2. THE RESTORATION AND THE 18TH
CENTURY(1660-1785)
Historical Context / Main Ideas
The Restoration - Charles II restored to the throne in 1660, bringing about
literature reflecting the lifestyles of the pleasure-loving upper class
Literacy expanded to include the middle class and even some of the poor,
a wide public readership
Emphasis on rules, reason, and logic (the Age of Reason)
3. THE RESTORATION AND THE 18TH
CENTURY(1660-1785)
Genres and Styles
• Satire – use of irony and exaggeration to make fun of beliefs and correct
behavior
• Novels preferred over poetry
• Essays
• Biographies
4. THE RESTORATION AND THE 18TH
CENTURY(1660-1785)
Examples
John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels and “A Modest Proposal”
Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah
Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself
Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man”
5. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1785-1832)
Historical Context / Main Ideas
Corresponds with the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution, and
the French Revolution
Revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Restoration
Focus on individual creativity, imagination and emotion (rather than reason
and intellect), sympathy with nature, freedom from tradition
Intense emotion (awe, horror, terror) is an authentic source of experience
Desire to escape the confines of population growth and industrialization
6. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1785-1832)
Genre and Style
Poetry – especially aimed at changing the intellectual climate
Novels - Focus shifted away from a sentimental tradition toward worldly
wisdom, comedy, and the Gothic novel. Women writers became more
common.
Essays
Literary Criticism
7. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD (1785-1832)
Examples
William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, a publication of poems
William Wordsworth’s “Strange fits of passion have I known”
Jane Austen’s novels, including Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Sense
and Sensibility
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” and Prometheus Unbound
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” and “Ode to a Grecian Urn”
8. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1830-1901)
Historical Context / Main Ideas
Center of influence in Europe shifts from Paris to London
Increase in worldwide trade created enormous wealth; Britain was the leading financial power in
the world
By 1890, Britain and its colonies comprised more than ¼ of the earth’s territory
One in four people were under Queen Victoria’s rule
Important parts of the British Empire included Australia, India, Canada, and African colonies
Focus on earnestness, morality, “proper” behavior
Significant increase in literacy
Improved methods of printing resulted in exponential increase in publication of books,
newspapers, periodicals
Family reading of novels, forcing novelists to avoid topics that might embarrass impressionable
young ladies
9. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1830-1901)
Genres and Styles
• Short fiction
• Novels, often published in pieces
• Poetry
10. THE VICTORIAN PERIOD (1830-1901)
Examples
Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre
George Eliot’s Middlemarch
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King
Elizabeth Barret Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray
Matthew Arnold’s The Function of Criticism at the Present Time
11. THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURIES
Historical Context / Main Ideas
Rejection of Victorian ideas of the artist’s moral and educational duties, instead
focusing on aestheticism (art for art’s sake)
World War I
Modernism – a reaction to the horrors of World War I, disillusionment with
European civilization, radical experimentation in literature, and alienation of the
artist
Rise of fascism and communism in Europe
World War II
Great Depression and unemployment
Dissolution of the British Empire as colonies become independent nations,
formation of the British Commonwealth, an association of self-governing
nations
12. THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURIES
Genres and Style
Poetry
• Revived interest in Metaphysical poetry
• Free verse
Fiction
13. THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST
CENTURIES
Examples
James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland
Thomas Hardy’s “The Darkling Thrush”
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim
E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India, A Room with a View, and Howards End
