Topic: Age of pope (Major
prose and poetry
Writers)
PAPER: Neo- Classical
literature
Submitted to-Smt .S.B Gardy
Department
of English
(M.K.University Bhavnagar)
Name- Shital Italia
Historical background of
the age
The first
half of the eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social development
in England. Hitherto men and others had been more or less governed by the
narrow ,isolated standard of the middle ages, and when they differed they fell speedily
to blows .now for the first time they set themselves to the task of learning
the art of living together ,while still holding different opinipon.In a single
generation nearly two thousand public coffeehouses ,each a center of
sociability sprang up in London alone, and the number of private clubs is quite
as astonishing. This new social life had a marked effect in polishing men’s
words and manners.
The literary characteristics of this age
1) Prose
occupies the front position.
2) The
prominent writers took on active part and a large numbers of pamphlets,
journals and magazines were brought out in order to cater to the growing need
of the masses.
3) Poetry
was considered inadequate for such a task.
4) A
rapid development of prose.
5) Prose
writers of this age excel the poets in every respect.
6) The
graceful and elegant prose of Addison’s essays.
7) The
terse style of swift’s satire.
8) The
sonorous eloquence of Gibbon’s history.
9) The oratorical
style of Burke.
10) Poetry
also had become prosaic.
11) Poetry
became polished, witty and artificial, but it lacked fire, fine feeling, and
enthusiasm.
Major Prose writers
1)
Jonathan swift
Born- November, 30 1667 in
Dublin.
Death- October 19, 1745 in
Ireland.
Spouse-Esther Johnson.
Education-Hertford collage, oxford (1694)
university of Dublin, Trinity College Dublin.
He suffered from Menier’s
disease a condition of inner ear that laves the afflicted nauseous and hard of hearing.
Glorious revolution of 1668 spurred swift to move to England and start a new.
His mother found a secretary position for him in the revered English statesman,
Sir William Temple. Ten years, swift worked in London Moor park, and acted as
an assistant to Temple, helping him with political and also in the researching
and publishing of his own essays and memories. His first political pamphlet was
titled ‘ A Discourse on the contests and Dissention in Athens and Rome. He
consider as a greatest of English prose writer.
His prose
1) A
tale of a tub.
.Written as early as 1696 and published in 1704.
Ø It
regarded by many as swift’s best work.
Ø It
is full of wit and brilliant in its imaginative power and the incisiveness of
its thought.
Ø It
is full of wit and brilliant in its imaginative power and the incisiveness of
its thought.
Ø The
style is terse avid has a sustained vigor, pace and colorfulness.
Ø The
book was intended as an attack on the enthusiasm of Roman Catholic.
2) Gulliver’s Travels
Ø Witten
between 1720 and 1725 and published in 1726.
Ø IT
deals with imaginary voyages in Gulliver’s case among the pigmies (Lilliputians),
the giants (Brobdingnagins), the moonstruck philosopher (Laputa) and the race
of horses (Houyhnhnms) with their human serf the yahoos.
3) Journal
to Stella
Ø Written
chiefly in the year 1710 to 1713.
Ø It
is an excellent commentary on contemporary character and political by one of
the most powerful and original minds of the age.
Ø Its
love passages and purely personal description, it gives us the best picture who
posses of swift himself the summit of his power and influence.
Other works of Swift.
1) The
conduct of the Allies(1711)
2) The Barriers
Treaty (1712)
3) The
public spirit of Whigs (1714)
2) Joseph Addison
Born-1672 in Milston, Wiltshire.
Death-1719.
Education-charater house, Oxford
University.
He obtained travelling
scholarship of three hundred pounds a year and saw much of Europe under a favorable
condition.
In 1704, it is said at the instigation
of the leaders of the Whigs, he wrote the poem ‘The Campaign’ praising the war
policy of the Whigs in general and the worthiness of Marlborough in particular.
His Poetry
1) The campaign
Ø Written
in 1704, this gives him reputation as one of the major poets of the age.
Ø It
is written in heroic couplet.
