The Renaissance (16th century)

And...we move into the Renaissance.

• By 1600 English had become a powerful and expressive medium used by Shakespeare, Marlowe and translators of the Bible
• The development of English is linked to the consolidation of the English state
• The Renaissance emerged in England through an intellectual orientation to humanism (think Thomas More and his Utopia) 
• Henry VIII's insistence on divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, led to the Protestant Reformation
• Queen Elizabeth ruled during the late 1500s; she was featured as Gloriana, the eternally youthful Faerie Queene in Spenser's poem
• Marlowe pioneered the blank verse, which was a significant change for English drama

Literary Forms developed during the Renaissance

1. The sonnet
2. Blank verse