Augustan Age

Walpole

The Prime minister is responsible to the king: there was the development of the cabinet. Parliament was formed by people chosen, not by the king, but by the major party. Sir Robert Walpole was the prime minister form 1715 to 1717. He was a capable leader; in fact there was a period of peace and prosperity. So there was a sort of oligarchy.

Jacobite rebellion

In 1715, Jacobites tried to recover the english throne for James Edward, son of the dethroned James II. But first Jacobite rebellion failed. In 1745 Charles Edward Stuart grandson of james II made a gallant attempt to recover the throne. Even though he marched to Edimburg, he was defeated at Culloden where the rebels were largely massacred, so second Jacobite rebellion failed.

The south sea bubble

Even though under george I manifacture, commerce, and agricolture prospered, in 1720 the South Sea Company fell. The shareholders were ruined and so south sea bubble started, the first English financial crisis.

The birth of English parties

During the reign of charles II, we have the birth of Whigs and tories. These two parties accepted the constitutional monarchy. Whigs belonged to wealthy middle classes, while tories belonged to country gentry or in generally aristocratic people.

Pub

Coffee house became the centre of social life. Open to a larger number of people not as exclusive as the clubs, it had a great levelling influence. It soon became the best foum for discussion and circulation of news. One of the most important was Lloyd's coffee house, which became an insurance company.

Methodism

In 1750 John and Charles Wesley founded Methodism, a movement which tried to react against the general apathy of a country more interested in material than spiritual well-being.

Position of women

Along with(accanto a) the patriarcal structure, a new concept of the family emerged, characterized by the assertion of individual freedom. This liberty led to a revaluation of love and sex and to a transformation of social relationship, particularly from the woman's point of view. In general women were still denied access to proper scholling and universities and were forbidden the proffessions. The difficulty to find an husband resulted in an increase in prostitution and a growth in the number of women in workforce. However, some women could become scholars and journalists. There was also the foundation of an unorganized circle of ladies who loved literary or intellectual conversation.

Commedi of manners ecc. sugli appunti

Language

With Neo-classical theories the language became: ordered, polished, elegant, clear and precise, simple enough to be understood by readers. (In a word, a kind of language which combined elegance with functional efficiency.)

Nature

Nature in this period didn't mean only woods, mountains and rivers but also the common sense or reason, which is at the core of mankind and is universal and permanent. In this sense to follow nature meant to avoid individuality and subjectivity and to reject the local and temporary.

Realism

In literature, the main tendency of the time was 'realism', i.e (ahi) the treatment of events described with fidelity to real life. Verisimilitude and the consequent necessity for precise led to a predominance of prose over the concise style of poetry. The multitude of interest connected with the new social and political conditions needed to be expressed also in newspapers and magazines: The Age therefore saw the development of journalism, novels and letter-writing, as well as satirical works.

Poetry was inadeguate, infact since form was considered more important than content, the poetry became polished and witty but artificial.

The readers were mostly of the middle classes, actually a restricted number of people able to read and write in mother tongue. They were among the few who could afford to buy novels, although the publication by instalments and the rise of circulating libraries meant that such books were now available to many more people.

Ballad Opera

The Ballad opera was a fusion of drama, burlesque, pantomime and popular music. This new dramatic form soon became extremely successful.

The ballad opera was intended to be a burlesque of contemporary Italian operas, much appreciated at the time by the upper classes, but deeply despised by various writers as they were very expensive but not at all intellectual. It may be claimed that the modern musical derives from this 18^th century fusion of dramatic spectacle with dance and music.

Journalism: origins and development

The origin of journalism can be traced as far back as the famous acta diurnal in ancient rome. These were daily acts. They first appeared in about 59 B.C. and be considered the earliest sort of public information in roman times.

A new impulse to the spreading of news came in the 15^th century, when Gutemberg invented movable-type printing and the first printed news-sheet was published in Nuremberg in 1457. By the end of the 16^th century, hand-written news-sheets began to circulate in Venice, where, in 1562, the monthly notizie scritte appeared for the first time. The beginning of the 17^th century saw the birth of the weekly gazettes. The firstone in Europe seem to have been the german aviso-relation oder zeitung and the gazette de france in france. The first European daily paper appeared in Leipzig in 1670 and this example was soon followed everywhere.

England was slow in the spread of journalism, due above all to the restrictions imposed by the Government, in fact anything printed was subject to censorship.

Altough printing had been introduced into England as far back as 1476, it took more than a century before newspapers became part of the country's regular publications.

In fact periodical pamphlets called 'Corantos, or Weekly Newes' began to be published in 1621. They were soon followed by other periodical pamphlets, but in 1632, under Charles I, newspapers were banned from the country till 1641. The civil war increased the spread of newspapers of various kind. However new restriction were imposed during the Restoration, and the only news published appeared in the Oxford gazette, which was printed in 1665.

The first English daily newspapers was the 'Daily Courant', which first appeared in 1702.

Great impulse to the development of journalism was also given by the abolition of censorship in 1694. The abolition of censorship led not only to the issue of agreat number of newspapers, but also to the improvementof journalistic style.

The first important periodical, The review was started in 1704by Daniel Defoe, while The Examiner was conducted by jonathan Swift, while The Rambler and The Idler was conducted by Samuel Johnson.

The two most important periodicals of the time were 'The Tatler' and 'The spectator' published by Richard Steele and Joseph Addison.

The tattler was begun by Steele who decided in 1709 to publish a newspaper which would cointeined articles of fashion, entertainment and gossip. The paper began exposing issues of the day. Adison helped give the periodical excluding polithics and the news in favour of more varied essays. The tattler appeared three times a week when it was replaced by the spectator which was conducted by steele and Addison together. Addison actually proposed: to reform by amusing or to enliven morality with wit and to temper wit with morality; to popularise learning and to revive his countrymen's interest in the ancient classics and their own national classic as well. Addison may be considered one of founders of English criticism. (He thus explores the main aesthetic problems of his time in such a way as to anticipate later concepts of the sublime). The spectator was strictly neutral between whigs and tories and this obviously favoured a larger circulation.

Its great immediate success was clearly also due to other factors: it was published daily, so that reading it became almost habit; it coincided with the rise of the new british middle class; it was written in such a way as to be understood by all reasonable educated people.

The two writers created a fictitious character, Mr spectator who was a spectator, a neutral and imparcial observer of society. Steele added a small club of people representing commerce, the army, the town and the church.

The articole is about Alexander Selkirk a Scottish sailor whose adventures inspired Daniel defoe's robinson crusoe