SAHITYA CLASSES 1.

JACOBEAN
TO
RESTORATION
(1600-1700)

(AUTHORS IN DETAIL)
SAHITYA CLASSES 3.
CONTENTS
The Seventeenth Century
 Political Upheaval
 Puritanism
 Restoration England
 The Glorious Revolution
 French Cultural Influence
 Literary Developments
 Puritans and the Theatre

Early Dramatists of the Age

 Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
 Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)
 Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)
 Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625)
 Cyril Tourner ( 1575- 1625) and John Webster (1578-1638)
 Philip Massinger (1583-1640)
 James Shirley(1596-1666)
 John Ford (1586-1639)

Prose in the 16th and 17th Centuries

 Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
 Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
 Andrew Marwell (1621-1678)
 John Donne (1572-1631)
 Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667)
 Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
 Izzak Walton (1593-1683)
 John Bunyan (1628-1688)

Metaphysical poetry
 John Donne
 Andrew Marwell
 George Herbert
 Henry Vaugham

Comedy of Manners
Cavalier Poets:
 George Wither (1588-1667)
 Sir John Suckling (1609-1641)
 Richard Lovelace (1617-1657)
 Edmund Waller (1606-1674)
SAHITYA CLASSES 4.
John Milton (1608-1674) : His Life and works
 Paradise lost: The Epic
 The structure of Paradise Lost
 The Figure of Satan
 Milton‘s Style in Paradise Lost

Neoclassical Age (Age of Reason/Enlightenment)

 The Restoration Age (1660-1700)
 The Augustan Age (1700-1750)
 The Age of Johnson(1750-1798),

MONARCHIES
Charles II (Reign 1660-1685)
o Whigs and Tories

James II (Reign 1685-1688)

William and Mary (Reign 1689-1702)

Literary Activity of the period
 Heroic drama
 Comedy of manners (restoration comedy)

Restoration dramatists
 John Dryden
 Sir George Etherege
 Sir Charles Sedley
 William Wycherley
 William Congreve
 John Vanburgh
 George Farquhar
 Colley Cibber
 Thomas Ottaway
 Nathaniel Lee
 Thomas Shadwell
 AphraBehn

SENTIMENTAL COMEDY
 Neo-classical poetry
 Verse satirists of the neoclassical period

John Dryden (1631-1700)

SAHITYA CLASSES 5.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
(1625-1700)
This is a very curious period, but many English historians and literary scholars prefer
this age to any other. During most of it, England (and Scotland, which now shared the same
monarchy) steered a rather eccentric course in both her political and her literary life. It was a
time when the English were out on their own, just going their own way.

Political Upheaval
The English nowadays are considered a quiet, easygoing people, not given to
fanaticism and violence. But in this period they horrified the rest of Europe. In the middle of
it, they not only rebelled against Charles I (1625-49), their rightful sovereign, but they then
imprisoned and finally executed him. Charles had inherited from his father, James I, the
medieval idea of the "divine right" of the kings, which assumed that a country was the
personal possession of the monarch, who enjoyed a kind of direct lease from Heaven. But by
the time Charles I came to the throne, religious, political, economic ideas and developments
were rising in a strong tide against this ancient notion. Thus Parliament refused to regard
itself as a mere fund-granting institution, to which the monarchy could apply when more
money was needed and then ignore. The people in general might still be royalist in sentiment,
but there were powerful factions, usually devoted to religious sects outside the established
Church, which were strongly republican. This division, which split the country during the
Civil War, was finally healed in a rather characteristic English fashion by retaining the
monarchy, to please public sentiment, but at the same time considerably increasing the power
of Parliament. The end result was the "constitutional monarchy," which on the whole has
worked well. The first step toward it was taken in the bloodless "Glorious Revolution,"
when the people, disliking James II (1685-88), a militant Catholic in what was now a
Protestant country, got rid of him and invited a Dutch prince, William of Orange (1689-
1702), who had married James's daughter Mary, to take the crown. But William did not
ascend the throne on the same terms as those under which James and other Stuarts had ruled,
for now the monarchy was a constitutional one, as it has been ever since. This means,
broadly speaking, that the monarch reigns but does not rule, that real political power belongs
not to the Crown but to Parliament.
The Civil War, which began in 1642, was a war between Charles I and these who
sided with him, mostly landowners and country folk, and the Parliament forces, drawn
mostly from London and the larger towns. It was a war between Cavaliers, long-haired, gay,
and reckless, and crop-headed, grimly determined Puritans, or Roundheads, as they were
called. Victory went to Parliament in the end because it found in Oliver Cromwell a military
leader of genius, whose New Model Army, known as "Ironsides," was probably the finest in
Europe.
Calling himself the Protector, Thomas Cromwell (1653-58), ruling with the help of
his major-generals, became in fact a dictator. He was extremely able and very soon raised the
prestige of England abroad. But his Protectorate was unpopular with most of the English,
who found Cromwell's rule harsher than the Stuarts' and whose idea of amusement was not
psalm-singing and listening to very long sermons. The people were delighted when the
monarchy was restored in 1660.

