William Shakespeare

William Blake

1564 - 1616 1757 - 1831

WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN...

KINGS AND QUEENS

Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I didn’t have any children because she never had a husband: she used to say she was “married” to the State.

(1558-1603)

James I Stuart

Mary Queen of Scots

(1603-1625)

James I was the king of both England and Scotland.

In 1605 a plot was carried out to blow up the Parliament and the King: the “Gunpowder Plot”.

KINGS AND QUEENS

James I

(1625-1649)Charles I

1642 English Civil WarKing Charles I was the first king to be executed (he was behaded in 1649) by his kinsmen.

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell took the power in 1649 and was the leader in charge of

the Commonwealth until 1658, when he was

succeeded by his son Richard.

TUDOR vs STUARTARCHITECTURE

Liberty of Londonshopping mall and tea house

210-220 Regent Street

Shakespeare’s Globerebuilt in 1996

Southwark

TUDOR vs STUARTARCHITECTURE

Inigo Jones

Queen’s HouseGreenwich

Whitehall PalaceWhitehall, London

TUDOR vs STUARTARCHITECTURE

The original plan for Covent Garden was by Inigo Jones, as well as for St Paul’s in the same square.

KINGS AND QUEENSTHE RESTORATION

The Monarchy was restored in England in 1660.Charles II from the Stuart family was the new King.

Charles II(1660-1685)

Have you ever wondered, while wandering through London’s streets, why there are so few Medieval, Tudor and Early XVIIth century buildings?

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON

On September 5 1666 a massive fire devoured the whole City of London. More than 13,000 buildings burnt down, including most of the Medieval and Tudor palaces and even St. Paul’s Cathedral.

THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDONRECONSTRUCTION

St. Paul’s Cathedral, as we can see it today, was designed by famous London architect Christopher Wren in 1675.

KINGS AND QUEENS

Charles II

James II1685-1688

Catholic King James II is exiled and succeeded by his protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.

Glorious Revolution1688-1689

The English called it “glorious” because apparently it was a peaceful change in the social system and no blood was shed.

KINGS AND QUEENSTO SUM UP

Stuart Period

Commonwealth

Restoration Augustan Age

1603 1649 1660 1714James VI

Charles I

Oliver Cromwell

Richard Cromwell

Charles IIJames IIWilliam of OrangeAnne

George I

George II

George III

George IV

HanoveriansStuartsStuarts

16421666

1688

THE AUGUSTAN AGELITERATURE

The XVIII century witnessed a flourishing of PROSE with the rise of the NOVEL.

Daniel Defoe

Jonathan Swift

Samuel Richardson

Henry Fielding

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

«A novel is a ficticious prose narrative of cosiderable length, in which characters and actions representative of real life are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity».

Oxford English Dictionary

The term novel derives from the Italian novella with which it shares the latin root «novus». This is to indicate that a novel is a piece of prose dealing with recent events, or ‘news’.

Both characters and actions are fictitious, yet they are presented in a realistic way to the reader.

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

RomanceIs a long episodic story of love and adventures, often in verse.

The romance had existed since the Middle Ages (e.g. Arthurian Cycles, Le Roman de la Rose).

They are “epic” works dealing with mythical, fabulous, heroic adventures.

NovelNovels represent everyday events, they reproduce the real life.

The first proper novel is the Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1605).

The characters of the novels are ordinary men and women.

THE RISE OF THE NOVELWHY?

1. Focus on the individual«[The Augustan Age] is the first age in which we recognize the ordinary man as the norm. What was new was that the whole life and its ordinary aspects became a source of interest and generally of comedy».

A. R. Humphreys, The Pelican Guide to English Literature, vol. 4, p. 15

Such focus on the “ordinary” man was probably triggered by J. Locke’s idea that man can discover the truth through his own senses and personal experience and by the influence of Puritanism on the English society.

THE RISE OF THE NOVELWHY?

2. Growth of the reading publicThe emerging middle class, made up of merchants, traders and bankers was the main reading audience: people (and now many women) read novels on newspapers, bought them or rented them from the numerous circulating libraries.

3. Copyright ActSigned in 1709, the copyright act had secured to authors certain rights in the publication of their works. This had made it easier for writers to live on their art and had given a great impulse to the literary scene.

THE RISE OF THE NOVELGREAT ENGLISH NOVELISTS

AND THEIR NOVELS

Daniel Defoe(1660 - 1731)

Robinson Crusoe (1719)«IF ever the Story of any private Man’s Adventures in the World were worth making Publick, and were acceptable when Publish’d, the Editor of this Account thinks this will be so. [...]

The Editor believes the thing to be a just History of Fact; neither is there any Appearance of Fiction in it: And however thinks, because all such things are dispatch’d, that the Improvement of it, as well as the Diversion, as to the Instruction of the Reader, will be the same; and as such he thinks, without farther Compliment to the World, he does them a great Service in the Publication».

Author’s Preface

THE RISE OF THE NOVELGREAT ENGLISH NOVELISTS

AND THEIR NOVELS

Jonathan Swift(1667 - 1745)

The Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

THE RISE OF THE NOVELGREAT ENGLISH NOVELISTS

AND THEIR NOVELS

Samuel Richardson(1689 - 1761)

Henry Fielding(1707 - 1754)

Tom Jones (1749)Pamela (1740)