The Sixteenth Century Historical and Cultural Background

Two Significant Events:

 The defeat of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1845 – this ended the long-protracted struggles
between the Royal Houses of Lancaster and York - known as the Wars of Roses – established Henry VII as
the first of the Tudor Dynasty on the English throne
The Tudor Era was a period of expansion in geography, politics, and economics as well as in education,
religion, literature and art.
The Tudors established a strong centralized authority and created commercial prosperity
 The establishment of the first printing press in England by William Caxton
Renaissance and Humanism
 Renaissance – rebirth or more broadly, revival
 Rebirth of interest in the things and affairs of this world fostered by a growing knowledge of the ancient
civilizations of Greece and Rome
 In literature, it signifies the awakening of the dormant potentialities in Englishmen of ability to take up those
tools and combine them with their own abilities and skills to produce a great body of writings.
 The revival of classical literature and life was not only aesthetic but also moral in motivation.
 Humanism – was concerned with the life of the individual in this world and his relation to society; and
consequently, with the reform of the state itself.
 The humanist believed in free will and in man’s capacity for perfection
 Through proper education, man can develop public and private virtues
 Concerned with the reform of the Church, some humanists attacked its weaknesses, while the others tried to
do a hundred years later.
 They were also concerned with the ethical aspect of government
The Reformation
 This movement sought reform in the Roman Catholic Church and resulted in the establishment of the various
Protestant sects.
 As a European movement, the Reformation acquired its first great name in Protestantism when Martin Luther
in 1517 nailed on doors of Wittenberg cathedral his ninety – five theses attacking various corruptions of the
Roman Church
Characteristics of Tudor Literature
 Its non – professional quality – literary composition was considered a record of ideas and emotions limited
only to a relative few
 The Tudor writers did not make authorship a means of livelihood BUT they exerted much effort to secure
position and riches from a patron
 Tudor literature maybe roughly divided into:
 Literature of the courtier – reflects the interests, the tastes and even the language of the nobility.
The lines are loaded with Continental borrowings and affected thoughts and expressions
 There is limitless use of classical myths and legends, intricate allegories, pastoral conventions, medieval
philosophies and all kinds of pedantic adornments.
Courtly literature is essentially romantic – the literary world either of the heroic past, or of the ideal present
was inhabited by kings and queens, knights and ladies and courtly gentlemen who set the patterns of conduct
for their living counterparts.
 Italy was the source not only of fashions or modes of living but also of much literary materials and methods
 Petrarch became the model for the sonnet
 That of the citizen – bourgeois tastes and interests were reflected in much of the Tudor prose and drama which
contain more native materials than borrowed sources and which are characterized by more realism than
romance.
 Tudor literature may be classified into poetry, prose and drama