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The Elizabethan Era
When I was a child, literature and art was already gaining great importance. The renaissance meant a great impulse in English culture, but it will be during my kingdom when it will go up to expand that cultural growth to the maximum.
I, Elizabeth I Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, was in charge of my country for forty-five years (1558-1603). On 15 January 1559 I ascended to the throne as Queen of England, thus beginning the Elizabethan era. This is the name that has been chosen today to mention+
the period of my reign until the death of James I in 1625. During this period England, my nation, went through an intense phase of economic and cultural development. As I intended and achieved, artists, men of letters or intellectuals, as well as politicians and+
religious people at this time were strongly united among themselves in such a coherent way that maybe never before had Europe experienced such cohesion in the social hierarchy. My reign meant the entry of England into the Modern Age under the thrust of scientific-technological+
innovations, such as the Copernican revolution and the great geographical explorations (this is when we began the colonisation of North America). In this way my reign not only sealed England's emergence as a great power on the European scene, but it was also characterised+
by great cultural and civil development, which has gone down in history as the "Elizabethan era". AN ERA BEARS MY NAME. Believe me, I had to work hard for it. Such was the splendor of this era, that it is known as the golden century in English literature.
During this period of cultural exchange the interest in Italy grew among my artists, when the intellectuals who had fled from Constantinople (1453) had brought with them ancient manuscripts of the great Greek and Latin classics, arousing an interest in Greco-Roman antiquity.
Thus began a fixation on classical works by authors of my time: the interest grew in Homer and Virgil for epic, Theocritus and Virgil for pastoral, for instance in Shakespeare's work there are several examples. Cicero is also referenced in rhetoric. Plautus and Terence in comedy.
Last but not least to speak about the sonnet they make reference to Petrarch and for tragedy they are based on their knowledge about Seneca.
Literary works in my era uphold a great variety in almost unlimited creative focus. They include works of many kinds in both verse and prose, and ranges in spirit; from the loftiest platonic idealism or the most delightful roman at this time to the level of very repulsive realism
I saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the field of drama. The drama of my period broke away from religious domination, which was the major focus of the medieval mystery and morality plays.
In this period the individual is a representation of society and in poetry there was a desire for everyone to share their political and artistic ideas. Also, I have to say that I was the responsible for the fact women were presented with unquestionable power.
These works often included references to me, for example playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spencer. I was THE symbol of those days. My specific actions, my image and the court atmosphere I nurtured significantly influenced even inspired great works of literature.
Within the sonnets created in this "Elizabethan aesthetic" there are different literary devices. The conceit is something very typical, this is an extended metaphor, some authors explain it as two metaphors that work together to create a specific meaning.
The metaphor, the simile, the oxymoron, the paradox, all these resources are used in the sonnets. The important thing at this time was the search for the maximum beauty into the poetic language. All this characteristics created the "Elizabethan sonnets"+
which had a freer metrical scheme than the classics: this consisted of three quatrains and a final rhyming couple. This last couple will generally be a moral conclusion.
These poems therefore demand a great deal of meter but also a richness of subject matter, in which in such a strict poem they can tell you a complete story. The poets of this period were quite admired.
