Augustan Literature

Satires and Essays

Augustan

early 18th-century Britain ~ the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. 14 A. D.) Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus
(63 A.D. 14 B. C.)

Queen Anne (1702-1714)

George I of Hanover (1714 - 1727)

George II (1727 1760)

 An age of political stability and party politicsWhigs versus Tories, under a Constitutional Monarchy An age of Empiricism and Experimental Science An age of religious accommodation rather than dogmatism with the occasional Evangelical Revival. An age of economic growth and stock booms and busts The South Sea Bubble, 1720 An age of world wars and political expansion War of the Spanish Succession, 1701-1713 Seven Years War, 17561763 An age of increasing Literacy (60+ % of adult males by 1800?)

Sir Robert Walpole (1676 - 1745) John Wesley (17031791), founder of Methodism

Augustan Literature

1700 1745 (death of Pope and Swift, 1744-45) it refers back to the heyday of classical writing, represented by the works of the Latin poets of the Golden Age:

Virgil Horace Ovid Tibullus.

Publius Vergilius Maro Quintus Horatius (70 19 B.C.) Flaccus (65-8 B.C.)

Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BC 17/18 AD)

Authors in this period gained inspiration from the great writers of the past classical age and followed their examples.

Literary Background

Neoclassicism reaches its peak. Art is pragmatic, and man is its most appropriate subject. Literature reaches out to a wider circle of readers, with special satirical attention to what is unfitting and wrong. The influence is felt within the works of:

Alexander Pope Jonathan Swift Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

The rise of the novel witnesses to the same neoclassic tendencies (Defoe, Richardson, Fielding).

Poetry
Satires and Essays

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

1709 Pastorals 1711 An Essay on Criticism 1713 Windsor Forest 1714 Rape of the Lock 1715-1720 Translated the Iliad 1717 The Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady; Eloisa to Abelard 1725-1726 Translated the Odyssey 1725 Edited The Works of Shakespeare Collated and Corrected 1728 The Dunciad 1734 Essay on Man 1735 Imitations of Horace

Early poems

Pastorals (1709) Windsor Forest (1713) The Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady (1717) Eloisa to Abelard (1717)

Satires

The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714)

The Dunciad (1728, 1743)

The Rape of the Lock

Prompted by an actual incident in polite society (Robert, Lord Petre Miss Arabella Fermour) A mock-epic (mock-heroic) poem It echoes the Iliad, the Aeneid, Paradise Lost. It invokes classic epic devices: invocation of a deity, a formal statement of theme, the division into books and cantos, grandiose speeches, battles, supernatural machinery It bears upon a trivial subject: the cutting off of a lock of hair It functions as:

A satire on the trivialities of fashionable life A commentary on the distorted moral values of polite society An implicit indictment of human pride

Arabella Fermor (1696-1737)

Characters and Plot

Belinda Beautiful young lady with wondrous hair, two locks of which hang gracefully in curls. The Baron Young admirer of Belinda who plots to cut off one of her locks. Ariel Belinda's guardian sylph (supernatural creature). Umbriel Mischievous spirit who enters the cave of the Queen of Spleen to seek help for Belinda. Queen of Spleen Underworld goddess who gives Umbriel gifts for Belinda. Clarissa Young lady who gives the Baron scissors. Thalestris Friend of Belinda. Thalestris urges Sir Plume to defend Belinda's honor. Sir Plume Beau of Thalestris. He scolds the Baron. Sylphs, Fairies, Genies, Demons, Phantoms and Other Supernatural Creatures

Canto 1: Belinda wakes up, glorifies her appearance at a ritualistic dressing table and is warned by Ariel of impending doom. Canto 2: She takes a boat ride up the Thames to attend a party (both the Sun and the Baron become victims of her beauty.) Canto 3: At the party she engages in the epic game (plays cards, sips coffee, flirts and gossips) and the Baron cuts off the lock. Canto 4: Umbriel journeys to the Cave of Spleen to procure a sack of sighs and a flask of tears. Canto 5: A battle ensues between heroines and heroes to recover the lock. The violated lock reappears in heaven, transformed into a new star.

Epic Invocation of a muse The Arming of the Hero

Mock-epic Invocation of his friend (John Caryll) Toilet [dressing] scene

Iliad, Aeneid, Paradise Lost The Rape of the Lock

Aeneas voyage up the Tiber Battle Meddling Gods and Goddesses

The Journey to the Underworld Rape of Helen & Fall of

Belindas voyage up the Thames Card Game Spirits (Sylphs and Gnomes)
The Cave of Spleen Cut of lock

The Heroic Couplet

Whether the Nymph shall break Diana's Law, Or some frail China Jar receive a Flaw, Or stain her Honour, or her new Brocade, Forget her Prayer's, or miss a Masquerade, Or lose her Heart, or Necklace, at a Ball... (Canto II, lines 103-9)

The Dunciad

Written and recast and then enlarged

1728: the "three book" Dunciad (Pope was member of the Martinus Scriblerus Club) 1735: the Dunciad Variorum (Pope confirmed authorship). 1743: the New Dunciad, in four books, with a different hero.

Struggle against ignorance, dullness and emptiness / Personal attacks on personal enemies Gives (in the neoclassical spirit) a broad satirical picture of the whole literary life in the 18thcentury England

The First Dunciad

The New Dunciad

Subject of satire: literary dullness Personified as the goddess of Dulness, daughter of Chaos and Night, at war with reason and with light. Object of satire: Lewis Theobald (1688 1744), scholar and playwright, author of Shakespeare Restored, a reaction to Alexander Pope's edition of Shakespeare Tibbald: king of the Dunces Dunce: a slow-witted or stupid person John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) Mock-epic structure: influenced by Drydens MacFlecknoe Plot:

Object of satire: Colley Cibber (1671 1757), actor-manager, playwright, and Poet Laureate, who had ridiculed one of Popes plays Bays: king of Dunces Adaptations and expansions of key passages to fit Cibbers career A darker tone overarching metaphor of Cibber as Anti-Christ of Wit, rather than Classical hero of Dullness. Apocalyptic ending:

The Goddess looks for a successor to the throne of her kingdom She chooses Tibbald In honour of his coronation, she holds heroic games. He is then transported to the Temple of Dullness, where he has visions of the future.

She comes! she comes! the sable Throne behold Of Night Primaeval, and of Chaos old! [] Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restor'd; Light dies before thy uncreating word: Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall; And Universal Darkness buries All. (62956)

Essays
Essay On Criticism (1711) Essay On Man (1733-4) Moral Essays (1731-5) Imitations of Horace (1733 5)

Essay On Criticism

a compilation of Pope's various literary opinions; a didactic poem in heroic couplets discusses the rules of taste which ought to govern poetry, and which enable a critic to make sound critical judgments; best authority the classical authors who dealt with the subject; conclusion: the rules of the ancients are in fact identical with the rules of Nature ~ poetry and painting, like religion and morality, actually reflect natural law.

First follow Nature, and your judgement frame By her just standard, which is still the same; Unerring Nature, still divinely bright, One clear, unchanged, and universal light, Life, force, and beauty must to all impart, At once the source, and end, and test of art.

An Essay on Man

Know then thyself, presume not God to philosophical, in heroic couplets influenced by deism attempt to justify the scan way of God to Man The proper study of Mankind is Man. addresses the question of human nature and Placed on this isthmus of a middle the potential for happiness structure medieval doctrine of the Great state, Chain of Being A Being darkly wise, and rudely great: 4 epistles: [] I : the nature of man and his place in the He hangs between; in doubt to act, or universe II : man as an individual rest; III : man in relation to human society, In doubt to deem himself a God, or political and social hierarchies Beast; IV: mans pursuit of happiness in this In doubt his mind and body to prefer; world Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Conclusion: there exists an ordered universe which [] possesses a coherent structure and functions in a rational fashion, according Created half to rise and half to fall; to natural laws designed by God Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all, humanity should acknowledge its Sole judge of truth, in endless error insignificant position in the greater context of creation in order to live happily hurl'd; and virtuously on earth. The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

Prose
Periodical Essay Prose Satire

The periodical essay

17th-century background:

1645: the Oxford Gazette (first English newspaper) was introduced; 1647: the Licensing Act established government control of the press; 1681: The Observer; 1691: The Athenian Gazette; 1694: the Licensing Act expired.

Other changes:
Improvement of printing press technology; Rise of the burgeoning commercial class an audience with the means, education, and leisure time to engage in reading. Periodical culturenewspapers & magazines, both topical and philosophical, and a freer and partisan press

18th century developments

Term: applied to any grouping of essays that appear serially First use: George Colman the Elder and Bonnell Thornton in their magazine the Connoisseur (1754-56) But: serial essays had been published for half a century:

Established with the Daily Courant (the first true daily) in 1702; Reached maturity with Addison and Steele's Tatler (170911) and Spectator (171112)

Joseph Addison

Richard Steele

The Tatler

Edited by Richard Steele, and including contributions by Joseph Addison, the periodical appeared thrice weekly from 12 April 1709 to 2 January 1711(271 issues.) At first it took the form of a miscellany:

accounts of manners and morals literature scholarship news.

In time single essays, written in the voice of Isaac Bickerstaff. Its avowed intention was to investigate manners and society, establishing its principles of ideal behaviour, its concepts of a perfect gentleman and gentlewoman, and its standards of good taste. Dueling, gambling, rakish behaviour, and coquettishness were criticized, and virtuous action was admired. Numerous anecdotes and stories gave point to the moral codes advanced. The periodical had an explicit Whig allegiance and was several times drawn into political controversy.

