18th Century English Literature
1702-1798
18th Century known as
The Augustan Age
The Age of Reason
The Age of Prose
The Neoclassical Age
The Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Elegance
The Age of Sensibility
The Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment in European philosophy refers to the 18th century,
The term also more specifically refers to a historical intellectual movement,
“The Enlightenment” - a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues that
promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress.
This movement advocated rationality as a means to establish an authoritative system of ethics, aesthetics, and knowledge.
This movement also provided a framework for the American and French Revolutions,
the Latin American independence movement, and led to the rise of capitalism and the birth of socialism.
The eighteenth century is also called the Augustan Age.
The reason behind this is that the period itself has similarities with the era of the Roman
Emperor Augustus (63 BC-AD 14) in terms of domestic peace/political tranquility and
economic prosperity.
The eighteenth century was an age of political stability.
The vast majority of the population did not possess the right to vote.
It was the landowning family oligarchies along with the monarch who were responsible for the distribution of power.
The interests of these families were represented at court by two broad parties: the Tories and the Whigs.
Age of Political Stability
Political Power Land owning families oligarchies + monarchy
their interests are represented at court by two Political Parties:
Tories Whigs
Tories and Whigs
Politics in the late eighteenth century England could be divided into two opposed camps – the Tories and the Whigs.
The Tories: believed in the divine right of Kings to rule - that they were ordained by God.
(supported James II)
The Whigs: believed that the King was there at
the request and goodwill of the ruling families of
the country so could only continue to rule at their
approval.
The Tories were associated with the nobility and the urban middle class, while the Whigs had the support of the more traditional country squires.
The political scene was transformed by the
Reform Act of 1832, after which the Tories and Whigs evolved into the Conservative and
Liberal parties.
The Tories The Whigs
King’s followers
Cavaliers Roundheads Catholics Protestants
associated with
the nobility & the urban middle class traditional country landowners (squires) Conformists Non-Conformists
After Reform Act of 1832
Conservatives Liberals
Act of Union passed in 1707 Scotland and England
were united as Great Britain.
Scotland was provided with economic security and assistance, on condition that Scotland acted in
unison with England in case of future French attacks and agreed to the terms of the Protestant
Hanoverian succession on Anne’s death.
They were governed under one Parliament 50 years Whigs remained as the political power
Later in 1801 another Act of Union passed, this time including Ireland to the Union.
The Dublin Parliament surrendered itself to Westminster.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1660-STUARTS
CHARLES II (1660-1685)
JAMES II (1685-1688)
WILLIAM AND MARY (1689-1702) ANNE (1702-1714) (Last Stuart)
Under normal conditions James Stuart (a catholic - Son of
James II) was expected to be the King after Queen Anne. However, the parliament had passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, according to which it was agreed that “The British sovereign must be
Protestant”. Therefore the crown passed to the next in line: George I (Elector of Hanover).
THE HANOVERS (1714-1901)
George I (1714-1727)
George II (1727-1760)
George III (1760-1820)
Hanovers
George I (1714-1901)
The Act of Settlement 1701 prohibited Catholics from inheriting the throne. George was Queen Anne’s closest living Protestant relative. So he became the King. He knew very little English.
In reaction, the Jacobites (Jocobus=James) attempted to replace George with Anne's Catholic half-brother, James Stuart, but their attempts failed.
During George’s reign the powers of the monarchy diminished and Britain began a transition to the modern system of Cabinet
government led by a Prime Minister. Towards the end of his reign, actual power was held by Sir Robert Walpole, Great Britain's first (!) Prime Minister.
Robert Walpole is a highly significant
political figure in English history since under his rule Britain had low taxes at home and a peaceful foreign policy. It was regarded as a period of peace and internal stability, a period of prosperity which Britain had not had for
many years.
George II (1727-1760):
He was the last British
monarch to have been born
outside Great Britain, knew very little English.
As king, he had little control
over policy in his early reign, the government instead being
controlled by Sir Robert
Walpole.
George III (1760-1820):
of Dutch-German origin was born in Britain with
English as his first language.
