Contents: introduction chapter I literature of the age of enlightenment

1.2 Literature of England
By the beginning of the XVIII century. England came after the bourgeois revolution of the middle of the 17th century, the trial of King Charles I and his execution, the regime of the bourgeois military dictatorship of Cromwell, the restoration of the Stuart monarchy and the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-1689, which placed William III of Orange and Queen Mary on the throne . Thus, due to historical reasons, having survived in the 17th century. two bourgeois revolutions, England found itself at the origins of the European Enlightenment. It is customary to date the beginning of the English Enlightenment as the year of the Glorious Revolution.
Enlightenment in England was of a moderate nature, because its task was not to prepare a new revolution, but to redistribute political power in favor of the bourgeoisie. The limited monarchy established after the Glorious Revolution was revered in the country as the most advanced state system, the private shortcomings of which supposedly could be eradicated with the help of reasonable reforms. The Glorious Revolution accelerated the development of capitalism and created the preconditions for the great industrial revolution of the mid-18th century.
The ideological currents of the English Enlightenment were heterogeneous. Some writers sharply criticized the remnants of feudalism and the vices of bourgeois reality (Swift, Fielding, Smollett, Sheridan), other authors adhered to an apologetic (Addison, Steele, Defoe) or moderate (Richardson) position, hoping with the help of good-natured satire and moral and religious instructions to instill in people civic feelings and thereby improve the moral climate in society. In the literature of the English Enlightenment, periods are distinguished: early (until the 1730s), mature, covering the 1740s - 1750s, and late, stretching from the 1760s to the 1790s. The leading genres of English early enlightenment literature were the poem, tragedy, comedy, and essay. The socio-political events of this period contributed to the expansion of the readership,
National originality of English Enlightenment classicism in comparison with the "high" French classicism of the 17th century. was explained by its different ideological content and the softening of classicist normativity, which was due to the development of English philosophical and scientific thought, interest in national traditions, adherence to concepts that undermine the role of rationality in the creative process. In the first third of the XVIII century. Enlightenment classicism occupied a dominant position in English literature. He actively opposed the Baroque, accumulated elements of Rococo at the genre level, and at the same time could enter into a synthesis with Enlightenment realism, which was gaining momentum. The division into elitist and democratic, characteristic of early enlightenment literature, was reflected in his work by J. Lillo, who stood at the origins of European petty-bourgeois drama. He made an attempt to democratize the genre of classic tragedy. In his dramas, the main characters were representatives of the bourgeois-commercial circles of society. Lillo instructively glorified the bourgeois virtues: work, moderation, frugality, self-control. Comedy in its various genre varieties was widely spread in the early enlightenment literature. In Steele's moralizing ("tearful") comedies, with their happy ending, one can see the desire to smooth out the internal contradictions of the system that was established after the "Glorious Revolution". It is no coincidence that in "Conscientious Lovers" (1722), the marriage of the aristocrat Beville to the daughter of the merchant Sealand symbolizes a compromise between two social groups. "The Beggar's Opera" by D. Gay (1728) was a satiric-political comedy, in which street ballads were skillfully used for malicious criticism of the bourgeois order, and in the events that take place in the world of criminals, the corrupt mechanism of the state apparatus was reflected. At the insistence of R. Walpole, who recognized himself in the image of one of the heroes, King George II forbade the staging of the continuation of the Beggar's Opera - Polly (1729). The satirical denunciation of the ruling regime in the farces of G. Fielding and the anonymous play "The Golden Tail" served as a direct reason for the adoption in 1737 of the Censorship Act, according to which theaters could exist only on the basis of a royal license, plays were to be subject to prior censorship by the Lord Chamberlain, they could not discuss political problems and make statesmen actors. All theaters in London were closed except Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Significant damage was done to the development of dramaturgy. The novel moved to the forefront of English literature.
During this period, Enlightenment realism reaches its peak, gradually displacing Enlightenment classicism from its leading positions. Mature enlightenment realism is represented by Richardson's epistolary novels, which laid the foundation for the genre of family psychological novel, Fielding's "comic epics", and Smollett's social novels. The philosophical basis for Enlightenment realism was empirical metaphysical materialism. None of the English novelists adhered to the framework of any one philosophical and ethical doctrine. Fielding's theory of Shaftesbury collided with the teachings of Mandeville, Richardson, in the polemic between Mandeville and Shaftesbury, took the side of the latter, while developing Locke's concepts. Smollett relied on Mandeville and Locke.
The general basis for the entire educational novel was Locke's thesis, according to which the fate of a person depends on himself ("Some Thoughts on Education"). At the same time, Richardson's preaching of the triumph of reason over passions, Fielding's rehabilitation of earthly sensual nature were connected with the preaching of bourgeois progress, with the desire to eliminate social vices. At the same time, it turned out that the new social conditions did not always coincide with the interests of the individual. All this led to the critical moderation of Richardson's novels, Fielding's gentle humor, Smollett's dark satire.
The literature of the late Enlightenment is characterized by the intensive development of the sentimental trend, the origins of which go back to the landscape lyrics of the 1730s (J. Thomson. "The Seasons", 1726 - 1730). The term "sentimental" in relation to literature appeared in 1749, but became widespread after the publication of "Sentimental Journey" by L. Stern (1768). By the beginning of the 1730s, many had dispelled the illusion of a happy life, which they dreamed of after the Glorious Revolution. Further fencing of land and the ruin of the peasantry, the destruction of protected natural areas for the construction of enterprises, the consequences of the industrial revolution, which aggravated the social stratification of society and led to the impoverishment of the peasantry and artisans - all this made one doubt the principles of rational behavior. The turn to the world of feelings of a particular person was accompanied by criticism of the bourgeois order and feudal remnants. The lyrical works of the early sentimentalist poets are characterized by heightened sensitivity, a tendency to contemplation, to reflections in the bosom of nature, and the poeticization of death. "Cemetery Poetry" by E. Jung, T. Gray, D. Harvey, R. Blair is filled with religious mysticism, melancholic moods, sorrow for the frailty of everything that exists, longing for loved ones who have gone to another world, the memory of them, confirming their immortality. In the works of late sentimentalists, social protest (O. Goldsmith, W. Cooper, D. Crabbe) and interest in ordinary people are intensifying. In their novels, O. Goldsmith, L. Stern, G. Brook, G. Mackenzie and others relied on the ethical concepts of D. Hume, who proposed to subordinate morality not to reason, but to sensitivity. Late sentimentalists emphatically strive to show the complexity of the "human nature" of the individual, the versatility of his spiritual experiences, the origins of his eccentricities and oddities. Their ideal is a patriarchal life in the bosom of nature with its simplicity of manners.
In the 1960s and 1980s, educational tendencies were preserved most of all in poetry - by Robert Burns, as well as in the genre of realistic satirical comedy, the largest representative of which in the 70s was R. Sheridan. In the second half of the XVIII century. socio-economic shifts, social trends, the search for new aesthetic guidelines, opposite to the classic ones, contributed to the formation of pre-romanticism as a literary trend. In E. Burke's treatise "A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful" (1757), in Pope's "Experience on Genius" and his Writings (1756-1782) by J. Wharton, in "Letters on Chivalry and Medieval Romances » (1762) R. Hurd drew attention to the aesthetic categories ("terrible", "original", "picturesque"), destroying the classicist concept of beauty, based on symmetry and harmony. Spencer, Shakespeare, Milton, as imaginative poets, pushed the classicists into the background with their reliance on reason. At this time, interest in the national past is actively reviving. In 1765, the well-known folklorist T. Percy published the collection “Monuments of Old English Poetry”, which included folk ballads (historical, from the Robin Hood cycle, etc.), drawing them from old manuscripts and his notes, as well as lyrics Elizabethans.
Ideas of the Great French Revolution 1789-1794 had a huge impact on English philosophical and social thought. Correspondent societies were created in the country, which published mass literature in the form of leaflets and brochures. However, they were soon dispersed, many of their members were arrested. William Godwin (1756 - 1836), who believed in reason and philanthropy, in the treatise "Discourse on Political Justice" (1793) called for the destruction of private property and at the same time separated a person from society. In Things as They Are, or The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794), Godwin to a certain extent departed from his idea of ​​human asociality, showing the tragic loneliness of his hero. The farmer's son Caleb, who served with a Falkland aristocrat, seeks his conviction for the murder of the landowner Tyrrel and for that he sent two innocent people to the gallows, attributing his crime to them. However, Falkland's death shook Caleb's conviction of the legitimacy of his decisive actions. The plot intrigue developed according to the laws of the "Gothic" novel, but the sharp denunciation of class inequality, feudal remnants saturated it with social content and made it one of the forerunners of the realistic novel of the 19th century.