The Spectator

Founded jointly by Addison and Steele, it appeared daily except Sundays - for 555 issues, from 1 March 1711 to 6 December 1712. Stated goal: to edify and instruct morally and aesthetically Form: one long essay, narrated by the fictitious Mr. Spectator a man of travel and learning, who frequents London as an observer Through him the readers were introduced to his small circle of friends (Mr. Spectators club):

Sir Roger de Coverley the country squire and Tory foxhunter; Will Honeycomb the gallant man-about-town; Sir Andrew Freeport a Whig merchant and man of affairs; Captain Sentry the retired soldier.

social-types meant to exemplify different modes of social conduct The stories and the characters witty, sometimes satirical observations of the contemporary scene attempted to teach

The Prose Satire: Jonathan Swift (1667 1745)

Born in Ireland, of Anglo-Irish parents 1689 went to England (secretary to Sir William Temple, a diplomat and man of letters) 1695 ordained as a priest in the Church of Ireland Supported the Whigs, then the Tories Published many works, and edited the Examiner (chief Tory newspaper) Loved two Esthers: Esther Johnson Stella / Esther Vanhomrigh Vanessa 1714 returned to Ireland, installed as the Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin (to die like a poisoned rat in a hole.)

Works

Satires:

A Tale of a Tub The Battle of the Books A Modest Proposal A Meditation Upon a BroomStick Gullivers travels

Poems:

A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed Cadenus and Vanessa A Description of a City Shower

Other:

Pamphlets:

The Journal to Stella

The Drapiers Letters The Abolishing of the Christianity in England On the conduct of the allies The Barrier Treaty The Public Spirit of the Whigs The Story of an Injured Lady A Short View of the State of Ireland

Also wrote periodical essays, sermons, prayers, etc.

A Tale of a Tub

It is a a satire on religious excess. An allegorical tale the adventures of three brothers, Peter, Martin and Jack (Catholicism, Puritanism, Anglicanism) and their treatment of the coats (religious practices) inherited from their father (God) through a Will (Bible).

The Battle of the Books

A satire indicting pride (believing one's own age to be supreme) and the inferiority of derivative works

a literal battle between books in the King's Library, as ideas and authors struggle for supremacy: Classical vs. modern authors, authors vs. critics. An interpolated allegory of the spider and the bee:

The bee (who gathers its materials from nature and sings its drone song in the fields) is like the ancients; The spider (who kills the weak and then spins its web (books of criticism) from the taint of its own body) is like the moderns and like critics.

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Becoming a Burden to their Parents or to their Country

satirical essay ironically and paradoxically suggesting the poor in Ireland could sell their children as food to rich people
Narrator
parodies the style of contemporary projectors (authors of pamphlets writing in accordance to the rules of rhetoric: stating the case, establishing that they have no interest in the outcome, and then offering a solution before enumerating the profits of the plan.) goes to great lengths to support a logical argument whose proposed solution (cannibalism) is immoral: "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."

Gullivers Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, a satire on human nature a parody of the "travellers' tales" literary subgenre. structured in 4 parts / books

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput

1) Lilliput Court of Lilliput // court of George I Lilliputians vs their neighbours the Blefuscudans // feuding between England and France, or between Catholics and Protestants Allegory of mans pettiness and greed

Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag

Brobdingnag the giant people Turned into the Kings pet Occasion to discuss English and European systems of government Allegory of his pride and belief in mans superiority on all other creatures (another form of

Part III: A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan

Absent-minded

astronomers, philosphers

and scientists Lagado Academy: satire on the Royal Society and its experiments Absurdity and evils of reason when wrongly used
attack on intellectuals and scientists tendency to
theorize everything (abstract thought) instead of applying their knowledge to practical needs satire on 17th- and 18th-century philosophical movements of rational thought

Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms

the Houyhnhnms
vs

Yahoos // vile species of conscious animals, grotesque images of men, hybrid monsters personifying the worst barbarity yet harmless Disturbing experience: man is more similar to them than to the horses Allegory of pure reason united with common sense (perfection)

Epilogue
Utterly

pessimistic: he cannot stand his wife and childrens smell, seeing them as Yahoos; he goes to live in the stable hyperbole reductio ad absurdum of contemporary reality Desperate parable of mans progress and ambitions Accuse of misanthropy

Construction

Each part is the reverse of the preceding part:

Gulliver is big/small/sensible/ignorant; the countries are complex/simple/scientific/natural; forms of Government are worse/better/worse/better than England's.

Gulliver's view between parts contrasts with its other coinciding part:

Gulliver sees the tiny Lilliputians as being vicious and unscrupulous, and then the king of Brobdingnag sees Europe in exactly the same light. Gulliver sees the Laputians as unreasonable, and Gulliver's Houyhnhnm master sees humanity as equally so.

Double perspective