The Neo-classical age
This blog is about Neo-classical age. Here, I'm writing three questions-answers about neo-classical age as assignment by Department of English, MKBU.
Neoclassical literature was written between 1660 and 1798. This time period is into three parts:
The Restoration period
The Augustan period
The Age of Johnson.
1) what similarities/differences do you find between the contemporary political sphere of India and the neo-classical age of England.
-> Similarities:
1) - Neo-classical age had two political parties. Whig and Tory. This both parties played a vital role in society and literature.
- similarly, in contemporary India also political parties and it plays vital role in society and literature.
2) - in neo-classical era, the political parties had controversies. It had so many political clubs and groups. There was a lot of satire on political background of that age.
- Likewise, in contemporary India also political parties have controversies and upon that there is a lot satire we could find.
-> Differences:
1) - In neo-classical age, politics had connected with literature. The writers who interested in politics they wrote flimsy on other parties.
- But in contemporary India, politics totally affect to the society. We can say that it is only the game of money and power.
2) - In neo-classical era, we used to see less corruption.
- Differently, in contemporary India, there is only corruption in politics.
2) Write on 18th century women poets.
18th century's women poets:
-> Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784)
-> Mary Barber (1685-1755)
-> Charlotte Smith (1749-1806)
-> Hannah Mor (1745-1833)
-> Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762)
-> Charlotte Brooke (1740-1793)
-> Margaret Bingham (1749-1814)
-> Susanna Blamire (1747-1794)
and so many others were the women poets of 18th century.
The 18th century women poets were focusing on imagination. They had ability to employ their imagination to the metaphorical prison of a tyrannical marriage and an oppressive world.
In that age female poets were striking on dangerous male world freely. During the 18th century female poets became increasingly numerous and industrious, women began to form ' a significant sector' of the literary publics.
The earliest publications of most eighteenth-century writers are individual poems, and it is often forgotten that the first substantial, even book-length, publication of many writers known today as novelists or playwrights was a volume of poetry. Statistical studies of women writers by Judith Stanton reveal that poetry was women's most popular literary form, and she calculates that 263 women published poetry between 1660 and 1800 (in comparison, she tallies 201 women who published novels). Until 1760, however, the average number of women publishing poetry in a decade was 7; the figures Stanton gives for the next decades are 1760s: 19; 1770s: 36; 1780s: 55; and 1790s: 64. Roger Lonsdale asserts that in the first decade of the eighteenth century only two women published collections of their poetry, while in the 1790s more than thirty did. These figures do not really indicate just how much poetry women were writing or how many women were writing poetry.
3) Write in brief about your favourite major/minor writer/poet of the age.
Here, I am writing a brief note about one famous poet writer and translator Alexander pope.
He was born on 22 May 1688 in London and died on 30 May 1744 in Middlesex. He was best known for his satirical verse and heroic couplet. Pope influenced literature through his poetry, identifying and refining his own position as a critic and a poet.
Religion played an important role in Pope's life. He came of a Roman catholic family. In his 'Ode to solitude' Pope asserts that happiness can be found in living a retired, quiet and self-sufficient life on one's own land.
-> His famous works:
- Rape of the Lock
- The Dunciad
- An Essay on Criticism
- Essay on Man
- Ode on solitude
- Three hours after marriage
Pope was the undisputed master in certirical and didactic verse. Instead of poetry of emotion and imagination he preferred the poetry of reason and common sense.
Pope was the most eminent and the most representative poet of his time. He directed and satisfied the poetic test of his contemporaries. He expressed the predominant thought and sentiment of men about him and he won for himself a Central place among the wits, philosophers and statesman of a brilliant age.
Alexander pope had disease of tuberculosis of the spine and he died at the age of 56.
The earlier part of the neo-classical age is called the age of Pope because Pope was the dominating figure in that period. He was the only great poet of enlightenment England.
