Riassunto esame Cultura e Letteratura Inglese I, prof Polopoli, libro consigliato English Literature. A short history, Bertinetti

emotions. ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

James I and Charles I

At the death of Elizabeth in 1603, James Stuart, son of Queen Mary of Scots, became King,

advocating royal absolutism, and neglecting the rights of the Parliament. His conflicts with the

Parliament made him unpopular but he is also known for being a cultivated person and for the new

translation of the Bible, the so-called King James Bible.

When he died in 1625, his son Charles became King. He was a patron of arts and believed in the

absolute power of the monarch and couldn’t find an agreement with the House of Commons,

leading to the Civil War in 1642. It ended with the defeat of King.

Jacobean and Caroline Drama

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In the first years of 17 century, theatre began to lose its unitary and new forms developed, together

with a diversified public. James and his court favoured an elitist genre, the masque, based on Italian

models. Its power was not in the words, but in the spectacular costumes, dancing, sets and special

effects provided by new machines. This new genre could only be performed at court or in palaces of

the aristocracy.

Ben Johnson

His influences were classical and he wrote comedies and tragedies that respected the unities of time

and place. Comedy of Humours is an expression used to define his form of comedy. According to

the theory of humours, the four cardinal ones were blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy which

had to be balanced. A humour, according to Johnson, was a bias of disposition and some quality

could possess man and make him act in particular ways. In his comedies, the characters were ruled

by a dominant passion and the comic effect was produced by the excesses of a single character and

the interaction with the passions of others. His texts also presented the contrast between good and

evil, vice and virtue, and the king was the point of reference, the incarnation of moral virtues.

Metaphysical school

The term metaphysical refers to something obscure, not supernatural.

Metaphysical poets never considered them as a group or a school, the definition was given by

critics. In this period, there was uncertainty and anxiety and these ideas were later reflected into

poetry, which became more obscure and complex. All the metaphysical poets were men of learning

which gave birth to an intellectual poetry characterized by the use of startling metaphors, imagery

and an obscure language, rich hyperboles, and paradoxes. Metric irregularities and complex

analogies also marked it.

The metaphysical poetry of the English Renaissance sought to describe a time of startling progress,

scientific discovery, unrivalled exploration, and deep religious uncertainty.

The rediscovery was due to the essay published by T.S. Eliot, in which he indicated some traits in

common to those poets.

The father of the metaphysical poets is John Donne. Feature of this poetry are:

• Frequent obscurity;

• Obscure interpretation; Donne goes against the fashion of the time, the sonnet.

• Intellect and reason are the true protagonists of this kind of poetry. Even when this poetry

combines passion and intellect, it’s the last one which always dominate.

• Since the versification is irregular, the rhythm is very complex and rhyme is often absent.

• This poetry is dramatic in its tone. The reader struggles to understand the meaning. Their

lines are full of details and this poetry has been defined as too analytic and fragmentary,

which is the result of its being obscure. It was also defined as imperfect but metaphysical

poets were aware of those imperfections and they were proud, in a certain way. They didn’t

respect conventions and wanted to create something striking.

He was born in 1572 into a Catholic family and had been educated at Hart Hall, Oxford, and

Cambridge. He travelled to Spain, and Italy. He frequented social circles and theatres in London.

After the death of his wife, the religious dimension became central to his life and writings. He was

Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, publishing sermons, religious writings, and hymns. The main theme is

love, which sometimes assume an erotic tone and give bring Donne’s poetry to its highest. In Songs

and Sonnets none of the poems uses the sonnet form, but different lyrics, whose form is functional

to the message he has to communicate. The beloved and the lover aren’t at the centre of the poem,

rather there is the relationship that the lover wishes to establish. The woman is not a distant image,

but a real woman who is being asked to accept the love’s proposal. The poet addresses the beloved

by means of a discourse which is always based on a psychologically concrete datum, often hidden

under a rhetorical web of artifice.

Cavalier Poets (Carew, Suckling, Lovelace)

They are a group of lyric poets whose poems about love and loyalty to King Charles I were

characterised by a lightness of tone, a graceful wit, and a controlled form. The Cavalier Poets often

imagined pastoral worlds in which escape and find a response to the major social conflict of the

time. Also, they sang of love as free and happy sensual satisfaction. But in the reality love was

subject to social constraints and they didn’t live in Arcadia, but in a court soon destined to be

overthrown by the Civil War.

Bacon

He was a politician and an author of philosophical and scientific texts. He wrote The New Atlantis,

the story of the discovery of a remote island, called Bensalem, which is the home of a kind of ideal

state, where great importance is given to a college of sciences. Bacon’s hope was that James I

would create the same institution in England. His proposal was taken up in 1650s and was

instrumental in the foundation of the Royal Society, whose aims and programmes were very similar

to those of Bacon.

Also, he wrote Advancement of Learning, in which he criticised methods of education based on the

Aristotelian structures of knowledge and he said that study should be based not on theory but on

experiment and observation. His style was polished and simple, using clarity of expression with

some rhetorical devices.

Political background

The wise, moderate policies of Queen Elizabeth had appealed to all sections of society and

Puritanism could not make much headway. But conditions changed with the coming of James I to

the throne. Several causes led to widespread discontent and the emergence of the Puritans as a

strong national force. James I aimed at despotic powers and his immorality and dissipation fed the

flames of discontent. He left behind him serious problems for his son Charles I (1625 to 1649)

whose absolutism roused the apprehensions of the people. In 1640 he summoned Parliament to

finance his war against Scotland, but after two years during which the conflict between King and

Parliament intensified, he fled to the North, leaving London to be the centre of the Protestant’s

power.

The first phase of the Civil War broke out in 1642 and lasted until 1646 with the defeat of the

Royalist. During the second phase of the war, the King and his troops were defeated by Oliver

Cromwell, general and leader of the Parliamentary forces. Eventually, Charles I was sentenced to

death and executed on 30 January 1649. After that, Britain was a Republic governed by Cromwell

as Chairman of the Council of State. After dissolving Parliament in 1653, he became Lord

Protector.

When he died, in 1658, his son Richard was declared Lord Protector, but he was immediately

dismissed by Parliament. In 1660, Charles, son of the later King, became Charles II. He was then

succeeded by his brother, James II, catholic and hostile to Parliament, which deposed him in 1688.

As his successor, there is his daughter Mary and her husband, William of Orange. During this

period, the Bill of Rights, in 1689, created the first constitutional monarchy, according to which the

king couldn’t be an absolute ruler and Parliament became the centre of national political life.

Government was the result of a social contract between the King and his people represented in

Parliament, mostly bourgeoisie. This section of society, whose economic importance was already

recognised, obtained a dominant role in political affairs and started to have a decisive role in social

and cultural life.

Puritanism and literature

For the Puritans, men should be free to worship according to their conscience and should enjoy full

civil rights. Moreover, the Puritans insisted on the purity of life, on the honesty and freedom of

men. Specifically, on matter of religion, the Puritans were stark, and didn’t accept the Anglican

church and its laws. They advocated church reforms and they were against external manifestation of

faith. Many Puritans were among the middle class and members of the Parliament. There’s a new

vision of the relationship between men and God where men are more powerful.

The Puritan Age comprises the first half of the XVII century (1603 to 1660). It follows the

Elizabethan Age and precedes the Neo-Classical Age. The dominant literary figure during this

period was John Milton, and the period is named after him. The literature of the age of Milton

presents a marked difference from the age of Elizabeth, which had unity in spirit and was full of

hope and vitality. On the contrary the Puritan Age speaks of sadness and pessimism, due to the

atmosphere of conflict, stress and strain which enveloped the Nation. Puritan Age poetry became

moral and religious. The fashion is toward short and small poems. There’s a marked decay in the

exalted poetical fervour of the previous age. In the new poetry, there is more of intellectual play

than of passion and profundity. The poetry of the period is largely lyrical and Donne and Ben

Jonson are the two most outstanding and original lyricists of the age. Milton who links up the

Puritan Age with the Restoration is a class by himself.

John Milton (1608-1647) The great master of artificial style.

He attended St Paul’s School and then went to Cambridge, where he took his BA in 1629. While at

university he wrote several poems and oratorical exercises in Latin, Italian and English. After taking

his MA in 1632, he continued his studies at home.

The parallel study of the classics and the sacred texts gave him the basis for the formation of the

intellectual, who had to be an active presence in the community, in order to guide it.

He was the greatest of all Puritan writers, the interpreter of his times and the voice able to illustrate

the divine message forged by the Protestant doctrine. Milton’s life embodied many of the strongest

currents of his age. His classical erudition and his humanist ideals had their roots in the

Renaissance; his protestant belief in freedom in religious matter had to do with Puritanism. His

republican and anti-clerical ideals, led him to support the revolutionary party in the Civil War. He

became Latin Secretary of Cromwell’s State. This new role required a lot of written work, so his

eyesight became worse, and eventually became blind. Moreover, after Cromwell’s death, Milton’s

life was in danger, for political reasons, he was even