The Renaissance Period (1500-1600)

The Age of Renaissance (1500-1600)

Table of Contents

The Age of Renaissance in English literature is also known as the Elizabethan Age or the Age of Shakespeare. The Middle Ages in Europe were followed by the Renaissance. Renaissance means the revival of learning and, in its broadest sense, refers to the gradual enlightenment of the human spirit after the darkness of the Middle Ages. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453 A.D. due to the Turkish invasion, the Greek scholars who resided there spread throughout Europe, bringing with them invaluable Greek manuscripts. The discovery of these classical models led to the revival of scholarship in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The essence of this movement was that "man discovered himself and the universe" and that "man, so long blinded, suddenly opened his eyes and saw." The flood of Greek literature, which rapidly reached all the schools of Europe through the new art of printing, opened a new world of poetry and philosophy. In addition to the revival of scholarship, there were new discoveries in other fields. Vasco da Gama circumnavigated the globe;

Columbus discovered America

Copernicus discovered the solar system and paved the way for Galileo. Books were printed, and philosophy, science, and art were systematised. The Middle Ages were over, and the old world had become new. Scholars flocked to the universities, like adventurers to the new world of America, and there the old authority received a death blow. 

Truth alone was the authority

To seek truth everywhere, as men seek new lands and gold and the fountain of youth-this was the new spirit that awoke in Europe with the revival of learning. The main characteristic of the Renaissance was the emphasis on humanism, that is, man's preoccupation with himself as an object of contemplation. This movement was launched in Italy by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in the fourteenth century and spread from there to other European countries. In England, it became popular during the Elizabethan age. This movement, which focused its interest on the 

The proper study of mankind

Had a number of subordinate trends. First and foremost was the rediscovery of classical antiquity, especially ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages, tradition-bound Europe had forgotten the liberal tone of the ancient Greek world and its spirit of democracy and human dignity. With the revival of interest in ancient Greece, the new spirit of humanism took hold in the Western world. The first Englishman to write under the influence of Greek studies was Sir Thomas More. His Utopia, written in Latin, was inspired by Plato's Republic. The second important aspect of humanism was the discovery of the external universe and its meaning for man. More importantly, however, writers turned their gaze inward and became intensely interested in the problems of human personality. In the mediaeval morality plays, 

The characters are usually personifications 

Friendship, Charity, Sloth, Wickedness, and the like. In the Elizabethan era, however, under the influence of humanism, emphasis was placed on the qualities that distinguish one person from another and give him individuality and uniqueness. Moreover, the disclosure of the writer's own spirit became of great interest. This tendency led to the emergence of a new literary form, the essay, which was used with success by Bacon. In drama, Marlowe penetrates the deepest depths of human passion. 

His heroes, Tamburlaine, Dr Faustus, and Barabas, the Jew of Malta, are possessed by uncontrolled ambition. 

Shakespeare

A more accomplished artist brought humanism to perfection. It was this new interest in human personality, the passion for life, which was responsible for the exquisite lyric poetry of the Elizabethan age, dealing with the problems of death, decay, the transience of life, etc. 

Another aspect of humanism was the heightened sensitivity to formal beauty and the cultivation of aesthetic sense. It expressed itself in a new ideal of social behaviour, that of the courtier. The Italian diplomat and man of letters Castiglione wrote a treatise entitled Il Cortigiano (The Courtier), in which he outlined the pattern of gentlemanly behaviour and manners that guided the conduct of men like Sir Phillip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh. This cult of elegance in prose gave rise to what  Lyly calls the artful style of Euphuism, which suffered from exaggeration and pedantry but introduced order and balance into English prose and gave it a new face.

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