Puritan and restoration literature

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Data:	06.04.2007
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PURITAN AND RESTORATION LITERATURE
For a period after the renaissance, poetry lost its originality
and power and generally consisted of poor copies of Elizabethan
models. There were, however, some poets who broke with the
Elizabethan tradition. They are divided into two groups: the
Cavalier poets and the Metaphysical poets.
The Cavalier poets defended the monarchy against the Puritans
during the reign of Charles 1. They didn’t believe in an overly
studious approach to the writing of poetry. They saw the ideal
gentleman as being a lover, a soldier, a wit, a musician and a
poet, and their poetry reflects their rather light-hearted approach
to life. Their poem embodied the spirit of the upper classes before
the Puritan Commonwealth. They wrote poetry for occasions such
as births, marriages or parties and so they are remembered as the
first poets to celebrate the events of everyday life and as the
forerunners of an important tradition in English literature. Example
of Cavalier poets were Herrick, Carew, Lovelace and Suckling.
The Metaphysical poets, who included Herbert Crashaw and
Vaughan, followed in the tradition of John Donne. The features of
Metaphysical poetry are:
- the use of CONCEITS: a comparison between objects which at
first glance seem to have nothing in common.
- the argumentative quality of the love poems, in which the poet
tries to persuade his lover to share his point of view.
- the dramatic quality of the language, which often seems to be one
side of a dialogue between the poet and his lover, or God, or himself
- the wide range of subject from which the poet draws his imagery.
Metaphysical poets used, for example, the areas of the sciences,
travel, medicine ecc to create original imagery. This is in stark
contrast with much of Elizabethan poetry which used the stock
imagery of the period.
- the use of WIT: wit referred to the ability to relate dissimilar ideas
and implied intellectual genius. The Metaphysical poets displayed
this form of genius in the use of PARADOXES, CONCEITS and
PUNS.
The term Metaphysical which was used by the literary critic Johnson
may be misleading because the poetry didn’t deal with philosophical
speculation but with the themes of religion and love. Johnson, who
was not an admirer of this form of poetry, used the word metaphysical
to criticise what he considered to be the poets desire to be original at
any cost. He was not alone in his criticism and in fact the Metaphysical
poets were unpopular throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
John Donne was the father of metaphysical poetry. Although
he lived in the Elizabethan era, his poem were published
posthumously and belong both thematically and stylistically
to this period. In songs and sonnets he deals with the theme of
love in a way that strongly contrasts with the Elizabethan
tradition. Love is presented as an intensely intimate and
physical experience. The poems are addressed to a very real
lover. The rhythm of the poems is the rhythm of natural speech
and the language is dramatic. Striking and original images called
conceits associate dissimilar ideas, while paradoxes, epigrams and
puns are common features. The poet often tries to persuade his
lover to share his point of view through poetry which appeals both
to the intellect and the emotions. John Donne deals with religious
themes in the Holy sonnets. The poet addresses to God in a tone
that often borders on the irreverent, and uses the language of
physical suffering and love to describe his spiritual crises and
devotion.
John Milton combined features of Metaphysical and Cavalier
poetry. Although some of his works were published in the
restoration period, Milton belongs in spirit to the Puritan age of
Cromwell’s Commonwealth, which he supported fervently. His
masterpiece, Paradise Lost, is written in the style of the Aeneid or
the Iliad and contains classic conventions of the epic: elevated
subject matter, an invocation to God, a beginning in medias res,
and a detailed list of characters. Milton’s passion for Greek and
Latin made him very fond of long sentences and both his sentence
Structure and rich vocabulary are largely Latin-derived. His style
and diction greatly influenced later English poetry.
The scientific revolution, which took place after the Restoration,
also played an important part in creating a new and clear concise
prose style. Charles 2 was fascinated by science and carried out
his own experiments in anatomy. Empiricism, the idea that
scientific assertions had to be tested by experiment, was becoming
increasingly important. From 1697 weekly lectures were held in
London on astronomy, geometry ecc. These lectures attracted some
of the great thinkers of the time and prompted the foundation of
the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.
In this period Newton demonstrated the laws of gravitation and
Halley published the first star catalogue based on the telescope.
The new studies in experimental science needed clear, concise
language. English gradually abandoned the long and complex
sentence structures. The new prose style can be seen in the works
of Hobbes and Locke. Hobbes in his work Leviathan expressed
his support for absolute monarchy as the only form of
government that can protect society from the destructive greed
of the individual. Locke supported the opposite viewpoint in his
two treatises of government, which greatly influenced the leaders
of the American Revolution, and in which he suggested that a
parliament elected by the people is the best form of government.
Both Hobbes and Locke wrote with clarity and economy.