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The Augustan Age - Coggle Diagram

- - - - first PM was Sir Robert Walpole, who avoided foreign conflicts to increase trade and decrease taxes, but he was accused of corruption
        
        satirical attacks on the stage led to censorship in the theatre
      - PM William Pitt increased territory through land and sea warfare
- - - - novels
        
        Defoe and Richardson: fathers of the English novel
        
        Defoe
        
        from a family of dissenters (protestant sect vs Anglican church), wrote in whig papers, especially The Review, wrote pamphlets and Queen Anne had him imprisoned but he saved himself by denying his Whig ideas
        
        wrote fictional autobiographies pretending to be true (prefece about authenticity, details, memories) < tradition of diaries. episodical structure with a single hero, lack of a coherent plot (no planning by the author), retrospective 1st person narration, character pov and author's pov coincide, characters presented through their actions, in physical (Crusoe) or social (Flanders) isolation
        
        Robinson Crusoe: at 19 he abandons home to travel the world, but he is captured by pirates and then rescued and brought to Brazil, where he establishes a plantation. He goes to Africa to get slaves, but he is shipwrecked to a desert island for 28 years, there he writes a diary and rebuilds a society. After 12 years he finds a footprint and cannibals, whom he attacks and rescues Friday, he teaches him the Bible and the language, they then save his father. Robinson is rescued and discovers that the plantation has made him rich.
        
        new middle class hero ("The best state in the world"), transgression (beginning of the story, in search for his identity) punished with shipwreck
        
        references to God, sin, salvation, providence. Spiritual autobiography: the hero reads bible for comfort and guidance, good vs evil, keeps a diary, wants freedom for sin (rather than being rescued)
        
        economic motivation vs spiritual salvation
        
        island is the perfect setting to recreate society as an English coloniser (mobility, materialism, productivity) and to prove his worth (to be saved by providence)
        
        God is the cause of everything, but man can shape his own destiny trough work and reason (observation, solutions, pros and cons, choice)
        
        simple, matter-of-fact language
        
        Moll Flanders: old Moll narrates her adventures retrospectively. Born in Newgate Prison as the daughter of a thief, at 14 becomes the maid of a rich family, marries 5 times, has children, becomes a prostitute and a thief, deported to Virginia, becomes plantation owner, goes back to England as a respecatble lady, narrates her story as a warning
        
        information about life, customs and social problems (crime, orphans, high child mortality) of London, women couldn't support themselves legally (they had to get married, but Moll is widowed and too old to remarry, so she is outcast), theft and prostitution were crimes punished with Newgate Prison/hanging/deportation to Virginia
        
        she refuses emotions in favour of economic growth (poverty is a sin, better a thief than poor), rationality, appearances, individualism, restlesness
        
        realistic style with documents, memorandums, letters, hospital bills
        
        Jonathan Swift
        
        born in Dublin, went to London to work for the whig Sir William Temple and started writing pamphlets, became friends with Pope, in Ireland became an Anglican priest and Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, wrote pamphlet denouncing the suffering and injustices of Ireland
        
        controversial: misanthrope, lover, conservative in politics and society, pessimistic, reason (it is a good tool but one must avoid exaggeration: common-sense), irony, satire, parody (irony+simple style)
        
        The battle of books: defence of the classics, mocked the moderns
        
        A tale of a tub: superstitious Catholics vs fanatic dissenters
        
        The drapier's letters: the hypothetical Mr Drapier attacks the government's proposal for new coinage at the expense of Ireland
        
        A modest proposal: to avoid Irish poverty, children should be sold to the rich as food
        
        Gulliver's Travels:
        
        4 books about ship's surgeon Lemuel Gulliver: 1 he sails from Bristol but he is shipwrecked in Lilliput, he is moved into a temple by the Lilliputians and learns their customs and language, returns to Englsand. 2 He sails for India but ends up in Brobdingnag where giants live, he becomes the King and Queen's pet in a cage and they compare systems of government, his cage is lifted by a bird and he is rescued at sea and brought to England. 3 He is captured by pirates and ends up in the flying island of Laputa where absent-minded philosophers and scientists live and run an academy that carries out absurd experiments, he goes back home. 4 He ends up in the land of the Houyhnhnms (horses endowed with reason) and the Yahoos (humans deprived of reason), he is banished and sent home but he cannot bear his family
        
        < travel and imaginary literature, Royal society, political allusions to Queen Anne and George I. Different from classical utopias. Criticizes contemporary corrupted Europe.
        
        Gulliver: in the end completely differs from the beginning (typical European: middle-aged, well educated, observer, good provider for family, good worker, supports his culture)
        
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        1st person narration, matter-of-fact style, scientific precision
        
        satire: distortion (familiar becomes strange through a device ex. trip of a human being into an unknown land that mirrors real world), exaggeration
        
        levels of interpretation: 1 tale for children, 2 political allegory of his time (too rational ex. Laputa, Houyhnhnms, too self-imposedly big ex. Lilliput, Brobdingnag), 3 parody of voyage literature, 4 misanthropic reflection on human aberrations.
        
        Richardson
        
        started writing at 50, when he was asked to write a volume of model letters for uneducated country readers (ex marriage proposals, application for a job)
        
        mainly wrote epistolary novels, set in domestic middle-class environments, full of Puritan values: ethics, common sense, good manners and modesty (values of The Spectator)
        
        psychological analysis of thoughts and feelings, development of characters, young heroines with Christian piety and charm who defend virtue or perish if they fail to do so
        
        1st person narrator, letters and journals (different povs)
        
        Pamela, or virtue rewarded:
        
        letters by virtuous Pamela to her parents: she resists her mistress's son Mr. B's attempts at seducing her (=she is virtuous), so he becomes more mature and she gains a marrige proposal ("Cinderella theme": compensation for ordinary life) and becomes rich (highest puritan achievement)
        
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        Pamela: round character, passionate, virtuous, intolerant of injustice.
        
        series 32 of letters + long journal by Pamela (written during her seclusion at B-Hall), writer is the editor who arranges and oublishes them,
        
        Fielding
        
        wrote comedies to mock politicians, causing the 1737 Licensing Act which censored plays. Wrote satyrical articles in newspapers, wrote novels like An apology for the life of Mrs Shamela Andrews, a parody of Richardson's novel.
        
        wrote comic epic novels: (differently than Defoe and Richardson) he didn't hide the fictional nature of his work, characters similar to heroes but doing ridiculous actions in contemporary London, not feelings but actions, characters from any social class
        
        < Cervantes' Don Quixote and picaresque tale, mock epic, romance. addresses wide public, including upper-classes.
        
        vs hypocrisy and Puritan code (respectability=virtue), virtue=inner disposition to doing good, characters are a mix of good and bad
        
        3rd person narrator, obtrusive narrator (he intervenes with warnings and ironic comments), conversational tone, humor and irony
        
        The history of the life of the late Mr Johnatan Wild the Great:
        
        mock-heroic biography of criminal Johnatan Wild (1685-1725): buckle-maker's apprentice in London, arrested for theft and released, became brothel-keeper and pickpocket, ran a "lost property" office of his stolen goods, Government made it illegal but he baypasses the law, arrested for helping a highwayman escape, hanged in Newgate Prison
        
        irony: greatness=villainy, cunning, hypocrisy, selfishness
        
        some viewed it at allegory of PM Robert Walpole, who stole public money
        
        by middle class men for middle classes and about middle classes
        
        simple style, had to satisfy audiences and bookasellers and not patrons
        
        stories about self-made and self-reliant tradesmen, Puritan sense of reward and punishment
        
        some believe in reason (ex Robinson Crusoe), others in passions (ex. Moll Flanders)
        
        realism: portrayal of different human experiences
        
        omniscient narrator, chronological sequence of events, detailed and realistic description of settings
      - journalism
        
        The Tatler: by Steele+Addison, 3 times a week, conversational syle
        
        The Spectator: by Addison+Steele, Mr Spectator led a club who commented on morals and customs of the time, fellow members of different social classes with their beliefs, style suitable for middle classes, influenced birth of Il Caffè by Pietro Verri
    - - puritan books based on morality (still valid in family life)
      - influenced also common novels like Defoe's and Richardson's
    - - Samuel Johnson's The lives of English Poets and The dictionary of English language, about English words and expressions, scientifical too, but not technical or vulgar, + etmology
        
        love for measure and precision
  - - - about family, marriage, in simple language, about triumph of virtue over vice, tears and melodramatic situations, pathetic heroines and serious lovers
    - - vs sentimentalism and licentiousness, but kept witty dialogues, comic situations and ridiculous characters