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Sixteenth-Century Court Poetry II Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Edmund Spenser Sir Philip Sidney

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Page 1: Sixteenth-Century Court Poetry II - uni-bamberg.deSixteenth-Century Court Poetry II Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Edmund Spenser Sir Philip Sidney Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1517-47)

Sixteenth-Century Court Poetry II

Henry Howard, Earl of SurreyEdmund SpenserSir Philip Sidney

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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (c. 1517-47)

Thomas Warton, History of Poetry (1778-81): “[Wyatt was] confessedly inferior to Surrey in harmony of numbers, perspicuity of expression, and facility of phraseology”

“Surrey, for his justness of thought, correctness of style, and purity of expression, may justly be pronounced the first English classical poet”

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Earl of Surrey

aristocrat, courtier, officer, poet.

a courtier‘s manual: Baldassare Castiglione Il libro del cortegiano (1528) (engl.: TheCourtier)

ideals of Italian humanism => renewal of English language and literature

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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey“Alas! so all things now do hold their peace”

Alas! so all things now do hold their peace,Heaven and earth disturbed in nothing.The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,The nightes chare the stars about doth bring.Calm is the sea, the waves work less and less:So am not I, whom love, alas, doth wring,Bringing before my face the great increaseOf my desires, whereat I weep and singIn joy and woe as in a doubtful ease;For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring,But by and by the cause of my diseaseGives me a pang that inwardly doth sting.When that I think what grief it is againTo live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

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Sir Thomas WyattHenry Howard, Earl of SurreyEdmund SpenserSir Philip SidneySamuel DanielMichael DraytonThomas LodgeBarnabe Barnes

William Shakespeare

‘Sonnet craze’ at the end of the sixteenth century:

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Edmund Spenser (c. 1552-99)

- poor lower middle-class milieu- Cambridge- since 1580 in Ireland

- The Shepherd‘s Calender (1579)- elegies on Sidney‘s death- Amoretti (1595) - The Fairie Queene (1590, 1596)

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The Faerie Queene (1590-96)

original plan: 12 books with 12 cantos each6 books completedallegorical workmixes classical with Celtic/ medieval literary

traditions

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The Faerie Queensimilarities between Spenser's stories and -Ludovico Giovanni Ariosto (1474-1533) OrlandoFuriososo (1532) or- Torquato Tasso (1544-96) Gerusalemme Liberata (1581) (Jerusalem Delivered, transl. by Edward Fairfax)conceal the ultimate sources:the Story of the Lady of the Lake

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Celtic Sources …

“Most, if not all, of the Faerie Queene as we have it was written in Ireland; his poem reflects this kind of learning as well as classical philosophy and the thousand other things with which it is filled. The significance of the vision of the Fairy Queen is that by this device Spenser is able to establish the basis on which his poem rests.”

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… about Arthur“The traditional Arthur was a British king, who, at the end of his

life, was received in Faerie, after that last great battle in the West, to be healed of his grievous wound by Morgain, or La Dame du Lac, or by these and other powerful fays together. After a long sojourn in Faerie, he was to come again and rule Britain. This belief is extant in parts of Wales today, as it was in Layamon's time. Lydgate phrases it compactly:

‘He [Arthur] is a king y-crowned in Fairye; With sceptre and pall, and with his regalty, Shall he resort, as lord and soveraigne Out of Fairye, and reigne in Britaine.’ (Falls of Princes, VIII, 24.)

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Arthur – quondam et futurus rex –the Tudors and Elizabeth I

“The interpretation is to be found in the return, through the Welsh house of Tudor, of the old British line to the throne of England, now long occupied by strangers. To state the proposition concisely: Spenser conceives the Tudor rule as a return of the old British line; he conceives Elizabeth Tudor as the particular sovereign, coming out of Faerie, whose return fulfils the old prophecy. That is to say, the poem is at once a glorification of Elizabeth's ancestry and a glorificationof the Queen as an individual.” Edwin Greenlaw, 585f. in the Norton Edition)

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Spenser‘s problem: the king was a queen

Therefore, the prophecy is fulfilled through personifying, in Arthur, the spirit of Great Britain, now united to the Fairie Queene herself. Arthur, contrary to folk traditions, is not a fairy sovereign; Gloriana is.

other female protagonists: Belphoebe, Britomart and Mercilla

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First Conclusions

- Fairy = Welsh = Tudor (<-> “British”). - England = Britain - Tudor dynasty brings back ancient British line- Gloriana = Faerie Queene = Elizabeth Tudor.

