English Literature

From Renaissance to Baroque

Renaissance.

Scholars and historian have come to prefer the term of Early Modern rather than
Renaissance, since; Renaissance has its emphasis on the rebirth of classical learning,
meanwhile, Early Modern paid more attention to non-elite cultural products and
history. Moreover, Modern World has its beginning in the sixteenth and seventeenth
century. This period witnessed many changes, For instance, the rise of the nation state,
the transformation of government, the establishment of the modern economy, and the
development of science. Undoubtedly, the invention of the printing press, which was
brought into England in the late 15th century by William Caxton, supposed a great
impact upon the spread of communicative issues. Columbus’s voyage to the America
opened European eyes to the existence of the New Worlds both geographical and
spiritual, are the key to the Renaissance, the rebirth of learning and culture, which
reached its peak in Italy, and later in England, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Renaissance is a period of religion revolution. With the reign of Henry the Catholic
rules ended, and established himself as both the head of the Church and the head of the
State. This movement is known as the reformation, centuries of religious faith,
attitudes and beliefs were replaced by a new way of thinking.

Henry VIII´s break with Rome was not carried out as an isolated rebellion. Two
European thinkers, in particular, established the climate which made it possible. The
first one was the Dutch thinker Erasmus, whose enthusiasm for classical literature was a
major source for the revival in classical learning. Despite the fact that much of
Erasmus’s works prepared the ground for protestant reforms, his attempts were to purify
the Catholic Church. He represented the voice of learning and knowledge, of liberal
culture and tolerance.

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After the reformation, the relation between God and man changed. Man is now the
centre of universe (Humanism). Furthermore, the place of man in the world had to be
re-examined. There was more interest, desire, and anxiety for learning.

- The voyage of Christopher Columbus.

- Copernicus and Galileo would establish scientifically that the earth was not
the centre of the universe.

Classicism opened up the humanist way of thinking that pervaded English and
European writings. Literature before Renaissance was dominated by the ethos of the
church, but after the Reformation the search for individual expression and meaning took
over.

1- “The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage” by Raleigh

Presumably it was written in 1603 upon his imprisonment and sentence to death. The

Passionate Man's Pilgrimage addresses the events that brought him to his present

condition, as he prepares himself for a much happier life after death; Raleigh constructs

this piece using a combination of different metrical and rhythmic patterns to express his

defiance of formal structure. He uses the idea of the pilgrimage to illustrate his journey

towards the rightful judgment he so desires in heaven. He compares the journey he

imagines he will take upon his death to that of Christian pilgrimages. This journey, he

hopes, will take him through heaven and into the presence of God. In the first stanza he

uses many metaphorical elements. It is an act of religious devotion He is about to

embark on the ultimate pilgrimage

The second stanza is a Baroque description of a marvelous landscape (Heaven). It is a

physical description.

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In the third stanza water symbolized pure, it is a religious devotion. Water is the most

religious, it is a sanctify baptism. The poem's last stanza is a second-person appeal to

Christ to intercede on the speaker's behalf; it employs legal terminology to contrast

Christ's heavenly court to a corrupt earthly court.

2. SHAKESPEARE AND THE RANAISSANCE”

2.1. Renaissance

Renaissance was mainly marked by humanist vision of life: “man became a spiritual

individual”. It was a recovery of Classical modes, which marked an emergence from the

superstitious “dark ages” to a period when people thought themselves principally as

individuals. Also, “arts” did not concentrate on God, but on making humanity (it was

very important the Copernicus´ heliocentric vision of Universe).

Finally, there is a great paradox in this period: scientific and cultural progress, but, at

the same time, a dark movement of religion intolerance and persecution (witchcraft

trials).

2.2. Elizabeth I

Elizabethan Reign

Her reign give the nation a sense of stability, and a considerable sense of national and

religious triumph. She was considered a patron of love

One of the main important events is the rise of professional poets. Such as:

Spenser, Sidney. Both were connected to the court.

Shakespeare, Marlow, and Johnson were professional poets. They write to earn

money.

The rise of theatre was a mean of earning money. There was a start of status in England.

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The idea of feminist was vividly illustrated in Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled between

1558 and 1603. The country was characterized by a deep-set patriarchy (inheritance of

her father Henry VIII), but she could continue with the establishment of the Anglican

Church. She never married and had no descendants; due to this she was known as the

“Virgin Queen”. Elizabethan artists shared two main features: representation of a

woman with seemingly cosmic power (Elizabeth), and perpetuation of that image

regardless of the pass of time. In the literary field, there were important “courtier poets”

such as Edmund Spenser (Faerie Queen) and Philip Sidney (Astrophil and Stella): both

of them represented human virtues in the persons of worthy knights.

2.3. The Renaissance thought

Elizabeth’s court was home of many thinkers and artists whose creativity helped to form

“the Renaissance”. New forms of writing emerge thanks to the figure of Francis Bacon,

who created meditative, pithy and often didactic or instructive essay. Another important

figure was Niccolò Machiavelli, who influenced many of Shakespeare’s characters. He

had a misogynistic thinking, and an audacious pragmatism, what was an example to the

development of Renaissance drama.

2.3.1. Courtly love

Courtly love was really important in the Renaissance court. It became a style of writing

which describes a way of behaving courtly, chivalric, and knightly fashion. It is a way

that was designed to demonstrate to ladies and to lovers how to behave. Courtly poets

such as Spenser were deep influenced by some dream-vision narratives, like Chaucer’s

Book of the Duchess (mediaeval period).

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Some clichés about love were: men were brave, and women needed protection. But the

presence of Queen Elizabeth as “the highest” was quite paradoxical.

The most important exception is found in Shakespeare’s sonnets, where a lady is not

described a virtuous nor a beautiful one, but as a dark and “not sensual” creature.

2.3.2. Shakespeare

He developed his career mainly during the Elizabethan period. As a playwright, he

wrote a set of “foul papers” which would become later on a “fair copy” and functioned

as a prompt book. The vast majority of his plays were transcribed into paper when the

work was being represented. His plays are divided into three categories: comedies,

tragedies, and histories. But he is well known for his break with neoclassical tradition:

creation of the “tragic-comic” genre (Hamlet).

An outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1593 led to the temporary closure of the London

theatres, and Shakespeare focused on poetry, what brought him to a high fame.

His sonnets, written in the 1590s, were published later on. We can classify them into

three main groups:

- Sonnets 1-126 addressed to a young man of higher social class. The speaker

meditates on love, desire, fear, and mortality.

- Sonnets 127-152 dominated by a “dark lady” (a sexual and scornful tone).

- Sonnets 153-154 about Cupid.

Finally, it is important to underline the main characteristic in Shakespeare’s work: focus

on common people’s lives (joy, despair, loved, hatred, reconciliation, loss...). This was

against neoclassical canons of the Renaissance.

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Sidney

He was an example of Renaissance man. He wrote A Defense of Poetry, a manifesto of

renaissance poetry: Horace – ut picture

Aristotle: poetic mimesis.

There was an interest in new science, cosmology.

Spenser __________ Allegorical National Epic

The Faerie Queen (it is a poem dedicated to Queen Elizabeth)

Philosophical background

De Hominis Dignitate

We should enjoy life in earth.

Epicurean philosophy.

Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s sonnet is a sequence of love. There is a presence of subjectivity,

introspection, and individuality.

Shakespeare’s sonnet has two types of WH and catalogue. First of all as we said

previously Shakespeare was a professional writer. He is considered as a new status of

writer, he was also an actor.

English sonnet unlike Petrarch sonnet has three quatrains and one couplet, meanwhile

Petrarch sonnet has four quatrains. English sonnet is more intense, and complex.

Key features:

Innovation and creation: there was a surge in artistic creation in Elizabethan period.

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¿When did Baroque begin?

From chronological point of view it is not clearly when Baroque started. Baroque is a

period of artistic style that used exaggerated and exuberant emotions. It interpreted

details to produce drama, tension, exuberance in literature, music, and painting.

Baroque is considered as a description of artistic style after the Renaissance, it is a

derogatory term. Baroque is originated as a pedagogical aim.

Baroque features:

Emotions, realism, complexity and religious favor like metaphysical is an opaque and

obscure.

Dramatic (light and shade)

Drama

Professor Bernard Dietz

Drama means action, from Greek origin. The origin of England Drama is the same as

other countries. The classical drama emerged from the opposition of Church towards

plays, and theatre. The Church became too limited to accommodate the crowds that

were attracted by these plays. Theatre had an unsavory reputation. London authorities

refused to allow plays within the city, so theatres opened across the Thames in

Southward, outside the authority of the city administration.

Types of theatrical performance:

1- Christian mass (eastern trope was the origin of drama).

2- Mystery place associated to the medieval guilt. They were usually held

during summer festivals with both civic and religious value.

3- Miracle plays dramatized the lives of the saints.

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 4- Morality plays were dramatized sermons. The theme was always the same

the fall and redemption of mankind. As people grew tired of the same

lengthy religious cycles, a need developed for a different type of

entertainment. Thus, it carne about that instead of treating the Bible or

humanity as a whole, someone began to consider just one example:

everyman, any man, an abstract man.

Mystery and morality plays had been performed almost anywhere, outside, often

moved from location to location by wagon.

Drama during Queen Elizabeth Reign 1558-1608

Drama was controlled less by the church. Comedy and tragedy were rebirth. Plays were

performed in the courtyard of inns, or sometimes, in the houses of noblemen.

Tragedy:

Shakespeare’s tragedies represented the same pattern as the Spanish tragedies.

The Spanish tragedies represented the revenge character. For instant, Hamlet is a

play of revenge.

Shakespeare drama is divided into: history, comedy, and tragedy.

Comedy:

Ben Jonson was the first English writer who wrote comedies. He is best known

for his comedies humor. His characters presented vice in an exaggerated way

(The Alchemist 1620).

Tragic-comedy; it is a tragedy with happy ending “deux ex Machenia”.

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Jacobean Drama was not in its great level.

The popish plot was an attempt against catholic (James I) – 1625- Charles I,

he finds himself opposed to the parliament “civil war”. In 1649 he was

executed.

In 1642 theatre was closed. The end of theatrical activity was abandoned, due to

the fact that theatre was considered sinful.

Drama was restored in 1642 – 1660 through the reign of Charles II.

Christopher Hill a puritan writer of drama.

Christopher Marlow’s plays are full of spectacular action, bloodshed, and

passion, to match the language he uses. He was not considered a rival for

Shakespeare, because he was killed young in an inn. He invented the use of the

blank verse, the essential language, the Iambic pentameter.

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 Metaphysical poems

Professor Bernard Dietz

11/10/ 2012

Metaphysical poem is an intellectualized form of poetry based on highly concentrated

images (learned metaphors and conceits a rhetorical figure, a kind of simile, paradoxical

statements and hyperbolic comparisons). Also they used puns (word-play sun/son). The

most important topics cultivated in poetry are: secular (erotic love) and religious

(devotional poems). The main representative and centre figures that we are going to deal

with are: John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw and Henry Vaughan.

Metaphysical poetry was rejected by neoclassical authors, such as, Samuel Johnson 18 th.

It was considered as too complex and irregular. Their comparisons were ‘a kind of

discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult

resemblances in things apparently unlike’. Moreover it was difficult to read and

understand, shocking and startling. However Metaphysical was revitalized by 20th c.

critics T.S. Eliot.

John Donn.

He was a contemporary of Shakespeare. Born in prosperous Roman Catholic family,

studies at Oxford and Cambridge but his degree was denied. Donne spends his youth

and money on women, in theatre and travelling. Marries Anne More in secret and was

disgraced by many. Furthermore he suffers many financial problems for several years.

Finally, Donne converts to Anglicanism and becomes Dean at St. Paul Cathedral in

London. Best preacher of sermons (pathos) in London. He is usually compared to

Francisco de Quevedo. He was considered as the prince of wit, his poetry was admired.

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However, after his death metaphysical poems were in decline, poetry was dislike,

miserable. But there is a parallelism in Donn´s, as young he was a secular poet, and as

old he was a religious man. His poems have an explicit sexual issue. His poems were

never published; however, they were circulated in manuscript.

Gongora the Spanish poets and dramatist became genius in 1927 when a group of

young poets commemorate his 30 years death. He had been despised, due to the

obscurity of his poems.

The Flea by John Donn.

The speaker uses the occasion of a flea hopping the young lady as an excuse to argue

that the two of them should make love. Since in the flea their blood is mixed together,

he says that they have already been made as one in the body of the flea.

In the second stanza the speaker attempts to prevent the woman from killing the flea. He

argues that since the flea contains the “life” of both, she would be guilty. The woman in

question is obviously not convinced, for in the third stanza she has killed the flea with a

fingernail. he turns his argument on its head and claims that despite the high-minded

and sacred ideals he has just been invoking, killing the flea did not really impugn his

beloved’s honor—and despite the high-minded and sacred ideals she has invoked in

refusing to sleep with him, doing so would not impugn her honor either.

Another important idea can be summarized as follows (we can find it in many poems,
such as “A Valediction of Weeping”):

- Territorial colonization = Female possession -

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Exploration and domination are two faces of the same activity: money was lent to
explore in order to achieve new domains (Royal target). In the case of the poet, he is
claiming this new explored territory in his own name (not for the crown).

Moreover, there is an important relation between geography and “love”, as we can see
in the poem “The Good Morrow”: the poet compares his face and that of his beloved to
two hemispheres, forming an ideal world. Donne normally uses cosmic imagery: a
chamber, a bed, a body, etc. In the poem “Sun Rising”, the poet directly addresses to the
Sun.

Summarizing, Donne´s poetry denotes an undeniable familiarity with the scientific

discoveries and debates of the time. As other metaphysical poets, he adopted scientific
references in the imagery of their poems. But what really characterizes Donne´s poetry
from the rest is his individualism: it is not a philosophical poetry.

Richard Crashaw

He was a protestant who converted into Catholic. His life was extremely unhappy; he
went into exile, because he was persecuted by puritan (radical protestant). For Crashaw
religion supplied the only outlet for an emotional nature. His father was a puritan
parson; it said that Crashaw conversion into Catholic was a reaction from parental
authority. The devotional poems of Crashaw are an attempt to liberate the spirit from
normal preoccupations and delight it with divine vision. They draw us a realm where
common pattern of thought and association are abandoned by sensational images and
metaphors that announce spiritual paradoxes and celestial satisfactions. These poems
speak in riddles and are filled with mysterious joys, and they are written with intensity
that we shall never find in English religious writing.

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 Apuntes 18/10/2012

Andrew Marvell

Andrew Marvell is a poet who spans the early and later parts of the seventeenth century.

