Modern readers approach Renaissance poetry severely handicapped. They do not share the intellectual preconceptions of Renaissance authors; they have not read the books that formed their minds; they do not ask the same metaphysical or moral or aesthetic questions; though they may use the same vocabulary, they do not assign it the same meaning. These handicaps exist, but they can be surmounted. One solution is to attempt to ignore such differences and concentrate instead on those aspects of the poetry that modern readers can regard as perennial and interpret in the light of their own interests. This approach seems to me mistaken. It is arrogant, in that it supposes that the habits of mind of the present are fundamentally more important than the habits of mind of the past; it is limiting, in that it restricts the amount of a work that modern readers can grasp; by ignoring difficulties in effect it hinders their capacity to reach and hence enjoy the literature of the past. I have written this guide in the belief that the precondition for enjoyment is understanding, that Renaissance poetry is in many ways alien to modern readers and difficult for them to understand, but that the necessary understanding can be achieved by the recovery of the context within which the poetry was written.
By context I mean the intellectual assumptions, the literary conventions, and the terminology which Renaissance poets shared with their contemporary readers, and which their poetry might in many different ways appraise, explore or question. I am concerned in this book with a range of assumptions about the nature and function of man which derive from fifteen hundred years of blending of the classical and Christian traditions. How did these traditions affect the educated English poet of the period 1580 to 1670? First, he was a Christian. He had a thorough knowledge of the Bible, and of the language and arguments of theology. He was probably fairly widely read in works of religious controversy, both of his own day and (in fewer cases) of the early centuries of the Church. Second, he was a classical scholar. Latin was the basis of his education. He was widely read in Latin poetry, history and moral philosophy; he had some acquaintance with Greek, though he usually read Greek literature in Latin or English translations—only the exceptionally learned read Greek in the original. His knowledge of the classical and Christian traditions came not only from first-hand reading of the texts—the Bible, the Fathers of the Church, the Latin and Greek classics—but also from popular handbooks and encyclopedias which digested the traditions for him. He perhaps consulted these handbooks more often than the original texts. He did not regard the traditions as separate; he read classical literature in the light of his Christian beliefs. However, the blending of these traditions did not create one uniform world picture; rather, it provided a range of sometimes complementary, sometimes contradictory assumptions about and explanations of the nature of the physical universe, man’s relationship with God, his moral stature, and the purpose of his earthly activities.
Most of the assumptions that Renaissance poets shared with their contemporaries are unfamiliar to modern readers. I have written this book for students who wish to read and enjoy Renaissance literature, but who have no knowledge of Greek, probably none of Latin, only a hazy acquaintance with the contents of the Bible and the tenets of Christianity, and who are thus unlikely to be aware of the difficulties confronting them. My intention is to show them the means by which they can in part recover the intellectual context of Renaissance poetry. It seems to me that illustration of what is likely to be unfamiliar material is as important as explication. I have therefore organised this guide according to the following method. Each chapter is concerned with one important group of ideas. Chapters 1 to 6 deal mainly with classical ideas and their assimilation by Christianity; Chapters 7 and 8 deal with Christian ideas; and Chapters 9 to 13 deal with ideas about education and the interpretation and writing of literary works. In a book of restricted length I have chosen to exclude certain subjects, notably political thought, psychology, rhetoric and most aspects of the occult, but I hope that this decision has allowed me to give adequate representation to those subjects I have considered most important. Each chapter is divided into three parts: (1) an introductory account outlining the nature of the ideas in question, their origins and their transmission to the Renaissance, and suggesting how they were taken up by poets; (2) a collection of extracts from original sources, illustrating the genesis and development of these ideas, followed by extracts from English poetry of the period 1580 to 1670 incorporating aspects of these ideas and their terminology; (3) suggestions for further secondary reading, which are collected under chapter headings at the end of the book. The extracts are numbered and keyed to the introductory account, so that students can use them in two different ways: when reading the introduction they can turn to the relevant numbered extract which illustrates a particular point in the argument; or they can read and compare the group of extracts as a whole, thus themselves placing the poems within a part of their intellectual context. The Bibliographical Appendix provides as concisely as possible further information about the authors from whom the extracts are taken.
Most of the extracts are translations from Latin (classical, medieval and Renaissance); some are translations from Greek, Italian, French and German; there are several extracts from the Bible. Many of the works represented were translated into English in the Renaissance, but with a few exceptions (for example Harington’s Ariosto, Hoby’s Castiglione, Florio’s Montaigne and Fairfax’s Tasso) I have decided against using these translations. Instead I have used readily available modern translations (Penguin Classics or the Loeb Classical Library whenever possible), so that students may easily locate an extract and read further. For the sake of consistency I have taken all extracts from the Bible from the Authorised Version, though in some cases (for example, extracts from Augustine which include biblical quotations) this has meant anachronistically substituting it for other versions. Extracts from English Renaissance poetry are taken from standard modern editions, though I have modernised the spelling throughout. The poets represented by the greatest number of extracts are Spenser, Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Marvell and Milton, though I have included examples of other poets. I have deliberately excluded dramatic poetry. I have provided brief references to book, chapter and line numbers, etc. below each extract, and full bibliographical references, arranged alphabetically, at the end of the book.
