Early Modern Literature – Poetry

Question 1

Early Modern Period & Renaissance

Answer 1

Early Modern Period
* neutral term
* looking forward: early stage of modernity

Renaissance
* looking back: Classical antiquity revived
* Italian culture and art

Question 2

Timeline

Answer 2

1485 Battle of Bosworth Field - End War of the Roses
1603 King James I

Question 3

The English Reformation

Answer 3

• At the beginning a political rather than a theological act
• Henry wanted to annul his first marriage
• In 1533 England broke with the Pope and Henry became Head of
  the Church of England

Question 4

Patronage

Answer 4

• literature depended on patronage
• writing poetry was not done for profit → writers received a single payment for their finished
  manuscript

Advantages for the patron:
* regulate literary
production
* a form of representation
* political power

Question 5

Italian Sonnet

Answer 5

• Sonetto → “little song”
• Francesco Petrarcha
• Petrarchism: Form of love poetry based on Petrarch’s Canzoniere

Form of the Italian Sonnet
* 14 lines
* octave (two quatrains):
abab – abab (alternating rhyme) or
abba – abba (enclosing rhyme)
* sestet (two tercets):
cde – cde or
cdc – dcd or
cde – dce

Question 6

The English (Shakespearean Sonnet)

Answer 6

• less strict than the Italian
• 3 quatrains & concluding couplet
• abab – cdcd – efef – gg

Question 7

Sir Philip Sidney. Astrophel and Stella

Answer 7

• published postum 1591
• speaker, Astrophel writes sonnets → wants to reach his beloved Stella
• studies existing love poems in order to find words

Question 8

William Shakespeare Sonnets

Answer 8

• Shakespeare Sonnets 1st published 1609
• contains 144 sonnets and a narrative poem