The Renaissance and the

Elizabethan Periods (Cont’d)

Lecture 4
Salman Hamid Khan
History of English History – I
BS English 2nd Semester
GDC Hayatabad
28/06/2020
Renaissance Poetry

• English best Elizabethan poetry was modelled on the Italian sonnet,

the first to use this metrical form was Jacopo da Lentini in the
beginning of the 13th century, but it was Petrarch (1304-1374) with
his Canzoniere that brought it to its peak while it was introduced in
England by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542). The Italian sonnet consists
of fourteen lines in iambic pentameters. The first part, the octave,
usually deals with a problem or introduces a situation whose
solutions can be found in the sestet. Generally the eighth or ninth
lines contain a turn of events.
• Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) developed the BLANK
VERSE, iambic pentameters with no rhyme (blank), its use is very
flexible and it gives poetry the flair of the language used in everyday
conversation. It is often used in drama, for instance by Shakespeare in
the Macbeth. It was in fact Shakespeare who brought it to excellence
and who also mastered the Italian sonnet as well. Though love
continued to be a favourite among Elizabethan poets, Shakespeare
introduced in his sonnets new themes such as beauty, decay and art,
while Donne and Milton used the sonnet to deal with religious issues
or personal experiences.
Renaissance Drama
• Drama was accessible to a larger public for quite a number of reasons,
among which we may include, first of all a long gone popular tradition
that may be traced back to medieval miracle, morality plays and
interludes that still resisted during the Renaissance since theatres
were open to all and the prices affordable for most. Second there
wasn’t any difference between the aristocratic taste and the wider
public’s taste, moreover it was understood even by illiterates since
the language employed in plays was less refined and more direct than
the one that characterized poetry or prose. A third reason is that
Humanism roused the public’s attention to classical drama, and many
aristocrats supported it, but, even more so, it came to be society’s
mirror since Elizabethan England was quite “theatrical”.
Influences and Themes of Elizabethan Drama
• Medieval drama flowed into Renaissance drama but the origins of the
theatre go way back to classical Greece which came to influence
English Renaissance theatre thanks to the New Learning that allowed
Greek heritage to spread in Europe.
• The word tragedy comes from the Greek and was linked to the rites
of sacrifices that were meant to purify through expiation the
participants from a collective sin reaching its peak in what is known as
catharsis, another Greek term and it means ‘purification’ these rites
included singing.
• The tragedy is centered on a doomed character,
generally a king, a prince or warrior, everything is
maneuvered by fate and the hero or anti-hero must
pay for guilt, or sin of which he is responsible for, the
punishment is usually great suffering that culminates
in death.
• The comedy, still of Greek origin is linked to village festivities
celebrating fertility, in contrast with the tragedy, it is generally based
on everyday situations and common characters; it is humorous and
has a happy ending. Meaning that although there may be a number
of misunderstandings, and mistaken identities that may cause
confusion it all ends well and harmony is re-established while all the
characters are reconciled.
• As far as the themes are concerned, English Renaissance tragedy was
nationalistic and celebrated English history. Moreover, it was
permeated by Seneca (4 B.C. – 65 A.D.), a Latin poet and philosopher,
from whom it took the division of the action in five acts, the taste for
violent, bloody tragic events leading to revenge; at the same time it
was also influenced by aspects taken from Machiavelli (1469-1527),
such as political intrigues, lies, the conniving subtle actions of the
villain that trigger the violent climax. The language was rich and full of
rhetoric to emphasize the conflicts underlying emotions and passions.
In comedy, instead, the main theme is love, a contrasted love that in
the end blossoms happily.