Paper no 2 development of novel and drama

 Development of novel and drama

Name :- chauhan Urvashi N.

Paper no :- neoclassical literature

Semester :- 1

Roll no:- 41

Year :- 2018/20

Topic:- development of novel and drama

Enrollment no :-2069108420190008

Email Id :- urvashichauhan157@gmail.com

Submitted to :- Smt. S.B.  Gardi , Department of English Mk Bhavnagar Uni.

Introduction

            Neoclassical literature was  written between 1670 and 1798. This time period broken down in to three parts: 1. Restoration period

           2. Augustan period

           3.johnson age writers of the neoclassical period tried to imitate the  style  of the romans  and Greek . Thus the combination of the terms 'neo,' which means 'new,' and 'classical,' as in the day of the Roman and Greek classics. This was also the era of The Enlightenment, which emphasized logic and reason. It was preceded by The Renaissance and followed by the Romantic era. In fact, the Neoclassical period ended in 1798 when Wordsworth published the Romantic 'Lyrical Ballads'.

Characteristics of Neoclassical Literature :

        Neoclassical literature is characterized by order, accuracy, and structure. In direct opposition to Renaissance attitudes, where man was seen as basically good, the Neoclassical writers portrayed man as inherently flawed. They emphasized restraint, self-control, and common sense. This was a time when conservatismflourished in both politics and literature.

Some popular types of literature included:

• Parody

• Essays

• Satire

• Letters

• Fables

• Melodrama, and

• Rhyming with couplets

The Restoration Period

     It is called the Restoration Period, as King Charles was restored in this era. The Restoration Period lasted from 1660-1700. Writers of this age, Dryden and Milton, endeavoured to use sublime, grand and impressive style, scholarly allusions, and mythology and curb the intense use of imagination.

The Augustan Age

      The Augustan Age is also called the Age of Pope. Pope was the leading poet in this age. The Augustan Age lasted from 1700 to 1750.

The Age of Johnson

      The Age of Johnson lasted up to 1798, when the Romantic Movement was underway with the publication of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Samuel Coleridge.

Definition of neoclassical drama :

       A concept of drama that originated in the writings of 15th century Italian scholars and came to dominate the stage in 17th- and 18th-century France was the neoclassical drama. Neoclassical theorists advocated a return to the values and conventions of classical Greek drama as these were then understood. In particular, they ascribed a great importance to the Poetics of Aristotle, and to the unities of time, place, and action that they deduced from this work.

Neoclassical Dramatists:

COLLEY CIBBER

        Comedy of manners was severely attacked by Jeremy Collier of whom Colley Cibber was a close disciple. The comedies of Cibber have all the characteristics of Sentimental Comedy. His comedies end on a note of morality. His two sentimental comedies are Love’s Last Shift and Provoked Husband.

SIR RICHARD STEELE:

      Richard Steele, who popularised the Periodical Essay, was perhaps the great playwright of the sentimental comedy. He wrote three sentimental comedies viz. The Lying Lover, The Tender Husbandand The Conscious Lovers. 

HUGH KELLY

      He carried sentimental comedy after the middle of the century. His important comedy is False Delicacy. 

CENTLIVRE

       Mrs Centlivre, the wife of French cook to Queen Anne, kept alive the spirit of restoration comedy  in her plays. Most notable of which is A Bold Stroke about 30 plays, some of which were tragedies. His best sentimental comedies are The Brothers, The West Indian and The Fashionable Lover.

RICHARD CUMBERLAND

      Cumberland wrote about 30 plays, some of which were tragedies. His best sentimental comedies are The Brothers, The West Indian and The Fashionable Lover.

Characteristics of drama

Rise of Novel

     The main cause for the decline of drama, during the 18th century, was the popularity gained by the novel. The rise of novel  displaced the drama. The novel had become truly representative and free from most of the conventions that burdened the theatre. It, in a better way, depicted life, manners and ideas.

An Age of Actors and Actresses

      During this age, actors and actresses became more important than the playwrights. People were more attracted towards the performance of actors and actresses but never bothered about the qualities of the plays that were being produced. People went to theatres mainly by the fame of actors and actresses. Such fame of actors and actresses lowered the prestige of drama. This discouraged the playwrights to produce good plays. This was another cause for the decline of drama.

Revival of the old play

     The revival of old plays hindered the creation of new plays. The plays of Shakespeare, beaumont and fletcher were revived. A number of tragedies of Shakespeare like Romeo and Juliet, King Lear were given happy endings. Playwrights perhaps thought that writings of new plays would be useless since people of the age were more interested in the revival of old plays rather than the creation of new ones.

Lack of Support from Court

      The drama of the age failed to receive the support of the king. William-III was no patron of the theatre nor was Queen Anne; nor was the first two Georges. Without the support of the king, it was difficult for the dramatists to put their influence over the public of the day. This also led to the decline of drama.

    Moral Restraint

    During this age, the dramatists were restricted from presenting rude and offensive scenes. Thus they had not that freedom which the writers of Comedy manner enjoyed. Naturally, the scope of drama became restricted. Instead of broad humour of comedy, writers of the preceding age, sentiments emerged in the world of comedy. The comedies of the age bordered on sentimentality and everything that seemed to have the tone of fun. Humour was regarded as a matter of distaste by the public.

