'Eighteenth Century Literature Essay\r'

'At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century Lit partture the literary pieces accent on rational and scientific views on all aspects of life be it stinting, genial, political and religious. The period heralded the considerable clipping of Enlightenment which was the thought often frequent of the day. The writers sought to determine universal principles on humanity, record, and rescript. The eighteenth-century literate formulateed this quest. Written pieces or so this age attacked various spiritual and scientific authority, dogmatism, intolerance, censorship, and economic and social restraints.\r\n then we evoke contact in Thomas Gray’s â€Å"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” expressedly deals with the social issues normal during their time specially the wide initiative between social class and the luck to attain greatness. These lines in the metrical composition captured these views: â€Å" allow not Ambition mock their reusable toil, Their h omely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor sizeableness perk with a disdainful grin The short and simple annals of the Poor. ”\r\n witness more(prenominal): the importance of macrocosm eager satire\r\nGray’s looking throughout the rime is filled with regret. virtuoso can sentiency that something important is lost. This aflame tone captures the injustices that exist in the society due to wealth. He was actually utter his opinions clearly against social class prejudices that was patent during that period. In Jonathan Swift’s A Modest proffer similarly tackled the social ills during his time. This satirical essay used allusions to English oppressive attitudes toward the Irish.\r\nThis is apparent in these lines â€Å"I grant this food may be somewhat dear, and therefore very tight-laced for Landlords, who as they present already devoured close of the Parents, foregatherm to have the lift out name to the Children. ” He also pointed out criticism s on England on the way it mistreated Ireland: â€Å"For this manakin of commodity will not swallow exportation, and flesh organism of too stonecutter a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be jocund to eat up our whole earth without it. â€Å"\r\nAt first glance, the poem appeared to be criticisms heaped on England. But upon closer charge one can also sense datum that Swift was expressing his sentiments on the conditions in Ireland, more specifically the can-do spirit of the time that pervaded the community which misled people into thinking that they can cure all social and economic ills specifically fix population and wear issues. Swift’s Modest Proposal talked or so â€Å"a burlesque of projects concerning the lamentable”, that were considered fashionable in the early eighteenth century.\r\nEighteenth Century publications is characterized by extreme rationalism and skepticism which gave prove to deism or the belief in the existence of God which became the main estimate in the succeeding era of Romanticism. This era is considered as the Age of Sensibility which of anatomy clased with the reportls of the Middle Ages. Towards the end of the period, an intensifying focus on instinct and feeling sooner of judgment and restraint was noted sidewalk the way for the Romantic writings. Romantic Literature During the period of Romanticism, industrialization was introduced.\r\nSteam locomotive engine was developed and this caused expansion of cities and a chassis of migrants leaving the countryside. Poor people flocked to the city. Issues much(prenominal) as class-conflicts and concerns on environmental taint were prevalent. This developments in the era prompted the poets and the writers to seek comfort in the beauty of nature. Thus, in around of their literary works we can see the universal theme of Mother spirit being the true cause of wisdome and the antido te to industrialization. Philosophers particularly Jean Jacques Rousseau tackled pertinent issues such as the supremacy or ascendancy of nature over civilization.\r\nA conclave of poets called Lake Poets from England espoused this philosophical view. Lake Poets comprised of a group of friends such as William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The work of these two poets reflect their sentiments perfectly. These Romantic Poets utilized emotions and reflections in their poets to claim their message across. Wordsworth’s `I Wandered unaccompanied as a Cloud`and Coleridge’s `The Eolian Harp` reflected their thoughts about nature and how much they value it. â€Å"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by Wordsworth is about the beauty of nature and the need for introspection.\r\nThis is crush captured in the last lines of the poem: â€Å"For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in brooding mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the satisfaction of soli tude; And then my heart with joy fills, And dances with the daffodils. ” Nature after all is best understood and appreciated in solitude. solitude here however does not soaked loneliness just now inner tranquillity or tranquility which is the by-product of being in commune with the natural order. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s `The Eolian Harp` also tackles the beauty that nature brings.\r\nThe Eolian Harp is a stringed instrument which produces unison when placed in an open window allowing breeze to pass over it. The eolian consist was often used by poets in the Romantic period to represent creativity. near like Wordsworth’s poem, it sought to apportion with pensiveness and nature as the closure or cure for this pensiveness as apparent in the first lines of the poem: â€Å"My pensive SARA ! thy soft cheek reclined Thus on mine arm, most comfort sweet it is To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown With flannel-flower’d Jasmin, and the broad- leav’d Myrtle”\r\nColeridge and Wordsworth, however, have different versions of amorousism. Coleridge wanted to make the extrasensory â€Å"real” or believable. Wordsworth’s idea of romanticism is to stir the imagination of readers development real characters. victorian Literature During the straight-laced Era (1837 †1901), novels and poems were no longer written mainly to please the aristocratic fewer but to make an impression and offer to the tastes of the much larger middle class. The novels were also getting wider acceptance around this time. In this era, romantic images of the past were extolled.\r\nThe writers use day-to-day language and combine it with classical and handed-down language to symbolize the ushering of modernity in the blue(a) period. At that period, the economy was developing, the gentry was gaining less prominence, and the class structures were vanishing. There is a expressed need for Victorian poets to arrest a voice that would capture the substance of their time and place. Rudyyard, Kipling ` Danny Deever` attempts to portray the inner turmoils of a man about to be executed. The poem is about military execution walk with Danny Deever. â€Å"What makes you look so white, so white?\r\n” said Files-on-Parade. â€Å"I’m dreadin’ what I’ve got to watch”, the Colour-Sergeant said. For they’re hangin’ Danny Deever, you can hear the Dead March play, The regiment’s in ‘ollow square †they’re hangin’ him to-day; Danny is to be executed by hanging because he killed a fellow soldier while he was asleep. One can sense the concerns of the soldier. Another important poet in the Victorian Era is William Ernest Henley who wrote â€Å"Invictus. ” His poems were largely based on his personal reflections of his life and his situation being an amputee who suffered tuberculosis of the bone.\r\nâ€Å"In the fell bobby pin of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbow’d. ” The common theme that ran through the poems is about struggles in life. Danny Deever struggled with his work as a soldier and in Invictus, struggles against disease was obvious. Literature in Victorian era is largely characterized as certain, conservative and objective. Writers in this theatre had learned to live with realities plaguing them be it social, economic and religious. Certainty in both poems abide by in the form of death and struggles.\r\nThe views during this literary period were predominantly conservative curiously when it came to social perspectives. The upheavals the people experienced during the romantic era had died down in the Victorian era. Much of the poets’ works around this time served to link and prepared writers as they pave way for the modern era. The literary pieces around this time also tended to reminiscing the past par ticularly the stories in the classical literature and the chivalrous literature of England. The Victorians cherised the the heroism, chivalry and nobility of the knights in the past and hoped to recapture that behavior in their period.\r\n'