Aula 02 - impressao

Prévia do material em texto

LITERATURAS DE LÍNGUA 
INGLESA 
AULA 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Profª Patricia Barreto Mainardi 
 
 
 
2 
GETTING STARTED 
Lesson 2 historically and literarily contextualizes the 18th century and the 
rise of the novel, the dominant literary form from this historical moment onwards. 
After watching the video and reading this text, you should be able to understand 
the context of the eighteenth century and the Augustan Age; the contribution of 
early authors to the development of a new form of facing the world and reality, 
from a neoclassical perspective that entails a more conservative, though 
practical, model that breaks with the Renaissance values; the changes that a new 
literary form implies and entails for future developments; the importance of 
English literature in the emergence and consolidation of the novel as a genre; 
recognize the main authors and works of the period and their characteristics, as 
well as their influence on later forms and even on Brazilian literature (especially 
Machado de Assis and the influence of Sterne). 
THEME 1 – ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 18TH CENTURY: THE RISE OF THE 
NOVEL 
1.1 England in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century 
1.1.1 Historical Background 
The Elizabethan period is considered a golden age in British history, in 
which England experienced a period of relative peace and development of arts 
and sciences, under Renaissance ideals. Colonial expansion, the rise of the 
bourgeoisie and the middle class strengthened British power and its economy, 
fostering the nation establishment and its consolidation as a world power. 
Elizabeth’s reign did give “the nation some sense of stability, and a considerable 
sense of national and religious triumph” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 62). 
With Elizabeth I’s death, in 1603 (after 44 years of rule), James VI of 
Scotland ascended in England as James I, uniting both countries under the same 
monarch, in the Stuart period, that would last until 1714. It was under his rule that 
the first colony in the USA, Jamestown, was settled by especially conservative 
Puritans, the Pilgrims. 
However, it was a troubled moment due especially to internal and religious 
conflicts. The Puritans, a religious group inside the Church of England, 
 
 
3 
considered that the separation from the Catholic Church (by Henry VIII, Elizabeth 
I’s father) was not complete; they wanted to continue and deepen the reforms, 
followed a very conservative doctrine regarding arts, for example, and defended 
the connection between the church and the state. Puritans were inspired by 
Calvinist precepts, which considered material success as a sign of God’s 
approval. Despite (or even because) of the moderate policy of King James 
regarding these issues, for he tried to reconcile multiple trends in The Church of 
England, the Puritans became a strong political force in the mid seventeenth 
century. After the English Revolution, also known as the Puritan Revolution, 
Oliver Cromwell ascended as Lord Protector, overthrowing King Charles I (who 
had succeeded King James) in 1649. During this period, the conservative ethos 
relying on the bible and strict religious precepts lead to a censorship over the arts. 
Theaters had been closed in 1642 and a theatrical ban was established, marking 
the end of the golden age of drama in England. Albeit the ban was lifted in 1660, 
after restoration, it was a different type of theatre and drama as a literary form 
decreased in importance, while other genres would emerge. 
After Cromwell’s fall and subsequent death, in 1658, the monarchy was 
restored with Charles II, “an almost powerless monarch whose tastes had been 
formed in France” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 129). The parliamentary system 
became the actual ruling stance, with two parties, Tories and Whigs, and the 
figure of a Prime Minister. The mindset was Protestant, despite the brief period 
of James II, a Catholic king, starting in 1685. He was overthrown in 1688, in the 
Glorious Revolution, which marks the change from an absolute to a constitutional 
monarchy in England. The Renaissance ideals were now contained and gave 
place to reason and facts: 
The concentration of society was on commerce, on respectability, and 
on institutions. The “genius of the nation” led to the founding of the 
Royal Society in 1662-63 — “for the improving of Natural Knowledge”. 
The Royal Society represents the trend towards the institutionalization 
of scientific investigation and research. (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 130) 
This brief overview aims at providing the historical setting for a new period 
in English Literature, with new trends, new genres, and new forms of expression. 
The first great author of this period is the English poet and prose writer John 
Milton, still in the seventeenth century. Names like Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 
1651), John Locke (Essay Concerning Human Understanding,1690) and David 
Hume (An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748) would continue the 
 
 
4 
development of political and philosophical treatises. The eighteenth century 
would set different forms of expression, with the emphasis on the essay in prose, 
with names as Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, and the rise of a genre that 
would become the new dominant literary form: the novel. 
1.1.2 Augustan period: authors, essayists and thinkers – Milton, Pope, 
Johnson 
The Augustan Age corresponds to the eighteenth century in the British 
literature. Regarding literary periods, it is relevant to note that they are not mere 
trends, but represent new forms of understanding the world and reality, influenced 
by social, economic, aesthetical issues of a specific moment. Therefore, they are 
connected to previous works, writers and movements, and respond to the 
tensions and events that influence the ethos of a moment in history. 
In this sense, Augustan literature responds to Renaissance, returning to 
classical values of logic and reason. It is also referred to as Neoclassical period 
and Enlightenment, and would produce works of thinkers and writers such as 
Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson and Daniel Defoe. Even though important 
poetical works were produced, prose emerges as the main trend: the artistic 
essay genre was perfected and the novel rose as a new literary form, which would 
become dominant in the following periods and up to contemporaneity. 
In between Renaissance and the Augustan age, still during the restoration 
(the period after Cromwell’s fall, with the return of monarchy in new conditions), 
a name stands as another monument in British literature and culture: John Milton 
(1608-1674), English poet and man of letters who wrote notable works. His 
controversial character has produced criticism and praise: 
Since his own lifetime, [Milton has] always been one of the major figures 
in English literature, but his reputation has changed constantly. He has 
been seen as a political opportunist, an advocate of immorality […], an 
over-serious classicist, and an arrogant believer in his own greatness 
as a poet. He was all these things (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 135) 
Milton was a staunch supporter of freedom of expression and speech: in 
Areopagitica (1644), written in prose, he condemns censorship fiercely, and 
defends freedom of the press diligently. Self-determination, or the individual’s 
capacity of choosing his or her own acts and determining his or her future, is a 
core value in Milton’s work, especially in Paradise Lost, probably one of the 
greatest poems ever written in the English language. 
 
 
5 
Paradise Lost (1667) is an epic poem in English that elaborates Satan’s 
fall from grace and Adam and Eve expulsion from Paradise. The action starts in 
media res, i.e. when the poem starts Satan has already fallen and the events that 
caused him to be expelled are recollected and recounted, while the character is 
in his journey to Hell.Although Satan is traditionally accounted for all evil in the 
world, for he had betrayed and abandoned God, his own father (to whom he was 
a supposedly cherished son), in Paradise Lost he is the tragic hero, whose fall is 
due to his own urge for self-determination and freedom. Satan is not merely the 
epitome of all evil, but a character who struggles with his own complexity. 
According to Bloom, in his famous work The Anxiety of Influence (1991), 
Satan is the representation of the human need for self-determination; moreover, 
he symbolizes the process of independence of the writer from the powerful 
influence of his or her precursors, struggling to affirm his or her own poetical and 
authorial voice. The lines below, from Paradise Lost, book I, present a sample of 
Milton’s artistry and complexity: 
‘Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,’ 
Said then the lost Archangel, ‘this the seat 
That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom 
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he 
Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid 
What shall be right: farthest from him is best 
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme 
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, 
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, 
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, 
Receive thy new possessor—one who brings 
A mind not to be changed by place or time. 
The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. 
What matter where, if I be still the same, 
And what I should be, all but less than he 
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least 
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built 
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: 
Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice, 
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell: 
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. 
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, 
Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss, 
Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool, 
And call them not to share with us their part 
In this unhappy mansion, or once more 
With rallied arms to try what may be yet 
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?’ 
(Milton, 2005, p. 17-18) 
Eis a região, o solo, a estância, o clima, 
E o lúgubre crepúsculo por que hoje 
Os Céus, a empírea luz, trocado havemos! 
(O perdido anjo diz). Troque-se embora, 
Já que esse, que ficou dos Céus monarca, 
 
 
6 
O que bem lhe aprouver mandar-nos pode. 
É-nos melhor estar mui longe dele: 
Se a sublime razão a nós o iguala, 
Suprema força o põe de nós acima. 
Adeus, felizes campos, onde mora 
Nunca interrupta paz, júbilo eterno! 
Salve, perene horror! Inferno, salve! 
Recebe o novo rei cujo intelecto 
Mudar não podem tempos, nem lugares; 
Nesse intelecto seu, todo ele existe; 
Nesse intelecto seu, ele até pode 
Do Inferno Céu fazer, do Céu Inferno. 
Que importa onde eu esteja, se eu o mesmo 
Sempre serei, — e quanto posso, tudo?... 
Tudo... menos o que é esse que os raios 
Mais poderoso do que nós fizeram! 
Nós ao menos aqui seremos livres, 
Deus o Inferno não fez para invejá-lo; 
Não quererá daqui lançar-nos fora: 
Poderemos aqui reinar seguros. 
Reinar é o alvo da ambição mais nobre, 
Inda que seja no profundo Inferno: 
Reinar no Inferno preferir nos cumpre 
À vileza de ser no Céu escravos. 
Mas os amigos nossos, que tão fidos 
Nosso hórrido infortúnio partilharam, 
Não deixemos assim jazer às tontas 
No olvido destas ondas inflamadas; 
Chamemo-los dali, não para serem 
Nesta mansão conosco desditosos, 
Mas para uma vez mais, todos reunidos, 
Ver o que recobrar no Céu podemos, 
Ou minorar de horror nestes abismos. 
(Milton, 2014, p. 16-17) 
Milton is, himself, a powerful precursor, whose influence is virtually 
impossible to escape. His works have influenced Augustan literature directly and 
still affect works up to our times. 
Another important precursor of the Augustan age is John Dryden (1631-
1700), English poet, playwright, and critic whose ideas and work influenced 
directly the following periods. Actually, the late seventeenth century is referred to 
as “The Age of Dryden” due to the author’s relevance. His critical works, mainly 
about literature, have set the tone for poetry and prose, through the introduction 
of the heroic couplet in the former and the use of clarity and a compressed style 
in both forms. Dryden’s renown, however, is mainly due to his use of political 
satire, in works like Absalom and Achitophel and MacFlecknoe both written in the 
1680s. In the first he comments “on the fundamental religious and political issues 
of the time” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 152) using the allegorical form to mock 
aristocratic figures; in the second, Dryden attacks literary rivals; in both, and in 
his further work, he criticizes society, individuals, behavior and stylistic choices 
 
 
7 
of fellow writers. Dryden has also translated many classical works, including 
Virgil, Homer, and Ovid. 
Despite Dryden’s death in 1700, the awakening of the new century would 
keep up with the satirical power of his works. Authors like Alexander Pope (1688-
1744), English poet, essayist and satirist would carry on the classical spirit of 
Augustan literature, using and perfecting new forms as the heroic couplet, 
introduced mainly by Dryden. Pope wrote essays in verse: An Essay on Criticism 
(1711), addressing issues of form in poetry and the values that should be 
employed by the ideal literary critic; and An Essay on Man (1730s), in which he 
explores “the whole question of man’s place in the universe, and his moral and 
social responsibilities in the world” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 158). 
Alongside Dryden and Pope, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) stands as a 
major name of British letters of the period. As a lexicographer, he published 
Dictionary of the English Language, which presents his wit in playing with 
definitions and his mastery of Latinate vocabulary. He wrote also essays on 
poetry and literature in general, producing criticism on many authors such as 
Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and contemporary writers of his own. A prolific 
intellectual, he produced in his long career essays, poems, novellas, biographies, 
and criticism. 
1.2 The rise of the novel and the pre-romanticists 
If we were to define the tone of the eighteenth century in literature, it would 
definitely be that of prose and, especially, that of the development of the novel as 
the main means of literary expression. It does not mean that prior to this moment 
in history prose and novels did not exist: they were simply not the dominant form 
in literature. Poetry had been the main form, and even theatrical expression was 
written in verse. However, since classical times the novel has been used by 
writers, such as Petronius in the Satyricon and Apuleius in The Golden Ass. 
Moreover, in the Middle Ages, Chivalric romance would present narratives in 
poetry, but also in prose, on knights and courtly love; the novella arose in Italy, 
and satirical works were produced in Europe, also using prose. Then, why does 
the novel in eighteenth century Britain represents an innovation in literature? 
In his book The rise of the Novel, British literary critic Ian Watt addresses 
this question from the idea that whether the novel in the model we currently know 
has originated in eighteenth century England, through the works of authors so 
 
