The Early Seventeenth Century

1
The Early Seventeenth Century

• Overview

2
Gender, Family, Household

• The image of the husband beating his wife with a
  rod is from a French engraving by Abraham Bosse
  (ca. 1640). The wife kneels before the husband as
  a penitent, and her children do also, as if
  begging mercy for her.

3
Reign of James I

• From an early seventeenth-century collection of
  costumes at the time of James I. Here, as the
  gentleman and the lady of the household play
  cards with their guests, a servingman brings them
  dishes of food. The Folger Shakespeare Library.

4
The Early Seventeenth Century

• After more than four decades on the throne,
  Elizabeth I died in 1603.
• James VI of Scotland succeeded her, becoming
  James I and establishing the Stuart dynasty.
• Kings theories less shared government more
  authoritarian
• Divine right of kings

5
The Early Seventeenth Century

• Political and religious tensions intensified
  under Jamess son, Charles I, who succeeded to
  the throne in 1625.
• Attempted to rule without Parliament
• 1642 Civil War breaks out
• Charles defeated and beheaded!

6
The Early Seventeenth Century

• As ideas changed, so did the conditions of their
  dissemination.
• Recall the Monarch God paradigm
• These structures begin to crumble in light of
  scientific discoveries

7
The Early Seventeenth Century

• In the early seventeenth century, John Donne, Ben
  Jonson, and George Herbert led the shift towards
  new poetic genres.

8
The Early Seventeenth Century

• Many leading poets were staunch royalists, or
  Cavaliers, who suffered heavily in the war years.
  
• Civil War disastrous for theater closed down
  playhouses in 1642
• Yet two of the best writers of the period, John
  Milton and Andrew Marvell, sided with the
  republic.

9
The Early Seventeenth Century

• The revolutionary era also gave new impetus to
  womens writing on both sides of the political
  divide