. . . and our Poetry Editor (Ira Maine esq) has added this to last weeks offering:
John Dryden (1631-1700)
It is almost impossible to grasp, to comprehend how astonishingly important the 17th century was to our modern way of life. It was the century where, for the first time, how we viewed the world began to change. Scientific discoveries had begun (heretically) to suggest that perhaps looking at the world through practical rather than religious eyes might yield us more practical, down-to-earth benefits. The Church didn’t like this at all. In the early part of this remarkable century, Shakespeare died and Galileo Galilei, with his revolutionary telescope, was appearing in Rome before the Inquisition. It was in this time that Harvard, the Royal Society and the Dutch East India Company were established. Most of Europe was at war, Giordano Bruno was being burned at the stake and Guy Fawkes was attempting to blow up the English parliament. The King James Bible was established, the Ming Dynasty collapsed and Bach, Handel, Corelli, Albinoni, Momteverdi, Vivaldi and Purcell were writing some of the most exquisite music ever heard.
Thomas Savery exhibited a rudimentary steam engine at the Royal Society. Elsewhere and by microscope it was discovered that maggots did not, as was previously believed, spontaneously occur but were hatched from eggs. Again, and using a microscope, Robert Hooke discovered the existence of cells. Leeunhoek by the same method, discovered microbes. Under a tree, some where in England, an apple had let loose its grip on the branch and was about to bounce off Isaak Newton’s head. And, in 1606 a Dutch East India Company vessel was making the first ever European landfall in Australia.
The above is just a fraction, a scintilla of the astonishing goings-on of the 17th century, but to go on enumerating them ad nauseam would be tedious, however…Appalled by the levels of societal inequality in England and in search of their own promised land, the Puritans, with little or no knowledge of farming or indeed animal husbandry set off from England, sailed the sea and eventually landed at Cape Cod. God was not on their side…
The latter half of this century, at least in England under Charles the Second, was a time of extravagant, libidinous licence, a reaction of course, against the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell’s time with his puritanical, holy-joe, anti-theatre, anti-dancing anti-everything decrees.
Typical of this time were the rude Restoration comedies, risque poems and shamelessly smutty songs of the period. I include a rude Dryden poem here which I hope you will enjoy.
Song (“Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of Fifteen”)
I.
Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of Fifteen
Felt an innocent warmth, as she lay on the green;
She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guest
By the towzing and tumbling and touching her Breast:
She saw the men eager, but was at a loss,
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close.
II.
Ah she cry’d, ah for a languishing Maid
In a Country of Christians to die without aid!
Not a Whig, or a Tory, or Trimmer at least,
Or a Protestant Parson or Catholick Priest,
To instruct a young Virgin that is at a loss
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close.
III.
Cupid in Shape of a Swayn did appear,
He saw the sad wound, and in pity drew near,
Then show’d her his Arrow, and bid her not fear,
For the pain was no more than a Maiden may bear;
When the balm was infus’d, she was not at a loss
What they meant by their sighing and kissing so close;
By their praying and whining,
And clasping and twining,
And panting and wishing,
And sighing and kissing,
And sighing and kissing so close