PART TWO

ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

 

[内容提要] 文艺复兴系英国文学的第一个高潮。伊丽莎白女王的英明统治、《圣经》的英译以及古希腊罗马文学的引进，促进了人文主义思想的萌生以及文学艺术的发展。文艺复兴的最高成就是戏剧，涌现出莎士比亚、马洛、琼生等世界闻名的大作家；其次是诗歌，涌现出锡德尼、斯宾塞等大诗人，此外，上述三位剧作家也都是杰出的诗人。散文虽然无法与戏剧、诗歌媲美，但也异彩纷呈，诞生了培根等杰出的散文家。

[学习要点] 文艺复兴；人文主义；钦定本《圣经》对文学的影响；戏剧发展历程；马洛的文学成就；莎士比亚作品分类；莎士比亚四大悲剧、四大喜剧、历史剧、青春偶像剧及其代表作；哈姆雷特的忧患意识；奥塞罗的悲剧根源；伊阿古的双重性；鲍西娅的女性形象分析；夏洛克的双重性； 亨利五世性格分析；《罗密欧与朱丽叶》与《梁山伯与祝英台》之对比研究；莎士比亚十四行诗的特点；莎士比亚的文学成就。

Historical introduction

The century and a half following the death of Chaucer was full of great changes. England was involved in the Hundred Years’ War with France from 1337 to 1453. When the war ended, England was blown into the War of Roses from 1455 to 1485 between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The two noble families struggled for the crown for about 30 years. They suffered great losses in the self-destruction. Henry VII, taking advantage of the situation, founded the Tudor dynasty, which met the needs of the rising bourgeoisie.

In religion, the far-reaching movement of Reformation began in England during Henry VIII’s reign. He declared the break with the Roman Catholic Church and confiscated the property of the Church. Protestantism began to gain ground among the English people. Protestants were persecuted during the reign of Queen Mary.  And the bloody persecution came to a stop due to the church settlement of Queen Elizabeth.

In 1611, King James Bible appeared in England. It was the work of many learned scholars headed by Bishop Lancelot Andrews, an eloquent orator with an exquisite ear for the cadences of language. King James Bible became the monument of English language and literature.

England witnessed a series of great social changes and political events in this period: the enclosure movement, the commercial expansion and the war with Spain. England became a great power in the world.

Renaissance And Humanism

Renaissance sprang in Italy and spread to France, Germany, the Low Countries, and lastly to England. Two features are striking of this movement. One is the thirst for classical literature, the other is the rise of Humanism.

In Renaissance period, ancient Greek and Latin works were studied and rediscovered. Humanism became the keynote of the Renaissance. People ceased to look upon themselves as living only for God and a future world. They began to admire human beauty and human achievement. Man is no longer the slave of the external world. He can mould the world according to his desires, and attain happiness by removing all external checks.

Representative Writers

English Renaissance can be divided into 3 periods. The first period started in 1516 and ended in 1578. Thomas More wrote his great work Utopia in this period. The second period (1578-1625), known as Elizabethan period, is the most important period in English literary history. The period witnessed the flowering of English literature, esp. drama and poetry. England became “ a nest of singing birds”. Marlowe, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Spenser wrote their best works in this period. The third period, from 1625 to 1660, is the epilogue of English Renaissance.

The best English poets in this period are Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney. The best English essayists are Francis Bacon and Thomas More. The best dramatists are Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

Drama: Its Origin and Development

There is no doubt that the highest glory of the English Renaissance was its drama. Early English drama can be dated back to the miracle plays in the Middle Ages. The miracle plays were simple plays based upon the Bible or the lives of saints. They were played in churches at first. Then with the increasing numbers of actors and plays, the players went to the market places.

A little later, morality plays came into being. Morality plays focused on the conflict between good and evil through allegorical characters. They were too abstract. So Vice, a lively figure approximated the modern clown, was introduced.

Then there arose another kind of drama known as interlude. It is a short performance during the intervals to enliven the audience after a solemn scene.

Meanwhile, through the revival of classical literature, English playwrights came into contact with ancient Greek and Roman drama. They learned the rules in structure and style, the definitions of tragedy and comedy, and the orderly division into five acts. Classical-style comedy and tragedy was in the making in England.

 

CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)

I. Marlowe’s Works

Marlowe’s best plays include Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta and The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus.

In his first play, Marlowe chose the career of Tamburlaine, the Mongol conqueror,  as the subject matter. Tamburlaine is a shepherd who finally becomes a Khan. He conquers other countries in the East and becomes master of Asia. He is furious and cruel. He compels the conquered kings to drag his chariot about. He tortures Bajazeth, Emperor of the Turks, who is first carried about like a wild beast in a cage and then made Tamburlaine’s footstool. At a banquet, he orders Zabiha, the queen of the Turks, to feed Bajazeth with scraps from his table. Tamburlaine proclaims himself arch-monarch of the world . Through the whole play, his character as a conqueror with an insatiable greed for power keeps unchanged. On his deathbed, he calls for a map wherein he traces his past conquests and contemplates enterprises still unfinished.

The hero of The Jew of Malta is Barabas, a rich merchant and a terrible money lender. For paying the tribute demanded by Emperor of the Turks, the Governor of Malta orders the impounding of half of Barabas' wealth. He is very angry for this. Then be gains to revenge. He brings about the death of his own daughter and her lover. He succeeds in destroying the Governor of Malta and usurping the position. Then he betrays the town to a Turkish commander. In order to regain the town he wants to kill the commander in a large cauldron of boiling fat. But he fails at last. He dies in the cauldron himself.

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is Marlowe’s masterpiece. It is symbolic of humanist in the age of Renaissance.It is based upon a German legend. The hero, Doctor Faustus, is a young and brilliant scholar. The chief feature in his character is an insatiable thirst for knowledge. He is tired of studying philosophy, medicine, law and divinity,, and turns to the study of magic in order to understand and possess the kingdoms of the earth. Thus, by incantations at night he has raised Mephistophilis, the Devil’s servant. He is told that if he sells his soul to the Devil, he can live twenty-four years "in all voluptuousness", with Mephistophilis at his command. Then Faustus agrees to do that and signs the bond with his own blood.

After the contract with the Devil, Faustus makes a tour in .the universe on a dragon's back. Then he gives a display of his magic art and plays tricks upon the Pope at a banquet. He conjures the spirit of Alexander the Great in a king's court. Finally he marries the most beautiful lady in the world, Helena of Greece.

The last scene deals with Faustus' death.     

II. Marlowe's Literary Achievement

1.       Marlowe is the greatest of the pioneers of English drama. He reformed the English drama and perfected the language and verse of dramatic works, it is Marlowe who first made blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) the principal instrument of English drama. His blank verse is lively, vigorous, fluid and precise. It translates thoughts and emotions into rhythmical speech with happy exactness, thus interpreting the restlessly moving and questing spirit of the Renaissance. His blank verse has been described as titanic and compared to “as swollen river sweeping down on its dried-up channel filling its broad banks and moving on majestically."

2.       Marlowe's dramatic achievement lies chiefly in his epical, and at times lyrical, verse. He rarely supplies a model in dramatic art. In his plays there is a lack of variety in characters and construction. But he was famous for his ' mighty line". It is mighty and plastic.

3.       His work paved the way for the plays of the greatest English dramatist---Shakespeare---whose achievements were the monument of the English Renaissance.

 

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)

I. Shakespeare’s four great tragedies

1.1 Hamlet

The story of the play comes from an old Danish legend. It is most likely that Shakespeare has borrowed some materials from Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy. The whole play shows how Hamlet, hero of the play, who represents good and justice, fights against his uncle in whom all the evils of the time can be seen. Hamlet’s father, the old king has been poisoned to death by his own brother. The new king, Hamlet’s uncle, has married the queen, Hamlet’s mother. Hamlet wants to revenge for his father. He is not a weak-minded young man. He loves his people and is loved by them. He shows his bravery in running after the ghost of his father, in killing the king’s minister, Polonius, in fighting with the pirates on the sea, and with Laertes. He has seen through the wicked and unjust world in which he lives. He observes “Denmark is a prison”. He is determined to do away the evils of the society. Finally he kills all the enemies and avenges his father. He dies a heroic death.

