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Literature of the 18th century refers toworld literature produced during the years 1700–1799.
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European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, essays, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of themodern novel as literary genre, in fact manycandidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of whichDaniel Defoe's 1719Robinson Crusoe is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were theepistolary novel, thesentimental novel,histories, thegothic novel and thelibertine novel.
18th century Europe started in theAge of Enlightenment and gradually moved towardsRomanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period ofNeoclassicism.
The 18th century in Europe was 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 civilized state of man.Edmund Burke, in hisA Vindication of Natural Society (1756), 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."[1]
Translations of foreign-language works became ever-more ubiquitous in Europe in the 18th century. Works translated from French to English and vice versa were particularly common,[2] but works written in nearly all major world languages, from Arabic to Greek, likewise proliferated. In 1708,Simon Ockley translatedIbn Tufail'sHayy ibn Yaqdhan directly from Arabic to English for the first time, whileMichael Wodhull was the first to translate all the extant writing ofEuripides into English, with his work published in four volumes in 1782.
Translations in the eighteenth century were typically liberal and loose, as it was common for translators to alter the text to appeal more to their intended audience and to add their own original work to it.John Lockman, for example, described his French translations as "versions" to indicate the large changes he'd made to the original text. Unclear labeling further complicated matters, resulting in complicated translation loops. In some cases, works of fiction were translated from French to English and, later, from English back into French, with the second translator being unaware that the work they were translating was not the original.[2]
Notable eighteenth-century translators from Asia includedSugita Genpaku, who translated the Dutch medical workKaitai Shinsho into Japanese in 1774, making it among the first Western works to be translated in Japan.
1700:William Congreve's playThe Way of the World premiered.[3] Although unsuccessful at the time,The Way of the World is a good example of the sophistication of theatrical thinking during this period, with complexsubplots and characters intended as ironic parodies of commonstereotypes.
1703:Nicholas Rowe's domestic dramaThe Fair Penitent, an adaptation ofMassinger andField'sFatal Dowry, appeared; it would later be pronounced byDr Johnson to be one of the most pleasing tragedies in the language. Also in 1703Sir Richard Steele's comedyThe Tender Husband achieved some success.
1704:Jonathan Swift (Irish satirist) publishedA Tale of a Tub andThe Battle of the Books[4] andJohn Dennis published hisGrounds of Criticism in Poetry.The Battle of the Books begins with a reference to the use of a glass (which, in those days, would mean either amirror or amagnifying glass) as a comparison to the use of satire. Swift is, in this, very much the child of his age, thinking in terms ofscience andsatire at one and the same time. Swift often patterned his satire afterJuvenal, the classical satirist.[5] He was one of the first English novelists and also a political campaigner. His satirical writing springs from a body of liberal thought which produced not only books but also political pamphlets for public distribution. Swift's writing represents the new, the different and the modern attempting to change the world by parodying the ancient and incumbent.The Battle of the Books is a short writing which demonstrates his position very neatly.
1707:Henry Fielding was born on 22 April.
1711:Alexander Pope began a career in literature with the publishing of hisAn Essay on Criticism.
1712:Frenchphilosophical writerJean Jacques Rousseau was born on 28 June and his countrymanDenis Diderot was born the following year 1713 on 5 October. Also in 1712 Pope publishedThe Rape of the Lock and in 1713Windsor Forest.
1709:Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September in Lichfield,Staffordshire.
1717:Horace Walpole was born on 24 September.
Daniel Defoe was another political pamphleteer turned novelist like Jonathan Swift and was publishing in the early 18th century. In 1719, he publishedRobinson Crusoe.
1719:Eliza Haywood publishedLove in Excess, an unusually sympathetic portrayal of afallen woman.
Also in 1719:Alexander Smith was a biographer who publishedA Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen. The book includes heavily fictionalised accounts of English criminals from the medieval period to the eighteenth century.
1720:Daniel Defoe'sCaptain Singleton was published.
1722: Daniel Defoe'sMoll Flanders andA Journal of the Plague Year were published.
1726: Jonathan Swift publishedGulliver's Travels, one of the first novels in the genre ofsatire.
1728:John Gay wroteThe Beggar's Opera which has increased in fame ever since.The Beggar's Opera began a new style in Opera, the "ballad opera" which brings the operatic form down to a more popular level and precedes the genre of comicoperettas. Also in 1728 came the publication ofCyclopaedia, or, A Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (folio, 2 vols.), an encyclopedia byEphraim Chambers. TheCyclopaedia was one of the first general encyclopedias to be produced in English and was the main model forDiderot'sEncyclopédie (published in France between 1751 and 1766).
1729: Jonathan Swift publishedA Modest Proposal, a satirical suggestion thatIrish families should sell their children as food. Swift was, at this time, fully involved in political campaigning for the Irish.
1731:George Lillo's playThe London Merchant was a success at the Theatre-Royal inDrury Lane. It was a new kind of play, a domestic tragedy, which approximates to what later came to be called amelodrama.
1738:Samuel Johnson publishedLondon, a poem in imitation ofJuvenal’s Third Satire. Like so many poets of the 18th century, Johnson sought to breathe new life into his favorite classical author Juvenal.
1740:Samuel Richardson'sPamela, or Virtue Rewarded was published and theMarquis de Sade was born.
1744: Alexander Pope died, and in 1745 Jonathan Swift died.
1746:Tobias Smollett's first poem "The Tears of Scotland", about theBattle of Culloden, was published.
1748:John Cleland'sMemoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known asFanny Hill), arguably the first work of pornographic prose, was published. Also in 1748,Samuel Richardson'sClarissa; or, The History of a Young Lady was published; finally,Tobias Smollett's firstpicaresque quasi-autobiographical novelThe Adventures of Roderick Random was also published.
