Early Modern English literature

Early Modern English literature
The [[Elizabethan era]] saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the field of [[drama]]. The [[Italian Renaissance]] had rediscovered the ancient Greek and Roman theater, and this was instrumental in the development of the new drama, which was then beginning to evolve apart from the old mystery and [[miracle plays]] of the [[Middle Ages]]. The Italians were particularly inspired by [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] (a major tragic playwright and philosopher, the tutor of [[Nero]]) and [[Plautus]] (its comic clichés, especially that of the boasting soldier had a powerful influence on the Renaissance and after). However, the Italian tragedies embraced a principle contrary to Seneca's ethics: showing blood and violence on the stage. In Seneca's plays such scenes were only acted by the characters. But the English playwrights were intrigued by Italian model: a conspicuous community of Italian actors had settled in London and [[Giovanni Florie]] had brought much of the [[Italian language]] and culture to England. It is also true that the Elizabethan Era was a very violent age and that the high incidence of political assassinations in [[Renaissance]] Italy (embodied by [[Niccolò Machiavelli]]'s ''[[The Prince]]'') did little to calm fears of polishð plots. As a result, representing that kind of violence on the stage was probably more cathartic for the Elizabethan spectator. Following earlier Elizabethan plays such as ''[[Gorboduc (play)|Gorboduc]]'' by [[Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset|Sackville]] & [[Thomas Norton|Norton]] and ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'' by [[Thomas Kyd|Kyd]] that was to provide much material for ''[[Hamlet]]'', [[William Shakespeare]] stands out in this period as a [[poet]] and [[playwright]] as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare was not a man of letters by profession, and probably had only some grammar school education. He was neither a lawyer, nor an aristocrat as the "university wits" that had monopolised the English stage when he started writing. But he was very gifted and incredibly versatile, and he surpassed "professionals" as [[Robert Greene (16th century)|Robert Greene]] who mocked this "shake-scene" of low origins. Though most dramas met with great success, it is in his later years (marked by the early reign of [[James I of England|James I]]) that he wrote what have been considered his greatest plays: ''[[Hamlet]]'', ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'', ''[[Othello]]'', ''[[King Lear]]'', ''[[Macbeth]]'', ''[[Antony and Cleopatra]]'', and ''[[The Tempest]]'', a [[tragicomedy]] that inscribes within the main drama a brilliant pageant to the new king. This 'play within a play' takes the form of a [[masque]], an interlude with music and dance coloured by the novel special effects of the new indoor theatres. Critics have shown that this masterpiece, which can be considered a dramatic work in its own right, was written for James's court, if not for the monarch himself. The magic arts of Prospero, on which depend the outcome of the plot, hint at the fine relationship between [[art]] and [[nature]] in poetry. Significantly for those times (the arrival of the first colonists in [[United States|America]]), ''The Tempest'' is (though not apparently) set on a Bermudan island, as research on the ''Bermuda Pamphlets'' (1609) has shown, linking Shakespeare to the ''Virginia Company itself''. The "News from the New World", as Frank Kermode points out, were already out and Shakespeare's interest in this respect is remarkable. Shakespeare also popularized the [[English sonnet]] which made significant changes to [[Petrarch]]'s model.

