ttle town where he was born, to
plunge into the more complex life of London. The poet, Edmund Spenser,
went to turbulent Ireland, where he had enough experiences to suggest
the conflicts in the _Faerie Queene_.

The greater freedom and initiative of the individual and the
remarkable extension of trade with all parts of the world naturally
led to the rise of the middle class. The nobility were no longer the
sole leaders in England's rapid progress. Many of Elizabeth's
councilors were said to have sprung from the masses, but no reign
could boast of wiser ministers. It was then customary for the various
classes to mingle much more freely than they do now. There was absence
of that overspecialization which today keeps people in such sharply
separated groups. This mingling was further aided by the tendency to
try many different pursuits and by the spirit of patriotism in the
air. All classes were interested in repelling the Spanish Armada and
in maintaining England's freedom. It was fortunate for Shakespeare
that the Elizabethan age gave him unusual opportunity to meet and to
become the spokesman of all classes of men. The audience that stood in
the pit or sat in the boxes to witness the performance of his plays,
comprised not only lords and wealthy merchants, but also weavers,
sailors, and country folk.

Initiative and Love of Action.--The Elizabethans were distinguished
for their initiative. This term implies the possession of two
qualities: (1) ingenuity or fertility in ideas, and (2) ability to
pass at once from an idea to its suggested action. Never did action
habitually follow more quickly on the heels of thought. The age loved
to translate everything into action, because the spirit of the
Renaissance demanded the exercise of youthful activity to its fullest
capacity in order that the power which the new knowledge promised
could be acquired and enjoyed before death. As the Elizabethans felt
that real life meant activity in exploring a new and interesting
world, both physical and mental, they demanded that their literature
should present this life of action. Hence, all their greatest poets,
with the exception of Spenser, were dramatists. Even Spenser's _Faerie
Queene_, with its abstractions, is a poem of action, for the virtues
fight with the vices.

ELIZABETHAN PROSE LITERATURE

Variety in the Prose.--The imaginative spirit of the Elizabethans
craved poetry, and all the greatest authors of this age, with the
exce