lecture3therenaissancewilliamshakespearehamlet.ppt

Lecture 3 The Renaissance William ShakespeareHamlet Part one English Renaissance  1.1. The New Monarchy The century and a half following the death of Chaucer (1400-1550) was full of great changes. Barely after the end of the Hundred Years War with France (1337-1453), the Wars of the Roses (1455--85) between the House of Lancaster and the House of York struggling for the Crown continued for 30 years. The whole noble class suffered great losses with this self--destruction. And Henry VII (1485-1509), taking advantage of this situation, founded the Tudor dynasty, a centralized monarchy of a totally new type, which met the needs of the rising bourgeoisie and so won its support. 1.2. The Reformation The international retiree of the Roman Catholic Church had long been burdensome to the King of England in establishing an Absolute monarchy. A conflict was inevitable. Hence the far-reaching movement of the Reformation. In England, it was started by Henry VIII (1509-47). He declared the break with Rome, carried out a wholesale suppression of the monasteries and confiscated the property of the Church, thus enriching the new bourgeois nobility. The new religious dogma known as Protestantism had been gaining ground among the population, and the Protestant Reformation was in essence a political movement in a religious guise, a part of the long struggle of the bourgeois class for power. Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603) made such reforms as more compete with the monarchy and as would be accepted by as many people as possible, while she avoided the more uncompromising and democratic forms of Protestantism. 1.3. The English Bible: During hundreds of years the translation of the Bible into the English language was carried on by hundreds of hands, notably by the Protestants. The first complete English Bible was translated by John Wycliffe (1324?-84), the morning star of the Reformation”, and his followers. William Tyndal (1490?-1536), a fiery Protestant and martyr of the Reformatio