18th Century Literature- The Neo-Classical Age - The Age of Enlightenment - The Augustan Age

- The Age of Reason

The Intellectual Background

In the 17th Century skepticism had been influential which found its most persuasive recent
statement in the essays of Montaigne (1533- 1592)

Skepticism originated in ancient Greece. It was a philosophic tradition. The Skepticism argued that
all our knowledge is derived from our senses, but that our senses do not report the world around us
accurately and that therefore reliable knowledge is an impossibility. Yet, although the sceptic remained in
doubt about the results of human reasoning, he was not precluded from religious beliefs: lor he could
assert that faith alone is necessary for accepting the mysteries of the Christian religion. Thus, the sceptic
and the religion did not remain in conflict. But the sceptic had some doubts about human reasoning,

Puritanism also attacked man and considered him a weak and egoistic being whose nature needs
rigid training. Likewise, Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan (l651) favored an absolute government so as to
control human nature.

And as a reaction in the next century, an optimistic insistence on the natural goodness of man, a
new approach, a new perspective came into existence. The new scientific discoveries and methods were
rapidly altering men’s view of nature. And unlike the situation in the 19lh Century religion and science
were compatible in the 18th Century. Science in the 17th Century principally concerned with the physical
sciences such as astronomy, physics, and to a lesser degree chemistry. And the discoveries in these
sciences were reassuring in their revelation of universal immutable law and order, clear revelations of the
wisdom and goodness of God in His creation. Such laws of nature is as Boyle’s the law of the behaviour of
gases under pressure or Newton’s the law of gravitation seemed obviously to support the idea that a
beneficent divine intelligence created and directs the universe. The whole creation appeared as revelation
of the mind, intent, and nature of the Creator. The truest truths proved to be the clearest, the simplest, the
most general. Such truths, while they confirmed the existence of a Deity, seemed at the same time to
shatter the scholastic Philosophy and promised a time not remote, when mystery would be banished
entirely from nature.

Indeed, the new religion or Natural religion which had an increasingly wider appeal, deduced its
simple rationalistic creed from the Book of Nature, God’s first and to many 1811' Century men, only valid
revelation. In other words, the Deists deduced the existence of a supreme Being, or first cause from the
existence of the universe. Its regularity, order, and purposefulness sufficiently proved the reasonableness,
goodness, and wisdom of its Creator. We must revere Him but although He is good, it is demonstrable that
he does hot punish vice and reward virtue in this life. Yet, here on earth, it is our duty to co-operate with
nature and the Deity. 18th Century was willing to settle for the possible within the limits of human
intelligence and of the material world.
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The 18th Century brought a recognition of the limitations of man; his intelligence was limited. Yet it
also took an optimistic view of his moral nature. Rejecting Hobbes’ view of man, as in essence, a selfish
and predatory (aggressive, selfish) creature and ignoring the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin, 18th
Century philosophers asserted that man is naturally good and that he finds his highest happiness in the
exercise of virtue and benevolence. Such a view of human nature is described as sentimental (arising from
tender feelings). It found the source of virtue in men’s instinctive and social impulses rather than in a code
of conduct sanctioned by divine law.

Sentimentalism fostered a benevolism that led to socials reforms such as the improvement of
jails, the establishment of foundling hospitals, the abolition of slave trade. This shows that men began to
feel or fancy that they felt happy and pleased when they exercise benevolent impulses.

Yet, 18th Century was not the age of feeling. On the contrary, it was the “age of reason”, and it is
known as the “age of’ reason”. However, the doctrine on the natural goodness of man seemed to many to
suggest that it is civilisation which corrupts us; and that primitive man, and “noble savages” or primitive
man who live according to nature, are models of innocence and virtue. Such notion encouraged an interest
in primitive, societies, later (in the first half of the 19th Century) prepared the emergence of Romanticism.

As the wave of sentimentalism mounted, a parallel rise of religious feeling occurred after about
1740. The great religious revival known as Methodism. They preached the common people mostly. They
were the Puritans of the 18th Century. Yet, the upper classes repelled their emotionalism and extreme
religiousness.

The Neo-Classical Poetry

About 1700 the critical principles were formulated by

- John Dryden - Alexander Pope

- Jonathan Swift

This theory, especially in poetry favoured great simplicity, clarity, restraint, regularity in all sorts of writing.
They were against violent extremism in literature; and the period reflected a desire for peace and order.
This movement came into existence because it was strongly influenced by the writers of the reign of the
first Roman Emperor, Augustus' Caesar, just before the beginning of the Christian era, for Rome’s
Augustan Age was a period of stability and peace after the Civil War that followed the death of Julius
Caesar. Its chief poets were Virgil, Horace, and Ovid addressed their carefully ordered, disciplined, and
polished works to a sophisticated aristocracy. The •mage of Augustan Rome played an active role in the
literature of the age. There was a revival of the classical literature.

King Charles and. his followers who had spent many years in exile in France, inevitably brought
back to England an admiration of contemporary French literature. In France, the two playwrights Corneille
and Racine wrote plays, especially tragedies under the influence of the classics during the Restoration
Period in England. And England was influenced by French playwrights as well.

