Chapter VI: The Age of Elizabeth (1550-1620) (4)

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A careful reading of North's _Plutarch_ and then of the famous Roman plays shows to how great an extent Shakespeare was dependent upon his obscure contemporary.

North's translation, to which we owe so many heroic models in our literature, was probably made not from Plutarch but from Amyot's excellent French translation. Nevertheless he reproduces the spirit of the original, and notwithstanding our modern and more accurate translations, he remains the most inspiring interpreter of the great biographer whom Emerson calls "the historian of heroism."

SUMMARY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH. This period is generally regarded as the greatest in the history of our literature. Historically, we note in this age the tremendous impetus received from the Renaissance, from the Reformation, and from the exploration of the New World. It was marked by a strong national spirit, by patriotism, by religious tolerance, by social content, by intellectual progress, and by unbounded enthusiasm.

Such an age, of thought, feeling, and vigorous action, finds its best expression in the drama; and the wonderful development of the drama, culminating in Shakespeare, is the most significant characteristic of the Elizabethan period. Though the age produced some excellent prose works, it is essentially an age of poetry; and the poetry is remarkable for its variety, its freshness, its youthful and romantic feeling. Both the poetry and the drama were permeated by Italian influence, which was dominant in English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration. The literature of this age is often called the literature of the Renaissance, though, as we have seen, the Renaissance itself began much earlier, and for a century and a half added very little to our literary possessions.

In our study of this great age we have noted (1) the Non-dramatic Poets, that is, poets who did not write for the stage. The center of this group is Edmund Spenser, whose _Shepherd's Calendar_ (1579) marked the appearance of the first national poet since Chaucer's death in 1400. His most famous work is _The Faery Queen_. Associated with Spenser are the minor poets, Thomas Sackville, Michael Drayton, George Chapman, and Philip Sidney. Chapman is noted for his completion of Marlowe's poem, _Hero and Leander_, and for his translation of Homer's _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_. Sidney, besides his poetry, wrote his prose romance _Arcadia_, and _The Defense of Poesie_, one of our earliest critical essays.

(2) The Rise of the Drama in England; the Miracle plays, Moralities, and Interludes; our first play, "Ralph Royster Doyster"; the first true English comedy, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," and the first tragedy, "Gorboduc"; the conflict between classic and native ideals in the English drama.

(3) Shakespeare's Predecessors, Lyly, Kyd, Nash, Peele, Greene, Marlowe; the types of drama with which they experimented,--the Marlowesque, one-man type, or tragedy of passion, the popular Chronicle plays, the Domestic drama, the Court or Lylian comedy, Romantic comedy and tragedy, Classical plays, and the Melodrama. Marlowe is the greatest of Shakespeare's predecessors. His four plays are "Tamburlaine," "Faustus," "The Jew of Malta," and "Edward II."

(4) Shakespeare, his life, work, and influence.

(5) Shakespeare's Successors, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Middleton, Heywood, Dekker; and the rapid decline of the drama. Ben Jonson is the greatest of this group. His chief comedies are "Every Man in His Humour," "The Silent Woman," and "The Alchemist"; his two extant tragedies are "Sejanus" and "Catiline."

(6) The Prose Writers, of whom Bacon is the most notable. His chief philosophical work is the _Instauratio Magna_ (incomplete), which includes "The Advancement of Learning" and the "Novum Organum"; but he is known to literary readers by his famous _Essays_. Minor prose writers are Richard Hooker, John Foxe, the historians Camden and Knox, the editors Hakluyt and Purchas, who gave us the stirring records of exploration, and Thomas North, the translator of Plutarch's _Lives_.

SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Spenser_. Faery Queen, selections in Standard English Classics; Bk. I, in Riverside Literature Series, etc.; Shepherd's Calendar, in Cassell's National Library; Selected Poems, in Canterbury Poets Series; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets.

_Minor Poets_. Drayton, Sackville, Sidney, Chapman, Selections in Manly or Ward; Elizabethan songs, in Schelling's Elizabethan Lyrics, and in Palgrave's Golden Treasury; Chapman's Homer, in Temple Classics.

_The Early Drama_. Play of Noah's Flood, in Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperean Drama, or in Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, or in Belles Lettres Series, sec. 2; L.T. Smith's The York Miracle Plays.

_Lyly_. Endymion, in Holt's English Readings.

_Marlowe_. Faustus, in Temple Dramatists, or Mermaid Series, or Morley's Universal Library, or Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets; Edward II, in Temple Dramatists, and in Holt's English Readings.

_Shakespeare_. Merchant of Venice, Julius Cæsar, Macbeth, etc., in Standard English Classics (edited, with notes, with special reference to college- entrance requirements). Good editions of single plays are numerous and cheap. Hudson's and Rolfe's and the Arden Shakespeare are suggested as satisfactory. The Sonnets, edited by Beeching, in Athenæum Press Series.

