Comparison of Drama Poetry of Elizabethan Essay Example For Students

Comparison of Drama Poetry of Elizabethan Essay Though the age produced some excellent prose works, it is essentially an age of poetry, but both poetry and drama were earmarked by Italian influence, which was dominated in English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration. The period from 1660 to 1700 is known as the Restoration period or the Age of Dryden. Dryden was the representative writer of this period. The restoration of King Charles II in 1660 marks the beginning of a new era both in the life and the literature of England. The beginning of the Restoration began the process of social transformation. The atmosphere of gaiety and cheerfulness, of licentiousness and moral laxity was restored. The theatres were reopened. There was a stern reaction against the morality of the Puritans. Morality was on the wane. There was laxity everywhere in life. All these tendencies of the age are clearly reflected in the literature of the period. During this period there was a rapid development of science. The establishment of the Royal Society was a landmark in history of England. The interest in science began to grow. The growing interest in science resulted in the beginning of rational inquiry and scientific and objective outlook. Objectivity, rationality and intellectual quality also enlivened the literature of this period. The literature of the Restoration period marked the complete breaking of ties with the Elizabethan literature. At the Restoration the break with the past was almost absolute. It involved the English literature in the deepest degree, subject and style took on a new spirit and outlook, a different attitude and aim. Hence the Restoration period is often set up as the converse and antithesis of the previous Elizabethan age. It is called classical, is opposed to the Elizabethan romanticism. It is a commonplace of criticism that the Elizabethan age is creative, the Restoration critical. Elizabethan drama is spontaneous and original; Restoration drama is artificial and imitative. Elizabethan comedy at its height is creative; Restoration comedy at its best is imitative of the fashions and follies of the beau monde. The Elizabethans are fond of blending tragedy with comedy; the Restoration playwrights usually inclined to separate them. Though the contrast between the two epochs need not be over- emphasized, yet the differences are very great. Let us compare and contrast the drama and poetry of these two ages. DRAMA First of all, we will talk about Shakespearean dramas to expose Elizabethan age. In the Elizabethan age, Shakespearean dramatic genius is considered incomparable. Intensity of emotion, interest in man, a sense of the earth in relation to the universe and rich poetic expressions have made the tragic art of Shakespeare fundamentally the same in spirit as the tragedy of Sophocles enlarged in scope. 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It involved the En: took on a nee spirit and owe period is often set up as HTH It Is called classical, is poop of criticism that the Elizabeth drama is spontaneous and Elizabethan governed at its h imitative of the fashions an blending tragedy with come separate their Though the emphasized, yet the differ ram ant poetry of these First of all, we will talk AIBO the Elizabethan age, Shake: Intensity tot emotion. Inter: ant rich poetic expressions the same in spirit as the tar tragedies are possibly greater achievements than anything Greeks. His trails and ore which are reflected in the EAI clearly the difficulties in the attainment of that tragic art. Admiration for any character is absent. He created here lyrical drama. There is no stress on the fatal flaw in peers the blind workings of chance or fortune take the place of perfection of ease, Richard II wants essential majesty alt goal of his tragic art. Although Julius Caesar was written maturity. It fails to find adequate adjustment of plot and dramas, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and Lear, Shakespeare which were displayed in his early attempts. In his mature finally expressed. Aristotle pity and terror are given full relation to the vast universe of which the earth is but on here even while man, by his own errors, moves to distaste of spirit, rises to unexpected heights. His tragedies derive manner in which he suggests in his human actions the o these tragedies the theme moves on three planes concur view they give us the sense of a whole people being involve he main character; from still another they show the .NET movement of the basis human conflict. Macbeth kills Du inevitable consequence; his whole kingdom is drowned nature leaves quality and kind in sympathetic disorder. Tragedies, there is the passion which wrought the plot co tragedy of the Greeks and the villain-tragedy of the Elise are the psychological tragedies of their own kind. In media is quite different. The medieval idea of the pagan deity o conception of good and evil like that of the Moralities sat classical conception of the struggle between the individual regarded, there are enormous varieties of incidents, the comic , and admission of horrors, deaths spectacles. The tragedy was attempted by the master-hand of Shakespeare philosophers that in tragedy there is some sort of collision there is conflict of feelings, modes of thoughts, desire, will conflict of persons with one another or with circumstance Hamlet is analyses, the play becomes a study in the pass of Hamlet emerges from the disharmony that comes to r passion of grief is dominant through and through. The WI disperses itself and impairs the will and faith is sundered and loving disposition is chilled and warped by the meal ND excessive grief that dulls and blunts memory. It dark direct the will and finally makes him guilty of sloth. The s Hamlet so unhappy over his mothers marriage, over the and his relations with Aphelia. He loved Aphelia intensely responsibility to his father intervened which brought his love Aphelia; forty thousand brothers coo of love, Make up my sum. He is disappointed with his mother and Aphelia because he is an idealist and expects too much from them. The symptoms of his melancholy manifest themselves further in his sudden break in the speech, But break, my heart, for I must hold my enough. We see