A study of the dominant topics in some typical works of augustan period (1700 1745) = nghiên cứu về những chủ đề nổi bật trong một số tác phẩm điển hình thời kì augustan (1700 1745)

An overview of the main topics in Augustan prose Chapter II: The progressive topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period I.. 2 Chapter III: The negative topics ex

Acknowledgement

This thesis could not be finished without the assistance of my teachers

in foreign language department, my family and friends

Firstly, I would like to express my deep thanks to my supervisor - M.A TrÇn Ngäc T-ëng, whose lectures of English literature attracted me so much, led me to the decision of choosing English literature for my thesis, and made

so many valuable comments on each single unit of this thesis

Secondly, I would like to express my truthful thank to all the teachers of English at the Foreign Language Departure and the directorial board for giving the opportunity to do this thesis

And finally, I want to thank to my beloved family and my friends who help and encourage me so much during the process of studying this thesis

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table of content

Acknowledgement

Part I: introduction

I The rationale of choosing the thesis

II The aims of the thesis

III The objectives of the thesis

IV The scope of the thesis

V The methods of studying

Part II: content

Chapter I: Background of Augustan period

I The division of English literature periods

II Some important events in the Augustan period

1 New scientific and philosophical discoveries

2 Industrial and Agricultural Revolution

3 The growth of British Empire

4 Conflicts in society

4.1 Political conflict

4.2 Religious conflict

4.3 Social class division

III The Enlightenment movement

IV An overview of the main topics in Augustan prose

Chapter II: The progressive topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period

I Praising human being

II Appreciating women

III Heightening the importance of education and learning

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Chapter III: The negative topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period

I Discrimination of man by man

II Colonialism and Materialism

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Part I: introduction

I The rationale of choosing the thesis

Literature, as well as music, is a vital part of our daily life It makes the life more beautiful, guides human being to Genuineness, Honesty and Aestheticism Literature enriches people's mind and soul That is the reason why I love to enjoy reading literary works when I am sad, tired and hopeless When being a secondary school girl, I had chance to get in touch with foreign literature and found it really interesting Now, I am a student of foreign language department and have opportunity to study more about Western, especially English literature I find there the sound of life of a traditional and cultural nation It burns my desire and leads me to the decision

of choosing English literature to study in this thesis

Besides, literature is the truthful mirror of social life Each period in history of English literature is a vivid picture of people and society The first half of the eighteenth century with the growing of British Empire, the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment movement is the fertile ground for the development of literature I have ever read some of the most interesting literary works in this phase and realized that most of them, more or less, are influenced by the Enlightenment's ideas That is so interesting to me and I'd love to study about it

All of above things are the reasons why I choose "A study of the

important topics in some typical works of Augustan period (1700-1745)" for

my graduation thesis

II The aims of the thesis

-To understand more about England in the first half of the eighteenth century, Enlightenment movement and how they influenced on contemporary literature

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-To study about some important topics expressed in some typical works

of Augustan period and find out the difference between the progressive theory

of Enlightenment and the real life

III the objectives of the thesis

- Background of Augustan period

- The progressive topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period

- The negative topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period

IV the scope of the thesis

In the frame of this thesis, it is beyond our ability to cover all genres and all works of Augustan period Thus, we concentrate on some typical novels and essays: "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels ", "Pamela",

"Clarissa", "The shortest way with the Dissenters" and " Education of Women"

V the method of studying

-Collective method

-Analysis, contrastive and synthetic methods

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Part ii : content

Chapter I: background of Augustan period

There is a close relationship between real life and literature The history of literature development is parallel to the development of human society Literature appears even earlier than letters or any type of writing and becomes a vital part of our daily life

Literature belongs to spiritual aspect but it reflects the society as a whole and people, from soul to physical life On the other hand, life supplies the endless sources for writers Genuine literary works must root from and about the real life, aim to make life better and conducts people to Genuineness, Honesty and Aestheticism That is why any literary work must

be analyzed in its circumstance of writing

In this paper, we will study the Augustan period of English literature, so

in the first chapter we will have a glance on the division of English literature periods, some important background events, the Enlightenment movement and

an overview of the main literary topics in the period of Augustan

I Division of English literature periods

As we already know, the long history of English literature is an uninterrupted process, which is greatly influenced by social history There are some ways that have their own rationale to divide English literature into periods In our thesis, we approve the following division, which is accepted by almost scholars, writers and readers and consider it the basic rationale for our thesis:

From Wikipedia Website

In fact, the division is not completely exact but only relative No one

can give the concrete years of beginning and ending of a literature period As

an illustration, the Augustan was from the end of 17th to the middle of 18th

century which correlative with the first phase of Enlightenment movement in

literature Thus, in our thesis, the term "Augustan" or the "blooming phase of

Enlightenment " both refer to the period 1700-1750, which in some other

documents count from 1690 to 1745

II Some important events in the Augustan period

1 New scientific and philosophical discoveries

Philosophy and science are usually the aspects whose new theories and

discoveries lead to the change of society and open a new era in history of

mankind

The revolution of science is thought to begin when Copernicus gave the

idea that the earth rotated on its axis beneath the unmoving sun In the

eighteenth century, new discoveries of scientists among whom, the most

dominant one was Isaac Newton, proved that nature had its own law's which

was different from what religion church had taught before Newton's

"Principia" (1687) and "Optic's" (1704) suggested that:" There were indeed

intelligible laws in nature which could be demonstrated by physics and

mathematics, and, moreover, that the universe exhibited a magnificent

symmetry and a mechanical certainty."(1) This provided a framework of a

In short, the philosophers and scientists used nature and universe law and human being center to observe and explain everything They celebrated Reason, ability of man to use his scientific knowledge to discover natural phenomenon which had been associated to supernatural power before, simultaneously opposed to intolerance, restrain, spiritual authority and disoriented religious belief

These ideas were gradually acquired and changed the way of thinking

of people They believed that their ability, not supernatural authority or the God, could drive their fate The main character Robinson Crusoe in the name-coincided novel by Daniel Defoe is a typical image of a hero who fights bravely to overcome harsh destiny They believed in education and learning which could help them to understand and control nature, believe in human's ability to drive their fate and improve society And it was not only necessary

to man but also woman We can find in "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels", "Pamela" and especially, in the essay "The Education of Women" by Daniel Defoe the spirit of praising learning and education which were thought could improve society and bring to people a brighter future

2 Industrial and Agricultural Revolution

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Britain is the first place on the world where the Industrial Revolution took place This was an important event that made a great influence on changing the whole country's face Power was seen as the first field touched

by the Revolution with James Watt's invention of steam engine Since then, the application of new inventions and discoveries into many aspects created a major change in producing method Machines released people from hard works in factories and also made a huge jump in industrial development, especially in coalmine, textile or transportation industries The industrialization with its enormous strength made Britain become the workshop of the world

Under the effect of the industrial revolution, Britain gained position in top of the richest countries At the same time, it was the foremost condition to carry out an Agricultural revolution Throughout the country, the "open field" system was re-divided Labouredly productivity was raised and more food was produced

It was said that Britain had a new face under the two revolutions' influence Until the middle of eighteen century, Britain was still an agricultural country with most of population lived in villages or small towns and earned their living working on land Nearly seventy percents of population inhabited in big towns and cities in the end of the century A large number of factories were built, a lot of towns and large cities developed rapidly, such as Birmingham, London, and Leeds, so on

However, this means that the land for farming was restricted The farmers lost their land, became unemployed Some of them went to cities to get a job as workers with low salary; some were sold to America or India to work as slavers Most of them had a poor life This situation led to another important issue of society which was class division and the growing of working and bourgeois The poor farmers and workers were liable to a distress It was one of the root of social evils

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In addition, pragmatics and capitalism's idea of praising money devalued human beings' mortality and virtue Marriage even became an economic exchange

The picture of the complicated society in this time was reflected truthfully in the literature works "The New Atalantis" by Mary de la Manley and "The Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe described a society with political crisis, homosexuality, rape, social evils, etc Some other works, such as

"Gulliver Travel" and "A modest proposal" by Jonathan Swift showed devaluation of human being in front of the attraction of money and other authorities Even in "Robinson Crusoe" which many positive ideas of Enlightenment were expressed materialism and capitalism ideas could be found

