ent was accompanied by an intellectual revolution, as the medieval synthesis collapsed before the new science, new religion, and new humanism. While modern mechanical technologies were pressed into service by the Stuarts to create the scenic wonders of the court masque, the discoveries of astronomers and explorers were redrawing the cosmos in a way that was profoundly disturbing: and freely men confess that this world's spent, When in the planets, and the firmanet. They seek so many new." (Jonh Donne, The First Anniversary, 1611)
             A complicating factor during the period was the race to catch up with continental developments in arts and philosophy. The Tudors badly needed to create a class of educated diplomats, statesmen, and officials and to dignify their court by making it a fount of cultural as well as political patronage. Humanism fostered an intimate familiarity with the classics that was a powerful incentive for the creation of an English literature of answerable dignity. It fostered as well a p
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