English 6105: The TudorsDAY ONE INTRO

A quick grammatical sidebar

If you’re naming the century, no hyphen:

The sixteenth century was a time of upheaval in England.

If you’re describing the period, hyphen:

Sixteenth-century literature can be hard to describe.

Do not capitalize centuries, per MLA, and do spell them out if you’re writing formally.

Periodization

How do we categorize literature? By movement (The Romantics)By monarch (The Elizabethan

Age)By history (WWI Poets)By theory (Modernists)And, by arbitrary chunks of time.

What is the sixteenth century?

The Protestant Reformation

The emergence of England as an international power

The eruption of humanism

Simultaneous fear of and fascination with art and writing

Enormous exchanges of ideas

International trade expansion

Religious wars

Scandalous coups, executions, and machinations

SO WHY DO WE ONLY TALK ABOUT ELIZABETH I?A number of reasons! She did have the pleasure of reigning during an enormous explosion of English literary talent (Shakespeare et al), but her brother, sister, father, and even grandfather have their stories to tell as well.

Sadly, it’s not as sexy as HBO…

Their Henry VIII Our Henry VIII

But it is as violent!

Mary I Game of Thrones

Highlights of the TudorsWho handily span the entire century of the 1500s.

A journey through dates

1485Defeat of King Richard III at Bosworth and the accession of Henry VII

1509 Accession of Henry VIII

Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More

1515: Cardinal Wolsey appointed Lord Chancellor

1529: Fall of Wolsey, Sir Thomas More succeeds as LC

1532: More resigns

1535: More is executed

1527-1533The Divorce Crisis, as Henry VIII attempts to extricate himself from his 20+ year marriage to Catherine of Aragon in order to marry Anne Boleyn, which he does in 1533. Elizabeth is born that same year.

1536: Backlash

Dissolution of the Monasteries

Pilgrimage of Grace

1547Succession of Edward VI at age 9.

1553Edward VI dies, Warwick attempts to place Jane Grey on the throne, Mary I escapes from her confinement and takes the throne.

1554-1555: Rome and Persecution

Pope Julius III

1558Accession of Elizabeth I

1568Mary Stuart flees to England; her plotting gets her killed in 1587. (See Eliz I poem, “Doubt of Future Foes”)

1570Excommunicated and Deposed

The “Phoenix portrait,” ca. 1575

1588: The Spanish Armada

Decline and Death

1590s: Bad Harvests 1601: Essex rebels