History of English Lit

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History of English
Literature in Minutes

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4. Agenda:
- 5 PYQ
- Outline of British Literature
- Most important literary terms of
the day
- Doubts - like Madhuri Rana
- How you can create your own
books/ booklets
Special English
Maha Marathon on
24th and 25th
January @7:00 PM

6. Who of the following writers
recreates
the life of the Yoruba community ?
(A) Derek Walcott
(B) Wole Soyinka
(C) Chinua Achebe
(D) Okot
Wole Soyinka

13. Who of the following White female
authors are sympathetic to the cause
of the
Blacks ?
(A) Margaret Drabble
(B) Nadine Gordimer
(C) Muriel Spark
(D) Jean Rhys
Gordimer

14. New Criticism considers text as a :
(A) Cultural construct
(B) Historical construct
(C) Linguistic construct
(D) Autotelic
Autotelic

15. New Criticism is founded on the
premise that the text is an autotelic
artefact, complete in itself and
existing for its own sake. ... Close
reading is a detailed analysis of the
text itself to arrive at an
interpretation without referring to
historical, authorial, or cultural
concerns

16. The term ‘New Criticism’, though put into circulation by J.E. Spingarn
in his booklet The New Criticism in 1911, was made current by John
Crowe Ransom’s The New Criticism (1941), a work that organized the
principles of this approach to literature. Early works in the New Critical
tradition were those of English critics – T.S.Eliot’s The Sacred Wood, I.A.
Richards’ The Principles of Literary Criticism, and William Empson’s
Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). Some figures associated with New
Criticism include Cleanth Brooks, R.P. Blackmur, William K. Wimsatt,
Allen Tate and Robert Penn Warren although their critical
pronouncements, along with those of Ransom, Richards, and Empson,
are somewhat diverse and do not readily constitute a uniform school of
thought. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren, through textbooks
Understanding Poetry (1938) and Understanding Fiction (1943), did much
to make the New Criticism the predominant method of teaching
literature in American colleges. Central instances of the theory and
practice of New Criticism are Cleanth Brooks’ The Well Wrought Urn
(1947), and W. K. Wimsatt’s The Verbal Icon (1954). The
Anglo-American New Critics attempted to systematize the study of
literature, to develop an approach which was centered on the rigorous
study of the text itself. The earliest criticism carrying this method could
be found in the poetry magazine The Fugitive.

17. Mythologies was written by :
(A) Roland Barthes
(B) Jacques Derrida
(C) Homi K. Bhabha
(D) Ernest Dowson
Roland Barthes

20. The Nun‘s Priest‘s Tale had its origin in
:
(A) The French Roman de Renart
(B) The Italian Boccaccios Teseide
(C) The English John Gower‟s
Confessio
Amantis
(D) The Germal Goethe‟s Faust
A

24. The First Folio of Shakespeare‘s
plays
appeared in :
(A) 1664
(B) 1631
(C) 1623
(D) 1650
1623

25. The Life and Death of Mr. Badman was
written by :
(A) Sir Henry Wotton
(B) John Bunyan
(C) Jeremy Taylor
(D) Richard Baxter
B

30. - Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon
literature) encompasses literature written
in Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon)
in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period
from the 7th century to the Norman
Conquest of 1066.
- These works include genres such as epic
poetry, hagiography, sermons, Bible
translations, legal works, chronicles,
riddles, and others. In all there are about
400 surviving manuscripts from the
period, a significant corpus of both
popular interest and specialist research.

31. Introduction:
● The Old and Middle English ages,
600-1485
● Literature from these early times
survives mainly in fragmented
form
● Old English is the term associated
with 5th century Britain which
was constituted by seven
kingdoms

32. Dates Major Events
410 Roman legions leave Britain
450
Anglo- Saxon invasions from Germanic
regions
590 Canterbury Christian Mission established
793-95 Viking invasion
802 England united under King Egbert
885 Alfred the Great, partition of England
917-26 England regains Danish-held territories
1066
Edward the Confessor dies, Harold succeeds.
William of Normandy defeats Harold (Battle
of Hastings)

33. Hymns
Caedmon's Hymn 680 AD
The Exeter Book
Deor's Lament
The Seafarer

34. Caedmon’s Hymn:
● The oldest literary text from the region
is known today as Caedmon’s Hymn
● Caedmon’s Hymn has been dated at
around 680 AD
● It is a song sung by a farmer in praise of
God
● It is the first Christian poem in English

35. Deor’s Lament and The Seafarer:
● These are narratives of everyday life
sung by common folk rather than
specialist poets
● These two songs along with some
other songs are present in one
manuscript called The Exeter Book
● These collectively date back to the
10th century

36. The Dream of the Rood, dated at the 7th
century
All the above constitute the first literary texts in
English. They are important precisely because
they are in English and not in Latin. The use of
the local language marks the creation of a
distinct local cultural atmosphere. Therefore,
constructing an “English” identity.

37. Among the most important works of
this period is the poem Beowulf, which
has achieved national epic status in
England. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
otherwise proves significant to study of
the era, preserving a chronology of
early English history, while the poem
Cadmon’s Hymn from the 7th century
survives as the oldest extant work of
literature in English.

38. Anglo-Saxon literature has gone through
different periods of research—in the 19th and
early 20th centuries the focus was on the
Germanic roots of English, later the literary
merits were emphasised, and today the focus
is upon paleography and the physical
manuscripts themselves more generally:
scholars debate such issues as dating, place
of origin, authorship, and the connections
between Anglo-Saxon culture and the rest of
Europe in the Middle Ages.

39. A large number of manuscripts remain
from the Anglo-Saxon period, with most
written during the last 300 years, in both
Latin and the vernacular. Old English
literature began, in written form, as a
practical necessity in the aftermath of the
Danish invasions – church officials were
concerned that because of the drop in
Latin literacy no one could read their
work. Likewise King Alfred the Great
(849–899), wanting to restore English
culture, lamented the poor state of Latin
education.

40. The bulk of the prose literature is
historical or religious in nature.
There were considerable losses of
manuscripts as a result of the
Dissolution of the Monasteries in
the 16th century. Scholarly study of
the language began in the reign of
Queen Elizabeth I when Matthew
Parker and others obtained whatever
manuscripts they could.

41. Extant Manuscripts In total there are
about 400 surviving manuscripts
containing Old English text, 189 of
them considered major. These
manuscripts have been highly prized
by collectors since the 16th century,
both for their historic value and for
their aesthetic beauty of uniformly
spaced letters and decorative
elements.

42. There are four major manuscripts:
The Junius manuscript, also known as the
Caedmon manuscript, which is an illustrated
poetic anthology.
The Exeter Book, also an anthology, located in
the Exeter Cathedral since it was donated there
in the 11th century.
The Vercelli Book, a mix of poetry and prose; it
is not known how it came to be in Vercelli.
The Nowell Codex, also a mixture of poetry and
prose. This is the manuscript that contains
Beowulf.

43. Old English literature (or Anglo-Saxon literature)
encompasses literature written in Old English (also called
Anglo-Saxon) in Anglo-Saxon England, in the period from the
7th century to the Norman Conquest of 1066.
The Anglo-Saxons left behind no poetic rules or explicit
system; everything we know about the poetry of the period is
based on modern analysis.
The metrical system, which begins to appear in the thirteenth
century and comes to perfection a century and a half later in
Chaucer’s poems, combined what may fairly be called the
better features of both the systems from which it was
compounded.
The study of the literature of the period is further complicated
by the division of English into dialects

44. Romances:
● A romance is a tale of chivalry, courage, love and
danger
● The hero passes through various trials and obstacles
before attaining the heroine, his beloved
● Traditionally, the hero is virtuous and the obstacles
involve testing his virtue
● His faith enables him to win the battle against evil and
resist temptation
● The romance involves the hero’s descent into physical
danger and mental despair before he raises himself to
success
● Most of the European romances can be traced back to
the Arthurian legends
Beowulf
Brut

45. Beowulf:
● The first major or popular text from the Old English period
● Written almost entirely in Germanic
● Beowulf sets out to defeat the monster, Grendel
● Grendel is himself roughly human in shape and is descended
from Cain
● Cain is the first murderer in human history according to the
Christian doctrine
● A Germanic tale thus becomes a Christian allegory
● Grendel represents evil
● The work focuses on the fate of the communities and races
(Danes and the Geats)

46. Brut:
● A text traceable to a particular author who is
identified as LAYAMON
● It is a saga of the dark ages, starting with the
Romans (5th century) and bringing it up to the
time of the Britons and the Arthurian legends
● It is also the first sustained attempt to provide a
“national” history of Britain
● Wars, Christianity, love, romance and
Arthurian tales appears in the work
● It is called the first national epic in English
● It departs from the then dominant languages,
Latin and French, to create a work in the local
language

47. Religious Works
Bible
St.
Augustine
The City of
God
Confessions
Religion during the
period and related works:

48. ● Religion specifically Roman Catholic
Christianity played the most
important role in European medieval
life
● The Bible and the works of St.
Augustine were significant texts in
the dissemination of Christian thought
● The medieval age believed that there
was the Bible and the Book of Nature
● The Bible revealed the truth to
humans

49. St. Augustine:
● His works proposed two cities:
○ The City of Man: which was temporary
and subject to decay
○ The City of God: which was permanent and
perfect
● Man was the sojourner in the City of Man and
his goal was to reach the City of God
● St. Augustine found the symbol for the City of
God in places like the New Jerusalem
● The Church also represents the City of God

50. Cambridge and Oxford Universities:
● The establishment of education
systems in England facilitated
discussions of interpretations and the
evolution of critical thinking among
like minded people
● The 14th century is a landmark period
for English scholarship and literature

51. Allegory:
● Has one surface level of meaning, but on being read
closely reveals something more
● It is used to deliver a message to the attentive reader
● Political allegories:
○ In the political allegories the characters and events
described in the literary text represent actual
historical figures and events
● Allegories of ideas:
○ They are used to represent abstract concepts such
as ‘good’ or ‘evil’
○ John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) is a well
known example of allegory of ideas
○ This type of allegory personifies virtues and
concepts
● There are various forms of allegory: fable, exemplum
and the parable

52. Epics and long narrative poems:
● They began to appear in
European regional languages
during the Middle Ages

53. The Romance of the Rose:
● Written by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun
● In the early 13th century, Guillaume wrote about 4100 lines and
40 years later Jean added almost 18000 lines
● It is cast in the dream vision form
● Characters represent qualities or features like Old Age, Idleness
and Pleasure
● The poem presents a version of courtly love (as in love among
noblemen and ladies of the court)
● The dreamer, an aristocratic young man, enters a garden, which
turns out to be the garden of love
● He falls in love with a rose, which stands for, or symbolizes, a
lady
● His romance is aided by some and obstructed by others, in a
classic formulation of the romantic love story
● Later additions to the tale had advice sections from the old
Woman, some of which influenced Geoffrey Chaucer while
composing the Wife of Bath’s Prologue in The Canterbury Tales

54. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321):
● The Florentine statesman
● Public figure and poet
● Dante influenced people like Petrarch
and Boccaccio, who in turn inspired
the European Renaissance

55. ● Vita Nuova (1292-94):
○ Dante’s first major work
○ Vita Nuova means new life
○ This work launches Dante’s famous love story- his love
for Beatrice
○ Dante had promised that he would write of Beatrice
‘what has never before been written of any woman’ and
his work is a fulfilment of this promise
○ The work is loaded with number symbolism- the
Catholic Dante’s favourite numbers are three
(representing the Trinity) and nine (three times three)
○ The work is a beautiful praise song
○ Beatrice is associated with the number nine, she
becomes a symbol of perfection
○ This extraordinary poem is only a preface for the book
that was still to come

56. ● The Divine Comedy:
○ Dante composed this work during exile
○ It is an allegory of human life itself
○ It is a huge work
○ The section Inferno consists of 39 cantos; Purgatory and Paradise
has 33 cantos each
○ He is lost in the woods on Good Friday and is now seeking to
find his path once more:
■ “ Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself
within a forest dark/ For the straightforward pathway had
been lost.”
○ Inscribed over the gates of Inferno are the prophetic words: “All
hope abandon, ye who enter here”
○ Dante discovers that the gates are crowded, for so many humans
are designated to go into Hell
○ Dante’s Purgatory with the sins of Wrath, gluttony, envy and
others is a nine level mountain, meant for sinners who will be
purged of their sins before they attain Paradise

57. Lets Revise:
English Literature before the Norman Conquest (500-1066):
Beowulf:
● Author: Anonymous
● Hero: Beowulf, King of Geats, Son of Ecgtheow
● Monster: Grendel
● Dialect: West Saxon
● 3182 lines
● Concludes with the funeral ceremony of Beowulf
● First major poem in a European vernacular
● Seamus Heaney published a translation of the work in 1999

58. Widsith:
● The oldest poem in the language
● The title of the poem means a Wide Wanderer
● It is the wanderings of a ministrel or travelling singer or musician
● He speaks of the feudal audience and sings of the various wars
● 143 lines
The Complaint of Deor:
● Deor is a minstrel
● The poem is lyrical in form, with a definite refrain and may be
called the first English lyric
● Ending with a Christian consolation
The Exeter Book:
● One of the most important manuscripts containing Old English
poetry

59. English Literature from the Norman Conquest to
Geoffrey Chaucer (1066-1340):
Chronicles:
Layamon’s BRUT:
● Layamon’s poem gives the legendary history of
ancient Britain beginning with Aeneas whose
descendant Brutus was supported ancestor of the
British
● The stories of Lear and King Arthur also were
incorporated in it

