Renaissance Period in English Literature

Mohamad II, the Sultan of the Ottoman Turks and a crusader, defeated the Christians in 1453 and occupied Constantinople, the then capital of the Byzantine Empire and the centre of classical learning. After the defeat the Christian scholars fled to different parts of Europe where they spread their knowledge. Thus ancient learning started reviving. This revival of the classical knowledge is called Renaissance.

So Renaissance means rebirth or regeneration or revival. This Renaissance was meant for a revival of ancient classical mythology, literature, and culture as well as reawakening of the human mind. After the long sleep of the dark middle ages, the conception of Renaissance comes forth as a wonder. It was the glory and the beauty of the human body and the world of nature. It was, as if mankind, it were the human revival from a long sleep and looking at the glory of nature with astonishment. During this period the beauty of humanity, of women, of nature, of art and of literature was being perceived newly.

Actually Renaissance began in Italy as early as the fourteenth century with the words of Petrarch and others’. Its influence reached England with its vast importance as the last years of the fifteenth century and the opening years of the sixteenth. After this influence Father of English literature Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, Kyd, Ben Jonson, and many other poets, writers, and scientists started to create their vast type of creation.