What was the Jacobean Age?

Answer 1

The Jacobean age refers to the period of rule by James I who ascended the English throne after the demise of Elizabeth.The word "Jacobean" is derived from the Hebrew name Jacob, which is the original form of the English name James. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era.The great flourishing of drama as a popular form in the 1590s left an enormous number of plays.Patronage for dramatists came not just from James, but from James' wife Anne of Denmark. The world of Jacobean tragedy is a dark world of corruption, perversion, blood and passion. The world of comedy is more localised, city comedy based on the city of London and its people with their obsessions above all, with money and sex. In literature, some of Shakespeare's most powerful plays were written in that period (for example,three plays written during James I's reign: The Tempest (1610), King Lear (1603), and Macbeth (1603)). Also during this period were powerful works by John Webster, Thomas Middleton, John Ford and Ben Jonson. Ben Jonson also contributed to some of the era's best poetry, together with the Cavalier poets and John Donne. In prose, the most representative works are found in those of Francis Bacon and the King James Bible.

Jonson introduced the literary genre called masque, which went through an intense development in the Jacobean era. He wrote a few masques, The Masque of Blackness, The Masque of Queens. The most notorious event of James's reign occurred on November 5, 1605. On that date, a group of English Catholics under the instigation of Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up the King and Parliament in the Palace of Westminster. However, the Gunpowder Plot was not successful as it was exposed and prevented, and the convicted plotters were hanged, drawn, and quartered.