The First Elizabethan Age

The period between the defeat of the Spanish fleet in 1588 and the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 was among the most dramatic in English history. It was a time of Irish ‘troubles’, of war and plague, faction and rebellion, global exploration and religious fanaticism. These 15 years also witnessed the dazzling career and mysterious death of Christopher Marlowe, the publication of English literature’s national epic (The Faerie Queene), the intellectual brilliance and emotional intensity of John Donne’s love poetry, and the first performance of an astonishing variety of Shakespeare’s plays, ranging from his English histories to his greatest comedies to Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.