The ‘Angel’ of English Renaissance Literature

1959 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Baker
Keyword(s):  
English Literature ◽  
English Renaissance ◽  
Renaissance Literature ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Gold Coin ◽  
Casual Reader ◽  
The Fantastic

They have in EnglandA coin that bears the figure of an angelStampèd in gold …(Merchant of Venice II. vii. 55-57)The scholar or casual reader whose interest is drawn to Renaissance English literature discovers very early that, in the fantastic profusion of puns and punning allusions that delighted the hearts of Englishmen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, second in frequency only to the cuckold's horns is a thin gold coin called the angel. The uses made of it range from the casual pun ‘There's a pair of angels to guide you to your lodgings’ to elaborate metaphors which mold a scene or provide the vehicle for an entire poem, as in Donne's Elegie XI, ‘The Bracelet’.

C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tokien as I knew them (never well)

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Eric Stanley
Keyword(s):  
English Literature ◽  
English Renaissance ◽  
Renaissance Literature ◽  
Sir Gawain ◽  
Ancrene Wisse ◽  
General Editor ◽  
Katherine Group ◽  
History Of

I attended all the lectures C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien gave in 1948 to 1951. My own teaching of English Renaissance literature at Birmingham University was informed by Lewis’s volume in the Oxford History of English Literature (1954), parts of which I had heard him give as lectures. At Birmingham we started a series of Medieval and Renaissance texts, and I wrote to Lewis and ask him if he would be our General Editor; he said, yes. He asked me to meet him, correspondence followed, and I quote from a long, witty, and wise letter about an edition of mine, and about another edition which Lewis disliked and I also quote from that sharper letter. I knew Tolkien because, as an undergraduate I attended his weekly seminars. At that time he himself was greatly interested in Ancrene Wisse and the Katherine Group. He lectured on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Much later, in 1972, I met Tolkien again, at a book-launch party. I ventured to speak to him. I gave my name, and in his charming way he said he remembered me. I wondered at that, but took it as evidence of his kindness.

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