Page:The Harvard Classics Vol. 51; Lectures.djvu/45

Last of all, the question might be asked : is the Renaissance more than a period of storm and stress, a link between the Middle Ages and Modern Times? Like every age, it is one of transition, but it is also one of glorious achievement. If any one doubts this, let him remember only a few names of the imposing roll call—Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Rabelais, Montaigne, Calderon,^[1] Lope de Vega, Cervantes,^[2] Shakespeare,^[3] and in their ranks Dante^[4] takes his place with the same serene and august confidence with which he joined the company of Virgil and Homer.

1. H. C., xxvi, 5ff.
2. H. C., xiv.
3. For works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in the Elizabethan drama, see H. C., xlvi and xlvii.
4. H. C., xx.