Questions and tasks

1. What is the meaning of the word Enlightenment?

- The Enlighteners defended the interests of the common people
- craftsmen, tradesmen, peasants. Their criticism was directed
against social inequality, religious hypocrisy as well as the
immorality of the aristocracy.
- The Enlighteners believed in reason as well as in man's inborn
goodness. They rejected the religious idea of the sinful nature
of man, helped people see the roots of evil and the ways of
social reformation. The Enlighteners also believed in the
powerful educational value of art.

2. What was the peculiarity of the Enlightenment in England

as compared with that in France"
- In England the period of Enlightenment followed the bourgeois
revolution. While in French came before the revolution (the French
Bourgeois Revolution took place at the end of the 18th century);
therefore, the aims of the English Enlighteners were not so
revolutionary as those of French Enlightenment.
3. What were the two trends among the English Enlighteners?
- They were the moderates, represented in literature by Daniel
Defoe, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, and Samuel
Richardson. Others, the radicals, wanted more democracy in the
ruling of the country and defended the interests of the exploited
masses.

4. What were the three periods of English Enlightenment in

literature? Who were representatives of each period?
 Three periods of English Enlightenment:
- Early Enlightenment (1688-1740) : Most popular were the satirical
moralizing journals. The Tatler, The Spectator, The Englishman
 edited by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. The essays paved
the way for the realistic novel which was brought into English
literature by Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.
- Mature Enlightenment (1740-1750) : The social moralizing novel
was born in this period. It was represented by the works of such
writers as Samuel Richardson (Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded,
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady), Henry Fielding (The
History of Torn Jones, a Foundling and other novels), and
Tobias Smollett (The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker and
other novels).
- Late Enlightenment (Sentimentalism) (1750-1780): The principal
representatives of sentimentalism in the genre of the novel were
Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield) and Lawrence Sterne
(Tristram Shandy, The Sentimental Journey) and in drama -
Richard Sheridan (School for Scandal and other plays).

5. What is the significance of Fielding's work?

- Henry Fielding's works were the summit of the English
Enlightenment prose. Such composition of the novel The History
of Tom Jones gave the author a chance to create an all-embracing
picture of the 18th century England.
- Fielding also worked out the theory of the novel. In the
introductory chapters to the eighteen parts of The History of Tom
Jones he put forward the main requirements that the novel should
meet: to imitate life, to show the variety of human nature, to
expose the roots and causes of man's shortcomings and to indicate
the ways of overcoming them.