A history of English literature

by Edward Albert

THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY STYLE

1. Poetry. The period immediately preceding was that of the clumsy poetry of Hawes, Skelton, and their kind; succeeding it is the strength and beauty of Elizabethan poetry. Between these two extremes the different stages of development are fairly well marked.

(a) The earliest period (say from 1550–80) is that of Wyat, Surrey, Sidney, and the University Wits. This is the formative and imitative period, during which the dependence upon classical originals is particularly strong. The style has the precision and the erratic character of the diligent pupil. There are few deliberate innovations, and lapses into barbarism are not unknown. In this period appear the sonnet, blank verse, and many of the beautiful lyrical metrical forms. The lyrical style is least restrained by the influence of classical models.

(b) The Spenserian and Shakespearian stage (from about 1580 to 1615) is the stage of highest development. The native English genius, having absorbed the lessons of foreign writers, adds to them the youth and ardor of its own spirit. The result is a fullness, freshness, and grandeur of style unequaled in any other period of our literature. There are the lyrics and allegories of Spenser; the poems, dramas, and lyrics of Shakespeare; and the innumerable miscellanies, poems, and plays of other writers. The style is as varied as the poems; but the universal note is the romantic one of power and ease.

(c) In the second decade of the seventeenth century the decline is apparent. The inspired phraseology, the wealth and flexibility of vocabulary, and the general bloom of the style pass into the lightness of fancy and the tinkling unsubstantial verse of the nature of Campion’s. Or the high seriousness degenerates into the gloomy manner of the Websterian tragedy. The handling of blank verse is typical of the movement. The sinewy Shakesperian blank verse becomes nerveless; in drama prose is commoner in quantity and coarser in fiber. In the lyric much of the old technical dexterity survives, but the deeper qualities of passion and sincerity are less common and robust.

2. Prose. Unlike that of poetry, the style of prose enjoys a steady development, continued from the previous age, and maintained through the Elizabethan age. Euphuism, which appeared early in this epoch, was a kind of literary measles incidental to early growth, and it quickly passed away, leaving the general body of English prose healthier than before. There is an increase in the raw material of prose in the shape of many foreign words that are imported; there is a growing expertness in sentence-and paragraph-construction and in the more delicate graces of style, such as rhythm and melody. The prose of Hooker and Bacon (in his later stages) represents the furthest development of the time. Prose style has yet a great deal to learn, but it is learning fast.

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

Date>	Poetry			Drama		Prose
	Lyric	Narrative-Descriptive	Didactic	Comedy	Tragedy	Essay	Narrative	Didactic
								Ascham
1550
		Sackville[102]
1560	Wyat[103]	Surrey[103]
1570
			Gascoigne[104]
1580		Spenser[105]					North[106]	Lyly
				Lyly	Peele
				Kyd
				Greene
1590					Marlowe
	Daniel	Donne		Nash				Hooker[107]
		Shakespeare[108]					Nash
		Marlowe		Shakespeare				Spenser
1600			Drayton		Chapman	Bacon[109]
	Campion			Jonson Dekker	Shakespeare
	Donne			Marston
					Jonson
1610		G. Fletcher		Heywood
		Drayton			Webster
				Beaumont		Overbury[110]
				Fletcher
1620
				Middleton				Bacon
								Ussher
								Burton
1630							Bacon	Hall
		P. Fletcher
1640

EXERCISES

1. The following extracts illustrate the growth of the English lyric from earliest times. Arrange the passages approximately in order of development, adding dates when it seems possible. Write a note on the style of each, and point out in what respects it is typical of its author or period.

(1) Still to be neat, still to be drest,

As you were going to a feast;

Still to be powdered, still perfumed:

Lady, it is to be presumed,

Though art’s hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face,

That makes simplicity a grace;

Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:

Such sweet neglect more taketh me

Than all the adulteries of art:

They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Jonson, Epicene

(2) Son icche herde that mirie note

Thider I drogh;

I fond her in an herber swot

Under a bough

With joie enough.

Son I asked: “Thou mirie mai

Hwi sinkestou ai?”

Nou sprinkes the sprai,

All for love icche am so seek

That slepen I ne mai.

Old Song

(3) A blissful life thou says I lead;

Thou wouldest know thereof the stage.

Thou wost well when thy Perle con schede,

I was full young and tender of age;

But my Lord the Lomb, through his God-hede,

He took myself to his maryage,

Coround me queen in bliss to brede[111]

In length of dayes that ever shall wage.

And seised in all his heritage

His lef[112] is; I am wholly his;

His praise, his price, and his parage

Is root and ground of all my bliss.

Pearl

(4) Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?

O sweet content!

Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?

O punishment!

Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed

To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?

O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace;

Honest labour bears a lovely face;

Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

Canst drink the waters of the crisped spring?

O sweet content!

Swim’st thou in wealth, yet sink’st in thine own tears?

O punishment!

Then he that patiently want’s burden bears

No burden bears, but is a king, a king!

O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet content!

Work apace, apace, apace, apace;

Honest labour bears a lovely face;

Then hey nonny nonny, hey nonny nonny!

Dekker, Sweet Content

2. In the following passages, which illustrate the development of blank verse, examine the metrical features (such as the scansion, variation of the pause, and the melody) of each, and mention if any improvement is apparent.

(1) It was the time when granted from the gods,

The first sleep creeps most sweet in weary folk,

Lo, in my dream before mine eyes, methought

With rueful cheer I saw where Hector stood

(Out of whose eyes gushed streams of tears),

Drawn at a car as he of late had been,

Distained with bloody dust, whose feet were bowl’n[113]

With the strait cords wherewith they haled him.

Surrey, Æneid, 1557

(2) That age is dead and vanished long ago,

Which thought that steel both trusty was and true

And needed not a foil of contraries,

But shewed all things even as they were in deed.

In stead whereof, our curious years can find

The crystal glass, which glimpseth brave and bright,

And shews the thing much better far than it,

Beguiled with foils, of sundry subtle sights

So that they seem and covet not to be.

Gascoigne, The Steel Glass, 1576

(3)Prospero.Of the king’s ship

The mariners, say how thou hast disposed

And all the rest o’ the fleet.

Ariel.Safely in harbour

Is the king’s ship: in the deep nook, where once

Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew

From the still-vex’d Bermoothes, there she’s hid:

The mariners all under hatches stow’d;

Who, with a charm join’d to their suffer’d labour,

I have left asleep: and for the rest o’ the fleet

Which I dispersed, they all have met again

And are upon the Mediterranean flote,

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wreck’d

And his great person perish.

Shakespeare, The Tempest, 1611

3. Comment upon the style, meter, and general level of excellence shown in the following sonnets. Point out any development that is observable.

(1) The sweet season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale.

The nightingale, with feathers new, she sings;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale;

Summer is come, for every spray now springs.

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale:

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings;

The fishes fleet with new repaired scale;

The adder all her slough away she flings;

The swift swallow pursueth the flies small;

The busy bee her honey how she mings!

Winter is worn, that was the flowers’ bale,

And thus I see among these pleasant things

Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs.

Surrey, To Spring, 1557

(2) Sweet is the rose, but growes upon a brere;

Sweet is the juniper, but sharpe his bough;

Sweet is the eglantine, but pricketh nere,

Sweet is the firbloome, but his braunches rough;

Sweet is the cyprese, but his rynd is tough;

Sweet is the nut, but bitter is his pill;[114]

Sweet is the broome flowre, but yet sowre enough;

And sweet is moly, but his root is ill;

So, every sweet, with soure is tempred still,

That maketh it be coveted the more:

For easie things that may be got at will

Most sorts of men doe set but little store.

Why then should I accompt of little paine

That endlesse pleasure shall unto me gaine!

Spenser, Amoretti, 1595

(3) Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part,—

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of love’s latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

—Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou mightest him yet recover!

Drayton, 1620

4. Hooker’s is sometimes considered to be the most highly developed of Elizabethan prose styles. In the following two extracts examine the vocabulary, sentence-construction, and general competence of the first, and compare it with the second, which was written about two hundred years earlier.

(1) Touching musical harmony, whether by instrument or by voice, it being but of high and low in sounds a due proportionable disposition, such notwithstanding is the force thereof, and so pleasing effects it hath in that very part of man which is most divine, that some have been thereby induced to think that the soul itself by nature is, or hath in it, harmony; a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy; as decent being added unto actions of greatest weight and solemnity, as being used when men most sequester themselves from action. The reason hereof is an admirable facility which music hath to express and represent to the mind, more inwardly than any other sensible mean, the very standing, rising and falling, the very steps and inflections every way, the turns and varieties of all passions whereunto the mind is subject; yea, so to imitate them, that, whether it resemble unto us the same state wherein our minds already are, or a clean contrary, we are not more contentedly by the one confirmed, than changed and led away by the other. In harmony, the very image and character even of virtue and vice is perceived, the mind delighted with their resemblances, and brought by having them often iterated into a love of the things themselves. For which cause there is nothing more contagious and pestilent than some kinds of harmony; than some, nothing more strong and potent unto good.

Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 1592

(2) This Emperor Prester John, when he goeth in to battle, against any other lord, he hath no banners borne before him: but he hath three crosses of gold, fine, great and high, full of precious stones: and every of the crosses be set in a chariot, full richly arrayed. And for to keep every cross, be ordained ten thousand men of arms, and more than a hundred thousand men on foot, in manner as men would keep a standard in our countries, when that we be in land of war. And this number of folk is without the principal host, and without wings ordained for the battle. And when he hath no war, but rideth with a privy retinue, then he hath borne before him but a cross of tree, without peinture, and without gold or silver or precious stones; in remembrance, that Jesu Christ suffered death upon a cross of tree.

Mandeville, Travels, 1400

5. In what respects is each of the following extracts typical of its author and its age? Write a very brief appreciation of the style of each.

(1) Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,

And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.—

Her lips suck forth my soul: see where it flies!

Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.

Here will I dwell, for heaven is in those lips,

And all is dross that is not Helena.

I will be Paris, and for love of thee,

Instead of Troy, shall Wittenberg be sacked;

And I will combat with weak Menelaus,

And wear thy colours on my plumed crest;

Yea, I will wound Achilles in the heel,

And then return to Helen for a kiss.

Oh, thou art fairer than the evening air

Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

(2) Iffida, the water standing in her eyes, clasping my hand in hers, with a sad countenance answered me thus:

“My good Fidus, if the increasing of my sorrows, might mitigate the extremity of thy sickness, I could be content to resolve myself into tears to rid thee of trouble: but the making of a fresh wound in my body is nothing to the healing of a festered sore in thy bowels: for that such diseases are to be cured in the end, by the names of their original. For as by basil the scorpion is engendered and by the means of the same herb destroyed: so love which by time and fancy is bred in an idle head, is by time and fancy banished from the heart: or as the salamander which, being a long space nourished in the fire, at the last quencheth it, so affection having taken hold of the fancy, and living as it were in the mind of the lover, in tract of time altereth and changeth the heat, and turneth it to chillness.

Lyly, Euphues and his England

(3) Cozen german to idleness, and a concomitant cause which goes hand in hand with it, is nimia solitudo, too much solitariness—by the testimony of all physicians, cause and symptom both; but as it is here put for a cause, it is either coact, enforced, or else voluntary. Enforced solitariness is commonly seen in students, monks, friars, anchorites, that, by their order and course of life, must abandon all company, society of other men, and betake themselves to a private cell; otio superstitioso seclusi (as Bale and Hospinian well term it), such as are the Carthusians of our time, that eat no flesh (by their order), keep perpetual silence, never go abroad; such as live in prison, or some desert place, and cannot have company, as many of our country gentlemen do in solitary houses; they must either be alone without companions, or live beyond their means, and entertain all comers as so many hosts, or else converse with their servants and hinds, such as are unequal, inferior to them, and of a contrary disposition; or else, as some do, to avoid solitariness, spend their time with lewd fellows in taverns, and in ale-houses, and thence addict themselves to some unlawful disports, or dissolute courses.

Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy

(4) Mr Peter, as one somewhat severe of nature, said plainly, that the rod only was the sword that must keep the school in obedience, and the scholar in good order. Mr Wotton, a man of mild nature, with soft voice, and few words, inclined to Mr Secretary’s judgment, and said, “In mine opinion the school-house should be in deed, as it is called by name, the house of play and pleasure, and not of fear and bondage; and as I do remember, so saith Socrates in one place of Plato. And therefore, if a rod carry the fear of a sword it is no marvel if those that be fearful of nature choose rather to forsake the play, than to stand always within the fear of a sword in a fond man’s handling.”

Ascham, The Scholemaster

(5) Come little babe, come silly soul,

Thy father’s shame, thy mother’s grief,

Born as I doubt to all our dole,

And to thyself unhappy chief:

Sing lullaby and lap it warm,

Poor soul that thinks no creature harm.

Thou little think’st and less dost know

The cause of this thy mother’s moan;

Thou want’st the wit to wail her woe,

And I myself am all alone;

Why dost thou weep, why dost thou wail,

And know’st not yet what thou dost ail?

Come little wretch, ah silly heart,

Mine only joy; what can I more?

If there be any wrong thy smart,

That may the destinies implore;

’Twas I, I say, against my will;

I wail the time, but be thou still.

