Chapter 8
THE AGE OF NEO-CLASSICISM
OR
THE AGE OF POPE (1700-1750)
Social Background of the Age
During this time first Queen Anne and then the three Georges ruled over
England. Saintsbury refers to the Age as ‘The Peace of the Augustans’.
(1) The Rise of the Political Parties—The two political parties, the Whigs
and the Tories rose at the Age. Everyone was either a Whig or a Tory. Political
debates often took on a hostile turn, much heat was generated by personal
abuses. Literature was honoured not for itself but for the sake of the party. The
politics of the period helped to make it an Age of political pamphleteering and
the writers were only two willing to make the most of it. We find in this age the
rise of the periodical essay and journalism, which required neat, lucid clear
and simple prose style.
(2) Clubs and Coffee Houses—John Dennis observes “Books were
seldom judged on their merits, the praise or blame being generally awarded
according to the political principles of their authors.” The Coffee Houses were
the popular haunts of famous writers and they figure prominently in the writings
of the day. These Coffee Houses gave rise to purely literary association such
as the famous Scribberies and Kit-Cat Clubs.
Literary Characteristics of this Age
The poet Goldsmith was the first to call it “The Augustan Age.”
(1) An Age of Prose and Reason—Matthew Arnold called the Age “The
Age of Prose and Reason.” The greatest names in the period are the names of
prose writers—Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe, Gibbon and Edmund Burke.
Indeed poetry itself becomes prosaic, for it is used not for creative works of
imagaination, but for ethical essays, for satire and for criticism. It is used for
purpose which are suitable for prose and not for poetry.
(2) Rise of Satire—W.G. Long observes, “Now satire, a literary work
which searches out the faults of men or institutions in order to hold them up to
ridicule, is at best a destructive kind of criticism. A satirist is like a labourer
who clears away the ruins and rubbish of an old house before the architect and
builders begin on a new and beautiful structure. The work may sometime be
necessary, but it rerely arouses our enthusiam. While the satire of Pope, Swift
and Addison are doubtless by the best in our language, we hardly place them
with our great literature, which is always constructive in spirit, and we have
the feeling that all these men were capable of better things than they ever
wrote.”
(3) The Rise of the Novel—In the field of literature the most important
phenomenon is the complete collapse of drama and the rise of the novel. This
new kind of prose fiction reflects the life of the middle classes and is
distinguished from the earlier romances by its realism. We have four outstanding
novelists in this Age—Henry Fielding, Richardson, Smolette and Sterne.
Neo-Classicism : Its Characteristics
The 18th century is called the elassical age in English literature because
the writers of this age were governed by set principles and rules laid down by
the Ancient classical writers. The term ‘Neo-classicism’ implies not only Neoclassicism
but also false classicism. The writers of the 18th century did not try
to reproduce the essential spirit of the great classics whom they imitated.
Moreover their inspiration came from the French writers and not direct from
the Greek and Latin writers.
Hence the term Neo-classicism is applied to the 18th century literature.
This Age is characterised by intellect, reason, satire and, as opposed to
enthusiasm, freedom of romanticism. The other literary features of the age are
zealous pursuit of the ideals of wit and commonsense, absence of passion for
lyricism, sharpness and over-mastering desire for neatness and correction in
style and an unflinching devotion to the Heroic Couplet.
Contribution to English Literature : An Age of Prose
Most of the features of the Age helped the development of prose. This age
marks the triumph and dominance of prose. The great names of this period—
Addison, Steele, Defoe, Swift are those of great prose writers.
In the field of poetry the tendency towards prosaic, which we noticed in
the Age of Dryden, became far most marked and deep. Correctness, neatness
and polish came to be more highly valued than practical favour and passion.
Matthew Arnold regarded Pope and Dryden as “classics not of our poerty
but of our prose.”
Sir Leslie Stephen rightly says of Pope, “Most of the works may be fairly
described as rhymed prose differing from prose not in substance or tone or
feeling, but only in the form of expression.”
Comparing the poetry and prose of the 18th century W.J. Long observes
“Now for the first time we must chronicle the triumph of English prose A
multitude of practical interest arising from the neo-social and practical
conditions demanded expression, not simply in books, but more specially in
pamphlets, magazines newspapers. Poetry is inadequate for such a task, hence
the development of prose, of the word.” Unfettered Dante calls it a development
The Age of Neo-Classicism (1700-1750) 43. 44. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
which astonishes us by its rapidity and excellence, the graceful elegance of
Addison’s essays, the artistic finish of Fielding’s novels. There was no parallel
in the poetry of the Age. Which indeed, itself became prosaic in this respect
that it was used not for creative work of imagination but for really the same
practical ends as was prose. The poetry of the first half of the century is polished
and witty enough, but artifical, it lacks fire, deep feeling, enthusiasm, the glow
of Elizabethan age and the moral earnestness of Puritanism. In a word, it interests
us as a study of life, rather than delights, or conspires us by its appeal to the
imagination. The variety and excellence of prose works and the development
of a serviceable prose style, which had begun by Dryden, until it served to
express clearly every human interest and emotion. These are the chief literary
glories of the 18th century.
The Chief Characteristics of the Neo-classicism
In 18th century, the literature is marked with the following characteristic
features—
(1) Respect for Classical Rules—The ancient Greek and Latin classics
were the highest models of this Age. To copy them now became the poet’s
chief endeavour and to be able to do so he must adhere to the principles on
which which they were written. The coming of Charles II to the throne of
England was compared to the Restoration of Augustun Caesar in Rome in 31
B.c. Dryden wrote.
“Oh happy age! oh times like alone
those by fate reserved for great Augustus throne!
When the joint growth of arms and arts
Forshew the world of monarch, and the monarchy.”
In this way each kind of poetry came to have rules of its own. Homer and
Virgil provided the model for the epic, Theocrites for the pastoral, Pindar
and Horace for the Ode and so on. the writers of this age imitated all these
ancients.
(2) Stress on Reason or Good Sense—The writers of this Age insisted
on clarity of thought and feeling. They did not favour mere hints, suggestions
or half-statements particularly fancied by the Metaphysicals. The poetry of
this age is “so well expressed” that it makes an instant expression. This quality
came to be called wit and it is in this that Neo-classical poetry is particularly
rich. Pope himself expressed the fact thus,
“True wit is nature to advantage dressed,
What often thought but never so well expressed.”
(3) Treatment of Town Life—Classical poetry is almost exclusively a
town poetry made out of the interests of society in the great centres of culture.
This poetry is concerned with clubs, coffee houses, courts scenes, and drawing
rooms. Pope, a representative poet of this Age, gives us a faithful image of
contemporary life but he holds his mirror no where except in the drawing
rooms. The humbler aspects of life are disregarded in it, and classical poetry
shows no real love for nature or country life. W.H. Hudson remarks “There is
no place of nature and no expression of it.”
(4) Didacticism—With the intellectual turn now given to poetry, its
teaching function came to be emphasised upon no less than pleasure giving.
Every kind attempted—the lyrics, the ode, satire, the epic—was valued for the
lesson it conveyed or the virtue it extolled. If it happened to be a verse title
there must be poetic justice in it i.e., virtue rewarded and vice punched.
(5) Set Poetic Style—Clarity was the chief object. The plain statement
“A close naked, natural way of speaking” was preferred to the ornate with
every poet doing so. A set style of poetry soon developed. Its chief
characteristics were direction, and elegance. To secure the former, it eschewed
of the way expressions like courage and to achieve the latter, it avoided everyday
turns of speech, which are so common to appear graceful, middle vocabulary
neither too familiar nor too remote was evolved.
(6) The Rise of the Heroic Couplet—Of all the stanza forms used so far,
the Heroic Couplet proved the most suited to the poetry of the day. It accorded
well with the intellectual temper of the age and it proved an effective medium
for the form now fovoured most, the satire. It tended to be self-contained, or
closed, with each of its two lines also generally conveying its sense alone. This
not only regarded the length of the idea to be conveyed at a time but its greater
concentration and free, without which no satire can succeed. It also gradually
came to have rules of its own.
Poetry in Neo-Classical Age
1. Alexander Pope (1688-1744)—Pastorals (1709), An Essay in Criticism
(1711), Windsor Forest (1713), The Rape of the Lock, (this is a mock-heroic
poem), Eloisa to Aberlard, Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady, To
Lord Bathurst, Of the Use of Riches, Of the knowledge and character of Man,
Of the Characters of Women, An Essay on Man. The purpose of the Essay is,
in Alexander Pope’s words, “to vindicate the ways of God to man.”
Satire and Epistles of Horace lmitated Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, The
Dunciad.
2. Mathew Prior (1664-1721)—His parody of Dryden’s The Hind and
the Panther entitled story of the country Mouse, Alma the Progress of the
Mind (1718), Solomon on the Vanity of the World (1718).
3. John Gay (1685-1732)—Fables (1727), the Beggar’s Opera (1728),
Gagy’s chief poetic works are the Rural Sports (1713), The Shepherds’ Week
(174), Trivia or the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716).
4. Edward Young (1683-1765)—Last Day (1714), The Force of Religion
(1714), The Love of Fame (1725-28).
5. Dr. Johnson (1709-84)—His two verse satires are London (1738) and
the Vanity of Human Wishes (1746).
Prose is Neo-Classical Age
The Periodical Essay was the peculiar product of the eighteenth century.
Defining the periodical essay William Hazlitt remarks, “It makes us familiar
with the world of men and women record their actions, assigns their motives,
exhibits their whims, characterises their pursuits in all their singular and variety,
redicules their absurdities, exposes their inconsistencies, holds the mirror up
to nature.”
1. Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)—As a pioneer in journalism as well as in
the novel, Defoe enjoys an important place in English literature. The germs of
the periodical essay are found in Defoe’s Review. The Review came to and
end in 1712. His ficitional works include Robinson Crusoe (1791), Duncan
Campbell Memoirs of a Cavalier, Captain Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders, A
Journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jacques (1722), Roxana (1724). A New
Voyage Round the World (1725).
2. Jonatham Swift (1667-1745)—He wrote a few papers for the Tatler
and the Spectator. The Battle of Books (1704), A Tale of A Tub (1704), rank
among the finest prose satires in English literature. Gulliver Travels.
3. Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729)—He founded the periodical ‘The
Tatler’ on April 12, 1709 and it was discountinued on Jan. 2, 1711. Steele
started with Addison. ‘The Spectator’ in 1711.
4. Jeseph Addison (1672-1719)—In the Spectator Addison appears as a
perfect painter of contemporary life and manners. According to Courthope
“Addison may be said to have almost created and/wholly perfected English
prose as an instrument for the expression of social thought.”
According to Dr. Johnson, “Addisons prose is the model of the middle
style, on great objects not formal, on light occasions, not grovelling, pure without
scrupulosity, and exact without elaborate elaboration, always equable and
always easy without glowing words or pointed sentences.”
The Spectator has been rightly called the forerunner of novel. It has all the
elements of Social Comedy, except a harmonious plot. Addison and Steele
show a sure sense of characterisation in The Spectator which is essential for
the novel. The Spectator has discussed a vivid and realistic picture of
contemporary society.
Other Prose Writers
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735) has written Memoirs of Martinus Scribleses
(1709), The History of John Bull (1712) and the Art of Political Lying.
Lord Bolingbroke (1678-1751). His works include Letter to Sir William
Wyndham, A Letter on the Spirit of Patriortism and the Idea of a Patriot King.
George Berdey (1685-1753)—The Principles of Human Knowledge,
Dialogues between Hytas and Philosnous and Alciphron or the Minute
Philosopher.
Drama in the 18th Century
The area of drama is blank in this period. Addison’s Cato is the only
noteworhy work in the field of tragedy. George Lillo’s (1693-1739) famous
works are London Merchant and Fatal curiosity.
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What do you understand by the term Neo-classicism and why is
this applied to the literature of the 18th century?
Ans. The 18th century is called the Age of Neo-classicism because the
writers of the age imitated only the rules of the great ancient classics but not
the essential spirit of the classics.
Q. 2. What are the literary characteristics of the Neo-classical age?
Ans. The age of Pope is called the Neo-classical Age in English literature.
It is characterized by restraint, reason, predominances of prose literature,
absence of passion for lyricism, over mastering desire for neatness, sharpness
and correctness in style and an unflinching devotion to heroic couplet.
Q. 3. Why is the eighteenth century called ‘The Augustan Age’ in
English literature?
Ans. During the period of Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar (27 B.C.-
A.D. 14) Virgil, Ovid, Horace and other great poets lived and wrote. The writers
of the eighteenth century tried to imitate these classical writers. In the same
way the Age of Queen Anne is called the Augustan Age in English literature.
Q. 4. Tell us the important historical events of the Eighteenth Country.
Ans. The important historical events of the eighteenth century are (1) War
of the Spanish Succession, (2) Rise of political parties (3) Passing of the Act
of Settlement and (4) Succession of the House of Hanover.
Q. 5. What was the most important form of literature which was used
in the Eighteenth Century?
Ans. Satire was the most important form of literature used in the eighteenth
century.
Q. 6. Name the satirists of the Eighteenth Century.
Ans. The important satirists of the eighteenth century are Dr. Johnson
Swift and Addison and Steele.
Q. 7. What was the important poetic form used by the poets of the
Eighteenth Century?
Ans. The important poetic form used by eighteenth century poets was the
heroic couplet.Q. 8. What are the important poetic works of Alexander Pope?
Ans. The important poetic works of Alexander Pope are (1) Winds or
Forest, (2) Essay on Criticism, (3) Translation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey,
(4) The Rape of the Lock, (5) Dunciad, (6) The Essay on Man.
Q. 9. What is the theme of Alexander Pope’s poem ‘The Rape of the
Lock’?
Ans. What is the theme of Alexander Pope’s poem ‘The Rape of the Lock’
shows the fashions and manners of the polite society of Alexander Pope’s
time. The poem is a light satire on the upper class. The poem is based upon the
incident that occurred in the Roman Catholic Church Society in which Lord
Petre cut a lock of hair from head of a young beauty named Arabella Termour
(Belinda of the poem). This practical joke led to a quarrel between the two
families and Alexander Pope was appealed to by a common friend, John Carlyle
to throw out the troubled waters by turning the whole affair in a light manner.
The result was ‘The Rape of the Lock’.
Q. 10. What kind of poem is ‘The Rape of the Lock’?
Ans. ‘The Rape of the Lock’ is a mock-heroic poem.
Q. 11. Tell us about the ‘machinery’ of The Rape of the Lock.
Ans. Alexander Pope introduced Rosicrucian machinery in ‘The Rape of
the Lock’. According to this system, there are four types of spirits—slyphus,
nymphs, gnomes and salamanders which live in air, water, earth and fire.
Q. 12. Matthew Arnold commented, “Pope is a classic, but a classic of
an age of prose”. Explain the statement.
Ans. The qualities that we find in the poetry of Alexander Pope are not
the qualities of true poetry, but the qualities of Pope. A good prose has trerseness,
neatness, finish, condemnation and elegance but the poetry of Pope contains
all these qualities. In this way, he has been considered the classic of prose
because his language is falsely and his poetry is cold and unemotional.
Q. 13. Tell us about Alexander Pope’s ‘Essay on Criticism’.
Ans. ‘Essay on Criticism’ was written in heroic Couplets in 1711. Pope’s
aim was to restate the rules of the ancients “What often was thought but never
so well expressed.”
Q. 14. Who were the chief prose writers in the 18th century?
Ans. The chief prose writers in the 18th century were Daniel Defoe (1661-
1781), Swift (1667-1745), Joseph Addison (1672-1719), Sir Richard Steele
(1672-1729), John Arbuthnot (1667-1735).
Q. 15. Tell us about the rise of periodicals in the eighteenth century.
Ans. The eightneeth century saw the rise of periodicals. In 1702 the first
daily newspaper was published. In 1704 Daniel Defoe brought out his ‘Review’.
Its opponent was ‘The Examiner’ in which Jonathan Swift and Prior contributed.
In 1709 Richard Steele started ‘The Tatler’ and ‘The Spectator’ was started by
Joseph Addison and Richard Steel in 1711.
The Age of Neo-Classicism (1700-1750) 49. 50. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Q. 16. Tell us the importance of ‘The Spectator’.
Ans. ‘The Spectator’ was started in March 1711 by Richard Steele and
Joseph Addison. Joseph Addison contributed 274 essays out of 555 essays.
‘The Spectator’ has presented a ture picture of the eighteenth century society.
The aim of ‘The Spectator’, as pointed out by Joseph Addison himself, was to
bring “Philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell
in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffee-houses.”
Q. 17. What do you understand by ‘The Coverley Paper’s?
Ans. The Coverely Papers were a part of the Periodical ‘The Spectator’
and it contained 35 papers. In these papers, Joseph Addison presented such
character sketches like Sir Roger De Coverley, Sir Andrew Freeport, and
Templers. On the basis of these papers, Joseph Addison has been called the
forerunner of the English novel.
Q. 18. Who has called Addison’s prose style as ‘middle style’?
Ans. Dr. Johnson has called Addison’s prose style as ‘middle style’.
Q. 19. What comment has Dr. Johnson made regarding the style of
Addison?
Ans. Dr. Johnson has commented, “Who ever wishes to attain an English
style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his
days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”
Q. 20. Tell us about the prose writings of Daniel Defoe.
Ans. Defoe’s political writings include Review (1704), The Shortest Way,
The Dissenters (1702), The True-born Englishman (1701), His fictions include
Robinson Crusoe (1719), Duncan Campbell, Memories of a Cavalier, Captain
Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jacque,
Roxana (1724), A New Voyage Round the World (1725).
Q. 21. Tell us the theme of Robinson Crusoe.
Ans. Robinson Cursoe is a famous novel by Dainel Defoe. It narrate
beautifully the adventures of Robinson Crusoe on a desert land. This novel is
based on the real experiences of Alexander Selkirk.
Q. 22. What is the most famous book by Jonathan Swift?
Ans. The most famous book by Jonathan Swift is Culliver’s Travels.
Q. 23. Why did Joseph Addison create a fictitions name of Sir Roger
de Coverley?
Ans. The name Sir Roger de Coverley is the fictitious name of Toby Squire.
The purpose behind depicting the picture was to lessen and remove finally the
then existing social evils like dwelling and gambling.
Q. 24. Tell us about the Battle of the Books.
Ans. The Battle of the Books is a famous work of Jonathan Swift. It was
published in 1704. It is a burlesque of the famous controversy on the relative
merits of the Ancients and the Moderns (poets).
Chapter 9
THE AGE OF TRANSTION (1750-1798)
OR
THE AGE OF DR. JOHNSON
Cheif Characteristics of the Age
1. The French Revolution—The French Revolution of 1789 was only
the climax to a long and deeply diffused unrest. Revolutionary ideas gave birth
to democratic and humanitarian feelings. The period is characterised by the
rapid growth of democracy. People became familiar with the notion of equality,
liberty and brotherhood.
2. Age of Transition—On the one hand we have poets like Dr. Johnson
and Oliver Goldsmith, who slavishly follow the Augustan tradition, and, on
the other hand, we have poets like William Blake and Burns who herald the
‘New Age of Romanticism’ and have nothing in common with Augustan School
of poetry. Between these two extremes, we have poets like Thomas Gray and
Collins, who are both romantic and classical.
Poetry in the Age of Transition
(A) The Augustan Poets
(1) Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84)—London, The Vanity of Human
Wishes.
(2) Churchill (1731-64)—His best work is The Rosciad.
(B) The Transitional Poets
1. James Thomson (1700-48)—Season (1726), The Caste of Indolence
(1748), Liberty (1735).
2. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74)—The Traveller (1764), The Deserted
Village (1770), The Hermit, On the Death of a Mad Dog.
3. Thomas Gray (1716-71)—The Alliances of Education and
Government, Hymn to Adversity. To Spring, On a Distant Prospect of Eton
College, The Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, The Progress of Poes
The Bard, The Fatal Sisters, The Descent of Odim.
4. William Collins (1721-59)—Oriental Eclogues (1742), Ode to Evening,
Ode to the Popular Superstitions of the High Lands, Ode To Simplicity, To
Fear, To the Passion.
5. William Cowper (1731-1800)—The Progress of Error, Truth, Table
Talk, The Task (1785), Olney Hymes.
6. George Crabbe (1754-1832)—The Library (1781), The Village (1783),
The Borough (1810), Tales (1812).
7. Mark Akenside (1721-1770)—An Epistle to Curio, The Pleasures of
the Imagination (1744).
8. William Shentone (1714-63)—Levities or Pieces of Humour, The
School Mistress.
9. Robert Burns (1559-96)—The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Tamo Shanter,
Address to the Unco Guid, The Holy Fair.
10. William Blake (1757-1827)—Poetical Sketches (1783), Songs of
Innocence (1789), The Book of Thel (1790), The French Revolution (1791),
The Visions of the Daughter of Abbion (1793), America (1793), Europe (1794),
Songs of Experience (1794), The First Book of Urizen (1794), The Book of
Ahamia (1795), The Book of Los, The Song of Los (1795).
Prose in the Age of Transition
1. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84)—The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Life
of Savage, The Lives of Poets, Dictionary of the English Language, Reasselas,
Princes of Abyssina, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
2. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)—He started the periodical ‘The Bee’
(1759), The Citizen of the World, On the English Clergy, The Popular Preachers.
Other Prose Writers
Edward Gibbon (1737-94) wrote History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire (1776).
David Hume (1711-76) wrote a History of England in six volumes, A
Treatise of Human Nature, Essays, Moral and Political.
Edmund Burke (1729-97) wrote philosophical writings like. A
Vindication of Natural Society (1756), A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin
of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), American Taxation (1774),
On Condiation with the Colonies (1775).
Warren Hastings famous pamphlets are Thoughts on the Cause of Present
Discontent (1770), Reflections on the Revolution of France (1790), A Letter
to a Noble Lord (1795), Letters on Regicide Peace (1797).
Adam Smith (1723-90) wrote the Wealth of Nations (1776).
Boswell (1740-95) wrote the famous biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson
named Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
Novel in the Age of Transition
Malory’s Morte D’ Arthur is a romance. Nash’s The Unfortunate Traveller
or the Life of Jack Wilton (1594) is an early source of the realistic novel of
today. Byron’s The Pilgrmis Progress and The Life and Death of Mr. Badman
come nearer to modern novel. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe can be
considered the real beginning of the English novel. Addison and Steele
contributed much to the evolution of realistic novel. Richardson’s Pamela (1740)
can be considered the first true novel.
1. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)—Pamela (1740-41), Clarina or the
History of A Young Lady.
2. Henry Fielding (1707-54)—Joseph Andrews, A Journey From This
World to the Next, Jonathan Wild the Great, Tom Jones, Amelia, Voyage to
Lisbon, Sir Walter Scott has called Henry Felding “the father of English novel.”
3. Tobias Smolett (1721-71)—The Adventures of Roderick Random
(1748), The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1750), The Expedition of Humphry
Clinker (1771).
4. Laurance Sterne (1713-1768)—The Life And Opinions of Trister and
Shandy (1760), A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy.
5. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74)—The Vicar of Wakefield (1766).
6. Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831)—The Man of Feeling (1771).
7. William Godwin (1756-1836)—Caleb William or Things As They
Are (1794).
8. Miss Fanny Burney (1752-1842)—Evelina (1778), Cecilia (1782),
Camilla (1796), The Wanderer (1814).
9. Horace Walpole (1717-1797)—Caste of Otrants (1764).
10. Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1832)—She was the most popular of terror
novelists, The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), The Italian (1794).
11. William Beckford (1760-1844)—The History of the Caliph Vathek
(1786).
12. Matthew Lewis (1775-1818)—The Monk.
Drama in the Age of transition
The Sentimental Comedy
This type of comedy had two main features—first, an excessive display of
sensibility by the chief characters and secondly, the strong homiletic strain in
their utterances. The famous critic A Nicoll observes, “In the place of laughter,
they sought tears, in the place of gallants and witty damsels, pathetic damsels
and serious lovers.”
1. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74)—In his essay ‘The Present State of
Political Learning’ he attacked the sentimental dramatists. In the preface of his
anti-sentimental comedy, The Good Natured Man (1768), Goldsmith exposes
the hollowness of the sentimental comedy. She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
2. R.B. Sheridan (1751-1816)—Rivals (1774), St. Patricks is Day or
The Scheming Lieutenant (1775), The Duenna (1775), The School For Scandal
(1777), The Critic or A Tragedy Rehearsed (1779) was an attack on the popular
sentimental drama.
Tragedies of this Period
Dr. Johnson’s Irene (1749), John Home’s Douglas (1756), Joanna Baille’s
Count Basil (1798), De Monfort (1798).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What were the cheif characteristics of The Age Of Transition?
Ans. The Age of Transition showed a double tendency, the writers of this
period adhered to the classical rules but their spirit was towards romanticism.
Q. 2. What are the chief features of the poetry of the Romantic Revival
during the eighteenth century?
Ans. The chief features of the poetry of the Romantic Revival during the
eighteenth century are : (1) There was a reaction against the poetic forms of
the Augustan Age, (2) There was a re-admission of emotion into poetry, (3)
There was a renewed appreciation of Nature.
Q. 3. What is the significance of James Thomson’s poems?
Ans. James Thomson showed the appreciation of Nature. In his poems,
The Seasons, Winter, Autumn, he showed a genuine love for Nature which
was unknown to the poetry of 18th century.
Q. 4. What do you understand by the Graveyard School of Poetry?
Ans. In the eighteenth century, some of the pre-Romantic poets showed
an inclination towards melancholy and the graveyard. The line of these poets
begins with Edward Young (1638-1765) and his famous work Night Thoughts.
Thomas Gray has also written ‘An Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.’
Which has remained popular to this day.
Q. 5. Name the poetic works of Dr. Johnson.
Ans. The important poetic works of Dr. Johnson are London (1738), The
Vanity of Human Wishes (1749).
Q. 6. What is the significance of Percy’s ‘Work Reliques’?
Ans. Percy’s ‘Work ‘Reliques’ is of great importance because this wrok
quickened the impulse towards Romanticism by virtue of their native feeling
and simple passionate expression.
Q. 7. Name important poetical works of Oliver Goldsmith.
Ans. The important poetical works of Oliver Goldsmith are, The Traveller
(1764), The Deserted Village (1770).
Q. 8. What are the chief characteristics of The ‘Elegy Written In A
Country Churchyard’?
Ans. The poem ‘An Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard’ describe
the simple lives close to the soil and expresses deep sympathies. It is
characterized by the humanitarian and the democratic sentiments of the great
romantic poets.
Q. 9. Clarify the statement “Gray never spoke out”.
Ans. Thomas Gray was born in the age of Classicism in which there was
on place for romanticism. Gray tried to create on atmosphere of romanticism
but his poems were nipped in the bud by the cold winds of the classical ideals.
Q. 10. How can you prove that Thomas Gray was a precursor of the
romanticism?
Ans. Dr Johnson has called Thomas Gray a romantic snake on a classical
grass’. Gray’s poems The Elegy, The Bard and The Progress of Poesy have the
characteristics of Romanticism. Gray’s poetry has love for Nature, a feeling of
melancholy and a sense of historical past.
Q. 11. Trace out the mystical elements in the poetry of William Blake.
Ans. William Blake’s world was the world of thoughts, ideas and visions.
Like all mystic poets, he emphasised the momentariness of the body and the
immortality of the soul. His works Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of
Experience show his mysticism.
Q. 12. What is the different types of prose in the Age of Transition?
Ans. The following types of prose were written in the Age of Transition.
1. Periodical Essays—The Rambler, The Idler by Dr. Johnson and
Goldsmith.
2. Critical Prose—Lives of Poets and Preface to Shakespeare by Dr.
Samuel Johnson.
3. Novels—Richardson, Henry Fielding, Smolett and Sterne wrote novels.
4. Biographical Prose—Life of Dr. Johnson by Dr. Johnson.
Q. 13. What is the importance of Dr. Jonson’s The Lives of the Poets
in the history of English Criticism?
Ans. This work of Dr. Johnson marks the beginning of biographical-cumcritical
criticism. Dr. Johnson has presented fifty two poets in three volumes.
Q. 14. What the limitations of Dr. Johsnon as a critic?
Ans. Dr. Johnson judged everything from set principles of his own and in
this way his judgements are sometimes narrow and superficial. He has several
prejudices. He judged poets only against the background of the eighteenth
century.
Q. 15. What do you know about ‘The Citizen of the World’?
Ans. Goldsmith’s famous book of prose is ‘The Citizen of the World’
(1759). This book has series of imaginary letters from a China-man.
Q. 16. What do you know about ‘Life of Dr. Johnson’?
Ans. ‘Life of Dr. Johnson’ is related to famous literary figure, Dr. Johnson
written by boswell.
Q. 17. What do you know about the rise of Sentimental Comedy in
the 18th century?
Ans. Sentimental comedy was a type of pathetic play which reflected the
false sensibility of the rising 18th century middle class. It showed the weakness
of mankind in such a way as to enlist the sympathy of the audience and to
appeal to their bitter instincts and nobility of heart. Sentimental comedy was
first introduced by Sir Richard Steele and developed by Colley Cibber, Hugh
Kelly and and Richard Cumberland.
Q. 18. What were the main defects of the Sentimental Comedy?
Ans. In sentimental comedy they atmospere is sombre and it lacked the
atmospheree of humour and gaiety.
Q. 19. What were the reactions against the sentimental comedy during
the 18th century.
Ans. Goldsmith and R.B. Sheridam revived the true comedy containing
humour and laughter. Oliver Goldsmith criticized the sentimental comedy in
his Essays on the Theatre or A comparison between Laughing and Sentimental
Comedy (1772). Sheridan also showed his reactions by writing such plays like
The Rivals and The Critic.
Q. 20. Name some important plays of Oliver Goldsmith.
Ans. The important plays of Oliver Goldsmith are The Good Natured
Man and She Stoops to Conquer.
Q. 21. In which play of Goldsmith appear these characters ‘Mr.
Honeywood, Sir William Honeywood, Miss Richard and Leontine?
Ans. The name of the play is the Good Natured Man.
Q. 22. In which play of Sheridan appear such characters like Mrs.
Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute?
Ans. These two characters Mrs. Malaprop and Sir Anthony Absolute
appear in Sheridan’s play ‘The Rivals’.
Q. 23. Which play of R.B. Sheridan is a satire against the sentimental
Comedy?
Ans. ‘The Critic’ is a satire against the sentimental comedy.
Q. 24. What were the reasons responsible for growth of novel in the
eighteenth century?
Ans. The decline of drama was the major factor responsible for the growth
of novel in the 18th century. The Periodical Essays written by Addison and
steele contained the origin of the novel because these papers created a taste for
domestic novels. The rise of the common people and the middle class was also
responsible for the growth of novel in the eighteenth century.
h
Q. 26. Tell us about ‘Pamela’ or Virtue Rewarded.
Ans. The novel ‘Pamela’ written by Richardson marks the beginning of
epistolary fiction in English. It is written in the form of letters.
Q. 27. Whom do you consider the father of the English novel?
Ans. Henry Fielding can be considered the father of the English novel.
Q. 28. Who has defined novel as ‘a comic epic in prose’?
Ans. Henry Fielding has defined novel as a comic epic in prose.
Q. 29. What is Henry Fielding’s contribution to the English novel.
Ans. Henry Fielding’s chief contribution lies in the field of realism, homour,
characterisation and plot construction. He constructed plots according to the
principles of dramatic action. His characters form a complete picture of human
life and the workmanship of his plot-construction is cxcellent.
Q. 30. Name some important novelists of the Gothic Tradition.
Ans. The important novelists who wrote Gothic novels were—Horace
Walpole (1717-97), Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), Mathew Gregory Lewis
(1775-1811), Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824), Mary Shelley (1797-1851)
and Miss Clara Reve (1729-1807).
Q. 31. What are the important characteristics of the Gothic Novel?
Ans. The scenes of the Gothic novel are invariably laid in haunted castels
and ruined buildings and they produce an impression of terror and fear. In this
way Gothic and novel is full of mysteries, supernaturalism and out of the way
things.
Q. 32. Name the main novels of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe.
Ans. The main novels of Mrs. Ann Radcliffe are—A Sicilian Romance,
The Romance of the Forest, The Mysteries of Udalopho and The Italian.
Q. 33. What are the important works of James Thomson?
Ans. The important works of James thomson are The Season, Winter and
the Castle be of Indolence.
Q. 34. Who is the prominent novelist of the Terror School?
Ans. The prominent novelist of the Terror school is Matthew Gregory
Lewis. His main work is The Monk (1795).
Q. 35. Who has written the novel The Castle of Otranto’?
Ans. Horace Walpole has written the novel ‘The Castle of Otranto’.
Q. 36. Name some other important novelists of the Terror School.
Ans. The other important novelists of the Terror School are—MIss Clara
Reve’s—The Old English Baron, Mary Shelley’s—Frankenstein, Robert
Bage’s—Man as He is, Charles Robert Maturin’s—Melmoth the Wanderer.
Q. 37. What do you understand by the term ‘Oriental Romance’?
Ans. The ‘Oriental Romance’ deals with the stories of eastern countries.
Eastern countires had a great attraction for the English people. Addison and
Steele were the writers, who presented oriental sketches in the periodical The
Spectator. Dr. Johnson presented the story of an Abyssinian prince in search of
happiness in ‘Rasselas’.
Q. 38. Name the Pindaric Odes written by Thomas Gray.
Ans. ‘The Progress of Poesry’ and ‘The Bard’ are the Pindaric Odes written
by Thomas Gray.
Q. 39. Trace out the shortcomings of Thomas Gary’s poetry.
Ans. The shortcomings of Thomas Gray’s is poetry are obscuirty, lack of
imaginative heart, lack of inspiration, and artificiality of style and artificial
poetic diction.
Q. 40. What has Saintsbury to say about William Collins?
Ans. Saintsbury has commented about Collins, “That almost everything
that is good in Collins belongs to the men, almost everything that is not good
belongs to the time.”
Q. 41. What has Dr. Johnson to say about Metaphysical Poets?
Ans. Dr. Johnson said that metaphysical poetry was wanting in emotional
effect for the treatment of these poets was impersonal. “Their courtship was
void of founders and their lamentations of sorrow. They attained the heights of
sublimity of thoughts that filled the mind with rapture and astonishment.
Moreover what they lacked in was greatness of thought, they attempted to
supply by means of hyperbole which gave to the work an air of excess and
unreality.”
!
The Age of Transition (1750-1798) 57. 58. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Chapter 10
THE ROMANTIC AGE (1798-1850)
OR
THE AGE OF WORDSWORTH
The period form 1789 to 1832 in English social history is a period of
revolutionary social change which was destined to transform the entire economy
and social structure of the country. The romantic movement can not be given a
precise date, it developed slowly till it came to a head in the year 1798, and the
event that gave the definite shape and direction to the movement was the
publication of the Lyrical Ballads. The term ‘Romantic Revival’ indicates a
return to literature of those romantic qualities which had characterised the
literature of the Elizabethan age.
Romanticism Defined
The term “Romanticism’ has been variously defined by various critics.
Walter Pater calls it the “addition of strangeness to beauty.” Wats Dunton defines
it as “the renaissance of wonder”, Goethe the German poet-critic contrasts
Romanticism with Classicism and defines it “Romanticism is disease, Classicism
is health.” Legous and Cazamian define it “An accentuated predominance of
emotional life, provoked and directed by the exercise of imaginative vision.”
C.H. Herford defines it “an extraordinary development of imaginative
sensibility.”
Abercrombie’s definition reads “Romanticism is a withdrawal from outer
experience to concentrate on inner experience.” Heines, Beers and Phelps
define it as “the re-awakening of the Middle Ages.”
Romanticism : Its Chief Characteristics
The Romantic movement is perhaps the most complicated literary
movement in the history of English literature. This movement was, in fact, a
reaction to the school of poetry which Dryden and Pope had brought into
position and fervour. It is very difficult to date any particular movement, it is
equally impossible to date the Romantic movement. We have seen how before
the death of Pope in 1744, a reaction against the school of poetry was setting
in; this reaction gathered strength and became quiet violent during the second
half of the 18th century but all the same it is conventient to regard 1798, the
year of publication of the “Lyrical Ballads” by Wordsworth, as marking the
beginning of new poetry.
To define the word ‘Romanticism’ in terms is very difficult. Many critics
and writers have tried to define the term “Romanticism” but none of them is
completaly off the target. First, Watts Dunton’s expressive phrase, ‘the
renaissance of wonder’ describes remarkably well this particular phase of the
romantic movement. C.H. Herford points out that the romantic movement was
primarily “an extraordinary development of imaginative sensibility.”
The various terms are given to the romantic movement. The romantic
rise, romantic revival, Renaissance of wonder. The Ranaissance is the first
romantic period in English literature. The supreme romantic movement in
English Letters was the Renaissance. It had brought about a transformation
not only in English but also European life. It was flowered by a reaction in
which Classicism with its insistent force on reason and logic, passionless order
held the supreme sway. Then came the ‘romantic revival’. The beginning of
the nineteenth century completed throwing over forces and values that were
held dear by Alexander Pope. A new phrase was given to Art and Literature.
The poetry of the age witnessed a complete break away from the traditions and
usages followed by the pseudo-classicists of the former age. The salient
characteristics of Romantic Age are the following—
1. A Revival of the Past—The chief characteristic of the Romantic Age
was an abundance of intellectual curiosity and activity. This accounted for a
revival of the past, specially of the medieval ages, or a period so full of
everything romantic. Medievalism, the spirit of the middle ages, fired the
imagination of the romantic poets. The medieval element is thus a prevailing
feature of romantic poetry. In the second half of the eighteenth century, a
considerable revival of old things took place. Old authors began to be widely
studied and imitated, old tales of chivalry and, romance were retold. That is
why Romantic movement is often called the ‘romantic revival’.
