The Early Seventeenth Century

Overview

Gender, Family, & HouseholdThe image of the husband beating his wife with a rod is from a French engraving by Abraham Bosse (ca. 1640).

The wife kneels before the husband as a penitent, and her children do also, as if begging mercy for her.

Reign of James IFrom an early seventeenth-century collection of costumes at

the time of James I. Here, as the gentleman and the lady of the household play cards with their guests, a servingman

brings them dishes of food. The Folger Shakespeare Library.

The Early Seventeenth Century

After more than four decades on the throne, Elizabeth I died in 1603.

James VI of Scotland succeeded her, becoming James I and establishing the Stuart dynasty. • King’s theories: less “shared” government

& more authoritarian• “Divine right of kings”

The Early Seventeenth Century

Political and religious tensions intensified under James’s son, Charles I, who succeeded to the throne in 1625. • Attempted to rule without Parliament• 1642 Civil War breaks out• Charles defeated and beheaded!

The Early Seventeenth Century

As ideas changed, so did the conditions of their dissemination.

• Recall the Monarch = God paradigm• These structures begin to crumble in light of

scientific discoveries

The Early Seventeenth Century

In the early seventeenth century, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and George Herbert led the shift towards “new” poetic genres.

The Early Seventeenth Century

Many leading poets were staunch royalists, or Cavaliers, who suffered heavily in the war years. • Civil War disastrous for theater: closed

down playhouses in 1642 Yet two of the best writers of the

period, John Milton and Andrew Marvell, sided with the republic.

The Early Seventeenth Century

The revolutionary era also gave new impetus to women’s writing on both sides of the political divide