Shakespeare and by Ben Jonson ?
UNIT 4
ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 17th CENTURY
General background
The seventeenth century is in many w ays the century o f
transition into our modem world. The Civil Wars separated men
from the older ways o f living and the religious controversies killed
much that had remained lively in the national imagination since
the Middle A ges. Elizabeth I died in 1603 leaving no heir. Her
cousin James VI o f Scotland became King James I o f England.
In England Jam es governed the tw o countries as separate
kingdoms. He was a member o f the House o f Stuart, which ruled
England for most o f the period from 1603 to 1714. James was an
arrogant and su perstitious man w ho quarrelled often with
Parliament. After James died in 1625, his son Charles I ascended
to the throne.
Conflicts between the monarchy and the Parliament worsened.
Civil War broke out in 1642 between the king’s followers, who
were called Cavaliers, and the Parliament’s ch ief supporters called
Puritans. Oliver Cromwell, a puritan member o f the Parliament,
headed the Parliamentary army. He brought v ic to iy to the
Parliamentary forces and temporarily ended the monarchy in 1649.
Charles I was tried and beheaded in January 1649. The House o f
Lords was abolished, and a commonwealth (or Republic) was
proclaimed. Later, frightened by the rising revolutionary spirit o f
the masses, Cromwell intensified his oppression and in 1653
imposed a military dictatorship on the country. It lasted till his
death in 1658.
A s neither the common people nor the upper classes were
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