ELIZABETHAN POETRY Elizabethan sang in a variety of
ELIZABETHAN POETRY
Elizabethan sang in a variety of forms such as the madrigal, the pastoral, the sonnet • The Mardigal is a complex musical form in which several voices sing without accompaniment. • The Pastoral is a poem in which shepherds and shepherdesses spend their time singing, dancing, and lovemaking in an carefree rural setting. • It was the Sonnet, however, that was the most popular form of the period.
Sonnet A Lyric poem consisting of a single stanza of 14 iambic pentameter lines by an intricate rhyme scheme. iambic pentameter An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable e. g Da-DUM. A line of iambic pentameter is five iambic feet in a row: • Da-DUM-Da-DUM-Da-DUM e. g. John Keats’ poem “Ode to Autumn” To Swell the gourd and plum the hazel shells Themes: Love, beauty, hopes and pains of an adoring lover etc. but then on a variety of subjects
Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnets Composed of 2 parts: An Octave (eight lines) rhyming abba followed by a sestet (six lines) rhyming cdecde or some variant, such as cdccdc. (8+6=14 Lines) Abbaabba+cdecde=Petrarchan sonnet
190. ‘Una candida cerva sopra l’erba’ A pure white hind appeared to me with two gold horns, on green grass, between two streams, in a laurel’s shade, at sunrise, in the unripe season. Her aspect was so sweet and proud I left all my labour to follow her: as a miser, in search of treasure, makes his toil lose its bitterness in delight. ‘Touch me not, ’ in diamonds and topaz, was written round about her lovely neck: ‘it pleased my Lord to set me free. ’ The sun had already mounted to mid-day, my eyes were tired with gazing, but not sated, when I fell into water, and she vanished.
The sonnet, perfected in Italy in the 14 th C. by Petrarch, was introduced into England by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542). It became instantly popular in England, and not before long, the Italian sonnet was modified by the Elizabethans. . Elizabethan authors arranged their poems into sonnet sequences, or sonnet cycles, in which a series of sonnets are linked together by exploring aspects or development of a romantic relationship (Amoretti, Shakespeare’s sonnets etc. ).
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY (1554 -1586) “Astrophel and Stella” is the first English Elizabethan sonnet cycle, imitative of Petrarchian or French imitator. It was based upon the convention of displaying the controversial feelings of a lover, hope and despair, tenderness and bitterness, exultation and modesty, by the use of conceits or strange comparisons (burn and freeze). • [Sonnet 31, 39]
English or Shakespearean Sonnet • The Earl of Surrey and other English experimenters in the 16 th C. developed a stanza form called the English sonnet, or else the Shakespearean sonnet, after its greatest practitioner. Falls into 3 quatrains+1 concluding couplet: abab cdcd efef gg.
Sonnet 1 -126=Addressed to a young man Sonnets 127 -152=The Dark Lady Last 2=A lover’s complaint
SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS Sonnet 18 Rhyme Scheme Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? a Thou art more lovely and more temperate: b Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, a And summer's lease hath all too short a date: b Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, c And often is his gold complexion dimmed, d And every fair from fair sometime declines, c By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed: d But thy eternal summer shall not fade, e Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, f Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, e When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st, f So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, g So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. g
Sonnet 55 Not marble, nor the gilded monuments a Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme; b But you shall shine more bright in these contents a Than unswept stone, besmear'd with sluttish time. b When wasteful war shall statues overturn, c And broils root out the work of masonry, d Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn c The living record of your memory. d 'Gainst death, and all oblivious enmity e Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room f Even in the eyes of all posterity e That wear this world out to the ending doom. f So, till the judgment that yourself arise, g You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes. g
Sonnet 73 That time of year thou mayst in me behold a When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang b Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, a Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. b In me thou see'st the twilight of such day c As after sunset fadeth in the west; d Which by and by black night doth take away, c Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. d In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire, e That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, f As the death-bed, whereon it must expire, e Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. f This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, g To love that well, which thou must leave ere long. g
Sonnet 130 My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; a Coral is far more red, than her lips red: b If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; a If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. b I have seen roses damasked, red and white, c But no such roses see I in her cheeks; d And in some perfumes is there more delight c Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. d I love to hear her speak, yet well I know e That music hath a far more pleasing sound: f I grant I never saw a goddess go, e My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: f And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, g As any she belied with false compare. g
EDMUND SPENSER sonnet cycles • Amoretti • The Shepheardes Calender • The Faerie Queene
EDMUND SPENSER (1552 -1599) Spenserian Sonnet • There was a notable variant, the Spenserian sonnet, in which Spencer linked each quatrain to the next by a continuing rhyme: Rhyme scheme: abab bcbc cdcd ee.
The Shepheard’s Calendar (1579) • The Calendar consists of 12 pastoral eclogues (pastoral poem, usually in the form of a dialogue between shepherds), one for each month of the year. • Each is prefaced by an illustrative woodcut representing the characters or theme of the poem and picturing the appropriate sign of the zodiac for that month in the clouds above. • Through the dialogues between shepherds, the moods and feelings and attitudes of the simple life are portrayed. Though it pretends to represent simple shepherds, it is really commenting on contemporary affairs.
The Shepheardes Calender January March December
The Faerie Queen (1590) Romantic epic composed of 12 projected books. • The good people (Faeries or Elves) are subject to the Faerie Queene. They undergo the trials and tribulations men undergo in the ordinary world, but these events are told in a romantic, fantastic way. • The hero fights evil creatures, people and monsters, are various vices, evils, and temptations. • The 12 books exhibit the virtues of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice, and Courtesy. The heroes do not have the virtues they represent at the beginning of their adventures- they acquire them in the course of the book.
Book I
BOOK I • The plot of Book I is a series of chivalric adventures undertaken by the Redcrosse Knight (representing Holiness) culminating in his killing the dragon, rescuing Una’s parents, and winning her as her bride. • Read as spiritual allegory, the book tells the story of the Christian’s struggle for salvation –his wandering between the evil extremes of pride and despair, his encounter with the seven deadly sins, his separation from and reunion with the one true faith, the purgation of his sinfulness, and his final salvation by divine grace added to heroic effort.
Amoretti (1595) is a sonnet cycle by Edmund Spenser describing Spencer’s courtship and eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle, a young, well-born Anglo Irish woman, and the couple’s wedding on June 11, 1594. In Sonnet 75 addressed to his wife, Spenser claims to give her immortality in his verse. The setting is an ordinary summer day in the seaside, but Spenser makes it intimately personal. His imagination creates a picture of tender young love through the conversation between his lady and himself, absorbed in each other, against the background of the eternal sea. He would like to preserve this experience for ever, but the waves wipe out her name just as cruel time destroys every manmade thing. Nevertheless he feels confident that he is able to immortalize his love by a different kind of writing, his poetry, no matter how short life on earth may be. At the same time the writing of the lady's name, which is the central image of the poem, is transferred from earth to heaven. Love, poetry and religious belief are closely associated.
AMORETTI SONNET 75 One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Agayne I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray. "Vayne man, " sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay. A mortall thing so to immortalize, For I my selve shall lyke to this decay, and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize. “ "Not so, " quod I, "let baser things devize, To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens wryte your glorious name. Where whenas death shall the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew. “ a b b c c d e e
PASTORAL POETRY
• CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (15641593) “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove 1 A belt of straw and ivy buds, 17 With coral clasps and amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love. That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, 5 Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool 13 Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold; 9 Thy silver dishes for they meat As precious as the gods do eat, Shall on an ivory table be Prepared each day for thee and me. 21 The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. 28
This pastoral lyric of invitation is one of the most famous of Elizabethan songs, and a few lines from it are sung in Shakespeare’s Merry Wives of Windsor. Many poets have written replies to it, the finest of which is by that other great Elizabethan romantic, Sir Walter Ralegh.
SIR WALTER RALEGH (1552 -1618) Soldier, courtier, poet, philosopher, explorer and colonizer, student of science, and historian.
SIR WALTER RALEGH (1552 -1618) “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Time drives the flocks from field to fold When rivers rage and rocks grow cold, And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complains of cares to come. Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall, But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind may move To live with thee and be thy love.
John Donne shifted from the primary subject, sexual love, to a variety of religious themes in his Holy Sonnets (17 th C. ) and Milton, in the latter part of that century, expanded the range of the sonnet to other matters of serious concern.
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