History of English Literature

Age of Milton –

Poetry – 1.

English literature from the death of Elizabeth to the Restoration, in as much as it covers the reigns
of James I. and Charles I. as well as the Commonwealth period. As its literature is dominated by the giant
figure of Milton, it is convenient as well as appropriate to call it the Age of Milton or the Puritan Age.
The drama certainly declined, tragedy degenerating into ‘horror’ plays and comedy into the trivial and
coarse. The drama came to an end with the closing of the theatres in 1640s. The poetry that decline is
discernible only in the metaphysical school, though it is largely counter-balanced by the achievements of
the cavalier poets, to say nothing of those of Milton. In prose the performance of this period is even
greater than that of Elizabethan Age. We have the Authorised Version of the Bible and such magnificent
prose writers as Burton, Geremy Taylor, Thomas Browne and Milton himself.

The literature of the period nevertheless has characteristics which correspond to the middle age of
man’s life. The very defects of the Elizabethans came to be recognized as excellences to be imitated. This
is exemplified in the artificiality, exaggeration, and obscurity in Donne and his metaphysical school.

Another factor which influenced literature in this period was the disunity of the country. The
struggle between King and the Parliament destroyed the unity of the nation which had been held together
by Queen Elizabeth. The division of the country into two hostile camps is reflected in literature. So we
have Cavalier Poets and Roundhead Poets.

Poetry: The poets like Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Donne had also influenced this literature very
much in various ways. The Spenserians are descriptive while the schools of Ben Jonson and Donne are
lyrical.

Spenserians:

Giles Fletcher, Phineas Fletcher, William Browne, George Wither.

Giles Fletcher-(1586-1623) and Phineas Fletcher-(1582-1650):

Giles and Phineas Fletcher were both Cambridge men and pastors. They acknowledged Spenser
as their master and wrote long allegorical poems in modified Spenserian stanzas. Giles’s “Christ’s
Victory and Triumph” (1610) anticipates Milton’s epic in its matter, though in manner it is a brilliant
imitation of Spenser. Phineas Fletcher’s “Purple Island” is a much longer but prosy allegory of the human
body.

Giles Fletcher’s principal work has the full title “Christ's Victorie and Triumph”, in Heaven, in
Earth, over and after Death, and consists of four cantos. The first canto, Christ's Victory in Heaven,
represents a dispute in heaven between justice and mercy, using the facts of Christ's life on earth; the
second, Christ's Victory on Earth, deals with an allegorical account of Christ's Temptation; the third,
Christ's Triumph over Death, covers the Passion; and the fourth, Christ's Triumph after Death, covering
the Resurrection and Ascension, ends with an affectionate eulogy of his brother Phineas as Thyrsilis. The
meter is an eight-line stanza in the style of Spenser; the first five lines have the rhyme scheme ABABB,
and the stanza concludes with a rhyming triplet. Milton borrowed liberally from “Christ's Victory and
Triumph” in Paradise Regained”.

Phineas Fletcher wrote throughout his life. At his death he left behind a body of literature larger
than that of his Renaissance contemporaries: in fact, his work rivals in size the canons of Spenser and
Milton. The collected works of Phineas Fletcher include three volumes of religious prose, an epic, an
epyllion, a drama, several medium-length verse narratives, pastoral eclogues, verse epistles, epithalamia,
hymns, psalms, translations, various songs, occasional pieces, lyrics, and devotional poems. In scope,
variety, and quality, his writings are second to none of that age. In 1632 appeared two theological prose
treatises, “The Way to Blessedness” and “Joy in Tribulation”, and in 1633 his magnum opus, “The Purple
Island”. The Purple Island, or the Isle of Man, is a poem in twelve cantos describing in cumbrous allegory
the physiological structure of the human body and the mind of man. The intellectual qualities are
personified, while the veins are rivers, the bones the mountains of the island, the whole analogy being
worked out with great ingenuity. The manner of Spenser is preserved throughout, but Fletcher never lost
sight of his moral aim to lose himself in digressions like those of the Faerie Queene.

William Browne-(1590-1645) and George Wither-(1588-1665)

Browne and Wither, who had strong affinities with Spenser, though they did not use his stanza.
They wrote in couplets, mostly octosyllabic. This is a special feature of the poets of the Caroline period,
who write in couplets and it regarded as a mark of decadence in prosody. The pioneers of the classical
age, Denham and Waller, condemned this loose verity of couplet and produced their own and correct
smooth couplets.
 Both Browne and Wither wrote delightful pastoral poems. Browne’s “Britannia’s Pastorals”
which owes its fame more to the title than to any intrinsic merit. Wither is remembered for such songs as
‘Shall I, wasting in despair / Die because a woman’s fair’, “The Choice” in which he praises the Rose,
and the pretty and moving “A Widow’s Hymn”.

