2. National life is associated with national literature
Religious chaos brought to an end
Employment, age of thought and action, a golden
era of England,
Age of Adventure (Hakluyt’s famous Collection of
Voyages, and Purchas, His Pilgrimage) Exploring
world that later assisted English colonizers
(Cabot, Drake, Frobisher, Gilbert, Raleigh,
Willoughby, Hawkins)
Elizabethan age is famous for English Drama in
which Drama was developed to the highest peak
3. Poor
Had to work for living
Tailor’s school to Cambridge
In Cambridge he read classics, became acquainted with Italian poets and
wrote several poems of his own
Very much inspired by Chaucer
Left Cambridge in 1576 for North England
Met Rosalind and fell in love with the lady, wrote Shepherd’s Calendar
upon her lost expressing his melancholy
Came to London and met Leicester, then through his influence became
secretary to Lord Grey, Deputy to Queen in Ireland (3rd phase)
Wrote Faery Queen (3 books, Epic poem) published and appreciated…50
pound as yearly pension that he hardly received
Fell in love with an Irish girl, Elizabeth, wrote Amoretti, (Sonnets) in her
honor
1594, marriage with Elizabeth, wrote Epithalamion (marriage hymn) as a
marriage gift presented to her
Came to London , wrote three other books of Faery Queen
4. Rebels broke into his castle, he managed to
escape, possibility that some of the copiies of FQ
(intended to write 24 books, but 18 remained
just a dream) were burnt in the castle,,,he could
not recover from that trauma, died in an inn near
Westminster in 1599
Buried near his master Chaucer in Westminster
Abbey, Ben Johnson said, he died “want of bread”
Wrote Astrophel, an elegy on the death of Philip
Sydney
5. For the Faery Queen Spenser invented a new
verse form, which has been called since his day
the Spenserian stanza. Because of its rare beauty
it has been much used by nearly all English poets
in their best work. The new stanza was an
improved form of Ariosto’s ottava rima (i.e.
eight-line stanza) and bears a close resemblance
to one of Chaucer’s most musical verse forms in
the "Monk’s Tale.“ Spenser’s stanza is in nine
lines, eight of five feet each and the last of six
feet, riming ababbcbcc.
6. Most appreciated after Chaucer,,,ideas there that he
was his contemporary
First National poet
Melody of English verse
Pastoral composition that has an everlasting effect on
poetry created later on
The beginning of Elizabethan poetry
a splendid imagination, which could gather into one
poem heroes, knights, ladies, dwarfs, demons and
dragons, classic mythology, stories of chivalry, and
the thronging ideals of the Renaissance,–all passing
in gorgeous procession across an ever-changing and
everbeautiful landscape;
7. Thomas Sackville, Under the influence of
Dante’s Inferno he wrote The mirror of
Magistrate, in which he introduced a
personified character Sorrow who meets all
English historical characters and their story is
revealed.
Became a politician
Thomas Sackville with collaboration of
Thomas Norton wrote the first English
tragedy Ferrex and Porrex (Gorboduc)
will be discussed in rise of English Drama
8. Arcadia (a pastoral poem in which shephered
and shepherdess sing the songs of a
delightful life)
Apologie for poetry (defense of poesy)
Astrophel and Stella (collection of poems and
sonnets dedicated to his beloved Penelope)
All works were published posthumously
