The Renaissance in England: first period

When King Richard 3, the last of the Plantagenets was killed during the battle of Bosworth in 1485 (the battle which ended the Wars of the Roses), it marked the end of the feudalism in England. The new dynasty, the Tudors, in the person of its first king, Henry 7, established absolute monarchy, which gave the bourgeoisie more freedom for commercial enterprises. This policy was continued by his son, Henry 8, who was the first patron of the humanists in England. During his reign music and poetry flourished at his court (indeed, he composed music and poetry himself); foreign scholars, artists, and musicians came to England. Among them were the great scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466?-1536) and the great German painter Nans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Music was represented by Italians and Frenchmen. With literature the case was different, many of the ideas of the Renaissance (the "New Learning") being popularized by English poet and dramatists. The most important of these writes was the great Englishman and one of the greates men of these writers was the period, the humanist Sir Thomas More.

Sir Thomas More (1478-1535)

His Life and Work

Thomas More was born in London and studied at Oxford, after which, like his father and grandfather before him, he became a lawyer and later, a judge. Very soon he acquired the reputation of being strict, but just and incorruptible, a brilliant Latin scholar and wittiest man of his time. He became a member of Parliament in 1504, and very soon brought upon himself the displeasure of Henry 7 persuading the members of Parliament not to vote to the king the huge sum of money he demanded. After the crowning of Henry 8 he came into great favour and made a rapid career as a statement, at the same time writing works of a political, philosophical and historical character, and also Latin verse. During a diplomatic mission to Flanders he began writing "Utopia", which was printed in Louvain ['luvein] (Belgium) in 1516 under the supervision of his close friend Erasmus. (The famous satire by Erasmus, "Praise to Folly", was dedicated to More.) In 1529 More was made Lord Chancellor of England (highest judge to the House of Lords).

By that time Henry 8 decided to divorce his first wife, the Spanish princess Katherine of Aragon, and marry Anne Boleyn ['bulin], her lady-in-waiting. It was apparent that England and Spain were becoming serious rivals in oversea expansion, and the king's first marriage had lost its political sense. The Catholic religion forbids divorce, which only the Pope of Rome can grant, but he refused it to Henry 8. After that the king decided to put an end to all relations with the Pope and proclaim himself head of the Church of England. Besides, such an action would give Henry 8 an admirable opportunity to increase his wealth by confiscating the estates of the Church, which was probably his main motive. More was a devout Catholic, and opposed this plan. Moreover, he understood that such measures, by strengthening the tyranny of the king, would make the life of peasants much worse, would increase the number of paupers and vagabonds, and would enrich the courtiers and financial speculators. In 1532, after Henry's second marriage, More refused to take the oath to the king, which would have meant his recognizing Henry 8 as head of the Church of England. From the official point of view this refusal was treason, and More was condemned to death. Efforts to reconcile him with Henry 8 failed, and he was beheaded. Mounting the scaffold on Tower Hill, he said to an officer: "I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down I shall shift for myself." As he put his head on the block he moved his beard aside remarking that his beard had done the king no offence.

"UTOPIA"

The word "Utopia" is formed of Greek words meaning "no place", "nowhere". The work, written in Latin, is divided into two books.

Book 1 contains a conversation between More himself, Flemish humanist Petrus Aegidius, and a veteran sailor Raphael Hythloday, formely a travelling companion of the famous Amerigo Vespucci. The conversation deals with social and economic conditions in Europe and in England. Hythloday (this name, which is Greek for "a teller of lies", More gave him, obviously, to avoid being accused of excessive free-thinking) attacks all that was typical of contemporary English life: the parasitism of the nobility, the uselessness of the clergy, the vices of the monarchy itself. At that time common land was enclosed; the peasants were being driven off their lands and brought to poverty; fields were being turned into pastures for sheep. The increase in the production of wool was profitable to the merchants, because the famous English wool was the chief article of export at that period. This gave More an opportunity to put the following words into Hythloday's mouth: "Your sheep, that were so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear it said, have become such great devourers and so wild, that they swallow the very men themselves. They consume, destroy, and devour whole fields, house and cities."1 A Hythloday comes to a most important conclusion: a society based on private property cannot manage its affairs justly and successfully, justice and welfare may be achieved only by complete abolition of private property.

After that More (also, obviously, to safeguard himself from persecution) puts into his own mouth a speech in defence of private property. Hythloday retorts that More hold this opinion only because he cannot imagine any other way of life, whereas he, Hythloday, had visited an island…

Book 2 is dedicated to Hythloday's description of the island of Utopia, which he visited during one of his journey. It is a state that has achieved absolute social and economic harmony by replacing private property by common property. In this happy country all are contented with simple necessities and are employed in useful labour. Since the wants are few and everyone must labour, no one need work more than six hours a day, and the rest of the time may be devoted to education and recreation. Utopia knows no money: there no need of it there. Everything is paid for by toil for the general welfare. Gold is considered to be something indecent: chamber pots are made of it. Neither laziness nor greed are known. No post in Utopia is hereditary, every official is elected. In Utopia war is never waged but for some gross injury done to the Utopia of their allies; and the glory of a general is in proportion, not to the number, but to the fewness of the enemies he slays in gaining a victory. Criminals are punished by slavery, not by death, even for the greatest misdeeds. It is one of the oldest laws of the Utopia, that no man can be punished for his religion. Every man may try to convert others to his views by force of amicable and modest argument, without bitterness against those of other opinions; but whoever adds reproach and violence to persuasion is to be condemned to banishment or slavery. It may seem strange to us that More put slaves in his ideal system, but they are either condemned convicts or prisoners of war who refused to surrender and were captured by force. Slaves belong to the state, slavery is not hereditary, and every slave may become free if he works honestly.

Thomas More was the first writer in Europe to formulate communistic principles as a basic for society, and therefore he is considered one of the greatest thinkers mankind has ever known.

On the suggestion of V. I. Lenin an obelisk was erected by the Kremlin wall in 1920. On that obelisk are engraved the names of thinkers and revolutionaries, whom the leaders of the October Revolution considered their predecessors; among them is the name of Thomas More.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517?-1547). The outstanding poets of the period were Sir Thomas Wyatt ['waiet] and Henry Howard ['haued], Earl of Surrey ['sari]. Both made important contribution to English poetry. Wyatt, courtier and diplomat, wrote some beautiful lyric and songs, and is also remembered for introducing the sonnet into English verse.

The sonnet is a verse form which was very popular during the Renaissance. It was brought to perfection by the great Italian poet Francesco Petrarce (1304-1374) or Petrarch ['petra:k] (which is the English way of spelling his name). It is a poem of fourteen lines divided into two quatrains (4-line groups) and two terzets (3-line groups). The rhyming of the quatrains is abba abba; as you see, the rhymes in both quatrains are the same. The rhyming of the terzets, according to Petrarch, is either ccd eed, cde cde, or cdc dcd. But the difficulty of composing sonnets is not only in the difficult form: in a classical sonnet a thought is put forth in the first quatrain, and another, contradicting it, in the second; they intersect in the first terzet, and a solution is reached in the second terzet, in the last line of the sonnet. If the author has enough skill, he makes the last word of the last line the most significant; this word is called the key of the sonnet. As you see, a good sonneteer (as writers of sonnets are called) must have skill not only in versifying, but in thinking! No wonder this intellectual poetic form was so wide-spread during the Renaissance. Among the foremost English masters of the sonnets during later centuries, we must mention John Milton, William Wordworth, John Keats (1795-1821), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), and Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).

In his sonnets Wyatt modified the Petrarchan model, changing the rhyming of the terzets. His sonnet sheme is as follows: abba abba cdd cee.

Another form of the sonnet, purely English, was invented by Surrey. It consists of three quatrains and a couplet: abab cdcd efef gg. Shakerspeare's sonnets were written after this pattern, and for this reason such sonnets are generally called Shakspearian. This is wrong, for the real creator of the form was Surrey.

Another great innovation of Surrey's is to be seen in his translation of two books of Virgil's "Aeneid": he rendered them into blank verse (umrhymed five-foot iambics). It is practically impossible to enumerate all the masterpieces of poetry and drama written in blank verse during the following centuries in England, and not only in England. For this alone the name of Surrey must never be forgotten.

The lives of both Wyatt and Surrey ended tragically: both were accused of high treason; Wyatt managed to get free, but soon after his release he died, because his health had been undermined by cruel torture. Surrey, a member of one of the noblest English families, famous for his brave deeds a warrior, was beheaded before reaching the age of thirty.