Shaping The English Character: Performer - Culture & Literature

Shaping the English
Bartholomew
Dandridge,
A Lady reading
Belinda beside
a fountain, 1745.
character
Yale Center for
British Art,
New Haven
Performer - Culture & Literature

Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
Shaping the English character
1. The first Hanoverian king

• Queen Anne (1702–1714) had succeeded her brother-
in-law, William III, and her sister Mary.
• After her death, her cousin, the Duke
of Hanover, became King George I.
During his reign:

1. the powers of the monarchy
diminished;
2. Ministers met without the King in the
cabinet led by the Prime Minister;
3. the actual power was held by Sir
Robert Walpole, Britain’s first prime
minister. George I, c. 1714
Performer - Culture&Literature
2. The House of Hanover
3. 1707: The Act of Union

The Act of Union
became official during Queen Anne’s reign
It abolished the It gave the Scots a proportion of

Scottish Parliament the seats at Westminster
The majority of Scots accepted their new role in a kingdom

united under the title Great Britain.
A renewal of Scottish nationalism must await the 20th

century.
4. The Whigs and the Tories
Descendants Parliamentarians
Supported by the wealthy and
The Whigs commercial classes
Fought for  commercial development
 a vigorous foreign policy
The first  religious toleration
political
parties
in Britain
Descendants Royalists
Supported by the Church of
The Tories England the landowners
Fought for the divine right of
the king
5. A golden age
The 18th-century key concepts were:
• political stability;
• individualism;
• liberal thought and free will;
• optimism;
• reason and common sense;
• desire for balance, symmetry, refinement.
6. The reading public

The increase of the reading public
in the Augustan Age was due to
The growing The individual’s The practice

importance of the trust in his own of reason and
middle class abilities self-analysis
Most readers They used to Coffee-houses

were borrow books allowed the
middle-class from circulating circulation of
women libraries news, opinions

Coffee-houses
1. were attended by fashionable and artistic people;

2. became gathering points where people
exchanged ideas and gossip;
3. let public opinion and journalism evolve;
4. were exclusively attended by men.

The interest of middle-class people in literature gave rise
to
journalism the novel
‘The Tatler’and‘The Spectator’ where the belief in the power of

the first English newspapers reason and the individual’s trust
Their style  simple, lively in his own abilities found
Their aim didactic expression
7. The novelist
1. The spokesman of the middle class.
2. The fathers of the English novel:

• Daniel Defoe the realistic novel
• Samuel Richardson the sentimental novel
• Henry Fielding the mock-epic novel
• Jonathan Swift the satirical novel
8. The novelist’s aim

• To be understood widely He wrote in a simple
way.
• Realism not only linked to the life presented, but to

the way it was shown.
• Speed and copiousness His most important

economic virtues since it was the bookseller and not the
patron who rewarded him.
9. The characters
A bourgeois, self-made,
The hero
self-reliant man
The mouthpiece of the The reader is expected to

author sympathise with him
have contemporary They struggle

All the names and surnames for survival or
characters Robinson social
Crusoe success
10. The setting

• Chronological sequence of events.
• References to particular times of the year or of the day.
‘I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York’
Robinson Crusoe
• Specific references to names of countries, towns and

streets.
• Detailed descriptions of interiors to make the
narrative more realistic.
11. The narrative technique

1ST-PERSON 3RD-PERSON PATTERN
NARRATOR NARRATOR
Fictional
Daniel Defoe
autobiographies
Letters
Samuel
exchanged
Richardson
between the main
characters
The mock-epic
Henry Fielding
style
12. Themes
1. Real life.
1. Everything that could alter a social status.
1. The sense of reward and punishment

linked to the Puritan ethics of the middle class.

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Shaping the English

Performer - Culture & Literature

1. The first Hanoverian king

During his reign:

2. The House of Hanover

3. 1707: The Act of Union

It abolished the It gave the Scots a proportion of

The majority of Scots accepted their new role in a kingdom

A renewal of Scottish nationalism must await the 20th

4. The Whigs and the Tories

• liberal thought and free will;

• reason and common sense;

• desire for balance, symmetry, refinement.

6. The reading public

The growing The individual’s The practice

Most readers They used to Coffee-houses

6. The reading public

1. were attended by fashionable and artistic people;

6. The reading public

journalism the novel

‘The Tatler’and‘The Spectator’ where the belief in the power of

2. The fathers of the English novel:

8. The novelist’s aim

• Realism not only linked to the life presented, but to

• Speed and copiousness His most important

The mouthpiece of the The reader is expected to

have contemporary They struggle

10. The setting

‘I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York’

• Specific references to names of countries, towns and

11. The narrative technique

1. Everything that could alter a social status.

1. The sense of reward and punishment

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