Politicial - monarchy
Execution of Mary Stewart – subsequent state persecution of RCC
Reign of Elizabeth I – head of Church and State
Spanish Armada
Death of E in 1603
1603: James I king
- Most literate monarch
- Published folio of own work, 1616
- Interested in Kingship, divine right and monarchy
Period of RE controversy, social/spiritual anxiety. Persecution of Catholics = terror
1620 – Pilgrim Fathers sail in Mayflower
1625 – Charles I succeeds the throne
1642-48 Civil War, Parliamentarians vs. Royalists
- Charles is beheaded
1649-60 Protectorate under leadership of Oliver Cromwell formed
1660 – restoration of Charles II
Donne and Herb are pre-civil war. Marvell has to cope with the war (see biography)
R voyages of discovery
R voyages of discovery – wealth in material and knowledge. This expansion of boundaries filtered into poetry
- Often figured in feminine terms, ‘female landmass, virgin territory’. Follows paradigm of female inferiority
- Conquest of land becomes akin to sexual act
literary - bible
- Bible = only source of culture and learning for the masses
o Important time for Biblical translations, should Bible be in the vernacular? Rooted in politics of RE interp
o King James Bible was commissioned in the vernacular, used simple vocabulary to appeal to masses
literary - poetry
- All literary figures inc. JD, Herb etc. are university educated, writing for educated.
- Work of poets circulated for the coterie of males on the manuscript circuit
- Blank verse = accepted convention for poetry
- Carpe diem = popular
- High Eliz cultural reference is tradition of courtly love, JD moves away towards a focus on individual experience and poetic personality. Works against tradition of hyperbolic overvaluing, female listener is absent and personality-less.
- Poetry as a construct – Modernist thought
- Tear Poems = v fashionable
Orthographic puns
literally - publishing
- Nothing was published, it was deeply shocking to do so. JD’s work published after his death by his son. Marvell’s work published 40 years after his death
- Significant developments in English literature
o 1616 – publication by Ben Jonson of his own works
o 1623 – Shakespeare’s friends publish the first folio edition of his works
o 1633 – JD junior publishes dad’s work as an authoritative edition
literary - drama
o Drama is dominant form of literature in the 1590s, JD was a ‘great frequenter of plays’. Work reflects vitality of drama
o Herbert writes with dramatic urgency
o Jacobean age produced plays of cynicism and flamboyant violence. Conversational effects and meter, growing interest in psychology. Melancholy in Hamlet is akin to the tortured poet personas e.g. JD in Holy Sonnets
o Drama seen as immoral by puritans by outbreak of civil war in 1542
social - court
- Inns of court and public theatre started expressing attitudes which challenged authority of royal court
o Drama = dominant form of lit, JD = ‘great frequenter of plays’
social - religion
- Religion is emotively charged, worries about fidelity and falseness
o Religious doubt = anxiety
o Interest in psychological states – as seen in Hamlet
o Salvation through faith vs. works
o V conscious of OS
social - death
- High mortality rate. Death an ever-present part of life, used as a theme in sermons, poems etc.
o Obsessive awareness of death and mortality – memento mori vs. carpe diem. Vanitas art – skull was often painted to remind the viewer of the brevity of human life e.g. Holbein The Ambassadors
o Last Judgement/Apocalypse fired R imagination. Doomsday paintings and sculptures abundant in R churches. Angels will blow trumpets etc.
o Personified figure of death in popular culture holds a sithe
social - other
- Reformation
- Renaissance
- Rise of puritanism – artistic practices = devilish, primacy of male
- Anti-Catholic sentiment
- Great Chain of Being
o Interest in order
University education trained young men in rhetoric, skill in debate and in the logical exposition of classical texts. Complexity of thought seen in poets developed by their education
moral - religion
- Dominance of male in society
- Biblical assumption that women are dangerous, temptation
moral - women and marriage
- Female fidelity is valued, ensured dynamic stability. Emphasis on female chastity
- UC – marriage = transaction, could not inherit property until her husband died first
- Consummation leads to conception. If unwed, conception leads to social shame
- R suspicions regarding literary women. To write was heterodox and encroached on the public world of men
scjentiifc - cartographical/astronomical
- Cartographical - Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation expedition of 1519-22, which dispelled contemporaries’ previous belief in the earth as flat.
o Drake’s 1580 voyage was allowed an exhibition to publicise his discoveries
o A map was displayed at Whitehall’s Palace made the spherical world visually clear - Astronomy – position of planets/spheres. Helio vs. geo
scientific other
- Psychological states – Hamlet
- Alchemy – compounds enhance base metal
- Stars believed to store light of day
o Sunlight was thought to be made of gold particles
o Stars determine fate – Romeo and Juliet - Contemporary interest in dissection – The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp (painting)
- Interest in geometry
- 1590s – discovered sun is a beam
R belief in a limited number of breaths
philosophical - neoplatonism
Neoplatonism
- Fused Xian teachings with work of Plato
- Plato works translated from Greek between 1484-92
- It is a pure form of idealism, soul is a moving essence which generates the phenomenal world
scientific - R model of physiology
- Four humours – imbalance causes particular character traits/illness
- Phlegm –easy-going, calm
- Yellow bile/choler – quick to anger (Lear and his daughters)
- Blood – positive, pleasure seeking, sociable
- Black bile – overly introverted, pessimistic about the imperfections of the world
- Purging was used to rebalance the body
phlosophical other
Platonic love
- Idealised, spiritual love in which sex plays no part e.g. KP and Marvell’s Definition of Love
Ocular love
- Eyes = essential to birth and continuance of love in R thought
Sphere = renaissance symbol of perfection
2 become 1 – R marriage service
Candles said to flicker in presence of ghost
