The Context

The Context

Culture(1485-1688)

Humanistic ideals retrieved from ancient Greek and Roman cultures

The court as a center of literary and artistic activityExpansion of Oxford and Cambridge universities – initiators of the English RenaissanceDominance of theater as prime form of entertainmentDevelopment of church music Modern English (from 1500)Diffusion of printing, books in EnglishScientific revolution :Newton, Royal SocietyBirth of argumentative literature, journalism

Society

Anti-Catholic feelings

Highly cultivated opper and middle classes

Poverty among the lower classes

Predominance of Puritans and strict moral

values

Loose morals among the aristocracy after

the Restoration

DRAMA

Flourishing of Drama

Elizabethan and

Jacobean playwrights:

Marlowe, Shakespeare,

Jonson

Comedy of Manners

POETRY

Courtly poetry: the

sonnet and sonneteers

Spenser (allegorical

poetry)

Drama and poetry:

drama in blank verse

John Donne and the

Metaphysical Poets

Milton (religious epic

poetry)