THE RENAISSANCE

The Beginning The End

(1400 – 1550) (1625 – 1660)

The Acme
(1559 – 1625)
- a revolution of thought:
◦ arts
◦ letters

- an intellectual movement:
◦ Western Europe
. Italy: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio
. Greek: Plato, Homer, Sophocles

- the invention of printing (1450)

- the outbreak of the Reformation:

◦ translations
- the revival of Learning:
◦ essays:
. Sir Thomas More (1478 – 1535):
Utopia (1516) the true prologue to the
Renaissance

◦ poetry:
. Thomas Wyatt (1503 -1542):
Petrarchan sonnets an octave + sestet
abba abba cdc dcc
. Henry Howard/Earl of Surrey (1517 – 1547):
English Sonnet three quatrains + a
couplet
abab cdcd efef gg
drama:
. Nicholas Udall Comedy
Ralph Roister Doister (1533)

. Thomas Norton Tragedy

Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex (1562)

. Thomas Sackville (1536 – 1608)

The Mirror for Magistrates
▪ Poetry
1. Edmund Spenser (1552 – 1599)
- Shepherd’s Calendar (1579)
- Fairie Queene (1589 – 1596)
Spenserian stanza: 8 lines + 1
iambic pentameter
ababbcbc + alexandrine c
- Amoretti (1595)
- Epithalamion
- Prothalamion
. Sir Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586):
- Astrophel
- Stella
- Arcadia
- Defence of Poesie (an essay)

3. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 – 1618):

- The Discovery of the Empire of Guiana
- History of yhe World

4. Thomas Campion (1567 – 1620):

- songs

5. Michael Drayton (1563 -1631):

- songs
Precursors of Shakespeare:
1. John Lily (1554 – 1606)
- Euphues
- Endymion (myth)
2. George Peele (1558 – 1597)
- David and Bethsabe (old mistery)
3. Robert Green (1560 – 1592)
- Friar Bacon and Friar Bangay (love story)
- James IV (history)
4. Thomas Lodge (1558 – 1625)
- A Looking Glass for London and England
(+Green)
- Rosalinde (pastoral romance)
Thomas Nash (1567 – 1601):
- The Life of Jack Wilton (1594)
picaresque novel
6. Thomas Dekker (1570 – 1632):
- The Bachelor’s Banquet (tragic comedy)
7. Thomas Kyd (1558 – 1594):
- The Tragedy of Blood / The Tragedy of
Revenge
- Spanish Tragedy (a pro-Shakespearean
Hamlet)
8. Christopher Marlowe (1564 – 1593):
- Tamburlaine ( 1587)
- Doctor Faustus (1588)
- The Jew of Malta (1590)
- Edward II (1591)
Poetry
-John Milton (1608 – 1674):
‘L’ Allegro’ and ‘ Il Penseroso’
‘Lycidas’
‘Econoclastes’
‘Paradise Lost’ (1667)
‘Paradise Regained’ (1668)
‘Blindness’
‘Deceased Wife’
Prose
Francis Bacon 91567 – 1626), his principal writings are:
‘Essays’ and ‘ The Advancement of Learning’.
John Bunyan (1628 – 1688), ( Puritan’s preacher):
- ‘The Pilgrim Progress’
- ‘Everyman’
-’The life and death of Badman’(1680)
Drama
At the end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign the decay of the
drama begun and closed in 1642 but reopened at the
restoration 1660, then with Dryden an entirely new
kind if play came into fashion.
 Concerning the Form:
- Blank verse
- Heroic couplets

 Concerning the Plot:

The idea and the subject of the story are taken
from
- the history
- novels (esp. Italy and France)
- romances
-daily life
- heroes from England’s history
 Style of Writing:
- poetic drama
- beauty, spontaneity and passion
to strictness of order
- formal and dignified language of
the classics
- followed the fashion of the time

 Concerning the extent of work:

- 37 plays: 16 comedies
10 tragedies
11 historical
- 2 long narrative poems
- 154 sonnets + other poems
 the Brilliant Apprentice (26 – 30):
- 1590-1594:
Venus and Adonis (1593)
Lucrece (1594)
King Henry
Love Labour’s Lost
The Comedy of Errors (1592-
1594)
Two Gentlemen of Verona
 The Successful Craftsman (30 – 36)
- 1594-1600:
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
As You Like It
Twelfth Night
Merchant of Venice
Richard II (1596)
Henry V (1598-99)
Romeo and Juliet
Julius Caesar (1598-99)
Taming of the Shrew (1594-97)
Marry Wives of Windsor (1597-1600
 The Accomplished Master (36 – 43)
- 1600 - 1607:
Hamlet (1600-01)
All’s Well that Ends Well (1600-
04)
Troilus and Cressida (1601-03)
Measure to Measure (1603-04)
Othelo (1604-05)
King Lear (1605-06)
Macbeth (1605-06)
 The Ease of Genius (43 – 49)
- 1607 – 1613:
Antony and Cleopatra (1607-
08)
Timon of Athens (1608-10)
Pericles
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
The Winter’s Tale (1610-11)
The Tempest (1611-12)
Henry VIII (1612-13)
 The universality of his genius:
tragedies
comedies
historical plays
narrative verse
sonnets
 His profound insight into the psychology of man,
and his characters are the real men and women
with complex personality
 His characters are as a rule so well conceived
 Enormous dramatic tension dramatic irony
 The dialogue form highest perfection in a
complete harmony of poetry and drama