Queen Ann Represents Augustan Age: The Age of Reason

From 1700 to 1745, these middle years are called Augustan Age and sometimes these years are called the Age of Prose, sometimes these years are called the Age of Satire and sometimes these years are called the Classical  Age. Its historical name is The Queen Ann Age or Early Georgian Age. But it is famous in the history of English literature, The Age of Pope.

In this age manners were coarse, politics was corrupt, and also the society was also corrupt and England was going to moral degeneration slowly and slowly. People wanted to improve themselves but have no way to escape from it. But Pope and his followers were also against the restoration profligacy and puritan fanaticism. In the age of Pope England regained her lost glory to a greater extent, but not fully.

In this age virtue was recommend and preached and good sense became the ideal of time and it meant was love for reason and hate for mystical and extravagant vision. At that time religion was considered an important element to reform the society. The age of Pope’s literature was of intellect, of wit, of fancy, and of spontaneity and simplicity. These were the bright features of the age of Pope.

The poets and critics of this age believed that the works of the classical writers was on the model of Latin-wringing that had public taste and they had little faith on the laws, imposed by the authority of the past. It was generally believed that the age Augustan was the golden age of Latin literature and the age of Pope was the golden age of English literature.

There are five characteristics of the classical school of poetry: 1. Classical poetry is the main product of intelligence playing upon emotions and imaginations…but didactic and satirical but reasonable poetry was written in that age. 2. It was town poetry against the society interest and void of real love for nature, landscapes and country things and people. 3. There was shown hate against emotions and romantic poetry and praised for reason and intellect.

4. Extreme love for form and a love for superficially polished words made poetry conventional type. Simplicity and naturalism was disappeared from the poetry and bombastic words were used to make it charm full. 5. In the classical poetry heroic or close-couplets were used and little attention was paid to poetical terseness and witty phrases. It slowly and slowly became popular for poetry.

 

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Pope’s poetic period falls into three periods; 1, the period before 1715 was the period of miscellaneous poems among which these are most important Four Pastorals, a short poem of four seasons on Virgil pattern, The Essay on Man is also his remarkable poem. It is his inspired poem, its ideas had been taken from the French poem and Pope put the gathered material into a new poetic shape in wonderfully terse language.

The Rape of the Loch is called Pope’s mater-piece poem in English literature. Pope took an ordinary incident, occurred in the Roman Catholic Society, and made it a remarkable with his poetic art. Lord Peter cut Arobella Fermar’s lock (Blind is her name in the poem) and it led to the horrible quarrel and became the part of history. Pope translated Iliad and Odyssey, and got popularity among the public due to easy language and style and may be read sitting on the arm-chair.

After this Pope started writing satire and didactic poems, that is why, he wrote Satires  As Satire and Epistle of Horace, imitated the satire of Dr. Arbuthnot, The Dunciad, is a long and elaborative satire on dunes, the bad poets, pedants and pretentious poets of Pope’s age, The Essay on Man, in which he undertook to expose the reality of the government’s moral and physical corruption behind the certain. His poetry is free of emotions and full of intellectual verses for all ages.

 

Daniel Defoe (1661-1731)

In the age of Pope, it was Denial Defoe who got fame as a journalist and pamphleteer, besides; he was a great moral and social reformer. His importance in English literature is due to journalistic writings are most important for all ages and all debunk the prevailing evils of his age.

Defoe’s famous if The Life and Death of Robinson Crusoe, all people must read it carefully to know the real nature of the age of Pope. After this, he wrote The Memories of Cavalier, Captain Singleton, Mal Manders, Colonel Jack and Roxana. His journal of the plague years is an authentic of his age and its detail if important and it exposes Defoe’s typical style of writing and in it his characterization is unique.

All his stories look like the story of our actual life and his realism in the all his stories is remarkable for all ages. In every story he makes minute realism of his character in detail for the readers’ understanding it is the salient feature of his style. In the history of novel his importance is admitted universally all over the world.

 

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

After Defoe, Jonathan Swift was the most important writer of Pope’s age. His intellect was most powerful by birth. In the beginning he joined politics and very soon he became a great power in politics. First he joined Whig and soon changed his party and joined the Troy Party his country.

As a master of prose he was the master of simple, direct and colloquial style. He has no rival in prose writings.

His special filed was satire and his favorite instrument was irony. The readers may find these traits of his style under the surface of irony are more prominent. He attached the system of Christianity. His Tale of the Tub and The Battle of the Books both are the finest stories of Swift in the history of English literature. It is a perfect combination of his inborn satirical thought and natural style. These books show the battle between the Protestant Church and Catholic Church of Rome along with it he exposes the corruption of the modern churches.

His most famous work in satire is his Gulliver Travels. Gulliver’s first voyage to Lilliput and what he saw there, symbolizes the politics of England. But his voyage to Brobdingnag Gulliver becomes pigmy and found himself among the giants. But Gulliver’s voyage to Laputa, he attacked philosophers’ projects and the discoveries of the inventers. Finally, in the voyage to the country of Hougnhnms and Yahoos, he turns down all types of manners of the country. Actually, he was a great satirist of his age for all times and none could have surpassed his up till now.

Addison and Steele (1672-1719)

Addison and Steele always wrote periodical essays in his life time. Both the men worked jointly in the field of comedies and tragedies. His importance in history is due to his political point of view. Steele wrote long periodical essays in which he described his friend’s enterprises. Addison wrote274 essays and Steele wrote 240b essays in their whole life but the remaining 12 essays wrote their different friends.

Addison and Steele started writing essays to break down the two current prevailing influences; first to crush the profligate tradition of lose thinking of Restoration, and secondly, to break down the t Puritan’s fanaticism. The characters they described in their essays in seventeenth century may be seen even today.

Less famous writers of the age of Pope are these; Mrs. Contliver who wrote four plays. George Lillo who wrote domestic drama; London Merchant, Fatal Curiosity, both the plays characters have been taken from common life instead of history and romance.