1450–1620
The Renaissance
The printing press turns literature into a mass medium overnight. Humanism revives antiquity on purpose, professional playhouses give drama a paying public, and Rabelais, Montaigne, and Shakespeare stretch what a sentence, a stage, and a self can hold: the direct runway into the novel's own invention.
Reading path
The Renaissance
The printing press turns literature into mass media overnight, and everyone stretches to see what a page, a stage, or a self can carry.
8 stepsMovements of this era
Authors of this era
1296–1372Shi Nai'anChina1330–1400Luo GuanzhongChina1494–1553François RabelaisFrance1500–1582Wu Cheng'enChina1533–1592Michel de MontaigneFrance1552–1599Edmund SpenserEngland1564–1593Christopher MarloweEngland1564–1616William ShakespeareEngland1608–1674John MiltonEngland1640–1715Pu SonglingChina1715–1763Cao XueqinChina