Answer the following questions based on The Things They ...



The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century (1660–1800) by CF Main – notes for p468–484

Introduction

I. “There are seven groups in English society

1. The Great, who live profusely.

2. The Rich, who live very plentifully.

3. The Middle Sort, who live well.

4. The Working Trades, who labor hard, but feel no want.

5. The Country People, Farmers, etc., who fare indifferently.

6. The Poor, that fare hard.

7. The Miserable, that really pinch and suffer want.” ~Daniel Defoe

a. What conclusions can you draw about English society based on Defoe’s quotation?

Timeline

I. Historical Events

a. 1660–1689 (the struggle between Catholics and Protestants)

i. Charles II proclaimed king of England, 1660 (crowned 1661)

ii. Plague claims more than 68,000 Londoners, 1665

iii. Great Fire destroys much of London, 1666

iv. English Test Act bans Roman Catholics from public office, 1673

v. King James II tries to re-establish Catholic Church, 1685–1688

vi. Newton publishes Mathematical Principals of Natural Philosophy, 1687

vii. “Glorious Revolution”: James II succeeded by Protestants William and Mary, 1688

b. 1690–1739 (focusing on what it means to be “English”)

i. John Locke publishes philosophical essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690

ii. Parliament enacts Penal Laws, depriving Irish Catholics of civil rights, 1695

iii. England, Wales, and Scotland politically unified as Great Britain, 1707

iv. German (and non-English speaking) George I becomes king, 1714

v. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu introduces Turkish practice of inoculation against smallpox, 1718

c. 1740–1779 (the age of Revolution)

i. George III crowned in 1760, becomes “the king who lost the American Colonies”

ii. Stamp Act for taxing Colonies, 1765

iii. Boston Tea Party, 1773

iv. American Revolution begins, 1775

v. James Watt develops steam engine, 1780s

vi. Frech Revolution begins with storming of Bastille, 1789

vii. British crush Irish nationalist rebellion led by Theobald Wolfe Tone, 1789

viii. Napoleon heads revolutionary government in France, 1799

II. Literary events

a. London theaters reopened; actresses appear on stage for the first time in England, 1660s

b. Samuel Pepys begins his diary, 1660

c. John Dryden’s All for Love or the World Well Lost, 1678

d. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Part 1: 1678, Part 2: 1684

e. Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko, an early anti-slavery novel, 1688

f. First issue of Addison and Steele’s The Tatler, 1709

g. The Speculator, 1711

h. Alexander Pop’s The Rape of the Lock, 1712

i. Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, 1719

j. Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, 1726

k. Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, 1729

l. Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” 1751

m. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1755

n. Phillis Wheatley publishes Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in London, 1773

o. Olaudah Equiano, once held in slavery in Colonial America, publishes his autobiography in Britain, 1789

p. James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791

q. Wordsworth and Coleridge publish Lyrical Ballads, 1789

I. Rising Into the Modern Eras

a. England moving on up and off the island.

i. From 1660 to 1800, England pours into Europe and North America, building the British Empire

1. sought freedom from religious and political persecution

2. money to be made overseas

3. racial slave trade of Africans (1690 to 1807)

4. Revolution in American Colonies (1775)

ii. Road to Empire Building

1. England exhausted by nearly 20yrs of civil war (1660)

2. Plague and London Fire (by 1700)

3. Calm and order in the upper classes (mid-1700s)

4. British military established new global settlements despite loss of American Colonies

5. Growth of the middle class despite hardships

6. The Many Labels

a. Augustan Age

b. Neoclassical period

c. Enlightenment

d. Age of Reason

e. Each label describes some characteristic of period but not all of it

II. Augustan and Neoclassical: Comparisons with Rome

a. Roman emperor Octavian aka Augustus

i. Augustus restored peace after Caesar’s assassination

1. Stuarts in England restored peace after the civil was that led to the execution of King Charles I in 1649

2. Both Rome and England were like middle-aged people: weary of war, suspicious of revolutionaries and radicals, and ready to settle down, make money, and enjoy life

