◎KEY POINT:

It covers?the British literature during 17th?and 18th?century. The early 17th?century witnessed both the end of Renaissance period and the Revolution.

In poetry, there were the Cavalier poets and the Metaphysical school. Also, John Milton was seen as the greatest poet occupying a transitional position.

After the Restoration, a new era in literature appeared. People during this period had a profound faith in the power of human reason and intelligence and thus was called the Age of Reason. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift can be seen as the representatives of this period.

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Content

◎4.1 Age of Reason: Ignorance is the Vice

◎4.2 Jonathan Swift :"He Served Human Liberty"

◎4.3 Alexander Pope: "The Proper Study of Mankind is Man"

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◎4.1 Age of Reason: Ignorance is the Vice

Historical Background:

The restoration and the 18th century

1.? Full of political and social turmoil: the middle class cleared up the obstacles and secured their rule in the government./The frequent succession of monarchs/ the religious disputes/ the plague and the London fire

2.? The age of reason: emphasize education and rationality

3.? The Parliament contrived the glorious Revolution: The Bill of Rights was passed--The royal power is subject to the law. Hence, the absolute monarchy came to an end.

4.? The Parliament passed an act proclaiming that the British sovereign must be Protestant.

5.? The Britain entered the period of Hanover Dynasty

6.? The two-party political system began with Whigs representing the financial and mercantile interests and strongly opposed to interference by the monarch.

???? The Tories represent the country squires and people who favored old tradition.

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7.? With the constitutional monarchy, the Capitalist system has been established definitely in Britain in the 18th century. The middle class devoted much effort to education. Thus the age of development in science came into being which gradually ushered in the Industrial Revolution by the end of the 18th century.

8.? Certain changes of this period

1.? The use of machinery and stem power in manufacturing.

2.? The period of exploration in Renaissance → European people began the migration and settlement in the new world → New world opens up new markets for the British industry.

3.? As manufacturing grew, city became crowded.

Yet, people became alarmed at the widening gulf between the rich and the poor.

The 18th century England was terrified of the crimes caused by poverty.

4.? The idea of universal education prevailed. It is believed that human beings can be improved through education and the development of their rational facilities.

The desire of knowledge ignited people's interests in empirical observation, the use of reason and raising systematic doubts.

Such qualities are necessary in scientific research. The effect of science is bound to influence people's emotional and philosophical approach to life.

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Isaac Newton is widely admired in the 18th century. He was set as a moral and trail-blazer. The epitaph of Newton written by Alexander Pope

The intellectual leader of the 18th century devoted much of their attention to science, reason and proof. For them, all human life, both social and individual, could be understood in the same way as the natural world could be understood. Once understood human life, both social and individual, could be manipulated in the same way as the natural world was manipulated.? Such philosophy swept across Europe.→ a literary and philosophical movement during this period was thus called the Enlightenment.

Informed by the skepticism, the absolutes of the monarchy and religious dogma were fundamentally questioned.? The ideals of individual liberty, rationality, equality, religious tolerance, constitutional government and science were advanced. It celebrated the goal of rational humanity as for knowledge, freedom and happiness.

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1.? The intellectual masters thought that man was virtuous by nature, and vice was due to ignorance. As social problems could be solved by man's intelligence, they must write to teach.

2.? The middle class desired something profound and of good taste as their source of education. Thus, they looked at the old classical works as models in which they saw the artistic ideals of order, logic, restrained emotion, proportion, unity and accuracy.

Based on such artistic ideals, we may see certain traits of literature

High arts and low arts flourished.

The literature of this age can be divided into 3 periods

?The first period: 1688(The Glorious Revolution)--1730s

??? characterized by neo-classicism in poetry. Some popular writing of neoclassical literature includes parody, essay, satire, letter, fable and rhyming with couplets. The most representative poets include John Dryden and Alexander Pope.

In terms of drama, the restoration drama appealed to aristocratic sentiments and sophisticated tastes.

The best representatives were the Heroic Tragedy by Dryden, Comedy of Manner by William Congreve and William Wycherley.

In early 18th century, the theater turned to moralizing and the tragedy imitated the classical form and based on Greek and Roman themes.

Along with this high style, there appeared new periodical literature and fictions.

The literary periodical contributed greatly to the development of creative writing and criticism. The best came from the pens of Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift.

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?The second period: 1740s--1750s

This period saw the development of novels.

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?The third period: 1760s--1800

It was marked by the appearance of the new trend→ Sentimentalism

In the late 18th century, the strictly rational approach of the Enlightenment came to be reacted by an alternative worldview that emphasized emotion as the key to great truth.

Sentimental literature tends to describe nature and the emotional state of a sensitive person, and notes that pathos感染力 could best soften the heart that betoken humanity.

The representative of this trend in novels was Laurance Sterne. As for poetry, there were poets of sentiment represented by James Thomas, Edward Young and Thomas Gray. This period also saw the rise of the realistic drama by Richard Sheridan.

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◎4.2 Jonathan Swift :"He Served Human Liberty"

Writers of the 18th century use satire and humor to address issues around politics, power, inequality, class as well as to entertain readers.

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Satire:

1.? a witty and intellectual art meant to delight, instruct and correct human beings. Although satire is often supposed to be funny, its greater purpose is usually criticism of vices, follies, abuses and shortcomings.

2.? Using wit as a weapon

3.? A common feature of it: strong irony and sarcasm. Other satirical tools include parody, exaggeration, comparison, analogy,? etc

4.? Satire was established in Greco-Roman works.

5.? The Neo-classical period of Britain fueled the revival of interests in satire, as the result of the frequent debates between Whigs and Tories, the keen observation, the sharp mind of thought, an innate sense of exploring the superficial follies and moral corruption of society.

6.? The best-known satires of this period: Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift.

They followed different satirical archetypes.

Pope was following the tradition of Horatian satires, while Swift modeled his works on the tradition of Juvenalian satires.

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Example:

A Modest Proposal by Swift

·?????? Jonathan Swift, the Anglo-Irish satirist, one of the first to practice modern journalistic satire.

·?????? Though Swift was a Whig by birth, education and political principle. Later he turned against the party for his uneasiness about many policies of the Whig administration and his passionate loyalty to the Anglican church.

·?????? In 1710, he began publishing pamphlets in support of Tories, and became Tories' chief pamphleteer and editor of the Tory journal The Examiner.

·?????? Upon the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I, the Whigs retained the power. Swift's career in England then came to an end.

·?????? He returned to Ireland and devoted himself to works protesting the unfair treatment of the Irish and came his most famous work Gulliver Travels, which criticizes the social follies and false learning in 18th-century England.

·?????? Mental illness haunted Swift's later years and he died in 1745.

·?????? Anger seemed to be the dominant tone in Swift's works and life. Indignation and liberty are two key words to best summarize his works and life.

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? Of his essays, A Modest Proposal was the best known, written in the form of grimly ironic letter of advice to address the issues of Ireland's overpopulation and dire economic conditions. He drew an accurate picture of the miserable condition of the Irish poor, but suggested alleviating the problems by selling babies of poor Irish parents for edible delicacies to the rich.

Undoubtedly, the solution is to shock the readers. Swift was intolerant of the corruption in religion and politics and the false taste in learning. He was outraged at the oppression and misery he witnessed and saw England's economic restrictions as the cause of Ireland's problems.

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?As this is a proposal, it follows the structure of an argument.

1.? Begin with the background information and raising the question

2.? State the point of view

3.? Exemplify to support his view

4.? Reach a conclusion

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The problem inflicted the Irish at that time?

Beneath the apparent poverty/pauperism, it hints to us the political disputes, emigration, prostitution and crimes.

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·?????? The "Pretender" refers to the descendant of King James Ⅱ of the House of Stuart, expelled from Britain in Glorious Revolution. Because they were all Catholic, they took refuse in Catholic countries.

·?????? "Sell them to the Barbadoes" referred to the harsh reality that many poor Irish were forced to seek a living in the faraway New World.

As for these mothers and their seemingly large team of children in relation to the hint in the following text as bastard children. These children are seldom the fruits of marriage. Yet, these women by losing their husbands either by fighting for the Pretender in Spain or selling themselves to the Barbadoes had to survive by becoming prostitutes.

As for the future of these children, it seemed a grimly appalling outlook for them, either becoming a thief or following the path of their parents.

·?????? The author claimed that the enormous number of poor children is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very additional grievance.

·?????? He tended to see the problem as a burden to be got rid of rather than finding out causes for remedy. After that, he was appealing for a fair and easy method.

·?????? He widened the range of his target to cover those families in difficulty of raising children. He refuted other projectors' schemes and explained that many of these children are not legitimate.

·?????? And then he even worked out a demographic and economic calculation. He proved that the reward from these kids could never compensate the expense on raising them. After, he had impressed readers of how serious the social problems were and how big the burden in raising these children, either on the government or family side.

·?????? Here came his proposal. By animalizing children, the speaker seemed to take cannibalism for granted. It is rather terrifying that the author even suggested how to cook and dine the child's flesh.

·?????? Eating a child can never be considered as a modest or humane idea. So the title of this essay sounds ironic in this regard.

·?????? Aware of his plan being censored by people as immoral, the speaker began to acquit himself of crimes and rendered a lot of advantages. He assured readers that he calculated his proposal and produced it as a remedy for his nation.

·?????? The speaker supported this scheme as he saw less hope in other suggestions.

These supposedly unhelpful suggestions happen to be Swift's genuine intention.

When the speaker admitted his attempts in the past as vain, idle, visionary thoughts.

It reveals to us his long and exhausting hours in wrestling his life with Ireland's problems. The speaker turned his biting sarcasm against England in this part when he warned that if the Irish government wanted no trouble with England, they had to resort to cannibalism as solution.

·?????? A Modest Proposal is a quintessential Juvenalian satire. Swift followed a traditional economic proposal for the governmental policy and shaped it in a clear logical sequence, and in a detached 冷漠的，客觀的tone. Yet his economist persona gave a morbid suggestion by delineating an immoral and perverse solution to Ireland's economic problem. The shock value behind the suggestion and hidden accusation were directed against the political behavior of the English government.

·?????? This work displays Juvenalian satire's ability to shock and ridicule.

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◎4.3 Alexander Pope: "The Proper Study of Mankind is Man"

The restoration and the 18th century(1660s-1790s)

·?????? Charles Ⅱ resumed the monarchy in 1660.

·?????? Publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge in 1798, which was the beginning of the Romantic era.

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Alexander Pope(1688-1744) was enormously popular in his own day, and in fact was a pre-eminent British poet during his lifetime.

1.? He was prevented to attend school because his family was Roman Catholic. Hence, Pope was self-taught.

2.? Tuberculosis severely affected his spine, which left him bent over for life.

3.? With so much going against him, it's a wonder that Pope achieved so much in his life. He seemed to have the knack to thrive in the mist of difficulties.

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Heroic couplet is the key to understanding Pope's poetry. Arguably, the heroic couplet puts two lines of poetry very closely together, remaining an excellent vehicle for combining two ideas into one unit.

Example:

Voltaire was first enthusiastic about Pope's An Essay on Man, but later had a second thought.

Textbook P90

The lines can be translated into modern everyday English: God will not criticize you for what I am about to say, which is that the best way to learn what it is to be human is to study the human condition.

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Human is neither perfect nor unintelligence animal but something in between. Sometimes they rise to high occasions but may sometimes make a botch of things, acting like a fool. Why do they act in such a divided way?

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Man is nothing but self-satisfying animal.

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·?????? Metaphor:

Self-love → spring 彈簧/an animal trap

Reason →a balance scale

·?????? Simile:

Self-love→ flaming meteor

Reason →plant

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