Renaissance is a name commonly applied to the poetry of European History following the Middle Ages. Generally, It is said to have begun in Italy in the late fourteenth century and has continued in Italy and other Western European countries. In this period European art of painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature reached at its peak. The development came late to England in the sixteenth century and its flowering started from the Elizabethan age and has influenced to later period also.
Renaissance started from1500 and lasted until 1660 including ages such as -
Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
Commonwealth period (1649-1660)
Elizabethan Age (1558-1603):-
This age is named after Queen Elizabethan I, and the term Elizabethan is used to refer to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. This was the age that saw the development in English commerce, maritime power, and nationalist feelings. It was a great age of English literature and the greatest in Drama. It was the age of William Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlow, Edmund Spenser, Francis Bacon, and Ben Jonson.
Jacobean Age (1603-1625):-
This is the reign of James I (In Latin"Jacobus") after Elizabeth. This was the period in prose writing of Bacon, John Donne's sermons, Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, and the King James translation of the Bible. It was also the time of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies and tragicomedies and major writing by other notable poets and playwrights including Donne, Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, Lady Mary Wroth, Sir Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, John Webster, George Chapman, Thomas Middleton, Philip Massinger, and Elizabeth Cary, whose notable Biblical drama "The Tragedy of Mariam, The Faire Queene of Jewry" was the first long play by an Englishwomen to be published.
Caroline Age (1625-1649):-
This is the reign of Charles I . (the name is derived from "Carolus," the Latin version of "Charles".) This was the time of the English Civil War fought between the supporters of the King (known as "Cavaliers") and the supporters of parliament (known as "Roundheads"). John Milton was an important figure of this period. It was the time also of the religious poet George Herbert and prose writers Robert Burton and Sir Thomas Browne.
Commonwealth period (1649-1660):-
This period also known as Puritan Interregnum extended from the execution of Charles I in 1649 to the restoration of Charles II in 1660. During the commonwealth, England was ruled by Parliament under the Puritan leader Oliver Cromwell. Oliver died in 1658, marking the dissolution of this reign. During this reign, Drama was banned for eighteen(18) years. It was an age of Milton's political pamphlets, Hobbes's political treaties Leviathan (1651), the Walton, and the poets Henry Vaughan, Edmund Waller, Abraham Cowley, Sir William Davenant, and Andrew Marvell.
Source-
A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams.