Literary Works in Sixteenth-Century England

Literary Works in Sixteenth-Century England

Literary works in sixteenth-century England were rarely if ever created in isolation from other currents in the social and cultural world. The boundaries that divided the texts we now regard as aesthetic from other texts that participated in the spectacles of power or the murderous conflicts of rival religious factions or the rhetorical strategies of erotic and political courtship were porous and constantly shifting. It is perfectly acceptable, of course, for the purposes of reading to redraw these boundaries more decisively, treating Renaissance texts as if they were islands of the autonomous literary imagination. One of the greatest writers of the period, Sir Philip Sidney, defended poetry in just such terms; the poet, Sidney writes in The Defence of Poetry (NAEL 1.933-54), is not constrained by nature or history but freely ranges "only within the zodiac of his own wit." But Sidney knew well, and from painful personal experience, how much this vision of golden autonomy was contracted by the pressures, perils and longings of the brazen world. And only a few pages after he imagines the poet orbiting entirely within the constellations of his own intellect, he advances a very different vision, one in which the poet's words not only imitate reality but also actively change it.

Characteristics ofMetaphysical PoetrY

· brief and concentrated in its meaning

· centered around dramatic situations

· fondness for conceits

o conceit: from the Italian concetto=thought

o an extended metaphor

o basis of comparison is surprising

o aware if differences within similarity

o draws on specialized areas of experience to describe love

1. law

2. medicine

3. philosophy

4. religion

De...

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... need for poetic decorum.

The conceits of "Jordan II" are small, as is appropriate in a poem that hopes to abandon conceit. Herbert describes his struggle critically, comparing himself with a tailor for God, his poetry attempting to clothe Him in unmatchable splendor, yet paradoxically unable to surpass the magnificence of the wearer. As the poet realizes his impossible position, he recognizes the frenzy he has worked himself into - writing verse pleasing to the sensuous ear and tongue, and not the humble soul. Now his self-conscious humility speaks up, quiet and true, to end the verse and satisfy Herbert's questing pen.

Like John Donne, Herbert uses his poems to question the nature of his relationship to God, often using conceits combined with fairly simple diction. Unlike Donne, Herbert is always able to submit to a higher power, with humility and resolution.