/lit/ - Literature

>>17839901
Their secret is that they all believed in God. They had these divine aspirations.

>>17839921
>Shakespeare believed in God

>>17839928
Yes. He was a Catholic.

>>17839928
Shakespeare was a Catholic. Hamlet alone is evidence enough, without the fact that he sheltered a priest and whatnot iirc

>>17839901
Demanding classical educations

When I started my English degree I expected everything before about 1850 to be boring af but the Renaissance is by far the best period of english literature and probably world literature. Ended up doing my dissertation on classical influence on the period and spent a year reading Aristotle and the Greek tragedians alongside Shakespeare, Marlowe and Milton. Great times

>>17839940
>>17839948
t. didn't understand Shakespeare

>>17839901
>What the fuck were they putting in the water
Nothing

>>17839962
Correct answer
>>17839977
Yeah every century post-Renaissance has had several gems, although I agree with that period as the high mark

>>17839928
>he thinks he has a smart interpretation of Shakespeare and somehow thinks he was an atheist
Literal retardation.

>>17839901
The same water they were putting in 6th and 5th century BC Greece (inb4 all of Greece was a Renaissance), or 18th and 19th century Germany.

>>17839901
>even the cat is cringing at me

>>17839962
I think it's this. Back then education was almost exclusively centered around Latin, Greek, rhetoric and the classics. It was all verbal stuff, so it's no surprise that they were all so verbally capable. It was so no nonsense and intensive back then that kids would have had more Latin than the average grad student these days. They were hard as nails back then.

I'm reading The Tempest rn.

>>17840247
don't forget getting flogged for using the wrong conjugation

I wish they wrote prose. I always wondered whether a novel by Shakespeare would be a masterpiece on the level of War and Peace, but so much of his genius was suited for drama, performance, and speech, that I'm not sure. He might've floundered attempting a naturalistic novel. Then again, he read Montaigne and probably read Don Quixote.

>>17840001
Other way around, mate. YOU didn't understand.

healthy atmosphere for playwrights/poetry

ben jonson was a fame-hound and would probably have followed whatever literary fashion of the day was. what I think they all have in common is that they got a healthy career pursuing the arts. nowadays you have to luck out to be a trust-fund baby for that sort of freedom.

>>17839921
This

>>17839901
The English language was at its peak during those times.

It's fucked up how much great writing the world lost when Marlowe was snuffed out. And if you say he became Shakespeare then you need to take your meds.

>>17840303
That time of year thou may'st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

>>17840311
Marlowe was more of a Byronic hero than Byron and his plays were superior to Byron's poetry, change my mind

The Metaphysical poets mogged the Cavalier poets, you're a chump if you think otherwise.

>>17840333

>tfw you were a good boy and went to university but some low-born upstart crow came from nowhere to steal all the attention and consign all your work to the cobwebbed backshelf
it's not fair

>>17840411
>>Looks up to see a glass ceiling so elegant
But he can't break through now that he's a resident
In the strutue of truth he's basement of the tenement
Oh little traitor of man don't you be penitent
You were always too late, times irrelevant