AUGUSTAN AGE; 1700 - 1750:
The reign of Queen Anne in early 18th - century England covering The age of Pope (dated from about the death of Dryden in 1700 to Pope's death in 1744) is called the Augustan Age or the Neoclassical age. The real Augustan Age refers to the era of Augustus, ruler of Rome from 27 BC to AD 14, and it was noted for several classical writers, including Horace, Ovid, and Virgil. It is considered the Golden Age of Latin literature.
The Augustan age of English literature employed the same Roman forms, such as the ode. It emphasized common sense, moderation, reason over emotion, and elegance over brevity, deriving the name. It was a relatively stable and peaceful age in its social and political aspects. The Wars of Spanish Succession (1701 - 1713) was successful under Duke Marlborough, a Tory Politician.
In the reign of Queen Anne (1702 - 1714), the Tories superseded the Whig s. Another political event was that of English succession. All of Queen Anne's children died before her, so, in 1701, the Act of settlement was passed, by which the succession was settled upon the House of Hanover. It was a victory for the Whig's. One Queen Anne's death, George I of Hanover ascended the throne.The Tories tried to reborn the Stuarts but failed.
In 1745, in the reign of George II (1727 - 69), the Tories made a more serious effort but again failed. Under the Hanover Monarch, the first half of the 18th century was a period of stability and stead growing wealth and prosperity. During this period, the power of the middle classes rose. Never the less political power was concentrated in the hands of the nobility, whether Whig or Tory.
The period was remarkable for rapid social development in England; people lived together while still holding different opinions. To bring about reforms, votes were necessary. So, the people were approached with ideas, facts, and information. Newspapers were born literature in newspapers, pamphlets; magazines became the chief instrument of the nation's progress.
The political and with the pen rather than with a sword, Coffee houses and clubs became the center of social life. The men in these places sat for hours together and discussed the day's news and other matters. In London, alone, more than two thousand coffee houses spring up, and the no of private clubs was quite as astonishing. The typical Londoner was still corrupt, rude, and vulgar in taste.
Nevertheless, the aristocrats were improving themselves materially and intellectually. They sought excellence in our word from dress and manners rather than morals. Their culture was artificial. The literature of the period is highly critical of fashionable men and women's shallow and artificial behavior.
In the age of Alexander Pope, the classical spirit in English literature reached its highest point, and at the same time, other forces became manifest. Dryden's poetry had achieved grandeur, amplitude, and sublimity within a particular definition of good taste and good sense and under the tutelage of the Roman and Greek classics.
To the poetry of Pope, this characterization applies even more stringently. More than any other English poet, he submitted himself to the requirement that the expressive force of poetic genius should issue forth only in a formulation as reasonable, lucid, balanced, compressed, final, and perfect as the power of human reason can make it. Pope did not have Dryden's majesty. Perhaps, given his predilection for the correctness of detail, he could not have had it.
Also, the readers of succeeding times have concluded that the dictates of reason do not all converge on only one poetic formula, just as the heroic couplet, which Pope brought to final perfection, is not necessarily the most generally suitable of English poetic forms.
Nevertheless, Pope's poetic line's ease, harmony, and grace are still impressive, and his quality of precise but never labored expression of thought remains unequaled.
Nearly every writer of the age wrote on contemporary religious and political events but with moderation and reason. They use delicate satire. Significant literary figures like Addison, Steele, Johnson, and Goldsmith educated and civilized the general public using their writing. The poet Goldsmith designated the early 18th century the Augustan Age.
The literature of the time has the same quality that distinguished the Latin literature of the day of August. These qualities are simple regularity, proportion, and finish. According to Hudson,
"in both cases, men of letters were largely depended upon powerful patterns. In both cases, a critical spirit prevails. In both cases, the literature produced by thoroughly artificial society was not of free creative effort and inspiration, but of self - conscious and deliberate art."