Comparative Analysis

 ∆ Khushi Raviya 

Question:Comparative Analysis of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare as poets conduct comparative analysis of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare. Focus on their poetic styles, themes, contributions to English literature, and their influences on subsequent literary traditions.

Answer:

Information:

        This Blog about comparative analysis of Geoffrey Chaucer, Edmund Spenser, and William Shakespeare. Focus on their poetic styles, themes, contributions to English literature and their influences on subsequent literary traditions.

Comparative Analysis between Chaucer And Spencer:

Poetic Style:

- Chaucer is customarily read as a poet of the high Middle Ages, whose is the valorisation of the vernacular had a profound influence on the poetry of subsequent centuries.

- Spenser is often read as a poet of the high Renaissance for whom continuity with the past (cliterary and historical) was a paramount issue.

Themes:

- Class,lies and religion are prominent themes of Chaucer's. Canterbury tales, 15th century English poem considered one of the most important book in English literature.

- Love, beauty, Neoplatonism, religious devotion, and the use of the palinode. The key themes in Edmund Spenser's poetry include the role of poetry in society, the importance of patrons, and the ideal genres for poetic expression.

Contribution:

- Chaucer is known for metrical innovation, inventing the rhyme royal, and he was one of the first English poets to use the five-stress line, a decasyllabic cousin to the iambic pentametre, in his work, with only a few anonymous short works using it before him.

- Edmund Spenser is considered one of the greatest English poets and a major contributor to the development of English literature. He is most well known for his book-length epic poem, The Faerie Queene. It was one of the first attempts at an English epic poem, which he based on the Italian classics. 

Influences on subsequent literary tradition:

 - From the 1370s on, Italian poetry became the overriding influence for Chaucer's work. Obviously familiar with the writings of Dante and Petrarch, Boccaccio especially was a major source.

- Spenser was greatly influenced by foreign writers like, Ariosto, Tasso, Homer, Virgil, Plato, Cicero, and Lucretius. Spenser‟s Faerie Queene was modelled on Ariosto‟s work Orlando Furioso. He was immensely fascinated by Ariosto‟s romantic epic.

Comparative Analysis between Chaucer And Shakespeare:

Poetic Style:

- Chaucer's work is more believable and straight forward to the readers. Chaucer's version of the poem is full of thought and is a serious attempt at portraying events realistically.

 - Shakespeare's play is scattered with random plot lines. Shakespeare based his version on intuition.

Themes:

- Both eschew typologies of plot and character to explore deeper, more authentic dimensions of human character. Both are fascinated by morality, humor and passion as way to perceive and reveal the inner dynamics of human personality and to develop the complexity of the theme.

- Both are scholars of language and literature. They are from different historical periods, so there is a contrast in the language they used: for Chaucer, it's Middle English; for Shakespeare, it's Elizabeth English.

Contribution:

- Chaucer united two disparate and semi-hostile strands of the English language, thereby laying the linguistic foundations of a united kingdom.

- Shakespeare may have dramatized some historical events and made all the world a stage.

Influences on subsequent literary traditions:

- They were both massively influenced by the italians. Middle English was influenced by French. Elizabeth and literary English was informed by Renaissance model of rhetoric.

- There is an overlap in literary influence and a similar predilection for the satire. Shakespeare was very inventive in his use of language and his plays employed a broader range of literary forms, with a much more searching use of literally tropes.

Comparative Analysis between Spencer and Shakespeare:

Poetic Style:

- The Shakespearean sonnet follows a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG, where the last two lines often form a rhymed couplet.

- Spenserian Sonnet: The Spenserian sonnet, named after the poet Edmund Spenser, follows the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.

Themes:

- Both sonnets of Spenser and Shakespeare are respectively similar, although different at the same time. They share the main theme or topic, which deals with the triumph of love over oblivion or the eternity of love through poetry.

- Shakespeare begins his sonnets by introducing six of his most important themes—beauty, time, decay, immortality, procreation and selfishness.

Contribution:

- Spenser is most well known for his book-length epic poem, The Faerie Queene.An epic poem is a long, historical work that attempts to document the events and heroes of a time and place, a country and its culture.

- Shakespeare also popularized writing histories, tragedies and comedies as distinct genres with their own conventions. With plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth and Othello, Shakespeare crafted dramatic works that have profoundly influenced global literature and theatre for centuries.

Influences on subsequent  literary traditions: 

- Spenser was greatly influenced by foreign writers like, Ariosto, Tasso, Homer, Virgil, Plato, Cicero, and Lucretius. Spenser‟s Faerie Queene was modelled on Ariosto‟s work Orlando Furioso.

- Shakespeare's plays borrowed ideas from popular sources, folk traditions, street pamphlets, and sermons. Shakespeare also used groundlings widely in his plays. The use of groundlings "saved the drama from academic stiffness and preserved its essential bias towards entertainment in comedy".