Elizabethan Lyrics and Songs

Next to the drama, the lyric is the chief glory of the Elizabethan era. It is the golden age
of the lyrics as well as of the drama. There are various factors which transformed
England into a nest of singing birds during the age;
(1) There was the Elizabethan content and zest for life. When a man is happy and
contented, he sings. The nation was happy, so it sang. The song is everywhere in the
street, in the court, and on the stage. Everybody writes lyrics, down from the flowery
courtier to the man in the street. The sweetest songs of all occur in the drama of the
period; even prose romances like Arcadia are scattered all over with songs.
(2) Foreign influence, specially of France and Italy, did much to stimulate the growth of
the Elizabethan lyric. Songs from France were translated, imitated and modified, and
they inspired the people to new endeavour.
(3) There was a renaissance of music. The Elizabethans craved for music. The richer
sections had their own musicians to while away their leisure hours. Countless books of
music were published of which Thomas Campion's Books of Airs was the most popular.
They gave Elizabethans both the song and its tune. Lyric and music are near allied; love
of music led to the growth of the lyric.
(4) It was an age of poetry and romance. New wonders were being discovered almost
everyday; the poet lived and worte against a background of magic and enchantment.
The atmosphere was surcharged with romance, and song is t he very breath of
romance.

An analysis of these lyrics shows that they are practically one very subject between
heavan and earth, but the most popular subjects are (1) love, (2) religion, and (3) nature.
The poets again and again find the charms of nature united in their mistresses. The
lyrics are in every mood, sometimes even mocking and melancholy. But the prevalent
mood is gay and merry.

The Elizabethan lyric has some well-defined characteristics of its own;

(a) In the best of them there is a fine "blending of the genius of the people and the
artistic sense awakened by humanism." The song had always been there, but the song
of popular tradition was unrefined and coarse. In the most successful Elizabethan lyric,
"the rudeness and clumsiness of the popular muse has been penetrated by graceful
refmements of vocabulary and a pliability of versification previously unknown to her."
(b) While the best lyrics have a perfection which is never re-captured, in lesser hands art
degenerates into mere artifice and pedantry. Hence the artificiality of much of
Elizabethan lyricism.
(c) Moreover, many compose Lyrics merely because it is the fashion to do so, and not
because they have any genuine inspiration. They sing of love, without being lovers, and
of nature without having any real feeling for her charms. Hence insincerity,
conventionalism and affectation of many an Elizabethan lyric. The poets have brilliant
fancy but little passion.
(d) The Elizabethan lyric differs from the romantic lyric in as much as it is not the
outpouring of the poet's soul, it lacks intensity and passion. It is impersonal in character,
rather than subjective. The lover is commonly represented as a shepherd — a device
which separates the lover and the poet. The poet seems to be in love with love itself,
and not with any real woman. (e) A vein of moralising runs through the lyric. The poet
frequently generalises on the folly of love or the pain or idolatory of lovers. The
happiness of lowly desire, the tranquility of a virtuous mind, the superiority of
shephered's life to that of a king, etc., are often pointed out by the poet. (f) Thanks to the
prevailing taste for music, the Elizabethan lyric is very musical. Alliteration and other
verbal devices are frequently used to make the lyric musical. (g) The lyric lacks
originality. The poet are afraid of breaking new ground. They seek respectability for their
efforts, "either by basing them upon accepted classics or by chanting them to hymn like
airs". (S. A. Brooke).
To, conclude; In the Elizabethan lyric are blended the aroma of antiquity and the secret
of modernity. Nothing else in all this wealth of literature is so essentially poetic. "This is
its delicate swaying crest, its exquisite and supreme flower" (Legouis).
The Sonnet and Sonneteers
Wyatt had imported the sonnet from Italy and Surrey had invented the English form of
the sonnet. Their songs and sonnets were published together in Tottel's Miscellany in
1556. However, the technical peculiartity of the sonnet was not realised in the earlier
years of Elizabeth's reign. The word "sonnet" was used indifferently for any short lyric.
The sonnet proper remained forgotten and neglected till the publication in 1591 of
Sidney's sonnet-sequence called Astrophel and Stella. They express Sidney's passion
for Penelope, who was by that time the wife of Lord Rich. "He might have been married
to her, but he realised his Fission for her too late, and the realisation brought disquiet
and poignant sorrow." "Bitter regret for lost happiness, the irresistible desire to posses
his beloved, despair at her first coldness, the struggle in his truly virtuous heart between
virtue and desire,"(Legouls)— such is the theme of this wonderful sonnet sequence.
Their one outstanding quality is their sincerity. "They are the first direct expression," says
Mairs, "in English literature of an intimate and personal experience, struck of in the white
heat of passion." The one sure proof of their sincerity is that they were never intended
for publication. The Arcadia is strewn all over with songs and lyrics, but they are the
exercise merely of a literary imagination. A comparison with them throws into sharp relief
the passionate sincerity of the sonnets. However, there is the use of conventional
phraseology and the imitation of foreign models at places.
The publication of the Astrophel and Stella at once caught the imagination of the people
and gave rise to the vogue of the sonnet. Everybody tried his hand at it, mostly to
express his love for some imagined mistress. This accounts for the artificiality of most of
the Elizabethan sonnets. Sonnets were written merely because it was the fashion to
write sonnets, and not because the poets had some really felt passion to express. They
merely echo the sighs and love-pangs of Petrarch and the Petrarchans.
However, sincerity is also the keynote of Spenser's Amoretti (an Italian name), a
collection of about 88 sonnets. They express Spenser's love and courtship of Elizabeth
Boyle, the lady who became his wife shortly afterwards. It is in these sonnets alone, that
Spenser expresses his genuine feeling without recourse to allegory. "In the first ranks of
the works of the English Renaissance, Spenser's sonnets come between those of
Sidney and Shakespeare, from which they are different in form as in sentiment"
(Legouis).
Their chief Characteristics are;
(1) In form, they consist of three quatrains followed by a couplet, linked together by an
artistic arrangement of lines.
(2) They express the pure love of a betrothed lover about to marry his lady and thus
differ from the Petrarchan convention of a lover expressing his love for a married lady.
(3) They are unique for their purity and serenity. They have neither the restlessness of
Sidney in love with a married lady nor the unquiet of Shakespeare whose mistress
deceived him with his friend.
(4) They reveal Spenser's maidenliness, i.e., his love of the virginal in woman.
(5) In spite of their purity, there is enough of the sensuous in them, enough of sensuous
love of form and colour. Spenser is quite frank in the expression of ardour and desire.
While the sonnets of Sidney and Spenser form the very core of their poetic work,
Shakespeare's sonnets were written in moments snatched from work for the theatre. His
154 sonnets were first published in 1609, and as Wordsworth has put it, it was with this
key that the poet unlocked his heart. It is in the sonnets alone that the poet directly
expresses his feeling. Besides their sincerity of tone they have literary qualities of the
highest order. They touch perfection in their phraseology, in their perfect blending of
sense and sound, in their versification. Shakespeare's sonnet-sequence is "the casket
which encloses the most precious pearls of Elizabethan lyricism, some of them
unsurpassed by any lyricist."
Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare are the greatest sonnet writers of the Elizabethan
era. Next to them stand Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton. Daniels sonnet sequence
Delia is remarkable for its purity of language and correctness of versification. But he
writes merely for fashion's sake without any real mistress to sing to. Hence, his
expression of emotion is cold and leaves the readers unmoved. Drayton's Idea also
suffers from the same artificiality and lack of true passion. They are mere imitations,
mere experiments in the sonnet.
Main Characteristics of Elizabethan Sonnet
1. Foreign Influences: The Elizabethan sonnets were influenced by Italian and French
poets and poetic convention. Petrarch and many of his Italian imitators were
rediscovered. He and his Italian disciples exerted, at the close of Elizabeth's reign, the
most powerful influence on Elizabethan sonneteers. Petrarch's sonnets are love sonnets
based on the theme of his love for Laura. This typical theme with stock phrases, images
and other conventions was imitated to the full in Elizabethan period.
Secondly, French sonneteers — Ronsard, Desportes, and Du Bellay— , who were
influenced by the Italian sonnets, infused a new vigour into the writing of sonnets. They
greatly inspired Elizabethan sonneteers. Grierson Smith remarks: "All of them were
pipers of Petrarch's woes, sighing the strains of Ronsard or more often of Desportes."
2. Variety of Themes: Elizabethan sonnets were written on a variety of themes, the two
main subjects being love and religion. Love was the most important theme. Love was
mostly of the conventional type. Certain conventions were invariably followed. The lady,
to whom that sonnet is usually addressed, is cold and cruel. The lover laments, rages
and is frequently at the point of death. There is an artificiality in Elizabethan sonnets. The
sincerity of emotion and passion is doubted. The artificiality and rigid conventionality of
Elizabethan sonnet was severely ridiculed and criticised. The basest charges were
brought against the professional sonneteer. Sir John Harrington plainly stated that poets
were in the habit of writing sonnets for sale to purchasers who paraded them as their
own. He mentions the price as two crowns a sonnet:
Verses are now such merchantable ware,
That now for sonnets sellers are and buyers.
The suitors were in the habit of pleading cause with their mistresses by means of
sonnets which had been bought for hard cash from professional producers. Sir John
Davies vehemently protested against the "bastard sonnets" which "base rhymers" daily
begot "to their own shame and poetry's disgrace."
Only those Elizabethan sonneteers "who coloured, in their verse, the fruits of their
foreign reading with their own individuality" were congratulated and admired.
Although the sonnet in Elizabethan England as in France and Italy, was mainly devoted
to the theme of love, it was never exclusively confined to amorous purposes. Petrarch
occasionally made religion or politics the subjects of his sonnets. Sometime, sonnet was
also written in praise of a friend or patron. As a vehicle of spiritual meditation or of
political exhortation or of friendly adulation, the sonnet long enjoyed an established
vogue in foreign literature. When the sonnet sequence of love was in its heyday in
Shakespearean England, the application of the sonnet to purposes of piety or
professional compliment acquired popularity. Barnes and Constable supplemented their
amorous experiments with an extended sequence of spiritual sonnets. Barnes' volume of
spiritual sonnets was printed in 1595. Constable's religious sonnets were circulated only
in manuscript.
Sonnets inscribed by poets in the way of compliments to their friends or patrons were
profusely written in Shakespearean England. Sonnets were also used for the
"compendious praising" of books or their authors and for the brief prefatory presentation
in brief summary of the topic of any long treatise. The latter usage was rare in England
though Shakespeare experimented with it by casting into the sonnet form the prologues
before the first two Acts of Romeo and Juliet. Not frequently, a long series of adulatory
sonnets forms the prelude or epilogue of an Elizabethan book. Spenser's Faerie Queene
and Chapman's translation of Homer's Iliad are both examples of literary work of repute
which was ushered into the world with substantial supplement of adulatory sonnets.
Of sonnets addressed in the way of friendship by men of letters to colleagues of their
calling, a good example is found in the fine sonnet addressed by Spenser to Gabriel
Harvey, his singular good friend. Some of these occasional sonnets of eulogy or
compliment reach a high poetic level, and are free from most of the monotonous defects
which disfigured the conventional sonnet of love. To the first book of Spenser's Faerie
Queene, Sir Walter Raleigh prefixed two sonnets, the first of which was characterised by
rare stateliness of diction.
3. Reflection of the Spirit of the Age: The average Elizabethan sonnet illustrates the
temper of the age. It bears graphic witness to the Elizabethan tendency to borrow from
foreign literary effort. Even the greatest Elizabethan sonneteers did not disdain
occasional transcription of the language and sentiment of popular French or Italian
poetry. Legouis and Cazamian write: "Nothing better shows in miniature the general
characteristics of Elizabethan poetry, the mingling of the conventional and the
independent, the imitated and the original, of which it is constituted."
The Meaning and Definition of Sonnet
In spite of the sonnets of Wyatt and Surrey, the English had neglected this genre and
had even forgotten the exact meaning of the word sonnet. George Gascoigne, who
himself had made some fifteen experiments of this genre noted in 1575 how "some think
that all poems, being short, may be called sonnets. When Clement Robinson in 1584
published his Handful of Pleasant Deities, he described the volume as containing
"sundry new sonnets" and he headed many of his poems with such titles as "a proper
sonnet" or "a sorrowful sonnet". Robinson's sonnets are all lyric poems of varied length,
usually in four or six-lined stanzas. The long continued misuse of the word illustrates the
reluctance of the Elizabethans to accept the distinctive principles of sonnet.'
What, then, is sonnet ? The word "sonnet" is probably an abbreviation of Italian sonetto
(a little sound), and was a short poem recited originally to a musical accompaniment. It
consists of fourteen lines and has a rigid technical structure. The Petrarchan sonnet is
divided into two parts— Octave of eight lines and Sestet of six lines. The English or
Shakespearean sonnet is divided into three quartrains of four lines each and a rhyming
couplet.
Some Eminent Elizabethan Sonneteers
1. Thomas Watson. He was the earliest Elizabethan to make a reputation as a
sonneteer. His work is historically of great value as marking the progress and scope of
foreign influences. In early life, Watson translated all Petrarch's sonnets into Latin, but
only two specimens of his rendering survive. This laborious undertaking formed the
prelude to his sonneteering efforts in English. In 1582, he published one hundred
"passions" or "poems of love" which were described as sonnets, though with rare
exceptions they were each eighteen lines long. In the conventional appeal to his
wayward mistress, and in his expressions of amorous emotions there is no pretence of a
revelation of personal experience.
Watson's second volume, entitled "The Tears of Fancy or Love Disdained" differed from
the first in respecting the primary law which confined the sonnet within the limit of
fourteen lines. Watson's example largely encouraged the vogue of Elizabethan sonnet,
and crystallized its imitative temper. The majority of Elizabethan sonneteers were loyal to
his artificial method of construction.
2. Sir Philip Sidney. The publication of Sidney's sonnet sequence, entitled Astrophel and
Stella, in 1591, marks the real beginning of Elizabethan sonnet. His sonnets clearly
show the influence of Watson, Petrarch and Ronsard. "The appeals to sleep," "to the
nightingale," "to the moon," "to his bed," "to his mistress' dog," which form the staple of
much of Sidney's poetry, resemble the apostrophes of the foreign sonneteers. Petrarch
wrote his sonnets for his beloved Laura, Sidney's sonnets express his passion for
Penelope, the Stella of his sonnets. His sonnets are effusions of personal passion. He
might have married Penelope, but he realised his passion for her too late when she was
married to Lord Rich, and the realisation brought him disquiet and sorrow. "Bitter regret
for lost happiness," "the irresistible desire to possess his beloved," "despair at her first
coldness," "the struggle in his truly virtuous heart between virtue and desire" — such is
the theme of this charming sonnet sequence.
These sonnets are remarkable for their sincerity. Mair writes: "They are the first direct
expression in English literature of an intimate and personal experience, struck off in the
white heat of passion." However, Sidney as a sonneteer is an artist rather than an
autobiographer.
Sidney was the first English poet to indicate the lyric capacity of the sonnet. Charles
Lamb detected in Sidney's glorious vanities and graceful hyperboles "signs of love in its
very heyday", "a transcedent passion" pervading and illuminating his life and conduct.
Hazlitt, on the other hand, condemned Sidney's sonnets as jejune, frigid, stiff and
cumbrous. The truth probably lies between the two judgements. Felicitious phrases
abound in his sonnets. He was profoundly moved by lyric emotion. He was endowed
with the lyric power of creating at will the illusion of a personal confession.
Sidney followed the Petrarchan scheme of sonnet. His example was followed by many,
especially by Daniel in Delia, Constable in Diana, Drayton in Idea and Spenser in
Amoretti.
3. Edmund Spenser. The early collection of Spenser's sonnets, known as A Theatre for
Worldlings was influenced by Bellay, Marot and Sidney. Only a few of his early sonnets
embody original ideas or betray complete freedom in handling old conceits. Spenser
broke new ground in sonnet writing with the publication of Amoretti, a collection of 88
sonnets. They are addressed to Elizabeth Boyle, who became his wife. So, an
autobiographical note runs in his sonnets. They express the poet's love for a bethrothed
lover whom he married, and, thus, they differ from the Petrarchan convention of a lover
expressing his loves for a married lady. They have neither the restlessness of Sidney in
love with a married woman nor the unquiet of Shakespeare whose mistress deceived
him with his friend. Legouis remarks: "In the first ranks of the works of English
Renaissance, Spenser's sonnets come between those of Sidney and Shakespeare, from
which they are different in form as in sentiment."
Spenser's sonnets were influenced by neo-Platonism which had played a prominent part
in numberless French sonnets by Belay and Desportes. In two sonnets he identifies his
heroine with neo-Platonic idea of beauty.
Spenser's sonnets familiarised the Elizabethan reader with a classical conceit, which
Pindar among the Greeks, and Horace and Grid among the Latins had notably glorified.
The conceit was that poets not only achieved immortality through their verse, but had the
power of conferring immortality on those to whom their poetry was addressed. Spenser
tells his mistress:
My verse your virtue rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Daniel and Drayton vie with Spenser in reiterating the conceit. Drayton speaks of his
sonnets as "my immortal songs". Shakespeare could boast that his sonnets would live
"so long as men can breathe or eyes can see"
4. Shakespeare. Shakespeare's sonnets "are the most precious pearls of Elizabethan
lyricism, some of them unsurpassed by any lyricism". The majority of the sonnets were
written probably in 1594, when Shakespeare had gained the patronage of the Earl of
Southampton. The form he chose was not the Italian form. He preferred the Spenserian
pattern, consisting of three decasyllabic quatrains, each rhyming alternately, and
rhyming couplet to conclude. Although unequal in power and beauty, they show a far
maturer touch than that displayed in the splendid though undisciplined Venus and Adonis
and The Rape of Lucrece.
Thomas Thorpe printed a collection of 154 sonnets of Shakespeare in 1609. It was
dedicated to a certain "Mr. W.H." and to a "Dark Lady". The poet loved both of them
dearly. "W.H." was probably his dear friend, the Earl of Southampton, but the woman
(the Dark Lady) suddenly becoming enamoured of him, had drawn him from the
allegiance of the poet. The poet makes every allowance for the man, his youth, his
attraction and his inexperience. He feels more bitterly towards the woman. She, he feels,
had turned his friend from him in sheer wantonness of spirit. He prefers the comradeship
of his friend to the company of the mistress. The poet says:
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
Shakespeare's sonnets, thus, reveal an emotional crisis in his life. The autobiographical
note is strongly marked in them. Wordsworth wrote: With this key
Shakespeare unlocked his heart.
Shakespeare is critical of the bawdiness and promiscuity of the lady. He uses bitter
images to describe her lustfulness:
If eyes corrupt by over-partial looks,
Be anchored in the bay where all men tide,
Why of eyes falsehood halt thou forged bookes,
Whereto the judgement of my heart is tide ?
Why should my heart think that a severall plot,
Which my heart knows the wide world's common place.
The poet endows eternity on his fair friend:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall death brag thou wander's in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Shakespeare's sonnets are noticeable for rare beauty of images and the flawless
perfection of style and versification, which has an unsurpassable melody. He "breathed
into the sonnet a lyric melody and a meditative energy which no writer of any country
has surpassed."
5. Henry Constable. Constable's sonnets are remarkable for melody, beauty and
Spenser's sensuous charm:
My Lady's presence makes the Roses red,
Because to see her lips they blush for shame.
The Lily's leaves, for envy, pale became,
And her white hands in them this envy bred.
6. Daniel. He was endowed with a lyric quality of a brilliant order. He was influenced by
foreign poets, especially by Tasso. Daniel's collection of sonnets, known as Delia, is
based on the conventional theme of love and has stock devices of contemporary sonnet
writing. He wrote sonnets without conviction and without a real mistress to sing. She,
whom he implores, remains invisible, inaccessible, cold, unknown and absent. As a
linguist and versifier he deserves praise. The language of his sonnets is pure and
versification is correct.
7. Drayton. Drayton is a distinguished sonneteer. His sonnet sequence Idea symbolises
the Platonic idea of beauty, which was notably familiar to Du Bellay in France and to
Spenser in England. Drayton's "soul-shrined saint", his "divine Idea", his "fair Idea" is
Pontoux's "Celeste Idea". He wrote fifty-two sonnets.
Drayton's imitative appeals to night, to his lady's fair eyes, to rivers, his use of classical
allusions, his insistence that his verse is eternal-- all these stock devices recall
expressions of Ronsard and Desportes.
Drayton for the first time imparted dramatic sense to sonnet writing, but his sonnets
suffer from artificiality and lack of true passion.
Drayton's sonnet "A Parting" "is a magnificent piece of verse, sure in its handling, at
once strong and restrained in its expression of passion." It is, undoubtedly, one of the
finest sonnets in Shakespearean England. It is a typical English sonnet, divided into
three Quatrains and a rhyming couplet.
8. Minor Sonneteers. The other sonnet writers were translators and poor imitators of
Petrarch and Ronsard. Lodge's Phillis, Fletcher's Tears of Fancy, Percy's Celia, Lynch's
Dillia and Smith's Choloris are poor in stuff and purely imitative in character.
Some Scottish poets also attempted sonnet writing. Sir William Alexander, whose 106
sonnets were published in 1604, followed the Italian and French pattern. He is not a poet
of deep feeling, but he has gifts of style which raise him above the Elizabethan hacks.
William Drummond of Hawthornden began his literary career as a sonneteer on
Elizabethan pattern just before Queen Elizabeth died. His imitations of Italian poets are
impregnated with a native fire which places him in an altogether different category from
that of the juvenile scribblers of Elizabethan England.
Conslusion: The age of Shakespeare was the golden age of sonnet. It contains an
inexhaustible treasure of sonnets which poets of all succeeding ages used with great
skill. Each poet contributed something new to the art of sonnet writing. The renowned
poets who enriched sonnet writing are Milton, Waller, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats,
Arnold, Rossetti and many others.
5
VERSE SATIRE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
Verse satire during the age of Shakespeare, though feeble, was pervasive.
Contemporary manners, contemporary authors, court life and women were satirised
vehemently and forcefully. It is mostly imitative and is modelled on Horace and Juvenal.
Even an original genius like Donne is imitative. Satire during this period lacks
pointedness because the Elizabethans were too much in love with life to satirise
effectively. A satirist is either a reformer or a man with a grievance. The Elizabethans
were neither. The main satirists of this period are given below:
1. Thomas Wyatt. Wyatt, who introduced the sonnet in English, also inaugurated satire in
the true Chaucerian spirit. He was the first satirist to relate satire to real life after
Chaucer. As a satirist he was influenced by Horace. Wyatt wrote three satires, all in the
form of epistles. The subject of his satires is the corruption and intrigue of court.
2. Edmund Spenser. Spenser's satire is scattered in the Shepherd's Calendar, Ruins of
Time and Mother Hubbard's Tale. It is the bitterest political satire in heroic couplets. In it
Spenser successfully satirises agricultural, clerical, social and finally imperial mores. In
the following lines he presents a satirical picture of court life, which shows the servile
conditions of Elizabethan court, expressed in the strongest couplet written by any
Englishman before Dryden:
So pitiful a thing is suitor's state…..
Full little knowest thou that hath not tried,
What hell it is in suing long to hide.
To lose good days that might be better spent;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent;
To speed today, to be put-back tomorrow.
3. John Donne. Donne, the renowned metaphysical poet, was also a satirist. He wrote
five satires which expose the wretchedness of courtiers, magistrates and legislators. His
satire is bitter, pointed and original. He expresses his resentment against injustice and
corruption of the age in the following lines:
The iron age was when justice was sold
Injustice is sold dearer far.
He also satirises the uncertainty and misplaced zeal of the age in matters of religion.
Donne adopted Horatian method of anecdotal narrative in satire. He employs an
informal, conversational, racy and nervous style.
4. Ben Jonson. As the creator of the Comedy of Humours, Ben Jonson was the foremost
satirist of his age, who satirised not only the defects and foibles prevailing in the society
of his time but also the leading literary personalities of the age. The spirit of satire also
looms large in the three collections of his poetry — Epigrammes, The Forrest,
Underwoods. Jonson presents us with a fair number of little sarcastic portraits in ten or
twenty lines. Ben Jonson's moral satires were nobler in tone and more sincere in
expression than those of Hall or Marston.
5. Joseph Hall. Joseph Hall acclaimed himself the first satirist of the age:
I first adventure, follow me who list
And be the second English satirist.
He wrote thirty-four satires, whereas Wyatt had written only three, Lodge four, Donne
five and Spenser only one satire. He has also enunciated his own conception of satire:
A satire should be like porcupine,
That shoots sharp quills out in each angry line,
And wounds the blushing cheek and fiery eye
Of him that hears and readeth guiltily.
As a satirist, Hall aimed at reforming and chastising the rampant evils of his time. In his
Virgidemiarum, he attacked the extravagance of dress and foppishness of the courtiers.
His satire is forceful, vehement and fiery.
6. John Marston. Marston published Metamorphosis, Pygmalion's Image, Satires and
The Scourge of Villaining. He was the most abusive, harshest and obscene of
Elizabethan satirists. He was influenced by Juvenal. He ruthlessly exposes the
hypocrisies of various classes of the society of his time. He was undoubtedly the most
obscene of Elizabethan satirists. To quote Hugh Walker: "No one else pushed to such an
extent the doctrine that the lines of satire ought to jolt and bump along."
