Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century England Introduction PDF

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century England An Introduction Dr Islam Aly El-Naggar Faculty of Arts 2024-2025 University Email: [email protected]  The Aims of the Course To give students a...

Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century England An Introduction Dr Islam Aly El-Naggar Faculty of Arts 2024-2025 University Email: [email protected]  The Aims of the Course To give students an insight into the intellectual life of what is known as Neoclassical age and Romantic Age To study the most influential literary, intellectual and cultural figures that have shaped the British civilization during the 17th and 18th Century.  Before we start … Recap your Information Think over the Following Questions: What is civilization? (What are the connotations and denotations of such concept?) In other words, what do you expect to study in this course? What is the difference between Civilization studies and other corelated studies such as cultural and Anthropological Studies? Why we study Civilization? And what is the best way to do this?  Connotations Human Progress/growing advancement enlightenment Development power edification culture cultivation refinement sophistication What is the common meaning of culture and civilization? And what about… history?! Before we start … Culture is the characteristics... In short, civilization is an of people: the sum total of advanced state of human ways of living built up by a society—the sum of group of human beings, cultures, science, industry, transmitted from one and government. generation to another.  Denotations The stage of human social and cultural development and organization that is considered most advanced. "The Victorians equated the railways with progress and civilization“  Recap… How do we study Civilization? Sequences Type 1: Historical Context: (documents and monuments Sequences/ significant and exemplary ones). Sequences Type 2 (the humanities sequences): Cultural/intellectual Context (The literary and philosophical study of texts central to the humanities sequences & The study of synchronous social theories Sequences Type 3 Literary Context/Code How to apply this to our reading of literature?  ???? (The grounding of) events and ideas in historical context and the interplay of events, institutions, ideas, and cultural expressions in social change. By locating them on the timeline What is the name of this process? Contextualization  Contextualization What are the main periods of English literature? (Periodization* & historical period vs literary periods) -In historiography, periodization is the process or study of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified, and named blocks of time for the purpose of study or analysis. - This is usually done in order to understand current and historical processes, and the causality that might have linked those events.  ln Episode 1: Prehistoric Britain Episode 7: 18th Century (Paleolithic- Neolithic-Metal Britain Ages) Episode 8: 19th Century Episode 2: Roman Britain Britain Episode 3: Early Medieval Episode 9: Britain??? Britain at War Episode 4: Late Medieval Episode 10: Britain??? Post-War Britain Episode 5: Tudor Britain Episode 11: Episode 6: Stuart Britain Modern Britain  Neoclassical Age can be DIVIDED INTO THREE PERRIODS 1660–1700 1750–1798 1- Age of Restoration 3- Age of (Dr Samuel) Johnson Sensibility/Transition 4.The date when the Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and 2- The Augustan Age Coleridge was published for the first time 1700–1750 1798 …  Neoclassical Age vs Romantic Age What are the connotations and denotations of these two terms? Answer this question guided through what have been just discussed in the previous slides? i. e the contextualization /putting the seminal texts on the timeline […] To get what might be termed as the “Spirit of the Age”. Other critics refer to this as the dominant “literary Code”.  The Neoclassical Age & The Romantic Age The 17th century & the 18th Century The Restoration: (1660 to 1688). (1660-1700) The Augustan Age??? The Age of Alexander Pope (???-1744) The Age of Johnson (???- 1798) 1789?? The problem of Periodization  Neoclassical Age: Historical Context The 17th Century Who ruled England in the 17th Century [pure history] STUART (ALSO STEWART) The family name of the line of monarchs – ‘the Stuarts’ – who occupied the British throne from the accession of King James I in 1603 to the deposition and execution of King Charles I in 1649; and from the Restoration* of King Charles II in 1660 to the death of Queen Anne in 1714.  Historical Context continued … ‘Great Britain’ (GB) James’s joint monarchy effectively brought about the union of England and Scotland, and in 1604, he was declared king of ‘Great Britain, France??? and Ireland’ – the reference to France by this point being anachronistic wishful thinking. [It is from this point, then, that the present volume will normally use ‘Great Britain’/‘British’ and not ‘English’  Interregnum vs Commonwealth The ‘missing’ period between 1649 and 1660 is the Interregnum*, during which Great Britain was governed first as a Commonwealth* under Parliament and then as a Protectorate* under Oliver Cromwell. The Stuarts, in fact, were monarchs of Scotland from 1371 to 1714, and on the death of Elizabeth I without an heir, her cousin, the then James VI of Scotland, acceded to the English throne as James I of England. James, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had become King of Scotland on his mother’s forced abdication in 1567, and who made only token protest at her execution in 1587.  What we get from this? What is the Spirit of the Age An Age of social and political unrest political upheaval? What is the significance of that?!  What the impact of this on Literature? (the third Sequence)? What do you expect to study in this course? 1. JACOBEAN Age (1603–1625) Derived from the Latin for James, ‘Jacobus’, the adjective ‘Jacobean’ is used solely to identify the period of the reign of King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1603–25. The literature, architecture, furniture and style of decoration produced during it. [Expand on this].  JACOBEAN Age … James was a devout but not extreme Protestant, and did much to establish his religion as the national one. He played a central role in organising a new standardised translation of the Bible: the ‘Authorised Version’ (AV) or ‘King James Bible’ of 1611)???  Jacobean Age Continued … James I’s religious beliefs brought him into serious conflict with both Catholics* and Puritans*, while his dogmatic insistence on the Divine Right of Kings* caused him to clash bitterly with Parliament, and especially a House of Commons which was developing a growing sense of independence. James himself was a scholar who wrote learned treatises on several subjects, and was a strong supporter of the arts, especially the theatre. Shakespeare’s company was called the ‘King’s Men’. Jacobean Drama?! Presentations*  Jacobean Age Continued … It is possible that James saw an early production of Shakespeare’s topical tragedy, Macbeth, in 1606). The combination of intellectual talent and stubborn personality led to him being dubbed ‘the wisest fool in Christendom’. ???  Jacobean Age Continued … Religion The continuing religious strife between Catholics and Protestants, and the rapidly growing power of the Puritans, especially in Parliament is the most famous event in this narrative/era??? The Gunpowder Plot in Nov. 1605* led to severe persecution of Catholics). Jacobean Age Continued … Government The increasingly divisive tensions between King and Parliament. Those Tensions were initially instigated by dislike in some quarters for James’s scheme for the ‘perfect union’ of England and Scotland, and by his hostility to Puritanism at the Hampton Court Conference (1604) This being compounded by his dubious financial devices (sale of monopolies and titles, royal duties levied at ports); his ambivalent relationship with Spain; and resentment at his reliance on favourites (especially the Duke of Buckingham).[‫ بطانة‬/‫]حاشية‬  Naval Expansion and Colonisation The continuing development of British maritime power, its underpinning of national mercantile interests abroad (e.g. those of the East India Company) The resulting conflicts with the Dutch in particular The colonisation of the east coast of North America, The sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers to ‘New England’ in 1620; the authorised ‘plantation’ of confiscated Irish land, especially in Ulster, by English and Scottish settlers.  Social and Economic Events The incidence of plague in London (1665), which had the effect of frequently closing the proliferating theatres there. The Fire of London (1666). The continuing foundation of schools and university colleges The rise of ‘Jacobean’ architectural design for houses and public buildings*[Expand …] (Inigo Jones, as Surveyor of the King’s Works, built the Queen’s House, Greenwich, and the new Palace of Whitehall). ‘Jacobean’ architectural design for houses and public buildings Inigo Jones, Queen’s House (Greenwich) Theatre The commonest present-day use of the word ‘Jacobean’ is in the phrase ‘Jacobean Drama’*, for it was during James’s reign that many of the most famous tragedies and comedies in English were written and first performed (e.g. by Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster, Beaumont and Fletcher, Middleton, Massinger and Ford).  https://www.wrongsideoftheblanket.com/the-17th-century-a-brief- social-history  Civilization Course (Tasks) 17 & 18th Century England 1. Design your own Dictionary of Literary and Critical Figures in the Age of Restoration and the Age of Romanticism. 2. Design your own Dictionary of Literary terms/concepts associated with the Age of Restoration and the Age of Romanticism. 3. Design your own Timeline of Literary periods corresponding to the two literary/philosophical movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism. 4. Design your own portfolio /Album ✓ A set of pieces of creative work intended to demonstrate your own understanding/manipulating of a specific issue in the course. A varied set of photographs/of a model representing seminal issues/themes/motifs/literary figures … etc. Procedures ✓ Step I: Identify the main figures/concepts/ timeline (done collaboratively in the lecture room) ✓ Step II: Gather the most essential explications/illustrations and commentaries on the selected figures/concepts (it is preferable to do this within a group, and yet you can do this independently) ✓ Put your selected items in alphabetical/Chronological order (by the end of the semester)