RENAISSANCE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

DISCUSS THE MANIFESTATIONS OF THE RENAISSANCE IN THE LITERATURE AND CULTURE OF THE PERIOD 

The term ‘Renaissance’ means rebirth or revival. It was the period of the intellectual movement in European cultural history that is traditionally seen as ending the middle ages and beginning modern times. The renaissance started in Italy in the 14^th century and flourished in Western Europe until about the 17^th century.

The aim of renaissance education was to produce the ‘complete human being’. The renaissance man, conversant in the humanities, mathematics and science, the arts and crafts and athletics and sport; to enlarge the bounds of learning and geographical knowledge, to encourage the growth of skepticism and free thought, and the study and imitation of Greek and Latin literature and art. The revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman culture inspired artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Durer, writers such as Petrarch and prose writers such as Boccaccio; and scientists and explorers proliferated.

Humanism was the first feature of the Renaissance. It freed man from the hold of rigour and puritanical negation of life, by advocating that man is the centre of life. Humanism relegated God and religion to the periphery. It was responsible for reducing the hold of the Church on an individual’s life and setting him free to develop his natural self. Humanism came to influence different aspects of life, especially art and literature. After many centuries, for the first time, the beauty of the human body came to be depicted without restraint in art and literature. Human nature itself came to be examined in all openness.

The major influence that worked the change in the secularization of thought and style in literature, in European countries, was that Christian scholars fled to Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It was the eastern roman capital. The western roman capital was at Rome. These conservators of culture fled with rare manuscripts of Greek and Roman authors. They were not theologians but pure scholars. The Italian nobles sheltered them and encouraged them to spread learning.

The revival of interest in classical literature in a way served to deepen the glory of man. The glorification of the individual was in direct contrast to the medieval approach. Initially man was looked upon as a product of the original sin of Adam. With the paramountacy of the Catholic Church, every man was regarded as a penitent and had to work out his salvation and the church would cooperate. The church had a hole on man’s mind for 1400 years. All knowledge was related to the bible and theology.

With the arrival of the learned men, thought was revolutionized, therefore man’s thinking was separated from the Bible and theology and knowledge was secularized. The intention of education was no longer didactic. The poems of Homer and Virgil, the lyrics and satire of Horace and the plays of Seneca were revived as a result of human interest. A growing concern for secular man and his experience was evinced. (Thus Renaissance literature was characterized by secularism and individualism.)

The notion of man as an achiever was celebrated. Man was no longer seen as an insignificant thing on earth. Tamburlaine, King Lear and Hamlet exemplify that man has tremendous potential. They celebrate the spiritual aspiration and fulfillment of man. According to Laurie Magnus, the whole philosophy of the Renaissance was contained in Hamlet’s Perception:

      “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties,

      In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel,

      In appreciation how like a god; the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals

       – (II   ii 303-307)

If man was glorified and became the sole concern of the writers, the world of human experience became the focal point of human attention. Writers laid stress on individual man’s ambitions, longings and aspirations. Christopher Marlowe’s lines from Tamburlaine speak about the infinite knowledge that man seeks:

     Nature, that fram’d us of four elements,

     Warring within our breasts for regiment

     Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds,

     Our, souls, whose faculties can comprehend

     The wondrous architect of the world

     And measure every wand’ring planet’s course,

     Still climbing after knowledge infinite

     And always moving as the restless spheres

     Wills us to wear ourselves and never rest

     Until we reach the ripest fruit of all

     That perfect bliss and sole felicity

      The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

 

Thus passage and Faustus’ search for experience are taken to indicate a spirit of exultation. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is no longer forbidden, or, if it is forbidden so much the more exciting

     For lust of knowing what should not be known

     We make the Golden Journey to Samarcand

Gorgeous dreams of both Orient and Occident shimmered and swam in the imagination of poet and dramatist. Tamburlaine, Faustus and the Jew of Malta ferment with visions of far lands and of the wealth and power that they promised. In Shakespeare’s Othello the lure the sea and the far splendor of the Orient lent a certain grandeur to the characters and action. In the Tempest, beneath all its romantic frenzy and charm, the poet is realistically engaged with actual problems of contacts between civilization and savagery. He associates with far, unknown lands, especially the Western World.

