Hazlitt on English Literature Part 26

NOTES

[The annotations have not necessarily been introduced at the first occurrence of any name, and no cross-references have been supplied in the notes to names which occur in the text more than once. Such information as the notes supply can be found with the help of the index.--References, where no other indication is given, will be understood to be to the work under discussion. The Shakespeare references are to the one-volume Globe edition.]

THE AGE OF ELIZABETH

This lecture forms the introduction to the series on the "Literature of the Age of Elizabeth." Hazlitt might have derived hints for it from Schlegel, who speaks of the zeal for the study of the ancients, the extensive communication with other lands, the interest in the literature of Italy and Spain, the progress in experimental philosophy represented by Bacon, and contrasts the achievements of that age, in a vein which must have captured Hazlitt's sympathy, with "the pretensions of modern enlightenment, as it is called, which looks with such contempt on all preceding ages." The Elizabethans, he goes on to say, "possessed a fullness of healthy vigour, which showed itself always with boldness, and sometimes also with petulance. The spirit of chivalry was not yet wholly extinct, and a queen, who was far more jealous in exacting homage to her s.e.x than to her throne, and who, with her determination, wisdom, and magnanimity, was in fact, well qualified to inspire the minds of her subjects with an ardent enthusiasm, inflamed that spirit to the n.o.blest love of glory and renown. The feudal independence also still survived in some measure; the n.o.bility vied with each other in the splendour of dress and number of retinue, and every great lord had a sort of small court of his own. The distinction of ranks was as yet strongly marked: a state of things ardently to be desired by the dramatic poet." "Lectures on Dramatic Literature," ed. Bohn, p. 349.

P. 1. _Raleigh_, Sir Walter (1552-1618), the celebrated courtier, explorer, and man of letters.

_Drake_, Sir Francis (1545-1595), the famous sailor, hero of the Armada.

_c.o.ke_, Sir Edward (1552-1634), the great jurist, whose "Inst.i.tutes,"

better known as c.o.ke upon Littleton, became a famous legal text-book.

_Hooker_, Richard (1553-1600), theologian, author of the "Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity" (1593), a defense of the Anglican Church against the Puritans and notable also as a masterpiece of English prose.

P. 2. _mere oblivion_. "As You Like It," ii, 7, 165.

_poor, poor dumb names_ [mouths]. "Julius Caesar," iii, 2, 229.

_Marston_, John (1575-1634). In the third lecture on the "Age of Elizabeth," Hazlitt calls him "a writer of great merit, who rose to tragedy from the ground of comedy, and whose _forte_ was not sympathy, either with the stronger or softer emotions, but an impatient scorn and bitter indignation against the vices and follies of men, which vented itself either in comic irony or in lofty invective. He was properly a satirist. He was not a favourite with his contemporaries, nor they with him." Works, V, 224. His chief tragedy is "Antonio and Mellida."

_Middleton_, Thomas (1570?-1627), and _Rowley_, William (1585?-1642?). In the second lecture on the "Age of Elizabeth," Hazlitt a.s.sociates these two names. "Rowley appears to have excelled in describing a certain amiable quietness of disposition and disinterested tone of morality, carried almost to a paradoxical excess, as in his Fair Quarrel, and in the comedy of A Woman Never Vexed, which is written, in many parts, with a pleasing simplicity and _navete_ equal to the novelty of the conception.

Middleton's style was not marked by any peculiar quality of his own, but was made up, in equal proportions, of the faults and excellences common to his contemporaries.... He is lamentably deficient in the plot and denouement of the story. It is like the rough draft of a tragedy with a number of fine things thrown in, and the best made use of first; but it tends to no fixed goal, and the interest decreases, instead of increasing, as we read on, for want of previous arrangement and an eye to the whole.... The author's power is _in_ the subject, not _over_ it; or he is in possession of excellent materials which he husbands very ill." Works, V, 214-5. For characters of other dramatists see notes to p. 326.

_How lov'd_. Pope's "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady."

P. 3. _draw the curtain of time_. Cf. "we will draw the curtain and show you the picture." "Twelfth Night," i, 5, 251.

_within reasonable bounds_. At this point Hazlitt digresses to reprove the age for its affectation of superiority over other ages and the pa.s.sage, not being relevant, has been omitted.

_less than smallest dwarfs_. "Paradise Lost," I, 779.

_desiring this man's art_. Shakespeare's Sonnets, XXIX.

_in shape and gesture_. "Paradise Lost," I, 590.

_Mr. Wordsworth says_. See Sonnet ent.i.tled "London, 1802."

