All about English Literature:

POST (PART 1)
Terms, Periods and Basics ---------
Amatory fiction :
Romantic fiction written in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Notable authors: Eliza Haywood, Delarivier Manley

Cavalier Poets:
17th century English royalist poets, writing primarily about courtly love, called
Sons of Ben (after Ben Jonson).

Notable authors: Richard Lovelace, William Davenant

Metaphysical poets:
17th century English movement using extended conceit, often (though not always)
about religion.

Notable authors: John Donne, George Herbert, Andrew Marvell

The Augustans:
An 18th century literary movement based chiefly on classical ideals, satire and
skepticism.

Notable authors: Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift

Romanticism:
1800 to 1860 century movement emphasizing emotion and imagination, rather than
logic and scientific thought. Response to the Enlightenment.

Notable authors: Victor Hugo, Lord Byron and Camilo Castelo Branco
Gothic novel :
Fiction in which Romantic ideals are combined with an interest in the supernatural
and in violence.
Notable authors: Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker
Lake Poets:
A group of Romantic poets from the English Lake District who wrote about nature
and the sublime.

Notable authors: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

American Romanticism:
Distinct from European Romanticism, the American form emerged somewhat later,
was based more in fiction than in poetry, and incorporated a (sometimes almost
suffocating) awareness of history, particularly the darkest aspects of American
history.

Notable authors: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne,

Pre-Raphaelitism:

19th century, primarily English movement based ostensibly on undoing

innovations by the painter Raphael. Many were both painters and poets.

Notable authors: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti

Transcendentalism:
19th century American movement: poetry and philosophy concerned with
self-reliance, independence from modern technology.

Notable authors: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau

Dark romanticism:
19th century American movement in reaction to Transcendentalism. Finds man
inherently sinful and self-destructive and nature a dark, mysterious force.

Notable authors: Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville,

George Lippard
Realism:
Late-19th century movement based on a simplification of style and image and an
interest in poverty and everyday concerns.

Notable authors: Gustave Flaubert, William Dean Howells, Stendhal, Honoré de

Balzac, Leo Tolstoy, Frank Norris and Eça de Queiroz
Naturalism:
Also late 19th century. Proponents of this movement believe heredity and
environment control people.

Notable authors: Émile Zola, Stephen Crane

ll bout English Literature
Literary Terms , Literary Preiods , Major Literary Figures
Symbolism ----

Principally French movement of the fin de siècle based on the structure of thought
rather than poetic form or image; influential for English language poets from
Edgar Allan Poe to James Merrill.

Notable authors: Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Valéry

Stream of consciousness:
Early-20th century fiction consisting of literary representations of quotidian
thought, without authorial presence.

Notable authors: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce

Modernism:
Variegated movement of the early 20th century, encompassing primitivism, formal
innovation, or reaction to science and technology.

Notable authors: Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, H.D., James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and
Fernando Pessoa
The Lost Generation:
It was traditionally attributed to Gertrude Stein and was then popularized by
Ernest Hemingway in the epigraph to his novel The Sun Also Rises, and his
memoir A Moveable Feast. It refers to a group of American literary notables who
lived in Paris and other parts ofEurope from the time period which saw the end of
World War I to the beginning of the Great Depression.

Notable Authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Waldo

Pierce
Dada:
Touted by its proponents as anti-art, dada focused on going against artistic norms
and conventions.

Notable authors: Guillaume Apollinaire, Kurt Schwitters

First World War Poets:
Poets who documented both the idealism and the horrors of the war and the period
in which it took place.

Notable authors: Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke

Stridentism:
Mexican artistic avant-garde movement. They exalted modern urban life and social
revolution.

Notable authors: Manuel Maples Arce, Arqueles Vela, Germán List Arzubide
Los Contemporáneos:
A Mexican vanguardist group, active in the late 1920s and early 1930s; published
an eponymous literary magazine which served as the group's mouthpiece and
artistic vehicle from 1928-1931.

Notable authors: Xavier Villaurrutia, Salvador Novo

Imagism:
Poetry based on description rather than theme, and on the motto, "the natural
object is always the adequate symbol."

Notable authors: Ezra Pound, H.D., Richard Aldington

Harlem Renaissance:
African American poets, novelists, and thinkers, often employing elements of blues
and folklore, based in the Harlem neighborhood ofNew York City in the 1920s.

Notable authors: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston

Surrealism:
Originally a French movement, influenced by Surrealist painting, that uses
surprising images and transitions to play off of formal expectations and depict the
unconscious rather than conscious mind.

Notable authors: Jean Cocteau, Dylan Thomas

Southern Agrarians:
A group of Southern American poets, based originally at Vanderbilt University,
who expressly repudiated many modernist developments in favor of metrical verse
and narrative. Some Southern Agrarians were also associated with the New
Criticism.

Notable authors: John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren

Oulipo:
Mid-20th century poetry and prose based on seemingly arbitrary rules for the sake
of added challenge.

Notable authors: Raymond Queneau, Walter Abish...

Postmodernism:
Postwar movement skeptical of absolutes and embracing diversity, irony, and word
play.

Notable authors: Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, Alasdair Gray

Black Mountain Poets:
A self-identified group of poets, originally based at Black Mountain College, who
eschewed patterned form in favor of the rhythms and inflections of the human
voice.

Notable authors: Charles Olson, Denise Levertov

Beat poets:
American movement of the 1950s and 1960s concerned with counterculture and
youthful alienation.

Notable authors: Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Ken Kesey
Hungryalist Poets:
A literary movement in postcolonial India (Kolkata) during 1961-65 as a
counter-discourse to Colonial Bengali poetry.

Notable poets:Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, Binoy Majumdar,

Samir Roychoudhury
Confessional poetry :
Poetry that, often brutally, exposes the self as part of an aesthetic of the beauty and
power of human frailty.

Notable authors: Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Alicia Ostriker

New York School:
Urban, gay or gay-friendly, leftist poets, writers, and painters of the 1960s.

Notable authors: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery

Magical Realism:
Literary movement in which magical elements appear in otherwise realistic
circumstances. Most often associated with the Latin American literary boom of the
20th century.

Notable authors: Gabriel García Márquez, Octavio Paz, Günter Grass, Julio
Cortázar
Postcolonialism
A diverse, loosely connected movement of writers from former colonies of
European countries, whose work is frequently politically charged.
Notable authors: Jamaica Kincaid, V. S. Naipaul, Derek Walcott, Salman Rushdie,
Giannina Braschi, Wole Soyinka Poetry is the expression of a thought, an idea, a
concept or a story in a structured form which has a flow and a music created by
the sounds and syllables in it.
Acrostic: Acrostic poetry is one that contains certain letters, which are usually
placed at the beginning of each line. These letters form a message or word when
they are read in a sequence.
Ballad: This type of poetry is short and narrative and is made up of stanzas of two
to four lines. Ballads usually have a refrain. They also deal mostly with folklore or
popular trends though some also originate from a wide range of subject matter.
The verses in ballads are straight-forward and seldom have any detail. Apart from
that, ballads always possess graphic simplicity and force.
Blank Verse: A blank verse is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. This form is
a little like the rhythms of speech. Burlesque: In this kind of poetry a subject that is
serious in nature is treated as humor.
Cinquain: A cinquain is short poem that is made up of five lines that are usually
unrhymed. These five lines contain two, four, six, eight and two syllables
respectively.
Clerihew: This type of poetry is made up of a comic verse that has two couplets
and a specific rhyming scheme.
Didactic Poetry: Didactic poems are poems that are written in order to instruct or
teach.
Epic: This type of poem is long and narrative in nature. It talks about the
adventures of a hero. Epics usually deal with the history and traditions of a nation.
Epigram: Practiced by poets like Robert Frost, William Blake and Ben Jonson,
epigrams are short poems that possess satire. This type of poetry ends with a
stinging punchline or humorous retort. Common forms of epigrams are written as
a couplet.
Epitaph: A short poem with rhyming lines written on a tombstone in praise of a
deceased person is called an epitaph.
Elegy: This type of poetry is sad and thoughtful in nature. They talk about the
death of an individual.
Free Verse: Like the name suggests, free verse is poetry that is irregular. This type
of poetry has content which is free from the traditional rules of using verse.
Ode: A poem that is written in praise of a place, thing or person, is known as an
ode.
Sonnet: A poem that is made up of 14 lines and a particular rhyming scheme is
called a sonnet.
Couplet: Perhaps the most popular type of poetry used, the couplet has stanzas
made up of two lines which rhyme with each other.

====================================

ALL About English Literature POST (PART 2)

LIST OF LITERARY PERIOD IN ENGLISH
LITERATURE AND MAJOR WRITERS ~~~
SATUIRE ,TYPES AND ITS DEVICES~~~~
About English 0450 - 1066: Old English (Anglo-Saxon) Period
Major Writers:
Beowulf (Anonymous)
1066 - 1500: Middle English Period
Major Writers:
Geoffrey Chaucer
1500 - 1600: The Renaissance (Early Modern) Period

1558 - 1603: Elizabethan Age

Major Writers:
Christopher Marlowe
Edmund Spenser
Francis Beaumont
John Fletcher
Sir Philip Sidney
Thomas Dekker
Thomas Wyatt
William Shakespeare
1603 - 1625: Jacobean Age
Major Writers:
Ben Jonson
John Webster
Thomas Kyd
George Chapman
John Donne
George Herbert
Emilia Lanyer
1625 - 1649: Caroline Age
Major Writers:
John Ford
John Milton
1649 - 1660: Commonwealth Period
Major Writers:
John Milton
Andrew Marvell
Thomas Hobbes
1660 - 1700: Restoration Period
Major Writers:
John Dryden
1700 - 1745: The Augustan Age
Major Writers:
Alexander Pope
Jonathan Swift
Samuel Johnson
1745 - 1783: The Age Of Sensibility
1785 - 1830: The Romantic Period
Major Writers:
William Wordsworth
S.T. Coleridge
Jane Austen
the Brontës
1832 - 1901: The Victorian Period
Major Writers:
Charles Dickens
George Eliot
Robert Browning
Alfred Lord Tennyson
1848 - 1860: The Pre-Raphaelites
Major Writers:
William Holman Hunt
John Everett Millais
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
William Michael Rossetti
James Collinson
Frederic George Stephens
Thomas Woolner
1880 - 1901: Aestheticism and Decadence
1901 - 1910: The Edwardian Period
Major Writers:
J. M. Barrie
Arnold Bennett
Joseph Conrad
E. M. Forster
John Galsworthy
Kenneth Grahame
Edith Nesbit
Beatrix Potter
Lucy Maud Montgomery
H. G. Wells
P. G. Wodehouse
1910 - 1914: The Georgian Period
Major Writers:
G.M. Hopkins
H.G. Wells
James Joyce
D.H. Lawrence
T.S. Eliot
1914 - 1945: The Modern Period
Major Writers:
Knut Hamsun
James Joyce
Mikhail Bulgakov
T. S. Eliot
Virginia Woolf
John Steinbeck
D. H. Lawrence
Ezra Pound
William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway
Katherine Anne Porter
E. M. Forster
Franz Kafka
Joseph Conrad
W. B. Yeats
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Samuel Beckett
Robert Frost
1945 - Present: Post Modern Period
Major Writers:
Ted Hughes
Doris Lessing
John Fowles
Don DeLillo
A.S. Byatt

SATIRICAL STYLES~~~~~
TYPES OF SATIRE~~
There are two types of satire.
1-Horatian:
Horatian satire is tolerant, funny, sophisticated witty, wise, self-effacing and aims
to correct through humor. Named for the Roman satirist from the Augustan period
in Rome, Horace, this playfully criticizes some social vice through gentle, mild,
and light-hearted humour. It directs wit, exaggeration, and self-deprecating
humour toward what it identifies as folly, rather than evil. Horatian satire's
sympathetic tone is common in modern society.
2-Juvenalian:
Juvenalian satire is angry, caustic, personal, relentless, bitter, and serious. Named
after Augustan
period‘s Roman satirist Juvenal, this type of satire is more contemptuous and
abrasive than the
Horatian. Juvenalian satire provokes a darker kind of laughter; addresses social
evil and points with contempt to the corruption of men and institutions through
scorn, outrage, and savage ridicule. This form is often pessimistic, characterized
by irony, sarcasm, moral indignation and personal invective, with less emphasis on
humour.

