"Renaissance" literally means "rebirth." It refers especially to the rebirth of learning that began in Italy in the fourteenth century, spread to the north, including England, by the sixteenth century, and ended in the north in the mid-seventeenth century (earlier in Italy). During this period, there was an enormous renewal of interest in and study of classical antiquity.
In England the historical indicate with he therm Renaissance the period when the Tudors reign.
But first , before talking about the renaissance, we have to focuses the attention on what happened before the renaissance that contributed in its development. The Agee before the renaissance was the Middle Age, that means age of transition, and during this period the only preoccupation for the mans was the salvation. The Middle-ages man’s didn’t take in consideration everything that wasn’t in connection with the church. The is why them spent their life to pray God for the salvation. But with the time they understood that the sense of the life couldn’t be confined to a religion solution. They understood that the salvation didn’t bring at the control of the passions. So they started to (abbandonare ) search the answers in the literature of the classics, to solve the problem of reconciling God and their new vision. The man realizes that his feelings as important as the material and the spiritual. The most important humanistic values were: beauty, order, and natural harmony. This is why in the Humanism, the age before the renaissance, the man was posed in a central position and why the study of the classics become very important.
The renaissance focused its attention/study on the human been/ nature of the human. The man of the renaissance considered them self on the same level of God. There were a new interest for the human beens and in the individual personality.
The classics’ man that inspirited the man of the renaissance in England were the writers of tragedies such as Seneca and Plutarco. In Italy Platone was taken as the model of the renaissance writers.
Renaissance was a artistic and cultural movement that develop in England from 1509 and 1660. It had very strong Protestants basis and it resented the influential of the Reformation.
The renaissance started later in England for two reasons: The first were the wars that take busy the country for years and the second was a geographic issue. Indeed England was more distant than Italy from Greek. So the classical works arrived later. During the renaissance the religion wasn’t forgot but it became not steal important. Some writers, as Shakespeare, didn’t imitated the classical but the medieval.
The English renaissance was the result of: 1) the influence of the Italian Renaissance, 2) The protestant Reform (that brought into the country new velours) 3)The scientific progress (thanks Copernicus and his theories of the centrality of the Sun) 4) the prosperity of the country