3. Major Works （1） Paradise Lost a. the plot. b. characters.
c. theme: justify the ways of God to man. （2） Paradise Regained. （3） Samson Agonistes. 4. Features of Milton's works.
（1） Milton is one of the very few truly great English writers who is also a prominent figure in politics, and who is both a great poet and an important prose writer. The two most essential things to be remembered about him are his Puritanism and his republicanism.
（2） Milton wrote many different types of poetry. He is especially a great master of blank verse. He learned much from Shakespeare and first used blank verse in non-dramatic works.
（3） Milton is a great stylist. He is famous for his grand style noted for its dignity and polish, which is the result of his life-long classical and biblical study.
（4） Milton has always been admired for his sublimity of thought and majesty of expression. IV.John Bunyan 1. life:
（1） puritan age; （2） poor family; （3） parliamentary army; （4） Baptist society, preacher; （5） prison, writing the book. 2. The Pilgrim Progress
（1） The allegory in dream form. （2） the plot. （3） the theme.
V. Metaphysical Poets and Cavalier Poets. 1. Metaphysical Poets
The term ―metaphysical poetry‖ is commonly used to designate the works of the 17th century writers who wrote under the influence of John Donne. Pressured by the harsh, uncomfortable and curious age, the metaphysical poets sought to shatter myths and replace them with new philosophies, new sciences, new words and new poetry. They tried to break away from the conventional fashion of Elizabethan love poetry, and favoured in poetry for a more colloquial language and tone, a tightness of expression and the single-minded working out of a theme or argument. 2. Cavalier Poets
The other group prevailing in this period was that of Cavalier poets. They were often courtiers who stood on the side of the king, and called
themselves ―sons‖ of Ben Jonson. The Cavalier poets wrote light poetry, polished and elegant, amorous and gay, but often superficial. Most of their verses were short songs, pretty madrigals, love fancies characterized by lightness of heart and of morals. Cavalier poems have the limpidity of the Elizabethan lyric without its imaginative flights. They are lighter and neater but less fresh than the Elizabethan's. VI.John Dryden. 1. Life:
（1） the representative of classicism in the Restoration. （2） poet, dramatist, critic, prose writer, satirist. （3） changeable in attitude. （4） Literary career—four decades. （5） Poet Laureate 2. His influences.
（1） He established the heroic couplet as the fashion for satiric, didactic, and descriptive poetry.
（2） He developed a direct and concise prose style.
（3） He developed the art of literary criticism in his essays and in the numerous prefaces to his poems.
Chapter 5 English Literature of the 18th Century I.Introduction 1. The Historical Background. 2. The literary overview.
（1） The Enlightenment. （2） The rise of English novels.
When the literary historian seeks to assign to each age its favourite form of literature, he finds no difficulty in dealing with our own time. As the Middle Ages delighted in long romantic narrative poems, the Elizabethans in drama, the Englishman of the reigns of Anne and the early Georges in didactic and satirical verse, so the public of our day is enamored of the novel. Almost all types of literary production continue to appear, but whether we judge from the lists of publishers, the statistics of public libraries, or general conversation, we find abundant evidence of the enormous preponderance of this kind of literary entertainment in popular favour.
（3） Neo-classicism: a revival in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of classical standards of order, balance, and harmony in literature. John Dryden and Alexander Pope were major exponents of the neo-classical school. （4） Satiric literature. （5） Sentimentalism
II.Neo-classicism. （a general description） 1. Alexander Pope （1）Life: a.Catholic family;
b.ill health;
c.taught himself by reading and translating; d.friend of Addison, Steele and Swift. （2）three groups of poems:
e.An Essay on Criticism （manifesto of neo-classicism）; f. The Rape of Lock; g.Translation of two epics. （3）His contribution:
h.the heroic couplet—finish, elegance, wit, pointedness; i.satire.
（4） weakness: lack of imagination. 2. Addison and Steele
（1） Richard Steele: poet, playwright, essayist, publisher of newspaper. （2） Joseph Addison: studies at Oxford, secretary of state, created a literary periodical ―Spectator‖ （with Steele, 1711） （3） Spectator Club.
（4） The significance of their essays.
a. Their writings in ―The Tatler‖, and ―The Spectator‖ provide a new code of social morality for the rising bourgeoisie.
b. They give a true picture of the social life of England in the 18th century.
c. In their hands, the English essay completely established itself as a
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