The Revival of old literature opened up a new world to the imagination of
men and pouplarised metres that challenged supremacy of the heroic couplet.
2. A Revolt against Classical Poetry—The poetry of the romantic age is
a revolt against the classical poetry of Pope. In the eigheenth century, Poetry
was governed by set rules and regulations, but the poetry of the romantic age
protested against the bondage of rules and customs. The classical literature
deals with gallant lords and courtiers but the romantic poet took interest in the
lives of the common people. The classical literature was intellectual, rational
and didactic, but the romantic poetry was imaginative and passionate.
3. Predominance of Imagination and Emotion—In Romantic poetry
reason and intellect were subdued and their place was taken by imagination,
emotion and passion. In the poetry of all the romantic poets of the age, we
have heightened exhibtion of emotional sensibilties and imaginative flights of
genius. Keat’s imagination catches fire in “The Eve of St. Agnes.”
Full on this casement shown the wintry moon.
And threw warm guels on Madeline’s fair breast.
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 59. 60. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
4. Mysticism and Supernaturalism—One of the chief characteristics of
the romantic poetry was a love of the mysterious and the supernatural, the
strange and the vague. The mysticism of Wordsworth and Shelley’s poetry laid
the supernatural element in that of coleridge are illustrations of this aspect of
the romantic movement Mark the following lines of Shelley in ‘Adonais’ “The
one remains, the many change and pass.”
When in the midst of Nature
Just like a mystic he had vision of—
A presence that destructs we with fine
Of elevated thoughts, a sense subline.
5. Interest in Country Life—Poetry in the 18th century was concerned
with clubs, coffee houses and drawing rooms. It was essentially a poetry of
town life. Nature had no place in classical poetry. In the poetry of romantic age
the interest of the poets was transfered fromt town to country life and from
artificial decoration of drawing room to the natural beauty and loveliness of
nature Wordsworth was a giant poet of nature. He inscribed the suffering and
struggles of human life. He had a like and sympathy for the common people.
In the prelude wordsworth expresses. “And thus my heart was early introduced
to an unconsious love and reverence of human nature.”
6. Love for Nature—Nature began to base its own importance in the
poetry of this age and Wordsworth was the great poet who revealed the physical
and spiritual beauty of nature. Wordsworth found in nature what he sought—
the peace which was in the own soul. That is why he could find—
“The silence that is in starry night
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.”
And finds joy in nature,
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company
I gozed and gazed but little thought
What wealth they show to me had brought.
(The Daffodils)
7. Not of Subjectivity—Subjectivity was the chief characteristic of the
poetry of this age. The poets were in favouree of giving subjective interpretation
to the objective realities of life.
Long says, “The Romantic movement was the expression of individual
genius rather than of established rules.”
Mark the subjective note in Wordsworth’s is poem “The Education of
Nature”.
The Child I to myself will take.
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.
Myself will to my darling be.
Both law and impulse and with me.
8. Love of Beauty—Prof. Herford has said that the Romanticism was
primarily “An extraordinary development of imaginative sensibility.”
A love of beauty is so expressed by different poets in different ways. The
beauty of nature, both in its wild and domesticated aspect, finds nobel expression
in all romatic poetry with poets, however beauty becomes a reflection and is
identified by him with truth. To Keats,
Beauty is truth..... Truth beauty
That is all he know on earth..... and all he need to know.”
He expresses....
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
9. Love of Liberty and Freedom—In Romantic poetry emphasis was
laid on liberty and freedom of the indiviudal. Romantic poets are rebel against
tyranny and brutality exercised by tyrants over human beings. In the poetry of
Romantic poets, we note a wave of liberty and freedom. Freedom is the breadth
in which the Romantic poets breathed well and freely.
10. Lyricism—In Romantic poetry lyricism predominates. All the
Romantic poets were great lyrical poets. Shelley was the most lyrical poet of
this Age. His lyrics were famous functions for their spontaneity and simplicity.
In the “Ode to the West Wind” he expresses, “Wind! make me thy lyre”
O Lift me! as a wave, a leaf a cloud,
I fall upon the thoms of life! I bleed.”
11. Simple Diction and Natural Style—In Romantic poetry, use paid we
find simple Diction and natural style. All Romantic poets express their thoughts
and emotions in natural diction and spontaneous way. Mark the simplicity in
the following lines of Wordsworth, “For oft when on my couch I hie, In vacant
or in pensuasive mood”
They flash upon that in ward eye which is the bliss of solitude
and then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the dafodills.”
Poetry in The Romantic Age
1. William Wordsworth (1771-1850)—Descriptive Sketches, Evening
Walk, Lyrical Ballads, Lines Written A Few Miles Above Tentern Abbey.
Michael, The Old Cumberland Beggar, She Dwelt Among The Untrodden
Ways, Strange Fits of Passion and Nutting, The Prelude. The Solitary Reaper,
The Green Linnet, I Wandered Lonely As A cloud, Ode on Intimations of
Immortality, Resolution and Independence, Ode to Duty, The Excursion, The
White Doe of Rylstone, The Waggoner, Peter Bell, Yarrow Reisited.
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 61. 62. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
2. S.T. Coleridge (1772-1834)—The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Christable Part-I in 1797, Part-II in 1800, Kubla Khan 1798, First at Midnight,
France : An Ode.
3. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)—Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, The
Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), The Lady of the Lake (1810),
The Bridal of Triermain (1813), The Lord of Isles (1814).
4. George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824)—The Curse of Minerva
(1812), The Waltz (1813), The Giaour (1813), The Bride of Abydos (1813),
The Corsair (1814), Lara (1814), Hebrew Melodies (1814), Parisina Manfred,
Cain and the unfinished Don Juan.
5. P.B. Shelley (1792-1822)—Queen Mab (1813), Alastor (1815),
Promethrus Unbound, Ode to the West Wind, To A Skylark, The Cloud, Adonais
and Epeprychidion, The Revolt of Islam (1818) (it is passionate plea for
freedom). Julian and Meddale (1818), Lines written Among the Euganean Hills,
Prometheus Unbound (1818-19) (a superb lyrical drama), The Cenci, The Witch
of Atlas, Hymn to Apollo (1820).
6. John Keats (1795-1821)—Lmitation of Spenser (1813), I Stood Tip
Toe Upon A Hill, Sleep and Beauty, Endymion 1818, Isabella or The Pot of
Basil (1818), The Eve of St. Agnes (1819), The Eve of St. Mark and Hyperion.
Keat’s Great Odes are—To a Nightinagle, On a Grecian Urn, To Psyche,
On Melancholy, To Autumn. His sonnets are On First Looking into Chapman’s
Homer, When I Have Fears, Bright Star.
Other Poets
Robert Suthey (1774-1843) is remembered for Joan of Arc (1798), Thalba
the Destroyer (1801), The Curse of Kehama (1810), Rodrick, The Last of the
Gothus (1814), Thomas Moore (1779-1852) is remembered for his Lalla Rookh
(1817).
Thomas Campbell (1717-1844) wrote Gertrude of Wyoming (1809), The
Pilgirm of Glencoe (1842), Ye Mariner’s of England, The Battle of Baltic.
Prose in the Romantic Age
The Edinburgh Review was established in 1802 by Jeffre, Sydney Smith.
The Quarterly was started by William Gifford and Lockhard as the mouth
piece of Tory Party. Black wodo’s Edinburgh Mazazine was launched in 1817
by Wilson, Lockhart and Hoggy. There was also London Magazine to which
charles Lamb, Hazlitt and De Quincey contributed.
1. Charles Lamb (1775-1834)—Tales Fom Shakespeare with his sister.
Specimen of English Dramatic Poets, Who Lived About the Time of
Shakespeare (1818), Rosamund Gray.
Adventures of Ulysses, John Woodvil (1802), Essays of Elia (1823), The
Last Essays of Elia (1833).
2. William Hazlitt (1778-1830)—Characters in Shakespeare’s Plays
(1817), The English Poets (1818), The English Comic Writers (1819), The
Drammatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth, The Round Table (1817), Table
Talk or Original Essays on Men and Manners (1821-22), The Spirit of the Age
on Contemporary Portraits (1825).
3. Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)—The Confession of An Opium
Eater. The Dialogue of Three Templars, Literary Reminescences, On the
Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth (1823), Murder Considered as one of the
Fine Arts (1827), Letters to a Young Man (1823), Joan of Arc (1827), The
Revolt of Tartars (1840), The English Mail Coach (1849), Susperia de Profundis
(1845).
Novel in the Romantic Age
1. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)—Count Robert of Paris, The Bethrothed,
The Talislman, Ivanhoe, Castle Dangerous The Fair Maid of Perth, Quentin
Durward, Annie of Geiestein, The Monastry, The Abbot, Kenilworth. The
Fortunes of Nigel, A Legend of Montrose, Woodstock, Old Mortality, The
Bride of Lammermoor, The Pirate. The Heart of Midlothian, The Black Dwarf,
Rob Roy, The Heart of Midlothian, Guy Man nering, Waverley, The Highland
Window, The Surgeon’s Daughter’s The Tapasteried Chamber, The Two
Drovers, The Antiquary.
2. Jane Austen (1775-1813)—Pride and Prjudice (1796-97), Sense and
Sensibility (1797-98), Northanger Abbey (1798), Mansfield Park, Emma
(1815), Persuasion (1815-16).
3. Meria Edgeworth (1767-1849)—Castle Rackrent (1800), The
Abssentee (1809), Ormond (1817), Belinda (1801), Leonora (1806), Patronage
(1814), Harrington (1817).
4. Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)—Headlong Hill (1816), Melin
Court (1817), Nightmore Abbey (1818), Maid Marian (1822), The Misfortunes
of Elphin (1829), Crotchet Castle (1831), Gryll Grange (1860).
Drama in the Age of Romanticism
The Romantics were attracted towards poetry and fiction. Most of the
Romantics were introverts, whereas drama needs extroverts.
P.B. Shelley some poetic plays. They are Prometheus Unbound (1819),
The Cenci (1820) and Hellas (1822), Wordsworth wrote Borderers, S.T.
Coleridge Remorse, Byron Marino Faliero and John Keats Cetho, The Great.
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 63. 64. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What is the importance of the ‘Lyrical Ballads’ in the history of
English Poetry?
Ans. The Lyrical Ballads published in 1798 by William Wordsworth and
S.T. Coleridge. This work started the New Era of Romanticism.
Q. 2. What was Wordsworth’s theory of poetry given in the Preface
to the ‘Lyrical Ballads’?
Ans. William Wordsworth propounded that “Poetry is the breath and finer
spirit of all knowledge and poetry in the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings. It takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
Q. 3. Tell us about the Sonnets of Wordsworth.
Ans. William Wordsworth has written 523 sonnets and he followed the
Petarchan form in them. The important sonnets of William Wordsworth are—
(1) The World Is Too Much With Us (2) To Milton, (3) To London.
Q. 4. What are Wordsworth’s views on Poetic diction.
Ans. Wordsworth said that poetry should be written in a selection of the
real language of man in a state of vivid sensation. According to Wordsworth,
“There neither is nor can by any essential difference between the language of
prose and metrical composition.”
Q. 5. Name some of the works and their writers that heralded the
coming of Romanticism?
Ans. ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’ by Thomas, Gray, ‘The
Seasons’ by James Thomson, Ossian by Macpherson and ‘Reliques’ by Thomas
Percy.
Q. 6. What is the difference between Fancy and Imagination according
to S.T. Coleridge?
Ans. For S.T. Coleridge fancy and imagination were two different things.
By fancy he meant a mode of memory independent of time and space. This
node according of him was always dependent on the poet’s choice. He was of
the opinion that imagination was of two types—Primary and Secondary. The
first one he took to be the instrument of human perception and the second, the
believed, was the echo of the first one. This all dissolved, diffused and dissipated
and finally did its function which has to recreate.
Q. 7. What is Coleridge’s criticism of Wordsworth’s theory of poetic
diction.
Ans. S.T. Coleridge has criticized Wordsworth’s Theory of Poetic Diction
in his book Biographia Literaria. Coleridge said that Wordsworth was wrong
in making a sweeping generalisation for all types of poetic thoughts to be
rendered in the language of common speech. Coleridge clarified that the use
of metre in poetry was necessary and therefore the use of a language was also
necessary.
Q. 8. What was the difference between the attitudes of Wordsworth
and Coleridge towards Nature?
Ans. According to Wordsworth Nature was a philosopher, friend and guide.
S.T. Coleridge finds in nature the supernatural and he presents this supernatural
as purely natural.
Q. 9. What Wordsworth’s conception of Nature.
Ans. Wordsworth believed that there was a divine spirit working through
all the objects of nature. Wordsworth was a high priest of Nature. In his long
poem, Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth has described the various stages in the
development of his attitude towards Nature. His appreciation of Nature began
with the physical plane and ended with the mystical and spiritualistic
interpretation of Nature.
Q. 10. Name two works of S.T. Coleridge as a critic.
Ans. S.T. Coleridge has written two works Biographia Literaria and
Lectures on Shakespeare.
Q. 11. What is William Wordsworth’s treatment of Child Life.
Ans. Wordsworth was primarily attracted by the mystical and philosophical
strains in the carefree life of a child as mentioned in the following quotes from
his poems :
(1) “Mighty prophet, seer blest,
On whom those truths, do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find.”
(2) “Child is the father of man.”
(3) “Heaven lies about us in our infancy.”
Q. 12. What are main characteristic features of the poet, S.T.
Coleridge.
Ans. S.T. Coleridge was a supernatural poet. In this way his supernaturalism
appears to be natural. His other qualities are—His imaginative power.
Medievalism, love for Nature and simplicity of diction.
Q. 13. Tell us about the supernaturalism of S.T. Coleridge.
Ans. S.T. Coleridge with his imagination creates a willing suspension of
disbelief. In his works Ancient Mariner and Christabel, the supernatural effect
is achieved by delicate suggestion. The supernaturalism of S.T. Coleridge is
very different from the crude sentimentalsim of the terror novelists.
Q. 14. Tell us about supernaturalism in ‘Kubla Khan’.
Ans. Kubla Khan was written under the influence of drug. After that S.T.
Coleridge fell asleep and during the three hours that he slept he saw a vision of
rare beauty and charm. After that S.T. Coleridge wrote about his vision. This
poem is a delightful mixture of imagination, emotion, mystery, sensuousness,
romantic description, sweet melody and exquisite words.
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 65. 66. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Q. 15. Tell us about the ‘Rime of Ancient Mariner’ and ‘Christable’.
Ans. The Rime of Ancient Mariner is a ballad while Christabel is a
remarkable poem by S.T. Coleridge dealing with the theme of super-naturalism.
This poem is also a ballad,Christable is a tale of mystery and this poem evokes
a weird sensation in the mind of the reader.
Q. 16. Wordswroth and S.T. Coleridge both were the poets of Nature?
What is the difference between their attitudes?
Ans. According to William Wordsworth, Nature was a philosopher, friend
and guide. During childhood, Nature turns into “The Light of the common
day, and then in the “Still, sad music of humanity.”
On the other hand, S.T. Coleridge finds in Nature the supernatural element.
Q. 17. Tell us about John Keats as a poet of beauty.
Ans. John Keats says in his ‘Ode On A Grecian Um’.
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty—that is all,
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
John Keats was primarily a poet of beauty. There is an element of hellenism
and sensuousness in this poetry. Again in ‘Ode on a Grecian Um’ he writes
about the concept of beauty—
“She cannot fade, though those hast not the bliss,
For ever wilt then love, and she be fair.”
Q. 18. Tell us about P.B. Shelley as a lyrical poet?
Ans. P.B. Shelley has been regarded as the greatest lyrical poet of England.
A.C. Swinburne has called him ‘the perfect singing god’. The lyrical quality is
present in all the longer poems of P.B. Shelley like Alastor, Prometheus
Unbound. The Witch of Atlas. He has also written fine lyrics-like Ode to the
West Wind, Stanzas Written in Dejection Near Naples etc. The main qualities
of P.B. Shelley’s lyrics are spontaneity, pressimism, and emotional ecstasy.
Q. 19. Can you quote few lines to show the pessimism in P.B. Shelley?
Ans. I “O lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud,
(1) I fall upon the thoms of life, I bleed.”
—“Ode to the West Wind.”
(2) “Alas ! I have nor hope nor health
Nor peace within nor calm around
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found
Nor fame, nor power, nor love,
nor leisure
Others I see whom these surround
To me that cup has been
Dealt in another measure.”
—Stanzas in dejection near Naples.
Q. 20. What are the chief characteristics of John Keat’s Poetry?
Ans. The chief characteristics of John Keats poetry are Hellenism,
Sensuousness and pictuersquenss.
Q. 21. Quote few lines from the poems of John Keats to show his
sensuousness.
Ans. (1) “My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains,
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains,
One minute past and Lethe Worlds had sunk.”
—Ode to A Nightingale.
(2) “Pillowed upon my fair love’s
ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall
and swell.”
—Ode to a Nightingale.
Q. 22. Tell us about John Keat’s ‘Negative Capability’?
Ans. Keats has an impulse to interest himself in anything he saw on heard.
He accepted it and identified himself with it “If a sparrow come before my
window, says Keats, I take part in its existence and pick out the grave.” A poet,
he says, has no identity. He is continually in for and feeling some other body.
Keats says of the poetic character it has no self, it is everything and nothing.
For Keats, the necessary quality of poetry is a submission to things as they are,
without any effort any effort to intellectualise them into something else.
Q. 23. Who has commented about P.B. Shelley, “He is a beautiful and
ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain”?
Ans. Matthew Arnold made this comment about P.B. Shelley.
Q. 24. What is about Keat’s ‘conception of poetry’?
Ans. John Keats believed that poetry should come as naturally to the poet
as leaves to a tree and that if poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a
tree, it had better not come at all. John Keats was against the didacitc note in
poetry.
Q. 25. What are important poetical works of Sir Walter Scott.
Ans. The important poetical works of Sir Walter Scott are—The
Ministrelsy of the Scottish Border. The Lay of the Last Ministrel, Marmion.
The Lady of the Lake.
Q. 26. Which is famous lyrical drama of P.B. Shelley.
Ans. The famous lyrical drama of P.B. Shelley is Prometheus Unbound.
This drama is full of allusions and allgorical references. This drama provides
expression to Shelley’s love of liberty.
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 67. 68. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Q. 27. Clarify Matthew Arnold’s Statement about P.B. Shelley “a
beautiful and ineffectual angel beating his luminous wings in the void in
vain”.
Ans. According to Matthew Arnold, the poetry of P.B. Shelly lacks a
criticism of life; it is ethereal, unreal and unsubstantial. This statment of Arnold
is not correct as Shelley’s poetry contains better criticism of life and Arnold
himself seems tobe influenced by P.B. Shelley.
