Littérature (partie de Martinière)

What is The Long Century ?

What is The Long Century ?

Refers to the 18th century, has a flexible start and end date.

Defined as the Age of Reason / Augustan Age / Age of Johnson.

When is “The Long Century” supposed to start and end ?

Glorious Revolution : James II is overthrown in 1688 / Restauration 1660

Victory of Waterloo / Victoria’s reign 1837

What is the Bill of Rights ?

1689, document that granted power to the parliament and guaranteed personal liberties in England. The parliament became the highest authority, leading to political parties.

What was the economic context of the period ?

Trade / colonies / banking.

Industrial Revolution.

However => no equal wealth + poverty.

What is the Age of Enlightenment ?

Philosophical and cultural movement in the late 17th/early 18th century that emphasized reason, logic, and freedom of thoughts over blind faith.

What is Empiricism ?

Refers to the idea that all knowledge originates from experience and the senses. It’s contrasted with rationalism, meaning that the mind can access truth directly.

What are John Locke’s ideas on Empiricism ?

The mind is like a blank slate => “tabula rasa”, meaning that we can learn and improve. He also emphasized the importance of individual rights and separation of powers.

Adam Smith

Father of modern economy & capitalism, who wrote The Wealth of Nations : division of labor, pursuit of self-interest & freedom of trade, metaphor of the invisible hand, competition benefits society.

Utilitarianism

The right action is the one that maximizes happiness for the greatest number of people, proposed by Jeremy Bentham. The happiness factor determines the moral worth of every action.

What is the sublime ?

Opposed to the beautiful, aesthetic quality in ugliness, intense emotions and pleasure derived from experiences of awe and terror, as discussed by Edmund Burke.

Coffee houses and clubs

Social gathering places in 18th century London where people from all social classes would meet to discuss news, scandals, and ideas.

What are the characteristics of the Comedy of Manners ?

Emerged during the Restoration period (1658 death of Cromwell), characterized by witty dialogue, focus on social conventions, and exploration of characters' behaviors and manners, often addressing the upper social classes.

What is the meaning of wit ?

Originally : ability to write poetry.

But 17th c. = intellectual originality by using paradoxes, coining, deft sentences, clever verbal expressions.

What political changes happened leading to the Comedy of Manners ?

End of Puritan government with comeback of Charles II => restauration of the comedy, theatres reopened, ex : The Drury Land & Dorset Garden.

Which changes happened in the theatres ?

The stage now faced the audience, more elaborate costumes, new status for women + sexual emancipation, indoor + expensive.

What is the Comedy of Humour ?

Late 16th c. associated w/ Ben Jonson, based on the 4 human fluids : blood (sanguine characters), phlegm, choleric (yellow bile) & melancholic (black bile).

What are the characters like ?

Caricature, ex : Flopling Flutter in The Man Of Mode the fop (concerned with his appearance) // the rake (charming & promiscuous).

Obsessed with sex, fashion, gossip.

What are the plots like ?

Comic effects based on misunderstandings, several intrigues, violation of social convention, liaisons/debauchery, mockery, ruses, riches & good manners.

What are exemples of Comedy of Manners plays ?

George Etherege, The Man of Mode.

William Wycherley, The Country Wife = rake.

William Congreve, The Way of the World = his last, scandals, wit, pessimistic.

How did Comedy of Manners fall out of style ?

Beginning of the 18th century, Jeremy Collier A Short View of the Immorality & profaneness of the English Stage, 1698 = denounced the immortality, replaced by sentimental comedies.

Revival 1770s = Sheridan The School for scandal.

What is Augustan Satire ?

18th c. = “Age of Satire”, influenced by classical Greek and Roman models (Horace, Ovide), expression of stability & conservative society, refinement & elegance.

What is Augustan verse like ?

Made of couplet; a unit of two lines, in iambic pentameter = 5 feet long, unstressed / stressed, two syllables. + satire.

What is satire ?

The art of criticizing a subject by making it ridiculous, caricature & irony, mozalizing. ex : Pope, Lady Mary Montagu.

2 kinds : personal & universal.

Who was the most famous satirist ?

Jonathan Swift, A description of the Morning realistic description, critic of the ills of society.

Irony

A literary technique where the intended meaning is different from the literal or surface meaning.

What was the Macaroni Club ?

A group of wealthy men who traveled to Italy and brought back macaroni = satire. + Hogarth’s Mariage à la Mode.

What was Swift’s solution to overpopulation ?

A Modest Proposal, 1729 = the rich British should eat them. Satire bc = explains how to take care of a child, kinda like a recipe, shows how it’s logical, serious, to shock people & criticize the british oppression.

What is the genre of the novel ?

Realist, the characters were part of the middle class & peasants, individualized, the events were close to real life. Away from mythology/legends & medieval romance, now = historical context.

How was the novel perceived ?

Bad reputation, seen as entertainment and not “serious work”. Writers published anonymously since they weere ashamed, called it ‘romances”.

How did the number of readers increase ?

Circulating libraries, entertainment, easier to understand rather than poetry for the middle class.

Who was the first author of Novels ?

Wasn’t born in the 18th c, but in 1680s with Aphra Behn, only got popular in the 18th c.

How did travel narratives get popular ?

Interest in travel, the GT, the unknown, expansion of the Brit. Empire.

What are the 2 kinds of travel literature ?

One focusing on the country & the protagonist is a spectator, authentic. The other focuses on the hero, survival, events.

What were Daniel Defoe’s 2 most famous novels ?

Moll Flanders, 1722 and Robinson Crusoe, 1780.

What inspired Crusoe ?

The story of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor abandonned on the island of Juan Fernandes in 1705.

What are the characteristics of Crusoe ?

Presented like a true story in the Atlantic Ocean.

1rst person narrator, direct discourse / straightforward, no organisation, technical details.

What are the values of Crusoe ?

The values of the middle class; hard work, temperance, saving money, living frugally, individualism, capitalism, protestant. + Robinsonnade, to glorify God & imperialism.

What’s the plot of Crusoe ?

Crusoe rebels against his parents’ authority. He becomes a sailor & a new man, opens to hardwork & spiritual life. Can be compared to The Pilgrim’s Progress by Bunyan. + spirit of conquest, reason, white man’s burden.

Who are the main authors of the Travel Narratives ?

Swift, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne.

What’s the plot of Gulliver’s Travels ?

4 adventures : Lilliput (vanity), Brogdingnag (humiliated), Laputa (crazy tyrant scientists) & Houyhnhnm Land (reason & passion).

What’s the Epistolary novel ?

Written in the form of letters in the 1rst person, interraction between addresser & addressee, ambiguous, suspense.

How did the Epistolary genre emerge ?

Existed before the 18th c but flourished during it bc of the rise of letter writing as a upper class past time, its founder is James Howell and the first novel was Love Letter between a Nobleman & his Sister by Aphra Behn.

What are Conduct Books ?

Meant to teach young girls how to behave & took the form of letters written to children.

What’s a “parasite” in Epistolary novels ?

Problems of communications, intercepting / forging letters, theorized by Michael Serres.

What’s Samuel Richardson's vision of the Epistolary novel ?

Believed that the interest of novels lied in the analysis of the characters’ sentiments at the expense of actions.

What happened after Cromwell’s republic ?

Theatres reopened, art was supported again by the King, foundation of the Royal Society & Church of England reestablished.

Which novels is Richardson famous for ?

Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, 1740 & Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady, 1748.

What’s the plot of Pamela ?

A young woman working as a servant for Mr. B, who tries to take advantage of her => keeps her virtues & marries him. The good are rewarded & the bad punished, but still ambiguous. No omniscient characters

What was the readership’s reaction to Pamela ?

It was seen as subversive : the values of a person are due to their qualities & not their birth.

What’s the plot of Clarissa ?

A virtuous woman from the middle class is raped by an aristocrat called LoveLace, they both die. The rape is not described => the unsaid of the epistolary novel, linked to taboo.

What increases the suspense / drama ?

Writing to the moment; between 2 actions & in difficult circumstances. It’s more spontaneous = realism + feelings. The reader plays an active role.

What happened in 1701 ?

Act of Settlement which imposed the King to be protestant.

What is the first part of the Enlightenment ?

Scientific Revolution (ex : Newton’s law) : rational evidence, examining human life, rational order of things, importance of the individual, away from religion.

What is the second part of the Enlightenment ?

Interest in culture : rise of books after 1740, industrial publication, a new status for writers, circulating librairies, education, women writers.

Who is one of the main philosophers of the Enlightenment ?

Thomas Hobbes : Leviathan in 1651, analysing human nature & justifying absolutism to control them.

What is Berkeley’s idea on Empiricism ?

Disagreed with Locke, things only exist when they are being observed or perceived by God, since he observes all of us.

What is Hume’s idea on Empiricism ?

Divided human knowledge in 2 : relations of ideas that would depend on your observation of the world & things that don’t need to be perceived to be true (ex : maths).

Who was Jeremy Bentham ?

Was a liberal, in favour of individual + economic freedom, separation of church & state, freedom of expression, abolition of slavery, animal rights, right to divorce, decriminalization of homosexuality. Panopticon.

What were Gentlemen’s clubs ?

Replaced coffee houses, ex : Kit Kat Club & Scriblerus Club, it had member like Poe.

What was the impact of Coffee houses & clubs ?

Growth of periodical & papers, ex : The Tatler & the Spectator.

Who created the first dictionary ?

Samuel Johnson in 1755.