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18th Century English Literature 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿: The Age of Enlightenment And Modern Reason — Transcript

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0:04The early 18th century stood at a
0:07crossroads in history. The old world of
0:09absolute monarchs and the all powerful
0:11church was fading and a new world driven
0:15by reason, science, and trade was
0:17beginning to take shape. It was the
0:19first truly modern age when people
0:21across Western Europe started to believe
0:23that progress was possible and that
0:26human reason could reshape society
0:28itself.
0:39Hi everyone, welcome back to the Lit
0:41Center channel. This is part five in our
0:43series on English literature. And in
0:46this episode, we are looking at
0:47literature in the 18th century, a period
0:50often called the age of reason. We will
0:53explore how writers like Jonathan Swift
0:55and Alexander Pope used satire to
0:57question society, how the first great
1:00English novels like Robinson Cruso
1:02emerged, and how the industrial
1:04revolution at the end of the century
1:06paved the way towards romanticism. Since
1:09literature is always a product of the
1:11people and cultural context in which it
1:13is created, we will also cover the most
1:15important historical events in the 18th
1:17century. When the 18th century began,
1:20England had finally achieved a kind of
1:23balance after generations of turmoil.
1:25The violence and uncertainties of the
1:27Civil War were long gone, and the fierce
1:29religious divisions of the 1600s had
1:32slowly given way to a more stable and
1:34pragmatic society. The country was no
1:36longer ruled by absolute monarchs, but
1:38by a constitutional system in which the
1:41king governed alongside parliament. This
1:44settlement established after the
1:45glorious revolution of 1688 gave England
1:48a political foundation strong enough to
1:50last for centuries. Under this new
1:53system, the king could no longer rule by
1:55divine right alone. Real power now
1:58rested on laws, property, and the
2:00ability to persuade others. Politics
2:02became a matter of discussion and
2:04compromise. Decisions were debated in
2:06parliament where the two main political
2:08parties, the wigs and the Tories, argued
2:11over how the country should be governed.
2:13Outside parliament, people followed
2:15these debates in newspapers and
2:17pamphlets and discussed them in coffee
2:19houses and clubs. For the first time,
2:21ordinary citizens, at least those who
2:24could read and vote, began to have a
2:25voice in public affairs. London became
2:28the heart of this new society. It was
2:30the biggest and most dynamic city in
2:32Europe, a place where money, ideas, and
2:35people constantly crossed paths. Trade
2:37from all across the world passed through
2:39its docks, while its workshops and banks
2:42powered the growing economy. Printing
2:43presses produced newspapers, essays, and
2:46political pamphlets by the thousands,
2:48feeding a public hungry for information
2:50and debate. In this lively world of
2:52commerce and conversation, writers found
2:55both a subject and an audience. A new
2:57public eager to read, argue, and think
3:00for itself. Literature was no longer
3:02confined to the court or the church. It
3:04belonged to the reading public. This
3:07confidence in human understanding was
3:09part of a larger movement known as the
3:11enlightenment. That is why this period
3:13is often referred to as the age of
3:15reason. Thinkers of the time believed
3:17that the world could be studied and
3:19improved through observation, logic, and
3:21education. John Loach in the previous
3:24century had argued that the mind begins
3:26as a blank state, a so-called tabulasa,
3:30and that knowledge is shaped by
3:31experience rather than divine
3:33inspiration. Isaac Newton had shown that
3:36nature followed discoverable laws and
3:39later philosophers such as David Hume
3:41and Adam Smith applied the same spirit
3:43of inquiry to questions of morality,
3:46economics, and human behavior. At the
3:49same time, Britain continued to expand
3:51its reach overseas. Trade and empire
3:54brought wealth, but also moral tension.
3:56The sugar and tobacco that enriched
3:58English merchants were produced by
4:00enslaved labor in distant colonies. This
4:04contradiction between prosperity and
4:06injustice, enlightenment and
4:08exploitation would become one of the
4:10great moral questions of the century. As
4:13Britain grew in power and confidence,
4:15the early decades of the 18th century
4:17came to be known as the Augustine Age, a
4:20name deliberately borrowed from ancient
4:21Rome. During the reign of Emperor
4:23Agustous, Roman culture had reached a
4:25golden age of order, balance, and
4:28refinement. British authors saw
4:29themselves in a similar position living
4:32after a time of upheaval and now
4:34restoring stability through art, reason,
4:37and taste. Instead of the passionate
4:39introspection of the earlier poetry,
4:41Augustine writers turned outward towards
4:44society. They wrote about human folly,
4:47vanity, and ambition using wit and irony
4:50as tools of moral criticism. One of the
4:52central figures of the Augustine age was
4:54Alexander Pope. His poetry written
4:57mostly in rhymed couplets combined sharp
5:00observation with technical precision. In
5:02an essay on criticism published in 1711,
5:06Pope explained how judgment and taste
5:08are shaped by reason and learning. In
5:10the rape of the lock published in 1712,
5:13he used humor to transform a small
5:16social incident, a stolen lock of hair,
5:18into a mock epic that playfully exposed
5:21the vanity of polite society. Pope's
5:23poems show how the Augustans used wit
5:26and form to reflect on human behavior,
5:29not simply to display cleverness.
5:31Another defining feature of this time
5:33was the rise of pros and the novel. As
5:36literacy spread and printing became
5:38cheaper, readers wanted stories about
5:40familiar people and real experiences
5:42that they could relate to. Writers began
5:45to explore individual character and
5:47moral choice. Daniel Defoe's Robinson
5:49Crusoe, published in 1719, tells a story
5:53of a man shipwrecked on a deserted
5:55island and forced to survive alone for
5:57nearly 30 years. On the surface, it's an
6:00adventure story full of danger, hard
6:02work, and the struggle to stay alive.
6:04But beneath that, it's also a moral and
6:06spiritual journey. Crusoe learns to
6:08build a new world from nothing,
6:10discovering self-reliance, discipline
6:12through his own experience rather than
6:14through authority or doctrine. The Fo's
6:17novel reflects the values of his age,
6:20reason, hard work, and the belief that
6:22moral strength can overcome adversity.
6:24Yet, it also reveals the contradictions
6:26of the expanding British world. Crusoe
6:28trades slaves, claims land, and rules
6:31over his companion, Friday. Written in a
6:33plain factual style that made it feel
6:35real. Robinson Cruso transformed pros
6:38fiction into a new kind of art. One that
6:40combines realism, moral reflection, and
6:43psychological depth. It set a pattern
6:45for the English novel that would
6:47dominate the rest of the century. At the
6:49same time, many writers used satire to
6:52examine the moral and political
6:54questions of their age. The most
6:56powerful of them was Jonathan Swift, a
6:58man of wit, intellect, and morality.
7:01Swift was both a clergyman and a
7:03political writer, and his works revealed
7:05deep unease about the corruption and
7:07hypocrisy of his age. His most famous
7:09book, Goliver's Travels, published in
7:121726, is often read as an adventure
7:14story, but it is in fact a fierce satire
7:17on human nature and society. Through the
7:20travels of Lamuel Goliver to fantasy
7:22lands like Liliput and Brodnak, Swift
7:25exposes the absurdity of politics,
7:27science, and human pride. The tiny
7:29people of Liliput, for example, fight
7:31deadly wars over ludicrous things, like
7:34for example, which end of an egg should
7:36be broken, a biting parody of realworld
7:38religious and political disputes. Swift
7:41Stone is ironic, his humor is sharp, but
7:43his purpose is very serious, to hold up
7:46a mirror to the people of his age and
7:48show them how far they have strayed from
7:50reason and morality. Swift also wrote an
7:53influential satirical essay called A
7:55Modest Proposal published in 1729. In
7:58the essay, he suggested with chilling
8:01irony that the poverty in Ireland could
8:03be solved if the poor sold their
8:05children as food to the rich. Of course,
8:07he did not mean this literally. Swift
8:10used shock to expose the cruelty and
8:12indifference of British policy toward
8:14the Irish poor. This essay is a
8:16masterpiece of irony. Its calm, logical
8:19tone only heightens the horror of its
8:21argument, forcing readers to confront
8:23the moral blindness of their society.
8:26Samuel Richardson took the new form of
8:29the novel in a very different direction,
8:31where the foe focused on adventure and
8:33survival. Richardson turned inward,
8:35exploring emotion, virtue, and moral
8:38choice. His novels were written entirely
8:40in letters, a style known as the
8:43epistlary form, which allowed readers to
8:45experience events through the private
8:47thoughts of the characters themselves.
8:49His first major work, Pamela, or virtue
8:52rewarded, published in 1740, tells a
8:55story of a young servant girl whose
8:57employer tries to seduce her. Through
8:59Pamela's letters and journal entries, we
9:01watch her resist temptation, defend her
9:04dignity, and ultimately win respect and
9:06marriage. The novel became a sensation.
9:08Middle-class readers saw in Pamela a
9:11model of personal virtue, a woman who
9:13triumphs not through wealth or birth,
9:15but through honesty, faith, and
9:17self-control. Pamela became one of the
9:19earliest and most influential examples
9:21of the sentimental novel. This form of
9:24novel focuses on moral feeling,
9:26sympathy, and personal virtue.
9:28Richardson wanted his readers to reflect
9:30on questions of conscience and behavior,
9:32not just following the plot. Other
9:35important novelists include Henry
9:37Fielding, whose comic masterpiece Tom
9:39Jones, published in 1749, combined
9:42adventure, social observation, and humor
9:45to portray a wide ranging picture of
9:47English society. Tobias Smalllet wrote
9:50Picaresque novels like Roderric Random,
9:52published in 1748, and Peraggreen
9:55Pickle, full of satire, episodic
9:57adventures, and vividly drawn
9:59characters. Lauren Stern later in the
10:01century experimented with form and
10:03psychology in Tristram Chandi blending
10:06digression humor and reflection on the
10:08nature of storytelling itself. Together
10:10these writers helped establish the
10:12English novel as a flexible expressive
10:14form capable of exploring morality,
10:17society and the human mind. By the
10:19middle and later decades of the 18th
10:21century, English literature began to
10:24shift. While the early century had
10:26celebrated reason, order and social
10:29satire, a new sensibility emerged, one
10:32more concerned with emotion, reflection,
10:35and the individual's place in the world.
10:38This change is often associated with
10:40Thomas Gray and the group sometimes
10:41called the graveyard poets. Thomas Gray
10:45is best known for his elegy written in a
10:47country churchyard, a poem that combines
10:50careful observation, moral reflection,
10:52and profound emotional depth. Unlike the
10:54sharp wit of pope, grace work dwells on
10:57memory, mortality, and the passage of
11:00time. The alleg meditates on the lives
11:02of ordinary villages whose quiet
11:04existence and unseleelebrated deaths are
11:06given dignity through gray language. The
11:09poem's melancholic tone and reflective
11:11style made it enormously influential,
11:14signaling a move away from the strict
11:16formality and social focus of Augustine
11:18poetry. Gray and the graveyard poets
11:21including Edward Young and Thomas
11:23Parnell were part of a broader interest
11:25in mortality, the sublime and the
11:27natural world. They wrote meditative
11:29poetry often set in churchyards, ruins
11:32or desolate landscapes. Their work
11:34explored human mortality, the fleeting
11:36nature of life and the emotional
11:37experience of grief and contemplation.
11:40While still formal and measured in
11:42style, these poets paved the way for a
11:44more personal introspective literature,
11:47a clear bridge from enlightenment reason
11:49to romantic feeling. One major factor
11:52was a social and economic change brought
11:54by industrialization. Cities like London
11:57and Manchester expanded rapidly, crowded
12:00with factories, merchants, and workers.
12:03Life became noisier, faster, and more
12:06impersonal. Many writers and readers
12:08felt the pressures of urban life and
12:10longed for spaces of calm, reflection,
12:13and natural beauty. This desire for
12:16escape from the city and the demands of
12:18modern life became a central theme in
12:20the literature that would evolve into
12:22romanticism. Foreign influences also
12:24played a role. German writers,
12:26especially Ga and the Stormund Drang
12:28movement, celebrated emotional
12:30intensity, individual freedom, and the
12:33power of nature. These ideas appeal to
12:36the growing urban audiences in Britain
12:38who caught up in the noise and pace of
12:40city life felt increasingly alienated
12:43from the simple beauty of the
12:44countryside. At the same time, interest
12:47in distant or ancient worlds grew. James
12:50McFersonson's Osheen poems published in
12:52the 1760s portrayed heroic melancholic
12:55figures in wild landscapes. McFersonson
12:58presented them as a work of an ancient
13:00Scottish Bart, and they were often
13:02compared to Homer for their sweeping
13:04tales of heroism and tragic beauty. Like
13:06Homer, Oshene's world was vast and
13:09dramatic, full of lonely heroes and
13:11grand landscapes, and a sense of fate
13:14and melancholy that stirred deep emotion
13:16in readers. If you are interested in a
13:18mythical Celtic poet, Osheen, I have an
13:21entire video devoted to him, you can
13:23watch it on the channel. This
13:25combination of urban pressures, overseas
13:28and foreign influence, and a fascination
13:30with emotional depth, and wild
13:32landscapes set the stage for
13:34romanticism. By the end of the 18th
13:36century, writers were increasingly
13:39turning inward, exploring the
13:40imagination, memory, and nature as a
13:43refuge from industrialized, rationalized
13:46life. The romantic movement would fully
13:48embrace these concerns, placing emotion,
13:51individuality, and the natural world at
13:54the heart of English literature.
13:56Ultimately, the 18th century literature
13:58in England is a story of balance and
14:00transition. The early century gave us
14:02satire, mock epics, and the rise of the
14:05novel, while the later decades
14:07introduced reflection, sentiment, and
14:09the first stirrings of romantic
14:11sensibility. From Swift's sharp irony to
14:14Richardson's emotional novels, and from
14:16Defo's realistic adventures to Gray's
14:19Ellegac meditations, The Century
14:22explored reason, morality, and human
14:24experience in all its forms. In the next
14:27episode, we will move into the romantic
14:29era, exploring how writers embraced
14:32emotion, imagination, and the natural
14:34world to create some of the most
14:35enduring works in English literature.
14:38See you next time.

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