English Literature in the Seventeenth Century
(literature of the Revolution and Restoration Period)
Contents
1.Background and the English Revolution
The Stuart: 斯图亚特王朝
James I (1603-1625)
Charles I (1625-1649)
Charles II (1660-1685)
James II (1685-1688)
King William III ( 1689-1702)
Queen Mary II (1689-1694 )
Queen Ann (1702~1714)
A. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the burgher市民class became powerful, but it was not strong enough to constitute a threat to the feudal monarch.
B. the newly risen class became increasingly influential in the economic and political life of the country and it soon came into conflict with the power of the monarch.
C. when Charles I came to the throne (1625), conflicts arose between the monarch and Parliament( represented the interests of the burgher class).
The Burghers wanted free trade but the king controlled trade and commerce and imposed heavy taxes on the merchants. The king ruled without calling parliament and invented all kinds of ways to raise money. this is one of the causes of the English bourgeois revolution.
D. Another cause was the persecution of the Puritans. the English bourgeois revolution was carried out under the cloak of religion.
. The puritans were Christians who wanted to make reforms in the Anglican Church---against Charles I.
They demanded a simple religious belief, a simple manner of worship, and a simple manner of church organization. They interpreted the Bible in a new way, advocating that the common people and the king were equal in the presence of God. They argued that the Bible encouraged trade and individual freedom.
So Puritanism represented the interests of the bourgeoisie. Charles Ⅰtook strong measures against the Puritans and many of them had to run to America.
In 1640 Charles I summoned Parliament, which had been closed for 11 years, to collect money to raise an army to suppress the Scots.
The next year the bourgeoisie and a number of aristocrats drew up the “Grand Remonstrance” by which they bitterly accused the king of tyrannical rule and demanded the rights of free trade and commerce.
The king rejected the Remonstrance. Almost all people (merchants, craftsmen, apprentices, peasants etc) came to support Parliament.
E. Civil war broke out in 1642 between the king and the Parliament. the parliamentary army led by Oliver Cromwell defeated the royal army. Charles I was beheaded in 1649 and England became a commonwealth.
In 1653 Cromwell became the Lord protector---more or less of a military dictator. He also raised an army to plunder Ireland.
After Cromwell died, the bourgeoisie called a new Parliament in 1660 and invited the son ( Charles II) of Charles I to be king of England.
1685 James II succeeded his brother as Ki ng of England. But the expansion of the king’s power and the fear that he would turn the country towards Catholicism made the bourgeoisie stage a coup d’ etat(政变) and drove James II out of England and put on the throne William of Orange, who had married J ames II’s eldest daughter Mary.
In 1688 William signed “The Bill of Rights” presented to him by Parliament, which restricted the power of the English king.
Part II
1> Puritanism:
was the religious doctrine of the revolutionary bourgeoisie during this period.
It preached /thrift, so/briety(严肃）, hard work, but with very little extravagant enjoyment of the fruits of labor. Worldly pleasures were condemned as harmful.
This was precisely the outlook needed by the bourgeoisie for the accumulation of capital. Then Puritanism became a great national movement. It included different groups of people, with a passion for liberty and righteousness. Puritans fought for liberty and justice, overthrew /despotism（专制）and made men’s life and property safe from the /ty(i)ranny of rulers.
2> literary Characteristics of the Period
(1) Elizabethan literature had a marked unity and the feeling of /patriotism and devotion to the Queen, but in the Revolution Period，all this was changed, the king became the open enemy of the people, and the country was divided by the struggle for political and religious liberty. So literature was as divided in spirit as were the struggling parties.
2) Elizabethan literature was generally inspiring. It throbbed (fill) with youth and hope and vi/tality．Literature in the Puritan Age expressed age and sadness. Even its brightest hours were followed by gloom and pessimism.
3) Elizabethan literature was intensely romantic．The romantic spirit sprang from the heart of youth．People believed all things, even the impossible．But in literature of the Puritan period, we cannot find any romantic /ardor.热情
The main literary form of the period was poetry．Among the poets, Milton was the greatest. Besides him, there were two other groups of poets, the Metaphysical Poets and the Cava/lier（骑士）Poets.
Metaphysical poetry
A. It refers to The poetry of John Donne and other seventeenth-century poets.
B. their poetry is a blend of emotion and intellectual ingenuity感情和智力创造的结合, characterized by conceit or “wit” .
C. The language is colloquial, but very powerful; the diction is simple and echoes the words and /ca(ei)dences 节奏of common speech.
D. The imagery is drawn from the actual life. The form is frequently that of an argument with the poet’s beloved, with God, or with himself.
E. The main themes of the metaphysical poets are love, death, and religion
F. Their poems are full of wit and humor.
G. John Donne and Andrew Marvell are the representative metaphysical poets. See Donne’s Song. P 134.
Cavalier Poets
Cavalier poets were often courtiers 奉承者who stood on the side of the king, and called themselves “sons” of Ben Johnson. They were lyrical poets and wrote light poetry, polished and elegant, /amorous爱情的and gay, but often superficial. They dealt with the theme of love and “ carpe diem”及时行乐. They mostly dealt in short songs on the flitting轻快的joys of the day, but underneath their light-heartedness lays some foreboding预感of impending doom. This spirit of pessimism and cynicism 愤世嫉俗的个性is typical of the aristocratic class in decline.
John Donne
The founder of the Metaphysical School.
In all of his poems there is a mystery. They are uneven, startling and fantastic奇想.
His poems are included into two collections, The Songs and Sonnets, which consists of his love poems, and Devotion Upon Emergent Occasions, which consists of his sacred verses. Donne's poetry had great influence on the poets of his time and the poets of later times.
1. John Donne’s Life
The life of Donne can be divided into 2 stages: first—Donne the courtier, lover and the soldier; second—Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
He was born into a prosperous merchant family with a strong Roman Catholic tradition. His early education was attended to by a private tutor; then he studied both at Oxford and Cambridge, but left without taking a degree because of his Roman Catholic background. In 1591, he began his legal studies at the Inns of Court in London where he studied law, languages, literature and theology.
Finishing his studies, Donne became private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the eminent Lord Keeper of the Great Seal（掌玺大臣）.
His great prospects of the worldly success were ruined by his secret marriage with lady Egerton’s niece, Ann More in 1601. For over ten years, he had been working hard, fighting against poverty.
In 1615, he entered the Anglican church and took orders.
In 1617, after his wife’s death, he devoted all his time and effort to his priest ly duties, writing sermons and religious poems.
Donne was appointed the Dean of St. Paul’s in 1621 and kept that post until his death. 2. Donne’s Works
The Elegies and Satires( 挽诗与讽刺）；
Songs and Sonnets（歌与短歌）
Farewell to Love (告别爱情）
Death, Not to be Proud （死神，莫狂妄）
Holy Sonnets (圣歌集）--lyrics, express struggles with unparalleled force.
A Hymn to God the Father（圣父赞美诗）
The Songs and Sonnets, by which Donne is probably best known, contains most of his early lyrics. Love is the basic theme. Donne holds that the nature of love is the union of soul and body.
What’s more, idealism and cynicism(愤世嫉俗）about love coexist in Donne’s love poetry. On the one hand, he finds the meaning and the infinite value of love; on the other hand, he is concerned with the change and death confronting human love. He sometimes expresses the futility 无用and instability of love in his poems.
