"revenge tragedies" such asThe Spanish Tragedy or Hamlet. These plays tended to have their characters brought low not by bad fortune or supernatural temptations, but through bad decisions or fatal flaws already present within the hearts of the characters, much as the tragedians of antiquity did. Comedies used similar situations and character types as the Greek/Roman farces as well.

A play like Hamlet is a perfect example of how the Renaissance affected English literature: a medieval version of this story might have rendered Hamlet's inner turmoil as mere good versus evil, while, as it is, the play is psychologically complicated and more ambiguous regarding the morality of its cast of characters, many of whom do not fit into simple "bad" or "good" categories.

The Renaissance had several major effects on English literature.

First, it marked a rediscovery of many classical texts that had been unknown in the Middle Ages. For example, the recovery of Greek novels, and in particular their translation into French by Amyot, led to a certain type of pastoral English novel, exemplified by Lyly's Euphues.

Classical models strongly influenced drama. Seneca's tragedies were models for the Elizabethan and Jacobean genre of revenge tragedy, and Latin versions of Greek New Comedy influenced romantic comedy.

Protestantism, with its emphasis on reading the Bible in the vernacular, contributed to the growth of vernacular literacy, and thus the audience for literary works in English.

The English renaissance was particular in its preoccupation with religion and the place of man in relationship with God. England had undergone an especially fraught period in its religious convictions with Henry VIII having taken the country through the reformation, the country having gone from being Catholic to becoming Protestant, adherents of the newly formed Church of England. Some might claim that the King James Bible and Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer stand as particular examples of English renaissance rhetoric that were to be profoundly influential upon English Literature of the period.

The literary work of this period was particularly interesting in its questioning of religious orthodoxy and in the questioning of religious authority. Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, for example, is set in the same Wittenberg University in which Martin Luther, the first protestant reformer, nailed his 95 theses to the cathedral door. In a profound satire on the questing spirit of the protestant reform, Marlowe make Faustus an intellectual man who wishes to test his personal relationship with God - one of the underpinning notions of protestant theology - by selling his soul to the devil.

Equally, later works such as Shakespeare's Macbeth sought to test the bounds of supernatural beliefs via the presence of witches on stage and Macbeth's belief in his self-determination tested by the prophecies of these 'weird sisters' whose prediction of his demise finally transpires to be correct. Moreover, Hamlet, another Wittenberg student and rationalist, is also tested in his belief in the power of the human intellect to explain God's creation when he witnesses his father's ghost early in the play which defies his rationalist belief in 'ocular proof'. 

The crowning glory of this change in religious attitude comes in one of the triumphs of the late English renaissance, John Milton's Paradise Lost and its reconsideration of the role of the ultimate acts of religious free will, Lucifer's expulsion from heaven and mankind's original sin. Milton's puritanical religious thought is made all the more interesting by his sympathetic portrayal of Satan as a beguiling character, one of whose confrontation of God and later temptation of man are made understandable by Milton. 

One might also look to the issue of changes in social status in renaissance England for another major theme. In an early sonnet by Sir Thomas Wyatt the Elder, 'Whose List to Hunt' he overly reveals the constraints of monarchy in writing about his own clandestine affair with Anne Boleyn who is represented as a 'hind' who he would 'hunt' but for the fact that she has 'Noli me tangere' (do not touch me) on a collar around her neck. He, of course, touched her and with it tacitly acknowledges a socially revolutionary act that was echoed in much renaissance literature. One only need to look to the Machiavellian Iago and Edmund of Shakespeare's Othello and King Lear to see two characters who seek social advancement past their socially prescribed places in life while Middleton and Rowley's De Flores of The Changeling serves a similar purpose. None finally achieve their aim but all are exponents of the expediency espoused in Nicolo Machiavelli's The Prince and find their echoes in other examples from renaissance drama in particular such as Henry V who, for example, is willing, as Prince Hal in Henry IV Part II, to inform on his best friend, Falstaff to save his own reputation and in Part I of the same play sequence, to plot his own rise from infamy. As newly crowned monarch in Henry V he is willing to execute an old acquaintance to maintain order, a reflection of the political expediency that one might argue that Elizabeth I also showed in her execution of Mary Queen of Scots during a period of anti-Catholic sentiment. 

The main characteristic of Renaissance English literature is that it was influenced by the ideas of the Renaissance related to art, religion and politics.  It was also heavily influenced by classic Greek and Roman literature and ideas. 

The most famous example of English Renaissance literature is Shakespeare.  Shakespeare was influenced by Greek tragedy, and wrote about historical and social issues.  His poetry centered on the aesthetic.

The poets of the English Renaissance focused on exploring religious and social ideas that their counterparts explored in art.  English Renaissance is decadent, and often explores religious themes with a completely different approach than the traditional religious poets.

Another important characteristic of English Renaissance literature is humanism, or an optimistic outlook on humanity.  Up until then, the more religiously dominated texts had a dimmer view of humans and their potential.

The Elizabethan Age refers to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I from 1558 to 1603, and is considered by some to be the Golden Age of English literature. There are a number of reasons for this rise in literature: Queen Elizabeth I was a famous supporter of the arts, England was thriving economically, and cultural imports from Italy supported the exploration of forms such as the Italian sonnet. This era is famous for its sonnets and plays, and the emergence of great writers like William Shakespeare. Elizabethan literature and drama draws heavily from themes of romance, particularly in its poetry, but also incorporated commentary on religion, politics, and society. Another feature of Elizabethan drama was the development of the tragicomedy, aided by Shakespeare's plays such as "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Measure for Measure."

The term Renaissance means "rebirth". It refers to the rediscovery of many Greek and Latin texts that had been unknown in the Latin west during the Middle Ages. The influence of these texts transformed many aspects of English literature.

In drama, medieval plays had focused primarily on religious themes, whereas the Renaissance marked a revival of both secular-themed tragedy and comedy. The tragedies of Seneca especially influenced the development of Elizabethan "revenge tragedy" and the Latin comedies of Plautus and Terence influenced English comedy.

The English novel was influenced by the sixteenth century translations into English (via the French of Amyot) of Hellenistic Greek novels. 

Many of the letter writing manuals of the Renaissance abandoned the medieval models of the artes dictandi and instead looked back to the newly rediscovered correspondence of Cicero. The Hellenistic pastoral influenced much of English lyric poetry, and Horace was an important influence on both poetry and criticism. 

The word "renaissance" means "rebirth". Popularly known is the Italian Renaissance whose movers and shakers were people such as Michelangelo and Leonard DiVinci. England's renaissance is called the Caroligian Renaissance and dates back to the 15th-16th centuries. Before that time, the people spoke Old English; which, in fact, is what the oldest poem, "Beowulf", is written in. The language changed after 1066 when William the Conqueror invaded England and forced everyone to speak French. As a result, people spoke in pidgin language and many of the French words were adapted to English while some of the cases and Germanic elements were dropped. As the language evolved, so did political and economical life.  Once people started traveling the world and writing about it, the language also expanded. By Shakespeare's period (1564-1603) more educated people were reading and writing, but the common folk still couldn't. Writers like Shakespeare, Ben Johnson and John Donne had more time to write as international commerce expanded. As the world became more competitive as well as "smaller", the language was fine-tuned, developing into the modern language that we have today. It is with all societies: Once the educated do not have to worry about food and shelter, their minds can create and write, and imagine.

The Renaissance was an intense rebirth of interest in the literature and learning of the Classical world of the Greeks and Romans. The Renaissance flourished in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, primarily in Italy. Partially due to the Crusades and contact with the libraries and learning of Islamic cultures, Western Europeans were reignited into a fascination with the ancient world.

This led to many classic texts, such as Homeric epics, Greek and Roman myths, Greek and Roman history, Greek and Roman pastoral, and writers such as Ovid and Aristotle taking on a new importance. Educated people across Europe, including England, were learning Greek as well as Latin and reading, translating, adapting, and imitating these works.

The Renaissance made a lasting impact on English literature through a variety of great writers who engaged deeply with Classical texts. We would not have Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar without Shakespeare's interest in the Roman classics. We would not have Milton's Paradise Lost without his deep immersion in Classical epics. We would not have Pope's mock epic The Rape of the Lock without the Iliad.

Works by writers such as Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope had a deep influence on subsequent English literature--Wordsworth, for example, wanted to be a poet sage like Milton. Because the great English authors of the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century were so influenced by the Classical authors resurrected by the Renaissance, the Renaissance has had a lasting influence on English literature.

The word "Renaissance" -- closely related to a very similar Italian word of the period -- suggests the idea of "rebirth." The term refers to a rebirth of interest in Greek and Roman culture, especially classical literature. Interest in the classical past had never by any means died out during the so-called "middle ages," but such interest became especially intense during the Renaissance.  The Renaissance began in Italy and is often associated with the fourteenth-century Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (or "Petrarch," in English). Petrarch's sonnet sequence known as the Rime sparse ("Scattered Rhymes") was especially influential on subsequent Renaissance literature in many European countries. By the early 1500s, the impact of the Renaissance in general, and of Petrarch in particular, was beginning to be felt in England.

