Augustan to Gothic

Literature 1713-1789

Augustan to Gothic Literature

1713-1789
Chronological landmarks
The German House of Hanover took
over the British throne
The Augustans took their name from
the classical Latin age of Augustus
1714-1727 George I
1727-1760 George II

 1760-1820 George III

Industrial Revolution and Agricultural
Revolution
Many people moved from the country
to the new cities to find work
Emigration of Irish and Scottish
people to the new colonies in
America

 The
American
Declaration
Independence in 1776

The French Revolution in 1789

of

 The Rise of the Novel: the novel

became more and more important,
reaching a huge number of readers.
Precedents of the novel
Classical precedents: Petroniuss
Satyricon (1st century); Lucius
Apuleiuss Golden Ass (2nd century)

 The medieval romance

The picaresque tradition: Lazarillo de
Tormes (1554); Mateo Alemans
Guzmn
de
Alfarache
(1559);
Quevedos La vida del Buscn (1626).
The travel books

 Others: Cervantess Don Quijote

(trans. 1612); The Authorised Version
of the Bible (1611); John Bunyans
The Pilgrims Progress (1678)

Features of the novel

Interest in the representation of
experience and how to live
Description of the bad side of life, but
with a happy ending
Techniques: First-person narrators,
letters and diaries, third-person allknowing narrator

Main novelists
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): Robinson
Crusoe (1719), Moll Flanders (1722).
He uses a first-person narrator who
tells the story as if it really happened

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745):

Gullivers Travels (1726)

 Samuel
Richardson
(1689-1761):
Pamela (1740), Clarissa (1747-48). He
examined female ideas and circumstances
Henry Fielding (1707-1754): Joseph
Andrews (1741), Tom Jones (1749). He
describes the experiences his male herous
go through and how they form their
character.

 Laurence
Sterne
(1713-68):
Tristram Shandy (1760-67). It is a
long, comic story which plays with
time, plot and character, and even
with the shape and design of the
page. Use of the stream of
consciousness technique

Gothic novels
Gothic novels go beyond realism and
moral instruction. They explore extrems
of feeling and imagination
Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto
(1764)
Ann
Radcliffe
(1764-1823):
The
Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)
Matthew Lewis: The Monk (1796)

Satirical Poetry
Alexander Pope (1688-1744): The
Rape of the Lock (1712)

Pre-Romantic Poetry
Thomas Gray (1716-1771): Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard
(1751). The poem celebrates the lives
and deeds of the poor, ordinary
people buried in the churchyard in
the small village of Stoke Poges. It
became one of the most popular and
well known of all English poems

 Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1744): The

Deserted Village (1770)
William Collins (1721-1759): Odes
(1746)
Charlotte Smith: Elegiac Sonnets
(1784)

 Robert Burns. He was the greatest

Scottish poet. His themes are nature
and the humanity of nature. Some
poems are: To a Mouse (1786), The
Cotters Saturday Night (1786).

Many of Burnss songs are still well

known
He was very much admired by the
Romantic poets

Journalism and Criticism

The growth of the new middle classes
increased the demand for the printed
word
Writing became a profession
Many
famous
newspapers
and
magazines were started at this time

 The journalism of the early

eighteenth century took the opinions
and fashions of the capital city,
London, to the whole nation
Early magazines: The Tatler (17091711), The Spectator (1711-1712)

Criticism
Samuel Johnson was the major critic
of the time

Major Works: Dictionary of the English

Language (1755), The Lives of the
English Poets (1779-81)