English Literature
suppressed; now the theaters were reopened, bull and bear baiting revived,
and sports, music, dancing,--a wild delight in the pleasures and vanities
of this world replaced that absorption in "other-worldliness" which
characterized the extreme of Puritanism.
In literature the change is no less marked. From the Elizabethan drama
playwrights turned to coarse, evil scenes, which presently disgusted the
people and were driven from the stage. From romance, writers turned to
realism; from Italian influence with its exuberance of imagination they
turned to France, and learned to repress the emotions, to follow the head
rather than the heart, and to write in a clear, concise, formal style,
according to set rules. Poets turned from the noble blank verse of
Shakespeare and Milton, from the variety and melody which had characterized
English poetry since Chaucer's day, to the monotonous heroic couplet with
its mechanical perfection.
The greatest writer of the age is John Dryden, who established the heroic
couplet as the prevailing verse form in English poetry, and who developed a
new and serviceable prose style suited to the practical needs of the age.
The popular ridicule of Puritanism in burlesque and doggerel is best
exemplified in Butler's _Hudibras_. The realistic tendency, the study of
facts and of men as they are, is shown in the work of the Royal Society, in
the philosophy of Hobbes and Locke, and in the diaries of Evelyn and Pepys,
with their minute pictures of social life. The age was one of transition
from the exuberance and vigor of Renaissance literature to the formality
and polish of the Augustan Age. In strong contrast with the preceding ages,
comparatively little of Restoration literature is familiar to modern
readers.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. _Dryden_. Alexander's Feast, Song for St. Cecilia's
Day, selections from Absalom and Achitophel, Religio Laici, Hind and
Panther, Annus Mirabilis,--in Manly's English Poetry, or Ward's English
Poets, or Cassell's National Library; Palamon and Arcite (Dryden's version
of Chaucer's tale), in Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature,
etc.; Dryden's An Essay of Dramatic Poesy, in Manly's, or Garnett's,
English Prose.
_Butler_. Selections from Hudibras, in Manly's English Poetry, Ward's
English Poets, or Morley's Universal Library.
_Pepys_. Selections in Manly's English Prose; the Diary in Everyman's
Library.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _HISTORY_. _Text-book_, Montgomery, pp. 257-280; Cheyney, pp.
466-514; Green, ch. 9; Traill; Gardiner; Macaulay.
_Special Works_. Sydney's Social Life in England from the Restoration to
the Revolution; Airy's The English Restoration and Louis XIV; Hale's The
Fall of the Stuarts.
_LITERATURE_. Garnett's The Age of Dryden; Dowden's Puritan and Anglican.
_Dryden_. Poetical Works, with Life, edited by Christie; the same, edited
by Noyes, in Cambridge Poets Series; Life and Works (18 vols.), by Walter
Scott, revised (1893) by Saintsbury; Essays, edited by Ker; Life, by
Saintsbury (English Men of Letters); Macaulay's Essay; Lowell's Essay, in
Among My Books (or in Literary Essays, vol. 3); Dowden's Essay, _supra_.
_Butler_. Hudibras, in Morley's Universal Library; Poetical Works, edited
by Johnson; Dowden's Essay, _supra_.
_Pepys_. Diary in Everyman's Library; the same, edited by Wheatley (8
vols.); Wheatley's Samuel Pepys and the World He Lived In; Stevenson's
Essay, in Familiar Studies of Men and Books.
_The Restoration Drama_. Plays in the Mermaid Series; Hazlitt's Lectures on
the English Comic Writers; Meredith's Essay on Comedy and the Comic Spirit;
Lamb's Essay on the Artificial Comedy; Thackeray's Essay on Congreve, in
English Humorists.
SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What marked change in social conditions followed
the Restoration? How are these changes reflected in literature?
2. What are the chief characteristics of Restoration literature? Why is
this period called the Age of French influence? What new tendencies were
introduced? What effect did the Royal Society and the study of science have
upon English prose? What is meant by realism? by formalism?
3. What is meant by the heroic couplet? Explain why it became the
prevailing form of English poetry. What are its good qualities and its
defects? Name some well-known poems which are written in couplets. How do
Dryden's couplets compare with Chaucer's? Can you explain the difference?
4. Give a brief account of Dryden's life. What are his chief poetical
works? For what new object did he use poetry? Is satire a poetical subject?
Why is a poetical satire more effective than a satire in prose? What was
Dryden's contribution to English prose? What influence did he exert on our
literature?
5. What is Butler's _Hudibras_? Explain its popularity. Read a passage and
comment upon it, first, as satire; second, as a description of the
Puritans. Is _Hudibras_ poetry? Why?
