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Lyric Poetry of the Earlier Seventeenth Century

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Title: Lyric Poetry of the Earlier Seventeenth Century


1
Lyric Poetry of the Earlier Seventeenth Century
  • The Metaphysical and Cavalier Schools

2
Background
Elizabeth I, 1588-1603
  • Elizabethan lyric
  • Formal
  • Stylized
  • Italianate
  • Musical

Click image for web page
3
Some Elizabethan Poets
  • Edmund Spenser (1552-99)
  • Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86)
  • Samuel Daniel (1563-1619)
  • Michael Drayton (1563-1631)
  • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
  • Christopher Marlowe (1564-93)

4
Reactions to Elizabethan Conventions
  • The Metaphysical School

Melancholia, by Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)
Click image for web page
5
Historical Changes
  • Philosophy
  • Bacon, Hobbes
  • Physical science
  • Galileo (and Copernicus)
  • Religion
  • Puritanism
  • Politics
  • James I (1603-1625)

6
Psychological Changes Il Penseroso
  • Introspection
  • Humors, moods
  • Satire, realism
  • Tragedy

7
Stylistic Features
  • Intimate speech (not formal elegance)
  • Popular, colloquial diction
  • Surprising imagery
  • Prosodic elements for emotion (not music)
  • Fusion of passion and logic

8
Some Metaphysical Poets
  • John Donne (1572-1631)
  • George Herbert (1593-1633)
  • Richard Crashaw (1612-1649)
  • Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)
  • Henry Vaughan (1621-1695)
  • Thomas Traherne (1637-1674)

9
What They Disliked, an Example
I once may see when years shall wreck my
wrong, When golden hairs shall change to silver
wire, And those bright rays that kindle all this
fire Shall fail in force, their working not so
strong Then Beauty, now the burthen of my
song, Whose glorious blaze the world doth so
admire, Must yield up all to tyrant Times
desire Then fade those flowers which deckd her
pride so long. When, if she grieve to gaze her in
her glass Which then presents her winter-withred
hew, Go you, my verse, go tell her what she
was, For what she was she best shall find in
you. Your fiery heat lets not her glory pass,
But, phoenix-like, shall make her live anew. --
Samuel Daniel (1563-1619), Sonnet 34
10
An Example of Metaphysical Style, From Donnes
The Sun Rising
Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost
thou thus Through windows and through curtains
call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons
run? Saucy pendantic wretch, go chide Late
schoolboys and sour prentices, Go tell
court-huntsmen that the king will ride,
Call country ants to harvest offices Love, all
alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours,
days, months, which are the rags of time.
11
Reactions to Elizabethan Conventions
  • The Cavalier School

Portrait of a Gentleman, by Cornelius Johnson
(1593-1661) Click image for web page.
12
Historical Changes
  • Charles I (1625-1649)
  • English Civil War (1642-1646)

13
Psychological Changes LAllegro
  • Distrust of unbridled emotion
  • Extroversion
  • Love of nature
  • Pastoral

14
Stylistic Features
  • Cultivated speech
  • Intellectual but not shocking imagery
  • Classical form
  • Understatement
  • Gracefulness
  • Of versification
  • Of tone

15
Some Cavalier Poets
  • Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
  • Thomas Carew (1595?-1640)
  • Sir John Suckling (1609-1642)
  • Richard Lovelace (1618-1653)
  • Andrew Marvell (1621-1678)

16
What They Disliked, an Example
He had a faire companion of his way, A goodly
Lady clad in scarlot red, Purfled with gold and
pearle of rich assay And like a Persian mitre on
her hed She wore, with crownes and owches
garnished, The which her lavish lovers to her
gave Her wanton palfrey all was overspred With
tinsell trappings, woven like a wave,
Whose bridle rung with golden bels and bosses
brave. -- Edmund Spenser (1552-1599) FQ 1.2.13
17
An Example of the Cavalier Style, From Carews
Mediocrity in Love Rejected
Give me more love or more disdain The torrid
or the frozen zone Bring equal ease unto my
pain, The temperate affords me none Either
extreme, of love or hate, Is sweeter than a calm
estate. Give me a storm if it be love, Like
Danae in that golden shower, I swim in pleasure
if it prove Disdain, that torrent will
devour My vulture-hopes and hes possessed Of
heaven, thats but from hell released. Then
crown my joys, or cure my pain Give me more
love or more disdain.
18
Summary
  • Both schools were reactions to Elizabethan
    conventions.
  • The metaphysicals disliked the artificiality of
    the Elizabethans, and their subordination of
    content to meter.
  • The cavaliers disliked the heavy-handed prosody
    of the Elizabethans, and their devotion to
    Italian epic.
  • The metaphysicals were more popular between
    1918-1972.
  • The Cavaliers have enjoyed a resurgence of
    interest

19
Sources
  • Cox, R.G. A Survey of Literature from Donne to
    Marvell. The New Pelican Guide to English
    Literature. New York Penguin, 1982. Pages
    51-73.
  • Walton, Geoffrey. The Cavalier Poets. The New
    Pelican Guide to English Literature. New York
    Penguin, 1982. Pages 205-218.

20
Sources, Continued
  • Holman, C. Hugh and Harmon, William. A Handbook
    to Literature, Sixth Edition. New York
    Macmillan, 1992.
  • Clements, A.L. John Donnes Poetry. New York
    Norton, 1966.
  • Drabble, Margaret. The Oxford Companion to
    English Literature, Fifth edition. Oxford Oxford
    UP, 1985.

21
Sources, Continued
  • Witherspoon, Alexander M. and Warnke, Frank J.
    Seventeenth-Century Prose and Poetry. New York
    Harcourt, Brace and World, 1963.
  • Rollins, Hyder E. and Baker, Herschel. The
    Renaissance in England. Lexington,
    Massachusetts D.C. Heath, 1954/

22
Sources, Continued
  • http//ise.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/literature/poetrysu
    bj.html
  • http//www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/metaintro.htm
  • http//www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/cavalier.htm
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