II History of English Literature

NTA - NET/ SET (English) Coaching
History of English Literature
(English Literature for

Competitive Examinations: NET/ SET/
PG TRB)
S. Jerald Sagaya Nathan, M.A., M.Phil., SET., NET., M.A. (M.C. & J).,
Assistant Professor of English
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous),
Tiruchirappalli- 620002
Tamil Nadu, India.
E-Mail: jsnathan1981@gmail.com
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/sjeraldsagayanathan/home
Mobile Nos.: 9843287913/ 962928791
The old English [450AD -1066AD]
Saturday, September 19, 2020 2

The old English [450AD -1066AD]
• English was the common name and tongue of these

tribes. Before they occupied Britain they lived along the
coasts of Sweden and Denmark, and the land which they
occupied was called Engle-land.
• These tribes were fearless, adventurous and brave, and
during the later years of Roman occupation of Britain,
they kept the British coast in terror.
• The English came from the continent (Germanic Tribes)
came first as mercenaries to help in the defense against
the Picts and Scots
• Christianization of the pagan English tribes
• The establishment of the Dane law in English
• The accession of a Danish king
Britain Under Roman Conquest
• Roman conquest of Britain began in 43 A.D.
• Romans controlled Britain until the early 5th century.
• Latin was the official language in Britain.
• The end of Roman rule in Britain facilitated the Anglo-
Saxon settlement of Britain.
• The Anglo-Saxons were a collection of
various Germanic tribes who established several
kingdoms that became the primary powers in present-
day England and parts of southern Scotland.
• The Germanic tribes are an Indo-European ethnic
linguistic group of Northern European origin identified
by their use of the Germanic languages.
The Anglo Saxon language
• The Anglo Saxon language is only a branch
of the great Aryan or Indo-European family
of languages.
• It has the same root words for father and
mother, for God and man, for the common
needs and the common relations of life, as
found in Sanskrit, Iranian, Greek and Latin.
• And it is this old vigorous Anglo-Saxon
language which forms the basis of modern
English.
First Settlers in Britain
• By the end of 5th century, many Teutonic tribes
from the neighbouring countries invaded Britain.
• Brythons of Celtic race had settled in Britain prior
to Teutonic settlement.
• Brythons of Celtic race were Christianized by
Romans.
• Britain was invaded by three group of people:
– Engle land (Germanic) invaders settled in Northumbria
and Merice
– Saxons (Scandinavian and Icelanders) and
– Jutes invaded the Southeast part of Britain and the
food resources kept them there forever.
Anglo-Saxon Britain
• The Angles and Saxons first landed in England in the
middle of the fifth century , and by 67 0 A.D.
• Unlike the Romans who came as conquerors, these tribes
settled in England and made her their permanent home.
They became, therefore, the ancestors of the English race.
• The Anglo-Saxon kings, of whom Alfred the Great was the
most prominent, ruled till 1066, when Harold, the last of
Saxon kings, was defeated at the Battle of Hastings by
William the Conqueror of Normandy , France.
• The Anglo-Saxon or Old English Period in English
literature, therefore, ex tends roughly from 670 A.D. to 11
00 A.D.
Norman Conquest of England
• Took place in 1066 A.D
• England came under French influence.
• 1066 A.D. = Battle of Hastings
• William of Normandy, France Kills King
Harold.
• William of Normandy comes to be
known as William the Conqueror.
• William the Conqueror is the first
Norman King of England.
Anglo-Saxon poetry
• Anglo-Saxon poetry is markedly different from
the poetry of the next period—Middle English or
Anglo Norman period
• It deals with the traditions of an older world, and
expresses another temperament and way of
living;
• It breathes the influence of the wind and storm.
• It is the poetry of a stern and passionate people,
concerned with the primal things of life, moody ,
melancholy and fierce, yet with great capacity for
endurance and fidelity .
Anglo-Saxon Epic Beowulf
(1815)

Beowulf
• The theme of the poem is continental

Germanic
• The poem can be considered as the pagan
origin
• Work is anonymous
• Marked the beginning of Nationalism

Beowulf
• Old English epic poem consisting of 3,182 alliterative verse
• The poem is set in Scandinavia
• Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the
king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack
by a monster known as Grendel
• After Beowulf slays him, Grendel’s mother attacks the hall and is
then also defeated.
• Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and later becomes king
of the Geats
• After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon,
but is mortally wounded in the battle.
• After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower
on a headland in his memory

Recall…
The Norman Conquest of England in the
battle of Hastings is an important
landmark in the history of English literature.
It occurred in the year
(a) 1066
(b) 1076
(b) 1065
(d) 1075
Recall…
Out of the four chief dialects that
flourished in the pre-Chaucerian
period, the one that became the
standard English in Chaucer's time is
(a)the Northern
(b)the East-Midland
(c) the West-Midland
(d)the Southern
Recall…
Beowulf, the only important piece of
literature surviving since the old
English period is a/an
(a)lyrical ballad
(b)prose narrative
(c) Anglo-Saxon epic
(d)classical epic

Widsith
• It consists of about 150 lines of verse.
• It is an account of the wanderings of
Widsith, a supposed wanderer.
• It also recounts the places and people
the hero had visited.
Waldera
• It consists of about sixty-three lines
• It narrates some of the exploits of
Walter of Aquitaine.
• Its language is noticeable for vigour
and power.
Miscellaneous Poems
• Three poetical fragments…
– The Fight at Finnsburh:
• It is a portion of an Old English heroic poem
• It is about a fight in which Hnaf (Son of Hoc) and his 60 retainers
are besieged at "Finn's fort" and attempt to hold off their attackers.
– The Battle of Brunaburh:
• The poem records the Battle of Brunaburh, a battle fought in 937
between an English army and a combined army of Scots, Vikings,
and Britons.
• The battle resulted in an English victory, celebrated by the poem in
style and language like that of traditional Old English battle poetry.
– The Battle of Maldon :
• It celebrates the real Battle of Maldon of 991, at which the Anglo-
Saxons failed to prevent a Viking invasion.
• Only 325 lines of the poem are extant; both the beginning and the
ending are lost.
The Exeter Book
• It contains seven short elegies
• They are
– Ruin,
– the Wanderer,
– the Seafarer,
– the Wife's Complaint,
– the Husband's Complaint,
– Deor,
– Wulf and Eaduacer.
The Exeter Book
• Ruin is the mourning of a traveller over a deserted
city,
• the Wanderer expands the mourning motive of Ruin
over the desolation of the whole world of man.
• The Seafarer describes "the dangers and the
fascination of the sea, breathes the spirit which filled
the hearts of our forefathers while they sang and
sailed, and is extraordinarily modern in note.“
• The Wife's Complaint and The Husband's Complaint
deal with love-passion.
• Wulf and Eaduacer is an early example of dramatic
monologue.
Doer
• “Deor” or Deor's “Deor” mentions various
figures from Germanic Mythology and
reconciles his own troubles with the troubles
these figures faced.
• Each section ends with the refrain "that
passed away, so may this."
• The poem “Deor” begins with the struggles
and misfortunes of a character named
Weland.
• The poem consists of 42 alliterative lines.
Anglo- Saxon Chronicle
• The Anglo-Saxon period was also marked by
the beginning of English prose.
• Inspired by king Alfred
• Description of the horrors of Stephen's
reign
• Description of William the conqueror

Authors of the old English [450AD -1066AD]
Caedmon (poet)
– The Genesis
– Exodus
– Daniel
– Three shorter poems often considered as one under the title ‘Christ
and Satan’
Cynewulf(poet)
Four poems contain the signature of Cynewulf in runic characters:
• Juliana
• Elene
• Christ and
• The Fates of Apostles

Northumbrian School &
Christian Influence
• The Christian influence put an end to the
frightful wars that had waged continually
among the various kingdoms of the Anglo-
Saxons.
• Northumbria became the seat of the monks,
who influenced the Anglo-Saxon literature.
• It is called the Northumbrian School.
• Caedmon and Cynewulf are the two
distinguished poets of this school.
Caedmon
• He is the first maker of English verse.
• employed by the monastery at Whitby in Yorkshire.
• The Holy Bible was read to him and he turned some pages into
verse.
• The stories in verse, known as Caedmon's Paraphrases were
written about A. D. 670
• The three paraphrases of scripture which have come down in a
manuscript of tenth century have been attributed to Caedmon.
• The first deals with the creation and the fall;
• the second with the exodus from Egypt; and
• the third with the history of Daniel.
• It is now believed that these poems, though ascribed to Caedmon,
are not entirely his own creation but of his imitators.
Cynewulf
• Only very little is known about Cynewulf, the
greatest of the Anglo-Saxon poets.
• His signed poems include
– The Christ,
– Juliana,
– The Fates of the Apostles, and
– Elene.
– It is conjectured that he wrote during the latter half of the eighth
century.
– There is a note of passion, of joy and confidence in his poetry.
The spirit of adventure pervades them.
– They are also noticeable for the intensity of feeling, brilliance of
conception, ardent religious tote, certainty of execution and
excellent descriptive power.
Cynewulf (Cont…)
• The unsigned poems, attributed to
Cynewulf, are
• Andreas,
• The Phoenix,
• The Dream of the Rood,
• The Descent into Hell,
• Guthlac,
• The Wanderer and some of the Riddles.
Judith
• It is one of the finest pieces of Anglo-Saxon
religious poetry.
• Out of twelve books only the last three are extant.
• The character of Judith, a Jewish Velleda, is well
drawn.
• The Harrowing of Hell, the Whale and the

Panther, and some lyrical translations of the
Psalms in the Kentish and West Saxon dialects
were also written in the eighth century.
Anglo Saxon Prose
Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race (731 A.D.)
• Bede, the venerable scholar and priest in the
monastery at Jarrow
• He wrote in Latin the Ecclesiastical History of the
English Race.
• It was completed in 731.
• It tells the story of the conversion of
the English people to Christianity.
King Alfred (A.D. 849-901)
• He drove back the Danes from England, began the writing of prose
in Wessex.
• He is the creator of English prose.
• Though Alfred is a translator, he holds an admirable place as "the
first to put the Vernacular to systematic use."
• He rendered into English
– Pastoral Care of Pope Gregory,
– Orosius,
– The History of the World,
– Bede's The Ecclesiastical History (731 A.D.),
– Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy (524 A.D. - Philosophy)
and
– St. Augustine's Soliloquies (4th C A.D.).
• Alfred's prose style is for the most part simple and straightforward.
Aelfric
• He was a churchman, who was known for his
grammar.
• His extant prose works include the Catholic
Homilies, two series of sermons and The Lives of
Saints.
• It was written before 998.
• Aelfric's prose style is simple and vigorous,
natural, easy and alliterative.
• It is a befitting style for expressing complicated
thought into narrative form.
• His Colloquy is written in dialogue form.
Wulfstan
• He was the Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of
York.
• His Address to the English narrates the general
demoralization caused by the invading Danes.
• It is written in impassioned style.
• Some of his signed homilies have survived.
• Sermo Lupi ad Anglos is his most famous creation
which is characterised by forceful and vigorous
style.
• It is alliterative and ideas nave been frequently
repeated.
Five Main Dialects of the
Anglo-Saxon Period
Five Main Dialects of the Anglo-
Saxon Period
(1) the old Northumbrian dialect
consisting of the Lowland Scots and
Northern English;
(2) East Midlands and West Midlands,
corresponding to Mercian;
(3) South-Western or Mercian;
(4) South-Eastern or Kentish
(5) South-Western or West Saxon.
The Middle English [1066AD-1500AD]

Five Famous Poets
• Langland:
– voicing the social discontent, preaching the equality of men and the
dignity of labor.
• Wycliffe:
– giving the gospel to the people in their own tongue
• Gower:
– criticizing the vigorous life and plainly afraid of its consequences
• Mandeville:
– romancing about the wonders to be seen abroad
• Chaucer:
– The first humanist
– The first novelist in verse
– The father of modern English language
The Chaucerian Period (1340-1400)
• The period includes the greater part of the rein

of Edward III
• the long French wars associated with his name
• The accession of his grandson Richard II
• The revolution of 1399
• the disposition of Richard, and the foundation
of the Lancastrian dynasty
• The age of unrest and transition

Chaucer

Geoffrey Chaucer
(1340 A.D. – 1400 A.D.)
Geoffrey Chaucer ( 1387 - 1400)
• Morning Star of Renaissance
• Introduced Iambic
Pentameter (Canterbury
Tales)
• Introduced Heroic couplet
(a pair of rhymed lines with
iambic pentameter)
• Proponent of Rhyme Royal
S. Jerald Sagaya Nathan, SJC, Trichy.

43
9843287913
Questions
What is blank verse?
a) iambic pentameter in rhyming couplets
b) the verse form of the Shakespearean sonnet
c) free verse, without rhyme or regular meter
d) unrhymed iambic pentameter

Geoffrey Chaucer (1)
• Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340 A.D.

• He descended from an affluent family who
made their money in the London wine trade.
• He attended the St. Paul’s Cathedral School,
where he probably first became acquainted
with the influential writing of Virgil and Ovid.
• In 1357, Chaucer became a public servant to
Countess Elizabeth of Ulster, the Duke of
• Clarence’s wife, for which he was paid a small
stipend enough to pay for his food and
clothing.
• In 1359, the teenage Chaucer went off to fight in the

Hundred Years’ War in France, and at Rethel he was
captured for ransom.
• King Edward III helped pay Chaucer’s ransom.
• After Chaucer’s release, he joined the Royal Service
• He travelled throughout France, Spain and Italy on
diplomatic missions throughout the early to mid-1360s.
• King Edward granted Chaucer a pension of 20 marks.
• In 1366, Chaucer married Philippa Roet, the daughter of
Sir Payne Roet, and the marriage conveniently helped
further Chaucer’s career in the English court.
• By 1368, King Edward III had made Chaucer one of his esquires.
• The death of the queen in 1369, served to strengthen Philippa’s
position and subsequently Chaucer’s as well.
• From 1370 to 1373, Chaucer went abroad again and fulfilled
diplomatic missions in Florence and Genoa, helping establish an
English port in Genoa.
• Chaucer familiarized himself with the work of Italian poets Dante and
Petrarch.
• He was rewarded for his diplomatic activities with an appointment as
Comptroller of Customs, a lucrative position.
• Philippa and Chaucer were also granted generous pensions by John of
Gaunt, the First duke of Lancaster.
• In 1377 and 1388, Chaucer was on a diplomatic mission with the
objective of finding a French wife for Richard II and securing military
aid in Italy.
• Owing to his duties, Chaucer had little time to devote

to writing poetry.
• In 1385, he petitioned for temporary leave and spent
the next four years in Kent as a justice of the peace
and later a Parliament member, rather than focusing
on his writing.
• In 1387, Philippa passed away and Chaucer stopped
sharing in her royal annuities and suffered financial
hardship.
• He needed to keep working in public service to earn a
living and pay off his growing accumulation of debt.
Major Works of Chaucer
• The Canterbury tales

• The book of the duchess
• The House of fame
• Anelida and Arcite
• The parliament of fowls
• Troilus and Criseyde
• The legend of good women
Shorter poems of Chaucer
• An ABC
• The complaint of mass
• The complaint to his lady
• The complaint of Venus
• Fortune
• Truth

Parliament of Fouls (1380 A.D.)
• It is otherwise known as the Parlement of Foules
• It was written in 1380, during marriage
negotiations between Richard and Anne of
Bohemia.
• Critic J.A.W. Bennet interpreted the Parliament of
Fouls as a study of Christian love.
• It had been identified as peppered with Neo-
Platonic ideas inspired by the likes of poets
Cicero and Jean De Meun, among others.
• The poem uses allegory, and incorporates
elements of irony and satire as it points to the
inauthentic quality of courtly love.
Parliament of Fouls (1380 A.D.)
• The Parliament of Fowls is a dream

vision.
• In its opening section, it describes how
the narrator falls asleep while reading
Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis (The Dream
of Scipio), and then dreams of the
parliament of birds which follows.
• The dream-vision was a common motif
in the literature of the Middle Ages.
Troilus and Criseyde (1)
• It was written sometime in the mid-1380s.

• Troilus and Criseyde is a narrative poem that
retells the tragic love story of Troilus and Criseyde
in the context of the Trojan War.
• Chaucer wrote the poem using rime royal, a
technique he originated.
• Rime royal involves rhyming stanzas consisting of
seven lines apiece.
• Chaucer's principal source appears to have been
Boccaccio who re-wrote the tale in his Il
Filostrato.
• It was composed using rime royale
and probably completed during the
mid 1380s.
• Troilus is a character from Ancient
Greek Literature, the expanded story
of him as a lover was of Medieval
origin.
•
• Characters
• Achilles, a Greek warrior
• Antenor, a soldier held captive by the Greeks, traded for Criseyde's safety, eventually
betrays Troy
• Calchas, a Trojan prophet who joins the Greeks
• Criseyde, Calchas' daughter
• Diomede, woos Criseyde in the Greek Camp
• Helen, wife to Menelaus, lover of Paris
• Pandarus, Criseyde's uncle, who advises Troilus in the wooing of Criseyde
• Priam, King of Troy
• Cassandra, Daughter of Priam, a prophetess at the temple of Apollo
• Hector, Prince of Troy, fierce warrior and leader of the Trojan armies
• Troilus, Youngest son of Priam, and wooer of Criseyde
• Paris, Prince of Troy, lover of Helen
• Deiphobus, Prince of Troy, aids Troilus in the wooing of Criseyde
Legacy of Troilus and Criseyde
• Robert Henryson’s Scots poem The Testament

of Cresseid imagined a tragic fate for Criseyde
not given by Chaucer.
• a narrative poem of 616 lines in Middle Scots
• Shakespeare’s tragedy Troilus and Cressida,
although much blacker in tone, was also based
in part on the material.
The Legend of Good Women (1380s)
(1)
• a poem in the form of a dream vision.
• the first significant work in English to use the
iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets.
• This form of the heroic couplet would become a significant
part of English literature no doubt inspired by Chaucer.
• The work is a similar structure to the later Monk's Tale and
like that tale, and many of his other works, seems to be
unfinished.
• Chaucer's sources for the legends include: Virgil's Aeneid,
Vincent of Beauvais, Guido delle Colonne's Historia
destructionis Troiae, Gaius Julius Hyginus' Fabula and Ovid
's Metamorphoses and Heroides.
• The prologue describes how Chaucer is reprimanded by the
god of love and his queen, Alceste, for his works—such as
Troilus and Criseyde—depicting women in a poor light.
The Legend of Good Women (1380s)
(2)
• Criseyde is made to seem inconstant in love in that earlier work,
and Alceste demands a poem of Chaucer extolling the virtues of
women and their good deeds.
• The poet recounts ten stories of virtuous women in nine sections.
The legends are: Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea,
Lucrece, Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra.
• The command of queen Alceste is said, by John Lydgate in
The Fall of Princes (c. 1431-38), to be a poetic account of an
actual request for a poem by Anne of Bohemia who came to
England in 1382 to marry Richard II.
• Joan of Kent, Richard's mother, is also sometimes considered a
model for Alceste.
• Tennyson used the poem as theme for his own poem
A Dream of Fair Women.
The House of Fame (1379 - 1380 )
• dream vision composed in

octosyllabic couplets
• Upon falling asleep the poet (Chaucer)
finds himself in a glass temple adorned
with images of the famous and their
deeds.
• With an eagle as a guide, he (Chaucer)
meditates on the nature of fame and the
trustworthiness of recorded renown.
The House of Fame (2)
• The first book begins on the night of the tenth of
December, - a dream - inside a temple made of
glass, filled with beautiful art and shows of wealth
- image of Venus, Vulcan, and Cupid, - deduces
that it is a temple to Venus. - explores the temple -
finds a brass tablet recounting the Aeneid.
• - the story of Aeneas’s betrayal of Dido, - lists
other women in Greek mythology betrayed by
their lovers, which lead to their deaths.
• When the second book begins, Chaucer has
attempted to flee the swooping eagle, but is caught
and lifted up into the sky.
• Chaucer faints, and the eagle rouses him by calling
his name.
• The eagle explains that he is a servant of Jove, who
seeks to reward Chaucer for his unrewarded
devotion to Venus and Cupid by sending him to the
titular House of the goddess Fame, who hears all
that happens in the world.
• In the beginning of the third book, Chaucer
describes what he sees.
• The House of Fame is built atop a massive rock
that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be ice
inscribed with the names of the famous.
• He notices many other names written in the ice
that had melted to the point of illegibility, and
deduces that they melted because they were
not in the shadow of the House of Fame.
• Chaucer climbs the hill, and sees the House of
Fame, and thousands of mythological musicians
still performing their music.
• He enters the palace itself, and sees Fame.
• He describes her as having countless tongues,
eyes, and ears, to represent the spoken, seen,
and heard aspects of fame.
• She also has partridge wings on her heels, to
represent the speed at which fame can move.
• Chaucer observes Fame as she metes out fame and infamy to
groups of people who arrive, whether or not they deserve or
want it.
• After each of Fame’s judgments, the god of the north winds,
Aeolus, blows one of two trumpets: ‘Clear Laud’, to give the
petitioners fame, and ‘Slander’ to give the petitioners infamy.
• At one point, a man who is most likely Herostratus asks for
infamy, which Fame grants to him.
• Soon, Chaucer leaves the House of Fame, and is taken by an
unnamed man to a ‘place where [Chaucer] shall hear many
things’.
• In a valley outside of the house, Chaucer sees
a large, rapidly spinning wicker house that he
guesses to be at least miles in length.
• The house makes incredibly loud noises as it
spins, and Chaucer remarks that “if the house
had stood upon the Oise, I believe truly that it
might easily have been heard it as far as Rome
.”
• Chaucer enters the house, and sees a massive
crowd of people, representing the spread of
rumor and hearsay.
• He spends some time listening to all he can, all
the lies and all the truth, but then the crowd
falls silent at the approach of an unnamed man
who Chaucer believes to be of ‘great authority’.
• The poem ends at this point, and the identity of
this man remains a mystery.
Chaucer’s
Prologue to Canterbury Tales (1387)

Chaucer’s Prologue to Canterbury
Tales (1387)
• A frame story
• 858 lines of Middle English make up the
General Prologue
• About a religious pilgrimage.
• The narrator, Geoffrey Chaucer, is in The
Tabard Inn in Southwark, where he meets
a group of "sundry folk" who are all on the
way to Canterbury, the site of the shrine of
Saint Thomas Becket.

Chaucer’s
Prologue to Canterbury Tales (1387)
• A study of Social hierarchy

• Corruption in the catholic church
• Assessment of characters
• Study of cultural and religious
practice of the time

1 Chaucer_Book
of the Duchess_Final.docx
Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess (1)
• The Book of the Duchess, also known as The Deth of

Blaunche
• the earliest of Chaucer's major poems
• preceded by his short poem, "An ABC
• preceded by his translation of The Romaunt of the Rose
• the date of composition after 12 September 1368 (after
the death of Blanche of Lancaster) and 1372
• 1,334-line long poem
• It exists in several manuscripts of varying accuracy
Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess (2)
• Written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets
• The Book of the Duchess is an elegy for Blanche, Duchess of
Lancaster
• Blanche, of Chaucer's patron, John of Gaunt, died 12 September
1368 of plague
• Blanche was the first wife of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
(son of King Endward III of England & father of King Henry IV)
• handwritten notes from Elizabethan antiquary John Stowe
indicating that the poem was written at John of Gaunt’s request
• This is an example of a “dream poem” or “dream-vision” or
“dream allegory”
William Langland’s Piers Ploughman
(1370–90)

Piers Plowman
• Piers Plowman exists in at least three versions.
• The A text, dating from about 1362
• It contains a prologue and eleven passi, or cantos.
• The Latin word “passus” means step or stage of a
journey and is both singular and plural.
• About a decade later William Langland expanded
the work from 2,400 lines to 7,277 lines

Piers Plowman
• 8 Visions
• 20 Passus
• 8th vision has a vision of the catholic church
• Piers the ploughman.docx
John Gower (Moral Gower)

John Gower (Moral Gower)
• Wrote in three languages (Anglo-Norman,

English, and Latin)
• Contemporary of and had “close relations”
with Chaucer
• At Chaucer’s request, read Chaucer’s Troilus
and Criseyde for “correction”

Three Major Works
• Mirour de l’omme (Mirror of Man)
– Written in Anglo-Norman
– Addressed to upper class audience able to read
French and English
– Estate satire
– Around 30,000 lines
– Survives in fragments

Three Majors Works (cont.)
• Vox Clamantis (Voice of the Crier)
– Written in Latin
– Name of poem refers to saint for whom Gower
was named, John the Baptist
– Gower identified with John the Baptist as the “the
voice of one crying out in the wilderness” and
with the apocalyptic writer of Revelation, John.
– Estate satire (addresses the peasantry for their
part in the Peasants’ Uprising of 1381)

Three Majors Works (cont.)
• Confessio Amantis (The Lover’s Confession)

– Written in English
– Divided into eight books
– Gower draws from many secular and classical texts, but
particularly Ovid
– Norton characterizes it as “moral discourse.”

"Pearl Poet”
• The "Pearl Poet", or the "Gawain Poet", is the

name given to the author of Pearl, an
alliterative poem written in 14th-century
Middle English.
• Its author appears also to have written the
poems Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,
Patience, and Cleanness
Pearl
• medieval allegory and dream vision genre

• A father, mourning the loss of his "perle [pearl]", falls asleep
in a garden; in his dream he encounters the 'Pearl-maiden'—a
beautiful and heavenly woman—standing across a stream in a
strange landscape.
• In response to his questioning and attempts to obtain her, she
answers with Christian doctrine.
• Eventually she shows him an image of the Heavenly City, and
herself as part of the retinue of Christ the Lamb.
• When the Dreamer attempts to cross the stream, he awakens
suddenly from his dream and reflects on its significance.
“Cleanliness”
• Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet

• Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century
• Cleanness is a description of the virtues of cleanliness of body
and the delights of married love.
• It takes three subjects from the Bible as its illustrations: the
Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the fall of
Belshazzar.
• Each of these is described powerfully, and the poetry is among
the finest in Middle English.
• In each case, the poet warns his readers about the dangers of
defilement and, at the same time, the joys of purity.
Patience
• Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century.

• Its unknown author, designated the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain-Poet"
• The narrator/homilist begins by praising patience, setting it among eight
virtues (which he calls blessings) or typically known as the Beatitudes in
Matthew 5:3-10 from the Sermon on the Mount, which he hears in mass
one day. He closely associates it with poverty, closing with an admonition
not to grumble or fight one’s fate, as Jonah did (ll. 1 - 56).
• The remainder of the work utilizes the story of Jonah as an exemplum
which illustrates and justifies the admonition to accept the will of God
patiently.
• Jonah's story delineates his own impatience because he could not handle
the burden of what he was supposed to do — preach to the Ninevites.
• Notably, patience is generally paired in opposition to sloth.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th C)
• a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance.

• It is one of the best known Arthurian stories, and is of
a type known as the "beheading game".
• The Green Knight is interpreted by some as a
representation of the Green Man of folklore and by
others as an allusion to Christ.
• Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which
ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh,
Irish and English stories, as well as the French chivalric
tradition.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's
Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "
Green Knight" who challenges any knight to strike him with
his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day.
• Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which
the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds
Gawain of the appointed time.
• In his struggles to keep his bargain Gawain demonstrates
chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question
by a test involving Lady Bertilak, the lady of the Green
Knight's castle.
Middle Ages: Mystery Plays

Middle Ages: Miracle Plays

Morality Plays
• popular in the 15th and early 16th
centuries.
• a kind of allegorical drama having
personified abstract qualities as the
main characters
• presenting a lesson about good
conduct and character

Scottish Chaucerians
• James I of Scotland (1394–1437)
• Robert Henryson (c. 1425 – c. 1500)
• William Dunbar (c. 1460 – c. 1520)
• Gavin Douglas (c. 1474 – 1522)
• Scottish Chaucerians.docx
Sir Thomas Malory
• Sir Thomas Malory (died 14 March 1471) was an English

writer, the author or compiler of Le Morte d'Arthur.
• Le Morte d'Arthur (originally spelled Le Morte Darthur,
Middle French for “the death of Arthur”) is a compilation
by Sir Thomas Malory of traditional tales about the
legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and the
Knights of the Round Table.
• First published in 1485 by William Caxton, Le Morte
d'Arthur is today perhaps the best-known work of
Arthurian literature in English.
Malory's eight tales
• The birth and rise of Arthur: “From the Marriage of King Uther unto King Arthur
that Reigned After Him and Did Many Battles”
• King Arthur's war against the Romans: “The Noble Tale Between King Arthur and
Lucius the Emperor of Rome”
• The book of Lancelot: “The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lac”
• The book of Gareth (brother of Gawain): “The Tale of Sir Gareth”
• Tristan and Isolde: “The Book of Sir Tristrams de Lyons”
• The Quest for the Holy Grail: “The Noble Tale of the Sangreal”
• The affair between Lancelot and Guinevere: “Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere”
• The breaking of the Knights of the Round Table and the death of Arthur: “Le Morte
D'Arthur”
• Most of the events in the book take place in Britain and France in the latter half of
the 5th century. In some parts, the story ventures farther afield, to Rome and
Sarras (near Babylon), and recalls Biblical tales from the ancient Near East.
Sir Thomas More’s Utopia (1516)
• Sir Thomas More coined the word Utopia in 1516.
• Written as an act of the Humanist movement.
• More’s Utopia is the story of an imaginary island society.
• Utopia means nowhere in Greek.
• More’s story of Utopia is told by Raphael Hythloday.
• Hythloday in Greek means "talker of nonsense.“
• Originally written in Latin.
• It was translated into English by Ralph Robinson in 1551.
The Summoning of Everyman
(1509 – 1519)

The Summoning of Everyman
(1509 – 1519)
• Everyman examines the question

of Christian Salvation through the
use of allegorical characters

Early Tudor Period (1485-1558)
• The War of the Roses (1455 – 16 June 1487

(32 years, 3 weeks, 4 days) ends in
England with Henry Tudor (Henry VII)
claiming the throne
• Martin Luther's split with Rome marks the
emergence of Protestantism

Early Tudor Period (1485-1558)
• "Defender of the Faith" was the title of the English
and later British monarchs
• The title was granted on 11 October 1521 by Pope
Leo X to King Henry VIII of England and Ireland
• It was followed by Henry VIII's Anglican schism
• Creation of the first Protestant church in England
• Edmund Spenser is the prominent poet of Tudor
Period

The Renaissance Period
(1500-1600)
Renaissance & Reformation
• The fall of Constantinople (1453) to the
Ottoman Turks (Invasion of Byzantium/
Istanbul)
• The Renaissance takes place in the late 15th,
16th, and early 17th century in Britain,
• The Renaissance took place somewhat
earlier in Italy and southern Europe,
somewhat later in northern Europe

Hudson
Morning Star of Renaissance:
Morning Star of Reformation:
Geoffrey Chaucer John Wycliffe

John Wycliffe

Translator’s of the Holy Bible
• Erasmus printed the Greek New Testament for
the first time in 1516
• Luther made his German translation in 1522–24
• William Tyndale in 1525 brought out his English
New Testament
• Making use of Tyndale’s material where
available, Miles Coverdale introduced his
complete Bible in 1535

• Coverdale’s Bible was followed by Matthew’s Bible
in 1537
• In 1539 Coverdale, with the approval of King Henry
VIII, brought out the Great Bible, named for its large
size
• With the coming of Mary Tudor to the throne in
1553, the printing of Bibles was temporarily
interrupted, but the exiles in Geneva, led by William
Whittingham, produced the Geneva Bible in 1560

• Matthew Parker, the archbishop of
Canterbury, then had the Bishops’ Bible
prepared, primarily by bishops of the Church
of England
• Roman Catholics brought out their Rheims
New Testament in 1582 and the Old
Testament in 1610

• Coming of King James I

• Translation proposal submitted to King
James I at the Hampton Court Conference
in January 1604
• The outcome was the King James Version
of 1611 (a revision of the Bishops’ Bible)

The Renaissance Period in English
literature
• The Renaissance Period in English literature is
also called the Elizabethan Period or the Age
of Shakespeare.
• The middle Ages in Europe were followed by
the Renaissance.
• Renaissance means the Revival of Learning,
and it denotes in its broadest sense the
gradual enlightenment of the human mind
after the darkness of the Middle Ages.
Renaissance and English
Humanism (1)
• The chief characteristic of the Renaissance was its
emphasis on Humanism, which means man’s
concern with himself as an object of contemplation.
• This movement was started in Italy by Dante, Petrarch
and Baccaccio in the fourteenth century, and from
there it spread to other countries of Europe.
• In England it became popular during the Elizabethan
period.
• This movement which focused its interest on ‘the
proper study of mankind’ had a number of
subordinate trends.
English Humanism
• The first Englishman who wrote under
the influence of Greek studies was Sir
Thomas More.
– His Utopia (1515) , written in Latin, was
suggested by Plato’s Republic.
• Sir Philip Sidney in his Defence of
Poesie accepted and advocated the
critical rules of the ancient Greeks.
Humanism (2)
• The second important aspect of
Humanism was the discovery of the
external universe, and its
significance for man.
• But more important than this was
that the writers directed their gaze
inward, and became deeply interested
in the problems of human personality.
English Humanism
• the medieval morality plays
• Plays of Christopher Marlowe probed into the deep
recesses of the human passion.
• Shakespeare, a more consummate artist, carried
Humanism to perfection.
• Bacon’s Essays
• It was this new interest in human personality , the
passion for life, which was responsible for the
exquisite lyrical poetry of the Elizabethan Age,
dealing with the problems of death, decay ,
transitoriness of life etc.
Humanism (2)
• Another aspect of Humanism was the enhanced
sensitiveness to formal beauty , and the cultivation of
the aesthetic sense.
• An Italian diplomat and man of letters, Castiglione, wrote
a treatise entitled Il Cortigiano (The Courtier) where he
sketched the pattern of gentlemanly behaviour and
manners upon which the conduct of such men as Sir
Phillip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh was modelled.
• This cult of elegance in prose writing produced the
ornate style called Euphuism by Lyly .
Elizabethan Age (1558-1603)
Elizabethan Period (1558-1603)
• The golden age of English history
• famous for its theatre and the works of William
Shakespeare
• Elizabethan Renaissance theatre begins with the opening
of the “the red lion” theatre in 1567
• Other famous theatres:
– curtain theatre [1577]
– Globe theatre [1599]

Elizabethan Poetry
Elizabethan Poetry
• Publications of a volume known as Tottel’s Miscellany (157
7 ).
• This book which contained the verse of Sir Thomas Wyatt
(1 503-1 542) and the Earl of Surrey , (1577 -1547 ) marks
the first English poetry of the Renaissance.
• Wyatt and Surrey wrote a number of songs, especially
sonnets which adhered to the Petrarchan model, and
which was later adopted by Shakespeare.
• They also attempted the blank verse which was improved
upon by Marlowe and then perfected by Shakespeare.
Sonnet
• A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme
originating in Italy and brought to England by
Sir Thomas Wyatt and
Henry Howard, earl of Surrey in the 16th century.
• Literally a “little song,” the sonnet traditionally
reflects upon a single sentiment, with a
clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding
lines. There are many different types of sonnets.
The Petrarchan sonnet
• The Petrarchan sonnet, perfected by the Italian
poet Petrarch, divides the 14 lines into two
sections: an eight-line stanza (octave) rhyming
ABBAABBA, and a six-line stanza (sestet)
rhyming CDCDCD or CDEEDE.
• John Milton’s
“When I Consider How my Light Is Spent”
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s
“How Do I Love Thee” employ this form.
Italian sonnet
• The Italian sonnet is an English variation on
the traditional Petrarchan version.
• The octave’s rhyme scheme is preserved, but
the sestet rhymes CDDCEE.
• Thomas Wyatt’s
“Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is an Hind
”

• John Donne’s
“If Poisonous Minerals, and If That Tree.”
Wyatt and Surrey
• Wyatt and Surrey developed the English (or
Shakespearean) sonnet, which condenses the 14
lines into one stanza of three quatrains and a
concluding couplet, with a rhyme scheme of
ABABCDCDEFEFGG
• Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth”.
• George Herbert’s “Love (II),”
• Claude McKay’s “America,”
• Molly Peacock’s “Altruism”
The caudate sonnet
• The caudate sonnet, which adds codas or tails
to the 14-line poem.
• Gerard Manley Hopkins’s
“That Nature Is a Heraclitean Fire.”
The curtal sonnet
• The curtal sonnet, a shortened version devised
by Gerard Manley Hopkins that maintains the
proportions of the Italian form, substituting
two six-stress tercets for two quatrains in the
octave (rhyming ABC ABC), and four and a half
lines for the sestet (rhyming DEBDE), also six-
stress except for the final three-stress line.
• Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty.”
The sonnet redoublé
• The sonnet redoublé, also known as a crown of
sonnets, is composed of 15 sonnets that are
linked by the repetition of the final line of one
sonnet as the initial line of the next, and the
final line of that sonnet as the initial line of the
previous; the last sonnet consists of all the
repeated lines of the previous 14 sonnets, in
the same order in which they appeared.
• Marilyn Nelson’s A Wreath for Emmett Till
Spenserian sonnet
• The Spenserian sonnet is a 14-line poem
developed by Edmund Spenser in his Amoretti,
that varies the English form by interlocking
the three quatrains (ABAB BCBC CDCD EE).
Spenserian Sonnet Rhyme Scheme
Shakespearean Sonnet Rhyme Scheme
Thomas Sackville (1536-1608)
• In his Mirror for Magistrates (1559) he has
given a powerful picture of the underworld
where the poet describes his meetings with
some famous Englishmen who had been the
victims of misfortunes.
• Sackville, unlike Wyatt and Surrey , is not a
cheerful writer, but he is superior to them in
poetic technique.
Sir Philip Sydney [1554-1586]
• Father of English criticism
• He took part in the military-literary-
courtly life
Works
– Astrophel and Stella
– Arcadia
– Apology for poetry

Astrophil and Stella
• Astrophil and Stella is an English sonnet sequence
• It contains 108 sonnets and 11 songs
• The name derives from the two Greek words, 'aster' (star)
and 'phil' (lover),
• The Latin word 'stella' meaning star
• Thus Astrophil is the star lover, and Stella is his star.
• In Astrophel and Stella, Sidney celebrated the history of his
love for Penelope Devereax , sister of the Earl of Essex , a
love which came to a sad end through the intervention of
Queen Elizabeth with whom Sidney had quarreled.

An Apology for Poetry (or, The Defence of
Poesy)
• It is a work of literary criticism
• It was written in approximately 1579
• It was first published in 1595, after his death.
• It is motivated by Stephen Gosson (April 1554 –
13 February 1624) was an English satirist, who
dedicated his attack on the English stage, The
School of Abuse, to Sidney in 1579
• Sidney primarily addresses more general
objections to poetry, such as those of Plato
Stephen Gossen’s charges against poetry
• (i) He classed poets with pipers, jesters, and

called them caterpillars of the commonwealth
– all alike enemies of virtue.
• (ii) the poetry was just a tissue of lies
• (iii) it encourages immorality
• (iv) it was only imitation of an imitation and
therefore trivial.
• (v) Poetry was threat to morality and piety.

Stephen Gossen’s charges against poetry
• Stephen Gossen makes charges on poetry

which Sidney answers.
The charges are:
1. Poetry is the waste of time.
2. Poetry is mother of lies.
3. It is nurse of abuse.
3. Plato had rightly banished the poets from
his ideal world.
Sidney’s answer to Stephen Gossen’s 1st charge against poetry
• Poetry is the source of knowledge and a

civilizing force, for Sidney.
– no learning is so good as that which teaches and
moves to virtue and that nothing can both teach
and amuse so much as poetry does. In essay
societies, poetry was the main source of education.
– He remembers ancient Greek society that
respected poets. The poets are always to be looked
up. So, poetry is not wasted of time.
Sidney’s answer to Stephen Gossen’s 2nd
charge against poetry
• It is people who abuses poetry, not the vice- versa.
• Abuses are more nursed by philosophy and history than
by poetry, by describing battles, bloodshed, violence etc.
• On the contrary, poetry helps to maintain morality and
peace by avoiding such violence and bloodsheds.
Moreover it brings light to knowledge.
• Sidney views that Plato in his Republic wanted to banish
the abuse of poetry not the poets.
• He himself was not free from poeticality, which we can
find in his dialogues.
Sidney’s answer to Stephen Gossen’s 3rd
• For Sidney, art is the imitation of nature but it is not slavish
imitation as Plato views. Rather it is creative imitation.
• Nature is dull, incomplete and ugly. It is artists who turn
dull nature in to golden color.
• He employs his creative faculty, imagination and style of
presentation to decorate the raw materials of nature.
• For Sidney, art is a speaking picture having spatiotemporal
dimension.
• For Aristotle human action is more important but for
Sidney nature is important.
Sidney’s answer to Stephen Gossen’s 4th
• Poetry teaches virtue by example as well as by percept (blend of
abstract and concrete).
• The poet creates his own world where he gives only the inspiring
things and thus poetry holds its superior position to that of
philosophy and history.
• In the poet's golden world, heroes are ideally presented and evils are
corrupt.
• Didactic effect of a poem depends up on the poet's power to move.
• It depends up on the affective quality of poetry.
• Among the different forms of poetry like lyric, elegy, satire, comedy
etc. epic is the best form as it portrays heroic deeds and inspires
heroic deeds and inspires people to become courageous and
patriotic.
The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia
• The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, also known

simply as the Arcadia, is a long prose work
• It was written towards the end of the 16th
century
• Having finished one version of his text, Sidney
later significantly expanded and revised his work
• Scholars today often refer to these two major
versions as the Old Arcadia and the New Arcadia
• In Five Books
Edmund Spencer [1552-1599]
Edmund Spenser [1552-1599]
• Called as “Poets poet” by Charles lamb

• Called as “prince of poets” by John
Milton
• Called as “Poet’s poet and critic’s critic”
by T.S Eliot
• The poet of chivalry and Medieval allegory .

Works of Edmund Spenser
– The Faerie queen

– Shepherds calendar (1579)
– Astrophel (1586)
– Amoretti (88 Sonnets_Petrarcan Model)
• describes beautifully the progress of his love for
Elizabeth Boy le whom he married in 1594.
– Prothalamion
– Epithalamion (1595)
Epithalamion
– A lyric poem in praise of Hymen (the Greek god of

marriage), an epithalamion often blesses a
wedding and in modern times is often read at the
wedding ceremony or reception.
Epithalamion (1595)
• an ode written to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day in
1594.
• The ode begins with an invocation to the Muses to help the groom,
• moves through the couple's wedding day, from Spenser's impatient
hours before dawn while waiting for his bride to wake up, to the late
hours of night after Spenser and Boyle have consummated their marriage
(wherein Spenser's thoughts drift towards the wish for his bride to have a
fertile womb, so that they may have many children).
• 24 stanzas represent the hours of Midsummer Day.
• The Epithalamion is also 365 long lines, corresponding to the days in a
year.
• The ode's content progresses from the enthusiasm of youth to the
concerns of middle age by beginning with high hopes for a joyful day and
ending with an eye toward the speaker's legacy to future generations.
Works written using Spenserian stanza
• James Thomson’s The Castle of Indolence (1748_Scottish)

• Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)
• Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam (1818)
– a poem in twelve cantos
– The Revolt of Islam was a revision of Percy Bysshe Shelley's
Laon and Cynthia, an attempt to write an epic poem in the
style of Edmund Spenser
• Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18)
– a lengthy narrative poem in four parts written by Lord Byron.
– Cantos I and II were published in 1812, Canto III in 1816, and
Canto IV in 1818.
The Faerie queen
• The Faerie Queene.docx
The Faerie queen (Epic):
Virtues and Vices

The Shepheardes Calender
• The Shepheardes Calender can be called the first work of the English literary
Renaissance.
• Spenser followed the example of Virgil and of many later poets
• Spenser began his career with a series of eclogues (literally mean “selections”;
usually short poems in the form of pastoral dialogues), in which various characters,
in the guise of innocent and simple shepherds, converse about life and love in a
variety of elegantly managed verse forms, formulating weighty—often satirical—
opinions on questions of the day.
• The paradoxical combination in pastoral poetry of the simple, isolated life of
shepherds with the sophisticated social ambitions of the figures symbolized or
discussed by these shepherds has been of some interest in literary criticism.
• The Shepheardes Calender consists of 12 eclogues, one named after each month of
the year.
• One of the shepherds, Colin Clout, who excels in poetry but is ruined by his
hopeless love for one Rosalind, is Spenser himself.
• The eclogue “Aprill” is in praise of the shepherdess Elisa, really the queen
(Elizabeth I) herself.
• “October” examines the various kinds of verse composition and suggests how
discouraging it is for a modern poet to try for success in any of them.
• Most of the eclogues, however, concern good or bad shepherds—that is to say,
pastors—of Christian congregations.
• In 1580, Spenser was at the service of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and
become a member of the literary circle led by Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester’s
nephew
• It is to Sir Philip Sidney, Leicester’s nephew that Spenser dedicated his
• Sir Philip Sidney praised The Shepheardes Calender in his important critical
work The Defence of Poesie (1595)
•
Amoretti and Epithalamion
• In early 1595, Spenser published Amoretti and Epithalamion, a sonnet

sequence and a marriage ode celebrating his marriage to Elizabeth
Boyle after what appears to have been an impassioned courtship in
1594.
• This group of poems is unique among Renaissance sonnet sequences in
that it celebrates a successful love affair culminating in marriage.
• The Epithalamion further idealizes the marriage by building into its
structure the symbolic numbers 24 (the number of stanzas) and 365
(the total number of long lines), allowing the poem to allude to the
structure of the day and of the year.
• The marriage is thus connected with the encompassing harmonies of
the universe, and the cyclical processes of change and renewal are
expressed in the procreation of the two mortal lovers.
Disciples of Spenser
• Disciples of Spenser during the reign of James
I were
– Phineas Fletcher (1582- 1648)
– Giles Fletcher (1583-1623)
• They were both priests and Fellows of Cambridge
University .
Phineas Fletcher (1582- 1648)
• Phineas Fletcher wrote a number of

Spenserian pastorals and allegories.
• The Purple Island (1633)
– portrays in a minutely detailed allegory the
physical and mental constitution of man, the
struggle between Temperance and his foes, the
will of man and Satan.
• The poem follows the allegorical pattern of
the Faerie Queene.
Giles Fletcher (1583-1623)
• Giles Fletcher was more lyrical and mystical

than his brother, and he also made a happier
choice of subjects.
• His Christ’s Victorie and Triumph in Heaven
and Earth over and after Death (1610)
– an allegorical narrative describing in a lyrical strain
the Atonement, Temptation, Crucifix ion, and
Resurrection of Christ, is a link between the
religious poetry of Spenser and Milton.
Poets influenced by Spenser
• William Browne (1590-1645)

• George Wither (1588-1667 )
• William Drummond (1585-1649)
William Browne (1590-1645)
• Browne’s important poetical work is Britannia’s

Pastorals (1614 )which shows all the
characteristics of Elizabethan pastoral poetry .
• inspired by Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Sidney
’s Arcadia as it combines allegory with satire.
• It is a story of wooing and adventure, of the
nymphs who change into streams and flowers.
• It also sings the praise of virtue and of poets and
dead and living.
George Wither (1588-1667 )
• The same didactic tone and lyrical strain are noticed in

the poetry of George Wither.
• His best-known poems are
– The Shepherd’s Hunting (1633) (a series of personal eulogies)
– Fidella (an heroic epistle of over twelve hundred lines)
– Fair Virtue, the Mistress of Philarete (1622), (a sustained and
detailed lyrical eulogy of an ideal woman).
• Most of Wither’s poetry is pastoral which is used by him to
convey his personal experience.
• In his later years Wither wrote didactic and satirical verse, which
earned for him the title of “our English Juvenal”.
William Drummond (1585-1649)
• Drummond who was a Scottish poet, wrote a number of

pastorals, sonnets, songs, elegies and religious poems.
• His poetry is the product of a scholar of refined nature, high
imaginative faculty , and musical ear.
• His indebtedness to Spenser, Sidney and Shakespeare in the
matter of fine phraseology is quite obvious.
• The greatest and original quality of all his poetry is the
sweetness and musical evolution in which he has few rivals
even among the Elizabethan lyricists.
• His well-known poems are Tears on the Death of Maliades
(1614) (an elegy ), Sonnets, Flowers of Sion and Pastorals.
Elizabethan Prose
John Lyly (1554-1 606)
• The first author who wrote prose in the manner

that the Elizabethans wanted, was Lyly ,
• Euphues (1578), popularized a highly artificial
and decorative style.
• It was read and copied by every body .
• Its maxims and phrases were freely quoted in the
court and the market-place, and the word
‘Euphuism’ became a common description of an
artificial and flamboyant style.
Euphues (1578)
• The style of Euphues has three main characteristics.
– In the first place, the structure of the sentence is based on antithesis and alliteration.
• Euphues is described as a young man “of more wit than wealth, yet of more wealth
than wisdom”.
– The second characteristic of this sty le is that no fact is stated without reference to some classical
authority . For ex ample, when the author makes a mention of friendship, he quotes the friendship
that existed between David and Jonathan.
• There is also an abundance of allusion to natural history , mostly of a fabulous
kind, which is its third characteristic.
– “The bull being tied to the fig tree loseth his tale; the whole herd of dear stand at gaze if they smell
sweet apple.”
• The purpose of writing Euphues was to instruct the courtiers and gentlemen how to
live, and so it is full of grave reflections and weighty morals.
• In it there is also criticism of contemporary society , especially its extravagant
fashions.
• Though Puritanic in tone, it inculcates, on the whole, a liberal and humane
outlook.
Elizabethan Drama
First English Dramas
• About the middle of the sixteenth century some
• academic writers made attempts to write
original plays in English on the Latin model.
• The three important plays of this type are
– Nicholas Udall’s Ralph Roister Doister (1552)
– John Still’s Grummar Gurton’s Needle (1562) (domestic
comedy),
• https://jyotimishr.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/gammer_gu
rtons_needle/
– Thomas Sackville’s Gorbuduc or Ferrex and Porrex
(1561)
• the first two are comedies and last one a tragedy
University wits
• Group of young dramatists associated with oxford and Cambridge
• They introduced Romantic drama into English theatre
• The university wits are:
– George peele (1558 -1598)
– Robert Greene (1558 -1592)
– Thomas Nash (1567-1601)
– Thomas lodge (1558 -1625)
– Thomas Kyd (1558 -1594)
• Marlowe was responsible for developing psycho-trauma type of tragedy, Thomas ked
is responsible for celebrating revenge
• Shakespeare was much indebted to Kyd while writing Hamlet, him masterpiece.
– John Lyly (1554-1606)
– Christopher Marlowe (1564 -1593)

John Lyly (1554-1 606)
• The author of
– Euphues (1578)
– Compaspe (1581 ),
– Sapho and Phao (1584),
– Endymion (1591 ), and
– Midas (1 592)
• These play s are mythological and pastoral and are nearer to the
Masque (court spectacles intended to satisfy the love of
• glitter and novelty ) rather than to the narrative drama of Marlowe.
• They are written in prose intermingled with verse.
• Though the verse is simple and charming prose is marred by
exaggeration, a characteristic of Euphuism.
John Lyly
• His comedies are romantic as well as

witty
• William Shakespeare’s As You Like
It is an admixture of prose and verse
form which is followed after Lyly.

George Peele (1 558-97 )
• He was an actor as well as writer of plays.

– The Arraignment of Paris (1 584)
– David and Bathsheba (1 599).
• The Arraignment of Paris, which contains an
elaborate eulogy of Queen Elizabeth, is really a
court play of the Masque order.
• David and Bathsheba contains many beautiful
lines.
• Like Marlowe, Peele was responsible for giving the
blank verse musical quality , which later attained
perfection in the deft hands of Shakespeare.
Thomas Kyd (1558-95)
• Achieved great popularity with his first work,

The Spanish Tragedy (1582 -1592), which was
translated in many European languages.
• He introduced the ‘blood and thunder’ element
in drama, which proved one of the attractive
features of the pre-Shakespearean drama.
• Though he is always violent and extravagant, yet
he was responsible for breaking away from the
lifeless monotony of Gorboduc.
The Spanish Tragedy
• The Spanish Tragedy, or Hieronimo is Mad
Again
• Written between 1582 and
• Revenge tragedy
• Its plot contains several violent murders and
includes as one of its characters a personification
of Revenge
• Based on Senecan Tragedy
• Hero Hieronimo
George Peele (1558-98)
• Lyly, he had a taste for ornament and cared
for fine language
• Peele is less witty and more poetic than Lyly
• His plays include
– The Arrangement of Paris, a kind of romantic
comedy
– The old Wife’s Tale, a satire etc

Thomas Lodge (1558-1625)
• His only play is The Wounds of Civil War
• He probably collaborated with Shakespeare
in Henry VI.

Robert Greene (1558-92)
• He lived a most dissolute life, and died
in distress and debt.
• His plays comprise
– Orlando Furiosoh (1589)
– Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay (1594),
– The Scottish Historie of James the
forth (1594)

Thomas Nash (1567-1601):
• Nash was the youngest of the University
wits.
• Most inborn journalist
• The dramatic work of Nash is of little
significance
• He finished Marlowe’s Dido, but his only
surviving play is Summer’s Last Will and
Testament.

Christopher Marlowe
• Dramatist and poet
• secret service agent for Elizabeth I
• Death at Deptford in the hands of Ingram Frizer
– Some speculate his death to be a government plot
– Frizer was released without trial within 28 days of the brawl
Works
• 1587 – Tamburlaine the Great
• 1588 – Doctor Faustus
• 1589 – The Jew of Malta
Created and mastered the “theatrical language” of blank verse

– Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Doctor Faustus
• Probably written in
1592
• Reinvention of an old
motif
– Individual who sells his
or her soul to the devil
for knowledge
• Based on a real person
– Johannes Faustus
– Disreputable German
astrologer (early 1500’s)
More about Doctor Faustus
• Immediate source is a
German work from 1587
• Marlowe’s Faustus is the first
famous version of the story
• Later, Romantic writers
would revisit it
– Goethe
• “Faustian bargain” – any
deal made for short-term
gain with great costs in the
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long run 185
Elements of the Play
• The play and the story itself contain
elements which are holdovers from a
medieval tradition, the morality play:
– Psychomachia
– the battle over the spirit
– Good Angel and a Bad Angel;
– the parade of the Seven Deadly Sins;
– the potential for salvation, which exists until
he finally succumbs to despair and gives up
all hope of being able to repent
William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
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William Shakespeare (1564 -1616)
• The greatest poet and dramatist in English
literature
• Playwright, actor and shareholder in an acting
company
• He wrote
– 37 plays
– 154 sonnets
– 2 long narrative poem and
– 3 poems
• The span of his literary works begins with 1588 and
ends about 1612.

Plays of William Shakespeare
Poems:
– The Rape of Lucrece 1594
– Venus and Adonis 1593
– The Passionate Pilgrim 1599
Tragedies:
• Hamlet
• Othello
• King Lear
• Macbeth
Comedies:
– The Midsummer Night’s Dream
– The Merchant of Venice
– As You Like it
– Twelfth Night

Plays of William Shakespeare
• Tragic comedies:
– Cymbeline
– The Winter’s Tale
– The Tempest
– The Tempest (an autobiographical play) (Last Play)

38th Play of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s New Play?
By Jeanne Whalen
Mar 16, 2010 4:00 pm ET
• “For years, the complete works of Shakespeare have contained 37

plays. Now, a 38th appears to be emerging.
• Arden, the preeminent publisher of Shakespeare’s work, announced
this week that it is publishing the little-known play “Double
Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers,” saying that there is
“sufficiently sustainable” evidence that it contains at least some bits
written by Shakespeare.”
Shakespeare’s New Play?
By Jeanne Whalen
Mar 16, 2010 4:00 pm ET
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/03/16/shakespeares-new-play/

First Period: 1577 -93
• This was the period of early experimental work.

• To this period belong the revision of old plays as
– the three parts of Henry VI
– Titus Andronicus
– Love’s Labour Lost (Earliest Comedy)
– The Two Gentlemen of Verona
– The Comedy of Errors
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• (chronicle play) Richard III
• (youthful tragedy) Romeo and Juliet.
Second Period: 1594-1600
• To the second period belong Shakespeare’s great comedies and

chronicle plays –
– Richard II
– King John
– The Merchant of Venice
– Henry IV, Part I and II
– Henry V
– The Taming of the Shrew
– The Merry Wives of Windsor
– Much Ado About Nothing
– As You Like It
– Twelfth Night.
• These play s reveal Shakespeare’s great development as a
thinker and technician.
• They show the maturity of his mind and art.
Third Period: 1601-1608
• To the third period belong Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies and sombre or

bitter comedies.
• He is more concerned with the darker side of human experience and its
destructive passions.
• Even in comedies, the tone is grave and there is a greater emphasis on evil.
• The play s of this period are—
– Julius Caesar
– Hamlet
– All’s Well that Ends Well
– Measure for Measure
– Troilus and Cressida
– Othello
– King Lear
– Macbeth
– Antony and Cleopatra
– Coriolanus
– Timon of Athens.
Fourth Period: 1608-1612
• To the fourth period belong the later comedies or

dramatic romances.
• Though the tragic passions still play their part as in
the third period, the evil is now controlled and
conquered by good.
• The tone of the play s is gracious and tender, and there
is a decline in the power of expression and thought.
• The play s written during this period are—
– Cymbeline,
– The Tempest
– The Winter’s Tale,
– completely written in collaboration with some other dramatist.
Shakespearean Theatres
The Theatre
• Shakespeare’s earliest plays were performed at The

Theatre.
• When the company moved to the Globe, Shakespeare
became a partner in the company and eventually became
wealthy partly as a result of that.
• The Theatre was one of the first public theatres in England
since Roman times just outside London, in modern day
Shoreditch.
• It was in this theatre that Shakespeare began his acting and
writing career with The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatre
company.
The Curtain
• The Lord Chamberlain’s Men moved to The

Curtain theatre in 1597 until The Globe
theatre opened in 1599.
The Globe
• The Globe is the theatre most commonly

associated with the performance of
Shakespeare’s plays.
• It was erected in 1599 on the south bank of
the Thames by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men,
and it became their main performance space
until it was destroyed by a fire on June 29,
1613.
Blackfriars Theatre
• Blackfriars Theatre was built by Richard Burbage in

on the north bank of the Thames in 1596 as a
private theatre.
• There were strict regulations on public playhouses
within the bounds of the city wall, but the private
theatres in London were built upon grounds that
belonged to the church – grounds that had been
appropriated by Henry VIII and were therefore not
under the control of the Lord Mayor.
The Royal Court, the Inns of Court and the Houses of the Nobility
• The Royal Court, the Inns of Court and the Houses of the
Nobility
• Members of the royal family did not attend the playhouses, and
so Shakespeare and the Chamberlain’s Men and later, the King’s
Men would, on occasion, be requested to perform at court.
• The main London residence of the Monarch was at Whitehall
during the reigns of both Elizabeth I and James I.
• But the court was constituted wherever the monarch happened
to be staying.
The Royal Court, the Inns of Court and the Houses of the Nobility
• During Christmas, 1594, Shakespeare acted before Queen Elizabeth I in

her palace at Greenwich in two separate comedies.
• During Christmas, 1597, the Chamberlain’s Men performed Love’s
Labour’s Lost before the Queen in her palace at Whitehall.
• In 1603, Shakespeare plays were performed several times before King
James I at Hampton Court, when the company had changed their name
to The King’s Men.
• Like the royal families the noblemen did not attend theatres.
• Shakespeare and the Chamberlain’s Men would accept invitations to
perform at the country houses and estates of the nobility.
• Among many performances in the houses of noblemen, Shakespeare
performed at the house of the Earl of Pembroke in 1603.
• In 1605 he performed at Lord Southampton’s London house.
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Not to Misjudge People
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Not to be too ambitious
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Not to be too emotional/ jealous
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Not to Postpone
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Synopsis of the Plays of Shakespeare
• SRC_Shakespeare_Synopses.pdf
Critics on Shakespeare and his Works
Ben Johnson on Shakespeare
• 1630:
– "I remember the players have often mentioned it
as an honor to Shakespeare, that in his writing,
whatsoever he penned, he never blotted out a line.
My answer hath been, 'Would he had blotted a
thousand,' which they thought a malevolent
speech. I had not told posterity this but for their
ignorance, who chose that circumstance to
commend their friend by wherein he most faulted;
and to justify mine own candor, for I loved the
man, and do honor his memory on this side
idolatry as much as any…
John Milton on William Shakespeare
• 1632: "On Shakespeare"

What needs my Shakespeare for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument…
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
• "On Shakespeare" was Milton's first published poem & appeared

(anonymously) in the 2nd folio of plays by Shakespeare (1632)
as "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet,
W.SHAKESPEARE".
Samuel Pepys on William Shakespeare
• Samuel Pepys, diary entry for 29 September, 1662:

"This day my oaths of drinking wine and going to plays
are out, and so I do resolve to take a liberty to-day,
and then to fall to them again. To the King's Theatre,
where we saw "Midsummer's Night's Dream [sic],"
which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again,
for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw
in my life. I saw, I confess, some good dancing and
some handsome women, which was all my pleasure."
John Dryden on William Shakespeare
• John Dryden, 1668:
"To begin then with Shakespeare; he was the man who of all
Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most
comprehensive soul. All the Images of Nature were still present
to him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily: when he
describes any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too. Those
who accuse him to have wanted learning, give him the greater
commendation: he was naturally learn'd; he needed not the
spectacles of Books to read Nature; he look'd inwards, and found
her there."
~ Essay on Dramatic Poesy
Thomas Rhymer on William Shakespeare
• Thomas Rhymer, 1692:
"The Moral, sure, of this Fable [Othello] is very instructive. First,

This may be a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their
Parents consent, they run away with Blackamoors. Secondly, This
may be a warning to all good Wives, that they look well to their
Linnen. Thirdly, This may be a lesson to Husbands, that before their
Jealousie be Tragical, the proofs may be Mathematical".
(Rymer's notorious attack on Othello ultimately did Shakespeare's

reputation more good than harm, by firing up John Dryden, John
Dennis and other influential critics into writing eloquent replies.)
Samuel Cobb on William Shakespeare
• Samuel Cobb (1675–1713), translator and master at Christ’s Hospital:

"Yet He with Plautus could instruct and please,
And what requir'd long toil, perform with ease
Tho' sometimes Rude, Unpolish'd, and Undress'd,
His Sentence flows more careless than the rest.
But when his Muse complying with his Will,
Deigns with informing heat his Breast to fill,
Then hear him Thunder in the pompous strain
Of Aeschylus, or sooth in Ovid's Vein.
Then in his Artless Tragedies I see,
What Nature seldom gives, Propriety.
"From Poetica Brittanici (1700).
Cobb provides an example of the diffusion of Jonson's concept of Shakespeare as the
"child of nature."
Other Shakespearean Critics
• Shakespeare's Critics.docx
FACULTY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
Bishop Heber College, Tiruchirappalli – 620 017
UGC - NET/ SET (English)

Jacobean Age – Augustan Age
S. Jerald Sagaya Nathan, M.A., M.Phil., SET., NET., M.A. (M.C. & J).,
Assistant Professor of English
St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous),
Tiruchirappalli- 620002
Tamil Nadu, India.
E-Mail: jsnathan1981@gmail.com
Website: https://sites.google.com/view/sjeraldsagayanathan/home
Mobile Nos.: 9843287913/ 962928791
Jacobean Period (1603-1625)
Historical Context
Historical Context (1)
• England and Scotland shared the
same monarchy
• Death of Elizabeth I in 1603
• Elizabeth I was succeeded by James
Stuart in 1603
• James I inherited from his father the
medieval idea of the “divine right” of
the kings.
• Period of deep religious and political unrest in England.

• The English people rebelled against Charles I (1625-
49).
• Charles I was imprisoned and was executed.
• Period of Civil war:
– Civil war began in 1642
– War between Cavaliers (Royalists/ long-haired) Vs Round
headed (Puritans/ Parliamentarians)
– Emergence of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector (1653-
58)
– Founding of New Model Army known as “Ironsides”
Note…
• Those who supported the monarchy

were called Cavaliers.
• Those who supported Parliament
were known as Roundheads.
• Result of Civil War: increase in the power of the
Parliament.
• Emergence of Constitutional Monarchy.
• Bloodless “Glorious Revolution”.
• Protestant nation went against James II (1685-
88), who was a militant Catholic.
• James II (1685-88) was replaced by the Dutch
prince, William of Orange (1689-1702).
• William of Orange (1689-1702) married Mary,
daughter of James.
• Power belonged to the Parliament not the Crown.
Puritanism & Puritans
Puritans (1)
• Puritans were members of a religious
reform movement known as
Puritanism that arose within the
Church of England in the late
sixteenth century.
• “Puritans” (they were sometimes
called “precisionists”) was a term of
contempt assigned to the movement by
its enemies.
Puritans (2)
• Had no single theology or definition of the church.
• Many were Calvinists
• They were known for have a extremely critical attitude regarding
the religious compromises made during the reign of Elizabeth I.
• Many of them were graduates of Cambridge University, and they
became Anglican priests to make changes in their local churches.
• They encouraged direct personal religious experience, sincere
moral conduct, and simple worship services.
• Worship was the area in which Puritans tried to change things
most; their efforts in that direction were sustained by intense
theological convictions and definite expectations about how
seriously Christianity should be taken as the focus of human
existence.
Puritans (3)
• The name “puritans” first emerged in the 1560s.
• The process through which Puritanism developed
had been initiated in the 1530s, when King Henry
VIII repudiated papal authority and transformed
the Church of Rome into a state Church of
England.
• But the Church of England retained much of the
liturgy and ritual of Roman Catholicism and seemed,
to many dissenters, to be insufficiently reformed.
• Thought the English Reformation had not gone far
enough in reforming the doctrines and structure of
the church, puritans wanted to purify their
national church by eliminating every shred of
Catholic influence.
Puritans (4)
• Puritanism managed to thrive during the reigns of the
Protestant King Edward VI (1547-1553), who
introduced the first vernacular prayer book, and the
Catholic Queen Mary (1553-1558), suppressed
dissenting clergymen.
• Some Puritans favored a Presbyterian form of church
organization; others, more radical, began to claim
autonomy for individual congregations.
• Still others were content to remain within the structure of
the national church, but set themselves against the
doctrinal and liturgical vestiges of Catholic tradition,
especially the vestments that symbolized Episcopal
authority.
Puritans (5)
• Puritans were portrayed by their enemies as
hairsplitters who slavishly followed their Bibles
as guides to daily life.
• They were caricatured as licentious hypocrites
who adopted a grave aspect but cheated the very
neighbors whom they judged inadequate
Christians.
• They appeared in drama and satire as secretly
lascivious purveyors (source) of feigned piety.
• Puritans opposed the market economy that
prevailed during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Restoration & the Fate of Puritanism
• After James I became king of England in 1603, Puritan leaders
asked him to grant several reforms.
• At the Hampton Court Conference (1604), however, he rejected
most of their proposals, which included abolition of bishops.
• Puritanism, best expressed by William Ames and later by Richard
Baxter, gained much popular support early in the 17th century.
• The government and the church hierarchy, however, especially
under Archbishop William Laud, became increasingly repressive,
causing many Puritans to emigrate.
• Those who remained formed a powerful element within the
parliamentarian party that defeated Charles I in the English Civil
War.
• After the war the Puritans remained dominant in England
until 1660, but they quarreled among themselves (Presbyterian
dominance gave way to Independent, or congregational, control
under Oliver Cromwell) and proved even more intolerant than the
old hierarchy.
Restoration & the Fate of Puritanism
• The restoration of the monarchy

(1660) also restored Anglicanism,
and the Puritan clergy were expelled
from the Church of England under the
terms of the Act of Uniformity
(1662).
• Thereafter English Puritans were
classified as Nonconformists.
Pilgrim Puritans
Pilgrim Puritans & foundation of
Plymouth Colony
• The Mayflower, an English ship
transported the first English Puritans,
known today as the Pilgrims, from
Plymouth, England, to the New World in
September 1620.
• The Mayflower sailed back to England in
April 1621 owing to harsh New England
weather.
• They were called “Pilgrims” by William
Bradford.
Jacobean literature
Jacobean literature
• Jacobean age derives its name from
Latin Jacobus that means “James”.
• Period of visual and literary arts
during the reign of James I of
England (1603–25).
• The successor to Elizabethan
Literature, Jacobean literature was
often dark in mood, questioning the
stability of the social order.
Jacobean literature (2)
• Jacobean literature begins with the drama,
including some of Shakespeare's greatest,
and darkest, plays.
• The dominant literary figure of James's
reign was Ben Jonson.
• Ben Jonson followed classical models.
• His satiric dramas, notably the
great Volpone (1606), all take a cynical view
of human nature.
Jacobean literature (3)
• John Ford, Thomas Middleton, Cyril
Tourneur, and John Webster also wrote
cynical and horrific revenge tragedies.
• George Chapman was a well-known
playwright. Thomas Dekker, Phillip
Massinger, Francis Beaumont and John
Fletcher were masters of Comedy.
• Drama continued to flourish until the
closing of the theaters at the onset of the
English Revolution in 1642.
Jacobean Poetry
Comedy of Manners
Cavalier Poetry
The Cavalier and the
metaphysical Poetic Traditions
• The foremost poets of the Jacobean

era, Ben Jonson and John Donne
are regarded as the originators of two
diverse poetic traditions—the
Cavalier and the metaphysical.
Poetry of the Cavaliers
• Many Cavaliers wrote musical,
lighthearted verse that was popular
with the royal court.
• The Cavalier Poets frequently advocated
the philosophy of Carpe Diem.
• Carpe Diem means “seize the day”.
• In other words, the philosophy of carpe
diem means to live for the moment !
Cavalier poets (Royalists)
• The term “Cavalier” denotes a literary

movement that flourished from 1625
to 1649.
• It is characterized by its practitioners'
use of
– lighthearted wit,
– elegant mannerisms,
– amorous and sometimes erotic themes, and
– adherence to upper-class values.
Cavalier poets (Royalists)
• Sometimes referred to as the “Sons of Ben”

or the “Tribe of Ben” in recognition of their
debt to Ben Jonson.
• The writings of the Cavaliers were also
significantly impacted by John Donne.
Cavalier Poets
• Thomas Carew (1595 –1640)
• Richard Lovelace (1617 – 1657)
• Robert Herrick (1591 – 1674) , and
• John Suckling (1609 – 1641)
– These poets opposed metaphysical poetry, such as that
of John Donne.
– While poets like John Donne wrote with a spiritual,
scientific, and moral focus, the Cavalier poets
concentrated on the pleasures of the moment.
– The Cavaliers were simple, being more apt to say what
they meant in clear terms.
– The Cavalier poet wrote short, refined verses, and the
tone of Cavalier poetry was generally easygoing.
Cavalier Poets Vs Metaphysical Poets
• They matched Ben Jonson, a contemporary of
Shakespeare.
• These poets opposed metaphysical poetry, such as
that of John Donne.
• While poets like John Donne wrote with a spiritual,
scientific, and moral focus, the Cavalier poets
concentrated on the pleasures of the moment.
• Metaphysical poets also wrote in figurative, lofty
language, while the Cavaliers were simple, being
more apt to say what they meant in clear terms.
• The Cavalier poet wrote short, refined verses, and
the tone of Cavalier poetry was generally
easygoing.
Writing Style of Cavalier Poets
• Intended to entertain their audience

rather than instruct it.
• Cultivated a conversational style
based on natural speech patterns.
• Love was a popular theme.
Influences on Cavalier Poets
• Lovelace and Carew were clearly influenced by

Petrarch.
• Politically the Cavaliers were Royalists.
• They supported Charles I against Parliament and
the Roundheads in the Civil Wars.
• Three of the authors—Carew, Suckling, and
Lovelace—fought for Charles I.
• Herrick was not a courtier at all, but an Anglican
clergyman.
– His works show a strong influence by Jonson's
adaptations of classical Latin forms.
Metaphysical Poetry
Meaning of “Metaphysical”
• The word meta means after, so the
literal translation of metaphysical is
after the physical.
• Basically, metaphysics deals with
questions that can't be explained by
science.
• It questions the nature of reality in a
philosophical way.
Metaphysical poets (1633–1680)
• In 1779, Dr. Samuel Johnson coined the phrase
“metaphysical poets” in his book Lives of the Most
Eminent English Poets (1179-1781).
• In Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1179-
1781), in the chapter on Abraham Cowley, Johnson
refers to the beginning of the seventeenth century in
which there “appeared a race of writers that may
be termed the metaphysical poets”.
• The group of poets included John Donne, George
Herbert, Richard Crashaw, Andrew Marvell and
Henry Vaughan.
• Johnson faulted these poets for their unruly
versification, metaphoric distortions, and overly
elaborate conceits.
Metaphysical poets
Major poets
• John Donne (1572–1631)

• George Herbert (1593–1633)
• Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)
• Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)
• Saint Robert Southwell (c. 1561–1595)
• Richard Crashaw (c. 1613–1649)
• Thomas Traherne (1636 or 1637 – 1674)
• Henry Vaughan (1622–1695)
–wrote Meditative poetry
Metaphysical poets
Minor Poets
• Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612–1672)

• Thomas Carew (1595–1640)
• George Chapman (c. 1559–1634)
• John Hall (c. 1627–1656)
• Edward Herbert (1583–1648)
• Richard Leigh (1649-1728)
• Katherine Philips (1632–1664)
• Sir John Suckling (1609–1642)
• Edward Taylor (c. 1642–1729)
Dr. Johnson on Metaphysical Poets
• It was Dr. Johnson who in his essay on Abraham Cowley in his
Lives of the Poets used the term ‘metaphysical’. There he wrote:
“About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race

of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets. The
metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their
learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily resolving to
show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry , they only wrote
verses and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger
better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that
they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables.”
Dr. Johnson on the novelty of
Metaphysical poets
• Dr. Johnson did not fail to notice that beneath the superficial
novelty of the metaphysical poets lay a fundamental
originality :
“If they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits,
they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth; if the
conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage.
To write on their plan, it was at least necessary to read and
think, No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume to
dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by
imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery ,
and volubility of syllables.”
Dryden said of John Donne
He (John Donne) affects the

metaphysics, not only in his satires, but
in his amorous verses, where nature only
should reign; and perplexes the minds of
the fair sex with nice speculations of
philosophy, when he should engage their
hearts, and entertain them with the
softnesses of love. In this . . . Mr. Cowley
has copied him to a fault.
Characteristic Features of
Metaphysical Poetry
• Characteristic Feature of Metaphysical Poetry:
• ability to startle the reader
• ability to coax new perspective through paradoxical
images
• subtle argument
• inventive syntax
• imagery from art, philosophy, and religion using an
extended metaphor known as a conceit
• The specific definition of wit which Dr. Samuel Johnson
applied to the school was: "...a kind of discordia
concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery
of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike."
Themes of Metaphysical Poetry
• Thematically Metaphysical poetry was

abounding in religious sentiments.
• Many of the poems explored the theme of
carpe diem (seize the day) and investigated
the humanity of life.
T.S. Eliot about Metaphysical Poets…
• T.S. Eliot, in his essay The Metaphysical

Poets (1921) praised the very anti-Romantic
and intellectual qualities of which Johnson
and his contemporaries had disapproved, and
helped bring their poetry back into favour with
readers.
• He celebrated the poetry of John Donne and
coined the term “Dissociation of Sensibility”.
• It refers to the way in which intellectual
thought was separated from the experience of
feeling in seventeenth century poetry.
John Donne
(1572-1631)
‘Jack Donne’
Donne’s Works
• John Donne’s works are noted for their strong,
sensual style.
• His works include
– sonnets,
– love poems,
– religious poems,
– Latin translations,
– epigrams,
– elegies,
– songs,
– satires and
– sermons.
Personal life of John Donne
• John Donne spent much of the money he inherited during
and after his education on womanizing, literature, pastimes,
and travel.
• In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he
had twelve children.
• “John Donne, Undone, in London.”
• In 1615 he was ordained deacon and then Anglican priest,

although he did not want to take Holy Orders. He did so
because King James I persistently ordered it.
• In 1621, he was appointed the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral
in London.
• He also served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in
1614.
Notable Works of John Donne
• In 1610 and 1611 Donne wrote

two anti-catholic polemics (strong
attack):
– Pseudo – Martyr
– Ignatius His Conclave for Morton.
• He then wrote two Anniversaries,
– An anatomy of the World (1611) and
– Of the Progress of the Soul (1612) for
Drury.
• John Donne wrote a series of meditations
and prayers on health, pain, and sickness
that were published as a book in 1624
under the title of Devotions Upon Emergent
Occasions.
• One of these meditations, Mediation XVII
(17), later became well known for its
phrases “No man is an Iland” (often
modernised as “No man is an and “for
whom the bell tolls”.
Influences
Thomas Merton’s
No Man is an Island (1955)
Ernest Hemingway’s
For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
“An Anatomy of the World” (1611)
• A poem that Donne wrote in memory

of Elizabeth Drury, daughter of his
patron, Sir Robert Drury of Hawstead,
Suffolk.
• This poem treats Elizabeth's demise
with extreme gloominess, using it as a
symbol for the Fall of Man and the
destruction of the universe.
“A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy’s Day,
Being the Shortest Day” (1627)
• It concerns the Donne’s despair at the death of a
loved one.
• In it Donne expresses a feeling of utter negation
and hopelessness, saying that "I am every dead
thing ... re-begot / Of absence, darkness, death."
• This famous work was probably written in 1627
when both Donne's friend Lucy, Countess of
Bedford, and his daughter Lucy Donne died.
• Three years later, in 1630, Donne wrote
his will on Saint Lucy’s Day (13 December), the
date the poem describes as "Both the year's, and
the day's deep midnight".
“The Flea”
Sonnet X
• Sonnet X, also known by its opening words as "Death Be
Not Proud", is a fourteen-line poem, or sonnet.
• It was first published posthumously in 1633.
• It is included as one of the nineteen sonnets that comprise
Donne's Holy Sonnets or Divine Meditations, among his
most well-known works.
• "Death Be Not Proud" presents an argument against the
power of death.
– Addressing Death as a person, the speaker warns Death
against pride in his power.
– The sonnet has an ABBA ABBA CDDC EE rhyme scheme.
– The last line alludes to 1 Corinthians 15: 26: "The last
enemy that shall be destroyed is death".
“The Canonization” (1633)
• The poem is viewed as exemplifying Donne's wit

and irony.
• It is addressed to one friend from another.
• It concerns itself with the complexities
of romantic love: the speaker presents love as
so all-consuming that lovers forgo other
pursuits to spend time together.
• The poem's title serves a dual purpose: while
the speaker argues that his love will canonize
him into a kind of sainthood, the poem itself
functions as a canonization of the pair of lovers.
“The Canonization” (1633)
• New Critic Cleanth Brooks used the poem,
along with Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on
Man” and William Wordsworth’s “Composed
upon Westminster Bridge, September,
1802” in The Well Wrought Urn: Studies
in the Structure of Poetry (1947)
and Modern Poetry and the Tradition
(1939)
– to illustrate his argument for paradox
and ambiguity as central to poetry.
“Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
(1633)
Songs and Sonnets (1593-1602)
• Sonnet is used as a synonym for ‘love lyric’
• Addressed to flesh and bone women
• consummated love is placed opposed to
Platonic love.
Holy Sonnets (1633-35)
• 19 religious sonnets, written in the
last years of his life
• Written in English sonnet form
• Same combination of passion and
intellectual argument as in the love
poems but the passion is more
complex: hope and anguish, fear and
repentance
About Donne’s Poetic Style
• Donne’s poetry marked radical break from
Petrarchan tradition:
– ‘Donne has purged English poetry of pedantic
weeds’, he has replaced ‘servile imitation’ with
‘fresh invention’’ (Carew)
• Donne in his poetry displays his own ingenuity and
presents a world in which everything is held together
by secret analogies:
– ‘John Donne is the first poet in the world, in some
things.’ (Jonson)
• Donne distorts traditional rhythmic and stanza
patterns:
– ‘Donne, for not keeping accents, deserved
hanging.’ (Jonson)
Critics on John Donne
• T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis tended to
portray him, as an anti-Romantic.
George Herbert
(1593-1633)
The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private
Ejaculations (1633)
• Herbert wrote poetry in English, Latin and
Greek.
• In 1633 all of Herbert's English poems were
published in The Temple: Sacred Poems and
Private Ejaculations, with a preface by Nicholas
Ferrar.
• Presents the spiritual conflicts that have
passed between God and his soul
• The poem begins with "The Church Porch", they
proceed via "The Altar" to "The Sacrifice", and
so onwards through the collection.
Easter Wings
• Easter Wings was
published in Herbert’s
posthumous
collection, The
Temple (1633).
• It was originally
formatted sideways on
facing pages and is in
the tradition of shaped
poems that goes back
to ancient Greek
sources.
A Priest to the Temple (1652)
• Herbert's only prose work
• It is usually known as The Country Parson
• It offers practical advice to rural clergy.
• In it, he advises that "things of ordinary use" such
as ploughs, leaven, or dances, could be made to
"serve for lights even of Heavenly Truths".
• It was first published in 1652 as part of Herbert's
Remains, or Sundry Pieces of That Sweet Singer,
Mr. George Herbert, edited by Barnabas Oley.

Richard Crashaw
(1612-1649)
Crashaw's poetry
• Three collections of Crashaw's poetry were
published during his lifetime and one small
volume posthumously—three years after his
death.
• The posthumous collection, Carmen Del
Nostro, included 33 poems.
Crashaw’s Collection of Poems
• For his first collection of poems, Crashaw turned

to the epigrams composed during his schooling.
• Assembling these efforts to form the core of his
first book, Epigrammatum Sacrorum Liber (trans.
"A Book of Sacred Epigrams"), published in
1634.
• Among its well-known lines is Crashaw's
observation on the miracle of turning water into
wine (John 2: 1-11): Nympha pudica Deum vidit,
et erubuit, often translated as "the modest water
saw its God, and blushed".
Steps to the Temple (1646)
• a homage to Herbert
• Uses sensuous images to describe religious passion
• Husain continued to categories Crashaw's poems into four
topic areas:
• (1) poems on Christ's life and His miracles;
• (2) poems on the Catholic Church and its ceremonies;
• (3) poems on the saints and martyrs of the Church; and
• (4) poems on several sacred themes such as the translation
of the Psalms , and letters to the Countess of Denbigh, and
"On Mr. George Herbert's book entitled, The Temple of
Sacred Poems sent to a Gentlewoman," which contain
Crashaw's reflections on the problem of conversion and on
the efficacy of prayer."
Henry Vaughan
(1622-1695)
Works of Henry Vaughan
• He is chiefly known for the religious poetry contained
in Silex Scintillans (1650), with a second part published
in 1655.
• In 1646 his Poems, with the Tenth Satyre of Juvenal
Englished was published, followed by a second volume in
1647.
• Meanwhile he had been "converted" by reading the religious
poet George Herbert and gave up "idle verse".
• The prose Mount of Olives: or, Solitary Devotions (1652)
show the depth of his religious convictions and the
authenticity of his poetic genius.
• Two more volumes of secular verse were published,
ostensibly without his sanction; but it is his religious verse
that has become acclaimed.
Andrew Marvell
(1621-1678)
Andrew Marwell
• Friend and colleague of John Milton

To His Coy Mistress (1681)
• Had we but world enough, and time,

This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
…
• The poem is written in iambic tetrameter and rhymes in
couplets.
1950 (Novel)
Eric Auerbach's Mimesis
• The verse serves as an epigraph

to Mimesis: The Representation of
Reality in Western Literature
(1946), literary critic Eric Auerbach's
most famous book.
• The phrase "there will be time"
occurs repeatedly in a section of T.S.
Eliot’s “The Love Song of J.Alfred
Prufrock" (1915)
• “But at my back I always hear /
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying
near” is quoted in
– Ernest Hemmingway’s A Farewell of
Arms, and
– Arthur C. Clarke’s short story, The
Ultimate Melody.
Jacobean Prose
King James Version of the Bible
(1611)
• The classic King James Version of the Bible
(1611)
– two printings in 1611, both carried out by Robert
Barker, the King's Printer of the day.
– The first contained a number of errors which were
corrected in the second, so even the two earliest
editions contain many variations.
– In 1909, Cambridge scholar William Aldis
Wright represented the original text of the first
edition in a clear and readable form, together with
a list of variations between the two 1611 printings
- a resource that is unique to this edition.
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)
• The Pilgrim's Progress from This

World, to That Which Is to Come
• It is a 1678 Christian allegory
• It is written by John Bunyan.

Puritan Literature

Commonwealth Period or Puritan
Interregnum (1649-1660)
Caroline Age (1625-1649)
John Milton (1608-1674)
• Milton was the greatest poet of the Puritan age,
and he stands head and shoulders above all his
contemporaries.
• Paying a just tribute to the dominating personality
of Milton, Wordsworth wrote the famous line:
– They soul was like a star, and dwelt apart.
• a deeply religious man and who endowed with
artistic merit of a high degree, to combine the
spirits of the Renaissance and the Reformation.
Milton’s early poetry
• Milton’s early poetry is lyrical.
• The important poems of the early period are:
– The Hymn on the Nativity (1629)
– L’Allegro, Il Penseroso (1632) (Companion Poems)
– Lycidas (1637 ) (Elegy)
– Comus (1634) (Masque)
L’Allegro, Il Penseroso (1632)
• The complementary poems, L’Allego and Il Penseroso,
are full of very pleasing descriptions of rural scenes
and recreations in Spring and Autumn.
• L’Allegrore presents the poet in a gay and merry mood
and it paints an idealized picture of rustic life from
dawn to dusk.
• Il Penseroso is written in serious and meditative strain.
• In it the poet praises the passive joys of the
contemplative life.
Lycidas
• Lycidas (1638) is a pastoral elegy
• Milton's elegy 'Lycidas' is also known as monody
which is in the form of a pastoral elegy written in
1637 to lament the accidental death, by
drowning of Milton’s friend Edward King who was
a promising young man of great intelligence.
• It also contains serious criticism of contemporary
religion and politics.
• It contains a prologue, 5 sections and epilogue.
– Paradise Lost (1667)

– Paradise Regained (1671)
– “On His Blindness” (1673)
– Samson Agonistes

Paradise Lost (1667)
• “The subject-matter of Paradise Lost consists

of the casting out from Heaven of the fallen
angels, their planning of revenge in Hell,
Satan’s flight, Man’s temptation and fall from
grace, and the promise of redemption.
• Against this vast background Milton projects
his own philosophy of the purposes of human
existence, and attempts “to justify the ways of
God to men.”
Paradise Lost
• An epic poem in blank verse
• By the 17th-century English poet John
Milton (1608–1674)
• The first version, published in 1667, consisted of
ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse
• A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into
twelve books (in the manner of Virgil’s's Aeneid)
with minor revisions throughout and a note on
the versification
Paradise Lost
• Muse invoked: URANIA

• The place built by fallen angels is
Pandemonium
• Offspring's of Satan: Sin and Death
• Fall of Adam and Eve: Book 9

Paradise Regained (1671)
• Paradise Regained deals with subject of

Temptation of Jesus Christ in the Wilderness.
Samson Agonistes (1671)
• Samson Agonistes is a tragic closet drama
• It appeared with the publication of Milton's Paradise Regain'd
in 1671.
• It deals with an ancient Hebrew legend of Samson, the mighty
champion of Israel, now blind and scorned, working as a slave
among Philistines.
• This tragedy , which is written on the Greek model, is charged
with the tremendous personality of Milton himself, who in the
character of the blind giant, Samson, surrounded by enemies,
projects his own unfortunate experience in the reign of Charles
II.
– Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves.
Aldous Huxley’s Eyeless in Gaza
• Eyeless in Gaza is a novel by Aldous Huxley.
• It was first published in 1936.
• The title originates from a phrase in John
Milton's Samson Agonistes.
John Milton’s Areopagitica (1644)
• written in condemnation of pre-publication

censorship
• history's most influential and impassioned
defenses of free speech and freedom of press

Dramatists of the Jacobean and
Caroline periods
Dramatists of the Jacobean and Caroline periods
– Ben Jonson (1573-1637 )

– John Marston (1575-1634)
– Thomas Dekker (1570-1632)
– Thomas Hey wood (1575-1650)
– Thomas Middleton (1 580-1627 )
– Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626)
– John Webster (1575-1625)
– John Fletcher (1579-1625)
– Francis Beaumont (1584-1616)
– Philip Massinger (1 583-1640)
– John Ford (1 586-1 639)
– James Shirley (1 596-1666).
Comedy of Humours
• Comedy of Humours is a historical comedy
linked to Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson.
• Based on the premise that the human body
consists of four liquids, all representing a
different type of humour, in turn affecting the
types of characters represented in the drama.
Ben Jonson (1573-1637 )
• Ben Jonson was born around June 11, 1572
• Ben Jonson a contemporary of Shakespeare, and a
prominent dramatist of his times
• He was just the opposite of Shakespeare.
• Jonson was a classicist, a moralist, and a reformer
of drama.
• In his comedies he tried to present the true picture
of the contemporary society.
• He also made an attempt to have the ‘unities’ of
time, place and action in his plays.
• He joined the army, serving in Flanders.
• He returned to England about 1592 and married
Anne Lewis on November 14, 1594.
• Jonson joined the theatrical company of
Philip Henslowe in London as an actor and
playwright on or before 1597.
• In 1597 he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for
his involvement in a satire entitled The Isle of Dogs
, declared seditious by the authorities.
Ben Jonson
• In 1598, Jonson wrote what is considered his first great play, Every
Man in His Humour.
– The play belongs to the subgenre of the ¨humours comedy¨
– was performed in 1598 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men at the Globe with
William Shakespeare in the cast.
• After the first performance of Every Man In His Humour, Jonson killed
an actor Gabriel Spencer in a duel.
• He was in prison few weeks but he received a benefit of the clergy.
• Having converted to Catholicism, Jonson was also the object of deep
suspicion after the Gunpowder Plot of Guy Fawkes (1605).
• During his subsequent imprisonment he converted to Roman
Catholicism only to convert back to Anglicism over a decade later, in
1610.
Works of Ben Jonson
• Every Man Out of His Humour (1599) and Cynthia's
Revels (1600) were satirical comedies displaying
Jonson's classical learning and his interest in formal
experiment.
• Jonson's explosive temperament and conviction of
his superior talent gave rise to "War of the Theatres
".
• In The Poetaster (1601), he satirized other writers,
chiefly the English dramatists Thomas Dekker and
John Marston.
Works of Ben Jonson
• Dekker and Marston retaliated by attacking
Jonson in their Satiromastix (1601).
– The plot of Satiromastix was mainly overshadowed
by its abuse of Jonson.
• Jonson had portrayed himself as Horace
in The Poetaster, and in Satiromastix,
Marston and Dekker, as Demetrius and
Crispinus ridicule Horace, presenting Jonson
as a vain fool.
Works of Ben Jonson
• In 1604 Jonson collaborated with Dekker on The
King's Entertainment and with Marston and
George Chapman on Eastward Ho.
• Jonson was called before the Privy Council on
charges of 'popery and treason'. Jonson did not,
however, learn a lesson, and was again briefly
imprisoned, with Marston and Chapman, for
controversial views ("something against the
Scots") espoused in Eastward Ho (1604).
• Jonson's next play, the classical
tragedy Sejanus, His Fall (1603), based on
Roman history and offering an astute view of
dictatorship, again got Jonson into trouble
with the authorities.
Works of Ben Jonson
• In 1605, Jonson began to write masques for the entertainment of
the court.
• The earliest of his masques, The Satyr was given at Althorpe, and
Jonson seems to have been appointed Court Poet shortly after.
• The masques displayed his erudition, wit, and versatility and
contained some of his best lyric poetry.
• Masque of Blacknesse (1605) was the first in a series of
collaborations with Inigo Jones, noted English architect and set
designer.
• This collaboration produced masques such as The Masque of
Owles, Masque of Beauty (1608), and Masque of Queens (1609),
which were performed in Inigo Jones' elaborate and exotic settings.
• Jonson's enduring reputation rests on the comedies written
between 1605 and 1614.
• The first of these, Volpone, or The Fox (performed in 1605-1606,
first published in 1607) is often regarded as his masterpiece.
– The play, though set in Venice, directs its scrutiny on the rising merchant
classes of Jacobean London.
• The following plays
– Epicoene: or, The Silent Woman (1609)
– The Alchemist (1610), and
– Bartholomew Fair (1614) are all peopled with dupes and those who
deceive them.
•
Works of Ben Jonson
• The comedy The Devil is an Ass (1616) had
turned out to be a comparative flop.
• This may have discouraged Jonson, for it was
nine years before his next play, The Staple of
News (1625), was produced.
• Jonson's later plays The New Inn (1629) and A
Tale of a Tub (1633) were not great successes
Works of Ben Jonson
• Jonson died on August 6, 1637 and was buried in
Westminster Abbey under a plain slab on which
was later carved the words, "O Rare Ben Jonson!"
• His admirers and friends contributed to the
collection of memorial elegies, Jonsonus virbius,
published in 1638.
• Jonson's last play, Sad Shepherd's Tale, was left
unfinished at his death and published
posthumously in 1641.
Thomas Dekker
• Of Dekker's life, nothing is known for certain before
1598 when his name appears in entries in
Philip Henslowe's Diary.
• Dekker was buried on August 25, 1632 at St. James's
parish, Clerkenwell.
• Even though Dekker had a steady stream of work with
Henslowe, he was frequently in debt.
• He was imprisoned for debt briefly in the Poultry
Counter in 1599, and by the King's Bench, 1613-1619.
Works of Thomas Dekker
• Old Fortunatus (1598)
– a tale of the misfortunes of a beggar and his sons
after they choose riches from among Fortune's
offers.
• The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599).
– It takes place in London and provides a variety of
vivid, ebullient portraits of Londoners and their
daily life.
– The Shoemaker's Holiday had the honor of being
performed for Queen Elizabeth on New Year,
1600.
Works of Thomas Dekker
• The Whore of Babylon (c.1606)
• If It be Not Good the Devil is in It (c.1610)
• The Wonder of a Kingdom (pub. 1636)
– all suffer from structural weaknesses.
• Dekker's inadequacy in constructing dramatic action
was satirized by Ben Jonson in his Every Man out
of His Humour and The Poetaster (prod. 1601).
• In The Poetaster, Dekker is presented as
Demetrius Fannius, "a very simple fellow. . .
a dresser of plays."
• Of Dekker's numerous collaborations, the most notable
include
– Westward Ho (1604),The Famous History of Sir Thomas
Wyatt (c.1604), and Northward Ho (c. 1605) with John Webster
– The Honest Whore, Part I (1604) and The Roaring Girl (1610)
with Thomas Middleton
– The Virgin Martyr (1620) with Philip Massinger
– The Witch of Edmonton (c.1621) with John Ford and
William Rowley; and
– Patient Grissel (1600) with Henry Chettle and William
Haughton.
Prose Works of Dekker
• Dekker was also accomplished as a prose writer.
• The moralizing tone occasionally apparent in his dramatic works is
obvious in his many pamphlets.
• The Wonderful Year (1603) relates the effects of the plague on
London.
• The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606) offers a lively description of
daily life in London, and the temporary victory of the seven deadly
sins.
• The Bellman of London (1608) is an exposé on the criminal
underbelly of the city.
• Lantern and Candlelight (1608), a description of low life, was
Dekker's biggest publishing success.
• The Gull's Horn-Book (1609), a parody of courtesy books, gives satiric
instructions on how to conduct oneself in playhouses and taverns.
• The Four Birds of Noah's Ark (1609) is a collection of prayers.
John Marston (1576–1634)
• John Marston married Mary Wilkes, daughter
of one of the royal chaplains, and Ben Jonson
said that “Marston wrote his father-in-law's
preaching's, and his father-in-law his
sermons."
Works of John Marston
• His first work was The Metamorphosis of
Pigmalions Image, and Certaine
Satyres (1598).
• "Pigmalion" is an erotic poem in the metre
of Venus and Adonis, and Joseph Hall
attached a rather clumsy epigram to every
copy that was exposed for sale in Cambridge.
Works of John Marston
• John Marston wrote in a violent and extravagant style.
His melodramas Antonia and Mellida and Antonia’s
Revenge are full of forceful and impressive passages.
• In The Malcontent, The Dutch Courtezan, and
• Parasitaster, or Fawne, Marston criticised the society
in an ironic and lyrical manner.
• His best play is Eastward Hoe, an admirable comedy of
manners, which portray s realistically the life of a
tradesman, the inner life of a middle class household,
the simple honesty of some and the vanity of others.
George Chapman (1865 – 7 April 1903)
• English poet and dramatist, whose translation of Homer

long remained the Standard English version.
• His first work was The Shadow of Night . . . Two Poeticall
Hymnes(1593), followed in 1595 by Ovids Banquet of
Sence. Both philosophize on the value of an ordered life.
• His poem in praise of Sir Walter Raleigh, De Guiana,
Carmen Epicum (“An Epic Poem about Guiana,” 1596), is
typical of his preoccupation with the virtues of the
warrior-hero, the character that dominates most of his
plays.
Works of George Chapman
• The first books of his translation of

the Iliad appeared in 1598.
• It was completed in 1611, and his version of
the Odyssey appeared in 1616.
• Chapman's Homer contains passages of great
power and beauty and inspired the sonnet of
John Keats “On First Looking into Chapman's
Homer” (1815).
• Chapman's conclusion to Christopher

Marlowe's unfinished poem Hero and
Leander (1598) emphasized the necessity for
control and wisdom.
• Euthymiae Raptus; or the Teares of

Peace (1609), Chapman's major poem, is a
dialogue between the poet and the Lady
Peace, who is mourning over the chaos caused
by man's valuing worldly objects above
integrity and wisdom.
• Chapman was imprisoned with Ben Jonson and

John Marston in 1605 for writing Eastward Ho, a play
that James I, the king of Great Britain, found
offensive to his fellow Scots.
• Of Chapman's dramatic works, about a dozen plays
survive, chief of which are his tragedies:
– Bussy d'Ambois (1607)
– The Conspiracie
– Tragedie of Charles Duke of Byron . . . (1608), and
– The Widdowes Teares (1612).
Thomas Heywood (1 575-1650)
• He wrote a large number of plays—two hundred and twenty —of which only
twenty -four are extant.
• Most of his play s deal with the life of the cities.
• In The Foure Prentices of London, with the Conquest of Jerusalem, he
flatters the citizens of London.
• The same note appears in his Edward VI, The Troubles of Queene Elizabeth
and The Fair Maid of Exchange.
• In the Fair Maid of the West, which is written in a patriotic vein, sea
adventures and the life of an English port are described in a lively fashion.
• His best known play is A Woman Kilde with Kindness, a
• domestic tragedy.
• The English Traveller.
• On account of his instinctive goodness and wide piety , Hey wood was called
by Lamb as a “sort of prose Shakespeare.”
Thomas Middleton (1580-1627 )
• He is mainly the writer of comedies dealing the
seamy side of London life, and the best-known
of them are:
– Michaelmas Terms
– A Trick to Catch the Old One
– A Mad World,
– My Masters,
– Y our Five Gallants,
– A Chaste Mayd in Cheapside.
Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626)
• wrote mostly melodramas full of crimes and
torture.
• His two gloomy dramas are:
– The Revenge Tragedies
– The Atheist’s Tragedie
John Webster (1575-1625)
John Webster (1575-1625)
• His best-known plays are
– The White Devil or Vittoria Corombona
• the crimes of the Italian beauty Cittoria Accorambona
– the Duchess of Malfi
• the tragedy of the young widowed duchess who is
driven to madness and death by her two brothers
because she has married her steward Antonio.
• The play is full of pathos and touches of fine poetry .
John Fletcher (1579-1625)
• The plays which he wrote in collaboration with Francis Beaumont are the comedies
such as
– The Scornful Ladie and The Knight of the Burning Pestle
– (tragi-comedies) Philaster
– (pure tragedies) The Maides Tragedy and A King and no King.
– The Knight of the Burning Pestle (Comedy)
– Philaster and The Maides Tragedy
• Individual Tragedies
– The Tragedies of Vanentinian,
– The Tragedie of Bonduca
– The Loy al Subject
– The Humorous Lieutenant
• Individual Comedies
– Monsieur Thomas
– The Wild Goose Chase
Philip Massinger (1583-1640)
• collaboration with other dramatists, particularly
John Fletcher.
• Massinger's best-known plays are A New Way to Pay Old
Debts, a comedy written in 1621 or 1622, and The Roman
Actor, a tragedy written in 1626.
• A New Way to Pay Old Debts relies heavily on
Thomas Middleton's A Trick to Catch the Old One (1608).
– Its chief character, however, is closely modeled on the notorious
Sir Giles Mompesson, an extortioner convicted in 1621.
– Massinger's character, called Sir Giles Overreach, is driven to
insanity when he is outsmarted by his nephew Frank Wellborn,
whose property he has acquired by devious means.
• The Roman Actor, which Massinger
considered his finest work, is based on the life
of the Roman emperor Domitian, who was
murdered in A.D. 96.
John Ford (1586-1639)
• John Ford, who was the contemporary of Massinger,
collaborated with various dramatists.
• He was a true poet, but a fatalist, melancholy and gloomy
person.
• Besides the historical play , Perkin Warbeck, he wrote The
Lover’s Melancholy, ‘Tis Pity Shee’s a Whore, The Broken
Heart and Love’s Sacrifice, all of which show a skilful
handling of emotions and grace of style.
• His decadent attitude is seen in the delight he takes in
depicting suffering, but he occupies a high place as an
artist.
James Shirley (1596-1666)
• James Shirley , who as Lamb called him, ‘the last of a
great race’, though a prolific writer, shows no
• originality .
• His best comedies are The Traytor, The Cardinall, The
Wedding, Changes, Hyde Park, The Gamester and The
Lady of Pleasure, which realistically represent the
contemporary manners, modes and
• literary styles.
• He also wrote tragi-comedies or romantic comedies, such
as Young Admirall, The Opportunitie, and The Imposture.
Restoration Period (1660-1700)
• This period marks the British king's restoration to the throne after a
long period of Puritan domination in England
• Its symptoms include the dominance of French and Classical
influences on poetry and drama
• Sample writers include
– John Dryden,
– John Lock,
– Sir William Temple,
– Samuel Pepys, and
– Aphra Behn in England
Abroad, representative authors include

• Jean Racine and Molière.
Writers of Restoration Period
John Dryden:
– The Rival Ladies (1663)
– Tyrannick Love (1670)
– All for Love (1677) (heroic play)
William Congreve:
– The Old Bachelor (1693)
– The Double Dealer (1693)
– The Mourning Bride (1697)
William Wycherley:
– Love in a Wood (1697)
– The Gentleman Dancing Master (1673)
George Etherege:
• The Comical Revenge or, Love in a Tub (1664)
• She Would If She Could (1668)
• The Man of Mode, or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676)
Jacobean Prose
Francis Bacon (1561 -628)
• Bacon belongs both to the Elizabethan and
Jacobean periods.
• As a prose-writer he is the master of the
aphoristic style.
• He has the knack of compressing his wisdom in
epigrams which contain the quintessence of his
rich experience of life in a most concentrated
form.
• His style is clear, lucid but terse (brief).
Essays (1597)
• Bacon is best-known for his Essays
• It contains views about the art of managing
men and getting on successfully in life.
• They may be considered as a kind of manual
for statesmen and princes.
• The tone of the essay is that of a worldly man
who wants to secure material success and
prosperity .
• That is why their moral standard is not high.
Works of Bacon
• Henry VII (1622)
– first piece of scientific history in the English
language
• The Advancement of Learning (1605)
– a brilliant popular ex position of the cause of
scientific investigation.
• New Atlantis (1627)
• an incomplete utopian novel
Robert Burton (1577 -1640)
• The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)
– An analysis of human melancholy , described its
effect and prescribed its cure.
Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
• the first deliberate sty list in the English
language
• Being a physician with a flair for writing, he
wrote Religio Medici (1642) in which he set
down his beliefs and thoughts, the religion of
the medical man.
• His other important prose work is Hydriotaphia
or The Urn Burial (1658)
– Meditation on time and antiquity
The Prince (1513)/
Social Contract (1762)
• Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince (1513)
• Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract (1762)
– social contract concerns the origin of society and
the legitimacy of the authority of the state over
the individual
– Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals
have consented, either explicitly or implicitly, to surrender
some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the
ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in
exchange for protection of their remaining rights
Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651)
Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651)
• Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common-
Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil—commonly referred to as
Leviathan—
• It is a book written by Thomas Hobbes and published in 1651
• Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan
• The Leviathan of the Book of Job – means a powerful monster
• Political philosophy
• Leviathan argues for a social contract and rule by an
absolute sovereign
• Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of
nature (the war of all against all) could only be avoided by
strong, undivided government
John Dryden
(1631 –1700)
John Dryden
• influential English poet, literary critic,
translator, and playwright
• dominated the literary life of Restoration
England to such a point that the period came
to be known in literary circles as the Age of
Dryden
• Walter Scott called him "Glorious John."
• He was made Poet Laureate in 1668.
Heroique Stanzas (1658)
• At Cromwell’s funeral on 23 November 1658
Dryden processed with the Puritan poets John
Milton and Andrew Marvell.
• Shortly thereafter he published his first
important poem, Heroique Stanzas (1658), a
eulogy on Cromwell’s death which is cautious
and prudent in its emotional display.
Astraea Redux
• In 1660 Dryden celebrated the Restoration of
the monarchy and the return of Charles II with
Astraea Redux, an authentic royalist
panegyric.
• In this work the interregnum is illustrated as a
time of anarchy, and Charles is seen as the
restorer of peace and order.
Two more panegyrics…
• Along with Astraea Redux, Dryden welcomed the
new regime with two more panegyrics; To His Sacred
Majesty: A Panegyric on his Coronation (1662), and
To My Lord Chancellor (1662).
• These poems suggest that Dryden was looking to
court a possible patron, but he was to instead make
a living in writing for publishers, not for the
aristocracy, and thus ultimately for the reading
public. These, and his other nondramatic poems, are
occasional—that is, they celebrate public events.
Marriage…
• On 1 December 1663, Dryden married the

royalist sister of Sir Robert Howard—Lady
Elizabeth.
The Wild Gallant- 1663
• With the reopening of the theatres after the
Puritan ban, Dryden busied himself with the
composition of plays.
• His first play, The Wild Gallant appeared in
1663 and was not successful
The King's Company
• From 1668 on he was contracted to produce

three plays a year for the King's Company in
which he was also to become a shareholder.
Restoration comedy
• He led the way in Restoration comedy

• His best known work being Marriage à la
Mode (1672), as well as heroic tragedy and
regular tragedy, in which his greatest success
was All for Love (1678).
Annus Mirabilis
• In 1667, he published Annus Mirabilis, a
lengthy historical poem which described the
events of 1666; the English defeat of the Dutch
naval fleet and the Great Fire of London.
• It was a modern epic in pentameter quatrains
that established him as the preeminent poet of
his generation, and was crucial in his attaining
the posts of Poet Laureate(1668) and
historiographer royal (1670).
Of Dramatick Poesie (1668),
• the Great Plague of London closed the

theatres in 1665.
• Dryden retreated to Wiltshire where he wrote
Of Dramatick Poesie (1668), arguably the best
of his unsystematic prefaces and essays
Of Dramatick Poesie
• Dryden constantly defended his own literary
practice, and Of Dramatick Poesie, the longest
of his critical works, takes the form of a
dialogue in which four characters–each based
on a prominent contemporary, with Dryden
himself as ‘Neander’—debate the merits of
classical, French and English drama.
Dryden on Play
Dryden on Three Unities
Aureng-zebe (1675)
• His best heroic play Aureng-zebe (1675) has a

prologue which denounces the use of rhyme
in serious drama.
All for Love (1676)
• After 1676, he began to use blank verse, and

he produced his best play, All for Love in 1678.
• It is Dryden's most famous masterpiece based
on Anthony and Cleopatra.
All for Love
• All for Love or, the World Well Lost, is a heroic
drama by John Dryden written in 1677.
• It is a tragedy written in blank verse and is an
attempt on Dryden's part to reinvigorate
serious drama.
• It is an acknowledged imitation of
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, and
focuses on the last hours of the lives of its hero
and heroine.
All for Love
• Combines the unities of classical theatre and
the style of Shakespearean drama
• Dryden deals in this play with the same
subject as that of Shakespeare's Antony and
Cleopatra. Whilst, however, the elder poet
"diffused the action of his play over Italy,
Greece, and Egypt," Dryden laid every scene
in the city of Alexandria.
All for Love_Themes
• Love; Fidelity; Honor; In "All for Love," honor
is a concept associated chiefly with Rome.
• Antony's military and political strength are
inextricably tied to his strong loyalties to the
Roman empire.
All for Love_Themes
• Personal and political
• Every character in this play is influenced by both
personal and political motivations from the
powerful Mark Antony to the rest of the cast.
• Personal and political motives affect the central
themes of love and honor.
• Mark Antony has an internal conflict in choosing
between his family, Octavia and his two
daughters, and his mistress, Cleopatra.
All for Love_Themes
• The main character, Mark Antony, shirks his political
duty for the sake of his love relationship with Cleopatra.
• His peers deem Mark Antony's actions to be
irresponsible and believe will be the cause of his
downfall.
• In the end, Mark Antony dies (V.402), Cleopatra dies
(V.498), and Octavius wins the war.
• In the end, Mark Antony and Cleopatra, who cared
more about personal matters, die, while Octavius, who
cares more about political power, becomes Caesar.
All for Love_Themes
• Death
• The deaths taking place within this plot is "all for love.“
• They show "love" for one's country and/or loved ones.
• Antony kills himself after falling under the false pretense that
Cleopatra is dead.
• His servant, in an act of loyalty and honour to his country and
master, kills himself before Antony.
• Cleopatra distraught over the death of her beloved Antony,
applies the aspes' venom to her arm and falls to eternal death
on Antony's chest.
• The Eygyptian servants decide to follow their Queen in death.
All for Love_Themes
• Culture
• Throughout "All for love," Dryden illustrates the vast
cultural differences. Rome is characterized by its
military predominance.
• The Egyptian culture focus more on domestic affairs
instead of political matters.
• Antony's presence in Egypt represents Rome's political
culture, while Cleopatra's presence reflects the
personal or domestic aspects of Egyptian society.
• Their deaths symbolize their cultures.
All for Love_Themes
• Emotional weaknesses
• Despite holding great positions of power, both Antony and
Cleopatra are weakened by their overwhelming love for
one another.
• Antony's ability to fulfill his military and political duties is
hindered by his consistent emotional preoccupation with
his love, Cleopatra.
• Cleopatra rejects offers of other kingdoms, prevents
Egypt's growth, neglects her queenly duties, and throws
her country into submission to the Romans all because of
her infatuation with Antony.
All for Love_Themes
• Betrayal
• Antony betrays Caesar by going back to Cleopatra and not
staying with Octavia.
• Antony leaves his troops behind during battle to follow
Cleopatra; complete betrayal to his own troops.
• Jealousy
• Jealousy is predominately demonstrated in the interactions of
Cleopatra towards Octavia.
• We can see through the passages that Cleopatra is jealous not
only of Octavia's affiliation with Mark Antony, but additionally
her great beauty.
All for Love_Themes
• Power
• Power in this play is exhibited in many ways. In
the beginning Cleopatra tries to get power
over Antony.
• There are many types of power exhibited,
such as the power of beauty and the power of
over the people.
All for Love_Themes
• Beauty, Lust, Seduction, Sacrificial Strategy
• There are two types of strategies in this play, the strategy of war and
the strategy of love.
• The strategy of love is more important in this play then the strategy of
war.
• The strategy of war is based on the relationships that all the main
characters share with other powerful countries.
• In Antony’s case, his army is spread out all over the Middle East and
lacks a Navy, so these two factors severely hurt his army’s chances of
winning against the Romans.
• Antony and Cleopatra are trying to make their love work.
• The people around are using any means possible to pull the lovers apart
• He had mastered the art of comparative
criticism, using prose and dialogue for debate,
and wit and satire to illustrate disparities
between church and state.
Mac Flecknoe (1682)
• Dryden's greatest achievements were in satiric

verse: the mock-heroic MacFlecknoe, a more
personal product of his Laureate years, was a
lampoon circulated in manuscript and an
attack on the playwright Thomas Shadwell.
Mac Flecknoe (1682): Type of Work
• "Mac Flecknoe" is a mock epic.

• “Mac Flecknoe” uses the elevated style of the
classical epic poem such as The Iliad to
satirize human follies.
• In "Mac Flecknoe," John Dryden imitated not
only the characteristics of Homer's epics but
also those of later writers such as Virgil,
Dante, and Milton.
Mac Flecknoe (1682)
• Dryden's main goal in the work is to "satirize
Shadwell, ostensibly for his offenses against
literature but more immediately we may
suppose for his habitual badgering of him on
the stage and in print.”
Mac Flecknoe (1682)
• John Dryden wrote "Mac Flecknoe" to satirize another English writer,
Thomas Shadwell (1642-1692)
• Shadwell was the author of eighteen plays and a small body of poetry.
• Dryden and Shadwell had once treated each other amicably but became
enemies because of their differing views on the following:
• Politics: Dryden was a Tory; Shadwell was a Whig.
Religion: Shadwell offended Dryden when he satirized Catholic and
Anglican priests in a play entitled The Lancashire-Witches, and Tegue o
Divelly the Irish-Priest (1682).
Dryden was considering becoming a Catholic at the time (and did in 1686).
Literature: Dryden and Shadwell differed strongly on who was the better
writer: Shakespeare or Ben Jonson. Dryden took the part of Shakespeare;
Shadwell idolized Jonson.
Retaliation
• Shadwell attacked Dryden in The Medal of
John Bayes (1682)
• Dryden retaliated with "Mac Flecknoe," a
masterpiece of satire.
Richard Flecknoe (1600-1678)
• Richard Flecknoe (1600-1678) was an English dramatist and poet
• His writing was ridiculed by poet Andrew Marvell (1621-1678),
as well as Dryden.
• In "Mac Flecknoe," Dryden casts him in the fictional role of the
King of Nonsense.
• When the time comes for the aging king to select his successor, he
chooses Thomas Shadwell.
• (In the poem, Dryden casts Shadwell as the son of the King of
Nonsense.)
• Shadwell accedes to the crown as Mac Flecknoe. (Mac means son
of.)
Setting & Point of View of “Mac Flecknoe”
• Set in London – referred as Augusta

• As part of his mockery of Shadwell, Dryden chose the
high-sounding Augusta as the name for the city
Shadwell is to rule as King of Nonsense.
• The speaker/narrator presents the poem in third-person

point of view but allows the elderly King of Nonsense to
tell why he has selected Shadwell to succeed him.
Opening Lines of “Mac Flecknoe”
• All human things are subject to decay,
And, when Fate summons, monarchs must
obey:
This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
Was call'd to empire,2 and had govern'd long:
In prose and verse, was own'd, without dispute
Through all the realms of Non-sense, absolute.
Satires
• Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
• The Medal (1682)

Religio Laici (1682),
• religious poems
• Religio Laici (1682), written from the position
of a member of the Church of England
Dryden introduced the word biography
• In 1683 edition of Plutarch's Lives translated

from Greek by Several Hands, Dryden
introduced the word biography to English
readers.
To Catholicism
• Charles II died in 1685 and was succeeded by
his catholic brother, James II.
• Within less than a year, Dryden and his two
sons were converted to Catholicism.
• As a result, He was dismissed by William III
and Mary II in 1688 after he refused to swear
an oath of allegiance, remaining loyal to James
II.
Dryden refused to take the oaths of
allegiance
• When in 1688 James was deposed, Dryden’s
refusal to take the oaths of allegiance to the
new government left him out of favour at
court.
• Thomas Shadwell succeeded him as Poet
Laureate, and he was forced to give up his
public offices and live by the proceeds of his
pen.
The Hind and the Panther, (1687)
• The Hind and the Panther, (1687) celebrated
his conversion to Roman Catholicism.
• It's a Poem in Three Parts.
• It’s Dryden's longest poem.
Dryden_Translator
• Dryden translated works by Horace, Juvenal,

Ovid, Lucretius, a task which he found far
more satisfying than writing for the stage.
The Works of Virgil (1697),
• In 1694, Dryden began work on what would be his
most ambitious and defining work as translator, The
Works of Virgil (1697), which was published by
subscription.
• The publication of the translation of Virgil was a
national event and brought Dryden the sum of
₤1,400.
• His final translations appeared in the volume Fables
Ancient and Modern (1700), a series of episodes
from Homer, Ovid, and Boccaccio.
The Preface to Fables
• The Preface to Fables is considered to be

both a major work of criticism and one of the
finest essays in English.
• As a critic and translator he was essential in
making accessible to the reading English
public literary works in the classical
languages.
Absalom and Achitophel ( 1681)
• "Absalom and Achitophel" is one of Dryden's

great political satires.
• Dryden's satire is a poem written in heroic

couplets (more about these in lecture, too).
• Heroic couplets signal to the reader that the
poem deals with an epic theme. They also
indicate the writer's authority.
• In "Absalom and Achitophel," Dryden comments
on
– the Popish Plot (1678: an alleged plot by Catholics to
kill the king and make England Catholic again),
– the Exclusion Crisis (to keep Charles' Catholic
brother, James, from inheriting the throne after
Charles' death), and
– the Monmouth Rebellion (1685: an attempt to put the
king's illegitimate son James, Duke of Monmouth on
the throne).
• The poem is an allegory that uses the story of

the rebellion of Absalom against King David
as the basis for discussion of the background
to the Monmouth Rebellion (1685).
The Medal (1682)
• Early in 1682 Dryden published another attack

on Shaftesbury and his followers, The Medall.
• The controlling fiction of the poem is the two
sides of the medal, one with a portrait of
Shaftesbury, the other with a portrait of the
City of London.
Dryden’s Famous Odes
• A Song for St. Cecilia's Day (1687)
• Alexander's Feast, or the Power of Music

(1697)
Dryden & Heroic Couplet
• Dryden was the dominant literary figure and
influence of his age.
• He established the heroic couplet as a
standard form of English poetry.
• Dryden's heroic couplet became the dominant
poetic form of the 18th century.
• Alexander Pope was heavily influenced by
Dryden and often borrowed from him.
Dryden as a playwright
• Dryden’s first play, The Wild Gallant,
appeared in 1663 and was not successful.
• The greatest heroic play of the century, The
Conquest of Granada (1670, 1671),
• The greatest tragicomedy, Marriage A-la-
Mode (1671).
• The greatest tragedy of the Restoration, All for
Love (1677)
Dryden as a playwright
• He adapted a number of Shakespeare's plays
including The Tempest and All for Love
(1677), a retelling of Antony and Cleopatra.
• The Greatest Comitragedy, Don Sebastian
(1689)
• One of The Greatest Comedies, Amphitryon
(1690)
Fables, Ancient and Modern (1700)
• It is a collection of translations of classical and

medieval poetry.
• It is a series of episodes from Homer, Ovid,
and Boccaccio, as well as modernized
adaptations from Geoffrey Chaucer
interspersed with Dryden's own poems
• It was his last and one of his greatest works.
Dryden died two months later.
Augustan literature (1700–1750)
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Enlightenment
“Cogito ergo sum’
09/19/2020 466
John Locke (1632-1704)
• English Philosopher
• Locke was an opponent of Platonic idealism.
• Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)
• Locke's two Treatises on Government (1690), in
which he stated that the authority of the governor
is derived from the always revocable consent of
the governed and that the people's welfare is the
only proper object of that authority.
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David Hume (1711-1776)
• Scottish philosopher
• An Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (1748)
George Berkeley (1685–1753)
• George Berkeley (1685–1753) eventually became

Bishop of Cloyne, was another Irish product of Trinity
College, Dublin, who became acquainted with Pope,
Swift and Addison.
• His important philosophical books belong to his
earlier years. A New Theory of Vision was published
in 1709 and his Principles of Human Knowledge in
1710.
• Berkeley’s metaphysical position is represented by
his doctrine of idealism.
Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and
Fall of the Roman Empire
• 6 volumes
• Written between 1776-1788 A.D.
Samuel Pepys (1633 – 1703)
Diary Writing
• secretary to the Admiralty, Pepys was a career man.

• He loved London and its life, and he recorded his daily
experiences in shorthand and cipher in a diary
(published in 1825).
• It is a splendid book of gossip, a record both of trivial
matters, such as the behavior at court, and of major
events, such as
– the Great Plague (1664–65)
– the Great Fire (1666).
– Pepys's Diary is a window on the last part of the 17th century
in England.
Richard Steel & Joseph Addison
7. Addison and Steele_The
spectators and the coverly papers_Final_JSN.docx
• The modern essay began in two periodicals, The
Tatler (1709–11), founded by Sir Richard Steele, and The
Spectator (1711–12), founded by Steele and Joseph
Addison.
• appealed to the middle class in the coffeehouses rather
than to the nobility in their palaces.
• The aim of The Spectator, Addison said, was “ . . . to
enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with
morality.”
• Steele and Addison's essays are still models of clear,
informal writing.
Augustan Age [1700-1785]
• Staunch traditionalists
• Literature is seen primarily as an art
• Poetry was an imitation of human life
• Rise and fall of satires
• New developments in science shattered
man’s ego
• Rise of novels

• Age of Enlightenment
• Age of Reason
• Age of Sensibility
• A rational and scientific approach to
religious, social, political, and economic
issues
• Promoted a secular view of the world and a
general sense of progress and perfectibility

Writers of the Augustan Age
Alexander Pope:
– An Essay on Criticism
– The Rape of the Lock
– Windsor Forest
Oliver Goldsmith:
– The Vicar of Wakefield
– She Stoops to Conquer
– The Deserted Village
– The Man in Black
Writers of the Augustan Age
Dr. Samuel Johnson:
– Preface to Shakespeare
– London
– Rasselas
Daniel Defoe:
– A True –born English man
– Robinson Crusoe
– Roxana
Henry Fielding:
– Joseph Andrews
– Tom Jones
– Amelia

The Augustan Age (1700-1750)
• This period is marked by the imitation of Virgil
and Horace's literature in English letters.
• The principal English writers include
– Addison,
– Steele,
– Jonathan Swift, and
– Alexander Pope
– Abroad, Voltaire is the dominant French writer
• Age of Enlightenment or Age of

Reason
• A rational and scientific approach to
religious, social, political, and
economic issues
• Promoted a secular view of the world
and a general sense of progress and
perfectibility
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Alexander Pope
1688–1744
• Pope was born on May 21, 1688 to a wealthy Catholic linen

merchant, Alexander Pope, and his second wife, Edith
Turner.
• master of the heroic couplet
• Translated Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey into heroic couplets.
• He was known for having perfected the rhymed couplet form
of his idol, John Dryden, and turned it to satiric and
philosophical purposes.
• He soon became friends with Whig writers Joseph Addison
and Richard Steele, editors of the Spectator, who published
his essays and poems
Scriblerus Club
• In the mid-1720s, Pope became associated
with a group of Tory literati called the
Scriblerus Club.
• Scriblerus Club included John Gay,
Jonathan Swift, John Arbuthnot, and Thomas
Parnell.
•
Works of Alexander Pope
• The Rape of the Lock (1714) (Mock Epic)
– 27.12.2017 The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pop
e.docx
• “Eloisa to Abelard” (1717)
– lyrically explored the 12th-century story of the
passionate love of Heloïse d’Argenteuil and her
teacher, the philosopher Peter Abelard.
• An Essay on Criticism (1711)
– Alexander Pope_An Essay on Criticism.docx
Windsor Forest (1713)
• Windsor Forest (1713) recalls Cooper’s Hill in

its blend of scenic description with reflections
on associated historical and literary figures.
‘Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate
Lady’ (1717)
• a poem in heroic couplets
• first published in his Works of 1717.
• only 82 lines long
• The ‘Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate
Lady’ pays tribute to a victim of suicide in
couplets handled with delicacy and feeling. The
poor woman may not lie in consecrated earth:
Yet shall thy grave with rising flow’rs be drest,
And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast!
Eloisa to Abelard (1717)
• Eloisa to Abelard is a verse epistle by Alexander Pope
that was published in 1717 and based on a well-
known Mediaeval story.
• Itself an imitation of a Latin poetic genre
• ‘Eloisa to Abelard’ versifies the appeal in the tender
letter of the abbess Eloisa to her former teacher and
lover, Abelard.
• She has come across his own record of their long-past
relationship and it stirs her to a moving expression of
her continuing devotion.
Pope’s Essay on Man (1733–4)
• Pope’s Essay on Man (1733–4) is a serious
philosophical work
• It consists of four epistles in couplets
• It is addressed to Henry St John Bolingbroke.
• The first epistle establishes that ‘Whatever is, is
right’ by displaying man’s finely adjusted place in
the scale of creation:
All are but parts of one stupendous whole
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

Pope’s Essay on Man (1733–4)
• Individual man is then analysed as a creature in whom two
principles, self-love and reason, reign.
• The passions (modes of self-love) must enlist under reason and
reason must ‘keep to Nature’s road’.
• Pope then turns to picture the ordered human society living in
harmony with nature.
• The confident location of individual and social happiness in the
operation of reason and enlightened self-love is given a Deistic
basis in all-pervasive divine benevolence.
• There are beautifully lucid and sensitive passages in the work.
‘God loves from Whole to Parts’, Pope avers: but it is not easy, in
reading his poem, to extend one’s love of its parts to its whole.
An Essay on Man (1733-34)
• An Essay on Man is didactic and wide-reaching

and was meant to be part of a larger work of
moral philosophy that Pope never finished.
– Its four sections, or “epistles,” present an aesthetic
and philosophical argument for the existence of order
in the world, contending that we know the world to
be unified because God created it. Thus, it is only our
inferior vision that perceives disunity, and it is each
man’s duty to strive for the good and the orderly.
The Dunciad (1728)
• The Dunciad is Pope’s most ambitious original work, is a satire

after the model of Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe.
• an attack on the Shakespearean editor Lewis Theobald
• The first three books were published in 1728 with Theobald as
the chief target (Theobald had criticized Pope’s edition of
Shakespeare).
• In 1742 a fourth book was added and Colley Cibber was
substituted for Theobald in the recasting of the whole.
• In the 1730s, Pope published two works on the same theme: An
Essay on Man and a series of “imitated” satires and epistles of
Horace (1733-38).
• After the final edition of The Dunciad was released in 1742
The Dunciad (1728)
• Book I introduces us to the empire of the goddess

Dulness, who claims Cibber for the throne in succession
to Eusden (he was poet laureate before Cibber).
• Book II shows Cibber throned Miltonically (like Satan in
Paradise Lost Book II):
– High on a gorgeous seat, that far out-shone Henley’s gilt tub,
or Fleckno’s Irish throne, and, after the fashion of Homer and
Virgil, heroic games celebrate the solemnity. Booksellers, poets
and critics fail to stand up to a gruelling test of their ability to
keep awake while authors’ works are read aloud.
•
The Dunciad (1728)
• Ultimately (in Book IV) the goddess Dullness comes

into her own on earth, leading the Sciences captive
and silencing the Muses.
• The final consummation is the restoration of Night
and Chaos. So grave is the danger menacing culture;
and to enter with full sympathy into Pope’s vast
work of protest, the modern reader must sense the
serious concern for civilized values which underlies
the poet’s assault upon the spurious literature that
threatens them.
‘Epistle to Miss Blount, on her leaving the
town after the Coronation’
• ‘Epistle to Miss Blount, on her leaving the
town after the Coronation’, with its neatly
voiced contrast between urban and rural life:
She went from Op’ra, Park, Assembly, Play,
To morning-walks, and pray’rs three hours a day.
Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot (1734)
• Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, is a reflection on Pope’s own
past experience as a writer, its warm words for his
father and mother, and its praise of Gay.
• The same poem contains the well-known portrait of

Addison (‘Atticus’). There is nothing more devastating
in literature than the cool packaging-up of the vain
author’s devious characteristics—a man who could
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer…
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be?
Who would not weep, if ATTICUS were he?
Questions
Which metrical form was Pope said to have
brought to perfection?
a) blank verse
b) free verse
c) the ode
d) the heroic couplet
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709 –1784)
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709 –1784)
• against the cult of sentiment.
• best known as a prose writer.
• an extraordinarily gifted conversationalist and
literary authority in the cultivated urban life of
his time.
• Johnson produced a series of journalistic
essays, The Rambler (1750-1752).
Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
• – First lexicographer.
• Johnson produces alone over 9 years with the help of 5
runners
• French employ 40 men who spent 40 years to produce.
• Johnson provides definition, pronunciation, diction and
illustrates the word from literature
• Dictionary—43,000 definitions and 110,000 citations
• Publication and Canals
• Quotations from John Dryden, William Shakespeare,
John Milton’s literary works
Rasselas (1759)
• In the spring of 1759, he wrote a short novel,
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
• The moral is that “human life is everywhere a
state in which much is to be endured, and little
to be enjoyed”
• It is reminiscent of Swift (as well as of his
contemporary the French writer Voltaire in his
tale Candide) in its perception of the vanity of
human wishes.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
• James Boswell, the Scotsman befriended Dr.
Johnson and eventually authored the greatest
biography ever written.
• His curiously lovable and upright personality,
along with his intellectual preeminence and
idiosyncrasies, have been preserved in the most
famous of English biographies, the Life of Samuel
Johnson (1791), by James Boswell, a Scottish
writer with an appetite for literary celebrities.
Preface to Shakespeare (1765)
• Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare was published in 1765 is a
comment on the argument over the ancients and moderns.
• Johnson forwards his criticism with moral consideration and
prescribes imitation which is closer to truth, reality and to
the right.
• Imitation has to be of general nature rather than particular.
• The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but
the species.
• Johnson restrains the "wild strain of imagination", but his
moral concerns are principally important.
Lives of the Most Eminent English
Poets (1779–81)
• Lives of the Most Eminent English
Poets (1779–81), alternatively known by the
shorter title Lives of the Poets,
• It comprises of short biographies and critical
appraisals of 52 poets, who lived during the
eighteenth century.
• These were arranged, approximately, by date
of death.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728 –1774)
• Johnson's friend
• Irish
• His novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) begins with
dry humor but passes quickly into tearful calamity.
• His poem The Deserted Village (1770) is in form
reminiscent of Pope, but in the tenderness of its
sympathy for the lower classes it foreshadows the
romantic age.
• She Stoops to Conquer (1773)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751 –1816)
• orator and political figure, was also a writer of comedies of
manners that lampooned social affectations and
pretentiousness.
• Irish satirist, and playwright
• His masterpiece, The School for Scandal (1777), features
malicious gossips with such revealing names as Sir Benjamin
Backbite, Lady Sneerwell, and Mrs. Candour.
• For another of his clever plays, The Rivals (1775), Sheridan

invented the unforgettable Mrs. Malaprop, whose name remains
to this day the designation for a person who misuses words.
Comedy of Manners
• Comedy of Manners are literary, artistic works
comprising sophisticated society satires.
• From 1660 to about 1700, these plays were
also known as Restoration comedies (William
Wycherley, etc.).
• The form was later revived in the 1770s
(Richard Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith) and then
again in the 1890s (Oscar Wilde).
Matthew Prior (1664–1721)
• Matthew Prior (1664–1721) (minor poet)
• Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1661–1720)
(poem)
• Her more ambitious work, The Spleen
(1709), treats of the eighteenth-century
malady with some seriousness and with some
satirical force.
John Philips (1676–1709)
• His poem Blenheim (1705), Dr Johnson

complained, is the work of a scholar ‘all inexpert
of war’, of a man ‘who writes books from books,
and studies the world in a college’.
• His Miltonic burlesque, The Splendid Shilling
(1701), is a very different kettle of fish.
• His blank-verse poem Cyder (1708) is imitative of
Virgil’s Georgics and cheerfully informative about
all the stages of apple-growing and cider-making.
John Gay (1685–1732)
• Six mock-pastorals, The Shepherd’s Week (1714)

• Gay’s amusing urban guide in three books, Trivia, or
the Art of Walking the Streets of London (1716),
escorts the reader through London streets,
introducing him to the characters, desirable and
undesirable, that throng them; and so doing, may be
said to extend the range of material fit for poetry in
something like the way in which Lillo extended the
range of tragedy.
• The Beggar’s Opera (1728) and Polly (1729) (Opera)
Henry Carey (1687–1743)
• Burlesque of contemporary tragedy,

Chrononhotonthologos (1734)
Edward Young (1683–1765) (Poets)
• Young’s life spanned many reigns and his

poem Night Thoughts came after his
tragedies, being published between 1742 and
1745.
• is an immense work in blank verse containing
some 10,000 lines disposed in nine books with
such titles as On Life, Death, and Immortality
and On Time, Death, and Friendship.
James Thomson (1700–48) (Poets)
• Thomson’s Seasons (1730) takes the readers down to

earth.
• In Spring the season is described at work in nature, then in
man, for the book concludes ‘with a dissuasive from the
wild and irregular passion of Love, opposed to that of a
pure and happy kind’.
• literary recipe is a blend of descriptive writing, reflection,
exhortation and anecdote.
• Thus Summer, after its celebration of sunrise and its
episodes on haymaking, sheep-shearing and the like,
eventually tells the tale of Damon.
The Castle of Indolence (1748)
• The Castle of Indolence (1748) is a curious
poem less easy to place.
• In it Thomson adopts the stanza and style of
Spenser’s Faerie Queene.
• He mimics the Spenserian voice impressively,
indeed parodically; but in the account of those
inhabiting the castle and drugged by its
‘slumbrous influence’ Thomson caricatures
himself and some of his contemporaries.
• In The Brothers King Philip of Macedon is consumed with
hatred for Rome and love for his two sons.
• Demetrius, the younger son, is framed by Perseus, the elder,
on a charge of treacherous collusion with the Romans. Philip
faces the question whether to execute his son for political
good or spare him as a father.
• Demetrius is offered the chance to clear himself by marrying
the daughter of Dymas, a Roman-hater. Demetrius expresses
forced compliance (‘Pardon, ye gods! an artifice forc’d on
me’) and loses his own beloved to Perseus.
• Sophonisba (1730) and Agamemnon (1738) (Tragedies)
George Lillo (1693–1739)
(Prose Tragedy)
• He wrote a prose tragedy with a homely London setting, The

London Merchant or George Barnwell.
– The story is derived from an old ballad and tells how George Barnwell is
seduced by Millwood, then at her instigation robs his employer,
Thorowgood, and murders his uncle.
• The Fatal Curiosity (1736)
• In The Fatal Curiosity (1736) there is a similar attempt to shift
responsibility for crime from the guilty one. Old Wilmot and his
wife, hounded by poverty, murder a stranger for the casket of
wealth he has entrusted to them, and learn that he is their long-
lost son who had returned to succour them but indulged the ‘fatal
curiosity’ of being received first in disguise.
Joseph Butler (1692–1752)
• Analogy of Religion (1736)

Thomas Gray (1716 –1771)
• Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard is a poem by Thomas Gray
• It was completed in 1750 and first published in 1751.
• The poem’s origins are unknown, but it was partly inspired by Gray’s
thoughts following the death of the poet Richard West in 1742.
• It was originally titled Stanzas Wrote in a Country Church-Yard, the
poem was completed when Gray was living near St Giles' parish church
at Stoke Poges.
• It was sent to his friend Horace Walpole, who popularised the poem
among London literary circles.
• Gray was eventually forced to publish the work on 15 February 1751,
to pre-empt a magazine publisher from printing an unlicensed copy of
the poem.
• 15. Thomas Grey's Elegy Written on A Country Churchyard_Final_JSN.d
ocx
George Crabbe (1754-1832)
• George Crabbe was the last poet of the century
who used the couplet in didactic poetry.
• His political and social satire The Village (1783) is
a realistic appraisal of country life in his times.
• Cowper exemplifies the strange decay of the spirit
in the 18th century.
• He was given to extreme, morbid sensibilities.
• The Task (1785) is a falsely cheerful poem of a
man who feels himself to be condemned.
Minor Voices
• Edward Young (1683- 1765) wrote The Complaint: or, Night
Thoughts on Life, Death, and Immortality (1742–45), which
put in practice his ideas about the personal quality of poetry.
• Robert Blair (1699-1746) wrote one important poem, The

Grave (1743), which advanced the “graveyard school” of poetry.
• William Collins (1721 –1759) was not a popular success in his

lifetime, but his Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the
Highlands of Scotland (published posthumously, in 1788)
clearly marked a turn to the wild and irregular as proper
subjects for poetry.
Rise of Novels
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)
• Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded
• It is an epistolary novel
• It was first published in 1740
• It tells the story of a beautiful 15-year-old
maidservant named Pamela Andrews, whose
country landowner master, Mr. B (Squire Booby),
makes unwanted and inappropriate advances
towards her after the death of his mother
Henry Fielding (1707 –1754)
• Henry Fielding was amused by Pamela and
parodied it in Joseph Andrews (1742), which
purports to be the story of Pamela's brother.
Joseph Andrews
• Joseph Andrews, or The History of the
Adventures of Joseph Andrews and of his Friend
Mr. Abraham Adams
• The first published full-length novel of the English
author Henry Fielding
• One of the first novels in the English language
• Published in 1742
• Defined by Fielding as a "comic epic poem in
prose"
Shamela
• An Apology for the Life of Mrs. Shamela Andrews, or
simply Shamela
• A Satire burlesque novella by English writer Henry Fielding
• It was first published in April 1741 under the name of Mr.
Conny Keyber
• Fielding never admitted to writing the work, but it is widely
considered to be his.
• It is a direct attack on the then-popular novel Pamela (1740)
by Fielding's contemporary and rival Samuel Richardson
• It is composed in epistolary form
The History of Tom Jones
• The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as
Tom Jones
• It is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry
Fielding.
• It is both a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel.
• It was first published on 28 February 1749.
• Seven years later he wrote Tom Jones (1749), one of the greatest
novels in English literature.
– It tells the story of a young foundling who is driven from his adopted
home, wanders to London, and eventually, for all his suffering, wins his
lady.
– The picture of English life, both in the country and in the city, is brilliantly
drawn.
Tobias Smollett (1721 –1771)
• a Scottish poet
• Tobias Smollett was Roderick Random (1748).
– collection of adventures
• Smollett's best work is Humphry Clinker (1771).
• It tells, by means of letters, the story of a trip by the
Bramble family across England, from Bath to London, and
up into Scotland.
• The eccentric characters have many comic experiences.
Laurence Sterne (1713 –1768)
• an Irish-born English language novelist
• Laurence Sterne wrote A Sentimental
Journey (1768) partly in answer to a travel
book written in ill temper by Smollett.
• Sterne's greatest book is Tristram
Shandy (1760–67), a topsy-turvy collection of
episodes with little organization but a wealth
of 18th-century humor.
Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
• He served the Whigs and then the Tories with

his pen, yet never attained the preferment
which his labour and his gifts merited.
• he eventually became Dean of St Patrick’s
Cathedral, Dublin, in 1713.
• His personal frustration is a more mysterious matter. While in the

service of Sir William Temple at Moor Park in Surrey, he became the
great friend of Esther Johnson (Stella), a girl who fell in love with him
and to whom he was attached for the rest of his life, so much so that he
persuaded her, with her companion, Rebecca Dingley, to take up
residence in Dublin where they could be in daily contact.
• It has been suggested that he may eventually have been induced to
marry her in secret and without consummation.
• To what extent Swift’s strange course was affected by his concern for
Esther Vanhomrigh (Vanessa), who had also fallen in love with him, is
not known.
• The latter relationship is celebrated in the poem, Cadenus and Vanessa
(1712).
Jonathan Swift (1667 –1745)
• An Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political

pamphleteer poet and cleric who became
Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
• Swift is remembered for works such as
– A Tale of a Tub (1704),
– An Argument Against Abolishing
Christianity (1712),
– Gulliver's Travels (1726)
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Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
• Swift’s satirical masterpiece.
• Part I tells of Gulliver’s shipwreck on the
island of Lilliput, an island inhabited by
diminutive beings whose controversies,
traditions and wars seem so trivial and petty
that their English equivalents are
correspondingly made to look silly by
reflection.
• Part II takes Gulliver to Brobdingnag, whose
gigantic inhabitants question Gulliver about
his homeland, and English practices again look
ludicrous and pretentious when defended by a
virtual human midget. Hearing Gulliver’s
account of recent English history, the king of
Brobdingnag concludes that the natives of
England are a ‘pernicious race of little odious
vermin’.
• In Part III the satire is more direct, for Gulliver visits Laputa, where the learned
are abstracted from the realm of common sense. Indeed they have to be
attended by ‘flappers’.
• A flapper is a servant equipped with ‘a blown bladder fastened like a flail to the
end of a short stick’.
• With this instrument the mouth or ears of a Laputan can be flapped and in this
way his mind can be brought to bear on the conversation he is supposed to be
conducting.
• The flapper must also attend his master on his walks to prevent him from
falling down a precipice or bumping into a post while wrapped in cogitation.
• Laputa is a flying island from which the long can brutally suppress potential
rebellion in his dominion beneath. Thus England’s oppression of Ireland is
again under condemnation.
• At Lagado, capital of the continent below (Balnibarbi), scientists are occupied
in absurd experiments like curing colic by inserting a bellows up the anus.
• The intensest satire comes in Part IV. Gulliver
visits the land of the Houyhnhnms, virtuous
beings with the bodies of horses, who cherish
their power of reason and are wholly
governed by it. They have at their disposal a
filthy race of man-shaped beasts called
Yahoos. On his return home, Gulliver finds it
impossible to stomach fellow Yahoos again:
even his wife stinks of Yahoohood.
A Journal to Stella (1766)
• A Journal to Stella is a work by Jonathan Swift
first partly published posthumously in 1766.
• It consists of 65 letters to his friend,
Esther Johnson, whom he called Stella and
whom he may have secretly married.
• were written between 1710 and 1713, from
various locations in England, and though clearly
intended for Stella's eyes were sometimes
addressed to her companion Rebecca Dingley.
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The Tale of a Tub (1704)
• Swift’s The Tale of a Tub (1704) is a humorous satire.

• The author’s preface explains ‘that seamen have a
custom when they meet a whale, to fling him out an
empty tub by way of amusement, to divert him from
laying violent hands upon the ship’. This parable is
mythologized. The ship of state is in danger from
Hobbes’s Leviathan (‘the whale’) which ‘tosses and
plays with all schemes of religion and government’.
The Tale of a Tub (1704)
• Hence this new diversion: and after numerous mock-

preliminaries we reach the story of three sons, to each
of whom their father has bequeathed a coat to be kept
in good order.
• The three sons, Peter (the Roman Catholic Church),
Martin (the Church of England) and John (the
dissenters), quarrel: they disobey their father’s
injunction by tampering with their coats; for when the
fashion changes they ‘rummage the will’ to find clauses
that can be twisted into support for making alterations.
The Battle of the Books (1704)
• It was in support of Sir William Temple (1629–99) , who had

been involved in literary controversy that Swift wrote The Battle
of the Books, and pictured the ancients at war with the
moderns.
• The mutinous moderns have difficulty in organizing leadership,
especially among the horse, ‘where every private trooper
pretended to the chief command, from Tasso and Milton to
Dryden and Withers’.
• The army of the ancients is different: ‘Homer led the horse, and
Pindar the light horse; Euclid was chief engineer; Plato and
Aristotle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and Livy the
foot…’
The Drapier’s Letters (1724 – 1725)
• In The Drapier’s Letters, posing as a Dublin

draper, Swift so devastatingly assailed the
policy of selling the right to supply copper
coinage to the Irish that the government
dropped the plan.
Modest Proposal (1729)
• Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children
of the Poor People from Becoming a Burthen
to their Parents or Country, and for Making
them Beneficial to the Public, is a proposal
which recommended the profitable edibility of
Irish children, and listed six major advantages
to be drawn from their consumption
(including reduction in the number of papists).
On the Death of Dr. Swift (1729)
• On the Death of Dr. Swift, was written in
1731:
He gave what little wealth he had
To build a house for fools and mad;
And show’d by one satiric touch
No nation wanted it so much.
Daniel Defoe (1660 - 1731)
• an English trader, writer,

journalist, pamphleteer and spy.
• pioneer of economic journalism.
• He is most famous for his
novel Robinson Crusoe (1719)
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Childhood experiences
• In Defoe’s early life, he experienced some of the
most unusual occurrences in English history: in
1665, 70,000 were killed by the Great Plague of
London, and next year, the Great Fire of London left
standing only Defoe’s and two other houses in his
neighbourhood.
• In 1667, when he was probably about seven, a
Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway via the River
Thames and attacked the town of Chatham in the
raid on the Medway.
Works of Daniel Defoe
• Defoe’s first notable publication was An Essay
upon Projects, a series of proposals for social
and economic improvement, published in
1697.
• His most successful poem, The True-Born
Englishman (1701), defended the king against
the perceived xenophobia of his enemies,
satirizing the English claim to racial purity.
• In 1701, Defoe presented the Legion’s
Memorial to the Speaker of the House of
Commons, later his employer Robert Harley,
flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of
quality.
• It demanded the release of the Kentish
petitioners, who had asked Parliament to
support the king in an imminent war against
France.
The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters
• The death of William III in 1702 once again created a political upheaval,
as the king was replaced by Queen Anne who immediately began her
offensive against Nonconformists.
• Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political
activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703,
principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The
Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of
the Church, purporting to argue for their extermination.
– In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the High church Tories and those Dissenters
who hypocritically practised so-called “occasional conformity”, such as his Stoke
Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney.
– It was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered
and Defoe was arrested.
• In 1704, he set up his periodical A Review of
the Affairs of France which supported the
Harley Ministry, chronicling the events of the
War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1714).
• The Review ran three times a week without
interruption until 1713.
The History of the Union of Great Britain
• In 1709, Defoe authored a rather lengthy book

entitled The History of the Union of Great Britain, an
Edinburgh publication printed by the Heirs of
Anderson.
• The book was not published anonymously and cites
Defoe twice as being its author.
• The book attempts to explain the facts leading up to
the Act of Union 1707, dating all the way back to 6
December 1604 when King James was presented
with a proposal for unification.
Novels
• Robinson Crusoe (1719)

• The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures of
Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world (1720)
• Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720)
• Captain Singleton (1720)
• A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
• Colonel Jack (1722)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
• Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724)
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Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man’s shipwreck

on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures.
• The author based part of his narrative on the story of the
Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years
stranded in the Juan Fernández Islands.
• The island Selkirk lived on was named Más a Tierra (Closer to
Land) at the time and was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in
1966.
• Defoe may have also been inspired by the Latin or English
translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath
Ibn Tufail, who was known as “Abubacer” in Europe.
• Robinson Crusoe.docx
Captain Singleton (1720)
• Captain Singleton (1720)

• an adventure story whose first half covers a
traversal of Africa and whose second half taps
into the contemporary fascination with piracy.
• It has been commended for its sensitive
depiction of the close relationship between
the hero and his religious mentor, Quaker
William Walters.
Memoirs of a Cavalier
Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720)

• set during the Thirty Years’ War and the
English Civil War.
Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
• A work that is often read as if it were non-
fiction is his account of the Great Plague of
London in 1665: A Journal of the Plague Year,
a complex historical novel published in 1722.
Colonel Jack (1722)
• Colonel Jack (1722) follows an orphaned boy
from a life of poverty and crime to colonial
prosperity, military and marital imbroglios,
and religious conversion, driven by a
problematic notion of becoming a
“gentleman.”
Moll Flanders and Roxana
• Also in 1722, Defoe wrote Moll Flanders, another first person

picaresque novel of the fall and eventual redemption of a lone woman
in 17th century England.
• The titular heroine appears as a whore, bigamist, and thief, lives in The
Mint, commits adultery and incest, and yet manages to retain the
reader’s sympathy.
• Moll Flanders and Defoe’s final novel Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress
(1724) are examples of the remarkable way in which Defoe seems to
inhabit his fictional characters (yet “drawn from life”), not least in that
they are women.
• Roxanna narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society
courtesan.
Romantic Age [1785-1830]
• Inaugurated with the publication of the

Lyrical Ballads (1798)
• English Romanticism came from Germany
• Gave importance to subjectivity
• Love for external nature
• Revival of lyricism
• Interest in medievalism
• The influence of French literature
• Notable English Romantic writers include

– Jane Austen,
– William Blake,
– Lord Byron,
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge,
– John Keats,
– Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
– William Wordsworth

• Prominent figures in the American

Romantic movement include
– Nathaniel Hawthorne,
– Herman Melville,
– Edgar Allan Poe,
– William Cullen Bryant, and
– John Greenleaf Whittier

Important Works
William Wordsworth:
– The Prelude
– The Excursion
– Immortality Ode
Samuel Taylor Coleridge:

– Biographia Literaria
– Kubla Khan
– Scholar
– Life of Nelson
– Roderick
Lord Byron:
– Child Harold’s Pilgrimage
– House of Idleness
– Cain
Important Works
Mercy Bysshe Shelly:
– Ode to the West Wind
– Prometheus Unbound
John Keats:
– Isabella
– Hyperion
– Lamia
– Ode to Nightingale
Jane Austen:
– Pride and Prejudice
– Emma
Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”
• Lines Composed a Few Miles above

Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the
Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July
13, 1798
• Five years have past; five summers, with the
length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur

Gothic fiction (1764–1820)
• A genre of late-18th-century literature
• It featured brooding, mysterious settings and plots
and set the stage for what we now call “horror
stories.”
• Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto, was set inside a
medieval castle, and was the first major Gothic novel.
• Later, the term “Gothic” grew to include any work
that attempted to create an atmosphere of terror or
the unknown, such as Edgar Allan Poe’s short
stories.

