The Classical

The Classical period corresponds to the 18th century. Commonly known as the Enlightenment, the 1700's was a period of political calm compared to the 1600's. Most of the wars which were a product of the Reformation had ended, and many of the European countries enjoyed a period of domestic tranquillity. This changed dramatically during the last quarter of the century, which saw both the American and French Revolutions.
Intellectually the period was marked by the triumph of humanism over theology. The Middle Ages were definitely over and most of the thinkers of the period saw mankind as being the center of the universe. The philosophers of the period include Vico, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Great literature continued in the works of Defoe, Swift, Pope, Voltaire, Fielding, Johnson, Sterne, Goldsmith, Boswell, Goethe and Blake. Gibbon composed his grand history of the Roman Empire and Lavoisier did for Chemistry what Newton had done for Physics. The mathematical breakthroughs of Descartes and Newton where further developed by Euler, Lagrange and Laplace. The most distinguishing intellectual output of the Classical Era, however, belongs to the area of political and economic theory; in the works of Montesquieu, Rousseau, Smith, Burke, Bentham and the Federalist Papers. This should not be a surprise for an era that also produced two of history's most important political revolutions.

THE 18^TH CENTURY

THE RISE OF THE NOVEL

DANIEL DEFOE. “Robinson Crusoe”.

We are going to observe a writer but is not a novelist. He had many jobs during his life: manufacturer, journalist (he wrote several collaborations for journals), etc.

Just with sixteen years old, he wrote a book called Robinson Crusoe. Some scholars argue that it is the first novel, but others say the novel came with Richardson’s Pamela.

Robinson Crusoe is an account of someone called Robinson Crusoe. It is incredible his life in an island. There is realistic detail that convince us.

It is a book of travels. he has strange and interesting adventures in that island.

It is an invented story by Daniel Defoe. He was just writing a kind of journalistic story about someone that had surprising adventures. And it is based in a real event. He took that real story from two stories and invented another one. He was not concienstly writing a novel, but writing a story as journalistic. What Defoe is doing is writing a story about two mariners: Selkirk and Dampier. Defoe convinces us that it is a real story, but in fact is an invented one. This book is presented as an autobiographical account of a mariner. It is a kind of book of travels (Travel book). How Defoe manage to convince us that is real? There is such an interest in everyday tasks. There is such an amount of details that the reader can be identified with Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe tries to live a normal life in an island. There is a space for religious preoccupations. He is preoccupied with God; he does evocations to the Providence of his life. Actually, we might find Robinson Crusoe as a preaching book, as a novel buff. He lost his Fe, but after some circumstances he recovered his Fe in God, in the Providence. Importance of the religious experience. Connection between the character Robinson Crusoe and God: the Bible. The Bible helps him to recover the Fe. He found some comfort on it. We can observe Robinson Crusoe as an example of Puritan Fe.

Defoe is an Englishman of middle-class; he had a lot of business experiences. He was an entrepreneur, self-confident, empirical, etc. He had material success in life connected with his condition of puritan. The success in business is connected with God.

He is almost the prototype of a dominant figure of the middle-class Englishman, capitalist.

The protestant ethic and spirit of catholic: it is an analysis by Weber. He observed that Puritanism is an impulse in modern Catholicism. The success of material life is a sign that God is inside. Protestant Europe was successful thanks to God. There is a number of writers that consider Robinson Crusoe as a reflect of middle-class successful thanks to God.

Crusoe is just a hero that the only thing he looks for is security and comfort in a desert island.

Crusoe is the image of the capitalist idea; he is a self-mademan. Critics that look at literature from this sociological perspective and even from the philosopher Karl Marx observe that the novel is a literature form that reflects the middle-class ideology.

Crusoe is a very commercial man, he thinks in a commercial way. Sometimes there is a connection between religious terms and commercial ones, and sometimes produces irony, but Defoe is not award of.

The capitalist life implies a solitary life and a commercial life too, of course.

Crusoe is just a journalist account and a trade man, a trade man that reconstructs his own civilization with his own hands.

The language is ordinary, plain style. Writing by himself. Middle-class language that helps to give that impression of realism. Crusoe is an ordinary man.

It is written by himself: it is a retrospective and first person narration. The narrator is Robinson, but adult. He is able to tell us his own life from the perspective of Robinson Crusoe as a young man. The story is focalised in him. The novel is able to produce that mixture between the adult Crusoe and the young Crusoe.

In Robinson Crusoe we find a character we can identify with. Robinson Crusoe is universal, representative.

TAYLOR: “Crusoe is the universal representative, the person for whom every reader could substitute himself”.

Crusoe does not look for any heroic idea, not for excellence, but for survive.