ENGLAND in the 17th Century

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ENGLAND in the 17th Century
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The Early 17th Century1603-1660Absolutism,
Civil Wars and Interregnum
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The Stuarts
Mary, Queen of Scotland
Lord Darnley and Mary
James VI of ScotlandJames I of England1603-1612
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James I 1603-25

• Profound cultural shift from Elizabethan style
• James I styled himself as absolute monarch and
  Gods appointed deputy
• Roman style new Augustus
• Rising religious conflict

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Church of England vs. Puritans

• Doctrine predestination
• Worship emphasis on preaching and simple rituals
• Structure Presbyterian synods and ministers
• Sabbath strict observance of holy day
• Rituals reformed or low church Puritans saw
  liturgy, altars, religious icons as idolatrous

• Doctrine free will
• Worship Book of Common Prayer
• Structure Episcopalian bishops and priests
• Sabbath folk customs and games
• Rituals high church liturgy, ceremony, art
  works, robes

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Jacobean Religious Prose

• 1611 King James Version of the Bible
• Graceful, highly influential rendering
• Translation supported ceremony and hierarchy
• Meant to be understood and read by commoners, so
  the style was simple and direct the common
  reader
• Sermons varied styles from highly rhetorical to
  plain spoken
• Guides to devotion and meditation
• Tracts cases of conscience

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Jacobean Secular Prose

• Essays
• Invented by French writer Montaigne
• First English essays by Francis Bacon
• Scientific treatises
• Speculative and imaginative literature
• Robert Burton Anatomy of Melancholy
• Izaak Walton The Compleat Angler
• Francis Bacon The New Atlantis (scientific
  utopia)
• Lady Mary Wroth Urania (prose romance)

Izaak Walton
Robert Burton
Francis Bacon
Lady Mary Wroth
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Jacobean Poetic Modes

• Classical Modes
• Epigram short witty poem that compresses wit and
  insight
• Ode lyric poem addressed to a person, natural
  force or abstraction written in elevated style
  often a poem of praise
• Satire Complaint on the ills of society
• Love Elegy Meditation on trials of erotic desire
  written in couplets (aabbcc, etc)
• Country House Poem compliment to a wealthy
  patron or friend through a description of his
  country house
• Verse Epistle Letter written in poetic verse
• Meditative Religious Lyric
• Occasional Poem poem written to commemorate a
  particular occasion or event.

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Aemilia Lanyer1569-1645

• First Englishwoman to publish a book of poetry
  Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, 1611
• Feminist bent --Eves Apology in Defense of
  Women
• First published country house poem The
  Description of Cookham

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Ben Jonson1572-1637

• Poet and Playwright
• Englands first Poet Laureate (Kings pension)
• 1616 Works
• Classicist influenced byRoman genres and ideals
• Epigrams
• Odes
• Satire
• Tribe of Ben younger poets who emulated
  Jonson and are often classified as Cavalier poets
  Robert Herrick, Thomas Carew, Edmund Waller,
  Sir John Suckling

Ben Jonson by Abraham Blyenberch, ca 1617
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John Donne1572-1631

• Poet and Preacher
• Startling images that range from the exquisite to
  the grotesque
• Wit and allusion
• Satires
• Elegies
• Occasional poems
• Songs and Sonnets
• Holy Sonnet
• Critics describe Donne asthe foremost
  Metaphysicalpoet influencing Herbert, Vaughan,
  Crashaw, Marvell, Traherne and Crowley

Dr. DonneDean of St. Pauls
Jack Donnethe Rake
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Lady Mary Wroth1587-1651?

• Niece of Sir Philip Sidney and Countess Mary
  Sidney Herbert
• Lived and educated at Penshurst
• 1621 published
• The Countess of Montgomerys Urania prose
  romance with poems
• Pamphilia and Amphilanthus poem sequence with
  103 sonnets and songs female voice and
  perspective
• Loves Victory pastoral drama
• Patroness to poets, including Ben Jonson

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Charles I1625-49

• Insisted on his absolute prerogatives as a
  monarch and governed without Parliament for
  eleven years.
• Patron of the Arts
• invited Van Dyck and Rubens to work in England
  and bought a great collection of paintings by
  Raphael and Titian
• Expenditures on his court and his art collection
  greatly increased the crown's debts.
• Married to French Catholic sister of Louis XIV

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Civil Wars

• 1637 Revolt in Edinburgh over imposition of High
  Church liturgy and prayer book throughout
  Scotland
• 1640 Short Parliament refused to grant Charles
  request for funds to make war against the Scots
• 1640 Long Parliament
• Impeached Charles main advisors
• Abolished the Kings Council (Star Chamber)
• The King agreed that Parliament could not be
  dissolved without its own consent and that no
  more than three years could elapse between
  Parliaments.

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• 1641 Irish uprising resulted in a Militia Bill
  allowing troops to be raised only by Parliaments
  approval
• 1642 Charles raised the Royal Standard calling
  for loyal subjects to support him and set up
  court and an alternative government in Oxford
• 1643 Parliament entered an armed alliance with
  the predominant Scottish Presbyterian group under
  the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643
• 1646-47 Charles negotiated with Scotland and
  Parliament while in captivity at Hampton Court
  and the Isle of Wight
• 1648 Second Civil War ended with Oliver
  Cromwells victory at Preston

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The New Model Army

• The first mass, democratic army to fight the
  king, Parliament needed its own army
• A break in tradition of linking the English crown
  with the army.
• Men who fought not for money but for service and
  belief "We were not a mercenary Army, hired to
  serve any Arbitrary power of a state, but called
  forth and conjured by the several Declarations of
  Parliament, to the defense of our own land and
  the people's just rights and liberties."
• Divided on the question of what form of
  government England should have.
• Cromwell and the officers government for the
  people but not by the people
• The common soldiersmanhood suffrage, equal
  electoral divisions, biennial Parliaments, and
  freedom of religion and equality before the law

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Regicide

• The Army, concluding that permanent peace was
  impossible while Charles lived, decided that the
  King must be put on trial and executed.
• 1649 A purged Rump Parliament (no Royalists or
  Presbyterians)established a High Court of
  Justice. Charles was charged with high treason
  'against the realm of England. '
• Charles refused to plead, saying that he did not
  recognize the legality of the High Court

From John Nalson, A True Copy of the Journal of
the High Court of Justice for the Tryal of K.
Charles I (London, 1684).
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Regicide

• The King was sentenced to death on 27 January.
• Three days later, Charles was beheaded on a
  scaffold outside the Banqueting House in
  Whitehall, London.
• His last words, printed and sold on that very
  day, were "I have delivered my conscience I
  pray God you do take those courses that are best
  for the good of the kingdom and your own
  salvation."
• To avoid the automatic succession of Charles I's
  son Prince Charles, an Act was passed on 30
  January forbidding the proclaiming of another
  monarch.
• On 7 February 1649, the office of King was
  formally abolished.

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Regicide

• John Milton defended the regicide in The Tenure
  of Kings and Magistrates (February 1649)
• A Commonwealth "without King or House of Lords"
• He set forth a radical contract theory of
  government sovereignty always resides in the
  people, who merely delegate power to, and can
  always revoke it from, any ruler or any
  government system.

• Thomas Hobbes condemned the regicide in Leviathan
  (1651)
• He advocated a theory of absolutism based on
  irreversible compact the people give over all
  their power and right to a sovereign, whether a
  king or some other ruling entity, who
  incorporates and acts for them all.

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Interregnum1649-1660

• 1649-53 Republic/Commonwealth
• 1653 Parliament dissolved
• 1653-58 Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell
• When the Scots and Irish proclaimed Prince
  Charles as king Cromwell suppressed rebellions
  in Scotland and Ireland
• 1658-60 Protectorate under Richard Cromwell
  (resigned)

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Culture Wars

• Royalists
• Loyal to king and Anglican Church
• Fled into exile
• Disruption of manuscript circulation led to
  printed volumes of poetry
• Valued pleasure as the social cement uniting all
  elements of society carpe diem theme
• Cultivated ease of expression and
  self-deprecation
• 1660 Re-opened the theatres

• Puritans
• 1642 closed the theatres
• 1643 Toleration Controversy
• Rump Parliament proclaimed a republic without
  king or house of lords
• Disagreement over suffrage
• Emphasis on inner light as truth
• Flourishing debates in journals and tracts
  freedom of the press

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Metaphysical PoetryMetaphysics the branch of
philosophy that systematically investigates the
nature of first principles and the problems of
ultimate reality

• Startling rhythm and diction
• Variety of tone
• Poets speak in their own persona or create
  dramatically different characters
  self-dramatization more than self-expression,
  internal dramatic conflict
• Meter and stanzas are used to enact emotion --
  emphasis on action, tension, conflict
• Use of argumentation, logic, dialectical
  expression
• Original and startling metaphors and similes,
  often extended into metaphysical conceits
• Content is often religious
• Sensuousness, directness, immediacy

Metaphysical Poets from Luminarium
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Cavalier PoetryCavalier courtly, off-hand,
loyal to the monarchy

• Graceful, melodious, polished diction and meter
• Elegant display of Latin classical influences
• Themes of love and honor, loyalty and friendship
• Carpe diem a frequent theme
• Sometimes licentious and cynical
• Often epigrammatic and witty 
• Persona often in guise of military swashbuckler
  or aristocratic courtier
• Poems are often occasional -- i.e. written for a
  particular occasion

Cavalier Poets from Luminarium
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The Restoration

• 1660 Elections held for a full and free
  Parliament
• Recalled Prince Charles from exile and proclaimed
  him King on May 8, 1660
• Parliament retained legislative supremacy,
  control over taxation and some control over court
  appointments
• Open press flourished
• Development of modern political parties