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The Elizabethan Age. .

1. Edmund Spenser. 1. Stunde. You have been told much about the great spiritual movement, called the Renaissance, i.e. rebirth of Greek literature, which came from Italy after the revival of Latin culture by the humanists. The New Learning, as the re-discovered literature of Greece is often called, was studied in England from about 1500, and had a great civilizing influence there, too, by broadening the mental life of the English nation. You fancy that the Renaissance brought about a change in English poetry as well. New metres and more refined forms of verse or stanzas were introduced, e.g. the blank verse and the sonnet, and soon began a period of translation, versions from Latin and Greek being now made in large numbers besides those from Italian and the languages of the Western nations - Spanish, French, Dutch which were fostered by the growing international trade. So that when Shakespeare towards the end of the 16. century wrote his plays it was possible for him to get nearly all the important books of those languages in good English versions.

Under Queen Elizabeth England, then still an apprentice in naval enterprise, was resolutely claiming her share in the New World. Her covert maritime war with Spain had led in the end to open war and to the defeat by Sir Francis Drake of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The heroic spirit of this age was expressed in literature at first in the translations of such great foreign epics as Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and then in a national English epic poetry. Of the epic poems which reflect the national sentiment in glorifying Elizabeth's reign as a time full of heroism, Spenser's Faerie Queene has not been forgotten yet.

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You find the chief dates of Spenser's life in Herrig-Förster. Give them, X.-X: Spenser was born in London. He studied at Cambridge. — L.: Where he took his M. A. degree. — X: He spent the best part of his life far from London in Ireland as secretary to the viceroy: L: In what state was Ireland then ? Well, in a state of rebellion. Under the Tudors cruel attempts were made at conquering Ireland by force of arms. As the English had just turned Protestant and the Irish remained faithful to the Catholic faith, bitter religious feelings were stirred up and fanned by the intolerance of both religious parties. So, the Irish hated Spenser as an English official. What bad luck had he? – X: The rebels burnt his house, and the poet fled to England. He died in London shortly after his return, in 1599. He was about forty-seven when he died. - L.: All right. He was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey at the side of Chaucer, whom he always adored as his master. From Chaucer he said he had learned the art of poetry, that is, the art of drawing men and women in their doings and surroundings. As he was familiar with Chaucer and medieval English literature, Spenser renewed the metrical romance of chivalry by taking up again in his versetale of the Faerie Queene the old, old stories of King Arthur, "the flower of kings” and the national British hero, and his knights of the Round Table. Thus, he continued the literary tradition, but at the same time he adapted it to the Renaissance culture of his own day by putting into the tale the new learning which his head was full of, the new national and protestant spirit of the Elizabethan age. The keynote of Spenser's great romantic epic is the emancipation of thought from the religious dogmas of the Church of Rome or rather from the control of the priest, and that is what the Puritans, though they were not yet the religious zealots of the 17th century, strove after already?) under Elizabeth: as early as E.'s time, whose Established Church did not please them, as it had preserved too many of the ancient Catholic rites. But the Puritan tendency of thought does not diminish the artistic value of the poem; the great moral lesson which it was meant to be is contained in the allegory, which the poet does not use as a mere abstraction, simply saying Temperance, Chastity, Courtesy, Friendship, Faith,

1) “This construction, imitated from the German, I suppose, does occur in English, but I dislike it It doesn't matter."

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Hope, Charity etc., but vividly places before the reader's eyes by telling him all about the experiences and struggles of individualized figures or humanlike beings to whom he has given their own individual characters. Scholars and educated people will at once realize the deep spiritual meaning underlying these allegorical personages. But the stories are themselves so fascinating, they are told so convincingly, that all those who enjoy the book naively will learn its lessons without dreaming of a hidden meaning in it.

What then was the design of Spenser's Fairie Queene? In twelve books the author intended to represent, through the adventures of twelve of Arthur's knights of the Round Table, the twelve cardinal virtues which the scholastic philosophy had developed on the basis of Aristotle. All these excellences are only the component parts or representatives of the perfect ideal of a knight, Prince Arthur, before he became king. The poet says that in a second part he meant to show the political virtues in Arthur, after he had become king. Arthur, who stands for the Earl of Leicester whom Queen Elizabeth was likely to marry, is on his way to the court of Gloriana, the Queen of Fairyland, who personifies no other than the Virgin Queen. She embodies the glory of the kingdom of God, and Arthur, who represents Magnificence, the combination of all the 12 virtues, acts the part of a Saviour, he is a mediator, who after Christian notions must reconcile the sinful man with God. As a mediator, this ideal of a Christian knight and gentleman has to lead to Gloriana's throne the knights who have set forth to do great deeds in her honour, but go astray. All the champions of the particular virtues, except Chastity who, according to Puritan conceptions, need not be protected, come to a point where their human power no longer suffices to continue their fight with the Vices. And just at the moment when they are in danger of death, Arthur meets and helps them, which may remind us of the verse in the Gospel saying that God sent Christ into the world that the imperfect world through him might be saved.

Of the twelve books Spenser designed this great allegorical poem to contain, only six were completed when he died. Of a seventh two cantos and two stanzas have been preserved. So the great frame story which the poet had planned is a fragment. What are frame stories like the Arabian Nights (Märchen aus 1001 Nacht) called in German, X.?— X.: Rahmenerzählungen.L.: What great English 'frame story' do you already know? Sch.: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, which are also a fragment. L.: Well, as in Chaucer a pilgrimage was the frame used for holding the tales together, so Spenser's allegories were to be linked together by a splendid festival held at Gloriana's court for twelve days. While the twelve knights set out from her court on their respective tasks, Prince Arthur starts on a journey to find his bride, the Faerie Queene, whom he has seen in a dream, and when he has reached her court, their wedding is celebrated amid general rejoicings. That's how the poet himself in a letter explains the argument of the whole poem. And what metrical form did he choose for it? He used a stanza which was his own invention. He had adapted it from an Italian stanza, called Ottava rima. Spenser's stanza consists of eight iambic pentameters followed by an Alexandrine, the nine lines rhyming ab ab bc bc c. The Spenserian stanza has been since his Faerie Queene one of the favourite metres of English poets. Among others, Lord Byron used it for his Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, that brilliant series of travel sketches in verse describing the young romantic poet's impressions and reflections on his travelling in Southern Europe.

I have already said that Spenser has not been forgotten yet. He has up to the present remained an inspiring and comforting force for poets, scholars, and other refined people, though his great epic has, because of its difficulty, never become a popular poem. Under Milton, the great poet of Puritan idealism, it seemed natural that not Shakespeare, but Spenser should be regarded as the leading star of literature. In the eighteenth century the admirers of Pope's classicist school of poetry did not look down upon Spenser as being out of date, on the contrary, they liked him very much for the archaism:antiqueness and dignity of his verse. And in the nineteenth century, when a new age of romanticism had begun, it was again Spenser who inspired English poets by the magic and music of his poetry and by its abundance of romantic pictures. What then does Spenser's everlasting force lie in? A German university professor (Prof. Schröer), to whom I am much indebted for what I have been telling you about Spenser's fine art, answers this question as follows: „Einerseits natürlich darin, daß er eben wirklich ein Dichter war, dessen Ideenflug, dessen Gestaltungskraft, dessen künst

lerische Meisterschaft in der dichterischen Ausdrucksweise in reiner Harmonie zusammenklingen. Andererseits aber darin, daß er ein typischer Engländer war. Voll klassischer Gelehrsamkeit, erfüllt von den reichen Anregungen der italienischen Renaissance, aber ebenso erfüllt von der heimischen literarischen Überlieferung, ein bewundernder Schüler Chaucers, weiß er die Vorstellungskreise und Formen der höfisch-gelehrten Kunstpoesie mit der überkommenen nationalen zu verbinden, und zwar nicht nur zu verbinden, sondern sie im nationalen Geiste auszuprägen."

2. Stunde. When did the Renaissance or New Learning come to England ? What effect had the New Learning on English poetry? – What special branch of literature was the consequence of the New Learning, soon began to flourish? What spirit expressed itself in the translations of the great foreign epics ? — What had this heroic and romantic spirit been engendered by ? discoveries of the Spanish and Portuguese. — Gradually a spirit of rivalry grew up among the sea-faring nations of Europe. The rivalry of England and Spain at sea was deepened by the religious and political differences of the two countries, and what did it finally lead to ? — To what sort of poetry did poets devote themselves in the days of the Spanish wars ? the “patriotic” epic about the glory of England. - Is Spenser's Faerie Queene a common patriotic epic ? - What is it? - Why did Spenser choose this literary form for his verse tales ? What legendary personage did he make the centre of his romantic epic ? - What is new in Spenser's romance of chivalry? I mean, what did he fill the old medieval verse tale with ? What is the keynote, we say Leitmotiv (leading motive), of the whole poem? - Why could the desire for a "pure" church become an inspiring force, how could the Puritan movement arise under Queen Elizabeth ? Hadn't she reformed the Church, established the Protestant State Church? – Does in Spenser's poem the Puritan tendency of thought prevail over the artistic beauty? I want to know if the didactic purpose becomes manifest, makes itself felt in the allegories which the author uses. Give the argument of the poem, as it is explained in a letter from the author. - What did the poet intend to represent under the shape of the twelve knights setting forth to do great deeds in Gloriana's honour: going through the most dangerous adventures ? What does Gloriana, the Virgin Queen, embody? — And what does Prince Arthur represent ? — What part (rôle) does he play

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