18th century

Interactive literature

Literature of the Eighteenth Century

Eighteenth Century political timeline:

	1660: Charles II restored to the throne, end of the interregnum. But, England had become a constitutional monarchy and a great deal of the Crown's former power rests with Parliament. Charles' return also means the reinstatement of the Established (Anglican) Church as the official religion, and Charles' sympathies were probably Catholic (on his deathbed, he sent for a priest to administer the Last Rites). So, Charles has to perform quite a balancing act.
	1664: Parliament outlaws religious meetings where the froms of the Established Church are not followed. (Charles had promised to be mild with dissenters when he returned.)
	1665: A plague that spreads throughout the whole country kills 70 thousand in London alone. 1666: The Great Fire of London burns for fours days and leaves two thirds of the city's population homeless. Both of these disasters were said to be divine retribution for the crime of regicide (Charles I, the current king's father, had been executed), but many suspected (apparently without reason) that the fire was set by Catholics
	1673: The Test Act passed by Parliament, requiring all holders of military and civil office to receive the sacrament according to the rites of the Established Church and to take an oath declaring that they did not believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation.
	1678-81: The Popish Plot. A faction of Parliament tried to get Charles to accept a bill that would eliminate his brother James (Who was a Catholic) from the line of succession to the English throne). In spite of his desire to balance things and to be diplomatic in his interaction with Parliament, Charles would not do this. This struggle led to the rise of two distinct parties in Parliament: the Tories, who supported Charles in this fight, and the Whigs. Ironically, the Tories came to be the conservative party, supporting the Crown and the Established Church, while the Whigs grew to be the defenders of the middle class, commerce, and religious dissenters.
	1685: With Charles' death, James II (his brother, the one whom all the fighting was about) comes to the throne. He wants to advance the Catholic cause and claims the right to override Parliament and set aside laws.
	1687: James issues the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending the Test Act and penal laws against Catholics and Dissenters.
	1688: The Queen gives birth to a son, thus confronting Parliament with the prospect of a succession of Catholic kings. A faction enters into secret negotiations with William of Orange, a Dutch Protestant and the husband of James' Protestant sister, Mary. William invades England with a small force, and in December, after sending his family to safety, James himself is forced to flee the country. He set up court in exile in France (A catholic country that welcomed him). Over the coming years the Jacobite court (from the Latin Jacobus for James) will attempt two invasions with the help of loyalists in Scotland and England. The first, by James' son (the "Old Pretender") is in 1715, the second, by his grandson (Prince Charles Edward or "Bonnie Prince Charlie") in 1745 very nearly succeeds.
	1689: The Glorious (or Bloodless) Revolution. -- William of Orange and Mary are crowned. Also, a Bill of Rights is passed limiting the powers of the Crown and reaffirming the supremacy of Parliament. As a concession to the many supporters of James, the Toleration Act is passed, which does not repeal the Test Act, but does grant freedom of worship to Dissenters.
	1701: The Act of Settlement sets the line of succession for the English crown and keeps it from going to any Catholics. First, it will go to James II's youngest daughter, Anne, and then to Sophia, the Duchess of Hanover (in Germany), Anne's closest Protestant relative.
	1702: Queen Anne crowned (She is the last monarch from the Stuart family.)
	1702-13: The War of Spanish Succession is led by Captain-General John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, who dominates Anne until 1710. The war is supported by Whigs.
	1710: The Whigs want to dissolve the Test Act, but Anne is loyal to the Established Church. She dismisses her Whig ministers and appoints Tories: Robert Horley (later the Earl of Oxford) as Lord Treasurer, and Henry St. John (later Viscount Bolingbroke) as Secretary of State. Jonathan Swift serves under them.
	1714: Anne dies and George I (son of Sophia, who has died) comes to the throne and with him, the Whigs come back into power. They lock Oxford in the Tower (where he stays until 1717) and accuse Bolingbroke of being a Jacobite. He flees to France and actually becomes Secretary of State to the Jacobite court for a time. He's pardoned and returns in 1723, but is denied his seat in Parliament.
	1714-27: George I's reign. He and his son George II (who ruled 1727-60) spend much of their time in their native Germany and leave the task of governing to ministers. As a result, the ministers become much more powerful.
	1721-42: Sir Robert Walpole, a Whig, is Prime Minister and begins to develop what will become the modern British system of ministerial rule. Under him, the importance of the House of Commons increased, and industrialism began. He brought peace and prosperity, but also corruption.
	1760-1820: George III. Britain begins to emerge as a colonial power. A period of expansionism.

Literary trends

	Writers 1700-1745: Alexander Pope ("The Rape of the Lock"), Swift, Joseph Addison ("The Campaign" -- celebrates one of Marlborough's victories), Sir Richard Steele (The Tatler). Lots of humor, satire. The rise of the popular press and of literacy means writing reached a wider audience than ever before (upper-class women and middle-class people).
	Grub Street -- Taken from a real street, the name used for many of the writers for the popular press; the new demand for writers meant that some of them were far from talented, and most of them were very poorly paid and lived in poor conditions. Pope and Swift thought Grub Street was a threat to enlightenment, serious literature, and good taste in general.
	Rise of the sentimental comedy -- reaffirmed the growing belief in the essential goodness of human nature (the eighteenth-century equivalent of the "date movie")
	Satire also flourished. Many satirists are conservatives, and Pope and Swift, the two most accomplished satirists of the age, wrote as Tories in a time when the government was dominated by Whigs. Both resisted the changes that were taking place: the rise of England as a world power, instead of an isolated island kingdom, the growth of the middle classes, etc. Pope saw it as a struggle between Darkness and Light, Chaos and Order. Swift saw it as one between "right reason" and "madness" -- a blindness to anything but one's own private illusions.
	Rise in nature poetry, most notably with the work of James Thompson, which would really take off in the next century. A literature of feeling was coming to exist alongside the dominant literature of wit.
	Rise of prose with authors such as Samuel Johnson (literary criticism), James Boswell (biography), Edmund Burke (politics), David Hume (philosophy).
	This led to some of the age's poets fearing that the spirit of poetry had passed away. In an age barren of magic (as superstitions fade), where is poetry to be found? Image of the poet slowly changed from the idea of a maker to that of a brooding introspector, gave rise to the "graveyard school" -- writers like Thomas Gray, William Collins, and Joseph and Thomas Wharton. They aren't to be confused with the Gothic writers who came later, but they laid a foundations on which the Gothic writers built.
	The novel -- the rise of the modern novel occurred during this time. Novels were concerned not with the nobility like much traditional literature, but with the middle class and its values. They were also written in part for and about women -- another new thing. Some authors include Daniel Defoe (only his Robinson Crusoe was read by the upper classes) and Samuel Richardson (his three novels, especially Clarissa, paid closer attention to women and the pressures on them than any writing that had come before).

Other resources on the eighteenth century.

A Day in Eighteenth-Century London

When John Dryden envisioned London rising from the Great Fire of 1666 to its destiny as one of the great cities of the world (NAEL 1.2073), he foresaw what would actually happen. During the following century, the population doubled, from 400,000 to 800,000. But still more, the cultural and commercial life of Britain and its empire increasingly centered on London. Though a vast majority of English people continued to work at farming, it was the city that set the tone for business, pleasure, and an emerging consumer society. "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life," according to Samuel Johnson; "for there is in London all that life can afford."

With so much to see and do, a day in eighteenth-century London can be viewed as a microcosm of that world. Pope’s Rape of the Lock (NAEL 1.2526) uses the events of one day in high society, from dawn to dusk, as the comic equivalent of a full epic action. The low society of London also bombarded the senses. A Description of the Morning, by Jonathan Swift, itemizes some typical sights and sounds as the city wakes. All sorts of noise filled the streets; the famous "Cries of London," as vendors hawked their wares, were celebrated in popular prints and songs.

During the day, London was a vast hub of finance, trade, and manufacturing; ships jammed the Thames with traffic from all over the world. But Londoners also found ways to mix business with pleasure. At midday it became the fashion to drop into clublike coffeehouses, to meet friends and cronies and catch up with the news. Another favorite gathering place was "the nave or centre of the town," the Royal Exchange, rebuilt after the fire as a vast mall for shopping and trade. With growing prosperity, London turned into a city where everything was for sale. Its elegant shops dazzled tourists, supplying not only heaps of goods but also a perpetual source of amusement.

In the evening, under the glow of much-improved oil-burning street lights, London came alive with places to go, to see and be seen. Glittering pleasure gardens, especially Vauxhall and Ranelagh, provided luxurious grounds to view works of art, to dance or listen to music, to stroll and mingle and flirt. Varieties of spectacles and shows drew larger and larger crowds, and theaters expanded to meet the competition. At the London playhouses, the audience itself was often part of the entertainment. Nor did the quest for pleasure cease at the witching hour. According to John Gay’s Trivia, thieves and mischief-makers took over the streets at midnight, ready for a night ramble: "Now is the Time that Rakes their Revells keep; / Kindlers of Riot, Enemies of Sleep." As part of the city woke at dawn, another part was just going to bed.