Important Features of English Renaissance:

w “Renaissance”means revival, revival of interest in ancient Greek and Roman art and culture.

w Time period: about 16th century

w feudal relations: being broken up capitalism: developping

w Classical sciences and arts revived. See P66-67

w Started in Florence and Venice with the flowering of painting, sculpture and architecture. The movement embraced the rest of Europe.

w Italy: fine arts, France: literature, England: philosophy and drama.

w Italy: fine arts, France: literature, England: philosophy and drama.

w Dante’s Divine Comedy《神曲》The prelude of Renaissance

Rise of Humanism

w The Bourgeois had money and time for things of beauty and art.

w Intellectuals provided the bourgeoisie with a new philosophy and culture in harmony with their needs.

w Belief in the promotion of wealth, pleasure and the admiration for the beauty of human body.

w Man’s interest was shifted from God to humanity, from religion to philosophy, from heaven to earth, from beauty of God to the beauty of human body.

Famous Renaissance Paintings

w What a piece of work is man; how noble in reason; how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angle; in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!

--Shakespeare, Hamlet

Historical Background in England

w the War of Roses and Henry VIII

w Break with the Roman Catholic Church

w The reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) was a period of political and religious stability and economic prosperity.

w England beat the Spanish Invincible Armada over the sea.

w The colonization and foreign control of England, the heyday of its capitalist development.

w The Enclosure Movement: (England) exporter of wools à manufacturer of cloth, Arable land à pasture

The Flourishing of English Literature

Genius unrestrained, imagination ran wild, no hard literary standards to follow, experiments and freedom granted, thirst for the unique, emotion receives its expression

w Bible was translated into English. Authorized version is complied under King James in 1611.

w Nationalist feeling awakened

w The popularity of poetry. The sonnet was introduced to England from Italy first by Wyatt, Henry Howard brought the blank verse into English literature.

Sonnet（十四行诗）

w Two types: Italian sonnets and English sonnets (also called Shakespearean sonnets)

w Its definition: A sonnet is a lyric written in fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter.

English Sonnet

w It is also called Shakespearean sonnet or Elizabethan sonnet. It is structured of three quatrains and a terminal couplet in iambic pentameter with the rhyme pattern abab cdcd efef gg.

Blank verse（无韵诗）

w A blank verse is a rhymeless poem written in iambic pentameter.

Writers in Renaissance

w Thomas More （摩尔）:a humanist

w Representative works: Utopia (“no place” in Greek)

w The theme: about people’s sufferings and his ideal of a future happy society

w Lyrical poetry became popular.

w The greatest poet—Edmund Spencer, the “poet’s poet”. His masterpiece: The Shepheardes Calendar 《牧羊人的日历》, The Faerie Queen《仙后》

w The “University Wits”（大学里的才子）: Christopher Marlowe, Robert Green, George Peele, Thomas Lodge, etc.

w Christopher Marlowe and his masterpiece: The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus《浮士德的悲剧》