(Revised
19 January 2006)
(Revised
19 January 2006)
ollected
here are documents focusing on the period immediately preceding the Exclusion
Crisis in the late 1670s to the Revolution of 1688-89. The period is notable
for its lively print culture, due primarily to an extremely volatile political
situation and fuelled by a temporary lapse of the Licensing Act. We also
witness the conviviality of traditional popular culture, with a clear continuity
back to the Renaissance, and a burgeoning modernity, with its rights-based political
thought, spreading democratic involvement in public affairs, capitalism, and
rising productivity due to incipient industrialization. On the literary arena
-- during this period, religion, history, imaginative fiction, and morality
are all part of an intermeshed and highly politicized public sphere -- we see
the rise of the English novel, sixty years before Richardson and Fielding thought
of taking credit for inventing it. Rebellion at home is accompanied by piracy,
conquest, and colonialization abroad, where the encounter with thriving non-agrarian
peoples in the New World and elsewhere undermine traditional conceptions of
human nature and history. On the sexual front, the men are so busy fighting
each other that women gain a new freedom. This confused and tumultous period
contains a sparkling gem and hidden curiosity for everyone.
If you are unable to install the fonts,
a few image files are available that reproduce the intended
appearance, though not of course the links
and music. See for instance "Advice to the Ladies" under Man
& Woman below.
| Man & Woman | Politics | Links | Fonts |
Politics
from the Excluƒion Criƒis to the Bloodleƒs Revolution (1678 - 1689)
Historical Fact & Fiction
© 1999-2006 Francis
F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California at Los Angeles
