1.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
2.
Syllable
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A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the water is composed of two syllables, wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a nucleus with optional initial and final margins. Syllables are often considered the building blocks of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, syllabic writing began several hundred years before the first letters. The earliest recorded syllables are on tablets written around 2800 BC in the Sumerian city of Ur and this shift from pictograms to syllables has been called the most important advance in the history of writing. A word that consists of a syllable is called a monosyllable. Syllable is an Anglo-Norman variation of Old French sillabe, from Latin syllaba, συλλαβή means what is taken together, referring to letters that are taken together to make a single sound. συλλαβή is a noun from the verb συλλαμβάνω syllambánō, a compound of the preposition σύν sýn with. The noun uses the root λαβ-, which appears in the aorist tense, the present tense stem λαμβάν- is formed by adding a nasal infix ⟨μ⟩ ⟨m⟩ before the β b and a suffix -αν -an at the end. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the period ⟨. ⟩ marks syllable breaks, in practice, however, IPA transcription is typically divided into words by spaces, and often these spaces are also understood to be syllable breaks. When a word comes in the middle of a syllable. The liaison tie is used to join lexical words into phonological words. In the typical theory of structure, the general structure of a syllable consists of three segments. e. Nucleus and coda are grouped together as a rime and onset are only distinguished at the second level, the nucleus is usually the vowel in the middle of a syllable. The onset is the sound or sounds occurring before the nucleus, and they are sometimes collectively known as the shell. The term rime covers the nucleus plus coda, in the one-syllable English word cat, the nucleus is a, the onset c, the coda t, and the rime at. This syllable can be abstracted as a consonant-vowel-consonant syllable, abbreviated CVC, languages vary greatly in the restrictions on the sounds making up the onset, nucleus and coda of a syllable, according to what is termed a languages phonotactics
3.
Caesura
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A caesura, also written cæsura and cesura, is a break in a verse where one phrase ends and the following phrase begins. In time value this break may vary between the slightest perception of all the way up to a full pause. A caesura in music represents a break or pause. The length of a caesura where notated is at the discretion of the conductor, in choral works a brief caesura may be notated where singers are to catch their breath. In classical Greek and Latin poetry a caesura is the juncture where one word ends, in contrast, a word juncture at the end of a foot is called a diaeresis. Some caesurae are expected and represent a point of articulation between two phrases or clauses, all other caesurae are only potentially places of articulation. The opposite of a caesura is a bridge where word juncture is not permitted. In modern European poetry, a caesura is defined as a natural phrase end, a masculine caesura follows a stressed syllable while a feminine caesura follows an unstressed syllable. Initial and terminal caesurae are rare in formal, Romance, and Neoclassical verse, in music, a caesura denotes a brief, silent pause, during which metrical time is not counted. Similar to a silent fermata, caesurae are located between notes or measures, rather than on notes or rests, a fermata may be placed over a caesura to indicate a longer pause. In verse scansion, the modern caesura mark is a vertical bar ⟨||⟩ or ⟨‖⟩. The same mark separately developed as the virgule, the single used to mark line breaks in poetry. In musical notation, a caesura is marked by a double oblique lines, the symbol is popularly called tram-lines in the UK and railroad tracks in the US. It can also be marked by a quarter rest with a fermata over it, in choral works, a smaller apostrophe-like mark is used to denote caesurae. Unlike later writers, Homeric lines more commonly employ feminine caesurae, caesurae were widely used in Latin poetry, for example, in the opening line of Virgils Aeneid, Arma virumque cano || Troiae qui primus ab oris This line uses caesura in the medial position. The ancient elegiac couplet form of the Greeks and Romans contained a line of dactylic hexameter followed by a line of pentameter, the pentameter often displayed a clearer caesura, as in this example from Propertius, Cynthia prima fuit, || Cynthia finis erit. The caesura was even more important to Old English verse than it was to Latin or Greek poetry, in Latin or Greek poetry, the caesura could be suppressed for effect in any line. In the alliterative verse that is shared by most of the oldest Germanic languages, the opening line of Beowulf reads, Hwæt
4.
Victor Hugo
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Victor Marie Hugo was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. He is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers, outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables,1862, and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame,1831. In France, Hugo is known primarily for his collections, such as Les Contemplations. He produced more than 4,000 drawings and also campaigned for causes such as the abolition of capital punishment. He is buried in the Panthéon in Paris and his legacy has been honoured in many ways, including his portrait being placed on French currency. Victor Hugo was the son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo and Sophie Trébuchet, his brothers were Abel Joseph Hugo. He was born in 1802 in Besançon in the region of Franche-Comté. Hugos childhood was a period of political turmoil. Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French two years after Hugos birth, and the Bourbon Monarchy was restored before his 13th birthday, since Hugos father was an officer, the family moved frequently and Hugo learned much from these travels. On a childhood trip to Naples, Hugo saw the vast Alpine passes and the snowy peaks, the magnificently blue Mediterranean. Though he was five years old at the time, he remembered the six-month-long trip vividly. They stayed in Naples for a few months and then headed back to Paris, at the beginning of her marriage, Hugos mother Sophie followed her husband to posts in Italy and Spain. Thereafter she dominated Hugos education and upbringing, as a result, Hugos early work in poetry and fiction reflect her passionate devotion to both King and Faith. It was only later, during the leading up to Frances 1848 Revolution. Young Victor fell in love and, against his mothers wishes, because of his close relationship with his mother, Hugo waited until after her death to marry Adèle in 1822. Adèle and Victor Hugo had their first child, Léopold, in 1823, on 28 August 1824, the couples second child, Léopoldine was born, followed by Charles on 4 November 1826, François-Victor on 28 October 1828, and Adèle on 24 August 1830. Hugos eldest and favourite daughter, Léopoldine, died aged 19 in 1843, on 4 September, she drowned in the Seine at Villequier, pulled down by her heavy skirts when a boat overturned. Her young husband also died trying to save her, the death left her father devastated, Hugo was travelling with his mistress at the time in the south of France, and first learned about Léopoldines death from a newspaper he read in a café
5.
Epic poetry
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An epic poem, epic, epos, or epopee is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Milman Parry and Albert Lord have argued that the Homeric epics and these works form the basis of the epic genre in Western literature. Nearly all Western epic self-consciously presents itself as a continuation of the tradition begun by these poems, classical epic employs dactylic hexameter and recounts a journey, either physical or mental or both. Epics also tend to highlight cultural norms and to define or call into question cultural values, another type of epic poetry is epyllion, which is a brief narrative poem with a romantic or mythological theme. The term, which means little epic, came into use in the nineteenth century, the most famous example of classical epyllion is perhaps Catullus 64. The first epics were products of preliterate societies and oral history poetic traditions, in these traditions, poetry is transmitted to the audience and from performer to performer by purely oral means. Early twentieth-century study of living oral traditions in the Balkans by Milman Parry. What they demonstrated was that oral epics tend to be constructed in short episodes, each of equal status, interest and this facilitates memorization, as the poet is recalling each episode in turn and using the completed episodes to recreate the entire epic as he performs it. Parry and Lord also contend that the most likely source for written texts of the epics of Homer was dictation from an oral performance, poets in literate societies have sometimes copied the epic format. The earliest surviving European examples are the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes and Virgils Aeneid, other obvious examples are Nonnus Dionysiaca, Tulsidas Sri Ramacharit Manas. In his work Poetics, Aristotle defines an epic as one of the forms of poetry, contrasted with lyric poetry, an attempt to delineate ten main characteristics of an epic, Begins in medias res. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world or the universe, Begins with an invocation to a muse. Begins with a statement of the theme, contains long lists, called an epic catalogue. Shows divine intervention on human affairs, features heroes that embody the values of the civilization. Often features the tragic heros descent into the Underworld or hell, the hero generally participates in a cyclical journey or quest, faces adversaries that try to defeat him in his journey and returns home significantly transformed by his journey. The epic hero illustrates traits, performs deeds, and exemplifies certain morals that are valued by the society the epic originates from, many epic heroes are recurring characters in the legends of their native culture. Conventions of epics, Preposition, Opens by stating the theme or cause of the epic and this may take the form of a purpose, of a question, or of a situation. Invocation, Writer invokes a Muse, one of the nine daughters of Zeus, the poet prays to the Muses to provide him with divine inspiration to tell the story of a great hero
6.
Tragedy
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Tragedy is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. In the wake of Aristotles Poetics, tragedy has been used to make genre distinctions, in the modern era, tragedy has also been defined against drama, melodrama, the tragicomic, and epic theatre. Drama, in the sense, cuts across the traditional division between comedy and tragedy in an anti- or a-generic deterritorialisation from the mid-19th century onwards. Both Bertolt Brecht and Augusto Boal define their epic theatre projects against models of tragedy, taxidou, however, reads epic theatre as an incorporation of tragic functions and its treatments of mourning and speculation. The word tragedy appears to have used to describe different phenomena at different times. It derives from Classical Greek τραγῳδία, contracted from trag-aoidiā = goat song, scholars suspect this may be traced to a time when a goat was either the prize in a competition of choral dancing or was that around which a chorus danced prior to the animals ritual sacrifice. In another view on the etymology, Athenaeus of Naucratis says that the form of the word was trygodia from trygos and ode. There is some dissent to the origins of tragedy, mostly based on the differences between the shapes of their choruses and styles of dancing. A common descent from pre-Hellenic fertility and burial rites has been suggested, friedrich Nietzsche discussed the origins of Greek tragedy in his early book The Birth of Tragedy. Here, he suggests the name originates in the use of a chorus of goat-like satyrs in the original dithyrambs from which the genre developed. Scott Scullion writes, There is abundant evidence for tragoidia understood as song for the prize goat, and as prize was established the billy goat, the clearest is Eustathius 1769.45, They called those competing tragedians, clearly because of the song over the billy goat. Athenian tragedy—the oldest surviving form of tragedy—is a type of dance-drama that formed an important part of the culture of the city-state. Having emerged sometime during the 6th century BCE, it flowered during the 5th century BCE, no tragedies from the 6th century and only 32 of the more than a thousand that were performed in the 5th century have survived. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Athenian tragedies were performed in late March/early April at an annual state religious festival in honor of Dionysus. The presentations took the form of a contest between three playwrights, who presented their works on three successive days, each playwright offered a tetralogy consisting of three tragedies and a concluding comic piece called a satyr play. The four plays sometimes featured linked stories, only one complete trilogy of tragedies has survived, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. The Greek theatre was in the air, on the side of a hill. Performances were apparently open to all citizens, including women, the theatre of Dionysus at Athens probably held around 12,000 people
7.
Quatrain
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A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines. Michel de Nostredame used the form to deliver his famous prophecies in the 16th century. There are fifteen possible rhyme schemes, but the most traditional and common are, AAAA, ABAB, the Rubai form of rhymed quatrain was favored by Omar Khayyám, among others. This work was an inspiration for Edward FitzGeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. The rubai was a particularly widespread form, the form rubaiyat reflects the plural. The Midnight Songs poetry form is from Fourth Century China, consisting of regular five-character lines, the person matter involves the personal thoughts and feelings of a courtesan during the four seasons, into which the quatrains are individually assigned. Shairi is an AAAA rhyming form used mainly in The Knight in the Panthers Skin, the Shichigon-zekku form used on Classical Chinese poetry and Japanese poetry. This type of quatrain uses a seven characters length of line, both rhyme and rhythm are key elements, although the former is not restricted to falling at the end of the phrase. The thirty syllable, Celtic verse form Englyn from the Welsh language is another interesting variation of the quatrain, bell number Combination Enclosed rhyme Rhyme scheme http, //www. uni. edu/~gotera/CraftOfPoetry/quatrain. html
8.
