02-renaisssance

Sir Philip Sidney’s Life




was born on November 30, 1554, at Penshurst, Kent. He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland, and nephew of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. He entered Shrewsbury School at the age of ten in 1564, on the same day as Fulke Greville, who became his fast friend and, later, his biographer. attending Christ Church, Oxford, (1568-1571) he left without taking a degree in order to complete his education by travelling the continent. In 1577, he was sent as ambassador to the German Emperor and the Prince of Orange. In 1586 Sidney, along with his younger brother Robert Sidney, took part in a skirmish against the Spanish at Zutphen, and was wounded of a musket shot that shattered his thigh-bone. Some twenty-two days later Sidney died of the unhealed wound at not yet thirty-two years of age.
2. Features of English Renaissance literature

(1) Renaissance poetry Sir Philip Sidney
Edmund Spenser
John Donne and other metaphysical poets Ben Johnson and his school
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)
The Life of Christopher Marlowe The Works of Christopher Marlowe Essays and Articles
Additional Sources

Marlowe, Christopher, 1564–93, English dramatist and poet, b. Canterbury. Probably the greatest English dramatist before Shakespeare, Marlowe, a shoemaker's son, was educated at Cambridge and he went to London in 1587, where he became an actor and dramatist for the Lord Admiral's Company. His most important plays are the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great (c.1587), Dr. Faustus (c.1588), The Jew of Malta (c.1589), and Edward II (c.1592). Marlowe's dramas have heroic themes, usually centering on a great personality who is destroyed by his own passion and ambition. Although filled with violence, brutality, passion, and bloodshed, Marlowe's plays are never merely sensational. The poetic beauty and dignity of his language raise them to the level of high art. Most authorities detect influences of his work in the Shakespeare canon, notably in Titus Andronicus and King Henry VI. Of his nondramatic pieces, the best-known are the long poem Hero and Leander (1598), which was finished by George Chapman, and the beautiful lyric that begins “Come live with me and be my love.” In 1593, Marlowe was stabbed in a barroom brawl by a drinking companion. Although a coroner's jury certified that the assailant acted in self-defense, the murder may have resulted from a definite plot, due, as some scholars believe, to Marlowe's activities as a government agent.
The Works of Edmund Spenser
The Faerie Qveene The Shepheardes Calender Complains: The Ruines of Time The Teares of the Muses Virgils Gnat Prosopopoia: or Mother Hubberds Tale The Ruines of Rome: by Bellay Muiopotmos: or The Fate of the Butterflie Visions of the Worlds Vanitie The Visions of Bellay The Visions of Petrarch

John Donne (1572-1631)
The Life of John Donne The Works of John Donne Essays and Articles Additional Sources
The Works
The Flea The Good-Morrow Song : Go and catch a falling star The Sun Rising Love's Alchemy A Dialogue Between Sir Henry Wotton and Mr. Donne The Token Self-Love
the Puritan writer John Milton
Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)
The Life of Sir Philip Sidney
The Works of Sir Philip Sidney
Essays and Articles Additional Sources
The Renaissance period
Background
knowledge 1. Renaissance refers to the period of transition from the medieval to the modern world. (2) Humanism suggests (3) The great 16th-century religious revolution (4) The continuing development of trade
His works




A Dialogue Between two Shepherds, uttered in a Pastoral Show at Wilton (c.1580, pub. 1613) Letter to Queen Elizabeth (1580) A Discourse in Defence of the Earl of Leicester (1584) Arcadia (1590) Astrophel and Stella (1591) The Lady of May (pub. 1598) Certain Sonnets (pub. 1598) Psalms Miscellany Poems Correspondence





Spenser was appointed secretary to the lord-deputy of Ireland in 1580, and was one of the band of adventurers Amidst all the distractions of his public life in Ireland Spenser kept up his interest in literature, and among proper subjects for reform included Irish poetry, of which he could judge only through the medium of translations. Notwithstanding its immense range, the Faery Queen is profoundly national and Elizabethan, containing many more or less cryptic allusions to contemporary persons and interests. After the publication of the Faery Queen Spenser seems to have remained in London for more than a year, to enjoy his interest. Spenser returned to London probably in 1595. He had married in the interval a lady whose Christian name was Elizabeth - Dr Grosart says Elizabeth Boyle. On the 16th of January 1599 he died at Westminster, ruined in fortune, if not heart-broken, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, near his master Chaucer.