Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. THE LITERATURE OF ELIZABETH'S REIGN, 1559?1603. Sackville's Mirror of Magistrates, 1559.?Lyly's Euphues.? Spenser's Shepheardes Calender, 1579-?Sidney's Arcadia, 1580?Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, 1594. ? Bacon's Essays, 1597, Spenser born, 1552; Faerie Queen, 1590- 1595 5 died, 1598.?VV. Warner's, S. Daniel's, M. Dray- ton's historical poems, 1595-1598.?Sir J. Davies's and Lord Brooke's philosophical poems, 1599-1620. The Drama.?First Miracle Play, 1110.?Interludes of J. Heywood, 1530-?First English Comedy, 1540 First English Tragedy, 1562.?First English Theatre, 1576-? Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1587.?Shakspcre born, 1564; Love's Labour's Last, 1588 ! Merchant of Venice, 1596, Hamlet, 1602; Cymbeline, 1610; Henry V11I., 1613; died, 1616- ? Ben Jonson begins work, 1596; dies, 1637-?Beaumont and Fletcher in James I.'s reign. Webster's first Play, 1612-?Massinger begins, 1620; dies, 1639-?John Ford's first Play, 1629.?James Shirley, last Elizabethan Dramatist, lives to 1666 Theatre closed, 1642; opens again, 1656. 56. Elizabethan Literature, as a literature, may be said to begin with Surrey and Wyatt. But as their poems were published shortly before Elizabeth came to the throne, we date the beginning of the early period of Elizabethan literature from the year of her accession, 1559. That period lasted till 1579, and was followed by the great literary outburst of the days of Spenser and Shakspere. The apparent suddenness of this outburst has been an object of wonder. Men have searched for its causes, chiefly in the causes which led to the revival of learning, and no doubt these bore on England as they did on the whole of Europe. But we shall best seek its nearest causes in the work doneduring the early years of Elizabeth, and in doing so we shall find th...