The main project of the "Renaissance" was to try to determine how the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans were relevant to contemporary Christians. The rationale behind this quest was simple: since Christianity was the Truth with a capital T, anything discovered in the classical past that was true was, by definition, compatible with Christianity. Renaissance Christians felt enormous respect for the so-called "virtuous pagans," such as Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca,who had used reason alone to discover so much truth. Reason was a gift from God, and the virtuous pagans had used it wisely and well. Even though they did not have access to the full Truth (contained in the Bible), they had nevertheless discovered much truth simply by using the reason God gives to all human beings.

This admiration for the "virtuous pagans" can be seen, for example, in Sir Thomas Wyatt's poem "Farewell, Love." Wyatt is usually considered one of the very first, and most influential, of the English Renaissance poets.  In "Farewell, Love," the speaker turns his back on Cupid, since Cupid is the symbol of selfish desire (as opposed to true spiritual love). The speaker announces that Cupid's

. . . baited hooks shall tangle me no more;
Senec and Plato call me from thy lore,
To perfect wealth my wit for to endeavor. (2-4)

These lines are utterly typical of Renaissance poetry. Cupid (i.e., selfish desire) tries to entice us with his deceptive, baited hooks of temptation, as if we were as lacking in reason as fish are. However, virtuous pagans, such as the Roman philosopher Seneca and the Greek philosopher Plato, can help call us away from Cupid's "lore" (his teachings) and his "lure" (the bait on his hook). In other words, the virtuous pagan philosophers can help teach us to achieve "perfect" moral and intellectual "wealth" by teaching us to endeavor to employ our "wit" (or reason) properly. This poem is just one of many pieces of English Renaissance literature that makes essentially the same point: that Renaissance Christians should strive to be at least as virtuous as the "virtuous pagans" were.

The so-called “Renaissance” in English literature is often dated from the beginnings of the sixteenth century and is often considered to have ended around 1660, when the English monarchy was restored (an event known as “the Restoration). The word “renaissance” means “rebirth,” and in this case it mainly refers to a rebirth of interest in the writings of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Of course, interest in their works and ideas had never died during the Middle Ages, but a new interest in them became particularly intense in Italy during the fourteenth century and then eventually spread throughout Europe. Among various common characteristics of English Renaissance literature are the following:

1. An attempt to see (or make) connections between the writings and ideas of the pagan Greeks and Romans and contemporary Christian ideas. In fact, the chief project of the Renaissance might be seen as an effort to find (or assert) the relevance to Christians of ancient thinkers and their texts. Christians believed that their religion gave them access, through scripture and through study of the so-called “book of nature” (God’s creation) to the Truth (with a capital T). However, they also recognized that the ancient Greeks and Romans had already discovered a great deal of truth, even though they were not Christians. Yet any truth was, by very definition, compatible with Christianity, since Christianity was the very essence of Truth. Therefore, any truth discovered by the Greeks and Romans could (and must) be reconciled with Christian truth. The fact that the pagans, merely by using their God-given gift of reason, had discovered so much truth, and the fact that that truth was compatible with Christianity, made Christianity seem (in the eyes of Renaissance Christians) all the more credible.
2. An intense interest in finding the real value (which often meant the spiritual value) of life as it was lived on this earth rather than the life lived in the other-worldly realm of heaven. In other words, rather than focusing on the afterlife as especially important and feeling absolute contempt for the natural world (contemptus mundi), people in the Renaissance often found much to appreciate and interest them in their time on earth, even though they fully recognized that time on earth was very brief and was ultimately not of crucial importance.
3. A growing interest in nationalism, including the development of particular national languages. Whereas earlier Christians had tried to think of all Christians as part of an all-encompassing “Christendom,” Christians in the Renaissance were more likely to take pride in the achievements of their own nations, including their own national languages. Whereas Latin had once been (and still was, to some degree) the common, shared language of educated people in Europe, increasingly the people of different nations (such as Italy, Spain, France, and England) began to write literary works in their national languages.

For a superb and accessible overview of these issues and many others, see Isabel Rivers, Classical and Christian Ideas in English Renaissance Poetry: A Students’s Guide, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1994).