60. Religious and Didactic Poetry:
Ormullum (1215):
● A series of metrical homilies written by a priest Orm
● North East Midland dialect
● Addressed to Walter
Cursor Mundi- religious work of an encyclopaedic nature
The Owl and the nightingale (1220)
Alliterative poems:
Pearl
Purity
Patience

61. The Age of Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340-1400)
Historical events:
● Beginning of Hundred years’ war
● War between England and France
● 1338-1453
● Black Death (1348-1349)
● Lollards movement
● Peasants’ Revolt (1381)

62. Geoffrey Chaucer
● Lived during the reigns of Edward III,
Richard II and Henry IV
● Patron: John of Gaunt
● First poet buried in Poets Corner,
Westminster Abbey
● Influences: Ovid, Boccaccio
● Father of English poetry
3 stages of Chaucer’s career:
● The French
● The Italian
● The English

63. ● Chaucer was the only prominent writer of his age
and therefore this age is called the Age of Chaucer
● Chaucer is the first story writer
● He is also called the grandfather of English novel
Details about the age in which Chaucer lived:
● Anglo Saxons and Anglo Normans had already
influenced English culture
● 1348: Black death; Plague (this plague killed 33%
of the population of England)
● Chaucer’s Age is also called the Age of Transition

64. Age of Transition
Anglo- Saxons and
Anglo Normans Age of Chaucer
Decasyllabic couplet used
which is similar to
PROSE style
Writers preferred the
VERSE form or poetry
form
Descriptive literature Narrative Literature
Idealistic Literature Realistic literature
Local dialect Standard Language
French and Latin are the
official languages
English becomes the
dominant language

65. ● Chaucer’s age is called transitional age and Chaucer
was hailed as the first transitional poet
● Quotes on Chaucer:
● Chaucer is famously called as the father of
English poetry by Dryden
● Dryden praised Chaucer’s art of characterization
by saying that “ here is God’s plenty.”
● Matthew Arnold mentioned that Chaucer lacks
“high seriousness”
● Chaucer is the well of English undefiled according
to Spencer
● A.C Ward mentions that “ Chaucer’s characters
are individuals as well as they are types.”

66. The French:
● The Romaunt of the Rose (The romance of
the rose)
● Translation
● Lengthy allegorical poem
● Octosyllabic couplets
● The Book of the Duchess (1369)
● Octosyllabic couplets
● Allegorical lament on the death of Blanche of
Lancaster, the first wife of John of Gaunt
● A Complaynt of a Loveres Lyfe- John Lydgate is
based on it
● An ABC

67. The Italian Phase:
● The Parlement of Foules
● Written in Rhyme Royal- ab ab bcc
● Written on the marriage of Richard
II to Anne of Bohemia
● Characterization of birds
● Written in comic spirit
● Troilus and Criseyde
● Long poem
● Adapted from Boccaccio (Il
Filostrato)
● Written in Rhyme Royal
● Important character- Pandarus

68. ● The House of Fame
● Parodies The Divine Comedy
● Written in octosyllabic couplets
● Dream allegory
● The Legend of Good Women
● Intention of telling 19 tales of virtuous
women of antiquity
● Finished 8 tales and the 9th only
commenced
● cleopatra , Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle and
Medea, Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela,
Phyllis, Hypermnestra
● First known attempt in English to use the
heroic couplet

69. The English
● The Canterbury Tales:
○ Written in Heroic Couplet
○ Based on Boccaccio’s Decameron
○ The Prologue is a portrait gallery of 14th
century England
○ The Prologue gives pen pictures of 21 pilgrims
○ 29 pilgrims (31 including Chaucer and Harry
Baily)
○ Harry Baily-
■ The host of the pilgrims
■ Judge of the stories
○ Tabard Inn in Southwark

70. ○ “To relieve the tedium of the journey, each of the pilgrims is to tell
two tales on the outward journey and two on the return.”
○ The best narrator would be given a supper by the rest on return to
the Tabard
○ 24 stories
○ Finished only 20
○ Four are partly complete
○ Characters:
■ Military profession- Knight, Squire, Yeoman
■ The Ecclesiastical- Prioress, Nun, Monk, Friar, Summoner,
Pardoner, Poor Parson, A Clerk of Oxford
○ Two prose tales:
■ Tale of Melibeus (Chaucer’s own tale)
■ The Parson’s Tale
○ Knight’s Tale- finest work
○ Begins with Knight’s Tale and ends with Parson’s Tale
○ Chaucer’s own tales:
■ Tale of Sir Thopas
■ Tale of Melibeus
○ Palamon and Arcite (based on Boccaccio’s Teseida) revised as The
Knight’s Tale

71. Important Aspects about Chaucer:
● Chaucer’s dialect: East Midland Dialect
● Lowes: “ Chaucer found English a dialect and left it a language.”
● Spenser: “Chaucer is the well of English undefiled.” (As Chaucer
avoided using foreign languages)
● Long: “ The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales is the prologue to
modern fiction.”
● “With him our real poetry is born.”
● Dryden: “Here is God’s plenty.”
● G.K.Chesterton: “ Chaucer’s humour is a humour in the grandstyle.”
● Poets who were massively influenced by Chaucer:
○ Spenser
○ Milton
○ Dryden
○ Keats
○ Tennyson
○ Swinburne
○ Robert Bridges
○ Walter de la Mare
○ John Masefield

72. Chaucer’s Contemporaries:
John Gower (1332-1408):
● Friend of Chaucer
● Dedicatee of Troilus and Criseyde
where he is referred to as “MORAL
GOWER”
Works:
● Speculum Meditantis (French)
○ Criticism of the evils before
the peasants revolt
● Vox Clamantis (Latin)
○ Apocalyptic poem
○ Seven books
○ Deals with politics, kingship
and ecclesiastical issues
○ Wat Tyler’s rebellion
○ Satire on clergy
● Confessio Amantis (English)
○ Octosyllabic couplets
○ Shakespeare’s Pericles is
partly based on ‘Apollonius
of Tyre’

73. William Langland (1325-1390)
● The Vision of William Concerning Piers the
Plowman:
○ 3 versions: A, B and C Texts
○ Allegorical poem
○ Division: Visio (vision) and Vita (life)
○ 8 visions
○ Dialect: mixture of Southern and Midland
English
○ He portrays vividly the terrible hardships of the
poor peasant
○ He attacks the abuses of his period, the greed
and the hypocrisy of the clergy and the
materialism and tyranny of the ruling class
○ The style has a sober energy

74. John Barbour
● Scottish poet
● Bruce (1375)
○ A lengthy poem of 20 books and thirteen
thousand lines
○ Octosyllabic couplets
○ History of Scotland’s struggle for freedom
from the year 1286 till the death of King
Robert the Bruce and the burial of his heart
(1332)
○ The heroic theme is the rise of Bruce and
the central incident of the poem is the battle
of Bannockburn

75. Prose of Chaucer’s Age
John Wyclif (1320-1384)
● His followers were called Lollards
● John Purvey succeeded him as the leader of the Lollards
● He published several pamphlets in English
● Responsible for the first English Bible
● Popularly known as the founder of English prose and the real
originator of European protestantism
Sir John Mandeville
● The Voyage and travels of Sir John Mandeville
○ This travelogue is a mixture of fact and fiction
○ Compilation of fabulous stories of Friar Odoric, Marco Polo
○ Combines geography, natural history with romance and
marvels
○ First English prose classic

76. Historical events:
● Battle of Agincourt- 1415
● Fall of constantinople- 1453
● War of the Roses (1455-1485)-
between the Houses of York and
Lancaster
● Caxton introduced the first printing
press in England in 1476
English Chaucerians
John Lydgate (1370-1451)
● Friend of Chaucer and an acknowledged disciple of
Chaucer
● The Fall of Princes
○ Elaborates the Monk’s Tale
● Troy Book
Thomas Occleve/ Hoccleve (1368-1450)
● The Regiment of Princes:
○ Written to win the favour of Henry V
○ A series of lessons laying down the rules of conduct
for princes
● A Letter of Cupid
○ An allegory
○ Model of the Legend of Good Women
● The Governail of Princes
○ Mourning the death of Chaucer

77. John Skelton (1460-1529)
● Satirist
● Skeltonics- jingling octosyllabic couplet
● The Book of Philip Sparrow- an elegy on the
death of a sparrow;
○ A lament for the death of a young lady’s
pet
○ Lampoon of the liturgical office
● The Book of Colin Clout
○ Colin Clout is a peasant who like Piers
Plowman, rebukes the corrupt clergy of
the times
● Why Come Ye Nat To Court?- addressed
Wolsey, the all powerful minister of Henry VIII

78. Stephen Hawes (1475-1530)
● Allegorist
● Paves the way for Spenser
● The Passettyme of Pleasure
○ Romantic homilectic poem
○ Rhyme royal stanzas and in couplets
○ Dealing with man’s life in this world
○ Reminiscent of Bunyan
○ Influenced the allegory of Spencer
Alexander Barclay (1475-1552):
● The Ship of Fools
○ A translation of a German work by Sebastian
Brant
○ Satirical portraits of the various kinds of foolish
men
● Certayne Ecloges
○ Earliest collection of pastorals

79. The Scottish Chaucerians
King James I (1394-1437)
● The Kingis Quair
○ Written in rhyme royal
○ His love for the Lady Jane Beaufort- daughter of Duke of Somerset-
the cousin of Henry V
Robert Henryson (1429-1508)
● The Testament of Cresseid
○ Continuation of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde
● Orpheus and Eurydice
○ Adaptation from Boethius
William Dunbar (1460-1530)
● The chief of the Scottish Chaucerian poets
● Dance of the Seven deadly sins
○ Translated into English by W H Auden and Chester Kallman
○ Deals with the sins of lust, gluttony, greed, pride, sorrow/
despair/despondency, wrath, vain glory and sloth
Gavin Douglas (1474-1522)
● Aeneid - translation of Virgil

80. Prose of the 15th century (1400-1557)
William Caxton (1422-1491)
● First English printer
● Translator
● The Dictes and Saayengis of the Philosophers (1477)- 1st book printed in England
● William Caxton: A Quincentenary Biography (1976)- a detailed and scholarly work
by G. D. Painter
Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)
● English Socrates
● Influences: Erasmus, Colet, other humanists of the period
● Utopia:
○ Description of his imaginary ideal world
○ The true prologue to the Renaissance
○ The first monument of modern socialism
○ Utopia - the kingdom of nowhere
○ Originally written in Latin (1516)
○ Translated into English by Ralph Robinson- 1551
○ Source of inspiration- The Praise of Folly by Erasmus
● The Historie of Richard III
○ Unfinished
○ Best example of humanist historiography in England and the first in English
Sir Thomas Malory
● A translator and romancer
● Caxton printed Malory’s
work
● Morte D’ Arthur
○ Prose romance
based on Arthurian
legend
○ Tennyson’s Idylls of
the King based on
Morte D’Arthur

81. Literature of the Early Renaissance in England
William Tyndale
● English New Testament (1525)
Miles Coverdale
● The Complete English Bible (1535)
Roger Ascham (1515-1568)
● Toxophilus or School of Shooting (1545)
● The Schoolmaster- educational treatise;
published by his widow 2 years after his death

82. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)
● Poet, courtier
● Introduced Sonnet into English
● Introduced Terza Rima
● Translated and imitated Petrarchan sonnet
● Rhyme scheme: abba abba cddc ee
● 96 love poems appeared posthumously in Tottel’s
Miscellany (1557)
Henry Howard (1516-1547)
● Earl of Surrey
● Introduced the Blank verse
Tottel’s Miscellany
● First printed anthology of English lyrics
● Richard Tottel- a printer, stationer, assisted in the
compiling of the anthology
● Historically important collection of 271 poems
● Published on June 5, 1557

83. The Development of Drama:
● Grew out of Liturgy of the Church
● Performance- in the sacred buildings
● Actors- Priests
● Language- Latin and French
● Public holiday dedicated to drama
● Corpus Christi plays- collective mysteries-
described the whole history of the fall of the
man and his redemption
● Four cycles:
● The Chester Cycle (25 plays)
● The Coventry Cycle (42 plays)
● The Wakefield Cycle (31 plays)- Towneley
Cycle
● The York Cycle (48 plays)

84. ● The Miracle play
● A miracle play is a drama that recounts the life of a
saint, a miracle performed by Christ or a miracle
performed by God through a saint’s faith or actions;
some but not all of these stories from the Bible
● Originally developed within medieval Christian
church and written in Latin, miracle plays served as
a dramatized part of the liturgical service
● Scenes or episodes were staged by local religious
and trade guilds on separate wagons
● Date back to 12th century
● Examples:
● Harrowing of Hell
● St. Nicholas
● Rising of Lazarus
● (from the Wakefield Cycle)

85. ● The Mystery Play
● The Mystery plays or corpus christi cycles were long cyclic dramas of
creation, fall and redemption of mankind or other biblical events
● They were very often based on the passion and death of Jesus Christ
● They were financed and performed by craft guilds and staged on wagons in
the street and squares of the town
● Of these, The Second Shepherd’s Play is one of the masterpieces of medieval
English Literature
● The Morality Play
● Morality plays were allegorical dramas; depicted the progress of a single
character from the cradle to grave
● The single character represented the whole of mankind
● The other dramatis personae might include God and Evil, Vices and Virtues,
Death, Penance, Mercy, etc are abstractions which are personified
● An interesting and varied collection of Moralities are called Macro plays
● Everyman, A Dutch play on the subject of coming of death is famous in this
field
● Examples:
● The Castle of Perseverance
● Wisdom
● Mankind

