Study sheet: Eighteenth-Century British Literature

📋 Course Outline

1. Studying Literature and Its Period
2. The Glorious Revolution and Constitutional Rule
3. Society, Gender, and British Identity
4. Empire, Slavery, and Print Culture
5. Enlightenment Thought and Philosophers
6. Art, Nature, and Imagination

📖 1. Studying Literature and Its Period

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Critical thinking : Develops when readers understand how texts are written, making them less easily manipulated by those texts.

★ Must-know

• The eighteenth century is studied as a major historical period marked by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1775–1783, the French Revolution of 1789, and the rise of the novel.

Further detail

• Gary and Bridget Keegan Day write that the way people see the contemporary world is partly determined by events that happened three hundred years earlier in The Eighteenth-Century Literature Handbook, published in 2009. — Gary et Bridget KEEGAN

💡 Memory Hook

Understanding how texts are written → stronger critical thinking and resistance to manipulation

📖 2. The Glorious Revolution and Constitutional Rule

📝 Essential Points

• The long eighteenth century runs from the Glorious Revolution in 1688 to the Napoleonic Wars in 1815.

• 🔄 The Glorious Revolution unfolded through these events:

  1. James II had a son in 1688
  2. William of Orange landed in England with a large Dutch army in November 1688
  3. James fled to France
  4. Parliament offered the crown jointly to William and Mary in 1689

• The Bill of Rights established:

  • Parliamentary supremacy over the monarchy
  • A ban on Catholic monarchs
  • Certain civil liberties
  • The foundation of a constitutional monarchy

💡 Memory Hook

James II → William and Mary → parliamentary supremacy

📖 3. Society, Gender, and British Identity

★ Must-know

• Early- to mid-eighteenth-century writing emphasized order, stability, politeness, and the middle class because of fear of renewed conflict. — Day et Keegan, 2009

📌 The Whigs represented aristocratic landowners, increasingly wealthy merchants, and newly emerging professionals, whereas the Tories represented the gentry and small landholders, supported the Anglican Church, and opposed high taxation.

• England and Wales were formally united with Scotland in 1707, and Ireland joined the Union in 1800, contributing to the emergence of a sense of Britishness.

Further detail

• Didactic literature and periodicals such as The Tatler and The Spectator helped create ideals of masculine and feminine behaviour, while sensibility promoted the open expression of feelings and challenged some ideals of masculinity.

💡 Memory Hook

Whigs: moneyed elite; Tories: gentry and Anglican interests

📖 4. Empire, Slavery, and Print Culture

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Consumer revolution : Day et Keegan, 2009 — The spread of access to goods and services previously limited to the wealthiest people, stimulated by commerce, empire, and industrialization.

📝 Essential Points

• Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano were Black writers who spoke out against slavery, and Cugoano’s Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Commerce of the Human Species was the first abolitionist publication in English by an African, published in 1787.

• The lapse of the Licensing Act in 1695 contributed to a huge increase in publications.

• By 1800, about 6,000 books were published annually, compared with 1,800 in 1700, and by the 1780s England had fifty newspapers outside London selling millions of copies. — Day et Keegan, 2009

💡 Memory Hook

Commerce, empire, and industrialization → consumer revolution and expanded print

📖 5. Enlightenment Thought and Philosophers

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Enlightenment : Promoted the systematic use of reason to discover knowledge about human life and to improve human existence through new social and political systems.

★ Must-know

• Enlightenment thinkers believed that the universe was governed by discernible laws and that human progress was possible.

• John Locke argued in Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1690, that knowledge comes from experience through sensations and reflections.

• Mary Wollstonecraft argued in A Vindication for the Rights of Women, published in 1792, that women are essential to society and should receive a proper education.

Further detail

• David Hume retained from Locke’s empiricism the importance of perception through impressions and ideas in A Treatise of Human Nature, published in 1739–40.

💡 Memory Hook

LHM: Locke, Hume, Wollstonecraft

📖 6. Art, Nature, and Imagination

★ Must-know

📌 During the first part of the eighteenth century, writers believed that art should imitate nature, whereas from the middle of the century onward there was growing interest in the imagination.

Further detail

• The eighteenth century placed increasing emphasis on pleasure, and art became a distinct domain during the period.

💡 Memory Hook

Early-century imitation of nature versus later interest in imagination

📊 Synthesis Tables

Whigs and Tories

Party	Social base	Main positions
Whigs	Aristocratic landowners, wealthy merchants, emerging professionals	Moneyed elite
Tories	Gentry and small landholders	Anglican support and opposition to high taxation