Section 2: Renaissance Literature

2.1 The English Renaissance: Historical Context

The Renaissance (French: "rebirth") was a cultural and intellectual movement originating in Italy in the 14th century and reaching England in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. It was characterised by a renewed interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, philosophy, and art, combined with a new emphasis on human potential and individual achievement — a philosophy known as humanism.

Key Historical Events

The English Renaissance is conventionally dated from the accession of Henry VII (1485) to the death of John Milton (1674), though its literary high point falls between 1580 and 1660. Several historical developments shaped its literature: the Reformation (Henry VIII's break with Rome, 1534), the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) — the period of greatest literary flourishing — the reign of James I (1603–1625), and the English Civil War (1642–51).

The Printing Press

William Caxton introduced the printing press to England in 1476, printing the first book in English (Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye). The press accelerated the spread of Renaissance ideas, standardised the English language, and made literature available to a much wider reading public.

2.2 Early Tudor Literature and Sir Thomas More

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535)

More was the foremost English humanist of the early Renaissance. His Utopia (1516), written in Latin, describes an ideal fictional island society — a vehicle for satirising European political institutions and exploring ideas of common ownership, religious tolerance, and rational governance. The word "utopia" (from Greek: "no place") has entered the language as a common noun.

John Skelton (c. 1460–1529)

Skelton was court poet to Henry VII and tutor to the future Henry VIII. His verse is characterised by "Skeltonics" — short, rhyming, tumbling lines of irregular metre. His major works include The Bowge of Court (allegory on court corruption), Colin Clout (satire on the clergy), and Speak, Parrot.

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)

Wyatt and Surrey introduced the Italian sonnet form into English, drawing on Petrarch. Their poems, circulated in manuscript, were published posthumously in Tottel's Miscellany (1557) — the first printed anthology of English lyric poetry. Surrey also invented blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) in his translation of Virgil's Aeneid, a form that would become the dominant medium of Elizabethan drama.

2.3 The Elizabethan Age: Poetry and Prose

Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

Sidney was the ideal Renaissance man — soldier, courtier, and poet. His major works are Astrophil and Stella (1591, posthumous) — the first major English sonnet sequence, 108 sonnets and 11 songs inspired by his love for Penelope Devereux — and An Apology for Poetry (also called The Defence of Poesy, c. 1579–80, published 1595), the most important work of Elizabethan literary criticism. In the Apology, Sidney defends poetry against Puritan attacks, arguing that poetry surpasses history and philosophy as a moral teacher because it combines truth with delight. He also wrote Arcadia (prose romance, two versions: the Old Arcadia and the revised New Arcadia).

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)

Spenser is the greatest non-dramatic poet of the Elizabethan age. His major works:

The Spenserian Stanza

Invented by Spenser for The Faerie Queene: nine lines, the first eight in iambic pentameter and the ninth (the alexandrine) in iambic hexameter, rhyming ababbcbcc. Later used by Keats (The Eve of St Agnes), Shelley (Adonais), and Byron (Childe Harold's Pilgrimage).

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) — Non-Dramatic Poetry

Marlowe's Hero and Leander (1598, completed by George Chapman) is the finest Elizabethan epyllion (minor epic). His lyric "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" ("Come live with me and be my love") is the most anthologised Elizabethan lyric; it received a famous reply in Raleigh's "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd."

Elizabethan Prose

John Lyly's Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit (1578) gave its name to euphuism — an ornate, antithetical prose style full of alliteration, simile, and classical allusion that became fashionable at court. Richard Hooker's Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1594–97) is a landmark of Anglican theological prose. Francis Bacon's Essays (first published 1597, expanded 1612, 1625) inaugurated the English essay tradition.

2.4 The English Sonnet Tradition

The sonnet — 14 lines of iambic pentameter — came to England from Italy via Wyatt and Surrey. Two main forms developed:

Major Elizabethan Sonnet Sequences

• Sidney — Astrophil and Stella (1591)
• Spenser — Amoretti (1595)
• Daniel — Delia (1592)
• Drayton — Idea (1593–1619)
• Shakespeare — Sonnets (1609) — 154 sonnets

2.5 William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Shakespeare is the central figure of English Renaissance literature and, by most accounts, the greatest writer in the English language. Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, he came to London around 1590 and became a shareholder in the Globe Theatre (built 1599). His works comprise 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and two narrative poems.

The Plays — By Genre

The Sonnets (1609)

Shakespeare's 154 sonnets fall into two groups: Sonnets 1–126 address a young man (the "Fair Youth"), urging him to marry and perpetuate his beauty; Sonnets 127–154 address a "Dark Lady." Key sonnets for CUET include: Sonnet 18 ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"), Sonnet 29 ("When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes"), Sonnet 73 ("That time of year thou mayst in me behold"), Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds"), and Sonnet 130 ("My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun").

Narrative Poems

• Venus and Adonis (1593) — first published work; epyllion
• The Rape of Lucrece (1594) — narrative poem; dedicated to Earl of Southampton

2.6 Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama

The University Wits

Before Shakespeare dominated, a group of university-educated playwrights established the conventions of Elizabethan drama:

• John Lyly — court comedies in euphuistic prose
• George Peele — The Old Wives' Tale
• Robert Greene — Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay
• Thomas Nashe — prose satirist; The Unfortunate Traveller
• Thomas Kyd — The Spanish Tragedy (c. 1587) — founded the revenge tragedy tradition
• Christopher Marlowe — the greatest of the group

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)

Marlowe established blank verse as the medium of English tragedy ("Marlowe's mighty line") and created the archetype of the Renaissance overreacher — the hero who transgresses limits in pursuit of power, knowledge, or beauty.

Ben Jonson (1572–1637)

Jonson was Shakespeare's greatest contemporary and rival. Where Shakespeare followed romantic conventions, Jonson adhered strictly to classical unities and the theory of humours (the four bodily fluids — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile — governing personality). His comedies satirise greed, hypocrisy, and affectation.

Jacobean Tragedy

Under James I (1603–25), drama darkened considerably. Key Jacobean tragedians:

• John Webster — The Duchess of Malfi (c. 1612–13); The White Devil (1612)
• Thomas Middleton — The Changeling (with Rowley, 1622); Women Beware Women
• John Ford — 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (c. 1629–33)
• Francis Beaumont & John Fletcher — tragicomedies; The Maid's Tragedy
• Cyril Tourneur — The Revenger's Tragedy (c. 1606; now often attributed to Middleton)

2.7 Francis Bacon and Renaissance Prose

Francis Bacon (1561–1626)

Bacon was philosopher, statesman, and essayist — the prophet of the new scientific method. His major works:

• Essays (1597, 1612, 1625) — first English essays; aphoristic, impersonal style
• The Advancement of Learning (1605) — survey of human knowledge
• Novum Organum (1620) — Latin; proposes inductive scientific method
• New Atlantis (1627) — utopian fiction; anticipates the Royal Society

Richard Hooker (1554–1600)

Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1594–97) is a masterwork of Anglican prose, defending the Church of England against Puritan criticism and arguing for reason as a guide alongside Scripture. Its measured, complex periodic sentences influenced later English prose style.

2.8 John Milton (1608–1674)

Though Milton belongs chronologically to the 17th century, he is the culmination of the Renaissance tradition in English poetry. A Puritan and classical scholar, he combined Christian theology with classical epic conventions.

Early Works

Paradise Lost (1667; revised 1674)

Milton's epic masterpiece in twelve books of blank verse retells the Fall of Man from Genesis. Satan is the most compelling character — proud, rebellious, and rhetorically brilliant — leading many readers (including Blake and Shelley) to argue Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." Key themes: free will, obedience, the nature of evil, and redemption.

Other Major Works

• Paradise Regained (1671) — brief epic; Christ resists Satan's temptations
• Samson Agonistes (1671) — closet drama; modelled on Greek tragedy
• Areopagitica (1644) — prose; classic defence of freedom of the press
• The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643) — controversial prose tract