The Renaissance began in Italy; it was a period were the rebirth of literaly, artistic and intellectual development occurred.The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It  entered England one century later than Europe. In the Middle Ages the soul was the most important thing because everyone was interested in salvation. In that new period the central position of the men was foundamental. We can see that in the Art of the Renaissance infact there were a lot of monuments that rapresented the human body. Humans wanted to be considered not only for their soul but for the human being.Renaissance was a reborth of culture; art moved from Gothic to other different kind of  artistic movements. There was the idea of the chain of being according to which everything has his place and humans were God on the heart. New necessities were born because people needed to put the human body in a central position so there were a contraddiction between soul and body. This new period was also characterized by the new discoveries, like the discovery of America in 1492, the discoveries of Copernicus and the modern world was accelerated by discoveries of science and exploration. So England needed political stability and Elizabeth 1^st  was the powerful monarch that provided it, although she had to undertake the masculine respontabilities of power in a society in which the role of woman was limited. The religious devotion of the Middle Ages declined and more emphasis was placed on discovering humanity’s place on earth infact people. Before the Renaissance, during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church was dominant in most states of Europe. The Pope was the singular most influential and feared bodies in politics. At this time, the church would be the center of all community life, especially because the clergymen were often the only people in a town who were literate. As the Renaissance started to blossom, the church was still the center of life and a refuge from the horrors of war and plague.However, by this time various factors had begun to act against the church's influence. As the Renaissance was re-awakening, it was also a rebirth of thought. So various people began taking up their own views and opinions of the world and began questioning the church and the Pope. The Reformation brought about by Henry 8^th, had changed definitively England’s religious life. So England bacame Protestant and indipendent, with Enry 8^th as Head of both church and state.Then it was essential for Elizabeth to win the consense of Protestants and Catholic but England remained Protestant and it was separate from all Europe. According to the literature the sonnet entered Great Britain and It originatied in Italy in the 12th and 13th centuries. The best known Italian sonneteers were Dante and Petrarch. The sonnet  is a lyrical composition consisting of an  octave and one sestet. the octave has the function to pose the problem, the sestet tried to provide a solution.