PERIYAR INSTITUTE OF DISTANCE EDUCATION

(PRIDE)

PERIYAR UNIVERSITY
SALEM - 636 011.

M.A. ENGLISH
FIRST YEAR
PAPER – I : CHAUCER AND ELIZABETHAN AGES

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Prepared by :
G. KEERTHI
HOD, Department of English
Sengunthar Arts & Science College
Tiruchengode – 637 205
Namakkal – Dt.

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 M.A. ENGLISH
FIRST YEAR
PAPER – I : CHAUCER AND ELIZABETHAN AGES
UNIT I
DETAILED POETRY
Geoffrey Chaucer : Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales
John Donne : i. The Canonization
ii. Go and Catch the Falling Star
UNIT II
NON-DETAILED POETRY
Edmund Spenser : Extracts of Faerie Queene
(as in Peacock Vol-I)
Wyatt and Surry : From Peacock’s English Verse Vol-I
UNIT III
DETAILED DRAMA
Christopher Marlowe : Edward II
UNIT IV
Non-detailed Drama
Ben Johnson : The Alchemist
John Webster : The Duchess of Malfi
UNIT V
DETAILED PROSE
Bacon’s Essays : Of Revenge
Of Truth
Of Adversity
Of Love
Of Marriage
Of Parents and children

NON-DETAILED PROSE
Bacon : The New Atlantis
Gospel according to St.Mark

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 UNIT - I
DETAILED POETRY
1. Geoffrey Chaucer : Prologue to the Canterbury Tales
INTRODUCTION
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by a set of pilgrims
visiting the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The Prologue, 858 lines in all
contains some of the most enduring portraits in literature.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales are not only his masterpiece among the
poet’s own works; they are the high point of all English medieval literature.
Yet the work as it has come down to us is a fragment. The scheme was planned
to embrace a collection of stories to be told by a group of pilgrims journeying
from London to Canterbury and back again, each individual to tell two stories
going and two returning. Since the company consists of thirty people,
including the narrator, this would provide for 120 tales. Instead, we have only
21 complete tales and 3 unfinished ones. No pilgrim tells more than a single
story.
What was realized of the original plan is nevertheless enough to establish
Chaucer’s commanding position as a narrator and a creative artists. With
respect to the general scheme and the individual tales, Chaucer was not so
much an innovator as a great transformer, using inherited plots and forms in
order to create a living microcosm of people and society in his own times.
CHARACTERS
The Knight
There was a knight, a distinguished man at that, who, from the time that
he first began to ride abroad, had loved chivalry, truth, honour, generous
thought and courtesy. Much distinguished had he been in his lord’s war - ridden
into battle - as well in Christian as in heathen places in addition and no one
farther and always honoured for his noble grace. He was at Alexandria when it
was conquered. Very often he had begun the board - the highest place fell to
him - above all the nations in Prussia. He had fought (reysed) in Lithuania and
in Russia, no Christian man of his rank so often. He had been at the siege of
Algeciras in Granada and fought in Benmarin. He had been at Ayas (Lyes) and
Attalia (Satalye) when they were conquered and in the Mediterranean he had
been - taking part - in many a splen 3 did expedition. He had been in fifteen
mortal, battles and fought for our faith at Tramissene, thrice in the lists, and had
always (ay) killed his foe. This same distinguished knight had been also with
the Bey of Balat, the King of Palathia -fighting for him against another heathen
Turk. And he was always of sovereign value, and though he was distinguished,

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he was wise, and as modest as a maid in his bearing. He had never spoken a
discourteous word (vileynye), in all his life, to any kind of man.
He was a true (verray) perfect noble knight. But to speak to you of his
equipment, his horses were good, but he was not gaily dressed. He wore a tunic
of thick cotton cloth all soiled with smudges from his coat of mail (habergeon).
For he had just returned from his journey and he went to do his pilgrimage.
The Squire
With him there was his son, a young squire, a lover and a spirited cadet
(bacheler) with locks curled as if they had been laid in the press. I guess he was
twenty years of age. He was of a. moderate height in stature, and wonderfully
agile and of great strength. He had seen some cavalry service some time in
Flanders, at Artois, and in Picardy, and borne himself well within so short a
space of time, in hope to win his lady’s grace (lady grace). He was embroidered
like a. meadow all full of fresh flowers, white and red. Singing he was, or
playing on the flute, the whole day long. He was fresh like the month of May.
The Yeoman
He (the knight) had a yeoman and no other servants at that time, for it
pleased him to ride so. The yeoman was clad in a coat and hood of green and he
bore in quite a handy way, under his belt, a sheaf of peacock-feathered arrows,
bright and sharp. Well could he dress his gear in yeoman style. His arrows
drooped not in the least with the feathers bending low and in his hand he
carried a strong bow. His head was like a nut - he had close-cropped hair - and
his face was brown. He knew the whole art of woodcraft. He bore upon his arm
a saucy brace - guard of leather -and by his side, a sword and buckler, and on
the other side a jaunty dagger well-mounted and sharp like the point of a spear.
An image of St. Christopher, of silver brightness, he bore on his breast. He
carried a horn; the belt was green. He was a forester truly as I guess.
The Prioress
There was also a nun, a prioress, who was simple and silent in her
smiling. Her greatest oath was only ‘By St Loy’. She was called Madam
Eglantyne. She sang the divine service very well and intoned it in a fully
becoming way. She spoke French daintily and neatly, after the school of
Stratford atte Bowe; for French in Paris style was unknown to her. At meat - at
the table - she was well-acquainted, in her manners, with everything. She let no
morsel fall from her lips nor did she wet her fingers-dipping them deep in her
sauce.
She knew well how to carry a morsel and take good heed that no drop fell
on her breast. On courtesy was her pleasure set full greatly, - she had a special

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zest for courtliness. She wiped her upper lip so clean that not a trace (ferthyng -
smallest part) of grease was to be seen on her cup when she had drunk her
draught. She reached for her food daintily, and certainly she was capable of
splendid diversion and fully pleasant and genial in conduct, and she strained
herself to counterfeit a courtly kind of grace and to be (been) stately in bearing
and to be held worthy of reverence. But to speak of her sensibility she was so
full of pity that she would weep if she saw a mouse caught in trap and if it were
dead or bleeding. She had some small dogs that she fed with roasted food or
milk or best bread (wastel bread - bread made of the best flour). But surely she
wept if one of them were dead or if somebody hit it smartly with a stick. All
was on account of her sensibility and tender heart.
Her wimple was pleated becomingly; her nose was elegant, long and well
shaped; her eyes grey as glass, her mouth very small and soft and red besides;
but certainly she had a well-shaped (fair) forehead. It was almost a span broad I
believe, for, she was not surely undergrown - short-featured. Her cloak was
quite neat, as I was aware. She bore about her arm, a set of beads, of which the
greater beads, the gawdies, were of green. And on it there hung a brooch of
gold very bright, and on which there was first graven a crowned A and
thereafter Amor Vincit Omnia - love conquers all.
Another nun she had with her, who was her chaplain, and three priests.
The Monk
There was a monk, an extremly good-looking one (a fair for the maistrye)
an inspector of monastic property that loved hunting; a manly man, able, fit to
be an abbot. He had many a dainty horse in his stable. And when he rode, one
might hear the bridle of his horse jingle in a whistling wind as clear and also as
loud as does the chapel bell, of the chapel where this lord was the Prior of the
cell. This same monk let old things pass - the Rule of St. Maur or that of St.
Benet, because old and a certain deal strict and in the meanwhile he followed
the new world. He did not rate that text at a plucked hen that says that hunters
are not holy men, and that a cloisterless monk is compared to a fish out of
water - that is to say, a monk who keeps himself away from his cloister. The
same text, he did not hold worth an oyster. And I said his judgement was
worthwhile. Alas! Should he study and render himself mad (wood) enough to
pore upon a book always in a cloister or should he toil with his hands and
labour as St. Augustine bids (bit)? How shall the world be served? Let
Augustine have his labour reserved for himself.
Therefore he was a man excellent on horseback - a hard rider - rightly
enough. He had greyhounds as swift as a bird in flight. To be a hard rider,
hunting for the hare, was his desire (lust). He did not grudge urging his horse,

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and all his delight was in hunting for the hare. I saw his sleeves garnished at the
hand with fur and that of the finest in the land. And in order to tie his hood
under his chin he had a cunningly fashioned (curious) pin, made of gold. There
was a love-knot at the bigger end. His head was bald and it shone like some
glass, and also his face, as if he had been anointed. He was a master, quite fat
and in good physical condition (in good point). His eyes, prominent and rolling
in his head that glittered like the flames beneath a kettle - or, gleamed like a
furnace under a cauldron. His boots were soft, his horse in great state
(condition). Now certainly he was an imposing prelate. He was not pale like a
tormented ghost. He loved best a fat swan out of a batch. His horse was as
brown as is a berry.
The Friar
There was a friar, wanton and merry, a limiter - a friar licensed to beg in
a limited area - a fully important man. There is no one (noon) among the four
orders of friars that knows so much flattery and sweet speech. He had
performed many marriages of young women at his own expense. He was a
noble post of his order; quite well beloved was he and in close relationship with
rich farmers of his country and the rich women of the town also, for he had the
power of confession more than a curate, as he said himself, for he was a
licensed beggar - a licensed hearer of confessions and he heard the confession
nicely and his absolution was pleasant. He was an easy man in prescribing
penance where he reckoned he could have good food in alms. For giving alms
to a poor order of men is a sign that a man is fully absolved.
For if he (the man) gave, the friar dared boast that he (the friar) knew that
a man was repentant. For, many a man is so hard at heart that he may not weep
- in confession although it pains him sorely. Therefore, instead of weeping and
prayers one must, give silver to the poor friars. His tippet was always stuffed
full of knives and pins to be given to young women. And he had certainty a
merry voice. He could sing and play on a harp. In the matter of proverbial
sayings he bore the prize in an unquestioned way. His neck was white like the
flower-de-lys and he was strong as a champion besides. He knew the taverns
well in every town, and every innkeeper and tapster more than he knew a leper
or a beggar. For it was not fit to have to do with sick lepers, as required by his
profession, for such a worthy man as he. It is not honourable, it may not help
advancement, to deal with poor people. But solely with the rich and the sellers
of provisions and especially wherever profit should arise he was courteous and
humble. There was no man anywhere so full of wonderful ability. He was the
best beggar in his house. For though a widow had not a shoe, so pleasant was
his reading of the In Principio - the rendering of the first verses out of St.

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John’s Gospel - that he would have a morsel before he went. The proceeds of
his begging were much greater than his rent - what he got by begging was more
than his payment for the privilege. And he could rage, as it might be if he were
a whelp, on love days - days on which disputes were settled without going to
law - wherein he was capable of much help. For there he was not like a
cloistered person in a threadbare tunic as is a poor scholar, but he was like a
lord or a pope. His short, coat was of double worsted; it spread itself out round
like a bell out of the press. He spoke pleasantly in his gaiety and tried to make
his English sweet upon his tongue. And in his harping, when he had sung, his
eyes twinkled in his head in due measure as do the stars in the frosty night. This
worthy limiter was called Hubert.
The Merchant
There was a merchant there with a forked beard, and in motley - dressed
in clothes of spotted cloth and he sat high on his horse. He had a Flanders
beaver hat on; his boots were fastened nicely arid neatly. He expressed his
opinions tending always to the increase of his profit. He desired that the sea
should be guarded -swept clear of pirates - no matter what might happen - from
Middelburgh to Orwell -(Harwich). He would sell French crowns on the
exchange at a profit. This worthy man employed his skill quite well so that no
one knew he was in debt; so stately was he in his ordering of things, what with
his bargains and his usury. For, truly, he was a respectable man besides but, to
speak the truth, I do not know (noot) how one calls him.
The Oxford Clerk
There was a scholar (clerk) of Oxford who had long ago gone in for the
study of logic. His horse was as lean as a rake and he was not exactly fat I
declare. But he looked “thin and, in addition, abstemious. His outer coat was
threadbare for he had obtained yet no benefice for himself, nor was he so
worldly-minded as to secure a secular employment. To him it was more
pleasing to have at the head of his bed twenty books, clad in black or red, of
Aristotle’s philosophy than rich robes, a fiddle or a psaltery. But although it be
that he was a philosopher yet he had but little gold in his coffer. Arid all that he
might get from his friends he spent on books and his education; and he busily
prayed for the souls of those that gave him the means to attend to his studies.
He took the greatest care of his studies and paid the utmost heed to it. He spoke
not a word more than was the need and what was said was spoken with
propriety and modesty and it was brief and quick and full of lofty meaning. His
talk was conducing to - eloquent in - moral quality and he would learn gladly
and teach gladly.

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The Sergeant
There was a sergeant-at-law, wary and wise, who had often been at the
church porch - the consultation chamber for lawyers - being quite full of
authority and excellence. He was discreet and of great respectability. He
appeared such and his words were likewise so full of knowledge. He had been
very often a judge at the assizes, because of his knowledge and his renown, by
patent - letters patent obtained from the sovereign conferring a right - and plain
commission. Of fees and robes he had gained many a one. So great a
conveyancer (purehasour) like him there was none anywhere. All was title
simple with him in effect. His conveyance could not be invalidated. There was
nowhere one so busy as he, and yet he seemed busier than he was. He could
quote exactly all the cases and judgements that had occurred from the time of
the Conqueror. Besides he could dictate defences and draw up a deed. No man
could find fault with his writing. And he knew fully every statute by rote. He
rode in a homely fashion dressed in a coat of mixed colours, girt with a belt of
silk ornamented with stripes. Of his attire I offer not a longer tale.
The Franklin
There was a franklin - a free tenant of the Crown - in this company. His
beard was white as is a daisy. In his complexion he was sanguine. He loved
much a sop in wine on a morning. To live in delight was always his habit. For
he was the very son to Epicurus who held the view that unalloyed delight was
truly perfect felicity. He was a householder and that a remarkable one.
He was the Saint Julien of his neighbourhood. His bread as well as his ale
was always of the best sort. There was nowhere any man with a better stock of
wine. His house was never without baked pies of fish and flesh, and that so
plentiful that it snowed in his house with food and drink, with all the dainties
that one could think of. So did he vary his meal and his supper with the various
seasons. He had in his coop many fat partridges and in his fish-pool (stewe)
many bream-fish with arched back-and pickerel (luce): woe it was to his cook
unless his sauce was pungent and biting and all his equipment ready. The
Franklin’s ‘sleeping’ table intended for unexpected guests stood in his hall
always covered ready all through the long day. At the sessions (of the local
courts) he was president and very often he was a member of parliament for his
county. A short dagger and a pouch (gipser) made completely of silk hung from
his belt white as morning milk. He had been a sheriff and auditor. There was
nowhere such a splendid land-holder.
The Guildsmen
A haberdasher and a carpenter, a weaver, a dyer and a tapestry-rnaker
were there also with us clothed in one livery of a great and solemn (selempne)

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brotherhood. Their equipment was adorned very fresh and new. Their knives
were Dapped (chaped) not with brass but all with silver, worked very perfectly
and nicely. Their girdles and their purses every bit declared each of them a
respectable citizen, fit to sit on a dais (deys) in the guildhall - everyone was
suitable to be an alderman on account of the wisdom that he was capable of.
They had property and income enough and their wives also would assent to it
quite. Or, for certain they were to blame. It is very respectable to be called my
lady (Madame) and go to the vigils (celebrations) before all and have a mantle
carried like a sovereign.
The Cook
They had with them a cook for the occasion (for the nones) that could
boil chickens with marrow bones and a tart of flavouring powder (poudre
marchant) and galingale. He knew quite well a good draught of London ale. He
could roast and seethe and broil and fry, make stews and bake a pie well. But it
was a great harm, as it seemed to me, that he had an ulcer (mermal) on his shin.
As for creamed meat (blankmanger) he made it as well as the best of cooks.
The Shipman
There was the captain of a ship dwelling (woning) very far to the west.
For aught I knew he was from Dartmouth. He rode upon a nag, best as he knew
how, in a gown of coarse woolen cloth (falding) reaching to the knee. He had a
dagger hanging from a cord about his neck and down under his arm. The hot
summer had made his complexion completely brown and he was certainly a
good companion. He had drawn very many draughts of wine while the
merchant (chapman) slept as the ship came from the journey to Bourdeaux. He
took no care (keep) of any scruples (nyce conscience). If he fought and had the
victory he sent the victim home, made him walk the plank. But as for his skill
in calculating his tide, currents and his commands in addition, his anchorage
and his moon, his pilotage there was no such man from Hull to Carthagena. He
was hardy and prudent in the undertaking. His beard had been shaken during
many a tempest. He knew all the havens as they stood, from Gotland (near
Sweden) to the Cape of Land’s end - Finisterre, and every creek in Britain and
Spain. His ship was called The Magdalene (Maudelayne).
The Doctor of Physic
With us there was a doctor of medicine. There was, in all the world, no
one like him, speaking of medicine and surgery; for he was equipped with
astronomy. He watched his patient waiting for the time advantageous to him in
his treatment by his scientific knowledge. He could presage the favourable
position, for making his images for his patient - choose a fortunate ascendant
for making images. He knew the cause of every illness, whether it was due to

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hot or cold or moist or dry qualities and where they sprang and of what humour
(elementary quality). He was a true, perfect practitioner. The malady once
studied and the cause of its affection known he gave the sick man his remedy at
once. He had his apothecaries very ready to send him drugs and remedies for
each of them helped the other to gain a profit. Their friendship was not
anything new to begin. He knew well the old Aesculapius and Deiscorides
(Greek physicians) and also Rufus, old Hippocrates-founder of Greek medical
science - Hali - Persian doctor of the 10th century and Galen - of the second
century, - Serapian Razis - of Bagdad, of the 9th and 10th centuries Avicenna -
Arab philosopher, scientist, of the 11th century - Averois St. John of Demascus,
Constantius, Bernard, Gatesden, Gilbertus Anglicus. He was moderate in his
food. And it was of no excess but of great nourishing power and digestible. His
study was but little concerned with the Bible. He was dressed in blood red and
bluish grey cloth, his coat was lined with taffeta and thin silk and yet he was
but slow to spend. He preserved what he had gained at the time of the
pestilence - The Black Death. Gold in medicine is a cordial; so the doctor of
physic loved gold particularly.
The Wife of Bath
There was a rich woman from the neighbourhood of Bath but she was
somewhat deaf and it was a pity. She had such a business (haunt) in cloth
making that she excelled those of Ypres and Ghent. In all the parish there was
not any woman that might go before her to make the offering at church and if
anyone did so it was certain she became so angry, that she was without any
kindly feeling (charitee).
Her head covers were of a very fine structure (ground). I dare swear that
what might be on her head on a Sunday weighed ten pounds. Her hose was of a
fine red, tied very stiffly, (y-teyd ful streite) and her shoes were very soft and
new. Her face was bold and fair and red of hue. She was a respectable woman
ail her life. She had had five husbands at the door of the church barring other
lovers in her youth. But of that it is not necessary to speak at the moment. She
had been thrice at Jerusalem. She had crossed many foreign streams. She had
been at Rome and at Boulogne at the shrine of St. James of, Galicia at Saint
James’s - in Spain - and at Cologne. She knew much wandering by the way.
She was gap-toothed and to speak truly she sat easily upon an ambling horse
very nicely dressed in a wimpole, (ywim-pled), and on her head a hat as broad
as is a buckler or a shield; about her hips she had a large riding outer skirt
(foot-mantel) and on her feet a pair of sharp spurs. She could laugh and
discourse (carpe) well in company. She knew per chance of remedies of love,
for she knew all the old custom (daunce) of that art.

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The Parson
There was a good man of religion, a poor parson of a town. But he was
rich in holy thought and in his work. He was also a learned man, a scholar
(clerk) who would preach Christ’s Gospel truly. He would teach his
parishioners earnestly. He was benign and wonderfully diligent and very
patient in adversity; and he was proved to be such many times. It was very
loathsome for him to curse - excommunicate people - for the non-payment of
his tithes. But he would rather give without doubt, to the poor parishioners
from out of the offerings made to him and also of his belongings (substance).
His parish was wide and the houses far asunder he did not, on account of rain
or thunder, in sickness or in mishap, neglect to visit the farthest in his parish,
high and low going on foot, a staff in his hand.
He gave this noble example to his sheep that first he did and afterwards
taught. He had seized on those words out of the Gospel and to them he added
this comparison (figure) that if gold should rust what shall iron do? For if a
priest in whom we put our trust be polluted no wonder it is for a layman to be
rusting - to lose quality. It is a shame, if a priest should pay heed to it (take
keep), to have a befouled shepherd and a clean sheep.
A priest ought well to give an example by his purity as to how his sheep -
parishioners - should live. He did not sub-let his benefice and left not his sheep
encumbered in the mire while he went to London to St. Paul’s to get for himself
a chantry endowment for a priest requiring him to sing masses for the founder’s
soul - or, to be retained as a chaplain by a guild. But he dwelt at home and took
care of his sheep very well so that the wolf - the devil - did not make it go
wrong (miscarry). He was a shepherd and no mercenary. And though he was
holy and virtuous he was not merciless towards a sinful man; nor was he in his
speech disdainful and scornful.
But in his teaching he was discreet and benign, so as to draw people to
heaven by gentle way by worthy example; this was his habitual occupation,
except that some one was obstinate and he would reprove him (snybben)
sharply for the occasion whatsoever he was, of status, high or low. I believe
that there is nowhere any better priest. He watched after no show or respect -
for pomp or reverence - nor did he provide for himself a scrupulosity - he was
not too fastidious in his dealings with his parishioners. But he taught the
teachings of Christ and those of his twelve apostles, and first he followed the
teaching (lore) himself.
The Ploughman
With him there was a ploughman that was his brother who had carried in
a cart very many loads of dung. A true good labourer was he living in peace

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and perfect charity. He loved God best, with all his whole heart at all times
though a thing caused him joy or some other thing caused him pain - in weal or
woe - and then he loved his neighbour right as himself. He would thresh, dig
and delve, besides, without wages, if it lay in his power, for every poor man,
for Christ’s sake. He paid his tithes properly and very well both from his own
labour and his property (catel). He rode upon a mare wearing a short sleeveless
coat.
There were also a bailiff (reve) and a miller, a summoner and a pardoner
also, a steward (manciple) of a college and myself. There were no more.
The Miller
The miller was a sturdy fellow all right, for this once. Very big he was of
muscle and also in his bones. That stood him in good stead for everywhere that
he went he would always have the ram, the prize, at wrestling. He was short-
shouldered, broad, a stout fellow.
There was no door that he would not heave from the hinge or break by
running at it with his head - like a battering ram. His beard was red as that of
any sow or fox was red and besides broad, as though it were a spade. Upon the
top (cope) directly to the right of his nose he had a wart and on it there stood a
tuft of hairs red as the bristles of a sow’s ears. His nostrils were black and wide.
He carried a sword and a buckler - shield - at his side. His mouth was as big as
a large furnace. He was a chatterbox and a ribald buffoon. And his talk was
mostly of sin and harlotries - scurrilities. He could steal corn very well and take
toll three times the measure - charge excessively - and yet he was a prosperous
fellow by G d. He wore a white coat and a blue hood. He could blow on a bag-
pipe and sound out (sowne) very well and he led us out of the town with it.
The Manciple
There was a courteous manciple of a college of lawyers (the temple) of
whom buyers might take instruction in order to be wise in the buying of
victuals. For whether he paid cash or took on credit anyway, he watched so in
his buying that he was always the foremost and in good condition. Now, is not
that a very nice gift of God that the skill (wit) of such an unlearned man should
surpass the wisdom of a heap of learned men? He had more than thrice-ten
masters who were experts in law and careful, of whom there were a dozen in
that house fit to be stewards of the income and property of any Lord that was in
England to make him live on his own goods, without debts of honour unless he
should be foolish or, to live as economically as it might please him to desire,
and able to help all in the shire in any cause that might befall or occur. And yet
the manciple set the caps of them all -befooled them all.

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The Reeve
The reeve was a slender choleric man, his beard was shaven as close as
ever he could have it. His hair was cropped round close to his ears. His crown
was shorn as is the case with a priest, in front. His legs were very long and lean
like a staff; there was no calf seen. He could keep a granary and a bin very
well; there was no auditor who could gain on him. He knew very well from the
drought and the rain, the yield of his corn and his grain. His lord’s sheep, cattle,
his dairy, his swine, his horses, his stock (stoor) and his poultry, everything was
wholly in the control of this reeve. He gave the accounts according to his
contract (covenant) since (syn) that when his master was twenty years of age.
No one could catch him in arrears. There was no bailiff, no herd nor other
servant whose trickery and deceit he did not know. They were in dread of him
as of the death - the Black Death. His dwelling was quite nice, upon a heath;
shaded with green trees was his place. He could make a bargain better than his
master. He had (secretly) provided for himself very richly. He could please his
lord very well, in a subtle way giving and lending him out of his (the master’s
own) goods, earning his thanks and still more a coat and a hood. In youth he
had learnt a good profession. He was a very good workman a carpenter. This
reeve sat upon a very good stallion, that was all dappled grey and was called
Scot. He had on a long blue overcoat and carried a rusty sword at his side. This
reeve of whom I speak was of Norfolk beside a town that one calls Bawdswel.
He was tucked, that is, his coat was hitched up and held by a girdle, as is the
case with a friar, around and about him. And he always rode the hindmost of
our assemblage.
The Summoner
There was a summoner with us in that place who had a fire-red
cherubin’s face; he was pimpled, with narrow eyes. He was as full of passion
(hot) and lecherous as a sparrow with scabby black brows and a scanty beard.
Children were afraid of his looks. There was no remedy, quick silver, lead
ointments, brimstone borax, whitelead, or tartar creams, no ointment that would
wash and cure, the bite, that might help him out of his white pimples, and of the
eruptions sitting in his cheeks. Much he loved garlic, onions, and also leeks and
to drink strong wine red as blood. Then would he jabber and shout as if he were
crazy and when he had drunk the wine well he would speak no word but Latin.
He had at his command a few terms in Latin, two or three which he had learnt
out of some decree. It is no wonder, for he heard it all through the day, had
understood it well and you know also well how a jay can call Walter as well as
the Pope can. But when there was one that could test him in any other point, he

14
had all his knowledge (philosophie) spent away. He would cry always,
“Question what says the Law?”.
The question is - what part of the law? He was a gentle and. kind rascal:
one might not find a better fellow. He would allow a boon companion in return
for a quart of wine to have his concubine ‘for a full year and excuse him fully
and secretly. He would shear a lamb - plunder a foolish fellow and if he found
anywhere a useful companion he would teach him to have no fear in such a
case, of the archdeacon’s curse - excommunication - unless a man’s soul were
in his purse for in his purse it is that he should be punished. He said “The purse
is the good archdeacon’s hell”. But I know well he lied thoroughly in actual
fact. Each guilty man ought to dread him for his cursing. Because the curse will
kill just as absolution saves. And also he should be wary of a writ of
excommunication. He had in his power the young parsons of the diocese and
was able to make them follow his own devices, his own fashion and he knew
their secrets and was their adviser. He had a garland set up on his head as big as
if it were a stake projecting from an inn. He had a buckler made for him as of a
cake (in the fashion ‘of a cake).
The Pardoner
With him there rode a gentle pardoner from the hospital of the blessed
Mary of Rouncivalle near Charing Cross London, his friend and his comrade,
who had come straight from the court of Rome. He sang very loudly “Come
hither, love, to me”. The summoner supplied him with a stout burden, basic
ground melody. There never was a trumpet of half so big a sound. This
pardoner had hair as yellow as wax. But it hung as does a bunch of flax. The
locke that he had hung in small tufts and he covered his shoulders with them.
But the hair lay in thin strips loosely. But a hood he wore none. He did not
wear any, for fun or in jollity. For it was packed up in his wallet. It seemd to
him he rode, completely in the new style. He rode completely bare with hair
loose or unkempt except for his cap. He had such glaring eyes as a hare. He had
a little veronica sewn on his cap. His wallet lay before him on his lap brimful of
pardon; come from Rome, all hot. He had a small voice as a goat has got. He
had no beard nor should ever have it; it was as smooth as though it were shaven
lately. I believe he was a gelding or a mare but as to his trade, there was no
such another pardoner from Berwic to Ware. For in his wallet he had a pillow
case which he said was the Virgin Mary’s veil. He said he had a piece of the
sail that St. Peter had when he went upon the sea till Jesus Christ took him.
He had a cross made of brass set full with stones and in a glass he had
some pig’s bones but with these relics, when he found a poor parson living in
the country, he got for himself more money in a day than the parson got in two

15
months; and thus with feigned flattery and jokes he made the parson and the
people his apes. In fine, (at the last) he was in church a noble officer. He could
very well read a lesson or tell a story. But best of all he sang an offertory -
made a collection of money in connection with a service in a church - for he
knew well that when the song was sung he must preach and smooth off his
tongue well to win money as he knew very well.
Therefore he sang very merrily and loudly. Now I have told you in brief,
in a short sentence (clause) the condition, the estate, the dress, the number and
also the cause why this company was gathered in Southwark at this respectable
(gentle) inn that was called The Tabard, close by the Bell.
Now it is time to tell you how we bore ourselves the same evening when
we had alighted at the inn: and afterwards, I will tell you about our journey.
First I pray you that you, in your courtesy, do not account it my ill breeding -
want of gentlemanly behaviour - although I speak plainly in this matter, to tell
you of their words and demeanour - behaviour - though I do not myself speak
words such of theirs usually.
For you know this just as well as I that whoever has to tell a tale after a
person must say it as near as he ever can, each single word, with individual
correctness, just as each man spoke, if it is in his keeping, although he speak
never so rudely and freely or else he must tell his tale not naturally but untrue,
or feign a thing or find new words; he should not flinch (spare) him even
though he is his brother. He has to say the one word as the other; Christ himself
spoke unreservedly in the Bible, and Plato says, for those who have the ability
to read him, “the word must be as cousin to the deed”. You know well there’s
nothing unbecoming (villeyney) in it. Also I pray you to forgive it in me
although I have not placed the people according to their rank, here in this tale,
as they should stand. My skill is limited, as you may well understand. married
five times and is “famous or infamous for her marital and extra-marital
adventures”. In his portrayal of the Wife of Bath, Chaucer’s comment on the
women of easy virtue is sarcastic and humorous. Both the Miller and the Reeve
are a realistic portraiture of their times. They were dishonestly prosperous with
no touch of conscientiousness, and quite evidently, they were always at
loggerheads. The Summoner and the Pardoner are the objects of Chaucer’s
indignation and sarcasm and they are portrayed as the vestiges of a bygone era.
The characters of Chaucer have a three-fold existence. They are
individuals. They represent their age - the medieval times. Also, they stand for
humanity in general. This three-fold existence has made them immortal.
Chaucer’s portrait painting has a historical and universal significance as well.
The words of Dryden on Chaucer’s portrayal of characters are a great tribute to

16
the poet: “It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is God’s
plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grand dames all before us, as they
were in Chaucer’s day; their general characters still remain in mankind, and
even in England, though they are called by other names than those of monks
and friars and canons and lady abbesses and nuns; for mankind is ever the
same, and nothing lost out of Nature, though everything is altered”. Chaucer
stands as a poet par excellence in English. He is not only the first poet in
modern English but also the best.
The Host
The Host was a large, dominating, genial personality. His manner was
direct and sensible. He was an efficient organiser and, as Chaucer says, fit to
have been a marshal in a hall. (A hall was a lord’s manor, where the marshal
served as the household’s chief organiser for the guests and their food and
drink). The Host had bright eyes and was bold of speech. He was intelligent
and well-educated ; and he-lacked nothing of real manhood. He was, besides, a
merry man with a jovial nature.
The Host’s importance in the Prologue lies in his proposal to the pilgrims
that they should entertain themselves on the journey to Canterbury and back by
telling tales. After seeing to his guests’ comfort, and also attending to the bills
(for he was always a practical man), he explained the terms of his proposal.
Through the Host, Chaucer proposed an immense narrative task for himself that
was never finished. Of the one hundred and twenty tales that were proposed,
only twenty were completed.
We notice how pleasantly, yet at the same time how deftly and with what
command, the Host took over the direction of the pilgrims. His plan was not
debated. He asked the pilgrims to hold up their hands as a token of their
consent to his proposal, and they did so. From that point on, the Host became
chairman, stage-manager, judge, and choric commentator for the pilgrims’
fictional narratives. He arranged the drawing of lots to decide who was to tell
the first story. It is quite likely that he manipulated the choice of the Knight as
the first narrator.
SELECT CRITICISM
Here are passages from Chaucer-criticism. It is well advised to go
through carefully and then study the aspect emphasized in each of them.
Chaucer and Dante
With Dante the main question is the saving of the soul, with Chaucer it is
the conduct of life . . . Dante represents the justice of God and Chaucer His
loving kindness .. . The satire of the other (Chaucer) is genial with the broad

17
sunshine of humour, into which the victims walk forth with a delightful
unconcern, laying aside cf themselves the disguises that seem to make them
uncomfortably warm, till they have made a thorough betrayal of themselves so
unconsciously that we almost pity while we laugh. . .
If we are to judge of what is national only by the highest and most
characteristic types, surely we cannot fail to see Chaucer the true forerunner
and prototype of Shakespeare, who with an imagination of far deeper grasp. . .
yet took the same delight in the pageantry of the actual world, and whose moral
is the moral of the worldly wisdom only heightened to the level of his wide-
viewing mind, and typical by the dramatic energy of his plastic nature - (J.R.
Lowell).
Dryden’s Praise of Chaucer’s Mastery of Characterisation
Even the grave and serious characters (of Chaucer) are distinguished by
their several sorts of gravity, their discourses are such as belong to their age,
their calling, and their breeding: such as are becoming of them, and of them
only. Some of his persons are vicious, and some virtuous: some are unlearn’d
and some are learn’d. Even the ribaldry of the low characters is different; the
Reeve, the Miller, and the Cook are several men, and distinguished from others
as much as the mincing Lady-Prioress and the broad speaking, gap-toothed
Wife of Bath. But enough of this; there is such a variety of game springing up
before me . . . ‘It is sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that here is
God’s plenty. We have our forefathers and great-grand dames all before us, as
they were in Chaucer’s days: their general characters are still remaining in
mankind; and even in England though they are called by other names than
those of Monks, and Friars, and Canons, and Lady Abbesses, and Nuns, for
mankind is the same, and nothing lost out of Nature, though everything is
altered. (Dryden).
Mammon Worshippers
All these people (of the General Prologue) have, of course, other and
various attributes: they are sly, lecherous, quarrelsome, bawdy, vain, cheerful;
and the stars in their courses have had much to do with their dispositions and
predispositions. But their motivation springs from a single source - Mammon:
and it is this which provides the dynamics of the Prologue to the Canterbury
Tales and the master key to its design. - (Ruth Novo).
Chaucer’s Medium - Irony, not Invective
His (Chaucer’s) tolerance has deeper roots - In a profound and equable
conviction of human frailty, irony, not invective, is his medium; and it implies
no compromise. And the famous geniality springs not from whatever may be
understood by such much used phrases as warm humanity’ or love of life’ but

18
from the serenity of a perfect sense of moral proportion, and from joy in the
exercise of a crystal-clear intelligence and a mastered literary art . . . The
intensity of the irony in the portraits is a function of the degree of discrepancy
between profession and action in each of the characters portrayed. Chaucer
evidently expects less from a Miller or a Man of Law than a Prioress, a Monk
or a Pardoner.
Nevertheless, the two possibilities, of virtue and of corruption are
constantly entertained of cleric and layman alike; and it is in this connection
that the continuity of the Mammon theme performs its remarkable double
service. It links the universe of socio-economic actualities to the universe of
moral value - (Ruth Novo).
Chaucer’s All-Pervading Humour
In most great English Humorists, humour sets the picture with a sort of
vignetting or arabesquing fringe and atmosphere of exaggeration and fantasy.
By Chaucer it is almost invariably used to bring a higher but a quite clear and
achromatic light on the picture itself for parts of it. The stuff is turned rapidly
the other way to show its real texture; the jest is perhaps a burning, but also a
magnifying and illuminating glass, to bring out a special trait more definitely ...
A great deal of the combination of vivacity and veracity in Chaucer’s portraits
and sketches of all kinds is due to this all-prevading humour - and the medieval
pedantry, medieval catalogue - making medieval digression and irrelevance are
at once exemplified and satirised by the operation, of this extraordinary faculty
. . . Chaucer is not a sentimentalist; he does not go out of his way for pathetic
effect; but, he shows an immediate unforced, unfaltering sympathy which can
hardly be paralleled . . . Cruelty and Chaucer are absolute strangers; indeed the
absence of it has brought upon him from rather short-sighted persons the charge
of pro-criticism: mere courtliness, . . . (Saintsbury).
Important Questions
What are the salient features of Chaucer’s art of characterisation? Discuss
with illustrations from the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales.
or
Comment on Chaucer’s method of characterisation pointing out whether
his characters as depicted in the General Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, are
types or individuals.
or
Discuss Chaucer’s technique of characterisation in the General Prologue
to The Canterbury Tales.

19
 The character-painting in the Prologue has won wide acclaim. It has been
said that, of all the character-writers in English literature from Ben Jonson to
Wordsworth, none is so great as Chaucer. “I see all the pilgrims in The
Canterbury Tales”, says Dryden, “their humours, their features, and their very
dress as distinctly as if I had supped with them at the Tabard in Southwark. He
must have been a man of a most wonderful comprehensive nature, because he
has taken into the compass of his Canterbury Tales the very manners and
humours of the whole English nation in his age. Not a single character has
escaped him.”
Chaucer’s characterisation of various persons in the Prologue, says a
critic, has “a concentrated brilliance”. Chaucer describes a map as if his eyes
were wandering over him, noticing a detail here and a detail there. He records
his observations in a casual, haphazard manner. This impression of casualness
and variety of detail indicate “an art which conceals art”. Chaucer does not
follow any fixed pattern in describing the various characters. Sometimes certain
items of dress are indicated first, and through these we see the character of the
man. For instance, the Knight’s gipon is still marked by the rust and oil from
his armour. This is apparently mere factual information. Yet from this we can
judge that the Knight has wasted no time after his return home to go on a
pilgrimage. He is not keen about a smart outward appearance. Sometimes
Chaucer describes a person’s character, and adds almost as an after-thought
those details of dress which bring that person vividly before our eyes and
reinforce what we already know of him. This is so in the cases of the Lawyer,
the Physician, and the Franklin, for example.
In sketching the character of the pilgrims, Chaucer takes up the details
that would strike the eye of a fellow-traveller. There is a deliberately contrived
disorder in the way in which the facts about each character are brought to our
attention. For example, Chaucer describes the Cook’s skill in roasting, boiling,
grilling, and frying, and then tells us that the Cook had a mormal on his skin,
and that he made “blankmanger” with the best. The after-thought about
blankmanger (an elaborate creamed dish) gives an air of absolute naturalness to
the description, and this air of innocent observation can be put to most effective
ironic uses when Chaucer so desires. The author as a fellow-pilgrim notes what
he sees or learns about others in the casual order which occurs to him. He adds
detail to detail, often in a non-logical order.
In the Prologue, Chaucer selected a large number of representatives of
contemporary society. His selection of characters deserves consideration. In his
time the clergy were relatively far more numerous that they are today. The
Oxford Clerk, the Summoner, and the Pardoner would, for example, all be in

20
minor orders. Thus there are as many as eight representatives of the clergy and
excluding Chaucer himself, nineteen laymen, seven of whom are countrymen,
eleven townsmen, and one a sailor. The countrymen range from the Knight and
his son the Squire (also a representative of the courtly school of love) to the
Reeve and the Plowman. Of the town-dwellers, there are five wealthy
Guildsmen, a merchant, a business-woman, and two professional men (a
Lawyer and a Doctor). Three of the pilgrims are women : the Prioress, her Nun,
and the Wife of Bath, who is also something of a professional pilgrim, having
visited a large number of shrines.
Irony and satire are among the most striking features of Chaucer’s
characterisation in the prologue. There is indeed predominance of comic satire.
Almost all the ecclesiastical characters, with the solitary exception of the
Parson, are objects of mockery and ridicule. The very dress and the fashionable
manners of the Prioress are ironically described. Her aristocratic pretensions
are also ironically conveyed to us. Her vanities are fully exposed. In short, the
ironic implication throughout the portrait of the Prioress is that, in spite of her
holy calling, she is more concerned with worldly things than with the spirit. In
the case of the Monk, Chaucer ironically refers to his violation of the rules of
monastic discipline, his shirking both manual work and intellectual pursuits, his
wearing a gold pin in the shape of a love-knot, his appetite for a roasted fat
swan, and so on. The Friar had performed many marriages of young women “at
his own cost”, a fact the implication of which is obvious. He is “a noble pillar”
of his order, just as the Monk is “a fair prelate”, the irony in each case being
obvious. The Friar’s greed is also ironically conveyed, as is his dabbling in
secular affairs, such as settling disputes on love-days.
The Lawyer seems busier than he actually is. The Franklin’s chief interest
in life is eating choice dishes and drinking superior wines. The wives of the
Guildsmen are ambitious of heading the ceremonial processions. The Shipman
is ironically called a good fellow, meaning a rascal. The Doctor loves gold
especially, “for gold in medicine is a cordial”. The Manciple is always a gainer,
whether he buys provisions for cash or on credit. The Reeve gives loans to his
lord, the lord’s own goods, and receives thanks in return, besides a coat and a
hood as his reward. The Summoner’s impiety and the Pardoner’s fraudulent
practices are also thoroughly greed, the immorality, and the hypocrisy of
various characters. Chaucer’s use of the weapon of irony is, indeed, masterly.
Not all the characters are treated ironically, however. The aristocracy
represented by the Knight is excluded from the scope of Chaucer’s satire. The
Knight is almost idealised ; he is a great warrior ; he is wise ; he values truth,
honour, and generosity. The Clerk of Oxford is another character represented in

21
a most favourable light. He is studious, scholarly, unworldly, and frugal in his
habits. Chaucer eulogizes him in the following words : “And gladly wolde he
learne and gladly teche.” Other characters who receive nothing but praise are
the Parson and Plowman. The Parson is poor in a worldly sense but rich in holy
thoughts and holy work. The Plowman loves his fellow human beings next only
to God. Thus Chaucer does not satirise those pilgrims who represent the
medieval ideal of the three basic orders of society—Knighthood, the Clergy (in
the person of the parson only), and the Plowmen. It has, however, to be
admitted that the characterisation of the good persons is not as interesting as
that of the bad ones. The good persons are more or less theories, not living or
animated human beings ; the bad ones are much more lively and much more
vividly presented.
Chaucer wrote about people as he saw them. We never feel that he is
describing puppets. Some of his characters were actually based on real people.
Harry Bailly, innkeeper of Southwark, Host to the pilgrims., actually existed
and seems to have been a person well-known in London. Some of the other
pilgrims too have been identified as having actually lived. Many of the figures
in the Prologue seem almost to leap out of the page. There are two reasons for
this. The first is that the descriptions follow no set order ; items appear to
tumble out just as they come into the narrator’s mind.
The second is Chaucer’s way of converting the portrait of a type into one
of an individual typical of a class by adding distinctive personal details—the
Wife of Bath’s deafness, for instance. Even brief portraits can include
significant detail : the Yeoman has his St. Christopher medallion and the Cook
has his ulcer, just as the Prioress, who is described at length, has her pet dogs.
The effectiveness of these sketches is thus greatly enhanced. The sketches are
not mere assemblages of general traits, composite photographs, types in the
Theophrastian sense, but contain many individual details. Says one critic : ‘ It
is by their successful blending of the individual with the typical that the
portraits of Chaucer’s Prologue attain so high a degree of effectiveness. The
Wife of Bath is typical of certain primary instincts of women, but she is given
local habitation beside Bath, and is still further individualised by her partial
deafness and the peculiar setting of her teeth. A wholly different type of
womanhood, the conventional as opposed to the natural, is furnished by the
Prioress. The description of the gentle lady abounds in minute personal,
individual characteristics, physical and moral; yet all these individualising traits
are at the same time suggestive of that type which finds its fullest realisation in
the head of a young ladies’ school. What is true of these two is also true of all
the other personages of the Prologue. The details enumerated nearly always
suggest at once the individual and the type.

22
 Furthermore, the sketches develop in a casual but not discursive manner.
They are models of compression in expression and selection of significant
details. Often the expression has an epigrammatic pointedness which is
comparable to that of Alexander Pope.
Finally, the success of these sketches is considerably due to the variety in
method and attitude in the different characterisations. A sketch may be entirely
general ; for instance, the accounts of the Yeoman, the Physician, and the
Burgesses are quite in the Theophrastian manner. It may join realistic details to
typical statements ; for instance, the Man of Law, the Franklin, the Merchant,
the Cook, and the Shipman. Or it may join specific details to idealism ; for
instance, the sketch of the Knight expresses the finest concepts of chivalry but
joins to them the list of campaigns and the detail that lie was not “gay”. It may
be purely ideal, the aim being to express in the highest degree the qualities
desirable in a certain rank of life ; for instance the Clerk, the Plowman, the
Parson. It may represent an entirely individual character, who at most is typical
of a general class of human beings ; for instance, the Wife of Bath. It may join
satire to typical statements and possibly individual traits ; for instance, the
kindly satire of the Squire and the Prioress, the slightly more serious satire of
the Monk, the sharper satire of the rogues, especially the Summnoner, the
Pardoner, and the Friar.
Any sketch may be lightened by humour ; for instance, the Squire, the
Prioress, the Manciple, and the Man of Law ; or it may be made more serious
by a suggestion of moral disapproval as in the cases of the Friar, the
Summoner, and the Pardoner. Indeed, the fact of variety in elements and
method is hardly to be challenged. In this connection, it is worth while quoting
the following opinion : “The portraits of the pilgrims are not all drawn in the
same way. It is true that Chaucer endeavoured to picture individuals with an
outstanding peculiarity—a physical trait like the Miller’s wart, a humour like
the Franklin’s love of rich dishes, or a passion like the Knight’s love of
prowess and truth ; but the portraits differ in kind, as well as degree. Some of
the portraits are idealised. Other portraits are so realistic that they must have
been drawn from life.”
Chaucer’s success in the characterisations is due to many factors—the
range of classes which his pilgrims represent, the compression resulting from a
high degree of selection of details and pithiness of utterance, the use of
individual details together with typical statements, and the varying ways in
which he combined the elements in the different descriptions. “Never before in
English literature had there been anything like this company of real,

23
unidealised, contemporary men and women ; and there was to be nothing
comparable again until Shakespeare began to write two hundred years later.”
“Chaucer’s group of pilgrims constitute a picture of the society of his
times.”.
or
If you were writing a social history of England in the fourteenth century,
what help would you get from the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales ?
or
“Chaucer gives us a microcosm of English society in the Prologue itself”.
or
“Chaucer showed the world as it did exist—the England of his days—a
world of reality, a world various and beautiful, but hitherto kept away from
literature.’
or
“A cross-section of English life in the fourteenth century”. Is this an
adequate summing up of the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales ?
The pilgrims in the Prologue may be classified into three groups which
throw a lot of light on the social structure of England in the fourteenth century.
The first group represents agricultural feudalism founded on land ownership
and service to the king and the country. The Knight, who is highest in the scale,
is a landowner and has served in the wars for his king and his country. And he
will be followed in this by his son, the Squire. The Knight’s Yeoman is a
servant whose only duty is to the Knight. The Franklin also holds land,
probably “in fee” from some nobleman, but more probably in his own right.
His service is the supervision of his farm, his obligation to the nobleman or the
king being doubtless in the form of the yearly harvest. The Miller does not
himself own land, but he enjoys the right to mill all the grain on an estate. The
Reeve functions as the manager of an estate. Both the Miller and the Reeve are
subordinates, but of a superior kind ; and they make a shrewd and profitable
use of their power. The lowest in the hierarchy is the Plowman, who simply
tills the land.
The second group represents the growth of a new, urban, society which
had come into existence in the fourteenth century mainly in London. Neither
the Doctor nor the Lawyer owns land, although they are both men of substance.
The Doctor, says ‘Chaucer, made money out of the plague, and, the Lawyer
made money out of many transactions and bargains. They represent the
beginning of a new class, today called professional men. The Manciple, the
Merchant, and even the Wife of Bath (who is a cloth-maker) also represent the

24
urbanisation process. They were not directly governed by anyone, and in time
they became the mercantile middle class. It is also significant that the
Haberdasher, the Carpenter, the Weaver, and the Dyer are presented
collectively as being members of one of the great parish guilds. It was through
these guild associations that the new urban artisans achieved the power that
they lacked through their not belonging to the land-hierarchy.
The third group represents the church which was in those days one of the
most powerful forces in society. Eight of Chaucer’s pilgrims belong to the
church, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the Roman
Catholic Church to the people in the fourteenth century. People might disregard
its teachings, as some of the pilgrims do. People might complain of the
malpractices and abuses that prevailed in church. But from birth till death,
people were intimately connected with the church’ in one way or another. It
was a visibly potent force throughout England, from the great cathedrals and
the religious houses down to the humble parish churches.
It is sometimes suggested that the medieval world had a happier, simpler,
and less troubled time than our own. In some ways this is true. Certainly
Chaucer’s pilgrims are free from many of our modern anxieties. Yet the
fourteenth century had its own) troubles. The plague or black death, to which
Chaucer occasionally alludes in the Prologue, entered England in mid-century
with dreadfull consequences. One of the effects of the .plague was to inflate
prices and make conditions of life ‘most difficult for those at the bottom of the
economic ladder. This in turn led to what is known as the Peasants’ Revolt
(1381) in which the enraged mobs of peasants slaughtered many city people.
Chaucer, as a justice of the peace and a member of parliament, could have been
bitter about this “attack on the social order. It is evidence of his large-
heartedness that, only a few years after the rebellion, he drew a portrait of the
Plowman representing him as a combination of many peasant virtues. The
Hundred Years’ War continued, with the French threatening to invade England.
This is one of the reasons for the war-like nature of the Shipman, whose
merchant ship was armed as a fighting vessel, and it also accounts for the
Merchant’s anxiety about trade if the ship route between Middleburg in the
Netherlands and Orwell in England were disturbed or blocked.
Chaucer found a diversity of creatures in the world about him, his own
world, the world of England. There lay the right raw material for all his special
gifts. In all English literature, there is not such another picture of a whole
society as in the Prologue and Chaucer contrived it in some thirty characters
and 860 lines.

25
 In the Prologue, Chaucer’s sense of actuality mingled with his sense of
hierarchy. He presented the characters in the jumble and Haphazardry of life,
with a mild apology for his neglect of rank, although all the ranks and
vocations, the trades and the professions are there. The historian can rebuild
out of the Prologue the twin ladders of Church and State as they then were,
with scarcely a rung missing. Not only are both the secular and ecclesiastical
side of life in the fourteenth century fully portrayed but both sexes are
represented. Women are adequately represented by the Prioress ‘ (an
ecclesiastical figure) and the Wife of Bath (a secular character). Furthermore,
Chaucer shows us what was good and what was evil in the ecclesiastical as
well as the secular world.
The Knight, the Squire, the Yeoman, and the Plowman are the good
characters of the secular world, while the Clerk of Oxford and the Parson
represent the commendable and creditable elements in the religious field.
The evils that prevailed in the church have fully been dwelt upon. The Monk
is, for instance, averse to study and to manual labour. Hunting is his favourite
pastime and fine living his aim. His worldliness and irreligious activities have
been exposed without mercy. The Friar sells absolution and is fond of keeping
mistresses. The Summoner is most corrupt. He teaches people not to feel
afraid of excommunication because they can get release from the arch-deacon’s
curse by paying money. He is a most impious man. The Pardoner is a perfect
fraud who makes bogus relics. Even the Prioress, who is free from any serious
evils has her vanities and affectations which are completely out of tune with the
kind of life she has embraced. Among the secular characters, the Merchant
makes money by illegal transactions in foreign exchange and by usury; the
Lawyer has acquired wealth by all sorts of unfair means, and her pretends to be
busier than he actually is; the Franklin is interested only in exquisite foods and
drinks; the Guildsmen and their wives are shallow-minded persons with their
eyes on worldly advancement; the Doctor of Medicine has made money during
the plague and especially loves gold (like many doctors of today, he is in
league with chemists); the Miller is a cheat and a loose talker; the Manciple can
outwit the fifty law students whom he serves; the Reeve is a double-dealer who
has accumulated wealth by throwing dust into the eyes of his employer.
Of contemporary crafts, trades, and professions, being so variously
represented, we gain much valuable detail. Chaucer’s choice of pilgrims takes
us into medieval towns as well as country places. Only the royal court and the
higher nobility are not represented as they would not have joined a common
pilgrimage. The glimpses we have of the Tabard Inn reveal what would even
today be quite a large hotel, capable of accommodating a large number of
visitors, providing for them ample food and drink, and finding stabling for their

26
horses. The master of such a place was indeed fit to have been “a marshal in a
dining-hall”. Sometimes the picturesque similes which Chaucer uses to
elaborate a point reveal glimpses of fourteenth century life. They also show
how much closer town and country were at that time. Moreover, details of
country much at home in the country as among the trades and professions of the
town. An incidental reference to the “table dormant” which always stood ready
in the Franklin’s house emphasizes that gentleman’s love of food and
hospitality by stressing that his table was permanently fixed in his hall.
As has been made amply clear, the characters are chosen from all ranks
of English society. They are delineated in the prologue by a combination of
typical traits and vivid, individual details recalling the method of portrait-
painters in the later Middle Ages. Chaucer first presents his pilgrims against
the background of rank and profession, with remarks about their position in
these. Then he proceeds to give the details making each figure unforgettably
distinct from all others of his class.
Thus Prologue tells us a lot about the food, the hobbies and the mode of
dress of the times. There is a reference to roast swan which was one of the
delicacies of the table. The Monk is especially fond of this item of food. The
Franklin keeps fatted partridges in baskets, and he rears fish in his ponds. He
also keeps sharp pungent sauces ready for service. The Cook is fond of
London ale. He can boil the chickens with the marrow-bones ; he can roast and
broil and fry, and make a stew, and bake a pie. He is an expert in preparing
“blankmanger”. The Summoner loves garlic and onions and drinks strong wine
red as blood.
Through the Prologue we become acquainted with the clothe worn by
persons of different ranks, positions, and professions. Shakespeare, a
couple of centuries later said : “Apparel oft pro-claimeth the man”.
Chaucer’s pilgrims wear the distinctive clothes of the class of society to which
they belong or the vocation which they pursue. The Knight wears his coat of
mail, having lately returned from a campaign. The Squire wears a short gown,
with long and wide sleeves. The Yeoman wears an armguard and carries a
sword and a buckler on one side and a dagger on the other, with a silver medal
of St. Christopher on his breast. The Prioress’s wimple is neatly pleated, and
she carries a rosary. The Monk’s sleeves are trimmed with the finest gray fur,
and he has a pin of wrought gold to fasten his hood. The Friar wears a half-cape
of double-worsted. The Merchant is dressed in motley and has a Flemish
beaver hat on his head. The Lawyer wears a motley coat belted with a girdle
of silk with small stripes. The Franklin has a daggar and a silk pouch of
hanging at his girdle. The five Guildsmen wear new clothes and carry knives

27
mounted, not with brass, but with silver. They also have their girdles and their
pouches.
A reference is made to the mantles of their wives. The Shipman has a
dagger hanging on a cord which he wears round his neck. The Physician is clad
in blood-red and blue-gray, lined with taffeta and fine silk. The Wife of Bath
has on her head kerchiefs weighing ten pounds ; her stockings are of scarlet
red ; and her shoes are all soft and new. The Miller wears a white coat and
blue-hood and he carries a sword and a buckler by his side. The Reeve has his
hair clipped short in front like that of a priest. He wears a long upper-coat of
Persian blue and bears at his side a rusty blade. He is girdled up like a friar.
The brief descriptions of the clothes of the pilgrims are quite illuminating and
provide sufficient information regarding the dressing habits of the people of
those times. Finally, it may be pointed out that Chaucer gives us a clear idea
of the commercialism and the mercenary mentality of the fourteenth century.
Barring a few of the characters (the Knight, the Squire, the Clerk of Oxenford,
the Parson, the Plowman, etc.) the pilgrims love money and gold. This love
of pelf is common to most of the pilgrims. Their lives are governed by their
desire to accumulate wealth. Strange to say, even the ecclesiastical characters
are not free from this materialistic greed, not even the Friar and the Monk
who were supposed to live a life of poverty.
A medieval pilgrimage brought people of all ranks together in a
combination of piety and holiday-making. The moving frame (or the
cinematograph) employed by Chaucer enables him to show us a cross-section,
almost complete, of English life in the fourteenth century. All classes have
representatives here except the highest and the lowest, and Chaucer takes
pleasure in delineating them all. The realistic quality of the Prologue is, indeed,
most striking. Chaucer here improves upon the literary tradition of his time. He
does not confine himself to the poetry of dreams and visions, or allegorical
poetry, or fanciful stuff. He becomes a painter of life as he sees it. And the life
he sees is doubtless full of variety and full of a beauty of its own. But the
Prologue is more than a cross-section of English life in the fourteenth century.
These characters belong, no doubt, to that period, but they are also of all
time. Their traits are universal. Their lineaments, as Blake said, are of
universal human life, beyond which Nature never steps. “They are all with us
today, though some of them have changed their names ; the knight now
commands a regiment, the squire is in the Guards, the shipman was a rum-
runner while prohibition lasted and is active now in the black-market, the friar
is a jolly sporting publican, the pardoner vends quack medicines or holds
seances, and the prioress is headmistress of a fashionable girls school.