86. ● Interlude
● The interlude is a short play or diverting
entertainment designed for presentation
either between the acts of the Miracle or
Morality plays or for the performance in
the intervals at banquets or other
important festivities
● It is considered to be the creation of John
Heywood
● Forerunner of regular drama
● Under the patronage of Henry VIII

87. John Heywood (1497-1575):
● His wife: Elizabeth Rastell niece of Sir
Thomas More
● Playwright whose short dramatic
interludes
● The Four P’s (1544): Palmer,
Pardoner, Pedlar, Pothecary
● The Play of the Weather (1533)-
Jupiter takes the conflicting opinions of
various persons regarding the kind of
weather to be supplied

88. The Beginnings of Regular Comedy and Tragedy
Nicholas Udall (1505-56)
● He translated selections from Terence
● Wrote Latin plays on sacred subjects
● He figures in Ford’s novel The Fifth Queen (1906)
● Ralph Roister Doister (1550)
○ The earliest known English comedy
○ The play represents the courting of the widow Christian
Custance, who is betrothed to Gawin Goodlucke, an absent
merchant, by Roister, a boastful simpleton, instigated
thereto by the mischievous Mathewe Merygreeke.
○ Roister is repulsed and beaten by Custance and her maids;
and Goodlucke, after being deceived by false reports, is
reconciled to her
○ The play shows similarity to the comedies of Plautus and
Terence

89. Thomas Sackville (1536-1608)
● A Mirror for Magistrates
● Gorboduc
● In collaboration with Thomas Norton
● Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex
● One of the earliest English tragedies
● The first three acts are by Thomas Norton (1532-84) and the last two by
Sackville
● Acted in the Inner Temple Hall on Twelfth Night 1561
● The play is constructed on the model of a Senecan tragedy
● The subject is taken from the legendary chronicles of Britain
● First use of blank verse
● Gorboduc and Videna are king and queen, Ferrex and Porrex are their two sons
and the dukes of Cornwall, Albany, Logres and Cumberland are the other chief
characters
● Ferrex and Porrex quarrel over the division of the kingdom. Ferrex is killed by
Porrex and Porrex is murdered in revenge by his mother
● The Duke of Albany tries to seize the kingdom and civil war breaks out
● There is no action on the stage
● The events are narrated in blank verse
● Sidney- Defence of Poetry “full of stately speeches and well sounding phrases”
● The legend of Gorboduc is told by Geoffrey of Monmouth and figures in
Spenser’s Faerie Queene, where Gorboduc is called Gorbogud
Comedies:
● Gammer
Gurton’s
Needle (1575)

90. The Age of Shakespeare (1558-1625)
Historical incidents:
● Reign of Queen Elizabeth
● Renaissance:
○ 14th to 15th centuries
○ Fall of Constantinople- 1453 to Ottoman Turks
○ Began in Italy
● Humanists:
○ The term humanism and humanist originally come from the Latin
“humanista”
○ It was used in the 15th century to denote the teacher who taught the
Greek and Latin classics or the humanities
○ According to Encyclopaedia Britannica Petrarch one of the early
humanists regarded man or himself as the object of his enquiry and
study
○ Michelet, the famous French historian sums up the renaissance as
“discovery of the world and the discovery of man”
○ The maritime explores of the 15th century discovered the New World
in the far west and new sea routes to the east
○ The Renaissance scholars of the west discovered the richness of the
ancient Graeco-Roman world
○ It is not god centred but a man centred philosophy
● Desiderius Erasmus (1467-1536)
○ Dutch humanist
○ Encomium Moriae (The Praise of
Folly)- 1511
■ A satire
■ Written at the suggestion
of More
■ Directed against
theologians and church
dignitaries
● Sir Thomas Elyot
○ The Boke Named The Governour
■ Published in 1531
■ A treatise on education
and politics
● Roger Ascham
○ The School Master
■ Immediate influence on
Sidney’s Defence of
Poetry
■ An important landmark in
later educational theory
■ Dr Johnson wrote an
anonymous Life of
Ascham to accompany
James Bennet’s edition
of 1761

91. ● Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
○ Killed at a battle of Zutphen in 1586
○ His literary work occured between the years 1578 and 1582
○ Astrophel and Stella (1591)
■ A sequence of 108 love sonnets
■ Plot the unhappy love of Astrophel (lover of Star) for
Stella (star)
■ Written to his ‘mistress’ Lady Penelope Rich
■ Adopts Petrarchan Octave, with variations in sestet
which include the English final couplet
○ Arcadia
■ 1590 published incomplete
■ 1598 published complete
■ Pastoral romance
■ First published after his death
■ Shakespeare based the Gloucester’s plot of King Lear
on Sidney’s story of ‘the Paphlagonian unkinde king’
■ Richardson took the name of his first heroine,
Pamela, from Sidney’s romance

92. ○ The Apologie for Poetrie/ The Defence of
Poesie (1595)
■ Answer to Gosson’s Schoole of Abuse
● Dedicated to Sidney in 1579
● An abusive Puritan pamphlet
■ Two editions of the work appeared
posthumously in 1595
■ Published by Ponsonby, bore the title The
Defence of Poesie
■ Published by Olney, An Apologie for Poetrie
■ Ponsonby was the official publisher of
Sidney

93. Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
● 1st unofficial poet laureate
● Sidney patronized Spenser
● Greatest non-dramatic poet of the age
● Lived in Kilcolman castle, near Limerick- an
estate in Ireland

94. ● Minor poems:
○ The Shepheards Calendar (1579)
■ A group of 12 eclogues one for each month, sung by
various shepherds
■ Four of them deal with the theme of love
■ One is in praise of Eliza (Queen Elizabeth)
■ One a lament for a ‘mayden of greate bloud’
■ Four deal allegorically with matters of religion or
conduct
■ One describes a singing match
■ One laments the contempt in which poetry is held
■ Last: complaints by ‘Colin Clout’, the author himself
■ The eclogues take the form of dialogues among
shepherds
■ Pastoral poem
■ Allegory symbolizing the state of humanity
■ Diverse forms and meters
■ Dedicated to Sidney
■ Modelled on the eclogues of Theocritus, Virgil

95. ○ The Ruins of Time (1591)
■ It is an allegorical elegy on the death of Sidney
■ The poem is dedicated to the countess of Pembroke, Sidney’s
sister
■ Included in COMPLAINTS
○ The Tears of the Muses (1591)- included in COMPLAINTS
○ Mother Hubber’s Tale (1591)
■ A satire in rhymed couplets
■ The poem is a satire on the abuses of the church and the evils of
the court
■ The ape and the fox determine to seek their fortunes abroad, and
assume the disguises first of an old soldier and his dog, then of a
parish priest and his clerk, then of a courtier and his groom; their
knaveries in these characters are recounted. Finally they steal the
lion’s crown and scepter and abuse the regal power, until Jove
intervenes and exposes them

