accepted the views of Copernicus who propounded the heliocentric theory. He was tried for heresy by the Church and was kept under house arrest. Among prominent men of science in the sixteenth century William Harvey ( - ) was one who finally proved the circulation of the blood in the human body. Spread of Renaissance in Western Europe Renaissance in England The renaissance had its impact not only in Italy but in many parts of Europe including France and Germany.
It left a deep imprint on England. The rule of Elizabeth I ( – ) came to be called the Elizabethan Age. The Elizabethan Age produced many scholars during the English Renaissance. Notable among them were William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Francis Bacon.
Christopher Marlowe was an English playwright, whose important works include Dido, The Queen of Carthage , and Tamburlaine the Great . The greatest writer in English was William Shakespeare. Born at Stratford upon Avon, he wrote plays and many poems involving various human emotions namely love, anger, tragedy, jealousy, and deceit. His comedy plays William Harvey Elizabeth I include As You Like It, The Taming of the Shrew , and A Midsummer Night’s Dream while Othello, Hamlet, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet are examples of tragedies.
His plays, performed in the Globe theatre in London were popular. The plays had a profound impact on the English language, and when Britain became an empire after the industrial revolution his plays spread across the world. Francis Bacon is considered the father of empiricism. He argued that inductive reasoning (an approach to logical thinking that involves making generalisations based on specific details and is the opposite of deductive reasoning) is the base for scientific knowledge.
His most important work is Novum Organum , a philosophical work written in Latin. It deals with methodical observation of facts as a means of studying and interpreting natural phenomena.