7. George Wither. He was a Puritan satirist. He satirised the court in his Abuses Stift and
Wipt, which appeared in 1613. Wither's Motto is full of Puritan spirit. In his satires
elements of exaltation and mysticism are mingled. He became one of the prophets of the
Revolution, the typical puritan scribbler.
Wither's The Shepherd's Hunting is in pastoral allegorical form. It shows an outburst of
gratitude to Nature.
5
OTHER POETS
1. William Browne (1591-1643). Browne confined himself strictly to the pastoral form of
Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar and Sidney's Arcadia. His Britannia's Pastorals made
him something like the classical representative of pastoral poetry in England. It is a
pastoral of love. It is half allegory, half mythology. It abounds in pompous similes and
fanciful conceits. Local colour and nature painting distinguish it. Browne is an admirable
stylist. It is written in couplets which often have a distinctly classical air, and epigramatic
and proverbial force.
2. Giles Fletcher (1588-1623). His poetry shows a great religious fervour. His only poem
written in youth is Christ's Victory and Triumph. It is marked by glowingly descriptive and
imaginative style, and ornate and melodious diction. It is said partly to have inspired
Milton's Paradise Regained. The style is strongly suggestive of Spenser's. He uses the
Spenserian stanza, lacking the seventh line. It describes Christ's life on earth, His
mission of mercy, His struggle against Satan who tempts him, His final victory, and the
vision of heavenly Jerusalem.
3. Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650). His masterpiece Piscatorie Ecologues was influenced
by Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar. He substitutes fishermen for shepherds. His poetic
reputation rests on The Purple Island or The Isle of Man. It is a long allegory which
directly shows the influence of Spenser and Du Bartas. The allegory itself, in which the
island, with its hills, rivers and woods, represents the human body, is like a disguised
lesson in physiology. It is a moral allegory. He is distinguished by his master Spenser, by
his greater religious fervour and by his literary form—the lighter stanza, the more
modern style, the total absence of archaisms, and grace and liveliness in images drawn
from Nature.
4. Ben Jonson (1572-1633). Ben Jonson, who was primarily an eminent dramatist, was a
pioneer in the field of poetry. His influence was felt by the greatest number of his
countrymen down to the Restoration. His poetic work is of considerable merit and extent.
It consists of short pieces, written throughout his life, which appeared in three collections
— Epigrammes, The Forrest and Underwoods. Ben Jonson's contribution to satirical
poetry has already been discussed.
He was the first Englishman to write Pindaric odes, with strophe, antistrophe and epode.
His Ode to Himself is a fine example of this genre. His poetic style is lucid, clear and free
from extravagances; for example
Come, leave the loathed stage,
And the more loathsome age,
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit,
Usurp the chair of wit !
Ben Jonson introduced neoclassical qualities of clarity and correctness. He makes us
feel that we are on the road to Dryden. He lacks in spontaneity and flight of imagination.
His images are concrete. He influenced neoclassical poetry.
"To Celia", "Echo's Song" and "A Song" are his memorable lyrics.
5. John Donne (1573-1631). Donne's remarkable contribution to poetry will be discussed
along with metaphysical poetry.
The Age of Shakespeare is the golden period of English poetry. Marlowe's Hero and
Leander and Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece are descriptive
love poems full of youthful vigour and imagination. The allegorical poetry culminates in
Spenser's Faerie Queene and declines with the Spenserians of the type of Fletchers and
with Drayton's Endymion and Phoebe. The pastoral, which is a kind of descriptive poem,
is seen in Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar and in Browne's Bitannia's Pastorals. Songs,
lyrics and sonnets were written in abundance. Poems on religious, satirical and didactic
themes were written. Edward Albert writes: "The Spenserian and Shakespearean stage
is the stage of highest development. The native English genius, having absorbed the
lessons of foreign writers, adds to them the youth and ardour of its own spirit. The result
is a fullness, freshness, and grandeur of style, unequalled in any other period of our
literature. There are lyrics and allegories of Spenser; the poems, dramas and lyrics of
Shakespeare; and the innumerable miscellanies, poems, and plays of other writers. The
style is as varied as the poems; but the universal note is the romantic one of power and
ease."