LITERATURA RENACENTISTA

Humanists

For the humanists, the question of whether to write one's own works in Latin or in English became an issue of great seriousness. Influenced both by the Humanist exaltation of the classical languages & by the Renaissance desire of eternal fame, the vernacular languages seemed relatively new & unstable. But at the same time, there was a revolt against the slavish imitation of Cicero & other classical writers & an urge to improve th native tongue by writing ambitious works in it. These 2 impulses--Humanist reverence for th classics & English pride in th vernacular language--gave rise to many distinguished translations through out th century: Virgil's Aenid by th Earl of Surrey, etc., George Chapman's Iliad & Odyssey, Sir Thomas North's Plutarch's Lives of th Noble Grecians & Romans, Arthur Golding's Ovid's Metamorphoses. Also the most notable works in modern languages such as Il Cortegiano (Sir Thomas Hoby), Orlando Furioso & Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (Delivered). Even Utopia was translated.

Sir Thomas More: Utopia

Religions (447-451). They believe in different forms of religion. But most Utopians, and among those the wisest, believe in a single power, unknown, eternal, infinite, inexplicable, far beyond the grasp of th human mind, & diffused throughout the universe, not physically but in influence. They call him father & is th origin, increase, progress, change & end of all visible things. The other sects call him also Mithra.

Impressed when they learned about Christ. They were well disposed toward it from the start. Influenced by the fact that Christ encouraged his disciples to practice community of goods. They became Christians, but as there were no priests left, so they cannot receive sacraments. Th non-Christians don’t criticize the Christians. But one Christian got in trouble because he preached publicly, with more zeal than discretion, & condemned all others as profane & his followers to hell. He was convicted & sentenced to exile. For it is 1 of their oldest rules that no man's religion should be held against him.

As it was easy for King Utopus to conquer the island because the natives were fighting about religious matters, he decreed that everyman must cultivate th religion of his choice. Not only for th peace but because he thought that God likes to be worshipped in different ways. The only exception was a strict law against who believes the soul perishes with the body or that th universe is rule by blind chance, not divine providence. So they believe in afterlife punishment & reward,

Convinced that man's bliss after death will be enormous & eternal, lament his sickness but his death only when men die wretchedly & against their will because they think their conscience makes them fear they are going to be punished. And also because they believe God doesn’t like when people don’t want to come when they are summoned. When someone dies full of good hope they don’t mourn him but carry his body cheerfully. "They cremate him" (449). They believe the dead are around us & this belief keeps them from behaving dishonestly in their presence. They despise fortune telling & others forms of divination but venerate miracles that occur with the help of nature. They also think the investigation of nature is most acceptable to God. There are others who from religious motives reject learning & refuse all leisure, & devote their full time to good works. Neither criticizes th way others live nor boast of their own doings. There are 2 kinds of these, celibates who abstain not only from sex, & also from eating meat, rejecting th pleasures of this life & looking forward to the joys to come which they hope to merit. The other kind are just as fond of hard wk but prefer to marry & think as they owe nature their labor, so they owe children to their country. They don’t reject pleasure unless it interferes with their work & they eat meat because they believe they will be stronger for any kind of work. The Utopians regard the second as more sensible & the first as the holier. These men are called Buthrescas or "specially religious." (cuaderno 99-100)

Religious Prose

It deals with the biblical translations. (cont.)

Prose Narrative

There were several collections of tales but the most interesting piece of Elizabethan prose fiction is th lively sketch of English country-house life by George Gascoigne: The Adventures of Master F.J. (1573). Gascoigne depicts th emotions & day-by-day lives of a group of idle gentlefolk in a great house. The hero, a guest in th house, doesn’t reciprocate th affection of th host's daughter & instead he has an affair with th daughter in law. When she jilts him for another, he takes his leave. It has the air of being drawn from life. It was published anonymously. Later on Gascoigne published with his name but with apologetic epistle & the setting was changed to Italy.

John Lyly's (1554-1606) Euphues's slender narrative plot, apparently really happened when he was studying at Oxford. So Lyly set th story in Italy. Euphues, a young Athenian, goes to Naples & becomes friend with Philautus, who introduces him to his fiancé Lucilla. Euphues gets Lucilla's affection but when she discards him for a third suitor, Euphues & Phil become friends again & Euphues returns to Athens. It makes an appeal to the intelligence rather than the emotions. Verbal ingenuity, sententiousness, & weighty learning lightly handled were what most appealed to a society painfully conscious of its cultural limitations. In Euphues & His England, the 2 friends arrive at Dover. And in England all the ladies are chaste & th lover's love is also chaste: "Th moral seems to be ... that lovemaking is frowned upon at Queen Elizabeth's court." It has a little more coherence & a still more artful style. It was very popular in its own times, not only because of its stylistic charms but because it was about themselves. The scene is London and the characters the highest circle of society, & th time: th very year in which the work appeared. It was them, but as they would like to have themselves regarded. They would have behaved like th people in th pages if they had been cleverer & a great deal more righteous than they were. Many critics of the time considered that Lyly’s works taught th people to speak. (Baugh 417-20)

Robert Greene (1560-92) was a literary chameleon, imitating with a certain charm anything that his contemporaries had successfully created. He saw th popularity of Euphues & improved th formula by increasing th love interest & accelerating th narrative. So in 10 yrs after th publication of Euphues he came up with a score (20) of little novels apparently different but not so different essentially. Perhaps the last, & perhaps the best of his Euphuistic romances is Ciceronis Amor or Tully's Love (1589). In his early novels he applies Euphuism with a trowel (a took to apply mortar) & his perversion of classical story is surprising (he had an M.A from both univrsities), he at times stole pages from an earlier novel, but he was very successful. Cony-Catching Pamphlets is good reporting about underworld characters. Then he wrote some autobiographical pamphlets & then there are some in which he talks about playmakers & players like Greene's Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance (1592). Many writes imitated Greene, but none enjoyed his popularity.

The Defence of Poesy

Norton. The Defence is an argument intended to establish th nobility & th social & moral values of poetry against th Puritan attacks. It holds together aesthetic precepts from several traditions underlining the Elizabethan principles of ideal imitation & moral teaching decorum. From Aristotle, Sidney defines poetry as an imitation of nature, but the poet is a maker whose activity reflects that of Divine Creator. Th poet imitates not th fallen nature we see but an ideal one. Sidney also talks about th didactic role of poetry: he invokes Horace's formula that poetry teaches by delighting, & as a protestant he emphasizes even more its rhetorical power to move us to be virtuous. He also highlights the importance of suiting subject to genre & style--the idea of literary decorum.

From Sid & from numerous Elizabethan treatises on rhetoric we can infer some other aesthetic principles: the delight in abundance of words, poetic figures, ornament; th close relation of poetry & rhetoric; th concern with levels of style; & th continuing importance of allegory as a means to teach moral truths & th symbolic relationships that permeate God's universe. Among such symbolic relationships are those suggested by th macrocosm-microcosm analogy (everything in th universe may be found, replicated in little, in th human body) & those suggested by th image of th Great Chain of Being, according to which all orders of being, from speck of dust to highest angel, are ranged hierarchically in their divine ordered stations. (424-25) (Cuaderno 106)

READING. In order to better explains the high regard in which poetry was held in classical times, Sidney begins by explaining how th poets were called in Rome (Vate = profet (vaticinium) (505) & Greece (poet = th maker (506) & explaining the concept. How th poet through his own invention makes a better nature (506) & Sidney ends up the part entitled “Poet, Poetry” using Aristotle’s definition as an art of imitation or mimesis (508). In the next part, he talks about th “3 Kinds of Mimetic Poets”: 1st) Those that sing th excellencies of God (508) & some are mentioned, 2nd) those who deal with philosophical matters & don’t follow th course of their own invention. Sid isn’t too sure they are really poets (508), 3rd) the right poets who “most properly imitate to teach & delight” (509) & present things as “should be” & these are the ones who should be called poets as the first should be called vates (509).

