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English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History by Henry Coppee

H >> Henry Coppee >> English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History




From the hermitage of Archimago,

The true St. George had wandered far away,
Still flying from his thoughts and jealous fear,
Will was his guide, and grief led him astray;
At last him chanced to meet upon the way
A faithless Saracen all armed to point,
In whose great shield was writ with letters gay
SANSFOY: full large of limb, and every joint
He was, and cared not for God or man a point.

Well might the poet speak of Mohammedanism as large of limb, for it had
stretched itself like a Colossus to India, and through Northern Africa
into Spain, where it threatened Christendom, beyond the Pyrenees. It was
then that the unity of the Church, the concurrence of Europe in one form
of Christianity, made available the enthusiasm which succeeded in stemming
the torrent of Islam, and setting bounds to its conquests.

It is not our purpose to pursue the adventures of the Church, but to
indicate the meaning of the allegory and the general interpretation; it
will give greater zest to the student to make the investigation for
himself, with the all-sufficient aids of modern criticism.

Assailed in turn by error in doctrine, superstition, hypocrisy,
enchantments, lawlessness, pride, and despair, the red-cross knight
overcomes them all, and is led at last by the Lady Una into the House of
Holiness, a happy and glorious house. There, anew equipped with the shield
of Faith, the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, he goes
forth to greater conquests; the dragon is slain, the Lady Una triumphant,
the Church delivered, and Holiness to the Lord established as the law of
his all-subduing kingdom on earth.


BRITOMARTIS.--In the third book the further adventures of the red-cross
knight are related, but a heroine divides our attention with him.
_Britomartis_, or Chastity, finds him attacked by six lawless knights, who
try to compel him to give up his lady and serve another. Here Britomartis
represents Elizabeth, and the historic fact is the conflict of English
Protestantism carried on upon land and sea, in the Netherlands, in France,
and against the Invincible Armada of Philip. The new mistress offered him
in the place of Una is the Papal Church, and the six knights are the
nations fighting for the claims of Rome.

The valiant deeds of Britomartis represent also the power of chastity, to
which Scott alludes when he says,

She charmed at once and tamed the heart,
Incomparable Britomarte.[28]

And here the poet pays his most acceptable tribute to the Virgin Queen.
She is in love with Sir Artegal--abstract justice. She has encountered him
in fierce battle, and he has conquered her. It was the fond boast of
Elizabeth that she lived for her people, and for their sake refused to
marry. The following portraiture will be at once recognized:

And round about her face her yellow hair
Having, thro' stirring, loosed its wonted band,
Like to a golden border did appear,
Framed in goldsmith's forge with cunning hand;
Yet goldsmith's cunning could not understand
To frame such subtle wire, so shiny clear,
For it did glisten like the glowing sand,
The which Pactolus with his waters sheer,
Throws forth upon the rivage, round about him near.

This encomium upon Elizabeth's hair recalls the description of another
courtier, that it was like the last rays of the declining sun. Ill-natured
persons called it red.


SIR ARTEGAL, OR JUSTICE.--As has been already said, Artegal, or Justice,
makes conquest of Britomartis or Elizabeth. It is no earthly love that
follows, but the declaration of the queen that in her continued maidenhood
justice to her people shall be her only spouse. Such, whatever the honest
historian may think, was the poet's conceit of what would best please his
royal mistress.

It has been already stated that by Gloriana, the Faerie Queene, the poet
intended the person of Elizabeth in her regnant grandeur: Britomartis
represents her chastity. Not content with these impersonations, Spenser
introduces a third: it is Belphoebe, the abstraction of virginity; a
character for which, however, he designs a dual interpretation. Belphoebe
is also another representation of the Church; in describing her he rises
to great splendor of language:

... her birth was of the morning dew,
And her conception of the glorious prime.

We recur, as we read, to the grandeur of the Psalmist's words, as he
speaks of the coming of her Lord: "In the day of thy power shall the
people offer thee free-will offerings with a holy worship; the dew of thy
birth is of the womb of the morning."


ELIZABETH.--In the fifth book a great number of the statistics of
contemporary history are found. A cruel sultan, urged on by an abandoned
sultana, is Philip with the Spanish Church. Mercilla, a queen pursued by
the sultan and his wife, is another name for Elizabeth, for he tells us
she was

... a maiden queen of high renown;
For her great bounty knowen over all.

Artegal, assuming the armor of a pagan knight, represents justice in the
person of Solyman the Magnificent, making war against Philip of Spain. In
the ninth canto of the sixth book, the court of Elizabeth is portrayed; in
the tenth and eleventh, the war in Flanders--so brilliantly described in
Mr. Motley's history. The Lady Belge is the United Netherlands; Gerioneo,
the oppressor, is the Duke of Alva; the Inquisition appears as a horrid
but nameless monster, and minor personages occur to complete the historic
pictures.

The adventure of Sir Artegal in succor of the Lady Irena, (Erin,)
represents the proceedings of Elizabeth in Ireland, in enforcing the
Reformation, abrogating the establishments of her sister Mary, and thus
inducing Tyrone's rebellion, with the consequent humiliation of Essex.


MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.--With one more interpretation we close. In the fifth
book, Spenser is the apologist of Elizabeth for her conduct to her cousin,
Mary Queen of Scots, and he has been very delicate in his distinctions. It
is not her high abstraction of justice, Sir Artegal, who does the
murderous deed, but his man _Talus_, retributive justice, who, like a
limehound, finds her hidden under a heap of gold, and drags her forth by
her fair locks, in such rueful plight that even Artegal pities her:

Yet for no pity would he change the course
Of justice which in Talus hand did lie,
Who rudely haled her forth without remorse,
Still holding up her suppliant hands on high,
And kneeling at his feet submissively;
But he her suppliant hands, those _hands of gold_,
And eke her feet, those feet of _silver try_,
Which sought unrighteousness and justice sold,
Chopped off and nailed on high that all might them behold.

She was a royal lady, a regnant queen: her hands held a golden sceptre,
and her feet pressed a silver footstool. She was thrown down the castle
wall, and drowned "in the dirty mud."

"But the stream washed away her guilty blood." Did it wash away
Elizabeth's bloody guilt? No. For this act she stands in history like Lady
Macbeth, ever rubbing her hands, but "the damned spot" will not out at her
bidding. Granted all that is charged against Mary, never was woman so
meanly, basely, cruelly treated as she.

What has been said is only in partial illustration of the plan and manner
of Spenser's great poem: the student is invited and encouraged to make an
analysis of the other portions himself. To the careless reader the poem is
harmonious, the pictures beautiful, and the imagery gorgeous; to the
careful student it is equally charming, and also discloses historic
pictures of great value.

It is so attractive that the critic lingers unconsciously upon it.
Spenser's tributes to the character of woman are original, beautiful, and
just, and the fame of his great work, originally popular and designed for
a contemporary purpose only, has steadily increased. Next to Milton, he is
the most learned of the British poets. Warton calls him the _serious
Spenser_. Thomson says he formed himself upon Spenser. He took the ottava
rima, or eight-lined stanza of the Italian poets, and by adding an
Alexandrine line, formed it into what has since been called the Spenserian
stanza, which has been imitated by many great poets since, and by Byron,
the greatest of them, in his Childe Harold. Of his language it has already
been said that he designedly uses the archaic, or that of Chaucer; or, as
Pope has said,

Spenser himself affects the obsolete.

The plan of the poem, neglecting the unities of an epic, is like that of a
general history, rambling and desultory, or like the transformations of a
fairy tale, as it is: his descriptions are gorgeous, his verse exceedingly
melodious, and his management of it very graceful. The Gerusalemme
Liberata of Tasso appeared while he was writing the Faery Queene, and he
imitated portions of that great epic in his own, but his imitations are
finer than the original.


HIS OTHER WORKS.--His other works need not detain us: Hymns in honor of
Love and Beauty, Prothalamion, and Epithalamion, Mother Hubbard's Tale,
Amoretti or Sonnets, The Tears of the Muses or Brittain's Ida, are little
read at the present day. His Astrophel is a tender "pastoral elegie" upon
the death of the most noble and valorous knight, Sir Philip Sidney; and is
better known for its subject than for itself. This was a favorite theme of
the friendly and sensitive poet; he has also written several elegies and
aeglogues in honor of Sidney.


