Compare and contrast the certain forms of literature of the 15th and 16th
Literature is the exploitation of words.’In a more limited sense, the term denotes literary productions as a whole which have value because of their qualities of form, their general artistic merits. As an art,literature is the organisation of words, oral and in written form, to give pleasure and to instruct, even indirectly.’[1] Literature is a living thing like language. Sometimes it changes, sometimes improves and develops, sometimes decays or disappears. Literature is greatly influenced by political, historical and social changes. Some political events or social contexts affect literature or a period of it. Literature is an art which exploits language, English literature is an art which exploits the English language. For convenience of discussion, historians divide the continuity of English literature into segments of time that are called “periods”. The exact number, dates and names of these periods vary. Social context of a period affects the literature of that period. So social context and changes in the English society during the 15th and 16th century have influence on the English literature of these periods.
The year 1485 has usually been taken to mark the end of the Middle Ages in England. For the Middle Ages, there is no one central movement or event such as the English Reformation, the Civil War or the Restoration around which to organise a historical approach to the period. In this period, society was still based on rank. At the top were dukes, earls and other lords. Below these great lords were knights. Most knights were no longer heavily armed fighters on horses. They were “gentlemen farmers” or “landed gentry” who had increased the size of their landholdings and improved their farming methods. This class had grown in numbers. Next to gentlemen were the ordinary freemen of the towns. By the end of the Middle Ages, it was possible for a serf from the countryside to work for seven years in a town craft guild and to become a “freeman” of the town where he lived. Towns offered to poor men the chance to become rich and successful through trade. There were guilds to protect the production or trade of a whole town. People were busy with agriculture and farming as well as trade. Meanwhile, a new middle class was developing in the towns. By the fifteenth century most merchants were well educated and considered themselves to be the equals of the gentlemen of the countryside. The growth of this new middle class, educated and skilled in law, administration and trade, created a new atmosphere in Britain because of the increase in literacy. This literate class questioned the way in which the Church and the state were organised, for both religious and practical reasons. This middle class also questioned the value of the feudal system as it didn’t create wealth. The development of Parliament at this time showed the beginnings of a new relationship between the middle class and the king. With the spread of literacy, cultural life in Britain naturally developed also. In the cities, plays were performed at important religious festivals. They were called “mystery plays” because of the mysterious nature of events in the Bible and they were very popular. In the larger cities some guilds made themselves responsible for particular plays, which became traditional yearly events. The language itself was changing too. After the Norman Conquest English (the old Anglo-Saxon language) continued to be spoken by ordinary people but was no longer written. By the end of the fourteenth century, however, English was once again a written language, because it was being used instead of French by the ruling, literate class. But “Middle English”, the language of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was different from Anglo-Saxon. The Middle Ages ended with a major technical development : William Caxton’s first English printing press, set up in 1476. Caxton had learnt printing in Germany. At first he printed popular books such as Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” and Malory’s “Morte D’Arthur”. Caxton’s introduction of the printing press into England was as dramatic for his age as radio, television and the technological revolution are for our own. Books suddenly became cheaper and more plentiful as the quicker printing process replaced slow and expensive copywriting by hand. More important, just as radio brought information and ideas to the illiterate people of the twentieth century, Caxton’s press provided books for the newly educated people of the fifteenth century and encouraged literacy. But the children and grand children of these literate people were to use printing as a powerful weapon to change the world in which they lived. English society in the fifteenth century was so. These developments had impact on the English literature. Middle English Period, extending from 1066 to 1485, is noted for the extensive influence of French literature on native English forms and themes. From the Norman - French conquest of England in 1066 until the 14th century, French largely replaced English in the literature, and Latin remained as the language of learned works. By the 14th century, when English again became the chosen language of the ruling classes, it had lost much of the Old English inflectional system, it had undergone certain sound changes and had acquired the characteristic that it still possesses of freely taking into the native stock numbers of foreign words. Thus, the various dialects of Middle English spoken in the 14th century were similar to Modern English and can be read without great difficulty today. The Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries is much more diversified than the previous Old English literature. A variety of French and even Italian elements influenced Middle English literature, especially in southern England. At the same time, different regional styles were maintained, for literature and learning hadn’t been centralized yet. For these reasons, as well as because of the vigorous and uneven growth of national life, the Middle English period contains a wealth of literary monuments not easily classified.
In the Middle English literature of the 14th and 15th centuries, writers and poets used allegory as a means of literary device. Much of medieval literature relied on allegory to convey the morals the author had in mind while writing. Representations of abstract qualities, events and institutions are thick in much of the literature of this time. Poets continued to write in forms like the Old English alliterative, four-stress lines. Poems were usually about religion and Church, tales of chivalry and adventure. There are three important alliterative poems in this period. Firstly, ”Piers the Plowman”, written by William Lagland, is a long, impassioned work in the form of dream visions, protesting the plight of the poor, the greed of the powerful and the sinfulness of all people. However, the emphasis is on a Christian vision of the life of activity, of the life of unity with God and of the synthesis of these two under the rule of a purified church. ”Pearl” is the second alliterative vision poem written in about 1370. It’s doctrinal, but its tone is ecstatic and it’s far more artistic. The poem is an elegy for the death of a small girl describing the exalted state of childlike innocence in heaven and the need for all souls to become as children to enter the pearly gates of the New Jerusalem. The work ends with an impressive vision of heaven from which the dreamer awakes. Dream vision was a favourite literary device of the day. In general, poetry and prose expressing a mystical longing for, and union with, the deity is a common feature of the late Middle Ages.The third alliterative poem, ”Sir Gawain and The Green Knight”, is a romance, or tale, of knightly adventure and love. Most English romances were drawn from French sources most of which are concerned with the knights of King Arthur. Above all others, Geoffrey Chaucer is the most significant writer of the Middle English literature.Unlike the others, he wrote nonalliterative verse romances. Chaucer is a living poet: he speaks to us today with as clear a voice as was heard in his own age. It’s this living quality that makes him great. Chaucer is modern in that he uses the language of today’s English language. He was a good observer and he wrote both about the beautiful, delighting sides of life and ugly,grieving realities. He’s generally known for his work “The Canterbury Tales” which describes a group of pilgrims travelling from London to the tomb of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, a common religious act in England in the Middle Ages. During the journey, each character tells a story. In the 15th century,a number of poets were influenced by Chaucer, but in general, medieval literary themes and styles were exhausted during this period. Sir Thomas Malory stands out for his great work “Le Morte D’Arthur”, which carried on the tradition of Arthurian romance, from French sources, in English prose of remarkable vividness and vitality. English poets in the 15th and 16th centuries looked on Chaucer and his contemporary John Gower as founders of English literature, as those who made English as a language fit for cultivated readers. In the Renaissance, Chaucer was referred to as the “English Homer”. Spenser called him as the “well of English undefiled”. In this period, there were also translations from Latin and French literature. Gavin Douglas translated Virgil’s “Aeneid” into couplets. John Wycliff translated the Bible and we owe to him the first complete translation. A new kind of semi-religious play-the Morality Play came out in the 15th century. The Morality Play was not a guild play and it didn’t take its subject or story from the Bible like Mystery or Miracle Plays. It tried to teach a moral lesson through allegory. The characters in this play weren’t people (such as Adam, Eve, Noah) ; they were virtues (such as Truth) or bad qualities (such as Greed, Revenge) which talked and walked. One of the best known Morality plays is “Everyman” which tells the story of the end of Everyman’s life, when Death calls him away from the world. Among the characters are Beauty, Knowledge, Strength and Good Deeds.When Everyman has to go to face Death, all his friends leave him except Good Deeds. There were also the Interlude. An Interlude was a short play performed in the middle of something else - maybe a feast.
