modern may, to some extent, regard some individuals
as “great,” as benefi ting from the interaction of change
agents swirling about England in the period from 1500
to 1699. But even if they lean in that direction, they
would still be aware of the fact that the English Renais-
sance did not solely or suddenly give birth to a group
of very talented men. Early modern critics are aware
that a collection of vastly differing incidents led to very
profound changes in all aspects of English political,
social, literary, cultural, and economic life, and these
changes taken together were what led England to move
out of medieval feudalism and begin to create the
social, political, and economic structures that would
eventually produce the realities of 20th- and 21st-cen-
tury life.
FURTHER READING
Burckhardt, Jacob. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.
Translated by S. G. C. Middlemore. 1860. Reprint, New
York: New American Library, 1961.
Engels, Fredrick. The Origin of the Family, Private Property,
and the State.... Translated by Alec West. New York:
International, 1972.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Maureen Quilligan, and Nancy J.
Vickers, eds. Rewriting the Renaissance: The Discourses of
Sexual Difference in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, 1986.
Howard, Jean E. “The New Historicism in Renaissance Stud-
ies.” ELR 16 (1986): 13–43.
Jankowski, Theodora A. “Historicizing and Legitimating
Capitalism”: Thomas Heywood’s Edward IV and If You
Know Not Me, You Know Nobody. Medieval and Renaissance
Drama in England 7 (1995): 305–337.
Kelly-Gadol, Joan. “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” In
Becoming Visible: Women in Euopean History, edited by
Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, 137–164. 3rd ed.
Boston: Houghton, Miffl in, 1998.
Theodora A. Jankowski
ECLOGUE In classical literature, an eclogue is a
poem covering bucolic themes that takes the form of a
dialogue between shepherds. Eclogues often feature a
subgenre, such as an ELEGY or a ROMANCE. The most
well-known, and in the 16th century the most widely
imitated, work in this genre is VIRGIL’s Eclogues—on
which, for instance, EDMUND SPENSER based his SHEP-
HEARDES CALENDER. During that same period, however,
eclogues also came to include most poems following
the PASTORAL tradition.EKPHRASIS (ECPHRASIS) Ekphrasis—
from the Greek ek [out] and phrasis [speak], or “to
speak out”—is a narrative element that brings vivid
images to the mind’s eye. Ancient rhetoricians defi ned
ekphrasis broadly to include any lively description that
enhanced a verbal argument, but the meaning of the
word has gradually become more specifi c, and now it
is most commonly defi ned as the verbal description of
visual art. Because it replicates the experience of “see-
ing” for the reader, ekphrasis has traditionally been
used as the prime example of the poet’s ability to mimic
and even surpass the visual artist. Ekphrasis calls atten-
tion to the relationship between words and images and
to the ways that literary texts and the visual arts infl u-
ence one another.
Some ekphrastic examples include Sonnet 64 from
AMORETTI by EDMUND SPENSER and the extended account
of the wall pictures that depict the fall of Troy in WIL-
LIAM SHAKESPEARE’s The RAPE OF LUCRECE. Additionally,
scholars have been investigating the works of SAMUEL
DANIEL in connection to portraiture.
See also EMBLEM.
FURTHER READING
Heffernan, James. Museum of Words: The Poetics of Ekphrasis
from Homer to Ashbery. Chicago and London: University
of Chicago Press, 1993.
Webb, Ruth. “Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: The Inven-
tion of a Genre.” Word and Image 15 (1999): 7–18.
Rebecca OlsonELEGY In the CLASSICAL TRADITION, elegies were
defi ned by their meter—called elegiac COUPLETs or dis-
tich couplets, comprised of a dactylic hexameter fol-
lowed by a pentameter—and not by their subject
matter. Thus, they were sometimes composed on love,
war, or politics. In the English tradition, however, an
elegy is a poetic genre of lament for a deceased (or oth-
erwise permanently lost) person, or, occasionally, a
lost culture or way of life. For instance, “The WAN-
DERER” is an Old English elegy in which a warrior158 ECLOGUE