Programa de Licenciatura para profesores de Lengua extranjera
UNMSM

– Historical background of the Elizabethans
Period.
– Literary of the Elizabethan Period.
– Shakespeare. Hamlet. Analysis.
– Christopher Marlowe. “
. Analysis”
– Walter Raleigh. “The Nymph’s Reply to the
Shepherd”.
– Benjamin Johnson. “To Celia”
– Edmund Spencer. “Amoretti”

Historical background: The Renaissance
(1485-1660)brought back interest in Greek -
Latin values-Italian art
• "Renaissance," or "rebirth," perfectly describes the intellectual and economic changes that occurred in Europe from the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries.
• During the era known by this name, Europe emerged from the economic stagnation of the Middle Ages and experienced a time of financial growth. Also, and perhaps most importantly, the Renaissance was an age in which artistic, social, scientific, and political thought turned in new directions

The middle-class population also had leisure time to spend on education and entertainment. In fact, education was essential for many middle-class professions.
Bankers and accountants needed to understand arithmetic. Those trading with other countries needed a knowledge of foreign currencies and languages. Reading was essential for anyone who needed to understand a contract. In their leisure time, middle-class men and women enjoyed such pastimes as reading for pleasure, learning to play musical instruments, and studying a variety of topics unrelated to their businesses .

• The Elizabethan Period: the reign of
Elizabeth I, 1586-1603 – Previous facts
• Printing press (invented in 1450)allows more people to read a variety of literature
• Christopher Columbus (1492) starts a trend of trips all over the world
• England breaks with the church in
Rome(1534)
• England and Spain expand and Economy changes from farm-based to one of international trade

•
• 1558 November 17, Accession of Queen Elizabeth
I, Elizabeth (daughter of Henry VIII) succeeded her Catholic sister Mary I who dies childless and re-established the Protestant Anglican
Church. (Reigned 1558 - 1603)
• When the Black Death ( Bubonic Plague ) broke out in London in 1563, Queen Elizabeth I moved her court to Windsor Castle where she erected gallows and ordered that anyone coming from London was to be hanged
• 1577 - Alliance between England and Netherlands
• Francis Drake sails around the world ( and returns in 1580) renaming his ship the Pelican to the
Golden Hind

•

• Elizabethan times were violent and England had diverse enemies,Scottish and Irish plotted against her, Spain attacked England on the seas.
• The Queen expanded her territory and managed to control her country and neighbours
• She never married but had several gentlemen in the court that were loyal to her
• There was fear of a French invasion.
• Queen Elizabeth dies on 24 March 1603 of of blood poisoning
• James I of England, James VI of Scotland, (greatgreat-grandson of Henry VII) is proclaimed King

• Renaissance Literature (1485-1660
)
• “Renaissance” means “Rebirth”--Rebirth of interest in the Greek and Latin classics
• Emphasis on humanistic education for statesmanship
• Focus on the individual and a concern with the fullest possible cultivation of human potential through proper education; focus on individual consciousness and the
Interior mind
• Concern with the refinement of the language and the development of a national, vernacular literature

• Style/Genres:
• poetry
– the sonnet
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Wrote sonnets in imitation of Petrarch and developed the English sonnet form that
Shakespeare later used, with 14 lines, divided into 3 quatrains and a couplet.
– metaphysical poetry
• elaborate and unexpected metaphors called conceits
• drama
– written in verse
– supported by royalty
– tragedies, comedies, histories
• Shakespeare and Marlowe wrote plays in blank verse.
• Blank Verse = unrhymed iambic pentameter poetry

•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
Poet & Playwright.
English dramatist, the father of English tragedy, and instaurator of dramatic blank verse, the eldest son of a shoemaker at
Canterbury.
Dr. Faustus (1604) Play about a man of learning who Strikes a bargain with Lucifer so that he can have forbidden knowledge and the power that brings.
Marlowe writes his plays in Blank
Verse. Critics admired
• “Marlowe’s Mighty Line.”

Sir Walter Raleigh
British explorer, poet and historian, was born probably in 1552, though the date is not quite certain. His father,
Walter Ralegh of Fardell, in the parish of Cornwood, near Plymouth, was a country gentleman of old family, but of reduced estate.
He was smart, handsome and his good manners pleased the Queen who made him one of her favorites.He made a fortune with jobs assigned by her.
His life ended violently,sentenced to death by King
James I. As a writer he vastly produced in poetry and in prose .

Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
English poet, author of The Faery Queen , was born in London about the year 1552.
•
The Shepheardes Calender (1579). Written in Imitation of Vergil’s Ecologues, the
Calender has an ecologue for each month of the year. Spenser uses 13 different verse forms and clearly wants to prove he is “our new poet.”
• The Faerie Queene (1590; 1596) A LONG narrative poem, an allegorical epic in six books. Spenser planned to write 12 books of the Faerie Queene, one for each of the "twelve private moral virtues" from Aristotle which Arthur represents.
In each book, a different hero represents one of these moral virtues.
Gloriana in the Faerie Queene represents Queen Elizabeth.
Amoretti (1595) A sonnet sequence of 89 sonnets that tell the story of a love relationship in which the couple move toward marriage (unlike all other sonnet sequences of the period

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Baptized 26 April 1564- died on 23 April 1616 ,was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist.He is often called
England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "The Bard").
His surviving works consist of 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems.
His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

•
•
•
•
•
•
•
• Laertes
• Rosencrantz
• Guildenstern

Benjamin Johnson
He was born in the first half of 1573, poet and actor . A contemporary of William
Shakespeare , he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone ,
The Alchemist , and Bartholomew Fair , which are considered his best, and his lyric poems.
A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy,
Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.