The Later Renaissance by David Hannay

Author:David Hannay [Hannay, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-04T22:00:00+00:00

The matter which this form bodied forth to the world is not to be expressed in our meagre prose. It could be uttered only in his own perfect verse. The mere doctrine may be defined with no overwhelming amount of difficulty, for there is a strong and, not only unconcealed but, firmly avowed didactic aim in Spenser. It was no purpose of his to be “the idle singer of an empty day.” He held with his friend Sir Philip Sidney that the poet “doth intend the winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue.” The poet in their creed was the seer, and Spenser strove to fulfil his lofty function by teaching the Platonism which endeavours to trace back the love of virtue and the love of beauty to that divine origin where they are one, and by singing a Puritanism which is the poetic expression of the Englishman’s innate conviction that the religion which is not interpreted into conduct is an empty hypocrisy. But all this didactic side of Spenser is the side which was not necessarily poetic. In so far as the Hymns merely teach a Platonist doctrine, they do not surpass the final pages of Castiglione’s Courtier. In so far as The Faërie Queen is an allegory, it is no more consistent, ingenious, or perfectly adapted to its purpose than The Pilgrim’s Progress. But over all that could be adequately expressed in prose Spenser cast a spell which carried it into the realm of fancy—that golden world of the poet which Sir Philip Sidney contrasted with nature’s “brazen” earth. A very trifling change in the wording of one passage of The Apologie for Poetrie is all that is needed to make it applicable to The Faërie Queen : “Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapistry as ‘this poet hath’ done, neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flowers; nor whatsoever else may make the too much loved earth more lovely.” It is to this word that the attempt to estimate Spenser finally leads. By the magic of his melody, and the force of that imagination which could transmute all from prose to poetry, he made a lovely world of poetry out of the real earth. When he used ugliness, as he could, it was for the purpose of heightening beauty by contrast.

As the poet of The Faërie Queen, Spenser stands apart in his time. He is connected with his contemporaries by the sonnet. This form, introduced into English literature by Surrey and Wyatt, had been little, and ill, cultivated in the duller generation which followed them. But with the revival of the poetic genius of England towards the middle of the queen’s reign, it naturally attracted men who were in search of richer and more artful forms of verse. Moreover, it lent itself to the expression of feeling, and that was of itself enough to make it popular with a lyrical generation. For this reason the sonnet work of the Elizabethans has been made subject to a great deal of comment which is not of the nature of literary criticism.

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