THE PURITAN AGE (1620 – 1660)

The Literature of the Seventeenth

Century may be divided into two
periods—The Puritan Age or the Age of
Milton (1600-1660), which is further
divided into the Jacobean and Caroline
periods after the names of the ruler
James I and Charles I, who ruled from
1603 to 1625 and 1625 to 1649
respectively; and the Restoration Period
or the Age of Dryden (1660-1700).
Puritan age is marked by the decline
of Renaissance age the age of revival of
knowledge.
Puritan age is further divided into
two classes;
The Jacobean period in which James. I
was the ruler
Caroline period in which Charles. I was
the ruler
 MEANING OF PURITANISM

1) A member of a group of English Protestants who in

the 16th and 17thcenturies advocated strict religious
discipline along with simplification of the ceremonies
and creeds of the Church of England.

2) Puritan One who lives in accordance with Protestant

precepts, especially one who regards pleasure or
luxury as sinful.

3) Puritanism was the doctrine or School of English

Protestants of the 16th & 7thcenturies whose aim was
the purification of the religious practice.
 The salient features of Puritan Age.

1. The writers of Puritan age followed the paths

of the great Renaissance writers.

2. The spirit of science popularized by great

men like Newton, Bacon and Descartes.

3. In literature the spirit infuses itself in the

form of criticism, which was truly the
creation of Puritan age.
4. In literature the spirit infuses itself in the form
of criticism, which was truly the creation of
Puritan age. In this period people took stock of
what had been acquired.

5. People classified, analyzed, and systematized

many things which were having no importance
before that. English language was started
being used as the medium for instruction and
for storing the data and for conveying facts.
6. Art of Biography popularized which was
unknown in previous ages.
7. Satire and Irony got fame in Puritan age,
individually as well as on collective basis.

8. Readers had become criticizers and asked for

the facts and figures, so that they may judge and
can take sides in the controversial matters.

9. John Milton was the best representative of

Puritan age.Puritanism is considered as the
second greatest renaissance.
10. Rebirth of the moral nature of man which
followed intellectual awakening of Europe in
15th and 16th century.

11. Despotism was the order of the day.

12. Puritan movement stood for the liberty of people

of Europe.
13. There was an introduction of morality and high
ideals in politics.

14. Puritan age had two perspectives; personal

righteousness and civil and religious liberty.
15. It aimed at making people free and honest. In
puritan age John Milton and Thomas Cromwell
fought for the religious liberties of people.

16. With the passage of time Puritanism became the

movement against the King which stood for the
freedom of the society.

17. Puritans was the name given to the people who

advocated certain changes in the form of the
worship of the reformed English church under
queen Elizabeth.
The Puritans and Queen Elizabeth:-
The Elizabethan Church Settlement
had been a cautious compromise in
which Calvinist & Catholic elements
were blended.
(1) The Queen had been made the Supreme
Governor of the Church.

(2) An Act of Uniformity had been passed.

(3) A Common Prayer Book introduced.

(4) Thirty Nine Articles were drawn up which all

clergy had to accept.

(5) The Thirty Nine Articles were so framed as to

enable members of the Church of England to
believe in either predestination (a doctrine of
John Calvin) or free will (a Catholic doctrine)
as they thought fit.
(6) In spite of this Elizabethan Settlement, the
Calvinistic system (a form of Puritanism) had
penetrated more or less with completeness into the
minds of the great majority of English
Protestants.

(7) At the beginning of the 17th century there was no

such thing as a ‘Puritan Party’. There were
Presbyterians (a member of a branch of the
Christian Protestant Church that is the national
church of Scotland) or Disciplinarians who had felt
the influence of Calvin of Geneva.
(8) Thomas Cart right, the Presbyterian leader
discovered that the Anglican Church did not at
all accord with the principles of the primitative
Christian Church & urged that Bishops should
be deprived of their disciplinary powers and
stick to reaching. He was dismissed from
service and he went to Geneva.

(9) Another leader Thomas Browne, the Father of

Independents, maintained that the civil
magistrates should have no powers at all in
religious matters that the ministry should
rely on freewill offerings and in each parish
the priest must be chosen by his own
parishishioners.
(10) Two other Puritan thinkers, Greenwood and
Barrow, advocated independent and self –
governing churches.

(11) Another rising Puritan sect was that of the

Baptists or Anabaptists.

(12) All these Puritan sects were gaining

ground and threatened the whole Elizabethan
Church settlement.

(13) Elizabeth took strict view of this. In 1583, she

appointed John Whit gift, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, to check the spread of hateful
doctrines by a strict censorship of the press.
Chief Literary Characteristics of Puritan Age.

(1) In Literature also the Puritan Age was one

of confusion, due to the breaking up of old
ideals.

(2) Mediaeval standards of chivalry, the

impossible loves and romances of which
Spenser furnished types, perished no
less surly than the ideal of a national
church.
(3) In the absence of any fixed standard of literary
criticism there was nothing to prevent the
exaggeration of the ―Metaphysical’ poets.

(4) Poetry took new and startling forms in Donne

and Herbert, and prose became as somber
(serious) as Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.

(5) The spiritual gloom which sooner or later

fastens (fix firmly) upon all the writers of this
age, and which is unfairly attributed to Puritan
influence is due to the breaking up of accepted
standards in government and religion.
 Three Main Characteristics.

(1)
Elizabethan literature, with all its
diversity, had a marked unity in
spirit, resulting from the patriotism of all
classes and their devotion to a queen
who, with all her faults, sought first the
nation’s welfare. Under the Stuarts all this was
changed. The kings were the open enemies of
the people; the country was divided by the
struggle for political and religious liberty; and
the literature was as divided in spirit as were
the struggling parties.
 (2)

Elizabethan literature is generally

inspiring; it throbs with youth, hope and
vitality.

While Puritan age speaks about

sadness, gloom and pessimism
 Development of Poetry.
During the age of Milton, the Metaphysical Poetry
which had been started by Donne in the later part of
the age of Shakespeare, began to blossom. It was in
full swing during this age and the writers who
carried forward the tradition of John Donne were
Crashaw, George Herbert, Vaughan, and Marvell.
They were the Metaphysical poets who produced a
kind of poetry in which conceit and learning were
blended. They are usually lyrical in nature. Their
work shows surprising blend of passion and thought.
These poems are full of learned imagery and striking
conceits. At their best metaphysical poems revealed
great psychological insight and subtlety of thought
development.
 There were also secular poets who are called the
Cavalier poets. Whereas the metaphysical poets
took delight in mysticism and religious
thought, the Cavalier poets dealt with the subject of
love. The Cavalier poets – Herrick, Carew, Lovelace
and Suckling.