◎KEY POINT:

It covers?the British literature during 17th?and 18th?century. The early 17th?century witnessed both the end of Renaissance period and the Revolution.

In poetry, there were the Cavalier poets and the Metaphysical school. Also, John Milton was seen as the greatest poet occupying a transitional position. After the Restoration, a new era in literature appeared. People during this period had a profound faith in the power of human reason and intelligence and thus was called the Age of Reason. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift can be seen as the representatives of this period.

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Content

◎3.1 Jacobean Literature: Cavaliers V.S. Metaphysical school

◎3.2 Milton: The last Renaissance man

◎3.3 Art epic: Paradise Lost

◎3.1 Jacobean Literature: Cavaliers V.S. Metaphysical school

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?Monarchy and the religion

·King Henry Ⅷ : He was told by the Roman Catholic pope that he could not divorce his first wife.

So he decided to remove England from the Roman Catholic orbit

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This is the beginning of Protestantism in England.

·?????? Queen Mary I : She was a staunch Catholic

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·?????? Queen Elizabeth I: She strengthened Protestantism.

·?????? King James I and King Charles I: did more of the same as Queen Elizabeth I

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?English Civil War(1642--1649)

The Puritan Oliver Cromwell became Lord Protector

Then came a century of instability and downright chaos

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?Cavalier Poets

Robert Herrick and Sir John Suckling

Example:

To Fortune by Robert Herrick [Talking to the abstract concept of LUCK]

Rhetorical device:

Apostrophe 直呼法: To address a nonhuman thing or a concept as if it were a person

詩(shī)歌大意

A common theme of the Cavalier poets involved Carpe diem (to seize the day)活在當(dāng)下，及時(shí)行樂

The Cavaliers were Royalists that are conservative supporters of the monarchy

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?The Metaphysical Poets 玄學(xué)派詩(shī)人

John Donne and Andrew Marvell

Metaphysics when it applies to poetry tends to refer to highly creative and original analogies.

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John Donne

詩(shī)歌大意

Holy Sonnet 10 has several features of a Shakespearean Sonnet

◎3.2 Milton: The last Renaissance man

Political turmoil of early 17th century. The religious factions were vying for power at that time.

Charles I was executed in 1649, after which England had a republican government for 11 years.

→ The period was commonly known as The Commonwealth Interregnum which was formed by the puritan Oliver Cromwell?

Charles Ⅱ , restoring Monarchy/assume the throne

John Milton

Elegy: a poem written to commemorate a dead person

Example: Lycidas by Milton[Milton accuses the corrupted clergy of the day of going through the motions without giving the followers anything of substance]

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·?????? Milton redefined the elegy by placing himself as a survivor to carry on the promise of the lost individual

·?????? Milton redefined the elegy by directing criticism of the religious officials that is the Church of England

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Recall the historical background:

1.? King Henry Ⅷ decided to break English churches away from the Roman Catholic Church.

2.? The Reformation in Europe had been much more vigorous and had been motivated by very pointed religious objections to the management of the Roman Catholic Church and its theology.

3.? Milton was a puritan who wished for a more fundamental reform than the Church of England had brought about.

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Milton was a formidable essayist in his early years.

Areopagitica: Milton argued that licensing written works before they were actually printed was a disservice to society, because the practice limited the truth.

Milton's second wife was died of childbirth. Childbearing was a leading cause of death in women until modern times.

The sonnet On His Deceased Wife

大意：He dreamed of his wife who was about to give him a hug and the thought was so enchanting that he immediately awoke. When he did awake, the dream vanished. His wife vanished because she was dead and so did his eyesight. Because in waking he was already totally blind.

Night also refers to the darkness of his emotion, because he had to come to the wakened understanding that he had lost his wife.

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Comparison:

·?????? Donne addresses death in Holy Sonnet 10 informing death he is powerless to affect humans in any eternal sense and will himself ultimately die after the Christian resurrection.

·?????? Milton also refers to the eternal afterlife, but by contrast ends with the sobering realization that the poet still lives in the everyday world of physical infirmity and unhappiness.

◎3.3 Art epic: Paradise Lost

·?????? The origin of humankind

·?????? Why we have so much trouble in the world

·?????? Satan(Lucifer) gets kicked out of Heaven with about a third of the angels into Hell. Not content to stay in Hell, Lucifer soon plots to corrupt the newest creation that is humans(Adam and Eve).

·?????? Paradise= Garden of Eden Adam

·?????? ?Even were not allowed to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge.

·?????? Satan, in the guise of a snake, plots his strategy and soon manages to talk Eve into taking a bite of the fruit which is usually shown as an apple.

·?????? After that, the God is angry and disappointed. He takes away the immortality of Adam and Eve as well as all their descendants.

·?????? The son of the God will be sent to earth to give the mankind a second chance at eternal life but on an individual basis.

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Epic:

1.? A very long and detailed poem tells a story in dramatic detail.

2.? It links very closely to the identity of a nation or people.

Eg. The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer; The Aeneid by Vergil

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Satan's attitude and personality: arrogant, proud, quick to take offense or perceive a slight, never giving up.

The use of anacoluthon改變說法, Satan was portrayed as a being with emotions instead of an abstract evil. These are qualities that set us apart as individuals.