Page 7 - FEN1(2)C01 LITERATURES IN ENGLISH PAPER I: From Chaucer to the Present
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Elizabethan Age and its Features.
(Renaissance, Reformation, the new learning, discovery, spirit
of adventure)
The Elizabethan Age (1558-1625) is generally regarded as the
greatest in the history of English literature. Such an age of
thought, feeling and vigorous action, finds its best expression
in the development of drama which included Shakespeare,
Jonson and University Wits. Though the age produced some
excellent prose works, it is essentially an age of poetry, but
both poetry and drama were permeated by Italian influence,
which was dominated in English literature from Chaucer to the
Restoration. The literature of this age is often called the
literature of the Renaissance.
