REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

NORTHWEST SAMAR STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
MAIN CAMPUS, CALBAYOG CITY

18TH CENTURY LITERATURE

THE ENLIGHTENMENT
 Great Advances in the Sciences
 Celebrated the scientific method – believed Man could perfect himself and
society
 Literature of the time very orderly and formed
THREE PERIODS IN 18TH CENTURY LITERATURE
 Age of Dryden
Named for John Dryden Celebrates Human Achievement
 Age of Pope and Swift
Heavy Neoclassic style characterized by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift
 Age of Johnson
Beginnings of a shift toward Romanticism

 AGE OF DRYDEN
THE RESTORATION AGE (1660-1700) the period from 1660 to 1700 is known
as the Restoration period or the Age of Dryden because monarchy was restored
in England. Dryden was the representative writer of this period.

 JOHN DRYDEN
 The most accomplished poet of the period
 Made prose acceptable to literary circles, and helped establish writing as a
legitimate career
 Clear and concise and became the standard against which all other English
writers were measured.
 His work was a response to the excesses and political upheaval of the
restoration
 Praised the virtues of order, balance & harmony
 Poet laureate in 1668
 DANIEL DEFOE
 Born into a working class family
 Considered the ministry but instead decided on becoming a a crappy
businessman
  Didn’t start writing the novels that made him famous until into his sixties
 Was pilloried for political writing
 Wrote two very popular novels (a new form at the time)
 Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders (both purported to be nonfiction)
 Also wrote a real nonfiction account— Journal of the Plague Year
The novel Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a young and impulsive Englishman that
defies his parents' wishes and takes to the seas seeking adventure. The
young Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked and castaway on a remote tropical island for
28 years. The story may be based on the true-life events of Alexander Selkirk, a
Scottish castaway who survived four years on a Pacific island, or Henry Pitman, a
political rebel surgeon castaway from a Caribbean penal colony. This classic tale of
adventure features cannibals, captives, and mutineers. Some regard it as the very first
modern novel written in the English language, launching the publishing industry.
Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe on April 25, 1719. An interesting fact is that
the original title was 374 characters long: The Life and Strange Surprizing
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty
Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth
of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck,
wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as
strangely deliver'd by Pyrates.

 AGE OF POPE AND SWIFT or also called Augustan Age

Augustan Literature flourished at the time of Caesar Augustus, the famous emperor of
Rome. That era was dominated with the great literary icons like Horace, Virgil and Ovid.
These icons upheld the Classicism in their writings.
On the other hand, in England, the Augustan literature, refers to the 18th century's
literature, specifically the first half of that century. The term comes most originally from a
term that George I had used for himself. He saw himself as an Augustus. Therefore, the
British poets picked up that term as a way of referring to their own endeavors, for it fit in
another respect: and the poets like Alexander Pope was the most respected literary icon
of that era, who was the follower of Horace, Virgil and Ovid. Hence, the Alexander Pope
age is called as Augustan Age.
This period is also known as Neo-Classical period in English Literature.
NEO-CLASSICISM
 Emulated Classic styles
 Frequent references to classics (myths, gods, and heroes)
 Tried to look at the world objectively
 Use of Aphorisms (One liners—the equivalent of the “sound byte”)
 Very fond of Satire
 ALEXANDER POPE
 The first English poet to support himself solely by his writing
  Being Catholic prevented him from holding public office or getting a wealthy
patron
 First major work was An Essay on Criticism, which brought him to the attention of
the leading literary figures of the time.
 A brilliant satirist-one of his best known works is The Rape of the Lock, one of
the greatest Mock Epics in English

The Rape of the Lock, mock-epic poem in heroic couplets by Alexander Pope. The first
version, published in 1712, consisted of two cantos; the final version, published in 1714,
was expanded to five cantos.
Based on an actual incident and written to reconcile the families that had been
estranged by it, The Rape of the Lock recounts the story of a young woman who has a
lock of hair stolen by an ardent young man. Pope couches the trivial event in terms
usually reserved for incidents of great moment—such as the quarrel between the
Greeks and the Trojans. The poem marries a rich range of literary allusions and
an ironic commentary on the contemporary social world with a sense of suppressed
energy threatening to break through the veneer of civilization.

SATIRE
 A work that blends humor and wit for the improvement of human institutions or
humanity
 Satire is not intended to “tear down” as much as to “inspire remodeling”
 Does not attack an individual- it will “pass over a single foe to charge whole
armies.”
 Satire is subtle enough that the reader must make the inference to what or who is
being mocked
 JONATHAN SWIFT
 Was born in Dublin, Ireland
 Was a minister in the Church of England
 His satirical works ruined his chances to advance in the church
 Still remained a staunch supporter of the Anglican faith
 Held a great amount of political power in later years- wrote political pamphlets for
the government
 Wrote “A Modest Proposal” which championed the Irish cause
 His greatest work, Gulliver’s Travels is considered one of the greatest satires in
British Literature.

Gulliver's Travels, or Travels into Several Remote Nations of the

World (1726) is Swift's famous travellers' tale, a satire of human nature in which
Lemuel Gulliver ends up on the island of Liliput, where he towers over its tiny
 citizens. After a career as a surgeon and clergyman, Swift captained several
ships, which inspired his story's adventures.

 AGE OF JOHNSON

The Age of Johnson, often referred to as The Age of Sensibility, is the period in English
literature that ranged from the middle of the eighteenth century until 1798. Ending this
age, the Romantic Period arrived in 1798 with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by poets
William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
The period in British literature between roughly 1740 and 1800 is
sometimes called “the Age of Sensibility,” in recognition of the high value that many
Britons came to place on explorations of feeling and emotion in literature and the other
arts.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
the premier English literary figure of the mid- and late eighteenth century, was a writer
of exceptional range: a poet, a lexicographer, a translator, a journalist and essayist, a
travel writer, a biographer, an editor, and a critic. His literary fame has traditionally—and
properly—rested more on his prose than on his poetry. As a result, aside from his two
verse satires (1738, 1749), which were from the beginning recognized as distinguished
achievements, and a few lesser pieces, the rest of his poems have not in general been
well known.

PREPARED BY:

REYNALDO B. GIOLAGON, JR.

JAIMETO D. SALUDARIO, JR.