Age Of Shakespeare( Prose )

Question 1

Some stimulus in the direction of prose fiction was done by translators, who did what?

Answer 1

Familiarised the reading public with Spanish and Italian romances + Italian novelle/ short stories

Question 2

Special significance of Italian novelle?

Answer 2

Are the sources upoun which Elizabethan dramatists like Shakespeare drew on for plot material.

They were also adapted and imitated, and various popular story collections appeared like William Painters (Palace of Pleasure )

Question 3

The most important prose romance of the Age of Shakespeare is from?

Answer 3

John Lyly

Question 4

Mention Lylys prose romance names

Answer 4

Euphues, the anatomy of wit and Euphues and his England

Question 5

What was contemporary with Shepheardes calendar 1579,?

Answer 5

Euphues,the anatomy of wit

Question 6

Story of Euphues, the anatomy of wit?

Answer 6

Young Athenian Euphues who is wealthy, handsome and clever. Travels to Naples. Meets Philautus

with whom he holds long convos on philosophy and ethics, has several wasteful love affairs, returns to Athens

Leaving behind a letter telling his friend to leave behind women’s society and passion

Question 7

Is Euphues, the anatomy of wit, a love story?

Answer 7

SORT of but without action. The narrative too is used as an excuse for discourse and moralising.

Question 8

Story of Euphues and his England?

Answer 8

Euphues visits England. GIVES a long description of men and manners and country.

Which is very unqualified in its praise and portrays England as virtuous paradise.

Question 9

The popularity of Euphues was extraordinary. How so? WHY?

Answer 9

In little more than half a century it underwent 10 editions. Everybody read it and
Ladies of court used it as a moral handbook and a handbook for elegance in speech and writing.

Euphues owes it continued fame to its style.

Question 10

WHY were there all kinds of strange experiments in English prose?

Answer 10

Enthusiasm for the classics, influence of Italian and Spanish literatures and a desire to refine vernacular tongue

Question 11

What is Lylys style, the most remarkable of experiments, called?

Answer 11

Euphuism

Question 12

What are Euphuisms features( common and distinguishing )and what is the most outstanding feature?

Answer 12

Common- extremely elaborate and artificial
Distinguishing -many specific rhetorical devices
Most Outstanding - balanced antithesis - pairs of words carefully arranged in a sentence in contrasting pairs, frequently combined with alliteration

Question 13

General features of Lylys writing?

Answer 13

Similies, word play, punning

Fondness for non-natural history of fables

Question 14

Examples of Lylys fondness for natural history of fables?

Answer 14

A bird named Attagem who never sings after she’s taken, Draconites a precious gem found in the dragon, Dictannum a herb in which wounded deer heals itself

Question 15

The second place in Elizabethan prose romance can be assigned to?

Answer 15

Sir Philip Sidneys( Arcadia) completed 1581

Question 16

Inspirations for Arcadia ?

Answer 16

Traditions for older romances of chivalry, Pastoral( Diana) of Portugese Montemayor, ( Arcadia) of Italian Sannazaro

Question 17

Unlike Euphues, Arcadia is full of action. What is its story?

Answer 17

Adventures of two friends,Pyrocles and Musidorus seeking to win hand of two Arcadian princesses, Philoclea and Pamela.

Large number of side characters with their own subplots are introduced.

Question 18

How is Sidneys style in Arcadia?

Answer 18

His prose is extremely ornate and poetic, and while beautiful it does become wearisome because of total lack of simplicity.

Question 19

How is prose style of the university wits Lodge and Greene? Is there resemblance to others?

Answer 19

They resemble Sidney in use of conventional pastoral imagery but their style resembles Lyly more.

Question 20

Lodge and Greene each produced one book which is of interest because of its connection to Shakespeare. Name them and what was inspired by them

Answer 20

Lodges (Rosalynde, Euphues Golden Legacy) provided plot materials for As You Like It,
Greenes( Pandosto, The Triumph Of Time) provided for The Winters Tale

Question 21

How was Thomas Nash, a University wit, apart in the time of prose romances? Give example of his work and it’s story&significance.

Answer 21

He went for a fiction that was realistic and coarse.
His ( Unfortunate Traveller or The Life Of Jack Wilton) is a novel about adventures on the Continent.

