The Restoration and the 18th

Century

Charles IIr. 1660-1685

Charles II in Coronation robes by Wright© Royal Collection

James IIr. 1685-88

James II by Sir Peter Lely (1618-1690)© Royal Collection

The Glorious Revolution: 1689

William III and Mary II(r. 1689-1702) (r. 1689-94)

Portrait of William III by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-1723)© Royal Collection

Portrait of Mary II by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-1723). © Royal Collection

Queen Anner. 1702-1714last Stuart monarch

Portrait of Anne by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-

1723).

House ofHanover

“Bonnie PrinceCharlie”

The House of Hanover

George Ir. 1714-27

George I by Georg Wilhelm Lafontaine (1680-1745)© Royal Collection

George IIr.1720-69

George II by Sir Godfrey Kneller© Royal Collection

George III, r. 1760-1820

George III, portrait by Johann Zoffany (1733/4-1810)© Royal Collection

A CLASS SOCIETY

• The Aristocracy• Professionals

• Scientists

• Physicians

• Attorneys

• Clergy

• Literati

• Military Officers

• Merchants and Bankers• Tradespeople• Working Class

• Domestic Servants• Hired labor• Apprentices• The Unemployed: debtors,

beggars,thieves

• Peasants

ENLIGHTENMENTThe Scientific

Revolution

• Emphasis on experimentation and inductive reasoning

• Scientific Method• New methods of

observation: the microscope and the telescope

• 1662: Charles I chartered the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge

• Natural Religion: DeismA clockwork universe with a watchmaker God

A replica of Isaac Newton's telescope of 1672.

Deism• Natural theology: Derives the existence of God from reason and personal experience rather than divine revelation or scripture

• Cultural influences:• Reaction against sectarian

violence in Europe• Growing knowledge of diverse

religious beliefs both classical and contemporary

• Textual study of Biblical scriptures

• Advances in scientific knowledge – Bible could not be seen as authoritative for matters of science

• Skepticism about miracles and books that report them

• “Watchmaker God”• Unitarianism

William Blake

Sir Isaac Newton

1643-1727

• Mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher

• Developed calculus contemporaneously but separately from Liebniz

• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica: described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion

• Opticks: discovered that light was composed of particles

• Master of the Mint: moved English coinage to the gold standard

Godfrey Kneller's Sir Isaac Newton at 46

Neo-Classicism• Greek/Roman influence

• Classical modes or genres – epic, tragedy, comedy, pastoral , satire or ode

• Language appropriate to the mode

• Use of rhetorical figures

• Emphasis on Society: urbanity• Politeness

• Decorum

• Wit – quickness of mind, inventiveness, imagery and metaphor• Age of Reason

• Rationality

• Philosophy

Neo-Classical Conception of NATURE

• Universal and permanent elements in personal experience

• Subject to human control• Gardens• Source of peace and

tranquillity

J. S. Muller after Samuel Wale, A General Prospect of Vaux Hall Gardens Shewing at one View the disposition of the whole Gardens

(after 1751).

NATURE and ARTIFICE

ARTIFICEThe Augustan Age

• Art as an improvement upon nature• Neo-classical ideals: balance,

harmony, reason• Poetry invokes visualization• Landscape painting• Rise of literary criticism • Major poetic forms:

• Heroic couplets: rhymed iambic pentameter

• Epic and mock epic• Poetic essay• Occasional poems

John Dryden1631-1700

Gainsborough, St James Park

The City of London

Brawling peasants at Tyburn Gate, London. The Warder

Collection. MORNING

city bustle

Peddlar hawking tarts. The Warder Collection.

Large movements of peoplefrom the country to the cities.Shift from agrarian to urbanlifestyles.

Engraving and

etching by

William Hogarth. The Art Institute

of

Chicago.

violinist

ballad-monger

toddler with rattle

peeing boy

oboist

drumming child

milkmaid

paver

dustman

knife-grinder

sow-gelder

fish-monger

screeching parrot

barking dog

howling cats

churchbells

cry of chimney sweep

London

Cries

wailing infant

Gin Lane (1751). Etching and Engraving by William Hogarth.

The New York Public Library.

Poverty and Unemploym

ent• Displaced agrarian

labor

• No social safety net

• Education only for the elite

• Child labor

• Cheap gin

The Diary: Witness to an Age

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703)• Member of Parliament and

Secretary of the Admiralty: highly effective

• 1.3 million word Diary kept 1660-1669 in shorthand and code

• Eyewitness accounts of The Great Plague, the Second Dutch War and the Great Fire of London

• Londoner: government, business, the Royal Society, theatre, music, literary circles Portrait of Samuel Pepys by J. Hayls

Oil on canvas, 1666

Prose Fiction: Daniel Defoe (1660-

1731)• Master of plain prose and

powerful narrative• Reportial: highly

realistic detail• Robinson Crusoe• Journal of the Plague

Year• Moll Flanders• Roxana

Picaresque Novels• Derives from Spanish

picaro: a rogue• A usually autobiographical

chronicle of a rascal’s travels and adventures as s/he makes his/her way through the world more by wits than industry

• Episodic, loose structure• Highly realistic: detailed

description and uninhibited expression

• Satire of social classes

A London coffeehouse. The British Museum

AFTERNOON

Coffee and News

Periodicals and Newpapers

Addison and SteeleThe Spectator

Periodical EssaysLiterary CriticismCharacter SketchesPolitical DiscussionPhilosophical Ideas

A London coffeehouse. The British Museum

Samuel Johnson and

James Boswell Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary

of the English Language illustrated the words with quotations from the best English writers.

James Boswell’s 1791 Life of Samuel Johnson immortalized the man and

advanced the art of biography.

                                                                          

Thomas Rawlinson, 1786

Commerce

The Royal Exchange. Engraving by Bartolozzi. The British Library

The Rise of the Middle Class

Increased LiteracyLeisure Time

International TradeEmpire Building

London ladies shopping for fabric. From Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts (1800).

ShoppingLeisure time nurtured middle class women’s interest in

fashion, society, the arts and even literature.

Vauxhall Gardens (1784). A drawing by Thomas Rowlandson.

Victoria and Albert Royal Museum.

Samuel Johnson

James Boswell Hester Thrale

Oliver Goldsmith

Duchess of Devonshire Mary “Perdita” Robinson

Prince of Wales

Society

Social Satire

• Alexander Pope• Mock epic: “The Rape

of the Lock”• Literary Satire: “The

Dunciad

• Jonathan Swift• “A Modest Proposal”• Gulliver’s Travels

Alexander Pope1688-1744

• Essay on Man: poetic and philosophical essay

• Rape of the Lock: mock epic

• The Dunciad: satire on his contemporary poets

• Translations of Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey

Jonathan Swift1667-1745

• Anglo Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, poet and cleric

• Gulliver’s Travels

• “A Modest Proposal”

• Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin

Thomas Gainsborough,

Heneage Lloyd and his sister, c.1750

Early Feminists

• A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest (1694)

• Some Reflections on Marriage (1700)

• Advocated equal education for women

• Questioned the value of marriage for women in a patriarchal society

• Wrote novels, journalism, philosophical and political treatises, letters

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

• Advocated equal education, egalitarian marriage, and full citizenship for women

Mary Astell1666-1731

Mary Wollstonecraft1759-1797

Literary Salons

• Intellectual and literary circles formed around women –bluestockings

• Brought together members of society and philosophers and artists

• Emphasis on conversation and wit

The Rise of the Novel

• Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740)• Epistolary

• Realistic detail

• Morality tale

• Servant resisting seduction by her employer

• Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749)• Picaresque protagonist

• “comic epic in prose”

• Parody of Richardson

Epistolary Novels• Novels in which the narrative is

told in letters by one or more of the characters

• Allows author to present feelings and reactions of characters, brings immediacy to the plot, allows multiple points of view

• Psychological realism• Richardson’s Pamela and

Clarissa• Smollett’s Humphrey Clinker

Jean-Baptiste Greuze,The Letter Writer

Novels of Sentiment

• Novels in which the characters, and thus the readers, have a heightened emotional response to events

• Experimental forms• Connected to emerging Romantic

movement• Laurence Sterne (1713-1768):

Tristam Shandy (1760-67)• Domestic fiction

• Fanny Burney• Maria Edgeworth• Jane Austen

Laurence Sterne bySir Joshua Reynolds

Gothic Novels

• Novels characterized by magic, mystery and horror

• Exotic settings – medieval, Oriental, etc.

• Originated with Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto (1764)

• William Beckford: Vathek, An Arabian Tale (1786)

• Anne Radcliffe: 5 novels (1789-97) including The Mysteries of Udolpho

• Widely popular genre throughout Europe and America: Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland (1798)

The Laughing Audience (1733). Etching and engraving by William Hogarth. The New York Public Library

EVENING

Entertainment

TheatreOpera

Symphony

Restoration and 18th C. Theatre

Theatres reopened with restoration of Charles II

French influence:• Actresses• Heroic

couplets• Neoclassical

modes:• Social

comedies• Heroic

tragedies

Comedy of Manners• Witty--

language driven

• Satirical of social mores

• Risque• Marriage

and money 18th C.

Comedy of Sentiment

Ladies at the opera from Gallery of Fashion (1796).

England’s first professional female

author:Aphra Behn1640?-1689 Novelist

Venice Preserv'd The History of the

Nun Love Letters between

a Nobleman and his sister (1684)

The Fair Jilt (1688) Oroonoko (c.1688) The Unfortunate

Happy Lady: A True History

Playwright The Forced Marriage

(1670) The Amorous Prince

(1671) Abdelazar (1676) The Rover (1677-81) The Feign'd Curtezans

(1679) The City Heiress (1682) The Lucky Chance

(1686) The Lover's Watch

(1686) The Emperor of the

Moon (1687) Lycidus (1688)

“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.” Virginia Woolf

Painting of the interior of the Drury Lane Theater List of Women Dramatists.

Susanna Centlivre1669-1723

Mary Pix1666-1709 Eliza Haywood

1693-1756

Charlotte Charke1713-1760

Hannah More1745-1833

Elizabeth Inchbald1753-1821

A riot mob in Covent Garden (1763). The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C

Night (1738). Etching and engraving

by William Hogarth.

Denizensof the NIGHT