Part 10 (1/2)
In connection with a few of these sonnets may be read Spenser's four ”Hymns” (in honor of Love, Beauty, Heavenly Love and Heavenly Beauty) and especially his ”Epithalamium,” a marriage hymn which Brooke calls, with pardonable enthusiasm, ”the most glorious love song in the English language.”
A CRITICISM OF SPENSER. In reading _The Faery Queen_ one must note the contrast between Spenser's matter and his manner. His matter is: religion, chivalry, mythology, Italian romance, Arthurian legends, the struggles of Spain and England on the Continent, the Reformation, the turmoil of political parties, the appeal of the New World,--a summary of all stirring matters that interested his own tumultuous age. His manner is the reverse of what one might expect under the circ.u.mstances. He writes no stirring epic of victory or defeat, and never a downright word of a downright man, but a dreamy, shadowy narrative as soothing as the abode of Morpheus:
And, more to lulle him in his slumber soft, A trickling stream from high rock tumbling downe, And ever-drizzling rain upon the loft, Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne.
No other noyse, nor people's troublous cryes, As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne, Might there be heard; but careless Quiet lyes Wrapt in eternal silence far from enemyes.
Such stanzas (and they abound in every book of _The Faery Queen_) are poems in themselves; but unfortunately they distract attention from the story, which soon loses all progression and becomes as the rocking of an idle boat on the swell of a placid sea. The invention of this melodious stanza, ever since called ”Spenserian,” was in itself a notable achievement which influenced all subsequent English poetry. [Footnote: The Spenserian was an improvement on the _ottava-rima_, or eight-line stanza, of the Italians. It has been used by Burns in ”The Cotter's Sat.u.r.day Night,” by Sh.e.l.ley in ”The Revolt of Islam,” by Byron in ”Childe Harold,” by Keats in ”The Eve of St. Agnes,” and by many other poets.]
[Sidenote: SPENSER'S FAULTS]
As Spenser's faults cannot be ignored, let us be rid of them as quickly as possible. We record, then: the unreality of his great work; its lack of human interest, which causes most of us to drop the poem after a single canto; its affected antique spelling; its use of _fone_ (foes), _dan_ (master), _teene_ (trouble), _swink_ (labor), and of many more obsolete words; its frequent torturing of the king's English to make a rime; its utter lack of humor, appearing in such absurd lines as,
Astond he stood, and up his hair did hove.
[Sidenote: MORAL IDEAL]
Such defects are more than offset by Spenser's poetic virtues. We note, first, the moral purpose which allies him with the medieval poets in aim, but not in method. By most medieval romancers virtue was regarded as a means to an end, as in the _Morte d' Arthur_, where a knight made a vow of purity in order to obtain a sight of the Holy Grail. With Spenser virtue is not a means but an end, beautiful and desirable for its own sake; while sin is so pictured that men avoid it because of its intrinsic ugliness. This is the moral secret of _The Faery Queen_, in which virtues are personified as n.o.ble knights or winsome women, while the vices appear in the repulsive guise of hags, monsters and ”loathy beasts.”
[Sidenote: SENSE OF BEAUTY]
Spenser's sense of ideal beauty or, as Lanier expressed it, ”the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty,” is perhaps his greatest poetic quality. He is the poet-painter of the Renaissance; he fills his pages with descriptions of airy loveliness, as Italian artists covered the high ceilings of Venice with the reflected splendor of earth and heaven.
Moreover, his sense of beauty found expression in such harmonious lines that one critic describes him as having set beautiful figures moving to exquisite music.
In consequence of this beauty and melody, Spenser has been the inspiration of nearly all later English singers. Milton was one of the first to call him master, and then in a long succession such diverse poets as Dryden, Burns, Wordsworth, Scott, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, Byron, Tennyson and Swinburne.
The poet of ”Faery” has influenced all these and more so deeply that he has won the distinctive t.i.tle of ”the poets' poet.”
THE DRAMATISTS
”Few events in our literary history are so startling as this sudden rise of the Elizabethan drama,” says Green in his _History of the English People_, and his judgment is echoed by other writers who speak of the ”marvelous efflorescence” of the English drama as a matter beyond explanation. Startling it may be, with its frank expression of a nation's life, the glory and the shame of it; but there is nothing sudden or inexplicable about it, as we may see by reviewing the history of playwriting in England.
THE RELIGIOUS DRAMA. In its simplicity the drama is a familiar story retold to the eye by actors who ”make believe” that they are the heroes of the action. In this elemental form the play is almost as old as humanity.
Indeed, it seems to be a natural impulse of children to act a story which has given them pleasure; of primitive men also, who from time immemorial have kept alive the memory of tribal heroes by representing their deeds in play or pantomime. Thus, certain parts of _Hiawatha_ are survivals of dramatic myths that were once acted at the spring a.s.sembly of the Algonquin Indians. An interesting fact concerning these primitive dramas, whether in India or Greece or Persia, is that they were invariably a.s.sociated with some religious belief or festival.
[Sidenote: THE FIRST MIRACLES]
A later example of this is found in the Church, which at an early age began to make its holy-day services more impressive by means of Miracle plays and Mysteries. [Footnote: In France any play representing the life of a saint was called _miracle_, and a play dealing with the life of Christ was called _mystere_. In England no such distinction was made, the name ”Miracle” being given to any drama dealing with Bible history or with the lives of the saints.] At Christmas time, for example, the beautiful story of Bethlehem would be made more vivid by placing in a corner of the parish church an image of a babe in a manger, with shepherds and the Magi at hand, and the choir in white garments chanting the _Gloria in excelsis_.
Other festivals were celebrated in a similar way until a cycle of simple dramas had been prepared, cl.u.s.tering around four cardinal points of Christian teaching; namely, Creation, the Fall, Redemption, and Doomsday or the Last Judgment.
[Sidenote: GROWTH OF THE MIRACLES]
At first such plays were given in the church, and were deeply religious in spirit. They made a profound impression in England especially, where people flocked in such numbers to see them that presently they overflowed to the churchyard, and from there to the city squares or the town common. Once outside the church, they were taken up by the guilds or trades-unions, in whose hands they lost much of their religious character. Actors were trained for the stage rather than for the church, and to please the crowds elements of comedy and buffoonery were introduced, [Footnote: In the ”Shepherd's Play” or ”Play of the Nativity,” for example, the adoration of the Magi is interrupted by Mak, who steals a sheep and carries it to his wife. She hides the carca.s.s in a cradle, and sings a lullaby to it while the indignant shepherds are searching the house.] until the sacred drama degenerated into a farce. Here and there, however, a true Miracle survived and kept its character unspotted even to our own day, as in the famous Pa.s.sion Play at Oberammergau.
[Sidenote: CYCLES OF PLAYS]
When and how these plays came to England is unknown. By the year 1300 they were extremely popular, and continued so until they were replaced by the Elizabethan drama. Most of the important towns of England had each its own cycle of plays [Footnote: At present only four good cycles of Miracles are known to exist; namely, the Chester, York, Townley (or Wakefield) and Coventry plays. The number of plays varies, from twenty-five in the Chester to forty-eight in the York cycle.] which were given once a year, the performance lasting from three to eight days in a prolonged festival. Every guild responsible for a play had its own stage, which was set on wheels and drawn about the town to appointed open places, where a crowd was waiting for it. When it pa.s.sed on, to repeat the play to a different audience, another stage took its place. The play of ”Creation” would be succeeded by the ”Temptation of Adam and Eve,” and so on until the whole cycle of Miracles from ”Creation” to ”Doomsday” had been performed. It was the play not the audience that moved, and in this trundling about of the stage van we are reminded of Thespis, the alleged founder of Greek tragedy, who went about with his cart and his play from one festival to another.
[Sidenote: MORALITIES]
Two other dramatic types, the Morality and the Interlude, probably grew out of the religious drama. In one of the old Miracles we find two characters named Truth and Righteousness, who are severe in their denunciation of Adam, while Mercy and Peace plead for his life. Other virtues appear in other Miracles, then Death and the Seven Deadly Sins, until we have a play in which all the characters are personified virtues or vices. Such a play was called a Morality, and it aimed to teach right conduct, as the Miracles had at first aimed to teach right doctrine.