British Literature: The Changing of Styles and Tones in 16th and 17th Century Sonnets

The subject matter of the seventeenth century reflects the crisis of the growing chaotic atmosphere of the English Civil War in its darkening themes in comparison to earlier sixteenth century works that emphasized more on stylistic and exuberant subject matter, as the growing chaotic atmosphere that the 17th century writers were accustomed to didn’t trouble the 16^th century writers.  Earlier English Renaissance literature in the sixteenth century such as Edmund Spenser’s Elizabethan style Amoretti Sonnet 74 reflects a bright tone as does William Shakespeare’s Elizabethan style of his Sonnet 18, but his Sonnet 147 has a darker aspect and as time transitioned into the seventeenth century, John Donne’s Metaphysical style of poetry found in his number 7 of his Holy Sonnets and John Milton’s flexible Petrarchan style sonnets “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont” similarly reflected more darker aspects.

Aspects of Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V’s Warfare: Legitimacy, Religion, Tactics and the Battlefield

Aspects of Shakespeare’s Henry IV and V‘s Warfare: Legitimacy, Religion, Tactics and the Battlefield

      Henry IV and his son Henry V are great orators and politicians. Both have great rhetorical skills, and it helps them be powerful, political, and militaristic leaders. Prominent aspects of warfare in William Shakespeare’s Henry IV: Part One and Henry V are represented by legitimacy of their right to rule, religion, leadership as kings, and the way war is handled within the plays. These elements are characterized mainly through the actions of the titled characters of their respective plays, Henry IV and his son Henry V, in order to illustrate how these aspects of warfare are tied together in the plays and reveal how the kings attempt to legitimate their cause as just and remain in power.