The Renaissance & Reformation Periods lasted from the late 15th century, 16th century, and early 17th century in Britain, but somewhat earlier in
Italy and southern Europe, while somewhat later in northern Europe. This era consists of the following literary movements:
When searching MICAL or an online database, the following Subject Headings can be used for conducting a "Subject" search. You can also follow the links below for a subject search in the catalog:
European literature Renaissance, 1450-1600
English language -- Early modern, 1500-1700
English literature -- Early modern, 1500-1700
Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation
Keyword search for "Elizabethan Literature"
Keyword search for "Jacobean Literature"
Below are links to relevant books in the catalog.
English Reformation Literature: the Tudor origins of the Protestant tradition by 
A Short History of Early Modern England: British literature in context by
A Short History of Early Modern England presents the historical and cultural information necessary for a richer understanding of English Renaissance literature. Written in a clear and accessible style for an undergraduate level audience Gives an overview of the period's history as well as an understanding of the historiographic issues Explores key historical and literary events, from the Wars of the Roses to the publication of John Milton's Paradise Regained Features in depth explanations of key terms and concepts, such as absolutism and the Elizabethan Settlement
Shakespeare as Cultural Catalyst [Shakespeare Survey 64] by
Shakespeare Survey is a yearbook of Shakespeare studies and production. Since 1948, Survey has published the best international scholarship in English and many of its essays have become classics of Shakespeare criticism. Each volume is devoted to a theme, or play, or group of plays; each also contains a section of reviews of that year's textual and critical studies and of the year's major British performances. The theme for volume 64 is 'Shakespeare as Cultural Catalyst'. The complete set of Survey volumes is also available online at http://www.cambridge.org/online/shakespearesurvey. This fully searchable resource enables users to browse by author, essay and volume, search by play, theme and topic, and save and bookmark their results.
The following eBooks are part of the new eBook Academic Collection, which provides full-text access of over 180,000 eBooks! Learn more about how to download an eBook to read on your computer or on your Apple, Android, and Kindle devices here.
At Zero Point by
At Zero Point presents an entirely new way of looking at Restoration culture, discourse, and satire. The book locates a rupture in English culture and epistemology not at the end of the eighteenth century (when it occurred in France) but at the end of the seventeenth century. Rose Zimbardo's hypothesis is based on Hans Blumenberg's concept of "zero point" -- the moment when an epistemology collapses under the weight of questions it has itself raised and simultaneously a new epistemology begins to construct itself. Zimbardo demonstrates that the Restoration marked both the collapse of the Renaissance order and the birth of modernism (with its new conceptions of self, nation, gender, language, logic, subjectivity, and reality). Using satire as the site for her investigation, Zimbardo examines works by Rochester, Oldham, Wycherley, and the early Swift for examples of Restoration deconstructive satire that, she argues, measure the collapse of Renaissance epistemology. Constructive satire, as exemplified in works by Dryden, has at its discursive center the "I" from which all order arises to be projected to the external world. No other book treats Restoration culture or satire in this way.
Literature and the Scottish Reformation by
Literature and the Scottish Reformation offers a full-scale reconsideration of the series of relationships between literature and Reformation in early modern Scotland. Previous scholarship in this area has tended to dismiss the literary value of the writing of the period - largely as a reaction to its regular theological interests. Instead the essays in this volume reinforce recent work that challenges the received scholarly consensus by taking these interests seriously, and argues for the importance of this religiously orientated writing through the adoption of a series of interdisciplinary approaches.
Literature and Architecture in Early Modern England by
Buildings tell stories. Castles, country homes, churches, and monasteries are "documents" of the people who built them, owned them, lived and died in them, inherited and saved or destroyed them, and recorded their histories. Literature and Architecture in Early Modern England examines the relationship between sixteenth- and seventeenth-century architectural and literary works. By becoming more sensitive to the narrative functions of architecture, Anne M. Myers argues, we begin to understand how a range of writers viewed and made use of the material built environment that surrounded the production of early modern texts in England. Scholars have long found themselves in the position of excusing or explaining England’s failure to achieve the equivalent of the Italian Renaissance in the visual arts. Myers proposes that architecture inspired an unusual amount of historiographic and literary production, including poetry, drama, architectural treatises, and diaries. Works by William Camden, Henry Wotton, Ben Jonson, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Anne Clifford, and John Evelyn, when considered as a group, are texts that overturn the engrained critical notion that a Protestant fear of idolatry sentenced the visual arts and architecture in England to a state of suspicion and neglect.
Want to see Shakespeare in action? Through one of our video databases, you can watch 37 Shakespeare plays that were televised by the BBC, including The Taming of the Shrew located below.
