The Shadow of Night
Encyclopedia
The Shadow of Night is a long poem written by George Chapman
George Chapman
George Chapman was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. Chapman has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets...

; it was first published in 1594, in an edition printed by Richard Field
Richard Field (printer)
Richard Field was a printer and publisher in Elizabethan London, best known for his close association with the poems of William Shakespeare, with whom he grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon.-Life and career:...

 for William Ponsonby
William Ponsonby (publisher)
William Ponsonby was a prominent London publisher of the Elizabethan era. Active in the 1577–1603 period, Ponsonby published the works of Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, and other members of the Sidney circle; he has been called "the leading literary publisher of Elizabethan...

, the prestigious publisher of Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...

 and Sir Philip Sidney
Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney was an English poet, courtier and soldier, and is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan Age...

.

The poem was Chapman's first significant literary work; it is furnished with abundant notes and references to classical Greek and Roman authors (41 in total, drawn from the Mythologiae of Niccolo Conti). The title page of the first edition gives the title in both English and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 (Σκία νυκτός, "Skia nyktos"). The poem's reception as an important development in English verse established Chapman's initial literary reputation, which he would later expand and deepen with his subsequent poems, plays, and translations.

Chapman dedicated the work, which he calls a "poor and strange trifle," to fellow poet Matthew Roydon
Mathew Roydon
Mathew Roydon was an English poet associated with the School of Night group of poets and writers.-Life:...

. The dedication contrasts superficial readers, who read verse to "curtail a tedious hour," with those few who "entertained learning in themselves, to the vital warmth of freezing science...." He names three prominent noblemen of the day, "ingenious Darby, deep-searching Northumberland, and skill-embracing heir of Hunsdon...." These were Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby
Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby
Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby was the son of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford. According to the will of Henry VIII, his mother was heiress presumptive of Elizabeth I of England from 1578 to her own death in 1596...

, well-known as the patron of the acting company Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men
Lord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange . They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s...

; Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland
Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland KG was an English aristocrat. He was a grandee and one of the wealthiest peers of the court of Elizabeth I. Under James I, Henry was a long-term prisoner in the Tower of London. He is known for the circles he moved in as well as for his own achievements...

, the so-called "Wizard Earl;" and George Carey
George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon
George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon KG was the eldest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon and Anne Morgan. His father was first cousin to Elizabeth I of England....

, who succeeded his father as Lord Hunsdon in 1596 and as Lord Chamberlain
Lord Chamberlain
The Lord Chamberlain or Lord Chamberlain of the Household is one of the chief officers of the Royal Household in the United Kingdom and is to be distinguished from the Lord Great Chamberlain, one of the Great Officers of State....

 of England in 1597. Carey served as the patron of the Lord Chamberlain's Men
Lord Chamberlain's Men
The Lord Chamberlain's Men was a playing company for whom Shakespeare worked for most of his career. Formed at the end of a period of flux in the theatrical world of London, it had become, by 1603, one of the two leading companies of the city and was subsequently patronised by James I.It was...

, the acting company of William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

.

The three noblemen and their associates, like Sir Walter Raleigh
Walter Raleigh
Sir Walter Raleigh was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer. He is also well known for popularising tobacco in England....

, John Dee
John Dee (mathematician)
John Dee was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occultist, navigator, imperialist and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination and Hermetic philosophy....

 and Thomas Harriot
Thomas Harriot
Thomas Harriot was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and translator. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot or Heriot. He is sometimes credited with the introduction of the potato to Great Britain and Ireland...

 among others, have been interpreted as members of a clique of advanced thinkers called The School of Night
The School of Night
The School of Night is a modern name for a group of men centred on Sir Walter Raleigh that was once referred to in 1592 as the "School of Atheism." The group supposedly included poets and scientists such as Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman and Thomas Harriot...

, who were interested in promoting new ideas like the Copernican and Galilean
Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei , was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations and support for Copernicanism...

 view of a heliocentric
Heliocentrism
Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a stationary Sun at the center of the universe. The word comes from the Greek . Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center...

 solar system, and the spirit of open inquiry that underlay it. Chapman has been seen by some as the Rival Poet
Rival Poet
The Rival Poet is one of several 'characters,' either fictional or real persons, featured in William Shakespeare's sonnets. The sonnets most commonly identified as the Rival Poet group exist within the Fair Youth group in sonnets 78-86...

 of Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets
Shakespeare's sonnets are 154 poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare, dealing with themes such as the passage of time, love, beauty and mortality. All but two of the poems were first published in a 1609 quarto entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS.: Never before imprinted. Sonnets 138 and 144...

.

The work as a whole treats the theme of inspired melancholy, the concept that "melecholia" is not merely a negative state, but rather allows for deep and searching thought, self-examination, and study of the world. While humans often devote their daylight hours to trivial distractions, the night allows serious contemplation. Critics have linked the poem to a strain of abstruse and esoteric Renaissance thought on "Saturnian" melancholy. "No pen can anything eternal write, / That is not steep'd in humor of the night" (lines 376-7).

The poem is divided into two parts, the Hymnus in Noctem and the Hymnus in Cynthiam. The first section of the poem appeals to Night as a primordial goddess, in the spirit of the hymns of Orpheus
Orpheus
Orpheus was a legendary musician, poet, and prophet in ancient Greek religion and myth. The major stories about him are centered on his ability to charm all living things and even stones with his music; his attempt to retrieve his wife from the underworld; and his death at the hands of those who...

. In the poem's second half, the portrait of the moon goddess
Lunar deity
In mythology, a lunar deity is a god or goddess associated with or symbolizing the moon. These deities can have a variety of functions and traditions depending upon the culture, but they are often related to or an enemy of the solar deity. Even though they may be related, they are distinct from the...

 Cynthia represents Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

, and comprises the type of hagiographic personification that was common in the later Elizabethan era
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...

.

Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He invented the roundel form, wrote several novels, and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica...

 noted that though it is his first published poem, The Shadow of Night already expresses Chapman's sense of rejection; Swinburne described the poem as "full of loud and angry complaints of neglect and slight, endured at the hands of an unthankful and besotted generation." The poem appears to contain an autobiographical reference, indicating that Chapman served in a military campaign in The Netherlands under Sir Francis Vere
Francis Vere
Sir Francis Vere was an English soldier, famous for his career in Dutch service.He was the son of Geoffrey Vere of Crepping Hall, Essex, and nephew of John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford.-Military career:...

, in the 1591-2 period.

The modern composer Harrison Birtwistle
Harrison Birtwistle
Sir Harrison Paul Birtwistle CH is a British contemporary composer.-Life:Birtwistle was born in Accrington, a mill town in Lancashire some 20 miles north of Manchester. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who bought him a clarinet when he was seven, and arranged for him to have...

composed an orchestral piece (2001) which he titled The Shadow of the Night after Chapman's poem.

External links

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