Late 16th & Early 17th Century English Poetry - Assignment Example

Late 16th & Early 17th Century English Poetry Literature has long been acknowledged as not only an amusing past-time for the literate, but also as a repository for the cultural, political and religious beliefs of the people who wrote and consumed it. Poetry is no exception to this rule. For example, the English Protestant Reformation that started under King Henry VIII, advances in technology that allowed for a greater proliferation and distribution of books and a shift in religious thinking all contributed to a shift in the form and content of the literature of the 1500s and early 1600s. “[John] Bale, more than any other English reformer, deserves the credit of having grasped, as early as 1544, that ‘the exile of the Papacy from England meant the ending of a whole historical tradition’ and the opportunity for a new one” (Hamilton & Strier, 1996: 7). The new perspective opened with the ability to question long-held religiously-oriented convictions meant an entirely new approach could be taken to the documents of the enemy as well as the friend (Aston, 1984). At the same time, increased power held by the throne, expanding horizons introduced with a growing naval fleet and exploration and an increased focus on more scientifically-based theories opened up the imagination to a new mode of communication that was reflected in all forms of literature. While politics and religion can be discussed plainly and openly in some instances, the poetry of the late 16th and early 17th centuries typically takes a more oblique approach to these topics, as the works of Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne and George Herbert illustrate through their collections Astrophil and Stella, Songs and Sonnets, and The Temple respectively. Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was well-versed in the lifestyles and changing attitudes of England’s upper classes. Following a traditional education route, Sidney left Christ Church, Oxford without taking a degree in order to travel and served for some time as an emissary for the queen. Part of his duties as emissary were to discover any possibilities for the formation of a Protestant League with the German emperor and the Prince of Orange, but his ideas were more radical than those held by the queen and he was summoned home (Jokinen, 2004). “Upon his return, Sidney attended the court of Elizabeth I, and was considered ‘the flower of chivalry.’  He was also a patron of the arts, actively encouraging such authors as Edward Dyer, Fulke Greville, and most importantly, the young poet Edmund Spenser, who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him” (Jokinen, 2004). He was mourned after his death as the last quintessential ‘Renaissance’ man. While he was dismissed from court for a time after opposing Queen Elizabeth’s marriage to the Duke of Anjou, he remained a popular character, whose writings frequently cloaked some of his opinions regarding not only love, as is obvious in Astrophil and Stella, written sometime around 1576 but not published until 1591, but other issues as well (Jokinen, 2004). With such involvement in court and politics, it would be surprising indeed to come across some of Sidney’s writings that did not in some way reflect the changing attitudes and approaches of his times. In Astrophil and Stella, Sidney introduced the concept of the sonnet cycle into English poetry even as he questioned the political and religious status quo. “The sonnet sequence allows Sidney to dramatize from yet another point of view the lofty aims of the lover and the defeats imposed by desire” (David Kalstone, 1965, cited in Low, 2003). The worshipful nature of his professed feelings for Stella, a barely concealed persona for Penelope Devereaux Rich whom he had been courting at the time the sequence was started, openly seeks transcendence to heaven through the divine love felt for a woman. Evidence of this can be found in Sonnet 5 as Astrophil admits equates the attention he has love for Stella with his devotions to God: “It is most true, that eyes are formed to serve / The inward light; and that the heavenly part / Ought to be king” (1-2). These types of phrases are indicative of the Petrarchan attitudes that were prevalent at the time. “Of course, we know that Sidney puts the Petrarchan conventions into question in the opening sonnets of his sequence. … We also know that, in saying this, Sidney is performing one of the accepted rhetorical moves – indeed, that he is still thoroughly within the Petrarchan tradition” (Low, 2003: 13). The rather foolish fate found by Astrophil demonstrates the tragic flaw in this line of thinking. “Astrophil and Stella marks the crowning achievement of golden Petrarchan love poetry in England yet at the same time reveals the fissures of its forthcoming dissolution, as – under the pressure of accelerating change in the basic politics, economics, and culture of England – new desires, ideals, and anxieties begin to crowd in and displace