Talk:Augustan literature
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[edit] The term "Augustan"
Did the name really derive from King George wishing to be known as Caesar Augustus? Or did it derive solely from the comparison to the Augustan Age of Latin literature?
- To the best of my knowledge it derived from the Hanoverian "Augustus" thing. However, even nailing down the first usage of the term as a critical application is difficult. We have Pope's Epistle to Augustus, which is contemporary, and it's fairly deviously clear with the royal application. Geogre 13:43, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Why I done it
- Ok, first thing is that the history section is too danged long. I know it. It's just that the reason "no one" reads 18th c. literature is not that it's boring, but that it's incomprehensible. It is, too, unless you know who was who at every moment of every year. I.e. history turns this stuff from being impenetrable to being a ton of fun.
- The ordering of the genres: it's arguable that poetry was more important, but it was more important for about 20 years. Since the Augustan era covers a vast stretch, I'd go for prose being most important. By 1750, the novel is clobbering poetry, and it gets worse from there. Also, the drama is wretched beyond compare after 1737. Before 1737, it's mildly interesting with a couple of whopper good plays. A couple of whoppers isn't enough, IMO, to put it on par with poetry. Geogre 14:48, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] !
IT is done. Geogre 1 July 2005 15:04 (UTC)
Thank you, thank you (blushing). I thought this thing would kill me. bishonen has spun off Augustan prose into a stand-alone article now, and it contains all the obsessive detail I had once had here. I'm going to spin off Augustan poetry and Augustan drama as well, and possibly 18th century English novel. The article is still a little too monomaniacal for its own good, and there are some scars from the spin offs, but that will be taken care of just as soon as I let my mind take a nap. Geogre 2 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)
[edit] nebulous?
why is the word "nebulous" linked in the summary (and hence on the wikipedia main page)?--i can't figure out how to change it...
- No clue. I think that's just Wiki-itis. I'm going to wait for the article to be off the main page before I scale back the over-linking, as a great many folks want to help an article and do so by making things links that perhaps aren't necessary. I appreciate their input and don't want to revert them. So long as it's harmless, it's no big deal. Geogre 13:49, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] rephrasing in Political and religious historical context
from the current
Therefore, young people from the country often moved to London in hopes of achieving success, and this swelled the numbers of criminals, prostitutes, beggars, and malnourished poor in the city. It also increased the availability of cheap labor for city employers. The fears of property crime, rape, and starvation found in Augustan literature should be kept in the context of London's growth, as well as the depopulation of the countryside.
to (change highlighted)
Therefore, young people from the country often moved to London in hopes of achieving success, and this swelled the supply of cheap labour for city employers. It also increased the numbers of criminals, prostitutes, beggars, and the malnourished poor in the city. The fears of property crime, rape, and starvation found in Augustan literature should be kept in the context of London's growth, as well as the depopulation of the countryside.
this makes the supply of cheap labour the principal effect, and the increase in criminals ... etc, ancillary. this seems to be the more likely scenario. is there any reason to believe it was in fact the other way roun? -- Doldrums 13:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
- I rather like your re-ordering. I do have reason to suspect that you have the pool of poor and then pool of labor, as the labor (the jobs) didn't exist prior to the supply -- a common enough situation where there is agricultural displacement and the rapid growth of a single city even today. However, logically, your reordering is far superior to my original, and I had no desire to really imply causality anyway. Geogre 13:52, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Sentimental novel
Just a note for any readers of this page that Sentimental novel needs help. For my part, I loathe the sentimental novel and fear that I would have a hard time keeping my POV out of it (and I mean my scholarly POV, not my personal one). I know that feminist students of the 18th c. novel have had kinder things to say about it, or at least found interesting features, so I hope those more kindly disposed toward the sentimental will see this note and go help. My own predelictions, as may be obvious from this article, are Marxissant (actually, Jaussian reception aesthetics, if anyone knows what those are) and, as a student of the early period, I am so steeped in political readings that my brain is too small to hold the psychological and cultural background necessary for being fair (or even polite) about the sentimental. Geogre 15:02, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
