Table of Contents
Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
This age is named after Queen Elizabeth I who reigned over England from 1558 to l603. This is called the Golden Age of English literature.
The Important Facts Which Influenced the Literature of This Period:
- With the accession ‘of Queen Elizabeth I, dynastic problems and political troubles came to an end. Religious and social stability brought about national prosperity.
- The religious Reformation inspired religious tolerance and secularism.
- Elizabeth I introduced Anglicanism to settle religious problems. It has a long history. In the 16th century, Martin Luther of Germany and Zwingli and Calvin of Switzerland protested against the autocracy of the then Pope. Those who supported them were called Protestants and those who still supported the Pope were called the papists or Catholics. Henry VIII who was the King of England during those years supported Protestantism for his personal advantage. He wanted to divorce his first wife, Catherine, and marry Anne Boleyn, his fiancée, but the Pope did not approve of it. So he denied Pope’s authority, married Anne Boleyn, and introduced Protestantism to England. Some of the people accepted King’s religious authority but the rest followed the Pope’s rule. This caused a bloody civil war that continued till 1558, the year Queen Elizabeth I came to power. She understood the problem and introduced Anglicanism, England’s own church. This religious settlement brought stability and prosperity to England in the second half of the l6th century.
- Geographical and astronomical discoveries of the previous decades brought unlimited fortune during this period.
- Renaissance that had started earlier was now very strongly felt in England. lt brought ancient Greek and Roman wisdom to England. Erasmus reached England, and with John Colet, taught humanism and other ideals of the renaissance.
- The social life of England was marked by a strong national spirit, humanism, liberal religious views, scientific curiosity, social content, intellectual progress, and unlimited enthusiasm.
Major Writers of the Period and Their Major Works:
Thomas More (1478-1535):
Utopia (or the Kingdom of Nowhere). The book was originally written in Latin in 1516
Norton (1532-84) and Sackville (1536-1608):
Gorboduc (1562), the first English tragedy
Edmund Spenser (1552-99):
* He is called the poet of the poets because many later English poets followed his art of poetry.
The faerie queen (1590)
The Shepherd’s Calendar (1579)
Nicholas Udall:
Ralph Roister Doister (1553), the first English Comedy
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86):
“An Apology for Poetry” (1595), a critical treatise. Arcadia (1590), a book that bears the embryo of the English novel.
John Lyly (1554-1606):
* He is called a university wit.
Campaspe (1584)
Sapho and Phao (1584)
Midas (1589)
Euphues (1579), a book that bears the embryo of the English novel
Thomas Kyd (1557-1595):
* He is another university wit.
The Spanish Tragedy (1585)
Robert Greene (1558-92):
* He is another university wit.
Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay (1589)
James – IV (1591)
George Peele (1558-98):
* He is another university wit.
David and Bethsabe (1599)
The arraignment of Paris (1584)
* University wits are a group of young dramatists who wrote and performed in London towards the end of the 16th century. They are called university wits because they were the witty students of Cambridge or Oxford. Marlowe, Kyd, Nashe, Greene, Lyly, Lodge, and Peele were the members of this group. They upheld the classical ideals and ridiculed the crudeness of the new English plays.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626):
* He is called a natural philosopher.
Essays (1597)
Christopher Marlowe (1564-93):
* He is another university wit.
Tamburlaine the Great Part | & II (1587-88)
The Jew of Malta (1589)
Edward II (1591)
Doctor Faustus (1592)
William Shakespeare (1564-1616):
* The greatest English dramatist, famous for the objective presentation of his deep knowledge about human psychology. He is often called the Bard of Avon. He wrote 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Of the total 37 plays he wrote the following 25 before the death of Queen Elizabeth I:
- Henry VI (1st. Part 1591-92)
- Henry VI (2nd. Part 1591-92)
- Henry VI (3rd. Part 1591-92)
- Richard II (1593)
- The Comedy of Errors (1593)
- Titus Andronicus (1594)
- The Taming of the Shrew (1594)
- Love’s Labour’s Lost (1594)
- Romeo and Juliet (1594)
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream (595)
- The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1595)
- King John (1595)
- Richard IT (1596)
- The Merchant of Venice (1596)
- Henry IV (1st. Part. 1597)
- Henry IV (2nd. Part. 1598)
- Much Ado About Nothing (1598)
- Henry V (1599)
- Julius Caesar (1599)
- The Mercy Waives of windier (1600)
- As You Like It (1600) briefer (1601)
- Twelfth Night (1601)
- Troilus and Cressida (1602)
- All ‘s well That EnJs Well 1602)
Thomas Nashe (1567-1601):
*He is also called a university wit.
The Unfortunate Traveller (1594)
Ben Jonson (1573-1637):
* A neo-classicist though he wrote in the time when the romantic mode of literature was prevalent. He is called a neo-classicist because he followed the classical rules of drama:
Every Man out of His Humour (1600)
Every Man in his Humour (1601)
Beaumont (1584-1616) and Fletcher (1579-1625):
Philaster ‹1611)
A King and No King 1611)
The Maid’s Tragedy (1610)
Main Literary Features of the Age:
- Elizabethan literature reflects a great variety of creative genius,
- It demonstrates experimentation and innovation in dramatic and poetic forms and techniques.
- It is deeply influenced by the Renaissance spirit, especially by the Renaissance literature of Italy, France, and Spain.
- Instyle exhibits romantic exuberance.
- Its writers are all men (not women) from all classes of the society.
- It is an age of exquisite poetry, unparalleled drama, and splendid prose.
- It marks a shift from man’s Fate to his free will.
- It develops the English language to a level of stable standard.
- Its spirit ranges from the Platonic idealism or the delightful romance to the level of gross realism.
- The literature of this age shows a quest for “the remote, the wonderful and the beautiful”.
- It reflects original romanticism that was revived during the beginning of the Romantic Age in 1798.
- It initiates literary criticism.
