St Marys High School - Labarum Yearbook (Saginaw, MI)

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language was extravagant, his style, imaginative, and his plays were filled with a youthful exuberance. Following this period he became more developed. His plots were better, his work more artistic, and his knowledge of human nature showed a marked increase. His tragedies appear in the next period, when his plays show gloom and depression, but his powers are fully matured and his real art becomes apparent. At last during the final years of his literary career we notice a calm- ness, a serenity which prevades the work of this latter period. Shakes- peare stands head and shoulders above the crowd as the world's greatest literary man. After Shakespeare English Drama shows decline, or per- haps we should say a return to the old level, for none could reach the heights which he had reached. Ben Jonson may be said to be the one after Shakespeare that was best fitted to lead the world of the Drama. His comedies are filled with a humor which even now has the power to induce a laugh. None of his contemporaries, except perhaps Middleton, are worthy of mention. Over the prose writers, Bacon holds unquestioned reign. Most of his writings were philosophical works, the greatest of which is, In- stauratio Magna. This magnificent work, for which he had most am- bitious plans, was supposed to contain all the knowledge necessary for an educated man. He shows a marvelous knowledge of nature and a poetic intuition in his prophecies. Among the other prose writers may be considered Raleigh, and Sidney whom we have already mentioned as a poet. North is best known for his translation of Plutarch's Lives. from which Shakespeare drew most of the incidents for his Roman plays. Taken as a whole the Elizabethan period, with its Shakespeare and its Bacon, has produced the real literature of England, which has lasted and will last as long as the English language. ' --Arthur DeVeaux, '23 XQK A 7 W UIQ, F 1 W, ' - Zo? AR

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The Elizabethan Aqe in Enqlish Literature it HE age of Elizabeth begins the real literary history of England. Al-though, heretofore, England had produced many poets, Chaucer is the only one worthy of mention. The Renaissance gave to the whole world of art, music, and literature an impetus to a movement which the gradual freeing of the lower classes had already started. This period is often termed the Renaissance of English Litera- ture although the real, that is, the Italian and French Renaissance had ended before this. During this age came the development of the drama under Shakespeare and his contemporaries. This age may be best studied by the division of its chief authors into a number of classes. In the first class we find the poets who did not write for the stage. The nucleus of this group was Spenser. He has many well-known poems to his credit, the greatest being the famed Faery Queen. Other non-dramatic poets but of minor note are Sack- ville, Drayton, Chapman, and Sidney. Q During the second stage of the Elizabethan period occurred the birth and growth of the drama in England. The first productions were the Miracle and Morality plays intended to teach the great unwashed the Bible and the Life of Christ in an easily assimilated form. Then as foils for the tragedy came the Interludes,-comedies which set off the darker tragedy as spots of high lights set off the deeper shadows on a painter's canvass. Immediately following this type came Ralph Royster Doyster, a rustic comedy, followed by the first tragedy, Gor- boduc,'9 which was built on the plan of the tragedies of the Greeks. To pave the way for the great Shakespeare came Marlowe, Lyly, Peele, Green, and others, all experimenters. The greatest of these predecessors of Shakespeare was Marlowe. He chose a type now known as the Marlowesque ,-a one-man type of tragedy revolving about a central personality who is consumed by a greed of power. Shakes- peare's Richard the Third was written under the influence of Marlowe and belongs to this class. Now we come to the greatest of all-Shakespeare. He was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1564. He was a country boy, an actor, editor of old plays, and finally, as a dramatist, he rose step by step to the position of greatest of all playwrights. No one understood the char- acters of men as he did. The philosopher, the fool, the king, the peasant, are all analyzed by his pen. With a master stroke he depicts them all-- their meannesses, as well as their noblest traits. Some say he was a genius naturally, then again he may have been merely a mirror reflect- ing the tastes of a play-loving crowd in a play-loving age. His life and works may be divided into four periods. At first he experimented. He used couplets and poetry in his blank verse, his

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