Renaissance (‘Rebirth’) is the name commonly applied to the period of European history following the Middle Ages. It is usually said to have begun in Italy in the late fourteenth century and to have continued, both in Italy and other countries of Western Europe through the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was that great transitional movement of Europe which swift away medieval thoughts, unprogressive economic system and internationalism, and in their place substituted skepticism, materialism, emancipation, self-expression a developed economic system and nationalism. In this period the European arts of painting, sculpture, architecture and literature reached an eminence not exceeded in any age. In the context of England, Renaissance signifies the complex and multi-faceted movement which transformed this country through a steady process of change, from being an insular state into one of the major powers of Europe during the late 16the and early seventeenth centuries. The rise of England in power and importance in the sphere of politics was matched by a corresponding growth of indigenous literature, rich enough to compete with the continental literature.
Some Englishmen were attracted to visit Italy by the desire to see the classical masterpieces, saved and carried there by the refugees after the fall of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Among these scholars were: William Grocyn, educationist; Thomas Linecre, physician and scholar; John Colet, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral as well as theological lecturer and educational innovator; John Erasmus, student of Colet, whose writings were essential documents of the whole homo-centric Renaissance. Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’, though unfortunately in Latin, was charged with the spirit of the Renaissance humanism, and was a strong and positive reaction against the stiff inert conception of society of the Middle Ages. Spurred by the interaction of those English scholars and the invention of the printing press in 1477 by William Caxton, the vernacular literature gained a heightened status.
English was a fertile ground enriched by a thick layer of translation. By 1579 many of the great classics, both modern and ancient had been translated into English, e.g., Plutarch’s ‘Lives’, Ovid’s ‘Metamorphosis’, Homer’s ‘Iliad’, Harington’s ‘Orlando Furioso’, etc. these innumerable exercises helped to make subtle the prose and verse of English writers as well as to enrich the minds of the people.
Among outside influences that of Italy predominated, although those of France and Spain were considerable. Elizabethan literature which came to be the expression of the national genius had its birth in Italianism. The development of the English theatre owe much from those lively dramatic tales of Boccaccio, Cinthio, Bendello, etc. but at the end of the sixteenth century, the English character was, however, too definite merely to reflect a foreign country. Moreover, under Italian influence a reaction had set in against the country which was the seat of the Pope because to the majority the Protestantism which was soon to triumph was no more than freedom from foreign influence, and might be summed up as the rejection of Papal supremacy. And in which the Renaissance had flowered in England with a sensual ardor was reminiscent of paganism.
In poetry the first two poets who took the pioneering task of rescuing English poetry from languor and artistic disarray were Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey. Drank deeply into Italian poetry, they greatly polished the vernacular poetry, and were the first to introduce Italian lover poetry or sonnet into native poetry. The Renaissance national pride, ideal of adventure and active life finds expression in the words of Edmund Spenser, viz., ‘The Faerie Queene’ and ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’. The other Renaissance poet of distinction is Sir Philip Sidney, who was at the centre of a learned literary group that explored the resources of English and remained in touch with the finest minds of Europe and humanistic writing.
While the new poets were self-conscious artists separated from the populace by their superior learning and culture, it was in the sphere of popular drama that the artists spoke directly to the man in the street. It was under the influence of the Renaissance that the moralists underwent a kind of gradual secularization and the regular English drama was produced fired with enthusiasm for everything belonging to the classical antiquity. The foundation of the first permanent theatre in 1576 followed by that of many more playhouses allowed Renaissance drama a touch of professionalism that aided in its fullest flowering.
The ‘University Wits’, a group of talented, university educated, reckless young men started writing plays for the public as well as for the theatres. The group comprised Lyly, Kyd, Peele, Lodge, Marlowe, Nashe and Greene. Of them the most talented and the vigorous child of the renaissance was Christopher Marlowe. His dramas ‘Tamburlaine’, ‘Edward II’, ‘The Jew of Malta’ and ‘Doctor Faustus’ mark the culmination of that individualism which mark off Renaissance Europe from the anonymity of the Middle Ages.
No discussion of the Renaissance English literature can be completed without a study of the works of William Shakespeare. Thirty-seven plays written over a period of some twenty-four years, a sonnet sequence and some longer poems constitute the Shakespearean canon. While he spun the romantic years in comedies like ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, ‘As You Like It’, ‘Twelfth Night’; he blended history with imagination and philosophy in ‘Henry IV’, Richard III’; reflected on the intellectual dilemma of the Renaissance man in ‘Hamlet’, ‘Othello’, ‘King Lear’, ‘Macbeth’; and also dealt with patterns of loss and recovery, suffering and redemption in ‘The Tempest’, ‘The Winter’s Tale’.
Renaissance English literature also witnessed the literary achievements of the poet, John Donne, the prose writings of Sir Francis Bacon, culminating and drawing a great finale in the works of John Milton, the strongest advocate of democracy and freedom. His completed manuscript of ‘Paradise Lost’ is the last great triumph of the Renaissance.
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