Literature and Elizabethan Ideals

Literature is arouse by the new learning which was the inspiration of great prose, poetry and drama. Many of the Elizabethans were fascinated by idealsthey wanted to know how to be perfect courtier, or gentleman, or governor.

Most Elizabethan poems picture nature and human beings in a graceful and idealized manner. Surely the Elizabethan believed in perfection, when Shakespeare could write that if he is mistaken in thinking that the true love is unchanging, then I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

English Renaissance and Literary Developments

The Englishmen of the Renaissance were in love with human beauty, which they considered the outward sign of mans spirit striving for perfection. For the English were not content to write about perfection; they tried to achieve it in their lives. Yet, Sir Thomas Wyatt brought the sonnet from Italy, and the Earl of Surry for the first time used blank verse, which has been a standard English meter ever since.

Furthermore, lyric (or singing) poetry was developed, for England was becoming a nation of musicians and singers. The lighter side of literature and life in the seventeenth century is reflected in the lyrics of the Cavalier poets. In Blake's poetry, we find the traits and attitudes that mark the change from classicism to romanticism.

Traits of Romanticism and Its Impact

These have already been pointed out briefly as (1) a study and plainly expressed belief in the brotherhood of man; (2) a deep sympathy with humble lives, human and animal alike; (3) a sense of independent spirit of man and natural right to freedom. Such attitudes are evident on a grand scale in the American Revolution.

As a way of thinking and as an approach to literature, Romanticism is associated with vitality, powerful emotion, limitless and dreamlike ideas. The mood of Romanticism prepared the country for a literary outburst. Wordsworth and Coleridge opened new subjects for poetry. Byron, Shelley, and Keats produced poetry excelling in lyric beauty.

Following World War I, some of the energy and inventiveness in modern drama seemed to leave England as it entered America.