Puritanism
Cromwell's triumph was really the triumph of Puritanism, the last it enjoyed on any
great political scale in England. Serious and austere Christian believers, the Puritans, so
SAHITYA CLASSES 6.
called because of their desire to purify their religion of the formal ceremonies practiced in the
Church of England, wanted the freedom to follow their own consciences in matters of
religious observance and the conduct of life. (For this very reason, just prior to Cromwell's
time, some Puritans left their homes in England and settled in New England.) Though
Puritanism was never again as strong a political force as during Cromwell's rule, it is a
mistake to imagine that it vanished from the English scene after the Restoration of 1660.
The original Puritans were very different from their nineteenth-century descendants.
They were deeply religious, in a stern Old Testament style, but they condemned the church,
the priesthood, and all ritualistic forms of worship, just as they also denounced playgoing,
singing (except psalm-singing), dancing, and all popular amusements and pastimes.

Restoration England
The restoration of the monarchy brought about many important changes, and to
understand these we have to know something about the king himself, Charles II (1660-85).
He was the eldest son of the unhappy Charles I. Never were a father and son more unlike
each other than these two. If the father had too much dignity and self-importance, his son
had, if anything, too little. Tall, very swarthy, lazy, and dissipated, Charles II had great
personal charm and plenty of intelligence but not much conscience. His contemporaries
declared that "he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one." This is unjust. He
did many wise things, though he was anything but a dutiful, conscientious monarch, for he
wasted money on trifles, secretly accepted a pension from Louis XIV, and, in spite of his oath
to reign as a Protestant, was probably always at heart a Catholic. But he was not a bigoted
one, like his brother, afterwards James II.
During the reign of Charles II, the greatest European power was France, where the
despotic if magnificent Louis XIV ruled from his new palace at Versailles. During his long
period of exile, Charles had lived in France. French influence in manners, literature, and the
arts was now irresistible. The Restoration brought England out of its comparative isolation
into a European orbit dominated by France, and what was fashionable in Paris soon became
fashionable in London. French classical style and manner were imitated in spite of the fact
that London not long after the Restoration had terrible troubles entirely her own—namely,
the Plague (1665) and the Great Fire (1666). The latter devastated the old city, which was
then rebuilt under the direction of the famous architect Christopher Wren.
For all his indolence and frivolity, Charles II was interested in ideas, and he lived in
the right time and place in which to discover them. During Charles's reign, Francis Bacon's
idea of a society composed of men of letters and men of science became a reality in the
formation of the Royal Society of London. This Society, composed of distinguished
philosophers, scientists, and men of many other branches of scholarship, was founded in
London in 1662 under the direct patronage of Charles II and still exists today. Samuel Pepys
(1633-1703), secretary of the Navy, was one of the early presidents of the Royal Society.
It is from this same Samuel Pepys that we know a great deal about the intimate life of
London in this time. From his completely candid diary, which he wrote in secret shorthand
and never intended to be published, Pepys shows us the London of the Plague and the Great
Fire. The same London was also the home of the new scientific theories, experiments, and
philosophical ideas: the city of the great Isaac Newton (1642-1727), the mathematician and
astronomer; of William Harvey (1578-1657), who discovered the circulation of the blood; of
John Locke (1632-1704), whose Essay Concerning Human Understanding described our
mental processes and whose influence on the eighteenth century was enormous. The new
scientific and rational age came into existence in the London of Charles II.
SAHITYA CLASSES 7.
The Glorious Revolution
In 1688 James II, the Catholic brother and successor to Charles II, had to flee
England, and his daughter Mary and her husband William, ruler of Holland, jointly took the
crown, reigning as the first constitutional monarchs, which meant that their power was
severely limited. The coming of William and Mary was called the "Glorious Revolution"
and was celebrated as such, quite justly too, because a complete and extremely important
change had been made. The whole system of government had been reversed without violence
and bloodshed. From now on, the English learned that quiet revolutions are possible and that
important political changes need not be violent and murderous. The joint reign of William
and Mary helped to create a New England.

French Cultural Influence

What the reign of William and Mary chiefly did was to put England squarely into the
general European scene. William himself was the leading Protestant challenger of Louis
XIV, easily the most powerful monarch in Europe and himself a militant Catholic. A little
later, England, making full use of the military genius of the Duke of Marlborough (1650-
1722), was able to attack and defeat the armies of Louis time after time. England won the
war, and her new position on the European scene put England even more than before under
the social, cultural, and literary influence of France. The French classical style and manners
of Versailles were imitated in England, but there was always some difference, just because
the English like to have at least something of their own way.
So the English poets, at the end of the century, were not exactly like the French poets.
They obeyed some of the same rules, but not all. The dramatists, especially in tragedy, now
kept one eye on the French, but not both eyes. And indeed in comedy, though the French
(such as Moliere) were masters of the form, the English went very much their own way. And
they began telling stories in their own way, chiefly in a sober, realistic way, of which the
master, soon to be discovered, was Daniel Defoe (1660 -1731). John Dryden (1631-1700), a
kind of literary dictator, accepted much of what was dictated at Versailles and in Paris, but he
too contrived to keep his essential Englishness. And in science and philosophy it was Paris
that began to learn from London. Charles II did not found his Royal Society in vain.

Literary Developments
Altogether this is a very interesting period, not all of apiece as some other periods are,
not confined to one great high road of thought and feeling, but breaking out, almost bursting,
in many different directions. It is as if the instability and turbulence of the political scene set
men thinking, feeling, and writing in widely different ways. There was no typical
seventeenth-century outlook. Milton, the solemn Puritan, was a seventeenth-century poet; so
was Robert Herrick (1591-1674), who wrote gay poems to pretty girls. They shared only
the time in which they lived.
Because of the sharp political division of England into Puritans and Cavaliers, it
might be expected that the writers of this period can be placed in parallel classifications.
However, any strict division into Puritan writers and Cavalier writers ignores many
differentiations and considerable cross-pollination. It is fairly easy to label men like Robert
Herrick, Richard Lovelace (1618-1658), and John Suckling (1609-1642) as men who
wrote "Cavalier" verse, gay, devil-may-care poetry extolling the transient pleasures of love,
youth, happiness, and beauty. But with many other writers any such specialized categories
break down. George Wither (1588-1667), for example, wrote Elizabethan pastorals and
lyrics and later fervent Puritan hymns and political tracts. This kind of diversity, as well as
the influence of various literary styles, was characteristic of many another writer of the day.
SAHITYA CLASSES 8.
The seventeenth-century poet who created the most compelling new style was John
Donne (1572-1631), the earliest and greatest of the metaphysical poets. Donne was brought
up as a Roman Catholic but later joined the Church of England and finally became Dean of
St. Paul's. His sermons, often delivered in magnificent prose, were very popular, and certain
passages from them are still frequently quoted. But it is as a poet that he has had strongest
influence, first during the seventeenth century and then, after a long period of almost
complete neglect, on the poetry that followed immediately after World War I. Modern poets
turned to Donne because he is both highly intellectual and impassioned and uses imagery in
the modern manner, as if it were a kind of inspired shorthand. His chief weaknesses, which
may be found in all his followers, are obscurity and a rather crabbed unmusical manner, song
becoming argument.
Men of this age went to extremes, and even literary forms were quick to change and
develop during the seventeenth century. Prose writing offers us a particularly good example
of this change and development. It moved in two different directions, though not quite at the
same time. The earlier development found in Milton's prose or in the sermons of eloquent
preachers like Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) and Sir Thomas Browne (1606-1682), produced
writing of increasing complexity, in which sentences branched out into dozens of relative
clauses. It is prose quite unlike ordinary speech, elaborate in its structure, poetical in its
richness of imagery, its tremendous sentences gleaming and glittering with images, like
Christmas trees covered with glass ornaments and candles. The very richest English prose
belongs to the seventeenth century.
The later development, taking place during the last twenty years of the century was
quite different, for instead of moving away from ordinary speech the new prose style began to
reproduce much of the manner and rhythm of the best talk of the time. John Dryden, though
primarily a poet, was an original master of this new kind of prose, and his exquisite perfection
in it was really a greater achievement than anything he wrote in verse. The charm of Dryden's
prose comes from the fact that, while it seems to have the manner and rhythm of good talk, it
has not entirely broken with the more poetical past and its bright imagery. Much earlier,
Bacon in his essays had hammered out for himself a prose that suited him, but it is stiff and
heavy compared with Dryden's prose, which dances and sparkles like the finest talk.
Late in the century, dramatists, the creators of Restoration comedy, brought to the
theater a similar prose style. The Restoration Theater was very different from the
Elizabethan theater, the remnants of which the victorious Puritans had closed in about 1641.
It is easy, however, to make too much out of this closing of the playhouses. The glorious
popular theater of the Elizabethans had disappeared years before the Puritans took action.
The age of dramatic masterpieces had gone, and most of the popular enthusiasm had gone
with it. The playhouses that were closed already existed only in a kind of twilight. It was a
drama in its decadence that was forbidden to the public and "bootlegged" through secret
private performances in large country houses.
The Restoration Theater was a theater for the court, the nobility, the ladies and
gentlemen of fashion. Women's roles, formerly played by boys, were now played by
actresses, like the famous Nell Gwyn. Both the auditorium and the stage, quite unlike those
of the Elizabethan playhouses, followed French and Italian models; and it was here, with a
few differences that the modern theater began. That wonderful old stage on which the action
of Shakespearean drama passed so swiftly and imaginatively was seen no more.
Among the creators of Restoration comedy, the master stylist was undoubtedly
William Congreve (1670-1729), who wrote his comedies while he was still in his twenties
and then gave up writing altogether. In other than stylistic respects Congreve was inferior to
others in this group, notably William Wycherley (1640?-1716) and later George Farquhar
SAHITYA CLASSES 9.
(1678-1707), for he was not as good as they in contriving acceptable plots and amusing
situations. But at his best, in The Way of the World (1700), which is still often played in the
English theater, his dialogue is enchanting, wonderful prose for actors and actresses to speak.
It is, of course, meant for the ear and not the eye, to be heard and not silently read, but this is
true of all good English prose whether it is as solemn and stately as the Bible or Milton, or as
witty and frivolous as the dialogue of Congreve.

