hundred free grammar schools in all parts o f the counlry. These
schools were open to both sexes o f all ranks. In 1579, Gresham
College was founded in London to cater to the needs o f t:ie middle
class. Unlike the classical curriculum offered by Oxford and
Cambridge, its curriculum included law, medicine and other
practical courses. As the children o f the middle class grew better
educated, the middle class itself grew in power.
During Elizabeth’s reign, England began to gain supremacy on
the seas. The Elizabethan Age is the age o f poetry. Except perhaps
for the essayist Francis Bacon and the critic Christopher Marlowe,
people were not yet writing prose o f literary quality. Some
Elizabethan writers dealt exclusively in lyric poetry, but many were
also playwrights writing their plays in verse.
The Elizabethan period was the golden age o f English drama.
In 1576, James Burbage built England’s first playhouse, called
The Theatre, in a suburb o f London. Until this time, drama had
been performed in the streets, at homes and palaces, and at English
universities. After Burbage built The Theatre, other playhouses
were constructed, which rapidly increased the popularity of drama.
A group o f leading Elizabethan playwrights was known as the
“University Wits” because they had attended the famous English
universities at Oxford and Cambridge. These playwrights included
Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, and George Peele. Marlowe
was the most important dramatist among :he Wits.
William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and other more than a dozen
first-rate playwrights also created their skillful dramas at that
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
