The Elizabethan Age (1558-1603): Literary Works

Elizabethan Prose Writers

1. Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

• Famously known as the ‘father of empiricism’
• Empiricism believes that true knowledge comes only through our senses

• The title ‘lord Verulam’ was made for Bacon

• He was a scientist, philosopher and a statesman

• His father Sir Nicholas Bacon was one of the great officers of the state (Lord Keeper of the Great Seal)

• In his early days he studied at home

• He then studied at Cambridge

• Queen Elizabeth was impressed by his intellect

• Queen used to call him “The young loed keeper”

• He rejected Aristotle’s philosophy as barren and faulty in its objectives

• He had served Queen Elizabeth in different official purposes

• In 1598, he was arrested for debt

• He enjoyed a great favour in the reign of James I

• He was knighted in 1603

• Bacon was an Anglican

• Bacon is also known as ‘father of scientific method’

Works

a) Essays (1597-1625)

• Total 58 essays

• All these essays were published in 3 editions

• • In 1597- 10 essays

• • In 1612- 38 essays

• • In 1625- 58 essays

i) Of Truth

• First essay of the final published edition

• Bacon talks about the importance of Truth in every field

• Bacon says that Roman governor Pilate did not give much attention to truth and Jesus was crucified

• Montaigne said a man who tells lie is afraid of men but unafraid of God

Quotations

• “he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men”

• “Saying truth is like standing at the top of mountain and enjoying it”
• “no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below”

• “For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man”

 ii) Of Death

• Opening line: “Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark”

• “Death hath this also; that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy.”

iii) Of Revenge

• Opening line: “ Revenge is a kind of wild justice”

• Bacon says People should forget the past as wise men have much to do in present time

• “his is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well”

iv) Of Marriage and Single Life

• “Unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best servants; but not always best subjects; for they are light to run away”

• “most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty”

• Clergymen should not marry to serve people

• Corrupt judges and magistrates can live without marriage because their servant who help them in bribery is 5 time worse than a wife

• Soldiers should get married as thoughts of their wives help him perform well

• Wife:

• • For a young man, wife is a mistress

• • For a middle aged man, wife is a companion

• • For an old person, wife is a nurse

v) Of Great Places

• “Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business.”

• “It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty: or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self.”

• Men of great places should respect law

• Men of great places can not take decisions without thinking

• ‘The standing is slippery’

• ‘All rising to great place is by a winding star’

• ‘Certainly men in great fortunes are strangers to themselves’

• ‘When he sits in place, he is another man.’

vi) Of Superstition

• Opening line

‘It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an opinion, as is unworthy of him.’

• Bacon says Atheism is better as atheists do not cause troubles in a state

• ‘The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order’

• ‘The causes of superstition are: pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; overgreat reverence of traditions’

• ‘There is a superstition in avoiding superstition’

vii) Of Friendship

• “Whatsoever is delighted in solitude, is either a wild beast or a god”- Quote by Aristotle

• “Magna civitas, magna solitudo; because in a great town friends are scattered; so that there is not that fellowship”

• “Magna civitas, magna solitude” means ‘a great city is a great solitude’

• “A principal fruit of friendship, is the ease and discharge of the fulness and swellings of the heart”

• “For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures”

• ‘participes curarum’ means “sharer of cares”

• Benefits of Friendship

          i) Friendship redoubles the joy and cut the grief in half

          ii) Friendship is beneficial for the clarity of understanding

          iii) A friend is another self

viii) Of Studies

• “Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability”

• 3 purposes of Study:

           i) for gaining delight

           ii) for ornamenting one’s life

           iii) to improve ability 

• Demerits of study: “To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar”

• Only a well read man can execute plans

• “Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them”

• “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention”

• “Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man”

• “distilled books are like common distilled waters”

b) The Advancement of Learning (1605)

• Full title- ‘Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human’

• Its a philosophical work on modern scientific methods

• Bacon presented himself as a Renaissance Pragmatist

c) Novum Organum (1620)

• Latin work

• ‘Novum Organum’ is also known as ‘New Method’

• The title is a reference to Aristotle’s work ‘Organon’

• Bacon talks about his ‘Baconian method’

• Baconian method goes beyond the old ways of Aristotle’s syllogism

• Bacon here introduces Inductive reasoning

d) New Atlantis (1626)

• Utopian work

• Unfinished

• Based on Thomas Moore’s ‘Utopia’

• Bacon’s ‘New Atlantis’ also evokes the story of Plato’s Atlantis in ‘Timaeus and Critias’

• Name of the mythical island is ‘Bensalem’

• Hebrew word ‘Bensalem’ means ‘The Son of Wholeness’

• This work talks about a mythical island called Bensalem

• This island is an idle land

• ‘Salomon’s House’ is a fictional scientific research university here

2. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552/54-1618)

• A true Renaissance man
• Renaissance man means who is educated, creative, curious, accomplished in many fields, and who has a thirst for knowledge etc

• He was a poet, politician, explorer, courtier etc

• He is famously known for creating the legend of “El Dorado’
• ‘El Dorado’ means ‘City of Gold’

• He made 2 expeditions in South America to find this city of gold

• He is one of the men who popularised tobacco in England

• He was very close to Queen Elizabeth I

• He worked hard to increase the Protestant Church in Ireland

• He was awarded by Queen Elizabeth in different times

• He also got the permission to colonise America

• He married secretly to a woman who was in Queen’s ladies-in-waiting
• After the revelation of such relationship, Raleigh was imprisoned

• He won back Queen’s grace after a short period

• After Queen’s death, Raleigh failed to win King James I’s favour

• Raleigh was executed in 1618

Works

1. i) The Discovery of Guiana

• Travel literature

• Talks about New World

1. ii) History of the World (1614)

• Written in 5 books

• It was written during his imprisonment

• It covers the history from creation to 146BC

• It was written as an educational tool

iii) Collection of Poems

• His poems are unique because of the use of simple vocabularies and plain images

• Major themes of his poems are mutability and the transitory nature of existence

3. Richard Hooker (1554-1600)

• Priest in the Church of England

• Studied at Oxford

• He is believed to be the greatest prose writer of Elizabethan age, next to Francis Bacon

• He is believed to be the originator of Anglican wave

• But few Scholars disagree this fact

• The word ‘Anglican’ is not there in his works

• He opposed the extreme point of views of the Puritans

• He sought a middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism

• Izaak Walton has written a biography of Richard Hooker

Works

1. a) Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie (1594)

• Written in 8 volumes

• It is written in dignified prose

• This writing is considered as “probably the first great work of philosophy and theology to be written in English”

• Hooker emphasized on 3 things which probably had influenced the development of Anglicanism

1. i) Scripture

1. ii) Reason

iii) Tradition

• It is manly a reply against the principles of Puritanism

• This work talks about intellectual liberty, broad outlook

• King James I had praised the book as it has “clear manifestation of reason”

4. Stephen Gosson (1554-1624)

• Preacher, Pamphleteer and a Satirist

• He was influenced by Puritanism

• The principles of Puritanism made him go against contemporary poetries and theatres

Works

1. a) The Schoole of Abuse (1579)

• Full title- ‘Schoole of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Caterpillars of the Commonwealth’

• Gosson has used ‘euphuism’ in this prose work

• He has mainly condemned poetries and stage plays in this work

• Gosson gave 4 reasons against poetry

1. i) Poetry is a waste of time

1. ii) Poetry is the mother of lies

iii) Poetry nurses abuse

1. iv) Plato has banished Poets

• Defences against this attack

1. i) Philp Sidney’s ‘An Apology for Poetry’ (written in 1580) was a defence against Gosson’s work

1. ii) Thomas Lodge also had written ‘Defence of Poetry, Music and Stage Plays’ (1579/80) against this work

5. Richard Hakluyt (1553-1616)

• Associated with East India Company

• He is known for the sharing different accounts of his voyages

• He was there with Walter Raleigh

• He promoted English colonisation of North America

• He is regarded as the first professor of modern Geography at Oxford

• After his death ‘Hakluyt Society’ was formed to publish his records of voyages

Works

1. a) Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589)

• Written in 3 volumes

• Talks about the experiences of voyages

• Accounts are not fully authentic

• It has expressed the energy and spirit of English race

6. Samuel Purchas (1577-1626)

• English Cleric

• He used to record the personal experiences of different experienced sailors

Works

1. a) Purchas his Pilgrimes (1614-1626)

• Total of 4 editions have been published of the same book from 1614 to 1626 (1614, 1619, 1625, 1626)

• The third edition is also known as ‘Hakluytus Posthumus’(1625)

• It is a continuation of Hakluyt’s voyages

• It is based on the Hakluyt’s manuscripts which were left to Purchas by Hakluyt himself

• This work is the source of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem ‘Kubla Khan’

7. William Camden (1551-1623)

• English Historian

• He pursued antiquarian researches in his lifetime

Works

1. a) Britannia (1586)

• It is a historical and topographical survey of Great Britain and Ireland

• Written in Latin

• Total of 6 editions were published from 1586-1607

• In 1610, Philemon Holland translated it into English

• His intension was to ‘restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his antiquity’

1. b) Annales (1597)

• It is a history of Queen Elizabeth’s reign

• ‘Annals’ means ‘a record of events year by year’

• This work has contributed greatly to form the present picture of Queen Elizabeth

8. Thomas North (1535-1604)

• North is known for his translation

• Studied at Cambridge

• He then served in military offices

Translations

1. a) Plutarch’s Lives

• Full title- ‘Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans’

• Also known as ‘Parallel Lives’

• It has recorded the 48 biographies of famous people

• North dedicated the first version of this work to Queen Elizabeth

• North’s translation of Plutarch is based on the French version by Jacques Amyot

• This translation had influenced Shakespeare greatly to write the works like-

1. i) Julius Caesar

1. ii) Timon of Athens

iii) Coriolanus

1. iv) Antony and Cleopatra

• George Chapman also used this translation as a source for his Classical tragedy ‘Caesar and Pompey’

9. John Foxe (1516/17-1587)

• English Historian

• He became a Protestant

Works

1. a) Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563)

• Original title of this work is – ‘Actes and Monuments’

• It talks about the Protestant history

• It shares the list of Protestant martyrs during the reign of Queen Mary

• Foxe has been accused for telling partial truths in this work

• He was accused of ‘wilful falsification of evidence’

10. John Knox (1514-1572)

• Scottish minister and reformer

• He is known as the founder of Presbyterian (a reformed tradition within Protestantism) Church of Scotland

• Knox started working in the Church of England

• He became royal chaplain and served King Edward VI

• Know was forced to resign when Queen Mary ascended the throne

• He moved to Geneva and got influenced by John Calvin

• After returning to Scotland he led the Protestant Reformation there

• France wanted Scotland to be converted completely into Catholicism

• He had his attribution in the ‘Book of Common Prayer’

Works

1. a) The History of the Reformation in Scotland

• Book in 5 volumes

• Written between 1559-1566

• The complete publication of this work happened in 1644

• It serves as a historical source

11. William Painter (1540-95)

• Known mainly as an translator

• Studied at Cambridge

Works

1. a) The Palace of Pleasure (1566)

• It is a collection of tales based on original classical authors like Bandello, Boccaccio, Giovanni Battista, Herodotus, Boccaccio, Plutarch, Livy etc

• First volume of 1566 contained 60 tales

• By 1575, this work (second improved edition) was organised with 101 tales

• Painter has dedicated this work to the Earl of Warwick

• Authors have used this work as a source of stories

• The influence of this work can be seen in the works of Shakespeare-

1. i) ‘Edward III’

1. ii) ‘All’s Well That Ends Well’

iii) ‘Timon of Athens’

1. iv) ‘Romeo and Juliet’

• Dramatists like Webster, Beaumont, Fletcher, Shirley also have used this work as a source