⚖️ THE GLORIOUS REVOLUTION AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 18TH CENTURY

🏰 1. The Glorious Revolution (1688)

• Definition: The “Bloodless Revolution” of 1688 brought Mary II and her husband William III of Orange (Stadtholder of Holland) to the English throne.

• Result:

  • Ended the rivalry between Crown and Parliament.

  • Marked the ascendancy of the merchant / middle class.

  • England became the first constitutional monarchy in Europe after the monarchs signed the Bill of Rights (1689).

➡️ This established a balance of power and made Parliament the true center of government.

👑 2. Political Developments under the Hanoverians

• George I (ruled 1714–1725) — first Hanoverian king.

  • Ignorant of English langauge and customs

  • so he delegated power to a Prime Minister chosen from the parliamentary majority → beginning of the modern parliamentary system.

• England was governed alternately by two main parties:

  • Whigs → represented industrial, commercial, and trading interests (middle class).

  • Tories → represented landowners (traditional, conservative class).

• Many men of letters worked for political factions:

  • Defoe, Swift, Addison, Steele wrote pamphlets, essays, and satire for Whigs or Tories.

  • They were often rewarded with offices or pensions.

💰 3. Economic Context: Capitalism and Speculation

• The rise of capitalism led to wealth accumulation and speculation — profit-seeking without production (early financial gambling).

• A famous scandal: the South Sea Bubble (1721), where speculative trading caused widespread ruin.

  • South Sea BUbble: a financial crash in 1721 that resulted from speculative frenzy over the shares of the British South Sea Company, which traded with Spanish America and dealt in enslaved people.

• Exposed and criticized by artists and major writers as Defoe or Swift.

⚖️ 4. The 18th Century: An Age of Balance and Reason

• The middle class was now firmly established.

• The Whigs dominated politics and culture.

• It was an age of stability, reason, and moderation:

  • The rule of Reason seemed possible.

  • Progress was believed to be real and attainable.

  • Society admired order, taste, and harmony, looking back to Classical antiquity (the Roman ideal).

➡️ Continuity with the Restoration spirit:

• Both valued rational simplification in life, thought, and art.

• Both trusted common sense and empirical thinking rather than abstract metaphysics.

🤝 5. The New Ideal: The Gentleman and Benevolism

• With power shifting from court to middle class, a new model of the “gentleman” appeared.

• The 18th-century gentleman was:

  • Moral and compassionate, rational and benevolent, rather than witty or superficial.

• This ideal reflected benevolism:

  • The belief that humans possess an innate moral sense (a “moral sentiment”) guiding them toward virtue.

  • Rooted in rationalism, tolerance, and natural virtue.

  • Echoes of Rousseau’s philosophy: human nature is good if uncorrupted by bad education or false institutions.

🌍 6. The Dark Side of “Enlightenment”: Colonialism and the Slave Trade

• The same rational and balanced worldview coexisted with a ruthless economic system based on colonial exploitation.

• Triangular Slave Trade:

  1. Europe to Africa – weapons, trinkets, and alcohol exchanged for enslaved Africans (“ebony”).

  2. Africa to the Americas (Middle Passage) – horrific sea transport of enslaved people.

  3. Americas to Europe – return with sugar, tobacco, rum, cotton, etc.

• This system enriched European cities like Bristol (England) and Bordeaux (France).

➡️ Colonialism and slavery were rarely criticized in literature of the time, showing the moral contradictions of the Enlightenment.

• Only scattered references appear:

  • In former slave narratives (e.g., Olaudah Equiano, but only in next period).

  • In novels tied to colonial ventures (Unternehmungen) like Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

🧭 7. SUMMARY TABLE

🧠 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• 1688 → Birth of constitutional monarchy → political stability and middle-class power.

• Reason and balance defined both politics and art, leading to Neoclassicism.

• The ideal gentleman combined rational virtue and moral sensibility.

• Writers like Defoe, Swift, and Pope shaped public opinion and criticized corruption.

• Beneath Enlightenment ideals lay the realities of empire and slavery — the hidden contradiction of the “Age of Reason.”

🏛️ 1. Literary Criticism and the Spirit of the Early 18th Century

• Critics expressed their views through:

  • Pamphlets

  • Prefaces

  • Essays (often in periodicals)

  • Verse essays (didactic poetry written in verse form)

➡️ Main figure: Alexander Pope (1688–1744) — the central poet and critic of early 18th-century classicism.

📜 2. Core Principles of 18th-Century Poetry

The dominant ideals were inherited from Neoclassicism, continuing from the Restoration period:

???? control!!!

🌿 “Nature” = Divine Order

• the universal system of moral and physical order, reflecting God’s design.

• Man must conform to this divine system.

• The moralist and poet act as interpreters of Nature and moral truth.

📏 3. Rules, the Ancients, and the Role of Art

• Poets were urged to “follow the rules” — those of the Ancients (Greeks and Romans), transmitted through French critics (especially Boileau).

• Alexander Pope’s view:

  • The rules are not authoritative because they are old or Aristotelian,

  • but because they are founded on Reason → they are “Nature methodized.”

  • That is: the order of nature, systematized and expressed by the Ancients.

✅ Accepted Literary Beliefs in that time:

1. The moral function of poetry

2. The Ancients as models

3. The necessity of likelihood

4. Art must ‘dress’ nature

5. Rules of Nature must be observed

🖋️ 4. Style and Form

• Heroic couplet (two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter) remained the dominant poetic form.

• Poetry was didactic, moral, and satirical rather than emotional or personal.

• It was public poetry, written for an educated audience, not private or introspective.

💡 5. Change: The New “Sentimental” Voice

• By the mid-18th century, a shift to sensibility began:

  • Edward Young (in Conjectures on Original Composition, 1759) → defended originality and emotion, anticipating Romanticism.

  • James Thomson’s The Seasons (1740s) → emphasized nature, emotion, and personal feeling.

➡️ These figures signal the transition from Classicism to Pre-Romanticism, though most poetry of the time remained moral and didactic.

📚 6. The Age of Prose

• Despite the brilliance of Pope and his contemporaries, the 18th century was primarily an age of prose.

➡️ The development of journalism and the emergence of the English novel (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding) defined the century more than poetry did.

🧭 7. SUMMARY TABLE

🧠 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The early 18th century = Age of Reason and Classicism in poetry.

• Alexander Pope embodied balance, clarity, and moral purpose.

• Poetry was public, formal, and rule-bound, aimed at teaching moral truth.

• Nature = divine order, and poets should “follow the rules” that express it.

• By mid-century, voices like Young and Thomson began to challenge rationalism, foreshadowing Romanticism.

• Yet overall, the 18th century was dominated by prose, not poetry — a sign of the rising middle-class culture.

🌿 18th-Century Poetry and Alexander Pope

🏛️ 1. General Features of Early 18th-Century Poetry

• Despite emerging new sensibilities (Thomson, Young), most poets still followed classical forms and genres:

  • Epic (often mock epic)

  • Ode

  • Satire

  • Elegy

  • Epistle

  • Song

  • Pastoral

➤ Neoclassical Ideals

• Valued the universal over the individual.

• Art = refinement, balance, elegance, wit, and decorum.

• Concerned with urban civilization and social order, not personal emotion or rural simplicity.

• Poetry emphasized reason, harmony, polish, and moral purpose.

👤 2. Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

🧬 Biography and Character

➡️ Though his critical stance towards society, Pope became the perfect representative of Neoclassical Classicism:

✒️ 3. Major Works of Pope and Their Categories

🌾 1. Pastoral and Patriotic Poetry

🐑 Pastorals (1709)

• Exercises in imitation of Latin poets.

• Filled with mythological references (Greek gods/goddesses).

• Displays formal elegance rather than originality.

🌳 Windsor Forest (1713)

• A patriotic poem celebrating Queen Anne’s reign and the Peace of Utrecht.

• Combines praise of rural peace, patriotism, and moral reflection.

• Symbolizes harmony between court life, nation, and nature.

📚 2. Didactic and Critical Poetry

🧠 An Essay on Criticism (1711)

• A didactic poem in heroic couplets.

• Advocates imitation of classical models: Boileau and Horace.

• Also admires Milton’s genius despite his epic grandeur.

• Teaches rules of taste and judgment, blending criticism with moral wisdom.

🎭 3. Satirical Poetry

💇 The Rape of the Lock (1712–1714)

• Satire in form of Mock epic

  • Mock epic: trivial topics are presented as majestic, heroic topic

  • Uses classical epic devices to treat a trivial subject (theft of a lady’s curl)

• Inspired by Boileau’s Lutrin.

• Tone: witty, ironic, but elegant — burlesque without vulgarity.

➡️ Meaning:

• Satirizes fashionable London society — its vanity, pettiness, and affectation.

• Yet also expresses admiration for its elegance.

📚 The Dunciad (1728, rev. 1742)

• Satire in mock-epic form

• Dullness (Dumpfheit) personified as a goddess who rewards bad poets and corrupt minds.

• Style: ironical grandeur; trivialities treated in epic language.

➡️ Purpose:

• Revenge on his literary enemies.

• A vision of cultural decline and intellectual desolation — the “Empire of Dullness.”

🏛️ Imitations of Horace (1733–1738)

• Adaptations of Horace’s satires and epistles to contemporary England.

• Attacks corruption in politics, false taste in art, and hypocrisy in polite society.

🌌 4. Philosophical Poetry

🧩 An Essay on Man (1733–1734)

• Four epistles → a grand philosophical poem about Man’s place in the universe.

  • epistle: literary work written in the form of a letter

• Influenced by Leibniz optimism (we live in the best possible world) and rational theology.

Structure and Ideas:

➡️ Goal: To reconcile faith and reason, freedom and divine order, virtue and happiness. Affirms universal harmony despite appearances of evil.

📖 5. Translations

Homer’s Iliad (1715–20) and Odyssey (1725–26)

• Rendered in heroic couplets, polished but artificial.

• Criticized for elegance — “Homer in a wig.”

• Lacks the simplicity and grandeur of the original Greek.

• Shows Pope’s avoidance of “low” or everyday language.

🎨 4. Pope’s Style and Legacy

🧠 5. Summary Table

🌟 6. In Short

• Pope = the voice of English Classicism: moral, rational, balanced, elegant.

• His wit is intellectual, not emotional.

• He represents the culmination of 18th-century poetry before the rise of sentimentalism and Romanticism.

• His poetry embodies the Age of Reason — order, restraint, and harmony — but also hints at moral uneasebeneath social perfection.

🎭 English Drama in the 18th Century

🧩 1. General Overview

• 18th century was not a great age for English drama — unlike other periods.

• However, it saw the birth of new theatrical forms, especially the burlesque drama (a parody or comic imitation of serious subjects).

✳️ Key Social Context:

• The rise of the middle class changed the nature of drama:

  • more wit and sophistication.

  • less moralizing and sentimental tone.

  • traditional drama avoided bawdiness or scandal

  • ???? or is it the opposite ?????

➡️ Yet, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) broke this moral dullness and revived the stage with humor, parody, and realism.

⚔️ 2. Tragedy

✒️ Classical and Domestic Influences

• Playwrights continued writing classical tragedies, often reworking Elizabethan plays.

• Result: Passion was weakened — replaced by sentimentality and middle-class realism.

• Domestic pathos replaced heroic grandeur (Größe).

• tendency to deal with medivial subjects

🏠 The Domestic Tragedy: George LILLO (1693–1739)

🕯️ The London Merchant, or The History of George Barnwell (1731)

• First true middle-class tragedy.

• Introduces for the first time !!! everyday commercial life as tragic material.

• Hugely successful and influential — admired by Lessing and Diderot, who modeled plays on it (Miss Sara Sampson, Le fils naturel).

🧵 Plot Summary:

• Young apprentice (Lehrling) George Barnwell is seduced (verführt) by the manipulative courtesan Millwood.

  • a courtesan is a woman who served as a prostitute or mistress to wealthy, noble, or powerful men, particularly in historical courts

• Under her influence, he robs his employer Thorowgood and kills his uncle.

• Both are executed — he dies repentant (reumütig), she remains defiant (trotzig).

⚖️ Themes:

• Moral lesson for apprentices

• Promotes middle-class virtues: honesty, hard work, loyalty.

• Suggests that virtue (Tugend) brings both moral peace and material success → middle-class ethics in theatrical form.

🎭 3. Comedy

💧 Sentimental Comedy

• Early 18th-century comedies aimed to reform morals, not provoke laughter.

• Became sentimental, tearful, and didactic — focused on virtue rather than vice.

🖋️ Richard STEELE (1672–1729)

• Wrote “reformed comedies” as moral propaganda for middle-class values.

• Same moral tone as his essays in The Tatler and The Spectator.

• Promoted benevolence, forgiveness, and moral feeling.

😢 Richard CUMBERLAND (1732–1811)

• Took sentimental comedy to its most emotional extreme.

• Full of pathos and moral preaching — often dull.

😂 The Reaction: The Return to True Comedy

Two Irish playwrights (Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan) revived English comedy with wit and lively dialogue:

🪶 Oliver GOLDSMITH (1730–1774)

• Also a poet and novelist

• Wrote an Essay on the Theatre (1773):

  • Criticized sentimental comedies as “bastard tragedies.”

• Goal: Return comedy to laughter, not tears and moral

🎭 She Stoops to Conquer (1773)

• Bride pretends to be a maid to win her lover.

• A “laughing comedy”: full of mistaken identities, farce, and humor.

🎭 Richard BRINSLEY SHERIDAN (1751–1816)

• Revived Restoration brilliance but with moral decency.

• Master of witty dialogue and social satire, not deep psychology, but irrestible laughter

• The School for Scandal (1777)

🎼 4. Burlesque Comedy

• main representativ: John Gay. He satirized f. e. Italian opera, aristocratic marriage customs, political struggles

🎶 John GAY (1685–1732) – The Beggar’s Opera (1728)

• One of the most original and influential stage works of the century.

• A burlesque opera — parody of newest Italian opera and high society.

• Music: Uses popular street songs and ballads instead of classical arias.

📍 Setting and Characters:

• Setting: Newgate Prison (symbol of corruption).

• Characters:

  • Macheath, a charming highwayman.

  • Peachum, a receiver of stolen goods (a satirical “businessman”).

  • Polly, Peachum’s daughter, who loves Macheath.

• The world of crime and prostitution mirrors the respectable classes — showing both as morally bankrupt.

💡 Style and Impact:

• Parody + social realism = fresh, biting satire.

• Combines humor, music, and moral critique.

• Hugely popular — a true people’s opera.

• Inspired Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928) in the 20th century.

🧠 5. Summary Table

🌟 6. In Short

• 18th-century drama = a moral middle-class theatre, often dull or sentimental.

• But new vitality came from:

  • Domestic tragedy (Lillo) → new realism.

  • Laughing comedy (Goldsmith, Sheridan) → wit restored.

  • Burlesque (The Beggar’s Opera) → satire, parody, and social critique.

• John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera remains the most innovative dramatic work of the century — blending art, politics, and popular entertainment.

📜 18th-Century English Prose: The Rise of Middle-Class Literature

🧭 1. General Context

Although the 18th century is often associated with Classicism, it was above all an age of prose.

⚙️ Why Prose Dominated:

• Reflects the middle class’s practical and factual outlook.

• The new readers and patrons were wealthy merchants, financiers, and tradesmen — mostly of Puritan origin.

• They:

  • Distrusted the corruption of the nobility.

  • Noticed the decline of the idle country gentleman.

  • Believed in hard work, realism, and utility.

  • Preferred moral piety and sentiment to abstract theories.

➡️ Thus, while claiming to uphold classical order and reason, the middle class sowed the seeds of change and individualism that would later challenge Classicism.

✳️ New Prose Forms:

The social and intellectual climate encouraged the birth of two major prose genres:

1. Journalism and the periodical essay → short moral reflections in magazines.

2. The novel → realistic portrayal of ordinary life and manners.

📰 2. The Periodical Essay

🧩 Origins:

Two main factors shaped this new genre:

1. 17th-century “Character Books”

   • Inspired by the Greek writer Theophrastus (Ethical Characters, 319 BC).

   • Described moral or social types (e.g., the hypocrite, the miser).

   • Examples:

     • Joseph Hall – Characters of Virtues and Vices (1609)

     • Sir Thomas Overbury – Characters (1614)

     • John Earle – Microcosmography (1628)

     • La Bruyère – Les Caractères (1688)

   • These sketches led naturally toward both the essay and the novel, as they explored individual behavior and personality.

2. The Growth of Journalism

   • After the Licensing Act was not renewed in 1695, the press became freer.

   • Political journalism flourished amid the quarrels between Whigs and Tories.

   • Early figures: Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift (discussed in early novels).

✍️ 3. Definition and Aim of the Periodical Essay

• A short prose essay published regularly (in newspapers or magazines).

• Describes realistic but fictional characters in everyday situations.

• Intended to:

  • Refine manners and educate taste among the rising middle class.

  • Encourage moral reflection and moderation.

  • Form “public opinion” — an entirely new social idea.

☕ 4. Richard STEELE (1672–1729)

🗞️ The Tatler (founded 1709)

• Steele created The Tatler to:

  “Expose the false arts of life, pull off the disguises of vanity and affectation, and recommend general simplicity in dress, discourse, and behavior.”

👥 Audience:

• Middle-class readers, especially those in coffeehouses, who discussed news, theatre, and books.

• Also addressed women, encouraging virtue and modesty rather than Restoration frivolity.

🧠 Style and Method:

• Aimed to reform manners while remaining amusing.

• Created fictional correspondents in different coffeehouses to report on various aspects of life — gallantry, learning, fashion, etc.

• Central persona: Isaac Bickerstaff — a tolerant, good-humored Puritan observer of human nature.

❤️ Example: “Inkle and Yarico” (in The Spectator, March 1711)

• Based on a true story from Richard Ligon’s History of Barbados (1657).

• Plot:

  • English merchant Inkle is saved and loved by the Amerindian girl Yarico.

  • He betrays her and sells her into slavery in Barbados.

• Meaning:

  • Steele exposes hypocrisy and cruelty.

  • Portrays Yarico as a “noble savage”, a figure of moral purity.

  • The tale became famous and inspired George Coleman’s opera (1787–1800) and later abolitionist literature.

📚 5. Joseph ADDISON (1672–1719)

📰 The Spectator (founded 1711, with Steele)

• Addison was more scholarly and reserved than Steele.

• Educated at Oxford, wrote Latin poetry, traveled in Europe, and had a refined classical style.

• Shared Steele’s moral goals but emphasized taste, balance, and polite criticism.

👤 Central Character: Sir Roger de Coverley

• At first a parody of the Restoration rake, later turned into a kindly Tory country squire — old-fashioned, lovable, but politically naïve.

• Through him and his friends, Addison portrayed the manners and morals of contemporary life.

🧩 Topics and Importance:

• Essays covered literary criticism, language, wit, conversation, society, and taste.

• Contributed to the formation of a modern, urbane English prose style — elegant, balanced, clear.

• Provided living portraits of character that foreshadow the psychological realism of the novel.

🕯️ A Hint of Romantic Sensibility

In one essay, Addison describes walking among ruined abbeys and ivy-covered tombs, evoking solemn emotion and “specters and apparitions.” ➡️ This “churchyard sensibility” anticipates the Gothic imagination of the later 18th century.

💭 Essay “On the Pleasures of Imagination” (1712)

• A landmark in the rehabilitation of imagination — a step beyond rigid Classicism.

• Suggests that imagination gives moral pleasure and refines the mind.

• Marks the beginning of a shift toward sentimentalism and pre-Romantic feeling.

🧱 6. Literary Significance of Addison & Steele

🧭 7. Their Broader Contribution

• Educated the new middle-class reader in manners, taste, and language.

• Humanized morality — mild humor replaced satire’s bitterness.

• Paved the way for the English novel, since their essays:

  • Presented imaginary yet realistic characters.

  • Examined everyday life and social relations.

  • Created a bridge between journalism and fiction.

🧩 8. Summary Chart

🪶 In Short

• The 18th century’s prose mirrors the values of the new bourgeois society — moral, rational, practical.

• Addison and Steele made literature social and accessible, using humor and civility to shape behavior and taste.

• Their essays refined English prose, anticipated the novel, and prepared the moral sensibility of later writers.

🧭 Daniel Defoe (1660–1731)

🧬 1. Background and Character

• Son of a butcher, from a Presbyterian (Dissenter) family.

• Educated at a Dissenters’ school, outside the Anglican system.

• Worked as a businessman, went bankrupt several times, and was even imprisoned.

• This varied life gave him:

  • A deep knowledge of middle-class life, its struggles, values, and ambitions.

  • A realistic, factual, and moral outlook.

  • A plain, direct prose style suited to journalism and narrative realism.

➡️ Defoe embodies the self-made, practical man — the perfect representative of middle-class experience and values.

📰 2. Early Career: Pamphlets and Journalism

✍️ Political Pamphlets

• Wrote for hire, often on behalf of the Whig government of William III, defending its policies against Tory attacks.

• Was already a professional journalist — one of the first in England.

⛓️ Religious Pamphlets

• In The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), he used irony to criticize intolerance:

  He pretends to recommend hanging all Dissenters — but actually mocks the government’s religious hypocrisy.

• Result: Imprisoned, showing how dangerous satire could be.

🗞️ Early Journalism

• Founded The Daily Courant (1702) and The Review (1704).

• Early 18th-century London already had around 18 newspapers — Defoe was a pioneer of modern journalism.

➡️ His experience as pamphleteer and journalist trained him in:

• Clear, factual writing

• Observation of social reality

• Addressing a broad, middle-class readership

This background naturally prepared him for realistic prose fiction.

📚 3. Long Narratives (Novels)

Defoe began writing fiction late in life, nearly at 60, but his novels were hugely influential.

🏝️ Robinson Crusoe (1719)

Full title: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner.

🧩 Structure:

1. Robinson’s shipwreck and survival on a deserted island for 20 years.

2. Self-reliance and order: builds shelter, domesticates animals, cultivates land.

3. Encounters cannibals and rescues a native, Friday, whom he “civilizes” and converts.

4. Rescues mutinous sailors, returns to England, leaving behind a small colony.

5. Followed by:

   • The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719)

   • Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe (1720) → moral essays defending fiction as allegory.

🎯 Purpose (as stated in his Preface):

• To give moral and religious instruction.

• To present a “true history of fact”, avoiding the appearance of fiction — appealing to a middle-class audience who distrusted fantasy.

💡 Themes and Meanings:

➡️ Robinson Crusoe expresses the 18th-century belief in the self-made man, the rational mastery of nature, and the moral justification of empire.

🏴‍☠️ The Adventures of Captain Singleton (1720)

• First-person narrative of a man who starts with no morality, becomes a pirate, and ends a respectable Christian.

• Set partly in Africa and the Indian Ocean.

• Focuses more on crime and adventure than genuine moral reflection.

➡️ Shows Defoe’s fascination with sin, fortune, and repentance — adventure with a thin moral gloss.

👒 Moll Flanders (1722)

Full title: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders.

🧍 Storyline:

• The life of an orphan girl who rises and falls through:

  • Seduction and prostitution

  • Crime and theft

  • Transportation to Virginia

  • Eventual repentance and prosperity

• Told in first person — “autobiographical” style.

💬 Themes:

⚖️ Dual Voice:

• Moll the character → enjoys her adventures, immoral, practical.

• Moll the narrator → looks back and moralizes. But the distinction is thin — Defoe’s irony makes it unclear how moral he truly is.

✳️ 4. Defoe’s Technique and Legacy

🧠 Style and Form:

• First-person narration → illusion of authenticity.

• Detailed realism → exact objects, places, prices, routines.

• Moral ambiguity → readers must judge between sin and prudence.

• “Artful clumsiness” → his prose imitates the natural speech of his characters.

• Journalistic realism → factual tone makes fiction seem like true report.

💡 Literary Importance:

• Bridges journalism and fiction.

• His novels mirror middle-class ethics: work, thrift, self-help, fear of poverty.

• Establishes realism as the dominant mode of the English novel.

• Blends moral didacticism with adventure and reportage.

• Prefigures later realist writers like Richardson, Fielding, and Dickens.

🧩 5. Summary Table

🧭 6. In Essence

Defoe is the father of English realism. His heroes are ordinary people facing life with faith, reason, and practical sense. Through them, he celebrates the values of early capitalism — work, profit, and providence — while revealing the moral contradictions of his age.

He transforms journalism into literature and establishes the novel as the expression of middle-class consciousness.

🧭 Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)

🧬 1. Background and Personality

• Born in Dublin, of English parents — a “thoroughly English Irishman.”

• Educated, classically trained, became Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

• Ambiguous figure:

  • A churchman out of spite (took orders reluctantly).

  • A secret lover (Esther “Stella” Johnson).

  • A misanthrope who also fiercely defended the oppressed (especially the Irish).

  • A humorist and ferocious satirist, both moralist and cynic.

• Ended his life insane, embittered by disappointment and isolation.

➡️ Contradiction defines Swift: a man who despised humanity yet fought for justice; a moral reformer armed with savage irony.

⚖️ 2. Swift and Defoe — A Comparison

➡️ Both had common sense, both distrusted mankind — but Defoe accepted his world, Swift condemned it.

Swift’s writings spring from moral outrage, not from economic optimism.

🗞️ 3. Pamphlets and Early Satirical Works

Swift used pamphlets as weapons of social protest, particularly on behalf of Ireland, England’s exploited colony.

🇮🇪 The Drapier’s Letters (1724)

• Written under the pseudonym Mr. Drapier, defending the Irish against unfair English trade policies.

• England imposed heavy duties on Irish exports (especially cloth), starving the Irish economy.

• Swift denounces colonial exploitation in simple, powerful prose that appealed directly to the people.

🩸 A Modest Proposal (1729)

Full title: A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Public.

• Swift ironically suggests that poor Irish parents should sell their children as meat to feed the rich.

• Purpose: to shock readers into recognizing England’s inhuman treatment of Ireland.

• This grotesque irony exposes the moral failure of economic rationalism and the cold utilitarian logic of English policy.

➡️ One of the most brilliant examples of sustained irony in English literature — savage, logical, and unforgettable.

⛪ Religious and Philosophical Satire

• Wrote tracts attacking church hypocrisy and human corruption in general.

• His irony was so sharp that he was often misunderstood as blasphemous or cruel.

• Swift’s criticism extends beyond institutions to human nature itself — the ultimate target of his satire.

📚 4. Early Allegorical and Mock-Heroic Works

⚔️ The Battle of the Books (1704)

• Written in defense of his patron Sir William Temple during the “Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns.”

• Mock-heroic allegory: ancient and modern books literally fight each other in a library.

• Swift ridicules:

  • The pretentiousness of modern scholars and critics.

  • The vanity of literary disputes.

  • The false pride of “modernity.”

• Displays Swift’s love of classical style and epic parody.

🧥 A Tale of a Tub (1704)

• A prose religious satire, aimed at Catholicism, Dissenters, and Anglicanism alike.

• Title meaning: sailors throw a “tub” to distract a whale — Swift’s satire is the “tub,” distracting the public while he attacks religious corruption.

• Allegory:

  • A father leaves his coat (the Bible) to his three sons, who must preserve it unaltered.

  • After his death, they distort his will:

    • Peter = Roman Catholicism → adds ornaments and dogmas (purgatory, relics).

    • Jack = Dissenters → tears and abuses the coat in fanaticism.

    • Martin = Anglican Church → moderate, but still imperfect.

• Meaning: all branches of Christianity have betrayed true religion through pride and distortion.

• Tone: brilliant, chaotic, blasphemous, deeply ironic.

➡️ Swift’s aim: to expose the absurdity of human pride in both religion and reason.

🧭 5. Narrative Masterpiece — Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

🧳 Overview

• Full title: Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, by Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships.

• Written as travel narrative, divided into four books:

  1. Lilliput — land of tiny people

  2. Brobdingnag — land of giants

  3. Laputa — the flying island of scientists

  4. Houyhnhnms and Yahoos — land of rational horses and degenerate humans

🌍 Purpose and Themes

🧸 The Four Voyages

1. Lilliput (Book I)

   • Parody of English politics and bureaucracy.

   • Petty court quarrels and wars over trivial issues (e.g. “which end of the egg to break”).

   • Satirizes political vanity and pettiness.

2. Brobdingnag (Book II)

   • A land of giants; human vices seen magnified and disgusting.

   • The giant king sees English society as tiny, vicious, and absurd.

   • Reveals moral deformity through physical proportion.

3. Laputa (Book III)

   • A flying island of scientists and philosophers obsessed with abstract theories.

   • Ridicules the Royal Society, modern science, and intellectual detachment from reality.

   • Experiments are absurdly impractical — mocking blind rationalism.

4. Houyhnhnms and Yahoos (Book IV)

   • Houyhnhnms: rational, horse-like creatures — pure reason.

   • Yahoos: degenerate human-like beasts — pure appetite.

   • Exposes the animality of man and the inhumanity of pure reason.

   • The Houyhnhnms’ plan to exterminate the Yahoos mirrors human genocide.

   • Gulliver, disgusted with mankind, goes mad — he prefers horses to people.

🧠 Method and Tone

• Logic and plausibility: every absurdity is presented with mathematical precision and calm reason → makes satire more biting.

• Style: clear, factual, emotionless — realism applied to the fantastic.

• Differs from Defoe:

  • Defoe = realistic detail in believable world.

  • Swift = logical realism in imaginary worlds.

➡️ Swift’s realism exposes the moral grotesque of civilization.

💡 6. Technique and Vision

🧩 7. Legacy and Meaning

• Gulliver’s Travels: not a children’s fantasy, but a profound moral satire.

• Swift attacks both human stupidity and the misuse of reason.

• His irony reveals the moral bankruptcy of the Enlightenment when detached from compassion.

• His works blend classical wit with modern political urgency.

• Ended his life insane — a tragic symbol of intelligence turning against a corrupt world.

🧭 8. Summary Table

🧭 9. In Essence

Swift is the great ironist of the 18th century. Where Defoe built the moral world of the middle class, Swift tore down the false optimism of reason and progress.

His wit, logic, and indignation expose the corruption of humanity — and his realism, even in fantasy, makes the grotesque appear true.

The Rise of the English Novel: Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)

Context

In the mid-18th century, three writers shaped the development of the English novel:

• Samuel Richardson – focused on psychological depth and sentiment.

  • invented kind of the psychological fiction

• Henry Fielding – developed structure and self-awareness of the novel as a form.

• Tobias Smollett – created vivid, burlesque, and satirical episodes.

All three were moralists and critics of manners, teaching readers self-knowledge and proper conduct.

Samuel Richardson: Life and Background

• Occupation: Successful London printer; began as an apprentice, later married his master’s daughter.

• Beliefs: Puritan, embodying middle-class morality and values (virtue, work, discipline).

• Accidental novelist: Started writing fiction while composing a manual of letter-writing for uneducated people — Familiar Letters.

• One model letter (“A father to a daughter...”) inspired the idea for Pamela.

1. Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740–41)

Plot Overview

• Told through letters written by Pamela, a servant, to her parents.

• She resists her master’s (Mr. B.) seduction attempts → he eventually proposes marriage.

• Pamela marries him and turns into a devoted, grateful wife.

Themes & Interpretation

• Virtue and reward: Virtue brings material and social success (“virtue rewarded”).

• Class mobility: Pamela’s marriage breaks class barriers — a social revolution for its time.

• Ambiguity: Pamela may be sincere or calculating — virtue vs. ambition.

• Gender & morality: Highlights sexual inequality and the limited agency of women.

• Status obsession: Pamela’s moral virtue is tied to reputation and social rise.

Form and Impact

• Epistolary form: Builds intimacy and suspense; captures emotions directly.

• Success: Immensely popular in England and Europe.

• Criticism & Parody: Fielding’s Shamela mocked its moral pretensions but also helped refine Richardson’s art.

• Sequel: Pamela II (1741) – her married life, social ambitions, and intellectual pursuits.

2. Clarissa Harlowe (1747–48)

Plot Summary

• Clarissa, a virtuous young woman, is pressured by her greedy family to marry a rich but detestable man.

• She runs away with Mr. Lovelace, a charming libertine, who later drugs and rapes her.

• Clarissa refuses his proposal, choosing death over dishonour.

• Lovelace dies in a duel, repentant; Clarissa dies a saint-like figure.

Structure

• Told through two correspondences:

  • Clarissa ↔ Anna Howe (her friend)

  • Lovelace ↔ John Belford (his friend)

• Three parts:

  1. Clarissa’s oppressive family and her escape.

  2. Her relationship and downfall with Lovelace.

  3. Her death and moral redemption.

Themes

• Virtue and martyrdom: True virtue is spiritual, not social.

• Family hypocrisy: The middle-class obsession with money and reputation.

• Good vs Evil: Moral allegory of purity confronting corruption.

• Psychological realism: Focus on emotion, conscience, and inner life.

Moral Purpose

• Pamela: virtue → marriage

• Clarissa: virtue → spiritual triumph through suffering and death

Richardson’s Innovations and Legacy

Contributions to the Novel

1. Psychological depth: Detailed exploration of emotion and consciousness — especially of women.

   • characters were different like in real life

2. Epistolary technique: Reveals private feelings, moral conflicts, and builds realism.

3. Realistic setting: Everyday life replaces adventure or fantasy.

4. Moral intent: Teaches virtue through emotional engagement.

5. Focus on the inner life: Action arises from within (motives, emotions), not from external events — a turning point in the history of fiction.

Audience

• Aimed at the new middle-class reading public, especially women, who valued morality, sentiment, and domestic virtue.

In Short

Henry Fielding (1707–1754)

The Comic Epic of Human Nature

1. Life and Background

• Birth & Education: Born into an aristocratic family, educated at Eton and briefly at the University of Leyden.

• Culture: A man of classical education and wide literary taste.

• Status: Though noble by birth, he was poor — a déclassé gentleman.

• Character:

  • Witty, humane, and warm-hearted (unlike Richardson’s sentimentalism).

  • Contemptuous of the corruption and hypocrisy of his age.

  • Knew that virtue often goes unrewarded, and that high society is dull and false.

“The highest life is much the dullest, and affords very little humour or entertainment.” – Tom Jones

2. Career and Interests

• Began as a playwright, writing comedies and farces that mocked political corruption.

• Later became a lawyer and magistrate (Justice of the Peace), devoted to social reform and justice for the poor.

• His writing reflects both his moral seriousness and his love of ordinary people.

3. Fielding vs Richardson

Fielding rejects Puritan austerity and hypocrisy, attacking false virtue and self-interest. His novels show that real goodness lies in kindness, honesty, and generosity, not in outward morality.

4. Early Novels and Parodies

a. Shamela (1741)

• Purpose: A burlesque parody of Richardson’s Pamela.

• Message: Pamela’s “virtue” is a sham — she’s a manipulator pretending to be pure to get rich.

• Tone: Sharp satire of moral hypocrisy and sentimental pretence.

b. Joseph Andrews (1742)

• Begun as another parody of Pamela — now with Pamela’s brother, Joseph, as the hero.

• Joseph resists the advances of his employer (Lady Booby — a pun on “Booby,” meaning fool).

• Dismissed for his virtue, Joseph travels home and meets Parson Adams, who becomes the real focus of the story.

Parson Adams

• A good-hearted clergyman, naive and idealistic.

• Lives by Christian values that society claims to follow but never practices.

• His innocence and trust constantly get him into trouble.

• Represents Fielding’s comic idealism: goodness of heart vs. corruption of the world.

Like Don Quixote, Adams mistakes the world not out of madness, but out of goodness.

Themes in Joseph Andrews

• Virtue as inner quality, not public show.

• Exposure of hypocrisy: outward moralists are often corrupt inside.

• Comic realism: lively scenes, vivid characters, broad humour.

• Social satire: criticism of class prejudice, greed, and false respectability.

5. The Comic Epic in Prose

In the Preface to Joseph Andrews, Fielding defines his art as:

“A comic epic poem in prose.”

• Blends classical epic structure with modern, everyday life.

• Aims to be realistic, not romantic or idealized.

• Combines moral purpose with humour and social observation.

• Rejects sentimental fiction and unrealistic romances.

6. Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)

• Fielding’s masterpiece and a model of the comic novel.

• Written while he was a respected Justice of the Peace, known for fairness and compassion.

Structure and Style

• Epic scope, panoramic view of 18th-century English society.

• Introduced by prefatory essays before each book — witty reflections on art, morals, and life.

• Characters are types (universal human figures) rather than deep psychological individuals.

• Fielding’s tone: ironic, good-humoured, tolerant.

Themes and Morality

• Human nature: People are flawed but redeemable.

• Moral philosophy: True morality = goodness of heart, sympathy, generosity.

  • Fleshly sins are minor compared to cruelty or selfishness.

• Virtue ≠ purity, but kindness and honesty.

• Tom Jones himself: generous, impulsive, lusty, emotional — but fundamentally good.

• Contrasts with Richardson’s Lovelace (Clarissa):

  • Lovelace = demonic seducer

  • Tom = lively, flawed but moral man

Influences

• Cervantes’ Don Quixote → Comic realism and idealism.

• William Hogarth → Satirical depiction of morals and manners through vivid “pictures of life.”

• 17th-century comedies of manners → Lively moral and social critique.

7. Fielding’s Contribution and Legacy

• Created the modern English comic novel.

• Balanced morality and humour — laughter as a moral force.

• Humanized fiction: replaced hypocrisy with tolerance and good sense.

• Saw virtue as inner sincerity, not social respectability.

• Brought structure, irony, and social range to the English novel.

In Summary

Henry Fielding (Part II): Tom Jones and the Comic Epic in Prose

1. The Comic Epic and Its Hero

• Fielding’s aim: to create a “comic epic poem in prose.”

  • Combines the structure of the epic (large scope, many characters, moral themes) with the tone of comedy (humour, realism, ridicule of folly).

• Hero: Tom Jones

  • A “foundling” (illegitimate child, uncertain parentage) and ordinary Englishman.

  • His name “Tom” — very common — symbolizes universal humanity, not aristocratic heroism.

  • Represents the “natural gentleman” — kind, generous, honest, and humane, but imperfect.

  • Opposed to the upper-class conventions of epic heroes and moral hypocrisy.

Fielding rejects aristocratic heroism: virtue comes from character, not birth.

2. Plot and Structure of Tom Jones

• A perfectly organized narrative, more tightly structured than Fielding’s earlier novels.

• 3 main parts (in 6 volumes, each with 3 books → total 18 books):

  1. Exposition – in Somerset (Tom’s youth and background)

  2. Development – on the road (his adventures and moral trials)

  3. Denouement – in London (resolution and recognition)

• Structural symmetry:

  • Tom’s love affairs and moral experiences mirror one another.

  • Contrasts and pairings:

    • Tom vs. Blifil → good-hearted generosity vs. hypocrisy and deceit.

    • Sophia vs. Miss Western → genuine virtue vs. false propriety.

  • Events and outcomes correspond precisely to each character’s true nature.

Fielding judges actions by motive, not outcome — Tom’s mistakes are excused because of his sincerity, while Blifil’s hypocrisy is condemned despite his respectability.

3. The Self-Conscious Narrator

• Fielding’s narrator is omniscient, ironic, and self-aware.

• Each of the 18 books opens with a prefatory chapter, where the narrator:

  • Comments on his own novel-writing.

  • Reflects on aesthetics, art, and moral philosophy.

  • Jokes with the reader, creating a tone of comic detachment.

• Purpose: to remind the reader that fiction is art, not life; it is a deliberate creation, not a factual record.

• This device, inspired by Cervantes’ Don Quixote, adds a new comic dimension and will influence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy later.

Fielding is one of the first English novelists to be consciously “meta” — he knows he is creating fiction and invites the reader to enjoy the artistry.

4. Fielding’s Poetics: The “Comic Epic Poem in Prose”

• Defined in the Preface to Joseph Andrews and practised in Tom Jones.

Main Principles:

Key idea: Real life itself is comic enough — the novelist need not distort it.

5. Fielding vs. Defoe and Richardson (Narrative Technique)

Fielding replaces emotional realism with artistic realism — the novel as a crafted form, not an imitation of life.

6. Fielding’s Aesthetic Vision

• The novel is art, not reality — a creation of the artist’s intelligence and structure.

• He selects and arranges material rather than reproducing everything (unlike Defoe).

• Focuses on actions and manners, not inner feelings — characters reveal themselves through what they do, not what they say.

• His aim is to appeal to reason and humour, not tears.

