Age of Reason

1. Age of Reason British Literature

2. Content to be covered • Literary Terms • The Diary of Samuel Pepys • From The Journal of the Plague Year • “A Modest Proposal” • “Letter to Lord Chesterfield” • A Dictionary of the English Language • Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard • Gulliver’s Travels

3. Literary Terms • Autobiography: an account of someone’s life, written by that person • Biography: an account of someone’s person, written by someone else • Verisimilitude: the presentation of fiction as fact through the use of concrete detail • Journal: a formal, objective record of a person’s observations, usually meant for publication • Diary: a record of daily happenings written by a person for his or her own use; highly personal and not meant for publication

4. Literary Terms • Satire: the technique that employs wit to ridicule a subject, usually some social institution or human failing, with the intention of inspiring reform • Juvenalian Satire: technique which uses angry, biting and bitter ridicule to make fun of a subject, hoping to inspire reform • Opposite is Horatian satire- light, witty humor to make fun of a subject

5. The Diary of Samuel Pepys Literary device used in this selection DIARY • The Great Fire of London • London's burning

6. The Journal of the Plague Year By Daniel Defoe Literary Type: Journal • Verisimilitude • The use of concrete details makes the fictional account of the plague seem very lifelike. • ACTIVITY: Use verisimilitude to describe the plague

7. Activity • Please write from the perspective of a child of a merchant living in the middle of London in the rooms behind and above the shop. Your family deals in fine cloth. The news of the fire reaches your family at a very early hour in the morning. As Defoe does in his description, focus on the things that you see happening about you. Add concrete details that appeal to all five senses (sight, sounds, taste, touch, and smell). Descriptive adjectives and adverbs will help create these details: “bloody malicious flame” rather than “bright red, evil-looking fire.”

8. A Modest Proposal-Jonathon Swift Problem Solution • Beggar children are roaming the streets • Only going to grow up to be thieves • Overpopulation is a problem • Use children to aid the feeding and clothing needs of society • Infants of 1 year are the most suitable- they are tender and require little cost to raise to 1 year (nursing from mother).

9. Other benefits • Will reduce the number of abortions and infanticide. • Husbands will treat their wives better (wives will be seen as breeders and will be bringing in income). • The poor will be able to earn an income and be able to pay their debts to landlords. Will help stimulate the economy. • Will help eliminate starvation amongst the poor since they will have more income to buy food.

10. Other commentary • 12 year olds were not suitable for consumption because they were too tough • Wouldn’t want to use 12 year old girls because they are close to the ‘breeding’ age • The elderly, ill, maimed are dying off quickly enough

11. Dictionary- Samuel Johnson • Worked for over eight years to write A Dictionary of the English Language which contained 40,000 entries • Samuel Johnson’s preface to A Dictionary of the English Language points out that language is constantly changing and evolving.

12. Johnson and Lord Chesterfield • Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755 in London. Hoping for financial support, Johnson dedicated his Plan of the Dictionary to Lord Chesterfield, a statesman and patron of many struggling writers. • Although Chesterfield paid some initial attention and offered his advice, he soon lost interest in the project and never provided Johnson with any funding. Johnson was forced to use much of his own income from the Dictionary to pay the small staff who copied his work by hand, pasted revisions, and produced the pages. • Shortly after the work was published, however, Chesterfield wrote complimentary reviews of the Dictionary, presumably in the hope of persuading Johnson to dedicate the work to him. The praise provoked Johnson, whose letter of response has become famous.

13. Literary Voice • Voice is the distinctive use of language that conveys to the reader the personality of a writer or narrator. Voice is determined by elements of style such as word choice and tone. • Johnson’s voice is characterized by precise diction, or word choice; by the use of sarcasm; and by long sentences balanced by parallel structures. • Johnson conveys his opinions throughout his definitions—even in the traditionally factual text of a dictionary.

14. Activity • Pick ONE of the following words and create a dictionary entry to best define the word. Your dictionary entry needs to have the following components: • Word • Part of speech • Definition • Word used in a sentence • Etymology or history/background to the word • Acouasm • Defenestrate • Faience • Jagster • Lampas • Ranitpole • Schlemiel • Uropygium • Xanthous • Zygomorphous

15. Example • Student: Noun: a person formally engaged in learning, especially one enrolled in a school or college; pupil • Bobby is a student at Yale; he is studying to become a doctor. • Etymology: late 14c., from Old French estudient "one who is studying," from Middle Latin studiare "to study," from Latin studium

16. Video Clip

17. Gulliver’s Travels- Jonathan Swift • “A Voyage to Lilliput” – Gulliver is shipwrecked on an island where the people are six inches tall. Gulliver becomes involved in a war between the Lilliputians and the people of Blefusco, the neighboring island. • This section of the novel makes fun of the religious conflict between Protestant England and Catholic France. Lilliput represents England and Blefusco represents France. The conflict concerns on which end to break an egg – the big end or little end.

18. Gulliver ends the war by wading across the water and stealing the enemy’s fleet of ships. Gulliver will not destroy the remainder of the Blefusco navy, nor will he help the king to make the island an island of slaves. • Many of the king’s counselors are in agreement with Gulliver. But, the king is so greedy that he begins to plot a way to destroy Gulliver or to force him to do as the king wishes. • The Government of Lilliput turned against Gulliver through Gulliver had done a great deal of good for that island.

19. Gulliver’s Travels summary

20. Gulliver’s Travels and Satire • Juvenalian Satire: technique which uses angry, biting and bitter ridicule to make fun of a subject, hoping to inspire reform • Juvenalian

21. Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard Annotated Poem- Literary Device: Elegy

22. Age of Reason Test • Literary Terms • Author to Literary work • Literary work to genre • Quotes (posted online) • History • Short answer on literary selections- Diary, Journal, Modest Proposal, Dictionary