BLACK DEATH

The Black Death was an infectious disease that affected most of the European population in the
fourteenth century. It was so called because it caused sores and dark buboes on the skin and very
often causing death. It was caused by fleas living on black rats which infested ships trading with
Europe. Nobody knew what was the cure, so the only thing that the doctors advised was to escape
from the infected areas, as did the young people of the Boccaccios Decameron". It was thought
that the plague was a punishment sent by God to punish sinners. The plague fell on a third of the
English population and caused the increase of wages and a worsening of the working conditions of
the farmers.
LA DINASTIA DEI TUDOR
Henry VII: Henry VII succeeded to the throne in 1485 and with him began the Tudor dynasty. He
tried to consolidate his position through many treaties both with French and with Netherlands.
During his reign he strengthened the monarchy and trough his foreign policy he aimed at increasing
England's trading position. He also founded the English naval power, spending money to build
ships for the commercial fleet and to increase military power.

Henry VIII: Henry VIII was Henry VIIs second son. He was a known figure at court. He was
called Golden Prince both for his natural good looks and his chivalry and education. In 1521 he
was granted the title of Defender of the Faith by the pope in recognition of his Latin treatise
defending the sacraments. After the death of his elder brother Arthur in 1502, Henry married his
brothers widow, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine only produced a daughter, Mary, and Henry began
to consider marriage to his pregnant mistress Anne Boleyn. The pope would not declare his first
marriage invalid, so Henry broke with Rome and declared himself Supreme Head on Earth of the
Church of England, and soon he dissolved the monasteries. Another consequence of Henrys
policy was that Ireland remained a Catholic country and this marked the beginning of the Irish
questions. Henry married Anne Boleyn and she gave him a second daughter, Elizabeth. She was
tried and executed for treason. Henry remarried four times and had only one son by Jane Seymour.

Mary I: Mary I was born in 1516, the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.
Rejection by her father and the cruel treatment of her mother were to have fundamental influence on
her life. When she became queen in 1553 she attempted to restore England to papal obedience.
Then she married Philip of Spain and earned the nickname "Bloody Mary" because during his reign
were burned a lots of Protestants. Marys end was tragic. In fact she was deserted by her husband
and her foreign and domestic policies were a failure.

Elizabeth I: In 1558 Elizabeth became queen of a divided nation. She had a strong personality and
she was a political genius. She also had received an excellent education and could speak several
languages. The Queen was unmarried and used this as political weapon, encouraging the hopes of
European princes with whom it was important to keep good terms. She often repeated that The
Queen was married to her people.
Elizabeth brought unity and defeated Englands enemies at home and abroad. Elizabeth recognised
Spain as her main trade rival and enemy. At first open war was avoided and explorations and
overseas trade expanded, making England a commercial and seafaring power. In 1588 the war
against Spain started: 130 Spanish galleons appeared in the English Channel, they were slow and
heavy, while the English ships were lower, faster and armed with long-range guns. However, the
Spanish Armada was also defeated thanks to the help of bad weather.


THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE

The English Renaissance
The English Renaissance covers the period from 1509, the years of Henry VIII ascent, to 1660, that
is the beginning of the Restoration. English renaissance developed later than the European
equivalents. An important feature of this historical period is the Protestant movement that
culminated whit Henry VIII, who broke with Rome and declared himself (as a king) the head of the
English church.

The New Learning
Behind the new literature there was also the training in classical imitation of a number of humanist
scholars and translators, reaching back to the time of Erasmus of Rotterdam who, at the beginning of
the century, had stressed the importance for the Christian student of studying classical literature. The
"New Learning", as Humanism was also called, was developed in all over the country, in Oxford
and Cambridge, the two English universities.

The Sonnet

I Find No Peace
An interesting imitation of a famous sonnet by Petrarch. "I find no peace" refers to all the strange
feelings that accompany love, and the contradictions that always carries with itself. The poet finds
himself struggling between war and peace, happiness and grief and so on and blames for this the
woman he loves so much. In this sonnet there are a lots of oxymorons used to express his personal
feelings.

My Mistress Eyes
The sonnet consists of two parts: in the three quatrains there is the description of the negative
qualities of the loved woman, in the couplet instead the poet declares that he loves her for her
originality. Infact with this sonnet Shakespeare wanted to criticize the Petrarchan poetry which
exalted the love and above all the beauty of loved-woman. The reader has to try to understand the
text seeing it by a comical view. The woman narrated by Shakespeare is very ugly. The message of
this sonnet is that love and beauty are not necessarily related and a man can love a woman still if she
is not beautiful like an angel or she doesnt move like a goddess (like the petrarchan one). At the end
infact Shakespeare contradicts everything he has said before and states that despite her ugliness he
loves her for what she is on the inside.