Intro to literature 4

1. Fourth Meeting – ELISABETHANPoetry & PROSE
And wilt thou leave me thus
That hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among;
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay! Say nay!
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Period: 1579 to 1603 (Queen Elisabeth: 1558 to 1603)

2. Noteworthy poets of the period:
• Sir Thomas Wyatt: the first person who brought sonnets
from Italy to England.
• Earl of Surrey: another sonnets’ writer, but also introduced
the first blank verse (without rhymes) in English.
• William Shakespeare: also wrote sonnets, but introduced
different rhyming method (English/Shakespearean Sonnets:
abab cdcd efef gg, instead of abba abba + 2/3 rhymes for the
next six lines)  abba abba cc dd ee / abba abba cdc dcd
• Edmund Spenser: the one who introduced Elizabethan age
proper. He wrote the best pastorals up to that era:
The Shepherd Calendar.
• Sir Philip Sidney: well known due to his active social life as
courtier, statesman, poet and soldier.

3. Other noteworthy poets of the period:
Sir Walter Raleigh: also famous for his various occupation as
soldier, sailor, explorer, courtier and writer. Most of his poem
were lost, but he is still considered one of the greatest poets.
Christopher Marlowe: famous dramatist but also a fine
lyric writer.
John Donne: closer to the Jacobean age. He is the greatest
metaphysical poet (less beautiful, less musical, containing
tricks/unusual images to attract attention)
‘Rare’ Ben Jonson: a dramatist who produced several great
plays, poems, and prose.

4. Notes:
Jacobean Age started 1603 to 1625, when King James VI
of Scotland became King James I of England.
The literature of this age was more interested in the mind
than in heart or eye, so lyrical and musical poems faded
away. The poets of this age tried to mix strong feeling
with reason.

5. Noteworthy books of poems of the
period:
• Tottel’s Songs and Sonnets (1557): 40 poems by Surrey,
96 by Wyatts, and 135 by other authors.
• The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579, Edmund Spenser): a
pastoral poem in 12 books, for each month of the year.
• The Sonnets of Shakespeare (1609): collection of
Shakespeare’s sonnets mentioning Mr. W. H (possibly William
Herbert, Earl of Pembroke), a girl, a rival poet, and a dark-eyed
beauty.
• The Faerie Queene (1589-96, Edmund Spenser): a poem
about a queen and 12 knights. It is where he introduced
‘Spenserian Stanza’, rhyming ababbcbcc.
• Epithalamion (1595) and Prothalamion (1596) (Edmund
Spencer): both talking about joy of marriage.

6. Noteworthy books of poems of the
period:
• Astrophel and Stella (1591, Sir Philip Sidney): sonnets
about a star-lover (Astrophel) and his star (Stella).
• Venus and Adonis (William Shakespeare): Shakespeare’s
first published book, about love.
• Lucrece(William Shakespeare): this work and ‘Venus and
Adonis’, are never considered his greatest works because of
the lack of feeling.
• The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (1599, Christopher
Marlowe): actually a drama script, but containing some great
lyric.
• To Celia (Ben Jonson):
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
and I will pledge with mine,
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.

7. Elisabethan prose:
• The Translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians
and Romans(1579, Sir Thomas North): important due to its
great influence on Elisabethan prose.
• The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the
English Nation(1589, Richard Hakluyt): important due to the
fact that Elisabethan Era is also known as The Age of
Exploration.
• Euphues(1578 and 1580, John Lyly): thin love story novel
which started a fashion of euphuism (style of conversation
which is long, complicated, and full of tricks and alliteration).
• Pandosto(Robert Greene): a novel about the tragedy of
Pandosto, King of Bohemia, who fell in love with his own
daughter.

8. Elisabethan prose:
• The Life of Jacke Wilton (Thomas Nash): a picaresque novel
(adventures of men with bad character).
• Essays (1597, Francis Bacon): some of best known sayings in
English come from this book.
• The Advancement of Learning (1605, Francis Bacon):
discusses different ways of advancing knowledge and divisions
of knowledge.
• Timber of Discoveries(1640, Ben Jonson): collection of
notes and ideas of various subjects.
• The New Atlantis (1626, Francis Bacon): a story of the
journey to an imaginary island, Bensalem.

9. Sonnet xviii:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
David Gilmour’s
version

10. Sonnet xviii:
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course
untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
myuzikbeanz & Nael651’s version

11. See You next week!