This lecture provides an overview of 17th-century British literature in its cultural and political contexts. We will begin with the Metaphysical Poetry of John Donne and others and with the origins and the impact of the Authorized Version of the Bible (King James Version) published in 1611. We will then look at the role literature played in the Civil War and Commonwealth period of the 1640s and 1650s and will finally discuss the literature of the 1660s, 1670s and 1680s (with Milton, Bunyan and Dryden as some of the central figures) in the context of English political culture after the Restoration of 1660. Here, the role of censorship and literary strategies of subversion will play a crucial role. A reader containing texts to be discussed will be available in the copy-shop Reckhammerweg from early March. |