SPENSER'S FATE.--The fate of Spenser is a commentary upon courtiership,
even in the reign of Elizabeth, the Faery Queene. Her requital of his
adoration was an annual pension of fifty pounds, and the ruined castle and
unprofitable estate of Kilcolman in Ireland, among a half-savage
population, in a period of insurrections and massacres, with the
requirement that he should reside upon his grant. An occasional visit from
Raleigh, then a captain in the army, a rambler along the banks of the
picturesque Mulla, and the composition and arrangement of the great poem
with the suggestions of his friend, were at once his labors and his only
recreations. He sighed after the court, and considered himself as hardly
used by the queen.

At length an insurrection broke out, and his home was set on fire: he fled
from his flaming castle, and in the confusion his infant child was left
behind and burned to death. A few months after, he died in London, on
January 16, 1598-9, broken-hearted and poor, at an humble tavern, in King
Street. Buried at the expense of the Earl of Essex, Ann Countess of Dorset
bore the expense of his monument in Westminster Abbey, in gratitude for
his noble championship of woman. Upon that are inscribed these words:
_Anglorum poetarum nostri seculi facile princeps_--truer words, great as
is the praise, than are usually found in monumental inscriptions.

Whatever our estimate of Spenser, he must be regarded as the truest
literary exponent and representative of the age of Elizabeth, almost as
much her biographer as Miss Strickland, and her historian as Hume: indeed,
neither biographer nor historian could venture to draw the lineaments of
her character without having recourse to Spenser and his literary
contemporaries.



OTHER WRITERS OF THE AGE OF SPENSER.


_Richard Hooker_, 1553-1598: educated at Oxford, he became Master of the
Temple in London, a post which he left with pleasure to take a country
parish. He wrote a famous work, entitled "A Treatise on the Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity," which is remarkable for its profound learning,
powerful logic, and eloquence of style. In it he defends the position of
the Church of England, against Popery on the one hand and Calvinism on the
other.

_Robert Burton_, 1576-1639: author of "The Anatomy of Melancholie," an
amusing and instructive medley of quotations and classical anecdotes,
showing a profound erudition. In this all the causes and effects of
melancholy are set forth with varied illustrations. His _nom de plume_ was
Democritus, Jr., and he is an advocate of the laughing philosophy.

_Thomas Hobbes_, 1588-1679: tutor to Charles II., when Prince of Wales,
and author of the _Leviathan_. This is a philosophical treatise, in which
he advocates monarchical government, as based upon the fact that all men
are selfish, and that human nature, being essentially corrupt, requires an
iron control: he also wrote upon _Liberty and Necessity_, and on _Human
Nature_.

John Stow, 1525-1605: tailor and antiquary. Principally valuable for his
"Annales," "Summary of English Chronicles," and "A Survey of London." The
latter is the foundation of later topographical descriptions of the
English metropolis.

Raphael Hollinshed, or Holinshed, died about 1580: his _Chronicles of
Englande, Scotlande, and Irelande_, were a treasure-house to Shakspeare,
from which he drew materials for King Lear, Cymbeline, Macbeth, and other
plays.

Richard Hakluyt, died 1616: being greatly interested in voyages and
travels, he wrote works upon the adventures of others. Among these are,
"Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America," and "Four Voyages
unto Florida," which have been very useful in the compilation of early
American history.

Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628: like Hakluyt, he was exceedingly industrious in
collecting material, and wrote "Hakluyt's Posthumus, or Purchas, his
Pilgrimes," a history of the world "in Sea Voyages and Land Travels."

Sir Walter Raleigh, 1552-1618: a man famous for his personal strength and
comeliness, vigor of mind, valor, adventures, and sufferings. A prominent
actor in the stirring scenes of Elizabeth's reign, he was high in the
favor of the queen. Accused of high treason on the accession of James I.,
and imprisoned under sentence of death, an unsuccessful expedition to
South America in search of El Dorado, which caused complaints from the
Spanish king, led to his execution under the pending sentence. He wrote,
chiefly in prison, a History of the World, in which he was aided by his
literary friends, and which is highly commended. It extends to the end of
the second Macedonian war. Raleigh was also a poet, and wrote several
special treatises.

William Camden, 1551-1623: author of Britannia, or a chorographic
description of the most flourishing kingdoms of England, Scotland,
Ireland, and the adjacent islands, from the earliest antiquity. This work,
written in Latin, has been translated into English. He also wrote a sketch
of the reign of Elizabeth.

_George Buchanan_, 1506-1581: celebrated as a Latin writer, an historian,
a poet, and an ecclesiastical polemic. He wrote a _History of Scotland_, a
Latin version of the Psalms, and a satire called _Chamaeleon_. He was a
man of profound learning and indomitable courage; and when told, just
before his death, that the king was incensed at his treatise _De Jure
Regni_, he answered that he was not concerned at that, for he was "going
to a place where there were few kings."

Thomas Sackville, Earl Dorset, Lord Buckhurst, 1536-1608: author, or
rather originator of "The Mirror for Magistrates," showing by illustrious,
unfortunate examples, the vanity and transitory character of human
success. Of Sackville and his portion of the Mirror for Magistrates, Craik
says they "must be considered as forming the connecting link between the
Canterbury Tales and the Fairy Queen."

_Samuel Daniel_, 1562-1619: an historian and a poet. His chief work is
"The Historie of the Civile Warres between the Houses of York and
Lancaster," "a production," says Drake, "which reflects great credit on
the age in which it was written." This work is in poetical form; and,
besides it, he wrote many poems and plays, and numerous sonnets.

Michael Drayton, 1563-1631: a versatile writer, most favorably known
through his _Polyolbion_, a poem in thirty books, containing a detailed
description of the topography of England, in Alexandrine verses. His
_Barons' Wars_ describe the civil commotions during the reign of Edward
II.

Sir John Davies, 1570-1626: author of _Nosce Teipsum_ and _The Orchestra_.
The former is commended by Hallam; and another critic calls it "the best
poem, except Spenser's Faery Queen, in Queen Elizabeth's, or even, in
James VI.'s time."

John Donne, 1573-1631: a famous preacher, Dean of St. Paul's: considered
at the head of the metaphysical school of poets: author of
_Pseudo-Martyr_, _Polydoron_, and numerous sermons. He wrote seven
_satires_, which are valuable, but his style is harsh, and his ideas
far-fetched.

Joseph Hall, 1574-1656: an eminent divine, author of six books of
_satires_, of which he called the first three _toothless_, and the others
_biting_ satires. These are valuable as presenting truthful pictures of
the manners and morals of the age and of the defects in contemporary
literature.

Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, 1554-1628: he wrote the Life of Sidney,
and requested to have placed upon his tomb, "The friend of Sir Philip
Sidney." He was also the author of numerous treatises: "Monarchy," "Humane
Learning," "Wars," etc., and of two tragedies.

George Chapman, 1557-1634: author of a translation of Homer, in verses of
fourteen syllables. It retains much of the spirit of the original, and is
still considered one of the best among the numerous versions of the
ancient poet. He also wrote _Caesar and Pompey, Byron's Tragedy_, and other
plays.




CHAPTER XIII.

THE ENGLISH DRAMA.


Origin of the Drama. Miracle Plays. Moralities. First Comedy. Early
Tragedies. Christopher Marlowe. Other Dramatists. Playwrights and
Morals.



ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH DRAMA.


To the Elizabethan period also belongs the glory of having produced and
fostered the English drama, itself so marked a teacher of history, not
only in plays professedly historical, but also in the delineations of
national character, the indications of national taste, and the satirical
scourgings of the follies of the day. A few observations are necessary as
to its feeble beginnings. The old Greek drama indeed existed as a model,
especially in the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes;
but until the fall of Constantinople, these were a dead letter to Western
Europe, and when the study of Greek was begun in England, they were only
open to men of the highest education and culture; whereas the drama
designed for the people was to cater in its earlier forms to the rude
tastes and love of the marvellous which are characteristic of an
unlettered people. And, besides, the Roman drama of Plautus and of Terence
was not suited to the comprehension of the multitude, in its form and its
preservation of the unities. To gratify the taste for shows and
excitement, the people already had the high ritual of the Church, but they
demanded something more: the Church itself acceded to this demand, and
dramatized Scripture at once for their amusement and instruction. Thus the
_mysteria_ or _miracle play_ originated, and served a double purpose.

"As in ancient Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of
Athens, itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying
their stage furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and
tents the grand stories of the mythology--so in England the mystery
players haunted the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or
in the farm-house kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on
their petty stage the drama of the Christian faith."[29]


THE MYSTERY, OR MIRACLE PLAY.--The subjects of these dramas were taken
from such Old Testament narratives as the creation, the lives of the
patriarchs, the deluge; or from the crucifixion, and from legends of the
saints: the plays were long, sometimes occupying portions of several days
consecutively, during seasons of religious festival. They were enacted in
monasteries, cathedrals, churches, and church-yards. The _mise en scene_
was on two stages or platforms, on the upper of which were represented the
Persons of the Trinity, and on the lower the personages of earth; while a
yawning cellar, with smoke arising from an unseen fire, represented the
infernal regions. This device is similar in character to the plan of
Dante's poem--Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise.

The earliest of these mysteries was performed somewhere about the year
1300, and they held sway until 1600, being, however, slowly supplanted by
the _moralities_, which we shall presently consider. Many of these
_mysteries_ still remain in English, and notices of them may be found in
_Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry_.

A miracle play was performed to celebrate the birth of Philip II. of
Spain. They are still performed in Andalusia, and one written within a few
years for such representation, was enacted at Seville, with great pomp of
scenic effect, in the Holy Week of 1870. Similar scenes are also
witnessed by curious foreigners at the present day in the Ober-Ammergau of
Bavaria. These enable the traveller of to-day to realize the former
history.

To introduce a comic element, the devil was made to appear with horns,
hoof, and tail, to figure with grotesque malignity throughout the play,
and to be reconsigned at the close to his dark abode by the divine power.


MORALITIES.--As the people became enlightened, and especially as religious
knowledge made progress, such childish shows were no longer able to
satisfy them. The drama undertook a higher task of instruction in the form
of what was called a _morality_, or _moral play_. Instead of old stories
reproduced to please the childish fancy of the ignorant, genius invented
scenes and incidents taken indeed from common life, but the characters
were impersonal; they were the ideal virtues, _morality, hope, mercy,
frugality_, and their correlative vices. The _mystery_ had endeavored to
present similitudes; the _moralities_ were of the nature of allegory, and
evinced a decided progress in popular intelligence.

These for a time divided the interest with the mysteries, but eventually
superseded them. The impersonality of the characters enabled the author to
make hits at political circumstances and existent follies with impunity,
as the multitude received advice and reproof addressed to them abstractly,
without feeling a personal sting, and the government would not condescend
to notice such abstractions. The moralities were enacted in court-yards or
palaces, the characters generally being personated by students, or
merchants from the guilds. A great improvement was also made in the length
of the play, which was usually only an hour in performance. The public
taste was so wedded to the devil of the mysteries, that he could not be
given up in the moral plays: he kept his place; but a rival buffoon
appeared in the person of _the vice_, who tried conclusions with the
archfiend in serio-comic style until the close of the performance, when
Satan always carried the vice away in triumph, as he should do.

The moralities retained their place as legitimate drama throughout the
sixteenth century, and indeed after the modern drama appeared. It is
recorded that Queen Elizabeth, in 1601, then an old woman, witnessed one
of these plays, entitled "The Contention between Liberality and
Prodigality." This was written by Lodge and Greene, two of the regular
dramatists, after Ben Jonson had written "Every Man in his Humour," and
while Shakspeare was writing Hamlet. Thus the various progressive forms of
the drama overlapped each other, the older retaining its place until the
younger gained strength to assert its rights and supersede its rival.


THE INTERLUDE.--While the moralities were slowly dying out, another form
of the drama had appeared as a connecting link between them and the
legitimate drama of Shakspeare. This was the _interlude_, a short play, in
which the _dramatis personae_ were no longer allegorical characters, but
persons in real life, usually, however, not all bearing names even
assumed, but presented as a friar, a curate, a tapster, etc. The chief
characteristic of the interlude was, however, its satire; it was a more
outspoken reformer than the morality, scourged the evils of the age with
greater boldness, and plunged into religious controversy with the zeal of
opposing ecclesiastics. The first and principal writer of these interludes
was John Heywood, a Roman Catholic, who wrote during the reign of Henry
VIII., and, while a professed jester, was a great champion of his Church.

As in all cases of progress, literary and scientific, the lines of
demarcation cannot be very distinctly drawn, but as the morality had
superseded the mystery, and the interlude the morality, so now they were
all to give way before the regular drama. The people were becoming more
educated; the greater spread of classical knowledge had caused the
dramatists to study and assimilate the excellences of Latin and Greek
models; the power of the drama to instruct and refine, as well as to
amuse, was acknowledged, and thus its capability of improvement became
manifest. The forms it then assumed were more permanent, and indeed have
remained almost unchanged down to our own day.

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