Known as the Renaissance, the period immediately following the Middle Ages in Europe saw a

great revival of interest in the classical learning and values of ancient Greece and Rome. Against
a backdrop of political stability and growing prosperity, the development of new technologies
including the printing press, a new system of astronomy and the discovery and exploration of
new continentswas accompanied by a flowering of philosophy, literature and especially art. The
style of painting, sculpture and decorative arts identified with the Renaissance emerged in Italy
in the late 14th century; it reached its zenith in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in the work
of Italian masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael. In addition to its
expression of classical Greco-Roman traditions, Renaissance art sought to capture the experience
of the individual and the beauty and mystery of the natural world.

Origins of Renaissance Art The origins of Renaissance art can be traced to Italy
in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. During this so-called proto-Renaissance period (12801400), Italian scholars and artists saw themselves as reawakening to the ideals and achievements
of classical Roman culture. Writers such as Petrarch (1304-1374) and Giovanni Boccaccio
(1313-1375) looked back to ancient Greece and Rome and sought to revive the languages, values
and intellectual traditions of those cultures after the long period of stagnation that had followed
the fall of the Roman Empire in the sixth century.
Did You Know?Leonardo

da Vinci, the ultimate "Renaissance man," practiced all the visual arts
and studied a wide range of topics, including anatomy, geology, botany, hydraulics and flight.
His formidable reputation is based on relatively few completed paintings, including "Mona
Lisa," "The Virgin of the Rocks" and "The Last Supper."
The Florentine painter Giotto (1267?-1337), the most famous artist of the proto-Renaissance,
made enormous advances in the technique of representing the human body realistically. His
frescoes were said to have decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples,
though there has been difficulty attributing such works with certainty.

Early Renaissance Art (1401-1490s) In the later 14th century, the protoRenaissance was stifled by plague and war, and its influences did not emerge again until the first
years of the next century. In 1401, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1378-1455) won a major
competition to design a new set of bronze doors for the Baptistery of the cathedral of Florence,
beating out contemporaries such as the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and the young
Donatello (c. 1386- 1466), who would later emerge as the master of early Renaissance sculpture.
The other major artist working during this period was the painter Masaccio (1401-1428), known
for his frescoes of the Trinity in the Church of Santa Maria Novella (c. 1426) and in the
Brancacci Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine (c. 1427), both in Florence.
Masaccio painted for less than six years but was highly influential in the early Renaissance for
the intellectual nature of his work, as well as its degree of naturalism.

Florence in the Renaissance Though the Catholic Church remained a major

patron of the arts during the Renaissancefrom popes and other prelates to convents, monasteries
and other religious organizationsworks of art were increasingly commissioned by civil

government, courts and wealthy individuals. Much of the art produced during the early
Renaissance was commissioned by the wealthy merchant families of Florence, most notably the
Medici.
From 1434 until 1492, when Lorenzo de Mediciknown as the Magnificent for his strong
leadership as well as his support of the artsdied, the powerful family presided over a golden age
for the city of Florence. Pushed from power by a republican coalition in 1494, the Medici family
spent years in exile but returned in 1512 to preside over another flowering of Florentine art,
including the array of sculptures that now decorates the citys Piazza della Signoria.

High Renaissance Art (1490s-1527) By the end of the 15th century, Rome
had displaced Florence as the principal center of Renaissance art, reaching a high point under the
powerful and ambitious Pope Leo X (a son of Lorenzo de Medici). Three great masters
Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphaeldominated the period known as the High
Renaissance, which lasted roughly from the early 1490s until the sack of Rome by the troops of
the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain in 1527. Leonardo (1452-1519) was the ultimate
Renaissance man for the breadth of his intellect, interest and talent and his expression of
humanist and classical values. Leonardos best-known works, including the Mona Lisa (150305), The Virgin of the Rocks (1485) and the fresco The Last Supper (1495-98), showcase his
unparalleled ability to portray light and shadow, as well as the physical relationship between
figureshumans, animals and objects alikeand the landscape around them.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) drew on the human body for inspiration and created works
on a vast scale. He was the dominant sculptor of the High Renaissance, producing pieces such as
the Piet in St. Peters Cathedral (1499) and the David in his native Florence (1501-04). He
carved the latter by hand from an enormous marble block; the famous statue measures five
meters high including its base. Though Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor first and
foremost, he achieved greatness as a painter as well, notably with his giant fresco covering the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, completed over four years (1508-12) and depicting various scenes
from Genesis.
Raphael Sanzio, the youngest of the three great High Renaissance masters, learned from both da
Vinci and Michelangelo. His paintingsmost notably The School of Athens (1508-11), painted
in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapelskillfully
expressed the classical ideals of beauty, serenity and harmony. Among the other great Italian
artists working during this period were Bramante, Giorgione, Titian and Correggio.

Renaissance Art in Practice Many works of Renaissance art depicted religious

images, including subjects such as the Virgin Mary, or Madonna, and were encountered by
contemporary audiences of the period in the context of religious rituals. Today, they are viewed
as great works of art, but at the time they were seen and used mostly as devotional objects. Many
Renaissance works were painted as altarpieces for incorporation into rituals associated with
Catholic Mass and donated by patrons who sponsored the Mass itself.

Renaissance artists came from all strata of society; they usually studied as apprentices before
being admitted to a professional guild and working under the tutelage of an older master. Far
from being starving bohemians, these artists worked on commission and were hired by patrons of
the arts because they were steady and reliable. Italys rising middle class sought to imitate the
aristocracy and elevate their own status by purchasing art for their homes. In addition to sacred
images, many of these works portrayed domestic themes such as marriage, birth and the
everyday life of the family.

Expansion and Decline Over the course of the 15th and 16th centuries, the spirit of
the Renaissance spread throughout Italy and into France, northern Europe and Spain. In Venice,
artists such as Giorgione (1477/78-1510) and Titian (1488/90-1576) further developed a method
of painting in oil directly on canvas; this technique of oil painting allowed the artist to rework an
imageas fresco painting (on plaster) did notand it would dominate Western art to the present
day. Oil painting during the Renaissance can be traced back even further, however, to the
Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (died 1441), who painted a masterful altarpiece in the cathedral at
Ghent (c. 1432). Van Eyck was one of the most important artists of the Northern Renaissance;
later masters included the German painters Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) and Hans Holbein the
Younger (1497/98-1543).
By the later 1500s, the Mannerist style, with its emphasis on artificiality, had developed in
opposition to the idealized naturalism of High Renaissance art, and Mannerism spread from
Florence and Rome to become the dominant style in Europe. Renaissance art continued to be
celebrated, however: The 16th-century Florentine artist and art historian Giorgio Vasari, author
of the famous work Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (1550),
would write of the High Renaissance as the culmination of all Italian art, a process that began
with Giotto in the late 13th century.
What changes did the Renaissance bring?
The most notable changes experienced during the Renaissance were in the fields of art and
architecture, literature, philosophy and science. In was in these disciplines that new trends and
fresh styles emerged, inspired by Europe's ancient history.
GENERAL EFFECTS OF THE RENAISSANCE The Renaissance brought in New
Conceptions of Life and the World.--The Renaissance effected in the Christian West an
intellectual and moral revolution so profound and so far-reaching in its consequences that it may
well be likened to that produced in the ancient world by the incoming of Christianity. The New
Learning was indeed a New Gospel. Like Christianity, the Renaissance revealed to men another
world, another state of existence; for such was the real significance, to the men of the revival, of
the discovery of the civilization of classical antiquity. Through this discovery they learned that
this earthly life is worth living for its own sake; that this life and its pleasures need not l)e
contemned and sacrificed in order to make sure of eternal life in another world; and that man
may think and investigate and satisfy his thirst to know without endangering the welfare of his
soul.

