The Rise of the Novel

1
The Rise of the Novel

• Defoe and Swift

2
Dates

• 1660 Restoration of Charles II
• 1666 the Great Fire of London
• 1685 accession of James II
• 1688-89 the Glorious Revolution accession of
  William of Orange
• 1700 death of John Dryden
• 1707 the Act of Union
• 1715 the first Jacobite uprising
• 1702-14 reign of Queen Anne
• 1721-42 Sir Robert Walpole Prime Minister
• 1745 the second Jacobite uprising
• 1789 the French Revolution

3
Literary Periods

• 1660-1700

4
Literary Periods

• 1660-1700 the Restoration Period (the Age of
  Dryden)
• 1700-1745

5
Literary Periods

• 1660-1700 the Restoration Period (the Age of
  Dryden)
• 1700-1745 the Augustan Period (the Age of Pope
  and Swift)
• 1745-1798

6
Literary Periods

• 1660-1700 the Restoration Period (the Age of
  Dryden)
• 1700-1745 the Augustan Period (the Age of Pope
  and Swift)
• 1745-1798 the Age of Sensibility (the Age of Dr
  Johnson)
• Restoration PeriodAugustan Period the Age of
  Reason

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Cultural Background

• The Age of Enlightenment value of reason, fear
  of unreason, hatred of pedantry
• Neoclassicism Augustan Period
• Restoration Period forerunners of Neoclassicism
  (Dryden)

8
New Genres

• Drama
• Heroic plays (Dryden, All for Love, 1677)
• Comedies of manners (Congreve, The Way of the
  World, 1700)
• Poetry
• Heroic couplet (Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel,
  1681)

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Neoclassicist Poetics

• Imitation of nature
• landscape (Dryden)
• Human nature (Pope)
• universal truths (Dr Johnson)
• Imitation of Classical literature
• Perfect imitations of nature
• Craftmanship
• Codification of rules in literature

10
The Augustan Period

• The Age of Swift, Pope, Addison, Walpole
• Expansion of reading public
• New journalism
• Professional writers and booksellers

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New genres

• Sentimental comedy Gay, The Beggars Opera
  (1728)
• Mock heroic Swift, Battle of the Books (1697,
  1704) Pope, The Rape of the Lock (1712, 1714)
• Landscape poems Thomson, Winter (1726)
• Novel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)

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The Antecedents of the Novel

• Newspapers Grub Street, scribblers, gossips,
  reports
• Journals best writers, didacticism, model for
  taste, education of middle classes Steele and
  Addison, Tatler and Spectator (1709-11, 1711-12)
• Pamphlets and satires political, occasional,
  ridicule
• Other essays, travelogues, biographies, letters

13
Swifts pamphlets and satires

• A Modest Proposal (1729) political, against
  Walpole, mask of indifference, savage
  indignation, reductio ad absurdum misanthropy
• Battle of the Books (1697, 1704) occasional, Sir
  William Temple, mock heroic in prose ancients
  (new ancients) V moderns the bee and the spider

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Defoes innovations

• Reportage keen eye for the detail
• Narrative realism
• Fictitious events against a realistic background
• the father of the English novel

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Robinson Crusoe (1719)

• The first full-length prose fiction, the first
  English popular novel
• Application of journalism
• World view of middle classes

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Swifts innovations

• A master of irony, satire, a moralist
• Belief in reason but misanthropy I hate and
  detest that animal called man, although I
  heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.
• Man is not a reational being but is capable of
  reason

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Gullivers Travels (1726)

• Genre fictitious travelogue, in matter of fact
  style
• Other dystopia, utopia, satire, mock heroic,
  romance, allegory
• Paradox most comprehensive satire and childrens
  classic
• Development of Gullivers character from irony
  to bitter satire

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Further reading

• Róna Éva, A XVIII. század angol irodalma (Bp.
  Tankönyvkiadó, 1992)
• . . .