Note: The works of the humanists, theologians, biblical and classical scholars, historians, publicists and philosophers have been dealt with in other sections of this bibliography. Representative poets, dramatists and writers of fiction for the century (up to but not including the Age of Shakespeare in England or of Henry IV in France) are the following:
Italian: Ariosto, A. F. Grazzini, M. Bandello, T. Tasso, Berni, Guarini.
French: Margaret of Navarre, C. Marot, Rabelais, Joachim du Bellay, Ronsard, Montaigne.
English: Lyndesay, Skelton, Wyatt, Surrey, anonymous poets in Tottel's Miscellany, Sidney, E. Spenser, Donne, Lyly, Heywood, Kyd, Peele, Greene, Lodge, Nash, Marlowe.
German: Hans Sachs, Fischart, T. Murner, anonymous Till Eulenspiegel and Faustbuch, B. Waldis.
Spanish: The Picaresque novel, La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades.
Portuguese: Camoens.
As it is not my purpose to give even a sketch of literary history, but merely to illustrate the temper of the times from the contemporary belles lettres, only a few suggestive works of criticism can be mentioned here.
H. Hallam: Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. 1838-9. (Old, but still useful).
J. A. Symonds: Italian Literature. 1888.
G. Lanson: Histoire de la litterature francaise. 1906.
C. H. C. Wright: A History of French Literature. 1912.
C. Thomas: A History of German Literature. 1909.
E. Wolff: Faust und Luther. 1912.
The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. iii, Renaissance and Reformation. 1908.
J. J. Jusserand: Histoire Litteraire du Peuple Anglais. Tome ii, De la Renaissance a la Guerre Civile. 1904. (Also English translation: a beautiful work).
Winifred Smith: The Commedia dell' Arte. 1912. (Notable).
A. Tilley: The Literature of the French Renaissance. 2 vols. 1904.
The Age of the Reformation · The Wunder Library — complete classics, free to read, with narration.