SATIRICAL DEVICES
1-Humor:
Exaggeration or overstatement:
Something that does happen, but is exaggerated to absurd lengths. This is the most
common type of satire. For example, a caricature, the formalized walk of Charlie
Chaplin.
Understatement:
A statement that seems incomplete or less than truthful given the
facts. Think sarcasm with the intentions of evoking change. For example,
Fielding‘s description of a grossly fat and repulsively ugly Mrs. Slipslop: ―She
was not remarkably handsome
Incongruity:
A marked lack of correspondence or agreement.
Deflation:
the English professor mispronounces a word, the President slips and bangs his
head leaving the helicopter, etc.
Linguistic games / Malapropism:
A deliberate mispronunciation of a name or term with the intent of poking fun;
weird rhymes, etc.
Surprise:
Twist endings, unexpected events
2-Irony ~~~~
Literary device conveying the opposite of what is expected; in which there is an
incongruity or discordance between what one says or does, and what one means or
what is generally understood. It is lighter, less harsh in wording than sarcasm,
though more cutting because of its indirectness. For
example, Marge reading ―Fretful Mother‖ as she ignores her child.
The ability to recognize irony is one of the surest tests of intelligence and
sophistication. Irony speaks words of praise to imply blame and words of blame to
imply praise. Writer is using a tongue-in-cheek style. Irony is achieved through
such techniques as hyperbole and understatement.
Verbal Irony:
Simply an inversion of meaning
Dramatic Irony:
When the words or acts of a character carry a meaning unperceived by himself but
understood by the audience. The irony resides in the contrast between the meaning
intended by the speaker and the added significance seen by others.
Socratic Irony:
Socrates pretended ignorance of a subject in order to draw knowledge out of his
students by a question and answer device. Socratic irony is feigning ignorance to
achieve some advantage over an opponent.
Situational Irony:
Depends on a discrepancy between purpose and results. Example: a practical joke
that backfires is situational irony.

3-Invective:
Name calling, harsh, abusive language directed against a person or cause.
Invective is a vehicle, a tool of anger. It is the bitterest of all satire.
4. Mock Encomium:
Praise which is only apparent and which suggests blame instead.
5. Grotesque:
Creating a tension between laughter and horror or revulsion; the essence of all
―sick humor: or ―black humor‖
6. Comic Juxtaposition:
Linking together with no commentary items which normally do not
go together; Pope‘s line in Rape of the Lock: ―Puffs, patches, bibles, and billet
7. Mock Epic / Mock Heroic:
Using elevated diction and devices from the epic or the heroic to deal with low or
trivial subjects.
8. Parody:
A mocking imitation, composition imitating or burlesquing another, usually
serious, piece of work. Designed to ridicule in nonsensical fashion an original
piece of work. Parody is in literature what the caricature and cartoon are in art.
9. Inflation:
Taking a real-life situation and blowing it out of proportion to make it ridiculous
and showcase its faults.
10. Diminution:
Taking a real-life situation and reducing it to make it ridiculous and showcase its
faults.
11. Absurdity:
Something that seems like it would never happen, but could.
12. Wit or word play:
The title The Importance of Being Earnest. It is a play on the word
―earnest‖, meaning honest, and the name ―Earnest‖.
13. Euphemism:
The substitution of an inoffensive term for one that is offensive.
14. 1Travesty:
Presents a serious (often religious) subject frivolously it reduces everything to
its lowest level. ―Trans‖= over, across ―vestire‖ = to clothe or dress. Presenting
a subject in a
dress intended for another type of subject.
15. Burlesque:
Ridiculous exaggeration achieved through a variety of ways. For example, the
sublime may be absurd, honest emotions may be turned to sentimentality. STYLE is
the essential quality in burlesque. A style ordinarily dignified may be used for
nonsensical matters, etc.
16. Farce:
Exciting laughter through exaggerated, improbable situations. This usually
contains low comedy: quarreling, fighting, coarse with, horseplay, noisy singing,
boisterous conduct, trickery, clownishness, drunkenness, slap-stick.
17. Sarcasm:
A sharply mocking or contemptuous remark. The term came from the Greek
word ―sarkazein‖ which means ―to tear flesh.‖
18. Knaves & Fools:
In comedy there are no villains and no innocent victims. Instead, there are rogu
es (knaves) and suckers (fools). The knave exploits someone ―asking for it‖.When
these two interact, comic satire results. When knaves & fools meet, they expose
each other.
========================================

ALL ABOUT ENGLISH LITERATURE POST (PART 3)

