William Shakespeare
1564-1616

38 plays

154 sonnets
Christian Holy Trinity Church
The Globe
Theatre
The Plague

In 1593, the plague was terrorizing the city of London.

Reflected in his work:
The Rape of Lucrece in 1594
Romeo and Juliet in 1594-1595
Elizabethan Era

He reflected England’s patriotic enthusiasm

Richard II: “This happy breed of men, this little world, This
precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the
office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house Against
the envy of less happier lands…”
John Milton

December 9th, 1608- November 8th, 1674

The most educated poet of England
His Life at the University of
Cambridge

He was very intelligent, but argumentative

Radical beliefs

His long hair led his peers to call him the “Lady of Christ”
Radical to New Official

During the Stuarts’ reign he was thought of as a radical, but
this changed when England became a commonwealth.

When Cromwell came into power
in the 1640s, Milton
became a
new official in his office.
His Losses reflected his Writings

He had lost his father, a good friend, and many of his
children and wives

In 1652, he lost his sight

When the commonwealth died within England, he was
forced to go into hiding for writing propaganda
His Radical Beliefs in Writing

Paradise Lost

A Treatise of Civil Power and Ready and Easy Way To Establish
a Free Commonwealth

Divorce Tracts
Jonathan Swift
1667-1745

Born in Dublin, Ireland on November 30th, 1667

Died on October 19th 1745

Church of Ireland

Political pamphleteer, satirist and
poet.
Works

A Journal to Stella

Drapier’s Letters

The Battle of the Books

An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity

Gulliver’s Travels

A Tale of a Tub

A Modest Proposal
His signature
Drapier’s Letters

Drapier’s Letters were seven pamphlets

Written to turn the public against privately created copper
coins.

William Wood

Condemned by Irish government
A Modest Proposal

“A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor
People in Ireland From Being a Burden on Their Parents or
Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public”

Published anonymously

A satirical essay
Gulliver’s Travels

Told from the perception of Lemuel Gulliver

Originally published as “Travels into Several Remote Nations
of the World”

Swift’s most famous piece

Religious turmoil

English and Irish government problems.
Excerpt

“I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for as I
happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were
strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair,
which was long and thick, tied down I the same manner. I
likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from
my armpits to my thighs. I could only look upwards, the
sun began to grow hot, and the light offended mine eyes. I
heard a confused noise about me, but in the posture I lay,
could see nothing except the sky." (Swift)
Excerpt Analysis

Shows the restrictions of the British government

Helplessness of people

People felt as if they could not truly see what was going on
Visual

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhoktf7X0aQ
The Time Period’s Impact
on Swift

Created/Fuelled Swift’s motives for writing

The whole reason for Swift writing at all.
Swift’s Impact on His Time
Period

Some took his work as a joke, although many were able to
see through their comical exteriors

People took his political messages to life

Saw government in a new light

Drapier’s Letters succeeded in turning the public agains
William Wood, which soon turned into a national boycott.
Miguel de Cervantes (15471616)

Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Considered by many to be the
Shakespeare of Spanish literature

Lived during the Spanish Golden Age

His influence on the Spanish language has
been so great it is often called “la lengua
de Cervantes”

“The Prince of Wits” (El Príncipe de los
Ingenios )

Wrote books of critiquing chivalry
Cervantes’ Life

Cervantes was wounded at the Battle of Lepanto in
1571 and lost use of his arm

Battle of Lepanto: Holy League v. Ottoman Empire


Winner: Holy League (Catholic maritime states)
Spain was part of the Holy League at this time

1575 he was captured by the Turks and carried to
slavery in Algiers

He returned to Spain in 1580 after many attempts
to escape, after paying a ransom

He goes to prison many times…never found guilty
of his crimes

Excommunicated for seizing grain belonging to the
cathedral authorities of Seville in 1587 overzealously carrying out his responsibilities, which
were to gather provisions for the Spanish Armada)
Historical Background

Spain had been at its height of European domination during his
time

Also suffered some of its worst defeats

Many of these are retold in Don Quxiote
Later in Cervantes’ life:




Spanish bankruptcy- Philip II went bankrupt in 1596 from
excessive expenditures on war and his successor, Philip III, did the
same in 1607 by spending a fortune on his court
Armed forces were out of date
Government was inefficient
Problems between classes that led to a series of internal revolts
Don Quixote

Published in 1605

Considered the first modern novel

Serves as a prototype for the comic novel

A classic of Western literature

Satire on chivalrous works

About an old man with old armor, etc. who
believed he was a young knight travelling
with his squire, fighting crime

Caused a demand for more that led to a
plagiarist prints in 1614--causing Cervantes
to complete the real second volume by the
end of 1615

No work (except for the Bible) has been
translated more
Terms Don Quixote coined

"the proof of the pudding is in the eating" (por la muestra se
conoce el paño)


“the proof is in the pudding”"
“who walks much and reads much, knows much and sees
much”(quien anda mucho y lee mucho, sabe mucho y ve
mucho).
Excerpts

“In short, our gentleman became so caught up in reading
that he spent his nights reading from dusk till dawn and his
days reading from sunrise to sunset, and so with too little
sleep and too much reading his brains dried up, causing him
to lose his mind. His fantasy filled with everything he had
read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles,
challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other
impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his
imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent
and false inventions he read that for him no history in the
world was truer.”
“Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and
some have them nearly two leagues long.“
"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not
giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the
vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go.“
"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to
this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid,
away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I
engage them in fierce and unequal combat."
I, Don Quixote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEnDOXmyU-o
A musical take on Don Quixote
Other Works

Novelas Ejemplares ("Moral or
Instructive Tales"). They are unequal
in merit as well as in character.


Variety of styles: anecdotes,
romances in miniature, serious,
comic
All, however, are written in a light,
smooth, conversational style

“Los Tratos de Argel” (The Traffic
of Algiers)

“La Galatea”
Moliére (1622-1673)

Actual name is Jean-Baptiste
Poquelin (Moliére is his stage name)

French playwright and actor

Great master of comedy in Western
literature

Considered to be the creator of
modern French comedy

Wrote highly controversial works

Considered France’s ‘answer’ to
Shakespeare

Aristocrats (such as Philippe I, Duke
of Orleans—the brother of Louis
XIV) paid for Molière to perform
before the King at the Louvre

Molière was thereafter the official
author of court entertainments

He was admired by the court and
other Parisians
•Molière's satires attracted
criticisms from moralists and the
Roman Catholic Church.
•Trartuffe ou L’Imposteur(Tartuffe
or the Hypocrite) and its attack on
religious hypocrisy received
condemnations from the Church,
while Dom Juan was banned from
performance.
Historical Background


Versailles built
Fronde



Which led the French people to believe the
best hope for stability was in the crown
Dutch/French war
French-Spanish Wars
Montaigne
Background

Wealthy French family

Lived with a peasant family for the first 3 years

All house help could only speak Latin or German to him
Important

Elected of Mayor of Bordeaux during the plague

Kept balance between Catholics and Protestants (Moderate)

* Education should be learned through concrete measures
such as experience
Time Affecting his Writing

Religious turmoil

Disgusted by it
moderate
Can never be certain of anything

“What do I know?”


Time Affecting his Writing

Plague



Don’t be so emotionally attached to things
No point in pursuing lasting fame
Be ready for death when it comes
Of Drunkeness
Now, among the rest, drunkenness seems to me to be a gross
and brutish vice. The soul has greater part in the rest, and
there are some vices that have something, if a man may so
say, of generous in them; there are vices wherein there is a
mixture of knowledge, diligence, valor, prudence, dexterity
and address; this one is totally corporeal and earthly. And
the rudest nation this day in Europe is that alone where it is
in fashion. Other vices discompose the understanding: this
totally overthrows it and renders the body stupid.
Quotes

I quote others only to better express myself.

I do not care so much what I am to others as I
care what I am to myself.

Even on the highest throne in the world, we are
still sitting on our ass.

Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs
Famous Today

Father of skepticism



Wrote short essays
Rather blunt
Quoted for the influence in Black Swan
Sources

Jackson J Spielvogel’s Western Civilization Textbook

http://www.online-literature.com/swift/

http://incompetech.com/authors/swift/

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/french/photos%20events/Spring2
010/montaigneOld.jpg

http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/pictures/Montaig
ne/Montaigne2291wl.jpg

http://post.cloudfront.goodinc.com/wpcontent/uploads/2008/10/essays_montaigne.jpg

http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/french/photos%20events/Spri
ng2010/montaigneOld.jpg