ABSTRACT
Literature can educate, passing on a culture's skills, attitudes and moral values, and it can attempt to persuade, to urge men and women to action or meditation. It can, depending on its presentation, heighten social tensions or purge and soothe them. In the sixteenth century literature served all these purposes in very important ways. Sixteenth-century epics too would deal with quests: to defeat the infidel, reach the Indies or worship at the court of the Faerie Queen. In Iberia, where religious drama was highly valued, the most distinguished writer of moralities in the sixteenth century was the Portuguese poet Gil Vicente who from 1516-19 produced his trilogy, The Ship of Hell, The Ship of Purgatory and The Ship of Heaven. The great flowering of sixteenth century European drama appeared in England and Spain, following the development of the professional acting companies and the public theatres which began to appear in the 1570s and which were widespread by the 1590s.
