Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) is often cited as an archetype of the well-rounded “Renaissance man”: his talents were multifold, encompassing not only poetry and cultivated learning but also the virtues of statesmanship and military service. He was born into an aristocratic family, was eventually knighted, and held government appointments which included the governorship of Flushing in..
T. Coraghessan Boyle’s (1948- ) novels have been praised for their originality, style, and comic energy. At a time when his contemporaries seem obsessed with the mundane details of everyday life—presented in a minimalist style—Boyle approaches fiction as an iconoclastic storyteller who embraces and borrows from the entire history of narrative literature, celebrating the profane,
Though Boccaccio (1313–1375) wished to be known as a scholar, he is most widely known for his Decameron (1358), a collection of a hundred, sometimes bawdy, stories told by ten characters against the background of the bubonic plague that overtook Italy in 1348. Boccaccio also wrote allegorical poetry and romances which influenced Chaucer and Shakespeare.