The Literature Book

HEROES AND LEGENDS 49 STTAHWNEEDNEATIRGLAHYDTSEINAINGGALE “UNDER THE LINDEN TREE” (LATE 12TH CENTURY), WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE IN CONTEXT E ntertainment in the early of the troubadours but distinct in medieval courts of Europe key respects. With its memorable FOCUS was provided by minstrels, refrain of the nightingale singing Troubadours and who recited or sang epic poems. “Tandaradei,” he references the minnesingers But in the 11th century, a number choruses of folk song, and more of more aristocratic poets, at first significantly, some of the poem’s BEFORE in Occitania, southern France, most beautiful words are not those Late 11th century The became traveling minstrels. In of a noble lady, but a simple girl. troubadour tradition of courtly order to distinguish them from love poetry, written in the the jongleurs, or the common These features anticipated the southern French Occitan entertainers, they became known eventual end of the age of courtly dialect (langue d’oc), spreads as troubadours, and their poetry lyric poetry, which in Gemany was to Spain and Italy. moved from a focus on historical marked by the emergence of new, narrative to songs of courtly love— professional, poet-composers, the 12th century Poets known as the chivalrous exploits of knights Meistersinger, or mastersingers. ■ trouvères, including Chrétien and their noble lady loves. de Troyes, begin to compose lyric poems in the northern Noble entertainers Still you may find there, French dialect (langue d’oïl). Lyric poetry caught on first in Lovely together, northern France, and later in Italy Late 12th century Der von and Spain. In the next century, Flowers crushed and Kürenberg and Dietmar von the noble entertainers emerged grass down-pressed. Aist pioneer the German in Germany as Minnesänger, or “Under the Linden Tree” Minnesänger tradition. minnesingers. Foremost among these was Walther von der AFTER Vogelweide (c.1170–c.1230), who Late 13th century Heinrich also wrote political and satirical Frauenlob, one of the last of the poetry. He is best known for his Minnesänger, sets up a school charming “Under the Linden Tree,” for Meistersinger. a love poem in the courtly tradition c.1330s Troubadour numbers See also: The Song of Roland 48 ■ Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart 50–51 ■ wane before they vanish with The Canterbury Tales 68–71 the Black Death (c.1346–53).

50 FHEORELRWLSOHGWORDELAAOTRVLEEYS’SNCOOTMMAND LANCELOT, THE KNIGHT OF THE CART (c.1175–1181), CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES IN CONTEXT T he tradition of epic poetry, different tone, as the idea of courtly which had its roots in love began to replace military FOCUS Homer and Virgil, lived exploits as the predominant theme, Arthurian chivalric on throughout the Middle Ages in and the emphasis shifted from romance the form of the chansons de geste heroism to noble deeds. (“songs of heroic deeds”), written BEFORE and performed by the troubadours Arthurian legend 1138 Welsh cleric and of southern France and their peers The poet credited with introducing chronicler Geoffrey of in other Mediterranean countries. this change was Chrétien de Monmouth’s Historia Regum These medieval epics conformed to Troyes, a trouvère (the northern Britanniae popularizes the the genre by telling tales of valiant French equivalent of a troubadour) legend of King Arthur. acts and the battles of classical who took his inspiration from the antiquity, or the wars against legends of King Arthur and his 12th century The Old French the Saracens and Moors. But in the knights of the Round Table. In (northern vernacular langue 12th century, these tales of knights Chrétien’s time there were two d’oïl) poem Tristan, by Thomas and their adventures assumed a distinct cultures in France, of Britain, tells the legend of the knight of the Round Table Chrétien de Troyes clergy. Chrétien’s major works Tristan and his lover Iseult. were the four romances he wrote Little is known about Chrétien on Arthurian stories, and he is AFTER de Troyes, a trouvère who, in credited with introducing into 13th century The five-volume the late 12th century, served the tales the new idea of courtly Lancelot-Grail cycle (also called in the court of Marie of France. love, in the affair between Prose Lancelot or the Vulgate His adoption of the name “de Lancelot and Guinevere. A fifth Cycle), written in Old French Troyes” suggests that he may poem, Perceval, the Story of the by anonymous clerics, gives an have been from Troyes, in the Grail, was unfinished when he account of Lancelot’s quest for Champagne region of France, died, in around 1190. the Holy Grail. southeast of Paris, but may instead refer to his patron, Other key works 1485 In Le Morte d’Arthur, Marie, Countess of Champagne, English writer Sir Thomas whose court was in Troyes. His c.1170 Erec and Enide Malory reinterprets the poems, which date from the c.1176 Cligès traditional Arthurian legends. period 1160–1180, suggest that 1177–81 Yvain, the Knight he was a minor member of the of the Lion

HEROES AND LEGENDS 51 See also: The Song of Roland 48 ■ “Under the Linden Tree” 49 ■ Don Quixote 76–81 ■ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 102 ■ Le Morte d’Arthur 102 When Lancelot is asked to ride in a inevitably involve fights with Three distinct types of epic poetry cart, like a common convict, he does Méléagant, in which he eventually had evolved by the medieval period so very reluctantly. However, he later emerges victorious, but they also in Western Europe. Mainly recorded in redeems himself for his hesitation by involve his wooing of Guinevere. Old French, each of these collections his chivalric deeds. However, not everything goes his was distinguished by its theme or way: a series of misunderstandings subject matter. recognizable by their dialects: in and deceits means that Guinevere the south the troubadours used the blows hot and cold along the way, The Matter of Rome langue d’oc, while the language and Lancelot suffers the indignity of the trouvères was the northern of being made to ride in a common The myths and legends of the langue d’oïl. It is no surprise then cart normally used to transport classical world, including Greek that Chrétien should turn his convicts, and at one point ends up and especially Roman mythology, attention away from the classical a prisoner himself. But in the end, as well as stories from history, Mediterranean and southern he and his love are triumphant, French heroes, turning it instead and both Guinevere’s honor and including Alexander the toward the so-called Matter Lancelot’s nobility survive intact. Great and Julius Caesar. of Britain, the legends of Britain and Brittany. An age of chivalry The Matter of France Chrétien’s innovative approach Love conquers all to epic poetry chimed with the Legends of Charlemagne and his In addition to introducing the mood of the time, and although the paladins, and the wars with the Arthurian legends to a French old chansons de geste remained Moors and Saracens, including audience, Chrétien reinterpreted popular with readers, poets across the stories of Roland, Guillaume the idea of the chivalric (“knightly”) Europe adopted the new style, often d’Orange, and Doon de Mayence. romance. In the tale of Lancelot, the on the themes of the Arthurian Knight of the Cart, he focused on legends. Many chose to tell the The Matter of Britain a hitherto lesser-known character, story of lovers such as Lancelot and whose quest was largely romantic Guinevere, or Tristan and Iseult; The legends of Britain and Brittany: in nature, and who demonstrated others took up the story of the noble Arthurian legends, the quest for his nobility by defending the honor quest for the Holy Grail. During the the Holy Grail, and the stories of Queen Guinevere. 13th century, however, the idea of of Brutus of Britain, King Cole, epic poetry was on the wane, and King Lear, and Gogmagog. Lancelot’s mission is to rescue the Arthurian romances were more Guinevere from the evil clutches frequently told in prose, reaching of Méléagant, and he embarks their high point with Sir Thomas on a series of adventures. These Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur. The genre of Arthurian chivalric romance fell out of favor with the arrival of the Renaissance period. The portrayal of noble knights, damsels in distress, and mannered courtly love had already become a familiar cliché by the time Miguel de Cervantes wrote his Don Quixote in 1605, although the words “chivalry” and “romance” still retain their association with that mythical medieval world. ■

52 MLWEYOTUWANNADRONBTIHENEGR’S NJAL’S SAGA (LATE 13TH CENTURY) IN CONTEXT R ich in heroic exploits, The sagas divide into five main family feuds, love affairs, classes: sagas of the kings, mainly FOCUS legends, and historical about the early rulers of Norway, The Nordic sagas detail, the Nordic sagas were but including Orkney and Sweden; written between the 12th and contemporary sagas, concerning BEFORE 14th centuries. By and large their the secular matters of Icelandic 12th century The first Old authorship is unknown. Until the chieftains (and sometimes named Norse sagas, Konungasogur 12th century, most belonged to after the important Sturlung family); (“Kings’ Sagas”), are written the oral storytelling tradition, and the Fornaldsogur, which have in Norway and Iceland. were only written down by scribes little historical basis and relate to some years later. However, unlike legendary and mythological times; c.1220 Icelandic scholar Snorri most medieval literature, which chivalric romantic sagas, such as Sturluson is believed to have was recorded in Latin, the sagas Alexander’s Saga, which started either written or compiled were transcribed in the vernacular as translations of French chansons the collection of myths known languages of ordinary people, in de geste (“songs of heroic deeds”); as the Prose Edda. Old Norse or Old Icelandic. and the Icelanders’ sagas. Mid–late 1200s An The Eddur anonymous verse collection is compiled of Scandinavian The Eddur (singular Edda) refers a guide to mythological subjects myths. It is later known as to a body of ancient Icelandic in early poetry. It consists of the Poetic Edda. literature found in two 13th- a prologue and three parts: century books: the Prose Edda Skáldskaparmál (“The Language AFTER and the Poetic Edda. Together of Poetry”); Háttatal (“A Catalog 13th century Translations these two works form the of Meters”); and Gylfaginning of French chansons de geste most comprehensive source (“The Beguiling of Gylfi”), which (“songs of heroic deeds”) of Scandinavian mythology. tells of the visit of King Gylfi to inspire a genre of Icelandic Asgard, the citadel of the gods. chivalric sagas. The Prose Edda, or Younger Edda, was written or compiled The Poetic Edda, or the Elder c.1300 Stories about the by Icelandic scholar Snorri Edda, is a later collection that Sturlung family in 12th- Sturluson (1179–1241) in around contains much older material century Iceland are collected 1220. It is a textbook on poetry (800–1100). It consists of heroic as the Sturlunga Saga. that explains the meters of early and mythological poems skalds (court poets) and provides composed by unknown authors.

HEROES AND LEGENDS 53 See also: Iliad 26–33 ■ Beowulf 42–43 ■ The Song of Roland 48 ■ Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart 50–51 ■ Cantar de Mio Cid 56–57 ■ Ivanhoe 150 ■ Kalevala 151 ■ The Lord of the Rings 287 Written in the early 13th century, Literature of the Northmen the Icelanders’ sagas, also known as family sagas, are heroic prose Sagas of The Konungasogur tell of the deeds of the kings narratives that focus especially on the kings of Scandinavia and are the highest form of saga genealogical (family) history, and writing. Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla, c.1230, describe the various struggles about the kings of Norway, is the best known. and conflicts that took place. Contemporary The Sturlungasogur deal with internal struggles in The realism, starkly beautiful sagas Iceland in the 12th and 13th centuries. Rich in writing, and vivid description of character in the family sagas mark social history, they were written—unlike the family them as the highpoint of classical sagas—not long after the events took place. Icelandic saga writing. Among the better known are Egil’s Saga, Sagas of The Fornaldarsogur deal with events before the Laxdæla Saga, Grettis Saga, and antiquity settlement of Iceland and include the Volsung Saga, Njal’s Saga. Some scholars believe c.1270. In addition to mythology and Germanic hero that Snorri Sturluson may have written Egil’s Saga, but the other legends, there are adventures in far-off lands. authors are unknown. Chivalric The Riddarasogur contain translated Norse A tragic blood feud sagas versions of the Romance language tales aimed Njal’s Saga, or “The Story of Burnt Njal,” is one of the longest of the at a popular readership. One of the earliest, Icelanders’ sagas and is generally c.1226, is the story of Tristan. considered to be the finest. The saga is written in prose, with some Family The Islendingasogur is a class of prose verse embedded in the narrative, sagas genealogical histories about the early and recreates Icelandic life during generations of settler families in c.930–c.1030. its heroic period, describing events that occurred among the great Their authorship is unknown. families between the 10th and 11th centuries. Episodic and bleak, Njal’s familiar and believable. The issue influence on later writers, notably Saga is essentially the account of of honor and the consequences of Sir Walter Scott, the 19th-century a 50-year blood feud that touches vengeance are the key themes, but Scottish poet and playwright, and the lives of a wide range of complex the saga also explores the role of J. R R. Tolkein, the 20th-century and vividly drawn characters. law in settling disputes. English fantasy writer. ■ Much of the narrative focuses A powerful influence Never break the peace which on the two heroes: Njal, a wise, The Icelandic sagas portray good men and true make prudent lawyer, and his friend warriors, kings, strong men, and between thee and others. Gunnar, a powerful but reluctant powerful matriarchs. Calling on Njal’s Saga warrior. Both are peaceful men, historical events and tumultous but the demands of honor and times but containing older myths kinship ties draw them and their and legends, they present a families into bloodthirsty feuds realistic picture of a vanished with tragic consequences. In some society, as well as fantastic tales way—in its length, content, and and romances. psychological themes—Njal’s Saga is similar to a modern novel. The The collection of stories relationships and characters are represents some of the greatest writing in European medieval literature. They also had a powerful

54 FURTHER READING EGYPTIAN BOOK Odyssey is traditionally attributed the earliest mythic accounts of the OF THE DEAD to Homer (see p.28). The poem is in origins of the cosmos and of the part a sequel to Homer’s other great gods. Beginning with the formation (16TH CENTURY BCE) work, the Iliad. Its hero is Odysseus, of the Earth (Gaia) out of Chaos (the king of Ithaca, who is described primordial abyss), the poem goes Illustrated and written on papyrus, wandering the seas, homeward on to detail the birth and overthrow the Egyptian Book of the Dead is a bound after the end of the 10-year of successive generations of gods, compilation of around 200 chapters Trojan War. He has vivid adventures, ending with the triumph of Zeus. of magic spells and formulas that which include encounters with At its center, Theogony engages were written by various authors for supernatural creatures and with some of the core themes that use in the afterlife. Scribes made temptations of the flesh. Both his haunt the human imagination, copies, which were buried with son Telemachus and wife Penelope including creation, the struggle the mummy and believed to be read despair for Odysseus’s return—he between fathers and sons, and by the deceased on their journey has been absent for two decades. humanity’s place in the universe. to the underworld, as a source of Penelope has to deal with a series of protection and a guide through the suitors, whose fate at the hands of TAO TE CHING hazards that lay ahead. A famous the disguised Odysseus forms the example is The Papyrus of Ani, dramatic denoument of the tale. (6TH–3RD CENTURY BCE), LAOZI now in the British Museum, London. THEOGONY Traditionally attributed to the ODYSSEY legendary Chinese sage Laozi, the (c.700 BCE), HESIOD Tao Te Ching (Classic of the Way (c.725–675 BCE), HOMER and Virtue), the main sacred text of The 1,022-line epic poem Theogony, Taoism, is a compilation of 81 verse An epic ancient Greek poem in or “Birth of the Gods,” was written chapters giving enigmatic advice 24 books (more than 12,000 lines), by the ancient Greek poet Hesiod on how to live harmoniously by composed for oral performance, the (8th–7th century bce), and is one of following the Tao (“Way”). Its compelling, mysterious, poetic Aeschylus Both genres were presented in aphorisms—such as “Do nothing, competitions at the foremost and there is nothing that will not The seven complete tragedies dramatical contest in Athens, be done”—illustrate the practice that remain to us of the work of the annual festival of Dionysus, of wu wei, or nonaction. Aeschylus—who is estimated to and Aeschylus was a regular have written between 70 and 90 winner. One exceptional year ORESTEIA plays—attest to his mastery of he lost to the younger tragedian, the genre. Thought to have been Sophocles. He died at Gela in (458 BCE), AESCHYLUS born in Eleusis near Athens Sicily in 456 or 455 bce. in 525 or 524 bce, he lived in the Written by Aeschylus, the first of the early period of the Athenian Key works great dramatists of classical Athens, democracy, and played a part in the Oresteia is a trilogy (the only the fight against the invading 458 bce Oresteia (see right) classical Greek example to survive) Persians—specifically at the 472 bce The Persians telling the tragic story of the house battle of Marathon. In addition 467 bce Seven Against Thebes of Atreus. The first play portrays to tragedies he wrote “satyr 5th century bce Prometheus the return of King Agamemnon from plays” in a light, burlesque style. Bound war and the plot upon his life by his

HEROES AND LEGENDS 55 unfaithful spouse, Clytemnestra. the legal system in ancient Athens Valmiki The second play deals with revenge by demonstrating how it could be by the king’s daughter Electra and exploited by a corrupt demogogue. Known as the “first poet” of his son Orestes; the third concerns The play’s action centers around Sanskrit poetry thanks to his its consequences. The cycle of an ill-tempered old man who is invention of the classic sloka bloodshed is finally supplanted by addicted to serving on juries. The (“song”) verse form, Valmiki the rule of law, under the influence play is a classic of the Old Comedy, was a sage who, according to of the goddess Athena. which is characterized by the use Hindu belief, lived in India at of a chorus, scathing inventive, some point between the 6th MEDEA ribald humor, outspoken social and the 1st century bce. Once criticism, and elements of fantasy. a murderous highway robber (431 BCE), EURIPIDES The play takes its title from the named Ratnakara, he became chorus, a swarm of jurors. a holy man after meditating A tragedy by the Greek dramatist for many years as penance Euripides (c.484–406 bce), Medea RAMAYANA after attempting to rob is a compelling play about injustice, Narada, a divine sage. During jealousy, and revenge. With only (5TH–4TH CENTURIES BCE), VALMIKI his meditation, an ant hill two actors on stage at any time, it grew up around him, from is based on the legendary tale of One of the great works of Indian which he gained his name Princess Medea and her ruthless literature and rivaling even the “Valmiki” (Sanskrit for “one persecution of her husband Jason Mahabharata, the Ramayana born out of ant hills”). He (hero of the Argonauts myth), after (meaning “Rama’s journey”) is a reportedly composed the he abandons her for the daughter of Sanskrit epic of 24,000 couplets in Ramayana at the command the king of Corinth. Despite Medea’s seven books. Its moral purpose is the of the Hindu god Brahma. cruelty, and in particular her savage presentation of ideal role models— treatment of her own children with for a king, brother, wife, servant, and Key works Jason, Euripides nevertheless elicits so on—within a narrative the audience’s sympathy for her. framework. The story describes the 5th–4th century bce actions of the god Rama, with the Ramayana (see left) WASPS help of the monkey general Hanuman, against a demon king Encountering Sorrow,” is a long, (422 BCE), ARISTOPHANES who has abducted his wife, Sita. melancholic reflection that helped to The Hindu sage and poet Valmiki, establish a tradition of romanticism One of the world’s great comedies, the reputed author, makes an in Chinese literature. by Greek dramatist Aristophanes appearance in the work. (c.450–c.388 bce), Wasps satirizes METAMORPHOSES SONGS OF CHU No, I know no more how to (c.8 CE), OVID acquit than to play the lyre. (4TH CENTURY BCE) Roman poet Ovid (43 bce–18 ce) Wasps A compilation of verse from the brought together an array of lively southern Chinese state of Chu, mythological tales in his verse epic, Aristophanes Songs of Chu contains many pieces Metamorphoses. The work marks attributed to exiled minister Qu a shift in popular taste from war to Yuan (c.339–c.278 bce), a literary love as an appropriate subject for innovator who introduced greater poetry. The stories are linked by formal variety into poetry. Many the theme of transformation, often of the poems here are influenced resulting from love or desire. Their by shamanistic folk rites and by subjects include some of the best- local legends. The first piece, “On known legends of ancient Greece

56 FURTHER READING Sei Sho¯ nagon the goddess Isis breaks the spell THE PILLOW BOOK and frees him. The tale’s principal Diarist-essayist Sei Sho¯ nagon ingredients include satire, slapstick, (c.1000), SEI SHO¯ NAGON was born c.966ce, the daughter bawdiness, allegory, moral reflection, of the scholar and waka poet and, above all, humor. The idea In the Japanese tradition, a pillow Kiyohara Motosuke. She joined of the transformation of humans book was a collection of personal the Japanese court to serve into animals has remained a major musings supposedly written in the Empress Teishi (Sadako) in the theme in world literature. bedroom. The best-known example city that was later known as is that of Sei Sho¯nagon, a lady of Kyoto. Her The Pillow Book is HILDEBRANDSLIED the Heian-kyo¯ court. The entries, an engaging picture of court which were arranged thematically life in the Heian dynasty (c.800 ce) rather than in chronological order around 991–1000 ce. Partly due by scribes for circulation among the to her wit and intelligence, she An anonymous work in Old High Japanese court, offer observations was disliked by a number of German verse, the Hildebrandslied on people and nature, ranging from her contemporaries. Her rivals (“Song of Hildebrand”) was found caustic wit to appreciation of the included Murasaki Shikibu, on the flyleaves of a theological finer things in life. The reader gains who wrote The Tale of Genji. codex, and copied by scribes glimpses into the minutiae of court After her patroness died, Sei between 830 and 840 ce. Only 68 life, such as flutes, disobedient dogs, Sho¯ nagon is reported to have lines have survived; the alliterative and ladies betting on how long it left the court and married, poem (probably intended for oral would take a mound of snow to melt. becoming a Buddhist monk in transmission) is likely to have been her widowhood. She is thought no more than 100 lines originally. MABINOGION to have died around 1025 ce. The subject is an occasion when the warrior Hildebrand comes face (11TH–14TH CENTURIES) Key works to face with his son in combat and seeks to hide who he is, while The earliest example of prose c.1000 ce The Pillow Book ensuring the youth is not harmed. literature in Britain, Mabinogion is (see far right) a collection of 11 anonymous Welsh DIGENIS AKRITAS prose tales, some of which reveal and Rome. Metamorphoses has had Celtic and French influences. Its a huge impact on both literature (c.10TH CENTURY) two source manuscripts date from (including Shakespeare and Dante) the late 14th century. There are and the visual arts, notably painting. The Byzantine epic hero Basil, elements of supernatural fantasy, known by his epithet Digenis probably deriving from an ancient THE GOLDEN ASS Akritas (meaning “two-blood border- oral storytelling tradition. Diverse in lord”), is the protagonist of the most form and content, some of the tales (2ND CENTURY CE), APULEIUS famous of the so-called Akritic folk feature the legendary king Arthur. ballads, which were celebrated in The most sophisticated stories are Written by Apuleius (c.124–c.170 ce), vernacular Greek. Digenis Akritas is the “Four Branches,” which include a Numidian Berber who benefited also the name of an anonymous, giants, magical white horses, and from the opportunities offered by blank-verse epic that describes incest, betrayal, and redemption. Roman rule, The Golden Ass is the Basil’s lineage, boyhood, and heroic only work of fiction in Latin to have later life. The son of a Saracen emir CANTAR DE MIO CID survived in its entirety. It tells of who converted to Christianity, Basil the adventures of a young man shows great strength and courage (c.1140) whose fascination with magic and valiantly defends the Byzantine results in his transformation into Empire from its enemies. The epic The earliest surviving epic poem a donkey. In this new guise, he was further developed between the in Spanish literature, Cantar passes from owner to owner until 12th and 17th centuries. de Mio Cid (Song/Poem of the

HEROES AND LEGENDS 57 Cid) tells of the exploits of the NIBELUNGENLIED CANTIGAS DE SANTA MARÍA real-life Castilian hero El Cid (1043–99) in the attempt to (c.1200) (1252–1284), ALFONSO X recapture Spain from the Moors. The poem focuses on military The main characters of this work One of the largest collections of and diplomatic prowess as well have become internationally known medieval solo songs, the Cantigas as El Cid’s relationship with King through Wagner’s Ring cycle of de Santa María (“Canticles of Holy Alfonso VI, using a realist tone operas. The Nibelungenlied, or Mary”) were written in medieval to describe the hero’s efforts to “Song of the Nibelungs,” is a richly Galician-Portuguese, probably regain lost honor. The authorship of imagined anonymous epic poem (at least in part) by Alfonso X, the epic, which may have been in Middle High German. Medieval king of Castile, León, and Galicia. intended for public recital, has German literature had turned Every song, or canticle, refers to never been established—the only to courtly refinement, but the the Virgin Mary, whose miracles— surviving manuscript is signed Nibelungenlied looked back to including local events prompted by Per Abbas, but the identity of the older, more visceral notions of honor her intercession—provide narrative writer has never been verified. and vengeance. It tells of stolen content; every 10th song is a hymn treasure (Rhine gold) and magic in her honor. The songs—written THE TALE OF IGOR’S powers (including invisibility); of the with musical notation—have great CAMPAIGN dragon-slayer Siegfried metrical variety, with lines ranging and his wooing of the princess from two to 24 syllables. (LATE 12TH CENTURY) Kriemhild; and of Kriemhild’s revenge against the Nibelungen Alfonso X An anonymous epic poem in the (Burgundians) after the murder Old East Slavic language, The Tale of Siegfried by one of their most Born in 1221 in Burgos, the of Igor’s Campaign describes an prominent warriors, the king’s capital of Castile (in the north unsuccessful raid by a prince of brother Hagen. Some characters— of modern-day Spain), Alfonso the “land of the Rus,” named Igor including the powerful queen X was a scholarly and wise Svyatoslavich. Igor’s heroic pride Brunhild—and some of the narrative king who encouraged learning leads him to face overwhelming are rooted in Old Norse sagas. and the arts. His reign began in odds, and he is taken captive by 1252 following the death of his his enemies, but escapes. The tale ROMANCE OF THE ROSE father Ferdinand III, who had has elements of both epic and lyric, greatly expanded Castile and with political overtones too. It has (c.1225–1280), GUILLAUME DE fought the most successful become a Russian national classic. LORRIS AND JEAN DE MEUN campaigns of the Reconquista against the Moors. Inheriting …lives are laid out on the Frenchman Guillaume de Lorris a wealthy and stable land, threshing floor, souls are (c.1200–c.1240) wrote 4,058 lines of Alfonso commissioned and winnowed from bodies. the Romance of the Rose; Jean de personally oversaw a range of Meun (c.1240–c.1305) took it to more texts, from law and astronomy The Tale of Igor’s than 21,000 lines. Based on Ovid’s to music and history, ensuring Campaign Ars Amatoria (Art of Love), the that Castilian would be the poem is one of the most popular forerunner of modern Spanish. French examples of the late Middle He died in Seville in 1284. Ages. It is a dream allegory of the wooing of a young lady, symbolized Key works by a rosebud, within courtly society, represented by the garden. De Meun 1252–84 Cantigas de gives opinions on topics of the day. Santa María (see above) The first 1,705 lines were rendered c.1255–65 Siete partidas into English by Geoffrey Chaucer. 1264 Premera crónica general

ERNENLIAGISHST 1300–1800

EANNMCEENTTO

60 INTRODUCTION Dante Alighieri Luo Guanzhong’s In Germany Johannes A scientific, humanist writes The Divine Romance of the Three Gutenberg invents a revolution begins Comedy, describing Kingdoms and Shi Nai’an’s printing process using a journey through The Water Margin are movable type, enabling with Nicolaus Copernicus’s hell, purgatory, written, the first two of the mass publication On the Revolutions of the Chinese literature’s four of printed materials Heavenly Spheres and and heaven. great classical novels. Andreas Vesalius’s On the for the first time. Fabric of the Human Body. C.1308–20 14TH CENTURY C.1439 1543 1346–53 1604 C.1387–1400 1532–64 The Black Death causes massive In The Canterbury A series of satirical Christopher Marlowe’s social and economic disruption, Tales, Geoffrey novels by François Elizabethan drama Rabelais is published; Doctor Faustus is accelerating the end of Europe’s Chaucer recounts it tells the adventures of published after his medieval era. Culturally, it brings stories told by a the giants Gargantua to an end the great age of French socially mixed and Pantagruel. death, a decade after group of pilgrims. it was first performed. poetry and troubadours. F rom the early 14th century, the past. Among the first to write accounts of licentiousness, and the cultural movement in this way was the Florentine poet bawdy practical jokes, they soon known as the Renaissance Dante Alighieri, whose The Divine became popular reading. began to spread across Europe from Comedy was not only an epic the Italian city of Florence. It was poetic journey through the afterlife The birth of the novel marked by a change from medieval but also served as an allegory for In the 15th century, the invention attitudes—which were dominated the contemporary world. of Gutenberg’s printing press by the dogma of the Christian hastened the spread of ideas, and Church—to a far more humanist At the same time, other writers this technology also made it easier perspective that was inspired by chose to turn away from the realm to cater to audiences in vernacular a rediscovery of ancient Greek and of epics and legends altogether, languages. Popular demand for Roman philosophy and culture. But and focus on the lives, autonomy, books had been stimulated in this was more than a simple rebirth and ingenuity of ordinary people. particular by the prose storytelling of classical ideas—the period was In The Decameron, published in of Boccaccio and Chaucer. From also a time of innovation. 1353, Giovanni Boccaccio presented these early stories emerged a a collection of 100 “novellas” in form of literature as a long, prose The epic and the everyday prose in the Florentine vernacular. narrative that is now ubiquitous, In literature, although inspiration Shortly afterward Geoffrey Chaucer but was then very much “novel.” came from classical style and forms, wrote a similar collection of stories, writers chose to work in vernacular The Canterbury Tales. Both works During the 16th century, prose languages, as opposed to Latin contained a variety of tales of narratives gradually replaced the or Greek, and to create their own everyday life—from love stories to epic poem as the predominant stories rather than retell those of moral parables. With their literary form in most of Europe, and discussions of human vices, readers particularly responded to

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 61 The first volume of In The Narrow Road to The first volume of the Friedrich Schiller’s Miguel de Cervantes’ the Interior, Matsuo Encyclopédie, edited by Sturm und Drang Basho¯ uses haiku in Denis Diderot and Jean le drama The Robbers Don Quixote is a prose narrative to Rond d’Alembert, offers a portrays the violent published, marking comprehensive reference describe his spiritual and emotional the high point of journey through Japan. to Enlightenment relationship between a golden age of ideas and sciences. Spanish literature. two brothers. 1605 1702 1751 1781 1623 1719 1759 1789 A collection of Daniel Defoe’s best-known Voltaire pokes fun at the The fall of the Bastille comedies, histories, book, Robinson Crusoe, is optimism of the modern in Paris, on July 14, sparks published in the form of a Enlightenment movement the French Revolution, and and tragedies by fictional autobiography of the Enlightenment ideas of William Shakespeare is the eponymous hero, the lone in his satirical, liberty and equality result published, known today survivor of a shipwreck. philosophical, fantasy in a secular, republican era. as the First Folio. novel Candide. humorous stories, such as François theater that most attracted the Shandy and Jonathan Swift’s Rabelais’ satirical adventures of public. The plays of Christopher fantastical Gulliver’s Travels also Gargantua and Pantagruel. Miguel Marlowe and Ben Jonson built use the autobiographical voice, but de Cervantes of Spain continued in on the ideas of Greek tragedy do so in ways that test the reader’s this tradition, albeit with a gentler and comedy with their dramas, willingness to believe the narrator. wit, in Don Quixote. However, but even they were eclipsed by Cervantes’ satire about chivalry has Shakespeare’s mastery of the form, In 17th-century France, the a more serious undercurrent, and which allowed him to depict very theater was also at the heart of rather than a hero, the eponymous human characters in a catalogue of literature, and was even more knight is depicted as all too human. comedies, histories, and tragedies. indebted to classical models than Don Quixote is often considered to in England, with Jean Racine be the first modern novel, or at least Novels began to appear in and Pierre Corneille striving to the first European novel—China’s England soon after Shakespeare, follow the “rules” of Greek drama. four great classical novels and and rapidly overtook the theater in However, the public tended to Japan’s The Tale of Genji were popularity. From the beginning, call the tune, and it was Molière’s all written much earlier. English novelists such as Daniel comedies of manners that seemed Defoe and Henry Fielding presented more in keeping with the times. Life on stage and page believable characters in their novels, Poking fun at the contemporary In England, the prose narrative took which contain vivid descriptions of mores continued to be a part of longer to capture popular attention. time and place that give the works the French literary scene in the Poets such as Edmund Spenser and a degree of realism. Defoe’s Robinson 18th century, with Enlightenment John Milton continued to reinterpret Crusoe professes to be a “true” philosophers such as Voltaire the epic poem, but it was the autobiographical account. Both wittily satirizing the conventions Laurence Sterne’s comic Tristram of the establishment. ■

62 IN CONTEXT IFSWOFHIORATUEDHSNIONTDWAMEDYSELF FOCUS Postclassical epic THE DIVINE COMEDY (c.1308–1320), DANTE ALIGHIERI BEFORE 800 bce Ancient Greek poet Homer writes his epic Odyssey, which influences much of Western literature. 29–19 bce The Aeneid is written in Latin by the Roman poet Virgil. It will become a model for Latin epics of the medieval period. AFTER 1572 Luís de Camões’s Portuguese epic poem The Lusiads (Os Lusíadas) follows in Dante’s tradition, weaving together fiction, history, and politics in a story of Portugal’s voyages of discovery. 1667 The last great epic poem to be written in English, Paradise Lost by John Milton, reflects Britain’s emerging role as a world power. T he epic was the literary form of choice for some of antiquity’s greatest poets. Epics were written to celebrate the achievements of a hero—often partly divine or possessed of exceptional strength and valor— and the stories were often allegories of transitional moments in history, such as the birth of a nation or the conquest of an enemy. For example, while Homer’s Iliad is the story of the hero Achilles, it is also, more importantly, about the defeat of Troy by the great armies of Greece. Such poems often weave together the contemporary with the mythic, and their heroes play key roles in building civilization.

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 63 See also: Aeneid 40–41 ■ Odyssey 54 ■ The Faerie Queene 103 ■ The Lusiads 103 ■ Paradise Lost 103 ■ The Red Room 185 ■ The Waste Land 213 The Dark Forest The Vestibule: Jerusalem the Uncommitted The Unbaptized and the Virtuous Pagans Sins of wantonness The Carnal Sins of violence Sins of malice The Gluttonous Wall of Dis separates The Greedy Upper Hell from The Wrathful Lower Hell The Heretical Dante’s Hell is situated below the The Violent city of Jerusalem and is shaped like a The Fraudulent gigantic funnel that leads to the very center of the Earth. Outside Hell is a “vestibule” containing the souls of those The Treacherous who in life did neither good nor evil. Hell itself is made up of nine circles, which contain the souls of sinners, from the least offensive (the unbaptized) to the most offensive (the treacherous). A wall, guarded by devils, impedes Dante’s progress to Lower Hell, where violent and malicious sinners Satan are punished. At Hell’s core, trapped in ice, is a winged, three-faced Satan. Long after the fall of classical However, it is also unusual and detail, evoking an almost physical civilizations, the epic poem innovative in a variety of ways. reality. The work recalls many remained the favored literary form Whereas in earlier epics the classical epics that describe through which to celebrate national omniscient narrator remained journeys to the underworld and, power. For example, English poet “outside” the story, Dante sets like earlier epics, it is an allegory: Edmund Spenser’s 1590 epic The the narrator within the text; the the journey through the underworld Faerie Queene is a paean to the book audaciously uses Tuscan is symbolic of Dante’s search for ascendancy of Elizabeth I and her (Italian) vernacular language personal meaning. country, while Italian Ludovico rather than traditional Latin; and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, written Dante stretches the form of the epic Originally, Dante called this in 1516, applauds the increasingly by combining classical thought poem simply the Commedia, or influential House of Este. and mythological motifs with “Comedy,” which at the time was contemporary European philosophy a term used for works in which the A divine epic and Christian symbolism. difficulties or challenges faced by Dante’s The Divine Comedy fits into the protagonist were resolved in a the postclassical epic tradition—it Dante takes the reader on a broadly happy ending (in contrast is long, heroic, allegorical, and often journey through hell, purgatory, and to the classical tragedies, which nationalistic, reflecting Dante’s heaven—from sin and despair to focused on loss and suffering). It active role in Florentine politics. ultimate salvation—mapping out was the 14th-century poet Giovanni the geography of each realm in Boccaccio who first called the ❯❯

64 THE DIVINE COMEDY Purgatory is a mountain of stepped terraces where the souls of the penitent undergo a different kind of suffering on each level to purge themselves of sin and enter the Earthly Paradise. poem “Divine,” a reflection on its pained him, his removal from terza rima, an interlocking three- spiritual content as well as the public affairs allowed him the line rhyme scheme, which was extreme beauty of its style. distance to produce his celebrated developed by Dante. allegory of the philosophy, morals, Politics and poetry and beliefs of his medieval world. Told from a first-person When Dante began The Divine perspective, the work is in the Comedy—a work that was to take The Divine Comedy is form of an eschatological journey him 12 years to complete—he structured in thirds, reflecting (one about death and the afterlife). was already established as a poet, the significance of the number The story begins in a dark forest, a working in the dolce stil novo three in Christian theology (where symbol of sinful life on Earth. Dante (“sweet new style”), a movement it symbolizes the trinity of the attempts to climb a mountain to characterized by its introspection, Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). find his way out of the forest, but and liberal use of metaphor and The journey comprises three books his path is blocked by wild animals symbolism. Politics and personal (”Hell,” ”Purgatory,” and “Heaven”), (which represent sins). Hopeless, passions were the subjects of his each with 33 cantos, or chapters, weak, and in need of spiritual poetry, and late 13th-century Italy plus one introductory chapter, to guidance, he meets the Roman provided plenty of inspiration. make 100 cantos in total. It is poet Virgil, who has been sent to written in a verse style called guide him by Beatrice, the lost Dante himself was embroiled love of his past. For Dante, Virgil in the political life of his beloved There is no greater sorrow represents classical thinking, Florence, which was involved, along than to recall happiness in reason, and poetry. Virgil assures with the rest of Italy, in struggles Dante he will achieve salvation— for power between the church times of misery. but only after he has journeyed (the Pope) and the state (the Holy The Divine Comedy through the afterlife. The two then Roman Emperor). Key figures from begin their journey, starting with these conflicts were portrayed in the descent into Hell. The Divine Comedy, and the inclusion of real people provided Journey to the afterlife a degree of sensationalism that The first book of The Divine contributed to the poem’s success. Comedy describes the levels of hell, and the ways in which Dante was eventually exiled punishments are tailored to the from Florence for his political sins of individuals. The souls of allegiances and, although it greatly flatterers, for example, spend eternity buried in excrement, a reminder of the excrement that they spoke on Earth. Seducers are tormented by horned devils who crack their whips over them until they become lumps of well-beaten flesh. In his visceral descriptions of the punishments and layout of hell, Dante invites readers to reflect on their own failings, to change direction, and to live in harmony with other people and with God.

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 65 When their journey to the bottom- Christ and therefore could not Dante Alighieri most reaches of hell is complete, enter the “Blessed Realms.” Dante and Virgil begin the ascent Beatrice can be seen as the eternal A politician, writer, and of Mount Purgatory, with its feminine guide, the heart and soul philosopher, Durante degli circular terraces. Purgatory is a of humankind. It is she who Alighieri (known as Dante) place for sinners who lived selfishly intervenes for Dante’s salvation, was born in Florence, Italy, in on Earth, but showed enough and through her, Dante comes to 1265 to a wealthy family with remorse to offer hope for salvation. understand the love of God. a long history of involvement In purgatory, they may purge in Florentine politics. Dante themselves in preparation for Dante’s legacy was betrothed to be married entering heaven. As they climb Dante adapted the form of the in 1277 but he had already the mountain, passing through classical epic, with its adventurer- fallen in love with another seven levels representing the seven heroes and multiple gods, to express girl, Beatrice “Bice” Portinari, deadly sins, Dante and Virgil meet a profound vision of Christian who became his muse and to individuals painfully working to destiny, incorporating both whom he dedicated many love overcome the flaws that led to their personal and historical events into poems. Tragically, she died sins. Proud souls, for example, carry the story. Innumerable artists and suddenly in 1290. So grief huge stones on their backs while writers have been inspired by The stricken was Dante that he they learn humility. Divine Comedy, and American-born immersed himself in political writer T. S. Eliot described it as life, becoming a priore (a high Once out of Purgatory, Beatrice “the highest point that poetry has official) in 1300 and acting as takes over as Dante’s guide: this ever reached or ever can reach.” ■ envoy to Pope Boniface VIII is because Virgil was born before during upheavals in Florence. While he was in Rome, his Dante journeys through Heaven’s nine spheres, each of which is enemies gained power and linked with a celestial body, in line with medieval Earth-centric ideas about Dante was exiled from the structure of the universe, and with the hierarchy of angels. Beyond the Florence, never to return. It spheres is God in the Empyrean—a heaven beyond time and space. is not known exactly when he began work on The Divine The Empyrean Comedy, but it may have been NinEtihghSStepFhvhifeSeStnphriexthShteF(phPrSoherSpueiprh(mrFtheehuirex(emrSMeep(daSMh(JraSesouttr)ubpa:eririTlt(nsehSe)))e:ru::)TTnWT:hhT)ha:eeehrTrTeCNihrooJieirununsWmestoetiOpfmsRtherhupdoelleeafrrFtCssiavhoietrfhsiAstngels as early as 1304. Dante died in Ravenna, Italy, in 1321. SeFcoiTrnshdtirSSdpphSheperrheeeT(r(hMMeeo(eEVoranecrun):truhTyslh))y::eTTInhhceeoALnomsvtabenirttsious Paradise Other key works Earth Purgatory 1294 La Vita Nuova (The New Life) 1303 On the Eloquence of Vernacular 1308 Convivio (The Banquet)

66 BOWRFEOATTIMHHRESERAEHNOWDOISDLELANSNTWDIMUEEANNRITTYS ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS (14TH CENTURY), LUO GUANZHONG IN CONTEXT A s the first of China’s four the reader directly. Despite being great classical novels, heavily based on historical texts, FOCUS Romance of the Three Romance of the Three Kingdoms China’s four great Kingdoms is a hugely significant (like the other three classic Chinese classical novels and influential work of literature. texts) is recognizably a novel. As with the other three works— It is a feat of imaginative writing AFTER The Water Margin, Journey to sustained over 800,000 words in 14th century The second the West, and Dream of the Red translation, and featuring more great classical novel, The Chamber—it marked a radical than a thousand characters. Water Margin by Shi Nai’an, is departure from the “high style” of the story of a band of outlaws Chinese poetic and philosophical The first novel? who oppose a corrupt ruler. literature. Aimed at an audience The book describes the collapse of common people, it employed of China’s Han dynasty into three 16th century The third great techniques akin to oral storytelling, kingdoms in the 3rd century ce, classical novel, Journey to the such as the use of vernacular and the 111 years of warfare that West, by Wu Cheng’en, tells of language and songs, and addressed followed. Written over a thousand a Buddhist monk’s pilgrimage from China to India. Luo Guanzhong But in 14th-century China, attributing authorship to one c.1618 Some scholars consider Although his existence is not in person may in fact denote that The Plum in the Golden Vase, question, very little else can be they were the chief compiler and its author unknown, to be the confirmed about the life of Luo editor of a large number of texts fourth Chinese classical novel. Guanzhong (c.1330–c.1400). He by earlier storytellers. Although hugely popular, it is traditionally regarded as the was suppressed because of author of the first of China’s four Other key works its overt sensual realism. great classical novels, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and The Water Margin (as editor) c.1791 The generally accepted coauthor or editor of the second, The Three Sui Quash the fourth great classical novel, The Water Margin. He is also Dream of the Red Chamber thought to have written story Demons’ Revolt by Cao Xueqin, focuses collections that deal with The End of the Tang Dynasty on the rise and fall of an China’s dynastic past, including aristocratic family. the fantastical tale The Three and the Period of the Five Sui Quash the Demon’s Revolt. Dynasties Chronicle of the Sui and Tang Dynasties

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 67 See also: The Tale of Genji 47 History of the text 4th–14th centuries: many 169–280 ce: the historical of the hundreds of stories events—the breakup of the 4th century ce: the story become mythologized, told is written down by Chen Han dynasty and its eventual and retold by oral storytellers. reunification—take place. Shou as History of the Three Kingdoms. 1522: the earliest surviving 14th–16th centuries: 14th century: Luo text of Romance of the Three the novel is copied and Guanzhong “authors” the republished many times huge collection of stories, Kingdoms is published. by anonymous hands. both historical and fictional, editing and collating the text. years after the events it describes, partly assured by its conventional, It is a powerful scene that has been it takes as its historical inspiration conservative narrative: villains invoked by Chinese societies and the History of the Three Kingdoms, always get their comeuppance, fraternities of all kinds ever since. written in the 4th century ce. and order is always restored. Despite the popularity of Scholars believe that Romance One of the major themes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, of the Three Kingdoms was the book is loyalty. In perhaps the the other classics have not been written nearly 250 years before Don most famous scene, the Oath in quite so widely read. Nevertheless, Quixote, which is often regarded the Peach Garden, future ruler all four have continued to be as the first great European novel. Liu Bei persuades two men to enjoyed and studied (Journey But, perhaps surprisingly, this join him in an oath of fraternity, to the West has been widely early Chinese classic did not spark thereby going against what was at acclaimed outside China), and a profusion of prose literature— the time society’s strongest bond: are regarded as the pinnacles indeed, the “four great classics” unquestioning loyalty to family. of popular Chinese literature. ■ were published over a period of 400 years. However, Romance of the Three Kingdoms has enduring appeal: it has never been out of print, and its scenes are so well known that they are familiar to Chinese speakers who have not even read the book. Its success is Many editions of Romance of the Three Kingdoms were richly illustrated, which helped to make the text and stories accessible to ordinary Chinese people, not just the elite.

68 IN CONTEXT LTAEUNEROFNTHAONEVRDERCTAHTLEHESEE FOCUS The frame narrative THE CANTERBURY TALES (c.1387–1400), GEOFFREY CHAUCER BEFORE c.8th–13th century One Thousand and One Nights, a collection of tales by different authors from across the Islamic world, is framed within the story of Scheherazade. 1348–53 The Decameron, by Italian Giovanni Boccaccio, contains 100 stories set within a tale of people fleeing the Black Death. AFTER 1558 The Heptameron, by French author Marguerite de Navarre, contains 72 short stories, framed within a story of 10 stranded travelers. 2004 English writer David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas follows the frame-narrative tradition, including stories within stories that travel over centuries. T he use of an outer narrative that envelops within it a story (or a collection of stories, or even stories inside other stories) is a long-established literary device. “Frame narratives” provide context and structure for a tale and often include a narrator, or narrators, who can help engage the reader directly. One Thousand and One Nights successfully employed this technnique, as did Giovanni Boccaccio in his Decameron. Although most earlier works used the frame narrative to hold stories around a single theme—often religion—Geoffrey Chaucer used it to far more colorful effect in The Canterbury Tales, opening up

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 69 See also: One Thousand and One Nights 44–45 ■ The Decameron 102 ■ Wuthering Heights 132–37 ■ The Hound of the Baskervilles 208 ■ If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler 298–99 ■ The Blind Assassin 326–27 Early editions of The Canterbury Tales, however, was written for Chaucer’s characters: Tales contained woodcuts to help a far wider audience, who were class and occupation make the text more accessible to a probably intended to read the wide range of readers. Shown here work rather than just listen to it. Aristocrats or nobles are the pilgrims sharing a meal. • The Knight The text is written in Middle • The Prioress the narrative to include a range English, as opposed to the Latin or • The Monk of personalities, whose stories French that was commonly used for • The Friar encompassed diverse themes. courtly poetry of the time. Chaucer Those with commercial was not the first to do this, but it wealth Later works of the genre has been argued that he played a • The Merchant include Emily Brontë’s Wuthering major role in popularizing the use of • The Man of Law Heights and Arthur Conan Doyle’s the vernacular in English literature. • The Clerk Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Significantly, too, The Canterbury • The Franklin (landowner) The technique is still in use and Tales paints a remarkable picture Guildsmen many works of Modernist and of late medieval English society, • The Haberdasher postmodernist fiction play with depicting men and women of all • The Dyer framing narratives, for example classes, from the nobility through • The Carpenter Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s to the laboring classes. • The Weaver Night a Traveler. The device is also • The Tapestry Maker often used in plays and movies. Sondry folk The middle class The Canterbury Tales opens with • The Cook a General Prologue that sets the • The Shipman scene and creates a framework for • The Physician the tales that follow. The frame • The Wife of Bath story concerns a group of 29 The virtuous poor pilgrims on their way to the shrine • The Parson of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury • The Plowman Cathedral, in southern England. The The lower class pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn, in • The Manciple Southwark, near London, where the • The Miller narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, joins ❯❯ • The Reeve • The Summoner Literary innovation At nyght was come • The Pardoner Chaucer probably began writing into that hostelrye The Canterbury Tales in about Wel nyne and twenty 1387, during a brief absence from in a compaignye his official court duties and career Of sondry folk… as a civil servant. It marked a The Canterbury Tales significant change in his literary direction: his other poems— including his first major work (an elegy in the form of a dream vision) and Troilus and Criseyde, his retelling of the love story set during the siege of Troy—were mainly concerned with courtly themes and written primarily to he heard by court audiences. The Canterbury

70 THE CANTERBURY TALES them. Pilgrimages were an written in rhyming couplets, a few This world nys but a everyday occurrence in medieval in prose. They vary enormously thurghfare full of wo... Europe, and Chaucer describes the because Chaucer made use of a The Canterbury Tales pilgrims as “sondry folk,” people of wide range of themes and literary all social classes and occupations. styles. These include animal and continuing with her account of other fables, fabliaux (ribald and her eventful life with five husbands, Most of the General Prologue, satiric tales), romantic verse, pious the theme being women’s mastery which consists of 858 lines of verse, homilies, sermons, allegories, and over men. describes the pilgrims, their social exempla (moral narratives). Where class, clothing, and personalities the Knight’s Tale is a romance, A colorful picture (including the narrator himself). which tells of a love rivalry between Chaucer brings each story to life Having introduced the pilgrims, two brothers, the Miller’s Tale is by ensuring that the tone and style or most of them, the Prologue ends bawdy and comic, taking as its are appropriate to each respective with the innkeeper, or Host, a man theme the cuckolding of an Oxford storyteller, reflecting his or her own called Harry Bailly, suggesting a carpenter. The raucous and vulgar status, occupation, and character. competition. He proposes that Summoner’s Tale includes a The vividness is enhanced by the each of the pilgrims should tell four description of a friar being tricked use of the framing devices, which tales, two on the outward journey into accepting a fart as payment, link the stories to one another and two on their return. The teller while, in contrast, the Second through dialogue and interactions of the best tale will be rewarded Nun’s Tale is the story of St. among the characters. The with a free meal, paid for by the Cecilia, a deeply spiritual woman storytellers frequently interrupt other pilgrims, when they return martyred for her faith. each other with arguments, insults, to the inn. The pilgrims draw lots or sometimes even praise. The and it is decided that the Knight The tales vary considerably Prioress’s Tale, for example, begins will tell the first story. in length; one of the longest, and after the Host has politely invited perhaps the best known, is the the Prioress to tell her story, while The tales Wife of Bath’s Tale. This begins on another occasion, the Knight The 24 tales within the framework with a prologue developing the interrupts the Monk because he include two related by the narrator, Wife’s character—domineering finds his tale too miserable. The or Chaucer himself. Most are and pleasure seeking—before wider framing story adds another dimension to the individual tales. The Canterbury Tales presents a colorful picture of late medieval England, its people and events. Chaucer was living and writing The Ellesmere manuscript (c.1410) is a beautiful, exquisitely illuminated copy of The Canterbury Tales and is the basis for most modern versions of Chaucer’s text.

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 71 during a particularly turbulent Scholars do not know what Geoffrey Chaucer period. The Black Death of 1348–49 Chaucer’s final intention was for had killed a third of the population, The Canterbury Tales, nor even the Not just a great English poet the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381 had order in which he wished the tales but also a courtier, civil demonstrated cracks in the feudal to appear, or whether the work was servant, and diplomat, system, and the authority of the finished. The only clue is in the Chaucer was probably born church was being questioned, General Prologue, with its plan in London around 1343. His not least for its corrupt practices. for the pilgrims to tell four stories father, a wine merchant, was each. However, there are only 24 eager to advance his son’s Chaucer’s tales reflect many tales, so not all the pilgrims tell career and secured a place for of these events, often mocking even one tale. Nor do any of the him as a page in the Countess and satirizing the hypocrisy of the storytellers or the Host indicate the of Ulster’s household. From church. In the Pardoner’s Tale, sequence or numbering of any tale. there, Chaucer entered the the Pardoner is shown to be guilty service of Edward III, first as of the very sins he is preaching Enduring masterpiece a soldier, then as a diplomat, against, while the Friar’s Tale is Evidence indicates that Chaucer traveling to France and Italy, a satirical attack on summoners— was still working on the Tales where he would have read the ecclesiastical officers whose role when he died. There is no original works of Dante and Boccaccio. was to summon to court sinful manuscript in his own hand; From 1374 to 1386 he held a members of the diocese. It is not instead there are fragments that post as controller of customs. surprising that the Summoner’s would have been scribed by Tale is an attack on friars. someone else. The earliest is the Chaucer married in 1366, Hengwrt manuscript, produced and gained a patron—John of Unfinished work shortly after Chaucer’s death. The Gaunt, the king’s fourth son. Chaucer borrowed from numerous sequence most commonly used Chaucer wrote his first major sources when writing The today, however, is based on the poem, Book of the Duchess Canterbury Tales. The Knight’s 15th-century Ellesmere manuscript, (1369) as an elegy to Gaunt’s Tale is based on Boccaccio’s epic which divides the text into 10 first wife, Blanche. He fell on poem Teseida, and there are other fragments, containing varying hard times during Richard II’s references within the Tales to numbers of tales. The tales are reign; however, in 1389 was Boccaccio’s work. Chaucer’s grouped according to clues or links appointed clerk of the king’s other sources included Ovid, the within the text, and end with the royal building projects. He Bible, chivalric works such as Sir Parson’s Tale, a long prose sermon died in 1400 and was buried Gawain and the Green Knight, on the Seven Deadly Sins. This is in Westminster Abbey. and, possibly, works by his friend followed by Chaucer’s Retraction, a the English poet John Gower. curious apology in which the author Other key works asks forgiveness for the vulgar, For though we sleep secular elements of his works. The 1379 The House of Fame or wake, or roam, or ride, exact significance of this apology is c.1385 Troilus and Criseyde unclear, although some have seen it c.1388 The Legend of Ay fleeth the time; as a deathbed repentance. Good Women it nyl no man abyde. The Canterbury Tales Despite the uncertainties surrounding its structure and plot, The Canterbury Tales is recognized as a masterpiece, and one of the most important literary works in the English language. Its humor, bawdiness, pathos, and satirical observations remain unequaled today, more than 600 years after it was written. ■

72 PLLIRAVUOEGPJEHORTYTEFRYU’OSLFLTYMHEAN. GARGANTUA AND PANTAGRUEL (1532–1564), FRANÇOIS RABELAIS IN CONTEXT I n the five-volume Histories with a resurgence of interest in the of Gargantua and Pantagruel, wisdom of the classical world. Until FOCUS François Rabelais builds this point, education had involved Renaissance humanism a fantasy world around two giants blindly following the church’s and their companions. The text narrow scholastic tradition; the BEFORE includes all the elements of major humanist impetus was to 1304–74 Italian scholar and medieval folk humor that would build a complete program of poet Petrarch translates Greek have been familiar to contemporary education that included philosophy, and Roman scrolls, which are readers—bodily functions, gross grammar, poetry, history, and the springboard for humanism sexual behavior, birth, and ancient Greek and Latin. and the Italian Renaissance. death. Rich in satire, the tales are also fueled by the energy of Scholarly and satirical 1353 The 100 stories told by Renaissance humanism, which Poised at the threshold of this 10 young Florentines fleeing spread into northern Europe from rapidly changing world, Rabelais from the plague in Boccaccio’s Italy. “Humanism” at this time finds ways to weave a humanist The Decameron set a standard had a different meaning from the agenda into his giant adventures – for Renaissance literature, modern-day term, being concerned but he first engages his reader’s and influence authors from attention with scatological humor Chaucer to Shakespeare. Time, which diminishes and absurd fantasy. At the very and erodes all things, beginning, the text presents a 1460 Ploughman of Bohemia, midwife’s-eye view of the mother a dialogue between Death increases and augments in labor, as the baby Gargantua and a plowman, by Johannes generous deeds … struggles up through her body to be von Tepl, is one of Germany’s Gargantua and born out of her left ear. The exploits, earliest humanist poems. Pantagruel battles, and quests of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel rattle 1522–35 Dutch humanist on, liberally embellished with Erasmus publishes his own descriptions of meat feasts and Greek and Latin translations shovelfuls of mustard tossed of the New Testament; they into cavernous mouths; pilgrims are the basis for Martin consumed in a salad; massive Luther’s German and William codpieces; armies washed away by Tyndale’s English translations. urination; and cannonballs that fall out of Gargantua’s hair after battle.

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 73 See also: The Decameron 102 ■ The Canterbury Tales 68–71 ■ Don Quixote 76–81 ■ Tristram Shandy 104–05 Although Rabelais wrote Pantagruel first, the series is usually published in the order of the story, starting with Gargantua. The first two books are characterized by satire and bawdy humor, the third is more serious, and the fourth and fifth are darkly mocking. Gargantua: Pantagruel’s Pantagruel: Pantagruel father drowns 260,418 creates a race of tiny people by farting, and drowns an Parisians in urine and steals the bells of Notre Dame. enemy army in urine. The Third Book: François Rabelais Pantagruel’s friend Panurge wants to get married, and Writer, medic, scholar of Greek, and priest, François many philosophical Rabelais was an intellectual discussions ensue. giant of 16th-century France. Born in the Touraine region The Fourth Book: A The Fifth Book: probably around 1494, he battle with the half-sausage Pantagruel and his friends studied law before taking holy Chitterlings is stopped by a orders with the Franciscans. come across Hearsay, a He then transferred to a divine pig who excretes blind man with seven Benedictine order, where he mustard on the battlefield. tongues, whose head is studied medicine and Greek. In 1530, breaking his vows, covered with ears. he left the Benedictines to study medicine at Montpellier Yet despite such crude and extreme he was a priest, Rabelais seized University. After graduating, behavior, Rabelais ensures that his his chance to satirize religious he lectured on the works of giant creations will pass easily in dogmatism. Gargantua’s mighty ancient Greek physicians such the new world of Renaissance warrior, Friar John, is given the as Hippocrates and Galen, humanism by making them fully sumptuous Abbey of Thélème whose work he translated, and conversant in the finer points of filled with finely dressed nuns and worked as a physician in Lyon. learning, including medicine, law, monks who consort freely. “Do what and science. In a letter to his son, thou wilt” is the rule of the order, as Using the pseudonym the old giant Gargantua contrasts “we all engage in things forbidden, Alcofribas Nasier (an anagram his own upbringing in “dark” times and yearn for things denied.” of his name), in 1532 Rabelais with the current age, where “light published Pantagruel, the first and dignity have been restored.” Witty, irreverent, and stuffed of the five books that would with intellectual marrow, no other make up Gargantua and After the arrival of the printing novel is quite like Gargantua and Pantagruel, although Rabelais’ press in the mid-15th century, Pantagruel. It has been celebrated authorship of the fifth book is ordinary people could read the by authors across the centuries, doubtful. All five books were Bible in translation—for the first and most recently by postmodern condemned by the Sorbonne time they had direct access to the writers, who have found much to and the church, and despite word of God, unmediated by the admire in the narrative freedom being protected by powerful agenda of the church. Although of Rabelais’ great work. ■ patrons, Rabelais was forced to live abroad from 1545 to 1547, fearing persecution. He later received a papal pardon. He died in Paris in 1553.

74 FOYALOSFOUAIWTRGEEDBRIEWDATITULHOTLEYTBDHLOIISOGMHT LES AMOURS DE CASSANDRE (1552), PIERRE DE RONSARD IN CONTEXT P ierre Ronsard (1524–1585) collection Les Amours de was the leading light of a Cassandre, Ronsard set out to rival FOCUS group of French humanist the Italian poet Petrarch. His The Pléiade poets named for the bright Pleiades devotion to Cassandre is described star cluster and also for a group with imagery of piercing arrows, BEFORE of Alexandrian poets from the 3rd love potions, and poisons, which 1549 Joachim Du Bellay century bce. The Pléiade sought to Petrarch had also deployed. But in sets out the principles of create a French literature equal Ronsard’s hands this imagery is the Pléiade, promoting the to that of Renaissance Italy. They imbued with sensuality. He often imitation of classical models imitated the genres and forms refers to a desire to be transformed – and the revival of archaic and of the ancients, and spent much for example, into golden droplets, so dialect words, as well as the time refining and defending their that he may fall into his beloved’s invention of new words. controversial poetic beliefs. lap, and then into a bull so that he can carry her away on his back. ■ AFTER A sublime art 1555 Taking inspiration from Ronsard saw poetry as a sublime I’d like to turn the deepest the Greek poet Callimachus, art, rather than merely a courtly of yellows, / Falling, drop by Ronsard’s Hymns eloquently pastime. He was versatile and drop, in a golden shower, / celebrate natural phenomena, innovative, and his poems were such as the sky, as well as melodious, sensual, and pagan, Into her lap... gods and heroes. despite the fact that he was a cleric Les Amours de Cassandre in minor orders. He made important 1576 Jean Antoine de Baïf, contributions to the ode (inspired the most learned poet of the by the Latin poet Horace and the Pléiade and a skilled poetic Greek Pindar), the sonnet, and experimenter, publishes a the elegy, and in 1558 became the highly original work: Mimes, official poet in the court of Charles Lessons, and Proverbs. IX, the king of France. He is best remembered today for his skillful, 1578 Ronsard’s Sonnets for tender love poetry. In the poetry Hélène are full of references to the suffering of lovers, as well See also: Gargantua and Pantagruel 72–73 ■ Miscellaneous Poems (Marvell) 91 ■ as to classical myth and fate. Les Fleurs du mal 165 ■ A Season in Hell 198–203

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 75 FPHOLEERTAHPSLAUTERALESOMUVRUEESSTFALL DOCTOR FAUSTUS (1604), CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE IN CONTEXT T he drama produced in The reward of sin is death? England during the reigns That’s hard. FOCUS of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) Jacobethan theater and James I (1603–1625)—the Doctor Faustus Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, BEFORE respectively—often depicted a highly respected as an intellect but 1592 Elements of Thomas murky world of murder, politics, and nevertheless weary of the limits Kyd’s Elizabethan-period revenge, coupled with humor and of conventional science. His thirst The Spanish Tragedy—such pastiche. The term “Jacobethan” for knowledge is so great that he as its theme of revenge and is used to denote the continuity turns to magic and summons the the play-within-a-play—are of English literature between these devil Mephistopheles, who makes continued in subsequent two periods. The Elizabethan era Faustus false promises about Jacobean dramas. saw the rise of comedies and omnipotence and pleasure. tragedies, then took on elements 1598–1600 William of psychology and the supernatural The two make a deadly pact: Shakespeare’s Henry IV under James, whose court was a Faustus agrees to give up his soul Parts 1 and 2 reflect ongoing place of loose sexual morals. to the devil in exchange for the Jacobethan interests in devil’s service for 24 years. A good raucous comedy, history, A pact with the devil man driven by pride and corrupted violence, and honor. Born in 1564, in the Elizabethan by power, Faustus realizes too age, Christopher “Kit” Marlowe late that he has brought great evil AFTER lived wildly and died at 29, upon himself. ■ 1610 The first performance of reportedly stabbed in a brawl. His The Alchemist by Ben Jonson, work is a harbinger of Jacobean indulges the Jacobean thirst drama’s interest in darker themes. for harsh satire. Based on a German story of a 1614 John Webster’s five-act legendary alchemist, Marlowe’s revenge tragedy The Duchess Doctor Faustus (originally titled of Malfi is truly Jacobethan in The Tragicall History of Dr. Faustus) its consideration of incest, recounts the tale of an academic, torture, and madness. See also: First Folio 82–89 ■ The Fairie Queene 103

OECVHWERILYNDMDAONEFIESHDTIHSSE DON QUIXOTE (1605–1615), MIGUEL DE CERVANTES



78 DON QUIXOTE S traddling the 16th and defining literary achievement of the 17th centuries, Spain’s Golden Century. Like Lope de Vega, IN CONTEXT Golden Century refers to he was writing near the end of an an extraordinary flourishing of the era, as Spain began to decline due to FOCUS arts that began with the nation’s a combination of despotic rule, Spain’s Golden Century rise to superpower status via the religious fanaticism, and dwindling wealth of its colonies in America. fortunes after the English defeat of BEFORE the Armada. Out of this climate of 1499 The story of a procuress Under the Holy Roman Emperor flux leapt Don Quixote, an eccentric told in a series of dialogues, Charles V (reigned 1519–56), there hero who bestrides a romantic La Celestina, by Fernando de was a free flow of ideas across past and an unstable present in a Rojas, marks the beginning of Europe, with Spain’s writers chivalric adventure that continues a literary renaissance in Spain. responding to the excitement of to enchant and inspire. the Renaissance. New techniques 1554 The anonymously in storytelling, verse, and drama Engagement with reality published novella The Life produced defining prose, poetry, Just as the plays of Cervantes’ of Lazarillo de Tormes and of and plays. The anonymously contemporary William Shakespeare His Fortunes and Adversities authored Lazarillo de Tormes are at the origin of modern drama, invents a new form—the featured a picaro (young rascal) so Don Quixote is at the origin of picaresque. narrator of mixed fortunes, giving modern fiction. Both writers delved the world a new literary genre—the into the motivations, actions, and AFTER picaresque novel. Experimentation emotions of their protagonists in 1609 Lope de Vega, Spain’s with verse forms as well as meter a way that had not been attempted most prolific playwright and characterized the work of poet before, lending such characters as a major poet, publishes his Garcilaso de la Vega. And the Hamlet, Macbeth, and Don Quixote artistic manifesto New Rules dramatist Lope de Vega produced a psychological complexity that for Writing Plays at this Time a vast and dazzling oeuvre of 1,800 made them seem real. to justify his writing style. plays—rich in character, plot, and history—together with sonnets, Don Quixote engages with 1635 Pedro Calderón de la novellas, and lyric poetry. reality on two main levels. The Barca’s philosophical allegory main character of Cervantes’ novel Life is a Dream is one of the In the same period, Miguel de is enthralled by the knightly heroes Golden Century’s most widely Cervantes produced Don Quixote of earlier chivalric romances, and translated works. (originally titled The Ingenious renames himself “Don Quixote” in Gentleman Don Quixote), the Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes was born returned to Madrid. Cervantes’ near Madrid, Spain, in 1547. first major work, La Galatea, His mother was the daughter was published in 1585. He of a nobleman, his father was struggled financially but a medical practitioner. Little is kept writing, finding success known of Cervantes’ early life, (though not wealth) with Don but it is likely that he lived and Quixote. He died in 1616, in worked in Rome around 1569, Madrid, but his coffin was later before enlisting in the Spanish lost. In 2015, scientists claimed Navy. Badly wounded in the Battle to have unearthed his remains of Lepanto (in which an alliance of in a convent in Madrid. southern European Catholic states defeated Ottoman forces), he was Other key works captured by the Turks in 1575 and spent five years in prison in 1613 Exemplary Novels Algiers; his ransom was paid by 1617 Persiles and a Catholic religious order, and he Sigismunda (unfinished)

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 79 See also: The Canterbury Tales 68–71 ■ First Folio 82–89 ■ The Decameron 102 ■ Amadis of Gaul 102 ■ The Tin Drum 270–71 ■ Hopscotch 274–75 ■ If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler 298–99 Don Quixote thinks he is able to choose Quixote’s madness transforms his own identity, taking on the role of a the mundane into the extraordinary – windmills become giants, for example. questing knight. The characters know that The book is grounded they are written about in a story, in the humdrum realities keeping the reader aware that they are of everyday life—the inns, roads, engaging with a fictional tale. and windmills of La Mancha. imitation of them. Yet unlike these contemporary with the time it was chivalrous quests that might be romantic heroes, the characters of written, it adheres to a specifc undertaken by the knight Amadis Don Quixote worry about everyday geographical region, and is broadly of Gaul, in the romances that bear concerns, such as food and sleep. chronological), without magical or his name. Donning his rusty armor, They travel through a world of mythical intervention. mounting the ancient horse he taverns and windmills, along fairly renames Rocinante, and enlisting nondescript roads and paths. The Giants of the imagination the simple laborer Sancho Panza characters occupy an ordinary Despite this realism, illusion has as his “squire,” Don Quixote—in setting that resembles our world. its place in the novel—but only in the best tradition of chivalric the mind of its central character. romances—announces his love for On another level of engagement, Don Quixote’s encounters with the peasant girl he calls Dulcinea. the novel also operates according innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, In his realm of fantasy the everyday to the literary approach known soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, is transformed into the extraordinary, as “realism”: everything happens and scorned lovers are magnified the lasting symbol of which are the within the unities of time and by his imagination into the kind of windmills of La Mancha, elevated ❯❯ place (the action in the book is

80 DON QUIXOTE by his imagination into fearsome enemies, with whom he sees fit to engage in combat. Further complexity In the second part of Don Quixote, The gap between reality and Cervantes himself appears as a character, illusion is the source of the book’s and other versions of Quixote are introduced. comedy (and no less its tragedy), Reality is reflected by these various mirrors, and is a theme that has nourished deliberately confusing life and literature. fiction across the world in the subsequent four centuries. While Cervantes was writing Part ostensibly in his own voice or often Yet, having established his Two, a spurious Second Volume in the guise of a narrator called theme, Cervantes deepens and of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Cide Hamete Benengeli, a Moorish complicates it in the second part Quixote of La Mancha by the storyteller. The first words of the of his novel, which was published Licenciado Alonso Fernández de novel—“In some village in La 10 years after the first part. Avellaneda, of Tordesillas appeared. Mancha, whose name I do not care Cervantes’ literary creation had to recall”—exhibit the narrator’s In Cervantes’ Part Two, the been stolen, inciting his comment, willfulness as well as the author’s characters—including Don Quixote at the end of Part Two: “For me control over his material. himself—have read, or at least alone was Don Quixote born, and heard of, the first part of the I for him; it was his to act, mine to The novel is written in episodic novel in which they appear. When write.” In literary revenge, Cervantes form, laying the groundwork for the strangers encounter Don Quixote sends his knight and squire off to many road novels and films that and Sancho Panza in person, they Barcelona, to kidnap a character would follow. Most of the characters already know their famous history. from the Avellaneda book. whom Don Quixote and Sancho A duke and duchess, for example, Panza encounter have a story are excited when they meet Don Stories within stories to tell, providing the novel with Quixote, having read all about his Literature is itself also a theme a format familiar to readers of adventures. They think it amusing in the novel. We are told that Don Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to deceive him for entertainment, Quixote’s delusions result from and Boccaccio’s Decameron, and setting in play a string of imagined reading too much—an interesting of the canon of tales from the East adventures, which result in a series proposition to present to a reader that entered southern Spain in the of sadistic practical jokes. Honor— of Don Quixote. But even when Don long centuries of Arab rule. Cervantes suggests—clearly has Quixote’s books are burned by the nothing to do with social position. priest, housekeeper, and barber, For example, one of the novel’s Readers begin to laugh less. his improbable quest for glory minor characters, Ricote, a Morisco continues. The role of the book’s (a Muslim forcibly converted to Finally, from so little sleeping narrator is also questioned. Far Christianity), recounts his exile and so much reading, his from disappearing behind his from Spain—a story within a story brain dried up and he went characters and story, Cervantes that introduces historical facts to completely out of his mind. makes frequent appearances, the fictional narrative. The expulsion Don Quixote of the Moriscos in 1609 was highly topical, and whereas the earlier

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 81 romances of chivalry dwelled in ‘Tell me, Senor Don Alvaro,’ be seen as a 19th-century Quixote a world of myth, Cervantes’ novel said Don Quixote, ‘am I in her bid to escape the tedium was ready to engage with gritty, of life by imitating fiction. In the present-day issues. at all like that Don Quixote 20th century, Cervantes’ playful you talk of?’ and metafictional side inspired Illusion and disillusion Jorge Luis Borges to write “Pierre Stories proliferate at every turn, Don Quixote Menard, Author of the Quixote” offering further opportunities for (about a writer who recreates illusion and disillusion. Quixote before his death. By killing him off, Cervantes’ novel), which Borges and Sancho hear of a young man Cervantes clearly wanted to prevent described, mischieviously, as “more who became a shepherd after any more unauthorized sequels. subtle than Cervantes’ [story].” Don having studied pastoral literature, Quixote is also immortalized as but died for the love of a beautiful Despite Cervantes’ claims of an English adjective for erratic if shepherdess, Marcella. Accused ownership, Don Quixote illustrates idealistic behavior—quixotic. of being the cause of his death, the way great fictional characters Marcella delivers a fiery speech at ultimately escape their authors, Interpretations the funeral defending her right to seeming to move away from the Standing at the junction between live as she wants and refusing to be pages in which they first appear. medieval chivalric tales and the object of male fantasy. Literature He inspired English comic novelists the modern novel, Don Quixote is seemingly condemned for its such as Henry Fielding and French bequeathed a rich cultural legacy capacity to encourage its readers realists such as Gustave Flaubert, to generations of readers, and the to live in a dream world, while the whose character Emma Bovary can work has been subject to shifting book achieves precisely this goal. interpretations over the centuries. Upon publication in Spain’s Golden Cervantes makes clear that as Century, it was widely perceived as an author he will do exactly what a satire—with Don Quixote as the he wants. Slowly, Don Quixote is butt of the jokes; but with much of brought back home, exhausted and Spain’s history woven into the tale, disenchanted. “I was mad, now I it was also seen as a critique of the am in my senses,” he says, shortly country’s imperial ambitions. Don Quixote’s delusions of heroism can be read as a symbol of his nation’s wasteful expansionism in the face of decline. For revolutionaries, Don Quixote was an inspiration—a man who was right when the system was wrong; and the Romantics transformed him into a tragic character—a man with noble intentions, defeated by the second rate. This reevaluation of the work over time points to the enduring power of its story and its writing, and guarantees the text a central place in literary history. ■ La Mancha in central Spain is a dry but agriculturally important area, lacking in literary resonance and therefore an unlikely (and amusing) home for a would-be chivalric hero.

PARTSPONLEAMYANSINMHISATNIMYE FIRST FOLIO (1623), WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE



84 FIRST FOLIO W hen William Some are born great, Shakespeare died, some achieve greatness, IN CONTEXT his friend and rival and some have greatness playwright Ben Jonson wrote that FOCUS his works would prove “not of an thrust upon ’em. The Bard age, but for all time.” The prediction Twelfth Night proved true: Shakespeare’s name BEFORE is known across the globe, and he appeal lies in his ability to capture 1560 Published in an English continues to be regarded as one of in words what it feels like to be translation, the Geneva Bible the most iconic writers of all time. human. His mastery of language is one of the major reference His works have been translated allowed him to convey complex sources used by Shakespeare. into more than 80 languages; his emotions with great impact dramas have been transformed and economy. The fact that 1565 The Roman poet Ovid’s into movies, animations, and Shakespeare’s audiences Metamorphoses, translated by musicals; and his words have represented a cross section of Arthur Golding, is published inspired politicians, artists, and society, from cobblers to courtiers, and is a major literary source advertisers around the world. encouraged the playwright to for Shakespeare. develop a poetic voice that spoke Enduring appeal across social rank, education, and 1616 Works, by English In 1999 Shakespeare was voted age. His plays had to appeal to writer Ben Jonson, is the “Man of the Millennium” in the UK, those who had paid one penny to first published collection of and speeches from The Tempest stand in the yard, while also on a popular dramatist’s plays. were used in the opening ceremony occasion satisfying the tastes of for the 2012 Olympic Games. He is the monarch and the court. It is AFTER one of the UK’s greatest cultural 1709 English writer Nicholas exports, and each year aboutt Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare’s 800,000 visitors make the trip to Complete Works is published Stratford-upon-Avon to visit the by Jacob Tonson. This is the houses where his life story began. first major attempt to reedit Shakespeare’s plays since the Why should Shakespeare, a First Folio. Rowe modernized man who died in 1616, continue spelling and punctuation, and to be so relevant for readers and added scene divisions. theatergoers today? Much of his William Shakespeare William Shakespeare was born in 1598 Francis Meres described in Stratford-upon-Avon in April the “mellifluous and honey- 1564. At 18 he married Anne tongued Shakespeare.” Hathaway, already pregnant with the first of their three children. The preeminent writer for Records reveal that Shakespeare the King’s Men acting troupe was in London in the early 1590s, and a shareholder in the Globe working as an actor. The first Theatre on Bankside, he was reference to him as a playwright able to buy a house in Stratford- in 1592 is somewhat unflattering: upon-Avon, to which he returned fellow dramatist Robert Greene in his later years. He died on St. labeled him an “Upstart crow, George’s Day, April 23, 1616. beautified in our feathers.” Other key works Shakespeare’s history plays about King Henry VI had proved 1593 Venus and Adonis very popular by the late 1590s, 1594 The Rape of Lucrece and his reputation was such that 1609 Shakespeare’s Sonnets

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 85 See also: Oedipus the King 34–39 ■ Metamorphoses 55 ■ The Canterbury Tales 68–71 ■ Doctor Faustus 75 ■ Moby-Dick 138–45 ■ Ulysses 214–21 Shakespeare was born in the market town of Stratford-upon-Avon. He lived in this house on Henley Street into adulthood, including the first five years of marriage to Anne Hathaway. little wonder then that the works of Shakespeare remain accessible to a broad audience; Shakespeare’s imaginative tales have the capacity to delight schoolchildren as well as veteran playgoers. A writer for all worlds they can also be revealed to be completely had it not been for the Shakespeare’s genius lies in his duplicitous and villainous. By publication in 1623 of Mr. William talent for holding a mirror up to allowing them to speak in private Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, nature and reflecting his audience to the audience, Shakespeare & Tragedies, otherwise known as in it; people recognize themselves created the illusion that the the First Folio. and others in his works. His most spectators were privy to every effective technique for engaging thought. His characters moved The First Folio his audience was through use of beyond being mere vehicles for There are only some 240 copies of soliloquy. It is in these moments plot development, and appeared the First Folio still in existence and when a character is left alone on to be individuals living in the it has become one of the world’s stage, and begins to reveal the moment, making decisions from most valuable books, with a price core of their being, that a strong scene to scene. of around US $6 million at auction. connection is built between the Were it not for this book, many of world of the play and that of Shakespeare’s plays were Shakespeare’s masterpieces would the onlookers. Soliloquy allows designed to be enjoyed in the have been lost forever. characters to share their innermost theater, but readers could also fears, disappointments, dreams, experience some of them in print In the Elizabethan and Jacobean and ambitions. In moments of after they had appeared on stage: periods there was no guarantee that privacy, Shakespeare’s characters Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, A a play would be published simply can appear fragile and vulnerable; Midsummer Night’s Dream, and because it had been performed. Henry V were printed as individual Publishers tended to think that All the world’s a stage, works (known as quartos) during dramas had a “fashionable” rather And all the men and Shakespeare’s lifetime. However, than “enduring” appeal, and they women merely players. other plays such as Julius Caesar, preferred to put their energies (and Macbeth, As You Like It, and finances) into publishing Bibles, As You Like It Twelfth Night do not seem to have sermons, and chronicles of English been printed before the dramatist history. Ben Jonson was the first died, and would have disappeared dramatist to have his works ❯❯

86 FIRST FOLIO Plays included in the First Folio Comedies Histories Tragedies The Tempest King John Troilus and Cressida The Two Gentlemen of Verona Richard II Coriolanus The Merry Wives of Windsor Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Titus Andronicus Measure for Measure Henry V Romeo and Juliet The Comedy of Errors Henry VI Part 1 Timon of Athens Much Ado About Nothing Henry VI Part 2 Love’s Labour’s Lost Henry VI Part 3 Julius Caesar A Midsummer Night’s Dream Richard III Macbeth The Merchant of Venice Henry VIII Hamlet King Lear As You Like It Othello The Taming of the Shrew All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra Cymbeline Twelfth Night The Winter’s Tale collected together and published the text from which “cue scripts” years later, and it has continued to as a whole. His Works appeared were created: each actor would be republished in differing formats in 1616, the year of Shakespeare’s have their own lines transcribed ever since. It is no wonder that the death, and its popularity inspired with just a line or more to listen First Folio is regarded as such an others to consider similar volumes. out for as their cue. Over time important book today, given the manuscripts disappear, or are vision and determination that went Two of Shakespeare’s fellow altered, revised, and covered in ink. into ensuring its publication. actors and close friends, John Today there are no Shakespearian Heminges and Henry Condell, manuscripts in existence, although A threefold division oversaw the mammoth task that there are 147 lines in a play called The First Folio divides the plays went into producing the First Folio. Sir Thomas More that are thought to of Shakespeare into comedies, This would have been a difficult job be in Shakespeare’s own hand. The histories, and tragedies. The and their first priority was to locate First Folio serves as a monument division into three genres is the play texts. The playwright’s then to Shakespeare’s memory; it somewhat arbitrary, and is more original manuscript was either proved so popular that it had to be reflective of the publisher’s desire used, or transcribed, by the reprinted (with revisions) just nine than it is suggestive of the way company, and then served as

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 87 Similarly, Shakespeare’s comedies, Our revels now are ended. which one might expect to be light These our actors … and frivolous in tone, can sometimes Are melted into air. prove dark and dangerous: Isabella The Tempest is sexually harassed by Angelo in Measure for Measure; Oberon enchants Titania’s eyes with a potion that will lead her to fall in love with the first thing she sees in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; and Malvolio’s puritanical streak in Twelfth Night leads to a very public humiliation. The Globe Theatre, co-owned by Relationships tested a marriage, but an agreement Shakespeare, opened in 1599 on the While Shakespeare’s comedies between the couples to meet south bank of the Thames, but by 1644 share many similarities, they also again after a year spent apart. it had been demolished. A recreated differ markedly from one another. Globe opened at the site in the 1990s. They almost all end with the While the comedies ordinarily prospect of marriage, which end in harmony and reunion, the in which Shakespeare viewed his helps to unite individuals and tragedies are altogether more plays. Julius Caesar, for example, communities simultaneously; it destructive in their dramatic is listed as a tragedy when it could also brings a celebratory, festive trajectory. Relationships are tested, just as readily be a history play; quality to the play’s close and put under pressure, and eventually similarly, Richard III is listed under distances the memory of any broken, often resulting in a tableau the histories when it could also be misunderstandings that have of death to close the play. The same under the tragedies. thwarted the merriment trajectory can be followed in some beforehand. Love’s Labour’s Lost of the history plays as well. Tales of Shakespeare did not necessarily is unusual among the comedies, kingship, government, and rule are think in terms of writing for one because the play ends not with often driven by conflict, feud, and ❯❯ particular genre. As an innovative writer he would frequently blend characteristics associated with different genres to create variety in his own work. At moments of great sorrow, for example, he occasionally injects an element of black humor, which serves to alter the pervading mood: the gravedigger sings as he digs a grave in Hamlet; the Porter jokes with the audience as Macbeth and his wife leave the stage to wash their hands of blood; and Cleopatra is moved to mirth as she contemplates her own suicide in Antony and Cleopatra. The Egyptian queen Cleopatra, here played by Harriet Walter, clasps the “worme” and succumbs to its bite, like a “lover’s pinch,” during the passionate, deadly climax to Antony and Cleopatra.