P. 4. _drew after him_. "Paradise Lost," II, 692.

_Otway_, Thomas (1652-1685), author of "Venice Preserved," the most popular post-Shakespearian tragedy of the English stage. Hazlitt notes in this play a "power of rivetting breathless attention, and stirring the deepest yearnings of affection.... The awful suspense of the situations, the conflict of duties and pa.s.sions, the intimate bonds that unite the characters together, and that are violently rent asunder like the parting of soul and body, the solemn march of the tragical events to the fatal catastrophe that winds up and closes over all, give to this production of Otway's Muse a charm and power that bind it like a spell on the public mind, and have made it a proud and inseparable adjunct of the English stage." Works, V, 354-5.

_Jonson's learned sock_. Milton's "L'Allegro."

P. 6. _The translation of the Bible_. The first important 16th century translation of the Bible is William Tyndale's version of the New Testament (1525) and of the Pentateuch (1530). The complete translations are those of Miles Coverdale (1535), the Great Bible (1539), the Geneva or Breeches Bible (1557), the Bishop's Bible (1568), and the Rheims-Douay Bible--the New Testament (1582) and the Old Testament (1609-1610). Finally came the Authorized Version in 1611.

P. 8. _penetrable stuff_. "Hamlet," iii, 4, 36.

_his washing_, etc. St. John, xiii.

_above all art_, etc. Cf. Pope's "Epistle to the Earl of Oxford": "Above all Pain, all Pa.s.sion, and all Pride."

_My peace_. St. John, xiv, 27.

_they should love_. Ibid., xv, 12.

_Woman, behold_. Ibid., xix, 26.

_his treatment of the woman_. Ibid., viii, 1-12.

_the woman who poured precious ointment_. St. Matthew, xxvi, 6-13; St.

Mark, xiv, 3-9.

_his discourse with the disciples_. St. Luke, xxiv, 13-31.

_his Sermon on the Mount_. St. Matthew, v-vii.

_parable of the Good Samaritan and of the Prodigal Son_. St. Luke, x, 25-37; xv, 11-32.

P. 9. _Who is our neighbour_. Ibid., x, 29.

_to the Jews_, etc. I Corinthians, i, 23.

P. 10. _Soft as sinews_. "Hamlet," iii, 3. 71.

_The best of men_. Dekker, "The Honest Wh.o.r.e," Part I, v, 2, sub fin.

P. 11. _Ta.s.so by Fairfax_. Torquato Ta.s.so (1544-1595), an Italian poet whose great epic, the "Gerusalemme Liberata," was finished in 1574. The English translation by Edward Fairfax was published in 1600 as "G.o.dfrey of Bulloigne, or the Recoverie of Jerusalem."

_Arios...o...b.. Harrington_. Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533), whose romantic epic, "Orlando Furioso," was first published in 1516, and translated by Sir John Harrington in 1591.

_Homer and Hesiod by Chapman_. George Chapman (1559?-1634), poet and dramatist, published a complete translation of the "Iliad" in 1611, of the "Odyssey" in 1614, of Homer's "Battle of Frogs and Mice" in 1624, and of "The Georgicks of Hesiod" in 1618.

_Virgil_. A complete English translation of the "aeneid" was made by Gavin Douglas, a Scottish poet (1474?-1522), and first printed in London in 1553. There was a translation of the second and fourth books into blank verse by the Earl of Surrey, published in 1557, but the one most in use was by Thomas Phaer (1510?-1560), which appeared incompletely in 1558 and 1562 and was completed by Thomas Twyne in 1583.

_Ovid_. There were a number of translators of Ovid during this period, chief of whom was Arthur Golding, whose version of the "Metamorphoses"

appeared in 1565 and 1567. "The Heroides" were translated by George Turberville in 1567.

_Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch_. The chief work of Plutarch, a Greek writer of the first century, is the "Parallel Lives," which was translated into French by Jacques Amyot in 1559. Sir Thomas North's translation of Amyot's version in 1579 was the most popular and influential of all Elizabethan translations.

P. 12. _Boccaccio_, Giovanni (1313-1375), Italian poet and novelist. Among the English his best known work is the "Decameron," a collection of a hundred prose tales. Versions of some of these stories appeared in various Elizabethan collections, such as the "Tragical Tales" translated by George Turberville in 1587. The first complete translation was published in 1620 and reprinted in the Tudor Translations in 1909.

_Petrarch_ (1304-1374), Italian humanist and poet, whose sonnets were widely imitated by French and Italian poets during the Renaissance.

_Dante_ (1265-1321). The author of the "Divine Comedy" was not very well known to Elizabethan readers. There was no English translation of his poem attempted till that of Rogers in 1782, and no version worthy of the name was produced till H. F. Cary's in 1814.