Renaissance Poetry and Prose: Companion York Notes

Introduction

A Cultural Overview

The English Renaissance, The Rediscovery of the Classics, The Training of the (Male) Mind, The Instruction of a Christian Woman, Women and Public Life, Masculine Roles and Education, Medicine and the Four Humours, Religious Strife, Theories of Order, Duty to God and Monarch: The Obedience of a Christian Man, Towards a Modern Society: Status Quo versus Social Mobility, Notes

The Sonnet and Amatory Verse

Wyatt, Philip Sidney and Shakespeare, Extended Commentary: Sidney, Astrophil and Stella (1598), Notes

The Renaissance Epyllion

Lodge, Shakespeare and Marlowe, Extended Commentary: Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis (1593), Notes

Pastoral to Epic

Spenser, Marvell and Milton, Extended Commentary: Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1590–6), Book III, Notes

Religious Verse

Locke, Mary Sidney and Donne, Extended Commentary: Locke, A Meditation (1560), Notes

Humanist Prose and Rhetoric

More, Philip Sidney, Wilson and Puttenham, Extended Commentary: More, Utopia (1516), Book II, Notes

Life Guides, Mother’s Advice and Conduct Books

Castiglione, Hoby and Whately, Extended Commentary: Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528), Book III, Notes

City, Court and Country

Filthy Cities, ‘Neither householders nor citizens’: Apprentices, Subjection and Retaliation, The Dangers of Court versus a Quiet and Restful Rustical Life, Civic Obedience and Civil War, Notes

The Woman Debate

The Lost Authors, Educating Women: ‘Preceptes and rules howe to lyve’, Anne Locke’s ‘Songe’, Aemilia Lanyer’s plea: ‘Let us have our Libertie againe’, Swetnam’s Baiting of ‘Lewde, idle, forward, and unconstant women’, Rachel Speght: ‘The talent God doth give, must be employ’d’, Elizabeth Carey: ‘They are much deluded, / Who think that learning’s not for Ladies fit’, Notes

Exploration and New Worlds

Eurocentric Perspectives, Mapping the World, Mapping the Imagination, Navigation both Spiritual and Physical, El Dorado and ‘The great and golden City of Manoa’, Establishing Jamestown and ‘the starving time’, ‘Another world was searched, through oceans new’, ‘Divine Tobacco’, a Cure for Wounds, Chilblains and Hysteria, Amatory Verse Mapping the Virginal ‘New-found-land’, Poet and Priest ‘adventuring’ for Virginia, The Munificence of Merchants: Sugar loaves, Nutmegs and Cloves, Notes

Religious Works and Controversy

Religious Obligation and Civic Responsibility, ‘Tickets to heaven’, ‘Only faith’, ‘Juggling and conveying craftily’, Preaching ‘Against disobedience and willful rebellion’, Notes

Timeline

Further Reading

Historical Overviews and General Resources, Literary Genres, Key Debates, Critical Theory