28
 Some of them have reappeared in later literature : the poor parson was
reincarnated in the Vicar of Wakefield, the knight in Colonel Newcome, and
the monk in Archdeacon Grantly.” In addition to this universality of the
characters, there is something else in the Prologue that deserves attention. And
that is the treatment of the subject. The Prologue is rich in humour. Most of
the portraits are. satirical. Chaucer employs irony as his chief weapon in
exposing the absurdities and the vices of his characters. However, Chaucer is
neither cynical nor spiteful nor scurrilous in his satire. This stylistic device,
namely, the device of irony as the chief ingredient in characterisation, is a
notable contribution by Chaucer to English literature. Another feature of
Chaucer’s treatment of his subject is the dramatic and narrative potential that
we find in the Prologue. We have here the germ of many dramatic situations,
while the idea of story-telling suggested by the Host holds promise of
great narrative possibilities, a promise amply fulfilled by the Canterbury
Tales. The colloquial or conversational style of many of the lines in the
Prologue is noteworthy too.
“Chaucer has none of that strong ethical bias which is usually to be found
in the English mind. He is not horrified by the behaviour of his fellow beings,
and he has no desire to reform them.” Consider this opinion with reference to
the Prologue.
or
Do you gather from the Prologue that Chaucer was a social reformer ?
“Chaucer’s poetry mirrors, but does not, on the whole, criticise the
society in which he lived. He was interested more in knowing than in
improving men and women. He was concerned with the permanent features of
the human comedy, not the distortions wrought on human nature by the
shortcomings of social organisation.” This is the comment of a critic on
Chaucer’s work. Chaucer is generally regarded as a painter of life in his age,
but not as a social reformer. A good deal has been written about the social life
of the second half of the fourteenth century in England—its ecclesiastical
troubles, its dynastic and military feuds, the evil consequences of the Black
Death, the Peasents’ Revolt, the growing strength and influence of the trading
classes. But all these things make their appearance on the fringe of Chaucer’s
poetry : they are referred to in passing. There are numerous topical references
to events of the day, but they remain marginal. Chaucer is said to have known
Wycliffe. But he did not directly and explicitly attack the evils of the church, as
did the author of Piers Plowman.
Rightly does another critic say : “There is nothing of the dreamer about
Chaucer—nothing of the stern moralist and social reformer. Like Shakespeare,

29
he makes it his business, in The Canterbury Tales, to paint life as he sees it.
The wealth and variety of the Tales gives us as in a camera obscura, not merely
a faithful picture of different sides of medieval life in England, but a vitalised
epitome of all that is interesting in medieval literature.” To quote yet another
critic, “Chaucer was certainly aware of the religious corruptions of the time,
and his satirical portraits of unworthy churchmen show his sympathy with
some of Wycliffe’s ideas. But on the whole he did not touch the burning
questions of the period. There was nothing of the reformer in his nature.”
Although a student of the classics, he lived wholly in the present, studied
the men and women of his own time, and portrayed them as they were, adding
always a touch of humour or romance to make them more interesting. In The
Canterbury Tales, he finally broke with allegory, and painted in immortal
colours actual con-temporary life and human nature. When the principle of the
direct imitation of Nature was recognised, it was rapidly developed in other
European countries by Ariosto, by Cervantes, by Moliere, but to Chaucer must
be assigned the honour of having led the way. Chaucer takes men as he finds
them, obtaining that kind of amusement in the ironic yet sympathetic
observation of his fellows which yields itself only to the artist’s vision.
The Prologue clearly shows that Chaucer is interested only in portraying
characters as they are. He does not anywhere urge people to improve
themselves morally or in any other way. He does not show the righteous
indignation of a social reformer. Infact, a read ing of the Prologue makes us
feel that there was nothing in the fourteenth century to feel indignant about.
And yet Chaucer exposes the absurdities and evils of his times through his
portrayal of various characters. He unmasks both the secular and the
ecclesiastical evils of his times, but he does so without moralising. Taking
some of the ecclesiastic characters first, we find that Chaucer uses the
technique of irony to reveal their vices. The Prioress is charitable and pitiful,
but she shows her charity and pity in her treatment of her pet dogs and not of
fellow human beings. In other words, it is a misdirected kind of charity and
pity.
Similarly, her fashionable manners and her learning the French language
show that she is concerned more with worldly accomplishments than with
things of the spirit. Even the inscription on the brooch that she wears is
ambiguous in its connotation. Likewise, the Monk is ironically called “a fair
prelate”. This Monk loves hunting and does not observe the rules of monastic
discipline. He wears a pin of wrought gold with a love-knot”. But Chaucer
nowhere expresses his irritation with this man and does not emphasize, in
explicit terms, his disapproval. He adopts the same attitude towards the Friar.

30
The Friar grants absolution for money ; he carries knives and pins to give to
fair women ; he is averse to meeting the poor people ; he makes money by
settling disputes on love-days ; and so on. But Chaucer does not show any
reformist zeal in portraying him. Chaucer’s freedom from malice towards his
fellows is nowhere more plainly shown than in his description and
characterisation of the Summoner.
This pimpled, scraggy bearded, lecherous, drunken wretch, this foul-
breathing ignorant swindler, whose hideous aspect terrified children but who
yet had jurisdiction over all young people in the diocese, still does not tempt
the poet to moralise. In fewer than fifty lines, Chaucer exposes him body and
soul as mercilessly as Swift or Aldous Huxley might have done in a far larger
space of prose. Unlike these later satirists, however, Chaucer does not
consume himself in a frenzy of hatred and disgust. Nevertheless, his “Wife
bites as powerfully as theirs. The Pardoner turns out to be a fitting companion
for the Summoner and so they join in song. The song which the Pardoner
sings is a popular love-ditty. The Pardoner carries a bagful of pardons or
indulgences from which he makes money. He also makes money by selling
bogus relics. He has a pillow-case, a small piece of a sail, and pigs bones
which he will palm off on credulous people. Chaucer ironically calls him “a
noble ecclesiastic”. Thus the malpractices and the abuses of the church are
mercilessly exposed by Chaucer through his portrayal of these characters.
Chaucer does not mince matters. He unveils the reality beneath the surface.
And yet he does not offer any suggestions to remedy the undesirable state of
affairs in the church and does not spell out any measures for reform. He is
content with recording his observations, though his attitude of disapproval is
made perfectly clear.
In describing the secular characters, Chaucer uses the same weapon of
irony but does not anywhere indulge in denunciation, condemnation, or censure
which a social reformer would employ. In other words, here too we have a
detached, ironic portrayal of life. Chaucer acknowledges the Lawyer’s ability,
but exposes the fraudulent nature of his transactions in respect of land. He
emphasises the Lawyer’s cunning. If the Lawyer is rich, it is because of his
“sharp” legal practice. And, of course, he “seemed busier than he was”. The
Franklin is depicted as being interested only in food and drink: he is
“Epicurus’s own son”, and he is the “Saint Julian of his country” with “a table
dormant in his hall”. This is, obviously, good-humoured criticism, not angry
condemnation. The Physician has his apothecaries to send him drugs and
medicines, and they all make profits with one another’s connivance. The
Physician has made money during the pestilence and loves gold especially, “for
gold in medicine is a cordial”.

31
 The irony in the portrayal of the Physician is quite transparent. It is an
amusing portrayal, but it is prompted by no ill-will or spite. Nor does it give
any hint of any intention on Chaucer’s part to bring about a reform in the
medical profession. The Wife of Bath is a famous character in the Prologue.
Chaucer could have condemned her for her loose living in her youth. But he
simply says with reference to this fact in her life : “But there is no need to
discus that now”. He is not in the least harsh towards her for her amorousness
and for her expert knowledge of the “remedies of love”.
The Miller’s dishonesty in stealing his customer’s flour and charging
them three times his fee is clearly indicated. The Miller has “a thumb of gold”
But, in the description of the Miller, Chaucer’s attitude is one of extreme
leniency which would never be the case with a social reformer. The Manciple
can outwit all the fifty law students under whom he serves, but Chaucer merely
states this fact without any comment on it. The Reeve is another dishonest
character. He can maintain his accounts in such a way that no auditor can find
fault with him. But he has accumulated private wealth, and he has been
hoodwinking his lord by lending him the lord’s own goods and receiving not
only the lord’s thanks but also a coat and a hood as a reward. This is very
funny, indeed. But Chaucer enjoys the fun and wants us to enjoy it also. The
frauds of the Reeve do not infuriate Chaucer. In short, Chaucer’s treatment of
the characters in the Prologue is genial; he even makes some of them amiable
in spite of their affectations and vices.
Although any explicit motive of social reform was far from Chaucer’s
thoughts, the moral implications of his characterisations in the Prologue should
not be completely brushed aside. Every ironist or satirist is at bottom a
moralist also. The desire to reform people is implied in the act of exposing their
weaknesses, follies, and vices. From this point of view, the difference between
satire and pure humour must be clearly understood. Humour, when it is
pure,aims at laughter for the fun of it. Satire, too, produces laughter, but it aims
at reform, though this aim in the case of writers like Chaucer is not forcefully,
or aggressively, or brutally, asserted. Chaucer is not professedly a social
reformer but his irony and satire could not have left the wicked, the villainous,
and the evil people totally unmoved. His satire must have gone home and must
have caused some heart-searching.

32
 Write a, note on Chaucer’s humour.
or
Show how Chaucer’s humour is closely related to his tolerant view of
human shortcomings.
or
Explain and illustrate the remark that Chaucer’s whole point of view is
that of a, humorist.
or
Bring out the humorous elements in the Prologue.
or
The terms satire, irony, humour are frequently employed by critics when
writing of Chaucer’s poetry. Justify use of any or all of them with reference
to the Prologue.
or
Chaucer’s humour is ofa thoroughly delightful. Discuss description of
the Monk
A humorist is one who is quick to perceive the funny side of things, and
who has the capacity to laugh and to make others laugh at what is absurd or
ridiculous and what is incongruous. Chaucer is one of the greatest humorists in
English literature, and this humour appears abundantly in The Canterbury Tales
(including the Prologue), The use of the term humour by critics in relation to
Chaucer is therefore fully justified. The Prologue offers plentiful illustrations of
Chaucer’s sense of humour. His characterisation of almost all the characters
here (barring those of the Knight, the Yeoman, the Parson, and the Plowman)
is, indeed, humorous. It has, at the same time, to be pointed out that Chaucer’s
humour is mostly ironical and satirical. We do have examples of pure humour
also in the Prologue: for example, we laugh at the Squire’s love insomnia, the
leanness of the Clerk of Oxford and of his horse which is compared to a rake,
and Chaucers false modesty when he says that his “wit is short”. The motive
behind this kind of humour is laughter for its own sake. But irony and satire are
much more conspicuous in Chaucers treatment of characters. Satire has
generally corrective motive. Irony is one of the chief weapons of satire.
Chaucer, as an ironist and satirist, is not out to reform people but he
surely finds amusement in the absurdities, affectations and some of the minor
vices of the people he deals with. The chief point to note about his use of irony
and satire in order to amuse us and make us ,laugh is that his approach to
human nature is neither malicious nor cynical, with the result that his satire is
always mild and gentle and does not take the form of denunciation or abuse. He

33
does not, like Swift enraged or infuriated by the weaknesses and shortcomings
of human beings because his attitude towards them is not only tolerant but
indulgent. For this reason, his humour is thoroughly delightful, being free from
the taint of ill-will, cynicism, and pessimism. His comic faculty finds full play
when he surveys human beings. He is not fired by the zeal of a social reformer
or religious missionary. His whole “point of view in dealing with human life
and human beings is that of a humorist, that is, a person who feels amused,
rather than annoyed or upset, by the oddities, angularities, contradictions and
venial sins of human beings.
Chaucer’s use of irony to build up a satirical portrait and to make us
laugh is clearly seen in his presentation of the Prioress. The Prioress speaks
French fluently, according to the school of Stratford-at-Bow (though not
according to the Parisian mode). This is an ironical reference to the Prioress’s
aristocratic breeding. Her dress and her fashionable manners are also ironically
described. Her charitable nature too is depicted in such a way as to amuse us.
Her spirit of charity is seen chiefly in her feeding her pet dogs with expensive
foods, a clearly ironical fling. The ironic implication throughout the portrait of
the Prioress is that, in spite of her holy calling, she is more concerned with
worldly things than with the spirit. At the same time, Chaucer makes the
Prioress quite amiable by emphasising her essential femininity. The portrait of
the Prioress is thus a prominent example of Chaucer’s tolerant view of human
failings and the amusing, and also delightful, manner inwhich he reveals them
to us.
The Monk too is portrayed satirically. He is fond of hunting ; he keeps a
large number of fine, floras in his stable ; when he rides, the jingling of the
bells on the bridle of his horse is heard at a distance ; he finds the rules of
monastic discipline to be old and therefore out of date ; he does not wish to
drive himself mad by studying too much ; and so on. The worldliness of this
clearly exposed by ironic means and the whole portrait is rounded off with a
reference to his partiality for a roast fat swan, even as the Prioress’s portrait
was rounded off with an ironical reference to the inscription (“Love conquers
all”) on her brooch.. .Irony is employed in the portrait of the Friar, too.
Here are the most ironical line in this portrait : “Unto his ordre he was a
noble post” (He was noble pillar of his order) and “Ther has no man
nowher vertuous” (There was no man anywhere so virtuous). We really feel
amused to read such lines about a man whose whole approach to his profession
is mercenary. We have some of Chaucer’s most acid irony when he describes
the Friar as telling the sinners they have merely to give money to men like him
in order to obtain divine forgiveness. Ironical humour occurs in the portrait of

34
Merchant when Chaucer tells us that the Merchant was so dignified in his
dealings and his bargainings that no one could judge that the Merchant was in
debt. The Lawyer amuses us by pretending to be busier than he is. The
Lawyer’s fraudulent transactions are not made by Chaucer an object of any
vehement criticism; these are simply hinted at in order to amuse us by pointing
out the incongruity between his vast legal ability and his essential dishonesty
cunning. But Chaucer does not castigate the Lawyer. Chaucer’s spirit of
toleration and indulgence is clearly seen here.
The portrait of the Franklin is, again satirical but this time the satire is
the mildest possible because it is directed against,, what is a perfectly
excusable weakness. The Franklin is ironically described as Epicure’s own
son, and the” Saint Julian of country:
Wel lover he by the morwe a sop in wyn;
To liven in delit was evere his wone,
For he was Epicurus owene sone,………
Saint Julian he was in his contree.
Woe to the Franklin Cook, if his sauces were not pungent; sharp, and if
the dinner table was not ever ready for the guest The laughter here results
from the Franklin’s attaching excessive importance to food.
While other people eat to live, he lives to eat (and, incidentally, to make
his guests eat also).
Chaucer gives much praise to his Doctor of Medicine for his medical
knowledge, but there is an element of satire in this portrait also. The
understanding between this Doctor and the chemists is Ironically conveyed to
us in the following lines :
Ful redy hadde he his apothecaries
To sende him drogges and his letuaries,
For ech of hem made oother for to wynne ;
Hir frendshipe nas nat newe to bigynne.,
The author also tells us ironically that the Doctor had kept what he earned
during the plague, and that he especially loved gold “which is a cordial in
medicine”. The Miller’s dishonesty is ironically conveyed by the line : “And
yet he hadde a thombe of gold, pardee (And yet he had a thumb of gold, by
God). Apart from this one satirical fling, this portrait is an example of pure fun
: the Miller is large of muscle and also of bones ; at wrestling he always . wins
the prize ; he has on the tip of his nose a wart with a tuft of her on it ; his
nostrils are black and large ; his mouth is as big as a large furnace. This
physical description is quite amusing, but the most amusing line in this

35
description is the one which tells us that he could heave door off its hinges by
running at it with, his head. The most ironical and the most amusing lines in the
portrait of the Reeve are those in which we are informed that the Reeve knew
subtle ways of pleasing his employer : for instance, he gave or lent to his
employer the employer’s own goods, and received not only the employer’s
thanks, but also a coat and a hood as a. reward for this service. While this is a
gibe at the Reeve’s dishonesty, we are also amused by Chaucer’s reference to
the Reeve’s long and lean legs which are compared to sticks, “with no calf
visible”. There is much good-humoured fun in this portrait, without the least
touch of malice or even irritation on Chaucer’s part. In spite of the satirical
purpose, no reformist zeal is to be found here.
The two portraits of the Summoner and the Pardoner are masterpieces of
satire. In both these portraits, the irony is quite harsh. Chaucer’s spirit of
toleration here is, we feel, strained to the uttermost, because the faults of these
two men are not of a minor nature, both men being complete rogues. The very
face of the Summoner is revolting ; it was frightening to the children. The
Summoner’s love of garlic, onions, and strong drink are indicative of his coarse
tastes. He could even “pulle a fynch” (that is, seduce a girl if he got the
opportunity). He thinks little of the archdeacon’s curse because he tells the
sinners that money can settle all such problems. He wears a garland as large as
an ale-house sign, and a round loaf of bread as his buckler. But even here
Chaucer adds redeeming features. For instance, he tells us that the Summoner
was a “gentle” rascal and a “kind” one, and that a better companion could not
be found.
The satire in this portrait is pungent, but even here Chaucer is inclined to
forgive his victim. Chaucer lightens the satire by his reference to the
Summoner’s garland which was as large as an ale-house sign and the round
loaf of bread which served as the Summoner’s buckler. The practice of selling
religious relics, was a notorious abuse of the time, like the sale of indulgences
or pardons. This Pardoner is guilty of both these malpractices. Chaucer goes on
to make fun of him by saying that the Pardoner was “a noble ecclesiastic”, and
that “to win silver he sang merrily and, loud” in the church. Nor Chaucer spare
him as regards his physical features. The thought that he rode in the latest style
with hair loose without wearing a hood ; he had a voice as tiny as a goat’s ;
either had a beared nor was likely to have one, his face as smooth as if he had
been just shaved.
Thus we find that humour (including irony and satire) is the most
conspicuous ingredient in Chaucer’s characterisation of the pilgrims in the
Prologue. This humour lends a most distinctive quality to his character-

36
sketches. Indeed, in this respect also Chaucer may be regarded as a pioneer in
English literature and may even be looked upon as the founder of comic fiction.
John Donne :
i. The Canonization
ii. Go and Catch the Falling Star
METAPHYSICAL POETS
It is a term used to group together certain 17th-century poets, usually
DONNE, MARVELL, VAUGHAN and TRAHERNE, though other figures
like ABRAHAM COWLEY are sometimes included in the list. Although in no
sense a school or movement proper, they sshare common characteristics of wit,
inventiveness, and a love of elaborate stylistic manoeuvres.
Metaphysical concerns are the commonsubject of their poetry, which
investigates the world by rational discussion of its phenomena rather than by
intuition or mysticism. DRYDEN was the first to apply the term to 17th-
centurypoetry when, in 1693, he criticized Donne: ‘He affects
theMetaphysics........... in his amorous verses, where nature only should
reign;and perplexes the minds of the fair sex with nice speculations
ofphilosophy, when he should engage their hearts.’ He disapprovedof Donne’s
stylistic excesses, particularly his extravagant conceits(or witty comparisons)
and his tendency towards hyperbolicabstractions. JOHNSON consolidated the
argumentin THE LIVES OF THE POETS, where he noted (with reference to
Cowley)that ‘about the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race
ofwriters that may be termed the metaphysical poets’. He went on todescribe
the far-fetched nature of their comparisons as ‘a kind of discordiaconcors; a
combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occultresemblances in things
apparently unlike’. Examples of thepractice Johnson condemned would
include the extended comparison of love with astrology (by Donne) and of the
soul with a drop of dew (by Marvell).
Reacting against the deliberately smooth and sweet tones of much 16th-
century verse, the metaphysical poets adopted a style that is energetic, uneven,
and rigorous. (Johnson decried its roughness and violation of decorum, the
deliberate mixtureof different styles.) It has also been labelled the ‘poetry of
stronglines’. In his important essay, ‘The Metaphysical Poets’ (1921), which
helped bring the poetry of Donne and his contemporaries back into favour, T.
S. ELIOT argued that their work fuses sreason with passion; it shows a
unification of thought and feelingwhich later became separated into a
‘dissociation of sensibility’.

37
 Metaphysical poets, name given to a group of English lyric poets of the
17th cent. The term was first used by Samuel Johnson (1744). The hallmark of
their poetry is the metaphysical conceit (a figure of speech that employs
unusual and paradoxical images), a reliance on intellectual wit, learned
imagery, and subtle argument. Although this method was by no means new,
these men infused new life into English poetry by the freshness and originality
of their approach. The most important metaphysical poets are John Donne,
George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Traherne, Abraham Cowley, Richard
Crashaw, and Andrew Marvell. Their work has considerably influenced the
poetry of the 20th century.
METAPHYSICAL POETRY
METAPHYSICAL POETRY, in the full sense of the term, is a poetry
which, like that of the Divina Commedia, the De Natura Rerum, perhaps
Goethe’s Faust, has been inspired by a philosophical conception of the universe
and the rôle assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. These
poems were written because a definite interpretation of the riddle, the atoms of
Epicurus rushing through infinite empty space, the theology of the schoolmen
as elaborated in the catechetical disquisitions of St. Thomas, Spinoza’s vi sion
of life sub specie aeternitatis, beyond good and evil, laid hold on the mind and
the imagination of a great poet, unified and illumined his comprehension of
life, intensified and heightened his personal consciousness of joy and sorrow,
of hope and fear, by broadening their significance, revealing to him in the
history of his own soul a brief abstract of the drama of human destiny. ‘Poetry
is the first and last of all knowledge—it is as immortal as the heart of man.’ Its
themes are the simplest experiences of the surface of life, sorrow and joy, love
and battle, the peace of the country, the bustle and stir of towns, but equally the
boldest conceptions, the profoundest intuitions, the subtlest and most complex
classifications and ‘discourse of reason’, if into these too the poet can ‘carry
sensation’, make of them passionate experiences communicable in vivid and
moving imagery, in rich and varied harmonies.
It is no such great metaphysical poetry as that of Lucretius and Dante that
the present essay deals with, which this volume seeks to illustrate. Of the poets
from whom it comes, Donne is familiar with the definitions and distinctions of
Mediaeval Scholasticism; Cowley’s bright and alert, if not profound mind, is
attracted by the achievements of science and the systematic materialism of
Hobbes. Donne, moreover, is metaphysical not only in virtue of his
scholasticism, but by his deep reflective interest in the experiences of which his
poetry is the expression, the new psychological curiosity with which he writes
of love and religion. The divine poets who follow Donne have each the

38
inherited metaphysic, if one may so call it, of the Church to which he is
attached, Catholic or Anglican. But none of the poets has for his main theme a
metaphysic like that of Epicurus or St. Thomas passionately apprehended and
imaginatively expounded. Donne, the most thoughtful and imaginative of them
all, is more aware of disintegration than of comprehensive harmony, of the
clash between the older physics and metaphysics on the one hand and the new
science of Copernicus and Galileo and Vesalius and Bacon on the other:
The new philosophy calls all in doubt,
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost and the earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets and the firmament
They seek so many new; they see that this
Is crumbled out again to his atomies.
Have not all souls thought
For many ages that our body is wrought
Of air and fire and other elements?
And now they think of new ingredients;
And one soul thinks one, and another way
Another thinks, and ’tis an even lay.
John Donne (1572-1631) was the most outstanding of the English
Metaphysical Poets and a churchman famous for his spellbinding sermons.
Donne was born in London to a prominent Roman Catholic family but
converted to Anglicanism during the 1590s. At the age of 11 he entered the
University of Oxford, where he studied for three years. According to some
accounts, he spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge but took
no degree at either university. He began the study of law at Lincoln’s Inn,
London, in 1592, and he seemed destined for a legal or diplomatic career.
Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the
Great Seal, in 1598. His secret marriage in 1601 to Egerton’s niece, Anne
More, resulted in his dismissal from this position and in a brief imprisonment.
During the next few years Donne made a meager living as a lawyer.
Donne’s principal literary accomplishments during this period were
Divine Poems (1607) and the prose work Biathanatos (c. 1608, posthumously
published 1644), a half-serious extenuation of suicides, in which he argued that
suicide is not intrinsically sinful. Donne became a priest of the Anglican

39
Church in 1615 and was appointed royal chaplain later that year. In 1621 he
was named dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He attained eminence as a preacher,
delivering sermons that are regarded as the most brilliant and eloquent of his
time.
Donne’s poetry embraces a wide range of secular and religious subjects.
He wrote cynical verse about inconstancy, poems about true love, Neoplatonic
lyrics on the mystical union of lovers’ souls and bodies and brilliant satires and
hymns depicting his own spiritual struggles. The two “Anniversaries” - “An
Anatomy of the World” (1611) and “Of the Progress of the Soul” (1612)—are
elegies for 15-year-old Elizabeth Drury.
Whatever the subject, Donne’s poems reveal the same characteristics that
typified the work of the metaphysical poets: dazzling wordplay, often explicitly
sexual; paradox; subtle argumentation; surprising contrasts; intricate
psychological analysis; and striking imagery selected from nontraditional areas
such as law, physiology, scholastic philosophy, and mathematics.
Donne’s prose, almost equally metaphysical, ranks at least as high as his
poetry. The Sermons, some 160 in all, are especially memorable for their
imaginative explications of biblical passages and for their intense explorations
of the themes of divine love and of the decay and resurrection of the body.
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624) is a powerful series of
meditations, expostulations, and prayers in which Donne’s serious sickness at
the time becomes a microcosm wherein can be observed the stages of the
world’s spiritual disease.
Obsessed with the idea of death, Donne preached what was called his
own funeral sermon, “Death’s Duel” just a few weeks before he died in London
on March 31, 1631.
THE CANONIZATION by John Donne
FOR God’s sake hold your tongue, and let me love ;
Or chide my palsy, or my gout ;
My five gray hairs, or ruin’d fortune flout ;
With wealth your state, your mind with arts improve;
Take you a course, get you a place,
Observe his Honour, or his Grace ;
Or the king’s real, or his stamp’d face
Contemplate ; what you will, approve,
So you will let me love.
Alas ! alas ! who’s injured by my love?

40
What merchant’s ships have my sighs drown’d?
Who says my tears have overflow’d his ground?
When did my colds a forward spring remove?
When did the heats which my veins fill
Add one more to the plaguy bill?
Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still
Litigious men, which quarrels move,
Though she and I do love.
Call’s what you will, we are made such by love ;
Call her one, me another fly, We’re tapers too,
and at our own cost die,
And we in us find th’ eagle and the dove.
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us ; we two being one, are it ;
So, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same, and prove
Mysterious by this love.
We can die by it, if not live by love,
And if unfit for tomb or hearse
Our legend be, it will be fit for verse ;
And if no piece of chronicle we prove,
We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms ;
As well a well-wrought urn becomes
The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombs,
And by these hymns, all shall approve
Us canonized for love ;
And thus invoke us, “You, whom reverend love
Made one another’s hermitage ;
You, to whom love was peace, that now is rage ;
Who did the whole world’s soul contract, and drove
Into the glasses of your eyes ;
So made such mirrors, and such spies,
That they did all to you epitomize—
Countries, towns, courts beg from above

41
 A pattern of your love.”
Summary
The speaker asks his addressee to be quiet, and let him love. If the
addressee cannot hold his tongue, the speaker tells him to criticize him for other
shortcomings (other than his tendency to love): his palsy, his gout, his “five
grey hairs,” or his ruined fortune. He admonishes the addressee to look to his
own mind and his own wealth and to think of his position and copy the other
nobles (“Observe his Honour, or his Grace, / Or the King’s real, or his stamped
face / Contemplate.”) The speaker does not care what the addressee says or
does,aslong as helets. The new philosophy calls doubt.
The element of fire is quite put out;
The sun is lost and the earth, and no man’s wit
Can well direct him where to look for it.
And freely men confess that this world’s spent,
When in the planets Have not all souls thought him
The speaker asks rhetorically, “Who’s injured by my love?” He says that
his sighs have not drowned ships, his tears have not flooded land, his colds
have not chilled spring, and the heat of his veins has not added to the list of
those killed by the plague. Soldiers still find wars and lawyers still find litigious
men, regardless of the emotions of the speaker and his lover.
The speaker tells his addressee to “Call us what you will,” for it is love
that makes them so. He says that the addressee can “Call her one, me another
fly,” and that they are also like candles (“tapers”), which burn by feeding upon
their own selves (“and at our own cost die”). In each other, the lovers find the
eagle and the dove, and together (“we two being one”) they illuminate the
riddle of the phoenix, for they “die and rise the same,” just as the phoenix
does—though unlike the phoenix, it is love that slays and resurrects them.
He says that they can die by love if they are not able to live by it, and if
their legend is not fit “for tombs and hearse,” it will be fit for poetry, and
“We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms.” A well-wrought urn does as much
justice to a dead man’s ashes as does a gigantic tomb; and by the same token,
the poems about the speaker and his lover will cause them to be “canonized,”
admitted to the sainthood of love. All those who hear their story will invoke the
lovers, saying that countries, towns, and courts “beg from above / A pattern of
your love!”
The five stanzas of “The Canonization” are metered in iambic lines
ranging from trimeter to pentameter; in each of the nine-line stanzas, the first,
third, fourth, and seventh lines are in pentameter, the second, fifth, sixth, and

42
eighth in tetrameter, and the ninth in trimeter. (The stress pattern in each stanza
is 545544543.) The rhyme scheme in each stanza is ABBACCCDD.
This complicated poem, spoken ostensibly to someone who disapproves
of the speaker’s love affair, is written in the voice of a world-wise, sardonic
courtier who is nevertheless utterly caught up in his love. The poem
simultaneously parodies old notions of love and coins elaborate new ones,
eventually concluding that even if the love affair is impossible in the real
world, it can become legendary through poetry, and the speaker and his lover
will be like saints to later generations of lovers. (Hence the title: “The
Canonization” refers to the process by which people are inducted into the canon
of saints) In the first stanza, the speaker obliquely details his relationship to the
world of politics, wealth, and nobility; by assuming that these are the concerns
of his addressee, he indicates his own background amid such concerns, and he
also indicates the extent to which he has moved beyond that background. He
hopes that the listener will leave him alone and pursue a career in the court,
toadying to aristocrats, preoccupied with favor (the King’s real face) and
money (the King’s stamped face, as on a coin). In the second stanza, he
parodies contemporary Petrarchan notions of love and continues to mock his
addressee, making the point that his sighs have not drowned ships and his tears
have not caused floods. (Petrarchan love-poems were full of claims like “My
tears are rain, and my sighs storms.”) He also mocks the operations of the
everyday world, saying that his love will not keep soldiers from fighting wars
or lawyers from finding court cases—as though war and legal wrangling were
the sole concerns of world outside the confines of his love affair.
In the third stanza, the speaker begins spinning off metaphors that will
help explain the intensity and uniqueness of his love. First, he says that he and
his lover are like moths drawn to a candle (“her one, me another fly”), then that
they are like the candle itself. They embody the elements of the eagle (strong
and masculine) and the dove (peaceful and feminine) bound up in the image of
the phoenix, dying and rising by love. In the fourth stanza, the speaker explores
the possibility of canonization in verse, and in the final stanza, he explores his
and his lover’s roles as the saints of love, to whom generations of future lovers
will appeal for help. Throughout, the tone of the poem is balanced between a
kind of arch, sophisticated sensibility (“half-acre tombs”) and passionate
amorous abandon (“We die and rise the same, and prove / Mysterious by this
love”).
“The Canonization” is one of Donne’s most famous and most written-
about poems. Its criticism at the hands of Cleanth Brooks and others has made
it a central topic in the argument between formalist critics and historicist critics;

43
the former argue that the poem is what it seems to be, an anti-political love
poem, while the latter argue, based on events in Donne’s life at the time of the
poem’s composition, that it is actually a kind of coded, ironic rumination on the
“ruined fortune” and dashed political hopes of the first stanza. The choice of
which argument to follow is largely a matter of personal temperament. But
unless one seeks a purely biographical understanding of Donne, it is probably
best to understand the poem as the sort of droll, passionate speech-act it is, a
highly sophisticated defense of love against the corrupting values of politics
and privilege.
GO And Catch A Falling Star
GO and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devils foot;
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy’s stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.
If thou be’st born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights
Till Age snow white hairs on thee;
Thou, when thou return’st wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee,
And swear
No where
Lives a woman true and fair.
If thou find’st one let me know;
Such a pilgrimage were sweet.
Yet do not; I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet.
Though she were true when you met her,
And last, till you write your letter,
Yet she

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 Will be
False, ere I come, to two or three.
GO And Catch A Falling Star
Summary
In this poem he is telling us about the inconstancy of women. He uses
mythological characters and situations that suggest a constant woman is also
just a figment of the imagination. He is also saying that as you get older you
still can’t find a woman true and fair. He said that even if you did find one. Her
true colors will show evetualy.In this poem he is telling us about the
inconstancy of women. He uses mythological characters and situations that
suggest a constant woman is also just a figment of the imagination. He is also
saying that as you get older you still can’t find a woman true and fair. He said
that even if you did find one. Her true colors will show evetualy.
The first stanza refers to utter imposibilities, it is not possible to catch a
falling star, in the time, a falling star was a thing of great destruction (it is of
course referring to a comet). A mandrake root is a plant which can take human
form, however when it does is always male, meaning it is impossible to make
pregnant. Mermaids, as referred to in the fifth line are mythological greek
creatures who with their singing lured sailors to their deaths, by sitting on rocks
and enchanting the brain of a sailor to crash, whilst the mermaid slipped
enigmatically away. The utter frustration with this scenario is that mermaids
were actually genderless, which meant that their beauty was for nothing but to
kill, it was said that as soon as the singing of a siren was heard, you were
doomed to certain death (the only one to have escaped this fate was oddysseus).
Envies stinging was supposed to be imposible to avoid, envy is often
anthropomorphasised as a scorpion, and once a scorpion has you in it’s vice,
just as envy does, it is impossible to escape.
The next 11 lines are referring to the fact that the previous were all
impossibilities, however they are more likely to happen than to find a woman
fair and true the following lines, up to the end suggest that even if one were to
find a woman fair and true, she would stay that way for so little time that when
she were brought to him, she would no longer be.
Important questions
Bring out the major characteristics of metaphysica poetry with special
reference to Donne.
or
What is meant by “metaphysical” poetry ? Illustrate Donne’s use of
metaphysical imagery from the poems yoi have read.

45
 or
Explain the term “metaphysical” as applied to the love poetry of Donne.
or
Bring out the major characteristics of metaphysical poetry with special
reference to Donne.
or
How far is it justified to use Dr. Johnson’s label “meta physical” for
Donne’s poetry ? Illustrate your answer.
The term “metaphysical” can be interpreted as beyond (meta) physical
nature (physical). Dryden was the first to use the term in connection with
Donne by saying that he “affects the metaphysics.” Dr. Johnson later described
Donne and his followers as the metaphysical poets. However, we cannot call
Donne’s poetry metaphysical if the term is to imply the exposition of some
philosophical system of the universe, or speculation about the nature of things.
Furthermore, though Dr. Johnson used the term in a derogatory sense for
Donne, the qualities which he enumerated about Donne’s poetry are valid.
What is metaphysical poetry ? In brief, the term “metaphysical poetry”
implies the characteristics of complexity, intellectual-tone, abundance of subtle
wit, fusion of intellect and emotion, colloquial argumentative tone, conceits
(which are always witty and sometimes fantastic) scholarly allusions, dramatic
tone, and philosophic or reflective element Concentration is an”important
quality of metaphysical poetry in general and Donne’s poetry in particular. In
all his poems, the reader is held to one idea or line of argument. His poems are
brief and closely woven.
In The Ecstasie, for instance The principal argument is that through the
different acts of love the function of man as man is being worthily performed.
The poet develops the theme without digression.
An expanded epigram would be a fitting description of a metaphysical
poem. No word is wasted, and nothing described in detail. There is a sinewy
strength in the style. Verse forms are usually simple, but always suitable in
enforcing the sense of the poem.
Fondness for conceits is a major characteristic of meta physical poetry.
Of course, all comparisons discover likeness in things unlike; but in a conceit
we are made to concede the likeness even while being strongly conscious of the
unlikeliness Donne often employs fantastic comparisons. The most famous and
striking one is the comparison of a man who travels and his beloved who stays
at home to a pair of compasses, in a A Valediction : Forbidding Mourning} A
clever, though obviously frivolous conceit is employed in The Flea where the

46
insect is called the marriage-bed and the marriage-temple of the lovers because
it has bitten them and sucked their blood. In his religious poetry, too, Donne
uses far-fetched conceits.In the the Holy Sonnet If poisonous minerals, there is
an image of the poet’s tears mingling with Christ’s blood and taking the form
of a “learned conceit” of the sphere and its intelligence with its
“correspondence” between microcosm and macrocosm. While these conceits
evoked Dr. Johnson’s displeasure, they are fairly well enjoyed by modern
readers.
Wit striking and subtle marks metaphysical poetry Indeed, the conceits
especially display a formidable with So do the various allusions and images
relating to practically all areas of nature and art and learning Allusions to
medicine, cosmology, ancient myth, contemporary discoveries, history, law and
art abound in Donne’s poetry. The hard core of logic is undeniable in The Flea,
for intsance, though the poem is obviously light-hearted. Donne’s wit assumes
different moods and attitudes reflecting his perception of the complexity of life.
Wit makes itself evident in the paradoxes employed in the poem In The Legacy
the lover is his own “executor and legacy”. Such paradoxical statements are to
be found in several poems. In Death be not proud, he says: “Death thou shalt
die”. Batter my heart is also full of such paradoxical statements.
Combination of passion and thought is a peculiar characteristic of
metaphysical poetry, and is another form of wit. Thus there a “unification of
sensibility”’, to use T S. Eliot’s phrase, in metaphysical poetry.
There is in”Donne’s poems an intellectual analysis of emotion. Every
lyric arises out of some emotional situation, but the emotion is not merely
expressed; it is analysed A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning proves that
lovers need not mourn at parting The Canonization establishes that lovers are
saints of love The Good Morrow asserts that lovers are the best possible
hemispheres who make up a complete world.
Argumentation and reasoning balance the passion in Donne’s poems. No
one can deny the passion in The Sun Rising, but there is also plenty of
argumentation to prove that the sun has no power over the lovers, as love
knows no season. In The Canonization, there is passion expressed through
beautiful metaphors:
Call us what you will, we are made such by love;
Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die.
But at the same time, the tone of the poem is intellectual, and there is
plenty of complexity involved in the conceits and allusions, such as the

47
Phoenix riddle. Aire and Angels is highly refined in thought and subtlety, even
while being a passionate utterance. In A Valediclion : of weeping we have an
exquisite blend of intense concentrated passion and profound thought.
The use of colloquial speech marks metaphysical poetry, as far as Donne
is concerned. This is specially apparent in the abrupt, conversational opening of
many of his poems, for instance :
For God’s sake hold thy tongue, and let me love (The Canonisation) Busy
old fool, unruly sun (The Sun Rising)
Donne arrests our attention both by the content and the dramatic style
of his poetry.
Donne’s love poems are especially entitled to be called metaphysical in
the true sense. Poems such as The Good Morrow, The Anniversary, The
Canonization and The Ecstasy raise, even though they do not explicitly discuss,
the great metaphysical question of the relation of the spirit and the senses. They
raise it not as an abstract problem, but in the effort to make the experience of
the union of human powers in love, and the union of two human beings in love,
apprehensible. Often Donne speaks of the soul and of spiritual love. The
Ecstasy speaks of the souls of the lovers which come out of their bodies to
negotiate with one another.
Intellect and wit blending with emotion and feeling marks metaphysical
poetry, especially that of Donne Indeed, Donne represents very well the school
of poetry somewhat vaguely called “metaphysical”. He brought the whole of
his experience into his poetry He is erudite, “the monarch of wit”, colloquial,
rhetorical or familiar He chooses his language from the court or the camp, the
jargon of law, study, or the market place. These qualities are present in Donne’s
poetry —in the earliest of his love poems as well as in the later religious
poems. Grierson aptly sums up : “Donne is metaphysical not only by virtue of
his scholasticism but by his deep reflective interest in the experiences of which
his poetry is the expression, the new psychological curiosity with which he
writes of love and religion”
Examine “the peculiar blend of passion and thought, feeling and
ratiocination’’ in Donne’s poetry.
The metaphysical poets, of whom Donne is the best representative,
always looked for a connection between their emotion and mental concepts.
Experience to Donne was, as it were, grist to an intellectual mill. When in one
of his Holy Sonnets Donne writes, At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, Angels......

48
 He is not discussing whether the world is round orflat ; he is using the
speculation to express and define his emotion. The idea is used in connection
with death, judgement and eternity. In The Good Morrow, he writes: Where
can we find two better hemispheres
Without sharp north,
without declining west.
He draws upon several spheres of knowledge—geography, medieval
philosophy, sea discoveries, etc.—all to prove that the world of love is more
important than the geographical world. The intellectual images arise from an
emotional situation so intricately woven with thought, as expressed in the very
first line :
I wonder by my troth what thou,
and I Did, till we loved ?
One cannot deny the passion in the poem, but the passion is inextricably
fused with thought. The poem is a long argument to prove the greatness of the
experience of love. The conceits are used to illustrate his argument and to
persuade. The lovers can never die because of the intensity of their love. From
the beginning—that the lovers’ world is as good as the physical world—he
moves to the conclusion that the world of love is, in fact, better than the
physical world because it is immortal. Step by step, point by point, the poet
succeeds in establishing his point of view.The poem illustrates the tight fusion
of feeling and ratiocination (on reasoning).
The Sun Rising is another poem illustrating the peculiar blend of passion
and thought, feeling and ratiocination. The delight of satisfied love is the
feeling in the poem, but it is expressed in intellectual terms and not merely in
an emotional tone. How well the fusion of feeling and thought is expressed in
the finality of:
She is all States,
and all Princes,
I Nothing else is.
Passion is conveyed in images which are erudite, logical and of an
intellectual nature. In the poem, we again see Donne’s ratiocinative style,
reasoning step by step towards his conclusion which, in this case, is that love is
self-sufficient and unaffected by any outside force.
In The Canonization we again see the mingling of passioin and thought.
The supreme feeling of satisfaction in love is expressed in lines, such as :
Call us what you will, we are made such by love,

49
Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die......
We can die by it, if not live by love......
But there is an intellectual tone imparted in the poem through the
complex conceits, as well as the argumentation. Donne reasons out how lovers
are “canonized” or made into saints. In Donne’s poems, emotions are shaped
and expressed by logical reasoning, and both sound and imagery are
subservient to this end. The very rhythm is as intricate as the thought and is
dictated by the meaning ; thus it functions as a stimulant to the intellect In the
Holy Sonnet, This is my play’s last scene, the framework is logical, and sound
is used to appeal to the intellect.
The search for intellectual equivalents of emotion ensures detachment, or
a distancing effect. An experience, in order to be handled by the intellect, has to
be held at arm’s length. This is best seen in The Ecstasy. Donne transmutes the
personal experience of the lover into an affirmation about the nature of man.
But at the same time, the emotion is not ignored.
In poems such as The Anniversarie and A Valediction :” Forbidding
Mourning, he progresses from thought to thought with a measured and weighty
music. Here there is no intellectual jugglery, but a series of reasoned
comparisons. Donne looks for intellectual figures analogous to an emotion
which is itself both felt and thought—and the emotion is that of the security of
a love in which the relation between mind and body has been fully established.
The Apparition is a poem which also illustrates Donne’s argumentative quality.
Metaphysical poets, and especially Donne, are valued in the present
century for their power to catch in verse the ring of passion and to render the
accents of a “naked and thinking heart”. Donne’s poetry gives the impression
that the thought and argument are arising immediately out of passionate feeling.
It is part of the dramatic realism of his style. Donne could amalgamate
disparate experiences, and form new wholes out of diverse matter. Thus we do
not see any sharp demarcation between this secular poems and his religious
verse. Both reflect the unity of experience. Part of this unity of experience is his
“sensuous apprehension of thought,” what T S. Eliot called his “unification of
sensibility.” A thought to Donne was an experience. His poems arise out of an
emotional situation. Then the poet argues or reasons to make hia attitude
acceptable. And in this process, the conceits are used as instruments.
What is meant by a conceit ? Write a note on the use of conceits in
Donne’s poetry.
or

50
 “In the metaphysical poets, a conceit is not empty stroke-play, but a
serious means of persuasion or illustration.” Discuss with reference to the
poems of Donne.
or
“Donne’ imagery has always impressed by its range and variety and its
avoidance of the conventionally ornamental.” Discuss with reference to the
poems you have read.
A conceit is basically a simile, or a comparison between two dissimilar
things. In a conceit, the dissimilarity between the things compared is so great
that the reader is always fully conscious of it even while having to concede the
likeness implied by the poet. Thus Dr. Johnson pointed out that in metaphysical
poetry, the most heterogenous ideas are “yoked by violence together.”
Far-fetched images, departing from the conventional Elizabethan
type, mark Donne’s poems. Conceits may be brief— like a spark made by
striking two stones together as Helen Gardner remarks ; or they may be
elaborate and extended. In the latter case, the comparison is not confined to any
single point ; fresh points of likeness are drawn up and brought at the attention
of the reader.
The poet sets out to “prove” the likeness. An example is the comparison
of the lovers to the two legs of a compasses in A Valediction : Forbidding
Mourning. Another clever conceit is in The Flea where the flea becomes the
marriage bed and marriage temple. The comparison is not obvious but the poet
unfolds the likeness logically.
Metaphysical conceits are drawn from a wide range of subjects. Indeed,
Nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparison and allusions. The
images are not they do not reiterate the well-worn poetic devices of the lady’s
cheeks looking like roses or her teeth like pearls The conceits employed by
Donne are learned — they display the poet’s thorough knowledge of a wide
range of subjects, such as science, exploration, medieval philosophy,
mathematics, astronomy, and several others. The conceits thus give the poetry
an intellectual tone However, the intellectual conceits are not in disharmony
with the feeling in the poem; they actually add weight and illustrate that feeling
giving rise to the impression of what T.S. Eliot called “the unification of
sensibility.”
In a single poem, we may have images drawn from cartography,
geography, myth, and natural science. A Valediction: of Weeping employs
images from a variety of sources. The lover’s tears are like precious coins
because they bear the stamp of the beloved (an image drawn from mintage),),
the tears are “pregnant of thee” — a complex image conveying the impression

51
of the beloved’s reflection in the drop of tear along with the meaning and life
given to the tears by the beloved’s reflection in them. Next, the beloved’s tears
are compared to the moon which draws up seas to drown* the lover in her
sphere (the image is drawn from geography). The images, especially in the
context of love, are complex and surprising; but they are not devoid of giving
pleasure.
In The Canonization, the lover and the beloved are flies and tapers in
themselves. But the poem is remarkable for the use of the Phoenix riddle. The
lovers, says Donne, provide a clue to the riddle because they are one,
combining both sexes in one entity, reviving after being consumed in the fire of
their passion.
Reference to sea discoveries, new worlds and the hemispheres of the
earth occur in most of Donne’s poems, reflecting contemporary explorations. In
The Good-Morrow there are images of sea discoverers travelling to new
worlds, maps showing worlds on worlds, and the two hemispheres. In Hymn to
God, my God again we have images of cosrnographers, maps, straits, and the
Pacific sea; the language of exploration is used to describe a spiritual condition
Ptolemaic doctrine is also woven into much of Donne’s conceits, as in A
Valediction : Forbidding Mourning. In Good Friday, the soul is compared to a
sphere, and Donne treats the metaphor elaborately. Planetary motions are
brought into the poem to illustrate feeling.
War and military affairs also provide a source for Donne’s conceits, not
only in his love poems, but in his religious poems as well. In Batter my heart,
he compares himself to a usurped town. At the same time there is an image
drawn from the purification of matals by knocking, blowing and shining it.
Later on, imagery usually associated with love is drawn upon to illustrate his
prayer —he wants God to “ravish” him in order that he may be “chaste”. In The
Ecstasy there are several images which are startling for their unconventionality.
The lovers’ souls are compared to two equal armies confronting and
negotiating with each other. Again, love without an outlet in physical
expression is like a prince languishing in prison, says Donne.
Images cannot, however, be condemned for being far fetched. One can
condemn images only if they are grossly out of place or irrelevant in the
context in which they are used. In Donne’s poems, very seldom is an image
used without relevance. Where it seems startling at first sight, the poet sets out
to establish its validity by logical steps. As a result, one feels admiration and
intellectal pleasure and a sense of surprise at the originality and ingenuity of the
poet. Donne’s images stimulate one to think. They bring one to an awareness of
the new angles from which an experience can be viewed—in the Sun Rising,

52
Donne calls the sun a saucy pedantic wretch and tells it to go and scold late
school-boys, and court huntsmen and country ants, and to leave the lovers
alone. Hours, days and months are regarded as “rags” of time. The attitude and
images may not be conventional but their propriety in the context is undeniable.
In Go and Catch a Falling Star a string of unconventional imagery is used to
emphasise the view that there is no woman in the world both beautiful and true.
But again, one cannot condemn the imagery.
Donne’s conceits are functional and are used to illustrate and persuade.
They are, as Helen Gardner asserts, “instruments of definition in an argument
or instruments to persuade.” The image is not a piece of ‘decoration ; it serves
to illustrate Donne’s use of conceits is ingenious ; it is also, in most cases,
appropriate. It makes us concede justness while we are admiring its ingenuity,
as Helen Gardner says.
“The poet has something to say which the conceit explicates or something
to urge which the conceit helps to forward. “The purpose of an image in
Donne’s poetry is to define the emotional experience by an intellectual
parallel”
To HJ.C. Grierson, “Donne’s imagery brings together the opposites of
life, all in one breath” But however far-fetched the conceits are, we cannot
deplore them; we can merely admire their novelty, realism, justness and range.

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 UNIT - II
EDMUND SPENSER : EXTRACTS OF FAERIE QUEENE
(as in Peacock Vol-I)
EDMUND SPENSER: THE FAERIE QUEENE
lntroduction
“The Prince of poets in his Time” so proclaims Spenser’s tombstone in
Westminster Abbey while Charles lamb calls him, “The poets’ poet.” Without
exaggeration we can proclaim him to be ‘the Prince of poets of all Times’ “The
Prince of poets in his Time” so proclaims Spenser’s tombstone in Westminster
Abbey while Charles lamb calls him, “The poets’ poet.” Without exaggeration
we can proclaim him to be ‘the Prince of poets of all Times’. In spite of all
that could be urged against him, his work strikes us as an exquisite embodiment
of the ultimate in poetic art. Other poets of all subsequent generations have
been likened to Spenserian manner as an example and ideal. To repeat what a
great critic has said about Spenser, ‘no other has given so many young souls a
consciousness of their wings and a delight in the use of them’. Lamb’s phrase,
surprisingly enough, admits of at least three different inter pretations. In the
first place, Spenser is not the poet of common man, but only of those who have
in them the gift of poetry and have trained themselves in the appreciation of
great poetry. The second interpretation is that Spencer has been a fountain of
inspiration, an the real father of English poetry. The new tradition created by
him continued for centuries after his death. All the three different
interpretations are equally valid because Spenser as a poet never fell short of
these high estimates. In both matter and manner, he is head and shoulder above
the rest having left for them and the succeeding generations an example to
follow.
Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar and The Faerie Queene earned him the
covetable title ‘the English Virgil’. The most remarkable fact about Spenser
was that in no age was he out of vogue.
For three centuries’ James Reeves says, ‘Spenser was a copious source in
inspiration of other poets. Poets like Cowley, Dryden, Pope, Milton, Scott and
Wordsworth, Romantics, and the Pre-Raphaelites have acknowledged Spenser
as their model. Keats wrote his Eve of St. Agnes in Spenserian Stanzas’.
The Faeire Queene’, Spenser’s masterpiece, set him on par with the poets
of European Renaissance. He laboured at it for twenty years and he succeeded
in writing the English poem that could confidently be pitted against the most
famous epics of ancient and modern times. Of the twelve books he planned,
only six were published during his lifetime and the portions of seventh after his

55
death. However, it is one of the longest as well as one of the greatest English
poems.
The Plan of the Epic
The plan of the epic is quite simple. The Faerie Queene keeps her annual
feast for twelve days. On each of these days, a certain knight undertakes a
particular adventure at the command of the Queene. Each of these adventures
furnishes the subject of the book. Meanwhile, Prince Arthur, who is the central
character of the book, having dreamed of Faerie Queene, goes out in quest of
her. He meets the various Knights, who were engaged in their adventures, on
the way. The appearance of Arthur at a critical juncture in each of the stories
was specially devised as a link between one part and another part of the epic.
Plot Constructions
Externally considered, “The Faerie Queene’ is compounded of traditional
materials of chivalry. Giants, dragons, dwarfs, wizards, knights of super-human
prowess and courage and distressed damsels of marvellous bdauty provide its
chief characters. Enchantments, tournaments, love passages and endless
fightings are the staple of its plot.
Renaissance and Reformation Elements in ‘The Faerie Queene’
The Renaissance and Reformation during Elizabethan age was
characterized by certain features broadly represented in the works of Spenser.
Spenser is the child of the Renaissance and Reformation because in his works
we have the finest expression and exposition of the ideals and principles of the
Classical Renaissance and Reformation. His works are inspired by a high moral
and religious aim.
‘The Faerie Queene’: An Allegorical poem.
Actually, The Faerie Queene’ is not simply a romance. It is a didactic
romance because the poet throughout uses his stories as vehicles of the lesson
that he wished to convey. He carries out his purpose by turning romance into
allegory. His twelve knight-errand are types of the twelve cardinal virtues of
Aristotle’s philosophy, and the adventures of each knight are arranged to body
forth symbolically the experiences, conflicts, and temptations of each such
virtue in the turmoil’s of the world and its ultimate triumph.
Involved with this ethical allegory, another kind of allegory enters into
Spenser’s plan. It is directly concerned with the political and religious problem
of the age. As general allegory this represents the work of True Religion in
rescuing Humanity from the powers of great dragon, Satan. But Spenser
identifies True Religion with English Protestantism.

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Scheme and Purpose of The ‘Faerie Queene’
The scheme and purpose of The Faerie Queene’, as conceived by
Spenser, may be briefly stated. In his letter, addressed to Sir Walter Raleigh,
Spenser sets forth ‘the general meaning and intension’ of the poem. He
declared his aim is ‘to fashion a gentleman or noble person in the virtuous and
gentle discipline’. He wanted Arthur to represent himself, the perfection of all
virtues or ‘magnificence’ and the other knights were to be made the patrons of
particular virtues in the different books.
Book I is of Holiness, its hero, the Red cross knight, setting forth as the
champion of Truth and, overcoming temptations killing the dragon that has
imprisoned it. Book II shows Sir Guyon, Symbolizing Temperance, fighting
temptations, and triumphing, illustrating thus the psychological development of
human character striving after moral control. Book III presents the Legend of
Chastity, and has a heroine Britomart. It illustrates the high-flown and romantic
sentiments about purity in constrast to their practical conduct of life. Book IV
presents the Legend of Friendship. It celebrates the perfect friendship between
two men, Cambell and Telamond and between the ideal friendship between two
women, Brotmart and Amoret. Book V is devoted to Justice, and through the
main characters, Sir Artegall and Prince Arthur, Spenser expounds his theory of
Government. Book VI glorifies Courtesy,-itshero being Sir Calidore, who
shows it chiefly in his personal demeanours.
SUMMARY OF THE FAERIE QUEENE - BOOK - I Canto -1
The Red Cross Knight representing Holiness was riding on a spirited
horse. He had strong arms and a silver shield, bearing the marks of deep cuts
received in many past bloody battles. There was Red Cross on his breast. He
was a true warrior, true in his words and deeds. His face was serious and
solemn. A lovely lady Una, meaning Truth, followed him on a white ass. She
was dressed all in white. A Dwarf, who carried her necessities, followed her.
She came of royal lineage. But she was sad since a Dragon had expelled her
parents from their lands. So the knight was going with her at the order of the
greatest Gloriana, the Queene of Fairy Land in order to help Lady Una.
Suddenly, a shower came on and they took cover in a wood. It was a
thick forest with all sorts of majestic trees. When the storm had passed away,
they wanted to return. But they could not find their way and came upon a
hollow cave, a den of the foul monster ‘Error’, hated by both God and man.
Paying no heed to the warning of Una, the bold Red Cross Knight entered the
den and noticed the half-serpent and half-women monster and thousands of
young ones of it.

57
 The foul monster rushed out to attack the knight. On seeing the knight
well armed, she wanted to retreat, but the knight struck a strong blow. Furious
at the below, it jumped up and entangled the knight with its high huge tail and
held him in powerful grip. The lady watching all this from afar urged him ‘to
add faith unto (his) force’, and encouraged him to his true mettle. Straining all
his strength, he freed himself from the grip of the monster and instantly slew
the monster. The small serpents rushed to engorge themselves on their mother’s
blood until they burst. After this encounter, the knight and his companions had
no difficulty to continue their journey through the forest.
On their way, they met an old hermit, who later on turned out to be
Archimago, a false magician. He took them to his humble dwelling place to rest
for the night. The old man, Archimago, entertained them and spoke of often of
the Pope, saying many ‘Hail Marys’. When they were in sound sleep, he called
forth two spirits. One of them was sent to Morpheus, the God of sleep to obtain
a false dream, so that he could delude the sleepers. The other spirit was turned
into a beautiful lady, dressed exactly like the Lady Una. The dream was placed
upon the knight’s head to disturb his sleep until he woke to find the likeness of
Una beside him. She told him that it was for love of him, she had left her
parents’ land, which made him to pity on her. Nothing further took place and he
fell with a troubled sleep again.
Canto - II
Archimago transformed the spirit whom he had earlier sent to Morpheus
for the lewd dream, into the semblance of a young squire, and made him lie
with the false Una. He then woke the Red Cross Knight and brought him to a
place where he could spy up1 on their lovemaking. The Red Cross Knight,
shocked by the false vision of Una making love to a strange knight, departed
with the Dwarf at dawn.
Una woke up in the morning and was shocked to find her companion had
left her. She set off after them, but she could not find or catch them, for the
Knight was riding away from her as swiftly as possible in high disdain.
Archimago pleased to see Lady Una wandering alone in woods in search of the
knight. Deciding to harm further, the foul enchanter changed his appearance
and assumed the semblance of Red Cross Knight.
The grief-stricken and heart-broken Red Cross Knight, meanwhile, came
across a proud pagan Knight Sans Foy. A beautiful lady richly dressed
accompanied him. She incited him to challenge the Red Cross Knight.
A fierce encounter took place between the two and ultimately Sans Foy
was killed and the lady begged for mercy. The Red Cross Knight assured her

58
that the she had nothing to fear at his hands and asked her to tell him all about
herself.
Her story was that she was the only daughter of a great Emperor. He
betrothed her to a faithful Prince, but before they could be married, he fell into
the hands of his enemies and was killed. She said that her name was Fidessa
and the knight had just been killed was Sans Foy. Taking pity on her, the Red
Cross knight offered to The day being hot, they took shelter under two shady
trees. The knight wishing to deck her plucked a green branch to make garland
for the sweet lady. But in his great surprise, the tree began to speak in human
voice and blood seeped from the wound. It told him that once it was a man,
Fradulio, and the other tree was his beloved. They were transformed into trees
by the magic powers of cruel Duess Once he and his lady Fraelissa came upon
a knight and another lady, very Fraelissa. The other Knight claimed that his
lady was more beautiful. Fradulj refused to accept it and as a result, a fierce
battle erupted. In the battle, the other! knight was killed, and his lady followed
the victor. Actually the lady was none otherf than Duessa.
Later on, Duessa, by the use of magic persuaded Fradulio that his lady
was! vile. They left her, in the waste, where she was turned into a tree. Then
he lived happily with the other, till one day he chanced to look at her in the true
guise while bathing. Knowing well that Fradulio wanted to steal away, Duessa
transformed him: into a tree as well. They were to stay metamorphosed in this
way until they were bathed in a ‘living well’. But this would never happen.
However, the knight promised to search it for his sake and he rode away with
Duessa from that cursed place.
Canto - III
The story turned to Una. She was in search of her Red Cross Knight.
Feeling exhausted she laid down to rest in the shade and a lion came out of the
forest to attack her. But smitten by her beauty, he grew wild and tame and
further followed her like a devoted attendant. He watched her when she slept
and always protected her from all dangers.
During the course of their wandering, they met a girl. She was terrified at
the sight of the lion and Una and “ran. to her mother’s hovel. Una followed her
to the cottage and requested shelter for the night and hence told them that there
was nothing to fear. Abessa was the daughter’s name and that of mother was
Corceca. At last, reluctantly they gave Una and the lion shelter for that might.
When it was dark, there was furious knocking. It was Kirkrapine, who
specialized in thieving from churches. Now he brought his booty to the two
women, the younger of whom he used as his whore. But the lion tore him into
pieces, while his beloved and her mother were terror-stricken at the sight.

59
 Next morning Una and the lion started their wandering. Mad with rage
and fear, the two ladies followed them and cursed them. Since their curses were
of no avail, they decided to return. On their way back to their hovel, Archimago
met them and came to know about the whereabouts of Una from them. Soon he
came there in the guise of Red Cross Knight and she thinking he was her
knight, welcomed him with great affection.
Sans Loy, the brother of Sans Foy, came along and noticed the ‘Red
Cross’ on the Archimago’s shield. He at once attacked Archimago, mistaking
him to be the murderer of his brother. The enchanter was unhorsed and fell
wounded. But when Sans Loy removed his opponent’s helmet, he saw that it
was Archimago, the magician. He was very sorry that he attacked mistakenly
his friend.
The pagan knight then turned to the lady. Inflamed with lust, he tried to
molest her. The faithful lion tried to smash the pagan’s shield with his claws.
But the pagan overcame the lion and killed him. Una was at the mercy of Sans
Loy. She wept and prayed but to no avail. He put her on his horse and went his
way.
Canto - IV
After having travelled long, the Red Cross Knight and Duessa (calling
herself Fiddesa) reached a proudly decorated building, the Palace of Lucifera.
The doorkeeper, Malvenu, let them into the presence of Lucifera, who tried to
outshine sun. On, every side there stood a crowd of lords and ladies,
beautifying the whole place with their fair presence.
Lucifera was the daughter of Pluto and Prosperina, the queen of Hell. But
she called Jove her father. She paid little respect to the earthly things. She sat
on a rich throne that was as bright as the sunny day. Her dazzling beauty
seemed to eclipse the brightness of her throne. A fierce dragon laid at her feet.
She had no true kingdom of her own. She had wrongfully and tyrannically
seized the sovereign authority that she held.
The Red Cross Knight and Duessa went to her throne and paid homage to
her. She thanked them in her scornful manner and did not show any other
courtesy. Soon she called forth her coach of state for a ride in the fresh air.
Then she climbed into her chariot and began a ceremonial progress of the seven
deadly sins. Six different animals on which rode six different sins and she
herself being the seventh drew the chariot. The six sins were ‘sage counsellors’,
namely, Idleness, Gluttony, Lechery, Avarice, Wrath and Envy. As they
passed, the crowds of people cheered them. Duessa, who was familiar to them
there, got as close as possible to Lucifera in the train. But the knight paid no
respect to such company and kept himself away from them.

60
 In the meantime, Sans Joy arrived there. Seeing that the Red Cross
Knight carrying Sans Foy’s shield of trophy, Sans Foy rushed to attack him. As
a result, a fierce encounter erupted between them. Lucifera returning from her
ride at the moment, ordered them to stop fighting in her palace and asked them
to fight in order to decide their right to the shield in ‘equal lists’, the next
morning. Then, they indulged in feasting and merry-making till the time they
got tired.
When all were asleep, the cunning and treacherous Duessa stole. to-San’s
Joy’s room and told him how his brother was killed. She also informed him that
the Red Cross Knight kept her imprisoned and denied the freedom of
movement. She declared that she still loved his brother Sans Foy. She also told
that she would devote herself to him, if he would defeat the Red Cross Knight.
Further, she warned the pagan of the Red Cross Knight’s charmed shield and
armour. But, Sans Joy assured her that there was no cause at all for fear.
Canto - V
The next day the Red Cross Knight and Sans Joy took their places in the
field of tilt yard, the place set aside for jousting. They started fighting fiercely
in full view of the Queen, her courtiers, and throng of people. They fought
fiercely, one for the right and the other for the wrong. Meanwhile, the pagan
knight cast his eyes on his brother’s shield that hung on the tree. This infuriated
him and gave the Red Cross Knight a strong blow and the knight was dazed
and shaken. The on-lookers thought it the end of the battle, while Duessa
shouted to the pagan knight “yours is the shield, and so I am yours too.”
Roused by shame and indignation over the remarks of Duessa, Red Cross
Knight revived his faith and struck so fiercely at his enemy. In fact, the pagan
would have been killed, had not a dark cloud concealed him from his view. At
last, the trumpet blew that he was the victor and the disputed shield was given
to him. The treacherous Duessa again offered herself to the Red Cross Knight.
He was brought to home and his wounds were treated while Duessa wept like a
crocodile.
The whole day, Duessa wept secretly over the sad plight of her pagan
knight. As soon as it was night, she went to the abode of Night, the goddess of
darkness. She appealed to Night and questioned her as to why she allowed her
kinsmen to be defeated by the Red Cross Knight and requested her to save the
life of the pagan knight. Night replied that it was ‘destinee’, but she assured her
that the knight would pay in his blood for what he had spilled. Then together
they went to the place where San Joy lay in blood and covered with the
enchanted cloud. Then they took the pagan knight to the Hell.

61
 They happened to meet the terrible Cerberus, the three-headed dog who
let his blood tongue hang out. They also saw Ixion, being turned on wheel and
Tityus, whose liver was being devoured by a vulture. Since Night was well
known and enjoyed full powers in hell and heaven, they had no difficulty at all
in the hell. Eventually, they came to their object of guest, Aesculapius, a skilful
physician who restored the life of the mortal Hippolytus. Then, Night begged
him to restore the life of Sans Foy, for which the physician gave his consent.
Leaving him there, Duessa returned to Pride’s Palace. But she found the
Red Cross Knight left the palace, for the watchful Dwarf had told him that in
the dungeons of the castle, he had found A good many captives wailing day and
night. He had informed the knight about the sorry fate of those who stayed
there for any length of time. Hence, the Red Cross Knight made his escape by
the back door, and had to pick up his way through great heaps of corpses.
Canto - VI
The story again returned to Lady Una and she still remained at the mercy
of Sans Loy. He tried to win her over blandishments. Failing in such attempts,
he resorted to force. She cried out in distress. A band of Fauns and Satyrs,
dancing merrily far away in the wood, heard the piteous cries and so abandoned
their merry-dance and came to the spot where Una was in distress. When Sans
Loy saw them, he dared not stay there and left the place immediately leaving
the Lady Una behind.
At first Una was terrified of those wood creatures. After studying her
secret pain and the sorrow in her sad face, they laid aside their frowning face
and assumed a pleasing look to comfort her. They were amazed at her surpreme
beauty and they showed themselves most obedient and courteous to her,
kneeling down and kissing her feet, and worshipping her as queen. This
reassured Lady Una, and once again she walked upright. They, dancing with
joy, took her to their God, Sylvanus, who was charmed by her beauty and
grace. Despite the fact, they treated her as a goddess and she tried to restrain
them. Anyhow she stayed with them for a long time and tried to teach them
truth.
It so happened that a noble knight Sir Satyrane, son of a Satyre came
there. When he grew up, he went out to foreign lands in search of adventures
and fame.
It was his custom to return to his native forest every now and then to see
his old parents. On this visit, he was much amazed to see such a beautiful lady
teaching truth and wisdom to those savage people. He had never seen such a
charming lady, nor heard such words of wisdom. He at once became her
devoted follower.

62
 But Una could not take delight in her new acquaintance and revealed her
purpose of searching for her true love to Satyrane, who was pleased to help her.
One day, they slipped out of the wood secretly and reached the plain. The first
person they saw was none other Archimago in disguise. To their queries about
the Red Cross Knight, he replied that that the knight had been killed in a mortal
combat with a pagan. He informed the whereabouts of the pagan too.
Then, Sir Satyrane went off to find the pagan, and came upon him by a
fountain. But Sans Loy made it clear to Sir Satyrane that he was not the
murderer. However, a fierce battle erupted between them, meanwhile Una also
reached that place. She understood that the pagan was none other than Sans
Loy, who once tried to rape her. The sight of her inflamed the pagan and he
made after her again. This increased the force of Satyrane’s attack. Meanwhile,
Una, frightened by Sans Loy’s approach, flew away from there. The cruel
magician, Archimago, followed her so that he might cause her further harm.
Canto - VII
After knowing the fact that the Red Cross Knight had left the Palace of
Lucifera, Duessa was in search of him. At last she found him by a fountain side
and was enjoying the cool shade. The witch complained to him of his
carelessness and unkindness and chid him for his leaving her in an unfit place.
Unaware of her treacherous designs, the knight fell prey to her sweet words
again. Later on, the knight drank water from the fountain unaware of the curse
upon those rippling of waters. Having been cursed by Diana, those waters
became dull and slow and all those who tasted them grew faint and weak.
Hence, no sooner had he tasted the water, than his manly strength began to fail
and became weak.
Instantly, a monstrous giant, Orgoglio, came there. Orgoglio, meaning
pride, was the son of the earth and the wind. Having taken off his armour, the
knight was not ready to fight and unable to defend himself. But the giant
attacked the knight with a great club and was about to kill him. But Duessa
requested the giant to spare the life of the knight and to make him his’eternal
slave. Accordingly, the knight was taken to his castle of the giant and was
thrown into a deep dungeon without any pity. Now the giant had a new
companion and he decked her with royal ornaments and presented her with a
monstrous beast to make her dreaded by men.
Left alone, the sad Dwarf picked up the forsaken armour of his master.
Before he had travelled far, he came across the fast flying Una who was trying
to evade Sans Foy. When she saw the Dwarf with the armour of her knight, she
fainted. The Dwarf revived her consciousness and told her of the knight’s

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misadventures. She felt the most intense pang of love and then, she set out to
find out whether her knight was dead or alive.’
Then it so happened that her good fortune brought to her a fair good
Knight, marching along with his Squire. He was armed properly. His armour
shone in the distance like the sun. From tip to toe, there was no part of his body
that could have exposed to the reach of the fatal weapon. He was none other
than, Prince Arthur, chancing to come along at the most critical moment.
When this knight came near the lady, he greeted her with courteous
phrases. But, when she answered unwillingly, he could guess that some grief
ate her heart. The convincing arguments and well-directed words of the Knight
so deeply influenced her heart and she then disclosed the secret cause for her
sorrow. She told him that she was the daughter of a king and queen. A great
Dragon destroyed their kingdom, and her parents were imprisoned in brazen
castle. Many knights tried to free them, but all had failed. She then told him of
the Red Cross Knight, how she found him at Faerie court, how she lost him
through the guile of Archimago, and how he then became prisoner in
Orgoglio’s dungeon. Arthur, after hearing such a pathetic story, promised her to
help her in order to free the captive knjght Then they went in search of the
knight, guided by the Dwarf.
Canto - VIII
Arthur, led by the Dwarf, went to the Orgoglio’s castle. The door of the
castle was shut fast without any living being to guard them or to answer the
calling visitors. Then the. Squire blew a -small bugle to summon the giant to
battle. The giant, Orgoglio, who was enjoying the sweet company of Duessa in
the inner chamber of the castle, was horrified to hear that sound and came out
hastily. The proud Duessa followed him on her horrible beast.
The giant, grown angry, wanted to kill the knight in the very first blow
with the help of his staff. But the wise Knight succeeded in avoiding the blow
and thus the huge club fell on the ground. The giant failed to lift up this staff
quickly for it was buried deep in the ground. And when he was trying t6 get it
out, Prince Arthur took advantage of the situation and cut the left arm of the
giant. When Duessa saw the danger that there was, she directed the beast to the
help of the giant. But Arthur’s Squire encountered him with his sword and
made him to retreat quickly and stood between the beast and his master like a
strong wall. Infuriated by the action of the Squire, she took her magic cup and
sprinkled its water on the tender portions of the Squire’s body. Consequently,
he got weakened and the beast fastened his claws on him. But Arthur came to
his Squire’s rescue, sliced off one of the beast’s seven heads, thereby felling the
field with the filthy gore that poured from the monster’s wound.

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 Seeing the giant ready to fight again with his staff again, Arthur
brandished his sword about his head and cut off the giant’s right leg at knee and
so the giant tumbled down. Then, Arthur beheaded him, at which he deflated
like an empty bladder. Seeing her lover fall, Duessa tried to escape from there,
but the Squire heldher back.
When Lady Una saw her enemy fall, she came running fast to greet the
Knight for his victory over the monster. She thanked Arthur and his Squire and
requested the Knight to help the Red Cross Knight who was crying for help.
Arthur went into Orgoglio’s castle, where he found an old man Ignaro,
who was Orgoglio’s father. But to all Arthur’s questions, he found no answers.
Arthur took the keys of all doors from Ignaro, and made his way through a
splendid chamber. The floor of the chamber was covered with the blood of
innocents, martyrs for the true faith. At last he came to the Red Cross Knight’s
cell and heard him crying out of the depths of despair, that he was in painful
darkness as a captive. There was filthy smell and no floor, but a deep hollow
space which was as dark as hell. Arthur raised the knight up and brought him
out to the light, but he was withered and exhausted. His restoration made Lady
Una happy, but the decay of his fresh youthful bloom saddened her.
Then the Red Cross knight was given the choice as what to do about
Duessa, but Una was against killing her. As desired by Una, the two knights
stripped off her borrowed roles and so her falsehood stood revealed in all its
horror and filth. She was a detestable, wrinkled, deformed old women who had
fox’s tail at the hip point. Then they set her free to go to the place she pleased
to go.
Canto - IX
When the knights recovered from their impaired powers well with
sufficient rest, they decided to undertake adventures abroad. Before their
separation -Una wanted to know the whatabouts of Arthur so that his noble
deed might not die untold. But Arthur could not tell his lineage, because it was
still hidden from him. When he was a child, he was taken from his parents, who
were royal, by Merlin the great magician and given to Timon to be fostered.
Timon trained him up in the discipline of virtue. However, he had come to the
Fairie Land driven by a mighty love that grown furious in his breast, which he
attributed to God’s will. One day, utterly tired with his wanderings, he laid
himself down on the ground to sleep. A ‘royal mayd’ came to him in a dream,
who on parting from, told him that she was the Fairie Queene. From that time
onwards, he fell in love with that divine face. Further, he had taken a vow not
to rest till she got her.

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 Before they parted, Arthur and Red Cross Knight exchanged gifts. Arthur
presented the Red Cross knight a diamond box containing a pure liquid of
wonderful power that could heal any wound in no to time. The Red Cross
Knight gave Arthur the New Testament that would save the souls of men.
After this exchange, the two knights parted from each other; Arthur going
in quest of his Fairie Queene and the Red Cross knight to fight with the foe of
Una’s parents. But Lady Una did not want to pursue her journey for a while as
she thought that’the knight was very weak from his incarceration in Orgoglio’s
castle.
As they travelled, they saw an armed knight, Sir Trevisan, who was
fleeing in terror from Despair. Stopping the flying knight, the Red Cross Knight
asked him the cause of his perplexity. Then he narrated the influence of a man
of Hell, namely Despair, on his friend, Terwin, who was disappointed in love
for a cruel lady, in committing suicide. He told the impact of Despair’s words
on him as well.
Then the Red Cross knight asked him to take him to Despair, so that he
could test himself against Despair. Soon they reached the hollow and low cave
that looked like a grave of that wicked person. They found Despair himself
musing sadly, sitting on the ground, his hair unkempt, his dress disordered and
uncared for, looking like a traditional figure of melancholy. At his feet lay
Trevisan’s friend, Terwin, dead in his own luke-warm blood.
The Red Cross knight accused Despair of being guilty of the death of
Terwin. Despair, then, spoke of the weariness of life, its error and
pointlessness, how all things was determined by luck. The speech of Despair
moved the knight very much and wounded his secret heart. When the villain
found the knight perplexed and grown weak, he showed the knight a vividly
painted picture of the ghosts in Hell. The sight of the damned ghosts grieved
the knight so much that he saw nothing else before his eyes, but death and ever-
burning wrath of God. Thus moved, the knight gave Despair victory that began
to exult over. He then brought various instruments of death and at last a knife.
But Una snatched it from the knight and aroused his faith by reminding of
God’s justice and mercy. The words of Una did not fail to move the heart of the
knight who rode his horse and left the place. Seeing the knight left him
unharmed, Despair hanged himself in vain.
Canto - X
Una realized that her knight was feeble, faint-hearted and exhausted, and
therefore liable to succumb to temptation. So she resolved to bring him to the
House of Holiness where he might get strengthened for the coming ordeal, in
which he would have to face the Dragon.

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 Dame Caelia, meaning ‘heavenly’, was the matron of the house, and she
lived there with her three daughters: Fidelia (faith), Sperenza (hope), and
Charissa (charity). The door through which they gained entrance was tended by
Humility, an old man. The knight and Una met Caelia and her daughters Fidelia
and Speranza firstly. Charissa had just given birth to a child and so could not be
seen.
First Fidelia instructed the Red Cross Knight the Book of life and showed
him how to read its mysteries, revealing to him also the miracles of which faith
was capable. Glimpsing perfection, he was inclined again to succumb to
despair, but Sperenza gave him her anchor of hope to which he might cling. His
plight was still desperate, and, Dame Caelia, fully familiar with the torments of
aggrieved conscience, sent for patience. But the inward corruption remained.
So ‘Penance’ disciplined him, ‘Remorse’ ripped his heart and ‘Repentance’
washed all the blots of sin away. Then he was brought to Charissa. Now, she
recovered from her delivery and taught the knight the commandment of love
and good works. Mercy, then, took the knight to the Hostel in which are seen
the corporal works associated with her. There were seven beads-men,
dedicating their whole life to serve the Almighty by doing deeds of goodness
each day. The old matron instructed the knight in every principle of virtue and
holy work of alms giving and chastity during his stay there.
Then the knight was brought to Contemplation, an old man in a house by
chapel on the top of the mountain. Contemplation brought him to the top of the
mountain and showed him the holy city, the new Jeruselem of revelation. The
angel ascended and descended to and from heaven and went into the city where
all the saints were. It far surpassed Cleopolis (London), though,Contemplation
said that Cleopolis was fairest of all cities on earth.
Contemplation told him the lineage of the knight as well. In fact, the
knight was not the son of a Fairie Land, but born of an English blood. The
knight thought that he was from Fairie Land, but it was explained that he was a
changling, stolen by a fairie from England before his baptism. She, then
brought him to the Fairie Land, where she hid him in a deep furrow covered
with upturned earth, A ploughman found him and brought him up to live like a
child of a farmer. After growing young, the Knight’s growing power and
courage inspired him to seek fame by proving his strength and so he visited the
court of Fairie Queene.
Knowing who he was, he then dedicated himself to his task of accepting
God’s will. His forces were gathered together again. After resting a while, he
and Lady Una took leave of Caelia and her three daughters and proceeded on
his journey of adventure.

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Canto - XI
Una and the knight reached Una’s native land. She could see the tower,
made of brass, in which the Drogan imprisoned her parents. When the Dragon
saw the glittering arms of the knight the huge Dragon stood up joyously and
rushed at him. The appearance of the Dragon was horrible: the brazen plates
covering his entire body, the steel sharp stings in his tail, the triple row of iron
teeth, and the appalling stench of sulphur and smokefrom his gorge.
After some initial exchanges, the Dragon flew into the air and picked up
the knight and his horse. The knight forced the Dragon to release him by
wounding the beast under the wing. The monster cried unusually because of the
pain caused by the wound. Enraged, the Dragon blasted the knight with a mass
of burning substance, which boiled him in his armour. When he was thus
weakened, the Dragon felled him with a blow of his tail. Fortunately, he fell
into the well of life. Its water could restore .the dead to life, wash away the
misdeeds of sinful, and cure the sick, into newborn children. Thus, this was an
indication that he would raise again the next day.
The next day, to the astonishment of the Dragon, the knight rose from the
water as fresh in his youth like an eagle rising from the waters of sea. So rising,
he prepared for the next battle. To test his newly got strength, the knight drew
his bright sword and threw it about the head of the Dragon. As a result, the
Dragon had a deep wound in the skull. Getting angry, the Dragon stung the
knight at his tail, for the deadly sting of the tail appeared to pierce right through
his shield. But the knight struck a violent blow of sword and so the sting was
cut into five pieces. The severe pain and fiendish malice urged the Dragon to
hurl out such huge flames and that made the knight to retreat. While
withdrawing, his tired feet fettered and fell down in the mire. Beside him grew
the tree of life itself, from which flew a stream of balm that saved him from
death. And then, the second night came on and the knight slept, besmeared with
that healthful balm of life.
On the third night, the Jbrave knight rose up quite refreshed and healed of
his hurts ant! wide wounds and prepared himself for another battle. Horrified to
see the knight again, the enraged Dragon pounced upon the knight to devour
him with jaws wide open. Finding the jaws open, the knight threw his sword
through the mouth of the Dragon that it pierced deeply through his dark hollow
belly. Thus the Dragon fell and breathed out of his life. Seeing the happy end of
the duel, Lady Una praised the grace of God and thanked her faithful knight
who had achieved so great a victory with his strength.

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Canto - XII
A watchman on the wall of brazen castle saw that the Dragon had been
defeated and he informed the king, Adam. The king was overjoyed. All his
people flocked out to greet the visitor and to acclaim him. The common
people, in one mass, followed them to see the victorious man. Most of them
frightened to see even the dead body of the monster. One mother snatched
back her child, who had started to play with the talons of the dragon.
The king thanked the knight and presented splendid things of ivory and
gold. He also overjoyed to see his daughter there. The knight and una were
brought to the palace quite honourably for a well-ordered and ceremonious
feast. Then the old king requested the knight to tell about his strange pursuits
and adventures. The stories of the knight created mixed sense of pity-and joy in
the king and the queen. When the king asked the knight to stay with them, the
knight revealed that he must return to his Fairie Land in order to serve the
Fairie Queene for six years in her fight against a proud pagan king, the source
of her troubles.
Adam, then promised his daughter to the knight since he had declared
earlier in the world that one who killed the Dragon would marry Una and
become the hair-apparent of his kingdom. Lady Una came in, clad in a cloth of
silver and silk. When the king was about to make the vows of betrothal, a
messenger came running fast, looking horrified and full of important news. He
was none other than Archimago bearing letters from Duessa, claiming that she
and the knight were proposed to each other.
After reading that strange message, Adam asked the knight to disclose his
secret affair with Duessa. The Red Cross knight gave detailed account of the
false Duessa. and the sufferings that he meted out due to her betrayal. Una also
spoke up for him and recognized Archimago under his disguise. He was
arrested and cast into the dungeon. The wrath of the king was appeased and he
proclaimed the marriage.
The Knight and Una declared their love for each other, and the betrothal
and promise of marriage were celebrated by sprinkling, the doorposts with
wine, feasting and perfuming the house. Music was played and the wonderful
nine fold harmony of the music of the spheres sounded throughout the palace.
The knight took great joy in his mistress, but he did not forget that he must
return to Fairie Land. The book concluded with an image of the ship coming
into harbour, the intended journey finished, for a time.
Discuss the moral allegery in Book I
The Faerie Queene is avowedly an allegorical poem, its object being to
“fashion a gentleman or a noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline”. This

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obtrusive allegorical plan has kept away many readers from it and has elicited
a great deal of adverse criticism. But all readers and critics realize that it cannot
be ignored, that a close and careful study of it is important for anyone seeking
to understand it. Modern critics had better bear in mind Milton’s remark that it
is a poem where “more is meant than meets the ear”. Coleridge has stressed the
need for understanding the allegory if the poem is to be appreciated, and
Dowden has stressed its significant place in the poem. It is interesting to note
that critics of our time have revived interest in the poem, finding it in no sense
more fantastic and difficult than modern spy stories or space fiction.
The ethical allegory is something advance through the characters as well
as the events in which the partake. Each character is the symbol of a particular
virtue or vice, and each incident depicts the temporary failure of good and its
ultimate triumph over evil. The poem was planned to depict thus twelve moral
virtues in twelve books, though only six were completed. Book I is devoted to
Holiness, by which is meant the love of God. It shows the Red Cross Knight,
who symbolizes that virtue, riding out to destroy the Dragon Sin, accompanied
by Una, who stands for Truth. The Red Cross Knight wears the armour of a
Christian as described by St. Paul, a girdle of truth, a breast-plate of
righteousness, a helmet of salvation and a sword of the spirit. He goes through
the usual travails of life for a while aban doning Truth and courting Falsehood,
almost a prey to Error and Despair.He finally overcomes all obstructions and
releases the parents of Truth from the Devil. We can almost see in him, Every
man in his journey through life, a Pilgrim’s Progress through a sinful world to
Salvation. He has also been said to stand for St. George, the Patron Saint of
England.
Una stands for Truth. She is symbolic of Unity, her name itself meaning
the “One”, the single-minded. She also stands for purity or chastity as her dress
reveals. It is significant that when we see her first, her face is veiled even from
her chosen knight, because Truth cannot be perceived in all her perfection by
the man who is still unpurified. The Lamb who accompanies her is the symbol
of Innocence. Another companion is the Dwarf whose allegorical significance
has been variously interpreted. Some call him the type or worldly prudence
controlled by divine truth. He is also called the flesh lagging behind the spirit.
The various figures encountered by the knight and Una also allegorically
stand for vices and virtues. The first one they meet is the monster Error. His
name declares what he stands for. His appearance can neither deceive Holiness
nor escape the eye of Truth. So his evil designs are easily overcome.
The next figure they encounter is Archimago. He stands for Hypocrisy
that lures unwary virtue from Truth through false appearances. Spenser in his

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description identifies him with the Pope. Archimago has magic powers by
which he assumes false appearances in order to divide the virtues and cause
disharmony.
The Red Cross Knight or Holiness deserts Una or Truth and inevitable
meets with Infidelity united to Falsehood, or Duessa in the company of
Sansfoy. Duessa is described as outwardly attractive, her nature being revealed
only when she is disrobed. The Red Cross Knight overcomes Sansfoy , that is,
Holiness defeats and kills Infidelity. But he yields to Falsehood, because
having abandoned Una, he needs some other object on which he can bestow his
love and devotion. His Faith is blinded by passion.
Una, roaming in search of her Knight, encounters a Lion. The Lion
stands for Reason, for the natural devotion of man, which stands steadfast in
the face of falsehood and treason. But Archimago or Hypocrisy makes his
appearance again. He puts on such an appearance of good that even Truth is
deceived and falls into his hands. Only the Lion, or Reason, remains with her.
Holiness, now allied to Falsehood, is taken to the castle of Lucifera. She
is the personification of Pride. Spenser speaks of her as being descended from
a devil. She is gaudily dressed and rides in a golden chariot driven by
peacocks. The whole description displays her as swelling with pride, her love
of finery, and making her represent Mary Tudor also.
Holiness’ next encounter is with Sansjoy or Joylessness, the brother of
Sansfoy. He seeks to avenge the death of his brother. Holiness encounter him
boldly showing that he has not shed all his virtue, Here he is helped by Reason
(the Dwarf), as Truth had been helped and guarded by the Lion (Reason).
Una’s meeting with the Fauns and Satyrs of Sylvanus constitutes a happy
interlude. They are barbarians, but kind and good. Una tries to educate them.
Here Spenser could be thinking of the way people in British colonies should be
treated. We also encounter the Knight, Sir Satyrane, who is the symbol of
natural heroism.
Una manages to escape from the clutches of Archimago and Lawlessness,
but the Red Cross Knight continues to be under the deceitful control of Duessa.
Holiness has sinned but only unknowningly. At this point he encounters the
Giant Orgoglio. Whose very name speaks of pride and has a Spanish touch.
Holiness finds him too strong for him and is felled. The intervention of
Falsehood saves his life.
At this point Magnificence appears in the shape of Prince Arthur. Una
pleads for his help. He kills the Giant Pride, release Holiness from
imprisonment, and exposes Duessa for what she really is. He then sends Una
and the Knight on their quest again.

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 Even now all is not over. The next important encounter is with Despair.
He is the propagandist of frustration, who finds death preferable to life. His
arguments are as plausible as those of the Sophists. Holiness almost succumbs
to them, but Una saves him, saying that he is one of the elected of God chosen
by Him for a mission. He is now taken to the House of Holiness where he
meets Faith, Hope and Charity. Spenser’s description of his physical and
spiritual cure is long and pleasing. The final battle with the Dragon, the
triumph of Holiness over the Devil, brings the allegory to an end.
One cannot say that the whole account makes pleasant reading. Often the
story drags. But the author achieves his purpose, considering the world for
which he wrote it.
Comment on the historical and political allegory in Book I
The Faerie Queene is primarily a moral allegory. But apart from the
continuous moral allegory, the poem has often a special and topical
significance coincident throughout with the main plot, but fitful and elusive,
appearing and disappearing as the characters and the situations suggest a
parallel to the actual world. The conditions of Elizabethan authorship favoure
such use.
So he went to the extent of even contemplating an end to the story when
Prince Arthur weds Gloriana, the popular name for Queen Elizabeth. Dryden
has said that for every virtue represented in the poem there was a Knight in
Queen Elizabeth’s court who provided an example. This may, not be
absolutely true, but there is a great deal of meaning in it. Sir Philip Sidney, for
example, ‘a spirit without spot’, could very well have provided an ideal.
The times in which Spenser lived made topical references in a long poem
almost inevitable. The ‘spacious’ times of Queen Elizabeth were like no other
in English history. England had under the great Queen become a great power.
She successfully defied the challenge of Roman Catholicism and countries like
France and Spain. Her seamen sailed round the world and founded colonies.
Literature, especially drama and poetry, showed a peerless progress. Poetry
and life were not easily distinguished. The country was ‘a nest of singing
birds’. No wonder, Spenser in his poem tried to reflect this glory and the
problems it wrought.
Queen Elizabeth had been imprisoned in the Tower while her sister Mary
Tudor, wife of Philip II of Spain, was on the throne. Mary had openly allied
herself with the Roman Catholics. Elizabeth put the clock back and restored
the Tudor glory and tyranny. Spenser, like all patriots, was a partisan.
Naturally then, as he developed his moral allegory, his mind turned
continuously to that vast stage of public life on which the players were men he

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knew and loved.At times the political allegory is almost a replica of the moral.
If Una is Truth who must be saved from Falsehood, Deceipt and Hypocrisy,
and united with Holiness, Spenser could not help identifying her with his own
Protestant faith and duessa with Roman Catholicism. Again according to him,
una must have been Queen Elizabeth, and Duessa Mary Queen of Scots. Miss
Winstanley in her edition of Book I also considers Duessa to represent Marry
Tudor. Both Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots, Were Catholics and
Elizabeth’s rivals, ht e one nearly putting her to death and the other plotting
against her life. In tracing the progress of the Red Cross Knight in his efforts to
achieve Holiness, he followed episode by episode, the history of the English
church in its fight with Rome.
Orgoglio is made the type of Spanish pride. Even the name looks
Spanish. Philip II had married Mary Tudor. Physical repulsiveness of the
exposed Duessa does not suit Marry Queen of Scots, who was a wayward but
attractive woman. Lucifera could stand for Mary Tudor who tried to hide her
ugliness behind a plenitude of jewellery. As Queen Elizabeth never made her
appearance in the poem, her beauty and chastity were emphasized through
characters like Una.
Spenser very well knew the true nature of Elizabeth and the sad moral
conditions of life in her court, but he wisely and carefully avoided any
reference to them, because it would cast a stain on his country’s glory. In the
poem and in Book I too, there is a deliberate attempt made to decry especially
the Irish Catholics. Even the monks and abbots are not spared. They are
represented as thieves regularly robbing the church. Kirkrapine is the chief of
them. But here Spenser is often unjust. He is inspired by the hatred of Irish
Catholicism that was rampant in his day, continued unabated through centuries
and is at the back of the terrible tension that grips Northern Ireland even today.
The Red Cross Knight – An account of his character
It was Spenser’s plan in The Faerie Queene to write a poem of twelve
books. Each book was to have as its hero, a knight, who would be the
personification of a particular virtue. In book I the virtue presented is Holiness
or the love of God. The Red Cross Knight is the embodiment of it. Holiness,
Spenser takes as the foundation on which all other virtues rest. So the Red
Cross Knight represents the Christian man who arms himself with the armour
of Christ in order to travel through life like a hero and achieve sanctity. His
chief opponents are Falsehood and Hypocrisy, which led him from truth, pride
which is the root of all sin, and sin itself. He is also St. George, the religious
Patron of England.

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 Besides being the Patron Saint of England, he stands for the country’s
religious faith. He wears the armour of a Christian man as specified by St Paul,
the loins girt about with truth, having on a breastplate of righteousness, a shield
of faith able to quench the fiery darts of the wicked, the helmet of spirit and the
sword of salvation which is the word of God. Thus equipped and guided by
truth, he goes to fight against error and temptation, and above all, to combat the
spirit of falsehood concerning which England had learnt much from Spain in
the diplomatic lying which preceded the Armada.
The Red Cross Knight is supposed to set out on the adventure also
according to the direction given to him by Queen Gloriana; who stands for
Queen Elizabeth. Una accompanies him. In canto after canto the adventures
and encounters mentioned previously occur. The wood they enter is the abode
of Error and Hypocrisy. There they encounter Falsehood also. But Truth alone
is unaffected by them and escapes their clutches to save Holiness. In other
adventures too, like the one with the Giant and that with despair, Una is the
instrument of the Knight’s escape or triumph. This makes him the type of man
himself, passing through the trials and temptations of life, to find salvation in
the end. The Red Cross Knight is not an example of abiding wisdom or
unassailable moral strength. The same is the case with every man. Hence his
final triumph over the Devil is a sign of hope for all.
Una as the most impressive character in the poem
In Book I of The Faerie Queen, Una is certainly the most impressive
character. She underscores the dignified place women held in society during
the Middle Ages. Besides being the embodiments of humility, they possessed,
too the courage that came through chastity and purity of heart. In Spenser’s
Una these qualities shine at their brightest.
Una is at the same time, a character and a symbol. She typifies Truth.
Her name means ‘the One’, and hence she stands for Unity as against
Duplicity. She wears the robe of chastity and the ass she rides and the lamb
that accompanies her are pure white in colour, symbolizing the purity of her
nature. Truth, Spenser wants to emphasise, is allpowerful, and we find Una,
unlike the Red Cross Knight, going through her adventures unscathed. Spenser
wants, to represent in her courage and chastity, Queen Elizabeth, though the
latter assertion is dubious.
Una stands for mankind, if we take her parents to be the original
descendants of Adam and Eve. Her parents are defeated by the Devil or Sin
and imprisoned in their castle. She escapes to seek the protection of a knight
reaching finally the court of Queen Gloriana. The Red Cross Knight is

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assigned the task and he kills the Dragon and restores their kingdom to her
parents.
Una displays remarkable love for the Red Cross Knight. It stands the test
of the separation brought about by duplicity in the form of Duessa. At all the
crucial moments in his life she comes to his rescue. Her relationship with him
symbolizes the faith that can overcome all doubts and difficulties.
Of the women characters who appear in The Faerie Queene, Una is
unique. We love and adore her at the same time. Her love is active,
indomitable, fearless and everlasting. Her innocence has a charm rarely seen.
Forsaken by her champion, seeking him with haste and anxiety, she displays
also the courage to face lawlessness and lust.
Her sufferings only add to the strength of her character. The trials that
test her leave her more resolute. Beneath her innocent exterior is a strong heart
that nothing can daunt.
The simplicity of Una’s nature is also noteworthy. For all her royal
lineage, he is humble and good. This is illustrated in the episode where she
moves with the retinue of Sylvanus. We could very well say that she is above
us and yet of us.
The allegorical and political significance of character of Duessa
The most significant character in The Faerie Queene, Book I, is beyond
doubt, Una. She stands for unity and Truth. As a foil to her we have Duessa,
who stands for Falsehood and Duplicity. Her gaudy simple, yet strong Una.
She practices deception all through warns finally shown for what she is.
Through her Spenser and is against being misled by outward attraction. Often
it hides inner evil.
Duessa’s character can be gauged from the people she loves and moves
with. Sansjoy and his brothers, the Giant Archimago, are all figures of evil.
They vie with her in duplicity and cruelty. Even Red Cross Knight is led by
her outward appearance and yields to her cunning. It is only Una’s determined
effort that helps him to escape from her clutches.
Duessa is not merely the allegorical embodiment of Evil. Spenser gives
her a political meaning too. Those were days when England had to encounter
the Opposition of Roman Catholicism and countries like Spain and France that
were devoted to that faith. The English Queen and her court had realised what
duplicity was in talks with the Ambassadors from Spain. Duessa is the result of
that realization. She also stands for Catholicism and the Pope.
Politically, the Character has another significance. She stands for Mary,
Queen of Scots. Mary was a type of immorality and the figure round whom the

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Catholics tried to build up their plots against Queen Elizabeth. She is said to
have been attractive but unfaithful. She had fled her country and had taken
refuge in England to become a constant problem to the Queen.
Spenser’s Duessa is well drawn, In her, evil is embodied in all its power
and viciousness. In short, She is what the world has come to call the “Scarlet.
Wyatt and Surrey : From Peacock’s English Verse
Vol-I THOMAS WYATT
Introduction
England in 15th century was poetically barren. With the dawn-of new
age, the Elizabethan Age, a gleam of hope was produced in the poetically
barren land. Henry VII was too busy in establishing his dynasty to do much for
letters. He was also eager to shine in the eyes of Europe. Thus under him the
English court became the center of culture. It became the period of experiment
and preparation. The well-known poets of this period were Wyatt, Surrey,
Thomas Sackville and George Gasecoigne. Among them, Sir Thomas Wyatt
and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, were the earliest pioneers who revived the
flagging interest in poetry by introducing the sonnet and the lyric in English
poetry. They all paved the way for the later advancement in the hands of
Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare and their contribution to English literature is
worthy of our consideration.
A Note on His Life
Sir Thomas Wyatt is a highly subjective poet. (Most of his poems are
autobiographical in nature) Hence it becomes necessary to have an idea of his
life and character. Thomas Wyatt came of a noble lineage. He was born in 1503
at his father’s castle at Arlington in Kent. His father Henry Wyatt was devoted
to the Tudors, and an ardent supporter and councillor to both Henry VII and
VIII. (Thomas Wyatt was educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge) and came
to the court at a very young age. He joined it in 1516 as a junior. He got his
M.A. degree in 1520.
The next step in his life was marriage. He was hardly seventeen, when he
married Elizabeth Brooke in 1520. A son, Thomas, was born in the following
years. This son later became celebrated rebel against Mary I in 1554, for which
he was beheaded. In 1524, Wyatt was made clerk of the King’s Jewels. It was
his debut at the court. In 1525, he became ‘an esquire of the body.’ Wyatt’s
marriage meantime proved a failure. He repu diated his wife for adultery and
got separated from his wife.

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 In the year 1525, Wyatt’s intimacy with Anne Boleyn, the handmaid to
Queen Catherine became obvious. But this lasted only for two years and
culminated temporarily with the warning from the king.
He was not only a poet but also a soldier and courtier and, above all, a
diplomat. He took part in some important missions in abroad. He seems to have
visited Italy with Sir John Russell. He was out of favour during the period of
Royal divorce (1527-33) and reign of Anne (1533-36). But he was still in
office. In 1528, he was knighted on Easter Day in 1535, and was made Sheriff
of Kent in the following years. In 1537, he left England as Ambassador to the
Court of Charles V. He was assigned the task of improving the relationship
between the imperial court and England.
He was imprisoned, allegedly for having been Anne Boleyn’s lover, was
released after six weeks, apparently restored to favour. But when his fries
Thomas Cromwell was executed in 1540, he was imprisoned for ‘papal
tendencies. He was in the Tower of London for three months. He was then
freed to perform ‘duties for the king’. Early in 1542, when he went to meet the
Spanish Ambassado at Plymouth, he contracted a fever and died. He was
buried in Sherborne Abb Dorset.
His Main Poetical Works
His poems were short, but fairly numerous. He tried his hand at
practically every genre of poetry, except the epic or the mock epic. The bulk of
his poems were published posthumously in Tottle’s Miscellany a collection of
songs and sonnets in 1558. His works include sonnets, songs and lyrics,
satires, Canzones, Penitentia Psalms, Rondeaus, Epigrams, Madrigals, Elegies,
and Epitaphs. Wyatt’s poetic’ output is large and immensely varied. English
poetry lost much in his early death.
His Contribution to English Poetry
Wyatt was educated at Cambridge. And after entering the king’s service,
he was entrusted with many important diplomatic missions. Like Chaucer, he
visited Italy, Spain and France. On his return to England, he desired to fashion
the English verse on the model of Italian or the ancient Greeks seen through
Italian eyes. His first object was to restore to English verse the nobility and the
grace that it had during the 15th century.
Wyatt was the first poet who introduced the sonnet in English based on
the model of Petrarch. Besides Petrarch, his sonnets also reveal the influence
Serafino, of Mellin De St Gelais, and a number of other continental poets.
Though he followed mainly the Petrarchan convention of the sonnet, there were
some significant departures and his sonnets were characterized by originality
both in theme and structure. Petrearch has divided his sonnets into two parts.

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The ‘octave’ of eight lines and the ‘sestet’of six lines, with a ‘pause’ or
‘causura’ after the eight line. It is the Petrarchan form of the sonnet that Wyatt
followed. While following Petrarch in the. rhyming of the ‘octave’, he deviated
from his practice in the ‘sestet’. He did not break the ‘sestet’, into symmetrical
tracts in conformity with the Petrarchan design. The components of his ‘sestet’
are generally a third enclosed quatrain and a final couplet.
Another noticeable departure from the Petrarchan pattern is the absence
of distinct break in the thought or emotional drift between ‘octave’ and ‘sestet’,
though structural separation is maintained.
Moreover, it was by the sonnet that lyricism again entered into English
poetry. Wyatt is even more original as a lyricist. His true ability and skill is
revealed not by the sonnets, but by a number of exquisite songs and lyrics that
he has left behind. He wrote them mostly in the then prevalent courtly manner.
Thus, it paved the way for music and passion subsequently developed by
Sidney and Spenser.
Wyatt in his poetry plainly combined two elements—the native and the
foreign. He was the heir of an English tradition but he also let the Renaissance
into English verse. Though he chose Italian themes, the lyrical spontaneity,
intimate connection of words and tune and the music were not from Italy but
from England. Another peculiar quality of Wyatt’s verse was its extreme
simplicity of language and almost conversational cadence.
Wyatt is probably best known for his love lyrics, but there are fine
aspects in his ‘Satires’ and the ‘Penitential Psalms’” too. In his love poetry too
one gets his best and most characteristic effects when one can.shift from the
usual postures of love poetry into an attitude and a tone of voice which belong
to a fuller, more disenchanted matter of fact humanity, than a playful situation
can express. For example in the poem beginning “Is it possible”’ (its title being
“Varium et Mutable”) one finds the Petrarchan properties such as religion,
quarrels, changing natures, a wanton glance and so on. But these are to be
found in ‘every love affair. Moreover, the bare language, the absence of
imagery, and the fragile delicate stanza-forms remove the poem from the
passion of a particular experience arid give it a more generalized position. The
style lifts the poem to a plane from which it commands a part of all experience;
it comments on the bitterness and loss attendant on any disrupted relationship.
Wyatt shows himself capable of touching the depths of passion in such
poems as “And wylt thou leave me thus?” In a simple love lyric he evokes the
whole courtly tradition and the poem thus gains intensity. In this poem by
minute variations from stanza to stanza, he turns a simple plea into a just
demand backed by the authority of centuries of courtly lovers. Each verse

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carries the demand a step further in terms of the logic of the code, which insists
that faithful service must have its reward. Wyatt’s special power invests the
traditional crises of the courtly relationship with a fresh dramatic immediacy.
Tillyard refers to this poem as “delicately passionate pleading”.
Wyatt captures all familiar lyrical situations and sharpens them until they
have the clarity of an emblem.
This is what happens in “Forget not yet.1' Or “My lute awake! Perform
the last...” or “Farewell to the Faithless.” Wyatt’s greatest originality lies in his
power to develop the dramatic moment into the dramatic sequence, and make
the emotion both grow and resolve itself within the framework of the single
poem. About the poem’s beginning “My lute awake!...” Tillyard says that it is
moving but still dramatic. It reminds us of Horace’s Ode 125. Wyatt has
enriched the love lyric with the deeper psychological realism of Chaucer and
transferred the interest from the outer situation to the inner drama of the mind.
Wyatt rescued the medieval courtly lyric from the decadence into which
it had fallen and gave it a new profundity and launched English poetry upon a
new career in the field of the sonnet.
Wyatt returned from Italy bringing the sonnet form with him. Wyatt
stayed close to the Petrarchan pattern with an octave all on two rhymes, but
splits the sestet into a quatrain and a final couplet. One does not find too
smooth flow and balance of the Italian original in Wyatt’s sonnets. Again the
final couplet insists on an epigrammatic summing up which is absent in
Petrarch. Moreover, Wyatt’s tone is colloquial arid dramatic rather than
formal. There is within his sonnets a struggle between the dramatic
explosiveness of the human voice and the formal structure imposed by the
elaborate rhyme scheme. As a result, Wyatt’s sonnets give a unique sense of
concentration and of pressure generated with a little space, together with a
roughness, often misinterpreted. Wyatt, a critic, comments: “Wyatt failed in his
sonnets.” The same critic praises Wyatt for the poem “My lute awake!...” and
says that “it is a piece of singular beauty, and has not been surpassed by
anything hitherto written in our language on a similar subject.” Tillyard also
praises the same poem and says that Wyatt’s poems have a special vitality and
this is owing to a certain unexpectedness in them. Referring to this poem he
adds, “For example, my lute awake!..., about his mistress grown old,
complaining to the moon on the cold winter nights startles like some rare
flower among ordinary daisies and buttercups of a meadow.”
Wyatt’s treatment of Petrarchan material reveals him to be very different
from Petrarch in temperament. Wyatt has none of Petrarch’s idealism of his
lady, no sense of her physical beauty or of the unity of human love with the

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great seasonal awakening of nature. Petrarch is a romantic idealist; Wyatt is a
practical wooer. In the words of Mourice Evans, “Wyatt is dem onstrating both
his mastery of the Petrarchan form and his independence of the Petrarchan
sentiments.”
As regards his contribution to metrical innovations, he introduced the
sonnet, the heroic quatrain (as in Gray’s Elegy), the ottava rima (as in Byron’s
“Don Jua’n”) the terza rima and many lyric measures. But it was beyond his
powers to restore ( English prosody to anything like the state of perfection in
which Chaucer had left it
FORGET NOT YET THE TYRDE EXTENT
FORGET not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant:
My great travial so gladly spent
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since when
The suit, the service none tell can.
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in denays,
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never meant amiss,
Forget not yet.
Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved;
Forget not this.
Summary
The mistress is cruel and scornful to the poet. She fails to understand his
true and sincere love. He asks her not to forget the pain and suffering that,he
has undergone so willingly and patiently over a long period of time. Again as a
faithful servant, he served her without expecting any reward or favour. And she

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herself approved his loyal service and his love. His love is time-tested. He
assures her.that his love and loyalty to her would never change. Despite all
suffering, he is still loyal-to her and his love to the lady is constant. Hence she
should be more kind to the poet and considerate to a sincere, true, and long-
suffering lover like him.
Criticism
This lyric is written in the tradition of Petrarch and is regarded as one of
the finest lyrics of Wyatt. This lyric is in five stanzas and four lines in each.
The service’ of the poet also reminds us that in the Petrachan tradition, that is,
the’lover is expected to serve the lady without expectation of any favour or
reward.
This lyric is musical. It has all the qualities of a song. The refrain; use of
alliteration e.g. painful patience, and the concentration of the vowel sounds by
the use short monosyllabic words illustrate it. The rhyme scheme followed in
this lyric is a,a,a,b and the repetition of three end sounds in the same stanza
further heightens the song-like quality of the lyric.
Another notable feature in this lyric is that each stanza begins with
‘Forget not yet’ and ends with the same phrase. The repetition of this phrase
suggests that the poet has got irritated or dejected over the scornful behaviour
of the lady. And this earnest request of the poet reveals that the poet could find
meaning in his love only if she remembers his past activities and accepts his
love. So such a kind of purposeful use of the refrain brings about a cumulative
forcefulness in the main theme.
That is, it shows not only his nervous anxiety and agony, but also the
possibility of his collapse in the event of her denial.
THEY FLEE FROM ME
THEY flee from me that sometime did me seek,
With naked foot stalking in my chamber:
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild, and do not remember
That some time they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand: and now they range
Busily seeking with continual change.
Thankt be Fortune, it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better, but once in special!,
In thin array, after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did all,

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 And she me caught in her arms long and small,
There with all sweetly did me kiss,
And softly said, ‘Dear heart, how like you this?’
It was no dream; I lay broad waking:
but all is turn’d, through my gentleness,
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness;
And she also to use new-fangleness.
But since that I so kindely am served,
I would fain know that she hath deserved.
Summary
They Flee, from Me’ is the finest of Wyatt’s lyrics and noted for a
sensuous quality. The lyric strikes an autobiographical element into the texture
of it. The poet recalls how once ladies, like deers, came to his chamber to take
bread at his hand. He has ‘seen them gentle, tame and meek. They were not
aware of the fact that they were, putting themselves in his power and ran the
risk of losing their reputation. Being fickle and inconstant, they ran from one
lover to another.
While they were with him, they were close to him. Of them, there was a
particular lady who once close to him and caught him in her arms long and
small, kissed him sweetly and said softly ‘ Dear heart, how like this?”. This
was a happy experience. It was a reality and not a dream, and the poet would
ever remember it. But the pathetic thing is that even such a lady too left him
reverted her wild life.
However, now all this has changed and the poet wants to know the reason
why has this change taken place in her. May be the fault lies with his
gentleness. He was kind and considerate which did not please her. Perhaps,
she wanted to enjoy the game of love to the fullest extent. But the poet
allowed her to go without doing what was expected from him. The lady left
him in disgust, saying politely that she had his permission to go away. In fact,
the remark is sarcastic. Thus he was funished for his ‘gentleness a virtue highly
praised in the chivalric Middle Ages. But the real reason is the natural, inherent
inconstancy and fickleness of women-hood.’ Indeed no single lover pleases
them long. The poet remarks ironically the lady who deserted him acted
kindly, that is in accordance with the nature of her.

