Letteratura Inglese 2 Humanism

Humanism and reformation

The XVI century marked the beginning of English linguistic identity and literature. The invention of printing on one hand boosted alphabetization; on the other hand introduced censorship. In 1516, Thomas More published Utopia, a satire fiction depicting an ideal perfect island society and its religious, social, and political customs, representing the exact opposite of England: it is the first case of criticism against society through an external point of view, underlining the faults of the actual society more than the qualities of the ideal one. The humanism of More was imported from Italy and determined the renovation of English university curricula: this environment was the reason why Erasmus reached England. The meeting with More fostered Erasmus’ Praise of Folly, or of More, from Greek; the Praise of Folly, in turn, played a part in the Lutheran Reformation.

Act of supremacy and Henry VIII

With the Act of Supremacy of 1534, Henry VIII asserted the independence of the Church of England from the Holy See, driving towards Protestantism just to acquire Catholic possessions and to divorce from Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn. More was beheaded for refusing to recognize the spiritual sovereignty of the King.

Thomas Wyatt and Surrey

Thomas Wyatt was an ambassador in Spain, Italy, and France for Henry VIII and was the first English poet that imported Italian and Latin poetry into England. Because of his political commitment, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London twice, but was absolved: for this reason, the main topic of his poetry was the treacherous world of the court, together with eros. During his translation of Petrarca, he became aware of many linguistic mechanisms and decided to borrow the formal discipline of the Italian verse for the rough English verse. He added some innovations, like the linearization of the circular scheme of Petrarca’s poetry; the system of the lover who is only capable to reach his woman through memory is shifted to the actual contact.

After studying Wyatt’s poetry, Surrey refined the final form of the English sonnet, with 3 quatrains and 1 couplet, and invented the famous blank verse, which is an unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Henry's children

Henry VIII died in 1547 and his son Edward VI was crowned when he was just 9. His reign lasted 6 years and was characterized by a radicalization of the Reformation because of strongly protestant regents; the Book of Common Prayer defined a new simple way of praying. After Edward’s death, he was replaced by his sister Mary, a Catholic after her mother Catherine, who removed protestant rituals and sent 300 protestants to the stake; she was named Bloody Mary. Mary died in 1558 and was replaced by Elizabeth, who ruled for 45 years in glory and peace: she was protestant and determined the definitive separation from the Roman Church. Elizabeth concentrated all of her energies in her monarchy and decided to remain unmarried: this characteristic fostered the cult of her chastity as a divine figure, especially in theater and poetry, introducing the period of Elizabethan Poetry.

Philip Sidney

Philip Sidney became the first symbol of Elizabethan Poetry after his death during a war for the protestant cause, and his literature became a national model, the model of what an Englishman should look like. The perfection of his figure was largely idealized, since he was banned from the court and he never graduated from Oxford. His works were influenced by Italian and Latin poetry, especially the first English canzoniere called Astrophil and Stella, the first essay on poetry called Defence of Poetry, and his novels Old Arcadia and New Arcadia, written in 1580 and 1581. The two Arcadias were also influenced by the euphuistic style of Lily. The most important concept mentioned in the Defence of Poetry is that poetry does not have a pragmatic aim, because it belongs to a different dimension from real life. The two Arcadias represent the first example of pastoral novel in England: the pastoral genre consisted in setting a love plot in an ideal natural location, in contrast with the negative world of the court.

Spenser

Spenser was born in a humble family and studied hard at Cambridge to climb the public career, becoming the greatest Elizabethan poet. His first poetries vary from short pastoral experiments to epic poetry, especially with The Shepheards Calendar, a collection of 12 pastoral eclogues on the Virgilian model; the language is archaic, as an homage to Chaucer, so we can notice that Spenser doesn’t deny the past of English medieval poetry, differently from Sidney. Spenser is the author of the first English epic poem, The Fairie Queene, a collection of 12 books, of which 6th were written plus a 7 incomplete, about the Aristotelian virtues and the way the Queen impersonated them. The epic genre has always shaped national identities, so Sidney is considered the first actual national poet at the service of the Queen. In particular, The Fairie Queene is considered a mix of epic and romance, epic for its moral purpose but also romance because it can be read even just for leisure. The setting of Spenser’s poems are usually fable sceneries, wicked forests, magic trees and luxurious courts, where lonely knights meet fairies, witches, dragons and monsters, which usually represent vices contrasting the virtues of the protagonist: allegory is continuous in Spenser’s poems and the interpretation of the reader is always required. Amoretti is a collection of 89 sonnets dedicated to Elizabeth Boyle, his second wife, whose name also allowed a comparison with the political love required by the Queen. Differently from Astrophil and Stella, Amoretti deals with a real love story, the results of which are mentioned in Epithalamion: in fact, the two works were published together, in 1595.

Elizabethan prose

Prose was not a successful genre during the Elizabethan age and it was just used in education. Anyway, the first experiments of prose will lead to the success of the genre in the XVII century, with novelists such as Lily, who was famous for the euphuistic style, an affected style too rich in figures of speech; Greene and Sidney, who employed the euphuistic style of Lily; and Lady Wroth, who was the first woman to publish a literary work in England, Urania. In the age of the new conquers and the development of the British maritime empire, geography and navigation became important sources for prose, especially with Walter Ralegh, who was the favorite courtier of Elizabeth and named the first English colony in her honor, Virginia. The new lands represented the occasion to rebuild national epic.

Elizabethan theater

The Reformation suppressed the religious theater, considered as blaspheme: it was replaced by a genre called interlude, a brief representation involving some allegoric characters, aimed at the leisure or the education of a cultured audience. During the Elizabethan age many tragedies by Seneca were translated and played; the most remarkable production of the age, Gorboduc by Norton and Sackville, was based on Seneca’s model.

The expansion of London during the XVI century and the increase in immigration made London the largest city in Europe and brought many brains; these factors were fundamental in the development of the Elizabethan theater and by the end of the XVI century, England had developed the most incredible theater in all Europe, not only thanks to Shakespeare but also because it was able to attract the entire English population. Despite the oppositions of the puritans the queen herself loved attending the shows and protected theater companies. This process changed the paradigm from traveling theater companies to stable companies, but also increased censorship of scripts: there was the obligation to delete any references to actual events or people that could have political, religious or diplomatic consequences. Only a few companies obtained the license, such as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was Shakespeare’s company, the Queen’s Men, the Admiral’s Men and the King’s Men, which became Shakespeare’s company with James I. The first stable theaters started to be built, such as the Globe in 1599; the structure was mostly an open-air wooden amphitheater, with a squared stage in the middle, and an arena where half of the spectators stood and the other half sat in indoor galleries. There was almost no scenography: all the efforts were put in costumes and in vocalization. Theater companies had a structure similar to limited companies (SpA). The plot was aimed at pleasuring every class and this is why today we still love Shakespeare.

Christopher Marlowe

Christopher Marlowe was born in a humble family and was able to study at Cambridge thanks to a scholarship; there he was recruited in the secret services against catholic conspiracies. He got to London when he was 23 and started writing for the theater while working as a spy. He was murdered in 1593, probably because of his job. Marlowe wrote Dido, his first drama; Tamburlaine the Great, a drama dealing with the heroic story of Tamburlaine, a shepherd who became an emperor just thanks to his merits, with a particular reference to the victory of England against the Invincible Armada. In Doctor Faustus, the protagonist is as hungry for knowledge as Tamburlaine was for power, that he sells his soul to the devil for infinite knowledge. In The Jew of Malta, an avid merchant called Barabas is expelled from the political community of Malta and takes revenge killing many of his enemies and even his daughter. Both Faustus and The Jew of Malta contain several antichristian references. The tragedy Edward II is Marlowe’s only history play: the protagonist is a king of the '300 who is in love with a man from a lower social class, and for this reason is deposed and then impaled, becoming a martyr of a narrow-minded aristocracy.

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 23, 1564. When he was 18 he married Anne Hathaway and they had 3 children. At the end of the '80s he moved to London, where he found immediate success. At the beginning Shakespeare worked as an actor and he started writing in 1594 for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. In 1599 he opened the Globe, south of the Thames. He died in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616.

Since theater works were mostly written as a canovaccio, we don’t have any original manuscripts, and all of the scripts that we read today are derived from the First Folio by Heminges and Condell, two actors of Shakespeare’s company. It contains 36 dramas, plus 2 that are not included in the folio.

Shakespearean history plays

Shakespeare started his writing career in the '90s, with history plays, probably after the trail of historical dramas started by Marlowe. The pompous rhetoric of his history plays was borrowed from the blank verse of Tamburlaine. His first plays were the three parts of Henry VI, written from 1588 to 1591, and Richard III, of 1592: these plays deal with the conflicts of the nobility of the '400 that led to the England of his time, and the main source were the English Chronicles. The main theme is the evil inherent in civil war and in some historical figures, celebrating at the same time the Tudors.

Shakespearean comedies

The main setting of Shakespeare’s comedies is generally Italy, and the main themes are women and the interchangeability of vices and virtues. The Taming of the Shrew, of 1594, deals with the successful attempt of Petruchio to tame the shrew Katherine into a sweet wife. Midsummer Night’s Dream, of 1595, deals with 4 interconnecting love stories set in Fairyland, where the fairies change the love games of the lovers. One of the most popular comedies is Romeo and Juliet, of 1595, which is catalogued among the tragedies in the First Folio because of its conclusion but should be considered a comedy for its theme. The Merchant of Venice, of 1597, is linked to Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta, because of the Jew protagonist: in this comedy, the noble Bassiano asks the merchant Antonio a loan in order to marry Portia, and Antonio borrows this money from the Jew Shylock; Shylock hates Antonio and organizes the deal for which if Antonio does not repay the loan, Shylock will get a pound of his flesh, but eventually Portia disguises herself as the judge and asks Shylock to remove a pound of Antonio’s flesh without blood. Much Ado About Nothing, of 1599, deals with a calumny stopping the wedding of two lovers, which is eventually discovered. The theme of calumny will be central in Othello. Two comedies are important for the ambiguity of gender identity: As You Like It and The 12th Night.

Shakespearean tragedies

Between 1599 and 1608 Shakespeare wrote a series of tragedies, probably in the following order: Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Timon of Athens. The tragedies that are closest to the history play are Julius Caesar and Macbeth which both explore the conscience of the regicide. The themes of regicide and consciousness are also part of Hamlet set in Denmark and dealing with the revenge of Prince Hamlet upon his uncle, pushed by the ghost of his father, who was killed by his brother to be replaced. King Lear dramatizes the story of a king who decided to abdicate to leave his reign to his 3 daughters; Lear misunderstands the discretion of his favorite daughter Cordelia with ingratitude, and leaves everything to the other two, who will ban the King from their reign and will kill him. Only in the end King Lear will recognize the true feelings of Cordelia and they will be killed together in a tragic conclusion. The theme of King Lear is filial ingratitude. Antony and Cleopatra is set right after the murder of Caesar, and deals with the contrast of two different visions of history: on one hand Cleopatra, queen of an Egypt characterized by lust and disorganization, on the other hand Octavian, cold and efficient; Antony is the link between the two cultures.

Shakespearean romances

After the phase of the tragedies, Shakespeare goes back to the themes of the comedies of the '90s, but the axis is shifted to parents, especially fathers. The romances have a political aim, as a result of the international events for which James I regulated politics through the marriage of his children. The most important drama of the period of the romances is The Tempest set on an island which is a metaphor of England, with several characters representing different aspects of sociality.

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus is a history play, a revenge play and Shakespeare's first tragedy, in 5 acts, written between 1588 and 1593 and first played in 1594. The meter is the blank verse and the style is characterized by a pompous rhetoric that was borrowed from Tamburlaine. Several editors denied that Shakespeare wrote any part of the play, because of its rough writing, and probably it was written in collaboration with George Peele: many details are missing and there are serious inaccuracies, so there are doubts whether we have got the original Shakespearian version. There are also several anachronisms, but a reason may be the need to give a better understanding of the contents to the spectators of that time. The drama is characterized by a rich number of references to classicism, like quotes from the Aeneid, Phaedra by Seneca and comparisons to classic events.

The main pattern of the play is the rape of Philomel, a Greek myth which is best mentioned in Book 6 of the Metamorphoses of Ovid, in which Tereus, the king of Thrace, rapes his wife's sister Philomel in the woods and cuts her tongue; unable to speak, Philomel weaves a tapestry with her story and sends it to her sister Procne, then Procne avenges her by killing her son by Tereus and serving him as a meal to her husband. When Tereus finds it out, he tries to kill the sisters, but they are turned into nightingales by the gods and flee. The second pattern is the rape of Lucrece, described in Ovid's Fasti and Livy's History of Rome, and which is also the title of a poem by Shakespeare: the story describes the rape of Lucrece by the son of the king Tarquinius the Proud; as a result, Lucrece commits suicide and her body is displayed in the Roman Forum, leading to a revolt against the king and the foundation of the Roman Republic. The structure of the play, according to Jonathan Bate, is circular, with Andronicus refusing the crown at the beginning and an Andronicus taking it at the end. Besides these two patterns, there are no official sources, the story does not have a specific time setting and the characters are fictional; from Kyd's Spanish Tragedy it just takes the model for the revenge and from Marlowe the figure of the villain, which inspired Aaron.

Elizabethan theaters were built for a triple-layered performance, with an upper stage, a main stage and a cellarage below the main stage: in Titus Andronicus the upper stage is usually reserved to the trumpets, senators and tribunes, the main stage for the main scenes and the pit is used for scenes like the murder of Bassianus. From several indications in the text, historians have agreed that the play was written to be performed at the Rose Theater. The topic and the scenes of the rape have generated several problems in the performance of the play throughout the centuries: if they were tolerated during the Elizabethan and the Jacobean age, the tragedy was hardly allowed during the Victorian age and was restored only in the XX century.