The European Renaissance & the English Literature

All the histories of Europe, cultural, religious, political, and literary—record the reverberations of a strongly repercussive intellectual upheaval that rocked the European world and caused a veritable rebirth of arts and literature. This convulsion has been given the name of Renaissance meaning re-birth. It spans the 15^th, 16^th and the early 17^th centuries. Its centre was Italy, though its impact could not be restricted within its bounds. The European Renaissance represents one of the greatest watersheds in the history of mankind. The energy, inquiry, inventiveness and humanistic values of this phenomenal historical movement created everything anew from philosophy to pure sciences, from culture to expression and from arts to beliefs. This age of discovery sketched the features of our present world.

Two important factors occasioned the beginning of Renaissance in Europe: the fall of Constantinople, and the invention of the printing press. On Tuesday, May 29, 1453, the Turks managed to breach the walls of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and captured it. The scholars, artists, divines and other men of letters fled the stormed city for their dear lives and thus took place the diffusion of these fleeing scholars all over Europe, particularly into Italy that proved a near haven for them. These people brought with them the writings of the Greek masters in literature and philosophy. The revival of the Hellenistic sciences changed the very complexion of the continent and there came, in its wake, a dazzling outburst of vigorous, humanistic literature. The currents of intellectual emancipation soon flowed into England and France. However, this spectacular and massive change was not entirely due to the resuscitation of the old literature of Greece. Medievalism was already on its last legs and a spirit was already in the air, of intellectual salvation and humanism. Hence, the hearty welcome accorded to the ancient learning. In Italy, the grand work began with Petrarch (1304-1374) and Boccaccio (1313-1375) and in English, in Chaucer (1340-1400) we find unmistakable flashes of an impressive humanism, and the way he lays the corruption of the ecclesiasts threadbare clearly shows that his attitude towards religious and church traditions is drifting from medieval passivity to modern inquiry.

It was the most suitable time for its appearance on the scene when printing press heaved into sight to spread the spirit of Renaissance in the form of vernacular and translated books with prodigious rapidity. The printing press not only helped diffuse knowledge but also played instrumental for reformers who found in it an easier, safer and swifter means of dissemination of their ideas.

Reformation that was championed by Luther (1483-1546) in Germany was a complementary of the Renaissance in the sense that it unfurled its flag of rebellion against the old religious order voicing dissent (and dissent was the informing spirit of this great rebirth), dissent from existing conceptions, ideals and conventions. Renaissance proved the fountainhead of two mainstreams: individualism and humanism—both being inextricably intertwined, rather interdependent for their meaning and realization. Individualism spurred man to rise in revolt against the authority of the Church and the Pope. It imbued man with a strong spirit of inquiry and he demanded a vernacular version of the Bible to look into in himself and to interpret it by the light of his reason and intellect. A conflict between dogma and reason arose, resulting in the triumph of the latter. The man of the Renaissance conceived a new ideal of man, a man that had a vast and varied experience and a number of accomplishments. An ideal Renaissance man was supposed to fence, to read Latin and Greek, to ride a horse, to organise a siege and even to write a delicate sonnet to a lady. The Florentine polymath, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) -- a scientist, a painter, an anatomist, a sculptor, a geometer, a musician, a mathematician, a writer and an architect was an archetype of the Renaissance, a man imbued with an unbounded spirit of inquiry as well as infinite energy for creativity and inventiveness. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618), an explorer, a free booter, a courtier, a poet was also a Renaissance English man.

In this age, man came to realize that man is something more than a mere, insignificant part of the grand design of creation; a free agent having his own free will and a subject worth studying in himself. This realization gave totally new dimensions to the literary and philosophical thought of the age. The poetry of the age shows new trends and themes. We find during this time, pastoral poetry that is modelled on the old Greek poetry. This kind of poetry was produced by Spenser. Besides the pastoral poetry, there is also lyrical poetry in the form of sonnet. The sonnet tradition comes from the great Italian poet, Petrarch (1304-1374). In English, Wyatt (1503-1542) wrote the earliest sonnets and Howard Surrey (1517-1547), Sydney (1554-1586), Spenser (1552-1599) and Shakespeare and some others are the successors of Wyatt in this kind of poetry in English. Sonnet represented the spirit of individualism and was an expression of man’s personal passion. The English sonnets were much more real and moving than its Petrarchan prototype as it communicated a more intimate, involved and sensuous experience of love. Pastoral romances, highly fanciful, were also written during this period, and gave a befitting expression to man’s imagination run wild under the new found spirit of intellectual freedom.

Then there is the Renaissance epic, a happy combination of the old heroic epic and the love, delight, brightness and happy themes of the age. The Italian poem ‘Orlando Furioso’, and Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, in English, are instances of the Renaissance epic. The poetry of these epics is simply a feast for the senses. In drama, great new developments took place. Before the Renaissance, the Greek tragedy was unknown to the English. They produced miracles and mysteries only. But the Renaissance brought the concept of the tragedy of man with its well defined dramatic structure and strict dramatic rules. The regular structure of drama was adopted but rules could not be followed religiously. The drama reached its greatest possible heights during the reign of Elizabeth I and in the hands of William Shakespeare.

