The Works of Daniel Defoe (1697-1895)
By the middle of this period, this belief in the importance of
inner guidance lead to a celebration of Sensibility, the idea
that morals and ethics came not from the application of rules but
from the inner feelings of a good and wholesome heart. The
ability to feel deeply is the most important indicator of a good
moral being. This long 18th century has been given many names:
The Age of Reason, The Age of Enlightenment, The Age of
Individualism, and The Age of Empiricism.
In much of the literature of the era, writers did not just
document their own times, but sought for general truths that
applied to people at all times, everywhere. Aphra Behn was
especially prolific. She wrote not only fiction but poetry and
drama as well, including a very successful play, The Rover, as
well as a moving account of the horrors of slavery called
Oroonoko.
Studies in Defoe & His Contemporaries - 18th Century English literatureAlexander PopeAphra BehnBeggar's OperaClarissaclassic literatureDaniel Defoegreat writersGulliver's TravelsHenry FieldingHeroic CoupletsJohn DrydenJohn GayJonathan SwiftRape of the LockRestoration DramaRestoration LiteratureRobert WalpoleRobinson CrusoeSamuel JohnsonSamuel Richardson
The punishment received by the Scots is attributed to the fact that they unjustly assisted the [English] Parliament to conquer their lawful Sovereign, contrary to their Oath of Allegiance (276-77). Charles I is also blamed for not working with the Scots, grant[ing] their own Conditions, which would have allowed him to enter Scotland and remain safe (278). In the Memoirs, therefore, Defoe creates a kind of British union between the Scots and the English Cavalier abroad, so the conflict between the Scots and English armies at home seems dreadful. When he laments that during battles, he is moved to Compassion by hearing someone cry for Quarter in English, this likely included some of his Scottish countrymen, and when he notes that [h]ere I saw my self at the cutting of the Throats of my Friends; and indeed some of my near Relations. My old Comerades and Fellow-soldiers in Germany, were some with us, some against us, he may be referring to the Scots who were vital allies abroad (165). Religion becomes an obvious theme in the story when Crusoe is trapped on the island. He starts reading the bible and praying. And later on he even tries to convert Friday into Christianity. Before the island we can notice that religion even plays a role in the value of the people and their freedom, class, and state in society. An example for this is Xury, when the captain who takes him promises to set him free after ten years only after he converts to Christianity.
Daniel defoe works - Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1660, the son of a butcher named James Foe. He changed his name when he became a writer circa 1695, although it was by no means his only pseudonym. Others included "Eye Witness", "Andrew Morton, Merchant", and amusingly, "Heliostropolis, secretary to the emperor of the Moon". Initially, Defoe spent time at Morton's academy for Dissenters but following certain travels on the continent that took in France and Spain, he settled down as a hosiery merchant in Cornhill and married Mary Tuffley. Defoe took part in Monmouth's rebellion and it was whilst in hiding after the Duke of Monmouth's execution that he noticed the name "Robinson Crusoe" in a churchyard, carved on a stone. He recalled the name and it became the title of his most famous hero some thirty-four years later. In 1688, Defoe joined the forces of William III.
5. Ryder later served as an MP first for St Germans and later for Tiverton. Knighted in 1740, Ryder served in a variety of roles during his career, including solicitor-general, attorney-general, and eventually chief justice of the kings bench (Lemmings). Thus by the mid-1700s, Henry Fieldings novel Tom Jones depicts all his villains as cold, calculating, and hypocritical, while its hero, Tom, is warm-hearted and extremely empathetic. Tom is prone to acting too impulsively at the start of the tale, which made him look bad to the morally sententious, the hypocritical folk who care only about appearances. But even as a lad, Tom is truly kind, loving and warm-hearted, thus a fitting hero for the Age of Sensibility, when it is the state of the heart that provides the true measure of a man. Writers such as Oliver Goldsmith, Laurence Sterne, and Fanny Burney celebrated sentiment and sensibility. Three writers often called The Fair Triumvirate of Wit are known today for writing Amatory Fiction, melodramatic eroticized fictions that were progenitors of Defoes work, of epistolary fiction, and of the modern love story (todays popular romance form).
Defoe, Daniel (external)
Eliza Haywood, Delarivier Manley, and Aphra Behn all made a living by writing. When Defoe does engage with accusations directed at the Scots in relation to the civil wars, he again deflects attention from them in the same moment he acknowledges them. For example, while the Cavalier describes the Scots as headstrong and zealous for their own Way of Worship, he claims in the same sentence that [a]ll Men blamed Laud for prompting the King to provoke them into civil war (136). The Cavaliers father also suggests that unnamed members of Charles Is inner circle must also be blamed for the civil wars, since he feared there was some about the King who exasperated him too much against the Scots, and drove things too high (121). Even in terms of the Scots handing over Charles I to the English in exchange for money, the Cavalier remains relatively uncritical of them. He blames every party in some respect at the end of the novel, so the Scot is presented as neither more nor less errant or guilty than the English. Interestingly, Defoe places some emphasis on the Scottish collusion with the English Parliament to undermine the kings authority, so the Scots and English are pictured working together against the king.
Similar to the 18th Century preference for gardens that were orderly and manicured, 18th Century poets preferred poetry that had rule and order. However, these rules, they insisted, were themselves based in Nature, discovered, not devised and part of the natural order. The children's pantomime Robinson Crusoe was staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1796, with Joseph Grimaldi as Pierrot in the harlequinade. The piece was produced again in 1798, this time starring Grimaldi as Clown. In 1815, Grimaldi played Friday in another version of Robinson Crusoe. The very first learned society meeting on 28 November 1660 followed a lecture at Gresham College by Christopher Wren. Joined by other leading polymaths including Robert Boyle and John Wilkins, the group soon received royal approval, and from 1663 it would be known as The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge.