The Renaissance began in Italy in the 14th century and later spread to England, influencing literature, philosophy, art and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Humanist scholars searched for realism and emotion in art. The creation of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg encouraged the spread of Renaissance ideas to a wider audience. In England, playwrights like William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe composed works representing English life and history, helping to establish the English Renaissance. Shakespeare's plays and poems remain some of the most influential works of the period.

1. English Renaissance

2. * The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe.

3. * The Renaissance was a cultural movement that affected European inttelectual life in the early modern period.Beginning in Italy, and spreading to the rest of Europe by the 16th century, its influence affected literature, philosophy, art, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry. Renaissance scholars employed the humanist method in study, and searched for realism and human emotion in art.

4. *The creation of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg encouraged authors to write in the local vernacular rather than in Greek or Latinclassical languages, widening the reading audience and promoting the spread of Renaissance ideas. A prime example of the writings of the time are the works of William Shakespeare, who was fundamental in the spread of Renaissance ideas.

5. * The English Renaissance was a cultural and artistic movement in England dating from the early 16th century to the early 17th century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that many cultural historians believe originated in northern Italy in the 14th century. This era in English cultural history is sometimes referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the Elizabethan era", the first period in English and British history to be named after a reigning monarch.

6. * Poets such as Edmund Spenser and John Milton produced works that demonstrated an increased interest in understanding English Christian beliefs, such as the allegorical representation of the Tudor Dynasty in The Faerie Queen and the retelling of mankind’s fall from paradise in Paradise Lost; playwrights, such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, composed theatrical representations of the English take on life, death, and history. Nearing the end of the Tudor Dynasty, philosophers like Sir Thomas More and Sir Francis Bacon published their own ideas about humanity and the aspects of a perfect society, pushing the limits of metacognition at that time. England came closer to reaching modern science with the Baconian Method, a forerunner of the Scientific Method.

7. Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 11 October 1542) was a 16th-century English lyrical poet. He was born at Allington Castle, near Maidstone in Kent - though his family was originally from Yorkshire. His father, Henry Wyatt, had been one of Henry VII's Privy Councillors, and remained a trusted advisor when Henry VIII came to the throne in 1509. In his turn, Thomas Wyatt followed his father to court after his education at St John's College, Cambridge.Wyatt is credited with introducing the sonnet into English poetry. As well as translating several sonnets by the Italian poet Petrarch, he wrote others of his own. In addition to imitations of works by the classical writers Seneca and Horace, he experimented with other poetic forms such as the rondeau, and wrote epigrams, songs and satires.His best-known poems are those that deal with the trials of romantic love. Others of his poems were scathing, satirical indictments of the hypocrisies and flat-out pandering required of courtiers ambitious to advance at the Tudor court.

8. Henry Howard, Earl of SurreyKG (1517 – 19 January1547) was an English aristocrat, and one of the founders of English Renaissancepoetry.He and his friend Sir Thomas Wyatt were the first English poets to write in the sonnet form that Shakespeare later used, and Henry was the first English poet to publish blank verse in his translation of the second and fourth books of Virgil's Aeneid. Together, Wyatt and Surrey, due to their excellent translations of Petrarch's sonnets, are known as "Fathers of the English Sonnet."

9. Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures. Famous in his day in England as a poet, courtier and soldier, he remains known as the author of Astrophel and Stella (1581, pub. 1591), The Defence of Poetry (or An Apology for Poetry, 1581, pub. 1595), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580, pub. 1590).The Lady of May — This is one of Sidney's lesser-known works, a masque written and performed for Queen Elizabeth in 1578 or 1579.

10. Christopher Marlowe (c. 26 February 1564–30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethantragedian next to William Shakespeare, he is known for his blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his mysterious and untimely death.PoetryTranslation of Book One of Lucan's Pharsalia (date unknown)

11. Translation of Ovid's Elegies (c. 1580s?)

12. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (pre-1593; because it is constantly referred to in his own plays we can presume an early date of mid-1580s)

13. Hero and Leander (c. 1593, unfinished; completed by George Chapman, 1598)William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – died 23 April 1616)[a] was an Englishpoet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist.

14. Shakespeare's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in a stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.[128] The poetry depends on extended, sometimes elaborate metaphors and conceits, and the language is often rhetorical—written for actors to declaim rather than speak. The grand speeches in Titus Andronicus, in the view of some critics, often hold up the action, for example; and the verse in Two Gentlemen of Verona has been described as stilted.[129]Soon, however, Shakespeare began to adapt the traditional styles to his own purposes

15. Poems Shakespeare's Sonnets Venus and Adonis A Lover's Complaint Tragedies Romeo and Juliet Julius Caesar Macbeth† Hamlet King Lear Othello Antony and CleopatraComediesAs You Like ItLove's Labour's LostMeasure for Measure‡The Merchant of VeniceA Midsummer Night's DreamThe Taming of the ShrewThe Tempest*The Two Gentlemen of Verona

16. A Midsummer Night's Dream