History of english literature plan

Writers and Their Major Works:


(a) Donne and Herbert continued to write their metaphysical poetry. Henry Vaughan (1621-95) and Andrew Marvell (1621-1678) also wrote metaphysical poetry.
(b) John Milton (1608-74) started writing in this period and wrote-----

" Of Education ";(1644)
" Areopagitica" (1644)
Comus (1634)
Lycidas (1637)

Literary Features :

This age is not an age of drama. Drama collapsed because of the civil war and puritanical attack. Sermons, pamphlets, history and philosophy were written in prose. Metaphysical poetry was the main literary product of the age.

Major Writers and Their Major Works:

(a) John Milton who was still alive had not written any thing important in this period.

(b) Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), a political philosopher:

Leviathan (1651)

(c) Jeremy Taylor (1613-67):

a)Holy living (1650), a sermon in prose
b)Holy Dying (1651), a sermon in prose


(d)Vaughan (1621-95) and Marvell (1621-78) continued.The influence of renaissance and puritanism died out by the end of this period. The Elizabethan romanticism also came to a close by this time.

The Neoclassical Period (1660-1785)

This age is called Neoclassical or Pseudo-Classical Age to mean the artificiality of the writers of this age. They imitated the ancient Greek and Roman literary tradition but lacked the originality of the writers of that period. The general features of this age are:

• 
  The writers of this age lacked originality and followed ancient Greek and Roman tradition.
  
• 
  Much attention is paid to technical perfection rather than innovation or natural genius 
  
• 
  Human beings are given most importance. The literary ideal of the age is "art for humanity's sake", not " art for art's sake".
  
• 
  General rather than the individual qualities of human beings are given more importance.
  
• 
  Sophistication in thought and style is emphasized.The Neoclassical Age has three shorter ages within it which are discussed here separately: