8.The 18th Century Prose 1700-1800

One of the most striking qualities of the 18th century in Great Britain was its optimism. Many people of the time thought they were experiencing a golden period similar to that of the Roman emperor Augustus; for this reason the name Augustan was given to the early 18th century. The century has also been called the Age of Enlightenment. The act of looking backward to ancient authors was also given a forward-looking twist. Although many writers of the era used ancient Greek and Roman authors as models of style, they adapted and made these models new, a reworking that drew the label neoclassical. Merchants and tradesmen achieved tremendous economic power during the 18th century, and people who today would be labelled as scientists drew an increasing amount of attention during what has been called the Classic Age of Science. Many important inventions — the spinning jenny, the power loom, and the steam engine, among others —helped to bring about an industrial society. Cities grew in size, and London began to assume a position as a great industrial and commercial center. In addition to a comfortable life, many of the members of the middle class demanded a respectable, moralistic art that was controlled by common sense — or, more precisely a “common sense” that aligned with their own bourgeois worldview. Theirs was a perspective formed in protest to what they perceived as the aristocratic immoralities in much of the Restoration literature, and its influence would reach throughout the century.

18Th Century Prose

The earlier part of the century was a golden age for prose, as the so-called rise of the ‘novel’, the most important literary development of the 18th century, demonstrates. Generally speaking, a different kind of prose from the past was emerging: in line with reactions against the intricacies, fineries and rhetorical extravagances of late European-Renaissance literature, this new prose was characterized by a certain restraint. More relaxed and more precise than much of what had been experienced beforehand.

Censorship and the Freedom to Write

Ever since the introduction of printing into England at the end of the fifteenth century, governments had sought to control what could be printed and distributed. Charles II’s Printing Act (aka Licensing Act) of 1662 had set up a licensing system ‘for preventing abuses in printing seditious, treasonable, and unlicensed books and pamphlets.’ The act expired in 1679, but was renewed again in 1692, altough for a brief period: indeed, the Licensing Act lapsed three years later, and the press was controlled less directly from that time on. Following a series of journalistic attacks on the government in the early 1700s, a Stamp Act was introduced in 1712: those wishing to publish a pamphlet or periodical were compelled to pay high taxes on their output (a halfpenny per issue on each paper), and this made the whole business a financially hazardous affair. Most acclaimed English writers of the early to mid-18th century, Defoe, Swift, Richardson and Fielding, wrote journalistic articles of one kind or another during their careers, and the link between journalism and the novel is a strong one. Dangers always remained, however: speaking out against the ministry (a seditious crime), the Church or in favour of the Catholic Pretender (trónkövetelő James) (high treason) could even lead to death, as 18-year-old printer John Matthews discovered to his surprise. Matthews has assisted in the publication of a Jacobite pamphlet called Vox Populi, Vox Dei in 1719, and was hanged, drawn and quartered for his efforts. For his ironical attack on dissenters (más hitű) in The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), Daniel Defoe was imprisoned and put in the pillory (pellengér).