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 The fault does not really lie with her, but with the nature that fashioned
them so wild and inconstant. Actually the poet wants to know the opinion of
the reader regarding the treatment that the lady does deserve.
Criticism
The present lyric is exquisite and musical and in the tradition of
Petrarchan love-poetry. The devices such as the concentration of vowel sounds,
use of liquid consonants, alliteration and repetition have been used to make the
lyric musical. The stanza used is Rhyme Royal which Chaucer used for his
Troilus and Criseyde’, with usual rhyme scheme.
This lyric is also largely autobiographical in nature. The happy
experiences of the past that the poet recalls in a nostalgic mood are contrasted
with his dreary lonely present. His favourite deer image is an extended
metaphor. It is developed and linked with poet’s emotions of the happiness of
the past and sadness of the present.
Moreover, this lyric dramatizes the predicament of the courtly lover. Of
course, the lyric is more concerned with the poet’s sense of desertion, with his
unhappy present as contrasted with his nostalgic happy memories of the past.
This gives a dramatic movement to the lyric.
HENRY HOWARD, EARL OF SURREY
Surrey’s Life
Surrey’s name is usually associated in literature with that of Wyatt. He
was born in 1517. He was the son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey. When his
father became the Duke of Norfolk, he adopted the courtesy title of Earl of
Surrey in 1524. He married Frances Vere in 1532. He was with the army during
the war with France (1544-46). He was a man of reckless temper that involved
him in many quarrels. Henry VIII was angry with him. He was arrested,
condemned, and executed on a frivolous charge of treasonably quartering the
royal arms and advising his sister to become the king’s mistress. He was then
barely thirty years old.
His Main Poetical Works
The bulk of Surrey’s work is small, but it is characterized by immense
variety. He experimented with a number of stanza and verse forms and his
works show that he was an accomplished and pains-taking artist.
He supposed to have left behind him twenty sonnets, out of which only
sixteen have come down to us. His themes are entirely Petrarchan. He uses this
form not to express any real passion, but to sing his entirely imaginary love for
Geraldine, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald.

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 This group includes some finest lyrics. The best are his lyrics celebrating
his life at Windsor Castle, lived with his friend Henry Richmond or lamenting
his impris onment: Windsor Walls’, ‘Proud Windsor’, etc. There are also such
fine lyrics as When Raging Love’, ‘O Henry Dames, Good Ladies’ etc.
Translation of Virgil’s ‘Aenied’-Book II is a memorable work of Surrey.
It is the first English work in ‘blank verse’. The credit of introducing blank
verse must go to Surrey.
Surrey completed the work that Wyatt had begun. Henry Earl of Surrey
(1517-1547} was often praised in sixteenth-century surveys of English poetry.
Puttenham coupled Wyatt and Surrey together-”Henry Earl of Surrey and Sir
Thomas Wyatt, between whom I find very little difference.” Surrey had a short
and flashing career and he was tried for treason and executed.
Though each had a different kind of genius, it has become customary to
name Wyatt and Surrey together. Wyatt and Surrey—indeed all English
lyricists before Sidney and Shakespeare—are amateurs compared to Petrarch.
The Italian critics stress this point. There is a wrong notion outside Italy about
Petrarch, that he is “sentimental and rhetorical.” According to E.K. Chambers,
“there is but little fundamental resemblance between Wyatt and Petrarch.” An
Italian critic speaks of an essential difference between Wyatt and Petrarch. He
finds that Wyatt’s Petrarchanism is superficial and that we have very few
echoes of Petrarch in his poetry. Surrey cannot at all be fundamentally akin to
or greater than Petrarch.
Yet, some poems at any rate, of Petrarch’s skill, quality, and style did
enter English poetry through Wyatt, and very few through Surrey. Wyatt is the
first poet through whom Petrarch’s metaphysical manner entered English
poetry. In various respects Wyatt served Petrarch more faithfully than Surrey.
Surrey deserves all the credit he is usually given for the pictorical and
descriptive qualities of his poetry.
Wyatt is more obedient, less revolutionary, than Surrey. Surrey’s is, of
course, the full-dress English or Shakespeare sonnet pattern. This lends itself to
non-Petrarchan effects. According to John S. Smart “The Surrey-Shakespeare
form is our English invention, but it was brought into existence on an Italian
basis, by selection and adjustment.”
The one humanist feature which Wyatt and Surrey have in common is the
Petrarchan element. Surrey did not write as many sonnets as Wyatt and none of
them has compression and inner struggle which give Wyatt’s sonnets their
special quality. The pressure of Wyatt’s sonnet deserves a better theme,
Surrey’s sonnet an easier one. Surrey uses the looser Shakespearean form with
three quatrains on different rhymes and a final couplet.

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 Surrey for the most part avoids Petrarchan sonnets with concentration of
thought, and prefers to imitate those consisting of straight description. This is in
part a reflection of his own personal interests: he had a feeling for nature and a
power of natural description which is unique among the poets of his age. His
sonnet “On Spring” shows his ability to elaborate on a Petrarchan sonnet,
adding details of his own. The simple catalogue, besides encouraging such
additions, also allows a greater freedom in the choice of rhymes than would be
possible if there were a close line of thought to follow. This is what he always
does to a Petrarchan sonnet. Unlike Wyatt he is greatly interested in love, but
he is not greatly interested in the formal possibilities of the sonnet itself, and he
chooses those which allow him to experiment with a more formal yet simpler
rhetoric than that of Wyatt.
Surrey’s importance is more than merely historical. When he has a theme
in which he is personally involved, he can do very much better. He turns
philosophical and melancholic at such moments. Such a one is the poem
entitled “The means to attain happy life.”
The range and power of his personnal poems suggest that if Surrey had
lived longer, he might have developed into a poet of real greatness. For Surrey
in his own verse achieved a revolution in poetry as important as that of Dryden
and Waller in the next century, and in many wavs similar to them. He severed
verse from the medieval world and modernised it; he banished the alliterative in
poetry once and for all, and established a standard of clear and controlled
language which was what the century needed first and foremost.
Surrey completed the reform in diction that Wyatt had initiated; he was as
much the more original of the two in the form of his poetry as his friend was
the more original in matter. But his greatest claim, to our gratitude, lies in his
introduction of the blank verse, in English poetry through his translation of the
Second and the Fourth Books of the ‘Aeneid’. Both Wyatt and Surrey avoid
allegory, their poems are free from affectation and vulgarity; they were
reformers in religion and were both English gentlemen in the best sense.
His Contribution to English Poetry
The work of Surrey in the reform of English poetry was a kind altogether
different from that of Wyatt. He followed Wyatt in the imitation of foreign
models, especially Petrarch, and shared with the merit of bringing sonnet from
Italy to England. But he gave up the Petrarchan model popularized by Wyatt
and prepared the ground of Shakespearean sonnet of three quatrains followed
by a couplet. “In the development of English verse”, says E Albert, “Surrey
represents further stage, a higher poetical faculty increased ease and refinement

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and the introduction of two metrical forms of capital importance-the English
form of the sonnet and blank verse”.
Surrey was less energetic than Wyatt, but he was a greater artist than
Wyatt His sonnets were grounded in love and were written to Geraldine or
Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald. They were characterized by emotional flights of
imagination marked by an elegiac note. Side by side we can notice in them a
genuine love for nature seen earlier in Chaucer’s poetry. He combined love and
nature in his personal sonnets,and gave them the impress of his personality.
Surrey also composed impersonal sonnets, characterised by satirical touches to
contemporary personages. The ‘Sonnet to Sardanapalus’ is impersonal in
character. It is satirical in tone. It is remarkable for its absolute value, its
dignified swing, and its efforts to condense thought.
Surrey was the first English poet to use blank verse in his translation of
the two books of Virgil’s ‘Aenied’. Blank verse had been used in Italy for a few
years before his translation of the same. So he did not originate the form, but
the happy skill with which he adopted it. Thus he discovered to English poetry
its most powerful and characteristic verse worthy of all praise.
WHEN RAGING LOVE WITH EXTREME PAIN
WHEN raging love with extreme pain
Most cruelly distrains my heart,
When that my tears, as floods of rain,
Bear witness of my woeful smart,
When sights have wasted so my breath
That I lie at the point of death:
I call to mind the navy great
That the Greeks brought to Troye town,
And how the boisterous winds did beat
Their ships, and rent their sails adown,
Till Agamemnon’s daughter’s blood
Appeased the gods that them withstood:
And how that in those ten years’ war
Full many a bloody deed was done,
And many a lord that came full far
There caught his bane, alas, too soon,
And many a good knight overrun,
Before the Greeks ha! Helen won.

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 Then think I thus: ‘Sith such repair,
So long time war of valiant men,
Was all to win a lady fair,
Shall I not learn to suffer then?
And to think my life well spent, to be
Serving a worthier wight than she?
Therefore I never will repent,
But, pains contended, still endure;
For like as when, rough winter spent,
The pleasant spring straight draweth in ure:
So, after raging storms of care,
Joyful at length may be my fare,
Summary
The poet’s soul is agitated with passion like furious storm owing to the
love of the poet on his beloved. It oppresses his heart and overwhelms him with
acute suffering. The tears that come as floods run from his eyes bear witness of
his woeful smart. He has sighed so long and so constantly that he has wasted all
his breath. Now he is almost at the point of death. Though, he is torn asunder
by all the agony and sorrows, he consoles himself by remembering how a large
number of Greek Warriors and reputed heroes had to wage war against Troy for
ten years to recover Helen, and how Greeks had to encounter a number of perils
and difficulties on their voyage to Troy and many of them lost their lives in the
attempt to recover Helen. There was much death and destruction, and only then
Helen could be won back and taken to Greece.
The poet believes that if the Greeks could fight a ten-year war with the
Trojans indulge bloodshed and sacrifice their lives, just to recover Helen, then
it is worth that every moment of pain and sorrow experienced by him to win his
beloved’s favour. Further, his object of love is worthier than Helen, and so he
must not complain if he suffers as a result of his love for her and hebethan
poetry. As Maurice Evans rightly points out “This is a beautiful lyric treating
the conventional theme of love with poise and dignity. It reveals the poet’s
classical sense of restraint, balance and clarity and his capacity for achieving a
rhythmical fluidity.
It’s excellence ies not in a single line, but in the cumulative effect and
organisation of the whole. In the thirty lines of the poem, there are only three
sentences, yet it unfolds itself with a clear and ordered logic. It has a form
entirely suited to its content.

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 This lyric is musical. Alliteration e.g. Troye Town’, full far’, ‘bloody
deed was done’, ‘spring straight’ concentration of vowel sounds by the use
mono-syllabic words and the use of words having liquid consonants are some
of the devices used in the interest of music and melody. The rhyme scheme is
ababcc, and it is repeated in each stanza. Thus each stanza is made up of a
quatrain and a couplet. The poem also shows Surrey’s mastery over the short
line of eight lines or four feet.

Important Questions
1. “The ‘love element’ in the sonnets of Wyatt is prominent” - Discuss.
2. Consider Wyatt and Surrey as the sonneteers in the English
tradition.

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 UNIT - III
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE (1564-1593)
Christopher Marlowe, the son of a shoe-maker of Canterbury, is the only
dramatist before Shakespeare, who is still read with enthusiasm. A patron sent
him to Cambridge from where he graduated at the age of nineteen. He came to
London, became an actor and led a reckless life. He lived in a low tavern
atmosphere of excess and wretchedness. His was a godless life and he enjoyed
a reputation as ‘Atheist and Epicure’, condemner and mocker of religion. At
the age of twenty-three he dazzled London stage by his first play Tamburlaine.
In five years he produced all his great works. His plays have been widely
appreciated through the ages. It is unfortunate that such a great dramatist led a
dissipated life which cost him his life at the age of twenty-nine. He was
stabbed in a drunken brawl and died in a tavern. The Epilogue of Faustus
might also be written on his tombstone:
Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight
And burned is Apollo’s laurel bough
That sometime grew within this learned man.
MARLOWE AND THE BLANK VERSE
Christopher Marlowe is the greatest poet working in the drama before
Shakespeare, and perhaps, to quote Swinburne “the first English poet whose
powers can be called sublime.” Marlowe’s pre-eminence among the pre-
Shakespeare writers of blank verse is so marked that it is customary7- to
acclaim him as if he were its creator in drama. But the fact is that Marlowe
cannot be pretended to have written dramatic blank-verse before Kyd. Now
the explanation of the tribute paid to Marlowe is that he first made the medium
triumphant; since it was he who made it irresistible for the Elizabethan stage. It
was he who brought dramatic blank verse to life by investing it with a
splendour and a quality of soaring aspiration that dazzled his audiences with a
sense of the infinite possibilities in man’s nature. It was he who “first unlocked
the secrets of blank verse and taught his successors how to play upon its
hundred stops.” For these reasons Ben Jonson remarked that Marlowe was the
‘master of the mighty line (e.g. blank verse technically known as unrhymed
iambic pentameter).
T. S. Eliot remarks that Marlowe’s verse is one of the earliest derivatives.
Before Marlowe blank Verse was used in dramas and when Gorboduc appeared
blank verse had taken the place of rhyme as the chief medium for tragic
dialogues. Wynne says that quite good blank verse had been used in drama,
some years before his (Marlowe’s) plays were written. We should ‘ not suppose

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that this earlier blank verse was always stilted and cut up into end-stopt lines
and unrhymed couplets. This view is not accepted by Saintsbury and Allardyce
Nicoll who believe that before Marlowe blank verse was unformed, artificial,
and monotonous. It was Marlowe who breathed into blank verse the life-spirit
of poetry but he had the example of Spenser before him. He was indebted to
Spenser. Robertson has spotted out an interesting theft of Marlowe’s from
Spenser. Here is Spenser (Fairy Queen, VII. 32):
“Life to an almond tree-y-mounted high
On top of green Selinis all alone,
With blossoms brave bedecked daintily;
Whose tender locks do tremble every one
(At every little breath that under heaven is blown”.)
And here is Marlowe (Tamburlaine, Part II.Act IV. Sc. III).
“Like to an almond tree-y-mounted high
Upon the lofty and celestial mount
Of evergreen selinus, quaintly deck’d
With blooms more white than Erycina’s brows
Whose tender blossoms tremble every one
(At every! Little breath that through heaven is blown) blown.”
Thus, T. S. Eliot remarks, “There had been no great blank verse before
Marlowe; but there was the powerful presence of this great master of melody
immediately precedent.” We have to see what Marlowe actually did by infusing
life-blood in blank verse.
Marlowe’s contribution to blank verse consists in the many innovations
he introduced into it. He found the heroic line monotonous, monosyllabic, and
divided into five feet of tolerably regular alternate shorts and longs. He found it
a clumsy and mistaken imitation of the classical iambic; he restored it to its
birthright as a native English rhythm. Marlowe broke through these
conventional restraints, altered the structure of metre, varied the pauses, and
produced an entirely novel rhythm of extreme flexibility and power.
The general public was indebted to Marlowe for the introduction of blank
verse upon their unpolished stage, it having previously been heard only at court
or at the universities. Marlowe, for the first time, displaced the ‘jigging veins of
rhyming mother-wits’ by the mere roll and crash of his ‘high astounding
terms.’
The notable contribution of Marlowe is that ‘he introduced the
conversational tone in blank verse. It is well illustrated in the dialogues of

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Faustus with the devil, and it is in their .questions and answers that the
flexibility and naturalness of blank verse are shown to advantage for the first
time by Marlowe.
Another contribution of Marlowe is the infusion of pure poetry into
drama. Hitherto the opinion seems to have held that dramatic verse must keep
as close to prose as possible in order to combine the grace of rhythm with the
solid commonsense of ordinary human speech. It was the tendency of all
Senecan dramas to be less poetical. But Marlowe was the first dramatist, who
showed that imagination could riot madly in a wealth of imagery, or soar far
above the realms of logic and cold philosophy to summon beautiful and terrible
pictures out of the cloudland of fancy; without losing hold upon earth and the
language of mortals.
Marlowe’s blank verse is not free from a few vices. His lines are at times
stiff and cold and lack vitality; sometimes they do not show the intimate textual
relationship to be found in Shakespeare’s plays. Often the verse is epical and
lyrical but not dramatic. Inspite of all these defects his blank verse is, in
general, a living thing, a full-veined and vigorous instrument.
In the end we can quote the lines of Swinburne suggesting the
contribution of Marlowe, “He created the modern tragic drama. Before him
there was neither genuine blank verse nor a genuine tragedy in our language.
After his arrival the way was prepared—the path were made straight for
Shakespeare.”
What Swinburne stated in prose can also be produced in verse—the
highest and the finest appreciation of his poetry :
‘’Next Marlowe, bathed in the Thespian springs,
Had in him those brave translunary things
That the first poets had; his raptures were
All air and fire, which made his verses clear;
For that fine madness still he did retain,
Which rightly should possess a. poet’s brain.”
(An Elegy : Of Poets and Poesie)
RENAISSANCE ELEMENT IN MARLOWE
The Renaissance heralded the birth of a new age in Europe. It tolled the
death knell of the Middle Ages and ushered in a new era of bright hopes and
rosy aspirations .The faint flickering rays of the Renaissance became visible in
Europe quite early in the sixteenth century.

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 It took some time for the Renaissance spirit to reach England. But when
the new light came, it cleared off the old cobwebs of ignorance and superstition
and made the way clear for the diffusion of new thoughts and new ideals. The
men of the Renaissance felt in their blood the flush of the new spirit, and
exhibited in their literary works the emotions and feelings that the new upsurge
had created in their hearts.
The Renaissance inspired the writers of the age to give expression in their
dramas and poems, essays and letters, to the values which the Renaissance had
brought in its wake. Throughout the period of the Renaissance there was a love
for life and its manifold beauties. The Renaissance was the age of adventure
and material wealth. It was an age when the minds of the people were lured
by the new visions of distant lands rich in gold and jewels. The Renaissance
artists were swayed by the captivating charm of beauty and loveliness. Music,
dance and mirth played a significant part in the general life of the men and
women of this age.
With mirth and laughter came a love for luxury and wealth, and the life of
the people was spent in luxurious plenty. Puritanism with its strict code of
moral values was frowned upon by the Renaissance artists. Puritanism came
into disfavour. Deep learning of the classical writers of Rome and Greece
began to find favour with the writers of the new age.There was a general love
for knowledge, and learning among the people of this age and it was considered
to be a sin to remain shackled in the chains of ignorance and superstition. “A
distinguishing note of the Renaissance age, intoxicated by the magnificent
possibilities opened to it on every side, was an uncontrollable aspiration after
the ideal, a scorn of earthly conditions, a soaring passion that sought to scale
the infinitude of power, beauty and love.”
Marlowe, more than Shakespeare, was the representative dramatist of the
Renaissance spirit. In his four plays, Tamberlaine, Dr. Faustus, Jew of Malta
and Edward II, we have a full-blooded expression of the entire age with all its
new aspirations, hopes and dashing adventure. Marlowe is the dramatist of the
Renaissance period par excellence and his plays are an epitome of what the
Renaissance people felt and lived. Marlowe touches almost all aspects of the
Renaissance in his works.
Marlowe’s ideal of a man of the Renaissance is pictured in the figure of
Tamburlaine, the Scythian conqueror. In Marlowe’s vision to man of
Renaissance was expected to be—
“Of stature tall, and a sprightly fashioned
His lofty brows infolds.”

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 The pleasure of the earth and material values of life which the men of the
Renaissance held dear are given full scope in Tamburlaine where the dramatist
says-
“A god is not so glorious as a king,
I think the pleasure they enjoy in Heaven
Cannot compare with kingly joys in earth-
To wear a crown enchased with pearl and gold
Those virtues carry with ft life and death;
To ask and have command and be obeyed
......and ride in triumph through Persepholis.”
In Dr. Faustus, Marlowe represents a man of learning and a man running
mad after the pursuit of worldly power. Dr. Faustus is the master of varied
knowledge ranging from philosophy to economics, but he is dissatisfied with,
his knowledge and practices necromancy to acquire worldly power. So great is
Dr. Faustus love for power and pleasure that he sells his soul to the devil for
enjoyment of worldly pelf and power.
This love for the mundane objects find a different expression in different
form in Edward II. Here it takes the shape of sensuous pleasures. Gaveston
gives expression to this spirit when he says—
/ must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians that with touching of a string
May draw the plicnt king which way I please.
The defiant tone of the Renaissance adventurer is heard in the speeches
of young Mortimer when he is cummuted to the Tower.
What Mortimer, can ragged stony walls,
Immure thy virtue that aspires to heaven:
No, Edward, England’s covrage, it may not be;
Mortimer’s hope surmounts his fortune far.
The introduction of the character of Lightborn in Edward II and his pride
in his art of murdering people is also typically Renaissance. He says—
/ learned in Naples, how to poison flowers.
To strangle with a lawn thrust through the throat.
The contempt for worldly limitations is a typical feature of the
Renaissance and Mortimer’s speech, a few minutes before his end, brings out
this spirit in the fullest measure. He is not bound by earthly limitations and
defiantly challenges base fortune that brings him down.

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 Base fortune, now I see, that in thy wheel
There is a point, to which when men aspire
They tumble headlong down: that point I touched, And-seeing there was
no place to mount up higher, Why should I grieve at my declining fall ?
Farewell, fair queen; weep not for Mortimer, That scorns the world, and as a
traveller, Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
Marlowe was, in fact, the mouthpiece of the new age of the Renaissance.
He was himself a lover of all those values which were held dear by the people
of the Renaissance. He was “a new kind state,” “is a new kind English poet, a
mind striving after power, wealth and beauty exulting in material splendour,
full of rapture at the glories of this world, contemptuous of traditional religion
yet aspiring to an ideal existence beyond the fleeting glories of our blood and
state.”
MARLOWE AND SHAKESPEARE.
What would have been the place of Shakespeare bu for the works of
Marlowe ? Swinburne scatters one of his many roses and lilies in praise of
Marlowe by saying “He (Marlowe) first, and he alone, guided Shakespeare into
the right way of work.” On the other hand, there is another extreme view held
by Prof. Boas. He asserts “We do know that, even had he lived, he could never
have been ‘another Shakespeare.”
There are also some critics who hold the middle way. Gregory Smith
remarks “Let us, however, not exaggerate the borrowing: the kinship is of the
age rather than of blood.”
The supporters of Swinburne’s view hold that without Marlowe,
Shakespeare would not have been what he is: But it seems that there is some
exaggeration in this statement. Although there is some streak of truth in the
statement that Shakespeare in the writing of ‘Richard III’ followed the
footsteps of Marlowe Shakespeare had the advantage of having Marlowe work
before him for his guidance and inspiration. He had even the opportunity of
collaborating with Marlowe in a play or two. He modeled his ‘Richard II’ on
‘Edward II ; he took hints for ‘The Merchant of Venice from ‘The Jew of
Malta’ and he took inspiration from ‘Dr. Faustus’s comic scene when
Mephistopheles plays tricks with Pope by keeping aside the plates.
Further we can easily understand that in writing Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare was also influenced by The Jew of Malta. In Romeo and Juliet
Shakespeare writes:
“Death lies on her like an untimely frost
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.”

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 The second line of the above quotation can be compared with the second
line of the following lines of The Jew of Malta.
“A fair young Maid, scarce fourteen years age
The sweetest flower of Cithereats field” ‘
Thus, the supporters of Swinburne’s view state emphatically that
Shakespeare was influenced by Marlowe There is some grain of truth in this
view. But if we look at the opposite side of the coin, we will note that
Shakespeare had a distinct personality of his own. In his early career he was no
doubt, influenced by Marlowe, but as he advanced in his dramatic art, he cast
off the veil of Marlowe. As a dramatist, he was far superior to Marlowe He
reached such heights which Marlowe could never enjoy Let us see in what
respects Shakespeare excelled Marlowe.
In the first place we notice that like Shakespeare Marlowe never quite
succeeded in reaching the loftiest summits of tragic art, and this perhaps was
more owing; to certain features in his own character than to the fact that he died
young. He had little interest in building up the successive stages of a five-act
drama. Nicoll remarks “In structure we see that all Marlowe’s plays are faulty...
Dr. Faustus is largely a collection of heterogeneous scenes loosely pinned
together.”
With Marlowe we are in the presence of a distinctly passionate but
unbalanced genius a man lacking the serenity and the calm-eyed power which
gave Shakespeare a large part of his greatness.
In the art of characterisations Shakespeare excels Marlowe. Marlowe’s
characters are shown to us in series of lightning flashes, whereas Shakespeare’s
characters are clear and sharp. Marlowe has the mastery in depicting only
heroes; there is lack of secondary characters. Bu Shakespeare depicts mighty
heroes as well as other dominating characters. In ‘Macbeth’ we can see the
character of Banquo, DunCan and Macduff. They are all important like
Macbeth himself. Macbeth regards the position of Banquo when he says, “My
genius is rebuked under him.’ But the heroes of Marlowe are lonely figures set
in a world of Lilliputians, with the gods alone as their masters.
One of the noticeable defects in Marlowe’s characterization is the lack
of women characters. Women character; like Zenocrate, Helen and Abigail
are shadowy figures On the other hand, women play a dominant role in
Shakespeare’s plays. We have powerful women characters in Lady Macbeth,
Desdemona, Juliet, Viola etc. The plays of Shakespeare are characterised by
the ethical temper which we do not find in Marlowe. Shakespeare’ aim in
‘Richard II’ is to show his weaknesses that bring about his fall.

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 He does not give us vivid picture of his prison suffering and death which
Marlowe shows ii ‘Edward IF. Boas says “Here, as always, Shakespeare’
moral point of view is loftier than his fore-runners.”
Unlike the plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe’s plays are serious throughout.
Marlowe lacks comic spirit The comic scenes of Dr. Faustus and The Jew of
Malta are dull. On the other hand, Shakespeare’s plays are full o dramatic
relief. We have Porter scene in Macbeth ant Grave-digger scene in Hamlet.
Marlowe’s genius was only limited to tragedy where as Shakespeare
wrote tragedy and comedy, romance and history. He was also a successful
comedy writer.
There is a large element of the universal in Shakespeare.
Marlowe’s plays only represent Renaissance spirit. Shakespeare’s knowledge
of human-nature and his portrayal of human character are immeasurably subtle
and profound than those of Marlowe.
Thus, it can be stated that Shakespeare begin his dramatic career
under the influence of Marlowe but he soon got rid of this influence and
showed his originality both in the field of tragedy as well as comedy.
Marlowe’s great contribution to drama was that he raised the subject
matter of drama to a higher level. If we say that Marlowe died too young at
the age of twenty-nine to be a great dramatist like Shakespeare, this plea also
does not hold water as Boas remarks, “What the world has lost by the
untimely close of his career we cannot know; but we do know that, even had he
lived, he could never have been another Shakespeare.”
MARLOWE’S CONTRIBUTION TO ENGLISH DRAMA
Before Marlowe the English stage was in a chaotic condition. ‘The
classicists had form, but no fire; the popular dramatists had interest, but little
sense of form.’ At that time classical tragedies and the Senecan tragedies with
strict unity of time, place and action were the taste of the public. Wilson points
out that the stage was still in need of a dramatist who could write a play on a
serious theme in verses that combined sweetness and rotunditias, That
dramatist who was really the Columbus of the new literary world was Marlowe.
He emancipated the English mind from classical notions of stiff decorum. It
was he who tried to draw English drama from the old rut of morality and
rambling interlude and set it firmly on the straight road to greatness. He blazed
a new trail both in thought and technique in matter as well as manner, and in its
footsteps a new perfection treads.
He provided big heroic subjects that appealed to the imagination of the
audience. His subjects were grand which stirred the readers to their depths. He

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dramatised the history of Tamburlaine—a world conqueror, and Dr. Faustus, a
necromancer in pursuit of universal knowledge.
He gave life and reality to his characters. Characters in the hands of
Marlowe were no longer puppets pulled by a string but living and breathing
realities. He gave lifelike characters marked with vigour and fire. Tamburlaine
and Faustus are forceful heroes full of energy and zest for life.
Marlowe made improvement in the field of Tragedy and modified the
conception of tragedy held in the Middle Ages. For the Middle Ages, tragedy
was a thing of princes;, for Marlowe it was a matter of individual heroes. In a
typical Marlowian tragedy a giant figure is portrayed, and his consuming
passion reaches beyond the ordinary aspiration until he meets his fate. The
interest lies not in the mere fall, but in the struggle between the overweening
soul, typically of the Renaissance, in its insatiable ambition, and the limitations
which it seeks to overcome. Further Marlowe added the element of struggle
which was absent in the tragedy of the Middle Ages. In the old conception,
tragedy depicted the fall of the hero under the domination of fate. It was
Marlowe who introduced the element of struggle. In Dr. Faustus there is a
constant struggle within the soul of Faustus himself, represented by the good
and bad angels.
The medieval conception of tragedy was a distinctly moral one. Drama
had to show this falling into adversity and thereby inculcate a didactic lesson.
There is no moral of this sort in Marlowe’s tragedies. In all these ways
Marlowe revolutionised the old conception of tragedy and made it fit for the
need and new urges of the Renaisance.
Marlowe was the first English playwright to perceive that tragic action
must issue from and be reflected in character. “A string of carnal, bloody
and unnatural acts, such as abound in ‘Gorboduc’ or ‘Cambyse’ may be enough
for melodrama, it is not enough for tragedy. The spring of the tragedy in
Tamburlaine, is Tamburlaine himself: it is his tragedy. So with Faustus, and
Barabbas, and Edward II.
In each case the tragedy begins in the hero and ends with him.
Marlowe’s characterisation is simple; nevertheless his heroes are individuals;
they all of their fates. This was Marlowe’s greatest contribution to English
tragedy greater even than his revivification on its diction and metre. He was the
morning star of Elizabethan drama, and when he perished suddenly in the
prime of his youth, men felt that Lucifer had fallen from heaven.”
Marlowe imparted passion, vehemence and force to Drama. He set the
stage on fire with the flame of his passion. Legouis rightly says, “Grace, wit
and fancy had been scattered on it but never hitherto had it known this dash, his

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vehemence animating & whole play, this rapid march to victory, by which
drama inspires the belief thai thus to march is to be alive.” In Tamburlaine the
passion extends in the direction of world conquest. In Dr Faustus it takes the
form of conquest of the secret forces o nature, while, in the Jew of Malta it is
noted for the insatiable love for wealth.
Marlowe added poetic grandeur and poetic excellence to drama. He
breathed into drama the life-spirit of poetry. He poetised the whole of the
Renaissance drama. He ridiculed the—
“Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay.”
In place of rhyming lines he introduced and perfected the blank verse.
“His verse is notable for its burnings energy, its splendo our of diction, its
sensuous richness, it: variety of pace, and its responsiveness to the demands of
varying emotions. Full of bold primary colours, his poetry is cremmed with
imagery from the Classics, from astronomy and from geography, imagery
barbaric in its wealth and splendour. Its resonance and power, led Ben Jonson
to coin the phrase, Marlowe’s mighty line, but its might has often obscured its
technical precision and its admirable lucidity and finish. At times Marlowe
degenerates into bombast. But his blank verse is unequalled by any of his
contemporaries except Shakespeare.” (Albert).
Nevertheless our debt to Marlowe is immense. He gave English tragedy
its true metre and diction, splendidly fulfilling his arrogant promise in the
Prologue to Tamburlaine.
From jigging veins of rhyming mother-wits,
And such conceits as clownage keeps in pay.
We’ll had you to the stately tent of war.
He took the stilted rhetoric of Gorboduc and filled it with the breath of
passion. In his hands its wooden blank verse became a trumpet, blaring out
poetry and eloquence “In high astounding terms.”
ACT I
Scene I opens with Gaveston in London, just come out of France, recalled
by a letter from the new King which he now reads Again. Three poor men wish
to enter his service. he rejects them haughtily, but remembering that it is no
pain to speak men fair, makes promises which he does not mean to keep. A
soliloquy further illustrates the character of the favourite. The King and Barons
enter, and their conversation is prophetic of future quarrels. When the Barons
retire Gaveston comes forward to the King, and on the entry of the Bishop of
Coventry the King and his favourite insult and maltreat him. Scene 2 introduces

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the Barons in London enraged at the King and Gaveston ; they are joined by the
Archbishop of Canterbury angry at the treatment of the Bishop of Coventry,
and by Queen Isabella, said that ‘the king regards her not,’ ‘but dotes upon the
love of Gaveston.’
They agree that a council shall banish him. After a short Scene 3, in
which Gaveston speaks scoffingly of Lancaster, the Barons and the Archbishop
of Lancaster, in Scene 4 the Barons and the Archbishop in council at the New
Temple are signing an order of exile, when the King and Gaveston enter.
The King, forced to yield, bids the exile an affectionate farewell, and
appoints him governor of Ireland. In his wrath he accuses the queen of fondness
for Mortimer and refuses to see her till Gaveston be repealed. The miserable
and distressed queen, by the help of the younger Mortimer, obtains ‘the repeal
of Gaveston, and Scene and Act end in general reconciliation but with haughty
last words from Mortimer foreshadowing the coming storm:
‘But while I have a sword, a hand, a heart,
I will not yield to any such upstart.’
ACT II
In Scene I the younger Spenser and Baldock, servants of late Earl of
Gloucester, determine to attach themselves to Gaveston, ‘who hath the favour
of the king’ ; ‘their lady’, King Edward’s niece goes to meet her lover
Gaveston. In Scene 2 the King, Queen, and Barons at Tymouth await Gaveston.
On his entrance he is scornfully addressed, and in turn scoffs at the base, leaden
earls. After bitter word: as to the evils brought on the realm by Gaveston and by
the King’; folly, the Baron goes to their castles, and soon ‘are up in arms.’
Then events move fast : in Scene 3 Spenser and Baldock join the King ;
in Scene 4 Kent deserts to the Barons ; in Scene 4 Kent deserts to the Barons ;
in Scene 5 Gaveston flies to Scarborough, and the queen in her hatred of him
falls fully under the influence of Mortimer. In Scene 6 Gavestor a prisoner in
the hands of the Barons, is, at the prayer of Arundel the King’s messenger and
on the surety of the Earl of Pembroke entrusted to those two lords that he may
see the King once more but Scene and Act end with a hint that this is not to be :
Gav. Sweet sovereign, yet I come
To see thee ere I die !
War. Yet not perhaps,
If Warwick’s wit and policy prevail.

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ACT III
In Scene I Warwick carries off Gaveston ; and in Scene 2 the King sends
the Queen and their son to France to parley with the king of France. Arundel
reports the death of Gaveston, how
Warwick in ambush lay,
And bare him to his death ; and in a trench
Strake off his head, and marched unto the camp.
The King swears vengeance, he will ‘have heads and lives for him’ ; and
when the Barons demand that he shall remove this Spenser, he bids the rebels
defiance. In Scene 3 the Barons are captives, ordered for execution or prison.
The King has recovered his power and the Spensers rule as favourites.
ACT IV
In Scene 1 Kent, driven from his brother’s presence, meets Mortimer
escaped from the Tower ; they cross to France, and, in Scene 2, join the Queen,
pass from Paris to Hainault. In Scene 3 the King, pleased with the news of the
execution of the rebels, is disturbed by tidings from France, that the associates
intend to invade England. He goes to Bristow, ‘there to make us strong.’
Meanwhile, in Scene 4 the Queen and her friends have landed., and are
marching forward armed in the Prince’s right, while Scene 5 shows the King
flying, the Queen triumphant, Kent repenting of his union with the associates,
Mortimer eager to seize the King, Baldock, Spenser, and their complices. Scene
6 relates their capture in the abbey of Neath.
ACT V
Scene 1 presents the forced abdication of the King, who then is removed
from the custody of Leicester to the charge of Berkeley. In Scene 2 the Queen
and Mortimer in private conversation show their designs, and plan the King’s
murder, giving him in charge to Matrevis and Gurney in the hope that bad
treatment will wear him out. A feeble attempt of Kent in Scene 3 to rescue the
King fails, and in Scene 4 Mortimer, convinced that ‘the King must die or
Mortimer goes down,’ hires a murderer, arranges for the coronation of the
Prince, with himself as Protector, and orders Kent away for execution. Scene 5
shows the murder of the King ; on which punishment follows swiftly, for in
Scene 6 the young King enters with the Peers, confronts Mortimer, and, before
going to mourn at his father’s funeral, orders him to instant execution as traitor.
APPRECIATION OF EDWARD II
Edward II has been much praised for its superb structure, its handling of
the history, its tragic intensity, and deep pathos. For the first time in Edward II
Marlowe has sifted his material with a view to attain unity of plot. He has set

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aside the loose epic manner of construction and tried to weld his matter into a
regularly developing plot.
Marlowe welded his episodes deftly by deviating from his source, the
Chronicle of Holinshed. For greater dramatic effect he remade history and
selected and adapted only those events out of the reign of Edward If which
helped in the progression of the action. Though the structure of the play is
not flawless, yet it indicates clearly how Marlowe was developing tragic
movement out of the confused narratives of chronicles.
Edward II is an historical play, based on the Chronicles of Fabyan,
Stowe and Holinshed, His main source is the account of Holinshed, with
which he has deviated on several details- because his main concern is with
Edward’s character and to present events as the inevitable consequences of the
king’s infatuation leading to his tragic end. As an historical play Edward II,
deserves close study with Shakespeare’s Richard II, the plan of the two plays
being similar. It was Shakespeare who benefitted from Marlowe’s Edward II as
Charles Lamb says, “The reluctant pangs of abdicating royalty Edward
furnished hints which Shakespeare scare, improved in his Richard II and the
death scene o Marlowe’s king moves pity and terror beyond any scene ancient
or modern, with which I am acquainted “Marlowe’s unique contribution is
to bring the chronicle within the perspective of tragedy.
The play attains to the full stature and noble harmony of a tragedy as
Marlowe brings on the stage heart-rending scenes filled with passionate
utterances, deep pathos and high tragic dignity. The tragedy issues from the
character of Edward II, though the historical Edward II had not the requisite
greatness for a tragic hero.
Marlowe’s Edward II attains tragic dignity as the dramatist has shown
his hero at his greatest in his defeat and death and also withdrawing our
sympathy from his two chief antagonists, the queen and young Mortimer.
Edward II is a high tragic figure- for he has a tragic flaw. His tragedy issues
from his own folly and not because of the conspiracy of the gods. He inspires
both awe and pity in his defeat. Until the fifth act we are taken by his
inefficiency, his wrong-headed, and his pettishness but in his encounter with
the cot “ forces in the fifth act he emerges as a truly hero. We pity him in his
agony and sympathise with him in his defeat. Indeed, as Henderson says, “In
the death of Edward, as to an even greater extent in the final scene of Doctor
Faustus, Marlowe showed that he had the master of the classic elements of
tragedy-pity and Terror “

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TREATMENT OF HISTORY IN EDWARD II
There is no single unifying theme or central feeling in Edward II; it is
merely a history. But Marlowe cannot b considered a pioneer in the English
history play. A number of Chronicle Plays such as Peele’s Edward I, the two
parts of Henry VI and Richard III preceded Marlowe’ Edward If in 1590. These
plays were mostly loose the structure. They were a string of loosely connected
scenes There was no attempt to select, condense or adapt the incidents and
shape them into a plot or relate them t character. “It was Marlowe, in his
Edward II, who first transformed the chronicle narrative into a regular play.
Instead of the older method of mere panoramic presentation he has deliberately
chosen his scenes even altered historical relations to make the story fit into a
preconceived design. He has rigidly excluded all inessentials and refused to
lower his serious aim with comic diversion. He has centered on the character of
Edward and shaped out of his career our first tragic History Play.
Edward II has close structural affinities with the chronically plays, in that
it has a stirring plot dealing wit the main incidents of twenty years in the reign
o Edward II. He took the material from the English chronicle and by his
remarkable art of selection, condensation and adaptation produced an historical
tragedy.
He made Holinshed’s Chronicle his model but he also tapped
innumerable sources in writing Edward II. He was also aware of the Chronicles
chief events of the period fit themselves almost natural into the recognized
tragic formula: the conflict of the king with the barons, his momentary victory
and his ensuing defeat and death.
It is true that the character of Edward scarcely fits him for the role of
tragic hero, yet his ruinous passion for favourites, weakness though it becomes
just such a single dominating motive as Marion liked to exhibit,”
Marlowe’s great service to the chronicle play is that he did not falsify
history. He presented the historic events, as found in Holinshed’s Chronicle,
of the reign of Edward II as faithfully as he could. He simply condensed and,
in some instances, re-ordered or ommitted those events in order to vivify his
picture and to attain the necessary unity. He followed the artist’s method
of selection and rejection, as his chief concern was with Edward’s character
and to present those events which led to the defeat and death of Edward II.
“He threw aside,” says F. P. Wilson, “as unsuitable to his purpose much
material connected with the wars with Scotland and Ireland and France,
many a private war between baron and baron, and of course all those trivial
disconnected details which the chronicles recorded. Moreover, historical
dating and historical sequence he regarded as wholly within his control if it led

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to economy and coherence, above all if it led to the balance of dramatic
power.” The barons hate Gaveston, the king’s minion. They are bent upon
destroying his favourite and show scant respect to the king. But the king
behaves in an imperious manner, without forgetting for a moment that he
is a king. He defies the nobles not because of his inherent strength but because
he has a blind faith in the sacredness of kings hip. He does not know what
makes kings feared and becomes angry because he does not produce the effect
he should. He is conscious of his privileges and not of his, responsibilities and
regards the power and wealth of kingship to be used to embellish his private
life. He is an irresponsible king who never forgets that he is a king. Even
when he is doomed, he pretends that he is not defeated. His speech at his
deposition is an instance of the irony of kingship :
Continue ever, then celestial sun;
Let never silent night possess this clime.
All times and seasons, rest you at a stay,
That Edward still may be fair England kings
Holinshed sympathised with the baronial party in its internal struggle
against the king and deplored the loss of national prestige that England suffered
in its wars with Ireland, Scotland and France. Marlowe touched upon these
lightly and treats the king much more sympathetically and mainly focusses his
attention on the king’s relations with Mortimer and Gaveston. Unlike
Holinshed’s Edward II, Marlowe’s king never admits to being in the wrong. He
remains wilful and defiant to the last, Frustrated rather than defeated. He never
forgets that he is a king.
For the sake of well-knit tragic plot, Marlowe has, in some other respects,
ordered and changed the events of Edward’s twenty years’ reign. He has freely
condensed and re-grouped the facts of Holinshed’s Chronicle.
CHARACTERS IN EDWARD II
(A) Edward II
The character of Edward II represents the irony of kingship. ‘A god is not
so glorious as a king’ declared Tamburlaine, but in Edward II Marlowe sets out
to destroy this noble ideal of kingship.
The character of Edward II presents the pathos of kingship. He is a tyrant,
having no sense of responsibility and proportion, he is capable of sudden
outburst of anger but incapable; of serious thought.
He is weak and vacillating but he can inspire affection. His friends never
desert him and he has also deep affection for his friends. It is because of his
love for Gaveston, that he is reduced to shameless condition. In the second part

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he comes to the fore as a sensitive and suffering soul and wins our sympathy.
How pathetically Edward says when he is defeated and seeks sanctuary in
Neath Abbey •
“But what are kings, when regiment is gone,
But perfect Shidows in a sunshine day ?
Edward is himself responsible for his downfall. On the removal of
Gaveston, recovery becomes possible for Edward but soon the play makes it
clear that the king’s character is too weak to attain the reintegration which lies
open to him. He is a weakling, a passive character who is no match to
Marlowe’s other heroes.
To quote M. M. Mahood, “Edward is insignificant beside Marlowe’s
other heroes, a Mycetes in the throne of Tamburlaine. There is a magnanimous
quality in Tamberlaine’s love-making, whereby he bestows beauty upon the
rather shadowy Zenocrate. Edward’s nature has not the resources which make
such generosity possible. His love demands rather than bestows and, in
claiming Gaveston’s affection, he is trying to fortify his shaky self-
esteem...............In his previous tragedies, Marlowe had depicted the human
person as lord of the earth, conquering its territories, controlling its phenomena,
plundering its wealth. But the stage of self-knowledge represented by Edward
is the realisation that natural man, for all his skill and strength, is the play-thing
of natural forces and the victim of necessity.”
Edward is neither a soldier nor a commander, but he is an aesthete and a
voluptuary. Glorified by masques or defamed by ballads, he is a king with the
soul of an actor, whereas Tamburlaine was more like an actor in the role of a
king. The classical mythology stirred the imagination of Tamberlaine and
Faustus it only provided characters and properties of masques and
pageants to Edward. Whereas Tamburlaine’s ambition flares up at tales of war
in heaven, Edward is well satisfied with anything of a sala cious turn that he
can glean from classical legend. Tamburlaine seeks by his actions to turn
titaonic fable into fact ; Edward reverses this process and tries to make his life
an interminable masquerade.
Edward is amused by amorous scenes from classical mythology such as
pageants of sylvan nymphs, the supposed satyrs dancing their antic hay and the
show of Actaeon and Diana. It is perversely characteristic of him that he reads
his destiny in the emblems of eagles and flying fish.
The barons hate Gaveston, the king’s minion. They are bent upon
destroying his favourite and show scant respect to the king. But the king
behaves in an imperious manner, without forgetting for a moment that he
is a king. He defies the nobles not because of his inherent strength but

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because he has a blind faith in the sacredness of kings hip. He does not
know what makes kings feared and becomes angry because he does not
produce the effect he should. He is conscious of his privileges and not of his,
responsibilities and regards the power and wealth of kingship to be used to
embellish his private life. He is an irresponsible king who never forgets that
he is a king. Even when he is doomed, he pretends that he is not defeated. His
speech at his deposition is an instance of the irony of kingship :
Continue ever, then celestial sun;
Let never silent night possess this clime.
All times and seasons, rest you at a stay,
That Edward still may be fair England kings
“That he is not still fair England’s king he has only to blame, for he had
proclaimed earlier that rather than give up his favourites he would ‘Make all
England’s towns huge heaps of stones………’ Such a man was clearly unfit to
rule, and his tragedy is that he is placed in a position of supreme authority.
With a little tact, he could, like James I, have kept both his throne and his
favourites.” (Henderson.)
(B) Gaveston
Gaveston, the fauourite, is an epicurean who maintains hIs hold on the
king’s affections through the elusive and disturbin power of arts. He ministers
to his artistic and musical tasest and wins him completely. The king is so
much charmed by his favourite that he is prepared to leave his kingdom and
his queen for Gaveston. He is the shrewd judge of Edward’s character and
diverts attention by music and pageants from classical mythology. He cares
only for the king as he says :
The king, upon whose bosome let me die
And with the world be still at enmitie,
Gaveston has a Frenchman’s dislike of London and its citizens, and a
contempt for English nobles who also hate him for his foreign fashions and
airs. As Mortimer complains:
/ have not seen a dapper jack so brisk ;
He wears a short Italian hooded cloak ‘
Loaded with pearl, and, in his Tuscan cap,
A jewel of more value than the crown
While others walk below, the king and he
From out a window laugh at such as we
And flout our train and jest our attair.

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 The nobles banish Gaveston but he is speedily called back by the king.
The nobles could not pocket the insult and raised a revolt against the king and
his favourite Gaveston is captured and sentenced to die upon the block.
Charlton and Weller suggest “Gaveston with his sensual and luxuriant
imagination, his devil-may-care insolence, and his ironical recklessness be very
much what Marlowe himself actually was,” Gaveston’s hostility towards the
peers is matched by cynical contempt for the multitude which he exhibits in his
encounter with the three poor men.
(C) Younger Mortimer.
Marlowe portrays the character of Younger Mortimer with great spirit
and power. In the first part of the play he is the bluff, half-spirited baron who
refuses to abide by the king’s folly. He is the very anti-thesis of the intriguing
courtier. Gradually he shakes off his disguise and shows his cloven
hoofs by becoming the natural spokesman for Gaveston’s enemies, urging the
‘parley’ only with their ‘naked swords’”. He wishes to depose the king if
he does not consent to banish Gaveston. Gaveston is banished but he is
speedily called back. When Gaveston provokes him by his he stabs him and
rises against the king. He is taken prisoner and condemned to the
Tower. He asks himself:
What Mortimer ? can ragged stony wails
Immure thy virtue that aspires to heaven
Soon he escapes from the Tower, He reaches France, and there
gains the love of Isabella, the Queen with whom he returns to England. Soon
he dethrowns the king and becomes the Lord Protector, and vaunts his
authority with despotic arrogance:
‘The prince I rule, the queen do I command,
And with a lowly conge to the ground
The proudest lords salute me as I pass;
I seal, I cancel, / do what I will “
Mortimer is a conspirator, the ambitious egoist haughty, callous and
unscrupulous. He closely follows the precepts of Machiavelli.
He declares that greatness has placed him beyond the reach of fortune, he
is the Olympian oak, to whom all others are but humble shrubs. He boasts that
he can make ‘Fortune’s: wheele turn as he please’. He takes pride in being
more feared than loved, but when he can win his ends by smooth words he does
so. Though he finally murders the king he had earlier told the barons that,
however they bore it out, it was treason to be up against the crown. H made a
mistake in not cutting off the king’s son and the oversight cost him his life. The

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king’s son wins the peers to his side, arrests Mortimer and orders him t instant
execution. Mortimer meets his fate without touch of repentance or regret.
Mortimer has made the most of his life and welcomes death as a further
adventure, an Elizabethan voyage of exploration:
Farewell faire Queene, weepe not for Mortimer,
That scorns the world, and as a traveler
Goes to discover countries yet unknown.
(D) Queen Isabella
It has been observed by some critics that Marlowe could not draw female
characters, that he could never portray a convincing heroine because he never
learnt the secrets of a woman’s heart. In their support they refer to Zenocrate
and Helen. Zenocrate has been referred to as a wooden figure, cut in a fixed
pattern which cannot vary. Helen is a mere vision, a symbol of classical
beauty. No doubt, Marlowe could not draw convincing women characters in
Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus, but his female characterization in other plays
does not warrant that Morlowe did not know about woman’s love for man. In
his first play Dido – the Queen of Carthage, Dido, the symbol of sexual love, is
the feminine protagonist of the tragedy. In The Jew of Malta the sketch of
Bellamira, the courtesan, is true to life. Marlowe has been successful in
pointing the character of a prostitute with all her artful words, alluring gestures
and lustful allurements. Similary the character of Queen Isabella is beautifully
drawn by Marlowe, though it remarked “Like all Marlowe’s women, Isabella is
colourless.” It is hard to agree with this view as she is true to life and exhibits
all the womanly qualities of love, jealousy, hatred, ambition, frailty and
hypocrisy. Harry Levin also admits that “she is more alive, at any rate, than the
corpse of Zenocrate or the wrath of Helen.”
In the beginning she has great love for her husband who dotes on
Gaveston and has no regard for her. The king discards her again and again and
even charges her of loving Mortimer. She affirmed her love for Edward by
saying, “Heaven’s can witness I love none but you.” When the Barons speak of
revolt against the king, she prays to Mortimer:
“Farewell, sweet Mortimer; and for my sake,
Forbear to levy arms against the king.”
She even prays to the barons to recall Gaveston because as she says:
“………………. I love him more
Than he can Gaveston, would he lov’d me,
But half so much then were I trable-bless’d”

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 After she has procured Gaveston’s recall, Edward hangs a golden tongue
round her neck because she can plead so well. Kissing him, she cries:
“……………….. nor let me have more wealth,
Than I may fetch from this rich treasury,
O how a kiss revives poor Isabel!”
Like every woman she wants to have complete dominance over her
husband’s love. She is pained to find that the king showered all his love on
Gaveston and has no love for her. But still she has faith in prayer as she says:
“In vain I look for lover at Edward’s hand,
Whose eyes are fix’d on none but Gaveston,
Yet once more I’ll importune him with prayers.”
At the beginning of Act II. Scene IV. Edward spurns the queen, talks of
her lover Mortimer, and leaves Isabella lamenting his stony heart. Edward
repels her as a ‘French strumpet.’ It is too much for a devoted wife and when
there is no chance left for her to win the love of her husband, it is natural that
out of jealousy she transfers her love to Mortimer. She conceals her love for
Mortimer till she and Mortimer have returned from France with their
victorious army. Then we know about their love as Kent says:
..................Mortimer
And Isabella do kiss, while they conspire;
And yet she bears a fact of love forsooth:
Fie on that love that hatcheth death and hate.’,
Now Isabella plays she-Machiavel to Mortimer’s he-Machiavel. She
becomes cruel, unfaithful and a scheming adulteress, and even wishes the
king dead. She dissembles wonderfully. In public she is full of concern for
the state of the country and the king’s misfortunes. When Mortimer sends
Matrevis and Gurney with a letter to take charge of the captive king and to
torture him, she says:
Mortimer at once remarks, “Finely dissembled, do so still sweet queen.”
She cherishes a warm love for her son and it is true to feminine nature.
Isabella and the frail Queen Gertrude in Hamlet are almost relative by
blood, but the character of Isabella is drawn more elaborately and she plays a
more active role in the play. Some critics have found her character—portrayal
faulty as they say that, “the transition from her faithful, but despairing
attachment to the king to a guilty love for Mortimer” has not been indicated.
This charge is well met by R. S. Knox. He says, “But, while admitting
that Marlowe might have thrown a somewhat fuller light on the actual change,

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there is surely no inconsistency. The queen loved the weak king, but in her
solitary despair was helped by Mortimer. His strength attracted her despite
herself; the attraction, with the neglect and insults of her husband, become love,
and whole-heartedly she went to him. She may have been weak and certainly
afterwards hardened her heart to the king; she may have been conventionally
immoral and wicked; but that is not to be inconsistent.”
STRUCTURE OF EDWARD II
Edward // is generally acclaimed as Marlowe’s greatest dramatic success
because of its remarkable construction. Marlowe has skilfully compressed
the twenty-years of tragic confusion into five acts. In this play the action
emanates not only from the central figure but also from the deft handling of
the counter-forces. The play opens with the recall of Gaveston from
banishment, and his meeting with the king marks the beginning of king’s
downfall. In the very first scene we also notice the king’s quarrel with
the Barons who are jealous of Gaveston’s upstart. Edward and Gaveston
also abuse the Bishop of Coventry and thus make the church hostile to the
king.In this way in the very first scene Marlowe makes the ball rolling and
in the next scene we are also introduced to Queen Isabella who took active part
in the execution of the king. All the important characters are introduced in the
first two scenes of the play.
For the first time in Edward II Marlowe has arranged his material in
such a manner as to attain unity of plot. For its source Marlowe depends
on the chronicle of Holinshed but for the sake of attaining the plot Marlowe
has deviated from the account of Holinshed on a number of occasions. Infact
for greater dramatic effect he remade history. Historically, Mortimer met
the Queen only midway in the period covered by the play. In this short
period Marlowe could not have convincingly shown the Queen’s drift towards
Mortimer. Hence he introduced Mortimer in the very first scene of the
play. Mortimer and the Queen are brought together early and thus Marlowe
got time in showing the growing friendship and later on love between
Mortimer and the Queen. In Holinshed’s account Marlowe only got the
suggestion that Mortimer was infatuated by the Queen. Marlowe made a
capital out of this suggestion and develops the sub-plot (love of Mortimer and
the Queen) so essential to the main plot. Marlowe has also used the art of
selection, condensation and adaptation in some other respects. To quote G. E.
Baker, “Perhaps the most marked instance of technique in Edward II is that
Marlowe, in his desire to unify his material, attains a plot.
In Holinshed, Marlowe’s chief source in this play, the story of
Gaveston and Edward is finished some time before that of Edward and

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Spencer begins. Marlowe - saw that to write first the story of one favourite
and then the story of another would mean a play lacking in variety, a shift of
interest on the part of the audience midway, and troublesome exposition part
half-way through the play as to the origin of the second favourite. Therefore he
cheerfully remarks history. With him the Spencer’s, followers and admirers of
Gaveston just the people to whom Edward would turn when there friend, his
favourite, is put to death. For similar reason the older and younger Mortimers
are present even in the opening Scene of the play though historically they firs
appeared at court much later. In order to make them prominent he gives them
the oath-taking really belonging to the Earls of Pembroke and Warwick. He
completely changes history by putting these two Mortimers in the same relation
toward Gaveston then they really bore only toward young Spencer. All these
changes make for unification for real plotting, for naturalness of conduct ; but
they also mean a fine disregard for historical sequence and fact Surely no man
would make all these changes unless he felt them needed. But why needed?
Because they give him an emotional response which the sequence and
emphasis in Hohinshed could not give him on the stage.”
In Edward II the characters not only carry the emotional burden of the
play, but also sustain the plot At the same time the plot is not solely dependent
on what they do. Marlowe has struck a balance between a plot, the events in
which are directed by its hero and one which develops independently of him
and reacts upon him It is true that the king sets certain events in motion, but he
has also to maintain a passive role in the plot. This plot is broken up into a great
many separate episodes most of them quite short, but we can follow it as a
close-kint, coherent and logical chain of cause and effect, for in all the
episodes the person and character of the king are in some way involved.
As a whole the structure of the play is better than any of the plays of
Marlowe.

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 UNIT - IV
NON-DETAILED DRAMA
1. Ben Jonson: The Alchemist
Life and Works
Among English men of letters , Ben Jonson is a unique figure in many
ways. He was born in Westminster in 1573. The major period of his life was
passed in London. His grandfather had settled down in Annandale, Scotland.
From there he had migrated to Carlistle. He was in the employ of Henry VIII.
The father of Ben Jonson was of Scottish extraction. He became a victim to the
persecution of Queen Mary, a Catholic to her backbone. He became a “Minister
of gospel”. Since he professed Protestantism, his estate was forfeited to the
State. Subsequently, he was thrown into prison. Ben Jonson was born
posthumously, after a month of his father’s death. After two years his mother
remarried a bricklayer who had his misgivings about the literary taste of the
man. It is also on record that Jonson was apprenticed to him for doing the work
of bricklaying, but he found himself a misplaced man in that capacity, and he
gave it up ultimately.
Jonson was, however, provided by his stepfather when he was studying in
Westminster school. William Camden, held in very high esteem by the
dramatist, took fancy for the young student. Much of the classical learning of
Jonson is due to the inspiration and work of his revered teacher. He freely
acknowledges that whatever he could achieve as an artist is due to him
“Camden, most revered head.”
Jonson, later on, joined as a soldier in the Low Countries. He remained in
Flanders till 1592. He married Anne Lewis, “a shrew” but not without the
redeeming virtue of honesty. By 1597 he came to be connected with the stage.
He became an actor and a ‘play jobber”. He died in comparative poverty on
August 6, 1637 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. On his tombs are
inscribed the words: “O rare Ben Jonson”.
Jonson produced his first play, Every Man in His Humour in 1598; The
Case is Altered belongs probably to the same year. The year 1599 saw the
production of Every Man Out of His Humour, a less popular comedy, which
with Cynthia’s Revels, 1600, marked the opening of the stage war between
Jonson and his fellow-playwrights. Jonson returned to the attack with The
Poetaster, 1601, but the war ended in 1602, and he then turned to tragedy.
Sejanus, 1603, was his first and greater tragedy, and with the accession of
James I, Jonson was established by his thirty masques and court entertainments
as the most successful for the Jacobean stage. The King, however, took offence
at reference to the Scotts in Eastward Hoe, 1605.

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 The period that followed was marked by the production of his greatest
classical comedies: Volpone, 1606, Epicene or the Silent Woman 1609; and
The Alchemist 1610; and by that of his second tragedy Catiline, 1611. His later
comedies include, The Staple of News, 1626, The New Inn, 1629, and A Tale
of a Tub, 1633.
Jonson’s Theory of Humours
Jonson employs the theory of humours in building up the characters. He
is not concerned with the full development of human personality, many traits
residing in one individual. He lays accent upon one single predominant trait of
the character which can be either greed or lust. The theory of humours
intensifies a character drawn by him, but it lacks the wholeness which we find
in the characters of Shakespeare, Somerset Maugham, and James Joyce.
Four Humours
There are four important humours in the theory of humours of Jonson: i.
choler ii. melancholy iii phlegm and iv blood. Jonson has based his theory on
the old physiology. These four types of humour correspond with i. moisture ii.
dryness iii. heat and iv. cold. The emergence of a humour takes place due to
some kind of personality imbalance. If all the traits maintain a balance, no
occasion arises as to call the person sub-normal or abnormal. The excess in the
humour of a person is the thing which pleases Ben Jonson and he harnesses it
for his purpose. Thus, the physiological behaviour of such a man depends upon
the monomania which obsesses his mind.
Concept of Humour
According to Jonson, humour was nothing but “a bias of disposition, a
warp”. It was used in a specific sense, just as “complex” is used in our own
time. Humour came to be interpreted as “any mood, condition, habit or
eccentricity.” A character in Jonson is recognized by one particular humour.
Morose in The Silent Woman is characterised by his hatred of noise. Epicure
Mammon in The Alchemist is characterized by his love of wealth, and Kastril
by his love of quarrelling. Jonson’s Every Man Out of His Humour is a
successful experiment in the sphere of humours.
A peculiarity of Jonson’s art is hinted at by the title Every Man in His
Humour. This working principle Jonson applied afterward in his two great
comedies, Volpone and The Alchemist. In Volpone, he studies, not a foible or
whim, but a master passion, the passion of greed, as it affects a whole social
group; in The Alchemist, he makes an elaborate study of human gullibility. In
Jonson’s own words:

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 “When some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits and his powers In their confluctions, all to run one
way This may be truly said to be a humour.”
Lust, hunger for gold, jealousy, brutal egotism, vulgar ambition, control
and sway the minor aberrations of the characters. Moliere too was inspired by
the humours in people. The concept of humour is not an innovation on the part
of Jonson, it already existed in Chapman.
Farcical Design
A specific humour when juxtaposed against an adverse trait sparks off a
comedy. For instance, when silence comes in clash with noise in The Silent
Woman, the comic situation arises. When the legacy hunters come in clash with
the sober understanding, there arises a comic situation. The main technique of
the comedy of humour rests upon this type of juxtaposition of particular
humour against a trait.
A figure in a comedy of humours comes to assume a farcical design. The
figure gets larger than life. There is always some exaggeration. Dapper’s or that
of Kastril’s behaviour in The Alchemist is farcical. Even the high romantic
notions on the part of Mammon are of an exaggerated type. Imagination comes
to play an intense role in a comedy of humours. “The humour, even at the
beginning, is not a type as in Marston’s satire, but a simplified and somewhat
distorted individual with a typical mania.”
Monomania
Satire is also an ingredient found in the theory of humour. Jonson has
satirized the existing evils in the social order of the day. The legacy hunters and
the covetous people are severely whipped by the strokes of satire. “Comedy of
humour” says a critic, “represents life viewed at a satirical stage”. Jonson’s
early comedies of humour were in the form of experiments in the genre
conceived by him, and he succeeded abundantly in them. He had arranged
commentary on the stage, and the meaning of humour was expounded by the
persons appointed for this specific purpose. They emphasized some prevailing
humour in the character. Just as Marlowe’s tragedy is tragedy of humour,
similarly Jonson’s comedies are comedies of humour. The monomania in the
former appeared in Tamburlaine and in Edward II who is obsessed with his
extravagant love for his minion, Gaveston. The lampooning in art, which is an
ancient form, represents humour. It has been pointed out that Aristophanes
lampooned Euripides in The Achaminans and Socrates in The Clouds.
Humour shows preponderance of one trait over another. The prevailing
humour causes mental erosion, and the victim behaves in a peculiar manner.
The comedy of humours came to be abused by the lesser artists. The degrada

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humour in his comedies. As an artist he lays accent upon some singular trait of
a person and drags him to a height larger than life.
Jonson’s Classicism
Jonson is a classicist by virtue of restraint in art. He runs counter to the
prevalent ungoverned Renaissance spirit. In the beginning he shows some kind
of romantic freedom, but later on awakens to the peril of the same. He is a
classical artist by temperament, hence all his comedies came to be coloured by
classicism. He revolted against the “amateurishness and haphazardness” of the
current plays of his time. It is only in The Case is Altered that he shows the
romantic temperament. The story element in this play verges upon the
Shakespearean type of romanticism. It has got nothing to do with the ancient
type of classicism. Later on, he develops his literary powers with self-imposed
restrictions. Sometimes his characters run riot and give vent to romanticism
while expressing themselves, but it is rare. Mammon is one of the characters of
this type. Compact of lust and avarice, he revels in the wildest dreams of luxury
and wealth. He expands himself in a romantic style.
His Predecessors
The dramatists who preceded Jonson failed to supply contemporary
dramatic literature with proper plot construction. Beyond Seneca, these writers
seldom appeared to look; from him they drew their tameness of dialogue, and
the inflation of sentiments; their serious scenes were still histories; and
sometimes lives; and their comic ones, though replete with grotesque humour,
were without dependence, object, or end. It remained for Jonson to reform this
aspect of Elizabethan drama. The superiority of the ancient Plautus and Terence
in this respect was forcibly impressed on Jonson’s young and ardent mind.
While the Elizabethan poets had hitherto generally drawn their plots from some
romance or novel, Jonson invented his own plots.
“What Jonson intended was to recall comedy from its romantic
entanglement and to restore it to its ancient province. In 1598, he was a
playwright seeking success on the public stage, and trained in its conventions
and practices. His purpose was to alter his own practices, and to reform the
stage and he represented the critical tendencies already existing; secondly, a
recourse to classical standard as a cure for lawlessness; and lastly, the
establishment of a realistic and satirical comedy on a rational plan”. We may
collect from The Case is Altered, and Every Man in His Humour, that he was
recent from the study of Plautus and Terence. Moreover, all the stores of
ancient literature were open to him, and he was familiar not only with the
perfect productions of the Greek dramatists, but with the fragments even that
lie scattered among the works of these grammarians. Jonson was gifted with a

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quick intuitive faculty of discerning the ridiculous, a powerful and original vein
of humour. All these helped Jonson in his classical vein of composition.
Moral Justice and Classical Unities
Another aspect of Jonson’s classical temperament was his zeal for moral
justice. He viewed himself as a moral satirist. If the comedies of the
contemporaries of his early days effected any exposure of any evil quality or
any correction of any prevalent folly, it was by accident, not design; but with
Jonson this was the primary object. Jonson set himself boldly to cure the
theatrical evils of the time by establishing a comic and a tragic form based on
classic example. In the latter endeavour he had no success. In the former, he
succeeded in making himself the greatest figure of his age. Further, Jonson is a
classicist by virtue of his adherence to the classical unities; Unity of Time 2.
Unity of Place and 3. Unity of Action. In The Alchemist, the unity of action
and place, though observed after the classical style, the unity of time is not
followed. Aristotle believes that the action must complete its course in “the
single revolution of the sun”; Jonson puts the entire action in The Alchemist in
a larger frame of time. It is determined by the period of the leaving of the house
by the owner and his coming back though earlier than the scheduled period.
Within this period, more than a fortnight, the entire action of the drama takes
place. The unity of place has been fully observed as the entire action takes
place in the house of Lovewit. As regards the unity of action is concerned,
Jonson maintains it with great vigour. The action in The Alchemist is “one and
entire” as prescribed by the classical opinion. There is no looseness about it.
The action which is mainly composed of the swindling motives takes place in a
solid manner.
Latin Tradition
Jonson’s classicism is best reflected in his Every Man in His Humour. He
tries to harmonize medieval medical conceit with the methods employed in the
Latin theatre. For the Middle Ages the humours or natural moistures of the
brain governed a man’s nature. If the art is to make use of the humours, the
artist has to deal with a type, not with a personality. This was what Terence did
in his dramas. Jonson, being a classicist, determined to follow this method. The
object of the classical comic dramatists was to ridicule the vices of men, put
folly in a foolish shape before the spectators, and so laugh out the audience into
good behaviour. Jonson too determined that his comedy should be a satiric
comedy; and for that purpose the humours gave him the very tool he required.
Every Man in His Humour shows that Jonson is not the type of artist who
should have run into the rings of romanticism. He shrinks from the romantic
trend of The Case is Altered to develop more solidly within the bounds of his

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matter. He holds in contempt the romantic language of his Poetaster. The
rejection of romanticism has been announced in his Prologue to Every Man in
His Humour. He declares that he is not going to incorporate kings and princes
in his plays.
Centralisation
Still there are critics who suspect Jonson of being a romanticist. A critic
writes about him “Jonson was a man of many moods. Some have found in him
a ro mantic poet who wilfully imprisoned his genius within the limits of a
comic method artificially applied in and out of season.” He is, no doubt, a man
of many moods but then the mood which predominates other types of mood is
one which veers forcibly towards the classical rigidness. The earlier romantic
trend is the solitary instance which cannot be called into evidence when we are
to size him up in the light of the two trends in question. There is that voluntary
classicism which comes into play in his comedies. He could not have been if he
chose to be otherwise a romanticist because the element of humour on which he
builds up his plays is not the thing to be associated with romanticism. The
tendency of diffusion, a romantic ingredient, is denied to a writer who chooses
to centralise his theme. Jonson in his comedies shows a tendency of
centralization, thus he has to seclude himself from romanticism. It is only the
social temper, the didactic purpose of the artist which drags him towards
classicism. One cannot discover in him the “romantic monologue of the soul”.
Jonson: Realism, Satire, and Morality
A comic dramatist is almost of necessity a .realist, a satirist and a
moralist. His main aim, generally, is to depict the manners and the mode of
living of the people around him to have a good laugh at their foibles and
weaknesses; sometimes laughing with them as Chaucer and Shakespeare do
and sometimes laughing at them as Jonson and Bernard Shaw do. Jonson was a
conscious artist and he had a set and fixed programme when he set out to write
comedies for the English stage. He was seriously against the extravagances of
the contemporary romantic comic drama which sinned against the laws of
probability and verisimilitude on the plea that the audience demanded
adventure, romance, fantasies and extravagances of that sort. He attacked the
contemporary romantic tales, tempests and such drolleries and asserted that the
true judge in all these matters must be the dramatist himself and not the
gentleman of understanding. Like Sir Philip Sidney, Jonson disliked the curious
Elizabethan mixture, the tragicomedy and he insisted on the purity of genres as
insisted upon by the classicists.

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Realism
Jonson’s main criticism of the contemporary romantic drama patronized
by Greene and Lyly was its lack of realism and verisimilitude. He reacted
severely against all romantic trash, legendary adventures and miracles and
declared that in his plays he was going to present:
Deeds and language such as men do use And persons such as comedy
would choose When she would show an image of the times . And sport with
human follies, not with crimes.
His hope for comedy, then, lay in realism and in satire. “Instead of
lawless and fantastic translations from romance and history, Jonson planned a
realistic comedy based on rational and ordered study of life of his own time”.
Jonson’s main aim was to hold the mirror upto contemporary human
nature and to show of the times. There is nothing unrealistic about the themes
of Every Man in His Humour, Every Man out of His Humour, Volpone and
The Alchemist. “In Every Man in His Humour all the characters are
Londoners. London manners, London fashions and foibles and even London
topography has been placed before us in the most convincing manner.” He
portrays humours peculiar to his own days The same is equally true of The
Poetaster. In The Alchemist, he goes to the extent of introducing the very
plague and realistically depicts the contemporary love omoney and gold
which is the main theme of Volpone. In Bartholomew Fair, he actually takes us
to a fair presenting different scenes in a realistic manner.
His characters speak the language really spoken by men. In spite of his
learning, Jonson is never pedantic and he makes his characters speak their
language and not his own. When he is dealing with the people of the
underworld, he makes use of slangs and other colloquial expressions.
The Data of Reality
From Jonson’s comedies alone, it would be possible to reconstruct the
whole areas of the Elizabethan society. “Shakespeare paints with bigger brush,
but for detailed effect Jonson is supreme.” The Elizabethan society saw
commercial progress, economic development, enhancement of art and culture,
the development of the puritanical creed, superstition, a change in the social
habits and taste, sartorial fastidiousness and the acquisition of national wealth.
Jonson, being the typical product of his age, became alive to the shortcomings
and defects of the time. He in his plays scans them critically.
The acquisition of the national wealth brought in its wake a number of
evils. The Renaissance toned up the living of the people. They came to acquire
new taste for the luxuries. They started hankering after more and more of

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wealth. The demand of gold and silver increased manifold. The superstitious
folks believed in the philosopher’s stone and the elixir. New and rapid means of
getting wealth were sought by them. Alchemy became one of the
acknowledged methods for securing fabulous wealth in the age of Jonson. Both
Elizabeth and King James believed in the potentialities of alchemy. It came to
be a fit subject for the literary exercise of Jonson.
In the days of Jonson the swindlers practised alchemy for befooling the
gullibles. Dr. Subtle in The Alchemist befools Mammon and Tribulation
Wholesome promising them the philosopher’s stone. Mammon is the typical
product of the age as he belongs to the set of people who hankered after untold
wealth and enormously dreamy luxuries. Drugger and Dapper depict the
common weakness for wealth. The sharpers, horoscope-casters, alchemists and
fortune readers swarmed the streets of London of Jonson. The gross knaveries
of sharpers, cony-catchers, quacks and horoscope casters had become the
positive threat for the people of the day. In The Alchemist these things have
been depicted with great detail. The gulls like Mammon and Dapper are seen
fluttering in the snares of Dr. Subtle and Capt. Face. The life of the Jacobean
London did something substantial towards the opening of the eyes of the people
against the corrupt practice, just as Cervantes did about the decayed forms of
chivalrous enthusiasm in Don Quixote.
The fashion of smoking also finds mention in the play. The tobacconist in
the form of Drugger has been incorporated in the play. At the end Kastril and
Lovewit are seen to retire to enjoy a smoke. The Puritanism of the Jacobean
London has been depicted With a contemptuous design. Jonson professing a
different creed makes abundant fun of the puritans like Ananias and Tribulation
Wholesome. Their hypocrisy has been mercilessly unmasked by Jonson.
The greed and covetousness of the people is severely chastised by the
artist in The Alchemist. Almost all the characters are greedy, those who came
to be gulled by Subtle. Surly is surely one of those who can see through their
tricks and escape the evil. The data of reality which Jonson gleaned belongs to
the surface of life. Palmer calls him as a “stubborn and systematic realist.” He
presents men and things as he saw them. “The men he saw as humours
walking-this man greedy, that man vain, jealous, proud, artful or fond.” He
drew his characters from life. He hardly leaves any scope for “romantic
wilfulness or unexpected fun.”
Satiric Gallery
Jonson “mirrors every day life and brings in contemporary characters to
hold them upon satire. The satiric purpose lies behind each of his plays
although it varies in kind and degrees, from the bitter cynicism of Volpone to

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the more genial ridicule of The Alchemist.” The Alchemist is a satire on
alchemy; it is also a satire on Puritanism. “It would be hard to find elsewhere in
English drama such a seeming gallery of satiric pictures of the vanities and
shams to which men are liable; and while this satire may be levelled at the
absurdities of his own day, much of it has lasting point.”
Jonson is not purely an aesthetic artist he is didactic to a larger extent.
According to his own words, he believes that the poetry of the stage must aim
not merely at delight but at instruction also. There is a purpose hidden in his
work of art,, the purpose is to reveal the villainy of an underdog. He pointed his
finger towards the weak spot of contemporary mode of living and he “stripped
the ragged follies of the time”. So that those weak spots could be removed and
avoided. Thus, in aim and purpose Jonson was a moralist. He wants to unmask
a swindler, a cozener and a dupe. In The Alchemist, he unmasks such a
swindler in Subtle along with his accomplices. But the moral purpose of the
dramatist is frequently overshadowed by the witty satirist in him. True to his
artistic purpose, Jonson does not parade his moral purpose.
The Alchemist: Publication and Source
The Alchemist has been regarded as Jonson’s supreme masterpiece in
comedy. It was performed in 1610, and published in quarto in 1612. It is stated
that for the plot of the play Jonson is indebted to Plautus. The opening dialogue
of The Alchemist seems to recall a scene in Plautus’s Mostellaairia. Face’s
attempt to hoodwink his master in v,i. bears a slight resemblance to another
scene. Jonson’s indebtedness does not amount to much. Again in Plautus’s
Poenidus, there is a man speaking Punic, and mystifying his hearers; similarly
we find Surly in IV, iii, speaking Spanish and being misunderstood. The fact is
that Jonson does not seem to own anything worthwhile to Plautus. Plautus’s
genuine humour and powerful grasp of character are certainly shared by
Jonson.
Jonson developed his comic genius on his own line and in response to the
age in which he lived, apart from his classical bias, and so differing
fundamentally from Shakespeare in this respect. He might have stray hints from
Plautus but the plot of The Alchemist is entirely his own. He draws largely
upon alchemical and astrological matter in the play, and this marks a new phase
of development. Jonson’s purpose is to “show an image of the times and sport
with human follies,-not with crimes.” And in his comedies he, as a rule, follows
the Plautian model by introducing the braggart soldiers, the clever servant, the
avaricious and jealous husband, and the gulls. It is with the contemporary
London that he deals in The Alchemist.

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Argument
Omitted in some of the editions of the play, it sets forth the action of the
play. It speaks of the raging plague-”the sickness hot” - of the master having
quitted his house in town, of the servant left behind, getting to know. A cheater
and his punk (mistress), with whom the servant enters into a contract, each for a
share. They begin to act by calculating the future, by telling fortunes, by selling
of familiar spirits etc., with the philosopher’s stone, “Till it, and they, and all in
fume are gone.”
Prologue
This is also omitted in some editions of the play. It explains the purpose
for which the play has been written. The play is intended to provide mirth, “No
country’s mirth is better than our own”. The scene is London, the purpose is to
expose the folly and vice of the time:
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners now call’d humours, feed the stage
So in the play we meet the characters as mentioned above
The purpose is not only to expose, but also to correct the folly and vice of
the age:
Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve; but better men,
However the age he lives in doth endure
The vices that she breeds, above their cure,
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And, in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseas’d
But will with such fair correctives be pleas’d
Certainly, the aim of the comedy is to provide mirth and laughter by
exposing folly and vice, and,, as it is pointed out here, in the mirth and laughter
lie “the wholesome remedies” and it appears that Jonson’s comedy is written
with a moral purpose- the correction of the folly and vice of the age.
Summary of the Play Act I:
The play begins with the threatened fight between Subtle and Face during
the absence of the owner of the house, Lovewit. Face, the servant of the house,
assumes the disguise of a captain, and comes with sword drawn; Subtle, an
alchemist,is with a vial in his hand containing a destructive chemical. Dol
Common, their colleague, interferes to compound the differences. A volley of

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abuses follow from both persons in a heated temper. The issue of the quarrel
may be about the proportion of profit or division of spoils. Dol Common is
anxious that they would be exposed if the neighbours listen to all the cant
uttered loudly by the two. She seems to speak sense, and finally by snatching
away Face’s sword and knocking off Subtle’s vial, she sobers them. They
renew their pact, each promising to do the best to gull the neighbours.
Dapper, a lawyer’s clerk, enters the house. He is desirous to get some
charm as to bring success in the games of chance. He is prepared to share the
profits in gambling. Subtle, now clad in his professional dress, assures, him that
he would get tremendous success in his ventures. Dapper gives some money to
them for their prospective forebodings. He is told that he would be able to
“blow up gamester after gamester.” The avarice of the man is exploited, and he
is told that the Queen of Fairy shall help him to get untold wealth. He must not
forget to give them the share accruing out of his ventures. Subtle makes it
known to him that he will have to go through certain ceremonies before the
Queen appears to him to bless personally: Dapper should fast, putting three
drops of vinegar in his nose, one drop to his mouth, and one drop in each of his
ears, and bathing his fingers’ ends and washing his eyes to sharpen his five
senses. He is also to distribute twenty nobles among her grace’s servants, and
put on a clean shirt before he can have a sight of the Queen of Fairy.
After Dapper is dismissed, there comes Drugger, a tobacconist. He
desires to beat his rivals in the trade through some magic device. Subtle talks
directly to him. Drugger is building a new shop, and desires of Subtle with his
knowledge of planetary influence to help him build it in the right way to attract
customers. Subtle starts reading his fortune, and promises him the best of luck,
and teils him how he should build his shop and other details about it. Drugger
wishes to reward the alchemist with a crown, but Face tells him to part with an
article of gold. for his preliminary services. Drugger does it at his bidding to do
so. He asks Subtle to let him know the bad days so that he may not enter to
bargain. This will be told to him later on.
Face, after Drugger leaves the place, claims for a sizable share of profits
because he succeeds in bringing clients to Subtle.
Dol Common announces the coming of one Epicure Mammon who is
looking out to possess a philosopher’s stone. This stone was effective for
transmuting the base metals into gold. Epicure Mammon wants it for doing
some public good and satisfying his own lust for the extreme riches.
Act II:
This act introduces Sir Epicure Mammon and Surly. The former explains
to the latter his dreams of unbounded prospects of wealth and luxury. He is

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carried away by his imagination, and talks rapturously to Surly. Surly is
sceptical, and scoffs at him. Mammon goes on expatiating on all the miracles
that will be wrought by the philosopher’s stone. He is sure of transmuting the
base metal into gold with the help of Subtle, the alchemist. He will purchase
Devonshire and Cornwall and make them his gold mines. With the
philosopher’s stone he will restore to the old their youth; cure all diseases and
rid the country of the plague. He cites the Old Testament and Greek mythology
as bearing witness to the existence of the philosopher’s stone in the past.
Mammon has a talk with Face, and Face assures him that within three
hours the experiment for obtaining the philosopher’s stone is going to succeed.
Again, Mammon’s imagination runs away with him. All the rich and luxurious
food that an epicure can dream of rushes into his mind. He assures Face that he
would liberally reward him on having possession of that wonderful stone. Then
enters Subtle. All his labours, he admonishes, will be wasted if Mammon goes
on like that. If he is to have the use of the philosopher’s stone, he must be
mindful of public good, otherwise a curse will fall upon him. Further, he
desires that his friend Surly should be convinced of the science of alchemy and
the philosopher’s stone. Meanwhile, Subtle instructs Face to look after the
experiment going on within. Mammon assures him that his wealth will be spent
on starting the educational institutions and the hospitals. Then he enquires
whether he should send all the metals to be transmuted into gold. Subtle replies
that he must do it without fail.
But Surly is convinced that Mammon is going to be befooled by the
cheats bustling in the house. Mammon, however, asks them not to take his
words in a way as to affront them. Surly has simply no faith in their science.
Subtle offers to explain the theory of it. He says that the baser metals in the
womb of nature are transformed into gold under evolutionary process. He
simply will turn the baser metal into gold by accelerating what nature takes
time to do. His alchemy will perform the task in a lesser time that what nature
takes to transmute it. Surly is still full of doubts about the explanation given by
Subtle. He considers his alchemy nothing short of tricks of the cards to cheat a
man. Subtle , however, tolerates the words of Surly though Mammon looks a
bit disappointed on finding so obstainate.
Face announces the demented sister of a lord. She is so learned that she
has gone mad. Mammon becomes curious to have intimacy with her, but Surly
smells a rat in the whole thing. Face showers encomiums upon the virtues of
the Lord’s sister, Dol Common. Mammon wishes to press his suit on her and
requests Face that it should be done through his good offices. Face tells him

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that she will make a wonderful partner when he comes to have the untold
wealth produced by the philosopher’s stone.
Face comes in again with a message from captain Face (Face is not
known to Mammon as Captain Face) to Surly, demanding of Surly to meet the
said captain in the Temple Church. Surly is going to meet the said captain, not
personally but by attorney; and soon departs. Mammon gives Face money; he is
more than pleased with what is being accomplished; and promises the most
handsome reward to Face and takes leave. Subtle re-enters with Dol. Dol is
quite ready to play her part in duping Mammon. And they are going to get all
the stuff from Mammon.
Suddenly there appears a man called Ananias, a Puritan. He wants that
the philosopher’s stone should discipline the Holy brethren of Amsterdam.
Subtle on meeting this client indulges in numerous types of alchemic jargon
with a view to. impressing him. Ananias tells him that he has been sent to him
by his teacher called Master Tribulation Wholesome. Subtle wants to fleece
money out of him, but he is told by the puritan that a philosopher’s stone does
not require any money to beget it. It infuriates Subtle. Subtle sends him away
for he wants to have a talk with his pastor.
Drugger comes in and imparts a strange and tempting piece of news that
there is a young wealthy widow. She is keen to meet Subtle as she wants her
fortune to be read. But she is little afraid of her reputation lest it should get
tarnished by coming into the house. Face convinces him that she is likely to get
more suitors which is just an ideal thing for a widow to have. There is also a
brother who is her guardian anxious to learn the art of duelling so that he could
beat his rivals. Face tells Drugger that Subtle is the best person to let him know
the art instructed by him. So Drugger must bring the two, and also a damask
suit for Subtle. When all of them go away, Subtle and Face feel immensely
pleased at the prcspect of having the widow after drawing lots. But in the
meantime Subtle sends Face to meet Surly.
Act III:
The puritans, Tribulation and Ananias are dubious of the practices of
Subtle and his black art. On the way to see Subtle, Tribulation disarms
Ananias’s hostility to Subtle. Ananias maintains that the sanctified cause
should have a sanctified course. He considers Subtle a typical heathen, and
would like to have no dealings with him in their sacred cause. Tribulation
agrees that Subtle is a heathen, but argues that any means, good or bad, should
be used in furthering their cause. He also pleads with Ananias to have patience
with Subtle’s bad temper.

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 He is counting on the philosopher’s stone, and this he can have from
Subtle, and then their ends will be achieved. The “Silent saints” will have again
the liberty to preach, and there will be the way to win over the civil magistrate
to their cause. Ananias seems to be quite convinced now.
Subtle meets Tribulation and his companion. He takes little notice of
Ananias except when he interrupts his talk. He tells Tribulation that all his
experiments are going to fail on account of the obnoxiousness of Ananias.
Tribulation begs Subtle to excuse Ananias’s zeal which often carries him away.
Tribulation promises all the help of the brethren (the puritan sect) in his project.
Subtle wants him to value the orphans’ .goods which he holds in custody.
Tribulation offers to pay for them, and Subtle is satisfied. Now he talks of the
philosophers’ stone and of all the advantages that the sect will gain from it. He
is also competent enough to advise the puritans as how they could convert
people to their creed. Now both the puritans are fully convinced of the authority
of the science of which he is the master.
Now Subtle, Dol Common and Face are extremely delighted to see the
accruing profits out of their black art. Further, they also note that much money
is still to come from Mammon because of his philandering with Dol Common
who is going to be presented as a lady to him. They are now expecting Dapper
and Drugger, and they get busy to present the Fairy Queen to Dapper. Face
meets Dapper and promises him all success in gambling and hints that the
favour of the Fairy Queen is on the way. Then Drugger enters, followed by
Kastril, the young fellow who wants to learn the art of duelling . Face enters
into a lengthy discourse of the art of duelling which Subtle has brought to
perfection. But he tempts Kastril with the dazzling prospects of gambling, and
points to Dapper as one who, with the aid of Subtle, is going to be the supreme
master of gambling. All Kastril’s caution about his fifteen-hundred a year melts
away now. Face tells Kastril that if he wants to make a pile of money, he
should first gamble away his fifteen hundred, and Kastril readily falls. Now he
goes to bring his sister too.
Dapper has come after having duly fasted and done the vinegar
ceremony. Subtle enters, disguised as a priest of Fairy, with a stripe of cloth.
He offers the cloth to Dapper to put it on. Then Dapper’s eyes are bound with a
scarf, which is also a gift from the Fairy Queen. These gifts will bring him all
fortune. He is then bidden to part with all the money he carries before he can be
introduced to the Fairy Queen. He is blindfolded, and he is tormented by
pinches supposedly from elves summoned by Subtle, until he gives away all
that he carries. He finally parts with a half crown, a gift of love, which he had
kept so long. So, he is totally fleeced of all his money, and then he is promised

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an interview with the Fairy Queen and for this he has to wait for two hours with
a piece of gingerbread thrust into his mouth, and in the meantime he must not
see, or speak to anybody.
Act IV:
Mammon is accosted by Face, and the latter tells him that his things are
going to be transmuted into gold and silver. Mammon feels incensed on hearing
silver too and he says that he does not care for silver, but then Face tells him
that might be given to the street beggars. Mammon is then apprised of the fact
that the lady (Dol Common disguised as one) is ready to meet him, but he must
treat her with proper regard. It is likely to infuriate Subtle, her master. After
this Dol Common dressed : as a lady is introduced to him. Mammon is
fascinated by her charming personality and begins wooing her. She is all praise
for the arts of Subtle. Mammon .convinces her that he would shower his untold
wealth upon her. He would be the happiest man on earth if-he gets place by her
side. They would make a good pair Mammon as the lover of the philosopher’s
stone and she as grand spouse. He would provide her the best living
accommodation in palaces, she would get best of jewelry and ornaments
befitting her charm. Dol Common baulks his eloquence . by warning: him
that he must not be so loud lest it might spoil everything, But the man does
not listen to her words and goes on dreaming loudly about the grandeur in
store for them. He proposes that they migrate to a free state where they may
live in safety. Face re-enters to warn Mammon that he is talking too loudly,
arid, suggests the, garden or the chamber upstairs. Mammon and Dol go away.
In the next scene appear Face, Dame Pliant, the sister of Kastril, Subtle
and Kastril. Face wants to get the widow, Dame Pliant, for himself, and tells
Subtle so but in the meantime hp must put himself into the captain’s uniform.
Subtle receives Kastril and his sister. He offers to teach Kastril the art of
duelling straightway, and overwhelms and confounds him with unfamiliar and
abstract terms, borrowed from logic and philosophy. Then, Subtle turns to
Dame PliamV and greets her with a kiss, and reads her fortune. She is going to
be a lady soon, and her brother will have some great honour. Face now en ters
in his-uniform. He also addresses Dame Pliant as a lady, and she is now
pleased. Subtle leads Kastril and Dame Pliant away to his “chamber of
demonstrations,” where Kastril can study the art of duelling and his sister can
look into a glass to have her good fortune revealed.
Meanwhile, Subtle and Face go on discussing as who would marry Dame
Pliant. Face must have Dame Pliant and is on the point of breaking with Subtle
on this matter. But in the meantime they have to attend to the Spanish Don who
is none other than Surly disguised, whom Face brings in now. He speaks

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.Spanish,; and Face and Subtle talk in their own tongue without suspecting that
the Don understands it; nor does the Don give any hint that he does. The
Spanish Don admires the pretty house, and then begs their leave to see the lady.
Face feels his pockets, and his pockets seem to be full of money. Now should it
be Dol or Dame -Pliant who should be put before the Spanish Don? Subtle and
Face ponder the matter awhile. They cannot spoil their game by summoning
Dol away from Mammon at this moment. Face suggests that it should be
Kastril’s sister, Dame Pliant, but he does not renounce his claim on her all the
same. The question of breaking off their pact rises again. Finally, Subtle
consents to Face having Dame Pliant, after she has been in the possession of
the Spanish Don.
In the next scene, Face meets Kastril and his sister. Subtle has by
now. discovered the height of her fortune. He tells her that she will soon
become rich. She will be a countess and soon there will appear a Spanish
Count who will make love to her. She must brace herself well to encounter the
coming suitor. Dame Pliant feels highly incensed at the suggestion and revolts
against it, but her brother Kastril bullies her into accepting the proposal. He
threatens to beat her if she declines the offer. So Dame Pliant has no option but
to agree to the proposal made by Subtle to her about the Spanish Count. Then
Surly disguised as a Spanish Count appears, and he speaks Spanish. Dame
Pliant is more or less a passive spectator. Subtle begs her to go to the Spanish
Count and kiss him. Kastril is annoyed that his sister should be taking no part in
this honourable affair. At last Surly leads her away to the garden. Kastril
welcomes this connection with a Spanish Count, for it will advance the house
of the Kastril’s.
Dol is in her fit of raving. She goes on speaking incoherently. She quotes
the language of Broughton. Mammon is helpless against the flood of her words.
Face is there, but he cannot quieten her. Subtle then enters.
And they run away. Subtle blames Mammon for his unchaste purpose.
Face now re-enters, and reports that the experiments that have been going on
for the perfection of the philosopher’s stone have all ended in smoke. Subtle
falls down in a swoon. Face now tells Mammon that there is little hope of
getting hold of the philosopher’s stone. When Subtle comes, he too curses
Mammon’s vice and lust, which is responsible for the failure of the
experiments. Face urges Mammon to repent at home and send a hundred
pounds to the box at Bethlem, in which case he might have a chance of
recovering the philosopher’s stone. When Mammon is gone, Subtle and Face
are very happy over the success of their trick. Subtle taunts Face about his

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young widow being by this time made a countess whom he should now be
ready as a bridegroom to receive.
Surly, now alone with Dame Pliant, reveals his motives to her. He has
rescued her from villains whom he wants to expose. As he has respected her
modesty, he proposes that she would marry him; he confesses that he has no
fortune of his own which can be made up for by his marriage with a rich widow
like herself. Dame Pliant promises to consider the matter. Subtle enters now.
He is sorry to notice the depressed looks of Surly, and calls him a whoremaster,
and proceeds to pick his pockets. Surly throws off his cloak, and strikes Subtle
down. At this moment enters Face in his uniform; there he sees Surly. Surly
denounces all his tricks. Face withdraws at once, and re-appears with Kastril,
whom he urges to challenge Surly to a duel, describing him as a rogue who is
trying to elope with his sister. They also tell him that he has been employed by
another conjurer to mar their experiments for the philosopher’s stone.
Kastril and Surly are at daggers drawn against each other. The latter tries
to explain the right thing but the former will hear no explanation; nor let his
sister speak on behalf of Surly. Then Drugger arrives there with a piece of
damask. Face sets him on against Surly. Drugger charges Surly with having
owed him money for tobacco and lotion supplied. Then enters Ananias, and he
is also set on against Surly. Ananias renounces Surly as the very Anti-Christ.
Surly, however, is turned out of the house by the bully, Kastril, Hi is further
persuaded to dog the man lest he may come back to avenge the insult inflicted
on him. Further, Drugger is told to disguise himself in the dress of a Spanish
Count for courting Dame Pliant. Subtle explains things to Ananias that his
experiment spoils because of the intrusion of the Spanish gentleman. Thus, he
is not in a position to help them. Ananias goes back with this report to the
brethren so that they pray and fast for the safety and success a safer place for
the experiments which have not yet been completed. Face reminds Subtle that
he must have the widow, Dame Pliant, but Subtle wants to put up a claim for
her, as she after all remains unstained. Dol comes there at the moment, and they
suspend their dispute. Dol informs them that the Master of the house, Lovewit,
has returned. Lovewit stands outside, surrounded by a good many neighbours.
Face is not, however, going to open the door at once. He will get himself
shaved of his beard in the meantime, and be his old self again-Jeremy, the
butler. He promises that he will be able to keep off his master for the day, and
in the meantime they should get away, packing up all the goods and booty that
can be carried in the two trunks, but leaving behind Mammon’s brass and
pewter for the time being.

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Act V:
Soon Lovewit is informed about the suspicious activities of the people in
the house. Neighbours vouch for it. They had seen persons going and coming
into the house at odd hours. There is surely something black in the bottom as
the adage goes. Lovewit wonders how his man could have attracted the crowd
to the house. He knocks at the door, but there is no response. Then he sends a
smith to get his tools and force open the door. At last Face appears, he is now
Jeremy, the butler. He at once begs his master to keep away from the door, for
the house is infected. It was only a cat that died of plague. He contradicts his
neighbours. He tells his master that he has been keeping the house closed and
free from any intrusion during the plague, and he carries the keys with himself.
Lovewit can now no more believe what his neighbours have been saying.
Again there is a dispute going on between Mammon and Surly. The
former praises Subtle and the latter is not only dubious about his science but
condemns him straight away. Face or Jeremy meets them. They want to enter
the house, and Face refers them to Lovewit. Mammon asks to see Subtle and
his Lungs. Face replies that no light has been in the house for three weeks, and
tells Mammon that he must have mistaken the house. Surly threatens to bring
the officers and force open the door. Mammon and Surly go away. Next, there
is Kastril. He demands to see the bawdy doctor and the cozening captain. He
does not spare any invective in condemning the rogues who have cheated him.
Then there are Ananias and Tribulation. Kastril talks about his sister who is still
inside the house, and threatens to bring the constables. Ananias and Tribu lation
are ready to join him in his hunt of the house.
Dapper cries out from within. His mouth is gagged, but he keeps now
calling upon the doctor and the captain. Lovewit hears the cry. Face says that it
is some spirit of the air. Lovewit will not believe it. Dapper keeps crying still.
Face now speaks through the keyhole, and Lovewit notices his movement and
his tricks. Now Face tells his master to dismiss the neighbours, and then he
confesses the tricks he has been playing. Lovewit is won over when he is
promised a young and rich widow for his share, and told that the house is not
infected. And he requests Lovewit to wear the Spanish dress and be like a
Spanish Count.
In the next scene, Subtle brings in Dapper with his eyes still bandaged.
He has swallowed the gap to stay his hunger. Subtle tells him that he has
offended the Fairy Queen by doing so. Dapper begs him to intercede with her
grace. Then Face enters in his uniform. He whispers to Subtle that he has
managed to send away his master for the night. Subtle then unblinds Dapper’s
eyes. Dol enters as the Fairy Queen. The Fairy Queen grants him the favour he

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seeks-namely, that he will win much at gambling, and spend freely. Then she
offers him the fly (spirit) in a purse. And he is to feed the fly once a week on
his wrist by pricking it with a pin. He is told to stay away from ordinary
taverns, but to keep the best company and play the best games. So he is
dismissed.
Then, they have to deal with Drugger. He has brought his damask suit, in
which Face is to woo Dame Pliant. Drugger has arrived with a priest to marry
Dame Pliant. They manage to get rid of Drugger and the priest soon. Now it is
for Face to gull Subtle and Dol. They are not to be allowed to take away the
trunks loaded with money and goods they have tricked out of the people. Face
tells them that the trunks are now the property of his master. Face has no more
use for them; the pact between them is ended, as Face now announces. There is
the officer knocking and demanding that the door be opened. Face informs
them they have been detected in playing the nefarious trade. Subtle and Dol are
asked to scale the wall and get on the other side of it as quickly as possible or
they will be caught red-handed.
In the last scene, Mammon, shouting in a staccato voice leaving no
invective against Face and Subtle, demands the door to be opened. He, on the
advice of Surly, gets a warrant of arrest issued from the authorities and comes
in with the force at his command. Lovewit has in the meantime managed to
marry Dame Pliant in Jjis Spanish dress, which he now changes to his usual
one, and appears before Mammon Kastril and others. The door is thrown open,
and they are invited to enter and look for Subtle and Face they want. Lovewit
tells them that he found none in the house but gentlewomen. Kastril calls out
that she is his sister, Lovewit tells them that this lady was going to marry a
Spanish Count, that the latter “neglected her; so grossly,” and that he (Lovewit)
has taken his place and married the lady.
Surly now cries out that he has lost her. And Lovewit now tells the story
of Surly having dyed his beard, and darkened his face, and borrowed a Spanish
suit and big collar to play the Spanish Don.
Mammon who searches the house, finds none of the cheats there. His
next claim is his goods, stored in the cellar. Lovewit replies that he can have his
goods on certificates proving that he had been gulled of them or on producing a
court writ-and he gives up his claim. Surly and Mammon now go away to hunt
for the cheats elsewhere. Ananias and Tribulation want to cart away their
goods, deposited in the cellar. But Lovewit says that those goods are claimed
by Mammon. Ananias flares up at the word, Mammon, and demands how
Lovewit can set up Mammon against the brethren. Ananias curses the house
and departs with Tribulation when Lovewit threatens to chase them away with

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a cudgel. Drugger next enters, and Lovewit beats him. Face sends away the
priest with Drugger.
There is still Kastril. He drags out his sister, Lovewit stands by Dame
Plaint and is ready to fight a duel with Kastril. Kastril;now makes peace with
Lovewit and congratulates his sister. Finally, Lovewit gets/all the ill-gotten
wealth in the house accumulated due to the evil genius of the servant, Face and
also the hand of Dame Pliant in marriage. So he is the sole figure who is
suddenly profited by the alchemy practised in his own house and that in his
absence.
The Plot Structure
Ben Jonson’s skill in the plot construction starts taking shape since the
writing of Volpone. There is not much of plot construction while writing Every
Man in His Humour and Every Man out of His Humour. The perfection,
however, reaches its acme in The Alchemist which wins laurels from the great
critic and poet, Coleridge. In his opinion, the plot of The Alchemist is one of
the “perfect plots,” and he ranks it with Fielding’s Tom Jones and Sophocles’s
Oedipus Tyrannus. It is a well knit plot without a loose joint in its structure. It
runs magnificently from the exposition to its end. The middle is simply superb.
The denouement has been executed with a consummate skill. The climax has
been achieved with a wonderful brilliance.
Exposition
The exposition of the plot is tremendously revealing . It also lets us know
the motive which ignites the drama. Subtle, Face and Dol Common are seen
entangled in a fight which threatens a rupture in their co-operation for
swindling the clients. The purpose of the exposition becomes clear when we
find the two, captain Face and Dr. Subtle ending their fight by the interference
of Dol Common, a well meaning colleague of the alchemist. By the time their
fight is over and they strike a compromise between themselves the purpose of
the exposition is achieved. The exposition of the plot lets us see the background
of the careers of the characters involved. We come to know that they belong to
the lower strata of society and are poverty stricken. The exposition also seems
to delve deep into the mental conditions of the characters. Their impious
motive as well as their manner in which they are going to dupe their clients
becomes clear to us. The different episodes connected with the various clients
shape with a steadying vigour. Dapper, Drugger, Epicure Mammon, Ananias,
Tribulation Wholesosme, Kastril and Dame Pliant appear and disappear in
accordance with the necessity arising in the plot of the play. The middle of the
drama stands nicely primed with the facts which lead toward the climax. The
presence of Surly in the play shows an antithesis to the credulity of the other

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gulls. He is the type of man who cannot be gulled. He becomes instrumental in
bringing about the climax of the play.
The climax in the drama occurs at the time when we find Surly exposing
all the malpractices of the swindlers with his first hand experience of their
nefarious trade. This situation serves as a changing gear, as the play is put into
a different shape.
Denoument
The denoument in the plot occurs at the time of the appearing of Lovewit
on the scene. Since the appearance of the neighbours talking to him the play is
pushed towards its logical end. The chain of events composing the plot stand
welded hard. The joints are skil fully formed. The playwright is fully conscious
of the necessity of the next move. There is a wonderful logic with which the
sequences are arranged in the play. The playwright with alternating technique
shows an ingenuity in bringing the character on the stage, and moving him
away when he is no longer required . The technique achieves a wide variety in
the play. The plot is of an order which saves us from monotony. The liquid
movement keeps it in a state of flux.
Suspense
The plot in the play starts taking shape right from the time when Dapper
appears on the scene, and it starts winding up at the appearance of Lovewit.
The plot becomes richer by the presence of the element of suspense in it.
Captain Face cannot go on in the uniform for ever. He must revert to his
original status, and he does after playing his vigorous role. Various clients
remain on the tenterhooks thinking of the future having luck for them in store.
None of them get what they want. They are fleeced of their money. Surly
cannot be fleeced as he is sceptical of the bonafides of the trade of the
swindlers right from the beginning. The cozening cannot go on sine die, it must
come to an end. There are two important agencies which spell the close of the
drama, the personal acquaintance with the swindling of the cozeners on the part
of Surly, and the appearance of Lovewit on the scene. They are intended in the
drama to close up the hectic happenings on the stage so far taking part
vigorously.
Classical Design
The technique of plot construction is amply testified by the structural
design of the drama. There is nothing superfluous which enters the plot. All the
incidents and the characters introduced by the artist stand splendidly
interwoven with the main motif running through its design. The classical
pattern of the plot does not harshly exclude the aroma of romance. It seeps in as

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soon as Dame Pliant is introduced, though the clouds of romance start hovering
at the meeting of Mammon and Dol Common as the sister of the Lord.
The plot structure of the play is almost flawless. There is hardly anything
extraneous in it. In Tom Jones, the episode of the Man of the Hill is an
extraneous one, and it can easily be separated from the main body of the novel.
On the other hand, we can remove nothing from the plot of The Alchemist
without impairing its design. It looks like a pattern which does not sprawl to a
large distance like the plot of Tom Jones. The plot of The Alchemist occupies a
much smaller space; in this connection we must not forget the difference
between the space occupied by a novelist and that of the dramatist. The
Alchemist is a play of intrigues, subtly interwoven, the credulity of people in
respect of alchemy and astrology being fully exploited. The object of Jonson is
to expose vice and folly, for the play is a comedy and satire, but there is much
of comic fun and frolic, relieving the serious interest of the play. He does not
seem to be unconscious of the secondary aim of the play to provide comic fun
and laughter to the audience.
Characterisation
Characterisation in Jonson has not been accomplished with a broad sweep
of brush and paints, but it has been done with consummate skill. He
concentrates with vigour on the trait which is a monomania. It is needless to
look for any emerging multi-coloured psyche, the diverse traits co-existing in
an individual. There is nothing anything universal about his characters. The
artist is a product of his time and he represents his age most’faithfully. If
someone looked for “third dimension,” he would not probably find anything
much substantial in them. T.S. Eliot has championed the merit of Jonson as a
delineator of character. He discovers something radically new in the characters
of Jonson. “His characters are and remain, like Marlowe’s simplified
characters....He did not get the third dimension, but he was not trying to get it.”
The problem of “third dimension” means that Jonson is without the
background sf instinctive grasp of the basic emotion. The “third dimension” is
present in the art manifestations of Shakespeare, Webster, Tourneur and often
in Middleton. It, however, lacks in Jonson. The fact cannot be stoutly denied
though Eliot has mildly defended the dramatist. The main purpose of Jonson is
to satirise certain human lacunae and not to create life-like figures. There is
hardly any necessity or having “third dimension” in his dramas, because the
literary genre adopted by lim is of a different school. In this specific choice it is
not an essential requisite.

