II. Mature Enlightenment (1740—1750).

The didactic social novel was born in this period. It was represented by the works of such writers as Samuel Richardson (Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady), Henry Fielding (The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling and other novels), and Tobias Smollett (The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker and other novels).

Henry Fielding's works were the summit of the English Enlightenment prose. In The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling the hero, a charming, cheerful, kind-hearted man, has a number of adventures and meets with a lot of people from all walks of life. The novel is set in a poor country house, in an aristocratic mansion, in an inn, in a court-room, in a prison and in the London streets. This composition of the novel enabled the author to give an all-embracing picture of the 18^th-century England.

He also elaborated a theory of the novel. In the introductory chapters to the eighteen parts of The History of Tom Jones he put forward the main requirements of a novel: to imitate life, to show the variety of human nature, to expose the causes of man's vices and to indicate ways of overcoming them.

III. Late Enlightenment (Sentimentalism) (1750—1790).

The writers of this period, like the Enlighteners of the first two, expressed the democratic bourgeois tendencies of their time. They also tried to find a way out of the difficulties of the existing order. However, while their predecessors believed in the force of intellect, they considered feelings (or sentiments) roost important. The principal representatives of sentimentalism in the genre of the novel were Oliver Goldsmith (The Vicar of Wakefield) and Lawrence Sterne (Tristram Shandy, The Sentimental Journey) and in drama — Richard Sheridan (School for Scandal and other plays). The poetry of Robert Burns belongs to this period, too.

ROMANTICISM (19^th century)

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The Romantic period lasted about thirty years, from the last decade of the 18th century to the 1830s. Romanticism in literature was a reaction of different strata of society to the French Revolution and to the Enlightenment associated with it. The people were disappointed with the outcome of the Revolution. The common people did not obtain the liberty, fraternity and equality they had hoped for; the bourgeoisie found that the reality was not what the Enlighteners had promised it to be, although the Revolution had paved the way for capitalist development.

The progressive minds of Europe expressed this general discontent, because the influence of the French Revolution was felt all over the world. The new trend in literature (Romanticism) reflected it. The Revolution brought new problems for progressive-minded writers, who were faced with the necessity of finding an answer to such questions as their attitude to the feudal state, to the relations between the individual and society, to the common people.

The Romantic period in England had its peculiarities. During the second half of the 18th century economic and social changes took place in the country. England went through the so-called Industrial Revolution that gave birth to a new class, that of the proletariat. The Industrial Revolution began with the invention of a weaving-machine which could do the work of seventeen people. The weavers that were left without work thought that the machines were to blame for their misery. They began to destroy these machines or frames as they were called. This frame-breaking movement was called the Luddite movement, because the name of the first man to break a frame was Ned Ludd. The further introduction of machinery in different branches of manufacture left far more people jobless.

The reactionary ruling class of England was, however, decisively against any progressive thought influenced by the French Revolution; as a result the last decade of the 18th century was subjected to a rule that became known as the “white terror”. Progressive-minded people were persecuted and forced into exile as was Thomas Paine (1737-1809), the author of the Rights of Man, who had to flee to France.

The Industrial Revolution in England, as well as the French Revolution, had a great influence on the cultural life of the county. In addition to the problems that their European contemporaries were facing, the English writers of the period had to find answers that arose in their own country, such as the growth of industry, the rise of the working class movement and the disappearance of the peasantry.

Some of these writers were definitely revolutionary: they opposed the existing order, called upon the people to struggle for a better future, shared the people’s desire for liberty and objected to colonial oppression. Furthermore, they supported the national liberation wars on the continent against feudal reaction. Such writers were George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) and Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822).

Others, though they had welcomed the French Revolution and its slogan of liberty, fraternity and equality, later abandoned revolutionary ideas. They turned to nature and to the simple problems of life. They tried to avoid the contradictions that were becoming so great in all the spheres of social life with the development of capitalism. They looked back to patriarchal England and refused to accept the progress of industry; they even called on the Government to forbid the building of new factories which, they considered, were the cause of the workers’ sufferings. Among these writers were the poets William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel T. Coleridge (1772-1834) and Robert Southey (1774-1843), who formed the “Lake School”, so called because they all lived for a time in the beautiful Lake District in the north-west of England. They dedicated much of what they wrote to Nature, especially Wordsworth. They showed the life of the common people in the English countryside that was overlooked by their younger revolutionary contemporaries. The “Lake” poets resorted to popular forms of verse that were known and could be understood by all.

One of the first works, published by W. Wordsworth and S. Coleridge in 1798, was a collection of poems under the title of Lyrical Ballads. In the foreword W. Wordsworth wrote that these ballads were written for everybody, in a language that everybody could understand.

The romanticists paid a good deal of attention to the spiritual life of man. This was reflected in an abundance of lyrical verse. The so-called exotic theme came into being, and great attention was devoted to Nature and its elements. The writers used such means as symbolism, fantasy, grotesque, etc.; legends, tales, songs and ballads also became part of their creative world.

A typical romantic hero was, as a rule, a lonely individual, given to meditations and seeking for freedom.

The romanticists were talented poets and their contribution to English literature was very important.

CRITICAL REALISM

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The social and political situation in the country influenced a number of novelists who realized that it was necessary to deal with actual facts and realities, to set their books in present and to pose topical problems in them. Karl Marx spoke of these writers as of "the brilliant school of novelists whose graphic and eloquent descriptions have revealed more political and social truths to the world, than have all the politicians and moralists added together." (Since they lived at the time of Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, these authors are sometimes referred to as Victorian writers). These writers developed the traditions of English realist literature begun by the Enlighteners and further enriched by the historical approach of Walter Scott. In their works they exposed and criticized the vices and drawbacks of their time — social injustice and inequality, poverty, lust for money, hypocrisy, etc. They drew their characters from all social levels; among them are representatives of the aristocracy and the middle class, as well as servants, clerks, workers, thieves, etc. The main subject of their novels was, however, the life of lower classes, and their sympathies always lay with common people who, as a rule, possessed higher moral qualities than the rich did. The negative characters embodied all the vices of the society that was a slave to gold.

Still another feature of the work of critical realists was that they stressed the function of the social environment in shaping human character. The novels often traced the life stories of their characters from their early years and depicted the circumstances under which they grew. The detailed descriptions of life in big cities and in the country, of rich houses and slums, of schools and prisons, as well as the introduction of colloquial speech made these novels true to life.

The most prominent of the critical realists were Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray.