J.Swift

Small Points to make about 18th Century & Restoration

• 1660-1785 (The Restoration refers to the re-unification of the United Kingdom's three countries under Charles II -- England, Ireland and Scotland)

• satire: purposefully mocking or ironic outlook at society, etc. For a more thorough definition, gulp, Wikipedia gives a good definition! (However, for historical info, etc. Wikipedia is still not an accurate source. For definitions, it can be a good place.)

• Satire is the dominant mode of literary expression through 1740 and continues to have a vital presence even now!

• Literature & the public sphere: domestic tourism and travel, theatre, coffeehouses (think: archaic Starbucks), shift of life more and more to cities (urban center). Also, philosophical questions about human nature and proper behavior in civil society become public debates; community spaces where codes of politeness govern interactions.

• Men and women shared the public sphere!
• Book industry is at a boom with the higher literacy rates from 17th century's start...
• Again, women and labor-class writers start to appear, as do non-white authors...
• Explorations in fields of Science & Nature:Literature of this era is thematically drawn to investigating of fundamental ideas of cognition (how we think), sense, and understanding the larger world (the Americas, the "other"/exotic)
• Politics (from Norton): "Tories were associated with landed wealth, Anglicanism, and the monarchy, and Whigs were associated with trade, commerce, low-church dissenters, and progressive reform. The question of proper authority was key to both."
• From the many political, royal upheavals, individuals debate (and write about) the rights of individuals, and where power should be centered/controlled.

Essay Writing

Click here for some examples of how to write your ideas out: integrating the source material and citation of that source material while also making your own statements with the source.

Click here for a Work Cited page helper....

From Elizabeth to the 17th Century

Elizabeth I

• Before we move on, lets discuss the Talking Points 2
• Shakespeare in the Elizabethan Age
• Elizabethan Theater --> Early Modern era

The Early 17th Century (1603-1660)

• Writers like Shakespeare and Donne wrote during the Elizabethan-Jacobean (Stuart Reign)...so how can we see the two as separate literary eras?

• Distinctions in Jacobean literature:

1. writing the wrestles with the stable past (under Elizabeth) and the unknown future (of the New World, etc.).
2. Class consciousness (Donne, for example)
3. Highly politicized literature (see English Revolution)
4. The notion of the human being as a self-interested, self-seeking individual operating in a society -->a larger theme of literature in this time period, seen in "villains" in Shakepeare's King Lear (Edmund) and John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi (Ferdinand)

5. Literacy has large increase; books published doubled between 1600-1640.
6. Women authors entered into fray more: published, etc. (1/3 of writers in Norton section are women!)
7. The Professional Writer: Ben Jonson (Volpone, can be seen as first of the many respected "professional authors" in a rising capitalist society!
8. This is a time period when the "poor class" starts to be, what I'd call a thematic whisper, but ideas addressing poverty start to become a literary topic!
9. Perhaps, this last one is a result of what we reduce for our purposes into the War of the Three Kingdoms (England, Ireland and Scotland) [or the English Revolution]...There were many, many battles between these three from 1640-60--> religious and civil issues. Writers inserted themselves on all sides, but no one "won."
10. Devotional Poetry -- as seen in John Donne, George Herbert, Richard Crashaw, John Milton (Paradise Lost).
11. The Scientific Revolution -- Kepler, Galileo, Sir Francise Bacon, etc. -- and the Material World.

John Donne, main example of The Metaphysical Poets

• Metaphysical poetry:

1. metaphysical conceits: conceptual, large chasm between the objects being compared (like Marvell comparing the earth to a drop of dew on a rain branch, or the soul to a drop of dew, etc.); often scientifically rooted comparisons...
2. Wit -- playful intelligence (like Donne's "The Flea")
3. Analyzing emotion, religious struggles, through science and wit...
4. Paradoxes (see Donne's "Holy Sonnet #14, below)

Poems:

"The Flea"

• How can we see the sacred and the sexual "mixing" in this poem?

"The Sun Rising"

• an aubade: poem about lovers greeting the morning/dawn)
• Why is the speaker of the poem so angry at the sun?
• What are some of the speaker's suggestions for the sun to do?

"Holy Sonnets" -- devotional poems, with use of the "erotic"

• sonnets: tightly structured arguments, more serious than his earlier poems, exampled above...

• #10: Death is addressed. What is so unusual about the speaker's argument against Death? How does the argument "fit in" with common views of death?

• #14: What is startling about the image of God in this particular sonnet? What is the speaker's main argument in this poem, regarding his own religion?

Homework:

***Schedule Change:

Tuesday, March 9th:

• "The Gender Wars": pages 1543-1550

• Sir Francis Bacon: p. 1550

1. "Of Marriage and Single Life" (1553)
2. "Of Superstition" (1556)
3. "Of Plantations" (1557)
4. both "Of Studies (1562)

• Thomas Hobbes: start and read Ch.1 and Ch. 13 of "Leviathan," and we will get rest finished as we move to Restoration and 18th next Thursday.

