English Literature of the 18th CenturyThe Age of EnlightenmentOUTLINEThe Enlightenment in Europe•The 18th century marked the beginning of an intellectual movement in Europe known as the Enlightenment. It was, on the whole, an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The Enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all branches of science at the service of mankind. Science was to answer the actual needs and requirements of the people.The Age of Reason•The Enlighteners were called such because what they considered to be the chief means for the betterment of the society was "enlightenment" or "education" for the people. In other words, they believed in the power of reason. They recognized no external authority of any kind. Religion, conceptions of nature, society, political systems--everything was subjected to the most merciless criticism; everything had to justify its existence at the bar (=court;seat of judgment) of reason or renounce all claim to existence. The century has also been called the Age of ReasonEnlightenment in England•The Enlightenment in England is different from that in other European countries, appeared in an epoch not preceding but after the bourgeois revolution. So the English Enlighteners, different from their French counterparts of the 18th century, did not call for the launching of a revolution but urged the carrying-on of the revolution to the finish by clearing away the feudal remnants.Augustan or Neoclassical Age•The most striking quality of the 18th century was its optimism. It was a time that celebrated the excellence of the human mind. All creation was believed open to scrutiny.Even the descriptive historical titles of the period express the spirit of improvement and progress. Many people of the time thought they were passing through a golden period similar to that of the Roman emperor Augustus. For this reason the name "Augustan" was given to the early 18th century. Many writers of the era used ancient Greek and Roman authors as models of style. Hence the period in literature is often described as neoclassic. The Industrial Revolution•Merchants and tradesmen achieved tremendous economic power at this time. Scientific discoveries were encouraged. Many important inventions--for example, the spinning jenny, the power loom, and the steam engine--brought about an industrial society. Cities grew in size, and London began to assume its present position as a great industrial and commercial center.Representative Writers•. The representatives of the Enlightenment in English literature were Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, the essayists, Alexander Pope, the poet, Edward Gibbon, the historian, Daniel Defoe Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, the novelists and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, the dramatist. In their works, these writers criticized differentaspects of contemporary England, discussed social problems, and even touched upon morality and private conduct. They intended to reform social life according to a more reasonable principle.Addison and Steele•The modern essay began in two periodicals, The Tatler, founded by Sir Richard Steele, and The Spectator, founded by Steele and Joseph Addison. The kindly and witty essays by these men appealed to the middle class in the coffeehouses rather than to the nobility in their palaces. The aim of The Spectator, Addison said, was " . . . to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with morality." Steele and Addison's essays are still models of clear, informal writing.Daniel Defoe•Most people think of Defoe only as the author of Robinson Crusoe; but when Defoe wrote that novel, he had already lived a life full enough for three ordinary mortals. Defoe was first of all a journalist, with an eye for a news story. Single-handedly he produced a newspaper, The Review, which was an important ancestor of modern newspapers. The list of Defoe's writings runs to more than 400 titles. In all of them, articles and books, is the kind of writing that Defoe recommended to others--a "plain and homely style." Even the great novels of his last years, Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe, read like a modern reporter's account of eventsJonathan Swift•Scornful prose genius, is one of the great prose writers of all time. Although born in Ireland, Swift always said that he was an Englishman. His defense of the Irish people against the tyranny of the English government, however, was whole-hearted. As much as he may have disliked Ireland, he disliked injustice and tyranny more. In a bitter pamphlet,A Modest Proposal, he ironically suggested that the Irish babies be specially fattened forprofitable sale as meat, since the English were eating the Irish people anyhow, by heavy taxation.•Swift's masterpiece is Gulliver's Travels. It is a satire on human folly and stupidity. Swift said that he wrote it to vex the world rather than to divert it. Most people, however, are so delightfully entertained by the tiny Lilliputians and by the huge Brobdingnagians that they do not bother much with Swift's bitter satire on human pettiness or crudity. No one has ever written English prose with greater sharpness and economy than Swift. His literary style has all the 18th-century virtues at their best.Satire in Pope's Poetry•The genius of Alexander Pope lay in satirical poetry. He said that he wanted to "shoot folly as it flies,/ And catch the manners living as they rise." The Dunciad lists the stupid writers and men of England by name as dunces. Pope excelled in his ability to coin unforgettable phrases. Such lines as "fools rush in where angels fear to tread" or "damn with faint praise" illustrate why Pope is the most quoted poet in English literature except for Shakespeare. One of his lighter, though still satirical, poems is The Rape of the Lock.It mockingly describes a furious fight between two families when a young man snips off a lock of the beautiful Belinda's hair. Pope wrote in heroic couplets, a technique in which he has been unsurpassed. In thought and form he carried 18th-century reason and order to its highest peakStart of the Modern Novel•The modern era can be grateful to the 18th for developing the novel. Samuel Richardson wrote the first modern novel--that is, one with a fairly well-planned plot, with suspense and climax, and with some attempt to understand the minds and hearts of the characters.This important novel, Pamela, is made up of letters from Pamela Andrews. She tells of her unhappy attempts to get a husband, but the book ends happily.Henry Fielding•Henry Fielding was amused by Pamela and parodied it in Joseph Andrews, which purports to be the story of Pamela's brother. Seven years later he wrote Tom Jones, one of the greatest novels in English literature. It tells the story of a young foundling who is driven from his adopted home, wanders to London, and eventually, for all his suffering, wins his lady. The picture of English life, both in the country and in the city, is brilliantly drawn. The humor of the book is delightful.Oliver Goldsmith•Goldsmith wrote one of the best plays She Stoops to Conquer, one of the best poems The Deserted Village, and one of the best novels The Vicar of Wakefield of the latter half of the 18th century. Johnson said of his versatile friend: "[He] touched nothing that he did not adorn."Sentimentalism•It came into being as a result of a bitter discontent on the part of certain enlighteners in social reality. Sentimentalism found its expression in poetry, drama and prose fiction. The representatives of sentimentalism continued to struggle against feudalism, but they vaguely sensed at the same time the contradictions of bourgeois progress that brought with it enslavement and ruin to the people.•Dissatisfied with reason, which the classical appealed to, sentimentalists turned to the countryside for its material, and so is in striking contrast to classicism, which had confined itself to the clubs and drawing-rooms, and to the social and political life of London. Pope and Addison entertained and educated the middle class, but had no message for the laboring people. Meanwhile, the poetry of the sentimentalists is marked by a sincere sympathy for the poverty-stricken peasants. They wrote the ‘simple annals of the poor’, thought still in a classical style. The appearance and development of sentimentalist poetry marks the midway in the transition from classicism to its opposite, romanticism, in English poetry.Richard Brinsley Sheridan•Sheridan, orator and political figure, was also a writer of comedies of manners which ridiculed social affectations and pretentiousness. His masterpiece, The School for Scandal, features malicious gossips with such revealing names as Sir Benjamin Backbite, Lady Sneerwell, and Mrs. Candour. For another of his clever plays, The Rivals, Sheridan invented the unforgettable Mrs. Malaprop, whose name remains to this day the designation for a person who misuses words. In one memorable speech she says, "if I reprehend anything in this world, it is the use of my oracular tongue and a nice derangement of epitaphs."William Blake•Blake was both poet and artist. He not only wrote books, but he also illustrated andprinted them. Many of his conservative contemporaries thought him insane because his ideas were so unusual. Chief among these "insane" ideas was his devotion to freedom and universal love. He was interested in children and animals--the most innocent of God's creatures. As he wrote in Songs of Innocence: When the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. In the Songs of Experience, a much maturer work, entirely different themes are to be found, for in this collection of poems the poet drew pictures of neediness and distress and showed the sufferings of the miserable.Robert Burns•Burns was a Scot whose love of nature and of freedom has seldom been surpassed, scorned the false pretensions of wealth and birth (‘A man's a man for a' that.’). His nature lyrics are tenderly beautiful ('To a Mountain Daisy'); his sentimental songs are sung wherever young or old folks gather ('Auld Lang Syne', A Red, Red Rose'). His humanitarian sympathy for the world of plants and animals can still be felt in ‘To a Mouse’。