3 The growth of British Empire

The colonial expansion was thought to begin in the second half of the fifteenth century when Christopher Columbus found out the America England started its progress to find colonies one century later than Spain, Portugal and France, but its achievement was enormous Then, the new epoch in which the man's ambition of discovering and invasion of new land, in order to serve the aim of ruling people and exploit treasure there, really started Simultaneously,

it was the turning point of a miserable epoch: the age of colonialism's expansion

Britain, like other powerful countries in Europe in the eighteenth century, under the effect of Industrial revolution, manufactured a huge amount

of production and goods, which needed a large market to consume Moreover, there was a demand for raw material for factories in metropolis This led to the growing of British Empire The occupation of land was the first step that prepared for the invasion of market and economic interference later In fact, profit from colonies was so fat that many countries threw themselves into the war for land and market

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The spread of colonialism was the cause of colonies' misery The exploitation and oppression of colonialists was a contradiction to the ideas of Enlightenment movement, which said the relationship between person and person were brotherhood, everyone was equal regardless of their color, nationality, and social classes This meant that all of unfairness such as oppression in which the slavery was the highest regime should be denied

Consequently, many literary works in this period paid attention on the themes of equality, brotherhood among human beings, projection of colonialism and slavery, unfairness and discrimination Alpha Ben in her

"Oroonoco" raised the voice against trade of slavers and power of colonialism And in "Robinson Crusoe ", although it was not so clear as others, the author show his attitude cleverly to the problem of capitalism and colonialism which will be considered in more detail in the later part

4 Conflicts in society

After the monarchy Restoration in the seventeenth century, British were afraid of any violent event like that to make their life chaotic However, this was the time of some deeply contradictions and unsettling in society

4.1 Political conflict

In 1660, when the son of Charles I was restored the throne to be the King Charles II, England became a Monarchy Constituent nation Queen Anne, King George I and George II sat the crown in sequence in eighteenth century The monarch ruled the country, but in fact most of real power held by parliament Conflict happened between the monarch and parliament for some reasons In reality, the King's power was lessened and he was forced not to decide important national problems without parliament permission Another reason that partly caused the political conflict was religion, which would be stated clearer in the next part

Political conflict also happened between parliament's parties: the Whig and the Tory There was a little difference between them in this period Tories mostly included great landowners whose privilege was gradually declined

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with the growing of bourgeois and capitalism while those whose property was mercantile and financial were likely to form the Whigs

The problem of politic drew considerable attention of writers In

"Gulliver Travel", Jonathan Swift indirectly claimed the heads of the country, the unsuitable policies, the court and the parties' quarrel Other works in which political issue was touched were "The New Atalantic" by Mary de la Manley, in works of Edmund Burke like:" Speech on America Taxation ",

"Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol", etc

4.2 Religious conflict

This direct conflict caused social division even more serious than the political one The opposition was between the Church of England, which was preceded by the monarch and both Protestants, and Roman Catholics The Protestants and who did not belong to the Church of England or did not accept the Monarch as the head of the Church were called Dissenters or Nonconformists There were resent laws such as Corporation Act and the Test Act which banned them and Roman Catholics from becoming MPs or having

a government job In royal family, nobody that did not belong to the Church

of England could get the thrown

Religion had such an important effect on society that many authors considered it as a plentiful ground for their writing John Banyan wrote "The pilgrim's progress"; Jonathan Swift: "A tale of Tub"; Daniel Defoe: "The shortest way with dissenters ", so on They exploited the theme of belief, faith

in religion but also criticized the forces that took its advantage for bad aims

4.3 The social class division

Like all others countries, wealth divided people into different classes Specially, the Industrial revolution's influence made Britain class division more deeply It took place among people who had a lot of interests than others, who had a little and who had nothing But in this time, the criteria of the division were not only the wealth but also the working and living conditions There was the growing of working class because more and more

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people moved to work in factories, which included a considerable number of farmers who lost their land because of industrialization progress The perception of class division was going to intense There were seven groups in society:

-The great who live excessively hereditary nobility

-The rich who lived very plentifully, great and owners dominating the country life

-The middle sort who lived well: professions, church bishops, lawyers, doctors, and teachers

