1. Lecture Two THE English Renaissance: Shakespeare and the sonnet
A Vocabulary for Poetry

2. The English Renaissance: 16-17th c
A ‘rebirth’ of culture after the devastations of the Black Death
The development of the printing press 1450 by Gutenberg
Increased trade to different parts of the world
A rise in nationalism
1521, Luther makes a break from the Church of Rome and the Reformation begins: individual and religious freedoms, but also wars of religion
1533 Henry VIII breaks with the Church of Rome and England becomes split between Catholics and Protestants.
Elizabeth 1. A time of prosperity, peace and fostering of the arts

3. Queen Elizabeth 1, ‘The Armada Portrait’ George Gower, 1588

4. Writers of the English Renaissance
Poets, Playwrights, Philosophers:
Thomas Wyatt
Ben Johnson
John Donne
Philip Sidney
Andrew Marvell
Queen Elizabeth
Edmund Spencer The Faerie Queen
Christopher Marlowe Dr Faustus
John Webster The Duchess of Malfi
Thomas More Utopia

5. Renaissance Writers John Donne 1572-1631 Poet, essayist, satirist,
cleric in Church of England

6. Renaissance Writers
Andrew Marvell Metaphysical poet and politician ‘To His Coy Mistriss’

7. William Shakespeare
Shakespeare: Born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Sonnets Romances: Romeo and Juliet, Comedies: Twelfth Night, As You Like It Tragedies: Macbeth, King Lear Histories: Henry IV, Richard II

8. The Shakespearean Sonnet
Themes of love, fear of mortality, urging of procreation, beauty
Wrote 154 sonnets, published in 1609
Shakespearean sonnet:
Comprised of 3 quatrians (group of 4 lines) plus a rhyming couplet lines.
Contains a ‘volta’ or turn, usually at the end of the 3rd quatrain where poem begins to move towards resolve
Rhyming scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

9. ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (4 mins)

10. A vocabulary for poetry
Repetition: Of words, images, ideas
Alliteration: a repeated sound at the beginning of word
Syntax: the ordering of words within a sentence
Stanza: line division within a poem
Line: differentiate from grammatical sentence

11. A vocabulary for poetry
Metre (rhythm): eg iambic pentameter (5 metrical feet per line: weak stress/ strong stress): ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’
Rhyme: sound repetitions at the end of words/lines
Consonance: repeated syllable sounds, ‘slip,slap’
Assonance: repeated vowel sounds ‘The Lotus blooms’

12. A Vocabulary for poetry
Enjambment: where the grammatical sense of a sentence/phrase runs on from one line to the next
Caesura: where a poetic line is end-stopped in the middle
Stanza: any grouping of poetic lines
Quatrain: 4 lines within a sonnet

13. A vocabulary for poetry
Octave: 8 lines within Petrarchan sonnet
Sestet: 6 lines
Rhyming couplet: conclusion of sonnet
Volta: the point of change within sonnet

14. Poetic Forms Sonnet: 14 lines Ballad: tells a story, links to music
Lyric: short, subjective/personal, also linked to song
Epic: long narrative, usually with heroic subject matter

15. Poetic forms Villanelle: cycling repetitions of lines
Free Verse: no strict metrical or rhyme patterns
Web site for literary terms: