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    Augustans Characteristics

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    Han On Titan
    The Augustans were known for their satirical works that ridiculed society, witty writing style, and obsession with classical antiquity which they often emulated. They pioneered new genres such as the novel, mock epic, and engaged in political and religious critique through their works. Journalism was also booming during this period and influenced Augustan literature with a more realistic style.

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    Augustans Characteristics

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    Han On Titan
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    The Augustans were known for their satirical works that ridiculed society, witty writing style, and obsession with classical antiquity which they often emulated. They pioneered new genres such as the novel, mock epic, and engaged in political and religious critique through their works. Journalism was also booming during this period and influenced Augustan literature with a more realistic style.

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    The Augustans were known for their satirical works that ridiculed society, witty writing style, and obsession with classical antiquity which they often emulated. They pioneered new genres such as the novel, mock epic, and engaged in political and religious critique through their works. Journalism was also booming during this period and influenced Augustan literature with a more realistic style.

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    37 views3 pages

    Augustans Characteristics

    Uploaded by

    Han On Titan
    The Augustans were known for their satirical works that ridiculed society, witty writing style, and obsession with classical antiquity which they often emulated. They pioneered new genres such as the novel, mock epic, and engaged in political and religious critique through their works. Journalism was also booming during this period and influenced Augustan literature with a more realistic style.

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    Augustans Characteristics

     Satire
    Those Augustans were totally into using irony, humor and exaggeration to ridicule and expose
    people's (and society's) vices. In fact, satire is one of the defining characteristics of Augustan
    literature. And we're not just talking about one genre or style of writing: these writers were
    satirical in poetry, in prose, in—well, they were satirical everywhere.
    No person, or subject, was too high or too low for the Augustans' satirical attacks. Political
    figures? Check. Religious figures? Check. Other writers and literary figures? Check.
    The Augustans prided themselves on exposing society's double standards, showing how
    superficial, not to mention contradictory, many of the laws and values that governed English
    society were.
     Wit
    The Augustans weren't just into being satirical—they were also into being witty. Look no further
    if what you love is clever turns of phrase, literary inventiveness, and all-out 100% smart-
    mouthery.
    These guys have the gift of literary gab: they play with ideas and metaphors, they twist and turn
    words around, they're funny, and they're really intelligent to boot. This emphasis on wit also
    comes from the Augustans' obsession with classicism, because hey, the ancients were into being
    smart mouths, too.
     Neoclassicism
    So, the Augustans were obsessed with antiquity. No, we're not talking about cute coffee tables in
    your neighborhood antique shop; we're talking about ancient Greece and Rome. The Augustans
    loved them some classic lit: stuff like the Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, the poetry
    of Horace, and anything else written by two-thousand-year-old old dudes (and the occasional
    dudette).
    Because they loved the classics so much, the Augustans often modeled their own work after the
    example of these classics. They adopted and adapted classical genres like the epic and the ode,
    and redeployed them to fit their own needs and the framework of their time.

     Mock Epic
    The Augustans were really into playing around with classical genres like the ode and the epic.
    Sometimes, they added a surprise twist to them—like how they turned the epic into the mock
    epic.
    When you think about epics, you probably think about grand battles, heroic warriors, and valiant
    sword-wielders like Achilles and Hector in the Iliad. The Augustans took on the epic genre but
    used all the conventions to talk about silly, trivial things. Basically, they wrote about silly things
    in a grand way, in order to make fun of these silly things.
    The most famous example of a mock epic is Alexander Pope's The Rape of the Lock. It's about a
    guy stealing a lock of hair from a woman, but it's written in the style of an epic: the language is
    grand, there are "wars" (though they take place in drawing rooms, rather than on battlefields),
    and there are heroes and heroines aplenty.
     Novel
    The Augustans didn't just copy classical writers—they also invented new genres. Like the novel,
    folks.
    That's right: we can officially date the beginning of the English novel to the time of the
    Augustans.
    Ever heard of a little old book called Robinson Crusoe? Well, some people say that's officially
    the first novel as we know it in the English language, and it was written by Daniel Defoe, an
    Augustan through and through.
    Sure, there were long prose works before the Augustans came along, but it's the Augustans who
    made the novel what it is today. One reason for this was that Augustan writers brought the
    techniques associated with journalism (which was also a booming business in that day and age)
    and applied them to fiction. After this, novels became a lot more realistic—just the way they tend
    to be these days.
     Political Critique
    The Augustans sure weren't afraid to get political.
    In fact, politics was one of their favorite themes. After all, if being snarky is your shtick, what
    better topic could there be than politics? The Augustans loved writing pamphlets and treatises
    and even poems condemning laws and policies and any type of political practice that they didn't
    agree with. And there was a lot they didn't agree with.
     Religious Critique
    The Augustans sure didn't keep their thoughts about religion to themselves. Back in the day,
    people who didn't subscribe to the doctrines of the Church of England were called
    Nonconformists, and Daniel Defoe was one of them. The Nonconformists liked to show how
    hypocritical and unjust the dominant religious values of the time were.
    Now, religion was a big deal back in the day. Sure, almost everyone in England was a Christian,
    but although there was a dominant church (the Church of England), there were lots of different
    denominations. And man, all these people did not get along. The Augustans may have been into
    attacking just about everything and everyone around them, but the Church of England was one of
    their favorite targets.
     Journalism
    Because of the printing boom during the Augustan age, the number of periodicals and journals
    mushroomed. Everywhere, someone or other was starting a new journal. People developed an
    appetite for news and commentary, and the multiplying number of journals and periodicals fed
    that appetite.
    The development in print journalism totally had consequences for the literature of the period. For
    example, the novels of the Augustan age (like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe or Jonathan
    Swift's Gulliver's Travels) often take on a journalistic tone. They're narrated as "real-life" events,
    and sometimes, as in the case of Defoe's novels, they're even inspired by real-life events. The
    journalistic style pretty much led to the beginnings of realism in the novel as we know it.

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