A History of Elizabethan Literature

The Story

Saintsbury’s narrative of Elizabethan literature is not merely a catalog of dates and titles, but a physiological study of a language and a culture reaching maturity. He frames the era not as a static moment of perfection, but as a dynamic process of "becoming." The story begins in the mid-sixteenth century, an era Saintsbury characterizes as one of experimentation and, at times, awkward transition. Following the chaos of the mid-Tudor period, the English literary spirit began to seek a voice that could match the intellectual expansion of the Renaissance.

The early stages of this history are marked by the search for form. In poetry, the "drab" period gave way to the influence of the Pléiade and the Italian sonneteers. Saintsbury details how early figures like Wyatt and Surrey (though technically pre-Elizabethan) set the stage for the formal innovations that followed. The arrival of Sir Philip Sidney and Edmund Spenser represents the true dawn. With Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, the English language finally achieved a sustained, melodic, and complex poetic architecture that could rival the classics. Saintsbury views this as the moment English literature shed its provincialism.

The evolution of the drama occupies the heart of Saintsbury’s history. He describes a medium that rose from the crude "Interludes" and academic exercises of the mid-century to a sophisticated art form. The transition was catalyzed by the "University Wits"—men like Lyly, Peele, and Greene—who brought classical learning to the popular stage. However, it was Christopher Marlowe who provided the "mighty line," breaking the constraints of stiff versification and introducing a sense of tragic grandeur. Saintsbury traces this trajectory through the "Golden Age" of the 1590s, where the technical facility of the playwrights met a public appetite for high drama and complex characterization.

Central to the story is the rise of William Shakespeare. Saintsbury treats Shakespeare not as an isolated miracle, but as the inevitable apex of a collective movement. The narrative follows Shakespeare’s development from his early experiments in comedy and history to the profound psychological depths of the great tragedies. Yet, Saintsbury is careful to place Shakespeare within a community of giants. He explores the "bravura" of Ben Jonson, whose insistence on classical rigor and "humours" provided a necessary counterweight to the more fluid, romantic style of his contemporaries.

As the narrative moves into the Jacobean period, Saintsbury notes a shift in the literary atmosphere. The optimism and "spaciousness" of the Elizabethan era began to give way to a darker, more cynical, and more intricate aesthetic. This is the era of the "Decadence"—not in the sense of a decline in quality, but a shift toward the morbid and the hyper-stylized. The revenge tragedies of Webster and Tourneur represent this phase, where the focus shifted from the cosmic order to the internal rot of the soul and the state.

Parallel to the development of poetry and drama, Saintsbury tracks the slower, more difficult maturation of English prose. Early Elizabethan prose was often marred by "Euphuism"—the highly ornate, antithetical style popularized by John Lyly. While Saintsbury acknowledges the brilliance of Lyly’s wit, he views this period as a necessary stage of linguistic play before prose could become a functional tool for serious thought. The story culminates in the majestic prose of the Authorized Version of the Bible and the philosophical weight of Francis Bacon and Richard Hooker. These writers transformed English prose from a decorative medium into a vehicle for profound intellectual inquiry and rhythmic beauty.

Ultimately, Saintsbury’s history is one of synthesis. He illustrates how the Elizabethan era successfully fused the ruggedness of the native English tradition with the elegance of classical and continental influences. By the time the narrative reaches the closing of the theaters in 1642, the English language had been permanently transformed. It had acquired a flexibility, a vocabulary, and a repertoire of forms that would sustain it for centuries. The story concludes with the sense that the Elizabethan era was a unique "climacteric" in human history—a moment where political stability, linguistic growth, and individual genius converged to create a body of work that remains the standard against which all subsequent English literature is measured.

The People

The figures populating Saintsbury’s history are portrayed as both individual geniuses and products of a singular cultural moment.

• Christopher Marlowe: The "herald" of the age, Marlowe revolutionized English drama by liberating blank verse from rhyme and monotony. His protagonists embody the Elizabethan spirit of ambition and defiance, setting a new standard for tragic grandeur.

• Sir Philip Sidney: The ideal Elizabethan gentleman-scholar, Sidney refined the Petrarchan sonnet and authored Apology for Poetry, a foundational aesthetic treatise. His radiant personality and early death imbued the era with romantic idealism.

• Ben Jonson: The era’s disciplinarian, Jonson brought scholarly rigor and classical unities to English drama. His comedies of humours are sharp satires, though Saintsbury notes a certain heaviness that limits his universal appeal compared to Shakespeare.

• John Webster and Cyril Tourneur: Masters of Jacobean darkness, their revenge tragedies explore psychological complexity and moral decay, marking a shift from Elizabethan optimism to a more morbid aesthetic.

• Michael Drayton and Samuel Daniel: Prolific poets who celebrated English history and landscape. Drayton’s Poly-Olbion is a monumental poetic map of Britain, reflecting the era’s growing national consciousness.

• William Shakespeare: The central figure, Shakespeare synthesizes all Elizabethan trends with unmatched versatility and depth. His universality and command of language define the English literary character. Saintsbury emphasizes Shakespeare’s working dramatist challenges and his legacy as the era’s defining genius.

In Its Own Voice

Saintsbury’s critical voice combines erudition with vivid metaphor and deep appreciation for craft. On Marlowe’s impact on English verse, he writes:

"The first note of the new music was struck by Marlowe... he gave the blank verse a variety of cadence, a fullness of sound, and a flexibility of structure which it had never before possessed."

On the sheer creative abundance of the period:

"The Elizabethan literature is the most voluminous, the most varied, and the most influential of all the literatures of the world."

Regarding Shakespeare’s unique fusion of art and language:

"In Shakespeare, the language, the thought, and the dramatic form are so perfectly fused that the art itself becomes invisible."

These lines underscore Saintsbury’s view of the Elizabethan era as a moment when form and content achieved perfect harmony, producing literature of enduring power.

What It's Really About

Saintsbury’s history explores the tension between reverence for classical models and the native English impulse toward innovation. Early Elizabethans struggled to fit English into classical molds—quantitative meters, Aristotelian unities—often producing awkward results. The book argues that the era’s greatness arose when writers ceased trying to be Virgil or Petrarch and instead used classical tools to express English realities, giving rise to the romantic drama that broke classical rules to reveal deeper human truths.

Another key theme is the "unity of the era." Despite diverse genres and styles—from lyric poetry to sermons to tragedy—Saintsbury identifies a shared "Elizabethan-ness": a spaciousness of thought, linguistic zest, and a willingness to experiment with language and form. The period’s linguistic ferment expanded vocabulary and syntax, reflecting a culture in creative flux.

Saintsbury also addresses the later Jacobean "Decadence," not as decline but as a natural progression into more intense, specialized, and psychologically complex literature. This lifecycle—from awkward birth through maturity to complex decline—is central to the book’s argument.

Ultimately, the history defends Elizabethan literature as England’s true national literature, where idealism and realism fused to create a voice uniquely English. It values imagination and emotional depth over the cold clarity of later Neo-classicism, presenting the era as a cultural and linguistic watershed.

Why Read It Today

Saintsbury’s History of Elizabethan Literature remains invaluable for those seeking a panoramic, deeply informed view of the era’s literary flowering. Its late-Victorian style is dense and allusive, demanding patience and a strong vocabulary, but rewarding readers with masterful critical insight.

The book suits serious amateurs and literary historians who appreciate detailed contextualization and technical analysis. Saintsbury’s prose itself is a historical artifact, reflecting the scholarly rigor and passion of a lifetime’s engagement with these texts.

Readers come away with a renewed sense of the era’s extraordinary creative density and the richness of its lesser-known poets and playwrights. Saintsbury encourages exploration beyond Shakespeare, revealing a vibrant literary ecosystem.

His wide-ranging scholarship offers an antidote to modern academic specialization, presenting literature as a grand, interconnected narrative. Reading Saintsbury inspires a deeper, more discerning engagement with Elizabethan texts, illuminating the foundations of English literary tradition with clarity and warmth.