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The Renaissance was considered
the golden age of poetry.
The sonnet came from Italy, where it had been experimented and refined
by Dante and Petrarch, whose Canzoniere had become the model for
all the European Renaissance poets. In this collection of poems
there are all the characteristic Elizabethan sonnets. The lady embodiment
all qualities. The psychology of love creates one of the most important
paradoxes. The language of the sonnet is full of such paradoxes:
the lady is beautiful but cruel, desirable but chaste, etc. The
feelings of the woman aren't explored. In many sonnets love for
the woman turns into love for God. As a metrical form the sonnet
is composed by 14 lines. The English sonnet consists in 3 quatrains
and a final couplet. The verse changes from the iambic pentameter
to blank verse. Elizabethan sonneteers were masters of rhetoric
and showed their ability using conceit. A conceit is an elaborate
poetic image. It generally startles the reader, who must be a member
of cultivated public.
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Born in Kent, Wyatt was
a courtly poet who lived in the reign of Henry VIII and was appointed
to several diplomatic posts in the King's service, travelling to
France Spain and Italy. Wyatt was imprisoned because he had had
love affairs with Anne Boleyn. His fortunes turned again when his
protector, Thomas Cromwell, was executed and Wyatt was arrested
again and accused of treason. Eventually, he was released and died
the following year.
Probably
as a result of his diplomatic experiences in Italy, Wyatt was
the first to introduce the sonnet in England. His verse is close
to the courtly convention of love poetry, even if sexual theme
are often concealed behind debates on the nature of love.
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He was born on 1564, the
same year of Shakespeare. He was educated in Cambridge University,
where he had a reputation for free thinking and atheism. Marlowe
moving to London on 1587, after taking his degree. From 1587 to1593,
he wrote his most famous tragedies. He was suspected to be a spy
and killed in a tavern in 1593.
He wrote
five dramatic masterpieces: "Tamburlaine the Great"(1590),
"Doctor Faustus"(1588), one of the first the representation
of the Legend of Faust, "The Jew of Malta"(1633) "Edward
II"(1594), one of the first historical English drama which
was the model of Shakespeare's Richard II and Richard III; and
"Dido, queen of Carthage".
His plays are often though to be among the first to embody the
true spirit of Renaissance. The most important themes of these
work are: the lust of power, the desire to surpass the old restrictions
of the Church. His characters aren't personifications of virtues
or vices, but are enriched by human passions and faults.
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He was born on 1558 in London
and died on 1594. He was one of the first dramatist of Elizabethan
theatre. He was considered the inventor of the "revenge tragedies"
and he wrote an "Hamlet" and a "The taming of the
shrew". He inspired the "Tito Andronico" written
by Shakespeare.
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Donne was born on 1572 in London
to a prominent Roman Catholic family but converted to Anglicanism
during 1590's. At an early age, Donne entered the University of
Oxford, and later had a short stint at Cambridge University. He
didn't receive a degree from either university; but subsequently
studied law and worked as a lawyer. He became a priest in 1615.
His collection of Sermons is some of his most interesting works.
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