_Ben Jonson_. The Alchemist, in Canterbury Poets Series, or Morley's Universal Library; Selections in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English Poets, or Canterbury Poets Series; Selections from Jonson's Masques, in Evans's English Masques; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum Press Series.

_Bacon_. Essays, school edition (Ginn and Company); Northup's edition, in Riverside Literature Series (various other inexpensive editions, in the Pitt Press, Golden Treasury Series, etc.); Advancement of Learning, Bk. I, edited by Cook (Ginn and Company). Compare selections from Bacon, Hooker, Lyly, and Sidney, in Manly's English Prose.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.[159] _HISTORY. Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 208-238; Cheyney, pp. 330-410; Green, ch. 7; Traill, Macaulay, Froude.

_Special works_. Creighton's The Age of Elizabeth; Hall's Society in the Elizabethan Age; Winter's Shakespeare's England; Goadby's The England of Shakespeare; Lee's Stratford on Avon; Harrison's Elizabethan England.

_LITERATURE_. Saintsbury's History of Elizabethan Literature; Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth; S. Lee's Great Englishmen of the Sixteenth Century; Schilling's Elizabethan Lyrics, in Athenæum Press Series; Vernon Lee's Euphorion.

_Spenser_. Texts, Cambridge, Globe, and Aldine editions; Noel's Selected Poems of Spenser, in Canterbury Poets; Minor Poems, in Temple Classics; Arber's Spenser Anthology; Church's Life of Spenser, in English Men of Letters Series; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books, or in Literary Essays, vol. 4; Hazlitt's Chaucer and Spenser, in Lectures on the English Poets; Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.

_The Drama_. Texts, Manly's Specimens of the Pre-Shakesperean Drama, 2 vols., in Athenæum Press Series; Pollard's English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes; the Temple Dramatists; Morley's Universal Library; Arber's English Reprints; Mermaid Series, etc.; Thayer's The Best Elizabethan Plays.

Gayley's Plays of Our Forefathers (Miracles, Moralities, etc.); Bates's The English Religious Drama; Schelling's The English Chronicle Play; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Boas's Shakespeare and his Predecessors; Symonds's Shakespeare's Predecessors in the English Drama; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Introduction to Hudson's Shakespeare: His Life, Art, and Characters; Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature; Dekker's The Gull's Hornbook, in King's Classics.

_Marlowe_. Works, edited by Bullen; chief plays in Temple Dramatists, Mermaid Series of English Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Symonds's introduction, in Mermaid Series; Dowden's Essay, in Transcripts and Studies.

_Shakespeare_. Good texts are numerous. Furness's Variorum edition is at present most useful for advanced work. Hudson's revised edition, each play in a single volume, with notes and introductions, will, when complete, be one of the very best for students' use.

Raleigh's Shakespeare, in English Men of Letters Series; Lee's Life of Shakespeare; Hudson's Shakespeare: his Life, Art, and Characters; Halliwell-Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare; Fleay's Chronicle History of the Life and Work of Shakespeare; Dowden's Shakespeare, a Critical Study of his Mind and Art; Shakespeare Primer (same author); Baker's The Development of Shakespeare as a Dramatist; Lounsbury's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; The Text of Shakespeare (same author); Wendell's William Shakespeare; Bradley's Shakesperian Tragedy; Hazlitt's Shakespeare and Milton, in Lectures on the English Poets; Emerson's Essay, Shakespeare or the Poet; Lowell's Essay, in Among My Books; Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare; Mrs. Jameson's Shakespeare's Female Characters (called also Characteristics of Women); Rolfe's Shakespeare the Boy; Brandes's William Shakespeare; Moulton's Shakespeare as a Dramatic Artist; Mabie's William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man; The Shakespeare Apocrypha, edited by C. F. T. Brooke; Shakespeare's Holinshed, edited by Stone; Shakespeare Lexicon, by Schmidt; Concordance, by Bartlett; Grammar, by Abbott, or by Franz.

_Ben Jonson_. Texts in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, Morley's Universal Library, etc.; Masques and Entertainments of Ben Jonson, edited by Morley, in Carisbrooke Library; Timber, edited by Schelling, in Athenæum Press Series.

_Beaumont, Fletcher, etc_. Plays in Mermaid Series, Temple Dramatists, etc.; Schelling's Elizabethan Drama; Lowell's Old English Dramatists; Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets; Fleay's Biographical Chronicle of the English Drama; Swinburne's Essays, in Essays in Prose and Poetry, and in Essays and Studies.

_Bacon_. Texts, Essays in Everyman's Library, etc.; Advancement of Learning in Clarendon Press Series, Library of English Classics, etc.; Church's Life of Bacon, in English Men of Letters Series; Nichol's Bacon's Life and Philosophy; Francis Bacon, translated from the German of K. Fischer (excellent, but rare); Macaulay's Essay on Bacon.

_Minor Prose Writers_. Sidney's Arcadia, edited by Somers; Defense of Poesy, edited by Cook, in Athenæum Press Series; Arber's Reprints, etc.; Selections from Sidney's prose and poetry in the Elizabethan Library; Symonds's Life of Sidney, in English Men of Letters; Bourne's Life of Sidney, in Heroes of the Nations; Lamb's Essay on Sidney's Sonnets, in Essays of Elia.

Raleigh's works, published by the Oxford Press; Selections by Grosart, in Elizabethan Library; Raleigh's Last Fight of the _Revenge_, in Arber's Reprints; Life of Raleigh, by Edwards and by Gosse. Richard Hooker's works, edited by Keble, Oxford Press; Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, in Everyman's Library, and in Morley's Universal Library; Life, in Walton's Lives, in Morley's Universal Library; Dowden's Essay, in Puritan and Anglican.

Lyly's Euphues, in Arber's Reprints; Endymion, edited by Baker; Campaspe, in Manly's Pre-Shaksperean Drama.

North's Plutarch's Lives, edited by Wyndham, in Tudor Library; school edition, by Ginn and Company. Hakluyt's Voyages, in Everyman's Library; Jones's introduction to Hakluyt's Diverse Voyages; Payne's Voyages of Elizabethan Seamen; Froude's Essay, in Short Studies on Great Subjects.

SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What historical conditions help to account for the great literature of the Elizabethan age? What are the general characteristics of Elizabethan literature? What type of literature prevailed, and why? What work seems to you to express most perfectly the Elizabethan spirit?

2. Tell briefly the story of Spenser's life. What is the story or argument of the _Faery Queen_? What is meant by the Spenserian stanza? Read and comment upon Spenser's "Epithalamion." Why does the "Shepherd's Calendar" mark a literary epoch? What are the main qualities of Spenser's poetry? Can you quote or refer to any passages which illustrate these qualities? Why is he called the poets' poet?

3. For what is Sackville noted? What is the most significant thing about his "Gorboduc"? Name other minor poets and tell what they wrote.

4. Give an outline of the origin and rise of the drama in England. What is meant by Miracle and Mystery plays? What purposes did they serve among the common people? How did they help the drama? What is meant by cycles of Miracle plays? How did the Moralities differ from the Miracles? What was the chief purpose of the Interludes? What type of drama did they develop? Read a typical play, like "Noah's Flood" or "Everyman," and write a brief analysis of it.

5. What were our first plays in the modern sense? What influence did the classics exert on the English drama? What is meant by the dramatic unities? In what important respect did the English differ from the classic drama?

6. Name some of Shakespeare's predecessors in the drama? What types of drama did they develop? Name some plays of each type. Are any of these plays still presented on the stage?

7. What are Marlowe's chief plays? What is the central motive in each? Why are they called one-man plays? What is meant by Marlowe's "mighty line"? What is the story of "Faustus"? Compare "Faustus" and Goethe's "Faust," having in mind the story, the dramatic interest, and the literary value of each play.

8. Tell briefly the story of Shakespeare's life. What fact in his life most impressed you? How does Shakespeare sum up the work of all his predecessors? What are the four periods of his work, and the chief plays of each? Where did he find his plots? What are his romantic plays? his chronicle or historical plays? What is the difference between a tragedy and a comedy? Name some of Shakespeare's best tragedies, comedies, and historical plays. Which play of Shakespeare's seems to you to give the best picture of human life? Why is he called the myriad-minded Shakespeare? For what reasons is he considered the greatest of writers? Can you explain why Shakespeare's plays are still acted, while other plays of his age are rarely seen? If you have seen any of Shakespeare's plays on the stage, how do they compare in interest with a modern play?

9. What are Ben Jonson's chief plays? In what important respects did they differ from those of Shakespeare? Tell the story of "The Alchemist" or "The Silent Woman." Name other contemporaries and successors of Shakespeare. Give some reasons for the preëminence of the Elizabethan drama. What causes led to its decline?

10. Tell briefly the story of Bacon's life. What is his chief literary work? his chief educational work? Why is he called a pioneer of modern science? Can you explain what is meant by the inductive method of learning? What subjects are considered in Bacon's _Essays_? What is the central idea of the essay you like best? What are the literary qualities of these essays? Do they appeal to the intellect or the emotions? What is meant by the word "essay," and how does Bacon illustrate the definition? Make a comparison between Bacon's essays and those of some more recent writer, such as Addison, Lamb, Carlyle, Emerson, or Stevenson, having in mind the subjects, style, and interest of both essayists.

11. Who are the minor prose writers of the Elizabethan Age? What did they write? Comment upon any work of theirs which you have read. What is the literary value of North's Plutarch? What is the chief defect in Elizabethan prose as a whole? What is meant by euphuism? Explain why Elizabethan poetry is superior to the prose.

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