Death, Be Not Proud 死神，莫骄傲
Death, be not proud, though some have call’ed thee
死神，莫骄傲，尽管有些人说你
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
十分凶残可怕，其实并非如此；
For those whom thou think’st thou does overthrow
你认为被你摧毁的人，并没死，
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
呸，死神，你也不能置我于死地。
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
休息、睡眠，只是像你，已使人乐,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
从你这里定可获得更多乐趣，
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
难怪志士仁人甘愿随你而去，
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
躯体得到安息，灵魂得到解脱。
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men,
你——命运、机会、帝王、歹徒的奴仆，
And dost withpoison, war, and sickness dwell,
你同毒药、战争、病痛混在一起；
And poppy or charm can make us sleep as well
鸦片或魔法也能令我们昏迷，
And better than thy stroke; Why swell’st thou t hen? 比你还更灵；你为何傲慢自负？One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
短睡之后，我们就将永远醒觉，
And death shall be nor more; Death, thou shalt die.
死亡也就消失；死神，你该灭绝！
这首诗真是忽发奇想，面对面直接痛斥死神。
用第一人称和第二人称，直呼其名，引用许多形象、比喻，和它争论、讲理，好象是在说：¡°我不怕你，你能把我怎么样？要死亡的是你不是我！¡±说来理直气壮，充满激情，却又很有风趣。
尽管他这种议论，他这种生死观，具有明显、浓厚的宗教色彩，我们还是可以从他藐视死、
不畏死、认为死只不过使躯体安息，而灵魂则可获得解脱、升华这类信念中，间接受到启发，联想到我们今天应当具备什么样的正确生死观。
比如，要正确认识生的意义和作用，热爱生活，美化生活；要十分重视精神生活的价值和地位，精神基于肉体，但精神生活并不仅囿于肉体生活；从社会的无限延续性看，肉体必将消失，精神却可长存。
以他这首诗为例，我们还可以在一定程度上具体了解到玄学派诗人为什么曾被认为学究气太重，是用说理、论辩、奇想、怪喻、机智来写诗；以及为什么邓恩后来又受到现代派诗人的推崇，说他的诗把感情和理智统一起来，为复活诗歌传统提供很好的范例和启示。
briefly interpret the following:
“From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be ( our image of Death is rest and sleep), 休息、睡眠，这些不过是你的写照
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,给人享受，那你会提供的更多And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery (freedom).” 我们最美好的人随你去得越早，越能早日得到身体的休息，灵魂的解脱。
Analysis:
Donne is saying that relaxation and slumber (sleep) are desirable things in life, and death offers human beings ete rnal “rest” and “sleep”, and so “much pleasure”. By saying “which but thy pictures be”, Donne refers to the fact that our image of Death is rest and sleep. All men and women, not just the “best men”, eventually walk with Death.
Donne means to say that even the best among us will perish in the end. No one is safe; but that’s not necessarily the way to look at it. Death is not something we should fear, for it is part of a natural cycle. It is a preface to our final sleep, which offers “freedom” for the soul. Here Donne is implying that our life offers only imprisonment for the soul, and in this sense Death would be more powerful.
Analysis of the following:
“One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”
Paradox (An apparently untrue or self-contradictory statement or circumstance that proves true upon reflection or when examined in another light. ) is very common in metaphysical poetry.
John Donne concludes his poem with a couplet that first balances the ideas of death as a sleeping and death as a waking, and then summarizes the more profound paradox that a person’s death is his victory over dying and death.
Song
去吧，去抓住一颗流星
GO, and catch a falling star
去吧，去抓一颗流星，
去让曼德草的根长成一个婴儿，
告诉我，哪里可以找回过去的年华，
谁能劈开魔鬼的脚趾，
教教我，去听美人鱼的歌声，
去避开妒忌者的诽谤，
找到那
可以让老实人提高地位
的风。
如果你渴望看到奇特的景色，
看到别人没有见过的东西，
那么你不妨骑马出游，一万个日夜，
直到双鬓染霜，
当你归来之时，你会对我讲起
你见到的所有奇观，
然后发誓
美丽而忠贞的女子
这世上没有。
如果你能找到一个这样的女子，请告诉我，那样的旅程一定很美好；
可惜不会有那样的旅程，我也不会离开这里，也许我的隔壁就住着一个这样的女子，
也许你遇到她的时候，她美丽而且忠贞，
一直到你离家给她写信为止，她都是如此，但是她
不等我归家，准已哄骗了
二三个男人。
（阮一峰译，2006年8月18日）
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
1
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No:
2
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move,
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
3
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant,
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
4
Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.
