The Early Modern Period
1. Know about the English version of the Reformation.
2. Which pagan philosopher’s belief about the shape of the cosmos was adopted by the Catholic Church?
3. Know that “a person’s place in society tended to be fixed at birth” (391).
4. Where did most people live? How did most people support themselves?
5. Which Protestant factions dominated England? Which ones dominated Scotland? Which ones dominated Ireland?
6. How were English Catholics treated?
7. Which other sects had “religious doctrines [that] called for massive social change”?
8. How did physics and the practice of medicine and understandings about biology begin to change?
9. Who was Sir Francis Bacon?
10. What did he do?
11. How did cities develop and what kinds of social changes did they create?
“The Humanist Renaissance and Early Modern Society”
12. Know about the painting on p. 393 and the name of the artist.
13. What role did secular culture play?
14. Who was Francois Rabelais?
15. What role did pre-Christian culture play in a new understanding of the world?
16. How did instruments for measuring time and space change?
17. What was Sir Walter Raleigh’s contribution?
18. Who was William Drayton? What was he known for?
19. How did this have an impact on one of William Shakespeare’s play? Which play?
20. How did Johann Gutenberg change the world?
21. What was Desiderius Erasmas’ contribution to literature and philosophy?
22. In what major way did Protestant doctrine differ from Catholicism when it came to reading the Bible?
23. What was the name of Henry VIII’s first wife? What was the name of her child, the one to eventually become queen?
24. How did this queen treat her subjects—those of a different faith?
25. Discussed previously in class: Why did Henry have to make a plea to the pope in order to marry his first wife? How did he use that same plea to try to get the marriage annulled?
26. With whom did Henry replace his first wife?
27. What was the name of the child she bore—the one to eventually become queen?
28. How did this queen treat subjects born to another faith?
“History and Epic”
29. Who was the first Tudor monarch?
30. Who did he defeat in order to become king?
31. Which groups participated in the War of the Roses? By which color rose was each represented?
32. Who was Oliver Cromwell?
33. Why is he reviled by most Irish-Catholics?
34. What happened in 1585?
35. How did this document benefit Great Britain?
36. What was the name of Edmund Spencer’s great work?
37. What was the name of John Milton’s greatest work? In what year was this work published? What is the work about? What is the name of the sequel?
38. Who was Sir Francis Drake?
39. What almost happened on November 5, 1605?
40. Who succeeded Elizabeth?
41. How was he greeted by the English? Why?
42. Who was Charles I? What happened to him in 1649?
43. Who were the Levelers? What were their objectives? Who led them?
44. Who were the Diggers? What were their objectives? Who led them?
45. Who were the Quakers? What were their objectives? Who led the Quakers?
46. Who were the Ranters and what did they believe?
47. What great work did Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, publish in 1704?
“Drama and Social Satire”
48. Marlowe and Shakespeare
49. What two kinds of theater did Londoners enjoy? Describe them.
“Lyric Poetry and Romance”
50. For what kind of audience were these works composed?
51. How were they circulated?
52. What kinds of subjects did they write about? What kinds of genres?
53. Which conventions did they imitate? How were they different?
54. Name two women poets.
55. What role did romance play in literature?
56. What role did travel narratives play?
“Changing Social Roles”
57. Describe the “social ladder” and its constituent parts.
58. How did men of this era view women? What qualities or vices were attributed to women?
59. How were attitudes toward men changing?
“The Business of Literature”
60. Who was Ben Jonson and what did he do? How did he affect the language?
61. What role did comic pamphlets play?
62. What was the Ciceronian style? Describe it.
63. What was the Senecan style? Describe it.
64. What did Francis Bacon say about the Ciceronian rhetoric?
65. Whose “reforms influenced English pedagogy and were further realized in” what academy and in which year?
66. How did language style and habits of thought change from the medieval period to the early modern period?
67. How did the views of the world, the planets, and psychology change?
68. Who was Nicolas Copernicus?
“The War and the Modern Order of Things”
69. How did Thomas Hobbes’ challenge the thinking of his era?
70. What were the Cromwellian wars?
71. What happened to Ireland in 1801?
Background on Sir Philip Sidney J(590-592)
According to Sidney, what should poetry do for us?
Who were some of Sidney's famous friends and influences?
Why was Sidney sent to the Netherlands?
What is the basis for the story/poem, "Astrophil and Stella"?
