E-LESSON-1 ENGLISH LITERATURE-1

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B.A. 2ENGLISH LITERATURE-1 All right are reserved with CU-IDOL ENGLISH LITERATURE-1 Course Code: BAQ105 Semester: First SLM UNITS : 1 e-Lesson: 1 www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105)

33 OBJECTIVES INTRODUCTION . In this unit we are going to learn about the The student will be able to understand the social the social and the literary background of and literary background of William Shakespeare William Shakespeare The student will be able to understand William We shall understand the greatness of William Shakespeare as one of the greatest poets Shakespeare as the poet of sonnets The student will be able to understand This Unit shall study William Shakespeare’s Shakespeare as a poet of sonnets sonnets . www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) AIlNl SrTiIgThUtTaEreOFreDsIeSrTvAeNdCwE iAthNCDUO-NIDLOINLE LEARNING

4 > Social and Literary background of William Shakespeare > William Shakespeare as the greatest poet ENGLISH LITERATURE-1 > William Shakespeare’s sonnets www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

5 ABOUT THE POET •William Shakespeare, often called England’s national poet, is considered the greatest dramatist of all time. • His works are loved throughout the world, but Shakespeare’s personal life is shrouded in mystery. •William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor of the Renaissance era. He was an important member of the King’s Men company of theatrical players from roughly 1594 onward. •There are two primary sources that provide historians with an outline of his life. One is his work — the plays, poems and sonnets — and the other is official documentation, such as church and court records. However, these provide only brief sketches of specific events in his life and yield little insight into the man himself. https://www.goalcast.com/2018/03/05/timeless-william-shakespeare- /quotes/williamshakespearequote1 www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

WHEN WAS SHAKESPEARE BORN? 6 •No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William https://www.amazon.in/Life-William- Shakespeare-Sir-Sidney- Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April ebook/dp/B01K7S2OXA 26, 1564. •From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare’s birthday. •Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare’s time, Stratford-uponAvon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road. FAMILY •Shakespeare was the third child of John Shakespeare, a leather merchant, and Mary Arden, a local landed heiress. Shakespeare had two older sisters, Joan and Judith, and three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard and Edmund. •Before Shakespeare’s birth, his father became a successful merchant and held official positions as alderman and bailiff, an office resembling a mayor. However, records indicate John’s fortunes declined sometime in the late 1570s. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION 7 All right are reserved with CU-IDOL •Shakespeare probably began his education at the age of six or seven at the Stratford grammar school, which is still standing only a short distance from his house on Henley Street • Scant records exist of Shakespeare’s childhood and virtually none regarding his education. Scholars have surmised that he most likely attended the King’s New School, in Stratford, which taught reading, writing and the classics. •Being a public official’s child, Shakespeare would have undoubtedly qualified for free tuition. But this uncertainty regarding his education has led some to raise questions about the authorship of his work (and even about whether or not Shakespeare really existed). www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105)

8 WIFE AND CHILDREN Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway on November 28, 1582, in Worcester, in Canterbury Province. Hathaway was from Shottery, a small village a mile west of Stratford. Shakespeare was 18 and Anne was 26, and, as it turns out, pregnant. Their first child, a daughter they named Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583. Two years later, on February 2, 1585, twins Hamnet and Judith were born. Hamnet later died of unknown causes at age 11. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

9 SHAKESPEARE’S LAST YEARS •There are seven years of Shakespeare’s life where no records exist after the birth of his twins in 1585. •Scholars call this period the “lost years,” and there is wide speculation on what he was doing during this period. •One theory is that he might have gone into hiding for poaching game from the local landlord, Sir Thomas Lucy. •Another possibility is that he might have been working as an assistant schoolmaster in Lancashire. •It is generally believed that he arrived in London in the mid-to-late 1580s and may have found work as a horse attendant at some of London’s finer theaters, a scenario updated centuries later by the countless aspiring actors and playwrights in Hollywood and Broadway. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

10 THE KING’S MEN By the early 1590s, documents show Shakespeare was a managing partner in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, an acting company in London with which he was connected for most of his career. Considered the most important troupe of its time, the company changed its name to the King’s Men following the crowning of King James I in 1603. From all accounts, the King’s Men company was very popular. Records show that Shakespeare had works published and sold as popular literature. Although the theater culture in 16th century England was not highly admired by people of high rank, some of the nobility were good patrons of the performing artsand friends of the actors. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

11 SHAKESPEARE’S WRITING STYLE •Shakespeare’s early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that did not always align naturally with the story’s plot or characters. • Shakespeare was very innovative, adapting the traditional style to his own purposes, and creating a freer flow of words. •With only small degrees of variation, Shakespeare primarily used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter, or blank verse, to compose his plays. •At the same time, there are passages in all the plays that deviate from this and use forms of poetry or simple prose. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

WHEN DID SHAKESPEARE DIE? 12 •Tradition holds that Shakespeare died on his 52nd birthday, April 23, 1616, but some scholars believe that this is a myth. •Church records show that he was interred at Trinity Church on April 25, 1616. •The exact cause of Shakespeare’s death is unknown, though many believe that he died following a brief illness. •In his will, he left the bulk of his possessions to his eldest daughter, Susanna. Though entitled to a third of his estate, little seems to have gone to his wife, Anne, whom he bequeathed his “second-best bed.” •This has drawn speculation that she had fallen out of favour, or that the couple was not close. •However, there is very little evidence that the two had a difficult marriage. •Other scholars note that the term “second-best bed” often refers to the bed belonging to the household’s master and mistress — the marital bed — and the “first-best bed” was reserved for guests. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

LITERARY LEGACY 13 •What seems to be true is that Shakespeare was a respected man of the dramatic arts, who, wrote plays and acted in some in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. •But his reputation as a dramatic genius was not recognized until the 19th century. •Beginning with the Romantic period of the early 1800s and continuing through the Victorian period, acclaim and reverence for Shakespeare and his work reached its height. • In the 20th century, new movements in scholarship and performance have rediscovered and adopted his works. •Today, his plays are highly popular and constantly studied and re-interpreted in performances with diverse cultural and political contexts. •The genius of Shakespeare’s characters and plots are that they present real human beings in a wide range of emotions and conflicts that transcend their origins in Elizabethan England. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

SHAKESPEAREAN SONNETS 14 •Shakespeare’s sonnets are poems that William Shakespeare wrote on a variety of themes. •When discussing or referring to Shakespeare’s sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609. •However, there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost. •There is a partial sonnet found in the play Edward III. •Shakespeare’s sonnets are considered a continuation of the sonnet tradition that swept through the Renaissance Era from Petrarch in 14th century Italy and was finally introduced in 16th century England by Thomas Wyatt and was given its rhyming meter and division into quatrains by Henry Howard. •With few exceptions, Shakespeare’s sonnets observe the stylistic form of the English sonnet — the rhyme scheme, the 14 lines, and the meter. But Shakespeare’s sonnets introduce such significant departures of content that they seem to be rebelling against well-worn 200-year-old traditions. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

15 FORM AND STRUCTURE OF THE SONNETS The sonnets are almost all constructed of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a final couplet. The sonnets are composed in iambic pentameter, the meter used in Shakespeare’s plays. Apart from rhyme, and considering only the arrangement of ideas, and the placement of the volta, a number of sonnets maintain the two-part organization of the Italian sonnet. In that case, the term “octave” and “sestet” are commonly used to refer to the sonnet’s first eight lines followed by the remaining six lines. There are other line-groupings as well, as Shakespeare finds inventive ways with the content of the fourteen line poems. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS 16 Sonnet 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admitimpediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove. O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wand’ring bark, Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compass come; Love alters not with his brief hoursand weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prov’d, I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

IN THE FIRST TWO LINES 17 •Shakespeare writes, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments.” These lines are perhaps the most famous in the history of poetry, regardless of whether or not one recognizes them as belonging to Shakespeare. • Straight away, Shakespeare uses the metaphor of marriage to compare it to true, real love. •He is saying that there is no reason why two people who truly love should not be together; nothing should stand in their way. • Perhaps he is speaking about his feelings for the unknown young man for whom the sonnet is written. • Shakespeare was unhappily married to Anne Hathaway, and so perhaps he was rationalising his feelings for the young man by stating there was no reason, even if one is already married, that two people who are truly in love should not be together. •The second half of the second line begins a new thought, which is then carried on into the third and fourth lines. He writes, “Love is not love/Which alters when it alteration finds,/Or bends with the remover to remove.” Shakespeare is continuing with his thought that true love conquers all. • In these lines, the speaker is telling the reader that if love changes, it is not truly love because if it changes, or if someone tries to “remove” it, nothing will change it. •Love does not stop just because something is altered. As clichéd as it sounds, true love, real love, lastsforever. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

•THE SECOND QUATRAIN BEGINS with some vivid and beautiful 18 imagery, and it continues with the final thought pondered in the first quatrain. Now that Shakespeare has established what love is not — fleeting and ever-changing — he can now tell us what love is. He writes, “O no, it is an ever fixed mark/That looks on tempests and is never shaken…” •Here, Shakespeare tells his readers that love is something that does not shift, change, or move; it is constant and in the same place, and it can weather even the most harrowing of storms, or tempests and is never even shaken, let alone defeated. •While weak, it can be argued here that Shakespeare decides to personify love, since it is something that is intangible and not something that can be defeated by something tangible, such as a storm. •In the next line, Shakespeare uses the metaphor of the North Star to discuss love. He writes, “It is the star to every wand’ring bark,/Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” • To Shakespeare, love is the star that guides every bark, or ship, on the water, and while it is priceless, it can be measured. • These two lines are interesting and worth noting. Shakespeare concedes that love’s worth is not known, but he says it can be measured. •How, he neglects to tell his reader, but perhaps he is assuming the reader will understand the different ways in which one can measure love: through time and actions. With that thought, the second quatrain ends. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

19 THE THIRD QUATRAIN parallels the first, and Shakespeare returns to telling his readers what love is not. He writes, “Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle’s compass come…” Notice the capitalization of the word “Time.” Shakespeare is personifying time as a person, specifically, Death. He says that love is not the fool of time. One’s rosy lips and cheeks will certainly pale with age, as “his bending sickle’s compass come.” Shakespeare’s diction is important here, particularly with his use of the word “sickle.” Who is the person with whom the sickle is most greatly associated? Death. We are assured here that Death will certainly come, but that will not stop love. It may kill the lover, but the love itself is eternal. This thought is continued in the lines eleven and twelve, the final two lines of the third quatrain. Shakespeare writes, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,But bears it out even to the edge of doom.” He is simply stating here that love does not change over the course of time; instead, it continues on even after the world has ended (“the edge of doom”). www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

20 SHAKESPEARE USES LINES thirteen and fourteen, the final couplet of the poem, to assert just how truly he believes that love is everlasting and conquers all. He writes, “If this be error and upon me proved/I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” Shakespeare is telling his reader that if someone proves he is wrong about love, then he never wrote the following words and no man ever loved. He is conveying here that if his words are untrue, nothing else would exist. The words he just wrote would have never been written, and no man would have ever loved before. He is adamant about this, and his tough words are what strengthens the sonnet itself. The speaker and poet himself are convinced that love is real, true, and everlasting www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 21 1. The marriage of true minds refers to: (a) Marriage of two people (b) Faithful union of minds (c) Marriage of intellectual persons (d) Marriage of two people from the same community 2. The word ‘alter’ here means (a) A place in the church where the priest marries a couple (b) Change (c) Improve (d) Ends 3. In sonnet 116, Shakespeare does not compare love to: (a) Star (b) Lighthouse (c) Ever-fixed mark (d) Disease Answers: 1.(b) 2.(b) 3.(d) www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS 22 4. In this sonnet, Shakespeare (a) Explains what true love is and explains what it is not (b) Explains the problems with true love and how to fix it (c) Explains the problem with not finding true love and explains how to find it (d) Explains how he actually has never written anything and no one has ever really been in love 5. ‘Rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle’s compass come’ means (a) Rosy lips and cheeks are true ingredients of love (b) Love will not change even if the beauty fades (c) Love depends on rosy lips and cheeks (d) Love bends in front of rosy lips and cheeks Answers: 4.(a) 5.(b) www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

SUMMARY 23 Sonnet 116 This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In the first quatrain, the speaker says that love — “the marriage of true minds”— is perfect and unchanging; it does not “admit impediments,” and it does not change when it find changes in the loved one. In the second quatrain, the speaker tells what love is through a metaphor: a guiding star to lost ships (“wand’ring barks”) that is not susceptible to storms (it “looks on tempests and is never shaken”). In the third quatrain, the speaker again describes what love is not: it is not susceptible to time. Though beauty fades in time as rosy lips and cheeks come within “his bending sickle’s compass,” love does not change with hours and weeks; instead, it “bears it out even to the edge of doom.” In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that love is as he says: if his statements can be proved to be error, he declares, he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION 24 Q:1. What is true love according to Shakespeare in \"Sonnet 116\"? Ans In Shakespeare’s sonnets, falling in love can have painful emotional and physical consequences. Sonnets 127–152, addressed to the so-called dark lady, express a more overtly erotic and physical love than the sonnets addressed to the young man. But many sonnets warn readers about the dangers of lust and love. “For Further details please refer to the SLM” Q:2. Describe form and structure of the Sonnets. Ans: The sonnets are almost all constructed of three quatrains (four-line stanzas) followed by a final couplet. The sonnets are composed in iambic pentameter, the meter used in Shakespeare’s plays. “For Further details please refer to the SLM” Q:3. Write a short note on Shakespeare’s Writing Style. Ans: Shakespeare’s early plays were written in the conventional style of the day, with elaborate metaphors and rhetorical phrases that did not always align naturally with the story’s plot or characters. “For Further details please refer to the SLM” Q:4. When was Shakespeare Born? Ans: No birth records exist, but an old church record indicates that a William Shakespeare was baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon on April 26, 1564. From this, it is believed he was born on or near April 23, 1564, and this is the date scholars acknowledge as Shakespeare’s birthday. Located about 100 miles northwest of London, during Shakespeare’s time, Stratford-uponAvon was a bustling market town along the River Avon and bisected by a country road. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

REFERENCES 25 • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare%27s_sonnets • http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/whystudyshakespeare.html > • http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/116detail.html • https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/topic/sonnet-116 • https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shakesonnets/section7 • Atkins, Carl D., ed. (2007), Shakespeare’s Sonnets: With Three Hundred Years of Commentary, Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, ISBN 978-0-8386-41637, OCLC 86090499. www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL

26 THANK YOU www.cuidol.in Unit-1( BAQ 105) All right are reserved with CU-IDOL