His poetry ranged from political to passionate. An upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland

was written in 1650 to celebrate the triumph of the Commonwealth, and is one of the

few important political poems. He has been accused of being a time server; but, in the

climate of the seventeenth century, almost every poet changed sides, wrote both

flattering verses and satirical works criticising public figures. Marvell’s seductive

address To His Coy Mistress brings favourite Renaissance themes of love and

transience, with one of the most memorable images of time passing in all English

poetry. He improved Shakespear´s poems, in order to make them refined. New

Classicism was presented by him.

The counter reform, it is an attempt to gain people, to persuade them to be Catholic. It

was a period of ideology conflict, so they used the secular categories to attract people to

religion.

A VALDICATION OF WEEPING

GOODBYE

The poem is about a man who is leaving and his lover is crying, throughout the poem,

the poet tries to say something in order to satisfy his lover (do not cry).

The language used is hyperbolic, conceit, metaphor, etc…

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There is a strange comparison between tears and coin; it is a strategy of the poet to

follow a logical consequence.

Coins (verb) make coins (acuñar). The important person is she, she is as a queen.

My cry is worthy, because you give me this value, they are sincere, and I love you.

Fruit (metaphor) the birth (pregnancy).

It is a syllogism poem follows a logical sequence. Finally the conclusion is not clear; he

seems to be a cynical lover.

Apuntes 15/10/2102

Metaphysical poems

Juan De Dios

*Men of learning

* Period XVI

* John Dryden – anachronism term

He coined the term metaphysical when referring to Donn´s philosophical disquisition.

He makes it more explicit (Cowieng).

Metaphysical is an intellectual complexity poetry that explores spiritual and

philosophical matters.

T.S. Eliot revalues metaphysical poems in the 20th century.

Samuel Johnson. He describes metaphysical as a pejorative term. He attacked the poet’s

lack of feeling, their learning, and the surprising range of images and comparison they

used.

Some features:

* Intellectual approach; challenge the reader like a trap to the intellect.

* Complex ideal: amplification, paradox, oxymoron, antithesis.

* Sharp wit: strong lines “Williamson”.

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 * Surprising images and conflicts geometrical figures

* Artificially and puns.

* Colloquial language.

* Abrupt and personal beginning in media res.

* Religious themes and devotional poets.

Donne: we will build in sonnet pretty rooms.

Dr. Johnson, a century and half later called such excessive ingenuity metaphysical: most

heterogeneous ideas are joined force together (conceit).

A conceit is an elaborated, extended metaphor based on unexpected comparison.

Two mains strands in Donn´s poetry.

Love: Jack Donn soldier

Religion: Dr Donn dean and preacher “Holy sonnets”

Donn´s style.

 Donn´s technical originality.

 Donn´s exaggeration and self exploration

 Brilliant wit

 Metaphor taken from science and daily life “The Good Morrow”.

 Condensed verse: subjects love, Death, and religion.

 Metaphysical conceit focuses on imagery, medical ideas, verbal

magic, and spoken word difficulty.

 Poetic meter

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Theme and symbols:

1- Lovers are compared as a microcosm, Neo-Platonic conception of love,

religious enlightenment as sexual ecstasy.

2- Search for the true Religion

3- Sphere

4- Discovery and Conquest

5- Reflection

6- Angles.

Best poems by John Donn

- The Sun Rising.

- The Flea. Married bed and marriage temple

A VALDICATION: FORBIDDEN MOURNING.

In this poem he compares the two lovers to the stiff twin legs (mathematical

compass). Their love has no beginning and end.

Holly Sonnets:

- Prose writings: Pulpit oratory.

- He also penned holy sonnets: Sense of Dramatic. Perhaps written before his

ordination.

George Herbert.

He was from a noble class, he was a public orator. Unlike Donn´s poems, Herbert’s

arguments with his God can be tortuous and complex. He moves between faith and

doubt, acceptance and rejection. He was more open to print. He is known for his poem

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THE TEMPLE. He wrote a collection of devotional poetry, a biography of a Christian

telling a story of embarking on a difficult journey toward salvation.

Herbert’s themes and style:

 Religious devotion; some of his poems are conversional, God is the

centre.

 Plainer

 Clarity

 Homeliness

 Sincerity

 Transparent.

Jordan I & Jordan II

Mode of Wit:

- Use of Paradox.

- Opposition between depth and of the subject and the smoothness of the verse

→ conflict.

- Verbal ingenuity.

- Rhetoric of the Bible, use of Christ parables.

- Comparison, analogy. Bacon’s “Advancement of Learning” → emphasis to

allusive parabolic poetry (1605).

- No secular → submission to the Divine wit. 1st → secular /2nd Divine

(Donn).

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Jordan by Herbert:

In the last line of the poem there is a quest for clarity and plainness.

It is a command to his friend to forget about the complexity, and resort to plainness and

clarity of language.

Crashaw→ can be considered the more European poet of English poems

- St. Theresa of Jesus. He follows the British spirit of John Donn

- Born to a Puritan family (strong anti catholic).

- He progressed to catholic conversion.

- European Baroque School.

His poem The Tear, it is liquid, transparent, and painful poem. The last

goal, is the same as in his poem Step to the Temple, is to reach God.

Style:

- Extravagant

- Religious fervour through sensuous images.

- Step to the Temple (not the Herbert’s Temple).

- The Tear; religious round imagery; full of hearts, tears, wounds, and flames

¡Henry Vaughn.

He was a poet who was following the typical renaissance practice and creation of

emulating what other poets did. There is a clear influence of Herbert spiritual side in

Vaughn. However, the spiritual side in Herbert is deeper while in Vaughn his religious

poetic is mostly better. Both Bible (obscure slang) and secular philosophy (from his

father’s occultist) were the bases of his writings.

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 - Imitating Renaissance.

- Creative convention.

- Bilingual in Welsh and English.

Herbert’s only book of poetry made a deep impression in both Crashaw and Vaughn.

His plainness style brought to him from the country (Homeland), since he moved to live

in the countryside. He thought plants and animals would be resurrected at the last

judgment. Even stones have feelings for him.

 Delicacy and observation → more lyrical.

 Naturalness, immediacy of gifted ability.

Secular poems → The Swan Of Uks / Otor Iscannus. Poetry + prose

Religious poems → Flashing Flint or Silix Scintillas.

A chosen life in the country.

His young brother had just died.

- A new voice and person.

- Poem THE WORLD.

A turning point in his spiritual life:

Publication in 1651:

- Personal sickness before 1605.

- His grandfather died. He was evicted from his home.

- Crisis in his land (Allusion to the civil war).

 A new poetic ego.

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  Religion conversion → since a personal crisis. Moriendo fevixi, by

dying I gain life.

In his poems we can find these issues

- Relation between God and the individual soul.

- Observation in the external world. Nature as God’s book.

- Perceptiveness of nature is the core of his poetry.

Herbert draws similes from nature, but in Vaughn are different.

THE WORLD

It is a visual picture of transcendent story of his God. Eternity is as great ring of pure

life.

 Connection = the temporal + the eternal.

Geometric conceit.

Radiant of joyful sense of Eternity. However, he does not ignore the complexity of

ordinary life.

Exemplification of love through the use of geometric conceit→ John Milton’s Pentresco

semantics.

Influence of the Grave Yard School, poets within the 18th century.

Waterfall.

This poem is not only content in semantics field, but also in morphology.

- Alliteration

- Alternating stanza length.

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 Unit 2.