• Addresses a wider audience, including the educated upper classes, by giving fiction literary dignity and structure.

7. Decline and Legacy

• After Tom Jones, Fielding’s health declined, and his later work lost some vitality.

• Yet Tom Jones remains:

  • The first great English social novel.

  • A model of narrative control and comic humanism.

  • A bridge between the epic and the modern novel.

  • A manifesto of fiction as art.

In Summary

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771)

From Picaresque Satire to the Novel of Sensibility

1. Background and Personality

• Scottish novelist, born near Dumbarton.

• Studied surgery at Glasgow → served as a naval surgeon, giving him firsthand knowledge of sea life.

• Moved to London (1740s) to make a literary career, but success was hard to find:

  • The patronage system was dying.

  • Smollett’s irascible, combative temperament earned him many enemies.

• Earned a living as a hack writer:

  • Translations: Lesage’s Gil Blas (1748), Cervantes’s Don Quixote.

  • Compilations and histories: History of the World.

  • Edited The British Magazine and wrote for Tory newspapers.

• His personality and experience gave his fiction a harsh, realistic, and satirical tone, more violent and bitter than Fielding’s genial humour.

2. The Picaresque Beginnings

The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)

• First-person picaresque narrative inspired by Gil Blas.

• Autobiographical elements: hero is a poor Scottish surgeon who travels through England and the navy before returning to Scotland.

• Combines violent, tender, comic, and sordid episodes — a mixture of realism and grotesque exaggeration.

• Ends conventionally: discovery of his father, marriage to Narcissa, recovery of estate.

• Moral and critical intention:

  • To provoke indignation at social injustice and hypocrisy.

  • Presents a hero of “modest merit struggling with difficulties.”

• Style and method:

  • Realistic detail, especially at sea (based on Smollett’s naval experience).

  • Fast-paced, episodic narrative with little structure.

  • Characterization by caricature — emphasis on physical quirks or obsessive traits.

  • Tone: cold, detached, which makes cruelty seem even more shocking.

Smollett’s world: brutal, chaotic, satirical — far from Fielding’s balanced moral order.

3. The Middle Novels: Expanding the Scope

The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751)

• Third-person narrative, even looser in structure than Roderick Random.

• Hero travels through England and the Continent → gives variety, colour, and movement.

• Satirical targets:

  • Political corruption – criticism of the limitation of royal power by the aristocracy.

  • Philosophical deism and benevolism (Shaftesbury).

  • Bourgeois greed and hypocrisy.

  • Religious tyranny.

  • Literary cliques and coffee-houses, which excluded Scots like Smollett.

• Notable character: Commodore Hawser Trunnion — a retired sailor obsessed with naval life and jargon (precursor of Sterne’s Uncle Toby).

• Language: racy, vigorous, comic, often coarse and exuberant.

The Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom (1753)

• Continues Smollett’s bitterness, with fewer redeeming qualities or humour.

• Focuses on villainy and moral corruption — tone is darker and more cynical.

The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves (1760–61)

• Serialized monthly (anticipating 19th-century serial publication).

• Smollett’s version of Don Quixote — a parody of chivalric idealism set in modern England.

• Again reveals Smollett’s pessimism and social satire.

4. The Mature Work: A Turn Toward Sensibility

The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker (1771)

• Epistolary novel (written in letters).

• A tour of England and Scotland undertaken by Mr Matthew Bramble and his family.

• Humphrey Clinker, a humble servant who joins them, turns out to be Bramble’s illegitimate son and marries the maid Winifred.

• Characterization:

  • Still caricatural, but lively and varied.

  • Characters are types rather than psychologically deep.

• Tone and themes:

  • Comedy and social realism, less bitter than earlier novels.

  • Critique of society, manners, and the poverty of Scotland after the Union with England.

  • National feeling and identity emerge.

  • Seen as Smollett’s most successful novel — a reconciliation of satire and humanity.

Like Fielding, Smollett gradually moves from picaresque violence to a novel of sensibility and moral sympathy.

5. Nonfiction and Satirical Travel Writing

Travels through France and Italy (1766)

• A travel narrative filled with ill-tempered complaints about foreign manners and discomforts.

• Shows Smollett’s irritable nature.

• Later parodied by Sterne in A Sentimental Journey, which contrasts Smollett’s grumpiness with gentle sentiment.

6. Themes and Techniques

His novels reveal a disgusted moral observer rather than a detached artist: satire born of personal irritation and social criticism.

7. Influence and Legacy

• One of the “founding trio” of the English realistic novel (with Richardson and Fielding).

• Continued the picaresque tradition → vigorous depiction of adventure, movement, and low-life realism.

• Bridged early narrative forms and later realist fiction.

• Influenced Charles Dickens, especially in:

  • Use of grotesque caricature.

  • Energetic comic dialogue and slang.

  • Mixture of humour and social criticism.

• Helped shape the satirical and socially critical novel of the 19th century.

8. Summary Table: Fielding vs. Smollett

In Short

• Smollett stands as the most vigorous realist of the 18th century.

• His fiction is full of movement, energy, and anger — a mirror of his restless temperament.

• He uses satire, caricature, and vivid realism to expose social injustice and human folly.

• Although lacking Fielding’s structure or Richardson’s psychology, he contributes colour, vitality, and moral outrage to the rise of the English novel.

• different approaches to build up a story, methods for inventing characters (every author had an other approach to develop characters)

  • four first novelists

• journalism: rise, identified the emergencens in the novel, writers activly asked journalists before writing a novel

• translations of ancient works: Dryden translated Inid , not just erodition but epic poem; another translated Homer Ilysses and; George Chaplent? translated Homer as well; Ben Johnson: Discoveries of acient, translation of the bible beforehand - translations of acient works make sense in the classical periode of literature

• (classical writing: preferred heroic storys like epic) - just side note

• Ben Jonson!: translated

• Dryden!: classical poems in translation

• pope! only heroic couplets, but not really a literary critic! translated homer in heroic couplets