Augustan Age: The 18th Century – English – UGC NET – Notes

Important Years: Social, Political and Literary Events (1701–1795)

Early 18th Century: Constitutional & Political Changes:

• 1701 – Act of Settlement passed.

• 1702 – Death of William III; accession of Queen Anne.

• 1709 – First Copyright Act passed.

• 1713 – Treaty of Utrecht.

• 1714 – Death of Queen Anne; accession of George I (Beginning of the Hanoverian Dynasty).

• 1715 – First Jacobite Rebellion in favour of James Edward Stuart (Old Pretender).

• 1720 – South Sea Bubble financial crash.

• 1727 – Death of George I; accession of George II.

• 1737 – Licensing Act passed (control over theatres).

Mid-18th Century: War & Literary Milestones:

• 1745 – Second Jacobite Rebellion, led by Charles Edward Stuart (Young Pretender); rebellion suppressed.

• 1755 – Publication of Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary.

• 1756 – Beginning of the Seven Years’ War.

• 1760 – Death of George II; accession of George III.

• 1763 – Peace of Paris ends the Seven Years’ War.

Late 18th Century: Revolution & Industrial Change:

• 1770 – Suicide of Thomas Chatterton.

• 1771 – First edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

• 1776 – American Independence.

• 1784 – Improvement of the Steam Engine by James Watt (Beginning of the Industrial Revolution).

• 1789 – The French Revolution.

• 1792 – Imprisonment of the French Royal Family.

• 1793 – Open warfare between France and England.

• 1795 – Establishment of the French Directory.

Major Literary Figures and their Works

Daniel Defoe (1659–1731) – Pioneer of the English Novel:

• The True-Born Englishman (1701)

• The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702)

• Robinson Crusoe (1719)

• Moll Flanders (1724)

• Roxana (1724)

• A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)

• Colonel Jack (1722)

• Captain Singleton (1720)

• A Tour through Great Britain

• The Review

Matthew Prior (1664–1721):

• Henry and Emma

• Alma (1718)

• Solomon on the Vanity of the World (1718)

John Arbuthnot (1667–1735):

• The History of John Bull (1712)

• The Art of Political Lying

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) – Master of Satire:

• A Tale of a Tub (1704)

• The Battle of the Books (1704)

• Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

• A Modest Proposal

• The Drapier’s Letters (1724)

• Journal to Stella

Joseph Addison (1672–1719):

• The Spectator

• Cato (1703)

• The Campaign (1704)

• The Vision of Mirza

Sir Richard Steele (1672–1729):

• The Tatler (1709)

• The Guardian (1713)

• The Conscious Lovers (1722)

• The Funeral (1701)

Edward Young (1683–1765):

• Night Thoughts (1742)

• The Universal Passion

John Gay (1685–1732):

• The Beggar’s Opera (1728)

• Trivia (1716)

• The Shepherd’s Week

Alexander Pope (1688–1744) – Greatest Poet of the Augustan Age:

• An Essay on Criticism (1711)

• The Rape of the Lock (1712)

• The Dunciad (1728)

• An Essay on Man (1733)

• Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot

• Windsor Forest (1713)

• Translation of the Iliad and Odyssey

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761):

• Pamela (1740)

• Clarissa (1748)

• Sir Charles Grandison (1754)

Robert Blair (1699–1746):

• The Grave

John Dyer (1700–1758):

• Grongar Hill

James Thomson (1700–1748):

• The Seasons (1730)

• The Castle of Indolence (1748)

• Sophonisba (1729)

Henry Fielding (1707–1754) – Founder of the Comic Novel:

• Joseph Andrews (1742)

• Tom Jones (1749)

• Amelia (1751)

• Jonathan Wild

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) – Leader of the Age of Johnson:

• Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)

• Rasselas (1759)

• The Rambler

• The Lives of the Poets (1781)

Laurence Sterne (1713–1768):

• Tristram Shandy (1767)

• A Sentimental Journey (1768)

Thomas Gray (1716–1771) – Pre-Romantic Poet:

• Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751)

• The Progress of Poesy (1757)

• The Bard (1757)

• Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College (1747)

