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Eighteenth- Century Literature

17th c 3
 A time of constant religious and political turmoil
 This age stabilized the relationships between church and state, parliament
and monarchy.
 These regulations provided a base for future economic and colonial
expansion.
 20% of the population made their living off land.
 Colonial expansionism improved the quality of life
 Peeper and other spices were brought and meat was available all year.
 The outbreak of plague and the Great Fire of 1666 decimated the population
and destroyed most of the buildings.
Britain (1702-1776) Augustan Age/the
NeoclassicalAge/TheAge of Reason 4
 Enlightenment and stability due to the satisfactorily resolved political and
religious divisions.
 Industrial Revolution.
 Nationalism
 The rise of the middle class
 Increase in public reading.
Literature, The 18th Century (Age of Enlightenment)
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 intellectual curiosity and experimentation
 an abiding faith in the power of human reason to unlock the mysteries of nature and
society. One manifestation was a confident belief in the steady advance of
civilization through scientific progress.
 The desire for improvement of the general human condition through tolerance,
freedom, and equality was expressed by French writers and thinkers who came to be
known as “the philosophers”.
 They advocated a philosophical rationalism deriving its methods from
science and natural philosophy that would replace religion as the means of
knowing nature and destiny of humanity; these men were materialists,
pantheists, or atheists.
 The skepticism of the philosophers was swept away in the religious revival
of the 1790s and early 1800s, and the cultural leadership of the landed
aristocracy and professional men who had supported the Enlightenment was
eroded by the growth of a new wealthy educated class of businessmen,
products of the industrial revolution.
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 The rise of philosophical rationalism (the individualism

could discover the reality of the world around him through
his senses and perceptions)
 The expansion of the reading public partly due to the
increasing circulation of newspapers.
 The increasingly affluent middle classes were beginning to
buy more books, especially women. They wanted to read
stories which reflected their own interests and problems
with characters they could more or less identify with.
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 The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, is the

name given to the period in Europe and America during the
1700s when mankind was emerging from centuries of
ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science,
and respect for humanity. People of the Enlightenment were
convinced that human reason could (1) discover the natural
laws of the universe and (2) determine the natural rights of
mankind; (3)
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 Most literature was nonfiction, which means it was based on fact rather than
being made up by the author's imagination. The literature of this period was
realistic. Its aims were to instruct, to enlighten, and to make people think. These
people believed reason shows life as it is; whereas, the imagination shows life as
people wish it were or fear it may be. The people of the Enlightenment revered
the power of the mind to reason and to determine realities. They deprecated
passions and emotions. They saw reason as the ruling principle of life and the
key to progress and perfection. This was an optimistic, self-confident period of
time in Europe. People felt they knew all the answers; they were content, and
they were smug!
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There is a stable, coherent, knowable self. This self is conscious, rational,
autonomous, and universal.
This self knows itself and the world through reason, or rationality, posited as the
highest form of mental functioning, and the only objective form.
The mode of knowing produced by the objective rational self is science, which
can provide universal truths about the world, regardless of the individual status
of the knower.
The knowledge produced by science is truth, and is eternal.
The knowledge/truth produced by science (by the rational objective knowing
self) will always lead toward progress and perfection. All human institutions and
practices can be analyzed by science (reason/objectivity) and improved.
Reason is the ultimate judge of what is true, and therefore of what is right, and
what is good (what is legal and what is ethical). Freedom consists of obedience
to the laws that conform to the knowledge discovered by reason.


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 In a world governed by reason, the true will always be the

same as the good and the right (and the beautiful); there can
be no conflict between what is true and what is right (etc.).
 Science thus stands as the paradigm for any and all socially
useful forms of knowledge. Science is neutral and objective;
scientists, those who produce scientific knowledge through
their unbiased rational capacities, must be free to follow the
laws of reason, and not be motivated by other concerns
(such as money or power).
Daniel Defoe 11

 The father of the English novel.

 His three great novels Robinson Crusoe”, Moll Flanders, Roxana were
all published before 1730
 His works are written in the form of fictional autobiography to make
them more relaistic.
 No real plot, just a chronological series of connected episodes featuring
a single protagonist.
 Single protagonist  
 No psychologicaldevelopement of the characters (only physical appea
rance is described) * 
• The protagonist must struggle to overcome a series of misfortunes,
using only his or her physical and mental resources.
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 It has 3 different interpretations:  
 Religious allegory: man‟s redemption from the sin. Man must save himself regainin
g the paradise lost.  
 Economic allegory: it‟s an allegory of merchant capitalism: the mini-
civilisation which he establishes on 
the island is similar from the society which he comes; the protagonist can be defined 
a “self-
made man”: he is like a businessman who starting from nothing and builds an empir
e. 
 Imperialist allegory: describes the master-
slave relationship and superiority of the white, Robinson Crusoe, over Friday;  
 Henry Fielding 13

 British writer, playwright and journalist, founder of the English
Realistic school in literature  
 Undertook the duty of writing comic epic poems in prose  
“Joseph Andrews”  
 It‟s a comic novel: the author uses a playful and ironic omniscient narrator 
who comments and criticises his characters  
 The novel has an extremely complex plot, involving many characters 
 Fielding portrays the life of society in all its variety 
 He provides a model for social
and comic novelists, such as Charles Dickens.
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 Other pioneers of the novel were Samuel Richardson

(Pamela and Clarisss), and Henry Fielding (Tom Jones,
Joseph Andrews and Jonathan Wild)