Earliest example of picaresque novel in English- a type of fiction already popular in Spain

Question 22

Bacon and his essays.

Was Shakespeares age entirely a fictional literature?

Answer 22

No because Renaissance felt INTELLECTUAL as well as artistic stimulus.

Question 23

Most of the prose works of Shakespeare’s age belong to special subjects rather than general lit. But who was the principal prose master of this time?

Answer 23

Francis Bacon

Question 24

Francis Bacon was born when, to who?

Answer 24

He was the second son of a famous lawyer and statesman, born on 1561

Question 25

WHY did Queen Elizabeth call Bacon the ‘young lord keeper’?

Answer 25

As a boy his precocity attracted the Queen, who called him such because his father was the Keeper of the Great Seal of England

Question 26

Where was Bacon educated and then sent off to?

Answer 26

Educated at Trinity College, Cambridge.
He was then sent off to Paris in the suite of the English ambassador to prepare for a statesman career.

Question 27

What profession did Bacon choose? Was he successful?

Answer 27

Law; became Queens Counsel AND made his mark as an orator in House of Commons

Question 28

What happened to Bacon after the accession of James I?

Answer 28

He rose rapidly in fortune and was knighted, getting many positions and titles.

Question 29

What was Bacons sudden crash? Did he faces consequences?

Answer 29

He was impeached before House of Lords cus of official malpractice

He was sentenced to a fine, imprisonment and banishment from court and parliament. However this sentence was never carried out;

He got a royal pardon.

Question 30

How did Bacon spend the last few years of his life?

Answer 30

In scholarly pursuits and died of a cold gotten while doing a scientific experiment.

Question 31

Bacons character was full of contradictions. How?

Answer 31

He believed himself ‘ born for the service of mankind ‘ yet he sacrificed a lot for wealth and power. His moral teaching too often goes into narrow expediency.

Question 32

Bacon wrote voluminously on many subjects. What are his greatest works of science and philosophy?

Answer 32

Advancement of Learning and Novum Organum, where he sets forth the Baconian method of studying nature

Question 33

What is Bacons greatest work belonging to general literature?

Answer 33

Essays, Or Counsels Civil and Moral (1597)

Question 34

What was Bacons Essays inspired by?

Answer 34

Essais of French thinker Montaigne , but the manner of them is Bacons own entirely

Question 35

What does the word ‘ Essay’ mean in Bacons Essays?

Answer 35

Equivalent to assay, meaning trial or attempt. So the Essays are meant to be informal thoughts and not exhaustive treatises.

Question 36

How are the Essays of Bacon? Their best qualities?

Answer 36

Thoroughly practical, they concern themselves with conduct of life in private and public affairs.

Insight and wisdom are their best qualities. They have the wisdom of experience, of a worldly kind.

Question 37

How is Bacons style? Most important feature?

Answer 37

Marked by ornateness, imagery, metaphor which were the taste of the time. IT is also highly Latinised.

Most important feature is epigrammatic force” infinite riches in a little room”- packing his thoughts into the smallest space.

Question 38

Other Prose of the period.

Historical proses in Age of Shakespeare?

Answer 38

Raleigh( History of the world)-uncritical
Bacon (History of the Reign of Henry VII)- judicial
Foxe( Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs)-untrustworthy

Raphael Holinshed( Chronicles of England, Ireland and Scotland)- frequently laid under contribution for Shakespeare’s historical plays

Question 39

At a time when the spirit of adventure was strong, travel naturally flourished. A travel Prose of Shakespeare’s age?

Answer 39

Richard Hakluyt( Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation)

Question 40

In the field of theology much important work was done. Theological proses of Shakespeare’s age?

Answer 40

Richard Hooker( Ecclesiastical Polity) - though still over involved, still plainer and simpler than most contemporary prose

Authorised Version of the Bible- which has profound influence of English writing.

Question 41

From the point of view of literary criticism there’s also a great development. People were beginning to be interested in forms and principles of lit. Literary criticism proses of Shakespeares age?

Answer 41

Sidneys ( Apologies for Poetrie)William Webbes( Discourse of English Poetrie)
George Puttenhams( Arte of English Poesie)