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(c) The Age of Sensibility (1745-1785):

This age is called The Age of Sensibility because in this age a sense that prefers instinct, feeling and ‘’original genius’’ to neoclassical balance, restraint and perfection became dominant. It is also called The Age of Johnson after the name of Dr. Samuel Johnson who dominated this period. This age started after Pope’s death and ended with the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. The important events of this period were:

1. Inventions of this period contributed to the Industrial Revolution.
2. Industrial towns appeared.
3. French Revolution started in 1789 and continued till 1799. The slogan of the revolution was ‘’Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.’’ The king along with his queen was overthrown by the common people. This revolution had tremendous effect on the life and literature of the people of England.
4. There was revolution in agricultural production.
5. The British founded its empire in India in 1757 and lost its American colony in 1776.
6. In 1764 Dr. Johnson founded his famous literary club known as Johnson’s Literary Club.

Major Writers and Their Major Works:

1. Samuel Johnson (1709-84): Dictionary (1755), Preface to Shakespeare.
2. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761): Started his career as a novelist in the previous age wrote ‘’Clarissa Harlowe’’ (1748) and ‘’Sir Charles Grandison’’ (1754) in this period.
3. Henry Fielding (1707-54): Tom Jones, Amelia.
4. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74): The Citizen of the World, The Vicar of the Wakefield.
5. Thomas Grey (1716-71): ‘’Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’’.
6. William Blake (1757-1827): Songs of Innocence, Songs of Experience.
7. Edward Gibbon (1737-94): The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
8. Edmund Burke (1729-97): On American Taxation, Speech on Conciliation with America.

Literary Features of the Age:

With the death of Alexander Pope the heroic couplet declined and the ballad and lyric revived. Pendaric ode became popular. There was predominance of prose. The novel took a definite form in this period. Imitation of classicism came to an end towards the end of this period.

The Romantic Period (1798-1832):

This age began in 1798 with the first edition of Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads and ended with the first Reformation Act of 1832. This period is also called The Revival of Romanticism because the romantic ideals of the Elizabethan period revived during these years. Lyrical Ballads brought a great change in literature—both in subject and style. The important events of the age were:

1. After French Revolution it was accepted that every individual was free and equally important.
2. Small industries disappeared and large industries with huge capital developed.
3. Machines were widely introduced in coal and iron mines which multiplied productions.
4. Steam-engines were used in ships and trains. The train was first introduced in 1830.
5. Industrialization created lots of slums, child labor and labor problems.
6. Ireland was united with England in 1801.
7. Catholic Emancipation Act was passed in 1829 and religious equity was ensured.
8. In 1840 the Penny Post was introduced.

Major Writers and Their Major Works:

1. William Wordsworth (1770-1850), is known as Poet of Nature. Lyrical Ballads, The Prelude and other poems.
2. Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), is known as Super Natural Poet. Biographia Literaria, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and some other poems.
3. Lord Byron (1788-1824): Don Juan, The Vision of Judgment.
4.  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822): Prometheus Unbound, Adonais and other poems, A Defence of poetry.
5. John Keats (1795-1821), is known as the Poet of Beauty. Endymion, Hyperion, Odes and other poems, Letters.
6. Jane Austen (1775-1817), an anti romantic novelist in the Romantic Age. She is called so because of her stern attitude against youthful passion. Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma.
7. Charles Lamb (1775-1834): The Essays of Elia, The Last Essays of Elia.
8. William Hazlitt (1778-1830), a critic. The Spirit of the Age, The Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth.

Literary Features of the Period:

This Period is known as the second creative period of English literature, the Elizabethan Age being the first. The literature of this age is largely poetical. It is the golden age of the lyric. The characteristics of this period are: (1) high imagination, (2) subjectivity, (3) medievalism, (4) supernaturalism, (5) revolutionary zeal, (6) primitivism or spontaneity, (7) excessive interest in Nature.

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