renaissance : british literature period

Stephanie Artavia MoscosoLisa Matamoros MartinCarmen Guillén Alvarado

beginnings • Italy, 14th century.

• Rising from a darker age.

• Rebirth: awakening and hope.

• Humanity was progressing.

• Flourishing democracy

• Greater commerce and trade.

• People traveled more around the world.

• Products, wealth, and ideas spread.

• Rebirth of passion and creativity, impacting the world.

Humanism

• Mankind was believed capable

of earthly perfection beyond

what had ever been imagined

before.

• English Renaissance: 1500-1660.

• Economic growth.

• Nationalism .

• London became a metropolis.

• England went from barbaric to a commercial power.

The printing press

• The single greatest innovation of the Renaissance era.

• Changed the world of arts and letters.

• Helped expand information and literature.

Literature

• It rivals anything else of the period.

• Greatest works of literature the world has known.

• The spirit of optimism, unlimited potential, and the stoic English.

• From a “barbarian” nation to a seat of commercial power and influence.

• It translated into a literature that was bold, sweeping, innovative, and trend-setting.

• Poets experimented with form, and dramatists revived and reinvented the classical traditions of the Greeks and Romans.

• Varieties of poetry:

LyricElegy

TragedyPastoral

Near the close of the English Renaissance, John Milton composed his epic Paradise Lost, widely considered the grandest poem in the language

• Drama

• William Shakespeare : variety, profundity, and exquisite use of language.

• The theatre became a bona fide cultural institution.

Important!•Translation of the bible

The end• The quest for human perfection had

given way to decadence, cynicism, and an introversion which would stifle creativity.

• The rise of Puritanism.

• Failure of Queen Elizabeth to produce an heir.

Authors

William

Shakespeare

• 1564-1616

• English poet and playwright .

• 154 Sonnets. 

• Nine tragedies: Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet and Macbeth.

• 38 plays.

Impact on literature • Powerful language.

• Understanding of human nature.

• Expanded dramatic potencial.

Edmund

Spenser

• 1552-1599

• Most influential poets of the Elizabethan Age.

• Poets' Poet

• The Faerie Queene: an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.