Literary Works in Sixteenth-Century England
Literary works in sixteenth-century England were rarely if ever created in isolation from other currents in the social and cultural world. The boundaries that divided the texts we now regard as aesthetic from other texts that participated in the spectacles of power or the murderous conflicts of rival religious factions or the rhetorical strategies of erotic and political courtship were porous and constantly shifting. It is perfectly acceptable, of course, for the purposes of reading to redraw these boundaries more decisively, treating Renaissance texts as if they were islands of the autonomous literary imagination. One of the greatest writers of the period, Sir Philip Sidney, defended poetry in just such terms; the poet, Sidney writes in The Defence of Poetry (NAEL 1.933-54), is not constrained by nature or history but freely ranges "only within the zodiac of his own wit." But Sidney knew well, and from painful personal experience, how much this vision of golden autonomy was contracted by the pressures, perils and longings of the brazen world. And only a few pages after he imagines the poet orbiting entirely within the constellations of his own intellect, he advances a very different vision, one in which the poet's words not only imitate reality but also actively change it.
Characteristics ofMetaphysical PoetrY
· brief and concentrated in its meaning
· centered around dramatic situations
· fondness for conceits
o conceit: from the Italian concetto=thought
o an extended metaphor
o basis of comparison is surprising
o aware if differences within similarity
o draws on specialized areas of experience to describe love
1. law
2. medicine
3. philosophy
4. religion
De...
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... need for poetic decorum.
The conceits of "Jordan II" are small, as is appropriate in a poem that hopes to abandon conceit. Herbert describes his struggle critically, comparing himself with a tailor for God, his poetry attempting to clothe Him in unmatchable splendor, yet paradoxically unable to surpass the magnificence of the wearer. As the poet realizes his impossible position, he recognizes the frenzy he has worked himself into - writing verse pleasing to the sensuous ear and tongue, and not the humble soul. Now his self-conscious humility speaks up, quiet and true, to end the verse and satisfy Herbert's questing pen.
Like John Donne, Herbert uses his poems to question the nature of his relationship to God, often using conceits combined with fairly simple diction. Unlike Donne, Herbert is always able to submit to a higher power, with humility and resolution.
(Frantz, 170) However, Frantz does not question other aspects of the text that could teach, such as ‘was it meant to be taken at face value, or should we read it as a clever exercise in irony? What can the production and reception of a work like this tell us about English Renaissance culture?’ Nashe was intent on challenging Renaissance ideas, as ‘central to Nashe’s thinking is the idea that literature should be original, by which he means that a text should not be too indebted to even the greatest continental and classical authors.’ (Guy-Bray, 33) Due to the uncertain reception which ‘Choise’ received, it can be argued that Nashe succeeded in his quest for originality. As Deveroux defines Sidney’s claim that literature should ‘teach’, as the ‘moral lesson’ in a poem, Nashe teaches through differentiating from the literature of the period to provide original material.
Literature of the English Restoration offers the example of a number of writers who wrote for a courtly audience: literary production, particularly in learned imitation of classical models, was part of the court culture of King Charles II. The fact of a shared model explains the remarkable similarities between “The Imperfect Enjoyment” by the Earl of Rochester and “The Disappointment” by Aphra Behn—remarkable only because readers are surprised to read one poem about male sexual impotence from the late seventeenth century, let alone two examples of this genre by well-known courtly writers. In fact, Richard Quaintance presents ten more examples by lesser-known poets as he defines the literary sub-genre of the neo-Classical “imperfect enjoyment poem,” written in imitation of Roman poems on the same subject, which is shared by Rochester and Behn (Quaintance 190). Since Rochester and Behn are working along such closely similar lines in terms of the artistic models that their own poems aim to imitate, it is therefore fair to ask the question: what are the main differences in their compositional technique within this tightly-defined literary sub-genre of the neo-Classical “imperfect enjoyment poem”? By examining features of each poem in turn—including form (including this sub-genre they share), but also narrative voice and tone—with some examination of the secondary critical literature on both Rochester and Behn, I hope to demonstrate that there are distinct differences in compositional technique which involve the difference in sex between these two writers. But my conclusion will attempt to problematize the very notion of an authorial sex difference by raising the concept of gender, and in particular the aspect of “performativity”—...
In the Poem "The Bunch of Grapes", George Herbert uses the story of the Israelites in the wilderness during their Exodus, to illustrate Christianities progress. Additionally, through this poem, Herbert also compares his or the speaker's discontentment in life that has a strong connection with the Old Testament versus the comfort that the New Testament has to offer.
Raffel, Burton. and Alexandra H. Olsen Poems and Prose from the Old English, (Yale University Press)Robert Bjork and John Niles,
In this brief monograph, we shall be hunting down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/Renaissance thought. Among these are the fierce lion of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of fantastic peacocks, one of vanity, one of preening social status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as pride, while the lamb is of an entirely different, in fact antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from palace to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the perfumed lady's chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick.
Pope, Alexander. "An Essay on Man." in Eighteenth-Century English Literature. Eds. Geoffrey Tillotson, Paul Fussell, Jr. and Marshall Waingrow. New York: Harcourt, 1969. 635-51.
One of the most interesting aspects of Victorian era literature reflects the conflict between religion and the fast gathering movement aptly dubbed the enlightenment. Primarily known for its prude, repressed, social and family structure beneath the surface of the Victorian illusion many conflicting, perhaps even radical, ideas were simmering and fast reaching a boiling point within in the public circle. In fact writers such as Thomas Hardy and Gerald Manly Hopkins reflect this very struggle between the cold front of former human understanding and the rising warm front know only as the enlightenment. As a result we as readers are treated to a spectacular display of fireworks within both authors poetry as the two ideas: poetics of soul and savior, and the poetics of naturalism struggle and brutality, meet and mix in the authors minds creating a lightning storm for us to enjoy.
Wolfson, S. & Manning, P. 2003. The Longman Anthology of English Literature Vol 2: The Romantics and their Contemporaries. London: Longman.
- - -. “Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800.” http://go.galegroup.com. N.p., 1988. Web. 9 Dec. 2010. .
Literary history is timeless. Writing works began as orals to be scribed long after they were created. These were later passed down through generations as stories, rhymes, poems, etc. After paper was invented by the Chinese, a new revelation was triggered. Around 1440, a man by the name of Johannes Gutenberg, invented the printing press. This mechanization of bookmaking drastically influenced society then and even till this day. Through this journey of English language and through its stages of development, many differences and similarities can be noticed within its topics, themes, and writing styles. Commencing with the Anglo-Saxon period (the nearly incomprehensible language of Beowulf), to the Medieval period (mixed with French and Latin, the language of Chaucer), to the English Renaissance (Humanism language), and leading up to the seventeenth century (Cavaliers versus Puritans), it has sure been a long ride of literary excellence.
Herbert seems to use personification liberally to bring his points across and flesh out his metaphors. A good example of this is in the sixth stanza, where Herbert makes the sun, stars, night, music, and light have independent thought and reason - the stars put us to bed, and music and light attend our head, much like a parental figure or caring friend. He makes them have human emotions and thought, something more poignant and clarifying to the average reader - characterization like this develops and gives more of a plot and flow to the poem, which helps the reader understand his meaning and follow his thought much
Following the fall of the Roman Empire in the year 476, England proceeded to go through a series of 4 historical periods. Known as the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, Medieval, and the Renaissance periods, they are long spans of time that are clearly divided by major historical events. The Anglo-Saxon period begins with the fall of the Roman Empire. England is then invaded by people from the northern region of Europe. The Anglo-Norman period begins with the French invasion of England, which lasts until the Hundred Years War in about 1300. The Medieval period follows and lasts until the combination of the invention of the printing press and the onset of the Protestant Reformation. The period that follows the medieval is the Renaissance, but is also known as Early Modern.
During the time-period when they authored this essay, the commonly held notion amongst people was that “In order to judge the poet’s performance, we must know what he intended.”, and this notion led to what is termed the ‘Intentional fallacy’. However, Wimsatt and Beardsley argue that the intention, i.e., the design or plan in the author’s mind, of the author is neither available nor desirable for judging the success of a work of literary art. It is not available because the author will most certainly not be beside the reader when he/she reads the text, and not desirable because intention as mentioned already is nothing but the author’s attitude towards his work, the way he felt while writing the text and what made him write that particular piece of writing and these factors might distract the reader from deciphering the meaning from the text. This method of reading a text without any biographical or historical background of either the poem or the poet practiced by the New Critics was known as ‘Closed Reading’. This stemmed from their belief in the autonomy of the text.
George Herbert’s poem ‘Love (III),’ published posthumously in a collection of his works entitled The Temple, centres around a dialogue between two characters. The characters are that of Love and an unnamed speaker, who most likely represents Herbert himself. Love, an abstract principle, is here the personification of God and exists as a tangible entity. In ‘Love (III),’ Love is acting as host to the unknown guest, who henceforth will be called the guest. This essay will discuss the poem’s argument, as well as the language and literary techniques Herbert utilises to reinforce his argument.
John Donne delivered, like all of the other great poets of the renaissance era, an invaluable contribution to English literature. However, it is the uniqueness of this contribution that sets him apart from the rest. This statement seems somewhat ironic when one analyses the context of his life and the nature of his writing, for Donne is clearly the rebel in English poetry. He is the one poet that deliberately turned his back to the customs and trends of the time to deliver something so different to the reader that he will be remembered forever as a radical and unconventional genius. This is most probably the way that he would have liked to be remembered.