Poetry and Drama of the Renaissance

Poetry and Drama of the Renaissance
The Renaissance was a revival in Europe inspired by the revival of Greek and Roman literature after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the 14th and 16th centuries, artists of all backgrounds began to experiment and express themselves in new, concrete ways.
Two of the main artistic outputs of the Renaissance were poetry and drama. The advent of knowledge sharing provided by the printing press and the beginning of international trade allowed people to expand their knowledge banks. The Renaissance saw the rise of the middle class through education; more and more people had access to education. Therefore, poetry and drama are no longer reserved for the privileged few. Thanks to the flow of new information, poetry and drama became common artistic concepts among all classes.
During the Renaissance, poetry became one of the most valued forms of literature and was often accompanied by music. According to The Literature Network, the most common poetic forms used during this period were the lyric, tragedy, elegy, or pastoral. The goal of every poet was to capture the essence of beauty in the modern world, "the main goal of English Renaissance poetry was to capture beauty and truth in words. The English poetry of that time was unusual , repetitive and often betrays a subtle intelligence.” (Literature Network, 2017). One of the most important poems written during this period is John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost (1667). According to Referatele, the purpose of this epic was to convey the reasoning behind God's decision regarding the fall of Adam and Eve from Eden and "to express the central Christian truths of freedom, sin, and redemption that he conceived." Milton expressed this idea in his poem: "I can affirm the eternal divinity, / And to me God's ways justify (line 26).
During the Renaissance, William Shakespeare dominated the field of English drama. Shakespeare's ability to switch between different genres, comedy and tragedy, while providing a continuous insightful lesson sets him apart. Shakespeare's Macbeth is a tragedy in which a noble soldier greedily commits fraud and kills several people; he does all this because of prophecy. In the end, nothing ever goes as planned. Shakespeare tries to warn the audience against cheating with fate. Shakespeare is considered one of the greatest playwrights and even created a few words in the English language. However, much of Shakespeare's life is unknown; There is a period of time in which Shakespeare is absent from society. To learn more about his life, read his biography from the University of North Georgia Press.
The development of poetry and drama was significant for the entire period, adding a new form of entertainment and source of information to all classes.