The Eighteen Century

The Augustan Age and the Rise of the Novel: Not complementary terms for the century. They
refer to different aspects.

Names given to period of 18th c. literature

Long eighteenth century 1688 1832. Start with the glorious revolution and end
with the end of the passing of the Great Reform Bill, that expanded the right to vote
to a larger portion of the population
Augustan literature, Neo-classicism. Not all the writers were Augustan in style
(coping Roman authors that wrote under the Emperor Augustus). Johnathan Swift is
considered Augustan.
Enlightenment, Age of Reason. The philosophes. Equality, freedom (for the
individual, from religion), new ideas for Government It was the first time that
philosophers promoted a division from science or medicine. Locke. It doesnt mean
that people were not religious even though they wanted to break with the previous
period. Religion did not govern peoples live as it did previously. Science was
becoming predominant and helped people to understand religion not to break with it.
A period marked by the use of rationality. Light opposed to darkness. The
Encyclopaedia was the ultimate source of knowledge.
Age of Revolutions.
Glorious revolution (1688) to put James II on the throne
American Revolution (1775-1783) to getting rid of taxes and the British
monarchy. Many people on Britain (left wing) were in favour of it. The
Madness of King George: used as an excuse to get rid of the king (he was
mad) and to have a revolution. The government was afraid of the possibility
of a revolution starting there.
French Revolution (starts 1789)
Industrial Revolution. Not political as the others. A process that characterised
Victorian England, it became the most powerful and richest country in
Europe.
Followed by Romanticism. A bit of overlap.
Starts at 1798 with publication of Wordsworth and Coleridges Lyrical Ballads

Social and Historical Context

Jacobite rebellions (1715 and 1745). [Queen Ann (1702), George I, II and III covered the
whole century.] In favour of the catholic James II. The nowadays middle class emerged on
those days. Two serious threats for political stability
Alteration of Whig and Tory governments. Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister in
terms of relevancy. He started off very well but several events soiled his career.
War on France (as a measure to stop the revolutionary fever on England Napoleon);
England dominated seas as a consequence of that war.
Industry v. Agriculture. Subject of a lot of poetry due to the development that was
transforming the period.
England was made prosperous through commerce. This issues are connected with:
Leisure: periodicals (todays newspapers> people had the time and the interest to
read), coffee shops (something that we take now from granted, the fashion of
 drinking coffee started there, coffee and tea from the colonies), libraries (people had
more money and they wanted to expend it but books were still expensive. Authors
also published on instalments or borrowed books from circulating libraries libraries
in a cart that went to villages and exchanged books). The novel rose as well as the
middle class that started to read and like the stories. People had free time.
Public discussion>radicalism. The right to express yourself. People were enjoying
for the first time the possibility of discussing political events in coffee shops. There
existed different societies (clubs). The opportunity to have discussions lead to
radicalism (people had strong opinions, they knew what was happening thanks to the
periodicals)
Religion
Mainly C of E, but revival of Methodism (John Wesley).
Toleration of minorities (not persecuted but not many rights): Jews, Catholics
(cannot be the monarchs) and Dissenters (disagree with the C of E. Strict reading of
the bible and heavy stress on education, culture, knowledge and rationality. They
opened the Dissenters academies because they couldnt go to University).
After Newtons innovations in science, religious mystery could be enhanced, even
explained, by rational wonder. Universal gravitation was his most famous law.
Incredibly influential. Important point because it shows that science and religion
were not opposed but enhanced one another. The idea was that God could be
explained with rationality. A scientific approach to religion.

