NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD
authority and legitimacy and
➢ NEO + CLASSICAL neo means new
➢ Period of Enlightenment
➢ Age of Reason
➢ Era of Logic
ENLIGHTENMENT PERIOD
(1660-1790)
➢ Neoclassicism from the term “Neo”
meaning new and Greek “KLASIKOS” “of
the highest rank”
➢ was a Western cultural movement in the
decorative and visual arts, literature,
theatre, music, and architecture that
drew inspiration from the art and
culture of classical antiquity
➢ Baroque and Rococo
➢ Neoclassical works, therefore, are
serious, unemotional and heroic
3 Stages of Neoclassical Period
➢ THE RESTORATION PERIOD
➢ THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD
➢ THE JOHNSON PERIOD
Classical Age is called Neo-Classical
➢ It is called the Augustan period because
the golden era of Roman writing was
under the Emperor Augustus.
➢ period of rigorous scientific, political and
philosophical discourse that
characterised European society
Age of Enlightenment
➢ Intellectual and cultural movement
➢ Knowledge comes from superstition
➢ Great change and new ideas
➢ Reason is the primary source of
advocated such ideas as liberty,
progress, tolerance, fraternity,
separation of church and state
➢ Turning point of the intellectual history
of the west.
➢ John Locke, Voltaire, Diderot
➢ Vienna- Musical Centre
REASON VS. LOGIC
LOGIC - is the systematic study of the
form of arguments.
REASON- the application of logic to
understand and judge something
LITERATURE OF THE AGE IS CONCERNED
WITH “NATURE”, “HUMAN NATURE”
SUPREMACY OF REASON.
➢ UNITY IN THE WORKS OF ALL WRITES
➢ THE AGE IS KNOWN AS CLASSICAL AGE.
➢ They believe that human nature is
constant regardless of time.
➢ ART, they believe should express their
essential nature.
➢ The period is marked by DEISM,
intellectual backlash against earliet
PURITANISM and American’s revolution
against England.
➢ Neoclassical literature is characterized
by order, accuracy, and structure.
DEISM- Belief in God based on reason rather
than revelation or the teaching of any specific
religion (RATIONAL THOUGHTS)
➢ Classicist continue the renaissance value
SOME TYPES OF LITERATURE:

➢ PARODY LETTERS
➢ ESSAY
➢ SATIRE
➢ LETTERS
FABLES
➢ FABLES
➢ MELODRAMA
➢ RHYMING WITH COUPLETS
MELODRAMA- drama w/ musical
accompaniment
PARODY RHYMING COUPLET
➢ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
➢ Scary movies
3 STAGES OF NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD
ESSAYS
➢ THE RESTORATION PERIOD
➢ "short formal piece of writing dealing ➢ THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD
with a single subject ➢ THE AGE OF JOHNSON
SATIRE

➢ Satire, artistic form, chiefly literary and

dramatic, in which human or individual
vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings
are held up to censure by means of
ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony,
parody, caricature, or other methods,
sometimes with an intent to inspire
social reform.

PARODY VS. SATIRE THE RESTORATION PERIOD (AGE OF

POETRY)
Parody is a comedic commentary about a
work, that requires an imitation of the work.
Satire, on the other hand, even when it uses
a creative work as the vehicle for the
message, offers commentary and criticism
about the world, not that specific creative
work.
Ex of satire: POLITICAL CARTOONS
SHREK
➢ The period from 1660 to 1700 is named
as the Restoration period. In 1660 King
Charles II was brought to the throne.
The people of England were suffering
from tension due to the strict rule of
Cromwell. Thus the nation welcomed
the Restoration of Charles II. This
Restoration brought about a
revolutionary change in social life and
literature.
 ➢ This period marks the British King’s
restoration to the throne after a long
period of Puritan domination in England.
It’s symptoms include the dominance of
French and Classical influences on
poetry and drama.
➢ Restoration literature continued to
appeal to heroic ideals of love, and
honor particularly on stage in heroic
tragedy.
➢ AGE OF DRYDEN
➢ The Restoration period is also known as
the Age of Dryden because Dryden was
the most imposing literary figure of the
time; and the period is generally
considered as concluding with his death
in 1700. ... The period from 1660 to
1700 is designated as the Age of
Restoration or the Age of Dryden
THE AUGUSTAN PERIOD
➢ AUGUSTUS
➢ the period of English literature in the
early 18th century, when writers such as
Swift and Pope were active. The name
comes from that of the Roman emperor
(= ruler) Augustus, who ruled when
Virgil, Horace and Ovid were writing,
THE AGE OF JOHNSON
➢ The later half of the eighteenth century,
which was dominated by Dr. Samuel
Johnson, is called the Age of Johnson. ...
Most of the poets belonging to the Age
of Johnson may be termed as the
precursors of the Romantic Revival. That
is why the Age of Johnson is also called
the Age of Transition in English
literature.
• FOCUS ON CLASSICAL STUDY
FAMOUS WRITERS OF THE
RESTORATION PERIOD
• JOHN DRYDEN
➢ The most influential writer of the
restoration period.
➢ Dryden the poet is best known today as
a satirist, although he wrote only two
great original satires: Mac Flecknoe
(1682) and The Medall (1682). His most
famous poem, Absalom and Achitophel
(1681) contains several brilliant satiric
portraits. But unlike satire, it comes to a
final, tragic resolution.
JOHN MILTON
➢ Restoration prose style grow more
like
➢ Prose poetry and prose between 1632
and 1674, and is most famous for his
epic poetry. ... Paradise Lost is one of
the most recognized works in English
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE
➢ William Temple was the son of Sir John
Temple of Dublin and nephew of Rev.
Dr. Thomas Temple DD.[citation
needed] Born in London, and educated
at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
JOHN LOCKE
➢ Human understanding
➢ Modern empiricism
➢ Divine Right of Kings
➢ Be it all equal
➢ life, liberty, and property.
➢ British empiricism
➢ John Locke is regarded as one of the
most influential philosophers of modern
times. He founded the modern theory of
Liberalism.
 ➢ Modern empiricism
➢ Educational Theory

SAMUEL PEPYS
➢ English diarist and naval administrator.
➢ HIS DIARY

APHRA BEHN
➢ was an English playwright, poet,
translator and fiction writer from the
Restoration era
➢ first Englishwoman known to earn her
living by writing.

JEAN RACINE
➢ French classical tragedy
➢ tragedian,
MOLIERE

➢ King louis

FAMOUS COMPOSITIONS
➢ All for love- John Dryden
➢ A Prologue and an Epilogue
– John Dryden
The Augustan Age
➢ Augustan Age, one of the most
illustrious periods in Latin literary
history, from approximately 43 bc to ad
18; together with the preceding
Ciceronian period (q.v.), it forms the
Golden Age (q.v.) of Latin literature.
➢ Golden age of Latin Literature
➢ Roman Emperor Augustus.
➢ First emperor of Rome.
➢ It is called Augustan because King
George I likes to think that he was like
Augustus Caesar
➢ This period is marked by the imitation of
Virgil and Horace.

VIRGIL

➢ The Aenid

FAMOUS WRITERS

➢ Alexander Pope
➢ Most significant writer during the
Augustan Period
➢ An essay on criticism
➢ Rape of the Lock

➢ JONATHAN SWIFT
➢ Targets the empiricists who insist on
individual, unyielding reason over
morality and social values
➢ JOSEPH ADDISON
➢ FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET DE
VOLTAIRE
FAMOUS WORK
➢ Gullivere’s travel – Jonathan Swift
➢ Rape of the Locke- Alexander Pope
THE AGE OF JOHNSON
✓ AGE OF TRANSITION
➢ This period marks the transition
toward the upcoming Romanticism
through the period is still largely
Neoclassical. Much was happening
around the world politically, such as
both the American
and French Revolutions. This time
marked a transition in English
literature from the structure and
formality of the Neoclassical writers
to the emotional, ungoverned
writings of the Romantic
FAMOUS WRITERS
➢ SAMUEL JOHNSON
➢ He was the literary dictator of
his age, though he was not its
greatest writer
Though Johnson’s own style is
often condemned as ponderous
and verbose, he could write in
an easy and direct style when he
chose.
➢ EDWARD GIBBON
➢ was the first historian
of England who wrote in a
literary manner. His greatest
historical work—The Decline
and Fall of the Roman Empire,
which is an authoritative and
well- documented history, can
pass successfully the test of
modern research and
scholarship. But its importance
in literature is on account of its
prose style which is the very
climax of classicism.
➢ GEORGE CRABBE
➢ stood midway between the
Augustans and the Romantics.
In form he was classical, but in
the temper of his mind he was
romantic. To him nature is a
“presence, a motion and a
spirit,” and he realizes the
intimate union of nature with
man.
➢ ROBERT BURNS
➢ who is the greatest song writer
in the English language, had
great love for nature, and a firm
belief in human dignity and
quality, both of which are
characteristic of romanticism
➢ WILLIAM COWPER
➢ who lived a tortured life and
was driven to the verge of
madness, had a genial and kind
soul. His poetry, much of which
is of autobiographical interest,
describes the homely scenes
and pleasures and pains of
simple humanity—the two
important characteristics of
romanticism
➢ THOMAS GRAY
➢ s famous as the author of Elegy
Written in a Country
Churchyard, “the best-known in
the English language.” Unlike
classical poetry which was
characterised by restraint on
personal feelings and emotions,
this poem is the manifestation
of deep feelings of the poet. It
is suffused with the
melancholy spirit which is a f
FAMOUS COMPOSITIONS
✓ Lives of Poets by Samuel
Johnson

✓ The Decline and Fall of the

Roman Empire by Edward
Gibbon

✓ Elegy Written in a Country

Churchyard by Thomas Gray