Eighteenth Century

English Literature
The Political and Social Context in
England during the 1700s
 The Political Scene in England during the
Eighteenth Century

• Age of Reason - Enlightenment: This included a range of ideas

centered on the sovereignty of reason and the evidence of the
senses as the primary sources of knowledge and advanced
ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity,
constitutional government and separation of church and state.
 The Political Scene in England during the
Eighteenth Century

• Treaty of Union: in 1707, uniting the separate Parliaments and

crowns of England and Scotland and forming the single
Kingdom of Great Britain.
• Rise to be the world's dominant colonial power: Trading and
Strong Navy
• American War of Independence1775–1783:
 The Social Scene in England during the
Eighteenth Century
• Classism: Most people married for money or status. Well-to-do women
almost always married wealthy men and men always married upper-class
women. Otherwise, they would face major humiliation from their families
and social circles. Wealthy people believed that a poor woman wouldn’t
possess the social graces necessary to fit in with their class. Although middle-
class status was not common in the 1700s because most people were either
wealthy or poor, middle-class individuals had more freedom to marry
whomever they choose. Women of the middle class were expected to marry
up.
 The Social Scene in England during the
Eighteenth Century
• Women’s education and employment:
• In the 1700s girls from well off families went to boarding schools. Poor girls
sometimes went to dame schools or “blue coat schools” where they were
taught to read and write. In Britain women were not allowed to attend
university and the professions were closed to them.
• Most married women did not work outside the home because they did not have
time. Even middle class women were kept busy organizing the servants. Single
women of lower classes worked as spinners, tailoresses, and washerwomen.
Many women were domestic servants. Others were midwives and milkmaids.
 The Most Important literary figures of the
1700s
• • Daniel Defoe:
• He is an English trader, writer and journalist.
• He is most famous for his novel Ro b inso n Cruso e
• He helped to popularize the novel as a literary form in
Britain.
 The Most Important literary figures of the
1700s
• Jonathan Swift:
• He was an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist and political
pamphleteer.
• Author of Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal .
• He was a master of satire.
 The Most Important literary figures of the
1700s
• Dr. Samuel Johnson:
• He was a poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic, and
lexicographer.
• His A Dictionary of the English Language was published
in 1755 and helped shape modern English. Another
nonfictional work of Johnson's is The Idler.
• Most notable work of fiction is The History of
Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia.
 The Most Important literary figures of the
1700s
• Samuel Richardson:
• An English writer and printer best known for three
epistolary novels: Pa m e la ; o r, Virtue Re w a rd e d .
• He wrote his first novel at 51 and printed almost 500
works during his life.
• He was a skilled letter writer hence the genre of his
novels.
The Most Important literary figures of 1700s
• • Henry Fielding:
• He was an English novelist and dramatist known for his
humor and satire.
• He wrote Sha m e la as a parody of Richardson's Pa m e la .
• He also wrote Joseph Andrews as an objection to the moral
and technical limitations of the popular literature of his day.
It is a novel that is a fusion of two competing aesthetics the
mock-heroic and the popular, domestic prose fiction of
novelists such as Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson. It is a
parody of Richardsons’s Pa m e la that tells the story of her
brother Joseph Andrews.
 The Most Important literary figures of the
1700s
• Tobias George Smollett:
• He is a Scottish poet and author.
• He was best known for his picaresque novels. (a genre of
prose fiction that depicts the adventures of a hero of low
social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society.
Picaresque novels typically adopt a realistic style with
elements of comedy and satire.
• His works include The Adventures of Roderick Random
(1748). It is the story of a man of lower social class who
poses as a nobleman to gain social status.
 The Idler by Dr Johnson
• Consists of 103 essays published between 1758 and 1760.
• Twelve of them are not written by Johnson.
• They were published under the penname: “The Idler”.
• They were given titles when published in book form.
• Link to “The Idler's Character”:
• https://www.johnsonessays.com/the-idler/no-1-the-idlers-character/
What to Write about When Discussing
an Extract (quotation) from Prose and
Fiction
 Prose
• Start with the name of the essay, author and book.
• Identify the main theme (idea) of the essay.
• Analyze the extract and how it relates to the main theme or how it may
contradict it.
• You may compare and contrast with other essays.
• Use examples of the extract or other parts of the essay.
• Comment about the style, form and genre. Is it comedy? Is it Satire? Is it in the
form of a letter? How? (Always use examples)
 Fiction
• When commenting about an extract from a novel or short story, introduce with the
name of the novel and its author. Underline the Name of the book/ Italics in print.
• Identify the location of the extract in the narrative. What happens before it and
after it.
• In the next paragraph, comment about the theme.
• In the next paragraph analyze the character in light of the quotation.
• You can comment about the setting (time and place) in a separate paragraph or
relate it to the theme or character.
• Notice the figures of speech, symbols, imagery in the extract and use them in your
comment.
• conclusion