“Poetry, Philosophy, History”. According to Sid History doesn’t teach virtue because evil is not always punished neither virtue rewarded (512) & th historian knows more about the past than the present (511). The philosopher shows the way (513) “as well as the tediousness of th way” (513). But th poet “not only show[s] th way, but giveth so sweet a prospect into th way, as will entice any man to enter into it” (513)

“Parts or Kinds of Poetry” (omit)

“Answers to Charges Against Poetry” 1) There was the charge that there are more fruitful knowledges, “a man might better spend his time in them” (518) 2) That Poetry is the mother of lies. 3)That it is the nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires; so that before poets softened us, we were full of courage (518)& 4) that Plato banished them from their commonwealth. Sidney’s Answers: 1) that no other learning can teach & move so much as poetry” (518). 2) “th poet is th least liar” (518) because th poet doesn’t affirm so he does not lie; he recounts things that are not true, but “he telleth them not for true” (519). (and th conclusion in the last paragraph of that section on “Answers”)

“Poetry in England” “Chaucer, undoubtedly, ... and all this in 2 hours’ space ... examples justified” (520-522)

The argument of th Defence arises from a division of th poets into 3 kinds. Th 1st (Norton 508-9) kind are not really poets at all but "may justly be termed vates", of th 2nd kind he remarks: "whether ... let grammarians dispute; only th 3rd kind are "indeed right poets". Th 1st kind is divinely inspired; 2nd can’t be inspired because he is "wrapped ... invention". Only th right poet is properly inspired. He considers Lucan a poet of 2nd class because "it is not rhyming & versing that makes a poet"

Plato denounces th 1st kind of poets, th divine poet, for telling false things about th gods. Sidney honors this kind of poet but doesn’t feel he needs to defend him. Plato attacks th 2nd kind--takes his material from philosophical or historical matters--because his poetry is twice removed from reality. Plato compares such poets to a painter whose work is a copy of a copy. Sidney compares them to "th meaner sort of painters" (Norton 508). Plato banishes them, but Sidney questions their right even to th name of poets.

Sidney talks, and Plato doesn’t, of a third kind of poet who is compared to th more excellent [painter] "who having no law but wit .... (508), who unlike the other two doesn’t take his things from nature but by creating another nature; & being a maker he may be compared to th heavenly Maker.

Sid's Poetics is based on th Protestant emphasis on th doctrine of th Fall, & particularly on th Augustinian Calvinist doctrine of th infected will. Since his will is infected, man must be moved to virtuous action & he may best be moved by the delight given by poetry. "Delight" becomes a key word. Poetry teaches by delighting th readers with images of perfection, & by this means achieves the "final end" of learning which is "lead & draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls ... can be capable of".

(Decir como se defiende contra los cargos: 1st) There are more fruitful knowledges. Wrong because no learning is so good as that which teaches & moveth to virtue. 2nd) Poets are liars. The poet is th least liar because he never affirmeth, never makes you believe for true what he writes & he calleth th sweet Muses to inspire into him a good invention. And therefore, though he recount things not true, yet because he telleth them not for true, he lieth not. Thirdly, that it is th nurse of abuse, infecting us with many pestilent desires ... (pero eso no la contesta aquí o al menos en Norton).

A.C. Hamilton. "Sidney's Poetics" in Sir Philip Sidney: A Study of His Life & Works. London, NY, Melbourne: Cambridge UP, 1977: 107-122. (Summarized in Lit Crit fr 1400 to 1800, vol 19: 415-420.

Sidney may have written the Defence between 1580 & 82. The Defence may have been occasioned by th attack on poetry in Gosson's School of Abuse (1579), or by th dedication of that work to Sidn, which provoked him not to answer directly to Gosson but Plato & all after him who had spoken against poetry. Th relationship between Sid's creative & critical faculties suggests that he came to understand th art of poesy by practicing it. To write th Defence, Sid hd to assimilate an extensive body of cotemporary learning & then integrate th major traditions of literary doctrine from Plato, Aristotle, & Horace to th 16c Italian critics into a profound & original argument on th idea of th ’right poet'. It is the best written treatise of its kind in any language thanks to th sustained brilliance of its style.

The Def is characterized by its style. Sid sounds convinced of what he says & he convinces his readers that they, too, should believe what he says.