[The longings and the superstitious fears of men in the age of transition between medieval and
modern times is well epitomized in the tradition of Dr. Faustus. " That legend," says Symonds, "
tells us what the men upon the eve of the Revival longed for, and what they dreaded, when they
turned their minds toward the past. The secret of enjoyment and the source of strength possessed
by the ancients allured them; but they believed that they could only recover this lost treasure by
the suicide of the soul. So great was the temptation that Faustus paid the price. After imbibing all
the knowledge of the age, he sold himself to the devil, in order that his thirst for experience
might be quenched, his grasp upon the world be strengthened, and the ennui of his activity be
soothed. His first use of his dearly-bought power was to make blind Homer sing to him.
Amphion tunes his harp in concert with Mephistopheles. Alexander rises from the dead at his
behest, with all his legionaries; and Helen is given to him for a bride. Faustus is therefore a
parable of the impotent yearnings of the spirit in the Middle Ages,--its passionate aspiration, its
conscience stricken desire, its fettered curiosity amid the cramping limits of impotent knowledge
and irrational dogmatisms."--Revival of Learning, p. 53 (ed. 1855).]
These discoveries made by the men of the Renaissance gave a vast impulse to the progress of the
human race. They inspired humanity with a new spirit, a spirit destined in time to make things
new in all realms,--in the realm of religion, of politics, of literature, of art, of science, of
invention, of industry. Some of these changes and revolutions we shall briefly indicate in the
remaining sections of this chapter. To follow them out more in detail in all the territories of
human activity and achievement will be our aim in later chapters, where we propose to trace the
course of the historical development through the centuries of the Modern Age,--the great age
opened by the Renaissance.
It restored the Broken Unity of History.--When Christianity entered the ancient GraecoRoman world war declared itself at once between the new religion and classical culture,
especially between it and Hellenism. The Church, soon triumphant over paganism, rejected the
bequest of antiquity. Some of the elements of that heritage were, it is true, appropriated by the
men of the mediaeval time and thus came to enrich the new Christian culture; but, as a whole, it
was cast aside as pagan, and neglected. Thus was the unity of the historical development broken.
Now, through the liberal tendencies and generous enthusiasms of the Renaissance there was
effected a reconciliation between Christianity and classical civilization. There took place a fusion
of their qualities and elements. The broken unity of history was restored. The cleft between the
ancient and the modern world was closed. The severed branch was reunited to the old trunk.
The importance for universal history of this restoration of its broken unity, of this recovery by
the Modern Age of the long neglected culture of antiquity, can hardly be overestimated; for that
culture had in its keeping not only the best the human race had thought and felt in the period of
the highest reach of its powers, but also the precious scientific stores accumulated by all the
ancient peoples. What the recovery and appropriation of all this meant for the world is suggested

by ex-President Woolsey in these words: " The old civilization contained treasures of permanent
value which the world could not spare, which the world will never be able or willing to spare.
These were taken up into the stream of life, and proved true aids to the progress of a culture
which is gathering in one the beauty and truth of all the ages."
It reformed Education.--The humanistic revival revolutionized education. During the Middle
Ages the Latin language had degenerated for the most part, into a barbarous jargon, while the
Greek had been forgotten and the Aristotelian philosophy perverted. As to Plato, he was
practically unknown to the mediaeval thinkers. Now humanism restored to the world the pure
classical Latin, rediscovered the Greek language, and recovered for civilization the once-rejected
heritage of the ancient classics, including the Platonic philosophy, which was to be a quickening
and uplifting force in modern thought.
The schools and universities did not escape the influences of this humanistic revival. Chairs in
both the Greek and Latin languages and literatures were now established, not only in the new
universities which arose under the inspiration of the New Learning, but also in the old ones. The
scholastic method of instruction, of which we spoke in a preceding chapter, was gradually
superseded by this so-called classical system of education, which dominated the schools and
universities of the world down to the incoming of the scientific studies of the present day.
It aided the Development of the Vernacular Literatures.-- The classical revival gave to the
world the treasures of two great literatures. And in giving to the scholars of Europe the
masterpieces of the ancient authors, it gave to them, besides much fresh material, the most
faultless models of literary taste and judgment that the world has ever produced. The influence of
these in correcting the extravagances of the mediaeval imagination and in creating correct
literary ideals can be distinctly traced in the native literatures of Italy, France, Spain, and
England.
It is sometimes maintained indeed that the attention given to the ancient classics, and the
preferred use by so many authors during the later mediaeval and the earlier modern period of the
Latin as a literary language, retarded the normal development of the vernacular literatures of the
European peoples. [Some of the very best literary work of the period was done in Latin, as
witness the Colloquies by Erasmus and the Utopia by More.] As to Italy, it is true that the
national literature which had started into life with such promise with Dante, Petrarch, and
Boccaccio was for almost a century neglected; but in transalpine Europe, apart from Germany,
where for a period Latin did almost supplant the vernacular, the revived study of the classics did
not produce the disastrous effects observed in Italy. On the contrary, as we have just said, the
effect of humanism upon the great literatures of Europe, aside from the exceptions noticed, was
to enrich, to chasten, and to refine them.

It called into Existence the Sciences of Archaeology and Historical Criticism.--Many

sciences were in germ in the Renaissance.' As to the science of archaeology, which possesses
such a special interest for the historical student, it may be truly said that it had its birth in the
classical revival. We have already noticed the new feeling for the remains of antiquity that stirred
in the souls of the men of the Renaissance .
The ruins of Rome were naturally the first object of the reverent curiosity and archaeological
zeal of the Italian scholars. From the fifteenth century down to the present day the interest in the
monuments and relics of past ages and civilization has steadily widened and deepened and has
led to remarkable discoveries, not only on classical ground, but also in Hebrew, Assyrian, and
Egyptian territories, discoveries which, by carrying the story of the human race back into a past
immensely remote, have given an entirely new beginning to history.
What is true of the science of archaeology is equally true of the science of historical criticism.
We have seen that the spirit which awoke in the Renaissance was a questioning, critical spirit,
one very different from the credulous mediaeval spirit, which was ready to accept any
picturesque tradition or marvelous tale without inquiry as to its source or credibility. It was this
spirit that stirred in Petrarch. We find him comparing and criticizing the classical authors and
following only those whom he has reason to believe to be trustworthy.
But the true founder of the science of historical criticism was Laurentius Valla (1407-1457). His
greatest achievement as a critic was the demonstration, on philological and historical grounds, of
the unauthentic character of the celebrated Donation of Constantine. He also called in question
the authority of Livy and proved the spurious character of the alleged -correspondence between
Seneca and the Apostle Paul.
The achievements of Valla ushered in the day of historical criticism. Here began that critical
sifting and valuation of our historical sources which has resulted in the discrediting of a thousand
myths and legends once regarded as unimpeachable historical material, and in the consequent
reconstruction of Oriental, classical, and mediaeval history.
It gave an Impulse to Religious Reform.--The humanistic movement, as we have already
noticed, when it crossed the Alps assumed among the northern peoples a new character. It was
the Hebrew past rather than the Graeco-Roman past which stirred the interest of the scholars of
the North. The Bible, which the printing presses were now multiplying in the original Hebrew
and Greek as well as in the vernacular languages, became the subject Of enthusiastic study and
of fresh interpretation. Consequently what was in the South a restoration of classical literature
and art became in the more serious and less sensuous North a revival of primitive Christianity, of
the ethical and religious elements of the Hebrew-Christian past. The humanist became the
reformer. Reuchlin, Erasmus, and the other humanists of the North were the true precursors of
the great religious revolution of the sixteenth century.

The Elizabethan Age

The Elizabethan Age is remembered as the time of a great wave of English nationalism, as well
as a period in which the arts flourished. The time of Shaksepeare was also the time of Elizabeth
I, who is one of the more memorable monarchs.
The word renaissance' literally means rebirth' and it began in Italy in the 14th century and
subsequently spread throughout Europe during 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. The feudal
economies of the medieval period gave way to centralised political structures and the dominance
of the Church in aspects of cultural life such as music and the arts began to wane as secular
interests rose. The Italian Renaissance was a product of urban centres that were becoming richer
through commerce. This includes Milan, Florence, and Venice.
The Renaissance in England coincided with the reign of Elizabeth I who was Queen of England
and Ireland from 1558 until 1603, so it is often referred to as the Elizabethan period. Elizabeth I's
reign saw a rise in the concept of nationalism' in England and this can be seen in the increased
interest that writers had in writing literary and dramatic works in the English language. As a
result, Elizabethan England saw a significant growth in cultural developments.
A number of important historical events contributed to making England a powerful nation during
this period. England made significant advances in the realm of navigation and exploration. Its
most important accomplishment was the circumnavigation of the world by Sir Francis Drake
between 1577 and 1580. England's reputation as a strong naval power was enshrined in history
by its defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and by the turn of the century England was at the
forefront of international trade and the race for colonisation.
England's renaissance in the realm of thought and art is epitomised by the official recognition
that Elizabeth I gave to Oxford and Cambridge. These universities were acknowledged as the
focal point for the nation's learning and scholarly activities. Other historical developments which
shaped the direction of Elizabeth Literature include the invention of the printing press to England
in 1476 which helped to make literature more widely available, the growth of a wealthy middle
class of people who had the time to write and read, and the opening up of education to the laity
rather than being the exclusive domain of the clergy.
The arts flourished under Elizabeth I. Her personal love of poetry, music, and drama helped to
establish a climate in which it was fashionable for the wealthy members of the court to support
the arts. Theatres such as the Globe (1599) and the Rose (1587) were built and writers such as
Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare wrote comic and tragic plays.
-Shakespeare lived during a remarkable period of English history, a time of relative political
stability that followed and preceded eras of extensive upheaval. Elizabeth I became the Queen of

England in 1558, six years before Shakespeare's birth. During her 45-year reign, London became
a cultural and commercial center where learning and literature thrived.
When Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne, there were violent clashes throughout Europe
between Protestant and Catholic leaders and their followers. Though Elizabeth honored many of
the Protestant edicts of her late father, King Henry VIII, she made significant concessions to
Catholic sympathizers, which kept them from attempting rebellion. But when compromise was
not possible, she was an exacting and determined leader who did not shy away from conflict.
With the naval defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, England was firmly established as a
leading military and commercial power in the Western world. Elizabeth supported and later
knighted Sir Francis Drake, the first sailor to circumnavigate the globe. She also funded Sir
Walter Raleigh's exploration of the New World, which brought new wealth to her country in the
form of tobacco and gold from Latin America.
Queen Elizabeth also recognized the importance of the arts to the life and legacy of her nation.
She was fond of the theater, and many of England's greatest playwrights were active during her
reign, including Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, and William Shakespeare. With her
permission, professional theaters were built in England for the first time, attracting 15,000
theatergoers per week in London, a city of 150,000 to 250,000. In addition to Shakespeare's
masterpieces of the stage, Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queen, and Sir
Philip Sidney's Defence of Poesie were all written during this golden age in the literary arts. The
Shakespearean sonnet, Spenserian stanza, and dramatic blank verse also came into practice
during the period.
Upon the death of Elizabeth, King James I rose to power in England. A writer himself, he
displayed a great love of learning, particularly theater. At the king's invitation, Shakespeare's
theater company, Lord Chamberlain's Men, became known as the King's Men, and they produced
new works under his patronage. King James also commissioned the translation of the Bible from
Latin into English so that it might be more readily available to those who had not studied the
language of the educated class. Completed in 1611 by a team of scholars and monks, the King
James Version of the Bible has become the bestselling and arguably the most-influential book in
the world.
Unfortunately, King James surrounded himself with untrustworthy advisors, and his extravagant
lifestyle strained the royal finances and the patience of the Puritan-controlled Parliament. When
James died in 1628, his son Charles I ascended to the throne, and tensions between Parliament
and the Crown increased. King Charles I eventually lost a bloody civil war to the Puritans, who
executed the King (his son Charles II fled to France). For a dozen years, the Puritans enacted
many reforms which included closing the theaters. The Commonwealth lasted until Charles II
returned from France, claimed the throne, and installed the Restoration. King Charles II also
reopened the theaters, but England's theatrical highpoint had passed.

The Elizabethan era was a time associated with Queen Elizabeth I's reign (15581603) and is
often considered to be the golden age in English history. It was the height of the English
Renaissance and saw the flowering of English poetry, music and literature. This was also the
time during which Elizabethan theatre flourished, and William Shakespeare and many others
composed plays that broke free of England's past style of plays and theatre. It was an age of
exploration and expansion abroad, while back at home, the Protestant Reformation became more
acceptable to the people, most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repulsed. It was also the
end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland.
The Elizabethan Age is viewed so highly because of the periods before and after. It was a brief
period of largely internal peace between the English Reformation and the battles between
Protestants and Catholics and the battles between parliament and the monarchy that engulfed the
seventeenth century. The Protestant/Catholic divide was settled, for a time, by the Elizabethan
Religious Settlement, and parliament was not yet strong enough to challenge royal absolutism.
England was also well-off compared to the other nations of Europe. The Italian Renaissance had
come to an end under the weight of foreign domination of the peninsula. France was embroiled
in its own religious battles that would only be settled in 1598 with the Edict of Nantes. In part
because of this, but also because the English had been expelled from their last outposts on the
continent, the centuries long conflict between France and England was largely suspended for
most of Elizabeth's reign.
The one great rival was Spain, with which England clashed both in Europe and the Americas in
skirmishes that exploded into the Anglo-Spanish War of 15851604. An attempt by Philip II of
Spain to invade England with the Spanish Armada in 1588 was famously defeated, but the tide of
war turned against England with an unsuccessful expedition to Portugal and the Azores, the
Drake-Norris Expedition of 1589. Thereafter Spain provided some support for Irish Catholics in
a debilitating rebellion against English rule, and Spanish naval and land forces inflicted a series
of reversals against English offensives. This drained both the English Exchequer and economy
that had been so carefully restored under Elizabeth's prudent guidance. English commercial and
territorial expansion would be limited until the signing of the Treaty of London the year
following Elizabeth's death.
England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government, largely a
result of the reforms of Henry VII and Henry VIII. Economically, the country began to benefit
greatly from the new era of trans-Atlantic trade.
-The age of Shakespeare was a great time in English history. The reign of Queen Elizabeth I
(1558-1603) saw England emerge as the leading naval and commercial power of the Western
world. England consolidated its position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and
Elizabeth firmly established the Church of England begun by her father, King Henry VIII
(following Henry's dispute with the Pope over having his first marriage annulled).

Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world and became the most celebrated English sea
captain of his generation. Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh sent colonists eastward in
search of profit. European wars brought an influx of continental refugees into England, exposing
the Englishman to new cultures. In trade, might, and art, England established an envious
preeminence.
At this time, London was the heart of England, reflecting all the vibrant qualities of the
Elizabethan Age. This atmosphere made London a leading center of culture as well as commerce.
Its dramatists and poets were among the leading literary artists of the day. In this heady
environment, Shakespeare lived and wrote.
London in the 16th century underwent a transformation. Its population grew 400% during the
1500s, swelling to nearly 200,000 people in the city proper and outlying region by the time an
immigrant from Stratford came to town. A rising merchant middle class carved out a productive
livelihood, and the economy boomed.
In the 1580s, the writings of the University Wits (Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Kyd, and Peele)
defined the London theatre. Though grounded in medieval and Jacobean roots, these men
produced new dramas and comedies using Marlowe's styling of blank verse. Shakespeare outdid
them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with classical sources, enriching the
admixture with his imagination and wit.
The Elizabethan Era's Effect on Shakespeare's Works
If every playwright in Shakespeare's time aspired, as he did, to paint a portrait of an age in their
works, his would have been the Mona Lisa, leaving the most lasting impression on generations to
come and at the same time, one of the world's most baffling mysteries. Surely it is no
coincidence that the world's most celebrated dramatist would've lived during the time when one
of the world's most powerful rulers in history reigned. Or was it? How much influence from the
Elizabethan era was infused into Shakespeare's plays? Especially since it was a time of religious
reformation and fluctuating political relations, in which England was very much in the thick of.
The events and personalities of the Elizabethan age helped Shakespeare create a vivid and
colorful world to build his plays on, and in return, Shakespeare's genius helped to define this
pinnacle of English history. To best understand Shakespeare, it is crucial to understand the age in
which he lived and worked. The Elizabethan era was characterized by a renascent interest in the
arts, long forgotten because of the many years of turmoil and political unrest that preceded it.
Most notably was the War of the Roses, in which the two Houses of Lancaster and York fought
over possession of the English crown until finally the Lancastrians were defeated. However, their
victory was short-lived for it was soon snatched away by the Duke of Gloucester, the same duke
that legend say murdered two young princes in the Tower of London. He is also known as

Richard III. In the end, Henry VII defeated him in Bosworth, which heralded the beginning of
the Tudor dynasty. This royal ruling house, reigning for over a century, was able to catapult
England from its indigent and inferior international standing as just a pawn between the two
powerhouses of the era, Spain and France, to a proud and confident nation, greatly in part to
Queen Elizabeth's brilliant tactical diplomacy...
-The Renaissance was a time of change and prosperity, a time of rebirth full of innovations and
inspiration. "Renaissance," which is actually French for "rebirth," describes the intellectual and
economic changes that occurred in Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries
(Encyclopdia Britannica). Europe broke free from the economic stagnation of the Middle Ages
and experienced a time of financial growth. The Renaissance was an age in which artistic, social,
scientific, and political thought turned in new directions. In the late Middle Ages, when the threat
of invasion from barbarians had lessened, people left the country for towns and cities so they
could engage in more profitable pursuits (Encyclopedia Britannica). The more and more people
crowded villages and cities, the threat of illness quickly spread. During the late Middle Ages and
early Renaissance (around 1350-1450) the bubonic plague, better known as the Black Death,
devastated around one half of the population in Europe (Nagel). The plague spread most rapidly
in these cities, where people were in constant close contact with each other. The only way to
avoid this disease was to leave the city for the country. Unfortunately, the only ones available to
make the trip were those who were wealthy enough. The population decrease caused by the
Black Death led to an economic depression (Nagel). This left England damaged in numbers and
in spirit. Merchants and salesmen had fewer customers which led to fewer things being sold
within the marketplace. Products accumulated, and the merchants and traders suffered a huge
loss of income (Nagel). The economic hardship spread though out the entire country of Europe,
impacting everyone living there. This inspired many people to write journals and poems about
their fears and hardships. Although this was a time of complete devastation and uncertainty, the
people of England did not let this hold them down. Instead, they used it more as fuel to grow...