``ANGLO-SAXON HISTORY+MAJOR LITERARY
FIGURES IN ENGLISH RENAISSANCE , THE TUDOR
PERIOD AND TUDORS AND THE ELIZABETHAN
AGE```
449,
traditional date (from Gildas and Bede) for Germanic invasion by Hengist and
Horsa
450-700,
composition of Old English poems: Beowulf (epic), Finnsburg (fragmentary,
related to Beowulf), Widsith (lyric, account of poet), Deor's Lament (lyric, account
of poet), The Wanderer (reflective poem on fate), The Seafarer (reflective,
descriptive lyric on sailor's life), The Wife's Complaint, The Husband's Message
(love poems), Charms
500-700,
Christian culture flourishes in Ireland, activity of Irish missionaries in Scotland,
Iceland, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy
509,
closing of Athenian philosophical schools.
524
influential medieval Latin work by Boethius, "Consolation of Philosophy"--would
be translated into English by King Alfred, Chaucer, Queen Elizabeth
570-632,
Mohammed
590-604,
Pope Gregory the Great (Gregorian Calendar, Gregorian music)
597,
the missionary Saint Augustine establishes Christianity in southern England
600-700,
establishment of powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
633,The Koran
670,
Caedmon, Hymns (first English poet known by name)
700,
School of Caedmon"; Beowulf composed in present form
731,
Ecclesiastical History (Latin) by The Venerable Bede
750- 800,
flourishing Christian poetry in Northumbria (preserved in West Saxon); Cynewulf
and his school: Crist (narrative), Elene (saint's legend), Juliana (Saint's legend in
dialogue form), Fates of the Apostles (saints' legends), Andreus (saint's
legend--voyage tale), The Phoenix (myth interpreted as Christian allegory)
787,
first Danish invasion
800,
Latin "History of the Britons" by Nennius (Welsh)--first mention of Arthur
800-814,
Charlemagne's reign in France
850,
Danish conquest
871-901,
Alfred the Great; translations of Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, Boethius, Orosius,
Bede; Anglo-Saxon Chronicle revised and continued to 892; West Saxon
Martyrology; sermons; saints' lives
875-900,
probable beginnings of medieval dram in dramatatization of liturgy
893,
Life of Alfred the Great by Asser
901-1066,
Chronicle continued; poetry, sermons, Biblical translations and paraphrases,
saints' lives, lyrics
937,
Battle of Brunanburh (heroic poem)
950-1000,
monastic revival under Dunstan, Aethelwold, and Aelfric
950,
Junius MS written, containing Caedmon poems
971,
Blickling Homilies
975,
St. Ethelwold's Concordia Regularis, directions for acting a trope at
Winchester--earliest evidence of dramatic activity in England
979-1016,
second period of Danish invasions
991,
Battle of Maldon (heroic poem)
1000-1200,
transition from English to Norman French. Decline of Anglo-Saxon heroic verse
and reduced literary activity in English, with some development of medieval
English lyrics, germs of English romances
1000,
Anglo-Saxon Gospels; Aelfric's Sermons; Beowulf MS written
1000-1025,
The Exeter Book (MS containing Cynewulf poems)
1000-1100,
Vercelli Book (Anglo-Saxon MS); probable period of full development of
Christmas and Easter cycles of plays in Western Europe
1017-1042,
Danish kings
1042-1066,
Saxon kings restored
1066,
Battle of Hastings, Norman conquest
1066-1154,
Norman kings
1079-1142,
Abelard (French), ecclesiastical philosopher, lover of Heloise
1086,
Doomsday Book (English census)
1087-1100,
William II--centralization of kingdom
1098-1099,
First Crusade..

~~THE MAJOR LITERARY FIGURES IN ENGHLISH

RENAISSANCE ~~
Francis Bacon Thomas Dekker John Donne John Fletcher John Ford Ben Jonson
Thomas Kyd Christopher Marlowe Philip Massinger Thomas Middleton Thomas
More Thomas Nashe William Rowley William Shakespeare James Shirley Philip
Sidney Edmund Spenser John Webster Thomas Wyatt Tudor period

~~THE TUDOR PERIOD usually refers to the period between 1485 and
1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule
of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII (1457
–
1509).
The term can be used more broadly to include Elizabeth I's reign (1558
–
1603), although this is often treated separately as the Elizabethan era. In terms of
the entire century, Guy (1988) argues that "England was economically healthier,
more expansive, and more optimistic under the Tudors" than at any time in a
thousand years. The House of Tudor produced six monarchs who ruled during this
period.
Henry VII (1485 to 1509) Henry VIII (1509 to 1547) Edward VI (1547 to 1553)
Lady Jane Grey (1553)
–
Nominal queen for nine days in failed bid to prevent accession of Mary I. Not a
member of the House of Tudor.
Mary I (1553 to 1558) Elizabeth I (1558 to 1603)..
~~THE TUDORES AND THE ELIZABETHAN AGE~~
The beginning of the Tudor dynasty coincided with the first dissemination of
printed matter. William Caxton's press was established in 1476, only nine years
before the beginning of Henry VII's reign. Caxton's achievement encouraged
writing of all kinds and also influenced the standardization of the English
language. The early Tudor period, particularly the reign of Henry VIII, was
marked by a break with the Roman Catholic Church and a weakening of feudal
ties, which brought about a vast increase in the power of the monarchy.

Stronger political relationships with the Continent were also developed, increasing
England's exposure to Renaissance culture. Humanism became the most important
force in English literary and intellectual life, both in its narrow sense
—
the study and imitation of the Latin classics
—
and in its broad sense
—
the affirmation of the secular, in addition to the otherworldly, concerns of people.
These forces produced during the reign (1558
–
1603) of Elizabeth I one of the most fruitful eras in literary history.
 The energy of England's writers matched that of its mariners and merchants.
Accounts by men such as Richard Hakluyt, Samuel Purchas, and Sir Walter
Raleigh were eagerly read. The activities and literature of the Elizabethans
reflected a new nationalism, which expressed itself also in the works of chroniclers
(John Stow, Raphael Holinshed, and others), historians, and translators and even
in political and religious tracts. A myriad of new genres, themes, and ideas were
incorporated into English literature. Italian poetic forms, especially the sonnet,
became models for English poets.

SIR THOMAS WYATT

was the most successful sonneteer among early Tudor poets, and was, with Henry
Howard, earl of Surrey, a seminal influence. Tottel's Miscellany (1557) was the
first and most popular of many collections of experimental poetry by different,
often anonymous, hands. A common goal of these poets was to make English as
flexible a poetic instrument as Italian. Among the most prominent of this group
were Thomas Churchyard, George Gascoigne, and Edward de Vere, earl of
Oxford. An ambitious and influential work was A Mirror for Magistrates (1559), a
historical verse narrative by several poets that updated the medieval view of
history and the morals to be drawn from it.
The poet who best synthesized the ideas and tendencies of the English
Renaissance wasEDMUND SPENSER. His unfinished epic poem The Faerie
Queen (1596) is a treasure house of romance, allegory, adventure, Neoplatonic
ideas, patriotism, and Protestant morality, all presented in a variety of literary
styles. The ideal English Renaissance man was Sir Philip Sidney
—
scholar, poet, critic, courtier, diplomat, and soldier
—
who died in battle at the age of 32. His best poetry is contained in the sonnet
sequence Astrophel and Stella (1591) and his Defence of Poesie is among the most
important works of literary criticism in the tradition.

Many others in a historical era when poetic talents were highly valued were
skilled poets. Important late Tudor sonneteers include Spenser and Shakespeare,
Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, and Fulke Greville. More versatile even than
Sidney was Sir Walter Raleigh
—
poet, historian, courtier, explorer, and soldier
—
, who wrote strong, spare poetry.
Early Tudor drama owed much to both medieval morality plays and classical
models. Ralph Roister Doister (c.1545) by Nicholas Udall and Gammer Gurton's
Needle (c.1552) are considered the first English comedies, combining elements of
classical Roman comedy with native burlesque. During the late 16th and early
17th cent., drama flourished in England as never before or since. It came of age
with the work of the University Wits, whose sophisticated plays set the course of
Renaissance drama and paved the way for Shakespeare.
The Wits included John Lyly, famed for the highly artificial and much imitated
prose work Euphues (1578); Robert Greene, the first to write romantic comedy;
the versatile Thomas Lodge and Thomas Nashe; Thomas Kyd, who popularized
neo-Senecan tragedy; and Christopher Marlowe, the greatest dramatist of the
group. Focusing on heroes whose very greatness leads to their downfall, Marlowe
wrote in blank verse with a rhetorical brilliance and eloquence superbly equal to
the demands of high drama. William Shakespeare, of course, fulfilled the promise
of the Elizabethan age. His history plays, comedies, and tragedies set a standard
never again equaled, and he is universally regarded as the greatest dramatist and
one of the greatest poets of all time.
~THE END~

Prepared By Haris Gilani ¬

Best of Luck to all aspirants !