"Early Modern"

~~~ {to explain this suggestion: in Lit Crit, 'Early Modern' is used to mean: 'written in the period post-Chaucer, beginning approx with Skelton & Spenser, when Modern English was replacing Middle English for literary purposes, up to writers of the early-17th century, up to about the Civil Wars'. ~~~ I review regularly for a journal online called Early Modern Literary Studies (google EMLS), in which 90% of the articles & reviews are on Shakespeare. It seems to me that the phrase, with such overtones, would describe both the content and the aspirations of the duo as you describe them.}

Best ~ Michael