I.b.lecture Notes.2012.Student - Use

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LECTURE NOTES II
RENAISSANCE AND RENAISSANCES.
MEANINGS AND FORMS OF HUMANISM
Sources:
Primary Sources
Assers Life of King Alfred, Trans. S. Keynes, M. Lapidge (London: Penguin, 1983), pp. 124ff
Bacon, F., Of Studies in Essays in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, vol 1., ed.
Kermode, F., J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), p.1443
Secondary sources:
Curtius, R.E., Latin Middle Ages and European Literature, trans.W.R.Trask (Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1953), pp. 17-48.
Fletcher, R.H., A History of English Literature (Boston: Badger, 2007 [1919]), pp. 116-127
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R.M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp. 79-76
Kristller, O.P., Renaissance Thought and Its Sources (N.Y., Columbia UP, 1979), pp. 17-21
The question of reading as posed by a humanist:

Read not to contradict and to confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and
discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and
some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be
read, but not curiously, and some few, to be read wholly and with diligence and attention. Reading
maketh a full man, conference a ready man and writing an exact man.
(F. Bacon, Of Studies) [for the whole essay see below section C. Texts]
Main periods of British literature to be studied:

Medieval literature:
Early beginnings-1100
- The Old English
1100 - 1485
- The Middle English
Renaissance literature:
1485 - 1558
- The Tudor Age
1558-1603
- The Elizabethan Age
A. General Historical background
I. Chronology from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
- The Middle Ages are a complex period between Antiquity and the modern times, which extends
from approx. 5th to 15th centuries. They are generally divided into:
The Early Middle Ages [also known improperly as the Dark Ages]; 5 th c.-10th c.
The High Middle Ages 11th c.-13th c. 1000-1300
The Later Middle Ages 14th-15th [or 16th c.] 1300-1500
- This period is generally considered to end with the 15th c. or high Renaissance [yet for certain
authors the Renaissance lasts from 13th c. to 16th c.]
II. Characteristics of the European Middle Ages [see especially Curtius, pp. 17-24, passim.]
1.The disintegration of the Roman Empire
The dissolution of the Roman Empire was a long process with occasional moments of
coalescence in the 4th c. (Constantine), 6th c (Justinian), 7th c. (Heraclius)
(i) The invasions:
- the Roman Empire is confronted with several important invaders, such as the Germanic peoples
and the Arabs
- the Germanic peoples who migrate around the 5th c., and settle in different parts of Europe and
reach North Africa, become assimilated to the local populations. The term Germanic people is
misleading, since it may refer to Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, etc.
- the Arabs, after the death of Mahomed , 7th c. (632), conquered Persia, Siria, Egypt, Roman
Africa and Spain.
- the Arabic invasions determined important changes in the distribution of political centres and in
the Eastern trade and marked a shift of the centre of gravity. Europe was forced to find its own
way and to forge a new identity for itself, by resorting to its own traditions: the Greek and Roman
heritage and the Judaeo-Christian religion
(ii) Characteristics of invasions:
- the Germanic and Arabic invasions are parallel processes but they have an important difference:
- the Germanic people assimilate the Roman culture and Christianity, whereas the Arabic do not,
because they have already a strongly configured religion.
The Arabs:
- Adopted the Greek science and philosophy, which they shaped in accordance with the
their faith
- at a later time the European theologians and scholars rediscovered Greek philosophy
and science through the intermediary writings of the Arabic authors.
The Germanic peoples:
- most of them were romanized and adopted Latin as a main means of communication
(except the Anglo-Saxons, who also used the vernacular)
- during their periods of stability, they surrounded themselves with Roman
rhetoricians, jurists and poets
- the Roman-Germanic legacy was at the basis of the feudal legal and political systems
- related to these migrations, during the early Middle Ages, Europe came to experience two
distinct tendencies:
- a centrifugal, Germanic direction of local land-holding and barter
- a centripetal direction inherited from the Roman Empire, of preservation of the
central (imperial/royal) power
III. England and Europe

(i) Brief historical outline
During the Antiquity England was inhabited by several Celtic tribes of Indo-European origin.
Celtic England was invaded and ruled by the Romans between 55 BC and AD 440, by the AngloSaxons and the Vikings (440-1066), and finally by the Normans in 1066. After this last invasion,
under the Norman rule England experienced several great conflagrations such as the Hundred
Years War and the War of the Roses. This period was followed by an interval of relative stability,
under the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603), which made possible the rise and consolidation of the
national state and, subsequently, the gradual emergence of the British Empire.
(ii) General characteristics of the making of modern England:
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- each population that invaded the British Isles brought along its own material and spiritual
culture
- during the Middle Ages, under the Anglo-Saxon and especially under the Norman rule, England
came to be closely associated with Europe and influenced by the continental Latin traditions
- later, under the Tudors, and especially under Elizabeth I, England went through a process of
building up its identity as a modern national state, with a national form of Christianity [the
Anglican Church], and with a national culture expressed in a national language [early modern
English]. These attempts to work out an identity drew heavily not only on the Germanic elements
[Anglo-Saxon, Norman French] but also upon the classical and Christian European traditions.
B. Intellectual history. The shaping traditions

I. Europe and its shaping traditions: the classical world and Judaeo-Christianity
[Curtius, EL, pp. 27-30]
1.The renovatio and translatio imperii
- the dual heritage: the Roman Empire and Judaeo-Christianity
- the disintegration of the Roman Empire left behind the Roman ideas of state, church and culture
Rome had come to conceive its political existence as a universal mission that included Rome, the
town (urbs) and the world (orbis)
- the claim of universality was advocated on two levels:
state (Roman Empire)
church (Christianity)
- St. Augustine (4th c-5th c.), in his De civitate Dei (On the City of God)
claims that Rome is an earthly imitation of Heavenly Jerusalem, meant to carry out and restore
Jerusalem in its original glory at the end of time.
The following ideas related to the fulfillment of time are combined in Augustines view:
1. The Roman Empire as part of the world history is in harmony with divine history as
recorded in the Old Testament, [Genesis, Daniel]:
(i) the six days of Creation and
(ii) the six ages of human life
(iii) the other four great empires in the course of history, of which the Roman
Empire is the last before the end of times (cf. Daniel 2: 31-40)
Daniel 2: 31-40
31. Thou, O king, sawest, and behold there was as it were a great statue: this statue, which was
great and high, tall of stature, stood before thee, and the look thereof was terrible.
32. The head of this statue was of fine gold, but the breast and the arms of silver, and the belly and
the thighs of brass:
33. And the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay.
34. Thus thou sawest, till a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue
upon the feet thereof that were of iron and of clay, and broke them in pieces.
35. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and
became like the chaff of a summer's thrashingfloor, and they were carried away by the wind: and
there was no place found for them: but the stone that struck the statue, became a great mountain,
and filled the whole earth.
36. This is the dream: we will also tell the interpretation thereof before thee, O king.
37. Thou art a king of kings: and the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, and strength, and
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power, and glory:
38. And all places wherein the children of men, and the beasts of the field do dwell: he hath also
given the birds of the air into thy hand, and hath put all things under thy power: thou therefore art
the head of gold.
39. And after thee shall rise up another kingdom, inferior to thee, of silver: and another third
kingdom of brass, which shall rule over all the world.
40. And the fourth kingdom shall be as iron. As iron breaketh into pieces, and subdueth all things,
so shall that break and destroy all these.
2. The Roman Empire is the last state form that is to last to the Last Judgment. This idea
exemplifies a common eschatological feeling at that time, based on St. Paul, 1
Corinthians, 10: 11: [] Thus, the Heavenly Kingdom was to be carried on and restored
through the Roman Empire, hence, renovatio imperii [renewal of the empire]
3. Another Biblical idea was added according to which, due to the vicious nature of
human beings, the empire (kingdom) cannot stay long with one people, but the dominium
is to be "transferred" from one people to another. Hence, the idea of translatio imperii
[transference of the empire] [cf. Biblia Vulgata, Ecclesiasticus, 10:8 regnum a gente in
gentem transfertur propter iniustitias et iniurias et contumelias et diversos dolos
[Douay-Rheims Bible: A kingdom is translated from one people to another, because of
injustices, and wrongs, and injuries, and divers deceits.]
These ideas were taken over in the political views by various European kings throughout the
Middle Ages and up to the Renaissance, from Charlemagne to Henry VIII [Tudor] who claimed to
be legitimate heirs of the Holy Roman Empire
2. The Latin heritage: the significance of romanitas [Curtius, EL, pp.30-35]
The Romania:
- all the romanized territories in which the Germanic populations adopted and used popular or
vulgar Latin made up an area designated as Romania
The Latin language:
- a distinction was made between types of Latin:
- literary Latin
- popular or vulgar Latin, which was adopted and came to make up different
vernaculars, lingua rustica or lingua romana
- the Romance languages and literatures (Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese) based on Latin
language made possible the various Revivals or Renaissances
- the various European Renaissances, which occurred primarily with the Romance speaking
populations, prepared, in a certain manner, the high Renaissance
II. The concepts of Renaissance and Humanism

1.The concept of Renaissance and Renaissances
(i)Definitions:
- The great revival of art and letters, under the influence of the classical models, which began in
Italy in the 14th c. and continued during the 15th and 16th ; also the period during which this
movement was in progress. [Oxford English Dictionary]
- The Renaissance is also generally described as a conception that situated man in the centre of
the universe.
(ii) Conflicting views concerning the definition of the Renaissance

There are basically two positions:
(a)The 15th c. [approx.] Renaissance marks a break with the Middle Ages and is characterized by
- the emergence of individualism
- a new understanding of the world and nature from a scientific point of view
(b) There was more than one Renaissance, in fact there were several revivals, Renaissances [or
Renascences], that occurred throughout the Middle Ages. These revivals carried out the idea of
the imperial and Christian Rome and together with them, the classical education and
philosophical conceptions and prepared the 15th c. Renaissance
In our view: the high Renaissance did mark a shift in the way in which man understood himself in
relation to the world:
- man began to rely primarily on the mathematical model, which he situated at the basis of his
scientific explanation of the world
- as an individual, he defined himself as a subject and a source of truth (certainty) for all the other
things, which became objects
2. Humanism [see [see Kristller, RTS, pp, 17-21]
(a) Definition
- the term humanism comes from being educated in the liberal arts, Lat. humanitas, Gr. paideia
- it was used by Cicero and Aulius Gellius and later taken over by 14 th c. Italian scholars,
- it designated an educational programme, in the sense of educated in the humanist arts,
later it came to mean a philosophical system
- it is somehow related to homo, man, and to what it requires to be man, human, i.e., humanus,
which is something to be acquired through education in the humanities [liberal arts]
each Renaissance is accompanied by a retrieval of classical education
(b) Forms of European Renaissance and humanism. [Curtius, EL, see especially pp. 36-48]
- The Carolingian Renaissance (Charlemagne) and the humanism of the Palatine school (Alcuin
of York)
- The 12th c. Renaissance in France and the humanism of the School of Chartres (John of
Salisbury)
- The 14th c. Renaissance in Italy and the early humanists (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio)
- The 15th c. Renaissance in Italy and the Florentine Neoplatonism (Marsilio Ficino, Pico dela
Mirandola, Leon Battista Alberti)
(c) The English Renaissances:
- Medieval humanism during Alfred the Great [849-499]
- The 10th c. Benedictine Revival under King Edgar
The 15th c. humanism:
- Thomas Linacre, [1460-1524]
- William Grocyn [1446-1519]
- John Colet [1467-1519]
- William Lyly [1468-1522]
The 16th c. humanism:
- Thomas More [1478-1535]
- Thomas Elyot [1490-1546]: The Boke named the Governour
- Roger Ascham [1515-1568]: The Scholmaster
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- Francis Bacon [1561-1626]: Novum organum scientiarum, Instauratio magna, Essays
C.TEXTS
From King Alfred the Great, Preface to Gregorys Cura pastoralis
[] Then when I remembered all this, then I also remembered how I saw, before it had all been
ravaged and burnt, how the churches throughout all England stood filled with treasures and
books, and there were also a great many of God's servants. And they had very little benefit from
those books, for they could not understand anything in them, because they were not written in
their own language. As if they had said: 'Our ancestors, who formerly held these places, loved
wisdom, and through it they obtained wealth and left it to us. Here we can still see their
footprints, but we cannot track after them.' And therefore we have now lost both the wealth and
the wisdom, because we would not bend down to their tracks with our minds.
Then when I remembered all this, then I wondered extremely that the good and wise men who
were formerly throughout England, who had completely learned all those books, would not have
translated any of them into their own language. But I immediately answered myself and said:
'They did not think that men ever would become so careless and learning so decayed: they
deliberately refrained,for they would have it that the more languages we knew, the greater
wisdom would be in this land.'
Then I remembered how the law was first composed in the Hebrew language, and afterwards,
when the Greeks learned it, they translated it all into their own language, and also all other books.
And afterwards the Romans in the same way, when they had learned them, translated them all
through wise interpreters into their own language. And also all other Christian peoples translated
some part of them into their own language. Therefore it seems better to me, if it seems so to you,
that we also translate certain books, which are most needful for all men to know, into that
language that we all can understand, and accomplish this, as with God's help we may very easily
do if we have peace, so that all the youth of free men now in England who have the means to
apply themselves to it, be set to learning, while they are not useful for any other occupation, until
they know how to read English writing well. One may then instruct in Latin those whom one
wishes to teach further and promote to a higher rank.
Then when I remembered how knowledge of Latin had formerly decayed throughout England,
and yet many knew how to read English writing, then I began among the other various and
manifold cares of this kingdom to translate into English the book that is called in Latin Pastoralis,
and in English "Shepherd-book," sometimes word for word, and sometimes sense for sense, just
as I had learned it from Plegmund my archbishop and from Asser my bishop and from Grimbold
my masspriest and from John my masspriest. When I had learned it I translated it into English,
just as I had understood it, and as I could most meaningfully render it. And I will send one to each
bishopric in my kingdom, and in each will be an stel worth fifty mancuses. And I command in
God's name that no man may take the stel from the book nor the book from the church. It is
unknown how long there may be such learned bishops as, thanks to God, are nearly everywhere.
Therefore I would have them always remain in place, unless the bishop wishes to have the book
with him, or it is loaned out somewhere, or someone is copying it.
Francis Bacon, Of Studies
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness
and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of
business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the
general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned.
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To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to
make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are
perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study;
and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by
experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for
they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by
observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find
talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be
swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in
parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and
attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that
would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books
are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready
man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great
memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have
much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the
mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there is no stond or
impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may
have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and
breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a mans wit be
wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never
so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study
the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over
matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers cases.
So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
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LECTURE NOTES III
ANGLO-SAXON LITERATURE
Sources:
Primary Sources:
Anonymous, Beowulf, ed. Wren, C.L. (London: Harrap, 1953)
Anonymous, Beowulf, modern English version in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed.
Kermode, F., J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp. 20-98
Assers Life of King Alfred, Trans. S. Keynes, M. Lapidge, Penguin, 1983
Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Trans.L.Sherley-Price, Penguin, 1990
Caedmons Hymn, both versions in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F.,
J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp. 19-20
Secondary sources:
Baugh, A.C., ed., A Literary History of England (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948), pp. 3105
Daiches, D., A Critical History of English Literature, vol.1 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1969),
pp. 3-30
Day, M.S., A History of English Literature to Sixteen Sixty (Doubleday, 1963), pp.39-45
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp, 1-22
Wren, C.L., Introduction.Beowulf (London: Harrap, 1953), pp. 9-84
A. Historical Background:
1. The Anglo-Saxon invasions and their organization:
- [see detailed account in Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Bk.I, 15; 25].
- beginning with the 5th c. England was invaded by Germanic tribes:
The Jutes : Kent, Isle of Wight
The Saxons: Essex, Sussex, Wessex
The Angles: East Anglia, Middle Anglia, Mercia, Northumbria
- after their invasion, the Anglo-Saxons settled down into seven kingdoms [Heptarchy] that began
to fight for supremacy
- he most important kkingdoms that emerged were
- Mercia under King Offa
- Wessex under King Alfred the Great
2. The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity:
(i) The Celtic mission:
- After St. Patrick converted the Irish (5th c), Ireland becomes a center of Christian spirituality
and missionarism.
- Sister monasteries houses
- 6th c. Columba (Iona)
- 7th c. Aidan (Lindisfarne)
- 8th c. Bede (Jarrow and Wearmouth)
(ii) The Roman [Gregoria] mission:
- 6th c. (597) a mission was sent by Gregory the Great led by St Augustine. In Kent he converted
Ethelred, whose Frankish wife, Ethelberga, was already a christian
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- later, Paulinus converted king Edwin (Northumbria)
- major centres: Canterbury and Glastonbury
- 7th c. Theodore of Tarsus, Hadrian, Benedict Biscop brought about important Byzantine and
Mediterranean influences and organized education.
- in the 10th .c. the Benedictine monks contributed to the manuscript tradition in England
- two authors best known for their [prose] sermons: Aelfric and Wulfstan
B. Anglo-Saxon literature:
1. General aspects of Anglo-Saxon literature
(i) Anglo-Saxon literature combines:
- The Germanic tradition of heroic poetry
- Christian themes, which are borrowed or adapted
- Latin and Greek themes, adapted by Christianity (classical elegy, eulogy, consolatio, the
ubi sunt theme, etc).
- Adaptations of style and conventions can be found working in both ways:
- Christian personalities are describes as warlike figures: Moses [Exodus}, Christ [Dream
of the Rood]
- Germanic heroes take over Christian features [Beowulf]
(ii) Purposes of Anglo-Saxon literature: entertainment, morality, history
- to entertain (the scop or bard)
- to praise or console
- to preserve important events, personalities, lineages (historical and exemplary, moral)
(iii) Style (written texts) marked by
- caesura into half lines
- alliteration
- kennings (fixed metaphors) : sea - riding place of the whale; feather- bird's joy, etc.,
2. Corpus of manuscripts
- Cotton Vitellius:
The Life of St. Christopher, The Wonders of the East, The Letter of Alexander, Beowulf,
Judith
- The Junius Ms.,
- The Book of Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan
- The Exeter Book:
- Christ, Juliana, The Wanderer, The Seafrer, Widsith, Deor's Lament
- The Vercelli Book:
- The Book of Andreas, The Fate of Apostles, The Address of the Soul to the Body, The
Dream of the Rood, Elene
3. Chronology:
First period: 7th-9th centuries
Poetry:
(a) Religious poetry (7th c.):
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- Caedmon's school: Caedmon's Hymn; also: Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, Christ and Satan
- Cynewulf's school: The Fate of the Apostles, Christ (Ascension), Juliana, Andreas,
Guthlac, Elene)
- The Dream of the Rood
- The Anglo-Saxon Bestiary: The Whale, The Panther; The Phoenix (Lactantius)
(b) Courtly poetry:
- Widsith, Deor's Lament
(c) Heroic poetry:
- Beowulf, The Battle of Maldon
Prose:
- Anglo-Latin prose writings and translations (7th c.-9th c);
- 7th -8th c. The Canterbury School (Theodore of Tarsus, Hadrian)
- Aldhelm (rhythmical poetry in Latin)
- 7th c. The Jarrow and Wearmouth School (Benedict Biscop)
- 7th -8th Venerable Bede : Anglo Latin writer, monk (Jarrow); he wrote grammatical and
rhetorical handbooks; scientific treatises; biblical commentaries;
-The Ecclesisastical History of the English People: useful information concerning the life
and mentality of the Anglo-Saxons
Second period: 10th 11th centuries: the early Renaissances:
(a) The Alfredian Renaissance (9th-10th c.)
(b) The Benedictine Revival (10th c.)
(a) The Alfredian Renaissance:
- King Alfred the Great (871-900) of Wessex:
- a significant military leader, administrator and scholar
- Alfred's educational programme was meant:
- to link Anglo-Saxon culture to the continent, especially to the classical European
traditions of ancient Greece and Rome;
- to institute some continental legitimacy for the Anglo-Saxon kingdom
- to educate the clergy into classical and Christian culture
- to develop a complex programme of translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon:
- Alfred wanted to develop a complex programme of translations from Latin into Anglo-Saxon:
- He himself translated various works:
Historical: (5th c), Orosius, Historia universalis (The History of the World); Venerable
Bede (7th c), Historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum
Biblical: The Psalms
Theological: Gregory the Great, The Pastoral Care (De cura pastoralis): the duties of the
clergy; bishops must be learned in order to be able to teach others; St. Augustine,
Soliloquies (Soliloquia):
Bk I. Search for the presence of God through: hope, faith, charity and truth (sperantia,
fides, caritas, veritas)
Bk.II.on the immortality of the soul
Bk.III. of Seeing God (wisdom that accompanies the soul in its afterlife)
Philosophical: Boethius (6th c.): The Consolation of philosophy
Bk.I.: knowledge of the self
Bk.II.: the fickleness of Fortune
Bk.III.true happiness is in God alone
Bk.IV.: evil never goes unpunished nor good unrewarded
Bk.V. on man's free will which is consonant with God's foreknowledge
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(b) 10th 11th c. The Benedictine Revival

- under King Edgar): the Benedictine monks wrote books on grammar, historiography,
hagiography (lives of the saints)
- two other authors contributed to the development of literature soon after:
- Aelfric [11thc.]: grammars, glossaries, homilies [sermons] (in Latin and in the vernacular)
- Wulfstan [11th.c]: Sermo Lupi ad Anglos [Wulfs sermon to the English]
C. Textual excerpts from the readings.
TEXT I
Caedmons Hymn [The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J. Hollander et
al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp.19-20]
- the poem was assigned to Caedmon [7th c.]
- it lists several attributes of the Godhead, insisting on those of creator, all mighty protector,
eternal, some of which were current in liturgy
Now we must praise
Of the Lord the power
The work of the Glory-Father,
The eternal Lord,
He first created
Heaven as a roof,
Then the middle-enclosure
The eternal Lord,
For men, earth
of heaven's kingdom the Keeper

and his Wisdom
as he of marvels each,
the beginning established.
the earth for the sons
the holy Creator.
of mankind the Protector
thereafter made
the Lord Almighty.
TEXT II
Beowulf
1. Basic information:
- Ms. Cotton Vitellius A XV
- Composed in East Anglia probably by a Danish cleric around 700, subsequently in written
form around 1000, in Late Wessex dialect, recorded by two scribes
- the earliest epic, it deals with Scandinavian characters: Geats, Danes, Swedes
- contains significant pagan elements in descriptions of customs, rites, deities
- Christian elements refer mostly to Old Testament [Cain, Fall of Angels, the Deluge], while
other [references to Christ, angels, holy relics, cross, etc] are missing
- influences: it is possible the English author may have known the Aeneid], perhaps Homer, as
well as religious Anglo-Saxon poems
2. Structure [narrative]:
- divided into two episodes: B. as a young warrior and B as old king
- elaborate complex of fact and myth
3. Characterization of Beowulf:
- Beowulf, the hero, is high-minded, courageous, gentle, and eventually sacrifices himself for
his people
4. Aim of the poem
- similar to the Roman Aeneid, exalting a past belonging to the poet's culture, but which is
expressed under the influence of a foreign civilization (as was Greece to the Latin poet Virgil)
- a picture of a heathen and heroic society coloured by Christian ideals of thought and deed
Excerpt: Beowulf [final part]
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[] Then fashioned for him the folk of Geats
firm on the earth a funeral-pile,
and hung it with helmets and harness of war
and breastplates bright, as the boon he asked;
and they laid amid it the mighty chieftain,
heroes mourning their master dear.
Then on the hill that hugest of balefires
the warriors wakened. Wood-smoke rose
black over blaze, and blent was the roar
of flame with weeping (the wind was still),
till the fire had broken the frame of bones,
hot at the heart. In heavy mood
their misery moaned they, their master's death.
Wailing her woe, the widow old,
her hair upbound, for Beowulf's death
sung in her sorrow, and said full oft
she dreaded the doleful days to come,
deaths enow, and doom of battle,
and shame. -- The smoke by the sky was devoured.
The folk of the Weders fashioned there
on the headland a barrow broad and high,
by ocean-farers far descried:
in ten days' time their toil had raised it,
the battle-brave's beacon. Round brands of the pyre
a wall they built, the worthiest ever
that wit could prompt in their wisest men.
They placed in the barrow that precious booty,
the rounds and the rings they had reft erewhile,
hardy heroes, from hoard in cave, -trusting the ground with treasure of earls,
gold in the earth, where ever it lies
useless to men as of yore it was.
Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode,
atheling-born, a band of twelve,
lament to make, to mourn their king,
chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor.
They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess
worthily witnessed: and well it is
that men their master-friend mightily laud,
heartily love, when hence he goes
from life in the body forlorn away.
Thus made their mourning the men of Geatland,
for their hero's passing his hearth-companions:
quoth that of all the kings of earth,
of men he was mildest and most beloved,
to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise.
13
LECTURE NOTES IV
MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE [1].
MEDIEVAL ALLEGORY
Sources:
Primary sources:
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, trans. D. Slavitt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2008)
Capella, Martianus, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, trans. W. H. Stahl and R. Johnson,
with E. L. Burge. Vol. 2 of Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1977), pp.223-226
Lorris, G., and J.de Meung, The Roman of the Rose [http://romandelarose.org/#illustrations ]
Piers Plowman by William Langland. An Annotated Edition, ed.Pearsall, D (Berkley, University
of California Press, 1982)
Piers the Plowman, excerpts from the B-Text:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/langland/pp-pass1.html
Secondary Sources
Baugh, A.C., ed., A Literary History of England (London:Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948),
pp.109-151
Curtius, R.E., Latin Middle Ages and European Literature, trans.W.R.Trask (Princeton: Princeton
UP, 1953), pp.106-127
Daiches, D., A Critical History of English Literature, vol.1 (London:Secker and Warburg, 1969),
pp.31-88
Lewis, C.S., The Discarded Image. An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature
(Cambridge: CUP, 1964)
Lewis, C.S., The Allegory of Love. A Study in the Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon,1936),
pp. 44-111;112-156
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R.M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp. 23-28
A. Historical Background
- By the beginning of the 11th c the Anglo-Saxon/Danish population was confronted with the
invasion of the French Normans. In 1066, the Anglo-Saxons led by king Harold were defeated by
the Normans, led by Duke William, afterwards known as William the Conqueror.
- The English Middle Ages were marked by violent and lengthy conflagrations: England took part
in the Hundred Years War [14th c.], it experienced civil war [the War of the Roses, 15 th c.], and
social uprisings or even incipient religious differences [the Lollard movement, 14 th c].
- The Norman rule in England was characterized by an increased continental influence: Norman
aristocracy displaced the local, Anglo-Danish one, and forced it into a secondary position. As
most of the Norman nobility owned properties both in France and England, during this time
England became closely connected to the continent. Under Williams followers and later, under
the dynasty of Anjou/Plantagenet, English society was structured according to feudal rules and
tribal links and vassalage connections reinforced one another. English politics, administration,
and culture were dominated by the Norman French traditions.
- Insofar as culture was concerned, this period contributed with a remarkable ecclesiastical
architecture and a flourishing of the decorative arts. At the same time the rise of universities
Oxford and Cambridge, led by personalities such as Robert Grosseteste [Oxford], were
instrumental in renewing the interest for the classical studies thereby including England in the 13 th
14
c. continental Renaissance.
- The population was divided along linguistic lines, the former Anglo-Saxon population speaking
Anglo-Saxon, and trying to preserve their customs and culture, whereas the new aristocracy and
clergy used Norman French or ecclesiastical Latin. More sophisticated continental traditions were
brought to England, which contributed to the development of literature.
B. Middle English Literature.Period and general characteristics:
(i) Period
(a) Period of religious record (1066-1250)
- efforts to instruct the people
(b) Period of religious and secular literature (1250-1356)
- various forms of literature, including French and English romances
(c) Period of the great individual authors
- Geoffrey Chaucer, the Pearl poet, William Langland, John Wycliff
(d) Imitative or transitional period (1400-1500)
- marked by Chaucer's influence
(ii) General characteristics of literature after the Norman Conquest:
- after a first period characterized by a division of languages, during the last part of the Middle
Ages, under Norman pressure, Old English experienced a transformation which eventually led to
the emergence of Middle English, with various local dialects.
- under the Norman influence the English acquire continental tastes in literature and become
acquainted with the European literature which had shaped those tastes
- the Normans develop the institution of patronage (wealthy Normans supported the development
of the arts)
- the learned clergy stimulated education and the intellectual life
- languages used: Norman French, Latin, Anglo-Saxon; later: Middle English
- it was a period of enrichment of the English language, mostly through synonymy
- the literature of this period was available in a large body of material
- the Teutonic alliterative verse was replaced by French syllabic rhyme (that prevailed in Europe)
(a) Survival of the Old English tradition
- there is still interest in Anglo-Saxon literature
- Anglo-Saxon mss. are still copied: King Alfred's translation of Boethius, Aelfric's homilies, The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (up to 1154), Cnut's Song
- A whole range of religious and moral literature develops:
- Verse sermon:Poema morale,
- Penitential literature: Sinners Beware (warning against the 7 deadly sins, a memento mori;
- Monastic rules: Ancrene Riwle
- Hagiographic writings: The Katherine group: Exaltation of Virginity, Lives of St. Katherine,
Juliana, Margaret
(b) Introduction of Norman literature: (12th c.-13th c.)
- literature was stimulated by royal patronage of Henry I, Queen Matilda, and then Henry II and
Eleanor of Aquitaine
- moral and edifying themes rather, than fictional prevailed
- the most frequent themes were
- histories: Wace (Brut), Monmouth (The History of the Kings of England)
romances (the romance cycles)
15
2. Types of literary discourse

