The Jacobean Age (1603-1625)

This age is named after James I who reigned England from 1603 to 1625. The word "Jacobean" is derived from "Jacobus", the Latin version of James. Some historians like to call the last five years of this age as a part of another age which they call The Puritan Age (1620-1660). They call it so because in between 1620 and 1660 puritanism became the driving force in the life and literature of England. The important elements of this age were:

(1)          Colonial territories were expanded.

(2)          Religious conflict that subsided in the Elizabethan age,   revived   in this period. Protestants were divided into three sects:

 (1) Anglicans, (2) Presbyterians and (3) Puritans.

3)            Renaissance's influence continued.

4)            Scotland was brought under the rule of the king of England.

Major Writers and Their Major Works

(1)          Shakespeare who had started in the Elizabethan Period, wrote twelve serious plays in this             period.  Those plays are:

1.            Measure for Measure (1604)

2.            Othello (1604)

3.            Macbeth (1605)

4.           King Lear (1605)

5.            Antony and Cleopatra (1606)

6.            Coriolanus (1606)

7.            Tinton of Athens (unfinished-1608)

8.            Pericles (in part-1608)

9.            Cymbeline (1609)

10.          The Winter's Tale (1610)

11.          The Tempest (1611)

12.          Henry VIII (in part- 1613)

Though Shakespeare had written his serious plays in the Jacobean Age, he is called an Elizabethan dramatist and never the Jacobean. The period (1590-1616) in which he wrote is also called Shakespearean Age.

(2) Ben Jonson who had started in the Elizabethan period wrote his famous plays in this period:

Volpone (1605),

The Silent Woman (1609)

The Alchemist (1610)

(3)          Francis Bacon also continued to write in this period:

Advancement of Learning (1605)

Novum Orgum (1620)

Some new essays were added to the new edition of his Essays (1625).

(4) King James I, known as the Wisest Fool, instituted the translation of the Bible into English in 1611. Its language became the standard of English prose.

(5) John Webster (1580-1625):

The White Devil (1612)

The Duchess of Malfi (1614)

(6)Cyril Tourneur (1575-1626):

The Revenger's Tragedy (1600)

The Atheist's Tragedy (1611)

(7) John Donne (1572-1632) and George Herbert (1593-1633), the metaphysical poets, started writing in this period.

Literary Features of the Period:

Drama still remained the main mode of expression. The dramatists practised classical rules of drama. Elizabethan idealization of love and romance almost died out. Poetry took a new and startling turn.

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