The Schools of Ben Jonson and John Donne:

The important thing to notice in the poetry of the Caroline period is the predominance of the
lyric. With the exception of Milton’s epic there are no great poems. There were, of course, ambitious
poets who designed poems on the epic scale, such as D’Avenant’s “Gondibert” (1650), Cowley’s
“Dravideis” (1656), and Chamberlayne’s “Pharonnida” (1659); but they were failures. So the charm of
the poetry of this period lies in its lyrics. Not that the Caroline lyric is without Elizabethan conceit. The
conceit is there but the lyric on the whole is simpler, clearer, smoother and more graceful.

The lyric writers fall into two groups according as they followed Ben Jonson or Donne. Generally
speaking the writers of secular lyrics – Cavalier lyrists as they are called – owe their inspiration to Ben
Jonson and the writers of religious lyrics, called the Metaphysical lyrists , owe theirs to Donne.

Ben Jonson being devoted to classics he followed the patterns of Horace, Virgil, Catullus and
other writers of antiquity. He loved order and regularity in form and simplicity and clarity in sense.
Though a classicist, he was not without romantic feeling which breaks out now and then. His classical
restraint and careful craftsmanship exerted a healthy influence on his followers, the Cavalier lyrists. Their
lyrics are simple, clear and graceful, avoiding the extremes of over-ornaments of Spenser on the one hand
and the tortured wit and obscurity of Donne on the other.

Cavalier Poets:

Herrick, Carew, Suckling, Lovelace:

Robert Herrick (1591-1674_

Greatest and most popular of the Cavalier lyrists was Herrick. His fame depends on secular
poems which appeared in the collection called “Hesperides”. This also contained some divine poems or
“Noble Numbers”. The poems are simplicity itself, their excellence consisting in dainty phrasing. His
most famous poem is “Corinna’s going a- Maying”.
Thomas Carew (1595-1640)

Carew, though in the main shows the influence of Donne in some of his extravagant conceits. A
typical courtier, he was a refined, dashing libertine with a taste and talents for poetry. His poems show
meticulous craftsmanship and are highly polished and elegant. He is now remembered chiefly for some of
his songs.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1641) and Richard Lovelace-(1617-1657)

Suckling and Lovelace are mentioned together because of the similarity of their circumstances as
well as of the fate that overtook them. Both were staunch royalists and ruined themselves in the Royalist
cause. Both were very rich, brilliant and witty. Suckling was a spendthrift and libertine while Lovelace
was remarkable for the beauty b of his person and virtue. Both had a turn for poetry, but neither of them
was a careful poet. Suckling’s love poems are full of fun and frivolity. Lovelace, though as unequal as
Suckling, has won immortality by a couple of short pieces which are as serious and sincere as Suckling’s
are frivolous and conventional.

Andrew Marvell1621-1678)

Andrew Marvell should be classed with Milton as a Puritan poet. His poetry combines the clarity
and grace of Ben Jonson with the metaphysical wit of Donne. This is best shown in his poem “To His
Coy Mistress”. Using metaphysical hyperboles he argues. In his “Horation Ode on Cromwell” he stops to
pay a tribute to Charles I, his victim. He was not only a poet, but also a satirist and politician. His poetry
ranges from the love-song "To His Coy Mistress", to evocations of an aristocratic country house and
garden in "Upon Appleton House" and "The Garden", the political address "An Horatian Ode upon
Cromwell's Return from Ireland", and the later personal and political satires "Flecknoe" and "The
Character of Holland".

Marvell is said to have adhered to the established stylized forms of his contemporary neoclassical
tradition. These include the carpe diem lyric tradition which also forms the basis of his famous lyric "To
His Coy Mistress". He adopted familiar forms and infused them with his unique conceits, analogies,
reflections and preoccupations with larger questions about life and death T.S. Eliot wrote of Marvell's
style that "It is more than a technical accomplishment, or the vocabulary and syntax of an epoch; it is,
what we have designated tentatively as wit, a tough reasonableness beneath the slight lyric grace". He
also identified Marvell and the metaphysical school with the "dissociation of sensibility" that occurred in
17th-century English literature; Eliot described this trend as "something which...happened to the mind of
England...it is the difference between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet". Poets increasingly
developed a self-conscious relationship to tradition, which took the form of a new emphasis on
craftsmanship of expression and an idiosyncratic freedom in allusions to Classical and Biblical sources.

"To His Coy Mistress", Marvell's most celebrated poem, combines an old poetic conceit (the
persuasion of the speaker's lover by means of a carpe diem philosophy) with Marvell's typically vibrant
imagery and easy command of rhyming couplets. Other works incorporate topical satire and religious
themes. If Milton is the greatest and Herrick the most popular, Marvell is the most attractive poet of the
age.