Cavalier poets

One sign that English was changing in the 1630 and 1640s was the polarisation of

political opinions between those who supported the king Charles I, and the Puritan

Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell. A group of monarchist collectively known as the

Cavalier poets- Carew, Herrick, Lovelace and Suckling were the most prominent,

provided a last flourish of lyricism before the Revolution brought in a different

intellectual climate after the execution of the king in 1649. The cavalier poetry is

simpler than Metaphysicals. It recalls of Philips Sidney rather than the more engaged

writing of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Formally the Cavalier poetic master was

Ben Jonson, whose combination of classical distance and elegance in his poetry was the

main model of their verse.

Ben Johnson and Robert Herrick → public side of poetry

Cavalier poems

Style and topics.

Introduction.

Jacobean age saw the emergence of different poetry, divided from each other by subject

matter purpose, style. The religious complex of the age and the political division which

follows from their hands a deep impact of literature they made it difficult or impossible

for poets not to place themselves from one side or the other of the cultural debate.

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CAVALIER POETRY

They are Royalists (King’s supporters). Poets more concerned with technical virtuosity.

Lyrics are light and elegant, full of sweetness and grace (Cliché). They are not

interested in philosophy or metaphysics and deal with topics mostly in a trivial way.

TOPICS AND ATTITUDE

Preferred topics: pagan and secular (carpe diem, love, sensuousness, passion). They

avoid religious themes. The poems must be written in the intervals of living, and are

celebratory of things that are much livelier than mere philosophy or art.

Cavalier poets are linked in various ways:

- With aristocratic or gentle birth.

- Supported royal cause.

- Some followed the court to Paris, during the years of the Commonwealth.

- While others suffered periods of imprisonment.

- They were men of world first at and second poets.

Donne encourages imagination and a certain intellectual activity: content.

Johnson introduces a sense of form.

Cavalier vs., Roundheads.

2- characteristics

 Ideal of Renaissance gentlemen.

 Cavalier in two senses: supporter of king, royalists, and distrust too

intense, the over earnest.

 Lover, soldier, wit, man.

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3- Cavalier lyrics

4- Carpe Diem

 Horace, enjoy the life, passing the time, brevity of time.

 Use of similes, images from Elizabeth.

 Conceit and sexual frankness from Donn.

5- social context

 Charles I.

 Restoration

 Religion conflict.

6- Style.

 music aspects, alliteration

 Positive, optimistic, elegant mannerism. Related to colloquial

language.

 Simply clear syntax. The understanding of the poem we do not find

those decorations of metaphysical poems.

7- Themes.

 Happiness, love, celebration of physical beauty.

 Relation to classical poets, they give advising

 Erotic themes

 Pagan philosophy

 Focus on important aspects of daily life.

 Great contribution to English.

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Metaphysical vs. Cavalier.

Discoveries Clarity

Devotional related to Pagan

Religion.

Poem a metapoem

It is an emulation of classical poetry.

Presentation:

Cavalier poetry.

- simple imagery

- Carpe Diem

- Direct language

- Pleasure and sadness of life.

- Straightforward expression

- No religion

- Platonic love, classical

Donne, Crashaw, and Marvell vs. Johnson, Herrick, Carew

Works: poetical Blossoms 1633, Naufragium 1638.

The mistress or several copies, loves verses, Plantarum

As a translator

- the grasshopper

- Horace Epodez.

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 Apuntes 5 /11/2012

Herrick

Herrick was born in London, son of a goldsmith who committed a suicide. He enjoyed

the patronage of Endymion Porter. He did not attend school; he became an apprentice to

his uncle as a goldsmith. Herrick as his contemporary Lovelace was much concerned

with the political upheavals of the time; and the refinement of the lyric forms may often

contain serious reflections, as in Lovelace’s impassioned lines on freedom.

A key poem

His cavalier is a human and divine work; there is a religious and rural aspect in his

poems.

A book written by him; Hesperides.

He is the eldest son of Ben Jonson, since he idealized Ben Jonson. Herrick was both a

poet and dean prayer. With Commonwealth on power he was expelled. For many critics

in his works there is no female character, due to the fact that there was not a female

figure in his real life.

Delight in Decoder

- anarchy

- hyeroglaphy

The central aspect of Cavalier:

- Carpe Diem

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 - Plain style

- Language has meanings in a style, and it is a man.

The notable date 1648, his collection of poems entitled Hesperides: Or, The

Works Both Humane & Divine (1648) is gradually coming to be more fully

appreciated.

Mildmay Fane

Born in 1600-1666, he was from an aristocratic family his mother was closer to Queen

Elizabeth. He was well educated and was closed to the coronation of King Charles I.

With Commonwealth on power he decided to retire for a while and involved in England

civil War. During the restoration he returned to his daily work. He survived the

Restoration. He was connected to Herrick and Cavalier poets. However, he has a

different view of Cavalier poems.

Thomas Carew

He was born in London and was related to diplomacy (Italy – Netherlands). He was

associated to Ben Jonson and his circle. Much of Carew poetry was sexually explicit,

moreover, his poetry include a collection of lyrics, songs, pastoral, and poetic dialogue.

Carew legacy broke the typical norm in poetical form of that period “Erotic dream”

“Rapture” modulates the metaphysical of Donn by means of Cavalier style (sexual

images).

Themes

- Love

- Sexuality

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 - Feminine beauty

To my Inconstant Mistress by Marvell

An idealistic poem about love in which he tries to convince in which he tries to

convince the lady to love him. The poem is neither sexual nor physical, but spiritual.

To Saxham

Saxham' refers to Little Saxham Hall, the country estate of Sir John Crofts with whose

family Carew had a close relationship; the poem is patterned on Ben Jonson's "To

Penshurst." In this poem he celebrated the happiness and hospitality in the country.

1º stanza: they have a relationship, he has a blind faith in love (like happened in

religion) despite the fact that she has decided not love him anymore.

2º Stanza: the man who has a purer soul and feelings is suffering, because he has lost his

love.

3º stanza: The first woman feels jealous about her lover’s new love.

James Shirley is another cavalier poet

Apuntes 08 /11/2012

Lyrical poems

Professor Bernard Dietz

Lyrical poems derive from the instrumental “musical” from Greek. Medieval France

incorporates love, it was essentially and originally was religious (Virgin Mary). In the

Renaissance with Elizabeth on power began in England the composition of lyrical

poetry. Later on, it became no longer important.

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Characteristic of lyrical poetry

- metrical regularity

- symmetry

- rhyme

- rhythm

- simplicity

Cavalier Metaphysical

Convention extravagance

Harmonious

Social upper class

Arrogance, sense of superiority, aristocracy.

The Cavalier poets present themselves as not professional, there poems were for

entertaining. Most of Cavalier poets went to exile, and committed suicide. However,

Metaphysical poets were member of the church.

Suckling

Sir John Suckling (10 February 1609 – 1 June 1642) was an English poet and one

prominent figure among those renowned for careless gaiety, wit, and all the

accomplishments of a Cavalier poet; and also the inventor of the card game cribbage.

He is best known for his poem "Ballad upon a Wedding".

Lovelace

Richard Lovelace (1618–1657) was an English poet in the seventeenth century. He was

a cavalier poet who fought on behalf of the king during the Civil War. His best known

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works are "To Althea, from Prison," and "To Lucasta, Going to the Warres." He was

imprisoned for several times, due to his attacks to the Monarchy opponents.

Apuntes 12/ 11/2012

Edmund Waller and John Denham were compared with the same line; they began Neo-

classicism In England poetry, civilized and elegant.

Edmund Waller:

His political legacy is linked to political life who sat in the House of Commons at

various times between 1624 and 1679. He was imprisoned for several times and went to

exile. At Restoration 1660 he returned to England. He formed a romantic passion for

Dorothy Sidney, whom he celebrated under the name of Sacharissa in his poems, but

she rejected him. He published poems in favour of the Cromwell, divine, and secular

poetry.

Classical technique of Edmund Waller:

- Latin and Greek syntax.

Go, Lovely Rose

A counterpart to Metaphysical poetry, he reacted against metaphysical intensity. The

uses of Couplet, retaking it from classical. It is smooth, he prepared the heroic couplet.

Quantity and Quality were not important.

Time: It is a text about time, language is not offensive, but it is elegant.

The lady is arrogant; due to her arrogance her lover suffers and thinks of many tricks to

convince her to love him. Love as a feeling, as a kind of mental happiness, there is no

presence of sexuality.

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Denham: He belongs to the royal, was educated in Trinity Oxford. He followed the

Nicomacia of Aristotle. He developed Neo classicism smooth, clear and tender force.

He created topographical poems.

Balanced energetic couplet, conciseness.

Contrast between the real and the ideal linked association of ideas.

- Landscape, scenery, moral reflection

- Political issues

- Rural related to local description

Style:

Influenced by his translation of his Virgil.

Description of Thames scenery round his house at English Surrey.

Dryden called him the exact standard of good writing.

Microcosm and Macrocosm.

References to the king

Linked political with landscape.

Heroic couplet, musical element is very important. He improved Cavalier manner, a

new English genre.

Conclusion:

- Elegance.
- Wit
- Love songs

Unit 4
John Milton

Professor Juan de Dios

John Milton: pastoral poetry, Commonwealth and Puritan.

Introduction.

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Periods:
1- Learning (Bucolic poetry).
2- Prose (Georgie dimension).
3- Epic (Sublime style).

Life:
From religious side he was Puritan writer, he found the way of God’s will. From
political view he was a republican in favour of Oliver Cromwell. He knew Latin as an
official language. The Cromwellian government defends his political and religion side.

He was well educated; he learnt music, Latin, Greek. He had strong religious and politic
sentiments.

Cavalier vs. Roundhead

Cavalier; courtly fashion
Roundhead; was the name given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English
Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his
supporters.

Period of apprentice 1625 -1640

- Period of learning
- Pastoral poetry characterized by bucolic poetry
- Period of Charles I.

1645 “Poems of John Milton” both English and Latin

1629 “On the Morning of Christ’s nativity”, and the Hymn are poems in which he
wrote them as a Christmas gift; in this poems he conveys his devotion to Christian
writings.
Pastoral setting; cosmic scope.
Apuntes 15/11/2012

John Milton
John Milton (1608-1674)

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One of the greatest poets of the English language, best-known for his epic poem
PARADISE LOST (1667). Milton's powerful, rhetoric prose and the eloquence of his
poetry had an immense influence especially on the 18th-century verse.

1. Development as a writer:
His early career he set himself the goal of becoming a great poet and was heavily
influenced by Latin writers and traditions. His writing was also deeply Christian as in
“On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”. Both influences (classical and Christian appear
in Lycidas (1637) an elegy about the death of a close friend)

Concerned with the Puritan cause, Milton wrote for the next twenty years of his life a
series of pamphlets defending religious and civil rights: against episcopacy (1642), on
divorce (1643), in defense of the liberty of the press (1644), and in support of the
regicides (1649). He also served as the secretary for foreign languages (Latin) in
Cromwell's government.

After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Milton was arrested as a noted defender of
the Commonwealth, but was soon released. He also became blind but he was able to
compose his major work in 12 books

2. Paradise Lost (1667)

It was originally issued in 10 books in 1667, and in 12 books in the second edition of
1674.

Milton’s aim:
To compose an epic poem to rival the works of ancient writers, such as Homer and
Virgil, whose grand vision in Aeneid left traces in his poem. First, he thought of the
English myth of King Arthur but then decided to use the myth of Creation and the Fall
of Mankind. The theme of Fall and expulsion from Eden had been in Milton's mind
from 1640s. The troubled times in which Milton lived, left their mark on his theme of
religious conflict. In his own hierarchy, Milton placed highest in the scale the epic,
below it was the drama.

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Style:
Paradise Lost is not easy to read with its odd syntax (inversions, long appositions),
difficult vocabulary (Latinate), and complex, noble style.

Topic:
The poem tells a biblical story of Adam and Eve, with God, and Lucifer (Satan), who is
thrown out of Heaven, and who takes revenge trying to corrupt humankind. Satan, the
most beautiful of the angels, has been defeated in the War of Heaven, but he fights to
overcome this fall:
All is not lost; th' unconquerable Will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And
courage never to submit or yield... Mainstream philosophy, habits, conventions, life

Characters:
Milton creates a powerful and sympathetic portrait of Lucifer (satanic hero). He bears
similarities with Shakespeare's hero-villains Iago and Macbeth, whose intellectual
nihilism is transformed into metaphysical drama.

Influence on later writers:

Milton's view influenced deeply Romantic poets (19th c.) William Blake and Percy B.
Shelley, who saw Satan as the real hero of the poem and a rebel against the tyranny of
Heaven. In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake stated that Milton was "a true Poet,
and of the Devil's party without knowing it."

Interpretation:
1. The text can be read as a religious text, supporting Christian ideals:
To assert Eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to Men.

2. It can also be interpreted as the last great Renaissance text, stressing the freedom of
choice of Adam and Eve as the choose the path of human knowledge and leave the
Garden of Eden, Paradise. At the end they follow the path towards the unknown future
of humanity:
The world was all before them, where to choose

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Their place of rest, and Providence their guide: They hand in hand, with wandering
steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. Neither Adam nor Eve is blamed
for the Fall, when Eve eats the Forbidden Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and Adam
loses his innocence. Satan, God and Man are equally responsible. He is a very brilliant
English poet. To some critic as Samuel Johnson, he considered Milton to be anti
English. In the one hand, Milton was a radical Puritan and republican, in favor of
Cromwell regime. Meanwhile, Samuel Johnson was in favor of Monarchy. On the other
hand, it has to do with his language and diction.

Paradise Lost is the most important work written by Milton, in some cases Paradise lost
has a romance vocabulary.

As a republican and as a revolutionary he wrote pamphlets, encourages divorce.

His life can be divided into two careers:
1- A man of hard working, and intellectual
2- Politics was very important “Civil War” he was assigned as a secretary
diplomat, because he was highly fluent in Latin, and the best Latinist in
England and Europe.

Milton’s political and religion enemies are now in Power.

Restoration 1660.
In restoration period he spent the rest of his life at home. In this period he reached his
greatest work career Paradise Lost. He was highly radical.

He had his own opinion on individual religion affiliation “he had a set of religion
beliefs”. He is one of the English poets who introduced Classism in English literature.

Il´ Penseroso and I´Allegro are two contradictory poems by Milton. In the one hand, Il
´Penseroso is about melancholy. On the other, Il´Allgero is about pleasure.

The period of Prose

The beginning of this period is when he returned to England from 1640 to 1660 he was
an essayist. These years were of pamphleteering and political activity. In 1642, the Civil

34
War began between the puritan roundheads and the royalist supporters of Charles I.
Charles I was executed and Cromwell’s Commonwealth seemed secure. We find in this
period religious and political controversy. Milton was at the service of Cromwell. He
wrote prose, and was involved in politics and religious activity. He also wrote tracts,
and because of that, some critics consider this period of pamphleteering. He also
worked as secretary of foreign Tongues.

Themes treated in pamphleteering:

- Divorce; Milton reflected absolute topic of divorce mainly in the Doctrine
and Discipline of Divorce.
- Education, he wrote a tract about it: Of Education. when he finished his
European tour, he set up in an English school, and he gave classes to his
nephew.
- Printing; Areopagitica: A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of
Unlicensed Printing to the Parliament of England is a 1644 prose polemical
tract against censorship.
- Republic; Eihonohlastes
- Religion; the reason of church government, Milton was against bishop, he
was against Catholicism.

John Milton, a polemicist, son of a Puritan family, very interested in music and classical
languages (due to his father).He is a profound Christian person. Milton belongs to a
group called roundheads (Puritan): they were supporters of Parliament.

His first period was a period of apprenticeship (1625- 1640). In this period he wrote his
pastoral poetry. This period began when he entered Christ’s (allege, we find pastoral
poetry, such as Lycidas, paradise Lost, and this period coincides with Charles I.

“Ad Patrem” is a poem explaining his father his vocation as a poet. He is connected
with his period of retirement, in which he decided to study more. He decided to study
five to six years in his father cottage at Horton. He wrote this poem for his father
Christ’s Nativity, and Lycidas.

35
The three poems belong to his first period. Milton is a poet of the Renaissance and also
of the beginning of the neo classism, with his classical values, setting, and characters.

Il´Penseroso published in 1645

Milton was sympathetic to Il´Penseroso.

Sonnets:
25 sonnets: 18 in English, one Italian canzone, and one English failed sonnet.

Themes of the sonnets:

- Public and political macrocosm plus the personal sphere or microcosm.
- About historical facts; apostrophic sonnets:
 To sir Thomas Fairfax (Parliamentary general close to the Civil war)
 To Cromwell; Crowell our chief men.

About personal issues:

- XII a famous lament over creative sterility
- XIX when I consider how my light is spent
- XXIII on his dead wife.

John Milton
The poetry was property of the renaissance; we can find the English Renaissance purist
on Milton’s poetry. Milton’s Paradise Lost is completely written in plainness style.
Milton had distracters; he was described as anti –English poet. Samuel distastes his
pastoral poetry, he dislikes the imaginary elements in Milton’s poems, since Samuel
rationalist, and realist.

Il´Penseroso was printed 1645.

Are these poems the same version of the same person? He was in fact Il Penseroso. It is
about literature and philosophy. Milton all his life was a somber, serious, intellectual
minded.

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Il´Penseroso and I´Allegro are two poems by Milton, both have many parallelism.

2º stanza
Milton had to exercises his imagination in order to know about melancholy.
Black means something positive (beauty, the sister of princess Memon). Stealfied ↔
constellation.

Vesta virgin woman, he made Vesta pregnant by her father (Christian). Saturn reign the
golden era.

Professor Bernard Dietz

L´Allegro and Il´Penseroso wrote these two poems during his youth.
Milton was in favor of the execution of the King Charles I and was not repented. He did
not affiliate to any political and religion.

William Blake a keen follower to Milton

Reasons for written poems:

1- Ideological enemy, republican and puritan
2- He was blind, he composed 2000 lines, and he invented the poems in his
mind and memorized them. Johnson reported that he was frequently
opposing to his daughter and considered her an idiot. During the composition
of Paradise Lost, he though that women were not intellectual equal.
3- The third difficulty was that he wrote a completely new which has never
been written before. He wanted to be someone with prodigious mind. He
goes back to his first project and took up his former projects, to write an epic
poem, compose a great poem.

Epic – oral presentation and in verse easy to remember.

Renaissance- war between the ancient or modern times, the ancient was best. Rebirth of
classic literary, they felt challenge and defiance. The English author who succeeds in
writing epic poem was Spenser in Elizabethan period “The Fairy Queen”. Milton wrote

37
the long epic poem and the problem was the Topic, the fall of man, the creation, and the
dislodging from Paradise; for him writing long poem was a disgrace of political and
religious attitude.

- Paradise Lost is written in blank verse and iambic pentameter.

- Milton’s Latinate; the poem is full of complicated language (words,

vocabulary). Words are created and coined by himself.
Milton is the first person to use words in one particular situation. According to Blake
the best character in Paradise Lost is Satan, the devil, because he is intellectually
attractive.
Milton goes beyond Luther ideology of Church, Milton did not consider the Church an
institution, and he considered it is a superstition and a misleading.
Despite the fact that Samuel Johns hated Milton, he recognized the work of Milton on
Paradise Lost.

Sonnet XIX:
- It was published in 1673, is an expanded version of poem 1643.
- The anatomical and syntactical in the poet’s is mainly the concept of the poet
- narrator, a solution of a conflict, when the poet asks when I consider how my
- light is spent, there is a replica.
- From a syntactic form it is a self reflecting poem.
- Anatomical and semantic approach (octave- sestet symmetry.
- Sestet; responding voice answer of the lament reply.
- Spiritual and conflict, non writing poetry.
The sonnet ends with a statement of positive, assurance.
Semantic negative- useless, rhetorical question, there is a clear reference of biblical
parador of talent
Spiritual release, there is a clear personification.
Alliteration of several phonemes.
Useful and useless.

Figurative language; synecdoche ambiguity, semantic field.

38
There a clear conflict at the beginning of the poem and in the second part.

How; is a lexical item, adverb of manner, form morphological and semantic (in what
way).
Syllepsis; several meaning through comparison and contrast meaning.
Perceptual difficulties in the sonnet.
The poem is about the poet’s useless who seeks for relieve in the Bible.

The poet narrator gives solution to the problem. In the one hand, he is giving a negative
approach that he useless. On the other hand, he is seeking his relieve in the Bible.

 This sonnet is on his blindness. It has regular pattern. The rhythmical value is very
important to understand the measure. It is full of repetitions. This sonnet is followed
the Italian one. Octave and sestet. Use of pronouns I, My, me, but in the last line he
uses the pronoun they. There is a process of change from singular to plural, there is
a shift:

1- Nouns= Light is repeated in one and seven. They is repeated twice. By

means of this lexis we find a religious semantic field. Adjectives= two
negatives (dark and useless) and one positive = kindly. Many hyperbaton
a figure of speech in which the normal order of words is reversed. The
poem is about a man who is blind and cannot perceive light. Syntax; the
sonnet begins with a subordinate clause of time.

Milton’s sonnet XIX on his blindness is a motion of thinking, reflection on a problem,

introduced by the subordinate clause When I considered. The relation of thoughts and
the feeling, are given by the syntax, rhythm, and handling of the sonnet form.

The reflection is an argument on justification by works. In the octave there is a

justification of the self before God; this is given in the profusion of first person
pronouns I, my, me, I fondly. In the sestet a virtue declares God’s position in the
argument “God”, His, his, him, him, and further the first person is negated in the words
man’s, who, thousand, and they. The transition is given in the alienating epithet “that

39
Murmur” rather than “this” or “my” murmur. He wrote this poem as we said when he
was blind and was obsessed by dark and light.

An Arthurian; an epic poem

He began writing the epic when he was in Italy and France in 1658 at the age of 56.
It receives an enormous rejection by the public.
He justifies the way to God to men. He is giving his proclamation of being a poet.

Paradise Lost
1667: 1st edition in 10 books
Written ten years later
1674: 2nd edition in 12 books (following Virgil and Aeneid). It is an Epic poem in blank
verse, heroic poem.

Arguments:
Book of genesis
Milton set central principles of the poem from this book.
His style is full of Baroque elements:
1- Epic framework it deliberately imitated the classical epics of Homer and
Virgil.
The nature is full of power, and force.
Blake really appreciated nature and Satan.
There are several interpretation and several approaches:
1- Given the poet interior through the poem.
2- Things unattempted yet in prose and rhyme; he is justifying his efforts.
3- Of man’s first disobedience; purpose.

Invocation to muses:
- Explanation of the whole subject.
- Prime cause of the fall
- Satan was driven out of heaven
- Prolepsis
- Order for reader: Charity of understanding.

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 - Choosing by free will, against external authority. He prefers power given by
people and not authority.
- The semi canonical status as an interpretation of the fall
The universe of death: Promethean fire, Satan
- religious criticism
Paradise Regained.
It is a poem about temptation from the Bible, but with different approaches.
Samson Agonist.
It is a strong, powerful tragedy, contains many Greek elements.
Cast in the form of Greek.

How it is that XVII century produced PL (poetry learning)

 Lowering prestige of poetry.
 Celebration of the triumph of modern learning

 Thomas Sprat: History of the Royal Society.

 Bacon Burton and Browne

Samuel Johnson on Milton:

Life of Milton
 Against Milton as a private tutor
 Against pastoral poetry.
 Against Milton as a polemicist
 Against Milton as a political opportunist.

Language and meaning:

 Quiet language
 Precise language.
 Latinate language.
 Humanism
 Christianity
 Political meaning

41
Conclusion:
L´Allegro Pastoral ideal and life style of the English countryside.
IL Penseroso is Milton Immoral hero poet.

Literary career: learning

Politics
Epic.

Unit 5
John Dryden profesor Juan de Dios

Dryden was a highly prolific literary figure, a professional writer who was at the centre
of all the greatest debates of his time: the end of the Commonwealth, the return of the
Monarch, the political and religious upheavals of the 1680, and the specifically literary
questions of neo classicism opposed to more modern trends. He was poet Laureate from
1668, but he lost his position on the overthrow of James II. Dryden had become
Catholic in 1685 and his allegorical poems the Hind and the Panther discusses the
complex issues of religion and politics in an attempt to reconcile bitterly opposed
factions. After 1688, Dryden returned to the theatre, which had given him many of his
early success in tragedy, tragic – comedy and as well as adaption of Shakespeare. His
final writings, with one or tow significant work such as Alexander’s Feast and the
secular Masque, are his major achievements in his later years.

Dryden was an innovator, leading the move from heroic couplets to blank verse in
drama, and at the centre of the intellectual debates of the Augustan age. He
experimented with verse forms throughout his writings life u7ntil Fables Ancient and
Modern, which brings together critical, translated, and original works , in a fitting
conclusion to a varied career.
The satire with allusions to real figures in politics and society. This specifically targeted

42
Satire is found in the poetry of one of the main literary figures of Augustan age, John
Dryden, notably in his Mac Flecknoe 1682-84, which is an attack on a literary rival,
Thomas Shadwell, and Absalom and Achitophel 1681, which uses an allegorical form to
comment on the fundamental religious and political issues of the time, issues which
would only be resolved by the overthrow of the Catholic monarchy in 1688. the ageing
poet Flacknoe ( a reference to Richard Flecknoe, a very minor poet who died in about
1687 is deciding who will best succeed him: he chooses Shadwell, a playwright, who
was clearly not of one of Dryden’s favourite. Achitophel is identified with the Earl of
Shaftesbury, and David is King Charles II. The ambition and plot remain of their own
times but the scheming and crowd pleasing can be seen in politicians in any age and
nation.

The profession of the letters in the Restoration.

 As a poet:
 Celebrates public events. Social, ceremonial, written for the nation. The least
personal of all English writers.
 e.g. : Annus Mirabilis (1666)

 Poet Laureate in 1668.

 - As a playwright (1664-81): Innovator. Leading the move from heroic couplets to
blank verse in drama. He writes Opera.
 e.g.: All for Love (1677) in blank verse

 Adapting Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra to unities of time, place and action.

 - As a critic: Follows principles of Ancient Greek and Roman authors, early English
Renaissance and contemporary France.
 ‘Father of English criticism’
 -As a satirist: a return to classical precedents (Horace and Juvenal) to mock the
follies and vices of the day.
 e.g.: Absalom and Achitopel (1681).
 Comments on religious and political issues of the time
 e.g.: MacFlecnoe (1682).
 A mock-heroic poem against a rival (T. Shadwell).

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 -As a translator: Translated from Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer.
 E.g. Fables Ancient and Modern (1697).
 He theorises on translation methods.

Dryden’s Achievement:

He creates a style which becomes the basis of writing until early 19th century: the
Neoclassical or Augustan diction/ style.
- His drama (‘comedies of manners) remains influential throughout the next century.
 - His critical writings established canons of Neoclassical taste.
 - His prose is the model for the ‘modern’ plain style. Utilitarian prose.
 - His satire is a great influence on Pope.
 - In poetry he experiments and uses a variety of metrics.
 Dryden formulates and creates the poetic diction of the next century.

He was considered one of the professional writers of his time. He tries to make money
means of his efforts of writings. John Dryden and Pope Alexander both of them
exemplified the Augustan period.

Literary Career.
As a poet Laureate a very interesting position, he needn’t writing for living, because he
received income from monarchy.

The first approach:

Restoration- Augustan, playwright, poet translate, critic, he celebrated both Republic
and Monarchy. As a Laureate he earns money in the stage.

Mac Flecknoe
It an epic, historical fact poem, he uses a journalist style, by means of creating writing
through facts. And it is a plain style. He belongs to the Restoration 1660.
In terms of style he is related to Pope. Dryden marks the start and Pope the end of this
period. The metaphysical conceit is eliminated.
Biography:

44
He became the leading figure of the literary life of the Restoration England (Age of
Dryden). From a rhetorical point of view Augustan 17th century to 18th century.

John Milton a religious poet.

John Dryden Professional approach.
Life:
Dryden’s Education
1644: he went to school in Westminster.
1659: he published his first important work. Heroic stanza to the memory of Cromwell.
He continued to produce plays until the end of his career.
1681: he started and began to write satire
1687: he converted to Catholicism.
Translation and stage are the two branches that writer used to earn money. During the
last ten years he mostly spent his life translated.

Which factors of Dryden’s early life can be assumed?

Historical context :
1- from the beginning up to 1670 Panegyrics and stage
2- 1670- 1685 satire and he was a laureate poet.
3- 1690 -1700 stage and translation.

He was the writer of stage of panegyrics. In 1660 he wrote the Astraea Reudux more
than 300 lines of :
1- rhymed
2- Thematic
3- Historical of writing
4- Content.

His poem to His Sacred Majesty, a panegyric on the coronation of Charles II.

The beginning of his career.

1- The Indian Queen
2- The Indian Emperor (1665).

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Inflection point:
A lucrative career of popular dramatist:
* Comedies.
* The Wild Gallant 1662
* The Rival Lady.

