Categories: English LiteraturePoetry and Drama

PURITAN POETS

The seventeenth century was dominated by puritanism and puritan poets, so in literature it is usually called the Puritan Age.

The term ‘Puritan”, if used in its broadest sense, means a rebirth, of the morality and religious attitude of human beings, after the intellectual re-awakening of Europe (ie. Renaissance). The poets and prose writers of this Age, satirised and moralised human life. Puritanism. drove itself like a wedge into the art of that time, broadening it as it went. through it.

In the realms of poetry a revolution took place. In the past Spencer had been both a poet and a Puritan, but this alliance of religion, morality, and poetry, after him failed and died. However in the seventeenth century, it found its greatest poetical exponent in Milton, while it had started with Ben Johnson’s plays, and Bunyan was a great prose writer of the same school.

Poets like Herriek, Cowley and Donne belonged to the same Age, and traits of Puritanism were found in their verse too, though they went so far in moral and religious teachings, that they became to be known as “Metaphysical Poets“.

However the serious and meditative spirit, infused by Puritanism in the poetry of that time turned Milton’s thoughts from such subject as the Arthurian legends. Instead of this, he wrote, “Paradise Lost”, “Samson Agonistes“, (i.e. epics on the downfall of man) which were based on Bible stories (in those days the Bible had a vast influence on human mind).

Thus we can say that the poetry of the “Puritan Age” was lofty, dignified, chaste and full of moral, ethical and religious preaching. While in ordinary language the word “Puritan”, meant “To purify” (chiefly the church of that age), the same term in literature became a symbol of “Moral Dignity”, “Purity of Thoughts and Ideas”, “Loftiness in Religion and its values”, Spiritual uplift and personal righteousness.

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