English Literature of the Enlightenment (18th C) An intellectual movement throughout the Western Europe from the late 17th century to the whole 18th C, against feudalism, against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices to establish an orderly capitalist system. The chief means for a better society was enlightenment or education for the people. No authorities, political or religious or otherwise, were accepted before they were examined and ratified ( 认可 ) by reason. Age of Reason; idealized reign of the bourgeoisie.

English Literature of the Enlightenment (18th C) Realism: social realities, daily life, common people (middle class). Teaching and satirical. Prose: journalism [magazines, newspapers, pamphlets], novel writing. Moderate: Daniel Defoe Radical group: Jonathan Swift, Henry Fielding.

Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe ( ) In London in 1660 into a butcher’s family. Received education in a dissenting academies. a storeowner, merchant, adventurer, rebel, official, intelligence agent ( 间谍 ). Works: Captain Singleton 辛 格尔顿船长, Moll Flanders 摩尔 · 费兰德斯, Colonel Jack 杰克上校, Roxana 罗克 萨娜

Daniel Defoe (1660 —1731) was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe ( 罗宾逊漂流记 ). Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel, as he helped to popularize the form in Britain, and is even referred to by some as one of the founders of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer of economic journalism.

Robinson Crusoe

The Life and strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un- inhabited Island on the coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, where-in all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself

Crusoe leaves England on a sea voyage in September, 1651, against his parents’ wishes. Then, his ship gets wrecked by a vicious storm. His lust for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey too ends in disaster as the ship is taken over by pirates. He manages to escape; later, Robin is befriended by the Captain of a Portuguese ship which is enroute to Brazil. There, with the help of the captain, Crusoe becomes owner of a plantation. Years later, he joins an expedition to bring slaves from Africa, but is shipwrecked in a storm on September 30, His companions all die. Having overcome his despair, he fetches supplies from the ship before it breaks apart and sinks. He proceeds to build a house, keeps a calendar, hunts, grows corn, learns to make pottery, raises goats, etc., using tools created from stone and wood, and adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and suddenly becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but society.

Years later, he discovers native cannibals ( 吃人的人 ) who occasionally visit the island to kill and eat prisoners. When a prisoner manages to escape, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe then teaches him English and converts him to Christianity. Then an English ship appears; mutineers ( 叛变的人 ) have taken control of the ship and intend to put their former captain on the island. Crusoe helps the captain and the loyalist sailors retake the ship from the mutineers, leaving the worst of the mutineers on the island. Then Crusoe leaves the island in 1686, and arrives back in England June 11th, 1687.

Self-reliance in time of difficulty

colonialism Robinson Crusoe is the true symbol of the British conquest: The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit is in Crusoe: the independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the intelligence, courage. Crusoe attempts to replicate his own society on the island: application of European technology, agriculture, and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. The idealised master-servant relationship between Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe represents the 'enlightened' European whilst Friday is the 'savage' who can only be redeemed from his supposedly barbarous way of life through the assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nevertheless, within the novel Defoe also takes the opportunity to criticize the historic Spanish conquest of South America.

Religion Robinson is not a hero, but an everyman. He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand, and ends as a pilgrim, building a promised land on a desolate island. The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read. Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was himself a Puritan moralist, A central concern of Defoe's in the novel is the Christian notion of Providence. Crusoe often feels himself guided by a divinely ordained fate, thus explaining his robust optimism in the face of apparent hopelessness. His various fortunate intuitions are taken as evidence of a benign spirit world.

influences the names of the two main protagonists have entered the language. "Robinson Crusoe" : "castaway“, or a metaphor for being or doing something alone. Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the term "Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday") originated, referring to a dedicated personal assistant, servant, or companion. The success of the book gave rise to many imitators, and castaway novels became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries.