The Anglo-Saxon Theme of Exile in Renaissance Lyrics: A Perspective on Two Sonnets of Sir Walter Ralegh

Abstract

The line of descent of later English poetry from Anglo-Saxon antecedents becomes increasingly clear as we understand better where to look for the evidence; that is, when we recognize that continuity lies not in a direct line of literary influence, but in theme, in those sound effects most congenial to the language, and often in a heavily connotative diction drawn from the native elements of the language. The line of development is especially clear when the three elements happen to coincide. We cannot look to specific Old English poems as sources, particularly for fifteenth and sixteenth century verse because those were fallow centuries when both the old poetry and the older form of the language were either inaccessible to the reader or badly misunderstood. If we can trust George Puttenham as a spokesman for his age, Renaissance literati assumed that before the time of Edward III and Richard II there is litle or nothing worth commendation to be founde written in this arte (poesie). Puttenham graciously attributes the decay of all good learning to the martiall barbarousness of the Norman conquest but in designating Chaucer and Gower as the first poets he demonstrates the lack of knowledge of Old English poetry which prevailed in his time.' He speaks in numerous instances of the crudity of the AngloSaxon language and describes alliteration as pleasing to the rude ears of that barbarous generation.2Yet the Anglo-Saxon poets of that barbarous generation prior to the eleventh century were setting forth with admirable poetic skill themes which have never entirely disappeared from English thought. Transmitted through a deeply rooted Weltanschauung and in the connotative cargo of the language itself, both of which survived the conquest, themes of loyalty, valor, and endurance, of loneliness and longing and Christian piety reappear from age to age in distinctly Anglo-Saxon form. The expression of theme is usually enhanced by a keen sensitivity to natural surroundings whose mood parallels that of the poet and reflects elements common to the national experience.