PRESENTATI

ON
BY
CALIDA
R.D’SOUZA
THE AGE OF SHAKESPEARE
 Characteristics of this Age

• The Age of Shakespeare is known as the Golden

Age of Literature.
• It was an era of peace, of economic prosperity, of
stability, of liberty and great explorations.
• Drama was very prominent in this era.
• Political peace and stability: Elizabeth was a wise
Queen who followed the policy of balance and
moderation both inside and outside the country.
• She successfully established peace in disturbed
borders.
• Social contentment: there was rapid increase in
industries it gave people jobs. Wealthy people
were taxed on order to help the poor.
• Religious tolerance: At Queen’s Elizabeth's rule
people were given full religious freedom. She
established the Anglican church.
• The Queen’s popularity and upsurge of
Patriotism: She was brilliant and became
popular. She was Spenser’s Gloriana, Raleigh's
Cynthia and Shakespeare’s fair vestal throned by
the people. She inspired England. She loved
England and greatness. People respected her.
• Expansion: The expansion was both mental and
geographical horizons. It is an age of great
thought and great action, an age which appeals to
the eye.
• Great voyages like Drake ,Forbisher brought
treasure from east and the west. The spirit of
action and adventure fired the imagination of
writers.
• Foreign Travels and fashions; Italy fascinated
the Elizabethans. People were influenced not only
Italian literatures but also of the morals and
manners.
• The Elizabethan literature was immensely
influenced by contemporary activities.
• Backwardness of the Age: It was an age of great
diversity and contradictions. It was an age of
light and darkness, the age of reason and
unreason ,the age of wisdom and foolishness,
Though there were development there were
bloodshed, disorder and violence. It is even
portrayed in Henry IV,Part 1.
• The barbarity of the age is seen in such brutal
sports as bear baiting,cock fighting and bull
fighting. People still believed in
superstitions,ghosts,fairies,charms etc.
• Conclusion: In spite of ignorance and
superstition,violemce and brutality,” The Age of
Elizabeth was a period rarely equalled for
exuberance, courage and accomplishment..
• The Elizabethans felt that the world was an
oyster and they held the knife to open it. It was
the age of in which “ men lived the intensely,
thought intensely and wrote intensely.”
 Influence of Renaissance on English Literature

• Influence of Humanism: It had a profound

impact on the ideals of life. it liberated Human
thinking from the irrational and inhuman
restrictions of medieval times.
• The cramping influences of medievalism with its
religious piety and asceticism became dead
letters.
• Marlow,Shakespeare,Spenser and all other poets
and writers were great humanists because their
writings are suffused with glorification of man
and human life.
• Shakespeare’s hamlet explains : “ What a piece
of work is man!”
• During this era it was said:
“ Glory to the man in the highest
For man is the crown of things.”

• Humanism gave birth to individualism and

worldliness. The ancient Hellenic view was
centred on this present world rather than on
some future one.
• It was an individualistic view, which is expressed
in ancient Greek Literature.
• The result of this individualism was that the
Renaissance men cared not at all for the
authority. They were free in making their own
decisions and this freedom found expression in
the plays of Marlowe.
• The writers directed their gaze inwards, and
became deeply interested in the problems of
human personality.
• During the Elizabethan period, under the
influence of Humanism, the stress was laid on the
qualities which distinguished human beings from
one another, and give anindiuality and
uniqueness to human personality.
• One of the most important works during
Renaissance was Machiavelli's Prince, which
immensely influenced the thought of this period
and strengthened the expression of individualism.
• Renaissance is attacked as “ lacking in
spirituality”, as “ being grossly sensual and
human”.
• This opinion is hardly tenable because
Renaissance represented a change conception of
morality. Lyly wrote Euphues not merely as an
exercise in a new kind of prose, but with the
serious purpose of inculcating righteousness of
living based self on self control.
• Sydney wrote his Arcadia in the form of fiction in
order to expound an ideal of moral excellence.
• Influence of the spirit of Discovery and
Adventure on Renaissance Literature:
• During Elizabethan England action and
imagination went hand in hand. The dramatists
and poets held the mirror to the voyagers. The
cult of the sea is the oldest note in literature.
• The stories of the voyagers, who in their trade
went to different lands and saw strange monsters
and savages which the poets added to fairies,
dwarfs and giants of the Romances.
• The voyagers themselves wrote down the account
of their adventures, and to of these accounts
proved very popular- that of Hakluyt’s Voyages
and Discoveries and Purchas’ Pilgrimage.
• The spirit of adventure provided figures of
speech, metaphors and symbols to dramatists.
The Merchant of Venice, Othello, The Twelfth
Night and The Tempest testify to his accessibility
to its spirit.
• Milton is full of allusions to it.
• Influence of the revival of classical Learning: The
classical revival of learning influenced the
content, style and technique of literature.
Rediscovery of Plato was a gift to Renaissance
from Greece. It influenced Spenser’s Hymn to
Intellectual beauty.
• The sonnet and blank verse are the two
important meters which were used with artistic
adroitness and excellence in Elizabethan
Literature.
• Pastorals,epicscomedies,tragedies, lyrics of every
kind of prose romances ,criticism, history and
philosophy were skillfully attempted.
• The Renaissance Spirit of Rational and Scientific
Quest: It fostered the reason of questioning, of
rational and scientific quest for truth. Reason
had been put forth as the best guidance factor in
human life. Make an appeal to the reason was the
theme of many writers.
• Bacon is the high priest of this attitude. Ben
Johnson represents the rational and free
approach. The theme of the Paradise Lost in the
fall of man due to his refusal to obey reason.
• Renaissance and Reformation: Reformation is
briefly explained as the religious movement
arising out of the revolt Martin Luther against
Pope’s supermacy.It encouraged writing of
theological prose which influenced the
development of English prose.
• William Tyndale’s Translation of the New
Testament was due to reformation that the bible
became a common property and the language
glided into theological writing and gave it a
literary tone.
• Conclusion: The Age of Shakespeare in which
renaissance finds is highest and most
spontaneous expression marks the real
beginning of very high order of English.