The Cambridge Companion to English Literature, 1500-1600 (Cambridge Companions to Literature)

This is the first comprehensive account of English Renaissance literature in the context of the culture that shaped it: the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, the tumult of Catholic and Protestant alliances during the Reformation, the age of printing and of New World discovery. The Companion covers developments in poetry, prose, religious writing, drama, satire and humanism in fourteen newly-commissioned essays, written by experts for student readers. A detailed chronology of major literary achievements concludes with a list of authors and their dates. "This is the first comprehensive account of English Renaissance literature in the context of the culture which shaped it: the courts of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I, the tumult of Catholic and Protestant alliances during and following the Reformation, the development of humanism, the age of printing and of New World discovery."--Back cover A currently recognized representation of the Tudor aesthetic in the sixteenth century is Hans Holbein's double portrait of "The Ambassadors" painted in the spring of 1533 in London (Figure I), yet its significance and its actual meaning have been debated.

The first comprehensive account of English Renaissance literature and the culture which shaped it.