The Puritan Period and the Age of Classicism
The Puritan Period and the Age of Classicism (1620-1780)
• Puritanism was a great moral and political reform that happened after the death of Queen Elizabeth
• Literature was more critical and intellectual (made readers think than feel)
• John Milton was crowning glory of the period
• Paradise Lost (The Fall of Man) was the greatest religious epic of England
• John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress
• With King Charles II the Monarchy was restored
• Next 40 years was known as Restoration Period - A generation of writers known as the classical or neo-classical
*They established verse form known as The Heroic Couplet
- 2 Rhyming iambic pentameter poems
• Satire was prominent
• Noted Satirist: Jonathan Swift - Gulliver’s Travel
Characteristics of Puritan Period
• Place and source of corruption, theaters was closed few plays was written
• Poems were heavily written
Rise of Cavalier poets - poets who wrote poem about love
John Milton
• Born on Dec. 9, 1608
• Second child of John and Sara Milton
• Admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge
• got suspended after a dispute with his tutor
• He composed "on the morning of Christ's Nativity" -Dec. 25, 1629
• November, upon his memory Milton composed the beautiful elegy, Lycidas.
• Milton married Mary Powell - unhappy marrige -> divorce -> divorce pamphlets
• Daughter: Anne and Deborah
• Milton lost his sight - glaucoma
• "On his blindness" --> recount of his experiment of being blind
• 1656 - Milton married Katherine
• 1663: Remarried to Elizabeth Minshul
• Paradise Lost – Story of Man’s religious struggle -> Paradise Regained – Man’s Struggle after his Downfall
Alexander Pope
• One of the most feared writers
• Known for his brilliant satires
• One of the most quotable poets
• Age of 12, did not grow anymore (4’6”) because of tubercular spinal infection
• Hunchback but handsome
• Essay on Criticism – his famous couplet, age of 23 o “To err is human, to forgive is divine” o “A little
• Puritanism was a great moral and political reform that happened after the death of Queen Elizabeth
• Literature was more critical and intellectual (made readers think than feel)
• John Milton was crowning glory of the period
• Paradise Lost (The Fall of Man) was the greatest religious epic of England
• John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress
• With King Charles II the Monarchy was restored
• Next 40 years was known as Restoration Period - A generation of writers known as the classical or neo-classical
*They established verse form known as The Heroic Couplet
- 2 Rhyming iambic pentameter poems
• Satire was prominent
• Noted Satirist: Jonathan Swift - Gulliver’s Travel
Characteristics of Puritan Period
• Place and source of corruption, theaters was closed few plays was written
• Poems were heavily written
Rise of Cavalier poets - poets who wrote poem about love
John Milton
• Born on Dec. 9, 1608
• Second child of John and Sara Milton
• Admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge
• got suspended after a dispute with his tutor
• He composed "on the morning of Christ's Nativity" -Dec. 25, 1629
• November, upon his memory Milton composed the beautiful elegy, Lycidas.
• Milton married Mary Powell - unhappy marrige -> divorce -> divorce pamphlets
• Daughter: Anne and Deborah
• Milton lost his sight - glaucoma
• "On his blindness" --> recount of his experiment of being blind
• 1656 - Milton married Katherine
• 1663: Remarried to Elizabeth Minshul
• Paradise Lost – Story of Man’s religious struggle -> Paradise Regained – Man’s Struggle after his Downfall
Alexander Pope
• One of the most feared writers
• Known for his brilliant satires
• One of the most quotable poets
• Age of 12, did not grow anymore (4’6”) because of tubercular spinal infection
• Hunchback but handsome
• Essay on Criticism – his famous couplet, age of 23 o “To err is human, to forgive is divine” o “A little