His Drama
1) Cata
Ø Produce
in 1713.
Ø It
is written in laborious blank verse
2) Rosamond
(1707)
3) The
Drummer (1715)
His Prose
1) The Tattler
Ø Appeare
thrice in weekly
Ø published
on April 12,1709
Ø Finished
in January 1711.
2) The
spectator
Ø Issued
daily
Ø variation
of fortunes , price and time of issue
Ø Ran until
December 1712.
Ø published
in march 1711
Ø ‘The
spectator’ includes 274 essays out of a complete total of 555.
3) The
Guardian
Ø Published
in March 1713.
4) Sir Richard steele
Born-1672
Death-1729
Eucation-Charter
house school, Oxford University.
Ø He
was in turn soldier, captain, poet playwright .essayist member of parliament,
manager of theatre, publisher of newspaper and twenty other things.
His Drama
1) The
funeral (1701)
2) The
lying lover(1703)
3) The Tender
husband(1705)
4) The
conscious lover(1722)
His Essays
1) The Tattler
(1709)
2) The Spectator(1711)
3) The
Guardian(1713)
4) The
Englishman(1713)
5) The
Reader(1714)
6) The plebeian(1719)
Major poets
The poetry for the first half
of the century, as typified in the work of pope ,is polished and witty enough
,but artificial; it lucks fire ,fine feeling, enthusiam,the glow of Elizabethan
age and the moral earnestness of puritanism.In a word, it interests us as a
study of life, rather than delight or inspire us by its appeal to the
imagination.
The Characteristics of classial poetry.
Ø Classical
poetry product of the intelligence playing upon the surface of life.
Ø Emotion
and imagination is markedly deficient.
Ø Didactic
and satiric commonly.
Ø Poetry
of argument and criticism of political and personalities.
Ø Exclusive-town
poetry.
1) Alexander pope
Born-London in 1688, the year of
the revolution
Death- 1744.
Ø In
the First place he was for a generation “the poet” of a great nation.
Ø He
was a remarkably clear and adequate reflection of the spirit of the agein which
he lived.
Ø He
became dominant poetical personality of the day.
Works of Pope
For convenience we may separate pope’s work in to three
groups, corresponding to the early, middle, and later period of his life.
1) Essay
on criticism
Ø The’
Essay on criticism ‘sums up the art of poetry as taught first by Horace, then
by Boileau and the eighteenth classicists.
Ø It
is written in heroic couplet, we hardly consider this as a poem but rather as a
storehouse of critical maxims.
2) Rape
of the Lock
Ø It
is a master piece of its kind, and comes nearer to being a ‘creation’ than
anything else that pope has written.
Ø Between
1731 and 1735 pope published a series of philosophical poems, including
1) To
lord Bathurst.
2) Of
the use of riches.
3) Of
the knowledge and character of men.
4) Of
character of women.
5) An
essay on man.
Ø The
year 1733 and 1737 mark pope’s last important period of production.
1) Imitation
of Horace.
2) Prologue
to the satires.
v
Matthew prior
Born – 1664 in dorsetshire.
Death – 1721
Education- Cambridge University.
Ø He
was early engaged in writing on behalf of the Tories, from whom he received
several valuable appointments.
His works
1) The
plind and the panther Transvers’d to the story of the country and the city
mouse(1678)
Ø Written
in collaboration with Charles Montagu.
2) Alma
: or the progress of the mind
3) Solomon
on the vanity of the world(1718)
Ø Written
in heroic couplet, it aims at being a serious poem, but its serious is often
marred with levity, and its shows no wisdom or insight.
Edward young
Born-
Hampshire in 1683
Death-1765
Education-Oxford University
Ø He
lived much in retirement though in his later years he received a public appointment.
His works
1) The
last day(1714)
2) The
force of religion (1714)
Ø Both
are moralizing and written in the heroic couplet.
3) The
love of fame (1725-28)
Ø This
shows an advance in use of the couplet, and a poem in blank verse.
4) The
complain or night thought on life
5) Death
and immorality (1742).
