Spenser (1553-1599), among the English poets, stands lower only than Shakspeare, Chaucer, and Milton. His works unite rare genius with moral purity, exquisite sweetness of language, luxuriant beauty of imagination, and a tenderness of feeling rarely surpassed, and never elsewhere conjoined with an imagination so vivid. His magnificent poem, the "Faerie Queene," though it contains many thousand lines, is yet incomplete, no more than half of the original design being executed. The diction is studded purposely with forms of expression already become antiquated, and many peculiarities are forced upon the author from the difficulties of the complex measure which he was the first to adopt, and which still bears his name.
The Fairy Land of Spenser is rather the Land of Chivalry than the region we are accustomed to understand by that term; a scene in which heroic daring and ideal purity are the objects chiefly presented to our imagination, in which the principal personages are knights achieving perilous adventures, ladies rescued from frightful miseries, and good and evil enchanters, whose spells affect the destiny of those human persons. Spenser would probably not have written precisely as he did, if Ariosto had not written before him; nor is it unlikely that he was also guided by the later example of Tasso; but his design was in many features nobler and more arduous than that of either. His deep seriousness is unlike the mocking tone of the "Orlando Furioso," and in his moral enthusiasm he rises higher than the "Jerusalem;" although the poetic effect of his work is marred by his design of producing a series of ethical allegories.
The hero is the chivalrous Arthur of the British legends, but wrapt in a cloud of symbols. Gloriana, the Faërie Queene, who was to be the object of the prince's warmest love, was herself an emblem of Virtuous Renown, and designed also to represent the poet's queen, Elizabeth. All the incidents are significant of moral truth, and all the personages are allegorical. The adventures of the characters, connected by no tie, except the occasional interposition of Arthur, form really six independent poetic tales. The First Book, by far the finest of all, relates the Legend of the Red Cross Knight, who is a type of Holiness, and who shadows forth the history of the Church of England. In the second, which abounds in exquisite painting of picturesque landscapes, we have the Legend of Sir Guyon, illustrating the virtue of Temperance. The theme of the Third Book is the Legend of Britomart, or of Chastity, in which we are introduced to Belphoebe and Amoret, two of those beautiful female characters which the poet takes such pleasure in delineating. Next comes the Legend of Friendship, personified in the knights Cambel and Triamond. In the Fifth Book, containing the Legends of Sir Artegal, the emblem of Justice, there is a perceptible falling off. The Sixth Book, the Legend of Sir Calidore, or Courtesy, though it lacks unity, is in some scenes inspired with the warmest glow of fancy.
The mind of Spenser embraced a vast range of imaginary creation, but the interest of real life is wanting. His world is ideal, abstract, and remote, yet affording in its multiplied scenes ample scope for those nobler feelings and heroic virtues which we love to see even in transient connection with human nature.
The non-dramatic poets of this time begin with Spenser and end with Milton, and between these two there were writers of great excellence. The vice of the age was a laboring after conceits or novel turns of thought, usually false, and resting upon some equivocation of language or remote analogy. No poet of the time was free from it; Shakspeare indulged in it occasionally, others incessantly, holding its manifestations to be their finest strokes of art.
The poetical works of this age were metrical translations from the classics—narrative, historical, descriptive, didactic, pastoral, and lyrical poems. One of the most beautiful religious poems in any language is "Christ's Victory and Triumph," by Giles Fletcher (d. 1623): it is animated in narrative, lively in fancy, and touching in feeling. Drayton (d. 1631) was the author of the "Poly-Olbion," a topographical description of England, and a signal instance of fine fancy and great command of language, almost thrown away from its prosaic design. Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke), the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, exhibits great powers of philosophical thought, in pointed and energetic diction, in his poem on "Human Learning." Among the religious poets are "Holy George Herbert" (d. 1632), who, by his life and writings, presented the belief and offices of the church in their most amiable aspect, and Quarles (d. 1644), best known by his "Divine Emblems," which abound in quaint and grotesque illustrations.
The lyrical poems of the time were numerous, and were written by almost all the poets eminent in other departments. In those of Donne, in spite of their conceits and affectations, are many passages wonderfully fine. Those of Herrick (b. 1591), in graceful fancy and delicate expression, are many of them unsurpassed; in subject and tone they vary from grossly licentious expression to the utmost warmth of devout aspiration. Cowley (1618-1667), the latest and most celebrated of the lyric poets, was gifted with extraordinary poetic sensibility and fancy, but he was prone to strained analogies and unreal refinements. Among the minor lyrical poets are Carew, Ayton, Habington, Suckling, and Lovelace. Denham (1615-1668) and Waller (1605-1687) form a sort of link between the time before the Restoration and that which followed. The "Cooper's Hill" of the first is a reflective and descriptive poem in heroic verse, and the diversified poems of the last were remarkable advances in ease and correctness of diction and versification.
The poetry of that imaginative period which began with Spenser closes yet more nobly with Milton (1608-1674). He, standing in some respects apart from his stern contemporaries of the Commonwealth as from those who debased literature in the age of the Restoration, yet belongs rather to the older than the newer period. In the midst of evil men and the gloom of evil days the brooding thought of a great poetical work was at length matured, and the Christian epic, chanted at first when there were few disposed to hear, became an enduring monument of genius, learning, and art. His early poems alone would indicate his superiority to all the poets of the period, except Shakspeare and Spenser. The most popular of them, "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," are the best of their kind in any language. In the "Comus" there are passages exquisite for imagination, for sentiment, and for the musical flow of the rhythm, in which the majestic swell of the poet's later blank verse begins to be heard. The "Paradise Regained" abounds with passages in themselves beautiful, but the plan is poorly conceived, and the didactic tendency prevails to weariness as the work proceeds. The theme of the "Paradise Lost" is the noblest of any ever chosen. The stately march of its diction; the organ peal with which its versification rolls on; the continual overflowing of beautiful illustrations; the brightly-colored pictures of human happiness and innocence; the melancholy grandeur with which angelic natures are clothed in their fall, are features which give the mind images and feelings not soon or easily effaced.
3. THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION AND THE REVOLUTION (1660-1702).—Among the able churchmen who passed from the troubles of the Commonwealth and Protectorate to the Restoration were Jeremy Taylor, Archbishop Leighton, and others of eminence. South, Tillotson, and Barrow were more able theologians, but their writings lack the charm of sentiment which Leighton's warmth of heart diffuses over all his works. South (d. 1716) was a man of remarkable oratorical endowments, sarcastic, intolerant, and fierce in polemical attacks. The writings of Tillotson (d. 1694) are pervaded by a higher and better spirit, and the sermons of Barrow (d. 1677) combine comprehensiveness, sagacity, and clearness. Other divines, such as Stillingfleet, Pearson, Burnet, Bull, hold a more prominent place in the history of the church than in that of letters. But all the writers of this age are wanting in that impressiveness and force of undisciplined eloquence which distinguished the first half of the seventeenth century. Among the nonconformist clergy, Howe (d. 1715) wrote the "Living Temple," which is ranked among the religious classics.
The great though untrained genius of John Bunyan (1628-1688) produced the
"Pilgrim's Progress," which holds a distinguished place in permanent
English literature.