The 17th century was one of the most stormy periods of English history. The political situation in the country was complicated. The growing contradictions between the new class, the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the followers of absolutism and the English Church on the other hand brought about the English Revolution in the 1640s. As a result of the revolution, the king was dethroned and beheaded and the protectorate of Oliver Cromwell was established. Though in two decades monarchy was restored again, and new social relations continued to force their way.

The 18th century saw Great Britain rapidly growing into an industrial country. It was an age of intensive flourishing of industry. The 18th century was also remarkable for the development of science and culture. It was in this period that English painting began to develop too.

In spite of the progress of industry and culture in England the majority of the English people were still very ignorant. That is why one of the most important problems that faced the country was the problem of education.

The 17th and 18th centuries are known in the history of European culture as the period of Enlightenment. The central problem of the Enlightenment ideology was that of man and his nature.

The Enlighteners believed in reason as well as in man’s inborn goodness. Vice in people, they thought, was due to the miserable living conditions which could be changed by force of reason. They considered it their duty to enlighten people, to help them see the roots of evil. The Enlighteners also believed in the powerful educational value of art.

The English Enlighteners were not unanimous in their views. Some of them spoke in defense of the existing order, considering that a few reforms were enough to improve it. These were: Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope and Samuel Richardson.
The other group included the writers who openly protested against the social order. They were: Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding, Oliver Goldsmith, Richard Sheridan, Robert Burns.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. His father, a prosperous linen-draper, was a catholic, and because of his religion Pope was expelled from the public schools and universities. He picked up most of his knowledge from books, and though he read much he never became an accurate scholar.

Pope’s poetic career began with Four Pastorals published in 1709. These were short poems on spring, summer, autumn and winter, closely fashioned on Virgil. His Essay on Criticism contained Pope’s aesthetic views.

A “heroi-comical” poem, as Pope himself called it, The Rape of the Lock which appeared in 1712 enjoyed instant success. It was founded on an incident which occurred at that time. A certain Lord Petre cut a lock of hair from the head of young beauty named Arabella Fermor (the Belinda of the poem). This practical joke led to a quarrel between the two families. Pope seized on the occasion and wrote a long poem in which the society is pictured in detail and satirized with great wit.

Pope’s next work was the translation of the Illiad, which brought him fame and established financial positions. Pope translated Homer in the elegant artificial language of his own age and gave the reading public what it wanted – a readable version of the Greek poem in accordance with the taste of time.

After the Illiad Pope translated the Odyssey. After the publication of his Homer, as the two poems are together popularly called, Pope wrote satiric poetry. In 1728 he published a long satire on the “dunces” – the bad poets – called The Dunciad. In The Dunciad Pope ridiculed his literary opponents. The theme of the poem is the most important theme of the Enlightenment – the fight of the reason against ignorance and barbarity. It is the fiercest and the finest of Pope’s satires.

One of the best known and most quoted of his works is The Essay on Man. The purpose of the essay is to justify the existing state of things.

In his Moral Essays and Essays on Criticism Pope expressed similar views. Yet he was not blind to the vices of bourgeois society, which he often criticized.

Pope expressed his ideas in wonderfully quotable verse. After Shakespeare he is the most quoted of English poets.
These and many other quotations from Pope have found their way into common speech:

- A little learning is a dangerous thing.
- And fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.
- The proper study of mankind is man.
- To err is human, to forgive divine.

In his lifetime Pope was immensely popular. Many foreign writers as well as the majority of English poets, looked to him as their model. But later at the end of the 18th century young romantic poets, especially Wordsworth and Coleridge criticized Pope’s poetry for its rationalism and lack of imagination.

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe is regarded as the founder of realistic novel in English and European literature.

Daniel Defoe’s life was complicated and adventurous. He was the son of a wealthy London butcher and received a good education. His father, being a puritan, wanted his son to become a priest. He preferred, however, the life of a merchant. He traveled in Spain, Germany, France and Italy on business. He spoke half a dozen languages and was a man of wide learning.

From 1694 Defoe took an active part in public affairs. His energy enabled him to combine the life of a man of action with that of a writer. He was the earliest literary journalist in England. He wrote political pamphlets on any subject and every event. He was a man of an active and original mind, an independent and courageous thinker who dealt with social questions.

In his interesting Essay on Projects (1698) Daniel Defoe suggested all kinds of reforms in different spheres of social life: to establish savings-banks, to construct railways, to give higher education to women, to protect seamen, etc.

In 1702 Defoe published a satirical pamphlet written in support of the protestants, or dissenters persecuted by the government and the Church. In the pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters he defended the freedom of religious belief. He was punished for this and had to stand for three days in the pillory. The pillory sentence turned to his triumph. People brought him flowers and sang his Hymn to the Pillory (1703) in which he criticized the law.

After producing political pamphlets Defoe turned to writing novels. He came to it when he was nearly sixty. His first fiction book was Robinson Crusoe (1719). Its success encouraged Defoe. There followed a series of other novels: Captain Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders (1722), Colonel Jacque (1722) and Roxana (1724). Daniel Defoe died in London in 1731 in poverty.
He left behind him more than three hundred published works, and the reputation of being the “First English Journalist”.

Also, with his imaginative account of the adventures of Robinson Crusoe, he has become regarded as the forerunner of great English novelists.

Jonathan Swift.

The greatest of the prose satirists of the age of the Enlightenment was Jonathan Swift. His bitter satire was aimed at the policy of the English ruling classes towards Ireland. That’s why Irish people considered Swift their champion in the struggle for the welfare and freedom of their country.

Jonathan Swift was born in Dublin, but he came from an English family. His father died before he was born. The boy saw little of his mother’s care: she had to go back to her native town.

He was supported by his uncle and from his very boyhood he learned how miserable it was to be dependent on the charity or relatives. He was educated at Kilkenny school and Dublin University, Trinity College, to become a clergyman. At school he was fond of history, literature and languages.

After graduating from the college he went to London and became a private secretary to Sir William Temple who was a retired statesman and writer. Jonathan Swift improved his education at Sir William’s library and in 1692 he took his Master of Arts degree at Oxford. He got a place of a vicar in Ireland and worked there for a year and a half. He wrote much and burned most of what he wrote. Soon he grew tired of lonely life in Ireland and was glad to accept Sir William Temple’s proposal for his return to him. Swift lived and worked there until Temple’s death in 1699.

The satire The Battle of the Books (1697) marked the beginning of Swift’s literary career. It depicts a war between books of modern and ancient authors. The book is an allegory and reflects the literary discussion of the time.

Swift’s first success was A Tale of a Tub (1704), a biting satire on religion. In the introduction to A Tale of a Tub the author tells of a curious custom of seamen. When a ship is attacked by a whale seamen throw an empty tub into the sea to distract the whale’s attention. The meaning of the allegory was quite clear to the readers of that time. The tub was religion which the state (for a ship has always been the emblem of a state) threw to its people to distract them from any struggle.

The satire is written in the form of a story about three brothers symbolizing the three main religions in England: Peter (The Catholic Church), Martin (To Anglican Church) and Jack (puritanism). It carries such ruthless attacks on religions that even now it remains one of the books forbidden by the Pope of Rome.

In 1713 Swift was made Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. Living in Dublin Swift became actively involved in the struggle of the Irish people for their rights and interests against English oppression and poetry.

Swift’s literary work was also closely connected with his political activity. In the numerous political pamphlets Swift ridiculed different spheres of life of bourgeois society: law, wars, politics, etc.

In 1726 Swift’s masterpiece Gulliver’s Travels appeared. All Swift’s inventive genius and savage satire were at their best in this work. This novel brought him fame and immortality. Swift died on the 19th of October, 1745, in Dublin.

Robert Burns

The greatest poet of the 18th century was Robert Burns. His popularity in Scotland is very great. The Scottish bard was born in a clay cottage in the village of Alloway. His father was a poor farmer, but a man who valued knowledge. It was from his father that Robert received his learning and his love for books. His mother had a beautiful voice and taught Robert old Scottish songs and ballads which he later turned into his best poems.

Robert Burns had no regular schooling. But when Robert was seven, his father engaged a teacher to educate him and his brother Gilbert. John Murdoch, an eighteen year-old scholar, was a very enthusiastic teacher. He taught Robert, who was his favourite, many subjects, French and literature among them. However, Robert could not afford much time for his studies. His father wanted to try his hand in farming and Robert had to help him on the farm. At the age of thirteen he had to take over from his father most of the work on the farm as his father was growing old.

Those were hard times for Robert, and he had to leave school. Nearly all life Robert Burns worked on his small piece of land. At fifteen he did most of the work on the farm, his father’s health being very poor. And as Burns followed the plough he whistled and sang. He made up his own words to the old folk tunes of Scotland that he knew so well. In his songs he spoke of what he saw – of the woods and fields and valleys, of the deer and the skylark and the small field-mouse, of the farmer’s poor cottage.

Burns wrote his first verses when he was fifteen. Very soon his poems became popular among his friends and acquaintances. In 1785 he met a girl who became the great love of all his life and inspirer of his numerous lyrical verses. Jean had a wonderful voice and knew a lot of old melodies to which Burns composed his songs.

In 1786 Burns published his first book under the title of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The book was a great success. He was invited to Edinburgh. He conquered the Edinburgh society by his wit and manners as much as by poetry. In Edinburgh he was often advised to write in standard English on noble themes, but he refused. He wanted to write poetry about the people and for the people. While in Edinburgh Burns got acquainted with some enthusiasts of Scottish songs and ballads and became engaged in collecting the treasures of the Scottish folklore. He traveled about Scotland collecting popular songs. After his father’s death he did not give up farming and worked hard to earn his living. In 1791 Burns got the post of excise officer and moved to Dumfries. The last years of his life were very hard. The hard daily work on the farm, the constant starvation and privations finally undermined Burns’s health. On July 21. 1796. at the age of 37, Burns died. His body rests in a Mausoleum in Dumfries. The house in Alloway, where he was born, has now been restored. Every year thousands of people from all over the world come here to pay homage to the great poet.