RESTORATION AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY

LITERATURE(1660-1800)

Lic. Gabriela A. Llaneza

 

Characteristics of Neo-Classicism

Characteristics of Neo-Classicism Return to the perceived “purity” of the

arts of Rome.

Model the “ideal” of the ancient Greek arts and, to a lesser, extent, 16c Renaissance classicism.

A conviction that there is a permanent, universal way things are (and should be), which obviously entails fundamental political and ethical commitments.

Sometimes considered anti-modern or even reactionary.

Neo- Classical

Architectur

e

Robert Adam

Robert Adam

Scottish architect & designer Syon House

1760s

Syon HouseThe Red Salon

Claude Nicholas LedouxClaude Nicholas Ledoux

Designed a pavilion in 1771 for the Comtesse du Barry at Louveciennes.

Designed a series of city gates for Paris (1785-1789).

Claude Nicholas LedouxClaude Nicholas Ledoux

Rotunde de la Villette, Paris

John WoodJohn Wood

“The Royal Crescent [Circus]” at Bath, England (1754).

The “Empire Style”: Charles Percier & Pierre François Léonard Fontaine

The “Empire Style”: Charles Percier & Pierre François Léonard Fontaine Napoleon’s

official architects.

They remade Paris in the intimidating opulence of Roman imperial architectural style.

Neo- Classical Painting

“Parnassus”Anton Raphael Mengs, 1761

“Parnassus”Anton Raphael Mengs, 1761

Mengs was the leading artist of early Neo-Classicism.

“The Oath of Brutus”Gavin Hamilton, 1767

“The Oath of Brutus”Gavin Hamilton, 1767

The oath was sworn as a promise of individual revenge against a corrupt monarchy.

“The Apotheosis of Homer”Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,

1827

“The Apotheosis of Homer”Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,

1827

This assembly of great artists and writers of all ages gathered to honor the ancient Greek poet before a

classical temple.

La familia de Felipe IV

Diego Velazquez 1656

Johannes Vermeer

FIVE GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT THE PERIOD:

1. Mechanistic View of God, Nature, and the Universe: Nature and the Universe were considered somewhat as a marvelous machine, organized and run according to precise laws, the orderliness and precision of the universe ("Clock" metaphor) reflecting the mind of God (a rationalistic and deistic view of God).

2. Pre-eminence of Reason and Empirical Knowledge: The ideas of Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding) and other empirical philosophers influenced theories of cognition during the Enlightenment.

3. Appeal to Authority: Social order, conformity to societal norms and institutions were highly valued; conformity to the rules of society and to the rules of literature were the fashion (hence the importance of the authority exerted by Classical antiquity on the literature and style of the Neoclassical period).

Appreciation of Urban Life: The importance of human nature rather than of physical nature was stressed; coffee houses and social groups were in vogue rather than the wonders of the natural world.

Moderation and a Distaste for Extremes: Balance, taste, harmony, and order in art, architecture, and life in general were the ideal.

And yet beyond the veneer of "reasonableness and order" there was a bawdiness and raucousness about the age, especially among the aristocratic classes, that give the period a particularly lusty, lively flavor and make our appreciation of the satire all the more acute (read the novels of Fielding and the plays of Aphra Behn).

AESTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOCLASSICAL LITERATURE

Style and form were influenced by Classical antiquity: This was an age of extraordinary translations of Greek and Roman literature; admiration for classical literature evinced itself in the many imitations of classical writers (Pope's Horatian satires and parodies of Homer, Johnson's imitations of Juvenal, etc.).

2. Strict adherence to the rules of good writing: Proportion, grace, unity, harmony were important ideals; obeying Aristotle's "unities" in tragedy and following the conventions of any given genre were the norm. Often, how something was said took precedence over what was said, though the best writers, like Pope, achieved a balance between style and meaning.

AESTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOCLASSICAL LITERATURE

The most popular verse type was the closed couplet, and lesser poets sought to imitate the poetic diction of the dominant writers like Pope.

Satire (poetic and prose) flourished. Satire always thrives when there is a static element in society, when there is conformity; and a strong didactic flavor in the comedy was the norm.

AESTHETIC CHARACTERISTICS OF NEOCLASSICAL LITERATURE

5. Aside from the comedic tone, no single genre seemed to dominate; rather a variety of literary types thrived: the mock epic, the essay (this was an age of great periodical writing), drama (comedy overshadowed the somewhat lifeless and static tragedy), the novel, and various poetic types such as odes, pastorals, and imitations of the classical satires.

Neoclassical English Literature

1660 TO 1790 RESTORATION PERIOD (1660 to 1700)

• Samuel Pepys, John Wilmot, John Dryden, John Lock

THE AUGUSTAN AGE (1700 to 1750)• Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Addison and

Steel, Daniel Defoe

Pre- Romanticism: THE AGE OF JOHNSON (1750 to 1790) • Robert Burns, Thomas Gray, Samuel Johnson

Typical Genres Restoration Comedy Journal Satire Mock epic Essays

TASK: Find the meaning of these terms and their main characteristics

Satire (from: A Student’s Guide to Literature)

“ A Literary manner which blends a critical attitude with humour and wit to the end that human institutions and humanity may be improved. “

It works to make vice laughable and/or reprehensible and thus bring social pressure on those who still engage in wrongdoing.

Satire is often implicit and assumes readers who can pick up on its moral clues. It is not a sermon.

If it does attack some by name, rather than hoping to reform these persons, it seeks to warn the public against approving of them

It combines irony (saying one thing and meaning the opposite) / sarcasm (nastiness without any necessary intend to improve) and a purpose of exposing and discrediting vice and folly.

Persona: Assumed character Method:

• bad as bad• Bad as mediocre• Bad as good• Mediocre as bad• Mediocre as good• Good as bad

TASK: Why do you think satire was an appropriate and popular style at the time? What could be the dangers of taking a satiric text at face value?

The Essay Task 1: Check the definition, characteristics and purpose of

the genre in your booklet Task 2: Can you think of a reason why essays were popular

among writers at this period?

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

English libertine , a friend of King Charles II, and the writer of much satirical and bawdy poetry.

In 1667 he married Elizabeth Malet, a witty heiress whom he had attempted to abduct two years earlier.

In 1674, Rochester wrote A Satyr on Charles II, which criticised the King for being obsessed with sex at the expense of his kingdom

SIGNIFICANT WRITERS:JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

SIGNIFICANT WRITERS:JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700)

"Master Genre Craftsman, Father of English Criticism, and First Modern Prose Stylist"

There are two important characteristics about Dryden to remember:

1. he was a superb genre writer in an age of wonderfully versatile writers (Dryden excelled at panegyric, tragedy, comedy, satire, lyric poetry, translation, and prose criticism), and

2. he devised a dialectical approach to literary exposition--what he called his "double view"--that was also reflected in his personal attitudes and experiences.

Dryden’s works "Annus Mirabilis" - a poem describing the extraordinary events of 1665/66,

the year of the plague, the Great Fire, and war with Holland.

"An Essay of Dramatic Poesy" - illustrates Dryden's dialectical approach, where four scholars argue the merits of French and English drama (one of the earliest efforts of literary criticism in British literature). Dryden's ideas about the merits of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and his distinction between "Wit" and "Fancy" are among the important ideas in the piece. Dryden's clear, lucid prose style marks a turning point in British prose as well, a breaking away from convoluted baroque prose in favor of a direct, clean prose style, essentially modern.

"Absalom and Achitophel" - a brilliant piece of satire in the style of

Oldham, an attack on Shaftsbury and other Whigs involved in the Titus Oates debacle.

Dryden’s works

"MacFlecknoe" - satirical poem aimed at Dryden's literary enemies, chief of whom was the poet Shadwell.

"Religio Laici" - Dryden's defense of the Church of England against Calvinism.

"The Hind and the Panther" - Dryden's defense of Catholicism (after

Catholic King James II's ascension and Dryden's own adoption of Catholicism).

"Song for St. Cecilia's Day, 1687" - written in honor of the patron saint of

music, the poem is one of Dryden's finest examples of lyric verse and demonstrates his ability to blend style and meaning, which Pope so admired.

RESTORATION AND LATER DRAMA

Killigrew and his company setting up shop at Drury Lane and Davenant at Lincoln's Inn Field

In1682 the two companies merged.

The rabble now went to the Red Bull to guffaw at the melodrama and buffo comedy, while the upper classes enjoyed Davenant and Killigrew's productions. Yet even these supposed "sophisticated" audiences were known for their rowdy and boisterous ways.

The major innovations in drama1. proscenium arch to separate the audience from the actors

(perhaps a necessity considering the boisterous audiences) 2. introduction of actresses to the theatre. Nell Gwyn,

Anne Oldfield, Anne Reeve, and Elizabeth Berry were some of the more famous, while

3. Thomas Betterton and Colley Cibber became two of the greatest actor/playwrights.

4. Tragedy was marked by its bombast, exotic settings, complex plots, and use of couplet verse (Dryden's All for Love is perhaps the best example).