The organisation of material in terms of specific groups of ideas has seemed to me the best way of illustrating the problems, but I am aware that this approach has its dangers. In the interest of clarity I have simplified complex concepts, and my account of their historical modification is cursory. A greater danger is that of systematisation. I am not attempting to fit Renaissance poets within particular systems of thought, nor do I believe that it can be done. Ideas expressed in works of literature are not the same as ideas tested for their own sake. Renaissance poets freely explored and amalgamated ideas which in themselves are contradictory. Thus many of the assumptions of classical ethics are strictly incompatible with Christian belief, yet we find them coexisting in Renaissance literature. The same group of ideas can be treated in very different ways by different poets; students need to consider not simply the presence of certain ideas in a specific poem, but, more important, the use to which they are put.
The groups of extracts are intended to provide a fairly broad range of illustration for students to draw on in their reading of Renaissance poetry. However, this book is intended as a guide to the classical and Christian traditions; it is not a substitute for first-hand knowledge of them. Establishing the context of Renaissance poetry means reading at least the more important of the books Renaissance authors read. I suggest that students should make themselves familiar with the following works:
Classical poetry: Homer’s Iliad; Virgil’s Aeneid; Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
Classical philosophy: Plato’s Symposium and Republic; Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics; Cicero’s Of Duties.
Christian literature: the Bible in the Authorised Version, especially the Pauline Epistles; Augustine’s City of God, Books XI–XXII.
In addition, students should read Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, which provides an invaluable example of how a certain kind of Renaissance mind worked.
In order to illustrate ways in which this book may be of use, I give below four examples of well-known passages from Renaissance poems which require some knowledge of their intellectual context to make them comprehensible to modern readers; I have chosen some of these passages because I have seen them misread by my own students, who were not aware of the difficulties. I am not suggesting that Renaissance poems are never ambiguous, or that one correct meaning is always there to be unlocked by those in possession of the proper key. I do believe, however, that some apparent ambiguities are simply misreadings, and that knowledge of a poem’s context reveals aspects of the poem that are closed to the ignorant. In some cases allusions which would have clarified and enriched meaning for Renaissance readers simply bewilder modern readers who are unfamiliar with them; in other cases the problem is one of the correct definition of a single word, which is superficially comprehensible to modern readers but which is used by the Renaissance poet in a technical sense which would have been familiar to his contemporaries.
1 Not that great champion of the antique world,
Whom famous poets’ verse so much doth vaunt,
And hath for twelve huge labours high extolled,
So many furies and sharp fits did haunt,
When him the poisoned garment did enchant,
When Centaur’s blood and bloody verses charmed;
As did this knight twelve thousand dolours daunt,
Whom fiery steel now burnt, that erst him armed;
That erst him goodly armed, now most of all him harmed.
Spenser The Faerie Queene I xi stanza 27
Canto xi narrates the battle between Red Cross Knight and the dragon. Up to this point the narrative has been conducted at the literal level, stressing the physical conflict. Spenser here introduces an allusion to Hercules: Red Cross is burnt through his armour by the dragon’s fiery breath, just as Hercules was tortured by the poisoned garment sent him by his wife, who was tricked by the Centaur Nessus into believing that his blood would act as a love potion. The armour that should protect Red Cross torments him; the garment that was intended as a charm to win back love becomes an instrument of destruction. Modern readers unfamiliar with the tradition may see in this allusion simply an attempt to magnify the sufferings of Red Cross, which are greater than those of Hercules. But much more is implied. Spenser would expect his readers to complete the story. In his agony Hercules burns himself alive on a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta; his mortal flesh is consumed, but his divine form is transmuted, and he goes to join the gods. For Renaissance readers the hero who is greater than Hercules is Christ. In the remainder of the canto the allusions are largely Christian: to baptism, the tree of life, regeneration, the three days from crucifixion to resurrection. The comparison of the burning armour of Red Cross to the poisoned garment of Hercules is thus a reference to the passion of Christ, which is a necessary prelude to his triumphant conquest of sin and the devil. The armour which both protects and torments Red Cross, and which he tries to put off, is the armour of faith of every Christian (Ephesians 6:10–18; see 4 below), which brings him both salvation and persecution. By means of a classical allusion Spenser moves from literal narrative to Christian allegory. (On the Christianisation of classical myth see Chapter 2.)
2 Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolved to be bold,
And make a suit unto him, to afford
A new small-rented lease, and cancel the old.
In heaven at his manor I him sought:
They told me there, that he was lately gone
About some land, which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession.
