Neoclassicism: An Introduction

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The English Neoclassical movement, predicated upon and derived from both classical
and contemporary French models, (see Boileau's L'Art Poetique (1674) and Pope's "Essay
on Criticism" (1711) as critical statements of Neoclassical principles) embodied a group
of attitudes toward art and human existence — ideals of order, logic, restraint, accuracy,
"correctness," "restraint," decorum, and so on, which would enable the practitioners of
various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures and themes of Greek or Roman
originals. Though its origins were much earlier (the Elizabethan Ben Jonson, for example,
was as indebted to the Roman poet Horace as Alexander Pope would later be),
Neoclassicism dominated English literature from the Restoration in 1660 until the end of
the eighteenth century, when the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) by Wordsworth
and Coleridge marked the full emergence of Romanticism.

For the sake of convenience the Neoclassic period can be divided into three relatively
coherent parts: the Restoration Age (1660-1700), in which Milton, Bunyan, and Dryden
were the dominant influences; the Augustan Age (1700-1750), in which Pope was the
central poetic figure, while Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett were presiding
over the sophistication of the novel; and the Age of Johnson(1750-1798), which, while it
was dominated and characterized by the mind and personality of the inimitable Dr.
Samuel Johnson, whose sympathies were with the fading Augustan past, saw the
beginnings of a new understanding and appreciation of the work of Shakespeare, the
development, by Sterne and others, of the novel of sensibility, and the emergence of the
Gothic school — attitudes which, in the context of the development of a cult of Nature,
the influence of German romantic thought, religious tendencies like the rise of
Methodism, and political events like the American and French revolutions — established
the intellectual and emotional foundations of English Romanticism.

To a certain extent Neoclassicism represented a reaction against the optimistic, exuberant,

and enthusiastic Renaissance view of man as a being fundamentally good and possessed
of an infinite potential for spiritual and intellectual growth. Neoclassical theorists, by
contrast, saw man as an imperfect being, inherently sinful, whose potential was limited.
They replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination, on invention and
experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason, on restraint, on
common sense, and on religious, political, economic and philosophical conservatism.
They maintained that man himself was the most appropriate subject of art, and saw art
itself as essentially pragmatic — as valuable because it was somehow useful — and as
something which was properly intellectual rather than emotional.
Hence their emphasis on proper subject matter; and hence their attempts to subordinate
details to an overall design, to employ in their work concepts like symmetry, proportion,
unity, harmony, and grace, which would facilitate the process of delighting, instructing,
educating, and correcting the social animal which they believed man to be. Their favorite
prose literary forms were the essay, the letter, the satire, the parody, the burlesque, and the
moral fable; in poetry, the favorite verse form was the rhymed couplet, which reached its
greatest sophistication in heroic couplet of Pope; while the theatre saw the development
of the heroic drama, the melodrama, the sentimental comedy, and the comedy of
manners. The fading away of Neoclassicism may have appeared to represent the last
flicker of the Enlightenment, but artistic movements never really die: many of the
primary aesthetic tenets of Neoclassicism, in fact have reappeared in the twentieth
century — in, for example, the poetry and criticism of T. S. Eliot — as manifestations of
a reaction against Romanticism itself: Eliot saw Neo-classicism as emphasising poetic
form and conscious craftsmanship, and Romanticism as a poetics of personal emotion
and "inspiration," and pointedly preferred the former.

Incorporated in the Victorian Web July 2000

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Introductory Lecture on the Neoclassical Period in English Literature

Key terms: Restoration, 18th Century, Neoclassical, Augustan, Enlightenment

façade, complacency, wit, reason, decorum, self-examination, self-
publicizing
diary, prose essay, periodical, ode, satire, novel
Tory, Whig, non-conformist
politeness, taste, self-control

The names given to this period are confusing: Restoration, 18th Century, Neoclassical,
Augustan. Chronologically the period covers from 1660 to around 1800 (usual date is
1798, publication date of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads). It is a period where
counterfeiting and façades are very important; in some ways the country was trying to act
like the Interregnum and English civil wars had not happened, and there is both a willful
suppression of the immediate past and a glorification of the more distant, classical Roman
past--which is why it is called the Neoclassical period. It is also a period of conscious
self-awareness—people looked at themselves and kept asking "Am I playing my role
correctly?" After the Great Fire of London, too, they had the chance to totally reinvent
their capital and did so in a way that let them mask their past. You need to understand the
politics, sociology, and economics of the period if you want to understand its literature.
 The first monarch of the period is Charles II. He
personifies the fictions and façades of the age. He
professed to support the Church of England but was
secretly Roman Catholic. In public he professed
loyalty to his childless queen Henrietta but in public
had a series of mistresses, several of whom bore him
bastard children (one of whom Charles would make
Duke of Monmouth). He was both an intellectual and a
boor. The façade of saying one thing and doing
another was a major challenge in the period. After the
religious Puritan revolution, most Britons were
terrified of another religious takeover of government;
the rumors about Charles’ Catholicism, complicated by
the Titus Oates plot of 1678, led to fears of a Catholic
conspiracy and eventually to the 1680 Bill of
Exclusion and the 1700 Act of Settlement which
permanently prohibited a Catholic from taking the
throne of England. (It is still in force today.) When
James II inherited his brother’s throne and made moves toward imposing Catholic
tolerance and Catholic ministers on England, the government rebelled and imported
James’ stolid Protestant son-in-law, William, from Holland. William and Mary took the
throne jointly in the "glorious revolution" of 1688; they were succeeded by Mary’s sister
Anne, and then eventually by distant German relatives from Hanover. George I was
actually 52nd in line to the throne by blood, but the closest male Protestant relative, so he
became king on childless Anne’s death.
Note: The family trees above are from the Royal Family website but they are copied from
PDF files, so they may be hard to read. The URL for the originals is
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page13.asp. (Kind of weird to think about the Queen
having a web page, but there you go.)

Political and Economic Complications

This was a time of civil profitability and military unrest. Britain was involved in a series
of commercial wars against the Dutch, French, Austrians, Spanish, and eventually its own
American colonists over the lucrative trade opportunities with the New World and with
the South Seas. The Restoration is the time of the great privateer/pirate trade and the
celebration of British naval supremacy. Like the dot.com boom of the late twentieth
century, the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries were a time of sudden new
wealth based on the beginnings of the stock exchange, of pyramid investment schemes
like the South Sea Bubble, and all the accompanying commercialism and materialism that
accompany new-found affluence. It is the time of party politics: the Tories, representing
old landed wealth, conservatism, and the House of Lords, vs. the Whigs, representing
fortunes made in trade, the City, and expansionist beliefs.

It was the age of

the Almighty
Pound. Economics
were the
justification for
participating in the
Afro-Caribbean
slave trade,
colonialist
expansion into
India and
eventually
Australia and the
Far East, and the
enclosure of public
grazing lands and
 anti-poaching laws in communal forests. It’s in this period that "Rule,
Brittania!" becomes both the anthem and unofficial motto of the realm.
Britain is shifting from a kingdom to an empire, and that shift had its costs.

The monarchic succession had one major consequence that is still felt. Anne was a
relatively weak ruler, and she was succeeded by a distant cousin who didn’t even speak
English. As a result, the Prime Minister’s position grew increasingly important. Robert
Walpole officially received the title in 1721 but had held the position for years before—
his attitude is best summed up by his quotation about Parliament, "All those men have
their price." A shrewd manipulator, he was the ultimate Whig politician. The interests of
the new wealthy classes were his chief concern. He actually tried to keep Britain out of
wars because it was bad for business—but when British trade interests were attacked, he
mobilized the country for war. He was succeeded in the position by a series of notable
Whigs, including Pitt the Elder and Pitt the Younger, who successfully pursued a policy
of valorizing the moneyed classes.

There were a few voices of social reform in the later parts of the period: John Wilkes,
champion of voting rights for commoners and of abolition; Mary Wollstonecraft, an early
advocate of the rights of women; John Cobbett, a proto-Marxist economic reformer; and
John Wesley, supporter of evangelical Methodism. They attempted to question the moral
complacency of the Whig age, but with inconsistent success.

The Age of Complacency

If there is one word besides ‘façade’ that describes the Neoclassical period, it is
‘complacency.’ This was an age where comfort was celebrated. The British felt
relatively invincible politically, which led to an assumption of their moral and
intellectual supremacy. It is the age of the rise of the Middle Class. They were
obsessed with proving they had ‘good taste’. Gentlemen flocked to coffee houses in the
City of London to discuss the latest periodicals, while ladies organized elaborate rituals
for drinking that expensive, bitter new imported beverage, chocolate. (Taking ‘tea’ in the
afternoon was not introduced until 1840 by Anna, Duchess of Bedford; it was way too
expensive to drink every day.) It is an age of conspicuous consumption; Martha Stewart
would have felt right at home. For the first time periodicals are filled with advertisements
for home decorations, fashions, and furniture. Architecture enters the Baroque period. It
becomes very important to wear clothing by the best designers, to have your hair done by
the best hairdressers, and so on, and so forth. People whose parents were servants now
had servants themselves.

The age of complacency is marked by a significant rise in literacy, because for the
first time, the Middle Class had time for leisure and wanted entertainments to fill it.
This is the age of the rise of the newspaper and the periodical, the return of the
public theatre, and the birth of the novel. People read in reading circles—early book
clubs—and men flocked to coffee houses to debate the essays in that week’s
fashionable periodical. Seeing and being seen was important—this is the time when
the daily late afternoon "promenade" in St. James’ Park became the society ‘thing
to do’ and everyone read the Court Circular to see what was going on in the
fashionable world. Theatres moved from the slums of Southwark to the fashionable
West End of London, near Covent Garden (where they still remain). ‘Revisers’ and
‘editors’ like Nahum Tate took it upon themselves to make earlier works of literature
more "suited to the taste" of 18th century audiences; for instance, Tate rewrote King Lear,
Othello, and Hamlet to have happy endings.

The Age of Wit

This is an age where verbal skill and brilliant verbal

repartee counted. None of that shouting and lack of
decorum—this was the age of polished debate and
clever talking. One of the key words for the entire
period is wit, and you should watch it wherever it pops
up because it is crucial to understanding the period. Not
only upper-class courtiers were expected to show this
descendant of sprezzatura; now everyone with money
was supposed to be verbally talented. So you sent your
sons on the Grand Tour of Europe to give them polish, while you taught your daughters
just enough French and Italian words to drop into their conversation to make them seem
sophisticated. Façades again. Not coincidentally, this age of wit is also the time when
formal study of the English language gains impetus—it’s the time of grammar
books, histories of the language, and above all dictionaries—so you wouldn’t use
words improperly. Grammar rules like shall/will and the prohibition of I show up in
the grammar books for the first time in this period. Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of
the English Language is in some ways the most representative work of the period. (Mind
you, these early language analysts weren’t always good at it; for instance, John Dryden
thought Chaucer was incompetent because his iambic pentameter lines didn’t always
have 10 syllables. Dryden couldn’t figure out that the final –e had been pronounced in
Chaucer’s time.)

Age of Marketing

The commercialism and the promotion of Whig interests led to the invention, really, of
marketing. The early periodicals are filled with advertisements like "Mr. Philips has
received a load of China silk that will interest ladies of most discriminating taste" and the
like. One of the biggest things
in newspapers was the daily
or weekly list of arriving
ships and their cargoes—
people wanted to know what
new things had come in and
would be for sale. The early
ancestors of People magazine
 and the society pages show up in the Court
Circular (still published in the London Times)
and the lists of marriages and birth
announcements. (Remember: marriage was an
economic transaction; who married whom
affected where the money went.) You could
buy a title if you were a wealthy enough Whig
in favor with the government, and this is the
age where the snobbery against "marrying a
Cit" begins (see Pride and Prejudice). New
professions spring up in this period: hairdressers, fashion designers, boot makers,
dancing masters, professional portrait painters, etc. Everybody wanted to look
‘right’, act ‘right,’ and have a house that looked ‘right.’ They hired landscape
architects like Capability Brown to redo their houses and grounds, and often tore down
structures, built artificial ruins, dug new lakes and rerouted streams to make their views
more picturesque and therefore more pleasing to the eye and mind. And they bought
what would give them that look. Longman p. 1050 quotes a line from the Spectator that
is very important: "The man of polite imagination is let into a great many pleasures that
the vulgar are not capable of receiving."

Politeness, Decorum, and Moral Instruction

The emphasis on looking right and acting right meant that this was an age of decorum.
Great value was placed on manners, on virtues like self-control and self-governance, and
above all on balance—what Chaucer would have called mesure. One was not supposed
to rebel or act out or be outrageous; one was supposed to show control. At the same time,
there was a certain guilty pleasure in outbursts; it is common to find the expression "I
could not forebear to…" or "I surrendered to…." in writing. But politeness counts, as
does pithy witticism. No more enjambment and blank verse; this is the age of the
memorable end-stopped heroic couplet. You’ll be surprised at how many clichés you
know come from this period (like "To err is human, to forgive divine"). So literature takes
a decidedly pedantic and pedagogic bent in this period—it meant to show its readers
how to go on, how to think, talk, behave, and interact in the world. Writers viewed
themselves as shapers of Taste, and took the responsibility very very seriously.

Men and Women

This was an age when there was an acceptability, even a requirement, for self-publicizing.
They saw this not as conceit but as self-awareness and believed that self-examination was
a requirement for the morally correct person. It’s the age of diaries, of published
collections of letters, and of other reflections on the self. Pope announced that "the
proper study of man is mankind" and really meant it. (See the really excellent paragraph
in Longman in the middle of p. 1056.) Women were expected to do this as well, and this
is the first period where women writers were able to publish under their own names and
gain some acceptance at it—a few women writers were even able to earn their livings as
professional writers. But women were certainly not encouraged to be rebellious or
 independent. Their novels show women defying convention—but generally
to win the husband they wanted. They still had no independent legal
existence; they remain (and are codified in Blackstone) as legal chattels of
husband or father. Their sphere of power was the home, where they were
mistress of the house. It is in this period that the term "domestic arts" begins
to be used for a woman’s duties. It’s also the first period where we see
guidebooks for parents, children’s literature, and manuals on how to run
households. Education for women remained as it had been since the later
Middle Ages—girls learned enough reading and writing and math to run a
household, were encouraged to read novels and periodicals, but the schools
and universities remained a male preserve.

Rationality and Faith

Some people might believe that an Age of Reason would be an age where religious faith
was not important, but this was not the case. One of the chief reasons for founding the
Royal Society was an attempt to use science to explain and glorify the wonders of Divine
creation, according to its charter. This is the first great age of scientific instrumentation—
accurate clocks, the reckoning of longitude, the refinement of the microscope and the
telescope—and all were put to work to explain the marvels of the universe. The New
Science was seen as explaining to man for the first time how God worked—one common
image was of God as a kind of Divine Clockmaker, setting all things in order to run
perfectly. (A late version of this image is William Blake’s picture of God with the
compasses creating the universe.)

This was an age when people were obsessed with how the world worked. Newton’s work
on gravity led them to believe that God’s work could be described in mathematical terms.
For the first time, they believed that rational explanations could back up faith—i.e. that
reason supported belief. It’s the age of the study of anatomy and of dissection; autopsies
were public spectacles, and medical schools and hospitals built operating theaters, a term
that is still used, because they assumed there would be an audience to watch the experts
work. Mathematics was used to explain many of the workings of the world. In this age,
one of the most celebrated occupations was to be a virtuoso—not a scholar but a lay
person who studied how the world worked, kept interesting items on display in his house
(Pepys had a mahogany case built to display his gallstones), and so on. There is a
connection between virtuoso and virtue—to study the science of God’s creation was a
mark of moral excellence. A famous comment about being a virtuoso is this last line from
a letter written by Frederick the Great of Prussia, c. 1740: "Adieu! I must now write to
the king of France, compose a solo for flute, make up a poem for Voltaire, alter some
army regulations, and do a thousand things!" That's what you could call a day's work!
At the same time the façade of piety grew thicker. Going to church became as much a
social as pious act. One wanted to go to the right church; St. Georges’ Hanover Square in
London was the most fashionable one to be married in.
Architects like Christopher Wren were hired to rebuild
churches to make them more fashionable. The Church of
England dominates but there were Toleration Acts and
Methodism was popular, especially in rural areas and
among the poor.

The Marketplace of Literacy

All these changes meant profound changes for literature.

The emphasis on self-reflection meant that genres like
diaries, letters, and essays were more popular—and often
read alone, in a separate reading room or ‘closet’ within
the home. At the same time the new social fluidity meant
that genres like the newspaper and periodical, the novel, the popular ballad, and the
theatre would also find widespread public audiences. It is the age of the penny dreadful
and the lending library. Journalism becomes a power for the first time, and Fleet Street,
where most of the journalists lived (near the major debtor’s prison and the courthouses—
where the news took place), became a powerful center of
the City.

The battles between Whigs and Tories were played out in

literature—it was probably the most significant age for
literature influencing politics in English literary history.
Well-educated Tories like Swift, Pope, and Dryden turned
to Horatian and Juvenalian satire, to odes, and to mock-
epics to skewer Whig political stances. Translations of the
Iliad and the Odyssey were used to lampoon Walpole’s
actions. The satires became objects of aesthetic admiration
even as they were wielded as trenchant political weapons.
Swift’s A Modest Proposal is the ultimate example—it is
such a superb piece of artistry that it almost masks the
depth of the pain it reacts against.

In literature this is an age of conversation—the novel, for

instance, begins with epistolary form, as a story told in a collection of letters. But it is
also enhanced by self-reflection—Robinson Crusoe is the first-person diary of a supposed
shipwreck survivor, turned into fiction. Poets performed these conversations in many
ways: in miscellanies and commonplace books and anthologies; and especially in
imitations—homages paid by trying to use and reflect the forms of the past and outdo
them in the present. This wasn’t seen as plagiarism but as doing the past honor—the
phrase "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" comes from this period. It is also the
age of the invention of copyright with the Statute of Anne in 1710, and the beginning of
the age of the footnote.

The concept of wit affects the literary style in many ways. The most significant is its
effect on verse form: blank verse and enjambment take a back seat in most writers to the
heroic couplet, the rhymed, end-stopped couplet of iambic pentameter. The greatest
writers ever to use the form worked in this period, and cultivated this style to show an
easy grace, a naturalness of expression, and a pithiness of content—i.e. sprezzatura again.
In prose, the Royal Society dominated taste with its emphasis on a "plain style" of
expression, third-person objectivity, grammatical parallelism and correctness, and a direct
address to the reader. The theatre is full of artifice and artificiality—and for the first time,
women are permitted to act on the public stage.

The proliferation of the printing press, the cheapness of paper, and the rise of literacy and
economic status meant that many more people could
participate in reading. Literary forms that appealed
to wide range of classes were developed in this
period, and we get the beginnings of literary
snobbery. Swift coins the terms high-brow and
low-brow to reflect the kinds of reading taste he
saw developing, and those prejudices remain into
our day. It is the first great age of literary criticism,
where essays on the virtues (and weaknesses) of
authors and biographies of major figures begin to
dominate.

So you can see where this is a complex age, a

difficult age, but a rewarding one to study. In many
ways it shaped the literary tastes and values that we
have up to the present day.

From The Times History of London. London: Times Books, 1999. Courtesy of The Millwall History Files website.

Introduction to Neoclassicism
After the Renaissance--a period of exploration and expansiveness--came a
reaction in the direction of order and restraint. Generally speaking, this reaction
developed in France in the mid-seventeenth century and in England thirty years later;
and it dominated European literature until the last part of the eighteenth century.

The New Restraint

Writers turned from inventing new words to regularizing vocabulary and
grammar. Complex, boldly metaphorical language, such as Shakespeare used in his
major tragedies, is clarified and simplified--using fewer and more conventional
figures of speech. Mystery and obscurity are considered symptoms of incompetence
rather than signs of grandeur. The ideal style is lucid, polished, and precisely
appropriate to the genre of a work and the social position of its characters. Tragedy
and high comedy, for example, use the language of cultivated people and maintain a
well-bred tone. The crude humor of the gravediggers in Hamlet or the pulling out of
Gloucester's eyes in King Lear would no longer be admitted in tragedy. Structure,
like tone, becomes more simple and unified. In contrast to Shakespeare's plays, those
of neoclassical playwrights such as Racine and Moliere develop a single plot line and
are strictly limited in time and place (often, like Moliere's The Misanthrope and
Tartuffe, to a single setting and a single day's time).

Influence of the Classics

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. Such simply
constructed but perfect works as the Parthenon and Sophocles' Antigone, such
achievements as the peace and order established by the Roman Empire (and
celebrated in Book VI of Vergil's Aeneid), suggest what neoclassical writers saw in
the classical world. Their respect for the past led them to be conservative both in art
and politics. Always aware of the conventions appropriate to each genre, they
modeled their works on classical masterpieces and heeded the "rules" thought to be
laid down by classical critics. In political and social affairs, too, they were guided by
the wisdom of the past: traditional institutions had, at least, survived the test of time.
No more than their medieval and Renaissance predecessors did neoclassical thinkers
share our modern assumption that change means progress, since they believed that
human nature is imperfect, human achievements are necessarily limited, and
therefore human aims should be sensibly limited as well. It was better to set a
moderate goal, whether in art or society, and achieve it well, than to strive for an
infinite ideal and fail. Reasonable Philinte in The Misanthrope does not get angry at
people's injustice, because he accepts human nature as imperfect.

Neoclassical Assumptions and Their Implications

Neoclassical thinkers could use the past as a guide for the present because they
assumed that human nature was constant--essentially the same regardless of time and
place. Art, they believed, should express this essential nature: "Nothing can please
many, and please long, but just representations of general nature" (Samuel Johnson).
An individual character was valuable for what he or she revealed of universal human
nature. Of course, all great art has this sort of significance--Johnson made his
statement about Shakespeare. But neoclassical artists more consciously emphasized
common human characteristics over individual differences, as we see in the type-
named characters of Moliere.

If human nature has remained constant over the centuries, it is unlikely that any
startling new discoveries will be made. Hence neoclassical artists did not strive to be
original so much as to express old truths in a newly effective way. As Alexander
Pope, one of their greatest poets, wrote: "True wit is nature to advantage dressed, /
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." Neoclassical writers aimed to
articulate general truth rather than unique vision, to communicate to others more than
to express themselves.

Social Themes
Neoclassical writers saw themselves, as well as their readers and characters,
above all as members of society. Social institutions might be foolish or corrupt--
indeed, given the intrinsic limitations of human nature, they probably were--but the
individual who rebelled against custom or asserted his superiority to humankind was,
like Alceste in The Misanthrope, presented as presumptuous and absurd. While
Renaissance writers were sometimes fascinated by rebels, and later Romantic artists
often glorified them, neoclassical artists expected people to conform to established
social norms. For individual opinion was far less likely to be true than was the
consensus of society, developed over time and embodied in custom and tradition. As
the rules for proper writing should be followed, so should the rules for civilized
conduct in society. Neither Moliere nor Jane Austen advocate blind following of
convention, yet both insist that good manners are important as a manifestation of
self-control and consideration for others.

The Age of Reason

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. Reason had traditionally been
assumed to be the highest mental faculty, but in this period many thinkers considered
it a sufficient guide in all areas. Both religious belief and morality were grounded on
reason: revelation and grace were de-emphasized, and morality consisted of acting
rightly to one's fellow beings on this earth. John Locke, the most influential
philosopher of the age, analyzed logically how our minds function (1690), argued for
religious toleration (1689), and maintained that government is justified not by divine
right but by a "social contract" that is broken if the people's natural rights are not
respected.

As reason should guide human individuals and societies, it should also direct
artistic creation. Neoclassical art is not meant to seem a spontaneous outpouring of
emotion or imagination. Emotion appears, of course; but it is consciously controlled.
A work of art should be logically organized and should advocate rational norms. The
Misanthrope, for example, is focused on its theme more consistently than are any of
Shakespeare's plays. Its hero and his society are judged according to their conformity
or lack of conformity to Reason, and its ideal, voiced by Philinte, is the reasonable
 one of the golden mean. The cool rationality and control characteristic of
neoclassical art fostered wit, equally evident in the regular couplets of Moliere and
the balanced sentences of Austen.

Sharp and brilliant wit, produced within the clearly defined ideals of neoclassical
art, and focused on people in their social context, make this perhaps the world's
greatest age of comedy and satire.

Adapted from A Guide to the Study of Literature: A Companion Text for Core Studies 6, Landmarks of
Literature, ©English Department, Brooklyn College.

Guide to Literary Study || Core Studies 6 Page || Melani Home Page

This page was last modified on Thursday, August 17, 2000.

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Ben Jonson (11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637 / London /

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Biography of Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary
of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone,
The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric
poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson
had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.

Poetry

Jonson's poetry, like his drama, is informed by his classical learning. Some of his better-
known poems are close translations of Greek or Roman models; all display the careful
attention to form and style that often came naturally to those trained in classics in the
humanist manner. Jonson, however, largely avoided the debates about rhyme and meter
that had consumed Elizabethan classicists such as Campion and Harvey. Accepting both
rhyme and stress, Jonson uses them to mimic the classical qualities of simplicity,
restraint, and precision.

“Epigrams” (published in the 1616 folio) is an entry in a genre that was popular among
late-Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences, although Jonson was perhaps the only poet of
his time to work in its full classical range. The epigrams explore various attitudes, most
but not all of them from the satiric stock of the day: complaints against women, courtiers,
and spies abound. The condemnatory poems are short and anonymous; Jonson’s epigrams
of praise, including a famous poem to Camden and lines to Lucy Harington, are
somewhat longer and mostly addressed to specific individuals. Although it is an epigram
in the classical sense of the genre, "On My First Son" is neither satirical nor very short;
the poem, and others like it, resemble what a later age sometimes called "lyric poetry."
The poems of “The Forest” also appeared in the first folio. Most of the fifteen poems are
addressed to Jonson’s aristocratic supporters, but the most famous are his country-house
poem “To Penshurst” and the poem “To Celia” (“Come, my Celia, let us prove”) that
appears also in ‘’Volpone.’’

