1. Renaissance means re-birth.

From about 1500 to 1600 the world was reborn in

many ways. The Renaissance began in Italy, especially in art and architecture, in
the fifteenth century. As England became the most powerful nation in Europe in
the late sixteenth century, new worlds were discovered and new ways of seeing
and thinking developed. Columbus discovered America in 1492, Copernicus and
Galileo made important discoveries about the stars and planets, Ferdinand
Magellan sailed all round the world. The Renaissance was worldwide.
In England there was an important change in religion and politics when King
Henry VIII made himself the head of the Church of England, bringing church and
state together (1529-39). He cut all contact with Catholic Church and the Pope in
Rome, part of a reaction against the Catholic Church in many parts of Europe.
Protestantism became more and more important and gave a whole new vision of
man’s relations with God. The king or queen became the human being on earth
who was closest to God, at the head of the Great Chain of Being which led down
to the rest of mankind, animals, insects and so on. The Dutch thinker, Erasmus,
wrote of mankind as central to the world, and this humanist concern was the
basis of most Renaissance thought. The Tudors inherited much of the medieval
view of the world which consisted of numberless but linked ‘degrees’ of being,
from the four physical elements ( air, fire, earth and water) up to the pure
intelligence of angels. Also, the whole universe was governed by divine will;
Nature was God’s instrument, the social hierarchy a product of Nature. Everything
had their natural place in the unity of the whole: both within the family and state
(which it is believed, should be governed by a single head)
Daugther of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Queen Elisabeth(1533-1603), became
the symbol of the Golden Age, the period of stability from 1558 to 1603.
Following her mother’s execution, Elizabeth was declared illegitimate by
parliament (1537), and suffered a lonely childhood, much of it spent in the
company of her young brother Edward. She was rigorously educated, studying 5
Latin and Greek. The accession of her sister as Mary I in 1553 increased the
insecurity of Elizabeth’s position, she was an opponent of religious extremism,
she was seen as natural focus for the protestant faction. Accused of involvement
in Sir Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion, she was imprisoned in Tower before being placed
under house arrest at Woodstock (1554)
Being the last monarch of the House of Tudor, Elizabeth was a Protestant (a term
used for those who broke away from the Roman Catholic Church). Her
predecessor, Mary I (on the throne 1553-1558), had been a repressive Catholic,
married to the most fanatically Catholic sovereign in Europe, Philip II of Spain).
Although Elizabeth cut the ties with Rome, her tolerance and her ability to
compromise won her the loyalty of both Catholic and Puritans (Protestant
reformers who insisted on simplicity in religious forms). In 1588 Philip’s attempt
to conquer England led to the defeat of great Spanish fleet known as the Armada.
Sir Francis Drake (1540-1596), a national hero, was one of the commanders of the
English fleet. This victory was a great triumph for Elizabeth and through her
nation. England’s enemies, Spain in particular, were defeated, and the English
controlled the seas of the world, exploring and bringing valuable goods from the
New World. This was closely linked with the Renaissance search for new ways of
believing, new ways of seen and understanding the universe.
The Renaissance was the beginning of the modern world in the areas of
geography, science, politics, religion, society and art. London became not 6 only
the capital of England, but also the main city of the known world. And English, in
the hands of writers like Shakespeare, became the modern language we can
recognize today. The invention of printing meant that all kinds of writing were
open to anyone who could read. Many new forms of writing were developed. But
the most important form of expression was theatre. This was the age of
Shakespeare, and the Golden Age of English Drama
We can distinguish three periods of literature of English Renaissance. The first
period covers the end of the 15th and the first half of the 16th centuries. In
England the first scholars and humanists appeared, they studied and investigated
the antique philosophy, literature. In Oxford and Cambridge Universities the first
generations of the English humanists were trained, the development of the book
printing was of importance for humanistic culture. The first English printer
William Caxton (1422-1491) learnt the art of printing at Cologne in the early 1470-
s (Guttenberg in Germany in 1440). In 1470-s he returned to England. In 1577 the
first book was issued from his press at Westminster, Earl ‘Rivers’ ”Dictes and
Sayengs of the Phylosophers”. Between them and his death Caxton produced
about 80 complete volumes, including Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”, and also
found time to work on translations. In this period the English humanistic literature
was mainly of theoretical character, Thomas More (1478 – 1535), was the most
outstanding writer of the first stage of English Renaissance. He was Lord
Chancellor of England from 1529-1532), scholar and saint. He trained as a lawyer,
entered parliament in 1504. He resigned in opposition to Henry VIII’s religious
policies and was arrested for refusing to swear the oath to the Act of Succession
and thereby deny papal supremacy. He was convicted on the perjured evidence of
Sir Richard Rich after a remarkable self-defense and was executed. He was
canonized in 1935. Thomas More was a renowned scholar and a friend of
Erasmus, his writings including ‘Utopia’ are a description of an ideal society. His
main work “Utopia” was written in 1516 in Latin, the international language of
those times. The book consists of two parts and is written in the form of dialog
between Thomas More and a seaman Rafail Hitlodey, the traveler all over the
world.
The second period, the so called Elizabethan one covers the second half of the XVI
century and the beginning of the XYII. It is the time of flourishing the English
Renaissance literature, the time of creating of the new literary forms:
Shakespeare’s masterpieces are created in this period.

2. Although the exact date of Shakespeare’s birth is unknown, his baptism on

April 26, 1564, was recorded in the parish register of Holy Trinity Church in
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, a prosperous town in the English Midlands.
Based on this record and on the fact that children in Shakespeare’s time were
usually baptized two or three days after birth, April 23 has traditionally been
accepted as his date of birth. The third of eight children, William Shakespeare was
the eldest son of John Shakespeare, a locally prominent glovemaker and wool
merchant, and Mary Arden, the daughter of a well-to-do landowner in the nearby
village of Wilmcote. The young Shakespeare probably attended the Stratford
grammar school, the King’s New School, which educated the sons of Stratford
citizens. The school’s rigorous curriculum was based largely on the study of Latin
and the major classical writers. Shakespeare’s writings show that he was well
acquainted with the Latin poet Ovid as well as other Latin works, including
comedies by Terence and Plautus, two much-admired Roman playwrights.
As his family’s eldest son, Shakespeare ordinarily would have been apprenticed to
his father’s shop after he completed grammar school, so that he could learn and
eventually take over the business. We do not have any evidence that he did so,
however. According to one late 17th-century account, he was apprenticed instead
to a butcher because of declines in his father’s financial situation, but this claim is
no more convincing that a number of other claims. A potentially reliable source,
William Beeston, the son of an actor and theater manager who would certainly
have known Shakespeare, claimed that Shakespeare had been “a schoolmaster in
the country.” Recently, some scholars have been intrigued by a letter from 1581
from a prominent landowner, Alexander Hoghton, recommending a William
Shakeshafte to Sir Thomas Hesketh. Some believe that Shakeshafte is
Shakespeare, working perhaps as a schoolmaster for the Hoghtons, a Catholic
family in Lancashire. However, no absolutely reliable historical records remain to
provide information about Shakespeare’s life between his baptism and his
marriage. On November 27, 1582, a license was issued to permit Shakespeare’s
marriage, at the age of 18, to Anne Hathaway, aged 26 and the daughter of a
Warwickshire farmer. (Although the document lists the bride as “Annam
Whateley” the scribe most likely made an error in the entry.) The next day a bond
was signed to protect the bishop who issued the license from any legal
responsibility for approving the marriage, as William was still a minor and Anne
was pregnant. The couple’s daughter, Susanna, was born on May 26, 1583, and
twins — Hamnet and Judith who were named for their godparents, neighbors
Hamnet and Judith Sadler—followed on February 2, 1585. Sometime after the
birth of the twins, Shakespeare apparently left Stratford, but no records have
turned up to reveal his activity between their birth and his presence in London in
1592, when he was already at work in the theater. For this reason Shakespeare’s
biographers sometimes refer to the years between 1585 and 1592 as “the lost
years.” Speculations about this period abound. An unsubstantiated report claims
Shakespeare left Stratford after he was caught poaching in the deer park of Sir
Thomas Lucy, a local justice of the peace. Another theory has him leaving for
London with a theater troupe that had performed in Stratford in 1587.

