Sixteenth-century England was in a state of constant novelty. Language and learning, religious politics, history, science, economics, were transformed in the course of a single generation. Humanism and the resurgence of Greek refashioned the face of the past; scientific and maritime discoveries upended centuries-old models of the natural world; the confessional schisms of the Reformation sundered friendships and cast the fate of even the most pious soul into doubt; and the printing revolution gave rise to a dizzying new marketplace of ideas.

How did English authors respond to this turbulence? How did they rise to the challenge of novelty? We will look at a wide range of literary works throughout the century as responses to—and provocations of—the shock of the new.