Intro to literature 9

1. NiNth MeetiNg – eighteeNth-CeNtURYNiNth MeetiNg – eighteeNth-CeNtURY
PROSePROSe
Notable 18th
Century Writers and their works:
Typical work on literature: change from strange
plots and ideas of heroic tragedy to reasonable
ones.
Daniel Defoe
• Journal of the Plague Year (1722): a description of
the Great Plague of London.
• Robinson Crusoe (1719): based on a real event
of Alexander Selkirk, about a man living alone in a
deserted island.

3. • The Tatler: a paper of essays on various subjects.
Richard Steele and Joseph Addison
(their personalities reflected from their works: Steele is
warm and friendly, Addison is calm, learned and against
violence.)
• The Spectator: the more famous paper,
introducing the actions of imaginary characters,
such as the famous Sir Roger de Coverley.

4. • The Battle of the Books (1704): an argument about
the abilities between the books of the ancient and of
the modern (on the side of the ancients)
Jonathan Swift (a bitter satirist)
• Tale of a Tub (1704): a satire attacking religious
ideas, annoying many readers.
• A Modest Proposal (1729): a satire accepting
evils and showing the extreme results (e.g: the
poor selling their children to the rich for food).

5. Jonathan Swift
• Gulliver’s Travel (1726): a four books satire. The first
two are popular with the young. They tell the story of
Gulliver’s voyage to Lilliput and Brobdingnag. The
Lilliputians wars in the story are actually the satire of
English wars.
Dr Samuel Johnson
(famous for his quoted words)
• Dictionary (1755) : a dictionary of English, greatest
until the completion of Oxford English Dictionary 150
years later..
• Lives of the Poets (1779-81)

7. Dr Samuel Johnson
• Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759) : a kind of novel
with many essays on various subjects, about Rasselas,
his sister Nekayah, and the philosopher Imlac going to
Egypt to study.
Notes: Johnson wrote Rasselas in only one
week to pay for his mother’s funeral.

8. James Boswell
• Life of Johnson (1791): the greatest biography of
English, about Dr Samuel Johnson and his famous words.
A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich.
There is now less flogging in our great school
than formerly, but then less is learned there; so
that what the boys get at one end they lose at
the other.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

9. Edward Gibbon
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1764-
88): six books in total, recognized as the greatest
accurate historical work in English literature.
Edmund Burke
(a lawyer and a member of Parliament)
• Speech on American Taxation (1774)
• Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
• Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)
• Reflection on the French Revolution (1790)

10. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
She wrote from Turkey, describing events in the
country, and discovering as well as introducing the way
to prevent smallpox to England.
Earl of Chesterfield IV
He was famous for his letters of advice to his son and
his correspondence to Dr Samuel Johnson.
Notable English Letter Writers

11. Notable English Novel Proper Writers:
Samuel Richardson
• Pamela (1740): written in a form of serial letters
about Pamela Andrews, a good girl who receives the
reward of virtue.
Note: The ladies at that time were excited because they
can read a story of common English girl, and no longer
of far-away princesses.

12. Samuel Richardson
• Clarisse Harlowe (1747-8): Richardson’s best work, a
very long tragic novel about a girl forced by his father
to marry against her will.
• Joseph Andrews (1742): started as a kind of satire on
Pamela, talking about Joseph Andrews, Pamela’s
brother, but in the end it mainly talked about a cheerful
priest, Parson Adams.
Henry Fielding

13. • Tom Jones (1749): Fielding’s greatest novel, in 18
books, each had an essay before it. It is about a boy’s
experience of being raised with kindness, falling in love,
being driven out of the house, having adventure in
London, and meeting his love again.
Henry Fielding
• The History of Jonathan Wild the Great (1743): a
satire about a real criminal, Wild, who stole a lot of
money, was found guilty, and was put to death in 1725.

14. Tobias Smollet
• Roderick Random (1748): a picaresque novel about
the lives of those who sail the seas.
• Peregrine Pickle (1751): about an unpleasant hero
who travels and fights a lot. A notable character here is
Trunnion, a seaman with bad language but heart of
gold.
• Humphrey Clinker (1771): less violent and in a form
of letters. It is about the Bramble family’s travels
through England and Scotland.

15. Laurence Sterne
(known for confusing stories and his dislike of order)
• Tristram Shandy (1760-7)
Notes: The hero is born after the half of the story.
Sterne leaves the story and gives opinions and essays
on any subject whenever he likes.
• A Sentimental Journey through France and
Italy (1768): not as confusing and in better
prose, but still strange.

16. Oliver Goldsmith
• The Vicar of Wakefield (1761-2): a novel about a
good and virtuous family which has great misfortunes
but it has a happy ending.
• The Castle of Otranto (1764): a horror novel about
12th
and 13th
centuries impossible story, e.g. the
destruction of a building by a huge ghost inside it.
Horace Walpole
Note: it is written partly as a joke.

17. William Beckford
• Vathek(1761-2): a horror novel about Vathek who
became the servant of Eblis, the devil and travelled to
the underworld.
• The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794): a horror novel in
the Appenine Mountains whereas the protagonist
Emily is held in a castle by her aunt’s evil husband.
Mrs Ann Radcliffe
Note: it is her greatest novel.

18. See You next week!