CHAPTER VIII THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE (1579-1625) DURING the lifetime of Shakespeare, the English Renaissance reached its flood-tide. Its spirit was really the creative literary force of the age; and its richness, its vigor, its delight, its beauty, its enthusiasm, sought and in large measure found adequate expression. The age was filled with superabundant life, with an Influence of ardent desire for knowledge, with a passion for Renaissance action and adventure, with a boundless ambition to accomplish great things, with a childlike wonder at the marvels of the world, with a splendid faith in man's power to conquer the realm of nature and the realm of thought, with an intense appreciation of the charm of all that was beautiful and attractive. The race had been born again; it felt itself young, and its dominant notes were those of passion and imagination. It was the time of all times for the poet with his pictures of the ideal world and for the dramatist with his presentation upon the mimic stage of the moving pageant of human life. All this and more had come into English literature with the culmination of the Renaissance. The spirit of the Reformation was for a time subordinated as a literary force; but it had by no means vanished. If men had for a day almost forgotten spiritual Reformation concerns in seeking after the glory of this world, Spirit the deep religious instinct of the English nature was still in their hearts, and doubtless such words as those of Philip Sidney came often to their lips: My mind, aspire to higher things; Grow rich in that which never taketh rust. In the greatest literature of the time, religion was pres ent as a steadying and restraining if not as an impelling force. In the period succeeding this, we shall see it rising to the full measure of its power as a dominant guiding im pulse. The literature of Shakespeare's age was full, rich, varied, complicated, as well as powerful. It is not easy to present even its essential features in brief space. We shall endeavor, as heretofore, to hold as closely as possible to the chronological order, while at the same time keeping fairly distinct from each other the three main streams of literary development - prose, poetry, and the drama. Later Eliza Lyly's The reign of Elizabeth continued until 1603, and we may conveniently group together the leading prose-writers who belong to the latter half of her reign. bethan Prose First in time of these is John Lyly, one of the minor dramatists and poets of the age, who in 1579 and 1580 published the two parts of a unique romance called Euphues. The first part was entitled Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit; and the second part, Euphues and his England. Euphues is a young Athenian who visits England and is made the mouthpiece for the expression of Lyly's views upon various phases of the life, thought, and manners of the day. work displays the Renaissance interest in education and philosophy, but it harmonizes also with the religious feeling of the time in declaring that "vain is all learning without the taste of divine knowledge." It had a decided influence as a guide to polite manners, and perhaps a still greater influence in setting the fashion of an affected and elaborate style of speech. Courtiers talked and authors wrote in the high-flown manner which we still describe as "Euphuism." Lyly was concerned more with expression than with thought, but his work at least shows the exceeding care The that was being devoted to the matter of prose style. He misled prose for a time in the direction of poetry, but his experiment was, after all, one that was worth making. His work is remembered to-day more for its historical influence than for any gift of invention or originality of thought. A single sentence will help to illustrate his characteristic balance of sentence, alliteration, and excessive use of figures and parallels : For as the hop, the pole being never so high, groweth to the end, or as the dry beech kindled at the root never leaveth until it come to the top: or as one drop of poison disperseth itself into every vein, so affection having caught hold of my heart, and the sparkles of love kindled my liver, will suddenly, though secretly, flame up into my head, and spread itself into every sinew. In the case of Sir Philip Sidney, it is the man that we honor and admire more than anything or all that he has written. There is a magic charm about his name which appeals powerfully to the imagination. High Sir Philip birth, lofty character, knightly honor, chivalrous Sidney loyalty, romantic spirit, faithful friendship, disappointed love, classic learning, religious zeal, faultless courage, early death all unite to create a personality that embodies for us all that was greatest and best in a great age. Beside this his literary achievement grows dim. Yet it was by no means insignificant. We shall have occasion later to consider his poetry. In prose his notable works are two. First is a pastoral romance, entitled Arcadia. Somewhat lengthy, tedious, and affected in style it is; and yet it has much of the charm that fascinates us in the man. This charm is half poetical, and, indeed, some of Sidney's characteristic verse appears here and there throughout the Arcadia. His Defense of Poesy is much better written, and has the distinction of being our first important work in the field of literary criticism. Its critical theories are, in the main, sound, though he defended |