This work investigates the intellectual, social, and aesthetic shifts that defined the English Renaissance through its literary output. Hardin Craig, a noted scholar of Elizabethan and Shakespearean studies, utilizes a historical-contextual framework to analyze how the transition from medieval thought to humanism influenced the production of poetry, drama, and prose. The text argues that the literature of this period serves as a primary record of the evolving English consciousness during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Scholars and students of English literature frequently cite this work as a foundational survey of the period's intellectual development. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which assumes a baseline familiarity with the historical events and literary conventions of the English Renaissance.