British Literature Unit 4- The Age of the Puritans

Puritans

believed that Christians should live a pure and holy life

John Milton

greatest poet of the 1600s and second greatest writer in English literature; wrote the greatest epic in Enlgish literature: Paradise Lost

John Bunyan

greatest prose writer of the 1600s; produced England’s greatest allegory: Pilgrim’s Progress

Pilgrim’s Progress

England’s greatest allegory

Cavalier Poets

also known as “tribe of Ben” and the Royalists due to their support of the king; wrote graceful, polished, and light-hearted poems centered in their contemporary world; emphasized the pleasures of this world and wrote love songs

Metaphysical Poets

interested in things of the mind, soul, and eternity; expressed emotional things and emphasized the complexities and contradictions of life; poems dealt with philosophical and psychological subjects; approached in an analytical and argumentative manner

metaphysical conceit

points out an unusual parallel between highly dissimilar elements

drama

declined during the 1600s and theaters closed down due to their vulgarness

John Donne

first and greatest of the Metaphysical poets

Paradise Lost

greatest epic in English literature; dramatized version of the Fall of mankind