A stake in the sand: the assignment

"As a way of marking, for you and for everyone, a beginning point for our exploration, take out a piece of paper, put your name at the top of it, and write down everything you know, or can vaguely remember, or think you remember, about the period between 1660 and the French Revolution. Events, writers, ideas, music, whatever. If you know more than you can write down in ten minutes, start with the important stuff. If you don't know enough to fill out a sentence, guess. This is going to be something we'll come back to at the end of the process; it's a way of marking your location right now so you can assess where you, and we, have come to by April."

The responses:

• The Enlightenment was taking place which was the period of reason
• Religion began to lose it's power over the people which lead to  new developments in Science
• John Loche was an influential thinker at this time (who is my favourite character on the show lost)
• There were major developments in music. This was the period of Baroque music and the composer Bach
• I think it is was during the Enlightenment when Isaac Newton had the apple fall on his head which helped him conceive the idea of gravity...

• Nothing.
• Revival of theatre
• aftrer Shakespeare, Marlowe, etc.
• Queen Elizabeth I (after her maybe)
• women playing female characters
• melodrama
• switched to more surreal, over the top
• comedy of manners
• plays more socially oriented
• after invention of printing press
• authorship rises
• large gap between classes
• first emergence of middle class? (too early)

• Marie Antoinette was beheaded (close to the end of the French Revolution)
• Henry VIII was King of England
• Napoleon began the French Revolution and began his conquest of Europe
• Mozart, Chopin, Bach and others were present at the time.
• The story of Ivanhoe was written
• The New World was being developed and growing towards modernity
• Shakespeare was beginning his journey as a playwright and bard.

After the year 1660, Europe began many reforms. In Great Britain it became increasingly important for the monarchy to consolidate power within the colony’s and extensive immigration to, and colonization of North America, as well as portions of Asia, Africa, and South America, was well underway. Several countries were major players in the colonization efforts of Europe, but most notably involved Spain, France and Great Britain.

One also sees the rise of freedom writers during this time, Obviously influenced by the revolutionary war taking place in North America, and also the growing unrest taking place in France leading up to the French revolution.

• "Reign of Terror"  -- Robespierre & Marie Antoinette
• Christopher Marlowe -- Doctor Faustus
• John Milton -- Paradise Lost