18th Century: Pope & Swift

Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift were writers from which century?

18th century

Subdivisions of Neoclassicism (RAD)

-Restoration Age (Dryden)

-Augustan Age (Pope and Swift)

-Decline of Neoclassicism (Johnson)

What are other names for eighteenth-century literature?

neoclassical age, age of reason, age of satire

What does neoclassicism refer to?

trying to make Greek/Roman new again

What years was the Restoration Age?

1660-1700

What years was the Augustan Age?

1700-1750

What years were the Decline of Neoclassicism?

1750-1798

satire in 18th century

goal had to be to correct society through making fun/jokes

Why can't we really say "Eighteenth Century Literature"?

it technically lasted 138 years

What was the high point of neoclassicism?

Augustan Age, like how Augustus Caeser was the high point of Rome

characteristics of neoclassicism

the Universal, reason, Greek and Latin allusions, satire

What do 18th and 17th century have in common?

satire

satire definition

literature that blends criticism with humor because the goal is to improve society

What does a true satirist do?

uses humor to inspire a remodeling rather than a tearing down of human institutions

2 major types of satire

Horatian satire and juvenalian satire

Horatian Satire (Horace)

gentle, smiling satire (Pope's "Rape of the Lock" or "Essay on Man")

Juvenalian Satire (Juvenal)

harsh, bitter, biting satire (Swift's Gulliver's Travels or "A Modest Proposal")

Who wrote which type of satire?

Horatian=Pope

Juvenalian=Swift

Great Chain of Being (G-COB)

how Aristotle and Plato understood how the universe is being held together-God created everything and everything that has been created makes a link in the chain

What is the central link?

man kind

Why are humans the central link?

soul of an angel and body of an animal=combine heaven and earth

hierarchy of existences (G-COB)

God holds chain

Angels -> Man -> Animals -> Insects -> Microscopic Organisms

Why are humans the potentially destructive link?

pride

heroic couplet

iambic pentameter lines that rhyme in pairs, every pair of line expresses a complete thought

mock heroic epic

satirizes/trivializes 5 characteristics of a legitimate epic (makes fun of the epic)

5 characteristics of an epic

fantastic hero, long narrative poem, highly descriptive language (cataloguing), digression, battle between equal opponents

deism

religion to the age of reason, watchmaker God analogy

justify religion through reason and nature rather than by divine revelation

watchmaker God Analogy

God crafted a beautiful watch and then let it act independently (God set universe in motion and left)

Who was Jesus according to deists?

just a great philosopher

How do we come to know God according to deists?

just looking at nature, having order and stability, my reason can tell me who God is

Who is the finest of 18th century poets/best example of English neoclassical poetry?

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

What were Pope's two handicaps?

1. weak physical condition: a bone disease (grew to only 4' 6'' tall) also caused hunchback and weak immune system

2. religion: was a Roman Catholic and consequently not allowed to vote, hold public office, write about politics, or attend university

What religion was Pope?

deist, but dealt with restrictions because of his family and guilt that he left Catholicism

Pope's education

was basically self-educated

What type of artist was Pope?

a literary artist:

-earned a very respectable living from his writing

-did not have a patron (didn't need one)

Pope's Literary Works

"Pastorals"

"The Essay on Criticism"

"The Rape of the Lock"

"The Essay on Man"

Translations

The Dunciad

"Pastorals"

-Pope's 1st serious poem

-written when he was 16

gained him important literary friends such as Wycherly and Congreve

"The Essay on Criticism"

-Pope's concepts of the principles of Neoclassical art

-23 years old

-rules critics should follow in evaluating poems

-not original here: a collection of the rules formulated by Ancients (Horace, Longinus, Aristotle, etc.)

canto

division of a long poem (like a chapter)

Who and what helped Pope right Rape of Lock?

Caryll and Rosicrucian Machinery

"The Rape of the Lock"

-a masterpiece in satire

-mock heroic epic: a subject of minimal importance (a girl's hair) is lent a completely exaggerated sense of importance

-Lord Petre had stolen a lock of Lady Arabella Fermor's hair

Who requested that Pope write the Rape of Lock?

his friend John Caryll as an effort to reestablish peace between the 2 influential roman catholic families with humor

first version of "The Rape of The Lock"

written because of the controversy (Petre and Fermor families' fight)

-originally in Horatian satire, 2 cantos

second version of "The Rape of The Lock"

made into a mock heroic epic, still in Horatian satire

third version of "The Rape of The Lock"

adds Clarissa's speech telling Belinda "Charms strike the sight but merit wins the soul"

Who did Pope steal the machinery from?

The Rosicrucian's

Baron

a nobleman of varying rank or a very wealthy or powerful businessman

2 things Pope added to make "The Rape of a Lock" into a mock heroic

1. a card game called Omber - popular amongst rich people (this is the battle between equals, Melinda vs. Baron)

2. the machinery - 4 orders of spirits (4 temperaments of women)

4 temperaments/spirits of women comprising the machinery

1. salamanders -fire (firey)

2. nymphs -water (easy-going)

3. sylphs -air (flirt)

4. gnomes -earth (prudes)

sylph

alive: flirts

hell: protect living women's chastity/virginity

Chief: Auriel

gnomes

alive: prudes

hell: create sexual mischief

Chief: Umbriel

Who tells Belinda something bad is going to happen?

Auriel

Who are the helpers?

Belinda's helper is Thalestris and her boyfriend Sir Plume

Baron's helper is Clarissa

When Belinda is awoken by Shock the dog, what is the first thing she sees?

billet deux-love letter

What is Belinda's downfall?

pride

Who intends to obtain a lock of Belinda's hair?

Barron

What is the altar made of?

12 french love stories, 1 glove and 3 garters (trophies of previous women in his life)

How does Pope push the envelope?

Larissa is the voice of reason

thesis of "The Rape of the Lock"

What dire offence from am'rous causes springs, (what horrible things arrive from love)

What mighty contests rise from trivial things,

(this is a silly rivalry)

digression of canto 2

Baron's "sacred rites of love"

canto 3

at the party, hair gets cut

Battles in The Rape of the Lock

Belinda vs. Baron

1. Ombre (Belinda)

2. Battle of the Sexes (Belinda)

Why does Clarissa help the Baron?

she wants to help Belinda get an attitude check before she ends up like her someday

Hampton Court

Queen Anne's residence, where the party in canto 2 took place

canto 4

-Umbriel goes to Cave of Spleen

-spleen is accompanied by pain and Megrim

-initially Spleen rejects Umbriel's request for help but then gives a bag and a vial

-Umbriel dumps bag of lungs on the heads of Thalestris and Belinda (Thalestris begins yelling)

-takes vial of tears and pours it just on Belinda's head (she said she wishes she stayed home)

What line shows what Belinda represents?

Uncurl'd it hangs, the fatal shears demands,

And tempts once more thy sacrilegious hands.

Oh hadst thou, cruel! been content to seize

Hairs less in sight, or any hairs but these!"

(her lock she had left was starting to uncurl. Her views are so messed up she would rather he took a pubic hair)

What are Baron's important words?

as long as my nostrils draw air she is not getting the lock of hair (he thinks he's saying as long as he lives...but in reality it is when he sneezes)

Why does Umbriel want Spleen's help?

to create sexual mischief in Belinda's life

What was in the bag Spleen gave Umbriel?

Female Lungs

What is the vial that Spleen gave Umbriel filled with?

tears

What does Belinda represent?

the ultimate display of someone who doesn't know what's trivial and what's important...representation of upper class

sacred rite of pride

canto 5

-effects of bag and vial still taking in effect (lots of screaming and yelling)

-Clarissa's speech

-no one pays attention

-battle of the sexes

What weapons does Belinda use against the Baron in the Battle of the Sexes?

a pinch of snuff and bodkin

bodkin

a gold pin/decorative pin women used to hold their hair back

What happens to the lock?

went up into the sky and became a comet/shooting star (from now on people will look up in the sky and see Belinda's beauty in the star)

Spleen

melancholy anger of rich people

"The Essay on Man"

-satire again

-philosophy in verse

-Pope attempts to apply common sense to the problems of the universe and the life of man

-composed of 4 epistles

-Pope not an original thinker: his ideas are a synthesis of the philosophical though of his time

-many of the ideas derived from Sir John Bolingbroke: an influential writer of his time

-many ideas here Deistic: justify religion through nature and reason rather than through religion

4 epistles of "The Essay on Man"

1. man's place in nature

2. individual ethics

3. the origin of society and man's relation to it

4. the source of happiness

What will make you happy according to Pope?

the love of God (vertical) and the love of your fellow man (horizontal)

Who and what helped Pope write Essay on Man?

Bolingbroke and Deism

3 things Pope compares man to

a maze (planned), a wilderness (weeds-vices and flowers-virtues), and a garden (tempting with forbidden fruit)

ways Pope mirrored Milton in Essay on Man

1. general intro

2. Garden tempting with fruit

3. instead of justify the ways of God to man, Pope wants to vindicate the ways of God to man

What is Pope vindicating?

that God had a good reason to put us where he did in the G-COB and to shut up about it

What word summarizes Essay of Man?

submit-accept where God has put us in the G-COB

first quote to remember

hope springs eternal

the capacity for hope is endless, once you stop hoping it's over

Who can see in the future?

angels can see indefinitely

animals can't see anything (lamb about to be slaughtered)

man can see somewhat (plan out life)

Why can't man see into future?

we wouldn't be able to handle seeing our deaths

Second quote to remember

whatever is, is right

the way God made it is right, cuz he knows what he's doing

translation

taken from one language and put into another

Pope's two attempts at a translation

1. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey into modern English (thumbs up)

2. Shakespeare's works (bombed big time)

Lewis Theobald

-wrote Shakespeare Restored: an uncompromising condemnation of Pope's deficiency as an editor of Shakespeare