THE NEOCLASSICAL PERIOD

1660-1798
17th -18th Century
The Neoclassical Period = Age of Reason
= Enlightenment
 After the Renaissance--a period of exploration and
expansiveness--came a reaction in the direction of
order and restraint.
 The period is called neoclassical because its writers
looked back to the ideals and art forms of classical
times, emphasizing even more than their Renaissance
predecessors the classical ideals of order and rational
control.
 The classical ideals of order and moderation which
inspired this period, its realistically limited aspirations,
and its emphasis on the common sense of society rather
than individual imagination, could all be characterized
as rational. And, indeed, it is often known as the Age of
Reason.
 ‘From the head, not the heart’
• The Age of Enlightenment has been crucial for
developments and advances in human rights,
education, and modern democracy.
• One of the principal objectives of the Age of
Enlightenment was to rebel against the
authorities.
• The philosophers and artists insisted that the
individual use reason and logic instead of
accepting what the Monarchy (King), law, and the
Church presented as truth.
 ‘From the head, not the heart’
The neoclassic poetry differs from that of the
Elizabethan Age, the climax of Renaissance, in three
ways:
First, it is more formal, with its demand to follow exact
rules;
Second, it is more artificial, polished, straightforward,
dull and lacks the creative liveliness of the
Elizabethans;
Third, the chief poetic form is heroic couplet which
replaced the variety of forms in the Elizabethan Age.
 The Neoclassical Period
1660-1798

 1660- 1700 The Restoration = Age of Dryden

 1700-1745 The Augustan Age = Age of Pope

 1745-1798 The Age of Sensibility = Age of Johnson

The Restoration = The Age of Dryden
1660- 1700

 This period takes its name from the

restoration of the monarchy (Charles
II) to the English throne and the
triumph of reason and tolerance over
religious and political passion.
The Restoration = The Age of Dryden
1660- 1700
 Writing should be well structured, emotion should
be controlled, and emphasize qualities like wit. This
is in sharp contrast to the high seriousness and
sobriety of the earlier Puritan regime.

 The theaters came back to vigorous life after the

revocation of the ban placed on them by the
Puritans, and new dramatists therefore appeared.
John Dryden: poet & dramatist
 Dryden identified himself with official opinion and regards
himself as the chronicler of the age.
 The tragic drama of this period was made up of Heroic Plays
or Heroic Drama.
 Heroic Plays:
• Men are splendidly brave;
• The women wonderfully beautiful;
• There is a lot of shouting and a good deal of nonsense;
• The plays are written in Heroic Couplets using Satire:

The midwife placed her hand on his thick skull,

With this prophetic blessing: Be thou Dull.
(MacFlecknoe)
John Dryden: literary critic
 The first great age of English literary criticism.
 Dryden’s philosophy is clearly stated in the
Essay on Satire:

 The purpose of literature is to give a picture of

truth and imitate nature in the manner of the
ancient Greeks and Romans;
 Literature must satisfy the reason;
 Blank verse suggests disorder, so he insists on
rhyme;

Dryden’s prose is logical; he is never carried

away by the sound of words or the lure of a
metaphor or simile.
The Restoration
Philosophy
 John Locke (1632-1704) had many views on
government, especially the importance of the
contract.
Religion
 John Bunyan (1628-1688) knew the Bible very well
and his style is based on it, as well as his imagery.
His Pilgrim’s Progress is about Christian travelling to
the Eternal City. It is an allegorical story popular for
its narrative skill and humor.
The Augustan Age 1700-1745

This period takes its name from the original

Roman Augustan Age (27 B.C.-14 A.D.),
which the leading writers of this period
greatly admired its figures. The new
Augustans drew parallels between the two
ages, and deliberately imitated their literary
forms and subjects, their emphasis on
social concerns, and their ideals of
moderation, decorum, and urbanity.
The Augustan Age = Age of Pope
1700-1745
 Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is the greatest poet
of this period.
 He followed Dryden by using the couplet in verse.
 When he was young, he wrote his Essay on Criticism,
which contains sayings often remembered today:
A little learning is a dangerous thing.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,

As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
The Augustan Age = Age of Pope
1700-1745
 Pope’s delightful poem The Rape of the Lock [the
stealing of the hair] takes a light subject and treats
it as important.
 He also translated the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer.
 His other famous Essay on Man shows his perfection
of the heroic couplet:

Hope springs eternal in the human breast:

Man never is, but always to be blest.
The Augustan Age 1700-1745
 The new century threw aside the strange plots and
ideas of heroic tragedy and turned to reasonable
things.
 Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) described the Great
Plague of London in his Journal of the Plague Year
(1722).
 His Robinson Crusoe (1719) is a better and more
famous book. This story is based on a real event.
The Augustan Age 1700-1745
 The greatest prose writer of the whole century is
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). He was a great humorist
and a bitter satirist.
 Swift’s most famous satire, Gulliver’s Travels (1726) is in
four books. As a story it is popular with the young, who
usually read the first two books: Gulliver’s voyages to
Lilliput (where the people are 6 inches high) and
Brobdingnag (where they are immense). The Lilliputians
fight wars (as the English do) which seem foolish. King
of Brobdingnag thinks that people in Gulliver’s country
must be the most hateful race of creatures on earth.
The Augustan Age 1700-1745
 The greatest novelist of the century is Henry
Fielding (1707-1754). He started his novel-writing
career almost by accident.
 His Tom Jones is his masterpiece. It has picaresque
elements – the theme of the journey occupies the
greater part of the book – but it would be more
accurate to describe it as a mock-epic. We
appreciate Tom Jones for its boisterous humor, its
good sense, and its vivid characterization.
The Age of Sensibility = Age of Johnson
1745-1798
 The man whose personality seems to dominate the
whole of the Age of Sensibility is Dr. Samuel Johnson
(1709-1784).
 He was a kind of literary ruler, giving judgments on
books and authors like a god. Late in life he wrote his
Lives of the Poets (1779-81) with decision and clear
expression.
 His own writings are less important than what he said,
and a record of his conversations has been preserved
in the Life of Johnson (1791).
 His name as a scholar will live chiefly because of his
Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
The Age of Sensibility = Age of Johnson
1745-1798
 Here are a few of Johnson’s statements:

A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant

repair.

Let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

The Renaissance vs. The Neoclassical
The Renaissance
The literature had been passionate,
concerned with the relationship
between man and man, man and
woman as seen from the viewpoint of
feeling and imagination.
The Neoclassical
Feeling and imagination were
mistrusted: feeling implied strong
convictions, and strong convictions had
produced a Civil War and the harsh
rule of the Commonwealth.
Imagination suggested the mad, the
wild, the uncouth, the fanatical.
It was best to live a calm civilized life
governed by reason. Such a life is
best lived in the town, and the town is
the true center of culture; the country
estates are impoverished, and little of
interest is going on there; the country
itself is barbaric.
 The Renaissance vs. The Neoclassical

The Renaissance The Neoclassical

Shakespearian nature-pieces, Themes of the new literature are
poems smelling of flowers or town themes-politics, the doings of
telling of shepherds and polite society, the intellectual
milkmaids. topics of men who talk in clubs and
coffee-houses.
The heart is in complete control. The human brain has taken over
and is in complete control.
Passion Good manners
Eloquence Wit
The heart is worn on the sleeve They do not speak their mind
Literature is moving and emotional The literature is neither moved nor
moving