The sonnet was introduced into English by [[Thomas Wyatt (poet)|Thomas Wyatt]] in the early 16th century. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as by [[Thomas Campion]], became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. ''See [[English Madrigal School]]''. Other important figures in [[Elizabethan theatre]] include [[Christopher Marlowe]], [[Thomas Dekker]], [[John Fletcher (playwright)|John Fletcher]] and [[Francis Beaumont]]. Had Marlowe (1564-1593) not been stabbed at twenty-nine in a tavern brawl, says [[Anthony Burgess]], he might have rivalled, if not equalled Shakespeare himself for his poetic gifts. Remarkably, he was born only a few weeks before Shakespeare and must have known him well. Marlowe's subject matter, though, is different: it focuses more on the moral drama of the renaissance man than any other thing. Marlowe was fascinated and terrified by the new frontiers opened by modern [[science]]. Drawing on German lore, he introduced Dr. Faustus to England, a scientist and magician who is obsessed by the thirst of knowledge and the desire to push man's technological power to its limits. He acquires supernatural gifts that even allow him to go back in time and wed Helen of [[Troy]], but at the end of his twenty-four years' covenant with the [[devil]] he has to surrender his [[soul]] to him. His dark heroes may have something of Marlowe himself, whose untimely death remains a mystery. He was known for being an atheist, leading a lawless life, keeping many mistresses, consorting with ruffians: living the 'high life' of [[London]]'s underworld. But many suspect that this might have been a cover-up for his activities as a secret agent for [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]], hinting that the 'accidental stabbing' might have been a premeditated assassination by the enemies of [[The Crown]]. Beaumont and Fletcher are less-known, but it is almost sure that they helped Shakespeare write some of his best dramas, and were quite popular at the time. It is also at this time that the [[city comedy]] genre develops. In the later 16th century English poetry was characterised by elaboration of language and extensive allusion to classical myths. The most important poets of this era include [[Edmund Spenser]] and [[Sir Philip Sidney]]. Elizabeth herself, a product of [[Renaissance humanism]], produced occasional poems such as ''[[On Monsieur’s Departure]]''.

[[Canons of Renaissance poetry]]

===Jacobean literature===
After Shakespeare's death, the poet and dramatist [[Ben Jonson]] was the leading literary figure of the [[Jacobean era]] (The reign of [[James I of England|James I]]). However, Jonson's aesthetics hark back to the Middle Ages rather than to the Tudor Era: his characters embody the [[Humours|theory of humours]]. According to this contemporary medical theory, behavioral differences result from a prevalence of one of the body's four "humours" (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) over the other three; these humours correspond with the four elements of the universe: air, water, fire, and earth. This leads Jonson to exemplify such differences to the point of creating types, or clichés.

Jonson is a master of style, and a brilliant satirist. His ''Volpone'' shows how a group of scammers are fooled by a top con-artist, vice being punished by vice, virtue meting out its reward.

Others who followed Jonson's style include [[Beaumont and Fletcher]], who wrote the brilliant comedy, ''[[The Knight of the Burning Pestle]]'', a mockery of the rising middle class and especially of those nouveaux riches who pretend to dictate literary taste without knowing much literature at all. In the story, a couple of grocers wrangle with professional actors to have their illiterate son play a leading role in a drama. He becomes a knight-errant wearing, appropriately, a burning pestle on his shield. Seeking to win a princess' heart, the young man is ridiculed much in the way [[Don Quixote]] was. One of Beaumont and Fletcher's chief merits was that of realising how feudalism and chivalry had turned into snobbery and make-believe and that new social classes were on the rise.

Another popular style of theatre during Jacobean times was the [[revenge play]], popularized by [[John Webster]] and [[Thomas Kyd]]. [[George Chapman]] wrote a couple of subtle revenge tragedies, but must be remembered chiefly on account of his famous translation of [[Homer]], one that had a profound influence on all future English literature, even inspiring [[John Keats]] to write one of his best sonnets.

The [[King James Version of the Bible|King James Bible]], one of the most massive translation projects in the history of English up to this time, was started in 1604 and completed in 1611. It represents the culmination of a tradition of [[English translations of the Bible|Bible translation into English]] that began with the work of [[William Tyndale]]. It became the standard [[Bible]] of the [[Church of England]], and some consider it one of the greatest literary works of all time. This project was headed by James I himself, who supervised the work of forty-seven scholars. Although many other translations into English have been made, some of which are widely considered more accurate, many aesthetically prefer the King James Bible, whose meter is made to mimic the original Hebrew verse.

