The Augustan Age

The Augustan Age summary

The so-called August Age spanned the period from the beginning of the 18^th century to its end, normally dated to the deaths of two writers of the period, Alexander Pope (who died in 1744) and Jonathan Swift (who died in 1745). That said, there are no settled dates for the Augustan age; movements do not begin one day and end on another. Instead, historians identify certain fixed points which seem, on reflection, to be moments at which a movement gets wind in its sails or loses it. For example, the writer Samuel Johnson (who wrote the first English dictionary in 1755) has been linked to the Augustan Age despite living and producing important works after the supposed end of the age.

Augustan Age meaning

It was in this period that the novel rose in prominence as a literary form, as well as genres like political satire, especially drama. In other areas, poetry turned inwards, characterised by reflections on the inner person.

Other areas saw development as well. For example, in science and philosophy, empiricism came to occupy a central position. In economics, capitalism developed, expanded, and ultimately produced the form of capitalism we are familiar with today.

In literature, the period was known as the Augustan Age in part because of Alexander Pope’s use of the reference in his poetry. For example, his use of the name Augusta for Queen Anne draws a comparison between the early 18^th century and the reign of Caesar Augustus (63BC-14AD). Augustus, the Roman Emperor, was praised for his peaceful reign.

Because of the Roman reference, some fields outside the field of poetry have given it a different name. Some call it the neoclassical age and some call it the Age of Reason.

Augustan Age characteristics

One of the chief drivers of literature in the Augustan Age was its availability. By the eighteenth century, printed material of all kinds (not only books but magazines, newspapers, tracts, and poems) was widely available.

The proliferation of printed material brought down the price of books, which meant even greater circulation. This was also the age before copyright, meaning that copies were widely circulated without the author's permission. As a result of all this, educational levels increased among the general population.

Augustan literature was characterised by a political tendency. Along with journalists, even novelists, poets, and playwrights were political. Political or human satire characterised the style or genre of writing in this period. Not only were politicians and important people satirised, but novels were written satirising other novels. For example, Samuel Richardson’s (1689-1761) novel Pamela (1740) was satirised by Henry Fielding (1707-1754).

A number of other kinds of literature and text characterised the period. The essay, for example. At the time, collections of essays began to be circulated in periodicals. One of these was the political magazine The Spectator, which is still in print today and is widely read. In this vein, essays were considered objective ways of ‘spectating’ or observing what was going on and commenting on it.

Dictionaries and lexicons also became popular at this time, as well as philosophical and religious writing.

The eighteenth-century novel was a vehicle for satire. The famous titles of the period are Gulliver’s Travels (1726) by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) and Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe (1660-1731). These novels, and other satirical novels of the period, traced their roots to perhaps the most well-known European novel in the period just before the Augustan Age, Don Quixote by Cervantes (1547-1616).

Augustan Age literature

Other novels of the period include what are called sentimental novels. These became popular around 1740. Examples are Pamela by Samuel Richardson, Tristram Shandy (1759-67) by Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), Julie (1761) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and a novel by Goethe (1749-1832), The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774).

Sterne’s Tristram Shandy was written in the mould of Gulliver’s Travels by Swift. It is autobiographical, but it is unusual in that it moves backwards in time. Sterne explains one detail of his life, then explains the cause or reason for that detail, then the reason for that, and on and on, backwards in time.

Tristram Shandy is a satirical novel.

In the Augustan Age, there were other parallel developments going on. For example, there was an increase in the number of women writing novels at this time.

Augustan poetry was dominated by satire. The Augustan poets satirised each other, developing each other’s poems and often writing directly contrasting poems. The idea of the ‘individual’ was invented in the eighteenth century. The emphasis in the early part of the century was on the subjective self rather than on the public persona oriented primarily towards society.

Older styles of poetry, which had been used in public-facing ways, were turned to other uses. Poetry became studies of the individual. One interpretation of this shift of attention from the public to the private is the rise of Protestantism. The idea that it is the individual who stands before God changed the idea, dominant for so long in Catholicism, that it was being part of the community that mattered most.

Alexander Pope, whose death marked the end of the Augustan age, was the central figure of Augustan poetry. He was also a prime mover in the Augustan poetic tradition of ‘updating’ the classical writers.

Pope’s most celebrated poetic satires are The Rape of the Lock (1712; 1714) and The Dunciad (1722). The first was based on a poetic structure used by the Roman poet Virgil. The second was a satire of Pope’s enemy Lewis Theobald.

As for other themes of the period, pastoral was an important one. Landscape in the eighteenth century was a common feature in poetry. The seasons were depicted in the poetry of John Dyer (1699-1757) (in ‘Grongar Hill’, 1726) and Thomas Gray (1716-1771) (in ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, 1750). It is clear that this interest in nature and landscape and the individual prepared the way for the Romantics of the second half of the eighteenth century.

In Augustan theatre, the same emphasis on satire existed. However, the Licensing Act of 1737 made it law for all plays to be scrutinised before being allowed to be performed. As a result, numerous plays were banned. Popular plays before the passing of the Act included John Gay’s (1685-1732), The Beggar’s Opera (1728) and Henry Fielding’s Tom Thumb (1730).