The document provides an overview of the Neo-Classical period in literature, highlighting its origins, characteristics, and key figures. It covers three main phases: the Restoration Age, the Augustan Age, and the Age of Johnson, emphasizing a return to classical ideals and forms. The period concluded in 1798 with the publication of 'Lyrical Ballads,' which marked the transition to the Romantic era.

1. The Neo-Classical
Period
Prepared by Trushali Dodiya
A Student at the Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsihnji Bhavnagar University
5th September 2023
Virtual Teacher’s Day celebration

2. What does the word “Neo-Classical” mean?
New
Neo
● Ancient
● Refined
● Elegant
● Antiquity
Classical
The word Neo-Classical is made of two words:

3. Characteristics
 Writers looked back to the ideals and art forms of classical
times, i,.e, Greek and Roman Literature
 Revival of Classical Values
 Emphasized the classical ideals of order and rational
control.
 Appropriateness in Characterization, Plot, meter and
language
 A widespread and influential movement in painting and
other visual arts.
 Neoclassical poetry marked a return to the classic Greek
and Roman conventions of poetry.

4. Timeline of the Neo-classical Age
The
Restoration
Age
The Augustan
Age
The Age of
Johnson
1660-1700 1700-1750 1750-1798

5. The Restoration Age(1660-1700)
 Restoration of the monarchy after the return of
Charles II.
 The rise of Neo-classicism
 Imitations of ancients
 Writers of the time looked back to the style of
the Greeks and Romans. They emphasized
restraint, self-control, and common sense.

6. The Augustan Age(1700-1750)
 The term was coined by the poet Oliver Goldsmith
 Named after the Roman emperor Augustus, who ruled when
Virgil, Horace, and Ovid were writing.
 The English Augustans translated and modeled their own
verse after these poets
 Writers of this age was imitating the Greek and Roman
traditions in their writings and adopting similar genres, as
such as epic or pastoral.
 Predominance of prose.
 Alexander Pope's 1711 long poem, "An essay on criticism”
and his versions of two Homeric epic The Iliad and The
Odyssey

7. The Age of Johnson(1750-1798)
 Last stage of the Neo classical age in literature.
 Dominated in writing by Samuel Johnson and that's
why this period is named as age of Johnson.
 Focused on neoclassical aesthetics - the study of
natural and artistic beauty with an eye toward the
great classical writers
 Few years after his death, Neo classical age ends
with publication of "Lyrical Ballads" by Wordsworth.

8. The Age of Enlightenment(1685-1815)
 Intellectual and philosophical movement
 Use and Celebration of reasons
 The ideas concerning God, reason, nature, and humanity
were synthesized(Knowledge, freedom, and happiness)
 Rejection of supernatural ideas
 Deism, Skepticism in Church/ questioning traditionally
rooted beliefs
 Revolutionary developments in art, philosophy, and
politics
 Scientific Revolution(Newton, Kepler, Galelio)

9. Characteristics
Reason
Rationality
Artificiality
Accuracy
Aristocracy

10. Predominance of Prose
 The rise of new prose forms: Periodicals, Pamphlets,
Magazines, Newspapers, Criminal biographies,
Travelogues, Political allegories, Romantic tales.
 Addison’s Essays
 Swift’s Satires
 Henry Fielding’s Novels
 Gibbon’s History
 Burke’s Orations
 Poetry also became prosaic
 Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary

11. Satire
Golden age of Satires
Political unrest, Sharp wit and personal
contention
Whigs and Tories
 Dryden’s Mac Flecknoe
Jonathan Swifts ‘A Tale of a Tub’
Alexander Pope

12. Novel
 The Industrial Revolution
created a demand for reading
about everyday events.
 The middle class expanded,
and more people became
literate.
 The Industrial Revolution also
expanded newspapers and
the periodical press, making
novels more accessible.
 Henry Fielding – the Father of
Novels
Four
Wheels
of Novel
Henry
Fielding
Lawerence
Sterne
Richard
Steel
Tobias
Smollet

13. Major Literary Figures
Alexander Pope: Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the
Lock
Jonathan Swift: The Battle of Books, A Tale of A Tub,
Gulliver’s Travel
Joseph Addison: Essays
Samuel Johnson: First English Dictionary, Lives of
Poet
Henry Fielding: The History of Tom Jones, a
Foundling, Joseph Andrews, The Life and Death of

14. The publication of the Lyrical Ballads in
1798 marked the end of the Neo-Classical
period and beginning of the Romantic
period