History of Literature

Jacobean era (1603-1625)

The Jacobean era in English and Scottish history coincided with the reign of King James I (1603-1625). The Jacobean era successfully preceded the Caroline era, and which typically dominated by architectural styles, visual arts, decorative arts, and literature in that period.

The word "Jacobean" was derived from the Hebrew name Jacob, which is the original form of the English name James.

Literature

In literature, some of Shakespeare most powerful plays were written in that period for example The Tempest, King Lear, and Macbeth, as well as powerful works by John Webster and Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson also contributed to some of the era's best poetry, together with the Cavalier poets. In prose, the most representative works are found in those of the philosopher Francis Bacon and the King James Bible.

Jonson was also an important innovator in the specialized literary sub-genre of the masque, which went through an intense development in the Jacobean era. His name is linked with that of Inigo Jones as co-developers of the literary and visual/technical aspects of this hybrid art. The high costs of these spectacles, however, positioned the Stuarts far from the relative frugality of Elizabeth's reign, and alienated the middle classes and the Puritans with a prospect of waste and self-indulgent excess.

Science

Francis Bacon had a strong influence in the development of modern science, which was entering a key phase in this era, as the work of Johannes Kepler, in Germany, and Galileo Galilei, in Italy, brought the Copernican revolution to a new level of development. Bacon laid a foundation, and was a powerful and persuasive advocate, for objective inquiry about the natural world in place of the medieval scholastic authoritarianism that still influenced the culture of British society in his lifetime. On practical rather than general levels, much work was done in the areas of navigation, cartography, and surveying John Widdowes' A Description of the World (1621) was one significant volume in this area as well as in continuing William Gilbert's work on magnetism from the previous reign. Scholarship and the sciences, or "natural philosophy," had important royal patrons in this era primarily the King's son, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the king's wife, Anne of Denmark; the Danish Court, from which she derived, had a strong patronage tradition in intellectual matters.

Arts

Foreign talent dominated the fine arts during the Jacobean era. Daniel Mytens was the most prominent portrait painter during the reign of James, as Anthony van Dyck would be under the coming reign of his son. Yet the slow development of a native school of painting, which had made progress in the previous reign, continued under James, producing figures like Robert Peake the Elder (died 1619), William Larkin (1609–19), and Sir Nathaniel Bacon (1585–1627). Some would also claim, as part of this trend, Cornelius Johnson, or Cornelis Janssens van Ceulen, (1593–1661), born and trained in London and active through the first two Stuart reigns.

Royal finances

Political events and developments of the Jacobean era cannot understand apart from the economic and financial situation. James had inherited a debt of £350,000 from Queen Elizabeth; by 1608, the debt had risen to £1,400,000 and was increasing by £140,000 annually. Through a crash program of selling off Royal demesnes, Lord Treasurer Robert Cecil reduced the debt to £300,000 and the annual deficit to £46,000 by 1610 but could not follow the same method of relief much farther. The result was a series of tense and often failed negotiations with Parliament for financial supports, a situation that deteriorated over the reigns of James and his son and heir Charles I until the crisis of the English Civil War.

The Jacobean era ended with a severe economic depression in 1620–1626, complicated by a serious outbreak of bubonic plague in London in 1625.