England in the 18th Century

The Stuarts(originally from Scotland)

                                         

House ofHanover

“Bonnie PrinceCharlie”

The Glorious Revolution: 1689

William III and Mary II(r. 1689-1702) (r. 1689-94)

Portrait of William III by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-1723)© Royal Collection

Portrait of Mary II by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-1723). © Royal Collection

Queen Anner. 1702-1714last Stuart monarch

Portrait of Anne by Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646?-

1723).

The House of Hanover(imported from Germany)

George Ir. 1714-27

George I by Georg Wilhelm Lafontaine (1680-1745)© Royal Collection

George IIr.1720-69

George II by Sir Godfrey Kneller© Royal Collection

George III, r. 1760-1820

George III, portrait by Johann Zoffany (1733/4-1810)© Royal Collection

A CLASS SOCIETY

• The Aristocracy• Professionals

• Scientists

• Physicians

• Attorneys

• Clergy

• Literati

• Military Officers

• Merchants and Bankers• Tradespeople• Working Class

• Domestic Servants• Hired labor• Apprentices• The Unemployed: debtors,

beggars,thieves

• Peasants

ENLIGHTENMENTThe Scientific

Revolution

• Emphasis on experimentation and inductive reasoning

• Scientific Method• New methods of

observation: the microscope and the telescope

• 1662: Charles I chartered the Royal Society of London for the Improving of Natural Knowledge

• Natural Religion: DeismA clockwork universe with a watchmaker God

A replica of Isaac Newton's telescope of 1672.

Sir Isaac Newton

1643-1727

• Mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, and natural philosopher

• Developed calculus contemporaneously but separately from Liebniz

• Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica: described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion

• Opticks: discovered that light was composed of particles

• Master of the Mint: moved English coinage to the gold standard

Godfrey Kneller's Sir Isaac Newton at 46

Early Feminists

• A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest (1694)

• Some Reflections on Marriage (1700)

• Advocated equal education for women

• Questioned the value of marriage for women in a patriarchal society

• Poet, prodigious letter writer, world traveller

• Advocate for smallpox vaccination

• Carried on poetic debate with Alexander Pope

• Court Poems, 1716

• Letters from Turkey, 1763

• Shared Astell’s opinions on education and marriage

Mary Astell1666-1731

Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu1689-1762

The City of London

Brawling peasants at Tyburn Gate, London. The Warder

Collection. MORNING

city bustle

Peddlar hawking tarts. The Warder Collection.

Large movements of peoplefrom the country to the cities.Shift from agrarian to urbanlifestyles.

Engraving and

etching by

William Hogarth. The Art Institute

of

Chicago.

foreign violinist

ballad-monger

baby with rattle

peeing boy

oboist

drumming child

milkmaid

paver

dustman

knife-grinder

sow-gelder

fish-monger

screeching parrot

barking dog

howling cats

churchbells

cry of chimney sweep

London

Cries

Gin Lane (1751). Etching and Engraving by William Hogarth.

The New York Public Library.

Poverty and Unemploym

ent• Displaced agrarian

labor

• No social safety net

• Education only for the elite

• Child labor

• Cheap gin

Prose Fiction: Daniel Defoe (1660-

1731)• Master of plain prose and

powerful narrative• Reportial: highly

realistic detail• Robinson Crusoe• Journal of the Plague

Year• Moll Flanders• Roxana

A London coffeehouse. The British Museum

AFTERNOON

Coffee and News

Periodicals and Newpapers

Addison and SteeleThe Spectator

Periodical EssaysLiterary CriticismCharacter SketchesPolitical DiscussionPhilosophical Ideas

A London coffeehouse. The British Museum

Commerce

The Royal Exchange. Engraving by Bartolozzi. The British Library

The Rise of the Middle Class

Increased LiteracyLeisure Time

International TradeEmpire Building

London ladies shopping for fabric. From Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts (1800).

ShoppingLeisure time nurtured middle class women’s interest in fashion,

society, the arts and even literature.

Vauxhall Gardens (1784). A drawing by Thomas Rowlandson.

Victoria and Albert Royal Museum.

Samuel Johnson

James Boswell Hester Thrale

Oliver Goldsmith

Duchess of Devonshire Mary “Perdita” Robinson

Prince of Wales

Society Large public gatherings were the

fashionable places to see and be seen in society.

Social Satire

• Alexander Pope• Mock epic: “The Rape of

the Lock”

• Poetic Satire: “The Dunciad

• Jonathan Swift• Satiric Essay: “A Modest

Proposal”

• Satiric Fiction: Gulliver’s Travels

J. S. Muller after Samuel Wale, A General Prospect of Vaux Hall Gardens Shewing at one View the disposition of the whole Gardens

(after 1751).

ARTIFICE

ARTIFICEThe Augustan Age

• Art as an improvement upon nature• Neo-classical ideals: balance,

harmony, reason• Formal Gardens• Landscape painting• Rise of literary criticism • Major poetic forms:

• Heroic couplets: rhymed iambic pentameter

• Epic and mock epic• Poetic essay• Occasional poems

John Dryden1631-1700

Thomas Gainsborough,

Heneage Lloyd and his sister, c.1750

The Rise of the Novel

• Samuel Richardson’s Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740)• Epistolary

• Realistic detail

• Morality tale

• Servant resisting seduction by her employer

• Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749)• Picaresque protagonist• “comic epic in prose”• Parody of Richardson• First to acknowledge the novel as

pure fiction• Wide range of social classes

Epistolary Novels• Novels in which the narrative is

told in letters by one or more of the characters

• Allows author to present feelings and reactions of characters, brings immediacy to the plot, allows multiple points of view

• Psychological realism• Contemporary epistolary novels:

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple; Nick Bantock’s Griffin and Sabine; Kalisha Buckhanon, Upstate

Jean-Baptiste Greuze,The Letter Writer

Picaresque Novels• Derives from Spanish picaro: a

rogue• A usually autobiographical

chronicle of a rascal’s travels and adventures as s/he makes his/her way through the world more by wits than industry

• Episodic, loose structure• Highly realistic: detailed description

and uninhibited expression• Satire of social classes• Contemporary picaresques: Saul

Bellow’s Adventures of Augie March; Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

The Laughing Audience (1733). Etching and engraving by William Hogarth. The New York Public Library

EVENING

Entertainment

TheatreOpera

Symphony

Restoration and 18th C. Theatre

Theatres reopened with restoration of Charles II

French influence:ActressesHeroic

coupletsNeoclassical

modes:Social

comediesHeroic

tragedies

17th C. Comedy of Manners Witty--language

driven Satirical of social

mores Risque Marriage and

money 18th C. Comedy of

Sentiment Marriage and

money Moralistic in tone Controlled by

censors

Ladies at the opera from Gallery of Fashion (1796).

England’s first professional female

author:Aphra Behn1640?-1689 Novelist

Venice Preserv'd The History of the

Nun Love Letters between

a Nobleman and his sister (1684)

The Fair Jilt (1688) Oroonoko (c.1688) The Unfortunate

Happy Lady: A True History

Playwright The Forced Marriage

(1670) The Amorous Prince

(1671) Abdelazar (1676) The Rover (1677-81) The Feign'd

Curtezans (1679) The City Heiress

(1682) The Lucky Chance

(1686) The Lover's Watch

(1686) The Emperor of the

Moon (1687) Lycidus (1688)

Painting of the interior of the Drury Lane Theater.

Thomas Rowlandson. The British Library.

The Advent of the Female Professional

Writer

“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them

the right to speak their minds.” Virginia Woolf

Painting of the interior of the Drury Lane Theater List of Women Dramatists.

Susanna Centlivre1669-1723

Mary Pix1666-1709

Eliza Haywood1693-1756

Charlotte Charke1713-1760

Hannah More1745-1833

Elizabeth Inchbald1753-1821

Popular 17th-18th C. Dramatists

A riot mob in Covent Garden (1763). The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C

Night (1738). Etching and engraving

by William Hogarth.

Denizensof the NIGHT