Unit 5

Question 1

John Milton (1908-1974)

Answer 1

Best poet after Shakespeare

Works:
a. shorter poems at Horton
b. prose
c. 3 greatest poems

Question 2

Poems at Horton

Answer 2

John Milton
Deep & wide notes taken from about 80 writers: Greek, Latin, English, French & Italian
Studied music: L’Allegro & Il Penseroso (1631)
Works:
▪ Comus (1634) – masque
▪ Arcade (1633) – part of one, music by Henry Lawes
▪ Lycidas (1638) – sorrowful poem to Edward King

Question 3

Prose john Milton

Answer 3

-Concerned with church affairs, divorce and freedom
-violent language

-works:
-areopagitica: A speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing (1634)-> argument for freedom in writing

-wrote pamphlets supporting Cromwell in Civil war (1642-1646) and was appointed minister

-during civil war (1648-1651) eyesight failed, blind by 1651- best works

Question 4

Great poems John Milton

Answer 4

Paradise lost (1667)
- sold for 10GBP
- intended 10 books but finally 12; blank verse, stylistic ornaments
- heaven and hell, remarcable thoughts “ better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”

-Paradise Regained (1671)
- more severe and les splendid

-Samson Agonistes (1671)
- tragedy of the greek model
- last days of samson, blind and prisoners of the Philistines

Question 5

Richard Lovelace

Answer 5

To Althea, from Prison (1642) “Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage”

To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars (1649)

Question 6

Sir John Suckling

Answer 6

courtly wit, careless & light hearted poems

Question 7

Robert Herrick

Answer 7

best lyric poet of his time ▪ wrote about English countryside, flowers & love

Question 8

Edmund waller

Answer 8

heroic couplets, dominant in the next 150 years (rhyming couplets 5 iàmbic feet υ-), but Shakespeare had used it in Othello
His Majesty’s Escape (1625)

Question 9

Sir john Denham

Answer 9

Cowper’s Hill (1642)– description of English countryside

Question 10

John earle

Answer 10

Microcosmographie (1628) – character studies of ordinary people, became a model for character writing

Question 11

Thomas Browne

Answer 11

Religio Medici (1642) – learned & polished language

Vulgar Errors (1672)– mistaken beliefss of ordinary people e.g. Elephants’ legs have no joints

Izaak Walton (1671)

Biography of John Donne (1640) – aesthetic value + social history

Complete Angler (1653) – discussion on river fishing + lovely descriptions Closing of theatres 1642 - 1660