From printing to the steam engine (c. 1700). The arrival of printing made books plentiful, and helped standardise the language. Much more survives from this period than from earlier.
Notable works and authors from this time period include:
Tropes that originated in this time period:
- Adaptation Displacement (Shakespeare, frequently)
- Alas Poor Yorick (Hamlet)
- All Devouring Black Hole Loan Sharks (Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice)
- All Part Of The Show (17th-century urban legend)
- All That Glitters (Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice)
- Antagonist In Mourning (16th-century Japanese history)
- Anti Hero (Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus)
- Arranged Marriage (Romeo and Juliet)
- Ascended Fanboy (Don Quixote)
- Atlas Pose (The, um, Atlas)
- Attractive Bent Gender (many Shakespeare comedies, especially Twelfth Night and As You Like It)
- Berserk Button (Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing is one of several Shakespearean examples)
- Beware Of Hitch Hiking Ghosts
- The Bluebeard
- Bluffing The Murderer (the play within the play in Hamlet)
- Breaking The Fourth Wall (like No Fourth Wall, was used by Shakespeare and possibly earlier)
- The Chessmaster (Iago in Othello)
- Could Say It But (Polonius in Hamlet)
- The Dead Can Dance (Danse Macabre and various morality plays)
- Deconstruction (Don Quixote and chivalric tales)
- Detect Evil (Shakespeare's Macbeth)
- Disorganized Outline Speech (Much Ado About Nothing)
- The Dulcinea Effect (Trope Namer is Don Quixote, but happens in a lot of chivalric tales)
- Et Tu Brute (Julius Caesar, obviously)
- Eviler Than Thou (King Lear)
- Exact Eaves Dropping (At least this old, subverted by Shakespeare in both Hamlet and Othello)
- Faking The Dead (at least as far back as Shakespeare)
- Genre Savvy(Prospero in The Tempest)
- The Ghost (Othello)
- Groin Attack (Tristram Shandy: Uncle Toby)
- I Am Spartacus ("¿Quién mató al Comendador?" "¡FUENTEOVEJUNA, SEÑOR!")
- Idiot Plot (at least as far back as Shakespeare)
- Impeded Messenger (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, or earlier)
- Irrevocable Message (Shakespeare's Richard III)
- In Another Mans Shoes (Shakespeare's Henry V, or earlier)
- Joker Jury (In Vanity Fair in The Pilgrims Progress)
- Kangaroo Court (Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale)
- Lampshade Hanging (Shakespeare's Twelfth Night)
- Like A Weasel (Hamlet)
- Lord Error Prone (Don Quixote)
- Love Dodecahedron (Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night)
- Mad Scientists Beautiful Daughter (at least for the "mad scientist is good" variant; Shakespeare's The Tempest, 1611, even though Prospero is a sorcerer, not a scientist)
- Magnificent Bastard (the titular character of Shakespeare's Richard III)
- Malaproper
- Mistimed Revival (Romeo and Juliet)
- More Than Mind Control (The Faerie Queene, Pilgrim's Progress)
- Must Have Caffeine (Bach's Coffee Cantata)
- No Fourth Wall (Shakespeare if not much earlier)
- Obfuscating Insanity (Hamlet. Probably)
- Out Damned Spot (Macbeth)
- Parental Marriage Veto (A Midsummer's Night Dream)
- Pineal Weirdness (Descartes' Treatise of Man, 1629)
- Planet Of Hats (Gulliver's Travels, 1726)
- Pose Of Silence (Shakespearian stage production technique)
- Pound Of Flesh (Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, ca. 1598)
- Puss In Boots (The fairy tale of the same name)
- Rage Against The Reflection (Shakespeare's Richard II)
- Rash Equilibrium (Shakespeare's Measure for Measure)
- Recursive Crossdressing (Shakespearean comedy, especially As You Like It)
- Recursive Canon (Hamlet refers to Julius Caesar as a play)
- Red Herring (actual red herrings used in hunting)
- Rousing Speech (Shakespeare, the "St. Crispin's Day" speech in Henry V)
- Shoo Out The Clowns
- Show Within A Show (Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, or earlier)
- Speak Of The Devil
- A Storm Is Coming (Macbeth)
- Stringy Haired Ghost Girl ("The Ghost of Oyuki
")
- Stylistic Suck (Anytime Shakespeare did a Play Within A Play)
- Surrogate Soliloquy (Hamlet, arguably Macbeth)
- Tag Team Suicide (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, among others)
- Those Two Guys (Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern)
- Turned Against Their Masters (The Golem myth)
- Twin Threesome Fantasy (Twelfth Night, maybe)
- Unaccustomed As I Am To Public Speaking (Richard III and several other Shakespeare plays)
- Villainous Breakdown (Macbeth)
- Wedding Day (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, or earlier)
- When The Clock Strikes Twelve (Cinderella amongst others)
- Wrong Genre Savvy (the titular character of Don Quixote)
- Xanatos Gambit (Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, more exactly their escape)
- Zany Scheme and Counter Zany (Also Much Ado About Nothing — it's one long ping-pong match of schemery)
