"A darker cloud": The effects of factionalism between the city and the court on the poetry that portrays the physical aspect of London life (c. 1600-1666).
Item
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Title
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"A darker cloud": The effects of factionalism between the city and the court on the poetry that portrays the physical aspect of London life (c. 1600-1666).
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Identifier
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AAI9432376
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identifier
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9432376
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Creator
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Rosenblum, Marc.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Felicia Bonaparte
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Date
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1994
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, English
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Abstract
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The factionalism existing in the London scene during the reigns of James I, Charles I, and Charles II has a major effect upon the Stuart poets and is in turn the subject of much of their poetry written about London life during the early and mid-17th century. This concern with the escalating factionalism in the capital city is particularly evident in those urban poems which describe the physical metropolis in terms of its landmarks, panoramas, and pollution problems. London, in these urban poems describing the physical aspect of the city's life, is portrayed as being a kind of battleground in which there is a persistent struggle for political dominance between, on the one side, the Monarch and his court, and, on the other side, the city's entrepreneurial middle-class along with their representative voice in Parliament's House of Commons. The courtier poets emphasize the King's commanding physical presence within and his encompassing view of the metropolitan scene, the Monarch's anti-urban vision of the filthy City of London, the King's or a member of the sovereign family's repair and improvement of royal landmarks in the capital, and the centralized, majestic prospects of the surrounding city afforded by these monarchical structures. The King's relationship with the physical city is a continuing preoccupation in these urban poems because the courtier poets want to assert the continued dominance of the Stuart Monarchy in the political and religious life of the capital city at a time when its prerogatives and its aspirations to attain a more absolute rule are being challenged by radical urban sects who advocate, because of their growing affluence and business acumen in the modern capitalist society, the need to create a more limited Monarchy so that they will have a greater voice in the nation's government.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
