Renaissance Poetry

RENAISSANCE POETRY

Modern lyric poetry begins in Tudor England with Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547), who are both influenced by Francesco Petrarca: the former introduces the sonnet into English, the latter uses unrhymed pentameters (or blank verse).

The sonnet is a 14-1ine-poem written in iambic pentameters with two different rhyme schemes, the Italian and the English one. The ltalian form is divided into two parts - the octave and the sestet - the former stating the problem, the latter suggesting the solution. The English sonnet, instead, is divided into 4 parts: introduction - expansion - further expansion - conclusion in the final couplet.

Renaissance poets liked this form, since its regularity in the rhyme scheme and metrical pattern challenged the poet's skill and was a mirror of balance and order in the world. The Petrarchan conceit was the favourite device on which sonnets were built. It is a witty idea or image developed to strike the reader in the form of a metaphor, a paradox, an antithesis. John Donne and the Metaphysical poets developed a new, more colloquial style which differed from the Petrarchan one. With them, lyrical poetry became more and more experimental.

The standard theme of the English Renaissance sonnets was that of 'courtly' love: poets expressed their passion for an unattainable Lady, and explored various aspects of their own emotions. This form of love was also used as a metaphor of their homage to a patroness or the Queen herself. Other recurrent minor themes were their Lady's beauty and virtues, the transience of life, and the immortalising power of poetry. The fixed form of the sonnet prompted poets to compress meaning into striking figures of speech (metaphors, paradoxes, similes, etc.). The final couplet could become an epigram, that is, a concise and cleverly formulated sentence on its own. The language was that of poetic diction,with refined, ornate, polysyllabic Latinate words, considered suitable for poetic effects. Many of these features are present in Shakespeare's sonnets, which are notable for their wide variety of style and content. But their most striking trait is their original innovation of convention. For example, the poet refuses to write conventionally of love, and always surprises the reader's expectations. Unlike traditional sonneteers, he addresses a young man - probably his patron and social superior, although attempts have been made to suggest a homosexual relationship - and a woman - a so-called 'dark lady' whose identity was never convincingly proved. The young man is beautiful while the lady isn't; the poet speaks of her physical appearance in a most uncourtly and unromantic manner.

Petrarca, Pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra, Canzoniere CXXXIV
Pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra
e temo, e spero; e ardo e sono un ghiaccio;
e volo sopra 'l cielo, e giaccio in terra;
e nulla stringo, e tutto il mondo abbraccio.
Tal m'ha in pregion, che non m'apre nè sera,
nè per suo mi riten nè scioglie il laccio;
e non m'ancide Amore, e non mi sferra,
nè mi vuol vivo, nè mi trae d'impaccio.
Veggio senz'occhi, e non ho lingua, e grido;
e bramo di perire, e chieggio aita;
e ho in odio me stesso, e amo altrui.
Pascomi di dolor, piangendo rido;
egualmente mi spiace morte e vita:
in questo stato son, donna, per voi. / Thomas Wyatt, I find no peace
I find no peace, and all my war is done.
I fear and hope. I burn and freeze like ice.
I fly above the wind, yet can I not arise;
And nought I have, and all the world I season.
That loseth nor locketh holdeth me in prison
And holdeth me not--yet can I scape no wise--
Nor letteth me live nor die at my device,
And yet of death it giveth me occasion.
Without eyen I see, and without tongue I plain.
I desire to perish, and yet I ask health.
I love another, and thus I hate myself.
I feed me in sorrow and laugh in all my pain;
Likewise displeaseth me both life and death,
And my delight is causer of this strife.
Season: That loseth nor locketh: no wise: at my device: Plain: lament

'I Find No Peace' by Thomas Wyatt

Summary

The narrator expresses his despair with diametrically opposed concepts. He is unable to rest, and yet he has no fight left in him. He is optimistic yet afraid, he is ablaze yet frozen. He is soaring, yet cannot take off; he has nothing, yet he holds the whole world. Though there are no locks strong enough to imprison him, he cannot escape. The narrator feels he has no control over whether he lives or dies. He can see without his eyes, and complains without a tongue. He says he wishes to expire, and yet demands strength. By line 11 he reveals a less paradoxical contrast: that he loves another therefore must not love himself. He revels in the joy of the sadness and discomfort of this love, and although the situation is almost like a living death, the cause of his pain is his greatest pleasure.