The origin of the English drama lay in medieval miracle and mystery plays, suffused with a devotional Biblical theme. The second stage in the evolution of the drama was the emergence of Morality plays --- staging non-Biblical themes with allegorical treatment and demonstrating a conflict between good and evil. The Elizabethan age (1533-1603) was the golden age of English drama when it bloomed fully and reached the highest possible pinnacles of its grandeur and excellence. From Miracle plays to the modern Elizabethan drama, the English theatre underwent not only many developments in language, technique, structure and treatment but also in its theme and thought. The Pre-Elizabethan English drama, in its theme, sought the religious edification of its audience, and tried to establish an intimate connection between the creator and the creation. The scenes were those of Adam and Eve clad in skin tight white dress; the sufferings of the Christ, or the alternate appearance of good and evil angels to win the Protagonist over to their sides. The content was theistic and treatment inartistic.

But the subject of drama in the Elizabethan age became man and the dramatist showed his interest in man rather than in God. The process started with Ralph Roister, a comedy that was directed against a town fop. John Lyly (1554-1606) also produced comedies that were meant for the entertainment of public and not for any didactic purposes. But the true Elizabethan drama developed only when Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) adopted from Seneca (3 B.C-65 A.D) the revenge theme and produced the ‘Spanish Tragedy’. It, however, fell to Marlowe’s (1564-1593) lot to show a deep and impressive interest in man. Tamerlaine the Great is a tragedy that paints the picture of a cruel and lustful conqueror that has a growing lust for power. It is for the first time when in true terms, not allegorical, vice has been exposed with a psychological implication. Marlowe demonstrated his great talent in producing ‘Dr. Faustus’. Though the play has a touch of morality plays about it yet it is necessarily the story of an individual who becomes a universal figure, overwhelmed by a strong desire for power. The play, despite its seeming religious theme, is not a religious tragedy. It is the insolence, pride and the over reaching spirit of Faustus that brings about his destruction. Marlowe’s other plays also show the similar spirit.

But when we come to Shakespeare (1564-1616), the drama immediately takes on different contours. Shakespeare, the greatest of the Elizabethan playwrights was a true embodiment of the dramatic spirit of the age of Renaissance as well as the greatest dramatic genius with hitherto unmatched capacity of skill and contrivance. Shakespeare launches his dramatic era with comedies and histories. His history plays are charged with a spirit of loyalty and nationalistic fervour. His comic creation Falstaff and his speeches show his interest in man and a tolerance of the foibles in human nature. His comedies from Love’s Labour Lost to the Tempest are sparkling with humour, wit and humanism. He was a true humanist. The ending lines of Tempest shed a new light on life and its end:

“We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep."

Unlike Dr. Faustus’ soul burning forever in hell, this life is rounded with a sleep, with no horrors of hell ahead. However, it is his tragedies that take up the subjects of human life, fate, destiny and will. In his tragedies, Shakespeare is obsessed with only one idea: ‘the destiny of man’. The tragic conception of Shakespeare admits of a tragic flaw in the character of the doomed hero of a tragedy. The tragic consequences and disaster are born of that tragic flaw. It may be an over-vaulting ambition in a Macbeth, procrastination of action in a Hamlet, pride in a King Lear or jealousy in an Othello. But this tragic conception does not exclude the role of fate in bringing about doom and destruction as Hamlet says:

“There is a divinity that shapes our ends."

And there are in King Lear the following lines:

“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods

They kill us for their sport!"

In his tragedy, some fundamental moral questions have been raised: the question of the omnipresence of evil as a part and parcel of this world which is ‘an un-weeded garden’; the impact of the supernatural, the weird sisters hailing Macbeth; the question of man’s role in the scheme of things; the question of choice between life and death whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of trouble and by opposing end them.’ This moral dilemma in the Elizabethan drama reached to such a point where the very meaning and purpose of human life became the most basic question. It is in this age that we see the seeds of future intellectual and philosophical developments like the existentialism in philosophy and the theatre of the absurd in literature. Macbeth’s soliloquy upon the death of his wife may be a result of his deep depression at that particular moment yet still his words ring true when he compares life with a walking shadow, ‘a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more’. It is worth a serious thought if it is not ‘a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing’.

Bio:

Shahzada Sultan

Born in 1968

Student of Literature and amateur writer

Police Officer

International Investigator for the UN

» left by Ina

from Helsinki, Finland 4 years 276 days ago.

Nice, very detailed.

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» left by Anonymous

3 years 308 days ago.

wonderfully written, informative article! it's a pity there aren't many articles on literature on this site. writers who don't read? i don't get it.

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» left by Joshua

from India 2 years 349 days ago.

Well written. Definitely going to help me in tomorrow's quiz

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» left by aamir

from barcelona spain 1 year 41 days ago.

very good written very informative keep it up shahzad bhai nice to read it

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