ENGLISH LITERATURE 



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ENGLISH LITERATURE 



IV. Elizabethan Age (1550-1620). Leading 

 up to this period, which sets the high-water 

 mark for the world's poetry, was a period 

 (1400-1550) which produced few really great 

 works, probably because it was one of the 

 most troubled, changing times in all England's 

 history. Malory wrote his Morte d' Arthur; 

 More, his Utopia; Tyndale translated the New 

 Testament, and unknown poets of Scotland 

 made cycles of ballads, but there are no names 

 which stand out as does that of Shakespeare 

 in the age of Elizabeth. Several steps in ad- 

 vance were taken, however. The Earl of Sur- 

 rey introduced into one of his translations 

 "a strange meter" blank verse which was 

 then used for the first time in England. The 

 development of which it was capable is evi- 

 dent from the fact that Shakespeare and Mil- 

 ton used it for their masterpieces. Also, print- 

 ing was introduced. That statement deserves 

 all the emphasis which can be placed upon it, 

 for it is difficult now to understand the im- 

 mense influence which it had on learning and 

 on the production of books. 



Under Elizabeth, England took its place as 

 the foremost literary nation in the world. The 

 wonderful discoveries and explorations in 

 America fired men's imaginations; the victory 

 of the English fleet over the Armada roused 

 them to frenzies of patriotism; scientific dis- 

 coveries changed social conditions, and greater 

 religious security helped to make life freer 

 and richer. Literature felt the impetus of all 

 these forces. Thoughtful essays, brimming 

 with the new sciences of the day; poetry so 

 splendid in its music and its imagery that all 

 later ages have gone to it for inspiration; mar- 

 velous dramas never since equaled, were poured 

 out in a flood in those fifty years. The name 

 of Shakespeare so far outshines all others that 

 often the lesser lights are almost lost sight of, 

 but Francis Bacon, Edmund Spenser, or Ben 

 Jonson alone would have been enough to shed 

 luster on any age. Besides these there were 

 Sir Walter Raleigh, Christopher Marlowe, Sir 

 Philip Sidney and others, all noteworthy writ- 

 ers. With its intense love of life and of ac- 

 tion, this age expressed itself primarily, but 

 by no means exclusively, in the drama. 



V. The Puritan Age (1620-1660). Old ideals 

 of government and religion were breaking up, 

 and new ones had not been found to take their 

 place, so this age was restless, unsatisfied, and 

 as a result, gleomy. The thirst for beauty, the 

 romantic ardor which breathed through almost 

 everything written during the Elizabethan Age, 



are no longer to be found in literature, for 

 the love of beauty is sacrificed to the search 

 for truth. There were numerous minor poets, 

 but they emphasized form rather than feeling, 

 and were artificial and intellectual rather than 

 truly poetic. But there was one poet who 

 would have graced any age or nation John 

 Milton, with his "voice whose sound was like 

 the sea." In prose, too, Milton was the fore- 

 most figure of this period, but he was not able 

 to keep himself free from the argumentative 

 tendency of the times, and his prose work 

 therefore lacks a lasting appeal. Robert Bur- 

 ton's curious Anatomy oj Melancholy, Browne's 

 Religio Medici and Izaak Walton's Compleat 

 Angler, all books that will live, date from this 

 period. Thoroughly Puritan in spirit, the voice 

 of the age in prose as Milton was in poetry, 

 was John Bunyan, whose Pilgrim's Progress was 

 not published until long after the close of the 

 Puritan Age. 



VI. Period of the Restoration (1660-1700). 

 Sharp indeed was the break between the Puri- 

 tan Age, with its gloom, and the Restoration 

 period, with its impatience of all restraint. 

 Gayety was the keynote gayety carried to 

 the point of frivolity; and Shakespeare's great- 

 est dramas were looked upon as insipid and 

 unrefined. Imitations of French writers were 

 numerous, and as the faults rather than the 

 excellencies of the originals were brought over 

 into English, literature in England was in a 

 bad way. There was cleverness, but it was 

 joined with such low moral ideals that most 

 of the poems and plays of the day are unread- 

 able now. Even Dryden, a true poet, was in- 

 fluenced by the demands of the times and 

 produced a number of plays which reflected 

 the looseness of Restoration court society. The 

 Hudibras of Samuel Butler, published in 1663, 

 showed how complete was the reaction against 

 Puritanism. 



There was one wholesome tendency that to- 

 ward simplicity of form. The earlier ages had 

 indulged in verbal extravagances, and if for 

 a time the Restoration poets overdid the prun- 

 ing process and were stiff and formal, the 

 trouble righted itself later on and an increased 

 naturalness of manner was the result. 



VII. Eighteenth -Century Period (1700-1800). 

 This was primarily an age of prose, for the 

 myriad interests which were seeking expression 

 were not romantic and poetic, but practical, 

 and in a sense prosaic. The imaginative, the 

 romantic, was not popular, and satire had full 

 sway. Pope, it' is true, wrote poetry which in 