Q. 28. Tell us about P.B. Shelley’s treatment of Nature.
Ans. P.B. Shelley is the least pictorial of Nature poets. Shelley
intellectualises Nature and his observation is scientific. Shelley uses natural
objects as symbols of destruction and creation. Shelley’s treatment of Nature
is not only scientfic but also philosophical.
Q. 29. Tell us about Kea’ts Hellenism.
Ans. Hellenism means Keats’ love of Greek literature, mythology and
life. John Keats was effected by Greek sculpture and he tried to produce the
same effect in his poems. John Keats has taken themes from Greek literature in
all his major works like Endymion, Hyperion, Lamia, Ode on a Grecian Urn
and Ode to Psyche. P.B. Shelley once called John Keats, “A Greek.”
Q. 30. Quote few lines from John Keats on beauty.
Ans. (1) “Beauty is truth, truth beauty-that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
–Ode on a Grecian Urn.”
(2) A thing of beauty is a joy for ever,
Its loveliness increases, it will nover,
Pass into nothingness, but still will keep,
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep,
Full of sweet dreams, and health and quiet breathing.
–Endymion.
Q. 31. Tell us about Charles Lamb as an Essayist.
Ans. Hugh Walker has commented about Charles Lamb in these words
“There are essayists like Bacon of more massive greatness and others like Sir
Thomas Browne who can attain Inftier heights of eloquence but there is no
other who has in an equal degree the power to charm.” All of Charles Lamb’s
essays are auto-biographical and the is regarded as the prince of English
essayists of the 19th century.
Q. 32. Name the authobiographical essays of Charles Lamb.
Ans. The authobiographical essays of Charles Lamb are : Dream Children,
The South Sea House, Poor Relations, Christ an Hospital, The Old Benchers
of the Inner Tempie, Imperfect Sympathies, The Confessions of a Drunkard.
Q. 33. Tell us about the prose style of Charles Lamb?
Ans. According to Comption Rickett, “The prose style of Charles Lamb
is a mixture of many styles, it is a chemcial blend, not a mechanical mixture.”
Lamb has used obsolete and archaic words and he quotes frequently from his
favourite authors. His style is a mixture of poetic and pictorial quality.
Q. 34. Name the Important Prose writers of the Romantic Age.
Ans. The imprtant prose writers of the Romantic age are—Henry Hallam
(1717-1859), Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), George Grote (1794-1871), John
G. Lockhard (1794-1845), William Cobbett (1762-1835) etc.
Q. 35. Name the important literary Journals of the 19th century?
Ans. The important literary Journals of the 19th century are—The London
Magazine, The Gentleman’s Magazine, The Edinburgh Review, The Quarterly
Reviewer, Blackwood’s Magazine etc.
Q. 36. Tell us about Jane Austen’s rage?
Ans. Jane Austens has presented the feminisatio of English novel. She
has written about female world. There is lack of natural scenery in her novels.
Her novels lack passion. She writes as woman about women and on the themes
that are of the first importance to a woman.
Q. 37. Tell us about the minor novelists of the Romantic period.
Ans. The minor novelists of the Romantic period are—Mary Godwin
Shelley (1797-1851), William Harrison, Ains Worth (1835-82), George P.R.
James (1801-60), Frederick Marryat (1792-1840), Thomas Love Peacock
(1785-1866).
Q. 38. Tell us about P.B. Shelley’s dramas?
Ans. P.B. Shelley has written some poetic plays in English. They are
Prometheus Unbound (1819), The Cenci (1820) and Hellas (1822).
Q. 39. Tell us about Lake poets.
Ans. The term Lake Poets is used for three poets—S.T. Coleridge Robert
Southey and William Wordsworth.
Q. 40. Tell us about Hazlitt’s remark about Charles Lamb.
Ans. Hazlitt is remark about Charles Lamb reads, “The streets of London
are his fairy land, teeming with wonder, with life and interest to his retrospective
glance as it did to the eager eye of childhood.”
Q. 41. What do you know about Byronic hero?
Ans. The Byronic hero is gloomy, weary, restless, stricken with grief
remorse and wonder.
Q. 42. What do you know about ‘Essays of Elia’?
Ans. ‘Essays of Elia’ is a collection of essays by Charles Lamb. All these
essays are authobiographical.
Q. 43. What are the important novels of Sir Walter Scott?
Ans. The important novels of Sir Walter Scott are The Bride of
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 69. 70. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Chapter 11
THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1850-1990)
Cheif Characteristics
(1) Advance of Democratic Ideals—In this age the political supremacy
of the landed aristocracy had been destroyed by the Reform Bill of 1832. The
repeal of the Corn Law in 1848 unhered in an era of improved industiral
conditions. The literature of this period derived greater energy and driving
power from the democratic and humanitarian ideals. Carlyle, Ruskin, Dickens,
Kingsley and even Mr. Browning were deeply influenced by these ideals.
(2) The Impact of Science—The progress of science kept pace with the
progress of democracy. The publication of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ in
1859 is of special significance. The impact of science was so powerful on
human mind that it had affected every channel of intellectual activity. We come
across the influence of Herbert Spenser and Comte in the novels of George
Eliot.
(3) The Development of the Novel and the collapse of Drama—The
novel is perhaps the most adaptable from that the literary artist has discovered.
With the variety of treatment the novel gives the writer scope for fullest selfexpression
and the variety of subjects it can treat is so great that the works of
Dickens and Thackeray give us a complete picture of London of their time.
Whatever the cause, the drama plays but a small part in the literature of the
period.
(4) The Lyrical Poetry—The poetry of this period generally reflects the
chief characteristics of its intellectual life. Poetry during the period is chiefly
lyrical or episodic in character.
Poetry in the Victorian Period
1. Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-92)—by Two Brothers, Isabell and
Madeline, The Lady of Shalott, Oenone, The Lotos Eaters, The Palace of Art,
Morte D’ Arthur, Ulysses, Locksley Hall, The Princess (1847). In Memoriam
(1850), Maud and Other poems (1855), Enoch Arden and other poems, The
Idylls of the King, The Death of Benone.
2. Robert Browning (1812-1889)—Note : Pauline, Paraclesus (1835),
Bells and Pomegranates (1846), Pippa Passes, A Soul’s Tragedy, King Victor
and King Charles, The Return of the Dresses, Blot on the Scutcheon, Colombe’s
Birthday Dramatic Lyrics (1846), Evelyn Hope, A Gondola, Porphyria’s Lover,
My Last Duchess, The Piped Piper, Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845).
The Romantic Age (1798-1850) 71. 72. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Lammermoor, Waverly, Old Montalty, Quentin Durward, The Talisman,
Ivanhoe, Guy Mannering etc.
Q. 44. Who has made this statement, “Nature was not everything to
them (romantics) but they would have been nothing without Nature.”
Ans. The famous Critic C.M. Bowra made this statement.
Q. 45. In which poem has P.B. Shelley written the following line?
“If winter comes can spring be far behind”?
Ans. It appears in the poem ‘Ode to the West Wind’.
!Men and Women (1855). Fra Lippo Lippi, Andra del Sarto, Cleon, One Word
More, Bishop Blongram’s Apology Dramatis Personae (1864), Caliban upon
Setebos, A Death in the Desert, Rabbi Ben Ezra, Abt Vogler.
3. Mathew Arnold (1822-1883)—Rugby Chapel, The Scholar Gipsy,
Thyrsis, The Strayed Reveller, Empedocles, On Etna, Tristram and Iseult, A
Summer Night, Lines Written in Kensington Garden, New Poems.
4. A.H. Clough (1819-1861)—The Bothie of Toper-na-Vuolich (1848),
Mours de Voyage (1849), Dip Sychus (1850), Say Not the Struggle Naught
Availeth.
5. James Thomson (1834-1882)—The City of Dreadful Night.
6. Edward Fitzgerlald (1809-1888)—Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
The Pre-Raphaelite Movement
The Pre-Raphaclite Poets drew their inspiration from the works of Italian
painters before Raphael in whom they found a sweetness, depth and sincerity
of devotional feeling. The famous Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded
in 1848 by three painters, Holman Hunt, John Millais, Rossetti and one sculptor,
Thomas Woolner.
Chief Characteristics of this Movement
1. Art for Art’s Sake—The Pre-Raphaelites had no moral didactic or
Philosophical purposes. The Pre-Raphaelites were the poets of beauty and
aimed at achieving that form. Their sole purpose was to depict or create beauty
in their works.
2. Medievalism—The Pre-Raphaelites were inspired by Medievalism.
These poets provided subtlety and a touch of realistic touch to the Middle
Ages. A.C. Swinburne remarks, “by the strong touch of moderness which
these poets and the best of their followers intorduced into their works, they
have given the vivification required.”
3. Picturesqueness—The Pre-Raphaelite poets presented vivid and
sensuous word pictures. The purpose of these poets was to create the effect of
landscape painting in poetry.
4. Love for Music and Melody—The Pre-Raphaelites had given great
attention to vowel music, to artistic metres and choice of musical words. Legouis
comments, “Vowels call to vowels, and consonants to consonants and these
links often seem stronger than the links of thought or imagery.”
The Pre-Raphaelite Poets
1. Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)—Poems (1870), Ballads and
Sonnets (1881), Sister Helen, The Staff and Script.
2. William Morris (1834-1896)—The Earthly Paradise, The Defence of
Guenevere and Other Poems (1858), The Life and Death of Jason (1866), The
Dream of John Ball, News from Nowhere.
3. A.C. Swinburne (1837-1909)—Atlanta in Calydon (1865), Songs
before sunrise (1871), Trestram and Other Poems (1882).
Other Poets of this Period are—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61),
wife of the poet Robert Browning. She wrote Prometheus Bound (1833), The
Seraphim and Other Poems (1838), Sonnets from the Portugese (1847), Case
Guidi Widows (1851), Aurora Leigh (1857), Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-
94), Younger Sister of the poet D.G. Rossetti. She wrote Goblin Market and
Other poems (1881) and Verses (1893).
The Oxford Movement
Oxford movement was a movement for religious reform. It is called
‘Oxford’ because some Oxford professors and scholars were the force on the
back of it. It was one of Wordsworth’s disciples, John Kable, Professor of
poertry at Oxford, who was the real founder of the Oxford Movement. John
Henry Newman (1801-90) was the chief protagonist of the Movement. His
poetry includes Dream of Gerontius, Apologia Provita Sua (1864) etc.
Prose Writers of the Victorian Period
1. Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)—Sartor Resartus, The Life of Schiler
(1825), The French Revolution (1837), Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches
(1845), The Life of John Sterling (1851), The History of Frederick II of Prussia,
called Frederick the Great (1858-65), Chartism, Past and Present (1843), Latter
Day Pamphlets (1850), On Heroes, Hero-Worship and Heroic in History.
2. John Ruskin (1819-1900)—The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849),
The Stone of Venice (1851-53), Two Paths Unto The Last (1861), Munera
Pulveris (1862), Time and Tide by Wear and Tyne (1867), Fors Clavigera
(1874-84), Seasame and Lilies (1865), The Crown of Wilde Olive (1866).
3. Matthew Arnold (1822-88)—Culture and Anarchy (1869), Literature
and Dogma (1873).
4. Walter Horatio Pater (1839-94)—Studies in the History of
Renaissance (1873), Imaginary Portraits (1887), Appreciations (1889), Marcius,
the Epicurean (1885).
5. Rasbert Louis Stevenson (1850-94)—The Amateur Emigrant,
Memories and Portraits, Random Memories Fountaineblean, The Lantern
Bearers, Some College Memories, Virginibus Puerisque, Familiar Studies of
Men and Books, An Island Voyage, Travles with a Donkey, Christmas Sermon,
Ordered South.
6. Other Prose Writers–Charles Darwin (1809-82)—His chief works
are : The Voyage of the Beagle (1839), On the Origin of Species (1859), The
Descent of Man (1871).
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)—His chief work is On Liberty and
Representative Government.
The Victorian Period (1850-1900) 73. 74. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95)—His main works are : Man’s Place in
Nature (1863), Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews (1870), American
Addresses (1877).
Novelists of the Victorian Period and Main Novels
1. Charles Dickens (1812-1870)—The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby
Rudge (1841), American Notes (1842), Martin Chuzzlewit (1843), A Christmas
Carol (1843), Dombey and Son (1846), David Copperfield, Bleak House
(1842), Hard Times (1854), A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations (1860),
Our Mutual Friend, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (unfinished).
2. Charles Kingsley (1819-75)—Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet (1850),
Yeast, A Problem, Hypatia, Westward Hoe (1855), Two Years Ago (1857),
Hereward the Wake, Alton Locke.
3. Charles Read (1814-1884)—A Terrible Temptation (1871), The
Cloister and the Hearth (1861).
4. Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)—Vivian Grey, Contarini Fleming, A
Psychological Autobiography (1832), Henrietta Temple (1837), Coningsby
(1844), Sybil (1845), Tancred (1847).
5. Edward Lytton Bulwer (1803-1873)—Falkland (1828), The Last of
the Barons (1843), Harold (1848), Zanoni (1842), The Coming Race (1871),
Kenelm Chillingly (1873).
6. Wilkie Collins (1824-89)—The Women in the White (1860), Armadale
(1866) and the Moonstone (1868).
7. William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-63)—The Book of Snobs
(1848), The History of Samuel Titmarsh and Memoris of Barry Lydon (1844),
The Vanity Fair (1847-48), Pendennis (1849-50), The History of Henry Esmond
(1852), Lovel, The Widower (1860), The Adventures of Philip (1861), Dennis
Duval (unfinished).
8. Anthomy Trollope (1815-1882)—The Warden (1855), Barchester
Towers (1857), Framely Parsonage (1861), The Last Chronicle of Barset
(1867), Phineas Finn (1869), The Prime Minister (1876).
9. Samuel Butler (1835-1902)—Erewhon (1872), Erewhon Revisited
(1901), The Way of All Flesh (1903).
10. Geroge Meredith (1828-1909)—The Shaping of Shagpat, The Ordeal
of Richard Feveral (1859), Eva Harrington (1861), Sandra Belloi (1864), Rhoda
Fleming (1865), Vittoria (1867), Harry Richmond (1871), Beauchamps Career
(1876), The Egoist (1879), Diana of the Crossways (1855).
11. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)—The Return of the Native (1878), The
Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of D’Urbervilles (1891), Jude, The Obscure
(1896), The Hand of Ethelberta (1875), A Laodicean (1881), Two On A Tower
(1882), Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), Far From the Madding Crowed
(1874), A Pair of Blue Eyes (1875), The Trumpet Major (1880), The
Woodlanders (1887), The Well Beloved (1897).
12. Rohert Louis Stevenson (1850-94)—Trasure Island, Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantre.
13. George Gissing (1857-1903)—Demos (1886), New Grub Street
(1891), The Town Traveller (1898).
Women Novelists of the Victorian Period and Their main Novels
1. Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell (1810-65)—Mary Barton (1848),
North and South (1855), Sylvia’s Lovers (1863), Wives and Daughters,
Cranford (1853).
2. Charlottee Bronte (1816-1855)—The Prefressor (1857), James Eyre
(1847), Shirley (1849), Vilette (1852).
3. Emily Bronte (1818-1848)—Withering Heights (1847).
4. Anne Bronte (1820-1849)—Agnes Grey (1847), The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall.
5. George Eliot (1819-80)—Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss
(1860), Silas Marner the Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Romola (1863), A Study
of Provincial Life (1871-72), Daniel Deronda (1876), Amous Burta.
Drama in the Victorian Period
Robert Browing (1812-1889)—Strafford (1837), A Blot in the Scutcheon
(1843), Lord Lyton’s Money (1840).
Charles Reade (1814-84)—The Courier of Lyons (1854), Drank (1879).
In this way the first half of the 19th century was almost completely barren
from the dramatic point of view.
Revival of Drama
The influence of continental dramatists brought about a revolutionary chage
in British drama. Henrik Ibsen, Hebbel, Dumas, Augier, Gorky, Strindberg
and many others made memorable contribution to the rise of realistic drama in
England.
The Pioneers of Modern British Drama and their main Plays
1. T.W. Robertson (1829-71)—Ours Caste, School, Home, M.P., Dr.
David Garrick.
2. Henry Arthur Jones (1851-1929)—The Silver King, Saints and
Sinners.
3. A.W. Pinero (1855-1934)—The Squire, Sweet Lavender, The
Magistrate, The School Mistress, The Dandy Dick, The Weaker Sex, The
Profligate, The Second Mrs. Tranquery, Trelawany of the Wells, The Notorious
Mrs. Eblesmith.
The Victorian Period (1850-1900) 75. 76. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
4. Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)—The Importance of Being Earnest (1895),
Lady Winderemere’s Fan (1892), A Women of No Importance (1893), An
Ideal Husband (1895).
5. G.B. Shaw (1856-1950)—Pleasant and Unpleasment (1898), The
nidower’s Houses (1892), Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1894), The Philanderer
(1893), Arms and the Man (1894), Candida (1895), The Man of Destiny (1895),
You Never can Tell (1897), The Devil’s Disciple (1897), Caesar and Cleopatra
(1898), Man And Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor’s
Dilemma (1906), Getting Married (1908), Androcles and the Lion (1912),
Pygmalion (1912), Back to Methuseeah (1921), St. Joan (1923), The Apple
Cort (1929), Too True to be Good (1932), The Millionairess (1936), Geneva
(1938), Buoyant Billions (1949).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. Who was the representative poet of the Victorian Age?
Ans. Lord Alfred Tennyson was the representative poet of the Victorian
age.
Q. 2. What are the chief characteristics of teh Victorian age?
Ans. The chief characteristics of the Victorian age are self satisfaction
engendered by the great increase of wealth, the prosperity of the nation as a
whole, scientific development and rise of democracy.
Q. 3. Who are Pre-Raphaelite poets?
Ans. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hurt, Thomas Woolner,
John Everett Millais, Frederick George etc. are the Pre-Raphaelite poets.
Q. 4. What is the effect of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution?
Ans. After the publication of the ‘Origin of the Species’, the foundations
of the religion started to rock and this created about the authority of the Bible.
The doubt and despair occasioned by Darwinian theories can be read in a
number or victorian writers of—Alfred Tennyson, Matthew Arnold etc.
Q. 5. What do you know about The Chartist Movement?
Ans. A Poeple’s Charter was drawn up in 1888 and this started the chartist
Movement which demanded universal manhood sufferage. Although this
movement remained unsuccessful in the beginning but it arose the social
consciousness which went a long way to reform the living conditions of the
working men.
Q. 6. What are the main features of Victorian poetry?
Ans. The main features of Victorian poetry are : (i) A note of pessimism
and cynicism which is the result of contemporary conflicts between religion
and science, (ii) Elements of Patriotism, (iii) Inheritance of the Romantic poets,
modified in certain cases.
Q. 7. What are the most important characteristics of Lord Alfred
Tennyson’s poetry?
Ans. The most important characteristics of Lord Alfred Tennyson’s poetry
are—(i) Use of music in poetry, (ii) Rictorial beauty, (iii) Superb, Craftsmanship,
(iv) Choicest diction.
Q. 8. Tell us about criticism against Lord Alfred Tennyson.
Ans. The modern critics have critized Lord Alfred Tennyson’s mainly as
: (i) There is lack of profoundity and thought, (ii) Tennyson lacks psychological
insight, (iii) Tennyson’s art lacks too much of artificiality. Dr. A.C. Bradley
has criticized Lord Alfred Tennyson in his brilliant little essay entitled The
Modern Reaction Against Tennyson.
Q. 9. What are the important poetical works of Robert Browning?
Ans. The important poetic works of Robert Browning are (i) Ring and the
Book, (ii) Dramatic Lyrics, (iii) Dramatic Presence, (iv) Pauline, (v) Men and
Women.
Q. 10. What is the theme of Tennyson’s ‘In Memorium’?
Ans. The poem ‘In Memorium’ was written in memory of Arthur H.
Hallam. The faith and religion, scepticism and science of Victorian era are
very well represented in this poem. The conflict and the confusion created by
Darwin’s theory is the theme of the poem and the poet is so much confused and
tormented that he tries to seek some via media between the dogmatic chritianity
and and materialitic science.
Q. 11. What is the most important poetic form used by Robert
Browning?
Ans. The most important poetic form used by Robert Browning is ‘dramatic
monologues.’
Q. 12. Tell us about Browning’s philosophy of life?
Ans. Robert Browning is an optimist in an age of pessimism. Browning
believes in God and in the immortality of human soul.
He had a very firm faith that life was nothing but struggle, which should
be boldly and happily undertaken by everyone who comes in the world. His
optimistic views helped him to believe that life was good and fit to be lived.
He was perfectly a believer in the existence of God and identified him with
love.
Q. 13. What is Robert Browning’s philosophy of love?
Ans. Robert Browning is a great poet of love. His love is endowed with
physical passion. Love in his poems is the great magician clothing the barrenness
of earth with the glory of summer. The following lines from his poem ‘The
Guardian Angel’ will reveal his idealistic conception of love—
“O world, as God has made it all is beauty.
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty,”
He took ‘love’ to be an essential thing for the human beings.
The Victorian Period (1850-1900) 77. 78. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Q. 14. What are the chief defects of Robert Browning’s poetry?
Ans. David Diaches in his book ‘The Critical History of English Literature’
says that nobody now reads the longer philosophic poems of Browning. The
charge of obscurity has been brought against the poetry of Browning, it seems
to lack a real sense of the evil, though much has been made of the philosophy
of life.
Q. 15. Explain the statement, “Robert Browning is a disciple of P.B.
Shelley?”
Ans. Like Shelley, Browning uses highest form of imagination and
intelligence.
Q. 16. Explain Matthew Arnold’s Statement that ‘poetry is a criticism
of life’?
Ans. By this statement Arnold suggested that poetry should be concreted
and it must refer the emotions of the poet to the real solid earth.
Q. 17. Name some prose works Matthew Arnold.
Ans. The most important prose works of Matthew Arnold are—Essays in
Criticism (1865-1888), The Celtic Literature (1887), Culture and Anarchy.
Q. 18. Give the theme of ‘Thyrsis’?
Ans. ‘Thyrsis’ is a monody by Matthew Arnold to commemorate the
author’s friend. Arthur High Clough who died at Florence in 1861. This poem
is written in Pastoral form and there are many references to ‘Scholoar Gipsy’
which combines a lament for the dead friend.
Q. 19. Please quote few lines from the poems of Matthew Arnold?
Ans. “As love, let us be true,
To one another, for the work which seems,
To be before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love,
nor light, nor certitude.
nor peace, nor help for pain,
And we are here as on a darkling plain,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,
Where ignorant armies cleash by night.”
Q. 20. “in Arnold’s Poetry there is a fine blend of Romanticism and
Classicism”. Explain.
Ans. Matthew Arnold’s love for Nature was like romantics and his style
was classical. The famous critic Cazamian obseves “The iromy of fate has
decreed that Arnold’s works shall continue to be read because of its inner
Romanticism, which precisely was what the poet sternly tried to express. The
true note of Arnold’s temperament is sadness, a pensive melancholy essentially
Romantic in origin.”
Q. 21. what are the chief characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelite poetry.
Ans. The chief characteristics of the Pre-Raphaelite poetry are—(i) Love
of the Middle Ages, (ii) Sensuousness, (iii) Pictorial quality, (iv) Art for art’s
sake.
Q. 22. What do you know about the Pre-Raphaelite Movement?
Ans. J.E. Millais founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Pre-
Raphaelite is the name given to a group of young artists and men of letters
who, about the year, 1830, united to resist the existing conventions in art and
literature by return to art forms as they supposed them to exist in European art
before the time of Raphael.
Q. 23. Name the Pre-Raphaelite poets?
Ans. The Pre-Raphaelite poets are—(i) Dante Gabriel Rossetti, (ii) A.C.
Swinburne, (iii) William Morris.
Q. 24. Tell us about D.G. Rossetti’s poem ‘The Blessed Damozel’?
Ans. D.G. Rossetti is known for his ‘The Blessed Damozel.’ This poem is
sensuous and mystic. This poem deals with the mystical love between a lover
on earth and the blessed Damozel in heaven. According to Ifor Evans, “The
main purpose of the poem is to praise the human love of man and woman.”
Q. 25. Can you quote few lines from A.C. Swinburne to show his
sensuous quality?
Ans. The following lines show the sensuous quality of Swinburn’s poetry—
“Her languid lips are sweeter,
Than love’s who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.”
–’The Garden of Proserpine’.
Q. 26. Tell us about Thomas Hardy as a poet.
Ans. The famous novelist Thomas Hardy belongs to the Victorian age.
His poetry has a note of cynicism and a deep rooted sense of frustration,
pessimism and fatalism.
Q. 27. What are the chief characteristics of the Victorian novel.
Ans. Among the Victorians, there is for the first time a large number of
novelists. The Victorian novel has many themes but all of them have common
characteristics. There is a moral purpose and deep concern with the social
atmosphere of the age.
Q. 28. Tell us about Bronte Sisters.
Ans. The Bronte Sisters, who are called the stormy sister-hood, agewise
are charlotte, Anne, Emily and Sume. Anne Bronte wrote tow novels ‘Agnes
Grey’ and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Emily Bronte’s only novel is ‘Withering
Heights’. Charlotte Bronte’s best novel is ‘Jane Eyre’.
The Victorian Period (1850-1900) 79. 80. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Q. 29. What are the chief characteristics of the novel of Charles
Dickens.
Ans. The chief characteristics of the novel of Charles Dickens are—(i)
The novels are journalistic, (ii) They have humour, pathos and depiction of
child life, (iii) They are melodramatic.
Q. 30. Tell us about the auto-biographical novels of Charles Dickens.
Ans. The autobiographical novels of Charles Dickens are Nicholas
Nickleby, Bleak House, David Copperfield.
Q. 31. Discuss the theme of Thackerary’s novel ‘Vanity Fair’?
Ans. Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair deals with the corruption in the upper
middle classes of the Victorian age. The central character of this novel is Becky
Sharp.
Q. 32. Name the important novels of George Eliot.
Ans. The important novels of George are, Felix Hott, The Mill on the
Floss, Silas Marner, Amos Burton, Romola etc.
Q. 33. Name the important novels of George Meredith?
Ans. The important novels of George Meredith are—Farina, The Shaving
of Shagpat, Orderal of Richard Feveral, Evan Harringion, Rhoda Fleming,
Victoria, The Egoist and Diana of the Crossways.
Q. 34. What was Thomas Hardy’s Conception of Fate?
Ans. Thomas Hardy had personified Fate and called it by different names
such as Destiny, God, Providence of the immortals. In the novels of Hardy fate
always crushes the human being. In this way Hardy is totally pessimistic from
the point of view of fate.
Q. 35. Whose novels are called Worsex novels?
Ans. It is said that Thomas Hardy was given to his Dorsetshire the name
Wessex. Wessex was his province and all his novels are set in Wessex. He
never parted from his Wessex and whenever he did and shifted from the country
to the town life he always describe it.
Q. 36. Tell us about Mrs. Gaskell as a novelist.
Ans. The important novels of Mrs. Gaskell are—Ruth, Mary Barton, North

Chapter 1
ENGLISH LITERATURE BEFORE
GEOFFREY CHAUCER (450-1340)
1. Anglo-Saxon Period (450-1050)
The early English Literature is called the Anglo-Saxon period or the old
English period.
Poetry
The Jutes, Angles and Saxons, the three tribes of these ancestors, conqucred
Britian in the later half of the fifth entury. Their poetry is filled up with the
spirit of adventure, love of the sea, plunging boats and battles.
1. Beowulf—The is the first old English epic. It describes the great deeds
and death of Beowulf. This text is written in West Saxon dialect. Beowulf has
a great social interest, it describes the manners and customs of the forefathers
of the Englishmen before they came to England. W.H. Hudson remarks about
this work “Vivid Pictures of life in was and peace among our remote forefathers
add greatly to the value of a fine old poem.” According to Stopfod A. Brooke
“The whole poem, pagan as it is, is English to its very root. It is sacred to us,
our genesis, the book of our origin.”
2. Waldera—This poem consists about sixty three lines which describes
some of the exploits of Walter of Aguitaine.
3. Widsith—This poem consists about one hundred and fifty lines.
Anglo Saxon literature represents the poetry which the Anglo-Saxons
brought with them in the form of oral sagas. Anglo-Saxons were religious
people but with the advent of Christianity, a new spirit of ardent old poetry is
modified by the faith i.e., the fate in the Will of a good God. The latter poetry
developed under the teachings of monks who had behind them all the culture
and the literary resources of the Latin language. Northumbrai became the seat
of the monks who influenced the Anglo-Saxon liteature. This school is called
Northumbrain School. Caedmon and Cynewulf are the two famous school
of this poets.
1. Caedmon—He is the first one to make English verse. W.J. Long writes
about Caedmon’s importance, “If Beowulf and gragments of our earliest poetry
were brought into England, then the hymn, given above (from Caedmon’s
Paraphrase) is the first verse of all native English song that has come down to
us, and Caedmon is the first poet to whom we can give a definite name and
date. The words were written about 665 A.D.”
2. Cynewulf—His signed poems include. The Christ, Juliana, The Fates
of the Apostles and Elene. His unsigned poems are Andreas, The Phoenix,
The Dream of the Road. The Dream of the Road in the finest of all old English
religious poems.
3. Judith—He is one of famous Anglo-Saxon religions poets.
Anglo-Saxon Prose
1. King Alfred—It was king Alfred (A.D. 849-901) who drove back the
Danes from England, and began the writing of prose in Wesses. In this way he
is the creator of English prose. He rendered into English Pastoral care of Pope
Gregory, Orosius, The History of the World, Bede’s The Eccelsiastical History,
Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy and St. Augustine’s Soliloquies.
2. Wufstan—He was Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of York. His
‘Address to the English’ narrates the general deamoralisation casued by the
invading Danes.
3. Aelfric—His prose works included the Catholic Homilies, two series
of Sermons and The Lives of Saints.
The Anglo-Norman Period (1066-1340)
William, the Duke of Normandy won the Anglo-Saxon England in the
battle of the Hsatings. The literature they brought to England is remarkable for
its bright, romantic tales of love and adventure. The Morman conquest brought
the Roman Civilization to England. This was the period of the formation of
English langauge. The following five main dialects of the Anglo-Saxon period
continued to develop (1) East Midlands dialects (2) The old Northumbrian
dialest (3) South-Western (4) South-Eastern or Kentish (5) South-Western or
West Saxon.
The East Midland dialect under the influence of French developed into
“the Received Standard English of Today.”
Anglo-Morman Prose
The ‘Ancern Rivle’ written in 12th century, is the most important of the
early prose texts of this period. It link with the prose of Wulfstan and The
Authorised version is clear.
Anglo-Norman Poetry
An unusual large number of verse chronicles is found during this period.
(a) Layamon—His work is Brut which was completed in 1205. It has
30,000 lines describing the history of England from the landing of Brutus to
the death of Cad Wallader.
(b) Robert—He belonged to Gloucester which was largely drawn on the
work of Geoffrey of Monmouth and other Chronicles.
(c) Robert Mannying—His famous works are Story of England and the
Manual of Sins.
body. This terrible Black Death carried off no less than one-third of the
population.
Q. 3. What do you know about the Lollard Movement.
Ans. John Wyclif and his followers called Lollards. They taught what
they believed to be the true Christianity, contending against the papal
viceregency of christ and accepting only these teaching of the church that found
sanction in the Bible.
Q. 4. What do you know about John Wycliff?
Ans. John Wycliff first translated the Bible. He was a popular teacher at
Oxford and Master of Balliol College, Oxford. He is popularly known as the
founder of English prose.
Q. 5. Tell us about chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
Ans. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty four tales in verse and
prose, some incomplete, told as entertainment by a group of pilgrims riding
from London to the shrine of Thmas A Beckett at Canterbury in the spring of
1385 or 1387. There were twenty nine pilgrims including Chaucer. There are
two prose tales, Chaucer’s own Tale of Melibeus and The Parson’s Tale.
Q. 6. Tell us about Chaucer’s ‘Prologue’.
Ans. Chaucer’s ‘Prologue’ makes us acquainted with the various characters
of his drama. The twenty nine characters are carefully chosen who present
different sections of the society.
Q. 7. Tell us about the work of John Gower.
Ans. John Gower’s best known works are confessio Amantis and vox
Clamantis. Vox Clamantis is a dream allegory in which the poet symbolically
presents the Peasants Revolt of 1381.
Q. 8. Name some of the poets who have been influened by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
Ans. Edmund Spenser, John Milton, John Drydn, John Keats, Alfred
Tennyson, A.C. Swinbure, Robert Bridges, Walter de La Mare and John
Masefield.
Q. 9. Tell us about Mandeville’s ‘The Voyage’ and ‘Travels of Sir
John Mandeville’?
Ans. The Voyaga and Travels of Sir John Mandeville were written by Sir
john Mandeville in French. He later translated latter it into English. This book
is remarkable for geography, topography, natural history and romance.
Q. 10. Who has called Chaucer ‘the earliest of the great modern’s?
Ans. E. Albert, the famous critic has called him ‘the earliest of the great
moderns’.
Q. 11. Who has called Chaucer ‘The Well of English Undefiled’?
Ans. Edmund Spenser has called Chaucer ‘the well of English undefiled’.
Q. 12. Tell us the principal metre used by Chaucer in his work ‘The
Prologue’ and ‘The Canterbury Tales’.
Ans. Chaucer has used ten-syllabic lines, arraged in stanzas of seven lines
each called Rhyma Royal.
Q. 13. What services did Geoffrey Chaucer render to the development
of English language in particular?
Ans. Geoffrey Chaucer made the English language independent of the
support of foreign languages. Before him Latin and Greek lanaguages were
supported to be the guide and guardian of the English language but Chaucer
proved that the English language could stand on its feet.
Q. 14. Tell us the chief characteristics of the poetry of Geoffrey
Chaucer.
Ans. Geoffrey Chaucer’s poetry is remarkable for its melody, music and
imagery, its humour and its realism, and its love of humanity and love of nature.
Q. 15. Tell us about Wycliffs Bible.
Ans. It is the first effort of rendering of the Holy Scripture into English. It
was translated from the Latin ‘Vulgate of Saint Jerome’. It is remarkable for its
prose style.
!
The Age of Chaucer (1340-1400) 7. 8. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Chapter 4
THE EARLY RENAISSANCE (1516-1558)
What is Renaissance
In England the age of Queen Elizabeth I is known as the age of
“Renaissance”. It is not easy to define the term “Renaissance”, which means
“Rebirth or the re-awakening”. The ‘renaissance was essentially an
European movement which had its birth in Italy and from there spread to
Germany, France and England.’ The renaissance marked the beginning
of the modern spirit. The light of renaissance dazzled the English horizon
in the 16th century. A number of factors accounted for the rebirth under
the regime of Elizabethan. The renaissance in England can be divided
into four periods :
1. The Period of Preparation (1500-1579)
2. The Elizabethan Period (1579-1603)
3. Jacobean Period (1603-25)
4. The Caroline Period (1625-50)
We find the following implications of the Renaissance in England.
(a) The end of Medieval Scholasticism—The Renaissance meant the
death of the medieval scholasticism which had for long been keeping human
thought in bondage. The scholars got themselves entangled in useless
controversies and tried to apply the principles of Aristotalean philosophy to
the doctrines of Christianity, and gave birth to a vast literature characterized
by pollemics and sophistry which did not advance men in anyway.
(b) The Reformation—It signalised the revolt against spiritual authority
of the Pope in Rome. The Reformation though not a part of the revival of
learning, yet was a companion movement in England. This Reformation and
of spiritual authority went hand in hand with that of intellectual authority.
Renaissance intellectuals distinguished themselves by their flagrant antiauthoritarianism.
Spenser presents the best example of Reformation in The
Faeire Queene.
(c) Beauty and Polish—The Renaissance implied a perception of greater
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.
(d) Humanism—The Risnaissance marked the change from the
Theocentric to the homocentric corruption of the universe. Human life,
persuades an even body came to be glorified G.H. Mair observes “Human life
which the medieval church had taught them (the people) to regard but as a
stepping stone to eternity, acquired suddenly a new momentousness and value.”
Poetry
1. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of surrey
(1516-47), were really the first two modern poets. The book that contains their
poems is Songs and Sonnets, known as the Tottles Miscellany, which was
published in 1557.
Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet and then followed the Petrarchan
form having Octave of eight lines and Sestect of six lines and its ryhme scheme
was abba, abbba, cde, etc.
2. Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey—He was the first English poet to
use blank verse in his translation of the two books of the Aeneid.
3. Thomas Sackville (1536-1608)—He is the author of two signficant
works, The Mirror of Magistrates and Induction. The Induction is written in
Chaucerian stanza and allegorical form of the Roman de la Rose.
Prose
The Educationists
1. Erasmus—He was a humanist whose His Praise of Folly, originally
written in Latin was translated into English.
2. Sir Thomas More (1418-1535)—More’s most famous work Utopia
(1516) was written in Latin but was translated afterwards into English. His
Utopia has been called “the first monument of modern socalism.” His Utopia
is the representative book of that short but well defined period which we may
call English Renaissance before the Reformation.
3. Roger Ascham (1515-68)—Ascham was a great scholar of Latin. He
was the tutor of Queen Elizabeth. His first work was ‘Taxophilus’ or the School
of Shooting (1545) and his second work was ‘The Schoolmaster’ (1570). He
was the first English writer who wrote “the English speech for the Englishmen.”
4. Sir Thomas Elyot (1490-1546)—He wrote Governor (1531), a treatise
on moral philosophy and education.
5. Sir John Cheke (1514-57)—His famous work is the Heart of Sedition
which is full of humanism and the influence of antiquity.
The Reformers
1. Sir John Tyndale (1484-1536)—In 1522 he began to translate the
New Testament into English. He was persecuted and put to death in 1536. His
traslation of the Bible was completed by his friend Miles Coverdale in 1535.
