18th century in literature
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- | ==European literature in the 18th century== | ||
- | === The Enlightenment === | ||
- | The 18th century in Europe was [[Age of Enlightenment|The Age of Enlightenment]] and literature explored themes of social upheaval, reversals of personal status, political [[satire]], geographical [[exploration]] and the comparison between the supposed natural state of man and the supposed [[civilization|civilized]] state of man. [[Edmund Burke]], in his ''[[A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind|A Vindication of Natural Society]]'' ([[1757]]), says: ''"The Fabrick of Superstition has in this our Age and Nation received much ruder Shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the Chinks and Breaches of our Prison, we see such Glimmerings of Light, and feel such refreshing Airs of Liberty, as daily raise our Ardor for more"''. | ||
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Revision as of 23:04, 3 November 2007
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Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the 18th century. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, "histories", the gothic novel and the libertine novel. 18th Century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism.
Although the modern novel as literary genre solidified, literacy rates were still very low as there was no primary education for the common man.
The English novel became a popular form in the 18th century, with Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740). Another very popular form was the Gothic novel (The Castle of Otranto, 1764) and its European equivalents the roman noir in France and the Schauerroman in Germany.
Early European bestsellers were Julie, or the New Heloise by Rousseau and The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe.
There was already literature of subversion such as that from Voltaire and Sade and other libertine writers.
Genres
- amatory fiction - adventure novel - epistolary novel - gothic novel - "histories" - libertine novel - sentimental novel
Publishers
Background
Authors
- Abbé Prévost - William Blake - Restif de la Bretonne - Casanova - John Cleland - Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon - Daniel Defoe - Marquis de Sade - Denis Diderot - David Hume - Immanuel Kant - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos - Delarivier Manley - André de Nerciat - Ann Radcliffe - Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Jonathan Swift - Giambattista Vico - Voltaire - Horace Walpole - Mary Wollstonecraft
Titles
- Robinson Crusoe (1719) - Pamela (1740) - Dom Bougre (1741) - Le Sopha, conte moral (1742) - Thérèse Philosophe (1748) - Bijoux Indiscrets (1748) - Fanny Hill (1750) - Tristram Shandy (1760-1770) - Castle of Otranto (1765) - Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) - The 120 Days of Sodom (1785) - Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) - La Religieuse (1796) - The Monk (1796) - L'Histoire de Juliette (1797)
Contents |