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Types
As a delineator of characters Jonson has created types and not
individuals. He fas motivated to create types by the purpose of showing the
social evils. The :eed was created by the social order of the day. The artist
imbued with the moral urpose could not do anything otherwise. He took upon
himself the cumbersome task of creating types, the abstractions invested with a
voice and not flesh and blood. Thus they cease to be the living beings, and
become the sponsors of a single idea.
Flat Characters
Technically, his characters might be termed as “flat” and not “round” but
it does not mean that they lack life. His characters are extremely vivid, but they
are the figures of limited individuality. The variegated shades and nuances are
missing in them. They are just types in the sense that they display one
prominent facet of their personality. The dramatist is not concerned with their
human depth, but the motive which actuates them to move to work. It is said
about Jonson that he made masks whereas Dekker and Heywood created souls.
His favourite method is to harp upon one single lacuna of an individual and
cling to it. The dark prominent trait can be jealousy, avarice, misanthrope, and
any such thing, but he dwells upon it with the singleness of purpose and
thrashes the subject with extreme care and skill. Mr. Palmer has put the whole
thing in the phrase, “the man he saw as humours walking.”
Farcical Element
While delineating a character, the purpose, of Jonson is to “sport with
human follies” and not “with crimes.” He makes the human folly a cause to
provoke our mirth. In The Alchemist, all the characters are under the spell of
the luring Mammon. Epicure Mammon is a symbol of the human lust for
wealth. Drugger also desires it, but his attitude is not so lyrically flamboyant.
Jonson’s characters, whatever be the nature of folly, have a strong bent of
attitude of a specific kind.
His characters, says Palmer, “are studies in special types of behaviour”.
Though Jonson claims to have taken his characters from the real life, yet
there is much in them which is farcical. They have been fixed up forcibly in the
plays and lack spontaneity. The skill of the writer is not dormant but floats
upon the surface. They act in a manner which shows farcical element in them.
For instance, Dapper’s kneeling before Dol Common in the guise of Fairy
Queen is nothing short of a farce. There is too much theatrical about the
characters and their behaviour exceeds the limit of common human behaviour
of everyday life.

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 The monomania of the characters have been brought into prominence by
the dramatist. Dapper is a gambler who desires luck in the stakes, and that
results in his humiliation and loss of money as he stands cheated by the
swindlers working in the house. He is obsessed with the mania for winning the
races and the various types of gambling. Kastril is obsessed with the mania for
duelling with people and as such he desires a sort of talisman to win in his
bouts. Dr. Subtle’s ruling passion is to make money overnight. Sir Epicure
Mammon’s mania is for the possession of untold wealth. He has wild dreams
about it, and gets furious when they come to end in fiasco.
Abstract Properties
Jonson’s characters are composed of the abstract properties. They have
been built not because they have the abstract properties, but because they have
got to have one as he desires them to have. His characters lack verisimilitude
due to this external device. They are figures raised to display an abstract
property, and as such much of the human semblance has been taken away from
them. They are not complete human beings, because they have none of the
variety to display a large human behaviour. The abstract property can be jeal
ously but not jealousy in the play of Shakespeare, spread broadly unleashing
several facets of human behaviour what we encounter in life. The main device
while founding such a character in Jonson’s plays is to isolate the trait and
dwell upon it.
Avarice is one of the abstract properties which plays a vital role in his
dramas. “Not penetrating with the clairvoyance and imagination into the
groundwork of personality,” says J.A Symonds, “but constructing individuals
from what appears of them upon the surface.” They have got the surface traits
and as such stand as the external constructs. The characters have not been seen
from within, but form outside. They do not explain their behaviour
psychologically. “The groundwork of personality” is abjectly lacking in them.
They have hardly any inner mechanism, and their behaviour happens to be
barely external. They lack the psychological aura and that human depth. For
this reason it has been pointed out that there is an “air of mechanism” about
them.
The characters of Jonson are not found riddled with complexities. They
do not suffer from the mental problems like that of Hamlet and if they suffer at
all they do so by the external forces like intrusion upon their practices as in the
case of The Alchemist. Jonson “starts with character set, formed, fully
defined,” says a critic about the characterization. He, ,however, could not
escape the notion of the types as he fails to create individuals, but he certainly
escapes “the peril of enlargement”. It is due to his deeply ingrained realism,

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and his characters do not grow larger than what they aie. They are typical
cockney products and speak, some of them, that slangy language which smacks
of Billingsgate dialect.
The characters, on the whole, belong to the lower strata of London of the
day. They mostly remain under some ruling passion. They are not complex but
simple. They are not round but flat; and being that they surprisingly have so
much of life about them.
Subtle
Subtle is a representative figure of the unscrupulous English charlatans of
the age. He stands endowed with a sort of diabolical intelligence. He does lot of
mental sorting and knows whom to cater what. He assumes the role of Dr.
Subtle, the alchemist, fleecing the clients. He is replete with perverse logic and
can satisfy a person by means of expounding the matter relevant to the need, as
well as by arguments. Like any other swindler he is a man without
compunction of conscience. He plies his trade in the house provided by captain
Face, the petty servant looking after the vacant house, the master being out
for fear of plague. He is awfully greedy and extracting.
Subtle is of a dominating type and asserts his personality with a force
which impresses a client wishing to gain wealth and fortune. His cultural lack
and want of refinement has been portrayed in the very exposition of the drama.
His manners are crude and they stink. Subtle is the type of person who can only
impress the low gullibles ready to believe all what he has to say. He is a man of
immense cunning and evil manoeuvering. He walks and talks with a grace of an
accomplished professor. He explains the pseudo science in dignified accents.
Except Surly he convinces all. Further, he is so cunning that he blames Epicure
Mammon for his failure in getting the philosopher’s stone prepared in his lab.
Technically speaking, Subtle is not a round character, as he has not been
originally conceived as a round character. He shows only the perverse side of
his personality. Naturally, his character lacks the vital flow of an all round
human activity. He does not change. He remains the same throughout. Jonson
invests in him the traits of a social devil of the time. Subtle fails ultimately in
his purpose and is obliged to leave the house. In the fitness of the poetic justice
his fall looks like something foredoomed.
Captain Face
Captain Face is a fit accomplice of Dr. Subtle . He moves in and out in
the play for persuading the various clients to approach him for the improvement
of their lot. The skill of Face lies in entrapping the clients to be fleeced by
Subtle. Face assumes the role of a captain though he is merely a working
servant in the establishment of Lovewit who leaves his house in his care

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because of the scourge of the epidemic in the city. He has got a high sense of
adventure, and therefore lets the vacant house for the practice of black art.
Face is a shrewd observer of men and women. He works furiously for his
end. Like Subtle he is greedy and avaricious and clamours for share accruing
out of the nefarious trade. He is a typical cockney figure. He is well versed in
convincing and flattering his clients. The credit for getting so many clients does
not go to Subtle, but to him. He is enough poker-faced for that purpose.
Face stands endowed with the plenty of the presence of mind. He is a
man of rare intelligence and cunning. It becomes more manifest at the end of
the play when things get embroiled by the arrival of Lovewit, his master. In
fact, the superb end of the play depends upon his extraordinary wit and
cleverness. He manages, and proves himself the apt servant of his master.
Luckily, the master’s temperament also favours him. Unwittingly, he becomes
instrumental in giving his master huge riches and a wife.
Face is also a bit of bawd in the sense he manipulates courtship between
Epicure Mammon and Dol Common. Personally, he is not without a sexual
weakness like Subtle. He is himself prone to sexual allurements and wishes to
engage himself with Dame Pliant, the sister of Kastril, though at the end she is
given to his master. As a character, like any other character of Jonson, he
remains a type and not an individual.
Ananias
He is a Deacon of the puritanical creed who comes to secure the
philosopher’s stone. He himself is keenly interested in promoting the cause of
Puritanism by helping his brethren. He comes to obtain the famous stone on
behalf of his pastor called Tribulation Wholesome. In these characters Jonson
makes a fun of the Puritanism of the time. Belonging to a different school of
thought he does not like the creed, thus he has lashed them severely in the role
of Ananias and Tribulation Wholesome.
Ananias, being clever, does not part with money at the first instance. He,
thus, rouses the ire of Subtle who expects down cash at the first meeting. He is
capable of thinking for himself. Partly he can be called a sensible person and
partly insensible. But later on he comes to behave like other gullibles. He has
neither the bustling vitality of Kastril nor the fancy of Epicure Mammon. The
puritanical superstition rampant in those days is represented through him.
Tribulation Wholesome
He is a perfect gull like any other client of Subtle. Self- aggrandisement
is, however, none of his motive. Though he becomes a victim to the Catholic
Jonson, yet it is noticeable that whatever he does he does it for the sake of his

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religion. Being a puritan he thinks of promoting the cause of his brethren. He
can be condemned for his lack of intelligence; like any body else, except Surly,
he does not see through the snare laid for him. As such he symbolised the
excessive gullibility of a puritan. As an unintelligent being he readily believes
in the logic of the science of Subtle.
Tribulation Wholesome is a man of orthodox temper. Jonson, however, in
his :haracter has not seen many evils which existed in the fold of the puritans.
Only gullibility and high stupidity comes on to the forefront in the character of
Tribulation Vholesome. Both Ananias and Tribulation Wholesome symbolize
the hollowness of the Puritanism, and the grafting from outside has been done
by Jonson with a set jurpose of lashing them.
Questions
1. “The Alchemist reflects the Jacobean London” - Substantiate.
2. The Alchemist is a neo-classical comedy - Discuss.
3. What are the chief limitations of Ben Jonson’s dramatic technique?
4. The Alchemist is a humour comedy-Discuss.
5. The Alchemist is a satire and comedy.
Jonsons ‘realism in the Alchemist’
Or
The Alchemist as a humour Comedy
Comedy before Jonson was unrealistic in character and incident, setting
and speech, Ben Jonson, with his classical training and temperament, and his
concern for moral values, did not like this romantic Comedy of his day. He
tired to bring sanity and decorum, order and balance on the English stage, and
the atirist in him lead him to realism in character, setting and speech.
London Life : Its Realistic Treatment
The setting of The Alchemist is London. As he states in its prologue:
Our scene is London,’cause we would
make known,
No country’s mirth is better than our own.
Consequently, the characters of the play belong to contemporary London
society,. The play deals with real persons -‘ Persons such as comedy would
choose.’ Naturally, their language, though a little inflated for comic purposes,
is largely such as men do use in real life.
The characters of The Alchemists are all comic figures, though varieties.
They are fools and gulls and swindlers rather than knaves and criminals and
sinners. They are such as comedy should sport with. None of them is a tragic

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figure. Moreover, they had their counterparts in real life. The Alchemists is, in
fact a powerful satire on Jacobean greed and lust. So its personages, who are
held up to ridicule are men and women from real life, though a bit exaggerated
for the purposes of a satirical comedy. Thus Subtle has been traced to Dr. John
Dee, an astrologer- alchemist, and Face to Edward Kelley, a quack of the
Elizabethan period. It is a fact that the alchemists had a roaring practice in
those days. Men like Simon Forman had made alchemy a respectable ‘science’.
The gulls who flock to Subtle remind one of the Londoners who went to
Dr. Forman or Dr. Dee. It is again a fact that, frightened of the plague, several
rich householders, like Lovewit, had quit London and gone to country places in
order that they might escape infection.
Realism in Characterisation
Most of the characters of the The Alchemists are in their ‘humour’.
The ‘humour’ of the dupes is their greed. Surly’s humour is not to
believe, anything too easily :
Faith, I have a humour,
I would not willingly be gull’d
Kastril’s humour is to chafe and fret like the ‘Roaring Boys’ of the
Jacobean age. Sir Epicure is always preoccupied by his dreams of
magnificence. These characters are real enough, but the same time they are
admirably suited to the purpose of a comic writer like Jonson. Their “humours
are worked out by the end of the play”. If his characters do not change and
develop, they possible could not within the compass of the classical untities; if
they are a little exaggerated, it is only because types afford greater opportunity
for satire.
Realism in Language
Jonson advocated realism in language also. It was the realist in him
“which made him put into Subtle’s mouth some – thing more than the usual
jargon of a swindling alchemist and made him give him as erudite a case as
confirmed adherent of alchemy could have put forward”.
”Again Jonson makes his Puritans use words like saints’, ‘separation’,
’zeal’, ’heathen’, ’Cannan’, ’patience’, ’cause’ words which were commonly
used by puritans of the period. In order to make his portraits convincing,
Jonson used even slangs and colloquialisms. Oaths and mannerisms. Thus
kastril pronounces ‘sister’ and ‘kiss’ as ‘suster’ and ‘kuss’. In only one respect
does Jonson depart from his principle of realism in speech: the scholar in him
burdens his characters’ speeches with classical allusions. This is true of his

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plays. But The Alchemists is surprisingly free from this element except in the
speeches of Epicure Mammon.
Thus in The Alchemist incidents are realistic and language is such as men
do use-and the persons are ‘such as comedy would choose’
“The Alchemist”: Satirical representation of Contemporary London
Society.
Or
Jonson’s satiric portrait of Jacobean society
Or
Jonson as a critic of his age.
The Alchemist, says L.C. Knights, is a powerful satire on the greed and
lust of the Jacobean age. Jonson gets his first real change of satirizing the
Puritans in the present play. He mocks at their canting words and phrases. He
ridicules their overzeal in his portrait of the stupid and violent Ananias. The
Puritans symbolize acquisition with a good conscience. They feel no scruple in
pursuing as immoral course for establishing their religion They are after the
hypocrite Tribulation who would hire soldiers and bribe magistrates to establish
Puritanism. He puts in the mouth of Subtle a whole ironic catalogue of the
hypocritical practices of the Puritans.
The play gives us a wonderfully faithful account of London life in the
Jacobean period, and satirises its faults and short-comings. It was customary for
Country Landlords to leave their country seats and come to London to learn
fashions and enjoy life. Jonson ridicules such landlords in Kastril, who,
is a man himself
of some three thousand a year, and is come up
To learn to quarrel, and to live by his wits,
And will go down, and die in the country.
Learning to quarrel i.e. dueling and living by wits were the chief
preoccupations of the Jacobean gallants. The are of dueling was so advanced
that there was plenty of literature on fencing and stabbing.
Subtle is ready to teach Kastril not only ‘the grammer, and logic, and
therotic of quarreling’ but also how he may live by his wits living by his wits
was almost a synonym for gambling and cheating. Gambling, which was so
popular in the Jacobean period, symbolizes a desire for riches without labour.
There was gaming even at the Kings Court, Jonson satirises this evil practice in
Dapper who does not want to take risk, and so comes to have a ‘fly’ to assure
his success at gambling Surly, however, seeks his for-tune by risky means of

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the dice and cards. Kastril is opposed, at first, to Face’s idea of his becoming a
gambler. But Face is able to influence him very easily by telling him how
Dapper will win ‘within this fornight’ enough to buy a barony. Moreover, how
could one be a gallant without gambling? ‘Gallantry’ was becoming a rage, and
Jonson ridicules gallents like Kastril.
Tabacco had been introduced not very much before Jonson wrote his
play, but it was increasingly becoming popular. Kastril feels pride in saying
that he too can take tobacco like the angry boys who gathered at Drugger’s
shop.
He promises to settle five hundered pounds a year more on his sister if
her husband can take tobacco and drink, and Lovewit is prompt enough to order
Jeremy to ‘fill a pipe full’. Nevertheless Drugger is not merely a representative
of the tobacconists. In him Jonson ridicules those superstitions traders and
businessman who would thrive with the help of magic signs.
The Jacobeans believed in alchemy and astrology, necromancy and
crystal –gazing. Scholars like Dr. Simon Forman and Dr. John Dee had made
such practices respectable among the draw gulls from every class of society. He
casts his net wide enough to entrap not only a foolish lawyer’s clerk and an
impressionable tobacconist but also a voluptuous knight, the moral thousands a
year. Jonson satirises the acquisitiveness of both the swindlers and their dupes
who are punished in the end for their greed and lust and folly.
The punishment inflicted on the gulls for their gullibility and the rogues
for their swindling is quite in keeping with Jonson’s aim of moral elevation in
comedy”. In one respect however, he makes a departure from his much-
publicized theories. He allows Face, the greatest of the rogues, to go scot-free,
and Surely, who is the only character possessing a scruple of honesty, to be
discomfited in the end by love-wit who carries of the prize. Without any effort
on his part. Expert for these lapses from a high moral purposes, Jonson’s
criticism of the Jacobean society is consistent and valid.
In short in the play Jonson has shown “an image of the times” and
“sported with human follies and not with crimes”. He has satirized
contemporary society, and has also maintained “comic decorum”.
2. John Webster : The Duchess Of Malfi
Introduction
English literary scene at the end of the 16th century and the beginning of
the 17th century was characterised by a kind of complexity and intricacy. The
old and the traditional struggled to survive and the new and the experimental
struggled to be born. A new trend was set; everything - the literary style, tone,

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spirit, theme etc, was slowly modified. Spenserian and Arcadian writing was
still a model to many writers; efforts were made to create a remarkable literary
trend; writers were ambitious of producing epics on the model of epics from
Greek and other languages. Drama had its own degeneration, the renaissance
spirit in it was exhausted and the creative vein had been dried up. Shakespeare
was such a genius to combine in his plays the temporary demands of popular
taste and permanent requirement of great literature. The dramatists after
Shakespeare did not possess his greatness and skill. These dramatists were
popular in their own peculiar way; they gained fame for the moment. Hence the
future was neglected.Their plays were either exaggerated or over-balanced;
they created monstrous or inconsistent situations and characters; they lacked
the universality of appeal.
The theatrical audience constituted the pulse of the nation. The audience
of the time, which just drifted from the Renaissance spirit, had a queer taste for
wilder and monstrous stories than the romantic or intellectual fable. The
playwrights such as Beaumont and Fletcher and Dekker were popular among
the dramatists of the period. Their dramas constituted sensationalism, a morbid
pre-occupation with disease and death, crude physical horrors and unnatural
themes. Actually, the search for novelty, the fondness for originality, and the
effort for creativity on the part of the dramatist led the writers to the mesh of
the unnatural and fantastic, which resulted in total decadence of the drama.
Webster’s Career as a Dramatist
It was in such a situation, John Webster, started his career. First he
collaborated with Dekker in the plays entitled Ceasar’s Fall and The Two
Harpies. Darkness still envelops all the part of John Webster’s life. The facts
about him known to us cannot be positively asserted. He was born sometime in
1580; for nearly two centuries his name did not appear any where. But writers
such as Charles Lamb, Swinburne and Rupert Brooke brought Webster’s
writings to light and hence he became popular among the readers. His literary
career may be divided in to three phases
1. The first phase - Period of collaboration and apprenticeship
2. The second phase - Period of Webster’s originality
3. The third phase - Period of insignificant writing
In the first phase, Webster collaborated with Dekker in the plays entitled
Caesar’s Fall and The Two Harpies. They disappeared totally from the literary
scene. Along with Dekker, Heywood and Wentworthsmith, he created Lady
Jane.

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 Malcontents was the collaborated work with Manston. Westward Hoe
and Northward Hoe were created by both Webster and Dekker.
In the second phase Webster displayed his originality. The White Devil
was produced around 1610. It was known as Victoria Corombana. This play is
based on facts and the events that took place between 1501 and 1585. The
White Devil gives us less of history and more of emotions and passions. The
Revenge is the favourite theme in this play. The second tragedy of John
Webster is The Duchess ofMalfi. It is also based on the theme of revenge and
the dramatist takes much labour to justify it.
In the third phase, the insignificant plays were created by John Webster.
He wrote five plays in this period in which three managed to survive. They are
The Devil’s Law Case, Appius and Virginia and A Cure for Cuckold.
An Outstanding Revenge Tragedy
The Duchess ofMalfiwas published in 1623 but it was even staged before
1614. The story was taken from one of Bandello’s novelle, Palace of Pleasure
and it shows the influence of Sidney’s Arcadia. The Duchess of Malfi is one of
the outstanding dramas in the revenge horror tradition. The play is full of
comments on life. It is couched in true epigramatic verse. It brings out
Webster’s reflective tendency on life and his efforts to build a moral system of
his own to bridge the gulf between the two worlds the old that is dying and the
new that is struggling to be born. His comments are often satirical and the satire
has a wide range of coverage such as, virtue, women, adversity, fate of princes,
kingliness and statecraft. For Webster, “Integrity of life is fame’s best friend”.
Act - I, Scene I
Delio, the dearest friend to Antonio, welcomes him who has returned to
Malfi after a long stay in France. He has turned out to be a Frenchman by his
behaviour and dress. Delio is very anxious to know about the life in France and
its royal court. In Antonio’s opinion, the French king is just and his
administration is laudable as he has cleared the court of sycophants and
flatterers. At this time, Bosola comes there. Bosola is the court - gall who is
ready to be more loyal to the person from whom he could extract more reward,
keeping aside the consideration of good and bad. He is an intelligent person ;
but his skill is used for evil purpose only. Along with him the Cardinal comes
there. The Cardinal is the half-brother of the Duchess, the heroine of the play.
Bosola expresses his grudge to the Cardinal, as the reward for the service
rendered by him is not proportionate. Just to avoid him, the Cardinal leaves
from that place, but Bosola blames both the Cardinal and Ferdinand, another
brother of the Duchess, for their wicked and cruel nature. He does not hesitate
to blame the administration of the court as everything is upside down.

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 Delio knows about Bosola as he is a notorious murderer. Everyone is
under the impression that the Cardinal is behind all the murders. Antonio, too,
is of the opinion, that the Cardinal is the most wicked person. The Cardinal
pretends to be a good person, but everyone is aware that he would show his
malicious nature when the occasion demands. Ferdinand, the brother of the
Cardinal, has the same evil nature within him. He has got a haughty behaviour,
and turns out to be wilder then and there. But the Duchess is opposite to them.
She is noble and meek and her utterances are so sweet; her behaviour is soft
and gentle; she is young but a widow.
The evil minded brothers want to keep a watch on the sister Duchess as
there is a possibility of developing illicit relationship with anyone of the
courtiers. For this the treacherous brothers nominate Bosola as a spy and to
facilitate his work fully, secure a position for him in the court through which he
could do his duty diligently. According to the brothers, the love of the Duchess
with anyone of the courtiers of low birth would bring disgrace to the family.
Hence, they warn the Duchess, that any such activity would lead to misery and
they would not hesitate to avenge her.
But the Duchess has already fallen in love with Antonio, the steward in
the court. She has decided to marry him defying the brothers. She opens her
mind to Cariola, the servant maid. The scene comes to a close with the
marriage of the Duchess with Antonio making Cariola and God as witnesses. It
is to be ratified later at the church but the Duchess is not curious about such a
formality.
Act II Scene I
The scene opens with a long conversation of Bosola with Castruccio,
another servant in the court, in which he opens out his wisdom for becoming
the best courtier. Bosola has observed that there is something wrong in the
court, particularly with the Duchess, as she has fallen ill frequently. He forms
an opinion that she has become pregnant. In order to know the fact, he gives
apricot, a fruit which normally European pregnant women would like to eat.
When the Duchess eats it, she develops sudden pain, hence she is taken to her
room on the suggestion of Delio; Antonio blames Bosola as he has given the
poisoned fruit.
Act II Scene II
In order to avoid the spread of the fact that the Duchess is pregnant,
Antonio conceives an idea and according to that he tells the officers in the
court, that the valuable jewels of the Duchess are stolen. He instructs that the
officers shall assemble in one place so as to enable the search for the jewels
being carried out and they must not go out without the knowledge of the

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Duchess. But Bosola being very sensitive, starts probing it and his suspicion
increases. When the scene comes to a close, the news of the birth of a male
baby to the Duchess is brought in.
Act II Scene III
Bosola, at the height of suspicion, is in search of a clue for the turbulence
in the court. He does not confine himself, as other officers, within the room, as
per the instructions of the Duchess. Antonio happens to meet Bosola in the dark
and when questioned, Bosola answers that he has come out for prayer. But
Antonio accuses him that he is responsible for poisoning the Duchess and
stealing the jewel. When Antonio leaves the place, he leaves a horoscope
carelessly and it is fetched by Bosola for which he is very happy. Bosola has
collected the clue for the mystery, since the horoscope is the Duchess’ new
born son’s horoscope. He decides to send the information to the brothers who
are in Rome.
Act II Scene IV
In this scene the Cardinal’s character, who is a rogue at heart, is revealed.
He is conversing with Julia, a young woman, but wife of an old man Castracio.
The Cardinal seduces her and keeps her as a mistress. She has come alone all
along from Malfi to meet the Cardinal. When they have the talk, a servant
enters there to inform that her husband has come there to meet her at once.
Delio also comes there to pay a call. Delio, was a suitor to Julia once, but that
relationship doesn’t exist any more. When Julia is alone, after the Cardinal has
left that place, Delio offers some money to her. When the scene comes to a
close, there is a soliloquy of Julia, from which it is perceivable that Bosola has
sent the message to the brothers which has agitated Ferdinand immediately.
Act II Scene V
In this scene, the impact on the brothers, of the Duchess defiance of their
advice is made clear. Ferdinand conveys the message of the birth of a son to the
Duchess to the Cardinal. Ferdinand is at the height of wilderness, ready to
revenge in any form of cruelty for the misconduct and disgrace brought to the
family by the Duchess. The Cardinal has got the same wrath on her but
restrains himself so as to be calm and controlled, and advises Ferdinand, to
check his fury through which he could prepare a plan to destroy her.
Act III Scene I
Time has passed and the Duchess has given birth to two more babies
totalling to three. The entire affair is still secret. But there is a wide spread
rumour about the loose character of the Duchess. Antonio is in doubt that the
message of their marriage might have reached the brothers, but he is hopeful of

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reconciliation with them as the marriage is solemnized. Ferdinand has come to
Malfi, after a long stay in Rome, with much anger against his sister, the
Duchess. He is waiting for a moment to know about her lover and plans to
avenge him. Bosola manages to bring the key of the Duchess’s bed-chamber to
Ferdinand.
Act Ill Scene II
At the outset, Antonio and the Duchess are in the bed-chamber of the
Duchess to fulfil the mission. Fortunately, Antonio withdraws himself from
there, when Ferdinand enters there with a poniard in hand. He blames her for
her loose character. The Duchess tries to defend her stand in vain. But the
infuriated Ferdinand turns a deaf ear to all her pleas ; he is so adamant. The
Duchess starts to assert herself asking her brother why she should not marry
when she is young and has some beauty. She also tells that the family
reputation is so safe as the entire affair is sanctified through the marriage. But
Ferdinand does not relent, and after giving a long lecture on the meaning of
reputation, leaves her with a vow not to meet her again.
Antonio reenters the room and has discussion with the Duchess about the
new development and learns that there is a threat to both of them. There is a
knock at the door and the Duchess asks him to leave at once from Malfi along
with the child to safeguard themselves.
From Bosola, the Duchess comes to know that Ferdinand has left Malfi
for Rome with great anger. Bosola also conveys the danger awaiting her
through her brother. But the Duchess develops a new idea of spreading the false
information as she has discovered the dishonesty of Antonio. She tells others
that Antonio has mismanaged the funds and misappropriated the finance;
hence, she has terminated Antonio from service and banished him from the
country. She tests the pulse of the officers by soliciting their opinion on the
action taken by her against Antonio; everyone, in the court, except Bosola, is
happy about the dismissal of Antonio, as they believed the version to be true.
But Bosola’s mind turns to different thinking. He has already sensed the plot
involved in it and so expresses his opinion to the Duchess; that Antonio is not
that much bad, and the action against Antonio is unwise one could not find
such a person here after. Bosola seems to be liberal in praising Antonio, though
he has the opposite view in his mind. The Duchess falls a prey in the cunning
net of Bosola. To him, she discloses the truth. Bosola is all praise for the
Duchess for making Antonio to be her husband. She also tells him that she has
sent Antonio and her children to Ancona as it may be safe for his life. The
Duchess starts to believe Bosola and accepts the suggestion given by him as

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she could escape from the palace on the pretext of undertaking a pilgrimage to
the shrine of our lady of Loretto.
Act III Scene III
Bosola rushes to Rome to inform the brothers about the identity of the
Duchess’ husband and her plan of moving to Ancona seeking safety there. But
the Cardinal, on receiving the information, determines to use his position to
banish them from Ancona.
Act III Scene IV
At the shrine, there is ceremony in which the Cardinal is the central
figure. The Duchess and her party are banished from Ancona. The property and
the estate have been confiscated at the instigation of Cardinal.
Act III Scene V
The Duchess and her husband Antonio are at the road near Ancona, they
are accompanied by their children and some of the servants who are still loyal
to them.
The Duchess starts to guess the trouble that could surround her; she
anticipates a threat from the brothers; she feels for her future misery. Bosnia
comes there with a letter from Ferdinand in which he seeks the death of her
husband, but the ambiguity in it confuses her. He asks her to send Antonio to
him as they could take away his head. Antonio and the Duchess refuse to yield
to the pressure of meeting Ferdinand, as they expect the forthcoming danger
from him. Bosola leaves the place telling them that he will return soon. The
Duchess asks Antonio to leave the place for safety along with the eldest son for
Milan. Bosola enters again in disguise and takes her to Malfi as a prisoner.
Act IV Scene I
The Duchess is imprisoned in her own palace. Ferdinand visits her in the
dark, as he has made a vow not to meet her again. When he asks her to forget
every thing of the past, she is visibly happy. In the dark, he offers a cold hand
to the Duchess to kiss as a token of reconciliation. Later she is made to know
that it is a dead man’s hand and the Duchess is made to believe that it is the
hand of her husband. Then the wax figure of Antonio and her son are shown to
her just to make her believe that both of them are killed. Now the Duchess is in
full agony and she wants to die at once. Bosola tells her to forget Antonio, as he
is already dead. But the news of the death of her husband intensifies her
affection towards her husband. In utter remorse, she curses her brothers.
Ferdinand is overjoyed at the success of his trick and plans to make her mad
and lose balance of mind by bringing the mad people around her.

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Act IV Scene II
The scene opens in another room in the palace. A large number of
lunatics is made to be present before the Duchess and they make as much noise
as possible so as to make her immerse in agony. But the stoic nature and
wonderful nobility on the part of the Duchess make her develop all kinds of
fortitude to bear all the sufferings and agony inflicted on her. She longs for an
early death. Ferdinand moves to the next plan. He commands Bosola to
strangulate her and the children. As an obedient servant, Bosola executes the
order given by Ferdinand. Cariola, the servant maid of the Duchess meets the
same fate. The episode has got a sudden twist when Ferdinand casts a look at
the ghastly face of his murdered sister. It is an unexpected shock to him, the
erstwhile wrath on the sister turns out to be pitiful when he looks at the face of
the innocent sister. Now he turns to Bosola to point his accusing finger to him
for implementing the unjust order given by him. He realises that it is an order
given in an infuriated state of mind. There could not be any justification in the
order, as he is not the authority to issue any order for punishing the culprit. But,
on the part of Bosola, he has executed all the orders given by the brothers with
an expectation of reward proportionate to the service he rendered. Now the
event has changed the tide of fortune, he has been branded a villian for his
diligent service. Ferdinand has lost his balance of mind, and is very much
horrified at the sight of the dead body of his sister. He refuses to pay any
reward to Bosola for the dirty deed committed. Now Bosola is at a loss; he
repents for his cruel action and is in anger for the ingratitude on the part of
Ferdinand. The Duchess is not absolutely dead. She revives for a moment and
Bosola tells her that Antonio is still alive which gives a ray of hope in the face
of the Duchess. But does not live to meet her husband again. Bosola, as a
penitence decides to help Antonio who is in Milan,- as a compensation for the
misdeeds he committed to the Duchess.
Act V Scene I
Antonio is shown in Milan as he is in disguise to escape from the revenge
of the brothers. He moves to the places stealthily. Only his close friend Delio
knows his whereabouts. The death of the Duchess and her children is not
known to Antonio. He is under the impression that he could reconcile with the
Cardinal. He believes that if the Cardinal once sees him, he would forget
everything and forgive him for a good reconciliation. So, he decides to meet the
brothers, but his friend Delio warns him for the risk involved in it. Antonio now
prepares for any eventuality. He makes up his mind that if reconciliation with
the Cardinal is not possible, it is better to face the wrath of the Cardinal and fall

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a victim to it ; for him death is better than the miserable life and constant fear
of death.
Act V Scene II
Ferdinand is the person fully affected by the death of the Duchess, he is
in a state of remorse; on the part of Bosola and the Cardinal, there is a mutual
pretension. The Cardinal pretends as if he is not aware of the death of the
Duchess. Bosola pretends to Cardinal that he would do anything for him,
placing before him a demand for handsome reward. Meanwhile Julia comes
there; she is longing for Bosola. She is prepared to do anything for Bosola
provided he accepts her love. Bosola decides to use the weakness of Julia to
know about the Cardinal and his knowledge about the murder of the Duchess ;
Julia, being a capable woman, does all the tricks to extract the truth and the
cause for the remorse of the Cardinal. But on his part, he is reluctant to let the
truth out. But having a weakness for women, the Cardinal is unable to resist the
insistence of Julia. He tells her that he was behind the murder of the Duchess,
but this conversation is overheard by Bosola. To the great shock of the
Cardinal, Bosola comes out from his hiding demanding the reward for the past
services. The Cardinal promises a reward of position and wealth provided he
kills Antonio. Already Julia has threatened the Cardinal that she would expose
the murder of Duchess to the public. In a state of fear, the Cardinal kills Julia;
he asks Bosola to remove the dead body of Julia in the night with out being
known to anyone, and also tells him that she is dead due to plague. Bosola
makes his own decision of taking Antonio to a safer place so as to join at a later
time to avenge upon the brothers.
Act V Scene III
In spite of the request of Delio not to meet the Cardinal, Antonio tries for
it. Delio warns for the safety of Antonio, but Delio had decided to take the son
along with them which, they expect, would enlist his sympathy at the sight of
the son of the Duchess. The fortress, in which the Cardinal has stayed can echo
sounds and human voice. It echoes the warning given by Delio to Antonio for
his safety. It portends the bad omen about the safety of everyone.
Act V Scene IV
Now it is the Cardinal’s time to be active. He is very much concerned for
the madness of Ferdinand who, in an unconscious state, might reveal the
murder of the Duchess. He is worried about extending the help to Bosola to
bring the dead body of Julia to his lodging. He instructs the officers in the court
not to come across Ferdinand during the night. His guests also should not come
out of the room during night even if there is a call for a help or any other noise
that could disturb them. The Cardinal plans to kill Bosola, once Bosola kills

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Antonio. But Bosola overhears this and plans to be offensive. He remains in
hiding while Ferdinand is moving about in madness in his room. By that time,
Antonio enters there along with his son to meet the Cardinal. Bosola, as a
matter of mistaken identity, takes Antonio to be the Cardinal and stabs him and
then discovers the fatal mistake he has committed. Just before death, Antonio
learns from Bosola that the Duchess and her children were murdered. He makes
the last request to Bosola to save at least the eldest son.
Act V Scene V
The Cardinal is shown in a mood of panic. His mind is troubled and his
conscience is tormented. He tries to concentrate in reading the books to avoid
mental tension. He has no sleep either at night or by day. Bosola comes there to
attack the Cardinal. Ferdinand, in a state of madness makes his appearance, and
inflicts fatal injuries both on the Cardinal and Bosola. The Cardinal shouts for
help in vain. No one comes there for help as he has already given instructions
that no one should come out even if there is cry for help. Bosola at this juncture
causes a fatal wound to Ferdinand. Thus all the three wicked people are put to
death. By the time, the people in the fortress assume that there is something
wrong in the palace. They learn that the great people of the fortress are dead.
Delio, enters- there with the eldest son of the Duchess to undertake the property
and power that were once confiscated.
THE CHARACTER OF THE DUCHESS OF MALFI
The portrayal of the Duchess involves a controversy, in the sense that she
has been praised by some critics and has been condemned for some of the short
comings on her part. She is introduced as a young beautiful lady but
unfortunately she is a widow. She is meek, gentle, and elegant but at the same
time, she is heroic in showing fortitude. If these are her best qualities she has
got her demerits also. She is weak in controlling her passion, and becomes a
victim easily and falls into the net of cunningness of Bosola.
The Duchess shows her courage when she turns to be defiant against her
brothers, who warns her not to marry anyone, as it could bring disgrace to the
family. But the selection of a suitor creates a problem. Since Antonio happens
to be a steward in the court, the brothers and the public in Malfi are not ready to
accept the Duchess’ relationship with him ; he is considered a person of lesser
birth. The European society at that time gave importance for the family status.
So, the marriage of the Duchess with Antonio, is considered unholy.
Though she is the ruler of a state, she does not fail in her obligation as a
wife. She gives birth to three children within three years. But the Duchess’
brothers consider that the birth of the children to her is a great crime she has
committed and it has tarnished the royal image of their family. The misdeed of

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the Duchess provokes the brothers. The two brothers immediately plan for the
revenge upon her. Ferdinand is more infuriated than the Cardinal. He comes to
Malfi from Rome to deal with the matter. When he comes over to Malfi, he is
unable to identify her lover. He pretends as he is ready to reconcile with her
which makes her happy momentarily.
The highly sensitive Duchess is able to anticipate for forthcoming misery
to her, hence, she plans to send out her husband and children to a safer place.
This action of hers is subtle. But Bosola is not ready to believe. His
cunningness helps him to extract the truth from the Duchess. As per the
misleading suggestion, the Duchess is to undertake a pilgrimage to the shrine of
our lady of Loretta. Being an innocent lady, she is unable to sense the treachery
involved in the suggestion given by Bosola. She is poor in her assessment of
the character of the people around her.
As per the instruction of Ferdinand, Bosola brings the Duchess as a
prisoner from Ancona to Malfi. She is imprisoned in her own palace. At this
juncture, she resolves that she could withstand any kind of trouble and forbear
any type of misery. The stoicism in her makes her to have fortitude. The
wicked brother Ferdinand, inflicts all kinds of physical and mental torture on
her ; first he threatens her with a physical attack ; then he sends lunatics to her
so as to give her a “noise-shock” which would cause mental discomfort to her.
Then wax figures of Antonio and her son are shown to her and at last this
creates a panic in her, and she is immersed in agony.
The worst cruelty is inflicted on her at the end. Ferdinand orders Bosola
to kill the Duchess and her children. Bosola, notorious murderer, without any
second thought, strangulates the Duchess. She dies with a satisfaction that her
husband and the eldest son are still alive.
Thus the character of the Duchess is delineated with much care in order
to make her a tragic figure for which Webster has made a fusion of the noble
qualities of a virtuous woman and the shortcomings of the otherwise woman in
her. Anyhow the death evokes the pity of the reader.
THE CHARACTER OF BOSOLA
Bosola is introduced as a “court-gall” and he could turn out to be a
treacherous villain when the occasion demands. He is proud, envious and
lecherous. He is a needy person, with an aspiration for higher position and great
wealth. He is very diligent in any service assigned to him and ready to be loyal
to any person from whom he could get the maximum reward. He is very
intelligent, but he is guided more by the personal interest than by the
consideration of good and bad. Morals and virtues are a mockery to him. He is
a fusion of the good and bad qualities of any person.

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 Bosola’s over-ambition of earning a good position makes him join in the
services of the wicked brothers, the Cardinal and Ferdinand. But he is
employed as a spy in the court. As a devoted servant, he informs the brothers
about the development that takes place in the court of the Duchess of Malfi.
When the Duchess is in advanced pregnancy which is kept as a top secret,
Bosola is able to sense it. He tries to get a clue for that, so he gives apricot, a
fruit that the European women would like to take when they are pregnant. His
guess comes to be true; the horoscope of newly born son is missed carelessly
by Antonio, which becomes an evidence at the hands of Bosola. He sincerely
conveys this message to the brothers.
Bosola’s intelligence is at its top when he suspects the Duchess’ version
that Antonio proved to be dishonest in his service and deserves banishment.
When other officers in the court believe it, Bosola does not believe, for he is
cunning. He makes the Duchess to believe him by paying tributes to Antonio.
The Duchess becomes a victim and falls into the net of Bosola’s cunningness,
hence, she admits to him that Antonio is her husband. His treachery is in no
measure lesser to any arch villain. He gives a misleading suggestion that she
could escape the palace on the pretext of under taking a pilgrimage to the
Shrine of Our Lady Loretta.
Bosola, at the outset, is introduced as a notorious murderer. For him
murder is a casual activity. When Ferdinand tells him to kill the Duchess and
her children, without any hesitation he strangulates the Duchess. There after the
situation develops for a realisation of his service. When Bosola demands for a
reward for the service rendered by him, Ferdinand blames him for his
involvement in the unjust activity. Ferdinand says that he should have executed
every order issued by him. Now he takes a vow to help Antonio to save himself
from the wrath of the brothers.
When Bosola comes to the Cardinal he learns that the Cardinal is in utter
remorse and the cunning Bosola starts to work. He wants t0 know the cause for
the turbulence in the mind of the Cardinal for which he tries to utilise the frail
Julia. Julia falls in love with Bosola and she is ready to do anything for the sake
of her love for him. Bosola instigates her to extract the truth from Cardinal for
his remorse. From the conversation of the Cardinal and Julia, Bosola comes to
know that it is he who was behind the murder of the Duchess. When Bosola
asks for the reward for his service, the Cardinal imposes conditions on him that
he must kill Antonio and remove the dead body of Julia to his lodging.
Bosola decides to kill the brothers. But in his attempt, he kills Antonio by
mistake. When Ferdinand, as a mad man, comes there, he gives a fatal blow to
both Bosola and the Cardinal.

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 Thus Bosola being an unscrupulous villain has to meet his fate. He
exploits his intelligence for evil only. Had he been in a different place, he
would have become a socially accepted person.
THE DUCHESS OF MALFI AS A REVENGE TRAGEDY
Edmund Gosse has praised The Duchess of Malfi as the finest tragedy in
the English language out side the works of Shakespeare. But there are other
critics to call the play as a melodrama and not a tragedy. Any comparison of the
Duchess of Malfi with Shakespeare’s great tragedies received sharp reaction.
Many critics are of the opinion that it is a revenge tragedy in the pattern of
Senecan tragedy.
Latin tragedian Seneca was at once the inspiration and model of
Renaissance tragedy. Sensationalism was the main spirit of Seneca which was
appealing to Elizabethan audience. There was a pattern in the Senecan tragedy
which became model to Webster.
First, the theme was highly sensational which brought murder and
revenge along with adultery and incest. Second, the passion was the main
source for the catastrophy. Third there was the psychological selfrevelation on”
the part of the prime characters which would bring forth the motive to the lime
light. Fourth the complexities in the play would be avoided by bringing the
action nearer to the calamity; action on the stage was very limited; much that
was necessary for the play was merely reported in a high flown language. The
creation of the character, who was confidant to the protagonist is another
Senecan device, to whom the protagonist discloses his thought or emotion or
purpose. Webster was very much motivated to follow the above pattern. He
was fond of scenes of bloodshed and violence.
In Order to create the sensationalism, Webster had taken the human
nobility as a negative point which expressed itself when pitched against the evil
mind. In The Duchess ofMalfi, the heroine is a noble lady who became victim
in the villanous net of the treacherous brothers; evil dominates the play but at
the end it meets the fate it deserves.
Webster’s genius had portrayed all the leading characters as tragic
characters in one way or other. The tragic end of the Duchess has its source in
her overall simplicity, innocence and virtuous character. The tragedy of the
Cardinal is due to the treacherous attitude towards others; Ferdinand is too
much impetuous and infuriated both in feeling and performance. Bosola’s
tragedy lies in his aspiration for the elevated position; he is an intelligent
person but his weakness lies in throwing away the consideration of good and
bad due to the overwhelming self-interest, expecting the proportionate reward

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for his loyalty. Antonio suffers in his life because of his moral cowardice or it
may be that he does not possess the requisite valour to face the adversaries.
Critics consider the Duchess of Malfi as a revenge tragedy as there is
morbid, macabre, melodramatic element in the tragedy. Darkness looms over
the play. Being a good playwright, Webster was fond of creating the horror for
which he adopted certain crude device. There are a number of murders; and
blood shedding is common; a dead man’s hand is presented; the wax figures of
the dead people are shown; the mad men are let loose; the executioner is
brought in with all the appearance of death; and the innocents and helpless
people are strangled.
According to some modern critics The Duchess ofMalfi is weak in
revenge motif, as the playwright did not make clear why the revenge had taken
place. They are of the opinion that the presentation- of turbulence, due to the
domination of evil over the noble characters is not convincing. Anyhow
Webster’s contribution to the Elizabethan revenge tragedy is noteworthy.
Questions
1. Consider The Duchess ofMalfi as a Revenge Tragedy.
2. Write a note on the characterisation in the play The Duchess of Malfi.

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 UNIT – V
DETAILED PROSE :
Francis Bacon : Essays Of Revenge
Of Truth
Of Adversity
Of Love
Of Marriage
Of Parents and children
Francis Bacon was the younger son of Sir Nicholas Bacon who held the
high position of Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of the King-a political office,
and was born in the city of London on January 22nd 1561. To hold his high
office, his father must have been an educated and cultured courtier but it is
even more surprising to find that his mother also was highly educated in Latin
and English and made a scholarly translation of Jewel’s Apology for the
Church of England which was written in Latin into English. After a private
education at home, Francis was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, where the
education was at that time in Greek and Latin but where the spirit of the new
learning had begun to establish itself to such an extent that the works, espe -
cially the scientific treatises of Aristotle, were being called in question. After
graduation, he entered Gray’s Inn to study Law, and was called to the Bar. On
completion of this course of study, he went to Paris in the company of the
ambassador Sir Amyas Paulet, since travel on the continent of Europe was
considered at that time the final touches to the education of a gentleman and a
courtier. Unfortunately his father died suddenly, and he had to return to
England with out spending much time abroad. But he prepared for a political
career being elected to Parliament at the early age of 23. He soon made his
mark in Parliament because of his sharp intellect and oratorical ability, and was
called upon to draw up a Treatise of Advice to Queen Elizabeth at the age of
24. He then became a Bencher (a Magistrate) in Gray’s Inn, but failed to secure
any better political post.
Francis Bacon, being a younger son, did not inherit an estate from his
father and had to make his own way in the world. He was fully conscious of his
abilities, and was greatly frustrated in not obtaining the recognition that he
craved for. He sought the patronage of the important and powerful nobles at the
court of Queen Elizabeth, such as Lord Burghely, who was related to him, and
the Earl of Walsingham, and later the Earl of Essex, who generously gave him
an estate. Bacon was an exceedingly cautious personality and gave his sincere
advice to Essex to be more guarded in his speech and behaviour but Essex was

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rash and impulsive and sought to: seize the succession by a show of popularity
and force. As a result he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. Bacon did
something that seems mean and treacherous. He took part in the proceedings
against Essex-his own patron and benefactor. He may, of course, have
considered it a way to make his one position more secure. But even after this
Bacon failed to secure a good political appointment such as the Mastership of
Rolls which he was hoping for. It was only after James I came to the throne that
his political fortunes-took a turn for the better.
During these years, however, he had not been idle. He took an active part
in advancing the theological and practical position of the Church of England,
and wrote a Treatise on the Pacification and Edification of the Church to help
to ease the high feelings between Catholics and Protestants in England. In
Parliament also he always took the part of conciliation when there were
differences between the King and Parliament, in the early years. For this, the
King gave him a. pension which did not satisfy him, but now enabled him to
take up his other great interest which was the promotion of philo - sophic and
scientific study. He published The Advancement of Learning in 1605 described
as the first great book of secular and educational interest. It was the first of the
works by Bacon (and later others) who brought about the Renaissance in
scientific experiment and philosophic enquiry, which was the hall mark of the
Renaissance.
Bacon was now getting on in years, and had earned some name as a
parliamentarian and scholar. He had a small estate and a pension, and so he
decided to get married, choosing Alice Barnham, the daughter of London
alderman and draper. Unfortunately they had no children, and Bacon was far
too old to be a companion to his wife.
Bacon assiduously supported the king’s measure, and at last was
appointed Solicitor-General. Within a year he was promoted to Clerk of the
Star Chamber, which gave him a good income and much leisure. Now he again
went back to his scholarship and began to plan his great work, Instaurotion
Magna. In 1612, he was made Attorney General, which again brought him into
the public eye and to a busy office, and soon after he was made Lord
Chancellor the highest post he could hope for. From 1616 to 1621 Bacon was at
the highest of his career and of his power. He was made Baron Verulam in
1620 and Viscount of St. Albans in 1621.
Then came his disgrace. He was impeached for corruption, and forced to
admit the truth of 28 actual cases and charges against him. It was a corrupt age
and Bacon made no secret of his actions and allowed his underlings also to

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make demands. As a result, he was forced to retire and fined 40,000 pounds -
an enormous figure in those days.
Though greatly impoverished, Bacon now returned to his scholarly
pursuits, and established a greater name as a scholar and writer than as a
political figure. He died in 1626.
Bacon’s Character
Bacon was undoubtedly one of the greatest men of his time, the age
which produced Shakespeare, and the Elizabethan dramatists, Spenser and the
Elizabethan poets, as well as the men of action and the explorers such as Sir
Francis Drake who circumnavigated the globe. In the sphere of knowledge, he
made a change and contribution that is recognized even today. He laid the
foundations for the growth and development of ex perimental science, and he
declared that our philosophy of life should be based on our knowledge of God
on the one hand, but also on our experience with regard to the universe of
Nature, and our relationship with our own kind. Philosophers and educationists
have even grieved over the fact that he did not set himself solely to a course of
study and writing which would have made him a even greater figure for future
ages. He was a man of the soundest intellectual abilities, and strongest
conviction where study was concerned. If Shakespeare’s contribution was to
the imaginative creation, his was to intellectual enquiry into both philosophy
and science. His consciousness of his great abilities stirred him to ambitions in
the political field where in those time greatness was considered to lie.
It is to his credit that his main ability was used for the conciliation of
opposing forces both in the Church and in Parliament. But he also always tried
to join the side which was likely to succeed because of his great ambition. It
was this ambition that finally led to his downfall.
As has already been mentioned it was an age of corruption, and Bacon
did nothing to conceal his actions. He was, to a great degree, straightforward in
his dealings and never passed judgments for money or perverted justice. This
was brought out at his trial, and it is for this reason that he was imprisoned only
for a few days and merely fined. It was for political reasons and personal spite
that the impeachment was pressed against him. The influence of Machiavelli
still dominated the political scene in Europe, and to hold high and public office
was a danger as well as an honour.
Bacon was a good churchman, held sound belief and he was not a man of
emotion and passion. He was on the other hand cold and calculating. His
personal life had none of the grace of generosity and goodness of heart that
characterizes the truly noble. This we discern as we study his essays.

