enre of writing that was popular during the Renaissance was the sonnet. Shakespeare loved his sonnets and wrote many that coincide with the ideals that were ever present in this time period. This is where the greater secularization became too obvious. The self is the main character in Shakespeare’s sonnets. How the self (the speaker) feels or reacts, what he dreams or wishes are shared with the audience. Time is a god. Nature is a god. During the medieval period his sonnets would have had to be changed to add some sort of religious purpose before any audience could read them. However, with remarkable split from the Church of England, new things took place. New and individual theologies were made up. Specifically, in the first two lines of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, he writes “When my love swears that she is made of truth,/I do believe her, though I know she lies.” This sonnet continues to relish in the fact that these to liars are in love so they are perfect for each other and they “lie” together. Many of his sonnets have such a secular theme in them like this one has. This author would obviously cause problems if he had been written and published three hundred years earlier. Seeing the changes when one compares this sonnet to a work like The Faerie Queen, one can tell that the Renaissance was a time where so many changes were occurring. It was a period of constant re-birth, from beginning to end. ...
