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Literature 2: English literature, ca.
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Literature 2: English Literature, ca 1550-1675Week 1 - Lecture
Early Modern Love Lyrics: Tradition and Innovation
We use two terms for this period: Renaissance and Early Modern Period (more about these
terms in week 2).
Renaissance/Early Modern Period:
- Europe: appr. 1350-1700
- England: appr. 1550-1700
Earliest works in this course: poetry by Henry Howard and Thomas Wyatt, appr. 1530-1540s
Last work: John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674)
Three genres: lyric poetry, narrative poetry, drama
Mostly looking at the period of 1515-1575.
Lyric poetry: ‘any fairly short poem expressing the personal mood, feeling, or meditation of
a single speaker [or persona] (who may sometimes be an invented character, not the poet)’
(Baldick, Dictionary of Literary Terms, ‘lyric’).
In lyric poetry, the speaker in a poem is almost never the poet. It is useful to assume that
there is a clear difference between a poem and the speaker. Shakespeare speakers where
versions of himself, he would be very broad. Sonnets are not forms of self-expression but
forms of imagination. Shakespeare stepping into someone else his shoes. Speaker expresses
mood or feeling on a given issue.
Narrative poetry: ‘the class of poems (including ballads, epics, and verse romances) that tell
stories, as distinct from dramatic and lyric poetry’ (Baldick, ‘narrative’). Examples: Faerie
Queene, Paradise Lost.
Sonnet doesn’t really tell story because it is too short, whereas a narrative poet does. It tells
a very fundamental story about creation of human race.
Drama: ‘general term for performances in which actors impersonate the actions and speech
of fictional or historical characters (or non-human entities) for the entertainment of an
audience, either on a stage or by means of a broadcast; or a particular example of this art,
i.e. a play’ (Baldick, ‘drama’)
Drama and lyric poetry involves around self-evaluation.
We will look at these three terms this course.
The Sonnet
The sonnet is one of the most popular genres.
Very popular genre during the Renaissance:
, - Appr. 200,000 sonnets written in England, Italy, Germany and France between 1530
and 1650
- Appr. 4000 of these are in English
It is still a popular genre. A reason why: it poses a challenge to the poet. It has lots of rules
which is a fun challenge to find freedom and creativity within these tight rules.
The sonnet: formal and thematic conventions
‘Closed’ or ‘prescribed’ form (vs. ‘free verse’, blank verse and stanzaic verse)
- Free verse: no a priori formal rules (20th century invention!)
- Blank verse: iambic pentameters, no rhyme, no stanzas (Renaissance drama,
Paradise Lost)
- Stanzaic verse: (usually long) poems that are divided regularly into stanzas with a
specific rhyme scheme and metre (The Faerie Qyeene)
- Sonnet: only one stanza
Free verse means that it is poetry that had no formal rules. No pre-divined formal rules.
Blank verse has one rule; each line should be a iambic pentameter. Paradise Lost is the first
poem which is written in blank verse
When I do count the clock, the time I tell (Shakespeare) example of iambic pentameter
Stanzaic verse is a long poem that is divided into stanza’s and has a specific rhyme scheme. It
is free and up to the poem to decide how many stanza’s he or she is going to write.
The sonnet has only 1 stanza. There is a set of fixed rules for the rhyme scheme. It is sort of
closed form.
The sonnet form (Italian vs. English or Shakespearean sonnet)
- 14 lines
- 11 syllables per line in an Italian sonnet, 10 for an English or Shakespearean sonnet
- Iambic pentameter for the English sonnet
- 8-6 division (Italian sonnet), or:
- 4-4-4-2 division (English/Shakespearean sonnet)
- ABAB or ABBA for octave, CDCDCD or CDECDE for sestet (Italian sonnet), or:
- ABAB CDCD EFEF GG (English/Shakespearean sonnet)
The donna angelica as a dominant motif in the Renaissance sonnet
When analyzing a sonnet, it is useful to look at the rules and see how the sections respond to
the other sections. Wonder if the lines contradict each other or introduce new stylistic
register of another storyline.
Formal characteristics/motives in sonnets:
Every genre comes with conventions. Early modern sonnets come with expectations as well.
The reader comes to a sonnet and expect some sort of topics; love, desire, erotic desire,
political sonnets. The main broad topic is love or desire in that time area.
Recurring motive in Early Modern Sonnets: a motive is a recurring image/idea = trope.
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