<P> This `` golden age '' represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of poetry , music and literature . The era is most famous for theatre , as William Shakespeare and many others composed plays that broke free of England 's past style of theatre . It was an age of exploration and expansion abroad , while back at home , the Protestant Reformation became more acceptable to the people , most certainly after the Spanish Armada was repulsed . It was also the end of the period when England was a separate realm before its royal union with Scotland . </P>
the most remarkable cultural characteristic of elizabethan england was the rise of which art form
theatre