Clara Reeve (1729 – 1807)

The Old English Baron (1777)

The Old English Baron (1777)
• It was first published under this title in 1778

• It had anonymously appeared in 1777 under
its original name of The Champion of Virtue,
• Samuel Richardson’s daughter, Mrs Bridgen,
edited it.

Plan
• Miss Reeve noted in the 1778 preface that
• "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of
Otranto, written upon the same plan, with a design
to unite the most attractive and interesting
circumstances of the ancient Romance and modern
Novel, at the same time it assumes a character and
manner of its own, that differs from both; it is
distinguished by the appellation of a Gothic Story,
being a picture of Gothic times and manners."

Plot
• The story follows the adventures of Sir Philip Harclay, who returns
to medieval England to find that Arthur Lord Lovel, the friend of his
youth, is dead. His cousin Walter Lord Lovel had succeeded to the
estate, and sold the family castle to the baron, Fitz-Owen.
• Among the baron's household were his two sons and daughter
Emma, several young gentlemen relations being educated with the
sons, and Edmund Twyford, the son of a peasant, who had been
brought to live with them.
• When Sir Philip saw him, he took an immediate liking to him, being
struck by his resemblance to his lost friend. The Knight proposing to
take him into his own family, being childless, Edmund preferred to
remain with the baron, receiving however an assurance that if ever
he was in need of it, Sir Philip would renew his offer.
Plot
• The narrative then oversteps the interval of
four years. By his manifestly superior nature
and qualities Edmund had attracted the
enmity of his benefactor's nephews, and the
coldness of Sir Robert, the eldest son.
• William, his younger brother, is his staunch
friend however, and Edmund is in love with
the Lady Emma.

Horace Walpole (1717 – 1797)
• The Mysterious Mother (1768)

• Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of
Richard III (1768)
• Hieroglyphic Tales (1785)

Horace Walpole “The Castle of Otranto”
(1764)

The Castle of Otranto
• The Castle of Otranto is a 1764 novel by
Horace Walpole.
• It is generally regarded as the first gothic
novel.
• In the second edition, Walpole applied the
word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – "A
Gothic Story“

Plot
• The Castle of Otranto tells the story of Manfred, lord of the
castle, and his family. The book begins on the wedding-day of
his sickly son Conrad and princess Isabella. Shortly before the
wedding, however, Conrad is crushed to death by a gigantic
helmet that falls on him from above. This inexplicable event is
particularly ominous in light of an ancient prophecy, "that the
castle and lordship of Otranto should pass from the present
family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to
inhabit it". Manfred, terrified that Conrad's death signals the
beginning of the end for his line, resolves to avert destruction
by marrying Isabella himself while divorcing his current wife
Hippolita, who he feels has failed to bear him a proper heir.

Plot
• However, as Manfred attempts to marry Isabella, she escapes
to a church with the aid of a peasant named Theodore.
Manfred orders Theodore's death while talking to the friar
Jerome, who ensured Isabella's safety in the church. When
Theodore removes his shirt to be killed, Jerome recognizes a
marking below his shoulder and identifies Theodore as his
own son. Jerome begs for his son's life, but Manfred says
Jerome must either give up the princess or his son's life. They
are interrupted by a trumpet and the entrance of knights
from another kingdom who want to deliver Isabella. This
leads the knights and Manfred to race to find Isabella.

Plot
• Theodore, having been locked in a tower by Manfred, is freed by
Manfred's daughter Matilda. He races to the underground church and
finds Isabella. He hides her in a cave and blocks it to protect her from
Manfred and ends up fighting one of the mysterious knights. Theodore
badly wounds the knight, who turns out to be Isabella's father, Frederic.
With that, they all go up to the castle to work things out. Frederic falls in
love with Matilda and he and Manfred begin to make a deal about
marrying each other's daughters. Manfred, suspecting that Isabella is
meeting Theodore in a tryst in the church, takes a knife into the church,
where Matilda is meeting Theodore. Thinking his own daughter is
Isabella, he stabs her. Theodore is then revealed to be the true prince of
Otranto and Matilda dies, leaving Manfred to repent. Theodore becomes
king and eventually marries Isabella because she is the only one who can
understand his true sorrow.

Mary Shelley (1797–1851)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
(1823)

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
(1823)
• Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a
novel written by English author Mary Shelley
(1797–1851)
• It tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a
young scientist who creates a grotesque but
sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific
experiment.

Bram Stocker’s Dracula (1897)
• Irish Novel
• It introduced Count Dracula, and established
many conventions of subsequent vampire fantasy.
• The novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to
move from Transylvania to England so that he
may find new blood and spread the undead
curse, and of the battle between Dracula and a
small group of men and a woman led by
Professor Abraham Van Helsing

Matthew Gregory Lewis’ The Monk: A
Romance (1796)
• Newly arrived in Madrid, Leonella and her

niece Antonia visit a church to hear the
sermon of a celebrated monk, Ambrosio, and
while waiting, tell their story to two young
men, Don Lorenzo and Don Christoval.

Plot
• Ambrosio is visited by nuns, including Agnes,
for confession. She drops a letter which
reveals her plans to run away with Raymond
de las Cisternas. When Agnes confesses that
she is pregnant with Raymond's child,
Ambrosio turns her over to the prioress of her
abbey for punishment. As she is led away, she
curses Ambrosio.

Plot
• Returning to the abbey, Ambrosio's constant
companion, a novice named Rosario admits that he
is a woman named Matilda, who disguised herself
so that she could be near Ambrosio. They both
know he must throw her out of the monastery, but
she begs him not to, and vows to kill herself if he
does. He relents, but after talking the next day she
decides to leave of her own accord, on the
condition Ambrosio gives her a rose to remember
him by.
Plot
• As he picks the rose, he is bitten by a serpent and is
rushed to his room where it is predicted that he will die
within three days. Rosario acts as his nurse, and the next
day it is discovered that Ambrosio is cured which is
proclaimed a miracle. When the other monks leave,
Matilda reveals that she sucked the poison from
Ambrosio's wound and is now dying herself.
• At the point of death, she begs him to make love to her,
and he succumbs to the temptation at last, having
discovered that she is the model who sat for his beloved
portrait of the virgin Mary.
Plot
• Ambrosio and Matilda spend the night making love, Ambrosio no
longer feeling the guilt of sin. The next night in the cemetery, she
performs some ritual of which Ambrosio can only see flashes of light
and quaking of the ground; when she returns, she is free of the
poison, and free to be Ambrosio's secret lover. But as the week
progresses, Ambrosio grows tired of her, and his eyes begins to
wander, noticing the attractiveness of other women. Ambrosio is
approached by Antonia, who asks him to provide a confessor for
Elvira, her dying mother, and is immediately attracted to her. He
prays for Elvira, who begins to improve, and so agrees to come to
visit them often, for the simple purpose of being with Antonia and
hopefully seducing her. Elvira confesses that she sees something
familiar in Ambrosio, but she cannot pinpoint what it is.

R.L. Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde (1886)
• Stevenson had long been intrigued by the idea of how personalities can
affect a human and how to incorporate the interplay of good and evil into a
story
• Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a
large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago he
saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde trample a young girl after
accidentally bumping into her. Enfield forced Hyde to pay £100 to avoid a
scandal.
• Hyde brought them to this door and provided a cheque signed by a
reputable gentleman (later revealed to be Doctor Henry Jekyll, a friend and
client of Utterson). Utterson is disturbed because Jekyll recently changed
his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. Utterson fears that Hyde is
blackmailing Jekyll. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll
turns pale and asks that Hyde be left alone.
Realism (1830–1900)
• A loose term that can refer to any work that aims at honest
portrayal over sensationalism, exaggeration, or melodrama.
• Technically, realism refers to a late-19thcentury literary
movement—primarily French, English, and American—that
aimed at accurate detailed portrayal of ordinary,
contemporary life.
• Many of the 19th century’s greatest novelists, such as
– Honoré de Balzac,
– Charles Dickens,
– George Eliot,
– Gustave Flaubert, and
– Leo Tolstoy, are classified as realists.
– Naturalism can be seen as an intensification of realism.

Victorian Period [1830-1901]
• It extends to the death of Queen Victoria

• Industrial Revolution
• Mood of Nationalistic power
• Social stress
• Spiritual conflicts
• Publication of Origin of Species

• Notable Victorian novelists include
– Brontë sisters,
– Charles Dickens,
– George Eliot,
– William Makepeace Thackeray,
– Anthony Trollope, and
– Thomas Hardy,

• Prominent poets include
• Matthew Arnold;
• Robert Browning;
• Elizabeth Barrett Browning;
• Gerard Manley Hopkins;
• Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and
• Christina Rossetti.

• Notable Victorian nonfiction writers
include
– Walter Pater,
– John Ruskin, and
– Charles Darwin, who penned the famous On
the Origin of Species (1859).

The Brontë sisters
• Charlotte (1816-1855): Jane Eyre

• Emily (1818-1848): Wuthering Heights
• Anne: Agnes Grey

Pen Names
• Charlotte (1816-1855): Currer Bell

• Emily (1818-1848): Ellis Bell
• Anne: Acton Bell

Wuthering Heights
• Wuthering Heights has several narrators
• The novel begins with the narrator Mr.
Lockwood
• Who is then told an extended story by
the second narrator Nelly Dean
(Servant)
• The novel ends with Mr. Lockwood as
the narrator again.

Jane Eyre
• All events are told in the past from Jane’s
point of view.
• The setting is early 19th Century England.
• Jane Eyre is classified as both a Gothic and a
Romantic novel
• Jane Eyre
– Orphaned as a child
– Becomes governess at Thornfield

Jane Eyre
Edward Rochester
– Jane’s boss at Thornfield
Bertha Mason
– Bertha is locked in the attic at Thornfield
– Starts the bedroom fire, and eventually burns the house
down
– Kills herself in the house fire
– Exotic, sensual personification of the Orient

Charles Dickens (1812–70)
• His novels were a reaction to

rapid industrialization, and the social,
political, and economic issues associated
with it
• Novel wriritng was a means of commenting
on abuses of government and industry and
the suffering of the poor, who were not
profiting from England's economic
prosperity

A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
• A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is a historical novel by Charles Dickens
• set in London and Paris before and during the French Revolution
• The novel tells the story of the French Doctor Manette, his 18-year-
long imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris and his release to life in
London with his daughter Lucie, whom he had never met; Lucie's
marriage and the collision between her beloved husband and the
people who caused her father's imprisonment; and Monsieur and
Madame Defarge, sellers of wine in a poor suburb of Paris.
• Story of French Charles Darney & English Sidney Carton (Barrister)
• Lucie Manatte

A Tale of Two Cities (1859)
• Dickens's famous opening sentence introduces the universal
approach of the book, the French Revolution, and the drama
depicted within:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other
way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that
some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for
good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, (1810 –1865)

North and South (1855)
• Social novel
• North and South uses a protagonist (Martha
Hale) from southern England to present and
comment on the perspectives of mill owners
and workers in an industrialising city
• The novel is set in the fictional industrial
town of Milton in the north of England
• Queen Victoria ordered for the cleaning of
the slums after reading the novel

William Makepeace Thackeray
(1811 -1863)
• Thackeray is, first of all, a realist, who paints
life as he sees it. As he say s of himself, “I
have no brains above my eyes; I describe what
I see.”
• He gives in his novels accurate and true
picture especially of the vicious elements of
society .

Vanity Fair

Thackeray's Henry Esmond
• In 1852 appeared the marvellous historical
novel of Henry Esmond which is the greatest
novel in its own special kind ever written.
• In it Thackeray depicted the true picture of
the Queen Anne period and showed his
remarkable grasp of character and story .

Other Novels
• Newcomes (1853-8)
• The Virginians, which is a sequel of Esmond,
deals with the third quarter of the eighteenth
century

Benjamin Disraeli (1 804-81 )
• Benjamin Disraeli (1 804-81 ) wrote his first novel Vivian Grey (1
826-27 ), in which he gave the portrait of a dandy , a young,
intelligent adventurer without scruples.
• In the succeeding novels Coningsby (1844), Sybil (1845) and
Tancred (1847 ) Disraeli was among the first to point out that the
amelioration of the wretched lot of the working class was a social
duty of the aristocracy .
• Being a politician who became the Prime Minister of England, he
has given us the finest study of the movements of English politics
under Queen Victoria.
• All his novels are written with a purpose, and as the characters in
them are created with a view to the thesis, they retain a certain air
of unreality .
Charles Kingsley (1819-75)
• the founder of the Christian Socialists
• He actively interested in the co-operative movement,
embodied his generous ideas of reform in the novels
Yeast (1848) and Alton Locke (1850).
• As a historical novelist he returned to the earliest days
of Christianity in Hypatia (1853).
• In Westward Ho! (1855) he commemorated the
adventurous spirit of the Elizabethan navigators, and in
Hereward the Wake (1865) of the descendants of the
Vikings.
Charles Reade (1814-84)
• Charles Reade (1814-84) wrote novels with a social
purpose.
• It is Never too Late to Mend (1853) is a picture of
the horrors of prison life; Hard Cash (1863) depicts
the abuses to which lunatic, asylums gave rise; Put
Yourself in his place is directed against trade unions.
• His A Terrible Temptation is a famous historical
novel.
• His The Cloister and the Hearth (1867 ) shows the
transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Wilkie Collins (1824-89)
• Wilkie Collins (1824-89) excelled in arousing
the sense of terror and in keeping in suspense
the explanation of a mystery of the
revelation of crime.
• His best-known novels are The Woman in
White and The Moonstone
• In these novels, he shows his great mastery in
the mechanical art of plot construction.
Anthony Trollope (1815-88)
• Anthony Trollope (1815-88) presented real life without
distorting or idealizing it.
o His important novels are The Warden (1855), Barchester
Towers (1857) and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867) in
which he has given many truthful scenes of provincial life,
without poetical feeling, but not without humour.
• Trollope has great skill as a story-teller and his characters are
lifelike and shrewdly drawn.
• His novels present a true picture of middle class life, and there
is neither heroism nor villainy there.
• His style is easy , regular, uniform and almost impersonal.
Later Victorian Novelists/ Modern
Novelists
• George Eliot (1819-1880)
• The real name of George Eliot was Mary Ann Evans.
• For a long time her writings was exclusively critical
and philosophic in character, and it was when she was
thirty-eight that her first work of fiction Scenes of
Clerical Life (1857) appeared.
• It was followed by Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on
the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Romola
(1863), and Middlemarch (1871 -72).
George Eliot (1819-1880)
• Gifted with a wonderful faculty of observation, she could

reproduce faithfully the mannerism of rustic habit and speech.
• Having a thorough knowledge of the country side and the
country people, their hierarchies and standards of value, she
could giv e a complete picture of their life.
• Moreover, she could beautifully portray the humour and pathos
of these simple folk as no English novelist had done before.
• Just as we look to Dickens for pictures of the city streets and to
Thackeray for the vanities of society , we look to George Eliot
for the reflection of the country life in England.
George Meredith (1829-1909)
• In his novels, he cared little for incident or plot on their
account, but used them principally to illustrate the activity of
the ‘Comic Spirit’.
• Comedy he conceives of as a Muse watching the actions of
men and women, detecting and pointing out their
inconsistencies with a view to their moral improvement. She
never laughs loud, she only smiles at most; and the smile is
of the intellect, for she is the handmaid of philosophy .
• Meredith loves to trace the calamities which befall those who
provoke Nature by obstinately running counter to her laws.
The Ordeal of Richard Feveral
• The Ordeal of Richard Feveral, which is one of the
earliest of Meredith’s novels, is also one of his best.
• Its theme is the ill-advised bringing up of an only son,
Richard Feveral, by his well-meaning and officious
father, Sir Austen Feveral.
• In spite of his best intentions, the father adopts such
methods as are unsuited to the nature of the boy , with
the result that he himself becomes the worst enemy of
his son, and thus an object of ridicule by the Comic
Spirit.
Other Novels Of George Meredith
• Evan Harrington(1861) is full of humorous situations which
arise out of the social snobbery of the Harrington family .
• Rhoda Fleming(1865), Sandra Belloni (1864), Harry
Richmond (1871) and Beauchamp’s Career (1876) all
contain the best qualities of Meredith’s art—intellectual
brilliance, a ruthless exposure of social weaknesses, and an
occasional poetic intensity of style.
• In all of them Meredith shows himself as the enemy of
sentimentality.
• Meredith is a psychologist. He tries to unravel the mystery of
the human personality and probe the hidden springs there.
Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
• Hardy ’s attitude to life is rather pessimistic
and he has written tragedies.
• Hardy thinks that there is some malignant
power which controls this universe, and which
is out to thwart and defeat man in all his plans.
It is especially hostile to those who try to
assert themselves and have their own way .
• In his books, ancient and modern are constantly at war, and
none is happy who has been touched by ‘modern’
education and culture.
• Hardy also resists the infiltration of aggressive modernity
in the quiet village surroundings.
• Hardy passed the major portion of his life near Dorchester,
and his personal experiences were bound up with the
people and customs, the monuments and institutions of
Dorest and the contiguous countries of south-western
England, which he placed permanently on the literary map
by the ancient name “Wessex ’.
• The great novels of Hardy are
– The Woodlanders,
– The Return of the Native,
– Far From the Madding Crowd,
– The Mayor of Casterbridge,
– Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and
– Jude the Obscure.
Novels of Hardy
Novels of Hardy
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94)
• His first romance entitled Treasure Island became very popular.
• It was followed by New Arabian Nights, Kidnapped, The Black
Arrow, which contain romances and mystery stories.
• In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde he departed from his usual manner to
write a modern allegory of the good and evil in the human
• personality .
• In The Master of Ballantrae Stevenson described the story of a
soul condemned to evil.
• At his death he was working on unfinished novel, Weir of
Hermiston, which is considered by some critics as the most finished
product of his whole work. In it he dramatized the conflict between
father and son—the Lord Justice-Clerk, the hanging judge, and his
son Archie who has the courage to face him.
The contribution of Stevenson
• The contribution of Stevenson to the English
novel is that he introduced into it romantic
adventure.
• His rediscovery of the art of narrative, of
conscious and clever calculation in telling a
story so that the maximum effect of clarity and
suspense is achieved, meant the birth of the
novel of action.
George Gissing (1857 -1903)
• Working under the influence of French realists and
Schopenhauer’s philosophy , he sees the world full of ignoble
and foolish creatures.
• He considers the problem of poverty as insoluble; the oppressed
lower classes cannot revolt successfully and the rich will not
voluntarily surrender their power.
• Under such circumstances it is the intellectuals who suffer the
most, because they are more conscious of the misery around
them. This is the moral of all Gissing’s novels, chief among
which are Worker in the Dawn (1880), The Unclassed (1884),
Domes (1886), The Emancipated (1889), New Grub Street (1891
), Born in Exile (1892).
Thank You

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NTA - NET/ SET (English) Coaching

History of English Literature

(English Literature for

Saturday, September 19, 2020 2

• English was the common name and tongue of these

Saturday, September 19, 2020 10

• The theme of the poem is continental

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• The Harrowing of Hell, the Whale and the

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• The period includes the greater part of the rein

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Saturday, September 19, 2020 41

S. Jerald Sagaya Nathan, SJC, Trichy.

• Geoffrey Chaucer was born in 1340 A.D.

• In 1359, the teenage Chaucer went off to fight in the

• Owing to his duties, Chaucer had little time to devote

• The Canterbury tales

Saturday, September 19, 2020 50

• The Parliament of Fowls is a dream

• It was written sometime in the mid-1380s.

• Robert Henryson’s Scots poem The Testament

• dream vision composed in

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• A study of Social hierarchy

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• The Book of the Duchess, also known as The Deth of

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• Wrote in three languages (Anglo-Norman,

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• Confessio Amantis (The Lover’s Confession)

Saturday, September 19, 2020 86

• The "Pearl Poet", or the "Gawain Poet", is the

• medieval allegory and dream vision genre

• Its unknown author, designated the Pearl poet or Gawain poet

• Middle English alliterative poem written in the late 14th century.

• a late 14th-century Middle English chivalric romance.

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• Sir Thomas Malory (died 14 March 1471) was an English

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• Everyman examines the question

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• The War of the Roses (1455 – 16 June 1487

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• Coming of King James I

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