For Exam

Neoclassical Period

John Dryden 1631-1700
-"first of the moderns" (Horton 377)
-field preacher, and a history royal
-poet laureate, wrote occasional verse (Horton 377)
-he could also write prose

Noted Works:
-To My Honored Friend, Dr. Charleton - "expresses his faith in the new science" (Horton 379)
- Of Satire - "justifies satire as a constructive force in society" (Horton 383)

Daniel Defoe 1660-1731

Noted Works:
-Robinson Crusoe - man finds out all he really needs is God to survive

Joseph Addison and Richard Steele 1672-1719 & 1672-1729
-Journalist-playwrights
-transformed journalism into a serious literature

Noted Works:
-The Tattler - "improvement of the reader" and "combines drama criticism with moral reflection" (Horton 396)

Jonathan Swift 1667-1745
-“defense of dispassionate reason” (Horton 405)

Noted Works:
-Gulliver’s Travels
-“supreme neoclassical satire in prose fiction” (Horton 407
-one of the greatest world literatures.
-“to vex the world, rather than to divert it”
-A Modest Proposal

Alexander Pope 1688-1744
-chief poet of his age
-satirical poetry – memorable and beautiful

Noted Works:
-Rape of the Lock – mock heroic burlesque (Horton 420)
-An Essay on Man – summon man to moral duty (Horton 420)
-Essay on Criticism

Isaac Watts 1674-1748
-Father of the modern hymn
-“The Protestant Reformation returned church singing to the laity” (Horton 425)

Noted Works: (Horton 427-431)
-“Heavenly Joy on Earth” – religion was never designed to make our pleasures less
-“The Christian Race”
-“Breathing After the Holy Spirit”
-“Against Idleness and Mischief”
-“The Day of Judgment”

James Thomson 1700-1748
-Scotsman, poet, playwright (dramatist)

Noted Works:
-Wrote a collection of seasons

John and Charles Wesley
John:
-field preacher (evangelistic)
-Journal of John Wesley – series of bulletins from the front by one of God’s greatest warriors in the church militant
Charles:
-Hymns and Sacred Poems – for the anniversary day of one’s conversion, behold the man

Samuel Johnson 1709-1784
-moral essayist (Horton 454)
-monumental pronouncer of conservative common sense

Noted Works:
-Dictionary of the English Language
-Rambler – “vice must always disgust”, “representations of evil have a place in literature” (Horton 456)
-Lives of English Poets – describes Addison and Pope

James Boswell
-one of the world’s greatest biographers (Horton 462)

Noted Works:
-Life of Samuel Johnson – monumental scholarship as well as literary artistry

Thomas Gray 1716-1771
-first mood poetry

Noted Works:
-Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard – focuses on the need to be remembered; deals with universal truth

Oliver Goldsmith
-comedy of manners, sentimental comedy
-most versatile writer of Johnson circle (Horton 481)

Noted Works:
-The Deserted Village

William Cowper
-mentally unstable (suicide attempts)
-poetry marks the passing of neoclassicism among major English poets
-heaven taught plowman

Noted Works:
-Olney Hymns – written in common meter and ballad stanzas
-The Castaway – severe emotional depression of Cowper, strengthened by a recurring sense of guilt, non-assurance of salvation (Horton 494)

Robert Burns 1759-1796
-Scottish, heaven taught plowman (Horton 497)

Noted Works:
-A Red, Red Rose – ‘tis about love (Horton 502)

Romantic Period

William Blake
-man born free is everywhere in chains
-“eccentric mystic”, madman, thorough going (Horton 516)
-songs of innocence and songs of experience

Noted Works:
-The Lamb
-The Tyger – contrast to the Lamb
-The clod and the Pebble
-London
-The Garden of Love: sex
-Proverbs

William Wordsworth
-treat common subjects; ordinary people (Horton 523)

Noted Works:
-Prelude – most important achievement of Romanticism
-Expostulation and Reply – enjoy nature
-The Tables Turned
-The Lucy Poems – Lucy is Dorothy.
- I Wandered as a Lonely Child – common things in an uncommon light
-“Sonnets” – civilization impoverishes man by destroying his sensitivity to nature; it also expresses the romantic myth of the happy pagan (Horton 531)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Noted Works:
-The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - “natural eloquence is a myth”; “exalts imagination over reason”, “organic over mechanic” (Horton 534)
-the uncommon appears to be believable
-it immediate end is pleasure, ultimate end is truth (Horton 535)
-circular journey
-crossbow: crucifixion

Percy Bysshe Shelley
-“most fervent rebel of the English Romantics (Horton 565)
-His disciple is Robert Browning (Horton 567)

Noted Works:
-Ozymandias – about pride; it’s a statue
-England in 1819 – evil will perish
-Ode to the West Wind – refers to all seasons; wind brings change

Charles Lamb 1775-1834
-"prince of the English essayists" (Horton 554)
-He has a romantic reverence, "nostalgia for the past," "splendid sadness of youth" (Horton 555)
Noted Works:
-"Oh China": "superiority of the old days of youth" and appreciation (Horton 555)

George Gordon, Lord Byron 1788-1824

Noted Works:
-Don Juan: "notable example of the romantic self-projected hero"
-On This Day I Complete My 36th Year
-She Walks in Beauty - admires someone from afar

John Keats 1795-1821
-"The romantic triumvirate: Byron, Shelly, and keats" (Horton 573).
-agnosticism; aestheticism

Noted Works:
-Eve of St. Agnes - sonnet, in the winter, Romeo and Juliet
-On First Looking into Chapman's Homer - Illiad and Oddyssey. Theme: excitement of literary discovery; considered only second to Shakespeare in command to the English Language (Horton 575)
-Lamia, Isabella


Horton, Ronald A. British Literature for Christian Schools. Greenville: Bob Jones University Press, 1992.