On 26 July 1602, William Shakespeare's Hamlet – now the most famous play in the world – is registered for publication. It is a symbolic moment, opening a century rich in drama, poetry and painting.

Jacobean drama

Shakespeare's last great plays – Othello, Macbeth, King Lear and The Tempest – can be seen in open-air theatres such as the Globe and the Fortune in Southwark, on the south bank of the Thames. Occasionally, the bard stars in his own work.

Other Jacobean (named after James I) playwrights – such as John Webster (The White Devil, 1612) and Thomas Middleton (The Changeling, 1622) – specialise in gory revenge dramas, which, with their perfidious plots and devilish deaths, may raise the hairs on the back of your neck.

When the Puritans get into power, they close down theatres because they see them as immoral.

Court masques and art

More exclusive are the court masques, or allegorical plays, of Charles I's court. Designed by architect Inigo Jones, they often star a member of the royal family as a sun god or mythological creature and boast elaborate props and lighting effects. A good example is Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones's The Fortunate Isles (1625).

A masque can cost £2,000 to stage – the price of building a warship.

Charles amasses a huge collection of paintings from all over Europe, so you may be lucky to see noble portraits by Anthony Van Dyck, or the exalted ceiling of the Banqueting House in Whitehall, painted by Peter Paul Rubens. Charles is big on Dutch and Flemish painters such as Daniel Mytens, whose full-length portraits capture the formality of the court. Look out for the talented female painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who is much influenced by Caravaggio.

Books and poetry

Although most of the arts depend on the royal court for patronage, some cultural activities are open to ordinary people. As well as the great festivals of Michaelmas and Easter, when there is a lot of feasting and dancing to a fiddler and band, more people than ever are literate and many set down their thoughts in books and pamphlets (see DIY politics).

Puritans are especially good at literature. In 1667, John Milton, a poet and scholar, publishes his masterpiece, Paradise Lost, a monumental narrative poem about Adam and Eve's fall from grace. John Bunyan, a non- conformist preacher who spends much of his time in jail, writes The Pilgrim's Progress, an accessible religious allegory. Published in 1678, it soon becomes a bestseller.

Other bestsellers in this God-fearing century are Foxe's Book of Martyrs, which shows in excruciating detail the deaths of hundreds of Protestants who were burnt at the stake by the Catholic Queen Mary I in the 1550s, and the Bible, a new translation of which was commissioned by James I and finished in 1611. Like Shakespeare, the Authorised Version of the Bible inspires writers for the next 400 years.

Poetry and meditations

By contrast, Charles I's courtiers, such as the frivolous Richard Lovelace and the mischievous Sir John Suckling, compose verses and love sonnets. A handful of metaphysical poets – such as John Donne and George Herbert – explore our relationship with God and the universe in beautiful if difficult verse.

In 1621, Lady Mary Wroth publishes the first prose fiction by a woman in English.

Other books that give a real flavour of the age include Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) and Thomas Browne's Religio Medici (1643), which mix philosophy with insights into human nature.

Some poets, such as Andrew Marvell, pen immortal love poems – Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress' is a must-read.

Also repaying further study are Izaak Walton's gentle rumination The Compleat Angler (1653) and John Dryden's savage satire Absalom and Achitophel (1681) – which deals, in biblical guise, with the intrigues of the earl of Shaftesbury and the ambition of the duke of Monmouth to replace James, duke of York, as Charles II's heir.

Restoration comedy

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II reopens the theatres and the stage is set for Restoration drama. Look out for witty, cynical plays by Sir George Etherege (The Man of Mode, 1676), William Wycherley (The Country Wife, 1675) and William Congreve (The Way of the World, 1700).

Note how the female roles are every bit as feisty as the male. Not all plays are by men – for the first time, 'female wits' such as Susannah Centlivre and Aphra Behn begin to challenge male dominance. Behn, the first woman playwright, pens at least 17 plays, including The Rover (1677).

Try London coffee houses if you want to bump into literary folk such as John Dryden, who writes elegant essays, poems and plays. Elsewhere, the court wits are back after the dark days of Puritan censorship – look out for John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, whose rude verses make maids blush and drive clergymen to apoplexy.

As the new century dawns, irony and satire hold sway. In May 1703, Daniel Defoe is pilloried and imprisoned for six months for his ironical pamphlet The Shortest Way with Dissenters, and the following year, Jonathan Swift publishes A Tale of the Tub, which satirises theological disputes.

In 1709, Richard Steele and Joseph Addison begin publishing The Tatler magazine – 'accounts of gallantry, pleasure and entertainment' – followed two years later by The Spectator. Mainly concerned with literature, manners and morals, it advocates moderation and toleration in politics and religion.

Painting and music

The Restoration favours foreign painters such as Godfrey Kneller and Peter Lely, whose portraits of bewigged grandees offer a unique insight into court life.

Music also booms. Thomas Wharton composes 'Lilliburlero' – an anti-Jacobite song which is now the theme tune to the BBC World Service – in 1688. William Davenant composes Britain's first opera, The Siege of Rhodes, in 1656, but it is Henry Purcell – composer of Dido and Aeneas (1689) and music for Queen Mary's funeral in 1695 – who ensures that the country is known by classic music buffs the world over.

Architecture

Before the Great Fire of London in 1666, the work of Inigo Jones is a must. The palace he builds in Greenwich for Henrietta Maria, Charles I's queen, is a marvel.

After the fire, Christopher Wren has the chance to rebuild St Paul's cathedral in a baroque style influenced by Italian architecture. By 1678, he's also completed 14 new London churches, which are light and airy and built to provide a simple setting for the Anglican liturgy. As well as St Paul's, visit St Mary Le Bow or St Stephen Walbrook. (See Further afield).

Outside London, the playwright/architect Sir John Vanbrugh lets his imagination fly in his flamboyant Baroque designs for Castle Howard (1700) in Yorkshire and for the Duke of Marlborough's Bleinheim Palace (1705) in Oxfordshire, paid for by Queen Anne to honour the duke's achievements during the War of the Spanish Succession. Vanbrugh also builds and manages his own Queen's Theatre in London, Britain's first opera house.

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