Part Four The 18th Century

Part Four The 18th CenturyThe Age of Enlightenment in England 1688-1798 the age of Reason

I. Historical and social background ★Compared with the 17th century, the18th C. is a period of comparatively peacefuldevelopment in England. After 1688, England

entered the Golden Age.★ Capitalist system was established in England.

★People divided into the liberal Whigs andthe conservative Tories. ----P.164

The extreme of Toryism were Jacobites.

Ⅱ. Cultural Background

1. Enlightenment

The Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual

movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th C. Itwas an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism.

---P. 165

Two groups:following writers: Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson.

☆ the moderate group includes the

☆ the radical group writers such asJonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Tobias George Smollett, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

2. The influence of Enlightenment

Inspired by the spirit of the enlightenment, people were encouraged to cultivate a sound sense of rationality and a witty intellectuality.

neoclassical poetry and prose –early 18th C. modern realistic novel- middle of 18th C.

★★

gothic novel, sentimental, pre-romantic poetry

and fiction -in the last few decades of the 18th C. In short, it is an age of prose rather than of poetry, and in this respect it differs from all preceding ages of English literature

Neo-classicism in English Literature Representative writers: Alexander Pope,

Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and Samuel Johnson. The classicists found their artistic models in the classical literature of the ancient Greek and Roman writers, and tried to control literary creation by some fixed laws and rules. They stress on the classical ideals of order, logic, restrained emotion, accuracy, good taste and decorum.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Pope was the representative writer of the neo-classical school. He was a master in satire and heroic couplet.

An Essay on Criticism The Rape of the Lock Essay on Man

“Hills peep over hills, and Alps on Alps arise!” 山外有山，天外有天。

The Heroic Couplet Couplet is two consecutive lines of poetry

that rhyme. Eg: In Macbeth Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell That summons thee to heaven or to hell. Heroic couplet means iambic pentameter rhymed in two line. (10 syllables and 5 stresses in each line.) But when to mischief mortals behind their will; How soon they find fit instruments of ill! (Pope: The Rape of the Lock)

English Realistic Novels The novelists of this period told the reader in

their novels, not about knight or kings but about the ordinary people; about their thoughts; feeling and struggles. Daniel Defoe ---- Robinson Crusoe Jonathan Swift ---Gullive

r’s Travels Henry Fielding --- Tom Jones T.G. Smollet: satirical novels Samuel Richardson --- Pamela, epistolary novel

--- P. 168

Gothic Novel The term “Gothic” derived from the frequent

setting of the tales in the ruined, mosscovered castles of the Middle Ages. Gothic novel exploits the possibilities of mystery and terror in gloomy, craggy landscapes, decaying mansions with dark dungeons, secret passages; instruments of torture, ghostly visitations, ghostly music or voices.

---P. 170

Sentimentalism By the middle of the 18th C.,

sentimentalism came into being as the result of a bitter discontent among the enlightened people with social reality. It was a reaction against the cold, hard commercialism and rationalism. Laurence Sterne Thomas Gray Oliver Goldsmith

---P. 169-170

Pre-romanticismIt originated among the conservative groups of men of letters as a reaction against Enlightenment and found its most manifest expression in the “Gothic Novel”. William Blake

The Tiger

Robert Burns

A Red, Red Rose

Life experience A jack-of –all-trades, as well as a writer.

He was a radical nonconformist in religion. Defoe was a journalist and pamphleteer, with a reporter’s eye for the picturesque and a newspaper man’s instinct for making a “good story”. Defoe knew prison life.

---P. 171-172

Major works of Defoe

Robinson Crusoe 《鲁滨逊漂流记》 Captain Singleton 《辛格顿船长》 Moll Flanders 《莫尔.弗兰德斯》 Colonel Jacque 《杰克上校》

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