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17th and 18th Century Literature
17th and 18th Century Literature
Literature
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were both
turbulent and polite.
Changes in Monarchy
The Reformation
The Civil War
Advances in Science
Major Events in 17 th Century England
Changes
in
Monarchy
Major Events in 17 th Century England
Religious
Reformation
Reformation
Torture
and
Controversy
Major Events in 17 th Century England
Cromwell
OliverRules
Radical
Cromwell
Charles I led
was
Fought The
Hostile
English
with
Convict and
the
DICTATOR
the Parliament
condemned
Commonwealth
Scottish
Civil Rebels
War
Parliament
Beheaded the
as
and
King
Captured
tyrant in 1642
Charles I
Major Events in 17 th Century England
Advances
in
Science
Literature of the 17 th Century
Gender, Family, Household
Womens texts
Literature of the Revolution Period
1. Confusion in literature
3. No Romantic Ardor
1.Metaphysical Poets
2. Cavalier Poets
Metaphysical Poets
-- Donne, Herbert, later Herrick --
Protestant
Not happy with the King
religious & philosophical topics
challenging, demanding, symbolic
metaphysical conceits unusual
metaphors
Metaphysical Poets
Shatter myths and replace with new philosophies, new
world and poetry with rebellious spirit.
Poetry as colloquial language, a single minded working
of one theme.
Use logical reason to explain things esp. emotions,
psychologically analyze love and religion, love the novelty
and the shocking.
Use metaphysical conceits and ignore conventional device
Metaphysical Poets
Contained large doses of wit.
The poets ponder sense of humor.
Shock the reader and wake him with his normal existence
in order to question the unquestionable.
Mixed ordinary speech with paradoxes and puns.
Religious sentiment-carpe diem-humanity of life
Comparing unlikely things - CONCEITS
Metaphysical Poets
CONCEITS
Extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a
poetic passage or entire poem.
Juxtaposing, usurping, and manipulating images and ideas
in surprising ways.
Poetic idiom of mannerism.
Metaphysical Poets
Topics from religious to consciousness
Nature of reality
No one correct answer to any of these question.
Metaphysics is about exploration and philosophy, and not
about science and math.
Metaphysical Poets
Mysticism in content and fantasticality in form.
Does God exist?
Is there a difference between the way things appear to us
and the way they really are? Essentially, what is the
difference between reality and perception?
Is everything that happens already predetermined? If so,
then is free choice non-existent?
Is consciousness limited to the brain?
Metaphysical Poets
THOUGHT
FEELINGS
Cavalier Poets
Most of these poets were courtier and soldiers
They sided with the King to fight against Revolution.
Ben Johnson's Sons:
Robert Herrick, Sir John Suckling, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Carew
Generally tried to compress and limit their poems, giving them a high polish
and a sense of easy domination at the expense of their intellectual content.
Ben Johnson
Strove for the perfection and harmony he found in his beloved classical
authors, turning away from the ornate style of Elizabethan times to create
his own modern, strong voice.
He wrote poems, plays, and masques (court entertainments)
Took seriously the role of the poet
He believed, in fact, that no other profession could compare to it.
Poets, he wrote, encourage young men to all good disciplines, inflame
grown men to all great virtues and keep old men in their best and supreme
state
A person could not be a good poet without being a good man, he
asserted
John Donne (1573-1631)
Founder of the Metaphysical School.
Writer of the
Pilgrims
Progress
The Pilgrims Progress
A religious allegory appealing to the common religious people of
every ages and condition
It tells of a religious mans search for salvation and the picture of the
English Society that time. Base on the idea of JOURNEY
The travelers name is CHRISTIAN
The figures and places Christian encounters on his journey stand for
the various experiences every Christian must go through in the quest
for salvation.
The Pilgrims Progress
The whole book falls into two parts:
Part 1
Part 2
The Pilgrims Progress
Part 1
Tells the religious conversion of Christian and his religious life into
the world
Mainly describes his pilgrimage through the:
Though an ALLEGORY, its character impress the reader like real persons
Vanity Fair
On the Vanity Fair, honors, titles, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures, and lives can be sold
or brought and cheating, roguery, murder, and adultery are normal phenomena.
Bunyan cherished a deeply hatred of both the king and his government
This section gives the bitterest satire, which is invariably directed at the ruling class.
In the description of the Vanity Fair, Bunyan not only gives us a symbolic picture
of London at the time of the Restoration but of the whole bourgeois society.
John Milton (1608-1674)
Born in London in 1608
Studies in foreign and local schools.
Masterpiece
Paradise Lost
Paradise Regained
Samson Agonist
Paradise Regained
The poem on the surface was to justify the ways of God to man.
Main Characters
Satan
Adam
Eve
God the Father
God the Son
17 th Century
1. Absolutism vs. Parliamentary
1. The Restoration
2. Plague of 1665
AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIAL
REVOLUTION REVOLUTION
Farm Tools Steam Engine, Factories,
Merchants, Farmers
Also known as Classical
Classic Writers
Large Number
Production
Pseudo-Classism
Rebellion for
Reason!!!
Exact rules
Three Discrete Literary Eras
John Locke
There is no war between faith and reason. Faith is nothing but a firm assent
of the mind; which if it will be regulated as is our duty, cannot be afforded to
anything but upon good reason, and so cannot be opposite to it.
John Dryden Absalom and Achitopel
Popish Plot
A Tale of a Tub
GIANTS. Gulliver now found himself a dwarf among men 60 feet in height. The King
regarded Europe as if it were an anthill.
GLUBDUGDRIBB. The third part is a satire on philosophers and projectors who were
given to dwelling in the air, like the inhabitants of the Flying Island.
In the last part, Gullivers satire is bitterest. Gulliver was now in a country where
horses/HOUYHNINS were possessed of reason, and were governing class, while the
YAHOOS, though in shape of men, were brute beasts with such vices as stealing and
lying. This work gives an satirical depiction of the vices of his age.
Three Discrete Literary Eras
The poem The Rape of the Lock which is considered to be one of the
masterpieces of Pope is the blend of burlesque, witty, humorous, ironic, and
morality, which is rare in English poetry, was published in 1712.
The poem from the beginning acquaints us with the idleness, late rising, and
fondness for domestic pets of the aristocratic ladies. Belinda wakes up at noon.
The superficiality of the ladies, who loved glided chariots, and their ambition to
marry peers and dukes, or men holding other high positions, are indicated in
the opening canto. The poem brings out the varying vanities of the women.
The Rape of the Lock
These ladies learnt early in their life, how to roll their eyes and to blush in an
intriguing manner. Their hearts were like toy shops which moved from one
gallant to another.
N-O-V-E-L
Gothic Romance
Forbidden Themes: Incest, Murder, Necrophilia, Atheism and
torments of Sexual Desires.