UNIT 2 – RENAISSANCE & Prof. Cassandra S.

Tully
RESTORATION
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Chronology

Old Middle Ren Neo- Romanticism Victorianism Modernism

English English aiss Classical
ance
• 1066-1475 • Restoration • 1798 -1832 • 1832 -1901 • War poetry
• 6th
century - • Elizabethan (1660 -1685) (1914 -1919)
1066 Period (1533 • Age of • Modernism
-1613) Enlightenment (1914 -1927)
• Jacobean (18thc -1798) • Non-
Period (1603 modernism
– 1625) (1920-1930)
• Post-
modernism
(1939-today)
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INDEX
1. Historical background of the Renaissance period (1485 – 1660)
2. Literary features in the Renaissance
3. Text Analysis 1 (Elizabethan Period): Poetry: Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso list to hunt”
4. Text Analysis 2 (Elizabethan Period): Poetry: William Shakespeare, Sonnet 130
5. Text Analysis 3 (Elizabethan Period): Drama: William Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”
6. Text Analysis 4 (Jacobean Period): John Donne, “The Sun Rising”
7. Historical background in the Restoration period (1660 – 1789)
8. Literary features in the Restoration
9. Text Analysis 1: Poetry; John Milton “Paradise Lost”
10.Text Analysis 2: Poetry; John Wilmot, “The Disable Debauchee”
11.Literary Features during the Age of Enlightenment (Augustan)
12.Text Analysis 3: Prose; John Locke, “Second Treatise of Civil Government”
13.Text Analysis 4: Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”
14. The rising of the novel
15.Text Analysis 5: Daniel Defoe “Moll Flanders”
16.Text Analysis 6: Samuel Richardson “Pamela”
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1. Historical background of the Renaissance period (1485 – 1660)

• End of the War of the Roses

• Invention of printing by William Caxton
• Columbus trip in 1492 to the New
World
• Rebirth of learning and culture
 1.1 HENRY VIII
(1509 – 1547)
• Married 6 times
• 2 daughters (Mary I &
Elizabeth I) & 1 son (Edward
VI)
• Conflict with the Catholic
Church and the Pope Clement
VII
• Reformation: Anglican Church
• King as Head of the Church

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1.2 Henry’s churumbeles

• King Edward VI (1547 – 1553)

• Jane Grey (1553)
• Queen Mary I (1553 – 1558)
• Queen Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603)
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1.3 Queen Elizabeth I “The Virgin Queen”

• Protestant reform (again)

• Political symbolism: ‘body
natural’ vs. ‘body politic’.
• Never married
• 1586 – Babington Plot
• Sir Francis Drake
• 1588 – Defeat of the
‘Armada Invencible’
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2. Literary features in the Renaissance

• Search for individual expression and

meaning
• Reason, rather than religion as driving force
• Androcentrism
• “Re-creation” of a language, a literature,
and a national and international identity
• Birth of modern sciences: Maths and
Astronomy.
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2.1 Elizabethan Period

• Traces of medieval tradition: Early Modern English

• The Renaissance gentleman
https://twitter.com/Sup • Sonnets (Italian influence)
erbritanico/status/9829 • Sir Philip Sidney & sonnet sequences
17542074339329
• Poetry: upper-class, highly formal.
• Themes: love, loss, transience, contrasts, idealisation
of the woman, ambiguities…
SONNETS & SONNET SEQUENCES
1. 14-line poem written in iambic pentameters
2. Two types: Petrarchan (introduced by Thomas Wyatt) vs Shakespearan
sonnet (or English sonnet)
3. The Petrarchan presents: argument, observation, or question. This is
answered in the volta, occurs between the eighth and ninth lines.
4. The Shakespearan has: three quatrains and a couplet with this rhyme
scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg. The couplet plays a pivotal role, as a
conclusion.
5. Sonnet sequences: group of sonnets united in their themes. They can be
read individually or as a whole work of art.
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3. Text Analysis 1 (Elizabethan Period): Poetry:

Thomas Wyatt, “Whoso list to hunt”

• Themes:
• Courtly love
• Divine right of kings
• Obsession
• Style:
• Petrarchan Sonnet
• Allegory
• Pentameter
 4. TEXT ANALYSIS 2 (ELIZABETHAN PERIOD):
POETRY: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, SONNET 130
1. 154 sonnets published in 1609 in a quarto
2. 13 copies have survived
3. Themes: love, infidelity, passage of time, jealousy, or
beauty.
4. Dedicated to a “Mr W. H.”
5. Structure: 3 quatrains + 1 couplet
6. Rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
7. Iambic pentameter.
8. “The Dark Lady Sequence” sonnets from 127-152
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5. Text Analysis 3 (Elizabethan Period): Drama: William
Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”.

• The Globe Theatre

• Historical plays
• Tragedies & Tragicomedies
• Comical & love plays
• Romeo and Juliet (1594-95): tragic love
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THE JACOBEAN
PERIOD
• King James I of England &
VI of Scotland(1603-25)
• King James Bible (1611)
• Satire
• Metaphysical Poetry
• Prose by Francis Bacon
and Robert Burton
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6. Text Analysis 4 (Jacobean Period): John Donne,
“The Sunne Rising”

• John Donne (1572-1631)

• Writer and Anglican cleric
• Metaphysical poetry (conceits &
extended metaphors)
• Extremely famous in his time and in the
19th and 20th c.
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Chronology

Old Middle Renaissan Neo-

English Class Romanticism Victorianism Modernism
English ce
• 1066-1475 ical • 1798 -1832 • 1832 -1901 • War poetry
• 6th century - • Elizabethan (1914 -1919)
1066 Period (1533 - • Restoration • Modernism
1613) (1660 -1685)
(1914 -1927)
• Jacobean • Age of
Enlightenment • Non-
Period (1603 modernism
– 1625) (18th c -1798)
(1920-1930)
• Post-
modernism
(1939-today)
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7. Historical background in the Restoration period (1660 – 1789)

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7.1 After King James I

• Succession by Charles I (1625 –
1649)
• Problems with Parliament
• Antipathy because of his Catholic
marriage to Henrietta Maria
• The Bishops’ Wars (1639-1640)
• 2nd English Civil War (1642-1651)
• Executed for high treason January
30th 1649.
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7.1.1 The Divine Rights of Kings

• The chain of Being.

• Medival/Renaissance notion: universe is organized in a hierarchical
system.
• Lowest: inanimate class: elements, liquids, metals (mere existence).
• Higher in scale: Vegetative class: plants & tress (existence + life)
• Higher in scale: sensitive class: animals (existence+life+feeling)
• Higher in scale: MAN (existence+life+feeling+understanding)
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7.1.2 Chain of being

The primates:
• Elements: fire.
• Heavenly bodies: sun
• Metals: gold.
• Trees: oak.
• Birds: eagle.
• Beast: lion/elephant.
• Men: king.
 • One of the 1st republics in
the Modern World.
• Power in Parliament and
a Council of State
• Leaders: Oliver Cromwell
(1653-1658) & Richard
Cromwell (1658-1659)
• Problems in Ireland and
7.2 THE COMMONWEALTH OF Scotland (3rd civil war?)
ENGLAND (1649-1660) -
INTERREGNUM
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7.3 King Charles II: The Restoration

• Acceptance of throne in the

Declaration of Breda
• Charles returned from exile on
May 23rd 1660.
• Creation of the Cavalier
Parliament.
• Church of England restored.
• Reversal of Puritan morality: from
repression > to licence

Get yourself a man who can do both

 7.4 JAMES II OF
ENGLAND AND VII OF
SCOTLAND (1685-1688)
• Elder brother of Charles II
• Last Roman Catholic monarch
• Threat of a Catholic dynasty:
new Catholic son
• Parliament started negotiations
with the Prince of Orange in
1688.
• Invitation to England.
7.5 THE GLORIOUS
REVOLUTION (1688)
• Replacement of King James II by his
Protestant daughter Mary II and
husband William II of Orange.
• Joint government for 5 years.
• Primacy of Parliament over the Crown.
• Restrictions on Catholics
• Jacobite uprisings (1689, 1691, 1715,
1719, 1745)
• After Mary’s death William reigned
(1689 -1702)
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7.6 Monarchs up to 1798

• Queen Anne (1702 – 1714)

• Sister to Mary II
• Favoured Tories
• 17 pregnancies but no issue
• Favoured the arts of Alexander Pope,
Daniel Defoe, and Jonathan Swift
• Last Stuart Monarch
• Succeeded by cousin George I
7.6.1 KING GEORGE I

• Hanover dynasty
• Ruled from (1714-1727)
• Transition to a modern cabinet
• Robert Walpole (1st Prime Minister)
7.6.2 KING GEORGE II
(1727 – 1760)
Bonnie Prince Charlie
• Son of George I
• Little control of government
• 1745 – last Jacobite rebellion
led by Bonnie Prince Charlie

King George II
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7.6.3. King George III (1760 – 1820)

• Grandson of King George I

• Military conflicts in Africa, the Americas
and Asia
• Seven Years’ War (1756 – 1763) against
France
• American War of Independence (1775 –
1783)
• Battle of Waterloo in 1815
• Mental illness > Regency by George Prince
Regent (later known as George IV)
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The Pendulum of Western Literature

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Aesthetics of Identity vs. Aesthetics of Opposition

• The aesthetics of identity: we find beauty in the

familiar. Thus, classicism is an aesthetics of identity.

• The aesthetics of opposition: we find beauty in that

which is new and different. That is the creed of the
romantic artist.
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More pendulum theory

1. The Neoclassical period of the 17th and 18th centuries was a

particularly strong classical period.
2. It would, in turn, be followed by a particularly strong Romantic
period in the latter 18th and early 19th century.
3. Neoclassical writers looked to ancient Greek and Roman
writers for inspiration and guidance.
4. They believed that writers should strive to achieve excellence
by imitating those great writers of the past, not by trying to be
original or innovative.
5. Thus, art is rediscovery, reinvention, and imitation.
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8. Literary features in the Restoration

• Complete break from Renaissance

literature
• Reflection of the spirit of the age: moral
corruption, moral laxity
• Rise of Neo-classicism
• Imitation of the Ancient and French
Masters
• Correctness, realism and formalism
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8.1 Important authors

• John Dryden (1631-1700)

• Samuel Butler (1612-1680)
• Robert Herrick (1591 – 1674)
• John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647 –
1680)
 9. TEXT ANALYSIS 1: POETRY;
JOHN MILTON “PARADISE LOST”
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 FEATURES OF “PARADISE
LOST”
1. Epic Poem = Iliad, Aeneid, Odyssey
2. Blank verse
3. 10 books of more than 10.000 lines
4. Biblical story of the fall of man
5. Milton’s purpose is to "justify the ways of God to
men.“
6. Themes: obedience to God; Hierarchical
Nature of the Universe
7. Motifs: Light and dark; geography of the
universe
8. Who’s the protagonist?
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10. Text Analysis 2: Poetry; John Wilmot, “The Disable
Debauchee”

• John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647 – 1680)

• Representative of the moral laxity of the period.
• Known for his wit, intelligence, and drunkenness.
• Died young from a STD.
• ‘The Disable Debauchee’ belongs to his ‘rakish’ poetry
• Boasting of satisfying every physical need.
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11. Literary features during the Age of Enlightenment (1/4)

The inspiration:

The Augustan Age: Emperor Augustus (27 BC- AD 14)

Prosperity and stability; the instauration of the Pax Romana (29-180)
The triumph of classical models: Virgil, Horace, and Ovid.
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11. Literary features during the Age of Enlightenment (2/4)

• Modern England: reign of Queen Anne (1702-

14). Peace, stability and emergence of
‘Augustan’ writers
• The Classical ideal: decorum & avoidance of
extremes
• Conception of literature as art (ars vs ingenium)
• Didactic function of literature: (docere/delectare)

Subject matter: human life; man as social creature

“Know then thyself, presume not God to
scan The Proper study of Mankind is man”
Pope, Esssay on Man II
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11. Literary features during the Age of Enlightenment (3/4)

• Lesser forms and genres: comedy of manners,

mock-epic, satire, and essay.
• Rationality. Belief in universal truths & an
ordered universe
• Perfectability of humankind through reason
and education
• Ladies as patrons of artist: The Blue Stocking
Circle (Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey,
Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Catherine Macaulay,
etc.)
• Edinburgh, the Athens of the North.
IMPORTANT
AUTHORS
Alexander Pope (1688 –
1744)
John Locke (1632 –
1704)
Daniel Defoe (1660 –
1731)
Jonathan Swift (1667 –
1745)
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12. Text Analysis 3: Prose; John Locke, “Second Treatise of

Civil Government”

• John Locke (1632 – 1704)

• ‘Father of Liberalism’
• ‘Tabula rasa’
• The power of kings was not divine: agreement
• Creator of ‘The Social Contract’
• Natural rights
13. TEXT ANALYSIS 4: ALEXANDER POPE, “THE
RAPE OF THE LOCK”
1. Best known for his satirical poetry & his translations
of Homer
2. Famous works include: The Rape of the Lock, The
Dunciad, & An Essay on Criticism
3. Unlucky circumstances in his raising: Catholicism
underwent prohibitions.
4. Self-educated
5. He suffered from Pott disease
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK (1712)
1. Mock epic poetry
2. Written in rhyming couplets
3. Satire of a small incident (the cutting & stealing
of a lock of hair)
4. 1st time manuals of etiquette
5. Real characters: Baron = Lord Petres
Belinda = Arabella Fermor
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14. The Rise of the Novel

• 1719 Robinson Crusoe gets published

• First fictional account this extensive
• Extraordinary ordeals
• Probability of actions
• Not taken very seriously
• Previous to this: epistolary novels and
autobiographies.
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Other authors to write novels

• Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

• Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740)
• Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749)
• Laurence Sterne’s Tristam Shandy (1759)
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15. Text Analysis 4: Prose; Daniel Defoe, “Moll Flanders”

• Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731)

• He wrote as many as 318 works throughout his life (novels,
pamphlets…)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
• Morally ambiguous female heroine.
• Long psychological development of characters
• Suspension of disbelief
• Self-discovery
• Partially based on Moll King (a London criminal)
 16. TEXT ANALYSIS 6: SAMUEL RICHARDSON
“PAMELA”
1. Epistolary novel
2. Considered the first “best-seller”
3. Religious and morality as themes
4. Pamela Andrews as a pious maid vs. Mr B. as a
rake
5. Criticised for its licentiousness
6. Marriage = reward for her virtue (resisting
rape)