TOPIC: NOTABLE AUTHORS AND THEIR WORKS (NEOCLASSIOCAL PERIOD)

 John Milton (1608 – 1674)

John Milton, (born December 9, 1608, London, England—died November 8?, 1674, London?), English
poet, pamphleteer, and historian, considered the most significant English author after William
Shakespeare.
 Work: Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost, epic poem in blank verse, one of the late works by John Milton, originally issued in 10
books in 1667 and, with Books 7 and 10 each split into two parts, published in 12 books in the second
edition of 1674.
Many scholars consider Paradise Lost to be one of the greatest poems in the English language. It tells the
biblical story of the fall from grace of Adam and Eve (and, by extension, all humanity) in language that is a
supreme achievement of rhythm and sound. The 12-book structure, the technique of beginning in medias
res (in the middle of the story), the invocation of the muse, and the use of the epic question are all
classically inspired. The subject matter, however, is distinctly Christian.
The main characters in the poem are God, Lucifer (Satan), Adam, and Eve. Much has been written about
Milton’s powerful and sympathetic characterization of Satan. The Romantic poets William
Blake and Percy Bysshe Shelley saw Satan as the real hero of the poem and applauded his rebellion
against the tyranny of Heaven.

 John Dryden (1631 – 1700)

John Dryden, (born August 9 [August 19, New Style], 1631, Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, England—
died May 1 [May 12], 1700, London), English poet, dramatist, and literary critic who so dominated the
literary scene of his day that it came to be known as the Age of Dryden.
 Work: Marriage a la Mode
Marriage à-la-Mode, comedy by John Dryden, performed in 1672 and published in 1673.
The play has two unrelated plots. One, written in heroic couplets, concerns the princess Palmyra of Sicily,
whose usurper father has never seen her, and her childhood sweetheart Leonidas, the rightful heir to the
throne. The young pair were raised together in the isolated countryside and have fallen in love;
their marriage will right the wrong of Palmyra’s father. The other plot is comic. After two years of
marriage Rodophil and Doralice have lost interest in each other. Rodophil is attracted to Melanthe, whose
affectations annoy her fiancé, Palamede. To complete the square, Palamede is attracted to Doralice.
Complications ensue, and in the end the characters find that they prefer their original partners after all.

 Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744)

Alexander Pope, (born May 21, 1688, London, England—died May 30, 1744, Twickenham, near
London), poet and satirist of the English Augustan period, best known for his poems An Essay on
Criticism (1711), The Rape of the Lock (1712–14), The Dunciad (1728), and An Essay on Man (1733–34).
He is one of the most epigrammatic of all English authors.
 Work: An Essay on Criticism
An Essay on Man, philosophical essay written in heroic couplets of iambic pentameter by Alexander
Pope, published in 1733–34. It was conceived as part of a larger work that Pope never completed.
The poem consists of four epistles. The first epistle surveys relations between humans and the universe;
the second discusses humans as individuals. The third addresses the relationship between the individual
| ESCOBAR, KAYE M/. OLLCF-CTE/ MC LIT 5: SURVEY IN ENGLISH AND 1
AMERICAN LITERATURE/SEPTEMBER 22, 2022/
and society, and the fourth questions the potential of the individual for happiness. An Essay on
Man describes the order of the universe in terms of a hierarchy, or chain, of being. By virtue of their
ability to reason, humans are placed above animals and plants in this hierarchy.

 Jonathan Swift (1667 – 1745)

Jonathan Swift, pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff, (born Nov. 30, 1667, Dublin, Ire.—died Oct. 19, 1745,
Dublin), Anglo-Irish author, who was the foremost prose satirist in the English language. Besides the
celebrated novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), he wrote such shorter works as A Tale of a Tub (1704) and “A
Modest Proposal” (1729).
 Work: Gulliver’s Travels
Gulliver’s Travels, original title Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, four-part
satirical work by Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift, published anonymously in 1726 as Travels into
Several Remote Nations of the World. A keystone of English literature, it was one of the books that gave
birth to the novel form, though it did not yet have the rules of the genre as an organizing tool. A parody of
the then popular travel narrative, Gulliver’s Travels combines adventure with savage satire, mocking
English customs and the politics of the day.

 Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731)

Daniel Defoe, (born 1660, London, Eng.—died April 24, 1731, London), English novelist, pamphleteer,
and journalist, author of Robinson Crusoe (1719–22) and Moll Flanders (1722).
 Work: Robinson Crusoe
Robinson Crusoe, in full The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of
York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years, All Alone in an Un-inhabited Island on
the Coast of America, Near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having Been Cast
on Shore by Shipwreck, Wherein All the Men Perished but Himself. With an Account how
he was at last as Strangely Deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself., novel by Daniel Defoe,
first published in London in 1719. Defoe’s first long work of fiction, it introduced two of the most-enduring
characters in English literature: Robinson Crusoe and Friday.

| ESCOBAR, KAYE M/. OLLCF-CTE/ MC LIT 5: SURVEY IN ENGLISH AND 2

AMERICAN LITERATURE/SEPTEMBER 22, 2022/