dr mohit k ray

oparative Study of the Indian Poetics and the Western Poetics . New Delhi : Sarup & Sons, 2008.

E.M.W.Tillyard's The English Renaissance : Fact or Fiction [in press]

Tillyard tells us that the book was occasioned by an invitation to give lectures inJohnHopkins University in1951 with the condition that the lectures would be published. Accordingly, Tillyard wrote ‘lectures for face to face delivery to an audience'. In the published form the book is divided into five parts. He begins with some general observations, then discusses the Lyric, Criticism and the Epic, and ends with anEpilogue. His plan is to first suggest the main differences between medieval and Renaissance mindsets and then illustrate their differences through a study of the textures of three different literary forms : the Lyric,Criticism and the Epic. He contends that the beginning of the Renaissance can be traced back to the Middle Ages and that the Middle Age did not come to an end all of a sudden wirth ‘either a bang ora whimper', but continued well into the seventeenth centuryalongside the rise of the scientific spirit. He, however, hastens to add that although there is no ‘abrupt rift' between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance yet it is true that certain trends developed quite fast to usher in the Renaissance. This is largely because by the Elizabethan age ‘man had options of free and novel speculations denied to the Middle Age'

Tillyard holds that in the .Eng;lish lyrical tradition there hasalways been ‘a blend of folk and courtly elements', but he notes a fundamental change in the old folk themes of he love lyric, in that now in the new lyrical tradition it is the man who makes the addresses in the tradition of theTroubadour. Another important change is that upto Wyatt we were concerened only with the lyric poetry and not with the lyric poets. Bvut with Wyatt onwards the lyric poets assume importance in the sense that the lyrics become autobiographical. Wyatt is partly traditional and partly original, in infusing a dramatic spirit in the lyrics. He is ‘a lyrical dramatist with a sense of the present human situation'. In the Elizabethan age the main bulk of the lyric is neither completely humanistic or dramatic. It unites the' the great song like tradition with the subject-matter of Petrarch and the pastoral'. Like Wyatt Sidney was also familiar with Italian and made a lot of experiments Tillyard refers to the eleventh song of Astrophel and Stella to show how the serenade combines medievalism and novelty, the subjective and the dramatic.

In the ‘Criticism' section Tillyard uses the word criticism in a restricted sense ‘thinkimg of of how the ordinary thoughtful man would justify literature'. From the beginning of the Church era the poets have always been apologetic about writing poetry. Even Chaucer at the end of The Canterbury Tales calls his poems ‘guilts'. The poets often tried to justify their practice by referring to the proverb of Cato : interpone tuis interdumgaudia curis (from time to time puntuate your serious thoughts with pleasure). Tillyard contends thatas the spirit of nationalism gained ground and the ‘king became less amenable to papal discipline, the emphasis changed'. The classical influence which was not evident in the Middle Age became quite conspicuous in the Renaissance. Puttenham's affiliations to Aristotle in his views about the nature and function of poetry is a case in point. Puttenham also anticipates some of the arguments of Sidney when he says that ‘the pro fession and use of poetry is most ancient from the beginning'. Without poetry one can never be a whole human being. It has to be like ethics, politics and rhetoric, one of the major concerns of a man. In a brilliant passage on Imagination Puttenham ‘makes the imagination an essential means to all creative work, poetic or practical alike'. In most of his critical utterancesPuttenhal reinforces Aristotle's assumptions.

Next to Puttenham Sidney is a great exponent ofRenaissance criticism. Compared toPuttenham he is much richer andmore complex and Tillyard discerns in him his brilliance notwithstanding an air of piety in his insistence that the ‘creative power confirms the theological doctrine of a perfect state from which man fell'. Poetry can offer a glimpse of that prelapsarian perfection. However, Tillyard concedes that though Sidney is in some respect an heir of the Middle Ages his grading and blending of medieval elemes ‘in an original and undreamt-of manner he does indded indicate that there was such a thing as an English Renaissance'.

In his views on the EpicTillyard would not like to define an epic by the subject matter but by an inner spirit.He thinks that an epic need not necessarily be a heroic poem.It is just a coincidence that the subject of Homer and Virgil are heroic. Tillyard suggests that the first requirement of an epic is high quality. The second requirement is that it must have ‘abundance and amplitude: great variety of matter, including the widest span of human feelings,ranging if possible from the simple sensualities to a susceptibility to the numinous'. The third requirement is the control commensurate with the amount included. The fourt requirement is choric : an epic must express ‘the feelings of a large group of people living in or near' the time of the author. In view of these requirements Tillyard demands the status of an epic for Piers Plowman .

Tillyard concludes by reaffirming in the Epilogue that Sidney is ‘the most centrally Elizabethan, the one through whom we may most truly interpret the temper of the age. He is at once an inheritor of the past and an innovator'. To the question, Was there really an English Renaissance?,Tillyard's cryptic answer is :'there was and there wasn't' , because while dealing a vast area ‘we cannot avoid our inconsistencies and blurred transitions', and one can always arrive at contradictory conclusions. So he would choose to remain ambiguous.

The book very lucidly and yet succinctly offers a fine exposition of the English Renaissance and is indispensable for any student of English literature. Moreover, because of its lucid style even general readers will find this book a useful, pleasant reading.