Definition of Metaphysical Poetry:

Metaphysical poetry is marked by the use of elaborate figurative languages, original conceits,
paradoxes, and philosophical topics.

The word “metaphysical” was used by writers such as John Dryden and Samuel Johnson in
regards to the poets of the seventeenth century. These poets are noted for their “unnaturalness”. Johnson
wrote in Lives of the Most Eminent Engish Poets in the late 1700s, that a “race of writers” had appeared
that might be termed “metaphysical poets”. The term was likely taken from Dryden who had described
John Donne as affecting “metaphysics” in his “satires” and his “amorous verses”. It was not until the
twentieth century that many of these poets were adequately recognized for their talent and originality.
T.S. Eliot is one of the many twentieth-century literary critics who helped to establish the well-deserved
reputation that writers such as John Donne and Andrew Marvell now hold. He applied many of their
techniques to his own writing.

One of the most prominent characteristics of this movement is the spoken quality of the poetry,
something that many other writers of that time did not approve of. Other common features include the use
of colloquial diction, philosophical exploration, new and original conceits, irony, and the relaxed use of
meter. Poets whose works have been categorized as “metaphysical” often seek out the answers to
questions such as, does God exist? Or, does humankind really have free choice? Or, what is the nature of
reality?

Donne and the Metaphysical School of Poetry:

Even more powerful that Ben Jonson’s was the influence of John Donne (1573-1631). His early
poems are outspokenly erotic and sensual and were published only after his death, though they had been
in private circulation in Metaphysical School. His divine poems are equally passionate in expressing his
complex and deep religious emotion.
 Donne was a rebel in poetry. Impatient of convention he revolted against the whole Spenserian
tradition in matter as well as in manner. He despised not only in allegory, pastoralism, and romantic
chivalry, but also its over rich style and smooth versification. He decided to treat love as a physical
appetite honestly and realistically. And as he did not like Spenser’s heavily brocaded language and the
monotonous music of his stanza, he deliberately adopted a colloquial language and rough crabbed metre.

He was undoubtedly possessed of great poetic gifts that aiming at originality he achieved only
novelty. There are passages of great and grave beauty both in his love poems and in his divine poems, but
usually they are imbedded in a bog of philosophical disquisition of such subtlety that the reader’s head
begins to reel as he follows him through the twists and turns of the argument. A good example is the
poem “Exstasy”. The ecstasy of union of two souls in love is a simple enough idea, but it is tortured into
such ethereal shapes that only a reader gifted with a special sixth sense can grasp them.

The blend of passion and thought, this integrated sensibility. But this sensibility is not peculiar to
Donne. Poetic sensibility is a complex thing, a compound of thought and feeling. No poet’s sensibility is
either emotion alone or thought alone. Thought and feeling are inextricably mixed, though their
proportion may vary according to the subject or the mood of the poet. This uncontrolled thought leads to
rhapsody and raving. This led him to disgusting realism in his portrayal of love and to extravagant
hyperboles and preposterous conceits in his philosophical speculations.

His divine poems follow the same pattern with this difference

That in them the passion is that of religious exaltation. The longer poems are insufferably taxing; even of
the shorter pieces only one or two like ‘Death be not proud”, “Batter my heart, three person’d God” are
found in anthologies.

The Metaphysical Poets:

The newness of Donne’s poetry strongly applied to the tastes of the time and for a whole
generation from (1630-1660) the metaphysical style was widely if not universally practiced. The direct
descendants of Donne, however were the religious poets- Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan and Traherne.

George Herbert (1593-1633)

In this group of religious metaphysical, George Herbert is the central figure. His humility, self-
efficient, simple pity and perfect Christian charity find plain, direct, and harmonious expression in the
collection of his poems called “The Temple”. His poems “The Pulley” and “Love” Which may be read in
any anthology are enough to illustrate the poet, soothing quality are Herbert’s poetry.
Richard Crashaw (1613-1649)

Crashaw, a Catholic poet, is nearer to Donne in fantastic conceits. He is the most brilliant of this
group, but his hyperboles border on the fatuous and absurd. The eyes of St. Mary Magdalene in the poem
“The Weeper” are “walking paths, compendious oceans”. Their tears are “the cream of the milky way”
etc. His “Hymn to St. Teresa”, however, is the most explosive effusion of devotional passion in all
English religious poetry. Most of his verse is religious, but some of his best poems are secular. The most
interesting of these is his whimsical “Wishes” to his supposed mistress!

Crashaw's poetry, although often categorised with those of the contemporary English
metaphysical poets, exhibits similarities with the Baroque poets and influenced in part by the works of
Italian and Spanish mystics. It draws parallels "between the physical beauties of nature and the spiritual
significance of existence". His work is said to be marked by a focus toward "love with the smaller graces
of life and the profounder truths of religion, while he seems forever preoccupied with the secret
architecture of things".