Genres:
(i) poetry
- fabliau (pl. fabliaux): crude, indecent stories of coarse humour
- fables: moralizing poems using animals to express human vices/virtues
- caroles/songs (of love and marriage)
- romances: poems about love and heroic deeds of arms
(ii) prose:
- history, philosophy, political treatises, biographies, religious treatises, mystical writings
(iii) drama: - religious drama
mysteries (Biblical stories concerning events and personalities form the Old and New Testaments)
miracles (lives of the saints)
moralities (fight between goo and evil: vices and virtues)
interludes (comical plays)
3. Mediaeval allegory:
[references are especially to C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love, pp. 44-111; 112-156]
(a) Definition:
- a rhetorical figure/device belonging to interpretation
- links together two different meanings, an abstract meaning is rendered intelligible by another
concrete meaning (image)
- during the Middle Ages allegory was employed on a large scale
(b) Origins in:
(i)The change in the perception of the sacred
- a change begins during the late Antiquity, which is parallelled by the rise of Christianity as a
main religion,
- in this process, the ancient gods are increasingly perceived as mere personifications and not
as divinities:
- Ares (Mars) - no longer the God of war but a (literary) representation or personification
of war;
- Kronos (Saturn) - no longer the titan, is assimilated to Chronos, a personification of
time
- abstract notions like faith (Fides), harmony (Concordia), mind (Mens), Piety (Pite),
Nature (Kinde or Kin) are understood as personifications
-
(ii) The profound change in the understanding of moral experience

a change occurs at the level of morality as well
the ancient Greek (Aristotle) considered that a really moral or good man abstains voluntarily
from doing evil; that there was ease and pleasure in accomplishing good acts; and that no
moral effort was necessary to do good things
during the late Antiquity and early Middle Ages, Christianity (with St. Paul, Augustine,
Tertullian, Prudentius) takes over and adapts Roman ethics (Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus
Aurelius)
from this perspective, there is a conflict between duty and inclination
a new ethics appears, which is based on the notion of temptation and implicitly, of sin
as a consequence the idea of fight against temptation induces the idea of man as a soldier
16
(miles) later adopted by mediaeval knighthood
The fight between good and evil in various authors:
Classical authors:
- Epictetus regards life as a soldier's service
- Seneca thinks that soldiers do not rest but try to conquer all things
Christian authors:
- St. Paul sees Christ as a fighter against Satan and the good Christian has to emulate Christ
- St. Augustine speaks of a divided will and fight between good will and bad will
- Prudentius, in his poem Psychomachia, speaks of a struggle (psychomachia) over the human
soul between good and evil, i.e., between virtue and vice
A consequences of this moral change can be seen in the allegorization of vices and virtues [as
human representations], of man [as a soldier], or of mans life [as fight or pilgrimage], etc.
(iii) The development of rhetoric
rhetoric had a special connection with the interpretation of obscure passages in the Bible
there were several interpretations of Scripture:
- literal: grammatical- historical meaning
- allegorical or typological: prefigurations of New Testament in the Old Testament
- tropological (moral); moral interpretations
- anagogical (eschatological); interpretations related to salvation and afterlife
- according to a medieval adage attributed to Nicholas of Lyra [1330]:
"Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, / Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia"
("The letter teaches the deeds/actions, the allegory [teaches] what you believe, the moral how
you act, the anagogical where you are going")]
- Dante also speaks of the four meanings, or senses, of allegory in his epistle to Can Grande della
Scala. He says the allegories of his work are not simple, but:
Rather, it may be called "polysemous", that is, of many senses [allegories]. A first sense derives
from the letters themselves, and a second from the things signified by the letters. We call the first
sense "literal" sense, the second the "allegorical", or "moral" or "anagogical". To clarify this
method of treatment, consider this verse: When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from
a barbarous people: Judea was made his sanctuary, Israel his dominion (Psalm 113). Now if we
examine the letters alone, the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses is
signified; in the allegory, our redemption accomplished through Christ; in the moral sense, the
conversion of the soul from the grief and misery of sin to the state of grace; in the anagogical
sense, the exodus of the holy soul from slavery of this corruption to the freedom of eternal glory..
they can all be called allegorical.
(c) Types of allegory:
- during the Middle Ages allegory is used on a large scale
(i) didactic:
- in theoretical books or curricula grammar, rhetoric, philoosphy and other disciplines are
illustrated by allegories , feminine characters such as Lady Grammar, Lady Rhetoric, Lady
Philosophy, etc. as in Prudentius, Boethius, Martianus Capella [ see Annex for detailed
references]
(ii) erotic:
- allegorical characters indicate various moods, states of mind, feelings, virtues, vices, etc. related
to courtly love
17
- for example in Le Roman de la Rose, began by Guillaume de Lorris and completed by Jean de
Meung [13th c.], the authors describe how the Lover courts his Lady and eventually succeeds to
pick a the red Rose [allegorical representation of fulfilled love]. In his quest he meets various
characters which are allegorical illustrations of courtly love as Generosity, or of the Ladys
moods, such Fair Welcome or Jealousy, etc.
(iii) homiletic:
- homiletic allegories are meant to illustrate religious questions which may be difficult to
understand or to provid ea refined expression for these questions
- examples of homiletic allegores can be found in William Langland, Piers Plowman, or in the
anonymous morality Everyman
- allegorical characters: Piers Plowman (for Christ or the good Christian); Everyman (for all
mankind)
- allegorical actions : life as a pilgrimage or an ordeal
- allegorical states of mind or habits: Recklesness (nesabuinta), the seven Deadly Sins (Avarice,
Envy, Greed, Pride, Anger, Sloth, Lechery); the three virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity
- allegories of institutions: the Church
C. TEXTS:
[This might give you an idea about the homiletic allegories]
William Langland [c.1332?-1400?] is the supposed author of Piers Plowman
- The Poem exists in 3 versions: The A-Text: Prologue and Vision of Piers Plowman; the B-Text:
A-Text revised to which another text is added: Life of Do-Well, Do-Better and Do-Best; C-Text , a
revised version of the previous
- It is an example of complex forms of various medieval allegories [characters, events, etc.]
- the Prologue describes the disastrous situation of London, a corrupt city and immoral city, and
is followed by the description of Piers [the ploughman] attempts to remedy this situation by
showing the people the way to attain moral redemption by confession, contrition and repentance.
[for more details see: http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/langland/
Piers The Plowman,
Passus I,
[8][] "Reddite Caesari," quoth God "that Caesari belongeth
Et quae sunt Dei, Deo or else ye do ill."
For rightful Reason should rule you all,
And Mother-Wit be warden your wealth to keep,
And tutor of your treasure to give it you at need;
For husbandry and they hold well together.'
Then I asked her plainly by him that made her,
`That dungeon in the dale that dreadful is to see,
What may it mean ma dame, I beseech you?'
`That is the castle of Care whoso cometh therein
May curse he was born in body or in soul.
Therein abideth a wight that is called Wrong,
Father of Falsehood who built it himself.
Adam and Eve he egged on to ill;
Counselled Cain to kill his brother;
Judas he jockeyed with Jewish silver,
And then on elder hanged him after.
18
He is the letter of love and lieth to all;
Those who trust in his treasure betrayeth he soonest.
Then had I wonder in my wit what woman it were
That such wise words of Holy Writ showed,
And asked her in the high name ere she thence went,
Who indeed she was that taught me so fairly?
[9]`Holy Church I am,' quoth she 'thou oughtest me to know.
I received thee first and taught thee the faith,
And thou broughtest me sponsors my bidding to fulfil
And to love me loyally while thy life lasteth.'
Then I fell on my knees and cried of her grace,
And prayed her piteously to pray for my sins,
And to teach me kindly on Christ to believe,
That I might work his will that made of me man.
`Show me no treasure but tell me this only -How may I save my soul thou that holy art held?'
When al I trasures are tried,' quoth she 'truth is the best;
I appeal to Deus caritas to tell thee truth;
It is as dear a darling as dear God himself.
[Source:
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/langland/pp-pass1.html]
D. ANNEX:
Prudentius, Psychomachia
London, Bristish Library MS Cotton Cleopatra C. VIII, Canterbury, Christ Church
"The Psychomachia by Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens, b. A.D. 348) was one of the
most popular Latin poems of the early Middle Ages...[This manuscript] dates to the late tenth or
early eleventh century...The poem recounts battles between seven pairs of virtues and vices,
personified as warrior maidens."
Fides (Faith) and Veterum Cultura Deorum (Worship of Old Gods)
Pudicitia (Chastity) and Sodomita Libido (Lust of the Sodomite)
Patientia (Patience) and Ira (Anger)
Mens Humilis (Humility) and Superbia (Pride)
Sobrietas (Soberness) and Luxuria (Indulgence)
Operatio (Good Works) and Avaritia (Avarice)
Concordia (Concord) and Discordia (Discord)
[Source: Ohlgren, Thomas H., ed. Anglo-Saxon Textual Illustration. (Kalamazoo, Mich. :
Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1992.)
http://www.uvm.edu/~hag/rhuddlan/images/]
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy
I was writing this in a silence broken only by the scratchings of my quill as I recorded these
gloomy thoughts and tried to impose upon them a certain form that in itself is curiously anodyne,
19
when there was a presence of which I gradually became aware looming over my head, the fi g ure
of a woman whose look filled me with awe. Her burning gaze was indescribably penetrating,
unlike that of anyone I have ever met, and while her complexion was as fresh and glowing as that
of a girl, I realized that she was ancient and that nobody would mistake her for a creature of our
time. It was impossible to estimate her height, for she seemed at first to be of ordinary measure,
but then, without seeming to change, she appeared to be extraordinarily tall, so that her head all
but touched the heavens. I was certain that if she had a mind to stretch her neck just a little, her
face would penetrate the skies, where it would be utterly lost to human view. Her dress was a
miracle of fine cloth and meticulous workmanship, and, as I later learned, she had woven it
herself. But it had darkened like a smoke-blackened family statue in the atrium as if through
neglect and was dingy and worn. I could see worked into the bottom border the Greek letters
(pifor practice) and slightly higher (thetafor theory) with steps that were marked between
them to form a ladder by which one might climb from the lower to the upper. Some ruffians had
done violence to her elegant dress, and clearly bits of the fabric had been torn away. In her right
hand she held a few books, and in her left she carried a scepter.
[Source: Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, trans. D. Slavitt (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP,
2008)]
Martianus, Capella. The Marriage of Philology and Mercury.
Grammar
[223] So Latona's son [Apollo] moved forward from her former place one of the servants of
Mercury, an old woman indeed but of great charm, who said that she had been born in Memphis
when Osiris was still king; when she had been a long time in hiding, she was found and brought
up by the Cyllenian [Mercury] himself. This woman claimed that in Attica, where she had lived
and prospered for the greater part of her life, she moved about in Greek dress; but because of the
Latin gods and the Capitol and the race of Mars and descendants of Venus, according to the
custom of Romulus [i.e., Roman custom] she entered the senate of the gods dressed in a Roman
cloak. She carried in her hands a polished box, a fine piece of cabinetmaking, which shone on the
outside with light ivory, from which like a skill physician the woman took out the emblems of
wounds that need to be healed. [244] Out of this box she took first a pruning knife with a shining
point, with which he said she could prune the faults of pronunciation in children; then they could
be restored to health with a certain black powder carried through reeds, a powder which was
thought to be made of ash or the ink of cuttlefish. Then she took out a very sharp medicine which
she had made of fennel flower and the clippings from a goat's back, a medicine of purest red
color, which she said should be applied to the throat when it was suffering from bucolic ignorance
and was blowing out the vile breaths of a corrupt pronunciation. She showed to a delicious
savory, the work of many lat nights and vigils, with which she said the harshness of the most
unpleasant voice could be made melodious. [225] She also cleaned the windpipes and the lungs
by the application of a medicine in which observed wax smeared on beechwood and a mixture of
gallnuts and gum and rolls of the Nilotic plant [papyrus]. Although this poultice was effective in
assisting memory and attention, yet by its nature it kept people awake. [226] She also brought out
a file fashioned with great skill, which was divided into eight golden parts joined in different
ways, and which darted back and forth--with which by gentle rubbing she gradually cleaned dirty
teeth and ailments of the tongue and the filth which had been picked up in the town of Soloe.
[Trans. note: I.e., solecisms. <From the OED entry for solecism: "speaking incorrectly, stated
by ancient writers to refer to the corruption of the Attic dialect among the Athenian colonists at
Soloi in Cilicia.>] (64-65)
[Source: Martianus, Capella. The Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Translated by William
Harris Stahl and Richard Johnson, with E. L. Burge. Vol. 2 of Martianus Capella and the Seven
20
Liberal Arts (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977).]
Le Roman de la Rose [summary]:
Le Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris ca. 1230 and completed, in a different
style, ca. 1270-80, by Jean de Meun, builds on the concept of courtly love found in the poetry of
the troubadours. The authors create a complex allegory of the romance between the Lover and the
Rose. In the quest to pick the Rose (to achieve the conquest of love), the flower and its attendants
represent the Lady and her sentiments while being wooed.
In the first part of the poem, written by de Lorris, the Lover recounts his dream, ending with the
winning of a kiss from the Lady. In the dream, the Lover discovers a walled garden and gains
entrance thanks to a beautiful young woman. He meets Diversion and dancers who represent
courtly values such as Beauty and Generosity. A tour of the garden brings him to a beautiful bed
of roses by the Fountain of Love. Pierced by the arrows of the god of love, he sets out to pluck the
rosebud that has overwhelmed his senses. Love explains to the Lover how he ought to conduct
himself, and the conflicting emotions he will feel. With help from Warm Welcome, the Lover
makes his way through the thicket of thorns and confronts Danger and his allies, Slander, Fear
and others. Aided by Friend, Honesty, Pity and Venus, he succeeds in overcoming Chastity and
obtaining his desire.
His bliss is short-lived, as the forces of resistance oppose him in the second part of the poem,
written by de Meun. The Lover sets out on a renewed quest to conquer the heart of his love,
whom Jealousy has imprisoned along with Warm Welcome. The long and arduous battle is
interspersed with didactic lectures by such figures as Reason. False Appearance and Forced
Abstinence trick and strangle Slander, thus entering the wall and freeing Courtesy and Generosity.
The four confront the old woman guarding Warm Welcome, who advises on table manners and
dress for young women and recommends that they not be faithful to only one man, as men are by
nature untrustworthy.
The Lover gains admittance to see Warm Welcome, but is confronted with Danger, Shame and
Fear who imprison Welcome ever more securely. Before those forces can conquer the Lover, he
calls his army to assail the castle with the help of Venus (carnal love). Venus sets the castle on
fire, causing Danger, Jealousy and her companions to flee. The battle over, the Lover is able to
complete his pilgrimage and at last pluck the rosebud.
[Source: http://roseandchess.lib.uchicago.edu/rose.html]
21
LECTURE NOTES V
MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE [2]
COURTLY LOVE AND MYSTICAL LOVE
Sources [Courtly Love]:
Primary sources:
Anonymous, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature,
ed. Kermode, F., J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp. 284-348
Anonymous, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. M.Boroff (Norton, 1967)
Capellanus, Andreas, The Art of Courtly Love, trans. J. J. Parry (New York, Columbia UP, 1941),
at http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/courtly.html]
Secondary sources:
Baugh, A.C., ed., A Literary History of England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948), pp.
165-199
Daiches, D., A Critical History of English Literature, vol.1 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1969),
pp. 31-88
Fletcher, R.H., A History of English Literature (Boston: Badger, 2007[1919]), pp. 66-74
Lewis, C.S., The Allegory of Love.A Study in the Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1936),
pp.1-43.
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner,1918), pp, 28-34
Sources [Mystical Love]:

Primary sources:
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing, Walsh, J., Tugwell, S. (eds.), New York, Toronto: Paulist
Press, 1981)
Dionysius the Areopagite, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, vols.1,2, trans. J. Parker
(London: Parker, 1897)
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love, trans. G. Warrack, (1901)
Hilton, W., The Scale or Ladder of Perfection, Trans. J. B. Dalgairns (Westminster: Art and Book
Company, 1908)
Misyn, R., Rolle, R., The Fire of Love and Mending of Life or the Rule of Living, ed. Harvey, R.,
EETS, o.s.106 (1896)
Secondary sources:
Artz, F., The Mind of the Middle Ages. AD 200-1500. A Historical Survey (New York:Knopf,
1953) pp. 73-75
225-229
Minnis, A., Scott, A.P., Medieval Literary Theory and Criticism (c.1100-c.1375) (Oxford: OUP,
1988) pp. 165-173
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp.34-35
22
A. The Medieval Conception of Courtly Love
1. Courtly love: general aspects
(a) Description:
- a phenomenon that emerged in the Middle Ages
- it was understood as a relation of vassalage of a man to a woman of a higher social rank
- it appealed to a form of idealized adultery that was meant to be a trial to test resistance to
temptation
- it had its own code of honour and courts of judgment
- in this context love became associated with ritual courtesy and obedience
(b) Origins and influences:
- a combination of several traditions:
(i) a classical tradition: Ovid's Ars amandi (Ars amatoria)
(ii) a Christian tradition which advocated a revised attitude towards woman
- this shifted the focus from sinful woman (Eve) to woman as contributor to salvation as
mother of Christ (Mary)
- this view was supported by e diffusion of the cult of Virgin Mary introduced by the
crusaders from Eastern Christianity
(iii) the influence of Soufi (Muslim) mysticism
- the soul was represented as appearing after death in the shape of a woman (senhal)
(c) Texts:
- treatise: Andreas Capellanus: De arte honeste amandi (On the art of courtly love)
- poetry: the troubadours (Provence)
- the romance cycles (France and England)
2. Courtly literature: the mediaeval romances
(a) Definition:
- a romance is a "story of adventure in verse or prose involving fictitious and frequently
marvelous or supernatural elements
- in Middle English romances, love is either a subordinated or incidental element
- insofar as it tends to have an element of adventure, it may come close to a form of heroic epic
- the hero conforms to a pattern of ideal knight with little individual variation
(b) Cycles:
- the matters (or cycles) were named and classified as such by Jean Bodel (12 th c.)
(i) The matter of France:
- centred on Charlemagne and the fight against the infidel
The Song of Roland: Roland: is in the reargard of the French army and dies valiantly with his men
fighting the Saracens rather than call the rest of the army to help him
(ii) The matter of Rome the Great:
- sources used, not Homer but 4th c. Latin writers: Dyctis Cretensis and Dares Phrygius
and other subsequent authors: Benoit de Sainte Maure: Le Roman de Troie (12th c) and
Guido delle Colonne: The Story of the Fall of Troy (Historia destructionis Troiae) (13thc)
- important elements of the ancient classical world were translated into and taken over by the
Middle Ages :
Main topics:
- the Fall of Troy
23
- the story of Dido and Aeneas
- the story of Alexander
- the story of Theseus
(iii)The matter of Britain:
(a) The Arthurian cycle
- Influenced by previous literature and by Geoffrey of Monmouth: The History of the British
Kings (Historia regum brittonum) 12th c:
- it deals with the stories of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
- ramifications:
- the stories of Merlin,
- the stories of the Knights of the Round Table [Gawain and the Green Knight, Lancelot of the
Lake, etc]
-
(b) The Holy Grail (Joseph of Arimathea; Sir Percival) 12th c

deals with the quest of the Holy Grail, the chalice which Christ used during the Last Supper
or the Chalice in which his blood was gathered after the Crucifixion and which was brought
to England by Joseph of Arimathea;
The Knights of the Round Table try to retrieve it. The knight has to have a pure heart and
blameless behaviour. Although several try Lancelot, then Galahad, then Percival
(c) Tristram [Tristan] and Isoude (Iseult) 13th c.
- An adulterous love story between Tristram and his uncles bride, Isolde, which ends
with their death
(d) The matter of England: King Horn, Haveloc the Dane [added to the cycles at a later
time]
Stories dealing with Anglo-Saxon and Danish heroes (13th c):
B. The Medieval Tradition of Mystical Love

1.Mystical literature
- developed on the border between literature and theology
- tried to convey a direct experience of divinity in a style that was a combination of theological
and literary language
- developed around the idea that God made Himself manifest and perceptible to man in various
sensitive ways;
- inner sight and occasionally inner hearing were privileged spiritual senses because through
them had a vision of the divine, a theophany [Gr. Theos, God; phanes, vision]
2. The theological tradition of mystical love
(i) The influence of Pseudo Dionysius [Dionysius the Areopagite] [6 th c.]
- several significant theological treatises like The Mystical Theology or On the Divine Names also
known as the corpus areopagiticum, in which Greek Neoplatonic philosophy was used to
understand and explain aspects of Christian revelation, faith, and dogmas, were attributed to him
- in his writings he develops a mystical theology which tries to explain the direct experience that
man may have of God in a mystical, ecstatic, union conditioned by love; this experience, which
involves a negative way of knowing God [negative because going beyond intellectual
knowledge] exercised a considerable influence on Western mystical writings
24
3. Great British mystics:
(a) Robert Grosseteste (1168-1253)
- bishop of Lincoln, founder of Oxford University, scholastic philosopher, and theologian
- is known for his theological, philosophical and scientific treatises, religious literature [The
Castle of Love], translations [Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy]
[ for more details see Annex]
Treatise on Light
- according to Grosseteste,
- (i) the universe proceeds from an emanation of light which, through its brightness generates
the higher spheres and the elements, the matter with its forms and dimensions
- this uncreated light anticipates the world and is the linking element between God and his
creatures
- this light descends into the human soul and through it man can reach a beatific vision of God
(ii) divine light, created by God, is a kind of fire
- it is a generating principle, active in all elements,
- it is at the same time inside and outside them, similarly to a diffuse centre, which forms and
re-forms all structures
- can be grasped in the purity of various precious stones of different colours
(b) Richard Rolle ((1300-1349):
- hermit, writes religious treatises and lyrics
The Fire of Love (Incendium amoris) describes
- the way in which love for God can be experienced as
- a kind of sweetnes [Lat. dulcor]
- a kind of heat or burning [Lat. calor]
- a song that is heard with the inner senses [Lat. canor]
- four degrees of loving God which lead to an ecstatic union with Him can be achieved:
(i) unsurpassable love (Lat. amor insuperabilis)
- in this first state love predominates, will not yield to another feeling;
- it is a state characterized by humility and restraint;
- it shows in the observing the ten commandments and keeping free of sin
(ii) inseparable love (Lat. amor inseparabilis)
- now love is a constant companion, always in ones memory
- it is a state described in affective terms in which man forsakes, the world, lives poverty
and isolation and turns to God
(iii) unquenchable love (Lat. amor insatiabilis)
- when desire for being one with God appears as impossible to be satisfied
(iv) singular love, "singular luf, (Lat. amor singularis)
- when man experiences ghostly gladness, an ecstatic feeling characteristic to the
mystical union with God
(c) Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing [14th c.]
- elaborated in the tradition of negative theology of Ps.Dionysius
- a manual of contemplative life which provides advice to a young man concerning the way to
know God, not through reasoning [the intellect] but through contemplation of the heart,
conditioned by love; the mystical experience of God involves abandoning of worldly concerns by
surrendering them to a cloud of forgetting, and focusing ones heart on God.
25
For He can well be loved, but he cannot be thought. By love he can be grasped and held, but by
thought, neither grasped nor held. And therefore, though it may be good at times to think
specifically of the kindness and excellence of God, and though this may be a light and a part of
contemplation, all the same, in the work of contemplation itself, it must be cast down and covered
with a cloud of forgetting. And you must step above it stoutly but deftly, with a devout and
delightful stirring of love, and struggle to pierce that darkness above you; and beat on that thick
cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love, and do not give up, whatever happens."
(d)Walter Hilton [1340/5-1396],
- a well educated, Augustinian monk
The Scale of Perfection consists of two parts:
- Book I distinguishes among three degrees of knowing God: through reason and learning,
through affections and through both intellect and love, which is the perfect way.
- Book II speaks of the recovery of the divine image in man by a reformation of man in faith, in
feeling and in faith and feeling, which is the ultimate degree by which man can attain union with
God.
(e) Dame Julian of Norwich [1342-1416]
- a nun living at Norwich, who, on one occasion when she was extremely ill, had a series of
visions
- she is influenced by Biblical and theological texts
- she claims her experiences can be only partially expressed and only by way of metaphors;
Revelations of Divine Love (May, 13th 1373)
- Julian asks for three graces :
to remember Christ's passion;
to have three wounds: contrition, compassion, longing for God;
to have bodily sickness;
- her visions of the Crucifixion are recorded with a special emphasis on physical realism;
- she claims that knowledge of the Trinity can be reached by beginning in knowledge of oneself;
- love is assimilated to the contemplative fervour of the mind: love is meaning
- God should be seen as is love and compassion rather than wrath
(f) Margery Kempe (1373-1438)
- she dictated her book when she was 60 years old
- she was a housewife who had led a conventional life until she had a first vision, which cured her
of a crisis; after a second vision, accompanied by heavenly music, she changed her life: although
married she lived in chastity and went on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and to Rome.
The Book of Margery Kempe
- in her "visions" of Christ she was completely overwhelmed by a wave of compassion for Him,
she sobbed and cried loud
- the text also describes her life, her pilgrimages, as well as events of her time and contains a
number of her prayers
Margery Kempe reminds in a way of a popular form of devotion common to the Middle Ages, the
saintly women, mulieres sanctae, who lived in lay communities but followed a monastic rule of
life.
26
C. TEXT 1
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight [excerpt]
- the text is in Ms.Cotton Nero A.X. [the British Library], which is copy of an older ms.
- written in alliterative verse, with a short ending of each stanza [bob and wheel ending]
- describes the moral trial to which Sir Gawain, one of Arthurs knights, is submitted and his
failure to comply with chivalry standards.
- the excerpt illustrates the allegorical elements of his shield, part of the armour he puts on when
he leaves in search for his challenger, the Green Knight.
Part II
When he had on his arms, his harness was rich, 590
The least latchet or loop laden with gold;
So armored as he was, he heard a mass,
Honored God humbly at the high altar.
Then he comes to the king and his comrades-in-arms,
Takes his leave at last of lords and ladies, 595
And they clasped and kissed him, commending him to Christ.
By then Gringolet was girt with a great saddle
That was gaily agleam with fine gilt fringe,
New-furbished for the need with nail-heads bright;
The bridle and the bars bedecked all with gold; 600
The breast-plate, the saddlebow, the side-panels both,
The caparison and the crupper accorded in hue,
And all ranged on the red the resplendent studs
That glittered and glowed like the glorious sun.
His helm now he holds up and hastily kisses, 605
Well-closed with iron clinches, and cushioned within;
It was high on his head, with a hasp behind,
And a covering of cloth to encase the visor,
All bound and embroidered with the best gems
On broad bands of silk, and bordered with birds, 610
Parrots and popinjays preening their wings,
Lovebirds and love-knots as lavishly wrought
As many women had worked seven winters thereon,
entire.
The diadem costlier yet 615
That crowned that comely sire,
With diamonds richly set,
That flashed as if on fire.
Then they showed forth the shield, that shone all red,
With the pentangle portrayed in purest gold. 620
About his broad neck by the baldric he casts it,
That was meet for the man, and matched him well.
And why the pentangle is proper to that peerless prince
I intend now to tell, though detain me it must.
It is a sign by Solomon sagely devised 625
To be a token of truth, by its title of old,
For it is a figure formed of five points,
And each line is linked and locked with the next
For ever and ever, and hence it is called
In all England, as I hear, the endless knot. 630
And well may he wear it on his worthy arms,
For ever faithful five-fold in five-fold fashion
Was Gawain in good works, as gold unalloyed,
27
Devoid of all villainy, with virtues adorned
in sight. 635
On shield and coat in view
He bore that emblem bright,
As to his word most true
And in speech most courteous knight.
And first, he was faultless in his five senses, 640
Nor found ever to fail in his five fingers,
And all his fealty was fixed upon the five wounds
That Christ got on the cross, as the creed tells;
And wherever this man in melee took part,
His one thought was of this, past all things else, 645
That all his force was founded on the five joys
That the high Queen of heaven had in her child.
And therefore, as I find, he fittingly had
On the inner part of his shield her image portrayed,
That when his look on it lighted, he never lost heart. 650
The fifth of the five fives followed by this knight
Were beneficence boundless and brotherly love
And pure mind and manners, that none might impeach,
And compassion most preciousthese peerless five
Were forged and made fast in him, foremost of men. 655
Now all these five fives were confirmed in this knight,
And each linked in other, that end there was none,
And fixed to five points, whose force never failed,
Nor assembled all on a side, nor asunder either,
Nor anywhere at an end, but whole and entire 660
However the pattern proceeded or played out its course.
And so on his shining shield shaped was the knot
Royally in red gold against red gules,
That is the peerless pentangle, prized of old
in lore. 665
Now armed is Gawain gay,
And bears his lance before,
And soberly said good day,
He thought forevermore
[Source: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. M.Boroff (Norton, 1967)]
D. ANNEX I
Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love
- Of different kinds of love:
THE MAN SAYS: It is the pure love which binds together the hearts of two lovers with feelings
of delight. This kind consists in the contemplation of the mind and the affection of the heart; it
goes as far as the kiss and the embrace and the modest contact with the nude lover, omitting the
final solace. . . . But that is called mixed love which gets its effect from every delight of the flesh
and culminates in the final act of Venus. . . . This kind quickly fails, and one often regrets having
practiced it; by it one's neighbor is injured, the Heavenly King is offended, and from it come very
grave dangers. But I do not say this as though I meant to condemn mixed love, I merely wish to
show which of the two is preferable. But mixed love, too, is real love, and it is praiseworthy, and
we say that it is the source of all good things, although from it grave dangers threaten, too.
Therefore I approve of both pure love and mixed love, but I prefer to practice pure love. . . .
[Source: http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/courtly.html]
28
- On the rules and aims of Courting
THE MAN SAYS: I ought to give God greater thanks than any other living man in the whole
world because it is now granted me to see with my eyes what my soul has desired above all else
to see. . . . And I now know in very truth that a human tongue is not able to tell the tale of your
beauty and your prudence. . . . And I wish ever to dedicate to your praise all the good deeds that I
do and to serve your reputation in every way. For whatever good I may do, you may know that it
is done with you in mind. . . .
THE WOMAN SAYS: I am bound to give you many thanks for lauding me with such
commendations and exalting me with such high praise . . . . I am therefore glad if I am to you a
cause and origin of good deeds, and so far as I am able I shall always and in all things give you
my approval when you do well. . . .
THE MAN SAYS: I have chosen you from among all women to be my mighty lady, to whose
services I wish ever to devote myself and to whose credit I wish to set down all my good deeds.
From the bottom of my heart I ask you mercy, that you may look upon me as your particular man,
just as I have devoted myself particularly to serve you, and that my deeds may obtain from you
the reward I desire. . . .
THE WOMAN SAYS: Your request that I should consider you as my particular man, just as you
are particularly devoted to my service, and that I should give you the reward you hope for, I do
not see how I can grant, since such partiality might be to the disadvantage of others who have as
much desire to serve me as you have, or perhaps even more. Besides I am not perfectly clear as to
what the reward is that you expect from me; you must explain yourself more clearly. . . .
THE MAN SAYS: The reward I ask you to promise to give me is one which it is unbearable
agony to be without, while to have it is to abound in all riches. It is that you should be pleasant to
me unless your desire is opposed to me. It is your love which I seek, in order to restore my health.
[. . .]
THE WOMAN SAYS: You seem to be wandering a long way from the straight path of love and to
be violating the best custom of lovers, because you are in such haste to ask for love. For the wise
and well-taught lover, when conversing for the first time with a lady whom he has not previously
known, should not ask in specific words for the gifts of love. We are separated by too wide and
too rough an expanse of country to be able to offer each other love's solaces or to find proper
opportunities for meeting. Lovers who live near together can cure each other of the torments that
come from love. . . . Therefore everybody should try to find a lover who lives near by.
[source: http://www.the-orb.net/textbooks/anthology/beidler/courtly.html]
D. ANNEX II
Ps. Dionysius:
The threefold perception (vision) of God according to Ps.Dionysius:
(a) the linear way: from observation of the exterior unreal world to the real, inner world of the
spirit
(b) the spiral way: in which the intellect grasps God through elaborate reasoning
(c) the circular way: turning away form all things, earthly and material and abandoning reason,
one surrenders oneself to the Absolute Being of God
Stylistic devices:
(a) reductive or anagogic imagery [Lat. reducere, to lead back; Gr. ana, up; agein, to lead]
- since human mind cannot think without images (phantasms), God manifests his goodness and
his condescension by making Himself visible in the scriptural symbolism so that
the biblical figurae reflect the invisible
(b) affirmative (apophatic) and negative (cataphatic) ways; like and unlike symbols
29
- God can be referred to by like or similar or unlike or dissimilar symbols:
God can be described in an affirmative way, as Light, Truth or Life, the highest, most benevolent,
infinitely good and merciful, but also in a negative way as in-finite, in-visible, in-definable, incomprehensible, etc.
(c) concealing yet manifesting veils (velamina)
- this underlines the dimension of the written culture
there is an ambivalence between the hidden and secret and the manifest and unconcealed
dimensions of things: similar to the scriptural signs, which are intelligible for the initiates but
unintelligible to the ignorant, as letters are to the literate and respectively to illiterate people.
[Source: Dionysius the Areopagite, The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite, vols.1,2, trans. J.
Parker (London: Parker, 1897); Artz, F., The Mind of the Middle Ages. AD 200-1500. A Historical
Survey (New York:Knopf, 1953) pp. 73-75; Minnis, A., Scott, A.P., Medieval Literary Theory and
Criticism (c.1100-c.1375) (Oxford: OUP, 1988) pp. 165-173]
30
LECTURE NOTES VI
MEDIEVAL DRAMA
Sources:
Primary Sources:
The York Corpus Christi Plays nr.22: The Temptation in the Wilderness, ed. CL (Kalamazoo,
Michigan: MIP, 2011) also at: http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/dcyp22f.htm
The York Plays modernized version C.N. Scoville and K.M. Yates, (Toronto, 2003),
http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/yorkplays/york.html
Everyman in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J. Hollander et al.,
(Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp. 388-411
Secondary sources
273-287
Daiches, D., A Critical History of English Literature, vol.1 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1969),
pp. 208-216
Day, M.S., History of English Literature to 1660 (Doubleday, 1963), pp. 110-122
Hardison, O.B., Christian Rites and Christian Drama in Medieval England (1965)
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner,1918), pp.103110
Woolf, R., The English Mystery Plays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972)
Illustrations:
Luminarium: http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medievaldrama.htm
A. Medieval Drama. General Aspects
1. The origins of medieval drama:
(i) Christian liturgy
(ii ) ancient vegetation rites and rites of fertility that survived at the level of popular culture
(iii) May games and carnival practices based on the idea of the world topsy-turvy, i.e., the
reversal of ranks and of conventional or serious situations: the May king and queen, parodies of
mass (missa subdiaconorum), mock trials, etc.
2. Medieval theatre and Christian liturgy
(i) The theatrical dimension of liturgy:
- the Christian liturgical ritual made use of the legacy of the classical theatre
- the celebrant of the liturgy (like an actor) described the life of Christ in ritualic gestures to the
congregation (the audience)
(ii) The pedagogical aim of early medieval representations:
- in the beginning, the plays were meant to familiarize the illiterate people with the main aspects
of Christian religion and its basic text, the Bible, and thereby to complement the sermon
- short plays [tropes] were performed by clerics inside the church on Easter
- initially their topics focused on Crucifixion, later on Nativity and then on topics from both the
Old and the New Testaments
- a change in the performance occurred with the institution of the celebration of the Corpus
Christi, in the 13th c., which took place after Easter, in the first Thursday after Trinity (May or
31
June) and which was marked by a solemn procession during which the Holy Sacrament was
displayed. On this occasion, after the passage of the procession, on each station, theatrical
performances were held by members of the various guilds on pageants [wagons] which followed
one another
- subsequently these pageants came to be assembled together in the town square, which was often
before the church and the audience could move from one play to another.
3. Staging and actors:
- the plays were acted on large wagons or pageants
these had three levels representing: hell, earth and heaven, a central place [loca], where a throne
was usually placed, and an extending scaffolding for additional acting area [platea]
- the actors were initially members of the clergy; later, they were craftsmen belonging to various
guilds [weavers, dyers, etc.];
afterwards the players came to be specialized actors paid by the guilds
4. Main themes and types of plays:
(a) Mysteries:
Themes
- mysteries are concerned with subjects that cover the interval between the Creation of the World
and the Last Judgment
- these are inspired from major events from the Old and New Testaments: the Genesis and the Fall
of Lucifer, the Creation and the Fall of Man, the Flood [Noah], Abraham and Isaac, as well as
scenes from the Gospels: the Nativity, the Adoration of the Magi, the Crucifixion, the
Resurrection, and the Last Judgment
- initially acted inside the church, in preparation for Easter liturgy, the oldest, original plays
[tropes], were short dialogues, between the priests or deacons representing between the three
Marys and the Angel at Christs empty tomb
- afterwards the subjects were extended to other celebrations, and became diversified and the
places of performance moved to streets [procession stations] or town squares
- the quem quaerities plays [tropes] derive from Mark 16: 1-7; Mathew 28:1-7
28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene
and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
28:2 And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came
and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
28:3 His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: 28:4 And for fear of him the
keepers did shake, and became as dead men.
28:5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which
was crucified.
28:6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
28:7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you
into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you. (Matthew, 28: 1-7
Play: [trope]:
[The three Marys at the tomb are met by an Angel]
Angel: Who is it that you are looking for, o Christian women? (Quem quaeritis o, christicole?)
Women: Jesus of Nazareth, o heavenly one!
Angel: He is not here; he is arisen as he foretold,
Go announce that he is risen from the sepulchre.
- by the 13th c. the Orleans version of the tomb scene is divided into three episodes: the three
Marys at the tomb, the race of Peter and John, the appearance of Christ in the garden to Mary
32
Magdalen
- the English versions will elaborate further
Texts [cycles of mystery plays]:
- the Cornwall cycle (in Cymric); the York Cycle; the Chester Cycle; the Wakefield Cycle;
the Townsley Cycle or Ludus Coventriae
- a cycle could contain the entire range of plays, from Creation to last Judgment, as many as fifty
plays
Types [New Testament]:
the New Testament mystery plays (in the order of their appearance) include:
(i) The Quem Qaerities plays:Christs resurrection
(ii) The Peregrini:Christ reveals himself to his disciples on the road to Emmaus
(iii) The Pastores: the account of the shepherds at the manger (Christ's nativity)
(iv) The Magi: the adoration of the three magi
(v) The Herodes: combination of the Pastores and Magi which focuses on Herodes
(b) Miracles:
Themes:
- miracle plays appeared later, as a new kind of (semi-liturgical) dramas,
- they deal with the lives and miracles performed by the saints:
Texts:
- Saint Magdalene
(c) Moralities:
Themes:
- derive from the fight agon (Gr. contest, fight) between Christ and Satan over the human soul
in which Christ is portrayed in the tradition of St. Paul, as the athlete who defeats his enemy
- in moralities or allegorical performances the religious conflict between Christ and Satan was
translated into the fight between Virtue and Vice
- these personified debates also offer meditations on life from the perspective of the inevitability
and inexorability of death
- in these cases the battle between Vice and Virtue is further extended to other allegorical
characters representing the seven deadly sins (Pride, Sloth, Avarice, Anger, Envy, Greed, Lust)
and the corresponding seven virtues (theological: Charity, Faith, Hope; cardinal: Prudence,
Patience, Fortitude, Justice)
- mans life is depicted as a series of encounters or choices with these characters, which affect
directly the possibility of his salvation in the afterlife
Texts:
- The Castle of Perseverence, Everyman
(d) Interludes
- late medieval comical plays, mostly farcical, in which Vice becomes a comical character, an
amusing rascal, which eventually acquires the features of buffoon or a clown
C.TEXTS;
York Plays: The Smiths Play: The Temptation [excerpt, modern English]
[The passage dramatizes the episode in the Bible [Matthew 4:1-11;Mark 1:12-13, Luke 4:1-13]
which Christ, while fasting in the desert, is tempted by the devil three times, Satan asks Christ to
33
show his divinity by turning stones into bread, to throw himself down from a height, committing
suicide, in order to be rescued by the angels, and to become a follower of Satan and obtain
absolute power over the universe. Christ resists these three temptations. The excerpt below refers
to the first temptation.]
Mt 4: 1-11
[1]Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. [2] And when he
had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he was hungry. [3] And the tempter coming said
to him: If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. [4] Who answered
and said: It is written, Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that proceedeth from
the mouth of God. [5] Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle
of the temple, [6] And said to him: If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written:
That he hath given his angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest
perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone. [7] Jesus said to him: It is written again: Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord thy God. [8] Again the devil took him up into a very high mountain, and
shewed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, [9] And said to him: All these
will I give thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me. [10] Then Jesus saith to him: Begone, Satan:
for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and him only shalt thou serve. [11] Then the
devil left him; and behold angels came and ministered to him. [English version:Douay Rheims
Bible]
DEVIL [to JESUS]:
[] Thou! Wise man, and so well-read!
If thou possess, at all, Godhead,
Bid now that these stones be bread,
Here, on this ground.
Then they may feed thee in this stead-And those around!
For thou hast fasted long and lean;
I wish now that some food were seen
For auld acquaintance, us between.
Yourself knows how!
There shall no man know what I mean
But I and thou.
JESUS:
My Father, who all sorrow can slake,
Honour evermore to thee I make!
And gladly I suffer, for thy sake,
Such villainy-And thus temptations for to take
From my enemy.
Thou cursed wight, thy wits are wood.
It is written, it is understood,
A man feeds not his health and mood
With bread alone;
God's own words are spiritual food
For men, each one.
34
If I have fasted long, yet still
I feel no hunger yet so ill
That I will break my Father's will
In any degree.
Thy bidding I will not fulfil;
That warn I thee.
DEVIL:
Ah! Such words no devil knows!
He's not hungry, I suppose.
Source The York Plays [excerpt] modernized version C.N. Scoville and K.M. Yates, (Toronto,
2003), http://www.reed.utoronto.ca/yorkplays/york.html
35
LECTURE NOTES VII
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
Sources:
Primary texts:
Chaucer, G., The Canterbury Tales, ed. N. Coghill (Penguin, 1973)
Chaucer, G., The Canterbury Tales, ed. Winny, (Cambridge: CUP, 19)
Chaucer, G., Troilus and Criseyde, ed. W.W.Skeat (Oxford , 1900) at The Online Classical and
Medieval Library [omacl] http://omacl.org/Troilus/
Chaucer, G., Troilus and Criseyde, modern version in Kline, A.S., (poetry translation) "Geoffrey
Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde" http://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineaschaucer.htm
Secondary texts:
249-263
Coote, S., English Literature in the Middle Ages (Penguin, 1988), pp. 70-120
pp. 89-121
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York:Scribner, 1918), pp, 41-55
Sites on Geoffrey Chaucer:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/index.html
http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jhsy/chaucer-ppp.html
Major historical events :
14th c. timeline: (http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/zatta/14thcent.html)
A. Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 (or 1328) -1400)
1. Life:
- son of a vintner or merchant (wine merchant)
- his middle class background accounts for his diligence
- his courtly experience made him familiar with the leisured, chivalric, French based culture.
- he fought in France, was taken prisoner and ransomed
- he travelled in Europe, to France and Italy.
- was married to Philippa Roet, Flemish lady-in-waiting to Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III,
and had two sons
- late in his life, after having occupied various positions at court (ambassador to Italy and
Controller of the Customs) and served as a representative in Parliament, he retired to Kent.
- for his services to the crown, during his life he was granted various annuities.
2.Education:
- he studied at Oxford and Cambridge and was a very well educated man: he was conversant with
Latin language and culture, with Italian and French literature; he also had a speculative intellect, a
good knowledge of rhetoric, philosophy, theology and medieval science
- he was described as a ready logician, a smooth rhetorician, a pleasant poet, a grave
philosopher, an ingenious mathematician and a holy divine" (John Leland, 16th c.)
36
Influences:
classical: Virgil, The Aeneid; Ovid, The Metamorphoses
early mediaeval writers: St. Augustine, Boethius,
contemporary authors: Italian and French authors
Main periods:
- French (up to 1372),
- Italian (1372-1384),
- English (1384-1400)
3.Works:
(i)Translations (1368-72):
- from Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung, The Romaunt of the Rose [The Romance of the
Rose]
- from Boethius, On the Consolation of Philosophy (1382-86)
(ii)Early works:
The Book of the Duchess (1369)
- written at the death of Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt
- indirect method of presentation, exuberant ornament and a "gout des complications" in the
flamboyant style of late Gothic art
- The Black Knight explains to the narrator his suffering for an unconquerable beauty and he
draws and analogy between love and a game of chess, in which he has lost his Queen, beautiful
Blanche, in the cosmic game between him and Fortune.
The House of Fame (late 1379)
- deals with the question of dreams and love
- takes as an example the story of Dido and Aeneas.
The Parliament of Fowls (1380)
- on St. Valentine's Day, a gathering of birds who are presided by goddess Natura, try to decide on
who should be their mates.
- presents a range of opinions on free will, pleasure and respect of social hierarchy.
The Legend of Good Women (1385, some parts written earlier):
- discusses the lives of various great women who suffered from love.
B. Chaucers Major Works:
1. Troilus and Criseyde (1385)
Influences: Ovid, Boethius; Boccaccio's Il Filostrato;
The Troy story: Dares Phrygius, Dyctis Cretensis, Guido delle Collone, Benoit de St Maur
- the poem has five books and is written in rhyme royal.
- it is a tragic story of two lovers who are divided by the circumstances; the two are originally
secondary characters in the Troy cycle, which Chaucer turns into main protagonists.
Story:
I. In the city of Troy Troilus sees Criseyde, a young widow, and falls in love with her. He courts
her but all his attempts to gain her attention are in vain.
II. Resorting to the services of Pandarus, her uncle, Troilus eventually wins her love
37
III. The story of their great love and happiness.
IV. Criseyde has to leave Troy on an exchange of prisoners and is taken to the Greek camp. There
she is courted by Diomede. The two lovers meet again but they part.
V. Troilus sees Diomede wearing the brooch he has given to Criseyde and, convinced of her
betrayal, tries to get killed in battle. Eventually he dies. Rising above the Earth his soul
contemplates the world it leaves behind
[A sequel was written by Henderson, showing Troilus giving alms to a leper who is Criseyde]
Style:
Criseydes character, hesitations, betrayal and remorse as well as Troilus's various moods are
masterfully depicted; considered an early psychological text
Main themes of Troilus and Criseyde:
(a) The main theme is theological: can the good pagan be saved?
-The Trojans' secular values and inherent moral weakness make them subject to the whims of
Fortune
- their (coarse) rituals cannot help them
- their moral weakness exposes them to destruction
- yet there is an innate knowledge of God, which is manifest at the level of the mind
- through the exercise of the intellect, Troilus moves from the apparent image [vis aestimativa] of
his beloved Criseyde, which he has through his earthly appetite, to her image in the mirror of his
mind [vis imaginativa], which is an image of moral virtue and truth
- as his intellect takes him from physical [cupiditas] to moral [caritas] love, Troilus can recognize
in the latter the possibility to save his soul
(b) The difference between two kinds of love: caritas and cupiditas
Chaucer was influenced by St. Augustines distinction between :
- cupiditas (cupidity): enjoyment of one's self, or of the other for ones own sake, using the other
- caritas (charity) or enjoyment of God for Gods own sake
- love functions as a test that distinguishes two kinds of love:
- human love (cupiditas), which places man on the wheel of Fortune and makes him
subject to its ups and downs, to happiness and misery
- the love of God (charity), which places man on the hub of the wheel and takes him out
temporality
(c) Philosophical: The relation between free will and divine Providence
- free will can be exercised by man at all times and is foreseen by God in his divine Providence
- the choice of cupidity places man Man on the wheel of Fortune, thus man is subject to Fortunes
ups and downs and to her unpredictable changes
- the choice of charity places man on the hub and outside temporal vicissitudes.
- the aim of the text is to indicate the permanence of bliss in the contemplation and love of the
divine
2. The Canterbury Tales (begun 1387-1392)
Mss. Ellesmere; Landsdown; Hengwrt
Influences:
Similar Italian works: Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron; Giovanni Sercambi's Novelle
Classical influences: Ovid, Virgil, Macrobius, Statius,
Philosophy: Boethius
38
Mediaeval philosophy and theology: Allanus ab Insulis , Bernard Silvestris
Chaucer: modern auctor: not a scriptor (scribe), a compilator (compiler) or a commentator
(commentator)
Structure:
- general prologue and ten groups of stories
- framed story constructed on the idea of pilgrimage used as a literary device
- is a satire or description of social states
- also a possible allegory of life taken as a pilgrimage, marked by various sins and ending with the
sermon
Types of characters:
Characters cover all the social classes and categories:
The military aristocracy: the knight, the squire,
The clergy: the monk, the prioress, the second nun, the friar (limitour), the nun's priest, the
pardoner, country parson
Liberal professions: the man of law, the Oxford student (clerk), the physician
The intermediary class: the wife of Bath, the summoner, the the miller, the merchant, the
carpenter, the cook, the reeve, the franklin, the manciple, the haberdasher, the dyer, the canon's
yeoman, the innkeeper,
Lower social categories: the ploughman
Chaucer as the narrator
Types of Tales (which characterize directly or indirectly):
1. Romances: tale of adventures and love:
The tale of Palamon and Arcite
2. Fabliau(x): licentious story/ies of coarse humour:
The miller's tale of the old carpenter who is cheated by his young wife
3. Fables: moral allegories:
The story of Chauntecleer and Pertelote
4. Exempla: life of exemplary personalities, but also allegories:
The tale of Griselda, the tale of Constance, the tale of illustrious men
5. Legend: (hagiography) lives of the saints
The legend of little St. Hugh
6. Sermon: about the seven deadly sins
the parsons sermon
Chaucer's retraction: in which he apologizes if he has ever offended God in his writings
C. TEXTS
Excerpt from Troilus and Criseyde [modern version]
258.
The anger, as I began to say
of Troilus the Greeks bought dear,
for thousands his hands made away,
as one who was without a peer,
save Hector in his time, as I hear.
39
But, welaway, were it not it was God.s will,
mercilessly, fierce Achilles did him kill.
259.
And when he was slain in this manner,
his light ghost full blissfully went
up to the hollowness of the eighth sphere,
leaving behind every element.
And there he saw, clear in his ascent,
the wandering planets, hearing harmony
in sounds full of heavenly melody.
260.
And down from there he spies
this little spot of earth that with the sea
is embraced, and begins to despise
this wretched world, and hold it vanity
compared with the true felicity
that is in heaven above. And at the last
down where he was slain, his gaze he cast.
261.
And in himself he laughed at the woe
of those who wept for his death now past:
and damned all our work that follows so
on blind lust, which can never last,
when we should all our heart on heaven cast.
And forth he went, briefly to tell,
where Mercury appointed him to dwell.
262.
Such ending has Troilus, lo, through love:
such ending has all his great worthiness,
such ending has his royal estate above,
such ending his desire, his nobleness,
such ending has false words. fickleness.
And thus began his loving of Cressid,
and in this way he died, as I have said.
263.
O young fresh folks, he or she,
in whom love grows when you age,
return home from worldly vanity,
and of your heart cast up the visage
to that same God who in His image
made you, and think it but a fair,
this world that passes soon as flowers fair.
264.
And love Him, who truly out of love
on a cross, to redeem our souls that day,
first died, then rose, to sit in heaven above:
for he deceives no one, I say,
who his heart shall wholly on him lay.
And since He is best to love, and most meek,
what need is there for feigned loves to seek?
265.
Lo see, the pagan.s cursed ancient rites:
Lo see, how much their gods avail:
Lo see, this wretched world.s appetites:
Lo see, the end and reward of the travail
40
of Jove, Apollo, Mars, their rascally tale:
Lo see, the form of ancient clerks. speech
in poetry, if you their books should seek.
266.
O moral Gower, this book I direct
to you, and you, philosophical Strode,
to warrant, and where need is, to correct,
in your benignity and zeal.s good.
And to that true Christ who died on rood,
with all my heart for mercy ever I pray,
and to the Lord right thus I speak and say:
267.
Thou one and two, and three, eternally alive,
who reign forever, in three and two and one,
un-circumscribed, that may all circumscribe,
us from foes visible, and the invisible one
defend: and of Thy mercy, everyone,
so make us, Jesus, worthy this grace of thine,
for love of Maid and Mother thine benign. Amen.
End of Book Five
Source: Kline, A.S., (poetry translation) "Geoffrey Chaucer - Troilus and Criseyde"
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/klineaschaucer.htm
41
LECTURE NOTES VIII

RENAISSANCE LITERATURE IN ENGLAND [1]
RENAISSSANCE POETRY
Sources:
Primary texts:
Sidney, Ph., The Defence of Poesie [Apology for Poetry] in The Oxford Anthology of English
Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp. 636-650;
Sidney, Ph., Astrophel and Stella, The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J.
Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp.635
Shakespeare, W., The Sonnets in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J.
Spenser, E., The Faerie Queene in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F.,
J. Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp.669-820
Secondary texts:
472-482; 483-502
pp. 165-207
Day, M.S., A History of English Literature to Sixteen Sixty (Doubleday, 1963), pp.181-222;274277
Fletcher, R.H., A History of English Literature (Boston: Badger, 2007 [1919]), pp. 127-133;136146; 148
Lewis, C.S., English Literature in the Sixteenth Century [Excluding Drama] (Oxford: Clarendon,
1954), pp. 318-393;502-508
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918)
pp.92-98
A. Historical background
- The high Renaissance in England coincides with the rise of a new dynasty, the Tudors (15 th-17th
centuries), whose accession to the throne marked the end of the last important medieval
conflagration, the War of the Roses. Under the Tudor rule, but especially under the last one,
Elizabeth I, which gave her name to the period, England went through a time of relative political
and economic stability. The break with Rome, under Henry VIII, and the attempt to create an
English church also contributed to the shaping of a sense of national identity. The defeat of the
Spanish Armada, the discovery and exploration of new territories, set the base for the Empire. In
this context English literature also experienced an unprecedented flourishing.
Elizabethan Poetry
B. Elizabethan poetry and literary theory

1. The Influence of Literary Theory
(i) General characteristics [see especially C.S.Lewis ELS, pp. 318-393]
Early modern literary theory in Elizabethan England:
42
- English lyrics, on the whole, is endebted
to the classical, especially the Latin, tradition
to the contemporary Italian and French poetry
- in literature the main opposition was not poetry vs. prose but fiction vs. fact.
- British poetry and drama were shaped by three major rhetorical traditions:
the Platonic
the Aristotelian
the Neo-Platonic
(a) Plato's view on poetry was ambiguous:
- in The Republic: Plato denied that poetry was an art and condemned poetry together with all the
other "mimetic" or representational arts: the imitative arts present us with a copy of a copy
- in the Phaedrus, poetry is an ekstasis or a form of divine madness through which the poet comes
in contact with the gods
(b) Aristotle:
- in his Poetics, he claims that poetry does not copy the particulars of nature but rather it
disengages and represents its general characteristics by revealing the universal, poetry is more
scientific (filosofoteron) than history
(c) the Neo-Platonic thinkers (Dio Chrysostom, Philostratus, Plotinus)
- develop their views over a longer period and are influenced by the reflection on sacred
iconography
- they claim that the model should not be a natural object but an image in the artist's mind
- the aim of art is to make the invisible visible
- special emphasis is laid on imagination
- art and nature are rival copies of the same super-sensuous original
The Renaissance poets were closer to the Neo-Platonic conception
- in their view, the poet makes a new nature which makes himself, as it were, a new God
- the poet is not a captive of the truth of a foolish world but can deliver a golden one
- inspiration is traced to a superhuman source, to a form of pneumatology, the author is a "spirit
by spirits taught to write"
The change that English poetry underwent in the 16th c., was twofold:
- a great change in power and a slighter change in character
- the main effort is directed towards richness, towards a poetry that cannot be mistaken for
ordinary speech
- ideally ardent lovers, ideally heroic wars, ideally flowery and fruitful landscape go together with
the so-called 'sugared' verse "with Nectar sprinkled"
(ii) Literay theory in Elizbethan England: Philip Sidney
- The Defense of Poesie or The Apology for Poetry (two quartos 1595)
- the best critical essay in English influenced by Italian and classical theorists
Poetry is
- "not captived by history to the truth of the foolish world, but licensed to create things either
better than Nature brings forth, or quite anew, forms as such as never were"
- the oldest of arts
- a "speaking picture"
- meant to lift up the mind in order to enjoy its divine essence
- characterized by "high flying libertie of conceit [imagination]"
43
The Poet is: a second Creator who produces a second Nature
There are three kinds of poets: devotional, philosophical and fictional the last are "indeed right
Poets"
2.The Elizabethan Sonnet
(i) The Renaissance Sonnet
- derived from the Italian sonetto (a little sound or song),
- appeared and acquired notable significance in Italy
- consisted of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameters
- developed considerable variations in the rhyme scheme
Main versions
Form:
(a) the [Italian] Petrarchan sonnet:
an octave (abbaabba) and
a sestet (cdecde);
(b) the Spenserian sonnet
- three quatrains (abab bcbc cdcd)
- a couplet (ee)
(c) the Shakespearean sonnet
three quatrains (abab cdcd efef)
a couplet (gg)
Content
- the Italian form develops a theme in the octave followed by a "turn" or volta in the sestet, which
varies and completes the first.
- the English sonnet expresses a different idea in each section, each of them growing out of the
precedent, being eventually concluded in the couplet
Origin:
- The earliest Italian sonnets: attributed to Giacomo da Lentino (or Jacopo da Lentini (c.1215-33)
but the form might have been invented by another poet at the court of the Emperor Frederick II in
Sicily.
- during the Middle Ages the sonnet was used by all the Italian poets, notably by Dante.
- in love poetry the sonnet took as an object of semi-Platonic devotion the lady or the Donna,
which subsequently grew into a cliche of love poetry.
- with his Canzoniere Petrarch established the sonnet as a major poetic form.
(ii)The Elizabethan sonnet
- was introduced to England by Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey in the 16th c.,
- while initially imitated the Petrachan form, its pattern was set in the last decade of the 16th c.
collections of sonnets:
Astrophel and Stella (Sir Philip Sidney) (1591)
Delia (Samuel Daniel) (1592)
Amoretti (Edmund Spenser) (1595)
(iii) Shakespeare's Sonnets
(A) Description:
- a collection of 154 poems, dedicated to WH.
- most of them circulated in manuscript for at least eleven years before being printed in the 1609
44
quarto by T. Thorpe
- there has been much speculation regarding the possible historical personality, based on the
initials of in the dedication: WH, taken to mean
- William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke or
- Henry Wriothesley (1573-1642), third Earl of Southampton.
- other speculations regard the identity of the Dark Lady, at one time believed to be Mary Fitton,
- the possible identity of the rival poet, perhaps George Chapman.
(b) Sonnet arrangement:
- Thorpe's arrangement of the sonnets: not certain.
- The sonnets come from two different "sources":
- Sonnets 1-126, dedicated to a young man, "the portfolio sonnets" or the 'sugred sonnets,' (cf.
Dover Wilson) have come into Thorpe's possession in an official manner
- Sonnets 127-152, the 'private' or 'secret' sonnets, addressed to a woman are more randomly
arranged, and seem to have reached Thorpe indirectly.
The first part (1-126)
- Sonnets 1-17 are addressed to a young man urging him to marry and perpetuate his beauty in his
offspring. The poet insists on the difference of age and rank (36, 87, 111, 117) which he laments
as a barrier between them.
- in Sonnets 40-42 the young man is forgiven for having stolen the poet's mistress, a sensual fault
perhaps mentioned in sonnet 35 and adumbrated in 33-34. (Sonnets 95 and 96, also mentioning a
sensual fault, seem to refer, however to another affair)
The second part (127-154)
- most of the sonnets are dedicated to a woman, called the Dark Lady. She is apparently a married
woman (152), who eventually betrays the poet with his friend (144). She appears as the bad angel
who has tempted the good angel away and resembles the woman mentioned in the sonnets 40-42.
- Sonnet 145 (octosyllabic), and the last two, 153-154, dedicated to Cupid have no apparent
connection with the rest.
(c) Characteristics:
- Shakespeare's Sonnets are personal and not merely dramatic exercises. They celebrate a
profound and affectionate friendship.
- There is a difference of character, social position and age between the two men, the author
seeming by many years senior
(d) Main themes:
- the destructive passage of time in contrast with the eternity of art, especially poetry
- the relativity of human beauty in comparison with eternity of beauty praised in poetry
- the ambivalence of human love which moves between joy and suffering, passion and jealousy,
trust and betrayal
- the relativity of friendship and love
- man and his faith in God
3. Elizabethan Poets. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
Works:
Poetry:The Faerie Queene; The Shepheardes Calender (Spenser as Colin Clout); Complaints
(The Ruines of Time,The Teares of the Muses, The Ruines of Rome: by Bellay, Visions of the
Worlds Vanitie, The Visions of Bellay, The Visions of Petrarch); Daphnaida; Colin Clouts Come
45
Home Againe; Amoretti (Sonnets); Epithalamion (verses in honour of a newlywed couple); Fowre
Hymnes; Prothalamion (to celebrate a wedding); Prose: A View of the Present State of Ireland
(1596)
The Faerie Queene
(i) Structure:
- Book I. The Legend of Holiness is about Red Cross, a great knight and saint, reminding of
Christ and of popular pageants' everyman. He redeems the parents of Una (Adam and Eve), slays
the Old Dragon and eventually marries his Bride, Una, the True Church (the Church of England).
The historical and theological purposes of the poem are more apparent here than elsewhere.
- Book II The Legend of Temperance, describes the control of the passions by the highest powers
of the mind. Guyon represents a mixture of temperance and continence. The conflicts in which he
is involved occur in the human being, especially his fight against temptation and his attempt to
preserve the golden mean
- Book III. The Legend of Chastity, has philosophical moral considerations about love, about its
place in the order of the world, and about virginity, an homage paid to Queen Elizabeth, beautiful
Belphoebe, who is in charge of the order of things.
- Book IV. The Legend of Friendship addresses the Renaissance mystique of friendship.
- Book V. The Legend of Justice describes the difference between justice with and without equity
- Book VI. The Legend of Courtesy speaks of the danger represented by the mob and by common
slander, Blatant Beast, and emphasizes the necessity of civility and courtly behaviour.
- The poem ends with two Cantos on Mutabilitie [change]
The Faerie Queene is a combination of
- medieval allegory and the more recent romantic Italian epic
- the faerie land itself provides the unity, not of plot but of milieu.
- the great harmony of atmosphere holds together the multiplicity of stories and supports the
atmosphere
Main themes:
The Faerie Queene combines:
- sensual temptation, the way Spenser experienced it in himself and observed it in others
- frivolous gallantry
- the frustration of long, serious, and self-condemned passions
- happy love and religious melancholy
All these states become people or places in the Faerie Land.
Two structural ideas:
(i) A structural idea internal to each book
- "an allegorical core" (an inner stage) where the theme of the book would appear disengaged
from the complex adventures and reveal its unity:
- an allegorical story of each book (the quests of Redcross's, Guyon)
- a loose collection of allegorical or non-allegorical stories on the fringe [margins]
(ii) A common structural idea
- the quest of Arthur for Gloriana: connects one book to another through the whole poem
- Spenser asks for inspiration from the Queen of the Muses, from Venus and eventually, from the
Queen herself, who is assimilated to Gloriana
- Arthur is a lover presumably endlessly seeking an unknown mistress, Gloriana
- Spenser's Arthur is rather different from the traditional British hero
- allegorically, by Arthur is meant Magnificence, [cf. Aristotles notion of magnanimity [Arthur is
46
seeking Gloriana, or glory, which is the goal of Aristotle's Magnanimous man]
- this glory, in Spensers case, is not the earthly glory, but the true Honour, which is associated
with the vision of God, of which earthly glory is but a copy
C.TEXTS
Sir Philip Sidney, from Astrophel and Stella
Sonnet LXXI
Who will in fairest book of nature know
How virtue may best lodged in beauty be,
Let him but learn of love to read in thee,
Stella, those fair lines which true goodness show.
There shall he find all vices' overthrow,
Not by rude force, but sweetest sovereignty
Of reason, from whose light those night-birds fly,
That inward sun in thine eyes shineth so.
And not content to be perfection's heir
Thy self, dost strive all minds that way to move,
Who mark in thee what is in thee most fair;
So while thy beauty draws the heart to love,
As fast thy virtue bends that love to good.
But ah, desire still cries: "Give me some food."
W. Shakespeare,
Sonnet CXXX
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
Sources:
Sidney, Ph., Astrophel and Stella, The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J.
W. Shakespeare, Sonnets, The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J.
47
LECTURE NOTES IX
RENAISSSANCE DRAMA
Sources:
Primary Sources:
Marlowe, Ch., Dr. Faustus in The Oxford Anthology of English Literature, ed. Kermode, F., J.
Hollander et al., (Oxford: OUP, 1973), pp
Secondary Sources:
Baugh, A.C., ed., A Literary History of England (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948),
pp.476-471;508-518
Bradbrook, M., Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy (Cambridge, [1935]1994), p.1128
Daiches, D., A Critical History of English Literature, vol.1 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1969)
pp.216-245
Day, M.S., A History of English Literature to Sixteen Sixty (Doubleday, 1963), pp. 237-268
Fletcher, R.H., A History of English Literature (Boston: Badger, 2007 [1919]), pp.152-166
Moody,W.V.,Lovett, R.M., History of English Literature (New York:Scribner,1918), pp. 111-123
A. General characteristics of Elizbethan drama
I. Historical development:
1. Origins:
- Elizabethan theatre was largely a product of a confluence of diverse elements held in fruitful
tension inherited both from the Middle Ages as well as from the ancient theatre.
- Elizabethan theatre was a combination of several traditions:
(i) the classical tradition of Greek and especially Latin theatre: tragedy, permeated by violence,
by appetite for political power, and by a tragic feeling of human destiny [the major, decisive came
not from the Latin stoic Seneca, whose theatre was a combination of old Greek myths, violence,
murder, cruelty and lust]; comedy concentrated on everyday matters [major influences were
exercised by the Latin theatre of Plautus and Terence}
(ii) the medieval morality plays, which focused on the fight between good and evil;
(iii) popular festivals: the May games, which showed a marked taste for carnivalesque and the
world upside down (topsy-turvy)
2. General characteristics: Tudor and Elizabethan theatre
Elizabethan theatre showed:
- a new attitude towards man, the world, and God, which was considerably influenced by the rise
and development of humanism.
- a new awareness of the discoveries of new worlds and of the emergence of a new mentality.
In terms of formal conventions, Elizabethan theatre owed a lot to the classical theatre: the
convention of five-act tragedy, the symmetrical pairs of characters in comedies
- Elizabethan theatre eventually came to skillfully combine
the high style, often artificial patterns of Senecan tragedy with
the low style of vulgar language and gross humour characteristic of Greek and Latin comedies,
but also of the popular theatre
48
3. Theatres and Companies:
- Elizabethan theatre was an institution, had its own buildings and theatrical companies:
There were:
- public theatres, like The Globe, The Rose, The Swan,
- private theatres owned by the inns-of-court or members of the aristocracy
- the royal theatre
(i) The theatre had:
- a round auditorium
- a main stage which retained the medieval three-level division, with a facade with two
doors, through which the actors would enter
- the first level: the ground for the general action
- the second level: usually for intimate scenes, bed chamber or closet scenes
- the third level balcony: public speeches
- a flag indicated the performance was on
(ii) Theatrical companies were of two kinds:
- companies of adult actors
- companies children (often more successful than the other)
II. Conventions of presentation [see especially M. Bradbrook, pp.
The plays consisted of combinations of:
- passages of declamatory speeches
- action and violent scenes
- dumb shows very often symbolic.
1. Locality:
- the Elizabethan stage was characterized by a certain neutrality and flexibility.
- the actors had a major role in locating the scene, by induction [in the Prologue or
in the course of the play]
- the setting was minimal, place was marked by boards, titles and in a symbolic manner:
- a bed was represented by a bed chamber
- a church by a tomb and altar
- rivers were presented on painted boards
- the city gates by a central door etc.
2. Time:
- temporal sequence was not really important, the audience was interested mostly in the speeches
and action
- time could be accelerated or double (in a plot and subplot)
3. Costumes and stage effects:
(i) Clothes
- were particularly remarkable, yet they were conventional and had no historical accuracy
(Cleopatra could be wearing a farthingale)
- disguise was current, with allegorical but also more ordinary meanings
- colours were also conventional, revolving around a black and white scheme: black representing
mourning or evil and white standing for purity, innocence; yellow was assimilated to jealousy, red
to blood, etc.
49
(ii) Stage effects

- were generally spectacular
- involved mechanical devices: the appearance of the Blazing Star, the descent of gods and
goddesses from heaven were marked by thundering noises, etc.
- dumb shows and pageants were equally frequent, were related to the subplot, led to the
development of masques, which were highly artificial [allegorical pageants were often a tribute to
a particular event or to a particular guest]
4. Gesture and delivery:
Acting was characterized by:
- the actors used exaggerated movements, a statuesque attitude, inflated delivery, a conventional
posture
- feelings [grief or joy] were indicated by facial movement, and were underlined by physical play:
- grief was signaled by throwing oneself to the ground and joy by capering (jumping) about
- torture scenes were violently shown
- clowning was also an important part as the it provided comic relief
The actor had to be
- a good gymnast, in order to leap from walls or through trap doors
- a good duelist (the audience was extremely critical and knowledgeable in this respect)
- a good orator with a loud, stentorian, voice (like Burgbage and Alleyn)
The actors grouping was formal and consisted of battles and dances.
- battle scenes displayed processional entries but the battle itself was generally undertaken by
representatives
- dancing was used in the end, in order to underline the coming together of rivals, revengers, etc.
- the audience could feel the allegorical significance of a formal or rhythmic grouping
III. Conventions of Action
1. Heterogeneity:
- the disinterest in the causal sequence of events and the neutral background favoured the
development of the action and speech conventions
- the Elizabethan audience did not fit all the elements of a play into a logical frame of events.
The play
- was generally heterogeneous
- combined strict moral codes, jests and occasionally, topical allusions [to contemporary
events, personalities]
- much non-dramatic material was incorporated: song, dancing, swordplay, fighting
- the poetic language was the element that conferred unity to the play
2. Plots:
- narratives were generally historical
- tragedies occasionally derived their topics from life
- comedies were mostly artificial and rested on feigned plots.
- the playwright could use astounding coincidences or leave the action unmotivated without
affecting the credibility of the play
-the stories were mostly familiar narratives, belonging to a stock tradition, which combined
popular and classical elements
- their effectiveness consisted in the fact that they depicted extraordinary beings
50
- most playwrights used the so-called cumulative plot (see Tamburlaine, Macbeth)
which allowed a single direction of development and was based on a gradual accumulation of
events underlying and leading to the denoument
- the plots involving peripeteia (a turn or change of fortune) were more complex but in these
cases the order of events was unimportant and strained coincidences and an extraordinary use of
qui pro quo [equivocation] dominated
- the Elizabethan theatre also had a taste for allegory
3. Scenes
- pre-Shakespearean drama made use of typical dramatic episodes, which were developed within
rather rigid limits.
Typical dramatic episodes were:
the judgment scene
the triumph scene
the siege scene
the council scene
the farewell scene
the conversion scene
the wooing scene
the deathbed scene
4. Characters
- characters were rather simplified, mostly stock characters classifiable into types
- they were expected to behave accordingly, using specific poetical and rhetorical modes
- the villain, who set the play in motion and was ultimately defeated,
the noble harlot,
the chaste heroine, usually colourless
the bluff soldier
the pathetic child.
- they were accompanied by subsidiary stock-characters, less important for the development of
the play
- with few exceptions, before Shakespeare, characters did not really develop on stage
- all change was a sudden reversal, which was artificial, like the repentance of the villain.
- slander and credibility complicated the action.
- these contraries were held up by the strength of the playwright, mostly through the poetic
discourse
IV. Conventions of Speech

- though direct speech was used mostly, asides were also employed,
- asides helped explain the plot and revealed something of which the audience needed to be
conscious, were often ironic
- the soliloquy played an important part, although it had little expository function, and was mostly
a moral dramatic statement, but it displayed an non-dramatic frankness, which helped define the
character
- the dramatic episodes were made up of certain types of speeches (set speeches) which were
rather conventional
- they combined two rhetorical genres:
the demonstrativum (praise and dispraise)
the deliberativum (meant to persuade for or against the course of action)
51
V. Particularities of the Tudor and Elizabethan theatre