Sonnet
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A sonnet is a poem in a specific form which originated in Italy, Giacomo da Lentini is credited with its invention. The term sonnet is derived from the Italian word sonetto, by the thirteenth century it signified a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme scheme and specific structure. Conventions associated with the sonnet have evolved over its history, writers of sonnets are sometimes called sonneteers, although the term can be used derisively. The sonnet was created by Giacomo da Lentini, head of the Sicilian School under Emperor Frederick II, guittone dArezzo rediscovered it and brought it to Tuscany where he adapted it to his language when he founded the Siculo-Tuscan School, or Guittonian school of poetry. Other Italian poets of the time, including Dante Alighieri and Guido Cavalcanti, wrote sonnets, other fine examples were written by Michelangelo. The structure of a typical Italian sonnet of the included two parts that together formed a compact form of argument. First, the octave, forms the proposition, which describes a problem, or question, followed by a sestet, typically, the ninth line initiates what is called the turn, or volta, which signals the move from proposition to resolution. Even in sonnets that dont strictly follow the structure, the ninth line still often marks a turn by signaling a change in the tone, mood. Later, the abba, abba pattern became the standard for Italian sonnets, for the sestet there were two different possibilities, cde, cde and cdc, cdc. In time, other variants on this scheme were introduced. Petrarch typically used an abba, abba pattern for the octave, in English, both the English or Shakespearean sonnet, and the Italian Petrarchan sonnet are traditionally written in iambic pentameter. Early twentieth-century American poet Edna St. Vincent Millay also wrote mostly Petrarchan sonnets, on His Blindness by Milton, gives a sense of the Petrarchan rhyme scheme, Most Sonnets in Dantes La Vita Nuova are Petrarchan. Chapter VII gives sonnet O voi che per la via, with two sestets and two quatrains, and Ch. VIII, Morte villana, with two sestets and two quatrains and it was written by Paolo Lanfranchi da Pistoia and is addressed to Peter III of Aragon. It employs the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d-c-d and this poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between the Angevins and Aragonese for Sicily. It congratulates Robert of Naples on his recent victory, there are also two poorly regarded sonnets by the Italian Dante de Maiano. By the late 17th century poets on increasingly relied on stanza forms incorporating rhymed couplets, and by the 18th century fixed-form poems – and, in particular, the resulting versification – less constrained by meter and rhyme patterns than Renaissance poetry – more closely mirrored prose. The Romantics were responsible for a return to many of the poems used during the 15th and 16th centuries. The sonnet however was used until the Parnassians brought it back into favor
9.
Symbolism (arts)
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Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts. In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaires Les Fleurs du mal, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s, in the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The name symbolist itself was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism. In ancient Greece, the symbolon was a shard of pottery which was inscribed, Symbolism was a reaction in favour of spirituality, the imagination, and dreams. Some writers, such as Joris-Karl Huysmans, began as naturalists before becoming symbolists, for Huysmans, the Symbolist poets have a more complex relationship with Parnassianism, a French literary style that immediately preceded it. The Symbolists continued to admire Théophile Gautiers motto of art for arts sake, many Symbolist poets, including Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine, published early works in Le Parnasse contemporain, the poetry anthologies that gave Parnassianism its name. One of Symbolisms most colourful promoters in Paris was art and literary critic Joséphin Péladan, a number of Symbolists were associated with the Salon. Symbolists believed that art should represent absolute truths that could only be described indirectly, thus, they wrote in a very metaphorical and suggestive manner, endowing particular images or objects with symbolic meaning. Jean Moréas published the Symbolist Manifesto in Le Figaro on 18 September 1886, the Symbolist Manifesto names Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Paul Verlaine as the three leading poets of the movement. In a nutshell, as Mallarmé writes in a letter to his friend Cazalis, to not the thing. Symbolist poems were attempts to evoke, rather than primarily to describe, – both poets seek to identify one sense experience with another. The earlier Romanticism of poetry used symbols, but these symbols were unique, the symbolists were more extreme, investing all things, even vowels and perfumes, with potential symbolic value. The physical universe, then, is a kind of language that invites a privileged spectator to decipher it, Symbolist symbols are not allegories, intended to represent, they are instead intended to evoke particular states of mind. The nominal subject of Mallarmés Le cygne is of a trapped in a frozen lake. Significantly, in French, cygne is a homophone of signe, un cygne d’autrefois se souvient que c’est lui Magnifique mais qui sans espoir se délivre. They were also portrayed as at odds with society, having tragic lives and these traits were not hindrances but consequences of their literary gifts. Schopenhauers aesthetics represented shared concerns with the symbolist programme, they tended to consider Art as a contemplative refuge from the world of strife and will
10.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
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Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, KG, was an English aristocrat and one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. He was a first cousin of both Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, the second and fifth wives of King Henry VIII. Like his father and grandfather, he was a brave and able soldier, serving in Henry VIIIs French wars as Lieutenant General of the King on Sea and Land. He was repeatedly imprisoned for rash behaviour, on one occasion for striking a courtier and he assumed the title Earl of Surrey in 1524 when his grandfather died and his father became Duke of Norfolk. In 1532 he accompanied his first cousin Anne Boleyn, the King, in 1536 Surrey also served with his father against the Pilgrimage of Grace rebellion protesting against the Dissolution of the Monasteries. He married Frances de Vere, the daughter of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and they had two sons and three daughters, Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, married Mary FitzAlan Margaret Audley Elizabeth Leyburne. Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton, who died unmarried, jane Howard, who married Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland. Margaret Howard, who married Henry Scrope, 9th Baron Scrope of Bolton, katherine Howard, who married Henry Berkeley, 7th Baron Berkeley. The Howards had little regard for the new men who had risen to power at court, such as Thomas Cromwell, Surrey was less circumspect than his father in concealing his disdain. The Howards had many enemies at court, Henry VIII, consumed by paranoia and increasing illness, became convinced that Surrey had planned to usurp the crown from his son Edward. The King had Surrey imprisoned and his father sentenced to death on 13 January 1547, Surrey was beheaded on 19 January 1547 on a charge of treasonably quartering the royal arms. His father survived impending execution only by it being set for the day after the king happened to die, surreys son Thomas became heir to the dukedom of Norfolk instead, inheriting it on the 3rd dukes death in 1554. He is buried in a spectacular painted alabaster tomb in the church of St Michael the Archangel, together, Wyatt and Surrey, due to their excellent translations of Petrarchs sonnets, are known as Fathers of the English Sonnet. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey was portrayed by actor David OHara in The Tudors, house of Treason, the Rise and Fall of a Tudor Dynasty. A Tudor Tragedy, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, the Ebbs and Flows of Fortune, Life of Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk. London, Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 23–28, Henry VIIIs Last Victim, The Life and Times. Selected Poems by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the Poems of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. —with a memoir by the editor Brigden, Susan
11.
Philip Sidney
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Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier, who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age. His works include Astrophel and Stella, The Defence of Poesy, born at Penshurst Place, Kent, he was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley. His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, and his younger brother, Robert was a statesman and patron of the arts, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1618. His younger sister, Mary, married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and was a writer, translator, Sidney dedicated his longest work, the Arcadia, to her. After her brothers death, Mary reworked the Arcadia, which known as The Countess of Pembrokes Arcadia. Philip was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford and he spent the next several years in mainland Europe, moving through Germany, Italy, Poland, the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria. On these travels, he met a number of prominent European intellectuals, returning to England in 1575, Sidney met Penelope Devereux, the future Lady Rich, though much younger, she would inspire his famous sonnet sequence of the 1580s, Astrophel and Stella. Her father, Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, is said to have planned to marry his daughter to Sidney, in England, Sidney occupied himself with politics and art. He defended his fathers administration of Ireland in a lengthy document, more seriously, he quarrelled with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, probably because of Sidneys opposition to the French marriage, which de Vere championed. In the aftermath of episode, Sidney challenged de Vere to a duel. He then wrote a letter to the Queen detailing the foolishness of the French marriage. Characteristically, Elizabeth bristled at his presumption, and Sidney prudently retired from court, during a 1577 diplomatic visit to Prague, Sidney secretly visited the exiled Jesuit priest Edmund Campion. Sidney had returned to court by the middle of 1581 and in 1584 was MP for Kent and that same year Penelope Devereux was married, apparently against her will, to Lord Rich. An early arrangement to marry Anne Cecil, daughter of Sir William Cecil, in 1583, he married Frances, teenage daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. In the same year, he made a visit to Oxford University with Giordano Bruno and his artistic contacts were more peaceful and more significant for his lasting fame. During his absence from court, he wrote Astrophel and Stella, somewhat earlier, he had met Edmund Spenser, who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. Both through his heritage and his personal experience, Sidney was a keenly militant Protestant. In the 1570s, he had persuaded John Casimir to consider proposals for a united Protestant effort against the Roman Catholic Church, in the early 1580s, he argued unsuccessfully for an assault on Spain itself
12.
Michael Drayton
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Michael Drayton was an English poet who came to prominence in the Elizabethan era. Drayton was born at Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England, almost nothing is known about his early life, beyond the fact that in 1580 he was in the service of Thomas Goodere of Collingham, Nottinghamshire. More recent work has cast doubt on those speculations, in 1590 he produced his first book, The Harmony of the Church, a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated to Lady Devereux. It is notable for a version of the Song of Solomon, however, with the exception of forty copies, seized by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the whole edition was destroyed by public order. Nevertheless, Drayton published a vast amount within the few years. In 1593 appeared Idea, The Shepherds Garland, a collection of nine pastorals, in which he celebrated his own love-sorrows under the poetic name of Rowland. The basic idea was expanded in a cycle of sonnets, published in 1594, under the title of Ideas Mirror. It appears that he failed to win his Idea, and lived and died a bachelor. It has been said Draytons sonnets possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple straightforward ring and foreshadowed the style of Fairfax, Waller. Drayton was the first to bring the term ode, for a poem, to popularity in England and was a master of the short. Also in 1593 there appeared the first of Draytons historical poems, The Legend of Piers Gaveston, and the year saw the publication of Matilda. In his Fig for Momus, Lodge reciprocated these friendly courtesies, in 1596 Drayton published his long and important poem Mortimeriados, a very serious production in ottava rima. He later enlarged and modified this poem, and republished it in 1603 under the title of The Barons Wars, in 1596 also appeared another historical poem, The Legend of Robert, Duke of Normandy, with which Piers Gaveston was reprinted. In 1597 appeared Englands Heroical Epistles, a series of historical studies and these last poems, written in the heroic couplet, contain some of the finest passages in Draytons writings. By 1597, the poet was resting on his laurels and it seems that he was much favoured at the court of Elizabeth, and he hoped that it would be the same with her successor. But when, in 1603, he addressed a poem of compliment to James I, on his accession, it was ridiculed and his bitterness found expression in a satire, The Owl, but he had no talent in this kind of composition. Not much more entertaining was his scriptural narrative of Moses in a Map of his Miracles, in 1605 Drayton reprinted his most important works, his historical poems and the Idea, in a single volume which ran through eight editions during his lifetime. Some of the odes are extremely spirited, in this volume he printed for the first time the famous Ballad of Agincourt
13.
Poly-Olbion
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The Poly-Olbion is a topographical poem describing England and Wales. Written by Michael Drayton and published in 1612, it was reprinted with a part in 1622. Drayton had been working on the project since at least 1598, the Poly-Olbion is divided into thirty songs, written in alexandrine couplets, consisting in total of almost 15,000 lines of verse. Drayton intended to compose a part to cover Scotland. Each song describes between one and three counties, describing their topography, traditions and histories, copies were illustrated with maps of each county, drawn by William Hole, whereon places were depicted anthropomorphically. The first book was accompanied by historical and philological summaries written by John Selden, because of its length and its authors conflicting goals the Poly-Olbion was almost never read as a whole, but is an important source for the period nevertheless. 1612 in poetry 1622 in poetry William H. Moore, Poly-Olbion Summary Oliver Elton, Michael Drayton, a Critical Study, with a Bibliography Poly-Olbion in The Complete Works of Michael Drayton, vol
14.
