Geoffrey Chaucer.doc

Geoffrey Chaucerca. 1343-1400Social BackgroundMedieval society was made up of three estatesBy the late 14th C, these basic categories were layered into complex, interrelated and unstable social strata Chaucers life and his works, esp The Canterbury Tales was profoundly influenced by these forces. Overseas Insperationdirect contact with Italian Renaissance. Writers like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio presented him with new verse forms, new subject matter, and new modes of presentation.Consolation of PhilosophyA moral and religious work by Boethiusa favourite book for the Middle AgesChaucers ArtLong before The Canterbury Tales, Chaucers writings were already many facetedMoreover, different elements are likely to mix in the same workThis Chaucerian complexity owes much to the wide range of Chaucers learning and his exposure to new literary currents on the Continent but perhaps even more to his special social position as a civil servant. The Canterbury TalesThe original plan projected about 120 stories. Only 22 were completed. The prilgrim narrators represent a wide spectrum of ranks and occupations. In some Tales there is a fascinating accord between the narrators and their stories。The General PrologueMost of the details give something more than mere verisimilitude to the description. What uniquely distinguishes Chaucers prologue from conventional estates satire is the suppression in all but a few instances of overt moral judgement. EDMUND SPENSER1552-1599Crucial Points of Life* The greatest nondramatic poet of the Elizabethan era.* He became acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney and his friend Sir Edward Dyer.The Shepheardes Calender* The 12 eclogues of The Shepheardes Calender are titled for the month of the year. Each is prefaced by an illustrative woodcut representing the characters or theme and picturing the appropriate sign of the zodiac for that month in the clouds above.* The eclogue was a classical form practised by Virgil and others, it presents, usu in dialogue between shepherds, the moods and feelings and attitudes of the simple, rural life. But often the eclogue criticizes the world as it is against the idealized pastoral world. So as in other Renaissance poets, the eclogue at times became a didactic or satirical comment on contemporary affairs. * In The Shepheardes Calender, Spenser used a deliberately archaic language, partly out of homage to Chaucer, partly to achieve a rustic effect. * In terms of meters/rhyme schemes, There are thirteen different of them in The Shepheardes Calender. * Spensers skillful use of many verse forms and his extraordinary musical effects did much to inaugurate the new poetry of the Elizabethan Age. And he is called the poets poet.The Faerie Queene* Spensers exuberant, multifaceted poem is peculiarly characteristic of its age. In some respects, The Faerie Queene is a courtesy book. The six books Spenser completed exhibit the virtues of Holiness, Temperance, Chastity, Friendship, Justice and Courtesy. * Owed much to Virgil as he was, Spenser replaced Virgils theme of epic heroism, arms and man, with sth more romantic Fierce warres and faithfull loves. So it is called a romantic epic. It also fulfills the common Elizabethan expectation that poetry should teach by delighting.* The poem is also a national epic: Spenser celebrates the Tutors, Queen Elizabeth, and the English nation. * He termed the poem an allegory, and invited interpretation of characters and adventures in terms of particular virtues and vices. * Thus, Spensers poem may be enjoyed as a fascinating story with multiple meanings, which works on several levels at once. * Plus, it draws constantly on literary and pictorial traditions.* The various books are composed on different structural principles. * Conclusion* Spenser can not be put into neatly labeled categories. He was strongly influenced by Renaissance neoplatonism, but was also earthy and practical. He is a lover and celebrator of physical beauty, yet also a profound analyst of good and evil in all their perplexing shapes and complexities. He was strongly influenced by Puritanism in his early days, remained a thoroughgoing Protestant all his life, and portrayed the Roman Catholic Church as a villian in The Faerie Queene; yet his understanding of faith and of sin owed much to Catholic thinkers. He was a poet of sensuous images yet also sth of an iconoclast, deeply suspicious of the power of images (material and verbal) to turn into idols. He was an idealist, yet also a celebrant of English nationalism, empire and martial power. He was in some ways a backward-looking poet who paid homage to Chaucer, used archaic language, and compared his own age unfavourably with the antique world. Yet, as British epic poet and poet-prophet, he points forward to the poetry of Romantics and esp. Miltonwho himself paid homage to Spenser as a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE1564-1593A General Introduction* it is not Her Majestys pleasure that anyone employed as he had been in matters touching the benefit of his country should be defamed by those that are ignorant in the affairs he went about.* Before he left Cambridge, he had certainly written his tremendouly successful play Tamburlaine. Tamburlaine dramatizes the exploits of a 14th C Mongol chieftain who conquered much of the known world. (the type of modern man, Gods scourge) Marlowe defined him as the vehicle for the expression of boundless energy and ambition, the impulse to strive constantly for the absolute power. When one of his victims accuses him of bloody cruelty, Tamburlaine answers that ambition to rule is embeded in the laws of nature and in basic human psychology:Nature, that framed us of four elementsWarring within our breasts for regiment,Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds;Our souls, whose faculties can comprehendThe wondrous architecture of he worldAnd measure every planets wandering course,Still climbing after knowledge infinite,And always moving as the restless spheres,Wills us to hear ourselves and never rest Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,That perfect bliss and sole felicity,The sweet fruition of an earthly crown. * The English theatre had heard nothing like this before. Here is a resonant, rhetorical blank verse, eminently suited to projection from the stage. * From the time of his first great success, when he was twenty-three, Marlowe had only six years to live. In these six violent years, Marlowe composed five more plays: his sequel to Tamburlaine; The Massacre