9-) English Literature

9-) English Literature 

Age of Sensibility (1745–1798)

This period is known as the Age of Sensibility, but it is also sometimes described as the "Age of Johnson".[70] Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. Johnson has been described as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history".After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755, and it had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been described as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship."

The second half of the 18th century saw the emergence of three major Irish authors: Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774), Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) and Laurence Sterne (1713–1768). Goldsmith is the author of The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), a pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) and two plays, The Good-Natur'd Man (1768) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773). Sheridan's first play, The Rivals (1775), was performed at Covent Garden and was an instant success. He went on to become the most significant London playwright of the late 18th century with a play like The School for Scandal. Both Goldsmith and Sheridan reacted against the sentimental comedy of the 18th-century theatre, writing plays closer to the style of Restoration comedy.

Sterne published his famous novel Tristram Shandy in parts between 1759 and 1767. In 1778, Frances Burney (1752–1840) wrote Evelina, one of the first novels of manners. Fanny Burney's novels "were enjoyed and admired by Jane Austen".

The Birth of English Novel

The English novel proper was born about the middle of the eighteenth century. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) is considered as the father of English novel. He published his first novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded in 1740. This novel is written in the form of letters. Thus Pamela is an ‘epistolary novel’. The character Pamela is a poor and virtuous woman who marries a wicked man and afterwards reforms her husband. Richardson’s next novel Clarissa Harlowe was also constructed in the form of letters. Many critics consider Clarissa as Richardson’s masterpiece. Clarissa is the beautiful daughter of a severe father who wants her to marry against her will. Clarissa is a very long novel.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754) is another important novelist. He published Joseph Andrews in 1742. Joseph Andrews laughs at Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. His greatest novel is Tom Jones. Henry Fielding’s last novel is Amelia.

Tobias Smollett wrote a ‘picaresque novel’ titled The Adventures of Roderick Random. His other novels are The Adventures of Ferdinand and Humphry Clinker.

Laurence Sterne is now remembered for his masterpiece Tristram Shandy which was published in 1760. Another important work of Laurence Sterne is A Sentimental journey through France and Italy. These novels are unique in English literature. Sterne blends humour and pathos in his works.

Horace Walpole is famous both as a letter writer and novelist. His one and only novel The Castle of Otranto deals with the horrific and supernatural theme.

Other ‘terror novelists’ include William Beckford and Mrs Ann Radcliffe.

Precursors of Romanticism

The Romantic movement in English literature of the early 19th century has its roots in 18th-century poetry, the Gothic novel and the novel of sensibility. This includes the graveyard poets, from the 1740s and later, whose works are characterised by gloomy meditations on mortality. To this was added, by later practitioners, a feeling for the 'sublime' and uncanny, and an interest in ancient English poetic forms and folk poetry. The poets include Thomas Gray (1716–1771), Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) in and Edward Young (1683–1765), The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–45). Other precursors are James Thomson (1700–1748) and James Macpherson (1736–1796). James Macpherson was the first Scottish poet to gain an international reputation, with his claim to have found poetry written by the ancient bard Ossian.

The sentimental novel or "novel of sensibility" is a genre which developed during the second half of the 18th century. It celebrates the emotional and intellectual concepts of sentiment, sentimentalism, and sensibility. Sentimentalism, which is to be distinguished from sensibility, was a fashion in both poetry and prose fiction which began in the 18th century in reaction to the rationalism of the Augustan Age.Among the most famous sentimental novels in English are Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759–67), and Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling (1771).

Significant foreign influences were the Germans Goethe, Schiller and August Wilhelm Schlegel and French philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).[85] Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) is another important influence.[86] The changing landscape, brought about by the industrial and agricultural revolutions, was another influence on the growth of the Romantic movement in Britain.

In the late 18th century, Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto created the Gothic fiction genre, that combines elements of horror and romance.Ann Radcliffe introduced the brooding figure of the gothic villain which developed into the Byronic hero. Her The Mysteries of Udolpho (1795) is frequently cited as the archetypal Gothic novel.

Rise of American Literature

The successful War of Independence led by colonists in British North America from 1775 to 1783, resulted in the formation of the United States. This consequently led to the divergence of English letters in what became the United States from the mainstream of English literature, resulting in the development of a new American literature that sought to distinguish itself as part of the formation of a new American social and cultural identity. This was the first English-language literature to develop outside of the British Isles. The late colonial period already saw the publication of important prose tracts reflecting the political debates that culminated in the American revolution, written by important luminaries such as Samuel Adams, Josiah Quincy, John Dickinson, and Joseph Galloway, the last being a loyalist to the crown. Two key figures were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin are esteemed works with their wit and influence toward the formation of a budding American identity. Paine's pamphlet Common Sense and The American Crisis writings are seen as playing a key role in influencing the political tone of the time.

During the Revolutionary War, poems and songs such as "Nathan Hale" were popular. Major satirists included John Trumbull and Francis Hopkinson. Philip Morin Freneau also wrote poems about the War.

In the post-war period, Thomas Jefferson established his place in American literature through his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his influence on the U.S. Constitution, his autobiography, his Notes on the State of Virginia, and his many letters. The Federalist essays by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay presented a significant historical discussion of American government organization and republican values. Fisher Ames, James Otis, and Patrick Henry are also valued for their political writings and orations.

Early American literature struggled to find a unique voice in existing literary genre, and this tendency was reflected in novels. European styles were frequently imitated, but critics usually considered the imitations inferior. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the first American novels were published. These fictions were too lengthy to be printed for public reading. Publishers took a chance on these works in hopes they would become steady sellers and need to be reprinted. This scheme was ultimately successful because male and female literacy rates were increasing at the time. Among the first American novels are Thomas Attwood Digges's Adventures of Alonso, published in London in 1775 and William Hill Brown's The Power of Sympathy published in 1789. Brown's novel depicts a tragic love story between siblings who fell in love without knowing they were related. Also of note were important women writers such as Susanna Rowson who wrote Charlotte: A Tale of Truth(later re-issued as Charlotte Temple). Charlotte Temple is a seduction tale influenced by the novels of English writer Samuel Richardson, written in the third person, which warns against listening to the voice of love and counsels resistance. She also wrote nine novels, six theatrical works, two collections of poetry, six textbooks, and countless songs.[89] Reaching more than a million and a half readers over a century and a half, Charlotte Temple was the biggest seller of the 19th century before Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Another important writer was Hannah Webster Forster, who wrote the popular The Coquette: Or, the History of Eliza Wharton, published in 1797.The story about a woman who is seduced and later abandoned, The Coquette has been praised for its demonstration of the era's contradictory ideas of womanhood.[91] even as it has been criticized for delegitimizing protest against women's subordination. Other important early American writers include Charles Brockden Brown, William Gilmore Simms, Lydia Maria Child, and John Neal.