Robert Browning
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Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the foremost Victorian poets. His poems are known for their irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical settings, Brownings early career began promisingly, but was not a success. His reputation took more than a decade to recover, during which time he moved away from the Shelleyan forms of his early period, in 1846 Browning married the older poet Elizabeth Barrett, who at the time was considerably better known than himself. So started one of historys most famous literary marriages and they went to live in Italy, a country he called my university, and which features frequently in his work. By the time of her death in 1861, he had published the crucial collection Men and Women, the collection Dramatis Personae and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book followed, and made him a leading British poet. He continued to write prolifically, but his reputation rests largely on the poetry he wrote in this middle period. Unusually for a poet, societies for the study of his work were founded while he was still alive, such Browning Societies remained common in Britain and the United States until the early 20th century. Brownings admirers have tended to temper their praise with reservations about the length and difficulty of his most ambitious poems, particularly The Ring and the Book. Nevertheless, they have included such eminent writers as Henry James, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, G. K. Chesterton, Ezra Pound, Jorge Luis Borges, among living writers, Stephen Kings The Dark Tower series and A. S. Byatts Possession refer directly to Brownings work, today Brownings critically most esteemed poems include the monologues Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, Fra Lippo Lippi, Andrea Del Sarto, and My Last Duchess. Robert Browning was born in Walworth in the parish of Camberwell, Surrey and he was baptized on 14 June 1812, at Locks Fields Independent Chapel, York Street, Walworth, the only son of Sarah Anna and Robert Browning. His father was a clerk for the Bank of England. Brownings paternal grandfather was an owner in Saint Kitts, West Indies. Brownings father had sent to the West Indies to work on a sugar plantation. Brownings mother was the daughter of a German shipowner who had settled in Dundee in Scotland, the evidence, however, is inconclusive either way. Roberts father, a collector, amassed a library of around 6,000 books. As such, Robert was raised in a household of significant literary resources and his mother, to whom he was very close, was a devout nonconformist and a talented musician. His younger sister, Sarianna, also gifted, became her brothers companion in his later years and his father encouraged his childrens interest in literature and the arts
15.
The Faerie Queene
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The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. Books I to III were first published in 1590, and then republished in 1596 together with books IV to VI. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form, it is one of the longest poems in the English language and the origin of a verse form that came to be known as Spenserian stanza. The Faerie Queene found such favor with Elizabeth I that Spenser was granted a pension for life amounting to £50 a year and this royal patronage helped the poem to such a level of success that it became Spensers defining work. Book I is centered on the virtue of Holiness as embodied in the Redcrosse Knight and he and his lady Una travel together as he fights the dragon Errour, then separate as the wizard Archimago tricks the Redcrosse Knight in a dream to think that Una is unchaste. After he leaves, the Redcrosse Knight meets Duessa, who feigns distress in order to entrap him, Duessa leads the Redcrosse Knight to captivity by the giant Orgoglio. Meanwhile, Una overcomes peril, meets Arthur, and finally finds and rescues the Redcrosse Knight from his capture, from Duessa, Una and Arthur help the Redcrosse Knight recover in the House of Holiness, there the Redcrosse Knight sees a vision of his future. He then returns Una to her parents castle, rescues them from a dragon, Book II is centred on the virtue of Temperance as embodied in Sir Guyon, who is tempted by the fleeing Archimago into nearly attacking the Redcrosse Knight. Guyon discovers a woman killing herself out of grief for having her lover tempted and bewitched by the witch Acrasia, Guyon swears a vow to avenge them and protect their child. Guyon on his quest starts and stops fighting several evil, rash, finally, they come to Acrasias Island and the Bower of Bliss, where Guyon resists temptations to violence, idleness, and lust. Guyon captures Acrasia in a net, destroys the Bower, Book III is centred on the virtue of Chastity as embodied in Britomart, a lady knight. Resting after the events of Book II, Guyon and Arthur meet Britomart and they separate as Arthur and Guyon leave to rescue Florimell, while Britomart rescues the Redcrosse Knight. Britomart reveals to the Redcrosse Knight that she is pursuing Sir Artegal because she is destined to marry him, the Redcrosse Knight defends Artegal and they meet Merlin, who explains more carefully Britomarts destiny to found the English monarchy. Britomart leaves and fights Sir Marinell, Arthur looks for Florimell, joined later by Sir Satyrane and Britomart, and they witness and resist sexual temptation. Britomart separates from them and meets Sir Scudamore, looking for his captured lady Amoret, Britomart alone is able to rescue Amoret from the wizard Busirane and reunite the lovers. Book IV is centred on the virtue of Friendship as embodied in Sir Cambell, Book V is centred on the virtue of Justice as embodied in Sir Artegal. Book VI is centred on the virtue of Courtesy as embodied in Sir Calidore, Spenser names Aristotle as his source for these virtues, though the influences of Thomas Aquinas and the traditions of medieval allegory can be observed as well. The unfinished seventh book appears to have represented the virtue of constancy, the Faerie Queene was written during the Reformation, a time of religious and political controversy
16.
Edmund Spenser
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Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognized as one of the craftsmen of nascent Modern English verse. He was deeply affected by Irish faerie mythology, which he knew from his home at Kilcolman and his genocidal tracts against Gaelic culture were war propaganda. His house was burned to the ground during the war, causing him to flee Ireland, Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552, though there is some ambiguity as to the exact date of his birth. As a young boy, he was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors School, while at Cambridge he became a friend of Gabriel Harvey and later consulted him, despite their differing views on poetry. In 1578, he became for a time secretary to John Young. In 1579, he published The Shepheardes Calender and around the time married his first wife. They had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine, in July 1580, Spenser went to Ireland in service of the newly appointed Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. Spenser served under Lord Gray with Walter Raleigh at the Siege of Smerwick massacre, when Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed on in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and lands in the Munster Plantation. Raleigh acquired other nearby Munster estates confiscated in the Second Desmond Rebellion, some time between 1587 and 1589, Spenser acquired his main estate at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. He later bought a second holding to the south, at Rennie and its ruins are still visible today. A short distance away grew a tree, locally known as Spensers Oak until it was destroyed in a strike in the 1960s. Local legend has it that he penned some of The Faerie Queene under this tree. In 1590, Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work, The Faerie Queene, having travelled to London to publish and promote the work and he was successful enough to obtain a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. By 1594, Spensers first wife had died, and in that year he married Elizabeth Boyle, the marriage itself was celebrated in Epithalamion. They had a son named Peregrine, in 1596, Spenser wrote a prose pamphlet titled A View of the Present State of Ireland. This piece, in the form of a dialogue, circulated in manuscript and it is probable that it was kept out of print during the authors lifetime because of its inflammatory content. The pamphlet argued that Ireland would never be totally pacified by the English until its indigenous language and customs had been destroyed, in 1598, during the Nine Years War, Spenser was driven from his home by the native Irish forces of Aodh Ó Néill
17.
