CHAPTER XI


THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND

Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon,
etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets.


ELIZABETHAN AGE: SPENSER.--In England the Elizabethan Age is the period
extending from the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth to the end of
her successor, James I; that is, from 1558 to 1625. This was the golden
age of English literature: the epoch in which, awakened or excited by the
Renaissance, her genius gave forth all its development in fruits that
were marvellous.

First, there was Spenser, alike impregnated with the Italian Renaissance
and gifted with the slightly fantastic imagination of his own countrymen,
who wrote eclogues, in his _Shepheard's Calender_, in imitation of
Theocritus and Virgil as well as of the Italians of the sixteenth
century, and who gave charming descriptions in his _Faerie Queene_.

Next came Sidney, the sonnetist, at once passionate and precious, and
then that highest glory of this glorious period, the dramatic poets.

THE STAGE: MARLOWE.--As in France, the English stage in the Middle Ages
had been devoted to the performance of mysteries (under the name of
_miracles_), later of moralities. As in France, tragedy, strictly
speaking, was constituted in the sixteenth century. Towards its close
appeared Marlowe, a very great genius, still rugged but with