From Roman Catholic insurgency to Protestant fundamentalism, England experienced waves of religious turmoil during its Renaissance period. Paradoxically, it was a time of both enormous creativity and destruction. On the one hand, we have inherited the glittering literary tradition of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama and poetry; on the other, England lost much of its visual art to the frenzy of reformation and revolutionary iconoclasm.
It was an age when Uniformity became the buzzword for political and religious conformity. Successive experiments in the use of Monarchical supremacy in Church and State led to crackdowns on dissent and repressive and punitive laws. However, violent opposition could not be prevented. As ancient liberties and traditions came under attack from new political elites, communities fought back. Some art work was hidden rather than destroyed; playwrights found ways around censorship laws to express their views (at least until the Puritans closed the theatres).
Protestant heroes and Papist villains became the stock propaganda characterisations of the age. However, it was a complex period where such neat distinctions were rarely so clear cut. The literature and art of the time reflect the conflicts and struggles within a contradictory and confused culture.
Sedition, treason and acts of foreign and domestic terror fuelled government fears. It was an age of spies and agents provocateurs, of double-dealers and code-breakers, of executions and assassinations. From the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More to Regicide, English Renaissance history is dominated by acts of sacrifice and violence.
We will examine some of the main historical players, alongside some of their fictitious counterparts, in this Revenge Tragedy view of the English Renaissance.
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