Abstract
The world could do with another Renaissance, whether it should come to be seen as a ‘rebirth’ of forgotten cultures from the past or, as the more recent term ‘early modern period’ intimates, a harbinger of new and enlightened ways of thinking. In particular, we are in need of three such clear thinkers as Desiderius Erasmus, Thomas More and John Colet who, between them in the first three decades of the sixteenth century, ushered in not only humanism — an ethically sanctioned guide for practical, humanitarian ways of living in society — but also the formation of a group that might be called a ‘peace movement’. They achieved this at a time when England was at relative peace under a new king, Henry VIII, whose birth in 1491 was seen as auspicious of a golden age, thus also showing that pacifism does not need to be defined as anti-war, and can be a positive concept generated from human reason, imagination and aspiration. The leading ideas of these writers of prose provide a stirring preliminary context for examining poetry of peace in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Keywords
English Literature Sixteenth Century Early Modern Period Book Versus Paradise LostPreview
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Notes
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