Puritan Age and the Restoration; Eighteenth-Century Literature — Study Notes

The Puritan Age and the Restoration (1625−1700)

• Thomas Browne (1605−1682) — physician of a bygone era when doctors prescribed herbs and bloodletting; more interested in what was then called modern science than in medicine per se.
  • Major works: Religio Medici (Religion of a Physician, 1642) — celebrated as one of the greatest prose works in English; Urn Burial and the Silent Places notable for subtle thought, appreciated by a small circle.
• Isaac Walton (1593−1683) — a modest linen merchant who kept serenity by focusing on his own affairs, reading, and fishing; his Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, George Herbert and Bishop Sanderson reveal character through sympathetic portraiture.
  • Wordsworth’s reaction in a noble sonnet: “There are no colours in the fairest sky / So fair as these. The feather whence the pen / Was shaped that traced the lives of these good men / Dropped from an angel's wing.”
• Walton’s The Compleat Angler, or Contemplative Man's Recreation (1653) — a conversation in which an angler argues that fishing is an art born in man, akin to poetry; even mundane acts (impaling a minnow for bait) receive poetical treatment: “Put your hook in at his mouth, and out at his gills, and do it as if you loved him.”
• Evelyn and Pepys — the Restoration’s most famous prose works are diaries:
  • John Evelyn’s Diary (1641–1697) — a gentleman’s chronicle of private and public life.
  • Samuel Pepys’s Diary (1660–1669) — a secretary’s frank and sometimes gossipy account of Restoration life and state affairs; Pepys later became Admiral of the Admiralty and President of the Royal Society, yet his diary is known for its private and public scrutiny, often mordant and entertaining.
• Summary of the period’s literary climate:
  • The last three quarters of the 17th century were marked by bitter conflict between two main political and religious parties: the Royalists (Cavaliers) and the Puritans.
  • The Restoration period produced a wide variety of prose and poetry, lacking the unity of Elizabethan literature; Milton emerges as the greatest writer, with his Elizabethan-influenced Horton poems, controversial prose, Paradise Lost, and Samson; Bunyan emerges as a notable Puritan writer with Grace Abounding and The Pilgrim’s Progress.
  • Dryden is the chief Restoration prose figure; minor poets such as Robert Herrick and George Herbert also stand out.
  • Other notable prose works include the Religio Medici of Thomas Browne, Walton’s The Compleat Angler, and Pepys and Evelyn diaries.
• SELECTIONS FOR READING (typical selections to consult):
  • Milton’s minor poems and parts of Paradise Lost (Standard English Classics, Riverside Literature, etc.).
  • Cavalier and Puritan poets (Maynard's English Classics, Golden Treasury Series, Manly's English Poetry, Century Readings, Ward's English Poets).
  • Prose selections: Manly's English Prose, Craik's English Prose Selections, Garnett's English Prose from Elizabeth to Victoria.
  • Pilgrim’s Progress and Grace Abounding (Temple Classics, Everyman's Library).
  • Selections from Dryden (Manly's English Prose and English Poetry).
  • Pope and others in various editions; The Compleat Angler and Religio Medici in Temple Classics and Everyman's Library.
• BIBLIOGRAPHY (guides to texts and manuals for English history and literature):
  • History: Wakeling, King and Parliament; Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution; Tulloch, English Puritanism; Harrison, Oliver Cromwell; Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts; Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV.
  • Literature: Masterman, The Age of Milton; Dowden, Puritan and Anglican; Wendell, Temper of the Seventeenth Century in Literature; Gosse, Seventeenth−Century Studies; Schilling, Seventeenth−Century Lyrics; Walton, Lives of Donne, Wotton, Hooker, Herbert, and Sanderson; Milton (Garnett; Pattison); Corson, Introduction to Milton; Raleigh, Milton; Stopford Brooke, Milton; Essays on Milton by Macaulay, Lowell, and Arnold; Brown, John Bunyan; Boswell’s Johnson and other Johnson biographies; Dryden, Greene, and Swift’s sources; Gosse, From Shakespeare to Pope; Thomas Browne’s Life; Johnson essays and Boswell’s Life of Johnson.
