FÉNELON.--Fénelon, extremely individual and original, having on every subject ideas of his own which were sometimes daring, often practical, always generous and noble, was a preacher like Bossuet; also like Bossuet, he was a dexterous, skilled, and formidable controversialist, whilst, for the instruction of the Duke of Burgundy, which had been confided to him, he became a fabulist, an author of dialogues, in some degree a romancer or epic poet in prose in his famous _Telemachus_, overadmired, then overdepreciated, and which, despite weaknesses, remains replete with strength and dazzling brilliance. Nowadays there is a marked return to this prince of the Church and of literature, whose brain was complex and even complicated, but whose heart was quite pure and his reasoning on a high level. CHAPTER XI THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES: ENGLAND Dramatists: Marlowe, Shakespeare. Prose Writers: Sidney, Francis Bacon, etc. Epic Poet: Milton. Comic Poets. ELIZABETHAN AGE: SPENSER.--In England the Elizabethan Age is the period extending from the commencement of the reign of Elizabeth to the end of her successor, James I; that is, from 1558 to 1625. This was the golden age of English literature: the epoch in which, awakened or excited by the Renaissance, her genius gave forth all its development in fruits that were marvellous. First, there was Spenser, alike impregnated with the Italian Renaissance and gifted with the slightly fantastic imagination of his own countrymen, who wrote eclogues, in his _Shepheard's Calender_, in imitation of Theocritus and Virgil as well as of the Italians of the sixteenth century, and who gave charming descriptions in his _Faerie Queene_. Next came Sidney, the sonnetist, at once passionate and precious, and then that highest glory of this glorious period, the dramatic poets. THE STAGE: MARLOWE.--As in France, the English stage in the Middle Ages had been devoted to the performance of mysteries (under the name of _miracles_), later of moralities. As in France, tragedy, strictly speaking, was constituted in the sixteenth century. Towards its close appeared Marlowe, a very great genius, still rugged but with extraordinary power, more especially lyrical. His great works are _Doctor Faustus_ and _Edward II_.