The sixteenth century covers the reigns of Tudor and Elizabeth. The Tudor monarchs didn’t like governing through Parliament. Henry VII had used Parliament only for law making. He seldom called it together. Perhaps Henry himself didn’t realise that by inviting Parliament to make new laws for the Reformation he was giving it a level of authority it never had before. Tudor monarchs weren’t more democratic than earlier kings, but by using Parliament to strengthen their policy, they actually increased Parliament’s authority. During Tudor period the life was hard. The population increased suddenly, the unused land was cleared for sheep and large areas of forest were cut down to provide wood for the growing shipbuilding industry. England was beginning to experience greater social and economic problems than ever before. The price of food and other goods rose rapidly during the sixteenth century. The inflation began and unemployment increased. Then Edward came to the throne and after his death Mary I ascended to the throne. Next she was succeeded by Elizabeth in 1558. Her age was one of genius, exploration and growing national pride. During her reign almost everything was going well and with the defeat of the Spanish Armada the English people started to feel the concept of “nation” more. They looked up to the Queen Elizabeth as a figure of chastity, justice and wisdom. She was the great supporter of art in her country. During the Tudor period the changes in government, society and the economy of England were more far-reaching than they had been for centuries. But most far-reaching of all were the changes in ideas as a result of the rebirth of intellectual attitudes known as the Renaissance and in England the nature of the Renaissance was also affected by the Protestant Reformation and the economic changes that followed from it.
The 15th and 16th centuries are the period of the European Renaissance or New Birth, one of the three or four great transforming movements of European history. The medieval society of scholasticism, feudalism and chivalry was made over into modern world. The movement firstly started in Italy and spread to other European countries and then to England. The Renaissance first received definite direction from the rediscovery and study of Greek literature, which revealed the unbounded possibilities of life to men who were dissatisfied within the narrow limits of medieval thought. It received a still further impulse when the Turks took Constantinople in 1453, so scholars escaped to the West and manuscripts were scattered there. Before the Renaissance, the knowledge had been subjected to the mere authority of the Bible and of a few great minds of the past, like Aristotle. Scientific investigation was almost entirely stifled and progress was impossible. Greek literature brought inspiration to the minds paralyzed under this system. The ideas of Aristotle and Plato were vitalized again and the works of Virgil and Cicero were reexamined and they were no longer mysterious for people. The word “human” became the chosen motto of the Renaissance scholars. Humanism, the spiritual and intellectual orientation, gained importance. English students were frequenting the Italian universities. Soon the study of Greek was introduced into England, first at Oxford.
The English language had almost no prestige abroad at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The development of the English language is linked to the consolidation and strengthening of the English state. Literacy increased throughout the century both due to the influence of Protestanism and the rise of the printing press. Renaissance literature is the product of a rhetorical culture which steeped in the arts of persuasion and trained to process complex verbal signs. Aesthetically, Elizabethan literature reveals a delight in order and pattern conjoined with a profound interest in the mind and heart. In the Tudor priod, especially in the field of prose, translations seemed to come first. Translations from Greek, Latin, French and Italian made up much of the first Tudor prose and translation of the English Bible from the Hebrew and Greek is eminent. The translation of the Bible was forbidden by the Church, but Protestanism insistently revived the demand for it. In 1526, William Tyndale brought out the first Modern English version of the New Testament. In this period, essay writing was important and Sir Francis Bacon is the first English essayist with his work “Novum Organum”. Robert Burton, Richard Hooker and John Foxe also can be examples. The period saw the beginning, among other things, of English prose fiction of something like the later modern type. First appeared a series of collections of short stories chiefly translated from Italian authors, which is called “novella” in Italy. Most of the seperate tales were crude or amateurish and had only historical interest. The earliest original, or partly original, English prose fictions to appear were handbooks of morals and manners in story form, and it was begun by John Lyly, who was also important in the history of Elizabethan drama. Sidney’s very complicated tale of adventures in love and war is by no means free from artificiality, but it finely mirrors his own knightly spirit and remains a permanent English classic. Lastly, in the concluding decade of the sixteenth century, a series of realistic stories depicting chiefly, in a more or less farcical spirit, the life of the poorer classes came. They belonged mostly to that class of realistic fiction which is called “picaresque”, a Spanish word ‘picaro’ meaning ‘rogue’. Characters whose unprincipled tricks and exploits formed the basis of the stories.
The major literary modes of the Elizabethan period included pastoral and heroic or epic. In the Elizabethan literature there was a rich and vital theatrical tradition, including interludes, mystery and morality plays. A permanent, freestanding public theatre in England dates only from 1567. Around 1590, an extraordinary change came over English drama, pioneered by Marlowe’s mastery of unrhymed iambic pentameter or blank verse. The theatres had enemies ; moralists warned that they were immoral and seducing, and Puritans charged that theatres excited illicit sexual desires. Nonetheless, the playing companies had powerful allies, including Queen Elizabeth and continuing popular support.
There are really important writers, poets and dramatists in the 16th century. Edmund Spenser is one of them. Through his poetry Spenser hoped to secure a place at court. The first poem to earn Spenser notability was a collection of eclogues called “The Shepherds Calendar”, written from the point of view of various shepherds throughout the months of the year. The poem is an allegory symbolizing the state of humanity. ”The Faerie Queene” is his major contribution to English poetry. The poem celebrates and memorializes the Tudor dynasty of which Elizabeth was a part. The poem is deeply allegorical and allusive, so many prominent Elizabethans could have found themselves. It’s long, in the epic form, of Christian virtues, tied into England’s Arthurian legends. The work remains the longest epic poem in the English language and has inspired writers from John Milton and John Keats to James Joyce and Ezra Pound. He devised a verse form for this work known as the Spenserian stanza. The language of his poetry is purposely archaic. It reminds readers of earlier works such as”The Canterbury Tales”. Sir Philip Sidney’s influence can be seen throughout the history of English literary criticism since the publication of the “Apology”.Sidney’s influence on future critics and poets relates to his view of the place of poets in society. Sidney described poetry as creating a seperate reality. The poet wasn’t tied to any subjection according to him. He saw art as equivalent to skill – a profession to be learned or developed and nature was objective. The poet can invent, so another nature grows. The poet doesn’t depart from external nature. His Works were “imitation” or “fiction” made out of materials of nature shaped by the artist’s vision. Sidney’s doctrine presented the poet as a creator. ”An Apology for Poetry” is the most important contribution to Renaissance literary theory. Sidney advocated a place for poetry within the framework of an aristocratic state, while showing concern for both literary and national identity. In an age of an anthipathy to poetry and puritanical belief in the corruption of literature, Sidney’s defense was an important contribution to the genre of literary criticism. Sidney employed a number of strategies to assert the proper place of poetry. Earl of Surrey and Thomas Wyatt are also important for the English literature. If these poets hadn’t lived, Shakespeare might never have written any sonnets and his plays in blank verse. Surrey was the first to use blank verse – ten syllables to a line, five stresses, no rhyme – and Wyatt wrote the first English sonnets. Sir Thomas More combined his busy political career with a rich scholarly and literary production. His writing and scholarship earned him a considerable reputation as a Christian humanist in continental Europe. His friend Erasmus also described him as a model man of letters in his communications with other European humanists. In 1515, Sir Thomas More wrote his most famous and controversial work ”Utopia”, a novel in which a fictional traveller Raphael Hythloday describes the political arrangements of the imaginary island nation of Utopia. In the book, More contrasts the contentious social life of European states with the perfectly orderly and reasonable social arrangements of the Utopia, where private property doesn’t exist and almost complete religious toleration is practiced. Furthermore, it’s notable that the Utopia is tolerant of different religious practices, but doesn’t advocate tolerance of atheists. More stated that if a man didn’t believe in God or an afterlife of any kind he could never be trusted as he would not be logically driven to acknowledge any authority or principles outside himself. The greatest ornament of the public theatre until Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe. He’s a great poet and dramatist who, if he hadn’t been killed untimely in a tavern in London, might weel have become greater even than Shakespeare and not even Shakespeare could do all that Marlowe could do: the peculiar power gained from caricature; the piled-up magnificance of language; ‘Marlowe’s mighty line’ – these are great individual achievements. Marlowe sums up the New Age : The old restrictions of the Church and the limitations on knowledge have