1. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Part II
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

2. Succession of the Throne
Elizabeth I
Henry VIII’s daughter by his second wife, Anne Boleyn
Queen from
Only twenty-five when she came to the throne
strong national unity and triumphant cultural achievement
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

3. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Queen Elizabeth I
Had a sharp intellect and an excellent Renaissance education
Encouraged literary and artistic developments
Clever diplomat and a shrew, at times even ruthless, politician
Promoted peace and prosperity by steering a moderate religious course between Protestant extremism and the yielding to Catholicism
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4. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Queen Elizabeth I
Became an expert in foreign affairs
used her unmarried status to benefit England
England’s victory in 1588 over the Spanish Armada (the strongest naval force of the age) marked the culmination of Elizabeth’s authority in a country that had become, in less than a century, one of the most powerful in the world
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

5. Elizabethan Literary Achievement
Sir Philip Sidney
Living embodiment of the ideal Renaissance gentleman
Known for his political ideas, military prowess, personal charm and literary ability
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6. Elizabethan Literary Achievement
Edmund Spenser
Saw himself as a scholar-poet
The Faerie Queene
dedicated to Queen Elizabeth
celebrates and assesses the values and achievements of her reign
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

7. Elizabethan Literary Achievement
Drama
Greatest and most distinctive achievement of Elizabethan literature
Elizabethan drama grew from a fusion of native English and classical traditions
The triumph of Elizabethan drama is a result of the triumph of dramatically spoken English
Elizabethan stagecraft was rudimentary and sketchy
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

8. Elizabethan Literary Achievement
Public Theaters
first public theater erected in Shoreditch, an area just outside the London city limits, in 1576
Others were soon built in Southwark across the river Thames
The Globe
Home theater of Shakespeare’s company
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

9. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

10. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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11. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

12. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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13. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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14. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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15. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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16. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Globe
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17. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Public Theaters
All walks of life made up the audiences
Nobility given a special seat right on stage
Sophisticated (i.e. law students) would have bought a seat under the roofs in the gallery
Less well-off would fill the “pit”
Would eat, drink, hiss, catcall, and applaud
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

18. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes
The most striking feature of Elizabethan artistic taste is a delight in elaborate pattern and complicated ornament
fantastically decorated gowns
intricate designs of Elizabethan buildings and gardens
in musical forms such as the madrigal
poetic forms like the sonnet or the sestina
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

19. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gowns
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

20. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gowns
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

21. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gowns
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

22. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gowns
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

23. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gowns
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

24. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Architecture
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

25. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Architecture
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

26. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Architecture
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

27. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gardens
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

28. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gardens
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

29. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gardens
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

30. Elizabethan Taste and Attitudes: Gardens
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

31. Elizabethan World Picture
Elizabethans viewed the world as a vast, unified, hierarchical order, or “Great Chain of Being,” created by God
Every existing being or thing was ranked within a category in the chain
Categories were ranked by the attributes of their members, from the lowest group (all matter and no spirit) to the highest group (all spirit and no matter).
Inanimate things
Plant and animal kingdoms
Human beings (above animals because the possession of souls and free will)
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

32. Elizabethan World Picture
As each group had its place in the chain, so each member had its place within the group
Animals
Lion highest
Oyster lowest
Metals
Gold highest
Lead lowest
Plants
Rose highest
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

33. Elizabethan World Picture
This perfect order allowed for the doctrine of correspondences
Gold analogous to the oak (greatest of trees) or to the sun (first among stars)
The lion could represent a king or queen (head of a nation)
A rose could represent God
As a result, Elizabethan writers had a wealth of symbolic relationships, references, and allusions
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34. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Jacobean Era
James I
Cousin of Elizabeth
Already King of Scotland
Son of Elizabeth’s former archenemy, Mary, Queen of Scots
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35. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Jacobean Era
The reign of James I initiated a time of deep religious and political unrest in England
James I was an intelligent but morose man who possessed none of Elizabeth’s instincts for practical politics
During James I reign, the first group of English Puritans came to America because they did not feel free to practice their dissenting beliefs in England
The House of Commons asserted its growing power against the Crown and also gained the support of the people by refusing to vote taxes
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36. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Jacobean Era
Deep philosophical and intellectual changes were beginning to undermine faith in the older Elizabethan world view
Copernicus ( ) and Galileo ( ) argued that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the universe and that there might even be a plurality or infinity of worlds
These and other scientific investigations called into question the very basis of the divinely ordered, hierarchical universe
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37. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Jacobean Era
Copernicus
Galileo
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

38. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Charles I
Son of James I
Took over the throne in 1625
Lasted until 1649
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

39. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
England was well on its way to civil war
Causes were both political and religious
The Puritan movement had developed into a powerful enemy of the Anglican establishment
Charles I tried to crack down on organized religious protest
He was met with violent opposition
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40. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Civil War (continued)
In Parliament, the lawyers and landlords who controlled the House of Commons withheld more and more funds from the executive functions of government
Charles responded by trying to rule without the support of Parliament
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

41. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Civil War (continued)
His strategy did not work
Parliament had grown too strong
Parliament determined to call the king and his supporters to account
Executed Charles’ two biggest supporters
Charles left London and established his army at Nottingham
By August of 1642, England was in the throes of open civil war
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

42. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
The king’s supporters (rich, carefree, long-haired, reckless, young; called “Cavaliers”) were no match for the Parliamentary forces (grimly determined Puritans who wore their hair cropped off; called “Roundheads”)
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

43. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Oliver Cromwell
Commander of the Parliamentary forces
Molded his men into a fearless and disciplined New Model Army
known as “Ironsides”
fought fiercely because it saw itself as the agent of God’s vengeance and punishment
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

44. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
By 1649, the royalist forces had been defeated and King Charles was a prisoner
Charles was tried as an enemy of the English people
On January 30, 1649, he was beheaded
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

45. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Eventually, Cromwell took the power of the government into his own hand and established what he called the Protectorate ( )
Basically a military dictatorship
Cromwell died in 1658
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

46. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Charles II
By 1660, the English people had had enough of harsh Puritan rule
Brought back Charles II
Charles I’s eldest son
Exiled in Paris
Ruled from
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47. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Charles II’s return called the “Restoration” of the monarchy
New Parliament was elected
England returned to the form of government it had known before the war
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

48. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Effects of the Civil War and Cromwell’s Protectorate
Parliament had a new sense of its importance in directing the affairs of the country
The old authoritarian and hierarchical pattern of Elizabethan and Jacobean England was reconstituted along looser, more tolerant lines
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

49. Disruption and Change 1625-1660
Effects of the Civil War and Cromwell’s Protectorate (continued)
England had more than ever before become a country of multiplicity and diversity regarding politics and religion
The Anglican Church and the monarchy had been restored to prominence
but no longer dominated English life as they had done before the Civil War
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

50. Literature in a Century of Change
Drama
The early decades of the seventeenth century saw a continuation of the boundless creativity of the Elizabethan stage
In much Jacobean drama, a darker and more disturbing image of life appears
themes of violence, madness, and corruption come to the fore
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance

51. Literature in a Century of Change
The Theaters
Closed in 1642 at the beginning of the Civil War
Cromwell, with his Puritan belief in the sinfulness of such public entertainment, kept them closed during the Protectorate
With the return of Charles II in 1660, drama flourished again, but in new modes strongly influenced by the French theater
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52. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Famous Playwrights
Ben Jonson
The greatest Jacobean after Shakespeare
Famous Plays
Volpone
The Alchemist
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53. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
The poetry of the seventeenth century can be described as the expression of two main styles or approaches
Metaphysical Poets
Classical and Conservative Style
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54. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
Metaphysical Poets
Used extended, highly intellectualized images often drawn from scholastic philosophy or metaphysics
Also referred to as the School of Donne, after John Donne, the most significant metaphysical poet
The metaphysical poem is more argumentative in tone
Its meter is usually varied, irregular, even deliberately rough and harsh
It often depends on conceits
Extended metaphors
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55. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
John Donne
Most significant metaphysical poet
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56. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
Classical and Conservative Style
This poetry subjected experience to the discipline and restraint of reason, of classical form, of meticulous craftsmanship
Ben Jonson was the chief practitioner of this style
His immediate followers are referred to as the School of Jonson or, referring more specifically to the group of young poets who took up Jonson’s neoclassical standards, as the “Sons of Ben” or the “Tribe of Ben”
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57. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
These writers were called the Cavalier Poets
Robert Herrick ( )
John Suckling ( )
Richard Lovelace ( )
Suckling and Lovelace’s poems display an effortless, aristocratic nonchalance
The entire Jonsonian tradition, including its Cavalier segment, provided the main basis for post-Restoration poetry in the age of John Dryden and Alexander Pope.
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58. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
Robert Herrick
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59. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
John Suckling
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60. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Poetry
Richard Lovelace
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61. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
Prose
In the seventeenth century, English prose really came into its own
Sir Francis Bacon ( )
John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes ( )
As an age of intense religious controversy, the seventeenth century produced a number of great preachers
Their prose reflects the fact that their sermons were meant to be dazzling public performances, intellectually impressive and emotionally gripping
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62. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
The Bible
The translation of the Bible organized and sponsored by James I and known as the Authorized or King James Version (1611)
Until the end of the nineteenth century, most fine prose in English was to some degree indebted to it
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63. Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance
John Milton
Wrote some of the finest sonnets, the finest pastoral elegy (Lycidas), and the most successful epic poem (Paradise Lost) in all of English literature
Milton traditionally marks the end of the English Renaissance
Geschke/British Literature Introduction to The Renaissance