It was during George’s reign that Britain lost many of its colonies in North America, which later became the
United States.
There was a prevailing spirit of optimism.
The powers of reason and common sense replaced those of the imagination and the emotions.
Both John Locke (1632-1704) and Sir Isaac
Newton (1642-1727) played an important role in
bringing about a new, empirically oriented, and
therefore more rational outlook on the world.
The Industrial Revolution
Britain was pre-industrial at the beginning of the 1700s.
The strength of English maritime power had damaged Spanish trade in South America.
Victories against France and her allies had led England to be the world’s most
powerful colonial and trading nation .
After the middle of the 18th century England was
the “First Industrial Nation.”
Trade increased sevenfold during the 18th century.
Rise of the middle class
New commercial and business organizations emerged (bankers, traders, merchants)
The Bank of England (1694)
Establishment of insurance companies, trading companies Population increased from 5.5 to 8.8 million.
By 1800 the gradual movement of the population from
rural to urban communities (e.g. Glasgow, Sheffield, Liverpool, Birmingham) indicated that the British society was becoming more and more industrialized.
London had become a modern city – the commercial and cultural centre of England.
Changes occurred in agriculture: the open field system – a medieval system of
cultivation whereby villagers owned strips of land and shared fields to graze their cattle in – was gradually replaced by the more
efficient and profitable enclosed land
system.
The iron and cotton industries were expanded towards the end of the 18th century.
In addition to technological innovations in weaving and spinning, machines such as Cartwright’s power loom was invented in 1787.
James Watt’s improvements to the steam engine in 1775
brought about the beginning of the machine age.
Cheap canal transport, rapid road travel played an important role in Britain’s commercial and industrial revolution.
Social conditions
Better than most of other European countries In towns poor lived in wretched conditions
Housing overcrowded no sanitary system Dirt Diseases
Infant mortality
Gambling , drinking became the most popular pastimes.
The Rise of Methodism
(A New religious movement for social and spiritual needs of the growing population)
The Church of England was attacked for its lethargy.
Methodism was non-conformist in approach,
and it attracted considerable support among the
underprivileged throughout the century.
LITERARY CONTEXT
The earlier part of the century was a golden age of prose.
Metaphysicals and Puritans had often used verbal opaqueness/lack of clarity,
extravagant verbal games or unlikely associations
In the 18th century prose (essays, journalism and novel) was
again a prevalent literary form, but it was a different kind of prose from that of the past.
It was simpler clearer
more precise
The new writers of prose and poetry were concerned with
balance
clarity coherence
This was due to the rationalist tendencies of an age in which developments in the fields of science and
rational philosophies led to a more reasoned and empirical way of interpreting reality. In other words, factual analysis predominated faith, dogma or religious teaching.
18th century poetry, imitated the literary forms and subjects of the golden “Augustan” age in Rome: Ovid, Virgil, Horace.
heroic couplet aa bb cc…
poetic diction
e.g. A. Pope’s Essay on Man, Essay on Criticism.
There was an increase in the number of female readers.
Novels were very expensive for the average
lower-class worker. Therefore, the novel was
not a popular literary form, although it was an
important aspect of literary production in an
age which was dominated by prose.
A rising middle class was hungry for knowledge and for literary representations of a changing social
reality. They sought new forms of entertainment and intellectual stimulation.
This was a period in which coffee houses became centres of active debate and social life.
Also newspapers and magazines which dealt with all aspects of society informed the upper classes
about the latest fashions.
18th century prose was sophisticated and speech-based. It was a social prose for a
social age which was increasingly dominated
by the tastes and opinions of both the upper
and emerging middle classes.
In contrast to prose, both poetry and drama took a secondary role in 18th century
literature.
Restoration drama and its comedy of
manners did not appeal to the new middle class audiences who rejected the “immoral attitudes” of the restoration comedies
contained.
Many accomplished writers of the age –
Defoe, Swift and Johnson- wrote articles and essays for the growing number of
newspapers and periodicals.
Journalism became a new trade.
Periodicals dealt with current affairs, politics, literature, fashion, gossip, entertainment,
contemporary manners and morals.
e.g. Addison and Steele’s The Spectator and The Tatler (it had criticized the follies and
foibles/weaknesses of society by the light of common sense).
Its refined simplicity and conversational
tone attracted a large number of readers.
Characteristics of the 18th century novel:
Individual experience was an important criterion.
Plots taken from history, legend, mythology and previous literature were largely abandoned.
Characters usually differed greatly from one another.
Characters were given contemporary names and surnames, so they looked more realistic.
There was a much greater concern with the exactness of time.
Unlike the previous fiction in which the idea of place had usually been vague, in 18th century novel setting contained a lot of
details (e.g. The name of streets or towns).
There was a general movement away from rhetorical and
figurative language towards a more descriptive form of language.
It lacked much of the elegance and polish of the previous fiction.
DANIEL DEFOE (1660-1731)
He held strong Puritan beliefs which constituted a problem for him because fiction is after all a literary form of lying since it portrays
something untrue.
Defoe resolved this problem by insisting that what he wrote was “a history of fact”.
The intention of Defoe’s works is that the reader should regard them not as fictions. Defoe deliberately avoids all art, all fine writing so that the reader should concentrate on a series of plausible events, thinking: “This isn’t a story book, this is autobiography.”
There is often a moral or didactic purpose in his works.
His most important novels are:
Robinson Crusoe – 1719 Captain Singleton – 1720 Moll Flanders – 1722
Colonel Jack – 1722
Lady Roxana – 1724
ROBINSON CRUSOE
Robinson Crusoe is considered to be the first modern novel.
A mass of details gives the book great realism.
The novel depicts Robinson’s true Puritan fashion, and his thoughts in relation to God.
He often goes against what he perceives as
the voice of God and this makes him all the
more human and alive.
The novel is based on a real-life adventure of the Scottish Alexander Selkirk (1676-1721).
Defoe never had the experience of being cast away on an island, yet the meticulous
attention he pays to details and facts
intensifies the realistic aspect of the novel.
Robinson Crusoe is both the narrator and the main character of the tale.
There are two different types of writing in the
novel. One type is the journal that Crusoe keeps for a few chapters until his ink runs out. The other is the storytelling which makes up the bulk of the novel.
Both are narrated in the first-person. Why do you
think Defoe included both types?
Robinson’s idea of a journal keeping is similar to a captain’s
logbook rather than a personal diary. It is objective and factual, avoiding sentimentality. He is a careful note-taker. He is very precise regarding numbers and quantities:
“[the tree] is five foot ten inches in diameter at the lower part…”
“It did not rain on December 26.”
Yet, the journal form could not be preserved throughout the novel since much of the meaning of the story emerges retrospectively.
That is to say, Crusoe needs to write his story from the
perspective of someone remembering past mistakes and judging past behaviour in order to highlight the moral aspect of the novel.
Crusoe’s tone is mostly descriptive and objective, and the diction of the novel is plain, unelaborate.
The setting is realistic. The novel covers a period
of about 35 years starting from 1659 to 1694. The
place is York (England) at first, then North Africa,
then Brazil, then a deserted island off Trinidad, then
England, and finally the island again. The time and
place in the novel are precise, complying with the
characteristics of 18th century English fiction.
There are two main characters in the novel:
Robinson and Friday, both of whom differ greatly from one another.
While Robinson represents the
“master”/oppressor/colonizer as well as the superiority of the white over the native, Friday represents “the slave”/the oppressed/the
colonized as well as the inferior status of the
native to the English.
Robinson’s mastery over nature makes him a master of his fate and of himself.
Early in the novel he frequently blames
himself for disobeying his father’s advice. But in the later part of the novel, Crusoe stops
seeing himself as a passive victim and he
becomes increasingly self-determined and
powerful, especially following his encounter
with Friday.
In his relationship with Friday he is the master, and Friday the slave. The novel offers a powerful
depiction of the colonial mind.
He teaches Friday the word “master” even before teaching him “yes” or “no”. He never considers
Friday a friend or his equal. Superiority comes naturally to him.
Friday is made to believe that “master” is Crusoe’s
actual name for a long time.
Although Crusoe proudly reports that he allows freedom of religion on island, giving his Catholic and pagan subjects the right to practise their own faiths, he describes Friday as a protestant. He attempts to rid his servant of his belief in the pagan god Benamuckee.
Why does Crusoe generally show religious tolerance, but insist on Friday’s
Protestantism?
Crusoe’s attitude is paradoxical. On the one hand, he is in a constant attempt to “civilize”
Friday, on the other his very act of trying to convert Friday to Protestantism conflicts with the very concept of civilization which tends to avoid interfering with one’s faith.
It also points to Crusoe’s newfound control.
Crusoe’s conflicting attitude could also be related to Defoe’s own dogmatic beliefs.
He was a strong Puritan.
Striking symbols in the novel:
“water”: it brings to mind the rite of baptism in Christianity or purification (from one’s sins).
“the footprint”: evidence of man on island. It symbolizes Crusoe’s conflicting feelings
about human companionship.
Early in the novel Crusoe expresses how much he misses companionship. However, the footprint leads him to fear and panic.
He interprets the footprint as the print of the devil.
Crusoe’s fearful attitude could also indicate his reluctance to return to human society, indicating that the isolation he is
experiencing may actually be his ideal
state.
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift is one of the greatest satirists of the
English language.
His power as a writer was born from the savage
indignation he felt at what he saw to be man’s injustice to his fellowman.
Of his many essays, poems and writings he is now best remembered for his novel Gulliver’s Travels.
Gulliver’s Travels, like most of Swift’s other works, was published anonymously.
It is a powerful satire (satire uses irony and exaggeration to poke fun at human faults and foolishness in order to correct human
behavior. In the Restoration period, satire was used as a way of punishing one’s personal or political enemies) written against the follies/stupidity of mankind.
Because it hides much of its satire cleverly, Gulliver’s Travels is also thought as a travel book as well as a children’s book. It is full of fantastic images, giants, tiny people, floating islands and talking horses. It can almost seem like a fable or a fairy tale.
The book is composed of 4 parts.
The first part makes fun of mankind
(especially England and English politics) in a quite gentle way: Lemuel Gulliver sees in
Lilliput a shrunken human race and its
concerns - so important to Lilliput - become
shrunken accordingly.
The second part takes place in the land of the giants- Brobdingnag, where tiny Gulliver
sees human deformities magnified. In this part of the novel Swift displays the mad horror of the
human body.
The third part of the novel explains Gulliver’s travel to the flying island of Laputa . The
inhabitants of this kingdom are devoted to the arts of music and mathematics but they are utterly unable to use these for practical ends.
While there, he tours the country as the guest of a low-ranking courtier (royal attendant) and sees the ruin brought about by blind pursuit of science without practical results. It is a satire on the
Royal society and its experiments.
In the fourth part of the book, where the
Houyhnhnms – horses with rational souls and the highest moral instincts – are
contrasted with the filthy and immoral
Yahoos, who are really human beings,
Swift’s hatred of man reaches its climax.
The moment when Gulliver reaches home and cannot bear the touch of his wife
because her smell is the smell of a Yahoo,
(which makes him want to vomit) is perhaps
the most powerful satire of the book.
thimble
Irony: is the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand.
Verbal irony: the intended meaning of a statement differs from the meaning that the words appear to express.
Situational irony: involves an incongruity between what is expected or intended and what actually occurs.
Dramatic irony: the audience knows more about present or future circumstances than a character in the story.
Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is praise which is really an insult; sarcasm generally involves malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g., “This is my brilliant son, who
failed out of college.”
Satire is the exposure of the vices or follies
of an individual, a group, an institution, an
idea, a society, etc., usually with a view to
correcting it. Satirists frequently use irony.
Examples of irony:
“A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of needling, the
carpenter snapped and beat her repeatedly with an axe, leaving her mentally retarded.”
“Two animal rights activists were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn. Suddenly the pigs, all two thousand of them, escaped through a
broken fence and stampeded, trampling the two hapless protesters to death.”
Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson was born in Derbyshire in 1689, the son of a London joiner (a kind of skilled workman who makes the wooden fittings of a building, e.g. window frames and doors).
He received little formal education, although his family had hoped that he would become a priest. Due to the lack of means, in 1707 he was apprenticed to a printer in London.
Thirteen years later he set up his own shop as a stationer and printer and became one of the leading figures in the London trade.
As a printer his production included political writing, such as the Tory periodical The True Britain, the newspapers Daily Journal (1736-7) and Daily Gazeteer (1738), together with twenty-six volumes of the Journals of the House of Commons and general law printing.
Portrait of Richardson from 1750s by Mason Chamberlin
Richardson’s literary career began after he was in his fifties. When he was well-established as a printer, two booksellers proposed that he should compile a volume of model letters for unskilled letter writers.
While preparing this, Richardson became fascinated by the project, and a small sequence of letters from a daughter in service, asking her father’s advice when threatened by her master’s advances, formed the germ of his first novel Pamela or Virtue Rewarded (1740-41).
Pamela was a huge success and by May 1741 it reached a fourth edition. It was adapted for stage in England and in Italy.
Published in 1748 Clarissa Harlowe or The History of a Young Lady is Richardson’s other most popular work. It is also regarded as his best work.
His last novel, The History of Sir Charles Grandison, appeared in 1753-54.
Richardson’s novels were enormously popular in their day. Although he has been accused of being a verbose and sentimental storyteller, his emphasis on detail, his psychological insights into women, and his dramatic technique have earned him a prominent place among English novelists.
Richardson received great fame for his writing and had many admirers. He died in 1761.
CLARISSA HARLOWE
Clarissa is the longest novel to have been written in the English language, and it is Richardson’s darkest and most brilliant work.
Just like Richardson’s other two novels,
Clarissa Harlowe was written in the formof letters (in epistolary form) exchanged between the main characters: Clarissa, Anna (Clarissa’s friend), Lovelace
(Clarissa’s seducer) and John Belford
(Lovelace’s friend).
The novel contains 547 letters. Due to its
great length, Clarissa Harlowe is considered
“one of the greatest of the unread novels.”
The epistolary technique was largely a reflection of the fashion for letter writing of the period.
Similar to Defoe who had avoided the novel
viewing it immoral due to his Puritan beliefs, and who insisted that what he wrote was “a history of fact”, Richardson chose the epistolary form to enable his Puritan readers believe that what he
had written was a series of letters collected and
edited by a scrupulous author.
The epistolary form has two functions:
1) to show differing/various individual
viewpoints of the same events within the text.
2) to reveal the psychology of characters.
Through the epistolary technique the reader is taken inside the minds of the characters, and is invited to share their thoughts and feelings.
Richardson used this technique to serve his didactic concerns. He used it as a means to emphasize the moral codes of his society. Because his novels were written in the form of letter writing, his works were plausible, posing as truth. Therefore, his works
conformed to the demands of his Puritan readers.
Richardson’s Preface to Clarissa points out his moral and didactic tendency. He writes as follows (see pp. 109-110):
“What will be found to be more particularly aimed at in the following work is
• to warn the inconsiderate and thoughtless of one sex against the base arts and designs of specious contrivers of the other,
• to caution parents against the undue exercise of their natural authority over their children in marital issues.
• to warn children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity.
• above all, to investigate the highest and most important doctrines not only of morality, but of Christianity.”
Clarissa Harlowe portrays the tragic story of a virtuous and wealthy young lady who runs
away with her seducer Lovelace in order to
avoid marrying Mr. Solmes, a rich but ugly man.
After many vain attempts to seduce Clarissa, Lovelace drugs and then rapes her. Lovelace
proposes to marry Clarissa, but Clarissa rejects him. Eventually, Clarissa manages to escape
from him, but she is alienated by her family and condemned by the moral code of her society.
The novel ends with Clarissa dying like a saint, and Lovelace getting killed in the duel with
Clarissa’s cousin.