it” (Low, 2003: 13). Because Astrophil is unable to transcend his feelings for Stella, he is seen as the ultimate failure in love even as it is demonstrated how the Petrarchan ideals of feminine idealism, in which the female remains chaste and untouchable allows for no other possible conclusion. Through this inversion of Petrarchan ideals, the case of Astrophil becomes a means of not only examining the concepts involved, but also serve to make broader statements regarding those religious and political concepts that were then in vogue. Astrophil is not able to use his love for Stella to transcend into heaven as is expected, but rather becomes so wrapped up in the image of Stella that he cannot escape. She becomes an idol that blocks his ascendance to heaven in much the same way that the Catholic church was seen to have become a hindrance to Christians by consistently placing false idols in their path. The Petrarchan love expressed for Stella can easily be compared to the cult of Mary in which the way to God was only through Mary indirectly as she was the vessel to bring forth the son of God (Berry, 1995). At the same time, the power inherent in Stella’s position as the woman idealized and adored helps underscore the power held by the queen, celebrating her own beauty, wisdom and authority in subtle allusions woven throughout the poem, such as the royal blood that appears in Sonnet 6 and Queen Virtue who appears in Sonnet 9, “which some call Stella’s face” (1). Astrophil’s inability to win Stella’s love and affection makes her all the more powerful because of his inability to repent of it. He finds himself in a quandary from which he can neither escape nor justify, ultimately resting all control in the hands of his queen. Like Sir Philip Sidney, John Donne worked with sonnets in the Petrarchan tradition yet managed to capture the ideals of his contemporaries within his verse. Born in 1572 to a wealthy Catholic family in London, Donne had a profoundly different religious upbringing than Sidney, yet shared many characteristics. While Donne lost his father at a very young age, he nevertheless had an upper class upbringing. Having received a strong education at Hart Hall, University of Oxford, Donne left school without taking a degree and was expected to pursue a career in law. Although Sidney left school to travel and gain experience, Donne did not obtain a degree on moral grounds as he refused to take the Oath of Supremacy (Jokinen, 2006). It is believed that at about the time he wrote his Songs and Sonnets, Donne was undergoing a crisis of faith following his brother’s imprisonment and death after harboring a Catholic priest. By the time he died in 1631, he was a somewhat reluctant but successful and well-traveled Anglican minister. Like Sidney’s Stella, Donne’s mistress emerges almost immediately as a heartless woman despite her otherworldly beauty and her lover’s devotion. In “The Flea”, she heartlessly kills the flea in which the blood of both man and woman have been combined despite his pleas for its pardon. “Cruel and sudden, hast thou since / Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?” (19-20). This poem illustrates not only Donne’s ability to insert some of the Petrarchan values and ideas of romance into his poetry, in terms of a devotional worship of a lady, but also points to a shifting ideology regarding the treatment of women in such poetry, including the woman’s response to such devotion, as well as introducing the metaphysical emphasis that began emerging in this slightly later time period. Donne pokes fun at the worshipful nature of Petrarchism in his grief over the death of a flea simply because it contained the blood of each lover, mixing them in its own body, pointing out the exaggerated extremes to which such ideals eventually lead. The concept of the blood mixing within the body of the flea brings in the metaphysical concept of the two lovers joined in one body after the flea has drawn from each of them. At the same time, it introduces the woman’s voice in the interchange, “Yet thou triumph’st, and say’st that thou / Find’st not thyself nor me the weaker now” (23-24), injecting a sense of playful banter while allowing his female figure to retain her ultimate power of life and death. Despite this subtle poking-fun of the Petrarchan ideal of divine love in the form of a woman, several of Donne’s poems acknowledge the necessity of such poetry to capture the sublime image of devotion necessary to convey such thoughts to a physical, understandable realm in a world that was constantly changing and no longer stable. In poems such as “Air and Angels”, Donne illustrates how the real transcends into the divine as the form of the angels is manifested in the corporal body of the beloved, yet also how this image becomes mired down in earthly concerns and therefore becomes less divine. “Thus Donne’s sequence can be seen as an acknowledgment of the inherent instability involved in poetic attempts to transpose the ideal into the real, but it can also be seen an in