The prevalent idea of the nature of the poet was that although the poet is a genius, that a poet is
born, not made, he needs discipline. Even genius must be trained and disciplined if it is to produce art. The
word poet is derived from a Greek word meaning “maker” and it is this notion that dominated the
Augustans’ idea of the poet: he is not a prophet, a visionary, a seer, but the maker of an object, a poem.
He must have “invention”, the gift of finding materials for his poems. And then he must vivify, heighten,
and order those materials that they seem true pictures of what is, or might or ought to be. For the poet
pictures life either as it is or as it ought to be. The poet's objective was to teach and to teach effectively.
He must please us by his fictions, and by all the ornaments of language, metrics, and rhetoric. In short, the
poet should teach through, delight. The materials of poetry must derive from, conform to, and
recognizably represent “Nature” a word of many meanings in the Neo-Classic Age.

The Augustans were especially conscious of one meaning: Nature as the universal, permanent, and
representative elements in the moral and intellectual experience of men. External nature -landscape- both
as a source of aesthetic pleasure and as an object of scientific inquiry or religious contemplation attracted
the attention of Englishmen throughout the 18th Century.

Yet, in the poems of Alexander Pope, "first follow Nature" has primarily general human nature and
human experience in view. Nature is truth in the sense that it includes the permanent, enduring, general
truths which have been, and will be true for all men, in all times, everywhere. The poet exists not to take
us on long voyages to discover the new and the unique but to reveal the permanent and the
representative in human experience through what becomes for us an act of recognition. As Pope says of
poetry (and of true wit”) “it gives us back an image of our mind”

Historians during this period studied the particulars of history in order to observe the universal
human nature which those, particulars reveal; and scientists formulated, after experiment and.
observation of particulars, universal, and, ¡permanent laws of. nature. Sir Isaac Newton's Principia (1687)
did much to reinforce scientifically the idea of Nature as order together with a typical 18th Century
work, Pope’s “Essay on Man”. But this does not mean that the particular was excluded from the arts and
art was reduced to the merely obvious, typical and familiar. No art, that is, no theory of art can be so
simple. Originality, novelty, accuracy of observation were desired in Neo- Classical as well as in Romantic
art.

If human nature was held to be uniform, men were known to be infinitely varied: likewise, the task
of the artist was to treat the particulars as to render it representative. That is, particulars should represent
the general. The poet could learn much from the ancient classics, Greek and Rome, for they were useful
guides not because they were ancients but because they were thought to have some prescriptive authority
to command attention and respect, because they had so truly expressed Nature, that, despite the radical
that were brought by Christianity in Europe, they had lost none of their relevance to the experience of
modem men. As pope said, Homer arid Nature were the same; and both Pope and his readers found
Horace's satires on Roman society thoroughly applicable to their own world. And the poet should know
Nature by living among men and speaking to men, being a member of society, an important and functional
part of a civilized community that would not be civilized without his presence. Only by living among men
and by ceaseless and sympathetic observation of them could he gain the knowledge of Nature required of
him as a poet. He was also to supplement his own inevitably limited experience by the wisdom of the past,
by studying Nature wherever truthfully represented: In Homer, Virgil, Horace or Shakespeare. He could
learn also from the ancients how to practice his craft. If a poem is an object to be made, the maker, like an
 18th Century Context and Novel 4

architect must follow sound principles. The ancients, Aristotle in his Poetics, Horace in his Ars Poetica and
Quintilian in his lntitutio Oratorio had left more or less systematized principles or rules by which to order
Nature which is (the material of art) into an epic, a tragedy, a dramatic character, an oration = (formal
speech made for a public occasion). They had deduced these rules from the ancients and invented new
rules of their own. The rules directed the planning and executing of one or another of the literary “kinds”
or genres: epic, tragedy, comedy, pastoral, satire, ode. The choice of language, which must differ from
genre to genre; the use, the use of figures of speech, tone' style, characters. They could serve as a short
cut to Nature, for as Pope said they “are Nature methodized.”

The idea that each of the literary kinds is distinct and has its own proper material, characters,
languages, and style, was influential throughout the period. Epic and tragedy, and most serious of the
kinds, demand noble English, stately verse, heightened diction, splendor of figures of speech. (decorum)

Comedy, on the other hand, since it deals not with ideal heroes or great kings and generals as .do
epic and tragedy, but ordinary people m daily life, calls for a lower style and natural, unadorned language.
This principle was known as the principle of “decorum" or the appropriate That is to say “a propriety of
thoughts and words” or in other words, thoughts and words elegantly adapted to the subject.

“Wit" was another important term for the Neo-Classics: It was, like Nature a complicated word of
many meanings. It usually implies quickness and liveliness of mind, inventiveness, a readiness to perceive
resemblances between things apparently unlike and so to enliven literary discourse with appropriate
images; similes and metaphors (a propriety of thoughts and words). This faculty was often identified with
"fancy or “imagination” and was thought to be irregular, wayward, extravagant (uncontrolled), unless
controlled and disciplined by another and soberer faculty, “judgement”.

