Elizabethan

Literature

Prepared by: Group 2

 About this lesson

The Elizabethan age is the period in English history the

corresponds with the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, from 1558 to
1603.
 Queen Elizabeth I of
 Reigned fromEngland
1558 to 1603.
 She also called the “The Virgin Queen”, “
Gloriana“ and “Good Queen Bess”.
 Daughter of King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.
 She was a Protestant.
 She avoided religious persecution.
 She was a tolerant ruler.
 One of her mottos was: ‘video et taceo’ (I see but say
nothing).
 Elizabethan Era
✽ Considered as the Golden Age Of Drama.
✽ The prose, novel, literary criticisms, and pamphlet were
some of the notable contributions of this era.
✽ During this era there were no wars , people started
working towards various art form and one such art form
was literature and other art forms of the literature.
✽ It was an era of peace, economic prosperity, liberty,
stability And great explorations.
 Literary features
 Renaissance or the classicism
 Inkhorn Controversy
 Humanism
 Abundance of literary output
 New Romanticism
 Drama
 Poetry
 prose
 Literary features
- Renaissance Inkhorn Controversy

Or the New Classicism, Related to the

Renaissance was
involvement of Greek
Strongly spread
and Latin words of
throughout the
England English Literature
 Literary features
New Romanticism
Drama
Humanism
The romantic quest for
the remote, Wonderful English tragedy was
Major Intellectual influenced heavily by
involvement Of and beautiful Was
present during the the Works of Latin
renaissance. dramatist, Seneca.
Humanism is a Elizabethan age. There
belief that Human was daring and
values and needs resolute spirit of
are more important adventure. It can be
than religious seen in Edmund
Beliefs. Spenser’s “The Fairie
Queene”
 Drama
✽ Gorboduc was one of the earliest blank verse tragedies, It was written by
Thomas Norton & Thomas Sackville. It was performed for the Queen in
1562.
✽ Some of the most important playwright ; William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson
and Christopher Marlowe.
✽ Romeo and Juliet, the most famous tragedy of love in all literature, And was
one of Shakespeare’s earliest tragedies .
✽ Ralph Roister Doister written by Nicholas Udall was the first English
comedy.
✽ The most popular dramatist/playwrights during the Elizabethan age was
William Shakespeare who wrote 39 Plays, 154 sonnets and 2 long narrative
poems.
Shakespeare’s plays were one of the lasting influence of this time
 Poetry
✽ The spread of Blank verse and sonnets.
- Sonnet (line lyric poem of fixed form and rhyme patterns)
- Blank Verse ( Unrhymed poetry, typically in iambic pentameter)
✽ Edmund Spenser was Known as “The Prince of Poet”. He is an English poet
whose long allegorical poem The Faerie Queene Is one of the greatest in
English language which was written in Spenserian Stanza.
 Blank Verse
✽ Introduced to England by Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of
Surrey
✽ An unrhymed version of the iambic pentameter
✽ Used in the first English drama by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton
✽ Used in Christopher Marlowe’s plays: Tamburlaine, Doctor Faustus and
Edward II
✽ Used by William Shakespeare in his plays: Hamlet, King Lear, Othello,
Macbeth, and The Winter’s Tale
 The Spenserian Sonnet
An adaptation of the Shakespearean sonnet but with a change in its variation
This variation in rhyming scheme is called linking couplets because the rhyme
scheme is tangled in a series of weaves
✽ has the rhyme scheme ABAB BCBC CDCD EE.
 The Shakespearean Sonnet
✽ Made Up of 14 lines In iambic pentameter( five metrical feet Consisting of
one unstressed And one stressed syllables)
✽ Follows the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, where the rhyme
happens after Every other lines of the first Three quatrains ,except For the
lines 13 and 14( the couplets)
✽ Has a pivot ( Sudden change in the direction or conclusion Found in the
ending Couplet)
 Prose
✽ The Elizabethan Prose turned to be translation Of foreign books, especially
the Italian Novella or short Romantic stories Like place of pleasure by
William.
✽ Some pioneers of Elizabethan prose :
○ Roger Ascham ; Toxophilus and the Schoolmaster
○ Richard Hooker; The law of ecclesiastical Polity
○ Sir Thomas Overbury; Characters
○ Sir Thomas More; Utopia
○ Francis Bacon; Essays, The Advancement of learning
○ Robert Burton; The Anatomy Of Melancholy
 Prose
✽ Non-fictional prose was abundant, particularly in Works of the great essayist
, Francis Bacon ,and in translation of the bible.
✽ Fictional prose, also, made its mornings during this era with the
development of English Novel, Such as More’s Utopia, Sydney’s Arcadia,
Lyly’s Ephesus, And Thomas Nash’s The Unfortunate Traveller.
Famous Writers during the Elizabethan Period
 William Shakespeare is known to be the greatest dramatist of all
time. He was a poet , dramatist and actor who performed his
plays in a small theater troupe during his time. His works are
considered relevant and relatable to audience until the present
time.
 Edmund Spenser is an English poet who wrote the poem The
Faerie Queene, which is also known as one of greatest poems in
English literature. The Spenserian stanza is also named after
him.
 Sir Philip Sidney aside from being a poet, he is also a statesman,
soldier patron of scholars and poets , and the ideals gentleman.
He is the writer of the Elizabethan sonnet sequence Astrophel
and stella.
Famous Writers during the Elizabethan Period

 Ben Jonson had a significant influence on English theatre and

poetry. His work popularized the genre of comedy of humours,
such as Every Man in His Humour (1598). He also the poet and
playwright who coined the term "metaphysical poets.
 Richard Hooker, the theologian who wrote Of the Laws of
Ecclesiastical Polity
 Thomas Kyd, the playwright who wrote The Spanish Tragedy
 Christopher Marlowe was an Elizabethan poet and playwright
who established the use of blank verse in his poems.