Buchara state university m. Bakoeva, E. Muratova, M. Ochilova english literature

Three chief forms o f poetry flourished during the Elizabethan 
Age. They were the lyric, the sonnet, and narrative poetry.
The lyric is a short poem that expresses a poet’s personal 
emotions and thoughts in a songlike style.
The sonnet is a 14-line poem with a certain pattern o f rhyme 
and rhythm. Elizabethan poets wrote two types o f sonnets, the 
Italian sonnet and the English sonnet. The two types differed in 
the arrangement o f the rhymes. Sir Thomas Wyatt introduced the 
sonnet from Italy into English literature in the early 1500’s. William 
Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser wrote sonnet sequences. A 
sonnet sequence is a group o f sonnets based on a single theme 
or about one person.
N a r r a tiv e p o e try . A narrative poem te lls a story. 
Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” and Spenser’s “The Faerie 
Queene” are the examples o f narrative poetry.
Sir Thomas More 
(1478 -15 3 5 )
One o f the outstanding representatives o f the English 
Renaissance was Sir Thomas More. He was a great English

---

author, statesman, and scholar. More was bom in London, probably 
in 1477 or 1478. He studied at Oxford. More began his career as 
a lawyer in 1494, and became an undersheriff of London in 1510, 
and then field various high positions. He served as Lord Chancellor, 
the highest judicial official in England, from 1529 to 1532. But 
More resigned because he opposed King Henry VlII’s plan to 
divorce h is queen. He was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to accept 
the king as the head o f the English church. More has since become 
an example ofthe individual who places conscience above the 
claims of authority. The Roman Catholic Church declared him a 
saint in 1935.
More published his famous work “Utopia” at the age of thirty- 
eight. It was written in Latin. “Utopia” is an account of an ideal 
society, with justice and equality for all citizens. This masterpiece 
gave the word “utopia” to many languages of the world. “Utopia” 
is dividec. into two books.
Book I contains a conversation between More himself, the 
Flemish humanist Petrus Aegidius, and a philosophical sailor 
Raphael Hythloday. Their conversation deals with social and 
economic conditions in Europe and in England.
Book li is dedicated to Hythloday’s description of the island of 
Utopia (meaning Nowhere), which he visited during one of his 
journeys. It is a state that has achieved absolute social and 
economic harmony.
In “Ulopia” the author criticizes the social system of England. 
He advances the proposal that education should be provided for 
everybody, men and women. He advocates tolerance for every 
form of religion. Wars and Warriors are abolished in Utopia. Kings 
are also attacked in this book. More writes “The people choose 
the king for their own sakes and not for his”. Many of More’s 
reforms have been built into the modern world.
The book is interesting because it reflects the Renaissance, its 
learning, its enthusiasm for new ideas. “Utopia” was read in Latin 
by every humanist in Europe all over the continent. More became

---

the most shining example of the New Learning in England. He 
brought the Renaissance, the modern way of thinking into English 
literature. “Utopia” was famous in its contemporary days but it 
still remains as a most suggestive discussion of the ailments of the 
human society.
Thomas More is also well-known in world literature for his 
prose and poetry, written in English and Latin. He wrote his fine 
English work “A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation” while 
he was in prison. His other works include “The History o f King 
Richard III”, written in English in 1513 and a series of writings in 
Latin in which he defended the church against Protestant attacks.