An Introduction to Early Modern British Literature
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| Language | English Language |
| Literary Topics | Special Interest |
| Literature | British Literature |
Transcript
about the period of time directly following the middle ages
Back then if someone maced you you wouldn't get back
up for a while Time to rough in early modern
england but it doesn't mean that nothing good came of
the era There was plenty of great literature written in
seventeenth century which was great because then you had something
to read while you were dying of smallpox and it
took a while to die of smallpox The king james
bible was a biggie It contained symbols and genres that
we still make use of today as well A such
memorable phrases as ask and it shall be given let
there be light and like the good fight in its
time it was more quotable than increment A classy early
modern period A few days later john milton wrote a
blockbuster hit Woo hoo Paradise lost It was the most
epic epic since homer's odyssey Unfortunately james cameron wasn't alive
at the time to adapt it to film I'm the
king of the world but it still did pretty well
in bookstores The book's cast of characters included well most
of the same cast as the king james bible god
jesus satan the whole game But are you ready to
be really impressed Milton was blind You wrote the entire
thing by dictation so for all we know milton wasn't
a good writer at all But the guy taking dictation
was brilliant Poetry became quite popular in the first part
of the century even if it was pretty limited in
its subject matter These metaphysical poets basically only wrote about
either sex or god if you weren't a big fan
of either Poetry probably wasn't going to be your thing
later on a rival gang of cavalier poets popped up
oh the gang's yeah it was intense jets vs sharks
montagues versus capital it sort of thing Once in a
while someone would get limerick to death way warned you
These were dark times One of the cavalier poets robert
herrick made a name for himself with poems that urged
his listeners too seize the day and the girl He
might have been the first newsy but enough with rhymes
How about the guy named samuel peace who started recording
his life just like any twenty first century hipster but
without the knit cap and handlebar mustache Well okay he
went through a phase His nine year long diary recorded
everything from the great plague of fantasies he had while
it church and they were more elaborate than simply fantasies
about the past or having a decent singing voice Then
james boswell published a biography of eighteenth century celebrity samuel
johnson He was sort of like the t m z
or people magazine of the early modern period Without him
no one would have known what all the stars were
wearing to their premieres Eventually literature had a clear new
direction It was moving away from the super complex super
elite world of metaphysical poetry and biblical epic and was
starting to focus more on everyday life People were realizing
that it was actually more interesting to read about themselves
then about a bunch of gods kings and monsters Although
the stories that combined all of the above were generally
the best of the bunch Wait i'm the king of 00:03:39.16 --> [endTime] the world a little