METAPHYSICAL POETS
JOHN DONNE

John Donne's reputation as a poet has risen and fallen and risen again to a startling
degree. A fairly prolific poet, his work may be said to represent two very different attitudes.
In his youth wild, worldly, and cynical, Donne wrote "harsh" love lyrics that won him an
immediate circle of admirers. Then, as he grew older and turned toward religion, Donne
devoted himself to philosophical and spiritual writing.
Born to a wealthy and distinguished family strong in the Roman Catholic faith,
Donne traveled, studied law, theology, and medicine, and—a brilliant, dashing. and
handsome young man—enjoyed the life of Elizabethan London. Later. disenchanted by a
worldly life, after an inner religious struggle, he became a member of the Church of England.
His advancement in government service was halted when his secret marriage to the sixteen-
year-old Anne More roused her powerful and influential family to such fury that Donne's
career was firmly blocked and he was even put in jail. During years of obscurity and soul-
searching, Donne moved steadily toward service in the church and, at the age of forty-three,
was ordained a priest. Before long, he became famous as an eloquent preacher and
outstanding churchman. In the final period of his life, after being made Dean of St. Paul's
Cathedral, he composed religious poetry and magnificent sermons which stand among the
masterpieces of English prose. Since he could not publish his love poetry as an ecclesiastic, it
was only after his death that the world learned of his wide-ranging genius.
The somber splendors of Donne's style broke every rule, and he was dismissed—
Though with respect—as an eccentric. It was not until the 1920's that a revolution in taste,
developed by T. S. Eliot and other poets and critics, set Donne once again at the height of
fashion.
Donne is very much a personal writer. Donne was a master of rare intensity who
expressed himself in words which flash like separate sparks even when they refuse to cohere
into a steady fire. He was, moreover, a sensitive exponent of the dilemma of modern man,
pulled one way by a frank acceptance of human weakness and another by an unsatisfied need
for spiritual certainties.

Meditation XVII
"Meditation XVII" is one of a number of short pieces for which Donne took notes
in 1623 while recovering from a serious illness. The following year he published these
thoughts in his book, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions. Donne's own translation of the
Latin motto with which he prefaced "Meditation XVII" is "Now, this bell tolling softly for
SAHITYA CLASSES 10.

another, says to me, Thou must die." Here, in Donne's prose, is the same, individuality that is
revealed in his poetry.

ANDREW MARVELL (1621-1678)

Like so many of his contemporaries, Andrew Marvell led two lives—one as writer
and one as public servant. Recognized during his lifetime as a highly able statesman, if he
was considered as a writer at all it was as a writer of prose, for in connection with his broad
interest in practical affairs, in problems of corruption and injustice, he wrote considerably on
both political and ecclesiastical subjects. Throughout his life he did indeed produce much
more prose than poetry. To twentieth-century critics, however, Marvell's prose is far
outranked by his superb lyric poetry.
The son of a clergyman, Marvell was educated at Cambridge University, after which
he traveled widely on the Continent for a number of years, especially in Holland, France,
Italy, and Spain. The languages he learned in these countries, plus his knowledge of Greek
and Latin, equipped him admirably for his future endeavors.
During the Civil War, Marvell served as tutor at the country estate of one of
Cromwell's leading supporters. Here, with lovely natural surroundings providing him with an
abundant source of inspiration, Marvell wrote some of his best poetry on the beauties of
nature. A second tutoring post followed, this time as teacher of a ward of Oliver Cromwell
himself. It was during this period that Marvell became acquainted with a man who had made
several trips to the Bermudas, which, in the early seventeenth century were settled by
religious dissenters from England. The inspiration for "Bermudas" is attributed to this
association..At the age of thirty-six, Marvell began governmental service as Assistant Secre-
tary of Foreign Tongues, a post in which he served as assistant to John Milton, Cromwell's
Latin Secretary. Shortly afterward, he was elected to Richard Cromwell's Parliament, and he
served as a Member of Parliament for the remainder of his life. That his support of Cromwell
and the Commonwealth—and, after the Restoration, his writing of political satires and
pamphlets—apparently had no adverse effect on his political career bears witness to the great
respect in which Marvell was held by both parties.
Despite his active public life, Marvell's fame today rests on his poetry, which was
influenced by both Jonson and Donne. The deep appreciation of the beauties of the natural
world and the graceful style evident in Marvell's lyrics mark their author as one of the most
distinguished and highly gifted poets of the seventeenth century and one of the great English
masters of lyric poetry.
To His Coy Mistress is one of the finest poems of the poet and is best regarded as the
carpedium poem. The speaker of the poem starts by addressing a woman who has been slow
and shy to respond to his sexual advances

SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY LYRIC POETRY

English poetry of the seventeenth century is among the richest and most various.
'Although we cannot describe the great outpouring of verse in this period as belonging to
formal "schools," we can speak of different styles of poetry which were current at this time.
There were three of these. It must be emphasized, however, that each writer, though
influenced by one style or another, or by a combination of styles, usually followed his own
particular bent.
Most traditional of the seventeenth-century poets were those who emulated the
elaborate style of Edmund Spenser, who, apart from Shakespeare, was the most important
SAHITYA CLASSES 11.

