Elizabeth SmithSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Professor Colin DickeyEng 640October 22, 2006Surrey's innovations and achievements in his AeneidHenry Howard, Earl of Surrey, is credited as the inventor of English blank verse. In addition, he translated Books II and IV of Virgil's Latin epic, the Aeneid. This article will endeavor to show what an achievement this was for a poet of the time of King Henry VIII, and how different the blank verse, as well as the work of translation that was formulated in that blank verse, was and modern from the rest of poetry. of the time. Much has been written over the centuries about the quality of Surrey poetry. Until the 20th century, Surrey was considered a better poet than his near-contemporary (although Wyatt was older and outlived him) Sir Thomas Wyatt (Schmidt 125). Surrey's reputation has deteriorated considerably and his style of poetry, considered "conventional" and not always consistent, is now meant to "please rather than move us" (125). His Aeneid, however, is considered "subtly conceived and executed with exemplary simplicity, a direct and transparent verse, showing its matter rather than its manner" (128), but is also said to only "make a fair attempt to imitate the style of the original. Its form is unique at the time in English literature and probably difficult for an English poet to handle” (Ridley, 3). Let us first consider the extent of the Earl3's achievements, at a time when he was busy not only with judicial duties but also with various military campaigns, and also with the brevity of his life, and then with the merits of his output, notably compared to other poetry in circulation at the time. The date of the translation of the two books of Virgil2 is put forward by Ridley around 1540 (Ridley, 4), when the poet could not have been more than 24 years old (the exact day in 1517 of his birth is not known, nor this year without a doubt, [Casady 21]). He was, at this time, appointed Steward of Cambridge University (Ridley 4), and had been and would continue to participate in military expeditions for the king in France, in his capacity as Earl Marshal of England. This young man, who was considered a gifted linguist, knew and could translate Italian, Spanish, Latin, and French well (Bender, 180). He made at least one trip to France (besides his various military adventures in that country) where he came into contact with (and had probably already read in England) unrhyming Italian verse. In 1532, Surrey visited the court of Francis I while Luigi Alamanni was there, and Alamanni that same year "published a work dedicated to the king of France, containing poems in blank verse". (Ridley 3). Thus, Surrey was aware of unrhymed Italian verse and was known to admire Chaucer's five-foot line (Bullett viii). He synthesized this into a five-foot unrhymed line that became known as blank verse. Concerning this invention, Sir Harris Nicholas (the memoirist of the non-authored Poetical Works) quotes Surrey's even older biographer, Dr. Nott: Surrey perceived that a certain change in our versification [i.e. -say in English] was inevitable, and he attempted a change which was conceived as the event proved in a perfect knowledge of the nature and genius of the English language. The change he proposed and effected was as follows. He replaced the old rhythmic mode of versification with a mode as metric as the nature of any language allows, which regulates the value of syllables by accent and not by quantity. Helimited the heroic verse to ten syllables, and divided them into five equal iambic feet; for he understood that the frequent return of the short syllable was necessary to correct that languor and heaviness which the constant return of monosyllables would otherwise occasion. He was aware, however, that the iambic measure, although gentle in itself, was apt to become monotonous and pale to the ear. He therefore introduced a further refinement of breaking lines with pauses. The natural place of the pause was at the end of the fourth syllable, where the old caesura generally fell; but he varied the situation of his pauses according to whether he found the harmony of the verse required, or according to whether he thought that the beauty and effect of the passage would be enhanced. (Poetic Works lxvi-lxvii, parentheses are my own) It is difficult to imagine how this kind of leap in poetic invention could have occurred. Reading blank verse in Italian, as well as knowledge and admiration of Chaucer's five-foot line, does not necessarily lead to the logical inevitability of turning those two things into an unrhymed iambic pentametric English line used to translate classical epic poetry. And there is no doubt that Surrey was the inventor of this English poetic form (Ridley 1). "When he tried grubs, he had no other guide, as far as we have been able to discover, than his own judgment and taste." (Poetic Works lxix). It was certainly an important, bold and very valuable step (for English poetry) for young Surrey to introduce this form into English, for not only was it adopted and used by great poets like Shakespeare and Milton with great success ( Bullett vii), but it is also important to note how much innovation, up to the invention of free verse, came after the introduction of blank verse. “An attentive reader will be surprised to find how little has subsequently been added, even by Dryden or