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Literature - The Commonwealth

The document summarizes major events and developments in England between 1649-1713, including the English Civil War, establishment of the Commonwealth and Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, and Glorious Revolution. Key events were the trial and execution of Charles I, exile of Charles II, replacement of the monarchy with Commonwealth and Protectorate rule, and eventual restoration of the monarchy with constitutional limits on royal power. Literature and theater also evolved during this period from works like Paradise Lost to satires, comedies of manners, and sentimental dramas.
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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
107 views24 pages

Literature - The Commonwealth

The document summarizes major events and developments in England between 1649-1713, including the English Civil War, establishment of the Commonwealth and Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell, Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II, and Glorious Revolution. Key events were the trial and execution of Charles I, exile of Charles II, replacement of the monarchy with Commonwealth and Protectorate rule, and eventual restoration of the monarchy with constitutional limits on royal power. Literature and theater also evolved during this period from works like Paradise Lost to satires, comedies of manners, and sentimental dramas.
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1649-1713

• With the death of Elizabeth in


1603, King James Charles Struart
VI (James I of England) united
England and Scotland
• James is the son of King Henry’s
Oldest sister, Margaret Tudor
• A protestant
• Ruled England and Scotland at
the same time from 1625-1649
• James I intention to rule as an
absolute monarch set the civil war
between the royalist/the cavaliers
and the Puritans/The Round
Heads
• Gun powder plot
• Son of King James I/James IV
• Born weak, not clever
• Married to Henrietta Maria
• a Roman catholic, mistrusted by
the Puritans
• Ruled England, Scotland and
Ireland from 1566-1625
• Dismissed the parliament
related to war funding by rising
taxes
• Executed on a strafford outside
the Banqueting Hall in
Whitehall
• a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between
Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers")
• The war ended with the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of
Worcester on 3 September 1651.
• The overall outcome of the war was threefold:
1. the trial and execution of Charles I (1649)
2. the exile of his son, Charles II (1651)
3. the replacement of English monarchy with, at first, the Commonwealth of
England (1649–1653) and then the Protectorate under the personal rule
of Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658) and subsequently his son Richard
(1658–1659).
• The period from 1649 to 1660 when England and Wales, later along
with Ireland and Scotland,[1] were ruled as a republic following the
end of the Second English Civil War and the trial and execution of
Charles I.
• The period between the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and the
Restoration of the Monarchy with the son of King Charles I from
France
• The republic's existence was declared through "An Act declaring
England to be a Commonwealth adopted by the Rump Parliament on
19 May 1649
• In 1653, after the forcible dissolution of the Rump Parliament, the
Army Council adopted the Instrument of Government which made
Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of a united "Commonwealth of
England, Scotland and Ireland", inaugurating the period now usually
known as the Protectorate
• A puritan
• Leader of the
Commonwealth
• Succeeded as the Lord
Protector from 1649-1658
• Under his rule, theaters
were closed
• Succeeded by his son,
Richard Cromwell who was
not successful
• The throne was given back to King Charles’s son, Charles II from
France
• Upon the restoration, the power was held by the Parliament;
two parties (The Wigs and the Tories)
• King James II became the king after the death of Charles II in
1685
• King James reign ended with the Glorious or Bloodless
Revolution in 1688
• The new King and Queen were Mary, sister of Charles and
James, and William of Orange from Holland.
• Avoid another revolution
• The new middle classes had more and more influence
• Time of commercial growth and scientific advances
• The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural
Knowledge (The Royal Society) was established in 1662-3
• Bank of England was established in 1694
• The War of the Spanish Succession
• The United Kingdom was finally united when the Union of the
Parliaments of England and Scotland took place in 1707
• One of the main texts of the Commonwealth is by Andrew
Marvell, An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland,
known as the greatest political poem in English.
• The poem is about strength and strong government, the main
concern of the nation during and after Cromwell
• Marvell was the unofficial poet Laurette to Cromwell
• Marvell contrasted the world of politics and city life with the
quiet life in the country.
• During the time, poets contrasted the personal and public life .
• Richard Lovelace’s To Lucasta, Going to the Wars is about
leaving beloved one in order to go to a war.
• The major figure who links the Renaissance and the Restoration
• Lived from 1608-1674
• He saw all the greatest strugles of the century
• Both classical and christian influence him
• He was the Latin Secretary to Oliver Cromwell
• His major work, Paradise Lost was publised in twelve books
• Followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes
• The best known is The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, an
allegory.
• The book is probably the most widely read of all books in
English literature
• It is considered to be close to the Bible and a religious text itself
• A master of satire in poetry
• His Heroic Stanza praised Cromwell on his death in 1658
• To His Sacred Majesty, welcomed the return of the king in 1660
• Some of Dryden’s satirical poems are Absalom and Achitopel
and The Medal
• He wrote more than twenty plays from tragedy to comedy.
• He was successful with his tragi-comedy, Marriage-a-la-Mode
• His successful tragedy is All for Love
• After the Restoration, drama and the theatre were different than before
• Dryden wrote than twenty plays, from comedy to tragedy and was successful
in the new genre tragi-comedy, for example: Marriage-a-la-Mode
(Fashionable Marriage) in 1672 and his most successful trangedy is All for
Love in1678.
• There were now two public licensed theatres: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
and the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre which later moved to Covent Garden in
1732.
• The audience were first-upper-class or upper-middle-class
• The plays reflect the manner and morals of the men and women who had just
returned with the King from France -> the Comedy of Manners (The
Restoration Comedy)
• Drayden rote comedies, but the most famous ones were written by George
Etheredge, Wiliam Wycherley and William Congreve.
• The main subject was love where older men or women looking for younger
lovers, upper-class manners contrasting with the middle-class values, and
country life contrasting with city life
• Plays became more and more obvious in their comic treatment of sexual
themes.
• The Comical Revenge (1664)
• She Wou’d if she cou’d, The Alan of Mode are some of the most
successful which satirize the false fashions and selfish behavior
of the time.
• The Country Wife was accused of immorality and helped a start
in moral reaction against the kind of manners on the stage, and
as the century came to an end, more and more objection was
made
• More and more objections to the kind of morals seen in
restoration comedy.
• The protest led to the publication of a pamphlet by Jeremy
Collier called ‘A Short View of the Profaneness and Immorality
of the English Stage’ which attack the Country Wife.
• The dialogues were not seen proper as wives can be stolen
from their husbands, or ho people laugh at religious men.
• Large section of the public agreed with Collier
• Many other playwrights against Collier such as William
Congreve by his final play The Way of the World.
• Susanah Centlivre
• Aphra Behn
• Mary de la Riviere Manley.
• Main themes are the result of arraged and unsuitable
marriages, social problems, and false values in the society.
• The new middle class audiences could not accept much of
Shakespeare’s violence and the tragic ending.
• The taste for quieter, problem-fre shakesperian drama
continued for about two centuries and it is an indication of the
great changes in taste and in the role of the theater between
the beginning and the end of the 17th century.
• The main tragic form was heroic tragedy as shown in Venice
Preserv’d
• There was a spirit of realism on the stage yet the pressure wa
grwoing to limit what the theatre could say.
• John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, was one of the most popular
work to satirize politicians and the false values of the society
made the introduction of the Stage Licensing Act in1737
• Henry Fielding’s The Hstorical Register for the year 1936
annoyed the prime minister, Richard Walpole that he decided
to censor all plays.
• Henry Fielding was a novelist after that

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