age of reason prose

8/12/2019 Age of Reason Prose

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Authors of the period

Daniel Defoe

Jonathan Swift

Samuel Richardson

Henry Fielding Laurence Sterne

Oliver Goldsmith

Fanny Burney Samuel Johnson


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Daniel Defoe

1660-1731

Remembered primarily for his novels

Works: Robinson Crusoe

Moll FlandersRoxana

Intention behind works: for readers to regard them

as true, not as fictions Deliberately avoids fine writing, so reader should

concentrate on series of plausible events


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Jonathan Swift

1667-1745

Greatest prose writer of 1st part or perhaps wholecentury

Great humorist and savage satirist

Dean of St Patricksin Dublin

Greatest works: A tale of a Tub

Gulliverstravels

Skillful in verse as well as in prose, and his influencecontinues (James Joyce, Aldous Huxley, GeorgeOrwell)


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GulliversTravels

Hides much of its satire so cleverly children stillread it as a fairy story

Starts off by making fun of mankind (and especially

England and English politics)in a quite gentlemanner


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Religious writing

1st part of the century: religious and philosophicalworks refelecting the new rationalspirit

Deists: attempt to strip Christianity of its mysteries

and to establish an almost Islamic conception of God In their view, this conception is a product of reason,

not of faith

William Law and Isaac Watts: stressed importance of

pure faith, even mysticism, in religion

Joseph Butler: used reason to affirm truths ofestablished Christianity


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Religious writing

Bishop Berkeley: did not believe matter had any realexistence apart from mind

Things ultimately exist in Godsmind, not of

themselves


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Samuel Richardson

1689-1761

Professional printer who took to novel writing whenhe was fifty

Works: Pamela Clarissa Harlowe

Sir Charles Grandison


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Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded

Novel in the form of a series of letters (epistolary)

It should implant a moral lesson in readers minds

(conceived readers as female)

Describes assaults made on the honour of a virtuoushousemaid by an unscrupulous young man

Pamela clings to code of honour

Her reward: marriage to her would-be-seducer


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Charles Grandison

According to burgess, this novel is inferior to theother two


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Henry Fielding

1707-54

Greatest novelist of century according to Burgess

Works: Joseph Andrews

Jonathan Wild Tom Jones


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Joseph Andrews

Started as parody of Pamela

Genre: picaresque : term originally applicable only tonovels where the leading character is a rogue

Bulk of the action takes place on the road, on ajourney, in which eccentric and low-life charactersappear


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Jonathan Wild

Truly picaresque novel


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Tom Jones

Fieldingsmasterpiece

Picaresque elements: theme of the journey occupiesgreater part of novel

More accurate to describe it as mock-epic Bulk and largeness of conception expected from an

epic

Its style sometimes parodies Homer


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Laurence Sterne

Most famous work: Tristam Shandy:

breaks rules of language and punctuation

excludes all suggestions of a plot


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Oliver Goldsmith

Contributed to development of English novel

Works: The Vicar of Wakefield:

sentimental and humorous country idyll

She Stoops to Conquer


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Adam Smith

Economist

The Wealth of Nations (1776) : brilliance of style,first book on Economics


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Fanny Burney

1752-1840

One of the first female writers

Novels: Evelina

CeciliaRealistic, humorous, full of credible

characters


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Influential Thinker: Jean Jacques Rousseau

1712-78

One of the forerunners of Romantic movement

One of prophets of French Revolution

Advocated a return to nature: in the natural stateman is happy and good. Society, by making lifeartificial, produces evil

Doctrine of the noble natural man

Works: Emile


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Gothic novels

Term: primarily architectural, denoting Europeanbuildings flourishing in Middle Ages

Gothic buildings suggested: mystery, romance, revolt

against classical order, wildness, throughassociations with medieval ruins

Gothic authors: Ann Radcliffe

Horace Walpole

Matthew Gregory Lewis


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Horace Walpole

The Castle of Otranto (1764)


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Ann Radcliffe

The Romance of the Forest

The Mysteries of Udolpho

The Italian

Skillfully written, mysteries always have rationalexplanation at the end

Never offends conventional morality


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Matthew Gregory Lewis

Works: The Monk: devils, horror, torture,perversions, magic, and murder

Short-lived popularity


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Mary Shelley

(1797-1851)

Frankenstein: work produced a good deal later


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Dr Samuel Johnson

1709-84 Seems to dominate Augustan age

Works:

Attempted most literary forms of the age: drama,poetry, the novel (Rasselas), the moral essay (TheRambler, the Idler). Also: sermons, prayers,meditations, biography (The lives of the poets),dedications, prologues, speeches

Dictionary of the English Language

Critical writings

age of reason prose

Documents