Renaissance Poetry Summary l Renaissance Poetry Characteristics l Renaissance Poetry Themes

 The precise beginning of the Renaissance is difficult to determine, but most historians believe that the advent of the Tudor dynasty (1485-1603) began and reached the peak during the charismatic reign of Elizabeth I during the 45 years (1558-1603), also its last rule. It was during this historical era when King James I (1603-25) and maybe King Charles I (1625-1649) ruled the UK. Throughout this period there were political and also theological discrepancies among Catholics and Protestants, particularly so-called Puritan organisations who aimed to overcome any remaining Catholic and "popish" traditions in England in reforming the Church. These theological discrepancies were intimately connected to the increasing political instability. This led to an entirely new era of revolution including a civil war between the parliamentary and the royalist parties, the killing of Charles I and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 which marked the official end of the Renaissance period.

Although it took just a century or two to achieve the British Renaissance, it was a time of great revolt that changed what it meant to be an English man in Germany and elsewhere. A distinct english literature has emerged through growing literacy and printing that has been interwoven with many cultural topics, including mediaeval English poetry, mystery plays, ballads and hymns, and popular music, as well as literary translations from Continent and British classics. England has been renowned as a peerless economic and military force over the centuries, sending a plethora of explorers, traders and colonists to areas such as the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the so-called New World. In the centre of England's extraordinary ascent to worldwide prominence throughout the 19th century, the fast-expanding London metropolitan area soon overtook Paris as Europe's most populous city (and eventually the world). London had all the excitement of a contemporary metropolis – and all the risks - due to the city's increasing population, the bustling markets and the thriving public theatre. Europe was constantly impacted by the fear of the bubonic plague, which puts a large city like London in severe danger at any moment of the year. A global epidemic is causing theatres to shut down for months and jeopardise the city's economic well-being.

The term Renaissance was invented retrospectively by 19th-century thinkers, who observed the revitalization period which included the revitalisation of the old languages, the re-establishment of ancient manuscripts and the return to the classical ideals that informed the intellectual movement of the period, the Renaissance humanism. The term Renaissance was retroactively developed in the 19th century, taken from the French phrase 'reborn.' Poets who defined or defended their art were mainly dependent on ancient Greek and Roman patterns adapted to the needs of contemporary poets. In his most important words and issues in The Defense of Poetry, 1595, Philip Sidney sought inspiration, nearly two millennia earlier, including Aristotle and Plato. This was considered the greatest peak of literary criticism at that time. Finally, poetry is 'an art of imitation, as Aristotle described it as mimesis – or, to put it another way, a spoken picture – in order to teach and make pleasant'. Sidney started a completely new defence in the Republic of Plato, c. 375 BCE. He displays a contemporaneous acceptance of artifice and stupid imagination while denying Plato's own accusation of lying against him. The poet "claims nothing, and therefore never lies," and, as Sidney has stated, "the poet does nothing and thus lies never," the poet "claims nothing and never lies."

Today we remember Sidney as an indisputable poet and scholar, and we deal with him with the respect he deserves for his achievements in these fields. The aristocrat, broker, patron of art, horseman, the ideal of knightly bravery, and the author are all the features that his contemporaries admire in them. He died in battle at the age of 31 and his legacy endures. Unlike professionals or career writers, each poet from the Renaissance was, as in the past, an amateur poet in the contemporary sense of the term. All the poets of the Renaissance were also musicians. It is true that the publication of poetry until very late in the time had no royalty system, no author's copyright, no media freedom to safeguard it, and only a tiny but increasing literate populace consumed it. In 1616, Ben Jonson, for example, was the first poet to collect and publish his own work; John Milton negotiated the first book when it was first published in Paradise Lost in 1667.

This is partially because poets, who just had to publish, had little chance of finding employment as performers, translators, essayists, academics, secretaries, ambassadors, warriors, politicians, physicians, musicians and clergy, which forced them all to spend time away from attempts to create poetry. The following organisations provided support and security to poets from different socio-economic backgrounds along with a forum for their work. The poetry epicents were written by Thomas Wyatt, Henry Howard, Sydney and Walter Raleigh in the Royal Court. Noblemen and noble ladies of every class were passionate about poetry all the time. The skill of social persuasion, diplomacy and self-creation has both become a manifestation of rhetorical talent and a way to express yourself. It, therefore, brought down strong writers who had been drawn to it in anticipation of the financial backing of a boss. They earned prizes, pledges and commissions for new works as a bonus for favours, employment opportunities or regular incomes. Some other institutions, notably the church, were also present. Most of the greatest poets of that time, like John Donne and George Herbert, were priests, and there has been an appeal to religious poetry, including psalms and prayers, written or translated into English common to religious literature. At the end of the 16th century in London, the first permanent public theatre in the world, other poets found their homes. Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson have presented their bold creative experiments on stage before an unprecedented large online public performance. Even for those who are highly educated and affluent, these institutions have created significant obstacles for women. The poets Emilia Lanyer, Mary Wroth and Margaret Cavendish were famous in the 17th century and named the most recognised personalities of the era.

The poem that came out of these conflicting poles was a collection of prismic poetry with a single voice. It was very much like our own day when the music and epyllions (or short epics) were popular and strange and satirical, followed by monologues and poetry from the countryside. This is a description of the great literary "sons" of Sydney, who are recognised as pastoral and elegic, satirical, lyrician-lyric, and heroic. On the other side, there is no Renaissance style. 

In the Renaissance the Queen Faerie (1590, 1596), poetry from Ben Jonson's no-word spiky no-word epigrams to the gigantic epic of Edmund Spenser's. A clean verse from Virgil's Aeneid (about. 1540), usually known as the unrhymed iambic pentameter, was England's most popular poetry form after a single successful attempt by the Youthful Earl of Surrey. The blank verse, the cornerstone of English poetry and the verse theatre from the beginning, was a quietly revolutionary advance for unfettered expression. Blank lines allow poets and authors to tell, reflect, and solilocate as long as they like to equal the duration of one breath by stretching the five strains that will allow them to completely express themselves.