Restoration & 18th Century 1660-1785

Based on Norton Anthology of English Lit 8th edition

Religion and Politics

Return of Charles II (Stuart) after “Interregnum” of Cromwell family, during which country run by puritans or “dissenters”

Anglican bishops were not tolerant of dissent

Test ACT required all who attend university, and all holders of civil and military office, to take sacrament and deny belief in transubstantiation

Widespread anti-catholic sentiment; blamed for fire of London and fictional “popish plot”

Ousting of Stuarts

James II, a Catholic, did not hide his sympathies like his father had. Ousted

Dutchman William of Orange and his wife, James’ protestant daughter Mary, come to London and James flees to France: “Bloodless Revolution”

His supporters, called Jacobites, persisted, especially in Scotland, until final unsuccessful uprising of Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745

Succession settled on German Sophia, Electress of Hanover and her descendents (granddaughter of James I

England’s New Wealth

War of Spanish Succession in 1702 weakened England’s commercial rivals; England gained new colonies and contracts to supply slaves to Spain.

New wealth created tensions between old and new money

Whigs and Tories

These aristocratic parties fight for ascendancy throughout period.

Whigs, like “Petroleum conservatives,” tolerated dissenters; supported new moneyed interests (bankers, etc.); centralized government

Tories, like “Bible belt conservatives,” supported monarchy, established church, affirmed land ownership as proper basis of wealth, suspicious of centralized government that rewarded followers with wealth

Emergency of Empire

First prime ministers (Walpole and Pitt) expand British power and commerce overseas

Britain becomes colonial power, ruling Canada and India, though they lose American colonies.

Slave trade enriches nation; opposition to slavery widespread by both Anglicans and Methodists

Discontent: The rich get richer

Great wealth does not spread to poor; women remain disenfranchised

1780 London riots turn the poor (Catholic and Protestant) against each other

Popular king George has 60-year rule, but inherited madness increasingly mars rule

Fear of radicals who call for new democracy contributes to British reaction against French revolution

Context of Ideas: Contrast & Compromise

Holdovers of revolution: Pilgrim’s Progress and Paradise Lost express the conscience of “dissenters”

Contrast with court, in which Charles II and his followers “aggressively celebrated pleasure” and considered London’s “wives and daughters fair game”

Compromise brewing among intellectuals; suspicions of all excess

Suspicion of Dogmatism & “Enthusiasm”

All anxious to avoid strife of 1640-60 All dogma unpopular: puritan enthusiasm,

papal infallibility, divine right of kings, modern Cartesian philosophy

Pursuit of absolute certainty is “vain, mad, and socially calamitous.”

For religious people and cynics, faith can take up where reason and sensory evidence fails

Distrust of received knowledge

New theories: Hobbes supports absolute government because of scientific theory of matter in motion: human desire for power leads to “state of war”

Atomic theory Advancement of empirical study by careful,

systematic observation is the great contribution of 18th c. England to the world

Science—still a lay activity

Natural history (collection & description of natural facts) & Natural philosophy (study of those facts)

Microscope and telescope expand complexity of universe

Aphra Behn translates Fontenelle’s “Conversation on the Plurality of Worlds” suggestng alternate universes

Exploration and colonization increase apetite for “wondrous facts” about new flora and fawna

Science, cont’d

Discovery of electricity led to fashionable experiments with electrocution

Matthew Boulton creates first factories powered by steam engines

Chemistry allowed new market by Wedgewood in domestic porcelain

Deism or “Natural Religion”

Newton’s discoveries suggest “universal order in creation” created by God like watchmaker and watch

Encounter with other non-Christian peoples led to “universal” religious tenets that could be embraced by rational beings

Deism: Reason recognizes goodness and wisdom of God and natural law; no need for mystery or bible

Deism’s God winds world like a watch and then withdraws. American Founders like Ben Franklin embraced Deism, which seemed like a better foundation for new nation than religious division

Empiricism:

Berkeley: we know the world only through our senses; we cannot prove that material things exist; reliance on faith

Hume: causes and effects are discernable by experience, not reason

Locke examines “limits of human understanding” to help us avoid “meddling” in things that exceed our comprehension

Swift & Pope warn against metaphysics, abstract logic, theoretical science. Pope: “Presume not God to scan.”

Feminism

Mary Astell argued for women’s educational institutions and decried marital tyranny; mocks Locke’s insistence on political rights for men only.

Richard Steele and others advocates improvement in women’s education and “sociability.”

New Religion

Methodism—evangelical sect promoted by John Wesley et al, preached salvation through faith, not works (unlike Anglicans)

New emphasis on individual and personal God: diary keeping, letter writing, and novel “all testify to importance of private, individual life”

Conditions of Literary Production

Government licensing relaxed and replaced by laws against sedition, libel, obscenity, and treason

Stage licensing remained; all but two royal theatres closed down

Copyright vested with publishers and authors begin to profit by subscription; Pope earns 5000 pounds for Iliad translation

Stamp acts allowed taxation of newspapers; put some out of business but others thrived

New professional writing class

Grub St in where poorer writers lived Market also appealed to literary elite; few

now wrote except for pay Subscription allowed new wealth but also

helped women’s writing, which otherwise had trouble finding publishers

Mostly wealthy or middle class, but some poor authors made it into print, e.g. Mary Collier’s “The Woman’s Labor”

Education of Women

Increase in literacy (male literacy as much as 75% by end of period, perhaps 25% for women; literacy mostly urban and surrounded the bible)

Women were barred from universities; all were self-educated

Aristocratic women published widely, especially poems

Some “scandalous” writers of popular stories of sex, satire, seduction were denounced by men as immoral Pope’s Dunciad depicts pissing contest of “scurrilous male booksellers” won by Eliza Haywood

Bluestockings: intellectual women who favored moral literature, esp novels about young women approaching marriage

Cost of reading

Books were still too expensive for laborers, as were lending libraries

Poor sometimes taught to read as a religious activity by aristocratic masters

Patrons interested in letters, travel literature, and novels

Change of printing: capitalization reserved for proper names instead of nouns; fewer italics for emphasis suggests more sophisticated reading public

Literary Principles: New emphasis on Clarity

Elegant simplicity and restraint; rejection of Donne’s metaphysics and Milton’s large themes

“Neoclassical” or “Augustan” period involved classical revival with English themes

Dryden’s interest in literature for moral instruction

“Nature”

New interest in “nature”—external nature of landscapes; human nature’s “enduring, universal truths”

Study of the ancients seemed synonymous with study of nature: combine method with with, and judgment with fancy

Restraint: “The winged courser, like a generous horse, Shows most true mettle when you check his course.”

Mannered language; readable verse

Style dominated by personification, periphrasis, latinate words, and words forced into Latin syntax

Heroic Couplet (rhymed iambic pentameter AA BB) inherited from Ben Jonson; elaborately stylized, but short sentences. For witty, moralizing verse

Blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) favored for meditative poems

Restoration Literature 1660-1700 Dryden dominated; lit combined latest

European trends with English topics; made Ovid and Virgil accessible through translation

Royal society asked for prose to be “plain and utilitarian”; contrast with elaborate style of Milton’s pamphlets and Donne’s sermons

Aristocratic, heroic subjects Restoration drama favored comedies of

manners featuring pleasure-seeking males who prey on beautiful, witty, emancipated women

18th Century lit 1700-1745

Great age of satire: wit turned against “fanaticism and innovation;” mock epics by Pope, Swift, Gay.

New prose genres: allegories, biographies of notorious criminals, travelogues, gossip, romance—often fictonalized, Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and Behn’s Oronooko

Sentimental drama rejected immoral comedies; featured characters choosing between love and honor

Poems about sublime beauties of nature and “low subjects” prefigure romantic age

New Modes 1740-1845

Prose modes: novels more popular than poems for first time. Essays, literary criticism, biography, philosphy, politics, history, aesthetics, economics (Adam Smith)

Memoirs of women created celebrities who let readers into private lives

Epistolary novels and satires; gothic novels; experimental fiction influenced by Cervantes in Spain; Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy

First dictionaries Poems were melancholy and lamented loss of

poetic age; “primitives” like Ossian were popular