English Literature 1660 - 1900

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English Literature

1660-1900

- The Neoclassical period:         Ancient Greece and Rome as

                                                           absolute authorities

- The Augustan Age:                   Similarity with Roman Empire 

                                                            during Augustus

- The Age of Reason:                   Optimistic view that intellect,                                                                                                            common sense, wisdom and calm

                                                            and balanced judgement (not 

                                                            emotion and lust) would create a

                                                            perfect world.

Three names:

1660-1800

Neoclassical architecture

• Rapidly developing arts and sciences (e.g. Sir Isaac Newton) and scientific discoveries.
• 1748 discovery of Pompeii (stimulated classical architecture).
• The rise of capitalism: growing trade brought wealth into the country.
• The rise of the middle class; dominated by trade, money and puritanism. People who were eager to obtain the respect and admiration of their fellow-men and who were aware that there was only one way to achieve this: to become rich.
  

Developments

Isaac Newton

1642 - 1727

Neoclassical

• Because of the discrepancy between the idealistic world (everything ruled by reason) and the real world (human emotions and lusts are often dominant) satire, both in prose and poetry, became the most popular genre of the Neoclassical period.

• Gap between 1) Neoclassical prose and poetry read by the higher circles of society (upper class) and 2) literature for the middle class: religious works and books with recognisable (middle class) characters and a clear moral at the end. Daniel Dafoe’s Robinson Crusoe (no work of art). The outlook of the middle class was moral, practical and down-to-earth
  

• The rise of the novel: 
• e.g. Defoe, Swift, Austen

Discuss in what respects the various names for the period all reflect important aspects of it.

A very formal definition of 'satire' could be 'the art of devaluating a subject by making it seem ridiculous, and evoke in the reder or the audience feelings of amusement, contempt or indignation towards it; sometimes, but by no means always, with the aim of improving it.' Why is satire such a popular genre in the 18th century?

The rise of the novel, and also its character, is closely linked with particular developments in society. Discuss.

The Romantic Period

1800-1830

1798 William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads

Poetry of simplicity, both in form and in contents.

In a period of social change and growing unrest people longed for another world.

Coleridge

1772-1834

Wordsworth

1770-1850

Developments

• Industrial revolution: brought wealth and prosperity to the country
  
• Britain grew from a agricultural nation into an industrialised nation
  
• Farmers had to find work in factories in the cities (long hours, miserable working conditions)
  
• The gap between rich and poor became wider; wealth wasn’t equally divided  social unrest
  
• The ideals of the French revolution (1789), freedom, equality and the abolition of class distinctions appealed to many, especially young, people all over Europe, including English Romantic poets (e.g. Lord Byron)
  

"Liberty leading the People" by Eugène Delacroix

Literature

• Lyrical Ballads, a volume of poetry, is the starting point of the English Romantic Period. Poetry of simplicity, guided no longer by Reason, but by Imagination.

• The five major English Romantic Poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelly and Byron.

• Their shared believes: a deep trust in non-rational forces of emotion, intuition and imagination and the profound conviction that reason and intellect are not enough to comprehend the world.

• Romantic Poets: an individualistic voice addressing the individual reader. Subjective poetry.

Subjects romantic poetry

• Nature (life-giving force)

• Simple country folk (people living in nature)

• Idealized past (escape in time)

• Supernatural (anti-intellectual attitude)

• The child (supreme example of innocence uncorrupted by the world)

• Exotic cultures (escape in place)

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth (exhibited 1842)

Caspar David Friedrich's Cloister cemetery in the snow (1850)

John Constable

The Hay Wain (1821)

Go on the Internet, choose a poem from the English Romantic Period and explain what the romantic elements in the poem are. Discuss the poem and give your personal opinion.

1830-

1900

Queen Victoria

1886 ->

The sun never sets on the British Empire.

Developments

• Victoria on the throne from 1837 – 1901.
  
• Britannia truly ruled the waves  strong sense of pride, optimism and self-confidence
  
• But also: findings of modern science changed the foundations of the world as people knew it (e.g. the evolution theory of Darwin 1859)  doubt, anxiety, uncertainty and pessimism
  
• Industrial revolution caused drastic changes in the structure of English society: It had given some ambitious, enterprising people opportunities to make a fortune; but it had also created a huge industrial proletariat.
  
• Salvation Army founded by Catherine and William Booth in 1865.
  
• Demands (by the lower, middle ánd upper classes) for social reform resulted in a number of Reform Bills over a period of time, dealing with child labour, a reduction of working hours, basic education and the right to vote.
  
• The Victorian Era ended with WO I.

Victorian Literature

• -The century of the novel: e.g. Charles Dickens, Brontë sisters
  
• - Audiences were larger than ever before, due to improved education, but especially to the instalment system, in which novels appeared in cheap weekly or monthly part before being published complete.
  
• - Middle class now formed the backbone of society: literature aimed at this large audience.
  
• - Authors described the contemporary society and its dilemmas. Dickens especially had a genuine concern for the poorer classes.
  
• - In poetry the spirit of the Romantics lingered on, but without the intensity and power of earlier poets.
  
• - Poetry sometimes addressed ‘The Victorian Crisis’: the struggle between faith and doubt, hope and disillusion.
  

Charles Dickens

Brontë sisters