CHAPTER IX. EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY LITERATURE
(1700-1800)glish victories over the French in Canada and the Mississippi
Valley, during the Seven Years’, or French and Indian, Wars.
Politically, the country was divided into Whigs and Tories
the former seeking greater liberty for the people; the latter
upholding the king against popular government. The con-
tinued strife between these two political parties had a direct
(and generally a harmful) influence on literature, as many of
the great writers were used by the Whig or Tory party to ad-
vance its own interests and to satirize its enemies. Notwith-
standing this perpetual strife of parties, the age is remarkable
for the rapid social development, which soon expressed itself
in literature. Clubs and coffeehouses multiplied, and the so-
cial life of these clubs resulted in better manners, in a general
feeling of toleration, and especially in a kind of superficial el-
egance which shows itself in most of the prose and poetry of
the period. On the other hand, the moral standard of the na-
tion was very low; bands of rowdies infested the city streets
after nightfall; bribery and corruption were the rule in pol-
itics; and drunkenness was frightfully prevalent among all
classes. Swift’s degraded race of Yahoos is a reflection of the
degradation to be seen in multitudes of London saloons. This
low standard of morals emphasizes the importance of the
great Methodist revival under Whitefield and Wesley, which
began in the second quarter of the eighteenth century.
The literature of the century is remarkably complex, but
we may classify it all under three general heads,–the Reign of
so-called Classicism, the Revival of Romantic Poetry, and the
Beginning of the Modern Novel. The first half of the century,
especially, is an age of prose, owing largely to the fact that the
practical and social interests of the age demanded expression.
Modern newspapers, like theChronicle, Post, andTimes, and
literary magazines, like theTatlerandSpectator, which began
in this age, greatly influenced the development of a service-
able prose style. The poetry of the first half of the century, as
typified in Pope, was polished, unimaginative, formal; and
the closed couplet was in general use, supplanting all other