96. ○ The Ruins of Rome (1591)
○ Epithalamion and Prothalamion :
■ Companion poems
■ Finest of all minor poems
■ Epithalamion: Spenser’s own marriage with
Elizabeth Boyle
● Printed with the Amoretti in 1595
● Kent Hieatt demonstrated that its 24
stanzas represent the hours of Midsummer
day
■ Prothalamion: to celebrate the marriage of
Katherine and Elizabeth Somerset

97. ○ Amoretti (1595):
■ 88 Petrarchan sonnets
■ Celebrating the progress of his love
■ His courtship of Elizabeth Boyle
○ Colin Clouts come home againe:
■ Pastoral allegory
■ Spenser’s first London journey and the vices inherent in court life
■ Dedicated to Ralegh
■ The poem describes in allegorical form how Ralegh visited
Spenser in Ireland and induced him to come to England ‘his
Cynthia to see’- i.e queen. There is a charming description of the
sea voyage after which the poet tells of the glories of the queen
and her court and the beauty of the ladies who frequent it. Then
follows a bitter attack on the envies and intrigues of the court. The
poem ends with a definition of true love and a tribute to Colin’s
proud mistress Rosalind
○ A View of the present state
of Ireland (1594)
■ Prose work
■ In the form of a
dialogue
○ Astrophel (1586)
■ Pastoral elegy
■ On the death of Sir
Philip Sidney/
Sydney

98. ○ The Faerie Queene
■ Most important of Spenser’s work
■ long , dense allegory in epic form of Christian values tied to Arthurian
legends
■ Only 6 out of 12 completed
■ Published 1590 first 3 books
■ Published 1596 second 3 books
■ Archaic language
■ Spenserian stanza
■ Introductory letter to Sir Walter Ralegh, detailing the plan
■ By the Faerie Queene the poet signifies Glory in the abstract and
Elizabeth I in particular (who also figures under the names of
Britomart, Belphoebe, Mercilla and Gloriana)
■ Each book describes the adventures of a Knight, each standing for a
virtue
■ Aristotle is cited as the source of these virtues
● Book 1: Red Cross Knight/ Holiness
● Book 2: Guyon/ Temperance
● Book 3: Britomart/ Chastity
● Book 4: Triamond and Cambell/ Friendship
● Book 5: Artegall/ Justice
● Book 6: Calidore/ Courtesy

99. The University Wits were a group
of late 16th century English
playwrights who were educated at
the universities (Oxford or
Cambridge) and who became
playwrights and popular secular
writers. Prominent members of this
group were Christopher Marlowe,
Robert Greene, and Thomas Nashe
from Cambridge, and John Lyly,
Thomas Lodge, George Peele from
Oxford.

100. Shakespeare’s Predecessors: University Wits
● The term University wits is applied to a group of scholars,
who wrote in the closing years of sixteenth century
● They arrived in London from Oxford and Cambridge
university and significantly influenced the development of
Elizabethan literature
● The group included:
○ John Lyly
○ George Peele
○ Robert Greene
○ Christopher Marlowe
○ Thomas Lodge
○ Thomas Nashe
○ Thomas Kyd
● They have to the English stage a kind of romantic drama,
which became a source of inspiration for Shakespeare
later on
● Name given by Saintsbury

101. This diverse and talented loose
association of London writers and
dramatists set the stage for the
theatrical Renaissance of
Elizabethan England. They were
looked upon as the literary elite of
the day and often ridiculed other
playwrights such as Thomas Kyd
and Shakespeare who did not have a
university education. Greene calls
Shakespeare an “upstart crow” in his
pamphlet Greene’s Groats - Worth of
Wit.

102. Christopher Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564; died
30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and
translator of the Elizabethan era. As the foremost
Elizabethan tragedian, next to William Shakespeare, he is
known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists,
and his mysterious death. A warrant was issued for
Marlowe’s arrest on 18 May 1593. No reason for it was
given, though it was thought to be connected to
allegations of blasphemy—a manuscript believed to have
been written by Marlowe was said to contain “vile
heretical concepts”. On 20 May he was brought to the
court to attend upon the Privy Council for questioning.
There is no record of their having met that day, however,
and he was commanded to attend upon them each day
thereafter until “licensed to the contrary.” Ten days later,
he was stabbed to death by Ingram Frizer. Whether the
stabbing was connected to his arrest has never been
resolved.

103. Robert Greene (11 July 1558 – 3 September
1592) was an English author best known
for a posthumous pamphlet attributed to
him, Greene’s Groats-Worth of Wit, widely
believed to contain a polemic attack on
William Shakespeare. He was born in
Norwich and attended Cambridge
University, receiving a B.A. in 1580, and
an M.A. in 1583 before moving to London,
where he arguably became the first
professional author in England. Greene
published in many genres including
autobiography, plays, and romances, while
capitalizing on a scandalous reputation

104. George Peele (1556-1596)
● The Araygnement of Paris (1584)
○ Romantic comedy
○ A pastoral play in verse
○ Written and played before Queen Elizabeth I, whose beauty and
virtue are duly celebrated
● The Famous Chronicle of King Edward The First (1593)
○ A rambling chronicle play
● The Old Wive’s Tale (1591-1594)
○ Play within play
○ Burlesque
○ A clever satire on the popular drama of the day
○ A play largely in prose
● The Battle of Alcazar (1594)
○ A play in verse
○ Deals with the war between Sebastian, king of Portugal and
Abdelmelec, king of Morocco
○ A.H. Bullen: ‘tiresome windy stuff’
● The Love of King David and Fair Bethsabe (1599)
○ A play in blank verse
○ Sources are mainly scriptural
○ Highly poeticized account of King David’s seduction of Bethsabe
and the death of his son Absalon

105. Robert Greene (1558-1592)
● Attacked at length by G.Harvey in Foure Letters (1592) as the ‘Ape of Euphues and
patriarch of shifters’
● Nashe defended him in Strange News: ‘Hee inherited more virtues than vices.’
● ‘Upstart crow, beautified with our feathers’ is the first reference to Shakespeare as a
London dramatist
● Pandosta or The Triumph of Time (1588)
○ A prose romance
○ Best known as the source for The Winter’s Tale
○ One of Greene’s best narratives
● Menaphon (1589)
○ A prose romance with interludes of verse
○ Nashe’s preface to the first edition offered a satirical survey of contemporary
literature
○ Tells the adventures of the princess Sephestia, shipwrecked on the coast of
Arcadia
● The Honorable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1589)
○ A comedy in verse and prose
○ Partially based on a prose pamphlet The Famous Historie of Fryer Bacon
● Orlando Furioso (1591) - adapted from an English translation of Ariosto

106. Thomas Nashe (1567-1601)
● Drawn into the Martin Marprelate controversy on
the side of the Bishops
● Famous Elizabethan pampheleteer
● The Unfortunate Traveller or The Life of Jacke
Wilton (1594)
○ A prose tale of adventure
○ Picaresque novel
○ Dedicated to the earl of Southampton
● He finished Marlowe’s DIDO

107. Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)
● Defence of Poetry, Music and stage plays (1579)
○ An anonymous reply to Gosson’s School of Abuse
○ Banned pamphlet
● Rosalynde: Euphues Golden Legacie (1590)
○ Pastoral romance
○ Style of Lyly’s Euphues
○ Diversified with sonnets and eclogues
○ Written during his voyage to the Canaries
○ Shakespeare’s As You Like It followed closely in the
plot of Rosalynde
○ The story is borrowed in part from The Tale of
Gamelyn
● Collaborated with Shakespeare in Henry VI

108. Thomas Kyd (1558-1594)
The Spanish Tragedie (1585)
● Tragedy in blank verse
● Published anonymously in 1592
● The political background of the play is loosely related to the victory of Spain over
Portugal in 1580
● Lorenzo and Belimperia are the children of Don Cyprian, duke of Castile (brother of
the king of Spain); Hieronimo is marshal of Spain and Horatio his son
● Balthazar, son of the viceroy of Portugal, has been captured in the war. He courts
Belimperia and Lorenzo and the king of Spain favour his suit for political reasons
● Lorenzo and Balthazar discover that Belimperia loves Horatio; they surprise the
couple by night in Hieronimo’s garden and hang Horatio on a tree
● Hieronimo discovers his son’s body and runs mad with grief
● He succeeds nevertheless in discovering the identity of the murderes and carries out
of revenge by means of a play, Solyman and Perseda, in which Lorenzo and
Balthazar are killed and Belimperia stabs herself. Hieronimo bites out his tongue
before killing himself. The whole action is watched over by Revenge and the Ghost of
Andrea who was previously killed in battle by Balthazar
● The play was a the prototype of the English revenge tragedy genre
● The play was one of Shakespeare’s sources for Hamlet and the alternative title given t
it in 1615, Hieronimo is Mad Againe, provided T.S.Eliot with the penultimate line of The
WasteLand

109. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593):
● George Peele : “Marley, the Muses darling for thy
verse.”
● Shakespeare’s early histories are strongly influenced by
Marlowe
● Shakespeare in As You Like It called him “the dead
shepherd”
● Ben Jonson: “Marlowes mighty lines”
● Swinburne: “A boy in years, a man in genius and god in
ambition”
● Tamburlaine the great (1587)
○ Centered on one inhuman figure
○ Episodic
○ Written in blank verse

110. ● The Second part of Tamburlaine the great (1588)
○ Sequel to Tamburlaine the Great (1587)
● The Jew of Malta (1589)
○ Barabas is one of the prototypes for unscrupulous Machiavellian
villains
○ The prologue to the play is spoken by Machevil
○ Written in blank verse
○ Barabas- “ infinite riches in a little room”
○ The grand seignior of Turkey having demanded the tribute of Malta,
the governor of Malta decides that it shall be paid by the Jews of the
island. Barabas, a rich Jew who resists the edict, has all his wealth
stored and his house turned into a nunnery. In revenge he indulges in
an orgt of slaughter, procuring the death of his daughter Abigail’s
lover among others and poisoning Abigail herself. Malta being
besieged by the Turks, he betrays the fortress to them and as a reward
is made its governor. He now plots the destruction of the Turkish
commander and his force at a banquet by means of a collapsible floor;
but is himself betrayed and hurled through this same floor into a
cauldron, where he dies.

111. ● Edward II (1591)
○ From Holinshed’s Chronicles
○ A tragedy in blank verse
○ The play was an important influence on Shakespeare’s
Richard II
● The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1592)
○ A drama in blank verse and prose
○ Elements of miracle plays- good and evil angels
○ Faustus, weary of the sciences, turns to magic and calls up
Mephistopheles with whom he makes a compact to
surrender his soul to the devil in return of 24 years of life;
during these Mephistopheles shall attend on him and give
him whatsoever he demands. The anguish of mind of
Faustus as the hour for the surrender of his soul draws near
is touchingly depicted
● The tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage (1593)
○ Written by Marlowe and Nashe
○ It is closely based on Virgil’s Aeneid (Books 1, 2 and 4)
depicting Dido’s failure to persuade. Aeneas to stay with
her in Carthage and her subsequent suicide

112. ● The Massacre at Paris (1593)
○ Unfinished
○ The play deals with the massacre of Protestants in
Paris on St Bartholomew’s day, 24th August, 1572 (an
event witnessed by Sidney, who was staying in Paris at
the time).
○ Its most memorable character is the Machiavellian
duke of Guise whose high aspiring language seems to
have influenced Shakespeare in his early history plays.
The massacre is depicted in a series of short episodes,
a notable one being that in which the rhetorician
Ramus is killed after a verbal onslaught by the Guise
on his emendations of Aristotle. The Guise himself is
eventually murdered at the behest of Henry III. The
play concludes with the murder of Henry III and the
succession of the Protestant Henry of Navarre

113. Thomas Nashe was an English Elizabethan
pamphleteer, playwright, poet and satirist. He was the
son of the minister William Nashe and his wife
Margaret. Little is known with certainty of Nashe’s
life. He was baptised in Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his
father was curate. The family moved to West Harling,
near Thetford in 1573 after Nashe’s father was
awarded the living there at the church of All Saints.
Around 1581 Thomas went up to St John’s College,
Cambridge as a sizar, gaining his bachelor’s degree in
1586. From references in his own polemics and those
of others, he does not seem to have proceeded Master
of Arts there. Most of his biographers agree that he
left his college about summer 1588, as his name
appears on a list of students due to attend philosophy
lectures in that year. His reasons for leaving are
unclear; his father may have died the previous year,
but Richard Lichfield maliciously reported that Nashe
had fled possible expulsion for his role in Terminus et
non terminus, one of the raucous student theatricals
popular at the time.

114. Thomas Lodge was an English dramatist and writer of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. In 1578 he entered Lincoln’s
Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a
crop of debts were common. Lodge, disregarding the wishes of
his family, took up literature. When the penitent Stephen Gosson
had (in 1579) published his Schoole of Abuse, Lodge responded
with Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays (1579 or 1580),
which shows a certain restraint, though both forceful and
learned. The pamphlet was banned, but appears to have been
circulated privately. It was answered by Gosson in his Playes
Confuted in Five Actions; and Lodge retorted with his Alarum
against Usurers (1585)—a tract for the times which may have
resulted from personal experience. In the same year he produced
the first tale written by him on his own account in prose and
verse, The Delectable History of Forbonius and Prisceria, both
published and reprinted with the Alarum. From 1587 onwards he
seems to have made a series of attempts at play writing, though
most of those attributed to him are mainly conjectural. He
probably never became an actor, and John Payne Collier’s
conclusion to that effect rested on the two assumptions that the
“Lodge” of Philip Henslowe’s manuscript was a player and that
his name was Thomas, neither of which is supported by the text.

115. George Peele (born in London and
baptized 25 July 1556 – buried 9
November 1596), was an English
dramatist. His pastoral comedy The
Arraignment of Paris was presented
by the Children of the Chapel Royal
before Queen Elizabeth perhaps as
early as 1581, and was printed
anonymously in 1584. In the play,
Paris is arraigned before Jupiter for
having assigned the apple to
Venus. Diana, with whom the final
decision rests, gives the apple to
none of the competitors but to a
nymph called Eliza, a reference to
Queen Elizabeth I.

116. His play Edward I was printed in 1593. This
chronicle history is an advance on the old chronicle
plays, and marks a step towards the Shakespearean
historical drama. Peele is said by some scholars to
have written or contributed to the bloody tragedy
Titus Andronicus, which was published as the work
of Shakespeare. This theory is in part due to Peele’s
predilection for gore, as evidenced in The Battle of
Alcazar (acted 1588-1589, printed 1594), published
anonymously, which is attributed with much
probability to him. The Old Wives’ Tale (printed
1595) was followed by The Love of King David and
fair Bethsabe (written ca. 1588, printed 1599), which
is notable as an example of Elizabethan drama drawn
entirely from Scriptural sources. F. G. Fleay sees in it
a political satire, and identifies Elizabeth and
Leicester as David and Bathsheba, Mary, Queen of
Scots as Absalom

117. John Lyly was an English
writer, best known for his
books Euphues, The Anatomy
of Wit and Euphues and His
England. Lyly’s linguistic
style, originating in his first
books, is known as Euphuism.
In 1632 Blount published Six Court
Comedies, the first printed
collection of Lyly’s plays. They
appear in the text in the following
order; the parenthetical date
indicates the year they appeared
separately in quarto form:
Endymion (1591) Campaspe
(1584) Sapho and Phao (1584)
Gallathea (1592) Midas (1592)
Mother Bombie (1594).

118. The age of Milton (that is, 1625-1660,
comprising the Caroline age and the
Commonwealth) was an age of singular
activity in the field of English prose. The
central events of the age-political struggles
culminating in the execution of Charles I and
the establishment of the
Commonwealth-exerted both a hampering
and an encouraging influence on the prose
writers of the age. Much was written by them
in sheer party spirit to promote either of the
two conflicting parties-the Puritans and the
Cavaliers.
Milton

119. Thus the air was thick with party
pamphlets most of which proved
only of ephemeral interest. Further,
this age was remarkable for its
production of some very eloquent
and compelling sermons of the first
rank in the language. The age of
Milton has been very aptly called
“the Golden Age of English Pulpit.”
The names of such powerful writers
as Taylor, Robert South, Fuller,
Isaac Barrow, and Richard Baxter
are associated with this department
of writing. In the field of moral,
social, and political philosophy the
age was enriched by the works of
Sir Thomas Browne, John Hales,
and Hobbes. Clarendon and Fuller
wrote distinguished histories. Isaac
Walton composed the quaint work
The Complete Angler—a work of its
own kind. And then there was the
almighty Milton who distinguished

120. John Milton (1608- 1674) was born in
London and educated at Christ’s
College, Cambridge. After leaving
university, he studied at home.
Milton was a great poet, polemic,
pamphleteer, theologian, and
parliamentarian. In 1643, Milton
married a woman much younger than
himself. She left Milton and did not
return for two years. This unfortunate
incident led Milton to write two
strong pamphlets on divorce. The
greatest of all his political writings is
Areopagitica, a notable and
impassioned plea for the liberty of the
press

121. Milton’s early poems include
On Shakespeare, and On
Arriving at the Age of
Twenty-three. L’Allegro(the
happy man and Il Penseroso
(the sad man) two long
narrative poems. Comus is a
masque written by Milton
when he was at Cambridge

122. His pastoral elegy Lycidas
is on his friend, Edward
King who drowned to
death on a voyage to
Ireland. Milton’s one of the
sonnets deals with the
theme of his blindness

123. Milton is remembered for his
greatest epic poem Paradise Lost.
Paradise Lost contained twelve
books and published in 1677. Milton
composed it in blank verse. Paradise
Lost covers the rebellion of
Satan(Lucifer) in heaven and his
expulsion. Paradise Lost contains
hundreds of remarkable lines. Milton
coined many words in this poem

124. Paradise Regained
and Samson
Agonistes are other
two major poems of
Milton
Milton occupies a central
position in English
literature. He was a great
Puritan and supported
Oliver Cromwell in the
Civil War. He wrote
many pamphlet in
support of parliament

125. LYRIC POETS
DURING MILTON’S
PERIOD (THE
CAVALIER POETS)
Milton’s period
produced immense
lyric poetry. These
lyrical poets dealt
chiefly with love and
war.

126. Richard Lovelace’s Lucasta
contains the best of his
shorter pieces. His best
known lyrics, such as To
Althea, from Prison and To
Lucasta, going in the Wars,
are simple and sincere

127. Sir John Suckling was a
famous wit at court. His
poems are generous and
witty. His famous poem
is Ballad upon a
Wedding
Robert Herrick wrote some
fresh and passionate lyrics.
Among his best known
shorter poems are To
Althea, To Julia, and Cherry
Ripe.
Philip Massinger and John
Ford produced some notable
in this period

128. Many prose writers flourished during
Milton’s age. Sir Thomas Browne is
the best prose writer of the period.
His ReligioMedici is a curious
mixture of religious faith and
scientific skepticism. Pseudodoxia
Epidemica, or Vulgar Errors is
another important work

129. Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan,
Thomas Fuller’s The History of the
Holy War are other important prose
works during this period. Izaac
Walton’s biography of John Donne
is a very famous work of Milton’s
period. His Compleat Angler
discusses the art of river fishing

130. The Restoration of Charles II (1660)
brought about a revolution in
English literature. With the collapse
of the Puritan Government there
sprang up activities that had been so
long suppressed. The Restoration
encouraged levity in rules that often
resulted in immoral and indecent
plays

131. The Restoration of Charles II (1660)
brought about a revolution in English
literature. With the collapse of the
Puritan Government there sprang up
activities that had been so long
suppressed. The Restoration
encouraged levity in rules that often
resulted in immoral and indecent
plays

132. Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis(Miracle
Year) describes the terrors of Great Fire
in London in 1666. Dryden appeared as
the chief literary champion of the
monarchy in his famous satirical
allegory, Abasalom and Achitophel.
John Dryden is now remembered for
his greatest mock-heroic poem, Mac
Flecknoe. Mac Flecknoe is a personal
attack on his rival poet Thomas
Shadwell

133. Dryden’s other
important poems are
Religio Laici, and
The Hind and the
Panther

134. John Dryden popularized
heroic couplets in his dramas.
Aurengaxebe, The Rival
Ladies, The Conquest of
Granada, Don Sebastian etc.
are some of his famous plays.
His dramatic masterpiece is
All for Love. Dryden polished
the plot of Shakespeare’s
Antony and Cleopatra in his
All for Love
John Bunyan’s greatest
allegory, The Pilgrim’s
Progress, The Holy War