His translation is considered the base of The Authorised Version of the Bible.
2. Thomas Cranner—His famous work is The English Prayer Book.
3. Latimer—His famous work is Sermon on the Ploughers.
The Development of English Drama
1. Comedy—Nicola Udal’s Ralph Roster Doister (1553) is the first
comedy of the classical school. Grammar Gurtan’s Needle (1575) written
by an unknown writer is another comedy of the Classical style.
2. Tragedy—The first complete tragedy in English of the Senecan type is
Ferrex and Porrex, better known as Gorboduc (1562) which was written by
Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville. The notable tragedies of this period
are Thomas Hughe’s The Misfortunes of Arthur (1588). Robert Wilmont’s
Tragedy of Tancred and Gismund (1567-68) and George Gascoeigne’s In
Jocasta (1566).
Tragi-comedies were also written during this period. Some memorable
plays of this type are Whetstone’s Right Excellent and Famous History,
Preston’s A Lamentable Tragedy, Richard Edward’s Damon and Pithias.
Along with the classical tragedy arose chronical historical plays. Early historical
plays were The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England (1590), Tragedy
of Richard the Third (1540-44), The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (1588),
The Chronicle History of Lear (1594).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What do you mean by the term ‘Renaissance’?
Ans. The term ‘Renaissance means revival or rebirth. Renaissance means
revival of arts resulting from the rediscovery and imitation of classical models.
It was a movement which was the outcome of the people’s renewed interest in
ancient literature. The Renaissance brought with it a love of beauty and art, an
interest in human life and a materialistic outlook.
Q. 2. What were the factors responsible for the rise of Renaissance?
Ans. The main factors responsible for the rise of the Renaisance movement
were as follows—(i) New geographical discoveries, (ii) The fall of
constantinople, (iii) Humanism, (iv) Invention of the printing press by William
Caxton.
Q. 3. What is Humanism?
Ans. Humanism is the revival of liberal learning in the classic literature of
Greece and Rome. Humanism laid great force on the ancient Greek and Latin
models.
Q. 4. Who was Sir Thomas Wyatt?
Ans. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English.
Q. 5. Who was Sir Thomas More?
Ans. Sir Thomas More is known for his Utopia which is the earliest example
of the novel in the Renaisance period.
Q. 6. What do you know about Tottles Miscellany?
Ans. Tottle’s Miscellany is the first printed anthology of English lyrics,
which was published on June 5, 1557.
Q. 7. Who was Nicholas Udall?
Ans. Nicholas Udall was the headmaster of Eton and he wrote the first
regular comedy in the English language called Ralph Roister Doister.
Q. 8. Who was John Heywood?
Ans. John Heywood (1497-1580) is more famous as the author of England’s
best known dramatic interludes. Notable among them are A Mercy Play between
John, the Husband, Tyb the Wife and Sir John, the Priest. The play is scalled
the ‘Four PP’ and A Merry play between the Pardoner and the Fair.
Q. 9. Who was Thomas Sackville?
Ans. Thomas Sackville wrote the first English tragedy called Gorboduc.
Q. 10. What is the second comedy in English literature?
Ans. Gammer Gurton’s ‘Needle’ is the second comedy in English
literature.
Q. 11. What is blank verse? Who introduced it into English literature?
Ans. A Blank verse is unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter. It was first
used by Surrey in his translation of two books of the Aenied.
Q. 12. What was the direct influence of Italy on the poetry of early
Renaissance in England?
Ans. The new moment is poetry began at the thoroughly Italianised court
of Henry VIII. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1506-42) and Henry Howard, Earl of
Surrey (1516-47) brought Sonnet writing on the pattern of Petrarch from Italy.
Q. 13. How did Tattles Miscellany contribute to English literature?
Ans. Tattles’ Miscellany brought lyricism to English poetry and the
personal note to the poetry introduced by Sir Thomas Wyatt.
Q. 14. Which characters were more significant in the miracle Plays?
Ans. Devil and Vice are significant faces in the miracle plays. Vice was
the fun-maker and the forerunner of the clown of Elizabethan stage. He is seen
jumping on the back of the Devil.
!
The Early Renaissance (1516-1558) 15. 16. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Chapter 5
THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
OR
ELIZABETHAN AGE (1558-1625)
The Age of Shakespeare or Elizabeth is the period when the new movement
reached its climax and contributed to the extroardinary development of
literature.
W.H. Hudson remarks, “In the development of literature this revival of
learning worked in two ways, it did much to emancipate thought from the
bondage of medieval theology by restoring the generous spirit and ideals of
Pagan antiquity, and it presented writers with literary masterpieces which they
might take as models for their own efforts.”
1. The revival of Classical Learning—G.H. Mair observes, “The reading
of the ancients awakened new delight in the melody and beauty of language
man became intoxicated with words.” The Classical revival of learning
influenced the content, style and technique of literature. “The sonnet and the
blank verse are the imported metres which were used with artistic adroitness
and excellence in Elizabethan literature, various poetic genres, writes Legouis,
“in which the ancients and the moderns had won distinction, pastorals, epics,
comedies, tragedies, lyrics of every kind, every kind of prose romances,
criticism, history and philosophy were skilfully and successfully attempted.”
2. Influence of Humanism—W.H. Hudson observes “An appetite for
literature was thus fostered and an immense impetus was given to the sense of
beauty and everything that made for the enrichment of life.”
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive.
To be young was very keaven!
The Hellenic view of life known as Humanism influenced literature
Humanism gave brith to individualism and worldlines. During the Elizabethan
period emphasis was laid on the qualities which distinguish human beings from
one another. The plays of Marlowe, the poetry of Spenser and the prose of
Bacon are the best expressions of individualism in the Shakespearean Age.
3. Renaissance and Reformation—W.H. Hudson writes, “While the
Renaissance aroused the intellect and the aesthetic faculties, the Reformation
awakened the spiritual nature, the same printing press which diffused the
knowledge of the Classics put the English Bible into the hands of the people,
and the spread of an interest in religion was inevitably accompanied by a
deepening of moral earnestness.”
Reformation was a religious movement arising out of the revolt of Martin
Luther against Pope’s supremacy. Renaissance and Reformation resulted in
the growth of a new spirit of nationalism and development of national languages.
Reformation encouraged the writing of theological prose, which influenced
the development of English prose. The Authorised Version of the Bible (1611)
influenced the development of English language and literature.
4. Spirit of Discovery and Adventure—New lands had been discovered
and new territories were opened up. Italy was the home of the Renaissance. It
was the brilliant centre of art and literature and journey to Italy was a craze
with the Elizabethans. The voyagers themselves wrote down the account of
their adventures, and two of these accounts proved very popular-that of
Hakliyt’s voyage and Discoveries and Purchase ‘Pilgrimage’s. The famous
critic G.H. Mair observes, “The voyagers are teh makers or our modern English
prose and some of its noblest passages.”
5. The Influence of Plato—Plato was one of those ancients, who inspired
Elizabethan England. The Platonic doctrine that divinely inspired the poets
was well-known even to the man in the street. According to Legouis, “This
high conception of poetry aided by the rising tide of patriotism swept England
onward to attempt all these geners in which the ancients and the moderns had
won distinction—pastoral, epics, comedies and tragedies, lyrics of everykind,
every kind of prose-romances, criticism, history and philosophy. The writers
of this period aimed at producing a literature that will surpass the literatures of
ancient Greece and Rome.”
Characteristics Of Poetry Of The Age of Skakespeare
Poetry was considered as a dignified and elevated form of literary
expression. Sir Philip Sidney says, “of all science is our poet the Monarch.”
Edmund Spenser proclaimed that heroes and famous poets are born together.
Spenser insisted that “Poetry is a divine gift and heavenly instinct not be gotten
by labour and learning, but adorned with both, and poured into the wit by a
certain enthusiasm and celestial inspiration.”
(1) Silver Poets of the 16th Century—Gerald Bullet refers to Sir Thomas
Wyatt, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh
and John Davies as the Silver Poets of the 16th century, for their poetry is
charaterised by silver-tongued eloquence.
(2) Narrative Poetry—
(i) Samuel Daniel (1562-1619)—Daniel has to his credit a sonnet series
called Delia (1592) a romance called The Complaint of Rosamond (1592), a
long historical poem The Civil Wars (1595) and a large number of masques of
which The Queenes Wake (1610) and Hymen’s Triumph (1615) are important.
(ii) Michael Drayton (1563-1631)—He wrote a number of long historical
poems which included England’s Heroical Epistles and The Baron’s Wars. His
Poly-olbion is a long careful and tedious description of the geographical features
of England.
(iii) Edmund Spenser (1553-1559)—Edmund Spenser is a typical
representative of this age. His poetry combines the best of both the Renaissance
Reformation. He is rightly called “the poets’ poet” because all great poets—
Milton, Donne, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, The
Pre-Raphaelites and many other—are indebted to him. Spenser also has been
called the poet of the Renaissance and the Reformation.
His work Amoretti, is a collection of eighty-eight Petrarchan sonnets, which
describe the progess of his love for Elizabeth Boyle. His ‘The Shepherd’s
Calendar (1579) is modelled on the artifical pastoral popularised The Tears of
the Muses, The Fate of the Butterfly. His most autobiographical poem is Collin
Clouts Come Home Again. His Epithalamion (1595) shows happily the sensuous
sweetness and the rapture of love. It is a marriage hymn. His Prothalamion is
his another marriage hymn. Astrophel (1596) are written in honour of love and
beauty. His The Faerie Queene is the finest and the most important of this
works. The Faerie Queene appeared in instalments. The first three books were
published in 1589-90 and the second three books appeared in 1596. Two cantos
and two odd stanzas of Book VII appeared in 1609 posthumously.
The symbolical representations of the books are given below.
Book I The Legend of the Knight of Redcross. —Holiness
Book II The Legned of Sir Guyon —Temperance
Book III The Legend of Britomatis —Chastity
Book IV The Legend of Cambel and Triamod —Freindship
Book V The Lenend of Artegall —Justice
Book VI The Legend of Sir Calidore —Courtesy
Edmund Spenser introduced Spenserian stanza, which has been admired
by countless crities and imitaled by all poets since its introduction. It is his
most remarkable contribution. Spenserian stanza is nine-line stanza rhyming
ab ab bcb cc, the last line being what is called an Alexandrine, or line of six
iambic feet, instead of five.
Edmund Spenser is the ‘poets’ poet’ and the ‘second father of English
poetry’ because it was he, and not Chaucer, who gave to the poets not only of
his own age but of all ages, a high and noble conception of their calling.
(4) William, Shakespeare (1564-1616)—He has composed one hundred
and fifty four sonnets in English. He has also composed narrative poems Venus
and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594).
(5) Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)—His notable poem is Hero and
Leander.
(6) Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86)—His sonnet sequence is entitled
Astrophel and Stella in (1594), It marks the real beginning of Elizabethan
sonnet.
Minor Poets
1. William Browne (1591-1643)—His famous work is Britannia’s
Pastorals.
2. Giles Fletcher (1588-1623)—His famous poem is Christ’s Victory and
Triumph.
3. Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650)—His masterpiece is Piscatorie Eclogues.
Prose in the Age of Shakespeare (1560-1625)
The essay was started in France by Montaigne. The Oxford English
Dictionary defines the essay on “a composition of moderate length on any
particular subject, or branch of a subject, originally inplying want of finish” an
irregular, indigested piece. According to Dr. Samuel Johnson, “An essay is a
loose sally of mind, indigested piece, not a regular and orderly performance.”
(1) Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)—Bacon, who has been called the
father of English essay, published ten essays in the year 1597. He had written
fifty eight essays by 1625. Alexander Pope has written about Bacon—
“If part allure three, think, how Bacon shined,
The wisest, the brightest and the meanest of mankind.”
(2) Ben Jonson (1573-1637)—He was a great dramatist and poet, who
wrote appropriate essays entitled ‘The Timber of Discoveries’.
(3) John Selden (1584-1654)—His famous collection of essays are Table
Talk (1689), The Titles of Honour (1614), History of Tithes (1618).
Religious Prose
The Authorised Version of Bible appeared in 1611 which was the work of
47 scholars, nominated by James I, over whom Bishop Lancelot Andrews
prescribed, Richard Hooker’s (1554-1600) famous religious book is The Laws
of Ecclesiastical Polity.
Literary Critical Essays
The notable collection of literary critical essays are Stephen Gosson’s
The school of Abuse (1579), William Webb’s Discourse of English Poetry
(1586) George Rutenham’s Art of Poesie (1589) and Sidney’s Defence of
Poesie (published posthumously in 1595).
Other Essayists
The other notable essayists of this period are Robert Burton (1576-1640)
(The Anatomy of Melancholy) (1621), Thomas Fuller (1608-1661), (The Holy
War and Profane State), Joseph Hall (1574-1656) (Virtues and Vices), George
Herbert (1593-1633) A Priest to the Temple on A Country Parson.
Drama in The Age of Shakespearem (1568-1625)
(1) The University Wits
1. John Lyly (1554-1606)—A Most Excellent Comedy of alexander and
campaspe and Diogenes (1584), Sapho and Phao (1584), Gallathea (1588),
The Man in the Moon (1588), Midas (1589), Mother Bombie (1590), Love’s
Metamorphosis (1590), The Woman in the Moon (1597).
2. George Peele (1557-1597)—The Assignment of Paris (1581), the Battle
of Alcazar (1594), The Famous Chroncile of King Edward I, The Love of
King David and Fair Bethsabe and The Old Wives Tales (1595).
3. Robert Greene (1558-1592)—The Comical History of Alphonses, King
of Aragon (1587), The Honourable History of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
(1589), The Scottish History of James the IV (1591).
4. Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)—The Wounds of Civil War.
5. Thomas Nash (1558-1625)—Dido, The Isle of Dogs.
6. Thomas Kyd (1558-1694)—The Spanish Tragedy.
7. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)—Tamburlaine, Edward II, The
Jew of Malta, The Tragedy of Dido, The Queen of Carthage, The Massacre of
Paris.
(2) William Shakespeare
(i) The First Period (1588-96)—Titus Andronicus, Henry VI Part I, Love’s
Labour’s Lost, The Comedy of Errors, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
(ii) The Second Period (1596-1600)—The Merchant of Venice, The
Taming of the Shrew, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing,
As You Like It, The Twelfth Night, Henry IV, Part I & II, Henry V.
(iii) The Third Period (1601-08)—Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello,
Julius Caesar, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Troilus and
Cressida.
(iv) The Fourth Period (1608-1613)—Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus,
Timon of Athens, Henry VIII, Pericles, Cymbeline, The Tempest, The
Winter’s Tale.
Post : Shakespeare an Drama (1625-42)
1. Ben Jonson (1573-1637)—His famous plays are The Case is Altered
(1598), Every Man In His Humours (1598), The Cynthia’s Revels (1600), The
Poetaster (1600), Everyman Out of His Humour (1599), Volpone or the Fox
(1605), Epicone or the silent woman (1609). The Alchemist (1610), The
Bartholomen fair, The Devil is An Ass (1616), The Staple of New (1625), The
New Inn or the Light Heart (1629), The Magnetic Lady of Humour Reconciled
(1632), A Tale of a Tub (1633). He also wrote masques. His best known masques
are The Satyr, The Penates, Masques of Blackness, Masque of Beauty, The
Masque of Queens.
2. John Webster (1575-1624)—The White Devil and The Duchess of
Malfi are his two tragedies.
3. Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) Their
typical comedies are A King and No King (1611), The Knight of the Burning
Pestle (1607), The Scomful Lady (1613-16), The Maid’s Tragedy (1610)
Philaster (1611), The Faithful Sherpherdess.
4. George Chapman (1559-1634)—His famous plays are The Blind
Beggar of Alexanderia (1596), Bussy’d Ambois (1604), Charles Duke of Byron
(1608), The Tragedy of Chabot (1613). His two comedies are All Fools Day
(1605), Eastward Hoe ! (1605)
5. Thomas Middleton (1570-1627)—A Mad Word, My Masters, A Chaste
Maid in Cheapside, Changeling (1624), Women Beware Women (1622), The
Witch.
6. Thomas Heywood (1575-1650)—A Woman killed with Kindness
(1603), The Loyal King and The Loyal Subject (1602), King Edward the Fourth
(1597-99) The Captive (1624), The English Traveller (1633).
7. Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)—Shoe Maker’s Holiday (1599).
8. John Marston (1575-1634)—And Cyril tourneur (1575-1626).
Marston’s famous tragedies are Antonio and Mellida (1599), Antonio’s
Revenge (1602), Tourneur wrote The Revenge’s Tragedy (1600), The Atheist
is Tragedy (1607-11).
9. Philip Massinger, Massinger’s memorable plays are : A New Way to
Pay Old Debts, ‘The Great Duke of florence, The Virgin Martyr, The Maid of
Honour.
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What do you know about Shakespeare as a Sonneteer?
Ans. Shakespeare has written one hundred and fifty four sonnets in English.
The sonnets of Shakespeare were published in 1609. shakespearean sonnet
has three stanzas of four lines and in the end a couplet. Its rhyme scheme is ab
ab, cd cd, ef, ef, gg.
Q. 2. Why has the Elizabethan Age been called the age of singing
birds?
Ans. Elizabethan age was full of writers of songs and lyrics. Many other
forms of verse were attempted such as the epic romance,
Q. 3. Name some of the important song writers of the age of Elizabeth.
Ans. The important song writers of the age of Elizabeth are—Christopher
Marlowe, Drayton, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Edward Spenser.
Q. 4. What are the chief features of the age of Elizabeth?
Ans. The chief features of the age of Elizabeth are spontancity, lyricism,
spirit of adventure, love pageantry, unsatiated delight in beauty, roaring
imagination and a pervading patriotism.
Q. 5. Name some important historical events of the age of Elizabeth.
Ans. The influence of the Renaissance gave rise to humanism and
ultimately to Reformation. It went a long way to improve the system of
education. It provided the contemporary men of letters with a Renaissance of
wonder, a background which made them look at the world all anew, the Brave
New World.
Q. 7. What is the plan of ‘Shepherd’s Calender’?
Ans. Shepherd’s Calender is divided into twelve parts, one for each month
of the year Edmund Spencser writes on his unfortunate love for a certain
mysterious Rosalind. The Shephard’s Calender is a pastoral poem of artificial
kind.
Q. 8. Who called Edmund Spenser ‘the poets’ poet’?
Ans. Charles Lamb called Edmund Spenser the poets’ poet.
Q. 9. What is the plan of ‘Faerie Queene’?
Ans. Edmund Spenser explains the plan of the ‘Faerie Queene’ in a
prefatory letter to his friend Sir Walter Raligh. The plan called for a twelve
day feast held by Glouana, Queen of Fairyland, on each of these days a certain
knight at her command undertook a particular adventure. Spenser projected
twelve books but only six were published during his lifetime and portions of
the seventh were published after his death.
Q. 10. What is the theme of the ‘Faerie Queene’?
Ans. The main aim of the Faerie Queene, says Spenser, is to fashion a
gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline. The Book is an
allegory and can be treated on different levels. The plan called for a twelve
day feast held by the Queen of Fairyland.
Q. 11. What is the political and historical significance of Spenser’s
‘The Faerie Queene’?
Ans. At the political level the main theme of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene
is the glorification of Queen Elizabeth and the State. Edmund Spenser followes
the contmporary practice of flattering the Queen.
Q. 12. What is a Spenserian Stanza?
Ans. spenserian stanza is a nine line stanza rhyming ab ab bc bcc. The last
time is called Alexanderine. It is a line of six iambic feet instead of five.
Q. 13. What are the demerits of Spenser’s poetry?
Ans. The chief demerits of Spenser’s poetry are lack of humour, want of
dramatic constructive power, and deficiency in realism. Spenser shows an
excessive flattery of the Queen. His diction is archaic and is sometimes cloying.
Q. 14. What is the plan of Amoretti?
Ans. Amoretti has a group of eighty eight sonnets describing the progress
of the poet’s love for Elizabeth Boyle whom he married in 1594.
Q. 15. What do you know of Spenser’s Epithalamion?
Ans. Epithalamion is the finest of Edmund Spenser’s smaller poems. It is
the noblest wedding poem in the language written on the marriage of Spenser
to Elizabeth Boyle.
Q. 16. Name the collections in which Sir Philip Sidney’s sonnets are
found.
Ans. The soonets by Sir Philip Sidney are collected in Astrophel and
Stella inspired by the daughter of Lord Essex.
Q. 17. Who are called the University Wits?
Ans. John Lyly, Thomas Kyd, Robert Greene, George Peele and
Christonpher Marlowe are called University Wits.
Q. 18. What are the important dramas of John Lyly?
Ans. The important dramas of John Lyly are—The Woman in the Moon,
Alexander and Campaspe, Sapho and Phao.
Q. 19. What are the important plays of Christopher Marlowe?
Ans. The important plays of christopher Marlowe are—Tamburlaine the
Great, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. The Jew of Malta, Edward II
and The Tragedy of Dido, Queen of Carthage.
Q. 20. What do you know about Old Wives Tale?
Ans. Old Wives Tale is written by George Peele. This play is full of framatic
irony and its diction is realistic.
Q. 21. Tell us the imprtance of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II.
Ans. Edward II is the first Elizabethan drama, which paved the way for
the historical plays of Shakespeare.
Q. 22. What do you mean by ‘Marlowe’s Mighty Line’?
Ans. About Christopher Marlowe’s blank verse, Ben Jonson coined the
phrase ‘Marlowe’s Mighty Line’.
Q. 23. Can you justify the statement, ‘No Marlowe, No Shakespeare?
Ans. William Shakespeare borrowed blank verse and the conception of
tragedy from Christopher Marlowe and became what he could not have become.
Q. 24. What are the main characteristics of Shakespeare’s Comedies?
Ans. The Comedies of Shakespeare are a peculiar blend of realism and
romance, of tragedy and comedy. They are full of music and song, fools and
clowns, love and humour. They are in fact tragi-comedies rather than pure
comedies.
Q. 25. What is Shakespeare’s Conception of Tragedy?
Ans. A Shakespearean tragedy represents a tale of suffering and calamity,
ultimately leading to the death of the hero. The tragedy arises out of a particular
flaw in the character of the hero, which is called ‘fatal flaw’. In this way the
hero falls because he has some marked imperfection or defect.
Q. 26. What do you mean by Alexanderine?
Ans. Alexanderine is an Iambic line of twelve syllables.
Q. 27. Name some poets who used the Spenserian stanza?
Ans. P.B. Shelley, John Keats, and Lord Alfred Tennyson are such poets.
Q. 28. What did Arnold mean when he said that ‘others abide our
question but Shakespeare is free’?
Ans. By this statement, Mathew Arnold means that Shakespeare is beyond
the marks of interrogation and Arnold wants to emphasize Shakespeare’s
universality. Ben Jonson also commented, “Shakespeare was not of an age but
of all ages.”
Q. 29. Ruskin has commented that Shakespeare has no heroes but
only heroines? Do you agree?
Ans. This statement is true about his comedies. The tragic heroes of
Shakespeare are great and noble and far more impressive, if a comparison is
made at all.
Q. 30. Name the important dramatists of the Post-Shakespearean
period.
Ans. The important post-Shakespearean dramatists are—Champan,
Marston, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, Francis
Beaumont, John Fletcher, Cyril Tourneur and John Webster.
Q. 31. What were the reasons responsible for the decline of drama
during the Jacobean period or during the post Shakespearean period?
Ans. The reasons for the decline of drama during the post-Shakespearean
period—are loss of national appeal, exhaustion of creative spirit, the Puritan
opposition and moral decline.
Q. 32. What do you know about Ben Jonson’s Theory of Drama?
Ans. Ben Jonson forced on following the three Unities, viz. Unity of Time,
Unity of Place, Unity of Action. He based his drams on the medieval theory of
humours.
Q. 33. What do you know about Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia?
Ans. Sir Philip Sidney wrote ‘Arcadia’ a pastoral romance for the purpose
of amusing his friends.
Q. 34. Name some important prose writers of the Elizabethan Age?
Ans. The important prose writers of the Elizabethan Age are Elyot, George
Cavendish, Cheke, Sir Thomas Wilson and Roger Ascham.
Q. 35. What do you know about John Lyly as a writer of Prose?
Ans. As a prose writer John Lyly has written two works, Euphuers and
His England.
Q. 36. What do you know about Sir Philip Sidney’s book ‘An Apology
for Poetry’?
Ans. In this book Sir Philip Sidney goes on to defend poetry against the
charges brought against it by various critics, the most important of them is that
a poet is a liar. At this charge Sir Philip Sidney says that the poet is not a liar
for Sir Sidney is full of virtue breeding delightfulness.
Q. 37. What Sir Philip Sidney has to say about Stephen Gesson’s attack
on poetry?
Ans. Sir Philip Sidney’s Aplogie for Poetrie was compiled as an answer
to Stephen Gosson’s attack that poet is liar. Sir Philip Sidney has defended
poetry with some really important and significant practical criticism.
Q. 38. Name some Elizabethan Critics.
Ans. The famous elizabethan critics are—Sir Thomas Elyot, Stephen
Gosson, Thomas Sidney and Ben Jonson.
Q. 39. Name the last plays of Shakespeare.
Ans. Shakespeares last plays are Cymbeline, The Tempest, The Winter’s
Tale, Pericles, and Henry VIII.
Q. 40. What is Comedy of Manners?
Ans. The Comedy of Manners was originated in France. Moleire said that
the matter of true comedy must be correction of social absurdities. The
amusement arises mostly from the portrayal of current fortess or minor abuses.
Ben Jonson is the real founder of the Comedy of Manners because he give a
heightened picture of sixteenth century society.
Q. 41. What are the important Characteristics of Euphism?
Ans. (1) There are many classical allusions, mostly from Roman and Greek
allusions.
(2) There are a number of rhetorical devices such as alliteration and
antithesis. There is excessive use of antithesis in which the opposite idea is
emphasised by balance of sharply contrasting words, sentences or clauses.
Q. 42. What is the difference between Comedy of Manners and
Comedy of Humours?
Ans. A Comedy of Humours presents the oddities and idiosyncracies of a
character. On the other hand, a Comedy of Manners, represents the vices of the
society and exposes the hypocracies and shames of the individuals.
Q. 43. Which are the other writers of romance besides John Lyly and
Sir Philip Sidney?
Ans. Thomas Lodge and Green are other important writers of romance
besides Sidney and Lyly.
Q 44. What were the forms of prose in the age of Shakespeare?
Ans. In the age of Shakespeare, there were dramas, prose romances, literary
criticism, essays and history.
Q. 45. Why is Francis Bacon called ‘the wisest, the brightest and the
meanest of mankind’?
Ans. Francis Bacom was the wisest of mankind because he had written
his essays full of wisdom. He was the brightest because he was an innovator of
the prose style. Bacon was also charged with taking bribes and practising corrupt
dealings. For this reason he was called the meanest of mankind.
!
The Age of Shakespeare (1558-1625) 27. 28. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
Chapter 6
THE AGE OF MILTON OR THE AGE OF
PURITANISM (1625-1660)
Cheif Characteristics of the Age
(1) Rise of Puritan Movement—According to W.J. Long, “The Puritan
movement may be regarded a second and greater Renaissance, a rebirth of the
moral nature of man following the intellectual awakening of Europe in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centureis.” The Puritan movement was the greatest
movement for moral and political reform. Its aims were (i) religious libertry
i.e. that men should be free to worship according to their conscience. (ii) civil
liberty i.e., they should enjoy full civil liberty. The Puritans wanted to make
men honest and free.
Though the spirit of the Puritan movement was profoundly religious, the
Puritans were not a religious sect, neither was the Puritan a narrow minded nor
a gloomy dogmatist. The influence of Puritanism upon English life and literature
was profound. Puritanism sought to confine human culture within the
circumscribed field of its own particular interests. Puritanism created confusion
in literature. Sombrencess and pensivencess pervades poetry of this period.
W.J. Long observes, “Poetry took new and stratling forms in Donne and
Herbert, and prose became as sombre as of Burton’s The Anatomy of
Melancholy. The spiritual gloom which sooner or later fosters upon all writers
of this age, and which is unjustly attributed to Puritan influence, is due to the
breaking up of accepted standards in religion and government. This so called
gloomy Age produced some minor poems of exquistie workmanship and a
great master of verse, whose work would glorify any age or people—John
Milton, in whom the indomitable Puritan spirit finds its noblest expression.”
(2) The Metaphysical School—R.G. Cox rightly observes that the main
agents of change and the dominant moudlers of the new tradition are john
Donne and Ben Jonson and of the two, Donne’s originality is by far the more
spectacular. One aspect of Donne’s originality, in fact, is that he gave to the
short lyric something of the flexibility, the urgent and profound expressiveness
that came to be developed in dramatic blank verse. John Donne’s poetry is
remarkable for its fusion of passionate feeling and logical argument. John Donne
is the greatest of the religious poets of the century and following his example,
the metaphysical style is used for religious poetry by such poets as George
Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Richard Crashaw and many others.
Characteristics of the Metaphysical Poetry
Metaphysical poetry began early in the Jacobean Age i.e. in the last stage
of the Age of Shakespare. John Donne was the leader and founder of the
metaphysical shool of poetry. He led he new way of writing poetry as a reaction
against the conventional poetry of the spenearians. It was Dr. Johnson who
christened Donne and his followers, “The metaphysical poets”. This title was
brrowed by Dr. Johnson from Dryden’s famous phrase, “Donne affects the
metaphysical, not only in his satires but in his amorous verses.”
Dr. Johnson condemned this school of poets, because of the habit, common
to this school of poets, of always seeking to express something after, something
behind the simple obvious first sense of a subject. They were affected by the
ingenuity, the subtlety and what Johnson calls the “Watch for novelty,” which
distinguished Donne for instance, from the staightforward sentiment and lucid
imagery of the Elizabethans. The following are the main characteristics of the
metaphysical poetry of this Age.
(1) Display of Learning—The metaphysical poets were men of learning
and to show their learning was their chief object. In metaphysical poetry we
come across obscure references and the vast learning is twisted in such a manner
that it becomes very difficult for a reader to follow what the poet really intends
to say.
(2) Intellecutal Poetry—Metaphysical poetry was purely intellectual and
leaves a modern appeal to the intellectual. The thoughts of the metaphysical
poets are often new, but seldom natural. They saw beneath the surface of life
and illuminated the deeper places with reading, flashes, and devoting their
intellect and imagination to reflection upon god and their relation to him. They
produced what is by no means common in our literature, great religious poetry.
For religious poetry of such intensity and spiritual insight as this group of
poets wrote, we can turn only to such isolated poets as Francis Thomson and
Alice Meynell. (W.H. Hudson)
(3) Far fetched Images—Metaphysical poets saw acute resemblances in
things apparently unlike. They introduced far fetched images which could not
be easily understood by the reader. Their constant aim was to produce something
and for this purpose they introduced images of an extraordinary character which
could not be understood easily.
(4) Wit and Conceit—Donne was the great metaphysical poet who taught
his followers to indulge in conceits and witticism in poetry. The metaphysical
conceits arose from intellectual process of thinking figures conceit is an
instrument by which a metaphysical poet reveals his wit. We can easily present
some of the conceits of metaphysical poetry from Donne’s poetry. In the poem,
“Autumnall Donne compares Mrs. Herbert’s wrinkles to love’s graves, for
love sits there like an anchorite in a trench. He is of opinion that love is not
there digging grave but building dome because when she dies love will die
consequently. Again his poem “The Sunne Rising” is full of metaphysical
conceits. In his poem “Twicknam Gardan”, the lover’s tears are the wine of
love which is very strange. He invites the lovers to come with phials and collect
his tears. In the “Song,” he employs fantastic conceit”.
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
Till-age snow which haries on thee.”
(5) The Mystical and Religious Note—Most of the metaphysical poets
are often called Mystical poets. In the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Crashaw,
Vaughan and Traherne, there is an expression of a communion with God. These
mystic poets have sense of unity of all life. They believe that the spiritual is
alone, the real word and the things of this world are mere shadow. There mystic
vision pierces through the shadows of the world and interprets them as symbols.
Donne’s religious poetry has all the qualities we have detailed above.
Hebert followed Donne in most respects. He has been called ‘the saint of
the metaphysical school’. This approach to God and Christ is full of what
Edmund Gosse calls, “Intimate tenderness”. Herbert has two distinguished
followers Vaughan and Crashaw. They acknowledged their debt to Herbert,
but they had tempers fundamentally their own. Vaughan is temperamentally a
mystic though he uses conceits after the manner of Donne and Herbert Crashaw
was the only Roman Catholic among the metaphysical poets.
(6) Diction and Versification—In style and language, Donne and his
followers reacted against the sweetness and harmony of the School of Spenser.
The metaphysicals daliberately avoided conventional poetic expressions as
they had lost their meaning through overuse. The metaphysicals employed
very prosaic words as if they were scientists or shopkeepers. The result is that
in their work we often stumble against unpoetic words, we seldom expect in
serious prety. The versification of metaphysical is also like their diction coarse
and jerky as contrasted to the honeyed smoothness of Elizabethan poetry. Their
revolt, according to Grieron, is due to two motives.
(1) Their desire is startle.
(2) Their desire to approximate poetic to direct, unconventional colloquial
speech.
Decay of Drama—In this period drama decayed. The civil desturbances
and the strong opposition of the Puritans was the main cause of the collapse of
the drama. The closing of the theatres in 1642 gave a final Jolt to the
development of drama.
Poetry in the Age of John Milton (1608-1674)
John Milton—Paradise Lost (1667), Paradise Regained (1671), Samson
Agonistes (1671), L’ Allergro, IL Penseroso, ‘His Lycidas’ is a monody on the
death of Edward king, Milton’s college friend. His famous masque was comus.
His famous sonnets are His Deceased wife, To a Nightingale, The Massacre in
Piedmont, On His Blindness. His prose work is of Education and Aeropagitica.
Metaphysical Poets
(1) John Donee (1537-1631)—His best known poems are : A Nocturnal
upon St. Lucie’s Day, A Valedictin : Forbidding Mourning, The Extasie, A
Hymn to Got the Father, Of The Progress of the Soul.
(2) George Herbert (1593-1633)—The Temple (1633).
(3) Richard Crawshaw (1613-1649)—Steps to the Temple (1646).
(4) Henry Vaughan (1622-1695)—His book include Poems (1646), Olor
Iscanus (1651), Silex Scintillans (1650), Thalia Radiviva (1678).
(5) Thomas Carew (1544-1639)—Carew’s Poems (1641).
(6) Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)—He wrote an epical romance Pyramus
and Thisbe (1628), Constantia and Philatus. His well known poems are the
Mistress (1647), The Davidies (1656), The Pindaric Odes.
(7) Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)—Garden, Upon the Hill, The Gallery,
To His Coy Misterss, Cromwell’s Return from Ireland.
Cavalier Poets
(i) Robert Herrick (1594-1674)—He has written two volumes of poems
‘The Noble Numbers (1647), Hesperides (1648), To Anthena, To Julia and
Cherry Pipe are his best known shorter poems.
(ii) Richard Lovelace (1618-1658)—Lucasta (1649), To Althea from
Prison To Lucasta, Going to the Wars.
(iii) Sir John Suckling (1609-1642)—Ballad upon a wedding, ‘Why so
Pale and Wan, Fond Lover.
Other Important Poets
(i) Edmund Waller (1606-1687)—The Bud, Go Lovely Rose, On A
Girdle.
(ii) Denham (1615-1669)—Copper is Hill (1642) Windsor Forest.
Prose Writings
(1) Religious Prose—Jermy Taylor (1613-67) wrote the Liberty of
Prophesying (1647), Holy Living (1650), Holy Dying (1651).
(2) Thomas Fuller (1608-61) has written the following religious books
prose : the History of the Holy war (1639), The Church History of Britain
(1655), His Pamphlets include Good Thoughts in Bad Times (1645), An Alarm
to the countries of England and Wales (1660), The Worthiers of England.
The Essay Writing
(1) Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)—Of Myself.
(2) Owen Felltham (1602-1668)—Resolves : Divine, Moral, Political.
(3) William Drummond (1585-1649)—A Cypress Grave.
(4) Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon (1609-1674)—Contemplation and
Reflections upon the Psalms of David and Essays : Divine and Moral.
(5) Games Howell (1594-1666)—Epestolae Hoe.
(6) Lord Halifax (1633-1695)—The character of A Trimmer, Advice to
a Daughter, The Lady’s New Years, Gift or Advance, To A Daughter.
(7) William Temple (1628-1699)—Memoirs (1691) Miscellanea.
(8) Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)—Religio Medici (1635),
Pseudodoxia Epidemica or Vulgar Errors (1646), Hydrotaphia or Um Burial
(1658), The Garden of Cyrus (1658), Christian Morals.
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. Who were Puritans?
Ans. The Puritans were against excess of sensuality and Renaissance
pastine such as theatre and dramatic performances. The true descendent of
Wyclif and Lolards were greatly influenced by famous John Calvin of Geneve.
These dissentients were hostile to episcopal form of government.
Q. 2. What was the chief historical event of the Age of Milton?
Ans. There was the civil war which was decidedly the most important
phenomenon of the age.
Q. 3. What do you know about Cavaliers?
Ans. The Cavaliers represented the sect opposite to the Puritans. The
Cavaliers were related to the court and they led a happy and gay life.
Q. 4. Name the important Metaphysical poets?
Ans. The important Metaphysical poets are John Donne, George Herbert,
Henry Vaughan, Cowley and Crashaw.
Q. 5. What are the chief characteristics of the Metaphysical poetry?
Ans. The chief characteristics of the Metaphysical poetry are (1) Display
of learning (2) Far-fetched Images (3) Use of Conceits (4) Dominance of fancy
rather than imagination.