 
8 
different from one another as Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding, how can one 
define its characteristics objectively? 
Defoe, Richardson and Fielding do not in the usual sense constitute a 
literary school. Indeed their works show so little sign of mutual influence 
and are so different in nature that at first sight it appears that our 
curiosity about the rise of the novel is unlikely to find any satisfaction 
other than the meagre one afforded by the terms 'genius' and 'accident'. 
[…] assuming that the appearance of our first three novelists withina 
single generation was probably not sheer accident, and that their 
geniuses could not have created the new form unless the conditions of 
the time had also been favourable, it attempts to discover what these 
favourable conditions in the literary and social situation were, and in 
what ways Defoe, Richardson and Fielding were its beneficiaries. (Watt, 
1987, p. 10) 
Part of the aforementioned “favourable conditions” is related with the use 
of the printing press and the consolidation of readership, that led to an 
enlargement of the public for such narratives. Furthermore, at the time journalism 
had undergone changes and had consolidated its social position and function. 
But if the social and material conditions were set, there is more to a new literary 
genre and the issue becomes form: what does the form used by Defoe, 
Richardson and Fileding bears in common that one can state they were writing in 
the same genre? Watt’s answer to this question relies on historians and the idea 
of realism, which is not related to narrating true events, or to reality in the way we 
perceive it or that is reported on newspapers, but to the fact that any human 
experience is worth narrating. Different from Aristotelian perspective, which 
implies that tragedy (or literature, by extension) must represent the virtuous 
character, which is better than us, in distress, the issue is that any human 
experience is worth representing. Literature should not be exclusively about 
kings, sages, or human beings with almost immaculate features facing disaster: 
it can be, from this moment onwards, about any experience, despite its ridiculous 
or apparently grotesque character. 
In this sense, realism is not akin to reality, but much more the opposition 
to idealism: the eighteenth century novel and its development includes human 
nature and its frailties much more than its virtues, presented in a fashion 
pervaded by principles of verisimilitude. From this reasoning, we must address 
some of the works and authors who have expressed these principles in the 
English language. 
 
 
9 
1.2.1 Defoe’s characters and Swift’s satire 
Robinson Crusoe is the first novel by Daniel Defoe (1659-1731), English 
journalist, merchant, and novelist. A controversial character, Defoe spent periods 
in prison and “became a kind of secret government agent […]. He carried out 
important political projects as a journalist” (Watt, 1997, p. 148). When Crusoe 
was published, in 1719, Defoe was already 60 years old, and had a prolific career 
as a journalist: the novel was one of his sixteen publications in that year. 
The novel narrates in first person and in the past tense the story of the 
eponymous character, who is cast out in an island after a shipwreck. There he is 
faced with many adversities and enemies, and has to fight for his survival. He 
spends twenty-eight years in the island, where he builds a model of his own 
society: Crusoe is a colonizer, and his actions reproduce the features of his own 
homeland: “Robinson’s belief in God, or in what he himself is doing, is never 
questioned. To paraphrase Pope: whatever Crusoe does, is right” (Carter; 
McRae, 1997, p. 170). 
The language used by Defoe is descriptive, objective and there is little 
space for Crusoe’s feelings: the narrative is detached, presenting the facts as 
they unfold, without poetic digressions. The book supports Crusoe’s original 
values and, in the end, when he manages to leave the island, awards him with 
unexpected fortune from previous investments. In this sense, the novel presents 
the rise of a capitalist hero against adversities and loneliness, and “embodies 
many of the aspects of the triumph of the middle-class ethos, where money is the 
driving force” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 171). 
Another important work by Defoe is Moll Flanders, published in 1722. Once 
again, we find an eponymous character and narrator, now a woman, a thief and 
prostitute in the streets of London and her struggles to survive and succeed. Even 
though the novel presents social comment on life conditions, the struggle of the 
poor and emigrants, it happens in contrast with the representation of the middle-
class values as superior and as a target. Moll tells her story recalling the past, 
from a present in which she has already established herself: 
Every branch of my story, if duly considered, may be useful for honest 
people, and afford a due caution to people of some sort or other to 
guard against the like surprises, and to have their eyes about them 
when they have to do with strangers of any kind, for ‘tis very seldom 
that some snare of other is not in their way. The moral, indeed, of all my 
history is left to be gathered by the senses and the judgment of the 
reader; I am not qualified to preach to them. Let the experience of one 
 
