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THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
I/ Tudor Period (1485 – 1558)
1. Historical Context
1.1 The Renaissance
The Renaissance means rebirth in French, it was a period of artistic and cultural achievement
in Europe from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. It was characterized by a number of distinctive ideas
about life, specifically secularism, individualism, humanism, and materialism. The spirit of the renaissance
influenced European society for generations, making the renaissance truly a golden age in European history.
If the renaissance was a rebirth of culture, you might think that the period before the renaissance was one of
gloom and darkness. Historians have shown that the Medieval Era did produce art, architecture, Languages
and economics that influenced Europe and provided the foundation for the renaissance.
1.2 The Reformation
In England there was an important change in religion and politics, also there were many wars
and battles in this period , the most eminent war called : wars of the roses , this name is used for the period
of fighting (1455 – 85) in England between the supporters of the two most powerful families in the country
at the time , the house of Lancaster whose symbol was a red rose and the house of York , whose symbol
was a white rose , the aim of each side was to make a member of their family the king of England. Each side
was successful at different times, and the wars only ended when Henry Tudor (House of Lancaster) defeated
Richard III (House of York) and became king. His marriage to Elizabeth of York united the two sides and
ended the fighting. Another battle in this period is the battle of Bosworth Field: it is the last battle in the
wars of the roses.
1.3 Henry VIII
King of England (1509-1547) and son of Henry VII, he is one of the most known of all
English kings, partly because he had six wives. He married his first wife, they had a daughter later Mary I,
but did not have a son who could be the future king, therefore he decided to divorce his wife. The Pope
refused to give the necessary permission for the divorce; Henry removed England from the Catholic Church
led by the Pope and made himself the head of the church in England. This act together with others such as:
The dissolution of the Monasteries which means the destruction or sale of building and land belonging to
religious communities in England by King Henry VIII, it was the beginning of the establishment of
Protestantism in England. As a young man, Henry was known for his love of hunting, sport and music, but
he did not rule well and the country was in a weak and uncertain state when he died.
2. Literary characteristics of Tudor period
As it is mentioned in the middle ages, writers and philosophers viewed society as a
preparation for the afterlife, Renaissance writers were interested in the present or secular world.
3. Edmund Spenser
Spenser was known as the prince of poets he has always been controversial figure sometimes
described as a great poet with new ideas, sometimes as only a writer who tried to flatter his superiors. His
poems were characterized by many features:
 The romantic beauty: general atmosphere and description, he turned attention to the far more
important beauties.
 The allegory: lack of unity, Spencer with all his high endowments was decidedly weak in
constructive skill.
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 The lack of dramatic reality.
 The Spenserian stanza: Spenser’s work were written in Spenserian stanza, which consists of
eight iambici decasyllable lines and the ninth line if iambic hexameter rhyming.
THE RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION
II/ ELIZABETHAN PERIOD (1558 – 1603)
1. Elizabeth I
Elizabeth I is the queen of England from 1558, after the death of her sister Mary I. She is
Henry’s daughter from his second wife, was an extremely strong and clever woman who controlled the
difficult political and religious situation of the time with great skill. During her reign, the country’s economy
grew very strong. The arts were very active, and England became firmly protestant and confident in world
affairs. However, Elizabeth is often seen as a very lonely figure and is known as the virgin queen because
she never married. Elizabeth saved England from the Spanish conquest and helped the English army by
giving them many ships. Peace was only made with Spain once Elizabeth died.
2. Literary characteristics of Elizabethan period
In the Elizabethan period there were many changes in literature in general and especially in
writing. Most of the playwrights of the Elizabethan age wrote poetry as well as plays. Poetry was mostly in a
private form: many of the poets of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries did not publish their
works, but only showed them to friends, so the poets who are now regarded as the most important were not
very well known as poets at that time. This period was characterized by the soldier poets that show the
adventurous spirit of the age. Of the most known leading figures of literature in that period:
2.1 Philip Sidney (1554 – 1586)
Philip Sidney was the first major poet of the Renaissance period. In many ways, he was a
perfect man and soldier; his best – known works are Arcadia and Astrophel and Stella (the first famous
English sonnet). Sidney experiments with rhyme schemeii served to free the English sonnet from the strict
rhyming requirement of the Italian form.
