Section 3: 17th-Century Literature

3.1 Historical Context

The 17th century was the most turbulent in English history. It opened with the death of Elizabeth I (1603) and the accession of James I, the first Stuart king. The century saw the English Civil War (1642–51), the execution of Charles I (1649), the Interregnum and Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell (1649–60), the Restoration of Charles II (1660), the Glorious Revolution (1688), and the Bill of Rights (1689). These upheavals — religious, political, and social — profoundly shaped its literature.

Key Periods

3.2 The Metaphysical Poets

The term "metaphysical poetry" was coined by Samuel Johnson in his Lives of the Poets (1779–81) as a criticism — he complained that these poets yoked together heterogeneous ideas by violence. T. S. Eliot famously rehabilitated them in his essay "The Metaphysical Poets" (1921), arguing they achieved a "unified sensibility" — a fusion of thought and feeling that later poets lost.

Characteristics of Metaphysical Poetry

• The conceit — elaborate, extended metaphor comparing unlike things
• Colloquial, dramatic opening lines
• Intellectual argument woven through the poem
• Wit, paradox, and ingenuity
• Exploration of love, religion, death, and time
• Compressed, dense syntax

John Donne (1572–1631)

Donne is the greatest metaphysical poet, writing in two distinct phases: the early secular love poetry and the later religious poetry after his ordination as an Anglican priest (1615) and his appointment as Dean of St Paul's (1621).

George Herbert (1593–1633)

Herbert was a clergyman and devotional poet whose single collection The Temple (1633, published posthumously) contains his complete English poems. His poetry explores the relationship between the human soul and God with great intimacy, ingenuity, and formal variety. He invented pattern poetry (shaped verse) in English — "Easter Wings" and "The Altar" are shaped to resemble wings and an altar respectively.

• "The Collar" — rebellion against God followed by submission
• "Love (III)" — the soul welcomed by Love/God at a banquet
• "Easter Wings" — shaped poem; two stanzas shaped like wings
• "The Pulley" — God withholds rest so man will return to Him
• "Virtue" — "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright"

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

Marvell was a metaphysical poet and politician who wrote both lyric poetry and political verse. His major poems:

• "To His Coy Mistress" — carpe diem; time's winged chariot
• "The Garden" — solitude and contemplation; green thought in green shade
• "An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland" — political ode
• "The Mower" poems — pastoral; the mower as death figure
• "Bermudas" — Puritan vision of a paradise island

Other Metaphysical Poets

3.3 The Cavalier Poets

The Cavalier poets were courtiers who supported Charles I. Their poetry is lighter, more graceful, and less intellectually strenuous than the metaphysicals — celebrating love, loyalty, wine, and the pleasures of life with elegant wit.

3.4 The King James Bible (1611)

The Authorised Version (King James Bible), commissioned by James I and completed in 1611 by a committee of 47 scholars, is one of the most influential works in the history of the English language. Its prose style — dignified, rhythmic, and sonorous — shaped English literature, hymns, and oratory for centuries. It drew heavily on William Tyndale's earlier translation (1526–35) and the Bishop's Bible (1568).

3.5 John Milton — 17th-Century Context

Milton (1608–1674) spans the metaphysical and Restoration periods. His major works were covered in Section 2, but his 17th-century context deserves emphasis here. During the Interregnum, Milton served as Latin Secretary to the Council of State under Cromwell and wrote major prose works defending the Commonwealth. He went completely blind by 1652 and dictated his later works.

Milton's Major Prose Works

• Areopagitica (1644) — against censorship
• The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649) — justifies execution of Charles I
• Eikonoklastes (1649) — refutes the royalist Eikon Basilike
• The Ready and Easy Way (1660) — last plea against the Restoration

3.6 Restoration Literature (1660–1700)

The Restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought a dramatic shift in literary culture. The theatres, closed under Puritan rule since 1642, reopened. French influence (Charles had spent his exile in France) shaped the new literature toward wit, elegance, scepticism, and social comedy.

John Dryden (1631–1700)

Dryden dominated Restoration literature as poet, playwright, critic, and translator. He was appointed the first Poet Laureate in 1668 (officially) and Historiographer Royal. He is the master of the heroic couplet — two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter — which became the dominant verse form of the age.

Restoration Comedy of Manners

The comedy of manners satirised the fashionable upper classes with witty dialogue, sexual intrigue, and cynical worldliness. Key playwrights:

• William Congreve — The Way of the World (1700); The Double Dealer; finest prose comedy
• William Wycherley — The Country Wife (1675); The Plain Dealer
• George Etherege — The Man of Mode (1676); Dorimant as the rake hero
• Aphra Behn — The Rover (1677); first professional woman writer in English

Aphra Behn (1640–1689)

Behn was a spy, playwright, and novelist — the first woman in England to earn her living by writing. Her novel Oroonoko (1688) is one of the earliest works of prose fiction in English and one of the first to present an African prince sympathetically. Virginia Woolf wrote that "all women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn."

3.7 Prose Fiction and John Bunyan

John Bunyan (1628–1688)

Bunyan was a Nonconformist preacher who wrote The Pilgrim's Progress (Part I, 1678; Part II, 1684) while imprisoned for unlicensed preaching. It is an allegorical narrative of Christian's journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City, encountering characters such as Faithful, Hopeful, Giant Despair, and Vanity Fair. It is the most widely read book in English after the Bible and one of the earliest English novels.

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703)

Pepys's Diary (1660–69), written in shorthand and not deciphered until 1825, is a vivid eyewitness account of Restoration London, including the Great Plague (1665) and the Great Fire of London (1666). It is the most famous diary in the English language.

John Evelyn (1620–1706)

Evelyn's Diary (covering 1641–1706) is a companion document to Pepys, covering a broader historical sweep including the Civil War and Restoration with a more formal, less personal tone.

3.8 Key Themes and CUET Focus Points