poet of the Elizabethan Age. The work of men like George Wither and Michael Drayton,
who continued to turn out sonnets, pastoral poetry, epics, and verse narratives which were
popular in Elizabethan days, typified this style of seventeenth-century poetry. Inspired by
Spenser's masterpiece The Faerie Queen, others also tried their hand at epics, but it wasn't
until John Milton produced Paradise Lost I (1667) that a worthy, though not similar,
successor to Spenser's great epic appeared.
The other two styles of seventeenth-century poetry represent reactions against
Spenser's style. One of these styles was influenced by the poetry of Ben Jonson, the other by
that of John Donne. Ben Jonson, cutting through the elaborateness of conventional
Elizabethan poetry, took as his guide ancient Greek and Roman poetry, which he admired for
its directness of expression, its precision, balance, and restraint. Jonson's wit and classical
learning inspired the group of younger poets who liked to call themselves "sons of Ben" (see
page 184). The most notable of these were Robert Herrick, John Suckling, and Richard
Lovelace, the best-known "Cavalier" poets. In the poetry of Suckling and Lovelace, as in
that of Edmund Waller, the influence of Jonson's classicism is seen combined with touches of
John Donne.
Like Jonson, Donne rebelled against the techniques and subject matter of Elizabethan
poetry. Unlike Jonson, he moved away from smooth and polished verse and, often in
irregular meter and unusual verse forms, wrote intense, dramatic, and frequently complex
and difficult verse, in which he explored a great variety of emotional, intellectual, and
spiritual experience. Alternately witty, ironic, philosophical, or mystical, Donne was also
often purposely abrupt and colloquial and used unusual metaphors which were totally lacking
in the proprieties of traditional Elizabethan verse. All of these characteristics prompted John
Dryden later in the century to refer to Donne as a "metaphysical" poet. Donne was the first
and greatest of these. George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Andrew Marvell are among
the most important of his followers. Each of these younger poets, though strongly influenced
by Donne's approach to poetry, nevertheless developed his own highly personal attitude and
mode of expression. From Marvell came a rich combination of Johnsonian polish and the
verbal ingenuity of the metaphysical tradition; from Herbert and Vaughan and others of
Donne's general religious persuasion came some of the most profound devotional poetry in
our language.

George Wither
George Wither (1588-1667) is remembered today as a writer of clear and sparkling
pastoral poetry. His uncompromising character is evident both in his politics and in his
poetry: his politics moved him from Royalist to Puritan; his poetry defied the age by harking
back to Elizabethan traditions. Wither's well-to-do family sent him to Oxford and then to
London for legal training, but he never practiced law. He wrote poetry which was extremely
popular in spite of its unfashionable pastoral content, and satirical political pamphlets which
soon landed him in prison. The period of his best lyric writing ended in 1622 with the pub-
lication of Fair Virtue, the Mistress of Phil-arête, which includes "Shall I, Wasting in
Despair." Thereafter Wither's growing immersion in Puritanism seemed to stifle his gift for
poetry. In 1642 he sold his estate to raise a cavalry troop for Oliver Cromwell. Captured by
the Royalists, he was saved from death only by the intervention of Sir John Denham, who
claimed he saved Wither so that he himself would not be considered the worst poet in
England! Not long after the Civil War, Wither's forthrightness again caused him trouble. This
time he lost his appointment under Cromwell "by declaring unto him [Cromwell] those truths
which he was not willing to hear of." After the Restoration, Wither's pamphleteering resulted
in another prison term, this time for three years. His poetic reputation waned during his
SAHITYA CLASSES 12.

lifetime only to be revived by Charles Lamb and others who admired the "virile lyricism" of
his early poetry.

Sir John Suckling

The most elegant and dashing young gentleman at the court of Charles I, Sir John
Suckling (1609-1642), who inherited a fortune at eighteen and was knighted at twenty-one,
passed his short life as the archetype of the beau Cavalier. He spent his fortune liberally in
the king's service and in the extravagant pursuits of courtly life. A celebrated gambler as well
as a noted gambler, he is said to have invented cribbage and to have spent a fortune
producing his play Aglaura, which contains the delightful song below. Suckling also spent a
fortune lavishly outfitting a cavalry troop which rode out to battle for King Charles in brave
scarlet and white. Another political adventure forced him into exile in Paris where, his career
as a courtier ended and his fortune melted away. Suckling died, most likely by his own hand.
Suckling was a brilliant but casual artist who achieved his measure of literary
immortality as a unique master of the light lyric. Admired by his contemporaries as well as
by the eighteenth-century dramatist William Congreve, he is still thought of as,-in
Congreve's words, "natural, easy Suckling."

Richard Lovelace
Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) is a paragon of superlatives. He has been called the
most romantic figure of English literature, the best-known Cavalier poet, the most gallant and
handsome man of his time. Born to a wealthy family and to a military tradition, he stood out
even in his youth as a courtly gentleman and a gifted amateur of both music and painting.
From his mid-twenties, his life was crowded with events and action: inheriting the huge
family fortune, writing poetry,- serving as a Cavalier during the Civil War, both in court and
on the battlefield. Petitioning Parliament to restore the rights of Charles 1 cost him a sentence
in a Puritan prison. After his release he fought in Holland for the French king and, upon his
return to England, was again imprisoned. There he gathered and revised his poems, which
were later published under the title Lucasta. His short life ended in poverty.
Lovelace is remembered especially for two lyrics—"To Althea, from Prison" and
"To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars." His work shows the influences of both Jonson and
Donne, and he is often compared to his friend John Suckling. Lovelace is fully as graceful as
Suckling, but graver, more serious in his attitude. His airy lyrics express perfectly the best of
the Cavalier manner and spirit.

Edmund Waller
Once admired as the greatest English lyric poet, Edmund Waller (1606-1687) is
remembered today for a small bouquet of lyrics and for his early work with the heroic
couplet form which Dryden, Pope, and other early eighteenth-century poets perfected as a
medium of brilliant satirical comment. Born to wealth, Waller was said to have been "nursed
in parliaments." At sixteen he served under the first Stuart king, James I, and more than
sixty years later he served, a highly respected member, under the fourth and last Stuart king,
James II. In between, Waller's political fortunes—and his political course— fluctuated
erratically. As a Royalist, he represented the Puritans in dealings with Charles I. For his part
in a violent Royalist plot against the Puritans, Waller was sentenced to death, but his sentence
was ultimately commuted to a fine and exile. His wit saved him on more than one occasion.
Pardoned after eight years, Waller returned to England and wrote his "panegyric" to
Cromwell; after the Stuart restoration in 1660, he wrote "Upon His Majesty's Happy Return."
When Charles II asked why that poem was inferior to the one he had written for Cromwell,
Waller replied, "Sire, we poets never succeed so well in writing truth as in fiction."
SAHITYA CLASSES 13.

As a poet, Waller established an instant reputation with his first book, but today only
a few of his works—graceful lyrics like "Go, Lovely Rose"—are admired. Still, Waller's
reputation as a leading formalizer of English poetic style is secure. Dryden wrote of him,
"Unless he had written, none of us could write."

Go, Lovely Rose!

Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.

George Herbert
George Herbert (1593-1633) was, after Donne the most important of the metaphysical
poets. Born to wealthy aristocracy and educated at Cambridge, he was attracted for a time to
the sophisticated, elegant life at court, but the death of James I ended his hope for political
advancement. Herbert, who numbered among his friends John Donne and Sir Francis Bacon,
shortly thereafter settled down to the outwardly quiet life of a country parson and soon gained
a reputation as a model clergyman. At Cambridge he had been an outstanding orator, and, as a
preacher, his eloquence was so great that, on hearing the bell toll, farmers would leave the
plow in the furrow to hasten to church.
Herbert wrote his poetry in Latin as well as in English. He was a great experimenter
and indulged in the seventeenth-century liking for "wit" by writing poems in lines arranged
in the shape of a pair of wings or an altar. No one knew the inner Herbert until the post-
humous publication of The Temple in 1633. In this ingenious masterpiece, a collection of
meditative poems written during the last years of his life, is reflected the intense conflict be-
tween secular and religious life which Herbert experienced several years before, a conflict
which was firmly resolved when he made the decision to devote his life to the church. Her-
bert loved the church as an institution and his poetry celebrated the symbolic significance of
the church building, the ritual and music of the church, and even the clerical vestment. "The
Collar" illustrates the main features of Herbert's poetry—symbolic writing and the use of the
"metaphysical conceit" .To Herbert the collar is the symbol of his final submission to God.
SAHITYA CLASSES 14.

ROBERT HERRICK (1591-1674)

Robert Herrick, by the age of thirty, was already a lyric poet of high renown. But,
judged by the literary styles of his day, he was also a little old-fashioned. Influenced by the
Latin classicism of Ben Jonson, whom he canonized as "Saint Ben," Herrick wrote graceful
lyrics marked with Elizabethan freshness and simplicity at a time when taste was already
turning toward the metaphysical complexities of John Donne. Unfortunately, Hesperides,
Herrick's best-known volume of poetry, was published in 1648—the worst possible time, for
during the turmoil of the Civil War there was little interest in Elizabethan lyrics celebrating
rural life. It was not until over two centuries later that Elizabeth Barrett Browning and
Algernon Charles Swinburne set the seal on Herrick's reputation, the latter going so far as to
call him "the greatest songwriter . . . ever born of English race."
The son of a London goldsmith, he worked at his father's craft for a while before
taking a degree at Cambridge. Then he was drawn into Ben Jonson's circle, soon becoming
one of the famous "Sons of Ben" and Jonson's greatest pupil and admirer. In 1627 Herrick
entered the priesthood of the Church of England and served as chaplain in an unsuccessful
military expedition of his friend, the Duke of Buckingham. Two years later, Herrick obtained
from Charles I a church living in "warty" Devon. The Puritans expelled Herrick from his
"place of exile" in 1647, but he returned after the restoration of Charles II to live out his long
life as vicar of Dean Prior, the small country parish among whose half-pagan charms he
found his "lyric feast."
Herrick's poems fall into two categories: pure song of wholly secular nature and
somewhat labored religious verse. He shocked posterity by introducing his "jocund" (his own
word for it) temperament into his poetic conceits, which seemed scandalous for a clergyman.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

“Milton was a passionate man, who lived in passionate times. Neither his passions nor
those of the men of his day are of very much matter to us now. but the art, in which he
“spent” them, in which, that is to say, he embodied, transcended and glorified them, till
through it he and we alike attain to consolation and calm, is an eternal possession, not
only of the English race, but of the whole world”.

