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THE ELIZABETHAN RENAISSANCE: In the Green World
ENGL 421

NOTE: This is representative of the syllabi for this course. It is not necessarily the syllabus being used in any one semester.

Course Description

A study, through poetry, prose and drama, of the sixteenth century English Renaissance—the world that molded Shakespeare and that Shakespeare drew.

The purpose of the course is to help you develop critical skills; to show you the relationship of language to culture, history, belief, and value—in particular to the culture of the sixteenth century English Renaissance; and to explore the themes and conventions specific to the Elizabethan period.

Required Text Books

The Literature of Renaissance England, edited by J Hollander and F. Kermode

Shakespeare's Othello, Signet Classics

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Signet Classics

Marlowe's Jew of Malta, Norton

Optional

The Elizabethan World Picture by E.M.W. Tillyard

Note: In addition to this material, I shall hand out xeroxed material that strikes my fancy or that strikes your fancy. You must also buy a large three-ring binder to collect the material you will receive during the course of the semester.

Course Requirements

q All assignments must be handed in (or be available) on the due date.

q Late assignments may (quite likely) be devaluated one letter grade per class period late. Students are to complete all reading assignments.

q Students are expected to participate in class discussions and evaluations.

q Attendance is important. Exceptions should be discussed with me in advance. More than two unexcused

q Absences may (quite likely) result in a lower grade. More than three unexcused absences may (quite likely) result in a failing grade. I am not stingy about excused absences but you must ask.]

q Students may receive extra credit. Interested students must first discuss this with me. Extra credit cannot be used to replace missed or late assignments.

Final Grade

The final grade will be based upon:

q Midterm Exam (approximately 20% of the grade),

q Short Critical paper (approximately 20% of the grade), Dictionary of Culture (10% of the grade),

q Final Exam or Final Paper/Project (40% of the grade), Class participation (approximately 10% of the grade).

Note: I may alter the balance of these approximate weights during the course of the semester, after discussion with the class, especially if assignments are changed, added or deleted.

Style Specifications

q All writing assignments or exercises MUST be typed, double spaced, leaving a two-inch margin on the right hand side. Use white, 81/2 x 11 paper.

q Type your name in the upper left hand comer with the assignment name and date underneath.

COURSE/CLASS STRUCTURE

Here are some of the themes we are going to talk about.

1. The Uses of Tradition and Convention. What is remarkable about the Elizabethan period is the way in which artists created new ways of seeing and describing the world while at the same time using some fixed traditions and literary conventions.

Thus the sonnet provides a very tight structure yet in the hands of poets like Wyatt, Sidney, and Shakespeare, the convention is used unconventionally and with great irony. The effect is powerful. The need to work off of tight conventions tells us a great deal about the Elizabethan culture and the history the Elizabethans were living through.

Somewhat related themes are the themes of artifice, disguise, counterfeit, and imitation/creativity. The reason is that when we work within conventions—and play with conventions—we imitate as we distort; we counterfeit as we create. You will see that the Elizabethan age had a very different attitude towards "taking" and "remaking" the work and ideas of others than we do. Plagiarism, for instance, would not have been understood by Wyatt, Marlowe, or Shakespeare.

2. Language, Ritual, Rhetoric & Power. In the Renaissance, a truism is that if one finds a character who speaks well (eloquently and poetically) one finds a hero who can do what is required of him.

Language and action are equal. Speaking well is equal to doing/acting/performing well. Similarly, if one finds a character who cannot speak well—who cannot be understood—we expect that he shall fail, that he is powerless, and hollow.

But we shall find that the Renaissance articulates a more complex view of the relationship of language to character and identity. Thus, the themes of counterfeit, imitation, and disguise are also related to the 16th Century's attitude to the individual. To be more accurate, I should say that attitudes towards conventions and disguises (the making of masks and the creation of voices to be used when we meet other people) are connected to the growth and development of the idea of the individual, a relatively modem concept which is, itself, important to the growth of the modem democratic political state and the social compact we now take for granted.

We shall find the shaping of language -- its new self-awareness, its recognition of its power to create form, meaning, and identity -- in the poetry we read, especially in the sonnets. In plays like 12th Night and The Jew of Malta, we shall find examples of the way in which the power of language is bound up in the concept of power itself and the ability of language to project power through characters. In fact, it is the Elizabethan's ability to use language as a representation of identity that makes it possible for Elizabethans to create the idea of rounded, three-dimensional characters, the prototypes of 19th century psychological character studies.

3. Creating Character, Identity, and the New Individual. New ages require new identities, and most certainly the Elizabethan period is the beginning of a new age—in fact, it is the beginning of the MODERN AGE, an age we have just lived through.

Writers like More, Machiavelli, Montaigne, and Castiglione teach us how to behave so that we shall "appear" to be civilized men, worthy of res~t and authority. They may be taken to be the Emily Posts and Ann Landers of their day. By showing us how to behave, they force upon us values and beliefs consistent with the acts we undertake. Do what I say, and you shall believe what I believe! Belief follows action.

At the same time that we are "taught" how to behave—that is, taught to use the masks and disguises that occasions require—we are taught the power of irony. How to wear a mask that appears civil while we are being subversive or how to recognize that a separation between "real" and "illusion" is taking place in others that surround us. Of course, there are few better examples of this than to be found in the Elizabethan Machiavelli and the plays that use this character, The Jew of Malta and Othello.

4. Order and Chaos. The perfect balance or bringing it together. Turbulent times are exciting times but also unpredictable. Class structure, authority, meaning, and purpose are at issue. I hope that by the end of this course you shall see a certain similarity between the "New World" being created in the Renaissance.

And the "New World" now being created—in fact, a new world that attacks the humanist values we associate with the Renaissance. And so the circle goes round.

5. The Material Life, the New Economy, and Culture. We speak of the Renaissance as the beginning of a new social and economic order. The village becomes the city. The craftsman and the farmer become merchants and international traders. The social hierarchy breaks down and new ones develop to replace them: between the peasant and the lord, a new middle class emerges. The power of the state grows and with it grows political constituencies and groups. The Church loses its control, and new "rituals" evolve. With all of this, we see a new art, new patrons, new audiences, and a new sense of what might be said and who might hear it. In sum, between 1450 and 1600, significant changes take place—many of them reflections of changing economic possibilities. To understand some of these forces and the ways they play out in literature, we shall look a history and the economics and social order of the period. It will be a theme woven in and out of the other themes we'll consider.

WHAT WE SHALL READ AND WHEN

Timing is all, they say, and I want to have a clearer view of what we can read and discuss each week before I put the final schedule together.

General Notes:

q Read the Introductions of the texts assigned for the course. Even if you find the intros hard reading, skim them but read—they will provide useful background.

q The Literature of Renaissance England has a useful glossary. Use it.

A Tentative Schedule

Weeks One thru Three (Tradition, Convention, & Artifice; The Material Life)

The Elizabethan World Picture (discussion)

Readings on the History and Economic Force of the Period

Sir Thomas Wyatt in The Literature of Renaissance England

"My Galley Charged with Forgetfulness"

"Whoso List to Hunt"

"They Flee from Me"

Sir Philip Sidney in The Literature of Ren. England

From Astrophel and Stella

— "loving In truth... "

—"You that do search..."

—"You that with allegory's curious frame..."

—"Who will in fairest book..."

Sir Walter Ralegh in Lit of Ren England

"A Description of Love"

"Answer to Marlowe"

"On the Life of Man"

Christopher Marlowe in Lit of Ren England

"Hero & Leander"

"The Passionate Shepherd to his Love"

Weeks Four thru Six (Language, Ritual, Rhetoric & Power; The State and The Church)

The English Bible (I Corinthians 13) in Lit of Ren England

Lyly in Lit or Ren England

Bacon on "Truth" and some others in Lit or Ren England

Donne prose handouts (time permitting)

Marlowe's Dr. Famtm in Lit or Ren England (time permitting)

Weeks Seven thru Eleven (Character, Identity and the New Individual; The New Economy & Culture) Readings on the History and Economic Forces of the Period

Prose selections from More, Machiavelli, Montaigne [handouts]

Selections from Castiglione's Book of the Courtier in Lit/Ren England

Shakespeare Sonnets in Lit/Ren England

XVIII (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day)

XXIX (When, in disgrace with Fortune and men's eyes)

XXX (When to the sessions of sweet silent thought)

LXXIII (That time of year thou mayst in me behold)

CXVI (Let me not to the marriage of true minds)

CXXIX (The expense of spirit in a waste of shame)

CXXX (My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun)

CXXXVIII (When my love swears that she is made of truth)

Donne poetry in Lit/Ren England

"The Canonization"

"The Flea"

"The Batt"

"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning"

"The Relic"

Holy Sonnet VI (Death be not proud)

Holy Sonnet X (Batter my heart, three-personed God)

Marlowe's Jew of Malta

Shakespeare's Othello

Weeks Twelve thru Fourteen (Order & Chaos; The New Social Class)

Herrick from Lit/Ren England

"Upon Julia's Clothes"

"Delight in Disorder"

Marvell from Lit/Ren England

"To His Coy Mistress"

Herbert from Lit/Ren England

"The Collar"

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

Shakespeare's Tempest in Lit/Ren England (time permitting)

Dates to Remember

Tuesday, March 4 Material for MidTerm or Short Critical Paper/ Handed Out

Tuesday, March II No Class

Tuesday, March 18 MidTerm/Short Critical Paper Due

Tuesday, March 25 No Class — Spring Break

Tuesday, April 1 Dictionary [Draft] and Short Para on Final Paper Due

Tuesday, May 13 Last Day of Class

Option 1 for Handing in Final Paper/Project/Dictionary etc

Tuesday, May 20 Option 2 for Handing in Material/Exam

These dates are subject to change.

THE ELIZABETHAN RENAISSANCE: In the Green World ENGL 421