全版新编英国文学选读(上)chapter7.docVIP

精.选 Chapter 7. The Eighteenth Century [The Age of Reason (1688——1798)] I. Historical background After the Glorious Revolution, Whig and Tory were established. The former one represented the interests of the moneyed class, while the latter one represented the royalists. England fought many wars with France, Spain, etc. In those wars England rose as a victor making it the strongest country in navy and economy and considerably stretching its occupied land oversees extending from the west of Canada to the east of India. II. The special features of the cultural life at the time a. Political writings: the rise of the political parties led to the appearance of pamphlet wars of political writings attracting many writers to work for either of the parties or both alternatively.b. The rise of newspapers and magazines: the reason for the rise: ·Both parties had their respective ones to express their opinions. ·The rise of the middle class demanded entertainment and education and they need to express their views too. c. Coffeehouses: where people gathered to exchange ideas and thus they help to determine the literary trend of the time d. The new morality: ·The emphasis on reason ·The development of tolerance of different opinions in politics and religion e. The influence of science and technology: ·Principia Mathematica in 1687 by Newton (1642——1727) ·The new epistemology of John Locke (1632——1704) f. French influence——Augustanism——neoclassicism stressing to learn from the classicals *What is classicism? The characteristics in Greek and Roman classical works. They are clarity, logic, form, proportion, balance with each other, parallelism, restraint. III. The characteristics of neoclassicism Reason rather than emotion and form rather than content were emphasized. Most of the writings at the time were didactic and satirical. The closed couplet was the only possible verse form for serious work for elegance, correctness, appropriateness and restraint were preferred. It