The Renaissance was
one of Europe’s most significant historical periods, and is often characterised
by the magnificent outpouring of art, literature, and scientific developments
witnessed between the 15th and 17th centuries.
During this time new ideas spread across the continent, focused on the possibilities of mankind, the achievements of the individual, and the teachings of the ancient world – pushing Europe out of the "Dark Ages" and towards a more enlightened and modern society. Read here.
Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 is an anti-Petrarchan love poem that uses a mocking and realistic tone to subvert the exaggerated and idealized conventions of traditional sonnets. Instead of using grand metaphors to describe his beloved, the speaker lists her ordinary, non-ideal features, such as eyes not as bright as the sun and lips less red than coral, to argue that his love is more genuine because it is based on reality, not hyperbole. The poem concludes in the final couplet by asserting that despite her lack of conventional beauty, his love is as valuable as any "false compare" used by other poets.
It is the best known and most well-loved
of all 154 sonnets. It is also one of the most direct in language and intent.
The poet starts the praise of his dear friend
without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend into that of
a perfect being. He is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the beginning
of the third quatrain (line 9), the speaker states with a renewed assurance that “thy eternal summer shall not fade” and that his friend
will preserve his beauty and even cheat Death and Time by becoming eternal. He achieves this through his sonnet. The
final couplet reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in
mankind, his lines too will live on, and ensure the immortality of the “fair
youth”.
Here and here you can read a short commentary on this sonnet.
During Elizabeth I’s reign English playwrights began to write comedies and tragedies. By the end of her reign playwrights such as Marlowe, Johnson and Shakespeare were writing the plays for which they are now famous. Read here.
https://nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/era/elizabethan-theatre-drama/
William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His birthday is most commonly celebrated on 23 April, which is also believed to be the date he died in 1616.
Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre (sometimes called the English Renaissance or the Early Modern Period). Shakespeare’s plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but they are not all he wrote. Shakespeare’s poems also remain popular to this day. Read here.
Queen Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603. Elizabeth, the last Tudor
monarch and "Virgin Queen", was the daughter of Henry VIII and his
second wife, Anne Boleyn. She became queen in 1558 aged 25 and ruled for 45
years. Her reign saw the defeat of the Spanish Armada, the introduction of a
revised Book of Common Prayer and a golden age of playwrights and poets. Read here.
"Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind."
