LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS OF PURITAN AGE

PRESENTED BY
MUZZAYAN TARIQ
BSEN-029
LITERARY CHARACTERISTICS

 There are three main characteristics in which Puritan literature differs from that of the preceding age: Elizabethan
literature, with all its diversity, had a marked unity in spirit, resulting from the patriotism of all classes and their
devotion to a queen who, with all her faults, sought first the nation’s welfare.
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 Under the Stuarts all this was changed. The kings were the open enemies of the people; the country was divided
by the struggle for political and religious liberty; and the literature was as divided in spirit as were the struggling
parties.
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 Elizabethan literature is generally inspiring; it throbs with youth and hope and vitality. That which follows speaks
of age and sadness; even its brightest hours are followed by gloom, and by the pessimism inseparable from the
passing of old standards.
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 Elizabethan literature is intensely romantic; the romance springs from the heart of youth, and believes all things,
even the impossible. The great schoolman’s credo, "I believe because it is impossible," is a better expression of
Elizabethan literature. In the literature of the Puritan period one looks in vain for romantic ardor. Even in the lyrics
and love poems a critical, intellectual spirit takes its place, and whatever romance asserts itself is in form rather
than in feeling, a fantastic and artificial adornment of speech rather than the natural utterance of a heart in which
sentiment is so strong and true that poetry is its only expression. 2
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 The Seventeenth Century was marked by the decline of the Renaissance spirit, and the writers either imitated the
great masters of Elizabethan period or followed new paths.
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 This spirit may be defined as the spirit of observation and of preoccupation with details, and a systematic analysis
of facts, feelings and ideas. In other words, it was the spirit of science popularized by such great men as Newton,
Bacon and Descartes. In the field of literature this spirit manifested itself in the form of criticism which in England
is the creation of the Seventeenth Century
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 One very important and significant feature of this new spirit of observation and analysis was the popularization of
the art of biography (an account of someone’s life) which was unknown during the Sixteenth Century. There is no
recorded information about the life of such an eminent dramatist as Shakespeare, in the Seventeenth Century
many authors like Fuller and Aubery collected and chronicled the smallest facts about the great men of their own
day, or of the immediate past.
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 The Puritan Poetry, also called the Jacobean and Caroline Poetry during the reigns of James I and Charles I
respectively, can be divided into three parts:
i. Poetry of the School of Spencer
ii. Poetry of the Metaphysical School
iii. Poetry of the Cavalier Poets
SCHOOL OF SPENCER

 The Spenserians were the followers of Spenser. In spite of the changing conditions and literary tastes which
resulted in a reaction against the diffuse, flamboyant, Italianate poetry which Spenser and Sidney had made
fashionable during the sixteenth century, they preferred to follow Spenser and considered him as their master.
Other poets who wrote under the influence of Spenser were William Browne (1590-1645). George Wither (1588-
1667) and William Drummond (1585-1649).
 Browne’s important poetical work is Britannia’s Pastorals which shows all the characteristics of Elizabethan
pastoral poetry. It is inspired by Spenser’s Faerie Queene and Sidney’s Arcadia as it combines allegory with satire.
It is a story of wooing and adventure, of the nymphs who change into streams and flowers. It also sings the praise
of virtue and of poets and dead and living.
METAPHYSICAL POETS

 The metaphysical poets were John Donne, Herrick, Thomas Carew, Richard Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, George
Herbet and Lord Herbert. The leader of this school was Donne. They are called the metaphysical poets not because
they are highly philosophical, but because their poetry is full of conceits, exaggerations, quibbling about the
meanings of words, display of learning and far-fetched similes and metaphors. It was Dr. Johnson who in his essay
on Abraham Cowley in his Lives of the Poets used the term ‘metaphysical’.
 The metaphysical poets were honest, original thinkers. They tried to analyse their feelings and experience—even
the experience of love. They were also aware of the life, and were concerned with death, burial descent into hell
etc. Though they hoped for immortality, they were obsessed by the consciousness of mortality which was often
expressed in a mood of mawkish disgust.
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 The Metaphysical poets show the spiritual and moral fervour of the Puritans as well as the frank amorous
tendency of the Elizabethans. Sometimes like the Elizabethans they sing of making the best of life as it lasts—
Gather ye Rosebuds while ye may; and at other times they seek more permanent comfort in the delight of spiritual
experience.
GEORGE HERBERT

 George herbert George Herbert (1593-1633) is the most widely read of all the poets belonging to the metaphysical
school, except, of course, Donne. This is due to the clarity of his expression and the transparency of his conceits.
In his religious verse there is simplicity as well as natural earnestness. Mixed with the didactic strain there is also
a current of humour in his poetry.
HERRICK AND CAREW

 Herrick and carew Robert Herrick (1591-1974) wrote amorous as well as religious verse but he is more famous for
his love poems. Thomas Carew (1598-1639) was the finest lyric writer of his lyric writer of his age. He is superior
to Herrick in fine workmanship. His persuasions of Love’ is a fine piece of rhythmic cadence and harmony.
CAVALIER POETS

 The cavalier poets followed Ben Johnson. Jonson followed the classical method in his poetry as in his drama. Like
the metaphysical the label Cavalier is not correct, because a ‘Cavalier’ means a royalist. The followers of Ben
Jonson were not all royalists, These are, therefore, not two distinct schools, but they represented two groups who
followed two different maters- Donne and Ben Jonson. The important Cavalier poets were Herrick, Lovelace,
Suckling and Carew. They were generally in lighter vein.