

English Neoclassicism by putting order in the English literature. His ambition was to elevate the value of English literature

by imitating Italian and French ones, so he tried to define genres in order not to mix them together, as happened in

theatre with comedy and tragedy.

Samuel Johnson, the most important critic of the XVIII century, described Cowley, one of the less valuable metaphysical

poets, as wit and smart, someone who could play with Discordia concors, a way of creating harmony or unity by

combining disparate or conflicting elements.

Thomas S. Eliot wrote an essay (The metaphysical poets) and started, by celebrating them, a real fashion: at the

beginning of the century, Donne was published again. They became the “discovery” of the XX century. Eliot coins the

very popular judgement “unified sensibility”, he thought that after them nobody had ever been able to talk equally about

emotions and intellect, that a “dissociation of sensibility” had afflicted poets after them.

MEDITATION 17 – John Donne (pag.1420)

The meditation is an extract from Devotion upon Emergent Occasions, a spiritual and literary exercise. It’s an occasional

(meaning written for a specific occasion) collection composed for a really serious illness from which the poet risked

death. It’s divided into 23 sections, chronologically ordered following the stages of his illness. Each section contains:

1. A meditation upon human condition

2. An expostulation and a debate with god

3. A prayer to god

The work was sent immediately to press in 1624, unlike the rest of his poetry, probably because Donne was then very

aware of the fragility of human life. Already at the very beginning he’s very practical: he’s strongly connected to the

community, and that’s what the meditation’s about, since what happens to one believer concerns the whole community.

The church is a collective body made of many bodies, or, as in the metaphor used by Donne, a book composed by many

chapter and pages. Lezione 16 10 aprile 2018

Ballad

Since it was transmitted orally, the ballad is a mnemonic device: it’s often very musical and contains a

refrain. Usually it has a shorter verse than the sonnet, 4 or 3 stresses, and the typical ballad meter is an

alternation of tetrameters and trimeters, which are faster and easier to remember. The rhyme pattern often

repeats one specific rhyme to help memorizing it (ex. ABCB DBEB FBGB)

The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, including also American versions. It

may include several versions of the same ballad, since oral tradition often changed them a bit, for example

there are 20 versions of the ballad Mary Hamilton. Ballads are mainly narrative poems, meaning they tell a

story, and these stories have often common features.

Most ballads are anonymous, even when they were collected in song books, very popular between the end

of the XVIII and the XIX centuries, when Romanticism helped spreading the fashion for folklore and

nationalism.

- Thomas Percy – Reliques of Ancient English Poetry a reaction to neoclassicism, he was passionate

about the origins of English folklore

- Sir Walter Scott – Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border minstrelsy was