• The Puritan Age and the Restoration in a sentence: a period of intense religious and political conflict that produced a diverse and often individualistic prose and poetry, with Milton as the towering Puritan figure, Bunyan’s religious allegory, Dryden’s Restoration vigor, and Walton and Evelyn-Pepys representing a more humane, humanist record.

The Eighteenth-Century Literature (approximately 1700−1789)

• Historical backdrop and main features:
  • The most striking political feature was the rise of constitutional and party government. The 1688 Revolution established Parliament as supreme, yet the population split into rival factions: the liberal Whigs (protecting popular liberty) and the conservative Tories (favoring royal authority). A third faction, the Jacobites, aimed to restore the Stuarts.
  • The two main parties’ influence extended into literature: pamphleteers, political writers, and satirists became key agents of persuasion. Addison, Steele, Defoe, and Swift contributed to Whig or Tory causes; writers often served as political operatives through their craft.
  • Social life expanded rapidly: roughly three thousand public coffeehouses and many clubs in London by mid-century; these spaces shaped literature as topics of conversation—political, fashion, gossip—and formality of style (Addison, Pope) became a fashion to imitate.
  • The expansion of the British Empire intensified interest in travel literature; Captain Cook’s voyages and Hawkesworth’s Voyages (1773) opened the world beyond the drawing room and politics, providing adventurous context for English letters.
• Three main divisions in eighteenth-century writings:
  • Classicism (often called the “formal” or Augustan age of English letters) — dominated by rule-bound poetry and a focus on classical forms.
  • Revival of Romantic poetry — a reaction against formalism, emphasizing feeling, nature, imagination, and individual expression.
  • Beginnings of the modern English novel — early experimentation with prose fiction that moves toward realism and social observation.
• CLASSICISM (the eighteenth-century formal tradition)
  • The term classicism here refers to the influence of Greek and Roman models, and later to a formal, rule-bound approach to poetry; it is contrasted with the later Romantic impulse.
  • ALEXANDER POPE (1688−1744)
  • Life and significance: born in London; crippled physically, yet became the supreme literary figure of his age; demonstrated that poetry could sustain a livelihood without noble patronage; dominated English poetry during his lifetime and long after.
  • Key works and traits:
    • An Essay on Criticism (1711) — a compact treatise on poetic principles; inspired by Horace and Boileau; famous excerpt:
    • 
      $<br /> First follow nature, and your judgment frame<br /> By her just standard, which is still the same:<br /> Unerring nature, still divinely bright,<br /> One clear, unchanged and universal light,<br /> Life, force and beauty must to all impart,<br /> At once the source and end and test of Art.<br />$
    • The Rape of the Lock (1712) — mock-heroic satire on the fashions of Queen Anne’s age; uses dainty aerial beings (sprites, sylphs) to lampoon the trivialities of high society while preserving exquisite craftsmanship.
    • An Essay on Man — four epistles exploring man’s place in the universe and happiness, framed by Deistic views and Bolingbroke’s philosophy; famous line: $Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;$ and the ultimate maxim: $All nature is but art, unknown to thee; / All chance, direction which thou canst not see; / All discord, harmony not understood; / All partial evil, universal good; / And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, / One truth is clear: whatever is, is right.$
    • Pope’s strengths and weaknesses: master of form, epigram, satire; limitation in emotional depth and living connection to broader human experience; a poet of his era rather than a poet for all time.
  • Notable secondary works and figures:
    • The Dunciad (a savage satire against those who angered him — revenge through verse).
    • The Man (Moral Epistles, etc.)— a persona of moral teacher; his Letters reveal more about his social image than his inner feelings.
