Sex Vs Religion: Sixteenth Century Poetry

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1. “The reformation was ignored by writers of poetry during the sixteenth century. They were more interested in sex.” How far do you agree with this statement? Refer to the work of two or more of the following poets in your answer: Askew, Constable, Heywood, Skelton. It is not logical to state that the poets of the sixteenth century ignored the reformation, and that they were only interested in sexual expression. It is of course plausible that some of the many poets of the century ignored the reformation and wrote on topics such as sex, but that does not mean that every poet only wrote about sex and ignored the changes in religion and the constant instability of religion was a major topic in the poetry of some writers. Other writers that wrote on the reformation discussed the problems they had despite the fact their religion was the national religion of the country. In this essay I wish to discuss both poets who recognised and discussed the reformation in their poetry and also I shall refer to a few poets who were interested in sex, just to show that there were poets interested in both. By doing this, I hope to prove that sex was a topic in Renaissance poetry, but that it did not mean all the poets ignored the reformation. While a large number of people took great interest in poems about sex, such as poets like Edmund Spenser, whose Amoretti sonnet discusses a sharing of passion with his lover, but not only does it discuss his lover, but it is also an attempt to show how intellectual Spenser was. In the sonnet, Spenser uses imagery of flora in the poem to describe the face and body of his lover. This exercise in self-promotion may have been to show his lover the vast array of his intellect, but it may also be an expression of his love and his way of describing his lover. Perhaps to Spenser, she is a flower and hence he uses the flora imagery to describe her.
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