a similar symptom in his repetition of words which is a common trick of style in Hamlet O God! O God File not , Oh flee, Thrift, thrift, Indeed, indeed, Nerdy like, very like. This style of repetition indicates that Hamlet cannot easily make up his mind because of melancholia. Disgusted with his mothers incestuous marriage, he begins to distrust Aphelia and ends by inveighing against the entire FAA sex, Frailty, thy name is woman. The second tragic hero is Othello. Othello is a tragedy of Jealousy. In the Renaissance, the term Jealousy was not one of the simple r elementary passion, but it is a derivative or compounded passion. Othello is not jealous by nature. It is forced upon him by the almost superhuman art of Sago. Othello character is admittedly noble and lovable. Sago knows that to destroy Othello love was an immensely formidable task. Sago, therefore, begins to practice upon his unsuspecting friendship at first by broken hints and dark insinuations. He reminds of the warning words of Abortion, She has deceived her father and may well deceive thee. Further, Sago emphasizes this point that Venetian women lack morals. The clever rogue remarks, Their best conscience is not to leave it undone, but keep it unknown. Othello Jealousy is different from the other Jealous character of literature. Othello is the very soul of honor. He is not a Jealous tyrant like Lentos He does not murder Desman out of mad Jealousy. He rather sacrifice her at the altar of Justice and chastity. He remarks: Enough I did in hate , but all in honor. Adhesions fall gives set-back to his high sense of chastity and honor. To him, honor lost is paradise lost. The third tragic art of Shakespeare is King Lear which is a tragedy of wrath in old age. Aristotle defines wrath as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns ones friends. Thus, according to him, anger always rises from injured self-esteem, from some slight inflicted upon the individual directly or indirectly, there being three kinds of slighting possible I. E. Contempt, spite and insolence. Anger is folly; anger brings shame in its train. In the study of the passion of anger, Shakespeare has presented several problems. The first is the problem of old age. The feeble and the old are more subject to anger than are others. He is a man of passionate fiber and unrestrained temper wholly swayed in his old age two imperious instincts, that of personal domination and that of natural affection for his daughters. But his affection does not teach him self-enunciation; it is one of the forms of domination. His instincts posses him wholly. They wrap his Judgment of character and derive him to acts, the results of which he has not the imagination to envisage. Now, we can understand why he thinks of abdicating. He appeals from his daughters to the heaven. He is confident of the Justice of his cause. But the heavens prove as deaf to his call as either General or Reagan. In the end it is the wind and rain, rather than unkindness, that beat him into submission, and force him to acknowledge what a poor, bare, forked animal unaccommodating man is. Poetry and W. H. Auden EssayIt has the light step, far removed from the heavy trend of pre-Shakespearean blank verse, such as Saukville or Assignees, but it has little flexibility. The harmony of words elevates the mind to a sense of devotion, which is inarticulate poesy, does in churches. And by the lively images of piety, adorned by action, through the senses allure the soul: which it is charmed in a silent Joy of what it sees and hears, is struck at the same time with a secret veneration of things celestial, and is wound up insensibly into practice of that which it admires. In general scope, the heroic -r r -Iron -. 12 Ian C r t:. Y-fed, k z ma tragedies of Dryden is surprisingly like the general scope of the S drama, if we make allowances for the frequent happy ending which author, probably influenced by the structure of epic and heroic pop to his plays. In both we find an exciting plot paralleled by an inner there are given to the hero superhuman proportions, the dramas to a level above that of ordinary life. If the heroic tragedy, however development of earlier forms of tragic endeavourer; it is a develops excess. Dryness plays bear the same relation to those of Shapes gramophone record bears to the voice of a celebrated singer. The exaggerated and made harsh; there is the continual drone of inurn lack of delicacy and of subtlety pervades the whole. Unquestionable he sphere of true tragedy ; he had some conception of the genuine this type of drama; but his age would not permit him to work that correct forms. The consequence is that we can do little else now b humorously at the more apparent follies of the type. POETRY The Elizabethan age was an age of dreams of adventure, of u enthusiasm springing from the new lands of fabulous riches revere explores, although science was in fancy. Drake sails around the w mighty course which English colonizers shall follow through the c Drake, Furbisher, Gilbert, Raleigh, Willoughby, Hawkins a score of new earth to mens eyes, and instantly literature creates a new he reams and deeds increase side by side, and the dream is ever gar deed. That is the meaning of literature. Under the influence of HTH Spencer wrote a remarkable poem The Faerie Quean. The notation Quean consists of an endless series of pictorial stanzas, each SSL musical, with an optional allegorical significance which all readers time have preferred to ignore, is still common enough to require c surface of the epic consists, as Professor C. S. Lewis has well put it, stories of chivalrous adventure in a world of marvels, and it is HTH shares with the Italian epic. The background is an indeterminate odds, castles, dens, islands, and shores, deliberate dream-world watch the characters moves: (a) And forth they pass, with pleasure (b) So forth they passed, and all the way they spent Discoursing of her dreadful late distress. (c) So forth h befell, on foot,. (d) So forth they pass a well consorted pair, (e) So forth they rowed, and that Ferryman With his stiff oars did brush the sea so strong. (f) So as they can espy An armed knight toward them gallop fast, G) Thus as she her recommitted, she spied Where far away one all in armor bright With hasty gallop towards her did ride,.. We watch, as it were