English Golden Age – Quiz

1. Explain why Elizabeth I’s reign is often described as a “Golden Age” for England.
2. Identify at least three of the Christian virtues allegorized in The Faerie Queene.
3. Explain why the medieval Church viewed drama with some discomfort.
4. Explain why Christopher Marlowe is regarded as a controversial figure.
5. Identify at least two of Christopher Marlowe’s plays.
6. Identify at least one element common to most Shakespearean comedies.
7. Identify one of the two central figures of Jacobean drama discussed in the lecture.
8. The 16th-century figure whose English translation of the Bible heavily influenced the King James Version was __________________.
9. The plot of Paradise Lost revolves around what Biblical event?

Show answers

1. cultural flowering in literature and the arts combined with military successes
2. holiness, temperance, chastity, friendship, justice, courtesy
3. concerns over obscenity, subversive ideas, and the pretense of acting
4. he may have been a spy, an atheist, a homosexual, or all three
5. Tamburlaine,  The Jew of Malta,  Doctor Faustus,  Edward II
6. Italian setting, double plot, inclusion of a wedding
7. Ben Jonson, John Webster
8. William Tyndale
9. The Fall of Man