‘’Underwood,’’ published in the expanded folio of 1640, is a larger and more

heterogeneous group of poems. It contains ‘’A Celebration of Charis,’’ Jonson’s most
extended effort at love poetry; various religious pieces; encomiastic poems including the
poem to Shakespeare and a sonnet on Mary Wroth; the ‘’Execration against Vulcan” and
others. The 1640 volume also contains three elegies which have often been ascribed to
Donne (one of them appeared in Donne’s posthumous collected poems).

Relationship with Shakespeare

There are many legends about Jonson's rivalry with Shakespeare, some of which may be
true. Drummond reports that during their conversation, Jonson scoffed at two apparent
absurdities in Shakespeare's plays: a nonsensical line in Julius Caesar, and the setting of
The Winter's Tale on the non-existent seacoast of Bohemia. Drummond also reported
Jonson as saying that Shakespeare "wanted [i.e., lacked] art." Whether Drummond is
viewed as accurate or not, the comments fit well with Jonson's well-known theories about
literature.

In Timber, which was published posthumously and reflects his lifetime of practical
experience, Jonson offers a fuller and more conciliatory comment. He recalls being told
by certain actors that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote.
His own response, "Would he had blotted a thousand," was taken as malicious. However,
Jonson explains, "He was, indeed, honest, and of an open and free nature, had an
excellent phantasy, brave notions, and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that
facility that sometimes it was necessary he should be stopped". Jonson concludes that
"there was ever more in him to be praised than to be pardoned." Also when Shakespeare
died he said "He was not of an age, but for all time."

Thomas Fuller relates stories of Jonson and Shakespeare engaging in debates in the
Mermaid Tavern; Fuller imagines conversations in which Shakespeare would run rings
around the more learned but more ponderous Jonson. That the two men knew each other
personally is beyond doubt, not only because of the tone of Jonson's references to him but
because Shakespeare's company produced a number of Jonson's plays, at least one of
which (Every Man in his Humour) Shakespeare certainly acted in. However, it is now
impossible to tell how much personal communication they had, and tales of their
friendship cannot be substantiated.

Jonson's most influential and revealing commentary on Shakespeare is the second of the
two poems that he contributed to the prefatory verse that opens Shakespeare's First Folio.
This poem, "To the memory of my beloved, The AUTHOR, Mr. William Shakespeare:
And what he hath left us," did a good deal to create the traditional view of Shakespeare as
a poet who, despite "small Latine, and lesse Greeke", had a natural genius. The poem has
traditionally been thought to exemplify the contrast which Jonson perceived between
himself, the disciplined and erudite classicist, scornful of ignorance and sceptical of the
masses, and Shakespeare, represented in the poem as a kind of natural wonder whose
genius was not subject to any rules except those of the audiences for which he wrote. But
the poem itself qualifies this view:

Yet must I not give Nature all: Thy Art,

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

Some view this elegy as a conventional exercise, but others see it as a heartfelt tribute to
the "Sweet Swan Of Avon," the "Soul of the Age!" It has been argued that Jonson helped
to edit the First Folio, and he may have been inspired to write this poem by reading his
fellow playwright's works, a number of which had been previously either unpublished or
available in less satisfactory versions, in a relatively complete form.

Reception and influence

During most of the 17th century Jonson was a towering literary figure, and his influence
was enormous. Before the English Civil War, the "Tribe of Ben" touted his importance,
and during the Restoration Jonson's satirical comedies and his theory and practice of
"humour characters" was extremely influential, providing the blueprint for many
Restoration comedies. In the 18th century Jonson's status began to decline. In the
Romantic era, Jonson suffered the fate of being unfairly compared and contrasted to
Shakespeare, as the taste for Jonson's type of satirical comedy decreased. Jonson was at
times greatly appreciated by the Romantics, but overall he was denigrated for not writing
in a Shakespearean vein. In the 20th century, Jonson's status rose significantly.

f Jonson's reputation as a playwright has traditionally been linked to Shakespeare, his

reputation as a poet has, since the early 20th century, been linked to that of John Donne.
In this comparison, Jonson represents the cavalier strain of poetry, emphasising grace and
clarity of expression; Donne, by contrast, epitomised the metaphysical school of poetry,
with its reliance on strained, baroque metaphors and often vague phrasing. Since the
critics who made this comparison (Herbert Grierson for example), were to varying
extents rediscovering Donne, this comparison often worked to the detriment of Jonson's
reputation.

In his time Jonson was at least as influential as Donne. In 1623, historian Edmund Bolton
named him the best and most polished English poet. That this judgment was widely
shared is indicated by the admitted influence he had on younger poets. The grounds for
describing Jonson as the "father" of cavalier poets are clear: many of the cavalier poets
described themselves as his "sons" or his "tribe." For some of this tribe, the connection
was as much social as poetic; Herrick described meetings at "the Sun, the Dog, the Triple
Tunne." All of them, including those like Herrick whose accomplishments in verse are
generally regarded as superior to Jonson's, took inspiration from Jonson's revival of
classical forms and themes, his subtle melodies, and his disciplined use of wit. In these
respects Jonson may be regarded as among the most important figures in the prehistory of
English neoclassicism.

The best of Jonson's lyrics have remained current since his time; periodically, they
experience a brief vogue, as after the publication of Peter Whalley's edition of 1756.
Jonson's poetry continues to interest scholars for the light which it sheds on English
literary history, such as politics, systems of patronage, and intellectual attitudes. For the
general reader, Jonson's reputation rests on a few lyrics that, though brief, are surpassed
for grace and precision by very few Renaissance poems: "On My First Sonne"; "To
Celia"; "To Penshurst"; and the epitaph on boy player Solomon Pavy.

Ben Jonson's Works:

Plays

A Tale of a Tub, comedy (ca. 1596? revised? performed 1633; printed 1640)
The Case is Altered, comedy (ca. 1597–98; printed 1609), with Henry Porter and
Anthony Munday?
Every Man in His Humour, comedy (performed 1598; printed 1601)
Every Man out of His Humour, comedy ( performed 1599; printed 1600)
Cynthia's Revels (performed 1600; printed 1601)
The Poetaster, comedy (performed 1601; printed 1602)
Sejanus His Fall, tragedy (performed 1603; printed 1605)
Eastward Ho, comedy (performed and printed 1605), a collaboration with John
Marston and George Chapman
Volpone, comedy (ca. 1605–06; printed 1607)
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, comedy (performed 1609; printed 1616)
The Alchemist, comedy (performed 1610; printed 1612)
Catiline His Conspiracy, tragedy (performed and printed 1611)
Bartholomew Fair, comedy (performed 31 October 1614; printed 1631)
The Devil is an Ass, comedy (performed 1616; printed 1631)
The Staple of News, comedy (performed Feb. 1626; printed 1631)
The New Inn, or The Light Heart, comedy (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631)
The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, comedy (licensed 12 October 1632; printed
1641)
The Sad Shepherd, pastoral (ca. 1637, printed 1641), unfinished
Mortimer his Fall, history (printed 1641), a fragment

Masques

The Coronation Triumph, or The King's Entertainment (performed 15 March 1604;

printed 1604); with Thomas Dekker
A Private Entertainment of the King and Queen on May-Day (The Penates) (1 May 1604;
printed 1616)
The Entertainment of the Queen and Prince Henry at Althorp (The Satyr) (25 June 1603;
printed 1604)
The Masque of Blackness (6 January 1605; printed 1608)
Hymenaei (5 January 1606; printed 1606)
The Entertainment of the Kings of Great Britain and Denmark (The Hours) (24 July
1606; printed 1616)
The Masque of Beauty (10 January 1608; printed 1608)
The Masque of Queens (2 February 1609; printed 1609)
The Hue and Cry after Cupid, or The Masque at Lord Haddington's Marriage (9 February
1608; printed ca. 1608)
The Entertainment at Britain's Burse (11 April 1609; lost, rediscovered 2004)
The Speeches at Prince Henry's Barriers, or The Lady of the Lake (6 January 1610;
printed 1616)
Oberon, the Faery Prince (1 January 1611; printed 1616)
Love Freed from Ignorance and Folly (3 February 1611; printed 1616)
Love Restored (6 January 1612; printed 1616)
A Challenge at Tilt, at a Marriage (27 December 1613/1 January 1614; printed 1616)
The Irish Masque at Court (29 December 1613; printed 1616)
Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemists (6 January 1615; printed 1616)
The Golden Age Restored (1 January 1616; printed 1616)
Christmas, His Masque (Christmas 1616; printed 1641)
The Vision of Delight (6 January 1617; printed 1641)
Lovers Made Men, or The Masque of Lethe, or The Masque at Lord Hay's (22 February
1617; printed 1617)

Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (6 January 1618; printed 1641) The masque was a failure;
Jonson revised it by placing the anti-masque first, turning it into:

For the Honour of Wales (17 February 1618; printed 1641)

