From 1520 to 1550, Italy, where the literature of antiquity had been first cultivated, still retained her superiority in the fine perception of its beauties, but the study was proceeding also elsewhere in Europe. Few books of that age give us more insight into its literary history and the public taste than the "Circeronianus" of Erasmus, against which Scaliger wrote with unmannerly invective. The same period of thirty years is rich with poets, among whom are the Spanish Mendoza, the Portuguese Ribero, Marot in France, many hymn-writers in Germany; and in England, Wyatt and Surrey. At this time also, Spain was forming its national theatre, chiefly under the influence of Lope de Rueda and of Torres Naharro, the inventor of Spanish comedy. The most celebrated writer of fiction in this age is Rabelais, than whom few have greater fertility of language and imagination.
IV.—The Sixteenth Century (1550–1600)
Montaigne's "Essays," which first appeared at Bordeaux in 1580, make an epoch in literature, being the first appeal from the academy to the haunts of busy and idle men; and this delightful writer had a vast influence on English and French literature in the succeeding age.
Turning now to the Italian poets of our period, we find that most of them are feeble copyists of Petrarch, whose style Bembo had rendered so popular. Casa, Costanzo, Baldi, Celio Magno, Bernardino Rota, Gaspara Stampa, Bernado Tasso, father of the great Tasso, Peter Aretin, and Firenzuola, flourished at this time. The "Jerusalem" of Torquato Tasso is the great epic of modern times; it is read with pleasure in almost every canto, though the native melancholy of Tasso tinges all his poem. It was no sooner published than it was weighed against the "Orlando Furioso," and Europe has not yet agreed which scale inclines.
Spanish poetry is adorned by Luis Ponce de Leon, born in 1527, a religious and mystical lyric poet. The odes of Herrera have a lyric elevation and richness of phrase, derived from the study of Pindar and of the Old Testament. Castillejo, playful and witty, attempted to revive the popular poetry, and ridiculed the imitators of Petrarch.
The great Camoens had now arisen in Portugal; his "Lusiad," written in praise of the Lusitanian people, is the mirror of his loving, courageous, generous, and patriotic heart. Camoens is the chief Portuguese poet in this age, and possibly in every other.
This was an age of verse in France. Pierre Ronsard, Amadis Jamyn his pupil, Du Bartas, Pibrac, Desportes, and many others, were gradually establishing the rules of metre, and the Alexandrine was displacing the old verse of ten syllables.
Of German poetry there is little to say; but England had Lord Vaux's short pieces in "The Paradise of Dainty Devices"; Sackville, with his "Induction" to the "Mirrour of Magistrates," 1559; George Gascoyne, whose "Steel Glass," 1576, is the earliest English satire; and, above all, Spenser, whose "Shepherd's Kalendar" appeared in 1579. This work was far more natural and more pleasing than the other pastorals of the age. Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and his "Rape of Lucrece," were published in 1593–94. Sir Philip Sidney, Raleigh, Lodge, Breton, Marlowe, Green, Watson, Davison, Daniel, and Michael Drayton were now writing poems, and Drake has a list of more than two hundred English poets of this time.
The great work of the period is, however, the "Faëry Queen," the first three books of which were published in 1590, and the last three in 1596. Spenser excels Ariosto in originality, force, and variety of character, and in depth of reflection, but especially in the poetical cast of feeling.
Of dramatic literature, between 1550 and 1600, we have many Italian plays by Groto, Decio da Orto, and Tasso. The pastoral drama originating with Agostino Beccari in 1554, reached its highest perfection in Tasso's "Aminta," which was followed by Guarini's "Pastor Fido."