5. Comedy was more successful, indeed one of the brightest genres of the age.

RESTORATION AND LATER DRAMA

Restoration Comedy of Manners (with its fops, giddy girls, naughty married ladies, and crisp, witty dialogue and repartee) evolved from the Elizabethan Comedy of Humours (with its characters frequently representing dominant vices and virtues).

• Dryden (Marriage a la Mode),• Sir George Etherege (Man of Mode or Sir Fopling Flutter and She

Would If She Could), • William Wycherley (The Country Wife),• William Congreve (The Way of the World),• Aphra Behn (The Rover and The Feigned Courtesan), who is

credited as being the first professional woman of letters.

RESTORATION AND LATER DRAMA

As the next century commenced, the comedies evinced a growing tendency toward sentimentality. It revealed a mellowing of the repartee and razor sharp wit of Restoration Comedy• Colley Cibber (Love's Last Shift),• Richard Steele (Conscious Lovers), • Susanna Centlivre (whose The Busybody far outstripped the success of

either the comedies of Wycherley or Congreve and became a staple in David Garrick's repertoire).

• Goldsmith (She Stoops to Conquer) • Sheridan (School for Scandal and The Rivals) • spirited satire in John Gay's Beggar's Opera exhibited the musical comedy

talents of the age (Gay used London street ballads in order to mock Italian opera, then the rage among the "cultural elite" of London).

JONATHAN SWIFT (1667-1745)

"Master Satirist and Prose Stylist”

One of the foremost Anglo-Irish writers, Swift had two great passions in his life: conservative Tory politics and the Anglican Church. He aimed his satire at the enemies of both.

SWIFT’s Important Works "A Tale of a Tub" - Swift's rendition of the Great Schism: the

separating of the Church into Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran factions, represented in the three brothers; the work also targets and pokes fun at the bevy of London literary wits.

"Battle of the Books" - Swift's critical entry in the argument over who is better, ancient or modern writers.

Journal to Stella - Swift's observations on London life and politics,

written in letter form for the edification and entertainment of Swift's life-long, dear friend Esther Johnson.

SWIFT’s Important Works Gulliver's Travels - Swift's magnum opus in four

parts, a prose satire of British life and society "The Drapier Papers" and "A Modest Proposal" -

satirical essays critical of British policy toward the Irish.

The Examiner - Swift's Tory periodical, in which much

of his best poetry and prose satire was featured.

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744) “Quintessential Neoclassical Poet, or

the Wicked Wasp of Twickenham" Leader of the Scriblerus Club along

with Arbuthnot, Gay, St. John and Harley

"Half the fun of writing is in the polishing!"

Poetic arbiter of his age, influencing poetic diction during the whole of the second half of the century.

ALEXANDER POPE (1688-1744)

Master of the couplet, who used a series of techniques to add variety and freshness to the form:

• Chiasm • Zeugma • Montaging • Puns• Enjambment• Compressed syntax, etc.

Check the meaning of these technical devices in a Literary dictionary and get examples to share with the class

POPE’s Important Works "An Essay on Criticism" - verse literary criticism, closely linked

with Swift's "Tale of a Tub" and "Battle of the Books" in its denigration of the self-sufficiency and pride of the "False Wits" of English verse. Pope's aesthetic ideals of moderation and the complementation of style and meaning are his most important critical ideas.

"Essay on Man" - Pope's ethical poem which was to serve as introduction to the Moral Essays. "Essay on Man" reveals the influence of Hesiod, Milton, and such contemporary philosophers as Leibnitz. Abstract reason and pride are denigrated; political and social order are shown as reflections of Universal order.

POPE’s Important Works

"Rape of the Lock" - mock epic and occasional poem,

written upon the event of Arabella Fermor's losing her "lock of hair" to Lord Petre.

Along with "To a Lady," second of the Moral Essays, this poem is both playful and slightly misogynistic, a characteristic fairly typical of the age. The technical skill evinced in the poem is of an extraordinary quality.

POPE’s Important Works The Dunciad - in the style of Dyrden's "MacFlecknoe" and highly

influenced by Milton and Homer, this is Pope's magnum opus attacking the false wits of his age--specifically in the final revision of the poem Colley Cibber, actor, playwright, and (as Pope was want to call) prince of the "Realm of Dulness" and "Monarch of the Dunces." Containing an abundance of topical satire, The Dunciad was a much reworked and expanded book, polished and refined from its first printing in 1728 to its final printing in 1741.

