UNIT 1: LITERATURE OF EARLY 17TH CENTURY

context
·POLITICS:
17th Century England was a tumultuous time, can be divided in two phases:
-Early 17th century (1603-1660)
-Later 17th century, restoration period (1660-1714)
-Queen Elizabeth died in 1603, Tudors came to an end
-Civil war in 1642-1649
-period of puritanism republic until 1660, crown of stuarts onwards
-Glorious revolution in 1688, bloodless compromise between monarchy and parliament.
-Bill of Rights in 1689, most important document of english history
-Death of queen anne in 1714, end to the stuarts

·POPULATION AND RELIGION:

-At the beginning of the 17th century, most people lived in the country side, later people
started moving to cities like london.
-Basis structure of society was formed by the family in a patriarchal order.
-Puritanism rose against protestants. Puritanism is more restrictive.

·LITERATURE AND THEATRE:

-During Elizabean period theatre was important with drama as its leading genre.
-WIth the arrival of puritanism, closure of theatres as it was sinful
-After puritanism. theatre came back with comedy and drama was not that important
anymore
-Little boom in poetry, reserved for closed circles of people so it was not published. Rose of
metaphysical poetry.
-The sonnet was the basic and most used form of poetry.
-Love, homoerotic elements and metaphysical stuff as main topics:

·ENGLISH LITERATURE REFLECTION ON THE 17TH CENTURY:

–17th century marked the shift from the era of faith to the era of reason. Literacy represents
this turbulency and variety of thoughts.
-The issues reformulated the roles of individuals in society: faith and social structures.
-John Donne or John Milton represent these issues writing about love, religion or political
views.

MAJOR EVENTS IN 17TH CENTURY ENGLAND

1. REFORMATION: Began in the 16th century. Difficulty combining the church and
state, people started disliking it and saw the protestant church similar to the catholic
church.
2. CHANGES IN MONARCHY AND CIVIL WAR: English civil war between
parlamentarians and royalists (parlamentarians won and beheaded the king)
3. ADVANCES IN SCIENCE: A time of exploration, expansion of science. Francis
Bacon offered his scientific reasoning as the base.
-Works from Copernicus, Galileo and Isaan Newton set the basis of how people
viewed themselves.

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 -Education was more available so art and science flourished, shift to more
individualistic society
·NICOLAS COPERNICUS
He was an astronomer from catholic canon, he developed the original model of heliocentrism

·ISAAC NEWTON
One of the greatest physicians
-Binomial theorem: sunlight is made up from all colours of the rainbow.
-Law of universal gravitation: mass atracts mass.
-Predicted that the earth is not perfectly round.

·GALILEO GALILEI
Father of modern science
-He improved the telescope
-He discovered that in fact the earth moves around the sun
-He established maths as the universal language of science.

·DR GARCIA ORTA

Physician and herbalist from portuguese renaissance
-A pioneer in tropical medicine, experimental approach in the identification and use of herbal
medicines.

·RENE DESCARTES
-French philosopher, scientist and mathematician
-Introduced scepticism as an essencial part of his scientific methot
-Eveything should be questioned until proved
-”i think. therefore i am”

·SIR FRANCIS BACON

Francis Bacon was an English philosopher and statesman. “Major prophet of the scientific
revolution”
-Method based on making systematic observation that are necessary to produce quality
facts: INDUCTION (generalise from a set of axioms)
-His method required:
-Accumulating a store of particular empirical observations
-Inductively inferring lesser axioms
-Propose the most general of notions

·LANGUAGES: MARY MCLEOD

-Mary Mcleod was a Scottish nurse
-First of the Modern Gaelic Bards
-Her first song was composed to please the children at her charge although she did not
know how to read or write
-She was expelled becaused it was not seen with good eyes for women to produce bid
songs.
-Charachteristics of her poetry:
-Use of Scottish Gaelic
-Oral tradition and musicality

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 -Use of stressed metres
-Melodious poetry
-Popular diction and versification

·METAPHYSICAL POETRY: JOHN DONNE, BEN JONSON, ROBERT HERRICK AND

GEORGE HERBERT
The arrival of renaissance and the church reformtion coincided with the florish of the
metaphysical poetry which advocated for a chenge from the elizabean conventions of poetry.
-Metaphysical poets were few in number
-These poets attempted to analyse personal and intimate experiences. The emphasis was
on the experience, things happening now so immediacy was a particular characteristic of this
kind of poetry.
-The themes were usually serious and often satirical. Religion was a constant topic because
there was uncertainty towards what is true religion.
-Poems were not aimed at a public, they were kept to a close group of people.

·STYLE
-More condensed style, it gets closer to everyday speech
-Metaphysical “wit” - Not necessarily funny or amusing, but an awareness, an application of
learning
-Metaphysical “conceit” - The use of unusual of paradoxical images between two dissimilar
things. for example spiritual qualities being compared with something phyisical. John Donne
for example compares two lovers souls with a draftman´s compass.
-Argumentative style: But often there was no relation between the start and the finish of the
poem, dramatic approach.
-The technique was less important than the content, the meaning. Often dramatic
approaches, aruptness of phrases, questions, or punctuation.

·SINCERE FEELING:
-The notion of the “i”: Also, importance to maintain the conventions of poetry and wit was
important too.

·JOHN DONNE
Considered as the most preeminent metaphysical poets
Early works about:
-Love
-Religion (one’s view on his own beliefs)
-Sharp criticism of english society (satirical way)
-Also remarkable erotic poems in his early career
-His later career focused more into a more somber and pious tone related to religion.
-He was a recurrent user of conceits that could last the whole poem, also used a lot quick
wits or paradoxes.
-his tone was iconical and cynical.
-Some examples of his work could be The Flea or The Good Morrow, although he also tried
to write letters.
-He used to write pretrarchan-style sonnets in iambic pentameters

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 ·BEN JONSON
A playmaker
He was england’s first poet laureate, is generally regarded as england’s second best
playwright after Sakespeare.
Prolific dramatist and a man of letters, now he is remembered primarily by his satirical
comedies.
He labelled himself as a poet and among other things, the originator of english literary
criticism.
His works were bold, independent and aggressive
STYLE:
-Self-concious art, he presents only what is perceived through his frosted glass of intellect.
-Shortcomings of his plays:
-Lack of feeling or sentimentality
-Not a sympathegic observer of manifold life
-Opposed to the romantic spirit of the age (though i am young)
WRITINGS:
-He wrote different types of works like plays, masques or pastorals.
-Pastorals: a literary style that presents a story which develops on rural life, the
naturalness of the rural areas are in contrast with the corruption and artificiality of urban
areas. Although pastoral works are told through the pov of shepherds, they are always
penned by sophisticated urban poets.

·ROBERT HERRICK
One of the most accomplished NON DRAMATIC POETS of his age.
The first poet to gather all his verses in a volumen
TOPICS:
-Pastoral
-Love: Ceremonial and ritualistic
-Other: Natural philosophical, supernatural, religious..
Also a bit political, naturalistic and even escatological. Death as inevitable.
Poetry becomes for him a secular religion and the sumbolic foundation of some of his work.
The opening of his collection “his confession” expresses the tension many 17th cent writers
experienced between their desire to write secular verse and their sense of obligation to their
faith.

·GEORGE HERBERT
Pivotal figure: most skilful devotional artis. He was a poet and a clergyman of the church of
england.
-Herbert’s poems are characterized by a deep religious devotion, he found freedom throguh
poetry as if god, his master, taught him.

·KATHERINE PHILIPS
One of the few female writers that were successful in the 17th century.
Known for her poems on female friendship
She founded the Society of Friendsgip
Poetic Style: Gentle and vapid

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 ·SIR FRANCIS BACON
He was one of the most important philosophers of England, father of the empiricism. His
method based on making systematic observations to produce quality facts
Scientific knowledge based from the inductive reasoning.
His most famous work is The New Atlantis.

THE NEW ATLANTIS

Unfinished utopian nobel.
The New Atlantis describes a group of sailors that get lost in the sea and stumble upon an
island called Besalmen inhabited by a perfect utopian civilization.
He presents a utopian land where generosity and enlightenment, dignity and splendour are
the basic qualities of its inhabitants.
Bacon portrayed a vision of the future human discovery and knowledge, expressing his
aspirations and ideals of humankind. Imagining how society could be if the scientific method
an technological advancements were optimized to a high standard.
The wording and sentence structure is similar to many alchemical manuscripts of the same
period, bacon imagined some achievements of modern times.
his political and scientific ideals were reflected in the work.