been destroyed ; the world is opening up and the ships are sailing to new lands; wealth is being amassed; the great national aggressors are rising.But above all, it’s the spirit of human freedom, of limitless human power and enterprise that Marlowe’s plays convey. Marlowe’s perhaps the greatest play is “Doctor Faustus” which is the story of the learned man who has mastered all arts and sciences, finds nothing further in the world to study and so turns to the supernatural. He conjures up Mephistopheles,’ servant to great Lucifer’ and through him concludes a bargain whereby he obtains twenty-four years of absolute power and pleasure in exchange for his soul. Faustus makes the most of his time.By the late 16th century, the popularity of morality and academic plays began to disappear as the English Renaissance took hold as playwrights like Thomas Kyd and Marlowe began to revolutionise theatre. Their plays blended the old morality drama with academic theatre to produce a new secular form. Theatre was changing when Shakespeare first arrived in London in the late 1580s or early 1590s. Shakespeare wrote his plays in order to acquire money and the playhouse was everything to him. He gave audience what they wanted and he tried to establish intimacy with his audience. He took his plot from other writers’ books and history works. He gave significance to telling story, not the subject itself. Collaboration was common during Elizabethan period and Shakespeare probably worked with Beaumont and Fletcher. He had a consistency of achievement and excellence, he enclosed the playwrights of his time and he used the language very well. Many modern English words and phrases that are taken for granted were introduced by Shakespeare.
There are some differences and similarities between the 15th century and 16th century English literature as it seen in other periods. In the 16th century, especially the Elizabethan period has a great variety of almost unlimited creative force; it includes works of many kinds in both verse and prose and ranges in spirit from the loftiest Platonic idealism or the most delightful romance to the level of very repulsive realism ; but in the 15th century, creativity was limited and not varied as seen in the Elizabethan literature and narrow medieval thoughts were dominant on the literature, so the literature of this period was mainly about religion and the abuses of Church or about the tales of chivalry and adventure. In the 16th century, literature was full of the spirit of dramatic action, as befitted an age of restless enterprise and in style it often exhibited romantic luxuriance, which sometimes took the form of elaborate affectations and conceit was applied ; but in the 15th century, writers and poets used allegory as literary device and dream visions were important in this period. The 16th century English literature was in part a period of experimentation, when the proper material and limits of literary forms were being determined, sometimes by means offalse starts and failures. In particular, many efforts were made to give prolonged poetical treatment to many subjects, say, to systems of theological or scientific thought, or to the geography of all England. The 16th century English literature continued to be largely influenced by the literature of Italy and to a less degree by those of France and Spain ; but the 15th century English literature was influenced mainly by France and then by Italian literature. The literary spirit of the 16th century was all-pervasive and the authors were men (not yet women) of almost every class from distinguished courtiers like Raleigh and Sidney to the company of hack writers ; but in the 15th century literacy wasn’t common, so works of literature were limited to literate peole, knights and people who knew Latin language. In the 16th century, the ideas of the Renaissance affected the literature very much and subject matters became more secular and various topics were handled ; but 15th century literature wasn’t so varied and the pressure of the Church made the progress almost impossible. There is also similarity between the 15th century and 16th century literatures : Romances were popular and dominant in both periods, but the romances of the 15th century were from French sources.
As a result , political, historical and social changes or contexts have impact on literature. This is the nature of literature and it is inevitable, because the literature is a living and changing thing and it takes its subject matter, topics and sources from these phenomena. So literature is fed with them and it can not develop, improve or progress without the existence of political, historical and especially social contexts as it is the doings of human beings and as the mankind makes the literature. Thus, these things have great influence on the literature, periods of the literature and the literary forms of the periods.
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