(Revised 19 January 2006)

From My Dog And Iollected 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.

The texts are electronically typeset with two 17th-century fonts; these may need to be installed on your local machine to display the material correctly. For instructions, see configuration guidelines.

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

Man and WomanFrom the mid-1670s ballad, My wife will be my Master


Politics from the Excluƒion Criƒis to the Bloodleƒs Revolution (1678 - 1689)


Basic Reƒources


Related Links


Historical Fact & Fiction

 


Bibliography © 1999-2006 Francis F. Steen, Communication Studies, University of California at Los Angeles

 

Reƒtoration Print Culture




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