That perennial vision of the ideal commonwealth prevalent during this time, and recurrent with the English longing westward overseas, is reflected in Thomas More’s Utopia and Daniel’s Musophilus. More’s Utopia that was published in 1516, describes an ideal society on an imaginary island. Fundamentally, the book is derived from Plato’s Republic and his dream of an ideal state. It is also written from an impulse to react against the glaring abuses of the time, of poverty undeserved and wealth unearned, of drastic punishments, religious persecutions and the senseless slaughter of war. This book was written in Latin and later translated. It was read throughout Europe.

With the introduction of Greek thought, there emerged a Neo-Platonic influence. According to Plato the highest reality was the world of Ideas meant essence of a thing. It was an essentially distinguishing character of a thing. God created these numerous ideas. Ideas created in the Universe could not exist in itself, it needed matter to complement it, to give it full expression. An attracting influence drew matter and Idea together, that was Love. If this did not exist, the world would collapse. Love was praised time and again.

Christianity was the religion of Love, which found expression between mother and child and man and God. Since the Virgin Mary lost her importance, the attributes of perfection, generosity and love were transferred from the divine beloved to the human beloved.

Dante, a famous Italian poet, is best known for his epic poem Divina Comedia or the Divine comedy. It is an allegorical account of his journey through hell, purgatory and Paradise, guided by Virgil and his idealized love Beatrice. His other works include La Vita Nouva in which he celebrates his love for Beatrice. He is one of the earliest poets to shift his focus from the divine beloved to human beloved. He had several followers among the English poets.

Petrach, the Italian lyric poet and scholar, also celebrated this theme in his Canzoniere, which is a sonnet sequence. In these sonnets, the poet craves for the affection, favour and sovereign virtue of his beloved, Laura. Love was a disciplining force, not a form of indulgence. Discipline resulted in restraint. His sonnet sequence was a significant poetic legacy that he gave Europe and England. Each poem expresses an experience of personal love and idealization of love. Nature is in sympathy with the poets. Petrarch found imitators among the English Poets – Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare.

Sidney’s poems are a combination of Neo-Platonism, the Petrachian and the Pastoral convention. His Astrophel and Stella sonnet sequence was published in 1591. Astrophel means ‘star lover’ and Stella means ‘star’. This sequence is partly autobiographical and was published after his death. It was probably written just before and after his proposed marriage to the beautiful Penelope Devereux failed. Sidney is writing in a convention about a courtship that should have ended in marriage. There is sincerity and depth in this sequence and it is written with real feeling.

Spenser’s achievement was of a different king from Sidney’s. The Amoretti sonnet sequence published in 1595 was written in honour of Elizabeth Boyle. It was a synthesis of various tendencies – the Petrachian and neo-Platonic influence and also the use of native English in his treatment and conception of nature. In this sequence the beloved becomes the source of bliss and happiness, a solution to problems, a lodestar and a haven of peace.

Shakespeare’s sonnets fall into two distinct categories. About 50 early sonnets are taken to be addressed to a young man whose identity is established but still remains a matter of conjecture. The remaining 100 sonnets are addressed to a female beloved, reputably to the ‘Dark Lady’. Shakespeare’s sonnets go well beyond their conventional manner and philosophical idealism, to reveal depths of thought and feeling that are known only to one who have come to grips with life and pondered over his experience with detached and sane judgement.

The poems of Wyatt and Surrey deserve special mention. Tottel’s Miscellany distilled the best English song of nearly forty years, and in turn it proved the chief propagator of English love poetry for a generation more. Wyatt had composed nearly a third of the collection and Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, had contributed forty songs. Much of Wyatt’s work was translated from Petrach’s love poetry, and that of other Italians. Latin poets, Horace, Martial and Ovid also influenced the English poets. It was full of imported conceits, and of a new ‘poetic’ phrase and diction that circulated long and wide. The Elizabethian sonnet ending always with a couplet is said to have been invented by Surrey, though it is approached by Wyatt. Under Wyatt’s fingers the music began to stir, and rose to fuller melody in Surrey’s lines.

The political philosophy of expediency propounded by Niccolo Machiavelli in his book The Prince gained prominence. According to this view, that which was politic was to be adopted in preference to that which was just and right, and what served the need of the moment. If the end or the goal was useful, the means could be anything. Murder, deceit and treachery became the philosophy of unscrupulous people. It repudiated honesty. This doctrine of expediency appealed to Renaissance dramatists who modeled their villains and bastards along these principles. Machinations became the principle in all their activity and they came to be regarded as Machiavellian.

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta was written on these lines. Barabos, has been sinned against by Christian rulers, but he loses all sense of proportion and resorts to indiscriminate destruction. He displays traits of Machiavellian disposition and kills all the nuns in the convent.

Shakespeare modeled his villains and bastards on this principle. The bastard in King John and Edmund in King Lear, have been modeled on the Machiavellian principle. Bastardy was a social stigma in Christian society and Edmund and other characters who see no prospect in life, invariably turn to Machiavellian principles to achieve their ends. Thomas Kyd and John Webster also used Machiavellian characters in their plays The Spanish Tragedy and The Duchess of Malfi respectively.

Another very popular and influential book of the age was by the Italian writer Baldassare Castiglioni. He presented his humanist doctrine in his work Il Cortegiano or The Courtier. He put forward his view of the ideal gentleman at court who was to be highly accomplished in all fields.

This book exerted a cultural influence on literary minds. The ideal man underwent a change. The medieval ideal was ‘vita contemplativa’ or the contemplative mind, characterized by an ascetic or a pertinent sinner. He was represented by the figure of the ploughman in William Langland’s Piers the Plowman. The renaissance ideal on the other hand was ‘vita activa’ or the active man. He was to be a courtier, highly accomplished in all fields. Heroic action was stressed which well expressed the greatness of soul.

Christopher Marlowe’s plays exemplify the heroic in man. He is half Apollo, half mortal. Shakespeare was impressed by these ideas and many of his characters, particularly Hamlet and Othello glorify the spiritual potential in man. Hamlet is a philosopher, scholar, prince and soldier, all in one. In Spenser’s Book VI of The Fairie Queene, Sir Calidore is the perfect man who cherishes art and beauty in all fields.

The knight was regarded as an ideal individual. The ideal knight can be seen in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales where he is the repository of Christian values and love, truth, honour, courtesy and freedom. In hi ‘moral battles’ the knight never failed to kill his foe

     He nevere yet no vileyne ne sayde

     In al his lyf unto no maner wight

And the Squire as lover, succeeded in cutting out all sleep, not because mortal lovers can really succeed, but because as an ideal they should be imagined to do so. Thus, when Chaucer calls his knight’s bearing, ‘as meeke as is a mayde’, he is picturing him as conforming to an ideal of chivalry.

The effects of the Renaissance can be seen in the works of Michaelangelo, Leornado da Vinci and Raphael. Michaelangelo is considered the greatest of the Renaissance artists of Italy. His most famous works include the colossal statue of David, ‘The Giant’ carved in a block of marble, his sculptured figures of ‘the Pieta’ and ‘Moses’, and his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at Rome. All these figures that celebrate the human body, bear eloquent testimony of the impact of the Renaissance on other forms of art.

To sum up one may say that after 1400, the momentum of medieval literature was spent. There was new matter recovered out of ancient authors, history, biography, poetry, speculations on philosophy, politics and nature. There was as always love, in this case the old courtly love made young by the infusion of Plato’s philosophy; and there was medieval mysticism likewise renewed by mingling with plato’s Mystical ideas. There were besides the fascinating forms of ancient literature to copy and emulate. The whole world was expanding and there seemed to be no bound to man’s imaginings and powers.