There were three major events that took place in the 18th century. Theses are as follows:

1.The American revolution2.The French revolution and3.The Industrial revolution ( age of Enlightment )

From 1780 Britain was transformed by the industrial revolution. Before this time many people use to live in farms and the countryside. After the industrial revolution people started living in towns and w0rking in industries and mining.

In 1707 the act of union was passed. Scotland was united with England and Wales. England became part of great Britain.

RELIGIONIn the early 18th century not many people went

to church and religion was not a big thing. Most people went to church on a Sunday however there was a lack of energy in the church.

This changed in the 1730’s. A man called George Whitefield (1714-1770) became a great preacher and the church of England became the main place where many people went. By the end of the 18th century religious enthusiasm began to revive.

In the 18th century men wore knee-length trouser like garments called breeches and stockings. They also wore waistcoats and frock coats. They wore linen shirts. Both men and women wore wigs and for men three-cornered hats were popular. Men wore buckled shoes.

Women wore stays (a bodice with strips of whalebone) and hooped petticoats under their dresses. Women in the 18th century did not wear knickers.

Fashionable women carried folding fans.Fashion was very important for the wealthy but poor

people's clothes hardly changed at all.

In the early 18th century charity schools were founded in many towns. They were sometimes called Blue Coat Schools because of the colour of the children's uniforms.

Boys from well off families went to grammar schools. Girls from well off families also went to school but it was felt important for them to learn 'accomplishments' like embroidery and music rather than academic subjects.

However non-comformists or dissenters (Protestants who did not belong to the Church of England) were not allowed to attend most public schools. Instead they went to their own dissenting academies.

In the 18th century there was a distruction of political centuries that had been built from the past centuries. The political parties lost their power and were taken over.

By the middle of the 18th century, both Whigs (A member of an 18th- and 19th-century British political party that was opposed to the Tories) and Tories found themselves changed from what they had been.

Beethoven’s Moonlight SonataRachmaninov’s Piano Concerto

FeaturesPowerful expression of emotion - not only

love, e.g. hate or death

themes relating to dreams, nature, and the mysterious or supernatural

1701Jethro Tull invents the seed drill

1709Bartolomeo Cristofori

invents the piano

1711John shore invents the turning fork

1712Thomas

Newcomen patents the

steam engine

1717Edmond Halley

invents the diving bell

1722French

C.Hopffer patents the fire

extinguisher

1724Gabriel

Fahrenheit invents first thermometer

1733John Kay

invents the first flying shuffle

1752Benjamin Franklin

invents the first lightening rod

1755Samuel Johnson

publishes first English

dictionary

1767Joseph Priestly

invents carbonated

water

1769James Watt invents first

improved steam engine

1784Joseph Brama

invents a safety lock

1776David Bushnell

invents a submarine

1775Alexander Cummings invents the flush toilet

1792The first

ambulance

1796Edward Jenner creates a small pox vaccination

1799Alessandro

Volta invents the first battery

RomanticismDefinition:

A movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

that marked the reaction in literature, philosophy, art,

religion, and politics

oLove of nature oAn interest in the pastoMysticismoInterest in human rightsoInterest in the gothic

leading to the story Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley

oBorn in 1797 to William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft

oHer mother died shortly after Mary was born

oShelley learned about her mother only through writings her mother left behind, including A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) which said that women should have the same educational opportunities as rights in society as men.

o Avid reader and scholar and knew through her father some of the most important men of the time (William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

o Married Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1816 and listened intently to his intellectual conversations with others

oOn a visit in Switzerland to Lord Byron, she was challenged to write a story. She had heard Byron and Shelley (her husband) discussing “the nature of the principle of life and whether there was any chance of its ever being discovered.” From this conversation, she had the “waking dream” which eventually became the novel Frankenstein.

Frankenstein is generally categorized as a Gothic novel, a genre of fiction that uses gloomy settings and supernatural events to create and atmosphere of mystery and terror.

Shelley adds to her development of the plot with the use of psychological realism.

Gothic literature derives its name from its name from the similarities to the gothic medieval cathedrals. The word ‘gothic’ comes from ‘Goth,’ the name of the one of the barbaric German tribes that invaded the Roman Empire.

The arches and spires of gothic cathedrals reach nearly to the sky; and the cathedrals are covered with wild carvings to show the conflicts with supernatural forces – demons, angels and monsters.

Like Gothic architecture, Gothic literature focuses on humanity’s fascination with the unknown, and the frightening, inexplicable aspects of the universe and the human soul. Gothic literature pictures the human condition as an ambiguous mixture of good and evil powers that cannot be understood completely by human reason.

The Gothic perspective conceives of the human condition as a paradox—humans are divided in the conflict between opposing forces in the world and in themselves.

The Gothic themes of the struggle between good and evil in the human soul, and the existence of unexplainable elements in humanity and the cosmos, are prominent themes in Frankenstein.

There were many famous poets in the 18th century. This was the time when people started reading poems of all genres from different poets, not only wealthy ones.

The main famous poets were:Lord byronWilliam BlakeAlexander pope

There were many famous writers in the 18th century. They include:

Jane AustinSamuel JohnsonJudith Sargent Murray