"Eloisa to Abelard" - an extraordinarily beautiful love poem based on

the medieval legend of two ill-fated lovers and inspired by Ovid's Heroides.

Pre- Romant

icism

Pre- Romanticism Faith in the instinctive goodness of human

beings: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, "An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit"

Faith in the relatively high moral and religious value of sympathy or benevolence (School of Sensibility): Steele, Careless Husband (drama); Geo. Akenside, The Pleasures of Imagination; Samuel Rogers, The Pleasures of Memory; Richardson, Pamela; Stern, Tristram Shandy.

Pre- Romanticism Accurate observation of nature, though without

mysticism, sometimes with the suggestion that nature has a religious significance

Elegiac interest: in death, mutability, mourning, melancholy (Graveyard School): Blair’s "The Grave"; Gray’s "Elegy in a Country Churchyard"

Interest in humanitarian movements and reforms (origin of labour standards, child labour laws, slave trade, mental health, and penal reform

Pre- Romanticism Interest in kindness toward animals

A democratic attitude: insistence on the rights and dignity of man, and on the freedom of the individual socially and politically

Attacks upon wrongs in the established order or in conventional usages: political, economic, social, or educational

Pre- Romanticism Interest in the state of nature: the "noble

savage" preference for the simple life of earlier ages, primitive religions, folk-poetry.

Interest in the medieval period as a age of faith, chivalry, and poetry

Attacks on Pope and other neo-classical authors

Revival or imitation of older forms of verse: ballads, sonnets, blank verse, Spenserian stanzas etc.

Pre- Romanticism Use of local dialects and color

Translation or imitation of Oriental tales, Scandinavian, or old Celtic tales or literature

Development of the historical novel, the Gothic school, and the School of Terror

Pre- Romanticism

Development of literary theories and literary criticism, stressing the relatively greater importance of the imaginative, emotional, intuitive, free, individual, and particular over the rational, formal, and general.

Exaltation of Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton

Period of violent and Revolutionary spirit, especially America and France.

The Age of Sentimentality The political and social stability resulted in deeper meditations

about the values of life

Humane nature valued over pragmatism

Deepening awareness of nature and the cycle of life and death

Interest in melancholy and exotic subjects foreshadow the coming age of Romanticism.

The individual who would dominate the second half of the century, Samuel Johnson, is as important a personality as writer.

SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784)

JOHNSON’s works 1755 Dictionary - set the standard for the art of

dictionary making, a mammoth achievement for a single individual and a few Scottish assistants.

1765 Edition of Shakespeare - a twenty-year project that left English literature with improved texts of the plays, excellent emendations with critical commentary and information on Shakespeare's sources.

Lives of the Poets - a series of short biographies written to accompany new printings of the poets' works; among the best of the "lives" are biographies of Cowley, Milton, Dryden and Pope.

JOHNSON’s works Rasselas - written in the same year as Voltaire's

Candide (1759) and influenced by the new literary popularity of such oriental tales as The Arabian Nights,

Rasselas is about a group of young people searching for "the way to happiness," the proverbial philosopher's stone; at the end of their search, the young Abyssinian prince Rasselas and his friends discover, like Candide, they must "tend their own gardens" (find happiness within). In the process of their journey, however, Johnson has occasion to offer some gentle satire on the ideas and institutions of his day.

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796)

"Caledonia's Bard" Rightful precursor to the

Romantic poets of the next century, Burns was one of those literary phenomena who come along at precisely the right moment in history for fertile blossoming.

ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) In a time that was increasingly beginning to appreciate both the natural

beauty of the physical world and the natural genius of the individual poet, Burns appeared the incarnation of all the Ossians, Rowleys, and Stephen Duck/"thresher" poets, as he burst upon the literary scene with his homespun Gaelic songs and natural, highly unique Scottish personality.

Though he heralds the Romantics in his individualism, appreciation for nature, and appeal to the common man, Burns roots are firmly planted in Neoclassical soil: specifically in his love of satire, brittle social commentary, and emphasis in human nature rather than physical nature.

"Holy Willie's Prayer" - a dramatic monologue of a religious hypocrite, surpassed only by Browning's "Soliloquy in a Spanish Cloister" a century later.

  "Tam O'Shanter" - a mock heroic narrative based on a

local legend in the vein of Washington Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

  "The Cotter's Saturday Night" - a piece of domestic

sentiment illustrating human relationships and rural life.   Lyric poems such as "Banks o' Doon," "Highland Mary,"

"Red, Red Rose," "Auld Lang Syne," written in remarkable dialect verse.

Source: Dr. Michael Austin and Dr. Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt