English Literature:

th th
The 17 and 18 Centuries
Lecture 1: Introductory; Contexts

ADVICE TO STUDENTS:
1. Always mark and learn definitions by heart!
2. Always make chronological charts!

TODAY’S AGENDA: THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC

CONTEXT; AESTHETIC AGES; LITERARY GENRES;
INNOVATION AND TRADITION.
 I. The Political and Economic Context
Ruler Political, Social, Religious Events Literary Events
1587 – Mary Queen of Scots beheaded for
alleged treason;
Elizabeth I 1588 – Defeat of the Spanish Armada;
(1558-1603) Religion in England represents a middle
way between Marian Catholicism and
Lutheran Protestantism, with the monarch
as head of the Church.
Drama and music flourished, but so did
bear-baiting and cock-fighting.
1603 – England and Scotland are united
James I under James I;
(1603-25) 1605 – The “Gunpowder Plot”: a failed
(Protestant/ Catholic attempt to blow up the
Episcopal/ Parliament
Presbyterian) 1611 – Authorised version of the Bible;
1620 – The Pilgrim Fathers land in
Plymouth, MA, New England, America.
(a great period of colonisation)
1629-40 – “Divine Right of Kings” –
Charles I Charles ruled without Parliament;
(1625-49) 1642 – outbreak of Civil War (King against
(Anglican) Parliament);
1647 – Charles surrenders to Parliament;
1649 – 1 st English King to be beheaded;
England declared a Commonwealth.
1577 – Holinshed’s Chronicles;
1578 – John Lyly’s Euphues;
1586 – Sir Philip Sidney dies (b. 1554);
1590 – Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Sidney’s
Arcadia, Spenser’s Faerie Queene (first
three books);
1593 – Marlowe killed;
1595 – Sidney’s Defense of Poesie ;
1599 – Spenser dies;
1608 – Milton is born;
1616 – Shakespeare, Francis Beaumont
(b. 1584), and Cervantes die; Chapman’s
Homer appears;
1621 – Burton’s Anatomy of
Melancholy;
1625 – Bacon’s Essays; John Fletcher
dies (b. 1579)
1631 – John Dryden born; John Donne
dies;
1633 – Donne’s Poems;
1642 – all theatres are closed;
1645 – Milton’s Poems
Ruler Political, Social, Religious Literary Events
Events
The Interregnum The Commonwealth (i.e., military Almost no literary productions are
(1649-1660) government) (1649-53) published;
(Puritan) The Protectorate (1653-60): Oliver 1654 – Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan
Cromwell becomes Lord Protector;
1657 – Cromwell declines English
crown;
1658 – Cromwell dies, his son
Richard is named Protector;
1659 – Richard Cromwell resigns;
England is governed by Parliament
Charles II 1665-7; 1672-4 – England and 1663 – Butler’s Hudibras (Part I);
(1660-85) Holland are at war; 1667 – Milton’s Paradise Lost;
(quietly Catholic) 1665 – The Great Plague; 1674 – Milton dies;
1666 – The Great Fire of London. 1678 – Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
(an age of scientific enquiry)
James II James tries to re-establish 1687 – Isaac Newton’s Principia
(1685-88) Catholicism, but Protestants appeal 1688 – Bunyan dies; Alexander
(manifestly Catholic) to William of Orange (in Holland) for Pope born.
help.
1688 – King is deposed with the
support of Parliament; William and
Mary of Orange are proclaimed King
and Queen – (The Glorious
Revolution)
Ruler Political, Social, Religious
Events
William and Mary of Orange 1689 – Bill of Rights Passed
(1688-1702) 1690 – William defeats James,
(Protestant) who has landed in Ireland in an
attempt to raise forces and
re-establish himself;
1694 – Mary dies.
Anne 1702 – England declares war
(1702-14) against France and Spain;
(Protestant) 1707 – Scots Parliament passes
Act of Union. First Parliament of
Great Britain.
Literary Events
1690 – John Locke’s Two Treatises
of Government and Essay
Concerning Human Understanding
1695 – Congreve’s Love for Love;
1700 – Dryden dies.
1702 – First daily paper
established: The Daily Courant ;
1704 – Swift’s Tale of a Tub;
1709 – Steele begins The Tatler;
1711 – Pope’s Essay on Criticism ;
Addison and Steele begin The
Spectator
 RECAP:
1. HISTORICAL/POLITICAL AGES:

The Elizabethan Age: last part of/High Renaissance

(Tudor Dynasty)
The Jacobean Age (beginning of the Stuart Dynasty)
The Carolinian Age (Stuart)
The Interregnum: Commonwealth + Protectorate
The Restoration (Charles II, James II – Stuart)
The Augustan Age (The Hanoverian Dynasty – the
beginning of constitutional monarchy)
2. AESTHETIC AGES:

The Renaissance (the Elizabethan Age), characterized

by Humanism and Classicism;
Baroque (the Jacobean Age), characterized by
Humanism and a more refined brand of Classicism
The Enlightenment (the Restoration + the Augustan
Age) = the Age of Reason, Neo-Classicism;
The Age of Sentimentality/Preromanticism (late 18th
century)
 II. Literary Genres
AGE PROSE DRAMA VERSE
I. Renaissance Educational Essays: Shakespeare Shakespeare
(1485-1603) Roger Ascham’s The Marlowe Sidney
Scholemaster (1570); The University Wits Spenser
Stephen Gosson’s School of
Abuse (1579); (drama = the most Most prestigious genre: the
Sir Philip Sidney’s Defense of popular cultural epic poem;
Poesie (1595), Arcadia (1590) manifestation) Most popular: the sonnet.
(the 1 st long prose fiction)
II. The Philosophical Essays: Comedy of Humours: John Donne’s Poems
Jacobean Age Ben Jonson’s Volpone (1633): the Metaphysical
(1603-1625) Francis Bacon’s Essays (1625) (1606), Every Man in His Poets;
The Carolinian Humour, Every Man out
Age of His Humour ; John Milton’s Lycidas
(1625-1649) Fletcher and Beaumont; (1637); Poems (1645)

Blood and Thunder

Tragedy:
John Webster’s Duchess
of Malfi, The White Devil ,
etc.
III. The Political Essays:
Interregnum Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan
(1649-1660) (1654);

Religious tracts, sermons.

AGE PROSE DRAMA VERSE
IV. The Restoration John Dryden’s Essay of Tragedies adapted to the Dryden’s Absalom and
(Early Enlightenment) Dramatic Poesy (1668); classical rules: Achitophel, McFlecnoe;
(1660-1689) John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s
Progress (1678); Dryden’s All for Love Milton’s Paradise Lost
John Locke’s Essay (1678), Troilus and (1667), Paradise
Concerning Human Cressida (1679), The Regained (1671), Samson
Understanding , Letter Conquest of Granada , Agonistes, etc.
Concerning Toleration , etc.
and Two Treatises of
Government (all 1690)
V. The Enlightenment/ 1702 onwards – the 1 st Comedies of Manners: Alexander Pope’s Essay
The Age of Reason periodicals: The Tatler, on Criticism (1711), Essay
(1689-1760) The Spectator , The William Congreve’s Love on Man, The Rape of the
Rambler, The Idler , etc. for Love (1695), The Way Lock, The Dunciad, etc.
of the World (1700)
Fiction: D. Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe (1719),
Moll Flanders; J. Swift’s
Gulliver’s Travels (1726).

Philosophy: David
Hume’s Enquiry
Concerning Principles of
Morals (1751);

Dr. S. Johnson’s
Dictionary (1755)
AGE PROSE DRAMA VERSE
VI. The Age of The Novel: Richard Brinsley Percy’s Reliques of
Sentimentality / S. Richardson’s Pamela Sheridan’s School for English Poetry (1765 –
Preromanticism/ Late (1740), Clarissa, Sir anthology);
Scandal (1777), The
Enlightenment (the Charles Grandison ;
second half of the 18 th H. Fielding’s Joseph Rivals (1775) etc. James Macpherson’s
century) Andrews (1742), Tom Poems of Ossian (1763);
Jones (1749);
L. Sterne’s Tristram Thomas Gray’s Poems
Shandy (1760-7); (1768);
H. Walpole’s Castle of
Otranto (1765); Robert Burns’ Poems
O. Goldsmith’s Vicar of (1786);
Wakefield (1766);
William Blake’s Songs of
History: Gibbon’s Decline Innocence (1789)
and Fall of the Roman
Empire (1st part, 1776),
Adam Smith’s The
Wealth of Nations ;

Education: Mary
Wollstonecraft’s A
Vindication of the Rights
of Women (1792)
 III. Tradition and Innovation
- Recuperation of classical art and philosophy initiated during the
Renaissance continues, but:
- there is an increasing emphasis on simplicity of style, a reaction against
the adorned style and empty decorative language of the Renaissance;
- Certain literary genres die out and others become mainstream:
E.g.:
◆ the epic poem (the last great avatar = Milton’s Paradise Lost) and the
allegory (Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress) die out, and will be revived in
parodic modes, such as the mock-heroic poem (Dryden, Pope) and the
novel;
◆ the sonnet (once the most popular form of erotic poetry) becomes one of
the main forms of religious expression (Donne, Milton), then dies out (to
be resuscitated once more by the Romantics);
◆ religious strife breeds religious poems, tracts, and sermons;
◆ political tensions make it fashionable to write political pamphlets;
◆ emphasis on reason makes it imperative to write philosophical
essays (about the workings of the mind, the nature of morality, the
social order, etc.);
◆ economic progress makes it possible for people from all walks of
life and of both genders to pursue an education and demand
reading material suitable for their level of education readers’
digests, light prose, news, stories about personal experiences;
◆ increasing importance of education and emphasis on morality
tracts on education;
◆ new literary forms the need for prescriptive literary criticism and
theory, for the benefit of both readers and writers.

!!! DEFINITIONS OF LITERARY TERMS (see the Glossary at the end of

the Lecture Notes and J.A. Cuddon’s Dictionary of Literary Terms and
Literary Theory)
 LECTURE II: CONTEXTS
• Today’s Agenda: The political and economic
context of the 17th century

17th century (conventionally) = 1588 – 1688

- last years of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, characterized by:

- uncertainty concerning succession
- millennial apprehensions
- the rise of a new social class (tradesmen, etc.)
- prosperity, but also inflation
- hereditary title gradually displaced by financial power
George Gower, Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1588
 Jacobean Age
James I (1603-1625), son of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots
- His reign was a late extension of the Elizabethan
Renaissance, in that he continued many of Elizabeth’s
policies:
- consolidation of England’s overseas possessions
through colonization of the Americas
- estates and titles were purchased (by members
of the rising middle class the bourgeoisie becomes the
gentry)
- promoted cultural projects (e.g. translation of
the Bible in 1611, staging of masques, endowment of the
Universities)
Portrait after John de
Critz, c. 1606
Charles I (1625-1649)– James’s son:
- a great patron of the arts (painting)
- extravagant lifestyle (at the Court)
- gap between Court and Country
- Reformation (the values it promoted)
- Puritanism (the middle class):
“a purer kind of Christianity […] so pure
that it would admit of no toleration, no joy, no colour,
no charity even; an austere religion which frowned on
easy pleasure and punished vice in the sternest way”
(Burgess 103). Intense theological controversy
(nearly half of the books published 1600 – 1640 were
on religious topics)
Portrait by Anthony van Dyck, c. 1635
- Charles I (continued):
- 1642: Civil War Charles I beheaded England declared a republic

The beheading of
King Charles I Oliver Cromwell
(January 30, 1649)

- The Interregnum (1649-1660):

- England ruled by Parliament (with Oliver Cromwell as
Lord Protector)
- the closing of all playhouses
- religious poetry, political and theological tracts
- severe restrictions of civil liberties
- the “rising star” of the age = John Milton
The Restoration (1660-1688):
◆ Charles II (1660-1685)
– quietly Catholic, extravagant tastes, loose morals
◆ James II (1685-88)
– Charles II’s brother, openly Catholic

- political and religious tension continued between king and

Parliament
- anxiety about succession (King Charles II did not have
legitimate children)
- emergence of the great political parties: the Tories and the
Whigs
- James II is forced into exile and succeeded by William and
Mary (James II’s daughter) of Orange – the “Glorious Revolution”
a new political system, known as “constitutional monarchy” is
established.
Culturally, the Restoration Age was characterized by:
- unsurpassed effervescence in all areas
- emergence of a new cultural paradigm: the
Enlightenment (early)
- re-opening and modernization of theatres
- new genres and forms of entertainment (e.g. concerts,
opera, etc.)
- informal meeting places where people discuss
literature: clubs, salons, coffee-houses, chocolate-houses,
tea-gardens, etc.
- emergence of new forms of socializing
- spread of literacy
Engraving showing London coffee house, late 17th century
The Restoration (continued)
- women get access to the literary world and make their mark on
both subject matter and style (e.g. Aphra Behn – prose writer and
dramatist, pioneering novelist and one of the first female professional
writers)
- beginning of the Age of Reason: good measure in all things,
sobriety, order, grace (Neoclassicism), clear-cut distinction bet. high
and low modes of artistic expression, decorum, observance of classical
rules and of the three unities (in drama), common sense, restraint,
discipline, clarity, strength, avoidance of pedantry, etc.
- Neoclassicism: classical models are revived once more, the
principles of order, concision, elegance reign supreme (visible not only
in the arts, but in lifestyles as well, particularly after 1688, and
throughout the 18th century)
The Restoration (continued)
- change of worldview: from Christian and Aristotelian
thought (“at once physical and metaphysical”) to the
Newtonian, scientific “world-picture” – “the universe, now
heliocentric, was seen not as organic and teleological, but as
mechanical and matter-based” (Cox in Ford 3: 18-19).
- the English philosophers of the 17th century played an
important role in displacing the old worldview and
encouraging a new mode of inquiry into nature, based on the
mathematical-physical experimental method: Sir Francis Bacon
(1561-1626), Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), and John Locke
(1632-1704).

Sir Isaac Newton and his apple