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The Baroque Period Of European Literature

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Giovanni Boccaccio was a contemporary to Petrarch and his works revolutionise the Italian literature.
Following the Renaissance, the European literature became an art of influence. In the 16th century, the bifurcation of the Church into the Roman Catholics and the English paved the way to political instability.
The Puritan era enforced the closing of the theatres, but at the same time, poetry flourished with famous poets like John Milton, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor and John Dryden.
The Baroque period of European Literature was based upon adding an artistic style of exaggerating motion in the dramatic expression. The ‘term’ Baroque can be defined as
“A term applied by art historians to a style of architecture, sculpture, and painting that emerged in Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century and then spread to Germany and other countries in Europe.
….. It may signify any elaborative formal and magniloquent style in verse or prose.”
(A Glossary of Literary Terms, 27)
The Baroque tradition was appreciated by the Catholic Church; theatre in the European countries, unlike England, was dominated by themes that supported the Church in the 17th century and therefore, more impact of the theatres meant more influence of the Church.
The Baroque went on from Italy and Rome to the Church Dominated countries and flourished the forms of literature and other arts. Under this time period, poetry was a popular genre; in England, despite the closing of the theatres, various popular

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