The Age of Pope

1700-1750
Augustan Age/Classical Age
 Augustan age stands for any period of polished manners, high culture and great literary
attainments which may be favourably compared with the age of the Roman emperor Augustus
Caesar during which Virgil, Ovid, Horace and other great poets lived and wrote.
 Just as the reign of Augustus is known as the classic and the golden age of of Rome, in the same
way, the age of Queen Anne is called the Augustan age in English literature.
 It was the age of great writers in prose, poetry and drama.
 The great literary luminaries of the age were Addison, Swift, Richardson, Fielding, Goldsmith, Dr.
Johnson, Burke, Gibbon and Pope.

 Historical events
o The rise of the Political Parties
 Whig (Low Church Man) and Tory (High Church Man)
o The Foreign War (1701)
o Peace of Utrecht (1713)
o The Spanish Succession
o The Coffee Houses
 The seventeenth century witnessed the establishment of coffee houses in England.
The rapid growth of the coffee houses was largely due to the flourishing of trade of
the East India Company.
 Drinking coffee and tea and spending time in the coffee houses continued to be the
fashion in the successive generations also.
 At the peak of their popularity there were not less than 3000 coffee houses in
London alone. In cities and towns the coffee houses were the centres of social life.
 Literary men had their own coffee houses.
o Scriblerus Club
 An association of which Swift, Arbuthnot, Parnell, Pope, and Gay were members,
and the earl of Oxford (Harley) a regularly invited associate member
 The group appears to have met from January to July 1714
 Its object was to ridicule 'all the false tastes in learning'
 Nothing was produced under the name of Martinus Scriblerus for some years.
 Prose Writers
 Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
o Greatest English satirist, cousin of Dryden
o 'Cousin Swift, you will never be a poet.' - Dryden
o CADENUS AND VANESSA (1712-1713)
 Poetry
 Octosyllabic couplet (his favourite metre)
 For Esther Vanhomrigh she fell deeply in love with him
 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS (1704) or (A Full and True Account of the Battel Fought
Last Friday, between the Antient and the Modern Books in St James's Library)
• A prose satire
• When Swift was residing with Sir William Temple, The 'Battle' originates
from a request by the moderns that the ancients shall evacuate the higher of
the two peaks of Parnassus which they have previously occupied.
• The spider is like the moderns; The bee is like the ancients.
• The ancients, under the patronage of Pallas, are led by Homer, Pindar, Euclid,
• Aristotle, and Plato, with Sir William Temple commanding the allies
• The moderns by Milton, Dryden, Descartes, Hobbes, Scotus, and others, with the
• support of Momus and the malignant deity Criticism
• First noteworthy book
 A TALE OF A TUB (1704)
 • His celebrated satire on 'corruptions in religion and learning', Religious allegory.
• The author proceeds to tell the story of a father who leaves as a legacy to his three sons
Peter, Martin, and Jack a coat apiece, with directions that on no account are the coats
to be altered. Peter symbolizes the Roman Church, Martin (from Martin Luther) the
Anglican, Jack (from John Calvin) the Dissenters.
• The sons gradually disobey the injunction, finding excuses for adding shoulder knots or
gold lace according to the prevailing fashion.
• Finally, Martin and Jack quarrel with the arrogant Peter, then with each other, and
separate the satire is directed with especial vigour against Peter, his bulls and
dispensations, and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
o Political and other Tracts
 THE CONDUCT OF THE ALLIES (1711)
 SOME REMARKS ON THE BARRIER TREATY (1712)
 THE PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE WHIGS (1714)
• Written for THE EXAMINER (a Tory Journal)
 JOURNAL TO STELLA
• Informal private log book
• A series of intimate letters (1710-13)
• To Esther Johnson and her companion Rebecca Dingley
 THE DRAPIER’S LETTERS (1724)
A series of pamphlets
o GULLIVER’S TRAVELS 1726
• Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World 'By Lemuel Gulliver'
• Thackeray - 'furious, raging, obscene'; Stephen - 'painful and repulsive'
o A VOYAGE TO THE HOUYHNHNMS
o A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR
o PEOPLE FROM BEING A BURDEN TO THEIR PARENTS
o PREDICTIONS FOR THE ENSUING YEAR, 1708, BY ISAAC BICKERSTAFF, Esq.
o DISCOURSE TO PROVE THE ANTIQUITY OF THE ENGLISH TONGUE.
o DISCOURSE OF THE CONTESTS AND DISSENSIONS BETWEEN THE NOBLES AND THE
COMMONS IN ATHENS AND ROME (1701)
 With reference to the impeachment of the Whig lords
o ARGUMENT AGAINST ABOLISHING CHRISTIANITY (1708)
 Series of pamphlets on church questions
o LETTER CONCERNING THE SACRAMENTAL TEST (1708)
 An attack on the Irish Presbyterians
o THE IMPORTANCE OF THE GUARDIAN CONSIDERED (1713)
o THE PUBLIC SPIRIT OF THE WHIGS (1714)

Joseph Addison 1672-1719

o Was a prominent member of the Kit-Kat Club
o Satirized by Pope in the character of 'Atticus'
o THE CAMPAIGN (1704)
o Poem
o Written in heroic couplet
 Rhymed gazette
 In celebration of the victory of Blenheim
o CATO (1703)
 Drama , neo-classical tragedy
 blank verse
 It deals with the death of Cato the republican
 Dr Johnson - 'rather a poem in dialogue than a drama'
o ROSAMOND (1707)
 an opera
 o THE DRUMMER (1715)
 prose comedy
o THE VISION OF MIRZA
o PUBLIC CREDIT
 Political allegory.
o THE SPECTATOR:
 Periodical started by Steele and Addison in March 1711

Sir Richard Steele 1672-1729

o THE CHRISTIAN HERO (1701)
 An Argument Proving that No Principles but Those of Religion Are Sufficient to Make a
Great Man
o Prose comedies
 THE FUNERAL (1701) Grief à-la-Mode
 THE LYING LOVER (1703)
 THE TENDER HUSBAND (1705)
 THE CONSCIOUS LOVERS (1722)
 The last comedy
 Based on the ANDRIA of Terence

PERIODICALS
 THE TATLER in 1709
 Periodical
 First issue appeared on 12 Apr. 1709
 It appeared thrice weekly until 2 Jan. 1711
 SPECTATOR
 A periodical conducted by Steele and Addison
 From 1 Mar. 1711 to 6 Dec. 1712
 It was revived by Addison in 1714, when 80 numbers (556-635) were issued
 Appeared daily
 Other contributors: Pope, Tickell, Budgell, A. Philips, Eusden, and Lady M. W.
Montagu.
 THE GUARDIAN (1713)
 It professed at the outset to abstain from political questions
 Addison contributed 51 papers to it
 Other contributors: Berkeley, Pope, and Gay
 Came to an abrupt end in Oct. 1713
 THE ENGLISHMAN (1713)
 A more political paper
 THE READER (1713)
 THE PLEBEIAN (1719)
 THE CRISIS
 A pamphlet in favour of the Hanoverian succession