18th century Neoclassical-Augustan age.

In this period the idea of classical literature changed and became a contemporary one, which is
defined as the Age of Enlightenment or the Age of Reason, to stress the rational trend of the
period and the attitude according to which reason and judgment should be the guiding principles
for human activities.
It started with translations, theoretical essays literary texts, and then the development of a new
genre: The novels and they discovered new ways of creating newspapers and literary magazines.
One of his well-known authors is:
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731): “We can say he had a full, busy and exciting life. “
(His original name was Daniel Foe, he changed it because Defoe sounded more fashionable)
He was an English writer, journalist, and merchant born in London.
His father James Foe was a hard-working tallow Chandler, who then became a prosperous
butcher, we can say that Daniel was raised with all the commodities he could at that time and had
an excellent education because of that.
James was a non-conformist and sent Defoe to a religious university with a way better level than
any English one of that time (Even Cambridge or Oxford), Newington Green.

Daniel became an acute and intelligent economic theorist, prospering life, then in 1692 he went
bankrupt, then he married Mary Tuffley she was the daughter of a merchant, and that helped
Defoe with his labor.
They had 8 children, 6 of them survived and the other two died as newborns. ( they were married
for 47 years )
Another fact of his life:
 He started his economic career buying and selling things while traveling abroad in
Europe.
 He fought against James II and joined the army of William III.
 Daniel was on prisión because he wrote clever blankets against the church and
government.
 He worked as a spy too.
 Defoe worked in newspapers and made about 500 or more pieces. (More than any
English writter )
 Around his 60s he started writing novels.

Works:
*In 1683 he started with political pamphlets.
*He wrote The true-born englishman in 1701 which talks about the fallacies of
slavery and the racial prejudice of that era.
* in 1715 Daniel made a lot of didactics Works like The Family Instructor.
 *In 1719 he started doing fiction. In that year he wrote Robinson Crusoe, the most
famous one of him and the first novel made in that year.

Robinson Crusoe:

(This story is based on the real-life case of Alexander Selkirk who was a castaway
for 4 years in the Juan Fernandez Island.)
Robinson Crusoe is an Englishman from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the
youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe
expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his
father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself.
Crusoe is shipwrecked several times but always resolves to set out again until one trip that
procures slaves from Africa when he is shipwrecked on an island off the coast of South America,
he is the wreck´s sole human survivor and he is happy to be alive, so he started setting about
making himself as comfortable as he can in his new home with provisions rescued from the ship
before it sinks and survival tactics honed during previous voyages.
The novel talks about their daily routine of Robinson on the island, his difficulties acquiring food,
and how he begins to read the scripture and find solace in Christianity.
Crusoe spots a human footprint, not his own, on the sand; it turns out to belong to a cannibal
group who sometimes come to the island to kill and eat prisoners they have captured at sea.
The years pass and one day one of the prisoners they have captured escapes and becomes
Crusoe´s friend and attendant, naming him “Friday”, he teaches him English and Christianity.
After 27 years on the island, Crusoe is unable to negotiate passage on an English ship which
stops by. He returns home and finds out that his family is dead, and he continues his life and
travels as a colonial trader.

Modern literature: (Late 19th to middle 20th)

 Characteristics: The writers used the literature as an act of rebelión against the norms,
they refused to conform to the rules anymore.
 They found new ways to convey ideas and new forms of exposing themselves.
 Industrial Revolution: It didn´t change only the way of manufacturing.
 They broke all the norms of the craft.
 Modernism: Psychological movement, The Great Depression, and origin of
psychoanalysis.
 Individualism: Experimentation and absurdity.

Virginia Woolf:(Adeline Virginia Stephen) London England, born on 25 June 1882 was an
English writer who wrote several novels, poems, politician essays, artistic essays based
on art theory, literary history, biographies, and short fiction.
She is also well known for being a feminist icon and Pioneer of women writing about
politics of power, being also a vindicator of the role of women in society.
Raised in Kensington in that period boys went to school and girls didn´t, but she and her
sisters learned through homeschool surrounded by writers and artists.

HER FAMILY:
Father: Leslie Stephen, was a novelist and historian, and her mother Julia Jackson was a
model of the first painters and photographers, her sister, Virginia´s aunt was one of the
first well-known ones.
They were widows and had children from their last marriage, her father one and her
mother 3.
They had 4 children together including Virginia, 2 older than her and one younger,
Vanessa was her favorite and the closer with her.
About her childhood memories, she loved their camp house in England, Cornwall,
because of the sights, landscapes, beach, and especially the lighthouse that was an
inspiration for her novels.
MENTAL STATE:
Her life was marked by depression, the first one at 13 years old when her mother died of
a heart stroke or attack, and her sister Stella who was by then the “housewife” married
and ended up dying in her honeymoon of peritonitis.
She and her sister were molested constantly by their middle brothers George and Gerald
and then she developed a bipolar state characterized by humour changes.
Then she had a second crisis and her siblings decided to sell the family´s house in Hyde
Park and move to a residential neighborhood of Bloomsbury.
Another thing that truly affected her was her business failure at the end of her career
when she wrote a biography of one of her Friends.
And also the second war irrigation when her house was bombarded.
LOVE LIFE:
She met her husband Leonard Woolf at the University of Cambridge, London, he was
from a wealthy modest family, a politician and writter.
In 1917 they founded an editorial called Hogarth Press where writers like T.S Elliot and
Sigmund Freud made Works.
She strongly believed in polyamory (non-monogamic relationships), In her 40s she met
Vita Sackville-West an editor and designer of gardens, they were Friends and lovers, and
Virginia wrote Orlando: a biography, about her.

On 28 March 1941, she put her coat full of stones and jumped into a river near her
house, her body was found in a month's nest and her husband asked to incinerate and
bury her remains under a tree in the English countryside.

° As a personal opinion, I think her life was interesting and Frida Khalo reminds me a lot
of her because of her feminist Works, ways of seeing the world, and depression, both
were polyamorous and worked with radical politicians °

[Link]: is a modernist novel first published in 1925 about love, identity, and the
impact of the past on the present.
It tells the story of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway, a high-society woman in post-
world I, England.
It talks about her inner thoughts and motivation, she is the central character of the novel
who is married to Richard Dalloway, a politician, she is thoughtful and introspective while
preparing a party she is hosting that evening.
Throughout the day, she reflects on her past and the choices she has made in her life.
Her husband is supportive but also distant and emotionally reserved, he is preoccupied
with his political career and is not as introspective as his wife.
She meets Peter Walsh, an old suitor and friend, who has always judged her harshly.
They discuss their past, including Clarissa's refusal to marry Peter. The story then shifts
to Septimus, a World War I veteran suffering from shell shock and suicidal thoughts.
Richard Dalloway, a high society member, eats lunch with Lady Bruton and writes a letter
to the Times. Clarissa realizes the void between people and her marriage but finds it
disturbing that Richard doesn't know everything about her. She sees Elizabeth and her
history teacher, Miss Kilman, shopping, and they both despise each other. Septimus is
taken to an asylum, and he jumps from a window to his death. Peter hears the
ambulance pick up Septimus's body and visits Clarissa's party, where she feels
dissatisfied with her role and Peter's critical eye. The social order is changing, but
Elizabeth and the members of the party still have dreams.