Exploration of the English Renaissance in Literature

A massive transformation in literature took place during the Renaissance, especially in England. Here we will explore the changes of the 16th century and how these changes continue to influence works of literature today.

The spirit of the Italian Renaissance spread to England in the 16^th century and stimulated literary activity. The outstanding achievements in prose included the works of the influential humanists Thomas More (Utopia), Thomas Elyot (The Boke Named the Governeur), and Roger Ascham (The Scholemaster).

The 16^th century also saw the beginnings of English journalism in the topical pamphlets of Robert Green and Thomas Nash. The first formal literary criticism in English appeared in the writings of Sir Philip Sidney ("The Defence of Poesie"), Ben Jonson, and others. The prose romances of Sidney, Nash, Greene, and John Lyly (whose Euphues started a new prose style) were the forerunners of the English novel.

Exceptional work was also done in poetry and drama. Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, studies the Italian master Petrarch and introduced the sonnet form into English poetry. The result was an outburst of lyric expression that made the 16^th century one of the richest periods in English literature history. Various collections of poems were published, the two most important being Tottel's Miscellany (1557) and England's Helicon (1600). The latter included poetry by Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton, Thomas Lodge, Christopher Marlow, and Robert Greene. Other gifted poets of the period were John Skelton, Thomas Sackville, and Samuel Daniel.

The greatest narrative poem of the Renaissance was Spenser's Faerie Queen, a long unfinished allegory designed to teach moral and religious lessons and to glorify Queen Elizabeth I.

The great period of English drama extended from the reign of Elizabeth I to that of Charles I. Many excellent plays were contributed to the English theater by Lyly, Thomas Kyd (The Spanish Tragedy), Greene, George Peele, George Chapman, Thomas Dekker, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Heywood, Phillip Massinger, Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, and John Webster (The Duchess of Malfi). Christopher Marlowe, who is considered the father of English tragedy, wrote The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine the Great. Ben Jonson, who wrote The Alchemist and Volpone, was the great classicist of the Renaissance theater.

What his contemporaries did well, Shakespeare excelled in every way. His sonnets are the finest in the language. As a dramatist he is supreme. His many masterpieces include Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar.

Sources:

www.luminarium.org/renlit/renaissanceinfo.htm
www.answers.com/topic/english-renaissance-theatre
east_west_dialogue.tripod.com/europe/id5.html