1. Renaissance
Period
Periods of English Literature
Week 4

2. Time Period
1500-1660

3. Historical Context
● Period of transition from medieval to modern
world in Western Europe.
● Started at various times for certain countries.
(English "rebirth" began a century before
Italian's "rebirth")
● Began with Early Tudor Age (c.1500-1557)
and ended with Commonwealth Interregnum
(1649-1660)
● The best way to cover the Renaissance is by
"age."

4. Early Tudor Age (1500-1557)
● Ideas of Ren. replacing those of the Middle Ages.
● The Reformation of English church and revival of learning
known as humanism changed English life.
● Expirimentation and French and Italian influences.
● Wyatt and Surrey introduced the Italian sonnet, terza rima,
ottava rima.
● Surrey: first who used Blank Verse.
● Famous authors: Sir Thomas Elyot, More (Utopia).
● Medival drama still dominant. Emerging works: mystery
plays, moralities, interludes, school plays.
● "Ralph Roister Doister"--first regular English comedy
● Tottel's Miscellany (1557)--most important liteary work:
"new poetry" collection

5. Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
● During reign of Elizabeth I. Nationalistic
expression, commercial growth, and religious
controversy. Development of English drama,
outburst of lyric poetry, new interest in criticism.
● Famous authors: Sidney, Spenser, Marlowe,
Shakespeare, Bacon, Jonson and Donne
(metaphysical poet)
● "Golden Age of English Literature"

6. Jacobean Age (1603-1625)
● During reign of James I. Breach b/w Puritan and
Cavalier widened, growth in realism in art and cynicsm
in thought.
● Greatest period for English drama. Shakespeare wrote
his greatest tragedies and published his "Sonnets".
Jonson:classical tragedy, realistic comedy, and
masques.
● Famous authors: Shakes, Jonson, Beumont, Fletcher,
Webster, Chapman, Middleton and Massigner. Drayton
("Poems"), Donne (metaphysical poetry), Bacon, Burton
(Anatomy of Melancholy), Dekker (realistic novels)
● Character essays
● King James translation of Bible

7. Caroline Age (1625-1642)
● During reign of Charles I of England, with his spirit. It is
both Cavalier and Puritan. It is a carryover of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean ages.
● Metaphysical poets, cavalier lyricists.
● Drama was decadent, romantacism was in decline,
classicism advancing, scientific spirit growing.
● Puritian migration to America was heavy

8. Commonwealth Interregnum
(1649 -1660)
● Period b/w execution of Charles I in 1649 and the
restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660,
during which England was ruled by Parliament under
control of the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell, whose
death in 1658 marked the beginnning of the end of the
Commonwealth.
● Famous authors/works: Milton with his political
pamphlets, Hobbe's Levethian (1651), Taylor's Holy
Dying and Holy Living (1650, 1651), Walton's The
Compleat Angler (1653), Thomas Browne, Thomas
Fuller. Dryden and his poetry. Marvell.
● Drama continued. Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes
(1656)

9. Description of Period
● A time of rebirth. A period of humanistic
thoughts. Scientific. Hellenistic. Intense
individualism.