A Sweet Lullaby

(from The Arbor of Amorous Devices)

(6) Ere long they come where that same wicked wight

His dwelling has, low in an hollow cave,[115]

Far underneath a craggie clifty pight,

Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave,

That still for carrion carcases doth crave:

On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly Owle,

Shrieking his balefull note, which ever drave

Far from that haunt all other chearefull fowle;

And all about it wandring ghostes did wayle and howle.

And all about old stockes and stubs of trees,

Whereon nor fruit nor leafe was ever seene,

Did hang upon the ragged rocky knees;

On which had many wretches hanged beene,

Whose carcases were scattred on the greene,

And throwne about the clifts. Arrived there,

That bare-head knight, for dread and dolefull teene,

Would faine have fled, ne durst approchen neare;

But th’ other forst him staye, and comforted in feare.

That darksome cave they enter, where they find

That cursed man, low sitting on the ground,

Musing full sadly in his sullein mind:

His griesie lockes, long growen and unbound,

Disordered hong about his shoulders round,

And his face, through which his hollow eyne

Lookt deadly dull, and stared as astound;

His raw-bone cheekes, through penurie and pine,

Were shronke into his jawes, as he did never dine.

Spenser, The Faerie Queene

6. What features of Shakespeare’s life and literary work does Arnold refer to in the following sonnet? How far do his statements appear to you inaccurate or exaggerated?

Others abide our question. Thou art free.

We ask and ask—thou smilest and art still,

Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill,

Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,

Planting his stedfast footsteps in the sea,

Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,

Spares but the cloudy border of his base

To the foil’d searching of mortality;

And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,

Self-school’d, self-scann’d, self-honour’d, self-secure,

Didst tread on earth unguess’d at. Better so!

All pains the immortal spirit must endure,

All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,

Find their sole speech in that victorious brow.

Matthew Arnold, Shakespeare

7. Compare very carefully the two given extracts from Shakespeare’s plays. Observe the handling of each: the simplicity or ornateness of diction, the power of expression, and the strength and flexibility of the blank verse. On these grounds, which would you say was taken from an early and which from a later?

(1) Cordelia. He wakes; speak to him.

Doctor. Madam, do you: ’tis fittest.

Cordelia. How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o’ the grave:

Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?

Cordelia. Still, still, far wide!

Doctor. He’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

Lear. Where have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused. I should e’en die with pity,

To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands: let’s see;

I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured

Of my condition!

King Lear

(2) Portia. It must not be. There is no power in Venice

Can alter a decree established:

’Twill be recorded for a precedent,

And many an error by the same example

Will rush into the state. It cannot be.

Shylock. A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!

O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!

Portia. I pray you, let me look upon the bond.

Shylock. Here ’tis, most reverend doctor, here it is.

Portia. Shylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee.

Shylock. An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven.

Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?

No, not for Venice.

Portia.Why, this bond is forfeit;

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim

A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off

Nearest the merchant’s heart.—Be merciful:

Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.

The Merchant of Venice

8. Explain and discuss the following statements concerning Shakespeare. Whenever you can, illustrate with examples from the plays.

(1) He was not of an age, but for all time.—Jonson.

(2) Panting time toiled after him in vain.—Johnson.

(3) The genius of Shakespeare was an innate universality.

Keats.

(4) His plays are distinguished by signal adherence to the great laws of nature, that all opposites tend to attract and temper each other.—Coleridge.

(5) The striking peculiarity of Shakespeare’s mind was its power of communicating with other minds, so that it contained a universe of thought and feeling within itself.—Hazlitt.

9. What were the signs of the “dramatic decline” that set in after Shakespeare? Mention some dramatists whose plays show this decline.

10. Try to account for the weakness of English prose when compared with the poetry of the time.

(1) No single prose writer of the time, not even Hooker, holds the same rank that Spenser holds in poetry.—Saintsbury.

(2) The poets and dramatists of the age of Elizabeth completed their work quickly, and attained, by leaps and bounds, to the consummate perfection of their diction. But prose style grows more slowly; and its growth is hindered rather than quickened by the very variety of its subject.—Craik.

11. In what respects is the title “Elizabethan literature” open to objection when it is applied to the matter of this chapter? Suggest other titles.

12. To what extent were the University Wits immature dramatists? What was their contribution to the English drama?

13. “The age of Elizabeth made the most of both native and classical elements.” Discuss this statement.

14. It is frequently stated that during the second half of the Elizabethan period drama weakened and prose strengthened. Confirm or confute the statement.

15. How was this time “the Golden Age of the lyric”?

CHAPTER VI
THE AGE OF MILTON