16TH CENTURY ENGLISH POETRY:CRITICAL EVALUATION.

Abstract

It was the renaissance in the sixteenth century which gave birth to a variety of style and encouraged experimentation in English literature. For the first time the poets experimented with Italian style and created sonnets. The term modern was never used before, however with the change in the structure and form, the term “Modern English Poetry” was used to identify these newly developed poems. Courtly poets Wyatt and Surrey introduced new style, rhythm and form in English poetry which was identified as the modern English poetry since they were the first reformers in English metre and style and changed the traditional style. The essay here will study about the birth of modern English poetry and how it evolved during the age in the expert hands of Wyatt, Surrey, Spenser, Shakespeare, Sidney etc. It will further highlight the characteristic of the modern poetry of the period and highlight the fact that for the first time the greatest playwright Shakespeare wrote sonnets under the influence of Italian literature and others paved way for the heroic and epic poetry for the poets of the subsequent age. While lyrical style was predominant, but not the only form of the era, the poets experimented with early blank verse and also introduced the epic form and the dramatic or conversational poetry by William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, John Donne and Phillip Sydney which were highly appreciated and read even today.