Besides Shakespeare, whose figure towers over the early 1600s, the major poets of the early 17th century included [[John Donne]] and the other [[Metaphysical poet]]s. Influenced by continental [[Baroque]], and taking as his subject matter both Christian mysticism and eroticism, metaphysical poetry uses unconventional or "unpoetic" figures, such as a compass or a mosquito, to reach surprise effects. For example, in "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", one of Donne's [[Songs and Sonnets]], the points of a compass represent two lovers, the woman who is home, waiting, being the centre, the farther point being her lover sailing away from her. But the larger the distance, the more the hands of the compass lean to each other: separation makes love grow fonder. The [[paradox]] or the [[oxymoron]] is a constant in this poetry whose fears and anxieties also speak of a world of spiritual certainties shaken by the modern discoveries of geography and science, one that is no longer the centre of the universe. Apart from the metaphysical poetry of Donne, the 17th century is also celebrated for its Baroque poetry. Baroque poetry served the same ends as the art of the period; the Baroque style is lofty, sweeping, epic, and religious. Many of these poets have an overtly Catholic sensibility (namely Richard Crashaw) and wrote poetry for the Catholic counter-Reformation in order to establish a feeling of supremacy and mysticism that would ideally persuade newly emerging Protestant groups back toward Catholicism.

===Caroline and Cromwellian literature===
The turbulent years of the mid-17th century, during the reign of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] and the subsequent [[Commonwealth of England|Commonwealth]] and [[The Protectorate|Protectorate]], saw a flourishing of political literature in English. [[Pamphlets]] written by sympathisers of every faction in the [[English civil war]] ran from vicious personal attacks and polemics, through many forms of [[propaganda]], to high-minded schemes to reform the nation. Of the latter type, ''[[Leviathan]]'' by [[Thomas Hobbes]] would prove to be one of the most important works of British [[political philosophy]]. Hobbes's writings are some of the few political works from the era which are still regularly published while [[John Bramhall]], who was Hobbes's chief critic, is largely forgotten. The period also saw a flourishing of [[news book]]s, the precursors to the [[History of British newspapers|British newspaper]], with journalists such as [[Henry Muddiman]], [[Marchamont Needham]], and [[John Birkenhead]] representing the views and activities of the contending parties. The frequent arrests of authors and the suppression of their works, with the consequence of foreign or underground printing, led to the proposal of a licensing system. The ''[[Areopagitica]]'', a political pamphlet by [[John Milton]], was written in opposition to licensing and is regarded as one of the most eloquent defenses of [[press freedom]] ever written.

Specifically in the reign of Charles I (1625 – 42), [[English Renaissance theatre]] experienced its concluding efflorescence. The last works of [[Ben Jonson]] appeared on stage and in print, along with the final generation of major voices in the drama of the age: [[John Ford (dramatist)|John Ford]], [[Philip Massinger]], [[James Shirley]], and [[Richard Brome]]. With the closure of the theatres at the start of the [[English Civil War]] in 1642, drama was suppressed for a generation, to resume only in the altered society of the [[English Restoration]] in 1660.

Other forms of literature written during this period are usually ascribed political [[subtext]]s, or their authors are grouped along political lines. The [[cavalier poets]], active mainly before the civil war, owed much to the earlier school of [[metaphysical poets]]. The forced retirement of royalist officials after the execution of Charles I was a good thing in the case of [[Izaak Walton]], as it gave him time to work on his book ''[[The Compleat Angler]]''. Published in 1653, the book, ostensibly a guide to fishing, is much more: a meditation on life, leisure, and contentment. The two most important poets of [[Oliver Cromwell]]'s England were [[Andrew Marvell]] and John Milton, with both producing works praising the new government; such as Marvell's ''An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland''. Despite their republican beliefs they escaped punishment upon the Restoration of [[Charles II of England|Charles II]], after which Milton wrote some of his greatest poetical works (with any possible political message hidden under [[allegory]]). [[Thomas Browne]] was another writer of the period; a learned man with an extensive library, he wrote prolifically on science, religion, medicine and the esoteric.


===Restoration literature===
[[Image:Milton paradise.jpg|thumb|Milton's [[Paradise Lost]] tells a story of pride and rebellion.]]
{{main|Restoration Literature}}

Restoration literature includes both ''Paradise Lost'' and the Earl of Rochester's ''Sodom,'' the high spirited sexual comedy of ''[[The Country Wife]]'' and the moral wisdom of ''[[Pilgrim's Progress]].'' It saw Locke's ''[[Treatises on Government]],'' the founding of the [[Royal Society]], the experiments of [[Robert Boyle]] and the holy meditations of Boyle, the [[Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage|hysterical attacks on theatres]] from [[Jeremy Collier]], the pioneering of literary criticism from Dryden, and the first newspapers. The official break in literary culture caused by censorship and radically moralist standards under Cromwell's Puritan regime created a gap in literary tradition, allowing a seemingly fresh start for all forms of literature after the Restoration. During the Interregnum, the royalist forces attached to the court of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] went into exile with the twenty-year old [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]. The nobility who travelled with Charles II were therefore lodged for over a decade in the midst of the continent's literary scene. Charles spent his time attending plays in France, and he developed a taste for [[Spanish language|Spanish]] plays. Those nobles living in Holland began to learn about mercantile exchange as well as the tolerant, [[Rationalism|rationalist]] prose debates that circulated in that officially tolerant nation.

The largest and most important poetic form of the era was satire. In general, publication of satire was done anonymously. There were great dangers in being associated with a satire. On the one hand, defamation law was a wide net, and it was difficult for a satirist to avoid prosecution if he were proven to have written a piece that seemed to criticize a noble. On the other hand, wealthy individuals would respond to satire as often as not by having the suspected poet physically attacked by ruffians. John Dryden was set upon for being merely ''suspected'' of having written the ''Satire on Mankind.'' A consequence of this anonymity is that a great many poems, some of them of merit, are unpublished and largely unknown.

Prose in the Restoration period is dominated by [[Christianity|Christian]] religious writing, but the Restoration also saw the beginnings of two genres that would dominate later periods: [[fiction]] and journalism. Religious writing often strayed into political and economic writing, just as political and economic writing implied or directly addressed religion. The Restoration was also the time when [[John Locke]] wrote many of his philosophical works. Locke's empiricism was an attempt at understanding the basis of human understanding itself and thereby devising a proper manner for making sound decisions. These same scientific methods led Locke to his three ''Treatises on Government,'' which later inspired the thinkers in the [[American Revolution]]. As with his work on understanding, Locke moves from the most basic units of society toward the more elaborate, and, like Thomas Hobbes, he emphasizes the plastic nature of the social contract. For an age that had seen absolute monarchy overthrown, democracy attempted, democracy corrupted, and limited monarchy restored, only a flexible basis for government could be satisfying. The Restoration moderated most of the more strident sectarian writing, but radicalism persisted after the Restoration. Puritan authors such as [[John Milton]] were forced to retire from public life or adapt, and those [[Diggers|Digger]], [[Fifth Monarchy Men|Fifth Monarchist]], [[Levellers|Leveller]], [[Quakers|Quaker]], and [[Anabaptists|Anabaptist]] authors who had preached against monarchy and who had participated directly in the [[regicide]] of [[Charles I of England|Charles I]] were partially suppressed. Consequently, violent writings were forced underground, and many of those who had served in the Interregnum attenuated their positions in the Restoration. [[John Bunyan]] stands out beyond other religious authors of the period. Bunyan's ''[[The Pilgrim's Progress]]'' is an [[allegory]] of personal salvation and a guide to the Christian life. Instead of any focus on [[eschatology]] or divine retribution, Bunyan instead writes about how the individual [[saint]] can prevail against the temptations of mind and body that threaten damnation. The book is written in a straightforward narrative and shows influence from both [[drama]] and [[biography]], and yet it also shows an awareness of the grand allegorical tradition found in [[Edmund Spenser]]. During the Restoration period, the most common manner of getting news would have been a [[broadsheet]] publication. A single, large sheet of paper might have a written, usually partisan, account of an event. However, the period saw the beginnings of the first professional and periodical (meaning that the publication was regular) journalism in England. Journalism develops late, generally around the time of [[William III of England|William of Orange]]'s claiming the throne in 1689. Coincidentally or by design, England began to have newspapers just when William came to court from [[Amsterdam]], where there were already newspapers being published.
[[Image:Behn Oroonoko title page.1688.jpg|left|thumb|150px|First edition of ''Oroonoko'', 1688.]]
It is impossible to satisfactorily date the beginning of the novel in English. However, long fiction and fictional biographies began to distinguish themselves from other forms in England during the Restoration period. An existing tradition of ''Romance'' fiction in [[France]] and [[Spain]] was popular in England. The "Romance" was considered a feminine form, and women were taxed with reading "novels" as a vice. One of the most significant figures in the rise of the novel in the Restoration period is [[Aphra Behn]]. She was not only the first professional female novelist, but she may be among the first professional novelists of either sex in England. Behn's most famous novel was ''[[Oroonoko]]'' in 1688. This was a biography of an entirely fictional African king who had been enslaved in [[Suriname]]. Behn's novels show the influence of [[tragedy]] and her experiences as a dramatist.

As soon as the previous Puritan regime's ban on public stage representations was lifted, the drama recreated itself quickly and abundantly. The most famous plays of the early Restoration period are the unsentimental or "hard" comedies of [[John Dryden]], [[William Wycherley]], and [[George Etherege]], which reflect the atmosphere at Court, and celebrate an aristocratic [[machismo|macho]] lifestyle of unremitting sexual intrigue and conquest. After a sharp drop in both quality and quantity in the 1680s, the mid-90s saw a brief second flowering of the drama, especially comedy. Comedies like [[William Congreve (playwright)|William Congreve]]'s ''[[Love For Love]]'' (1695) and ''[[The Way of the World]]'' (1700), and [[John Vanbrugh]]'s ''[[The Relapse]]'' (1696) and ''[[The Provoked Wife]]'' (1697) were "softer" and more middle-class in ethos, very different from the aristocratic [[extravaganza]] twenty years earlier, and aimed at a wider audience. The playwrights of the 1690s set out to appeal to more socially mixed audiences with a strong [[middle-class]] element, and to female spectators, for instance by moving the war between the sexes from the arena of intrigue into that of marriage. The focus in comedy is less on young lovers outwitting the older generation, more on marital relations after the wedding bells.

Diarists [[John Evelyn]] and [[Samuel Pepys]] depicted everyday London life and the cultural scene of the times.

===Augustan literature===
{{main|Augustan literature}}

The term [[Augustan literature]] derives from authors of the 1720s and 1730's themselves, who responded to a term that [[George I of England]] preferred for himself. While George I meant the title to reflect his might, they instead saw in it a reflection of [[Ancient Rome]]'s transition from rough and ready literature to highly political and highly polished literature. Because of the aptness of the metaphor, the period from 1689 - 1750 was called "the Augustan Age" by critics throughout the 18th century (including [[Voltaire]] and [[Oliver Goldsmith]]). The literature of the period is overtly political and thoroughly aware of critical dictates for literature. It is an age of exuberance and scandal, of enormous energy and inventiveness and outrage, that reflected an era when English, Scottish, and Irish people found themselves in the midst of an expanding economy, lowering barriers to education, and the stirrings of the [[Industrial Revolution]].

The most outstanding poet of the age is [[Alexander Pope]], but Pope's excellence is partially in his constant battle with other poets, and his serene, seemingly neo-Classical approach to poetry is in competition with highly idiosyncratic verse and strong competition from such poets as [[Ambrose Philips]]. It was during this time that [[James Thomson (Seasons)|James Thomson]] produced his melancholy ''The Seasons'' and [[Edward Young]] wrote ''Night Thoughts.'' It is also the era that saw a serious competition over the proper model for the [[pastoral poetry|pastoral]]. In criticism, poets struggled with a doctrine of ''decorum,'' of matching proper words with proper sense and of achieving a diction that matched the gravity of a subject. At the same time, the [[mock-heroic]] was at its zenith. Pope's ''[[Rape of the Lock]]'' and ''[[The Dunciad]]'' are still the greatest mock-heroic poems ever written.

In prose, the earlier part of the period was overshadowed by the development of the English essay. [[Joseph Addison]] and [[Richard Steele]]'s ''[[The Spectator (1711)|The Spectator]]'' established the form of the British periodical essay, inventing the pose of the detached observer of human life who can meditate upon the world without advocating any specific changes in it. However, this was also the time when the English [[novel]], first emerging in the Restoration, developed into a major artform. [[Daniel Defoe]] turned from [[journalism]] and writing criminal lives for the press to writing fictional criminal lives with ''[[Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress|Roxana]]'' and ''[[Moll Flanders]].'' He also wrote a fictional treatment of the travels of [[Alexander Selkirk]] called ''[[Robinson Crusoe]]'' (1719). The novel would benefit indirectly from a tragedy of the stage, and in mid-century many more authors would begin to write novels.

