English literature in the 18th century (enlightenment in england) General Background

Drama of the 18th century continued traditions of Restoration play-wrights. Sentimental tragedies were popular with the growing audience. The interest in classical literature prompted many classical tragedies modeled on those of ancient Rome. The drama of the eighteenth century does not reach the same high level as the novel. One has to wait late in the century for Goldsmith and Sheridan, to find writers who make any permanent contribution to the English stage. Of a number of reasons which might be invented in explanation it is at least certain that the Licensing Act of 1737 restricted the freedom of expression by dramatists and drove a number of good men out of the theatre. Further, it was clear also that the middle-class commercial classes were gaining sufficient ascendancy to impose their obtuse views on the themes that would be acceptable in the theatre.

Outstanding in the early decades of the century is John Gay’s “Beggar’s Opera”, a play with ballads (1728); Oliver Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer”, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “Rivals” and “School for Scandal”. The play, with its moral emphasis and its melodramatic theme, made a wide and immediate appeal. It was recognized that a new element had entered into drama, even if the dramatist who introduced it was obviously not of the first rank. The innovation is far more important than the play, for this way leads, however indirectly, to the modern social and realistic drama.

The main literary trends of the age of the Enlightenment in England were classicism, realism, sentimentalism and early romanticism, out of which, sentimentalism is a very English phenomenon. Sentiment may be defined as feeling, and in the eighteenth century, against the background of its many crudities and barbarities, there developed both in life and in literature movements such as Methodism, in social life in an increasing realization of the hardships, which the majority of mankind had to suffer. Its dangers are obvious, for it leads to emotionalism instead of mysticism, and to charity instead of genuine reform. It clouds the reason, substitutes pathos for tragedy, and obscures the harder issues of life in a mist of tenderness. In literature its effects were numerous, and, in comedies disastrous. An early exponent of sentimentalism was Richard Steele. The depths of sentimentalism were reached by some dramatists who showed how every human issue could be obscured in the welter of emotion. From such depths the drama was rescued by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan. The XVIII century gave the world such brilliant English writers as Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson, Tobias Smollet and famous dramatist Richard Brinsley Sheridan.

Eighteenth-century England is also often called the Augustan Age.

The term comes from the name given to the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus. During his reign, which lasted from 27 B.C. to 14 A.D. Latin literature reached its height with such great writers as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. English authors tried to imitate or recapture many of the philosophic and literary ideals of this period of Roman history. Like the ancient Romans, they believed that life and literature should be guided by reason and common sense. They strove for balance and harmony in their writings. Augustan literature is sometimes divided into two periods, each named for its most influential man of letters - The Age of Pope, and after 1750, the Age of Johnson. Satire was one of the most common types of literature during the Augustan Age. The leading satirists of the period were Jonathan Swift in prose and Alexander Pope in poetry.

Thus, on the whole, the English literature of the period of Enlightenment may be characterized by the following features:

a) The rise of the political pamphlet and essay, but the leading genre of the Enlightenment became the novel. Poetry of the previous ages gave way to the prose age of the essayists and novelists. Poems were also created at this period, but the poets did not deal with strong human passions, they were more interested in the problems of everyday life, and discussed things in verse.

b) The heroes of the literary works were no longer kings and princes, but the representatives of the middle class.

c) Literature became instructive. The writers dealt with problems of good and evil. They tried to teach their readers what was good and what was bad from their own point of view.

Some literary critics divide the literature of the age of the Enlightenment into three periods:

The first period lasted from “The Glorious Revolution (1688) till the end of the 1730s. It is characterized by classicism in poetry. The greatest follower of the classic style was Alexander Pope. Alongside with this high style there appeared new prose literature, the essays of Steele and Addison and the first realistic novels written by Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift. Most of the writers of the time wrote political pamphlets.

The second period of the Enlightenment was the most mature period. It embraces the forties and the fifties of the 18th century. The realistic social novel of the time was represented by Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding and Tobias Smollett.

The third period refers to the last decade of the 18th century. It is marked by the appearance of a new trend, sentimentalism, represented by the works of Oliver Goldsmith and Laurence Sterne. The realistic drama of the time was represented by Richard Brinsley Sheridan