HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. In such triumphant lines, falling from the
lips of that old imperialist John of Gaunt, did Shakespeare
reflect, not the rebellious spirit of the age of Richard II, but
the boundless enthusiasm of his own times, when the defeat of
Spain's mighty Armada had left England "in splendid isolation,"
unchallenged mistress of her own realm and of the encircling sea.
For it was in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign that England
found herself as a nation, and became conscious of her destiny as a
world empire.

There is another and darker side to the political shield, but the
student of literature is not concerned with it. We are to remember
the patriotic enthusiasm of the age, overlooking the frequent
despotism of "good Queen Bess" and entering into the spirit of
national pride and power that thrilled all classes of Englishmen
during her reign, if we are to understand the outburst of
Elizabethan literature. Nearly two centuries of trouble and danger
had passed since Chaucer died, and no national poet had appeared in
England. The Renaissance came, and the Reformation, but they
brought no great writers with them. During the first thirty years
of Elizabeth's reign not a single important literary work was
produced; then suddenly appeared the poetry of Spenser and Chapman,
the prose of Hooker, Sidney and Bacon, the dramas of Marlowe,
Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and a score of others,--all voicing the
national feeling after the defeat of the Armada, and growing silent
as soon as the enthusiasm began to wane.

LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS. Next to the patriotic spirit of Elizabethan
literature, its most notable qualities are its youthful freshness and
vigor, its romantic spirit, its absorption in the theme of love, its