The Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
The golden age of English literature – the Elizabethan age
Elizabethan tragedy is centered on – revenge
The Elizabethan age was replete with songs & lyrics. This is why; this age is called ‘a nest of singing birds’.
The first English tragedy – Ferrex & Porrex.
University Wits – Those playwrights who were highly educated in Oxford & Cambridge University. 5 of them born same year 1558. Thomas Kyd, Bacon, Marlowe etc.
Edmund Spenser.
The poet of poets
Works –The Ruins of Time
Christopher Marlowe
Was an English playwright & poet. The greatest dramatist of English literature before Shakespeare.
Works – Doctor Faustus, Edward-II
Thomas Kyd (playwright)
The Spanish Tragedy(1st revenged tragedy),
William Shakespeare (23rd April 1564-1616)
Is famous for English playwright of sixteenth century. (37 plays)
Tragedy – ‘Romeo & Juliet’, ‘Julius Caesar’ , ‘King Lear’, Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet,
Comedy – Love’s Labour Lost, The Tempest(last plays), All’s well that Ends well*, As you like it*, The Merchant of Venice*, Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the shrew*,
Historical- Anthony & Cleopatra,
Poem – Venus & Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece.
‘To be or not to be, that is a question’ a quotation from – Hamlet. *
There are more things in haven & earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy – Hamlet. *
There is a divinity that shapes our ends’ is expressed from – Hamlet. *
Fair is foul, & foul is fair’ is quoted by – Macbeth (1606).
Calliban is a character in – Tempest
Cowards die many times before their death – is quoted from Julius Caesar.
A Shakespearean plays consists of five acts.
‘Brevity is the soul of wit’ is quoted by Shakespeare
Called ‘The bird of Avon’
Ben Johnson(1573-1637)
Comedy – The Silent Woman*, The Alchemist
Francis Bacon(1561-1626) (essayist)
Works- Novum Organum, The advancement of Learning
Considered to be the father of English prose. *
Robert Herrick (1592-1674)(poet)
To Daffodils, Hesperides,
In the poem ‘To Daffodils’ the poet weeps over – short-lived human life. *
c. Puritan period (1620-1660)
John Milton (1620-1674) (epic poet)
‘Paradise Lost’ attempted to – justify the ways of God to man.(14th BCS)
He was called the ‘great master of verse,
Works- On the Blindness (sonnets), Paradise Regained* (epic), Lycidas*, Areopagitica(prose)
John Bunyan (1628-1688)
works – The pilgrims Progress,
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