 
10 
creature completely wicked, and completely miserable, be a storehouse 
of useful warning to those that read. (Defoe citado por Carter; McRae, 
1997, p. 169-170) 
In sum, both novels present a new form of narrating, showing not the 
exploration of human potential and knowledge as in Renaissance, but much 
more the experience of human beings in reality and its consequences. 
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) would use rather different features in his major 
work, Gulliver’s Travels. Swift, an Irish clergyman who would advocate for the 
poor in his country and in England, became well-known for his essays criticizing 
the ethos of his time, speaking against English dominant classes. A famous 
example is A Modest Proposal, which shocked English society by suggesting that 
Irish children should be used for consumption: 
A young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, 
nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked or 
boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a 
ragout. (Swift, citado por Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 174) 
Many English readers were unable to understand that Swift’s sarcasm was 
a mask for his major concern: the terrible conditions of Ireland people facing 
starvation in the mid-eighteenth century, while under strict restraints by English 
rulers. Swift wrote many works criticizing them, becoming one of the most 
controversial and combative writers of the English language. 
In Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1726, Swift once more criticizes society 
using an allegorical fashion: he has created a world full of marvelous creatures 
and peoples (of which the most well-known are the Lilliputians) in order to 
question the institutions of his time, including the government, science, schools 
of learning, and religion; even though: 
Gulliver’s Travels has long been considered a comic fable for children 
[…] it is a severe attack on the political parties of the time, and on the 
pointlessness of religious controversies between different 
denominations with Christianity. […] This is the satire of poets like 
Dryden and Pope taken to a polemical extreme, and seasoned with real 
anger. (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 172-173) 
1.2.2 Richardson, Fielding and Sterne 
In this final part, we are going to discuss the works of three other important 
authors who helped in defining the British novel in the eighteenth century: 
Richardson, Fielding and Sterne. All of them contributed for the genre to become 
the dominant literary form in the following century, when it was finally 
 
 
11 
acknowledged for its artistry. As a matter of fact, before the 1900s, the novel and 
fiction “would be considered ‘inferior’ by the critics” (CARTER; McRAE, 1997, p. 
166). 
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761) was an English writer and successful 
printer who dedicated his early career to writing books of moral advice for 
youngsters and manuals for letter-writing. Thus, it is not by chance that one of his 
best-known works was an epistolary novel, Pamela, published in 1740. Epistolary 
novels are written in the formof letters and, by Richardson’s time, had been 
popular for decades, not only in Britain, but also in continental Europe. Actually, 
since classical times, letters had been employed by poets such as Ovid in The 
Heroides, a collection of letters in which mythical heroines tell their stories of love 
and deceit. In the same tradition, Pamela is the story of the eponymous young 
woman who strives against a powerful man, Mr. B., in order to keep her own 
virtue: 
Poor but virtuous, Pamela suffers a series of trials at the hands of Mr. 
B, culminating in an attempted rape. She refuses to become his 
mistress or his wife until she converts Mr. B. Then she agrees to marry 
him and becomes a paragon of virtue admired by all. (Carter; McRae, 
1997, p. 175) 
The book was very successful at the time, setting a trend for epistolary 
novels and defining contrasting and simplistic gender roles: the dominant male 
and the female victim, who fights for her chastity, an aspect that was criticized 
and parodied by other writers, like our second name in this part of the lesson: 
Henry Fielding (1707-1754). 
Fielding was an English satirist who started in 1737 “his novel-writing 
career with Shamela, a pastiche of Pamela, which humorously attacked the 
hypocritical morality that the novel displayed” (Carter; Mcrae, 1997, p. 177). 
Fielding continued to developed his ironic style parodying Richardson in another 
novel, Joseph Andrews: a chaste young man, Pamela’s brother. However, it is 
with his major work, Tom Jones (1749), that he develops his irony and wit. 
Tom Jones is a coming-of-age novel of the eponymous character, from the 
innocence of enjoying freedom to the experience of dealing with reality and 
responsibility. Tom is characterized by his frailties but also by his good nature, 
what leads the reader to identify with him. The story is told in the third person by 
an omniscient intrusive narrator: the voice who tells the story addresses the 
audience directly sometimes, and establishes a new type of connection between 
 
