CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH LITERATURE AND THOUGHT

1996 ◽  
pp. 242-243
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Literature

scholarly journals Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets in England, 1700-1760

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 264-325
Author(s):  
C. A. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Human Interest ◽  
French Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Difference

One of the notable changes in English literature during the eighteenth century is a growth in altruism. It is a change which involves not only a breaking down of the old aristocratic indifference to the lower classes of society during the Restoration, but the establishment of a new ethical theory; literature displayed a broader human interest and assigned a new reason for its sympathy. It is usually assumed that the difference is due principally to the influx of French philosophy. This assumption at least minimizes the importance of a development which had taken place in the literature of England itself before the general interest in Rousseau. (The change, especially in poetry, is to be traced largely, I think, to the Characteristics (1711) of Lord Shaftesbury, whose importance as a literary influence in England has never been duly recognized. It has long since been established that his system of philosophy constitutes a turning-point in the history of pure speculation, especially in ethics; it has more recently been shown also that he is responsible for many of the moral ideas which inform the popular literature of Germany from Haller to Herder. But his influence upon the popular writers of his own country has received scant notice.

Eighteenth Century English Literature and History: A Team-Teaching Model

1980 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-97
Author(s):  
Richard H. Dammers ◽  
Earl A. Reitan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Team Teaching ◽  
English Literature ◽  
Teaching Model

Petrarch in Britain

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Literature ◽  
The Self ◽  
Major Influence ◽  
Love Poetry ◽  
Giordano Bruno ◽  
Key Topics ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Literary Legacy

Petrarch was Italy's second most famous writer (after Dante), and indeed from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries he was much better known and more influential in English literature than Dante. His Italian love lyrics constituted the major influence on European love poetry for at least two centuries from 1400 to 1600, and in Britain he was imitated by Chaucer, the Elizabethans, and other lyric poets up until the end of the eighteenth century. With Romanticism Dante ousted Petrarch from his pre-eminent position, but in our post-Romantic age, attention has now started to swing back to Petrarch. This volume is a survey of Petrarch's literary legacy in Britain. Starting with his own views of those whom he called the ‘barbari Britanni’, the volume then explores a number of key topics: Petrarch's analysis of the self; his dialogue with other classical and Italian authors; Petrarchism and anti-Petrarchism in Renaissance Italy; Petrarchism in England and Scotland; and Petrarch's modern legacy in both Italy and Britain. Many important texts and poets are considered, including Giordano Bruno, Leopardi, Foscolo, Ascham, Sidney, Spenser, and Walter Savage Landor.

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