(John Bailey)

John Milton was a dedicated figure in seventeenth- century English literature. Nature
found Milton to be a great poet. He was a poet as well as prose polemicist. John Milton was
born in London, the son of John Milton, a scrivener and musician who had taken to law
business after being disinherited by his father for abandoning Roman Catholicism and
conforming to the Church of England. He was educated at St. Paul‘s School in London and
Christ College, Cambridge where the fastidiousness of his morals and perhaps a feminine
quality in his personal appearance caused him to be nicknamed the Lady of Christ’s. The
fact that Milton was known as this title indicates the conspicuousness of his high idealism
and his aloofness from the horseplay and the immoralities that were not uncommon among
the undergraduates of the time. He left Cambridge in 1632, and in 1638 set out on a course of
SAHITYA CLASSES 15.

foreign travel through Paris, Genoa, Florence, Rome, to Naples, meeting a number of
distinguished men of learning including the astronomer Galileo.

At school he studied Latin and Greek, besides other subjects. One of his private tutors was a
Scotsman, Thomas Young, to whom he later wrote two letters and the Latin Elegy IV in
which he gratefully recalled Young‘s introducing him to Latin poetry. Milton was from
childhood a great and voracious reader. This excessive reading proved to be the initial cause
of his subsequent blindness.

His earliest attempts at verse, made at the age of 15, were rhymed paraphrases of Psalms 114
and 136. He also wrote a few Latin exercise at this time. His closest friend , at school and
Later, was Charles Diodati, the son of a prominent physician of Italian origin, who went
from St. Paul‘s school to the university of Oxford. A less intimate friend was Alexander Gill,
the son of the school headmaster.

Milton was seventeen when he wrote the verse letter to Diodati. It was in 1626, too, that he
wrote the Latin poem “On the Death of the Beadle of Cambridge University‖. Another
Latin poem of the same year, in hexameters, was ―Qiontum Novembris‖ (on the fifth of
November), a mock heroic poem on Guy Fawkes‘ Gunpowder Plot in which Milton‘ delight
in coining epic phrases. The Seventh elegy, on spring and love, which begins with an
invocation to Venus and a dialogue between the poet and Cupid and which contains some of
the most sensuous poetry. ―In Adventum Veris‖ (―On the coming of spring‖) where, in a
rich Ovidian verse, he describes the revival of nature, of his own poetic inspiration. It is the
fullest and finest expression of a side of Milton he rarely allows us to see again.

Milton was an accomplished writer of Italian verse and wrote a number of Italian sonnets,
probably in 1628. These poems show him as the lover, in Petrarchan style, of a foreign lady --
called Emilia. One of the Italian poems is a Canzone, in which he defends his writing in
Italian on the grounds that is the language of Love. In 1629, still at Cambridge, Milton wrote
his first wholly successful English poem. This was ―On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.‖
He wrote two companion poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso. These two poems create a
mood by perfect imagery and tone. L’Allegro opens with a mock-violent dismissal of
―loathed Melancholy‖ in a crashing of chords. The happily modulated lines in which Milton
describes a day in the life of the cheerful man. In ―Il Penseroso‖ the images are organized to
present a mood of contemplation and quite intellectual activity. Comus was first published
anonymously in 1637. It appeared with a dedication to the son of Earl of Bridgewater by
Henry Lawes. He chose a quotation from Virgil’s Eclogues which he chose his epigraph.
Comus is in Elizabeth masque tradition. It has references with the Book X of Odyssey,
Platonic and neoplatonic philosophy, Spenser’s description of the Bower of Bliss in book
II of the Fairie Queen, William Browne’s Inner temple masque, Jonson’s’ Pleasure
Reconciled to virtue‘, George Peele’s Old Wives Tale, Fletcher’s The faithful Shepherdess :
Comus opens with the attended spirit.

Milton based his ―body of divinity‖ on the system of two Calvinist divines, one English and
the other a Netherlander, and to the end the logical and austere theology of Calvin maintained
SAHITYA CLASSES 16.

a great hold on his mind. Milton was eager to express his divine mission - the task which
God had put on him- through his master-piece ‗Paradise Lost’, but could not succeed, since
in this great poem he appears more as a mirror, reflecting the image of Satan- the grand
adversary of God-than as Adam.

From 1641, he abandoned poetry -- reluctantly, for prose polemics on behalf of the
parliamentary and puritan causes. Not all his writing performed this function, however in
1643 he married the daughter of a Royalist family who almost immediately abandoned him.,
and this led to the first of his pamphlets in favour of divorce. This in turn led to his quarrel
with the Stationers Company, since he had published the work without license. Parliament
supported the Stationers, whereupon Milton published his Areopagitica, one of the noblest
appeals for freedom of speech ever written.

In 1649, the year of the king‘s execution, he was appointed Latin Secretary to the
Commonwealth for the purpose of corresponding with foreign governments, a post he
continued to hold until the restoration. In addition, he continued his prose propaganda on
behalf of the republican Common wealth and Oliver Cromwell; he was defending the
republican system in print only a month before the Restoration. Nonetheless, the restored
monarch left him free, perhaps owing to the influence in Parliament of his fellow - poet
Andrew Marvell, and at court to that of the Earl of Anglesey.

In 1644, between his first and second divorce pamphlets, Milton published his little treatise
Of Education, in a form of a letter to Samuel Hartley.

Areopagitica is a nobel plea which is an indication of the complex nature of his Christian
Humanist mentality. Two major works are: The History of Britain begun in 1640s‘ and
published in 1670 and the Latin work De Doctrina Christiana.

Milton was eager to express his divine mission -the task which God had put on him-- through
his master-piece Paradise Lost, but could not succeed, since in this great poem he appears
more as a mirror, reflecting the image of Satan- the grand adversary of God- than as Adam.
In Samson Agonistes (the struggler) he found his true replicas. In his mythological hero
Milton saw his own image - a man with a divine mission, handicapped by blindness, tortured
and betrayed by his alien wife.
SAHITYA CLASSES 17.

MAJOR DRAMATISTS OF THE AGE

BEN JONSON
Ben Johnson (1573-1637) was Shakespeare's greatest rival after Christopher
Marlowe. He received education at famous West ministers.
He didn't attend any university yet he was honored by both the Universities. He began
his adventurous career as a bricklayer, then to stage and finally emerged as a playwright. He
was also involved in a bitter rivalry among the other dialogists, notably Dekker and
Marston.

Eastward Ho- This play was written in collaboration with Chapman and Marston, and it
offended king James by its satire on the Scots. For this, he suffered imprisonment as well. He
visited William of Drummond of Hawthorden. He wrote masques for the court and was
declared as the court poet / poet laureate. He was undoubtedly a great scholar, a great learn of
Greek studies, yet he was aggressive and arrogant. He was gathered by his disciples as Sons
or tribes of Ben Johnson.
Ben Johnson conformed himself with the traditions of classical drama. He observed
the 'unities' while Shakespeare rejected them.
He was more successful in comedies. He appeared at a time when the University wits
were focusing on the "romantic drama". He was very critical, of romantic extravagance. He
tried to establish, instead a comic form and a tragic form based on the classical practice and
to bring drama nearer life.
The best known comedies of Ben Johnson are Everyman in his humor, Epicoene or
The Silent Woman. The Alchemist, The Volpone and Bartholomew Fair.

1. Everyman in his humor: Old Knowell, whose humor is his exercise anxiety about his
son's morals; Brainworm, the clever servant, Kitely, the jealous husband, Bobadill, the
cowardly braggart and Justice Clement, the merry magistrate forms the part and
characters of the play.
2. Epicoene: One of his most criticized plays, Mouse is a rich old bachelor whose humor is
the hatred of noise. He seeks a silent wife for himself. Cutbeart, his barber, in league with
Eygenie, finds a woman named Epicoene.
Apart from its two prologues, the entire play is in prose. Other plays which are dominated
by satire and self-praise are Everyman out of his humour, Cynthia's Revels and The
Poetaster.

 The Volpone: It is one of the finest comedy produced by Ben Johson which means ―sly
Fox‖ in Italian and is based on city comedy and the beast fable.

The Major characters of this play are:

 the Volpone (the Sly Fox) – a greedy, childless Venetian nobleman

 Mosca (the Fly/Parasite) – his servant
 Voltore (the Vulture) – a lawyer
 Corbaccio (the Raven) – an avaricious old miser
 Bonario – Corbaccio's son
 Corvino (the Carrion Crow) – a merchant
SAHITYA CLASSES 18.
3. Cynthia’s Revels: The play was published in 'Quarto' under the title The Fountain of
self love or Cynthia Revels. It was fulfilled by the song.
Queens and huntress, Chaste and Fair, is one of his beautiful lyrics.
This play was one element in the poetomachia or war of the pheatres.
(The War of the Theatres (1599-1601) is the name commonly applied to a risen
controversy from the later Elizabethan theatre). Thomas Dekker named it Poetomachia.
4. The Poetaster: It is also an element of 'Poetomachia'. The term poetaster, means an
inferior poet. The term had been coined by Erasmus in 1521. The play deals with the
literary quarrels and rivalries of the day, and is a caustic satire on Marston and Wekker.
In the quarto, the title is Poetaster or The Arraignment. The principal character in the
play is Ovid. It is widely accepted that the character of Horace represents Johnson
himself, while Crispinus, is Marston and Demetrius Fannius is Thomas Dekker
Eastward Ho and Bartholemew Fair presents an intense realistic picture of London.
He wrote a pastoral drama, The sad shepherd or A Pale of Robinhood.