Introduction:
- Part-1: General introduction of British Renaissance
- Part-2: About Shakespeare
- Part-3: The story about "Remeo and Juliet"
Part-1 General introduction of British Renaissance
British Renaissance began at the end of the 15th century and started relatively late comparing to other European countries, but this does not hide its great light. During the British Renaissance, many excellent literary masterpieces emerged, which are valuable treasure in the history of literature.
One feature of Literature of British Renaissance is a thirsting curiosity for the classic literature. During this time, many ancient Greek and Roman literature works were re-excavated. The most important feature is humanism, which is also the core thought of Renaissance. In this time, the literature works encourage people to enjoy the beautiful life and emphasize human values and dignity. Some of them criticizes the hypocrisy of the church.
Thomas More is one of the represent of early British Renaissance. His masterpiece Utopia, depicts a dream country where people are absolutely equal and society is harmonious.
Francis Bacon is the greatest essayist of this period, who also is the first English essayist. His essays cover a wide variety of subjects, such as studies, truth, love, politics and even science. One of his famous essays is Of Studies, which emphasizes the importance of reading and studies.
The most famous represent is Shakespeare, who will be introduced in detail below. His famous poem Sonnet 18, shows admiration for human’s beauty, which reflects the greatness of mankind in a sense.
British Renaissance liberate people’s thoughts at that time, and make people free from the shackles of religion. What’s more, some literature masterpieces of this time encourage people to oppose the authority of church. I think it is the most important significance of British Renaissance.
Part-2 Shakespeare
Shakespeare is the most outstanding represent of British Renaissance, who is famous for his poetries and dramas. Because of Shakespeare, poetry and drama become the mainstream of British literature at that time.
Shakespeare is particularly famous for his dramas. He has written four great tragedies. The four great tragedies are Hamlet, Othello, The King Lear and Macbeth. These four tragedies show the contradiction between reality and ideal. The cruel reality often destroys the beautiful ideal, but the heroes created by Shakespeare would resist the unfair reality and the evil roles bravely, swear to defend their own humanistic ideals.
Shakespeare is good at creating some heroes with conflicting personality. Hamlet is brave and upright, but hesitant and impulsive. Othello is honest, but simple and gullibile. These roles show one feature of his works, that is realism. The heroes are imperfect, but they have unique advantages, just like every one of us.
His early works was always optimistic, showed admiration for beautiful life and showed great humanistic ideal. But later Shakespeare focused on writing tragedies, which showed the contradiction between reality and ideal and criticizes the sins and darkness of society. I think the reason is that the society is stable and the economy develops greatly at his early life. But the later monarchs James VI and I is fatuous, so the society was in a chaos, which greatly affected his works style.
In my opinion, there is no doubt that Shakespeare is the most outstanding represent of British Renaissance. He was the great master of English language. He created so much new expressions, which has become daily usage language today. The classic roles created in his masterpieces still glitter today.
Part-3 Romeo and Juliet
The play tells that Romeo, the son of noble Montage, fell in love with Juliet, the daughter of Italian noble Kepler, but because of the resentment between two families, their love was obstructed. At last, Romeo and Juliet suicided for love. But their love had moved their families and made two families reconciled.
Romeo and Juliet suicided for their unfortunate love. From this perspective, it is a tragedy. On the other hand, the two noble families were reconciled at last, which was an happy ending. Thus, the theme of Romeo and Juliet is a tragicomedy about love and destiny.
In this drama, the roles I admire most are of course, Juliet and Romeo. At the last of the drama, Romeo mistakenly thought Juliet had passed away, and he suicided at Juliet’s tomb. After Juliet woke up, she found the dead Romeo at the side of herself, and she stabbed herself with Romeo's dagger. They pursued their love bravely despite the families’ obstruction. What’s more, the power of their love made dare to challenge obstacles in their lives, which showed Shakespeare’s humanistic ideal that people should be brave to resist the strong authority and pursue their happiness, in a sense. This touches me very much. Although their lives are over, their eternal love will never die.
Romeo and Juliet is a great love story, which encourages people to love freely. The great masterpiece expresses the humanistic ideal that everyone is free, everyone has their right to pursue freedom and happiness. The tragic love between R&J represents the people’s humanistic ideal to pursue happiness, and the obstruction from two noble families represents the feudal thoughts. The author wanted to show that even if humanistic ideal was thwarted by feudal thoughts, humanist would defeat the feudal ruling class and make a great victory at last. I think this is the significance of this literary work.