 
12 
the author and the reader, who is urged to take part of the narrative by the 
narrator’s direct interruption and intervention. An example of this narrative 
intrusion is presented in the following lines: 
The sagacious Reader will not, from this Simile, imagine these poor 
people had any Apprehension of the Design with which Mrs. 
Wilkins was now coming towards them; but as the great beauty of the 
Simile may possibly sleep these hundred years, till some future 
commentator shall take this Work in hand, I think proper to lend the 
reader a little Assistance in the Place. (Fielding, 2019, p. 34) 
As we can see, the narrator speaks directly to the audience, and flatters 
the reader by deeming him or her “sagacious”. This resource would be used later 
by many writers in the 1900s, such as George Eliot, and our next author, 
Fielding’s contemporary Laurence Sterne. 
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768) was, like Swift, an Irish clergyman. His 
major work, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman was published 
in eight volumes between 1759 and 1767 and was the focus of much criticism by 
Johnson and Richardson. However, it became an immediate success in England, 
and was translated to many languages, what granted Sterne celebrity still in his 
lifetime. The fact is that, in the middle of the eighteenth century, new forms of 
expression were being defined, what affected fiction and the novel as a genre: 
“no longer just the observation of human actions, with moral overtones, the genre 
takes on a range and diversity that leads to its pre-eminence as the dominant 
literary form for the next two centuries” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 186). However, 
it is astonishing that a novel written to frustrate the reader’s expectations would 
become a best-seller. The point is that Sterne’s originality and wit granted him a 
place in the history of the novel. 
Until Tristram Shandy came to light, novels had a similar structure, with a 
story starting from the beginning, then followed by a development in which the 
events would unfold, and a closure, in a chronological linear fashion. Sterne 
subverted this order, and presented a new structure: “Tristram Shandy […] is 
conceived right at the beginning, born in Volume III (some 130 pages into the 
book) — but the story ends four years before his birth” (Carter; McRae, 1997, p. 
187). If one recalls the beginning of Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, by 
Machado de Assis, in which a deceased character presents himself as the 
narrator of his own story, one can realize the reach of Sterne’s influence and 
relevance for the genre. He is also the precursor of what would be called “stream 
of consciousness” in the 1920s, a technique employed by authors such as James 
 
 
13 
Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Below, an excerpt of Tristam Shandy exemplifies the 
technique: 
To my uncle Mr. Toby Shandy do I stand indebted for the preceding 
anecdote, to whom my father, who was an excellent natural 
philosopher, and much given to close reasoning upon the smallest 
matters, had oft, and heavily complained of the injury; but once more 
particularly, as my uncle Toby well remember’d, upon his observing a 
most unaccountable obliquity, (as he call’d it) in my manner of setting 
up my top, and justifying the principles upon which I had done it,—the 
old gentleman shook his head, and in a tone more expressive by half 
of sorrow than reproach,—he said his heart all along foreboded, and he 
saw it verified in this, and from a thousand other observations he had 
made upon me, That I should neither think nor act like any other man’s 
child:—But alas! continued he, shaking his head a second time, and 
wiping away a tear which was trickling down his cheeks, My Tristram’s 
misfortunes began nine months before ever he came into the world. —
My mother, who was sitting by, look’d up, but she knew no more than 
her backside what my father meant,— but my uncle, Mr. Toby Shandy, 
who had been often informed of the affair,—understood him very well. 
(Sterne, 2013, p. 5) 
The passage shows how the narrator’s and the characters’ voices are 
mixed together, without formal stances to indicate who is speaking, or when a 
different voice is introduced. Now, a passage from Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway: 
For they might be parted for hundreds of years, she and Peter; she 
never wrote a letter and his were dry sticks; but suddenly it would come 
over her, If he were with me now what would he say?—some days, 
some sights bringing him back to her calmly, without the old bitterness; 
which perhaps was the reward of having cared for people; they came 
back in the middle of St. James’s Park on a fine morning—indeed they 
did. But Peter—however beautiful the day might be, and the trees and 
the grass, and the little girl in pink— Peter never saw a thing of all that. 
He would put on his spectacles, if she told him to; he would look. It was 
the state of the world that interested him; Wagner, Pope’s poetry, 
people’s characters eternally, and the defects of her own soul. How he 
scolded her! How they argued! She would marry a Prime Minister and 
stand at the top of a staircase; the perfect hostess he called her (she 
had cried over it in her bedroom), she had the makings of the perfect 
hostess, he said. (Woolf, 1922, p. 9-10) 
Written in 1922, Mrs. Dalloway is an example of what the novel would 
become after the nineteenth century and all the turmoil of the beginning of the 
twentieth century. The same diffuse discourse of Sterne is present, indicating his 
influence in how discourse would be arranged in the 1900s. Even though written 
by a different author, the blur between voices, and the use of form in a modern 
fashion are still there: Sterne is still visible in Woolf’s use of stream of 
consciousness; moreover, his innovations were perfected and resulted in an 
incredibly versatile genre that, as we have already discussed,would be the major 
form of expression of our own time. 
 
