三、The Pre-Elizabethan Period前伊丽莎白时期The150years between the death of Chaucer and the ascension of Queen Elizabeth I was a very important period in history.Humanism as a movement came into existence.①Thomas More托马斯·莫尔Utopia consists of two books with emphasis on Book II in which the Utopian weal republic is described in detail.重点是详细描写理想国的第二卷。
Book I is written in the form of a dialogue between More and a traveler by the name of Rapael Hythloday.莫尔和拉斐尔·希斯洛德的旅行者之间的对话。
hints at the notion that the whole work is not a manifesto but rather a n endeavor to explore the potential of human life暗示整本书不是宣言，只是试图探讨人类生活的其他可能Utopia,a kind of“Nowhere Land”曾经去过乌托邦，一个“乌有之乡”Utopia offers the best ideal social system possible that could be offered at the time.《乌托邦》指出了当时社会可能提供的理想社会模式。
Utopia is an imaginary country where democracy replaces tyranny,commonwealth replaces private property...there is no distinction between the rich and the poor,education is free for all乌托邦是一个虚构的国家民主代替了专政，全民公有制代替了私有财产...没有贫富差距，每个人都可以接受免费教育The limitation of Utopian Society:The Utopian society is clearly male-dominated:there is no mention of gender equality,no equal opportunity for administrative and religious jobs,no clear recognition of the female sex and their rights,but a very clear indication that the women folk have to submit to their men folk as,for instance,they have to kneel before their men and confess on days of religious observance.乌托邦明显是一个以男性为主导的社会：书中并没有提到性别平等，没有行政与宗教工作均等的机会，没有对女性和其权益的明确认可，但却明确指出女性应该服从男性，如他们在宗教仪式之前不得不跪在男性面前忏悔。
All these“weakness”reveal the force of the temporal and spatial constraints out of which even a man of genius like More cannot break with complete success.Despite all these,however,Utopia is unique in more than one way and forms a direct,positive contrast to England and Europe of the time.所有这些“缺点”都显示出时间和空间的局限性，就连莫尔这样的天才也不可能突破这些局限取得完全的成功。
然而乌托邦在多方面是独一无二的，并与当时的英格兰和欧洲形成了直接的、正面的对比。
humanity--the theme of renaissance四、The Elizabethan Age伊丽莎白时代The Elizabethan period began with the ascension of Queen Elizabeth I in1588登基The War of the Roses(1455-1483)When Francis Drake defeated the Spanish Armada in1588,England became the first sea power in the world.1588年，弗朗西斯·德雷克打败了西班牙无敌舰队，英格兰成为世界第一海上霸主。
This was the point at which the expansion of the British Empire began.这是不列颠帝国扩张的起点。
The Elizabethan age was one in which Renaissance transformed Chaucer’s Medieval England into Shakespeare’s modern one.乔叟时代的中世纪英格兰→莎士比亚时代的近代英格兰spirit of adventure permeated all the fields冒险精神遍布各个领域The age furnished a fertile soil,as it were,on which a plethora a fresh flowers and plants grew to survive.总之，时代提供了肥沃的土壤，养育了众多的花草树木。
The Elizabethan age can be divided into three sub-periods:三个阶段I.The first of these stretches over two decades,beginning with the printing of Tottel’s Miscellany and concluding with the publication of Edmund Spenser’s The Shepheardes Calendar.始于托特尔编写的《杂录》的印刷，终于埃德蒙·斯宾塞《牧羊人日历》的出版。
The main contributors to Tottel’s Miscellany were Thomas Wyatt,who introduced the sonnet into the country,and Henry Howard,Earl of Surrey,who brought the blank verse(素体诗、无韵诗)into English poetry(blank verse being rhyme-less iambic pentameter（不押韵，五步抑扬格）or a line of ten syllables in five iambs（五个抑扬格，十个音节）,a rhythmic unit of two syllable with the unstressed followed by the stressed syllable)《杂录》收录了两大诗人的作品：将十四行诗介绍到瑛姑偶的托马斯·韦阿特将无韵诗介绍到英国的萨里伯爵亨利·霍华德II.The second phase covers some two decades from1580through1599,the year of Spenser’s death.斯宾塞死于这一年（≈20年）This was a period of intense literary activity in which the greatest Elizabethan writers made their presence felt.这是一个文学创作非常活跃的时代，伊丽莎白时代最伟大的作家都在此时亮相。
Spenser——The Faerie Queene《仙后》poetry．．．．．．Philip Sidney——Astrophel and Stella《爱星者与星星》poetry．．．．．．Apologie for Poetrie《为诗辩护》prose．．．．．+pastoral Romance Arcadia《阿卡荻亚》John Lyly’s——Eupheus《优浮绮斯》prose．．．．．Euphemism委婉语John Lyly contributed to the English language,is a term often derogatory in meaning.“绮丽体”这个词是约翰·黎里对英国语言的贡献，通常带有贬义。
【University Wits大学才子派】：each and every one of whom was a man of genius,out with their brilliant creations,and would have all taken up a lot more space in literary history had there not towered above them the all-time Shakespeare.他们每个人都是天才，凭着其辉煌的创作都会在文学史上留有一席之地，如果没有永恒的莎士比亚的超越更会如此。
These“Wits”include Christopher Marlowe,Robert Greene,George Peele,Thomas Lodge, Thomas Nash,and Thomas Kyd.All were graduates either from Oxford or Cambridge or both, had a short but brilliant literary career that placed them among the ancestors of modern English writers,and most left the scene as soon as they came mainly as result of their reckless and dissolute Bohemian lifestyle for which the Elizabethan age was famous or notorious.他们的创作生涯短暂但辉煌，足以成为现代英国作家的前辈。