oots of Elizabethan poetry were watered by many
fountains, one of the chief of which flowed from Italian soil. To Sir
Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) and to the Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) belongs
the credit of introducing from Italian sources new influences, which
helped to remodel English poetry and give it a distinctly modern cast.

These poets were the first to introduce the sonnet, which Shakespeare,
Milton, and Wordsworth employed with such power in after times. Blank
verse was first used in England by the Earl of Surrey, who translated
a portion of Vergil's _AEneid_ into that measure. When Shakespeare
took up his pen, he found that vehicle of poetic expression ready for
his use.

[Illustration: SIR THOMAS WYATT._After Holbein_.]

Wyatt and Surrey adopted Italian subject matter as well as form. They
introduced the poetry of the amorists, that is, verse which tells of
the woes and joys of a lover. We find Shakespeare in his _Sonnets_
turning to this subject, which he made as broad and deep as life. In
1557, the year before Elizabeth's accession, the poems of Wyatt and
Surrey appeared in Tottel's _Miscellany_, one of the earliest printed
collections of modern English poetry.

SUMMARY

The first part of the century and a half following the death of
Chaucer saw war with France and the Wars of the Roses, in which most
of the nobles were killed. The reign of Henry VII. and his successors
in the Tudor line shows the increased influence of the crown, freed
from the restraint of the powerful lords. The period witnessed the
passing of serfdom and the extension of trade and manufactures.

The changes in religious views were far-reaching. Henry VIII.
superseded the Pope as head of the English church, dissolved the
monasteries, and placed an English translation of the _Bible_ in the
churches. Henry's son and successor Edward VI., established the
Protestant form of worship, but his half-sister Mary used persecution
in an endeavor to bring back the old faith.

The influences of the Renaissance, moving westward from Italy, were
tending toward their culmination in the next period. The study of
Greek literature, the discovery of the new world, the decline of
feudalism, the overthrow of the armed knight, the extension of the use
of gunpowder, the invention of printing, the increased love of
learning, the demand for scientific investigation, the decline of
monastic influence, shown in the new interest in this finite world and
life,-