UTOPIA: Sir Thomas More was favorite scholar of Henry VIII, he was famous in an age of famous men, and

he was the most important humanist author of the time. His best known work Utopia consists of two books. He was sent on a diplomatic mission, where he wrote first version of the book, mostly book II, with a brief introduction, and when he returned to London he greatly expended the introduction which became book I. Book I is written in a form of dialogue, most like Platos Republic and his other works. The participants of dialogue are Mr. More, Raphael Hythloday and Peter. The difference has to be made between Mr. More who is a fictional figure and Thomas More who is author of the book. There are strong spatial themes and elements of nostalgia in Mores book, but its also full of paradoxes and ambiguaties. The book contains a tension between on the one hand political tract, indictment to Tudor England, and on the other hand, light-hearted dreaming of an impossible future. The word utopia is Mores own creation, and its highly suggestive and somewhat ambigutious. If initial u is equivalent of Greek ou then it means inexistent place, but if it is equivalent of Greek eu then it means place of happiness. All in all it can be translated as good place is nowhere to be found. Even the works authorship, which may seem to be beyond question, should be rightly seen in a more flexible light, since Utopia is fruit of intellectual collaboration, between More and his friends. Subtitle also promises adventure, but this is primarily political book, not an adventure story, although it has something of aroma. It has often been pointed out that some of Utopians customs, such as extinction of education to all, regardless of social status, have been greatly introduced into modern society. Some others customs on the other hand, such as common property directed by natural law and having slaves, seems either impracticable or uncongenial. First of distancing effects created by the work is procured by Mores artful use of prefatory letter in which although he speaks as himself he adopts a disgenuous persona. Second Mores distancing device is the deligation of that narrative to Hythloday, thereby avoiding too direct an association between himself and an island. This would not be such a problem were it not for Hythlodays name, combination of Hebrew and Greek that can be translated as speaker of nonsense. His name should put us on a guard about the facts he is telling us. Platos Republic gives the work its most idealistic and prescriptive dimension. Aristotels Politics and Ciceros Ofice also influented on the book. It is difficult, therefore, to define an authorative voice of the book.

WHYATT: Sir Thomas Wyatt was first reformer of English metere and style and it can be said that with him modern English poetry begins. Some of his most interesting songs are his sonnets. He was sent to diplomatic mission, and he had visited Italy among other countries, where he came under the spell of fourteenth century Italian poet Franchesko Petrarka, great master of sonnets of idealized love. Sonnets developed in Italy in twelfth century, then came to France, and finally to England. Wyatt became translator and imitator of Petrarkans songs and sonnets. His emotional and formal style, its ability to express complex emotional experience and feeling of lover torn between conflicting impulses seemed apt to his own circumstances. Petrarchan love is love between man and woman, derived from courtly love. Man stays loyal to woman, hoping that shell become his. Its unreturned love. The social use of Wyatts verse, as songs for singing and to be passed by among his friends, contributed to his popularity as member of Henry VIII court. But, also his poems reflected moods and outlooks

induced in him by less agreeable experience in the court. He himself was twice imprisioned and each time realeased and returned to kings favour. Tradition says that Anne Boleyn was his mistress before she became Kings wife. That was never proven, but he dedicted a lot of his songs to her. Its not unusual for poet to take the same kind of theme again and again. Wyatts absorbing concerne was relationship between man and women. But before observing how he dealt with it we must notice that the convention of love lament offered him an indirect expression to a range of feelings: depression, protest at bad faith, etc, that may have arisen from quite other sources such as hazards of his position as courtier. There is also a connection between his general tendency to depression and his attitude to women. Also, unlike Petrarka who was gentle in his songs when he write about Laura, Wyatt has that macho style. He was in a circle of fashionable men, that mixed pleasure and business, a lot. His sonnets and songs were part of active life of every able and sensitive man. More personally, putting them into external form, served him as a relief, as a ventil for his sadness, and grief.

SPENSER: Edmund Spenser is considered to be one of the greatest poets of English literature. His best known work is Fairy Queen, a romantic epic poem that was supposed to educate readers who wanted to became noble persons. He was declared as poets poet because of high quality of his poetry and because he was followed by many other writers. He started some new traditions but also ended some of them. He is also known for his spensarian stanza verse form, that consist of eight iambic pentrameter lines, followed by nineth line, rhyme scheme ababbcbcc, that was used a lot after him. He was regarded too exclusively as an innovator, first English poet since Chaucer to make new paths, to influence new generations and so on. But, thats only part of the truth. He surely influenced on Milton and other poets of nineteenth century, but we may doubt was it entirely. Fairy Queen can be seen as last expression of the great allegorical tradition of the Middle Ages, which its author only imperfectly understood. This work is written in allegory which nobody except him used at the time. He admired Chaucer and he borrowed some expressions from him but he only partly understood them and for different society they needed to be reinterpreted. Language that he uses is similar to that one from Canterbary tales. He purposely uses archaic language. So we can conclude that he didnt succeed to convey the real meaning of his work to the readers. On the other hand he was one of the greatest poets of all time, and he had some positive things to (easy flow of rhytm and sound, musicality and etc). It was Spensers fate as a poet to perfect literally forms that having lost their roots in the past before his days, failed equally to respond adequately to certain need of present. This double isolation can be explanation of less readable masterpiece Fairy Queen.

SIDNEY: Sir Phiilp Sidney, so-called ideal man, lived only thirty two years. He was a scholar, poet, critic, diplomat and courtier, he was high idealist and had real poetic skill. None of his work was published during his life time, but many of it circulated in manuscript. He is famous for his works: Old Arcadia, pastoral love story with a political background, Arcadia, written to amuse his sister, based on Greek romance, Alexandrian form of literature, Defense of Poetry, since he was one of the most acute critics of his time, he recognized that they were confronting crises in English writing so he attempts to put a way forward by offering a more presrcriptive definition. He is probably best known for his sonnet sequance Astrophile and Stella which was published in 1591. His Stella was Penelope, girl who was promised to him in her youth, but for some reason the engadgament was later broken off. One hunderd and eight sonnets and eleven poems provide a record of his hopeless love for Stella. He does not always use the same rhyme scheme using sometimes abba and sometimes ababa, but almost always ends on couplet on which poem is often balanced. Astrophile and Stella is sonnet sequence, a collection of sonnet, perhaps the finest collection until Shakesperians. Meaning of words Astrophile and Stella is star-lover and the star. That should be a compliment to a woman. She is bright and she shines, like a Sun. She brings light into darkness, but also like Sun she can hurt, she burns. That means that Petrarchans love is also painful, but poet uses that as another device for his poetry. His most famous sonnet forms no part of Astrophile and Stella and it was found, after his death, in manusrcript under the title Certain Sonnets among thirty eight another sonnets.

DEFENSE OF POETRY: Philip Sidney, so called ideal man, lived only thirty two years. He is famous for his work: Arcadia, Old Arcadia, his sonnet sequance, perhapst his best known work Astrophile and Stella. But he also was one of the most acute critics of poetry. He recognized that they were confronting crisis in English writing. In Defense of Poetry he attempts to define a way forward by offering a perscriptive definition. He insists that poetry had always acted as the great comunicator and as encourager of learning. It is believed that Defense of Poetry circlucated in manuscript for some time, before it was first published. It also must be remembered that Sidney wrote this, just before the flowring of English literature in Spenser and Shakespeare. He begins with an anegdote, derived from his embassy to Germany, where he met one of the Italian courties. This anegdote allows him to make play with both his Christian name, Philip: lover of horses, and his knighty proffesion. This witty opening serves as allert to Sidneys fascination with words. His work is shaped both by his need to reply to case put by Plato and his fellows, and his obvious pleasuere in displaying his observations. If he seems ready to admit that Platos intolerance has validety when directed to sacred verse he is at his most relaxed when he talks about delight that poetry can give. He says that when poetry gives delight it also breed virtue. He argues, teaches obscurly, because he addreses to those that are already thaught.

In many wheys the arguments posited in Defense of Poetry are justified by the body of Sidneys work in prose and verse, most of it unpublished at the time of his death.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was some fourteen years younger than Wyatt, whose poetic disciple he was. Like Wyatt he was sensitive to literary fashion that invaded much of Europe from Italy, and like Wyatt he enlarged English poetic tongue by translating from Italian and Latin. The main difference between him and Wyatt can be put up in one phrase: he has less strength and more polish. His natural imagery was livelier and more English than Petrarkas and in one of his songs unlike Petrarka he prolongs the description of spring for fourteen lines to turn suddenly on final couplet. This rhyme scheme abab abab abab is unusual because of only two rhymes, but its grouping into three quatrains and final couplet is characteristic of Surreys writing and was to become the mark of English sonnet form. Surrey used many rhyme forms but Shakespearian seems the most convenient to him. Abab cdcd efef gg. He also used terza rima, with a lot short stanzas. His perhaps most notble achievement is his use of blank verse which he used in translition of Italian Aeneid. He thinks of it as his medium because that was English equavilent to Italian models. He was praised for its speed and vigor.

The first tragedy capable of holding the public stage was The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd. The play was popular all through Shakespearian time and revivals of it on modern stages, radio and television shows that it still has a great deal of appeal and a great deal of dramatic vitality. It is a story about a murder of Horatio, who was In love with a beautiful girl, and was killed by his rival Hieronimo, the knight, and Horatios father spends the rest of the play contiriving the revenge. Like Hamlet he delays, he talks rather than acts and also like Hamlet he makes the use of the play about murder to effect his revengeful purpose. The play ends in horror, murder, suicide, and an act of Hieronimo that never loses its absurd appeal: he bites his tongue and spits it on the stage. The language of the play is curiously memorable and shows that Kyd was no mean verse writer. He is especially important to students of Shakespeare for it seems that he had written the earlier version of Hamlet, on which Shakespeare based his masterpiece. Kyd is also regarded as father of revenge tragedy, of which Hamlet is most notable work.

The greatest ornament of the public theatre until Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe, born only few weeks after Shakespeare, but not destined to have working life nearly as long as his. He was stabbed to death when he was very young in circumstances which we shall never fully understand, but many scholars tried to do. Like all University Wits he had wild reputation, he was believed to be an atheist,

fought the police, kept mistress. He is also believed to be a secret agent for Queens government, and that he was killed by countrys enemies rather than his own. His reputation as a dramatic rests on five plays: Tamburlaine, Edward II, Dido, Queen of Cartage, Jew of Malta, and Doctor Faustus. To these five masterpieces can be added sixth, Massacre in Paris, bloodythirsty drama now seems little read. It is at his plays that the true tone of Renaissance first appears, since it was the age of new beginning, learning, worshiping man rather than God. Marlowe sums up the New Age. It is the spirit of human power and enterprise that Marlowes plays convey. Tamburlaine is great conqueror, Jew of Malta stands for monetary power, and Faustus shows the most deadly hunger of all: for the power that only supreme knowledge can give. Tamburlaine is procession of magnificent scenes, each representing some stage of his rise from humble shepherd to conqueror. Jew of Malta has a really long opening speech, and Dido, Queen of Cartage shows taking of Troy. Doctor Faustus is perhaps the most notable and most important play by Marlowe. It is a story about man who having studied all arts and sciences, had nothing further to learn so he turns to the supernatuaral. He obtains twenty four years of total power and pleasure in exchange for his soul. Despite obvious faults, and carelessness, the achievement of Marlowe is a very important one. Some scholars even believe that he would became greater than even Shakespeare is, having he lived longer. There is no one like Marlowe.

Gutenburg, William Caxton and War of Roses: Chinese had already printing presses, but they didnt do much with them because they were so close society , looking at the past. In 1450, a German, Johan Gutenberg, made the discovery again this time for the whole mankind, it became publicly known. His printing machine had metal part for every symbol, every letter and could be reused and reused. Five years after that he printed entire Bible, that for monks needed twenty years. Some people believe that it was Gutenberg not Isac Newton, or Columbos, the greatest man of the second millenium. Twenty years after him, an Englishman, William Caxton went to the continent, learned how to print, printed the first English book ever, returned to England, and became printer and very rich man. He printed many book, including Canterbury Tales. Only ten years after Gutenburgs discovery, English aristocracy started war among selves. The question was which family gets to rule England. Common people were not included in that war. The greatest battle was at Bosworth field and ended with the win of Henry Tudor who became new king and death of Richard III, white rose. England became republic, and got Parliament. The few aristocrats that had left alive did not middle in its work.

Columbus, and the discovery of America: Columbus came from Italy, became a Portugese sailor, and worked for Spain when he discovered America in 1492-rather an international career. He imagined that he could go from Spain across Atlantic and in one line came to India. Queen Isabela needed big, quick success, so she gave them a lot of money. Columbus invested a lot of his own money.

He was quite a geniuos sailior. He rested for a mont, preparing for the journey and then taking adventige of the best winds, he went across Atlantics. After five weeks, when his crew was tired and wanted to go back one night they saw insects and that could mean only one: the land was close. Next day they saw the land. Columbus himself went five times to America, never realized that, thining that he was close India, or China. That was his biggest mistake. He never really stepped to American land, but he reached some small islands like todays Cuba. He made some politicall mistakes, and he died poor, ill and very disappointed. His last journey was a failure.