1.2 Othello

The story of Othello took place in Venice and Cyprus. The hero Othello is a splendid general. In Venice he falls in love with a senator’s daughter called Desdemona. In spite of the senator’s objection they get married. Then Othello and his beautiful young wife go to Cyprus. In the army there is a villain called Iago, who envies Othello’s fame and happiness. He wants to wreck Othello’s happy life. Then he works out an evil plan. One day he tells Othello that his wife has betrayed him and fallen in love with another man whose name is Cassio. In order to prove what he said is true, he steals a handkerchief from the lady’s chamber and secretly puts it into Cassio’s hands. Thus Othello’s suspicion is aroused. He becomes so suspicious that one night he strangles his wife. When the truth comes to light, Othello becomes very remorseful. He kills himself at last. Iago is punished and Cassio is made the governor of Cyprus.

1.3 King Lear

The story of King Lear was taken from Holinshed’s chronicles. King Lear, one of British kings, wants to divide his kingdom into 3 parts and bestows each daughter a part. With this intention in mind, he calls the 3 daughters before him in order to know which daughter loves him best.

His eldest daughter tells him that her love for his father is quite beyond words. She says that his is dearer to her than the light of her eyes. The old king feels happy to hear these sweet words. Then he turns to his second daughter. The second daughter says that she has found all the other joys dead in the love of her dear king and father. The king is very glad to hear these words too.

Now he asks his favorite daughter, the youngest one to come before him, thinking that she would make him happier with more sweet words. But his youngest daughter does not flatter him. She just says that he is her father and he has brought her up and loved her, so she will love him in return for that.

The old king is so angry with his youngest daughter that he decides to give her nothing. Then the kingdom is divided into two parts, and each of his elder daughters gets one part.

Later on the youngest daughter is married to the king of France, and goes away. The aged king lives in his two elder daughter’s houses in turn. They maltreat him and make him suffer a lot in their hands. Finally the old king is driven out of their houses and lives in the fields.

When the youngest daughter hears the sad news, she leads an army and wages a war against her two sisters. Unfortunately, she is killed by her two sisters. King Lear feels sorrowful when he has lost his dearest daughter. He dies in grief and sorrow.

1.4 Macbeth

The story of Macbeth is also taken from Holinshed’s Chronicles. Macbeth is a famous general of Scotland. One day he comes back triumphantly from a battle. He meets three witches on his way back. The three witches tell him that he will become the king of Scotland. What the witches said sirs his ambition. His wife, Lady Macbeth, helps him to take the further steps. Macbeth murders the old king Duncan and declares himself the king of Scotland. To maintain his power, Macbeth commits one atrocity after another. His reign is a chain of heinous crimes. The Scottish people rise up against him. Macbeth is killed in battle at last. Then Malcolm, the old king’s son, becomes the king of Scotland.

II. Shakespeare’s comedies and youth plays

2.1 Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best known youth plays ands it fully deserves its fame. Romeo and Juliet belong to two families engaged in family feud of long standing, but the two fall in love and are secretly married. When Romeo is banished for killing one of Juliet’s kinsmen Tybalt and the girl’s parents insist on marrying her to another, the friar who has married the two lovers tries to help them, but his plan fails owing to several unhappy accidents, and the young lovers die one after another. In this tragedy Shakespeare attacks the feudal world of family feud by placing in it two young lovers with humanist ideals of love and then working out their inevitable tragedy in the hostile environment. Though the incidents in the drama seem to suggest that the tragedy is due more to accidents than to the social contradictions because if some of the friar’s plans hadn’t gone awry the lovers could still have a chance to gain their eventual happiness, yet to think that way would be to overlook the irreconcilable conflicts between the terrible feudal bondage of family feud and the young lovers’ daring yet inexperienced attempts to shatter that bondage, for such a contradiction must necessarily lead to tragedy earlier or later, in one way or another. And the play was rendered with such power and beauty via the enormously successful character-portraits of the hero and the heroine, so successful that the name of Romeo has since been identified with the acme of a dashing young lover and Juliet has become a synonym for an ill-starred heroine of great beauty, strong will and true passion. Their youthful love is told in brilliant dialogue and elegant verse, highlighted in the famous balcony scene (Act II, Scene 2) and the poignant parting scene (Act III, Scene 5), which have ever been remembered as two of the truly great love in all literature. The text of Romeo and Juliet in the Oxford copy of the First Folio was almost thumbed to pieces by the eager students of the 17^th century.

2.2 The Merchant of Venice

The story of The Merchant of Venice is of Italian origin. There are four main characters in it. They are Shylock, a Jewish usurper; Antonio, a Christian merchant; Bassanio, a young man who is the dear friend of Antonio’s; Portia, a beautiful girl who is the heroine and Shakespeare’s ideal woman character.

The story tells us that Shylock, the Jewish usurper, has amassed an immense fortune by lending money at great interest to Christian merchants. Therefore he is much disliked by all Christians, and particularly by Antonio, a young merchant of Venice. Bassanio, the dear friend of Antonio, wants to court Portia. He needs money. So he goes to ask his friend Antonio for help.

Antonio has no money to lend him. He takes him to see Shylock, hoping the money lender could lend them some money. Shylock, who usually hates Antonio very much, now pretends to be kind to them and promises to lead him three thousand ducats. But Shylock  asks. Antonio to sign a bond, which says that if Antonio fail to repay the money by a certain day, a pound of flesh will be cut off from any part of his body. In order to help his friend, Antonio accepts such a condition. With the money Bassanio goes to court Portia, who accepts him to be her husband. When the day to pay the debt comes, Antonio can't pay the money, for his ships in which he has invested all his money do not return on time. So he stands in danger. The Jew demands the pound of flesh, and the case is brought before the court. At the critical moment a young doctor of law arrives at Venice. The case is tried before him, and the Jew is justified of his bond. The learned young doctor appeals to the Jew for mercy in a moving speech, but in vain. Then the doctor warns the Jew, under pain of death, that he must fulfill the very letter of his bond, taking no more and no less than one pound of flesh, and Spilling no drop of blood. Seeing himself thus cornered, the Jew has no choice but to obey the verdict of the court; The learned doctor is no other than Portia in disguise. The play ends in a lovely moonlight scene, in which Portia reveals her identity, to the pleasant surprise of her husband Bassanio.

III. Shakespeare’s Sonnets

Shakespeare has written 154 sonnets. More than one hundred sonnets are addressed to a handsome young man, maybe his patron. The other 20 sonnets are addressed to a dark lady, whose identity is still a mystery. His sonnets are all of Shakespearean style, namely, poems of fourteen lines with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg. There is a clear demarcation between the octave (the eighth line) and the sestet (the ninth line) and the last two lines form a powerful ending of the whole poem.

IV. Comments On Shakespeare And His Works

1.       Shakespeare is one of the founders of realism in world literature. Through Hamlet's famous speech to the players inHamlet, Shakespeare makes comment on dramatic performance. Its purpose, he maintains. is “to hold. as it were, the mirror up to nature;  to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure”. Living in the historical period of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Shakespeare faithfully and vividly reflects, through a host of typical characters in his plays---the major social contradictions of his time.

2.       Shakespeare has written 37 plays, 2 long poems and 154 sonnets. Though his stories often have foreign setting and his characters are often clothed in old, foreign dresses, their thoughts and feelings belong to Shakespeare's own time and so his drama becomes a monument of the English Renaissance.

3.       Shakespeare was skilled in many poetic forms: the Song. the sonnet, the couplet, and the blank verse. He was especially at home with the blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameters).

4.       Shakespeare was a great master of the English language. He commanded a vocabulary larger than any other English writer. He used about 16,000 words. Many of his new coinages and turns of expression have become everyday usage in English life. Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the English Bible are the two great treasuries of the English language.

5.       The popularity of Shakespeare is a worldwide phenomenon. His name has been known to China for more than a hundred years, and many of his plays have been widely read among Chinese people. There are several Chinese versions of his Complete Works, the best translators of which include Zhu Shenghao & Bian Zhilin in mainland and Liang Shiqiu in Taiwan, and his great comedies, histories and tragedies have appeared separately in very good translation by Chinese poets and writers.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.       Define “renaissance” and “humanism”.

2.       Give a brief comment on Marlowe.

3.       Offer a classification of Shakespeare’s literary works.

4.       Why Hamlet is regarded as Shakespeare’s monumental work?

5.       Give a brief comment on Shakespeare.

6.       Make a comparison of The Legend of Butterfl (Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai) with Romeo and Juliet.