Restoration Literature

1
Restoration Literature

• Unit FourThe Serious Side
• Lesson Five
• The Other Restoration Literature

2
Difference in the Literature

• Todays work is much more typical of what the
  majority of literate people would be reading.
• Much more reflective of the general populations
  values.

3
Qualities

• Much less artificiality (check the OED for the
  contemporary meaning)
• No brilliant displays of wit
• But not without imagination and beauty

4
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.

5
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

6
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.

7
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

8
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.

9
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

10
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.

11
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.

12
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).

13
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 peoples focusing on the forms and not
  the Sovereign God thus these types of aids
  were looked down upon.

14
Synonyms

• Puritans
• Separatists
• Non-conformists
• While not technically synonymous, they are close
  enough in meaning for our purposes to be used
  interchangeably.

15
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
  Homers, not Miltons, invocation of the Muse
  not one of Dantes three great openings not the
  murmured challenge of the sentinels on the
  midnight platform at Elsinor - not one of these
  better performs the authors 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 mans soul.

16
Source

• Bunyans 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.

17
Pilgrims 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.

18
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.

19
Bunyan in Holy War

• "It came from my own heart, so to my head,And
  thence into my fingers trickledThen to my pen,
  from whence immediatelyOn 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 penAdd five words to it, or
  write half a lineThereof the whole and every
  whit is mine.

20
Speculation as to Sources

• Dante
• Fairie Queene
• But probably the only source is the Bible and
  Bunyans imagination.

21
Why We Read PP

• Language, colloquial
• Realistic description
• Good story-telling skills
• very important for a good preacher

Victorian Illustration of Vanity Fair
22
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.

23
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."

24
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.

25
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.

26
Rules Cont

• Goodness includes free will.
• Evil arises from free will and and eventually
  destroys itself or turns into goodness

27
Miltons Background

• Born 1608 into the family of John Milton Sr., and
  his wife Sara
• John Milton Sr. is a prosperous scrivener-legal
  aide, real-estate agent, notary, preparer of
  documents, money-lender
• Father is also active as a composer of liturgical
  music.

28
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

29
On to School

• Around 1620 Enters St. Paul's School
• AB, then AM cum laude, Christ College, Cambridge,
  1632,
• He didnt take orders because he didnt like the
  direction of the church

30
Master of Languages

• Latin
• Ancient Greek
• Hebrew
• most modern European languages
• French
• Italian
• German
• Spanish

31
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.

32
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, Calvins City (though
  Calvin has been dead 70 years), still Protestant
  Rome.

33
Starts Private School

• When returned, set up a private school at first
  for nephews, then for aristocrats children

34
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.

35
Prose Writing Period

• Between 1640-60
• Of Education
• Areopagitica
• Much more

36
Miltons 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.

37
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 Ms 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.

38
Defends Regicide

• In 1649 he defended Cromwell against critics
• Explicitly defended Charles Is execution

39
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.
40
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.

41
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 Miltons secretary when he worked
  for he Council of State.
• Fined and a lost property
• by this point included houses and land.

42
Wont Bow to Royalty

• James, Duke of York, went to visit Milton, since
  he was one of Englands greatest poets. James
  suggested that Miltons 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 fathers tragical
  end? I only lost my eyes. He lost his head.

43
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

44
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

45
Epic

• Long narratives tracing the adventures of heroes.

46
Blank Verse

• Unrhymed iambic pentameter
• Usually used in drama during this period

47
Things We Look at in the Poem

• Language
• The world he creates
• The characters

48
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

49
Talmudic Writings

• Jewish rabbinical writings.
• This is where Satans envy of sex comes from as
  well as his persuasive arguments to Eve.
• See, esp. the medieval writer Moses Maimonides

50
Patristic Writers

• Particularly St. Augustines City of God

51
Latin and Greek Epics

• Such as Homer and Virgil for the conception of
  the epic, also Classical Greek drama was an
  influence

52
Fall of Man

• Medieval literature
• Renaissance literature
• as some versions of the event from Latin poems
  are evident in earlier texts

53
Italian Epic Poems

• Such as Ariostos Orlando Furioso and Tassos
  Jerusalem Delivered

54
Rebellion

• Satan vs. God
• Adam Eve vs. Divine Law

55
Confronts Questions of

• Choice
• Obedience
• Forms of Government

56
Raises Issues of

• Freedom
• Social relationships

57
Justice/Mercy

• If I give you a grade of A, do I have to justify
  it?

58
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

59
Theology Can Be Confusing

• If youre ambitious and/or interested, the
  intellectual theology is most easily understood
  by studying Miltons 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!

60
PL as Myth

• Milton sees it as myth
• In Doctrina Christiana, he writes that Scriptures
  are accommodations to mans 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

61
Milton does Share the Orthodox Christian Views of

• Special creation of Man
• Satans role in temptation
• Mans original sin and fall from Grace
• The incarnation of Christ
• The last Judgement
• Angels as intermediaries between God and Man.

62
Milton Disagrees with Certain Anglican Aspects

• Prescriptive ritual
• Hierarchical priesthood

63
Denies Certain Puritan (Calvinistic) Thought

• Assertion of predestination
• Milton follows the Protestant theologian
  Arminiuss assertion of free will
• Gods foreknowledge is sure but does not
  necessitate the event, for each man is morally
  responsible for his choice of belief or
  disbelief.