1. English tragedy
- the humanist taste for Greek and Latin classics produced a new kind of English tragedy.
- it produced a new genre since, before the classical influences were felt, there was no tragedy in
the local theatre.
- English tragedy: a popular species, best represented by so called blood and thunder tragedy
- a combination of sophistication and crudeness, with an ordered and concentrated structure
- Elizabethan tragedies displayed:
a polished, montonous verse
a strong rhetorical character
stoic moralizing
emotional crises, horror, marked by epigrams
characters dominated by their passions
Gorboduc by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton
- an academic tragedy in Senecan style, about a divided kingdom, civil war, and the consequences
of split authority in a state located in a mythical region of early English history
2.Elizabethan comedies
- were also influenced by the humanist educational and ethical dimensions, by classical themes,
by contemporary continental [Italian, French] tastes
- Gammer [old woman] Gurtons Needle was an amusing comedy with sexual undertones and
local colour
3. The first professional playwrights: the University Wits
- by the 16th c. drama became more complex
- there was a noticeable professionalization of both among authors and actors
- a new group of university students, who graduated from Oxford or Cambridge, who did not
intend to take holy orders, combined to produce a new literary phenomenon: the secular
professional dramatist
- of this group some of the most significant are: John Lyly, Robert Greene, George Peele,
Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlowe
- with their popular successes and sophisticated plays, the University Wits
- had an important influence both on public and private theatre
- contributed to making theatre into literature, especially by the dramatic effectiveness of
language itself
- as a result, drama became increasingly secular, diverse, and very popular
VI. Significant playwrights
1.Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)
- was the founder of what might be called romantic tragedy.
- adapted in an original way the main elements of Senecan theatre with melodrama.
- used themes of love, revenge, conspiracy and murder
- The Spanish Tragedy (produced around the early 1580s)
was the first and most melodramatic and powerful in the series of revenge plays, it was
good theatre in the Elizabethan times, it was sensational and had considerable impact
upon other writers
52
2. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
- according to Baugh (508-518), Marlowe's major achievements are:
(i) his remarkable use of blank verse - the most expressive and grandest of the English metres
For Tamburlaine, the scourge of God must die (Tamburlaine, Part II, 4641)
Was this the face that launch'd a thousand ships (Faustus, 1477)
And all is dross that is not Helena (Faustus, 1334)
A God is not so glorious as a king (Tamburlaine, 762)
(ii) his interest in life rather than living
- most of his contemporaries are interested in kinds of living: restless living and the lover's pains,
fashionable living, foolish living, evil living
- Marlowe is intrested in the complexity of living itself, which emerges in a variety of topics:
regal ambition, thirst for knowledge, hunger for gold, need of friendship, consuming fire of love all indicating the greatness of man and of his aspirations
(iii) a particular sense of dramatism in dramatic action, visible in the brilliance of effects resulting
a combination of scholarly erudition and culture, passion for truth, and a sense of poetry, drama
and intellectual disputes
Works:
Poems: Hero and Leander
- beautiful and sensuous, yet exoressed wiht great delicay and lack of impure suggestions
Plays:
- Tamburlaine the Great (Parts I, II) inspired from the life of Timur), turns thirst for power into a
form of desperate heroism
- Dido, Queen of Carthage (Aeneid)
- The Jew of Malta, Edward II
The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus is his most important achievement
- it translates the quest for pleasures, depicted in the Faustbook (1587), into a quest of intellectual
knowledge
- it is a dramatic experiment, which attempts to give stage plausibility to a passage of a great deal
of time (24 years)
- initially planned for five acts: it has a grand opening, dealing with the signing of the bond
between Faustus and Mephostophiles, a magnificent conclusion, with Faustus soliloquy, the two
linked up by a series of discontinuous and prosaic interludes
- illustrates the theme of corruptio optimi pessima [corrpution of the best is the worst]
- shows the tragedy of modern man delivered to his drives: absolute knowledge as a possible
instrument of domination
C. TEXTS
FAUSTUS. O Faustus,
Now hast thou but one bare hour to live,
And then thou must be damnd perpetually!
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come;
Fair Natures eye, rise, rise again, and make
Perpetual day; or let this hour be but
53
A year, a month, a week, a natural day,
That Faustus may repent and save his soul!
O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike,
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damnd.
O, Ill leap up to heaven!Who pulls me down?
See, where Christs blood streams in the firmament!
One drop of blood will save me: O my Christ!
Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ;
Yet will I call on him: O, spare me, Lucifer!
Where is it now? tis gone:
And, see, a threatening arm, an angry brow!
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me,
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven!
No!
Then will I headlong run into the earth:
Gape, earth! O, no, it will not harbour me!
You stars that reignd at my nativity,
Whose influence hath allotted death and hell,
Now draw up Faustus, like a foggy mist,
Into the entrails of yon labouring cloud[s],
That, when you vomit forth into the air,
My limbs may issue from your smoky mouths;
But let my soul mount and ascend to heaven!
[The clock strikes the half-hour.]
O, half the hour is past! twill all be past anon.
O, if my soul must suffer for my sin,
Impose some end to my incessant pain;
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years,
A hundred thousand, and at last be savd!
No end is limited to damned souls.
Why wert thou not a creature wanting soul?
Or why is this immortal that thou hast?
O, Pythagoras metempsychosis, were that true,
This soul should fly from me, and I be changd
Into some brutish beast! all beasts are happy,
For, when they die,
Their souls are soon dissolvd in elements;
But mine must live still to be plagud in hell.
Cursd be the parents that engenderd me!
No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer
That hath deprivd thee of the joys of heaven.
[The clock strikes twelve.]
It strikes, it strikes! Now, body, turn to air,
Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to hell!
O soul, be changd into small water-drops,
And fall into the ocean, neer be found!
Source: Marlowe, Ch., The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, ed. Jim Manis, The Pennsylvania
State University, 1998
54
LECTURE NOTES X
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [1]
Sources:
Primary Sources:
Shakespeare,W. Plays [individual] in The Arden Shakespeare Third Serie, gen. Eds .R.Proudfoot
and A.Thompson (London: Routledge, 1982)
Shakespeare, W., Plays [individual] in the Worlds Classics series, gen.ed.S.Wells (Oxford: OUP)
Secondary Sources:
Baugh, A., ed., A Literary History of England (London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1948), pp. 519529; 533-540
246-308
Day, M.S., Day, M.S., A History of English Literature to Sixteen Sixty (Doubleday, 1963), pp.
277-325
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp. 124142
A. General characteristics of Shakespearean theatre
- Shakespeare's study is difficult given the combination of historical and universal dimensions. If
one of these is studied to the detriment of the other, then his works cannot be fully understood
The threefold function of the Elizabethan theatre: to inform, teach and entertain can be seen at
work in Shakespeares drama.
- The complex poetic language was meant to hold together the variously different elements of the
play (song, dance, fencing, clowning).
- The actable and the theatrical are as important as the poetical.
- The play starts with a situation and lets the character unfold
- Through the intricate relation of drama and poetry, a simple story may present terrible things
- S. addresses an extremely heterogeneous, predominantly male audience
I. Shakespeares bigraphy and literary activity:
1. William Shakespeares life:
- was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564
- son of John Shakespeare and Mary Arden (tree)
- studied at the local grammar school
- married Ann Hathaway and had three children: Susana, Hamnet and Judith (twins) [the boy died
when still an adolescent]
- left Stratford and settled in London (1588?) where he held several jobs in the theatre
- began to write for stage around 1590-1592
- made a career as a poet and a playwright
- by 1611 he retired to Stratford, where he died in 1616
2. Shakespeares poetic activity:
(a) Poems:
Venus and Adonis (1590)
55
The Rape of Lucrece (1594)
The Passionate Pilgrim (1599)
The Phoenix and the Turtle(1601)
The Sonnets (1609)
3. Shakespeares dramatic activity:
- Although a lot of plays appear in quarto, most of his plays were collected in the volume printed
after his death known as The First Folio: Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (1623)
- Typological classification:
Comedies [low romantic; high romantic; golden]
Chronicle (history) plays dealing with British history
Roman plays [Roman history]
Tragedies
Problem plays [skeptical, with an ambiguous ending]
4. Chronological and thematic description:
(i) The Early Period: 1590 to 1600
The early period shows
- his interest in a variety of Elizabethan traditions and
- his desire to experiment
(a) The early plays:
Sources: Latin tragedy (Seneca); Greek and Latin comedies; Italian and Spanish romances and
comedies; English chronicles; contemporary English authors (Marlowe)
The early experiments:
- Titus Andronicus: a "blood and thunder" tragedy in Senecan style
- Henry VI (3 parts): chronicle play (already popular form of drama)
- Richard III: tragedy centred on a main villain (influenced by Marlowe)
- The Comedy of Errors: elaborates on the standard devices of Greek and Latin theatre
- The Taming of the Shrew: low romantic comedy, a humorous display of romantic love
- Romeo and Juliet: rather formal tragedy of unhappy lovers trapped by circumstances into death,
it reflects on existence in a lyrical and declamatory way
(b) The history or chronicle plays
Sources:
- S. draws upon the chronicles on the War of the Roses and the Hundred Years War
Edward Hall: The Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York (1542),which
covers the period between the accession of Henry IV up to Henry VIII.
Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1577) which was
apparently part of a larger project of the world history.
Polydore Vergil, Historia Anglica (1534), which deals with the history of England up to Henry
VIII
Historical (chronological) sequence:
- the reign and deposition of Richard II
- the unquiet time of Henry IV
- the temporary military glory of Henry V in France (100 Years War)
- the disaster of the Lancasterians under Henry VI
56
- the short, violent rule of Richard III
- the accession of the new Tudor dynasty.
Structural sequence [grouping of Ss plays according to their elaboration]:
- Two sequences of 4 plays:
3 Henry VI and Richard III
Richard II and 2 Henry IV and Henry V
apart from this sequence: King John - different; Henry VIII (unfinished)
Main characteristics:
Through his gallery of monarchs, making use of elements of morality plays, S. tries
- to offer his view on the ideal king and
- to propose a Tudor myth meant to support the dynasty
- In following the historical dimension Shakespeare is always primarily interested in the human
condition:
- "Shakespeare requires Romans or Kings, but he thinks only on men" (S. Johnson)
Richard II :
- more complex than RIII, deliberately ritualistic
- suggests the Elizabethan view on the Middle Ages
- the deposition of R II is thought of in modern terms, in a combination of awe, mystery and
pathos
- the royal status is poetized
R: a more elaborate character: childish and self-indulgent, incapable of asserting his authority
Henry IV (2 parts)
- shows the struggle of the English to control the state during the early modern age
- alternate forms of heroic and non-heroic egotism
Henry V
- concludes the historical series
- the main character, once a witty and aloof prince has become the model for a conquering prince
- is a eulogy of the Renaissance prince
King John
- stands apart in the chronicle series
- is marked by structural deficiencies
- adopts a moderate anti-Catholic tone
- the limits of the chronicle play are challenged by a lively approach
(c) The comedies
Sources:
- S. gradually learns to handle with assurance different elements deriving from Greek, Latin and
English comedy, which he mixes with elements of Italian and Spanish pastoral romance
Main characteristics:
Classification of comedies:
(i) The low romantic comedies
The Comedy of Errors (see above)
The Taming of the Shrew (see above)
(ii) The high romantic comedies
57
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Loves' Labours Lost
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The Merchant of Venice
(iii) The golden comedies
Much Ado about Nothing
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
The comedies
- make use of stories of love intrigue
- appeal to a mystique of friendship that opposes heterosexual love
- employ qui pro quo (mistaken identity), the heroine is often disguised as a boy
- occasionally they resort to elements of fairy-tale
- language is extremely complex, dialogues are real verbal fireworks
- masques (allegorical forms of play within the play) are also used
The golden comedies
- several plots (and subplots) which interlock and reinforce each other emotionally
- the comic aspect is complemented by serious, often rather pessimistic statements on life in
general
- the fool (jester) acquires a different role, which is transforms him from a mere jester into a
philosopher
C. TEXTS
W.Shakespeare: Henry V
40 This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, "To-morrow is Saint Crispian."
Then will he strip his sleeve, and show his scars,
And say, "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
50 But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son:
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
60 We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother: be he ne'er so vile,
58
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here;
And hold their manhoods cheap, whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. [IV, 3]
Source: W.Shakespeare, King Henry V, ed.J.Dover Wilson (Cambridge: CUP, 2009)
59
LECTURE NOTES XI
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [2]
Sources:
Primary Sources:
Shakespeare,W. Plays [individual] in The Arden Shakespeare Third Serie, gen. Eds .R.Proudfoot
and A.Thompson (London: Routledge, 1982)
Shakespeare, W., Plays [individual] in the Worlds Classics series, gen.ed.S.Wells (Oxford: OUP)
Secondary Sources:
Baugh, A., ed., A Literary History of England (London: Routledge, Kegan Paul, 1948), pp. 519529; 533-540
246-308
Day, M.S., Day, M.S., A History of English Literature to Sixteen Sixty (Doubleday, 1963), pp.
277-325
Moody, W.V., Lovett, R. M., History of English Literature (New York: Scribner, 1918), pp. 124142
(ii) The Main Period (1598-1611)

(a) The great tragedies
Julius Caesar
Sources: North's translation of Plutarch's The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
Themes:
- tragical relation between personal morality and political efficiency
- shows "how a man can be destroyed by his own virtue"
- well articulated play, in fluid blank verse
Hamlet
Sources: Saxo Grammaticus, History of the Danes and F. Belleforest, Histories tragiques,
the original Hamlet [Ur-Hamlet] [Ur: German prefix for old, original) - lost play
Themes:
- an old-fashioned revenge play treated in a heroic tradition
- revenge is not going to restore either the lost world or bring back health to a tainted society
- it shows
how moral sensitivity can respond to a wicked world
how an idealist man can face reality
how powerful imagination may be
Othello
Sources: Italian novella Hecatommithi, (1565) by G. Cinthio.
Themes:
- it is less a study in jealousy but a description of the anguish that a beautiful and innocent being
can be guilty and deceitful
- the paradox of evil which is bred out [may originate in] of innocence
60
King Lear
Sources: Celtic mythology and folk tradition
Themes:
- most elemental and primeval of Shakespeare's plays
- shows how the road to true humility passes through bitter insight
- it makes use of archetypal images to produce a cosmic view of individual tragedy and destiny
- a combination of psychological and symbolic descriptions
- existence as determined by the confusion between
true and false visions
self-knowledge and self-blindness
- the question of what is natural and unnatural
- the Fool acquires a different, tragic key
- Folly is assimilated to revealing the truth and contributes to the tragic dimension
- shows a concern for impersonal justice : "None does offend none; all are guilty and in need not
of justice but forgiveness"
Macbeth
Sources: R. Holinshed: Chronicles of England and Scotland
Themes:
- the destruction brought about by the appetite for power
- a mystique of the crown, which represents the achievement of the ultimate earthly ambition the
false heroism that originates in the lack of faith
- the degree to which power can corrupt and breed immorality
- the main characters are not so much damned as they are reduced to moral nothingness
- Macbeth: initially a heroic figure loyal and brave - becomes an obsessed nihilist
- Lady Macbeth: a devoted wife - is driven by power to self-destruction, to the inability to control
her body and spirit
Antony and Cleopatra
(also listed as a Roman play)
Source: North's Plutarch: The Lives of noble Grecians and Romans
Themes:
- contrast between two worlds,
the Roman world, marked by order, structure, loyalty, reason
the Eastern magic of Egypt, characterized by disorder, betrayal, passion
conflict between public duty and private passion
- Cleopatra: one of S.'s most complex female characters: queenly, beautiful, skilful, noble,
generous, but also domineering, hysterical, jealous, coward,
- Antony: heroic, generous, noble, loyal to his friends, but selfish and immature
(b) The problem plays
- are neither comedies nor tragedies
- have no cheerfulness but show human behaviour as gross and despicable
Timon of Athens
Themes:
- human ingratitude and hypocrisy
- man living in a world of beasts
61
Troilus and Cressida
Themes:
- a double perspective: the context of the moment and the larger context of past and future
- the English (Renaissance) vision of the Troy tradition
- the Greek represent the realistic, unscrupulous modern man (Ulysses)
- the Trojans represent the old-fashioned, traditional world (Hector)
- the degradation of chivalry and the muddled notions of honour
- shows how ideal passion is mixed with casual faithlessness
All's Well That Ends Well
Theme:
- a mechanical handling of folk theme which combines two topics: the healing of a king and
the wife who wins back her husband by an astute trick
Measure for Measure
Theme:
- the older ruler who offers to save a girl's relative (brother, father, husband) on condition she
yields to him and afterwards breaks his promise
- the recurrent idea that all are guilty and that mercy not justice is required
Coriolanus
(belongs to the Roman plays)
Themes:
- tragic implication of private virtue
- the effects of lack of self-knowledge, arrogance, lack of imagination, and the inability to handle
people
(iii) The Late Period (1599-1613)
- The Romance plays (tragicomedies)
(called romances by the poet S.T.Coleridge [18th -19th c], who claimed they possessed a
romantic element) :
Pericles
Cymbeline
The Winter's Tale
The Tempest
Sources: mythology, folklore, and magic
Themes:
- new faith in the essential goodness of man
- remoteness of setting - a symbolic world where innocence can triumph and the past can be
undone through miraculous redemption
- the recovery of a lost child
- the significance of innocence and virginity
- the importance of moral patterns
- masques allegorical performances meant to underline certain moral dimensions
Shakespeares work:
Due to the power with which it expresses its epoch and to the way it questions essential aspects of
human being, Ss work has made a major contribution to the literature of all ages.
62
C.TEXTS
W.Shakespeare, Hamlet [I,ii]
O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew, 130
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter. O God, God,
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world !
Fie on't, ah fie, 'tis an unweeded garden 135
That grows to seed, things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!
But two months dead - nay not so much, not two So excellent a king, that was to this
Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother 140
That he might not beteem the winds of heaven
Visit her face too roughly - heaven and earth,
Must I remember? why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on, and yet within a month - 145
Let me not think on't; frailty, thy name is woman A little month, or ere those shoes were old
With which she followed my poor father's body
Like Niobe, all tears, why she, even she O God, a beast that wants discourse of reason 150
Would have mourned longer - married with my uncle,
My father's brother, but no more like my father
Than I to Hercules - within a month,
Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears
Had left the flushing in her galled eyes, 155
She married. Oh most wicked speed, to post
With such dexterity to incestuous sheets.
It is not, nor it cannot come to good.
But break, my heart, for I must hold my tongue.
Source:
W.Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. Ph.Edwards (Cambridge: CUP, 2003)

I.b.lecture Notes.2012.Student - Use

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I.b.lecture Notes.2012.Student - Use

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1

The question of reading as posed by a humanist:

Main periods of British literature to be studied:

III. England and Europe

B. Intellectual history. The shaping traditions

II. The concepts of Renaissance and Humanism

(ii) Conflicting views concerning the definition of the Renaissance

(b) 10th 11th c. The Benedictine Revival

of heaven's kingdom the Keeper

2. Types of literary discourse

(ii) The profound change in the understanding of moral experience

Sources [Mystical Love]:

(b) The Holy Grail (Joseph of Arimathea; Sir Percival) 12th c

B. The Medieval Tradition of Mystical Love

LECTURE NOTES VIII

B. Elizabethan poetry and literary theory

(ii) Stage effects

IV. Conventions of Speech

V. Particularities of the Tudor and Elizabethan theatre

(ii) The Main Period (1598-1611)

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