The most brilliant, as well as the most virile, era in English
literature was that extending from the accession of Elizabeth in 1558 to
the closing of the theaters by the Long Parliament in 1648. No other
period of ninety years in English history exhibits such a profusion of
literary effort and achievement, especially on the dramatic and
imaginative sides. The former portion of this period, however, known as
the Elizabethan age--but really extending to the middle of the reign of
James I.--was the greater in conception. It witnessed not only the rise
but the culminating splendor of the drama. Miracle plays or mysteries
were the forerunners of the drama. They were acted in churches and
convents, and by their dramatic representations of Biblical episodes it
was sought to influence the people in favor of virtue.
There was something grotesque, however, in the choice of Satan as the
first comedian, while the general treatment of sacred subjects was most
objectionable. In course of time the plays changed into moralities, in
which abstract qualities such as Justice and Vice took the place of
Scripture characters. Next to these, and before the drama proper, came a
series of farcical productions, of which Heywood’s _Interludes_ may be
taken as a type.
EDMUND SPENSER.--One great name interposes between these early plays and
the drama, namely, that of Edmund Spenser. He restored the glory of
English poetry from the long eclipse it suffered after the death of
Chaucer. Spenser’s _Shepherd’s Calendar_ applied pastoral images to the
religious conflicts of the time, and under the name of Algrind he
introduced Archbishop Grindal, whose firmness in encouraging free search
for Scripture truth he applauded. To his master, Chaucer, the poet paid
tribute under the name of Tityrus. In 1590 Spenser published his great
but unfinished allegorical epic _The Faerie Queene_, in which he
depicted man with all his capacity for good striving heavenwards. The
work is “an intense utterance of the spiritual life of England under
Elizabeth.” Spenser’s _Colin Clout Come Home Again_ was written in
memory of his friendship for Sir Walter Raleigh. The purely poetic
qualities were redundant in Spenser, and these have made him a favorite
with all his singing brethern since his death.
Sir Philip Sidney has gained a reputation as an English classic for his
_Defense of Poesie_, but his romance of _Arcadia_ is the more widely
known, as it was the more warmly appreciated on its publication. Later
critics have censured it, but it is rich and highly finished in its
phrases, and “full of fine enthusiasm and courtesy of high sentiment,
and of the breath of a gentle and heroic spirit.”
BEGINNING OF ENGLISH COMEDY AND TRAGEDY.--The first English comedy,
_Ralph Roister Doister_, was written by Nicholas Udall, Master of Eton,
between 1534 and 1541. It was avowedly modeled upon _Plautus_, and
intended for the edification of Eton boys.
The first tragedy was _Gorboduc_, a new rendering of the old British
story of Ferrex and Porrex by Thomas Sackville (Lord Buckhurst), and
Thomas Norton. It was acted at the Inner Temple in 1561, and also before
the queen by command. It substituted English for Latin in a play
constructed after the manner of Seneca, and “its grave dwelling upon the
need of union to keep a people strong, a truth of deep significance to
England at that time, pleased Elizabeth.” But nearly twenty years yet
elapsed before the drama obtained a stable hold, and theaters began to
be built.
John Lyly, author of the _Euphues_, wrote a number of mythological
plays, and George Peele produced _The Arraignment of Paris_ and _The
Device of the Pageant_ in 1584-1585; but Christopher Marlowe, with his
“mighty line,” was the first great Elizabethan dramatist. His genius was
somber, and his tragedies dark and terrible. His _Tamburlaine the Great_
was produced in 1587, but his _Doctor Faustus_ was not published until
ten years after his death, which occurred in 1593.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.--In the latter part of the sixteenth century began
the career of the greatest poet the world has ever seen, William
Shakespeare. A period of less than twenty-five years covers the
production of all those comedies and histories which are the wonder of
modern literature. We marvel what kind of man that could be whose
intellect could conceive such widely different works as _A Midsummer
Night’s Dream_, _Venus and Adonis_, _Romeo and Juliet_, _The Rape of
Lucrece_, the famous _Sonnets_, _The Merchant of Venice_, _Othello_,
_Macbeth_, _King Lear_, and _Hamlet_. Shakespeare seems to sum up within
himself the whole of poetry and of human philosophy. His power and
universality are unique, and will probably ever remain so.
Ben Jonson, the greatest and most scholarly of his contemporaries, wrote
from 1596 to 1637; but he lacked the freedom and naturalness of
Shakespeare. Beaumont and Fletcher worked in unison with a success
rarely attained by collaborators. Massinger was a dramatist of undoubted
power, as his _New Way to Pay Old Debts_ testifies; and Dekker, Heywood,
Marston, and Middleton would all have taken a higher niche in the temple
of fame had they lived in a less prolific age. Ford and Webster produced
plays of a dark and terrible cast, and the list of Elizabethan
dramatists closes with James Shirley who was purer in thought and
expression than any of his predecessors. Other poets of this period were
Thomas Tusser, who gave an excellent picture of English peasant life in
his _Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry_, and Michael Drayton
described this favored isle itself in his _Polyolbion_. The learned John
Donne gave utterance to his metaphysical conceits, while Drummond of
Hawthornden attested his claim to the title of the finest Scottish poet
of his day. Carew, Herrick, and Suckling produced their exquisite
lyrics, and Herbert chanted the solemn strains of _The Temple_.
ELIZABETHAN PROSE WRITERS.--The great prose writers of the period must
be headed with the illustrious name of Francis Bacon. The father of the
inductive philosophy was regarded by those of his contemporaries who
knew him best as “one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration
that had been for ages.” His adventurous intellect could not be bound by
mere tradition. He brought his keen analytical faculty to bear upon the
study of man and nature, so that in his matchless _Essays_ we have the
result of his penetration into the human mysteries, while his philosophy
of nature stands revealed in the two books of the _Advancement of
Learning_, in which he laid the basis for his _New Organon_.
“Who is there,” Burke demands, “that upon hearing the name of Lord Bacon
does not instantly recognize everything of genius the most profound,
everything of literature the most extensive, everything of discovery the
most penetrating, everything of observation of human life the most
distinguishing and refined?”
George Buchanan ranks as the Scottish Virgil from the elegance of his
Latin verse, while he exhibited equal command over Latin prose. Richard
Hooker gave a new elevation and dignity to English prose by his _Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity_. Sir Walter Raleigh, the admirable Crichton of
his age, carried the English name abroad, but returned only to find
imprisonment and the scaffold. He glorified his prison life by the
production of his great _History of the World_, which is especially
memorable for its vivid recital of the histories of Greece and Rome.
Camden the antiquary constructed his _Britannia_, and Hakluyt and
Purchas indited their wonderful records of travel. James I. threw his
ill-digested learning into treatises on Divine Right, Witchcraft, etc.;
Burton wrote his quaint and erudite work, _The Anatomy of Melancholy_;
Selden, the chief of the learned men of his time, according to Milton,
alternated politics with the production of his _Treatise on Titles of
Honour_ and his _History of Tithes_; Hobbes of Malmesbury, the
terseness of whose style is unique, promulgated his theory of action and
morals, as well as his absolutism in politics, in _The Leviathan_;
Howell first showed what correspondence might become in his _Familiar
Letters_, and genial old Izaak Walton wove an immortal spell over all
lovers of good literature by his _Lives of Donne_, _Hooker_, and others,
and _The Complete Angler_. Altogether the age was one eminently full of
intellectual life.
THE PURITAN PERIOD.--The decline of the drama, and the end of what we
may call the Pagan Renaissance, were contemporaneous with the birth of
the great constitutional struggle which began with James I. and did not
terminate until the English Revolution.
It is strange that such a time of upheaval should have produced the
greatest Christian epic, _The Paradise Lost_, and the greatest Christian
allegory, _The Pilgrim’s Progress_, which are to be found in any
literature. Three great men represented the various forms of the
religious struggle going forward; the saintly Jeremy Taylor, a poet
among preachers, upheld the cause of Episcopacy; Richard Baxter, while
desiring the church discipline and the form of belief, advocated a
greater liberty for the individual conscience; and John Milton was a
type of the religious freedom and toleration which found best exposition
in the principles of the Independents. Milton’s _Eikonoklastes_ broke
down the buttresses of kingly authority; his _Areopagitica_ was a noble
argument in behalf of intellectual liberty; while his _Paradise Lost_,
_Paradise Regained_, and _Samson Agonistes_ were not merely
magnificently great as poetry, but Christian evidences of the most
sublime type.
John Bunyan, a man of the people, came forward with words that burn and
images that enthrall, to show the way from a world of vice to a pure and
Holy City. Thomas Fuller, remembering that “blessed are the
peacemakers,” sought to heal that strife between king and people which
was beyond all healing save that of the sword. Some men held themselves
aloof from violent controversy while yet maintaining independence of
thought--as, for example, Thomas Browne in the _Religio Medici_,
published in 1642.
The anti-Puritans had their champions in Samuel Butler, whose fierce wit
blazed forth in _Hudibras_; in the great Royalist writer, Clarendon; and
in that staunch Royalist and Churchman, Bishop South, whose antipathy to
the Nonconformists may be partly condoned by his brilliant wit. Among
other writers of the time may be mentioned the versatile Barrow; the
powerful satirists Wither, and Bishop Hall; Harrington, the author of
the _Oceana_; the patriotic Algernon Sidney, with his admirable
_Discourses on Government_; and those garrulous but inimitable
chroniclers, Pepys and Evelyn.
The poets were many and varied, including Waller, Davenant, Denham,
Marvell, Lovelace, and Cowley.