Assignment -Development of Novel in Noe-Classical age

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Name :- Khamal Krishna R.

Class:- M.A. SEM-1

Paper No :- 2

Topic :-Development of Novel in Noe-Classical age

Roll No:-22

Year :- 2016-2018

Email Id :- krishnakhamal01@gmail.com

Enrollment No :- 2069108420170014

Submitted :- Smt S.B.Gardy Department of English Maharajah Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University Bhavnagar.

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The Neo -Classical Age

Introduction:-

The English Neoclassical movement , predicted upon and desired from both classical and contemporary French models art and human existence ideals of order logic ,restraint,so Noe-Classicism dominated English literature from the Restoration in 1660 until the end of the eighteenth century.When the publication of Lyrical Ballads (1798) by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

Literature of the age is concerns with “ nature human nature,”Supremacy of reason. The age is known as classical age .The writers of this age were greatly influenced by the classical writers, so they imitated them in their work.The age wished to understand,not to imagine.


  Definition of Neoclassical Age :-


The 18th Century in English literature has been called the Noe classical age ,Augustan age ,and the age of reason. The term “The Augustan age” comes from the self -conscious imitation of the original Augustan writers,Virgil,and Horace by many of the writers of the period. Specifically,the Noe-Classical age was the period after the death of Alexander Pope.

The major writers of the age were john Dryden and Pope in poetry and Joseph Addition and Jonathan Swift in Prose. Dryden forms the restoration and Augustan literature.

  Noe classical artists more consciously emphasized common human characteristics over individual differences.Hence neoclassical artists did not strive to be original, so much as to express old truths in newly effective way neoclassical writers aimed to articular general truth rather than unique vision to communicate to other more than to express themselves.

The literature of this period which defined confirmed to Popes aesthetic principles and could thus quality as being Augustan is distinguished by it's striving for harmony and precision. The works of Dryden ,Pope,Swift,Addition and John Gay,as well as many of their contemporizes exhibit qualities of order ,clarity,and stylistic decorum that were formed in the major critical documents of the age. A large part of Popes work belong to this category,which exemplifies the artificiality of Neo classicism more thoroughly than does any other literary form of the period.


The literary scene of the early 18th century were the two periodical publications by Joseph Addition and Richard Steel, “The Tatler” and

“The Spectator”. Both writers are ranked among the minor masters of English prose style and credited with raising the general culture level of the English middle classes. The essays are discussion of current events,Literature and gossip often written in a highly inonic and refind style.manyof the important geners of this period were adaptations of classical forms,Mock epic,translation and imitation.




Example of Mock Epic:-

1.'' The Duncan''

2. John Dryden's : ''Macroeconomic ''(1682)

3.Pope's :'' The Rape of the Lock'' (1714)

4. Jonathan Swift : ''The Battle of the Books ''(1404)

Often considered one of the highest achievements of mock epic poetry ,the heroic action of epic is maintained but the scale is sharply reduced. The political prose satire of may deliverer manly were racy expose of high -society scandals written in the tradition of the love letter.prose narrative that way large enough to suppose the new breed of the profession novelist.

' Neoclassicism'

The works of Dryden, Pope, Swift ,Addison and John Gay, as well as many of their contemporaries,exhibit qualities of order,clarity,and stylistic decorum that were formulated in the major critical documents of the age: “ Dryden's ''An Essay of Dramatic Poesy ''(1668), and Pope's'' Essay on Criticism''(1711). These works, forming the basis for modern English literary criticism, insist that 'nature 'is the true model and standard of writing.This 'nature' of the Augustans,however,was not the wild ,spiritual nature the romantic poets would later idealize, but nature as derived from classical theory. A rational and comprehensible moral order in the universe, demonstrating God's providential design. The literary circle around pope considered Homer prominent among ancient poets in his descriptions of nature,Homer is also describing nature. From this follows the rules inductively based on the classics that Pope articulated in his

“Essay on Criticism”

Dryden  ''An Essay on Dramatic poesy''


Perticularly influential in the literary scene of the early eighteenth century were the two periodical publications by Joseph Addison and Richard Steel,''The Tatler'' (1709-11) and The Spectator (1711-12). Both writers are ranked among the minor masters of English prose style and credited with raising the general level of the English middle classes.A typical representative of the post-Restoration mood,Steel was a zealous crusader for morality,and his started purpose in a 'The Tatler' was ''to enliven Morality with Wit,and to temper wit with Morality''.and The 'Spectator, Addison added a further purpose: To introduce the middle -class public to recent developements in philosophy and literature and thus to educate their tstes.

The literary criticism of these writers often sought its justification in classical precedents. In the same way many of the important genres of this period were adaptations of this classical forms: like a Mock epic, Translation, and imitation.a large part of Pope's work belongs to this last category, which exemplifies the neoclassicism more thoroughly than does any other literary form of the period.


One of the most well-known mock epic work in prose from this period is Jonathan Swift's ''The Battle of the Books''(1704) ,in which the old battle between the ancient and modern writers is fought out in a library.Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726),One of the masterpieces of the period.The four parts discribe different journeys of Lemuel Gulliver, to Liliput, where the pompous activities of the diminutive inhabitants is satirized,to Brobdingnag, a land of giants who laugh at Gulliver's tale of the greatness of England,to Laputa , inhabited by quack scientists and philosophers,and to the land of the Houhynhnms, where horses are civilized and men (Yahoos) behave like beatss. As a satirist Swift's technique was to create fictional speakers such as Gulliver ,who utter sentiments that the intelligent reader should recognize as complacent, egotistical, stupid ,or mad.Swift is recognized as a master of understated irony ,and his name has become practically synonymous with the type of satire in which outrageous statements are offered in a straight- faced manner.


The Rise of the Novel :-

The most important figure in terms of lasting literary influance during this period, however, was undoubtedly Danial Defoe. An outsider from the literary establishment ruled by Pope and his cohorts, Defoe was in some ways an anomaly during a period defined as ''Augustan'', despite the fact that he was writer of social criticism and satire before he turned to novel.He did not belong to the respected literary world, which at best ignored him and his works and and at worst derided him.

The works of fiction for which Defoe is remembered ,particularly Moll Flanders (1722) and Robinson Crusoe (1719), owe less to the satirical and refind impluse of the Augustan tradition ,and more to a contrary tradition of early prose narrative by women , since lan Watt's influential sturdy, The Rise of the Novel (1957) ,literary historians have generally considered Robinson Crusoe the first succesful english novel and defoe as one of tha originators of realistic fiction in tha eighteenth century but he was deeply indebted to his female precursors and probably would never have attempted prose narrative if they had not created an audiance for it in the first place.

The English novel was a product of several deffering literary treditions, among them the French romance the Spenish picaresque tale and novella,and such eralier prose model in English as john Lyly's Euphues (1579) ,Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (1590) and john Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1684) The authors of these works collectivly helped pave the way for the form of the novel as it is known today.The true pioneers of the novel form , however, were the women writers pursuing their craft in opposition to the classically refined precepts of the writers defining the Augustan Age.

Major Writers

Alexander Pope :-

Alexander Pope was an 18th century English poet,best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer.famous for his use of the heroic couplet, he is the third- most frequently quoted writer in The oxford Dictionary of Quotations,after Shakespeare and Tennyson


Life of Pope:-

Alexander Pope was born to (1646-1717), a line Pope n merchant of plough Court Lombard Street, London and his wife Edith (nee Turner ) (1643-1733) ,who were both Catholics. Edith's sister Christiana was the wife of the famousm miniature painter Samual Cooper. Pope's education was affected by the recently enacted Test Acts , Which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching ,attending a university, voting or holding public office on pain of perpentual imprisonment. He became the dominating poetical personality of the day.Pope's religious faith ,though he was never excessively devout as a Roman Catholics, His early verse, admirably attuned to the ear of the age

HIS POETRY :-

Pope's earliest important work was his Pastorals. These poems, almost certainly written before he was eighteen, were published in 1709. The Characters and Scenery, Based as they are on Classical Models, Lack Vigor and Reality, but the Work is Impor-tant as an experiment in verse technique. Pope has already chosen his medium, the heroic couplet, which is here handled with great metrical skill, variation of speed and tone, and delicacy of touch.

In 1712 was published the first version of “ The Rape Of the Lock” one of the most brilliant poems in the language. It is in -heroic strain ,and its effectiveness was greatly increased when ,in 1714 Pope added the machinery of the sylph to the original version .For the most part ,this satire is gentle and good humored, though occasionally the half - line of couplet give us a foretaste of the most incisive tones of the later pope.Then pope translated Iliad, the Iliad was followed in 1725 and 1726 by the odyssey.

His Work :-

“ An Essay On Criticism”

“ The Rape of the Lock”

Prose Writers

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)



swift was born in Dublin in 1667 . His father died before swift's birth so the boy was thrown upon the charity of an uncle,who paid for his education in Ireland. Much of his distemper was due to purely physical causes, for he suffered from an affection of the era that ultimately touched his brain and caused insanity. In 1686 , at the age of nineteen, he left trinity college. His last years of his life in gloom and largely in retirement, His last years passed in silence and ,at the very end lunacy.


HIS Poetry:-

Swift would have been among the first to smile at any claim being advanced for him on the score of his being a great poet ,though he always longed to excel in poetry ,yet in bulk his verse is considerable. His poem were to a large extent recreations, add verses to his friends.

His Prose :-

His first noteworthy books was ''The Battle of the Books ''published in 1704 . The theme of the work is well known one , being the dispute between ancient and modern authored. Swift gives the theme a half allegorical,mock heroic setting.

“A Tale of a Tub” (: Written for the Universal improvement of Mankind ,) also published in 1704, though it was written as early as 1996, is regarded by many as Swift's best work.it certainly reveals his power at its highest.It is religious allegory.

And his most famous book “ The Gulliver's Travels”(Travel into Several Remote Nation of the world,1726)

The style of swift is best is not

mannered or labored ,clean ,powerful and tireless. Swift is great English dramatist .He restrict himself to general rather than personal attacks.

Henry Fielding :-



Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist known for his rich earthy humour and satirical prowess and as the author of the novel Tom tonnes. He was adventure person .His ideas of adventure s His firer novel ''The Adventure of Joseph''

His Major Work:-

1.A Journey from his world tithe next

.2. Tom Jones

3 Amelia

4 Voyages to Lisbon


Conclusion :- At the end of this all novel form very deeply mention about the three novelist of development of novel are very clear of them.

References and cited:-

1. History of English Literature (Edward Albert)

<> Noe-Classical literature Authors..