Transcript Restoration Literature

Restoration Literature
Unit Four:The Serious Side
Lesson Five:
The “Other” Restoration Literature
Difference in the Literature
Today’s work is much more typical of what
the majority of literate people would be
reading.
Much more reflective of the general
population’s values.
Qualities
Much less artificiality (check the OED for
the contemporary meaning)
No brilliant displays of wit
But not without imagination and beauty
John Bunyan
B. 1628, son of a poor tinker (metal
worker/repairer).
Very little schooling, followed his father in
the tinker's trade,
Parliamentary army, 1644-47;
Married 1649;
4 children, eldest, a girl, blind,
wife died 1655, remarried 1659.
Life in the Church
Received into the Baptist church 1653.
In 1655 became deacon and began
preaching with marked success from the
start.
1658 was indicted for preaching without a
license
Prison Time
Kept on preaching, and finally went to jail
November, 1660
There with the exception of a few weeks
in 1666, till January, 1672.
Out of prison, became pastor of the
Bedford church. In March, 1675, he was
again imprisoned for preaching for six
months.
Influential Books
English Bible he knew thoroughly.
Greatly influenced by Martin Luther's
Commentary on the Epistle to the
Galatians, in the translation of 1575
Puritans Revisited
“Sadly, most people today do not have a
proper understanding of the Puritans.
They tend to be thought of as old stogies
who just wanted to spoil everybody's fun.
However, the modern-day view of he
Puritans is far from the truth. Perhaps the
following summation of the real Puritans
will put us on the road to a right
understanding.”
From A Quest for Godliness,
by J.I. Packer
The essential thing in understanding the
Puritans was that they were preachers before
they were anything else...Into whatever efforts
they were led in their attempts to reform the
world through the Church, and however these
efforts were frustrated by the leaders of the
Church, what bound them together, undergirded
their striving, and gave them the dynamic to
persist was their consciousness that they were
called to preach the Gospel
More Baptist History
The Puritans wanted to see real biblical
reform come to the Church. These early
Puritans were led by Bishop Richard
Hooker and Thomas Cartwright and they
began to call for a “pure” Church.
However, the Queen and the Church of
England were not willing to put up with
these Puritans and thus began to enforce
religious conformity by law. Thus ended a
brief period of religious peace.
Church Reform
This demand of conformity from the
political and religious forces in England
produced a group known as the
“Separatists”.
The principles behind this movement were
the freedom of the Church from State rule,
pure doctrine rather than a watered-down
or compromising doctrine, and overall
reform of the Church.
What is the Church?
They stressed that the Church was only
those who were the redeemed, not a body
of politically-minded upstarts.
They refused to believe that the Bible
taught a hierarchical church government
(rule from top down), instead calling for a
church government that had some form of
participation from the people (rule from the
grass levels).
Forms and Aids
They preferred a simple worship liturgy
which emphasized a Holy God. They felt
that the state forms and written aids of the
Church of England led to the people’s
focusing on the forms and not the
Sovereign God; thus these types of “aids”
were looked down upon.
Synonyms
Puritans
Separatists
Non-conformists
While not technically synonymous, they
are close enough in meaning for our
purposes to be used interchangeably.
G.M. Trevelyan
 Of all the works of high imagination which have
enthralled mankind, none opens with a passage that
more instantly places the reader in the heart of all the
action that is to follow; not Homer’s, not Milton’s,
invocation of the Muse; not one of Dante’s three great
openings; not the murmured challenge of the sentinels
on the midnight platform at Elsinor - not one of these
better performs the author’s initial task. The attention is
at once captured, the imagination aroused. In these first
sentences, by the magic of words, we are transported
into a world of spiritual values, and impressed at the
very outset with the sense of great issues at stake nothing less than the fate of a man’s soul.
Source
“Bunyan’s England,” The Review Of The
Churches, July, 1928, pp. 319.
Trevelyn is a very famous historian who
was writing in the early to mid-20th
century. Very important for those who
study the period.
Pilgrim’s Progress
Most successful allegory ever written
The second best-seller of any book in
history, second only to the Bible.
It is commonly translated by Protestant
missionaries after the Bible.
Early Publishing Facts
Before Bunyan's death ten editions of The
Pilgrim's Progress had been published,
Supposedly a hundred thousand copies had
been sold,
American edition published in Boston in 1681
Only five copies of the first edition are known to
be in existence.
The reason for this is that the people who
bought copies of The Pilgrim's Progress bought
them to read, and literally read them to pieces.
Bunyan in Holy War
"It came from my own heart, so to my head,
And thence into my fingers trickled;
Then to my pen, from whence immediately
On paper I did dribble it daintily.
Matter and manner too was all mine own,
Nor was it unto any mortal known,
Till I had done it. Nor, did any then,
By books, by wits, by tongues, or hand or pen
Add five words to it, or write half a line
Thereof; the whole and every whit is mine.“
Speculation as to Sources
Dante
Fairie Queene
But probably the only source is the Bible
and Bunyan’s imagination.
Why We Read PP:
Language, colloquial
Realistic description
Good story-telling skills
very important for a good
preacher
Victorian Illustration of Vanity Fair
Comparisons
Sir Thomas Malory
anticipated Defoe and Swift
minuteness of detail
unconcerned colloquialism
apparent absence of straining for effect.
For these reasons, some critics called PP
the first English novel
many read it solely as an adventure.
Thomas Macauley
"Though there were many clever men in
England during the latter half of the
seventeenth century, there were only two
minds which possessed the imaginative
faculty in a very eminent degree. One of
these minds produced the Paradise Lost,
the other The Pilgrim's Progress."
Reading Milton
Not an easy task,
But he really and truly is worth the effort.
I am e-mailing you a list of some
secondary sources that may help.
Five Basic Rules for Milton's Moral Universe
God, by definition good, created the
universe ex deo, not ex nihilo.
As a result, the universe may be
conceived as an infinitely expanding circle
of goodness.
No created being can get outside the
circle without achieving nothingness or
nonbeing.
Rules Con’t
Goodness includes free will.
Evil arises from free will and and
eventually destroys itself or turns into
goodness
Milton’s Background
Born 1608 into the family of John Milton
Sr., and his wife Sara
John Milton Sr. is a prosperous scrivenerlegal aide, real-estate agent, notary,
preparer of documents, money-lender
Father is also active as a composer of
liturgical music.
First Teacher
Milton is tutored at home by Thomas
Young, a Scottish Presbyterian who will
come to be identified with the Puritan
movement.
Young will present Milton with a Hebrew
Bible and will trade Latin and Greek
verses with him
On to School
Around 1620 Enters St. Paul's School
AB, then AM cum laude, Christ College,
Cambridge, 1632,
He didn’t take orders because he didn’t
like the direction of the church
Master of Languages
Latin
Ancient Greek
Hebrew
most modern European languages
French
Italian
German
Spanish
Private Study
Retires to family homes at Hammersmith,
near London, and at Horton, in
Buckinghamshire, to study for five years,
at his father's expense
Occasionally visiting London "for the
purposes of learning something new in
mathematics or music, in which I then
delighted”.
Continental Travels
1638-9, Toured the Continent to finish his
education, as many young men did.
 Visited the Vatican library
Spent some time with Galileo, under
house arrest in Florence
Spent time in Geneva, Calvin’s City
(though Calvin has been dead 70 years),
still “Protestant Rome”.
Starts Private School
When returned, set up a private school at
first for nephews, then for aristocrat’s
children
“Pamphlet Wars”
Before TV and radio and even daily
newspapers with their ads, different sides
of the debate would publish a pamphlet on
the topic, often arguing another pamphlet
that was out there.
Very important insight into the politics of
the time.
Go back to Elizabethan times.
Prose Writing Period
Between 1640-60
Of Education
Areopagitica
Much more
Milton’s Point of View
English people are chosen by God to
perform a necessary political act--founding
a state based on principles of choice and,
within Christian bonds, freedom.
Marriage Troubles
In 1642 married 17 year old Mary Powell
(he was 34). She left after a few weeks.
Her family are Royalists. (and so is M’s
brother)
Because of this during 1643-45 wrote his
divorce tracts
argued that incompatibility is grounds for
divorce.
earned him a reputation as a radical.
Defends Regicide
In 1649 he defended Cromwell against
critics
Explicitly defended Charles I’s execution
Secretary for the Foreign Tongues
Named by by the Council of State,1649
a post dealing with diplomatic
correspondence, usually in Latin
his name lent it dignity.
Payment was £288 per year
Milton around this Period.
Blindness
1652, February. Becomes totally blind
towards the end of the month, most likely
as the result of glaucoma.
Because of his blindness, his salary
reduced from £288 to £150 in ‘55, but that
becomes a pension for life.
They wanted his name and stature as a
scholar.
Anti-Monarchist Till the End
When Charles II returned, Milton was
imprisoned and in danger of execution.
intervention of many people who
appreciated him as an artist saved him,
especially Andrew Marvell
who had been Milton’s secretary when he
worked for he Council of State.
Fined and a lost property
by this point included houses and land.
Won’t Bow to Royalty
James, Duke of York, went to visit Milton,
since he was one of England’s greatest
poets. James suggested that Milton’s
blindness was divine punishment for
supporting regicide. Milton answered: “If
your Highness thinks that misfortunes are
indexes to the wrath of heaven, what must
you think of your father’s tragical end? I
only lost my eyes. He lost his head.”
Three Major Poems
Written in the last 14 years of his life
Paradise Lost, 1667 (made £10 from it,
and his widow sold the rights for another
£8)
Paradise Regained, 1671
Samson Agonistes, 1671
Paradise Lost
First published in 1667 and then was
revised into 12 books in 1674.
The composition probably began in the
1650s, but writing an epic on scriptural
sources was probably on his mind since
the 1640s
Epic
Long narratives tracing the adventures of
heroes.
Blank Verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Usually used in drama during this period
Things We Look at in the Poem
Language
The world he creates
The characters
Bible
Especially as glossed by the early fathers
of the church and Protestant theologians.
Milton draws on the entire Hebrew and
Christian scriptures, even the Apocrypha
Talmudic Writings
Jewish rabbinical writings.
This is where Satan’s envy of sex comes
from as well as his persuasive arguments
to Eve.
See, esp. the medieval writer Moses
Maimonides
Patristic Writers
Particularly St. Augustine’s City of God
Latin and Greek Epics
Such as Homer and Virgil for the
conception of the epic, also Classical
Greek drama was an influence
“Fall of Man”
Medieval literature
Renaissance literature
as some versions of the event from Latin
poems are evident in earlier texts
Italian Epic Poems
Such as Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso and
Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered
Rebellion
Satan vs. God
Adam & Eve vs. Divine Law
Confronts Questions of:
Choice
Obedience
Forms of Government
Raises Issues of
Freedom
Social relationships
Justice/Mercy
If I give you a grade of A, do I have to
justify it?
Open to Various Readings
Feminist
Marxist
New Historicist
brings into play Marxism and emphasis on
political/social context and the interplay
between the text and society
Psychoanalytical
Theology Can Be Confusing
If you’re ambitious and/or interested, the
intellectual theology is most easily
understood by studying Milton’s De
Doctrina Christiana, which at the time was
quite heretical, and in the poem, he tones
it down a bit.
This need not concern us as we can just
avoid a theological reading!
PL as Myth
Milton sees it as myth
In Doctrina Christiana, he writes that
Scriptures are accommodations to man’s
limited faculties, and so is his poem
So we must see Milton in the role of
inspired prophet like the Hebrews of old.
As such, Milton is a revealer of truth in the
Platonic sense
Milton does Share the Orthodox
Christian Views of
Special creation of Man
Satan’s role in temptation
Man’s original sin and fall from Grace
The incarnation of Christ
The last Judgement
Angels as intermediaries between God
and Man.
Milton Disagrees with Certain
Anglican Aspects
Prescriptive ritual
Hierarchical priesthood
Denies Certain Puritan
(Calvinistic) Thought
Assertion of predestination
Milton follows the Protestant theologian
Arminius’s assertion of free will
God’s foreknowledge is sure but does not
necessitate the event, for each man is morally
responsible for his choice of belief or
disbelief.