Literary themes V6

• English
• Middelbare school
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

Literary themes V6

Old English period

Middle English Period

Renaissance

The enlightenment 

Cromwell's rule (enlightenment)

- Reason, logic, scientific thought

- Satire of politics & manners

- Morality, order, decorum

- Progress, education, improvement

- Rise of journalism, essays, and the novel

- Courtly love & chivalry

- Religion, morality, sin & salvation

- Satire of church & society

- Allegory & symbolism

- Social hierarchy and estates satire

- Puritan influence: strict moral/religious themes

- Suppression of theatre & “immoral” art

- Religious prose, sermons, spiritual writing

- Some visionary/epic works (e.g. Milton’s Paradise Lost written after, but shaped by this period)

- Heroism & fate (wyrd)

- Christian vs pagan values

- Loyalty, kinship, warrior culture

- Exile, loss, and the sea

- Oral tradition & epic poetry

Humanism (focus on man, not just God)

- Individualism & ambition

- Love, beauty, art, exploration

- Political power & corruption

- Religious conflict (Protestant vs Catholic)

- Drama as mirror of life