 
14 
SUMMING UP 
In this second lesson, we have covered an incredibly fertile period in British 
literature, from the death of Shakespeare and the end of the Elizabethan Age to 
the period of Enlightenment that would lead to major changes in life, culture, and 
consequently in literature. Our discussion aimed at recovering the processes 
involved in these developments, and at envisioning which would be their 
consequences for later authors. Starting with Milton, whose works still speak to 
us and affect the pursuit of freedom, something that every human being longs for; 
moving to Dryden, Pope, Johnson and a satirical poetry and prose that would 
teach us to look critically towards society and the events around us; then, through 
the developments of literary criticism and the ascension of modern values, in 
characters and forms that reflect the process of constant becoming. 
Finally, our journey brought us to the rise of the novel: the birth of a new 
genre, or even better, the reformulation of old forms into new ones in a dialogic 
process with time, through new ways of thinking and of dealing with reality. This 
timeline still has a long journey ahead, but the road so far has enabled us to 
understand the influence of these events in culture, including in our own Brazilian 
literature and in the formation of our identity. Moreover, it fosters the ability to 
infer and anticipate further developments. What is awaiting in the next period? 
 
 
 
15 
REFERÊNCIAS 
BLOOM, H. A Angústia da Influência. Tradução de Arthur Nestrovski. Rio de 
Janeiro: Imago, 1991. 
CARTER, R.; McRAE, J. The Routledge History of Literature in English: 
Britain and Ireland. London/New York: Routledge, 1997. 
FERRO, J. Introdução às literaturas de língua inglesa. Curitiba: IBPEX, 2011. 
FIELDING, H. Tom Jones. London: Global Grey, 2019. 
MILTON, J. Paradise Lost. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett, 2005. 
MILTON, J. Paraíso Perdido. Tradução de Antônio José de Lima Leitão. São 
Paulo: Poeteiro, 2014. 
PAES, J. P. Sterne ou o horror à linha reta. In: STERNE, L. A vida e as opiniões 
do cavalheiro Tristram Shandy. Tradução de José Paulo Paes. São Paulo: 
Companhia das Letras, 1998. 
WATT, I. Myths of Modern Individualism. New York/Melbourne: Cambridge, 
1997. 
_____. The rise of the novel. London: The Hogarth Press, 1987. 
 
 
	GETTING STARTED
	THEME 1 – ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE 18TH CENTURY: THE RISE OF THE NOVEL
	1.1 England in the transition from the 17th to the 18th century
	1.1.1 Historical Background
	1.1.2 Augustan period: authors, essayists and thinkers – Milton, Pope, Johnson
	1.2 The rise of the novel and the pre-romanticists
	1.2.1 Defoe’s characters and Swift’s satire
	1.2.2 Richardson, Fielding and Sterne
	SUMMING UP
	REFERÊNCIAS