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A Letter of the Authors

To the Right noble, and Valorous, Sir Walter Raleigh knight, Lo. Wardein of the Stanneryes, and her Majesties liefetenaunt of the County of Cornewayll.

Sir knowing how doubtfully all Allegories may be construed, and this booke of mine, which I have entituled the Faery Queene, being a continued Allegory, or darke conceit, I have thought good aswell for avoyding of gealous opinions and misconstructions, as also for your better light in reading thereof, (being so by you commanded,) to discover unto you the general intention and meaning, …

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“The generall end therefore of all the bookeis to and gentle discipline: Which for that I conceived shoulde be most plausible and pleasing, being coloured with an historicall fiction, the which the most part of men delight to read, rather for variety of matter, then for profite of the ensample: I chose the historye of king Arthure, as most fitte for the excellency of his person, being made famous by many mens former workes, and also furthest from the daunger of envy, and suspitionof present time.”

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In which I have followed all the antique Poets historicall, first Homere, who in the Persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath en­sampled a good governour and a vertuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis: then Virgil, whose like intention was to doe in the person of Aeneas: after him Ariostocomprised them both in his Orlando: and lately Tasso dissevered them againe, and formed both parts in two persons, namely that part which they in Philosophy call [Nicomachaean ] Ethice [by Aristotle], or vertues of a private man, coloured in his Rinaldo: The other named Politice in his Godfredo. By ensample the perfection of all the rest, and conteineth in it them all, there­fore in the whole course I mention the deedes of Arthureapplyable to that vertue, which I write of in that booke.

Spenser about his sources:

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Characters

Of which these three bookes contayn three, The first of the knight of the Redcrosse, in whome I expresseHolynes: The seconde of Sir Guyon, in whome I sette forth Temperaunce: The third of Britomartis a Lady knight, in whome I picture Chastity.

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Plot and genre

For the Methode of a Poet historical is not such, as of an Historiographer. For an Historiographer discoursethof affayres orderly as they were donne, accounting as well the times as the actions, but a Poet thrusteth into the middest, even where it most concerneth him, and there recoursing to the thinges forepaste, and divining of thinges to come, maketh a pleasing Analysis of all. The beginning therefore of my history, if it were to be told by an Historiographer, should be the twelfth booke.

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The QueenSo much more profitable and gratious is doctrine by ensample, then by

rule. So have I laboured to doe in the person of Arthure: whome I conceive after his long education by Timon, to whom he was by Merlin delivered to be brought up, so soone as he was borne of the Lady Igrayne, to have seene in a dream or vision the Faery Queen, with whose excellent beauty ravished, he awaking resolved to seekeher out, and so being by Merlin armed, and by Timon throughlyinstructed, he went to seeke her forth in Faerye land. In that FaeryQueene I meane glory in my generall intention, but in my particular I conceive the most excellent and glorious person of our soverainethe Queene, and her kingdome in Faery land. And yet in some places els, I doe otherwise shadow her. For considering she bearethtwo persons, the one of a most royall Queene or Empresse, the other of a most vertuous and beautifull Lady, this latter part in some places does expresse in Belphoebe …

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The Bower of Bliss (from Faerie Queen, Book II, Canto 12)

EFTSOONS they heard a most melodious sound,Of all that mote delight a dainty ear,Such as at once might not on living ground,Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere:

Right hard it was, for wight, which did it hear,To read, what manner music that mote be;For all that pleasing is to living ear,Was there consorted in one harmony,Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all agree.

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The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful shade,Their notes unto the voice attempered sweet;Th' angelical soft trembling voices madeTo th' instruments divine respondence meet;The silver sounding instruments did meetWith the bass murmur of the waters' fall;The waters' fall with difference discreet,Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call;The gentle warbling wind low answered to all.

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There, whence that music seemed heard to be,Was the fair witch herself now solacing,

With a new lover, whom through sorceryAnd witchcraft she from far did thither bring:There she had him now laid a-slumbering,In secret shade, after long wanton joys;

Whilst round about them pleasantly did singMany fair ladies, and lascivious boys,That ever mixed their song with light licentious toys.

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And all that while, right over him she hung,With her false eyes fast fixed in his sight,

As seeking medicine, whence she was stung,Or greedily depasturing delight:And oft inclining down with kisses light,For fear of waking him, his lips bedewed,And through his humid eyes did suck his spright,Quite molten into lust and pleasure lewd;Wherewith she sighed soft, as if his case she rued.

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The whiles some one did chant this lovely lay: 'Ah see, whoso fair thing dost fain to see,In springing flower the image of thy day;Ah see the virgin rose, how sweetly sheDoth first peep forth with bashful modesty,That fairer seems, the less ye see her may;

Lo see soon after, how more bold and freeHer bared bosom she doth broad display;Lo see soon after, how she fades, and falls away.

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'So passeth, in the passing of a day,Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower,Ne more doth flourish after first decay,

That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower,Of many a lady, and many a paramour:Gather therefore the rose, whilst yet is prime,For soon comes age, that will her pride deflower;Gather the rose of love, whilst yet is time,Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal crime.

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Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered (Bk. xvi)XIV. The gently-budding rose (quoth she) behold,The first scant peeping forth with virgin beams, Half ope, half shut, her beauties doth up-foldIn their dear leaves, and less seen fairer seems, And alter spreads them forth more broad and bold, Then languisheth and dies in last extremes For seems the same that decked bed and bow'rOf many a lady late and paramourXV. So in the passing of a day doth passThe bud and blossom of the life of man, Nor e'er doth flourish more, but like the Brass Cut down, becometh withered, pale, and wan; O gather then the rose while time thou has, Short is the day, done when it seant began ; Gather the rose of love while yet thou mayst, Loving be lov'd, embracing be embrac'd.-

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A CHRONOLOGY OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 1554-1586

Philip Sidney born at Penshurst in Kent, 30 November, and named after Philip of Spain

1564 Philip Sidney and Fulke Greville enter Shrewsbury School 1568 At Christ Church, Oxford 1572 Sets out, in the train of the Earl of Lincoln, for continentaltravel; witnesses the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Day in Paris, 24 August 1573 Travels to Heidelburg and Frankfurt, where he meets Hubert Languet, and to Vienna, Hungary, and Italy. Studies in Padua and Venice1575 Returns to England by way of Vienna, Poland, and theNetherlands. Sir Henry Sidney begins his third term of officeas Lord Deputy Governor of Ireland1577 Defends his father's policy in Ireland. Is sent as ambassador to the Imperial Court; discusses Protestant League; meetsWilliam of Orange

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1578 Perhaps writes The Lady of May. Begins to write the Arcadia at Wilton, the house of his sister, the Countess of Pembroke 1580 Writes to the Queen to dissuade her from marrying the Duke of Anjou. Completes the Old Arcadia1581 Begins to write Astrophel and Stella; perhaps writes The

Defenceof Poetry. Penelope Devereux marries Lord Rich1583 Knighted for reasons ofprotocol. Escorts the Duke of Alenqonback to the Netherlands. Finishes Astrophel and Stella1583 Marries Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham1584 Begins to revise the Arcadia. Writes the Defence of the Earl of Leicester 1585 Begins to translate Duplessis-Momay's Delaveritidela religionchrestienne; perhaps translates Du Bartas's La Semaine and begins translation of the Psalms, later completed by the Countess of

Pembroke. Attempts to sail to the West Indieswith Drake. Appointed Governor of Flushing

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1586 Travels in the northern Netherlands. Is actively involved in politics. Wounded in a skirmish near Zutphen, 22 September; dies at Arnhem, 17 October1587 Buried in St Paul's at the expense of Sir Francis Walsingham, his father-in-law, 16 February. Golding completed versionof The Trueness of the Christian Religion published1590 The New Arcadia published1591Astrahel and Stella published1593 The New Arcadia with Books 3-5 of the OldArcadia published1595 The Defence of Poetry published1598 The composite Arcadia published with Astrophel and Stella and Certain Sonnets

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What type of poet was Sidney?

„It is difficult to consider Sidney merely as a man of letterssince his writing was only a spare-time occupation. He is thebest English best English exampleexample of of thethe renaissancerenaissance idealideal: he was Jack of all trades and master of them all. Not that he was simply a giftedgifted amateuramateur; although he sometimes spoke of his writingsas toys, this (as Professor Myrick has shown) 'is but an example of sprezzaturasprezzatura, the courtly grace which conceals a sober purpose and is, indeed, the mark of consummateartistry'; or, as Greville put it, 'men commonly (to keep abovetheir works) seem to make toys of the utmost they can do'.“ (Kenneth Muir: Sir Philip Sidney. Longmans, Green & Co., 1960, p. 5)

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Critical approach to Petrarcism

Sonett 71:

„So while thy beauty draws the heart to love, / As fast thy Virtue bends that love to good: / ‚But ah‘, Desirestill cries, ‚give me some food‘.“ (12-14)

Function:construction of individuality and poetological reflection

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From Astrophel and Stella (1581-2; 1591) cycle of 108 sonnets

LOVING in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain;Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain;

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain;Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flowSome fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows;And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite.“Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart, and write!”

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"Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance"

Having this day my horse, my hand, my lance Guided so well that I obtained the prize, Both by the judgment of the English eyes And of some sent from that sweet enemy, France;

Horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance, Town-folks my strength; a daintier judge applies His praise to sleight which from good use doth rise; Some lucky wits impute it but to chance;

Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this, Think nature me a man of arms did make. How far they shot awry! The true cause is,

Stella looked on, and from her heav'nly face Sent forth the beams which made so fair my race

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Sonnet 47 What, have I thus betrayed my liberty? Can those black beams such burning marks engrave In my free side? or am I born a slave, Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny?

Or want I sense to feel my misery? Or sprite, disdain of such disdain to have? Who for long faith, though daily help I crave, May get no alms but scorn of beggary.

Virtue, awake! Beauty but beauty is. I may, I must, I can, I will, I do Leave following that which it is gain to miss. Let her go! Soft! But here she comes! Go to:

'Unkind, I love you not!' O me! That eye Doth make my heart give to my tongue the lie.

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An Apology for Poetry

“Any attempt to discuss Sidney's theory of poetic fictions proves to be something of a paradox, since An Apology for Poetry opens with a warning not to take theories too seriously. There Sidney compares himself to his master in horsemanship, John Pietro Pugliano, who, not content to teach his young students the practical side of his profession, `sought to enrich [their] minds with the contemplations therein.' So mighty does his art appear, thanks to the light of his self-love, that, Sidney observes, `if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to havewished myself a horse' (p. 95). Following his master, Sidney opens with a theoretical justification of his own vocation, poetry, but with such a precedent, readers may wonder whether Sidney will persuade them to wish themselves poems (which is, in fact, where Sidney'sAstrophil ends up in AS 45).” (Ronald Levao, „Sidney‘s FeignedApology“)

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Where do the poet‘s spontaneous ideascome from? – (fore-conceit)

Erwin Panofsky's discussion of the revival of Neoplatonism:

“… the Idea was reinvested with its apriori and metaphysical character. . . . the autocratic human mind, now conscious of its own spontaneity, believed that it could maintain this spontaneity in the face of sensory experience only by legitimizing the former sub specie divinitatis; the dignity of genius, now explicitly recognized and emphasized, is justified by its origin in God?”

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Does the poet need God to conceive a poem?

Sidney:“Neither let it be deemed too saucy a comparison to balance the highest point of man's wit with the efficacy of Nature; but rather give right honour to the heavenly Maker of that maker, who having made man to His own likeness, set him beyond and over all the works of that second nature: which in nothing he showeth so much as in Poetry, when with the force of a divine breath he bringeth things forth far surpassing her doings, with no small argument to the incredulous of that first accursedfall of Adam: since our erected wit maketh us know what perfection is, and yet our infected will keepeth us from reaching unto it. “