17. Macpherson. What is meant by Macpherson's "Ossian"? Can you account for the remarkable success of the Ossianic forgeries?
18. Chatterton. Tell the story of Chatterton and the Rowley Poems. Read Chatterton's "Bristowe Tragedie," and compare it, in style and interest, with the old ballads, like "The Battle of Otterburn" or "The Hunting of the Cheviot" (all in Manly's English Poetry).
19. The First Novelists. What is meant by the modern novel? How does it differ from the early romance and from the adventure story? What are some of the precursors of the novel? What was the purpose of stories modeled after Don Quixote? What is the significance of Pamela? What elements did Fielding add to the novel? What good work did Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield accomplish? Compare Goldsmith, in this respect, with Steele and Addison.
| [CHRONOLOGY] | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| End of Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Century | |||
| HISTORY | LITERATURE | ||
| 1689. | William and Mary | 1683-1719. | Defoe's early writings |
| Bill of Rights. | |||
| Toleration Act | |||
| 1695. | Press made free | ||
| 1700(?) | Beginning of London clubs | ||
| 1702. | Anne (d. 1714) | ||
| War of Spanish Succession | |||
| 1702. | First daily newspaper | ||
| 1704. | Battle of Blenheim | 1704. | Addison's The Campaign |
| Swift's Tale of a Tub | |||
| 1707. | Union of England and Scotland | ||
| 1709. | The Tatler | ||
| Johnson born (d. 1784) | |||
| 1710-1713. | Swift in London. Journal | ||
| to Stella | |||
| 1711. | The Spectator | ||
| 1712. | Pope's Rape of the Lock | ||
| 1714. | George I (d. 1727) | ||
| 1719. | Robinson Crusoe | ||
| 1721. | Cabinet government, Walpole | ||
| first prime minister | |||
| 1726. | Gulliver's Travels | ||
| 1726-1730. | Thomson's The Seasons | ||
| 1727. | George II (d. 1760) | ||
| 1732-1734. | Essay on Man | ||
| 1738. | Rise of Methodism | ||
| 1740. | Richardson's Pamela | ||
| 1740. | War of Austrian Succession | ||
| 1742. | Fielding's Joesph Andrews | ||
| 1746. | Jacobite Rebellion | ||
| 1749. | Fielding's Tom Jones | ||
| 1750-1752. | Johnson's The Rambler | ||
| 1750-1757. | Conquest of India | 1751. | Gray's Elegy |
| 1755. | Johnson's Dictionary | ||
| 1756. | War with France | ||
| 1759. | Wolf at Quebec | ||
| 1760. | George III (d. 1820) | 1760-1767. | Sterne's Tristram Shandy |
| 1764. | Johnson's Literary Club | ||
| 1765. | Stamp Act | 1765. | Percy's Reliques |
| 1766. | Goldsmith's Vicar of | ||
| Wakefield | |||
| 1770. | Goldsmith's Deserted Village | ||
| 1771. | Beginning of great newspapers | ||
| 1773. | Boston Tea Party | ||
| 1774. | Howard's prison reforms | 1774-1775. | Burke's American speeches |
| 1775. | American Revolution | 1776-1788. | Gibbon's Rome |
| 1776. | Declaration of Independence | 1779. | Cowper's Olney Hymns |
| 1779-81. | Johnson's Lives of the Poets | ||
| 1783. | Treaty of Paris | 1783. | Blake's Poetical Sketches |
| 1785. | Cowper's The Task | ||
| The London Times | |||
| 1786. | Trial of Warren Hastings | ||
| 1786. | Burns's first poems (the | ||
| Kilmarnock Burns) | |||
| Burke's Warren Hastings | |||
| 1789-1799. | French Revolution | ||
| 1790. | Burke's French Revolution | ||
| 1791. | Boswell's Life of Johnson | ||
| 1793. | War with France | ||
[CHAPTER X]
THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM (1800-1850)
THE SECOND CREATIVE PERIOD OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
The first half of the nineteenth century records the triumph of Romanticism in literature and of democracy in government; and the two movements are so closely associated, in so many nations and in so many periods of history, that one must wonder if there be not some relation of cause and effect between them. Just as we understand the tremendous energizing influence of Puritanism in the matter of English liberty by remembering that the common people had begun to read, and that their book was the Bible, so we may understand this age of popular government by remembering that the chief subject of romantic literature was the essential nobleness of common men and the value of the individual. As we read now that brief portion of history which lies between the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the English Reform Bill of 1832, we are in the presence of such mighty political upheavals that "the age of revolution" is the only name by which we can adequately characterize it. Its great historic movements become intelligible only when we read what was written in this period; for the French Revolution and the American commonwealth, as well as the establishment of a true democracy in England by the Reform Bill, were the inevitable results of ideas which literature had spread rapidly through the civilized world. Liberty is fundamentally an ideal; and that ideal--beautiful, inspiring, compelling, as a loved banner in the wind--was kept steadily before men's minds by a multitude of books and pamphlets as far apart as Burns's Poems and Thomas Paine's Rights of Man,--all read eagerly by the common people, all proclaiming the dignity of common life, and all uttering the same passionate cry against every form of class or caste oppression.
First the dream, the ideal in some human soul; then the written word which proclaims it, and impresses other minds with its truth and beauty; then the united and determined effort of men to make the dream a reality,--that seems to be a fair estimate of the part that literature plays, even in our political progress.