Pope, to the Surrey system and perfection of numbers” (Poetical Works lxviii). Blank verse became so important and enduring that "Soon after blank verse was introduced by the Earl of Surrey in his translation of Books 2 and 4 of Virgil's Aeneid...it became the standard meter of Elizabethan and later poetic drama; "The free form of blank verse remained the medium in 20th-century verse pieces like those of Maxwell Anderson and TS Eliot" (Abrams, 25). And the translation Surrey undertook was by no means easy. Virgil's classical Latin was difficult and, in many ways, very different from the scholarly and religious Latin used in Tudor England. Moreover, Virgil was perhaps the greatest of the Latin poets, and his complete mastery of the concise and almost infinitely suggestive Latin language would be difficult to translate accurately, much less into beautiful verse. Ridley maintains Surrey weren't quite up to the task, but gave a valiant try. Surrey's failure is completely understandable. A young, minor poet was trying to accomplish in a new form and immature language what one of the greatest of all poets had accomplished at the height of his power, employing a seasoned mode of expression and language that naturally lent itself with poetic ambiguity. echo and nuance. Surrey could and did achieve a certain degree of epic dignity, [and] measured firmness in his statements” (Ridley, 36). Surrey was certainly ambitious and took a major poem, which had not yet been translated into English (there was a complete version by Gawin Douglas4 in Scottish dialect, written some years before and widely distributed, [Ridley 14]) and attempted to put it in a new style of verse consistent with the dignity and themeheroic of the poem. Was this ambition justified? If he could have completed the entire epic and if the quality of the work was similar to our examples in Books II and IV, then the ambition would certainly have been achieved. It is unknown whether it would ever have been completed. even if Surrey had lived, since there is no manuscript (see Notes) of a translation of Virgil's poem, we can assume that if Surrey had lived more than 29-30 years (we do not know exactly, see here -above). , p. 2) years old, he may well have completed the entire epic. There is no evidence of his intentions. The fragments we do possess, however, give us a tantalizing glimpse into a whole new form of English poetry, and they stand out among the other old-fashioned verse of the period, which can seem dated, clumsy, and unnecessarily stiff in comparison. Take, for example, the end of Book II. Aeneas, remaining the ghost of Creusa (his wife), realizes that the Greeks are at the gates of the city of Troy. The verse is regular and musical, and the subject is treated with emotion: Having said this, she left me all in tears, 5 and was very careful to speak; but she was gone, 5And fled subtly into the weightless air. ["-to" is weak and could be read as unstressed] 4 or 5Three times I grabbed my arms to grab his neck, [kiss him] 5Three times my hands vainly held back the escaping image, 5Like agile winds, and like flying dreams. 5So when the night is over, I return to my farms. ["to" is weak and could be read as unstressed] 4 or 5And there I wonder if I find together a swarm 5A new number of companions, mothers and men, 5An exiled rout, a miserable multitude, 5 [could be read "exiled", this does not affect the number of feet, but gives a nice minor irregularity to the line] From each where they gathered, eager to pass, 5 With heart and goods, to any what land 5 By slippery seas I have listed them to lead them. 5And now Lucifer rose above the ridge 4Of vigorous Ida, and brought the dawning light. 5The Greeks held the entrances to the besieged gates; ["de" is weak and could be read as unstressed] 4 or 5Help, there was no hope. Then I gave up my place, took my father and rushed towards the hill. ["to" is weak and could be read as unstressed] 4 or 5 (Bender 251-252) Every line, without exception, can be read with five feet. This is an extraordinary regularity for a “minor” poet who is doing “pioneering work” (Ridley, 34), especially since the subject is both intelligible and suggestive. It is the slight irregularities, or suggested irregularities, that give interest to the lines. The fact that the fourth line has a weak syllable that can be "swallowed" to form a shorter line, illustrates the subject (Creusa) dissolving into air. The shorter line is used for a different reason, to give importance and weight to the eleventh line, when "Lucifer" makes his appearance. It cannot be assumed, I believe, that Surrey wanted to have two accents in the name Lucifer. It is true that the last syllable is stronger than the middle one, but it is not as strong as the first. The name, pronounced in English, is dominated by the first syllable, and reading it as Lucifer makes the line sing-song and belies its stark subject. Similar to line four, line thirteen "The Greeks held the entrances to the besieged gates" has a faint accent on the "of", perhaps evoking the feeling of panic and uncertainty that this revelation would arouse in the discoverer. But the speaker reverses his uncertainty with the customary fourteenth line: “Of help there was no hope.” The natural but steady rhythm perhaps shows the speaker's resolve that there was nohope. There is a certain comfort, it has been noted, in recognizing the hopelessness