Chief poet:-
Edmund Spenser:-
Born- 1552 London, England
Died:- 13 January 1559 London, England
Resting place:- Westminster Abbey
Edmund Spenser was the greatest figure of Elizabethan age. His life and work seem to center about three great influences, summed up in three names:-
1. Cambridge:- Where he grew acquainted with classics and the Italian poets;
2. London:- Where he experienced the glamour and the disappointment of court life;
3. Irland:- which steeped him in the beauty of old Celtic poetry and first gave him leisure to write his masterpiece.
Chaucer was his beloved master. He wanted to rival the " Canterbury Tale's". He wanted to make English literature more powerful.
The first period of his life was in and around Cambridge. After leaving Cambridge he went to the North of England for unknown work or quest, here he started to write " Shepherd's Calander". After that he came to London, here he finished Shepherd's Calander and came to unader the influence of Queen and his favourites. The third period of his life began, through Leicester's influence, he became secretary to Lord Grey, the Queen's deputy in Irland. Here according to terms he must reside as an English settler, that he see here unhappy Island. After that he wrote his view on "The state of Irland" his only prose work.
In Kilcolman, he finished the first three books of Fairy Queen.
Work of Spenser:-
The Fairy Queen is the great work of him, upon which the poet's game chiefly rests. The original plan of the poem included 24 books, each of them recount the adventure and triumph of a knight who represented a moral virtue.
Purpose of its first twelve books was its first twelve book:-
To pourtraict in Arthur, before he was king, the image of brave knight, perfected in the twelve private Moral Virtues as Aristotle hath devised which is the purpose of this twelve books.
It tells story of conflict, purely allegorical, struggle between good and evil. Spenser completed only six books celebrating Holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice and courtship. We have also fragment of the seventh, but the rest of this book was not written and rest we lost in fire at castle due to rebel.
Poetical form:-
For the Fairy Queen, Spenser invented new verse form which has been called "SPENSERIAN STANZA", improved form of Aristo's Ottava rima and a close resemblance with Chaucer's musical verse form in the MONK'S TALE. SPENSERIAN STANZA has 9 line 8 or 5 feet each and the last of 6 feet.
RHYMING SCHEME:- ABABBCBCC
SHEPHERD'S CALENDAR is another work of Spenser which presents rural life and love in field.
Other poetry:-
1. Amoretti :- collection of 89 sonnets
2. Epithalamion :- his work of his marriage in hymn language
3. Astrophel - he wrote Astrophel an elegy on the death of his friend Sidney.
4. Mother Hubbard's Tale
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPENSER'S POETRY:-
1. Perfect Melody
2. Tare sense of beauty
3. Splendid imagination
4. A lofty moral purity and seriousness
5. A delicate idealism
*COMPARISON BETWEEN CHAUCER AND SPENSER:-
Chaucer presents man if is with humor and romance and observe human nature. While Spenser thinks about human should be.... Idea of reformation.
Minor poets:-
Nearly 2 hundred poets are recorded in the short period from 1558 to 1625. Many of them were prolific writers.
1. THOMAS SACKVILLE( 1536-1603):
Thomas Sackville was predecessor of the Elizabethan age, classed with Wyatt and Surrey. He wrote first English tragedy Ferrex and Poffex called GORBODUC, which will be considered rise of the drama.
Work:- Earl of dorset, Lord of high treasure of England.
His great poem called "The Mirror of Magistrate".
"Lydgate's Fall of Princess"- this poem would be mirror in which ruler might see themselves.
"Induction"
" Complaint of the Duck of Buckingham"- these are written in Royal time. It had strong poetic feelings and expression.
Unfortunately, Sackville turned from poetry to politics and the poem was carried on by two inferior poets William Baldwin and George Ferrers.
2. PHILIP SIDNEY (1554-1586):
Philip Sidney was the ideal gentleman. His biography is more interesting rather than his books. His life expresses better than his literary work. He followed two ideal of the age personal honor and national greatness. His three major works published after his death.
1. The Arcadia - the story about pastrol romance
2. The Apologies for poetrie :- this work also called Defence of Poesie. This is the answer to pamphlet by Stephen Gosson called The School.
3. The Apologies - it is the critical essay
Astrophel and Stella is the collection of songs and sonnets, addressed to Lady Penelope Devereux
3. GEORGE CHAPMAN (1559-1634):
George Chapman spent his long quite life among dramatists and wrote chiefly for the stage. His most famous work is the metrical translation if Illad (1611) , Odyssey (1624) and Homer. He is also known as the finished of Marlow's " Hero and Leander".
4. MICHAEL DRAYTON ( 1563-1631):
Drayton was the Layamon of the Elizabethan age, and vastly scholarly than his predecessor. His chief work is " Polyolbion" an enormous poems, thousand couplets, describing the town, mountain and rivers of Britain.
Two another long works are the "Baron's wars" and "Heroic Epistle of England". And the ballad called Battle of Agnicourt.
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