The neoclassical age

The Neoclassical Age

Why the name?

• reverence for classical authors and ideas
• imitation of classical forms--epic, ode, epistle, etc. (but in a complicated way--more on this in a moment)
• use and refinement of aesthetic and critical principles taken from classical authors such as Horace.

--> decorum: adherence to more or less well defined rules for what is appropriate to a certain genre of poetry.

• e.g. tragedy should depict characters of very high status--kings and/or nobles--and should be written, correspondingly, in a formal, elevated style.

view of poetry:

• craft, not "overflowing of genius"
• poetry is mimesis, not expression
• what poets represent is "nature"--something like "that which is permanently true." The most central part of nature to represent is human nature.
• --> poetry tends to deal with generalities and abstractions, not particulars.
• poetry is public in character, not private expression of individual

view of the world:

• world is a heirarchy, a Great Chain of Being
• correspondingly, humans are fallen creatures
  • especially prominent and central sin: pride.

Similar to Renaissance poetry and the Renaissance world view? yes, but

• new forms brought to prominence
• prosody: heroic couplet.

and especially: dominant mode of neoclassical poetry is satire.

• temporary definition: diminishment of a subject through ridicule

complicates everything. E.g mock epic.
[Epic = long narrative poem, serious, heroic character. Mock epic applies conventions of epic to a character or situation not worthy of such treatment.]

• violates decorum? mixes tragedy and comedy in one poem, and treats low subjects in a high form.
• complex attitude towards authority.
  • what's being made fun of? contemporary subject, or epic itself?
• implies certitude--but also undercuts certitude
  in keeping with the world view that I described earlier: humans in the middle of the Great Chain of Being

why? 2 examples:

• Civil War, execution of Charles I 1649, restoration of Charles II 1660
  • what becomes of your view of authority?
  • Augustan Age:
    • Augustus gained power after period of chaos
    • era of Virgil, Horace, Ovid
    • BUT Augustus was a tyrant; England torn by strife
• science
  • Charles II chartered Royal Society for Improvement of Natural Knowledge: "nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri" (I am not obliged to swear in the name of any master"
  • Pope, Swift not friends to "Moderns" generally, including scientific knowledge
  • BUT nullius addictus... was also epigraph to Johnson's Ramber Essays