5
But we by a love so much refined
That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
6
Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
7
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do.
8
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
9
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
别离辞：节哀/莫悲伤
正如德高的人逝世很安然对灵魂轻轻的说声走
悲恸的朋友们聚在一起
有的说断气了，有的说没有，
让我们化了，一声也不作泪浪也不翻，叹风也不兴。
那是亵渎我们的欢乐
要是对俗人讲我们的爱情。
地动回带来灾害和惊恐
人们估计，它干什么，要怎么样
那些天体的震动
虽然大的多，什么也不伤
世俗的男女彼此的相好
（他们的灵魂是官能）就最好
别离，因为那就会取消，
组成爱恋的那一套东西。
我们被爱情提炼的纯净
自己却不知存什么念头
互相在心灵上得到了保证
再也不愁碰不到眼睛，嘴和手。
两个灵魂达成了一片
虽说我得走，却并不变成
破裂，而只是向外延伸
象金子打到了薄薄的一层
我就算两个吧，两个却这样。
和一副两脚的圆规情况相同
你的灵魂是定脚，并不象
移动，另一脚一移，它也动
虽然它一直是在中心
可是另一个去天涯海角
它就侧了身，倾听八垠
那一个一回家，它就马上挺腰。
你对我就会这样子，我一生
像另外那一脚，得侧身打转
你坚定，我的圆圈也会准
我才会终结在开始的地方
－－卞之琳译
4. Features of his writing
1) John Donne is the leading figure of the “metaphysical school”.
2) His poems give a more inherently theatrical impression by exhibiting a seemingly unfocused diversity of experiences and attitudes, and a free range of feelings and moods.
3) The mode of his poems is dynamic rather than static, with ingenuity 新颖of speech, vividness of imagery and vitality of rhythms, which show a notable contrast to the other Elizabethan lyric poems, which are pure, serene, tuneful, and smooth running.
4) The most striking feature of Donne’s poetry is precisely its tang（特征，气息）of reality, in the sense that it seems to reflect life in a real world.
5) Donne’s conceits奇思妙想（conceits---Any fanciful, ingenious expression or idea, especially one in the form of an extended metaphor. ）may be divided into 2 kinds: easy ones and difficult ones. These conceits offer brilliant and multiple insights into the subject of the metaphor and help give rise to the much praised ambiguity of Donne’s lyrics.
6) Wit诙谐风趣is the mainspring主要原因of Donne’s poetic method, and central to his poetic statement. (Wit is intellectual acuity敏锐; humor, an amused indulgence放任of human deficiencies缺陷. Wit now denotes the acuity that produces laughter. It originally meant mere understanding, then quickness of understanding, then, beginning in the 17th century, quick perception coupled with creative fancy.)
7) Donne’s images are linked with new resources such as law, psychology and philosophy. By combining the easy conceits with the difficult ones, Donne achieves good effects in his poetry. （Images---A concrete picture, either literally descriptive, or figurative, each carrying a sensual (sexual) and emotive connotation. A figurative image may be an analogy, metaphor, simile, personification, or the like. ）
8) Donne’s poetry involves a certain kind of argument，sometimes in rigid syllogistic 三段论法form (the beginning of “go and Catch a Falling Star”). Most of his poems employ a central speaker who takes effort to argue, to persuade, to analyze or to confess. Usually the voice of one talker can be heard. He seems to be speaking to an imagined hearer, raising the topic and trying to persuade, convince and upbraid （申诉）him. with the brief, simple language, the argument is continuous throughout the poem. It begins with a certain idea but ends in quite a contrary one.
9) Donne’s great prose works are his sermons, which are both rich and imaginative.。
