Cultura Inglesa I texto

Decease Release (death liberation)

This text is a poem that was written by Robert Southwell in 1593. He was an English Roman Catholic and also a poet and a clandestine missionary, priest of the Jesuit Order. The poem, whose first title's translation is "death liberation", talks about the death of Mary Queen of Scots. The second title of the poem is "dum morior orior", written in Latin, and whose meaning is "As I die I'm born", by which the poem is started.

By this period, England was living the so-called Elizabethan Era (because of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I) under the cultural and artistic movement known as Renaissance. This era is also known for being a golden age in England because of the large period of internal peace that had between the English Reformation, the battles between Protestants and Catholics (whose division was settled by Queen Elizabeth's religious settlement), and the battles between parliament and monarchy. The theatre was also very important during this time in which it's included the very important figure of William Shakespeare. Music, poetry and literature were in a high position during this time too as well. Although this era was an excellent period to English people, England was well-off compared with the rest of the Europe. Robert Southwell wrote this poem 2 years before he died. Curiously, he was executed, the same that happened with Mary in his poem.

This text is a very paradoxical poem, because the author presents the idea of martyrdom as it was a peaceful thing, which is normally associated as a bad thing. It's composed by 9 stanzas with parallel lines in each of them. The speaker is the self Mary Queen of Scots, who presents herself in the poem as a kind of pounded spice due to being a victim of the martyrdom. However she accepts her martyrdom as it was a kind of heaven's favor. In almost the entire poem, she describes how was executed and also describes her feelings before and while she was being executed. Despite his death because of participating in a plot, which is called Babington Plot against the Queen Elizabeth Tudor, she felt like a queen both in England and now in heaven, as it appears in the last lines of the poem, and it seems as she really wanted her death to be able to reach the liberation of all that suffering. She also believed in the idea of eternal life, because she died as a queen and now is still being a queen. In general, the poem express the idea of the martyrdom, suffering and pain as a way to reach the happiness and to enjoy a new life in heaven peacefully, the heaven's glory.

Thomas Wyatt, "Whoso list to hunt"

This text is a sonnet that was written by Thomas Wyatt in 1530. He was a very important author because he introduced new literary fashions from Italy in his sonnets. It's believed that this sonnet was dedicated to Anne Boleyn due to being Wyatt interested in her.

By this period, England was living the so-called Elizabethan Era (because of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I) under the cultural and artistic movement known as Renaissance. This era is also known for being a golden age in England because of the large period of internal peace that had between the English Reformation, the battles between Protestants and Catholics (whose division was settled by Queen Elizabeth's religious settlement), and the battles between parliament and monarchy. The theatre was also very important during this time in which it's included the very important figure of William Shakespeare. Music, poetry and literature were in a high position during this time too as well. Although this era was an excellent period to English people, England was well-off compared with the rest of the Europe. England was having battles against Spain, until years later, both would battle in the Battle of Spanish Armada. As it's mentioned before, literature was important in this time, so it's included important  figure of Thomas Wyatt, who brought the influence of Petrarch's style to England from Italy in form of sonnets.

In this one it's treated the idea of unrequited love, the passion and the obsession. Wyatt refers Anne Boleyn to a ‘hind’ translated to as female deer, in which he attempts to ‘hunt and catch’ in a form of a metaphor. This also represents the theme of sexism, where the portrayal of a woman as an animal from the forest being hunted, illustrates the low esteem in which women were often viewed in Elizabethan society. He also does a metaphor with Caesar, referring to the King Henry VIII, and it's demonstrated the "Code of Chivalry", expressing the knighthood qualities such as bravery, courtesy or honor. In the first half of the poem, the author explains the obsession of the hunters (that are those people who wants the love of the hind) wanting to catch the deer and the continuous trying to escape of them. In the second half of the sonnet, the author explains that the hind is like the wind, impossible to catch, and also expresses the waste of time trying to do so because she has already an owner, that is Caesar (King Henry VIII). This idea is confirmed in the last lines of the poem when Wyatt explains that she is wearing a collar with inscriptions in Latin: "Noli me tangere", which means "don't try to catch me", and the idea of wearing a collar is just because the hind has an owner, a proprietary, that is King Henry VIII.