Neoclassicism
aka
The Age of Reason
The Enlightenment
Definition
Neoclassicism is a literary movement of the
17th and 18th centuries that stressed the
importance of using ancient Greek and
Roman (the Classical period) literature as a
guide for creation and criticism.
Hence, there is the paradox of the term:
“neo,” meaning “new” and classicism,
meaning “oldness.”
The Pendulum of Western
Literature
Literature in the Western world can be thought of
as swinging back and forth between two artistic
ideals: classicism, which stresses following
tradition and the rules derived thereof, and anticlassicism (or romanticism), which stresses
originality and breaking tradition.
The Neoclassical period of the 17th and 18th
centuries was a particularly strong classical
period. It would, in turn, be followed by a
particularly strong Romantic period in the latter
18th and early 19th century.
Aesthetics of Identity vs.
Aesthetics of Opposition
This pendulum swing can also be thought in terms of the
aesthetics of identity versus the aesthetics of opposition.
Aesthetics is the study of beauty; in this case, beauty in
literature
The aesthetics of identity says that we find beauty in the
familiar; we like art that is like what we have seen before.
Thus, classicism is an aesthetics of identity.
The aesthetics of opposition says that we find beauty in
that which is new and different. That is the creed of the
romantic artist.
Basic Characteristics of
Neoclassicism
Imitation of the ancients
Aesthetics of identity
Rules for all art forms
Literature as an art/craft
Importance of reason
Concern about pride
Universal nature of humanity
Perfectibility of humanity
1 -- Reverence and Imitation of
the Ancients
The explanation of that paradox can be found in
the first important characteristic of neoclassicism.
It found its artistic models in the classical
literature of the ancient Greek and Roman writers
like Homer, Virgil, Horace, etc. and in the
contemporary French writers such as Voltaire and
Diderot. It put the stress on the classical artistic
ideal of order, logic, proportion, restrained
emotion, accuracy, good taste, and decorum.
Who were those authors again?
 Homer: Greek epic poet: the Iliad and the Odyssey
 Virgil: Roman poet. His greatest work is the epic poem Aeneid, which
tells of the wanderings of Aeneas after the sack of Troy
 Horace: Roman lyric poet. His Odes and Satires have exerted a major
influence on English poetry.
 Voltaire : French philosopher and writer whose works epitomize the
Age of Enlightenment, often attacking injustice and intolerance. He
wrote Candide (1759) and the Philosophical Dictionary (1764).
Diderot: French philosopher and writer whose supreme
accomplishment was his work on the Encyclopédie (1751-1772),
which epitomized the spirit of Enlightenment thought. He also wrote
novels, plays, critical essays, and brilliant letters to a wide circle of
friends and colleagues.
Reverence and Imitation of the
Ancients
They believed that writers should strive to
achieve excellence by imitating those great
writers of the past, not by trying to be
original or innovative.
Thus, art is rediscovery, reinvention, and
imitation.
The Neoclassical Era is actually divided into
three ages:
1660-1700 is the Age of Dryden
This 40 year period is also called the Restoration b/c
Charles II has been restored to the crown
John Dryden is especially known for satirical poems. They
included unflattering portraits of real people of his time
and used lofty, heroic language, so they’re called mock
heroic or mock epic poems.
He was the poet laureate and wrote several celebratory
poems for royal and other public events.
More on the Age of Dryden…
Prose is the dominant style which flourished during this
time, so lots of authors were writing essays. Dryden’s
series of essays about drama laid the foundation for British
literary criticism. These, along with his translations of
Plutarch and other prose compositions, represent what
many literary historians consider the first modern prose;
they are clear, plain, direct, and colloquial in tone.
One of the most famous prose works of the time was
Samuel Pepys’ (peeps!) journal which began in 1660 and
covered the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of London.
(They ask about this guy a lot on Jeopardy.)
The Age of Pope and Swift
Early 1700’s to 1744ish
Major Political people and parties:
o Queen Anne (who makes a rather unflattering guest
appearance in Gulliver’s Travels)
o Two parties: the liberal Whigs and the conservative Tories
came into being. However another party also existed, the
Jacobites, who aimed to bring the Stuarts back to the
throne.
o George I and his government also play a major role in GT,
especially in book I, where many allegorical characters
appear.
More in the Pope and Swift Era
 Famous stylistic elements: wit, aphorisms, epigrams,
antithesis, rhyming couplets, great fondness for satire
 First literary periodicals appear: The Tatler, The Spectator.
Written by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele (famous
names!), these one-page papers included crisply written
reflective essays and news. The essays quickly became
models for other prose writers
 First English novel published: Robinson Crusoe by Daniel
Defoe in 1719
 That novel led the way to other types of novels such as…
Types of Novels
 Gothic novel: the novel which exploits the possibilities of
mystery and terror in gloomy landscapes, decaying
mansions with dark dungeons, secret passages, instruments
of torture, ghostly visitations ghostly music behind which
lurks no one knows what as the central story, the
persecution of a beautiful maiden by an obsessed and
haggard villain. The real originator of English Gothic
novel was Horace Walpole, with his famous Castle of
Otranto (1764) .
• These novels, which rebel against the increasing
commercialism and rationalism of the era, opened up to
later fiction the dark, irrational side of human nature.
More Types of Novels
Epistolary novel: a type of novel in which
the narrative is carried on through a series
of letters. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela
(1740) and Clarissa Harlowe (1748) are
among the best known epistolary novels.
These can be classified into two kinds: the
monologue epistolary novel and the
dialogue epistolary novel
The Age of Johnson
1744ish to 1798
Alexander Pope died in 1744 and Swift in 1745, so the
dominant figure of the next generation was Samuel
Johnson, who wrote poetry, literary criticism, and a novel,
but what he’s known for is writing a dictionary.
Yes, a dictionary: Dictionary of the English Language, in
1755. His definitions are amusing and witty.
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly
a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
Hatchet-face: An ugly face; such, I suppose, as might be hewn
out of a block by a hatchet.
Age of Johnson
Another big name of the era is James Boswell because he is
known for writing the biography of Dr. Samuel Johnson. It
gives a vivid portrait not only of Johnson but of life in London
in the 1700’s.
Though the other slide had epistolary novels on it (b/c I was
doing this whole novels section), Pamela and Clarissa were
actually of this era. They were written by Samuel Richardson.
Authors to know in case you’re on Jeopardy and the category is
The Age of Reason: Henry Fielding, who wrote Tom Jones, and
Lawrence Sterne, who wrote Tristram Shandy, which I don’t
recommend unless you like experimental novels that get carried
away with their own wittiness.
The Transition of an Era: the
PreRomantics
The pendulum begins its major swing to the other side…some of this
began around 1750, when Britain was launched on a course of rapid
industrialization w/the development of mills and factories belching
filth into the sky…families start moving to the cities and toil at
machines for 12-14 hours a day…
Writers and intellectuals began to lose faith in the ability of human
reason to solve every problem. The thinkers in this Age had looked to
science to make life better for humanity (see G. Travels, book 3), yet at
what cost comes this “progress”?
William Blake, Thomas Gray, and Robert Burns are the poets who
exemplify the transition from the formal, classical poetic styles of the
early 18th century to the more emotional manner of the romantic era.
End of the ♫