Cultural History of Britain
Lecture 7
Timeline
 1603-25: Jacobean Period
 1567-1603: James VI of Scotland
 1603: Union of Crowns (Scotland and England)
 1605, Nov 5: Guy Fawkes, Gunpowder Plot (Catholic Resistance)
 1611: King James’ Bible, the Authorised Version
 1620: Mayflower, Pilgrim Fathers (New England)
 1625-42: Caroline Era
 1640-49 : Civil War
 1649-60: Commonwealth Interregnum
General feature: overlap/mixture of medieval (Gothic) and
modern phenomena (belated Renaissance, Mannerism,
Baroque, Humanism and Reformation, early Enlightenment
and Neo-Classicism) in culture
(1590-1725)
General Features of Baroque
 Periods:
 C. 1590-1625: Early Baroque
 1625-1660: High Baroque
 1660-1725: Late Baroque
 Historical and Cultural Context: Counter-Reformation, Re-Catholisation
 Council of Trent (1545-63): arts should communicate religious content in a
direct and highly emotional manner
 Associated with the expression of absolute power (church and secular)
 Stylistic features:
 Highly decorated (wants to impress with decoration)
 Exaggerated motion (emotional involvement, drama, tension)
 Exuberant and clear detail
 Grandeur
 Focus on mass
 Typical innovations:
 Architecture: the grand staircase, highly decorated interiors
 Literature: revival of the heroic epic (secondary epic, e.g. Tasso)
 Music and theatre: opera as a new genre
Major Baroque Artists and Works of Art on the Continent
 Painting
 Music
 Caravaggio
 Monteverdi
 Bernini
 Vivaldi
 Velazquez
 Johann Sebastian Bach
 Dutch Golden Age painting
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Rubens
Rembrandt
 Sculpture
 Bernini
 Architecture
 Palaces in Germany, Austria
and Russia
 Garden plans
Forerunners of Enlightenment: Francis Bacon
(Lord Verulam, 1561-1626)
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Modern turn in the history of philosophy
The Advancement of Learning (1605)
Novum Organum (1620)
Aristotelian and scholastic basis, but criticism of both
(approaching the world through abstract notions), rejection of
deductions
 Advocates empiricism
 Theology and sciences should be separated, natural sciences
should study the world through empirical methods
(observation, experimentation)
 Science: pragmatic and utopistic in purpose
James I: Court Patronage, Luxury and Witch Trials
 Patronage
 Court masques
 Banqueting House
 French models (Louis XIII) in luxury and patronage
 Personal paranoia of murder and witchcraft
 From 1590 c. 20 witch trials per year in Scotland (half found
guilty and executed)
 Treatise on witchcraft
 1604: new law on witchcraft, but James I’s obsession is rather an
embarrassment
 Features as a factor in the critique of the oppressor/conqueror in
Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe
 Charles I: continues patronage, “imports” masters
Jacobean Theatre: the Decline of
Renaissance Drama
 Shakespeare stopped producing new plays c. 1610 and retired
to Stratford-upon-Avon
 Romantic tragicomedy
 Francis Beaumont (1584-1616)
 John Fletcher (1579-1625)
 Sex-and-crime plays passed off as tragedies (Senecan tradition)
 Thomas Dekker (1572-1632)
 John Webster (1580-1634)
 Leading genre: satirical comedy
 Ben Jonson (1572-37)
 James Shirley (1596-1666)
 Court masques
Jacobean Court Masques: Expensive Royal
Entertainment with Professional Assistance
 Court masque
 Occasion for the queen
and ladies to dress up
and dance
 Mime
 Songs
 Spectacular costumes,
props and scenery
 Ben Jonson
 Inigo Jones
 Surveyor-General of
the King’s Works
(1615-42)
Designs by Inigo Jones: costume for the Queen
(Masque of Blackness, 1604), tribune (Masque
of Queens, 1609)
Inigo Jones: an Anticipation of 18th Century Neo-Classicism
 Jacobean architecture: continuation
of and variation on the Elizabethan
one
 Typical building: country house
(brick)
Hatfield House, south front (1605-12)
 Inigo Jones (1573-1652)
 Professional architect as a new
phenomenon
 Buildings associated rather with
the architect than with the patron
from this time
 On equal footing with the patron
 Studies and travels on the
Continent (Italy, Renaissance)
 Break with the Jacobean
tradition (Renaissance elements
only as decoration)
 Palladian style (named so after
16th century Italian architect
Palladio)
 Principles of design in antique
architecture
 4 of his authenticated buildings
survive, little influence in his
lifetime
The Queen’s House, Greenwich (1616-19, 1630-5)
Banqueting House, Whitehall (1619-22)
The Queen’s Chapel (1623-8)
St. Paul’s Church (1631-3) at Covent Garden with
Surrounding Piazza
Painting: “Imported” Baroque
 Peter Paul Rubens (1577-
1640)
 Panels of the ceiling in the
Banqueting House
 Sir Anthony Van Dyck
(1599-1641)
 1632-41: Court Painter
 Disciple of Titian
 Portraits of the royal and
aristocratic families
 Elegance, idealisation,
absolute power, genius in
the use of colour, especially
shimmering grays
 End of career: mannerism
Architecture: Artisan Mannerism – The Country House
 Introduced by John Smythson,
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architect to William Cavendish
Modeled on the modern houses
of City merchants in London
Involves Gothic features,
nostalgia for medieval times
Introduces the “sham castle”
Unique feature: columnar shafts
corbelled out of the wall
Established as the countryhouse style at the beginning of
the Caroline Era
Music: Forerunners of Baroque
 1625: death of Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
 Last musician of the Golden Age
 Polyphony, madrigals, lute songs
 Foreign influences
 Walter Porter (c.1588-1659)
 Disciple of Monteverdi
 Movement towards harmony and orchestra
 Masque
 Closest thing in Britain to the typically Baroque opera

John Milton, Comus (1634)
Literature: Metaphysical Poets
 Metaphysical conceit
 Major representatives
 John Donne (1572-1631)

Poems published mostly after
his death
 Andrew Marvell (1621-78)
 Minor figures
 George Herbert
 Richard Crashaw
 Henry Vaughn
Civil War and Commonwealth
 End of royal patronage
 End of poetic drama
 1642-60: theatrical
performances suspended,
theatres closed
 Puritan objection to
elaborate church music
(organ forbidden)
Oliver Cromwell, ‘warts and all’,
miniature by Samuel Cooper
Works Cited
Blamires, Harry. A History of Literary Criticism. London: Macmillan, 1991.
Gaunt, William. English Painting – A Concise History. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1991.
Gelfert, Hans-Dieter: Nagy-Britannia rövid kultúrtörténete. Corvina, Budapest,
2005.
Habib, M. A. R. A History of Literary Criticism and Theory from Plato to the
Present. London: Blackwell, 2008.
Halliday, F. E. An Illustrated Cultural History of England. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1981.
Jenner, Michael. The Architectural Heritage of Britain and Ireland. Penguin:
London, 1993.
Leitch, Vincent B., ed. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York,
London: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Morgan, Kenneth O., ed. The Oxford History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1984.
Tarnas, Richard. A nyugati gondolat stációi. Ford. Lázár A. Péter. Budapest:
AduPrint, 1995.
Watkin, David. English Architecture. London: Thames and Hudson, 1992.