Coffee Houses and Their Social Relevance, British Literature, B.A English Literature 1st Semester Revised Syllabus 2020

A Brief History of Coffee 

Coffee originated in Ethiopia in the 10th Century, reached Yemen by the 15th century and by the 16th-century coffee had spread to Persia (Iran) and Turkey.

In 1645 the first European coffeehouse opened in Venice and it became popular throughout Europe during the late 17th century.

In 1652 Pasqua Rosée, a Greek opened the first coffee stall in the churchyard of St Michael’s Cornhill in the City of London.

The first coffeehouse was opened in America in 1689 and henceforth it spread throughout the world.

The Social Significance of the Coffeehouse :

The coffeehouse, across many times and places, has served as one of the primary public spaces for members of society to meet, discuss politics, engage in business, pursue the arts, or simply shoot the breeze with familiars or strangers. With such a culturally significant role, the coffeehouse became the backdrop for a great many societal transformations.

The Rise of the Coffee-house :

By the late 15th century, European traders to Turkey and the Middle East were already very familiar with coffee drinking. One early trader in the region, William Bidulph, described the popularity of ‘a kind of drink made of a kind of Pulse like Pease’ on his travels there, while in the early 1600s another traveller, George Sandys, described the popularity of coffee drinking in the Turkish capital, Constantinople.

Initially, European enthusiasm for coffee drinking arose from its perceived health benefits. Coffee was celebrated for the stimulating properties it exhibited on the brain, and could be drunk in abundance without suffering the ill-effects of excessive ale or wine drinking. Broader health benefits were also offered by early champions of the drink, including its usefulness as a cure for headaches, gout and skin conditions

The first purpose-built English coffee-houses were established in the 1650s in Oxford, where the mind-stimulating benefits of the beverage complemented the spirit of sober academic discussion and debate evident at the university there. These early coffee-houses (christened ‘Penny Universities’ by outsiders) were largely the exclusive resort of the educated and well-to-do, places where learned men and their students came to demonstrate their wit and intellectual talents: this feature of coffeehouse culture was also in evidence in London as the drink slowly gained popularity there.

London’s first coffee-house was established in 1652 by a Greek servant to the Levant Company, Pasqua Rosée. This establishment was soon joined by a handful of other coffee-houses based in the City and on the fringes of the rapidly developing West End. Though undoubtedly a novel alternative for those seeking to avoid the often bawdy drunkenness of London’s many taverns and alehouses, mid 17th-century coffee-houses struggled initially to achieve much popularity. For many years they remained the haunt of a well-educated and commercial elite.

Many British institutions have their roots in these early coffeehouses :

Established in 1660, members of the Royal Society met in coffeehouses to discuss, debate, and exchange knowledge. Isaac Newton even once dissected a dolphin on the table of the Grecian Coffeehouse.

The London Stock Exchange evolved from Jonathan’s Coffee-House, a coffeehouse founded by Jonathan Miles, in Exchange Alley, around 1680.

Lloyd’s Coffee House was opened by Edward Lloyd on Tower Street in around 1688 and was frequented by members of the shipping community such as merchants, sea captains, and shipowners and was a place to discuss insurance deals. The dealing that took place led to the establishment of the insurance market Lloyd’s of London and Lloyd’s Register.

William Shipley founded the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) in 1754 and held its first meeting at Rawthmell’s Coffee House in Covent Garden.

The auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s also have their origins in coffeehouses.

Decline and fall :

By the close of the 18th century the popularity of coffee-houses had declined dramatically. Already by the 1750s consumption of tea, which many people found to be a sweeter, more palatable drink of choice, was beginning to eclipse that of coffee.[14] Unlike coffee, tea was also surprisingly cheap and simple to prepare in the comfort of the home, without the need for any complex roasting and grinding. Thus tea drinking as a public and sociable act failed to take off in the way that coffee did (at least until the rise of tea salons in the late 19th century), and failed to enliven the social and political life of Georgian Britain in the same way.

The Commonwealth England, British Literature, B.A English Literature Revised Syllabus 2020, History of England

The Commonwealth England

The Commonwealth was the period from 1649 onwards when England and Wales, later along with Ireland and Scotland, was ruled as a republic following the end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of Charles I. After the King's execution, the Rump abolished the monarchy and the House of Lords. The Council of State was appointed as an executive body, which was subordinate to the legislative House of Commons. England was declared a republican "Commonwealth and Free State" in May 1649.

 

The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring England to be a Commonwealth", adopted by the Rump Parliament on 19 May 1649. Power in the early Commonwealth was vested primarily in the Parliament and a Council of State. During the period, fighting continued, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, between the parliamentary forces and those opposed to them, as part of what is now referred to as the Third English Civil War.

 

In 1653, after the forcible dissolution of the Rump Parliament, the Army Council adopted the Instrument of Government which made Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of a united "Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland", inaugurating the period now usually known as the Protectorate. After Cromwell's death, and following a brief period of rule under his son, Richard Cromwell, the Protectorate Parliament was dissolved in 1659 and the Rump Parliament recalled, the start of a process that led to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The term Commonwealth is sometimes used for the whole of 1649 to 1660 – a period referred to by monarchists as the Interregnum – although for other historians, the use of the term is limited to the years prior to Cromwell’s formal assumption of power in 1653.

The Protectorate, 1653–1659

In 1653, Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector under England's first written constitution Instrument of Government, and then under the second and last written constitution, known as the Humble Petition and Advice of 1657.

On 12 April 1654, under the terms of the Tender of Union, the Ordinance for uniting Scotland into one Commonwealth with England was issued by the Lord Protector and proclaimed in Scotland by the military governor of Scotland, General George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle. The ordinance declared that "the people of Scotland should be united with the people of England into one Commonwealth and under one Government" and decreed that a new "Arms of the Commonwealth", incorporating the Saltire, should be placed on "all the public seals, seals of office, and seals of bodies civil or corporate, in Scotland" as "a badge of this Union".

 

On the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, his son, Richard Cromwell, inherited the title Lord Protector, but internal divisions among the republican party led to his resignation, the end of the Protectorate and a second period of Commonwealth government by a Council of State and Parliament.

1659–1660

The Protectorate might have continued if Cromwell's son Richard, who was made Lord Protector on his father's death, had been capable of carrying on his father's policies. Richard Cromwell's main weakness was that he did not have the confidence of the New Model Army.

After seven months the Grandees in the New Model Army removed him and, on 6 May 1659, they reinstalled the Rump Parliament. Charles Fleetwood was appointed a member of the Committee of Safety and of the Council of State, and one of the seven commissioners for the army. On 9 June he was nominated lord-general (commander-in-chief) of the army. However, his power was undermined in parliament, which chose to disregard the army's authority in a similar fashion to the pre–Civil War parliament. On October 12, 1659, the Commons cashiered General John Lambert and other officers, and installed Fleetwood as chief of a military council under the authority of the Speaker. The next day Lambert ordered that the doors of the House be shut and the members kept out. On 26 October a "Committee of Safety" was appointed, of which Fleetwood and Lambert were members. Lambert was appointed major-general of all the forces in England and Scotland, Fleetwood being general. Lambert was now sent, by the Committee of Safety, with a large force to meet George Monck, who was in command of the English forces in Scotland, and either negotiate with him or force him to come to terms.

 

It was into this atmosphere that General George Monck marched south with his army from Scotland. Lambert's army began to desert him, and he returned to London almost alone. On 21 February 1660, Monck reinstated the Presbyterian members of the Long Parliament 'secluded' by Pride, so that they could prepare legislation for a new parliament. Fleetwood was deprived of his command and ordered to appear before parliament to answer for his conduct. On 3 March Lambert was sent to the Tower, from which he escaped a month later. Lambert tried to rekindle the civil war in favour of the Commonwealth by issuing a proclamation calling on all supporters of the "Good Old Cause" to rally on the battlefield of Edgehill. But he was recaptured by Colonel Richard Ingoldsby, a regicide who hoped to win a pardon by handing Lambert over to the new regime. The Long Parliament dissolved itself on 16 March.

On 4 April 1660, in response to a secret message sent by Monck, Charles II issued the Declaration of Breda, which made known the conditions of his acceptance of the crown of England. Monck organised the Convention Parliament, which met for the first time on 25 April. On 8 May it proclaimed that King Charles II had been the lawful monarch since the execution of Charles I in January 1649. Charles returned from exile on 23 May. He entered London on 29 May, his birthday. To celebrate "his Majesty's Return to his Parliament" May 29 was made a public holiday, popularly known as Oak Apple Day. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 23 April 1661.

The Restoration England, British Literature, Unit 1, B.A English literature, Revised Syllabus 2020

The Restoration England

The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The term Restoration is used to describe both the actual event by which the monarchy was restored, and the period of several years afterwards in which a new political settlement was established. It is very often used to cover the whole reign of Charles II (1660–1685) and often the brief reign of his younger brother James II (1685-1688). In certain contexts it may be used to cover the whole period of the later Stuart monarchs as far as the death of Queen Anne and the accession of the Hanoverian George I in 1714; for example Restoration comedy typically encompasses works written as late as 1710.

Background for Restoration

            The English Restoration begins under invitation by leaders of the English Commonwealth, Charles II, the exiled king of England, lands at Dover, England, to assume the throne and end 11 years of military rule.

          Prince of Wales at the time of the English Civil War, Charles fled to France after Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarians defeated King Charles I’s Royalists in 1646. In 1649, Charles vainly attempted to save his father’s life by presenting Parliament a signed blank sheet of paper, thereby granting whatever terms were required. However, Oliver Cromwell was determined to execute Charles I, and on January 30, 1649, the king was beheaded in London.

          After his father’s death, Charles was proclaimed king of England by the Scots and by supporters in parts of Ireland and England, and he traveled to Scotland to raise an army. In 1651, Charles invaded England but was defeated by Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. Charles escaped to France and later lived in exile in Germany and then in the Spanish Netherlands. After Cromwell’s death in 1658, the English republican experiment faltered. Cromwell’s son Richard proved an ineffectual leader, and the public resented the strict Puritanism of England’s military rulers.

         In 1660, in what is known as the English Restoration, General George Monck met with Charles and arranged to restore him in exchange for a promise of amnesty and religious toleration for his former enemies. On May 25, 1660, Charles landed at Dover and four days later entered London in triumph. It was his 30th birthday, and London rejoiced at his arrival. In the first year of the Restoration, Oliver Cromwell was posthumously convicted of treason and his body disinterred from its tomb in Westminster Abbey and hanged from the gallows at Tyburn.

The British Restoration

             Restoration, in English history, is the reestablishment of the monarchy on the accession (1660) of Charles II after the collapse of the Commonwealth  and the Protectorate. The term is often used to refer to the entire period from 1660 to the fall of James II in 1688, and in English literature the Restoration period (often called the age of Dryden) is commonly viewed as extending from 1660 to the death of John Dryden in 1700. 

            After the death of Oliver Cromwell in Sept., 1658, the English republican experiment soon faltered. Cromwell's son and successor, Richard, was an ineffectual leader, and power quickly fell into the hands of the generals, chief among whom was George Monck, leader of the army of occupation in Scotland. In England a strong reaction had set in against Puritan supremacy and military control. When Monck marched on London with his army, opinion had already crystallized in favor of recalling the exiled king.

            Monck recalled to the Rump Parliament the members who had been excluded by Pride's Purge in 1648; the reconvened body voted its own dissolution. The newly elected Convention Parliament, which met in the spring of 1660, was overtly royalist in sympathy. An emissary was sent to the Netherlands, and Charles was easily persuaded to issue the document known as the Declaration of Breda, promising an amnesty to the former enemies of the house of Stuart and guaranteeing religious toleration and payment of arrears in salary to the army. Charles accepted the subsequent invitation to return to England and landed at Dover on May 25, 1660, entering London amid rejoicing four days later. 

Politics under Charles II and James II

            Control of policy fell to Charles's inner circle of old Cavalier supporters, notably to Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon, who was eventually superseded by a group known as the Cabal. The last remnants of military republicanism, as exemplified in the Fifth Monarchy Men, were violently suppressed, and persecution spread to include the Quakers. The Cavalier Parliament, which assembled in 1661, restored a militant Anglicanism, and Charles attempted, although cautiously, to reassert the old absolutist position of the earlier Stuarts.

            The crown, however, was still dependent upon Parliament for its finances. The unwillingness of Charles and his successor, James II, to accept the implications of this dependency had some part in bringing about the deposition (1688) of James II, who was hated as a Roman Catholic as well as a suspected absolutist. The Glorious Revolution gave the throne to William III and Mary II.

 
England during the Restoration

             The Restoration period was marked by an advance in colonization and overseas trade, by the Dutch Wars, by the great plague (1665) and the great fire of London (1666), by the birth of the Whig and Tory parties, and by the Popish Plot and other manifestations of anti-Catholicism. In literature perhaps the most outstanding result of the Restoration was the reopening of the theaters, which had been closed since 1642, and a consequent great revival of the drama. The drama of the period was marked by brilliance of wit and by licentiousness, which may have been a reflection of the freeness of court manners. The last and greatest works of John Milton fall within the period but are not typical of it; the same is true of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678). The age is vividly brought to life in the diaries of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, and in poetry the Restoration is distinguished by the work of John Dryden and a number of other poets.

Restoration Literature

Restoration literature is the English literature written during the historical period commonly referred to as the English Restoration(1660–1689), which corresponds to the last years of the direct Stuart reign in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. In general, the term is used to denote roughly homogeneous styles of literature that center on a celebration of or reaction to the restored court of Charles II. It is a literature that includes extremes, for it encompasses both Paradise Lost and the Earl of Rochester’s Sodom, the high-spirited sexual comedy of The Country Wife and the moral wisdom of The Pilgrim’s Progress. It saw Locke’s Treatises of Government, the founding of the Royal Society, the experiments and holy meditations of Robert Boyle, the hysterical attacks on theaters from Jeremy Collier, and the pioneering of literary criticism from John Dryden and John Dennis. The period witnessed news become a commodity, the essay developed into a periodical art form, and the beginnings of textual criticism.

Traditionally, Restoration plays have been studied by genre rather than chronology, more or less as if they were all contemporary, but scholars today insist on the rapid evolvement of drama in the period and on the importance of social and political factors affecting it. (Unless otherwise indicated, the account below is based on Hume’s influential Development of English Drama in the Late Seventeenth Century, 1976.) The influence of theatre company competition and playhouse economics is also acknowledged, as is the significance of the appearance of the first professional actresses.

Reformation Causes and Effects, British Literature Unit 1 Introduction, B.A English Literature 2020

Reformation- Causes and Effects

    The Reformation changed England’s official religion from Catholicism to the new Protestant faith.  Attempts to reform (change and improve) the Catholic Church and the development of Protestant Churches in Western Europe are known as the Reformation. The Reformation began in 1517 when a German monk called Martin Luther protested about the Catholic Church. His followers became known as Protestants. Many people and governments adopted the new Protestant ideas, while others remained faithful to the Catholic Church. This led to a split in the Church. 

    The Reformation spread quickly throughout Europe was initiated in response to the growing sense of corruption and administrative abuse in the Church. It spread to the creation and rise of the Protestantism. This contributed to the rise of the Reformation in the 16th century. The Reformation movement was the result of the dissatisfaction with the beliefs of the Catholic Church. The domination of Church was increasing day by day in sphere of life. The power of the Pope and priest had increased considerably. The Pope enjoyed his unlimited powers. Pope and the priest indulged in immoral activities and exerted money from the people. The hold of the Church over political institution was becoming unbearable. The movement started by people to evaluate the teaching of the Church came to be known as Reformation. 

THE CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION

    The Reformation was the greatest religious movement in the early church. It was a revival of Biblical and New Testament theology. The Reformation officially began in 1517 when Martin Luther challenged the Roman Church on the matter of Indulgences. While Luther had no idea of the impact this would make on the German society and the world, this event changed the course of history.

    The English Reformation was a series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. These events were, in part, associated with the wider process of the European Protestant Reformation, a religious and political movement that affected the practice of Christianity across all of Europe during this period. Many factors contributed to the process: the decline of feudalism and the rise of nationalism, the rise of the common law, the invention of the printing press and increased circulation of the Bible, the transmission of new knowledge and ideas among scholars, the upper and middle classes and readers in general. However, the various phases of the English Reformation, which also covered Wales and Ireland, were largely driven by changes in government policy, to which public opinion gradually accommodated itself.

Based on Henry VIII's desire for an annulment of his marriage (first requested of Pope Clement VII in 1527), the English Reformation was at the outset more of a political affair than a theological dispute. The reality of political differences between Rome and England allowed growing theological disputes to come to the fore. Until the break with Rome, it was the Pope and general councils of the Church that decided doctrine. Church law was governed by the code of canon law with final jurisdiction in Rome. Church taxes were paid straight to Rome, and the Pope had the final word in the appointment of bishops.

The break with Rome was affected by a series of acts of Parliament passed between 1532 and 1534, among them the 1534 Act of Supremacy which declared that Henry was the "Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England". Final authority in doctrinal and legal disputes now rested with the monarch, and the papacy was deprived of revenue and the final say on the appointment of bishops.

The theology and liturgy of the Church of England became markedly Protestant and  was a matter of fierce dispute during the reign of Henry's son Edward VI. The violent aspect of these disputes, manifested in the English Civil Wars, ended when the last Roman Catholic monarch, James II, was deposed, and Parliament asked William and Mary to rule jointly in conjunction with the English Bill of Rights in 1688 (in the "Glorious Revolution").  

 “There are two leading aspects in which the Reformation, viewed as a whole, may be regarded; the one more external and negative, and the other more intrinsic and positive. In the first aspect it was a great revolt against the see of Rome, and against the authority of the church and of churchmen in religious matters, combined with an assertion of the exclusive authority of the Bible, and of the right of all men to examine and interpret it for themselves. In the second and more important and positive aspect, the Reformation was the proclamation and inculcation, upon the alleged authority of Scripture, of certain views in regard to the substance of Christianity or the way of salvation, and in regard to the organization and ordinances of the Christian church” (William Cunningham, The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation).

THE EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION

A.   It is impossible to understand modern history apart from the Reformation. We cannot understand the history of Europe, England or America without studying the Reformation. For example, in America there would never have been Pilgrim Fathers if there had not first been a Protestant Reformation.

B.  The Reformation has profoundly affected the modern view of politics and law. Prior to the Reformation the Church governed politics; she controlled emperors and kings and governed the law of lands.

C.   The meaning of much western literature is really quite meaningless apart from an understanding of the Reformation. Moreover, for all practical purposes Martin Luther stabilized the German language.

D.   In the realm of science, it is generally granted by modern historians that there never would have been modern science were it not for the Reformation. All scientific investigation and endeavor prior to that had been controlled by the church. Only through sheer ignorance of history do many modern scientists believe that Protestantism, the true evangelical faith, opposes true science.

E.  The Reformation laid down once and for all the right and obligation of the individual conscience, and the right to follow the dictates of that individual conscience. Many men who talk lightly and glibly about “liberty” neither know nor realize that they owe their liberty to this event.

Renaissance and its implications, British Literature Unit -1: Introduction, Revised University Syllabus 2020, BA English (Sem 1)

Unit 1: Introduction

 Renaissance and its implications

    It is difficult to date or define the Renaissance. Etymologically the term, which was first used in England only as late as the nineteenth century, means "re-birth". Broadly speaking, the Renaissance implies that re-awakening of learning which came to Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

    The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the late 15th to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. As in most of the rest of northern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later. The beginning of the English Renaissance is often taken, as a convenience, to be 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth ended the Wars of the Roses and inaugurated the Tudor Dynasty. Renaissance style and ideas, however, were slow to penetrate England, and the Elizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance.

    The English Renaissance is different from the Italian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance were literature and music. Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian, which was moving into Mannerism and the Baroque by the 1550s or earlier. In contrast, the English Renaissance can only truly be said to begin, shakily, in the 1520s, and it continued until perhaps 1620.

    The Renaissance was not only English but a European phenomenon; and basically considered, it signalized a thorough substitution of the medieval habits of thought by new attitudes. The dawn of the Renaissance came first to Italy and a little later to France. To England it came much later, roughly about the beginning of the sixteenth century. As we have said at the outset, it is difficult to date the Renaissance; however, it may be mentioned that in Italy the impact of Greek learning was first felt when after the Turkish conquest of Constantinople the Greek scholars fled and took refuge in Italy carrying with them a vast treasure of ancient Greek literature in manuscript. The study of this literature fired the soul and imagination of the Italy of that time and created a new kind of intellectual and aesthetic culture quite different from that of the Middle Ages. The light of the Renaissance came very slowly to the isolated island of England, so that when it did come in all its brilliance in the sixteenth century, the Renaissance in Italy had already become a spent force.

The following are the implications of the Renaissance in England:

(a)  First, the Renaissance meant the death of mediaeval scholasticism which had for long been keeping human thought in bondage. The schoolmen got themselves entangled in useless controversies and tried to apply the principles of Aristotelian. philosophy to the doctrines of Christianity, thus giving birth to a vast literature characterized by polemics, casuistry, and sophistry which did not advance man in any way.

(b)  Secondly, it signalized a revolt against spiritual authority-the authority of the Pope. The Reformation, though not part of the revival of learning, was yet a companion movement in England. This defiance of spiritual authority went hand in hand with that of intellectual authority. Renaissance intellectuals distinguished themselves by their flagrant anti-authoritarianism.

   (c)   Thirdly, the Renaissance implied a greater perception of beauty and polish in   the Greek and Latin scholars. This beauty and this polish were sought by Renaissance men of letters to be incorporated in their native literature. Further, it meant the birth of a kind of imitative tendency implied in the term "classicism."

(d) Lastly, the Renaissance marked a change from the theocentric to the homocentric conception of the universe. Human life, pursuits, and even body came to be glorified. "Human life", as G. H. Mair observes, "which the mediaeval Church had taught them [the people] to regard but as a threshold and stepping-stone to eternity, acquired suddenly a new momentousness and value.".The "otherworldliness" gave place to "this-worldliness". Human values came to be recognised as permanent values, and they were sought to be enriched and illumined by the heritage of antiquity. This bred a new kind of paganism and marked the rise of humanism as also, by implication, materialism.

The Impact of Renaissance on Prose, Poetry and Drama

Prose:

    The most important prose writers who exhibit well the influence of the Renaissance on English prose are Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, Lyly, Sydney. Erasmus was a Dutchman who, came to Oxford to learn Greek. His chief work was The Praise of Folly which is the English translation of his most important work written in England. Erasmus wrote this work in 1510. Sir Thomas More’s Utopia was the “true prologue to the Renaissance”. It was the first book written by an Englishman which achieved European fame; but it was written in Latin (1516) and only later (1555) was translated into English. The word “utopia” is derived from the Greek word “ou topos” meaning no place. More’s utopia is an imaginary island which is the habitat of ideal republic. By the picture of the ideal state is implied a kind of social criticism of contemporary island. More’s indebtedness to Plato’s Republic is quite obvious. However, More seems also to be indebted to the then recent discoveries of the explorers and navigators like Vasco da Gama-who were mostly of Spanish and Portuguese nationalities. In Utopia, More discredits medievalism in all its implications and exalts the ancient Greek culture.

    Passing on to the prose writers of the Elizabethan age- the age of the flowering of the Renaissance- we find them markedly influenced both in their style and thought-content by the revival of antique classical learning. Sydney in Arcadia, Lyly in Euphues, and Hooker in The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity write the English which is away from the language of common speech; and is either too heavily laden- as in case of Lyly and Sydney- with bits of classical finery, or modeled on Latin syntax. Further in his own career and his Essays, Bacon stands as a representative of the materialistic, Machiavellian facet of the Renaissance, particularly of the Renaissance Italy. He combines in himself the dispassionate pursuit of truth and the keen desire for material advance.

Poetry

        Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) and the Earl of Surrey (1517-47) were pioneers of the new poetry in England. After Chaucer the spirit of English poetry had slumbered for upward of a century. The change in pronunciation in the fifteenth century had created a lot of confusion in prosody which in the practice of such important poets as Lydgate and Skeleton had been reduced to a mockery. Wyatt had travelled extensively in Italy and France and had come under the spell of Italian Renaissance. It must be remembered that the work of Wyatt and Surrey does not reflect the impact of the Rome of antiquity alone, but also that of modern Italy. So far as the versification is concerned, Wyatt and Surrey imported into England various new Italian metrical patterns. Moreover, they gave poetry a new sense of grace, dignity, delicacy, and harmony, which was found by them lacking in the works of Chaucer and the Chaucerian’s alike. Further, they were highly influenced by the love poetry of Petrarch and they did their best to imitate it. Petrarch’s love poetry is of the country kind, in which the pining lover is shown as a “servant” of his mistress with his heart tempest-tossed by her neglect and his mood varying according to her absence or presence.

    It goes to the credit of Wyatt to have introduced the sonnet into the English literary, and of Surrey to have first written blank verse, both the sonnet and blank verse were later to be practiced by a vast number of the best English poets. Though in his sonnets, Wyatt did not employ regular iambic pentameters yet he created a sense of discipline among the poets of his times who had forgotten the lesson and example of Chaucer and, like Skelton, were writing “ragged” and “jagged” lines which jarred so unpleasantly upon the ear. Wyatt wrote in all thirty-two sonnets, out of which seventeen are adaptations of Petrarch. Most of them (twenty-eight) have the rhyme scheme of Petrarch’s sonnets; that is, each has the octave a b b a a b b a   and twenty-six out of these twenty eight have the  c d d c e e sestet. Only in the last three he comes near what is called the Shakespearean formula, that is, three quatrains and a couplet. In the thirteenth sonnet, he exactly produced it; this sonnet rhymes a b a b, a b a b, a b a b, c c. Surrey wrote about fifteen or sixteen sonnets out of which ten use the Shakespearean formula which was to enjoy the greatest popularity among the sonneteers of the sixteenth century. Surreys work is characterized by exquisite grace and tenderness which we find missing from that of Wyatt. Moreover, he is a better craftsman and gives greater harmony to his poetry. Surrey employed blank verse in his translation of the fourth book of The Aeneid, the work which was first translated into English verse by Gavin Douglas a generation earlier, but in heroic couplets.

Drama:

    The revival of ancient classical learning scored its first clear impact on England drama in the middle of the sixteenth century. Previous to this impact there had been a pretty vigorous native tradition of drama, particularly comedy. This tradition had its origin in the liturgical drama and had progressed through the miracle and the mystery, and later the morality, to the interlude. John Heywood had written quite a few vigorous interludes, but they were altogether different in tone, spirit, and purpose from the Greek and Roman drama of antiquity. The first English regular tragedy Gorboduc and comedy Ralph Roister Doister were very much imitations of the classical tragedy and comedy. Gorboduc is slavish imitation of Senecan tragedy and has all its features without much of its life. Like Senecan tragedy it has revenge as the tragic motive, has most of its important incidents, narrated on the stage by messengers, has much of rhetoric and verbose declamation, has a ghost among its dramatis personae, and so forth. It is indeed a good instance of the “blood and thunder” kind of tragedy.

    Later on, the “University Wits” struck a note of independence in their dramatic work. They refused to copy Roman drama as slavishly as the writers of Gorboduc and Roister Doister. Even so, their plays are not free form the impact of the Renaissance; rather they show it as amply, though not in the same way.  In their imagination, they were all fired by the new literature which showed them new dimensions of human capability. In this respect, Marlowe stands in the fore-front of the University Wits. Rightly has he been called “the true child of the Renaissance”.