innovative response to this problem that entails embracing the instability and irony of Petrarchan lyricism and then using that instability and irony prominently in poems whose speakers are conscious of the limitations of their conceits” (Knauss, 1998). In poems such as “A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day”, Donne illustrates the death and rebirth cyclical nature of new love born and old love finally understanding. In this sense of embracing and exploring the instability inherent in the Petrarchan tradition, the multi-faceted, many-voiced collection seen in Songs and Sonnets can be seen as a reflection of the troubled waters of Donne’s changing England. As a body of work, it reflects “the particularly troubling transition period in which the hierarchies that, theoretically at least, guaranteed the cohesiveness of the universe were challenged by the ‘new philosophy’ which called everything into doubt, and the analogies which characterize Tillyard’s idealized Elizabethan World Picture were all but reduced to a set of poetic clichés” (Knauss, 1998). The metaphysical nature of these poems reflects this constant questioning, as the boundaries between love and hate, life and death and joined and unjoined became blurred and mired in rhetoric and supposition. The world was changing at an increasing rate and long-held convictions were challenged as the nature of something as simple as love became even more confused and ill-defined. Building off of the ideas and works of Donne, for whom his mother was a patron, George Herbert grew up in a very literate household that, like those of Donne and Sidney, was well-versed in the dominant themes and issues of the day. Born in Wales in 1593, Herbert shared the experience of an early loss of a father with Donne (Jokinen, 1996). Educated at Cambridge, his earliest known sonnets indicated his dedication to religious matters as he informed his mother of his belief that God was a worthier subject than women in all poetry. He also emphasized the importance of political events as he penned memorial poems honoring the deceased heir apparent Prince Henry. Unlike Sidney and Donne, Herbert did pursue a career within the academic field, taking a B.A. in 1613 and a M.A. in 1616 and being elected a major fellow of Trinity. By 1618, he was appointed Reader in Rhetoric at Cambridge and was elected public orator in 1620 (Jokinen, 1996). He represented Montgomery in Parliament in 1624 and 1625. Despite these early political interests, Herbert “took holy orders in the Church of England in 1630 and spent the rest of his life as rector in Bemerton near Salisbury” (Jokinen, 1996). From here, he preached and wrote poetry while he helped rebuild the church and cared for his parishioners until his death in 1633. His collection of poems called The Temple were published the year of his death on the instruction to publish them only if it was felt they might help “any dejected poor soul” (Jokinen, 1996). The popular demand for them, forcing 13 printings by 1680, indicates the appeal Herbert had. Following in the metaphysical footsteps of family friend John Donne, Herbert remained true to his passion for God as the main theme in his poetry, reflecting changing ideals as well as a country working to settle some of its religious differences. Turning his attention away from the idealist romantic notions of courtly love and the worship of feminine beauty, “Herbert’s poems are characterized by a precision of language, a metrical versatility and an ingenious use of imagery or conceits that was favored by the metaphysical school of poets” (Jokinen, 1996). Rather than adhering to a particular form and style, Herbert utilized every form of communication with which he was familiar as a means of appealing to the broadest possible range of ‘poor souls’ should the manuscript ever reach publication. “Carefully arranged in related sequences, the poems explore and celebrate the ways of God’s love as Herbert discovered them within the fluctuations of his own experience” (Jokinen, 1996). Unlike the courtly traditions of Sidney or the chaotic environment of Donne, Herbert reflects a period in which more and more people were becoming reconciled to the semblance at least of dedication to the Anglican Church and its customs while losing some of the more foolish ideals regarding idol worship and the cult of beauty equals divinity. This change in religious attitudes throughout the country can be traced in poems such as “The Collar,” as can the development of metaphysical thought through the use of potent imagery and multiple meanings. “Herbert has articulated in very precise theological terms an attitude toward religious service that far transcends mere pietistic platitudes or conventional religious posturing” (Roberts, 1993). As with many of his poems, the seemingly simple title of “The Collar” conveys an essential image that illustrates the depth of the poem’s message. Despite the fact that the word ‘collar’ never actually appears in the poem, it becomes clear that the speaker is a preacher, one who wears a collar every day of his life, yet one who is also undergoing a period of strong rebellion as he strikes the altar, ‘the board, and cry’d, No more” (1). “One is reminded also of the slave’s collar, which likewise is fitting because the speaker, for most of the poem, thinks of himself as a slave or servant who has served a demanding lord and who wishes to free himself from what he considers degrading and numbing servitude” (Roberts, 1993). Other connotations of the word can be read into the poem as well, including the concept of an animal’s collar, a beast’s yoke, or the thought of the illness cholera, which remained a prime concern in Herbert’s time. “But, most important, the word ‘collar’ was pronounced very much like ‘caller’ in seventeenth-century English; and, above all, “The Collar” is a calling poem, one in which the speaker recognizes an interior calling by God: ‘Me thoughts I heard one calling, Child! / And I reply’d, My Lord’ (35-36)” (Roberts, 1993). At the same time that he is refocusing poetry’s subject onto God, Herbert continues to address himself to the literate common man rather than the lofty Latin literati that he had earlier associated himself with, breaking through previously understood barriers as a means of relating to all. His tone fluctuates from conversational to convincing to questioning, making his poetry at once accessible and down to earth, bringing it to a more understandable level to those with whom he spent the latter portions of his life – his country parishioners. However, he never quite forgot the lessons he’d learned in the secular court or the parallels that could be made from one to the other. “Throughout The Temple Herbert’s intimate experience of political authority infiltrates and enriches his discourse with divinity” (Schoenfeldt, 1991: 22). Through the use of specific language, such as that seen in “Redemption”, Herbert deliberately confuses the use of the term ‘Lord’ to bring attention to the continued necessity of the individual to subject himself to a superior power, both on earth and in heaven. Through his poetry, “Herbert shows not only how social concerns constantly interpenetrate the sacred world to which they are contrasted but also how devotional postures of submission are continually infiltrated by the subtle forms of opposition or ambition they both enable and disguise. Surprisingly, the submission of the poor and the opposition of the proud produce the same result, however different they may be in appearance and intention: the flattery of power.” (Schoenfeldt, 1991: 24). In Herbert, then, the secular and the religious, the sublime and the mundane, the devotional and the worldly, become combined in a statement of faith that permeates the metaphysical musings of his pages. Through each of these poets, Sidney, Donne and Herbert, the religious and political changes experienced in England can be traced. As focus shifted from the courtly love traditions of Petrarch and the Italians as expressed through Sidney to the disillusion of boundaries in the metaphysical realm of Donne, the concept of Petrarchan ideals can be seen to fade in the political and religious turmoil that emerged from the Protestant Reformation. Reality emerged as a concept and the subject of courtly love, the beautiful women who were admired often from afar and with little involvement of their own, were finally given something of a voice as Donne provided their words and actions in response to their worship. This reality entered the more stable religious world of George Herbert, emerging as a refocusing of devotion upon its proper subject while metaphysical concerns compared secular and religious aspects of life as a means of working towards a more realistic perspective. Works Cited Aston, Margaret. Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval Religion. London: The Hambleton Press, 1984. Berry, Phillippa. Of Chastity and Power. London: Routledge, 1989. Hamilton, Donna B. & Strier, Richard. Religion, Literature and Politics in Post Reformation England: 1540-1688. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Jokinen, Anniina. “George Herbert.” Luminarium. (21 September 1996). Jokinen, Anniina. “Life of Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586).” Luminarium. (14 April 2004). Jokinen, Anniina. “The Life of John Donne.” Luminarium. (22 June 2006). Knauss, Daniel Phillip. Love’s Refinement: Metaphysical Expressions of Desire in Sir Philip Sidney and John Donne. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina State University. January 4, 2007 < http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/etd/public/etd-36591317119843500/etd.pdf> Low, Anthony. The Reinvention of Love. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Roberts, John R. “’Me Thoughts I Heard One Calling, Child!’: Herbert’s ‘The Collar’.” Renaissance. Vol. 45, I. 3, Spring 1993. Schoenfeldt, Michael C. Prayer and Power: George Herbert and Renaissance Courtship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Read More