Effect of Social Development on Literature of 18th century:

Writers and readers of the eighteenth century were shaped by their daily experience of a
culture dominated by an almost unquestioned belief in social hierarchy. Our understanding of
this hierarchy, and its literary impact has nonetheless been hindered by theoretical obstacles
and historical simplifications. A now long line of scholars has argued that the conception of
“social class” is highly misleading when applied to a culture that conceived of itself through
gradations of “status” or “rank.” The rising economic power of the so-called middle class or
bourgeoisie, itself a deeply divided and complex grouping, did not translate into a grab for
power, or even a disrespect for traditional ideas of political authority. Traditional Marxist
analysis does not make much sense of a situation where the leaders of capitalism tended to
support the ancient regime though few aspired to any title above “Sir” or invested in great
landed estates. The sons of merchants tended to remain in the family line of business, though
their daughters more often married into the gentry.
Understanding the role of the literary artist in this complex and changing situation raises even
more formidable problems. As noted by Raymond Williams, the period after 1680 showed a
marked change in the social origins of authors, with more deriving from the middle ranks and
fewer from the aristocracy and upper-gentry (1961: 234). Swift, Gay, Haywood, Richardson,
Johnson, and Goldsmith came from very modest backgrounds while other writers such as
Pope, Fielding, and Burney claimed roughly genteel status without great wealth or an
automatic claim to recognition. Moreover, from the Restoration onwards, successful authors
tended to write for a distinctly plebeian group of City-based booksellers who regarded
literature as a trade and who sometimes became very rich from the “business of books”.
Especially following the Glorious Revolution in 1688, writers often subjected the traditional
elite to scathing satire, contrasting the decadence and greed of the present aristocracy with
traditional ideals of genteel honor and virtue. Nevertheless, writers equally denigrated the
avarice and vulgarity of the rising financial elite and seldom suggested that the commercial
ranks should take power. Literary representations of the old and new elite, inherited and
newly made wealth, are generally characterized by a controlled tension rather than
confrontation, generating a series of higher values of morality and national interest while
implicitly underwriting the legitimacy of the traditional social hierarchy. In this way,
literature played an arguably significant role in mediating the social and political tensions that
exploded into revolution in France.
What occurred in Britain was, notwithstanding, a “revolution” of a more gradual kind. Just as
political society in the 1790s was in fact profoundly different from that of the 1690s, literary
culture had undergone a significant transformation. Traditional genres such as tragedy, the
pastoral, and heroic poetry were being displaced by new forms such as the novel and hybrid
kinds of drama and verse. This evolution occurred because the older genres simply failed to
reflect the emerging realities of a fluid and multifaceted commercial society and a broader,
more socially mixed audience. These new forms were indeed defining, through a long
process, what would eventually be recognized as “middle-class” social and aesthetic values,
though this term was rarely used until the early nineteenth century. To understand this
evolving interrelationship between social change and literary form, we need to begin with the
confused and volatile situation that existed in the aftermath of the restoration of the monarchy
in 1660.
Satire was largely used in both prose and poetry: