7. English theatre before Shakespeare.

In 1576 the compony of the Earl of Leicester's Men built the first regular playhouse and called it "The Theatre", using the Greek word for the first time in England. It was open to the sky, except for a sheltered gallery on three sides, and the stage was a large raised platform that came out into the audience.

Thus, theatres began to be established, and their popularity kept growing. They gave public performances, and were also invited to the court.

As the public became more demanding and the art of theatre developed, old plays were considered too primitive. They didn't deal sufficiently with the problems of the time; the necessity for new plays became obvious. The demand was answered by some university graduates, who blonged to the middle-class or gentry. There were actually the first professional authors in England who earned their living by writing and are known as the Academic Dramatists, or "the University Wits". Among them were Thomas Kyd, George Peele, John Lyly, Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe.

Towards the end of the 16th century life in England underwent a great change: the primary accumulated capital was to be put into circulation, absolute monarchy became an obstacle to social development. The Renaissance "giants" were needed no more, new trends of thought, hostile of the Renaissance humanism, appeared and the ideology of humanism faced a crisis. As a result of this, the ideology of drama considerably changed and there appeared pessimistic and even morbid tragedies by John Webster and John Ford. Aristocratic views were reflected in the works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who often collaborated in writing their plays. They gave birth to a new dramatic genre, the tragi-comedy, which isn't a mixture of tragic and comic elements, but a play with a tragic conflict and a happy ending. The plays of Beaumont and Fletcher are always amusing, masterfully constructed, written in easy-flowing verse, and have very interesting and complicated plots, but in terms of treating human nature they are somewhat superficial, if not shallow.

8. The XVII’s English literature. Puritanism.

The 17th century is a period which many English historians and literary scholars prefer to any other. During most of it England had her own course both in her political and literary life. It was time when the English were out on their own, just going their own way.

The influence of the Puritan ideas persisted in a less aggressive and exaggerated form through the next two-and-a-half centuries, influencing not only social legislation but also the development of literature. If the 19th century English novelists were more restricted in their choice of themes than French novelists were, it was due chiefly to the fact that the new large reading public in England hadn't escaped the influence of Puritanism.

John Milton overshadows all other poets of the 17th century and stands as one of the greatest figure of English literature. He is known as the foremost representative of English Puritanism in literature, and he was brought up in a home where the culture of the Renaissance was combined with the righteous life of the Puritans.

Literary forms were quick to change and develop during the 17th century. Prose writing offers us a particularly good example of this change and development. It moved in two different directions.

The earliest development, which can be found in Milton's prose, gives us writing of increasing complexity, in which sentences may branch out into dozens of relative clauses; it's prose quite unlike ordinary speech. The later development (the last twenty years of the century) is quite different: it begins to reproduce the manner and rhythm of the best talk of the time. John Dryden, though primarily a poet, was an original master of this new kind of prose.

The 17th century poetry shows us an astonishing variety, form the gay, careless Cavalier songs to the solemnities of Milton, or the profound intricacies of the metaphysical and Platonist poets.

Of these John Donne was the greatest. His sermons, often delivered in magnificent prose, were very popular, and certain passages from them are still frequently quoted.

The lighter side of literature and life in the 17th century is reflected in the lyrics of the Cavalier poets. They sing youth, love, happiness, and a beauty found i. The transiest, changing things; they take life as they find it. Richard Lovelace, one of the Cavaliers, was a gallant and handsome gentleman who spent his fortune and much of his time in prison for his King. While there, he composed a number of exquisite lyrics.