【正文】 atives of lower classDramaChristopher MarloweReformed drama that genre in English and perfected the language and verse of dramatic works. It was Marlowe who made blank verse the principal vehicle of expression in drama.William ShakespeareThe works of William Shakespeare are a great landmark in the history of world literature for he was one of the first founders of realism, a master hand at realistic portrayal of human characters and relations.WorksFirst period: Romeo and JulietSecond Period: 1. Hamlet, Prince of Demark2. Othello, the Moor of Venice3. King Lear4. The Tragedy of MacbethThe Seventeenth CenturyPuritan AgePuritan attitudeThey believed in simplicity of life, breaking up of old ideas, an age of confusion.Puritan actionThey disapproved of the sonnets and love poetry written in the previous period.In 1642 the theatres were closeThe bible bee one book of the peopleLiterary CharacteristicsAbsence of fixed standard of literary criticism, exaggeration of “metaphysical” poets.Poetry took new and startling forms in Donne and Herbert, and prose became as somber as Burrton’s Anatomy of Melancholy.The spiritual gloom sooner or later fastens upon all the writers of this age. This so called gloomy age produced some minor poems of exquisites workmanship, and one of great master of verse whose work would glorify any age or peopleJohn Milton, in whom the indomitable Puritan spirit finds its noblest expression.Restoration AgeLiterary CharacteristicsRenounced old ideas and demanded that English poetry and dream should follow the style which they had bee accustomed in the gaiety of Paris. On the whole they were immoral and cynical.French influenceRimed couplets instead of blank verse, the unities, a more regular construction, and the presentation of tryes rather than individualThe edies are coarse in language and their view of the relation between man and won is immoral and dishonest.John DrydenAs a critic, poet and playwright was the most distinguished literary figure of the restoration age. The most popular genre was that of edy whose chief aim as to entertain the licentious aristocrats.John Donne1 PoetryFormPart of his poetry is in such classical forms as satires, elegies, and epistlesthough it style has anything but classical smoothnessand part is written in lyrical forms of extraordinary variety.Characteristics1. Most of it purports to deal with life, descriptive or experimentally, and the first thing to strike the reader is Donne’s extraordinary and penetrating realism. 2. The next is the cynicism which marks certain of the lighter poems and which represents a conscious reaction from the extreme idealization of woman encouraged by the Patrarchan tradition.LovepoemIn his serious lovepoems, however, Donne, while not relaxing his grasp on the realities the love experience, suffuses it with an emotional intensity and a spiritualized ardor unique in English poetry.2. SonnetContrast between conventional and Donne’s sonnetConventional sonnetDonne’s sonnetThe unvarying succession in formGives nearly every theme a verse and stanza form peculiar to itselfDecorating his theme by conventional parisonIlluminates or emphasizes his thought by fantastic metaphors and extravagant hyperbole.StyleIn moments of inspiration his style bees wonderfully poignant and direct, heartsearching in its simple human accents, with an originality and force for which we look in vain among the clear and fluent melodies of Elizabethan lyrists.Conceit1. Sometimes the “conceits”, as these extravagant figures are called, are so odd that we lose sight of the thing to be illustrated, in the startling nature of the illustration. 2. The fashion of conceiting writing, somewhat like euphuism in prose, appeared in Italy and Spain also. Its imaginative exuberance has its parallels in baroque architecture and painting.John MiltonDays in HortonL’ AllegroDescribing happinessIl PenserosoDescribing meditationLycidasPraising a dear friend who had been drownedComusPresenting a masque or playPamphletsAreopagitica, Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed PrintingA bold attack on the censorship of the pressEikinoklastesA pamphlets in which the author justified the execution of Charles IDefense for the English PeopleA defense of the Commonwealth and RevolutionParadise Lost1. It represents the author’s views in an allegorical religious form, 2. And the reader will easily discern its basic ideathe exposure of reactionary forces of this time and passionate appeal for freedom.3. It is based on the biblical legend of the imaginary progenitors of the human raceAdam and Eve, and involves God and his eternal adversary, Satan in plot.John BunyanMilton and BunyanMiltonBunyanEducationWell educatedPoorly educatedInheritingSon of Renaissancean excess of that spiritual independence which had cause the Puritan struggle for libertyPuritanThe only epic since BeowulfThe only great allegoryBooks helpful for Bunyan significantly 1. The books from his wife The Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven and The Practice of Piety gave fire to his imagination, which he saw new visions and dream terrible new dreams of lost souls. 2. Without fully digestion of Bible and Scripture, he was tossed about alike a feather by all the winds of doctrine.The Pilgrim’s ProgressBunyan’s most important work is The Pilgrim’s Progress, written in old fashioned, medieval form of allegory and dream.The Eighteenth century1. EnlightenmentNatureAn expression of struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeoisie against feudalismAgainstClass inequality, stagnation, prejudice and other survival of feudalismRepudiate the false religious doctrines about the viciousness of human natureAcceptPlace all branches of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual deeds and requi