  • JONATHAN SWIFT (1667−1745)
  • Role: major satirist; his Gulliver's Travels (1726) satirizes human society through four voyages (Lilliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa, HouyhNHNms and Yahoos).
  • Life arc: born in Dublin to English parents; spend much of life in Ireland; early career marginalized; moved to London; Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin; later spent last decades in Dublin, often bitter and cynical.
  • Gulliver’s Travels — a biting critique of human nature and imperial society; the satire remains entertaining while also revealing Swift’s deep skepticism about human pretensions.
  • Style and critique: Swift’s prose is clear, vivid, and natural; weaknesses include coarse references and sometimes a failure to see humanity in a truly balanced light; especially harsh toward those he condemns.
  • Journal to Stella — Swift’s private journal to Esther Johnson (Stella) reveals a gentler, more personal side and provides insights into Swift’s relations and political milieu.
  • JOSEPH ADDISON (1672−1719)
  • Role: a model of polite prose; shift from political verse to essays; his career mirrors the social life of the era (Will’s Coffee House, the club culture).
  • The Campaign (1704) — celebrate and critique of a contemporary military victory; political engagement through poetry.
  • The Tragedy Cato (1713) — a classic in London; widely successful and performed; reflects Addison’s sense of moral seriousness in drama.
  • The Essays as a form — conversational, witty, and accessible; Addison’s talent lay in the prose essay: clear, well-constructed, and polished; the Essays helped define an English style that valued ease, civility, and thoughtfulness.
  • RICHARD STEELE (1672−1729)
  • Role: co-author with Addison on many projects; inventor of the modern magazine format; The Tatler (1709) and The Spectator (1711) helped democratize literature by bringing literary culture to coffeehouses and the general public.
  • The Tatler (1709) — short essays and gossip; The Spectator (1711) — longer essays on manners, society, and virtue; Steele contributed significantly, but Addison helped shape the final form.
  • Addisonian style and Johnson’s later influence — Steele’s warmth and sympathy balanced with Addison’s polish; the Addisonian style influenced American writers (Franklin, Boyd, Irving) and later generations.
  • DR. JOHNSON AND HIS CIRCLE
  • Samuel Johnson (1709−1784) — the great lexicographer; his Dictionary helped standardize English; Johnson’s broader legacy rests in Rambler essays, Lives of the Poets, and his conversations at the Literary Club (with Reynolds, Pitt, Gibbon, Goldsmith, Burke, etc.).
  • Johnson’s character: blunt, principled, sometimes irritable; his career shows the rise of independent literary authorship and the decline of patronage as the sole basis of literary success; his Letter to Lord Chesterfield epitomizes the modern view that a book should stand on its own merits, not on patronage.
  • EDMUND BURKE (1729−1797)
  • A brilliant Irishman who became a leading political philosopher and orator; his works on America, India, and France are particularly notable; key writings include On Taxation (1774), On Conciliation (1775), and Reflections on the French Revolution (1790).
  • Burke’s method: construct a careful argument to appeal to reason, then employ vivid description, digressions, and illustrative references to persuade the reader; yet his eloquence often lacks sustained logical force, making some arguments less convincing in practice.
  • Burke’s style: hailed by Matthew Arnold as the greatest master of prose style in English literature; his effectiveness lies in his ornate, dramatic diction blended with sound argumentation.
  • THE HISTORIANS
  • The eighteenth century saw a boom in historical writing; Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776) stands out as the era’s monumental history book; praised for its breadth, organization, and grand style, though criticized for overreliance on pageantry, materialism, and limited understanding of religious movements.
  • Gibbon’s writing exemplifies the Johnsonian oratorical prose style, which influenced generations of later American and English writers.
• THE REVIVAL OF ROMANTIC POETRY
  • The Romantic revival emerges as a reaction against the century’s formalism; poets like Collins and Gray led the way; other notable Romantic voices include Goldsmith (though sometimes seen as bridging the two cultures), Burns, Cowper, Blake, Percy (Reliques of Ancient English Poetry), Ossian (Macpherson’s forgeries), Chatterton (Rowley Papers).
  • COLLINS (1721−1759) — known for graceful, melancholy verse; Gray (1716−1771) — best known for Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1750) which epitomizes a quiet, reflective mood; Gray’s other works include To Spring, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, The Progress of Poesy, The Bard; together these works mark the end of classicism in English poetry.
  • OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728−1774)
  • The most versatile eighteenth-century writer; his life was marked by financial misfortune yet prolific output; his prose and poetry blend sentimental charm with moral insight; notable works include The Deserted Village, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), She Stoops to Conquer (1773), and Citizen of the World (a series of letters from a Chinese visitor).
  • The Vicar of Wakefield is praised for its moral purity and charm; The Deserted Village is celebrated as a moving portrayal of rural life and social change.
  • ROBERT BURNS (1759−1796)
  • World’s celebrated Scottish poet; Burns captures Scottish life and emotion with extraordinary directness and sincerity; his songs (e.g., Bonnie Bonnie Banks o’ Doon, Auld Lang Syne) are rooted in traditional Scottish lyric and tune; his longer poems—Address to the Deil, Tam o’ Shanter—display imaginative power and comic or dramatic energy.
  • Burns’s life fused intense connection with nature and humanity; his poetry expresses democratic and universal themes through simple, heartfelt language. His life reveals the tension between genius and personal struggle (dissipation, poverty).
  • Burns’s genius lies in touching common human feelings with universal resonance; his poetry foregrounds Nature and Humanity, written with honesty and directness, appealing to broad audiences including farmers, sailors, soldiers, and laborers.
• MINOR POETS OF ROMANTICISM
  • COWPER (1731−1800) — The Task; Homer translation; remembered for hymns and the light, accessible poetry like John Gilpin.
  • JAMES MACPHERSON (1736−1796) — Ossian’s Fingal (1762) — a sensational, controversial collection claimed to be translations from an ancient Gaelic bard; later seen as largely forged.
  • THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752−1770) — The Rowley Papers; forged medieval poetry, a famous literary forgery reflecting Romantic interest in medieval lore.
  • WILLIAM PERCY (1729−1811) — Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) — a foundational anthology that influenced Walter Scott and revived interest in balladry.
  • WILLIAM BLAKE (1757−1827) — a mystic and visionary; celebrated for Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience (1794) and the early poetic sketches; seen by some as a genius of the eighteenth century; his works evoke an otherworldly, visionary sensibility.
• THE EARLY ENGLISH NOVEL
  • The novel emerges as a distinct genre in the eighteenth century, defined against the medieval romance.
  • WALTER SCOTT’s distinction (a useful shorthand): romance centers on marvelous incidents and superhuman heroes; the novel is more natural, aligned with ordinary life, and capable of social observation.
  • The romance’s evolution—Medieval chivalric romance → Don Quixote (satire on romance’s pretensions)—led to a critique of purely fantastical adventures.
  • The modern novel then unfolds as a blend of story, study (observation of human life), and imagination, producing works accessible to a broad audience and capable of moral and social insight.
• FORERUNNERS AND MODEL NOVELISTS
  • DANIEL DEFOE (1661−1731) — Robinson Crusoe (1719) and a prolific output across genres; Defoe’s realism—often described as ‘inventing’ facts or presenting verisimilitude—made him a pioneer of modern, realistic narrative.
  • Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and Clarissa (1748) by SAMUEL RICHARDSON (1689−1761) — the first English novel in epistolary form; focuses on sensibility and moral cultivation but can verge into sentimentality.
  • HENRY FIELDING (1707−1754) — Joseph Andrews (1742) and Tom Jones (1749) — a burlesque of Richardson’s sentimentality; Fielding’s realism and portrayal of life’s rough edges mark a shift toward a more robust, worldly kind of fiction; Amelia (1751) continues this line but includes similar coarse elements.
  • Influence of early novels: Richardson’s sensibility and epistolary form; Fielding’s realism and social observation; Goldsmith’s moral clarity and domestic focus; collectively these shapes helped form the modern English novel—its aims, its audiences, and its ethical concerns.
• SUMMARY OF XVIII‑CENTURY LITERATURE
  • The eighteenth century spans the era between two great revolutions: the English Revolution (1688) and the French Revolution (1789).
  • Major characteristics include a strong emphasis on form, the fusion of poetry with politics, satire’s prevalence, and interest in historical subjects.
  • The literature of the period is organized into three divisions: classicism (formal verse and rule-bound aesthetics), the revival of romantic poetry (emotion, nature, imagination), and the development of the modern novel (realistic fiction, social observation).
  • Key figures and works to study:
  • Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, Johnson, Burke, and Gibbon as central pillars of classicism; their works illustrate the era’s formal style and political engagements.
  • Romantic revival’s distinct voices: Gray and Collins (poetic precursors), Burns (Scottish genius; democratic appeal), Goldsmith (integrating romantic warmth with moral clarity), Cowper, Blake, Percy, Ossian, Chatterton as catalysts for medieval romance revival.
  • The novel as a central form: Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa; Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia; Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield as a bridge to moral prose and domestic realism.
• CLOSING THOUGHTS
  • The eighteenth century is characterized by a transition: from a predominantly formal, socially curated style (Addisonian and Popean ideals) to a more expansive, human-centered exploration of nature, emotion, and society (Romantic and novelistic impulses).
  • The era’s literary influence extended beyond Britain, shaping American letters (Franklin’s imitation of Spectator prose, etc.) and later American prose and poetry.
• NOTES ON TEXT SELECTIONS AND FURTHER READING
  • The chapters and bibliographic suggestions provide sources for deeper study across poetry, prose, and criticism.
  • Notable cross-links for further reading include: Pope’s An Essay on Criticism; Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; Addison and Steele on periodical essay-writing; Johnson’s Dictionary and Rambler; Burke’s Reflections and other political writings; Gibbon’s Decline and Fall; Burns’s Songs and Ballads; Gray’s Elegy; Goldsmith’s Deserted Village and Vicar of Wakefield; Defoe, Richardson, Fielding’s early novels.

Connections, themes, and implications

• Political and literary interdependence:
  • The rise of print culture, political pamphleteering, and the coffeehouse culture demonstrates how literature and public opinion influenced politics, and vice versa (Addison, Steele, Defoe, Swift).
• Social life and literary form:
  • The eighteenth century’s sociability (coffeehouses, clubs) produced a new, conversational prose style (the Addisonian essay) and a new form of public taste (The Spectator’s etiquette and moralizing yet accessible content).
• Expansion of empire and world literature:
  • Travel writing and exploration (Captain Cook) broadened readers’ horizons and fed the appetite for global narratives, while novels and verse kept the domestic sphere in view.
• Ethical, philosophical, and practical implications discussed:
  • Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution sparked debates on liberty, tradition, and governance; his method—eloquent, layered argument—illustrates how rhetoric can shape political philosophy.
  • Johnson’s refusal to rely on patrons (Letter to Chesterfield) signals a shift toward literary independence and the primacy of merit, a cornerstone of modern authorship.
• Numerical and formal references (LaTeX):
  • Thomas Browne: $1605-1682$
  • Religio Medici: $1642$
  • Walton's Compleat Angler: $1653$
  • Walton’s Lives: early prosody and character study; Wordworth’s sonnet on Walton: reference to “dropping from an angel's wing.”
  • Milton’s era spans the Puritan age (noted as a central influence in later chapters).

Note: The selections and bibliographic references given in the text provide a roadmap for primary works and critical studies that illuminate the period’s literary evolution, its socio-political context, and its enduring influence on English and American letters.