The Happy Life (Henry Howard)

 About the author:  Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1516/1517 – 19 January 1547), was an English nobleman, politician and poet. He was one of the founders of English Renaissance poetry. His name is usually associated in literature with that of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt. He was the son of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and when his father became Duke of Norfolk (1524) the son adopted the courtesy title of Earl of Surrey. Owing largely to the powerful position of his father, Howard took a prominent part in the court life of the time, and served as a soldier both in France and Scotland. He and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the sonnet form that Shakespeare later used.  Howard was the first English poet to publish blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil’s Aeneid. Together, Wyatt and Howard, due to their excellent translations of Petrarch’s s sonnets, are known as "Fathers of the English Sonnet". While Wyatt introduced the sonnet into English, it was Howard who gave them the rhyming meter and the division into quatrains that now characterises the sonnets variously named English sonnets.

Critical Appreciation of “The Happy Life”:

Introduction: Everyone in this world craves for a happy life. It is difficult to define happiness as it is a state of the mind and it is subjective. Happiness is related to material glory and splendour by some. Some associate it with the health of a man while for some it lies in a sort of contentment with whatever one possesses. But according to Henry Howard both material life and mental peace are needed for man to lead a happy life.

Discussion:

This poem is generally titled “The Means to Attain Happy Life.” This poem is a translation from one of Martial’s “Epigrams”. The poem has the merit of being one of the earliest translations in English language. In this poem, Henry Howard (Earl of Surrey) has selected the themes such as birth and death and also the moral nature of men, in order to enlighten the readers about happy life. In fact, the poem is intended for the young men and this is explicit when the poet addresses the youngsters saying ‘Friends”, but this poem is common to all those who want to lead happy life.

The poem highlights the different things that a man can have in order to attain a happy life. Surrey begins the poem by saying that wealth which is gained without any pain or hard work would be a great mental torture and that would spoil the peace of mind. The poet further says that one should have friends who is equal to him in terms of education, wealth and talents. At the same time, the friends must not carry any kind of ill-feeling or enmity in his mind. According to Surrey, if the friend is in equal term naturally, he is a good friend to one, or the same friend would become one’s master. Hence friend of equal terms gives happiness to one. The poet strongly believes that health is most important than the wealth and so he recommends for a healthy life without any diseases to lead a happy life. The poet also says that one should hold a household which contains generations of health and wealth together. This kind of decent life and quiet and contented mind are important for one to attain happy life.

The poet further says that though a man is wealthy enough to afford for feasts every day, he should have only ‘the mean diet’. If he is uncontrollable for having feast every day, he would naturally get all sorts of diseases and this would spoil is happy life. The poet strongly believes that one should possesses “true wisdom”.  ‘If the wisdom joins with simplicity that will give happiness to one’ and this is the strong belief of the poet. When one has a sound sleep without any worries or without the effect of wine on him, then it is certain, according to the poet, that he leads the happy life. Finally, the poet arrives at the point that if one has a wife who is so submissive but intelligent, then he can lead a happy life without his wife’s debate on every affair of life.  The poet also wishes that such wife must be virtuous and she must be true to her husband. Thus, the poet in this poem says that if one possesses all the above said things in his life then he can lead a  happy life and these are the ways and means for one to attain the happy life.  

Conclusion:  The rhyme scheme of this poem is “abab.”  The intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships spoken by the poet in this poem are the means for one to lead the happy life. Besides, according to the poet, one must have wisdom, and lineage of wealth and health for one to attain the happy life.