Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

MEDIEVAL LITERATURE
(1066 - 1510)

1

Chaucer at the Court of Edward III, Ford Madox Brown (1856-1868)

2

Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer is generally regarded as one of the greatest poets of all time
and the “father of the English language” and yet, oddly enough, we do not
know any details of his early life and education
...
into a middle-class family
...

At seventeen, he presumably attended St
...

He lived an extremely active life, having been a soldier in the English army
in France, a commercial agent for the English government in Italy, a customs
controller of the lucrative London customs, a country justice of the peace, a
member of parliament, Clerk of the King’s Works, and a deputy forester for
the crown
...
Three months later the
King ransomed him and once in England appointed him crown valet
...

Chaucer married Philippa Payne Roet, the sister-in-law of John of Gaunt
(the King’s fourth son) whose patronage and friendship he enjoyed
throughout his lifetime
...
Of special significance were
the journeys to Italy as they led him to admire Dante and Boccaccio, then at
pinnacle of their European literary reputation
...

A series of misfortunes, including the deprivation of all his preferment,
preceded his death, which occurred on the 25th of October 1400
...


Biography card
1340 - Born in London into an originally French family
...

1357 - Served with Lionel, Duke of Clarence
...

1360 - Ransomed by the King
...

1369 - Travelled extensively
...

1370 - As a squire he was sent on diplomatic missions
...
He visited Genoa and Florence and fell under the
literary influence of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio
...
Appointed controller of Customs for the
Port of London and superintended the building of St
...

1377 - Sent on mission to Flanders to negotiate peace with the French king
...

1386 - Elected to Parliament as a Knight of the Shire for Kent, but only for
one year
...

1389 - Clerk of the King’s Works
...

1400 - Took a lease on a house in the garden of Westminster Abbey
...


Why is Geoffrey Chaucer studied?
Geoffrey Chaucer is considered the greatest literary figure of his age and
revered as the chief ancestor of modern standard English
...

Furthermore, for his ability to create true-to-life characters, his sense of
humour, his psychological insight, the accuracy of his observation, and the
grace and technical excellence of his narrative vein, Chaucer is properly
recognised as the forerunner of the English novel as well
...
It is a poem of nearly 23,000
verses, begun by Guillaume de Lorris
...
Some forty years
later, Jean de Meung added many new characters, notably Reason and
Nature, which convey more interest for the social issues
...
His first experiment was with this influential French poem of the
previous century
...

Only the 1705 first lines of the original can be attributed to him with any
certainty
...
1369)
...

There is no mention of Gaunt’s personal grief
...

This work alone would give Chaucer the foremost place among English
writers
...
This unfinished dream-allegory containing
some classical memories was his first experiment in the handling of the
heroic couplet in the Italian manner
...

In the course of this exciting but puzzling experience he visits the temple of
the goddess Fame and the House of Tidings
...

The Parliament of Fowles (1380)
...
It revolves around a
conference of birds, symbolising different social classes and surrounding the
goddess Nature, to choose their mates on St Valentine’s Day
...

Troilus and Criseyde (1385)
...

Despite some indebtedness to Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato, Troilus and
Criseyde is commonly regarded as the first great and intense love-story in
English narrative poetry
...

This elaborate poem deals with the courtly love between the valiant warrior
Troilus, son of Priam, king of Troy, and the beautiful widow, Criseyde, the
daughter of Calchas, a Trojan soothsayer
...
Their union is interrupted after three years of supreme happiness
by her father’s leaving for Greece
...
At length, she is transferred to the Greek camp in exchange for the
Trojan prisoner Antenor
...

Once in the Greek camp, Criseyde is alone and desperate and becomes the
lover to the Greek Diomede as a way out
...
His soul rises to the
heavens from where he can laugh at earthly vanity and praise the eternal love
of Christ
...

The Legend of Good Women (first transcribed 1380-86)
...

As to the narrative framework, it anticipates Canterbury Tales as it is
composed of a collection of stories, prefaced by a dream-vision prologue
...

The long prologue, which concerns nature and the spring, is
unquestionably the most compelling and delightful part of the whole work
...

Canterbury Tales (begun about 1387)
...
Thomas Becket” in
Canterbury, is one of the finest English achievements
...
Chaucer’s originality is not undermined by his supposed
indebtedness to Boccaccio for the general idea of the work
...

The work can be read as if it were a reliable document of contemporary life
on the corruption of the church and social institutions
...
It has outlived all changes of literary taste, and is even more popular
today than it was six centuries ago
...

We are not sure of the exact date of its composition even though the
general plan may be dated about 1387, when Chaucer spent some time in
Kent
...

Chaucer expounded his original project in the famous General Prologue,
one of the best pieces of English literature of eighteen lines describing the
time of year, April, when the pilgrimage begins, the scene and introducing
the pilgrims
...

The solid unity of the scheme is assured by narrative exchanges among the
pilgrims, by short “links” connecting the tales, by prologues and epilogues of
the same, following a specific framing device, amply used by Gower in his
Confesssio Amantis
...
Chaucer
chances to join the assorted company at Tabarn Inn in Southwark, opposite
the City of London
...

Chaucer resorts to his power of describing the appearances of nature to
begin the Prologue
...

The jovial landlord Harry Bailey (a pilgrim himself and records testify to
his real existence) welcomes the pilgrims with dinner and jokes
...
If
Chaucer had finished his work there would have been about 120 stories and
it would be the longest poem in the English language
...

The person who tells the best tale is to be treated by the rest to a supper at
the Tabarn on their homeward journey
...
Early
next morning, they set out on their journey to the tomb of the popular saint
...
He has just come back
from war and is going to Canterbury to give thanks to God because he is safe
and unhurt
...

One by one all the pilgrims from any social rank, but for the highest and the
lowest, tell their fictional stories, which are commonly grouped in nine
selections
...
This is because in that period the upper classes did not like to mix
with other people and preferred to go on pilgrimages on their own while poor
people did not have the money to afford the journey
...

No other author until Shakespeare had Chaucer’s talent and ability to
describe characters which express not only their small world but entire
society
...
The Knight is the embodiment of the romantic spirit of
chivalry and courtesy
...

Disloyalty and selfishness, as the most suitable means of social
advancement replace nobility and bravery, once dominant values
...

Long ago there was once a Duke called Theseus who was the Lord and
Governor of Athens, and a valiant soldier
...
Returning home
with his Amazon wife Hippolyta and her sister, Emelye, Theseus met a group
of women dressed in black who were weeping and wailing
...
The cruel tyrant Creon now plans to dishonor the dead
bodies
...
Then, in anger, the Duke and his army marched on Thebes
...

After the battle was over, two young warriors of Thebes, fearfully wounded,
were brought before Theseus
...

In appearance, the two knights were very similar, being the sons of two
sisters
...
They were, he said, to be his prisoners in
perpetuity
...
On a fair morning in May, however, the beautiful Emelye
arose and wandered happily about in her garden, which was adjacent to the
prison tower
...
He cried out in pain
...
Palamon replied
that the beauty of the young lady had caused him to cry out
...
When he saw the fair
Emelye, he cried out that unless he could see her everyday he would die
...
After all, he cried to Arcite,
I found her first
...
Thus, even though they are kin and had sworn eternal friendship,
they decide that in love it is every man for himself
...

About this time, a famous Duke called Perotheus, a friend of both Theseus
and Arcite, arrived in Athens
...

Arcite then bemoans his fate
...
He acknowledges that Palamon is the winner since he can remain in
prison and near to Emelye
...
Chaucer then asks the reader which position is worse, that of
Arcite or Palamon
...
His lamenting began to change his physical appearance
...
Arcite arose and looked at himself in the mirror and realized that his
grief had drastically changed his appearance
...
Several years passed, and Philostrate rose to a high and
well-to-do position in the Court of Theseus, even becoming a trusted friend
of Theseus himself
...
One night, however,
he escaped
...
That same
day, by chance, Arcite arrived at the same field
...
Arcite, thinking himself
alone, began to recite his entire history aloud
...

In a tournament, arranged at the impressive and decorative Temple of
Mars, Arcite was fatally wounded by falling off his horse onto his head
...
So his brother got the hand of Emelye
...
In the general prologue to The Canterbury Tales, we
learn that a miller used to abuse his monopoly of grinding the corn, by
charging a high price
...
In Oxford,
Nicholas the Gallant, a young man versed in astrologic and geomancic
studies, dupes an old carpenter, named John, into sleeping in a tub by
making him believe the second flood imminent
...

Alison has another love-stricken suitor, the clerk of the parish, named
Absalon
...
He plans to avenge himself and goes to Gervase, his friend who
is a smith, to borrow a sharpened coulter
...
The wretched Nicholas starts crying “Help! Water! Water!
Help! For Heaven’s love”
...

The Reeve’s Tale
...

It is about a Miller who lives in a village neighbouring Cambridge
...
His wife and his
daughter are so beautiful as to attract every young man’s attention
...
Weary of his outrageous trickeries, two young Bible-clerks, John and
Alan, scheme to take revenge on him
...


9

The Cook’s Tale
...
It is about the easy-going Revelling
Peterkin, an apprentice to a shop
...

Eventually he is dismissed and sometimes cast into prison with minstrelsy
because of his quarrelsome conduct
...

The Man of Law’s Tale
...
The gloomy story revolves around the ups
and downs of Lady Constance, daughter of a Christian emperor of Rome
...

The young Sultan of Syria is enthralled by her rare beauty even to the extent
of abjuring his Mahometry for Christianity to marry her
...

For some three years Lady Constance has faced the stormy waters until,
with the help of Divine Providence, she reaches the coast of
Northumberland
...

A providential mysterious voice exculpates her from the charge and reveals
the culprit who is sentenced to death
...

The Christian endurance she exhibits to cope with the groundless
accusation arouses in the benevolent King Alla more compassionate and
tender feelings
...

Unfortunately, their happy marriage comes abruptly to an end as he is
charged with a military mission to Scotland
...

The grief-stricken King is utterly unaware of her mother’s treacherous
conduct
...
Meanwhile Lady Constance and her
little son live in Rome as guests of a senator and his wife
...

The Wife of Bath’s Tale
...
This tale is preceded by a long prologue, which is
a cheerful account of the Wife of Bath’s life
...

In order to justify her attitude towards the advisability of marriage and
condemn celibacy, she refers to the wise King Solomon and two holy men,
Abraham and Jacob, who had more than one wife
...

At last she tells her tale which occurred under King Arthur’s reign and
develops the theme of female sovereignty or mastery over man
...

A knight who raped a girl
...
The
Queen and other ladies persuade the sovereign to grant a pardon to the
condemned young man on condition that he could answer the question,
within a year and a day, the answer “What is the thing that women most
desire?”
The wretched knight sets out to look for someone who could help him to
find the right answer
...

At last as he rode beside a forest, he saw a group of ladies dancing
...
This old
woman told him the answer, on condition that he would grant her the next
thing she asked of him
...
All agreed that this was correct
...

On their wedding night, as if by magic, the mortified groom resigns
sovereignty and in return for her unselfishness she is transmuted to a lovely,
charming and faithful wife, and they live their lives in perfect bliss ever after
...
It is an original version of a fabliau whose source is
unknown
...
The Friar tells that once
in his own district a Summoner used to surround himself with dubious
characters to extort money from people through bribery and blackmail
...

On day he met a yeoman who turned out to be a devil
...
They swore an oath of brotherhood and to
share their earnings
...

The fiend in disguise refuses to cheat him as he thinks his curse is insincere
...


11

The Summoner’s Tale
...
As an influential officer of the
court, he managed to squeeze money from weak and simple-minded persons
...
It occurred in the marshy
district of Holderness (Yorkshire) and is about the greedy Friar John
...

Thomas! If you would learn or be enticed
To learn what good there is in building churches,
Your name sake’s life will further
your researches, St Thomas of India
...

In a towering rage, Friar John leaves Thomas’s house and bents his steps
towards the manor house of a worthy man
...

The Clerk’s Tale
...

The plot is quite even
...
He singles out as his bride the pretty
Griselda of humble origins, living in the neighbouring village
...
One day, without any reason, the
Marquis decides to test her wife’s love and faithfulness
...
Griselda kisses and marks it with the cross of Christ
before delivering it to the servant
...

As agreed, the servant secretly takes the baby to Bologna where the
marquis’ sister, the Countess of Panaro, is entrusted with its upbringing
...

In his early childhood, he undergoes the same feigned murder as his sister
...

Sir Walter perpetrates the last cruel trial on his meek wife
...
Upon request, Griselda even decorates the chambers for the imminent
wedding
...

Eventually, in piteous joy, he explains why he has subjected his wife to such
harshness, “took her up into his arms to kiss” and reunites the whole family
...
The merchant, who never reveals his name, is very
upset by Griselda’s submissive and subservient behaviour towards her
husband
...
He lived at Pavia and was an
obdurate bachelor
...
Against his brother Justinus’ advice, the ageing January marries May,
a pretty young girl
...
His love is requited
...

The climactic point in the story is reached when they are walking hand in
the hand in the garden
...
Pluto, the king of Fairyland,
abhors their shameful lust and gives back sight to the cuckolded husband
...
She jumps down from the
tree and January
Kissed her and clasped her in his arms - how often!
And stroked her breast to soften
Her indignation
...

The Squire’s Tale
...

His wife Elpheta bore him two sons, Algarsyf and Cambalo, and a beautiful
daughter Canacee
...

Among them there was a mysterious ring which allowed the daughter to
converse with any birds in their natural speech
...

Her distressing plight aroused Canacee’s compassion and pity
...
Taken into her
lap, the falcon starts telling her story
...
Amazed
at his seemingly sincere courtship, she requited his love
...

Although of gentle birth, though fresh and gay
...


13

The sympathetic Canacee took her home and “lavished on her all the care she
might”
...
The concluding lines of the squire’s tale hint at some
other events, which are never recounted as Chaucer, determined to leave the
tale unfinished
...
In his brief prologue to the tale, the Franklin
implores his fellow pilgrims to disregard the insubstantiality of his style as he
has never studied Cicero and his “figures” and “colours”
...

Once in Brittany, once called Armorica, Sir Arveragus and his wife Dorigen,
“the loveliest under the sun’, lived in a blissful joy until he left for some time
in search of “high deeds of arms and reputation”
...

Even her bosom friends and the whirlwind courtship of the clerk Aurelius
were ineffective to ease her continual lament and sorrow
...

He suffered the miseries of unrequited love for her and was ready to dare
everything to win her
...

The squire Aurelius, aided by his anxious brother, conjured a magician who
spirited away the rocks from Brittany
...
She
wailed and swooned every day and even planned to commit suicide
...

Eventually, the tender-hearted Aurelius realizes that Dorigen vowed:
In innocent confusion,
She’d never heard of magical illusion,
and he discharged her from her obligation to him
...
It is the tragic story of the fourteen-year-old
Virginia, the daughter of the honourable knight, Virginius
...

He planned to win her heart through shifty intrigues and machinations
...

Upon the judge’s instructions, Claudius claimed his fatherhood of Virginia
before the court through a forged document
...

I take my death rather than take my shame
...

The treacherous iniquity was disclosed and Appius was cast into prison
where in a fit of remorse and grief he slew himself
...

The Pardoner’s Tale
...
An outline of the fourteenth-century figure of
the pardoner is extremely useful to an overall understanding of the tale
...

He could be either a priest or layman who acted on the behalf of the
Church
...

As he acted without any Church control and restriction, he was susceptible
to abuse his position and deceive simple-minded people with forged
documents and phoney relics
...

In the prologue, the Pardoner dissipates any doubts about his right to
preach by showing the listeners the seal of the local church authority and
some other fake credentials
...

Through gestures, eloquence and fluent imagery, and few Latin words in
the sermon, he persuades the naive audience to believe that old rags and
bones are relics of saints and bring about miraculous effects
...
He avows his boundless greedy - one of the Seven Deadly Sins - and
usually cheats the simple or foolish country people
But let me briefly make my purpose plain;
I preach for nothing but for greed of gain
And use the same old text, as bold as brass,
Radix malorum est cupiditas
(“the love of money is the root of all evils”)
...
When the prologue is over, the
Pardoner starts to tell his “moral tale”
...
His
warning against these vices precedes the introduction of three lecherous and
pleasure-seeking men into the story
...
He is now being buried
...


15

In their drunken rage, they burst out of the tavern to seek out and to kill
Death
...
After walking less than a mile, they meet a mysterious old
man who directs them down a crooked path towards a grove where they may
find Death under a tree
...

Henceforth they give up looking for Death and consider how to avoid
arousing suspicion
...
While he is gone, the two who are left agree to kill him and so
increase their share
...
So he enters an
apothecary’s shop, buys the potion, and pours it into two large bottles
...
Then they sit down and drink to be merry
together
...
The Pardoner tells this odd story to
convince his listeners to offer devoutly a shilling for their absolution if they
want to gain the bliss of Heaven
...
The host
stubbornly refuses and indeed he gets so angry that he cannot speak
...

The Shipman’s Tale
...
Denys and is about a misery merchant
...
The monk Sir John, who
claims to be his cousin, is the most regular visitor
...
She readily agrees “to
requite Sir John by lying in his arms all night”
...

When he returns, the monk tells him he has already paid the debt to his
wife
...
So the merchant is cheated and cuckolded by one of his closest
friends
...
With the Monk and the Friar, the Prioress is worthy
representative of the influential religious orders
...

The Christians, who despised the greedy Jews, could learn the rudiments of
education in the local school
...
Upon his mother’s advice, he often stopped and prayed to Christ’s
mother at the foot of Her image on his way home
...
He was explained that “This song in times gone by was made, they say,
in prayer and salutation, to greet our blessed Lady, now on high, that she
may reach to help us when we die, and be our succour
...


16

He promised to learn it by heart for Christmas day
...
The Jews plotted against his life, hired a murderer
who carried out the cruel deed and eventually cast his body into a well
...
After a distressful quest, she
came to the well and could hear her son’s voice singing the Hymn O Alma
from the ground even though his throat had been cut
...
The chief magistrate of the neighbourhood came and
could hear the pitiable child sing
...

The little boy was drawn up still repeating the same words and was taken to
the nearest abbey in high solemnity and celebration
...

The abbot wondered how he could do so if his throat had been cut
...
Only then was he deprived of the prodigious “grain”
...
The
abbot took off the grain and let the ghost free from the little corpse
...

Sir Thopas’ Tale
...
It speaks
Of mirth and game,
About a fair and gentle knight
In battle, tournament and fight,
Sir Topez was his name
...
One day, while riding through the forest in search of an
elf-queen whom he chooses as his mistress, his “Valentine”, he meets with
evil luck
...
Back at the castle, he wears Princely
armour:
His shield was of a golden red
Emblazoned with a porker’s head
...

Just as he is leaving the court, the disgusted Host who considers the story
flimsy doggerel in rhyme halts Chaucer
...
The tale contains a mixture of different styles, which is actually
a hilarious satire on the decadent popular
romance
...


17

The Tale of Melibee
...
It tackles the moral dispute whether it is fair to
take revenge for the violent wrongs done to you
...
The homily debate
involves ancient authorities, including Job, Solomon, St Paul and many
others
...

She intends to settle the matter peacefully, while her husband proposes a
fine for their misdemeanour
...

The Monk’s Tale
...
Their stories are taken from
different sources and modelled upon one of Boccaccio’s works
...

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
...
The story
has a cock, called Chanticleer, as a central character
...
The cock is
famous in the neighbourhood for his matchless tuneful voice:
His voice was jollier than the organ blowing
In church on Sundays, he was great at crowing
...
On morning the cock intends to tell her his
dreadful dream but is savagely interrupted by Lady Pertelote, who considers
such a human activity an empty nonsense
...

A dispute ensues on the plausibility of a dream
...


18

The tale proper begins with the appearance of a coal-tipped fox, called Sir
Russel Fox, who beguiles the cock by praising his father’s wisdom and
singing
...

There never was a singer I would rather
Have heard at dawn than your respected father,
All that he sang came welling from his soul
And how he put his voice under control!
The cock is carried off by the cunning fox and taken into a wood to be
devoured
...

Eventually, she agrees to die while her sweetheart manages to free himself
from the enemy’s claws by a subtle ploy
...

The Second Nun’s Tale
...
On her wedding day she besought her husband Valerian
not to mar her purity as it is constantly watched by a relentless guardian
angel
...

She gives two pieces of evidence (Valerian is enabled to meet Saint Urban the Pope Urban I, martyred by beheading 25 May, A
...
230 - and an angel at
home)
...
They do not yield to the threats of
Almachius, the Roman officer, who has been
Given ordinance
...
Urban buries Cecilia’s body among the Holy persons and her
… Mansion came to be
The Church of St Cecilia, hers by light
...
Chaucer exhibits solid knowledge of
chemical practice in the 200-line introduction to the tale proper
...

The mysterious character tells with wealth of details how the treacherous
Canon tricks a foolish priest out of forty pounds by promising to reveal to
him the miraculous practice of changing mercury and copper into silver
through the use of alchemy and science
...


19

The Manciple’s Tale (Manciple, a steward of a college or inn)
...
He has a white crow, which he fosters tenderly
with food and drink
...
Phoebus feels a mixture of love and jealousy for his wife
...
On
his return, the white crow discloses to him the adultery, which casts “shame
on him and villainy”
...
Later he feels remorse for his ill doing and vents his wrath upon the
“traitor-bird”
...

And that’s the reason why all crows are
Black
...

The Parson’s Tale
...
The Parson refers contemptuously to the alliterative style of
composition for an immense prose treatise; but as he sneers at rhyme as
well, perhaps we should not take him too seriously
...

In his sermon, the Parson maintains that spiritual Penitence, i
...
a sincere
regret for both venial and deadly sins committed, is the safest and most
direct way to the celestial city
...
1500
Literary genre: morality play
Type of plot: moral allegory
Fictional time: any time
Setting: any place
Main characters:
God
Death
Everyman
Good-Deeds

Introduction
If the earliest extant Morality Play - allegorical representations where real
people were substituted by personifications of vices and virtues that were in
conflict for man’s soul - is The Castell of Perseverance (c
...
It survives in a printed edition of
the beginning of the sixteenth century and is still moving
...
The play
has a simple elegiac style and dignity and is certainly impressive in its grave
ecclesiastical way
...

Everyman is almost the only morality play to appeal to modern audiences,
and it has been produced several times within our century
...
John the Divine in
New York City in 1938
...
He says all living creatures are unkind to Him
...
The crucifixion was a
lesson they have forgotten
...
Therefore, God decides to have the day of
reckoning, fearing that mankind becomes more brutish than the beasts
...
Everyone is taken aback by the
suddenness of the summons, and pleads for more time to prepare for the
long journey, which Death refuses him
...
Death grants the request, saying that he may
have the companionship of everyone who will venture forth with him
...
But when Everyman explains
the nature of his journey and begs his company, Good Fellowship brutally
refuses
...

In despair, Everyman turns to Good Deeds, who cannot rise from the
ground; he is weak, weighed down helplessly by his sins
...
By their advice, through penance, Good Deeds is
allowed to rise to accompany Everyman
...

When they come in sight of the grave, Strength, Discretion and Five Wits
abandon him
...
Only Good Deeds will follow him, sink with
him into the grave and speak for him in front of God
...


22

Edmund Spenser

John Donne

William Shakespeare

Cristopher Marlowe

Ben Jonson

36

THE RENAISSANCE
(1558 - 1625)

37

38

Sir Philip Sidney
Born (1554-1586) at Penshurst Place, Kent, Sir Philip Sidney passed his
childhood among the local woods and meadows, receiving year by year those
impressions from rural scenery and forming that love for nature, the fruit of
which was to appear in his Arcadia and in the songs and sonnet of his riper
years
...
In those times it was usual to enter the
university at an earlier age than at present, so that there is nothing
remarkable in Philip Sidney’s entering Christ Church, Oxford, at the age of
fourteen
...
Here he made some
highly prized and valuable friendships and acquired a large measure of
classical learning
...
This is certainly proof both of his proficiency in his
studies, and of the confidence placed in him by his wise father
...
Bartholomew’s Day,
1572
...
In May, 1575, Sidney returned to England, enriched
by the experience of three years spent in most of European countries
...

As a man of letters, he became associated with Edmund Spenser, Fulke
Greville and some other distinguished members of the Areopagus Club,
whose main aim was to introduce classical metres into English verse
...
That same year he
was knighted for reasons of court protocol
...

He received a fatal bullet wound in his thigh in the Battle of Zutphen on
October 7, 1586
...
Perceiving this, Sir Philip Sidney withdrew his lips from
the bottle, and handed it to the soldier, with the words: “Thy necessity is yet
greater than mine!” and thus he offered a classic example of Renaissance
chivalry
...


Biographical card
1554 - Born, eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Mary Dudley, the sister of
the Earl of Leicester
...

1568 - Went to Christ Church, Oxford
...

1572 - He was granted by Queen Elizabeth a licence to travel abroad
...

1577 - He was sent as ambassador to the Emperor Rudolph in Prague to
discuss the formation of Protestant League
...

1583 - He married Frances Walsingham and was knighted
...

1586 - On October 17 he was wounded during a skirmish at Zutphen on 22nd
September
...


Why is Sir Philip Sidney studied?
Sir Philip Sidney embodied so brilliantly the spirit of the courtly literary
tradition in the Elizabethan age as to be regarded by his contemporaries as
the perfect Renaissance gentleman of many accomplishments, modelled on
Castiglione’s Cortegiano
...

Despite his untimely death (he died when he was only thirty-two), he wrote
a huge literary output, including first-rate poetry
...

He managed to infuse his philosophical and lofty chivalric ideals into his
art through striking imagery and powerful language
...

Accordingly, scholars are faced with the great problem of fixing their
chronological order of composition
...
Sidney wrote this short pastoral
entertainment for the Queen’s visit to Leicester House, which was performed
at Wanstead probably in 1578
...

The development of the story is regular and revolves around Lady of May,
the daughter of a countrywoman
...
The two suitors, the
forester Therion and the shepherd Espicus engage in a singing match so that
the Queen may judge which is worthier to possess the Lady
...
Eventually, upon the Queen’s advice, Lady of May
accepts Espicus as her husband
...

Arcadia (1590)
...

Sidney wrote his Old Arcadia for the amusement of his younger sister, the
Countess of Pembroke and reflects their youthful vitality
...

Actually, Old here means only “former” or “previous”
...

Though incomplete, this revised and enlarged version in five Books or Acts New Arcadia - was published in 1590
...

It enjoyed enormous popularity for the ingenuous pictures of human
nature, its highly elaborate prose, and vivid idyllic descriptions of nature
...

As the title suggests, the story is set in an ideal pastoral environment of
simple-pleasant country life
...
The author instils “delightful teaching”, in a wide variety of
metres and genres
...

King Basilius of Arcadia, his wife Gynecia and their two beautiful daughters
Pamela and Philoclea can bear the corruption of the court no longer and in
order to avoid the dangers foretold by an oracle they withdraw to the forest
...
The former
disguises himself as a shepherd and the latter disguises himself as an
Amazon, Zelmane, to gain access to the king’s household and win the
Arcadian Princesses’ hearts
...
The
King himself falls in love with ‘Zelmane’ and so do Gynecia and Philoclea
...

After drinking a love-potion intended by his wife for Pyrocles, Basilius goes
into a deathlike trance
...
Philoclea is consigned to a convent, Gynecia is to be
buried alive and the two young strangers are sentenced to death by a jury
presided over by Euarchus, the ruler of Macedon
...
He asserts:
If rightly I have judged, then rightly have I judged mine
own children
...
The two young couples marry
providing the story a conventional happy ending
...
1583)
...

The poem is particularly valued for its elegant and stylish prose and
marked a major landmark in English literary criticism
...

Sidney carefully examines poesie in its complex unity and lays no fixed
laws, which can limit inspiration
...
Accordingly, the poet’s moral task and
didactic teachings, although under the guise of entertainment, is superior
even to the philosopher’s or the historian’s
...

Sidney surveyed contemporary English poetry and found that it had lost its
moral strength and wisdom since Chaucer
...

Astrophel and Stella (1591)
...
These sonnets are systematically interwoven with eleven
songs in other forms and several references to literary theory, which provide
a complete organic whole
...

The complete text was printed at the end of the 1598 Folio of the Arcadia,
seemingly under the supervision of the Countess of Pembroke
...
As a pioneer in the field
of sonneteering, Sidney displays a matchless grace, ease, and command of
language and universality in emotion
...
Sir Philip Sidney worked on them from 1580 to 1583, mostly in
imitation of the Italian tradition, celebrating the poet’s beloved through a
series of conventional sonnets
...
Partly autobiographical, the sonnets tell no regular story but relate

42

tournaments, and meetings and loosely tell of the poet/lover Astrophel’s
miseries over his unsatisfied passion for Lady Stella (“star”), who was known
to be Penelope Devereux
...
Stella has
no feeling of pity, or sympathy for the lover’s anguish
...
On the matter, it is
worth noting that the frustration of passion has been, together with its
fulfilment, the great subject of love poetry
...

Astrophel makes the point but ruefully shows, at the same time, that he is
fully aware of the sophistry of his plea
...

Sonnets I and XXXIX, two of the most famous of Sidney’s cycle of sonnets,
are analysed in the following pages
...

During the Renaissance an awareness of an interest in European literature
had resulted in Petrarchism, an attempt to imitate the form and many of the
thematic conventions of Petrarca’s Sonnets
...
They were attracted to Petrarca’s treatment of unrequited love and
to the formal discipline imposed by the sonnet form
...
Instead of exploiting the harshness present in
English, writers started to discover that English could sound almost as
elegant and refined as Italian
...
151747) and Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42)
...
Wyatt’s free and imaginative adaptations
of Petrarca revealed the potential offered by the sonnet form in English
...
His
sequence of sonnets marks the triumph of an English idiom in which a
smooth style is prominent and in which Petrarchan features are not only
fully assimilated but are given an individuality
...
Sidney’s Astrophel and Stella is the production of an
English poet with a strong intellectual motivation
...

We can sense this inventive response to Petrarca and his tradition in the
way that Sidney amusingly plays with the conventions of Petrarchan love
...

We can also note that the way that Sidney confidently argues with literary
discussions of love: the reference to Pindar, Plato and Cato within the first
few sonnets marks Sidney’s aspiration to intellectual stature in the genre of
love poetry
...

It is part of his self-image to show confidence in learning, an ability to
argue with the great thinkers and writers on their own terms
...
The first sixtythree sonnets reveal a debate within the poet between the demands of public
life and his passionate love for Stella
...
Stella is a figure of
pure chastity and is unwilling to yield to Astrophel’s advances despite her
love for him
...

The concluding lines of the sequence tell a story of mutual respect: Stella
remains a figure of spiritual love who refuses to fulfil physical passion
...


44

Sonnet I
Detailed commentary
This sonnet forms Sidney’s witty opening to the narrative of the two lovers
...

Love poetry exists to speak eloquently to the beloved woman; it must move
her emotions to love
...
Yet for Astrophel a study of great
love-poems yields nothing - he is still unable to write effectively to Stella
...

Experience must form the starting-point for a good love-poem, not an
intellectual study of other poets
...
The constraints of the sonnet form are
exploited as a framework within which a logical progression of ideas is
expounded
...

The sentence starts with a profession of true love and moves on to proclaim a
desire to write as a tribute to that love (“fain” in line I means “willing”)
...
The poem will inform the
woman of the poet’s love and from that knowledge the woman will start to
feel pity for the man
...
He studies the beautiful and accomplished writing by
other poets “inventions fine”) with the aim of producing similar work that
will give pleasure to the mind of Stella (line 5)
...
The metaphor describing this lack of inspiration is taken from
weather: no “fresh and fruitful showers” fall on the “sun-burned brain” of the
weary poet (line 8)
...
The writing is slow,
laborious and ineffective, lacking true originality and force (“invention” line
9 and 10)
...

In line 11, we have an excellent example of the kind of word play that
delighted Sidney and his contemporaries
...

The work of other writers has made the poet’s task especially difficult, as if
their lines have crowded the way and impeded progress
...

In his frustration, Astrophel bites his insubordinate “truant” pen
...
The muses existed in classical poetry to inspire and guide
all great poets - here Astrophel’s muse points him away from his books and
into his heart
...

We misread the poem if we think that somehow Sidney is suggesting that
imitating other poets is in itself a futile procedure
...


Sonnet XXXIX
Detailed commentary
In this sonnet we sense the restlessness of love as Astrophel begs sleep to
come and release him from the torment of his emotions
...

Astrophel asks sleep to come and then goes on to range over what sleep
means to different people in different predicaments
...

In line I, it is compared to a “knot” of peace, while in line 2, it becomes a
resting-place for the mind (“wit” denotes lively and informed intelligence; a
“baiting place” was an inn where travellers could rest on a long journey)
...
Line 4 is slightly enigmatic: it suggests that sleep
can act as an impartial judge between great and unimportant people
...
It must be a strong and effective shield against the “darts” of despair
(“proof” simply indicates purity and integrity in the metal of the shield
...

Astrophel longs for the internal conflict of emotions “civil wars” to cease
and pleads for sleep to aid the process
...

Sidney suggests two meanings here
...
The last four lines of the sonnet
are rather obscure
...
Astrophel bids sleep take
away the comforts of the bedchamber: the pillows, the “sweetest bed”, the
silence and darkness of the room; and the natural weariness that leads to
sleep
...

Sleeplessness is one of the symptoms of unfulfilled passion, yet Sidney’s
use of this conventional theme reveals his interest in intellectual debate
within the framework and constraint of the sonnet form

---