Blank verse
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Blank verse is poetry written with regular metrical but unrhymed lines, almost always in iambic pentameter. The first documented use of verse in the English language was by Henry Howard. He was possibly inspired by the Latin original, as classical Latin verse did not use rhyme, or he may have inspired by the Italian verse form of versi sciolti. The play Arden of Faversham is an example of end-stopped blank verse. The 1561 play Gorboduc by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville was the first English play to use blank verse, christopher Marlowe was the first English author to make full use of the potential of blank verse. Miltonic blank verse was imitated in the 18th century by such poets as James Thomson. Romantic English poets such as William Wordsworth, Percy Bysshe Shelley, among American poets, Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens are notable for using blank verse in extended compositions at a time when many other poets were turning to free verse. Marlowe and then Shakespeare developed its potential greatly in the late 16th century, Shakespeare developed this feature, and also the potential of blank verse for abrupt and irregular speech. For example, in exchange from King John, one blank verse line is broken between two characters, My lord. Shakespeare also used enjambment increasingly often in his verse, and in his last plays was given to using feminine endings, all of this made his later blank verse extremely rich and varied. This very free treatment of blank verse was imitated by Shakespeares contemporaries, however, Shakespearean blank verse was used with some success by John Webster and Thomas Middleton in their plays. Ben Jonson, meanwhile, used a blank verse with less enjambment in his great comedies Volpone. Blank verse was not much used in the poetry of the 17th century until Paradise Lost, in which Milton used it with much license. What though the field be lost, All is not lost, the unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, Milton also wrote Paradise Regained and parts of Samson Agonistes in blank verse. The best examples of verse from this time are probably John Drydens tragedy All for Love. An example notable as much for its failure with the public as for its subsequent influence on the form is John Dyers The Fleece. At the close of the 18th century, William Cowper ushered in a renewal of blank verse with his volume of kaleidoscopic meditations, The Task, published in 1784. After Shakespeare and Milton, Cowper was the influence on the next major poets in blank verse
18.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
19.
John Dryden
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John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made Englands first Poet Laureate in 1668. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in circles as the Age of Dryden. Walter Scott called him Glorious John, Dryden was born in the village rectory of Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire, where his maternal grandfather was rector of All Saints. He was a cousin once removed of Jonathan Swift. As a boy Dryden lived in the village of Titchmarsh. In 1644 he was sent to Westminster School as a Kings Scholar where his headmaster was Dr. Richard Busby, having recently been re-founded by Elizabeth I, Westminster during this period embraced a very different religious and political spirit encouraging royalism and high Anglicanism. Whatever Drydens response to this was, he respected the headmaster. As a humanist public school, Westminster maintained a curriculum which trained pupils in the art of rhetoric and this is a skill which would remain with Dryden and influence his later writing and thinking, as much of it displays these dialectical patterns. The Westminster curriculum included weekly translation assignments which developed Drydens capacity for assimilation and this was also to be exhibited in his later works. Busby had first prayed for the King and then locked in his schoolboys to prevent their attending the spectacle, in 1650 Dryden went up to Trinity College, Cambridge. Though there is specific information on Drydens undergraduate years, he would most certainly have followed the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric. In 1654 he obtained his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year, in June of the same year Drydens father died, leaving him some land which generated a little income, but not enough to live on. Returning to London during the Protectorate, Dryden obtained work with Cromwells Secretary of State and this appointment may have been the result of influence exercised on his behalf by his cousin the Lord Chamberlain, Sir Gilbert Pickering. At Cromwells funeral on 23 November 1658 Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John Milton, shortly thereafter he published his first important poem, Heroic Stanzas, a eulogy on Cromwells death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display. In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of the monarchy and the return of Charles II with Astraea Redux, in this work the interregnum is illustrated as a time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the restorer of peace and order. After the Restoration, as Dryden quickly established himself as the poet and literary critic of his day. Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the new regime with two more panegyrics, To His Sacred Majesty, A Panegyric on his Coronation and To My Lord Chancellor and these, and his other nondramatic poems, are occasional—that is, they celebrate public events. Thus they are written for the rather than the self
20.
Alexander Pope
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Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet. He is best known for his verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the second-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations after Shakespeare, Alexander Pope was born to Alexander Pope Senior, a linen merchant of Plough Court, Lombard Street, London, and his wife Edith, who were both Catholics. Ediths sister Christiana was the wife of the miniature painter Samuel Cooper. Pope was taught to read by his aunt, and went to Twyford School in about 1698/99 and he then went to two Catholic schools in London. Such schools, while illegal, were tolerated in some areas, in 1700, his family moved to a small estate at Popeswood in Binfield, Berkshire, close to the royal Windsor Forest. This was due to strong anti-Catholic sentiment and a statute preventing Catholics from living within 10 miles of either London or Westminster, Pope would later describe the countryside around the house in his poem Windsor Forest. He also studied languages and read works by English, French, Italian, Latin. After five years of study, Pope came into contact with figures from the London literary society such as William Wycherley, William Congreve, Samuel Garth, William Trumbull, at Binfield, he also began to make many important friends. One of them, John Caryll, was twenty years older than the poet and had many acquaintances in the London literary world. He introduced the young Pope to the ageing playwright William Wycherley and to William Walsh, a minor poet and he also met the Blount sisters, Teresa and Martha, both of whom would remain lifelong friends. From the age of 12, he suffered health problems, such as Potts disease. His tuberculosis infection caused other problems including respiratory difficulties, high fevers, inflamed eyes. He grew to a height of only 1.37 m. Pope was already removed from society because he was Catholic, although he never married, he had many female friends to whom he wrote witty letters. Allegedly, his lifelong friend Martha Blount was his lover, in May,1709, Popes Pastorals was published in the sixth part of Tonsons Poetical Miscellanies. This brought Pope instant fame, and was followed by An Essay on Criticism, published in May 1711, around 1711, Pope made friends with Tory writers John Gay, Jonathan Swift, Thomas Parnell and John Arbuthnot, who together formed the satirical Scriblerus Club. The aim of the club was to satirise ignorance and pedantry in the form of the fictional scholar Martinus Scriblerus and he also made friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. In March 1713, Windsor Forest was published to great acclaim, during Popes friendship with Joseph Addison, he contributed to Addisons play Cato, as well as writing for The Guardian and The Spectator
21.