If Addison and Steele overawed one type of prose, then [[Jonathan Swift]] did another. Swift's prose style is unmannered and direct, with a clarity that few contemporaries matched. He was a profound skeptic about the modern world, but he was similarly profoundly distrustful of nostalgia. He saw in history a record of lies and vanity, and he saw in the present a madness of vanity and lies. Core [[Christian]] values were essential, but these values had to be muscular and assertive and developed by constant rejection of the games of confidence men and their gullies. Swift's ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]'' announced his skeptical analysis of the claims of the modern world, and his later prose works, such as his war with Patridge the astrologer, and most of all his derision of pride in ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' left only the individual in constant fear and humility safe. After his "exile" to [[Ireland]], Swift reluctantly began defending the Irish people from the predations of [[colonialism]]. His ''[[A Modest Proposal]]'' and the Drapier Letters provoked riots and arrests, but Swift, who had no love of Irish [[Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholics]], was outraged by the abuses and barbarity he saw around him.

Drama in the early part of the period featured the last plays of [[John Vanbrugh]] and [[William Congreve (playwright)|William Congreve]], both of whom carried on the Restoration comedy with some alterations. However, the majority of stagings were of lower [[farce]]s and much more serious and domestic tragedies. [[George Lillo]] and [[Richard Steele]] both produced highly moral forms of tragedy, where the characters and the concerns of the characters were wholly middle class or working class. This reflected a marked change in the audience for plays, as royal patronage was no longer the important part of theatrical success. Additionally, [[Colley Cibber]] and [[John Rich (producer)|John Rich]] began to battle each other for greater and greater spectacles to present on stage. The figure of [[Harlequin]] was introduced, and [[pantomime]] theatre began to be staged. This "low" comedy was quite popular, and the plays became tertiary to the staging. [[Opera]] also began to be popular in London, and there was significant literary resistance to this Italian incursion. This trend was broken only by a few attempts at a new type of comedy. Pope and [[John Arbuthnot]] and [[John Gay]] attempted a play entitled ''Three Hours After Marriage'' that failed. In 1728, however, John Gay returned to the playhouse with ''[[The Beggar's Opera]].'' Gay's opera was in English and retold the story of [[Jack Sheppard]] and [[Jonathan Wild]]. However, it seemed to be an allegory for [[Robert Walpole]] and the directors of the South Sea Company, and so Gay's follow up opera was banned without performance. The [[licensing act]] of 1737 brought an abrupt halt to much of the period's drama, as the theatres were once again brought under state control.

An effect of the Licensing Act was to cause more than one aspiring playwright to switch over to writing novels. [[Henry Fielding]] began to write prose satire and novels after his plays could not pass the censors. [[Henry Brooke]] also turned to novels. In the interim, [[Samuel Richardson]] had produced a novel intended to counter the deleterious effects of novels in ''[[Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded]]'' (1749). Henry Fielding attacked the absurdity of this novel with two of his own works, ''[[Joseph Andrews]]'' and ''[[Shamela]]'', and then countered Richardson's ''[[Clarissa]]'' with ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling|Tom Jones]]''. Brooke wrote ''[[The Man of Feeling]]'' and indirectly began the [[sentimental novel]]. [[Laurence Sterne]] attempted a Swiftian novel with a unique perspective on the impossibility of biography (the model for most novels up to that point) and understanding with ''[[Tristram Shandy]]'', even as his detractor [[Tobias Smollett]] elevated the [[picaresque novel]] with his works. Each of these novels represents a formal and thematic divergence from the others. Each novelist was in dialogue and competition with the others, and, in a sense, the novel established itself as a diverse and open-formed genre in this explosion of creativity. The most lasting effects of the experimentation would be the psychological realism of Richardson, the bemused narrative voice of Fielding, and the sentimentality of Brooke.