Sidney's style is illustrated in th passage in which he answers th 2nd charge against poetry, that poets are liars. (Norton 518-9; todo ese párrafo). The opening conveys th accents of a man speaking & thinking as he speaks. "I will answer paradoxically, but truly, I think truly'. "I think" indicates hesitation, forcing us to follow Sid's process of thinking rather than his thoughts, so that by th end we will think as he does.

Katherine Duncan-Jones in th introduction to her edition of Sir Philip Sidney. (With respect to his ideas about th drama) The Defence was probably written, or at least begun, in 1580, when Shakespeare was 16, Marlowe 16, Nashe 13, Ben Jonson 7. If Sid had lived to be 60, he could have seen all of Shakespeare's plays. Dying at 32, he saw none.

O.B. Hardison, Jr. "The 2 Voices of Sid's Apology for Poetry in Arthur F. Kinney & al, ed. Sidn in Retrospect: 44-61.

Since Professor Kenneth O Myrick's study [Sir Philip Sidney as a literary Craftsman, 2nd ed, Lincoln, Neb, 1965] in 1935, nearly all readers & editor of Sir Pilip Sidney's Apology for Poetry have accepted th idea that it follows th organizational pattern of a legal oration recommended by classical & Renaissance manuals of rhetoric. (44)

Close reading of Sidney's Apology leads inevitably ... to th conclusion that it speaks in 2 distinct & discordant voices. Th first is th voice of humanist poetics. Its basic debts are to Plato, th neo-Platonists, & Horace. It results not only in a particular content in th Apology, but also to some degree in a particular form--the pattern of th forensic oration, using th poeta, poesis, poema schema attributted to Horace. Its tone is affirmative & inclusive. It welcomes classical & medieval poems, mixed forms, allegory & fable, & complex, sometimes obscure diction. Its key ideas are inspiration, th superiority of imagination to reason & nature, & th power of poetry, thru its emotional appeal, to cause praxis rather than gnosis.

Th second voice is that of incipient neo-classicism. Its tone is prescriptive, sometimes satiric or openly scornful. It is exclusive rather than inclusive ... It is suspicious of allegory & complex diction, & it ridicules mixed forms. ...

1 cannot ... reconcile th section on th English poets with th main body of th Apology. The contradictions of attitude & precept are too fundamental. (59)

“... between 1580 & 86 ...Sidney went to considerable trouble to recast th original Arcadia. [striking Difference]. Th first one is a pastoral romance, informal in structure, & mingling prose & verse . ... th second is an effort to make th work into a heroic poem in prose, ... it is ... more formal, more elevated in diction, more didactic in sentiment, & more exemplary ...If completed, th work would have had a 5-book structure modeled on th 5 acts of a drama. ... during th 80's there was a chg in Sid's critical outlook which made him dissatisfied with the first Arcadia. This dissatisfaction led him in the direction of increased formalism.

It seems probable that th neo-classical material in the section of th Apology on English poets is related to this change. ... Shortly after 1580, Sid wrote an answer to Gosson in th form of a "defense" ... for poetry. Its form was that of a forensic oration, & it consisted of introduction, 3 major proofs, refutation, & peroration. ... th argument rested on th traditional commonplaces of humanist poetics. Some time later, Sid became interested in neo-classic poetics. Th newer interest resulted in a critique of contemporary English poetry on grounds foreign to his earlier work. ... this critique was interpolated between the refutation & th peroration of th original defense. [He died before a thorough revision]

POETRY IN THE RENAISSANCE

Literary modes (Sidney calls them “kinds”)--pertaining to subject matter, attitude, (& tone, values, & some set topics) etc.: pastoral, heroic, lyric, satiric, elegiac, tragic, & comic. Genres--pertaining to subject matter & attitude, but also formal structure: epic, tragedy, sonnet, verse epistle, epigram, hymn, masque, funeral elegy ...etc. Though Aristotle considered tragedy the noblest form, Elizabethans placed epic instead & considered pastoral poems at th base. Accordingly ambitious poets like Spenser & Milton started with pastoral & eventually rose to epic. Poems in th satirical mode were also placed among th low kinds.