2.2 Christopher Marlowe
An English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan Era, considered as the greatest
English playwright of the period before Shakespeare, and he has an important influence on Shakespeare’s
style. He was put in prison briefly on suspicion of murder, and was murdered in a fight at the age of 29.
His plays are quite different in style and content from Shakespeare’s. They are tragedies with
superhuman heroes who stretch the limits of human life in several ways. The language of Marlowe is more
classically based than Shakespeare’s. Marlowe’s characters use a more poetic style than Shakespeare’s. This
was due to the influence of his university studies of Latin and Greek dramatic poetry. His best-known works
are Tamburlaine (part 1-2), Doctor Faustus and Edward II.
2.3 William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare is the most influential writer in all of English literature; he was born in
1564 to a successful middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare attended
grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. Around 1590 he traveled to London to work
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as an actor and playwright. Public and critical acclaim quickly followed, and Shakespeare eventually
becomes the most popular playwright in England and part-owner of the Globe Theater. His career bridged
the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, and he was a favorite of both monarchs. Wealthy and renowned,
Shakespeare retired to Stratford and died in 1616. At the time of Shakespeare’s death, his works were hailed
as timeless.
2.3.1 Shakespeare’s Writing Style
Shakespeare used a metrical pattern consisting of lines of unrhymed iambic pentameteriii,
called “blank verse”iv. His plays were composed using blank verse, although there are passages in all the
plays that deviate from the norm and are composed other forms of poetry and/or simple prose. In Macbeth
for instance, ordinary people do not talk in special rhyme; they just talk in contrast to the nobility.
2.3.2 Shakespeare’s Language
Shakespeare’s first plays were written in the conventional ordinary style. They were written
in a stylized language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters. So his language
is rhetorical, written for actors to declaim rather than speak. It is strongly believed that the English language
owes a great debt to Shakespeare who invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into
verbs, verbs into adjectives; and connecting words never before used together.
2.3.3 Shakespeare’s Drama
William Shakespeare was a successful dramatist in both, comedies and tragedies:
2.3.4 Shakespeare’s Tragedies
Most of Shakespeare’s great tragedies were written in his black period between the years
1598 and 1607. This period was called so after his son’s death, which might have influenced his style. His
major tragedies are Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet which is the most famous
tragedy of love in all literature.
Shakespeare’s earliest tragedies were about English history. He turns history stories into
tragedies following Marlowe’s path. What makes his works distinguished from other playwrights’ tragedies
is the use of soliloquies (i.e. a speech in play in which a character speaks to him or herself or to the people
watching rather than to the other characters) as in Hamlet’s speech “to be or not to be” (considered as the
most famous line in English literature). Through soliloquies, the audience shares the thought of the
characters.
2.3.5 The Sonnets
Shakespeare’s sonnetsv were probably written in the 1590’ s, known for the beauty of their
language. Many of them are addressed to a young man or a dark lady.
2.3.6 Macbeth
The tragedy of Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most powerful and emotionally intense
plays, it was written in 1606 in England and in English language.
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest and
bloodiest tragedy which dramatized certain events and legends in the history of Scotland in the eleventh
century. The play tells the story of a brave Scottish general called Macbeth; who receives a prophecy from a
trio of sinister witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Fuelled with ambitious thoughts, and
encouraged by his wife, Macbeth slays King Duncan and assumes the King ship. At first Macbeth was a fair
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good King, but after a couple of years, he was forced to turn into a murderous tyrant in order to protect
himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodshed propels Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to arrogance,
madness and demise.
Notes
i
Iambic: (derived from the noun iambus) a metrical food consisting of one short (unstressed) syllable
followed by one long (stressed) syllable.
ii
Rhyme scheme: The pattern of rhymes in a poem or verse.
iii
Pentameter: composed of “penta” means “five” and “meter”
iv
Blank verse: verse without rhyme especially that which uses “iambic pentameters”
v
A poem that has 14 lines and a particular pattern of rhyme.
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