The English Renaissance

1
The English Renaissance

• 1485 - 1660

2
Monarch History

• Prior to 1485 30-year civil War of the Roses
• Lancasters red rose
• Yorks white rose
• Lancaster king Henry Tudor (Henry VII) marries
  York daughter Elizabeth (RJ??)
• Tudor royal family est. ended feudalism
  (Showtimes The Tudors, anyone??)

3
Monarch History, contd.

• Younger son Henry (VIII) marries Catherine,
  daughter of king queen of Spain, New World
  rival
• Henry VIII (1509) true Renaissance man
  athlete, poet, musician, educated in French,
  Italian, Latin

4
Protestant ideas arrive to England

• Growing dissatisfaction with church abuses and
  influence of Rome and the pope
• Henry VIII wants freedom from papal authority
• only has daughter (Mary)
• Requests annulment
• Denied

5
Protestant ideas, contd.

• Secretly marries Anne Boleyn (wifes court
  attendant) 1533
• Forces Parliament to pass Act in Restraint of
  Appeals declares the King Englands highest
  judicial authority
• Declares self head of Church of England (Anglican
  church)

6
Protestant ideas, contd.

• Irony Anne Boleyn only has a daughter
  (Elizabeth)
• Is beheaded
• 3rd marriage (to Jane Seymour) son, Edward VI
• Reigns age 9 16 dies
• England even greater Protestant

7
Protestant ideas, contd.

• Half-sister Mary reigns tries unsuccessfully to
  reintroduce Roman Catholicism
• Persecuted Protestants Bloody Mary
• Half-sister Elizabeth becomes queen 1558

8
Queen Elizabeth

• One of the ablest monarchs in English history
• Excellent politician
• England time of unprecedented prosperity
  international prestige
• single

9
Queen Elizabeth, contd.

• Remained in the middle on religious matters
• Made Anglican church a compromise between
  Catholicism radical Protestants (Puritans)
• The undisputed leader of a great military power,
  defeated Spanish Armada, ending unpopular Spanish
  alliance altogether

10
Queen Elizabeth, contd.

• Avoided religious war
• Excommunicated from Catholic Church

11
Martin Luther enraged with Roman Catholic ways

• Ninety-five Theses posted on Castle Church in
  Wittenberg, 1517
• Example
• 32. Those who believe that, through letters of
  pardon, they are made sure of their own salvation
  will be eternally damned along with their
  teachers

12
Ninety-five Theses, contd.

• Eventually leads to a full Protestant Reformation
  a breaking away from the Church of Rome
• Leads to a Catholic Reformation as well

13
Renaissance

• rebirth
• Began in 14th-c. Italy
• More modern view of stressing human life here on
  earth rather than religion afterlife
• Focus arts literature (remember the printing
  press!), beauty of nature, human impulses,
  mastery over the world, astronomy

14
Renaissance, contd.

• New emphasis on the individual development of
  human potential
• Bible is translated into other languages
• Focus cultivating innate talents to the fullest
• Surge of creative energy

15
Elizabethan Theater

• Most popular art form increased value of the
  spoken word
• Priority in educational curriculum society
• Inexpensive
• Subject of interest the heroic individual
• Still retained heaven hell

16
Following Elizabeths reign

• Financial recklessness of James I Charles I
• Reliance more on Parliament to curb kings power
• Petition of Right est. limited power of Chas. I
• 1642 civil war Royalists vs. Parliament
  Puritans (Oliver Cromwell) Royalists defeated

17
Following Elizabeth, contd.

• Parliament invites Charles II to return from
  exile
• Assumes throne 1660
• Restoration period begins

18
Shakespeares Poetic Techniques

• Verse drama play written as a poem all of his
  plays are considered these
• Meter pattern of beat, or rhythm, in a line of
  poetry
• Iamb unstressed (?) syllable followed by a
  stressed (/) syllable
• ? /
• Ex. predict

19
Shakespeares Poetic Techniques

• Iambic pentameter 5 iambs per line
• Blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter
• ? / ? / ? / ? / ? /
• Good things of day begin to droop and drowse
• Where are the 5 iambs separated?
• Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

20
Shakespeares Poetic Techniques

• Why the large space?
• Ross
• How goes the world, sir, now?
• Macduff Why, see you not?
• To complete the line of iambic pentameter!

21
Shakespeare varies his verse

• Prose written style of novels, etc. that lacks
  rhythmic patterns and rhyme paragraph form
• Why?
• Fools those used for comic relief
• Less important characters
• Those of lower class
• upper class talking to those of lower class
• Those of less intelligence
• Letters
• Expressing madness

22
Shakespeare varies his verse

• Rhyming couplets 2 rhyming lines
• Why?
• Signal the end of a scene
• Signal the exit or entrance of a character
• For emphasis
• Witches power over the other characters
  (usually never over 4 beats/iambs per line)