restoration & enlightenment poets

RESTORATION & ENLIGHTENMENT POETS

1660-1798

17th Century: Enlightenment

• a reaction against the religious anxiety of the Reformation era

• Charles II returned to power (1660)

• philosophical movement• from WHY questions to HOW• natural phenomena explained by science

• John Locke: political philosopher• Isaac Newton: gravity and motion

17th Century: Enlightenment

• Growing middle class• audience for new literary forms

• Journalism, essays, novels

• Influential upper class (socially)• powdered wigs, makeup • fashion• their lifestyle was often satirized

18th Century: Age of Reason

• order, balance, logic, reason• scientific inquiry • religion is far less of an issue, focus on the

rational • Deism

• societal views and educational discourse• women, too (private gatherings: circles, salons)

• poetry served a public, not private function• social discourse• elegy, ode, satire, essay

CENTRAL POETS

• Alexander Pope 1688-1744

• Jonathan Swift 1667-1745

• Daniel Defoe 1660-1731

• Samuel Johnson 1709-1784