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TheEnglish Renaissance was acultural andartistic movement in England during the late 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries.[1] It is associated with the pan-EuropeanRenaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late 14th century. As in most of the rest ofNorthern Europe, England saw little of these developments until more than a century later within theNorthern Renaissance. Renaissance style and ideas were slow to penetrate England, and theElizabethan era in the second half of the 16th century is usually regarded as the height of the English Renaissance. Many scholars see its beginnings in the early 16th century during the reign ofHenry VIII.[2] Others argue the Renaissance was already present in England in the late 15th century.
The English Renaissance is different from theItalian Renaissance in several ways. The dominant art forms of the English Renaissance wereliterature andmusic.Visual arts in the English Renaissance were much less significant than in the Italian Renaissance. The English period began far later than the Italian, which was moving intoMannerism and theBaroque by the 1550s or earlier.
England had a strong tradition of literature in the Englishvernacular, which gradually increased as English use of theprinting press became common by the mid-16th century.[3] This tradition of literature written in English vernacular largely began with the ProtestantReformation's call to let people interpret the Bible for themselves instead of accepting the interpretation of theCatholic Church. Discussions of how to translate theBible so that it could be understood by laymen but remain faithful to God's word became contentious, with people arguing how much license could be taken to impart the correct meaning without sacrificing its eloquence. The desire to let people read the Bible for themselves ledWilliam Tyndale to publish his own translation in 1526, giving way toSir Rowland Hill's publication of theGeneva Bible in 1560, marking the re-establishment of theChurch of England at the accession ofElizabeth I. These would be predecessors to theKing James Version of the Bible.
Another early proponent of literature in the vernacular wasRoger Ascham, who was tutor to Princess Elizabeth during her teenage years, and is now often called the "father of English prose." He proposed that speech was the greatest gift to man from God and to speak or write poorly was an affront.[4] By the time ofElizabethan literature, a vigorous literary culture in both drama and poetry included poets such asEdmund Spenser, whose verse epicThe Faerie Queene had a strong influence onEnglish literature but was eventually overshadowed by the lyrics ofWilliam Shakespeare,Thomas Wyatt and others. Typically, the works of these playwrights and poets circulated in manuscript form for some time before they were published, and above all the plays ofEnglish Renaissance theatre were the outstanding legacy of the period. The works of this period are also affected byHenry VIII's declaration of independence from the Catholic Church and technological advances in sailing andcartography, which are reflected in the generally nonreligious themes and various shipwreck adventures of Shakespeare.[5]
The English theatre scene, which performed both for the court and nobility in private performances and a very wide public in the theatres, was the most crowded in Europe, with a host of other playwrights as well as the giant figures ofChristopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare andBen Jonson.Elizabeth I herself was trained inRenaissance humanism by Roger Ascham, and wroteoccasional poems such as "On Monsieur's Departure" at critical moments of her life. Philosophers and intellectuals includedThomas More andFrancis Bacon. All the 16th century Tudor monarchs were highly educated, as was much of the nobility, and Italian literature had a considerable following, providing the sources for many of Shakespeare's plays. English thought advanced towards modern science with theBaconian Method, a forerunner of theScientific Method. The language of theBook of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, and at the end of the period theAuthorised Version ("King James Version" to Americans) of the Bible (1611) had enduring and profound impacts on the English consciousness.
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England was very slow to produce visual arts in Renaissance styles, and theartists of the Tudor court were mainly imported foreigners until after the end of the Renaissance;Hans Holbein was the outstanding figure. TheEnglish Reformation produced a huge programme oficonoclasm that destroyed almost allmedieval religious art, and all but ended the skill of painting in England; English art was to be dominated byportrait painting, and then laterlandscape art, for centuries to come.
The significant English invention was theportrait miniature, which essentially took the techniques of the dying art of theilluminated manuscript and transferred them to small portraits worn inlockets. Though the form was developed in England by foreign artists, mostly Flemish likeLucas Horenbout, the somewhat undistinguished founder of the tradition, by the late 16th century, natives such asNicolas Hilliard andIsaac Oliver produced the finest work, even as the best producers of larger portraits in oil were still foreigners. The portrait miniature had spread all over Europe by the 18th century. Theportraiture of Elizabeth I was carefully controlled and developed into an elaborate and wholly un-realist iconic style, that has succeeded in creating enduring images.
English Renaissance music kept in touch with continental developments far more than visual art, and managed to survive the Reformation relatively successfully, thoughWilliam Byrd (c.1539/40 or 1543 – 1623) and other major figures were Catholic. TheElizabethan madrigal was distinct from, but related to, theItalian tradition.Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 –1585),Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – 1602), andJohn Dowland (1563–1626) were other leading English composers.
The colossalpolychoral productions of theVenetian School had been anticipated in the works of Thomas Tallis, and thePalestrina style from theRoman School had already been absorbed prior to the publication ofMusica transalpina, in the music of masters such as William Byrd.
The Italian and English Renaissances were similar in sharing a specificmusical aesthetic. In the late 16th century Italy was the musical center of Europe, and one of the principal forms which emerged from that singular explosion of musical creativity was themadrigal. In 1588,Nicholas Yonge published in England theMusica transalpina—a collection of Italian madrigals that had been Anglicized—an event which began a vogue of madrigal in England which was almost unmatched in the Renaissance in being an instantaneous adoption of an idea, from another country, adapted to local aesthetics. English poetry was exactly at the right stage of development for this transplantation to occur, since forms such as thesonnet were uniquely adapted to setting as madrigals; indeed, the sonnet was already well developed in Italy. Composers such as Thomas Morley, the only contemporary composer to set Shakespeare, and whose work survives, published collections of their own, roughly in the Italian manner but yet with a unique Englishness; interest in the compositions of theEnglish Madrigal School has enjoyed a considerable revival in recent decades.
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Despite some buildings in a partly Renaissance style from the reign ofHenry VIII (1491–1547), notablyHampton Court Palace (begun in 1515), the vanishedNonsuch Palace,Sutton Place andLayer Marney Tower, and the building ofSoulton Hall underQueen Mary I, it was not until dawning ofElizabethan architecture that a true Renaissance style became widespread, influenced far more by northern Europe than Italy.
The most famous buildings, of a type called theprodigy house, are large show houses constructed forcourtiers, and characterised by lavish use of glass, as at "Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall",Wollaton Hall,Montacute House,Hatfield House andBurghley House, the style continuing into the early 17th century before developing intoJacobean architecture. Lesser, but still large, houses likeLittle Moreton Hall continued to be constructed and expanded in essentially medievalhalf-timbered styles until the late 16th century. Church architecture essentially continued in the late medievalPerpendicular Gothic style until the Reformation, and then stopped almost completely, althoughchurch monuments, screens and other fittings often had classical styles from about the mid-century. The few new church buildings post-Reformation were usually still Gothic in style, as inLangley Chapel of 1601.[6]
Major literary figures in the English Renaissance include:
