THE RENAISSANCE

 

England was experiencing a profound change at the end of the 15th century. As a matter of fact during this period:

1. The wars of the Roses came to their end (in 1485) and with those also the period later called Late Middle Ages.

2.William Caxton had printed his first English text and Modern English was born as a language.

3.Columbus discovered America in 1492.

4.The globe was circumnavigated

5.Copernicus had denied the central position of the Earth in the universe.

6.The science and exploration researches started because the world suddenly expanded and changed.

7. The rediscovery of the classical world of Greece and Rome caused the birth of new beliefs that inspired all the branches of art, philosophy and learning.

During the Renaissance people needed to revaluated as human being not only as soul.

 

The Renaissance in England was link to the consolidation of the Tudor dynasty with the reign of Elisabeth I. She was able to restore political stability in England. Being a women didn’t help her situation because woman had limited power in the past. England was divided among Catholics, Protestants and later Puritans but she was able to manage to avoid civil wars unlike other European countries.

 

Religion was a sore issue. After the Henry VIII’s religion reformation the religious life changed a lot in England. This country became Protestant and independent with Henry VIII as Head of both Church and State. Henry’s daughter Mary latter called “bloody Mary” tried to keep back Catholicism and during that period hundreds of people were burnt as heretics. Elisabeth I was able to manage the people and she made them cooperate and at the same time she made sure that the Church of England remained a Protestant Church.

 

Elisabeth also had to face the serious economic problems caused both by the increase of population and price inflation. As a result this period, thanks to her, saw prosperity and great increase in foreign trade

 and exploration, the birth of scientific learning and the flourishing literary culture.

 

The new faith influenced literature as well as music, learning and culture which were inspired by Italian poets and scholars. Literature didn’t have a religious aim anymore but favoured the figure of human kind with all his qualities and weaknesses. This new literature was later called Elisabethan literature and it found as its great expression drama which was clash between the individual and the social order.

 

During the Renaissance started the golden period of drama with a group of playwrights called the “university wits” who were Cristopher Marlowe (1564-1593), Robert Greene (1558-1592) and Thomas Nashe (1567-1601).

Shakespeare was the best playwright in all the English history, he drew from all kind of sources and showed a deep knowledge of the human heart.  The theatre was the most public literary form of the period. On the other hand Poetry was more personal but the English history always remember Shakespearean sonnets as the highest peak of beauty and style.

John Donne and George Herbert were the most significant among the Metaphysical poets.

They were very innovative because they spoke about love using a violent and direct and intellectually complex language. Their poetry reflected the wish of their period to expand human horizons.

This was the period of questions caused by the profound changes. Change brought uncertainty but also vitality and creative tension.