Horace Walpole (1719–1797) – Father of the Gothic Novel:

• The Castle of Otranto (1764)

William Collins (1721–1759) – Pre-Romantic Poet:

• Ode to Evening

• Ode on the Death of Thomson

• Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland

• How Sleep the Brave

Tobias Smollett (1721–1771) – Picaresque Novelist:

• The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748)

• Peregrine Pickle (1751)

• The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771)

Christopher Smart (1722–1771):

• Song to David

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774):

• The Traveller (1764)

• The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)

• The Deserted Village (1770)

• She Stoops to Conquer (1773)

Bishop Percy (1729–1811):

• Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765)

Clara Reeve (1729–1807):

• The Old English Baron

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) – Political Thinker:

• Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

• A Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)

William Cowper (1731–1800):

• The Task

• John Gilpin

James Macpherson (1736–1796):

• Ossian Poems (1760–63)

Edward Gibbon (1737–1794):

• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–88)

Thomas Paine (1737–1809):

• Rights of Man (1791)

James Boswell (1740–1795):

• The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816):

• The Rivals (1774)

• The School for Scandal (1777)

• The Critic (1779)

Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770):

• Poems

George Crabbe (1754–1832):

• The Village (1783)

• The Borough (1810)

William Godwin (1756–1836):

• Political Justice (1793)

• Caleb Williams (1794)

William Blake (1757–1827):

• Songs of Innocence (1789)

• Songs of Experience (1794)

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1793)

• The Book of Urizen (1794)

• Jerusalem

Frances Burney (1752–1840):

• Evelina (1778)

• Camilla (1796)

Robert Burns (1759–1796):

• Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect

• The Cotter’s Saturday Night

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797):

• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)

• A Vindication of the Rights of Men

Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823):

• The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

• The Italian (1797)

Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818):

• The Monk (1797)

Minor & Miscellaneous Writers:

• Gilbert Burnet — History of the Reformation

• John Strype — Ecclesiastical Memorials

• Jeremy Collier — Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain

• George Lillo — The London Merchant

• Isaac Watts — Hymns (1704)

• Thomas Parnell — The Hermit

• Lady Winchilsea — A Nocturnal Reverie

• Ambrose Philips — The Distressed Mother

Other Important Intellectual Works:

• John Locke — Essay Concerning Human Understanding

• Berkeley — Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)

• Butler — Analogy (1736)

• Akenside — The Pleasures of the Imagination (1744)

• Mackenzie — The Man of Feeling (1771)

• William Paley — Evidences of Christianity

• Rousseau — Confessions (1781)

• Kant — Critique of Pure Reason (1781)

• Schiller — The Robbers (1781)

• Beckford — Vathek (1786)

• Gilbert White — Natural History of Selborne (1789)

This period, often called the Augustan Age, emphasized:

• Reason and Order

• Satire

• Classical Imitation

• Growth of the Novel

• Rise of Political Writing

• Beginnings of Romanticism

The eighteenth century in English literature is commonly known as the Augustan Age, the Neoclassical Age, and the Age of Reason. The term “Augustan Age” arises from the conscious imitation of the classical writers of ancient Rome—particularly Virgil and Horace—by English authors from the Restoration period to the death of Alexander Pope (1688–1744).

The principal figures of the age include Alexander Pope and John Dryden in poetry, and Jonathan Swift and Joseph Addison in prose. Dryden serves as a transitional figure between Restoration and Augustan literature. Though he wrote comedies in the Restoration style, his verse satires and critical essays reflect strong neoclassical principles.

More than any other writer, Alexander Pope embodies the spirit of the Augustan Age, even though contemporaries such as Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe exerted a lasting influence. Literature aligned with Pope’s aesthetic ideals emphasized harmony, precision, urbanity, and imitation of classical models such as Homer, Cicero, Virgil, and Horace. This spirit is also evident in the works of poets like Matthew Prior.

The dominant poetic form was the heroic couplet, while in prose the essay and satire flourished. Although neoclassicism was a defining force in the early eighteenth century, it represented only one important strand within a broader and diverse literary culture. Nonetheless, its leading writers shaped the era so profoundly that the period is often characterized chiefly in terms of its neoclassical ideals.