in a trance, as characters approach and re magic landscape. The very opening of the first canto of Book I strike observed adventure: A Gentle knight was pricking on the plain, Y-clad in mighty arms and silver shield, Wherein old dints of deep wounds did remain, many a bloody field; Yet arms till that time never did he wield. His angry steed did chide hi s foaming bit, As much disdaining to the curb to yield. Full Jolly knight he seemed, and fair did sit, As one for knightly Jousts and fierce encounters fit. The cruel marks of Heroic poetry, we may conclude, was the most comprehension, the most serious, ND the most valuable expression of the Elizabethan mind. It worked out most fully the relationship between classical antiquity and modern life and in doing so made the revival of learning practical and functional. Its mode of expression was particularly satisfying to the Englishman of the sixteenth century because it reconciled imagination and conscience. Socially and morally Justified, it offered the greatest stimulus, the greatest possibility of scope and variety, to poets and readers. It promised fame to the doers of glorious deeds and to the writer who celebrated them. At the same time it served immediate moral and social ends. Spencer is the founder of poetic diction which he himself deliberately invented. It is not natural poetic diction because he deliberately made it archaic. He, in affecting the ancient, writ no language, says Ben Johnson. In other words, his dialect of any actual place or time, but it is an artificial poetic diction made up of Chaucer, archaic words, foreign words and other dialects. Thus it is an invented language which could not be read easily by his contemporaries. It is maintained by Spenders apologists that he adopted this peculiar poetic diction because there was no standard English in his days. So it was essential for him to invent poetic diction of his own. Really, his language suggested the distinctive tone and temper of such works as Mallory Mortem D Arthur. Spencer made the first experiment with the language in Shepherds Calendar. In an introductory episode, he remarks: In my opinion it is one special praise, of many which are dew to this poet, that he hath labouredly to restore, as to their rightful heritage, such good and natural English words, as have been long time out of use and almost cleaned disinherited. Professor Hereford has analyses the diction of The Shepherds calendar. He divides the unusual words into five classes : (1) those derived from Middle English Literature, (2) from dialects, (3) Elizabethan colloquialisms, (4) literary and learned words, (5) coinages of Spenders own. The words borrowed from earlier authors are often incorrectly used, e. G. , Hyde, went, is used for the infinitive go. In spite of all this, the experiments were necessary and useful. Watts and Surreys experiments had not been worthily followed. As we emerge from the golden age of Elizabethan poetry, we can distinguish two main treats, not indeed clearly separated at all points, but mingling and merging in a way which make precise definition difficult. On the one hand there is the Spenserian, with its emphasis on smooth versification and vivid, sparkling imagery. On the other hand there is a new tradition of fantastic verse, based on far-fetched images or conceits, as they were called , and an innovation in form the rhythm. The period of 1680-1745, the period to which pope (1688-1744) belonged, has been variously labeled in histories of literature as the the Period of English Neo- Classicism, Augustan Age or even as the Age of Pope. Alexander Pope was the supreme master of this age. The age of Pope started in the Restoration age. Since this highest refinement was consciously modeled on ancient Greek and Roman literature or on the rules deprived from it, the period is also called classical, neo- classical, or pseudo-classical depending on what the particular literary historian thinks of this age. The age of Restoration is also called classical or neo-classical. He learnt several languages and familiarized himself with the works of Homer, Virgil, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spencer and Milton. Not only did he read these writers with read interest but even produced imitations of their verse and style. He talks about his ailments humorously, as for example, he does in his Epistle to DRP. Arbitrator: There are, who to my person pay their court: I cough like Horace, and, though lean, am short, Mammons great Son one shoulder had too high, Such Ovoids nose, and Sir! You have an Eye-? The age of Pope saw a rapid economic expansion in both the town and the countryside. Daniel Defoe in his Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain mentions some aspects of the economic progress of his country: The abundance of eater, the growing buildings and the new discoveries made in every part of the country. Several business organizations such as the Bank of England, shipping agencies, trading and insurance came into being. English trade flourished not only within the country but also in the distant colonies. The ingredients of Bellinis toilette, for example, are imported from several countries: Unnumbered treasures pope at once, and here The various offerings of the world appear; From each she nicely culls with curious toil, And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. This casket Indians glowing gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder box. (129-134) The struggle for power between the Whig and Tories, the nicknames for the two political parties which had evolved during the middle of the 17th century, tended to divide people along party lines so much so that Addison attacked the bipolar division of the English population in several essays. Added to these were the occasional electoral violence, political corruption, especially under Walpole, and the indifference and high-handedness of the Judges whom Pope satirized in The Rape of the Lock: The hungry Judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that Jurymen may dine; (311-312) The term Nature had many connotations and it could mean several things simultaneously. As Humphreys point out : It might mean permanent truths underlying the individual varieties of man. , and obedience to reason and the search the order and harmony in life and art.