History and Its Influence on British 17th Century’s Literature
2. Introduction
History and its influence on British 17th century’s literature
By regarding British’ literary works up to the 17th century, one can recognize many parallels to the history and culture of that time. In my following term paper I am though going to investigate where the parallels between history, culture and literature are. I will do so by using chosen passages from British literary texts from the Renaissance and Restoration Literature. Therefore I will first define the characteristics of both epochs. Secondly I will compare the plots of the chosen passages to the historical and cultural context and accentuate the similarities. As I believe, these similarities between literatures, cultural and historical context can be found in any literary work.
3. Renaissance Literature
The term Renaissance as an epoch describes the transition from medieval times to the modern ages which took place between 1485 and 1603 in England. It means the rebirth of ancient values and ideals in painting, architecture, science, philosophy and literature. Due to the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg, which was established in England by the help of William Caxton in 1474, authors got the chance to write in vernacular language. Since there were from then on more people who could read and understand the texts, Renaissance knowledge was accessible for the folks (cf. Olague)
The early Renaissance in England has strongly been influenced from Italy where it begun about 200 years earlier and from the medieval concept of courtly love. Courtly love meant the poetry by errant knights, often a king’s third son who travelled around the countryside to get a place to work. The only chance for those errant knights to gain their social status back was to get a rich lord’s daughter, so many minnesong poems were written by them. The major contents of those poems were the beauty and elusiveness of the lady. The knights had to sublimate their sexual desires and show real love to
History and its influence on British 17th century’s literature
By regarding British’ literary works up to the 17th century, one can recognize many parallels to the history and culture of that time. In my following term paper I am though going to investigate where the parallels between history, culture and literature are. I will do so by using chosen passages from British literary texts from the Renaissance and Restoration Literature. Therefore I will first define the characteristics of both epochs. Secondly I will compare the plots of the chosen passages to the historical and cultural context and accentuate the similarities. As I believe, these similarities between literatures, cultural and historical context can be found in any literary work.
3. Renaissance Literature
The term Renaissance as an epoch describes the transition from medieval times to the modern ages which took place between 1485 and 1603 in England. It means the rebirth of ancient values and ideals in painting, architecture, science, philosophy and literature. Due to the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg, which was established in England by the help of William Caxton in 1474, authors got the chance to write in vernacular language. Since there were from then on more people who could read and understand the texts, Renaissance knowledge was accessible for the folks (cf. Olague)
The early Renaissance in England has strongly been influenced from Italy where it begun about 200 years earlier and from the medieval concept of courtly love. Courtly love meant the poetry by errant knights, often a king’s third son who travelled around the countryside to get a place to work. The only chance for those errant knights to gain their social status back was to get a rich lord’s daughter, so many minnesong poems were written by them. The major contents of those poems were the beauty and elusiveness of the lady. The knights had to sublimate their sexual desires and show real love to