This comprehensive anthology collects together primary texts and documents relevant to the literature, culture and intellectual life in England between 1550 and 1660. Providing a combination of both well-known texts and forgotten texts that were influential at the time, The English Renaissance gives the reader an intimate first-hand experience of controversies, ideas, and views on all areas of cultural interest in early modern England. The English Renaissance includes sections on: religion and theology politics and economics society education and humanism literary and cultural theories science and magic exploration and traffic. This anthology provides historical breadth within each Section, demonstrating change and continuity and easy accessibility to rarely available texts in a single volume. The English Renaissance enables students to compare the ideology, content and rhetorical strategies of 'literary' and 'aesthetic' texts with 'historical' or 'political' events and texts.