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Title: A History of English Literature
Elizabethan Literature
Author: George Saintsbury
Release Date: December 8, 2008 [EBook #27450]
Language: English
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HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE In Six Volumes, Crown 8vo.
ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE BEGINNING
TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. By Rev.
Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. 8s. 6d.
ENGLISH LITERATURE FROM THE NORMAN
CONQUEST TO CHAUCER. By Prof. W. H.
Schofield, Ph.D. 8s. 6d.
THE AGE OF CHAUCER. By Professor W. H.
Schofield, Ph.D. [In preparation.
ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE (1560-1665). By
George Saintsbury. 8s. 6d.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE (1660-1780).
By Edmund Gosse, M.A. 8s. 6d.
NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE (1780-1900).
By George Saintsbury. 8s. 6d.
By GEORGE SAINTSBURY. A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Crown 8vo. 10s. Also in five Parts. 2s. 6d. each.
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSODY FROM
THE TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE PRESENT DAY.
3 vols. 8vo. Vol. I. From the Origins to Spenser. 12s. 6d. net.
Vol. II. From Shakespeare to Crabbe. 18s. net.
Vol. III. From Blake to Mr. Swinburne. 18s. net.
HISTORICAL MANUAL OF ENGLISH PROSODY.
Crown 8vo. 6s. 6d. net.
A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH NOVEL.
8vo. Vol. I. From the Beginning to 1880. 18s. net.
Vol. II. From 1800 to 1900. 18s. net
A HISTORY OF ENGLISH PROSE RHYTHM.
8vo. 18s. net.
LIFE OF DRYDEN. Library Edition. Crown 8vo,
3s. net; Pocket Edition, Fcap. 8vo, 2s. net.
[English Men of Letters.
A FIRST BOOK OF ENGLISH LITERATURE.
Globe 8vo. Sewed, 2s. Stiff Boards, 2s. 3d.
NOTES ON A CELLAR-BOOK. Small 4to. 7s. 6d. net.
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
A HISTORY
OF
ELIZABETHAN LITERATURE
BY
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT
First Edition 1887. Second Edition 1890.
Reprinted 1893, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1901, 1903, 1907, 1910, 1913, 1918, 1920.
As was explained in the Note to the Preface of the previous editions and impressions of this book, after the first, hardly one of them appeared without careful revision, and the insertion of a more or less considerable number of additions and corrections. I found, indeed, few errors of a kind that need have seemed serious except to Momus or Zoilus. But in the enormous number of statements of fact which literary history of the more exact kind requires, minor blunders, be they more or fewer, are sure to creep in. No writer, again, who endeavours constantly to keep up and extend his knowledge of such a subject as Elizabethan literature, can fail to have something new to say from time to time. And though no one who is competent originally for his task ought to experience any violent changes of view, any one's views may undergo modification. In particular, he may find that readers have misunderstood him, and that alterations of expression are desirable. For all these reasons and others I have not spared trouble in the various revisions referred to; I think the book has been kept by them fairly abreast of its author's knowledge, and I hope it is not too far behind that of others.
It will, however, almost inevitably happen that a long series of piecemeal corrections and codicils somewhat disfigures the character of the composition as a whole. And after nearly the full score of years, and not much less than half a score of re-appearances, it has seemed to me desirable to make a somewhat more thorough, minute, and above all connected revision than I have ever made before. And so, my publishers falling in with this view, the present edition represents the result. I do not think it necessary to reprint the original preface. When I wrote it I had already had some, and since I wrote it I have had much more, experience in writing literary history. I have never seen reason to alter the opinion that, to make such history of any value at all, the critical judgments and descriptions must represent direct, original, and first-hand reading and thought; and that in these critical judgments and descriptions the value of it consists. Even summaries and analyses of the matter of books, except in so far as they are necessary to criticism, come far second; while biographical and bibliographical details are of much less importance, and may (as indeed in one way or another they generally must) be taken at second hand. The completion of the Dictionary of National Biography has at once facilitated the task of the writer, and to a great extent disarmed the candid critic who delights, in cases of disputed date, to assume that the date which his author chooses is the wrong one. And I have in the main adjusted the dates in this book (where necessary) accordingly. The bibliographical additions which have been made to the Index will be found not inconsiderable.
