Writers
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare is famous for being a playwright, but he was a poet and and an actor. He wrote many different types of plays: tragedies, comedies, and histories. His tragedies included Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet. His comedies are Midsummer Night''s Dream, Twelfth Night, and Much Ado About Nothing. Some of his histories were Henry V and RIchard III. Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. He was not known widely until his major work, Don Quixote, it is now considered as the first modern European novel. He also wrote many plays and works of fiction including, La Galaenta and Novelas ejemplares. Don Quixote is about the hero, Don Quixote, and his loyal companion, Sancho Panza. They go on many journeys together but, Don has a dream of a knight. After that, he tries to be like that knight even though everyone thinks he is a fool. Niccolo Machiavelli Born in 1469, Niccolo was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer in Florence during the Renaissance. He is famous for his writing, The Prince, in 1513. He wrote about how rulers should act and behave toward their subjects. Niccolo said how a ruler should be not be good, but do what ever is necessary to keep power and protect their city. Now the word Machiavellian means exactly that! Francesco Petrarch Francesco Petrarch was one of the famous scholars of the ancient works, but he was also a poet. He mostly wrote biographies of famous Romans and studied Roman writers, like Cierco. Petrarch encouraged the people to search for manuscripts in the monasteries of Europe. Now, because of him, new libraries were built to keep the documents people found. Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri was a poet from Florence. His most famous work was one of the world's greatest poems in vernacular, The Divine Comedy. The Divine Comedy is about one's journey from hell to heaven and is also about 14,000 lines long. When Dante was young, he was involved with politics and soon after noble families began fighting over power, so he left Florence. Once he left Florence he started The Divine Comedy. Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey was another important writer who used vernacular. Chaucer wrote his famous book, The Canterbury Tales, in English. His story is about two pilgrims traveling to the city of Canterbury. The book explained and described the levels of English society, from the top to the bottom of the of the scale. His writings are the ancestor of the English we use today. ~Vocabulary~ Vernacular Everyday language spoken differently in different regions. Printing Press Created by Johannes Gutenburg the printing press is a device for applying ink to paper or cloth. Johannes developed a printing press that used a movable metal type. |