The Literature of the Seventeenth Century may be divided into two periods- The Puritan Age or the Age of Milton (1600-1660)which is further divided into the Jacobean and Caroline periods after the names of the rulers James I and Charles I, was ruled from 1603 to 1625 and 1625 to 1649 respectively; and the Restoration Period or the Age of Dryden(1660-1700). The Seventeenth Century was marked by the decline of the Renaissance spirit, and the writers either imitated the great masters of Elizabethan period or followed new paths.

This spirit may be defined as the spirit of observation and of preoccupation with details, and a systematic analysis of facts, feelings and ideas. In other words, it was the spirit of science popularized by such great men as Newton, Bacon and Descartes. In the field of literature this spirit manifested itself in the form of criticism which in England is the creation of the Seventeenth Century