Greetings everyone, and happy new year!

We meet virtually at 2 pm this Thursday.

On 20 Dec., you received the MS Teams links for all our classes. This course is designed for in-person
classes, as indicated in the timetable. Hopefully most of our classes will be in-person.

Below are class notes. Please have access to the course outline and FILE 1 on Sakai. Printing copies
will facilitate access to the materials, but it’s your call (and your dime).

13 Jan. Week 1 Introduction: writings of the Civil War to the Early Restoration
FILE 1 on Sakai: i) Katharine Eisaman Maus’s “The Caroline Era,” “The Revolutionary Era,” “Literature
and Culture,” from “Introduction: The Early Seventeenth Century 1603-1660,” The Norton Anthology;

ii) E. Hyde, Earl of Clarendon: Editors’ Introduction, p. 609; Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion and
Civil Wars in England, The Broadview Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Verse & Prose, edited by
Alan Rudrum, Joseph Black, and Holly Faith Nelson, Broadview P, 2000, pp. 618-22 (FILE 1)

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The weekly seminar questions are designed to guide your reading. For your pleasure, I’ve added
some discussion questions. Refer to the final section of this document. You’re welcome.

1) Evaluating and valuing university and Humanities education: review this site:
https://www.studythehumanities.org/toolkit

- followed by a review of course outline

2) Early Modern Era – Europe and England

1485-1660 Early Modern era: golden age but also marked by social, political, and religious upheaval
- the term “Renaissance” is inappropriate for reasons that will become apparent throughout the
entire course
- “early modern”: used to characterize the period in which the seeds for modernity were sown
The Renaissance period in British literature spans the years 1500 to 1660 and is usually divided into five
subsections: Early Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, Caroline, Commonwealth (or Puritan Interregnum).

3) Locating Seventeenth-century literature in historical and cultural contexts:

This course extends beyond the Renaissance. It is focused on the literature of the Caroline age 1625-
1642/9 and the Civil War and Interregnum 1642-1660 but also the Restoration 1660-1688/1700.

4) staging of the regicide

The most significant and controversial event of the period is the execution of Charles I.

5) Civil War Literature

Every single critic and historian writing on the era reminds us about the changing role and importance
of the press in the 1640s and 50s.
6) Intro to E. Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, History of the Rebellion, pp. 618-22
Our editors refer to Clarendon as an “architect of the Restoration settlement” (p. 609, 2nd
column) but popular sentiment turned against him and he wound up in exile in France. Here he wrote
his Life, which he joined with his History, begun in 1646. The final product was the History of the
Rebellion. The anthology’s version combines passages from the final History and the Life.
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Seminar Group Discussion Questions (to which the second half of the Jan. 13th class will be devoted)

a) Using the information from “The Caroline Era,” “The Revolutionary Era,” and “Literature and
Culture,” comment on the relationship (including differences) between seventeenth-century history and
literature. Identify some of the forms and themes of 17C English poetry.

b) Using the information from “The Caroline Era,” “The Revolutionary Era,” and “Literature and
Culture,” find evidence in this introduction for the statement on the top of p. 911: “The theories that
evolved in response to these questions (listed at the btm of p. 910) contained the seeds of much that is
familiar in modern thought, mixed with much that is forbiddingly alien.”

c) The “The Caroline Era,” “The Revolutionary Era,” and “Literature and Culture” highlight key themes
in this course by discussing toleration, popular sovereignty, print revolution, political debate, the war of
religion, parliamentarian/puritan iconoclasm, the trial and execution of Charles, the increased
dissatisfaction with the Rump, the inevitable restoration of monarchy, and Milton's efforts at negotiating
a place for himself in a Restoration culture.
The most significant section of the Introduction for us as students of literature is on pp. 914-17. Maus
discusses literary culture, key writers, and changing genres of the Interregnum and early Restoration.
Characterize 17C literary culture and identify the key genres.

d) How do Clarendon's royalist politics inform his account of civil war history? What aspects of society
were affected by the civil war era? What key historical events are recounted in the History? Discuss
the reconstruction of those events. What characterizes this work as exilic? What other exilic works are
you familiar with?

e) In his retrospective reading of the Revolution, Clarendon offers a historical commentary on some key
events. I want you to consider and analyse the critical perspective that informs his reconstruction
of the mid 17C.