- The working traders who worked hard but felled no want, no need or demand

-The country people, farmers, etc who fared indifferently

-The poor that fared hard

-The miserable that really pinched and suffered

The social class conflict led to the Glorious Revolution, which took place between the old aristocracy and the new bourgeoisie

All of these were reflected in literature as a negative side, one of the discrimination and injustice in society Enlighteners raised their voice to reject them and thought that their duty was to omit them to create a fair society and brought a happy life to everyone These dimensions were expressed in

"Pamela", "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver Travel"

III The Enlightenment movement

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement, which began in the late of seventeenth century in England and then spread to the continent The movement lasted until the birth of Romanticism in the end of the eighteenth century England was considered the cradle of Enlightenment but the most excellent representatives were from France, such as Rousseau and Voltaire

Although they were only in theory but the Enlightenment's ideas were appreciated and marked an important advance in human civilization

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The Enlightenment's thoughts reflected the expectation, want and hope

of the people about a peace and civilized society in which they had a happy and convenient life

The most important point in Enlighteners' ideas was that: Reason was the principle tool for human to think and to act correctly Furthermore, it was the most effective and firmest rationale for mankind to discover the world, universe and to assert human's ability The scientific discoveries of Newton and scientists before him and the great application of them into practice were the most persuasive evident for that idea Moreover, they gave the prominence

to education and learning which were thought the best way to civilize human society

The Enlighteners praised human being and their ability that expressed most clearly their humanism In the Dark Age, human's ability was negated by the Church's preaching and the authority's imposing that their fate was already planned by God and that they could do nothing to change it In contrary, Enlighteners believed in man's ability and good nature that could be brought perfection through education According to them, social evils rooted from human's ignorance but not belonged to his or her nature

The elevated humanism of Enlightenment also affirmed the equality between man and woman, the friendship and brotherhood among people regardless of their race, religion and nationality Simultaneously, they rejected the forces that duped and trampled on human such as supernatural and miraculous elements, harsh feudal ideas, discrimination and colonialism's oppression

Enlightenment experienced a long period which was not always plain and flat but up and down in different phases from its date of birth to the end Some persons divided the movement into three phases, but others observed it

in two main phases We here approve the second idea

The first phase was counted from the movement's beginning in the late 17th to the middle of 18th century This was the blooming Shase when

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Enlightenment developed to it highest point in its duration England in the first half of 18th century had just overcome a number of chaos including Civil War, Restoration and rebels, which made a horrible memory in people's mind

At that time, Enlightenment occurred with a lot of progressive ideas immediately met the hope and long of almost people Thus, the ideas received the great approval and marked its blooming development

The leading principles of Enlightenment centered round the following ideas:

1 Reason is a principle tool for all humans to think and to act correctly

1 Man is good by nature And man's good nature can be brought to perfection through education

3 All men and women are born equal in respect of their rationality and should thus be given the right to equality before law

4 Belief, religions customs are to be questioned and accepted on the basic of reason only, not on the basic of authority, sacred texts or tradition

5 Supernatural and miraculous elements are discarded as the whole universe in conceived as a rational system accessible to human reason

6 Man to man is brother to brother, regardless of nationality or country

of residence

However, the distance from the theory to the real life was very far and not always the theory could come true At that time when the historical condition had a lot of advantages for old feudalism and growing capitalism, the Enlighteners' duty was hardly practiced People steadily expressed their disappointment when their long and hope collapsed In the second half of 18th, the movement started to go down and the birth of Romanticism marked its ending

Enlightenment, any way, had a great influence on the Augustan literature Its ideas became the main topics and the spirit of this period literary works which we will study some typical ones in later parts Because of this,

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the Augustan is also called the Enlightenment period in English literature history

IV An overview of the main topics in Augustan prose

Being the direct product of life, literature performs its function of recreating, reflecting and improving social life All of the topics of Augustan literature period contributed a colorful picture of England in the first half of 18th century

In this period, traveling and discovering new land and isolate area became the common trend of mankind A large number of journeys, voyages

of European's ships to other continents were carried out and the result of them was the growing of colloquialism in practice as well as in literature What is more, the appearing of a great deal of books of travel and traveling was one of the favorite topics of readers

The political and religious conflicts that actually happened and made chaos in people's life were also a rich ground for writers, especially the sharp satirical pen of Johnathan Swift or essayist like Defoe

Under the progressive effect of Enlightenment, human in common meaning and women's value were heightened This was a new advance, which was not paid attention in the previous literature phases Along with appreciating man's ability, education and learning was extremely highlighted

in this period

Beside that, the bad and evil still existed in social life Human's misery did not end Social evils, materialism, sexual issue, oppressing between man and man, discrimination of sexes, races, religions and social classes were the satirized objects and the important topics of Augustan literature

Totally, these topics drew the immensity and variety of life In the small frame of this thesis, it is overhead for us to cover all of these themes The several ones studied here, in our paper, were the important topics, which are divided into two areas, and attracted us a lot

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In our real life, there are always two sides, which are opposite to each other and co-existed: the good and the bad, the negative and the positive, the progressive and the backward Consequently, these contrastive factors are reflected in literature To make them more clearly, we will divide these topics into two areas: the progressive topics including appreciating women, praising human and heightening education and learning and the negative topics including race discrimination, political and religious conflicts and colonialism and materialism

Separating the Augustan literature themes into two opposite areas, we aims to make clear the difference between the beautiful ideas of Enlightenment and the real social statement which were so much influenced

by other background events such as Industrial revolution, the growing of British Empire co-existing with the colonialism, so on Then, we want to have

a total view of the contemporary society, which was truthfully recreated in literature and the close relationship between life and literature

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Chapter II: The progressive topics in some typical

literary works of Augustan period

Enlightenment was a progressive intellectual movement whose principles were for humane development These thoughts were crystallized in the contemporary literature through which writers' humanism and advance were profoundly expressed In this chapter, we will focus on the progressive ideas expressed through some typical works, which were satire or realism, reflected the most clearly the Enlightenment„ s principle and theories, and more important, the real life of society in which mankind was always good as nature They were the positive ideas of human being; in other words, they paid attention on good side of people and society which included: Praising human being expressed in "Robinson Crusoe" and "Gulliver's Travels", Appreciating women expressed in "Pamela" and "Clarissa", and Heightening education and learning expressed in "Robinson Crusoe", "The Education of Women"

Human being and their ability was a prominent theme in this period Some outstanding points of view of Enlighteners about human were conveyed

in “ Robinson Crusoe” and “ Gulliver‟ s Travels” Those were praising human being, enthusiasms for work, skill and spirit, good nature, goodwill, friendship and peace love

1 Praising human being

Human being is not a new concept but it does not stay the same through different periods Since the ancient time, man was considered to be the product of a super-powerful creator who decided each person‟ s fate This disoriented idea was even more approved in the middle age through the Church‟ s preaching It made people believed that their happiness or suffering was already planned by God and they could do nothing to change it Their life

on the earth was provisional and the life after death was permanent and solely

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by believing in God could bring them a happy life on the heaven People was imposed by such ideas explained why they were under the ruling and oppressing of the feudal government for so long time Moving to Renaissance time, the idea of humanists about human‟ s right, ability and their consciousness of their suffering was started to be grow

to a deeper level They began to talk about human‟ s fate and how they could

do to change it, but firstly, about whether they could have enough ability to change or not They saw that their agony was not by any supernatural hand but it rooted from the earthly life Shakespeare was seen to be one of the greatest humanists of this phase By constructing the characters such as Hamlet, King Lear, Romeo or Juliet who were condemned the author‟ s deep humanism They were different in social position, age, sex but they are similar

to each other at the point that all of them had to burden the suffering caused

by feudal antiquated idea

Shakespeare, through which expressed his objective idea to feudal power that trampled on and ground down human being However, it was not strong enough to create a movement such as Enlightenment

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement, seemed to be an enormous wave sweeping throughout the continent, brought a new point of view which completely opposite to what belonged to the Dark Age They worshipped science and education, which helped them to explain everything in nature and life That is why this is called the Age of Reason And human being, the creature owning the most intelligent mind on the earth must be the master and the center of life

Human beings became the central image in literary works They were the representatives of brave men who were fond of traveling and adventures, the symbol of will, skill and spirit, of fighting spirit to overcome difficulties and to control their fate Human image were fully described Dominant in works were typical characters that gave readers a total view of the contemporary society

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Robinson Crusoe was one of the most typical images of human being

of Augustan literature He represented for the will, optimistic, enthusiasms for work and intelligence of human being in this period These were the extolled good points of Robinson

It was said that in the first phase of the rise of novel, “ Robinson Crusoe” (1719), was the most attractive one, which had a strong influence on later writers including the big figure Balzac Daniel Defoe was seen the father

of a new type: legend and fantastic theory, which attracted a lot of imitators After “ Robinson Crusoe” , a large number of stories about adventure were born It was more or less related to the trend of traveling and discovering new land in society However, the foremost reason was not laid in its narrative form but its content and the main character

He was born in a good family in which his father always wanted him to have a happy and peaceful life But this was not similar to his thought His passion was to cruise and he, finally, found the way to make his dream come true This was also the trend or demand of people to discover the universe, the world and the isolated areas that man had not arrived Man always wanted to conquer the nature to prove that he was the strongest and the most intelligent creature Unfortunately, his ship had an accident during his voyage and he was drifted into an isolated island while his companions were all died Since then, he started his adventurous life that lasted twenty-eight years, two months and nineteen days there

The first quality needed mentioning of Robinson was his intelligence expressed in the cooperation between his creation and experience He was well educated in an upper class family And all of that valuable knowledge was actually helpful to keep him alive on such a violent circumstance In the first period of time living on the island, without any companion of mankind, with such a condition of living like what in the ancient time when human being could earn living by picking and hunting The sole thing, which made Crusoe different from his ancestors, was that he had lived in a contemporary

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civilized society in which man owned an intelligent mind, which was full of experience An evident of his intellective mind was the criteria of the place he chose to build house Since the thirteenth day of standing on the island Crusoe had thought of making a “ house” He chose types of house which was a in a deep cave or a hut which should meet the demands of good conditions such as: being near fresh water source, avoiding blazing sun on this land, defending himself from enemies and seeing the ships sailing so that he could have chance to escape from this place Finally, he decided to have both Thanks to his cleverness, he could be alive and return to England after more than twenty-eight years

Another of his quality that helped him to keep alive was his enthusiasm for work He knew that to be existed on this desolate island he should have something to eat, clothes to dress and a “ house” to stay instead of a temporary living in caves and sleeping on tree He himself managed to earn living, food, tools, hard liquor, gunpowder, wooden barrel and a lot of other useful things that needed for his life Beside the food he got from the broken ship, he also hunted wild goals with the guns, which had belonged to the late captain and picked fruits in forests, dried up to store Later, when the existed food was nearly to become exhausted, he thought of raising goal and growing oats to have a long-term source of food We could find that Robinson was a person of precaution and assiduity He labored with tirelessness

Robinson's an extraordinary skill and spirit and creative exposed in overcoming troubles and difficulties He had sharp eyes of observation Wild goals were very fast and keen so it was very hard to shoot But later he found that their eyes were always kept toward and down, so the only ways to avoid their attention was standing in high place There was no candle on the island;

he used killed goals‟ fat to light Their skin hide was sewn up to make clothes and hats Afraid of forgetting to count time, he put a square pillar and carved

on it to remember the time he lived on this island This method helped us know exactly total time was twenty-eight years, two months and nineteen

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days But, his clever expressed most clearly in building his house and proofing against enemies Those things cost him nearly almost the time living on the island

Everything he done had already calculated carefully to get the best result His “ bastion” was a long-term project of only him To finish it, he had consumed a huge amount of his strength and time because of lacking tools He had to use wooden hoe and shovel to dig into the ground to enlarge his

“house” Only finishing the fence took him nearly one year Each wooden pillar cost him two days to cut in forest, transport and put it up But it seemed that nature did not usually support him and sometimes gave him trials Earthquake, landslide, storm made troubles to him, not only once However, they could not defeat Robinson but gave him more experience and will to fight against fate and get acquainted with harsh life there Later, his enemies were not only nature but also others including human beings who were more clever and dangerous Many times facing with aborigines, bright mind, agility and courage helped him to escape from death, such as when he rescued Friday

or when Robinson disguised to be Island Landlord to cheat pirates to get the opportunity to leave the island

Extraordinary will and optimistic could be considered the most remarkable virtue of Robinson A lot of person gave the question that whether Robinson could overcome such difficulties or not if he had not enough will and optimistic to fight against the harsh circumstance Robinson drew up his evil and good that he experienced like this: “ I am cast upon a horrible desolate island, void of all hope of recovery But I am alive, and not drowned as all my ships company were I am singled out and separated, as it were, from the entire, to be miserable But I am singled out, to, from all the ship‟ s crew, to be spared from death; and he that miraculously saved me from death, can deliver

me from this condition I am divided from mankind, a solitary; one banished from human society But I am not starved, and perishing on a barren place, affording no sustenance I have no clothes to cover me But I am in hot climate

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where if I had clothes, I could hardly wear them I am without any defense, or means to resist any violence of man or beast But I am cast on an island where

I can see no wild beasts to hurt me, as I saw on the coast of Africa; and what if

I had been shipwrecked there? I have no soul to speak to, or relieve me But God wonderfully sent the ship in near enough to the shore, that I have gotten out so many necessary things as will either supply my wants, or enable me to supply myself, even as long as I live"(4) That was the clearest evident of Robinson And this was the base for him to keep him alive

The novel “ Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures

of Robinson Crusoe” was translated into many languages and its main character, Robinson Crusoe was admired by hundreds thousand readers He was an actual hero who could win fate and proved that human kind with he will and mind was ability to do anything The image of Robinson standing valiantly on the island was a beautiful image that asserted that human being was the strongest It also affirmed people‟ s ability and aroused their passion to conquer nature and defeated the idea of fate

Johnathan Swift's “ Gulliver travels” was another successful book of travel after "Robinson Crusoe" Though, it was a work of satire, many contemporary sensitive problems such as politic, religion, war, so on, were touched and criticized, we still found in his works a deep humane value To him, human being was still worthy to be praised

Gulliver was a lovely character, a clever, brave, patriotic young man who enjoyed traveling and had a goodwill and great peace love

The world in „ Gulliver Travels” was not the real world in which the author lived But, his characters, either human being or the product of imagination, had such very humane ideas and thought The main character, Gulliver, started his journey which then became an unusual adventure when

he was seventeen He was drifted into a very strange world, saw many unusual and interesting things as well as fell into a lot of dangers that sometimes

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threatened his life Thanks to his bravery and clever, he was able to overcome those troubles and returned to his actual world

Gulliver was seen to be a strange creature in the world where he came

In Lilliput, the world of tiny person, he was an actual giant The people there

at first considered him as a dangerous enemy They tied him on the ground and were ready to kill him if he had any expression of objection But later, thanks to his clever and goodwill he gained the king‟ s belief He was told about their conflict with Blefusco, a neighbor country And with the strength

of a giant (in that world), he agreed to help them to dissolve the problem He was really an extraordinary hero to them Similar to Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver‟ s love to travel was stronger than any other things That why he still continued to go out after what he had just experienced in the world of tiny persons

After that, the author described his adventure to Brobdingnag and Houyhnhms, which seemed to be more dangerous In Brobdingnag, land of huge persons; Gulliver was seen to be a thing of entertainment He was shown

at the market for money Furthermore he was taken to many places for everyone to watch such as a strange creature until the farmer thought he was very weak and could die any time He was sent to the palace to meet the King and the queen and became a kind of doll for the queen Some said that Gulliver was able to overcomes those difficult situation was because he was lucky But if he did not had goodwill, always found the way to reject them or

to fight against, what would he be? Not trembling in front of those giant or strange and odd animals in Houyhnhnms was a really considerable courage of him

The patriotic spirit of Gulliver was a praised quality Everywhere he came, he told them about his country with a proud sound He could not hide his patriotic attitude when the king of Brogdingnag, laughed at what he said about England: "of course I was angry He was talking about England- England the home of the Great, the Winner of Wars, the Jewel of Europe,

Johnathan Swift set up character Gulliver, a peace lover, began with the passion of traveling, with goodwill, bravery and clever was like an ambassador of peace from his world to the others

Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver were only two in many literature characters in this period but they were the typical ones who converged Enlightenment‟ s ideas about mankind They were the masters of the world and of their life This was also the highest point of humanism in the period

Besides praising human beings, theme of women was attracted many writers in this period The role of women was gradually acknowledged in family and society They had a great effort to assert themselves by their virtue and ability And they were appreciated by all society

2 Appreciating woman

Until present time, society and men had a rather equal view to women and their role in family as well as in society However, to gain this result, women have to make a great effort to prove themselves This is not an easy progress but a long term and difficult one Till the Age of Enlightenment, the

2.1 Women image in the English literature periods before Enlightenment

In literature, women's position in family and society was getting more important and this was reflected in different periods of literature

In old English literature, women image was very dim, even rarely appeared in works which mostly unwritten It is easy to understand this Ancient society was not a developed one in which man was the ruler Only man was worthy to mention in people‟ s mind Women appeared with very little role beside men, even when they played an important role in society

“Beowulf” was the most famous work in this period It was the story about the hero Beowulf with his extolled deeds to defeat a fire breathing dragon, monster Grendel and his mother The three women in this epic were Grendel‟ s mother, and two Queens, but their part was only to brighten Beowulf‟ s action

We hardly saw woman with their normal life in literature if she did not hold a special position such as Queen, or Princess, or a member of royal family

In medieval time or the Dark Age, under the draconian feudal institution, women had no voice in society In family, they totally depended

on their husbands They did not get any opportunities to have jobs because they thought social works were not for women Their works were to take care

of children, sew, embroider or cook In this period, drama started to grow and attracted audience, but there were no actress on the theatre All characters were played by actors The noblewomen in the Romance trend of literature remained in the readers‟ mind was the image of a beautiful girl or lady

The prejudice to women and belittlement of their ability was still dominated during the Dark Age and remained for very long time Afterward, with the development of society, these disoriented thoughts were gradually improved In the Renaissance, one of the brilliant periods in English literature history which usually mentioned with the reputation of William Shakespeare, women‟ s value was more considerably acknowledged than in the previous periods in literature Women dared to fight for their love, for equality, even for power Shakespeare's great humanism did not allow him to ignore women who were the subject to be protected

The period following the Renaissance was the Restoration, which was named after the historical event when son of Charles I restored his reign and became Charles II in the seventeenth century As we know, the return of Charles II and his court from France had an important significant to the development of English literature That was the entering of French style that contained Moliere‟ s impact on the London theatres, comedy of manner, and the Gallicism (a vogue that English like to use French idioms or phrases) Almost literary works in this period reflected the luxurious life of aristocrats

in society and a very small number of them reflected the dim life of country people, especially county women They were the victims of an unequal regime, of men‟ s patriarchal behavior and sexual desire We can find all of these features in Dryden‟ s “ Marriage a la mode” , William Wycherley‟ s “ The country wife” , John Vanburgh‟ s "The prvok‟ d wife” , etc Especially, there

Samuel Richardson labeled his reputation on literature ground with the work: “ Pamela” (or “ Virtue Rewarded” ) and later with “ Clarissa” (or "History

of a Young Lady") Both of them were the successful works beside a large number of works on the same topic about women of other authors

2.2 Appreciating women in some typical works in Augustan

Women and children are usually the objects needed to be protected, cared and received more affection than anyone else Of all age, we found in literature images of poor women with intricate situations that were the exposition of authors' deep humanism Writers in the first period of 18th century not only gave women a sympathy but also raised their voice to reject

to the anti-women power which were arranged marriage, the nets of man and society and even higher, found in women moral, virtue worthy to be extolled and appreciated ability which were deserved

Women were described with full traditional virtue, wonderful morals of Pamela and the fighting spirit for love and against the wicked forces, which considered love, marriage and women as a kind of goods of Clarissa

Richardson wrote Pamela (or "Virtue Rewarded") in 1740, which created a new epoch in history of English novel and became "the joy of chambermaids of all nations" as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's saying

"Clarissa" or "The history of a young lady" (1747-1749) was the constituency

of his success after "Pamela" Both novels were written in form of letters (epistolary genre), that was contemporary fashion Clarissa and Pamela had different life and fate, but what Richardson wanted to convey through them