of a cause, when all is lost. Perhaps Aeneas is expressing this cold comfort here. The faint "to" in the last line gives us a sense of Aeneas' departure - fleeing on his horse towards the hill and perhaps leaving the trace of his words behind. The passage is both touching and exciting. The image of Creuse leaving, and the anaphora of "Three times" (the first syllable of the line also underlined, which is different from the previous and following lines) as Aeneas tries to catch up with her, is dramatic and moving. Then the quick and concise move to the description of the "companions, mothers and men" (which could be read either as people of Troy, or as a personification of Aeneas's crowded "feres", and undoubtedly Virgil's Latin contains this richness of that is to say), with the equally rapid finality of the Greeks at the door and there is "no hope", leaves the reader a little breathless. It is a compact, concise poetry and full of meaning, musical without being melodious and regular without being unnecessarily rigid. Compare this to another poem by a slightly later poet (Sir Philip Sydney, 1554-1586). Sidney wrote this poem The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, solely to entertain his sister (the said countess). While it is unfair to judge based on genres, and this Arcadia is definitely a pastoral and not an epic (and certainly not a translation of a classical epic as revered as the Aeneid, to boot), note the difference in style and measurement. on my sheep, my charge, my comfort food, [even though there is no comma after it, the meaning of the context lines should be read in modern syntax as "Feed from my sheep" rather than “Feed on my sheep,” which would invite the reader to eat the sheep!] With the approach of the sun, your fertile pasture grows; 5O only sun, that such fruit can breed. 5 Feed my sheep , your beautiful and sweet nourishment flows freely, 5 Every flower, every herb yields to your service; 5O blessed sun, from which comes all this blessing (Bender 295) 5Even if the subject of this poem is left aside (the. poet speaks to a flock of sheep), the difference between the prosody of the Surrey Aeneid and these verses of Sidney is rather marked The silly alliteration (fertile, fruit, fair, nourishment, flow, flower) and the address. direct from the sun "O only sun" are reminiscent of the simulated poetic antics of the Rude Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There is no ambiguity in the meter, and each line is extremely easy to read like a sung nursery rhyme. The meter gives nothing to the subject, I believe, in this poem. It's just a vehicle. Sir Thomas Wyatt, who is now considered a better poet than Surrey, wrote lines like this (probably written for musical accompaniment - but it still gives the impression of a different approach to poetry): Des distrustful minds be moved 3To have me as a suspect [although it may be suspicious, the short meter requires suspect] 3The truth will be proven 3What time will be once detected 3By lies I will 3Of crime accuse me 3Finally I do not doubt 3But the truth will be me excuse 3 (Bender, 124) Although this is undoubtedly an expertly crafted piece of poetry, the trippy trimeter dominates and forces the tone, whatever the subject, to be casual. The topic is actually quite sad: others distrust the speaker. Maybe it was part of Wyatt's intelligence to phrase such a sensitive point in short, silly verses. But the short verse and the complete dominance of accents and stopped verses drain all the seriousness of this poem. Sir Walter Ralegh, another slightly later poet and man of action (although he lived longer and,therefore, more accomplished) like the soldier-poet Surrey, could write with the same lightness. The rhymes in this collection of couplets are particularly powerful and give shape to the overall idea: Vanity generated by my eyes 4 Born quickly and dies quickly; 4For while it seeks in our hearts to have 4Meanwhile there, reason makes its grave [it should be Meanwhile, but, once again, the short and dominant meter forces the accent unnaturally] 4For many of things the eyes approve 4What however the heart rarely loves. 4 (Bender, 614) This is another example of a solemn subject (the title is "A Poetry to Prove that Affection Is Not Love"), but forced into heavy rhyming tetrameter, all innovation and all flexibility is lost. “Meanwhile” must be misread. The fact that have/grave and approve/love are close or visual rhymes does not take away from the fact that they are indeed rhymes. The enjambment is ineffective, if it is intended at all, and it is virtually impossible to read this poem as anything other than a set ending. Surrey wrote lighter verses than his Aeneid, it is true, and did not limit all his writings to blank verses. . An example of this casual, heavily rhymed style of poetry can be found in his work. Happy ladies, who can embrace 4 The fruit of your delights 3 Help to deplore the lamentable case 4 And eke the heavy fate 3 Of me, who used to rejoice [the "à" is weak and could be read as not stressed or stressed. This is probably intended for emphasis, as it is a couplet and would correspond to the next line, but the ambiguity is pleasant] 3 or 4 Fortune, of my pleasant choice. [again, here the “de” is weak and could be glossed over to be read as unstressed or stressed. Nice match of ambiguity with the previous verse] 3 or 4 Good ladies, help fill my voice with mourning. 5 (Bullett, 123) In this example, Surrey definitely adopts a regular meter (4, 3, 4, 3, 5, which continues throughout the next five stanzas to end the poem) but he throws enough ambiguity into the accents, and just enough variation (the five foot line to end the stanza, instead of sticking to 4343 throughout, or even 4444 as Surrey or Sidney might have done) to make it interesting. There is also a successful enjambment, "Et eke the heavy psort,/De moi,". In comparison to the single lines of Sidney and Wyatt (and I have deliberately chosen particularly striking examples - the poems above are by no means representative of the work of all these poets, but they are typical) "O happy ladies” is positively sophisticated. . Surrey's rhymes rest easily (embrace/case, delight/fate, rejoicing/choice/voice) and we feel neither the stupidity of alliteration as in Sidney's, nor the forced visual rhymes of Ralegh. In comparison, Surrey's verse is more fluid and "shows the matter rather than the manner" (which was perhaps his aim, not Sidney's, Wyatt's or Ralegh's, to be fair), as he put it Ridley on the Surrey Aeneid. The difference between these poems by Sidney, Wyatt, Ralegh, and "Manliness" (Poetical Works lxix) from the Surrey blank verse translation, and even from the Surrey rhyming lyrics and sonnets, are rather drastic. It was not only the mechanics that changed, when unrhymed verse and well-considered variations in regular meter were introduced into the language with the Surrey Aeneid, but the tone and mood of the poetry could also change. Not only was there less distance between blank verse and common speech patterns, but the distance between subject and reader also decreased. There weren't so many barriers anymore (ruthlessly regular lines, strict rhyme patternsfeatureless throughout the piece, consistent final stops) between what the poet wanted to say and how he could express it and how the reader could experience it. And the blank verses also raised the tone and mood of the poetry. I don't think Surrey would have attempted to versify verses like this into English, if he had to keep them constantly in rhyming couplets (as Gawin Douglas did in his Scottish dialect version of the Aeneid) . He shows his noble Teucrian race, and subjects the whole world to laws. If the glory of such things does not inflame him: Does he not seek honor through some pain? The towers still of Rome being his father Does he envy young Ascanius? (Ridley, 124) Surrey's verse was both revolutionary and widely read. In the period following his death, there is "convincing evidence of the rapidity with which editions were multiplied." They were first printed in June 1557... then pre-printed in 1565, in 1567 and in 1569, twice later in 1574, and again. in 1585, and again in 1587." (Poetical Works lxx) The Surrey Revolution in English poetry became well known because of its beauty, its similarity to speech, the seriousness of its tone, its flexibility and of its many possible applications to other poetry and drama. The proof lies in the longevity and popularity of the style, which has endured from Shakespeare to the present day. Works Cited The poetic works of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard Earl of Surrey with a memoir of each. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1879. (Memoirs written by Sir HarrisNicolas)Abrams, MH A Glossary of Literary Terms. Boston: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005. Bender, Robert M., ed. Five Courtier Poets of the English Renaissance. New York: Washington Square Press, Inc. 1967. Bullett, Gerald, ed. Silver Poets of the 16th Century. London: JM Dent & Sons LTD, 1947. Casady, Edwin. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1938. [Electronic version] Accessed October 18, 2006. .Goodrich, Samuel G. Famous Men of Ancient Times. Boston: Brown & Taggard, 1860. [electronic version] pp 83-94, < http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ACG7217.0001.001> Perseus Digital Library Project. Ed. Gregory R. Crane. Updated daily. Tufts University. 10/18/06 and 10/21/06. Ridley, Florence H., ed. The Aeneid by Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Schmidt, Michael. Lives of the poets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.Notes1Publius Vergilius Mara, Roman poet, 70-19 BCE, known in English as Virgil and, more recently, as Virgil. The "e" was replaced by the "i" by medieval scholars so that her name sounded more like "Virgin" (as in the Virgin Mary, and "virgin" was considered a sacred and flattering term to give a non- sense). -Christian, although this was not literally true), because it was thought that, although a pagan poet, Virgil had somehow prophesied the birth of Christ. In fact, the poet had received information from the Roman sibylline oracles, who had learned that the Jews had proclaimed that a child would be born who would be the savior of the world. "Virgil, considering this prophecy with the lively imagination of a poet, and wanting to flatter the ambition of his patron, composed his famous eclogue, entitled Pollion, in which he imagines the child who would thus unite humanity and restore the 'golden age, to be the offspring of Octavia, wife of Antony and half-sister of Augustus' (Goodrich, 89). become common usage, and this is how I will refer to it in this article.2 Books II and IV were published respectively.