Q. 6. What do you know about L’ Allegro and II Penseroso written
by John Milton?
Ans. L’ Allegro and II Penseroso are idyllic poems by John Milton. They
have charming contrasted pictures of man and nature. In both these poems
there is little that is characteristically Puritan because the poet deals upon the
pleasures of romance and rustic life upon the play house and the Greek drama
and upon the beauty of church architecture and music.
Q. 7. Which are the two epics written by John Milton?
Ans. John Milton wrote two epics in English literature, which are Paradise
Lost and Paradise Regained.
Q. 8. What do you know of Lycidas?
Ans. Lycidas is a monody on the death of Milton’s college friend, Edward
King.
Q. 9. What is the theme of ‘Paradise Lost’?
Ans. Paradise Lost is an epic written by John Milton which depicts the
fall of man. Its theme is to justify the ways of God to Man. This epic shows us
how man’s first disobdience brought sin and death in its train. The fall of the
rebel angels, the creation of the world and man, the temptation of Adam and
Eve and their expusion from the garden of Eden.
Q. 10. What the famous critic T.S. Eliot has to say about the poet
John Donne?
Ans. T.S. Eliot says that John Donne yokes oppostie image and qualities
together. This is a tribute to Donne’s poetical genius.
Q. 11. Please tell us about John Donne as a love poet.
Ans. John Donne is far more impressive and interesting as a love poet
than as a religious poet. Passion, feeling and sensuality are all combined in his
love poetry. He is more often than not cynical and sceptical even in his love
poems. but this very cynicism and scepticism makes him all the more interesting
to the modern reader of poetry.
Q. 12. What do you know about the sonnets of John Milton?
Ans. The best known sonnets of John Milton are ‘On His Blindness’, ‘On
the Late Massacre in Piedmont’, When the Assault was intended on the city.
John Milton has written all these sonnets on the pattern of Petrarchan model.
Q. 13. What does S.T. Coleridge mean when he says that John Milton
is in every line of ‘Paradise Lost’?
Ans. When S.T. Coleridge said that John Milton is in every line of ‘Paradise
Lost’, he meant that the poem is thoroughly autobiographical.
Q. 14. Who commented that Milton was of the Devil’s party without
knowing it? And what did he mean by it?
Ans. This statement of William blake means that John Milton sympathised
Satan rather than Adam. But this is incorrect.
Q. 15. What do you know about John Milton as a writer of prose?
Ans. John Milton’s famous prose work is ‘Aeropagitica’. This work is
one of the greatest prose works of English. The prose style of John Milton is
characterized by scholarship, gravity, seriousness, eloquence and
persuasivencess. John Milton wrote chiefly rhetorical prose. is sentences are
much too long and are based on the Latin periodic structure.
Q. 16. What do you understand by the title Religion Media?
Ans. This title means the religion of a medical man. Sir Thomas Browne
was a medical practitioner of Norwich.
Q. 17. What do the modern critics say about John Milton?
Ans. Tow Modern critics T.S. Eliot, and F.R. Leavis have commented on
John Milton. T.S. Eliot has commented “Milton invites attention only to the
ear, and that he lacks in visual imaginary, that he uses proper names for their
own sake and for their musical values.”
Q. 18. What are the chief defects of John Milton’s poetry?
Ans. John Milton is sometimes over scholastic and seems to parade his
knowledge of the classics, the Bible and the mytholgoy. He also lacks a sense
of humour.
Q. 19. What is a masque? Tell us about comus as a masque?
Ans. Masque is a kind of drama brought into England from Italy. A masque
has songs, dances and elaborate costumes. Comus is a masque and its story is
a simple story of a lady lost in the woods. The lady is lured in the woods by
Comus and his hand of revellers and rescued by her brother. The poem is
allegorical in the sense that virtue is attached by sensuality and is conquered
by deemed aid.
Q. 20. Name important Caroline Prose Writers.
Ans. Important Caroline Prose Writers are Jeremy Talyor, Richard Baxter,
Thomas Fuller, Sir Thomas Browne, Izaak Walton.
Q. 21. What are the chief characteristics of francis Bacon as an
essayist?
Ans. All the Bacon’s essays are whether in an aphoristic style. Bacon has
filled the sea in the nutshell. All of them are full of practical wisdom and
epigrammatic brevity.
Q. 22. What do you know about Richard Baxter as a writer of prose?
Ans. Richard Baxter’s the best known work is Saint’ Everlasting Rest.
Q. 23. What is the important prose work of Izaak Walton?
Ans. The important prose work of Izaak Walton is ‘The Complete Anger’.
This book reflects the author’s philosphical personality and it is full of anecdotes
and poems, borrowed and adapted.
Q. 24. What are the chief characteristics of Sir Tomas Browne as a
writer of prose?
Ans. The prose of Sir Thomas Browne is marked by musical cadence a
certain sublimity and a deep personal note that takes the reader into confidence
almost immediately. The style of Sir Thomas Browne was imitated by De
Quincey, Charles Lamb and John Ruskin.
Chapter 7
THE RESTORATION PERIOD (1660-1700)
OR
THE AGE OF DRYDEN
Characteristics of the Age
(1) The Restoration (1660)—The Restoration of King Charles II in 1660
brought about a revolutionary chage in life and literature. Charles II, was
surrounded by corrupt and degenerate courtiers. The Great Fire of 1665 and
the Plague that followed were popularly regarded as suitable punishments for
the sin of the profligate and selfish king.
(2) The Popish Plot—As Charles II had no legitimate child and heir, it
was certian that his brother James, a Catholie, would succeed to the throne.
Therefore, attemtps were made to exclude him from the throne and to supplant
him by the Duke of Monmouth, the favourite, though illegitimate, son of Charles
II. This controversy directly led to the so-called Popish Plot sowrn to by Tilus
Oates.
(3) The Revolution (1688)—James II ascended the throne in 1685. He
became unpopular within three years and the nation as a whole rose against
him. The bloodless revolution of 1688 called the Protestant William and Mary
of Orange to the throne.
Literary Tendencies
(i) Rise of Neo-Classicism—Moody and Lovett observe “This sense of
present fact, this identification of the real and the material, as distinguished
from the transcedentalism of Renaissance and Puritan thought is the chief
characteristic of the mood of the century which succeeded the Restoration....
Rules of etiquette and social conventions were established and the problems
of life became that of self-expansion within the narrow bounds which were
thus prescribed.” Rules and literary conventions became more important than
the depth and seriousness of subject matter to writers of the period.
(ii) Lmitation of the Ancients—
“Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem,
To copy nature is to copy them.”
The authors of this period copied the Latin writers for guidance and
inspiration. They directed their attention to the slavish imitation of rules and
ignored the imp(iii) The Influence of the French—The influence of France counted for
much as Charles II had spent most of his time of exile in France. When Charles
II and his conmpanions returned to England, they criticized old poetic tradition
and demanded that poetry and drama should follow the style to which they had
become accustomed in the gaiety of Paris. English writers imitated the French
blindly. The influence of French comedy is seen in the coarseness and indecency
of Restoration. Comedy of Manners of Dryden, Wycherly and Congreve. The
comblined influence of French and Classical models of tragedy is seen in the
new genre, the heroic tragedy.
The French influence is also responsible for the growth and popularity fo
opera Germy collier in 1698 vigorously attacked the immorality and indecency
of the evil plays and the playwrights of the day.
(iv) An Age of Prose and Reason—Arnold says that the Restoration
marks the real moment of birth of our modern English prose. In Dryden’s Age,
English prose begins definitely to find its fect, and a prose style is gradually
evolved which is admirably suited to the miscellaneous needs of everyday life.
The critical temper of the age, the growth of science and religious and political
controversies all fostered the rise of prose.
(v) Realism and Formalism—There was a reaction against the excess
and extravagances of both the Elizabethan and the ‘metaphysicals’ headed by
John Donne. Emphasis was laid on a correct adherence to the rules of the
ancients as interpreted by the French. This tendency is admirally summed up
by Pope in his famous couplet.
“Those rules of old iscovered not devised
Are nature still but nature Methodised.”
W.G. Long observes, “The early Restoration writers sought to paint
realistic picture of corrupt court and society, and, as we have suggested, they
emphasized vices rather than virtues and gave us coarse, low play without
interest or moral signficance. Like Hobbes they saw only the externals of man,
his body and appetities, not his soul and his ideals, and so like most realists,
they resemble a man lost in the woods, who wanders aimlessly around in circles,
seeing the confusing trees but never the whole, forest, and who seldom thinks
of climbing the nearest high hill to get his bearings.”
It is largely due to Dryden that “Writers developed formalism of styles
that precise, almost mathematical elegance, miscalled Classicism, which ruled
the English literature for the next century.”
(vi) Rise of satire and the Heroic Couplet—The best poetry of the era is
satirical. Dryden’s ‘Absalon and Achitophel’ is an excellent example of
political satire his ‘Mac Flecknoe’ that of personal satirer. Another significant
contribution of the Age is growth and perfection of the Heroic Couplet.
Poetry is the Restoration Period
1. John Dryden (1631-1700)—Heroic Stanzas (1659), a series of heoric
stanzas on the death of Cromwell. His Astraea Redux (1660), a peom is
celebration of Charles II’s return. Annus Mirabilies (1667), Absalom and
Achitophel (1681), Mac Fleckone (1682). This is a scathing personal attack
on a former friend, Thomas Shadwell. In the second part of Absalom and
Achitophed (1682), Dryden contibuted a violent attack on Shadwell giving
him the name of Og. Religio Laici (1682), The Hind and the Panther, The
Fables (1699), Song for St. Cecilia is Day (1687), On alexander’s Feast (1697).
2. Samuel Butler (1612-1680)—His Hudibras is a pointed satire on
Puritans. The other poets of this age are John Oldham’s who has written three
satires—satire Against Virtue, satire upon a woman, satire upon Jesuits. Bishop
Ken’s Moming and Evening Hymns is a new type of religious poetry.
Prose in The Restoration Period
1. John Dryden (1631-1700)—Dryden’s well known Essay on Dramatic
Poetry is the model of the new prose.
2. John Bunyan (1632-1704)—Grace Abounding, The Pilgrim’s Progress,
The Life and Death of Mr. Badman (1680), The Holy War (1682).
3. Lord Halifax (1633-1695)—His small volume called Miscellanies
contains a number of political traits.
4. Sir William Temple (1628-1699)—Memoris (1691), Miscellanea.
5. Thomas Hobbes—Leviathan (1651).
6. Sir John Locke (1632-1704)—Essay concerning the Human
Understanding.
7. The Diarists—Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) and John Evelyn (1620-
1706) are two famous diarists of this period.
Restoration Drama
A. Restoration Tagedy
1. John Dryden (1631-1700)—Tyrannic Love or the Royal Martyr (1669),
Conquest of Granada (1670), All for Love (1667), The Indian Emperor,
Aurengzeb.
All for Love which is subtitled as The world Well Lost heralded the
emergence of the new sentimental tragedy on the she tragedy. It is called she
tragedy because in it the central figure is a womna.
2. Thomas Otway (1651-1685)—Alcibiades (1675), Don Carlos (1676),
the Orphan (1680), Venice Preserv’d (1682).
3. Nathaniel Lee (1653-1692)—Nero (1674), Sophioisha (1676), The
Rival Queens (1677), Methridates (1678).ortance of subject matter.
The other dramatists are Elkanoah Settle (1648-1724) who has written
the Empress of Morocco (1674), John Crowne (1640-1703). His well known
tragedy is Caligula (1698) and Thyestes. Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718). His
best known plays are Tamerlane (1702), The Fair Pemtent (1703) and John
Shore (1714).
Germy Collier reacted against the Restoration Comedy by his pamphlet.
‘A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage’ (1698).
He attacked the dramatists of the Restoration period, including Dryden,
Wycherley and Congreve.
B. Restoration Comdey of Manners
1. William Congreve (1670-1729)—The Old Bachelor (1693), The
Double Dealer (1693), Love for Love (1695), The Mourning Bride (1697),
The Way of the World (1700).
2. George Etheregee (1635-1691)—The Comical Revenge or Love in a
Tub (1664), She won’t if She Cou’d (1668), The Man of the Mode or Sir
Fopling Flutter (1676).
2. Sir John Van Brugh (1644-1726)—The Relapse (1696), The Provoked
Wife (1697), and Confederacy (1705).
4. George Farquhar (1678-1707)—Love and a Bottle, The Constant
Couple, Sir Harry Wildair, The Inconstant (1703), The Way to Win Him, The
Recruiting Officer (1706), The Beaux’s Stratagem (1707).
QUESTIONS
Q. 1. What do you understand by the term Restoration?
Ans. The term Restoration means the restoration of monarchy after the
execution of Charles I. Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector of England,
Scotland and Ireland. Charles II was called back to restore the monarchy. In
this way this age is called ‘Restoration’.
Q. 2. When did Charles II return to the throne of England?
Ans. Charles II returned to the throne of England in 1660.
Q. 3. What do you understand by the statement that the Restoration
Age saw the birth of the new classicism?
Ans. The Restoration literary scene is characterized by a revival of the
classics. The Restoration writers looked to the Latin poets and dramatists for
inspiration. They developed their rules based on their study of the Classics
New classicism was evolved during the Restoration age.
Q. 4. Why was John Dryden called the representative of the
Restoration period (1660-1700)?
Ans. John Dryden was the representative of the Restoration period. His
poetry presents all the qualities of this age. As the restoration period saw the
rise of the new prose. So also it saw the real beginning of modern criticism and
Dryden the first great prose writer and also the great critic.
Q. 5. What are the chief characteristics of the Restoration Age?
Ans. The Restoration Age was a result of the reaction against the Puritan
check. The French influence in brought by the King and popularised by the
court. The Political scene is dominated by the conflict between the Whigs and
the Tories. The most important feature of the Restoration age was the foundation
of the Royal society in 1662.
Q. 6. What were the circumstances responsible for the popularity of
the Satire?
Ans. Restoration period was a period of bitter personal and political
contention, of easy morals and subdued enthusiasm of sharp wit and acute
discrimination. Condemning became common in the society of this age and
this habit went a long way to encourage the satirical writings.
Q. 7. What are the important prose works of John Dryden?
Ans. John Dryden’s important prose works are the Essay of Dramatic
Poetry (1667) and the Preface to the Fables, and Essay of Heroic plays (1672).
Q. 8. What are the important poetic works of John Dryden?
Ans. The important poetic works of John Dryden are Astrea Redux (1660),
Annus Mirabilies (1667), Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Religio Laici (1682),
The Hind and the Panther (1667).
Q. 9. What is the theme of Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poetry?
Ans. John Dryden’s Essay of Dramatic Poetry is a dialogue among four
persons who discuss whether the ancients were superior to the moderns. The
main purpose of the essay is to support the use of rhyme in drama and establish
the superiority of the English stage over the French.
Q. 10. What is the theme of Mac Flecknoe?
Ans. In this poem ‘Mac Flecknoe’, Dryden satirizes Thomas Shadwell.
Q. 11. Name the satires of John Oldham?
Ans. John Oldham has written two satirical works, Satire Against Virtues
and Satire Against Jesuits.
Q. 12. What are the chief demerits of the poetry of Dryden?
Ans. Dryden lacks higher flights of imagination and the real creative force.
His poetry does not suggest and has no overtones or undertones.
Q. 13. What is Matthew Arnold’s opinion about Dryden as a poet?
Ans. Matthew Arnold considers him to be a classic of prose and not a
classic of poetry. His poetry has all the qualities of a good prose.
Q. 15. What does Hazlitt have to say about Drydn as a poet?
Ans. Hazlitt commented that Dryden is the greatest of the artificial clan of
poets.
Q. 16. In which year Theatres were closed in England?
Ans. The Puritans succeeded to persuade the Parliament to close the
theatres and they were closed in 1642.
Q. 17. In which year the Threatres opened again?
Ans. The theatres opened again with the Restoration of Monarchy in 1660.
Q. 18. What are the chief characteristics of the ‘heroic tragedy’ of
the Restoration Age?
Ans. The chief characteristics of the ‘heroic tragedy’ of the Restoration
Age are—(i) generally written in the heroic metre rather than in the usual blank
verse, (ii) their characters are usually super-human, (iii) their scenes are laid in
distant lands such as Peru or Egypt, and (iv) their subject is the theme of love
and honour.
Q. 19. Name some important Heroic Tragedies by Dryden.
Ans. The important heroic tragedies by Dryden are The Indian Emperor,
Conquest fo Granada, Aureng-zeb, All For Above.
Q. 20. What were the important writers of heroic tragedy during the
Restoration Age?
Ans. The important writers of heroic tragedy during the Restoration Age
are Robert Boyal, Lee, Otway, Thomas Sontherne, Rowe, Crowne, Settle
and John Dryden.
Q. 21. What do you understand by the term ‘Comedy of Manners’?
Ans. Comedy of Manners means the type of Comedy which treats of the
surface, the behaviour mostly artificial of a particular period or society. The
chief characteristics of the Comedy of Manners are brilliant dialogues, wit,
humour, polished style.
Q. 22. Name some of the important writers of the Comedy of Manners
during the Restoration age?
Ans. The important writers of the Comedy of Manners during the
Restoration Age are William Congreve, Wycherley, Sir George Etherege,
Sir John Vanbrugh, George Farquhar and Thomas Shadwell.
Q. 23. Who has been called the founder of the Restoration Comedy of
Manners?
Ans. William Wycherley has been called the founder of the Restoration
Comedy of Manners. His best known plays are The Country Wife and The
Plain Dealer.
Q. 24. Name some important prose writers of the Restoration period.
Ans. The important prose writers of the Restoration period are Dryden,
Rymer, Collier, Sir William Temple, Halifax, Thomas Sprat and Tellotson.
The Restoration Period (1660-1700) 41. 42. A HAND BOOK OF VIVA-VOCE
There are also fiction writers like Mrs. Behn and John Bunyan and two best
known diarists Pepys and Evelyn.
Q. 25. Name some important plays of Congreve.
Ans. The important comedies of Congreve are ‘The Way of World’ and
‘Double Dealer’. His other two plays are the ‘Old Bachelor’ and ‘Love for
Love’.
Q. 26. What is your opinion about John Dryden as the father of
modern English Criticism?
Ans. John Dryden has been regarded as the father of modern English
criticism because it is with him that this branch of criticism started. Dryden is
the first critic, who introduced the comparative methods of criticism.
Q. 27. What is the famous remark of John Dryden about Geoffrey
Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales’?
Ans. John Dryden has commented “Here is God’s Plenty.”
Q. 28. What is the theme of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress?
Ans. The Pilgrim’s Progress deals with the experiences of a true Christian.
Most of the characters of the novel are allegorical in nature.
Q. 29. What are the chief characteristics of Restoration Tragedy?
Ans. The Restoration Tragedy was equally artificial, its most popular form
was that of the Heroic Drama in which love, gallantry and courage were depicted
on a gigantic scale. Its main emhpasis was on valour, beauty and love. It was
written in a bomblastic style and was spectacular in production.
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