The Restoration

Literature
The first English Dictionary

The beginning of the standardisation process of the previous

century by giving importance to the spelling of the language
itself led the authors of the Enlightenment Period to classify and
organize a standard use of English.

A group of writers and Samuel Johnson (1709 – 1784) started in

1746 a work of collection and explanation of words: it is the rise
of the First English Dictionary, published then in 1755.

For the first time, each word taken from the language was
explained by the illustration of the meaning of the words, using
quotations taken from the contemporary authors such as Locke
or Swift (Gulliver’s Travels).
Augustan
poetry
The last classical age

The Augustans were convinced that their aesthetic

and moral canons were perfect because they
conformed to Nature, which they saw as the rational
principle guiding the universe, and to classical rules.
Nature and the classics were thought to be the
same thing and were considered superior to modern
ideas and standards. It might be said that the
Augustan period was the last truly classical age.

Literature - The Restoration and the 18° Century

Mock-heroic and satirical poetry
These believes were not the only characteristics
of the ‘Augustan’ way of life.
That is why the great poets of the Augustan Age
used satirical (syn. mock-heroic) poetry not just
to entertain their readers, but especially to
expose those follies and abuses of their Alexander Pope (1648-1744) was the greatest

contemporary society. satirical poet of his age. He gained fame with

Mock-heroic is based upon a simple yet The Rape of the Lock (1712), a mock-heroic

effective device: a subject of the least poem in which a trivial accident (a young lord

importance is treated as if it were of the cuts off a lock of a young noble lady’s hair) is

greatest importance. sung in epic language and tone.

Another great satirical poet was the founder of
the first English Dictionary Samuel Johnson,
whose main topic, the caducity of life, is
Literature - The Restoration and the 18° Century represented in his poems.
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

THE NEED OF REALISM

The main features of modern novels are:

• A great stress on contemporary reality.

• Chronological sequence of events.
• Abundance of realistic details.
• The originality of the stories.
• A plain, factual language, similar to that of newspapers and
magazines.
 THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

THE MIDDLE CLASS

The readers of novels mostly came

from the middle class. The authors
wanted to underline their contemporary
ages through the characters of the
novels , who were people from the
middle class.
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

NOVELS DEAL WITH…

a. Enterprise and commercial wisdom.

b. Faith in God’s favour.
c. The praise of virtues like temperance, economy,
sobriety
and modesty

… typical elements of the middle-class everyday life.

 NOVELS CAN BE…
• Realistic → Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
With the novel a modern awareness of time enters literature. In Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe records his hero’s
experiences from year to year and because of this form of realism that we are led to accept the improbability of the story.
Defoe is also the first great writer to be concerned with space as a geographical entity. His sea voyages are measured by
latitude and longitude.

• Utopian → Gulliver’s Travels, by Jonathan Swift

the utopian tradition of showing imaginary worlds or nations which are presented as a counterpart to actual imperfect
societies. Gulliver’s fantastic travels, however, include “real” geography (latitude, longitude, names of seas, oceans and
countries) and Gulliver, too, recounts his adventures with the same precision and objective details as Robinson Crusoe.

• Epistolary → Pamela, by Samuel Richardson

• Picaresque → Tom Jones, by Henry Fielding
• Sentimental → A Sentimental Journey, by Laurence Sterne
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

FEATURES OF THE NOVEL

• It is written in prose.
• It is fiction.
• A connected series of events makes up a story.
• The plot is the way in which the events that make up a story are
organized.
• The setting can concern both the place where the story takes
place, and the milieu of the characters.
• The story can be told through dialogues, descriptions,
narrations.
 THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

CHARACTERS
The growth of the central character from youth to maturity
can be the main theme of modern novels.

Characters can be:

• Stereotyped → follow a fixed model

• Realistic → similar to real people
• Round → dynamic, show psychological development
• Flat → static, little psychological development
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

THE NARRATOR
He is not to be identified with the novelist.

He can be:
• First-person → he may be the main character of the story.
• Third-person → external observer.
• Unobtrusive → he never intervenes in the story.
• Omniscient → he knows and sees everything about the story.
• Non-omniscient → he tells the story from the outside and a
neutral point of view.
THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

THE POINT OF VIEW

It can be:

Fixed → told from a single perspective

Shifting → perspective moves from one character to another
Wide → it happens with an omniscient narrator who knows
more than the single characters
Narrow → usually with a non-omniscient narrator who cannot
always know what the other characters are doing or thinking