Tragicomedy.
- The Maiden Queen Hidden Flame; lover’s suffering.
- Secret love 1667.
- Annus Mirabilis (marvellous years); a poem full of eulogistic; the
celebration of the Royal society and the triumphant of English Naval and
London’s survival of the Great fire. A descriptive of the Naval war against
the Dutch.

Heroic Couplet:
Historical matter with heroic quality of the majestic events in grandiose imagery.
Dryden’s notion of poetic imagination; descriptive, lack vivid, specific detailed and
sometimes musses delight.

 Absalom and Achitophel 1681 based on the Bible,

 Achitophel portraying the intrigues of the Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of
Shaftesbury, who encouraged Monmouth to rebel.
 Absalom = James, Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s illegitimate

The medal and Mac Flecknoe

The Medal 1682, another satire poem focused on a single character (Shaftsbury).
Mac Flecknoe is a satire poem against Thomas Shadwell. He wrote this poem in a wide
mock manner, and there is a clear reference to Shadwell.
He portrays Shadwell as a mature in dullness.
He wrote it in 1678 but published in 1682
An attack to: Richard Flecknoe and Thomas Shadwell.
Shadwell substituted Dryden as a laureate poet in 1689.

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Form: heroic couplet- sublime (theme) content (object). Dryden established it as the
standard one.

Literary political
Attack on bad writings crisis of succession
Features of good writings
Subtly
Wit
Deep learning

Mac Flecknoe´s structure:

Section I
Content: Flecknoe select Shadwell as heir due to their resemblance, satirical reversals,
monarchical imagery, politics and literature.

Section II:
Time and place for coronation arranged. Description of environment related to
prostitution literature.
It is a trivial subject in a sublime, a high heroic couplet style, and a satire (Bad writer
the king or ruler “Parody”

John Dryden
professor Dietz
Restoration 1660 the return of Monarchy.

From1660 to 1700 restoration in conjunction with the 18 th century, Augustan period is

related more to the 18th century. In Restoration we will have a modern philosophy and a
decline in religion tolerance.
New classism, strange period has soon seen as disgust, and the end of the Stuart
dynasty. This period is considered a liberty period in terms of:
Sexual behaviour
Religion; rejection of the absence of God.

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 Restoration of the theatre, introducing new plays and women were allowed in
stage (Female actress).
Awaking of new style, the lyric appeared again. One of the best poet and writer
was John Dryden. He goes through ideological religion, since he was from
Puritan family, he converted to Catholicism.
Dryden adjusted to new ideology. He lost his poet laureate position after glorious
period. He dominated literature (plays most in verse and translator of classism), he is the
first literary critics a theorist, he wrote essays about his writings. He wrote satire to
attack religion enemy.

Horation satire. He uses heroic style in order to attack low themes.

Mac Flecknoe it is a satire to Shadwell, he represented Shadwell as an idiot. It is a very
subjective satire.

Dryden was in favour of the troy party and Shadwell in favour of the Whigs party
He uses far languages; Heroic couplet, each couplet of two rhyming lines constitute one
unity “not very refined structure”

Mac Flecknoe: is the son of Flecknoe, a mock heroic poem.

The old Flecknoe will be portrayed as the king of stupidity (non sense) and will be
replaced by his son.

There is a clear dimension of mock. A poem against bad authors and based on other
authors. Alexander Pope as well as Jonathan Swift will follow the same way of
mocking. We find a description of someone (mediocrity). It is a poem against Poethesis,
a group of people who uniquely aim is to earn money by making bad literary writings.
One of those bad writers was Richard Flecknoe from Ireland. Dryden proclaims
Shadwell that Flecknoe have passed away, and there is another writer like him
(Shadwell). In the poem he uses hyphens, it is related to the name Shadwell, he uses it
to hide the real name.

Style a mock heroic poem and a sublime style, about a trivial facts, someone to be the
new of stupidity, the poem is full of irony and pejorative aspects. Dryden and according

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to Harold Bloom is the first representative of Miltonic poetry. Dryden wrote in favour
of Milton. It is an example to grasp the self consciousness.

Song and Odes it is not so highly epic poetry.

Miscellanies
- A song was less valued as poetry than a great lyric.
- Songs in the Cavalier traditions.
- Love is the theme.

Song for St. Cecilia’s Day by John Dryden.

Inflection point:
When he lost his position as a Laureate poet, and lost the royal favour. He began to
write for living.

Political content 1670 and early 1680

- The Spanish Friar 1680
- The Duke of Guise 1682

Stage and translation both contain a political content. Tired of the theatre, he turned to
the politics, and less compromising work of translations.

Preface to Ovid’s Epistles:

His theory of translation
- Metaphrase
- Paraphrase
- Imitation can be known as translation with attitude
- The triad is challenged by Davis (2008:134).
These are the most important theory on translation according to Dryden.

Fables Ancient and Modern

- First book of the Iliad
- Eight tales from Ovid (excellent)
- Three from Chaucer (simplicity and Humanity)

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 - Three from Boccaccio.

Will´s Coffee House

Dryden mainly wrote his poem in the morning, and spent the afternoon at Will´s Coffee.

Can we apply the term social mode (as explained by Miner: 1971:23) to Dryden and
Why?
It has to do with the new form of printing, related to the topic from society and politics.

An Essay of Dramatic Poesy 1668 form of Ciceronian dialogue. Eugenius, Crites,

Lisideius and Neander.
Crites defends the ancient
Eugenius believes in the progress of the art, defending the superiority of contemporary
drama.
1671 Preface to the Evening Love, a Neo classical concept.
1679 Ground of Criticism in tragedy.
- He ranges himself among the Aristotelian, he urges classical.
Examen Poeticum (Preface)
1693 his masters are Shakespeare and Jonson, he recognise their merits.
His last work is (All, all of a piece). He was well aware of the new beginning, new age.
He published it the month before his death. Written to be performed as an afterpiece
adaption of John Fletcher’s The Pilgrim

Conclusion:
Metrical mannerism
Heroic genre:
- Belief in control in the field of metrics, the heroic couplet.
- Disbelief in unpremeditated art.

Rhetorical habits:
Including modernising the language.
Excluding; Neologism, archaism, low words or combination of technical words, and
Prosaic.

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Position of prestige and politics.
Panegyrics
Public poetry of eloquence
Formulated a method for poetry
- An impersonal almost editorial, criticism of life.
- The poetry is occasional and the occasions celebrated are public and
important. The importance of celebrities.

Alexander Pope- Virgilium Tantumvidi. The Panegyrics.

Absalom and achitophel from Old Testament.

Professor Dietz
Dryden is the most important because he converted everything from satiric religion,
politics, and public poetry. The development of satire in Restoration. Early period
(Etymology) it came from Satura Latin. Satire had to be aggressive, destructive.
Juvenalian Satire.

Horatian satire it is more elegant, educational.

Alexander Pope improves the Satire (Horace).

 CONCLUSIONS

 Dryden’s Achievement:

 He creates a style which becomes the basis of writing until early 19th century: the
Neoclassical or Augustan diction/ style.
 - His drama (‘comedies of manners) remains influential throughout the next century.
 - His critical writings established canons of Neoclassical taste.
 - His prose is the model for the ‘modern’ plain style. Utilitarian prose.

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 - His satire is a great influence on Pope.
 - In poetry he experiments and uses a variety of metrics.

 Dryden formulates and creates the poetic diction of the next century.

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