The Augustan style

Augustan sense v. (pre)Romantic sensibility [some Romantic features are already

present]
Augustan Age: ca.1700 to 1745. Covers only some authors of the period
Pope, Addison, Swift (authors that are considered Augustan) admired the Roman
classical Augustan writers Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Juvenal. Wrote in English in the
same way that those authors wrote in Latin: elegance, balance. Copy it
The term comes from the Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BC 14 AD).
Caesars nephew. Augustan> men writing in this period.
Topics: they catch on social moderation (the opposite of excess), decorum (a
set of rules that clarify social behavior in certain circumstances. Women
interacting among them and with men in public) and urbanity (good manners,
vanity).
The process: poem is not result of inspiration but of a constant re-working
and perfecting (perfecting).
BUT ideas of order and proportion account for only a partial picture of the age. Ideas
of balance, equilibrium, etc. However, other authors prefer to show a different side
of the century. An example of this is:
William Hogarths work is rarely about beauty and grand style but about
corruption and excess. He was interested in London as the center of
temptation, indulgence, violence, disease and selfishness. London as the best
and the worst, the center of the Empire. Very influential for Henry Fielding
Joseph Andrews. In the preface> the portrait of the decay of London.
 In Hogarths, the protagonist decline from innocence to depravity. A complex
contrast> you can have both ideas of the centuries (corruption and clarity)
William Hogarth Marriage a la Mode, 1: The Marriage Settlement (1745). Critique of the
matrimonial agreements between two families. The groom and the bride are not looking at
each other and the parents are negotiating. Arranged marriage of the period. One has the
social position, the family name (old family tree) but no money and the other is the
representative of the new money (thanks to his profession, maybe a merchant or a lawyer).
A perfect union for them but not for the couple. There is always something on the floor, like
representing that something is amiss. Nobility and merchant classes. Mise-en-abime;
London in the background, always on the move, reflecting the new period. The alderman, a
rich merchant, desires a higher social position for his family and thus is buying his way into the
aristocracy, while Squander needs money to fund his overly extravagant lifestyle. Meanwhile, their
children are displaying either supreme indifference or misery at the proceedings.

Documentary - Seven Ages of Britain: Age of Money

Key words of the period: rationality, decorum, city, middle class, trait, knowledge, leisure,
sense and sensibility, moderation, revolution, public discussion, novel, decadence, money.
Was becoming a powerful nation. The bank prosperity. Bank notes. Change of live: richest,
culture change reflected in art.
New class emerged: between the lord and the labour, thanks to prosperity. Money to spare
and appetite for pleasure and novel. Beginning of the middle class. Ordinary people>
inventors, artists, politics. Portraits not only of kings and queens. The Middling sort
(pejorative). Paintings to show that they got the money for it.
Prosperity as the key to power in that age.
Innocent pleasure: clothes, people wanted to be seemed like they were enjoying their wealth.
The canals offered new opportunities.
Not only aristocrats could buy fine things. Furniture maker: Thomas Chippendale. Chinese
style (Far East).
New elite embraced culture and learning. Dr. Samuel Johnson> distinguished personality of
the age. 2 volume dictionary of the English lang. Description of how the word was used.
1707: Great Britain Union. Scotland became prosperous thanks to trade and foment of
ideas> the intellectual powerhouse of Europe. Philosophers and scientist. In Edinburgh: a
folly... imitation of the Greek building.
London was the business capital, it had the money (not the education, intellectual power that
Scotland had). Hogarth. The Rakes Progress. The rise and the fall of a young man that
comes to the city. Drunkenness, gambling. Moral tale. Sense of humor. Inherits from his
father, get new suit, new wealth that goes to his head. Tom goes to London, surrounded by
all the temptations (music, dancing master, surrounded by what the great city has to offer) so
he falls into that. Next he is drunk in a famous brothel. The chaos in which Toms life has
fallen into. He gets arrested, to court for his depts. Sarah, the girl that he betrayed saves him.
He marries with another girl. Then the final downfall> he gambles and loses all his money.
Objects are on the floor. Then he is imprisoned. Sarah comes to rescue him again with her
child. Tom ends in an asylum. Sarah is crying over the destruction of his life. Hogarth tells it
in a way in which awakes sympathy for Tom.