Early 17 th Century 1603-1660

1. Early 17th Century1603-1660

2. Learning Goals • To identify the major authors and literary contributors of the early 17th century. • To recognize the major literary characteristics of the period. • To understand how the politics of a time period can influence its literature. • To identify major vocabulary needed to analyze the literature of the period.

3. Around the World • 1605-1615 - Don Quixote – Miguel Cervantes (Spain) • 1608 – Telescope Invented • 1641 - Sakoku begins in Japan (Japanese isolation) • 1633 – Galileo and the Inquisition (Copernican Theory) • 1637-44 – Descartes’ major works published (I think; therefore, I am.) Cartesian method. • 1643-1717 – The reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV in France

4. History and Monarchs James I (1603-1625) The Interregnum (1653-1660) “The Protectorate” The Stuarts Charles I (1625-1649) Oliver Cromwell (1653-1658) Richard Cromwell (1658-1659)

5. James I (1603-1625) • Divine Right of Kings • The True Law of Free Monarchies • Court Masques / Sun King / “Pagan” rituals that annoyed the Puritans • Puritans set out on Mayflower 1620 – wanted to “Purify” the church of all pagan/catholic rituals • 1622 First English Newspaper • Known for gluttonous feasting, financial heedlessness, hunting and sport, and hard drinking. • Beginning of the East India Trading Company

6. Charles I (1625-1649) • Divine Right of Kings / Absolute Monarchy • Marries a Catholic (Henrietta Maria of France) • Wants money! • 1635 Connecticut first settled • English Civil War breaks out 1642 • 1649 - Gets beheaded

7. The English Civil War (1642-1648) • Charles I hoped to unite the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland into a new single kingdom • Parliament afraid of losing control of the monarchy • Charles marries a Roman Catholic • Parliament is staunchly Protestant • Cromwell / Parliament want a constitutional monarchy– then decide they want a republic instead. Roundheads vs. Cavaliers • Charles I beheaded for treason • Commonwealth & Protectorate • Monty Python!

8. Oliver Cromwell • General who came to lead the victorious Puritan Roundheads against Charles I in the English Civil War • Ruled England as Lord Protector from1649 to his death in 1658. • The Protectorate barely outlived him; his son Richard resigned his post in 1659, and the monarchy was restored in 1660. • (The years 1649-60 are known as the "Interregnum," the period between kings.)

9. Characteristics of the Literature • A heightened focus on and analysis of the self and the personal life. • The true beginnings of political pamphleteering and propaganda. (News Books – precursor to newspapers) • Suppression of the theatre & anything Catholic/Pagan during the Commonwealth and Cromwell’s reign. • Art and Nature (Artifice that must look natural) – Think Pastoral Poems…do they truly reflect nature as it is? • A Dark Side – underlying many of the poetry and literature of the time is a sense of impending decay and death.

10. Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679) • Leviathan (1651) • the right of the individual • the natural equality of all men • the artificial character of the political order • the view that all legitimate political power must be "representative" and based on the consent of the people • a liberal interpretation of law which leaves people free to do whatever the law does not explicitly forbid

11. The Power Structure • In Early Modern England, both gender hierarchy, with the man at the top, and the husband's patriarchal role as governor of his family and household — wife, children, wards, and servants — were assumed to have been instituted by God and nature. • The family was seen as the secure foundation of society and the patriarch's role as analogous to that of God in the universe and the king in the state. • Unmarried virgins and wives were to maintain silence in the public sphere and give unstinting obedience to father and husband, though widows had some scope for making their own decisions and managing their affairs. Children and servants were bound to the strictest obedience.

12. Tension in the Power Structure • Inevitably, however, tension developed when such norms met with common experience, as registered in the records of actual households and especially in the complexities and ambiguities represented in literary treatments of love, courtship, marriage, and family relations, from Shakespeare's King Lear, to Webster's Duchess of Malfi, to Milton's Paradise Lost, and more.

13. Culture • Greek mythology still plays a leading role – King James liked to liken himself to the god Apollo – a god that the people of the Renaissance through the Enlightenment viewed as a god of the sun, the arts, and civilized society. Louis XIV will later call himself the “Sun King.”

14. Ben Jonson (1572-1637) • Satirical Playwright – Volpone, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair • Wrote for the Lord Admiral’s Men w/ Philip Henslowe • Collaborated with Inigo Jones to create court masques for James I’s court. • Poetry serves as a predecessor to the Cavalier Poets who called themselves the “Sons of Ben” or the “Tribe of Ben” • Playful use of wit, lyricism

15. Drama and Masques • Highly elaborate pagents/plays/ masquerades • Held at court and typically designed by famous architects, performed by famous actors, with courtiers filling in the background parts. • VERY showy and expensive to put on. • Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson were responsible for most of the court masques during the early 17th century.

16. Metaphysical Poetry • Investigate the world by rational discussion of its phenomena rather than by intuition or mysticism. • Not really a school or movement, but these poets share some common characteristics: • Wit • Inventiveness • A love of elaborate stylistic maneuvers • Metaphysical Conceit: high stylized comparison between two VERY unlike things. • John Donne considered the main poet in this genre.

17. Metaphysical Poetry • Reaction against the deliberately smooth and sweet tones of much 16th-century verse. • Metaphysical poets’ style is energetic, uneven, and rigorous. • It has also been labeled the 'poetry of strong lines'. T. S. Eliot argued that their work: • fuses reason with passion • shows a unification of thought and feeling • John Donne, George Herrick, Andrew Marvell, Sir John Suckling

18. John Donne (1572-1631) • Chief producer of metaphysical poetry • Early life – broke most of the time / married young, lived in poverty. • Anglican priest in 1615 by the suggestion of James I, later Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. • Early Poetry: • Very witty, sexual • Political commentary • Later Poetry: • Religious, somber, pious • Challenges to Death

19. Cavalier Poetry • Also called “Royalists,” for their allegiance to the monarchy. • Courtly, well-educated, genteel, the Cavaliers are as likely to be talented with the rapier as with rapier wit, and honored skill with each. • Characteristics of Poetry: • Avoids discussion of religion • No plumbing the depths of the soul • A combination of Donne’s intellectual conceits with Jonson’s eloquence • Direct, colloquial language • Casual, amateur, light-hearted, carefree, and affectionate • Carpe Diem message

20. Cavalier Poetry • For these poets, life is far too enjoyable for much of it to be spent sweating over texts in a study. • The poems must be written in the intervals of living, and are celebratory of things that are much livelier than mere philosophy or art. • To put it in a nutshell, the Mistress in no longer an impossibly chaste Goddess to be wooed with sighs, but a woman who may be spoken to in a forthright fashion. • Many of these poems have a much different attitude toward love than we've seen before, often more carefree, even flippant, and often more sexual, as well.

21. Puritan Poetry • “The Descendants of Spenser” • The period of the Interregnum discouraged many aspiring Catholic and traditional Anglican artists and writers, but Puritan writers saw a time of encouragement. • To set forth orthodox Calvinist Christianity • Rejection of the worldly • Need for self-examination • Idea of Original Sin / Search for salvation • John Milton – Latin Secretary under Cromwell • Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor – American Colonial Poets

22. Paradise Lost • John Milton – published in 1667 • Purpose: “To justify the ways of God to men” • Conflict: God’s Eternal Foresight vs. Free Will • English Religious Tragic Epic Poem • Muse is the Holy Spirit • Written in blank verse • Begins in medias res • Two tragic heroes: Satan and Adam • Draws on different texts for inspiration: • The Book of Genesis • Ovid’s Metaphorphoses

23. Paradise Lost • Traditional Epic: Satan is portrayed as the tragic hero (Fall of Lucifer) • Wages war with Heaven / Defeated / Wages war on humanity • Satan is depicted as a strict conservative who values old-fashioned views of hierarchy – not the new system of position and prominence based on merit. • Domestic Epic: Relationship of Adam and Eve (Fall of Mankind) • Eve is successfully tempted by Satan’s RHETORIC (what could this mean?) • Adam eats because he knows Eve is doomed and doesn’t want to live without her • Sex is introduced into the world / creates GUILT & SHAME • Adam is given a vision of the consequences of his sin in the future (Flood / Christ)

24. Pilgrim’s Progress • Written by John Bunyan (1678) • Protestant allegory in which Christian, an everyman character, journeys from his hometown, the "City of Destruction" ("this world"), to the "Celestial City" ("that which is to come": Heaven) atop Mt. Zion. • “Now I saw in my Dream, that at the end of this Valley lay blood, bones, ashes, and mangled bodies of men, […] I espied a little before me a Cave, where two Giants, Pope and Pagan, dwelt in old times, by whose Power and Tyranny the Men whose bones, blood ashes, &c. lay there, were cruelly put to death.”

25. In America • Anne Bradstreet, Puritan Poet • The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America (w/ apology) • “Upon the Burning of Our House” • “The Author to Her Book” • “To My Dear and Loving Husband” • Characteristics • A rejection of the worldly and material • Domestic and Religious Themes • Justification of women’s education • Plain style

26. Terms to Know • Metaphysical Conceit • Oxymoron • Paradox • Carpe Diem • Baroque • Allegory • Sprezzatura • Epic