6. Name the philosophers and political economists of this period. Can you
explain why Hobbes should call his work _Leviathan_? What important
American documents show the influence of Locke?
7. Tell briefly the story of Pepys and his _Diary_. What light does the
latter throw on the life of the age? Is the _Diary_ a work of literature?
Why?
CHRONOLOGY
_Last Half of the Seventeenth Century_
=====================================================================
HISTORY | LITERATURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
|
1649. Execution of Charles I |
|
1649-1660. Commonwealth | 1651. Hobbes's Leviathan
|
1660. Restoration of Charles II | 1660-1669, Pepys's Diary
|
| 1662. Royal Society founded
|
| 1663. Butler's Hudibras
1665-1666. Plague and Fire of London |
War with Holland |
|
1667. Dutch fleet in the Thames | 1667. Milton's Paradise Lost.
| Dryden's Annus Mirabilis
|
| 1663-1694. Dryden's dramas
|
| 1671. Paradise Regained
|
| 1678. Pilgrim's Progress
| published
1680. Rise of Whigs and Tories |
| 1681. Dryden's Absalom and
| Achitophel
1685. James II |
Monmouth's Rebellion |
| 1687. Newton's Principia
| proves the law of
| gravitation
1688. English Revolution, William of |
Orange called to throne |
|
1689. Bill of Rights. Toleration Act |
| 1690. Locke's Human
| Understanding
| 1698. Jeremy Collier attacks
| stage
| 1700. Death of Dryden
=========================================================================
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE (1700-1800)
I. AUGUSTAN OR CLASSIC AGE
HISTORY OF THE PERIOD. The Revolution of 1688, which banished the last of
the Stuart kings and called William of Orange to the throne, marks the end
of the long struggle for political freedom in England. Thereafter the
Englishman spent his tremendous energy, which his forbears had largely
spent in fighting for freedom, in endless political discussions and in
efforts to improve his government. In order to bring about reforms, votes
were now necessary; and to get votes the people of England must be
approached with ideas, facts, arguments, information. So the newspaper was
born,[182] and literature in its widest sense, including the book, the
newspaper, and the magazine, became the chief instrument of a nation's
progress.
The first half of the eighteenth century is remarkable for the rapid social
development in England. Hitherto men had been more or less governed by the
narrow, isolated standards 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
opinions. 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.[183] This new social life had a
marked effect in polishing men's words and manners. The typical Londoner of
Queen Anne's day was still rude, and a little vulgar in his tastes; the
city was still very filthy, the streets unlighted and infested at night by
bands of rowdies and "Mohawks"; but outwardly men sought to refine their
manners according to prevailing standards; and to be elegant, to have "good
form," was a man's first duty, whether he entered society or wrote
literature. One can hardly read a book or poem of the age without feeling
this superficial elegance. Government still had its opposing Tory and Whig
parties, and the Church was divided into Catholics, Anglicans, and
Dissenters; but the growing social life offset many antagonisms, producing
at least the outward impression of peace and unity. Nearly every writer of
the age busied himself with religion as well as with party politics, the
scientist Newton as sincerely as the churchman Barrow, the philosophical
Locke no less earnestly than the evangelical Wesley; but nearly all
tempered their zeal with moderation, and argued from reason and Scripture,
or used delicate satire upon their opponents, instead of denouncing them as
followers of Satan. There were exceptions, of course_;_ but the general
tendency of the age was toward toleration. Man had found himself in the
long struggle for personal liberty; now he turned to the task of
discovering his neighbor, of finding in Whig and Tory, in Catholic and
Protestant, in Anglican and Dissenter, the same general human
characteristics that he found in himself. This good work was helped,
moreover, by the spread of education and by the growth of the national
spfrit, following the victories of Marlborough on the Continent. In the
midst of heated argument it needed only a word--Gibraltar, Blenheim,
Ramillies, Malplaquet--or a poem of victory written in a garret[184] to
tell a patriotic people that under their many differences they were all
alike Englishmen.
In the latter half of the century the political and social progress is
almost bewildering. The modern form of cabinet government responsible to
Parliament and the people had been established under George I; and in 1757
the cynical and corrupt practices of Walpole, premier of the first Tory
cabinet, were replaced by the more enlightened policies of Pitt. Schools
were established; clubs and coffeehouses increased; books and magazines
multiplied until the press was the greatest visible power in England; the
modern great dailies, the _Chronicle, Post_, and _Times_, began their
career of public education. Religiously, all the churches of England felt
the quickening power of that tremendous spiritual revival known as
Methodism, under the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield. Outside her own