English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

ENGLISH LITERATURE

From the Late

Renaissance to the Rise
of Romanticism

(17th and 18th centuries)

Ioana Mohor-Ivan

HISTORICAL and CULTURAL

AGES
 THE STUART AGE (1st half of Late
the 17th century) Renaissance

 THE CIVIL WARS(mid-17th

century) Stuart Civil Wars Commonwealth

 THE COMMONWEALTH(mid
17th century)
 THE RESTORATION(second half Neoclassicism
of the 17th century)
 THE AUGUSTAN AGE (first half
Restoration Augustan
of the 18th century)
 THE GEORGIAN AGE (second
Sensibility
half of the 18th century)
Georgian

1. Overview 1
English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Literature of the Late Renaissance

James I Cavalier verse:
& VI (r.1603- The Lyric Ben Jonson
1625) ↓ Robert Herrick

Jacobean and
Caroline poetry Metaphysical
verse:
Charles I John Donne
(r.1625-1649) Andrew Marvell

The Civil Wars Theatres are John Milton: early

(1642-1649) closed and pastoral works

The Civic and Utilitarian John Milton:

Commonwealth writing (verse + propagandistic
(1649-1660) prose) works
Oliver Cromwell

Restoration Literature
Charles II Beginnings of Milton’s epic poems
(r. 1660-1685) Neoclacissism
↓ John Dryden:
The Restoration commendatory verse
 the lyric declines Verse satires
James II
in favour of the Literary criticism
(r. 1685-1688)
formal verse satire
theatres reopen
The “Glorious
Revolution” prose gradually Restoration drama:
grows in popularity  heroic tragedies:
William and Mary
of Orange Thomas Otway
The comedy-of-
(r. 1689-1702)
manners:
George Etherege
William Wycherley
William Congreve
Aphra Behn

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English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Neoclassicism and Augustan Literature

Queen Anne Peak of Verse: Alexander
(r. 1702-1714) Neoclacissism Pope
Last Stuart  satire
↓
monarch Art is pragmatic,
 the essay

and man is its most

appropriate subject Prose writings:
 the periodical essay
George I of •Literature (both - John Addison and
Hanover verse and prose) Richard Steele:
(r. 1714 - 1727) reaches out to a
 the satire: Jonathan
wider circle of
Swift
readers

•The novel emerges The Novel:

George II as a genre in its own  Daniel Defoe;
(r. 1727 – 1760) Samuel Richardson;

Henry Fielding.

Laurence Sterne*

Literature in the Age of Sensibility

Neoclassicism begins to wane, The Novel:
while the cult of sensibility (emphasis  Oliver Goldsmith
on feelings and emotions) comes to Horace Walpole
the forefront. Ann Radcliffe

↓ Mary Shelley

Prose: the emergence of the Maria Edgeworth

sentimental novel, the gothic novel, Walter Scott

the regional novel and the novel of Fanny Burney
George III domestic life; Jane Austen

(r. 1760 – 1820) Poetry: the emergence of

graveyard poetry, regional poetry, Poetry:
and proto-romantic poetry.  Thomas Gray

 Robert Burns
 William Blake

1. Overview 3
English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Bibliography
 Primary:
 Ioana Mohor-Ivan, English Literature in the 17th and 18th Centuries: Texts,
Contexts and Critical Readings, Galati University Press, Galati, 2011.
 Ioana Mohor-Ivan, English Literature: from the Late Renaissance to the Rise of
Romanticism, Lecture notes, D.I.D.F.R., Universitatea “Dunarea de Jos”, Galati, 2006.
 Ioana Mohor-Ivan, From Theory to Text: Criticism, Critics and Readings of Late
Renaissance to Romantic English Literature, Editura Evrika, Braila, 2002.

 Secondary:
 M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 6th edition, Holt, Rhineheart, Winston,
New York, 2002.
 Brackett, Virginia, British Poetry: 17th and 18th Centuries, Facts on File, New York,
2008.
 Ronald Carter and John McRae, The Routledge History of Literature in English,
Routledge, London and New York, 1997.
 The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol.1, 5th edition, W. W. Norton &
Company, 1986.
 Ian Ousby (ed.), The Wordsworth Companion to Literature in English, Wordsworth
Editions Ltd., Hare, 1994.
 Andrew Sanders, The Short Oxford History of English Literature, Clarendon Press,
London, 1994.
 Stephen N. Zwicker (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to English Literature: 1650-
1740, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.
 Wall, Cynthia (ed.), A Concise Companion to the Restoration and the Eighteenth
Century, Blackwell, Oxford, 2005.

EVALUATION
A. Individual portfolio (6 topics) – 60%

B. Final test - 30%

C. Ex officio – 10%

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English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Individual Portfolio
1.A. The Lyric Mode during the 17th century: Cavalier vs.
Metaphysical poetry
B. Illustrate its characteristics through a comparative analysis of
two texts (open choice from Cavalier and Metaphysical poems).

2.A. John Milton: from lyric poetry to the epic.

B. Compare and contrast one poem illustrative for Milton’s pre-
Restoration verse with one of his epic poems.

3.A. Neoclassical Satire: John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Jonathan

Swift
B. Compare and contrast two texts representative for the genre,
one belonging to the Restoration, the other to the Augustan age
(open choice).

Individual Portfolio
4. A. Restoration Drama: the heroic tragedy vs. the comedy-of manners.
B. Illustrate the differences between the two by comparing and contrasting
two plays of your own choice.

5.A. The Rise of the 18th – century English Novel and its Pioneers (Defoe,
Richardson, Fielding, Sterne)
B. Illustrate the difference in themes, narrative techniques and point-of-
view between two of the above-mentioned authors through textual
analysis (open choice).

6.A. Varieties of novel writing in the Age of Sensibility: the sentimental

novel, the Gothic novel, the regional novel, the domestic novel
B. Choose two types of novels and illustrate the difference in themes,
narrative techniques and point-of-view through textual analysis (open
choice).

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English Literature (17th and 18th centuries) Ioana Mohor-Ivan

Sample test questions

 Which of the following literary names is
not connected to the English
Renaissance?
A. John Donne
B. T.S. Eliot
C. William Shakespeare
D. John Milton

 Should Jonathan Swift's Gulliver Travels

be considered a novel, or not? Argument.
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Good Luck!

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