The Sixteenth Century.docx

The Sixteenth Century: 1485-1603

The Growing Prestige of English

At the beginning of the ___________________16th___ century, English language had almost no literary prestige abroad – Sir Thomas More’s work ___________Utopia___________________ was written in Latin.

By 1600, however, English had become an immensely powerful and __________________expressive_________ medium, as seen in the work of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible.

Similarly, by 1600 England had emerged as the preeminent ___________England_________________ power.

The Royal Court and the City of London

The divisive Wars of the ______________Roses________________ were ended by the establishment of the Tudor dynasty that ruled England from 1485 to 1603.

After the defeat of Richard III, __________Henry VII____________________ became king in 1485 and unified the rival factions by marrying Elizabeth of the house of York.

Henry VII ruled from 1485 to 1509 and bequeathed a _________united_____________________ and flourishing kingdom to Henry VIII, who ruled from 1509 to 1547.

Throughout the Tudor dynasty, much of the nation’s power became consolidated in the royal ___________________court___________, which became a center of culture and influence.

Court culture spawned both an art of ____________intrigue__________________ and one of ostentation, with emphasis on costly clothes and elaborate social skills.

Castiglione’s book _________The Courtier___was a conduct manual that emphasized that one should conceal the effort behind one’s elegant accomplishments so that they would appear natural. He termed this _________sprezatura_________________.

Court intrigue of trying to improve one’s position is best seen in Machiavelli’s __________

The Prince__and is reflected in the constant scenes of spying in dramas.

London flourished during the 16^th century as markets expanded, trade increased, and the population multiplied from 60,000 in 1520 to __________375k____________________ in 1650.

Literacy increased because of the ________________printing______________ press and the Protestant emphasis on individual Bible-reading.

Renaissance Humanism

The __________________Humanism____________ Renaissance is characterized by a rebirth of arts and letters stimulated by the recovery of texts and artifacts from classical antiquity – its stars include Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, and Petrarch.

The medieval submission of the human spirit to a penitential discipline gradually gave way to unleashed ______________curiosity________________, individual ____________self-assertion__________________, and a powerful conviction that ___________________man___________ was the measure of all things.

Reform in ______education________________________ was encouraged by humanists such as Erasmus, who viewed medieval education as narrow and outmoded.

Education continued to focus on the trivium (__________grammar____________________, ______________logic________________, and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), but its focus shifted from training for the church to the general acquisition of knowledge.

Boys learned ____________latin__________________ and _______________greek_______________, while their sisters chiefly learned modern languages, religion, music, and needlework.

Many humanists continued to write in Latin, but others praised the growing influence of __________________english____________ (see quotation of page 474), and during the period many great Latin works were translated into English.

The forces leading up to the Renaissance were of course __________gradual____________________, and individualism and suspicion of church authority are clearly present in Chaucer.

The Protestant Reformation

The Catholic church exercised great power over England for centuries through a vast system of confession, pardons, penance, absolution, indulgences, sacred relics, and ceremonies in ___________latin___________________.

Challenges to church authority, such as those of ____________john wycliffe__________________, were ruthlessly suppressed.

Martin Luther’s action in ________________1517______________ challenged the ancient church in the name of private conscience enlightened by a personal reading of the Scriptures.

Protestants believed that ____________scripture__________________ has ultimate authority in religious matters, and that salvation is a matter of personal faith, not rituals.

Protestantism also helped insure the triumph of __________english____________________, as theological disputes were no longer limited to scholars but were open to all.

Some have argues that the Reformation paved the way for progress in _______________science_______________ since man was no longer felt presumptuous in his study of the universe or of Nature.

Catholics responded with the Council of _____________Trent_________________ (1543-1563).

Protestantism reached England in a dispute of __________dynastic____________________ succession: King Henry VIII had no male heir by his wife Catherine of Aragon, but the Pope refused to grant him a divorce to marry Anne Boleyn.

Henry VIII married Boleyn anyway and passed the Act of _________supremacy_____________________ in 1534, declaring the King to be the “Supreme Head of the Church in England.”

Henry persecuted Protestants and Catholics alike but was unable to _________________surpress_____________ William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into English.

Henry’s son Edward reigned from 1547-1553, during which time the Book of ________________common prayers______________ was written and officially adopted as the basis of worship.

Edward’s half-sister ruled from 1553-1558 and vigorously tried to restore Catholicism to England – in her ruthless persecution of Protestants she earned the nickname ______________bloody________________ __________mary____________________.

The doctrine of the ________________church______________ of England was officially set forth in the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563.

Queen Elizabeth the First

Mary’s half-sister Elizabeth became Queen in 1558, under much criticism that she was not the _________________legit_____________ ruler of England.

During her coronation, she held up and kissed and English ____bible__________________________, indicating that England had returned to the Reformation.

Elizabeth was a moderate and ____________restrained__________________ those who wished to carry the Reformation further in dismantling church hierarchy, dressing the clergy in simple garb, and destroying crucifixes and altarpieces.

Elizabeth’s long reign is interesting during an age when there was a widespread conviction that __________________women____________ were unsuited to wield power over men.

Despite military, financial, and legal limitations on her power, Elizabeth was drawn to the idea of royal ________absolutism______________________.

She ruled through a combination of skillful political maneuvering and ____________________emperious__________ command, all the while surrounded by an extraordinary _____________cult_________________ of ______________love________________.

She was brilliant at playing rival ________factions_____________________ against each other and could be harsh in her treatment of critics.

Elizabeth never married, though there was great __________________married____________ for her to do so.

There were many plots to assassinate Elizabeth (even encouraged by Pope ________________gregory________ in 1580), and she had her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, beheaded.

In 1588, England repelled an invasion by Phillip II and the ___________spanish___________________ Armada; see page 597 for Elizabeth’s famous speech to the troops at Tilbury.

Before she died in 1603, she is said to have designated ______james vi________________________ as her successor, inaugurating the Stuart dynasty.

Writers, Patrons, Tudor Style

Because of strict censorship and the low ______________pay________________ authors received for their works from printers, it was unprofitable and dangerous to write in the 1500s.

Some writers attained status at ____________________court__________, while others depended upon wealthy patrons for their livelihood.

Women had ____________no__________________ access to grammar schools or universities. While some were taught to read, they were not necessarily taught to ______________________write________.

Renaissance literature is the product of a _______vibrant_______________________ rhetorical culture, and one of its chief delights was _________copiousness_____________________, or verbal richness, in discourse.

The use of endless _____________figures_________________ was encouraged; elaboration was valued in clothing, jewelry, furniture, music, poetry, gardens, architecture, and dance.

Renaissance prose is also characterized by an exuberant sense of ____________________wonder__________, as though the Elizabethans were seeing the world for the first time.

In his ____________defense of poesy__________________ ______________________________ ______________________________, Sir Philip Sidney claims that the poet has a moral responsibility to show others the way to a virtuous and fulfilled life.

The delight in ______________pattern________________ reflected the Renaissance belief in the ultimate order in the cosmos.

E.M.W. Tillyard’s classic study The Elizabethan ___________world___________________ Picture (1942) lays out a system of widely-held beliefs in a universal order characterized by:

1. The supremacy of God and man’s inherent _______sinfulness_______________________

2. The Great __________________chain____________ of Being from the angels to animals

3. The careful ordering of the elements, the humors, and the _________________senses_______

4. The ________________correspondents______________ between man that the heavens, man and

government, etc.

Adapted from The Norton Anthology of English Literature (7^th ed, pages 469-496), Martin S. Day, A History of English Literature to 1660 (1963), and E.M.W. Tillyard, The Elizabethan World View (1942)