Book of Good Love
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The work is considered as the best piece in the medieval genre known as mester de clerecía. The Book begins with prayers and a guide as to how to read the work, followed by stories each containing a moral, the Book of Good Love is a varied and extensive composition of 1728 stanzas, centering on the fictitious autobiography of Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita. All three manuscripts have various pages missing, which prevents a complete reading of the book, the work most commonly read today was suggested by Ramón Menéndez Pidal in 1898 based on sections from all three manuscripts. The book is famous for its variety of, Content Meter Tone The work is composed of the following, The introduction, the Book of Good Love explains how men must be careful about Love that can be Good or Foolish. The Good Love is Gods one and is preferred to the Foolish love which only gives men sins, Juan Ruiz gives the reader a lot of examples to explain his theory and avoid Foolish love in name of Good one. Cacho Blecua, Juan Manuel y María Jesús Lacarra Ducay, Historia de la literatura española, entre oralidad y escritura, la Edad Media, José Carlos Mainer, Crítica,2012, págs. ISBN 978-84-9892-367-4 Deyermond, Alan D. Historia de la literatura española,1, La Edad Media, Barcelona, Ariel, pp. 189–207. ISBN 84-344-8305-X Deyermond, Alan The Libro de Buen Amor in England, Manchester, Manchester Spanish & Portuguese Studies ISBN 0-9539968-6-7 Gybbon-Monypenny, G. B. «Introducción biográfica y crítica» to his edition of the Libro de buen amor, Madrid, Castalia, pp. 7–95
22.
Daniel Heinsius
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Daniel Heinsius was one of the most famous scholars of the Dutch Renaissance. The troubles of the Spanish war drove his parents to settle first at Veere in Zeeland, then to England, next at Rijwijk, in 1596, being already remarkable for his attainments, he was sent to the University of Franeker to study law under Henricus Schotanus. In 1598 he settled at Leiden for the sixty remaining years of his life. His proficiency in the classical languages won the praise of all the best scholars of Europe, and offers were made to him and he soon rose in dignity at the University of Leiden. In 1612 he was appointed as Professor Politices, the worlds first chair in political science and he brought out the Epistles of Joseph Scaliger in 1627. Especially influential was his treatise De tragica constitutione and it was a personal and easily accessible version of what Aristotle had written on tragedy in his Poetics. A revised edition appeared in 1643 with a different title. In 1609 he printed a first edition of his Latin orations, ever more voluminous new editions appeared until the final edition of 1642 which comprised 35 orations. The collection ended with the ironical Laus pediculi, which was translated in English by James Guitard in 1634, Heinsius first drew attention to himself as a Latin poet with his Senecan tragedy Auriacus, sive libertas saucia. In 1607/08 he wrote another tragedy, Herodes infanticida, which was published only in 1632 and he was, however, especially prolific in writing elegies, of which a large part was dedicated to his love for a girl called Rossa. A first collection appeared in 1603, ever larger and revised collections of his Poemata, also containing other genres, saw the light regularly. By 1628 he had contributed a Latin poem praising the renowned fencer Gerard Thibault to the front of his book Academie de Lespee, in 1601 he published, under the pseudonym of Theocritus à Ganda, Quaeris quid sit Amor. the first emblem book in Dutch. It was re-edited in 1606/07 with the title Emblemata amatoria, a second emblem book, Spiegel vande doorluchtige vrouwen, was published in 1606. Heinsius also experimented in Dutch poetry after classical models and his efforts were collected by his friend Petrus Scriverius and published as Nederduytsche poemata in 1616. They were greatly admired by Martin Opitz, who, in translating the poetry of Heinsius, in 1617 he married Ermgard Rutgers, sister of Janus Rutgersius one of Scaligers favorite pupils. They had two children, Nicolas, who was to become a famous Latin poet and book collector, at the Synod of Dort Heinsius was secretary on behalf of the States General. Afterwards he paid attention to theology and worked on the text of the Greek New Testament for Elzeviers edition. In these years he wrote a large didactic poem, De contemptu mortis
23.
Georg Rudolf Weckherlin
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Georg Rudolf Weckherlin was a German poet. He was among the poets before Martin Opitz who tried to introduce Renaissance forms, for a short time, he worked with John Milton in England. After studying law in Tübingen he settled at Stuttgart, and, as secretary to Duke Johann Friedrich of Württemberg, was employed on missions to France. Between 1620 and 1624 he lived in England in the service of the Electorate of the Palatinate and he was chief clerk to a succession of Secretaries of State and was especially skilled in foreign languages and cryptology. Although employed by the English crown, when war came in 1642, Weckherlin chose to remain in London. In 1644 he was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues in England and his son had a position in the household of Charles Is oldest son Prince Charles and went into exile with the royalists. He did not return to England until 1660 after the death of his father in 1653 in London, Weckherlin was the most distinguished of the circle of South German poets who prepared the way for the Renaissance movement associated in Germany with Martin Opitz. His models were the poets of the French Pleiade, and with his psalms, odes, an epic poem on the death of Gustavus Adolphus, in alexandrines, seems to have won most favor with his contemporaries. Two volumes of his Oden und Gesänge appeared in 1618 and 1619, Weckherlins Gedichte have been edited by Hermann Fischer for the Stuttgarter Literarischer Verein. Selections were published by W. Müller and Karl Goedeke and his chief English poems were “Triumphal Shows Set Forth Lately at Stuttgart” and “Panegyricke to Lord Hay, Viscount of Doncaster”. C. P. Conz, Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schriften Weckherlins E. Höpfner, G. R. 375–379 Gilman, thurston, H. T. Colby, F. M. eds
24.
Martin Opitz
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Martin Opitz von Boberfeld was a German poet, regarded as the greatest of that nation during his lifetime. Opitz was born in Bunzlau in Lower Silesia, in the Principality of Schweidnitz-Jauer, in 1619 Opitz went to Heidelberg, where he became the leader of the school of young poets which at that time made that university town remarkable. Visiting Leiden in the year he sat at the feet of the famous Dutch lyric poet Daniel Heinsius, whose Lobgesang Jesu Christi. At the invitation of Gabriel Bethlen, the lord of Transylvania, after this he led a wandering life in the service of various territorial nobles. He was elected a member of the Fruitbearing Society in 1629, and in 1630 he went to Paris and he settled in 1635 in the Hanseatic city of Danzig in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, where King Władysław IV Vasa of Poland made him his historiographer and secretary. There he died of the plague on 20 August 1639 in Danzig, Opitz was the head of the so-called First Silesian School of poets, and was during his life regarded as the greatest German poet. Opitzs own poems are in accordance with the rules which he laid down. They are mostly a formal and sober elaboration of carefully considered themes and these contain some vivid poetical descriptions, but are in the main treatises in poetical form. In 1624 Opitz published an edition of his poetry under the title Acht Bücher deutscher Poematum, his Dafne. Sibylle Margarethe was the daughter of Dorothea of Brandenburg and the wife of Gerhard Dönhoff, brother of Ernst Magnus Dönhoff and Kasper Dönhoff. Besides numerous translations, Opitz edited Das Annolied, a Middle High German poem of the end of the 11th century, Opitz also wrote a pastoral novel, Schäferei der Nymphe Hercinie
25.
Goliard
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The goliards were a group of generally young clergy in Europe who wrote satirical Latin poetry in the 12th and 13th centuries of the Middle Ages. Disaffected and not called to the life, they often presented such protests within a structured setting associated with carnival, such as the Feast of Fools. The derivation of the word is uncertain and it may come from the Latin gula, gluttony. Another source may be gailliard, a gay fellow, by the 14th century, the word goliard became synonymous with minstrel, and no longer referred to a particular group of clergy. The goliardic class is believed to have arisen from the need of younger sons to develop means of support, the medieval social convention of primogeniture meant that the eldest son inherited title and estate. This practice of bestowing the rights of inheritance upon the eldest son left younger sons to seek other means by which to support themselves, often, these younger sons went the universities or monasteries of the day, where theology and preparation for clergy careers were a major focus. Many felt no affinity for religious office, and many could not secure an office even if they desired one because of an overabundant supply of those educated in theology. Consequently, over-educated, under-motivated clerics often adopted not the life of an ordered monk, the goliards, as scholars, often wrote their poetry in Latin. As a kind of traveling entertainer, the goliards composed many of their poems to be sung and these poems, or lyrics, focus on two overarching themes, depictions of the lusty lifestyle of the vagrant and satirical criticisms of society and the church. Expressing their lusty lifestyle, the goliards wrote about the physicality of love and they wrote drinking songs, and reveled in riotous living. Their satirical poems directed at the church were inspired by their daily worlds, including mounting corruption in monasteries, as a result of their rebellious writings against the church, the goliards were eventually denied the privileges of the clergy. Their strained relationship with the church, along with their vagabond lifestyle, one of the largest and most famous collections of goliardic poetry is the Carmina Burana. The satires were meant to mock and lampoon the church, for example, at St. Remy, the goliards went to mass in procession, with each trailing a herring on a string along the ground. The game was to step on the herring in front and keep your own herring from being trod upon. In some districts, goliards staged a celebration of the ass, when he paused, the audience would respond, He Haw, Sire Ass, He haw. The University of Paris complained, Priests and clerks, dance in the choir dressed as women. They eat black pudding at the altar itself, while the celebrant is saying Mass and they play dice on the altar. They cense with stinking smoke from the soles of old shoes and they run and leap throughout the church, without a blush of their own shame
26.
Jan Kochanowski
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Jan Kochanowski was a Polish Renaissance poet who established poetic patterns that would become integral to the Polish literary language. He is commonly regarded as the greatest Polish poet before Adam Mickiewicz, Kochanowski was born at Sycyna, near Radom, Poland. He was the brother of Andrzej Kochanowski who would also become a poet. Little is known of his early education, at fourteen, fluent in Latin, he was sent to the Kraków Academy. After graduating in 1547 at age seventeen, he attended the University of Königsberg, in Ducal Prussia, at Padua, Kochanowski came in contact with the great humanist scholar Francesco Robortello. Kochanowski closed his fifteen-year period of studies and travels with a visit to France. In 1559 Kochanowski returned to Poland for good, where he remained active as a humanist and he spent the next fifteen years close to the court of King Sigismund II Augustus, serving for a time as royal secretary. In 1574, following the decampment of Polands recently elected King Henry of Valois, in 1575 he married Dorota Podlodowska, with whom he had seven children. Kochanowski is sometimes referred to in Polish as Jan z Czarnolasu and it was there that he wrote his most memorable works, including The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys and the Laments. Kochanowski died, probably of an attack, in Lublin on 22 August 1584. Kochanowski never ceased to write in Latin, however, his achievement was the creation of Polish-language verse forms that made him a classic for his contemporaries. His first major masterpiece was Odprawa posłów greckich and this was a blank-verse tragedy that recounted an incident leading up to the Trojan War. It was the first tragedy written in Polish, and its theme of the responsibilities of statesmanship continues to resonate to this day, the play was performed at the wedding of Jan Zamoyski and Krystyna Radziwiłł at Ujazdów Castle in Warsaw on 12 January 1578. It is a series of nineteen elegies upon the death of his beloved two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Urszula and it has been translated into English in 1920 by Dorothea Prall, and in 1995 by Stanisław Barańczak and Seamus Heaney. Other well-known poems by Kochanowski are Proporzec albo hołd pruski, the satiric poem Zgoda published in 1564, and his translation of the Psalms is highly regarded. He also wrote in Latin, examples being Lyricorum libellus, Elegiarum libri quatuor and he greatly enriched Polish poetry by naturalizing foreign poetic forms, which he knew how to imbue with a national spirit. His writings were published collectively for the first time at Cracow in 1584–90, but the so-called jubilee publication, many of his poems were translated into German by H. Nitschmann. Jan Kochanowski, Laments, translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Seamus Heaney, New York, Farrar, Straus, david J. Welsh, Jan Kochanowski, New York, Twayne Publishers,1974, ISBN 0-8057-2490-7
