Renaissance Poetry from England

English Renaissance poetry spans the sonnets and songs of the Tudor period and the devotional and narrative verse of the seventeenth century. Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, helped adapt the Italian sonnet to English, while later poets developed its possibilities for argument, feeling, and reflection. Shakespeare explored time and affection in his sonnets; Spenser joined romance with moral allegory, and Herbert gave poetic form to Christian devotion. Across these different voices, patterned language and vivid imagery connect private experience with questions of faith, conduct, and mortality.