I believe that, in my present plan, there is no author of importance omitted (there were not many even in the first edition), and that I have been able somewhat to improve the book from the results of twenty years' additional study, twelve of which have been mainly devoted to English literature. How far it must still be from being worthy of its subject, nobody can know better than I do. But I know also, and I am very happy to know, that, as an Elizabethan himself might have said, my unworthiness has guided many worthy ones to something like knowledge, and to what is more important than knowledge, love, of a subject so fascinating and so magnificent. And that the book may still have the chance of doing this, I hope to spare no trouble upon it as often as the opportunity presents itself.[1]
Edinburgh, January 30, 1907.
[1] In the last (eleventh) re-impression no alterations seemed necessary. In this, one or two bibliographical matters may call for notice. Every student of Donne should now consult Professor Grierson's edition of the Poems (2 vols., Oxford, 1912), and as inquiries have been made as to the third volume of my own Caroline Poets (see Index), containing Cleveland, King, Stanley, and some less known authors, I may be permitted to say that it has been in the press for years, and a large part of it is completed. But various stoppages, in no case due to neglect, and latterly made absolute by the war, have prevented its appearance.—Bath, October 8, 1918.
characteristics of its poetry—Wyatt—Surrey—Grimald—Their metres
—The stuff of their poems—The Mirror for Magistrates—Sackville—His
contributions and their characteristics—Remarks on the formal criticism
of poetry—Gascoigne—Churchyard—Tusser—Turberville—Googe—
The translators—Classical metres—Stanyhurst—Other miscellanies Pages 1-27 CHAPTER II EARLY ELIZABETHAN PROSE Outlines of Early Elizabethan Prose—Its origins—Cheke and his contemporaries
—Ascham—His style—Miscellaneous writers—Critics—Webbe—Puttenham
—Lyly—Euphues and Euphuism—Sidney—His style and critical principles
—Hooker—Greville—Knolles—Mulcaster 28-49 CHAPTER III THE FIRST DRAMATIC PERIOD Divisions of Elizabethan Drama—Its general character—Origins—Ralph Roister
Doister—Gammer Gurton's Needle—Gorboduc—The Senecan Drama—
Other early plays—The "university wits"—Their lives and characters—
Lyly (dramas)—The Marlowe group—Peele—Greene—Kyd—Marlowe
—The actor playwrights 50-81 CHAPTER IV "THE FAËRIE QUEENE" AND ITS GROUP Spenser—His life and the order of his works—The Shepherd's Calendar—The
minor poems—The Faërie Queene—Its scheme—The Spenserian stanza—
Spenser's language—His general poetical qualities—Comparison with other
English poets—His peculiar charm—The Sonneteers—Fulke Greville—
Sidney—Watson—Barnes—Giles Fletcher the elder—Lodge—Avisa—
Percy—Zepheria—Constable—Daniel—Drayton—Alcilia—Griffin—
Lynch—Smith—Barnfield—Southwell—The song and madrigal writers—
Campion—Raleigh—Dyer—Oxford, etc.—Gifford—Howell, Grove, and
others—The historians—Warner—The larger poetical works of Daniel
and Drayton—The satirists —Lodge—Donne—The poems of Donne
generally—Hall—Marston—Guilpin—Tourneur 82-156 CHAPTER V THE SECOND DRAMATIC PERIOD—SHAKESPERE Difficulty of writing about Shakespere—His life—His reputation in England
and its history—Divisions of his work—The Poems—The Sonnets—The
Plays—Characteristics of Shakespere—Never unnatural—His attitude to
morality—His humour—Universality of his range—Comments on him—
His manner of working—His variety—Final remarks—Dramatists to be
grouped with Shakespere—Ben Jonson—Chapman—Marston—Dekker 157-206 CHAPTER VI LATER ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN PROSE Bacon—Raleigh—The Authorised Version—Jonson and Daniel as prose-writers
—Hakluyt—The Pamphleteers—Greene—Lodge—Harvey—Nash—Dekker
—Breton—The Martin Marprelate Controversy—Account of it, with
specimens of the chief tracts 207-252 CHAPTER VII THE THIRD DRAMATIC PERIOD Characteristics—Beaumont and Fletcher—Middleton—Webster—Heywood—
Tourneur—Day 253-288 CHAPTER VIII THE SCHOOL OF SPENSER AND THE TRIBE OF BEN Sylvester—Davies of Hereford—Sir John Davies—Giles and Phineas Fletcher
—William Browne—Wither—Drummond—Stirling—Minor Jacobean
poets—Songs from the dramatists 289-314 CHAPTER IX MILTON, TAYLOR, CLARENDON, BROWNE, HOBBES The quintet—Milton's life—His character—His periods of literary production
—First Period, the minor poems—The special excellences of Comus—
Lycidas—Second Period, the pamphlets—Their merits and defects—
Milton's prose style—Third Period, the larger poems—Milton's blank
verse—His origins—His comparative position—Jeremy Taylor's life—His
principal works—His style—Characteristics of his thought and manner—
Sir Thomas Browne—His life, works, and editions—His literary manner—
Characteristics of his style and vocabulary—His Latinising—Remarkable
adjustment of his thought and expression—Clarendon—His life—Great
merits of his History—Faults of his style—Hobbes—His life and works—
Extraordinary strength and clearness of his style 315-353 CHAPTER X CAROLINE POETRY Herrick—Carew—Crashaw—Divisions of Minor Caroline poetry—Miscellanies—
George Herbert—Sandys—Vaughan—Lovelace and Suckling—Montrose—
Quarles—More—Beaumont—Habington—Chalkhill—Marmion—Kynaston
—Chamberlayne—Benlowes—Stanley—John Hall—Patrick Carey—
Cleveland—Corbet—Cartwright, Sherburne, and Brome—Cotton—The
general characteristics of Caroline poetry—A defence of the Caroline poets 354-393 CHAPTER XI THE FOURTH DRAMATIC PERIOD Weakening of dramatic strength—Massinger—Ford—Shirley—Randolph
—Brome—Cokain—Glapthorne—Davenant—Suckling—Minor and
anonymous plays of the Fourth and other Periods—The Shakesperian
Apocrypha 394-427 CHAPTER XII MINOR CAROLINE PROSE Burton—Fuller—Lord Herbert of Cherbury—Izaak Walton—Howell—Earle
—Felltham—The rest 428-444 Conclusion 445 CHAPTER I
FROM TOTTEL'S "MISCELLANY" TO SPENSER
In a work like the present, forming part of a larger whole and preceded by another part, the writer has the advantage of being almost wholly free from a difficulty which often presses on historians of a limited and definite period, whether of literary or of any other history. That difficulty lies in the discussion and decision of the question of origins—in the allotment of sufficient, and not more than sufficient, space to a preliminary recapitulation of the causes and circumstances of the actual events to be related. Here there is no need for any but the very briefest references of the kind to connect the present volume with its forerunner, or rather to indicate the connection of the two.
There has been little difference of opinion as to the long dead-season of English poetry, broken chiefly, if not wholly, by poets Scottish rather than English, which lasted through almost the whole of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. There has also been little difference in regarding the remarkable work (known as Tottel's Miscellany, but more properly called Songs and Sonnets, written by the Right Honourable Lord Henry Howard, late Earl of Surrey, and other) which was published by Richard Tottel in 1557, and which went through two editions in the summer of that year, as marking the dawn of the new period. The book is, indeed, remarkable in many ways. The first thing, probably, which strikes the modern reader about it is the fact that great part of its contents is anonymous and only conjecturally to be attributed, while as to the part which is more certainly known to be the work of several authors, most of those authors were either dead or had written long before. Mr. Arber's remarks in his introduction (which, though I have rather an objection to putting mere citations before the public, I am glad here to quote as a testimony in the forefront of this book to the excellent deserts
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