3. Augustus was hailed second founder or Rome; the son of shamed Charles I was returned to England, crowned Charles II, and hailed as England’s savior

4. As a warning to revolutionaries, they dug up the corpse of Oliver Cromwell and decapitated him

5. English writers modeled their works to the old Latin classics, which they studied in school ( neoclassical or “new classical”

6. Classics were valuable because they represented permanency and universality of human experience

7. All educated knew Latin classics better than their own British literature

8. Italian Influence on England

III. Reason and Enlightenment: Asking “How?”

a. Times of changing views of humanity and the world

i. During Renaissance, writers like Shakespeare wrote how nature warned of social and political disasters; earthquakes, comets, babies born with birth defects possessed meaning, sent as punishment for past misdoings or warnings for future troubles

ii. They didn’t ask “How?” these events occurred but “Why?” and for what meaning

iii. Enlightenment ( Why turned to How ( birth of science ( less frightening and superstitious

1. Middle Ages and Renaissance peoples believed “demons” were the cause of human illness; Enlightened peoples learned the workings of the human body and were able to give the proper names of the so-called “demons”

2. Edmond Halley calculated when celestial phenomena would occur, computing the orbit of the comet that bears his name, predicting it would appear in 1758, 1834, 1910, and 1986—and it did

IV. The Birth of Modern English Prose: Stripping Down

a. King Charles II chartered philosophers, the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of Natural Knowledge, to answer questions about the universe

b. Called for writing that was precise, exact, and not decorated with elaborate metaphors or odd allusions of the long-winded sentences of predecessors ( modern English prose

c. “Founder and first true master” of modern English prose – John Dryden ( “age of Dryden”

i. Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) – Dryden sought to “vindicate the honor of…English writers”

ii. All for Love (1677) – Dryden’s neoclassical tragedy of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra

iii. Perfected poetic technique, regularized meter, gave diction precision

iv. Master of explaining ideas through reason in verse; set the standards that most poets of the next century aspired to

V. Changes in Religion: More Questions

a. Enlightenment affected people’s religious views

b. If comets weren’t sent by God to warn us, then possibly God didn’t interfere at all in human affairs

c. Rise of deism ( maybe the universe was like a clockwork, wound up by a Creator who withdrew from this perfect mechanism and let it run on its own

d. Deism could make people feel self-satisfied and complacent

i. Alexander Pope’s Essay of Man: “Whatever is, is right.”

ii. “In this best of all possible worlds,…all is for the best” ( ridiculed by French writer Voltaire in Candide

iii. Most great philosophers and scientists of this time, like Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke remained religious; a tiny minority were pure rationalists and materialists

iv. Christianity, in its many forms, remained dominant worldview

VI. Religion and Politics: Repression of Minority Sects

a. Religion determined politics

b. Charles II reestablished Anglican Church as official church of England (In USA, its equivalent denomination is the Episcopal Church)

c. With approval of Parliament, Charles II attempted to outlaw Puritan and Independent Protestant sects ( persecution continued through 18th century

VII. Bloodless Revolution: Protestants from Now On

a. Charles II had many illegitimate children, but no legal heir ( succeeded by brother James II, a practicing Roman Catholic ( most English opposed James because it was widely believed Roman Catholics set fire to London, caused other disasters, and actively plotting to hand over country to the pope (a belief that traveled to Colonies and led to the persecution of American Catholics in early America)

b. James and queen produced a Catholic heir ( pressure mounted, ending with them fleeing to France in 1688 ( “Glorious (bloodless) Revolution” ( James’s Protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William rose to throne ( Anglicans (at least in name) ever since

VIII. Addicted to the Theater

a. Under Puritan rule, theaters were closed for over 20yrs starting in 1642

b. In French court, Charles became addicted to theatergoing ( one of the first actions as King Charles II: repealing the ban on play performances

c. Charles and James patronized actor companies

d. Boys and men no longer acted female roles ( real actresses like Nell Gwyn; new plays emphasized sexual relations of men and women in very unsentimental and unromantic ways

e. Great, witty comedies, like William Wycherly’s The Country Wife and William Congreve’s The Way of the World reflected life of rich and leisured—Frenchified, pleasure-loving upper-class—and their servants and hangers-on

f. Many dramatists, prose and verse writers, who were Dissenters, did not cater to sophisticated people but wrote solely for ordinary readers

IX. The Age of Satire: Attacks on Immorality and Bad Taste

a. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift are regarded as the most accomplished literary artists of the early 18th century ( “age of Pope,” but both men had a profound influence on succeeding writers

b. During Pope and Swift’s lifetimes, both were out of sync with the values of the age, criticizing it severely

i. Alexander Pope

1. Pope addressed his works exclusively to educated and leisured classes, but also attacked them for their immorality and bad taste

2. Pope loved order, discipline, and craftsmanship

3. Appalled by squalor and shoddiness—in art, manners, and morals—that underlay Augustan life ( depicted in William Hogarth’s paintings and engravings

ii. Jonathan Swift

1. Shared many of Pope’s attitudes and ideals, and in his exposure of the mean and sordid in human behavior, his work resembling Hogarth’s art

2. never felt smug or satisfied with world, as many English people did

3. deplored corrupt politics and growing commercialism and materialism of English people

X. Journalism: A New Profession

a. Daniel Defoe

i. Stood for values of middle class: thrift, prudence, industry, and respectability

ii. No interest in polished manners and social poise

iii. Swift and Pope looked down their noses at him

1. “Defoe has written a vast many things, and none bad, though none excellent.” ~Pope

iv. Like essayists Joseph Addison and Sir Richard Steele, followed the new profession of journalism

1. 18th century journalists did not merely describe contemporary political and social matters; they saw themselves as reformers of public manners and morals

2. Journalists today in print, video, and digital media, still see themselves in reformer roles

XI. Public Poetry: Conceived in Wit

a. When we think of great poetry, we think of poets that expose the depths of their souls

b. Restoration/18th century poets are often criticized for composing verse in their “wits”—their mind—rather than their soul

c. But they had no desire to expose their souls ( poetry had a public not private function

d. Augustan poets constructed “public” poems, inheriting kinds from classical antiquity

i. Elegies – celebrated the death of great people; did not seek to tell truth of person but whatever best things the poet could think of saying

ii. Satire – does not make a just and balanced judgment of people and their behavior but rather says the worst things about them that the poet can think of saying

iii. Ode – an ambitious, often pompous, poetic utterance expressing public emotion, like jubilation felt after a great naval victory

XII. First English Novels

a. By mid-18th century, people were writing—and others, including women (women still remain as top reading consumer and audience), were buying or borrowing—long fictional narratives called novels (“something new”)

i. Development of middle class

ii. Broad and comical; adventures of a handsome ne’er-do-well or lower-class beauty

iii. Frequently recounted in endless episodes or through a series of letters

b. Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones

i. Crammed with rough and rowdy incidents

ii. Manages to make characters seem good, but never soft or sentimental

iii. Became an Oscar-winning movie in 20th century ( still fresh and funny today

iv. Mixed plot with textbookish material on how to write a novel

c. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa

i. First novelist to explore emotional life of characters

d. Laurence Sterne

i. Experimental and whimsical—still unique despite imitators trying to copy them

e. These novels tell us something of Augustan age, while helping us understand the humor and disappointments of universal human experience

XIII. Commanding Figure of Johnson

a. Last part of 18th century, “age of Johnson”

i. Samuel Johnson was conservative and traditional

ii. Criticized popular belief in progress (the belief that things are getting better and better) and the assumption that men and women are naturally good (that if society is reformed, then people will automatically do what is right)

XIV. Searching for the Simple Life

a. By 1784, the world was changing in disturbing and profound ways

b. Industrial Revolution turned English cities and towns into filthy, smoke slums

c. France was about to murder a king and set their whole society on a different course

d. The 18th century was coming to an end, and people sensed the coming of a new era ( the age of elegance, taste, philosophy, and reason was over

e. Appalled at industrial blight ( turn towards external nature, writing about the effect of natural landscape on human psyche

f. Disgusted with excessive focus on upper classes and “good taste” ( looking back at past and searching out the simple poems and songs composed by nameless, uneducated folk poets

g. Interest in the literary possibilities of the humble life and were trying to enter into the consciousness of poor and simple folk

h. Nothing is less Augustan ( the rise of Romanticism

Consider this…

During the 18th century, there was a great shift in the way most people thought about the world. Natural phenomena were more and more being explained by the new method of rational, scientific observation. The Renaissance love of the pastoral was abandoned, in favor of 18th century tastes in fashion and art that ran to the artificial and highly formal. What are the prevailing philosophies and tastes in your world? What changes in people’s thing—about religion, science, fashion, art, politics, the environment, or anything else—have you seen during your lifetime?

Women Writers of the Restoration and the 18th Century

I. Aphra Behn (1640 – 1689)

a. Born Aphra Johnson to working-class parents in Kent

b. First English woman to earn her living by writing

c. A free spirit aka an adventuress

d. Wrote in the era when women were at last permitted to work in theater as actresses, playwrights, and produces

e. Very well known in her lifetime, but during 200yrs after her death, her works were regarded as outrageous and were forgotten

f. Might have spent most of her early years in Guiana, married Mr. Behn (“bane”) who died in 1666 (a possible casualty of Great Plague), was a spy against Dutch

g. Left an impressive literary legacy

h. The Rover (1677–1681) – her best known play: 3 young Spanish women, curious about sex, encounter three young traveling Englishmen during carnival time in pain

i. Oroonoko (1688) – an African prince of noble mind and body is tricked into slavery and transported to the island of Surinam

II. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762)

a. More privileged upbringing than Behn; educated herself

b. Clever and daring; at 23, she eloped on horseback with Edward Wortley Montagu, disobeying her family’s wish to marry for money

c. After surviving smallpox, introduced smallpox vaccine to England

d. Refused the romantic attentions of Alexander Pope, who unsuccessfully tried to destroy her in his satires

e. While a talented poet, her fame is from her letters, which were published in four volumes immediately after her death; they chronicle 18th century England, France, and Turkey

f. Spent last 20yrs of her life in a villa in Italy, curious of the world, proud of her granddaughter’s scholarship, and deeply self-reliant

III. Fanny Burney (1752–1840)

a. Fictionalized letters ( epistolary novels (novels composed as letters)

b. One of the first and most important epistolary novels – Fanny Burney’s Evelina (1778) – a beautiful, intelligent girl who must overcome many obstacles in order to win the man she loves, a good man whose wealth and social position are well beyond her own; abandoned by her father due to a misunderstanding, she also has eccentric and socially awkward relatives

c. Had a keen eye and ear for hypocrisy and humor of social relations

d. Praised by notable writers Samuel Johnson and David Garrick; accepted into Bluestocking Circle, a literary and scholarly women’s group

e. Appointed to a position in queen’s household (which she found dreadfully boring and only escaped when she became quite ill)

f. Largely self-taught

g. Had uncertainties about the respectability of a writing career ( at 15, burned some of her works that she believed were not worth anything; she later rewrote one of them into Evelina

h. So insecure about her writing that she published Evelina anonymously at first, putting her name on the cover page once it gained great acclaim

IV. Women dominated the literary circuit during this time to the point that some male writers resorted to using female pseudonyms to get their work into print

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download