The Age of Pope

1700 - 1745
 The Eighteenth Century

• The Glorious Revolution of 1688 firmly established a

Protestant monarchy together with effective rule by Parliament
• The new science of the time, Newtonian physics, reinforced
the belief that everything, including human conduct, is guided
by a rational order
• Moderation and common sense became intellectual values as
well as standards of behavior.
• The 18th cent. was the age of town life with its coffeehouses
and clubs
• One of the most famous of the latter was the Scriblerus Club,
whose members included Pope, Swift, and John Gay
• Its purpose was to defend and uphold high literary standards
against the rising tide of middle-class values and tastes
Eighteenth-Century English Lit...
• The Revolution of 1688, which banished the Stuarts, had
settled the king question by making Parliament supreme in
England, but not all Englishmen were content with the
settlement.
• People - divided into hostile parties: the liberal Whigs
• Whig - a member of a British political party in the 17th,
18th and 19th centuries, which supported political and
social change
• Tory (Conservative)- belonging to or supporting the
British political party which opposes sudden social change,
high taxation and government involvement in industry
• Zealot - a person who has very strong opinions about
something, and tries to make other people have them too
• Addison, Steele, Defoe, Swift,--most of the great writers of the
age were, on occasion, the willing servants of the Whigs or
Tories. So the new politician replaced the old nobleman as a
patron of letters
• the War of the Spanish Succession (1711) prevented the union
of the French and Spanish monarchies, and preserved the
smaller states of Holland and Germany
• eighteenth-century writings in three main divisions: the reign
of so-called classicism, the revival of romantic poetry, and the
beginnings of the modern novel
• The word “classic” came to have a different meaning, a
meaning now expressed by the word “formal.”
• The Eighteenth Century in England is called the Classical Age
or the Augustan Age in literature. It is also called the Age of
Good Sense or the Age of Reason.
• Dryden is also included in the Classical or Augustan Age
• Other great literary figures - this age successively were Pope and
Dr. Johnson
Classical Age is divided into three distinct periods—the Ages of
Dryden, Pope and Dr. Johnson.
• The Age of Dryden dealt as - “The Restoration Period.”
• In the first place , the term ‘classic’, refers in general, applies to
writers of the highest rank in any nation
• first applied to the works of the great Greek and Roman writers, like
Homer and Virgil
• This age writers followed - the simple and noble methods of the
great ancient writers
• In the second place, in every national literature there is a period
when a large number of writers produce works of great merit
• the reign of Augustus is called the Classical Age of Rome; and the
Age of Dante is called the Classical Age of Italian literature.
• an abundance of literary productions
• In the third place, during this period the English writers
rebelled against the exaggerated and fantastic style of writing
prevalent during the Elizabethan and Puritan ages, and they
demanded that poetry, drama and prose should follow exact
rules.

• the writers followed the ‘classicism’

• their external performance, and lacked their sublimity and

grandeur

• pseudo(a system of thought or a theory which is not formed

in a scientific way )-classicism

• Pope, Addison, Swift, Johnson and Burke the modern parallels

to Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and other brilliant writers who made
Roman literature famous during the reign of Emperor
Augustus
• John Locke, the great philosopher, declared in An Essay
Concerning Humane Understanding (1690), “Faith is nothing
but a firm assent of the mind; which if it be regulated as is our
duty, cannot be afforded to anything but upon good reason;
and so cannot be opposite to it.”

• When Pope said of wit that it is “Nature to advantage dress’d,

what oft was thought but n’er so well express’d,”

• Dr. Johnson remarked about Gray’s Elegy that “it abounds

with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with
sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo”
 Charecterisitcs of the classical school of poetry
• Classical Poetry - Product of the intelligence playing upon the
surface of life
• Emotion & imagination is markedly deficient
• Didactic & satiric – commonly
• A poetry of argument & criticism of political & personalities
• Exclusively – town poetry
• Made out – interest of society & the humbler aspects of life are
neglected
• The critical taste of the time was distinctly unsympathetic towards
predecessors
• Romanticism & enthusiasm alike cut across all its accepted
notions of reasonableness & good sense
• Extreme devotion to form & a love of superficial polish led to the
establishment of a highly artificial & conventional style
 The literary characteristics of this age
• prose occupies the front position.
• the prominent writers took an active part, and a large number
of pamphlets, journals and magazines were brought out in
order to cater to the growing need of the masses
• poetry was considered inadequate for such a task,
• a rapid development of prose
• prose writers of this age excel the poets in every respect
• The graceful and elegant prose of Addison’s essays
• the terse style of Swift’s satires
• the artistic perfection of Fielding’s novels
• the sonorous eloquence of Gibbon’s history
• the oratorical style of Burke
• poetry also had become prosaic
• Poetry became polished, witty and artificial, but it lacked fire,
fine feelings, enthusiasm
• Another important feature of this age was the origin and
development of the novel
• the Age of Pope, that the classical rules and ideals reigned
supreme
• the Age of Johnson—cracks began to appear in the edifice of
classicism, in the form of revolts against its ideals, and a
revival of the Romantic tendency
 Literature, The 18th Century
 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 les
philosophes (the philosophers).
 35-volume Encyclopedie (1751-1772, with supplements in 1776
and 1777, and an index in 1780; The Encyclopedia), a project
headed by Denis Diderot and Jean d'Alembert
 In the last years of the reign of Louis XIV, who died in 1715, up
until Louis XV took the throne in 1723, France went through a
period of crisis
 conflict between the French king and the pope
 Charles de Montesquieu, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire, and
Diderot—all wrote fiction as well as nonfiction essays on a
variety of topics
 ALEXANDER POPE
• born in London to Alexander Pope (senior, a linen merchant)
and Edith Pope (née Turner), who were both Catholics.
• education was affected by the penal law
• taught to read by his aunt, then went to Twyford School in
about 1698–9.
• He then went to two Catholic schools in London
• the age of 12, he suffered numerous health problems, such as
Pott's disease (a form of tuberculosis that affects the bone)
which deformed his body and stunted his growth, leaving him
with a severe hunchback. His tuberculosis infection caused
other health problems including respiratory difficulties, high
fevers, inflamed eyes, and abdominal pain. He never grew
beyond 1.37 metres (4 feet, 6 inches) tall.
• His life has classified into 3 Periods
 1st period – 1715
• Four Pastorals – a short poems on Spring, Autumn & Winter
– Closely fashioned on vergil
• Windsor Forest inspired by Denham’s Cooper’s Hill – real
beauties of nature
• The essays on criticism published at the age of 21 – inspired
by Horace’s Ars Poetica & Boileau’s L’Art Poetique
• Pope’s landscape is copied out of the Greek & Latin poets
rather than painted from first-hand knowledge of what he
professes to describe
• The Rape of The Lock – Masterpiece
• Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from the head of a young beauty
named Arabella Fermor (The Belinda of the poem). This joke
led to a quarrel between the two families and poppe appealed
to by a common friend John Caryl to throw oil on troubled
waters by turning the whole thing into jest.
• Heroic-comical better to call as a Mock – Epic

• Discrepancy between theme & treatment is of

the essence of the particular kind of parody.
 2nd – period 3rd Period
• The Translation of the Iliad & • Satires & Epistles of Horace
the Odyssey Imitated
• The real Discrepancy lay in it is • The Prologue – The epistle to
Neither Pope Nor his age Dr.Arbuthnat
could understand the spirit of • The Dunciad – a long &
Homer or the Homeric world elobrate satire on the ‘Dunces”
• Pope has written for his – the bad Poets, Pedants &
readers – very striking & Pretentious critics of the day
brilliant piece • The Essay on man – a poem
in four Epistles
• Defence of the moral
government of the universe &
an explanation of the physical
& moral evil
 3rd Period
• Pope’s Deistic friend – Lord Bolingbroke induced him

• His merits & defects are those of the classical School

• He had neither the imaginative power nor the depth of feeling

without which great poetry is impossible

• A marvellously clever & adroit literary craftsman & the neat,

Compact, Antithetic & Epigrammatic style of writing – The
Classical ideal – Perfection in his hands
• He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford
Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson

• Pope's use of the heroic couplet is famous.

• In May, 1709, Pope's Pastorals was published in the sixth part

of Tonson's Poetical Miscellanies

• Quotation
• “A Lilttle learning is a dangerous thing”
• “The proper study of mankind is man”
• “An Honest man’s the noblest work of God”
• “To err is human, to forgive divine”
• “And fools rush in where angels fear to tread”
 Other works of Pope
• To Lord Bathurst
• On the use of the riches
• Of the knowledge & character of men
• Of the characters of women
• The Messiah
 Other Poets of the Period
• Matthew Prior (1664 – • John Gay (1685 – 1732)
1721)
• Intimated friend to Swift &
• Solomon on the vanity of Pope
the world - a long & very • Fables – Anthologies
serious poem • The Shepherd’s week – a
• Imitation of Hudibras called series of Six pastorals
• Trivia – humorous description
- Alma: or the progress of of the London streets
the mind • The Beggars Opera – Popular
• write a parody of Dryden’s Italian Opera
• The Rural sports
The Hind and the Panther -
• The streets of London
The Town & Country
Mouse – Entitled
• Edward Young (1683 – • William Somerville (1675
1765) – 1742)
• One who write in various • The Chase – A descriptive
style, including satires in poem
pope’s manner & tragedies
• Night Thoughts – a gloomy
& unwholesome poem
• Full • Sir Samuel Garth (1661 –
of copybook 1719)
moralisings couched in
florid & pompous verse • The Dispensary – a satire of
Apothecaries – The mock-
Heroic
• Robert Blair (1699 – 1746)
• A Scotch poet
• The Grave – Sombre
production of the same
Churchyard
• Written in Blank verse
 Daniel Defoe (1661 – 1731)
 Born: September 13, 1660, London
 Died: April 24, 1731, London
 Spouse: Mary Tuffley (m. 1684–1731)
 Movies: Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe on Mars
, More
 Parents: James Foe, Annie Defoe

 Son of a Wll-to-do Butcher, business in heart of the city

of London
 He was avowedly a moral & Social reformer & aimed
to correct & teach his age
 Owes is importance in Literature
 To drop the frame work of history to develop the
special form of prose fiction
• Critics “From writing Biographies with real names attached
to them it was but a short step to writing biographies with
fictious names”
• His first foray into the publishing world was his series of
essays on business and banking collected in An Essay Upon
Projects (1697).
• The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1720)
• Defoe opened new vein after that work utmost industry
• The Memories of a Cavalier (1720)
• Captain Singleton (1720)
• Moll Flanders (1722)
• Colonel Jack (1722)
• Roxana
• Dickory Cronke (1719)
• The Fortunate Mistress(1724)
• The Complete English Tradesman (1726)
• Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton (1728)
• History of the Plague in London (1722) - Journal of the
Plauge Year – Professedly the genuine record of an eye-
witness & long accepted
• Made-up stories as true stories & took infinite pains to
convince his readers
• We may describe his works as the phrase “Fictitious
biographies” or in Sir Leslie Stephen’s words as “History
minus the facts”
• His works are in biographical form, no attempt was made
towards the organisation of the materials into a systematic
plot; stories of actual life, matter of fact
• Minute realism is recognished as an outstanding feature of his
fiction
• Importance in the history of the English novel is universally
admitted
• Novel developed after his death
 Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745)
 Born: November 30, 1667, Dublin
 Died: October 19, 1745, Ireland
 Spouse: Esther Johnson (m. 1716)
 Education: Hertford College, Oxford (1694),
University of Dublin,University of Oxford,
Trinity College, Dublin
 Parents: Jonathan Swift, Abigail Erick

 he suffered from Meniere's Disease, a condition of the inner

ear that leaves the afflicted nauseous and hard of hearing

 Glorious Revolution of 1688 spurred Swift to move to

England and start anew
 His mother found a secretary position for him under the
revered English statesman, Sir William Temple
• 10 years, Swift worked in London's Moor Park and acted as an
assistant to Temple, helping him with political errands, and
also in the researching and publishing of his own essays and
memories
• first short essays and then a manuscript for a later book.
• His first political pamphlet was titled A Discourse on the
Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome.
• The greatest of English Prose writer
• Master of Simple, Direct, Colloquial Style – as far as possible
removed from the ornate & the rhetorical
• Few rivals & no Superior
• His field was satire & favourite instrument is irony – art of
saying one thing in order to convey another
• He makes a scathing attack both upon the free-thinkers &
upon the insincere professors of the current religion
 The Battle of the Books (1704)
 Grew out of a controversy in which sir william tample had taken
prominent part
 The respective merits of ancient & Modern Lit
 The mock-heroic description of the great battle in the King’s
Library between the rivals hosts
 A Tale of a Tub (1704)
 It contains the essence of his thought & style
 Designed to champion the protestant church against the
pretensions of the church of Rome & the extravagances of the
dissenting sects, & to exhibit the corruptions of modern
christianity
 An allegorical story
 Principal figure – 3 brothers – Peter (The Roman church) ,
Martin (The English Church), Jack (The Calvinists or dissenters)
 The rest being composed of apologies, Introductions,
dedications & degressions
 Swift –“The aim of the book was to reconcile divinity with
wit; but the wit is so pungent & the satire so teriffic that the
general impression left is that of utter irreverence in the
handling of sacred things”

 Gulliver’s Travels – (1728)

 Most delightful of children’s books
 Turns out on closer inspection to be one of die bitterest satires
on mankind ever penned
 The deepening of the satire as we pass from each one of the
book
The book has three themes
A satirical view of the state of European
government, and of petty differences between
religions
An inquiry into whether men are inherently
corrupt or whether they become corrupted
A restatement of the older "ancients versus
moderns" controversy previously addressed by
Swift in The Battle of the Books
The Book has contained 4 parts
 Gulliver's Travels - Plot
 Lemuel Gulliver is the protagonist and narrator of Gulliver's Travels
 During his first voyage, Gulliver is washed ashore after a shipwreck
and finds himself a prisoner of a race of tiny people, less than 6 inches
tall, who are inhabitants of the island country of Lilliput
 After giving assurances of his good behaviour
 he is given a residence in Lilliput and becomes a favorite of the court
 From here, the book follows
 Gulliver assists the Lilliputians to subdue their neighbours, the
Blefuscudians, by stealing their fleet
 displeasing the King and the court
 charged with treason for, among other "crimes", "making water" in
the capital
 assistance of a kind friend, he escapes to Blefuscu
 spots and retrieves an abandoned boat and sails out to be rescued by a
passing ship
 The Book has 3 parts
• A Voyage to Lilliput (4 May 1699 – 13 April 1702 )–
concerned with the English politics of the Time
• A Voyage to Brobdingnag (20 June 1702 – 3 June 1706) –
The contempt of the writer becomes more marked
• A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib,
and Japan(5 August 1706 – 16 April 1709) – attacks
Philosophers, Projectors & Inventors & all who waste their
energies in the pursuit of visionary & fantastic things
• A Voyage to the country of the Houyhnhnms & Yahoos(7
September 1710 – 2 July 1715) – tears away all the
accessories & artifices of civilisation & puts “that animal
called man”
• The travels reveal swift as essential a man of his time in his
want of spiritual quality
• His age was an age of flippant & shallow optimism
 Joseph Addison (1672 – 1719) & Sir
Richard Steele (1672 – 1729)
• Collaboration in the periodical essay
• They met as boys at the charterhouse
• Afterwards as young at Oxford
• Addison – reputation for classical scholarship, made the grand
tour of Europe as a preparation for diplomacy, entered the
House of commons, Chief of Secretary for Ireland & for a year
Secretary of State & died 10yrs before his friend
• Steele – Army , ardour in politics, Died in wales
Characters were curiously contrasted
Addison – urbane, polished gentleman,
exquisite refinement of taste & lofty ideas of
rectitude & piety but shy, Self-conscious, a
little remote & austere
Steele – Bohemian, easygoing, Thriftless,
careless but full of generosity & sympathy &
an honest love of what is pure & good
Outside field – both men did a good deal of
miscellaneous work
 Till december 6, 1712 except Sunday The Spectator was
published continuous
 18 months later it was revived by Addison alone & issued
3times a week from 18 June to 20 December 1714
 Total 635 essay as a collection – Addison wrote 274; Steele
240; remaining 121 various friends
 In it addison 1st published 8essays on Paradise Lost – for better
appreciation of Milton & his work
 Men & Manners in the ordinary social world of their time
 Take Characters of the Greek Theophrastus as model

 Moralist to break down 2 opposed influences

 The profligate Restoration tradition of loose thinking on the
one hand
 Puritan fanaticism & Bigotry
 They wrote good – humouredly, met all classes of readers
on their own ground & made ample allowance for the
ordinary failing of humanity
 Fundamental questions of social & domestic conduct of
their time – for this reason they occupy a high place in
history of first half of the 18th century
 Write – Educational, Purely moral aim, object to extend &
popularise general culture
 Discussed – Art, Philosophy, The Drama, Poetry & interest
the general reader in such subjects but also to guide &
develop his taste
 Addison’s Steele’s
• Tragedy – Cato • Comedy – The Funeral
• The Spectator • The Tatleer
(1 March 1711) was • The Gaurdian
published daily • The Lying Lover
• The Campaign • The Tender Husband
• Public Credit • The Conscious Lover
• The Vision of Miza
• Rosamond
• The Drummer

In many of the spectator papers in which scenes from the Life of Sir Roger are
discribed
 Other Writers
John Arbuthnot (1667 –
1735) Henry St. John, Lord
Bolincbroke (1678 – 1751)
• a physician, satirist and pol • Pope’s friend
ymath inLondon.
• Pope’s friend • Wrote on politics &
Philosophy in an agreeable
• The History of John Bull - & showy style
a satire
Francis Atterbury (1662 –
Colley Cibber (1671 – 1757) 1732)
• Entertaining Apology or • Pope’s intimate associate
Autobiography
• He figured through his
literary relatives
Anthony, third Lord • His sermons &
Shaftesbury (1671 – 1713) miscellaneous works were
• The grandson of Dryden’s forgoten
Achitophel •
George Berkeley (1685 – 1753) & Joseph Butler (1692 – 1752)
• Belong to the Special Literature of Philosophy & Theology
• Principle of Human Knowledge – Berkeley
• Analogy of Religion – Butler

Mrs.Centlivre (1667 – 1723)

George Lillo (1693 – 1739)

• London Merchant or History of George Barnwell
• Fatal Curiosity – domestic drama or form of tragedy –
Incidents were taken from common life instead of from
history or romance
 Thank You
By
Cholan.JR
Asst.Prof of English,
Annai Group of Institution
Kumbakonam
Contact - 9629113351
 Next Chapter

Age of Johnson