Тема 7. Литература эпохи Революции и Реставрации

(1616 – 1696).

Особенности социального развития Англии в начале XVII века. Английская поэзия после Шекспира. Творчество Джона Донна. Трактовка человека и мира, специфика образов, экспрессивность стиля.

Английская революция как переход к новой эпохе. Расцвет публицистики, участие литературы в общественно-политической борьбе. Творчество Джона Мильтона. Поэма «Потерянный рай»: проблематика и дискуссионные аспекты ее трактовки. Библейский сюжет и образность, их соотношение с политической проблематикой.

Развитие политической философии в Англии в эпоху Реставрации: Джон Локк.

Аллегорический роман “Путь паломника” Джона Беньяна и его историко-культурное значение. Поэзия и драматургия эпохи Реставрации: Джон Драйден и его творчество.

07 PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS THROUGH REVOLUTION

And restoration (1616 – 1696)

7.1. Особенности социального развития Англии в начале XVII века. Английская поэзия после Шекспира. Творчество Джона Донна. Трактовка человека и мира, специфика образов, экспрессивность стиля.

J

ohn Donne (1572-1631) is an English poet, prose writer, and clergyman, considered the greatest of the metaphysical poets and one of the greatest writers of love poetry.

Donne was born in London; at the age of 11 he entered the University of Oxford, where he studied for three years. According to some accounts, he spent the next three years at the University of Cambridge but took no degree at either university. He began the study of law at Lincoln's Inn, London, in 1592. About two years later, presumably, he relinquished the Roman Catholic faith, in which he had been brought up, and joined the Anglican Сhurch.

His first book of poems, Satires, written during this period of residence in London, is considered one of Donne's most important literary efforts.

Although not immediately published, the volume had a fairly wide readership through private circulation of the manuscript, as did his love poems, Songs and Sonnets, written at about the same time as the Satires.

In 1596, Donne joined a naval expedition. On his return to England, Donne was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Keeper of the Great Seal. Donne's secret marriage in 1601 to Egerton's niece, Anne More, resulted in his dismissal from this position and in a brief imprisonment. A cousin of his wife offered the couple refuge in Surrey. While there, Donne wrote his longest poem, The Progresse of the Soule (1601), which ironically depicts the transmigration of the soul of Eve's apple.

During the next few years Donne made a meager living as a lawyer. Donne's principal literary accomplishments during this period were Divine Poems (1607). In 1608 a reconciliation was effected between Donne and his father-in-law, and his wife received a much-needed dowry. Donne became a priest of the Anglican Church in 1615 and was appointed royal chaplain later that year. He attained eminence as a preacher, delivering sermons that are regarded as the most brilliant and eloquent of his time.

Donne continued to write poetry, notably his Holy Sonnets (1618), but most of it remained unpublished until 1633. In 1621 James I appointed him dean of Saint Paul's Cathedral; he held that post until his death. While convalescing from a severe illness, Donne wrote Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623-1624), a prose work in which he treated the themes of death and human relationships; it contains these famous lines:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; ...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.

It is almost certain that Donne would have become a bishop in 1630 but for his poor health. During his final years he delivered a number of his most notable sermons, including the so-called funeral sermon, Death's Duell (1631), delivered less than two months before his death in London.

The poetry of Donne is characterized by complex imagery and irregularity of form. He frequently employed the conceit, an elaborate metaphor making striking syntheses of apparently unrelated objects or ideas. His intellectuality, introspection, and use of colloquial diction, seemingly unpoetic but always uniquely precise in meaning and connotation, make his poetry boldly divergent from the smooth, elegant verse of his day. The content of his love poetry, often both cynical and sensuous, represents a reaction against the sentimental Elizabethan sonnet, and this work influenced the attitudes of many 17th-century religious poets sometimes referred to as the metaphysical poets. They drew much inspiration from the imagery and spirituality of Donne's religious poetry. Donne was almost forgotten during the 18th century, but interest in his work developed during the 19th century and reached its heights in the 20^th century.

7.2. Английская революция как переход к новой эпохе. Расцвет публицистических жанров, активное участие литературы в общественно-политической борьбе. Творчество Джона Мильтона. Поэма «Потерянный рай»: проблематика и дискуссионные аспекты ее трактовки.

The English Revolution, also called the Puritan Revolution, is a general designation for the period in English history from 1640 to 1660. It began with the calling of the Long Parliament by King Charles I and proceeded through two civil wars, the trial and execution of the king, the republican experiments of Oliver Cromwell, and, ultimately, the restoration of King Charles II. The causes of the conflict can be traced to social, economic, constitutional, and religious developments over a century or more. Closer at hand were questions of sovereignty in the English state and Puritanism in the church. The immediate cause, however, was Charles’s attempt (1637) to impose the Anglican liturgy in Scotland. The Presbyterian Scots rioted; then they signed the National Covenant and raised an army to defend their church. In 1640 their army occupied the northern counties of England. The English Revolution was the first of the so-called great revolutions. It began as a protest against an oppressive and uncompromising government. A moderate constitutional phase was followed by the use of military force, then the violent overthrow of the government, experiments with new institutions, the rule of a virtual dictator, and, finally, a restoration that embodied some new practices within the older tradition. The revolution was important because it generated new political and religious ideas and because it extended the English tradition that the government’s power.

J

ohn Milton (1608 – 1674) is one of the greatest poets of the English language. He also was a noted historian, scholar, pamphleteer, and civil servant for the Parliamentarians and the Puritan Commonwealth. Milton ranks second only to Shakespeare among English poets; his writings and his influence are an important part of the history of English literature, culture, and libertarian thought. He is best known for Paradise Lost, which is generally regarded as the greatest epic poem in the English language. Milton's prose works, however, are also important as a valuable interpretation of the Puritan revolution, and they have their place in modern histories of political and religious thought.

Milton was educated at St. Paul's School, London. The conventional date given for his admission is 1620, but it may have been as early as 1615. In addition to his regular schoolwork in Latin, Greek, and, later, Hebrew, the boy had instruction at home, perhaps partly in modern languages, from private tutors. Milton was a voracious student; he traced the initial cause of his later blindness to his having, from his 12th year, rarely quit his books before midnight.

Along with a couple of Latin exercises that have survived, his earliest attempts at verse, made when he was 15, were rhymed paraphrases of Psalms 114 and 136.

Milton entered Christ's College, Cambridge; he received his Bachelor of Arts degree and his Master of Arts. His experience at Cambridge can be partly gathered from his abundant Latin verse and his seven Latin public speeches that were expected to display the speaker's learning and rhetorical and argumentative powers.

Milton's nickname at the university, "the Lady," was apparently bestowed because of his handsome and delicate features and a purity of mind and behavior that disdained the diversions of his coarser fellows. During his seven years at Cambridge he seems to have moved from some unpopularity to general respect and, among dons and cultivated students, to high esteem. He did not love the scholastic logic that dominated the curriculum; then, as well as later, he denounced it as barren. By Milton's own account, his early enthusiasm for the sensual poetry of Ovid and other Roman writers gave way to an appreciation of the idealism of Dante, Petrarch, and Edmund Spenser. He then moved on to Platonic philosophy and finally came to hold the mysticism of the biblical Book of Revelation in the highest esteem. Meanwhile, Milton had been learning his craft and sometimes revealing his inner self in writing Latin verse. (Latin was then the standard language of the university world.)