Thursday, March 11th:

• finish discussing "Leviathan" quickly
• spend most of time on Aphra Behn's "Oroonoko" (pages 2183-2226)

Cancellation of Class, March 3

Dear Brit Lit Students, I am greatly sorry for canceling class tonight. I'm not feeling well and I am not sure I will feel any better tonight. I hope to have us have so much time between our last class. As far as readings, I am going to have to cut out some of our upcoming requirements, of which I will try to notify as soon as I decide which readings can go. I am thinking that we might cut out a few more of the Metaphysical Poets, or at least reduce what we read from these fellows. Anyhow, Thursday we will discuss Elizabeth I, then John Donne and the 17th century (and Metaphysical Poets). This also means that your Talking Points are also due on Thursday, now. I look forward to going over the readings and your talking points on Thursday. bests, Christopher

Talking Points 2

John Skelton & Beyond!

• "In the sixteenth century, power and status were closely bound up with costumes, symbols of authority, and visible signs of rank—the fetishism of dress. Clothing in this culture, as in ours today, was used as a marker of identity, but to a remarkable extent it could also appear to determine both gender identity and social rank" (Norton).

• Much literature of the 16th Century focuses on the fascinating, threatening, and some- times strangely vulnerable image of royalty. --> such as Elizabeth I

  
  

• C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia, was highly critical of the 16th century poet John Skelton's "skeltonic verse," arguing that the type of verse could not attempt to "treat something fully human and adult" (129) in a serious manner. Lewis saw Skelton as a skillfully playful poet, but he did not believe Skelton knew where he was going as he wrote.

• From one point of view, Skelton can be seen to represent the irreverent, convivial spirit of “merry old Catholic England,” which the Reformation despised and did its best to eradicate. Conversely, he can be seen as a proto-Reformer, levelling sharp and witty criticism at the so- cial and spiritual corruption of early Tudor society.

• "Skeltonics" -- short verse of about 2-3 feet (or six syllables ) with end rhyme. Their is no regular pattern in meter, but there is the use of end meter

"The Tunning of Elinour Rumming"

• Post-Reformation writers may spiritualize sex, decorate it, or debase it, but none of them quite match Skelton for cheerful frankness. Perhaps the closest parallel is found in another early Tudor text, Utopia, where More writes approvingly of the custom of men and women being displayed naked to one another before marriage, so that they will know what they are getting in the bargain.

• Skelton was seen as a very controversial figure. He was arrested a few times. He secretly married, though he was a preacher. He spoke of "indecent" things in his sermons. He was an uncensored wit!

Discussion Questions

• To what extent Skelton is criticizing, and to what extent celebrating, the lives and actions of the people he describes in the poem?

• How do the “Skeltonics” contribute to the effect of “The Tunning of Elinour Rumming”?

• Identify aspects of Skelton’s work that seem medieval in character. Are there other aspects that seem to point to a more modern sensibility?

• Is Elinour Rumming a popular heroine, or a symptom of a corrupt and decadent society?

• What resemblances and what differences do you perceive between Elinour Rumming and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath?

  
  

  
  

"With lullay, lullay, like a child"

• What is the plot of this poem, and how does that work in tandem with the repeated lines?

• Tonally, what can we understand about the speaker's view towards the sleeping man? How does this align with what we have learned about Skelton's real person?

• How is the verse in this poem a bit different and more "traditional"?

"Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale"

• What meaning can be gotten from a poem in which the chorus lines are sung by bass? How might the poems situation and humor play a role in any larger meaning to be derived?

Okay, so now lets read a few more of the Skelton poems on-line. What are some of the ways that his particular style enhance his subjects and the satirical/biting tone found in much of his work?

Elizabeth I & the end of an era

• Elizabethan theater: her era was the first in which there were public playhouses! Among the ideas we can understand about the time being considered "Early Modern" include:

1. Admission prices were for the first time charged. Before, entertainment was a reward for work, etc.
2. Urban Traffic Problems, including vulgar behavior and debauchery (drunkeness).
3. Also, safety became an issue, as women were plucked off the streets and forced to prostitute! (Did we really think that what happens in Liam Neeson's Taken was a new concept!)

• Elizabeth I never married, and never had children. She had rumored affairs and arranged marriages gone bad, but she didn't marry.

• She was Protestant, and often used her faith to her advantage as a ruler.

For Next Tuesday:

1. Having read all of Elizabeth I (p. 687-703) and the following John Donne poems, complete Talking Points 2 for attendance and for points, and for discussion next Tuesday.

John Donne's Selected Poems

• "The Flea" (1263)
• "The Sun Rising" (1266)
• "Air and Angels" (1270)
• "Love's Alchemy" (1272)
• "The Funeral" (1278)
• Holy Sonnet 5 // "I am a little world..." (1295)
• Holy Sonnet 10 (1297)
• Holy Sonnet 14 (1297)
• You may also want to read the intro to Donne, page 1260-1262, for good contextualization on his poetry.

***As the hurricane known as Too Little Time comes to shore, we are quickly shifting from the 16th Century to the 17th Century. Hopefully we will be able to discuss the transition in culture and literature by discussing both Elizabeth I and John Donne (two prominent figures that can stand in for their times!)***