English writers from the 16th to

the 18th centuriesTheir works influenced by the social context

The 16th century:Sir Philip Sidney as the author of brilliant love-sonnets and a long prose romance called “the arcaida ”.

Thomas More’s best known and more controversial work, “Utopia” is a novel written in latin

Thomas Wyatt´ travels abroad exposed him to different forms of poetry, which he adapted for the english language, the sonnet.”whoso list to hunt”

John skelton is remembered for his satires on the court and the clergy. the bowge of the court. The poem of dolorous death. The death of the Earl of Northumberland.

Other important writers are:

Christopher Marlowe

-Was an English dramatist, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. -Marlowe’s plays are known for the use of blank verse. -His first play performed on the regular stage in London was among the first English plays in blank verse.

Edmund Spenser-He is considered one of the greatest poets in the English language.-Spenser brought out the first three books of his most famous work:The Faerie Queene, Lord Burghley (William Cecil), Mother Hubberd's Tale.

-He was one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama.-He was the author of the Spanish Tragedy, and it was arguably the most popular play of the "Age of Shakespeare"

Thomas Kyd:

Thomas Norton:-Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton used blank verse for the first English tragic drama, Gorboduc (first performed 1561).-it is the earliest English tragic play in blank verse.

John Dryden - The heroic couplet as the prevailing verse form in English poetry. - A new and serviceable prose style suited to the practical needs of the age.

The 17th century

William Shakespeare

Known for:- Plays and sonnets.- Mastery of the English language.- Command of the style of the English.- His plays composed using blank verse.

Francis Bacon- Established and popularized inductive methodologies for scientific inquiry.

John MiltonHis poetry and prose reflect: - Deep personal convictions.- A passion for freedom and self-determination.- The urgent issues and political turbulence of his day.

The 17th centuryBen Jonson

- Popularized the comedy of humours.- An acute observer of urban manners.

John Donne- His poetry concerns with a dyad: the speaker and either a woman, or God.- Delights in making the overlap between sexual and religious love seem new and shocking.-A founder of “Metaphysical” poetry.

New poetic genres:Classical elegy and satire, epigram, verse epistle, meditative religious lyric, and the

country-house poem.New tendencies:

- Realism.- Preciseness and elegance of expression.

Poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, editor, biographer and lexicographer.

Writers Samuel Johnson and Francis Beaumont.

• Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language 1755 one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship".

Samuel Johnson 12 December 1784

1584 - 6 March 1616Dramatist in the Renaissance Theatre. Student of poet and playwright Ben Jonson.

Francis Beaumont.

• “Gulliver's Travels”, published in 1726. It is a great and sophisticated satire of human nature based on Swift's experience of his times.

● “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland Being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick”, In 1729

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Age of Satire: a literature of wit concerned with

civilization and social relationships.Critical and moral or satiric.

The 18th century

To make fun of somebody or something.

Mock heroicHumorous burlesques of

modern modes.• Epic.• Juxtaposing high/grand style and low/trivial subject.

Forbidden themes are allowed● incest,

murder, necrophilia, atheism, and the torments of sexual desire.

● Increase of female readers.

A morbid fascination with: ● death● suicide and,● the grave.

Age of Johnson (1745-1790):

The Augustan Poets: Emphasis on visualizing

or personifying.

The Rape of the Lock (1712–17) is a poem expanded 5-canto version (794 lines) and is still the greatest mock-heroic poem ever written.

The poem satirises a minor incident by comparing it to the epic world of the gods.

The 18th century PoetryAlexander Pope:(1688 –1744) was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his use of the heroic couplet.

The 18th century Novel:

Daniel Defoe: (1660 – 1731) was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy. Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man's shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures.

Jonathan Swift: (1667 –1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer poet and cleric.He is remembered for Gulliver's

Travels.