Namangan davlat universiteti ingliz filologiyasi fakulteti amaliy ingliz tili kafedrasi

The Theatre
, in a subburb of London. Until this time, drama had 
been performed in the streets, in homes and palaces, and at English universities. After Burbage built 
The Theatre
, other playhouses were constructed, which rapidly increased the popularity of drama.
A group of leading Elizabethan playwrights was known as the “University Wits” because 
they had attended the famous English universities at Oxford or Cambridge. These playwrights 
included Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, and George Peele. Marlowe was the most important 
dramatist among the Wits.
William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and other more than a dozen first-rate playwrights also 
created their skillful dramas at that period. Blank verse, introduced into the language by Surrey, 
became the main form for writing tragedies and comedies. 
In 1600, when the new century began, Elizabeth was an aging queen not in the best of 
health. She was childless. After her death, in 1603, King James of Scotland, the son of Mary Queen 
of Scots, became the king of England.

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LESSON 3. 
THE LITERATURE OF RENAISSANCE 
Plan: 
1.
Key factors that led to the beginning of renaissance 
2.
What are four characteristics of the Renaissance? 
3.
What was the focus of the Renaissance? 
James I, the first Stuart king, had little first-hand knowledge of England. Elizabeth had 
managed to maintain religious balance between Protestants and Catholics, but under the Stuarts that 
balance was lost. Religious and political unrest was growing.
At that period a number of young Cavaliers, loyal to the king, wrote about love and loyalty, 
but even in the love poems it is evident that the freshness of the Elizabethan era had passed. Among 
the best of these poets were Richard Lovelace and Robert Herrick.
Drama continued to flourish in England under the Stuarts. Shakespeare’s great tragedies 
were written during the reign of King James, and Shakespeare’s acting company, taken under the 
patronage of the king, became known as the 
King’s Men
. The theatre in fact remained a popular 
form of entertainment until the puritan government closed all playhouses in 1649.
The greatest of the Puritan poets, and one of the greatest English poets was John Milton, 
Latin secretary to the Puritan Commonwealth. While in this position his sight began to fail ; 
eventually he became blind. He composed “Paradise Lost”, his greatest work and the most 
successful English epic, sightless.