1749:Henry Fielding'sThe History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was published. His sisterSarah Fielding also publishedThe Governess, the first full-length novel written for children.
1751:Thomas Gray wroteElegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
Also in 1751, Denis Diderot began theEncyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Over the next three decadesEncyclopédie attracted, alongside of those from Diderot, notable contributions from other notable intellectuals of the 18th century includingVoltaire,Jean-Jacques Rousseau andLouis de Jaucourt.
1754:Henry Fielding died.
1755: Samuel Johnson completed his influentialDictionary of the English Language, sometimes published asJohnson's Dictionary, and at the time a huge improvement on previously available dictionaries. It was a daunting task that took nine years in all, two years of preparation and seven years of research and writing.
1760–1767:Laurence Sterne wroteTristram Shandy.
1761:Samuel Richardson died.
1764:Horace Walpole publishedThe Castle of Otranto (initially under a pseudonym and claiming it to be a translation of an Italian work from 1529); the firstgothic novel.
1766:Oliver Goldsmith'sThe Vicar of Wakefield was published.
1770:William Wordsworth was born on 7 April.
1771:Tobias Smollett published hisepistolatory novel,The Expedition of Humphry Clinker just three months before his death.
1773:Oliver Goldsmith's playShe Stoops to Conquer, afarce, was performed inLondon.
1776: TheUnited States Declaration of Independence was created and ratified.
1777: The playThe School for Scandal, acomedy of manners byRichard Brinsley Sheridan, was first performed in Drury Lane.
1778:Frances Burney publishedEvelina anonymously.
1779–1781: Samuel Johnson wrote and publishedLives of the Most Eminent English Poets. This compilation contains short biographies of 52 influential poets (most of whom lived in the 18th century) along with critical appraisals of their works. Most notable are Alexander Pope,John Dryden,John Milton, Jonathan Swift, andJoseph Addison.
1783:Washington Irving was born.
1784:Samuel Johnson died on 13 December.
1785:William Cowper publishedThe Task, a volume of poetry in blank verse.
1786:Robert Burns publishedPoems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The mood of literature was swinging toward more interest in diverse ethnicity.Beaumarchais'The Marriage of Figaro (La Folle journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro) was adapted into a comic opera composed byWolfgang Amadeus Mozart, withlibretto byLorenzo da Ponte.
1789:James Fenimore Cooper was born on 15 September. Also in 1789,The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, one of the firstslave narratives to have been widely read in historical times, was published.
1792:Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 4 August.
1793:Salisbury Plain was published byWilliam Wordsworth.
1794:Ann Radcliffe published her most famousGothic novel,The Mysteries of Udolpho.
1795:Samuel Taylor Coleridge metWilliam Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. The two men published a joint volume of poetry,Lyrical Ballads (1798), which became a central text ofRomantic poetry.
1796:Matthew Lewis published his controversial anti-Catholic gothic novelThe Monk andCharlotte Smith published her novelMarchmont. Also in 1796,Mary Hays published her outspoken novelMemoirs of Emma Courtney.
From 1704 to 1717,Antoine Galland publishedOne Thousand and One Nights (also known asThe Arabian Nights in English), based on Arabian folk tales.[6] His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes and exerted a huge influence on subsequentEuropean literature and attitudes to theIslamic world. Galland's translation of theNights was immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions of theNights were written by Galland's publisher using Galland's name without his consent.
In 1707, playwrightCarlo Goldoni was born.
In 1729,Gotthold Ephraim Lessing was born.
In 1731,Manon Lescaut, a French novel by theAbbé Prévost that narrates the love affairs of an unmarried couple and inaugurates one of the most common themes of the literature of the time: the sentimental story, taking into account for the first time the female point of view and not only the courtship and the conquest or the failure of man.
1743Gavrila Derzhavin was born.
1752Micromégas, a satirical short story byVoltaire, features space travellers visiting Earth. It is one of the first stories to feature several elements of what will later become known asscience fiction. Its publication at this time is also indicative of the trend toward scientific thinking that characterizes theEnlightenment.
1759Voltaire'sCandide/Optimism was published. On November 10,Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller is born.
1761Jean Jacques Rousseau'sJulie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse was published.
1762Jean Jacques Rousseau'sÉmile was published.
1767 September 8:August Wilhelm von Schlegel was born.
1772 March 10:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel was born.
1774Goethe wroteThe Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel which approximately marks the beginning of theRomanticism movement in thearts andphilosophy. A transition thus began from the critical, science-inspired, Enlightenment writing to the romantic yearning for forces beyond the mundane and for foreign times and places to inspire thesoul with passion and mystery.
Also in 1774,Alberto Fortis published histravel bookViaggio in Dalmazia ("Journey to Dalmatia") and startedMorlachism.[7]
1776Ignacy Krasicki published the first novel in Polish,The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom.
1778 Death ofVoltaire, 30 May. Death ofJean Jacques Rousseau, 2 July. Two major contributors to Diderot'sEncyclopédie died in the same year.
1784Denis Diderot died 31 July. Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot have all died within a period of a few years, and Frenchphilosophy had thus lost three of its greatest enlightened free thinkers. Rousseau's thoughts on the nobility of life in the wilds, facing nature as a naked savage, still had great force to influence the next generation as the Romantic movement gained momentum.Beaumarchais wroteThe Marriage of Figaro.Maria andHarriet Falconar publishPoems on Slavery. Theanti-slavery movement was growing in power, and many poems and pamphlets were published on the subject.
1791Dream of the Red Chamber was published for the first time inmovable type format.
1793 August 25:John Neal was born.
1796Denis Diderot'sJacques le fataliste was published posthumously.
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