Like other aspects of the Human Endeavor, Literature was
impacted by the tremendous strides and reawakening of the Renaissance Period.
Both the essay (Montaigne) and the
Spenserian stanza emerged as literary forms. Great writers included
Machiavelli, Petrach, Spenser, Boccaccio, Melanchthon, Rabelais and later
Shakespeare. Writing moved away from biblical themes to that of the vernacular
and access to the public was driven by versions of Johannes Gutenberg’s
Printing Press (first used in 1439).Humanist themes played a major role on both the continent
and the British Isles.
In the English world the Oxford Reformers – William Grocyn,
Thomas Linacre and John Colet – helped introduce European themes and styles
from Italy and France to their homeland. Thomas More (in his Utopia) would
benefit from this as did the later court movements of Sir Philip Sydney and
Edmund Spenser.
However it was through the medium of the play that the English
would shine with the works of William
Shakespeare and his three categories of Dramatic genre – the History (Henry V,
Richard III), the Tragedy (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear) and the Comedy
(Twelfth Night, Merry Wives of Windsor, Comedy of Errors).
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