News from the New World Discovered in the Moon (7 January 1620: printed 1641)
The Entertainment at Blackfriars, or The Newcastle Entertainment (May 1620?; MS)
Pan's Anniversary, or The Shepherd's Holy-Day (19 June 1620?; printed 1641)
The Gypsies Metamorphosed (3 and 5 August 1621; printed 1640)
The Masque of Augurs (6 January 1622; printed 1622)
Time Vindicated to Himself and to His Honours (19 January 1623; printed 1623)
Neptune's Triumph for the Return of Albion (26 January 1624; printed 1624)
The Masque of Owls at Kenilworth (19 August 1624; printed 1641)
The Fortunate Isles and Their Union (9 January 1625; printed 1625)
Love's Triumph Through Callipolis (9 January 1631; printed 1631)
Chloridia: Rites to Chloris and Her Nymphs (22 February 1631; printed 1631)
The King's Entertainment at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire (21 May 1633; printed 1641)
Love's Welcome at Bolsover ( 30 July 1634; printed 1641)

Other works

Epigrams (1612)
The Forest (1616), including To Penshurst
A Discourse of Love (1618)
Barclay's Argenis, translated by Jonson (1623)
The Execration against Vulcan (1640)
Horace's Art of Poetry, translated by Jonson (1640), with a commendatory verse by
Edward Herbert
Underwood (1640)
English Grammar (1640)

Timber, or Discoveries made upon men and matter, as they have flowed out of his daily
readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times, a commonplace book

On My First Sonne (1616), elegy

To Celia (Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes), poem

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On My First Son
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
My sin was too much hope of thee, lov'd boy.
Seven years thou'wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
O, could I lose all father now! For why
Will man lament the state he should envy?
To have so soon 'scap'd world's and flesh's rage,
And, if no other misery, yet age?
Rest in soft peace, and, ask'd, say here doth lie

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NeoGreenLinks
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Ben Jonson is "the first English man of letters to exhibit a nearly
complete and consistent neo-classicism." Discuss.
Ben Jonson is generally looked upon as a pioneer of the neoclassical
movement in English literature. He has often been described as 'a champion of
the rules.' In the words of Wimsatt and Brooks, "he is the first English man of
letters to exhibit a nearly complete and consistent neo-classicism." Scott-James
also feels that "Jonson is perilously near to the neo-classicism of Boileau,
Racine, and Le Bossu. " The same view is shared by Saintsbury who writes :
"The mission of the generation may be summed up in the three words: Liberty,
Variety and Romance. Jonson's tastes were for Order, Uniformity, Classicism."
 Though Jonson was a pioneer of neo-classicism, yet he did not love the
classics for their own sake. He was at one with the great Elizabethans in loving
English more. But it was English raised to the excellence of Greek and Latin.
With this noble end in view he applied himself assiduously to cure the ills that
beset English literature, which could be summed up in one word 'excess': excess
of passion, excess of imagination, excess of expression. So Jonson's classicism
was different from Dryden's and Pope's. They were the advocates of classicism in
an age of reason and good sense which had accepted decorum as a code of
behaviour in all walks of life. Jonson was trying to preach decorum as a protest
against the unbridled romanticism and chaos of his own age.
Jonson had all admiration for Shakespeare's 'excellent Phantasie but he felt
"that sometimes it was necessary he should be stop'd." Similarly, in condemning
the 'furious vociferation' of'the Tamerlanes and Tamerchams? he was not trying
to belittle Marlow's romantic genius; he was simply denouncing that bombast
and reckless violence of his style. What Jonson wanted to point out was that
genius was not a justification for every fault. For attaining perfection an
"elaborate and painful toil" was needed. The best writers, he tells us, "in their
beginnings....imposed upon themselves care and industry; they obtained first to
write well, and then custom made it easy and a habit." Jonson believed that there
was no Royal Road to success in literature". (Scott-James.)
In his dramatic criticism he is rigidly classical and is a follower of Aristotle.
His notes on the unity of action are from Aristotle almost word for word with this
difference only that to it is added the unity of time which formed no part of
Aristotle's definition of action or plot.
Jonson's attitude is, on the whole, of a liberal classicist. He shows reverence
for the ancients, but he nowhere suggests a servile prostration before them. He
advises for the imitation of the models, but he does not recommend a slavish
following. He exhibits an unflinching faith in reason, goodsense and judgement
and harmony, but he is not in favour of concluding 'a poet's liberty within the
narrow limits of laws.' He pleads for orderly craftsmanship, but he does not
forget that the excellence of literature springs from the natural excellence of the
author's mind. In his approach to criticism also, he does not pretent to be a hide-
bound critic. He knows that 'to judge of poets is only the faculty of poets.' It is
only on his insistence on the dramatic unities and in his theory and practice of
comedy that he appears to be somewhat rigidly classical. Otherwise, as Atkins
says, "he is bound by neither classical traditions nor standards. For in both
Shakespeare and Donne he discerns qualities of an original kind, for which there
was no classical precedent; and the insight, the judgement, and the happy
phrasing he there displays are qualities associated with a great and generous
critic."

3.6. Ben Jonson (1572?-1637)

Next

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3.6.1. Classicism

3.6.2. Dramatic theory

3.6.1. Classicism

Ben Jonson is not only a playwright, but also a critic who commented on his own plays
and took care to collect them in a definitive edition, an uncommon practice at the time
(1616). He was also the first Englishman object of a critical monography, Jonsonus
Virbius (1638). Jonson's thought is influenced by Sidney, but he presents us with a more
severe brand of classicism than the one we had found in Sidney. Sidney stressed
idealization and passion; Jonson will insist on imitation and regularity instead. His moral
purpose is also more explicit. Jonson's plays are much more respectful of the unities than
Shakespeare's, even though there is scarcely a single one in which they may be said to
remain intact (vide Dryden on The Silent Woman). Jonson's classicism is native; it is not
an extraneous foreign element, but rather blends easily with the English tradition, of
which it is a logical evolution. Much of this easy implantation comes from the nature of
Jonson's talent: he is caustic and vulgar, obscene yet at the same time moralising. He does
not deal with unknown places or attitudes, but rather with London and now. This topical
character of his plays is also found in his criticism, and it is a great obstacle to its
comprehension, because he is always referring to some current topic which is obscure to
us now. Jonson also has the self-righteous and confident tone of many neo-Classics after
him.

Jonson was a kind of literary dictator in his circle of the Mermaid Tavern, which included
Shakespeare. Being energetic and overbearing, he became involved in literary disputes
such as the Playwright's Quarrel (1599-1602), but he never wrote a theoretical work
stating his principles. Much of his criticism, as is usual in the early seventeenth century,
is dispersed in his poetical works: prologues, memorial verses, satires, essays in verse. . .
The thing most resembling a book on literature written by Jonson was published
posthumously (1640) under the long-wound title Timber: or, Discoveries; Made upon
Men and Matter; as they have flow'd out of his daily Reading, or had their refluxe to his
peculiar Notion of the Times. It is a miscellany of late writings (mostly 1620-35) which
includes political and moral writings, satire, drafts for future works, and lecture notes -it
seems that Jonson was a professor of rhetoric at university for one year. Two thirds of the
whole, however, consists in literary criticism, dealing with rhetoric, poetry, and drama.
Only the ideas are not Jonson's, at least not exclusively. The greater part is a series of
verbatim quotations from classical sources, which we may however take to express
Jonson's literary creed. He also borrows from some contemporary critics, such as Daniel
Heinsius, Pontanus, and Hoskins. The exposition is aphoristical throughout: rules of
thumb, practical advice for composition, and sententious comments on previous authors.
Jonson's neoclassical doctrine consists more of practical principles and concrete advice
than of systematic theories.

The qualities of style in oratory and letter-writing favoured by Jonson are the ones
appreciated by most Renaissance critics: brevity, perspicuity, vigor and discretion. He
rejects artifice, recalling the ancient phrase oratio imago animi:

(39) Language most shows a man: speak, that I may see thee. It springs out of the most
retired and inmost parts of us, and is the image of the parent of it, the mind.

Jonson is the enemy of obscurity:

(40) As it is fit to read the best authors to youth first, so let them be of the openest and
clearest, as Livy before Sallust, Sidney before Donne.

The tone of Jonson's comments on specific authors is more personal than in most
Renaissance critics. He appreciates Spenser's subject-matter, but he opposes his
'Chaucerisms': "in affecting the ancients he writ no language." Moreover, the allegory of
the Faerie Queene is too complex and confusing. Indeed, Jonson seems to believe that
English poetry needs some guiding principles: Donne deserves hanging for not keeping
his accents in place. And when he is told that Shakespeare, whom he admires "on this
side Idolatry", never blotted a line while composing, he answers "would he had blotted a
thousand." Jonson is all for classical restraint: Shakespeare had the use of his wit, he said,
but the power to restrain it was beyond him. We see here a typical notion of neoclassical
criticism: that an author needs not a principle of dynamism and creation within him, but
also a principle of restriction: he needs to be a critic of his own invention. The idea that
"Shakespeare wanted art," that he could not control his writing, was to be a commonplace
of neoclassical criticism of Shakespeare. But Jonson had no quarrel with Shakespeare: he
sets him above all English writers, and writes that "He was not of an age, but for all
time."

All this may provide some examples of the kind of critical observations which are to be
found in Jonson, especially if we keep in mind that even these famous observations on
Shakespeare are drawn from classical sources. This is the practical application of an
important theoretical principle of Jonson's : imitation.
A poet, Jonson states, needs inspiration. But actually he allows a smaller role to
inspiration and invention than either Sidney or Bacon. He immediately places the greater
stress on exercise, study, imitation and art (technique). Imitation does not mean servile
subjection:

(41) Nothing is more ridiculous , than to make an Author a Dictator as the schools have
done Aristotle.

Imitation, Jonson says, is not plagiarism. It is Jonson who introduces the word
"plagiarism" into the English language. He borrows it from Martial, who had used it
playfully referring to literature (plagiarius meaning originally a kidnapper). Of course,
the concept of plagiarism such as it is used today is still unthought of in Jonson's time.
The use of models, in Jonson's view, involves their assimilation and invites their
improvement. In any case, we have to discover the application which the general truth
which can be extracted from the Classics may have in our own time.

3.6.2. Dramatic theory

Jonson's ideas on drama are close to Sidney's. His main statement about comedy is that it
has a moral, rather than a libelous intent. Of course, he is not being original: he follows
Horace and Minturno here. But it was important to take this position at a time when
comedy and farce were intermingled to a degree which made their status problematic.
Comic poetry, he says, is nearest to oratory among all literary genres. It portrays and stirs
the affections; its end is to teach; laughter is only a means, not the end of comedy. Jonson
seems to regard comedy as an essentially satiric genre: he does not care much in theory
about its entity as an artistic object, apart form his advocation of the rules.

Jonson is best known for his theory of the comic humours:

(42)

When some one peculiar quality

Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw

All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,

In their confluctions, all to run one way,

This may be truly said to be a Humour.

This results from the blending of medieval physiognomy (with its four humours:
sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholy), a study ever fashionable, and the
Plautine tradition of characterization, as revived by the Humanists. A humour is a type,
but a somewhat peculiar and individual one; it is curious that Jonson demands both types
and realism, because his humours are so narrow that they suggest caricatures of
individuals rather than the "general nature" of neoclassical types. However, not all of his
characters are humours, and so Jonson's practice goes beyond his theory.

An enthusiastic advocate of literary reform, Jonson disliked the current dramatic fashions
which favoured tragicomedy, fantastic comedies and history plays. The business of the
stage should be with none of these,

(43)

But deeds, and language, such as men doe use;

And persons, such as Comoedie would chuse,

When she would shew an Image of the times,

and sport with humane follies, not with crimes

(Prologue, Every Man in his Humour )

The solution for drama lies in greater realism, and this is linked to imitation of the great
comedians of Antiquity, Plautus and Terence. "The curious irony of this reform is that his
'type' satirical figures appear to belong to the same order as the 'type' tragical figures of
Marlowe. In general he approximates more to Molière than to Shakespeare, and
anticipates the artificially patterned figures of Restoration comedy."

Jonson's plays, tragedies or comedies, do not always respect the unities, something he
considers a concession to contemporary audiences. The essential qualities of tragedy
named by Johnson are Senecan rather than Aristotle:

(44) truth of argument, dignity of persons, gravity and height of elocution and fullness
and frequency of sentence.
Indeed, the Aristotelianism in Jonson is more apparent than real; his conception of drama
is too moralistic and rhetorical for that, and he does not formulate a theory of
universalization. However, his emphasis on reason, order and realism make him the first
of the English neo-Classics, and his example will be followed in the second part of the
17th century. Some have accused him of being a pedant, and think that his theories are
too narrow and regulative to account even for his own practice: " Ben Jonson the poet
and dramatist shared an uneasy bed with Ben Jonson the scholar and critic. What the
artist would have done excellently by instinct the critic required to be done less
excellently by rule: so Ben Jonson has engaged the attention of persons and periods that
are disconcerted by sheer creative fecundity and prefer writers with theories that can be
discussed."

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Jul
5

Neo-Classicism: General Characteristics

Criticism Between Ben Jonson and Dryden
After Ben Jonson literary activity in England suffered a serious setback. Between Jonson
and Dryden there is hardly any critic worth the name. The energy of the people was spent
up in the religious and political controversies of the day, controversies which culminated
in the civil war and the beheading of the English king. Literature and literary criticism are
peace time activities, and times of tension and conflict are inimical to art and culture.
With the Restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660 peace was established in the
country, and once again the climate was favourable for productive activity. The
Renaissance impulse, which had resulted in such a rich flowering of literature in the
Elizabethan era, had already exhausted itself out. Now the sensuous and romantic Italian
influence was replaced by the French influence. Thus began the era of Neo-classicism
which was to reign supreme in England for the next over hundred years.

Neo-classical Criticism: Its Two Phases

At the beginning of this era stands John Dryden and at the end of it there is Dr. Samuel
Johnson. In its first phase, i.e. during the Restoration age (1660—1700) which is presided
over by John Dryden, Neo-classicism is liberal and moderate; in its second phase, i.e.
during first six or seven decades of the 18th century it becomes more and more narrow,
slavish, and stringent. Pope, Addison and then Dr. Johnson are the leading critics of this
second phase.

Neo-classicism: Nature and Definition

This school of criticism is called variously as New-classical, Pseudo-classical, Augustan,

or loosely, even the classical school of criticism. It is called 'Augustan' because the
writers of this time considered that their age was as brilliant and glorious in literature as
the Age of King Augustus Caesar of Rome, an age which produced such brilliant figures,
as Horace, Virgil, Longinus and Quintilian. George Sherburne in his Literary History of
England defines Neo-classicism as, “a veneration for the Roman classics, thought, and
way of life”, and Atkins defines it as the classic system of France evolved during the
reign of Louis XIV, an adaptation, rather than an exact copy of original Greek classics. In
other words, Neo-classicism implies a respect for the rules and principles of Aristotle and
other Greek and Roman critics as interpreted and modified first by the Italian critics, and
then by the French critics of the reign of Louis XIV. It is also known as Pseudo-
classicism for Aristotle was often misinterpreted and much that he had never said was
grafted upon him. Thus the unities of time and place which he had hardly mentioned were
derived from him and made into essential ‘rules' for dramatic writing. There were also
significant departures from him as, for example, when the Neo-classics preferred epic to
tragedy. Sir Philip Sidney also had great respect for Aristotle and other French critics, but
he never practised what he preached. Ben Jonson both preached and practised classicism
but he too did not follow the rules slavishly. He believed in using his own eyes and ears.
Truth lies open all around and one needs only eyes to see it. Both of them admired Greek
literature but that was all. It was only during the late 17th and early 18th centuries that
Neo classicism came to have a complete hold over the English mind and spirit.

Its Rise: Causes

There are various reasons for the rise of Neo-classicism in the second half of the 17th
century. The excesses of the Metaphysicals —the followers of Donne—naturally led to a
revolt in favour of order, balance and sanity in literature. Their extravagant hyperboles,
far-fetched and violent similes and metaphors, and ‘conceits’ elaborated to a fantastic
extent, prepared the ground for neo-classicism with its emphasis on 'correctness' and
'decorum'. Then there was the predominance of French influence, the most potent factor
in the rise of neo-classicism. Charles II and his courtiers returned from France imbued
with French culture and the French respect for rules and the French theory and practice of
literature. Say Wimsatt and Brooks, “In the Frenchified courtly literary circles of
Restoration England, the most effective outside influence was contemporary French
classicism...one difference between the French classicism and the earlier Italian
classicism was that the best creative works associated with the earlier movement were
those written without concern for the code, or at least in expansion of it, whereas the best
French classicism seemed actually the product of the code or at least a conscientious
attempt to demonstrate it.” In France, rigid rules and regulations had already been framed
by the French Academy and they were now imported into England. French critics like
La Bossu and Boilieau now reigned supreme. French dramatists and poets
like Corneille and Racine were venerated, and Shakespeare, Chaucer and Spenser were
thrown over-board. As R.A. Scott-James points out, "The invention, passion, curiosity,
adventurousness, and experimental effort in which the released forces of the Middle Ages
had broken out with explosive violence, were now looked askance at—they appeared as
the wildness of a disordered mind—Nature without Method—the inferior, brutish thing,
which it was the business of criticism, built up on the good manners of the classics, to
expose and suppress." The rise of the scientific spirit and the new philosophy with their
emphasis on rationalism, reason, clarity and simplicity in thought and expression, and the
avoidance of all that was extravagant, also favoured the rise of Neo-classicism.
Philosophers, like Hobbes, taught that 'fancy' should be guided and controlled by
'judgment'. The Royal Society for Science had already been founded, and the scientists
threw all their prestige and weight in favour of rationalism, moderation and self-control.
In the beginning, as in Dryden, this neo-classicism was liberal, but with the passing of
time it became more and more rigid. Instead of the rules being followed in spirit, there
was a slavish adherence to the letter, often at the cost of the spirit.

Its Chief Features

The chief features of the Neo-classic creed may be summarised as follows:

(1) The precept 'follow nature' is the very centre of the Neo-classic creed. ‘Nature’ is
however used in a number of senses (a) It means 'external reality' which the poet must
imitate and hence ‘follow nature’ becomes 'realism' or verisimilitude. (b) Nature also
means ‘general human nature’, i.e. qualities which are common to all men in all ages and
countries. Thus the poet must deal with the ‘universals’ and not with the particular, the
‘individual’, or 'the singular', (c) It also meant the typical qualities, qualities of a
particular age or sex or profession. Thus the poet must be true to type. B ‘Nature’ also
meant the Principal or the Power that governs the universe. Order, regularity, harmony
were supposed to be the qualities of this power, and so literature must also have them, (e)
“To follow Nature” also meant to follow the rules of the ancient masters, for they were
based upon Nature :

The rules of old discovered, not devised.

Are Nature still, though Nature methodised.

And so to follow those rules was to follow Nature herself. Therefore, the ancients must be
our, ‘study and delight’. The ancients simply, ‘methodised nature’, and so they must be
followed in every particular. Hence it was that certain general rules were framed for
poetry, and certain other rules for its particular kinds, and artists were expected to write
according to those rules. It was supposed that great literature was not possible without
adherence to these rules. Hence it is that respect for rules emerges as one of the cardinal
features of Neo-classicism. Critics judged works of literature on the basis of these rules,
and writers created on that basis. Much was made of the three unities, and they were
considered, I must for all dramatic writing. Similarly, tragi-comedy was condemned as a
mongrel breed on the ground that Aristotle had prescribed that there should be no
mingling of the tragic and the comic.

(2) Emphasis was laid on, 'correctness', 'reason' and 'good sense'. The artist must follow
the rules 'correctly', and any exuberance of ‘fancy’ or ‘emotion’ must be controlled by
reason or sense. A balance must be maintained between Fancy and Judgment. The head
must pre-dominate over the heart. The need of ‘inspiration’, or 'furore poeticus' was
recognized but it was to be held in check by reason and good sense. Moderation was the
golden rule in life and in literature. Pope’s advice, closely echoing Boileug is:

Avoid extremes; and shun the faults of such

Who still are pleased too little or too much.

(3) The poets must deal with universal truths and general ideas. As universal truths, in
their very nature, were limited, originality and excellence in respect of content was not
always possible. Hence writers must say what they had to say in the best possible
manner:

True wit is nature to advantage dressed

What oft teas said, but never so well expressed.

The emphasis thus was on formal finish and perfection rather than on content.

(4) The function of poetry was to instruct and delight. The didactic function was
considered more important than the aesthetic one. It was with this end in view that poetic
justice was considered necessary; the poet must suitably reward virtue and punish vice.
However, it was also recognized by Dryden and others that the function of poetry is also
to move the heart. Thus tragedy must purge the soul of pride and hardness of heart.
“Commiseration and admiration” were now considered functions proper to tragedy.
(5) Much thought was given to the style and diction of poetry. It was supposed that there
is a difference between the language of prose and the language of poetry which should be
noble and elevated. Virgil was held out as the ideal and personification and
circumloculation were resorted to, to impart dignity and elevation to the diction.
Common words were avoided, and deities of classical mythology were also used with this
end in view. The use of compound words and epithets was also frequent for this very
reason. In this way, arose the artificial poetic diction which Wordsworth condemns at
such lengths in his ‘Preface’.

Besides dignity, they also aimed at clarity, and with this end in view avoided Gothic
words (archaic or obsolete words) and other Gothic absurdities. The avoidance of the
technical words of the arts and the sciences, attention to minute details, and the use of far-
fetched imagery and conceits were other features of 18th century poetic diction.

(6) The need of decorum was also emphasized. It was recognized that different kinds of
poetry have different styles proper to them. For example, the diction proper to satiric
poetry would be improper for the epic, and a poet must use the style proper to the genre,
in which he was writing. Not only was there a difference between the diction of prose and
poetry, there was also a difference between the diction of different kinds of
poetry. Wordsworth re-acted strongly against this artificial division, and went to the
extreme of saying that there is no essential difference between the language of prose and
poetry. All men including the poet speak the same language, and if at all there is a
difference it depends on the pitch and intensity of emotion.

(7) Much thought was also given to the comparative superiority of rhyme and blank
verse. Finally, it was concluded that rhyme is superior to blank verse. The heroic measure
was the right measure for poetry, for it was the measure which was supported by the
authority of the Ancients, and by the practice of the French.

Neo-classicism: Its Value and Contribution

The rigid neo-classical adherence to ‘rules’ and authority has a tendency to suppress
genius, and so neo-classicism has been much frowned upon since the rise of romanticism
in the last decades of the 18th century. However, Neo-classicism has its own merits
and Matthew Arnold was right in calling it an “admirable and indispensable” age. Neo-
classicism discourages erratic genius and as R.A. Scott-James points out, “The neo-
classical critics added much that is essential to "culture”, and fixed all the important
truisms without which we can hardly begin today to discuss the art of literature.”
Emphasizing the value of this school of criticism Atkins writes, "In the long
development of literary criticism in England the period covered by the second half of the
17th century and the century that followed is one of the first importance. It is a phase that
represents on integral and indispensable chapter in English critical history, an advance on
the performance of the Renaissance period, and a preparation leading up to the
achievements of the 19th Century: and in it a host of fresh influences were brought to
bear from various quarters, making the story one of many complications that calls for
detailed and careful inquiry."

Related Articles:
 The Spurt of Critical Activity in Renaissance England; Its Causes
 Critical Synopsis of Sidney’s "Defence of Poetry"
 Philip Sidney: His Ideas on Poetry
 Sidney's Dramatic Criticism
 Sidney’s Achievement as a Critic
 General Characteristics
 Addison
 Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Posted 5th July 2012 by Sara Adams

Labels: Restoration Dryden Samuel Johnson Criticism John Dryden England
Neoclassicism Aristotle Ben Jonson
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Phonology: Complex word stress

Phonology: Complex word stress
Feb 1st
Phonology: Stress in simple words
Phonology: Stress in simple words
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Translation exercise: Lights out
Translation exercise: Lights out
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Translation exercise: ‫أسبوع مر بعد صدور‬....
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Translation exercise: ‫يوم اليتيم‬
Translation exercise: ‫يوم اليتيم‬
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"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 15 - 23
"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 15 - 23
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"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 4 - 6
"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 4 - 6
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"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 1 - 3
"Emma" by Jane Austen: Chapters 1 - 3
Feb 1st
Model Essay: Causes and Effects of Overweight
Model Essay: Causes and Effects of Overweight
Feb 1st
Translation: ‫كثيرة هي العأتبارات‬....
Translation: ‫كثيرة هي العأتبارات‬....
Feb 1st 2
Translation: ‫يوم السلم العالمي‬
Translation: ‫يوم السلم العالمي‬
Feb 1st
Translation: ‫ برغم ما أعألنه وزير المالية‬.....
Translation: ‫ برغم ما أعألنه وزير المالية‬.....
Feb 1st
Translation: As Africa Strives to ....
Translation: As Africa Strives to ....
Feb 1st
Translation: Titles
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Translation: General Comments
Feb 1st
Translation: An Exam
Translation: An Exam
Feb 1st
Translation exercise: ‫تطوير شامل للمتحف اليوناني الروماني بالسكندرية‬
Translation exercise: ‫تطوير شامل للمتحف اليوناني الروماني بالسكندرية‬
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"How Thought You That This Thing Could Captivate?" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"How Thought You That This Thing Could Captivate?" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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"Move eastward, happy earth, and leave" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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"Tears, idle tears"' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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"Sweet and low" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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"Ask me no more" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"Ask me no more" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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Translation: strategies used by professional translation
Translation: strategies used by professional translation
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Translation: Loss and Gain
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Translation: Problems of Equivalence
Translation: Problems of Equivalence
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"Crossing the Bar" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
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"The Young King" by Oscar Wilde
"The Young King" by Oscar Wilde
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"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde
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"The Devoted Friend" by Oscar Wilde
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Novels, short stories, and tales
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Feb 1st
Sounds in Combination
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Phonemes and Allophones
Feb 1st
"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
"The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
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Word Meaning
Feb 1st
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Problematic aspects of morphological analysis
Feb 1st
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The Mother Tongue: From Old English to Early Modern English
Feb 1st
Morphology
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Feb 1st
Words and word-formation processes
Words and word-formation processes
Jan 23rd
Word Meaning
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Jan 23rd
Translation exercise: ‫مذكرات نعامة غربية‬
Translation exercise: ‫مذكرات نعامة غربية‬
Jan 23rd
Translation exercise: ‫تطوير شامل للمتحف اليوناني الروماني بالسكندرية‬
Translation exercise: ‫تطوير شامل للمتحف اليوناني الروماني بالسكندرية‬
Jan 23rd
Translation: ‫في محاولتها العديد لمواجهة مشاكل المرور‬....
Translation: ‫في محاولتها العديد لمواجهة مشاكل المرور‬....
Jan 23rd
Translation: untranslatability
Translation: untranslatability
Jan 23rd
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Translation: untranslatability
Jan 23rd
Translation: strategies used by professional translation
Translation: strategies used by professional translation
Jan 23rd
Translation: linguistic problems on the lexical level
Translation: linguistic problems on the lexical level
Jan 23rd
Translation: linguistic problems on the cultural level
Translation: linguistic problems on the cultural level
Jan 23rd
Translation: Problems of Equivalence
Translation: Problems of Equivalence
Jan 23rd
Translation: Loss and Gain
Translation: Loss and Gain
Jan 23rd
The sounds of language
The sounds of language
Jan 23rd
The sound patterns of language
The sound patterns of language
Jan 23rd
The properties of language
The properties of language
Jan 23rd
The origins of language
The origins of language
Jan 23rd
The development of writing
The development of writing
Jan 23rd
The Phoneme System
The Phoneme System
Jan 23rd
The Mother Tongue: From Old English to Early Modern English
The Mother Tongue: From Old English to Early Modern English
Jan 23rd
The Grammar of Syllable: Patterns of acceptability
The Grammar of Syllable: Patterns of acceptability
Jan 23rd
Syllables: Phonology above the segment
Syllables: Phonology above the segment
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Syllable: Justifying the Constituents
Syllable: Justifying the Constituents
Jan 23rd
Sounds in Combination
Sounds in Combination
Jan 23rd
Rules and Constraints
Rules and Constraints
Jan 23rd
Problematic aspects of morphological analysis
Problematic aspects of morphological analysis
Jan 23rd
Poetry: What is it About?
Poetry: What is it About?
Jan 23rd
Poetry: Types
Poetry: Types
Jan 23rd
Poetry: Symbolism
Poetry: Symbolism
Jan 23rd
Poetry: Literary Appreciation
Poetry: Literary Appreciation
Jan 23rd
Poetry: How it is Done
Poetry: How it is Done
Jan 23rd
Phonological Morphology
Phonological Morphology
Jan 23rd
Phonemes and Allophones
Phonemes and Allophones
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Metaphysical and Neoclassical/Cavalier "Schools"

 
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OTHER  I.  SUBJECT MATTER
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A.  Social/Public — emphasizes the qualities people have in common and 
especially those which lead to social organization.
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Holiday B.  Generalized — depicts basic human types, events, emotions, 
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English C.  Orderly — represents (or points to) a static world of order and 
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presented in their most permanent and enduring aspects. 
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A.  Formal — careful workmanship, a polished effect, use of traditional 
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forms of poetry: ode, elegy, satire, panegyric.
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B.  Functional — emotional content often subordinate to a larger, 
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frequently social, poetic purpose: whether a graceful compliment (as 
in a Cavalier lyric), or a profound, didactic meditation (as in many 
odes), or a satiric call for reformed manners.

C.  Objective — presents its materials as having been dispassionately 
gathered from observations of the surrounding world. 

III.  CASE STUDY — JONSON (Neoclassicist)

A.  Usually impersonal in tone.

B.  Clear and straightforward in expression.

C.  Ample use of symmetry, balance, antithesis, parallel structures, all 
contributing to a sense of order and stability.

D.  Frequent use of closed forms, such as the closed couplet.

E.  Plain (or even "blunt") in style — largely unequivocal, restrained in 
exploitation of ambiguity; often restrained in feeling, diction, and 
imagery.

F.  Optimistic (although largely conservative), emphasizing this world and 
all its attributes.

G.  Images especially drawn from classical sources.

H.  Employs or experiments with a variety of classical genres.
 

METAPHYSICAL (esp. John Donne) 

I.  SUBJECT MATTER

      A.  Individual and idiosyncratic — emphasizes personal qualities which 
often differ from the norm in world­view and expression.

      B.  "Medieval" or correspondential — presents a world animated by the 
doctrine of sympathies, in which humans, with their passions and experiences, 
can be meaningfully compared to anything in the physical and spiritual worlds.

      C.  "Mystical" or dynamic — suggests a world of hidden or fleeting 
significances, best understood when one focuses on its most transient or 
changeable aspects.

 II.  TECHNIQUE

      A.  Informal — Colloquial expression often joined with experimental verse
forms which imitate or stress the speaker's thought­processes or passions.

      B.  Emotive — often conveying emotions via highly intellectual arguments 
and comparisons.

      C.  Subjective — materials drawn from personal experience or 
associations, often based on theology, natural philosophy, or arcane 
(supernatural) arts and sciences.

 III.  CASE STUDY — DONNE

      A.  Personal, introspective in tone.

      B.  Deliberately difficult in meaning and expression ("strong lines" 
requiring careful reading and reasoning).
       C.  Extensive use of paradox, irony, and ambiguity.

      D.  Uses or creates forms which mirror the stages of developing passion or 
thought; can distort and/or adapt a conventional form to fit an individualized 
conception or expression.

      E.  Argumentative, often richly rhetorical and dramatic in presentation; 
idiosyncratic in both diction and imagery, suggesting the intensity of real 
feeling.

      F.  Pessimistic — emphasizing the inconstancy and mutability of this 
world, with frequent references to a spiritual and/or transcendent realm.

      G.  Imagery drawn from Biblical, philosophical, and occult sources, but 
also from everyday concerns and the practical arts.

 NOTE:  Such categorizing is useful, but tends to reduce each poet to his most 
obvious and consistent attributes.  Not every poetic performance a poet might 
enact fits these outlines; in the case of poets like Shakespeare and Milton 
especially, the works often elude and even defy attempts at categorization.  
Don't make the common mistake of assuming that, because the neoclassical 
emphasis is one of the control and regularity, that metaphysical poems are 
uncontrolled and accidental; or that because metaphysical poems often use 
irony and ambiguity, that the meaning of neoclassical poems is automatically 
obvious.  Each school is perfectly capable of using the methods of the 
other.  Study each individual poem for its own identity and purpose.

 Other Neoclassical poets: Herrick, Carew (at times), Marvell (at times)
Some Cavalier poets: Carew (at times), Suckling, Lovelace
Other metaphysical poets:  Herbert, Crashaw, Vaughan, Marvell (at times)

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Questions or comments? Email me, please.

ã Kristen McDermott, 2007-11. The materials on these pages are intended solely for the use of Central Michigan University students currently enrolled in my
courses or who are considering enrolling in my courses. Use of this material, especially syllabi, in any other context is prohibited without first obtaining
permission from Dr. McDermott.

CMU, an AA/EO institution, is strongly and actively committed to increasing diversity within its community (see http://www.cmich.edu/aaeo). Central Michigan
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5. The Literary Principles of the Neoclassical Age

The Literary Principles of the Neoclassical Age

By Frank B. Chavez III, eHow Contributor
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The Neoclassical Age developed in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. During this
period, writers and artists continued the Renaissance trend of looking to the ancient
Greeks and Romans for inspiration.

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1. Features
o Neoclassical writers, such as Samuel Johnson, Moliere and Alexander
Pope, sought clear, precise language. They standardized spelling and
grammar, shifted away from the complex metaphors employed by
Shakespeare and simplified literary structures.

Beliefs
o Neoclassical writers were shaped by the ideals of the Age of Reason, such
as moderation, the common sense of society and limited aspiration. They
felt that art should be logically organized, rather than a conspicuous burst
of emotion. It was better, in their opinion, to effectively express ancient
truths than their own views.
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Literary Ideals
o Neoclassical writers considered the works of classical writers, such as
Sophocles and Virgil, to be simple, perfect masterpieces. The neoclassical
writers closely followed the conventions set forth by their earlier
counterparts.

Themes
 o Neoclassical writers often adopted a rigid view toward society. Although
Renaissance writers were fascinated by rebels and the Romantics later
idealized them, neoclassical writers felt that the individual should conform
to social norms. Although society was probably corrupt, individual views
could not stand against the truths found in the consensus of society.

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 Literary History Study
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References
 Brooklyn College: Introduction to Neoclassicism
 Georgetown College: Neoclassical Literature
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Comments
 barakat.yisau Nov 29, 2011

I love the use of satire in the neo classical period.

 khadeeja.yusuf Jul 21, 2011

@Rashida Baji... check it out if its of any help.

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