·UNIT 2: THE RESTORATION PERIOD

CONTEXT:
After the republic of Cromwell, period marked by the plage, the great fier of london and the
second dutch war.
LIERACY PRODUCTION:
Rich and varied production, perhaps the best known genre was the restoration comedy:
Frivolous plays reflecting the lifestyle and the morals of the nobility (satirical tone)
SATIRE:
-Criticising the previous puritan rigidity, the libertinism of the king or comments on
religious and political conflicts.
BACONIAN METHOD:
Essentially empirical method formulated by Francis Bacon. A method of observation of facts
as a means of studying phenomena.
The method consists of three main steps:
-Description of facts
-Tabulation or classification of those facts
-Rejection of what is not connected with the phenomenon under investigation.

·MARGATER CAVENDISH’S THE BLAZING WORLD

MARGARET CAVENDISH:
She was a prolific author. She published various works like poems, literacy critiques or
“observations”, works on natural philosophy.
Her nickname was the “Mad Madge”
She was a natural philosopher, (Publication of “Observation upon Experimental Philosophy”
Cavendish published an autobiography.

THE BLAZING WORLD:

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The description of a new world called the Blazing World:
Often considered as an example of proto science fiction and utopian model.
Satirical tone and can also be seen as a treatise on natural philosophy.
Initially, the story was included as an appendix to her observations, a serious scientific
publication investigating the concepts of matter and atomic composition.

STRUCTURE: The work is divided into two parts and delineates different genres like
“romantical”, “Philosophical” and “fancy” or “fantastical”, example of hybridisation.
PLOT: This is essentially a work of science fiction which presents a new world that can be
reached through the nort pole, a woman gets shipwrecked and ends up in this world where
she becomes the empress. The habitants of the Blazing World are anthropomorphized
animals.
The novel is satirical and utopian, and its importantly centered around the woman. The
blazing world is the imaginary world of Cavendish and she invites her woman readers to
creator their owns too
THEMES:
-fiction fancy or utopia
-love
-women’s freedom
-philosophy and science
-religion
EPILOGUE: Margaret cavendish writes that she wants not only to be empress but to be the
authoress of a whole world.
Her blazing world is made of Pure rational thought, he world is peaceful and unified.
She made herself the hero of her world. she encourages readers to imagine worlds of heir
own, not to just usurp hers
She concludes pledging her love to her dear platonic friend, the empress of the blazing
world.

·JOHN MILTON PARADISE LOST

JOHN MILTON: One of the greatest figures of 17th. He was a great thinker and political
theorist. He is regarded as the last epic poet of history.
His life and his writings were heavily influenced by the tumultuous times that he lived in.

PARADIES LOST: A biblical epic

Ambitious: he wrote i to rival with Homer and Virgil. The story is the same as the Genesis.
Paradise lost was written in blank verse: a long and detailed narrative poem.

The story opens in hell with satan recovering from the war, building his pandemonium.
-Satan enters the Eden, observes Adam and Eve and decides to try to tempt Eve (as she is
thought to be weaker).
-Satan disguises himself as a snake and tempts Eve to eat the fruit.
-Sin and Death sense Satan’s triumph, he builds a highway to earth and eveybody in hell is
turned into snakes as punishment .
-Archangel Michael, sent by god to expel Adam from paradise.

Main themes:

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-The connection between the biblical part and the author’s present.
-Disobedience
-Human freedom and personal responsibility
-A celebration of mutual love and gender inequality.

Stylistic features:
-Artificial diction, pollysillabic words, periphrasis, elaborate comparisons
-Marked influence of latin by the use of words and order
-Complex syntax
-Allusions to a wide variety of sources
-Frequent use of soliloquy (act of speaking one’s thouhgst aloud, regardless of any hearers,
specially in plays)
-Blank Verse.

-It is not about the downfall of Adam and Eve, it is about the clash between Satan and te
Son
-Satan’s defiance, anger definse his character which does not want to be yielded
-Milton composed the poem in order to debunk classical heroism and prais christian
heroism, exeplified by the son.
-The son is heroic because he is willing to take the humiliation, an act of selfless love
towards humankind
-The son fullfills what milton calls the “great argument” which is his hope of regeneration
after sinfullness (the son’s sacrifice)

·JOHN BUNYAN’S THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS

Celebrated writer and puritan preacher

LITERARY STYLE: Fine handling of language, both colloquial and biblical. Importance of his
treatment of human behabiour.
Gifted in the way of endowing evangelical theology in concrete life.
Rich in powerful physical imaginary - body and soul as inseparable
THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
Second bset selling book in history
This book is the main example of the puritan religious outlook
It offers a special christian allegory, an allegory for the trials of christian’s journey from the
city of destruction to the celestial city.
Main themes were the salvation and individual belief.

·APHRA BEHN’s OROONOKO

Restoration novelist. First English woman to make her living as a writer
She wrote nobels,short stories, poems and plays despite the criticism against female writers,
most of her work was published anonymously
She served as a role model for other female writers.

OROONOKO:
Some conside oroonoko as a cultural hybrid, bending genres of “mythology, reportage,
travelogue and memoir”

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Elaborate and brutal portrayal of the enslaved world. She establishes herself as the main
narrator and wirtes in third person pov.
-Literary device: “claim of truth” to create credibility regarding the characters and events.
-Allusion to popular travel narratives, what she writes is a true account of real life events.
-Conscious effort to counter the forces of male prejudice against women’s writing

Appropiation of pre-existing literary forms to enhance the accessibility of the novel (for
example the portrayal of Oroonoko’s character as a “noble savage” foreshadowing his heroic
destiny)
Emplyement of symbolism to explore the themes of love and sex
Main themes:
-Racism
-Freedom
-Slavery
-Love
-Loyalty
-Trust
-Importance of the historical context/ background

·UNIT 3 THE LITERATURE OF THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD. DEVELOPMENT OF SATIRE,

JOURNALS, MAGAZINES AND THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

The augustan age is characterized by satire novels, poems and plays, it spanned on the
18th century, dated to the deaths of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift (1744/1745)
Some people call it the neoclassical age, or age of the reason.
The licensing act mandated that every play had to be escrutined before performed, some
plays were banned as a result.
Major writers:
-Alexander Pope, John Dryden (poetry)
-Jonathan Swift, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe (Prose)
CHARACTERISTICS:
-High availability due to printed materials
-Politics and social issues in a satire and irony tone due to political tendency
-Belief: literature must follow nature, refering to human nature
-Form of poetry:
-Heroic couplet: Heroic couplets are pairs of lines with the same end rhyme, almost
always written in iambic pentameter. That means that each line has ten total syllables with stress
on every other syllable
-Poetic diction: term to refer to the linguistic style and vocabulary in the writing of
poetry.

·ANNE FINCH
English poet and courtier, the major female poet of her lifetime
She was a maid of honour, in her job she met her husband and had a happy marriage, in her
earlier work she dedicated poems to her husband under pseudonyms. She wrote about the
guiding conventions of the poetry of her times but often expanded on other poetic traditions
of other times. She experimented with rhyme and metre and imitated several popular
genres.

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In the majority of her works she records her private thoughts and personal struggles
addressing a variety of topics like melancholy marriage, love, female rights… Her poems
often open with classical references.
The Sleen, important poem from her (pindaric poem: poem written in classical style)
And the introduction of her miscellany poems, this was not published with the collection
because of fear of condemnation. she wrote about the frustrations of a women poet by the
restrictions imposed to her.

·MARIE DELARIVIER THE NEW ATALANTIS

She gained recognition by portraying scandals in the form of romances, she was a prolific
political journalist.

THE NEW ATALANTIS was disguised autobiography, she critizised the society by writing a
dystopia. She uses an allegorical style telling scandalous stories with recognizable personas
but with names and circumstances changed. she got arrested but because the names were
different she said that it was fiction so she got free.

·ALEXANDER POPE THE RAPE OF THE LOCK

te quiero :)

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