Henry Vaughan-(1621-1695):

Vaughan, more of a mystic than any other of his group, has deeper thought, but is not very artistic
expression. The best of his is illustrated in such poems as “The Retreat” in which he anticipates
Wordsworth’s “Immortality Ode”. He is chiefly known for religious poetry published in Silex Scintillans
in 1650, with a second part in 1655. In 1646 his poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal Englished,
appeared, followed by a second volume in 1647. Meanwhile, he had been persuaded by reading the
religious poet George Herbert to give up "idle verse". The prose Mount of Olives and Solitary Devotions
(1652) show the depth of his convictions and authenticity of his genius. Two more volumes of secular
verse followed, ostensibly without his sanction, but it is his religious verse that has been acclaimed. He
also translated short moral and religious works and two medical works in prose.

Thomas Traherne-(1636-1674):

Traherne, whose work was discovered only at the beginning of the present century, is a minor
Vaughan, both in his mysticism and in his reminiscences of childhood. The work for which Traherne is
best known today is “The Centuries of Meditations”, a collection of short paragraphs in which he reflects
on Christian life and ministry, philosophy, happiness, desire and childhood. This was first published in
1908 after having been rediscovered in manuscript ten years earlier. His poetry likewise was first
published in 1903 and 1910 (The Poetical Works of Thomas Traherne, “B.D. and Poems of Felicity”.
 Traherne's writings frequently explore the glory of creation and what he saw as his intimate
relationship with God. His writing conveys an ardent, almost childlike love of God, and is compared to
similar themes in the works of later poets William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
His love for the natural world is frequently expressed in his works by a treatment of nature that evokes
Romanticism—two centuries before the Romantic movement.

The Meaning of Metaphysical:

The term metaphysical was first used for Donne for Dryden and was later applied to him and his
school by Dr. Johnson in his discussion of Cowley. The term has reference to the hairsplitting subtlety of
Donne’s philosophical reasoning. According to Dr. Johnson, the metaphysical poets, “were men of
learning and to show their learning was their whole endeavour… They copied neither nature nor life.
Their thoughts often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious but neither are just; and the reader, far
from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perversity of industry they were
ever found”.

The Pioneers of Classicism: Cowley, Denham, and Waller:

The affectations, the eccentricities, and fantasticism of Donne and his metaphysical school
provoked a reaction which led to the classicism of the next age. Ben Jonson in fact was the real founder of
the classical school, but probably because he lacked smoothness, the honour of ushering in the new are
assigned by the rising generation to a set of three poets of the mid-seventeenth century: Cowley, Denham
and Waller. These poets are regarded as a link between the old and the new, between the Renaissance and
the Classical Age. They are the precursors or pioneers of the new age of Dryden and Pope.

Abraham Cowley-(1618-1667_:

Abraham Cowley was the last of the metaphysical and the first of the moderns. Leaving his
earlier imitations of Donne’s subtleties and conceits, Cowley turned more and more towards classicism
and became a fervent admirer of Bacon and the Royal Society as embodiments of reason and
understanding. He wrote an unsuccessful religious epic “Dravideis”, irregular Pindaric Odes as well as
many love poems and occasional verse. In all his distinguishing quality is brilliant wit rather than force of
passion or imagination. In his poem “Drinking” he argues that since everything in nature drinks- the
earth, the plants, the sun, the moon, the stars. In “The Epicure” he says, it is no use showering flowers,
wines and precious ointments on the monuments of the dead. He would have all these now while he is
still alive. In “The Wish” he seeks the solitude of woods and fields away from the buzzing crowds of the
city. Cowley was regarded as the greatest poet of his day.
John Denham (1615-1669)

Pope sang of Denham’s strength and Waller’s sweetness. Denham owes his fame to his poem
“Cooper’s Hill” (1642). It is a description of a place near the Thames, with many historical memories.

Edmund Waller: (1606-1687)

Other pioneer, of classicism Edmund Waller was a writer of occasional verse. His sweetness
which impressed Pope consists in his well-tuned couplets, each of which is a complete sentence. He said,
he found English verse wanting in smoothness, and set himself the task of supplying it. He supplied it
abundantly in miscellaneous poems, the most famous of which of is love poems “On a Girdle; Go, Lovely
Rose; and one on Old Age”. Though the theme of the love poem is conventional, they are pretty and
graceful. It is the poem on “Old Age”, however, which is the best and applied most to men of the new
generation.

The new age cared for smoothness and correctness of form rather than originality or inspiration.
Denham and Waller gave what is demanded. The new literature was called classical but it was classical
only on the side of restraint, the one thing needed at the time to curb the exuberant fancy of Spenser on
the one hand and exaggerated eccentricity of Donne on the other. The Age of Reason had arrived.