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 Tëng, 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 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 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 New scientific and philosophical discoveries Industrial and Agricultural Revolution The growth of British Empire 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 Chapter III: The negative topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period I Discrimination of man by man II Colonialism and Materialism Colonialism Materialism III Political and religious conflict Political conflict .2 Religious conflict Part III: conclusion References 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 -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 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: Anglo-Saxon literature (449-1066) Medieval literature (1066- 1485) Jacobean literature (1603-1625) Caroline literature (1625-1642) Literature in the Commonwealth and Protectorate Restoration literature (1660-1700) Augustan literature (1700-1745) Age of Sensibility Romanticism (1798-1832) 10 Victorian literature (1832-1900) 11 Edwardian literature 12 Georgian literature 13 Modernist literature 14.Post-modern literature 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 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 system that seemed capable of explaining everything in the universe and it was also the basic principle of Enlighteners In the field of philosophy, thinkers, especially Rousseau and Voltaire in France, praised the equality, democracy and ability of man In England, John Lock, Francis, Bacon, Anthony Ashley Cooper gave the birth for Empiricism They explained the way the mind acquired "all materials of Reason and Knowledge is from Experience " They also provided an intellectual basis for easily digested theories of politics, religion and aesthetic and for precepts pertaining to social happiness 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 namecoincided 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 Industrial and Agricultural Revolution 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 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 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 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 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 with the growing of bourgeois and capitalism while those whose property was mercantile and financial were likely to form the Whigs ... 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... Heightening the importance of education and learning Chapter III: The negative topics expressed in some typical literary works of Augustan period I Discrimination of man by man II Colonialism and Materialism... 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