Analysis

The confusion, ambiguity and vacillation of feelings and emotions connected with love is the subject of this sonnet, which is a translation of Petrarch’s sonnet 104. The poem is built from opposite sentiments and ideas to reflect the full range of feeling that love can provoke. While it seems that this relationship is an impossible affair that leads him to the brink of despair, the poet also seems intoxicated by it. The opening image of war and peace also reminds us of Wyatt’s diplomatic and ambassadorial duties, the vast changes in allegiance that he saw within his term of office and the challenges of the international political arena at this time.

The metaphors used highlight the physical extremes such as burning and freezing to connote the psychological consequences of the dramatic emotions involved. Love in the tudor court was often fraught with social implications, particularly as the king himself was involved in numerous precarious romantic relationships. But, the idea of being incarcerated despite the fact that no bonds could hold him reminds us that the resultant torture is one which the narrator is willingly subjecting himself to. Alas, he derives pleasure from the situation that directly causes his pain.

Line 11 is interesting as these two ideas are not usually mutually exclusive: it is possible to love another and oneself. However, Wyatt is perhaps indicating that the relationship is one dictated by the heart rather than the head; though the love feels right, the narrator cannot quiet his mind to the unsettling knowledge that his love is not a practical or logical choice. If he is prepared to put himself in danger for his love, he must not care enough about himself to prevent his own destruction. In the final rhyming couplet, the narrator makes it clear that he understand that that which gives him the most pleasure is that which causes him the most peril.

Sonnet LXXV: One Day I Wrote Her Name by E. Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, / strand: shore
But came the waves and washèd it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay / dost……assay: do…..try
A mortal thing so to immortalise!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wipèd out likewise. / eek: also
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise / quoth I: I said; devise: plan
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternise,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue, / whenas: when
Our love shall live, and later life renew

Questions

1.Divide the poem into three quartrains and a couplet and match them to the following summaries:

a. the poet says that their love will survive even the apocalypse and will restore life again

b. the poet tries twice to write his lover’s name on the sand but uselessly

c. the poet replies that earthly things will die but his poetry will make his beloved eternal

d. the poet’s lover says that unfortunately everything is destined to die, even her name.

2. How are direct and indirect speech used?

3. Compare the image of the name written on the shore with the name written in the heavens, What do they imply?

4. Underline the alliterations in the poem. What words do they underline?

5. Write down the rhyme scheme. Is it Petrarchan or Shakespearean?

6. What is the theme of the poem?

ANALYSIS

One of Edmund Spenser’s most noted sonnets is “One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand”, addressed indirectly to his fiancée, Elizabeth Boyle and part of the sonnet sequence titled Amoretti. The Spenserian sonnet displays the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE, different from the Shakespearean rhyme scheme, ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

In this sonnet Spenser faces the problem of the destructive power of time, a problem which troubled Renaissance thinkers and intellectuals.

In the first quatrain, the speaker declares that he wrote the name of his beloved in the sand, but the waves came along and wiped it away it. Then he wrote it again, and the same thing happened. Seeing her name thus being repeatedly wiped out, the beloved reminds him that he is trying to immortalize a mortal thing. She insists that just as the sea water washes away her name from the sands, so the sands of times will wipe away her very life. She calls her lover a “vain man” for thinking he can accomplish the impossible. Unusually for a Renaissance lady, the beloved has been given a voice here, and she seems to understand the symbolic significance of the waves leveling the sand. Not only that, she does reproach the lover for this. This provides the poet with the opportunity to make his point. The speaker believes that baser elements, that is the earthly things subject to decay and death, naturally perish in the dust, but he thinks that his beloved is too beautiful to die and then offers his verse as the means for her gaining immortality. He is hopeful that his verses will be able to eternize the memory of the beauty of the beloved and transfigure her into a heavenly being.But what he seeks to immortalize is not only the physical beauty of the beloved, but those spiritual qualities which provide the beloved with spiritual/physical beauty. So physical beauty is symbolic of the manifestation of divine beauty. The speaker then proclaims immortality for both lovers. In his sonnets, “[their] love shall live,” and not only live but by virtue of his art will their lives be renewed. He hopes further that this will help them to transcend their mundane existence and find a permanent place in the divine scheme of things. In this theme, the speaker’s confidence resembles that of the Shakespearean speaker, who continually makes his subjects immortal by capturing and framing them in his sonnets.

The conclusion Spenser provides in the theme of immortality assured through poetry is not original since other poets before him, notably Horace and Ovid, had come to the same conclusion.

SHAKESPEARE’S SONNETS

The poem below focuses on a Petrachan conceit, an elaborate comparison, to state that the beloved is better than a summer day. Shakespeare reverses the traditional pattern according to which nature is immortal, men, instead, are mortal.

SONNET 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? / thee: you (object)
Thou art more lovely and more temperate: / Thou art…temperate: You are ………… constant
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, / the darling buds: the beloved buds
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: / ‘summer's lease’: summer time is far too short
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, / ‘the eye of heaven’ : the sun is too hot
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; / and his gold complexion often becomes less bright
And every fair from fair sometime declines, / and everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; / by misfortune or by nature's planned out course ‘untrimm'd’: deprived of its beauty
But thy eternal summer shall not fade / ‘thy eternal summer’ : your youth
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; / that fair thou owest: the beauty that you possess
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, / Nor will death boast you ‘wander'st in his shade’ : belong to him
When in eternal lines to time thou growest: / ‘to time thou growest’ : you will live forever
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, / so long as there are people on this earth
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. / so long will this poem live on, ‘gives life to thee’: makes you immortal.
PARAPHRASE
Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer is far too short:
At times the sun is too hot,
Or often goes behind the clouds;
And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,
By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
But your youth shall not fade,
Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor will death claim you for his own,
Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
So long as there are people on this earth,
So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

QUESTIONS

Shakespeare starts the sonnet with a question. What does he ask?
In the second line he answers his own question with a remark. What does he say exaclty?
From l.3 to l.8 the poet justifies the answer. Rearrange the following in the order they appear in the sonnet:

nothing beautiful last too long summer lasts too short a time even in summer the sun is sometimes covered by clouds

the wind shakes the buds from the trees sometimes summer is excessively hot

In ll. 9-12 the poet makes a promise. What does he promise exactly?
Now look at the last two lines. What does the poet assert at the end?
The structure of the poem is based on a rigid pattern, formed by the items below. Put them in the right order and say to which lines each one corresponds:

epigrammatic conclusion supporting arguments answer question turning point idealization of the beloved

The poet compares the beloved to summer, which is not the ideal season, but rather an imperfect one, inferior to the ideal “summer” of the beloved. What is the main feature of the beloved?
The ideal perfection of the beloved prevails. What makes him/her immortal?
The idea of decline is suggested by many words. Underline them in the text. Then, with a different colour, underline the adjectives and verbs in the last quartrain contrasting with the idea of approaching death.
What possessive adjectives and verbs does the poet attribute to death? What is the poetic device called?
The chiasmus in the last line of the sonnet underlines the function of this poem. What does that imply about the power of poetry and art in general?
Identify the turning point of the sonnet. What new argument does it introduce?
Write down the rhyme scheme. How is the poem organized?
Find example of alliteration and repetition. Are there any enjambements?
The sonnet can be divided into two parts: 1. lines 1-8 concerning nature and its laws; 2. lines 9-14 concerning art and its symbolic order. What image connects them? What metaphorical meaning does this image acquire in the second part?
The poet expresses two notions of summer, conveyed in the phrase ‘a summer’s day’ and ‘thy eternal summer’. Compare and contrast these two ideas. In what way do you think the poet considers the young man’s summer eternal?
Identify the theme of the sonnet.

ANALYSIS

Sonnet 18 uses a typical convention of Renaissance poems about the transience of youth and beauty: the comparison with aspects of nature. In this sonnet the poet begins by considering what metaphorical comparison would best reflect and at the same time preserve the image of the young man. His first idea is to compare him ‘to a summer’s day’, because the man’s youth is similar to nature in full bloom. But summer, especially in England, is often short, and the weather is changeable: one minute it’s too hot, the next the sun has disappeared and it has turned cold again. This unpredictable alternation between good and bad weather, typical of English summers, does not convey the sense of balance and harmony the poet sees in the young man’s beauty: ‘thou art more lovely and more temperate’. However it is also true that, like a real summer, the young man’s youth will not last long. In fact, it is not in nature, but only in art that the poet will be able to preserve the idea of youth, the imagined perfect day of the young man’s ‘eternal summer’ – the momentary feeling we may have sometimes that our youth will last for ever. This marks the turning point of the sonnet. In the world of the poem, the young man’s beauty will never fade or die, but will go on growing in the minds of readers for centuries to come.