Age of pope ( major poets and prose writers)

                      

                      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).