3. William Shakespeare altered his writing style significantly between his first play
(1590-92) and his last (1613). For example, the Shakespeare style of 1590 was
somewhat rigid in its adherence to established rules, though it did contain flashes
of brilliance that astounded and delighted audiences. The style of the early
1600's, on the other hand, was more creative and free because Shakespeare had
learned to listen more to his inner voice and less to the dictates of literary
convention. In his later years—in particular when he wrote The Tempest—
Shakespeare achieved a writing mastery that confirmed what earlier masterpieces
such as Hamlet and King Lear suggested: that he was one of the greatest writers
in history.

Scholars generally assign each of his plays to one of four periods, depending on
the quality and maturity of the writing and characterization. Textbooks classify
these as the Early Period, the Balanced Period, the Overflowing Period, and the
Final Period. Not everyone agrees on which plays belong to which period. For
example, some scholars place Hamlet in the Balanced Period while others place it
in the Overflowing Period. Scholars also differ on the period to which The
Merchant of Venice belongs. Some place it in the Early Period and others in the
Balanced Period. Plays of questionable authorship, such as Edward III and The
Two Noble Kinsmen, generally are omitted from placement in any of the four
periods.

Following is a listing of the plays according to their periods, as well as a

description of the characteristics of the four periods.
Early Period
Plays with boldfaced titles are listed in more than one period, reflecting the
disagreement among scholars on the period to which they belong.
Plays: The Comedy of Errors, Henry VI Part I, Henry VI Part II, Henry VI Part
III, King John, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard
II, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, The
Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice
Style in General: Technically rigid; somewhat immature. The plots generally are
well organized.
Characterization: Often superficial or shallow compared with the characterization
in later plays. Romeo and Juliet, in which characterization is strong, is an
exception.
Dialogue: Sometimes stilted, unnatural. Shakespeare tries hard—maybe too hard
—to be consistent in the structure of his lines, making his words fit established
conventions rather than making them express the mercurial, inner voice that
guided him in later plays. Puns and other rhetorical devices abound, making the
wording clever but not always profound. In Richard II, John of Gaunt makes puns
even as he is dying.
Balanced Period
Boldfaced plays are listed in more than one period, reflecting the disagreement
among scholars on the period to which they belong.
Plays: All's Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, Hamlet, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV
Part II, Henry V, Julius Caesar, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of
Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Troilus
and Cressida, Twelfth Night.
Style in General: Less technically rigid; more creative. The plots are generally well
designed. Shakespeare demonstrates his range by writing outstanding works in
three genres: comedy (As You Like It, Twelfth Night), tragedy (Hamlet, Julius
Caesar) and history (Henry IV Part I, Henry V). In addition, he presents a highly
tragic character, Shylock, in a comedy (The Merchant of Venice).
Characterization: Strong and rounded, reflecting deep insight into human nature.
Among the magnificent character portrayals of this period are those of Hamlet,
Macbeth, Shylock, Othello, Iago, and Brutus. In Henry IV Parts I and II,
Shakespeare achieves a wonderful balance between the comic (represented by
Sir John Falstaff) and the serious (represented by Hotspur and others).
Dialogue: A mixture of verse and prose. Shakespeare also uses the soliloquy as
more than a device to disclose the direction of the plot, to present pretty poetry,
or to deliver long-winded asides. In Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Caesar, for
example, soliloquies plumb the depths of the characters' souls, revealing doubt,
indecision, fear, and ambition. The "To be or not to be" soliloquy in Hamlet,
perhaps the most famous passage in English literature, reveals all of these
emotions.
Overflowing Period
Plays: King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Timon of
Athens.
Style in General: Highly creative; bursting with insight. Shakespeare ignores many
rules to allow his genius to "overflow." The plots of this period sometimes twist
and turn, challenging the reader with their complexity.
Characterization: Superb, deeply insightful.
Dialogue: Often highly suggestive of the speaker's state of mind and suffused with
memorable metaphors, similes and other figures of speech. Many passages are in
prose. The following prose passage in the storm scene in King Lear reveals all of
these characteristics. Lear is addressing Edgar in the presence of the Fool. After
speaking the lines, Lear tears off his clothes.
Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer with thy uncovered body this
extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest
the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha!
here's three on 's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated
man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you
lendings! Come unbutton here. (3.4.74)
Final Period
Plays: Cymbeline, Henry VIII, Pericles, The Tempest, The Winter's Tale.
Style in General: Masterly. Shakespeare has just the right mix of technical skill,
creativity, and wisdom while exhibiting hope for flawed humanity. Shakespeare
tends to prefer times and places far removed from Elizabethan England—as
in The Tempest, Pericles, and Cymbeline—although Henry VIII is certainly an
exception here.
Characterization: Superb, deeply insightful. Several plays of this period—
including Pericles, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline—introduce characters who
suffer loss, then regain what they have lost.
Dialogue: Highly creative, with many memorable passages in both verse and
prose. The following passages, the first in verse and the second in prose, are
from The Tempest

4. Although Shakespeare is today best known for his plays, his sonnets still rank among the world’s
best-loved poems. Shakespeare’s sonnets were published for the first time as a collection in 1609,
although two (numbers 138 and 144) had previously been printed in a volume of Elizabethan verse
called The Passionate Pilgrim (1599). The 1609 collection of sonnets was dedicated to “Mr. W.H.,” the
“only begetter of these . . . sonnets.” The dedication was signed by “T.T.,” (Thomas Thorpe, the
publisher). Thorpe may have secured a copy of the poems that had been circulating among
Shakespeare’s friends, or he may somehow have obtained Shakespeare’s own manuscripts. In addition
to 154 sonnets, the volume contained “A Lover’s Complaint.” In this poem, too-little read today, a
woman tells a herdsman the story of her seduction and later abandonment by her lover. The presence
of a “Complaint” in a book of sonnets was a well-recognized practice, and Shakespeare’s sonnets and
“The Lover’s Complaint” were undoubtedly intended to be read together. English poet and dramatist
William Shakespeare sometimes played with existing conventions of courtly love in his sonnets. Courtly
love sonnets, a tradition stemming back to 13th-century Italy, often depict a pure love for an idealized,
inaccessible woman. By contrast, in love poems such as sonnet 85 130, Shakespeare describes a far
more tangible and imperfect woman. The songs that appear in Shakespeare’s plays can be sweet,
playful, lascivious, and absurd. Following are a selection of four of Shakespeare’s sonnets and two of his
songs, “Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred” and “Where the Bee Sucks, There Suck I.” The first 126 sonnets
are apparently addressed to a handsome young nobleman, presumably the author’s patron. The poems
express the writer’s selfless but not entirely uncritical devotion to the young man. The next 28 sonnets
are written to a “dark lady,” whom the poet seemingly cannot resist. Another figure in the sequence is
the “rival poet.” Scholars have spent much time trying to identify the specific figures the sonnets
address, but it is unlikely that the sonnets are so personal. More likely, the sonnet offered Shakespeare
a structure for experiments in lyric verse that enabled him to play with familiar conventions of feeling
and poetry. Although no systematic narrative develops in the sonnets, there is a thematic link between
the “young man” group and the “dark lady” group. The youth and the William Herbert, the Earl of
mistress betray the poet, and at one point the author Pembruck, the nephew, one of the berates the
young man for stealing the dark lady prototypes of the young man from him. Miscellaneous sonnets
treat various in Shakespeare’s Sonnets other themes, most notably the rending effects of time and the
eternalizing possibilities of art.

The sonnet is a short poem or a stanza, complete in itself, with unity of substance and a fixed form. It
consists of 14 lines of iambic pentametre rhyming according to a conventionally fixed scheme. It deals
with a single emotion, sentiment or reflection which is introduced in the first part and completed in the
second part. The second part, therefore, often takes the form of reinforcement of the impression given
in the first part from another point of view or some profound reflection suggested by it. The first part of
the sonnet is called the octave, the second – the sestet. The last two lines of the sestet present a
conclusion drawn from the whole sonnet. These two lines are called the epigrammatic lines of the
sonnet. The sonnet expresses a generalized concept of an individual life experience. Each sonnet is,
therefore, a single utterance which may be regarded as a selfcontained micro-literary work in which all
the typical features of any literary work in general are patterned, and presented on a reduced scale.
Shakespearian sonnets are superb both in form and content. A great volume of emotional charge is
always blended with rational elements. Only the genius of Shakespeare could display the enormous
powers of human intellect in struggling with the devastating and devouring flame of passion. In this
struggle the reasoning powers always take the upper hand. The emotions, violent though they may be,
are unable to shatter the logical arrangement of the utterance. The form, bridled by the idea, grows into
an additional source of communication and begins to fulfill its part. The following analysis is only a
humble attempt to say what so far has been unsaid.