88 FIRST FOLIO Recurring motifs in Shakespeare’s plays alone. King Lear is another of the tragic creations that speaks directly Women The Two Gentlemen of Verona, to Shakespeare’s understanding disguised The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, of the human condition. In old age Lear’s understanding of himself as men Twelfth Night, Cymbeline and the world around him is at odds with the views of a younger The fool King Lear, Twelfth Night, generation. His pride leads him to As You Like It make rash judgements, which serve to ostracize him from friends and Play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, family, leaving him to reflect upon within Hamlet, Love's Labour's Lost his actions and his relationships a play Macbeth, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s with other people. Lear, like so Dream, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, many of Shakespeare’s other tragic The figures, is tormented by his own supernatural Richard III, Cymbeline thoughts, and it takes the duration of a play for him to reassess his situation and “see better.” Overhearing Twelfth Night, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Questions of identity Mistaken Hamlet, Othello A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular identity (as a The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado comedies, and Bottom one of his comic motif) About Nothing, Measure for Measure, most memorable creations. When rehearsing in the woods, Bottom’s Storm and All's Well That Ends Well head is magically transformed into shipwreck Macbeth, King Lear, The Tempest, that of an ass by the knavish sprite Puck. Visual effects have a much Pericles, The Comedy of Errors stronger impact on the stage than on the page. The hilarity of seeing an actor alter their whole being to rivalry. Despite the differences, read or seen Hamlet in performance Prince Hamlet of Denmark, here Shakespeare’s plays are connected to be familiar with the words, portrayed by Laurence Olivier in the through the dramatist’s desire to “To be, or not to be; that is the 1948 movie version he also directed, is give voice to a socially diverse cast question.” Hamlet’s association a pychologically complex character of characters: pimps, madams, and with melancholy and deep thought who feigns madness to exact revenge. prostitutes rub shoulders with the is now famous the world over. In future king of England in Henry IV him, Shakespeare created one Part 1 and Part 2; Bottom the weaver of the most poetic voices of all encounters the fairy world in A time, and the literary illusion of a Midsummer Night’s Dream; and troubled conscience. Shakespeare the monarch listens to the thoughts walks listeners through the twists of a fool and a beggar in King Lear. and turns of Hamlet’s imagined mind as he struggles with issues The torment of the tragic of morality and mortality. Hamlet Of the plays included in the First is troubled with the idea of “what Folio there are certain works dreams may come / When we have that have acquired the status shuffled off this mortal coil”; as of Shakespearian masterpieces. countless poems, novels, and People do not always need to have dramas suggest, Hamlet is not

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 89 shown to be fragile. Shakespeare notes in Henry IV Part 2, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown”: those in power are never free from danger. This is a lesson that Richard III learns to his surprise. Having murdered his way to the throne he has to continue killing until he feels that all threats to his crown have been wiped out. The enchanted Bottom the weaver, body, the hunchback Richard is Works for the ages of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose forcefully charismatic from his first The First Folio stretches to over head has beed replaced with that of an soliloquy, which opens the play. He 900 pages, contains 36 plays, and ass, becomes desirable to Titania, who informs the audience that he is features the best-known portrait is under the spell of a love potion. “determined to prove a villain,” and of Shakespeare on its title page, proclaims that he is “subtle, false, but it does not include Pericles or convey this metamorphosis can and treacherous.” The soliloquies, The Two Noble Kinsmen, which only really ever be fully appreciated and the symbolism of his deformity, can be found in most copies of in performance, but readers will cast Richard as the vice figure of Shakespeare’s complete works appreciate that Bottom’s experience the drama: audiences love to hate today. The Tempest, Cymbeline, of life has been overturned, and for him. And yet, as is the case in all and The Winter’s Tale are often a brief moment he gets to feel life as of Shakespeare’s history plays from referred to as romances in modern someone other than himself. This Richard II to Henry VI, power is editions, while Coriolanus, Julius technique is repeated in some Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra of Shakespeare’s other comedies The authorship debate are sometimes spoken of today as where disguise allows characters his “Roman plays.” to alter their identity: Rosalind in Various conspiracy theories As You Like It and Viola in Twelfth have circulated since the late Shakespeare’s works have Night both cross-dress as young 18th century claiming that burst beyond the generic confines men; and in The Comedy of Errors William Shakespeare of in which they were first published, two sets of twins are mistaken for Stratford-upon-Avon was not but it is thanks to the First Folio one another to great comic effect. the author behind the works that Shakespeare’s works have published in the First Folio. survived at all. ■ Perils of power Shakespeare’s history plays are There is a long catalogue Shakespeare’s last plays were filled with duplicitous characters. of alternative candidates, and staged or published. How could In Richard III, Richard of Gloucester it continues to grow. The list the Elizabethan playwright disguises his intentions to murder includes figures such as Sir Christopher Marlowe have his way to the throne and becomes Francis Bacon, Christopher written the plays when he was arguably Shakespeare’s greatest Marlowe, Edward de Vere, and murdered in 1593? One story villain. Set apart by his misshapen even Queen Elizabeth I, all of goes that Christopher Marlowe whom died a decade before did not really die in a tavern brawl in 1593, but went into hiding and continued to supply the public theaters with plays under the pseudonym “William Shakespeare.” The arguments for the other contenders are equally improbable.

90 ITSOTEOSETSEETMEEEMVENROYTTHHININGG THE MISANTHROPE (1666), MOLIÈRE IN CONTEXT A fascination with all things whose cantankerous rejection of classical overtook Europe politesse (superficial, insincere FOCUS during the Enlightenment politeness) is challenged when French neoclassicism period (1650–1800). The ancient he falls for a society girl, Célimène. Greek ideals of form, clarity, and Fooled by her flirting, he begins BEFORE elegance inspired a neoclassical to act in exactly the manner he 1637 Pierre Corneille’s movement in all the arts, with despises in others, but reverts “tragicomedy” Le Cid is France leading the way in the field to his usual character when performed in Paris to popular of literature. The classical influence criticizing the sentimental poem acclaim, but criticized by the was most apparent in French of a nobleman. This gets him into Académie française for not drama, which during the 17th legal trouble, and loses him friends, observing the classical unities. century adopted a reinterpretation so he seeks solace (in vain) with of the conventions of Greek theater, the flighty Célimène. While poking 1653 Earliest performance of as described in Aristotle’s Poetics. fun at Alceste’s misanthropy, The Rivals, the first of Philippe Molière also exposes the hypocrisy Quinault’s prolific output This stylized drama in verse of 17th-century courtly manners, of comedies, tragicomedies, frequently took the form of in the spirit of the comedies of and lesser known tragedies. tragedies, which often reflected the Greek dramatist Aristophanes. Greek mythological themes (a AFTER notable source of inspiration for The success of Molière’s 1668 Jean de la Fontaine Jean Racine), but there was a comedies, including The School adapts his collection of growing public demand for comedy, for Wives, Tartuffe, and The Miser, Fables from classical sources, which was met by the witty plays marked the beginning of an era of including Aesop and of Molière (1622–1673). elegant, witty theater that continued Phaedrus, stretching the through the 18th century. The genre metrical verse of the time. A comedy of manners caught on in England, inspiring a Molière’s major contribution was the line of work that can be traced from 1671 Molière, Corneille, and “comedy of manners,” satirizing the Restoration comedy, through Oliver Quinault collaborate on mores of the time with larger-than- Goldsmith and Richard Brinsley Psyché, a tragicomic ballet. life characters such as Alceste, the Sheridan (and novelists such as protagonist of The Misanthrope, Jane Austen), to Oscar Wilde. ■ 1677 Phèdre continues Jean Racine’s series of tragedies on See also: Oedipus the King 34–39 ■ Candide 96–97 ■ Le Cid 103 ■ Greek mythological themes. Phèdre 103–04 ■ Pride and Prejudice 118–19 ■ The Picture of Dorian Gray 194

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 91 BUT AT MY BACK I ALWAYS HEAR TIME’S WINGED CHARIOT HURRYING NEAR MISCELLANEOUS POEMS (1681), ANDREW MARVELL IN CONTEXT T he term “metaphysical History, theology, and astronomy poets” was coined by are all brought into play by Marvell, FOCUS the essayist and literary who challenges the puritanical The metaphysical poets critic Samuel Johnson to describe Christianity of the 17th century a group of 17th-century English as a barrier to sensual pleasures. BEFORE writers that included John Donne, 1627 John Donne deploys George Herbert, and Andrew He also brings vivid imagery metaphysical exaggeration Marvell (1621–1678). Their style and intellectual vitality to the in his melancholic love elegy was marked by wit, sophisticated pastoral, in poems such as “The “A Nocturnal Upon St Lucy’s logic, and occult metaphor, and Mower to the Glow Worms” and Day”—“Oft a flood / Have we often focused on themes of love, “The Garden,” where he achieves two wept, and so / Drowned sexuality, and faith. a beautiful balance between the whole world, us two…” abstraction and the senses, as Sensual pleasures he eulogizes the pleasure of 1633 “The Agony,” by George Better known as a politician than withdrawing “To a green thought Herbert, applies metaphysical a poet during his lifetime, Marvell in a green shade.” ■ wit to matters of belief—“Love produced a body of work, published is that liquore sweet and most posthumously as Miscellaneous Stumbling on melons, divine, / Which my God feels Poems, that contains the famous as I pass, / Ensnared with as blood; but I, as wine.” love poem “To His Coy Mistress.” In the poem, the speaker tries to flowers, I fall on grass. 1648 Robert Herrick’s book persuade the object of his desire “The Garden” Hesperides includes the to seize the day and sleep with famous carpe diem (“seize the him. His argument to break down day”) poem, “To the Virgins, her resistance contains typically to Make Much of Time,” with metaphysical conceits—fanciful its famous line, “Gather ye ideas pursued to an imaginative rosebuds while ye may.” conclusion: “The grave’s a fine and private place, / But none I 1650 Henry Vaughan, inspired think do there embrace.” by George Herbert, publishes “The World,” a poem of See also: Metamorphoses 55–56 ■ Les Amours de Cassandre 74 ■ mystical devotion. Paradise Lost 103 ■ The Waste Land 213

92 FLSAIRANKODDEMLAYAU,ICTITSLUPAAMSMRHNTETTLFOOLRROONIMGOYO, U; TMHAETSNUARORBOAWSHRO¯OAD TO THE INTERIOR (1702), IN CONTEXT M atsuo Bashoˉ (c.1644– Bashoˉ searches for wisdom, 1694) of Edo (modern relating his discoveries in prose FOCUS Tokyo) was the master that is vivid and frequently tinged Haiku and haibun of the haiku, a short Japanese verse with elegiac melancholy—even form. Rendered in English in three a reference to “pines shaped by BEFORE or (more rarely) four lines, the haiku salty winds, trained by them 1686 Matsuo Bashoˉ composes captures a fleeting moment, often into bonsai” appears solemn and one of his most famous haiku, with poignancy as well as sharp resigned. His haiku achieve the about a frog plopping with a observation. But Bashoˉ ’s greatest sought-after quality of kenshoˉ , splash into an ancient pond. work is in a composite genre— or glimpse of enlightenment— It inspires a competition on the haibun—in which haiku is a brief awakening into truth. ■ the same theme among other embedded in a prose narrative. haiku writers in Edo. A noble journey Those who float away AFTER Bashoˉ ’s goal in The Narrow Road to their lives on boats or who 1744 The great haiku poet the Interior was to record a spiritual grow old leading horses are Yosa Buson publishes his pilgrimage to the far north of the forever travelling, and their travel notes after following country, undertaken in the spirit homes are wherever those in the footsteps of Bashoˉ . of Zen Buddhism and to honor poets who had traveled before him. travels take them. 1819 Kobayashi Issa proves On this journey, direct encounters The Narrow Road a worthy successor to Bashoˉ with nature, enriched by cultural with The Spring of My Life, associations, and visits to Shinto to the Interior combining prose and haiku shrines, confirm Bashoˉ ’s liberation in a haibun. Issa was prolific, from selfish attachments. The writing around 20,000 haiku, poetry and the prose are in perfect including 230 on the firefly. equilibrium, illuminating each other like a pair of mirrors facing 1885 Masaoka Shika starts inward. Journeying mostly to write haiku on portraits he on foot, for hundreds of miles, draws—he advocates writing from life, in the field, as an See also: The Tale of Genji 47 ■ On the Road 264–65 artist would paint a landscape.

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 93 OANMNNOODNUTENHNTEWOANJIILEONLUBOHREFINHNDEIDEYNEADTRTEOHRTEHDE THE LOVE SUICIDES AT SONEZAKI (1703), CHIKAMATSU MONZAEMON IN CONTEXT K abuki and Bunraku are Produced as Bunraku and adapted both forms of traditional for Kabuki, Chikamatsu’s play The FOCUS Japanese theater that Love Suicides at Sonezaki is his Kabuki and Bunraku originated in the 17th century. masterpiece; it was written within Kabuki dealt with ribald material two weeks of the real event it was BEFORE and was performed by wandering based on—that of a young couple c.1603 Kabuki drama—an troupes of women who were often who took their lives in a forest. unruly theatrical form that available as prostitutes. Bunraku is blends song, dance, action, a form of puppet theater, in which In his play, Chikamatsu created and mime—originates with each puppet has a lead puppeteer two characters who, like William a female dancer named Okuni, who moves the right hand, another Shakespeare’s star-crossed couple an attendant at the Shinto the left, and a third the legs and Romeo and Juliet, have become shrine of Izumo. feet. The three men remain in full synonymous with the theme view of the audience, although they of ill-fated lovers. Tokubei c.1680 Bunraku develops as a are often dressed in black. There is a young man whose family form of musical puppet theater is usually a single chanter, who has received a dowry, but he in which half-life-sized puppets portrays different characters by refuses to marry the chosen act out a chanted romantic changing his pitch. bride because he loves Ohatsu, narrative called joˉ ruri. a prostitute. A rival for her favors Japan’s national bard threatens to frame him as a thief. AFTER The greatest dramatist in either of Unable to do his duty to his family, 1748 Chuˉ shingura, or The Tale these forms remains Chikamatsu Tokubei can neither redeem of the 47 Ronin, by Takedo Monzaemon (1653–1725). He was his honor, nor have a future with Imuzo, Namiki Sosuke, and born into the samurai class but Ohatsu, and so the two decide to Miyoshi Shoraku, is performed. chose instead to write drama, make a death pact. The play and Composed as Bunraku and and in time became Japan’s most similar ones provoked a spate of adapted into a Kabuki, it is the famous playwright. His work often copycat lovers’ suicides, leading to closest rival to Chikamatsu’s features individuals caught in a ban on the genre for a period after work for popularity. a conflict between ethical and 1723. However, the play’s language personal demands. is considered to be some of the most 1963 Osaka’s Bunraku beautiful in Japanese literature. ■ Association rescues the joˉ ruri theatrical form from decline. See also: First Folio 82–89 ■ The Well Cradle 102 ■ The Temple of the Golden Pavilion 263

94 ICOYWEIFTAAAYRSGO1OBF6OO3YDR2ONRFIAKNINMTTIHLHEYE ROBINSON CRUSOE (1719), DANIEL DEFOE IN CONTEXT C onstructing the narrative century characters followed Crusoe, of a literary text around including Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, FOCUS a fictional autobiography Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, and Fictional autobiography is a device that not only enables Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield. a writer to tell the tale of the life AFTER of an individual as if that person The title page of the first edition 1726 Gulliver’s Travels, by were the author but also gives the of Robinson Crusoe did not cite Anglo-Irish author Jonathan impression that the words spoken Defoe as the author: instead, Swift, is published as a are a direct transcription of actual the words “Written by Himself” traveler’s tale and fictional events. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson appeared beneath the title—and autobiography and becomes Crusoe (originally titled The so readers may well have imagined an immediate success. Life and Strange Surprizing the story to be true. The book’s Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) opening sentence, which begins 1740 English author Samuel was the progenitor of this fictional “I was born in the year 1632,” Richardson publishes Pamela, autobiographical voice. A number suggests that this is a real tale a fictional autobiography that of other notable 18th- and 19th- recounted by the individual who chronicles the life of its lead experienced these adventures. character, a maidservant, through a series of letters. Daniel Defoe thanks to politician Robert Harley, Defoe acted as Harley’s 1749 The comic novel Daniel Foe is thought to have spy, traveling around Britain and autobiography Tom Jones, by been born in London in 1660 (he reporting back on public English writer Henry Fielding, later added the prefix “De” to opinion. Defoe did not turn to is published and follows the his name). In 1684 he married novel writing until his late 50s, adventures of a high-spirited Mary Tuffley, then spent many and became a key figure in the foundling boy. years as a businessman and construction of the form, finding merchant, but went bankrupt great success with Robinson 1849–50 David Copperfield, in 1692. In 1697, he became a Crusoe. Defoe died in 1731. by English author Charles confidant of King William III Dickens, is published; although and traveled Britain as a secret Other key works a fictional work, the life of the agent. In 1702, his pamphlet The main protagonist has close Shortest-Way with the Dissenters 1722 Moll Flanders parallels to Dickens’ own. led to his imprisonment, due to 1722 A Journal of the its political content, and to a Plague Year second bankruptcy. Released 1724 Roxana

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 95 See also: Gulliver’s Travels 104 ■ Tom Jones 104 ■ David Copperfield 153 ■ The Catcher in the Rye 256–57 Makes use of an Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels both Makes use of an autobiographical voice use an autobiographical voice to present their tales autobiographical voice to to endorse the text as of travel as factual accounts of real-life experiences; parody claims of truth in they nevertheless differ in several crucial respects. a true narrative. contemporary fiction. Promotes individualism: Satirizes the concept solitary, self-sufficient of individualism and the man mastering nature through reason. use of reason. Crusoe becomes “King Robinson Gulliver’s Gulliver becomes a and Lord” of his isle. Crusoe Travels prisoner on the island of Lilliput. The details of the “author’s” birth farm, and forage. He keeps track Crusoe’s “autobiographical” island lend authenticity to the work as of the days by cutting notches in memoir proved remarkably resilient, an autobiographical text—and a wooden cross; he reads the Bible inspiring endless reimaginings and therefore also as a true narrative. and thanks God. He domesticates giving rise to an entire subgenre, Such verisimilitude is enhanced a parrot. For years this is his life. the Robinsonade. A pivotal text by the fact that parts of the novel in English literature, it has had take the form of a journal. Then—in one of the most iconic a significant influence—perhaps moments in literature—Crusoe unrivaled by any other individual Island castaways discovers a footprint in the sand, work—and its motifs have become Robinson Crusoe is widely credited leading to an obsessive fear that part of the general culture. ■ as a foundational text of realism, he will be attacked by “savages.” and, for many, it also ranks as the After two years spent barricading [H]e kneeled down again, first English novel. It is believed himself in a fortress, he encounters kissed the ground, and … that Defoe’s work was inspired by a native from a nearby island who set my foot upon his head; the account of a real-life castaway, is fleeing from cannibals. Crusoe this it seems was in token Alexander Selkirk, who, in the early “rescues” him, puts him to work, 18th century, was marooned on an and names him Friday, after of swearing to be island in the Pacific. An instant the day on which they met. The my slave forever. success on publication, Defoe’s relationship between the two has Robinson Crusoe story mentions expeditions in been critiqued as one of master exotic regions of Africa and Brazil, and slave (a European explorer/ and a slaving mission that leads to exploiter and an indigenous local); shipwreck on a Caribbean island. Crusoe, as a bearer of “civilization,” is a symbol of burgeoning British Crusoe tells of his attempts to imperialism. Just as European rescue provisions from the ship nations claim land for colonies, and of his solitary existence on so Crusoe assumes dominion over the island. He builds a shelter and the island, and sees himself as an makes tools with which to hunt, owner and “absolute Lord.”

96 IOWTFHFOTEARHLOLILSTDHSPISEORWSTSSHH?IEABTBLEEASRTE CANDIDE (1759), VOLTAIRE IN CONTEXT A diverse group of writers lasted from the late 17th century and intellectuals who to the French Revolution of 1789. FOCUS lived in France in the Indeed, the Revolution was inspired The philosophes 18th century came to be known by the ideas of philosophers and as the philosophes (“philosophers”); scientists, together with the BEFORE their work nevertheless extended prevailing spirit of rationalism 1721 Persian Letters, by beyond philosophy into social, and political liberalism. Montesquieu, satirizes French cultural, ethical, and political society through the eyes of two realms. The philosophes—who Supreme optimism Persian visitors, who compare included Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Candide (originally titled Candide, Christianity with Islam and Rousseau, Denis Diderot, and ou l’Optimisme, and translated undermine Catholic doctrine. Montesquieu—were part of the into English as Candide: or, All for widespread intellectual shift in the Best) is a conte philosophique, 1751–72 Rond d’Alembert Europe that was known as the a philosophical fable in which and Denis Diderot produce Enlightenment: the assault on Voltaire gave narrative expression the great collective enterprise superstition, intolerance, and to Enlightenment values. He turned of the Enlightenment, the injustice in the name of reason his ferocious satirical scrutiny in Encyclopédie, to “change and intellectual freedom that particular on the ideas expressed the way people think.” by the German Gottfried Wilhelm Man was born to live von Leibniz in his philosophy of AFTER either in the convulsions optimism, which held that because 1779 Nathan the Wise, a play God is a benevolent deity, this by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing of misery, or in the world must be the best possible set during the Third Crusade, lethargy of boredom. (optimal) world. offers an aspirational vision of religious tolerance. Candide Leibniz’s ideas are echoed in the novel by the philosopher 1796 Diderot’s philosophical Dr. Pangloss, who utters his mantra novel Jacques the Fatalist, “All is for the best in the best of all presenting a determinist possible worlds” even in the face of world view, has among its repeated disaster. In a way that characters two men who challenges this rosy metaphysics, cannot stop dueling. the young hero, Candide, suffers a series of ordeals, including expulsion from a baronial home, numerous

RENAISSANCE TO ENLIGHTENMENT 97 See also: Gulliver’s Travels 104 ■ Jacques the Fatalist 105 Gullible and naive, Candide is Dr. Pangloss Voltaire incapable of forming his own opinions (Candide’s old tutor): on life: his vision of the world—his Everything that Son of a notary, François- ideas on determinism, optimism, and happens reflects Marie Arouet was born free will, for example—are constructed God’s supreme and in Paris, France, in 1694. by the views of the people around him. harmonious purpose A dramatist and poet, he for humankind. adopted “Voltaire” as a nom The old woman Martin de plume. His satirical verse (daughter of Pope (scholar and former earned him a stretch in the Urban X and the publishing hack): Bastille prison, Paris, in Princess of Palestrina): The world is senseless 1717–18. After two years Everybody’s life is and detestable. It was in England (a country that a tale of misfortune created by the forces he found more tolerant and and suffering. of evil to drive us to rational than France), his Count Pococurante complete madness. Letters Concerning the English (a Venetian nobleman): The Turkish farmer: Nation (1733) was suppressed No product of the arts Politics brings misery: in his homeland; it was seen as can give untainted it is better to cultivate a critique of the government. pleasure. Artistic your farm, since work endeavor is always banishes boredom, A study of Louis XIV overpraised. vice, and poverty. restored him to favor at Versailles, where he became violent misadventures, and an catastrophes worked on his royal historiographer in 1745. eventual reunion with his lost love, imagination and profoundly Later, in Berlin, he become Cunégonde, only to find that he affected his views on God and free close friends with the Prussian no longer desires her. Yet the will: the earthquake that destroyed king, Frederick the Great. He misfortunes come so fast and furious Lisbon, Portugal, in 1755, and the wrote his philosophical tales and and are related in so matter-of- start of the Seven Years’ War (1756– at his estate at Ferney, France, fact a tone that the overall effect is 63), which unleashed destruction when in his 60s—including comic. Women are violated by men; in Europe. Both events feature in Candide. He also worked for armies destroy each other; people Candide in fictionalized form. agricultural reform as well as are robbed and enslaved. Reversals for greater justice for wronged of all kinds make life, health, and Within the book, a narrative individuals. He died in Paris in happiness precarious. In a world of of intertwining personal stories 1778, at 84. greed, lust, and brutality (often in becomes a thread that connects the name of religion), good deeds depictions of contrasting social Other key works are scarce. Measured against the systems. The first community we heartlessness of reality, Panglossian encounter is the feudal castle from 1718 Oedipus optimism is patently naive. which the hero gets expelled. There 1733 Philosophic Letters is a utopian interlude in Eldorado, 1747 Zadig Personal influences an egalitarian nation of natural 1752 Micromégas (short story) Although vibrant with melodramatic plenty. Finally, Candide, now living incident, Candide is a tale of ideas, on a farm in Turkey, visits a family albeit with autobiographical roots. farm dedicated to cooperative work, Voltaire had known personal where the people are happy. The misfortune, including abuse by ending, with Candide saying “We Jesuit teachers, loss of favor in the must go and cultivate our garden,” French court, and expulsion from indicates that it is possible to be Prussia. In addition, two public happy—by means of hard work, and an absence of philosophy. ■

98 IEBTNHHAORARVUEOEFGUOHGCOHOTTUOHREWALGALELK THE ROBBERS (1781), FRIEDRICH SCHILLER IN CONTEXT T he Sturm und Drang felt that genius could be attained movement (often translated through hard work and practice, FOCUS as “storm and stress” but and that good literature must Sturm und Drang “storm and urge” is more accurate) adhere to classical forms. But to was a sudden and brief explosion the Sturmer und Dranger (as the BEFORE of German literature that lasted writers of the movement are known) 1750 Swiss-born philosopher about 10 years. Sturm und Drang these ideas were stifling—and Jean-Jacques Rousseau writes consisted of plays and novels were discarded with abandon. Discourse on the Arts and characterized by great energy, Sciences, an essay in which he physical and emotional violence, Sturm und Drang plays ignored condemns the Enlightenment fierce and anguished lyricism, and the established formal structures: drive toward pure rationalism. the breaking of taboos (both social they might not have five acts, or and artistic) in order to express the dialogue might not be written in 1774 The Sorrows of Young essential drama of the human heart. perfectly formed sentences. And Werther, a novel by German aside from being expressive, the writer Johann Wolfgang von The movement was a reaction to language could be shocking, too: Goethe, is an immediate the Enlightenment (and particularly both Friedrich Schiller’s play The success and contains the the French Enlightenment) values Robbers and Johann Wolfgang elements that will characterize of pure reason and rationalism. von Goethe’s novel The Sorrows Sturm und Drang, such as Some early Enlightenment thinkers of Young Werther exist in several high-flown expressions of editions, because the original intense emotion and the futile language had to be toned down. struggle of a young hero. Never has law formed a good Youthful exuberance 1777 Friedrich Maximilian man: ‘tis liberty that breeds Schiller’s The Robbers, first von Klinger’s play Sturm und performed in 1782, was the final Drang is first performed, giving giants and heroes. flowering of a fading movement. the movement its name. The Robbers The plot concerns two aristocratic brothers with opposing outlooks: AFTER Karl, an honorable idealist; and 1808 Goethe moves away from Franz, who is cold, materialistic, Sturm und Drang with his and manipulative. Karl takes to the dramatic masterpiece Faust. Bohemian woods to lead a band of robbers after Franz has turned their father against him, and stolen his