Herbert ‘Redemption’ ll. 1–8
Herbert’s sonnet is a parable, a deceptively simple narrative based on commonplace experience yet containing a religious meaning. The imagery used—the tenant who complains of his inability to make a success of the old property leased to him, and who asks his Lord of the Manor for a new one on more favourable terms—both recalls the parables of Christ, in which the relationship between God and man is often cast in the similar but not identical terms of the contractual relationship between master and servant (see e.g. Matthew 18:23–34; 20:1–16; 21:33–41), and embodies the principles of covenant theology, in which the law, or the old covenant of works, under which man cannot ‘thrive’ because he cannot achieve righteousness through his own efforts, is replaced by the gospel, the new covenant of grace which is the free gift of God. Man’s redemption is literally a ‘buying back’: a debt paid by Christ on his behalf, so that he can exchange one contract for another, better one. I have heard this beautiful sonnet condemned by a student unfamiliar with its context for its commercial view of religion. (On Law and Gospel see Chapter 8; on parables see Chapter 12.)
3 Happy those early days! when I
Shined in my angel-infancy.
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white, celestial thought,
When yet I had not walked above
A mile, or two, from my first love,
And looking back (at that short space),
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud, or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity.
Vaughan ‘The Retreat’ ll. 1–14 (italics mine)
Vaughan’s most famous poem usually has an immediate attraction for modern readers. To a large extent it is self-explanatory; the ChristianPlatonic doctrine of the recollection of a first, better state of existence may be unfamiliar but in Vaughan’s treatment it is not obscure. However, the technical term ‘shadows’ will not mean very much to readers unfamiliar with its typological sense. Vaughan is using the term here not so much in its Platonic sense as in the sense employed in Biblical exegesis. ‘Shadows’ in the Platonic sense (as in the Allegory of the Cave) would mean the world of the senses, deceptively real, but in fact insubstantial, and incomparable to the real world of Ideas. ‘Shadows’ in its exegetical sense means ‘foreshadowings’. A flower is a weaker glory than God, yet such glory as it has foreshadows for man in this life the greater glory he will perceive in the next. The brightness of God’s face is veiled for man by his corporeal existence, yet through the shadows of the physical world he can perceive glimpses of brightness which otherwise would be unbearable. The best gloss on ‘shadows’ is a passage from Browne’s Garden of Cyrus, ch. iv:
Light that makes things seen, makes some things invisible; were it not for darkness and the shadow of the earth, the noblest part of the Creation had remained unseen, and the stars in heaven as invisible as on the fourth day, when they were created above the horizon, with the sun, or there was not an eye to behold them. The greatest mystery of religion is expressed by adumbration [i.e. foreshadowing], and in the noblest part of Jewish types, we find the Cherubims shadowing the mercy-seat: Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living: All things fall under this name. The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum [i.e. image], and light but the shadow of God.
(For Platonism see Chapter 3, for Biblical exegesis Chapter 10, for allegory Chapter 12.)
4 And opportunity I here have had
To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee
Proof against all temptation as a rock
Of adamant, and as a centre, firm
To the utmost of mere man both wise and good…
………
There on the highest pinnacle he set
The Son of God; and added thus in scorn:
There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright
Will ask thee skill; I to thy Father’s house
Have brought thee, and highest placed, highest is best,
Now show thy progeny; if not to stand
Cast thyself down; safely if Son of God:
For it is written, He will give command
Concerning thee to his angels, in their hands
They shall uplift thee, lest at any time
Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.
To whom thus Jesus: Also it is written,
Tempt not the Lord thy God, he said and stood.
But Satan smitten with amazement fell.
Milton Paradise Regained IV ll. 531–5, 549–62 (italics mine)
Satan presents the Son of God with his last temptation, that of the pinnacle of the temple. (Milton follows the order of the temptations in Luke 4:1–13; Matthew 4:1–11 puts this temptation second.) In neither of the gospel versions is there any question of the temptation being one of standing on the pinnacle; Jesus is set there by Satan, and tempted to cast himself down. The word ‘stand’ does not appear in the gospel temptations, yet Milton places great stress on it. It is used in two senses. Satan uses it in the false sense of Stoic self-sufficiency; he admires in the Son the perfect Stoic sage, immovable, complete in himself ‘as a centre’. This terminology is repeatedly used by Jonson, who urges himself and his moral heroes to stand, to rely on their own completion and circular perfection, to rest on their own centre. These terms appear in ‘An Epistle Answering to One that Asked to be Sealed of the Tribe of Ben’:
Live to that point I will, for which I am man,
And dwell as in my centre, as I can…
……Now stand, and then
Sir, you are sealed of the tribe of Ben.
ll. 59–60, 77–8
Satan erroneously believes that man is capable of this self-sufficiency, but morally, not where it is physically impossible. He expects Jesus either, as man, to fall and die, or, as God, to be rescued in falling by angels. But neither happens; refusing to tempt God, but instead putting his trust in him, Jesus stands, and Satan falls. The episode demonstrates both the Son’s divinity and the true meaning of ‘stand’. With God’s grace man can stand, not like the Stoic in opposition to the world, but like the armed Christian, in preparation for action:
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Ephesians 6:13
(For Stoicism see Chapter 4.)