Heroic Drama

    Heroic Tragedy was also called “Heroic Drama”, but Dryden, the main supporter of Tragedy, called it “Heroic Drama”. These plays were written in the Classical model of the rhymed heroic couplet and later in blank verse tragedy. This tragedy was only near tragedy.

The theme of the heroic plays was based on the struggle between love and honour, the hero and heroine were cast on the grand scale and their dialogues consisted of elaborate speeches, in rhymed 10-syllabled couplets, full of emotional and bombastic of such kind that its parallel would not be found.

Novel

     The 18^th century is generally considered to be the first literary age during which we can speak of the novel as a well established in British literature. The period is difficult to name. It was called  contemporaries Augustan and neoclassical age.

         The great types of literature, like epic, drama, the romance, and the drama were first produced by other nations. but the idea of the modern novel seems to have been worked out largely on english. The novel is a long prose fiction having a plot, a number ofcharacters and the plot developing and coming to a logical conclusion through the characters interaction with one another. J.B. Priestley defines a novel “as a narrative in prose treating chiefly of imagery characters and events”. Many critics divided the novel into two classes: stories and romance the story being a form of which relates certain incidents of life with as little complexity as possible and the romance describes life as led by strong emotions in complex and unusual circumstances,  but the critics have divided the NeoClassical novels in the following categories The novel started with Travelogues the stories relating the adventures of the travelers or voyagers in unknown and unchartered seas. The earliest of them is Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe; and Swift’s Gulliver Travels. The next is The Picaresque Novel in which the hero is rouge or a bad character who wanders from place to place and encounters many adversaries who are equally roguish, for example the heroine of Defoe’s Moll Flanders. The Epistolary Novel comes next in which plot develops and comes to an end through the medium of letter Richardson’s Pamela. there is very little dialogue amongst the characters because they exchange their views and thoughts through their letters and replies. In Neo-Classical novel, the controversy between rules and taste continued because the novel had new lyemerged and had no theory or rules of its own available in any ancient or Augustan period, but Fieldingwas only conscious artist who tried to forge a theory of the novel.

    Four wheels of novel

     The  group of the first novelist of Augustan Age.  1) Richardson, 2) Smollett, 3) fielding and 4)  Sterne . They are  called four wheels of novel.  beginning of novel writing is made with an enthralling and mysterious figure, Daniel Defoe . who gives us travelogue novel Robinson Crusoe . Heregards the novel, not as a work of imagination, but as a true relation and even the element of fact decreases, he maintains the close realism of pseudo-fact. The combination of these qualities has given Robinson Crusoe its immediate and continuous appeal. The next development in the novel, and possibly the most important in its whole history in England, comes by the ancient, Samuel Richardson. who is famous for Epistolary Novel Pamela in which plot develops and comes to an endthrough the medium of letters. Richardson has suffered from the appearance of contemporary, who disliked his work, and who took an early opportunity of satirizing it, named Henry Fielding, who published Andrew Joseph to ridicule Richardson’s Pamela. he contrived this satire by revering the situation in Richardson’s novel. The next wheel, Tobias Smollett was Fielding contemporary, though he is not of equal stature. If he brought to the novel nothing that was new inform, he was able to introduce a new background, in accounts of sea in the livid days of the old Navy in Roderick Random .which portrays the life of rogue hero until his marriage with the loyal, beautiful and incredible Narciss. Of the eighteenth century novelists, the strangest, and the most variously judged, is Laurence Sterne, who is known for Life and Opinion of Tristram Shan in which the reader has to wait until the third book before the hero is born, and even then his future life remains undefined. After the work of these four masters, the stream of fiction broadens continually, until it reaches the flood with which no single intelligence and contended.

    Samuel  Richard

      Richardson was a skilled letter writer and his talent traces back to his childhood.Throughout his whole life, he would constantly write to his various associates. Richardson had a "faith" in the act of letter writing, and believed that letters could be used to accurately portray character traits. He quickly adopted the epistolary novel  form, which granted him the tools, the space, and the freedom to develop distinctly different characters speaking directly to the reader.The characters of Pamela, Clarissa, and Grandison are revealed in a personal way, with the first two using the epistolary form for "dramatic" purposes, and the last for "celebratory" purposes.

In his first novel, Pamela, he explored the various complexities of the title character's life, and the letters allow the reader to witness her develop and progress over time. The novel was an experiment, but it allowed Richardson to create a complex heroine through a series of her letters. When Richardson wrote Clarissa, he had more experience in the form and expanded the letter writing to four different correspondents, which created a complex system of characters encouraging each other to grow and develop over time. However, the villain of the story, Lovelace  is also involved in the letter writing, and this leads to tragedy. Leo Braudy described the benefits of the epistolary form of Clarissa as Language can work letters can be ways to communicate and justify By the time Richardson writes Grandison, he transforms the letter writing from telling of personal insights and explaining feelings into a means for people to communicate their thoughts on the actions of others and for the public to celebrate virtue. The letters are no longer written for a few people, but are passed along in order for all togetherness. There are many novelist and Dramatists in neoclassical age. So that is development of novel and drama in neoclassical age.

To Evaluate my Assignment click here