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An Introduction to Early Modern British Literature 13179 Views


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Description:

We're know you love your Shakespeare, but be glad you weren't around to meet the guy. Let's just say that toothpaste and deodorant probably weren't part of his daily routine.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:00

Thank you We sneak Early modern british literature eyelash shmoop

00:07

the next time you step into your time machine and

00:09

are trying to decide when to set your way don't

00:12

recommend the early modern period Not unless you particularly enjoy

00:16

plagues fires regicide tze and dubious personal hygiene We're talking

00:21

about the period of time directly following the middle ages

00:24

Back then if someone maced you you wouldn't get back

00:27

up for a while Time to rough in early modern

00:32

england but it doesn't mean that nothing good came of

00:34

the era There was plenty of great literature written in

00:37

seventeenth century which was great because then you had something

00:41

to read while you were dying of smallpox and it

00:43

took a while to die of smallpox The king james

00:46

bible was a biggie It contained symbols and genres that

00:50

we still make use of today as well A such

00:52

memorable phrases as ask and it shall be given let

00:56

there be light and like the good fight in its

01:00

time it was more quotable than increment A classy early

01:04

modern period A few days later john milton wrote a

01:07

blockbuster hit Woo hoo Paradise lost It was the most

01:11

epic epic since homer's odyssey Unfortunately james cameron wasn't alive

01:17

at the time to adapt it to film I'm the

01:19

king of the world but it still did pretty well

01:23

in bookstores The book's cast of characters included well most

01:28

of the same cast as the king james bible god

01:31

jesus satan the whole game But are you ready to

01:34

be really impressed Milton was blind You wrote the entire

01:39

thing by dictation so for all we know milton wasn't

01:42

a good writer at all But the guy taking dictation

01:45

was brilliant Poetry became quite popular in the first part

01:51

of the century even if it was pretty limited in

01:53

its subject matter These metaphysical poets basically only wrote about

01:58

either sex or god if you weren't a big fan

02:01

of either Poetry probably wasn't going to be your thing

02:04

later on a rival gang of cavalier poets popped up

02:07

oh the gang's yeah it was intense jets vs sharks

02:11

montagues versus capital it sort of thing Once in a

02:14

while someone would get limerick to death way warned you

02:18

These were dark times One of the cavalier poets robert

02:21

herrick made a name for himself with poems that urged

02:24

his listeners too seize the day and the girl He

02:28

might have been the first newsy but enough with rhymes

02:32

How about the guy named samuel peace who started recording

02:36

his life just like any twenty first century hipster but

02:39

without the knit cap and handlebar mustache Well okay he

02:42

went through a phase His nine year long diary recorded

02:46

everything from the great plague of fantasies he had while

02:50

it church and they were more elaborate than simply fantasies

02:53

about the past or having a decent singing voice Then

02:56

james boswell published a biography of eighteenth century celebrity samuel

03:00

johnson He was sort of like the t m z

03:02

or people magazine of the early modern period Without him

03:06

no one would have known what all the stars were

03:08

wearing to their premieres Eventually literature had a clear new

03:13

direction It was moving away from the super complex super

03:16

elite world of metaphysical poetry and biblical epic and was

03:19

starting to focus more on everyday life People were realizing

03:23

that it was actually more interesting to read about themselves

03:26

then about a bunch of gods kings and monsters Although

03:29

the stories that combined all of the above were generally

03:32

the best of the bunch Wait i'm the king of 00:03:39.16 --> [endTime] the world a little

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