英国文学——世纪新古典主义风格

Religious ControBaidu Nhomakorabeaersy
• He insisted the clergymen “conform,” or observe all the ceremonies of the Anglican Church.
• Puritans- Calvanists who wished to purify the Church of its Catholic traditions- were enraged by some of these requirements.
The Civil War
• Charles’s problem grew worse after he was forced to fight Scottish rebels outraged by his insistence on religious conformity.
• Desperate for money, he summoned a hostile Parliament
Torture
• Puritans believed that each group of worshipers, moved by the members’ divinely granted consciences, had the right to choose its own minister- an idea dangerously close to democracy. For these and other ideas, “dissenters” were persecuted and tortured as criminals.
• He dissolved Parliament in 1653 and named himself Lord Protector
• He ruled as a dictator until 1658 when he died
Outlawing
• Civil war had not led to the free society that many who had fought against the king expected.
Loans? No Loans?
• The king then extorted loans from his wealthy subjects and pressed the poor into service as soldiers and sailors.
• Parliament tried to prevent such abuses of power, so Charles eventually dissolved Parliament and would not call it into session for 11yrs.
Monarch is Back
• By the 1700s, though, a monarch was back on the throne, and a new, competitive society had sprung up, with a looser social structure and greater freedom in religion and politics.
The 17th and 18th(Neoclassical)
Century 1625-1798
Mrs. Cumberland
A Turbulent Time: Historical Background
• In 1649, the English shocked the world by beheading their king and abolishing the monarchy.
• New religious creeds had altered or abolished the traditions of centuries.
– John Donne wrote, with his newfound insecurity, “Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone.”
• In the decades before the civil wars tore England apart, revolutions in science and religion had already unsettled people’s worldview.
Changes
• The new astronomy had exiled the Earth from the center of the universe to the vastness of infinite space.
– Parliament condemned Charles I as a tyrant in 1642
– Civil war broke out – In 1645, Parliament’s forces, led by Oliver
Cromwell, defeated the royalist army and captured Charles
Charles I and Parliament
• Crowned in 1625 • Clashed with
Parliament over money • King Charles needed
money for his wars, and Parliament refused to fund them.
Cromwell Rules
• Radical Puritans: dominated Parliament • Tried and convicted the king for treason • Charles I was beheaded on January 30,
1649
– Cromwell led the new government, called the English Commonwealth