The position of woman in the seventeenth century and her influence on the literature

Literature always reflects the spirit of the age, which produces it. Authors have turned to other times than their own for inspiration, for subject matter, for models of style; but, however much they have been indebted to past ages, there has always been some peculiar quality in their writings, which has marked them as belonging to the particular century, which gave them birth. The earliest English literature is full of the joy of fighting, of glory in the battle: it re-echoes the crash of the swords and the conflict of the spear-points. When more peaceful times came, the poets sang of other things- of the lives of holy men, of the abuses of their own time; and in the hey-day of their youth they burst into complainings against Love and his cruel darts. Woman began to play an important part in the literature