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Defoe and Swift: Rise of the Novel

This document discusses the rise of the novel in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in England. It provides historical context around this period known as the Restoration Period and Augustan Period. It highlights Daniel Defoe as the "father of the English novel" for his pioneering work Robinson Crusoe in 1719, which was one of the first full-length prose fiction works and applied techniques of journalism. It also discusses Jonathan Swift's innovations with satire and irony in works like Gulliver's Travels, which was a comprehensive satire that also became a children's classic. Overall, the document examines how new genres like novels emerged from earlier forms like journals and pamphlets during this Age of Reason in England

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Alizaa Sahar
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76 views18 pages

Defoe and Swift: Rise of the Novel

This document discusses the rise of the novel in the late 17th and early 18th centuries in England. It provides historical context around this period known as the Restoration Period and Augustan Period. It highlights Daniel Defoe as the "father of the English novel" for his pioneering work Robinson Crusoe in 1719, which was one of the first full-length prose fiction works and applied techniques of journalism. It also discusses Jonathan Swift's innovations with satire and irony in works like Gulliver's Travels, which was a comprehensive satire that also became a children's classic. Overall, the document examines how new genres like novels emerged from earlier forms like journals and pamphlets during this Age of Reason in England

Uploaded by

Alizaa Sahar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The Rise of the Novel

Defoe and Swift


Dates
• 1660: Restoration of Charles II
• 1666: the Great Fire of London
• 1685: accession of James II
• 1688-89: the Glorious Revolution; accession of William of
Orange
• 1700: death of John Dryden
• 1707: the Act of Union
• 1715: the first Jacobite uprising
• 1702-14: reign of Queen Anne
• 1721-42: Sir Robert Walpole Prime Minister
• 1745: the second Jacobite uprising
• 1789: the French Revolution
Literary Periods
• 1660-1700:
Literary Periods
• 1660-1700: the Restoration Period (the
Age of Dryden)
• 1700-1745:
Literary Periods
• 1660-1700: the Restoration Period (the
Age of Dryden)
• 1700-1745: the Augustan Period (the Age
of Pope and Swift)
• 1745-1798:
Literary Periods
• 1660-1700: the Restoration Period (the
Age of Dryden)
• 1700-1745: the Augustan Period (the Age
of Pope and Swift)
• 1745-1798: the Age of Sensibility (the Age
of Dr Johnson)
• Restoration Period+Augustan Period: the
Age of Reason
Cultural Background
• The Age of Enlightenment: value of
reason, fear of unreason, hatred of
pedantry
• Neoclassicism: Augustan Period
• Restoration Period: forerunners of
Neoclassicism (Dryden)
New Genres
• Drama:
– Heroic plays (Dryden, All for Love, 1677)
– Comedies of manners (Congreve, The Way of
the World, 1700)
• Poetry:
– Heroic couplet (Dryden, Absalom and
Achitophel, 1681)
Neoclassicist Poetics
• Imitation of nature:
– ‘landscape’ (Dryden)
– ‘Human nature’ (Pope)
– ‘universal truths’ (Dr Johnson)
• Imitation of Classical literature:
– Perfect imitations of nature
– Craftmanship
– Codification of rules in literature
The Augustan Period
• The Age of Swift, Pope, Addison, Walpole
• Expansion of reading public
– New journalism
– Professional writers and booksellers
New genres
• Sentimental comedy: Gay, The Beggar’s
Opera (1728)
• Mock heroic: Swift, Battle of the Books
(1697, 1704); Pope, The Rape of the Lock
(1712, 1714)
• Landscape poems: Thomson, Winter
(1726)
• Novel: Defoe, Robinson Crusoe (1719)
The Antecedents of the Novel
• Newspapers: Grub Street, ‘scribblers’, gossips,
reports
• Journals: best writers, didacticism, model for
taste, education of middle classes; Steele and
Addison, Tatler and Spectator (1709-11, 1711-
12)
• Pamphlets and satires: political, occasional,
ridicule
• Other: essays, travelogues, biographies, letters
Swift’s pamphlets and satires
• ‘A Modest Proposal’ (1729): political,
against Walpole, mask of indifference,
savage indignation, ‘reductio ad
absurdum’; misanthropy
• Battle of the Books (1697, 1704):
occasional, Sir William Temple, mock
heroic in prose; ancients (new ancients) V
moderns; the bee and the spider
Defoe’s innovations
• Reportage: keen eye for the detail
• Narrative realism
• Fictitious events against a realistic
background
• ‘the father of the English novel’
Robinson Crusoe (1719)
• The first full-length prose fiction, the first
English popular novel
• Application of journalism
• World view of middle classes
Swift’s innovations
• A master of irony, satire, a moralist
• Belief in reason but misanthropy: ‘I hate
and detest that animal called man, although
I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so
forth.’
• Man is not a reational being but is capable
of reason
Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
• Genre: fictitious travelogue, in matter of
fact style
• Other: dystopia, utopia, satire, mock
heroic, romance, allegory
• Paradox: most comprehensive satire and
children’s classic
• Development of Gulliver’s character: from
irony to bitter satire
Further reading
• Róna Éva, A XVIII. század angol irodalma
(Bp.: Tankönyvkiadó, 1992)

. . .

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