The Enlightment.
The history of England and second part
of the 17’th centure, and during the 18’th centure was marked by British
colonial, expression and struggle for the leading role in cowers. The writters
and philosofists of this age protested against the sovivals of feodalizm in
thich they saw the main evil of this time. Man they thought was vertains by
nature and wise was duty ignorence to they started a pubic movement for
enlighting the people. This movement was called "the enlightment”. The
enlighters belived in the power of reason and the period was also called "the
age of reason”. This period saw a remarkable rise in literature. English
literature of this period may be characterise by the following features: 1.The
rise of the political pamphlets and issue. The novell became the leading genre.
2. The prose style became clever gracefull and polished. 3. The hero of the
novell was no longer a prince but a representative of the middle class. 4.
Literature became very instructive.
The literature of this age may
be divided into 3 periods:
The 1’st period is caracterised
by classisizm in poetry. The greatest follower of the classical style was
Alexander Pope. There appeared the first realistic novels written by Defoe and
Swift.
The 2’nd peiod saw the development
of the realistic social novel, represen-tive by Richardson, Fielding and
others.
The 3’rd period is marked by the
appiriense of a new trends: sentimenta-lizm. Typefed by the works of Goldsmith
and Stern. This period also saw the rise of the realistic drama (R. Sheridan).
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