An excess of imagination was considered dangerous to sanity, and in literature to lead awat frım
Nature or truth to falsehood and to such violent and far-fetched conceits as we find in the poetry of Donne
or Crashaw at their boldest. So, in order to control the metaphysical wit, Pope insists in his “Essay on
Criticism” (lines 80-83) on the necessity of a harmonious union of judgment and fancy which he calls “wit”
in a work of literature. Though judgement was to tame, it was not to suppress passions, energy or
originality, but to make them more effective through discipline. Only that literature is true which remains
true to universal human experience; for it to do so, wayward wit of fancy must be firmly guided.

Finally, there is the matter of versification. Everyone associates the neo-classical period with the
“closed” heroic couplet which is composed of two Iambic pentameter lines.

Iambic pentameter: is the most common pattern, meter in English poetry. It is called a rising meter: an
unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable and it consists of 10 syllables five stressed, five
unstressed:

All hu’mane, thi’ngs are su'bject to' deca’y.

“Closed” Heroic couplet: there is usually a pause at the end of the first line usually a comma, a semi-
colon with the end of the second line, the couplet comprises an idea, an expression in general:

Be Homer's works your study and delight.

Learn hence for ancient rules a just esteem;

To copy Nature is to copy them.

Pope: “An Essay on Criticism”

Prose in the I8th Century flourished and usually called The Royal Society Prose. The Royal
Society decreed that its members must employ only a plain, concise, and utilitarian prose style suitable to
the clear communication of scientific truths. Metaphors, similes, and rhetorical devices were disapproved
because they engaged the emotions, not die reason, and though they were tolerable in poetry, they had
no place in rational discourse, that is, in prose. The ideal of good prose came to be a clear, simple, and
natural style which was a social prose, designed for a social age. Later, it was available to the writers of
periodical essays and to the novelists of the 18th Century. This plain and clear prose became popular.
There came into existence a reading public. Literature came into coffee-houses. The coffeehouses of
London served as informal meeting places for men of all classes where they exchange opinions, even
gossip, especially literary men and scholars used to meet each other at such places. The men who
frequented the coffee-houses formed an influential element among the public.

As a result, the popular press flourished, producing a succession of newspapers and literary
periodicals in the modem sense. Addison and Steele published the first newspaper in the modem sense:
The Tatler, The Spectator, The Gentilman’s Magazine, Monthly Review (1749), Critical Review (1756).

The new journalism satisfied the hunger of the less well-educated by giving information about
politics, science, philosophy, literature as well as scandal and gossip.

On the whole, the literature of this period is chiefly a literature of wit, concerned with civilization,
with man in his social relationships; and consequently, it is critical and in some degree moral or satiric.

The finest works of the period are mock-heroic or mock-epic: a work in which a trivial subject is
made ridiculous by being treated with the elaborate and dignified devices of the epic, which is an example
of satire. The masterpieces of the mock-epic in English is Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock (1714). In
this poem, the theft of an elegant lady’s lock of hair by one of her admirers is treated as if it were an event
of extraordinary importance. Pope introduces all the usual epic devices such as supernatural figures and
incidents, epic similes, a voyage to the underworld, impressive speeches and mighty battles to satirize the
event. All these are used to describe the trivial happening of an elegant afternoon, where the heroine's
victory in a card game is seen in terms of a Homeric battle.

Apart from Pope’s satires especially his mock-epics. Jonathan Swift was a remarkable figure for his
satires, Gulliver's Travels. A Modest Proposal is a good example of irony. In the essay he claims that the
Irish, since they are very poor and cannot look after their children and they become burden for the
kingdom and their families, they should give their children to the rich English as food. And’ he calls his
suggestion “a modest proposal". And he also says that his aim was just only to relieve the poor and give
 18th Century Context and Novel 6

some pleasure to the rich, which he says for the public good of his country.

In the 18th Century, comedy, too, underwent, a change. The optimistic view of human nature about man's
goodness, made the Restoration comedy of manners seem distasteful libels on humanity.

A new sort of comedy. "Sentimental Comedy" began to replace the old comedy of manners; not only
because it is based on the sentimental notion that man is naturally good and that given a chance, his.
virtuous side will triumph over his accidentally acquired vices and follies but also because its dialogue
deals in high moral sentiments rather than wit; and because, its virtuous heroines and virtuous heroes
suffer misfortunes which move the audience not to laughter, but to tears. One of the pleasures invented in
1811' Century Europe, was the delicious pleasure of weeping, and sentimental comedy which arose
because the middle class enjoyed this kind of drama.

With the rise of sentimentalism, melancholy became a fashionable emotion, which reminds Milton's
Il Penseroso which reflects the solitary, sad man unlike the Augustan poet who is a social being living in a
crowded world. Now. we have the primitive feelings and thoughts of the characters both in the sentimental
comedy and also in the novel which came into existence for the first time as a new genre.

NOVEL

The novel reflected life as it was with believable people who were motivated by the practical concerns that
dominate our daily lives. It also reflected the middle-class attitudes and interests, unlike the 17th Century
literature. And the first novelists were Daniel Defoe and Samuel Richardson belonged to the middle
class.

Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Roxanna

Samuel Richardson: Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, Clarissa

Henry Fielding: Tom Jones, Joseph Andrews

Oliver Goldsmith: The Vicar of Wakefield (typical example of sentimental novel)

Laurence Sterne: Tristram Shandy

The Emergence Of The Novel

The Emergence of the Novel is due to:

a- The Influence of Individual Realism

b- The Rise Of 'the Middle Class

c- The Literature of Sensibility and Individualism

The tern novel is derived from the Italian "novella", a short compact tale usually about city life in the
medieval period represented by the tales in Decameron.

The “roman" which is the tern for novel in many languages, was derived from "romance". In some ways
novel developed from the medieval romances which were first written in verse and then in prose. As the
prose tale developed and gained importance, verse narrative became gradually less popular.

a) The Influence of Individual Realism

 According to the Scholastic Realists of the Middle Ages, it is universals. classes or abstractions that
are true realities, not the particular concrete objects of sense-perception.
 Modem Realism begins with Descartes and John Locke in the 17th Century, but it received its full
formulation by Thomas Reid in the middle of the 18th Century.
 The general temper of realism has been:
a) critical b) anti-traditional c) innovating
 According to realism, truth is particular, that is, truth can be discovered by the individual through
senses. The method of realism is the study of particulars or experience by the individual who should
be free from past assumptions, conventions, and traditional beliefs such as legends, myths and
religion.
 So, the discovery of truth was a wholly individual matter independent of tradition and religion of the
past thoughts. Previous literary genres like epics and romances took their plots from traditional,
national stories such as legends, fables, myths or even Biblical stories, or history.
 And the merits of the author’s treatment of such plots were judged according to the literary
decorum derived from the accepted models of the genre.
 Novel placed importance on individual experience which is always new for that particular individual.
Therefore, novel rejected traditional plots.
 So unlike Shakespeare. Spenser. Milton or the Greek and Roman writers or the writers of epics and
romances, who look their plots from mythology, history, legend. Daniel Defoe and Samuel_
Richardson and Henry Fielding took their plots from ordinary life, everyday life.
 The plot in the novel was quite different from that of the previous literary genres: it had to be acted
by particular people in particular circumstances at particular time instead of general human types
who act at a very vast setting in unlimited time.
 Therefore, unlike the classical preference for the general and universal we have particularization of
character which was achieved by naming a character in exactly the same way as particular
individuals are named in ordinary life.
 They were given proper names: for they are the verbal expressions of the particular identity of each
individual person, but not of his character, so that they can be regarded as particular individual.
 In previous work's, the names were taken either from history, legends, or they were type names
representing the character’s dominant characteristics that made him a type: Example: Everyman.
Lady Fee, Holy Church
 Both Locke and Hume argued and emphasized the importance of our memories and past thoughts
on the constitution of ourselves and characters. Past is the cause of present.
 Locke argued that ideas became general by separating from them the circumstances of time and
place. So, they become particular only when they are placed at a particular time and place.
 In the same way, the characters of the novel can only he individualized if they are set in a
background of particularized time and place.
 The novel’s plot is also distinguished from most previous function by its use of past experience as
 18th Century Context and Novel 8

the cause of present action: instead of the disguises a coincidence of the previous works we have a
logical: causal connection operating through lime.
 The novel in general has interested itself much more than any other form in the development of its
characters in the course of time.
 Space is as important as time. For the individual, the particular case is defined in space and time.
Place was traditionally almost general and vague as time, in tragedy, comedy and romance.
 Since the aim of the novel was to render the real account of the actual experiences of individuals, it
was necessary to change the figurative and elevated style of the epics and romances.
 Therefore, the early novelists like Defoe. Richardson used a plain language, close to everyday
language instead of the decorated style of the previous writers.
 As is seen the novel reflects a picture of particular individuals having particular experiences at
particular times and at particular places.
 The narrative method the novel embodies may he called its formal realism: for the plain language
they used-had one-aim: the correspondence of words to things instead of the -artificial and
exaggerated descriptions and rhetoric for the sake of beauty.
 It can lie said that the novel was the authentic report of human experience.

b) The Rise of the Middle Class

The emergence of the middle-class is also one of the main reasons which lies behind the sudden
rise of the novel in the 18lh Century.

The novel became so-popular because unlike “romance” or its courtly descendants which rendered
the altitudes-of the aristocrats, it reflected the-life of the middle-class, in other words the life of the
ordinary.

Both Defoe and Richardson belonged to the middle-class and expressed in their works middle-class
interests and attitudes. Hence, people were happy to read about their own lives.

s of the towns who first came into existence in the 16th Century became rich through trade and
they gradually became more important in the reading public; and at the same time literature began to
view trade, commerce and industry with favor.

So the novel brought about two conditions:

a) the society must value every individual irrespective of social status or personal capacity.

b) Likewise, literature should consider every individual irrespective of his social status and
personal capacity as its proper subject.

Therefore, the novel was not esteemed and was not regarded even valued highly by most of the
writers of the age. The main reasons were

a) it was written for uneducated people,

b) and mostly for women.

It is a period of scientific, philosophical, and intellectual development. The 17th and 18th centuries
were the periods when the basis of modem natural science was established.

Scientific thinking proved that visible facts were the only realities to be discovered; and the only
way of discovering them was “empiricism” which relied solely, on observation and experience, that is to
say, knowledge is acquired by means of observation and experiment or experience.

Empiricism, the philosophy of Locke, Berkeley and Hume was the philosophy of experience (or
experiment) and observation. Scientific thinking encouraged the tendency of dissociating God and religion
from the day-to-day functioning of the world. Yet, neither God nor religion were rejected but the
supernatural and the miraculous were no longer believed in. |

Scientific discoveries which reflected the universal and immutable laws of nature such as Newton’s
law of gravitation or Boyle’s law of the behavior of gases seemed to support obviously that a divine
intelligence created and directs the universe.

In other words, a new religion, a natural religion, which deduced the existence of God from the laws
of nature and the structure of the universe, from the whole creation, came into existence. And it is called
Deism. The human mind for Deists was equally valued because. it was human mind who discovered these
immutable laws of nature and proved the existence of God. For Deists God did no more than design and
start the universe; but He never interfered with its running. The point is that the Deists no longer believed
in miracles or the divinity of Christ and divine justice.

This brought a very different view of the place of man in the universe, the original sin, the
miraculous structure of the universe (the great chain of being) the goodness and the need of salvation in
the next world, all these beliefs were shattered.

Men wanted to be happy here on this earth, which means enough good food and drink, comfortable
lodging, agreeable sex life, and pleasant family life and so on. So, the emphasis shifted from religious to
secular truth. Hence, the concept of reality was based on visible consequences.

However, it was still general and static because of the belief that general natural laws will be true
for all men, at all times, everywhere. It was believed that the truth of human nature lay not in
idiosyncrasies (oddities, peculiarities) but in common humanity. Human nature is ever the same and the
general natural laws were applicable to solutions of the problems of state, family, and society.

Yet Modern Realism claims that the discovery of truth was an individual process independent of
tradition and past thought and achieved through the senses which had its basis in Descartes and Locke.
Descartes's greatness was that the pursuit of truth is conceived of a wholly individual matter, independent
of tradition and past thought although his method is deductive. In other words, the individual is able to
perceive the universal, the general through rational thinking, which is also an individual process.
Deduction for Descartes is an operation by which we have insight into something which follows necessarily
from other things that are known with certainty.
 18th Century Context and Novel 10

Both Descartes and Locke rejected universals and emphasized particulars that is individual
experience. According to Locke, experience could be achieved through the combination of visible and
mental realities, sensation and reflection (introspection)

Thus, for Locke, all the facts we know and the ideas we have in our mind come through senses. Yet,
they provide truth only if they conform to an outside reality. So as is seen, Modern Realism, especially
Locke with his stress upon sensation and individual introspection brought the concept of private individual
experience. Individual experience was also a means to build complex and general ideas, viz. both
Descartes and Locke emphasized individual experience.

Observing many particular objects with certain characteristics in common or of a certain class an
abstract of general idea of the characteristic or the class could be formed. Therefore, even general truths
were reached through individual experience free from any traditional or religious thinking.

In other words, the facts which we deal with, are to be discovered through the combination of
introspection and empirical observation and experience, which means the inner and outer realities are
combined. They are interactive. Although the goal was the determining of outer reality, they were never
treated separately, because inner reality was dependent on outer reality. Therefore, this way of thinking
led to the belief in particular truth depending on individual observation.

Now, even the permanent features of human nature had to be adapted to various aspects of
contemporary everyday life. And since the aim was to reflect human nature and experience in all its
aspects, the classical tragedies and epic and romance which reflect the lives of the aristocrats could not
reflect human nature and experience completely.

The novel is a realistic prose fiction in which individual experience is reflected through its
characters. The word realistic indicates relevance to real life as opposed to Romance which indicates an
imaginary world of escapism and wishful thinking and unrealistic stories of beautiful women and gallant
men. Arnold Kettle defines the form as "a realistic prose fiction, complete in itself and of a certain length”.
The form deals with the actual problems and values of real life.

Time was particularized in novel, because it became an important factor in human relationships, it
was something that changed men. The characters change in the course of time, because they experience
different relationships-and they usually suffer. In previous ages, stories were timeless or it was not
important, because those works reflected the general, unchanging moral values and universals.

The medieval romance and allegory and epic and their descendants in the 16th and 17th centuries,
reflect life as a battle between good and evil .They are full of didactic and moral elements in which
characters are types or concepts who are either entirely black or white and far removed from the
complexity of human behavior.

Truth in such a world is general and moral even religious, but in the world of the novel truth is
based on perceivable externals which are grasped through individual experience. Therefore, truth is
dependent upon visible facts and the personal reactions of the individual towards them.

Thus, an individual's inner life is his subjective reactions to his outer life which means a continuous
interaction between one's inner and outer lives. This attitude is reflected in the works of the novelists such
as Defoe, Richardson, and Austen. Defoe's works were the recordings of actual experience: e.g., Robinson
Crusoe was a realistic picture of the situation of the lonely, middle-class man including his psychological
moods, his despair, his hopes, his practical attitude. In Samuel Richardson's works the private life of his
characters is rendered through epistolary method. Roth their domestic and private experience are
presented. We enter inside their minds as well as inside their houses.

Epic Theory And The Novel: Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews

Critics are divided into two groups about the novel as a genre; some consider novel essentially a
continuation of a very old and honored tradition, that is to say. epic and romance. Such critics even go
further and regard the novel as a manifestation of the spirit of epic under the impact of a modem concept
of reality.

Yet, epic and novel are two different genres, each have its own characteristics: the epic, after all, an
oral and poetic genre dealing with the public and usually remarkable deeds of historical or legendary
persons engaged in a collective rather than an individual enterprise: whereas novel deals with the
individual’s personal experiences in particularized time and setting.

For some novelists like Defoe and Richardson classics, especially epic is based on tradition and
fantasy. Therefore, they were not esteemed by them. Defoe undermines the prestige of classical literature
thinking that there is no moralist among the Greeks. He writes that the siege of Troy was all for the
‘Rescue of a whore’. Defoe was a lover of facts (e.g., Crusoe) whereas Homer’s epic or epic which is based
on traditional legendary stories, obviously had serious limitations as did oral tradition in general. Defoe
argued that classical epic writers turned History into Fable and Romance, they distorted facts. Therefore,
Homer’s works are irreplaceable historical documents. We scarce know whether there is the siege of Troy
or it is a Fable of Ballad Singer to get penny. What Defoe hates about Greek civilisation is the
superstitiousness of the Greeks, their immoral idolatry.

As for Richardson, he also hates the epic. His main antipathy to the heroic genre was based on the
manners and morals which it exhibited. He hates the epic because such works reflect the spirit of cruelty.
For him, they are inflamers of the worst passions They propagate false honors, false glory and false
religion For him, the epic’s false code of honor, like that of heroic tragedy was too masculine, aristocratic
and pagan: For Richardson, honor is internal, spiritual and available without distinction of class or sex who
wish to act accordingly.

Both Defoe’s and Richardson’s novels reflect the Christian and moral middle-class morals which is
contrary to the scandalous sexual relationships of characters especially incest and extr emely violent and
bloody scenes and exaggerated bravery.

Unlike Defoe and Richardson, Fielding favored the classics very much. For him, an author should
first understand Aristotle, Horace and Longinus in their original language. Fielding apparently reflected the
I8'1' century attitude in any imitation of human life: Classics should be followed it was them who reflected
human nature best. In his preface to Joseph Andrews, he says that he is engaged in developing his ideas of
the ludicrous and his work is going to be comic. A comic epic poem in prose.
 18th Century Context and Novel 12

a) Heroic thoughts, heroic persons and sublime thoughts had no place in Joseph Andrews and Tom
Jones.

b) Yet, epic diction is used in burlesque form. Burlesque: like parody, or a kind of parody designed to
ridicule by handling either an elevated subject in a trivial manner or a low subject with dignity often
for satiric purposes.

c) Plot is invented.

d) Comic characters (like Partridge. Squire. Mr. Western) could hardly be allowed to perform heroic
acts.

e) Like an epic, the book represents a sweeping panorama of a whole society-, as opposed to
Richardson's detailed picture of a very small social group. It can be said that some general features
of the epic plot were retained while the content is altered.

f) Fielding transposed characteristic features of the epic plot into a comic context; that is to say. his
use of surprise, and his introduction of mock-heroic battles. Mock-epic: (mock-heroic) A work in
which a trivial subject is made ridiculous by being treated with the elaborate and dignified devices of
the epic.

It was generally agreed in Neo-Classical theory that the action of epic was characterized by two elements:
verisimilitude and the marvellous, that is to say, credible and surprising.

In book VIII of Tom Jones the introductory chapter deals with this matter. Fielding defends that the
novelist should keep within the limits not only of possibility, but of probability since he deals in private
character, and everyday life. Thus, his emphasis was on verisimilitude and credibility.

For him, the great art of poetry is to mix truth with fiction in order to join the credible with the
surprising. He also admits that the classics should have employed supernatural agents as little as possible.
This mixture of surprising and credible means, events through credible should not be altogether ordinary,
common or vulgar such as may happen in every street, or in every house.