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Bacon’s Works and His Contribution to Knowledge
The 16th century ushers in the modern characteristics of life and thought,
and hence in Literature, Modern Literature is said to begin with the 16 the
century. It is at the time that there is marked change in the minds and attitudes
of men to God, to the universe around them, to Nature, and to their own
neighbours. The darkness and superstition of the Middle Ages—often spokeh
of as the Dark Ages in Europe-were just passing away. They passed away
because of the pioneering works of men like Shakespeare in the field of
creative arts, of Sir Francis Drake in the field of exploration, and of Sir Francis
Bacon in the field of knowledge and philosophy.
When Bacon went to the University of Cambridge he found the scholars
and professors there were still following traditional methods of study. They
engaged in ‘disputations’ or argumentative debates often about trivial matters
of verbal or technical interest and took for granted scientific speculations that
were a thousand and five hundred years old without testing their truth and
validity. For instance the science of Aristotle was still taught as fact—when
much of it was speculation and hearsay. This, Bacon even at that early age
found disappointing.
He soon realized that nothing would change unless a new method of
study was invented and followed. This was to be the experimental method of
study. This experimental method is the one that science follows today.
Similarly since the time of Aristotle no attempt had been made to co-ordinate
the different branches of science or to link them with the arts and religion. The
early effect of the Renaissance was to exaggerate the importance of the names
and works of the classical scholars, and to neglect the little experimental work
that was being done. Then there was the jealousy between the theologians and
the scientists, the indifference of students, and the affectation and pretence to
knowledge of some teachers.
Bacon realized that what was required for the progress of science was; a)
correct conception of the end and aim of science and b) a method which would
correct the defects of the day and lay its emphasis on empirical study, rather
than speculation. He said that knowledge should be judged not by its use in
debate but in its results on actual life. He was one of the few who declared that
knowledge was intended by God for the benefit and use of man. “The spirit of
man is a lamp of God, wherewith he searcheth the inwardness of all secrets.” It
became Bacon’s mission in life to point out the vast dominions that science
could open to man through patient and methodical study of nature’s laws.
Though strictly speaking not a very religious man, Bacon believed that
what he had visualized was a fresh revelation of God’s glory and purpose for

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man. He therefore engaged as an original thinker on “a total reconstruction of
sciences, arts and all human knowledge, raised upon proper foundation” - in
other words he was a modern “Aristotle” - performing for the modern age what
Aristotle had done for the Greek and Roman world. This Great Inauguration
was a magnificent scheme and has had an untold effect on the theory and
practice of modern education and research.
The first part was to consist of summary of the knowledge available in his
time and found expression in English in his Advancement of Learning, later
expanded in Latin. After this came the Novum Organum which was Bacon’s
own, scientific methodology written again in Latin. The method consisted of
the careful use of Logic and experiment to check and verify each step as the
scientist proceeded. From this naturally followed his Sylva Sylvarum, Natural
Experimental history showing the application of intellect to the study of Nature.
He did not complete in full the remaining sections that he wanted to furnish,
namely, the Ladder of Intellect or the Laws of Nature arising one from the
other; Anticipations of the New Philosophy, an attempt to assimilate this
knowledge into a great philosophical scheme; and finally the New Philosophy
or Active Science which would be a complete interpretation of the universe of
nature. Only the prefaces to these works are available. But we have some
indication of what he foresaw as the result of this scheme of study in his
imaginative and Utopian novel, New Atlantis.
But Bacon was not merely interested in the development of what we
would now call Science, he was also interested in both philosophy and religion.
He delighted in the world of the Greek and Latin philosophers; moralists like
Seneca, Lucian and Montaigne (from whom he drew the concept of the Essay;)
of critics, of characters such as Tacitus, Plutarch and Suetonius; and arbiters of
management such as Cicero and Machiavelli. It is from this wide reading that
he drew material for his own thoughts expressed in his Essays. They are not
merely the fruits of his reading and thought, but also of his own observation.
The Essays are the observations of one of the most widely read and observant
men that England ever produced. His knowledge embraced all that was known
at that time, as we have already noted, and his observation of men and matters
was that of a trained scientist and philosopher. It is no wonder that they have
stood the test of time and are still regarded as classics in the English Language.
Bacon was also a true son of the Reformation. He was religious in his
beliefs, but in the controversies and animosities between Catholics and
Protestants he was conciliatory. He was able to be more impartial and detached
because he was not emotionally involved. Bacon’s great weakness was that he
was not an emotional personality. But it turned into a virtue in many instances,

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for he could be just in his judgements in Law, he could be reasonable
in^speeches in Parliament, and could be impartial in the case of religious
controversy.
Another great factor to be kept in mind is that he was probably the first
who saw the impending split between Science and Religion. He made a
distinction between revealed religion—that is the religion of faith, and what he
called natural religion, the knowledge concerning God obtained by a
contemplation of his creation. He tries to keep these two apart, to believe what
is written in the Holy Scriptures, realizing that it is not meant to be scientific
truth; and at the same time using our God-given reasons to examine God’s
greatness in his works which show His power and wisdom. Nature was to him,
like the Bible, in that it is also a Book written for our instruction. He was thus
able to reconcile the claims of both science and religion to his own satisfaction.
So Bacon found in religion both a stimulus for his study of the universe as well
as a consolation for his soul.
Although his nature was cold and governed by intellect, in general he was
humane in disposition. He hated cruelty and hardness of heart. He endeavoured
to be a peace- maker in an age of violence and strong feelings. For his time he
was of a most unusual disposition. He strove to be moral in an age that was
swept by violent passion, but he realized that moral failure—including his own,
sprang from weakness of will to do the right and conforming to the world,
rather than not knowing what was the right course of action. This weakness
again was linked to his desire for compromise and conciliation. But he found to
his cost that he could not reconcile the ways of the evil world with the ultimate
moral law. It was this failure that led to his impeachment and disgrace.
In the final analysis, however, we must allow that Bacon was a man, the
like of which does not appear in any country very often. The course that he set
for the study of science and the reconstruction of philosophy was the blueprint
on which much that has followed since his time has been built. He is the father
of the Modern Age of Science and Technology in a more fundamental sense
than we may realise, today. In addition he was a practical observer of human
nature, and a commentator on men and matters of a kind that has made him a
classic. It is worth studying the works of such a man.
The Essay - Definition.
Dr. Samuel Johnson defined the essay as “a loose sally of the mind, an
irregular, undigested piece, not a regular and orderly composition.” Though this
sounds like a definition of the performance of some students in examinations,
the concept of Dr. Johnson was based on the performance of essayists before
his own time. What he really meant to indicate was that the essay was not a

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complete and fully researched thesis on a subject. To Bacon himself the essay
was a ‘dispersed meditation’ on little notes and jottings that he set down in his
commonplace book. They were thoughts some times not well arranged but
gathered around a. particular topic to begin with. He did not add to the essay
the central mood or emotion that was to become its distinguishing mark in
literary compositions.
At first, he seems to have meant them for himself and his friends, to
whom he showed them—like Shakespeare’s sonnet—but as he found them very
well received and popular, he added to them. The first set that he wrote
consisted of only ten essays in 1587. The second edition consisted of only ten
essays, and the final edition as we now have it of 58 essays. Now instead of
thinking of them as notes for himself and his friends, he began to consider a
larger public, and consequently the style in which he wrote them also changed.
In the final edition he came to realise that they were so well received’ that they
may be works that he could count on to survive, and therefore he spent even
greater effort to give them,a literary shape that he had not attempted earlier. At
the same time it must be remembered that he also grew more successful in his
career. At the time of the final edition he was probably the most widely known
man in England-on account of his greatness as Lord Chancellor, and then on
account of his fall from power. The style, therefore, grew with the readership
that he had in mind, and with the development of the man himself. The wide
popularity of the Essays is shown by their early translation in Latin, French and
Italian- the languages of Europe.
The early style is characterized by crisp short sentences packed with
meaning— a concentrated expression of some weighty thoughts. This would be
varied by doubling or contrasting two opposed thoughts, or even making three
clauses work together to give the thought an effect. But as time went on, we
find that he gave looser rein to his imagination and that the sentences ran more
smoothly, and were not so brief or crisp. These are of course much richer and
more varied than the earlier sentences.
In the hands of essayists like Montaigne and Charles Lamb, the subject is
not as important as the author’s mood and treatment of it. In Bacon, however,
the subject is more important than the mood, or even the treatment. Yet in
Essays such as those Of Truth, Of Death, or Of Adversity, it is difficult to think
of any way of improving the essays. Bacon’s treatment is not the familiar
style—where the author establishes a direct contact with the reader, and we
come to love the author, rather than delve into the subject. In Bacon the method
is rather to give the reader matter for meditation and thought. So he is profound
and stately and distant, in his approach. If Montaigne was able to achieve the

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approach of a confidential chat, though on a philosophical subject, Bacon does
not descend to that familiarity. But the style suited the man himself; Bacon, the
man, was of that character. He could not be familiar or trivial; he had no
conversation for pastime or gossip. But yet he wins our admiration by his
grandeur and his stately dignity.
No satisfactory classification of the essays according to subject is
possible while it is true that in all of them he views man in relationship to (a)
himself; (b) his fellowmen; or (c) his God. Even Masques and Triumphs are
treated by him as ‘toys’, yes they are treated with the same seriousness as
subjects such as truth or study. Bacon’s interests were with politics and morals,
and these do find a predominant place in the essays. Strangely enough his
interest in science does not make any appearance at all. In general, it seems as
though Bacon has gained much from his study of Machiavelli, and that he is a
political opportunist who is prepared to sacrifice morality for success. But this
is not a wholly fair judgement. Expediency and conciliation were the
standpoints from which his judgement often took their rise, and hence it seems
that he is on the side of expediency rather than morality. Yet in the final
analysis Bacon’s morality was probably higher than those of his
contemporaries who may have spoken nobly but acted otherwise. His principles
are, however, those of a man of the world, not of moral absolutes. Again we
notice that he is extremely cautious, and prudence is one of the virtues that
underlies many of his maxims. He seems too ready to make exceptions and to
take tolerance too far.
The group of essays dealing with close personal relations such as those
Of Love, Of Marriage and Single life, Of Parents and Children and Of
Friendship seem to be too dispassionate, and insensitive to the relationship of
self giving love. He deals with them in a utilitarian sense. Though he values
them highly, it seems clear that he has not experienced such closeness himself.
There seems to be a preoccupation with the self-rather than with the other. This
selfishness and self-regard mark the tone of these essays. The same is also true
with regard to his essays on religion. Bacon is lacking in what we may term as
religious fervour: his religion is not of the heart or soul, but of thexmind. So he
does not think of what religion means to the human soul, but to the live
community of mankind on this earth. He is thinking of religion in human terms
even when he thinks of death. So he leaves out any mention of life after death
or resurrection. We may safely conclude that religion of the more fervent kind
played no part in his life; it was all a matter of belief, and of human relationship
and morality—a path to follow, not a heaven to aspire to.

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 Essays filled with thought so massive could only be written by Bacon;
and in this respect, the earliest of English Essayist still stands alone. “It took
Ulysses to draw the bow of Ulysses.” Yet the massive thought he poured into a
style that has been unrivalled as well—a style suited to the shortest and briefest
of meditations, and stately and dignified enough to convey the deepest ideas.
Baconian lucidity has become a byword in English, but the essays have still to
be read slowly to allow the mind to grasp the concept and the progression of
ideas. The style suits itself to the simple as well as the profound; it can be used
in any situation and so is completely flexible. Some of the best English prose is
suited only to highly emotive passages, or to lofty oratory—but Bacon’s style is
‘style for all seasons’.
OF TRUTH
Bacon opens this most serious topic with a reference to the trial of Jesus
in the Bible. When Pilate asks him, ”Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus
answers; “Thousayst I am a King. To this end was I born, and for this came I
into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth.” Then Pilate says: what
is truth? And went out appareritlywithout waiting for an answer. Bacon
interprets this to mean that Pilate took a lighthearted view of truth. But it may
not have been so. Bacon goes on to say that there are some people who ‘delight
in giddiness’ meaning that they do not want to hold to any fixed opinion. Since
truth is not easy to find, others do not take the trouble to do so and find it a
burden when they do.
His next point is that due to ‘original sin’ men find it natural to lie-i.e. the
natural man is not interested in truth. This, he says, is so even when there seems
to be no reason for the lie— neither profit nor even pleasure.
Truth, he says, may not show in its full and clear brightness the affections
of mankind in a favourable light, and so men do not prefer it. It is, Bacon says,
like a pearl that shows best in daylight. Whereas a diamond or other precious
stones may look scintillating in any light.
The pure and absolute truth, says Bacon, is not pleasing. It is best to mix
some element of the false with the true to make it acceptable. For instance
poetry is pleasing-but it does not contain unmixed truth. It is truth mixed with
imagination. Hence it was condemned by one of the fathers of the Church as
the wine of devils. Yet poetry does not harm, for it is the lie that sinks into the
heart and soul that really corrupts which poetry does not.
Truth is sovereign good of human nature, for the first creation of God
was the light of sense, the next the light of reason and the third the light of
spiritual illumination. If man is able to stand on the high hill of truth he will
view the whole of human life from a very different perspective of viewpoint,

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and see more clearly the mistakes and errors that men make with pity and
compassion. This statement was made by Latin poet Lucretius in his De Rerum
Nature.
Bacon ends the long paragraph with the wise remark or aphorism that it
would be heaven if a man’s mind would work in love, have faith in God’s
goodness and act wholly on the basis of truth.
Passing from religious or philosophic truth, to truth, in aphoristic tone, -
Bacon says that truth and honest dealing is considered honourable, but some
mixture of falsehood is necessary for the easier transaction of business. He
gives the simile of the admixture of alloy with the precious metals such as gold
and silver to make them easier to work with. Thus we have 22 carat gold etc for
making jewels. But excess of falsehood is. to be condemned and a man who is
excessively undependable is brought to shame and disgrace.
Here Bacon quotes from the French writer of essays, Michael Lord
Montaigne, who says: “ A man who lies, is brave toward God and a coward
toward man.” For a lie cannot be hidden from God, though it may be hidden
from men; and he comes under the judgment of God though he escapes the
condemnation of men. It is this lack of truth on the earth that will call forth the
Last Judgement of God on mankind—in other words lack of truth is man’s
greatest danger since he stands under divine condemnation. This final result is
the result of the earlier temptation of Adam and Eve by the serpent mentioned
in the essay, which has led man into these wicked and crooked courses—a
reference again to the Bible.
This is clearly a ‘dispersed meditation’, for it does not even attempt to tell
that it is possible to speak truth, but only sets out some thoughts that come to
Bacon’s mind. His practical sense is brought out, his clear acceptance of the
necessity of an admixture of false and true in the common business of life, and
his too facile acceptance of the fact that men are weak and prone to sin and
therefore under judgment by God.
OF REVENGE
During the Medieval Age, Europe and England had a number of small
chieftains, and some greater lords under what was known as the Feudal System.
These chieftains had serfs to work in the fields for them, and their main
business was fighting with one another. The result was what came to be known
as ‘feuds’, one chieftain attempting to revenge himself on the other for past
injuries to him or his family. This sometimes went on for several generations. It
is against this background that we must examine Bacon’s essay “On Revenge.”
Revenge, he begins, is a kind of wild justice-that is taking the law into
one’s own hands and attempting to punish the wrong doer without recourse to

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law. In any scheme of morals to attempt to take revenge means that you are no
better than your enemy, whereas if you are morally superior, he quotes the
famous king Solomon of the Bible who remarks: It is glory of a man to pass by
an offence.
Since what has been done cannot now be undone, to take revenge is to go
back on a past action and Bacon declares that such an action is not worth while
when there is so much to be done in the present and the future. An injury
committed because of self-love, says Bacon, is forgivable since we may do the
same for the same reason. Some men, of course, do evil because of their ill-
nature; in that case Bacon says that we must forgive them because they are
unable to hold themselves, like thorns which prick because that is their nature.
This is an appeal to psychology that is in advance of his time. Today we are
much more understanding in the case of warped human nature.
Bacon, however, is prepared to say that revenge is justifiable in cases
where there is no possibility of recourse to law. This was often the situation in
the Middle Age’s. He considers it better to appraise the enemy why you are
injuring him—to cause him to repent for his wrong action. There are, of course,
some cases which will not afford this justification.
He then introduces this interesting quotation from Duke Cosmus of
Florence that the Bible tells us to forgive our enemies, but makes no such
demand with regard to friends. So we need not forgive our friends who neglect
or injure us! This, Bacon thinks, is too much and quotes Job who was prepared
to take both good as well as evil from the hands of God; likewise, says Bacon,
we must be prepared to condone the neglect of our friends.
A man who meditates revenge keeps the evil done to him fresh in his
memory-does not let the wound heal, where one who forgives does not suffer
from this defect.
Bacon makes a distinction between private and political revenge such as
the revenge for the assassination of Julius Caesar, Pertinax and Henry III of
France which had its uses. He refers here to the success of Augustus Caesar
who avenged the death of Triberius, of Septimus Severus who avenged the
death of Pertinax and Henry IV - all of whom were politically prosperous after
their deed of revenge. But private revenges are not so, and vindictive persons
suffer the hatred of society and reach a sad end like witches.
This is one of Bacon’s earlier essays which contains very briefly his
thoughts on the subject of revenge both private and public. As in many of his
earlier essays, this one is short, and the style is also, sharp and crisp. Living as
he did at the close of the Middle Ages, before the really strong establishment of
law, especially for criminal cases, Bacon comments on the old system of taking

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vengeance by private parties and waging their own wars of feuds. It is quite
clear that he does not approve the practice, and as a lawyer should advise
recourse to law. Above, even that course of action is the higher moral step of
forgiveness, which makes the victim superior to the aggressor.
Bacon’s awareness, of the moral and legal implications of the system is
apparent, and he is able to sort out his preferences, and to present them to us.
Awareness of the highest morality, however, does not prevent Bacon from
perceiving the practical courses that are too often followed by the people. Even
in the city of London, there were often private brawls like the one described in
Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. There is even a record of a citizen asking for
protection against attack by Shakespeare himself! Today, however, we do not
have so much of such revenge though violence is increasing in all countries.
The essay provides food for thought, and also some indications of style which
are useful to the students.
We may notice, however, that Bacon’s division into paragraph is not
according to our modern practice, where each separate idea would be accorded
a separate paragraph. The linking together of separate ideas in Bacon is an
older fashion of arrangement, where a group of ideas is presented at the same
time to be grasped simultaneously by the reader. Milton too in his prose follows
this method of arrangement. Our method is to arrange ideas serially, theirs to
present them in a group—to be taken and understood together. This
arrangement is clear in the essay.
OF PARENTS AND CHILDREN
In the essay “Of Parents and Children”’ Bacon states that children are a
curse as well as a blessing. They .are a blessing because they are the
justification for the survival of the parents. They make the work of the parents
pleasant and delightful. The disadvantage of having children is that they are the
hurdles in the way of enterprise. Parents have to bear with the misfortunes and
sufferings caused by children. Men who are not blessed with children seek to
perpetuate themselves through noble achievements. It is natural that a childless
man wants to leave behind him a name worth mentioning. Childless men try in
all possible ways to express their ideals and noble aspirations through their
noble deeds. Men regard their children not merely as the continuation of their
physical life but also as the continuation of their greatest deeds.
The second paragraph is in the form of advice to parents. Bacon states
that the affection of parents towards their several children is many times
unequal. When a son is wise, and enterprising, the father thinks that his
guidance and upbringing made him so. A prodigal son keeps the mother in
perpetual worry and anxiety because she thinks that her over affection has

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spoiled him. So King Soloman, known for his wisdom, said “A wise son
rejoiceth the father but an ungracious son shames the mother.” Bacon warns the
parents not to show any special affection to any one child. In some families the
eldest children enjoy privilege and comfort over the youngest children. Those
who come between the eldest and the youngest are often treated with contempt.
But very often they prove to be the least.
In the third paragraph Bacon advises the parents not to be miserly
towards their children. Liberality makes children resort to false excuses for
getting money. By the time they earn money or inherit property, they start
spending lavishly. Parents should inculcate discipline and noble qualities but
should not be miserly in giving them money. Parents and school teachers create
rivalry between brothers during childhood days and this leads to the
disintegration of families when they are grown up. Italians do not differentiate
children from kinsfolk. They are not partial in showering their affection on
them. Such equal treatment is justified even by nature. In some families a
nephew resembles an uncle more than his own parents. God has endowed the
members and relatives of a family with the same type of appearance and
temperament.
Bacon advises parents to see their children get fixed up in some job at the
right time. Children should be sent for employment at the young age when their
minds can be easily impressed and moulded. Parents should not think that their
children will shine in the vocation in which they have special liking. But if
children have an extraordinary aptitude for a particular profession, parents
should not be a hindrance to them. Bacon’s prudential advice is to let children
“Choose what is best, custom will make it agreeable and easy.”
Bacon believes the youngest sons are fortunate because they- have no
great expectations. As per the English law the youngest son inherits nothing
from his father and so he prepares himself for all eventualities. He knows that
he has to work hard for survival and comfortable living. But if the younger son
inherits wealth from his father, he does not know the value of money [because
it is not a hard earned money by him] and so spends money lavishly like a
prodigal son.
OF MARRIAGE AND SINGLE LIFE
Bacon begins the essay “Of Marriage and Single Life” with the
advantages of unmarried life but finishes it with the usefulness of wives. Wife
and children are impediments to the great enterprises of a man. A married man
is like a hostage who has no freedom of action. Men without family have lot of.
time to think of the devel opment of a nation and society. An unmarried man is
free from the responsibilities due to his wife and children. Just as married men

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love their family and use their resources and energy for its welfare, so also
unmarried men love society and use their wealth and energy to enrich it. So
unmarried men prove to be benefactors of mankind. But at the same time
Bacon advises men with children to take the greatest care of the times to come
because their children will live in that future.
There are some unmarried men who are selfish and they neither think of
society nor of the future. Some men think that they have to pinch their pocket
for the expense of wife and children. Amassing wealth and earning the
reputation of being rich is a pleasure to them. Some men prefer, the unmarried
state because they love freedom and consider wife and children as a curtailment
of their liberty, independence of action and pleasure. Bacon humorously says
that such people consider even girdle and garters, as hurdles and restraints to
their comforts.
Bacon states that unmarried men are best friends, best masters, best
servants. But they do not make good citizens. They are like fugitive without
any responsibility. They shirk their responsibilities like ill equipped soldiers
who run away from the battle-field. Then Bacon compares wife and children to
a pond and the society to a vast land. Charity begins at home. The water of
charity fills the pond first and then spreads over the land.
Bacon is of the opinion that honest judge with five wives is preferable to
a dishonest, unmarried man. Unmarried men often prove to be cruel because
they have never experienced tender feelings of their wives and affection of their
children. Turkish soldiers are more cruel than others because they are
unmarried and never had an opportunity to enjoy the love and innocent smile of
children. As far as soldiers are concerned, marriage has a desirable softening
effect on them. Unmarried men prove to be harsh and cruel because the
emotions of kindness and affection are not aroused in them. Persons
with sober natures prove husbands. Ulysses the Greek hero of the
Trojan war rejected Caly enchantress who offered to make him immortal and
proved his fidelity to Penelope. He preferred his old wife to immortality.
Chaste women are often pro their virtue and some of them do not care for the
conventional properties govern the tradition and behaviour of a woman.
Bacon advocates that husbands should not be jealous of their wives.
Wives do not love and respect jealous husbands and sometimes go to the
extent of disloyal. If a wife considers her husband wise, she is constrained to
be sincere and loyal to him. Bacon warns a jealous husband to be prepared to
lose the kind and loyalty of his wife.
Bacon states “wives are young men’s mistress; companions for middle
agedf old men’s nurses.” Like a mistress, a wife provides, her young husband

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with se xualpleasures. When a man attains middle age, his wife does the work
of a best friend. In old age, a wife takes care of the health of her husband
when he is ill. So Bacon considers a wife as a ministering angel in all stages of
life of man. Bacon advises men to marry at a young age. A bad husband seld
on expresses his love to his wife and so his affection is highly venerated by the
wife, bad husbands have good natured wives. The bad tempers of a husband
provide an opportunity to a wife to exhibit her patience and good nature. If the
bad husband are their own choosing against the wish of their friends, they will
never accept the folly. They will try to justify their action by continuing their
affection towards their bad husbands. Such wives will take pride in showing
their forbearance to the ill treatment of their husbands.
OF LOVE
Bacon had a poor view of love—he thought of it as-a passion which drew
men away from the way of Reason and judgement. Hence he begins by
declaring that in life it ‘does much mischief. The reference to the sirens is that
they attempted to draw Ulysses away from his journey home in the Odyssey at”
Homer, and so he is thinking here of ‘the sexual implication of love. Linked
with this comes the fury of jealousy and revenge which are also,’ the result of
passion. giving way to this passion, Bacon counts as a weakness—and cites the
famous example of Mark Antony who was enamoured of Cleopatra, and
Appius Claudius who was responsible for the death (at her -father’s hands) of
Virginia.
His contemptuous remark of man, kneeling in front of a woman instead
of contemplating heaven and all noble objects, shows his general attitude which
is indeed very different from that of the tradition of Courtley Love of the
Mediaeval times. The ‘madness’ and exaggeration of Love are alien to his spirit
of scientific enquiry, in another famous statement he says: “It is impossible to
love and be Wise”.
Though there is an element of truth in this it doubt less only, a half truth,
for love can also lead to sublime heights as in the love of Dante for Beatrice or
John Donne for his wife Anne Moore, he refers to the famous example of the
Judgement of Paris, who when called upon to judge Which of the three
Goddesses— Juno, Minerva and Aphrodite — was. the fairest, was offered
wealth and power by Juno, and wisdom and knowledge by Minerva, but chose
rather Aphrodite who promised him the, fairest and most ‘loving wife in
Greece! So if a man chooses love, says Bacon The must forego wealth and
wisdom. He calls it a child of folly.
If a man must fall in love, then he must keep love under some control —
’make it keep quarter’—and separate it from all serious matters. He claims

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that soldiers are more open to the passion of love, and speculates that it is
partly, due to their practice of drinking too much, and a desire for pleasure in
recompence for the pain of suffering in warfare. He closes this rather weak
essay-with an aphorism. Nuptial love maketh mankind, (i.e. is responsible for
the propagation of the species) friendly love perfecteth it,(i.e, love between”
rnen’s the perfection of friendship,) and Wanton (uncontrolled) love (by-which
means sexual indulgence) corrupteth and embaseth it—makes it evil and base ,
Here for the “first time he seems to recognise that love is also a part of the
working of nature for the propagation of the species. He seems also to hold
the opinion, with the ancients that the highest type of love is that of friendship
or charity. For friendship between individuals is a very helpful thing as he
goes on to show in essay on Friendship, and charity is love to a larger variety of
mankind. On the whole this essay does not show Bacon at his best
OF ADVERSITY
In this essay Bacon himself is so taken up with his Latin quotations that
he translates them into English also. He must have first written this essay
before he himself suffered his great ‘fall’ in 1621, for it is among his earliest.
He is perhaps drawing from his rather frustrating experiences before 1603,
when success began to shine on him. ‘
All men wish for .prosperity, but few realise “that adversity has its
blessings too—the good things that adversity brings are to be admired. As
Arnold Toynbee remarks, it is the challenge that brings forth the response in
man and nations. And further to have the capacity to remain unperturbed by
adversity is the greatest feat of all. This may be of course come through faith in
God. Man whether a Christian or a heathen, does do his best though he sails in
a frail vessel through the sea of life.
He gives two famous aphorisms :
(a) The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude;
(b) Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament: adversity is the. blessing
of the New-which he says “carries greater blessing and is sure sign of
God’s favour.”
But in human life, he goes on to say, that even in prosperity there are
fears and distastes, and in adversity comforts and hopes. Bright coloured
embroidery on a dark background is more attractive than the reverse, and hence
he claims the superiority of adversity. His final metaphor and aphorism are also
noteworthy:

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 “Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are
incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but .adversity doth,
best discover virtue.
It would seem that Bacon is almost comforting himself in this meditation,
for the set-backs that he has had in life on the theme, failures are the stepping-
stones to success.
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Bacon’s views on love, marriage, parents and children
Bacon himself married for a fortune. His father-in-law settled on him an
annuity of £200 which was quite an addition to his income. We do not hear
much of his married state. Most probably he also did not attach much
importance to his conjugal life. But he observed the married life of others very
keenly and as usual came to a number of pragmatic conclusions which sound
cynical in a man of his intellect and social standing.
Bacon speaks in scathing terms about love which is so much extolled by
poets and dramatists. In his view every great man who gave love a prominent
place in his life suffered for it. He gives the examples of Mark Antony and
Appius Claudius as warnings. He points out that love is a jaundice that distorts
one’s vision and makes a fool of oneself before a toy of flesh. He ridicules
Paris for having preferred beauty to wisdom and power. He goes on to declare
that man is given only a certain quantity of the material called love. It is foolish
and criminal to waste the precious material on a single person instead of
distributing it over as many fellow-beings as possible. He is all for friendly
love. Married love he considers a tolerable evil for propagating the species. But
romantic love he castigates in the severest terms. he has no partiality for the
married life.
What a contrast with his contemporary Shakespeare who has
immortalised love in every one of his plays ! NaturallyHe maintains stubbornly
that the unmarried and childless man is a greater benefactor of humanity than
the married man. He admits that marriage has a measure of disciplining effect.
A soldier will fight better when he has to think of the wife and children he has
left behind. But in the case of most men single life makes them better friends,
better masters and better servants. Priests also will attend more to their
parishioners when they do not have to reserve their compassion for their own
family. He admits that a wife is useful as a mistress in youth, acompanion in
middle age and a nurse in the evening of one’s life. So he advises the reader to
marry when necessary, though he would welcome total avoidance of marriage.
He makes the oft-quoted statement: “He that hath wife and children hath given
hostages to fortune”.

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 Since, in spite of Bacon, people usually marry, Bacon does devote some
attention to the question of parents and children. Children are an asset in the
sense that they can carry on the family tradition from where their father left it.
The parent does not mind working hard for the sake of children but then there
is also the other side of the picture—when misfortune comes, the parent grieves
all the more remembering how the children are affected. “Children sweeten
labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter.”
Bacon is of the view that while the father takes pride in a good son, the
mother suffers more for the defects o her boy. .He advises parents to be liberal
in giving pocket money to children while maintaining strict discipline. But then
he does not approve of a parent instituting comparisons between his different
children. If the father tells a dull boy that he must imitate his bright brother, the
not-so bright boy will cherish hatred towards his luckier brother He
recommends that the father should choose a good career for his children, but if
a boy shows more aptitude for some other vocation he must riot stand in the
way. He also points out that the eldest son who inherits the family. Fortune will
usually prove weak wastrel and so it is the younger sons who accomplish great
things in life.
Thus Bacon’s views on the related themes of love , marriage and children
is to say the least only wordly-wise. He is utterly utilitarian in his outlook and
has no urge to examine the aesthetic, moral and spiritual values involved in
loving, marrying and bringing up a familiy, bacons shows hims If a
businessman and not a philosopher.
Bacon as an Essayist
We usually think today of the essay as one of the latest dishes in the
banquet of literature. It calls for a class of readers who possess economic and
social security and who have the time and the talent to appreciate rational
reflections on civilized customs, manners and morals. No doubt, Plato, Cicero
and Horace have made substantial contribution to the spirit of the essay. But we
may take it that the classical prototype of the.essay issues from Seneca and
Plutarch. Seneca’s Epistles’ to Lucilius have been described by Bacon as
“Essaies, that is dispersed meditations, though conveyed in the forme of
Epistles.” As the essay grew it absorbed like a mighty river a number of
tributaries —formal treatises, formal letters of medieval and renaissance
humanists’, the academic exercises of generations of students, the private
commonplace books kept by serious students, and published collections of
anecdotes, aphorisms and discourses. All this was backed by the inexhaustible
treasury of classical literature. The essay tended, by its very nature, to be
secular in tone but it aiso bore traces of religious sermons and devotional

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contemplations. In a word, the essay became a genre for the natural expression
the heightened self-consciousness of the poet- renaissance mind.
It may be said that the essay was born when Montaigne retired to his
tower to take stock of himself and thereby of all human experience. The
evolution of his essays summarises the general evolution of this new genre
from the common place to independent reflection.
Bacon borrowed the term ‘essay’ as well as part of il form from
Montaigne. His intellect had been whetted b perusing the writings of moralists
like Seneca, Lucian an Montaigne, of character analysts like Tacitus, Plutarc
and Suetonius, and of political thinkers like Cicero and Machiavelli. His mind
had been enlarged by travel an a experience in high positions.So he kept a
commonplac notebook in which he set down brief notes “rather signif cantly
than curiously, not vulgar but of a kind where men shall find much in
experience and little in books’ They are not set treatises but “dispersed
meditations’ They are the distilled essence of his wisdom.
Though there is much in common between Montaigne and Bacon, they
are far apart in their temperament an outlook. Bacon has nothing of the
attractive personality of Montaigne, a man of the world who made a point c
finding out how the world looked to all sorts and condition of men from the
king on his throne to the groom in th stable. Montaigne writes on every subject
in a bluff an breezy way, even like a knight traversing an interestin country on a
horseback. But Bacon is in spite of his catholic mind deals only with a
comparatively few subject concerning moral thought. His treatment is more
scientific than that of the classical writers. His essays do reflect his experience
of life. But they tell us little of his subjective likes and dislikes. All through his
essays, there is a persistent air of a high serious ness and cold objectivity a
contrasted with the delightful gossip of Montaigne an a Charles Lamb. While
Montaigne is prone to philosophise on whatever relates to man, Bacon is curt,
entirely impersonal, and averse to pure speculation. He deduces general
maxims; only from the observations he has himself been able to make.
Bacon does not write for the general reader. He writes only for kings,
princes courtiers and men of ‘great places’ like himself. He supplies short
dissertations which are highly sententious in form.He quotes extensively from
the ancients, but he always relates them to his own direct observations. Even
when he quotes from the Bible, the quotation is meant to reinforce the point he
is making and not what the Bible intends. “Like a good lawyer Bacon with an
air of complete impartiality, balances opposing arguments before he draws his
conclusions. The essential merit lies in the density of thought and expression,

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the frequent brilliancy of the poetic images, inserted never as ornaments, but
always to emphasise ideas and the impressive loftiness of a tone.”
Bacon claimed that he took all knowledge for his province. The claim is
not exaggerated. His essays constitute a pocket-book of practical wisdom, and
even when we may not agree with his conclusions, we cannot help admiring the
stimulating, thought-provoking quality of the statements. No nuance of
character or minutae of a garden or a building escapes his eagle-like eye. He
has been aptly described as one of our great masters in the Art of life. He has
shown men how full of interest life and the world can be to every healthy mind.
Reading him we cannot help agreeing that “Wisdom is justified of her
children”.
While perusing the essays we must remember that Bacon’s words of
advice are meant not for anybody who cares to listen but to the chosen great
ones of the world, who will attend only to words of becoming weight and
dignity. No doubt, other contemporaries of Bacon excelled him in rhetorical
power and musical cadence but no one equals him in clarity, terseness and
succinct lucidity of prose. His command of phrase is extraordinary, and his
essays are full of quotable quotes. Consider the practical wisdom closely
packed in the following “He that hath wife and children has given hostages to
fortune “
‘Lookers-on many times see more than the gamesters”.
“Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.”
Children sweeten labours ; but they make misfortune more bitter.”
personal, formal and stately. His distinction is in the human worth and
encyclopaedic extent of his compilations.
His essays must surely be numbered among the few books that deserve to
be chewed and digested. Rarely do we find so much meat, so admirably dressed
and flavoured in so small a dish. Bacon hates padding and never waste words.
He offers us infinite riches in a little phrase Each of his essays gives in a page
or two the condensed subtlety of a master-mind. The sturdy style is as supreme
prose as Shakespeare’s verse. No-doubt, the endless metaphors and allegories
he uses and the allusions he provides sometimes tire us out. Indeed, the essays
are like rich and heavy food which cannot be digested in large quantity at one
go. But taken three or four at a time they are the finest intellectual nourishment
in English.
He uses quotations so generously that they may be said to be quite a
feature of his style. They show the range of his reading. As it was his habit, he
jotted down any expression or turn of thought that had struck his fancy. But one
thing is peculiar. There is hardly any quotation from older or contemporary

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English authors. Most strangely, there is no single reference to Shakespeare in
the whole spectrum of his writings. Another peculiarity is that he is never exact
in his quotations. He gives more the substance than the exact verbal text of the
quotation since he quotes from memory. Though he maintains a grand style, his
sentences are more modern in their structure than those of other Elizabethan
writers.They are more pointed and less involved. Usually the meaning is not
difficult to apprehend. One defect of the essays, how ever, is that there is no
proper grouping of sentences into paragraphs.
Bacon is noted for his figures of speech. He uses them without the smell
of the mid-night lamp. The figures of speech he employs seem to suggest
themselves to his hidden analogies and applying them felicitously. They are
drawn from natural phenomena like weather and from the arts of medicine, the
human body, its disorders and the like. He uses also balance and antithesis to
give point to his style.
We cannot call his style simple, in the ordinary sense. But his writings are
free from all affectation, pedantry and vulgarity. He has no hesitation in using
homely illustrations when they are more telling. He does not make any violent
display of feeling but he says what he has to say so vigorously and tersely that
it makes a powerful impact on the mind of the reader.
Brevity is indeed the secret of Bacon’s style. Hardly any writer, ancient
or modern, has succeeded in presenting so much meat so admirably dressed and
flavoured in so small a dish. But the brevity is never purchased at the expense
of clarity. No doubt, the modern reader may find the going a little hard because
of his unfamiliarity with Elizabethan English. But he will have to admit that
Bacon’s language is lucid even when abrupt transitions of thought occur. And
his words are always precise. He does not employ any term in different senses
in different contexts. In a word, -’his words and figures go straight to the
point”. His prose is not merely that of a lawyer, but of a philosopher, writing in
a great age of English poetry.
The themes of Bacon’s Essays
Bacon has called his essay ‘dispersed meditations’. He means that he is
transcribing into book form the notes he had recorded in his notebook as and
when thoughts occurred to him or he was struck by ideas in the books he read.
Therefore, his essays are neither logically systematic nor artistically developed.
Bacon’s essays do cover a vast range of life-themes. He takes all knowledge for
his province and has something pertinent to say on every serious subject.
We may divide the themes he deals with into five categories roughly :
1. Essays on Human Nature : These are by far the most thought-provoking.
He deals critically with love friendship, envy, revenge, ambition, and the like.

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We may not agree with many of his conclusions but what he says is always
stimulating. We must remember that he is writin mostly from his own
observations and experience and quotes the ancients only to the extent such
quotation support his points of view.
2. The second type of essays reflect on morals and human conduct. In this
category come the essays of marriage and single life, ambition, riches, truth,
parent and children. Here also Bacon’s views often run counter to usually
accepted norms.
3. Another type of essays refers to the State and Society. Under this category
are the essays on ‘Great Places’, ‘Nobility’, ‘Seditions’, ‘Empire’, ‘True
Greatnes of ‘Kingdoms’, Plantations’, ‘Judicature’ and ‘Factions’.
4. Essays on the artistic and relaxed life such as on buildings, gardens,
health, travel, studies, and discourse.
5. The last category which may be called philosophical essays-death, unity
in religion, goodness, atheism, superstition, prophecies, fortune, honour and
vicissitudes of things.
Whatever be the theme dealt with Bacon has always some thing
memorable and new to say. We feel that he does not burn the midnight oil. His
scholarship is vast, but he is not a plodder of books. He brings to bear on every
topic his great judgement as befits a Lord Chancellor.
BACON’S “NEW ATLANTIS”
When we consider the Renaissance today we think of it as bringing about
revival of learning, but we often forget that the age of scientific enlightenment
came almost two hundred year after the Renaissance, in the 18th century.
Very much like the Sanskrit Scholars in India, learned men who had studied the
Greek and Latin texts venerated them so much that they refused to consider any
knowledge that was not contained in them. Our learned in India refused in
more recent times to consider any new learning beyond the ancient Sanskrit or
the ancient Tamil classics. In India it was the introduction of English by the
rulers of the country that broke this closed system.
In England Francis Bacon surveyed the learning of his time, and found
it was also closed to new ideas, thoughts and empirical experiment in the
same way. The minds of the academics was “‘fixed and frozen “, and most of
Bacon’s Latin works were an attempt to break through these frozen minds,
and explain his concept of ‘ a fresh examination ‘ of facts and theories.
Aristotle’s pronouncements on science were almost two thousand years old.
But they were still believed to be the complete truth. In the same way Greek
medical prescriptions and pharmocopia were still accepted as the only ones

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available. Even in mathematics and astronomy where in recent times Galileo’s
telescope had falsified beliefs held for centuries, old beliefs work still taught in
the universities. So the Renaissance had its drawbacks too. And Bacon was
very conscious of them.
He believed that man should study Nature and her laws afresh, and come
to fresh conclusions from direct experiment ;and observation. God’s works
were as important to understand, as God’s Word-The Bible. Thus men could
improve their own minds and also understand the glory of God through a fuller
appreciation of his work in Nature. At the same time, such a study would
benefit mankind by bringing in comfort, health, and power. In his own time,
Bacon was a revolutionary in this concept and was distrusted because of it.
His questioning of the ancient texts of Aristotle’s science, and ancient
documents o medicine was considered radical, and, so his career also suffered.
He could not obtain employment. When sailors were discovering new land by
sailing across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, round the Cape of Good Hope in
Africa to reach India, and widening their horizons on the globe, Bacon was
very surprised that they did not want to widen their mental horizons also. The
Bible said clearly that the whole of God’s creation was for the benefit of man,
why should not man ‘then study nature and enjoy these benefits that God
Himself had provided ? He wanted to direct mental effort in a new direction not
to debates and arguments on hair-splitting philosophy, or learned commentaries
on ancient texts, but to the fresh examination of Mathematics, Physics, Botany
and Zoology, Minerology, and Oceanography.
This raw direction he endeavoured first to give through his work The
Advancement of Learning; but few people were prepared to read this book,
because they did not believe in his method. Then it was that Bacon thought of
the idea of embodying his concept in a novel or a fable. This is what he does in
his New Atlantis.
In the New-Atlantis he pretends that he has sailed into the Pacific ocean
as many other explorers had done, but he had found a new archipelago of
islands, a new geographic discovery. This is the way in which he hopes to
capture the interest of the readers. Geographic discoveries, and stories of such
voyages were acceptable-as for instance Hakyut’s Voyages. Much later
Jonathan Swift was to use the same device in writing ‘ Gulliver’s Travels ‘
Now many of these books of travels, presented the various types of
human beings that they “found in the new lands they visited. For example while
they found Red Indians with a primitive civilisation in North America, but they
found the Inca’s and Aztecs in Central America with a much more advanced
civilisation. Captain Cooke described the men who inhabited the Polynesian

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island, and the Australian aborigines while the Portuguese who came to India
and China described the civilisations of the Indians and the Chinese. Now
many of these civilisations had never heard of the Greek and Roman
civilisations on which the European civilisation is based.
No doubt there was some contact between India and China by the land
route, but it was rather Indian mathematics and Chinese manufacture of
gunpowder (for crackers) that went to the west rather than the east borrowing
from them. This fact was used by Bacon. He presents a civilisation which is up
to date with European civilisation — and indeed in advance of it in many ways,
but which had derived nothing from the Greek and Roman classics. Thus he
shows that the Greek and Roman Classics are not essential to progress and
especially not essential to scientific development. These islands had never felt
the effect of ‘ Freezing knowledge ‘ over a long period of centuries. His
civilisation is ancient in that it outdates the Greek and Hebrew, but it is modern
in that it is scientific and has had a revelation Christianity.
The main glory of the islands was (a) their attitude to their citizen and
even to strangers and aliens, and (b) their Research Institute called Solomon’s
House. King Solomon was of course the famous Jewish king, who ruled over
the whole of Israel, famous for his wisdom and his wealth, as well as for his
good rule. Inspite of Solomon possessing an empire, an army and a fleet a great
temple and palace at Jerusalem and it is said, a thousand wives, he himself took
pride not in these things but in his search for knowledge. He is said to have
declared : “ It was the glory of God to conceal a thing ; and thee glory of king
to find it out “. Man’s part as he thought was to secrets of God’ creation,
joining with God in this Divine-human sport or play. Such a task is never
harmful but is always profitable to man-indeed it is his chief glory. He wrote a
book on Natural History which has not however been preserved. This was
exactly the task that Bacon set for himself also.
He realised that benefit from this kind of investigation would extend to
the whole human race. Gradually he came to see that he himself could
contribute but little to this task, but he wished to find an institution such as the
one he described in his New Atlantis. He died without doing so, but the British
Royal Society founded half a century after, embodies much of the kind of
society he envisaged. Now of course scientific and humanistic research has
been extended to all universities and technical and engineering institutions and
is a part of the very life of our whole system. Bacon then was a pioneer in
envisaging such research, and it is of the greatest interest to see what he
thought to be the fields to be investigated. They are surprisingly
comprehensive.

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 He foresaw also that there would have to be various classes of men
engaged in this work: 1. Collectors of Specimens 2. Researchers conducting
various kinds of experiments, 3. Compilers who wrote down and put together
the results of the experiments, 4. Men who planned how to use this knowledge
for the benefit of mankind-practical application of the discoveries. 5. Senior
researchers who could direct men to new areas of research, and 6. could draw
from the research the fundamental principles behind the research. To his credit
be it said that he himself collected one thousand experiments recorded in Sylva
Sylvarum. The subjects included gardening and agriculture, heat and cold
(refrigeration), light and sound, cooking perfumes, engines and motion
(dynamics), mathematics, and astronomy and the use of telescopes, submarines,
and flying machines. From even this short list it is possible to see how Bacon
was far ahead of his age in his expectation of the gifts that scientific
investigation could bring to man.
His method of conveying his ideas to his contemporaries was this novel
in to describe the work of his imaginary Solomon’s House on his imaginary
island which he called New Atlantis, where all these things had been
accomplished. This is a most ingenious way of preparing his readers for fresh
thinking on his subject and opening their “frozen minds” to new ideas. If one
mentioned flying machines, the scholar of the Greek classics would refer to the
story of Daedalus and Icarus who made wings of wax and feathers, and flew
into the sky, but Icarus flew too near the sun, and the wax melted and he fell
into the sea and was drowned, and his father Daedalus died of a broken heart.
The Indian scholar would likewise point out that Ravana carried off Sita
in an aerial car, but we must remember that poor Rama had to travel on foot to
find her-he had no aeroplane to give chase. It is only due to scientific research
on the basis that Bacon predicted that we now have not merely aeroplanes but
spacecraft. Yet we must remember that it was almost a hundred years later that
scientific investigation really began in England -so Bacon was far in advance of
his time.
The Narrative of New Atlantis :
Bacon does not spend much space on the travel. He says that the ship set
out from Peru in South America across the Pacific, and after about six months
of travel or more, came upon some land-which they found to be a green island
with a good harbour. It is noteworthy that the people of the island are not
hostile, yet they are cautious and do not let the Sailors land immediately. They
were afraid of a) pirates who would rob and steal, and b) of sickness that may
be brought to their land from abroad what we would call quarantine. But they
are prepared to give them food, water and tend their sick.

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 The people first communicated in writing-showing their knowledge of
Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Spanish, and received their answer also in writing in
Spanish, that they had many sick abroad, and needed to take these ashore.
Luckily the sickness was probably scurvy, due to lack of fresh fruit and
vegetables and was not infectious, and so they were allowed to land. They also
found that the people were Christians, and were indeed very kind-hearted. They
were then allowed to land and were housed in the Strangers Guest House. Even
after coming ashore they are asked to remain indoors for three days - again a
health precaution. Bacon seems to have been very much aware of the sickness
brought on board ships that travelled to the various parts of the world, and thus
picked up infectious disease. Today this is a regular practice, and preparatory
vaccination and injections are given. Bacon’s foresight is evident in this
precaution.
Equally evident is his statement that the messengers etc. would not
receive any gratification - no presents, no corruption ! The Sailors themselves
are struck by the hospitality and moral quality of the people and respond by
trying to live up to this standard—” Let us behave ourselves as we may be at
peace with God, and may find grace in the eyes of these people”. Their lodging
and board was free of cost. The state took care of the expenses. They were also
visited by a priest who was prepared to minister to them.
Then finally the Governor came to them, and from him they learnt that
the name of the Island was Bensalem, that they had a definite policy of
seclusion and secrecy, not wishing to be in the usual traffic with the world,
and therefore treated strangers with caution. But the travellers ware anxious to
know how, with their policy of secrecy, they had come to be Christian-seeing
that they were so far from either Palestine or Europe. This, the Governor
explained as miracle and a special dispensation of God. God had commanded
the apostle Bartholomew to commit an ‘ark’ to the floods of the sea
containing the Bible with a covering letter. This ark came floating over the
oceans till it reached the shores of Bensalem, whereupon a huge pillar of
light was seen over the waters. When approached by boat they were prevented
from going too near, till a holy man prayed to God, and his boat alone was
allowed to approach the pillar-which thereupon disappeared, leaving this ‘ark’
floating on the waters Inside the ark was found the Bible, and hence by the
force of this miracle all the people, from whatsoever land they were became
Christians. It is noteworthy that unlike many scientists, Bacon is strongly in
favour of religion, and has used this method to show his preference.
On the islands of Bensalem, were men of variousraces, and from different
countries who had come and settled there in the long past, hence they also

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knew many languages. This again was a surprise to the travellers who therefore
asked how this could be that men from other lands were found here but this
island, was not known in other lands. Moreover, they seemed to have much
information about other countries, and yet they themselves remained unknown.
This was more surprising as those days ships were traveling the oceans in all
directions and discovering many new places and islands This question the
Governor answered by saying that before the dark ages in Europe, shipping was
numerous, and navigation by the people of Carthage, Tyre, Phoenicia, as well
as Egypt, and on the otherside, China and the America had great fleets of
ships, and at that time it was well known.
But later the great civilisation of the Americas suffered a severe set
back by floods, which destroyed the great civilisations and left but a handful
of people alive. (This is) on the analogy of the great flood in the days of Noah
in the Bible, which is said to have destroyed the people of the then known
world. Today scientists believe that for some reason the ice-caps in the North
and South Poles became very large, and moved south into the lands as glaciers,
and then when warmth returned, they caused huge floods due to unremitting
rain. (The great lakes of North America and in Siberia were formed in this
way.) The Governor also tells of an invasion by the people of Mexico which
was warded off by their mighty king Altabin. As a result of the decay of
civilisations, sea communications also declined, and the island remained
unknown. And the wise king also provided for the immigration of the sailors,
who did come, so generously, that few if any left the island once they had
come.
Then Bacon comes to the main point of this fable which is the description
of the founding and working of Solomon’s House. He calls it the noblest
foundation that ever was on earth. This House is run by a Society or an Order
(like the order of the Jesuits) and is called to study the Works and Creations of
God So it is sometimes called the College of the Six Days Works since God
created the world and all that is in it in six days according to the Bible. One of
the ventures of this House is that they send to other countries once in 12 years a
group of their members to settle in foreign lands and to bring back all the
knowledge they can about Arts, Science and Technology that they find in the
worlds. This is like the reverse of the ‘Brain Drain’, for the members of the
society to go and return with much more than they took with them. In this way
they kept in touch with the knowledge that existed anywhere in the world Their
trade is not in commodities but in knowledge.
Plato in his Republic see ms to speak against the institution of the family
and prefers communal living. But Bacon as a Christian considers the family

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Unit of prime importance. So his next description is of the Feast of the
family. This feast is supported by the state and is celebrated in the family of a
man who has produced thirty children and grand children. Under cover of
describing this Feast Bacon also shows that sexual vice is most degrading, and
is not permitted in Bensalem, while marriage is made a sacrament. Bacon is
fond of rites and ceremonies and he makes up a set of rites for this celebration.
In his comment he says the righteousness of Bensalem is greater than that of
Europe
Finally the narrator of the story meets the Chief of Soloman’s House in
person and learns from him about the great establishment, The wealth of the
Foundation is emphasised by the richness and surroundings of the Chief whom
he meets in a separate house in a grandly furnished room.
1. The Purpose of the Foundation :
The purpose of the Foundation is to seek and find the causes of natural
phenomena and enlarge the bounds of human knowledge, and to invent means
and machines for making life better.
2. Towards this purpose they have several preparations and
Instruments:
a) Deep caves or mines under high mountains away from the sun and air,
called the Lower Region. These are used as laboratories for Chemical
experiments, tempering of metals, refrigeration, and preservation of
materials. They also make different alloys, and combinations of metals,
besides mining minerals themselves. They also use these lower regions
for curing some strange diseases, and for inducing longevity. Some
research on human beings is also done therefore in these places.
b) They research on porcelain and different kinds of silica and earth as well
as in the making of manures and fertilisers to make the soil more fertile
and fruitful.
c) On high towers - even half a mile in height set on mountains, so that they
reach three miles into the atmosphere-called the Upper Region - they
conduct research on winds, rain, snow, and also on refrigeration and the
preservation of foods. They also work on astronomy and even the hermits
living in the mountains are instructed to collected information for the
research.
d) Research is carried on in freshwater and salt lakes, both for fish and
waterbirds. They have found means of making salt water into fresl and
vice-versa. Then streams are used to provide power, as also windmills, in
order to provide motion to machines.

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e) Artificial wells and fountains in which various chemicals are mixed
provide baths for health, and they have even discovered the water of
Paradise which ensures health and longevity.
f) They have planetariums and laboratories, where rain, snow, wind etc. can
be simulated, and also for the breeding of water born insects and frogs
etc.
g) They provided health - giving baths, suited to restoring strength to
various parts of the body and tissues, in order to ensure health.
h) They have large and various orchards and gardens, for experiments in
grafting and growing fruits and herbs, and making them yield more and
more quickly than normal. Also they produce by crossbreeding a further
variety of species both for food and medicine. They create new plants and
also transform one plant into another.
i) Then they have parks and enclosures where animals and birds are kept
and bred for observation as well as for experiment and dissection.
Medicines, poisons etc. are tried out on these creatures. Experiments are
made to increase or curtail their growth and development. They also
experiment with cross-breeding and see if they can obtain better species
and varieties of animals for food or labour. The same kind of experiments
are also tried out on fish and birds in water, and bees and flies in the air.
So they have several breeds of silkworms and bees.
j) Then they have great kitchens and brewing houses, where different kinds
of brews and foods are experimented upon ; and where drinks of different
kinds are brewed, using different kinds of fruits and malts as welt as
honey and sugar etc. There are also drinks or soups made from the flesh
and bones of animals, which serve old people who cannot eat normal
food. A wide variety of drinks of various strengths and fitness are to be
had for a variety of purposes. In the same way a great variety of cooked
and baked foods are available, made from different kinds of grain, and so
varied as to be appetising. They have made foods that enable a man to
fast for long time after and others that give immense toughness to the
body
k) Then they have pharmaceutical laboratories where medicines are made
quite fresh and new, from herbs or from roots and other materials. These
medicines are made to suit the age of the person using them, and some
are distilled and allowed to age for greater potency. Yet these are all
natural remedies and do not harm the human body.

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l) Then they have invented many artificial fabrics and tissues, like linen,
silk, paper, etc; and dyes to colour them, so that their fabrics and textiles
are unique and are of our own invention. (Synthetic fibres)
m) They have built furnaces offering a variety of kinds of heat; intense
strong, or steady and strong, or soft and mild or mild, and dry or moist
etc. for various purposes. They can imitate the heat of the sun and other
heavenly bodies. They have also studies that show that the heat in the
stomachs of various animals as well as composts, and the heat in the deep
recesses of the earth as in mines.
n) They have laboratories where experiments with light are carried out light
of different kinds and colours, as well as reflections, and multiplications
and movements both of light and shadow. They produce light in a variety
of ways not known to the rest of the world, they have also telescopes and
microscopes and can study the reflection and refraction of light in various
ways.
o) They have laboratory for minerals and precious stones where glass,
crystals and variety of gems are studied as also magnets and lodes-tones
both natural and artificial.
p) Research is also carried out on sound—musical instruments bells, rings,
cymbals etc. which are superior to what is suitable in the world, They can
imitate the sounds of animals and birds, and can convey sounds over long
distances through pipes etc. They can amplify or diminish sound volume
or change the pitch and tone.
q) Then they have perfume houses and sweetmeat houses where they make
and blend a variety of perfumes and prepare a great variety of sweetmeats
both liquid and solid.
r) Then they have engine houses, where mechanical device of all sorts are
invented and manufactured in bulk. These engine houses also make war
machines and guns and cannon, gun-powder, and various other such
devices including fire works. They have machines that imitate the frying
of birds and have some degree of aerial flight. They have boats that can
travel under water, as well as ships, and lifebuoys to keep men afloat.
They have a variety of clocks which simulate motion in a variety of ways,
and they have means of imitating the movements of birds, beasts and
other living creatures.
s) Then they have the house of mathematicians who make all calculations,
and have a variety of instrument for geometry, astronomy and other such
forms of mathematics.

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t) They have also a house which shows how juggling and illusions and and
impostures are done, which may deceive the senses. But these are used
not for magical deception but to warn people against such false
presentations.
In the order of Solomon’s House are employed men of various ranks and
duties :
1. Merchants of Light - who travel “to other countries and bring back
information on what developments are to be found in all parts of the
world.
2. Depredators - who collect the information and experiments to be found in
books.
3. Mystery - men, who collect experiments in the mechanical arts and
liberal arts,
4. Pioneers or Miners who conduct experiments themselves and are
inventors.
5. Compilers, who collect all the information from these above.
6. Benefactors or Dowry - men, who seek to apply the knowledge thus
gained to practical use - (Applied Scientists).
7. Lamps, men who have surveyed this whole field of knowledge, direct
men to new fields of research.
8. Those who carry out this research and Innoculators.
9. Interpreters of Nature, who finally discern and formulate the Laws and
axioms that seem to rule the natural world.
10. Then of course they have a large number of novices and apprentices both
men and women, servants and attendants who are necessary for their
work.
They hold meetings of the officers who decide what inventions and
discoveries they should publish and which should be held secret, for state
reasons. They have a museum with the statues of great discoverers and
inventors; and they have Orders of services and hymns which they use in their
daily prayers to God for his help. And they go around the country to publish
information that will be useful to the people - either as warning against perils
such as tempests, flood etc or new information regarding growth of crops etc.
Having said all that he wanted to set down, Bacon may have grown tired
of the work, and left it incomplete. He may have been able to enlarge on some
parts of the experiments from his own knowledge, but either he had not the
time or the Inclination to complete this work.

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 The value of the work is of course in its prophecy of the scientific age to
come. Notable are his mention of the aeroplane and the submarine, the
telephone, and the microscope, as well as his description of the use of power
from a single source to make a variety of machines to work. Even though the
work may not be either a great work of literary merit or an artistic whole, it
certainly proves that Bacon was a genius who was a century ahead of his age,
and that the age of enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution that followed
owed much to his vision and enterprise. The greatness of Bacon the visionary is
vindicated.
THE HOLY GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO ST. MARK
St. Mark, the disciple and interpreter of St. Peter (saith St. Jerome),
according to what he heard from Peter himself, wrote at Rome a brief Gospel at
the request of the Brethren, about ten years after our lord’s Ascension; which
when Peter had heard, he approved of it and with his authority published it to
the church to be read. Baronius and others say that the original was written in
Latin: but the more general opinion is that the Evangelist wrote it in Greek.
The Gospel according to St Mark
Good news is worth telling and is worth listening to, sharing and
remembering. Sadly though, it often seems that there is just not enough of it
around! It is probably with this in mind that a few years ago an old priest,
whose high regard for the scriptures rubbed off on me in my early Christian
days, urged me to read the gospels and to become familiar with their contents,
their richness, and to meditate on their treasures. He felt that there was much to
be gained from reading a whole gospel through at one sitting - it seemed a good
idea (albeit a daunting one) so I was pleased when he suggested that I try it
with Mark’s gospel. It is of course the shortest of the four, and so I set about
my task.
Good news
The gospel of Mark is a lovely book and gets to grips with the good news
instantly - unlike Matthew and Luke (the other synoptic gospels) Mark begins
with the arrival of the adult Jesus breaking in on the realm of human affairs and
activities, without reference to the birth narratives. Straight away we are
confronted with Jesus joining the crowds who sought the ministry of John the
Baptist, and this event prefaced with the Old Testament scriptures which were
fulfilled by Christ’s baptism. Jesus is for the Christian community a break from
the past and a vision for the future. Mark, as a member of that community, was
keen to share his experience with others. Jesus was for him Good News, and it
was news that was to be recorded so that others in future generations could
come and share it also. His gospel is full of colour and excitement, there is a

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sense of realism and vividness about Mark’s writing which isn’t found in the
other gospels - but who was Mark? As we begin a very brief explanation of this
gospel, this should be our first question.
Who was Mark?
There is a Mark who finds mention in other parts of the New Testament
writings, whom scholars feel confident in identifying as the author of this
gospel.
We read in the Acts of the Apostles of Peter’s miraculous escape from
prison (chapter 12) and that he straightway went to the home of a Mary who
was the mother of John, also called Mark. Again he features in the credits of
Paul’s letter to the Colossians (chapter 4) where he is referred to as the cousin
of Barnabas. Paul appeals for the companionship and ministry of Mark in his
second letter to Philemon. Mark is known to have angered Paul during his first
missionary journey when he chose to return home leaving the apostle to
continue alone. If the author was the Mark mentioned here he was likely to
have been a companion of Peter and it is thought that he may not have known
the person of Jesus himself, nor to have experienced his ministry or heard his
teaching. But, being attentive to the words of Peter, he subsequently wrote
down the things he heard of him which Peter spoke of with such conviction.
A graphic account...
The gospel is a graphic account of the life of Jesus which describes much
of the detail about Christ’s ministry. Mark goes to length to note the anger of
Jesus, for instance, and the deep distress he felt over the fuss made as he healed
the man with the withered hand (chapter 3). He sensitively captures the scene
as a young child is drawn from among the company of the disciples (chapter 9)
and note is made of Jesus’ affection, indeed love, for the rich young man who
went to the Lord looking for the secret of eternal life.
...for a non-Jewish audience
We find attention to detail when it comes to Jewish customs and
traditions, and this would perhaps give an indication as to where the gospel was
written and who it was written for. Clearly the author would not have gone to
such detail for the benefit of his fellow Jews, so it might be assumed that it was
targeted at a non-Jewish, Gentile audience. This would seem reasonable
bearing in mind Mark’s closeness to the two great missionary champions Peter
and Paul, the latter of course being the one to take the good news to the gentile
world beyond Palestine. The assumption is justified, too, because it is thought
that Mark wrote his gospel while in Rome, possibly with Paul, where the need
would be great for the oral tradition to be committed to written form.

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 Mark’s gospel is regarded as highly important in the development of the
written gospels, firstly because it is thought to be the earliest of the four -
possibly written about 65-70AD and maybe even earlier. Because of this the
material to be found in it provides a source for the other two synoptic gospels -
indeed very little of the gospel story is peculiar to Mark alone, most of the
Marcan story is to be found also in either or both of Matthew and Luke.
Suffering
It is important to note that Mark, along with the other gospel writers, did
not simply write down those snippets of the life of Christ which they had
collected in some arbitrary form, just for the sake of having them written down.
In the same way that St Paul’s writings tease out issues of faith and develop
theological arguments, so we see some sense in the way the gospel is
constructed and the use of the material to hand. In Mark’s case we see a strong
emphasis on the sufferings of Christ through to when his exaltation and glory
would be manifested, and the kingdom of God come in power. Half way
through Mark we find Jesus speaking to his disciples about his passion and
death, and at other points prior to this we can see Jesus speaking and acting in a
confrontational manner, all predicting in a way the great confrontation, the
conflict which would see Jesus facing death.
Because of the early date of writing, Mark’s preoccupation with suffering
was understandable. Being a Christian in the middle of the first century was not
easy; persecution and suffering were the experience of many. Mark was
consequently concerned to promote Christ and his way to a growing company
of followers whose experience was just that. His message is clear and is one to
encourage those who had taken up the faith, and to appeal to the prospective
converts - Christ is the glory of God in human form, but glory which could only
be known by sharing in human frailty and suffering.
A document of faith
It is perhaps appropriate during the season of Lent to have a closer look at
this lovely book which takes a central and unique place among the gospels.
Lent is the time of reflection on our own path of faith and, as it culminates in
the passion of the Lord, Mark’s gospel may help us as we enter the suffering of
Christ and, in that, consider the conflicts in our own life. We have briefly
looked at some of the issues which scholars consider when appraising such a
document, but as Christian people we need to move on from those issues and
recognise it as a document of faith. In recognising this we may find ourselves
touching the glory of Christ, of which Mark’s gospel speaks.

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CHAPTER 1
The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God: As it is
written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall
prepare thy way before thee. The voice of one crying aloud in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John was baptizing in
the wilderness and preaching the baptism of repentance, for the remission of
sins. And there went out to him all the country of Judea, and all they of
Jerusalem, and were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.
And John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a leathern girdle about
his loins, and ate locusts and wild honey, And proclaimed, saying, There
cometh after me one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not
worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water; but
he will baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And in those days, Jesus came from
Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John at Jordan. And coming up from
the water, straightway he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit as a dove
descending upon him. And a voice came from heaven, saying, Thou art my
beloved Son, in whom I delight. And immediately the Spirit thrusteth him out
into the wilderness. And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by
Satan; and was with the wild beasts: and the angels served him.
Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the
Gospel of the kingdom of God, Saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom
of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the Gospel. And walking by the sea of
Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea (for
they were fisher men). And Jesus said to them, Come ye after me, and I will
make you fishers of men. And straightway leaving their nets, they followed
him. And having gone thence a little farther, he saw James the son of Zebedee,
and John his brother, who were also in the vessel mending their nets: And he
called them; and immediately leaving their father Zebedee in the vessel with
the hired servants, they went after him.
And they go into Capernaum. And straightway on the Sabbath, he went
into the synagogue and taught. And they were astonished at his teaching; for he
taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. And there was in
their synagogue a man having an unclean spirit, and he cried out, Saying, Let
us alone: what have we to do with thee, Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to
destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked
him, saying, Hold thy peace and come out of him. And the unclean spirit
having torn him, and cried with a loud noise, came out of him. And they were
all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this?
What new teaching is this? For with authority he commandeth even the unclean

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spirits, and they obey him. And immediately his fame went forth into all the
country of Galilee round about.
And coming out of the synagogue, they entered forthwith into the house
of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. And Simon’s wife’s mother lay ill
of a fever, and immediately they tell him of her. And he came, and taking her
by the hand, lifted her up; and sfrai6itway the fever left her, and she waited on
them. And in the evening, when the sun was set, they brought to him all that
were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils. And the whole city
was gathered together at the door. And he healed many that were ill of divers
diseases, and cast out many devils, and suffered not the devils to say that they
knew him.
And in the morning, rising a great while before day, he went out and
departed into a desert place, and prayed there. And Simon and they that were
with him followed after him. And having found him, they say to him, All men
seek thee. And he saith to them, Let us go to the neighbouring towns, that I
may preach there also: for therefore am I come. And he preached in their
synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils.
And there came to him a leper beseeching him, and kneeling down to
him, and saying to him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus,
moved with tender compassion, stretching out his hand, touched him, and saith
to him, I will: be thou clean. And when he had spoken, immediately the leprosy
departed from him, and he was made clean. And having straightly charged him,
he forthwith sent him away, And saith to him, See thou say nothing to any man:
but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing what Moses
commanded for a testimony to them. But he going out published it much, and
blazed abroad the matter, so he could no more openly enter into the city; but he
was without in desert places: and they came to him from every quarter.
CHAPTER 2
And again he entered into Capernaum after some days: and it was heard
that he was in the house. And many were gathered together, so that there was
no room for them, no, not even about the door. And he spake the word to them.
And they came to him, bringing a paralytic, borne of four. And not being able
to come nigh him for the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was, and
having broken it up, they let down the couch whereon the paralytic lay. . Jesus
seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, Son, thy sins are forgiven thee. But
certain of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts,
Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but
God only? And Jesus immediately knowing in his spirit that they so reasoned in
themselves, said to them, Why reason ye thus in your hearts? Which is easier?

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To say to the paralytic, Thy sins are forgiven thee? Or to say, Arise, and take
up thy couch, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
authority on earth to forgive sins: (He saith to the paralytic) I say to thee, Arise,
take up thy couch, and go to thine house. And immediately he arose, and taking
up his couch, went forth before them all; so that they were all amazed, and
glorified God, saying, We never saw it thus.
And he went forth again by the sea side, and all the multitude conic to
him, and he taught them. And passing by he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus,
sitting at the receipt of custom, and saith to him, Follow me. And he arose and
followed him. And as Jesus sat at meat in his house, many publicans also and
sinners sat together with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many, and they
followed him. And the scribes and Pharisees seeing him eating with publicans
and sinners, said to his disciples, How is it that he eateth and drinketh with
publicans and sinners? And Jesus hearing it saith to them, They that are whole
need not a physician but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous but
sinners. Now the disciples of John and the Pharisees used to fast: and they
come and say to him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast,
but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said to them, Can the children of the bride
chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the
bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the
bridegroom shall be taken away from them; and then shall they fast in those
days.
No man seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new
piece that filleth it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.
And no man putteth new wine into old leathern bottles; else the new wine
bursteth the bottles, and the wine is spilt, and the bottles are lost: but new wine
must be put into new bottles.
And he went through the corn fields on the Sabbath day; and his disciples
as they went plucked the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said to him, Behold,
why do they on the Sabbath that which is not lawful? And he said to them,
Have ye never read what David did,when he had need and was hungry, he and
they that were with him?
How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high
priest, and ate the show bread, which is not lawful for any but the priests to eat,
and gave also to them who were with him? And he said to them, The Sabbath
was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Moreover the Son of man is
Lord even of the Saath.

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CHAPTER 3
And he entered again into the synagogue: and there was a man there who
had a withered hand. And they watched him whether he would heal him on the
Sabbath that they might accuse him. And he saith to the man that had the
withered hand, Stand up in the midst. And he saith to them, Is it lawful to do
good on the Sabbath, or to do evil? To save life, or to kill? But they held their
peace. And looking round upon them with anger, being grieved for the hardness
of their hearts, he saith to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it
forth: and his hand was restored And the Pharisees going out, straightway took
counsel with the Herodians against him, that they might destroy him.
Then Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea; and a great multitude
from Galilee followed him, and from Judea, And from Jerusalem, and from
Idumea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great
multitude, having heard what great things he did, came to him. And he spake to
his disciples, that a vessel should wait on him, because of the multitude, lest
they should throng him. For he had healed many, so that they rushed in upon
him, as many as had plagues. And the unclean spirits when they saw him, fell
down before him and cried, saying. Thou art the Son of God. And he strictly
charged them not to make him known. And he goeth up into the mountain, and
calleth to him whom he would, and they came to him. And he ordained twelve,
that they might be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, And
to have power to heal diseases and cast out devils. And Simon he surnamed
Peter: And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and he
surnamed them Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder), And Andrew and Philip,
and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alpheus,
and Thaddeus, and Simon the Canaanite, And Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed
him.
And they come into a house: and the multitude cometh together again, so
that they could not so much as eat bread. And his relations hearing of it, came
out to lay hold on him; for they said, He is beside himself. But the scribes who
had come down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of
the devils casteth he out devils. And calling them to him, he said to them in
parables, How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom be divided against itself,
that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house
cannot stand. If Satan then be risen up and divided against himself, he cannot
stand, but hath an end. None can enter into the strong one’s house and plunder
his goods, unless he first bind the strong one, and then he will plunder his
house. Verily I say to you, All sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and
blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme, But he that shall

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blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is liable to
eternal damnation: Because they said, He hath an unclean spirit. Then come his
brethren and his mother, and standing without, sent to him, calling him. And
the multitude sat about him: and they say to him, Behold, thy mother and thy
brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my
mother or my brethren? And looking round on them who sat about him, he said,
Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of God,
the same is my brother and sister and mother.
CHAPTER 4
And again he taught by the sea side, and a great multitude was gathered
to him, so that going into the vessel, he sat in the sea, and the whole multitude
was by the sea on the land. And he taught them many things by parables, and
said to them in his teaching, Hearken: Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as
he sowed, some fell by the highway side, and the birds came and devoured it.
And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth: and immediately
it sprung ~ up, because it had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up, it
was scorched, and because it had no root, it withered away. And some fell
among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.
And other fell on good ground, and yielded fruit springing up and increasing,
and brought forth some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred. And he
said, he that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
And when he was alone, they that were about him, with the twelve, asked
him of the parable. And he said to them, To you it is given to know the mystery
of the kingdom of God: but to them that are without all things are in parables;
So that seeing they see, and do not perceive, and hearing they hear, and do not
understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be
forgiven them.
And he saith to them, Know ye not this parable? How then will ye know
all parables? The sower soweth the word. And these are they by the highway
side, where the word is sown: but when they have heard, Satan cometh
immediately, and taketh away the word sown in their hearts. And these are they
likewise who have received the seed on stony ground, who when they have
heard the word immediately receive it with joy: But have not root in
themselves, but are only for a time, afterward, when affliction or persecution
ariseth because of the word, they are presently offended. And these are they
that have received it among thorns, who hear the word, And the cares of this
world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire of other things entering in,
choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful. And these are they that have
received it on 11w good ground, who hear the word and receive it, and bring

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forth fruit, some thirty fold, some sixty, and some a hundred. And he said to
them, Is a candle brought to be put under a bushel or under a bed; and not to be
set on a candlestick? For there is nothing hid, which shall not he made
manifest, neither was any thing kept secret, hut that it might come abroad. If
any man hath ears to hear, let him hear. - And he said to them, Take heed what
ye hear. With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you, and to you
that hear, shall more be given. For he that hath, to him shall be given; and he
that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into
the ground, And should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring
and grow up he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of itself,
first the blade, then the ear, after that the corn in the ear. But when the fruit is
brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.
And he said, Whereto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what
comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when
it is sown in the earth, it is one of the least seeds that is in the earth. But when it
is sown it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs, and putteth forth
great branches, so that the birds of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.
And with many such parables spake he the word to them, as they were able to
hear. But without a parable spake he not to them: and in private he expounded
all things to his disciples.
And the same day in the evening he saith to them, Let us go over to the
other side. And having sent away the multitude, they take him as he was in the
vessel. And there were with him other little vessels.
And there ariseth a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the
vessel, so that it was now full. But he was asleep on the pillow, in the stern.
And they awake him and say to him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
And he arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, Peace, be still. And the
wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he saith to them, Why are ye so
fearful? How is it, that ye have not faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said
one to another, Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?
CHAPTER 5
And they came to the other side of the sea, into country of the Gadarenes.
And as he came out of the vessel, there met him immediately out of the tombs a
man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man
could bind him, no, not with chains. For he had often been bound with fetters
and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters
broken in pieces; and no man could tame him. And always, night and day, he
was in the tombs and in the mountains, crying and cutting himself with stones.

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But seeing Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And crying with a loud
voice, said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God?
I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. (For he had said to him, Come
out of the man, thou unclean spirit.) And he asked him, What is thy name? And
he saith to him, My name is Legion; for we are many.
And he earnestly besought him, that he would not send them away out of
the country. Now there was there at the mountain a great herd of swine feeding.
And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us to the swine, that we may go
into them. And Jesus forthwith gave them leave. And the unclean spirits going
out, entered into the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep into the sea,
(they were about two thousand,) and were stifled in the sea. And they that fed
the swine fled, and told it in the city and in the country. And they went out to
see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see the demoniac
who had had the Legion, sitting and clothed and in his right mind: and they
were afraid. And they that saw it told them how it befell the demoniac, and
concerning the swine. And they prayed him to depart out of their coasts. And as
he went into the vessel, he that had been possessed with the devils, besought
him that he might be with him.
But he suffered him not, but said to him, Go home to thy friends, and tell
them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on
thee. And he departed and published in Decapolis, how great things Jesus had
done for him. And all men marvelled.
And when Jesus was passed over again in the vessel to the other side, a
great multitude was gathered to him, and he was near the sea. And there cometh
one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, falleth at
his feet, And besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter is at the point of
death: come and lay thy hands on her that she may be healed, and she shall live.
And he went with him, and a great multitude followed him and thronged him.
And a certain woman who had had a flux of blood twelve years, And had
suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and
was nothing bettered, but rather grown worse, Having heard of Jesus, came in
the crowd behind, and touched his garment. For she said, If I hut touch his
clothes, I shall be whole. And the fountain of her blood was straightway dried
up, and she perceived in her body that she was healed of that plague.
And Jesus immediately knowing in himself the virtue which had gone out
of him, turning about in the crowd said, Who touched my clothes? And his
disciples said to him, Thou seest the multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou,
Who touched me? And he looked round to see her that had done this. And the
woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell

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down before him, and told him all the truth. And he said to her, Daughter, thy
faith bath made thee whole: go in peace, and continue whole of thy plague.
While he was yet speaking, they came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house,
saying, Thy daughter is dead:
why troublest thou the Master farther? When Jesus heard the word
spoken, he saith to the ruler of the synagogue, Fear not; only believe. And he
suffered no man to follow him, save Peter and James, and John the brother of
James. And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth a
tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly. And coming in, he saith to them,
Why make ye this tumult and weep? The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.
And they laughed him to scorn. But having put them all out, he taketh the
father and the mother of the damsel and them that were with him, and goeth in
where the damsel was lying. And taking the damsel by the hand, he said to her,
Talitha cumi, which is, being interpreted, Damsel (I say to thee) arise. And
straightway the damsel arose and walked: for she was twelve years old. And
they were astonished with a great astonishment. And he charged them straitly,
that no man should know it, and commanded that something should be given
her to eat.
CHAPTER 6
And he went out from thence, and came into his own country, and his
disciples follow him. And on the Sabbath he taught in the synagogue, and many
hearing were astonished, saying, Whence bath this man these things? And what
wisdom is this that is given him, and such mighty works as are wrought by his
hands? Is not this the carpenter? The son of Mary, the brother of James and
Joses, and of Jude and Simon! Are not his sisters here with us? And they were
offended at him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honour, but
in his own country, and among his own kindred, and in his own house. And he
could do no miracle there, save that he laid his hands on a few sick, and healed
them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about
through the villages teaching.
And he called to him the twelve, and sent them forth by two and two, and
gave them power over unclean spirits; And commanded them to take nothing
for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse;
But be shod with sandals, and put not on two coats. And he said to them,
Wheresoever ye enter into a house, there abide till ye depart from that place.
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, departing thence shake off
the dust under your feet for a testimony against them. Verily I say to you, it
shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than
for that city.

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 And they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast
out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them.
And King Herod heard (for his name was spread abroad) and he said,
John the Baptist is risen from the dead, and therefore these mighty powers exert
themselves in him. Others say, It is Elijah: and others said, It is a prophet, as
one of the prophets. But Herod hearing thereof, said, This is John whom I
beheaded: he is risen from the dead. For Herod himself had sent and
apprehended John, and bound him in prison, for Herodias’ sake, his brother
Philip’s wife, for he had married her. For John had said to Herod, It is not
lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. Therefore Herodias was incensed
against him, and was desirous to have killed him; but she could not: For Herod
reverenced John, knowing that he was a just and holy man, and preserved him:
and when he heard him he did many things, and heard him gladly. And a
convenient day being come, when Herod on his birthday made a feast for his
lords, captains, and principal men of Galilee: When the daughter of Herodias
had come in and danced and pleased Herod and his guests, the king said to the
damsel, Ask of me whatsoever thou wilt, and I will give it thee. And he swore
to her, Whatsoever thou shalt ask me, I will give thee, to the half of my
kingdom. And going out, she said to her mother, What shall I ask? And she
said, The head of John the Baptist. And coming in quickly with haste to the
king, she asked, saying, I will that thou give me immediately in a charger the
head of John the Baptist. And the king was exceeding sorry: yet for his oath’s
sake, and for the sake of his guests, he would not reject her. And immediately
the king sent one of his guard, and commanded his head to be brought. And he
went and beheaded him in the prison, and brought his head in a charger, and
gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother. And the disciples
hearing it, came and took up his corpse and laid it in a tomb.
And the apostles gathered themselves together to Jesus, and told him all
things, both what they had done and what they had taught. And he said to them,
Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a little. For there were
many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. And they
departed into a deserted place by boat privately. And many saw them departing
and knew him, and ran on foot thither from all the cities and outwent them, and
came together to him. And Jesus coming out saw a great multitude, and was
moved with tender compassion for them: because they were as sheep having no
shepherd and he taught them many things. And when the day was now far
spent, the disciples coming to him said, This is a desert place, and it is now late,
Send them away, that they may go into the country and villages round about,
and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat.

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 He answering said to them, Give ye them to eat. And they say to him,
Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?
He saith to them, How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they
knew, they said, Five, and two fishes. And he commanded them to make all sit
down by companies on the green grass. And they sat down in ranks by
hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and the two fishes, looking
up to heaven he blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to
set before them; and he divided the two fishes among them all. And they all ate
and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and
of the fishes. And they that had eaten of the loaves were about five thousand
men.
And straightway he constrained his disciples to go into the vessel, and go
before to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. And
having sent them away, he went to the mountain to pray, And in the evening
the vessel was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw
them toiling in rowing; (for the wind was contrary to them;) and about the
fourth watch of the night he cometh to them, walking on the sea, and would
have passed by them.
But they seeing him walking on the sea, supposed it to be an apparition,
and cried out. (For they all saw him and were troubled.) And immediately he
spoke with them, and saith to them, Take courage: it is I; be not afraid.
And he went up to them into the vessel, and the wind ceased: and they
were amazed in themselves above measure and wondered. For they considered
not the miracle of the loaves; for their heart was hardened.
And having passed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret, and drew
to shore. And when they were come out of the vessel they knew him, And ran
through that whole country round about, and brought about in beds them that
were ill, where they heard he was. And wheresoever he entered into villages,
cities, or country places, they laid the sick in the public places, and besought
him that they might touch if it were but the hem of his garment; and as many as
touched him were made whole.
CHAPTER 7
Then assembled together to him the Pharisees and certain of the scribes
coming from Jerusalem. And. they saw some of his disciples eat bread with
defiled, that is, unwashen hands. Now the Pharisees and all the Jews, except
they wash their hands to the wrist, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.
And coming from the market, unless they wash, they eat not: and many other
things there are which they have received to hold, the washing of cups and pots
and brazen vessels and couches. Then the Pharisees and the scribes ash him,

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Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat
bread with defiled hands? He answering said to them, Well hath Isaiah
prophesied of you, hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with
their lips, but their heart is far from me.
But in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the
commandments of men. For having the commandment of God, ye hold the
tradition of men, the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things
ye do. And he said to them, Full well ye abolish the commandments of God,
that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy
mother, and, Whoso revileth father or mother, he shall surely die. But ye say, If
a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is a gift, by
whatsoever thou mightest have been profited by me; he shall be free.
And ye suffer him no more to do aught for his father or his mother;
Abrogating the word of God by your tradition which ye have delivered; and
many such like things ye do. And calling together all the multitude he said to
them, Hearken to me every one of you and consider. There is nothing entering
into a man from without which can defile him; but the things which come out
of him, these are they that defile the man. If any man have ears to hear, let him
hear. And when he was come from the multitude into the house his disciples
asked him concerning the parable. And he saith to them. Are even ye so
without understanding? Do ye not perceive that whatsoever entereth into a man
from without cannot defile him, Because it entereth not into his heart, but into
the belly, and goeth into the vault, purging all meats? And he said, That which
cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart
of man proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts,
covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, envy, evil speaking, pride,
foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.
And he arose and went thence into the borders of Tyre and Sidon. And
entering into a house he would have had no man know it; but he could not be
hid. For a woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of
him, came and fell at his feet, (The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by
nation,) and besought him to cast the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said
to her, Let the children first be satisfied; for it is not right to take the children’s
bread and cast it to the dogs.
She answered and said to him, True, Lord: yet the dogs under the table
eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said to her, For this saying, go: the devil is
gone out of thy daughter. And going to her house, she found her daughter lying
on the bed, and the devil gone out.

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 And departing again from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, he came to the
Sea of Galilee, through the midst of the country of Decapolis. And they bring to
him one that was deaf and dumb, and beseech him to put his hand upon him.
And taking him aside from the multitude, he put his fingers into his ears, and
spitting, touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he groaned and saith to
him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and
the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them to
tell no man; but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they
published it. And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all
things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.
CHAPTER 8
In those days the multitude being very great, and having nothing to eat,
calling to him his disciples, he saith to them, I have compassion on the
multitude, because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to
eat. And if I send them away fasting to their own home, they will faint by the
way; for divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him,
Whence can one satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he
asked them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. And he
commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground; and taking the seven
loaves, having given thanks, he brake and gave to his disciples to set before
them; and they did set them before the people. And they had a few small fishes:
and having blessed them, he commanded to set them also before them. So they
did eat and were satisfied; and they took up fragments that were left, seven
baskets. And they that had eaten were about four thousand: and he sent them
away.
And straightway going into the vessel with his disciples, he came into the
parts of Dalmanutha.
And the Pharisees came forth and questioned with him, seeking of him a
sign from heaven, tempting him. And sighing deeply in his spirit, he said, Why
doth this generation seek a sign? Verily I say to you, There shall no sign be
given to this generation. And he left them; and going into the vessel again, went
to the other side.
Now they had forgotten to take bread; nor had they in the vessel with
them any more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware
of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned
among themselves saying, We have no bread. And Jesus knowing it, said to
them, Why reason ye because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither
consider? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And
having ears, hear ye not? And do not ye remember? When I brake the five

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loaves among the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye
up? They say to him, Twelve. And when the seven among the four thousand,
how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And he
said to them, How is it that ye do not understand?
And he cometh to Bethsaida. And they bring to him a blind man, and
beseech him to touch him. And taking the blind man by the hand, he led him
out of the town, and having spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he
asked him if he saw aught? And looking up he said, I see men as trees walking.
Then he put his hands again on his eyes, and made him look up, and he was
restored, and saw all men clearly. And he sent him away to his house, saying,
Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.
And Jesus went out and his disciples into the towns of Caesarea, Philippi.
And in the way he asked his disciples, saying to them, Whom do men say that I
am? And they answered, John the Baptist; but some say Elijah; and others, one
of the prophets. And he saith to them, But whom say ye that I am? And Peter
answering, saith to him, Thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they
should tell no man of him.
And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many
things, and be rejected by the elders and. the chief priests and scribes, and be
killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And
Peter taking hold of him, rebuked him. But he turning about, and looking on his
disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savourest
not the things of God, but the things of men.
For whosoever desireth to save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall
lose his life, for my sake and the Gospel’s, shall save it. For what shall it profit
a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a
man give in exchange for his soul? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and
of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall also the Son
of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy
angels.
CHAPTER 9
And he said to them, Verily I say unto you, there are some of them that
stand here, who shall not taste of death till they see the kingdom of God coming
with power.
And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter and James and John, and
carrieth them up into a high mountain, by themselves apart, and was
transfigured before them. And his garments became shining exceeding white,
as snow, such as no fuller on earth can whiten. And there appeared to them
Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus. And Peter answering,

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saith to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tents,
one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah. For he knew not what to
say; for they were sore afraid. And there came a cloud overshadowing them,
and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son; hear ye
him. And suddenly looking round, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only,
with themselves. And as they cam down from the mountain, he charged them to
tell no man the things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the
dead.
And they laid hold on that saying, questioning one with another, What
meaneth, Till he were risen from the dead? And they asked him, saying, ‘Why
say the scribes that Elijah must come first’? And he answering, told them,
Elijah verily coming first, restoreth all things; and how is written of the Son of
man that he must suffer many things, and he set at naught. But I say to you,
Elijah is come, as it is written of him: and they have done to him whatsoever
they listed.
And coming to his disciples, he saw a great multitude bout them, and
scribes questioning with them. And straightway all the multitude seeing him,
were greatly amazed, and running to him, saluted him. And he asked the
scribes, What question ye with them? And one of the multitude answering said,
Master, I have brought to thee my son, who bath a dumb spirit. And
wheresoever he taketh him, he teareth him, and he foameth and gnasheth with
his teeth, and pineth away. And I spake to thy disciples to cast him out, and hey
could not. He answering them, saith, faithless generation, how long shall I be
with you? How long shall I suffer you? Bring him to me.
And they brought him to him. And when he saw him, immediately he
spirit tore him, and he fell on the ground, and “allowed, foaming. And he asked
his father, How long it since this came to him? And he said, From a little child.
And it hath often cast him both into the fire and into the waters to destroy him;
but if thou canst do any thing, have compassion on us and help us. Jesus saith
to him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible ~o him that believeth. And
straightway the father of the child crying out, said with tears, Lord, I do
believe: help thou mine unbelief. And Jesus seeing that the multitude came
running together, rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to him, Thou deaf and
dumb spirit, I command thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.
And having cried and rent him sore, he came out; and he was as dead, so that
many said, He is dead. But Jesus taking him by the hand, lifted him up and he
arose.

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 And when he was come into a house, his disciples asked him privately,
Why could not we cast him out? And he said to them, This kind can come forth
by nothing but by prayer and fasting.
And departing thence, they passed through Galilee, and he was not
willing that any should know it. For he taught his disciples, and said to them,
The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men; and they will kill him, and
after he hath been killed, he shall rise the third day. But they understood not the
word, and were afraid to ask him.
And he came to Capernaum. And being in the house, he asked them,
What was it ye disputed among yourselves by the way? But they held their
peace; for they had been debating among themselves in the way, who should be
greatest. And sitting down, he called the twelve, and saith to them, If any man
desire to be the first, let him be least of all, and the servant of all. And taking a
little child, he set him in the midst of them, and taking him up in his arms, he
said to them, Whosoever shall receive one such little child in my name,
receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not only me, but him
that sent me.
And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in
thy name, who followeth not us, and we forbad him, because be followeth not
us. And Jesus said, Forbid him not; for there is no one who shall do a miracle in
my name, that can readily speak evil of me. For he that is not against you is for
you, For whosoever shall give you a cup of cold water to drink in my name,
because ye belong to Christ, verily I say to you, he shall in nowise lose his
reward.
And whosoever shall offend one of the little ones that believe in me, it
were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were
cast into the sea. And if thy hand cause thee to offend, cut it off: it is good for
thee to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched. And if thy foot cause thee to offend, cut it off: it is good
for thee to enter halt into life, rather than having two feet to be cast into hell,
into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched. And if thine eye cause thee to offend, pluck it out: it is
good for thee to enter into the kingdom of God having one eye, rather than
having two eyes to he cast into hell fire: Where their worm dieth not, and the
fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice
shall be salted with salt. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost its saltness,
wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with
another.

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CHAPTER 10
And he arose and cometh thence into the coasts of Judea, through the
country beyond Jordan: and the multitudes resort to him again, and as he was
wont, he taught them again. And the Pharisees coming, asked him, Is it lawful
for a man to put away his wife? tempting him. And be answering, said to them,
What did Moses command you They said, Moses suffered to write a bill of
divorce, and to put her away. And Jesus answering, said to them, For your
hardness of heart be wrote you this precept But from the beginning of the
creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his
father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh; so
then they are no more twain but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder. And in the house his disciples asked him
again of the same matter. And he saith to them, Whosoever shall put away his
wife and marry another, committeth adultery against her. And if a woman shall
put away her husband, and be married to another, she committeth adultery.
And they brought little children to him that he might touch them; but the
disciples rebuked those that brought them. But Jesus seeing it, was much
displeased, and said to them, Suffer the little children to come to me, and forbid
them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say to you, Whosoever
shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in nowise enter
therein. And taking them up in his arms, he put his hands upon them, and
blessed them.
Verily I say to you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a
little child, he shall in nowise enter therein. And taking them up in his arms, he
put his hands upon them, and blessed them.
And as he was going out into the way, one running and kneeling to him,
asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? But
Jesus saith to him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that
is God. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not
murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father
and mother. And he answering, said to him, Master, all these have I kept from
my childhood. Then Jesus looking upon him, loved him, and said to him, One
thing thou lackest: Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou
shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me, taking up thy cross. But he
was sad at that saying, and went away grieved; for he had great possessions.
And Jesus looking around said to his disciples, How hardly shall they that have
riches enter into the kingdom of God? And the disciples were astonished at his
words. Rut Jesus answering again saith to them, Children, how hard is it for
them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God? It is easier for a

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camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God. And they were astonished out of measure, saying to each
other, Who then can be saved? And Jesus looking upon them, said, With men it
is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible. And Peter
said to him, Lo we have left all and followed thee. And Jesus answering said,
Verily I say to you, there is none that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or
father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake and the Gospel’s,
But he shall receive a hundred fold now in this time, houses and brethren and
sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the world
to come eternal life. But many that are first shall be last, and the last first.
And they were in the way going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus went before
them. And they were amazed, and as they followed, they were afraid. And
taking the twelve again he told them what things were to befall him: Behold,
we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man shall be betrayed to the chief
priests, and the scribes: and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to
the Gentiles. And they will mock him and scourge him and spit upon him and
kill him. And the third day he will rise again.
And James and John the sons of Zebedee come to him, saying, Master,
we would that thou shouldest do for us whatever we shall ask. And he said to
them, What would ye that I should do for you? They said to him, Grant us to sit
one on thy right hand, and one on thy left hand, in thy glory. But Jesus said to
them, Ye know not what ye ask. Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of, and be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? And they said to him, We
can. And Jesus said to them, Ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of,
and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with. But to sit on my right
hand and on my left, is not mine to give, save to them for whom it is prepared.
And the ten hearing it were much displeased concerning James and John. But
Jesus calling them to him, saith unto them, Ye know that they who rule over the
Gentiles, lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority upon them.
But it shall not be so among you; but whosoever desireth to be great among
you, shall be your servant. And whosoever desireth to be the chief, shall be the
servant of all. For the Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to
give his life a ransom for many.
And they come to Jericho. And as he went out of Jericho with his
disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimeus, the son of Timeus, sat by the
way side begging. And hearing, It is Jesus of Nazareth, he cried out and said,
Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me. And many charged him to hold
his peace; but he cried so much the more a great deal, Thou Son of David, have
mercy on me. And Jesus standing still, commanded him to be called. And they

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call the blind man, saying to him, Take courage, rise; he calleth thee. And
casting away his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. And Jesus answering said
to him, What wilt thou that I should do for thee? The blind man said to him,
Lord, that I may receive my sight. And Jesus said, Go; thy faith hath saved
thee. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him in the way.
CHAPTER 11
And when they were come nigh to Jerusalem to Bethphage and Bethany,
at the mount of Olives, he sendeth two of his disciples, And saith to them, Go
ye into the village over against you, and as soon as ye enter it, ye shall find a
colt tied, whereon never man sat: loose and bring him. And if any say to you,
Why do ye this? say, The Lord hath need of him; and straightway he will send
him hither. And they went and found the colt tied at the door, without, in the
street, and they loose him. And some of them that stood there said, What do ye,
loosing the colt? And they said to them as Jesus had commanded; and they let
him go. And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their garments on him, and
he sat on him. And many spread their garments in the way: and others cut down
branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way. And they that went
before, and they that followed after cried, saying, Hosanna: blessed in the name
of the Lord is he that cometh. Blessed be the kingdom of our father David that
cometh: Hosanna in the highest. And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, and into the
temple, and having looked round about upon all things, it being now evening,
he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
And on the morrow, as they were coming from Bethany, he was hungry.
And seeing a fig tree afar off, having leaves, he came, if haply he might find
any thing thereon: and coming to it, he found nothing but leaves; for it was not
a season of figs. And he answering said to it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter
for ever; and his disciples heard. And they come to Jerusalem. And Jesus going
into the temple, drove out them that bought and sold in the temple, and
overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold
doves, And suffered not that any one should carry a vessel through the temple.
And he taught, saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all
nations a house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of thieves. And the
scribes and the chief priests heard it, and sought how they might destroy him:
for they feared him, because the whole multitude was astonished at his
teaching.
And when evening was coming he went out of the city. And passing by in
the morning, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots. And Peter
remembering, saith to him, Master, behold, the fig tree which thou cursedst is
withered away. And Jesus answering saith to them, Have faith in God. For

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verily I say to you, Whosoever shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed and
cast into the sea, and not doubt in his heart, but believe that the things which he
saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say to
you, All things whatsoever ye ask in prayer, believe that ye shall receive, and
ye shall have them. But when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught
against any, that your Father who is in heaven may forgive you also your
trespasses. But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven
forgive your trespasses.
And they come again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple,
the chief priests and the scribes and the elders come to him, And say to him, By
what authority dost thou these things? And who gave thee authority to do these
things? Jesus answering said to them, I also will ask you one question,
and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. Was
the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer me. And they reasoned
among themselves, saying, If we say from men: they feared the people; for all
accounted John that he was indeed a prophet. And they answering say to Jesus,
We cannot tell. And Jesus answering saith to them, Neither tell I you by what
authority I do these things.
CHAPTER 12
And he said to them in parables, A man planted a vineyard, and set a
hedge about it, and digged a wine vat, and built a tower, and let it out to
husband men, and went into a far country. And at the season he sent a servant
to the husbandmen to receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard.
But they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again he sent
to them another servant, and at him they cast stones, and wounded him in the
head, and sent him away shamefully’ handled. And again he sent another, and
him they killed; and many others, beating some and killing so me. Having yet
therefore one son, his well beloved, he sent him also last to them, saying, They
will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is
the heir: come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours. And they took
him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. What therefore will the
lord of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will
give the vineyard to others. And have ye not read even this scripture? The stone
which the builders - rejected, this is become the head of the corner? This was
the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. And they sought to seize
him, but feared the multitude; for they knew he had spoken the parable against
them; and leaving him, they went away.
And they send to him certain of the Pharisees, and of the Herodians, to
catch him in his discourse. And they coming say to him, Master, we know that

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thou art true, and carest for no man; for thou regardest not the person of men,
but teachest the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to give tribute to Caesar, or
not? Shall we give, or shall we not give? But he, knowing their hypocrisy said
to them, Why tempt ye me? Bring me a penny, that I may see it; And they
brought it. And he saith to them, Whose is this image and inscription? They say
to him, Caesar’s. And Jesus answering said to them, Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s. And they
marvelled at him.
Then come to him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, and
they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote to us, If a man’s brother die,
and leave a wife and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife,
and raise up issue to his brother. There were seven brethren, and the first took a
wife, and dying left no issue. And the second took her and died, neither left he
any issue; and the third likewise. And the seven took her and left no issue. Last
of all died the woman also. In the resurrection, therefore, when they shall rise,
whose wife shall she be of them? For the seven had her to wife. And Jesus
answering, said to them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the
Scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels who are in
heaven.
And touching the dead that they rise, Have ye not read in the book of
Moses, how in the bush God spake to him, saying, I am the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but
the God of the living. Ye therefore greatly err.
And one of the scribes coming to him, having heard them disputing
together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is
the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first
commandment of all is, Hear, Israel; the Lord our Cod is one Lord. And thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
There is no other commandment greater than these. And the scribes said to him,
Excellently well, Master! Thou hast said the truth; for he is one: and there is no
other but he. And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding,
and with all the mind, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as
himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices. And Jesus, seeing
that he answered discreetly, said to him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of
God. And no man after that durst question him any mare.

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 And Jesus answering as he taught in the temple, said, How say the
scribes, that Christ is the Son of David? For David himself said by the Holy
Ghost, The Lord saith to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine
enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself calleth him Lord: how is he then
his son? And a great multitude heard him gladly.
And he said to them in his teaching, Beware of the scribes, who love to
walk in long robes, and to be saluted in the market places, And the chief seats
in the synagogues, and the uppermost places at feasts; Who devour widows’
houses, and for a pretence make long prayers: these shall receive the greater
damnation.
And Jesus sitting over against the treasury, beheld how the people cast
money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. And a poor
widow coming, cast in two mites, which make a farthing. And calling to him
his disciples, he saith to them, Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow hath
cast in more than They all who have cast into the treasury. For they all did cast
in of their abundance: but she of her penury did cast in all that she had, even
her whole living.
CHAPTER 13
And as he was going out of the temple, one of his disciples saith to him,
Master, see what manner of stones, and what manner of buildings! And Jesus
answering said to him, Seest thou these great buildings? There shall not be left
one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down. And as he sat an the
mount of Olives, over against the temple, Peter and James and John and
Andrew asked him privately, Tell us when shall these things be? And what
shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled? And Jesus answering
said, Take heed lest any deceive you. For many will come in my name saying, I
am He, and will deceive you. But when ye shall hear of wars and rumours of
wars, be not troubled; for it must he: but the end is not yet. For nation
shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall
be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these
are the beginning of sorrows. But take heed to yourselves, for they will deliver
you to councils, and ye shall be beaten in synagogues, and shall stand before
rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony to them. And the Gospel must
first be published among all nations. But when they shall hale you and deliver
you up, take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye
premeditate; but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak for it is
not ye that speak, but the Holy Ghost. Now the brother shall betray the brother
to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their

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parents, and cause them to be put to death. I And ye shall be hated of all men
for my name’s sake; but he that endureth to the end, he shall be saved.
But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel
the prophet standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then
let them that are in Judea flee to the mountains: And let not him that is on the
house top go down into the house, neither enter in, to take any thing out of his
house. And let not him that is in the field turn back to take up his garment. But
woe to them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days. And
pray ye that your flight be not in the winter. For in those days shall be
affliction, such as was not from the beginning of the creation, which God
created until now, neither shall be. And unless the Lord had shortened those
days, no flesh should be saved: but for the elect’s sake whom he hath chosen,
he bath shortened I those days. Then if any man say to you, Lo, here is Christ,
or lo, he is there, believe it not. For false Christs and false prophets shall rise,
and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if possible, even the elect. But
take ye heed: Behold, I have foretold you all things.
But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall be falling, and the
powers that are in the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son
of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then shall he
send his angels, and gather together his elect, from the four winds, from the
uttermost part of the earth, to the uttermost part of heaven.
Now learn a parable from the fig tree. When its branch is now tender and
putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise when ye see
these things come to pass, know that he is nigh, even at the door. Verily I say to
you, this generation shall in nowise pass, till all these things be done. Heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall in nowise pass away.
But of that day or that hour knoweth no one, no, not the angels that are in
heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
Take heed; watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is. For the
Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave
authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the porter to
watch. Watch ye therefore; for ye know not when the master of the house
cometh; at evening, or at midnight, at cock crowing, or in the morning: Lest
coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all,
watch.
CHAPTER 14
And after two days was the feast of the passover and of unleavened
bread; and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might apprehend

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him by subtlety, and put him to death. But they said, Not at the feast, lest there
be a tumult of the people. And he being in Bethany in the house of Simon the
leper as he sat at table, there came a woman having an alabaster box of
ointment, of spikenard, very costly; and shaking the box, she poured it on his
head. But there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said,
Why was this waste of the ointment made? For this ointment might have been
sold for more than three hundred pence and given to the poor. And they
murmured at her. But Jesus said, Let her alone: why trouble ye her? She bath
wrought a good work on me.
For the poor ye hove always with you, and when ye will ye may do them
good; but me ye have not always. She hath done what she could: she hath
beforehand embalmed my body for the burial. Verily I say to you, wheresoever
this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, what she bath done
shall be spoken of also, for a memorial of her.
And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests, to betray
him unto them. And hearing it they were glad, and promised to give him
money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.
And on the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover,
his disciples say to him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou
mayest eat the passover? And he sendeth two of his disciples, and saith to them,
Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water:
follow him.
And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the man of the house, The
Master saith, Where is the guest chamber, where I shall eat the passover with
my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished: there make
ready for us. And his disciples went forth, and came into the city, and found as
he had said to them. And they made ready the passover.
And in the evening he cometh with the twelve. And as they sat and ate,
Jesus said, Verily I say to you, one of you that eat with me will betray me. And
they were sorrowful, and said to him one by one, Is it I? And another said, Is it
I? And he answering said to them, It is one of the twelve that dippeth with me
in the dish.
The Son of man indeed goeth as it is written of him; but woe to that man
by whom the Son of man is betrayed: it had been good for that man if he had
not been born.
And as they ate, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to
them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and having
given thanks, gave it them, and they all drank of it. And he said to them, This is
my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily I say to you I

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will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, till that day that I drink it new in the
kingdom of God.
And having sung the hymn, they went out toward the r mount of Olives.
And Jesus saith to them, Ye will all be offended at me this night; for it is
written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.
But after I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. But Peter said to
him, Though all men shall be offended, yet will not I. Jesus saith to him, Verily
I say to thee, That thou to-day, this night before the cock crow twice, wilt deny
me thrice. But he said the more vehemently, If I must die with thee I will in
nowise deny thee. In like manner also said they all.
And they come to a place named Gethsemane; and he saith to his
disciples, Sit here while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James
and John; and he began to be sore amazed and in deep anguish, And saith to
them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful even to death: tarry ye here and watch.
And going forward a little, he fell on the ground, and prayed, that if it were
possible, the hour might pass from him. And he said Abba, Father, all things
are possible to thee: take away this cup from me: yet not what I will, but what
thou wilt. And he cometh and findeth them sleeping, and saith to Peter, Simon,
sleepest thou? Couldest thou not watch one hour? Watch and pray lest ye enter
into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. And going
away again he prayed, speaking the same words. And returning, he found them
asleep again (for their eyes were heavy) and they knew not what to answer him.
And he cometh the third time, and saith to them, Sleep on now, and take your
rest. It is enough. The hour is come: behold, the Son of man is betrayed into the
hands of sinners. Rise up; let us go: lo, he that betrayeth me is at hand.
And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh up Judas, one of the
twelve, and with him a great multitude, with swords and clubs from the chief
priests, and the scribes, and the elders. Now he that betrayed him had
given them a signal, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, is he: seize and lead him
away safely. And when he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith,
Master, Master! and kissed him. And they laid their hands on him and took
him. And one of them that stood by, drawing a sword, smote the servant of the
high priest, and cut off his ear. And Jesus answering said to them, Are ye come
out as against a robber, with swords and clubs to take me? I was daily with you
in the temple teaching, and ye took me not; but that the Scriptures may be
fulfilled. Then they all forsook him and fled. And a certain young man
followed him, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young
men laid hold on him. And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

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 And they led Jesus away to the high priest, and with him assembled all
the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes. And Peter followed him afar
off, even into the palace of the high priest, and sat with the servants, and
warmed himself at the fire.
Then the chief priests and all the council sought for evidence against
Jesus, to put him to death, and found none. For many bore false witness against
him; but their evidences were not sufficient. And certain men arising bore false
witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple made
with hands, and in three days I will build another made without hands. And
neither so was their evidence sufficient. Then the high priest rising up in the
midst, asked Jesus, saying, Answerest thou nothing? What is it that these
witness against thee? But he held his peace, and answered nothing. Again the
high priest asked him and said to him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the
Blessed? And Jesus said I am; and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the
right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven. Then the high
priest rent his clothes, and saith, What farther need have we of witnesses? Ye
have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be
worthy of death. And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to
buffet him, and say to him, Prophesy. And the servants smote him with the
palms of their hands.
And as Peter was in the hall below, there cometh one of the maids of the
high priest. And seeing Peter warming himself, she looked on him, and said,
Thou west also with Jesus of Nazareth. But he denied, saying, I know not,
neither understand I what thou meanest. And he went out into the porch and the
cock crew. And the maid seeing him again, said to them that stood by, This is
one of them. And he denied it again. And a little after those that stood by said
again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them; for thou art a Galilean, and thy
speech agreeth thereto. Then began he to curse and to swear, I know not this
man of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called
to mind the word that Jesus had said to him, Before the cock crow twice, thou
wilt deny me thrice. And he covered his head and wept.
CHAPTER 15
And straightway in the morning the chief priests having consulted with
the elders and scribes, and the whole council, having bound Jesus, carried him
away and delivered him to Pilate. And Pilate asked him, Art thou the king of
the Jews? And he answering said to him, Thou sayest it. And the chief priests
accused I him of many things. And Pilate asked him again, saying, Answerest
thou nothing? Behold how many )- things they witness against thee. But Jesus
answered nothing any more so that Pilate marvelled. Now at every feast he

214
released to them one prisoner, whom soever they would. And there was one
named Barabbas, who lay bound with them that had made insurrection with
him, who had committed murder in the insurrection. And the multitude crying
aloud, asked him to do as he had ever done far them. And Pilate answered
them, saying, Will ye that I release to you the king of the Jews? (For he knew
that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.) But the chief priests stirred
up the people to ask, that he would rather release Barabbas to them. And Pilate
answering said to them age in, What will ye then that I do to him whom ye call
the king of the Jews? And they cried out again, Crucify him. Then Pilate said to
them, Why, what evil bath he done? But they cried out the more exceedingly;
Crucify him. And Pilate, willing to satisfy the people, released Barabbas to
them, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.
And the soldiers led him away to the hall called Praetorium, and call
together the whole troop. And they clothe him with purple, and having platted a
crown of thorns, put it about his head, And they saluted him, Hail, king of the
Jews. And they smote him on the head with a cane, and spit upon him, and
bowing their knees, did him homage. And when they had mocked him, they
took the purple robe from him, and put his own clothes on him, and led him out
to crucify him. And they compel one Simon a Cyrenian, who was passing by,
coming out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his cross.
And they bring him to the place, Golgotha, which is being interpreted, the
place of a skull. And they gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh; but he
received it not. And when they had crucified him, they parted his garments,
casting lots upon them, what every man should take. And it was the third hour
when they crucified him. And there was en inscription of his accusation written
over, THE KING OF THE JEWS. And with him they crucify two thieves, one
on his right hand, and oar on hi. left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which
saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors. And they that passed by,
reviled him, wagging their heads and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the
temple, and buildest it in three days, Save thyself, and come down from the
cross. In like manner also the chief priests mocking said to one another, with
the scribes, lie saved others; cannot he save himself? Let the Christ, the king of
Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe. They also
that were crucified with him reviled him. And when the sixth hour was come,
there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour
Jesus cried with a loud voice, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani? Which is, being
interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And some of them
that stood by hearing it said, Behold, he calleth Elijah. And one ran, and filling
a sponge with vinegar, put it on a cane, and gave him to drink, saying, Let
alone; let us see if Elijah will come to take him down.

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 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and expired. And the veil of the
temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom. And the centurion, who
stood over against him, seeing that having so cried he expired, said, Truly this
man was the Son of God. There were also women, beholding from afar, among
whom was Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the less, and of
Joses, and Salome: Who also when he was in Galilee, followed him and served
him, and many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.
And The evening being now come, (because it was the preparation, that
is, the day before the Sabbath,) Joseph of Arimathea, an honourable counsellor,
who also himself waited for the kingdom of God, came and went in boldly to
Pilate, and asked the body of Jesus. And Pilate marvelled that he was dead
already: and calling to him the centurion, he asked if he had been any while
dead? And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph. And
having bought fine linen, he took him down and wrapped him in the linen, and
laid him in a sepulchre, which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone to the
door of the sepulchre. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses
beheld where he was laid.
CHAPTER 16
And when the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother
of James and Salome, had bought spices, that they might come and embalm
him. And very early in the morning, the first day of the week, they came to the
sepulchre, at the rising of the sun. And they said one to another, Who shall roll
us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre? (For it was very great.) And
looking up, they saw that the stone was rolled away. And entering into the
sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a white
robe; and they were affrighted. He saith to them, Be not affrighted: ye seek
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He is risen: he is not here. Behold the
place where they laid him. But go tell his disciples, and Peter, He goeth before
you into Galilee: there shall ye see him, as he said to you. And going out they
fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed: and They said
nothing to any, for they were afraid. Now when Jesus was risen early, the first
day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast
seven devils. She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned
and wept. But they hearing that he was alive, and had been seen of her,
believed not. After that he appeared in another form unto two of them, as they
were walking, I going into the country. And they went and told it to the rest,
neither believed they them.

216
 Afterward he appeared to the eleven sitting at meat, and upbraided them
with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them who
had seen him when he was risen.
And he said to them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to
every creature. He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be condemned. And these signs shall follow them that
believe: in my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new
tongues: They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
in nowise hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
So then the Lord after he had spoken to them, was received up into
heaven, and sat on the right hand of God. And they went forth, and preached
every where, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs
following.

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 MODEL QUESTION PAPER
M.A DEGREE EXAMINIATION
FIRST YEAR
English Literature
PAPER - I : CHAUCER AND ELIZABETHAN AGES
Time : 3 Hours code : QPS Maximum : 100 Marks
Part A – 5 x 5 = 25
Answer all Questions.
Each question in not less than 200 words.
1. a) How does Chaucer describe the Monk?
(or)
b) Consider The Canonization as a love poem.
2. a) Consider Spenser as a Modern Poet.
(or)
b) Evaluate Wyatt’s contribution to English poets.
3. a) Write a critical note on the character of Mortimer in Edward II.
(or)
b) Comment on the comic element in Edward II.
4. a) Write note on Johnson’s treatment of the dramatic techniques.
(or)
b) Why is Bazola, an important character in the Duchess of Malfi?
5. a) What are Bacon’s views on “Truth”?
(or)
b) Narrate the literary qualities of The Gospel.
Part B – 5 x 5 = 75
Answer all Questions
6) Annotate the following (3 x 5 = 15)
a) (i) Well coulde stelen corn and collen phreyes, And Hadde a
thombe of gold.
(or)
All day the same our postures were, And we said nothing all the
day.
b) (i) Cut is the branch that might have grown full
Straight, And burned his Apollo’s laurel lower

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 That sometime gren with in this learned man.
(or)
If Heaven were made for man, it was made
For me: I will renounce this magic and repent.
c) (i) Wives are young man’s mistress; companions for middle age; and
old man’s nurses.
(or)
Prosperity doth best discover vice, but Adversity doth best discover
virtue.

Answer the following in 800 words each.

7) a) Consider Chaucer’s prologue to the Canterbury
Tales as a portrait Gallery.
(or)
b) Trace the elements of paganism, Platonism and
Christianity in Spenser’s poems.

8) a) Comment on the structure and theme or Edward II.

(or)
b) Consider Edward II as a perfect play.
9) a) Consider The Duchess of Malfi as a Revenge play.
(or)
b) Consider The Alchemist as a great comedy.

10) a) Bacon covers his wisdom into art –

Discuss with reference to his Essays.
(or)
b) Estimate the value of Bacon’s aphorism.


 

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