VI.         Thomas Malory and English Prose
VII.         The beginning of English Drama.
1. Miracle Plays.
  Miracle play or mystery play is a form of medieval drama that came from dramatization of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church. It developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching its height in the 15th century. The simple lyric character of the early texts was enlarged by the addition of dialogue and dramatic action. Eventually the performance was moved to the churchyard and the market place.
2. Morality Plays.
  A morality play is a play enforcing a moral truth or lesson by means of the speech and action of characters which are personified abstractions – figures representing vices and virtues, qualities of the human mind, or abstract conceptions in general.
3. Interlude.
  The interlude, which grew out of the morality, was intended, as its name implies, to be used more as a filler than as the main part of an entertainment. As its best it was short, witty, simple in plot, suited for the diversion of guests at a banquet, or for the relaxation of the audience between the divisions of a serious play. It was essentially an indoors performance, and generally of an aristocratic nature.
Chapter 3 English Literature in the Renaissance(文艺复兴 伊丽莎白时期)
I.        A Historical Background
II.       The Overview of the Literature (1485-1660)
Printing press—readership—growth of middle class—trade-education for laypeople-centralization of power-intellectual life-exploration-new impetus and direction of literature.
Humanism-study of the literature of classical antiquity and reformed education.
Literary style-modeled on the ancients.
The effect of humanism-the disseminatiogogoible attitude of its classically educated adherents.
1. poetry
The first tendency by Sidney and Spenser:  ornate, florid, highly figured style.
The second tendency by Donne: metaphysical style—complexity and ingenuity.
The third tendency by Johgogotyle.
The fourth tendency by Milton: central Christian and Biblical tradition.
2. Drama
a. the gogoical examples.
b. the drama stands highest in popular estimation: Marlowe – Shakespeare – Jonson.
3. Prose
a. translation of Bible;
b. More;
c. Bacon.
II.                 English poetry.
1. Sir Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard (courtly makers)
(1) Wyatt: introducing sonnets.
(2) Howard: introducing sonnets and writing the first blank verse.
2. Sir Philip Sidney—poet, critic, prose writer
(1) Life:
a. English gentleman;
b. brilliant and fascinating personality;
c. courtier.
(2) works
a. Arcadia: pastoral romance;
b. Astrophel and Stella (108): sonnet sequence to Penelope Dvereux—platonic devotion.
Petrarchan conceits and original feelings-moving to creativeness—building  of a narrative story; theme-love originality-act of writing.
c. Defense of Poesy: an apology for imaginative literature—beginning  of literary criticism.
3. Edmund Spenser
(1) life: Cambridge - Sidney’s friend - “Areopagus” – Ireland - Westminster Abbey.
(2) works
a. The Shepherds Calendar: the budding of English poetry in Renaissance.
b. Amoretti and Epithalamion: sonnet sequence
c. Faerie Queene:
l        The general end--A romantic and allegorical epic—steps to virtue.
l        12 books and 12 virtues:  Holiness, temperance, justice and courtesy.
l        Two-level function: part of the story and part of allegory (symbolic meaning)
l        Many allusions to classical writers.
l        Themes: puritanism, nationalism, humanism and Renaissance Neoclassicism—a Christian humanist.
(3) Spenserian Stanza.
III.         English Prose
1. Thomas More
(1) Life: “Renaissance man”, scholar, statesman, theorist, prose writer, diplomat, patron of arts
a. learned Greek at Canterbury College, Oxford;
b. studies law at Lincoln Inn;
c. Lord Chancellor;
d. beheaded.
(2) Utopia: the first English science fiction.
Written in Latin, two parts, the second—place of nowhere.
A philosophical mariner (Raphael Hythloday) tells his voyages in which he discovers a land-Utopia.