THE RENAISSANCE 1485 - 1660

The Wars of the Roses, with which the Middle Ages came to an end in England, destroyed the peace and Security of English life and resulted in a dearth of literature in the 15th century. It was during the Tudor period that England rose with a renewed nationalistic spirit, and peace returned after a long period of strife. England was swept along the strong tide of Renaissance. The re-discovery of the classics had profoundly influenced the educational system and the “New Learning” or Humanism reached its hey-day at the time of Henry VIII, under its exponents like Erasmus, More, Colet and Fisher. Humanism affected English literature chiefly in the domain of prose. Since the models it took up were from Latin it sometimes led to affectation as in the euphuistic prose of Lyly. However these Latin models brought order and precision into the chaos of English prose writings, and played an important role in the development of modern prose. Humanism was a great influence in the advancement of English drama as well. The classical revival of the continent gave rise to a neo-Latin drama mostly written for schools and universities, of which The Christian Terence was a notable example. The Latin university drama also influenced English drama, especially the works of the “university wits”. Renaissance humanism was the parent of another movement – Reformation – which left a deeper imprint upon England’s national character, but which was later to run counter to the Renaissance spirit. The two movements at first went hand in hand under the patronage of Henry VIII. Reformation gave rise to the Protestant religion which later became Puritanism, the religion of the middle classes who were growing rapidly in wealth and power. The austerity of Puritanism, its intense preoccupation with the spiritual needs of the individual and the ideal of economy it set before its eyes were all oppositional to the delight in life and love of extravagance that was the hallmark of Renaissance spirit and literature. Puritan criticism was directed particularly against the players: and English drama, however much it may owe to Renaissance, remained firmly rooted in Christian faith. In the field of poetry the continental models were Petrarch and, especially to Spenser, Ariosto. The Sonnet and the Pastoral were, in this period, adapted to refined passion or delicate flattery.

PROSE WRITERS OF THE RENAISSANCE (16th Century)

In Medieval England as well as in the 14th and 15th centuries there was a preponderance of poetry in English literature. The few writers who wrote in prose chose Latin and sometimes French as their medium. It is often said that printing stimulated the writing of prose. When more and more books were printed, it resulted in an increase in the number of readers, mostly common men. This meant a demand for books in prose. The bulk of Caxton’s publications were in prose, so were those of the several publishing houses established in the 15th–16th century in England. The publishers mainly employed translators for rendering the romances into English, thereby producing a large number of prose works which were, however, of little literary merit. Lord Berners was different from these professional translators. He was a statesman and a soldier. His translation of Froissart’s Chronicles is a splendid example of epic prose. He went further than Malory in deliberately cultivating a sensuous vocabulary and a simple, direct style. He developed his rhetorical tendencies further in his translation of Guevara’s Libro Aureo (The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius). He also translated several romances. Berners began in English the extravagant cult of antithesis, metaphor, and ornate phraseology, which was later employed by Lyly.

The protagonist of Classical Renaissance in England was the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus who came to England and joined a group of four scholars – Linacre, Colet, Grocyn and More. All of them were well-grounded in Greek erudition and theology, and hoped for a reformation of the Church. Erasmus brought out an edition of the Greek Testament with a Latin translation. His genial nature, sharp observation, and humour are revealed in his The Praise of Folly. John Colet was a principal Christian humanist, a scholar, theologian and educationist and the founder of St.Paul’s School. His careful provisions for discipline and teaching are a permanent legacy to posterity. Among the humanists, it was Thomas More who came closest to Erasmus in charm of disposition and humour. His diplomatic work in negotiating a commercial treaty with the Netherlands made More a part of English history. When More, like Bishop Fisher, refused to support Henry VIII in his divorce and re-marriage, he was executed. This act of tyranny was condemned throughout Europe. More’s Utopia was written in Latin and was first translated into English by Ralph Robinson.

Sir Thomas Elyot, author of The Book of the Governor was another major writer of this period. This book deals with the various branches of the education of a gentleman intended to take his due share in the government. Its discussions on the relative merits of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy in which the author favours the first, is an example of the freedom from pedantry and the worldly wisdom of the author. Another important writer on education was Roger Ascham who is remembered perhaps for his puritanical denunciation of Malory’s Morte d’ Arthur. But Puritanism does not seem to agree with his interest in cock-fighting and sports as well as his elaborate work on archery—Toxophilus. His other major work was The Schoolmaster. Ascham urged that English matters should be written in the English language for Englishmen. The two chief literary products of the Reformation were the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, both of which were composite works. Parts of the Bible were translated by Wycliff and the Tudor translators probably were influenced by the simple English of the Wycliffite versions. The Authorized Version of 1611 was prepared by many hands at the command of James I of Scotland. In the evolution of the Prayer Book, Cranmer, who was employed by Henry VIII, had the leading part. Apart from Cranmer, the literary merits of the English Bible in its present form are due to two other men as well—Tyndale and Coverdale.

Tyndale imbibed the Renaissance spirit and was enthusiastic about the reformed doctrines then being preached in Germany. Tyndale had difficulty getting his translation of the Bible printed in England and Europe. Finally when he did succeed in printing it, the book was condemned by the English bishops and copies of it seized and destroyed. Later he won the approval of Henry VIII but lost it by his denunciation of the divorce and was executed. Tyndale’s prose style was rhythmic and forcible but rarely has a consistent beauty of expression. Thomas Cranmer was a favourite of Henry VIII by his convenient support of the King’s divorce. He wrote well in Latin and English, and his own prayers, exhortations and homilies stand apart from those prepared by others under his authority. Miles Coverdale published a translation of the Bible principally based on the Zurich Bible and Tyndale’s version. One of its editions, known as Cranmer’s Bible (for it contained a preface by Cranmer), was one of the main sources of the Authorised Version. In the period after Berners, though English prose underwent much development, there did not evolve a really distinctive form of prose until the beginning of the Elizabethan era. Euphuism was the prose style of a generation though it owes its name to Lyly’s book. Two years before the publication of Euphues, George Pettie in his Petite Palace of Pettie his Pleasure, displayed a euphuistic style. However Euphues was the most extravagant illustration of this prose style.

John Lyly’s Euphues or The Anatomy of Wit with its sequel Euphues and his England was a brilliant experiment of a new prose. Its serious didactic tone, its philosophic attitude to contemporary life, its grave studies of character and personal relations and of the subtleties of emotion offer a sharp contrast with the old romances and herald the novel of manners. However, Euphues is not a novel but a series of meditative debates with a thread of love-story serving to illustrate the author’s criticism of society. The characters are vague idealisms in the manner of a morality. Lylian euphuism aimed at richness, a variety of ornament and an artificiality of structure. The structure was based on antithesis and employed balanced clauses and alliteration. The diction was enriched by figures of speech.

Sir Philip Sidney was an embodiment of the idealism, valour, keen intelligence and practical accomplishment of his age, and was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. He had been in love with Penelope Devereaux, the ‘Stella’ of his sonnets. None of Sidney’s works were printed in his life time. First to be published were his love sonnets under the title ‘Astrophel and Stella’. (His poetry which belongs in spirit to a later tradition than the prose, shall be dealt with later). His major prose works are The Apologie for Poetrie (written in defence of poetry and as a reply to Stephen Gosson’s The School of Abuse) and the romance–pastoral Arcadia. The Apologie for Poetrie has much of the ardour and imagination of a youthful poet as well as many of its shortcomings. Though he was misled by his classical training into denouncing the mixture of tragedy and comedy, and upholding the strictest observance of the unities, he gives us an extra-ordinary insight into the creative force and exuberance characteristic of Elizabethan poetry. In this critical treatise he expounds the view that all literature of an imaginative, idealistic nature is poetry. Sidney followed the Lylian theory of artistic prose to a certain, extent, though he condemned it in Apologie. Sidney’s style is often as rich as that of Euphues though much more conservative and classical. Euphues was in its analytical tendencies and its criticism of life an anticipation of the modern novel, Sidney’s Arcadia belongs in essence to the stock of chivalric romance blended with the pastoral. But both works have an original plot. In Euphues the plot is a framework for the author’s theorizing about life but in Arcadia the story is everything. Sidney wrote it for his sister, the countess of Pembroke. The scene is set in a remote Utopian land and breathes the ideals of chivalrous virtue, heroic energy, passionate love, and express his longing for a simpler and purer life in contrast to the pomps and frivolities of Elizabethan court. The style of Euphues and Arcadia was imitated by other prose writers of the Elizabethan era.