ELIZABETHAN AGE(1550-1600)

POETS
1. EDMUND SPENSER

intended the poem to consist of twelve books;

first 3 -
1 The Faerie Queene 1590 incomplete; long allegorical poem; the Spenserian
3- 1596 stanza; praise of Queen Elizabeth I; follows several
knights in an examination of several virtues

 first major work; emulates Virgil's Eclogues of the

first century BCE and the Eclogues of Mantuan by
The Shepheardes 1579
2
Calender appeared Baptista Mantuanus; cosisting 12 eclouges; archaic
vocabulary; formulating weighty—often satirical—
opinions on questions of the day

Complaints
Complaints is a poetry collection by Edmund Spenser, published in 1591. It contains nine
poems. Its publisher, William Ponsonby, added an introduction of his own.
The poem is narrated by Verulame, female spirit of
Verulamium, and praises the late Robert Dudley, 1st
1 The Ruins of Time Earl of Leicester, though perhaps in an ironic tone.

dedicated to Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby;

concerned with the state of contemporary
2 The Tears of Muses c. 1580 literature,but also mourns the death of the poet
Richard Willes in about 1579.

Based on Les Antiquitez de Rome (1558) by Joachim du Bellay

3 The Ruins of Rome
dedicated to Anne Spencer, Baroness Mounteagle; an allegorical poem ,w

Prosopoeia, or
4 Mother Hubberds 1578-79
Tale

a sonnet cycle; The cycle describes his courtship and

5 Amoretti p. 1595 eventual marriage to Elizabeth Boyle; p. by William
Ponsonby.

Thomas Sackville, 1st earl of Dorset,

the first English tragedy written in blank verse;
1 1563
wrote this play with Thomas Norton;
Gorboduc 
the most famous part of the Myrrour, describes the
poet’s visit to the infernal regions; published in The
2 Mirror for Magistrates (1563)

Induction
published in The Mirror for Magistrates (1563);
3  Buckingham's complaint genre
Complaint
 Philip Sidney
English sonnet sequence containing 108 sonnets
and 11 songs; in greek Astrophil is the star lover,
and Stella is his star; The cycle tells the story of
Stella , beloved by Astrophel , who loves poetry
almost as much as he loves her. He details his
1 Astrophel and 1580s
passionate feelings for Stella, his struggles with
Stella conflicting emotions, and his final decision to
abandon his pursuit of her in favour of a life of
public service

long prose pastoral romance; most ambitious literary

2 Arcadia  1593 work by far;
a work of literary criticism; an answer to school of
An Apology for p. 1595 abuse by gosson
3 Poetry (or The after
Defence of Poesy) death

michael drayton
first book; a volume of spiritual poems, dedicated
to Lady Devereux; notable for a version of the Song
The Harmony of of Solomon, executed with considerable richness of
1 1591 expression.
the Church

a collection of nine pastorals, in which he

The Shepherd's celebrated his own love-sorrows under the poetic
2 Garland 1593
name of Rowland; in sonnet

a topographical poem describing England; divided

3  Poly-Olbion s.1598 into thirty songs, written in alexandrine couplets
p. 1612

England's
4 1597
Heroical epistles
5 The barron's wars 1603
6 Nymphidia  1627
7 The Owl 1604
8 The Man in the 1606
Moon 

pre shakespear dramas

George Peele

1 The Arraignment of Paris1581
Paris is asked by Jupiter to decide which goddesses,
Juno, Pallas or Venus should be awarded the
goldenapple. He awards this to Venus who carries
Paris away, leaving his wife Oenone disconsolate.
Juno and Pallas arraign Paris before the gods of
partiality in his judgement. The case is then referred
to Diana, with whom the final decision rests. She
gives the apple to none of the competitors but to a
nymph called Eliza, 'our Zabeta fayre', a reference to
Queen Elizabeth I.

 Famous
2 Chronicle of King Edward1593
the First 
centers around three young men who become
lost in the woods, but are given shelter for the
3  The Old Wives' Tale p.1593 night by Clunch, a blacksmith, and his wife Madge;
political satire,

w. 1588 based on the Biblical story of David and 

The Love
4 of King David and fair Bethsabe
p.1599 Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 and 12.

robert greene
Friar
1 Bacon and Friar Bungay,
1589 prince Edward plans to seduce Margaret
The History of
2 Orlando 1590
Furioso 
The Scottish
3 History of 1590
James the
Fourth 
The Comical History of Alphonsus, King of
4 Alphonsus 1587
Aragon 

thomas nashe
Dido, Queen of Carthage, is a collaboration with Christopher Marlowe,n
1 mareowe's dido

 anticipates the masque that would evolve during

Summer's
2 Last Will and Testament the Jacobean and Caroline eras. 
Jack Wilton adventures through the European
The Unfortunate
3 Traveller: or, the Lifep.of1594 continent and finds himself swept up in the
Jack Wilton
currents of sixteenth-century history.
tall tale, or a prose satire, Pierce, a man who hasnot
met with good fortune, who now bitterly
Pierce Penniless,
4 His Supplication to1592 complains of the world’s wickedness, and
the Divell 
addresses his complaints to the devil.

christopher marlowe
 believed to be based on books 1, 2 and 4
of Virgil's Aeneid The gods interfere with the love
lives of Dido and Aeneas, with Venus using Cupid to
trick Dido into falling in love with Aeneas, rather than
Iarbas, her
Carthaginian suitor. Dido and Aeneas pledge
their love to each other, but the Trojans warn
Aeneas that their future is in Italy, which is also
where Mercury and the other gods order Aeneas
1 Dido, Queen of Carthage1594 to go. The play ends when Aeneas leaves for
Italy with the Trojans and as Dido sets off a triple
suicide by throwing herself on a funeral pyre in
despair, followed by her despairing suitor Iarbus
and then by Anna, who loves Iarbus.

 blank verse; play recounts the brutal rise to power and the mysterious end of t

1587
2 Tamburlaine the Great 
p.1590

revolves around a Maltese Jewish merchan

t named Barabas. The original story combines
religious conflict, intrigue, and revenge, set
against a backdrop of the struggle for supremacy
3 The Jew of Malta 1589-90 between Spain and the Ottoman Empire in the 
Mediterranean that takes place on the island
of Malta. 

Doctor Faustus, a well-respected German

scholar, grows dissatisfied with the limits of
4  Doctor Faustus 1588-92 traditional forms of knowledge—logic, medicine,
law, and religion—and decides that he wants to
learn to practice magic.
 focuses on the relationship between King
 Edward II of England and Piers Gaveston, and
5 Edward II  1592 Edward's murder on the orders of Roger Mortimer.

concern the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre,

1593 which took place in Paris in 1572
6 The Massacre at Parisp.1594

John lyly
1Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit
1578 a didactic romance written by John Lyly,
While in Athens, Alexander falls in love with the
2 Campaspe  p.1584 beautiful Theban captive, Campaspe.
3 Sapho and Phao per.1584 love story of phao and venus
  set in a village on the Lincolnshire shore of
the river Humber and in the neighboring
woods. It features a host of characters
4 Gallathea or Galateaper. 1588 including Greek deities, Nymphs, fairies, and
some shepherds.

centers around a young courtier, Endymion,

who is sent into an endless slumber by Tellus,
Endymion,
5 w.1588 his former lover, because he has spurned her
the Man in the Moon
to worship the ageless Queen Cynthia.

allegorical plays; on the treatment of the

6 Midas 1591 Midas story given in Book xi of the
p.1592 Metamorphoses of Ovid

 It is a comedy in the tradition of Plautus and

Terence, where wayward young men and their
ingenious servants outwit their more
7 Mother Bombie e 1594 prudential elders in bringing their love affairs
to a successful conclusion. It is a work of farce and
social realism; 

allegorical pastoral; a love comedy mixing

gods and humans in parallel situations which
is dense, choric, and transparent, memorably
8 Love's Metamorphosis1600-01 unfolding in pattern, structure and tone that
give even its moral candour a haunting sense
of beauty:

The Woman in the "a satire on women," personified goddess of

9 1595 Nature
Moon
10 Euphues and his England,1579

thomas lodge

 introduced classical satires and verse

1  A Fig for Momus  1595 epistles (modeled after those of Juvenal
and Horace) 

2 A Margarite of America 1596 combines Senecan motives and Arcadian

romance in an improbable love story between a
Peruvian prince and a daughter of the king
of Muscovy.
3 An Alarum Against Usurers 
1584 exposed the ways in which moneylenders lured
young heirs into extravagance and debt.

Rosalynde: pastoral comedy; Two young persons of high

4 Euphues Golden birth, who have recently lost their fathers
Legacie (one to death, one to banishment), fall in love
but are separated almost at once and forced to
flee to the Forest of Arden.

thomas kyd
 the very first revenge play of the Elizabethan era;
tells the story of a wedding between a Spanish
knight and a beautiful Italian woman, and it ends in
murder and suicide. During the play,
Bel-Imperia stabs and kills Balthazar before
1  The Spanish Tragedy 
1582 and 1592. 
stabbing herself.

william shakespear
Titus,a general in the Roman army, presents
Tamora, Queen of the Goths, as a slave to the
new Roman emperor, Saturninus. Saturninus
takes her as his wife. From this position Tamora
1 Titus Andronicus 1591 - 1592vows revenge against Titus for killing her son.
Titus and his family retaliate.

 two young Italian star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile

2 Romeo and Juliet 1595 - 1596

 Brutus speaks more than four times as many lines

3 Julius Caesar  1599
as the title character, and the central psychological
drama of the play focuses on Brutus.Brutus joins a
conspiracy led by Cassius to murder Julius Caesar, to
prevent Caesar becoming a tyrant. Antony stirs up
hostility against the conspirators. Rome becomes
embroiled in civil war.

longest play,depicts Prince Hamlet and his revenge

against his uncle, Claudius, who has murdered
4 Hamlet  1600 Hamlet's father in order to seize his throne and
marry Hamlet's mother.

Othello is a Moorish general in the Venetian army

5 Othello  1604
charged with the generalship of Venice on the eve
of war with the Ottoman Turks over the island
of Cyprus. He has just married Desdemona, a
beautiful and wealthy Venetian, much younger
than himself, against the wishes of her father.
Iago is Othello's jealous and bitter ensign, who
maliciously stokes his master's jealousy until the
usually stoic Moor kills his beloved wife in a fit of
blind rage.
  Timon lavishes his wealth on parasitic
6 Timon of Athens  1604 - 1606companions until he is poor and rejected by
them. He rejects mankind and goes to live in a cave.
A brave Scottish general named Macbeth
 receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that
one day he will become King of Scotland.
Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by
his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and
takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then
wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to
commit more and more murders to protect
himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon
7 Macbeth  1606 becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and
consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and 
Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and
death.

 based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear relinquishes his pow

8 King Lear  1606

based on Thomas North's 1579 English

translation of Plutarch's Lives (in Ancient Greek)
and follows the relationship between Cleopatra
and Mark Antony from the time of the Sicilian revolt
to Cleopatra's suicide during the Final War of the
Antony and Roman Republic
9 1606
Cleopatra 

based on the life of the legendary Roman leader 

10 Coriolanus 1606 Caius Marcius Coriolanus. 

The Taming of the 1580-90 depicts the courtship of Petruchio and Katherina,

1 the headstrong, obdurate shrew. Initially,
Shrew 
Katherina is an unwilling participant in the
relationship; however, Petruchio "tames" her with
various psychological torments, such as keeping her
from eating and drinking, until she becomes a
desirable, compliant, and obedient bride.
 The Two
2 Gentlemen of 1590
Verona  the themes of friendship and infidelity, the conflict between friendship a

tells the story of two sets of identical twins who

The Comedy of
3 1594
Errors  arrive in Ephesus, which turns out to be the home of
were accidentally separated at birth. Antipholus
of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio of Syracuse,
their twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and his
servant, Dromio of Ephesus. When the Syracusans
encounter the friends and families of their twins, a
series of wild mishaps based on mistaken
identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-
seduction, the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus, and
false accusations of infidelity, theft, madness,
and demonic possession.

One subplot involves a conflict among four

A Midsummer Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six
4 Night's Dream 
1595-96 amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are
to perform before the wedding. Both groups find
themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who
manipulate the humans and are engaged in their
own domestic intrigue.

Love's Labour's
5 1595-96
Lost 
follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as they attempt to

The Merchant of
6 1596-97
Venice 
 a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided b

Falstaff decides to fix his financial woe by

7 The Merry Wives 1597-1601 seducing the wives of two wealthy merchants. The
of Windsor  wives find he sent them identical letters and take
revenge by playing tricks on Falstaff when he comes
calling.
 Much Ado About
8 Nothing 
1598

 set in Messina and centers around two romantic pairings that emerge w

 pastoral comedy; follows its heroine Rosalind as she

9 As You Like It  1599
flees persecution in her uncle's court, accompanied
by her cousin Celia to find safety and, eventually,
love, in the Forest of Arden. In the forest, they
encounter a variety of memorable characters,
notably the melancholy traveller Jaques, who speaks
many of Shakespeare's most famous speeches.
Jaques provides a sharp
contrast to the other characters in the play, always
observing and disputing the hardships of life in the
country.

centres on the twins Viola and Sebastian, who

10 Twelfth Night  1601 are separated in a shipwreck. Viola (who is
disguised as Cesario) falls in love with the Duke
Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia.
Upon meeting Viola, Countess Olivia falls in love
with her thinking she is a man.

At Troy during the Trojan War, Troilus and 

Troilus and 1601-02 Cressida begin a love affair. Cressida is forced to
11
Cressida  leave Troy to join her father in the Greek camp.
Meanwhile, the Greeks endeavour to lessen the
pride of Achilles.

All's Well That Bertram is compelled to marry Helena. Bertram

12 1603-06 refuses to consummate their marriage. He goes to
Ends Well 
Italy. In Italy he courts Diana. Helena meets Diana.
They perform the bed trick.
13 Measure for 1604
Measure   follows the story of Pericles and Marina.
Pericles, Prince of Pericles, prince of Tyre, is one of the suitors for
14 1608 the hand of the beautiful daughter of Antiochus,
Tyre 
king of Antioch, who has told all suitors that they
must correctly answer a riddle he gives to earn her
15 Cymbeline  hand; if they fail, they are executed.
1610 based on legends that formed part of the Matter
of Britain concerning the early Celtic British
King Cunobeline 
16 The Winter's Tale  1611 The jealous King Leontes falsely accuse his wife
Hermione of infidelity with his best friend, and she
dies. Leontes exiles his newborn daughter Perdita,
who is raised by shepherds for sixteen years and
falls in love with the son of Leontes' friend.

17 The Tempest  1611  about magic, betrayal, love and forgiveness. It is

set on an island somewhere near Italy where
Prospero, the one-time Duke of Milan, and his
beautiful daughter, Miranda, live with a sprite called
Ariel and a strange wildman called Caliban.

1 King John  1595-97

2 Richard II  1595-96
3 Richard III  1592-94
4 Henry IV, Part 1  1594-97
5 Henry IV, Part 2  1597-98
6 Henry VI, Part 1 1592
7 Henry VI, Part 2 1591
8 Henry VI, Part 3  1595
9 Henry V  1599
10 Henry VIII  1613

1 Cardenio
2 Edward III
3 Love's Labour's
Won

4 Sir Thomas More

The Two Noble

5 Kinsmen
GE(1550-1600)