\paperw5085 \margr0\margl0\ATXph16380 \plain \fs20 \f1 \fs22 The culture of Elizabethan England was strangely hybrid. In painting, the Renaissance form of the portrait was retai
ned, but Renaissance ærealismÆ was abandoned in favour of a \b \cf4 \ATXht10271000 neo-Gothic \b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 stiffness in which the sitter became an image, encased in clothes and bedecked with jewels. The most extreme form of these secular icons was t
he portraits of \b \cf4 \ATXht13111000 Queen Elizabeth\b0 \cf0 \ATXht0 herself, which had by decree to adhere to an accepted likeness and could never reveal signs of ageing. In architecture, classical detail was blended with fairy-tale gothic forms. G
round-plans were often E- or H-shaped, and the symmetrical facades were often embellished with decorative motifs of northern European provenance. In literature, the common trend was to treat chivalric romance in Italianate verse: the ideal of knighthood
was easily adapted to an age of religious wars. So all in all, these were times of marked juxtaposition, of violent contrasts that actually permeated language, making it remarkably rich and dramatic.\par
