European Literature - 17th and 18th
Centuries
 Grace Phelps, Katherine Feehan, Lizzy Steinborn, and Stephanie
Marrie
JOHN MILTON
PARADISE LOST
Miguel de Cer vantes
 -Highly associated with the expansion of Spanish
Literature
 -Produced one of Europe’s first novels.
 -Exerted a profound influence on European literature
 -Widely known for its satire of existing tales of chivalry
and 'mischief'
Backg round
 Born to a poor family in 1547 in Madrid, Spain.
 Not much is known about his early life but was often imprisoned about his debts.
 Joined the army but was captured by pirates. Tried to escape several times but was
finally released after five years.
 In 1584 he married Isabel de Saavedra and started writing.
His Writings

Human Nature
•
•

"It is so conspicuous and void of difficulty that children may handle him, youths may
read him, men may understand him, and old men may celebrate him."--from The
First Part of the Delightful History of the Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of
the Mancha
"Every man is as Heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse." (ibid). Don Quixote
Created expressions even used today
•
•
“The pot calling the kettle black.
“The sky’s the limit.”
•
“A wild-goose chase”
Jonathan Swift
 Born in Ireland
 Troubled childhood
 Left for England-- later returned to
Ireland to live with uncle
 Went back to England, attended
Oxford
 Returned to Ireland
His Works
 Proposal for the Universal Use of Irish Manufacture,
Drapier’s Letters, A Modern Proposal
 Gulliver’s Travels (1726)- political commentary
 I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I
removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get
business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three years
expectation that things would mend, I accepted an advantageous offer from Captain
William Prichard, master of the Antelope, who was making a voyage to the South Sea.
We set sail from Bristol, May 4, 1699, and our voyage was at first very prosperous.
Approach Towards Insanity
 1728- Esther Johnson dies
 Death of Mrs. Johnson and Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift
 William Durant, The Story of Civilization: "Definite symptoms of madness
appeared in 1738. In 1741 guardians were appointed to take care of his affairs and
watch lest in his outbursts of violence he should do himself harm. In 1742 he suffered
great pain from the inflammation of his left eye, which swelled to the size of an egg;
five attendants had to restrain him from tearing out his eye. He went a whole year
without uttering a word.”
 Died 1745
Moliére
 Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
 January 1622
 Actor first
 TB, he collapsed on stage
 Buried next to unbaptized infants.
HIS WORKS
 Rhyme
 Liked tragedies but was better at farces
 The Misanthrope, The Miser, The Imaginary Invalid
 pessimistic
Tar tuffe or the Hypocrite
 The public and King Louis XIV liked it
 BUT it mocked high positions
 BANNED- many times
 Orgon is obsessed with Tartuffe the hypocrite
 Makes foolish choices
 Leads to the(temporary) destruction of his family
Jean Racine
 One of the “Big Three” of the 17th
century French influence.
 A tragedian producing neoclassical
perfections.
 His writings were known for their elegance,
purity, speed, and fury.
 One of the first French playwright to live
off of the plays from his plays.
Backg round
 Born in 1639, was orphaned at a young age and raised by his
grandparents.
 Studied rhetoric and law at numerous colleges. At College of
Harcourt started studying the theatre.
His tragedies
 Showed how men fall from prosperity to disaster.
 The greater the fall of position the greater the tragedy
 He describes the fate of kings, queens, princes, and princesses, from the
pressures of the society.
Racine and Love
 Racine love was a physiological disorder.
 A fatal illness that had deceptive hopes.
 Racine shows destructive love within human beings in his tragedies.
His Writings
 Amasie was bought by the Bourgogne Company but was never produced.
 Moliere helped produce his second play The Baide in 1664 and Andromache in
1667.
 His tragedies include The Litigants (1668), The Wasps, Britannicus (1669),
Iphigenia in Aulis (1674), and Phedre (1677).
Andr omaque (1667)
 One of Racine’s well-known tragedies in five acts
 First performed before Louis XIV by the royal company of actors.
 This play established his reputation as one of the great playwrights in France.
Edward Gibbon
 Born in 1737 in Putney, Surrey
 Sickly child
 Gained love of literature from
owner of his boarding house
 Did not enjoy college
 Removed after converting to
Roman Catholicism
His Works
 Essai Sur L’Etude de la Litterature (Essay on the Study of
Literature) (1761)
 Grand Tour- Rome- The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire
 "the great object of [my] pilgrimage...at the distance of twenty-five years I can
neither forget nor express the strong emotions which agitated my mind as I first
approached and entered the eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod, with a lofty
step the ruins of the Forum; each memorable spot where Romulus stood, or Tully
spoke, or Caesar fell, was at once present to my eye; and several days of
intoxication were lost or enjoyed before I could descend to a cool and minute
investigation.”
 Six volumes-- all published by 1788
Montaigne
 Essayist
 Statesman
 Strange upbringing
 the collar of the order of St. Michael
 married Françoise de la Cassaigne
 Kidney stones
 Henry of Navarre
STYLE
 digression
 Personal anecdotes
 Essais
 Wrote on everything from lies to ambassadors to the education of
children
On Friendship
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
HAMLET
WORKS CITED

http://shakespeare.mit.edu/

http://rarestkindofbest.wordpress.com/2011/04/21/shakespeares-theatre/

http://www.luminarium.org/encyclopedia/chamberlainsmen.htm

http://knol.google.com/k/cantor-s-paradise-lost#

http://www.notablebiographies.com/Ma-Mo/Milton-John.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moli%C3%A8re

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne

http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=168&Itemid=99999999

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2027

http://kirjasto.sci.fi

http://books.google.com

http://victorianweb.org