By surprising (marvelous). Fielding is referring primarily to the series of coincidences whereby Tom
fortunately meets the beggar who has picked up Sophia’s pocket-book, the hero and the heroine
(continually) cross each other’s path on their journey to London (without ever meeting). Mr. Western came
right at the moment when Lord Fellamar was about to rape her, Bilfil and Thwackum saw Tom when he
retired into bushes with Molly or Tom and Sophia met unknowingly for Sophia came home early because
she didn’t like the play. etc. or Tom’s finding the square in Molly’s bedroom. Tom's meeting Mr. Fitzpatrick
after his visit to Mrs. Fitzpatrick and Lady Bellaston’s trick of sending Tom an invitation ticket to the
masquerade and Tom thinking that she was dancing with Mrs. Fitzpatrick, found out that it was Lady
Bellaston instead, are surprising (marvelous). All these juxtapositions of persons and events do not violate
authenticity verisimilitude so obviously as the supernatural interventions that are common in Homer or
Virgil.

The mock-heroic battles: Fielding’s most obvious imitation of the epic model in the action of his
novels: the mock-heroic battles especially Fielding’s burlesque manner, his Homerican style enables him to
maintain the comic note. The events he describes are not heroic at all. Yet they are told as if they are
heroic.

The mock-heroic style was very typical of the 18th century. This shows how far the 18th century
was from the epic world it so much admired. Fielding’s use of mock-heroic style was chiefly far
entertainment, for comic effect.

However, he always excluded parody and burlesque from his major characters because his major
intention is to confine himself strictly to nature: to reflect human nature. In his preface to Joseph Andrews.
Fielding admits that direct imitation of the epic was in opposition to the imitation of ‘nature’, especially for
the sensible reader.

Fielding’s artificial, elevated style in the description of Sophia, Fanny and his abandonment of single
and familiar style in such scenes and descriptions impaired the probability of the narrative but led to
comedy.

The title of the book was The History of Tom Jones, so Fielding like a historian and biographer
wanted to give a faithful presentation of the life of his time. Therefore, his main aim was not to imitate
epic, but he rather reflected the general influence of the neo-classical tradition on every aspect of his
work.

In 1742 the novel was as a form in grave disrepute. And it was generally considered a genre that
reflects the life of ordinary people. Thus, it was not esteemed by the aristocrats. Therefore, Fielding
probably felt that by mingling epic and romance qualities with novel he can enlist (obtain) the prestige of
epic which might help him to earn money.

Fielding views his characters from the sociological point of view rather than from the psychological
point of view. One of the reasons why Fielding chose the epic mode is his aim to present the society as a
whole; a vast scene with characters from every rank. He wanted to present the norms, manner and values
of the society. And epic form is the only scope which could cover this vast scene. His aim is criticism of the
society in short, man. Fielding exposes the affectations, vanities and the hypocrisy of human beings and
thinks that man is only a ridiculous creature. In short, his main objective is to show' the deficiencies of
human beings through comedy. Thus, the book is a brilliant criticism of human nature in general.
Therefore, only a classical form and way of presentation will be convenient for such an attempt. Unlike
Defoe and Richardson, Fielding, in order to expose a criticism of human nature in general, has to view the
manners, the behaviors of his characters rather than their psychology, that is to say, private, inner lives.

c) The Literature of Sensibility and Individualism

As the I7th century drew to a close, its temper became more secular in spite of the influence of Puritanism.
The Puritans emphasized on a direct relation between God and the individual soul. that is to say, there was
no mediator between individual and God. They declared that every man must decide for himself what God
intended him to have as his “calling" on earth. If he thought the constable, or the King was a sinner, the
Puritan's calling required him to oppose him irrespective of his social status. In other words, individual (no
matter who he is) was responsible from his behaviors, deeds and5 moral choices, and all individuals were
 18th Century Context and Novel 14

equal in terms of sin and sinning. The Puritan brushed a rougher, simpler division between saints or
sinners, between those who are of God’s party and those who are of Satan’s. In short, it was either black or
white, that a soul was either saved or damned. Thus, the old social hierarchy was shattered by that of an
individual seeker. In other words, individual became directly responsible from his conscience as well as his
conduct of life. The Puritanic Code of life can be summarized as follows:

a) Strict and religious, avoiding physical pleasures.

b) Plain Life (plain clothes, plain food)

c) Plain church. No mediator. The individual is responsible from his deeds and moral choices.

d) Labor is sacred. One has to work hard and earn his bread through honest ways. He should make
an honest living, that is to sav. earn his pay fairly through his own efforts and labor.

Individuation is the behavior that is quite different from anyone else’s behavior, the theory that
favors free action and complete liberty of belief for eveiy individual person.

Yet, since man was originally sinful because of the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. there was little
hope for him. except for the happy minority who are predestined to salvation, who are chosen to be saved.

On the other hand, there was a more radical analysis of human nature, and thoroughly skeptical one.
which originated in the social philosophy of the 17lh century thinker. Thomas Hobbes, in his famous work
Leviathan (1651) argued that he did not believe that human beings were guided by moral choices at all,
but that each individual followed his own self-interest. It is not an inference from religious doctrine but
based on the observation of facts about human nature.

Since 18th century was the age of moderate and rational temper, seeking proportion and harmony in
all things, both, the thought of Hobbes and morally harsh thought of Puritans about man was modified into
a hopeful one. A philosopher, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury. (1671-1713) wrote a
work, entitled Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions Time was published in 1711, which became very
influential not in Britain but also in the Continent.

Shaftesbury (Cooper) refuted Hobbes and save an alternative view of human nature to that of
Puritanism. He acknowledged that man is a bundle of appetites and emotions, hut he argued that the
world was not a jungle of competing interests, but a work of an that proceeded from the mind of God.
Nature is thus a harmony of varied and opposing qualities and it followed that for him human nature
should be comparably balanced and harmonious. He further argued that just as human beings have an
aesthetic sense which enables them to appreciate natural beauty, so they possess a moral sense which, in
the healthy mind, impels it to seek such a balance. Such an optimistic view of man’s moral nature
emphasized that man is naturally good and that he finds his highest happiness in the exercise of virtue
and benevolence. Such a view of human nature we describe as “sentimentalism”, “wishing other persons
well” is an innate human sentiment and, motive and, that central aspect of moral experience are the
feelings of sympathy and “sensibility”. “Sensibility” also connoted on intense emotional responsiveness to
beauty and sublimity, whether in nature or in art. In short, the term “sensibility" acquired the meaning of
‘susceptibility and tender feelings’; thus, a capacity not for feeling sorry for oneself but also being able to
identify with and respond to the sorrows of others and to respond to the beautiful.

By mid-century such feelings were accepted pail of social ethics and public morality. It was a sign of
good breeding and good manners to shed a sympathetic tear for others as well as for oneself. In short,
individual’s private thoughts and feelings were emphasized, and he again became a responsible creature,
thinking the happiness and welfare of others together with his own. Sensibility declined into
Sentimentalism which fostered a benevolism that fed to social reforms, seldom carried out in earlier times,
such as the improvement of prisons, hospitals, schools, and the abolition of the slave trade.
Sentimentalism came into existence in a period called The Age of Reason, yet it became popular,
especially, in the field of drama and morel because it appealed to the sentiments of the middle-class, the
doctrine of the natural goodness of man seemed to many to suggest us and that Primitive men noble
savages who live close to nature are models of innocence and virtue. Such notions encouraged an interest
in primitive societies, e.g., Robinson Crusoe (1719).

When the sensitive heart turned inwards to contemplate itself, it became increasingly conscious of its
own melancholy. This tendency was fostered by the religious movement of the day, such as Methodism, a
religious sect which was led by John Wesley (1703-91). Basically, they were Puritans. They began to preach
to the common people the necessity of a conviction of sin and of conversion and the joy of being saved,
usually in open-air or in barns, soon, many clergymen and laymen were affected, and who as
"Evangelicals" reanimated the church and promoted unworldliness unci piety. In other words, they played
an important role, together with the American counterparts in many of the social reforms of the time.

Sentimentalism (Sentimentality) and Individualism

In the 18th century, we have a type of comedy called “sentimental comedy” which is also known as the
drama of sensibility which came as a reaction against Restoration Comedy. It came as a reaction against
the immorality of Restoration Drama. It arouse because a rising middle class enjoyed this kind of drama in
which the virtues of individual's private life are exhibited as well as the distresses rather than the frailly of
mankind in general.

The hero/heroine has a capacity not for feeling sorry for himself / herself but also for other people
too. which is utterly a personal experience, an individual matter. There was an emphasis on the
individual's private life in these plays, his emotions and his grieves. Later it gave way to sentimentalism
(today used as a pejorative term) in poetry and novel which is associated with extreme grief yet false or
superficial emotion to arouse tears and pity' on the reader. So 'sentimental comedy* through it emphasis
on. the individual’s feelings, especially ordinary individual, and his-private feelings, contributed to the
emergence of the sentimental novel which is another type of novel.

Methodism which exalted religious sentiments in devotional hymns also stressed the role of the
individual soul and of intimate revelation.

Sentimental Novel, as in Pamela (1740) and Clarissa (1747) was sometimes written (not
necessarily) in the series of letters which reflect the inner lives, private emotions of the main characters.
This type of novel which was popular in the 18thc was also called Epistolary Novel (epistle: letter). Oliver
Goldsmith’s The Vicar Of Wakefield
 18th Century Context and Novel 16

In the Sentimental Novel, despite the distresses of the virtuous, a sense of honor and moral
behavior were justly rewarded. It also attempted to show that effusive (loo emotional) emotion was
evidence. of kindness and goodness. Therefore, such novels concentrated to describe the grieves and
pains of the innocent, vet magnanimous and honorable heroes who are sensitive to the sensibilities of
other people as well. Some of them represented in addition a sensitivity to beauty and sublimity which also
expressed itself with tears, e g. Paul and Virginie by Bernardin de St. Pierre. The Sorrows of Young Werther
(1774) are the works of extravagant sensibility. After the decline of sentimentalism novel, the exploitation
of the mode of literary sensibility survives in some Victorian Melodramas and in the novels of Dickens such
as David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and Oliver Twist.