English Renaissance1485-1625

•Renaissance means Rebirth

•Was a flowering of art, literature, painting, science,

etc…

•Began in Italy with individuals like Leonardo Da Vinci

(painter, sculptor, engineer, scientist, etc…)

English Renaissance• People’s focus turned to human’s

place on earth instead of afterlife

• Learning included history, geography, poetry, and languages

• Printing turned to moveable type – the Bible believed to be the first book published this way

• English became more standard as writers began to use common people’s language

English Renaissance• Age of Exploration

– Invention of the compass and study of astronomy opened the world to exploration

– Europeans (other than Vikings) began to venture into the oceans

• Protestant Reformation

– Publication of the Bible started a stink

– Questioning of the Roman Catholic Church

– Began with Martin Luther and his 95 Theses (a list of complaints against the Roman Catholic Church)

– Sparked by money, independent thinking, and science

English Renaissance• War of the Roses ended &

Tudor dynasty founded

• Henry VII restored monarchy & treasury

• Henry VIII – son of Henry VII – Catholic (right now)

– Ultimate renaissance man

– Had 6 wives

•Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, & survived.

Henry VIII’s Wives• Catherin of Aragon – Catholic

– Married for 20+ years

– Only one child – Mary Tudor

– Henry met and fell for Anne Boleyn

– Henry requested an annulment•Pope said NO

– Henry requested a divorce•Pope said NO

– Henry declared himself head of the Church of England•Seized monasteries & lands held by the

Catholic Church

•Granted his own divorce

Henry VIII’s Wives• Anne Boleyn – protestant

– Married Henry after divorce

– Produced two children

•Elizabeth & still-born son

– Strong and independent minded

– Had many enemies at court

– Henry met & fell for Jane Seymour

– Henry had Anne executed on false charges of adultery, witchcraft, incest, & treason

Anne's Ghost Story

Henry VIII’s Wives• Jane Seymour - protestant

– Had been a lady-in-waiting to both

Catherine & Anne

– Son born – Edward – sickly &

died young

– Jane died of a fever shortly after Edward’s birth

– Henry didn’t remarry for 3 years following her death

– He is buried next to her

Henry VIII’s Wives

• Anne of Cleaves - protestant

– German

– Not attractive – heavy boned

– Portrait was much more flattering than the real thing!

– Marriage annulled almost immediately

– They remained friends until Henry’s death

– Anne was considered a “sister” of the king

Henry VIII’s Wives

• Catherine Howard

– protestant

– Young and “unchaste”

– In love with a cousin

– Married to Henry only two years

– Beheaded on real charges of adultery, incest, and treason

Henry VIII’s Wives• Catherine Parr

– protestant

– Her mother had been Catherine’s

attendant

– Managed to outlive Henry VIII

– It is possible she had been in love with Thomas Seymour (Jane’s brother)

Catherine Parr's Ghost

Story

An Allegory of the Tudor Succession:

The Family of Henry VIII

By: Lucas de Heere

King Edward VI

• Protestant King

• Henry VIII’s only son

• Crowned at the age of 9

• Died at age of 15

• Named Lady Jane Grey (protestant) as heir

• Caused an uproar until they Privy Council named Mary Tudor the rightful heir

Queen Mary I (Bloody Mary)• Practicing Catholic

• Restored Roman Catholicism

to England

• Married to Phillip II of Spain

• Executed nearly 300 protestants – burned at the stake

• Died of cancer (abdominal) after two phantom pregnancies

Queen Elizabeth I• The “Virgin Queen” – never

married

• Last of the Tudor line

• Compared to William, the Conqueror

• “Patron of the Arts” –Elizabeth has come to represent the Renaissance at its height

• Reestablished Protestantism

– all in moderation

• Still she had her problems

Mary, Queen of Scots• Catholic great-granddaughter of

Henry VII

• Married to Phillip II of Spain (yes, the same one who was wed to Mary I)

• Catholics wanted her crowned– did not recognize Henry VIII’s

marriage to Anne Boleyn or Elizabeth as legitimate

• Mary was a prisoner for 19 years in England and the center for numerous plots against Elizabeth

Mary in captivity, c. 1578

Mary, Queen of Scots• Elizabeth finally executed her in

1587 after a foiled murder plot• Spain declared war on England

(Elizabeth did execute the Queen of Spain)

• Spanish Armada attacked and was defeated by Privateers – Privateers had been raiding and

sinking Spanish vessels with Elizabeth’s “knowledge”

• The execution of Mary, Q of S was just the excuse the Spanish needed

Replica of Mary,

Q of S’s tomb

James I of England• James VI of Scotland (son of

Mary, Queen of Scots) –Protestant

• Elizabeth named him her heir when he agreed to convert to Protestantism

• Continued Elizabeth’s passionate support of the arts

• Macbeth was written by Shakespeare for James I

• Jacobean Era

James I of England• Jamestown is named for

him

• Dark spot in rule was his persecution of the Puritans

• Commissioned a retranslation and rework of the Bible known today as the King James Version

Elizabethan Age Literature• Explosion of cultural energy – architects,

sculptors, painters, composers, & writers

– Narratives, poetry, dramas, and comedies all expressed the spirit of the renaissance

• Elizabethan Poetry

– Sonnets are the most famous remnant of Elizabethan poetry

– Poets moved away from narratives in favor of lyrical poems

• Sonnets – Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare

– a sonnet is a 14 line poem usually written in iambic pentameter with a varying rhyme scheme

– Sonnets were often written in collections called cycles that told a loose story

Elizabethan Age Literature• Two primary types of sonnets

– English

• Divided into three quatrains (sets of 4 lines) and a

couplet (set of two lines)

– The couplet provides the theme (main point) for the

sonnet

• Rhyme Scheme – Shakespearean or Spenserian

– Shakespearean - abab cdcd efef gg

– Spenserian – abab bcbc cdcd ee

– Petrarchan or Italian

• Divided into an octave (set of 8 lines) which

presents a problem or a quest and a sestet (set of

6 lines) which solves it

• Rhyme Scheme – abbaabba cdecde or cdcdcd

English Sonnet – Spenserian

Sonnet 30My love is like to ice, and I to fire a

How comes it then that this her cold so great b

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire a

But harder grows the more I her entreat? b

Or how comes it then that my exceeding heat b

Is not delayed by her heart frozen cold. c

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, b

And feel my flames augmented manifold? c

What more miraculous thing may be told c

That fire which all thing melts, should harden ice, d

And ice which is congealed with senseless cold, c

Should kindle fire by wonderful device? d

Such is the power of love in gentle mind, e

That it can alter all the course of kind. e

Spenserian Sonnets• Spenser born to a working class family

and made it all the way through Cambridge

• Most famous for The Faerie Queen-allegory of good and evil dedicated to Queen Elizabeth (The Faerie Queen herself)

• Sonnets

– Part of Amoretti – means little love poems• 89 sonnets about a courtship of a woman named

Elizabeth (Spenser’s wife was named Elizabeth)

• The courtship was not exactly working out that well for the speaker in the sonnets

Sonnet 1 - Spenser• Explains that his love is the sole inspiration for

his poetry

• 1st Quat– Speaking to the poetry

– Leaves of paper (the poems); lily hands (his love’s hands) holding the poem

• 2nd Quat– “happy lines” – happy b/c his love will look at them

– To read the sorrows & heartache the speaker feels

• 3rd Quat– Happy rhymes (again happy poetry) will finally

understand why I write for her

• Couplet - theme– My poetry is to please her alone and no one else’s

opinion matters

Sonnet 30 - Spenser

• Paradox – an apparent contradiction which is actually true

• 1st quat – love = ice; speaker = fire– Why doesn’t his fire dissolve her cold? And how can it

make the cold grow?

• 2nd quat – Why doesn’t her severe cold hinder his fire & how is it

that it makes his fire grow?

• 3rd quat– It’s amazing that fire can freeze ice and ice can feed

fire

• Couplet – Theme– Love is so powerful that it can alter even the laws of

nature

Sonnet 35 - Spenser• Another paradox – speaker longs to look on his

love even though it causes him pain and suffering

• 1st Quat– Eyes long to see her even though he can only wish

he had her

• 2nd Quat– Can’t live w/o seeing her, but can’t survive while

watching her knowing he can’t have her

– He starves himself of life wishing for her

– Narcissus (classical allusion)

• 3rd Quat– His eyes want nothing else – not even the things he

loved before

– Can’t even bear to look at what he loved in the past

• Couplet – Theme– There is nothing glorious in the world except her

Sonnet 75 - Spenser• 1st Quat

– He writes her name on the sand twice the tide

washed it away

• 2nd Quat

– She scolds him for trying to immortalize something

that is mortal

– She will be erased from time just like her name was

from the sand

• 3rd Quat

– He disagrees b/c his poetry will keep her alive forever

• Couplet – Theme

– Their love will live on through this poem when all the

rest of the world is gone

Sir Philip Sidney• A true “Renaissance man” – very well-educated

and well-traveled

• Born into the aristocracy – life of privilege

• A favorite of Queen Elizabeth (after a short falling out with her)

• Fought bravely for England and died as a result of a battle

• Wrote the first great sonnet sequence in English

• Astrophel and Stella – cycle of 108 sonnet plus 11 songs that deal with Sidney’s love for Penelope Devereaux. – Astrophel = Sidney; Stella = Devereaux

– Both these sonnets deal with lovesickness & unrequited love

– Devereaux married someone else

Sonnet 31 - Sidney• English sonnet due to the division – not

necessarily the rhyme scheme

Apostrophe – addresses someone or something

which cannot respond

– Sidney speaks to the moon

• 1st Quat

– Asks the moon why so sad

– Suggests maybe the moon is lovesick as well

• 2nd Quat

– If you (the moon) know as much about love as legend

says – you can understand

– Moon’s grief is like his

Sonnet 31 - Sidney• 3rd Quat & couplet

– Series of questions• Is love considered foolish there?

• Are your beauties (women) as stuck up as ours?

• Do they want to be loved, but don’t want to love?

• Is being ungrateful considered a virtue (desireable trait)?

• The speaker reveals his own situation by addressing the moon

– He tells us of his lovesickness and the unreturned love of the girl through his questions to the moon

Sonnet 39 - Sidney• 1st quat

– Addresses sleep – asks it to come to him

– Compliments it as a place of peace and release for all people

• 2nd Quat

– Asks sleep to shield him from Despair (personified)

– And to make his inner battle stop

• 3rd Quat & couplet

– Offers sleep all his comforts if sleep will just come to him

– If sleep refuses, he will see nothing but Stella

Shakespearean Sonnets• Most are English – 3 quatrains and a couplet –

abab cdcd efef gg

• Most sonnets were thought to be composed

when the theaters were closed b/c of the plague

• Three (sometimes four) classifications

– Time/Nature

• Deal with the passage of time and wasted opportunity &

celebrate Nature and its many faces

– Young Man

• – most believe he was a very close friend of Shakespeare,

but some suggest they may have been lovers

– Dark Lady – last 25 of the sonnets

• Seems to be romantically involved with both the speaker and

the young man

Sonnet 29• “Pity Party” sonnet

• It is one of the young man sonnets

• 1st Quat

– He is having no luck with anything or anybody

– Feeling sorry for himself

– Even heaven is deaf to his cries

– Hates his own life!

• 2nd Quat

– Begins to wish himself like others• Better future, better looking, more friends, one

man’s talent and another’s intelligence

• Least happy even with things that used to bring him joy

Sonnet 29• 3rd Quat

– Almost hating himself

– He happens to think of this other person

– Uses a simile – compares the way he feels

then to a bird soaring into the heavens

• Couplet – Theme

– When he remembers the relationship he

shares with this other person, he wouldn’t

change places with a king.

Sonnet 106• Makes fun of earlier sonnets that spent their

entire content celebrating the beauty of someone

• He makes fun of those in order to express the beauty he finds in this person

• 1st Quat– He sees the descriptions of beautiful people in the

poetry of the past

• 2nd Quat– If they spent that much time on the others’ pieces and

parts

– They would certainly have tried to express their appreciation of this person’s beauty

Sonnet 106

• 3rd Quat

– All the earlier poets were simply preparing us for your beauty

– They would not have been able to express this individual’s beauty

• Couplet – theme

– The writers of the past would have tried, and failed; but the present writers could not even speak at all

• This woman/man is so beautiful that no one past or present could possible express that beauty

Sonnet 116

• Shakespeare’s definition of “True Love”

• 1st Quat

– he is not trying to cause trouble –

• if you think you know what love is, he’s not trying

to change your mind

– Starts with what love is not

• Doesn’t change when situations do

• Doesn’t bend to be removed just b/c someone

wants to remove it

Sonnet 116

• 2nd Quat

– Uses metaphors to state what love is

• Mark (a point) never shaken by life’s storms

• Star (point of navigation) for all people –he’s

saying I f you don’t have it – you navigate through

life looking for it.

• 3rd Quat

– Time’s fool – personification

• Love doesn’t fade with youth or beauty

• Doesn’t change with time – doesn’t fade away

• Lasts to the end of time

Sonnet 116

• Couplet

– He says if he is wrong – then he has never

written and no man has ever truly loved

– Sarcasm – obviously he has written b/c we

are reading something he wrote

• Theme is found throughout the poem – it

is the definition of love

Sonnet 130

• Dark Lady Sonnet

• Uses irony & imagery

• 1st Quat

– Introduces his love

– Dull eyes, pale lips, brown skin, black wirey hair

• 2nd Quat

– Continues to describe her

– no color in her cheeks

– Perfume smells better than her breath