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The 18th Century Prose
The 18th Century Prose
The 18th century in English prose has been called theAugustan Age, the
Neoclassical Age and the Age of
Reason.
It was termed the Augustan Age because literature
writers during the time were consciously imitating the
works of the original Augustan writers, Horace and
Vergil, who had lived during the time of Augustus, the
first emperor of Rome.
It was also called the Age of Neoclassicism because
the 18th century writers had found novel ways to
synthesize and incorporate the writing style and
technique of the traditional writers, the canonic
classics, into their own work without direct imitation or
mimicry, giving rise to a new literature form.
2Finally, the 18th century in English prose has also been
Daniel Defoe is a good prose writer as well as the first English journalist. He began to publish the
early London newspaper The Review and ran it for nine years. He has finely described the Great
Plague in London in his Journal of the Plague Year (1722).
Robinson Crusoe is his famous work. It is a story based on the real events of a sailor who quarreled
with his captain and was left alone on an island for four years. Two famous writers as well as
journalists Richard Steel and Joseph Addison worked together in publishing the newspaper like The
Tatler and The Spectator. They wrote many famous and good essays on various subjects and
published in their newspaper. They also wrote actions of imaginary characters. Their works written in
pure and simple English helped much to the development of the novel.
AD's English Literature
Notes and Guides
The 18 century viewed as a whole has a distinctive character. It is definitely the Age of
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understanding, the age of enlightenment, where a literature which had become pellucid (clear)
began to diffuse knowledge among the growing public. The supremacy of reason was
unchallenged – there reigned a general belief in the advancement of human mind. This
flourishing of enlightened idea and the escalation of reason and logical thought founds its best
articulation through the triumph of English prose in the 18 century. As such, the 18 century
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has often been designated as the age of prose reason. The major prose writers of the age include
Jonathan swift (1667 -1745) Joseph Addison (1672 -1719), Richard Steele (1672 -1729) and
Samuel Johnson (1704 – 1784). Other prose writers of significance are James Bowell (1740 –
1795), Edlemund Burley (1729 – 1797) and Edward Gibbon (1737 – 1794).
Jonathan swift’s works are a monstrous satire on humanity. Swift, who hated all shams, wrote,
with a great show of learning famous Bicerstaff Almanac containing “Predictions for the year
1708 was determined by the emerging states,” which first brought sift into prominence This
work appeared under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff was preeminently focus because of his
satiric worlds . Ligaments any case of hypocrisy or by notice , he sets up a remedy which is
atrocious , and defuse his plan with such seriousness that the satire overwhelms the readers with
a sense of monstrous falsity . Swift’s two greatest satires are A Tale of a Tub and Gulliver’s
Travels . The Tale began as a grim exposure of the alleged weaknesses of three principle forms
of religion beliefs, catholic, Lutheran and Christin as opposed to the Anglican; put it ended in a
satire upon all science and philosophy. In Gulliver’s Travels the practice grows more
unbearable strangely enough , this book upon which swifts’ literary fame generally rests , was
not written from any literary motive , but rather as an outlet of the author’s own bitterness ,
against fate and human society . Like swift, Joseph Addison despised shams, but unlike him he
never lost faith in humanity; and in all his satires, these is a gentle kindness which makes one
think letter of his fellowmen even when he laughs at their little vanities. Addison stripped off the
mask of vice, so much upheld by restoration literature, to show its ugliness and deformity; put to
reveal virtue in its own notice loveliness was Addison’s main purpose. Further prompted and
aided by the more original genius of his friend Steele, Addison seeds upon the new social life of
the clubs and made it the subject of endless pleasant essays upon types of men and manners. His
journals The Tatler and The spectator are the beginnings of the Coverly essay; and their
studies of human character as exemplified in Sir Roger – De – Coverly , are a preparation for the
modern novel . The most enduring of Addison’s works are Essays collected from The
Tatler and The spectator. To an age of fundamental coarseness and artificiality his essays
came with a wholesome message of refinement and simplicity. He attaches all the little varieties
and all the big circles of his time not in substantial way, but with a finally ridicule and a gently
humour which appears.
His Essays are the best picture we possess of the new social life of England; they advanced the
art of literary criticism to a much higher stage than it had ever reached before; they certainly led
English men to a better knowledge and appreciation of their own literature; and finally they gave
us characters that live forever as part of that goodly company which extends from Chaucer’s
county power to Kipling Huluancy . Addison and Steele not only introduce the modern essay but
their character forfeiture, they herald the dawn of the modern novel.
Steele was a rollicking, good – hearted, emotional, lovable Irishman. He was one of the few
winters of his time who showed a sincere and unswerving respect for womanhood. Even more
than Addison, he ridicules irks and makes pursue lovely. He was the origination of The
Tatler and journeyed with Addison in creating The spectator – the two periodicals which did
more to influence the subsequent literature than all the magazines of the century complied.
Steele was the original genius of Sir Roger and of many other characters and essays for which
Addison usually received the whole credit. But the majority of the cities hold that the more
original parts the characters, the overflowing kindness, are largely Steele’s creation while
Addison polished and perfected the essays.
Dr. Johnson was probably the most significant intellectual stalwart of the time.
His Dictionary and his lives of the poets are worthy to be remembered through both of these
are valuable not as literature, but rather as a study of literature. The Dictionary as the first
ambitious attempt at the English lexicon is extremely valuable, notwithstanding the fact that
some of his derivations are incorrect. Lives of the poets are the simplest and the most readable
of his literary works. As criticisms they are often misleading, giving undue praise to artificial
poets like pope and abundant injustice to nobler poets like Milton, but as biographies, they are
excellent reading, and we owe to them some of the best power picture of the early English poets.
Bowell’s Life of Jonson was one of the most famous prose works of the century. It is an
immortal work where , like the Greek – sculptures the little slaves produced the more enduring
work than the Greek – masters .
Buspe in famous for his best known political speeches “on conciliation with America , “
American Taxation’, ‘The impeachment of women Hasting’ and also for his famous book of
prose Reflection on the French Revolution which are still much studied as models of
English prose . Characteristic of the classic age, they abound in fine rhetoric but lack simplicity.
But his works reveal the stateliness and the rhetorical power of the English language and
because of the poetic prose so rich in images and symbols and the musical cadence of his
sentences, and also because of his profound sympathy for humanity and his purpose to establish
the truth, Burke won a significant place in the History of English literature.
Only Edward Gibbon remains to be mentioned, His famous prose work is a historical treatise,
entitled. TheDecline and Fall of Roman Empire spanning Roman history from 98 A.D to 1453
A.D. It gains little recognition because of his imposing style characterizing by the sinuous roll of
his majestic sentences. gibbons style has been characterized as finished , elegant , splendid,
rounded , massive , sonorous , elaborate , ornate , exhaustive etc .
The flourish of prose in the 18 century like a tune is also evident in the rise of novel, bought into
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vogue by Richardson, Fielding, Smollett and Sterne. But since the novel is a distinct literary
genre a discussion on the 18 century novels remains outside the scope of this essay. As a whole
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it can safely be concluded that because of the growing tendency of prose in the contemporary
satires and periodicals, essays which catered to the public tastes increasingly the 18 century
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