The age of transition ( 1745 1798)

Characteristics of Transition age.

1. The age of Transition ( 1745-1798) The characteristics of the Transition age

2. 1) The double tendencies Two movements can be noticed clearly – classicism and romanticism Dr. Samuel Johnson was the chief in classicism. The romantic reaction started by the work of Thomson’s Seasons in 1730. The romanticism characterized by following features, 1) Return to nature 2) A fresh interest in man’s position in the world of nature. 3) Sympathy for the poor and oppressed people. 4) Revolt against the conventional literary techniques and desire for strength, simplicity and sincerity. 5) A love for supernatural stories, legends and the middle ages.

3. 2)The New learning The new learning took several channels. In literature we have the revival of the romantic movement, leading to… 1)Research into archaic literary forms such as ballad. 2)New editions of the older authors, such as Shakespeare and Chaucer. The publications of Bishop Percy’s Reliques (1765), which contained some of the oldest and most beautiful specimens of ballad- literature.

4. 3)The New Philosophy The spirit of new thinking, which received its consummate expression in the works of Voltaire was marked by keen scepticism and the zest for eager inquiry. Some destructive spirit of disbelief would injure the Romantic ideal, which delights in illusion. But finally the new spirit actually assisted the romantic ideal by demolishing and clearing away heaps of the ancient mental lumber, and so leaving the ground clear for new and fresher creations.

5. 4) The New realism We have the astonishing development of the novel, which at first concerned itself with domestic incidents. Fielding and his kind dealt very faithfully with human life. In the widest sense of the world, however, the novelist were romanticists, for in sympathy and freshness of treatment they were followers of the new ideal.

6. 5) The growth of historical research The eighteenth century witnessed the swift rise of historical literature to a place of great importance. The historical school had a glorious leader in Gibbon, who was nearly, as much at home in the French language as he was in English. The romantics loved history for its own sake and not to find any authority in it.

7. 6) Decline of political writing With the partial decay of the party spirit the activity in pamphleteering was over; poets and satirists were no longer the favorites of Prime Minister Walpole who openly despised the literary breed, for he did not need them. Hence writers had to depend on their public, which was not entirely evil. This caused the rise of the men of letters, such as Johnson and Goldsmith, who wrote to satisfy a public demand.

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