Survey of English Literature 19th & 20th Centuries

1
Survey of English Literature19th 20th Centuries

• Scope of this course
• Romanticism
• Victorianism
• Modernism
• Review syllabus
• 18th-century backgrounds to Romanticism

2
The 18th-Century in a Nutshell

• Politics
• Socio-Economics
• Religion Philosophy
• Literature

3
18th-Century Politics Economics

• In America and France, what occurred in the late
  18th-century?
• War violence
• Hierarchies toppled
• Shift away from land agriculture-based economy
• Middle-classes gain importance

4
18th-Century England

• What happened in England at this time?
• Ever hear of the English Revolution?
• Hierarchies remained intact
• Without violence, order was maintained
• Political economic conservatism

5
18th-Century Religion Philosophy

• Religion after the Renaissance
• In England, religious diversity tolerated
  conservatism still reigns
• Philosophy of Reason dominates
• Shift from Hobbes view of man (greed)to
  Rousseaus view (goodness)

6
18th-Century also known as

• Georgian Age
• (4 King Georges in a row!)
• Augustan Age
• Neoclassical Age
• Age of Reason
• Descartes I think, therefore I am

7
Reason, Order, Control, Submission

• Natural hierarchies
• God over Man
• Man over Animals
• Men over Women
• Aristocracy over Middle/Working classes
• Reason over
• Passion
• Imagination
• Appetites

8
18th-Century English Literature

• Reflected societys conservatism
• Focus on mans proper place
• Emphasis on didactic, philosophic poetry and
  essays
• Style formal, regular, orderly

9
Alexander Pope An Essay on Man

• A deeply philosophic poem, deals with
• Life-Death, Man-God, Earth-Heaven
• Written for a very elite audience
• Didactic, i.e. educational
• Justifying the ways of God to man

10

• Chain of Being (ll. 237-41)
• Why might this be appealing?
• Sin of Pride (ll. 123-30)
• Pride breeds chaos (ll. 241-46 251-58)
• Popes advice Submit (ll. 279-92)
• Beauty of the status quo

11
Samuel Johnson Rasselas

• Another didactic work, this time fictional
• Age of Reason, imagination seen as enemy
• Solitude feeds imagination
• Imagination akin to madness
• All power of fancy over reason
• is a degree of insanity.

12
Romanticism Revolution

• Romantic poets responded to 18th-century
  rationalism
• Romantic poets were inspired by the revolutions
  in America France
• Romantic poets saw themselves as applying
  revolutionary principles to literature